You’re a good guy. I enjoyed experimenting with you, but I see now that was all it was, an experiment. I’ve been with my girlfriend for a long time, and I love her. About a month ago, I told her everything about us--the weekend, the phone calls, and the e-mails. We’re stronger now than we ever were, and I’ve asked her to marry me. She said yes, and now it’s time to focus completely on my real life.
I’ve been struggling with how to tell you all this, but I realize that I just have to do it. I won’t be calling or e-mailing you anymore, and I won’t respond to any attempts to contact me. I’m sorry if this hurts you. When I approached you in that club, I didn’t have anything but a night of fucking in mind.
Goodbye,
Gradyn
Devlin only winced a little bit as the sensation of a knife twisting in his stomach assaulted him all over again. He forgave himself the shadow of lingering pain, considering he’d just seen the very man few hours ago. Gradyn or Garrick, lean or thick, blue or green eyes, bald or a head full of hair, tattoos or ink free ... the surface didn’t matter. Didn’t change the DNA of the man. Didn’t change the heart and personality of the person Devlin had somehow fallen in love with over the course of one incredible weekend. Of course, Devlin wouldn’t have thought the man he had come to know so well capable of sending this last e-mail--of Devlin being his dirty little secret--so what the hell did he really know?
Staring at the words on the monitor now, four and a half years away from reading this e-mail for the first time, it still sounded surreal and like the words of a stranger. This wasn’t the style of the guy Devlin had spent a weekend fucking and getting to know, nor like the man he’d traded a hundred other e-mails with, as well as dozens more phone calls.
Unless, as Gradyn had hinted, that man Devlin had gotten to know was a vacation from the life of the real Gradyn Connell. That would make the increasingly distant e-mails during the last month, as well as this final one, the true Gradyn. Or Garrick. Or whoever the hell this multi-faced, multi-named, multi-lives person turned out to be.
Devlin scrolled back to the first e-mail Gradyn had sent after their weekend together.
Hey, Devlin--
Goddamn it, man. I told myself I’d be cool and walk away. It was just supposed to be a couple days of fun. What the hell is wrong with me? I feel so lame right now. If you’re laughing at me, I’ll fucking come find you and spank your ass.
Seriously, though, I want to be real clear about something, and I’m not sure I did a good job of it while we were together.
Dev, I think that was the most incredible two days I’ve ever had in my life. It was because of you. You needed to know that.
I don’t know what the hell to do next. I miss your voice and I’m pretty sure the next fucking thing I’m going to do is pick up the phone and call you.
Still hard,
Gradyn
Devlin chuckled and grinned, just as he’d done when finding this e-mail in his Inbox only minutes after getting home from the airport five years ago. Everything in Devlin’s gut, everything in his ability to read people, told him this e-mail, not the final one, was the heart and soul of the man he’d gotten to know within the confines of one small motel room in a faraway city...
*
...The motel room door slammed into the wall as it opened. Gradyn, fully in charge, forced Devlin inside and shoved him up against that same wall the second after he kicked the door closed. Both men breathed heavily from the kisses they’d shared on the stairs and in the hallway. Gradyn clutched Devlin’s head in his big hands and dipped down, devouring his mouth all over again.
Devlin held onto Gradyn’s waist and opened himself up to a hot, wet taking of his mouth, reveling in the big, male body crowding him into the immovable wall at his back. Devlin licked back with equal fervor, tangled his tongue with this other man’s, and fused himself to Gradyn. Gradyn’s hard cock pressed deeply into Devlin’s lower belly, and Devlin wanted nothing so much as to see it and touch it without two layers of clothes between them.
“Lemme...” Devlin pulled at the man’s belt with one hand and curled his hand around a thick, solid cock with the other.
Oh shit, it’s big.
Gradyn jerked at first contact and then ground himself into the touch. He growled and bit at Devlin’s kiss-swollen lips while he snaked his hands down Devlin’s back. Gradyn yanked Devlin’s shirt out of his jeans, giving some skin on skin contact that had Devlin moaning for more. The man delved his hands under Devlin’s shirt and pushed it off over his head, forcing a break in their kiss.
With a low whistle, Gradyn dropped his attention to Devlin’s chest and abdomen, took a backward step into the room, and shrugged out of his leather jacket. “Goddamn it, beautiful.” He never took his eyes off Devlin as he reached down and unlaced his boots. “Get those jeans off and show me that pretty ass. I need to fuck you.”
Adrenaline flooded Devlin with breakneck speed and had him running to the nightstand next to the double bed. “I have the stuff.” He fumbled with the finicky drawer hinges, wrestled the thing open, and commanded his fingers to listen to the order from his brain to stop trembling. “I don’t know what you want,” he rambled as he withdrew a large bottle of lube, “but I think I have everything we could possibly need.”
He heard the rustling of clothing as it was presumably being removed and hitting the floor, and
