Dedication of a Lifetime Read online

  He was being unreasonable and moody and infantile and he should stop. Be ready to listen to Isaiah when he got home, because clearly he’d need someone to talk to.

  Sean flicked the faucet to cold and added water to the sink until he no longer felt scalded and finished up the wash before taking his wine to the couch and pretending to read. He usually preferred the other side of the couch but over here he’d be able to see Isaiah approaching their front door so he sat in the unfamiliar spot and sipped at his wine, waiting. Waiting and hoping.

  Isaiah was an asshole. An asshole who’d walked fast enough and far enough without realizing it that it took him almost two hours to make it home again. Part of him hoped Sean would be in bed and asleep already because the man needed to get some rest. But most of him wished for Sean to be waiting up so he could kiss the worry away. Fuck him until he couldn’t see straight never mind fret.

  His heart cracked when he opened the front door to an empty living room. The fissure got deeper when he went into the kitchen and saw everything had been cleaned up and put away, and that there was an empty wine bottle waiting to go in the recycling bin in the garage. That earnest-as-hell motherfucker had finished the bottle on his own. Someone else might’ve dumped it down the sink or corked the bottle and left it out, but not Sean.

  After taking out the trash and the recycling because he needed to do chores to dull the guilt a bit, he headed upstairs and came into a dark bedroom without even the muted glow of Sean’s open laptop. He got ready for bed and climbed under the sheets. Stared at the ceiling and tried to quiet his mind enough to sleep.

  It didn’t work.

  He knew too that Sean wasn’t asleep, because when you’d been with a person for ten years, that was the kind of thing you knew like the back of your own hand. How your lover sounded when they’d found the peace of sleep.

  Regret consumed him, ate at his mind because he could’ve handled things so much better. Should’ve, in fact, because he knew his husband well enough to know that he wouldn’t be able to shrug off Isaiah’s suggestion. Would take it to mean that Isaiah wanted to get out of this hellhole more than he wanted to be with Sean, which wasn’t true. He could’ve prefaced the whole damn thing by telling Sean about Pam, which he would’ve understood. Maybe they could’ve commiserated instead of sniping at each other.

  Being in a marriage was hard enough under the best of circumstances, but everything and everyone was being tested at the moment. Everyone was tired and overwhelmed and stressed and set on a hair-trigger because being alive right now was hard. It was fighting and making choices and deciding what to speak up about and what to pass by, and then worrying that you’d made the wrong choice or that you were a horrible person for letting anything go. But how was a person supposed to maintain a career and their relationships while also being a fulltime social justice warrior? And how were you supposed to live with yourself if you weren’t?

  These were the things that made Isaiah want to toss and turn, but he didn’t. It was foolish, but he didn’t want to disturb Sean even in his not-sleeping. If Sean had rolled over and asked to talk, he would’ve taken him gratefully and gladly into his arms, but if Sean wanted to be angry and cold for a night, well, he couldn’t say he didn’t deserve that.

  On the other hand, if Sean were waiting for him to make the first move toward reconciliation, apology, and he was just lying here staring at the stupid ceiling with his fingers knitted over his stomach? That made him kind of a dick.

  Isaiah wouldn’t change a damn thing about Sean because if he pulled one string, Sean would unravel, and he didn’t want that at all. But that had also meant being careful with his words because Sean took things so deeply to heart.

  Saying something like wanting to move to France with no context was the sort of thing he ought to have thought through. He’d have some explaining and reassuring to do. Not that he wouldn’t still move to France given the opportunity, but he sure as hell wouldn’t make a unilateral decision about it and was well aware he could’ve done a better job bringing it up.

  It was a foot and a half. Maybe two. But the gap between them felt like a great expanse, an ocean of cold, unwelcoming cotton, and Isaiah had to take a few fortifying breaths before he could attempt the crossing. It would be okay. It would. What was the worst thing that could possibly happen? Sean could tell him it was too late, that he should go and not come back? Or maybe an indifferent shrug would be worse because then he’d know there was no coming back from the hurt he’d caused. Sean would be as good as lost because outwardly he’d still belong to Isaiah, but inside he’d be adrift.

