Wrath: A Sinful Secrets Romance, page 47
Eight
Ezra
He turns into the parking lot of Waffle House as he says that, and by the time he’s parked, my stomach’s doing somersaults.
“Dude, that’s a memory.” He laughs, looking surprised. “Did you know I played the cello in high school?”
“No,” I whisper. Tears shimmer in my eyes, making halos around the Waffle House street lamps.
“We spent lots of nights in my room,” he says softly. “Where the cello was. I would hold you from the back, like big spoon. As soon as you would let me hold you, it’s the only thing I wanted, too. Well, not the only thing…”
I try to laugh, but tears just spill down my cheeks.
He leans in and kisses them off. “It’s gonna be okay, angel. If you get your memory back, that’s cool. And if you don’t, we’ll just do everything all new now.”
I swallow and nod, wipe my eyes. “It’s so weird,” I rasp.
“What is?” he asks softly.
“Not remembering, I guess.” I mess with the hemline of my shirt, feeling like a broken freak.
“It’s kind of weird for me too, but it’s okay. It will really be okay.” I look at Josh out of the corner of my eye, and he adds, “Can you believe that?”
“Do you want that?” I whisper. “Are you sure?”
“I’m so sure. I never stopped loving you, Ezra. Ever. All I did since you left was want you.”
He looks like he means it. I lean in and wrap an arm around his shoulders again. He brushes his lips over my temple. “You wanna get the food to go? That way, we can really talk. I’ll fill you in on so much stuff, and you can fill me in, too.”
I nod. Miller leans his head against his seat’s headrest and gives me a crooked smile. “Thanks for finding me.” His voice is just a little hoarse. “I hope it’s worth it.”
“It will be worth it to me. Can you believe that?” I quirk a brow up.
He nods.
We walk to the restaurant’s door, shoulder to shoulder, and while we wait on the food, we sit beside each other in a booth, and Miller rubs his knee against mine. I look at him, at Josh Miller in the flesh, sitting beside me in a Waffle House at 2 a.m., and I just can’t believe it.
It was all real.
“What are you thinking?” he murmurs, leaning his cheek in his hand.
“That it’s real.”
He smiles, all blue eyes and freckles and those soft lips. “It’s so real. You want to ask me some stuff? Or you want me to tell you some stuff? Things we did together?”
I nod, and he takes my hand under the table.
It turns out to be a crazy story. We drive to a trailhead in a wooded neighborhood and eat our waffles in the dark car as he tells me how I tried to kill myself via a trestle bridge, and how I taunted him for being gay and grabbed his dick on the roof.
When we’re finished with the food, we start down the trail, our eyes catching in the dark, and then our hands. He’s rubbing my hand as he tells me the rest. About my nightmares and the way I fucked with him when he would come to wake me up. He tells me about his seizure, how I took care of him that weekend, but I also said I wouldn’t mess with him again. He got confused, and then things fell apart, and then I got heat stroke or something like it, and he took care of me.
“You wanted to be with me. You were just scared,” Mills tells me. “And now I know why.”
I can’t talk because my throat’s so tight, so I just squeeze his hand and nod.
Apparently I told him I’d been inpatient before, and he saw the pill bottles I had left over from my first stint at Sheppard Pratt.
“Didn’t you think that was weird?” I ask him as we walk back up a hill toward the trailhead where his car is.
“Weird? Nah. I was always worried you would take the pills. Like, overdosing. And I didn’t like the idea of you being alone somewhere, inpatient. So that bothered me too, just to think about it.”
I nod slowly. I believe that, based on what I wrote in that letter I never mailed. I had worried that if I told him I was back at Sheppard Pratt, he’d be upset. And it looks like he would’ve been.
I want to use his pills remark to segue into a question about the pills in Miller’s bathroom drawer, but I don’t think the time is quite right. Instead I listen as he tells me about the good times we had. He describes an old house by the lake, and how we fucked around inside and then I laid in his lap on the grass—and I can see it. I can see the mossy trees, the vast, green grass. I almost feel my face against the inside of his thigh as he sits cross-legged. When I check the details with him, he says I’m right.
