Chapter Sixteen

Digging through the bag Duncan had packed for me, I saw that he’d brought me pajamas. Fucking pajamas. Why did he have to be so damn thoughtful? I found a bathroom. After showering I brushed my teeth and put on the striped PJ bottoms and a white tee shirt, forgoing the matching pajama top because it was a little too old-man for my style.

Old man. Duncan was not an old man, but is that how he saw himself with me? Or was it simply that he saw me as too young a man? A doe-eyed kid just taking my first steps in life? If that was the case, what the hell was he doing with me here?

Fucking. He’s fucking you, dummy.

Bingo. And we’d come back around, all the way to the beginning. Back to when I was worried Duncan was only getting to know me, only handing me promotions and opportunities and making me feel special because he wanted to fuck my ass. I didn’t want to believe that, because it hurt, so I considered there might be another side to it.

Duncan drove straight to my apartment to confront me when he heard I quit Mythic. He’d admitted to feeling jealous about my past relationship with his nephew. Shit, he’d shut Corey down and convinced him there was nothing shady about him dating me. Duncan could have used Corey’s objection as an easy-out if he wanted to get rid of me.

So I guess Duncan genuinely liked me. He wanted to spend time with me, not just fuck me. But he had absolutely no designs on giving this a chance to become something more. Based on what he’d just told me on the beach, it sounded like he hadn’t even considered it. Or maybe he just hadn’t considered it was a possibility.

He did get a peculiar look about him, a confused, cautious expression whenever I let go a little and showed how into him I was. Perhaps it was discomfort I was seeing in Duncan’s eyes, because he didn’t expect me to go that route with him, that I’d even want to.

Well, he knew now. I’d started whining at the first sign that Duncan wasn’t thinking of me as a potential boyfriend. I thought about the hockey player, Wes, who’d come by the house with wine and a rose and a big, sappy smile. It was a smile I recognized, because Duncan put it on my face too. Wes wouldn’t have shown up unannounced unless he felt confident there was something special going on with Duncan. He’d been hopeful, then angry and hurt when he left. And what had Duncan said about it?

‘He wants more than I’m willing to give.’

Shit. That was me now. I was Wes. Wes, who I’d smugly been thinking of as a sad loser earlier while I thought I’d I won the prize. Now I was the sad loser who’d expected too much.

Christ, I felt like I was back dating Corey before we were exclusive. Age difference or not, Duncan seemed to be a guy everyone wanted. A man who handed out little bits of himself to many, just enough to get them hooked. And I was one of them. This is what I got for dating another Stengel. My God. I had to be the stupidest asshole on the planet.

Or maybe I was insane, doing the same damn thing over and over and expecting a different result. And I hadn’t even had the good sense to veer off the family tree. Maybe Corey was right. Maybe that’s why he’d gotten so upset—because he could see what I was doing to myself. Maybe this fascination with Duncan was about repeating my past. Perhaps I was just as fucked up as I used to be, and telling myself I’d changed and grown was a line of crap.

But it honestly didn’t feel that way. I was not confused about Duncan. This wasn’t some psychological clusterfuck happening because my subconscious was mixed-up. I was clear-headed. I couldn’t even say I’d self-sabotaged by cornering Duncan on his intentions. I had the right to know before I got in any deeper. And…well, now I knew. Go me.

When I left the bathroom, I heard water running somewhere else in the house. I crept down another corridor and saw light under a door, heard a shower going. Another bathroom. Duncan must have come back up off the beach and was freshening up. Crap. I was nervous now. I’d just made a mess of things, and we still had to spend the night together, unless he planned to make me swim home.

And I still wanted the guy. As I walked back into the bedroom, I got butterflies thinking about climbing under the sheets with him, regardless that we were in ‘a fight’. Well…I was the one who’d had a fight—Duncan just stood there. Sighing, I slid open the window and rested my arms on the sill, staring out at the ocean, listening to the crashing waves. Jesus, look at this gorgeous place he’d taken me to. For a fucking date. He’d hired a vegetarian chef, just for me. But my heart was involved, and I’d vowed to put it first.

