Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 125248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
He pulled back just enough to look at him.
Furi’s lips were parted, his eyes bright and dazed, his chest rising fast beneath the black tank. Sunlight cut through leaves above them and landed in pieces over his face, his tattoos, the long sweep of his hair where it hung over one shoulder.
Too fucking gorgeous.
And mine.
Syn leaned in again, slower this time, brushing his mouth over Furi’s. Once. Twice. He felt every pulse and throb where their bodies pressed together.
“You’ve been driving me crazy all morning,” Syn said against his lips.
Furi’s hands tightened at his back. “And what do you think you’ve been doing to me?”
Syn closed his eyes.
Furi caressed the back of Syn’s neck. “What is it?”
Syn kissed him again, because he’d missed his taste so much. The pressure softened into depth. Their mouths moving together in slow, searching strokes, each one dragging them closer to something neither anger nor hurt had managed to dissipate.
Furi turned his face into his jaw, lips grazing against his stubble. “I love you.”
Syn went still.
Furi froze.
“I know you do.”
“I just needed you to hear it.”
Syn’s hand tightened at his waist. He looked past Furi for a second, through the trees, toward all that open land. Space everywhere, then back at Furi.
“I’m sorry too,” he confessed.
Furi’s eyes widened as he shook his head.
Syn put his finger to Furi’s lips to stop the protest. “No. Let me say it.”
Furi nodded once, slowly.
“When we were going through all the financial shit, I was stubborn, and proud,” Syn said, his voice roughening. “You tried to explain how scared you’d been, how desperate you felt, and I wouldn’t listen.”
Furi lowered his eyes.
“I hated what you did. I still hate that you felt like going back to that world was the only way to help us. But I know you didn’t do it because you wanted to. You did it because you were trying to save what we’d built together, and you gave up a piece of yourself to do it.”
Furi’s eyes shone as a lone tear slipped down his right cheek.
Syn swallowed hard. “So thank you. For the sacrifice. For doing what you thought would keep us standing, even though I know damn well you never wanted to step back into that life.”
Furi embraced him, long and hard, sobbing softly.
Syn had to get past his own pain, and when he did, he saw his lover for who he truly was. How generous and selfless he’d been for them. “I love you too,” he said, rougher this time. “I need you, Furious. All of you.”
“You have me. You always have.” Furi kissed his temple. “It’s only ever been you, Corbin.”
Syn tightened his hold. “Right now…”
“What?” Furi breathed.
Syn kissed him hard and desperate, before pressing his forehead to his. “I need you inside me, right-fuckin-now.”
Xander Vale
One week later…
When Xander woke in Cassidy Morrison’s bed, he had to take a second to remember he wasn’t dreaming.
The room was still dim, early morning light easing through dark curtains and touching the edges of furniture that was pure Cassidy. Heavy wood dressers. A large worn, leather recliner positioned in front of an eighty-five-inch flat screen. Little to no decorations except for a framed eight-by-ten of Cassidy in uniform—younger but already so serious—standing shoulder to shoulder with four other Marines in some other country.
The nightstand held a simple wrought iron lamp, a charging cable, watch, reading glasses, and a glass of water.
Xander rolled onto his side and looked around. He’d learned so much about Cassidy in his house.
Not HOS.
Cassie.
There were more photographs in the hallway of him in service. A few pictures from fishing trips too, Cassidy holding up a ridiculously tiny catch while two friends laughed beside him, his smile rare and almost boyish.
One photo in the living room showed him on a dock at sunset at their family’s cabin. He had longer hair, and a thicker beard as he used his hand to shield his eyes.
Another framed image showed a much younger Cassidy with his arm around an older woman Xander learned was his mother, both smiling. Cassidy had confessed she’d threatened to never make his favorite blueberry lemon pound cake if he frowned in her picture. She lived in a super nice retirement village in Santa Barbara that he paid for, with his sister as her caretaker, after her cataract surgery had left her with ocular hypertension and blindness in one eye.
The house was warm and lived in. Masculine and clean without being sterile. It smelled like coffee, leather, and his spicy cologne. Xander pressed his face into the pillow and smiled.
His boyfriend’s pillow.
That word still tripped him out.
Boyfriend.
It felt too small for a man of Cassidy’s stature. Too ordinary for a man who’d taken bullets for him.
But it also felt perfect, because the word made his stomach flutter as if he was a teenager with his first crush.