Out of the Blues (17 page)

Because I was fucking falling for a man and I had no idea what to do to stop it.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Kilby goes deep.

There were two tattooists that were worth a damn in this town and both of them were unavailable until sometime next month. Which was for the best. I had a couple of tats that I’d gotten in the heat of the moment and regretted. I didn’t want an angry tat because I was burning pent-up aggression and needed something to take me over some edge I’d been walking for four years.

That wasn’t Mason’s fault either. I couldn’t blame him for being the first man since Jon to catch my attention. I’d deliberately hidden myself away from temptation because I didn’t want to be
out
in my hometown. Hell, I was as much in denial as Mason. Maybe even more so because I’d known all of my life I was gay.

The hotel had a deserted feeling when I came back, the staff the only people wandering around, setting up for the dinner, or just trying to stay busy. I was going to be late for the actual rehearsal if I didn’t get a move on. I was in the wedding so I had no excuse but to be there.

He wasn’t part of the wedding. He didn’t have to be there. I expected to find him upstairs in the room we shared. He wasn’t. I wasn’t sure if he’d been back either.

The room was as we’d left it earlier. The bed looked as if it had been trampled by a herd of elephants. I could smell us in the air. I avoided the bed. I pulled out my pressed clothing and found a pair of black jeans and a nice button down white shirt. I didn’t have much nice, not anymore, not like when I would have been expected to wear my dress uniform. I wasn’t in anymore. I couldn’t look at that uniform ever again.

And I hated Jon in that instant, hated him because I would still be a Marine if he hadn’t killed himself.

I hated him for reasons I didn’t understand. Four years of hating him for dying and leaving me with doubts had left me unable to trust anyone. I knew this. I sat on the arm of the chair and stared at the bed.

I had no idea what Mason had to do with my past mistakes.

I could still picture him there, his sandy hair tousled from my hands, his pretty hazel eyes looking at me as if he enjoyed what I did to him as if he couldn’t get enough of me. Was it an act? A lie? He was a spoiled little rich boy who could have his choice of anyone he’d wanted: women, men, didn’t matter, all he had to do was drop either one of his parent’s names or his stepfather’s and he’d get laid. Flash some cash and he could buy all the love he could stand.

But why me?

I didn’t want him because he was rich…and that’s where I stopped thinking because I was making assumptions when I’d been the one to say it was just sex. No strings. We’d go home after the wedding and it never happened.

I was using him as much as he was using me, which made me the asshole in this equation.

Not some messed up kid with daddy issues who’d never been told he was loved.

I stripped out of my t-shirt and ratty jeans and went into the bathroom. I didn’t have time to shower. I didn’t need a shower.

I had maybe thirty minutes and I had no idea how to get past this need to slam furniture against the wall.

I was standing there in nothing but a pair of socks when the door opened. I didn’t hear the key in the door. Or I would have…what? Covered my nudity? I wasn’t ashamed of my body.

He came inside and leaned against the closed door. He did have a disconnected look in his eyes as if he were lost in space. There was a sense of despair about him, something not right.

I dropped my change of clothes on the bed and took the five steps across the room, and without asking for permission I pulled the buttons on his shirt completely off and pushed him up against the door.

I kissed him, going up on my toes to reach his mouth and I held him to the door while I claimed him.

“You taste sweet.” I licked at his lips and finished destroying his shirt to get him out of it.

“Gummy bears…or Irish coffee…” He licked at my mouth, his hands were all over me.

“Both,” I agreed, going for the button on his pants. I wanted him. Now. I wanted to fuck him hard against the door. I wanted him to fuck me. I wanted it all. I wanted him. “I want inside you.”

“Yes,” he breathed against my lips and I stripped his pants down his hips and he kicked his legs until his pants were around his ankles. “Now, fuck. Now.”

