#Rev (GearShark #2) (5 page)

It was too late to try and guard myself. Drew had already slipped past all my defenses.

My arm slid down and my palm fell open. He tangled our fingers together, wrapped his around mine, and rested them over my abdomen.

Beneath my fractured ribs, my heart ached. It ached with love and loss.

“Don’t think about it,” Drew whispered as if he could read my mind.

It was unsettling, and I glanced at him. My thoughts had always been my own. No one had ever been able to read them before.

He nodded. He could.

“Tonight is ours,” he reminded me, the pad of his thumb stroking over the back of my hand.

I gave in completely. I surrendered it all.

Maybe I shouldn’t have, but like I said… As much as I hated pretending, sometimes pretending was a beautiful lie.

Drew

Trent was not easy.

In fact, Trent was about as easy as asking a hive of bees for their honey.

I wasn’t talking about on the surface, because in that sense, T was easy. He got along with everyone (except Lorhaven) and he made everyone feel at ease in his presence. I used to think it was because that’s just the way he was; he had that kind of personality everyone meshed with.

Maybe some of it was that. But it was more.

He was more. Trent had a quiet understanding about him. A quiet way of making everyone feel accepted. He left people better than when he found them. Whether it were as simple as a kind word, a smile, or a listening ear. His quiet demeanor wasn’t a flaw; it worked to his advantage. Those who listened were far wiser than those who only spoke.

I’d been learning about him since the day we met. I hadn’t always realized it or even known it was happening, but now I did. It was like being taught how to tie a shoe, not being able to get the hang of it until one day I created a bow.

Today was my bow.

It might be a little crooked, it might be a little loose, but it was a bow all the same.

Trent was so understanding because he himself wasn't understood. He had the ability to make people feel at ease with themselves because he knew what it was like to be conflicted. He listened because his mind was the loudest, and he accepted others because he himself felt unaccepted.

How much of himself had he sacrificed over the years? How selfless could one man be before it became detrimental to his own well-being?

The surprise in his hazel eyes when he realized I understood how he was feeling was genuine. So was the fear. It made me equal parts determined and sad. Sad because he was so used to protecting himself, silently observing, that he didn’t know how to react when he realized all this time, I’d been silently observing him. It was glaringly obvious no one had ever taken the time to learn how the true Trent ticked.

Or maybe others had tried.

Others had failed.

I was determined. Determined to show him I wasn’t like everyone else. I wasn’t going to let him push me away. I was going to give him all the consideration he gave me.

Starting with tonight.

Though he’d never admit it, the fact he gave in and agreed to being here like this was proof he wanted me.

We just sat for a while, my knees pressed against his side as I held the ice to his face with one hand and wrapped the other around his. The sight of his injuries was physically painful for me. The bruises and the dried smears of blood were reminders of the way he’d looked when my headlights first illuminated his body in that parking lot.

I don’t think a person can ever be prepared for that. For seeing someone they love—someone who had never been anything but strong and capable—look so broken.

Broken, but not beaten.

I think that hurt worse. Because even in the battered, unstable state he was in, I still saw him fight. He fought for balance; he struggled to stand. Even as he bled and hurt, he refused to lie down and give in.

Fuck Con.

Fuck the guys at Omega.

I might be a grown-ass man. I might not even go to that college. But I would never be too grown to protect my person. I would never be too mature to extract revenge. There were some things a man just couldn’t lie down and take.

This was one of those things.

I was so angry I couldn’t really think. I was too consumed with the man beside me to really formulate a plan.

But I would. And just like on the track, I wouldn’t back down.

I wasn’t sure how long we’d been sitting here, but it was long enough that the fingers on my hand holding the ice had gone numb from the cold. Slowly, I lifted the towel and lowered it off his skin.

“How’s it feeling?” I asked soft, studying the still swollen and angry-looking black-and-blue eye.

“Better,” he replied, glancing over.

His hair dropped over his forehead like it too was exhausted. Some of the strands fell across the bandaged gash. I reached out and pushed them back.

Trent’s eyes closed with the touch, and my stomach dipped a little.

Even though I didn’t need to, I repeated the action, pushing back his hair a little farther.

He sighed.

Reluctantly, I pulled my hand from his and snagged a bottle of water off the nightstand, uncapped it, and held it to his lips. He reached for the bottle, but I pushed his hand back and titled the plastic until cool water touched his lip.

Trent’s hazel eyes fixed on mine as he drank, slow, cautious sips. When a drop of water escaped and trailed over the rounded softness of his lower lip and down across his chin, I used it as an invitation to lean over and swipe it away.

“My blood is on your shirt,” Trent rasped, pulling back from the drink.

“I know.”

“Kiss me.” The request seemed to rip right out of him. You know that place I mentioned he never let anyone see?

With deliberate care, I capped the water and slowly set it aside. When I turned back, he was watching me, hunger and nervousness in his gaze.

It was a painful thing to want someone so much but to constantly deny yourself. It was even more so to let yourself believe the person you wanted so badly returned the desire.

I leaned forward, bracing my arm on the mattress on the other side of his waist, caging him in without touching him.

The back of his head hit the headboard, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. The tip of my tongue wet my lips so they would slide right over his.

They did.

Oh, they did.

Trent held himself still; he didn’t kiss me back. If I didn’t know him, I might have taken that the wrong way, but I did know him.

