17. Diem

17

Diem

N othing made sense. Tallus’s lush mouth pressed against mine. After all the toxic words I’d spewed, after all the virulent stories I’d shared, he was kissing me again. What happened to my warning? Was he not listening? Did he not hear me? I thought for sure that if I could find the words to explain myself, he would understand why this couldn’t be.

His tongue tickled my lower lip, drawing me from the storm inside my head and into the room where the man I couldn’t shake out of my system, no matter how hard I tried, was determined to break me down.

I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing, but I had enough sense to realize I should figure out how the hell to kiss him back before his mouth was gone. With my face pinched between his hands and his confidence holding me up, I moved my lips against his, met his tongue with mine, and we stumbled forward with yet another ridiculously awkward kiss. The fault was all with me. I was the failure. I was the one not good enough. Incompetent. Incapable.

It ended quickly— thank god —and Tallus drew back enough to peer up at me. After all I’d said and the ugliness I’d unveiled, I expected him to leave. Thank me for nothing and waltz out the door without looking back. I expected a look of disgust, horror, or even dawning fear as he realized he was alone with a dangerous man.

But that wasn’t the case.

Tallus was not like other people. He wasn’t easily shaken. He wasn’t easily disturbed.

He brushed the pad of his thumb over my lower lip. “Still needs some work, but we’ll get there. Practice makes perfect. I think I need to find a way to help you relax.”

A protest was on the tip of my tongue, but my tongue was three sizes too big, and I couldn’t form his name anymore, let alone a rejection. But how? How? How? How?

And why?

We’d known each other roughly ten months, but standing in my apartment after having worked through a speech I’d been stewing over all evening, I realized something about the man in front of me. The man who had quite literally fallen into my life one afternoon in late autumn.

When Tallus Domingo, Toronto Police Department’s sexy-as-sin records clerk, looked at me, he saw me . Not the scars, not the bad attitude, the surliness, or random bouts of anger. Tallus saw beyond my faults to the man I had always desperately wanted to be.

Without another word, likely recognizing I was a tongue-tied mess, Tallus clasped my hand and guided me toward the partitioned-off area I called a bedroom. Not the loveseat. He took me to the place where I lay my head each night. The place I dreamed of him. The place where no man had ever been invited because it was too personal. Too intimate. Too full of expectations I could never meet.

I wanted to dig in my heels and protest. Scream and shout and ask him if he heard a fucking word I said.

But I stayed silent.

Beside the bed, as he carefully freed me of my clothing one piece at a time, I didn’t speak.

When he stripped off his clothes and kicked them into a pile on the floor, I watched without saying a thing.

When he moved closer, invading my bubble, when his hands touched my bare skin, I held my breath and remained mute.

I would not flinch away. I would not dodge his advances.

Tallus spent a long time exploring my body with his hands. The sensation was electrifying, intense , and overstimulating. I wanted to ask him to stop and give me room to breathe.

I didn’t.

My mouth simply wouldn’t work. Maybe, subconsciously, I didn’t want him to stop. Wasn’t this what I’d been fantasizing about for months? Years?

A lifetime?

To have someone give a shit. About me.

“Relax,” he whispered into the air between us. “Your muscles are insanely hot, Guns, but they’re in a constant state of flex. That can’t be healthy.”

He was right. I was wound tighter than a spring, but no matter how desperately I wanted to, I couldn’t obey the command.

He didn’t remind me again. Perhaps Tallus understood the impossibility of relaxing when someone was this close to me, touching me tenderly.

Touching without fists.

Without weapons.

Touching like they meant it.

Lovingly.

But I couldn’t remove the armor I’d spent a lifetime building to protect myself.

Tallus made a point of tracing every contour, every curve of my protruding muscles. He paid them individual attention like he had special knowledge or insight into how intimately those gains had become part of my survival. Without the positive outlet of a punching bag or lifting weights, I’d have self-destructed ages ago.

