If we could go back, p.8
If We Could Go Back, page 8
I exhaled shakily, half in panic, half in I don’t fucking care, and found him looking at me the exact same way.
I want more.
“Kier—”
“Don’t say a word.” The words were rushed out of him, and he swallowed hard. “We’ll take the next stop.”
For what? Burgers and bloody fries? I couldn’t. My body was a live wire, and I couldn’t think properly. I was so goddamn turned on I thought I was going to shatter, and it was Kieran who turned me on.
It should’ve terrified me.
Maybe I was too wasted, and the fear would hit later.
Probably.
I didn’t move away from him, and he didn’t act like he wanted to get away. If anything, his grip tightened, and I felt him against my thigh. He was getting hard too. It wasn’t just me. Holy shit, it wasn’t just me. He was turned on as well. By me. Two blokes.
A strangled sound of disbelief tried to escape my throat, but I managed to push it down.
Holy fuck, holy fuck, holy fuck.
The train slowed down again, and we stared at each other. The lust in his eyes all but tore me apart. Stripped me down and shoved away the last shred of sanity.
We were the first two off the train when it stopped, and then he took the lead. I wiped some sweat off my forehead, my heart thundering, and followed him through the station. I had no clue where we were, and it didn’t matter.
I could sense when we were getting near the exit. Fresh air, a few degrees cooler, blanketed us but did nothing to quell the burning need inside me.
We were met by the sound of heavy traffic outside, and I was glad Kieran seemed to know where he was going. Up one short street, a sharp left, then into a narrow side street. The city noise faded, the sunlight lost its brilliance. Next to an old building with a closed storefront, Kieran dragged me into an alley and didn’t stop until we were hidden next to a dumpster.
My pulse went through the roof, and then we were on each other. My back hit the brick wall as his mouth covered mine in a brutal, hungry, savage kiss. There was no easing into things. I ignored the pain from the piercing and yanked him closer to me, and I swallowed his groan.
The sharp bolts of lust were unlike anything I’d ever felt, and they continued firing in every direction. One set off another, raging with shivers and tremors. I deepened the kiss and pushed my tongue around his, one of my hands coming up to cup his cheek. The rough shadow of scruff only turned me on even more.
“Kieran,” I gasped.
“I gotta feel more of you,” he panted. Then he slipped a hand between us, and he palmed my cock. My knees nearly gave out, and the neediest sound I’d ever heard came out of my mouth. “Jesus Christ, Ben.”
I moaned into a kiss as he stroked me outside my pants, his hand firm and greedy on me. I couldn’t stop myself from pushing into his hand.
Just as I thought the hottest experience in my life couldn’t get hotter, Kieran gave me another drugging kiss and sank to his knees before me.
“Wh—” I choked on my question, not entirely sure what I was going to ask anyway, when he inched closer, undid my belt, and pulled out my cock. The shock rendered me completely rigid and speechless, and then my cock was sliding into the wet, tight heat of Kieran’s mouth.
Oh my God.
Pleasure exploded within me, white-hot and overpowering. His tongue swirled around me, he cupped my balls and stroked two fingers over the sensitive crease underneath, and a fever broke out as my cock hit the back of his throat.
Staring down at him, I saw he was stroking himself off while working me over like a professional.
Erotic.
It was too much for my brain to handle. It short-circuited, and I gave in to the mind-blowing sensations. I bucked my hips to go deeper, and I watched myself weaving my fingers into his hair and gripping it firmly. His groan sent a vibrating hum up my shaft. My chest heaved with the gasp that left me. I was fucking gone.
I moaned hoarsely, the orgasm slamming into me, and shoved my cock far enough to feel his throat squeezing me. I came in several bursts, and each one left me a little more listless than the one before. I was vaguely aware of Kieran’s fingers digging painfully into my thigh, and then I didn’t really know what was happening. He sucked me hard and long until I had nothing left to give.
“Hnngh.” I swallowed against the dryness.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe a bit of both. Emotions were surging completely out of control, and the waves of euphoria were something else entirely.
I was alive.
“Bloody hell,” I exhaled.
Kieran rose and tucked me back into my boxers and zipped up my pants. Then I felt his shaky breath ghosting across my throat, where he gave me a quick nip with his teeth.
“Don’t overthink it.”
I was going to overthink it. When the shudders stopped flowing through me like electric currents, I was going to overthink this like never before.
“Did you finish?” I rasped.
He nodded and wouldn’t look me in the eye.
I couldn’t have that, not for a second, so I cupped the back of his neck and pulled him closer, covering his mouth with my own. His lips were warm, and he tasted of me. That’s…that’s fucking hot. I kept it unhurried, just wanting to…I wasn’t sure, but keep him close.
“Don’t pull back from me,” I told him quietly. I knew absolutely nothing about what was going on, with the exception that this was one of those things I could picture people running away from. I couldn’t take that from Kieran.
“All right.” He broke the kiss to catch his breath, and he rested his forehead against mine. “You’re gonna wanna talk about this, aren’t you?”
“Oh, you bet.”
He sighed. “Then let’s get it over with before you sober up and freak out.”
