I cock my head at him, trying to understand if it’s really possible that he’s this damn perfect. “You’re a charmer. Everyone we’ve come across today absolutely loves you. You make everyone feel exactly like I’m feeling right now, huh?”
“I’m not a charmer.” His tone is defensive. “I mean, I might be charming, but it’s not an act. All those people who absolutely love me… I love them too.”
“I didn’t mean it as an insult. You just give so much of yourself to everyone. And you say the right things.”
“That shit I just said to you… I don’t just spew stuff like that to everyone.”
“No?”
“Absolutely not.”
“What about the communicating mouths? You say that to all the boys you kiss?”
He laughs and it’s a relief. Unlike him, I keep saying all kinds of stupid shit today that’s just wrong, and that could have been one of them. “No.”
“No?”
“I’ve never shared my communicating mouths theory with anyone but you.”
Heart sinking—that’s a legit term too. Obviously, I was hoping he was gonna say something else.
“And honestly,” he adds, “I thought we communicated pretty damn well.” He gives me a crooked smile, like an exclamation point at the end of his perfect sentence.
“Yeah?”
“Maybe the best communication I’ve ever had.”
“There you go again, saying all the right things.”
“I guess I am pretty smooth,” he tells me with a laugh.
“Cooper should be taking notes.”
He’s still laughing, but then he turns serious. “Just so you know, it’s not bullshit. It’s the truth.”
“Good to know.”
So far with the totally sloppy frantic kiss and even the sweet small kiss, Brighton has been the one to initiate them, and I haven’t tried to change that because he made it clear he didn’t really want to go there with me until I had all my shit figured out. But I figure I deserve a reward for all my hard work, so I reach over and grab the chain on his swing and pull myself to him. I hold his face with my free hand, and he leans into me, grabbing on to both of my thighs, and that’s all the go-ahead I need.
My lips find his, and this time I savor the way they feel. I let my tongue explore the ridges of his lips and the texture of his tongue. I kiss him hard and soft, deep and on the surface. I kiss him with my lips and my teeth and my tongue. I kiss him every way I can think of because I don’t want there to be a way I haven’t kissed this man. I don’t want there to be a way he’s been kissed by someone else that I haven’t gotten to experience. I kiss him until my lips are raw. And even then, I don’t want to stop.
It’s him who eventually does it for me. Although, it seems like an effort based on how many times he backs off, then returns for just one more. “Are you trying to make a point?” he asks through his labored breath. He takes a hand off my leg to drag his sleeve over his lips, just like he did the first time.
“A point?”
“That there should be no maybes in a sentence where I’m talking about kissing you.”
“Are you saying I’m the official winner of the best communication award?”
“Maybe.” He smirks at me. “Or maybe that was just the quarterfinals and you’re gonna have to compete again.”
“I like a challenge. I’m extremely competitive.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that about you.”
I laugh, but a giant yawn interrupts it.
“You gotta be exhausted, huh?” Brighton asks.
“It’s hard work trying to get you to kiss me.”
He smiles but says, “Seriously, you gotta be mentally drained. You want to go back to my place for a while? We can chill and watch a movie or something.”
“Hell yes. That sounds awesome.” Suddenly the idea of just sitting, losing myself in some made-up world, sounds like the cure to all the world’s problems. “Seriously, Brighton, you always say the perfect thing.”
AS I get in my truck, by myself, I don’t feel half as sure as I did with Brighton by my side. I whip my truck around and drive to Brighton’s house, which literally takes seconds, but still, as soon as it’s in park, I jump out of the cab like I’m running from myself. From the dumb jock asshole who, if given the chance to think about doing this by himself for too long, might turn into a kid who has the moment. Thoughts are whirling through my head, and I can’t stop them. What if Sadie tells everyone? How the hell am I gonna explain this? What kind of shit are my friends gonna say or do to me? How ashamed are my parents gonna be of me? I’m gay. Shit.
