“What did he want with you?”
Val leaned against the shut door of his apartment and stared at me from hooded eyes. The warmth he’d shown not even ten minutes ago had faded. Now he was blank.
I wanted to scream.
“Val, you’re freaking me out.”
“Don’t be freaked out.”
“How can I not be freaked out?” I demanded, moving closer. I’d put the groceries away and had paced the apartment while gnawing on my fingernails for the past few minutes. “He ruins everything.” When Val’s eyes flickered away, almost guiltily, I felt sick. “Did he talk you out of this? Out of us?”
“No. Your brother doesn’t have the power to talk me out of anything.”
“Then why are you so quiet? What’s wrong?”
The shouted question finally got a reaction out of him, and it wasn’t the one I’d expected. That shadow crossed his face again, the traces of remorse and guilt that were so easy to see in his expression even if I had no idea what he could possibly be feeling bad about. Unless he was about to let me down easy.
“Listen . . .” he started, voice low.
The beginnings of a rant caught in my throat, but I swallowed it. Why get angry? I had no idea what the conversation had been about. I had no idea what was going on. And me accusing him would only widen this growing gap between us. Wouldn’t it?
Part of me, the part that tried to cling to the people I loved, told me to keep my mouth shut. Don’t be pushy. Don’t scare him away. But the other part told me to raise hell because how could he do this hot-and-cold bullshit without having the decency to tell me what I’d done wrong? How had Dylan turned him off me?
“Okay, I’ll go.”
“What?” Val’s head shot up. “No!”
“Then tell me what you want me to do.”
His brows snapped together. “What I want you to do?”
“Yes. Tell me what you want me to do—go away or leave you alone or . . . whatever. And I’ll do it. I don’t want to bother you or get in your way.” I forced a smile, hoping it looked teasing and not insane. “You can call me back over when you want another blowjob.”
Understanding filled Val’s face. “Don’t start doing this, Ashton.”
“What do you mean?”
“This! The nod-and-smile shit. Just—” He waved a frustrated hand. “Dylan just . . . He got on my case about Brett, and he made some threats about what would happen if that deal is ruined.”
“What kind of threats?”
“Just . . . threats. He wants us to salvage this somehow, and I have no idea what he expects me to do.” Val raked both hands through his hair and strode toward his room. “I don’t have connections with sales and marketing people of airlines. He’s asking for impossible shit, and there’s nothing you or I can do to calm him down.”
“Okay, I get that, but . . .” I stood in the doorway of his bedroom as he glared around. “Why do you care so much? There’s nothing he can do to you, babes. He’s just a loud talker with absolutely no way to back it up. You’re fine.”
“I’m not fine,” Val said sharply. “He can fuck me over if he wanted.”
“How?”
More wordless gestures. More traces of guilt and the lances of tension running through his body and turning his motions sharp as knives. “I can’t explain,” he said finally. “It’s just a lot to think about.”
“Oh.”
The crushing weight of disappointment went through me, because none of this was looking like a good sign. Even after our morning, and our kisses, and the walk to the store, and the cozy domestic shopping trip, it was apparently easy for him to pull the rug from under me. To say, Just kidding, something your brother said gave me second thoughts. I almost forgot what a mess you are. And that hurt almost as much as this new distance between us. Why was I always so easy to throw away?
“Please don’t get that look on your face,” he said softly. “I just need to think. I still want you to stay. I still want us to have dinner.”
I nodded slowly. “You want me to cook . . . while you think.”
“That doesn’t— No. I didn’t mean it that way. Fuck, man.” Val dug his fingers into his hair again, causing it to stick out. “Just chill here and I’m gonna go to Cadet’s.”
We’d just worked out for two hours and now he was going to the boxing gym? It didn’t make sense to me. More stones sank in my stomach, but I didn’t question him. All I did was nod and offer another vacant and definitely not demanding smile.
“Okay.”
Val looked like he was close to exploding. After a beat of frustrated staring, he grabbed his gym bag and left.
I waited in his apartment while avoiding social media and focusing entirely on the meal I’d planned to create. The idea of cooking for someone—pouring my love and care into it—when there was a very real possibility of being kicked out any moment, was dizzying. I kept cooking because it gave me something to do with my hands, and following the instructions of a recipe was calming.
