The finger didn’t breach him, just stroked along the edges. “Holy fuck.”
He wanted more. He wanted— Too late. He was coming, a pleasure so intense it was almost painful washing over him.
He would have pulled out if he’d had any warning, but the orgasm—both its arrival and its force—shocked him. He still tried to, but Hunter held on as best he could. The result was that Hunter partially swallowed, but the rest ended up on his face.
Jesus Christ. Jesse never would have done that on purpose. Wouldn’t have dreamed of such presumption, but the sight of Hunter, the fucking sight of him, face flushed, lips swollen, gold eyes incandescent, with Jesse’s come on his face . . . Jesse’s throat tightened. That sense he’d had before that he might cry returned.
But there was a stronger pull at work, something that underlaid the urge to cry, and he needed to focus on that. Not only because he didn’t want to cry, but because this was Hunter, who deserved everything. Jesse couldn’t manage everything, not even close, but he could do this.
“Get up,” he said gruffly.
Too gruffly, maybe, because those beautiful eyes, which had been burning with desire, suddenly widened in shock and . . . hurt?
He softened his tone and tried again. “Get up.” A slow smile spread across his face. “And take your pants off.” He pushed gently against Hunter’s shoulders as he spoke. “We’re going upstairs.”
With Hunter off him enough that he could stand, he hiked his pants up, turned, and started up the stairs, trusting Hunter would follow.
Please let Hunter follow. Please don’t let reality come crashing in yet.
He wanted to return the favor. Needed to return the favor. Even though he had no fucking idea what he was doing.
“Why am I taking my pants off while you appear to be putting yours back on?”
Jesse cracked up. “It’s merely a temporary measure. I can’t walk with them halfway down my legs.”
Thank God his explanation worked. Reality was not yet going to intrude: Hunter was taking his pants off, and, for now at least, all was right with the world.
Hunter couldn’t get over Jesse’s cock.
It was big and pink and uncut and . . . glorious.
He was fixated.
Generally, just as Hunter didn’t really have a type, he didn’t care that much about the particulars of dicks. Cut, uncut, large, not-so-large, whatever. He liked them all. He wasn’t picky.
Or at least he’d thought he wasn’t.
But, God, once he’d clapped eyes on Jesse’s, which seemed so . . . perfectly Jesse—which was dumb, but it was how he felt—he’d needed it in his mouth. He’d needed it as deeply in his mouth—his throat—as was physically possible.
The ridiculous thing was he hadn’t even been thinking that much about Jesse.
Well, that wasn’t true. He’d been surrounded by Jesse. His smell, mixed with the smell of the rain they’d brought in with them from outside. The still-astonishing vision of him walking forward at the gala, forcefully bidding on Hunter at the action. Hunter even heard little snippets of Jesse’s music, for God’s sake, a tape playing on a loop in his head.
His senses were infused with Jesse.
So it wasn’t correct to say he hadn’t been thinking about Jesse. It was more that he hadn’t been thinking about Jesse’s pleasure.
Selfish fool that he was, he’d only been thinking of his own.
About getting more of that Jesse-ness that was all around him.
And since he couldn’t climb inside Jesse, that had apparently translated into trying to swallow his dick.
“Ha!” The syllable exploded out of him, half amusement, half genuine joy.
“Are you coming, you nutbar?”
Jesse was already at the top of the stairs. Maybe even in his bedroom. Hunter could hear him but no longer see him, and that was, suddenly and decidedly, unacceptable.
Kicking off the second leg of his pants, Hunter hightailed it up the stairs. Probably to his doom, but the prospect of doom wasn’t as strong as the still-ubiquitous sense of Jesse-ness that permeated the space around him. Permeated him.
He could not let that fade.
He took a deep breath at the doorway to Jesse’s room, steeling himself on the threshold, though for what, he wasn’t sure. Rejection? The best sex of his life? Either seemed equally likely.
What he saw made him laugh again. “You did take your pants back off.” And the fact that you did so is unexpectedly, utterly delightful.
