Drew
He was sitting in the passenger seat when I got back in the Mustang.
I didn’t look at him. He didn’t look at me.
There was all this… stuff between us.
Anger.
Confusion.
Lies.
I drove to my place, thankful for once that everyone was gone for the weekend. I didn’t think I was ready for the conversation we were about to have. But if I waited until I was ready, we would never have it.
As freaked out as I was right now, the idea of not talking was even worse. It scared me to my core to be at odds with Trent.
He was my person. The one I always wanted to be there.
I’d never allowed myself to think about in what way I wanted him to be there. But avoidance went out the door when I saw him at the bar with another guy.
I didn’t like it.
No, I hated it with soul-searing passion.
In the driveway, I cut off the engine and palmed the keys. I didn’t look back to see if he followed. I knew he would. There was no way all the tension filling the air was one sided.
It was time.
I tossed the keys on the table by the front door, kicked off my shoes, and made a beeline for the kitchen. For lack of a better idea, I put on some coffee.
The front door rattled when it closed behind him, and I felt the tension between my shoulder blades intensify.
My hands were shaking. It was painfully obvious as I poured the water into the back of the machine. I no longer knew why they were shaking, though, or rather which emotion inside me was making them quake.
Too much.
There was just too much inside me right now to understand which emotion was strongest.
“We need to talk about Lorhaven,” Trent said, stepping into the kitchen.
“Fuck Lorhaven.” I snarled and slammed the coffee pot onto the burner.
“You told me you wouldn’t go around him alone anymore,” he argued.
“And you told me you had a frat thing tonight.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed with the force of his swallow. My eyes watched candidly as it moved with his attempts. “Drew.”
A million.
That’s how many times he’d said my name.
One.
That’s how many times he’d said it like that.
Something in my chest collapsed. It literally crumbled to pieces.
I leaned against the counter, needing something to support my weight. “Why did you go there?” I forced the words, my tone husky.
Trent rubbed a hand over his face and then slung his thumb in the pocket of his jeans. He looked everywhere but at me—the floor, the ceiling, the shoes still on his feet.
I looked only at him. I had to look. I had to see.
I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for, but I was positive I’d know it when I found it.
“You went to a gay bar on the other side of town,” I pressed. I couldn’t take the silence. “You lied to me about it. Why?”
“I…” His voice trailed away.
“Did you think I wouldn’t accept you?”
His hazel eyes snapped up to mine. For the first time in what felt like eons, his golden gaze was there for me to take in. “No.”
“Then…?”
“I just wanted to see, okay?” he rushed out.
I held his eyes. “See what?”
He shifted, shuffling from one foot to the next, before answering. “I’ve always wondered… about myself. About the way I feel. It’s confusing… to feel one way but know it should be the other. So I conformed. I did what was expected.”
His eyes took on a desperate note. “It wasn’t that bad… Until… It’s getting harder…” He cleared his throat and looked away.
“Until when?” I pressed.
He didn’t answer, and it made me impatient. “Until when, Trent,” I demanded, harsh.
Goddamn, this was killing me. I couldn’t take another second of this… this… unknown.
“Until I met you!” he burst out. His arms spread wide with the force of his exclamation.
A flush spread beneath my skin. Desire. And something else.
Possession.
“From the second you sat down beside me at Screamerz, I felt a connection with you. At first, I thought it was just friendship… you know, the kind Rome and B have. But it’s not. Not for me. It’s more…”
There it was. The words I’d been waiting to hear.
It seemed like I’d been waiting way longer than just tonight to hear this confession.
Deep down you always knew, too.
The thought caught me off guard. But I couldn’t deny it. I didn’t have time to think about it, to try and make sense of the feeling, though, because Trent kept talking.
“I went tonight because I wanted to see, I thought I could maybe try out a few… things and see if it made me less confused.”
He shifted again. It’s odd how his nervousness drew me. How predatory it made me feel.
Hearing him say these things… it made me insane.
“What things?” I ground out.
He glanced up, as if he hadn’t realized what he said. “What?”
“You wanted to try out a few things,” I replied. “What things?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he exclaimed and went to push a hand through his hair. But he couldn’t because the backward hat was still perched there. He settled for making a frustrated sound in the back of his throat.
“Kissing,” I said, and his eyes flew up to mine. “Touching.”
As fidgety as he was just seconds ago, now he was equally still.
