“And maybe also because you’re strong as fuck, and you know the past can’t hurt you anymore?”
I kissed him softly. “I like the sound of that.” Then I pulled back. “Anyway, that was probably why I amtoo broken tofall inlove,” I said, lifting my hand to my forehead dramatically. “Boy, we are apair, hmm?”
“Too broken to fall in love?” He lifted one dark eyebrow.
I waved this away. “Just something Victoria once said.”
Fenn’s eyes narrowed. “After hearing that story,thatis what she said? And do you believe it?”
“Are you kidding? I never told her that story.Pfft.Don’t be silly. And no, I don’t believe it. Victoria said I was passionless, too…” I rubbed my nose lightly against Fenn’s, which happened to put my mouth in proximity to his, so of course I had to suck his bottom lip between my teeth and bite down lightly, like that was the kind of thing I’d been doing all my life when it absolutely wasn’t a thing I’d ever wanted to do until Fenn. “So clearly she wasn’t right about everything.”
Part of me wanted to tell Fenn exactly how I knew she was wrong, because I’d accidentally found myself in love withhim, but after the story he’d told me… I wasn’t sure how. That jerk in Texas had dangled love in front of Fenn with no possibility of a future. And it seemed really cheap to give Fenn promises of love now when I had no idea whether a future would be possible for us either, or whether he’d want that.
I remembered Fenn telling me, the first day we met, that people shouldn’t do things because someone gave them pretty words. That people should care about how you treated them when you had nothing to gain from the interaction. And I wanted that, right now, with Fenn.
“You feeling passionate, Mason?” Fenn demanded, but the smile on his face said he knew.
Thunder rolled outside the window and rain lashed against the walls, but in here, I had everything I needed to feel safe.
“Very,” I said, rubbing the tented bath towel against his stomach as proof.
I pushed Fenn down onto his back again, and he let me, sliding his hands down my thighs as he went, and he even lay there patiently while I examined him like one of the puzzle boxes they had in the tourist shops on Cooter Key, looking for the hidden mechanism that would crack him open completely and reveal all his secrets.
“I’m suddenly feeling like I’m a helpless gecko and you’re a snake waiting to pounce,” Fenn said.
I shuddered just a little. “If you continue to compare yourself to a gecko, this is going to end very quickly and unsatisfactorily for both of us.”
I grabbed his hands in mine and leaned forward, pushing his wrists against the mattress. “Now just lie there,” I whispered hotly in his ear, “and take what you’ve got coming to you.” Then I proceeded to tell Fenn exactly how I felt about him without words.
That place just under his jawline where his pulse beat fast? It was beautiful, so I kissed it. His nipples were hard and waiting for me, so I flicked them with my tongue. That navel with the happy trail that led down past the band of his boxers needed attention, so I licked it. That freckle on his hip was begging for my mouth, so I bit it lightly, wishing I could mark it for good. Claim his body like a new continent, wash up on his shore, and just decide to stay forever. And the whole time he writhed and moaned beneath me, I thoughtmine, mine, mine, mine, mine.
I stripped his boxers in two seconds and took him in my mouth, lavishing all the love on him that I couldn’t give him in words. My skills had improved quite a bit over the past few weeks, if I said so myself, and I pulled out every trick he’d taught me, holding him by the root, taking him all the way to the back of my throat, bobbing my head and working my tongue, though my eyes watered and my nose ran, because none of that mattered. All that mattered was making him feel what I felt, for as long as I—
“Mason.” Fenn’s voice was barely above a growl. “Get up on the bed.”
It wasn’t a polite suggestion.
I crawled up beside him on all fours while he slid to one side. “Like this?”
Fenn crawled behind me and ran his hands over my ass in a proprietary way. It made me shiver. “Yeah, baby. Just like that.Fuck. I’m gonna take my time stretching you, okay? It’s gonna feel so good.”
“I know it will,” I whispered. How could it not, when I was with him?
Fenn took his time reacquainting himself with me, like my body had become something different in the twenty-four hours since we’d last been together. He kissed a damp trail up my spine and over the back of my neck, then back down again, just to make me crazy. He pumped my cock like he had some kind of direct connection between my dick and his hand that bypassed my brain. And then he got started on the… therimming, alternating long, slow sweeps of his tongue with hard thrusts that made me bite the blanket and moan into the mattress because the pleasure of it was so sharp it was nearly pain.
Finally, when I was rocking my ass against him shamelessly, he sat back.
“Mason? Baby, turn over.”
It took me entire seconds to process his words and turn those words into action, and by the time I’d done it, he’d retrieved the lube and a condom and was staring down at me with 100 percent concentrated attention that lit me up almost as much as his tongue had a minute before.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Wanna see your face when I do this. You ready?” He poured the lube on his fingers, then poured more over the heat of my erection. I sucked in a breath at the sensation, my mouth open in a reverse scream, and then he spread the lube around my hole with one blunt finger.
“Yeah,” I whimpered. “Shit, Fenn.”
Earlier, when I’d talked to Toby, he’d been only too happy to share all his anal sex tips and tricks, the asshole, and he’d managed to sound like RuPaul narrating a D-Day invasion documentary. I needed to prepare myself forinvaaaay-sion. I needed to let my walls down so my fortifications could bebuh-reached.
