Strong Signal (Cyberlove #1) (23 page)

“Come on, Kai. All I get is an okay?”

“I’m trying to be normal! To be honest, I’m freaking out because it sucks here without you.”

Garrett grinned, the big sexy one that made me want to climb him. “Sucks being without you too no matter where it is. Give me some more time, and we’ll make up for it as soon as I get back to Philly, okay?”

“Good.” I tapped my finger on my chin. “I have ideas.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. Ideas. On how to spend our time. Which will consist of no clothes and maybe some props.”

“Dude, stop, I’m sitting in my mother’s kitchen.”

I blew him a kiss. “Have a great day.”

“Yeah, it will be really fucking peachy with that thought in my head.” Garrett pushed away from the table. “I miss you. We’ll be together again soon.”

This time when he disconnected, I didn’t have any doubts.

Garrett

Staying in our protected bubble wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d hoped. I’d always known that, but it became even more apparent after I returned home to Rickston for the third time in as many weeks, and began to seriously consider my available job prospects.

I could score work as a mechanic anywhere, but my specific skillset wasn’t valuable in some mom-and-pop auto shop. I knew absolutely nothing about doing engine repairs on an import car, but I could work the fuck out of a tank or tractor.

“This can’t be all there is.” I shoved my laptop to the middle of the kitchen table, staring at the offending tab. “There are dozens of plants in Pennsylvania.”

“Yes, but none of them are hiring for what you want except the one you interviewed at a few weeks ago. Which, I’ll remind you, they wanted an answer before the month is out.”

“I know,”
I said. “But their only management openings are in Ohio and fucking Illinois.”

My mother sat back in her own chair. Silence stretched between us, and I knew she was waiting for me to explain why I was so horrified at the prospect of having to move out of the area. I’d been talking about moving away from Rickston, and Pennsylvania in general, for years. But now that decision spelled doom for a key aspect of my new life as a veteran—the one that included Kai.

“It’s okay.” The
tap-tap-tap
of my fingers against the table was the only sound in the kitchen. “I have enough in my bank account to let me coast for a few months. I could just stay here until something turns up.”

Mom’s placid expression morphed into one of the deeply skeptical and unimpressed. She dropped her forearms on the table, shoulders hunching forward, and gave me the most challenging look I’d received outside sparring with a two-hundred-and-sixty-pound grunt from St. Louis. He’d been trying to prove his salt against me after a long bout of shit talking regarding my worth as an Army mechanic versus my pay grade, and I’d been annoyed enough to want to knock his head off his shoulders. It’d been Costigan to break it up when sparring had turned into something a lot more serious.

Shit, I should probably get in touch with Costigan.

“Garrett.” One of her eyebrows rose in a high arc. “You’re thinking with the wrong head, baby.”

My spine went straight. “Look—”

“No, you look.” She thumped her thumb against the laptop and nearly sent it flying over the side of the table. “I get you just got back, and there’s no rush
this month
for you to find a job, but you’re talking foolish right now.”

“What’s so foolish about it? I can coast for a while and still have money to give you for half the bills. It’s not that big of a deal.”

Impatience seeped into her face and tightened the sides of her mouth. “You’ve been working since you were fifteen, and now all of a sudden you’re thinking about not taking a job?”

“Well—”

“Before you got back you’d been talking, all excited, about your future. You said a couple of the boys you served with said the pay at Caterpillar was great, and—”

“Ma, you don’t understand.” I went back to gripping my head. There was pounding sensation at my temples that wouldn’t go away no matter how much I massaged. “There are other companies out there.”

“And none of them have positions in your field in this area. Or if they do, they’re positions that might find you laid off in a few months because they’re on the assembly line. You can make a lot of yourself if you take the position they offered you. A
supervisory
position, Garrett.”

