“I am?” Marcus caressed his face, the pads of his thumbs sliding over his cheeks, running down the length of his jaw.
A heartbreaking vulnerability shone on Marcus’s face, and Tyler’s heart swelled, beating rapidly. Had no one ever told this man they loved him? Tyler studied Marcus’s unsmiling face and for once, let down his own guard and listened with his heart. Instead of the arrogant, self-assured player, Marcus’s genuine hesitancy made him so much more desirable to Tyler.
So much easier to love.
“Yeah. Only you.”
Sensing that talking alone wouldn’t prove to Marcus his feelings, Tyler slipped his hand between their bodies and stroked Marcus, loving his thick, hard cock and his heavy balls. He rubbed his thumb over the wide head of Marcus’s cock, spreading the copious early fluid dripping from the head, then brought his finger to his mouth and licked it. “Um, love your taste.”
Marcus grinned. “Funny, I was about to say the same thing.” He edged down the bed and took Tyler’s aching cock into his mouth, swirling his tongue over the head and down the vein of his stiff shaft. Marcus wet his finger, then slipped the tip just inside Tyler’s hole, while still keeping both tongue and lips occupied with his dick, which threatened to explode.
Tyler moaned, craving the stretch and thickness of Marcus to fill him up. “Please, come on.” He reached out blindly with his hands. “Please.”
With one last wet and juicy suckle, Marcus released him. “Since you asked so nicely,” said Marcus, and from beneath half-open eyelids, Tyler watched him roll on a condom and slick himself up.
“You want it nice and slow, right, baby?” Only the wide head of his cock pushed inside Tyler, and he writhed underneath Marcus who grinned wickedly back at him, sliding his hands up Tyler’s chest to tweak his nipples. “I don’t want to rush it; we have all night to make it right.” He pushed Tyler’s legs up, hooking one over his shoulder, and Tyler nearly lost his mind as Marcus slid deep inside.
Tyler turned greedy and wanting, urging Marcus on. Marcus didn’t pound him into the mattress, but instead sank inside his passage torturously slow. He rocked his hips in a steady pace until the rest of the world fell away and Tyler’s entire focus rested on the point where their bodies joined; nothing mattered except the feel of Marcus in him and on top of him. Becoming a part of him Tyler never knew existed.
Then the rush of his orgasm swept through him, and he blinked back the threat of inexplicable tears as he spilled hot and sticky between them. Every nerve ending quivered, and Tyler’s body clenched tight, then shuddered to completion, so thoroughly shattered his bones rattled under his skin.
“Marcus, oh God, Marcus.” In the distance he could hear himself crying out yet strangely felt no shame, only the pure and perfect reality that right here with this man was where he was supposed to be.
In an unexpected show of tenderness, Marcus slid their hands together, lacing their fingers until they held tight. He ran his nose along Tyler’s cheek, driving himself deeper and faster, moaning his pleasure, and though Tyler lay spent, happiness washed over him, warm like a cleansing rain.
“Oh baby, fuck,” Marcus choked out, his breath coming in gasps as he rammed into him deliciously rough and hard at last. Tyler tilted his hips, slotting Marcus farther inside, until he could no longer tell where he ended and Marcus began. It was somewhere next to his heart, which had regained its purpose now and began beating for the first time in forever. Marcus pinned him to the bed, their fingers still entwined, and he came, pumping the condom inside Tyler full of liquid heat.
Marcus’s heart beat a crazy tattoo against Tyler’s chest as they both struggled to regain their breath. Showing no signs of moving, Marcus planted lazy kisses down his neck, and Tyler turned his head to the side, granting him greater access.
With one last kiss, Marcus peeled himself off Tyler and withdrew from Tyler’s body. He tossed the condom in the wastebasket and came back directly to bed, wrapping Tyler in his arms.
“Let’s take a nap before dinner.”
He’d been serious, then. Tyler hadn’t fully believed Marcus at first when he said he wasn’t going to the club tonight. Getting this night with him and no one else was a gift.
Tyler pulled the covers over both of them. “Sounds like a plan.”
Chapter Twenty-One
‡
The smell ofsomething delicious teased Marcus awake the next morning, but he had no desire or inclination to move from the warmth of his bed. Without opening his eyes, he reached for Tyler, wanting nothing more than to wake up the way he fell asleep in the early morning hours: with his arms around Tyler, holding him close, and his cock resting in the sweet cleft of Tyler’s ass.
But instead of touching naked, warm flesh, his arms flailed, touching nothing but cool air and even colder sheets. Having woken up with Tyler tucked in tight to him for over a month now, and after the emotionally draining night, his absence this morning worried Marcus.
Was it too much for Tyler? They’d yet to talk, but it had become more than obvious to Marcus—and never more so than last night—that what was happening between him and Tyler was more than sex and comfort. He’d been with too many men to count, but their one commonality was they were forgotten before they were gone, and replaceable in the dark. None of them had touched any part of him.
But, Marcus thought as he left the bed to go to the bathroom and brush his teeth, he’d never let anyone close enough; aside from his friendships with Julian and Zach, he allowed no one near, and he believed himself happy. Until Tyler arrived at his club and blew apart his neat and solitary life with his challenging honesty and unswerving dedication and responsibility.
Marcus admired and respected Tyler, more so than any other man he’d ever met. Through no choice of his own, he’d been left with a young child, and rather than endlessly bitch about it or turn her care over to a stranger, he put his head down and changed his whole life around to give her the best, putting his dreams aside.
Marcus grimaced at his reflection in the mirror as he shaved, knowing full well he’d never done that for anyone, ever. His motto had always been: pleasure first—his pleasure. He’d lived a life built solely around his own wants and needs, and where did it get him?
As a child, Marcus had promised himself not to grow up to be a man like his father. Now that he’d reached that point in his life, Marcus came to the conclusion that he’d grown up to be no better, only he didn’t have a wife and child to let down. The only person he could ever disappoint was himself.
Dressing in a button-down shirt and well-worn jeans, Marcus followed the delicious aroma scenting the air and headed out of the bedroom toward the kitchen. Tyler stood at the breakfast bar, with Lillie on a step stool next to him, instructing her how to make muffins.
“I know Marcus likes banana, so we can take some of these bananas, mash them up, and put them in the batter; what do you think?”