With two fingers, Tallus climbed each ridge of my abdomen like a ladder. He followed the dips and valleys along my sternum to my chest. He skied the hard mounds of my pecs on both sides with the skill of an Olympic athlete. With splayed palms, he surveyed the path of hills that were my shoulders, lats, triceps, and biceps.

He paused for a long time on the tattoos inked into my left forearm, Chinese characters I knew he wanted desperately to read but couldn’t. He’d asked about them several times, but I’d always dodged the question.

My dark arm hair masked their detail, but Tallus brushed his thumb over the surface, shifting it this way and that so he could see, so maybe, just maybe, he could understand them without my having to explain.

Someday, if I found the courage, I might reveal those secrets. If we lasted past tonight. Surely, Tallus would come to his senses before morning and know anything further between us was impossible.

Finished with his exam, he slipped his hand into mine and guided me to the bed. It loomed in the cordoned-off area of my homestead, both beckoning and threatening.

I didn’t know how to do this.

When I dug in my heels, when I refused to go farther, Tallus moved in behind me and pressed his warm, naked body against mine.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember to breathe as his mouth moved against my back, and he branded me with gentle kisses along my spine. “Lie down,” he whispered. “On your back. In the middle.”

“Tallus.” It was a croak, not a word.

“I’m not asking for more than you can give me. But I’m not fucking on a couch anymore. We’ve moved beyond that, Guns. I’m not doing this hands-off, either. I’m going to help myself to every part of you. I’m going to touch you the way I hope you someday touch me. And if all you can do is lie there and enjoy it, that’s okay.” Another soft kiss near my shoulder. “You’re safe with me, Diem. I won’t hurt you. You can trust me.”

But if I couldn’t trust myself, how could I trust anyone else?

Tallus claimed he wasn’t asking for more than I could give, but what if getting on the bed was too much?

It mustn’t have been because I was moving before the thought had time to fully cross my mind. My knees landed on the mattress. My hands followed. Every joint felt rusty and sticky. But I wasn’t just the Tin Man in this fucked-up story, a man with an empty cavity in his chest where his heart was supposed to have grown. I was the lion without courage and the scarecrow without a brain. My dad was right. I was a stupid fuckup, and I was proving it.

I crawled to the center of the mattress and lay down as Tallus had instructed.

He stood beside the bed, taking me in. He’d kept his glasses on, nothing more. Could he be more perfect? Was it possible?

Once I was settled, he asked me to confirm I was okay. I nodded, but what else was I going to say? I wasn’t okay. I was the furthest thing from okay, but all the talking in the world hadn’t scared him off.

He joined me, not lying beside me like I expected.

Tallus straddled my lap and planted a hand on either side of my head as he leaned over until our noses were mere centimeters apart. I couldn’t retreat. I was trapped. Surrounded. Panic vibrated my insides, but I tamped it down, telling myself it was an illusion. I wasn’t in danger. If I asked him to move, he would.

The heat of Tallus’s skin permeated the air. I smelled hints of the spicy cologne he’d used that morning, but mostly, it was his natural scent that lingered. One I craved. One that made my skin feel three sizes too small.

“You have one job,” he said, his breath ghosting my mouth. “Keep your eyes open. I want you present. And don’t forget to breathe. Today, I don’t care what you do with your hands, but if you want to touch me at any point, you are allowed , Diem. I want you to. Understand?”

I swallowed a thick lump and nodded.

“Now, glasses on or glasses off?”

“On.” I spat the word so fast I choked on it.

Tallus chuckled. “All right. But we can’t get too wild and adventurous. If I break these fucking frames or lenses again, I’m going to be pissed.”

The smile that followed was like staring into the midday sun. Big and bright and dangerous. If I didn’t avert my eyes, I would be blinded by the sheer magnitude of its aura, but I didn’t care. I’d rather be fucking destroyed by its beauty than look away from its brilliance.

For I was the darkness, and Tallus was the light.

The two of us couldn’t exist together. Didn’t he know? One would always chase the other away.

“Are you with me, Guns?” He used the tips of his fingers to stroke my cheek.

