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Evan felt a weird buzzing in his ears as Jeremy leaned in to kiss him. Had he heard Jeremy right? Was Jeremy promising him a relationship? Were they actually doing this? His stomach flipped as Jeremy’s mouth touched his, warm and familiar. They’d only kissed a handful of times but he recognized the way Jeremy’s lips felt. He knew to tilt his head to the left to deepen the kiss, and that Jeremy’s stubble made the skin around his mouth tingle. The kiss was sweeter than he expected, more tentative, as if Jeremy was afraid he’d run. But Evan wasn’t going anywhere. Not if Jeremy was promising Evan what he’d asked for.
He grabbed the lapel of Jeremy’s suit and pulled him closer. Jeremy let out a quiet groan that vibrated Evan’s lips, and his hands slid up Evan’s back, under his suit jacket. The full length of their bodies were pressed together, and Jeremy deepened the kiss as the water flowed around their ankles. He wasn’t sure if the rhythmic sound he was hearing was the waves or his heart pounding in his ears. Jeremy’s tongue teased Evan’s, gliding past a particularly sensitive spot along the side that made goosebumps break out over his whole body. Evan let out a gasp and pulled back. “Holy shit, what are we doing, Jeremy?” he asked, panting a little since he’d sort of forgotten about breathing.
Jeremy dragged his nose along Evan’s cheek, and Evan could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke. “I thought I was kissing my boyfriend.”
If Evan’s heart could have leapt out of his chest, it would have. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Jeremy chuckled, and it vibrated against Evan’s cheek. “I mean, I think that’s what we just decided. We’re in a relationship, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Evan repeated. Somewhere inside him, the teenage boy who’d grown up feeling like a freak, wondering if he’d ever be loved or if he’d spend his whole life alone in a little town that hated everything about who he was, finally gave a sigh of relief.
“Do you want to go back to the reception?” Jeremy asked. “I think it’s almost over.”
“We probably should go back; I’m sure they’ve noticed we’re gone.” Evan hesitated. “I wonder what Russ and Stephen will think about us.”
“I think they’ll approve.”
Evan pulled back so he could look Jeremy in the eye, needing one last bit of reassurance. “Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask me anything.”
“Do you ... do you ever wish things had worked out between you and Stephen? If your parents hadn’t run him off after the accident, and he was there for you during your recovery, do you think you’d still be together? Do you wish you were?”
Jeremy shook his head and smiled. “No. I like Stephen; he’s a hell of a guy, but we were never quite right for each other. Not before the accident, and certainly not after. Russ is right for him.” Jeremy reached up and dragged his thumb down Evan’s cheek. “And I kinda think you are right for me.”
Evan’s heart, which had felt like it was floating up out of his chest since Jeremy called him his boyfriend, leapt skyward. “Let’s forget the reception. Let’s go back to the hotel. To my room.”
Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “Trying to get me in bed, huh, kid?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “I mean, we don’t have to have sex tonight, but I want to be alone with you.” And he wasn’t embarrassed to say it because it was Jeremy, and despite everything, Evan trusted him.
“I’m not going to argue.” Jeremy grinned and gave Evan a quick, hard kiss. “Come on, let’s go.” He grabbed Evan’s hand and tugged gently. Evan followed, snatching up his shoes as they passed them. They stayed on the wet sand because it was firmer and easier on Jeremy’s leg. It seemed to take forever to reach the beach club again, and when they did, the staff was clearing away the remains of the party. Jeremy’s shoes were sitting on the deck, and they snagged a couple of the empty chairs. They took the time to wipe the sand off their feet and put on their shoes, even though Evan wanted to magically appear in his room back at the hotel. Waiting another second to be close to Jeremy seemed like too much.
Jeremy took his hand again as they walked to the car. They didn’t speak on the drive back to the hotel, but the heat of Jeremy’s hand on his thigh was all Evan needed.
