Love Letters Volume 4: Travel to Temptation Read online

  My balls tightened and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer. I leaned back, resting my head against the wall, and tried to make the last few moments last. When I was sure there was no chance, I grabbed his head and thrust in and out of his mouth. Dillon took every inch of me, opening wider to allow me to do as I pleased. A few more quick movements and I gave in to my body’s commands. My balls tightened as my orgasm wracked my body.

  As I came, I pulled back a little, giving him enough room to swallow. As each spasm went through my body, a little more clarity started to take over my mind. What the hell was I doing?

  I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have let him do that. And yet, I’d loved every minute of it. For a short while, we weren’t ex-lovers. We weren’t lovers either. We were simply Jason and Dillon. Something I missed more than I would ever be able to explain. I’d once told a friend I would be willing to do anything to get back to that. Apparently that included completely fucking up both of our vacations.

  After the months I’d put in to trying to get over him, I’d taken a thousand steps backward in a matter of minutes. Now that I didn’t have him touching me, the more rational part of my brain had returned. It hated me for what I’d just done. I should have pushed him off and told him that all I wanted to do was talk, but I hadn’t. Too late now. I stared at him as he rocked back onto his heels and stood.

  “I need to go.”

  They weren’t the words I wanted to say, but they were the ones that came out. I didn’t give him a chance to respond. Instead, I grabbed my pants, pulled them up and cinched the belt enough for them to stay around my hips. Without another word, I threw open the door and made a beeline for the elevator. It wasn’t until I was in my own room that I even let my mind consider what had actually happened.

  *

  If I’d thought drinking alone in my room feeling sorry for myself was sad before, it was downright pathetic now. I thought I’d been in hell when I arrived, but even Dante hadn’t imagined this sort of torture. Rock bottom didn’t even begin to describe my current situation. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t push the thoughts of what we’d done earlier from my mind.

  I tried closing my eyes. Same picture. No matter what I did, Dillon was right there, mocking me and asking why I’d turned into such an asshole. The worst part was that I didn’t have a good answer.

  I could say it was because of the heartbreak, but the truth was that I didn’t feel like myself anymore. I hadn’t always been this way. I distinctly remember being the kind of person who would go out of the way to do something for a complete stranger. But the nice-guy version of me had attracted some of the neediest, most self-absorbed friends on the planet. Not in a good way either. I was a pushover, and they knew it. Need a place to stay? Call Jason. Need a loan? Jason will give it to you. Someone to run some errands for you? Jason will do it. They had no problem pretending to be close to me when it meant they got their way, but the minute I needed something, not a single one of them had a moment to spare.

  I finally realized that I was being used as a doormat by half the people I called friends. That became painfully apparent when I broke my ankle skiing and not a single one could spare five minutes to run to the drugstore to pick up my pain pills.

  That was when I’d decided not to be that person.

  The new me didn’t do any of those things. No lending the car to people, no couch for people to crash on, and certainly no picking up the tab at the bar. It might have gotten me further at work, but I had to admit I kind of missed the old version of myself. At least he never would have allowed his ex to give him a blow job. Better yet, even if he had done that, he at least would’ve stuck around long enough to discuss it.

  I wasn’t sure who this new Jason was, but I didn’t like him very much. I doubted Dillon found him particularly appealing either.

  As nice as it would be to blame Dillon for the day’s events, we’d been equal partners in it. Just as we always had. Except when things got tough, he’d always been the one to come up with solutions. I’d been the one who stormed out of the house and came home hours later drunk and apologetic.

  Maybe it wasn’t as new as I wanted it to be either. It was only in the past few months that I’d realized how much our life had really been about me. I probably wouldn’t have noticed except that a coworker inquired how I was enjoying my newfound bachelordom. It struck me that other than not having someone to share the bed with, my life hadn’t changed in the slightest. No skipping out on movies I didn’t really want to see or eating at restaurants I don’t like. I’d never done any of those things. Instead, I’d put up a fight anytime something wasn’t exactly what I wanted and Dillon always gave in.

  I’d always thought it was because he realized I was right. The truth was that I was an ass. One he’d been willing to put up with.

  Maybe he’d finally gotten tired of it. Maybe I had. I could only watch him accept my half-assed apologies for so long. Everyone knew who the nice one in our relationship was and that didn’t show any signs of changing.

  Looking at the man I’d become, it was apparent that I’d swung too far in the other direction. The real shame was that it took me fucking up the last little bit of a relationship I had to realize it.

  I’d managed to order some food, but nothing tasted good. Despite the oversized furniture, the room had seemed quite large when I checked in. Now, it felt like there wasn’t enough room to breathe. I stared at the wall hanging depicting the goddess Krishna, whose eyes seemed to judge me as they followed me around the room. Enough was enough. I got up and headed toward the hotel bar. Somehow alcohol always tasted better when a bartender poured it. Plus, the lobby had one major advantage over my room. It wouldn’t have visions of Dillon.

