He’d pump my erection as I wrapped my hand around his, working him even as he still had his eyes shut. We'd get off together, and I'd go back to sleep. That's who I am when I'm with Rayne. I haven’t had trouble sleeping in a long time—not until this past week, and that’s only because I’m going back to Evermore this morning. When I’m with him, I relax. Even if he isn't holding me, I feel him right beside me on the mattress, and it soothes me.
Even today.
My cock is hard, but I don't want to rub against his ass just yet. He's on his right side, facing away from me—which means he’s lying on the side where he had broken ribs. I want to kiss him there right now, but more than that, I want to watch him as he sleeps. He’s so perfect.
I’m thankful every day that I found him. That he found me. That his swine of an ex-fiancé let him go so I could catch him. That my Rayne was a mess and drank himself sick, got himself left on an island. Got so desperate that he swam out to my yacht. Sometimes I think about him gliding through the inky water all alone that night, nobody knowing where he was, and it makes me sick with retrospective worry.
The parts I replay the most from that night are the ones that have nothing to do with my dick. Sitting on the deck, smoking the joint we passed between us.
I can hear him murmur, "You okay, man? It’s all right." I can see his face, the openness and kindness of his beautiful Rayne face. The warmth in his eyes and the quirk of his mouth and the watchful, careful way that he regarded me—a miserable stranger. Then in the bed… I remember I rolled over, facing away from him. Wanting so much to be touched, to feel him pressed against me, but unable to ask. Unable even to invent things to talk about with my tantalizing stranger.
I think about the way he wrapped his arm around me in the bed there. Snuggled up to my back. He just...gave me himself. No strings attached. Like he wasn't everything that's pure and loving, holy. Like he was just something I could take or leave. I couldn't sleep that night—a lot like last night. Every time I shifted, he'd loosen his grip on me. But then he'd reassess and pull me up against his chest again, and sometimes kiss my shoulder.
It felt unbelievable. To be held by a man that way. To be kissed and stroked and, later, when I fled into the shower, to see Rayne’s grin and sexy bedroom eyes. I remember I fell right to my knees and just blew him. Couldn’t even help it. Like a magic spell.
When we were there on the yacht this past time, I confessed that after we met, I did the same thing he did. Came back here to San Francisco, holed up in this very bed, and couldn't get out for almost two days. Replaying everything he said and did. Every breath and groan and grunt. I wanted him so much, I felt like it would kill me.
When I did get out of bed, I broke all my own rules. Found him on Instagram with a fake account I made. Within a month, I found him looking at my stories on the PL account, and I knew he'd found out my identity somehow.
I think about those years now—the time I spent waiting for him. I don't even remember that much. Maybe some part of me knew that I was waiting, but the rest of me was rolling forward in time, into another future. One where I knew I would never be happy. One where I didn’t even have the energy to care.
I can see it all on fast-forward: into the car and down the streets and to the church and up the stairs and to my desk…and down the stairs and to my car and down the streets and back to home and lying in my bed. And putting on a tie, and socks. And back into the car. And underneath the cold sheets, curling up until they warmed. And sleeping in a little ball, hugging a pillow. Stroking my dick.
I had no hope for a real life. And then the cabin.
I’d like to visit there sometime. Get back in that boat with Vance. That boat saved my life, maybe. Because of Rayne and those quiet woods and his kisses, because of his arms around me in the bottom of a cold rowboat, I didn't die.
Couldn't follow through with New Years, though.
Also couldn't handle when he showed up at the church. I smile now—a sad smile. I was so mad at Pearl. Man, I'd never been so mad at her. I found out he was coming three days before he arrived. Couldn’t bring myself to tell Pearl that I knew him personally until the day before he flew in. I gave her a list of stuff I’d seen him eat on Instagram and told her she should put him in my townhouse. But that she should tell no one—including him—that I’d been personally involved, because he and I didn't get along.