Evan spotted Russ and Stephen on their way through the hotel lobby, but they didn’t stop to talk. He felt vaguely guilty that they’d missed the end of the reception but figured Russ and Stephen would probably forgive them under the circumstances. Russ glanced at their clasped hands with a surprised expression, but after a moment, he nodded and gave them a small smile. Stephen’s smile was broader, almost a grin, and the approval was clear. Not that Evan needed either of their approvals, but it was nice to have. They were the closest thing he had to family now.
“My room, okay?” Evan asked as they neared his room, and Jeremy nodded.
Evan’s heartbeat picked up as he slid the keycard into the lock and opened the door. He’d left a couple lamps on, so he didn’t bother to turn on any more lights. Now that they were in a room with nothing but a few pieces of furniture and a giant bed, Evan could think of nothing but sex. He’d said it didn’t matter if they had sex, and that was true, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want it. He wanted to be as close to Jeremy as possible. He tossed the keycard, his phone, and wallet on the desk as Jeremy’s hands slid up to rest on his shoulders. Evan turned to face him.
“Hey,” he managed. He felt as though his skin was too tight for his body, and he wasn’t sure if it was nerves or excitement.
“You okay?” Jeremy asked, frowning a little.
“Yeah. Um, a little nervous though.”
“Hey, it’s okay. Me too.” Jeremy’s hand curved around the back of his neck, and he brought their foreheads together. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take a quick shower.”
“Sure.”
Jeremy straightened and squeezed the back of Evan’s neck before he let go. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
After Jeremy disappeared into the bathroom, Evan stripped down to boxers and a T-shirt and hung his suit in the closet. He got comfy on the bed and turned on the TV, but he struggled to follow the action movie on the screen in front of him. He’d never seen it before, and it was halfway over, which didn’t help, but the biggest distraction was Jeremy. Evan felt like someone had turned him upside down and shaken him. He was so happy Jeremy was willing to give a relationship a shot, but he’d come to the wedding expecting an awkward, tension-filled couple of days, not Jeremy doing a one-eighty. All of a sudden, Evan had a boyfriend, and at that moment, he was on the other side of the bathroom door. In the shower. Naked.
“What exactly am I doing in here?” Evan muttered to himself. He stood and walked over to the bathroom, not letting himself chicken out before he knocked on the door.
There was a long moment of silence before the bathroom door opened and a cloud of steam came out. Jeremy stood there, dressed in a robe with the hotel monogram on it. His hair was dark, nearly black, when it was wet, and he looked surprisingly serious. “Sorry, did you need to get in here?” Jeremy asked.
Evan shook his head. Instead, he grabbed the lapel of Jeremy’s robe and pulled him forward. “I just need you.”
Jeremy’s expression softened, but his hand came up to rest on top of Evan’s. “I’m going to be brutally honest here. I’m freaking out about you seeing my scars.”
“If it’s too much, we can wait,” Evan offered. “I don’t want to rush you, and I know this was kind of abrupt.”
“Not for me.” Jeremy ran his thumb over Evan’s cheekbone, leaving tingles in its wake. “I came on this trip hoping I could apologize and fix things between us.”
“Oh.” Well that explained the way Jeremy had been acting for the last two days.
“I meant what I said in the car on the drive here. I don’t want to let my scars hold me back again, but I’m not going to lie. This is difficult for me. Can we ease into it?”
“Of course.” Evan thought about the last time they’d been together and winced. “Can ... can you promise me something though?”
“What is it?”
“Don’t run out on me. I don’t think I could handle it if you did it again.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Ever again.” Jeremy’s voice was firm. “Now, why don’t you grab a shower too, and after you get out, we can talk about my scars and go from there.”
Evan nodded, and Jeremy stepped aside to let him in the bathroom. Jeremy shut the door behind him, and Evan turned on the shower and stripped. He tried not to hurry through his shower, to give Jeremy time, but it was difficult. He didn’t care what Jeremy’s thigh looked like, he only wanted to be close to him. But he knew what a huge thing it was for Jeremy, so he wanted to respect his feelings.