He moved against me, his dick grazing mine as he toed his shoes off and struggled to step out of his pants. When he was as naked as me, I slipped my hands under his thighs and lifted him off the floor. He wrapped around me, all arms and legs. His mouth closed over mine and I held him there, feasting on his kisses. He wanted me. I didn’t care if he was straight or fucked up. He wanted me and I needed him even if it was just sex. I had one more day and I couldn’t… “Bed,” he whispered against my neck. “Fuck me.”

“Can’t get enough of you,” I told him because it was true. I didn’t know if I would ever get enough of him. A weekend hookup wasn’t going to be enough.

He trembled in my arms, leaning back against the door to look at me as if he’d never seen me before in his life. “I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you,” he said as if the truth of it surprised even him.

“Me either,” I said. I didn’t lie. I’d never met anyone who made me feel like this. Like I was drowning and desperate and that if I didn’t have all of him now I’d never have him again.

“Take me to bed,” he said, his voice breaking. “Make love to me. I want…need to be yours…while there’s time.”

I nodded and walked backward until my thighs hit the bed. I turned and fell on top of him, rubbing and kissing until I forgot the need to pound walls. I found the dropped bottle of lube in the sheets and dribbled out what was left in the tiny bottle hoping it would be enough. I spread him wide and slicked my dick and watched his face as I pushed into his heat.

“Mason,” I whispered his name as I smoothed his hair back from his face. “Let me see you.”

He held himself still beneath me as I eased into him. He looked up into my eyes, his façade slipping away. Vulnerable…that’s what I saw as I loved him, a touch of fear and some pain as I stretched him. He was giving me himself.

“You see me.” He cupped my face in his hands, opening beneath me, his body, his…everything. “You’re the first person to ever see me.”

“I see you.” I was deep inside him, feeling his body accept me, feeling his heat and his pulse. I wanted to stay right there. Forever. I don’t know what this was between us. I’d never had anything like this.

He didn’t want me to tell him he was beautiful. He was. He didn’t need to hear that from me. “I see you, too.”

“Good.” I wanted him to see me. I wanted to be real to him. Not some guy he let fuck him one weekend when he was falling apart and didn’t know what he was doing. “I need to fuck you now.”

“Please,” was all he said. He dragged my mouth down to his and moved beneath me as if he’d done this all his life.

I fell into the kiss, desperate to purge myself of this demon that rode me. I drowned in his kiss. We moved together, bodies slapping, sweat dripping, desperately making love. I needed more. I needed him. I needed. Just fuck. I came, screaming my pain into his neck as he held me. Fuck, just fuck. It wasn’t enough.

I pulled out of him, his arms and legs flopped to the bed. He was hard and dripping, his body practically thrumming with pending orgasm. “Don’t come,” I said trying to catch my breath. “Don’t fucking come yet.” I jacked my dick over his, not touching him, coating him with cum. “Don’t come. Not finished yet.”

He lay there watching me lose my fucking mind as I crawled up his body until I had him trapped between my thighs. I leaned over him and sucked his tongue into my mouth. He dug his fingers into my shoulders as I stroked his dick. Lining up, I eased him inside me.

He gasped into my mouth and clenched my arms as I took him deep. “Your turn,” I said, bracing myself over him. “Fuck me. Want you to come now.”

He moaned, grabbing the back of my head and holding me down over him. He drove into me, hard. His gaze had gone stony as he fucked, blowing hard against my mouth. I met his rhythm, riding him, taking him. “Fuck,” he said, pulling me down lower, one hand still behind my head, one down my back pressing my spine. “Fuck, Kilby, can’t stop.”

“Don’t.” I saw his orgasm build in his eyes. His body shook from the force of our love-making. I shoved my arms beneath him. Mouth to mouth, I swallowed his cries as he filled me with heat. “Don’t stop,” I whispered, wanting more. He reached between us and stroked me until I was shaking.

“Come, Kilby,” he said, giving me what I needed, giving me permission to fall the fuck apart, so I did. All over his chest.

* * * * *

And Mason claims the crown.

I couldn’t skip the fucking rehearsal no matter how hard I tried to get out of it. We were late coming downstairs, both recently showered. It was obvious that we’d fucked. Incredibly obvious.

