27. Brooks

CHAPTER 27

brOOKS

I couldn’t breathe.

Even in the open space of my kitchen that smelled decidedly like coffee and not sex, I couldn’t catch a breath. Buck naked, I pressed my hand against the middle of my chest, counting the staccato beats of my heart until they slowed to something I didn’t think most doctors would be concerned about.

I’d had a lot of sex in my life, with a lot of different people, but I’d never… never had sex like that. It was beyond unbridled, and the sheer vulnerability of the act had stolen not just my ability to breathe, but my ability to speak.

Tate told me he loved me, and I…

Fuck .

Grabbing two bottles of water out of the fridge and the discarded bag of sandwiches we’d dropped in the entryway, I raced back up the stairs. Tate was sprawled in the tub, legs bent at the knee and his arms resting on the edge. He had his head tilted back, eyes open and unfocused on the ceiling. I deposited everything on the floor and climbed into the tub, notching myself between his legs instead of behind him as I’d initially planned. The water poured from the faucet against the backs of my calves, and with what seemed like reflex, Tate wrapped his fingers around my biceps to hold me steady above him.

“I don’t deserve it.” I shook my head and dipped close to him, knocking our noses together.

“Hmn?”

“Your love,” I whispered, swallowing. “I don’t trust myself with you sometimes.”

“I trust you with me.”

Our lips brushed together, his swollen from our earlier kisses…soft and puffy and still slick with spit.

“I didn’t mean to not say it back.”

Tate smiled against my mouth. “It’s my feelings, not yours.”

“Stop it.” I slid my hand between our lips, breaking the kiss, and I covered his mouth with the tips of my fingers. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

He hummed against my skin, eyes half closed.

“I love you too,” I said, the truth of it settling in my stomach like a stick of cotton candy, making me simultaneously happy and sick. “I’ve loved you awhile, I think, but I didn’t want to say it.”

“You’re not too much,” he murmured against my hand. I let it fall into the water, which was finally at chest level. “Or maybe you are for other people, but not for me.”

I wanted desperately to believe it.

Turning away from Tate only long enough to turn off the water, I shifted our bodies into the position I’d originally intended. With my back against the side of the tub, I nestled him between my spread legs, hooking my feet around his ankles to keep his legs spread wide. I doubted either of us had another orgasm to spare, but if we were being vulnerable, then…

I cupped some water into my hand and dripped it down Tate’s chest, and he groaned, resting his head against my shoulder and closing his eyes again.

“I’ve dreamed of a man like you,” I said softly into his ear, letting my fingers dance across the slender expanse of his chest, the sharp peaks of his nipples, and down beneath the water to the defined ridges of his abs. “I didn’t think you were real.”

“Think of all the time we wasted.”

“Because you walked away,” I reminded him.

“Stupid of me.”

I worked my fingers through the short hair around the base of his half-hard cock, doing my best to detangle any cum that had dried in the curls there. Satisfied I’d managed to get it all, I wrapped my fingers around his length, stroking down toward the tip, not with the intent to arouse, but to stretch and clean. I dragged my thumb beneath the flared tip of his crown, and Tate whimpered, turning into me as much as the position would allow, pressing a kiss against my clavicle.

“I’ll listen now,” he moaned, hips giving a quick push back against my tender and well-used dick.

“I know you will.”

“God.” Tate groaned, and my fingers worked into the muscles of his thighs. “I’ve dreamed about you for months.”

“Do I live up to the fantasy?” I asked.

I’d gotten as far down his legs as my arms could reach, and I settled back, listening to the quiet lap of water around the tub compete against my heartbeat for loudest sound in the room. Tate’s breathing quieted, and I bracketed an arm around his chest, keeping our bodies close while I reached over the side of the tub to get him one of the bottles of water I’d brought from the kitchen.

“You’re more than I could have ever imagined for myself,” he said softly.

“In two weeks, I’m heading upstate to my friend’s farm for the weekend. I’d like for you to come with me.”

Tate dropped the bottle of water out of the tub, the plastic bouncing on the floor with a loud thump, then he floated his palms against the surface of the water before flipping his hands over and raising one in the air for me to see. “I’m pruned.”

I grabbed his hand and kissed each of the wrinkled pads of his fingers.

“Is that your way of asking to get out of the bath?” I asked. “Or your way of telling me you don’t want to come to the farm.”

Before he could answer, I was up and out of the tub, wrapping a towel around my waist. I didn’t bother to dry off, and I dripped water all over the bag of food, which I’d make sure he ate eventually. I tossed it onto the counter, then grabbed him a towel from the warmer and held it open for him. Tate eyed me thoughtfully, using his toe to flip the drain on the bath. Climbing out carefully, he walked into my arms and I folded the warm terrycloth around him, giving it a few rubs up and down his shoulders to facilitate the drying.

“Just because I love you doesn’t mean it doesn’t scare me,” he said softly, letting the towel fall to the floor.

