Page 94 of Hard to Lose

“In here,” I stutter and snap my laptop shut before tripping over my bag—which in turn regurgitates some of its contents back out. With haste, I shove it back in and practically jog to find out why he’s home.

“Gunner? Is everything okay?” I ask as I clear the family room to find him standing there. His T-shirt has a small sweat-darkened V around his neck and his chest is heaving, but it’s the look on his face that owns me. Confusion. Melancholy. Need. “Gunner?”

He crosses the room towards me and without a single word, wraps his arms around me, pressing my back to the wall, and kisses me.

There’s desperation to the kiss. Urgency. An underlying emotion I can’t place.

“I just need you right now, Chase,” he says when he comes up for air. “I just fucking need you.”

Our eyes meet, and I know in that moment anything he asks for is his. After the emotion with Joey today and the look in his eyes now, it’s clear he’s struggling and needs connection.

I don’t know what I can offer besides getting lost in us, but I’m here. I’m his.

He doesn’t say another word. Instead he kisses me again, the pace a little slower, the emotion in it almost palpable.

“Chase,” he whispers as he pulls my shirt over my head and closes his lips over my bra-clad breast. “I just need you.”

“I’m here,” I whisper as I pull his shirt off too.

There’s no forethought to our actions. No planning to move to a bed or make sure we’ve given each other equal foreplay. There’s just him and me and this swell of unexpected pain that’s drowning us whole.

My hands run over the lines of his body. Sculpted edges marred with raised scar tissue. My lips express words I don’t speak. My body pressed tightly against his, showing him that I’m here for him however he wants or needs.

Words are irrelevant as we move toward the bedroom. The only break in kissing is when clothes are discarded. The only breath of air is the other’s exhale.

I kiss my way down his body as we stand at the foot of the bed. Over scars he hisses at when my lips connect. Over abs that tense beneath my mouth. Over the length of his cock, hard and ready for me.

His moaned exhale is the only sound in the room as I take him in my mouth. His hard crest. His full length. The salty taste of him on my tongue. The feel of his hands bunching in the back of my hair and tightening as I slowly work him in and out of my mouth.

His breathing grows harsh, his thighs grow tense, and with a feral growl, he drops to his knees in front of me, brandishing his lips to mine once again.

“I—just—you—Chase.” His words make no sense, incomplete thoughts as he tries to process this, us.

“I’m right here.” My lips meet his again when he leans back against the bed and I straddle myself over him.

“Look at me,” he moans. “Look at me.”

And when I do, when our eyes lock, he guides my hips to slowly sink down onto him. It’s ecstasy. It’s torture in the most pleasurable of ways. It’s everything to watch his eyes grow cloudy and his mouth grow lax as he groans with the same pleasure that’s assaulting every nerve in my body. My name ghosts over his lips and for some reason, I know the sound—how he says it—will stay with me forever.

It’s as if he has everything he’s ever needed in this moment.

Tears spring to my eyes in complete contradiction to the bliss I know is coming. And when one slips over and slides down my cheek, he presses a kiss to it.

“I know,” he says quietly against my skin. “I know.”

My breath catches then, because he begins to move. It’s slow but not timid, desperate but not urgent.

As two bodies connect and become one.

As we begin the slow process of subconsciously saying goodbye.

And afterward, when I’m in the bathroom trying to scrub the tear stains off my cheeks, I know walking away from Gunner Camden is going to be the hardest thing I’ll ever do.

“Hey,” he says from the doorway and startles me.

I look up from the sink and stare at him through the mirror. He’s dressed and his keys are in his hand, but his eyes are still heavy with a wariness I can’t pinpoint.

“Are you leaving?”