Destiny (Waiting for Forever) (26 page)

“Jamie, I—” he started, but I cut him off. I couldn’t stand it if he told me he loved me. There’s no way I would be able to keep myself together.

“Please, don’t say it,” I whispered. I felt him nod, and when I took a chance and glanced at Brian’s face, his expression tore at me. I saw tears welling in his red-rimmed eyes. Staring at the sheet just above my shoulder, he refused to meet my eyes again. He looked so lost, so broken, that I just couldn’t stop myself from pushing him onto his back and holding him in my arms. He responded with a small whimper against my lips as he held me. Putting his legs around my waist, he held me as tight as he could.

He trembled as if he were terrified of letting go.

Fifteen

“N
O
,
NO
,
just start filming.” The voice was quiet, almost whispering, but I didn’t think about it. I didn’t worry about the cameras, the lights, or anyone else in the room. My mind focused solely on Brian, on having him in my arms again after so long. I would take my one way to be with him and be incredibly thankful I’d been given the chance. Whenever Steven rolled over on top of me in the middle of the night, or I had to sleep with another guy for money, I’d hang onto this moment. With Brian in my heart, I could live through just about anything.

Holding myself up with my left arm, which brushed the outside of his shoulder, I used my right hand to stroke his face. With each small but distinct stroke, I tried to memorize all the subtle changes and burn this new image of him into my memory. When I could no longer hold myself back from it, I let my mouth descend to his, capturing his lips in a tender kiss. Again and again our mouths came together, searching, and I infused every meeting of our lips with my overflowing emotions.

“You’re the one who’s beautiful,” I whispered almost half to myself, the soft timbre of my voice against his ear making him suck in a sharp breath against my hair. His arms, which had been resting at my sides, wrapped around my back, and he held me.

“I missed you so much,” Brian whispered with his face turned away from the camera. I wanted to tell him that half of me had been missing and there was a hole in me nothing could fill, but I couldn’t. Encouraging him would only make him stay. If he stayed, neither of us would make it through alive. Instead of telling him all the things I might have, I simply nodded so he would know I’d heard.

Breaking the kiss, I moved my lips down over his neck. The tendons stood out as he pushed his head back into the pillow, offering me his skin. He offered everything to me freely; I only had to reach out and take it to have Brian back. The temptation overwhelmed me, and I touched him and teased him while he writhed.
That’s it, baby. Feel how much I love you even if I can’t tell you.
A high-pitched, breathless moan burst from him.

I looked up at him, smiling. Brian’s back arched slightly as his hand came to rest on the back of my head. For just a moment, I lamented my butchered hair because I used to love the feeling of his fingers there. The way they would tighten in it, pulling as he got more and more excited, made me throb. He bit his bottom lip hard, and it looked as if he were trying to keep from saying something, maybe my name. Of course, we were circus animals performing for the crowd, so he couldn’t let any of his true emotions show.

His hand tightened on the back of my neck as I moved my lips lower, slowly kissing his sculpted abdomen. Brian had such a gorgeous body. When I last saw it on that beautiful night we spent making love, his body was soft and boyish. Since then, he had developed hard, muscled abs and strong, defined arms. The changes weren’t enough to call him muscular, but I noticed the difference. As I nuzzled his skin, I wondered what he had been doing the last eighteen months to cause that kind of transformation. His stomach clenched under my open-mouthed kisses.

“Ja… Jesus…,” Brian breathed and caught himself before he could moan my name. For a split second, I felt the sting of disappointment because I so loved hearing him say it. Then I remembered my place, and I stroked his hipbone while I moved my lips below his navel. I noticed a scar on his side, something that had not been there when I’d seen him last. Curiosity burned in me, and I wanted to ask him about it. There were so many things about him I wanted to know, but I couldn’t ask, at least not right then. I’d probably never get the chance to ask.

My eyes closed, blocking out the lights and the cameras as I concentrated on the feeling of him beneath me. I ghosted my fingers down the perfect planes of his abdomen, then took him into my hand and stroked him lightly, opening my eyes to watch the pleasure playing out on his face. It didn’t feel forced or shameful as it did with any of the other faceless men I’d been with in the last few months. It felt like coming home, because I belonged with Brian.

He kissed me once, long and deep, before propping himself against the pillows. When he looked up at me, his expression was calm and happy, like there was nothing in the world he’d rather see in that moment than me. I straddled his thighs, leaned up, and grabbed the condom and lube from under the pillow, making short work of putting them on him. I needed to know I still held some part of him. I wanted him inside me more than I’d ever wanted anything.

With one hand on his chest and one to guide him into me, I sank slowly down, feeling him enter me. I groaned at the burn and watched as the pleasure stole over his face. His hands fell to my hips, stroking them with his callused thumbs. Holding off for just a moment to calm myself, I slid my body forward and backward and made love to my Brian. Torn, I wanted to close my eyes and bury myself in our lovemaking, but I also wanted to watch his face, to see the emotion in his eyes. In the end, I kept my eyes open, not wanting to miss a moment of being able to see him. I’d had only that single worn picture to look at.

His hand came up to caress my cheek, and I looked down into his face. Even after all that time, he was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Wrapping one hand around the back of my neck, he pulled me forward and kissed me, whimpering softly into my mouth. When I sat up, I arched my back and dropped my hands to his thighs as he stroked me, making me flush all over.

