Chapter 20

CHAPTER TWENTY

JAREK

I felt a little like a kid again, sneaking around, laughing behind my hand, kissing behind closed doors, and hurriedly pulling away whenever we heard someone coming. We were left to our own devices after dinner…for a while. We brushed our teeth and put on pajamas, but halfway through a make-out session, the door burst open, and Tameron walked in.

The shit-eating grin on his face told me he’d done it on purpose, and the look on Bean’s face told me it was probably against some rule they had in their house.

“Sorry, sorry,” Tameron said, not sounding sorry at all. He didn’t leave, even as Bean sat up and glared at him. Instead, he leaned his shoulder on the doorframe and smirked.

“I didn’t invite you in,” Bean said, sounding a little more snippy than usual.

Tameron adjusted something behind his ear. “Sorry, what was that? I think I missed what you were saying.”

Bean lifted his hands and made a couple of motions, and Tameron raised his own in surrender, backing out as Bean closed the door behind him.

“Was that sign language?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Bean’s cheeks pinked. “Yeah. The guys have all been taking lessons, but we agreed it wasn’t worth me shelling out the money to learn when I probably won’t retain too much of it. But I’m doing my best to pick up as much as I can. He gets frustrated trying to pretend to be hearing.”

I frowned as Bean settled back against me. “Why does he pretend?”

Bean was silent in thought, and I was patient until he found the words he was looking for. “I don’t know a whole lot about what he’s dealing with. He doesn’t like talking about it. But once or twice he’s talked about feeling like an outsider. He lost his hearing during the blast—it’s permanent and profound when he’s not wearing his devices. He has some natural low tones left, and he has hearing aids that conduct sound through the bones behind his ear, so that helps, but it’s not the same as it was.”

I raised my brows. “Hearing through the bones sounds kind of cool.”

Bean snorted. “Yeah. He seems to think so. But he deflects a lot by trying to make everyone laugh and making Deaf jokes. I think it bothers him when he misses out on so much. He laughs and smiles, but there’s been a few times when I can tell he’s not following what we’re saying, but he doesn’t like asking us to repeat ourselves and won’t do it as often as he should.”

“That must be hard.” I stroked my fingers through his hair, trying not to think too deeply about what they all were going through. Everyone had their own scars, like Bean and Nash had said.

“Yeah. And I get it. He’s learning ASL because relying on his residual hearing is hard, but so many people don’t know it or won’t learn it.Or they’re like me, and they can’t.I know he doesn’t want to be a burden, so he just…does what he can to get by.”

I tipped Bean’s chin up to look at him. “Sounds like someone I know.”

He rolled his eyes and hid a laugh. “Mmm. I don’t know what you mean.”

“I bet you don’t,” I answered, then leaned in to kiss him long and slow. Our tongues touched, soft and warm, and I let him lead the way.

I didn’t want to push him in any way that he didn’t want to be pushed.

“Jarek,” he whispered, pulling away from the kiss.

I looked into his eyes and held his gaze. “Merrill.”

“Oh.” His cheeks flushed.

“I’m sorry, is that?—”

“No. No, just…I’ve always hated my name. The only person who uses it is my mom, and she’s…” He bit his lip, then bowed his head. “Complicated.”

I knew what that word really meant. Complicated was probably too polite for her, but Bean was far too kind to say anything other than that. I cupped his cheek and stroked my thumb across his bottom lip.

“I won’t use it if it upsets you.”

He shook his head. “No. When she uses it, it sounds like a curse. Like something disappointing. When you use it…” He trailed off.

I caught his gaze. “When I use it?”

“It sounds like a hymn.”

I kissed him again. I couldn’t help it. I caught his moan on my tongue and swallowed it down, leaning over so I could pin him to the bed. Breaking away with a gasp, I nipped at his ear, then whispered, “I know we have to keep quiet, but I really need to touch you, sweet thing.”

He shivered. “Yeah. Yes. I want you to touch me.”

Kissing along his jaw, I moved down his neck, pushing his shirt up so I could get to his nipples. They peaked when I exposed them to the cool air. I blew softly over them and watched his back arch. I could get drunk on the way he moved, on every needy twitch, every desperate groan. He was trying to hold back, so I lifted two fingers and pressed them to his lips.

His eyes widened and he opened his mouth a little, though not enough for me to slip my fingers inside.

“It’ll help,” I promised. “Lube?”

“Nightstand,” he breathed out.

