Jesse was on his feet then, making an after you gesture.
There was a murmur from a group farther down the counter. Hunter had grown familiar with that kind of murmur. Someone had recognized Jesse.
Jesse repeated his oddly chivalrous gesture—he clearly wanted Hunter to precede him out of the restaurant, but then he added a hurry up flourish to it, and as someone said, “Is that Jesse Jamison?” Hunter got his ass in gear.
He didn’t want to be reminded of who Jesse was. What Jesse was. He didn’t want reality right now.
Neither, apparently, did Jesse, because as he held the door for Hunter, he pressed his hand into Hunter’s back, applying enough pressure to make his point.
Hunter hoofed it out into the—
“Rain?”
It was pouring.
“Shit.” Jesse looked at the sky and then over his shoulder, as if he were expecting pursuers.
Hunter pulled him back under the awning. “Stay here.” He moved into his usual protective mode, stepping to the curb and looking both ways. He needed to get Jesse into a cab, but the street was deserted. The heavy rain had sent anyone with a brain scurrying indoors.
Suddenly Jesse was behind him, pressing on his back again.
Hunter turned. A pair of teenaged girls pushed through the door of the restaurant, Jesse clearly in their sights.
Jesse leaned over and whispered in Hunter’s ear, “I’ll buy you a new tux.” Then he grabbed Hunter’s hand, and they ran.
“Ahhh!” Hunter shouted, a cross between delight and dismay as they stepped off the curb and into a street awash in ankle-deep water the storm sewers couldn’t swallow fast enough.
Jesse whooped, no dismay in his tone, just delight.
They ran. They ran and ran, laughing and panting and holding hands.
The rain soaked through the light wool of Hunter’s suit. It squished in his shoes as he tried and failed to leap over puddles. It ran in rivulets down his face. It plastered his hair to his head.
It all should have been uncomfortable.
Instead, on this magically reversed night when the laws of nature—and relationships—seemed to be suspended, it felt like the rain was powering them. Imbuing them with the stamina to keep running indefinitely.
They had long since escaped the girls, but they just kept running along empty, slick streets.
And then, out of nowhere, a flash of lightning lit up the world with a blinding, eerie light. A deafening crack of thunder threatened to rip the sky in half.
In that instant, it seemed like anything was possible. Like the rules hadn’t merely been suspended; they’d been transformed. Like Jesse and Hunter had been transformed, made into something new and unnameable, like Frankenstein’s monster brought to life with a jolt of supernatural electricity.
Jesse must have felt it too, because he stopped running and, panting and grinning like his face was going to crack, repeated the same gesture he’d used to get Hunter onto the dance floor earlier, extending his arm fully, like they were a ballroom dancing pair, then reeling him in. On the dance floor at the gala, the gesture had been formal, graceful, a parody of courtliness. This time it was abrupt, inexpert. Jesse’s back hit the brick wall of a building as Hunter hurtled toward him, unable to gain purchase on the slippery pavement to slow himself down.
“Ooof,” Jesse huffed, grinning as their torsos collided.
The impact knocked the wind out of Hunter. He panted, trying to get a decent breath in as he grinned stupidly back at Jesse.
The sky ignited again.
Lit up his best friend, the man who meant more to him than anyone.
Lit up Hunter too, somewhere deep inside him, under his skin, which started to prickle, like there was a layer of buzzing, gentle electricity just beneath it, animating him.
Which perhaps explained why, once their chests collided, he hadn’t put his hands out to stop his continued forward motion.
Why he’d let their noses collide too.
That saying: his heart was in his throat? It wasn’t enough. Hunter felt his pulse everywhere—in his throat, in his chest, in his temples, under every inch of skin, inside his very brain, beating a kettledrum. If he stood there any longer, he feared it might beat itself outside of his skin. That his body would turn itself inside out. That all the soft, damageable stuff on the inside would be exposed to the storm—and to the man at the eye of it.
He rested his hands lightly on Jesse’s throat. There, too, was a drum. Together, they made an entire percussion section.