“Another memory,” he smiles.
“Did we sit on a brick wall…by any chance?”
“Dammit! How did I forget that story?”
In the car, he tells me—with a huge smile—how we first kissed. How we did a bunch of crazy things to one another outside in the grass there in the cemetery.
“You even gave me…” He holds his hand up, wiggling his fingers.
My dick throbs so hard, I reach down and cup it. “I gave you a finger?” I whisper.
He’s backing out of the trailhead parking spot, his face cast in red from the car’s lights. “Yep.”
“And you were okay with it?”
“I was more than okay with it. And a finger wasn’t all,” he says in a quiet rasp. His eyes hold mine before moving back to the road.
“Fuck, Josh. Are you serious? Which one of us—”
“Took a dick?” He’s grinning.
“Shit! Was it you?”
He gives me a smirk.
“Was it me?” I ask.
God, I’m getting so hard. He lifts a brow and reaches across the car’s console so he can rub at my bulge. As his hand cups it, he’s braking for a light. His eyes hold mine as I suck a breath in.
“This okay?” he whispers.
I groan, “Fuck yeah.”
His palm rubs over me, his fingers gripping around my cock as best they can through my pants. I lift my hips.
“Feel good, angel?”
I close my eyes, shocked by how good as he drags his fingertips over my cock. “Might come in your car,” I groan.
“Come in your pants. I can’t think of anything that’s hotter.”
He starts sort of loosely jerking me through my pants, his grip dragging the fabric of my boxer briefs over my hard cock. My hands are hovering above his, wanting to grab onto something. Somewhere under my lust, there’s a bite of nervousness to be hard with him, to mess around with a guy for what feels like the first time since the football bus, but what he does feels so good…
Mills pulls over in the parking lot of a flower nursery, and I laugh between hoarse moans.
“You laid the pipe, Ez,” he whispers. “And I took it. How does it make you feel to think of pushing this big dick into my little tight hole?” He reaches his hand into my boxer briefs, wrapping his fingers around my cockhead.
“Mills…” It’s whimpered.
“Put your seat back, angel. Shut your eyes and let me lean over this dick and suck it for you. It’s been a long time.”
“Forever,” I manage.
Then his mouth is closing hot and tight around the swollen head of my cock. He sucks me in, and my whole lower body jerks as his tongue curls around me, lapping gently at the little notch under my flanged head, and then taking me in deeper, so my thick tip is pressed into the velvet of his throat, and his soft lips are rubbing down my shaft, so tight and slick and warm it makes me dizzy.
“Ahh God.” My hands find his hair. I’m gripping lightly, my glutes clenching, my legs flexing as I struggle not to fuck his throat. All I can say is, “Oh God”—just a chorus—while he licks and sucks me and his hand cups my balls, rolling them then tugging gently. I feel his free hand grip the base of my shaft, pumping as his mouth gets slicker and sucks harder on my cockhead. It’s so good my body starts to tremble. I feel zoned out, wracked by raw bliss in a way I’ve never felt. I feel his tongue over the slit, trying to push inside there; then it’s lapping at me, and I’m pretty sure I’m leaking pre-cum.
“Fuck, you’re so good.” He’s off me for just that second, and then back on, swallowing me so deep that he chokes. I can feel saliva dripping toward my cock’s base as he deepthroats me. Then I’m pressing in—pressing a little; I’m not thrusting—and he’s groaning, and I worry it’s too much until his hand starts stroking my balls, tugging downward, squeezing. He’s moving on and off me, taking me so deep my toes curl and then pulling off and licking all around my slick cockhead.
He slides his hand up my shaft, gripping just under my head, and I can feel him breathing hard as he pumps.
“You’re spilling lots of yummy pre-cum for me,” he says in a voice that sounds hoarse. “I’m gonna take you shallow, but you fuck my mouth and I’ll suck in my cheeks. You used to love that.”
Miller wraps his lips around me, and I tell myself I won’t thrust into his mouth—half a second before my hips move, and I’m doing just that.