I didn’t think that was going to happen, but was that why he looked so uncomfortable? Unsure, even. It was incredibly uncharacteristic of him.
“I don’t feel like I’m gonna freak out,” I said.
He quirked a brow and snorted. “You’re still three sheets to the wind.”
Yeah, but funny how a blow job could clear one’s head.
My God, Kieran had sucked me off.
I shivered violently.
Chapter 8
We took a taxi to a diner where Kieran said we would have privacy.
It was a small place, very Americana, and while we ordered a couple burgers and fries, I realized my mind was still at ease. Questions had definitely begun piling up, but there was no sign of panic. The only true worry I had was ruining anything between Kieran and me. He’d become my lifeline this year, and I wasn’t sure I could cope if that went away.
The waitress returned with drinks before leaving us alone in our booth again, and I stayed quiet as Kieran sat there and fiddled with the wrapper from his straw. Something was going on inside his head, something big.
“Look,” I said, clearing my throat. “I’ll be honest. Whatever it is, I just—I can’t go back to before we knew each other.”
“Couldn’t you?” He pinned me with an intense stare, but, at the same time, he looked so tired. Mentally, emotionally. Wrung out and tense. He wouldn’t be able to hold it very long. “More accurately, wouldn’t you? If you could go back—to before we met on the train—”
“No.” I shook my head.
“You just cheated on your wife with a man,” he said pointedly.
I flinched and glanced out the window where the people of Seattle were on their way home from work.
I cheated on Allison.
I never thought that would be me. If anything, I’d worried about her. Maybe not recently, but the thought crossed my mind every now and then.
As a ball of guilt dropped into my stomach, my priority didn’t change. I couldn’t not know Kieran. I couldn’t go back. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t live only for my sons.
“I have to have you in my life.” I felt extremely vulnerable admitting that for some reason, and I shifted in my seat. “I understand if you don’t feel the same—”
“I do.” Eyes downcast, he clenched his jaw and kept fiddling with that wrapper. “But it can’t happen again.”
I…hadn’t even thought that far down the road. There was no opinion whatsoever, so I said, “Okay.”
Kieran had some demons I hadn’t gotten a glimpse of before. I could tell by his unease and how he was unable to sit still.
Had it happened before? Was he hiding someth—
“I’m gay,” he said.
Shit. Right on the money, then.
“Fuck.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, visibly strained and frustrated. “I haven’t told anyone that in ten years. You’re…” He sighed and sat back, and he shook his head. “I guess it makes you the fourth person to know the truth.”
Why, I wanted to ask. Badly.
He was about to say something else, only our server arrived with two big plates.
Despite all of it, I was starving. I’d never understood when people felt down in the dumps for whatever reason and couldn’t eat. Allison was like that. Allison, whom you cheated on. Damn it all.
“I will never judge you, Kieran,” I said quietly when it was just us two again.
One corner of his mouth tugged up slightly, though it was anything but a humorous smile. It was filled with whatever it was that haunted him.
“My family would,” he murmured, picking off the tomatoes from his burger. “I came out to Angie, my eldest sister, when I was fourteen, and she told me never to speak of it again. She said it was probably a phase. Everyone is confused sometimes. And she spared me a lot of grief.”
“By hiding who you are?” I couldn’t believe it. Anger flared up, as it always did when I read about these things. To have a similar case happening so close only made it worse. It felt personal.
“I get your reaction,” he chuckled. “It was torture to hide when I was a kid, and yeah, I thought there was something wrong with me.” He lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t lose my family, though. I grew up, and I heard more homophobic slurs than I could count from most of them. It was ‘fag this,’ ‘fag that.’ And I kept thinking, if they’d aimed that at me…” He shook his head. “No, I’m glad my sister warned me.”
That pained me. Genuinely, truly, it hurt. He’d sacrificed so very much, all because he didn’t want to lose people who might be against him.
“Did you laugh?” I wondered, dreading the answer. “When your family cracked ignorant jokes about gay people, I mean.”
He shot me a brief glare that spoke volumes.
I couldn’t imagine the pain he must’ve felt in that situation. The level of betrayal, the shame.
An urge to comfort and protect seared its way through me, and I had to look away before I joined him on his side of the booth and…and what? Held him? I was a fool.
Instead, I cleared my throat and took a bite of my burger.
“Maggie knows,” he admitted.
That was a bit of a fucking shock, to be honest. And it probably showed.
He nodded. “The second person who knew about me was a guy in Savannah. It was through him I met Maggie—when I was… I wouldn’t say I was with him…? But we hooked up from time to time when I wasn’t scared shitless someone would see us.” He paused, maybe trapped in a memory. “One day, Maggie knocked on my door and gave me an earful about how I was hurting her friend by stringing him along.”
Wild guess. She and that guy probably weren’t friends anymore.
“She came to defend her friend and ended up falling in love with you?”
He laughed, his mouth full of burger. It wasn’t a funny moment, yet he made it seem so effortless to look happy.
