He grips my ass, moving me, showing me what he wants until I take over. With each roll of my hips, his cock works that spot, the one he found so expertly in the shower and just as brilliantly as soon as we were in bed, too.
It’s a white-hot wave building inside me, until it’s seismic pleasure cascading through my limbs, my legs, my ass, my chest, everywhere his body moves with mine. I swear under my breath, kiss him with total abandon. Gavin’s breathing is jagged and fast, broken heaves of air, wicked, foul-mouthed praise for how good I feel, how perfect I am, how perfect this is.
I’m loud, panting, as my hips turn frantic, Gavin’s arms around me tight. He crushes our mouths together and I grind down on him, rubbing that spot mercilessly, chasing a deep, gnawing ache.
I bury my face in his neck, not even knowing what to do with this, how intense it is, how it’s seizing my body in shaking need.
“Look at me, Oliver. Please, love.”
I force my eyes open as it happens, the first crest of my release that rips through me, all of me that’s wrapped tight around him, in every inch of my cock rubbing against him as it swells and spills, wet and hot between our bodies.
I gasp his name, shout it as I come and come.
Clutching my hand so tight my knuckles ache, he kisses me wildly, tongue and teeth. His eyes find mine, hold them as his mouth parts, as his hips jerk, as he pulses inside me and groans my name.
A shudder runs through him as he buries his face in my neck and gasps, holding me so tight, I can barely breathe. And I love it. I love him. I love this moment that I already know I’ll always remember—the world collapsed to soft sunlight and ragged breaths, cool sheets and hot, sweat-soaked skin.
And love. So much love.
Gently, Gavin cups my face, his thumb tracing my lower lip. “Goddamn.”
With a soft kiss, I earn his groan, his hard-won smile. “I love you, too, sötis.”
“Oliver,” he whispers against my neck, before pressing a kiss to my skin.
I run my hand along his arm, sighing happily. “Hmm?”
“You never told me. What does sötis mean?”
I smile. “Sweetie.”
He arches an eyebrow. “Sweetie?”
“Mhmm. And there’s a new one now. Hjärtanskär.”
“And what’s that?” he says, knuckles stroking my cheek.
“My heart’s love.”
I watch his smile unfurl like the dawn, glowing, soft, unrepeatable. I remember what he called me, the sunrise of his heart. I feel, in the deepest, most secret place of my soul, exactly what he means.
30
GAVIN
Playlist: “Tonight – acoustic version,” Lie Ning
“How’s the view?”
Shifting in the hot tub, I watch Oliver drag the glass door shut behind him. My heart trips. I still can’t believe he wants me, loves me, as much as I want and love him.
“Well,” I tell him, “it’s no textured ceiling. But I suppose a crystal-clear sky of stars will have to do. How about you?” I lift my chin toward his phone.
He grins. “Oh, I’m just still watching you on repeat, telling everyone at that press conference that you’re gone for me.”
I snort. “I said no such thing.”
“You implied it.” He smiles at the screen, hitting play, listening to me answer Colin from ESPN.
Following up on my answer, telling him I’d be settling down, Colin shouts over the rest of the press, “Where?”
“That depends,” I hear my voice say.
“On?” Colin prompts.
“Wherever the man I love goes next, if he’ll have me… If he will, I’ll be following him.”
Oliver sighs and sets down my phone. “It’s better every time. Though, awfully bold of you.”
“I’m nothing if not determined. I had a plan to win you back.” I grab his hand and kiss it. “And don’t you know, I was victorious after all. It’s almost like I have an incredible record for wins or something…”
“You and that ego,” Oliver mutters. Leaning on the edge of the hot tub, he sinks a hand into my hair and tips up my face for a deep, slow kiss. “Need anything?”
I pull away and give him a proper once-over, finally processing what he’s wearing. “Christ.”
“Sorry. Word is that God guy works in His own way and time. Which frankly has always ticked me off. Point is, I cannot fulfill your request.”
