42. Alex

CHAPTER 42

ALEX

Dylan hadn’t let go of my hand since I put the ring on his finger, tugging me toward his side of the car every few minutes to examine the band. Every time, he’d smile at the ring, then at me, and then at the ring again before letting our hands fall to my lap. When we reached the farm, I had to let him go so he could get his bags, and the ring on Dylan’s left hand was the first thing Tate saw when we walked in through the door.

“Shut up!” Tate screamed, bypassing a normal hello or how are you doing.

Dylan grinned at him, dropping his bag and guitar in time to catch Tate in his arms. The two of them stumbled back into the wall, laughing, and then Tate yanked Dylan’s hand between them to look at the ring.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” he said.

“It literally just happened on the drive here.”

“Tell me everything,” Tate demanded, hauling Dylan through the house and toward the back patio.

Brooks took his place, giving me a proud—if not unsurprised—smile.

“I didn’t think you had it in you,” he said.

“Neither did I, but he just…”

“Yeah.” Brooks cut me off so I didn’t need to explain. “I know.”

I grabbed Dylan’s guitar and pushed it out of the walkway, giving his suitcase a kick toward mine for good measure. I didn’t want to assume what guest rooms Ford would put us in, and I hadn’t seen him or Boston yet. The house smelled like roasting chicken and vegetables, and my stomach let out a low rumble.

“Where is everyone?” I asked, realizing even though there was food on in the kitchen, the living room was much emptier than the last time I was here.

“They’re all out back drinking whiskey and watching the sunset,” Brooks said. “Which means they all know you’re about to be a married man.”

Rubbing my hands together nervously, I swallowed down any lingering trepidation and followed Brooks toward the back door. I wasn’t sure why the thought of my friends knowing I wanted to marry Dylan was so daunting. They would all find out sooner or later, but I hadn’t planned on being ambushed about the whole thing on arrival. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure if or when I was going to give him the ring in the first place. I’d brought it to be safe, but the box had already burned a hole in my pocket before we were even halfway out of the city.

There’d been no point in waiting.

Whatever time I decided to ask him would be the perfect time.

And it had been.

On the back porch, my arrival was met with a raucous cheer and Ford was there first, pressing a tumbler of whiskey into my hand.

“Congratulations,” he whispered into my ear, wrapping his arms around me before passing me off to Boston, who then handed me to Kale.

“Marriage?” Kale asked, one judgmental brow raised into his hairline. Beside him, Christian rolled his eyes and knocked into Kale’s shoulder.

“Don’t be rude.”

“I can handle him at his worst,” I promised Christian, then I turned to Kale and confirmed, “Marriage.”

“He’s a forever thing then?”

“Very much forever.”

The doubt on his face filtered into a soft kind of acceptance, and Kale clinked our glasses together.

“I’m happy for you,” he said.

“Truly?”

He finished off his whiskey before giving the glass to Christian and asking for a refill, leaving the two of us alone. Brooks had wandered off with Ford, and I’d yet to see Car and his husband, but I did notice my own fiancé was noticeably missing from the fray.

“I just want you to have all the things you want in life,” Kale said, frowning even as his head nodded. “I want all of you to have everything.”

“We have everything we need,” I assured him, “including you.”

“Do you mean I have everything I need or I’m everything you need?”

Kale’s eyes sparkled, and I took a hearty drink of the very expensive whiskey in my glass.

“You’re the last thing I want,” I clarified.

“And that’s why you have me.”

I yanked Kale into a hug, clapping him on the back while trying to ensure I didn’t spill any of my drink onto our shoes. When I pulled back, he smiled at a fixed point over my shoulder, and I followed his stare to find Christian standing with Boston and Tate, engaged in an animated conversation about something we’d never know.

“And that’s why you have him,” I said.

“So I can go without a drink all night?” he asked with a laugh, stepping away from me to chase after his boyfriend and his whiskey.

I was still yet to find Car and Dalton Fox, though I wondered if they’d even arrived yet. Maybe news of my attendance over the weekend was enough to keep them both in California, even though Car and I had long since cleared the air. We’d spoken once or twice since he’d called me out for being in love with Dylan, but adult friendships with a country between you weren’t the same as when houses had been just down the block.

Ford stepped up beside me, staring out toward the rolling hills that made up the property line of their farm.

“This is nice,” he said softly, the ice shifting in his glass as it melted.

“Very.”

We stood together in silence, and I inhaled deeply, enjoying the smell of grass and dirt and home that blew through the breeze over the porch.

“The future Mr. Burke is on the other side of the porch with Beamer and Dalton, I think,” Ford finally said, and I nodded at the inevitability of it. “Be nice.”

“I am nice.”

“You’re broody,” he corrected.

“I’m nice,” I repeated, clanking my glass against his before weaving my way past the other group of men. From around the corner, I heard Dylan’s voice, though I couldn’t make out the words, and I was so focused on making sure my feet carried me to him, I didn’t even see Dalton coming around the corner. We bumped into each other with a muttered curse.

I smoothed my hand down the front of my shirt, looking at the man Car loved beyond all sense of rhyme and reason. I didn’t think the two of us could have been more different and that, I reasoned, was probably the point.

“Your fiancé is quite sociable,” Dalton said.

“He has his moments.”

Dalton worried the corner of his lip with his tongue like he was still deciding which way our conversation was going to go.

“Looking forward to the weekend with you, Burke,” he said.

I cleared my throat. “Same.”

