FOUR

 

 

There had been people who had been interested in him, of course. Ever since he’d become a fairly famous pop star, there had been more people. He’d even, on more than a few occasions, fooled around with Ken, so kissing wasn’t something that was completely new to Darien.

The way he felt when he pushed Noah’s slight body against the elevator wall, though, that was new. The triumphant sensations it gave him when he felt the other man slide his cock over Darien’s thigh, the strange way he felt like he wanted to both ravish this man as well as protect him forever, that was most definitely not something that he’d ever felt before.

The edges and curves of his body seemed to slot perfectly against Noah’s, two pieces of a puzzle, now finally reunited. By the time the elevator door slid open with an almost silent whoosh, Darien was panting, struggling to draw air into his lungs like he’d just run up many flights of steep stairs without a break.

Everyone that he’d been with since coming to California, with the possible exception of Ken, had been interested in him because of his celebrity status. He’d known that the whole time, and while it hadn’t exactly bothered him, he’d always held something of himself back. And with Ken, it had been a relief to get some of that out, but while Ken was his friend, there was something here with Noah that there had never been with Darien’s bandmate.

Without hesitation, Darien wrapped his arm around the sweet curve of Noah’s waist and tugged him out of the elevator and down the hall. If he didn’t get him somewhere private fast, he was going to lose it right out in the hallway, and while he didn’t much care if someone saw them, he didn’t want anyone trying to interrupt.

His hands shook as he slotted the key into his door, and then, finally, blissfully, they were alone together. The door was locked, and Darien had turned his phone to silent. Yes, he’d insisted on taking the day off, but he wasn’t going to risk being called in any way.

Lester tended to take a dim view toward days off, and Darien wouldn’t at all put it past the man to call him in. But he had already been called away from Noah once, and he definitely wasn’t interested in that happening again.

Not when he finally had the other man back. Not when he was hoping against hope that Noah was here in California to stay, that this wasn’t just some sort of booty call. Which made him wonder, what exactly was Noah doing here? He couldn’t figure it out, and of course, he could have done the logical thing and just asked, but he was far too much of a coward for that.

What if Noah told him, and he didn’t like the answer? So he stifled down the words, shoving them deep into the pit of his stomach and locking them there, burying them deep and pushing a rock over top of them to protect them. He had a bad habit of saying what he meant, and in this case, he couldn’t do that.

It could ruin everything.

Anyway, there was no time. No sooner was Darien’s phone off than Noah was on him. The other man was small, but surprisingly strong, pushing Darien’s larger frame against the wall and holding him there as he stretched up and kissed Darien. Of course, part of the ease with which Noah managed that might have been because Darien didn’t want to get away.

Darien had been trying to hold back, at least a little, but when Noah’s hands pushed up under his shirt, when they caressed the flat, smooth skin of Darien’s stomach, he lost it. Fire raced through his veins, arousing him as no one else ever had, making his dick pulse with the rapid beating of his heart.

Darien’s shirt came off first, and the weirdest thing about all of this was how it wasn’t weird at all. To have Noah stripping him seemed like the most natural thing in the world, as natural as drawing in one breath after the other. And as those breaths followed each other, it seemed just as easy to reach for the waistband of Noah’s jeans and to pluck open the button there. In one smooth motion he had Noah’s pants down, and only then, with both of them half naked, did they take a moment to just look at each other.

Noah was always achingly beautiful, with those big dark blue eyes and the pale skin. He made Darien not only want him like crazy but also want to be around him, to protect him. Not that Noah was weak. Not that he needed protecting. But he roused that desire in Darien anyway.

Slowly, with reverence, Darien reached out and tugged Noah’s shirt over his head. Underneath, the other man was just as slender as he would have imagined, so tiny, but what he hadn’t expected was the muscle tone. All of a sudden, the deceptive strength in Noah’s arms as he’d pushed Darien against the wall made sense.

Noah hadn’t looked like that before, Darien could swear to it. He’d changed in the year they’d spent apart, but the question was, just how much? He still seemed like Darien’s own Noah, his best friend from pretty much the first moment they’d met and realized how much they had in common.

Slowly, Darien brushed his fingers over Noah’s smooth, pale skin, finding a sweet little pink nipple and teasing it into hardness. Noah hissed, his body tensing, and let out the most gorgeous, sexually charged moan, the most erotic sound that Darien had ever heard from him.

As he touched, stroked, explored over lovely, flawless skin, Darien felt Noah’s fingers at his waist, felt the light, deft touch of fingers releasing his jeans and the slither of the thick fabric down onto the floor. They were both there, in nothing but socks and underwear, and Darien had never ached like this before.

This was sex, lust, raw and urgent, and whatever else it was, Darien couldn’t resist it. Any of it. He looked at Noah, trapped between him and the wall, their lips meeting over and over again in a series of desperate kisses, like neither of them could get enough, like they both wanted to recreate the feeling of their lips coming together for the first time.