I roll my eyes, but clasp his jaw for another hard kiss. “Your swim shorts are heinous.”
“Aren’t they?” He smiles against my mouth. “I wore them especially to tick you off. Things have been much too amicable the past twenty-four hours.”
“That’s because I fucked the sass right out of you.”
A blush heats his cheeks as he sits back and folds his arms across his chest. “While there may be some truth to that statement, I would like to jog your rather selective memory and remind you that since I had you in my mouth and sucked you off so good, they heard you begging to come all the way in Seattle, all you’ve done is smile and look at me with hearts in your eyes.”
Except now.
For the first time since we tumbled into bed yesterday afternoon, there’s been something weighing me down. And Oliver knows it.
“You okay?” he asks.
I sniff, stretch my arm across the hot tub, toying with the string at his swim trunks.
Deviously tight and short, they’re an obnoxious highlighter yellow, covered in silk-screen-print bananas. I squint. “It’s like looking into the sun.”
Oliver barks a laugh as he brings his hands to his waistband. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to take them off.”
My hand lands on top of his, stopping him. “Not yet. I have…something I want to say first.”
“Okay.” He turns his hand, lacing our fingers together. “What’s up?”
I jerk my head, beckoning him into the tub, which has felt incredible on my back.
Oliver swings his legs around and sinks down beside me, sliding one hand along my thigh under the water, threading his fingers through my hair with the other. “All ears,” he tells me.
I stare up at the sky, those stars shining infinitely brighter since we’re miles from the nearest city. I smile, remembering that night in LA, the last time I studied the stars with Oliver by my side—the shower, our meal outside, his weird, lovely story about the Big and Little Dippers, telling me in his anecdotal way that I wasn’t alone, that there was something salvageable in what felt like the absolute wreckage of my life.
I wrap my arm around his neck and tug him close, pressing a kiss to his temple, breathing him in. “I love you,” I tell him.
Gently, he rubs my thigh. “I know.”
“I want to watch Rogers and Hammerstein musicals made into movies and fold your garishly bright clothes and kiss you everywhere and do dishes with you and tell you when I’m hurt and trust you not to think I’m a worthless piece of shit without a ball at my feet.”
His hand freezes. “Gavin, I would never think that.”
Tearing my gaze from the stars, I meet his eyes and turn my hand until it’s clutching his beneath the water, our fingers interlaced. “I know. But…it’s hard for me. To really know it, deep inside myself.”
“Why?” He searches my eyes. “Why do you think of yourself like that? I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t. Because you grew up learning that you were lovable whether or not you were worth millions of dollars or if you’d scored the most goals. I didn’t. Thank God you don’t understand that.”
Oliver slides his fingertips along my palm, head bent as he studies our hands touching. “You’re right, I grew up being affirmed and protected. But, I want you to know, I still have insecurities. I’m the youngest boy of five, the sixth kid of seven. I’ve battled feelings of inadequacy plenty. My anxiety, it messes with my head, makes me worry about things I shouldn’t, beat myself up, overanalyze moments in the past that I can’t change but that my brain insists on obsessing over anyway.”
“You’re perfect,” I tell him fiercely. “I’ll crush anything that makes you feel otherwise.”
Peering up, he meets my eyes and smiles wryly. “I’m not perfect. And I didn’t say this to make it about me or diminish what you went through, I just…want you to know I might understand a little, what it’s like to know something up here”—he points to his head—“but not down here.” He sets his hand on my chest, over my heart.
I clasp his hand in mine and press a kiss to his palm, then hold it tight, tracing its lines.
He presses a kiss to my shoulder, then sets his head there. “You have more you need to tell me, don’t you?”
“Yes. And I hate talking about it. Thinking about it. Remembering it. But my fucking therapist said it’s an important exercise in vulnerability to trust you with my past. Or some shit like that.”
He smiles up at me and it sets my heart afire, glowing. “You’re in therapy,” he says. “I’m proud of you.”
“It’s fucking horse shit, is what it is.”