My mouth went dry, tongue stuck to the roof as I forced a nervous swallow. Tate picked up the bag of food from the counter and carried it into the bedroom. I collected both discarded bottles of water and went after him. He was still closer to soaking than dry, and he plopped himself down on the foot of the bed, unbothered. The bedding darkened from the wetness that rolled off him, but if he noticed, I never would have known. He patted a spot beside him, and I discarded my towel to join him naked on the bed. In an unexpected twist of roles, Tate was the one to dish out the sandwiches from our long-forgotten dinner, his attention mostly focused on the sprawling skyline beyond the window in front of us.

“It scares me too,” I told him.

“It scares you because you don’t trust it.”

“Why does it scare you?” I asked.

The sandwich wrapper crinkled in my hands, a clump of shredded lettuce falling onto the floor between our feet.

“Because I do.” Tate took a bite of his sandwich, chewing and swallowing. “I’d do anything you asked, Brooks. Give you anything. Go anywhere.”

“I know you would,” I rasped.

He’d already given me so much.

“I’ll prove you wrong,” he said after another bite. “Or right, depending on how you think about it.”

I understood what he was saying, that when all was said and done, he’d prove to me that I’d made the right decision by taking a chance on loving him. That when everything was said and done, we’d come through the other side together, in love, and happy.

Happy.

What a strange idea .

For years, ever since Tyler left, I thought I was happy. I’d convinced myself that being with my friends and having the freedom to pick and choose my partners was the most I wanted out of life. What I deserved. But Tate had blown in like a storm and shown me just how very wrong that fallacy had been. Before him, I’d been a shell of the man I’d used to be, a cardboard cutout of the man I wanted to be. And he was here now, giving me the opportunity to step into the life I’d always wanted for myself.

The only person standing in my way was me.

“I know you will,” I said.

Re-wrapping the sandwich, I shoved it into the bag and leaned back, stretching my legs out in front of me and following Tate’s stare toward the city. After he finished his sandwich, he balled up the wrapper and held it in the air between us until I offered him my outstretched palm. He dropped it and I added it to the bag with a sly smile.

“Water,” he said, and I handed him the bottle. He drank half of it in one go, then gave his head a little shake, side to side. “I know this is unhinged, but I want you again.”

I scoffed, a shocked sound that caught in the back of my throat and shot out my nose. “There’s no way.”

“I know,” he agreed. “And yet.”

I didn’t think I had another round in me, but I also didn’t have the strength to tell him no. I wanted to give him anything and everything. Wanted to prove I was worthy of everything he was giving.

“Get on all fours,” I croaked, pushing to my feet. “Spread yourself apart for me.”

Tate cursed under his breath, a red flush creeping up his throat before he turned and assumed the position I’d demanded. Digging his fingers into the globes of his ass, he spread himself open, resting his cheek and chest against the sheets. I trailed my fingers up the backs of his thighs, pressing when I found little bursts of bruises from how hard we’d fucked. The pressure caused him to make happy sounds that had my cock thinking we might stand a chance, but when I got close enough to inspect his hole, I talked myself out of that one quickly.

“You’re so gorgeous,” I whispered, kneeling on the bed behind him so my breath puffed out against the skin in question. “Swollen and pink…and used.”

“Please.”

I kissed his hole, licking hot stripes from his balls to the top of his crack until he lost the grip on his cheeks and had to fist the sheets instead. He was hard again, cock jutting toward his face and precum pearling at the tip. Tate wasn’t that much younger than me, but I admired the magic of youth that had him ready to go after everything we’d done.

“Touch yourself, Tate.”

I had to hold him open to get my tongue inside of his asshole, and the sound that tore out of his throat when I punched past his pucker was enough to send my cock back to full mast again. If I fucked him again, though, it would hurt him, so no matter how much either of us wanted it, I had to be strong enough to refuse. Rimming, that I could do. Tate’s hand around his cock moved with quick and jerky thrusts while I ate him out, and ten minutes later, he shot a single spurt of cum onto my sheets. His entire body bowed and bucked like he was dropping gallons of sperm out of his balls, and when he looked down before collapsing into the mess, he let out a hoarse laugh .

“Maybe you were right,” he muttered.

I chuckled, hauling him up toward the pillows and kicking down the sheets so we could get properly into bed. My cock burned against the small of his back, and I spit into my hand and slicked my shaft before tucking it between the tight press of his closed thighs. His balls were hot against the top of my cock, and I fucked my way through the soft crevice of his thighs until I shot my load against the underside of his soft and sticky cock.

It was hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to do anything except close my eyes and bury my face into the still wet hair at the back of Tate’s head. He reached back blindly, pulling my arm over his waist and threading our fingers together. Between his legs, my cock still throbbed in time with my heart.

“Tate,” I whispered his name, only to be met with a half-awake sounding groan.

But even in his state, he managed my name.

“Brooks,” he said quietly. Reverently.

“I love you, darling.”

Tate hummed and nodded, giving his thigh muscles a squeeze.

“I love you too.”