“Of course I did.” Jesse heaved himself backward onto his bed. “Though I don’t need them off for what’s going to happen next.” He beckoned Hunter, and God, lounging there with his muscles and his tattoos and his long hair, he should have been a painting.
“What’s going to happen next?” Hunter’s dick led the way as he obeyed Jesse’s summons.
When he reached the bed, Jesse rose onto his knees, walked on them to the edge, grabbed Hunter, and fell back, pulling Hunter down on top of him. Then he flipped them, using the weight of his body to pin Hunter to the bed.
“What’s happening next is I am going to attempt to blow you.” Jesse moved down Hunter’s torso as he spoke.
“‘Attempt’?” Hunter chuckled and reached down to tuck a loose strand of Jesse’s hair behind his ear. Jesse made it sound like it was an exam rather than a blowjob.
“Well, I’m going to blow you. I just might not be any good at it. I’ve never done it before.”
What? “Hang on a sec. I thought—”
Jesse stuck out his tongue and licked from the base of Hunter’s dick to the tip in one long, firm, wet stroke.
Oh my God. “Jesse, you don’t have to—”
The tongue started at the tip this time, swirling around the head. Then it zoomed all the way back down and kept going. “I want to,” Jesse whispered, just before he started lapping at Hunter’s balls.
“Ahhh,” Hunter moaned, trying again to find words that would make sense of the situation. It was harder this time—what he wanted to say had receded from his reach. “Jesse.”
“How about you stop talking, Doc?” Jesse said, right before he took Hunter’s cock into his mouth.
It worked. There were no more words. Speech was no longer possible.
Jesse Jamison was sucking his dick.
His beautiful, talented friend. The man among men.
Hunter lay back on the bed, propping himself up on his elbows so he could see, and surrendered.
Jesse wasn’t taking Hunter very deeply. Was holding on to the base of Hunter’s cock with a fist and moving his mouth up and down a few inches. But his mouth was hot, and, as he applied suction, so deliciously, perfectly tight.
His hair had fallen over his face, though, making a curtain that separated him from Hunter.
“Move your hair,” Hunter said, the command coming out gruffer than he’d intended.
Jesse paused, mouth near the head of Hunter’s dick, and Hunter entertained a momentary, panicked thought that he might stop. That couldn’t happen.
“I want to see you,” he explained, allowing himself to thrust his hips forward slightly, enough to communicate that he didn’t want them to break contact. It was why he had tucked the hair behind Jesse’s ear earlier. “If you’re going to do this, I want to see you.” I want to memorize you.
Jesse used his free hand to pull his hair back. He looked up at Hunter, a question in his eyes, even as he kept sucking.
“Yes.” Hunter stroked one of Jesse’s hollowed-out cheeks. “Exactly like that.”
“Mmm.” The smile in Jesse’s eyes as he hummed around Hunter’s dick just about did him in. Hunter bore down, trying to slow the oncoming train.
This is Jesse, his mind kept chanting. Jesse. Jesse is sucking you off.
And now he could see it all perfectly.
And Jesse could see him. They maintained eye contact as Jesse kept working Hunter’s dick, his cheeks hollow and his eyes wide, and—
“Oh
God! I’m not going to last,” Hunter bit out, shoving Jesse off him. Jesse didn’t need a mouthful of come his first time.
His orgasm shot through him. Jesse replaced his mouth with his hand and jacked Hunter as he shouted and came, his hips jerking manically as light exploded all around him like the lightning outside.
It took a while to come back to himself, but once he did, he found his voice. His words. His question. It was right there on his lips, demanding to be asked.
“You’ve never done that before? I thought the guy in the picture . . .”
But the picture had been of a kiss. Shit. He had sort of assumed, once things had . . . started happening between them, that Jesse had some experience with guys that he’d been keeping secret. And, damn, he would have done things differently before, on the stairs, if he’d known. Been gentler. “You’ve never been with a guy before?”
