13. Echo

13

Echo

I wake up alone and wonder if he was a dream.

But no, his scent lingers on the pillows, almonds and apricots, and the sheet is crusted where I spilled my own release over his fingers before drifting back to sleep last night. My dick remembers, and my morning wood is more than ready for another round.

I tug on a pair of clean sweats—it might be the middle of nowhere, but I'm still not sure how he'd react to me walking around naked with a hard-on—and pad up the stairs. He's not in the kitchen. Did he crawl back to his own bed after I fell asleep? I have no idea what time it is—I didn't bother to check my phone—but the entire time I've been here, I've never woken up before him. I haven't been in his bedroom, either, and I'm taking the first hesitant step up the last flight of stairs when I realize the shower is running.

Fuck yes .

Byrd's bathroom is ridiculously large, with a claw-foot tub, a walk-in shower, and one huge window looking out over the forested hillside. It's built for pampering and dirty fantasies. I've certainly indulged in my share of the latter, but I'm still not prepared for the way the sight of him, wet and naked with his back to the door, steals the breath from my lungs. I immediately regret my decision to bother with pants.

Caught on the threshold, I drink him in—the dark dusting of hair on his thighs and the swell of his ass; the grooves of muscle along his spine; the way his biceps flex and his broad shoulders shift as he runs his hands through his hair. His skin is tan and perfect, unmarked, and the urge to score him with my fingernails and lick the wounds floods the back of my tongue.

I must make some sound, a groan or a whimper, or maybe he feels my scorching gaze, because he half turns, looking over his shoulder, and his eyes darken. Without giving him a chance to protest, I shed my sweats and cross the room to open the shower door and slip inside. He turns fully to face me, still rinsing the last of the shampoo from his hair, and I give him a slow, deliberate once-over. His dick twitches where it hangs heavy against his thigh, and I'm shot through with the memory of him, swollen on my tongue, and the sweet-bitter taste of his cum.

It's enough to make me close the distance between us before dragging my nails through the wet curls on his chest and licking up the column of his throat. The sensation of his rough stubble under my lips makes me shiver, and even though he's only got maybe thirty pounds and a couple of inches on me, when he drops his hands to my shoulders and runs them down my back, I feel, for a bright, fleeting second, strangely young and almost small.

It's like he's somehow more finished than the guys I usually fuck—his lines of muscle and bone drawn sharper, bolder, and all his textures rougher and more fascinating .

I want to claim them. I want to pin him against the tiles and pillage him with my cock until I've stolen his secrets and made them mine.

I am definitely making it to the store today.

"How did you sleep?" he asks, amusement in his voice like he can hear my thoughts. I drag myself back from the abyss to meet his gaze.

"Like the dead," I say. "But I was kind of hoping to wake up with my dick wedged between your cheeks." I punctuate the admission by squeezing the ass in question and grinding my erection into the crease at his hip. His own cock thickens in response.

"I thought you liked being the little spoon," he teases, nuzzling at my jaw. The memory of my back pressed into the warm curve of his body while he jacked me off with a hand curled around my throat flashes through me, and I hum in his grip.

"I like it all. Any way you want me , remember?"

He doesn't protest when I back him up against the wall, instead taking my face in his hands and bringing his mouth to mine. I'm still not sure he'll ever let me top him, but fuck if I'm going to stop trying. And in the meantime…

God, I could get drunk on his kisses.

For everything he holds back elsewhere, he kisses with abandon. This one starts as an indulgence, deliberate, tasting every corner of my mouth until the answer to the question is an overwhelming yes . I fall against him, boneless, my hands on the warm tile at his back, my throbbing cock nestled against his, and his hands on my jaw the only things holding me up.

He moans into my mouth, and my pulse quickens, sparking along my limbs and flooding me with need.

More .

And mine .

Gasping for control, I pull away and reach for the body wash on the small corner shelf.

"My turn," I tell him, flashing a breathless grin. "Hands on the wall."

