Sleeping ’til Sunrise (3 page)

Easing him out of the chair, I lifted him off his feet and carried him, still kissing me, never breaking away, to the couch. When I sat down, I pulled free for a moment to take a gulp of air, but before his mind could clear—which would lead, I was sure, to him pulling away from me—I recaptured his soft, supple, pouty lips.

The shuddering groan was full of hunger, and when I shoved my tongue in his mouth again, he sucked on it hard, moaning deep and sexy as he bucked in my lap. Quickly, I worked open his belt buckle and got into his Dockers, the button and zipper easy to maneuver. He broke the kiss and put his hands flat on my chest, panting and shivering. “Essien, we should stop and—oh!”

I had his hard cock dribbling in my hand, and the way he pressed up into my grip, shuddering as I rubbed precum over the head with my thumb, left no doubt in my mind that stopping was definitely not what he truly wanted.

Running a hand around the side of his neck, I tilted his head down to me and took his mouth in a claiming, devouring kiss at the same time I rolled him sideways to his back under me, my hand never stopping the slide on his shaft from balls to head.

He writhed under me, his body quivering from the contact, breath stuttering as I suckled on his bottom lip a second before I abandoned the kiss and sat up.

The panting, the flush, the wide-open, trusting glazed expression in his eyes made me smile as I roughly shucked his jeans to his knees and curled over him. He yelled my name when I deep-throated him in one smooth movement.

I smiled around his cock before I swallowed down the length of him, sucking and laving as he palmed the back of my head, clearly wanting me there, holding on, his hips lifting off the couch as he fucked my mouth.

“Essien!”

I took hold of the base of his cock, squeezing tight, and he gasped, digging his fingers into my shoulders.

“I can’t—you shouldn’t,” he moaned, low and seductive, his body bowing under me as I made the suction too strong for him to hold himself back.

He arched hard, freezing in position as he dumped down my throat, and I swallowed fast. It took several long moments for me to lick him clean, and when he was, when he slipped from between my lips, sated and spent, I leaned back and grinned down at him.

“This is a mistake,” he whispered as the first tear slipped from the side of his eye and down his temple.

“Why’s that?” I asked, leaning over him, hovering close.

“Because.” He took a breath. “I’m no good for you.”

“Again I ask, how come?”

“You’ve already been a caretaker once; I don’t want you to have to do it again.”

“Why?” I asked, studying his face.

He was beautiful, with his forest eyes, the deep laugh lines around them; the long, straight nose; full lips and chiseled planes of his face. His glossy black mop was getting long, tumbling almost to his broad shoulders. I wanted to feel his body pressed to mine. I wanted Roark Hammond naked in my bed, but he was trying to tell me something important, so I wanted to not only hear, but listen.

“Tell me,” I demanded, leaning back a little, sitting beside him on the couch, admiring his long, veined dick lying flaccid against the treasure trail on his stomach.

He cleared his throat, still breathing heavily. “I have cancer.”

It took me a moment to process what he’d said, because honestly, that word and I were so deeply acquainted that hearing it again, even just for a second, blotted out everything else.

Some words, some smells, even songs could rush you right back to a place in time and you were caught there, reliving a memory, stuck with no way out until the flood receded.

I saw a rush of images of tubes and machines, heard sounds of crying, but thankfully not the smell of antiseptic or worse. I rode the roller coaster for a long moment, and then I was suddenly back, present, with a beautiful man who was searching my face for a reaction.

It wasn’t fair. He finally opened up to me, allowed me close, and what? It took everything in me not to yell. How many people was that fucking disease going to take from me?

“I have leukemia.”

I nodded and took a quick breath, careful that he didn’t see any sympathy or hear it in my voice. Straightforward, no beating around the bush, was, I knew from experience, the way to go. “Which one?”

He squinted at me. “Most people don’t know there are different kinds.”

“I’m not most people.”

“No, you’re not,” he said softly, and I saw a hint of a smile.

“So?” I prodded.

“I have CML, chronic myeloid leukemia,” he answered quickly. “Or chronic myelogenous leukemia… it’s all the same.”

“Stage what?”