“Yes,” I croaked. “I’m with you.”

“Perfect.”

His lips followed the arch of my brow, his warm, moist exhales leaving an imprint I never wanted to erase. They moved along the outer edge of my eye socket and lingered on the scar bisecting my upper cheek. He kissed the silver line before continuing, and my stomach clenched. Memories surged, but I pushed them away. Now was not the time to remember. Now was not the time to venture into the past.

He bypassed my lips and headed down my body instead, taking the path his hands had done while we were upright over the mound of each pec and along the ridges of my abdomen.

It was a thousand times more invigorating. A thousand times harder to process.

He paused at my navel, licking the deep divot, lavishing attention to this strange area I’d never considered to be sexy until now. It turned out to be an ignition point that lit my blood on fire and tingled heat through my veins. If I was hard before, I was granite now, clenching my hands into fists, wanting to tell him how good it was but too ashamed to own those feelings and open my mouth.

I didn’t deserve this.

Why was he here?

What was he doing to me?

I didn’t realize I’d pinched my eyes closed until Tallus stopped the swirling ministrations and said, “Eyes open, Guns. We had a deal.”

I gasped—I’d been holding my breath too—and glanced at Tallus as he pushed my thighs apart and nestled himself between them.

He ran his hands over the hard stone slabs of my quads, over the canvas of tattoos that covered a different shame. On one thigh was a lone wolf. The beast had a torn ear and wore countless injuries from battle. His fur was matted and bloody, but he snarled at the viewer. Fearless. Alive. He symbolized strength and survival. He never gave up and lived to see another day. On the other thigh was a compass that dissolved into a flock of birds. It symbolized my freedom and reminded me to stay on track.

Long, straight silver lines lived under the ink, carefully masked but easy to find. Their origin wouldn’t be hard to mistake. Every one of them had been made intentionally. Every one of them had been done by the hand of a troubled teenager, desperate to stop the pain. Desperate for escape of any kind.

When Tallus’s hazel eyes found mine, I knew he understood them for what they were.

He didn’t ask. He covered his concern with the award-winning sultry and mischievous smirk I loved.

“Hold these.” He passed me his glasses. “They’ll get all steamy otherwise. Don’t fret. I’ll put them back on in a minute.” Then he winked, and before I could catch up, he descended on my cock, working like a champion to take as much down his throat as he could in one go, choking and gagging once but never giving up.

It was so comical after the serious moment of a second ago that I almost laughed. Almost. It was right there, tickling my lips, tightening my chest, but when Tallus used his throat muscles to squeeze, I cursed instead as a wave of pleasure rippled through me.

“Fuuuck. Tallus.” I growled and fisted the blankets, arching into the wet cavity of his mouth. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

Tallus chuckled around my length before coming up for air, eyes watery and cheeks flush. “Don’t be smug. I know you’re getting a kick out of watching me try and fail to conquer this beast of a cock, but Guns, fuck me sideways. Seriously. You should require a concealed carry permit for this. How the hell do you buy pants?”

The strangled laugh returned, trying to choke me, but I snarled to hide it. I didn’t succeed. Tallus tilted his head and gave me a sly smirk as he pointed at my face. “Oh, I saw that. One of these days, Guns. It will happen. And when it does…” He winked and resumed the blow job.

It was easy to forget where we were and the possible implications of having Tallus in my bed when he paid me such incredible attention. All his rules went out the window. I closed my eyes, sucked in a breath, and held it as I absorbed the moment.

Before a storm, you can sometimes feel the electricity in the air. It vibrates and hums inside your brain. My entire body experienced a similar sensation. It rolled over my scalp and along my spine. It prickled the hairs on my forearms. It speckled my skin with gooseflesh. A tingling ache grew in my balls. Warmth surrounded me.

When I was sure Tallus was going to take me all the way with his mouth alone, he stopped and crawled up my body again. His lips were rosy and slightly swollen. His hair was mussed. His hazel eyes shimmered, and he was winded. “Condom?”

