by Lucy Lennox
“Just my brother Blue. The rest of them can’t keep a secret to save their lives. Anyway, Ari and I were together for two years. His family was very conservative and wealthy, and Ari went to snobby Nashville prep schools before graduating from Duke and moving back home. His family would have flipped. So we decided to stay in the closet. Between his family and my country music career, it seemed safe to take things slowly and not come out until there was a damned good reason for it.
“Then one night we were out to dinner at a restaurant, and Ari just dumped me out of the blue. Told me I was never going to be the successful musician I wanted to be and that hanging around in seedy bars with someone so worthless was not the life he’d worked so hard to achieve. I think it was his way of trying to convince himself I wasn’t worth coming out for. A couple of months later he was engaged to his high school girlfriend.”
Jude ran slender fingers through his hair before picking at a spot on the pajama pants he was wearing above his knee. I couldn’t take my eyes off of his fingers as they toyed nervously with the loose thread.
“Blue knew how crushed I was by the breakup so he told me to channel that energy into my songwriting. He made me promise I would use the hurt to prove to myself and the world that his words weren’t true. Even though ‘Bluebells’ is about my breakup, I wrote that song for Blue. To fulfill the promise of using my pain to kick-start my future success. It’s a song of strength, like my very own fight song, and its success makes me incredibly proud. When the song hit the top of the charts, we were on our way. When ‘Heavy Chevy’ came out and did almost as well, the rest was history.”
He dropped his feet to the floor and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. I wanted to reach out and reassure him. Somehow show him that he was better off without someone who didn’t support his music career. But I didn’t dare touch him. Instead I moved my hands under my thighs to keep them from reaching out to him.
“Sometimes I’d wonder why Ari never contacted me to reconnect. Even just to say he was friends with me before I hit it big. He was the kind of guy who got off on bragging about big-name people he knew. You know from your job how common it is for old friends to show up out of the woodwork when someone becomes famous. But he never did. I assumed it was because of his need to stay in the closet. His wife’s family had a shit ton of money, so I didn’t ever think he’d be after mine.”
“He calls you Bubba?” I asked.
“Like an endearment. He thought it was cute, but it drove me fucking crazy. It was his way of poking fun at the fact I was a California boy singing country music. He’d always been a preppy guy. To him, only rednecks liked country music. So he called me Bubba.”
I suppressed a wince. “So you’ve been gay this whole time I’ve known you, and I’ve never caught wind of it. When do you hook up? You’re never alone.”
“I don’t,” Jude said. “It’s not worth it. I haven’t been with anyone in six years. Being alone is easier than being hurt again.”
That might have been the moment when looking out for Jude Marian became personal.
8
Jude
Derek’s dark eyes bore a hole through me. “If that asshole dropped you years ago, why was he acting like he wanted to eat you for dinner tonight?”
“He seemed to be up for a quickie,” I confessed. “I told him I wasn’t interested.”
“Why is he approaching you now? Because of your fame? Is he still married?”
I shrugged. “I think so. It was a request for a fuck, not a relationship. But what he really wanted was my money to manage. He is a partner for his father-in-law’s investment firm.”
Derek looked at me like I was insane. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him to go to hell,” I snapped. “But now I have to spend two hours with him in the morning.”
“Maybe he’s not going to take no for an answer. Or maybe he wants to open the closet door and rip you out of it for the whole world to see. This is a major problem, Jude. Can’t you see that?” Derek railed at me.
I felt myself start to shake and ducked my face down into my chest before Derek could see me lose it, curling my hands over my head and feeling my hair come down around my face. It was overwhelming. My exhaustion from the tour was making me unusually sensitive. This shit had come at me out of the blue, and now I was going to have to deal with it. I wasn’t ready.
“I’m sorry,” Derek said softly. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t,” I said into my knees. “I know you’re just concerned because it’s your job.”
Derek didn’t respond, so I looked up at him. His piercing green eyes sparked at me. “I’m concerned because I care what happens to you, Jude. Yes, it’s my job. But you’re also a man I’ve practically been living with twenty-four seven for months.”
