Ex-Daredevil by Zoe Lee

Chapter 28

Eliott

Completely engrossed in the brief I was writing, I jumped when my office door opened without a knock first. Then panic rocketed throughout my body when I saw Gavin, who locked my door and then closed all the blinds, one panel at a time. His hair was loose, pushed back behind his shoulders in a heavy mass of black and violet, contrasting beautifully with the barely green button-down and stonewashed skinny jeans he wore.

I sucked in a breath of terror and stuttered, “G-Gavin?”

His mouth was pursed into a tight bud and his eyes were flashing fire, but he cruised across the carpet with his body relaxed like a predator, his upper body almost slumped back from the cradle of his hips. Those unforgettable eyes tracked from my polished shoes—I hadn’t even realized I’d stood and stepped out from behind my desk—up my charcoal gray suit to my face. They settled there, unrelenting as they took in my expression and the groove between my eyebrows, my parted lips with short puffs of air bursting out.

“Oh, so you do remember me?” he asked silkily, the words blades.

“I…”

But my throat was clogged and my brain was buzzing and empty.

“Sit down,” he ordered.

I fell back into my desk chair as if I were his puppet, sweat beading already.

“I’ve been truly hurt only a few times in my life,” he said. “Not very often, because I’m proud of who I am and mostly I’m able to know that if you don’t like me, it’s not my problem. Ten years old, and I could laugh at bullies while they terrorized me. Twenty years old, and I could laugh off men harassing me at bars, calling me a pretty twink they were going to break. Thirty years old, and I can almost crash into someone’s car and be jaunty about it. But two weeks of dead silence from the man I thought of as my boyfriend?”

“I—”

“Shut up,” he cut me off, not with anger or hurt, but with ice-cold pride.

Shame engulfed me, and even in the middle of my panic, I knew it was one of the few times in my life that it was the right emotion to be feeling. So many times with Peter I’d felt ashamed when he said hurtful things when I shouldn’t have. But what I’d done to Gavin at the hospital, and every second since then by hiding, that really was shameful.

“Now I tried to be patient because I don’t know what happened to you,” he went on, and there was a tiny quiver in his voice, like he had imagined the very worst possibilities.

That I couldn’t let him wonder, so I dared to interrupt. “He never—he didn’t…”

Gavin swallowed hard and nodded. “Good,” he said, his demeanor softening a fraction.

My hands clawed at the surface of my desk. “He—he… I met Peter at an honor students group my sophomore year, where he was one of the leaders. I had my friends, but I wasn’t fitting in with any of the pre-law students except Camdon. We started dating and then he’d… It always sounded like advice,” I pushed out, every word like gravel. “I was too…”

Even remembering the things he’d said, even considering saying them out loud, made my heart pound and sweat pour. I stripped off my suit jacket and pressed a fist to my temple, laughing without a hint of humor. “I was never going to be respected by the pre-law students, or by anyone who would interview me for an internship or a job someday. I was too… too colorful.” I spat out the word, just the way he had, with so much disgust. “I was a stereotype twenty years out of date. I was… I was practically setting back gay rights—”

I couldn’t get another word out, too nauseated, my mouth full of saliva but I couldn’t make my throat work right to swallow fast enough to get rid of it. I couldn’t look at Gavin.

“Sweetheart, no,” he whispered.

I felt the heat of his body but still couldn’t look up.

Suddenly my throat opened and the rest came out, as forceful and distasteful as vomit.

“So I got rid of all my colors and patterns and bow ties. I cut my hair. I took out my piercing and took off my rings and bracelets. I gave away my rainbow comforter and linens. I changed my walk and my hand gestures. My friends tried to talk to me, but all they were able to make me see was that Peter was a shitty boyfriend. Everything else had… sunk in like poison. The worst part, though, was that it worked, Gavin. The other pre-law students started to respect me. I did get internships. I did go to a good law school and those students respected me too. And later I got good job offers from every place I applied.”

My chair was shoved back, cracking into the wood file cabinet behind my desk, and spun around forcefully, and then Gavin was crouched between my legs, grabbing my face.

“I want to kill him,” he stated, utterly sure and deadly.

I closed my eyes, unable to handle the full weight of his eyes from so close.

“Is that why you were so off when I showed you all the shirts I brought for you, at the IMAX?” he asked, and his voice was quieter now, gentle and compassionate in a way I’d never heard him be before, and didn’t deserve. “And why you admire my tattoos so much?”

“Yes,” I choked out, prying my eyes open, and locked my hands around his wrists.