Jesse hissed at the contact, which made Hunter realize his hands were freezing. Jesse’s neck was hot. He started to pull his hands away, but Jesse grabbed them, covered them with his own, slid all four hands down until they were resting at the center of this chest—over his heart, the source of the drumming.
The source of so much else: amazing music, incredible acts of kindness.
Another flash of lightning and crack of thunder.
And people. People right there.
The drumming kicked up a notch thanks to the added infusion of panic.
Had they recognized Jesse? No, they were merely regular passersby, talking and laughing under umbrellas.
But their presence galvanized Jesse. He let go of Hunter, stepped away from the wall, and started jogging again. “We’ll never find a cab,” he said over his shoulder.
Hunter followed. What else could he do? The world was drenched. It was upside-down. And anyway, in the regular world, he would follow Jesse Jamison just about anywhere. In this one, there were no qualifications, no “just abouts.”
“Don’t talk,” Jesse murmured as Hunter caught up with him, so they were running side by side. “Don’t talk.”
Hunter was down with that plan. Jesse didn’t even know how down with it he was, on this through-the-looking-glass night. So he grinned, stuck his steamed-up glasses in his pocket, shook his drenched head like a dog, and kept running.
They quickly covered the half block remaining on the major road they’d been on and turned the corner to the smaller street that would take them to Jesse’s house. It seemed impossible that the giddy momentum that had powered them out of the restaurant, down the street, and into each other’s arms would continue, but it didn’t falter.
A few minutes later, they ran up Jesse’s front walk, the right-angle turn in dress shoes on wet pavement making them both start to lose their footing.
“Ahhh!” Jesse half laughed, half shouted as he pivoted and tried to stabilize Hunter, but they were both still moving forward in space, the force of their running too powerful to allow them to come to an orderly halt.
Hunter tried to stop sliding forward, but the flagstone of the walk might as well have been ice. Pitching forward, he crashed into Jesse’s chest, knocking him onto his ass about halfway up the short flight of stairs to the porch.
“Ooof,” Jesse grunted at the same time Hunter tried to apologize.
There was no room for him to get the words out, though, around Jesse’s tongue.
Upside-down. Through the looking glass.
Jesse’s tongue was in Hunter’s mouth. His arms were banded around Hunter’s torso, pulling him in tight, like he was afraid Hunter would float away otherwise, when in fact Hunter was made heavy by his soaking clothes and the weight of his want. His cock was hard and so was Jesse’s, and they were pressed against each other and it was astonishing.
It wasn’t like last time, which was funny, because last time, Hunter had been surprised by how not-proper, how not-polite Jesse’s kiss had seemed.
He hadn’t known. He hadn’t known what it was like to be devoured by Jesse Jamison.
There were lips and teeth and tongue everywhere, a dirty, reckless kiss like it was the last night of the world. Like apocalyptic rains had arrived to sweep them away, and they were going to go down fighting.
Jesse worked Hunter’s mouth endlessly, sweeping his tongue deep inside again and again. At some point, he must have become satisfied that Hunt
er wasn’t going to bolt, because his arms left Hunter. Hunter felt the loss. It was like being un-hugged. Being granted a freedom he didn’t want. Freedom would allow space for second thoughts. It would end this kiss, which, at all costs, must not end. A moan of protest ripped from his chest, surprising him with both its volume and its neediness.
But it was okay, because it turned out the hands were merely moving. They came to rest on the sides of Hunter’s face, and an image slammed into his brain, arising through the fog of lust like a TV turned from static to a perfect high-definition image.
“That picture,” he mumbled, pulling away enough that he could speak but still touching Jesse’s face with his mouth, letting his lips move against Jesse’s skin as they formed the words. “That picture from that gossip website.”
“Don’t talk.” Jesse’s hands slid back down to where they’d been before, but they hugged Hunter tighter this time.
He didn’t want to, understood how talking too much might puncture the fragile casing of this upside-down night. But he had to know. There was one question he needed answered before he could be silent.