“Right, so that begs the question. When do you find time to date or hook up?” I asked him, trying to change the topic off Ari Crowe.
He looked everywhere but at me as he clearly contemplated how to answer. “Sometimes I go to clubs when I have time off. I don’t do relationships because I travel too much for work. And when I was in the military, I kept myself to myself for the most part. There was a stint of a few months when I was on a mission with a guy I messed around with. That was nice.” He shrugged.
God, that sounded lonely. He sounded like he was stuck in a similar hell to mine.
“Why don’t you just come out now and live openly? I mean, you live in San Francisco and you’re an adult. What’s holding you back?” I asked.
“My father is a general in the Marines. He’s at the level where he could be nominated by the president to become commandant. I have two brothers, both in the service. I grew up in the South on a military base. My family goes hunting, fishing, and rides ATVs in the mud for fun. My mother is in charge of the ladies’ guild at the local Southern Baptist church. Have you heard enough yet? Because I could keep going.” He laughed.
“I get it. How in the hell did you ever admit to yourself you were gay if you were raised like that?” I smiled at him.
“It’s hard to deny getting a hard-on in middle school wrestling practice,” Derek admitted with a shrug. “I quit the team when I realized I was enjoying my sweaty opponents just a little too much. Then I started playing baseball where the guys were less tempting. Spitting and scratching. Plus, it helped when I switched to a sport where the players wore plenty of clothes and didn’t touch each other. Did you play sports?”
“Soccer. And I was a big rock climber until it became too much of a pain in the ass to go to the climbing gym without being recognized. You already know I run since we run together sometimes,” I said, thinking about how much I enjoyed his quiet company on my runs. His legs were so much longer than mine that my runs were easy jogs for him. Derek was in amazing shape. He ran and lifted weights religiously, even if we were traveling. When we had downtime I often caught him doing martial arts moves or pushups and crunches when he thought no one was looking.
I hadn’t seen him bare-chested since the day I met him. The most I’d ever seen since then were his bare arms and legs when we were running. His upper body was fucking glorious. Back muscles rippled under his shirts. Shoulders filled out his jackets. Biceps popped and stretched shirtsleeves. And then there was his ass. I had definitely noticed his ass. And his muscled thighs and shapely calves. Damn, the man was a specimen of human perfection. I didn’t realize I was staring at him.
Green eyes smoldered back at me as the air seemed to thicken between us. “What’s going on in that head of yours, Bluebell?”
“Nothing. Never mind,” I said, turning my head to face away from him. “Just thinking.”
I heard a low chuckle. “Just thinking, my ass,” he muttered. “You were looking at me like you wanted to see me naked.”
My head whipped back around to face him. “Fuck you, I was not.”
I totally was.
“All right. Whatever you say.” He grinne
d. “For what it’s worth, I meant what I said before about you being gorgeous. I know it’s not appropriate, but there it is.”
After a six-year hibernation, my libido uncoiled and struck like a viper. Before I knew what was happening, I was in his lap crushing my lips to his. My hands snaked behind his neck to hold him tight against me. My knees straddled his hips on the couch, and I felt his arms come around my back, splayed fingers pulling me toward him. We devoured each other’s mouths, and I couldn’t get my fill.
Derek tasted amazing, like toothpaste and man. His sleepy, warm scent washed over me, going straight to my extremely overwhelmed cock. My pajama pants resembled a Barnum and Bailey tent as I rocked my hips, seeking friction.
I felt a moan escape Derek’s mouth, and I responded in kind. My hands started moving down to his throat, his collarbone, his chest. I felt the convex arcs of his pec muscles and the dip between them. God, I wanted to sink my teeth into those muscles.
Warm, strong hands pushed underneath the hem of my sweatshirt and onto the bare skin of my back, causing ripples of goosebumps everywhere they brushed. They came up to cup my shoulders, and I had this overwhelming need to be owned by this man. Just held down and fucked until I couldn’t question a thing he wanted to do to my body. I needed to surrender, and he was a man I trusted enough to surrender myself to.