I lowered my voice. “Is that what you wanted to try?”
He nodded miserably. “I thought maybe—”
He didn’t get to finish because an angry sound ripped out of my throat. I pushed off the counter, and his eyes widened when I stepped forward.
“You went to some bar full of strangers so you could pick out a guy to hit on and fool around with?” Oh my God, just the thought of it brought back all the anger I felt in the Mustang.
“Well, yeah.” He shrugged.
The image of him sitting at the bar with the lumber lame-o assaulted me once more.
Everything inside me rejected it. I rejected just the thought of Trent with that guy—with any guy—so forcefully that my hands started shaking all over again.
“No,” I growled.
Trent bristled. “No?”
“No.” My voice sounded like gravel.
“Look, man. I get you’re pissed. And I get this conversation sucks, but you don’t get to tell me what to do.”
I felt my eyes narrow. “Excuse me?”
“I’m not sitting over here getting all pissy about you and Joey.”
I drew back like the room suddenly filled with a bad fart. “Me and Joey?”
He nodded. “I catch your vibes. You were flirting with her in the car tonight. She has a total lady boner for you.”
I snickered. “You said lady boner.”
His lips twitched, but then he crossed his arms over his chest and this look came over his face… a look I was pretty sure I would see reflected if I looked in a mirror.
Jealousy.
He was jealous of Joey, and I was jealous of every stranger he would consider… trying things with.
“Try with me.” My words were abrupt.
His hazel eyes widened and the arms crossed over his wide chest fell to his sides. “What?”
“You want to try with a guy. See what it’s like… Use me.”
Temptation flashed in his eyes, and it made me hungry. It made me feel like I’d been starving for a very long time and didn’t even know it.
Temptation gave way to resolve.
“No,” he replied, flat.
“Why the hell not!” I demanded.
“Because you’re my best friend.”
“You said there might be more.” I shifted a little closer.
He didn’t back up.
“What about you, Drew?” Trent’s voice was tentative. “Do you think there might be more?”
Here it was.
The moment of truth. The moment I had to be honest with myself.
A sudden surge of panic slapped me in the middle. I’m not ready. I’m not ready for this. I’m not as brave as Trent.
And Trent was brave. In that moment, he was the bravest person I’d ever met.
He took my silence for decision, and his shoulders slumped just a fraction as he turned away. “It’s okay, man. I get it.”
“Wait,” I said and caught his wrist.
Both of us paused and glanced down to where I held him. He felt strong and solid beneath my grip. Not delicate and fine-boned like all the women I’d bedded in the past. Trent was warm and sure. He was a net strong enough to catch me. Strong enough to take my fall.
No one had ever been strong enough for me before.
Suddenly, it was do or die. It was Trent or my fear.
If I let my fear win, we would never be the same again. Sure, we’d stay friends. We would always be friends. But he would drift away… He would go back to that bar. I would lose him.
Maybe not completely, but too much.
I wanted all of him.
“There could be,” I whispered.
His arm jolted in my hand.
“I think there could be more. I’d like to… try. I want to see.”
My heart was thudding so heavily in my chest I felt unsteady. My stomach was so fluttery I partially worried I might be sick. No one had ever affected me like this.
No one.
And it was because of the completely rattled and unsteady way I felt that I understood something that only shook me further.
This was real. Whatever this was, it was the most intense feeling I’d ever known.
Trent turned back, his attention going to where my hand still clung to his arm. I wasn’t trying to stop him from leaving anymore. Now I was holding on because I needed someone to ground me.
I was scared.
“You’re shaking,” he whispered and gently took his free hand and wrapped it around my forearm to slide his down and gently disengage my grip.
But he didn’t let go. Instead, he entwined his steady fingers with my quivering ones.
I ceased to think. Not because I wanted to miss the moment, but because my brain simply could not process everything at once.
In that moment, my feelings were a hundred times stronger than any thought would ever be.
Still holding my hand, Trent stepped up close. The toes of his shoes bumped my sock-covered ones. He was like a furnace, a cherished heat source when you stepped inside from a cold, blustery day. His warmth wrapped around me, and I welcomed it into my pores.
The pad of his thumb stroked over the back of my hand, reminding me of the way I’d felt in the car when he’d done the same. My stomach tightened with anticipation, and I dragged in a ragged breath.
