The fighter an mm romanc.., p.23
The Fighter: An MM Romance, page 23
I didn’t look away from the table stain, unwilling to see what my words had done, how the ugly truth had broken my sister’s heart.
All I could hear was her breathing and my heart pounding in my ears. From behind the bedroom door, I heard an excited shriek from Holden, followed by the deep murmuring of Con. Somewhere in the hallway outside, a cell phone rang.
“Look at me,” my sister whispered.
I lifted my gaze to hers and flinched. Tears tracked down her cheeks. A bubble of snot popped in her nostril, and she didn’t even bother to wipe it. Red splotches bloomed all over her skin, and her hands rested on the table, each finger trembling.
“Five years,” Her voice cracked. “Five years I spent loving you. Hating that I couldn’t hate you. Worrying about you. Wondering where you were and if you were dead. If you were happy. If you were suffering.” She sucked in a breath. “My heart broke five years ago. You can’t break it more, Tavin.”
The water bottle crinkled in my fists. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t forgive you right now for not telling me the truth. I don’t forgive myself for getting involved with Dennis. I don’t—” She squeezed her eyes shut, and fresh tears leaked out. She opened them again, and they shone with pain. “I don’t know much right now, but I guess all I have to say is that guy,” she pointed in the direction of the bedroom, “is an asshole. But he’s disgustingly into you. And he made this possible.”
“This?”
“Family reunion.” While tears streamed down her cheeks, she forced a sad smile. “We have a hell of a lot to talk about, but I guess it’s a start.”
My throat clogged. My eyes burned. When something wet tickled my cheek, I swiped it away. Probably just water. My chest felt light, like a feather, and my heart beat an unfamiliar rhythm in my chest that was a lot like something I’d called hope. I reached out and tentatively touched Amara’s hand. She curled her fingers around mine. When I spoke, my voice was choked. “It’s a start.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Conrad
As we rode the elevator up to my apartment floor, Tav stood in the corner, eyes distant, teeth grinding, hands twitching in the pockets of his sweatpants.
I had emerged from the bedroom with a sleepy Holden to find Tav and his sister in somewhat of a truce. They had both looked drained, so I had thought it was best to leave and let Amara get some sleep. I left her with a phone—hers was back at her apartment—with only a few numbers programmed including mine, Tav’s, Ben’s, Nik’s, and the head of her guard, Cameron.
She’d brushed Tav’s hand before he’d left in a slight sign of affection. Tav’s entire body had swayed toward her, aching for more, but that had been all she’d been able to give him. I hadn’t faulted for her for that. Their relationship would take time to mend, and it wouldn’t be like it was before. They’d both have to find a new normal.
Tav already given me a summary of their conversation, and I finally felt like I could breathe for the first time since early that afternoon. But by the time the elevator reached our floor, and I was opening the door to my apartment, Tav was a vibrating bundle of nerves. He strode inside, sneakers squeaking on the floor as he made a beeline to the kitchen where he began to pace back and forth, fingers spearing his hair as he tugged at the strands.
Anxiety rolled off him in waves as his shoulders bunched around his ears. As I joined him at a much slower pace, he whirled on me. “What if she sleeps on it and decides she hates me? What if she sneaks out in the middle of the night? What if Holden is afraid of me?”
He had himself worked into a frenzy, which I had anticipated. I reached for him, immediately gripping the back of his neck like he was a wily kitten. “Tav, listen to me.” His eyes were wild, rolling in his head as his mind likely tossed him every worst-case scenario it could. “First, I saw how she looked at you. She can’t hate you. Second, I have a rotating guard outside her door all night. At least four men awake at all times. I do think your sister is crafty, but she’s not that crafty. And she wouldn’t risk harming Holden. Speaking of Holden, that boy is resilient and friendly. He’ll love you.”
Tav’s jaw worked, and he searched my eyes as if they held the future. He remained silent, his body tense but shaking like he could fly apart at the seams any moment.
I leaned close until our chests brushed. “Take off your clothes.”