Without another word or any kind of agreement, we both stepped off. Dalton toward the house and me toward the man I loved and the man I used to think I loved. They were standing close, deep in a conversation that I could only piece together when I was close enough for them to both realize I’d arrived.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I said by way of apology.

Dylan reached out for me, waggling his fingers until I was close enough to take his hand in mine. I kissed the ring on his finger, then the side of his head.

“You’re not interrupting,” Car said. “I was just telling Dylan here how happy I am for the two of you.”

My heart slammed against my chest, not because there was any sense of loss or jealousy there, but because for the first time in forever, I was just so happy.

“Thank you,” I told him. “That means a lot.”

“And I was just telling Beamer here how I’m sure California must be lovely all year round,” Dylan said, tightening his hold on my hand.

Like the emotion in my chest, there wasn’t any jealousy in Dylan’s comment or the way he held my hand. It was pride and ownership, it was staking a claim in front of the people who held the most important places in my life.

“I imagine it is,” I agreed. “Maybe we can come visit sometime.”

“I think that would be nice,” Car agreed, smiling at me softly. His hair was the color of wheat, sun-kissed and more golden after a year on the West Coast. He looked healthy. He looked happy. “In the meantime, keep loving him just like that, Dylan. Love him the way he deserves.”

Before either of us could say anything to that, Car reached up and ruffled my hair, laughing before setting off around the corner to join the rest of our friends on the rocking chairs near the door. Alone on the side of the house, Dylan walked right into my arms, rubbing his cheek back and forth across my chest with a content and quiet hum that vibrated my sternum on every pass.

“Are you marking your territory?” I teased, kissing the top of his head. “If so, I don’t hate it.”

“I think the ring is enough of a mark,” he said, tilting his head up to gaze at me. He looked happy. He looked healthy. He looked mine.

“The ring is just the beginning, pet. I’m a creative man and we have the rest of our lives.”

Dylan shivered, lifting onto his toes and pressing a kiss against the corner of my mouth, sliding his tongue past my lips and deepening the connection, taking what he wanted from me without any fear or rebuke or retribution.

“That doesn’t sound like near enough time,” he whispered against my lower lip. “But I love you, and I believe in you.”

After that, he bit me.

Hard.

Smiling all the while, I collared my hand around his throat and slammed him against the side of the house hard enough for the breath to leave his lungs in one rushed breath. Dylan huffed, dropping his head against the wall and pumping his hips toward me, not caring at all that my closest friends and their significant others could probably hear us if they listened close enough.

“You love me,” I repeated, flexing my hand around his throat. “You believe in me.”

Dylan nodded, moaning. The vibration in his throat traveled through my palm and down my arm, right to my now insistently hard cock.

“I hope you keep telling yourself that, pet, because guest room walls or not, I’m going to fuck you later like none of that matters.”

His nostrils flared, and he gasped for breath, the constriction of his throat making it easier to press him against the wall, to rob him of the one thing he needed almost as much as me.

“Promise,” he rasped, cheeks dark red and eyes half closed.

I was ready to let him go, to save him for later, when Tate shouted from the other end of the porch, “The swing is great for sex!”

Laughter from my friends rang out, echoing through the quickly approaching night, and I smiled, even though Dylan was the only person to see it.

Even though he struggled for breath, Dylan managed a laugh, and I crashed our mouths together, sucking the rest of the air out of his lungs before sliding my tongue past his lips. He tried to kiss me back, even though it was hard, and so I let the tiniest exhale out into his mouth, giving him enough air to swirl his tongue against mine without passing out entirely.

“Either commit to the bit or come inside for dinner,” Kale said, voice closer than Tate’s had been. I didn’t need to look up to know he was at the corner of the house, half on the wraparound side of the porch. “The swing will be here all night, but the chicken won’t be.”

He rapped his knuckles against the wall, footsteps fading as he rejoined our friends. The noise died down as they made their way inside, and only after the porch had quieted down, leaving me with the perfect melody of Dylan’s labored breathing, did I loosen my hold on his neck.

Dylan sucked in some air, reaching up and placing his fingers against his throat, lashes fluttering as he stroked down its length and over the top of his chest. Licking his lips, he pressed into the arch where his neck bent into his shoulder.

“Did you leave a mark?” he whispered, tracing over one spot in particular.

Reaching up, I brushed his hand away to find a pink depression in the shape of my fingers blooming beneath his skin.

“Barely.”

Dylan touched the spot again, then lifted his palm to my mouth, giving me the inside of his ring finger to kiss once more.

“You’ll have to try harder later,” he said, taking his hand away from my mouth and joining our fingers together.

I gave our joined hands a sharp tug toward the bed swing on the far side of the porch. Dylan was a storm and I was helpless to fight after learning very early on I could only tame him by never trying to.

“I can try harder now.”

“They’re going to start dinner without us,” Dylan said.

“I don’t care.”

“I’m hungry,” he said.

I reached down and palmed his thickening cock. “So am I.”

“You heard Kale,” he teased, still breathless. The bruise on his neck was darkening, overriding any other hands that had ever marked him there before and we both knew it.

“Commit to the bit or come inside,” I repeated.

“Come inside,” Dylan said, “and then later you can…”

He trailed off, raising his eyebrows suggestively and laughing at me, fully back in his body after our rough little interlude. With a reluctant sigh, I reached down and adjusted myself.

“And then later I can fill you with so much cum you drown. Is that what you were about to say?” I tilted my head to the side and smiled at him sincerely.

Dylan’s face paled and he swallowed, but nodded and ever so softly said to me again, as I hoped he would over and over for the rest of our lives…

“Green.”