CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

L uke

Sebastian is in my bed.

My bed.

With me.

I grin ridiculously at Sebastian as we lie side by side, then pull him on top of me and grin ridiculously at him some more. I want to feel his weight. I want to know he’s there. God, he’ll be with me all night.

Our lips meet, and I clutch him to me. We kiss, then kiss some more. We slide off our clothes. Or at least, I slide, and Sebastian unbuttons.

“You should wear more sweats,” I say.

“Okay, dude,” Troy’s voice booms from the other side of the wall. “Mr. Fashion Guru.”

I laugh weakly, and Sebastian’s eyes widen.

“Old house,” I mouth.

Sebastian presses his lips together, and I press my lips together. We shake, and not in the romantic manner. Joy spills from me, swathing me in it, when before there was just hockey practice and training and clean eating and watching Sebastian host Seeking Mr. Right from my laptop screen.

This is way better.

I must have known it back then. I must have seen something in the show, something that made me watch it over and over. Some fascination with Sebastian. Some pull that existed when all he was was a small face, no bigger than my thumb, on my screen.

I knew. I must have known.

We’re naked, our cocks hard, and though this is no hockey game, our bodies are slick with sweat. Sebastian’s body shimmers, probably the same as my own, and I smooth his hair where his pomade has loosened, and his hair now sticks to his forehead, the strands darker, wilder, the way only I can see.

But our time does not extend forever and ever. Sebastian cannot explain to his boss that he stole Mr. Right from the actual contestants, that all my rhapsodizes about them, forced as they were by Ella, Aisha, and even Sebastian himself, were feigned.

He cannot admit that the world’s conversation about which woman I will choose was flawed to begin with, that all their musings, all their forum conversations and twitter threads and water cooler conversations in the office and happy hour conversations out of the office were for naught.

I cannot cost Sebastian his job. I cannot move him from the glitter and glamor of California with its palm trees and blue skies and blue ocean and celebrities driving in fancy cars, never stained by salt, never inching through slush and snow, to the place he left behind. God, my brother is his greatest enemy.

And though I can tell Bryce to respect him, to be kind and honorable, and to be all those things that he should have been to begin with, I cannot erase his memories. There is no eraser with all the money I have now, that I can buy that will take away his pain, even if I would give every single million to take away his anguish. Can I ask him to be part of my life on a permanent basis when he would have to ruin every good thing he’s achieved to do so?

I kiss him harder because I don’t want to think. I don’t want to discuss. I don’t want to be mature and decide all of this is pointless.

I want to kiss him and hold him and cherish every second we have. I want—

I stop kissing him. He smiles at me bleary-eyed, his cheeks now pink.

“I want to make love to you,” I whisper.

I tense, for a moment imagining Troy will respond with a snarky comment.

But I was quiet.

I do know how to be quiet.

“Are you sure?” Sebastian whispers.

I find myself smiling. Because there’s nothing I’ve ever been more sure about.

SEBASTIAN

Luke has moved from kissing to blow jobbing to apparently lovemaking. There’s another word I would normally use, but it doesn’t feel right in this context.

My heart swells, and I nod.

Because if Luke wants it, I’m going to give it.

I’m his, however he wants me, as long as he wants me.

Luke grins then sits up, wrapping an arm around my waist so I don’t topple from his lap with the movement. I wrap my legs around his waist, and our faces are so close they could touch.

There is no man sweeter in the world.

Which is probably one reason why the world—at least the proportion that Falcon Productions secured distribution deals in—is watching his Seeking Mr. Right: Christmas Edition.

I’m not going to think about that.

I’m also not going to think about the trip to Ashcove.

I’m going to think about a large muscular figure and the sweetest eyes in the world and succulent lips I want to kiss forever.

Luke fumbles through his bedside drawer and removes a stack of condoms. I try not to think about who he used them last with, who he bought them for.

No vibrators and handcuffs and fleshlights and anal beads poke from his drawer. God knows, I’ve seen all those things and more in the bedside drawers of some of the men in LA.

Luke undoes the wrapper of the condom, leaving the crinkling foil on the drawer. I’m still on his lap. Our cocks are pressed together, and if we just rutted against each other, it would be amazing.

But I want to feel him inside me. I want to know we’ve been joined, however momentarily. I take the condom from him. “Let me.”

I roll it down his length, feeling the shape of his head and the ridges of his shaft with my hands.

“It’s pretty big,” he says apologetically.

“You never have to apologize for that.”

“A lot of women don’t like it.”

“I can take it,” I say.

He grins at me. “Well, personally I like that you’re a bit smaller for when you enter me.”

I pause, and my heart beats madly. Luke is being diplomatic. I’m half his size down there. But that’s not what makes my hands stop moving and makes the temperature of the room surge, controlled by his words and not the thermostat.

“You have plans for that?” I ask, making sure I heard correctly.

