Somewhere to Belong Read online

  Somewhere to Belong

  By Caitlin Ricci

  A Thornwood Novel

  Needy. Obsessive. Clingy. Twenty-five-year-old Eli Walker has heard it all. That’s why he doesn’t bother calling back the guys he’s been with anymore. Sex should be about fun, not a relationship, and no one has complained about him getting overly attached in years. If only he actually felt wanted for once instead of empty and used when guys are done with him.

  Grayson Pendleton is a wealthy business consultant with clients all over the world. His life is often glamorous, but it leaves him no time for a relationship, and at forty-eight, he’s starting to notice the lack of romance in his life. His only romantic connection is Eli, but they’re just two guys who have sex occasionally. It took him months to get Eli’s first name, and even now they only communicate through a hookup app.

  When Grayson inherits a house in Thornwood, Colorado, it’s one more thing he doesn’t need in his life, and he knows he won’t be there enough to enjoy it. Still, the old house has the potential to be a home, and more importantly, it gives Grayson a chance to save Eli when he needs it most.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  More from Caitlin Ricci

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  About the Author

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  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Eli

  A ROCK held the door slightly open to hotel room 221, just as PendletonGray had promised it would be. The lights were on, and I smiled at him as I leaned against the door to close it behind me. The lock clicked on its own, and I quickly began stripping off my T-shirt and tossing it onto a nearby chair. PG, as I’d taken to thinking of him over the past two months since we’d first started hooking up, lay stretched out on the bed with a sheet over his lap. It was bunched up to expose as much of his dark skin as he possibly could while still being at least a little modest, which wasn’t needed around me since I’d seen him naked about a half-dozen times now, but maybe he’d done it just in case one of the cleaning crew had come by and peeked into the open room.

  “Hey,” I said as I kicked off my sneakers and then pulled down my tight jeans. They were special jeans meant to ride in, but he didn’t know that I rode horses. He didn’t know anything about me, actually. I was naked under them, and I pulled a condom out of the back pocket of my jeans before joining him on the bed.

  “Did you have any trouble finding the hotel?”

  PG liked to change the location of our hookups each time, but they were always in a hotel, and always a really nice one too. We could have just gotten together at any cheap motel, or in the back of my car like the other guys I screwed from the app we both used. But he was classier than that.

  I shook my head. “Golden isn’t that far from me, so it was easy.” He didn’t know where I lived. I could have been lying, and I kind of was, depending on his definition of close. I’d driven over an hour from Castle Rock to get to him today, but I knew he was always worth it, so I didn’t even think twice about agreeing to be with him when his request had come in.

  He moved the sheet aside, exposing his thick cock and the soft patch of dark hair at its base. I was pretty free from hair, without even trying, but I was also twenty-five. If I had to guess, PG was somewhere in his late forties or early fifties, judging by the trace bits of gray in his short black curls. I slid over his lap, and he settled his hands loosely on my hips. While I smiled at him, I let his tip kiss my entrance before I moved my hand there and removed my plug. I tossed it off the bed to be retrieved later.

  He didn’t look surprised by me having one in. He shouldn’t have been either after knowing me in this capacity for so many months. “How long were you wearing it this time?”

  “Three days.” PG didn’t ask me if that had been three days straight minus bathroom breaks, probably because he knew me better than that. I generally didn’t go more than a day without meeting someone from the app, and since my profile was public, anyone who was curious enough would have been able to see my activity.

  He tightened his fingers on my bony hips, and I felt the eagerness coursing through him. I had been looking at his profile too, and I knew he’d been busy, just as I had been, so it was nice to know that I was still wanted. I made quick work of spreading the lubricated condom over his cock. Sliding onto him was easy since I’d been stretched already. That was one way I controlled these hookups. Since I was always ready, there was no way anyone could go too fast with me.

  I ground into him, moving my hips until I found the right angle and pace that worked for me. After months of seeing him, I knew this was how we did things. When he was on the bed, I rode him, and I got to find my climax all on my own. Sometimes it felt like I was using him as I slapped our bodies together and knew I wasn’t giving him what he wanted. But it never took long for me to come, as I rested one hand on his chest and wrapped the other around my cock, which had been painfully hard while I’d thought about him on the highway up there.

  I whimpered as I fought back my orgasm and tried to hang on just a little while longer. I should have jacked off before getting in my car. Then maybe I would have lasted more than a few minutes with his cock rubbing perfectly against my prostate in the most delicious way possible. But PG sent me over the edge as he moved his hands from my hips and reached up to tug on my nipples. A bit of pain was my thing. Not anything hardcore, but just enough to send that zap of energy coursing through me. It was a bit of a shock, since I was never sure how he was going to give me that extra bit of a boost, but he usually did.

