Long Shot Read online

  Long Shot

  Harper Logan

  Contents

  Introduction

  Summary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Preview: Long Haul

  Preview: My Leading Man

  Also by Harper Logan

  Introduction

  Thank you so much for choosing to read Long Shot. If you want to be the first to know when I have new releases, you can sign up to my mailing list.

  Copyright © 2017 by Harper Logan

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Summary

  How do you get the perfect gift for the love of your life?

  It’s Adrian and Chandler’s first Christmas together since their deployment in Iraq, and their very first holiday spent as a married couple and daddies to a boisterous, too-smart-for-her-own-good six-year-old. The two men have April’s gifts wrapped and ready under the tree… but what about their own?

  Adrian is scrambling to organize the adoption of Koko, a military working dog who was Chandler’s best friend in hard times overseas, and Chandler is on an impossible mission to find the classic car that once belonged to Adrian’s late father. They’re the perfect gifts, both holding a special significance as great as their love for one another. Now the only problem is getting them on time for Christmas! With just a couple weeks to go, can Adrian and Chandler pull off their own Christmas miracles without the other knowing?

  1

  Adrian hoisted April up by her armpits so that she could reach the top of the Christmas tree, while Chandler stood to the side and watched, his hands on his hips. April stretched out with her little arms and carefully placed the shimmering golden star ornament at the very top, and Adrian lowered her back to the ground. The two of them stepped back, joining Chandler to inspect their handiwork. The tree, draped in tinsel and ornaments, sparkled with twinkling lights, and beneath it was a pile of colorfully wrapped presents. It was their first Christmas spent together as a family since Chandler had packed his bags and moved himself and his daughter out from Arkansas to New Hampshire to be with Adrian nearly a year ago.

  The three of them lived in a quaint, three-bedroom house that they’d purchased a month after their marriage. Even after a year living there, the place was sparsely decorated. There were some framed photos; most were of April and the three of them together, but a few were of Adrian and Chandler back from their time in the army when they first met and fell in love. Both of them were simple, no frills men who didn’t care so much about interior decorating. In fact, the auto shop they ran together probably had more decoration than the house did. It was where they spent most of their time, after all.

  “How’s that look, honey?” Adrian asked April.

  “I think we did a real good job, Papa,” the six year old said, and then started to bounce around with her hands held high in the air as she sang, “Oh, Christmas tree, oh, Christmas tree! I love our special Christmas tree.” She dove to her knees and slid herself along the hardwood floor toward the presents to take yet another inventory of them. “To April, Love Daddy,” she said, reading the tag on one of the boxes. She looked up and grinned at Chandler, who smiled back. “To April, Love Papa. And this big one’s from Grandma. Where are your presents, Papa and Daddy? These are all for me.”

  Adrian exchanged a look with his husband. The truth was that he hadn’t gotten anything for Chandler yet, even though Christmas was only a few weeks away. Chandler had to be the hardest man on earth to buy a gift for. He was the kind of man who would be fine with anything, who’d give a slight smile, a nod, and a thank you to any present he got—but Adrian didn’t want to settle for a “fine with anything” type of present. He wanted to give Chandler something really special.

  “All I need for Christmas is your Papa,” Chandler said, slinging his arm around Adrian’s shoulder.

  “Aww,” April cooed. “That’s so cute.”

  They put April to bed, and the three of them read a bedtime story, switching off reading each chapter out loud. As Adrian was reading his part, he watched April’s eyelid start to droop. He smiled. She was doing everything she could to stay awake, but her eyes would just not stay open. Finally, she fell asleep. He closed the book and slipped it back onto her book shelf, and the two of them quietly slipped out of the room and closed the door.

  Adrian went to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of Budweiser, and handed one to Chandler as they settled down on the couch in front of the tree, which lit the otherwise dark room with its pale, twinkling lights.