As soon as the elevator opened, I stepped out and tried to pretend nothing was out of the ordinary. Unfortunately I walked right into the one person I’d hoped to avoid.

“You’re late,” my mother said in her actual mother voice. I hadn’t heard her use her real voice in…I couldn’t even remember the last time she’d tried to discipline me, more than fifteen years at least, back when I was still a kid and I’d run off one summer day to play video games with one of the kids down the street from Cody’s house. She was still trying to be a mom then. Or at least what she thought was being a mom. Fact was, Doug was waiting to take us for our month with him before he had to report to training camp and I didn’t want to go. So, I sort of ran away which meant Arden had to hunt me down and humiliate me in front of both of my fathers and the neighbors…and why the fuck were all of my memories horrible?

“I wasn’t supposed to be in the wedding, so how exactly am I late?” I hooked my arm in hers and thanked whatever deity I was sure had given me to this woman for not letting her see Kilby in the elevator. I didn’t want to deal with her flirting with him. I sure as hell didn’t want her to be the one to notice the obvious fuckage vibes between us.

I didn’t look back but I knew he followed us to the limo that waited outside to take us to the church. I’d expected to be the last ones out and I expected to have to drive over. I never expected a limo or that they’d wait for us.

I noted, thankfully, that there were no babies in this limo. I wished there was no mother in this one as well. Hunter and my dad’s family were suspiciously missing.

This was the ladies limo. I would have been the only male. Goody. Harper and mother and Melissa along with her little girl as flower girl.

“Oh, Kilby, dear, sweetie, I thought you were in the other limo,” my mother said as I seated myself beside Harper who turned to me with a lifted eyebrow which told me I’d be questioned later.

“Sorry, no, I was late getting back with my suit. Guess I missed them.”

He climbed in after my mother and ended up sitting next to her.

And wasn’t that fun, watching my mother turn cougar over the man who’d just fucked me stupid.

Making small talk with Harper’s best girlfriend was almost as painful. I couldn’t remember her. I think I fucked her once. The kid was cute, about five or six, certainly not old enough to be mine if we’d fucked.

“Hey, Mace, long time,” she said, holding out her hand. She had a wedding set and seemed…friendly. No flirting, no throwing herself at me or at Kilby. That was my mother’s job, apparently.

“Too long,” I said, watching Kilby remove my mother’s hand from his knee. “How are you doing?”

“Really well, I’m so happy to see you again.” She leaned over and kissed my cheek pausing to wipe off the lipstick she must have left. “You look so nice.” She smiled at me and shifted her gaze to Kilby. “He seems like a nice guy. My husband is deployed right now. I miss him so much.”

“Oh,” I said, looking from her to Kilby and his Marine hair and the way he looked at me while humoring my mother. “I didn’t know.” What the hell do you tell someone whose husband was off at war? I hope he doesn’t get shot…maybe not. “Who’s this little sweetie?” I said instead shifting my attention to the little girl in the tutu and cowboy boots. She was cute as a button.

“Cynthia,” she said, holding out her hand to me. “You’re pretty.”

“Thank you,” I told her because well…what else was I supposed to say. “So are you.”

“Thank you,” she giggled and kicked her pink boots. I liked this kid, too. I’d take her and the little booger monster and keep them both. I’d buy them clothes and…shit, I really was becoming my mother.

“Are you all right?” Harper leaned into me and whispered as the car pulled out onto the highway.

I nodded and returned the question. She nodded. “I guess. And the cat’s out of the bag. So, yeah, Arden thinks she is too young to be a grandmother.”

“Is that why she’s trying to undress Kilby, with her eyes and her hands?” I tried not to want to tear my own mother’s hair out.

“Probably,” Harper said. “Doug apologized. I talked with Gwen. I like her Mace, she’s nice, more like an older sister than a mother figure.”

“Do you need a mother figure?” I’d had too much time to think about our lives and what we didn’t have. I sometimes wondered if I really did have daddy issues.