“God, Josh…” I’m gripping his hair, breathing so frenzied it sounds like gasps. Mills keeps himself far enough back so he’s not choking, but he’s still deepthroating me. His other hand is tickling my balls. I feel him moving, and I realize he’s thrusting his hips, he’s fucking the air while he blows me—and it’s all over on that thought.
I come hard, my body quaking as hot pleasure swells all through me and then spasms in an explosion of mind-bending bliss. And he’s swallowing it down. When he’s finished lapping at me, and I’m glowing from the aftershocks, Miller lifts his head, grinning like the cat that ate the canary.
“How’d you like that?” he drawls. His eyes are heavy-lidded and his mouth is so smug.
“God.” I look down at myself. “Fucking amazing. That was—” My throat tightens, and I have to swallow to speak. “Thank you,” I manage. I glance down at Josh’s lap. “What about you? You got blue balls?”
He laughs. “Uhh…well.” He makes a sexy little “o” with his mouth, and I reach out and rub my hand over his junk. He winces, and a damp spot appears on his pants. It’s so fucking hot, my spent dick gives a hard throb. I can’t help a laugh. “God, that’s fuck hot, Miller. Someone need to change their pants?”
He covers his face with his hand. When he pulls his fingers off his eyes, he’s giving me this little shy smile. “Damn, dude. I missed that dick.”
“I want to see yours,” I say.
“I’m sure that can be arranged.”
I feel surreal again as he pulls my underwear and pants up and rights my twisted seatbelt. Then he kisses my cheek.
“All good, angel?”
I swallow and nod. “All good.” I could cry with how good I feel, but I breathe slowly and try hard not to.
Josh looks down at his lap and shakes his head. “No fixing this mess till we’re home.” Still, he’s grinning as he pulls out of the parking spot and reaches for my hand. “I feel kind of bad for doing that here. Your first time… I got—” He shakes his head, looking rueful.
“Fucking horny?”
“Fucking horny.” He lifts his brows and pins me with a wide-eyed look. “For you.”
Nine
Josh
Ez seemed awkward and embarrassed at times during our walk through the woods, as I was telling him our story. It was damned adorable the way he tried to hide it, tried to show me the most PC side of himself. The most charming. Best-foot-forward Ezra.
Now it’s my turn to be embarrassed. I feel weird about this whole thing as I drive through the intersections along South College Street and take a darker cut-through road toward my apartment. Ezra’s holding my hand, and it feels good—it feels so good—but he looks nervous, too. He’s chewing his cheek, looking out the window.
We’re holding hands, and I love that he’s here. He seems better. In a way I can’t articulate. Less haunted.
He’s so…into me. Like he just wants me. I believe him when he says he has deep feelings for me. But I—
“What’s wrong?” Ez asks me so softly. I look over at him. “I can tell that something is,” he says. “So don’t lie to me, Miller.” He gives me the cutest little smirk. His hand squeezes mine. “You have to tell me or I’ll think it was the D.” He lifts his eyebrows.
“Your dick was perfect, dude,” I tell him. “Better than tacos.”
Ez laughs. “What? At least compare it to a Ball Park frank or something.”
“Your dick was better than some common frank. Hot dogs are meh, dude. Tacos are up near the top, and so is your dick.” I force a smile for him. “It is the top.”
“Josh, man, you’re freaking me out.”
“I am?”
“Yeah.” Ezra’s hand gives mine another squeeze. “You’ve got a readable face. I can tell there’s something bothering you.”
I can’t help a laugh. “You’re pretty good, Ez.”
“Only when it comes to my Josh Miller.” He gives me a sad smile.
“I am…being weird,” I breathe. I squeeze his hand, too. “I feel weird about this with us. Not about us. I guess it’s me I’m feeling weird about.”
“Why?” Damn, his face is gentle.
“I don’t know,” I say slowly. “I’m not the same person you met. I think…if you don’t remember that guy… How do we really know you like me now? If how you feel for me is based on memories, but you don’t remember them…what if you wouldn’t like me? What if I’m so different you don’t even recognize me? If you remember. You said there’s still a chance you could, right?”
