Spending the week fucking like maniacs didn’t entitle him to shit. Heath owed him nothing. Not the benefit of a doubt. Not a second chance. Certainly not blind trust. He’d given that to people before, and look how it had served him.
Heath wanted a quiet life of tea and reading by a roaring fire. He deserved better than clandestine meetings and having to keep his head on a swivel in case someone was paying too much attention or following too close.
Asking him to cease trusting a single soul, in case one of them was buttering him up for information, wasn’t fair or realistic. Evan was already living that life, and it sucked.
“I’m… sorry. I… Thanks for the book.”
He turned on his heel and marched back into the house, notbothering to check if Heath was following. He knew he wasn’t, and that reality was a knife between every one of his ribs.
He already missed him, and the closeness they’d shared for the briefest of moments, but this was the bed he’d made, and he got to lie in it alone.
The teasing and joking. Heath’s expressions of frustration when Evan was deliberately difficult. The way his mouth curved into a smile and his eyes darkened to lapis when they came together, skin to skin, seeking all the secret places they’d discovered over their days together.
It was fucking ridiculous. He’d just had an engagement fall apart. Where did he get off having feelings for someone? And not just any someone, but another man. Wasn’t this a phase you were supposed to go through in college? Wasn’t he a little old to be having a midlife crisis?
A quiet knock shook him out of his spiral, but he struggled to convince his feet to move. What else could Heath possibly want? Were there a pair of socks still under the bed?
With a deep breath, he opened the door, the question half a syllable out of his mouth before Heath’s crushed down and shut him up.
“Don’t. Just… shhh,” he pleaded, kissing Evan harder when he tried again to ask what the fuck.
He knew better than to challenge a third time.
chapter 31
. . .
Stupid, stupid, stupidechoed through Heath’s head as he pushed Evan toward the bed, collapsing on top of him when his knees buckled and he fell back onto the sheets still in disarray.
He’d said no, and Evan had accepted it. All he’d had to do was return to his room, pretend to sleep for a few hours, then beg Olivia for his own transport to the tiny airport, because he couldn’t share that boat with Evan knowing it would be the last time he’d see him. Could not.
Except as he’d approached the door to the porch, he’d heard Evan pacing in the room across the way, and everything in him had rebelled against common sense. His hands, his mouth, his skin, and heart all wanted more. Just one last taste. One last touch. A final evening wrapped in each other’s arms, basking in the glow of how fucking amazing it felt to be there.
It was stupid. He’d regret this show of weakness for the rest of his days, but he’d have regretted not doing it as well, so screw it.
Evan arched into the mattress, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it across the room while Heath shed his own. Thehot press of their skin made him want to cry in its perfection, and the coarse tickle of Evan’s chest hair across his already throbbing nipples dragged out a shameless moan.
He buried his hands in Evan’s hair, holding him immobile against the assault of his mouth along his jaw and neck. He moaned, cock jumping and pulsing at the sounds Evan made when Heath teased his favorite spot with his tongue and sank in his teeth.
Evan tore off his shorts and rolled him onto his back, pinning him to the bed with his weight. It felt perfect to be at his mercy. To writhe beneath him and succumb to the whims of his hands and mouth. The way he kissed Heath senseless, fingers wrapped firmly around his dick.
He shuddered, embarrassingly close to orgasm though they’d only barely begun. But this was different. This wasn’t them taking their time because they had plenty to spare. This was taking everything the other was willing to give, because it was their last opportunity to do so. Their last chance to lay claim to a tiny shard of space in each other’s hearts.
Heath wrapped his legs around Evan’s hips and bucked, nodding wildly when he pulled back with questioning eyes. “Please.”
Evan had asked the same of him, and he’d denied it, but now he saw the folly of his pride. He needed this like his next breath. Needed to solidify the memory that this had happened. This man had been his, if only for a blink in time.
He pushed the bottle of lube into Evan’s hand and arched when a slick finger penetrated him and curled upward. Evan had such beautiful hands. Such long, slender fingers. They felt heavenly inside him.
Evan added a second, fucking him slow and deliberate. Readying him for what he really wanted and desperately needed.
“You’re sure?” He lined the head of his cock against Heath’s opening and nudged.
Heath moaned and tightened the grip of his thighs. “Please!”
Evan inhaled harshly against his neck and slipped an inch inside. The stretch was ecstasy. That moment of burn before he relaxed and canted his hips to take more.
“Jesus fuck, you’re so tight.” He pressed further, the pace so gentle and slow that it was torture.
