Warders, Volume One Read online

  “Can I look in here?” I called out to him so I couldn’t be accused of snooping.

  “Wait!” Ryan barked out a warning, but it was too late.

  The door popped open, like the handle was spring-loaded, and I found myself looking at two beautifully etched swords, one long, one short. They looked like they belonged in every samurai movie I had ever seen.

  “Shit,” he said under his breath as he stopped beside me, having almost leaped across the room.

  “What is this?” I asked, like Vicki Vale in Bruce Wayne’s inner sanctum.

  He wet his lips nervously.

  “They’re beautiful, Ry.” I tipped my head at the swords. “What are they called?”

  He pushed his fingers through his thick hair. “Informally, the long one there is a katana, the shorter one is a wakizashi.”

  I nodded. “Can you use them, or are they just for show?”

  “No.” He coughed. “I can use them.”

  “Really?” I was surprised. It was hard to imagine the gorgeous man with the delicate, fragile features I saw before me being able to wield the weapons I was looking at. “Do you cut people up in little pieces with them, Ry?”

  “Not people,” he said quickly, pushing in front of me, closing the doors together, pulling both handles down and then pushing them in. They disappeared into the wood, flush, not a chance for me to open it again without him there, which was perhaps his intent. It was almost as though the cabinet had been left open accidentally.

  “Go sit down in the living room, willya, please?”

  “Stop taking the tour?” I suggested playfully.

  “Just… I’m trying to be romantic and seduce you, and you’re killing my vibe.”

  “Sorry.” I smiled at him, walking back to the living room and flopping down on his red leather couch. “Huh.”

  “What?” He seemed surprised.

  “It hardly gave at all.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  I didn’t, but that was rude to say. In fact, I liked nothing about his place. It was cold and sterile and did not reflect the man’s warmth at all.

  “Julian?”

  I looked around and felt nothing. “You know, if I didn’t know better, I would say that you were messing with me about this being your apartment.” I finished by looking up at him. “It doesn’t feel like you in here.”

  His eyes locked on mine. “It doesn’t?”

  “No.”

  He trembled slightly. “How so?”

  “You’re warm, and this place is cold.”

  “You mean I’m hot,” he teased, bending toward me.

  I reached up and caught his face in my hands, stilling him. “Yeah, you’re plenty hot, but that’s not what I mean,” I said, tracing his cheek with my thumb. “You’re like… home.”

  He caught his breath and jerked away from me.

  “Sorry,” I said softly, ready to stand and walk out of his apartment. We could tease and play, but that only worked up to a point. I had the worst timing sometimes, and my words got heavy with meaning. “I didn’t mean to make you—”

  “No,” he cut me off, his hands on my shoulders, holding on, the movement itself, and not the power exerted, keeping me in my seat. “I love what you said.”

  My eyes searched his. “Ry—”

  “How come you never have any fun?” he asked as he took a seat beside me.

  He was deliberately changing the track of the conversation. We had been headed down a serious path, but he wanted to keep things light, breezy. He was giving me no reason to run from him. He was taking no chances. Little did he know that the more serious the conversation, the more interested I would be.

  “Jules?”

  “I have fun,” I said slowly, taking the bait, not wanting to scare him, either. I wanted the ease from when we were in the kitchen together back.

  “When?”

  “All the time.”

  “You think so?” he asked, stretching his arms out across the back of the couch. “Because I think you’re full of crap.”

  “Do you.”

  “Yeah, I do. When do you have fun? I never see you out, and believe me, I’ve looked, and like I said earlier, the guys that do know you—not one of them has ever slept with you.”

  “So having lots of sex, that’s fun? I should sleep around and that would show everyone that I know how to have a good time?”

  “No. I dunno. You’re so hard to figure out. I mean, it took me so long to even see you.” I snorted out a laugh as he groaned. “Shit, that didn’t come out right at all.”