Ez nods slowly, his brows furrowed. “Yeah, I might. But Josh, we love each other. Right? I feel at home with you. I like it when…” He shakes his head. “I like everything.” He fixes his eyes on the road. “I feel like I don’t deserve it. I feel like a weird…knockoff or something. Like I’m not the one you really want.” He bites on the inside of his cheek, he shifts his shoulders like he’s trying to get comfortable, and I can see his eyes gleam in the streetlight as we pass below it.
“No, angel. It doesn’t work like that.” I bring our joined hands to my lap. “I love you for who you are. It was the little things like how you’d smile at me when you were reading at the kitchen table. Your biting wit. Disarming humor.” I grin, and he squeezes his eyes shut and wipes them.
“You were so good to me. Even though you hid that side of yourself at first. You were so damn sweet. Thoughtful. We started out as enemies, but you became my closest friend.” I squeeze his hand hard. “I love you for you, Ez. You seem almost the same. In all the ways that matter. Just breathing the same air as you gets my dick up. I wanna tuck into the bed with you and stay there for a year.”
I sigh. “Those things aren’t the issue, for me. I just feel like…I’m not the same Josh. I feel like if you remembered me—” Just say it, Josh. Damn. “I feel like if you did remember me, you would be really disappointed now.”
Ezra looks shocked. “Why?” Then his face falls—so dramatically, I know exactly what he’s thinking.
“Not like that,” I tell him quickly. “Not for that reason.” I’ll tell him about Dom Bryant at some point soon, but I don’t count him as a hookup. I was drunk off my damned ass, and I still called it off because of Ezra.
“Because I didn’t handle it well when you left,” I force myself to confess. “I did so much dumb shit. And all that time, you had real problems. I was so stuck in my own head, I almost fucked this second chance up.”
I can see the wheels in his head turning as I stop at the last red light before my street. Finally he says, “You can tell me, Josh. I did some pretty bad shit, too. Stuff I’m not proud of. You tell me your stuff, and I’ll tell you mine. It can be like a confessional.”
I can’t help a snicker at that. “Hell yeah, it can be.”
He grins. “You’re the worst.”
“I’m only second worst. You’re most definitely the worst. Remember that whole story I just told you? Grabbing dick on the roof?”
I shoot him a judgy look, and Ezra laughs at that. “C’mon, Miller. I’m not a hundred percent sure where we are, but I think we’re near your apartment. Why don’t we both spit it out. Tell me your fuck ups, and I’ll tell you mine. We can offer up the context later.”
Another deep breath in, and puff my cheeks out…blow it out. “You sure?”
“Hit me,” he says, looking stoic. “I can take it.” Ez lifts his brows, and I know it’s a cue for me to spill it. “Okay. I’m just gonna say it,” I tell him. “I started drinking when you left, and taking pills. I got high and drunk and ran my car into a tree. It fucked my mom up. Made her so sad. I gave up a soccer scholarship to Montevallo because their team did twice a month drug tests. Went to Auburn, got here, started drinking every day and taking Xanax sometimes. No prescription, so I bought the fake stuff you saw in my bathroom. One night I took too much different shit, and when my friend was over, I basically overdosed. Started getting sick, and couldn’t stop, and passed out. Jenna was scared that I was dying, so she called an ambulance. After that, instead of quitting all that shit, I just cut back. Tonight I felt…feelings.” I roll my eyes at myself, and then swallow so my voice won’t break. I whisper, “I felt lots of shit. All for you. So I went for the Xanax.”
It’s a long second before I can bring myself to look at Ezra. Even though he doesn’t remember how I used to be, I do, and it’s still embarrassing as fuck for him to know how much I fell apart.
I’m thinking what a fuck up I am when he lifts our clasped hands, pulling mine into his lap. He lifts them again and kisses my hand. He presses the back of it to his cheek.
“Mills, the only thing that makes me feel is sorry—that I fucked your shit up. It makes me wish I was here.” Ezra laughs, the sound soft and choked up. “Damn, dude. I’m really sorry.” He tucks my hand against his chest, his hand on top of it, rubbing. “You feel okay when you take that stuff. Or does it make you feel like shit?”
“It makes me feel like shit,” I whisper. “At first, I started doing it so I could sleep.”
