41. Brooks

CHAPTER 41

brOOKS

The following weekend we were back in New York, sitting on the floor of Tate and Dylan’s apartment, packing half a dozen boxes of Tate’s belongings up. I’d offered to pay for movers, but he’d insisted he was capable of boxing things up on his own. Dylan had come by around lunch and I’d ordered the two of them pizza, then headed out for a walk around the block with Alex.

“How have things been?” I asked when we reached the street, thankful that I’d never have to deal with visiting anyone who lived in a walk-up ever again.

“I’m not sure what I’m doing,” Alex admitted. “But Dylan is safe.”

“Does that matter to you?”

Alex snorted. “Are you asking me if I have feelings for him?”

“Do you?” I pressed.

“I don’t not,” he said.

“That’s enough,” I said. “Have you heard from Beamer? ”

“We’ve talked once since he got back to California. I don’t want to get in the way of anything.”

“You’re his friend.”

“It’s not that simple and you know it.” Alex shrugged. “What would you do if Dylan and Tate had fucked, and Dylan kept trying to come around and be friendly while you and Tate were together?”

“I don’t care who fucked Tate before,” I reminded him, “I’m the one who’s fucking him now.”

Alex heaved a sigh. “It’s complicated, but I’m fine.”

I didn’t entirely believe him, but I didn’t want to push him away again. “Have you sold the motorcycle yet?”

“No.”

“Are you going to?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Brooks.”

It was a fair answer, all things considered.

“Ford has invited us back to the farm again,” I said, changing the subject.

He’d actually done more than invite us.

In Italy, I’d managed to finalize the food distribution contract he and Boston had been fighting so hard for. Ford had offered to rename the property after me and kiss me on the mouth, both of which felt a little excessive.

“Duly noted.”

We turned another corner.

“If not the farm, how do you feel about a trip to the club this weekend?” I asked. “Kale texted about it.”

Alex huffed out half of a laugh and shook his head. “He’s a trip.”

“He means well,” I said, remembering the fierce parts of him that had shone through Tate when it came to defending his best friend. “I think any of us would have done the same.”

“Within reason,” he added.

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a maybe,” Alex said, which was as much of a yes as it ever was with him.

Tate and I were looking forward to the outing. Tate, because he was perpetually horny, and me, because I was eager to test the limits of his newfound interest in exhibitionism. I appreciated on the airplane he hadn’t wanted the flight attendant to catch him with a throat full of cock, but I wondered if he would feel differently about it in the right setting, which The Black Door definitely was. If he was still uncertain, there were always plenty of dark corners, bathrooms, and private rooms to choose from.

“I’ll take it.”

We turned the last corner, coming up again on the entrance to Dylan and Tate’s building. I glanced at my watch and cocked my head toward the street. Alex nodded, and we took a second lap around the block to give the two of them more time to chat without our presence interfering any of the thousand questions I knew Tate had for his best friend.

Alex and I walked in silence, though, which was companionable and nice. Even before recently, he’d always been the quietest of the group of us. He often bordered on broody, but I personally found it to be part of his charm. A man of few words with the biggest heart of anyone I’d ever met.

We made it back to their apartment, the moving van I’d rented idling in the street. Seeing the slim number of belongings Tate had to his name, it was overkill, but I doubted everything would have fit in the trunk of a town car. I told the driver to give us two minutes, then Alex and I headed up to the third floor.

“If I never walk another flight of stairs in my life,” Alex grumbled under his breath when we reached Tate and Dylan’s front door. It was still unlocked, and we found the two of them sitting on a couch, Tate’s boxes neatly taped and stacked beside them. The pizza was half eaten, which was more than enough.

“The van is downstairs. Are you all set?” I asked, not wanting to rush, but more than ready to get Tate fully unpacked and settled at my place.

Our place, rather.

“Yeah,” Tate confirmed, pushing up from his seat.

Dylan’s arm was still in a sling, but he hugged Tate without wincing, which felt like progress. They whispered some words to each other that I knew weren’t meant for me or Alex to hear. Behind me, one of the movers rapped his knuckles on the door, and Tate faced him with a sigh.

“Just these,” he said, pointing to the boxes.