  But I understood what he was saying. I sort of faded into the background if you weren’t watching, and if you weren’t looking for me… no one ever noticed me right away. It wasn’t who I was. I tended to be the quiet guy surrounded by loud, beautiful people. My best friend was a prime example. Hot, magnetic, in-your-face Cash Vega was balanced out by me and the quiet I offered.

  “Julian—”

  “I get it.” I chuckled.

  “No, you don’t. On one hand, you’re gorgeous, and I, along with everybody else, just want to get you in bed, but then you’re so cold and reserved, it’s scary to even try and talk to you.”

  I was a lot of things, but cold wasn’t one of them. “Aww, c’mon, cold? Really?”

  “You don’t know what you look like, Jules, with your deep, dark, scary blue eyes and the way you carry yourself. You’re so unaffected by everyone and everything. I thought you were a conceited asshole until I realized that you’re just shy around new people, especially men.”

  “I’m not some head case, ya know. I—”

  “I know. You just need to loosen up.”

  “By being a slut.”

  “That’s not what I said,” he corrected. “But you do need to get laid.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “I can take care of that if you want.”

  “No,” I assured him, even as I let him slide his hand up the back of my neck into my hair. Something about him soothed me instead of putting me on guard.

  “Why not? Think of the fun.”

  Could he be any cuter?

  “Can I ask a question?” he asked, shifting closer to me so we were shoulder to shoulder, his knee against mine.

  “’Course,” I told him, rolling my head sideways to look at his profile.

  “You get tested?”

  “For what?”

  “You know for what,” he said pointedly, serious now. “Don’t be an idiot.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, you?”

  “Every six months.” He was matter-of-fact about it.

  “And?”

  “Clean, of course. You?”

  “Please, I’ve never had anything.”

  “Why’re you smiling at me like that?” He grinned back at me.

  “’Cause I bet you’re the kinda guy that carries condoms in his pocket when he goes out, huh?”

  “Yessir.” He nodded, looking at me, fingering the hem of my sweater. “Can I ask you another quick question?”

  “Yeah.”

  His gaze was heavy on me. “Can I see your glasses again?”

  He had returned them in the Jeep and was now asking for them back. I nodded. Reaching out, he was very gentle when he took my glasses off and put them carefully down on his coffee table. When he looked back at me, I heard him catch his breath.

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  I let out a deep breath. “I had no idea you wanted me to, I swear to God.”

  He nodded and bit his bottom lip.

  “You’re adorable.”

  There was quick head shaking. “No. No… hot, sexy, gorgeous, whatever you want, but not adorable. That’s no good.”

  “It’s good,” I assured him, my hand on the back of his neck, leaning in, pulling him close at the same time. “Everything about you is very good.”

  The second my lips touched his, he opened for me, drawing me inside, sucking my tongue into his mouth. He climbed
into my lap, his folded legs clamping around my hips, his groin pushing into my abdomen. His firm, round, muscular ass was sliding back and forth over the bulge in my jeans as he moaned low in his throat. It was very sexy, his want, his need.

  He breathed out my name before his mouth covered mine again, and he was all over me, pressing, straining, his hands on my belt buckle. It felt like it was going to be fast and frantic, and I didn’t want that.

  Reaching up, I cupped his face in my hands and slanted my mouth over his. I kissed him deep and hard, my tongue making love to his, letting him know without benefit of words that he had me. I wasn’t going anywhere. I slowed him down, sucked and licked and nibbled his lips, my hands never moving from his face. There was a deep, primal groan before he pulled back, gasping for air.

  “You taste good,” I told him, my voice low and full of heat.

  He inhaled deeply as he looked at me, his eyes wet and glazed, heavy-lidded, his lips swollen from my attention.

  I reached for him, but he leaned back, his jaw clenching at the same time his hand flattened on my chest.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head. “I know you don’t just fuck, Julian. Everybody told me how you are. You’ve got this whole good-boy reputation going on.”

  “You make it sound so bad.”

  “No, it’s not that… I just mean that if you’re staying, then maybe you wanna see me and spend time with me, ’cause you don’t just pick up some trick and follow him home.”