It worked for a while. I tweaked and tasted and adjusted until everything was perfect. However, the sight of the perfectly arranged and Pinterest-worthy meal also made me want to cry because why the fuck had I made it? He was probably contemplating cutting off the tentative closeness we’d just forged while I was in his apartment pretending I was Top Chef.
Why did I let people do this to me?
No, but that wasn’t fair. Val wasn’t other people. Val was everything to me. He’d always been everything to me. There was no way he’d do this to me again.
A knot rose in my throat. I sank to the kitchen floor with my head pressed against the old wooden cabinets. I equally wanted to cry, hate myself, hate Dylan, and shake Val. What could Dylan have said to cause this rift so quickly? I tried to think of something he could have said, some dirt Val didn’t know about me that would have disgusted him, but he knew it all. Every scarlet letter and sexy deed I’d added to my long list had been shared and discussed with him not too long after it’d happened. And only now was I willing to admit that I’d TMIed him so many times in the hopes of getting a reaction.
“Fuck.”
I pressed the heels of my hands against my burning eyes.
Who could I talk to? Mere? Steph? They’d both tell me to get the fuck out, take my food, and go eat it with them. They’d hate him for me, but I didn’t want that. He was so important to me that I wanted him to be important to them too. And there had to be more to this . . . if only he’d bring himself home and tell me what had happened.
One glance at the clock set my teeth on edge. Four o’clock, and still no Val. Had he even gone to the gym?
Self-loathing, confusion, and heartache hadn’t driven me out of the apartment, but a sharp shot of possessiveness mixed with worry got me off the floor.
I changed into my leather pants and boots, snagged one of Val’s black Yankees hoodies and a knit cap, and was out the apartment before I even knew where I was going. He’d said the name of the gym was Cadet’s, so I typed it into my GPS and decided to go full shameless tourist to find my way there.
The crisp autumn air hit me once I was outside of the building, and I huddled deeper into the borrowed hoodie. It smelled just like Val.
“You lost, man?”
I looked up to see a tall man with curly hair standing by the steps with a cigarette in hand. The look he was giving me was half-amused and half-confused. When I stopped in front of him, he snickered.
“Not really,” I said brightly. “But maybe you can point me in the right direction so I don’t have to walk around holding my phone?”
He cracked up.
“What? You asked if I was lost!”
“Fuck,” he said, still laughing. “I wasn’t being serious. You’re just obviously a long fucking way from Central Park East.”
“Oh, I get it.” I nodded, mostly unimpressed but largely unable to blame him for being amused at how clueless I was at sarcasm. Val could be blamed for my dwindling brain cells. “Well, for your information, I live on the West Side and not near the park.”
He laughed harder. “So what the fuck are you doing here?”
“Trying to find Cadet’s boxing gym.” I held up my phone. “And trying to find it without my phone?”
“Yes, and you better put that away unless you want to get caught up and your shit jacked.”
I didn’t know if he was joking or not, but I shoved the phone in my pocket. “So, do you know where it is?”
“You’re for real going to Cadet’s?”
His skepticism was terrifically overt, but I didn’t blink. “Yes. My friend is a boxer and I need to find him.”
“Who’s your friend?”
I hesitated for a long moment. “Um. A guy. Named Luis.”
“Mmm. Makes sense.” The guy smirked but didn’t explain why it was so amusing or why it made sense. “Anyways, you know where the Grand Concourse is?”
“Yes,” I said, proud that I at least had that basic knowledge.
“Walk over to the Grand Concourse and then up to like 165th. You can’t miss it.”
“Cool. Thank you so much.”
The guy popped his cigarette in his mouth and grinned again. I knew there was a reason he found this situation hilarious, but I didn’t want to dwell on it and talk myself out of showing up. It was entirely possible Val wasn’t actually at the gym.
It didn’t take long to make the short trek to Cadet’s, but I hesitated before crossing the street to approach the door. There were a few serious-looking guys outside, extremely muscular with tattoos and gym bags, and I hadn’t felt this out of place since my modeling days. But, back then, I’d only felt out of place because of the difference in goals—those people had really wanted that life whereas my mother had forced me into it.