  “C’mon, Chandler,” Adrian said. “Throw me a fuckin’ bone here. I wanna give you something special. You gotta have something you want.”

  “Yeah, there is something special I want.” Chandler grinned, setting his beer onto the stacked toolbox they used as a side table. Adrian took a swig of his and nearly dropped it in surprise as Chandler swung his arm around his shoulder and drew him in for a kiss. Adrian melted into him as Chandler moved on top of him, pressing him into the cushions. He slipped a hand around the back of Chandler’s neck and pulled him in tighter, and their tongues made pleasant introductions to each other. As they kissed, Chandler plucked the beer bottle from Adrian’s hand and set it down onto the toolbox.

  Adrian’s jeans grew tighter with excitement as he felt his husband’s calloused fingers slip under his t-shirt and across his abs. He drew in a breath to give Chandler some space to push them down past his belt line. Down, down, down… Oh, fuck. He’d never get tired of feeling that tight grip around his tool.

  “When I said throw me a bone, this isn’t exactly what I was talking about,” Adrian murmured as Chandler handled him beneath his jeans.

  “Yeah, well, you should’ve been more specific,” Chandler said, nipping his earlobe. He moved his kisses down the side of his neck to his collarbone, and with his free hand, tugged Adrian’s shirt up and over his arms. Adrian attacked the buttons of Chandler’s flannel button up and yanked the shirt open, revealing his gorgeousness. Adrian was still in awe of the fact that he and Chandler were together, that this perfect man was really his husband now.

  Just over a year ago, it would’ve seemed like an impossibility.

  He and Chandler first met overseas on deployment in Iraq, and the two of them shared a romance they kept secret from the world. When their tour was over, they both decided it would be for the best to forget what they had, and to leave their love overseas. They went their separate ways. Chandler moved back to the one place he’d been trying to escape from—his middle of nowhere hometown in Arkansas, and Adrian, chased by the memory of the man he couldn’t so easily forget, took to the open road as a long-haul trucker. It was that job that, five years after their split, would take him back into his man’s arms.

  And now they were married.

  Even now, the two of them still sometimes struggled with the fact that they didn’t have to hide their love, and at times they found themselves concealing it by habit. They’d both never been with other men before, and Chandler denied that he was even gay. He would say, “You can set up a hundred guys in front of me and I ain’t gonna find a single one of them attractive. Adrian’s just a special case.”

  Adrian felt the same. He’d never met anyone—m
an or woman—who got him going the way Chandler did.

  “Oh, fuck,” Adrian whispered, watching as Chandler opened his pants and pulled his cock free from his underwear. Then Chandler slowly moved down, his shoulders undulating like a slinking cat’s, and sank down so that Adrian’s cock stood up tall in front of his face. Adrian’s heart raced, and his chest rose and fell with excited breaths.

  He watched as Chandler wrapped his fingers around the base of his cock, holding it firmly upright. Chandler kissed the tip, and then began to caress it with his face, lovingly rubbing it against his cheeks and lips, taking in long, hungry breaths of him. The tingling prickle of Chandler’s stubble sent shivers through Adrian’s body, and he bit the back of his hand to suppress a moan. He fucking loved it when Chandler did that to him.

  “Ohh…”

  It was like torture, it felt so good.

  And then, finally, Chandler took him into his mouth. Adrian grabbed a fistful of cushion, his toes curling as Chandler worked him. He was a goddamn professional at handling his cock. Chandler knew every spot to hit and how to hit it just right, and Adrian already felt himself being thrown to the climax.

  “Oh god,” he moaned, trying to stay as quiet as he could. He pushed his fingers through Chandler’s hair. “Throw me that fucking bone already or I’m gonna fucking come right now.”

  “No you fuckin’ don’t,” Chandler growled, backing off. “Get on up and turn your ass around.”

  Adrian did as he was told. He kicked off his underwear and jeans, turned around onto his knees, and then rested his forearms onto the arm of the couch, bending over for Chandler.