  PG grabbed my ass and turned me over while I was still coming down from my climax, which had ended up all over his chest and stomach. He pressed my knees back against my chest with his shoulders and slammed into me while I was still limp under him. Unlike a lot of guys, he didn’t say someone else’s name while he was fucking me. He generally didn’t say anything at all. Just a bunch of grunts and groans to let me know he was enjoying me as much as I loved having him.

  He kissed me as I lay under him. It was the only time we ever kissed. He was needy and rough, biting my lips with his teeth as he panted into the kisses. Once I had control of my hands again, I brought my fingers up and ran them through his hair. His tight curls were coarse but also soft at the ends. Like he used some expensive conditioner but it had become less effective this late in the evening. It was nearly eight o’clock.

  He met my gaze a second before he came with a loud groan, and though I would never tell him, I liked seeing the vulnerability in his dark brown eyes as he climaxed. He’d come, so he stopped kissing me. He pulled out, tossed the condom aside, and rolled away from me all within a few seconds.

  We lay there together for a while, just panting and trying to catch our breaths. I was the first to get up. I went to my plug, washed it off, and put it back in with the help of some lube I kept on me at all times, then pulled on my jeans. They were harder to get on than they had been to take off because I was so sweaty, but I managed them anyway. When I put my feet in my sneakers, I found PG watching me with a smile on his face. He’d moved the pillows behind his head, propping himself up a little.

  “You
know you can stay and shower here, right?” he asked me.

  I shrugged before I pulled on my shirt. “Yeah. I know. You’ve told me that before. But I’m good. Not staying around isn’t just a thing I do with you.” I’d learned better than to be clingy in the few years since I’d started using the app to get my needs taken care of. I just wanted to go.

  PG chuckled and sat up in bed. He really did look good naked. He’d taken care of himself well, and as he stood up and headed toward the bathroom, he walked with grace and none of the clumsiness I was used to seeing from guys my age.

  “Are we to the first name stage yet? It’s been months since we’ve been getting together after all.”

  I wasn’t sure. Maybe we were. I figured there was no harm in him knowing just that much about me. “Eli.”

  “Grayson.”

  Which meant that his full name might have been Grayson Pendleton, judging by his screenname on Hot Guy Hook Ups. Not that I cared. His name made him sound rich and powerful. Maybe he was some kind of secret billionaire who liked doing the hookup thing on the side. What he did or didn’t do really didn’t matter to me. He was sexy, and I liked coming with him. That was it.

  “See you,” I said. I waved to him as I backed away toward the door. This part was always a bit awkward for me. Come in, get naked, have sex. Those were the parts I could handle. This afterward part where he told me I could shower and now we knew each other’s names? That was weird. I liked my sex somewhere between strangers and glory holes. I hoped Grayson wasn’t going to start wanting to get to know me or anything like that. I didn’t do that anymore. My lines were definitely drawn far before we would ever get to be anything close to friends.

  He smiled at me again. “Take care. I’ll message you the next time I’m in town.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” I ducked out of the hotel room as I heard him turning on the shower.

  Sex generally made me feel better, looser, and far more energized. If it wasn’t a Wednesday night, and if I didn’t have a home evaluation for the horse rescue I worked for in the morning, I would have probably gone to a club. As it was, I headed back to my apartment, which was stupid expensive, and now that my year lease was up in two weeks, I was sure that the owner was going to be increasing the rent once I went month-to-month.

  It wasn’t a prospect I was looking forward to since I could barely afford to live there as it was. But rent was skyrocketing all over the Denver Metro Area, and even though I’d looked for a cheaper place, they didn’t exist unless I wanted a roommate. Which I definitely didn’t. They came with complications. I’d fallen hard for every guy I’d ever tried to share a place with, and that just couldn’t be me anymore.

  I lived on the ground-level apartment, and I lived alone, unless the pictures of horses counted. Then I had fifty-two friends, all horses that I’d either helped rescue from bad situations or placed into good homes. I had a few human friends too, but not ones who generally came to my apartment. We hit the gay clubs in downtown Denver together or hung out at the barn after work. But we didn’t really all get together at my place and drink beers and watch a football game or anything like that.

  I stripped off my shirt and tossed it into my overflowing laundry basket in the hall between my bedroom and the bathroom, where my washer and dryer were, before plopping down on my thrift store sofa. It was cheap, but it was comfortable. My water bottle from the night before was still on the floor, next to the sofa, and I sipped it as I thought about Grayson. I was already getting hard again, and I groaned as I rolled over onto my stomach and tried to ignore my body’s reaction to one of the hottest men I’d ever had sex with.

  I had to get up early in the morning and do a home evaluation in Kiowa. I had to be there by eight, then was scheduled to be at the rescue for four hours after that since I had paperwork and monthly checks to do. I didn’t have any more time to spend thinking about Grayson that night. Only my brain didn’t seem to want to accept that.

