Page 55 of Wrap Around (Forbidden Goals #7)

“It’s not the devil, Dad. It’s the gay.”

The silence is instant and electric. The pastor reels back like he’s been hit, gasping audibly.

Gideon lets out a low, bitter laugh. “Don’t worry, it’s not contagious,” he sneers. “But it is terminal. ”

He takes another step forward, eyes burning.

I can feel his pain, his desperation for understanding and the smallest drop of acceptance.

“I fought it every second of my life here. Prayed for salvation. Punished myself for even thinking about the love I felt. I hated myself. Every. Single. Day. And you made sure of it.”

His voice softens. “But not anymore. I met someone. The someone. And when I’m with him, I don’t feel sick. I don’t feel shame. I feel—” he draws in a breath. “I feel like maybe God didn’t make a mistake with me after all. That He meant for us to be together.”

It’s the most peace I’ve ever seen on his face. He looks unbreakable.

The pastor doesn’t see it. Or maybe he does, and that’s what enrages him.

He lifts the Bible higher and shouts, “You dare mock the Lord? You will BURN, Gideon. You will be cast down with the rest of the monsters, the fornicators and idolaters!”

“You’re wrong!” Gideon bellows, stepping up onto the first step of the altar. “You’re the monster. You made me believe I was broken. You made me afraid to love.”

That’s when I move. I cross the aisle fast and reach him, placing a hand gently against his chest. His eyes snap to mine, and just like that, the fear and rage leeches from his expression. He covers my hand with his own, breath catching.

For a moment, nothing else exists. Just us.

Then the pastor wheezes like he’s been stabbed and clutches his Bible to his chest, looking up towards the ceiling like he expects it to cave in. He mutters something frantic and urgent.

When his eyes drop back to us, they’re wide and unhinged. “Repent,” he says .

Gideon’s lips twitch into something too broken to be a smile. “Is there any part of you that can love a son as imperfect as me? Who could accept me as God made me?”

The pastor’s face goes red, his shoulders trembling. “If you repent.”

That’s all he can say.

“Come on,” I whisper.

I take Gideon’s hand and don’t let go as I lead him out of the church.

He doesn’t say anything and he doesn’t resist. He lets me practically drag him across the gravel lot and through the grassy meadow towards the lake.

Behind a copse of trees, we reach the clearing where we used to come to breathe. The bank where we came to hide and find solace, to smile and feel free when life here got too heavy. The very spot where we first realized the impossible love we felt for each other.

The water glistens like glass, reflecting all the memories this place holds.

I turn to face Gideon and pull him into my arms. He doesn’t fight it. Just melts. We stay like that for the longest time, holding on to each other. It feels like the culmination of every struggle, every dream, every fantasy.

Cradling the back of his neck, I press my lips to his. It starts slow and sure and steady, growing into something fevered and hungry. He kisses me like he’s starving, and I’m just as ravenous.

We need to talk, I know we do. He knows it too. But right now, we just need each other. The reassurance that only touch can bring .

Falling into the same grassy bank we laid in the first time we kissed, clothes come off without a thought or worry.

We’re surrounded by trees and reeds and tall grass, feeling for all the world like we’re in some deserted place where no one can get to us.

We writhe and roll against each other, but it’s not enough. Nothing will ever be enough.

We’re desperate for deep contact, to be as close as two people can be. We need this– the connection, the reassurance that we’re together, no matter what.

Limbs, hands, fingers, mouths, they all move in perfect choreography. There are still lube packets in my wallet, even though we haven’t been together in weeks. Taking them out would have felt too final.

The breath leaves my body in a long moan when I finally sink down his length, both regretting the bare minimum we put into opening me up and loving the burn of feeling him inside me again.

Gideon throws his head back in a gasp, abs flexing as his hips move up to meet my movements.

I watch him, getting little flashes of memory from the first time I had him beneath me.

Blanketing my body over his, my hands run up the back of his arms, clasping our hands together over his head.

My mouth presses to his as I roll my hips in a slow, sensuous movement.

Between us, my cock leaks onto his stomach with every stroke of my prostate, and I feel myself growing closer to an edge I both crave and want to hold off.

If only we could pause here, in this moment, and just live in it for a while. To bask in the glow of our love, even knowing all the challenges and fears and worries ahead of us.

I fall over the edge first, splashing his torso in streams of pent-up energy and anxiety from the past few weeks.

The climax rolls through me, from tip to toe, releasing every bit of tension.

I throw my head back, choking on gasps and the tears that fall from my eyes, and look up at the blue, cloudless sky as Gideon digs his fingers into my hips, helping me ride out the rest of my orgasm.

In one fluid movement, he brings me down so we’re chest to chest and kisses me while flipping us over, so my back is on the ground and he’s moving between my legs.

I wrap my legs around him and hold him tight against my body.

He rocks inside me, kissing and licking the tears from my cheeks and temples.

“I love you,” he rasps, forehead pressed to mine as he grinds against me like he’s trying to get deeper inside me. “I love you,” he repeats, then cries it out again as he comes.

More tears fall from the corners of my eyes as Gideon thrusts into me, filling me, shaking with the force of his release and the love between us. We kiss as we both come down, and when Gideon finally slips from my body, he rolls so we're side by side, looking into each other’s eyes.