When he hesitates, I kiss him again, harder this time, and then bite down on his lower lip. He drops his hands with a hiss, his pupils dilating to swallow the gold-green fire in his eyes. The steam swells with the scent of almonds as I squirt some of the soap into my palm and stroke it up his shaft, and his head falls back against the tile.

"Let go, and I'll stop," I warn, half teasing, half not, and then step into him, wrapping my hand around us both.

He shudders as I glide my fingers up and squeeze our heads together, before rubbing my thumb in a rough circle over his slit. My other hand holds him still against the wall while I pump both our lengths, rocking my hips and reveling in the sinful glide of skin on skin.

" Fuck ." It's half curse, half growl, and now his eyes are locked on my hand. "So fucking hot." His fingers flex and clench at his sides, and his voice is strained. "You have such a beautiful fucking cock."

" Holy shit. " My grip stutters, steadies, slows. "I'm gonna come if you keep talking like that."

"Jesus . Don't stop ." His hand comes up and closes around mine, and I don't care that he's breaking the rules, because now he's thrusting all along my cock, and our fingers are interlaced and firm, and I'm surging into the exquisite friction, matching his rhythm.

I need him to come first. I'm frantic for it, so I wrap the wet fall of his hair in my fist and yank his head back.

"Come, come, come," I chant breathlessly against the hollow of his pulse, and then I sink my teeth into the swell of muscle at the crook of his neck.

" Echo ." My name is a hoarse howl to a pagan god, torn from his throat. His head slams back into the tiles and his dick pulses under my fingers, and thankyoufuckinggodIfuckingmadeit.

Because it's too late to stop. I'm spiraling, soaring, shooting, shattering. But at least he falls to pieces with me.

"You broke the rules," I say eventually. We're both sitting on the floor under the spray, sprawled and senseless, and thank god for on-demand hot water heaters, or we'd be freezing too. "Does that mean I get to spank you now?"

"I'm breaking a lot of rules." For you .

He doesn't say it, but I hear it anyway. I'm too cum-drunk to feel guilty.

"So what next?" I ask instead. "Shopping for lube?"

"Next, breakfast," he replies, laughing and shoving at my thigh with his foot. "And then we train."

If I was expecting Byrd's magic dick to automatically fix me, it doesn't happen. The traitorous battle between instinct and insecurity still rears its head, short-circuiting my brain any time my hand is called on to release and regrip. But something is different. When the panic hits and I search for Byrd, he's full of confidence now, instead of concern, and it's hard to hold on to my fear when he refuses to show me his. So I breathe and push and steal wet, sloppy kisses in between tries.

We spend a long, hot afternoon in mid-May setting up his outdoor rig, shirtless and laughing and taking every excuse to put our hands on each other. It's there, under the dappled redwood shadows, that I really see him fly for the first time, and something shifts inside me.

Freedom.

I miss it.

We spend at least one day a week out at Big Top as this year's performers trickle in and the new show starts to come together. I do silks with Milla, talk shop with Shilo and her wife Cheyenne, and listen to the stories of the new arrivals.

Byrd keeps his distance when we're in public, but his eyes follow me in the tent and around the lot, and more than once, I catch Shilo watching us with a knowing look in her eyes.

Josha is actually becoming a friend, although I still flirt enough to stoke the rougher edge of Byrd's desire, and I relish every time I push him to the brink of his control.

He's deliriously generous with his mouth and hands but maddeningly stingy with his dick. He'll let me get him off, and one night in the kitchen, after a few beers, he puts me on my knees and uses my mouth until I'm choking and tears are running down my face. But even though I come in my hand before he's even done with me, wild with the glorious unleashed brutality of it, he refuses to touch me for two days afterward and ignores all my reassurances.

And for all his talk that first night of spreading me open until I begged for his cock—something I am totally down for—he still won't actually fuck me. Like it's some hetero holdover line he's drawn in the sand of his honor and refuses to cross, no matter how I taunt and plead.

So I train and tease and fuck myself on my fingers when I wake up alone, and I wonder if I'm using him or falling in love.