  “God, I’ll never get tired of that view,” Chandler said. “Hold that. Don’t move.”

  Adrian watched Chandler walk off into the dark hallway. A light flicked on in the bathroom, sending a rectangle of light across the hardwood floor, and then turned off again. A moment later, Chandler emerged, unbuckling his jeans as he walked. He held a small bottle of lube in his hand.

  “Should we move this to the bedroom?” Adrian asked.

  “Don’t worry,” Chandler said. “April’s knocked out. I peeked. Anyway, haven’t you always wanted to fuck in front of a Christmas tree?”

  “We have already,” Adrian said, smiling slyly.

  “Like hell, we have.”

  “We have! Iraq. At FOB Lion. Remember, we all decorated that palm tree? When we had the watch, you and I—”

  “That don’t count.” Chandler grinned. He pulled down his jeans in one swift motion, and when he stood back up straight, so did his cock. He came back to the couch, his muscular body rimmed in the soft light of the tree behind him. “I’m talking about our tree.” He leaned forward, letting his hands glide across Adrian’s back. “Now c’mon and give me my present.”

  Adrian looked back and drew him into a kiss before presenting himself for Chandler. He shivered as he felt the cool spread of gel across his opening, and then a few seconds later, the warm press of Chandler’s cock. He pushed his face into the cushioned arm of the sofa to muffle a strained cry as he pounded his fist against it. Chandler was big, and even now Adrian wasn’t any more used to that first push in. But that was fine. It was a damn good hurt, and always had been.

  They fucked hard, doing their best to keep as quiet as possible. The dull, rhythmic sound of flesh on flesh reverberated around the room like muted applause, accented by their stifled breaths. Adrian bit the cushion, not quite able stop a groan as he reached climax. He knew Chandler was there too. The man made no sound to signal his orgasm, but Adrian felt his grip tighten on his ass cheek as he made several final hard and deep thrusts.

  After finishing, the two of them snuggled up under a blanket on the couch in nothing but their underwear. Adrian leaned over to retrieve their beer from the toolbox side table. Next to the bottles sat a photo album, and Adrian picked up all three. He passed one bottle back to Chandler and patted the cover of the album. It was their little work in progress, something they’d assembled when they’d first gotten married and continued to add to.

  “Wanna go through this thing?” Adrian asked.

  Chandler smiled and drew his arm around Adrian’s shoulder. “You feelin’ sentimental?”

  “Goddamn right. It’s been a while since we’ve looked at this thing, let alone added to it.”

  Adrian opened the album, which Chandler had made himself out of an old leather jacket and scrap wood they’d had lying around the shop. The first couple pages were old family photos, mostly of Adrian and his parents and few of Chandler. Chandler hadn’t kept many photos of his folks or his childhood—they just represented sore memories. There was a faded elementary school yearbook photo of Chandler, a shot of a seven-year-old him sitting on a bicycle in a torn Ninja Turtles tank top, and one of him with his arms wrapped around a shaggy dog.

  “Bandit,” Chandler said, touching the photo. “You never had a dog when you were a kid, huh?”

  “Nope. Always wanted one, but Dad was allergic.”

  Adrian turned the page. There was a photo of him, probably around nine years old, up on Dad’s shoulders, who was standing proudly next to his 1972 basin street blue Plymouth Duster. Adrian still remembered that car like it was yesterday—the low roar of its 240 horsepower V8 engine. The way the seat vibrated as Dad floored the accelerator. The smell of leather and gasoline. But the best memories were of riding in the car with Dad and helping him work on it, passing tools to him as he tinkered under the hood and under its belly. Dad had been forced to sell the car when the family had been going through rough financial times. Adrian had been in his final year in elementary school, and he remembered how he’d held Dad’s hand and cried as he watched the car being loaded onto a flatbed tow truck and driven away.