I’m running my hands over my face, totally spiraling, when I feel a big, warm set of hands grasp on to my wrists and pull them away. I open my eyes and see Brighton’s concerned face. “I’m not having the moment. I swear to God,” I tell him, and I silently pray I’m not lying.
“Seriously, you need to rest. Come on.”
As he walks me inside, I can feel it—how tired I really am. We head into the kitchen where his family is just sitting down to eat.
“Oh good, you boys are here. Come sit down,” his mom tells us.
Brighton looks at me, and I force a smile. He turns back to his mom and says, “Actually, we’re pretty tired. Mind if we take our dinners downstairs? I think we’re gonna watch a movie.”
I can tell his mom is inspecting us. I wonder if she can tell that the straight kid who was here this morning is now gay and totally crushing on her son. She smirks at Brighton, and I’m pretty sure she’s figured it out. “Sure,” she tells him.
As Brighton grabs a couple plates and starts filling them, his dad asks, “How’d things go at The Farm?”
“Good,” Brighton tells him. “Abe was pretty stoked about the paint sprayer.”
“I heard the new guy’s there. Did you happen to meet him?”
His dad’s voice is excited, and I’m just understanding why when Brighton says, “Nice, Dad. Is that the whole reason you sent me over there?”
“Not the whole reason,” he admits.
“Seriously, is my dad trying to set me up? Because I can find my own guys.”
“I wasn’t trying to set you up. I was just excited for you, you know, if it turns out Samuel is someone you’d be interested in.”
“Who’s Samuel?” Paisley asks. “Is he your boyfriend?”
I cringe. I can’t help it.
“Okay everyone,” Brighton’s mom says. “I think you’re making Jay uncomfortable.”
I clear my throat. I wasn’t uncomfortable, necessarily. Not until she said that, but now his whole family’s staring at me inquisitively.
“Oh,” Max says. “Sorry, I got the impression you weren’t gay. That’s another thing someone should invent—a chip you can put into oblivious straight people’s heads so we can tell who’s gay and who’s straight. What do you call that?” He turns to Mickey. “Gaydar?”
“If they ever come up with that chip for four-year-olds, the one that censors their comments, you should have it implanted in your head too,” Brighton says with a smile.
“What’d I say?”
“The word gaydar shouldn’t be coming out of your mouth, Dad,” Cooper says. “You sound like you’re trying to be cool and trust me, you’re not.”
“Oh really?” He lunges and tickles Cooper, who giggles and smiles and actually looks like a kid instead of a miniature playboy.
Brighton laughs, then says, “Thanks for dinner, Dad,” before turning and heading out of the kitchen.
“Yeah—thanks for feeding me.” The words sort of dribble out of my mouth. My brain has turned into an exhausted pile of mush.
“Brighton,” his mom calls after us. “Stay in the family room.”
He pauses and turns to her. “Seriously?”
“Well, you know, no getting into trouble down there.”
I’m pretty sure I’m the color of a tomato as I stare at her, feeling a little stunned.
Brighton tugs o
n my arm and leads me to the stairs. “Sorry, they can be overwhelming.”
“It’s okay. I mean, it’s cool that you guys can all talk to each other like that. But shit, now I feel like some little slut. Maybe we should have stayed upstairs so they don’t get the wrong impression of me.”
“Wrong impression? What does that mean—you don’t want to make out with me?” He sets our plates down on the coffee table and collapses into the sofa.
“So I am a little slut, huh?”
“Maybe. But I really did bring you down here so you could rest.” He grabs a couple fries off his plate while turning on the TV. “What kind of movies are you into?”
“Whatever,” I tell him, picking up my burger and biting into it. “I’m seriously gonna fall asleep after I fill my face if that’s okay.”
“Yeah, of course. That’s the whole point.” He flips through the channels and stops when he gets to what I recognize as Silence of the Lambs. “Hell yeah. I love this movie. ‘I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti,’” he says in a creepily spot-on impression of Hannibal Lector’s voice, before laughing.