Leaning over, I grabbed it from the drawer and dropped it on the mattress beside him. His eyes widened farther, and I held back a laugh as I kissed the side of his pec. “I’m going to play with you a little tonight. I want to make you come.”

He swallowed heavily, then nodded. “Yes. I want that.”

“Good. Now open up, sweetness. This will keep you quiet.”

His whole body shook—just once, but almost violently. For a second, I thought I’d pushed him too far, but then I realized his pupils were completely blown, eating up all the color in his irises. He looked dazed and wanton, his legs spreading just as his lips parted. I set my fingers on his tongue, and I held back my own desperate moan as he closed his mouth around them and gave a hard suck.

“Fuck, baby,” I gasped. I rocked my hips down, rubbing my erection against his thigh. I wasn’t really worried about getting off, but everything he did was so damn sexy. “Just keep those in there, okay? Then you can be as noisy as you want.”

I glanced over my shoulder to see if the door was locked, and it was. Bean must have done it when he shut the door after Tameron. Smiling at his thinking ahead, I hooked my fingers in the waistband of his pajama bottoms and tugged a little. Raising my brows, I met his gaze, and after a beat, he nodded.

With a couple of swift tugs, I got his pants down. His cock sat fat and needy in his nest of dark hair. My mouth watered, wanting to taste it, but I wanted to show him something else—something that could be so good if he let it.

I kissed his ribs as I reached for the lube, and he began to suck a little harder on my fingers as I clicked the cap open and put the bottle in my mouth so I could squirt it on my fingers without making him let me go. A groan sounded through his chest, muffled from where I had him gagged, and he pulled one knee up and spread the other toward the edge of the bed.

“Good, yes,” I praised. His eyes shut like he couldn’t take me looking at him when I said that. I kissed his stomach, then trailed my lips over his ribs and toward his neck. “You’re so, so perfect.”

He shifted and tensed, and I realized maybe that was too much for him, so instead of using words, I bit down on his tendon as I pushed two fingers against his hole. He grunted, tightening, but I didn’t push in yet. I knew he still needed time to trust that this was good. That this wasn’t some unforgivable sin that would send him straight to hell.

I wanted to wrap myself around him and protect him. To show him the world didn’t have to be hard or cruel or violent. That sometimes it was, but there was this too.

God, I loved him. There was no denying it now. Just like there was no denying I had never loved Gio. Not in the way a person should love their husband.

I wanted a do-over. I wanted those years back, but I was also grateful Gio had taken them because it meant that in the moment Bean was here and free, he could be mine. In whatever capacity he’d allow me to keep him.

Closing my eyes, I gently pushed inside, feeling him finally relax. He let out a slow breath through his nose, then toyed with my fingers with his tongue as I began to finger him. I didn’t make him wait or beg. I didn’t drag it out. I just bent my knuckles and searched until his hips flew up off the bed, then slammed back down.

He grunted and groaned, his hips moving and writhing. His cock was flush and fat still, leaking at the tip. I knew he wanted to be touched, but something like this had been on his list. Coming from anal alone.

He mumbled something around my fingers, but I began to suck at his pulse point, and the attempt at words faded into a moan. I fingered him harder, deeper, faster. I could feel the heat rising in his body, and through hazy eyes, I could see his cock begin to thicken with each beat of his heart.

He was going to come.

“I know, I know,” I soothed as he began to whimper and thrust uselessly into the air. “Just feel it, baby. Just let go. Let me take you over the edge, just like this.”

“Please,” he begged around my fingers.

I nipped at his jaw. “Do you want to keep going? Do you think you can come this way?”

He whimpered, then nodded, and I pushed my fingers even deeper, grazing his prostate with every pass.

“Look at you. God, look at you,” I gasped. I was rock hard and on the edge now. My cock rubbed against the sheets with every roll of my hips as I watched him chase his climax. He was so, so beautiful. “I love this. I love seeing you like this. You are so perfect. I never want to let you go.” My words were dangerously unchecked, but I found it hard to care. I could only hold back so much. “Give it to me, baby. Give me your cum.”

He sucked in a breath, and before he could exhale, he did. His obedience was a treasure. He was precious. And for this moment, he was mine. He gasped and bit down on my fingers as he let go, his cum spurting over his stomach in hot, thick ropes. I watched, unable to look away as his body flushed, tensed, and eventually relaxed into the mattress.

He was still trembling when I pulled both of my hands away, but I didn’t let him float out there alone in the void of his aftershocks. I gathered him close and let him shake against my chest until his breathing evened out. He relaxed in small bursts until he was boneless, and eventually, I eased him back and brushed his hair away from his forehead.