Quick clearing of his throat before he said, “Leukemia doesn’t—it’s not like that. There aren’t stages per se, as it already occurs in the developing blood cells within the bone marrow.”

“Okay. Then how sick are you?”

“I’m not, not really.”

“Good.”

“You’re so matter-of-fact about all this.”

“You’d prefer I did what?”

His brows furrowed and his face tightened almost in a grimace before he glanced away, not meeting my gaze.

“It’s the reason you’ve been avoiding me, so let’s get it out in the open,” I went on.

He sat up fast, squirming out from under my arm, pulling up his briefs but unable to fasten his pants because of how much I was crowding him. “I haven’t been avoiding—”

“Yes, you have.”

“I just—” He took a breath. “—we all know, the whole town knows… what you did for your wife.”

The town was small; everyone knew everybody else’s business. It was not a surprise that this, too, had been shared. “Which matters why?”

“I don’t want you to have to live through that again.”

“I thought you said you weren’t sick,” I said flatly.

“I did.”

“Then how am I living through the same thing?”

“Down the road,” he snapped.

“So you’re planning on a down the road with me, then?”

“I—”

“Because every time I get near you, you disappear, and when I do see you out, it’s always with some tourist who’s gone in a matter of days.”

He shoved me off him and stood up, adjusting his pants and zipping up. He didn’t fasten the button, though, or fix his belt; instead he began pacing in front of me.

“Yes?”

He spun around and pointed at me. “I’m not a whore!”

“That’s an interesting logic jump,” I replied, leaning back, hands behind my head, looking up at him. “How did you get there?”

“You just said you see me with a different guy every—”

“You’re deliberately trying to pick a fight with me so you can order me out of your office, but we just had a breakthrough and you let me suck your dick, so I’m not going anywhere.”

He sneered. “Are you looking for me to return the favor first? Is that it?”

I scoffed, chuckling even as I saw the quick flush burn up his throat and cheeks. “I like these tactics, Hammond. You’re really good at this.”

“Just get out,” he snarled irritably, his eyes filling even as he glowered at me.

“No,” I said with a shrug, parting my legs, tipping my head as I held his gaze. With his swollen lips, glittering eyes, tousled hair, and flushed face, he was simply gorgeous. I wanted almost desperately to take him home. But he was used to playing this game, allowing physical contact and then pushing people away.

I wasn’t going to let him win.

“What do you want?” he yelled, back to pacing.

“I think the better question is, what is it that
you
want?”

He was holding himself so stiffly, twisted into knots right there in front of me, all his energy being spent on not breaking down.

“Roark?”

“I’ll get sicker,” he said as he inched closer.

“Or something else could happen.”

He raked his fingers through his thick hair as he eased forward. “Chances are this disease is going to kill me.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

“It’s cancer,” he almost whined, stepping into the space between my parted knees.

“But there are a lot of factors,” I rumbled as he wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands before letting his head fall forward so he could stare into my eyes. “And you don’t have a crystal ball—you can’t see the future.”

He nodded. “It’s true.”

“So then why worry now?”

“Because if I get really sick,” he said under his breath, “then you’d be back to taking care of someone.”

“I’d have to really like you to do that, wouldn’t I?”

“Listen, Ess, you—”

“My mother used to call me Ess,” I said, chuckling, lifting my hand, fingers splayed, seeing what he’d do if he caught the movement for the invitation it was.

He laced his fingers into mine and I drew him close, turning him so he sank down into me, on my thighs, his back nestled against my chest, head tucked under my chin.

“You shouldn’t waste your time with—”

“Stop,” I grunted. “Don’t you like sitting here with me?”

“Yes,” he breathed out. “Too much.”

The honesty was a nice change.

“What do you want?” he asked, and I could feel the tension drain out of him as he gave me his weight.

“How about your time? Could I have some of that?”

He tilted his head up and I bent and kissed him. It was just a brush of my lips over his, but his sigh was deep.

“This is not a good idea,” he whispered when I pulled back.

“Oh yes it is,” I argued gently, my hand rubbing circles on his stomach as I kissed his forehead. “Could I take you home?”

