Page 30 of The Seascape Between Us (The Men of Saltwater Cove #4)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Grey

“ G od, I’m exhausted,” I said, collapsing onto the sofa. Daniel shrugged off his jacket and dropped onto the couch beside me.

“Dinner was great,” he said. “Thank you for taking me.”

“You don’t have to thank me. I just like being with you.” Dinner had probably been delicious, but I hadn't notice. The steak had tasted like sand in my mouth.

I’d screwed up. It was obvious, and I should have known better from the start. I’d wanted to spoil Daniel, give him something he never would have given himself, and maybe show off a little. But all I’d really done was make him feel self-conscious and uncomfortable.

Then, to make everything a hundred times worse, Jack Warner, of all people, had to turn up. Tonight felt doomed from the start.

Jack and I had done plenty of business together—and we’d hooked up more than a few times over the years.

Both of us were too busy for anything long-term—with each other or anyone else—and neither of us wanted anything more from each other.

It had been convenient, but it had never been anything more than sex and work.

Hell, I hadn’t seen him in months, and out of sight, out of mind.

Daniel sighed, leaning back into the sofa, his eyes heavy, as though he struggled to keep them open. “Your couch is comfortable. I could fall asleep right here.”

“If you think my couch is something, wait until you’re in my bed.” I waggled my eyebrows at him, and he huffed out a laugh.

“Actually, I’m thinking about getting a new sofa. I let Finn’s kid eat Chinese food on it months ago, and I’m still finding fried rice no matter how many times it has been vacuumed.”

“Do you think you’d ever want kids?” he asked, and warmth spread through my chest. Kids weren’t a topic you brought up with someone in a casual, no-strings arrangement.

“I don’t know,” I told him honestly. “I’m not against kids, but I wonder if maybe I’m a little too long in the tooth for it at this point.”

“We’re almost the same age. You’re not quite over the hill yet.”

“Maybe not, but for now, I get to be uncle to Will, which means I let him eat Chinese food while playing video games, even at the inevitable cost of my own sofa, and I always buy the noisiest toys at Christmas. I got him a drum set this year.”

Daniel was smiling now, genuinely, maybe for the first time all night, but his expression clouded. “You weren’t there—with them, with us—this past Christmas.”

“I sent along my gift before high-tailing it to Jamaica for two weeks of fun in the sun.” I’d found out after that Finn had spent the holidays with Daniel.

It wasn’t a shock. Alistair had wanted to spend the day with his former roommates, and one of them was dating Brody, who brought Daniel along.

Still, it had felt disconcerting knowing Finn had spent Christmas with my ex— like watching two separate worlds collide.

I’d been relieved that I’d been out of the country at the time.

Now, it just felt like more time Daniel and I could have talked and been together, more time wasted because of my father’s lies.

“With Jack?”

I shook my head. “Not with Jack.”

“But someone.”

“Yes, with someone I’d been seeing at the time, but not since we got back.” Kevin had been far more interested in my money—and everything it could buy—than in me. Unlike Daniel, who looked like I kicked his favorite puppy anytime I tried to pay for something.

“So look,” I said carefully. “I know tonight wasn’t great.”

Daniel shook his head. “I had a good time.”

I shot him a wry smile because I knew he was full of shit.

“I’m sorry if I ruined it,” he said quickly. “You went through a lot of trouble, and I—”

Turning toward him, I cupped his face gently in my hands and cut him off by pressing my mouth to his. I kissed him hard and hungrily, and he leaned closer, the tension in his body slowly melting away.

I eased back a little, but stayed close enough that I could feel his breath whispering across my jaw. “You didn’t ruin anything . You were perfect.”

He snorted. “We both know that’s not true.”

“We don’t, actually.” And I’d prove that to him later, but for now, I needed to find a way back to where we’d been in The Square.

Since coming here, I’d felt him pulling away from me.

In The Square, we were so natural with each other, in sync.