“Fuck me, Derek, please,” I said against his mouth.
9
Derek
Jude almost never called me Derek. He called me Wolfe, He-Man, Oaf, Jackass, or Hulk. So when he asked me to fuck him and called me Derek? I was a goner. I pulled back and looked at his blazing brown eyes. I was a goner but not an idiot. “Are you sure this is what you want, Jude? It’ll change things.”
“It doesn’t have to. We’re both adults. Why can’t we enjoy each other’s bodies without things having to get weird?” Jude said between rapid breaths.
“I agree with you in theory, but you need to be sure. It’s been a long time for you, and I don’t want you to regr—”
Jude’s mouth was on mine again and this time his hand landed on the bulge in my boxers as well. Talking time was finished, and that was A-okay with me. I gripped his ass and stood up, carrying him toward his bedroom as he continued kissing me all over. Face, neck, ears. His fingers explored the hair on my head and snuck their way down the collar of my shirt.
When we finally got to Jude’s bed, I laid him down gently on the soft white sheets, still rumpled from his earlier sleep. I pulled his hoodie off and then leaned in to kiss him on the mouth again once he was free of it. My hands stroked every inch of that glorious exposed skin. His body composition was like that of a featherweight fighter, small but built. That’s why every time I saw him come out of a post-concert shower, I could barely stand it.
“God, I’ve wanted to touch you for so long,” I admitted, pushing him onto his back and leaning over him to kiss my way across all those little muscles. “Your body is amazing.”
Jude snorted. “This coming from you,” he said before I clamped down on a nipple, and he sucked in a breath.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked between nibbles.
“You’re built, you’re beautiful, and also, you hate my guts, oh Jesus that feels good.”
I made my way down his abdomen and had moved my hand down to press against the outline of his hard cock through his lounge pants. “I don’t hate you,” I said before untying the string of his pants with my teeth. Jude saw me and squeezed his eyes shut, throwing his head back with a groan.
“Maybe less talking and more dick sucking,” he choked out as I pushed down the waistband with my scruffy chin, drawing a scratchy trail across the tender skin of his cock.
When I slid the pants off all the way, I sat back on my heels and let my eyes feast on the body before me. Jude Marian was stunning. Lean muscle, smooth skin, long, thick wavy brown hair that seriously fucked with my equilibrium, and dazzling brown eyes that seemed to pull people into an abyss. The media called them soulful eyes, but I knew better. They were lonely eyes. Right now, they were fuck-me eyes.
I slowly peeled off my shirt and shucked down my boxers. Jude watched me, mesmerized. I crawled just far enough up his body to settle between his legs and feast on his straining erection. A long strand of precum stretched from his tip to the happy trail on his belly, and I went right to it, licking it off like the first taste of an ice cream cone. Jude hissed and his stomach muscles contracted. I slid my hand over those muscles as I went for it again, this time taking his whole cock deep into my mouth and sucking in.
“Oh god, fuck,” he cried. His hands came down on my head and his hips bucked. Clearly he wasn’t going to last long, so I decided not to fight it. I’d suck him off fast and dirty to get the first orgasm out of the way so we could move on to the second round.
My mouth swirled and sucked its way back up to the crown where I licked and kissed the tip again. I made a show of wetting my finger before lowering my mouth again. He bit out another curse.
His hands scrabbled for purchase on the bed as I worked his cock up, down and around without mercy before sliding a wet finger inside him. Jude writhed under my hands and cried out. I swiveled my finger around to find his prostate. Bingo. Soon after, come shot down my throat and Jude found religion, screaming to god, Jesus, archangels, and any other deity who might be on call to help a guy brought down in his prime by the simple crook of a finger.