His eyes flared in frustration at first, but heat bled in shortly after. Still, he shook his head in one clean jerk. “That’s not—”
“It’s just us now.” I squeezed his neck, and his shoulders lost some of their tension, so I knew I was doing the right thing. Tav’s body always gave away his thoughts, and all I had to do was pay attention. “Go to the bedroom, take off your clothes, and lay down on the bed on your stomach.”
His eyes went half-mast just like that, and with a deep inhale, he released the air from his lungs. His entire body settled then as his jaw loosened, and his hand came up to brush my stomach. There was no tremble in his fingers. “Kiss me first.”
I pressed against him and touched my lips to his. He angled his head to deepen the kiss immediately, so I licked into his mouth, stroking over his tongue, and sucked on it for a moment before letting go. When I pulled back, I could feel the hard ridge of his cock against mine, and his eyes blinked slowly, lazily. “Go,” I whispered.
“Yeah, okay,” he murmured, and slipped out of my grip. He walked all loose-limbed down the hallway, kicking his shoes off into the living room where they landed with a thud. He had his shirt off before he disappeared out of sight.
I exhaled and leaned against the kitchen island for a moment to get my bearings. I pressed the heel of my palm on the head of my cock where it bulged against the seam of my suit pants. In the bedroom I could hear the sink running. The toilet flush. And then the distinct creak of a body settling into my bed.
Talking to Amara and Holden had been harder than I thought. She was a fierce woman who clearly still held an enormous amount of love for her brother. Holden was a delight. I had never held a lot of affection for children, but he was cute with his floppy hair, dimples, and endless energy. He’d eagerly accepted my challenge in a folding clothes race and although his skills were lacking, at least the bedroom had been cleaned up for Amara.
Guilt tore at my insides, and my skin felt paper thin, like even the slightest touch could shred it, leaving me to bleed out. Not all of Devlin’s victims were faceless to me, but even the ones I knew—like Shane—I’d been able to observe them with a certain detachment. But not Tav or Amara or Holden. With Tav, I was the opposite of detached. I had long viewed our relationship as me sinking my hooks into him deep until they locked, but now I realized it was also very much the other way as well. Tav had speared me with a harpoon straight to the heart, and he’d wiggled himself inside my chest cavity like a hibernating bear.
I closed my eyes, letting the guilted pain streak through me like a rolling wave, until every muscle screamed at me. And then I forced myself to send it all out with the receding tide. It’d come again, like clockwork, but tonight wasn’t about me. This was about Tav. He was stressed and anxious. Focusing on him was a better use of my time and making him happy was the only time I could rest my soul. Tonight, I wanted him so fucked out that he couldn’t spend a second worrying about tomorrow.
After another minute, I strode down the hallway, my dress shoes clicking on the wooden floor, and entered the bedroom. Tav lay on his stomach as I’d instructed, completely naked, with his legs parted to reveal his cock pointed down, hard and flushed against the blankets, surrounded by his heavy balls. His head was pillowed on his folded arms, and he turned to face me as I walked toward my closet. I felt his gaze on me as I took my time undressing. I slipped off my shoes and placed them neatly on my shoe rack. Then my suit jacket, which I placed on a hanger to be dry cleaned later. I took off my cuff links and dropped them in their drawer, followed by my watch.
The whole time, Tav remained still and silent, but I could see him watching me out of the corner of his eye, and his back and rose and fell with deep, even breaths.
Once I was naked, I padded back into the bedroom. I stopped beside the bed. From this angle, on his stomach, he couldn’t see my face, and instead his gaze was on my hardened cock. I hadn’t come in a week, and just the sight of Tav spread before me like a buffet was enough for pre-cum to bead at my tip. I was overwhelmed, unsure what to do next, because I wanted to do everything.
I reached out and ran my palm over the back of his head. Tav practically purred beneath me, and his hips shifted, like he sought friction for his erection. I trailed my fingers down his neck, kneaded his shoulders, before tickling down his spine to the top of his ass. He was so thick, just two round globes that tensed and flexed beneath my hands as I palmed them.