The mover let out an amused laugh, then he and the man beside him collected the boxes in one swoop and carried them downstairs. There was no rush for goodbyes because the boxes would get to the penthouse whether we were there or not, and I still had to call a car for us. I didn’t know how Alex and Dylan had gotten across town, and it was none of my business so I didn’t bother asking.

Tate closed the space between us and slipped his arms around my waist, pressing a quick kiss against the corner of my mouth.

“I’m ready,” he whispered .

We said our final goodbyes to Alex and Dylan, then began the trip back to our new home.

The first thing I wanted to do upon arrival was fuck Tate against in the entryway, half on top of his boxes, but he had other plans, leading me instead upstairs to the bathroom.

“What’s this?” I asked, spreading my arms and letting him strip me out of my clothes. After he’d gotten me naked, he turned his attention to himself, discarding his own clothes with far less care than he’d offered mine.

“Aftercare,” he answered, pulling me into the shower and turning on the taps.

“For who?”

Tate pushed me under the spray and tilted my head back, letting the water sluice through my hair and down my neck. I didn’t even bother trying to hold back a groan. The press of his fingers and the heat of his body were like a salve to cure every single one of my ailments.

“For you,” he said, kissing the dip of my throat. “For me.”

“Are you needing attention, darling?”

He hummed, turning me and urging me down onto the bench so he could go to his knees between my legs.

“You give me everything I need.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, shoving the water out of his eyes before dipping down toward my quickly hardening dick. “I want to make sure to do the same.”

He swallowed me into the back of his throat on the first try, his talent for choking on my cock approaching perfection. He’d had enough practice at it, that was for sure. Threading my fingers into his hair, I made sure not to force his speed, letting him set the pace which turned out to be leisurely and slow .

Tate sucked on my cock like he was worshiping it, which in a way, he was. When he reached down to take himself in hand, I didn’t protest. I closed my eyes and dropped my head against the back wall of the shower, moaning low and long the closer he got me to my own end.

“I love you,” I whispered, voice barely louder than the spray of the water on the back of his head. My grip on his hair was tentative at best, and I had to let go of him and brace myself against the wall. Even as the adrenaline ramped up in my body, Tate maintained his casual pace, sucking and slobbering on my shaft like it was his favorite dessert.

Instead of saying anything back to me, he tilted his head to the side when his lips were closed around my crown and opened his eyes. He cradled my balls in his free hand, body swaying forward as he grunted and came onto the floor. He put my entire shaft back into his mouth, deliberately choking himself with my length until he’d finished coming.

“Want you to come,” he muttered, the words garbled.

“Thought this was about me,” I teased him.

“Exactly.”

I chuckled, taking his head into my hands and lifting off the bench to impale his throat with my cock. Watching him deprive himself of oxygen on his own, all in the name of a better orgasm, already had me careening dangerously close to the cliff. Fucking his mouth and listening to the strangled gagging noises fall out of his throat was enough to send me over the edge entirely.

I came with a shout, shooting against the roof of his mouth. My cum spilled out of his mouth, smearing over his lips and his chin, and he grabbed my thighs and dug in his fingernails as I rode out my orgasm in his throat. When he blinked up at me, his lashes were clumped together and he had a lust-drunk smile on his face.

“I love you too,” he said, body going limp. “Thank you for this life.”

I swallowed thickly, still not sure that I’d given him anything less than what he deserved, but I knew better than to argue about it. Instead of pulling him into my lap like I normally would, I went onto the floor beside him. Tate chuckled, arranging himself next to me and stretching out his legs. His thighs were slimmer than mine, but his feet reached a few inches past mine. It was easy to see the differences between us even though we were the same in all the ways that mattered the most.

The shower rained down against his face, washing him clean, but I couldn’t wait for later when I had the chance to get him well and truly dirty again. All of his moments would be mine, would be ours. His days, his nights, just like in Italy. His body, his heart, his mouth, his hands, as much mine as mine were to him.

“Tate.” I turned my head toward him, head going fuzzy at the sight of the man I loved, so happy from the pleasure we shared. “Kiss me, darling.”

He flung a leg over my lap and took my face into his hands, kissing me until I forgot how to breathe without his mouth against mine.

And I leaned into it readily.

What a perfect way to live.