Shit. I hate scary movies. It’s definitely the most cowardly thing about me. If I watch this, I will literally have nightmares. Which is not an exaggeration. Last year I accidentally walked in on my parents watching some disgusting slasher flick and I was tempted to crawl into their bed for the rest of the week. Creepy weirdos.
Brighton stands, goes to a small fridge, and pulls out a couple waters, handing me one blindly as he leans forward, totally caught up in the move, and scarfs down his food. I do the same—scarf down my food that is—so I can get to the part where I can close my eyes and pretend to sleep.
A commercial comes on just as I’m finishing up, and I practically say pshew and drag an arm across my brow.
Brighton turns to me, his whole face a big smile brought on by the movie that might literally make me piss my pants. “God, he’s so creepy, right?” he says about Hannibal Lector. “And Buffalo Bill….” He shakes his head. “That crazy asshole almost turned me straight.”
“Yeah,” I manage to mutter.
Brighton squints at me like he’s trying to figure out the expression on my face. Then he laughs. “Oh shit. You’re scared, aren’t you?”
“No,” I say defensively.
“Don’t lie to me. It’s cute—big studly Jay doesn’t like scary movies.”
“Shut up,” I tell him, but I’m laughing.
“You want me to change it? I mean, this is one of my favorite movies, and I haven’t seen it in years, but I’ll turn it, you know, for you.”
“I’ll survive. As long as I’m asleep.”
“Okay,” he says, standing, “Let’s get you settled, then.” He walks to his bedroom and comes back out with his comforter and a pillow. “Stand up,” he tells me, and I do. He lays the pillow down and looks at me. “Take your sweatshirt off, get comfortable.”
“You take this napping shit seriously, huh?”
“Well, yeah. Might as well do it right. Plus, you might need the blanket to cower into.” He sets the comforter at the end of the couch and takes his own sweatshirt off. I stare at him, at the physique I can see clearly now. He’s not as built as me, but his muscles are lean and defined and I want to touch him. He lies down on the couch and looks at me expectantly.
“Are we snuggling?”
“You got a problem with snuggling?”
I hear the movie come back on and just the sound of Anthony Hopkin’s voice has my body ready to react in a way that will force me to take up Brighton’s earlier offer to borrow his underwear. “Nope,” I tell him, laying my ass down on the couch. I consider facing him so I can bury my face in his shirt like a baby, but I do the brave thing and back my body up to his.
I was so distracted by the movie that I didn’t even think about the fact that Brighton is letting me press my body up against his. But as soon as I feel it—the warmth of him conforming to my back—a surge of energy rips through me, and I can, pretty easily, ignore what’s happening on the TV.
I snuggle in, or more precisely, push every inch of my body that I can into his. He pulls the blanket over us and snakes his arm under it so he can wrap it around my waist. I glance up at him, wanting to turn this into more than a nap. He’s propped up on his elbow, totally engrossed by the TV, and for a split second I’m disappointed, but then I relax into his body and close my eyes and think, This has the potential to be better than a make-out session. Because I just get to feel him, and smell him, and take him in while he’s engaged with Hannibal Lector. Which is fine because it means I can do all this like a creepy ninja.
Brighton smells good. He doesn’t smell like other guys—soaked in the cologne that’s masking their sweat and adrenaline. He smells clean, but it’s more than that. Not something I can identify exactly.
His thumb starts moving methodically over the dip in my side between my ribs and hip bone. I can tell he’s unaware that he’s doing it. He’s just touching me—naturally. Which is kind of how everything seems with him—natural.
I don’t really know what being with someone is supposed to feel like. Relationships for me have always been like a really long, stressful job interview. I have to actually think about it—what to say, when to call, when to touch, how to touch… it’s a series of laid out steps. But this, being with Brighton, is nothing like that. It all just feels easy and right. Which I’ve never felt with anyone. Not even my friends.
I can feel my breaths becoming deeper and deeper as I slip into a state of comfortable exhaustion. For some reason, as I enter la-la land, I’m lying on the grass that’s damp from rain that’s no longer falling. There’s a strange eagle lying on his side next to me, staring at me with his creepy yellow eyes. The warm scent of fabric softener is seeping out of the side of the house we must be lying next to where laundry is being done. It mixes with the ozone and earthy smell from the rain. That’s what Brighton smells like, I tell the strange eagle just before I fall over the edge into unconsciousness.