His eyes were glazed and distant, but they held mine. His tongue darted out, wetting his lips, and then he cleared his throat. “That was…”

He didn’t finish his sentence.

I kissed the corner of his mouth. “Yeah. It was. Too much?”

He laughed and squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t think I want to do that very often. It was a lot. But I loved it.”

I kissed him again. “I’m going to get something to clean us up with, okay? I’ll be right back.”

He didn’t protest as I stood, adjusted myself so I wasn’t tenting my sweats, and then made my way into the hall. The bathroom was empty, so I ran a cloth under warm water, then turned and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw Tameron standing there.

“Oh. Sorry, I?—”

He held up a hand, and my jaw snapped shut. “I don’t have my hearing aids in,” he said, “and I’m not good at reading lips without them.”

I nodded.

“I just want to say a couple of things.” He spoke differently now than he had at the table. Slower and softer and more cautiously pronounced, like he was afraid of getting the sounds he couldn’t hear all wrong.

I made a go-for-it gesture, and he smiled.

“Bean is precious to us.”

I tapped my temple, hoping it was universal enough to show him I knew.

His grin widened. “I know you know. I have a feeling he’s just as precious to you now. I want you to have patience and not run the next time it gets complicated. All of us are still dealing with trauma that will never fully heal, and he deserves to be loved through it.”

I nodded.

Tameron licked his lips. “Also, be glad I can take my hearing aids off because these walls are thin.”

I flushed hard, and he laughed.

“Don’t worry, Nash was downstairs, and Creek went over to sleep at Heath’s. He’s been where you are before, so I think he knows about the honeymoon phase.”

I patted my hand over my heart and mouthed, “Sorry.”

Tameron made a fist and rubbed it in a circle over his sternum. “This means sorry, but don’t be. I like the idea that all of us—no matter how fucked we are—are still worthy of love.” He turned away then, maybe on purpose so I couldn’t reply.

His words hurt my heart because I wondered how many of them had been viciously rejected after life-changing injuries like Bean had been. Was it all of them? Or was it a fear that it would happen?

I wondered if Bean worried that once things got complicated, I’d high-tail it out of there, which made my resolve to tell him the truth stronger. I knew it still wasn’t the time, but it would be soon. It would have to be. I could only keep my feelings quiet for so long.

I was completely gone on him, and all I wanted to know now was if my hope for us having a future had any ground to stand on.

I woke up alone with a note from Bean saying he’d gotten called into work early and that I could make myself at home. Creek and Tameron were both gone, but Nash might be there and had said I was welcome to stay.

It felt nice to be invited to stay, but I also wasn’t sure if I should. Everyone had gone out of their way to make me feel welcome, but Bean and I weren’t really anything apart from friends. There was nothing official between us beyond that, and I had no idea where we stood now.

It was obvious he liked me.He responded to me in ways no lover ever had. And he came to me for comfort. He let me romance the hell out of him during the day, screw his brains out by night, and hold him as he fell asleep. But I also knew there was so much more for him to experience.

I was his first man, and it felt selfish and almost cruel to take away his chance at meeting and getting to see how it was with other people. He’d never been with a man when he’d fallen into my bed. So what did that make me if I tried to be his one and only? I still wanted him for myself, but the fact remained that making him mine might be the most selfish thing I’d ever do.

The thought carried with me as I dressed and headed downstairs, but before I could sneak toward the front door, Nash peered around the corner.

“Oh good. You look hungry.Come eat.”

It definitely wasn’t a request. He gave me a pointed look, and I could see why he’d been such a good leader and why his men still followed him without question. I smiled at him and trailed behind him into the kitchen, where he had a small spread of breakfast laid out.

It had definitely been touched, but the eggs still looked warm, so I figured I’d just missed the others.

“Coffee,” he said, pointing to a carafe on the table.

I raised my brows. “You’d make a killing if you turned this place into a B&B.”

He smiled softly as I sat. “I think that’s what my grandparents hoped I’d do with it, though I don’t think either of them would be upset knowing I turned it into a rehab house instead.”

I hadn’t really thought of it like that, but it made sense. “A place to stop on their way, or a place to stay forever?”

“They’re my family,” Nash said, handing me a plate piled with eggs and toast. “They get to choose, and there will always be room for them to come back to the nest if they fly away.”

I sipped my coffee as I studied him. “Do you want them to stay though?”

