Page 20 of Breaking Through the Doubt (Espen Jetties #4)

20

COREY

The scent of sex and Leslie surrounded me when I woke up the next morning. I refused to open my eyes at first, simply enjoying the feel of his warm body. Contentment settled over me. I could lay there forever, if only I didn’t have to go into the shop today.

Just thinking about the way Leslie had submitted every inch to me, had me growing harder under the sheets. My morning wood no longer still a morning problem.

I willed my body under control. Leslie would be sore from last night and I knew he had practice today. His arm tightened around my waist, and I felt the press of his lips on the back of my neck.

“Morning,” I said, my voice hoarse.

“Good morning.” He pressed another kiss to the back of my neck. “Let’s go out for breakfast. My treat.”

I rolled over to face him, both of our heads lying on the same pillow. “Don’t you have practice today?”

He laid his hand on my hip. “Yeah, but not for a bit. We could have an early breakfast, then I’ll drop you off at home.”

“I like the sound of that.” His hand was doing all sorts of wicked things to my body. I could barely form a rational thought, much less more than a simple sentence with his warmth seeping into me.

I took hold of his hand, moved it lower, and wrapped it around my cock. He didn’t waste a second before slowly moving his hand up and down. The erection I’d manage to suppress earlier was back with a vengeance. His calloused fingers bringing extra friction that had me thrusting my hips.

I circled him with my fingers, matching the movements of his own hand. We lay there, our eyes locked as we brought each other to the brink, then falling over the precipice.

The first jet of cum hit my chest and I wasn’t sure whose it was. We’d both cried out into the room at the same time.

Coated in cum, I stared at Leslie, his breathing just as heavy as my own. “We need a shower,” I muttered.

“In a minute.” He closed his eyes, trying to catch his breath.

I followed suit. “A minute sounds good.” No matter what part of his body touched me, each orgasm was more explosive than the last.

Somehow, we forced ourselves out of bed and into the shower. Taking turns, otherwise we never would have made it out of the house for breakfast. Dressed and ready for the day, Leslie drove us into the city. He took us to a small café on the beach, Sunrise Café. I’d never been there before. The food and the atmosphere were perfect.

It wasn’t large and didn’t even have matching chairs at each table, but that only added to the unique charm of the place. On the walls were paintings for sale. We sat at a corner table with a chair on one side and a bench with colorful pillows on the other.

By the time we left, I was completely stuffed and already disappointed about our day ending. With no game today and one tomorrow, our time was limited before he would need to head out on the road again.

We reached my apartment to grab my car before work, and I stopped with my hand on the door handle. “Will you have dinner with me at my place tonight? I know it’s late, but I want to see you as much as I can before you leave again.”

“I’d love to. I’ll meet you here after you’re done.”

I smiled and kissed him. “Have fun at practice today.” I stepped out of the car and shut the door, feeling completely at peace. A feeling that could only be found by falling for the right person.

* * *

That feeling stayed with me through my entire day, making the hours pass quickly until I stepped off the elevator and found Leslie waiting for me at my door. I hiked up the bag of takeout I’d picked up on the way when it started to slip through my arms.

“I hope Thai food is okay?” I asked when I reached him. “I meant to call and ask what you wanted but we were so busy I never got the chance, then I didn’t want to wait any longer to see you.”

Leslie took the bag from me. “I like it.” He kissed me.

I opened the door and let us inside, taking the food to the small kitchen table. I grabbed a couple of plates and utensils, while Leslie unloaded the boxes onto the table.

“I got a variety. I wasn’t sure which one you would like.”

“I’ll eat just about anything.”

We each took a plate and loaded food from different containers onto them. Famished, I dug right into my food.

“I take it the shop is still getting a lot of new business.”

“It is. I need to start looking for a new artist to take on more of the walk-ins. It’s hard finding someone who gets along with everyone.”

“I’m sure you’ll pick the right person.”

I chuckled. “I’ll do my best.”

We talked a little bit about his family, but mainly focused on the food on our plates. It seemed that Leslie was as hungry as I was.

“You said you grew up in Espen, but what about your family?” he asked.

I pushed the food around my plate. This conversation was the one I dreaded when I started dating someone. There was always the question about how much to tell them about my childhood. As a rule, in my own life I tried not to focus on what went wrong and instead focus on what went right.