He was turned on and eager for more but anxious about having sex for the first time too, and his cock stood at half-mast through most of the shower. He gave it a few slippery tugs, which made his balls tighten, and he shuddered when his fingers grazed his opening. He washed every millimeter of his body carefully, knowing if things went well, Jeremy would be exploring all of it. He groaned and turned off the water, unable to stall any longer. “Please, please let this go well,” he muttered under his breath, but he didn’t know who he was begging.
He put on the remaining robe, but the mirror was too steamy to see himself so he made a half-hearted attempt to flatten his hair then reached for the doorknob.
Evan’s gaze went to the bed as soon as he stepped out of the bathroom. Jeremy was lying propped against the headboard with a pillow tucked under his left knee, but he didn’t look relaxed. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he had a scowl on his face. It seemed like he was watching the same movie Evan had been—from the sound of loud crashes and explosions he could hear anyway—but Jeremy didn’t look like he was paying any more attention to it than Evan had. Evan crossed the room, and Jeremy turned to face him.
Jeremy smiled but it seemed tight, and it didn’t reach his eyes. “How was the shower?”
Evan smiled back, wanting to reassure him. “Refreshing.”
“Good.” Jeremy used the remote to turn off the movie before tossing it aside and patting the bed beside him. “C’mere. Let’s talk about my scars.”
Evan went around the foot of the bed and took a seat beside Jeremy’s left hip, pulling his robe more tightly around him. “Jeremy, I’m a funeral director. You have no idea how many mangled, scarred bodies I’ve seen. It’s not a big deal to me.”
Jeremy closed his eyes for a second. “Fine, maybe you have seen dead people who look like I do, but that’s not how I want you to see me, Evan. I want you to think of me as—as a man, Evan, not some cripple—”
Evan cut him off. “I hate when you call yourself that.”
Jeremy winced. “I’ll ... work on that.” He took a deep breath and met Evan’s gaze. “After Russ came to knock some sense into me, I went to see my psychiatrist, and I’ve been working on changing how I feel about my scars and the accident. Some of it is going to take time, but I want you to know I’m working on it.”
Evan reached out and lightly touched Jeremy’s cloth-covered knee. “No matter what the scars look like, I want you to know I think of you as a man. I’ve never thought of you as anything less than whole.”
“Evan, you have to understand there are things I can’t do anymore. I’m never going to be the man I was before the accident.”
“I know. If you need more time, that’s fine. We can go to bed fully dressed and just sleep next to each other tonight and deal with the whole getting naked together thing when you’re ready. But I told you before, I don’t care. I want you just the way you are. Nothing you show me will change my mind.”
Jeremy reached out and touched his knee where it stuck out from the robe. Evan’s skin tingled, but he forced himself to focus on Jeremy’s words as he spoke. “I love that you said that, but I’m still scared you’re going to freak out when you see it. It’s bad, Evan. I had surgery on top of surgery. They took out the broken pieces of bone and glass, and put in a rod and a bunch of pins, but it got infected. They had to take out a chunk of infected bone and the pins and clean the area. I had this metal stabilizer thing attached to my thigh for months, but there was another infection. There’re scars from the accident, from the surgeries, from the stabilizer, and hollow spots where they cut away all the bad tissue. It’s pretty fucking grotesque.
“Even when I massage the scar tissue with lotion to keep it soft every day, I avoid looking at it, I do it by touch. Earlier, in the shower, I made myself look, and the thought of you having to see it makes me feel queasy. If you can’t handle it, I won’t blame you, okay? I want you to know that.”
Evan nodded. There was nothing he could say to make the situation better or convince Jeremy the sight of his scars wasn’t going to make Evan run, so he shifted to face Jeremy’s knee. “Please. Let me see,” he whispered, and Jeremy nodded once.