  “No, I don’t,” I said, my hands sliding up the muscular thighs on either side of me. The man was toned and cut and hard, and I wanted him naked under me. “I’m not built like that.”

  “But I am,” he confessed sadly, his voice hitching. “It’s all I am.”

  “No, it’s not,” I assured him, staring into his magnificent eyes, shifting him in my lap. “And I think that’s why you wanted me to call. Maybe sleeping around isn’t so fun anymore.”

  “Julian,” he gasped, pushing down into me as he unbuttoned his short-sleeved shirt slowly, never once taking his eyes off mine as he peeled it off.

  The sculpted chest, the rippling abs, all the smooth golden skin begging to be touched, it was all I could do not to attack him. Head tipped back, I watched his eyes close. “Put your hands on me. You know you want to.”

  And it was just stupid at that point to deny myself anything. I wanted him; he obviously felt the same. Senseless to say no. I had always been attracted to him, and finding out, over time, that he was not the materialistic, brainless but beautiful creature I had thought he was, was humbling. I made snap judgments about people, and it was a terrible flaw. The man was sarcastic, gorgeous, funny, and sexy, and he had the sweetest mouth… how could I say no? But the whole little seduction scene he had going was not going to work for me. He wasn’t allowed to treat me like all the others.

  “Ryan. You need to look at me,” I told him gently, but with a thread of warning, my voice dropping dangerously low.

  His head snapped up, and his eyes opened wide. It was the tone of my voice that demanded immediate attention. He was surprised, I could tell, staring deeply into my eyes.

  “I’m not some trick you picked up and you’re gonna fuck and forget.” His breath caught, and I saw the muscles in his jaw cord. “Don’t take your eyes off me,” I ordered him, my voice firm. There would be no argument.

  “No, Julian.” He trembled just slightly. “I won’t.”

  I slid my hands up his collarbone to his neck, over his jaw to his face, my fingers gently exploring, tracing his brows, his cheeks, sliding over his skin. “You have to trust me,” I told him, my voice a husky growl. “Do you?”

  “Oh, yes.” His eyes were glazed, the pupils huge.

  I smiled lazily, then pulled him forward and ran my tongue slowly over the seam of his lips before he opened for me. I kissed him deeply, slowly, my mouth sealed to his. I inhaled him, the suction strong, his bottom lip mauled before I saw how far down his throat my tongue could go. The whimpering noise he made, the surrender I was waiting to hear, went right through me. I put my hands on his skin and pushed him down hard under me on the couch. He fought me for a second, testing my strength, so I was rough with him and heard his breath catch.

  He moaned when my mouth touched his skin, trembling when I bit him. “Julian… I want you so bad.”

  Which was good since the feeling was mutual.

  “I—” Ryan began.

  I stood up with him still wrapped around me and walked down the short hall to his bedroom. We fell together on his bed, him under me when we hit the mattress. Standing up, I grabbed one foot, divesting him of one motorcycle boot and then the other before turning my attention to the skintight boot-cut jeans. I had his fly open seconds later, leaning over to place wet kisses on his abdomen to distract him from the slow slide of denim off his hips. When they were gone, wadded up and thrown into a corner, I admired the long muscular legs I had uncovered. There was no part of him not drool-worthy. After I pulled off my sweater and T-shirt, I realized that he was staring up at me.

  “What?”

  “You’re so beautiful,” he breathed, his eyes all over me. “Why do you hide that body under all those clothes?”

  “Clothes are a necessity,” I told him, leaning down to peel off his thong. It was very sexy, but his skin was better. The first view of his long, beautiful cock made my mouth go dry. “But, Christ, they shouldn’t be for you.” He whimpered in the back of his throat, and it was the sexiest sound, rolling through me, making me catch my breath. When I took his cock in hand, his groan was deep and hoarse. “Look at you needing me.”

  “Julian,” he panted, trembling under me, the rippled abs contorting, his engorged shaft jerking in my hand, the beads of pre-come already leaking from the flared head.