I took his stillness right to my heart. It pierced like a clear piece of glass slicing right into that tender spot on the bottom of your foot.

He was taking something in that moment. Something just for him. Something he really wanted.

I was flattered. I was overwhelmed.

It was the first thing I’d ever seen him take.

Yeah, maybe it was just a kiss. But it wasn’t. It was so so much more.

I poured everything into that kiss. Everything into my lips as I rubbed them softly over his. The one side was puffy, and I took a little care there, licking over it with my tongue, making sure it was good and slick so he didn’t feel any kind of pain.

Between kisses, I would lift my head just a fraction of an inch and tilt my head a different way. The change in direction enhanced the kiss; it made certain I touched every last centimeter of his mouth.

He reveled in it. His body, which he’d held with stiffness and pain up until now, went boneless against the mattress. Small sounds I don’t think he even heard vibrated the deep part of his throat.

I sensed rather than saw his hands fist into the sheets at his sides with restraint, as if it took everything in him just to take and not give back.

But, oh, he was giving. He was giving me so much by just reacting. If I hadn’t already fallen in love with him, I would have right at that moment.

In fact, I think I fell a little harder.

It was a heady thing to be so incredibly wanted. To be the balm to a wounded soul, the answer to someone’s prayer.

“Forrester.” My name ripped from his lips when I sat back and shook out my trembling arms.

“Frat boy,” I answered, and a second of panic almost ruined the moment pressing in around us. I wasn’t supposed to call him that anymore.

Sure, he said he didn’t like it, but we both knew that was a lie. He loved it when I called him that. It was a term of endearment, something only I ever got away with. But now, to him, it was a slur. A connection to the men who jumped him.

I felt my eyes widen. His own cleared; a little of the passion glazing over his body cleared.

“It was—”
An accident.

“No.” He stopped me and brushed the pad of his thumb across my lower lip. “You can call me that. You can call me whatever the hell you want, and I’ll always answer.”

“If it reminds you…” I began, and he shook his head.

“It reminds me of who I am to you. Only you.”

“Only me,” I echoed and went back for more of his lips.

This time, he kissed me back, his palms sliding over my jaw and holding. I smiled a little inside when he rubbed at the stubble and groaned.

The next thing I knew, he was holding my head and dragging his teeth down my jaw and kissing across my neck. I tossed my head back to give him better access as he sucked at the skin and made me moan.

The sound seemed to snap him out of his trance. His body stiffened and pulled back. My eyes sprang open, disappointed at the absence of his lips.

“Shit,” he swore and pushed my head back so he could stare at my neck. He grunted. “No mark.”

“That’s disappointing.”

Trent frowned. “I’m not gonna mark you where everyone will see.”

“Right. ‘Cause you don’t want people to know you love me.” My voice was bitter, and I pulled away from him.

“I don’t want you to be punished for this.” His voice begged me to understand.

My heart refused.

I shoved off the bed and paced the room. How easy it was to forget tomorrow. How easy it was to live in denial.

How easy it was for reality to come back and rip everything away.

Frustrated, I swung around. “I wanted that mark,” I said angry. “I wanted something of you. Something I could look at…” My voice trailed away, and I shook my head.

“Something what?” Trent pushed.

I turned away.

“Something of me that would be here when I leave?” The pain in his voice was as real as the stuff building in my chest.

“Maybe,” I whispered but didn’t turn around.

“Come here, Forrester.” The commanding tone in the words was almost undeniable.

I looked over my shoulder at him. I didn’t see the bruises and the Band-Aids. I didn’t see his scraped knuckles or the smear of red beneath his lip (guess I kissed him a little too hard).

All I saw was the look in his eyes.

I rotated, stepping toward the bed.

“Lose the shirt,” he ordered.

With one hand, I yanked it over my body and dropped it at my feet. The second my knees made contact with the mattress, he moved. Without thought to his injuries, Trent palmed my waist and pushed me down. I didn’t fight him one ounce, so it didn’t cost him much strength.

Strong, defined thighs straddled my hips, and when his weight sank onto me, I bit back a groan because my cock was hard and the pressure of his body was heaven.

“Where do you want it?” he rumbled, dragging his fingers down my chest and across my sides.

“What?” All my attention was on his chest, his wide, strong shoulders.

He pinched my nipple lightly and rolled it around between his fingers. I groaned and arched up slightly, totally lost now. I had no idea what the fuck he was asking me, and I didn’t care.

“Here?” he asked, trailing a finger along my hipbone. “Or here?” He gave my nipple another tug.

I made an incoherent sound and shut my eyes.

The nipple was still a hard pebble, tingling with desire when he let go and trailed up a short distance. “No,” he whispered. “I think here.”

Trent’s big body came down, pinning me against the bed, and his lips locked onto my chest. On my pec, not far from the nipple he’d been teasing before.

At first, he swirled his tongue over the flesh and dampened it, kissing softly, and nibbled at the skin. Then the pressure increased as he sucked the entire spot into his mouth.

He was giving me what I wanted.

Both my hands locked onto his head. My fingertips dug into his scalp, and I pushed his face deep into my chest as he sucked.

“Don’t stop,” I growled, taking it all, even the tinge of pain when he obeyed and went deeper.

It was so satisfying, his mouth on me, knowing when he lifted his head, I would have a mark of where he’d been. I emptied my mind and just felt the pressure of him sucking, felt the pleasure/pain combination with soul-tingling emotion.