Evan’s gaze began at Jeremy’s long toes, going over his ankles, up the lightly furred shins. There Evan spotted a glimpse of silvery scars, mostly small and somewhat hidden by the hair. They were more noticeable on his knee. Tiny dots ran alongside a long, narrow scar. Jeremy tensed when Evan touched the hem of his robe, and his hand landed on Evan’s when he went to lift it. He didn’t stop Evan though, so Evan slowly peeled the robe back to reveal the length of Jeremy’s thigh all the way up to his hip. Evan’s breath caught in his throat as his gaze traveled across it.
There was one massive scar—maybe six or eight inches long and at least an inch wide—that ran down the outer front of his thigh and a cluster of others surrounding it. Raised and puckered in places and flat and shiny in others, the scars made it look like he’d been attacked by something—a shark maybe. There were so many. The small ones had faded to a silvery-white but others were a dark purple. Evan tried to keep his face neutral, but all he could think about was the excruciating pain Jeremy must have been feeling. How close had Jeremy come to losing his leg or dying? What if it had been Jeremy lying dead in a casket? How close had Evan come to never knowing him at all?
“I know; it’s horrible,” Jeremy said. He tried to push the robe back down but Evan held firm. His eyes watered, imagining what it had been like, and as he glanced up, he saw Jeremy’s face crumple. Jeremy reached for Evan, tugging him up by his upper arm. “You don’t have to look at it again. We’ll figure out a way to work around me getting naked.”
“It’s not that.” Evan blinked back the tears and sniffed. “You must have been in so much pain.”
Evan allowed Jeremy to pull him up and fell on the bed beside him. Jeremy tucked the robe around his thigh again, and Evan laid his head on Jeremy’s shoulder.
“You were thinking about the pain?” Jeremy asked. “I thought you were ...”
“What, that I was disgusted? It’s just damaged skin, Jeremy. The only reason I’m horrified by it is because you had to go through it alone.” Evan buried his face against Jeremy’s neck.
“Oh, kid,” Jeremy’s voice broke. “You’re killing me here. How can you be so damn sweet to me?”
“Because—” he took a deep breath as he lifted his head to look Jeremy in the eye “—because I love you.”
***
Jeremy’s head spun at Evan’s words, and he tried to respond, tried to get words out, but all he could manage was an inarticulate sound of confusion. How long had it been since anyone had said those words to him? He hadn’t heard it from his parents since he was a kid. Stephen must have been the last one to say it to him, and even then, Jeremy hadn’t been able to say it back properly. And here was Evan, the sweet, fierce creature who hadn’t flinched at Jeremy’s grotesque scars, merely teared up at the thought of Jeremy’s pain.
Shell-shocked, Jeremy allowed Evan to cradle his head in his hands and tilt it back. Starting at the corner of Jeremy’s mouth, Evan placed soft kisses on Jeremy’s skin as he worked his way up to his cheekbone. Rather than skip right over the puckered scar, Evan’s lips lingered in the spot as if he wasn’t disgusted by it at all. “Do you know how many people die from injuries like yours, Jeremy? I don’t care about the marks the accident left,” he whispered. “I just care that you survived.”
It was the final straw, and Jeremy shook his head, tears leaking out of the corners of his tightly clenched eyelids. “How can you ...”
Evan kissed the tears away and spoke again, lips brushing his scar, breath whispering across his skin. “I told you, I love you, Jeremy. I love you, scars and all, and I am not letting you go.”
Jeremy felt every puff of air those words created. He felt it, not just against his skin, but also deep in his chest, in the dark, lonely corners of his heart where he’d believed he was too damaged to be worth anything. Where he’d convinced himself no one would ever love him again.
Jeremy closed his arms around Evan so tightly he felt the breath leave Evan’s body in a loud whoosh of air. Jeremy buried his face against Evan’s neck as he struggled to hold together the walls he’d put up. But they crumbled, one after another, until Jeremy’s raw, vulnerable heart was the only thing left in his chest. “You mean it?” he croaked.