“I’m going to pass out on you when we get there.”

I chuckled. “I know.”

“I would really like to”—his voice bottomed out—“see you.”

“I’d like to be seen.”

He sat up fast and rounded on me as he sat there, perched on my knees. “I’ve been so scared.”

I leaned forward and cupped his face in my hands. “Because you don’t want to start something serious with someone who might leave you when they learn you’re sick or who you might end up dying on.”

“Yes,” he admitted, his voice crackly and edged with pain. “And at some point, I’m going to need you way more than you’re going to need me and—”

“That’s what a relationship is about.”

“But you don’t have to have it, you could run now.”

“No I couldn’t. It’s already too late,” I said, grinning at him. “I like you too much already.”

Tears welled in his eyes. “I shouldn’t—and I’ve worked so hard to stay away from you and not…. I mean, you’re just the worst choice because what I could do to you is horrible.”

It was, and I felt a tremor of panic make a knot in my stomach with the realization of the step I was about to take. “Let me take you home,” I soothed him, kissing his forehead before helping him up off the couch.

He buttoned his pants and buckled his belt and then trailed after me out of his office, locking doors and turning off lights. On the porch, I asked for his keys.

“I can drive.”

“You better let me,” I told him, gesturing for him to hand them over. “Besides, I want to drive your baby, really bad.”

His smile made his eyes glint in the moonlight. “Everybody’s in love with my car.”

“Can you blame us? It’s vintage.”

I loved his laugh, deep and throaty and real, and when he passed over his keys, he leaned sideways and kissed my cheek.

“Let’s go,” I prodded, not kissing him back, not reaching for his hand. I was in full friend mode now, wanting to take care of him and make sure he got home and ate and went straight to bed. “You need sleep.”

He didn’t argue, just followed dutifully behind me as I took care of him. It was, after all, what I did.

FRIENDSHIP WAS
one of those odd things that could not be relied upon to make sense.

My daughter thought that since we lived next door to Hutch Crowley and Mike Rojas, and since they were both gay and I was gay, and because Mike had lost his wife and I’d done so as well, we would be fast friends. And while they were really good guys and we sometimes ate together and I trusted them with my kid, they were almost more Ivy’s friends than mine. It took me a long time to open up to people, and while I shared a lot of surface things that anyone could know or that my daughter would tell them, I was not about dredging up my soul to people I’d only known for six months.

The exception was Dwyer Knolls, who ran a small but gorgeous bed and breakfast right on the beach called Blue Days. He ran it with his husband, Hiroyuki Takeo. They hadn’t been in Mangrove as long as a lot of others, but while everyone sort of knew one another’s business, Dwyer and Takeo were a bit more solitary. While it couldn’t be said that they were standoffish in any way, neither were they like Hutch or Kelly Seaton or Britton Lassiter. They kept to themselves, and so when I ran with Dwyer in the mornings, no one ever just joined us, because he was with me. It was actually very nice.

“If I wanted to run alone, I would,” he teased, easily keeping pace with me even though I was taller and my stride was longer.

“Sorry.”

He grunted. “What’s on your mind this fine morning?”

“Nothing.”

His snort of laughter made me smile.

“Try again.”

“Yeah, okay,” I huffed out. “Roark Hammond.”

He squinted at me. “I thought we were holding off on dating until your kid went off to college.”

“Shit, I know.”

“Oh, no, don’t get me wrong,” Dwyer said quickly. “I think that makes a lot of sense, and you and the doctor—that totally works, but it was
your
mandate, so I’m just wondering what changed your mind.”

I groaned.

“Need to get laid?”

“Yes,” I replied honestly. “But there’s more to it than that.”

“I get it, he’s husband material.”

“What? No.”

“What? No,” he repeated with a snicker. “That was so convincing, I think you should get an Oscar or something.”

“Why don’t you run that way,” I said, pointing out to the ocean.

He bumped into me, gently, just a nudge of comradery. “Knock it off. I’ve seen the way you look at him, and I’ve seen the way he looks at you. You’re both idiots.”

“I—that’s not—what makes you… I don’t—”