34. Ford

CHAPTER 34

FORD

I'd managed to make it through The Black Door unscathed, even if Kale did raise a doubtful eye when I let my hired guest go home with Brooks. I slept like shit that night and the night after, finding that the conversations and texts with Boston weren't enough. How had I gone from being a man who was terrified of commitment to being one who couldn't even function when the man I loved was away from me? It was sickening.

For his part, Boston had stayed in as much contact with me as he could manage. Between working on the farm with his dad and spending time in the kitchen with his mom, hopefully he was getting what he needed from his visit back to California. I hadn't dared ask him when he was going to come home because I didn't want to appear too eager, nor did I want to rush him back. I didn't know what appeal the farm held for him, and I didn't want him to resent me for pushing him to come home before he was ready.

I spent most of the day Sunday browsing more property listings upstate, ready to show Boston the list whenever he returned, but our now normal goodnight phone call ended without a date and a time. It took well over an hour, but I managed to fall into a fitful sleep, not ready to face the night or the day that would follow. Kale's boyfriend Christian was on a visit back to his family as well, but Kale had gone mad with the absence and caught a flight after breakfast to go bring Christian home. The urge to do the same was barely manageable for me, but I wanted to trust Boston would have invited me if he wanted me there.

While I slept, winter rolled into the city full force in the shape of a massive storm with some of the loudest thunder I'd ever heard. It woke me just shy of midnight, the vibrations shaking the windows. The rainfall was so insistent and constant, I barely heard the frantic knocking on my door. Flinging my legs out of bed, I checked my phone and saw it was right after one in the morning. I had no idea who would be at my door that late at night, and the last person I expected to see standing there was Boston, looking like a cross between my salvation and a drowned rat.

I grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and yanked him inside. He brought the weather with him, puddles of rainwater immediately pooling in my entryway. His dark hair was plastered to his face and his glasses were so wet they looked polka-dotted. More drops ran off the cuffs of his jacket, and I shoved his bag off his shoulder and onto the floor so he could get out of his coat before he caught a cold.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, fingers working at the buttons on his pea coat. He shivered a little, nose scrunched up into the cutest smile I'd ever seen.

"Wanted to surprise you," he said, giving his shoulders a shake after his coat hit the floor. His shirt beneath was soaking wet too, and I tugged the hem of it up and over his head, adding it to the growing pile on the floor.

"Shoes," I said, and he toed off his sneakers and cast them to the side.

I was still in shock to find him in front of me, tall and warm and real as if I'd dreamed him to life.

"You should have called when you left the airport." I fussed with his belt next, getting it open so I could get to his zipper. The heat from his cock was a contrast to the rest of him, half hard and pressing against his underwear, wet like the rest of him.

"That's not very surprising."

"Neither is pneumonia."

"That's not a real thing," he grumbled. "That's not how people get sick."

He balanced himself with one hand on my shoulder so he could lift his legs and step out of his pants. My entryway was a disaster, but once I stripped Boston out of his clothes, I pulled him right into my arms. He smelled the same as he always had, the normal undertones of earth and grass a little more in the forefront than usual

"You're here," I rasped.

Boston buried his face into the crook of my neck, sliding his arms around my waist and pulling me as close to him as his damp fingers could manage.

"I wanted to surprise you," he said again, lips moving against my collarbone. "I missed you so much."

"I missed you." I kissed the side of his head, ready to tell him the rest, ready to let him know I was in love with him, but he stole the words right out of my mouth when he said, "It's so good to be home. "

For as long as I'd known Boston and his brother, home for Kale had always been the city and home for Boston had always been the farm. Even though the two of them were made of the same DNA, they couldn't have been more different when it came to the things that meant the most to them. It was probably the only thing that helped me rationalize why I loved Kale as a friend, but Boston as so much more. I often thought that if Boston considered New York home, it would change his personality entirely, but he had never sounded as relieved or sure as when he whispered those six words against my skin.

"So good to be back to you," he mumbled, shifting his head and pressing a kiss against the side of my neck. It wasn't a casual kiss or a welcome home kiss by any stretch of the imagination. His mouth was wet and hot, insistent as he dragged his tongue up toward the underside of my jaw.

His cock jerked, tapping against my thigh and reminding me of his nakedness. I wasn't much more dressed, only in a pair of low-hanging pajama pants, my own dick eagerly trying to find an escape route.

"I've got you," I promised, grabbing the back of his neck and tugging his face upward so I could slant our mouths together and kiss him. "You're right where you belong, sweetheart."

He whimpered and I kissed him harder, using my tongue to search out any new flavors that might have lingered in his mouth since I saw him last. Boston groaned into my mouth, tongue swirling around mine as his hands came to the waistband of my pajamas. He didn't ask, and I didn't care. He reached behind the waistband and took a hold of my dick like he had any right to it, which…he had all of them .

"I'm so fucking horny, Ford," he whined, knees buckling as he stroked me. "It's been days. I need you. Need this."

