Page 86 of Yard Sale

I liked that promise. I wanted him to give me forever. I wanted him to lean in and tell me that this would never be over. That he’d never hurt me the way my ex did. That I never had to be afraid again.

That I deserved to have something like a happily ever after.

But I didn’t. Instead, I sucked in a breath when he drew my dick out and squeezed his hand around it.

“Comme ça?”

I knew that phrase, and it made my cheeks heat up. “Yeah. Like that. Now harder. And faster. Be a good boy and make me come in the next two minutes, and I will make it very worth your while.”

He took that as a personal challenge, it seemed, because suddenly he was touching me all over, tugging at my nipple, biting my neck, rocking his dick against the curve of my ass as he stroked me exactly the way I liked.

I didn’t last a full minute. I had just enough time to tip my head back and let him take my soft cry into his mouth before I let go and made a mess of myself. Tiago stroked me through it, tender and careful until I made a noise of protest, and then he sat up and took his shirt off and used that to clean me up.

“I have to do laundry anyway,” he said when I let out a noise of disgust.

Grinning, I slipped off the bed and shimmied my pants back up my legs and waited for him to find a shirt. I didn’t bother with the lights. I knew Tiago’s vision wasn’t entirely dark, but this was probably the closest I’d ever get to understand what it was like for him.

I could only see bits of him, a shadow moving around as his hands shuffled through his suitcase for a new shirt. He didn’t bother going for the bathroom. He just ran fingers through his hair, then turned toward me.

“How do I look?”

I snorted. “I still can’t see anything, babe.”

He moved past me and flicked the lights on, and I saw his shoulders sag. He took a moment, then turned toward me. “And now?”

“You look a bit fucked,” I said, walking closer to fix a few wild strands of hair. “But I’m happy for everyone to know that you’re mine.”

He bit his lip to hide a smile, then put his hands on my hips and stared into my face.

“Can you see me?”

“Yeah.” He dipped his head in and took a kiss, and I tried not to think about how one of these days, the answer was going to be no.

Would it change things? He liked how pretty I was, but he seemed to like it just fine in the dark with his hands all over me. So maybe it was all of me, and not just bits and pieces.

CHAPTER 20

TIAGO

By some miracle, Aravind and I managed to avoid getting drawn into a long chat on our way to the beach. I left my cane behind because navigating with it in the sand was a giant pain in the ass, and after my short nap, my vision was a bit better.

I could follow the lights back to the house and around the pool, and I’d even gotten a decent look at Aravind’s face, all soft after his orgasm. I could tell that this was the last of it though.

My vision was going, like the last vestiges of light from a supernova. It wasn’t as sad as I thought it was going to be. I would probably have a breakdown about it later, but I felt…hell, there weren’t really words.

I had an appointment the next day at a local radiology clinic for a scan on my knee, and if everything looked good, I was going to hear whether I could start training for next year or not. I was still on the fence about whether I even wanted to.

Injuries like mine tended to crop up again. Skating after this was really just playing on borrowed time. It was either now, or it was later. But I wasn’t going to have one of those long, drawn-out lines to retirement.

Not anymore.

I wasn’t sure if it was going to be worth it, spending preseason trying to learn everything with how much vision I’d lost only to call it my last season because my knee decided to give out.

I hated that weight.

But it was easier to carry because I also had Aravind. And I wasn’t entirely sure what our future was going to look like, but I felt the strength to fight for it in ways I never had before.

His fingers left mine the moment we got to the place I was now calling our spot. Usually, the tide washed away the markings we left behind before morning, but I still knew it. I sat down and waited as Aravind got his camera set up, and then after a short while, he dropped down beside me.