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I set my helmet on the ground next to his and walk out into the brown grass, crunching loudly under my boots. The speech forming in my head to tell him that… to tell him I’m done with this bullshit, that we both deserve better, that we’ve paid too steep a price for choices other people made.
When he turns to face me, the words evaporate.
The sight of the sun lighting up his golden hair, now ravaged by his hands, renders me speechless. His eyes are shining. The bruise on his cheek from our fight is fading to a still-angry pale purple-edged lump with an unappealing yellow green along the edge. And yet, he is still the most beautiful man I have ever laid eyes on. He always will be. Dammit. He always will be.
I wait for him to say something. Wait for the fight. Wait for whatever he needs to fling at me this time. For whatever required us to ride an hour outside the city. I thought we had made peace with each other. I thought we agreed we can get along, that we will for the sake of the jobs we both love and the man we both adore. The other day, giving him that tour around the new facility had been nice… very nice….too nice.
I don’t want to fight anymore. I don’t have any fight left in me. I’m standing here in this open field, feeling as drained and vacant as it is.
I don’t move when he steps toward me. I can’t. I just sigh and look at him, still waiting. I can’t read the look in his eyes, but there doesn’t seem to be any anger there, because I know that when I see it. I’ve seen it in him so many times now. Too many. But I see it far less frequently these days.
Reflexively, I flinch when he lifts his hand and runs his fingers along my jaw. The gentleness of his touch is unexpected. His thumb trails lightly across my lip. The one he busted wide open. The one that will be sporting a small scar soon.
“Dammit, I can’t think straight around you,” he murmurs, and swallows hard. His eyes glisten and dip from my eyes to my lip. He strokes again. His touch as soft as his whisper.
I smile at the comment. “Good,” I say and wait for what he had said to register. “Don’t you dare start now.”
He returns my smile. I love that I can do that. Make him smile. I let my eyes fall closed and relish the feeling of his gentle touch on my lips.
“Dammit Carter. I think about you every minute of every damn day and dream about you every night.” He pauses. “And lately, I don’t even think that’s a bad thing.”
I have no words. What is he saying? What does he mean?
Before I can even think about processing his words, his forehead falls against mine and he reaches for my lips. I hold still. Too still. But I’ve been dreaming about this. Been dreaming about it since the night he denied me those lips so many years ago. I’m afraid if I reach to meet him halfway, it might spook him, wake him from this moment, this highly unexpected moment that I intend to savor.
The softness of his lips shocks me. He moves slowly, gently taking hold of my bottom lip with his before finding his way fully onto my mouth, causing a tiny moan to escape my throat. It causes a grin to form against my lips, and all I can do is smile back. So many things in life rarely live up to our dreams and fantasies about them. But this…this…Davis’s lips on mine…this reality is so much better than any dream I’ve ever had.
Suddenly those lips are no longer on mine. He pulls away. Fuck, don’t do that! I scream internally. Please, please, please keep going. Kissing him is a privilege, he said. He snarled those words at me that night so many years ago and I didn’t care then. I didn’t want his lips that night. But now. Now they are everything I want. Everything I need. A privilege. He’s right. He’s so fucking right.
I had no idea what I wanted or needed when I handed Carter a helmet and made him get on the bike.
Our once-secret past is out there. It’s no longer contained within us, no longer festering inside of me. It’s out there. The world did not end. My world did not end. Brady was surprised, maybe a bit hurt, maybe even more than a little angry, but it didn’t alter our friendship. He didn’t feel the need to fire me. Or even punch me.
The truth in the words Levi said rang more and more loudly in my head. None of this was my fault. And none of it was Carter’s either. I’m not furious at Carter. I never really was, was I? It was just so much easier to be mad at him than myself. To blame him than myself. Luke made a choice. Luke made a very excruciating choice that neither I nor Carter could control. I did not know the level of Luke’s pain. It wasn’t something people discussed back then.
Carter and I are guilty of having been scared kids. Guilty of not standing up for Luke. Guilty of not knowing how to.
The kicker now is that the person who knows this pain, who shares this pain, is the only person who can help me shed it. The man I’ve spent way too many years hating. I didn’t even know him well enough to hate him then.
The man pressing against me now… I don’t really know him either. Everything I’ve seen of him makes him a man I could like. A man I could like a lot. He’s done everything I’ve been too much of a chickenshit to do. He grew up.
And now his lips are on mine. I pull away for just a moment to take in that gorgeous face. The stubble along that angular jaw, that long narrow nose. I see his eyes fill with confusion and he freezes in place. It’s almost comical. He definitely had not seen this coming, but neither had I. Not really. But seriously, this connection between us. This odd bond, it was only a matter of time before the passion would take over again, right?
“I can’t do this,” I say. It comes out in a breathless gust.
“What the fuck?” Carter’s eyes fill with fury, and he tries to pull away. I sweep my arm around his back and hold him to me. My mind races, seeking the words. Being this close to him…feeling those lips on mine—I’m drunk with desire and the ridiculous need to explain it. To him. To myself.
“I can’t fight this anymore,” I explain. “I can’t deny these feelings anymore. I can’t —”
“Shut up,” Carter grabs my face and crushes his lips back to mine. My mouth surrenders to his, giving his tongue and lips all the room they want to roam. A moan escapes my throat, and he dives deeper. He wraps a hand around my head and pulls me even closer. I let him. I let him do whatever he wants. Carter in control of me. Carter in charge out here in the middle of nowhere. It’s everything I want. Everything I need.
He owns me and I have not a single complaint about that.
Our heavy breathing fills the air as he pulls away from my mouth. He licks along my jaw and nibbles before fixing his eyes on mine. The golden brown of his eyes is barely visible around his dilated pupils. There is no mistaking the heat and lust pouring from his stare.
“On your knees,” he demands.
I sweep my hand across his jaw and hold firm to the back of his neck. Before I meet his demand, there is something I’d been craving all these years. I will not deny myself that throat of his any longer. That throat I’ve been salivating over for seven years now. The stubble tickles my tongue, and the feel of that pointy Adam’s apple does not disappoint. My cock twitches as the heat of his skin travels through me. He moans and the vibration against my mouth nearly sends me over the edge.