  Yes, that was as horrible as it sounded. But if he didn’t even bother to try? That would be far, far worse. Knowing there might have been a chance to make things right and not having taken it? All the wine in Burgundy wouldn’t make that right again.

  So he slipped across the chasm toward Sean. There was still no light from his computer, and his breathing hadn’t settled into the unconscious space-taking soft snore so he wasn’t asleep, not yet. Probably awake and fretting, awake and worrying because he’d taken everything in and was still trying to figure out how to filter and dispose of it so he could take on still more tomorrow. His husband was an everyday, underrated hero.

  Sean stiffened as Isaiah came close and laid a hand on his hip. It poked at his heart, that Sean would have that reaction when it wasn’t so long ago that he would have closed the gap between them with a scoot back to be the little spoon or rolling over so they’d be face-to-face. It hurt. Scored his heart.

  “Sean.”

  A pause, but then Sean rolled to his back, his chest bare and vulnerable in the low light of their bedroom. In their bed.

  “Yeah?”

  “I…” In the moonlight, he could barely see the freckles he knew covered the crest of Sean’s cheeks. But they were there. He was as certain of them as he was of anything in this world, except perhaps one thing. That he loved this man more than anything or anyone under the sun. The world seemed hopeless and uncertain sometimes, especially now, but maybe he could let Sean be his beacon, his hope. If Sean still wanted the job anyhow.

  Sean blinked at him, eyes wide with uncertainty, maybe fearing the worst. But what would the worst be? Isaiah wasn’t so sure anymore.

  “I don’t want to go anywhere without you. Not anywhere. I’d give up my ticket to Utopia if you didn’t want to come with me. And you stubborn, gallant fucker, you wouldn’t, would you?”

  Sean’s mouth tugged to the side and he breathed out through his nose. The combination was apologetic and defiant all at once. “Not if we were leaving everyone else behind.”

  “You’re a better person than I am, you know that?” He leaned over Sean, planting a hand on the other side of Sean’s ribcage, hoping he was making Sean feel loved and sheltered instead of trapped. He wanted desperately to kiss his husband, press his lips softly against Sean’s willing mouth, but he wasn’t sure he’d earned back the privilege yet. And that’s what it was, a privilege to have this man next to him, under him.

  “I’m not.” Sean’s protest was accompanied by a shake of his head, his reddish hair flopping around on the pillow. “You’re the best person I know. You do all these things I could never do and you make a difference to so many people, and I—”

  Isaiah was right, he knew he was right, and he didn’t want to listen to any more of Sean’s spurious arguments. So he shut him up with a kiss. It started out as a meeting of their lips, but it quickly became more than that. A lick at the seam of Sean’s mouth, a nip at his narrow bottom lip, and soon Isaiah was slipping his tongue into his lover’s mouth, exploring the wet, welcoming warmth, and feeling the blood start to flow to his cock because Sean still turned him on like no one else. Especially when he made a breathy moaning sound into Isaiah’s mouth and pressed his body closer. Sean wanted to be closer to him, and he wanted that too.

  It would be so easy t
o turn this into making love, or hell, just an energetic and angst-relieving fuck, but there were more things to be said. On the other hand, he was more confident now that there was more time to say them, and why couldn’t something be easy for a while? Weren’t they both paying far over their dues and weren’t they allowed to take a breath, take a break? Recharge so they could fight another day? Isaiah thought yes, and Sean wasn’t protesting, so for now he’d love him the best he knew how.

  Kissing Isaiah or rather being kissed by Isaiah—because there was no way to argue that Isaiah hadn’t taken over this enterprise—was one of his favorite things on earth. And why shouldn’t it be? All elegant power as he lowered his bulk to force Sean’s body further into the mattress while he took Sean’s mouth. Explored him and probed him, always seeking and searching for any spot of pleasure he might have missed or a change in the sensual landscape.