"What do you need?"

"Want to come. Want you to come," he said, words slurred with sleep and arousal.

Using my body, I pushed him back against the closed front door, both of our bare feet squelching in the piles of his discarded and soaking wet clothes. His breath huffed out into my mouth when his shoulders hit the door, his grip on my cock remaining unchanged. I matched him, taking his thick and hard cock into my fist and giving him a slow and tight stroke from root to tip. Boston's entire body trembled and he blinked rapidly at me from behind the lenses of his fogged-up glasses.

"I'm not going to last," he whispered, shaking his head. "Please tell me I can come."

I loved that even back in my house with my hands on his body, he asked for permission. The way he'd taken that instruction—and all the ones before it—to heart with such a serious level of dedication and interest meant more to me than I'd ever be able to explain. Boston truly wanted to please me, trusting that by giving that up to me, I'd give him everything back—and then some.

"Ford."

My name fell out of his mouth like a prayer.

"Sir, please. I need you so much."

His desperate little pleas were the best kind of lube, and my own orgasm crashed into me as another crack of thunder rumbled through the city. Slamming my free hand against the door beside his head, my dick shot hot and sticky jets of cum over his hand and his bare stomach. My own hand on his cock went still, tightening as I emptied into the space between us. I didn't realize how hard of a hold I had on him until the aftershocks of my release died down and I felt the way he trembled beneath me. I dragged my fingers through the mess I'd made on his stomach, then traced them across his lips.

"Come then, sweetheart" I said softly, dragging my tongue over his mouth, shivering at the taste of myself there. "Come for the man who loves you."

Boston's eyes went wide—and so did my own—at the unplanned confession, then his entire body went still. Outside the house, lightning lit up the sky and Boston's mouth parted on a silent cry. Cum streaked out of his dick, smearing between my fingers, my wrist still moving over his length long after his balls had emptied. Boston was a quivering mess, falling away from the door and against my body as if I could offer him more support than the sturdy beams of my hundred-and-fifty year-old home.

With one hand still steady around his burning erection, I wrapped the other around his back. Any other time, I like to think I could have held him up, but it was the middle of the night, we were both tired and spent from the orgasms, so with as much grace as I could manage, I took us both down to the floor. Boston curled up against me, turning so his back was pressed against my chest. I leaned against the wall and bent my legs at the knee, and he matched the pose, resting his hands on my knees while he caught his breath.

I kissed the side of his head, the top, his temple, everywhere I could reach, all the while still giving soft and slow pulls up and down his cock. He would occasionally grunt and whimper, body twitching with the kind of spasms brought on by an overwhelm of pleasure, but beyond that he was limp and pliant in my arms.

My dick hurt as my erection waned, the quickly drying stickiness of my cum making it painful for the skin to retract, but there was no way I was going to move either of us from the position we'd found ourselves in. I held him and stroked him until he found his words again, swiveling halfway around to look me in the eye.

"Did you mean what you said?" he asked.

I knew what he meant, what he was really asking. But there was something so vulnerable and scary about having him naked in my arms and covered in cum, being half naked myself but somehow fully exposed. It was almost two in the morning and we were in the hallway covered in it like we were teenagers who'd stolen an hour together with our parents not knowing. It felt less than and more than all at the same time, and even though I'd been in love with Boston for a while now, admitting it out loud was another thing entirely.

"Yes, I meant it when I said you should have called. Meant it when I said I didn't want you to get sick."

He made an unhappy sound, shifting from one side to the other. The air in the house was cool, and I watched how the puddles of water from his clothes had started to inch their way toward us as they spread. That was the way of love, I realized. A crash through the door when you least expect it and then a slow progression until you're drowning in it and there's no real turning back.

"Yes," I said again, clearing my throat to make sure he heard me clearly. I'd spent the last four days missing him like crazy, ready to crawl out of my fucking skin to have him back in my bed. The time for being coy was long gone. Whatever Boston and I had was very serious and very real. Now that he was back from California, we had to face reality, and he deserved to know the truth before we decided how to do that. "Yes, sweetheart. Boston. My Boston. I missed you beyond measure and I've fallen in love with you."

He screwed his eyes shut, turning to face me and straddling my lap in the process. Boston tore his glasses off and blinked me into focus, then grabbed my face between his hands and studied me thoughtfully with a furrowed brow and a small frown on his mouth. I worried, for the first time, that my confession had been ill-timed or would be unrequited, and I was ready to make light of it when the biggest and brightest smile spread across his face.

"I love you too," he swore, fingers pressed hard into my cheeks. He leaned in close and kissed me on the lips, nothing deep or needy, just a soft and simple kiss that tasted like knowing.

I curled my fingers around his wrists and held on for dear life.

"Welcome home, sweetheart," I murmured against him, a happy groan rumbling up from the middle of my chest. I didn't just mean home to New York, I meant home with me, home to the future we were going to build together, home to the rest of our lives.