As the heat built, Noah put his hands on Darien, too, stroking over his stomach, his chest, teasing his nipples in return. But soon, it wasn’t enough. Not for Darien, and not, he thought, for Noah, who was squirming against him with impatience in his touch and echoed in his eyes.

Reaching around, Darien let the full, round globes of Noah’s ass fill his hands, squeezing him, pulling him closer. Even the thin layer of their underwear, which was all that separated them, felt like too much for him, and soft, hoarse little groans and whimpers kept coming out of his mouth as he strained to get closer.

It was too much. It was all too much. The way that his dick throbbed, he was going to shoot off right in his pants, and while it would be incredibly hot to come while he was pinned against the wall by the man who was still, and always would be, his best friend, it wasn’t what he wanted.

“Bed,” he hissed, surprised by how soft and low and urgent the one word came out. At the very least, if he had to explode all over Noah, he wanted it to be lying together, completely bare, and as he made his demand, his fingers settled into the waistband of Noah’s underwear and tugged them down. “Now.”

Noah nodded, his skin flushed the most delicate, exquisite pink, way up high on his cheekbones. As hard as it was to believe, Noah was just as desperate for Darien as Darien was for Noah, and that was clear in that rosy flush on his skin, and in the way his eyes darkened into a deep, dark, rich blue-black.

Letting him free, Noah stepped back, but he took Darien’s hand. At first, Darien didn’t get why, but then he realized. Noah was just as unwilling to have this stop as Darien himself was, and that was deeply comforting to him.

Hand in hand, they went to the bed, and by the time they were there, they’d shed all of the rest of their clothes. Had they ever been fully naked around each other before? Darien searched his mind, but no matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t remember a time.

Regardless, he’d never watched before, and he’d certainly never been allowed to touch. He was utterly fascinated by everything about the other man as they pulled each other down onto the bed, their legs tangling, their dicks rutting together slick with precome as they touched and groped each other.

Their lips met, their tongues clashing and stroking, their hands tight on each other’s asses as they rutted together like animals. It was like, in the years that they’d known each other, they’d always been meant to do this, but they’d held themselves back. Like this was the first time that they’d given themselves, and each other, the permission to do what was inevitable.

Or maybe that was a dangerous way to think. It was hard to think about anything at all through the rising waves of the release which threatened to overwhelm Darien and pull him under at any time. He was shaking already, having been ready to come, it felt like, from the very moment that he’d pulled Noah into his arms at the airport.

It could have been humiliating. Some men would have made fun of him for it, but not Noah. No, Noah was too busy fighting off his own orgasm, if his incredibly sexy little noises and the strain on his face were to be believed.

That knowledge helped. Darien wanted to do everything with Noah, but he knew there was no way that his body would allow that to happen. So he just relaxed into it, into the movements of their hips together, the intoxicating way that their cocks slid and rubbed together. And when it happened, when the pleasure overwhelmed him, he let it build and let his muscles tense up as the most pure pleasure that he’d ever felt radiated through him and he spilled against Noah’s smooth body.

He let himself come, and he tried to have faith that this would happen again. That he had time for there to be more, that no matter why Noah was here, he wouldn’t just disappear into thin air once they’d both come once.

He had to believe that, or he would have had to keep fighting his own body until he just couldn’t anymore. He would rather never come at all than lose Noah forever.

Noah was right there with him, and the other young man tensed up, slender body writhing and pulsing against Darien’s. He felt a hot gush of fluid, Noah’s come, over his own hips, and it mingled with his own fluids on their bodies. For one brief moment, it was like they had become one person, like he and Noah were really together, like Darien had gone back into time and fixed what he’d broken by leaving in the first place.

“Noah,” he whispered, pulling back to look into Noah’s eyes. The other man was shaking, but that was okay, because Darien was, too. Nothing he’d ever done before had been anything near as intense as that. It all felt, in comparison, like play, fun and pleasant but nothing more.

That was all he said, just Noah’s name, but for a split second, he felt hope as he saw a flare in Noah’s eyes, like he somehow understood. It was too much to hope for, and yet, Darien hoped anyway.

For a long, flawless moment, neither of them moved at all. They just stayed there, staring into each other’s eyes, and it was enough. Maybe it wouldn’t be enough tomorrow. Maybe it wouldn’t be enough in five minutes. But for the moment, Darien let himself relax into it, let the warm glow of satisfied pleasure sink through him, grounding him and binding him ever more firmly to the other man.

There was so much he wanted to say. That he should never have left, for instance. That he wanted Noah to stay. That he wanted to give this thing between them a try like he should have done ages ago.

For the moment, though, there was surely no urgency about it? Anyway, it was nothing but the heat of the moment. Darien didn’t want anything serious. Sex, yes, that he wanted, but not intimacy. Not a relationship, no matter what he sometimes thought and felt.

He closed his eyes and breathed Noah’s musky scent in, smelling the sharpness of his sweat and the tang of their combined fluids on his body.

There was no rush, he told himself, and for a moment, he even believed it.