  So often Isaiah was concerned with the big picture, and yet when he devoted his attention to Sean, it was as though he was the only person alive. It was at once delightful and terrifying, decadent and a massive amount of pressure. To have this incredible man give up seconds, minutes, hours, to doing nothing but pleasing him. It filled Sean’s heart and nearly spilled over in the form of tears from his eyes. It was so much.

  He had to hold on, lest he be swept away in this tide of emotion. And the most solid thing he knew of was right above him. So Sean reached for the mass and breadth of his lover’s shoulders, digging fingertips into the wings of his shoulder blades and trying to pull Isaiah down so his heft could anchor them both—in what was real, in what was important, in what mattered and what would be constant. They weren’t going to leave, and Sean wasn’t going to have to make an impossible choice.

  There were choices to be made for sure, but they would make them together, and they wouldn’t let the strain of the state of the world destroy them. Don’t let the bastards get you down? Was that the saying? Sean felt like it was okay to be down sometimes because it was fucking exhausting, but it wasn’t okay to be out. No one should ever count them out.

  Isaiah lowered himself onto Sean and the weight didn’t make him feel smothered, it made him feel safe, warm, and sheltered. His gratitude took on a patina of lust as well because Isaiah’s thick, hard cock pressed against his own. What he wanted was to not have even the thin layers of their cotton shorts between them. He wanted skin against skin, to feel the gentle scrape of Isaiah’s furred thighs against his own, to have nothing in the world between them.

  After being conquered by his husband’s kisses, Sean took a breath and looked up at Isaiah with wide eyes he knew would poke at all the soft, squishy places Isaiah had. “I want you, please. I don’t want anything in between us and I want you to rut against me. Take me over. Please, Isaiah. Please.”

  Begging was always a good tactic, and it worked now. Sean found himself divested of his boxers in short order, and Isaiah stripped off his boxer briefs as well, coming to rest over Sean as soon as it was over, pressing his erection against Sean’s own, making them both gasp and grunt. Then Isaiah was using his knees to make space between Sean’s thighs to honor Sean’s request, rocking his hips between Sean’s spread legs.

  Their cocks rubbed together, the friction and the pressure delicious, made Sean’s back arch because he wanted more of Isaiah, always more. They frotted against each other, rocked until they were nearly there and when they started to lose their rhythm, Isaiah reached into the drawer, grabbed the bottle of lube and squirted an imprecise amount into his hand before wrapping it around both their dicks. The closeness, the motion, the slickness, the intimacy of their shared breaths as their foreheads pressed together and they shared the very air they breathed, it was all so much it made tears gather at the corners of Sean’s eyes.

  Isaiah was his for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. They’d figure all this out, together. It was that knowledge, that security that let Sean loosen up enough to spend all his tension into Isaiah’s fist and onto his own stomach where Isaiah’s climax soon followed. Hot, sticky evidence of their lovemaking spread over his soft midsection as his breath came in shudders. With that kind of release, it was impossible to hold tight to the rest of his feelings. The tears spilled over and Isaiah kissed and licked them from his cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, love. I’m not leaving. We’re not leaving. We’ll stay here and fight. For us, for everyone. I didn’t mean to make you worry or make you afraid. I need you more than ever.”

  Sean choked a grateful laugh and held Isaiah close, relishing his warmth and strength and everything he was. “I need you too. I love you more than ever and I wouldn’t want to face this with anyone else but you. You’re my rock, but I’ll try to be better about remembering that rocks get frustrated and worn down too. Everything is hard right now and I know it takes a toll and we’re not perfect and shouldn’t have to be. Let’s just be as kind as we can to each other, like stand back to back and take it all on, okay?”

  “Sounds good. And maybe plan a vacation to Strasbourg?”