Chapter Eight
Brighton
JAY SNORES. Not snores exactly, I guess it’s more like a really cute mewl. He also flinches in his sleep. And his eyelashes are way longer than I realized. And the patch of skin that exists over the sexy dip above his hips is the softest thing I’ve ever felt.
Him, sleeping, was enticing enough to tear me away from Silence of the Lambs. Which means he’s pretty damn enticing. And now I’m just lying here with him, trying really hard not to take advantage of his sleeping body and telling my hand it’s not okay to roam around him any way it wants to. I bury my nose in the nape of his neck and smell him. And, yeah, maybe my hips push into him a little too hard. Sue me—the kid is hot, and I’ve been exercising superior self-control all day.
I close my eyes and wrap an arm all the way around his waist, pulling his body tight against mine, and I can’t stop myself from kissing the back of his neck and then running my tongue against the short hairs there before tasting the salty skin below them.
I’m totally a mouth man. As in, I like to use my mouth. I love sucking, and not just on the obvious thing but really on anything as long as it’s on a man’s body. Right now, I really want to suck that spot above Jay’s hip. And licking, God, love that even more. The tongue is an amazing thing; it can taste and feel, and sometimes I swear I can smell with it. And the feeling of running my thick, wet tongue over flesh always turns me on. Which is why I shouldn’t be doing this. But I was already turned on way before this, so who the hell cares? I mean, I’m guessing Jay wouldn’t care. And sinking my teeth into skin, which I’m doing right now to that delicate space where his neck turns into his shoulder, also feels damn good.
But kissing is definitely my favorite thing.
And, Jesus, the way Jay kissed me at the park, like he was trying to devour me but at the same time just barely tasting me, was by far the best kiss I’ve ever experienced. That kid’s mouth is the best thing I’ve ever exp
erienced, period. Jesus, I can still taste it and feel it.
I’m so lost in my euphoria it takes me a minute to realize that I’m not dreaming about his ass pushing into me, but that it’s really happening. A low moan seeps out of his mouth, and his hand reaches around to grab on to my ass and pull me up tighter to him. I grind my hips into him, using my arm that’s still wrapped around his waist to pull him to me. “Fuck,” he mutters, moving his hand and wrapping it around my neck, turning his torso so that I can get to him with my mouth.
I close my mouth over his, the angles our heads are at creating a perfect suction. And I lick him. And he licks me, and our tongues are engaging in a wicked lust-filled battle where the end goal would be a release of this, now seriously painful, desire to get off. I grind my hips harder, and Jay whimpers into my mouth and pulls on my hair. I get it—this is fucking frustrating. I told myself I wasn’t gonna go here with him—not yet. But what the hell am I supposed to do? I mean, I am only human.
I move my hand under his T-shirt, and I drag my fingers across his ridiculously perfect abs. Seems like he’s even less patient than I am because he grabs my hand and pushes it down and, trust me, I don’t need direction. My fingers snake under the waistband of his boxer briefs, and I run them over the rough hair that’s there, which causes Jay to pull harder at my hair. I push down farther and feel the warm, smooth skin on his head, and now I’m the one who’s groaning.
The ache in my stomach is real, and I’m pretty sure it’s caused by the overwhelming desire I have to wrap my fingers around his shaft. As I slide my hand down, and his length rubs against my palm, I’m growling like a damn animal. I stroke him as efficiently as I can under the restraint of his jeans before pulling out and quickly getting his button and zipper undone. Frantically, I push down his boxer briefs and we both stop kissing for a moment when I wrap my hand around him properly. I give him one more kiss before lifting my head so I can look at my hand on him. He turns his head and groans when he looks down. God, it’s a beautiful sight: my hand wrapped fully around him, stroking him up and down.
Riding with Brighton Page 11