“Con,” he murmured, just a wisp of a sound.
I spread his cheeks, and with lubed fingers, circled his hole. His breathing changed, and he picked up his head only to drop it face down into his arms as he let out a low groan. I pushed at the back of his thigh, so he pulled up one leg, bent at the knee, giving me more access.
When I pressed two digits inside, he keened, his muscles resisting me at first until my fingers popped past the first ring to slide up his channel. “Fuck,” he muttered into his arms. “Fuck, fuck.”
I added more lube. More fingers. I worked him until he was a sweaty mess, slick dripping down his balls, coating his cock, wetting the sheets beneath him. His hips humped the bed as I speared him with three fingers, only giving his prostate the barest attention.
And when his whole body was flushed, when his hole was stretched around my fingers, I withdrew them and gave his ass a soft slap. He groaned, a pained sound, but it was immediately cut off when I gripped his hair and tugged his face toward my cock. He let himself be dragged like a doll. I held his head a few inches from my groin. He licked his lips, and I felt the ghost of his breath over my sensitive, wet crown.
I gripped my shaft, wanting to cry at how hard I was, how much this physically pained me to hold back and not just rut into him like an animal. I might have been edging Tav, but I was also edging myself.
“Look at me.” I waited until his gaze finally lifted to mine, and his pupils were so blow, his eyes were nearly black. He braced himself on his elbows, hips still making small thrusts into the bed, so similar to what he’d done that first night in my bed all those months ago.
I let go of his hair and rubbed his bottom lip, which was wet with spit and swollen from where he’d been biting it. “This is where you belong. In my bed on your belly waiting for me to feed you my cock.” His lips parted as I pressed on his bottom lip. “This is all you have to think about tonight. Sucking me. Getting stretched by me. Taking my cum. Because it’s been seven days, right?”
His entire body shuddered, and his eyes fell closed for a moment before popping back open.
“Fuck, you’re so perfect, Tav. So goddamn perfect.” I canted my hips forward and pressed my cock to his lips. He surged forward immediately, sucking me down halfway before making a choked sound and pulling back to suck at my engorged head.
With my hand on his chin, I showed him the pace I wanted, pushing him to take more and more of me each time I thrust into his mouth. His eyes watered, and his throat worked as he fought not to gag, and yet he continued to take me as deep as he could, all while he fucked into the bed, ass flexing and legs shifting as if he couldn’t contain himself. He took my cock to the root, swallowed around my tip, and a band in my chest snapped.
I pulled him off my cock, shoved him onto his back and swallowed his cock until the short hair on his groin tickled my nose. He roared, a thunderous sound as he pounded the bed with clenched fists. “Con!”
He arched into me, and I slapped a hand on his stomach to hold him still as I bobbed my head, tasting lube and pre-cum and Tav’s musk that made my eyes cross. I lapped at his tip and rolled his balls and checked to see how close he was to blowing his load. Close. Too close. His cock pulsed in my mouth, and I pulled away, squeezing the base to stave off his orgasm. He writhed, a pained sound wrenching from his throat as his eyes, dark as night, glared at me over bared teeth.
“This hurts you as much as me,” I spat as I felt my own cock kick without a finger on it. I joined him on the bed and knelt between his legs. He watched me the entire time, eyes nearly feral as I lifted his heavy legs and wrapped them around my hips. I went to one hand at his shoulder, hovering over him, while I guided my wet cock to his slick entrance. No condom. “But you’re not going to come until I’m inside you. Until I stretch your hole and empty my balls inside of you.”
His nostrils flared. “Do it.”
I slammed inside of him, and he threw his head back with a cry. And I froze for just a moment as his tight walls nearly made me spill immediately. “Fuck,” I muttered. “You’re so fucking tight, Tav. Squeezing me so right.”
His body worked, skin flushed, as he flexed his hips to fuck himself on my cock. But this wasn’t his show, this was mine, and so I angled his one leg higher at my ribs and began to thrust. Obscene sounds filled the bedroom, skin slapping skin, Tav’s panting curses, my filthy words that wrapped around us like smoke.