  Of course, Dad couldn’t go for long without a car to work on. After things picked up a few years later, he bought a 1966 Ford F100 pickup truck, and throughout Adrian’s years in high school the two of them worked on restoring it. The truck had stayed with Adrian until six months ago, when a drunk driver had side swiped him as he was driving home from the grocery store. Miraculously, Adrian had only minor injuries, but the truck was totaled beyond repair. Seeing its mangled body being towed away had brought back all the painful memories of when Dad had passed away from a sudden heart attack. That truck had been Adrian’s last connection to him, and losing it had hit him hard.

  “Did I ever tell you about the time my dad outran a cop in the Duster?” Adrian asked.

  “No shit? For real?”

  “For real. It was on one of those small country highways just outside of town. He was going twenty over, the cop tails him, and he just floors it. Cop didn’t even try to catch him. He told me about it that night, I doubt Mom even knows it happened.”

  Chandler laughed. “Wish I could’ve met your old man.”

  “Me too,” Adrian said. “He would’ve loved you.”

  They flipped forward to a photo of a skinny Chandler in an army cadet uniform. “You really filled out after boot camp, huh?” Adrian said, and gave Chandler’s pectoral a squeeze. On the next page was a sharp studio portrait of Chandler in his dressy service uniform, taken shortly after his first deployment to Iraq. The scrawny, boyish-faced soldier had been replaced by a weathered and tough looking man. It was like looking at two different people; the only thing connecting them was that same set of piercing, steel grey eyes.

  “Hoo.” Adrian fanned himself. “I ought to take this one to bed with me.”

  Chandler’s mouth curled into a lopsided smile. “Alright, alright. Next page. I hate looking at photos of myself.”

  He turned the page. Next were a few photos from Iraq. One was a shot of the two of them standing with their arms around each other’s shoulders, their shirts off and their rifles slung around their necks. Taken the day before the end of their final deployment together, it was a photo that carried a lot of memories for the both of them, both bitter and sweet. Another photo was of their entire squad.

  “Ma
n,” Adrian said. “We all look so young here.”

  “Bunch of green motherfuckers is what we were,” Chandler agreed. “Can’t believe McGee’s gonna be rolling through soon. Haven’t seen him in, shit, what is it now? Six years?”

  “Six years,” Adrian confirmed.

  Luke McGee was one of their squad mates, and he’d recently gotten in contact with Chandler to arrange a meetup. Luke was from Arizona, but was in town for the holidays to visit his little brother, who was a student at Beasley University.

  Below the photo of the squad was a shot of Chandler, his arm wrapped around a German shepherd dog named Koko, a wide grin on his face. Adrian smiled, recalling how rare it was to see Chandler smiling like that, even now. Koko was a member of their platoon, an army dog responsible for sniffing out explosives and tracking targets.

  “Koko,” Chandler said. “Damn. I swear, that dog was the only one who understood me out there.” He smirked. “Maybe even better than you.”

  “I believe it,” Adrian said. “Any idea what happened to her?”

  “Nope. Still working, maybe. Or retired, off with her handler. Man. I hope she’s okay, wherever she is.”

  “She was pretty important to you, I remember.”

  He nodded. “There were a lot of dark times, and Koko was always there. You know, she was the only one I could talk to about my feelings for you. I knew I could always count on her to listen. Loved that dog, actually.”

  “I didn’t know she meant that much to you. I mean, I always saw you playing with her, but I didn’t realize what she meant to you.”

  “Yeah, well. You know me. I don’t talk about my feelings, and especially not back then.”

  They skipped forward a few pages to a photo of him, Chandler, and April standing in front of their auto repair garage. The photo was taken a few days after Chandler and April had come out to Rosebridge, and was one of the first photos of them as a family. Next were a few photos of two of them working in the shop. There was a photo of April’s first day in school, a photo of her with her Chinese teacher, Mrs. Tang, a photo of her and Mom. In fact, all of the rest of the photos in the album were of April.