“It was just me and my dad growing up.”

I waited for it.

“What about your mom?” And there it was. People who grew up in two parent households were always curious about why a mother wouldn’t be in the picture. Why a person would be raised by a single dad, through no fault of their own. Dad’s leaving and never being heard from again were more common in society. A mother’s instinct to care for her child being absent was unheard of. I thought like some men, some women were born without the desire to be a good parent.

Leslie wouldn’t be judgmental, but I’d faced enough of that in life when people found out about my mom, so I usually kept most of it close to the chest.

“My mom was never really in my life.”

Leslie’s hand froze where he was piercing a piece of chicken. “What happened? If you want to tell me, that is. You don’t have to.”

I shrugged. “Don’t know.” Not a complete lie. “About a month after I was born, she disappeared in the middle of the night. Dad woke up and she was gone. Her getting pregnant had been an accident, and I guess she didn’t really want to be a parent.”

“I’m so sorry, Corey.”

My head snapped up from where I’d been staring at the table. “Please don’t be. My dad was and is an amazing man. He moved us closer to my grandparents. My grandma took care of me while Dad and Grandpa went to work. But every night my dad was home with me. Every night after dinner he would give me a bath and read me a story.”

“Are your grandparents still around?”

I shook my head. “No, my grandma passed away about ten years ago and my grandpa about two years ago. I wish he could have remembered me opening the shop. But I hadn’t lived with them since I was ten. Dad had moved us closer to his work so it would be easier to get me for after school activities.”

“Your dad sounds like a wonderful man.”

I thought about the man who pushed me to never give up on my dreams. Who listened and never tried to make his dreams my own. “He is absolutely the best. I would never have opened the shop without his encouragement.”

“Did you ever see your mom again?” When I didn’t answer after a few moments, Leslie jumped in, “Like I said before, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell him, but how to explain what life was like with my mom without bringing up the nitty-gritty details I didn’t like to remember.

“It’s fine. Just a little complicated. I’ve seen my mom over the years, not that I ever considered her to really be my mom. She would reappear every two or so years, claiming she was ready to be a mom.” I shrugged, trying to push away the memories of her breezing in like everything would be fine, until it wasn’t. “Things would be great for a couple of weeks, sometimes a couple of months, then it would go downhill quick. She’d start ignoring us, especially me. She wouldn’t show up for meals until she’d leave again. The last time I saw her I was fourteen and it had been four years since she’d shown up. That time my dad wouldn’t let her in. Told her he still cared about her, but I had to be his priority and her continued jumps in and out of our lives only caused me more pain.”

I remembered the way she sobbed at our door, falling to her knees in the hallway. My dad’s back had stiffened as he tried to keep his resolve. He loved her and, honestly, I think it hurt him more when she left than it hurt me. By the time I was ten, I’d grown resentful of the woman. Of the pain she caused my dad. The moment I heard the click of the door, I’d watch my dad walk to his room and shut himself inside. From that moment on, I’d resolved to never let her into my life.

Leslie reached across the table and covered my hand with his. “I’m sorry it came to that.”

“We were better off without her. She hurt us repeatedly.”

“Thank you for sharing that with me.”

I smiled at him. The man had the heart of a teddy bear. Looking at him across from me and thinking about the man who had walked into the shop that night, the man who had been on every media outlet I could think of for getting into fights in bars, I couldn’t see him anywhere in the striking features of the man who was very quickly stealing my heart.

I stood from the table, determined to put the memories of my mom back into the box they lived in. I walked over to Leslie’s chair and encouraged him to push back a bit. When he did, I straddled his lap and took his face between my hands. The words for how I felt about him weren’t fully ready, but I could show him how I felt with my body.

Lowering my head, I tasted his lips, nibbling at the edges. Leslie’s fingers dug into my hips while I teased the corner of his mouth with my tongue. He lifted his hips from the chair, and I could feel he was already hard.

On and on I kissed his lips, lightly grinding down onto him, making myself dizzy with need. My balls were growing tight when I stood and held my hand out to him. Without a word, I led him from the kitchen down the hall to my bedroom, where I could once again make him mine.