#Rev (GearShark #2)(31)

I was sorely tempted to grip his cock and tease it with some stroking, but I held back. It wouldn’t be fair to him or me. I wasn’t going to do anything about either one of our hard-ons. Trent was way too exhausted, and I knew he was in pain. All the soreness from what happened to him last night was in full swing.

“I gotta say I like the way you look under me.” My palms flattened on his chest and rubbed upward, stroking his well-defined pecs.

“Wanna see how I look over you?” His hands covered mine.

“Right now, it’s my most anticipated moment,” I confessed.

“Mine, too.”

Just thinking about sex with him caused my hips to rock. Trent smiled lazily and palmed my waist.

I shook my head. “No way.”

He lifted a brow.

“I didn’t come here for sex,” I explained, keeping my voice very quiet.

We were in a house full of men.

“Then why are you here, Forrester?”

I liked when he called me that. I don’t know why. It was just my last name, but when he said it, it was more.

“Because I love you.”

Against my skin, his hands went slack, and his eyes closed. “I wish you knew how amazing that sounds to me.” The emotion in his voice almost made me forget about my no-sex-tonight rule.

“I do.” I promised. “It’s the exact same as when you say it to me.”

He shook his head once. “No.” He looked up, the amber of his eyes blazing with vulnerability. “You’re stronger than me, Drew. Deep down at the core.” He paused to swallow and look away.

I watched the emotion play across his features. I watched him search for the words to explain what was going on inside him, and then I watched him weigh them, as if he measured exactly what each one would cost.

“I’ve… I opened up a part of myself that was so private it physically hurt, the deepest place I feel things, the place where my most exposed feelings lie. That cost me a lot, Forrester, and I was scared. You are the biggest risk I’m ever going to take, so when you say you love me, it’s the biggest reward I’ll ever know.”

I grabbed his jaw and rubbed the pads of my thumbs over the skin there, reveling in his words, the moment… and the way he looked at me. “Don’t ever underestimate the power you have over me, frat boy. I promise you I’m just as powerless when it comes to you.”

“I love you,” he rasped.

After that, no more words were said. There was honestly nothing left to say. When you understood the depth of feeling and the level of connection we had, words just didn’t compare.

My head buzzed as our lips moved together. His fingertips were unsteady when they stroked over my scruff. Our tongues and mouths made love, but it was never about anything more. It was just us simply being together, exploring each other in ways we’d been deprived of until just recently.

When at last our lips stopped moving, I rested my cheek on his shoulder and flung a leg over his. The languid feeling of his fingertips dragging up and down my spine made me drowsy and lulled me to sleep.

Turns out I kinda liked a bed Trent was too small for because for us together, it was just right.



I called in sick to work.

Not because I didn’t want to get up early (though, who the hell ever wants to do that?), but because I wanted to drive.

I wanted the open road, my foot against the gas pedal, and the feeling of flying. I needed it, too—the solitude that came over me when I drove. There was a stillness that came with driving fast, a sort of mental clarity. It didn’t make much sense to say, but the only way I could describe it was the ability to literally speed up the world around me allowed my mind to only see what really mattered. All the scenery whipping by blurred together, leaving all that remained the stuff that mattered most, the stuff no amount of speed could ever blur.

I was happy—no, I was fulfilled being with Trent. But that fulfillment wasn’t without strife. I still had things to work through in my head. Decisions to make. And let’s face it. I was still beyond pissed about him getting jumped. Maybe some speed would shake loose some of the anger weighing me down.

Maybe the adrenaline rush would give me some courage.

“If I could skip classes today, I would,” T said, looking at me still tangled in the sheets.

I was enjoying the view. Though I could tell he was still sore, he was moving a little bit easier today… or at least putting on a good act.

It reinforced that what he really needed last night was rest, not us going at each other for hours.

It was early, but not as early as I usually had to drag my ass out of bed. The second my alarm went off, the familiar sense of dread about sitting in that cubicle all day with the damn noose—I mean tie—around my throat was too much.

I waited until more of a decent hour and called in. I told them I was sick, likely some kind of food poisoning from something I ate over the weekend. They believed me. There was no reason not to. I didn’t like my job, but I showed up and did the work well.

This was only the second time I’d called off since starting that job, the first time being when Ivy had Nova. I wasn’t even worried they would see me out because I was going where people I worked with never did.

After that, I settled back against T and drifted back into this weird but utterly comfortable place between deep sleep and consciousness. It was the place where my body and mind was totally relaxed, but I was still aware. I felt the rhythm of Trent’s breathing, the hardness of his body but the softness in which his arm wrapped around my waist. Those sounds were like rainfall pattering against the windows and overhead on the roof. Soothing, comforting, and the stuff that made you snuggle in a little tighter.