Thrusting back as hard as I could, I took him deeper. I wanted to ache and burn, feeling him inside me when I was alone again. My fingers dug into his thighs to the point where it must have hurt, but he never moved, never spoke. He just let me use him in the ways that I needed. My cries were louder, and I could feel them ripping my throat as they escaped. Brian’s gentle hand moved from my hip, then along my side, holding me, rubbing the small of my back. They were tender, affectionate touches.

I’d lost myself so completely in being with Brian that I nearly forgot where we were until I heard Nick’s voice in the background. He spoke softly but with authority.

“Okay, Dylan, the makeup is coming off. I need you to finish up on the bottom.”

Trying not to let Nick’s voice throw cold water on that one chance for me to show Brian how I felt, I lifted up slowly, feeling him slide out of me before I climbed out of his lap. Kneeling down near the end of the bed, he waited for me to get comfortable, and I stretched out in the center of the bed where he had been. He smiled at me as he crawled between my legs and balanced himself with a hand on either side of my shoulders. Leaning down, he teased me with a slow, open-mouthed kiss before moving back up to his knees. Pulling my legs effortlessly over his forearms, he guided himself back inside me and balanced on his hands and knees over me.

My body folded nearly in half when he leaned forward to kiss me again, but I didn’t care. I loved his kisses, and I loved the feeling of him inside me. After wrapping my arms around him, I held him to my chest, kissing him with everything I had left in me. We were coming up on the end, and I knew we’d never have another moment like that. I tried so hard to hold off my orgasm. Unfortunately, it was inevitable.

“I’m close,” I told him in a quiet whimper, and he pulled back up onto his knees to get out of the way of the camera. The camera hadn’t even occurred to me, I was so lost in the haze of my orgasm. He came within minutes of me, something that didn’t generally happen on set, but in our hearts, we weren’t on set. In our hearts, we’d made love, not porn.

“Oh my God,” Brian moaned and collapsed on top of me, kissing me. I realized it was a ruse when he pressed his face into my neck to say softly “I love you so much” before rolling off the bed and standing up. He looked at me for just a moment before leaving the room. As I sat up, I noticed his clothes were still lying haphazardly on the floor next to the bed.

The room remained quiet for a matter of seconds before conversation erupted. I stayed where I was on the bed, feeling naked and vulnerable in a room full of people. Brandon, who had already dressed, bent down, picked up my shorts, and tossed them to me. I nodded to him gratefully and noticed Corey had started to pick up Brian’s clothes.

“Dylan, that was fantastic!” Nick cried, clasping me on the shoulder as I stood up to pull my shorts on. “I mean, I had a feeling you two would be good together, but that blew me away. You led him through perfectly, even better than Corey.” At the thought of Brian’s scene with Corey, I started to feel sick. I looked around for my T-shirt and then remembered I’d left it in the green room when Alex did the makeup on my back. Leaving Nick to his exultations, I headed out the door to get my shirt. All I wanted right then was to go back to the apartment and get the hit I had just earned. I needed it so I could forget about everything and take the short-lived happiness it afforded.

Sixteen

“N
ICK
said you did a good job today breaking in the new kid,” Steven said on the way back from the studio. His hand had been resting lightly on my knee since I got in the truck. Normally, I never gave this kind of affection a second thought, but right then, I wanted to throw it off. “I thought I’d take care of dinner tonight and take you out. What do you think?”

“Sure,” I said automatically. It hadn’t taken very long for me to learn to agree with him when he was in a good mood. Putting him in a bad mood never did much for my health.

“What sounds good?” he asked, and I knew exactly how to answer that question. He hated when I said I didn’t know or I didn’t care; that would set him off instantly. I needed to have a plausible answer, and one he was in the mood for, or there would be trouble.

“Italian?” I asked, though right then, I honestly didn’t care if it was the right answer or not. When we had first gotten in the truck, I had thought about picking a fight with him just so he would hurt me, because I deserved it. Brian’s life had been destroyed because of me, and I wanted to pay for it. More than that, I didn’t want to think anymore. I didn’t want to remember the way it felt to have his arms around me again. It was like an addict finally getting over his drug of choice, only to go back for one more hit. Well, I’d had my hit, and it was killing me.

I wished I had a different kind of hit to make it all go away.

“That sounds good. Want to go to that outdoor café over by the apartment?” he asked, rubbing my leg lightly.

“I like that place,” I said, sitting up in the seat and wincing at the tightness in my back. Steven squeezed my leg, taking my movement for interest.

“Great,” he said and changed to the right lane so he could pull the truck smoothly off the highway onto our exit. The huge, brand-new, black Chevy pickup was his pride and joy next to his Harley, which sat pristinely in the apartment’s indoor garage. Steven worked as the chief engineer for his large apartment building.

Of course, that wasn’t his only source of income. Contrary to what the other guys in the business thought, I knew he took most of my income. They didn’t know the money was to cover my drug debt, because the man they thought was my manager/boyfriend had been my dealer since shortly after I had moved into his place with him. He had a great one-bedroom apartment on the forty-second floor of a San Diego high-rise, a healthy and steady income, a beautiful truck, and a nice bike. With the addition of his own personal whore, Steven O’Dell seemed to have the perfect life.