  It sucked that I didn’t have more control of my body than this, but I was already practically humping the couch while thinking about having him in me again. Unlike most guys, he’d never disappointed me when we were together. Some guys were good, but then they had an off night, and I still gave them another chance. Two bad times in a row meant I didn’t see them again. Which was probably why most of the guys I was with didn’t get to repeat their times with me.

  But Grayson was different. I rolled back over and undid my jeans so that I could put my fist around my cock. I wanted him to fuck me as hard as he could, and he never shied away from that. We were sweaty and loud, and we’d broken more than one hotel headboard. My best times were with him for sure.

  I thought about his fingers on my hips, then when he pinched my nipples. Or the times when he’d dug his nails into the outside of my thighs as I’d ridden him. He was good about always letting me come first. And when I was done was when he really got started. While I lay there loose and relaxed, he took me, and I loved it all.

  I jerked my hand over my cock and shot over my stomach while I imagined him on top of me, kissing me as if he needed me, like he always did right before he came. When I was done, and filthy again, I was finally able to get some sleep.

  Chapter Two

  Grayson

  I FLIPPED through my phone while waiting for my plane to arrive. Just three days in Colorado and I was already scheduled to leave again. As depressing as that sometimes was, I was used to it by now. I opened the app and scrolled through my messages. Guys wanting to see me again, guys wanting to get a chance with me for the first time. Members could rate each other, and my rating was pretty high, which was flattering, but made a lot of guys I’d never even considered bringing into my bed suddenly want me in the most desperate ways possible.

  The one person I didn’t have a message from was Eli. That wasn’t surprising, since he never sent me a message to begin with, but it still unnerved me somewhat. I was used to keeping in contact with the guys I saw regularly, and some of them had even become sort of friends. Not the kind I would go out with in public or want to see in a nonsexual situation, but they were men that I could have a conversation with after we were done screwing each other. I had thought Eli and I would be at that point somewhere over the past few months, but he seemed determined to keep me at arm’s length. I couldn’t believe it had taken so long for me to even get his name. I’d been asking him for that information since the first time we’d been together.

  Normally I only messaged him when I wanted to see him, but since we knew each other’s names now, I thought perhaps saying hi would be appropriate. I sent off the message and kept scrolling through my notices. I was headed to Cleveland, to help a bank CEO restructure his top-tier employees. I was scheduled to be gone for a week, but I intended for the job to last only a few days. I’d go through the employee files on the first day, conduct interviews with those employees I thought could be cut on the second, and give my final results to the CEO on the third day. With that in mind, I started looking through my regular contacts to see if anyone might be available during that time for a quick hookup. If not I could search by city and find someone, but when I was doing a job, I preferred to have the guys I was comfortable with around me. One of my biggest fears was hooking up with someone and then running into them the next day while I was doing my job, so I always tried to schedule something on the last night that I would be in town. It also worked because I would never have time to do a second date right away with them like some guys thought I should.

  Eli messaged me back while I was deciding between two guys I’d been with the year before. They were both in their thirties, well educated, and great in bed—my type to a tee. Out of everyone I was with regularly, Eli was the one who didn’t fit into that mold. He was in his twenties and listed no educational history in his profile. Maybe that was to keep some part of his life private, which I guessed, but most guys boasted about whatever Ivy League college they’d attended. Eli wasn’t like that at all.


  Hey his message simply said. Still, it made me smile.

  What are you doing right now? I sent back to him.

  Within seconds I received another message from him, this time with a picture attached to it. In it I saw him with someone’s cock shoved deep into his mouth, and there was already come on his cheek and around his lips as if he was cleaning the guy off instead of just getting down to it. I was instantly hard, and I needed to go adjust myself. How one picture of Eli, especially of him being with someone else, could make me that needy so quickly was beyond me. Maybe it was because I knew how good he was with his mouth and all the little sounds he made when he was on his knees in front of someone that did it for me.

  I thought he would expect me to say something, but I wasn’t sure what to say to a picture like that. He’d never shared something like that with me. I’d known he was with other people. We weren’t exclusive or dating in any sense of the word, but I’d never seen him with anyone before, and the image in my mind that I now couldn’t shake was of him going down on someone and me getting to watch him do it. I didn’t have time to find a bathroom and take care of my needs, and part of me wanted to be angry at him for putting me in the position where I’d be hard for a flight from Denver to Cleveland all because of him, but I couldn’t make myself blame him for sharing the picture with me at all. It looks like you’re having fun, I started off my message to him. I’m on my way to Cleveland. I didn’t bother wondering why there was a sudden change in him, from finally telling me his name to sending me a sexy pic of himself with someone else. I accepted these things, like I accepted everything else about Eli. He was a mystery, and one I wanted to know more about, but I was in no desperate rush to invade his personal life with my curiosity.

  The next message he sent me included another selfie, but this time just of his face and totally cleaned up. He was blowing me a kiss, something he hadn’t done since our first time together and he’d said goodbye to me at the hotel door. See you when you get back.