Now, I was out of place because this wasn’t my neighborhood. There was at least a small chance of someone recognizing me, which meant I wouldn’t even be able to pretend I’d moved around here recently. I stood out and I didn’t belong. I was an intruder.
I walked backward away from the gym, telling myself that Val would be mortified if I strolled up asking for his whereabouts like a paranoid significant other, and smacked myself for not considering it sooner. If arguing with him was a potential cause of driving him away, then how the hell would barging into his space be any better? And making a scene. Drawing attention to the fact that he wasn’t as straight as they likely thought . . .
“What are you doing over here, Hollywood?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin when Luis’s voice boomed in my ear. I swung around, hair flying out from my hat, and stared at him with wide eyes.
“Holy shit, don’t sneak up on me!”
“Then don’t be fucking oblivious to your surroundings. I could have scooped your narrow ass up and tossed you in my van by now.”
I looked around. “What van?”
“I don’t actually have a van, dumbass. I’m just saying.”
Okay, this night clearly existed only to make me feel self-conscious on every possible level. First Dylan had probably laid the truth on Val about how we didn’t fit together, and how I’d bring him down, in an attempt to separate us for his TTC plans. Then random cigarette guy had thought I was some lost gentrifier, and now Luis—
“Jesus, I’m kidding. Why does your face look like that?”
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I’m having a bad day.”
“Uh-huh.” Luis looked me up and down before his big dark eyes flicked around. “Where’s your man?”
“He’s not my man. He’s my overprotective friend.”
“I see.” Luis looked around again before wetting his lips. “So y’all not fucking?”
“No.” Not exactly, anyway. “It’s complicated, okay? Why are you asking me all of these questions?”
There was a long pause as he stared unflinchingly into my eyes, and then his face broke out into a devilish smirk. “I’ve seen your sex tape, sweetheart. I could fucks with that.”
The world should have come to a screeching halt full of mortification, but this conversation had happened so many times in my life that I could only roll my eyes. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re not the first straight boy to thirst for my ass after watching that video. You’re not making me uncomfortable. If that was your plan.”
He arched a brow. “The only kind of discomfort I want to cause you is stretching those lips around my dick as you take it down your throat.”
Oh. Shit.
Luis grabbed the front of my hoodie and drew me closer. “Wanna go chill?”
“What the fuck are you doing, Luis?”
I froze, tension lancing up my spine, as I realized how bad this looked and how angry Val sounded.
“I’m making friends,” Luis said, dragging his gaze from me to Val. He released my hoodie. “You got a problem with that?”
Val’s hand clamped around my upper arm and hauled me away from Luis, which sent a jolt of irritation through my panic. I yanked my arm away.
Luis smiled. “Why don’t you go work on your footwork and let us have some privacy?” he suggested. “I don’t do that crazy sex-free training like you, Leka. I get mine.”
The rage filling every pore of Val’s body seemed to make him bigger, even though he and Luis were about eye to eye as they stood staring each other down. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but I had no idea how to help this situation.
“Get yours somewhere else, or I’ll bust your fucking head open on the concrete.”
Genuine surprise filled Luis’s face, and he shot a sideways look at me. “I thought you said y’all wasn’t fucking.”
“I—”
Val’s head whipped around right before he nailed me with a deadly look. “Really, Ashton?”
“Whoa, wait a minute,” I started. “This isn’t what it sounds like. And, besides, I don’t even know where we stand right now.”
“So that means you hang out with this joker?”
“No! Goddamn it, Luis, tell him—” Luis was too busy laughing to be of help. I wanted to kick him in throat. “This is bullshit. Fuck both of you.”
I dodged another of Val’s attempts to grab me, and stormed around him, leaving them both standing there like assholes while I headed to the train.
Luis walked away, still snickering, while I jogged to catch up with Ashton’s long-legged strides.
“What the hell are you even doing here, Ashton?”
“Nothing. Just forget it.”
I tried to grab for him again, but this time he whirled around and pointed in my face. “Stop fucking grabbing me. I’m not your property!”
Just like that, I dropped my hands. Years of hating how other men put their hands all over him and dragged him around, and now I was doing it too.