“So I pushed something at you that you’ve been denying yourself for over ten years, and then pushed you to ride the ferris wheel, and then you had to listen to Camdon,” he said, understanding dawning in his bright eyes. “It all snowballed, and it was too much.”

I felt my eyes well up and I admitted, “I’m so sorry, Gavin. I got over most of it years ago and told myself that my tastes had changed, that I’d grown up from that flamboyant young man. I don’t hate my plain, dark clothes or walk around missing my piercing. Or that’s what I convinced myself, I don’t even know right now. But Camdon… He just told you all of this stuff that I wanted to tell you, that I was trying to figure out how to tell you.”

His thumbs stroked my chin while he huffed out a self-deprecating laugh and shook his head. “Damn it, baby, I had this whole speech planned about how you were being such a dick and I don’t want to find out about the baggage you carry from your friends.”

“That’s the first time you’ve called me baby,” I blurted out, semi-teasing.

I watched in fascination as he flushed hard.

“Whatever your speech was, I promise I’ve given it to myself about a hundred times,” I admitted, feeling a little calmer and more capable because I’d thrown him off a little. I knew it was probably petty, but there it was. “I don’t regret throwing a hissy fit at Camdon, but I never should have left without you. Dragged you out with me, maybe. Or texted you that I was in the waiting room or outside the hospital waiting for you. And I’ve been a total asshole not texting you back or calling you. Even if I wasn’t ready to explain, I should have been strong enough to tell you that directly, instead of hiding and being embarrassed.”

That put a modest smirk on his face. “You are an asshole.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” I promised, feeling lighter than I had in two weeks, “if you still—mph!” Gavin’s tongue was in my mouth, wet and desperate, and I groaned weakly in relief, tearing free so I could finish doggedly, “If you still want me to be your boyfriend.”

“You promise not to run or go incommunicado again?”

“Yes.”

“You promise to explain shit to me or tell me you’re not ready to yet?”

“Yes.”

“You promise to wear whatever you want and pierce whatever you want and be as flamboyant—or as all-black and uptight and outwardly boring—as you want to?”

That made my throat clog up again, but I squeezed out softly, “I’ll try my best.”

“Great. And I’ll try not to get paranoid that you’ll throw all that out the window the next time we fight or something uncomfortable comes up,” he said, quick and impatient, and I nodded, because that was fair too. “So now that we’ve made up, please fuck me. Sasha and Mia worked their magic and the suite is empty and locked up until about one-thirty.”

I should have laughed it off or told him Tonight, but desire ignited like a huge bonfire. I had been missing him viscerally, but the embarrassment over why he wasn’t within my reach had left me desire-free. So this bonfire was too much for me to withstand or temper, and I absolutely had to surge to my feet and lurch us sideways so that his ass was pressed against my desk. Our hands tangled in each other’s hair and we both moaned like we were dying, my mouth devouring his as our bodies ground together from our cocks to our pecs.

It went on and on, hands roaming to grab and burrow beneath our shirts, until I almost came, spontaneously combusting inside my boring suit, but I held it off.

“Here, here,” he gasped, shoving his hand between us to fumble a condom and a few lube packets out of his front pocket. “My backup plan was to fuck you into contrition.”

I had been avoiding Gavin, knowing he’d demand the truth about Peter, and it made me feel so weak and easily manipulated that I had been sure he would reject me. Or that it wouldn’t be a good enough reason for the way I’d behaved and he wouldn’t forgive me.

So the fact that he had come here and shown compassion for me, shown anger at Peter, made me want to cry a little. He’d accepted my words as the absolute truth without hesitation, changed his plan on a dime, and wasn’t showing a hint of pity or derision. He wanted me to stay his boyfriend, and he wanted to seal our new promises with sex.

It was so exhilarating and overwhelming that I backed up just enough to give us the space to undo my belt and fly, and murmured teasingly, “Big word for such a pretty twink.”

Laughing delightedly, he fished out my cock, his grip so tight. It felt so good I threw my head back and bit back a howl. I refocused to tear open his button fly, then shoved his skinny jeans and briefs down, slamming him back into my desk with the force it required to make it work. Taking the opportunity, I engulfed his leaking cock in my mouth and bobbed quick and deep, my eyes rolling back in my head when his perfect taste hit my tongue.

He grabbed fistfuls of my hair and lifted me off with an obscene pop so that we could kiss again, only now with our hips sawing back and forth, shoving our cocks together.