“Every word.” Evan’s hand smoothed through his hair. “I need you to trust me.”
“I trust you.” Jeremy closed his eyes and whispered, “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me for loving you,” Evan said, his voice quiet and steady.
For the first time, Jeremy felt grateful for the accident that had ripped apart his body and his life. Without it, he would never have been ready for Evan. He’d have gone on living the kind of life he’d had before the accident: too self-centered to see a guy like Evan and everything he had to offer. Too shallow to give a shy guy a chance, except to earn bragging rights about bagging a virgin. He winced at the thought. Yeah, he’d been an asshole. Maybe he still was, but he’d come a long way.
The quiet ferocity of Evan’s feelings for him was staggering. Evan, who had barely been able to meet Jeremy’s gaze a few short months before and had seemed like a sweet, but naïve kid, had more strength in him than Jeremy ever had. He had a fiery strength deep down inside him that couldn’t be beaten down. Rather than go out and find another incredible guy like him, he’d chosen to fight for Jeremy. When had anyone ever done that for Jeremy?
In his own quiet way, Evan had shown Jeremy how to live again.
How to love again.
“I love you too.” Jeremy’s voice broke again, but he didn’t care. “And I promise, I’m not going anywhere either.”
Evan gripped Jeremy’s short hair in his fingers and tilted his head to kiss him. The kiss was so hungry, so full of need, and Jeremy knew he’d never turn Evan down again. He’d spend the rest of his life thanking whatever it was in the universe that had allowed them to find each other. Jeremy’s hands were shaking as he wrapped them around the back of Evan’s head and kissed him deeply. He speared his tongue inside Evan’s mouth, so ready to be inside him. His skin itched with need, and Evan met his desperation and egged him on. They ended up with Jeremy on his back and Evan kneeling over him, kissing as if they’d never stop. Jeremy slid his hands under Evan’s robe, and he sat back long enough to shrug it off. He still had boxers on but Jeremy worked his way under them as Evan kissed his jaw and neck, the little nipping kisses making Jeremy’s blood run hot. Evan gasped against his collarbone as Jeremy wrapped a hand around his cock.
Evan kissed down his chest, his own hand working its way under Jeremy’s robe to grasp his long-neglected dick, which began to weep at the first touch by anyone’s hand but his own in years.
“Fuck, kid,” he whispered. He jacked Evan’s cock a little more, and Evan shuddered. “God, I want to take my time, but I want you so fucking bad.”
“Don’t make me wait any longer,” Evan begged, and Jeremy’s dick agreed. Evan lifted his head and glanced up at Jeremy. “Please. I want you to fuck me.”
“Okay,” Jeremy agreed then groaned when he realized he was completely unprepared for this. “Shit!”
“What?” Evan shifted so he was lying beside Jeremy, his expression wary.
“I didn’t exactly come prepared for this. I can’t think of the last time I bought condoms, and I sure as hell didn’t pack them for this weekend. Not to mention lube, and there’s no way in hell I’m skimping on that for your first time.”
Evan groaned, and the scowl on his face mirrored the way Jeremy felt. They’d been so close, and now it looked like they were going to have to make a trip out to a drugstore. Jeremy wondered if the concierge at the front desk stocked condoms then decided they probably didn’t. And lube ... yeah, that was going to be even harder to come by.
“Sorry,” Jeremy said, running a hand down Evan’s bare flank. “I would have been prepared but this was ...”
“Yeah, I didn’t exactly expect we’d do this either,” Evan said. He sat up abruptly. “Wait, hang on.”
Jeremy rolled on his back as he watched Evan bounce off the bed and hurry toward the bathroom. “I don’t think they stock condoms with the shampoo and bars of soap,” he called out. “This is Hilton Head, not Vegas.”
Evan laughed as he came out of the bathroom, and he looked so good. Normally serious, Jeremy loved the way his face opened up when he was happy. For a moment, Jeremy forgot all about their interrupted attempt at sex and felt damn grateful the guy walking across the room was his. Then he noticed what was clutched in his hand. “You packed lube?”
