“Who I am.” Carter’s laugh was anything but humorous. “I have no idea who the fuck I am. Son of a woman who didn’t give a shit about me and a nameless father I’ll never know. A liar, thief…”
“All things you had little or no control over. I see someone who made me feel safe when no one ever bothered to find out why I was afraid. A man who gives money to children’s charities but doesn’t blow his own horn.” Reed took Carter’s face between his hands and brushed their lips together, almost reeling from the waves of pleasure and sweetness crashing through him.This man.This man was his, and he had no plans to let him go. “I also see the man I’ve come to love and want to be with.”
Carter slid his hands over Reed’s, his palms damp with sweat. His voice shook. “That’s crazy. You don’t love me—you can’t.”
“Says the man who never lets anyone tell him what to do or say. If you don’t believe my words, then feel them.” Reed kissed him again, his tongue pressing against the seam of Carter’s lips and finding little resistance. “Feel what you mean to me. It’s you.Youare everything to me. How could I not love you?”
All pretense of sweetness ended; they ate at each other’s mouths, their kisses greedy and urgent. Their tongues met and battled; then Reed found himself flipped underneath Carter, who with a wicked glint in his eyes popped open Reed’s jeans and drew the zipper down. “Lift up.”
Reed complied and allowed Carter to yank his pants down.
“Tell me again.” Carter traced the outline of Reed’s dick with his tongue, the heat of his breath drifting against his thighs. “Say it.” He mouthed Reed’s cock through the thin fabric, wetting it, then reached inside his boxers to fondle his balls.
“What, that you never let anyone tell you things?” He hissed and threw his head back against the cushions, unfathomable, delicious thrills sparking through his body.
“No, you bastard. Tell me again. Please.” From his place between Reed’s legs Carter gazed up at him, and his honesty almost took Reed’s breath away.
“I love you.”
Carter smiled, his silvery eyes glinting in the light, and he freed Reed’s dick from his boxers, then engulfed the head, his firm lips sucking first at the tip before sliding down the rest of his shaft. Reed reached down and grasped the nape of Carter’s neck to steady him while he flexed his hips, urging Carter to take him deeper.
He undulated his hips faster and faster, but Carter took it all in his mouth, creating a sucking friction Reed felt down in his toes.
“Fuuuck.” Reed groaned.
Carter responded by slowing down, tracing the thick veins down the side of his cock while hefting his balls, squeezing them slightly. His teeth grazed the underside of the flared crown. Through half-lidded eyes, Reed watched the flushed, reddened head of his dick, wet with precome and saliva, disappear into Carter’s mouth. Carter hummed deep in his throat.
Reed began to fuck Carter’s mouth in earnest, emotions mixed up with the bone-melting pleasure battering him until all sensation centered upon his groin and his cock and he couldn’t hold back if he tried. His orgasm tore through him, and he caught his breath, unable to speak or even cry out. Carter made little self-satisfied noises as he drank him down, not letting go of his cock even after Reed had softened in his mouth.
Reed lay spent, flattened like the tread of a cheap, used tire. He doubted his ability to stand as he couldn’t feel his legs. Carter, on the other hand, looked supremely pleased with himself, his lips curled in a crooked grin. He wiped at his mouth with the heel of his hand, and a rush of happiness poured over Reed.
“Will you stay with me tonight?” Carter slid in beside him on the sofa and took his face in between his hands, his touch tender and loving. “I have the room anyway; I wasn’t taking it for granted that you would.” Their kisses turned sweet in contrast to their earlier desperation.
They lay snuggled together; Carter’s head rested on his shoulder, their fingers entwined, softly playing with each other. Reed, drained from the highs and lows of the day, felt strangely content and at peace. While he’d neither asked for nor expected a response, he could tell Carter cared for him. It might take him time to understand his feelings and say it, but their talk tonight had opened the door.
“Yeah, I’ll stay.” He struggled to remain awake, but the pull to sleep proved hard to resist and he succumbed, only dimly aware of Carter taking off his sneakers and jeans; then he drew Reed into his arms, his lips brushing the top of his head.
Chapter Fourteen
‡
Abuzzing andringing startled Carter into immediate wakefulness.
“What the fuck?” He untangled himself from Reed’s arms and jumped up from the sofa where they’d fallen asleep. His phone kept buzzing, and good thing it lit up when it rang so he could find it in the pitch black of the room. When he saw Michelle’s name flash on the screen and the time was 3:30 a.m., dread whited out his vision.
“What’s wrong?” Carter didn’t wait for niceties. He knew Jacks must be in trouble. All along he knew it was a bad idea to let him go on a sleepover and yet he let himself be talked into it. “Is it Jacks? Is he okay?”
“Carter, calm down. He had a bad nightmare and was calling out for you. We got him up, and he’s here in the kitchen having hot cocoa, but he says he doesn’t want to go home.”
Carter alternated between wanting to throw up and pass out; he vaguely felt a hand on his back, but Reed’s touch barely registered. “I’m coming over right now.”
“I don’t know—”
“But I do. I’ll hop in a cab and be there in half an hour. At this time there’ll hardly be any traffic. See you soon.” Before Michelle could voice a protest, he ended the call.
On his way to the desk he banged his knee on the coffee table. “Fuck, ow.” He bent over and cradled his knee, and in the interim Reed turned on the light. They squinted at each other in the glare, and Carter reached out to grab his jeans, which lay in a heap on the floor where he’d kicked them off only a few hours earlier.
“What’s going on?” Reed stood in his T-shirt and boxers, rubbing his eyes, and Carter hesitated. If he left now without telling Reed about Jacks, no matter what Reed had said earlier, he’d never want to see Carter again. The execution was terrifying, but the payoff—having Reed in his life with Jacks—was huge.