“I’m sorry,” I gritted. “But— You gotta understand—”
“No, I don’t gotta understand anything,” he exploded. His eyes flashed angrily, face flushed. “I’m sick of this bullshit. I try to be . . . to be nice and understanding because I know we’re different, and I know you’re in a difficult situation, but you can’t play with my mind, walk out on me, and then try to claim me in some jealous standoff. And the fact that you thought I was about to go suck Luis’s dick really shows what you think of me.”
I jerked back. “Hey, I never said that. I didn’t think that.”
“Then why the hell are you so mad at me?”
“Because you turned around and told the first asshole who asked that we’re not sleeping together!”
Ashton’s mouth opened and closed as his face got steadily more flushed. It looked like he would explode.
“What do you want me to think or feel, Valdrin? Maybe you should just be straight out, because right now I have no idea what you expect from me. When you walked out that door, it seemed like you were regretting the last few hours, and I have no idea why.” He turned away again, but instead of walking toward Yankee Stadium, he rerouted to my apartment while continuing to rant. “I want you. Bad. Bad enough to beg you to put your hands on me, to kiss me, to even consider it! And I put it all out there for you and was so happy when you said . . . when you acted like I had a chance. But now I don’t know where your head is.”
There were a couple of people outside my building as we approached, so we both quieted until we’d climbed the stairs to my apartment. It was then that I said, “You know I don’t want anyone else touching you but me. I made it plain as day.”
When we were both inside with the door shut behind us, Ashton pointed in my face. “And I made it plain as day that you do not own me, Val. No one does. I didn’t realize Luis was serious at first, let alone actually taking him up on his offer, but until you say you want to be with me, I don’t owe you any explanations as to what I do with my hands or my mouth or my ass.”
He was so furious, and so fucking beautiful, that the jealousy and confusion and overwhelming sense of helplessness with this entire situation swelled inside of me.
“I do want you. And it’s all going to go to hell soon enough, but I can’t help it. The idea of you being with anyone else drives me insane.”
“Then have me,” he shouted, grabbing my shirt the way Luis had grabbed his. “Kiss me. Fuck me. Do whatever you want with me. I want to be yours!”
When he kissed me, I couldn’t stop myself from responding. Even the knowledge that Dylan would ruin this all, that my past actions would come out and make Ashton despise me, couldn’t stop me from slicking my tongue with his and tangling my fingers in his hair. Tasting him, breathing him in, and feeling nothing but pure exhilaration and elation at the ability to touch him.
We stumbled backward toward my bedroom, him shoving my jacket off his shoulders and us parting only long enough to rip off his hoodie. Even when we reached the foot of my bed, we didn’t part ways. I couldn’t bring myself to stop kissing him. Maybe this would be the last time. Or maybe this was my only opportunity to try to infuse my affection in every kiss and touch before we were torn apart by Dylan . . . or by me. By my fear and hesitation and cowardice. Maybe I’d send him running to someone who wasn’t afraid to touch him.
“Fuck, Ashton,” I said roughly, panting wetly against his face. “I think I’m in love with you. And I don’t know what to do.”
Ashton’s heartbeat tripled, slamming against my chest as if it were my own. His fingers dug into my back. “I don’t know what to do either,” he breathed. “No one has loved me before.”
And damn if that didn’t crush me. Tread on all of my promises to tell him the truth before this went too far, to give him the chance to back out with full disclosure. But his eyes were damp and his fingers were yanking me close again. I lost myself in his mouth.
We crashed backward on the bed, me on top of him and his thighs spread around me, as our hips rocked together while our tongues clashed. He was moaning now, these low throaty sounds that went straight to my dick. I yanked my mouth away from his and trailed wet kisses down his jaw and the side of his neck before sucking on his throat. He cried out, rutting against me harder, and his breath ripped out of him noisily.
“Say it again,” he pleaded. “Please, Valdrin.”
“I love you,” I rasped. “So fucking much.”
His eyes were red with unshed tears, his hair everywhere, and his lips bitten and swollen from my hungry kisses. He was so beautiful it hurt. And so clearly afraid of what was happening that I wanted to do nothing more than reassure him.
“Let me feel it,” he whispered, rolling his hips against mine. “Make me feel it.”
“I’m going to fuck this all up, Ash,” I whispered. “You have no idea how afraid I am of where this is all going.”