He frowns. “I mean, yeah.” He chews on his bottom lip. “Though maybe you could go slowly because I don’t have, um, experience down there.”

“I assumed you wouldn’t want it...”

“And then you could never experience entering me?” His mouth forms an O, and I want to kiss him so badly.

“That’s how a lot of men feel,” I say.

“Not me,” he says firmly, and my heart soars.

If we were together, it wouldn’t matter either way. I would want to be with him even if all we did was hold each other in the bed and feel our nerve endings say hello to each other.

I don’t push him to make promises he might not want to keep. But my heart still surges because I’ve never met a sweeter man.

But we’re not together, and tonight might be all we have before he becomes a memory, fading into a vision, until I’m not quite sure what the sound of his voice is like, and it becomes harder and harder for me to remember the exact feel of his touch, and he becomes a dream man that I wonder if I really had.

I won’t make tonight sad though.

“I’m going to make you feel so good,” I whisper to him.

“You already have,” he whispers back.

“One moment.” I scramble from his legs, smiling at his distraught look, and go to my bag. I take out some pre-packaged lube and squeeze it onto my palm and start to prepare myself.

“Come here,” Luke says. “I can do that.”

I must look surprised because his eyes soften. He scoots closer to the end of the bed, resting against the headboard, then gestures for me to join him.

I approach him, still unsure.

“I really can do it...” I say.

“And take that pleasure away from me?” He takes my hand and pulls me toward him, then he ushers me onto his lap. My belly presses against his cock, and I lay over him, perpendicular to the bed. My cock presses against his legs, and my heart beats as he spreads my cheeks.

I tense because he’s only been with women. And I’ve slept with inexperienced so-called straight men before. I’ve heard them talk about how a hole is a hole and seen how they avoided my cock. They wouldn’t have wanted to touch me down there. Not with their fingers. Stretching and preparing is something they’re not accustomed to and that they’re vaguely horrified by.

But I guess Luke doesn’t see things the same way. He’s not telling me that I resemble a woman in the dark. Every light is on. He’s not telling me he heard that gay men give the best blow jobs and that he always wanted to try for himself.

Nervousness moves away from me. Maybe whatever happens will be fine. Calm fills me. I’m not contorting my fingers into strange positions behind me, trying to stretch and prepare myself as hastily as I can, wondering why I didn’t wear a plug to lessen the inconvenience for him.

I’m being taken care of. He runs his fingers over the curve of my bottom with something that feels like reference, then he presses the pad of his finger against my hole.

My nerve endings explode.

Luke is here.

“You like that, baby?” He whispers, his voice so soft it could be my imagination or a memory.

I nod frantically. He takes the lube from my palms, and smears it onto his own hand, then he inserts the tip of his finger into me.

Luke is inside me.

Just his finger.

But his finger is amazing, just like all of Luke is amazing. He moves it deeper and deeper, delving inside fearlessly.

“So beautiful,” he says, wonder in his voice.

His finger is long and mighty. He twists it inside me, then before I need to instruct him, he adds a second finger.

He moves his other hand over my body, as if to calm me. But I’m already floating on a cloud. He plays with my hair, he massages my shoulders, he traces his finger along the curve of my spine, finding a fascination with the dip of my waist, as if he’s a sculpturer who wants to carve his muse into stone, and wants to memorize every precise angle, because nothing else will do.

He spreads his two fingers apart, stretching me open. His cock bulges against me, hot and throbbing, and soon he’ll be inside me.

“You can put it in,” I say.

“Shhh...” He curves one of his fingers, and delicious tension shoots through me.

“Was that your—?”

“Yeah. It was.” I smile into the covers as Luke continues to play with my bottom, moving against my prostrate.

My toes curl and it’s all I can do to not hump against him. Then Luke adds a third finger. He pushes in and out of me, and I am loose and his.

Finally, he scoops me up and places me beside him.

“I think you’re ready,” he says, beaming at me.

I beam back. “I think I’m ready too.”

“How do you want to do this?” I ask. “Do you want me on all fours?”

“I want to see your face.”

It’s achingly romantic, if what was happening between us was romantic. If his tender endearments and the way he takes care of me were anything but the gentle acts of a good man.

“Lie down,” I say instead.

His eyes flare, and I know he was imagining some sort to missionary move where he does all the work. And that’s totally cool, but I want to do something for him now.

He scoots down, his head moving from the headboard to the pillow. I straddle him, my cock pointing up. His eyes dip to it, and he licks his lips automatically.

I smile. Maybe he does like every part of me. My parts aren’t something he’ll put up with because it’s what’s inside that counts. No, he finds me attractive.

He reaches for my cock. “May I?”

“Of course.”

His eyes shimmer, and for some reason he’s gazing at me in wonder, like I’m a prized art piece in a museum, the reason why he’s there at all.