Still, I wanted to smooth things over with Duncan tonight. This wasn’t his fault either. He felt the way he felt. He’d been honest with me, and I couldn’t fault him for it.

“Zach.”

I looked over my shoulder. Duncan hung a towel on a door hook then walked toward me. He looked soft and inviting in checkered PJ bottoms, shirtless with his hair towel-dried and messy, his skin flushed from the hot shower.

“Hey.” I turned away from the window. “I’m sorry I ruined the getaway.”

He stepped in close to me and rubbed my shoulders. “You didn’t ruin anything. Can we talk?”

“Of course. I’m sorry I got emotional. I’m not angry at you, Duncan. I respect how you feel. Respect your honesty.” I shrugged and gave him a strained smile. “Even when I don’t like what I hear.”

“Don’t apologize. I’m the one who should apologize.”

“What for?”

“I um…I think what Wes said to me earlier today got to me. About how young you are.”

My brow lowered. “Oh.”

“It made me realize that in a small way, I was thinking of you as a naïve child.” He rested his forehead against mine. “I was flippant in the way I let you know that. It wasn’t very thoughtful, and I’m sorry.”

“So you have been thinking of me as a kid.”

He winced, holding up his thumb and forefinger. “A little.”

“Hopefully not while we were in bed,” I quipped.

Duncan snorted a chuckle, his fingers tickling my upper arms as he stroked them. “No. Definitely not in bed.”

“Do you think maybe you can adjust that thinking?”

He raised his head. “I’ve done some thinking already. When considering your age, I wasn’t focusing on who you are so much as where you are in your life. I wasn’t thinking about you at this age, but of who I was at that age, and it just seems so long ago. I look back and think I was still so young. But that’s me. Not you. It isn’t fair of me to see you through that lens.”

“I’m twenty-seven and three quarters.” I smirked, struggling to keep it light, though anger tapped at my temples. “Does that make a difference?”

Duncan laughed. “I’m glad you have a sense of humor about it. I feel terrible that I upset you.”

I wanted to tell him that it was all right. Hadn’t I just said to myself that I wanted to smooth things over? But I couldn’t. Duncan using the word naïve in association with me grated. I sure as hell wasn’t naïve, and my life had been no cakewalk thus far. My sense of self was hard won, and apparently it had grown some armor recently, because it was urging me to fight for it now, even if it caused trouble with Duncan. Even if it ruined this date. How could I expect Duncan to respect me when he didn’t have the full picture of who I was?

“Actually, I don’t have a sense of humor about it. I’m not a kid, Duncan.”

Duncan looked surprised. “I know you’re not a kid.”

“No. You don’t. You very obviously don’t.”

My tone was sharp, and Duncan looked at me with wide, startled eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’m not angry at you. I just need you to understand me if you’re going to judge me. If you care to. I’d like you to understand me better. If that’s something you want.”

“Yes, Zach. Of course.” He squeezed my shoulder. “I absolutely want that. Talk to me. I want to fix this.”

I let out a breath. “All right.” I leaned against the windowsill. “Since you were so adept at doing all the age-math down on the beach, maybe I can give you some of my own calculations to defend myself?”

“You have nothing to defend.” He stepped back and sat on the end of the bed. “But yes, go ahead.”

“You say you were thinking about where I’m at now? Well let me tell you where I’ve been, okay?”

Duncan nodded. “That’s fair.”

“My dad left us when I was four. I grew up with just my mom. And she’s great. But it was hard, knowing my own father rejected me for whatever reason, and that made me grow up fast. I was teased by other kids because my father left.” I chuckled. “Fucking four-year-olds, man, bullying me. Kids told me he left because of me, and I believed them. I got a lot of that life experience you were talking about before I even hit my tenth birthday. Because by that time, I’d already figured out I was gay, so I told myself there was something wrong with me, and that’s why my father left. It wasn’t a picnic of a childhood.”

Duncan nodded, lips tight.

“I lost my virginity when I was fourteen. And I’ve been hooking up with guys ever since. Dealing with all that goes with it, right?”

Duncan’s brows rose but he said nothing, just waited for me to continue.

