Page 66 of Resonance
“Not long,” I lied. My shift at the shop didn’t start until noon, and we’d planned for me to drop him off at the tour bus a couple of hours from now. I sighed, dreading it already, and reached for his wrist, guiding it from my thigh to my stiff dick.
“Jesus, you even wake up demanding,” he muttered, but tightened his fingers around my cock and stroked me slowly, easing me into the buildup and the soft run of pleasure that trickled through me.
“Nah, just taking advantage while the opportunity is there.”
“I see. I’m just convenient,” he teased.
“Oh so convenient.” I gasped as he squeezed me and then pumped me harder.
Dan released me and when I made a noise of protest, he touched my shoulder and rolled me over, fingers tracing my cheeks, my eyes, my lips, his caresses dancing over the surface of my skin like light on water. It felt the same inside, too, like little dots of warmth that expanded and rippled outward.
I sighed again and Dan tugged the covers lower, pulling me onto his lap, slow and leisurely, hands roaming me like we had all the time in the world, opening me up, spreading me, stroking me until I was lost in bliss. I didn’t even notice when or where the condom and lube came in, but it must have at some point because he pushed inside me smoothly.
We moved together as if in a dream, hazy and quiet, just the soft shudder of our breaths, and the lusty, low timbre rumble of his voice murmuringjust like thatas I rolled my hips against him.
When people said they had lovers, I thought mornings like this were the origin. Two people straining toward pleasure in finite moments.
It ended too soon when he pulled out of me and drew me down to his chest, cock trapped between our stomachs and sliding against mine. He spread his hand low across my back, pressing me into him, then dipped lower, fingers sinking into the passage he’d abandoned to slide over my prostate. A moment later, his cock followed, and my orgasm hit me like a burst of light, like coming out of a dark theater into a maximum-strength noon.
I came clenching his wrist and his shoulder as I shuddered through the release and felt him shatter with me.
And then he held me there on top of him, fingers stroking down my back lazily.
“Been a long time since I’ve fucked like this. S’nice,” he murmured, voice sated and sex drowsy.
The quip on my tongue melted away as he ran a hand through my hair. Instead, I told him the truth. “I don’t know if I ever have.”
Fingers buried and twisted in my hair, he kissed my forehead and tugged my head until he found my mouth again, tongue seeking mine. I’d never met someone capable of such tender demand.
* * *
I idledthe truck in the parking lot of Ryder’s manager’s office, watching Dan’s lazy gait carry him to the group of people standing outside the tour bus, his body weighted ever so slightly to one side as he wheeled his suitcase along behind him. The sight filled me up, wrapped around my chest with a tight squeeze and then released, gutting me so suddenly, so completely, that my heart skipped a beat.
He shook hands with a few of the guys, and when a smile broke over his face warm as the rays of light peeking around the tour bus, I kept that image as a souvenir as I put the truck in gear and pulled back out onto the road.
Chapter 23
Ifollowed the taillights of the truck as Owen pulled out of the parking lot, conversation humming distantly around me, exhaust fumes from the idling bus and coffee scenting the crisp dawn air. The grip of the suitcase I carried was starkly at odds with the firm warmth of the Owen’s hips.
This morning’s orgasm still lingered as a drowsy weight in my limbs, and as the truck turned a corner and vanished, an oblique sense of loss seared through my belly, gnawing like a hunger pang, but deeper and more permanent-feeling.
“Load you up?”
“Huh?” It took me a second to catch on as I spun around. The guy standing just behind me gestured to my suitcase.
“Andy,” he said by way of introduction. “Roadie.”
“Oh. Yeah. Thanks.” He had thick forearms, a broad chest, hair tucked behind a backward Cubs cap. He reached for my suitcase as soon as I let go of it.
After I finished with pleasantries, I waited for Ryder in the bus with a steaming cup of coffee someone whose name I’d already forgotten had brought me. I kept looking out the window at the street.
“…that seems like not a good idea right now.”
God, that had grated on me. It was the smart thing, the logical thing. I hadn’t had anyone in my house in years, hadn’t wanted anyone in my bubble or taking up space in my life. I didn’t like loose ends, so I made sure I kept all the parts of me tightly wound, neat as coiled wire on a spool. But Owen, he’dpulled. Left sparks jumping and hissing and crackling all over my damned mind.
It wasn’t the first time I’d felt the age difference between us, but it was the first time it bothered me because it made me so damn cautious, not wanting to pressure him in some way. It wasn’t that I thought he was too young or immature, just that there was a certain amount of self-knowledge that seemed to come with age. I was used to saying what I wanted forthright, and maybe this was the first time in years where I was truly attached to the outcome of something with another person.
None of that stopped the way being around him felt like walking across the threshold of a sterile, fluorescent-lit room into some lush secret garden strewn with twinkle lights casting a warm glow over everything.