Chapter Seven
Two weeks later…
Jesse stood at Hayden’s front door, waiting for Clay’s car to pull up. He’d pestered Benji until he’d gotten the details about Hayden’s flight back home. Any minute, Clay would pull up and Jesse would get answers.
For questions that had kept him up long nights for the past two weeks.
As minutes turned into nearly an hour, he started to worry. Had something happened? Was Hayden not coming home?
Finally, he saw Clay’s car in the distance and let out a shaky breath. He felt his heart quickening in his chest, and knew there was a damned good chance this could all go sideways.
That seemed to be par for the course, as of late.
As soon as Hayden grabbed his bags from the back of Clay’s car, he turned and headed for the front door.
And froze as soon as he laid eyes on Jesse. He was silent as he stared.
Clay got out of the car. “You need me to come in?”
Jesse frowned. What the hell was that about?
“Nah,” Hayden said over one shoulder. “I’m good.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” Hayden answered before turning to Jesse. He marched closer to the door and passed Jesse without a word.
“Hayden?”
“Why are you here?” Hayden asked without turning.
“I have a better question. What the hell’s going on?” Jesse asked, spinning to look at Hayden’s back. He heard Clay’s car backing out of the drive behind them. “You’re angry… you take off for a couple of weeks without a word—besides telling Clay to deliver a message you should have. I thought we were friends? What have I done to piss you off?”
“Nothing,” Hayden said over his shoulder. He unlocked his door and opened it a crack.
His jaw was tensed. He was angry.
Why? “That’s bullshit,” Jesse said.
Hayden spun to face him. “No… it’s not bullshit. I am pissed at you… for doing nothing. Absolutely nothing… but that’s a me thing, not a you thing. I’ll get over it.”
Jesse saw the pain in Hayden’s face, and it nearly broke him inside. Yet it couldn’t stop him from asking a question, one he knew could either escalate the anger… or diffuse it some.
“Who’s the girl you’ve been pining over?”
Hay’s head whipped up. A frown marred his handsome face. “What?”
“Benji and I had a beer the other night… and he told me he gave you some advice for a woman you’d been pining after. You never told me about her… and I thought I was your best friend, so I would’ve known, right? Who is she?”
Hayden stared at him silently.
“Benji told you to take the plunge. Let her know you were interested. So who is she?” Answer me, goddamnit.
“I never told Benji it was a she,” Hayden said, capturing Jesse’s stare.
Jesse drew in a shaky breath.
“But something tells me you can guess who it was… which brings me back to that same question. Why. Are. You. Here?”
Jesse tried to speak, but his throat was too dry. “I—” He swallowed thickly. “I… I don’t… really know.”
Hayden’s lips turned into a grimace. “A whole lot more of the same. Nothing.” He turned back to the door. “Go home.”
“As soon as I left Benji that night… I came right here. You weren’t home.”
Hayden paused at the door, his back to Jesse. He didn’t turn. Didn’t say a word.
“I came here… because I…” Jesse let the words drift off and knew fear was once again silencing him. Say it. Tell him… “Because I’ve been in love with you for years and have kept it bottled deep… I thought it would destroy our friendship if I ever said a word.”
Hayden turned slightly, his stare intent.
“I shoved it so deep that I didn’t know how to let go…”
Hayden dropped his bag at the door and took two steps closer. “How long?”
Jesse shrugged. “I don’t really know… I think it started that night… at the sorority party.” He paused. “That intimacy… I don’t know, maybe it lit a fire inside me. The more I got to know you over that year… it just grew. But I knew you weren’t interested in me, so I hid it. Until hiding became the norm.”
Hayden was silent.
That silence nearly broke him. Jesse was opening himself up… uncorking the bottle…
Had he misread the signs? Fear nearly swallowed him whole right there on the spot. “Aren’t you going to say something?”