“So that’s thirteen years of being sexually active. Thirteen years of dating. Of kissing. Fucking. Sucking. Getting sucked. Falling in love. Getting my heart broken. Healing. Doing it all over again. Breaking other people’s hearts. Making friendships. Losing friendships, through fights or death or distance or just fading away. Life stuff. It’s not new to me.”

Duncan glanced down. “Of course.”

“I started bartending when I was twenty-one because I’d convinced myself I was too dumb for college, because I had so many racing thoughts I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything too long. I was this sappy kid looking for love in all the wrong places. I got taken advantage of. Used. Fell for a bar owner who broke my heart. See, I thought I was in love.” I chuckled. “Until my ‘boyfriend’ tried to convince me we could make more money if I sucked a few cocks in the back room.”

Duncan scowled. “Zach. I’m sorry.”

“I refused. So he told me I was worthless, and I was fooling myself if I thought I had anything to offer other than my looks. My body. My mouth. Needless to say, I quit that job. I bounced around from bar to bar, place to place, trying to find someplace I didn’t feel like shit about myself. Met some nice people. Met some bad people. Got beat up a lot. Hospitalized a couple times. Once because a guy didn’t like who I was. Once because a guy liked me too much and didn’t accept my refusal when he wanted me.”

Duncan winced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that.”

“I know, Duncan. And I’m not trying to shock you. Just trying to give you the full picture. After healing from that, I ultimately moved to JP and finally felt like I belonged somewhere. Got some semblance of normalcy and respect back. I made new friends. And through those friends, I met Corey.”

Duncan glanced up.

“He was like a light in the darkness. He told me to never let anyone tell me I was worthless. He said if the world tried to punch me I had to punch back harder. Said he’d show me how. And that if I was feeling weak, he’d do it for me until I learned to do it for myself.” I chuckled. “And he did a few times. This was before we ever even kissed, mind you. He was my friend first.”

Duncan smiled. “That’s nice to hear about him.”

I nodded. “Corey just…radiated with something I’d never seen before. That light he has inside. That confidence. But I’d been in the dark so long I got addicted to his light, so scared it was going to go out that I chased it. Constantly chased it. I caused a lot of damage, to him, to friends, but especially to myself. The past two years have changed me. I’ve had to put myself under a microscope and figure out who I am, why I made the mistakes I did. I fell apart and had to put myself back together. I lost myself and had to find myself again. And I have, Duncan. I finally like who I am on my own.”

He nodded, silent.

“I went to college for a year only to find I didn’t like it after all. Learned my mother never quite accepted me either. Had to grow strong enough to overcome that. Then transformed into someone who could stand on his own two feet. Financially, but I knew I could do that. I always got by. But I had to stand on my own emotionally. To control who I was on the inside, so I could stop making so many bad decisions on the outside.”

Duncan stared at me, his brows pinched, and I could see he was actually listening, that I had his full attention.

“I was a guy on the bottom. That’s how my life started. And that’s how it was for a long, long, time. But I’ve climbed out of that hole now. I’ve found my value. But it hasn’t been an easy path with a picket fence. It was barbed wire and mud-crawling and finally figuring out a way to wash it all off. I’ve been doing this life thing a long time, Duncan. Highs and lows, peaks and crashes. I am not a naïve child. I’m not a child at all. I’m a man. That’s what I wanted to say to you.” I held his gaze. “I’m a man, Duncan. And whether you want to keep dating me or not, I expect you to treat me like one.”

Duncan stood and walked toward me. He leaned in and pulled me into a hug. “I know you’re a man. And I can’t apologize enough for treating you like something else. Will you please forgive me, Zach?”

“Of course I will.”

He squeezed me tighter, nuzzling into my neck. “I do want to keep dating you. And if you’ve convinced yourself I don’t care about you, know that I want to go back in time and drop-kick everyone who ever shit on you. Everyone, Zach. Even the four-year-olds.”

I smiled against his shoulder. “Okay but stop being nice or you’re gonna make me emotional, and negate the whole ‘I’m a man’ speech, okay?”

He leaned back and smiled. “There’s nothing childish about emotion. But I don’t know how to not be nice to you.”

