Page 52 of The Aster Valley Collection, Vol. 1

He stood on his toes and kissed me softly.

My dick perked back up as I roamed my hands all over his back and butt.

When things started getting more heated, he pulled back with a laugh that made my heart feel lighter than it had all day.

“Dinner first. Hands on butt after. And, no, you’re not cooking.

You’re not the only one who likes apricot chicken. ”

I leaned down to kiss him again before letting him go. “How can I help?”

After he handed me some preapproved menial tasks—in this case getting out the silverware and pouring ice water—I decided to ask him one last time about whatever the bad news had been earlier. “So… the Niberts?”

He flapped his hand. “No. It didn’t turn out to be a thing. I misunderstood and overreacted. I don’t want to talk about it.”

I changed the subject by asking him about the meeting he’d arranged with the Civettis.

“I don’t want to talk about that either,” he said with a nervous laugh.

“Why not?”

Mikey shrugged. “It’s my dream come true, you know?

But I don’t know what their vision is, and I don’t know if I want to work for someone else.

I have a dream of how I’d do it if I was in charge.

But what if their vision is different? What if they want to micromanage me? I wish I could afford to do it myself.”

“Then do it yourself.”

He looked at me like I had three heads. “I don’t have that much money.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say I did, but I knew he wouldn’t agree to letting me help him. If I gave him a choice.

I froze as an idea started to form in my mind. A way Mikey wouldn’t have to give up his dream and I wouldn’t have to give up mine. But there were too many unknowns—his family, my health, the situation with the Civettis—for me to talk to him about it. Yet.

“Then start small. Start with a small cabin and your catering business. Once people in Aster Valley discover your talent, you can grow until you open your own place.”

“Can we talk about something else?” he asked.

I asked him about the call he’d had scheduled with his editor. Mikey’s face lit up with excitement as he told me about his plans to meet some food stylists and photographers online the following week.

“The stylist can’t Zoom until next Friday, but he’s the one who did the styling for the Giles Gatterman cookbook.”

“I don’t know who that is,” I admitted. “But from your smile, I can tell we’re excited about it.”

Mikey pointed to the kitchen shelf where his favorite cookbooks were stashed. “The orange one? The one that has your favorite beef-and-corn taco cups recipe in it?”

I walked over and wrapped my arms around him again. If he was here in the same room with me, I wanted to have my hands on him.

“Baby, I don’t know where you get the recipes you make,” I admitted. “Honestly, I assume most of them come from a combination of your imagination and sadistic experimentation, but the result is delish.”

I pulled his earlobe into my mouth and sucked. He shivered before nudging me away. “Stop or we’ll starve to death.”

He was right. I left him alone long enough for us to get dinner on the table.

While we ate, we talked a little more about his book plans.

Mikey’s responses were a little more short than usual, but I chalked it up to nerves.

I knew how much was riding on this project for him.

He’d spent so much time studying to be a nutritionist and practicing his culinary craft.

Being able to put those things together by putting out this book was a dream come true for him, not to mention validation that he had something important to say.

“Will you get to travel around to bookstores and sign copies when it comes out?” I asked. “Is that something cookbook authors do?”

He nodded. “My publisher said they’re planning a multicity release tour. They’re even going to try and book me on some morning shows.”

I pictured him dressed up and adorably flustered on the set of The View . “You’re going to be amazing. I can’t wait to get my own personalized copy and brag to everyone on the team that my boyfriend is a best-selling author.”

His eyes widened in worry which surprised me. Maybe I thought he’d like the idea of being claimed as mine. “You can’t tell anyone, um, yet. And we don’t know it will be best-selling.”

Oh. My stomach clenched a little. Maybe I was reading more into this than he was. Maybe I needed to slow down and find out what he was thinking.

I swallowed the bite of chicken in my mouth and tried to smile. “Pfft. Of course it will be. Publishers don’t send authors on tour unless they think the book is going to do great. Are you supposed to keep it quiet? When can we tell people?”

He seemed uncomfortable and couldn’t give me a straight answer. I knew the deal had already been published in some kind of book industry magazine because he’d squealed when he read it.

I put my fork down. “Mikey… I’m a little confused here. Are you upset at me referring to you as my boyfriend, or are you warning me about mentioning the book project?”

His hesitation made my stomach knot even worse. I pushed my plate away. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m feeling.

I’m just… this is all happening fast, and with everything else going on—the book, your injury, the thing with the Civettis, my parents…

” His eyes darted around, not really ever landing on my face.

“And apparently my family planned a whole ‘Christmas in Galveston’ thing without telling me, so that made me feel like shit, too. Leave it to my family to plan a big family get-together and not include me. It was like my senior year in high school all over again when I came home late from a yearbook meeting to an empty house. I had to learn from the neighbors that everyone had gone to Disney World on the spur of the moment.”

Now he was the one babbling. I hadn’t mentioned the Galveston thing to him for fear of hurting his feelings, but this was the first I’d heard of the Florida story.

“They left you and fucked off to Florida without you?” I’d heard some shitty stories about the Vinings overlooking Mikey or even borderline bullying him in some cases, but this was the worst.

He shrugged. “They thought I was with them. Supposedly, my brother Eddie told Mom I was in the back of the car lying down because I didn’t feel well.

When they got to the airport and realized he’d been lying, it was too late to go back for me.

I guess? They offered to fly me out the next day, but I had a Calculus test.”

Jesus. “Forget what I said about your dad being a good guy,” I muttered. “I fucking hate your family.”

At least it explained why he was in a strange mood.

Family drama could do that to you. I knew especially from the many times my father had pressured me about football.