  Perhaps not visions, but the first thing I saw when I got off the elevator was the real thing. Dillon, sitting on one of the oversized loveseats in front of coffee table, staring at one of the big roaring fires.

  Because of all the places in the world that Dillon could be sitting to think, he had to pick the same hotel lobby I did. Might as well, considering he’d managed to choose the same country and the same hotel.

  Perhaps that was why we’d made such good friends and lovers in the first place. We kept running into each other around Portland. Eventually we decided we were destined to be friends and started showing up at the same places on purpose. On the other hand, it was probably the reason we’d fallen apart too. He constantly reminded me of all the things I hated about myself. I suppose it could have been the exact opposite. Dillon had the kindest heart I’d ever seen on a person. Where people called me a pessimistic optimist, he was the cockeyed one. To the point that it sometimes drove me bonkers.

  He’d taken the first step toward me earlier that day. It couldn’t have been easy for him. As much as I might want to believe that I was the only man in the world who’d ever had his heart broken into a thousand pieces, I knew he’d been going through the exact same thing. Then I’d gone and fucked up the situation. If allowing him to give me a blow job had been wrong, running out of the room after had been the biggest mistake of my life. Had I really become that person? So caught up in all my own shit that I couldn’t stop for a single second to consider the feelings of the person I claimed to love most in the world?

  It was one of those questions that I didn’t want the answer to. At least not out loud. That annoying inner voice had already starting screaming “yes.” Bastard.

  “Can’t sleep?” I stood at the end of the love seat, keeping enough distance between us that neither one of us could make a move without giving the other plenty of warning. After earlier, I couldn’t trust him to keep his hands to himself. Even worse, I couldn’t trust myself to turn him down.

  Nor did I want to.

  “I just needed a little air. My room felt…stuffy.”

  I knew exactly what he meant. Even in a different room, I could still feel his silky hair against my fingers and the rough texture of his stubble against my cheek.
The grunts as he took me deeper filled the room, followed by the telltale hitch in his breathing when he knew that he’d pushed me to the edge. And all I’d done was stand there and take it all like the greedy bastard I’d become.

  It made me sick to even think about it. That wasn’t how I wanted him to remember me. After all the years we’d put in together, always making sure that neither one of us left the bedroom unsatisfied, the moment that would stick out in Dillon’s mind was that one.

  I might not want to win the man back, but I didn’t want him to leave India even more broken than he had been before he came. “Can we talk?” Even more, I wanted to leave India a better person than when I arrived. At least I’d managed to set the bar pretty low.

  “I think you’ve already said everything I need to hear.”

  Ouch. I deserved that. “I want to apologize for earlier. I was surprised with the way things turned out and I didn’t respond well to the situation.” That was the understatement of the century.

  He raised an eyebrow at me. Clearly he thought the same thing.

  “Okay, I responded incredibly inappropriately. You deserve better than that from me. Let me make it up to you.”

  “You don’t owe me anything. It’s not like we were ever keeping track of the number of orgasms we each had over the years.”

  If we had been, I wouldn’t doubt for a minute that I’d be winning. Dillon was always the most giving person I’d ever been with. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.” For the first time since we’d entered his room that afternoon, Dillon looked me in the eyes. “You still don’t have to say anything. I should be the one apologizing to you. We said we were over. I had a moment of weakness and screwed up.”

  “You didn’t screw anything up.” I sat down next to him. In front of us, flames danced in the fireplace. Watching was mesmerizing and, for a moment, neither one of us said anything. “We both slipped. I could have told you no, but I let things continue because I wanted them to. I missed you and it was nice to feel like things were back to normal.”

  “So, we just chalk tonight up to a little mistake? A vacation adventure?”

  “That sounds like the safest way to go.” Actually the safe way would have been to lock myself in my room the minute I knew Dillon was here and drink until I forgot that he even existed. Too late for that one though.

  “How do you feel about that drink now?”

  Alcohol certainly couldn’t make this situation any worse. “Sure, but you have to let me buy.”

  “Deal.”

  I got up and walked to the bar where I ordered two scotch and sodas. The place had the good stuff, Johnnie Walker Double Black, which was a relief. I’d half expected to be stuck drinking something locally made and far below the standards I was used to.

  I paid the bartender and headed back to the spot where Dillon was waiting. Sliding a scotch across the coffee table on a napkin to him, I sat and took a long drink before I set my glass down as well.

  Scotch wasn’t something that could be taken quickly, and with nothing but the crackling of the fire to fill the silence, the urge to say something—anything—was overwhelming. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “I think you just did.”

  I went ahead and took that as permission to continue. “Why are you really here?”

  “I told you, my boss wants to expand and knows some people here with knowledge about combining some new flavors into our beer.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I can’t tell you exactly what flavors we’re using. That would be a breach of my confidentiality contract.”