“I’ve been with a few guys.” Jesse heaved himself up and turned over onto his back, lying next to Hunter so they were both looking up at the ceiling. “Years ago. When the opportunity presented itself. It’s just that it’s always been my dick in their mouth and never vice versa.”
Hunter barked a laugh. Of course it had. Jesse the rock star was nothing if not consistent. When the world was salivating over your dick, there was no need to return the favor, right?
He wanted to ask a million more questions, starting with Who were those guys? Did anything happen besides blowjobs? And, most importantly, What the hell?
Why hadn’t Jesse ever told Hunter any of this?
Also: What’s going to happen now?
With that last question, fear started to curl around the edges of his mind.
He moved onto his side, propping his head on his hand.
Jesse turned his head, made quick eye contact, and then looked back at the ceiling. “Don’t ask me the questions.”
Hunter decided to play dumb, decided to pretend Jesse couldn’t read his mind. “What questions?”
“The millions of questions swirling around your head right now.”
Damn. How did he do that?
“I know you deserve answers, but can we just . . . not? Not right now? Can I just have my date night and . . .” He trailed off, rolling his eyes in self-disgust.
“I was only going to ask about your tattoos,” Hunter lied.
That drew Jesse’s attention, and his head swiveled over once more. “What about them?”
“Can I look at them?” Hunter could see Jesse starting to protest. “Really look at them,” he added, because he knew Jesse was going to say that Hunter had already seen them.
Jesse seemed startled, but he nodded.
Hunter sat up. He needed answers to the real questions, but for now, he’d surf right over those waves of panic and do what he’d wanted to do since that first day at the lake. He kneeled over Jesse’s chest.
There was so much to see. Jesse’s chest and arms were covered with a swirling mixture of words and foliage and flowers.
He let his hand trail over one shoulder, leaning closer to read some words there. “These are song lyrics?”
“Yes,” Jesse said, his voice solemn, low. He stared at Hunter, saying nothing more as Hunter used his hands to guide his gaze, sweeping methodically over Jesse’s skin so he wouldn’t miss anything.
He recognized snippets from Jesse’s songs as well as some unfamiliar phrases.
“You don’t have any tattoos, do you?” Jesse asked.
“No.”
Jesse nodded as if that was the answer he’d expected. “It offends your sense of order.”
That was . . . exactly right. Hunter had never thought about it like that, but it was true. Covering his body with ink was so far from being something Hunter could imagine doing. It was part of why he was compelled by Jesse’s tapestry.
“What’s this?” Hunter moved down to the top of Jesse’s rib cage, just below his pecs, tracing the word Imagine.
“John Lennon,” Jesse said.
“Ah.”
Jesse shifted then, like he wanted to wiggle free.
Hunter wasn’t done—he wasn’t remotely done—but what could he do? He could hardly pin Jesse here, hold him against his will.
Jesse rolled over. “I’ve got a new one.”
Hunter let his gaze fall to the lone tattoo on Jesse’s back. More words, tattooed over his shoulder blade: I’ll set down my burden. They were flanked by an old-fashioned curtain, the red velvet kind seen in old-school theaters.
Hunter gasped. “‘I’ll set down my burden and draw back the curtain,’” he said, recognizing the graphical representation of a line from “When You’re Mine.” He traced the image with his fingertips.
“Yes,” Jesse said quietly.
Hunter loved “When You’re Mine,” and it was a bit of a shock to realize Jesse had tattooed it on himself. It must be hugely significant for Jesse too, to have earned a permanent place on his body.
The song was about unrequited love. It started out mournful and slow, the narrator singing about wanting someone he couldn’t have, but then it became more up-tempo as the narrator imagined an alternative world where his love was returned, gradually building momentum until a triumphant bridge. But then it ended with a final verse, apart from the others, where the singer remembered that it was all just a fantasy. It was a great song, so infectious but then so unexpectedly gutting at the end.
Hunter lowered his hands. He wasn’t going to press for answers to his questions this evening, but he was going to seize the opportunity to touch Jesse, knowing it might be his last. “This is my favorite song from the new album. My favorite of all your songs, actually.”