“That would be a long story very short, but kind of,” he replied. “She picked a morning before class when I was at my lowest, and I word-vomited to her—this stranger. I told her everything.” He reached for the ketchup on the table. “We became friends, and I could tell she had a crush on me after a while. Then she agreed to pretend to be my girlfriend one Christmas when I went home to see my family. My folks were on my case about bringing home a girl sometime, so…”
Pretending was always easy. Even I knew a thing or two about that.
“So, did you strike a deal, you and Maggie? I mean, it’s unlikely she forgot you’re into guys.”
“And yet…” He sighed and stared at his burger. “It started out that way. She wanted a family, and I—”
“Wanted to make your parents happy,” I said with a hint of bitterness. I didn’t know where that came from.
Kieran frowned. “I wanted to belong somewhere and not have my family hate me, aye. The truth isn’t worth everything, Ben. I never understood why staying true was this optimal end goal. Sometimes, the cost is too steep.”
“I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sure I agreed with him, but I hadn’t walked in his shoes. I didn’t know what it was like.
“It’s all right. I’m not saying my decision was brilliant, but I wouldn’t change anything. Without…” He exhaled and put down his burger. “I have Jaylin. She’s my world.”
That part, I understood.
Kieran went on to explain that the situation at home became strained sometimes, because of who he was and that Maggie had lived under the illusion that she could change him. She’d thought, over the years, he would somehow forget and fall in love with her. He did love her, he said, just not in that way.
I, for one, fully understood now why she’d freaked out the time she’d found his porn stash.
Kieran and I were back in Camassia a little before eight, and we walked toward our cars in silence.
It was a lovely summer evening here tonight. The smell of pine and ocean salt in the air mingled with the scents of tree blossoms and food. With the train station so close to one of the popular restaurant avenues in the Valley, the craving for barbecue and seafood hit me on my way home from work more often than it should.
“So, our story for today?” Kieran asked as we reached the parking lot.
“We had one too many after work and got piercings.” I knew very well how stupid that sounded, but it was what we had.
“We’re gonna fight with our wives tonight, aren’t we?”
“Oh, that’s a certainty,” I replied.
“Great.” He sighed and unlocked his car. “We should get together this weekend for a barbecue.”
“You smell the food too, don’t you?”
“God, yes.”
I laughed and told him I’d let Allison know. Then we went our separate ways, except we drove in the exact same direction and had the same destination. We should probably consider carpooling on the days I was in the city.
While I stopped at a light, I opened the glove box and grabbed a pack of gum. Time to do the last of my damage control before I faced my family. It wasn’t the first time I’d chewed gum to improve my smell.
Leaving the Valley district, I followed Kieran through a patch of the forest that stretched from the ocean into the mountains. Thoughts about everything that had happened today threatened to resurface, which I couldn’t allow at the moment. I was going to pretend. I wasn’t losing my spot in Kieran’s life, but we were standing on new ground now.
“It can’t happen again.”
Well, good. It was a wise decision. Being a cheater was horrible. I didn’t even want anything to happen again! Most likely. All right, I could admit I disliked shutting doors so firmly; a small part of me evidently enjoyed playing with fire. Nevertheless, it was my friendship with him that needed to remain intact, nothing else.
What had happened was a momentary lapse of control. It’d been utterly thoughtless.
You were intimate with a man.
I shuddered and aimed for the same exit Kieran had just taken.
I’d never wanted a man before, even for a second. Objectively, I could find both men and women attractive, though that didn’t mean I was aroused or attracted. This thing with Kieran was… I didn’t know what it was. Brianna could tell me, I was sure.
“Like I’d tell her any of this,” I whispered to myself.
She’d psychoanalyze me until I couldn’t tell what was up and what was down.
Nothing had changed, though. I wasn’t attracted to men. I was attracted to—actually, was I? Was I attracted to Kieran? There was undoubtedly a strong pull, but how did I know if that was physical?
I could list a hundred things that weren’t about gender that drew me in where he was concerned. So, no, nothing had changed with me, and that didn’t mean I wanted to jump into bed with Kieran. I only did that with my wife. Allison. Her name was Allison. I’d married her.
By the time I reached my street and parked my car in the driveway, Kieran had already disappeared inside his home.
There was no time to mentally prepare myself for Allison’s questions tonight. Jess was standing in the living room window waving to me, and I mustered a smile and raised a hand.
That’s why I can pretend.
At his goofy grin, revealing the gap between two teeth, it hit me how easy it would be to pretend like nothing had happened today. I didn’t want anything to change at home, and I was going to make sure it didn’t.
With that thought, I left my car and smoothed down my tie. I was back to looking like a respectable businessman, though Allison would definitely be able to tell I’d had alcohol today.
“Daddy, you’re late!” Jess shouted as I entered the house. He came running from the kitchen in only a pair of pajama bottoms. “We went to the beach today!”
“I heard.” I squatted down and smooched his cute face. “Mum also told me you were a whiny little thing.” I poked his belly.
He widened his eyes. “Only a minute.”
I chuckled. “How long is a minute?”
A crease appeared in his forehead, and he held up nine fingers. “Like this?”
“I fear we’ve been slacking about teaching you how to tell time, young man.” I grinned and touched his cheek, then stood up again. “Where’s your brother?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. His room.”