“That person you were kissing.” He dragged his mouth along Jesse’s throat as he talked, relishing the way Jesse writhed beneath him like he simultaneously couldn’t stand it and wanted more. Hunter bared his teeth and let them graze against Jesse’s stubble, let the scraping sound of bone on flesh roar in his ears. “That picture you showed me on the train.”
“Shut up,” Jesse growled, hitching one leg around Hunter’s waist as his restless, indecisive hands made their way back to Hunter’s head and tilted it up, putting them nose to nose for a moment before he plunged his tongue back into Hunter’s mouth.
Or tried to. Hunter was stronger than Jesse, when it came down to it. “I will,” he said, pulling against Jesse’s grip with his upper body at the same time he ground their hips together, a carnal guarantee to back up his vow. “I will shut up, but I have to know one thing first. That person you were kissing in that picture. That wasn’t a woman, was it?”
The question stopped Jesse. His entire body halted, like in the games of freeze tag he and Beth and the neighborhood kids used to play.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true.
There was still the relentless pounding of his heart, the battle drum that had been the visceral soundtrack to this night.
This could go so many ways.
The answer to Hunter’s question could kick off a discussion that never ended. That derailed everything happening here. A discussion he wasn’t ready to have right now.
A discussion that could ruin his career.
But a lie wasn’t possible. Not to Hunter. Not now.
So he told the truth, as succinctly as he could. “No. It wasn’t a woman.”
Hunter immediately lowered his mouth back to Jesse’s, so the answer must have been enough. Enough to keep this going, anyway.
And, what, Jesse asked himself with his final grasp on rationality, was this?
Hunter’s hands came to Jesse’s face in an echo of their previous position. They were cold, objectively, but he felt them like brands. Like tomorrow he would have a mark on him. Hunter’s mark.
But they weren’t painful brands. They were like putting the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle in, like wiping a foggy mirror. They were a relief. Such a tremendous fucking relief.
He would do anything to get more of that relief. To keep it flowing. Which was why he’d told Hunter to shut up earlier. Why he’d tried to make him shut up.
Another flash of lightning—this one at the same time as the clap of thunder. The storm wasn’t close anymore; it was upon them.
Hell, maybe it was in them.
“Inside,” he growled, pressing against the weight of Hunter along his body. As soon as they were upright, he tugged Hunter up the steps to the porch, then let himself be pressed against his own front door from behind. Let his hair be lifted off his neck as he struggled with his key. Shuddered when a hot mouth came down on his wet neck.
When he finally managed to open the door, they stumbled inside, clumsy as their combined weight suddenly had nothing bracing it.
Jesse turned the tables, shoving Hunter against the inside of the door, but not before he slid his hands inside Hunter’s sodden suit coat and pushed it down his arms.
Hunter repeated the action with Jesse.
Like a chess game, it was Jesse’s move. Hunter was wearing a vest rather than a cummerbund, and Jesse snarled his frustration even as he set to work on the buttons.
Hunter let his head loll back against the door. It might have been a gesture of solidarity, an expression of his own frustration. It might have been an exhortation.
Jesse chose to take it as the latter, and put his mouth on Hunter’s throat, alternately abrading and soothing it with teeth and lips as he worked on the buttons. Hunter smelled spicy, like cloves.
When Hunter was free of the vest, there was, of course, the shirt. The fucking shirt.
Jesse hated suits.
Hunter shocked him then by reaching up, undoing his own tie—Jesse had long since stashed his own in his pocket—and sliding a hand in above the top button of his shirt and yanking.
Jesse gasped as the top two buttons popped off. One of them pinged against the wall. The image of Hunter, of proper, dapper Hunter, who had remained flawlessly attired all evening, literally ripping his own clothes off . . .
Fuck.
Jesse finished the job for him, ripping open the shirt and sending the rest of the buttons flying. Then he repeated his earlier gesture, sliding the shirt off Hunter’s arms to join the jacket on the floor.
He’d seen Hunter’s chest before, of course, every time they’d been at the cottage as well as that time Hunter had saved them from Russell by pretending to be getting into it with Jesse. But he’d never seen it heaving like this. Jesse reached around Hunter and flipped on the entryway light because, suddenly, he needed to see. Needed to fill the space with light.