But almost from the moment we arrived in Portland and I brought him here, I felt him withdrawing.

With each passing moment, he grew quieter and more introspective.

He was shutting down, and that was the complete opposite of what I wanted.

“Was it Jack?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No… Sort of… Not just him.”

“I meant what I said,” I told him. “We’ve never been anything more than a hookup when it was convenient. I haven’t seen him in ages, and definitely not since I started seeing you.”

“I know. I believe you. We haven’t been together for years. I know we’ve seen other people, both of us. I’m not that na?ve. It’s just seeing him while we were out. He just looked like he fit your life better than I ever could.”

Something in my chest squeezed tight, and I wanted to pull him against me, press him down onto the couch and show him how well we fit. “I don’t know how you could say that.”

“Your life is big and amazing. You’ve done so much since we were last together, where I’ve been running the same hotel I was working at when we first met.”

“You have no idea how much you’ve done for the people you care about, your community.” He opened his mouth like he might argue, but I pushed on. “As for you fitting into my life, even with almost twenty years apart, no one knows me better than you do.”

He shot me a doubtful look. “What about Finn?"

“Not even him.”

He swallowed visibly, nodding slowly. “It’s the same for me. No one has ever known me like you did, like you do right now.”

“What about Ryan?” I asked. After all these years of believing that Daniel had chosen him over me, speaking the man’s name without the familiar burn of resentment felt strange—but not unwelcome.

Daniel’s mouth twitched as if he were holding back a smile. “Not even him.”

I leaned in, tangling my fingers in his soft hair and catching his mouth with mine.

I nipped at his lips until they parted, immediately taking advantage with my tongue.

I kissed him slowly, deeply, infusing it with the filthy promise of everything I wanted to do with him, to him.

When I pulled back, his eyes were dark, and his breath was coming faster.

“I want to fuck you,” I said. My fingers still gripped his hair, and I could see the hard outline of this cock pressed against his pants.

“I want to strip you down, spread you out on my bed, and bury myself inside you, but before that, I want to make you crazy with my mouth and my hands until you’re begging me to let you come. ”

“Shit,” Daniel said in a breathy whisper. “Yeah, I want that.”

We left the couch and went into my bedroom, where we both undressed. Daniel moved slower than I did. Probably because he kept stopping to watch me as I stripped off my shirt, pants, and underwear and left them in a heap on the floor.

Naked, I crossed the short distance to him and helped him with the buttons on his shirt, opening each one before pushing back his shirt and exposing smooth, wide shoulders.

He was beautiful—perfectly made. I wanted to touch and taste every inch of him.

He opened his pants, and I helped drag them and his underwear over his hips and down his legs.

With his clothes pooled at his feet, he kicked them away, and he was standing naked, glorious, in front of me.

I kissed him again, tasting his hungry desperation as I guided him backward toward the bed. The mattress hit the backs of his legs, and he toppled backward, bouncing slightly on the bed. We grinned at each other.

“Scooch up,” I told him, climbing onto the bed between his legs.

“You look so good,” he breathed as I leaned over him, sliding my hands down his inner thighs, pressing them wider apart, opening him like a decadent gift just for me. I leaned down, trailing nibbling kisses across his chest, catching his nipple between my teeth and tugging lightly.

“I used to think about keeping you here like this,” I told him, whispering against his skin.

He smelled of evergreen and the ocean, and I didn’t think I would ever get enough of it, his scent, the feeling of his smooth, warm skin beneath my touch.

“About taking your clothes away, just like I did when you first got those stitches, going to work knowing you were naked and waiting for me in my bed—that when I got home, you'd be there for me, ready to be taken as if you belonged completely to me.”

He did belong to me, and I belonged to him. It had always been that way between us, even if we'd refused to see it, even if we hadn't been ready to admit it.

Tonight, though, I would show him he was mine, and when we were done, he would never again question who he belonged to.