  That had never stopped him from telling me every detail of his company’s plan while we’d been together. Guess the implicit trust that had existed between us had dissipated. “I mean here.” I gestured around the room. “You never wanted to travel anywhere and now you’re vacationing at a lodge halfway around the world.”

  “I needed space.”

  “Space from what?” The minute I said it, I regretted it. We both knew the answer.

  “What do you think?”

  “From me?” I couldn’t blame him. Right now not even I wanted to be near me.

  He nodded and confirmed my suspicions.

  “I’ve been giving you that. We said we’d cut off ties and not bother one another to make our split easier. I think I’ve done a damn good job of sticking to that.”

  “You have.” He rocked his glass back and forth, rattling the ice. “It just never felt like enough. The whole city reminds me of you. I figured I needed to get as far away as possible to actually have a chance of getting over you.” He stopped for a minute, as though choosing his words carefully. “When this trip came up, I volunteered for it.”

  That sounded right. As a senior employee, he’d always been able to turn down business trips, and I got the impression he did so frequently, but he probably also got first pick of the ones he wanted to go on. “And?”

  “And what?”

  “What do you think? This was your first long plane ride and trip outside the US. How’d it go?”

  “The truth?”

  I nodded.

  “It’s been…interesting. I’m not sure this was my best choice for firsts, but at least I know I can do it. Not sure I’d want to come back here, but I would like to go somewhere else.”

  The slightest gust of wind could have knocked me over at the moment. I’d put hours into trying to convince him to try traveling one time. Nothing I’d done had even come close to getting him to look at a brochure, let alone actually get on a plane.

  Nothing except breaking up with him.

  “I do like the hotel though. I thought maybe it would be too cold, but the food and service have been amazing and the view is better than anything I could imagine.”

  I had to agree with him there. The view of the mountains from this place was unbelievable. I’d been to Colorado and Utah for ski trips and thought I’d seen the best views in the world while there. They’d be hard-pressed to beat the Himalayas in a contest though. Plus, there were far fewer people around here. At only ten at night, the lobby was practically empty. Only the two of us and the staff were still moving around. The few other people who passed were headed straight for the elevator, probably after coming back from dinner at another hotel restaurant.

  “Yeah, this place does live up to the hype.” I rarely believed those user-rated websites, but for once, the masses seemed to be right.

  “Now you need to answer the same question. What are you doing here?”

  “Same as you.” No point in lying or trying to hide anything. Besides, the alcohol had started to go to my head and I wasn’t sure that I would be able to hold together the various pieces of a lie.

  “You don’t work for a beer company.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him, hoping he’d get my point.

  “But I know what you mean. In that case, I have one more thing to ask?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Can we make the night last a little longer? I mean, we’ve already slipped up, why not go all the way.”

  The thought settled in my mind, prickling in all the right places until I could barely sit still. That was the one regret I had when walking away from the relationship. We’d been on the rocks for weeks and by the time we finally called it quits, neither of us had really been present for quite some time. Most people got some sort of closure. A night to say goodbye. This could be ours. A little late, but still the perfect way to convince myself that we were finally ready to move on.

  “I think we could arrange that.” The minute I gave myself permission to believe we were actually going to be together, my entire body came alive. “My room or yours?”

  “Which one is closer?”

  “Mine. I’m a few floors below you.”

  “Sold.” Dillon stood and grabbed my hand, leading me toward the elevators. Fortunately the car arrived almost right away. My black pants were doing a lot to hide my hard on, but I sta
rted to wonder if every person in lobby could tell how turned on I was. At least if they did, they might also notice the obvious bulge in the crotch of Dillon’s jeans.

  The moment the doors opened I pulled him inside, anxious for us to be truly alone. When we were, I took the opportunity to pay him back for everything he did to me earlier that day.

  I started with his lips. They’d been on my mind all afternoon. The way they felt. The way they tasted. It was exactly how I remembered it and then some. Often, the memory was better than the real thing, but that was never true when it came to Dillon. I captured his lips and it instantly seemed like all the air was sucked out of the room.

  He faltered for a moment, his knees buckling. I held him though, letting him hold himself up by my shoulders. I tilted my hips forward and pressed my erection against his. Even through two layers of clothing, I could feel the warmth radiating from his body to mine. He ground against me a little and I couldn’t help but moan. For the first time in my life, I found myself wishing that an elevator ride would take longer. It seemed like we’d only just begun when the bell dinged and the doors opened.

  Somehow, we managed to peel ourselves apart and remain that way until we got down the hall to my room. I fumbled with the card for a second before my shaky hands got the reader to accept it and the door clicked open.

  Dillon reached for me, and I managed to hold him off. It was my turn and I planned to make sure he knew I wanted to make up for every stupid move I’d made earlier that day. I grabbed his arm and pulled him farther into the room. As we neared the bed, his eyes got big as he seemed to catch on to exactly where things were going. I shoved him down and pushed on his shoulders until he was flat against the mattress. His legs and feet still hanging over the end made it easy to shuck his pants and briefs.