“I didn’t understand why I wanted another guy. I wasn’t gay. So I spent the last few years proving to myself that I wasn’t gay. I slept with just about any woman I could get my hands on. The partying just took over my life… I couldn’t do it anymore, Jesse. I couldn’t hide how I felt for you. When I kissed you… and you pushed me away…” He paused, and Jesse could feel the hurt rolling off Hayden in waves. “When you pushed me away, it tore me apart.”
Jesse took a step closer. “I didn’t want to push you away… all these years of hiding how I felt… it just happened. I regretted it as soon as it happened.”
“I chalked the first one up to me being drunk. So I tried again… without the liquid courage. Still… you pushed me away.”
He took another step closer. “I did. And I’m sorry I did.” They stood inches from one another, stares locked. “I won’t pull away again.”
Jesse closed the gap and tentatively pressed his lips to Hayden’s.
Hayden didn’t kiss him back. Didn’t pull away, either. When Jesse leaned back, he searched the man’s face, seeking some kind of response.
He swallowed past the lump in his throat. I’m too late.
Jesse went to take a step back…
But Hayden reached out and grabbed a handful of Jesse’s shirt before dragging him closer. Jesse gasped when Hayden’s lips landed on his, the tickle of that beard scratching his face. Hayden’s hunger was evident. Jesse moaned against the man’s lips, his blood pressure rising.
Hayden lured him in through the door before it was shut behind them. Jesse was slammed against the back of it, a hard body pinning him there. His best friend feasted on his mouth. Jesse was just as hungry for those kisses. He’d waited eight long years…
“I need you,” Hayden whispered against Jesse’s mouth.
Jesse’s only answer was to kiss Hayden back, running his palms against his friend’s muscled chest. He grabbed the bottom of Hayden’s tee and pulled it over the man’s head. They broke the kiss for a few precious seconds and nearly slammed together again in their desire.
Clothing began to fly off, piece by piece, until they were both naked. They hadn’t even made it out of the foyer. Hayden pushed Jesse to the stairs leading up, but he ended up tripping and landing with an oof onto one of the bottom treads. Without missing a beat, Hayden began trailing kisses down Jesse’s neck and chest.
Back arching as he was laid back onto the stairs, Jesse’s head fell back onto another tread. The second he felt a tongue slide along the length of his hard cock, he moaned in anguish.
Eight long years before, he’d watched as Hayden had been blown, wishing it had been him on his knees doing the sucking. Now he was about to be on the receiving end of that same pleasure. Jesse had dreamed of this, but never thought it possible. He looked down his body to where Hayden circled the tip and groaned when it disappeared between two firm lips.
He observed, the sensation so surreal that he wasn’t sure that he wasn’t dreaming. The sight of his cock being drawn into Hayden’s mouth, over and over again, entranced Jesse. His body shook with need, the mounting pressure up his spine pushing him to the edge too quickly.
Jesse bit his tongue between cries of pleasure, trying to ward off the orgasm threatening to crash into him and leave him shattered. Looking away, he couldn’t continue to see the visual before him. It was too overwhelming. The prize he’d denied himself for so long… now that it was in his grasp, it threatened to completely consume him.
On Hayden sucked, drawing Jesse higher and higher. Unable to keep the visual feast from his eyes, he reopened them, breathless with need.
And came on the spot.
The release broke deep and roiled through his body, from the center outward. A cry burst from his lips, years of pent-up need venting for the first time. Wave after wave crashed through him, Hayden suckling all along. He erupted into his friend’s mouth, his body more shaken with each shot of seed from his body.
Gasping for air, he fell back against the steps. His body thrummed with both fatigue and an energy he couldn’t describe. Need still propelled him… he needed to be the one to give Hayden the pleasure he’d longed to give for so long. As Hayden slid his body upward, Jesse turned them and pinned Hayden to the stairs.
“My turn,” he murmured before pressing his lips to Hayden’s.
