Page 30 of Quit Playing Games with My Heart

I wanted to give him a lot more than what I felt capable of in the moment. I wanted to spend long, lazy hours discovering his body, how he liked to be touched, and what made him come. I wanted to suck him and tease him to the point of madness over and over until he couldn’t remember his own name. I wanted to be inside him, claiming him as my own and giving him the best prostate orgasms he’d ever had.

For the time being, I settled on thrusting against him, then wrapping my hand around both our dicks as we rutted together. It wasn’t fancy, but the communion between our souls and the eye contact we made as pleasure consumed us was far more important than the mechanics. I loved Brian, he was mine, and I would do whatever I could to make the rest of his life as wildly happy as possible.

With that promise in my mind and in my heart, we rocked together with enough intensity to bring us both to orgasm. I spilled first, despite trying to hold off and make sure he was taken care of, but Brian was less than a minute behind me. We made a fantastic, sticky mess all over each other, then laughed as we kissed and came down from the high of the moment.

In the end, all I wanted was to spoon my boyfriend, arms and one leg clasped tightly around him, and to hold him as we both drifted off to sleep. Whatever came next for us, I would make sure Brian was protected and that everything would be alright.

CHAPTER 10

Brian

Happy endings weren’t supposed to happen to a guy like me, a guy with more problems than advantages and who had known the bitter taste of humiliation like I had. But it was hard to remember that I was supposed to feel bad about myself when I had Samwise Meyers in my bed.

He spent the whole night on Tuesday, after I’d finally confessed everything to him. There weren’t words for how much comfort I found in him holding me as I slept, through the entire night. I’d never had a guy I was dating or someone I’d hooked up with stay the entire night until Sam. It felt so good that I had the best night’s sleep I’d had in a while.

Of course, that meant we had to do the walk of shame in the morning, first when we left my bedroom just as Kendra was getting home from her night shift, and then when we walked into Common Grounds together, Sam still wearing the clothes he’d had on the night before.

“Well, that answers that question,” Diccon said with a bright smile as the two of us entered the café.

“And what question is that?” Sam asked, one hand on the small of my back and a challenging look for his brother.

Diccon was all smiles and smugness, of course. “The question of how things went last night.”

“They went very well, thank you very much,” Sam said before kissing me quickly and veering off toward the office. “I’ve got to get things started here, then I’m running home to change.”

“Aw,” Diccon cooed as I made my way behind the counter. “Don’t change. I bet Brian likes you just the way you are.”

“Shut up,” I laughed, swatting Diccon once I was behind the counter with him.

I didn’t really mind his teasing. I was still on cloud nine from the night before. Not just the sex and the closeness, but the relief of sharing the scariest part of me with someone I could see myself spending the rest of my life with.

Was it too soon to be thinking like that? Probably, but I didn’t care. Being with Sam felt right, and it was about time my life felt right.

“So it went well?” Diccon asked more seriously, once we’d settled into the morning routine of turning on all the coffee makers and getting the first pots brewing.

I nodded with a big grin. “I feel a little dumb saying this, but I don’t know why I didn’t share everything with Sam earlier.”

“You’re not dumb,” Diccon told me, still serious. “Stuff like that is big and intimidating. And for the record, I’m in awe of the way you’ve been able to navigate life and to still land on your own two feet despite having that kind of challenge.”

I deeply appreciated my friend’s vote of confidence. “It hasn’t been easy,” I said, “but I think maybe things will be easier with Sam by my side to help me out.”

“I’m sure they will,” Diccon said, then laughed. “Just don’t let Sam get too big a head about it. I know he likes being the oldest brother and the one who takes care of everyone, but he can get insufferable. And whatever you do, don’t let him think he’s won your whole games night bet thing.”

I laughed and my face heated. Mostly because I liked the idea of being taken care of a little too much. I was still sorting out that awkward impulse in my head. But when it came to games night, there was no way I was going to let Sam’s idea win out over mine.

I spent the next couple of weeks working hard to make sure open games night ended up being more profitable than Sam’s tournaments. It wasn’t easy, but it was a fun sort of challenge that gave Sam and me something to both work on together and challenge each other with as the summer bled into fall.

“Another successful night of games and fun,” I told Sam early in October, after our best-attended open games night yet. “We had a lot of newbies in tonight. How many new people did you have for your poker tournament last Thursday?”

“A lot,” Sam said with a wry grin as he helped me put board games away. “And we had a surprising turnout for the backgammon tournament two weeks ago, if you’ll remember.”

“Was that a good turnout?” I teased him, scrunching up my face. I knew full well it had been.

As it turned out, people liked the idea of a different sort of tournament each week on Thursdays. At first, I thought there was no way it would work and that a different tournament each Thursday would mean an entirely different group of people who needed to be recruited for each different game. But actually, people used it as a reason to learn a new game each week and to really dive into it. There were as many return players for Sam’s games as there were for mine.

“We need a way to determine which of our games night ideas is the winner once and for all,” I told Sam as we walked back to my place after closing. Sam had started spending as many nights at my apartment as he spent at his house, or that I spent at his house with him, since the night of our conversation. “We need to do something like put it to a vote.”

“A vote is a great idea,” Sam said, reaching for my hand as we walked. “We’ve got enough crossover people who come to both nights that calling for a vote is a brilliant idea.” He paused, then said, “You’re full of brilliant ideas, sweetheart.”