Page 50 of Coaching Prince Charming

Nate looked at me from the driver’s seat. “I love you, baby,” he said. “I…never said this to anyone before. I love you.” It was like he was trying to get used to the feel of those words in his mouth. He said it three more times before I laughed.

“I love you, too,” I promised.

After a moment of silence in which we let our gazes feast on each other’s faces, Nate pressed the gas pedal and drove. Shaking his head clear, he said we needed to go to the nearest mall, or we would freeze to death.

I beamed as I listened to his words.

“It’s not important,” he said. “We’ll buy clothes. We’ll change into something dry. We’ll be fine. You’re with me, Carter. You’re really with me.”

I put a hand on his thigh, grinning despite myself. “Should I be driving, baby? You seem a little…”

Nate laughed out loud. “Happy? Because I am. I don’t remember when I was this happy.”

My heart fluttered, and I realized I hadn’t felt this way in ages. If ever. I had been terrified the first time I had kissed him. I was thrilled when I kissed him again. He had made me feel all the best things with his words and his gestures, with his lips and with his fingers, but I had never felt as happy as this.

We did what Nate said we should. Shivering and leaving wet footsteps on the floor while apologizing to everyone in our path, we hurried into the nearest store and shopped for clothes while the storm raged outside. We ate junk food like two teenagers who were just released from their parents’ leash. We tried each other’s milkshakes like boys on their first date ever. And when we returned to the car, Nate drove into the night.

He told me how Beckett had made him realize what a fool he had been. And he told me that nothing he had done in his life felt as right and as important as what he had done tonight.

Driving on the highway and through the waning rain, he glanced at me. “This is what I have been looking for all my life.” He looked at the road, then glanced at me again. “You, Carter.”

And I knew he was telling the truth. I felt very much the same way. Being next to him was the most important thing to me. We were headed somewhere, though I didn’t even ask where. One of his homes, maybe even back in Detroit, driving across the country through the night or elsewhere in some roadside motel. It hardly mattered where we would stop along the way or where we would end up so long as we were together on the journey.

Epilogue

Twenty Months Later

I stepped onto the deck of my summer home with a champagne bottle in a bucket of ice. My Hawaiian shirt was brighter than anything I had ever worn before because Carter had looked at it and decided he had to see me in it. Something about me in a Hawaiian shirt amused him so much that it never failed to put him in a good mood. The light cream shorts I wore were hanging low around my waist.

I placed the bucket on the small table between the deck loungers, and Carter stirred, opening his beautiful chestnut eyes to look at me. “Is that all for me?”

“Easy there, soldier,” I teased. “You might be twenty-one, but that doesn’t mean you have to make up for all the sober years.”

He pouted, sitting up on the recliner. “I love it when you talk dad to me.”

I stepped around the table and stood straight in front of him, my hand cupping his chin and lifting his head so he would look at me. His gaze, however, lingered on my crotch for a moment longer. Considering I was about to turn forty in August and the love of my life had turned twenty-one this year, I couldn’t help it if I sounded like a smart-ass now and then.

The daring look in Carter’s eyes made my heart warm and my stomach fiery. The heat spilled through me as I pinched his chin between my thumb and index finger. He had been sunbathing on the deck with the view of the pool, his skin slick with sunscreen, his body almost naked except for a pair of yellow briefs. “Be snarky, and you might get spanked, Carter.”

He squared his shoulders. “If you want me to be snarky, this is the way to do it.” His gaze dropped to my shorts again. As he observed my crotch, I felt the tingling in my groin turn into something hotter. The sensation was quick to soar into my chest.

I swept my hand from his chin to the back of his head, cupping it gently, but he didn’t hesitate. His hands touched my hips and quickly dragged up under the vibrant fabric he had made me wear.

As Carter’s hands felt my tensing abs, I leaned in a little, my crotch pressing against his face. A shudder passed through me as every move my love made turned me on harder. I throbbed inside my underwear, my shorts tenting on my right side.

Simply seeing Carter’s sexy body laid on the sun lounger had been enough to plant the seed of desire deep in me. Every word that left his lips since, every sigh and every time he batted his eyelashes, was just fuel to an already bright wildfire.

Carter rubbed his face carelessly against my hardening dick while his hands slipped out from under my shirt, fingers busily searching for buttons to undo, revealing my flesh a few inches at a time And when he reached the top button, I shrugged the shirt off, allowing him to kiss the happy trail under my belly button and to rise all along my torso until his lips were pressing searing kisses on mine.

Standing against him, I embraced his hips, rubbing our bodies against each other, turning us on when his torso pressed tightly against mine.

When he slipped a hand inside my boxer briefs, I practically moaned into his open mouth, yanking him closer still. He stroked me in the confines of my tight underwear without showing me any mercy. And when the pressure was too much to take, I let go of his hips so I could take my shorts off. They fell around my ankles, soon followed by my boxer briefs. Now, he could stroke me freely, and I could relax and let my hands explore his body.

Dragging my fingers from the top of his spine, I felt all of his back and cupped his peachy butt. My tongue ventured into his mouth, and Carter welcomed it excitedly, licking it with the tip of his own and smiling wildly, his fist tightening around my cock.

He was greedy for my kisses, but he also whimpered when I squeezed his firm ass, moving the seams of his briefs between the cheeks and letting my hands slap his bare flesh gently, then a little more firmly.

Carter grabbed one of my hands from his ass, his other hand working my cock, and navigated it up and under the fabric of his briefs until my fingers felt the flat bottom of a plug, making me smirk. I pulled my head slightly back and spoke over his lips. “Do you wear this all the time?”

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