He could taste his seed on Hayden’s tongue. A moan came to his lips, the flavor on his best friend’s tongue almost more than he could handle. Jesse trailed his kisses down Hayden’s neck… lightly furred chest… and down beside the arrow of hair that led him to his final destination.
Jesse moved between his friend’s legs. He’d never seen another cock besides his own and Hayden’s. Nor did he want to. This thing between them, it crossed boundaries… gender didn’t matter. They were two souls, drawn together, and he would have this man as his own.
He wrapped his hand around the thick base and drew his hand up, learning the feel of Hayden’s cock. It felt much like his own, but there were slight differences. Hayden was a bit thicker… a tiny bit longer. The head was fuller and darker, too.
How’s he taste?
A pearl of fluid escaped the slit on the plump head. Lowering his lips, he then licked the drop of semen, letting it wash over his tongue. It was a bit sweeter than his own salty-sweet seed, and he liked the taste of it. Hungry for more, he lapped at the head, circling it with his tongue.
The moans coming from above hinted he was doing this right. While imagining it over and over in his mind all those years ago, Jesse had never sucked a cock. He could only go by what he knew he liked, hoping it would be enough. From the sounds, it was more than enough.
Hayden threaded his hands through Jesse’s hair and urged him to take more of it down his throat. Jesse attempted a few inches… and then a couple more… until he felt his gag reflex stop him. He moved his hand up to that spot, slipped his head back, and came back down, suckling the shaft.
Jesse felt his body responding to the moans and groans coming from Hayden’s lips. His cock stirred… thickening some, though it hadn’t fully softened after he’d come. Reaching under him, he stroked it with one hand while he sucked Hayden off.
Hayden lowered a hand and began to massage his balls, and then began feeding his cock into Jesse’s mouth. Jesse loved the little hint of aggressive roughness and moaned as Hayden’s hips quickened.
Sensing Hayden was getting closer, Jesse sucked harder… faster… and was soon rewarded when Hayden’s body tensed. A cry tore from his lips, echoing up the stairwell. His body jerked just before the first shot of cum hit the back of Jesse’s throat. Jesse swallowed as much as he could, but the second… and the third shots added to the first. He felt some of it drip from between his lips before he could get it down.
Hayden slowed, gasping for air. Jesse continued to suck… and then licked the remnants of the leftover seed with his tongue before rolling to his back and staring up at the ceiling.
No lights were on, just the sunlight coming in through the narrow window beside the door. All he could hear was his heartbeat racing in his ears and both of their labored breaths.
“We couldn’t even make it to the bed,” Hayden said.
“Didn’t we wait long enough?”
Hayden chuckled before sitting up. “That’s not exactly how I envisioned that happening for the first time.”
Jesse looked up at him. “And just how did you envision it?”
Hayden shrugged. “Hell… I don’t know. Just never thought we’d be so out of our mind we’d fuck on the stairs on the way to my bedroom.”
“That wasn’t exactly fucking,” Jesse said. “That was foreplay.”
Hayden was quiet a moment. “You ever…” His voice trailed off.
“Been with a dude?”
“Yeah,” Hayden whispered.
“No,” Jesse said. “And no to ass play, either.”
“No you haven’t done it or no you don’t want to do it?”
Jesse looked up at Hayden. “No… I haven’t done it. And I really haven’t thought about doing it.”
Hayden trailed the back of his hand against Jesse’s cheek. “I want to be inside you… I want to watch your face as I take you there.”
Jesse held Hayden’s stare and knew in that moment that he wanted that, as well. He nodded, turning his face to press a kiss to Hayden’s hand. Hayden turned it, cupping Jesse’s chin and cheek. He rubbed a thumb over Jesse’s lower lip… and Jesse sucked that thumb into his mouth, still hungry for more.
“We could go to my bedroom… and finish what we started,” Hayden said, his voice deep and low.
A tremor raced up Jesse’s spine. “I thought you’d never ask.”