It was rough, unrefined, and impatient, and it was unforgettable, everything I’d ever wanted. But it was even better because I cared about him and he cared enough about me to hunt me down and set me straight, then demand I take him, something we hadn’t done yet.

The reminder made me crazy, so I sucked what I hoped would be a disorganized array of very red hickey into his neck and above his right nipple, then spun him around.

His hands fanned out on my desk, slipping against the polished wood surface when I thrust my cock hard between his ass cheeks, but then he got purchase and thrust back.

“Do it, come on,” he taunted breathlessly, “right here, bent over your shiny desk in your boring office in the uptight law firm where you work, while everyone’s out to lunch.”

“Every suit’s fantasy,” I hissed, tearing open the first packet of lube. I slid my slick fingers confidently into his crease, swirling them around his hole before working them into him. I’d done it to him before so I knew he could take it, that he liked the challenge and the stretch, and in that moment, I didn’t double-check because I wanted him so badly.

As soon as he was relaxed enough, I pulled my fingers out, baring my teeth in a feral grin at the disappointed noise he made, and put on the condom. I slicked it up too, then had to grab the base of my cock hard when he spread his legs and deepened the angle of his back. His wiry shoulders bunched, his fingers curling over the far edge of my desk.

“Eliott,” he begged, the picture of desire.

“I’ll never get any work done at this desk again,” I groaned as I popped the head of my cock into his hole, then slurred out a string of swears and who-knows-what when he glided his wonderful, tight ass down my cock until I bottomed out. “Fuck, I knew you’d be perfect.”

“Move, asshole,” he demanded.

“Okay, baby,” I teased.

Immediately, he snapped his ass back on me in reaction.

I dug my hands into his hips hard enough to bruise and lost all reason and sense of time, left only with this wild drive to claim him. My eyes were glued to his gorgeous back, the intricate ink emphasizing the lines of his muscles and spine instead of obscuring them.

Our rhythm was fast and deep, Gavin doing at least half the work, and I loved how unapologetically he shifted his hips until he got me at the right angle to hit his prostate.

More, though, I loved how it felt, not just in my skin but in my head, and my heart. This was objectively stupid—I was fucking him for the first time not in my bed, but over my desk at work in the middle of the day, after a confrontation and an apology. But I felt so free and so wanted, just the way I was, boring and in suits, missing colors and flamboyance. I felt his appreciation and his desire in every movement, in every cute little huff of exertion and babbled demand to go faster or right there, baby, right there, like he couldn’t stop.

My body gave up its last vestige of control sooner than I wanted, because I wanted to stay here for fucking ever, but the powerful orgasm wouldn’t be stopped, surging out of me.

I grit my teeth, the tendons in my throat bulging painfully as I stifled a shout.

Gavin’s body was desperate under me, and I carefully hauled him up against my chest, so that my still-hard cock stayed in him. His arms shot up to lock behind my neck, his face shoved into one of his biceps, and I stroked my hands around and down his body. One rolled and tugged his balls while the other sped up and down the top half of his cock with a twist. He shook and made helpless jerks with his hips until he finally blew over my hand and his belly, whimpering into his skin and tightening his arms behind my neck painfully.

“Oh my god,” he whined, going lax against me suddenly.

I nuzzled into his hair, licking up some of the sweat on the back of his neck. “I missed this,” I sighed, then clarified quickly, “Missed much more than just the sex. I missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” he said, sounding almost shy. “I didn’t like being apart like that.”

As we disentangled our bodies and cleaned up, I thought about where to go from here.

But before I came up with anything, he had put himself back together. He grinned and straightened the knot in my tie, then nibbled on my bottom lip. Pulling back, he proclaimed, “On Sunday, I’m going to pick you up. Not for a Daring Date, but you’re just going to have to trust me and say yes, no arguments. Wear hangout clothes, but pack a swimsuit.”

“Swimsuit?” I looked out the window where it was a blustery, freezing November day in Chicago and twisted my mouth. “I do not swim in Lake Michigan, Gavin. Do you know how many germs there are in it? If you’re thinking about a polar bear plunge, I forfeit.”

He laughed, eyes lighting up with that wonderful combination of exasperation and challenge. “I could cheat and tell you that’s exactly what my plan was. But I’m not a cheater and it must be your lucky day because I’m set on my plan. The swimsuit is for a pool.”

I almost told him pools weren’t much better than the lake, but I heard people outside my office talking more loudly than was necessary. Taking the warning, I pursed my lips.

He smirked and went towards the door, tossing over his shoulder, “This went really well, but don’t think it gets you out of a lot of groveling and a lot more talking, mister.”