I moved up the bed to cradle him against my chest as he came down from his high. He turned in to me, tucking his face into my side and plastering his body against mine. His arm rested across my stomach and my hand came up to stroke it softly, my other hand around his back, holding him close. My mouth found the top of his head and kissed it. I felt his lips push into the skin on my side in response, the tiny tip of a tongue sneaking out to swipe at me.
After several minutes, the arm Jude had resting on my stomach began moving up my chest, his hand seeking the contours of my muscles and the tight buds of my sensitive nipples. He looked up at me, his grin turning devilish. “Your body is a masterpiece,” he said.
His mouth found my nipples and his hand moved farther south, along my stomach to my inner thigh. After nudging my thighs apart, he shifted over me until he was straddling one of my thighs and his arms hooked under my shoulders. Jude’s soft lips came down on mine in a caress, tongue sweeping across my bottom lip before slipping inside. I was hungry for his tongue, and he fed it to me slowly. My hands moved up into his hair and brushed it away from his face, tucking it behind his ears so I could see his face better.
It seemed like my mouth tangled with his for hours before he finally broke away, gasping and moving down my neck to my chest and beyond. He traced my happy trail toward my cock so slowly I was mesmerized. My breath hitched and I caught Jude grinning in satisfaction. My erection jumped under his light touches; he seemed to enjoy teasing me.
When Jude finally put his mouth on me, the sound I made was feral. Desperation clawed at me and I wanted my cock inside his body more than I wanted my next breath. My self-control faltered and I considered tossing him over and fucking him face-first into the mattress. I remembered how long it had been for him though, and restrained myself. Closed my eyes and took slow breaths.
His tongue moved up and down my shaft and I felt the promise of his hot, wet mouth. I couldn’t take it anymore and begged in a strangled voice, “Please, Jude.”
He sucked me down, and I bit out a curse. His mouth was magical and it began to work my cock over and over again until taking it deep into his throat. I hissed and pulled him off me. “I’m going to come if you keep going like that,” I ground out. “What do you want, Bluebell?”
Brown eyes peered up at me, pupils blown. “I want you to fuck me until I can’t remember my own name.”
His words thrummed through my body, causing my dick to throb almost painfully. I lifted Jude off me and strode quickly back to my room, pulling a condom and lube packet from my wallet. When I ret
urned and knelt back on the bed, Jude was lying on his side following me with his gaze. He was so sexy in that moment, I was struck with the knowledge I was the only human being who was allowed to touch Jude Marian’s naked body. There were tens of thousands of fans who would give anything to be where I was, naked in Jude’s bed. People who had his poster on their walls, his photographs on their computers, and his image on their brains when they touched themselves.
Out of all the people who’d fantasized about it since he became famous, I was the only one lucky enough to be invited into Jude’s body.
10
Jude
Derek was looking at me as if he wanted to feast on me. His eyes were hungry and his lips swollen. As he crawled toward me on the bed, his entire body language was predatory. “Wolfe,” I whispered.
When he reached me, I expected to be mauled, but Derek touched me with the gentleness of goddamned butterfly wings, soft and delicate and so very careful. His hands fluttered along my skin and his lips barely brushed mine. The effect was striking. Every nerve ending thrummed in anticipation.
He was so much bigger than I was that his body came down over mine like a protective shell, curling around and encircling me. His arms slid under me to pull me closer, deepening the kisses until I was dizzy. One of his hands snuck down to jack me for several strokes before he licked a finger and brought it down to my hole again. I moaned and arched, relishing the feel of any part of him entering me.
His mouth landed beside my ear and his low growl slithered between us. “I want to stick my tongue into this tight ass of yours.”
My eyes rolled back in my head. “Oh god.”
He pushed my knees practically over my head and landed his hot, wet mouth on my crease. His tongue trailed from my ass to my balls and then pressed inside before pulling back again. He spit into my hole and rubbed it in with quick, teasing licks. If I had ever been rimmed before, the memory was wiped clean away with the feel of Derek Wolfe’s expert attentions. His beard stubble sanded my tender skin as he sucked and licked his way inside my body.