Am I Still Enough?
Standing at the window, Travis turned his wedding ring slowly around his finger, watching the sun glint off the gold. His cell vibrated on the coffee table, signaling the arrival of a text. He was on his way.
It had started off as harmless flirtation, furtive glances over the photocopier, progressing into coffee breaks together. Followed by lunches away from the office and long strolls around the park, munching hot dogs and watching the world go by. He made Travis feel alive again. Made him feel attractive, wanted, and desired, and Travis wanted him, too. It had been easy to take a day’s vacation from work. No-one batted an eye when they’d put in requests for the same day. Why would they? Travis was happily married...wasn’t he?
Travis couldn’t actually say he was unhappy, how could he be? Who would be unhappy, married to the sweetest man on earth? The man who, for the last ten years had shown him nothing but love and devotion. Had never given him cause to cry himself to sleep or want to stray. No, Travis wasn’t unhappy—he was numb. The spark had sputtered out a while ago. They no longer dropped everything and took a vacation on the spur of the moment. Nor did they leave each other stupid little love notes around the apartment. He couldn’t even remember the last time they’d made love anywhere other than their bed. Hell, they’d christened every single room in the apartment when they moved in, more times over than he could count. And he couldn’t put anything in the linen cupboard without remembering how he had gripped the wooden slatted shelves, long fingers gripping at his sweat-slicked hips. But they didn’t do that anymore. They had three bedrooms, two baths, a mortgage and sex three times a week. Vacationed twice a year in the same months and alternated between each other’s parents for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They were... comfortable.
When He’d started at work and his gaze had traveled over him from head to toe, intent in his gaze, Travis had found it exciting, fresh, filling him with memories of how it felt to be at the beginning of something. How it had been for them, before real life and commitment had entered the equation. Last week, their month long lunch trips had culminated in Him waiting until Travis had gone to the store room, then following him in, leaning against the door and preventing his escape.
Not that he’d wanted to escape. The tension in the air had been palpable and the want rolled off both of them in waves. The way those beautiful eyes had travelled the length of his body and a predatory smile lifted that wide mouth, had Travis’ thighs trembling. Travis hadn’t moved when He’d reached out to curl his hands around his upper arms, pulling him up close to His muscled chest. Travis had known that he should have been shaking his head, not letting his eyelids flutter and close as those lips pressed to his, should have been thinking of his husband. The man he loved, the man who loved him. Travis had known what he should’ve done—but he hadn’t done any of those things. He’d just let Him ravage his mouth and had let searching fingers roam over his ass, unable to do anything but whimper against the sensations that flooded through him.
Travis’ cell vibrated again and he picked it up, pressing the little envelope and opening the message.
I’ve just got in the elevator, are you ready for me?
Travis’ stomach flipped as though a thousand butterflies had been released from their cage. Was he ready? Could you ever really be ready to break the vows you had made to that one person? He flinched at the knock on the door, taking a deep breath before padding down the hall in his bare feet and opening the door. There He was in all his statuesque beauty, a dimpled smile on his face, the heat in his eyes evident. Before Travis could take another breath, He was in the hall, the door kicked shut and his hands on Travis’ face, his tongue invading Travis’ mouth and stabbing at his in needy thrusts.
Travis let himself be walked back into the open plan living-room and the back of his knees hit the couch before He lowered him down on it, that wide mouth sucking Travis’ lower lip into his mouth and caressing it with His tongue. Travis knew the groan he heard had come from his own throat and it echoed around the quiet of the room. His hand slid down Travis’ chest, over the waistband of his jeans, and when His large hand palmed his cock through the denim—he froze. This was wrong, so very wrong.
What the fuck am I doing? Travis pushed at the muscled chest until He lifted himself off and allowed him to roll out from beneath Him and get to his feet.
“Travis?” The voice was filled with confusion and concern.
Swallowing, Travis ran a hand through his disheveled hair. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I can’t do this.”
“Why not?” He frowned at the harsh laugh that fell from Travis’ lips.
Only someone who had never been in love would have asked that question and Travis wasn’t sure he could make Him understand. There were a million different reasons. The fact that He didn’t know that Travis was like a bear with a sore head before his first caffeine hit in the morning. Or that he had a manly fear of flying and a not so manly fear of anything that had more than four legs and scurried. He didn’t know that Travis always cried at ET, or that he got the scar on his hip when he fell off a swing in first grade. Couldn’t know that Travis’ mother’s favorite flowers were Hyacinths, or that his sister was allergic to shellfish. Wouldn’t know that his favorite movie was The Goonies, or that his guilty pleasure was listening to Duran Duran. He didn’t know any of those things, but the man smiling out at him from the frame on top of the mantle did. All those things and more—so much more.
Travis apologized again when he closed the door behind Him, padding back down the hall and into the living-room. He stood in front of the floor to ceiling windows and rested his forehead against the glass, looking out over the city. He couldn’t have been standing there more than ten minutes when he heard a key in the front door. Looking up into the window in front of him, Travis watched his husband wander into the living-room and crowd up behind him. He smiled at the reflection he saw behinds his own and laid his hands over the warm fingers laced around his waist. “You’re early.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?” Travis asked softly, his gaze locked with the one in the window.
“For not going through with it.” The gaze didn’t waiver when the realization tracked across Travis’ face. He simply turned Travis around in his arms and kissed his lips, the merest brush of skin against skin. “I love you,” he murmured, ten years of feeling and emotion in those three little words and gently lowered him to the carpet beneath their feet, covering Travis’ body with his own.
Feathering his fingers through dark, silky hair, Travis’ back arched and his long legs came up to wrap themselves around his husband’s waist. He knew. Had probably known all along. How could he have ever thought he wouldn’t? He knew everything. Curling his fingers around the back of his husband’s neck, he closed the gap between them and mumbled against soft lips. “I love you too, Dean.”
THE END
WOW Lisa- hot, hot, hot- great excerpt
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