“Then distract me.” I reached up and dragged my thumb across his lip. “You know how to do that.”

Smiling, he rested his hands on my hips and leaned against me. “Thirteen years of being sexually active, huh?”

I chuckled. “That’s right. Thirteen years.”

“That’s a lot of fucking.”

I slid a finger into the hem of his PJs. “It is. A lot of fucking.”

“Especially surprising for someone who claims to have recently gone without sex for...?”

“A year or so. Before you.”

He threaded fingers through my hair. “Goodness. That is a while.”

“You’re telling me.”

Duncan’s hands slid down from my hair and held my face. “So what’s so special about me, Zach? To what do I owe the honor of breaking your celibacy?”

I shivered at the way he was looking at me, his expression still soft, but growing heated. “That’s something I’d like the chance to figure out,” I said. “If you’ll let me.”

He stared at me silently for a long moment, then said, “Get into bed.”

My pulse sped. “Not gonna make me swim home, then?”

He smiled and shook his head. “Not a chance. I’ve kidnapped you, remember?”

I wanted to believe Duncan cared for me. That he wasn’t just trying to save my dignity now that I’d spilled my emotional baggage all over him. The truth was I knew there was a chance we’d return to Boston and I’d experience one of those long bouts of silence from him again.

But none of that seemed to matter when he got me in bed and slowly undressed me in between deep, searing kisses in the dark, the sound of waves lapping the shore through the open window. I was back in that magic place again, the place I kept returning to with Duncan in between periods of doubt and silence and worry. I didn’t know if this would be the last time I’d get to visit that place. If this was our last night together. I just didn’t know. I knew there was a chance it could be, despite Duncan’s gentle words and the way he was kissing me now.

And boy was he kissing me. There was no race to see how fast he could make me come this time. His mouth was slow and savoring. I could feel his heart beating fast against my chest, and the hard breaths that came in pauses between kissing let me know he was in thrall of this, at least physically.

His hands continued to caress me as we explored each other’s mouths more thoroughly than we ever had before. The way his palms pressed hard against my body as they smoothed over every line, every muscle, made me feel like he was trying to memorize me. He still didn’t reach for the condom he’d set on the nightstand before turning off the lamp. Instead, he left my mouth and started on my skin, tasting me up and down, driving me mad, devouring my hip bones with his lips and tongue. Working his way back up to give attention to my nipples, my ribs. Turning me over onto my belly and nuzzling his way down my spine, parting my cheeks and sending me out into space with his tongue until I was a whimpering, pleading mess.

Only then did he take me from behind, and it was as slow and gentle as the foreplay, holding me in a tight hug, kissing and biting the back of my neck as his cock filled me and he moved with languid, rhythmic pulses against my ass. Thus far my sex with Duncan had been frantic and somewhat playful, but this felt different. He was taking his time, fingers threading my hair and drifting down my body beneath him.

At one point, he traced my entrance with his fingers to feel himself moving in and out of me, sighing against my ear, “So perfect, Zach, so damn perfect.”

The entire thing was an agonizing symphony of sensation and emotion that left me helpless and destroyed, coming against the mattress before I was ready for it to end, choking out cries of pleasure, but stopping myself from saying something he wasn’t ready to hear, because nothing was this good unless it was the beginning of something or it was the end.

Duncan came hard, shuddering against me, then stayed inside and on top of my sweaty body for a long time before we finally disengaged. After we got cleaned up, he went down to the kitchen, then brought us a snack, blueberry scones left by the chef for breakfast, and they were delicious. We ate the scones, our banter light and friendly, then we settled back in bed, and he held me in the darkness while we drifted off to sleep.

And still, I had no sense of whether this was a beginning or an end. And I vowed not to ask, even tomorrow, when we returned home. I’d laid myself bare tonight and made my feelings clear with my words down on the beach, telling him I wanted him to date me with an open mind, to give things with us a chance. I knew Duncan had absorbed those words, but it was not lost on me that he’d chosen not to acknowledge that part of it, even during our heart-to-heart.

There was nothing more I could do. I was falling hard for Duncan Stengel, and it was now up to him whether he wanted to catch me or not.