Page 23 of Survivor
Chapter Seventeen
Frank
Memories were a constantly moving photo album in the mind. Ever present and ever changing as people grew older and experienced the best and the worst life had to offer. Many people shared the same memory, each seeing things in a different way, often depending on mood, surroundings or settings. Frank would remember everything about this night for the rest of his life, the events painted onto a blank canvas with bold colors and contrasting brush strokes.
He’d reached for Taylor’s hand as soon as they were in the cottage, locking the back door before leading Taylor up the stairs and down the hall to his room. There was no discussion; Frank made the decision on instinct, needing to spend more time with the man who’d just professed his love and then sealed it with a kiss. “Give me a minute.” Taylor disappeared into the bathroom, leaving Frank alone with his thoughts.
His skin felt flushed, sticky. So Frank crossed over to the window and pulled it open, letting the gentle breeze cool him off, the sound of the water below calming his nerves. He’d have known Taylor was behind him even if he hadn’t heard the bathroom door open. The man smelled like sunshine and rain with just a hint of musk. Closing his eyes, Frank inhaled the combined scents of Taylor and the Vineyard and smiled. Strong arms wrapped around him from behind and Frank thought he might spontaneously combust, the warmth from Taylor’s body shocking his now chilled skin.
“Can I stay with you tonight, Frank?” Taylor tightened his grip, holding Frank’s body flush to his with one arm around his waist, the other sliding up Frank’s arm to his neck.
“I…what…” How the hell did Taylor expect him to think, much less speak when he had his tongue in Frank’s ear? “What was the question?”
Taylor chuckled softly. “I want to kiss you until you can’t see straight and then fall asleep with you in my arms. And when we wake up, still wrapped around each other, I want to do it all over again.” He could feel Taylor’s warm breath as he spoke, the words having the feeling of a feather gently brushing his skin.
It was no use. There was no way Frank could make himself do anything but enjoy the feeling of Taylor’s body behind him. “Say yes to me, Frankie.” Lord, but hearing his name on Taylor’s lips with so much want and need wrapped around the words left Frank weak in the knees. Slowly, Frank twisted and turned until he was facing Taylor, the man’s arms holding on to Frank, refusing to let him go.
Looking up into eyes full of emotions that could never be put into words, Frank kissed the corner of Taylor’s mouth, then his jaw, lips running over the slightly stubbled skin. When he pulled away and met Taylor’s intense gaze once again, he smiled. “I never have been able to tell you no.”
As if he’d just flipped a switch, Taylor’s demeanor changed in an instant. Grabbing Frank by the chin, he held him in place and mauled his mouth, his other arm snaking around Frank’s waist and jerking him close while he continued to search for Frank’s tonsils with his tongue. It was simultaneously the sexiest and most terrifying thing Frank had ever experienced. The way Taylor held him, kissed him,fucking ownedhim with just his touch was so sexy. Frank wasn’t small or timid by any means, and the career he’d chosen required a constant show of strength. But being in Taylor’s arms, knowing that he was fixing to willingly, happily, give himself to Taylor and let the younger man have all the control…terrified him. Not because it would make him feel weak or submissive, quite the opposite actually. It was knowing, deep down, that he was going to open himself up to Taylor in ways he’d never done with another person, not even his best friend. And if Taylor ever up and walked away, it would wreck Frank completely.
Frank hadn’t even realized they were moving until the backs of his legs met the mattress. He fell onto the bed, staring up at the man that was about to become his lover. Before he could start pondering the what ifs and count the butterflies in his stomach, Taylor began to undress and all conscious thought flew right out the window. With nothing but the soft glow of the moon outside bathing him in hues of silver and blue, Taylor was breathtaking. He’d seen Taylor nearly naked on many occasions over the past decade, but not like this, not with the implication of sex.
Tall, toned and tan, Taylor moved with the grace of a gazelle and the ease of a panther stalking its prey as he climbed onto the bed and slithered up Frank’s body. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered, loving the spark he saw flaring in Taylor’s eyes at his words.
“You’re pretty goddamn sexy, Frank, and mine, all mine.” Taylor punctuated the words with a thrust of his hips.
“Fuuuuuuck.” Frank groaned, lifting his ass up off the bed, pressing his groin against Taylor’s hip bone. Friction, that’s what he needed.
“Not tonight, Frankie,” Taylor said then kissed him again. “We have all the time in the world.”
“Do we?” Frank asked. He had to give Taylor one last chance to walk away.
“We do.” Taylor purred,fucking purred, licking his lips as he jerked Frank’s shorts and boxers down his legs. “Before we talk about forever and you start whispering sweet nothings in my ear, what do you say we lose the clothes?”
Frank snorted, grabbing his shirt by the hem and getting his arms tangled in the material before wiggling free, and finally, lifting it over his head. Very un-sexy, yes, he knew. “That was a rhetorical question, right?”
“Look at you…” Taylor’s voice was barely above a whisper. His eyes raked over Frank’s naked body and Frank swore he could feel a tingle on his skin just from the intensity in Taylor’s lustful stare. It finally dawned on Frank, lying there on his bed, naked and exposed…Taylor loved him. Loved him and wanted to be with him. Hearing Taylor say the words was one thing, but seeing it in his eyes though, proved to Frank that they weren’tjustwords. Those subtle touches, eyes lingering and filled with hope and curiosity, it wasn’t all in Frank’s imagination.
“Ah, see, now you get it.” Taylor laid his long body over him, rubbing his nose against Frank’s.
Wait, when did he crawl onto the bed?Frank wondered. He’d been so lost in thought, sorting through the plethora of emotions swarming him that he hadn’t felt the weight of Taylor on the bed. “Get what?” he asked, voice broken and scratchy.
Taylor laughed. “You have the most expressive eyes, Frankie. It’s just one of many things that I find so alluring about you.” Grinning, Taylor ghosted his lips over Frank’s, almost but not quite kissing him. “I can always tell what you’re thinking or feeling as long as I can see your face.”
Unwilling to wait another second to feel Taylor’s lips again, Frank took what he wanted. Taylor kept control of the kiss though, opening up just enough to tease before pulling back. Sighing, Frank closed his eyes and prayed for patience. He wanted it all and he wanted it right the fuck now. “The blue is pale, almost pure, and vivid with a darker shade of blue around the rim. When you smile, it’s like looking at a cloudless blue sky, or the calm, clear water of the ocean.”
Taylor kissed him, just a quick press of lips, and Frank could feel his lips move up his cheek to his eye and gasped when Taylor kissed one, then the other. How could something as simple as the brush of lips on his closed eyelids feel so…intimate? “When you’re unhappy they look sorta blue-gray like a storm on the horizon. When you’re pissed, I swear you literally shoot daggers with them.” They both chuckled.
“My personal favorite, though, is what I see when you look at me.” Frank blinked, looking up into eyes that looked amber by the light of the moon. Like watching whiskey being slowly rolled in a glass tumbler. “You’re starting to doubt yourself again, Frank—don’t do that. Look at me with the eyes that were gazing up at me five minutes ago, when you finally let all those walls you hide behind down. Look at me with that fierce devotion, anticipation of what’s to come.”
Frank opened his mouth to respond, but all that came out was a low, throaty groan. Taylor chuckled again, leaning on his elbow and tracing Frank’s lips with his fingers, trailing them down his neck and chest, making him shiver. “See the way your body responds to me, Frank? That’s because you belong to me, Frankie. So do whatever you need to do to wrap your brain around that fact because, from this day on, I’m not going anywhere unless you’re going there with me.”
And there it was. The promise of forever and Frank knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was right, that Taylor was right. He belonged to him and had for a long time.