Yes. He’d never seen that chest accompanied by the hunger in those eyes. Flashing like the fucking pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Hunter lunged at Jesse, and time was looping in on itself, because once again, they were stumbling forward together. Once again, they were stymied by a flight of stairs, this time the one to Jesse’s second floor. Once again, Jesse was on his back, sprawled out over the stairs. He tilted his head up, lifting his face for more kisses. Without the rain cramping their style, Jesse was pretty sure he could kiss Hunter forever.
But then the time loop got unstuck and lurched forward: Hunter undid Jesse’s pants, shoved them down along with his boxers.
There was a momentary pause as they stared at each other, panting. Less than a second. Long enough for Hunter to let loose a predatory growl.
Jesse closed his eyes against the golden, glowing beauty in front of him. He needed a break, just a tiny one.
“Is this okay?” Hunter whispered. Jesse nodded, knowing what Hunter was asking even with his eyes closed.
They flew open when Hunter took Jesse’s cock into his mouth.
“Oh my God,” Jesse bit out, his hands flying up into the air like he was in a gospel choir, as an electric sensation shot through him. His whole body was a live wire, conducting a current that came from Hunter.
He left his hands up there, reaching for the heavens, not knowing what to do with them.
He wanted to bring them down on Hunter’s head. To anchor it while he thrust into Hunter’s mouth.
But he couldn’t do that. This wasn’t some slutty hookup, some guy he would never see again and could use accordingly.
This was his best friend.
No. He couldn’t think that way. If he thought too much about that, he would stop. And he couldn’t stop. He needed this. This relief.
So he let his hands settle lightly in Hunter’s hair, his strangely beautiful gray hair. He didn’t press against Hunter’s head like he wanted to, though. He held himself back.
&nbs
p; Hunter moaned and took Jesse in deeper, almost to the root—almost as if Jesse had exerted pressure on his head. Did he want Jesse to?
Fuck. He didn’t know how to do this. How to read signs. How to take what he wanted without taking too much.
How to give something back.
He let the pads of his fingers press against Hunter’s scalp, let them massage it a little. He was rewarded with another moan. Another deep stroke that felt so fucking amazing his vision blurred.
Hunter rearranged his body to free his hands. He’d been kneeling a few steps below Jesse, using his hands on the step below Jesse to brace himself, but now he settled his hands on the fronts of Jesse’s thighs, even as he kept working Jesse’s cock with his mouth.
Jesse’s quads flexed of their own volition, almost like they were straining up to meet Hunter’s touch. Pressure gathered at the base of his spine.
Hunter kept sucking, humming his desire as he bobbed up and down on Jesse’s dick—his dick that had never been harder. It was different with a guy. It just was.
Or maybe it was different with Hunter.
Jesse let his head fall back on the step behind him. It was the same impulse as before, the sense that if he didn’t take a small break from watching, he might die. Or cry. Or something.
And, as before, his moment of visual inattention was rewarded. Or maybe punished? He had no idea—maybe it was both at the same time.
Hunter’s hands slid around the sides of Jesse’s hips. Tapped them. They wanted Jesse’s ass, access to which was obscured by the step he was sitting on.
He lifted his hips obediently. Right now, in this crazy moment, Hunter fucking owned him.
Hunter levered his hands between Jesse and the step he was sitting on, grabbed an ass cheek with each hand and, manually thrusting Jesse’s pelvis forward, pulled Jesse even deeper into his mouth. He’d made a vice, trapping Hunter between his face and his hands, and Jesse hadn’t known. He’d had no idea that—
“Oh fuck,” Jesse bit out, taking the gesture as permission to thrust a little, and— “Oh my God, oh fuck, Hunter.”
Then, God help him, a finger started circling his hole. He had to bite back a scream. He didn’t know whether to continue bucking forward into Hunter’s mouth or back onto Hunter’s finger. The urges were equally strong.
Infamous Page 15