Sweat dripped down my back, as I fell over him, forcing him to look me in the eye with a grip on his chin while I pounded his body. His eyes were unfocused, and his mouth hung slack, jerking with every thrust of my hips, sending us inches higher on the bed each time. “This is what matters. You taking me like this. Being perfect. You’re a fucking dream, Tav.”
His lips moved, maybe he formed words, I couldn’t be sure. Our eyes locked, and I was unable to look away from the inferno there. So many emotions raged there, but it was the gratitude that made the saliva pool in my mouth. I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve him. His adoration and his affection and his body.
And yet that hadn’t stopped me, not one bit. I’d taken and taken and taken, forcing him to give all of himself to me. And I knew in that moment I’d keep doing it. I wouldn’t let him go. I couldn’t. He was inside me now, his fingers white knuckling my ribcage, and his lips kissing my heart.
I’d deal with the guilt. I’d let it burn through me every day if it meant I got Tav like this. I forced myself to ignore my own needs.
His cock was squeezed between us, leaking all over his stomach and mine, and his musk scented the air. My balls drew tight, and my rhythm stuttered. “Stoke yourself,” I ordered. “Make yourself come.”
He shook his head, and I thought for a minute that meant he wasn’t close, but then his back arched, the force of it nearly toppling me off, and his eyes rolled back in his head. He said one word on a long moan that would forever be on an echo in my ears. “Con.” His cock pulsed between us, spraying cum up his chest to his neck, his chin, all over my skin, and I dropped my forehead to his shoulder as my own orgasm tore through me like razor blades. The pleasure so intense that my own mind seemed to want to punish me for it, because guilt rode its heels hard. I squeezed my eyes shut and fucked into him as my cock shot endless streams of cum into his body. Arms weak and shaking, veins on fire, brain mush, I collapsed on his chest, spreading his seed between us until all I felt was the evidence of his pleasure, and all I could see was his skin.
My eyes were wet. I couldn’t stop shivering. I panted like I’d summited Everest, and my head bobbed with every one of Tav’s heaving breaths as I rested on his chest.
And then his strong arms wrapped around me, hugging me against him, and he rolled us to our sides where his soft kisses covered my forehead, my nose, and the wet corners of my eyes. He licked at my face, and then pressed one last, soft kiss to my lips. Only then did I manage to open my eyes with gargantuan effort.
The color of his irises had returned just barely in the darkened bedroom, lit only by the moonlight from my large windows. We were filthy, covered in lube and cum, and yet I’d never seen Tav so perfect, so happy, so beautiful. A small, satisfied smiled curled his lips, meanwhile I couldn’t make a single muscle of mine work at the moment. I was supposed to fuck his brains out, and instead I’d succeeded in melting my own. “Con,” he murmured against my skin as he nuzzled our cheeks together. “Con. Con. Con.”
“Give me a minute,” I managed to rasp.
His fingers carded through my hair, petting me. This was supposed to be my job. I was supposed to take care of him. But I couldn’t make myself move. My eyelids were so heavy.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and his weight slowly rolled off the bed. I tried to reach for him, but my hand was caught in a tangle of sheets, and I couldn’t figure out how to get it loose.
A damp towel scrubbed at my chest and my groin, and then Tav’s weight was back, pulling me against his chest that wasn’t very clean. I spotted a streak of cum on his nipple. I tried to extend my tongue to lick it, but I couldn’t get that muscle to work either.
“Thank you isn’t enough,” he said, lips at my forehead. “But until I find better words… thank you.”
No, I hadn’t done enough yet. Not even close. I’d never deserve his thanks, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t kill myself to keep hearing the words.
TWENTY-SIX
Tav
My body was moving, a gentle rocking motion that I wanted to sink into. Then I registered heat at my back, and a fullness in my ass that was familiar, welcoming. I groaned, reaching back until I felt the strands of Con’s hair slip through my fingers. And then a voice in my ear speaking gentle words coaxed me awake. “That’s it,” he murmured. “Fuck, you feel so good.”