  I smiled down at him. “I bet you taste like dessert.”

  He pointed to his right, to his nightstand. “I just got tes-tested two weeks ago. I have the results right there for you to—oh God!”

  I stopped his rambling when I bent forward and swept my tongue around his shaft.

  Only my name alone escaped his lips.

  “Oh, he likes that.”

  “Julian—I… Julian.”

  My smile, if he’d opened his eyes to see it, was evil. Leaning over, I sucked the length of him down my throat. He nearly came off the bed.

  “Julian,” he gasped, his hands in my hair, fisting, holding tight. “What are you… I… I’m clean, I swear. I have the paper right fuckin’ there if you… I have… ohmygod!”

  It was my tongue; I knew it felt like heaven sliding over hot, sensitized skin. That, combined with the sucking and laving, the way my gag reflex was nonexistent, how much I loved to give head—I had Ryan Dean. He was at my mercy. He was mine.

  “Julian… Julian.” He chanted my name, the fingers in my hair tightening and loosening, his body convulsing, his back bowing as he arched up off the bed. “You gotta stop… I’m gonna come, and I don’t wanna… Julian!”

  I swirled my tongue over the flared, swollen head, then down each side, gently but also using my teeth, making him yell my name, clutch my head, the fingers buried in my hair, splayed on my scalp. I traced the thick vein, licked hard, loving his smell, the feel of his skin, the sounds he made. He was panting as I made everything wet with saliva, stroking him, finally pumping his cock with the hand fisted around the long, hard, velvet length of him.

  “Julian… baby… I….”

  But I wasn’t going to stop, I wanted to know what he tasted like, suck every drop out of him, leave him drained and spent and completely at my mercy. His body that was to die for would be mine to do with as I pleased. As he thrust upward into the back of my throat, writhing under me, bucking up off the bed, I sucked hard.

  He screamed my name as he came, his orgasm rocking him as he filled me, his cock swollen as the fluid rushed from him into me. I swallowed him down, holding him inside until he went soft, waiting as he rode out
the aftershocks of his bliss, licking him clean, leaving nothing.

  When he was still, his spent, flaccid cock finally slipped from my lips, and I rose over him.

  “God,” he whimpered. “You’re fucking amazing.”

  I arched an eyebrow for him.

  “Kiss me, fuck me… please… Julian… please.”

  I bent, and his arms wrapped around me as he lifted for my kiss.

  Our tongues tangled, and he tasted himself on me, just the thought sending a wave of heat through me. He shoved me back, pointed at the nightstand, and when I opened the drawer, I saw the bottle of lube. There was also the biggest box of condoms I had ever seen in my life.

  “Do not go near those condoms,” he warned me. “All I want to feel is you inside me, and when you come, I want it in me… deep in me.” His eyes were liquid as they locked on mine.

  “Have you ever done it without a condom?”

  “No. I-I never have.”

  I was overwhelmed, only me, ever, and my resolve faltered. “You don’t have to.”

  “I want to—I never wanted to before, but now… I want you buried in me now,” he said, arching up off the bed. “I’ll beg if you want.”

  “You never have to beg me for anything.”

  “But I will if you need that to bareback.”

  He was the sexiest man I had ever met, and I had never hoped to hear him say the things that had just tumbled from his lips. I wanted more than anything to be inside of him with nothing between us, but the reality of it had never even crossed my mind. For me it was one of the great perks of monogamy and one of the many reasons the idea of a committed relationship was so appealing. You didn’t have to have safe sex. You could have unsafe sex whenever you wanted, however you wanted. The fact that he wanted me to be even closer to him than I would normally be touched me deeply.

  “Julian.”

  “It means a lot. That you trust me….that you know that I’m a good guy.” I choked up because I was frankly overwhelmed.

  “Then grab the lube, Julian, and come here.”

  When I moved back to him, kneeling above him on the bed, he spread his legs, bending them at the knee, and lifted up so I was presented with his pink, fluttering hole.