I don’t answer him because damned if I know. Then I feel his release hit my stomach and chest as he comes. I pull back until I’m almost completely free of his hole and then push back into him hard and fast. He swears and his whole body shakes and after another two pumps, I explode. I yell out something even I can’t understand and my head snaps back and he cranes his head up and nips my chin then kisses and sucks on my neck.
I swear I’ve never come like that — so long and so hard — and when I’m done, I can’t think straight or hold myself up and I collapse onto him. Now we’re both covered in his release and I couldn’t care less. This is perfection. He is perfection. I feel like I am still lost in post-orgasmic bliss, but I manage to gingerly grab the base of the condom and slide out of him. Then I roll out of the bed and make my way to the bathroom. I clean up and bring a fresh damp wash cloth to the bedroom and wipe him down.
“Thank you. Now get back here and enjoy the aftermath,” Bowen says, grabbing my wrist and refusing to let go. I drop the washcloth on the floor beside the bed and lie down beside him. I bury my face in the side of his neck as he slowly reaches out and grabs my hand, pulling it up and bringing it to rest, palm down, on the center of his chest. I can feel his heart thumping as wildly as my own and that makes me feel euphoric.
“I bet you wish you hadn’t waited so long,” Bowen mumbles, sleep already grabbing hold of him.
“Nope. I’m glad I waited.” I feel his breath hitch and I know he just opened his eyes even though I can’t see it. I’m still buried in the side of his neck. “Doubt it would have been this good with someone else.”
He doesn’t respond. He just drops his hand over mine on his chest.
18
CHASE
I was hoping to be awoken by the feel of Bowen’s lips on some part of my body, preferably in the lower region, but that’s not what happens. I’m woken up by someone knocking on my motel door. Loudly.
“Chase! We said nine!” Grant’s voice filters into the room.
I jump up and hunt, blurry-eyed, for my underwear. Bowen sits up slowly, running a hand through his hair and yawning. I find my underwear and yank it on. Bowen stretches like a fucking cat coming out of a coma. Not a care in the world. And then he’s about to speak, so I leap closer to the bed and clamp a hand over his mouth. Now he’s awake, judging by the size of his eyeballs as he stares at me, blinking.
“Shh!” I whisper, swiveling my head toward the door. “I’m awake. Be down in five!”
“Do you know where Bowen is?” Grant calls out. “Joe said he wasn’t answering his door.”
“No,” I bark back. “Maybe coffee run or something.”
“Okay…” Grant says, barely audibly.
Bowen points. We left the curtains to the massive window open last night. It faces the ocean but also the front door and the open hallway Grant is standing in. I let go of Bowen’s mouth and bolt across the room, hurdling over his bag and my guitar and I see Grant’s hair and a flash of forehead. The nosey asshole was going to peer in the window. I manage to yank the curtain closed before he gets the chance to see anything important — namely Bowen naked in my bed.
“I said I’ll be down in five,” I bellow, annoyed. “Stop trying to peep on me, perve.”
I hear muffled laughter and then Grant yells, “Fine! Meet you downstairs.”
I exhale loudly and turn back to Bowen. He’s gotten out of bed and is hunting down his own clothing. He looks fucking gorgeous doing it. His blond hair is messy, his sculpted frame and perfect ass are on full display. The ass that felt so incredible around my cock.
“Sorry. I kind of forgot for a minute that we can’t… that this is secret,” Bowen mutters and pulls on his underwear.
“No worries. I don’t think he saw anything,” I reply.
“I thought you said Grant and Joe know,” Bowen replies and pulls on his T-shirt. Then he grabs his overnight bag and walks into the bathroom, so I follow.
“They know.” I nod and watch him pull a toothbrush out of his bag and pull off the little plastic travel holder around the bristles. “I mean, that I’m bi. Yeah. But they don’t know that you and I have been involved. And they can’t.”
He grabs my toothpaste and puts a dollop on his brush. I figure maybe I should do the same, so I grab my toothbrush and take the toothpaste from him. We brush in silence, shoulder-to-shoulder, our eyes locked on each other in the mirror. Bowen spits first.
“You don’t trust them with your secrets?”
I spit and rinse my brush. “If you were a one-nighter, they could know.”
“If I was a one-nighter, they wouldn’t need to know.”
He seems… annoyed. Bowen has never shown any real big emotions around me, so maybe I’m reading this wrong, but he definitely isn’t as easy going and chill as he usually is. So my brain scrambles to find the right words through my sex hangover. “I trust them, but I promised myself I wouldn’t have anything serious before the whole inheritance thing was done for a reason. Because I didn’t want to put other people in the position to cover for me. Obviously, that’s changed a little. I mean you’ll have to cover for me. But I don’t want them to have to lie or watch their words around my family or anything. I know Joe and Grant would feel horrible if they said something to someone by mistake and it got back to my brother or something. They’re both friendly with my brother and Joe’s wife is in some play date kid’s group with Amy, my cousin.”
I’m rambling, I think, and judging by the unchanged look on Bowen’s face, it’s not helping. He just nods and then takes his toothbrush, shoves it back in his bag, and starts peeling back out of the clothes he put on. “Okay well, I’m going to take a quick shower. You can head down and tell them you couldn’t find me. I’ll come down a couple minutes later and tell them I was in the shower, which is why I didn’t hear anyone knocking on my door.”
“Good plan.” I walk back out into the main room and start grabbing clean clothes out of my bag to pull on. I hear the shower turn on.