“Yeah,” I said sharply. “That position is the only one right now. But in a few months—”

“Oh, come on, Garrett.” She grasped the crumpled golden pack of cigarettes sitting at the edge of the table. It was weird to see her smoking again after so many years, and I half-wondered if she’d only quit because of my father’s fascist household rules. It wasn’t exactly a habit I’d encourage her to continue with, but far be it from me to tell her what to do. “So you’re telling me that your game plan is to blow your savings in the hopes that a few months down the road a new position will open up? After the way you grew up, going hand to mouth all the time, you’re going to screw up a plan you’ve had for years just so you can keep playing house with a boy you just met?”

I’d seen this coming as soon as she’d told me to sit down and talk. After avoiding the topic, and barely coming home, for weeks, it’d been inevitable. Both she and Nicole had slowly gone from cheerleading my first real relationship to wondering what the hell I planned on doing with myself now that I was back.

It was typical. We’d grown up scrabbling to have enough to eat on the table as my father drank himself out of job after job, and my mom had clung with both hands to her underpaid receptionist position just because it gave her benefits for the entire family. Now that we were adults and my father was gone, she’d been able to move on.

For them, being in love was great but putting a job on hold wasn’t an option. And I got it. But it still didn’t ease the lance driving down my back at the very hint of her saying something negative about Kai.

“Ma, don’t go there.”

“Hey,” she barked. “I like that fucking kid. He’s adorable with his Skype sessions, and I’ve even put in time to watch his stream thing.”

Some of my anger cooled. “Seriously?”

“Uh huh.” She blew smoke at me. “I donated ten bucks and everything.”

“Oh geez.” I bet she’d even left a donation message that would have displayed to the entire Twitch channel. Asking was tempting but I didn’t really want to know. “Whatever. I’m glad you like him and I appreciate you accepting this whole gay thing—” the comment earned me a sad headshake at my previous fear of her being a bigot. “—But when you say we’re ’playing house’ it makes it sound like you think it’s a game, and I couldn’t be more fucking serious. I want to be with him, Ma. I want us to be together.”

“As in get gay married?”

I stood up and searched the kitchen for an ashtray. “Can you not say
gay
married? It’s just married. And I don’t know, but I want to be with him for as long as he will accept a cranky-ass, stone-faced soldier in his life.”

“He’d be lucky to have some asshole
vet
in his life,” she said, standing. “And I think he knows that. The kid talks about you like you hung the moon.”

She ashed her cigarette in the sink and leaned against the counter as I began straightening up the room. Without a task, I needed something to do with my hands. There was too much to think about, and too many decisions to make, and the weight of her stare was like body armor bearing down on my shoulders.

“There’s no way Kai will move if I move,” I said. “And I can’t give him up now that I just found him. It’s not fucking fair.”

The cigarette was flicked into the sink to dampen and turn brown. A thin line of smoke drifted up from the carcass. I stared at it as she moved closer to me, and didn’t look away until she drew me into a hug.

“There has to be compromise in a relationship, baby. You can’t give up on what you want because of him. Trust me. I speak from experience. Your dad wasn’t always a monster. Once upon a time he’d been charming and handsome, and I’d dropped out of school to move away and be with him. I love you and Nicky, but it was the worst mistake I could have made. My entire life changed because of a man.”

There was a tightness in my chest that hadn’t been there before, because she was right. I knew she was right. And I knew I’d hate it if I missed my chance at a solid position and got stuck here to work a dead-end job.

But I also knew that all the money in the world wouldn’t mean anything without Kai.

Kai

I couldn’t stop fidgeting. I hated cleaning but I’d cleaned my apartment three times. I’d also streamed for eight hours straight as a thank you to my fans for sticking with me during my absence.

Shawn came over once or twice, but he was busy doing his own thing. He actually had a life now. Well, I had a life now too, I guessed, but I wasn’t used to having issues and dilemmas in the real world. Before Garrett, I’d only used the real world as a bridge to gap the times I was online. Now, I got online when I wanted to waste the time between when I saw Garrett.

My life had been status quo for three years, until Garrett Reid busted in like a tornado.

And now, he was coming back. He’d texted a couple of hours ago—
stopped to piss & get a burrito
—and that he’d be at my apartment soon. It’d been about a week since I’d seen him and, as much as I hated the separation, it was probably good for us. I’d been able to get my head around life with Garrett, being with Garrett, without the distraction of getting dicked every other hour.