“Are you sure?” Trent murmured, his thumb doing that stroking thing again.
I nodded because, like I said, I couldn’t speak.
His free hand came up and rested on the side of my neck. The second he made contact, my eyes slid closed as I let myself feel the current of desire flowing down to my toes.
“Hey,” he whispered, and I met his hazel gaze.
He made this sound. A cross between a grunt and growl, the kind of sound a man made when he was completely satisfied, and then the distance between us was no more.
His hand tightened slightly at my neck the second our lips made contact. The first taste was soft and easy, tentative even. It wasn’t like I expected it to be. By the way my body was humming, I expected there to be some sort of electric surge.
But it wasn’t like that.
Not when we first touched.
It was this intense feeling of relief. Of finally finding the place I belonged.
I made a sound; I heard it somewhere in the distance. Trent covered my lips again, and I opened for him, fusing our mouths completely together.
Oh God.
Suddenly, the hand holding mine was gone and I was up against his expansive, hard chest. His arm clutched around my waist, holding me close, and the hand originally at my neck was now deep in the hair on the back of my head.
He kissed deeply, far deeper than I’d ever been kissed before. He had the size, he had the strength, and dear baby Jesus, he had the tongue.
My hands clutched at his waist, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted more. I wanted to give as good as I was getting.
His tongue wrapped around mine, and I reached up to delve my hands into his hair, but his hat got in the way. I made a sound, and he ripped his mouth free, only long enough to rip the hat off and throw it away.
Then he was on me again, and I welcomed him.
I didn’t have to bend over to deepen the kiss. I didn’t have to hunch in around him, because he was bigger than me. All I had to do was grip his head and dive in.
What was supposed to be an experiment turned to desperation. The floodgate of feelings suppressed so long was now burst open, and I declared to never go back again.
Holy fuck, I was overwhelmed.
Kissing him was like seeing the ocean for the first time. Meeting something so big it made you feel small. It was like standing beneath a galaxy or being the red “you are here” dot on a map of the world.
It was like finally understanding the answer to an impossible question.
His lips were thick and soft. He used them to completely assault mine while his tongue stroked and fucked the inside of my mouth. His hair was short beneath my palms. I loved the way it felt. Different, but in a good way. Kind of prickly when I rubbed my fingers over the back of his head.
My knees went weak, and I actually (embarrassingly) began to sag toward the floor.
Trent was there. He tightened his grip on my waist, and I discovered I was right. He was a really strong net and with him I would never fall.
Our mouths made a slight gasping sound when we pulled apart. Or maybe that was just the pair of us trying to catch our breath.
Soon as he lifted his head, he spun and walked backward so I was pressed against the wall, so I had somewhere to lean. My chest was still heaving when Trent started to pull back.
“Wait,” I ground out, breathless.
He came back.
“Do it again.” My voice was so raspy I barely recognized it.
His lips, which were actually slick and swollen-looking, tilted up.
He wasn’t gentle or tentative when he came at me this time. This time he approached like the football player he was.
Honestly, it was probably good he’d put me up against the wall, because I’d never been with someone with so much strength before. I wasn’t prepared for the way he was able to bulldoze into me.
Been with someone… Was I with Trent?
The thought was fleeting because this time I was able to feel more than just an overwhelming sense of rightness.
Trent’s entire body rubbed against mine. I shifted, spreading my legs so his thigh could slip between them. His tongue curled around mine at the very same moment I felt his hard-as-steel dick against my hip.
My chest rumbled with pleasure. The sound caused me to still.
Did I just enjoy—no, revel—in the feeling of my best friend’s dick against me?
Trent sensed the change and lifted his head.
He backed up just a fraction, enough so I couldn’t feel his rock-hard erection or the solid wall of his pecs against me.
“Umm, wow,” he said, swiping at his lower lip with his thumb.
The action tightened my stomach and made my own cock twitch.
In the same moment, I had two realizations:
1) Holy shit… I was rocking a raging boner just like him.
and
2) I hadn’t even noticed my own horniness because I’d been so wrapped up in a single kiss.
No kiss had ever—not even for a fraction of a second—made me forget other things (really good things like orgasms) sometimes came with kisses.
We kissed just to try.
To see if maybe there was something more between us than friendship.
We had an answer now. An unequivocal, resounding reply.
There was definitely more between Trent and me than just friendship.
Way, way much more.