Dizzy and lightheaded, I indicated where I kept them in the top drawer of my dresser. Naked as the day he was born, Tallus got off the bed and sauntered over to find one. I stared, unable to process the events of the evening and how I’d ended up in bed with the man of my dreams when I’d gone out of my way to ensure he understood why this sort of thing should never happen.

Tallus found a foil-wrapped package and the bottle of lube I kept for a rainy day when Spark wasn’t producing what I wanted—or when I’d gotten it in my head to delete the damn app because it did nothing but piss me off when I browsed and realized every guy wasn’t Tallus.

He dropped the items beside me and resumed his position, straddling my waist. With his bottom lip between his teeth, he stroked himself. “Want to prep me?”

I did. Desperately.

But this was a far more intimate exchange than I was used to. Tallus wasn’t bent over the back of a couch or pressed against a wall in a dark alley. He was above me. Facing me.

I fumbled for the lube and poured some into my hand. He lifted himself and continued to work on his erection as I struggled to find the right way to do this, not sure where to put my other hand before remembering it was okay to touch him if I wanted. I felt so awkward and clumsy.

Recognizing my indecision, Tallus guided my free hand to his hip, offering a slight nod of assurance. I told myself not to cling too tightly, not to lose control and hurt him. I knew what to do with the other hand.

I ended up so lost inside my head, focused on the functional process of getting us from point A to point B without making a mistake, that when Tallus was ready to proceed, I missed the cues.

Before I knew it, he knocked my hand away with a growl. In a panic—because I thought I’d done something wrong—I removed both hands from his body, holding them up in defense.

It was on the tip of my tongue to apologize when Tallus took hold of me and lowered himself onto my cock. Static filled my brain, and noises of our combined pleasure filled the room.

“Jesus fucking… gah…” I growled.

“I know.” Tallus panted. “Goddamn, Guns.”

Tallus moved like a dancer. Hands planted on my chest, he gyrated, grinding, rising, and falling with perfect rhythm. All I could do was watch. I was along for the ride, and ride me he did.

Fuck he was gorgeous.

Tallus was not afraid to express himself. He openly moaned, vocalizing his pleasure, saying my name over and over. He engulfed me with bedroom eyes from behind dark-framed glasses.

He was everything .

I hadn’t cried since I was eight years old, but I wanted to cry right then and there. Because the moment wouldn’t last. It was fleeting. Stolen. It wasn’t mine to have.

As much as I knew I couldn’t hold on to whatever this was, as much as I knew it wouldn’t last forever, I didn’t want Tallus to walk away. I didn’t want him to see me or this exchange in a negative light.

Exploring his body with my eyes was not enough. I needed to connect with him somehow. Bridge the gap. Do something.

Carefully, cautiously, I brushed my fingers over his hands where they were secured to my pecs, silently asking a question. He understood and weaved our fingers together, letting me hold him up as he moved on me, building the pleasure.

Panting, increasing his effort, he brought my hands above my head and pinned them down. His mouth hovered near mine as he continued fucking himself on my cock. Every exhale glanced my lips. I was on fire, burning, on the verge of full incineration.

When the ending was in sight, Tallus joined our mouths. The kiss was a good hard shove across the finish line, and for a second, I let myself lose control, thrusting up into his body, riding the wave of pleasure as it rolled through me. Muscles straining, I squeezed his hands, desperately holding on to hope, wishes, and dreams come true.

***

Tallus fell asleep in my bed when it was over. I didn’t stick around. Couldn’t. My head was a roar of noise, and I needed to move. No amount of self-talk could convince me to sleep beside him. I was unraveling at the speed of light and needed space. Besides, I had too much to process. The night had ended upside down and inside out. I’d planned in my head for every contingency but this one.

I left Tallus money for an Uber, knowing he worked in the morning and didn’t have his car, then I grabbed my keys and took off. I desperately needed a smoke and a long, long fucking drive to clear my head and figure out what the hell I was going to do from here.