Every other hour was a slight exaggeration but whatever.

I was stress-eating the last of my ice cream when there was a knock at the door. I bolted over, threw it open, and leaped.

I thought belatedly I should have looked first, because it could have been Shawn or some unsuspecting delivery man, but as soon as those arms wrapped around me and his scent filled my nose, I knew it was Garrett.

Burying my nose in his neck, I locked my bare feet at the ankles behind his back. I wasn’t wearing a shirt, only the pants Garrett so fondly referred to as my leggings. He gripped my ass, his mouth kissing any part he could reach.

“I missed you,” he said between smacks of his lips as he bumped the door shut behind him with his hip. “I missed you so much.”

I pulled back, gripped his face, and said the one thing I’d thought about saying every single day since he’d left. “I missed you too. I love you.”

Garrett’s expression didn’t change. For a moment, he simply stared at me before saying, “Kai—” I kissed him, a hard press of our lips together, like I needed to imprint a seal onto those words. They were official. He pulled back. “Hey, you didn’t let me finish.”

“Finish what?”

“Finish telling you that I love you too.”

I threw my head back and laughed. “Oh my God, we are disgusting.”

“Completely disgusting,” he agreed. “Costigan would cringe.”

“No one will ever want to hang out with us if we act like this.”

“I see absolutely no fucking problem with that.” Garrett kissed me again. “I can’t stand other people.”

I leaned forward and bit his lip, pulling it into my mouth and sucking hard, wanting to bruise him. He turned us around and slammed my back against the door before threading our fingers together. He held our hands beside my head with his weight anchoring me so I didn’t fall.

He ground into me and I rolled my hips, giving him as good as I got with the limited amount of body motion I could manage. But God, it’d been a long couple of days. Before Garrett, I’d gone without for so long, I’d almost forgotten how good sex was. Well, actually, it’d never been that great, so each of Garrett’s absences left me aching for his touch.

“You thought about me while I was gone?”

“You know I did,” I panted.

“Tell me,” Garrett said. “Tell me what you thought about. Me waking you up with my tongue in your ass? You on your knees in the shower with a mouthful of my cock?”

I clenched my thighs tighter around his hips, letting my head fall back against the door so I could watch him, red-faced and eyes blazing. “I thought about…dancing for you.”

His hips stuttered as he sucked in a breath and licked his lips, leaving them glistening. “Dancing?”

I arched my back. “Yeah, a striptease. Take off my clothes until I was wearing nothing but a jock. You’d have to sit on your hands. No touching. And I’d bounce on your lap, shake my ass in your face until you couldn’t take it anymore.”

His nostrils flared, the veins in his biceps bulging as he gripped my hands to the point of pain.

“Then I’d lower myself onto your dick, and ride you until we both came.” I curled my lips as his thrusts intensified. My balls drew up. “Would you like that?”

“What do you fucking think?”

“I think you’d come so hard,” I whispered, knowing I was the one who was close. The friction of him thrusting against me was too much when combined with my own words and his wild-eyed stare. All it took was one press of his knee against my dick, and I came with a shout.

“God.” Garrett licked the side of my face as I shuddered against him. “That’s so hot. I’ve never seen a guy come hands-free.”

“I’ve never come hands-free before. You just drive me nuts.”

With a tug, I pulled away and dropped to my feet before descending to the floor. I ripped down his zipper and pulled out his dick. He only got a flick of my eyes and a smirk before I swallowed him to the root.

There was a thud above me, and I looked up to see Garrett’s forearm braced on the door, his head bent, watching as I sucked him.

“I love seeing those lips stretched around my cock,” he panted, gripping my hair. “And you take it all the way down…”

I grinned as best as I could, rolling his balls in my other hand.

“Fuck, Kai. I’m gonna come.”

I was ready for it when he flooded my mouth, so I swallowed it all down and didn’t wince when he clutched the back of my head while releasing ragged moans. When he finished, I collapsed back on the floor with a wet smile. The neighbors probably thought we were insane.