  Sean smiled at his husband and strained upward to plant a kiss on his mouth. “Yeah. Let’s run away together.”

  Thanks for reading Dedication of a Lifetime. I hope you enjoyed it!

  ¾If you’d like to know when my next book is available, you can sign up for my new-release mailing list at www.tamsenparker.com, follow me on Twitter at @TamsenParker, or Like my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/tamsenparker.

  ¾Reviews help readers discover books. I appreciate all reviews and the time it takes to share your thoughts.

  ¾You’ve just read Dedication of a Lifetime. If you enjoyed Sean and Isaiah’s story, I hope you’ll continue reading for a peek at Thrown Off Track, the first book in my new License to Love series.

  ¾

  The Compass Series

  Personal Geography

  Intimate Geography

  Uncharted Territory

  True North

  Due South

  The Cartographer

  The Snow and Ice Games Series

  Love on the Tracks

  Seduction on the Slopes

  On the Edge of Scandal

  Fire on the Ice

  On the Brink of Passion

  The License to Love Series

  Thrown Off Track

  (available as a standalone on May 11th, or in the Exposed anthology from March 13th-May 8th)

  Hot on Her Tracks (July 9th 2018)

  The Inside Track (October 8th 2018)

  Camp Firefly Falls

  In Her Court

  Love, All (June 1st 2018)

  Standalone Novels

  School Ties

  His Custody

  If I Loved You Less (August 20th 2018)

  Novellas and Short Stories

  Dedication of a Lifetime

  (originally published in the Rogue Affair anthology)

  Craving Flight

  Looking for a Complication

  (originally published in the For the First Time anthology)

  Needs

  (originally published in the Winter Rain anthology)

  Anthologies

  Rogue Desire

  Rogue Affair

  Exposed (March 13th 2018)

  Rogue Hearts (May 8th 2018)

  Thrown Off Track

  Book One in the License to Love Series

  Teague has been License to Game’s bassist for over a decade, during which time he’s slept with almost everyone in his path. But it’s always felt like going through the motions. Until he sees his bandmate Christian naked at a charity photoshoot and suddenly, he knows what it is to want.

  Read on for a peek at the first chapter!

  Another morning, another starlet’s bedroom. At least, I think it’s morning. It’s dark and Aubrey’s still snoring away, so it could be t
he dead of night. But there’s a sliver of light coming through the blinds like a cut in the floor. So, yeah, morning. I slip off the side of Aubrey’s enormous bed, which is heaped high with pillows and down comforters because the girl keeps her room—her whole house, really—freezing. I mean, sure, she can afford the electric bills for the cranked-up A/C. She made a shit-ton of money on that action movie last year and she’s got the next two in the pipeline.

  But damn is it unpleasant to get out of the squishy bed and stumble around looking for my clothes. At least my cell isn’t dead so I can use the flashlight on it to find my pants. After five minutes of looking around, though, I give up on my left sock. It was a good sock, but not worth having to deal with morning-after awkwardness.

  Aubrey’s a cool girl, and I’d like to hang out with her again, but the whole fucking thing, well… It was fine? I guess? Which is never what a person wants to hear about how things have gone in the sack. So, yeah, better off friends, and if there’s a friend of mine whose pants she wants to get into, I will be more than happy to make an introduction.

  I’ll call her later with an excuse about having to get to the studio to work and she’ll understand. Most of them do. The ones that don’t? It’s not like it was going to work out with them anyhow. And if I’m being honest, it’s not like it’s ever worked out with anyone before, and I don’t have high hopes for the future.

  Which is fine, really. And makes maintaining my image as the bad boy of License to Game easier. “Bad boy” is a loose term since I’m not really much of one, but it’s not as though my competition is particularly fierce. Zane, Benji, Christian, and Nicky are all relatively tame, so it’s down to me. Yeah, I like to party at the clubs, but I’ve never been arrested and don’t do much in the way of illegal drugs except for smoking the occasional weed.