Jesse shivered under his hand and, looking over his shoulder, found Hunter’s gaze. “Is it?”
“Yes. It’s like . . . a happy song and a sad song rolled into one.” That sounded dumb, didn’t it?
Jesse nodded, though, like he wasn’t surprised by Hunter’s interpretation. “We’re going to start filming a video for it as soon as we come off the tour.”
Something about Jesse’s tone seemed off, like he disapproved of this turn of events.
“But you don’t want to?”
“I do. I just don’t like the concept the director is pitching.”
“Which is?”
“Your basic thwarted love narrative. I play my guitar by a rainy window and look plaintive.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad. It basically is a thwarted love narrative, no?”
Jesse, who’d been craning his neck to look at Hunter, sighed and stopped craning, which left him gazing to the side of the room. “They want Kylie to play the love interest. Matty approached her without asking me. She’s agreed.”
Hunter lifted his hands from Jesse’s back. Kylie was a reminder that they didn’t belong there.
“It will stir up rumors of a reconciliation,” Jesse said, his voice flat, like he was reciting lines in a play he didn’t particularly want to be in. “Draw lots of media attention to the video that it wouldn’t otherwise get.” He scoffed. “Or so they say.”
Hunter couldn’t argue with the theory. Sticking Kylie Cameron in a Jesse and the Joyride video would have the tabloids frothing at the mouth. “Who are they?”
“Matty. Peter, our A&R rep at the label. The guys. Everyone. But mostly Matty, the brains of the operation.”
Hunter didn’t generally have any problem with being naked. He wasn’t modest that way. But, suddenly, he needed clothes. He slid off the bed and moved to the door, intending to head to the guest room, where he’d been staying while Jesse was away, to find his pajamas.
“This is the part where I’m supposed to say I’m sorry, right?” Jesse said.
Hunter turned, his hand still on the doorknob. Jesse had flipped over and was lounging back against the headboard, seemingly unselfconscious about his nudity.
Hunter sighed. “No, I’m sorry. If I’d known that you hadn’t . . .”
He didn’t know how to finish the sentence. He could h
ardly say, If I’d known that your experience with guys was limited to a few illicit liaisons, I wouldn’t have swallowed your dick and almost stuck my finger in your ass. God. A few hours ago, he’d been operating under the assumption that Jesse was straight. Then that assumption had been upended—dramatically and suddenly. But only temporarily, it seemed, because then Jesse had said he’d only fooled around with guys when the “opportunity presented itself.”
God. His mind was spinning.
“Well, I’m not sorry.”
Hunter gasped. He actually gasped. The sentence had been delivered with such vehemence, such feeling, it took his breath away.
He met Jesse’s eyes. They glittered. Burned. Like they were daring him to object.
“The only thing I’m sorry about,” Jesse continued, “is that my plane leaves in six hours.”
Right. Jesse, regardless of his degree of queerness, was leaving. Going back to his real life.
The upside-down world righted itself. The drumbeat soundtrack that had been powering this extraordinary night went silent.
Jesse was going to Pittsburgh. It would be an international flight. He would need to get to the airport a couple of hours ahead of time. And the band did their sound checks at two in the afternoon, so he’d have to go right there from the plane. Tomorrow was going to be a long day for him. “You should sleep for a couple hours.”
“Yes.” Jesse lifted his arms up, like kids did when they wanted to be hugged.
What?
Hunter’s confusion must have been written on his face, because, still keeping his arms aloft, Jesse said, “Come here.” Then he waggled his fingers. “Sleep with me.”
Hunter was gobsmacked.
He couldn’t just . . . do that. Not without getting his questions answered. Not without knowing what it all meant.
Could he?
Hunter’s recent Tinder hookup had not included a sleepover. The last time he’d slept—slept as in slept—with someone had been Julian.
No. Wait. That wasn’t right.
The last time he’d slept with someone had been Jesse. By the fire at the cottage.
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