Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 87771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
“I think you’ve already done a lot in that department.”
“Touché,” I said. I didn’t know what pushed me into kissing him next, but I did. And he kissed me back, soft and tender. The bite of lust was right there under the surface, but we both restrained ourselves. Exhaustion was starting to slip in. It was already close to midnight, and we had a long day ahead of us tomorrow.
“We should probably try and get some sleep,” I said.
“I can stay up with you all night, but damn, I think you’re right.”
Judging by the way his cock was growing, he wasn’t lying. I was getting hard too, but I was fine with cuddling until we went to sleep. Besides, we had two more nights here together.
That was, of course, if he even wanted to cuddle. Maybe that pillow wall was coming up.
“You don’t snore, do you?”
“I don’t think so,” Gabe said. “Maybe a little.”
“I usually sleep with some white noise playing,” I said, both of us getting out of bed to brush our teeth.
Gabe looked at me in the bathroom mirror with his eyebrows raised. “Shit. For some reason, I can’t sleep with any noise playing in the room. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, that’s fine. I can try wearing headphones. Do you have audio-mepho-something too?”
“What the fuck is that?”
I laughed. “I don’t really know. It’s what Dylan said he had. That he’s hypersensitive to those kinds of sounds.”
“Oh, no,” he said, shaking his head as we went back to bed. We got in under the covers, neither of us moving to erect a pillow barrier between us. “I don’t think so. That sounds… yeah, I think he could have made that up.”
“Really?”
“Possibly. Most likely.”
“Damn it, he did sound a little off saying it.”
Gabe laughed, the sound vibrating through the mattress. It was a queen-sized bed, so there was plenty of room for us both to stretch out, yet like two magnets, we were skin-to-skin, shoulder-to-shoulder. Without any prompting, and without any resistance from either of us, we naturally got into a big spoon/little spoon position, with Gabe’s comforting arm thrown over my side, his hard (and still leaking) dick resting against my ass. My back directly against his chest. I could feel every breath.
I went to sleep that night without a care in the world while feeling like I was floating far, far above it.
Chapter Fifteen
Morning After
ELI
I woke up smiling.
I didn’t think that had ever happened to me in my entire twenty-seven years of existence. Anyone who knew me well knew that I was far from ever being considered a morning person. I enjoyed sleeping an extra fifteen minutes past the alarm, and it required a good half hour for my brain to wake up and for me to become a functioning human being again.
It was no surprise why I woke up so happy, though. And I was excited to explore that reason even further.
I rolled over, excited to press myself against the handsome man who had… what the hell? Where was Gabe?
There was only empty space next to me. I sat up and looked toward the bathroom. The door was open, and the light was off, no sounds of the shower, either. Had he gone downstairs to get us breakfast? I considered that possibility until I realized his suitcase was gone.
What the actual hell?
A note on the nightstand caught my eye. I grabbed it and immediately recognized Gabe’s handwriting from the times he’d write on the whiteboard in the locker room.
Eli, I’m so sorry for leaving like this. I didn’t want to wake you up. I got a call at five this morning that needs my attention. I’ll explain more the next time I see you. I’m sorry. Emmy already knows I won’t be playing this weekend. He’s also going to be changing your room so you can stay with him. I’ll see you in Burlington.
My heart dropped. What happened that Gabe had to rush out of here without even waking me up? I wouldn’t have cared. I would have gone back to sleep, but at least I would have been able to tell him goodbye, that I could help if he needed anything.
A darker thought pushed up into my skull like a thorny weed.
What if he was lying? What if last night was a letdown for him and he just needed to get away from me? Or maybe it had made him realize he didn’t even like men, that he was actually straight? It wasn’t logical at all—especially not with how into it he had clearly been—but sometimes my thoughts got stuck on the illogical and circled it like a dog chasing its tail.
Relentless and stupidly thinking the chase of a toxic thought would actually get me somewhere when in reality, it had me stuck in place.
The fact of the matter was that Gabe had left. The next two nights of hot and passionate sex I had been picturing vanished in a puff of smoke. Maybe that, too, was for the best, because even though I didn’t let Gabe fuck me last night, I also didn’t do a good job of keeping him from getting under my skin. Clearly not if I was feeling this disappointed about not having him around for the rest of the weekend.