“I don’t care what happens tomorrow if you give me this one moment. Right now.”
The last shreds of my guilt-infused resistance crumbled, and I sank on top of him again. Yanked at our clothes until his long lean body was flush against my bulkier one. I rolled us to the side, spooning him while continuing to slide my tongue into his mouth, gripping his jaw with one hand and using the other to cup the heaviness of his erection.
His breath came in sharp jags, and his excitement pooled at the tip of his dick. I slid my finger along the dampness while gripping his shaft, and swallowed his moans until I kissed down to taste the side of his neck. Everything about him tasted and smelled so good, his smoothness a total contrast to the roughness of my stubble and calloused hands, and I wanted to keep exploring him. Learn every secret place that drove him wild, every spot that would make his dick pulse more intensely, and try to imprint my touch before I lost the ability to put my hands on him.
“Valdrin,” he groaned, grinding on the hard heat pressing insistently against his ass. “Touch me.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
My dick swelled at the single word. There was a ball of lust growing inside me that wanted nothing more than to put him on all fours and yank him back on me, but there was so much more of him to feel. To experience. And I wanted it all.
I dragged the sticky tip of my own heat against his ass again. His fingers balled in the sheets, crumpling in his grip.
“Do you want to know the first time I thought about being inside you?”
Ashton turned his face just enough for me to see his profile. “Tell me. I tried to put it in your mind so many times.”
I bit his ear, then suckled it in apology, relishing in the moan that rumbled his chest. I rocked against him, dragging my length between his ass cheeks, which was the worst tease imaginable for me.
“Kissing these beautiful lips was my obsession forever,” I confided, dragging my fingers over his swollen mouth. He flicked his tongue out between harsh breaths, tasting me. “And then after you pulled the teach-me-how-to-play-pool thing, I’d think about kissing your neck.”
I streaked a wet swipe along his neck, grinding on him faster. He shuddered and pushed his hips back with more force, grasping for my hand and coaxing me to stroke him again. Like the rest of his body, he was hard as steel beneath that satiny skin. On the first pump, he filled the room with a grateful sigh. Like the pressure had been too much. As though he’d been about to lose control. And I wanted him to. For me.
No performing. No acting. No gimmicks and shticks. Just Ashton Townsend unraveling due to the closeness of our bodies, and grazes of fingertips and lips against his skin.
“Tell me,” Ashton asked again, his voice huskier than I’d ever heard it. “I want to know everything.”
It was a struggle to wrench my mouth from the sweetness of his neck, but I managed. “I knew you’d been with other men, but it was never real to me. I pretended it wasn’t really happening and didn’t think about it.”
“Why?”
“Because it drove me insane. Because . . . they didn’t deserve you.” Ashton’s dick slid in and out of my grip, expanding the faster he fucked it. “But there was one night . . . when we were alone. It was the summer, and you’d had a meltdown at your own birthday party.”
“Yes,” Ashton whispered. “God. That night.”
My sigh shuddered against his ear. “You never told me what happened, but you were a wreck until I got you home. I held you until you fell asleep with me on the couch, and then I woke up to find you’d gone to your room. And . . .”
A spasm moved through me. I ground against him harder, tugging him with more force, no longer able to catch my breath.
“You were jerking off and playing with your ass. And I couldn’t fucking walk away. Even after you looked at me. And you said . . .”
“‘Let’s get off together, Valdrin,’” Ashton whispered. “‘It’s better with a friend.’”
I nodded, humping his ass without hesitation now, and dragging sloppy kisses along his throat between each word. “And I was so fucking caught up—so lost in how horny I was—I touched your hand and asked you if it felt better if a friend fucked you.”
“I came so hard,” Ashton said, breath sobbing out. “Right after you said it. Fuck, Val. It would have felt so much better if you’d been inside me. I wish you had been. Everything would have changed. I would have never touched anyone else again.”
The spasm turned into a crest of emotion melting me from the inside out. Why did he have to say these things? Why did he have to be so perfect?
I took his mouth in a violent kiss, sucking his tongue into my mouth, and worked him over until his body was vibrating and his dick was lubricated by his own semen.
