At least not for me. Hak-kan threw his head back and expelled a huge breath.
“Fuck, you’re killing me, beautiful. I’m sorry, I’m not going to last long this time. I won’t be able to hold out for you like I usually do.”
He pitched forward and put me on my back, determination glittering in his black shark eyes.
“Want this baby with you,” he said, his voice coarse as he began pumping into me. “Want this baby with you so bad.”
Yes, he was crazy….
But so was I.
And it went beyond fucking this time. We made crazy, desperate love, our slapping bodies the only sound in the room as the snow swirled outside. Until…
Oh my goodness, he lied. He lied. When we came, we crested together—me crying out as he seeded me in warm, heavy spurts.
And our mutual release… felt like a promise as we began this new phase of our lives.
25
PHANTOM
Eric called Phantom out of the blue in early May, just as he was about to make bacon and eggs for him and Olivia. And it sounded like he was crying.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry. I know you only gave me this number in case of emergencies with Olivia. But there’s an emergency with me, and Olivia’s not answering my calls or texts.”
Well, that was because she was worn out. She’d be leaving for her annual couple of weeks in Uganda the next day. And Phantom had wanted to give her some memories while she was gone, along with a reason to rush back.
The breakfast in bed he’d been about to make was more like a recovery lunch, but he turned off the stove. “You don’t sound so hot. You hurt? In danger?”
Eric let out a watery laugh. “I’m hurt. But I’m not in danger of anything but a broken heart. I felt so bad about missing Byron’s birthday; I went down to New Jersey to surprise him, and…and….”
Eric’s voice gave out, probably due to another fit of tears.
But Phantom had heard this story plenty of times before. It was easy for him to guess the ending. “He was cheating on you?”
“He was cheating on me!” Eric confirmed on a wail.
So that was how they ended up spending the day before Olivia left for Uganda in Eric’s Lower East Side apartment instead of having marathon sex. Phantom made waffles in Eric’s bad-ass Darth Vader-shaped iron while Olivia consoled her best friend at a tiny kitchen table like they were side characters in a gay rom-com.
“I’m so sorry things ended this way with Byron,” she told her best friend, rubbing his back.
Eric just shook his head, his face red and miserable. “He took me home to meet his parents! His mom was so excited about him dating a doctor. I figured he was all in with me.”
Eric blew his nose noisily into a napkin. “I don’t know why I thought it would go the distance with this guy. He told me upfront that he was basically a serial dater. He said I was his longest relationship when he asked to be exclusive back in April—and at that point, we’d only been dating for four months!”
Olivia and Phantom, who’d only been dating for maybe four months in total, exchanged looks over the Sith Lord waffle he was plating up.
But then, Olivia turned back to Eric to say, “That’s a huge milestone. And it doesn’t matter how short a time you were dating. He made you a promise that he didn’t keep, and you have every right to feel upset by his betrayal.”
Eric sniffled and shook his head some more. “The worst thing is the other guy was way—and I mean way hotter than me. You should have seen him. Zero body fat, total bad boy. He had this intricate partial bodysuit of tattoos—just beautiful and vibrant. At first, when I caught them in bed, I didn’t know whether to get upset or watch them go at it like porn.”
Phantom frowned as he plated the last Vader waffle. “Japanese guy?”
“Yeah, I think maybe. Why?”
Phantom tilted his head with memories that were over fifteen years old—going to Byron and Dawn’s school to put a particular Nakamura-gumi scion in his place.
But all he said out loud was, “Sounds like yakuza….”
He set a plate with a scoop of vanilla ice cream placed over a Darth Vader waffle down in front of Eric, along with a big spoon and a glass bottle of Trader Joe’s maple syrup.
Eric’s face fell. “What kind of cop cheats on the doctor boyfriend he just committed to with a member of the Japanese mafia?”
Olivia opened her mouth, but Eric cut her off before she could offer him more validation and comfort. “That’s it!”
He snatched up the large spoon and used the edge to cut off a big bite of waffle and ice cream. “No more hot bad boys for me—wow, sugar is evil, but this is insanely delicious.”