Evan’s cheeks pinked, but he was still grinning widely as he settled on the bed beside Jeremy again.
Jeremy grinned. Evan was a twenty-one-year-old virgin, he probably jerked off three times a day. At least. No wonder he’d packed lube. “Hell, yes. That solves one of our problems.” He sobered immediately as he considered the other critical component they were missing. “But a condom isn’t something you want to do without either. We should go pick up some before we do anything else. If we’re really being safe, we’ll use them for blowjobs too.”
Evan chewed at his lower lip, but it wasn’t the nervous gesture Jeremy usually noticed. Or at least the look in his eyes was more anticipatory than anxious. “Blowjobs? I don’t really think I want to.”
“Well, if you aren’t okay with giving a blowjob, we can work around that,” Jeremy said. He was a little disappointed; he’d been thinking about having Evan’s mouth around his dick since they met, but it wasn’t a deal-breaker. Jesus, how shallow would he have to be to reject Evan for that, especially after all he’d done to make Jeremy feel comfortable about his scars?
“No, not ... I’m fine with giving one.” The color on Evan’s cheeks deepened. “I mean using the condoms during blowjobs. Or, well, sex. Can’t we skip them?”
“Kid ...” Jeremy blew out a breath of air. “We really shouldn’t.”
Evan shrugged. “I’m still a virgin, Jeremy. Chris and I kissed, but it didn’t go further than that. Unless I didn’t grasp the safe sex tips I read, it doesn’t exactly put me at risk for much of anything but ... a cold or mono or whatever, and you already kissed me.”
Jeremy managed a grin despite the irrational surge of jealousy at the thought of Evan with anyone else in any capacity. “Fine, but I’m not. I started fucking around at sixteen and went pretty hot and heavy until Stephen. Even after my accident, once I was out of rehab and functional again, I had casual sex with a few guys. I used condoms but ...”
“Are you saying you ... you have something we need to be concerned about?”
“What? No. It’s been a couple years since the last guy, and I’ve been checked out since. I’m certainly in the clear, but ...” He struggled to explain. “I don’t want you to risk yourself. I can’t exactly show you any test results at the moment, and you shouldn’t just take my word for it.”
Evan dropped the bottle of lube on the bed between them and reached out to touch Jeremy’s face. “I trust you, okay? And it’s not as if I’m going to be with anyone else, right? I’m fine with going without, if you are.”
Jeremy wrestled with his conscience for another moment. He’d been so goddamn stupid in his teens, and although Evan was older and a hell of lot smarter than he’d been his first time, Jeremy wanted to take care of him. He wanted to do what was right for Evan. But if neither of them were going to be with anyone else ... “Okay,” he agreed. “It’s going to be messy as hell though.”
“I’m okay with messy.” Evan shrugged. “I just want you. Unless ... are you trying to talk me out of this?”
Jeremy stared at him for a moment. “What? No, of course not. What makes you say that?”
“It kind of seemed like you were trying to come up with excuses.”
Jeremy reached out and touched Evan’s arm. “Not excuses. I did risky stuff when I was younger, and I want better for you. I want to take care of you, kid.” Jeremy paused. “Uh, you don’t mind me calling you kid now that we're ... together, do you?”
Evan smiled and shook his head. “No.”
“’Cause I don’t mean I think of you as a kid, or that you’re immature. Quite the opposite, actually.”
“I know. It’s just a nickname. Something you only call me.”
“Yes, good. It’s something that’s just between us.” Jeremy ran a thumb down Evan’s cheek and watched his eyelids flutter. “I think there’s a hell of a lot more I’d like to add to the list, and now that we have everything sorted out ...”
His lips touched Evan’s as his words ran out, and Evan kissed him back so sweetly it made Jeremy ache everywhere. He wasn’t going to let another thing stand in his way of being with Evan.