I stopped playing with him to the tune of an anguished cry. Instinct drove my hand to my night table for the box of condoms that had been untouched for months and the lubricant I used to get myself off. I covered my dick and drizzled lube on myself and my fingers before spearing two inside of him. With him still on his side, I could see semen once again pool at his tip and slide down his length. He swiped it up with his fingers and sucked it into his mouth.
The part of me that was trying to draw this out broke. I took my fingers out of him and pulled up one of his thighs, stretching him open and exposing his tightness. He turned his face to mine and kissed me as I pushed inside. One night together a year ago wasn’t enough to prepare me for this unfamiliar tightness.
“Oh God.”
“Don’t stop,” Ashton whispered. “Let me feel you, Valdrin. I need it so bad.”
Nodding with my eyes squeezed shut and mouth gaping, I pushed the rest of the way in until I was seated against the round cheeks of his ass. I was the one trembling now, clutching the underside of his knee and panting harshly into the crook of his neck as we stayed locked together with me unmoving inside him.
It was only when he started riding back on me did I rock my hips. The sensation almost undid me, and I had to bite my lip to keep from gasping out that I didn’t think I would last long. I couldn’t. Not even with us moving languidly as I thrust into him deep.
Instead of speaking, I kissed him while I fucked him, hoping he could tell I was already on the cusp of losing control because finally I was in him. Finally, our bodies were joined.
When he broke away to pant against me, I whispered against his damp skin.
“So good. I’ve imagined this for so long.”
Ashton’s eyes met mine, and even glazed with lust, I could see his satisfaction. He arched his back, pulling our bodies apart, and rolled onto his chest. With his forearms pressed into the bed like a plank and his crotch held just off the mattress, he invited me to ride him, and I did. I positioned myself behind him with one hand braced at the small of his back and breached his ass in one stroke. The angle let me hit it deeper, and his drawn out groan propelled me forward. I fucked him with a steadily increasing pace every time he rolled his hips back on me and milked me with his muscles.
“Yes,” he gasped. “Fuck me, Val. Let me feel how much you want me.”
I did with an explosion of frenzied thrusts, trying to get in farther even though I was hitting his core. My gut began to tighten, and I moaned wildly, loudly. Every ounce of self-control was lost to the way he was working me over with nothing more than clenches of his tight, beautiful ass.
“Jerk yourself off,” I gasped. “Gonna come.”
Ashton pulled off my dick, flipped over so he could see me, and grabbed the base of his dick. I was inside him again with barely a pause, fitting my thick cock into his hole. I tossed my head back as we slammed against each other and watched him stroke himself from beneath my eyelashes. The sight of his straining neck muscles and wide eyes edged me off.
“Fuck, I’m right there.”
“Come on me,” Ashton pleaded.
I slid out and ripped off the condom, jacking myself as he pumped his own erection with frantic tugs. We stared at each other as I released, spilling all over his dick and hand and stomach with my brows knotted up and desperate cries filling the room. My body went shaky with so much unexpected pleasure.
He stroked himself with my semen coating his hand and length, and shot with a wild cry—as if he was surprised to come so hard and shoot so much.
“Oh fuck,” he wailed softly. “Oh God, Val. So good.”
Ashton shook from the force of his orgasm, and clung to me when I collapsed on the bed beside him. We were both sticky with sweat and come and saliva, but I needed to be close to him. To feel his warmth and heart, which was beating wildly just for me.
I squeezed him, raining kisses all over his face as he came down from his peak, and grinned at his dreamy smile.
“You’re beautiful,” I said.
“You are. And goddamn good at making me blow hard enough for me to think I’m going blind.” He turned just in time to catch one of my kisses against his lips. “So . . .”
“So?”
“Can I tell people we’re fucking now? To avoid further situations like the one with Luis.”
The outside world penetrated our momentary bubble of happiness, and the sinking feeling returned. The one that reminded me of how temporary this could all be.
“Ashton, we need to talk about something.”
His brows drew together, and he sighed. “Is it going to ruin this moment?”
“It might,” I admitted against his heated flesh. “I don’t know.”
“Then I don’t want to hear it,” he said. “Please just let me have this, Valdrin. For as long as we can make it work.”
Words had never rung so true, or resonated with me so deeply, in my entire life.
“Okay, Ashton.” I kissed his brow this time. “Okay.”