He sighed as he slipped into a chair, the corner of his mouth lifting in a half-smile. “I was waiting for someone to ask me that. I’m pretty close with Heath now, but he seems shit-scared of bringing it up. I know it weighs on him since Creek hasn’t shown any signs of wanting to move out.”

“What is he afraid of?”

“Coming in second to all of us. He loves Creek, and I think he’ll accept whatever Creek wants for his future, but I can see it in Heath’s eyes sometimes. He worries about not being important. He worries Creek will always keep the distance of two homes between them.”

I hadn’t really thought of that, but it made sense. I was getting ready to move into my new home, and I wanted that home to be mine. I didn’t want to give it up. I’d always be okay with the long drive to Bean’s place, but at some point, I’d want us to be together.

Except that wasn’t on the table, was it?

“I guess that’s not really my place,” I said. I speared a bite of eggs, then snagged the hot sauce from the center condiment rack and added a liberal amount before diving in. It was divine. “Though I might ask if you have a spare room if you all can cook this well.”

Nash threw his head back with a laugh. “I have an attic, but it’s pretty nasty up there.”

“I’ll live with the spiders if I get eggs like this every morning,” I told him. And I half-meant it.

He curled his fist under his chin and rested his elbow on the table. “You really think it’s not your place to worry about Bean living here?”

I shrugged. “We’re just…”

“Don’t say just friends,” Nash warned. “We both know that’s bullshit, and you seem like a man who doesn’t suffer bullshit very often.”

I sighed and sat back, taking my coffee with me. The worry was killing my appetite, no matter how good the food was. “Obviously, I like him. A person doesn’t need physical sight to see that I’m head over heels.” It felt weird but good to say it aloud like this. “But I don’t want to be selfish.”

“You think loving someone is selfish?”

I shrugged. “Bean’s been through hell and back. When he came to me, he was as green as freshly mowed grass, and he’d been dumped by the one person he expected to spend the rest of his life with. He’s got religious trauma the size of Everest, and I know how that kind of thing can follow you.”

“You too?”

I shook my head. “No, not like that. I come from pretentious WASPs who mostly cared about appearances. But I’m also from a generation that grew up on the last vestiges of the AIDS crisis. Where that sort of thing was a middle school punchline and people threw around the f-slur like it meant nothing. I was out and in love before marriage was even an option for me.”

Nash sighed. “I hear you. I do. DADT haunted my footsteps, and even after it was repealed, I was still terrified for anyone to know about me. I got really comfortable cramming myself into a closet.”

I nodded. “So I get it. I get why Bean still can’t say certain things to me, even if he trusts me. And I also don’t want to stand in his way of discovering who he is and what he wants.” I swallowed thickly. “I don’t want him to choose me because he thinks no one else will ever love him the way I do.”

Nash’s face fell, and he leaned forward, snagging my hand. “I say this with all the love in my heart—you’re being a dumbass.”

I blinked at him.

“You’re a good fucking guy, Jarek. Better than most I’ve known, and I don’t say that very easily. Bean can be fragile, but he’s also one of the strongest men I have ever known. And he might struggle with his memory and with being out, but he’s a damn genius, and you should trust him to know what he wants. He’s not a fool. He knows there are other guys out there. The fact that he’s only in this with you means something. And it’s not that he doesn’t think he has other options. He’s a gorgeous man.”

I laughed, my throat a little thick with emotion. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had been so bluntly, sharply kind to me. “He is. I can’t believe he wants some washed-up old man like me.”

“Excuse you. I think you might be younger than me, and I am far from washed up or old.”

I rolled my eyes. “My statement applies to me only. But thank you.” I pulled my hand away slowly. “I just don’t want to get any of this wrong. I’ve never felt this way before.”

“Does Bean know this?”

I shook my head. “I want to tell him. I’ve been holding off so I don’t burden him with it.”

“He needs to know. He’s working through stuff, but he deserves to know how you feel.”

“You’re right.”

“But you also deserve to take the time to figure out how you feel before you lay it all out there. Just don’t take too long,” Nash said. He pushed up from the table and glanced at the clock on the stove. “I need to take off, but please know we’re all here for you, okay? If you need anyone, you’ve got my number. And for what it’s worth, we’re all rooting for you.”

My throat got thick again, and I swallowed past a lump. “Thank you.”

He gave my cheek a soft pat, then he winked, and before I could respond, he was gone. He was right though—everything he said was right. Bean deserved to know the truth, and I deserved to treat myself like I was worth the risk.

I needed to find the right time and way to tell him, but it would be soon.

It would be very soon.