Sometimes I questioned whether I did this job for him or myself.

I loved football, but I didn’t love prioritizing it above everything else in my life.

Mikey shoved his own plate away and stood up before coming over and squeezing himself into my lap.

He straddled me with his back to the table and slid his hands up my chest before wrapping them around my neck.

He looked so tired. I wanted to baby him and coddle him until he felt strong and happy again.

“I’ve had this fantasy low-key playing in my head today,” he said, leaning in to press a kiss to the edge of my mouth.

I tried turning my head to get another one full on the lips, but he dodged me with the barest hint of a teasing smile.

“And I was wondering if maybe we could do less talking and more fantasy role-play.”

I’d never done anything remotely resembling “fantasy role-play,” but I had to admit the idea intrigued me.

“What exactly did you have in mind for this role-play?” I moved my arms around him and snuck my fingers down into the back of his pants.

“Well, I miss our house in Aster Valley, and I miss wandering through the snowy forest out back. So I was thinking back to that and started fantasizing about some poor, adorable fool—a Texan chef, probably—getting lost in the woods during a blizzard.” He stopped and leaned in to nip a spot under my chin.

“And a big, muscled guy—who looked shockingly like the Riggers wide receiver—came across the fool’s little half-frozen self. ”

“Poor baby,” I murmured, moving my finger along the crease between his cheeks.

“Right? And so I—I mean the chef —needed resuscitating, but not the kind with a Saint Bernard and wooden barrel of whiskey. This was the kind of reviving that required getting naked in a shared sleeping bag in a sex cave. By candlelight.”

I huffed a laugh into his hair. “I like it so far. Continue.”

Mikey’s hands moved back to my chest and squeezed my pecs before moving down my stomach to my pants. “But no matter how much naked cuddling they did, and it was a lot , the chef still couldn’t get warm.”

“Oh no. What did the football-dude do? Was he able to come up with a better plan?”

Mikey nodded solemnly. “He did. He took one for the team and inserted heat directly into that poor little Texan using his giant mpfh !”

I slammed my mouth into his and stood up, ignoring our plates of half-eaten food abandoned on the table. Mikey’s legs wrapped around my waist as I carried him to my room. We kept kissing like we were starving for it, like we hadn’t had access to each other’s mouths in days.

When I tossed him down on the bed, I stripped off my clothes as fast as I could while he did the same. I grabbed lube and a condom from the bedside table and climbed onto the bed on top of him.

Mikey was already breathless. “Did I mention the mountain man had to fuck the guy face-first into the floor of the cave? Because he did. Hard.”

“Mm-hm,” I grunted, pressing my throbbing cock against the inside of his thigh. “Poor dumb Texan needed to be taught a lesson about getting lost in the woods, didn’t he?”

His eyes were bright with need as he nodded rapidly. “So, so much.”

I leaned down and kissed him again before pulling back and shoving him over onto his front.

He whimpered and pulled his knees up under him until his ass was on full display.

I didn’t wait. I leaned right in and licked a stripe up his crease.

Rimming him was my new favorite thing. It made him beg and squirm until my dick was like granite.

This was so much better than talking about work or family or any of the million other things in our lives.

It was pure connection. When Mikey and I were pressed close together like this with nothing between us, I felt the simple joy of being in the moment with him, of knowing we were each other’s everything right then regardless of what came before or after.

“Please,” he said on a gasp. “Don’t fuck with me right now. I can’t take it.”

I didn’t question him. Instead, I simply slicked up my fingers and prepped him quickly while leaning up to murmur words in his ear.

“Watching you beg with your ass in the air like this makes me want to come all over you. You’re so fucking beautiful. I can’t believe I get to be with you like this. That’s it. Fuck, you feel good. Shit, oh god, Mike. Fuck. Let me in, baby.”

I finally suited up and pressed my dick against his opening, running my hands up his back and into his hair before leaning down along his back and thrusting my hips forward some more.

Mikey sucked in a breath, and I stilled, waiting for him to adjust. When his hand came back and grabbed my leg, I knew he was ready.

I pounded that poor Texan chef into the floor of the cave like our very lives depended on it. Thankfully, we were alone in the house because Mikey couldn’t stay quiet. He shouted and cried out until his voice sounded wrecked and my heart felt like it was going to pound out of my chest.

At one point I pulled out, flipped him onto his back, and shoved a pillow under his ass before finding my way back inside his hot body.

He was sweaty and flushed, glassy-eyed and dazed.

When I finally found just the right spot and hammered it over and over again while he jacked himself, his eyes widened and then squeezed closed.

His body contracted for a minute before his release hit. Watching him come was the best thing ever, and it always seemed to speed up my own orgasm. I came hard inside him until I felt as wrecked as Mikey sounded.

Sex with him was intense, whether it was hot and hard or slow and sweet. It wasn’t transactional like the guys I’d been with in the past. It was a meaningful physical addition to the emotional connection we’d spent years building.

I finally felt like we were exactly the way we were meant to be: together in every way.

It was clear to me I was falling hard for him, and when I woke up to his sweet kisses a little while later in the silent early morning hours, I did my best to tell him so with the slow, tenderness of our lovemaking.

I’d woken up spooned around his back, and, after sliding a condom on, I slid easily into his still-slick channel and rolled my hip gently in and out of him until I felt the hot drip of a tear hit my arm.

“Baby?” I murmured into the skin behind his ear.

He shook his head. “Keep going,” he whispered roughly. “Feels so good.”

I thought the tear was a happy one. It was only days later, after things had gotten weird between us again, that I began to wonder if the tear hadn’t been a happy one after all.