The game went into extra innings, and though I wasn't built for too many late nights followed by early mornings, I wasn't abandoning my position on watching the entire game. I was a stodgy bastard like that.
But Cole's hands were folded low on his belly, right above his crotch, and through the thin fabric of his athletic shorts, I could make out the shape of him. And oh, fuck, it was a nice-looking shape.
There was nothing overtly sexual about his position, yet I yearned for the right to reach over and take my man in hand. He was close enough to touch, and I didn't think I could endure extra innings tonight with that temptation.
When it was clear that the Sox were taking home an easy win, I clicked off the television and stood, brushing my palms down the front of my cargo shorts. I'd never been one for spontaneous erections, but beer and too-thin athletic shorts and this proximity to Cole brought me damn close. My cock was heavy and aching, and I needed to find some relief far away from my guest's watchful eyes.
"We'll hit the water early," I said, desperate to keep my mind on topics that didn't involve the rasp of Cole's unshaven jaw against my inner thighs.
He nodded as he collected the empty beer bottles. He was meticulous about recycling, and had gone so far as to lecture me about the impact of plastics on marine life. Somehow, he knew as much, if not more, about preserving the seas than I did.
"Yeah," Cole said. "Sounds good."
He sounded distant, and not because he was busy tidying the kitchen. He was distracted. "Everything okay, McClish?" I asked.
He folded a dish towel into precise thirds and set it on the counter with a pat. "Great."
I didn't know him, not well enough to read his every mood and twitch, but I had the distinct sense that he wasn't great. It was the gay thing. It had to be. We couldn't have three weeks under the same roof and on the same boat with relative harmony only for it to get weird hours after coming out.
And that meant this would all come to an end soon. No more mornings on the water, no more dinners on the porch, no more ball games. Definitely no more fantasizing over him.
"Listen, man," I said, groaning as I gestured toward him. "If you have an issue—"
I didn't get the opportunity to finish that sentence because Cole slammed me up against the wall. My first thought—and fuck, I hated that the world had conditioned me to go there first—was that Cole wanted to beat my ass. But then, as I registered the hard planes of his body rocking into mine, my defenses softened.
He didn't want to fight me. He wanted to fuck me.
"Please," he said, his words breathless and tortured. "Please take me."
I should've stopped. Should've pushed him away, put this on hold, and figured out what the fuck was going on here because greedy hands were exploring my chest and the heat was increasing by the second and I was a breath away from losing my thoughts—every one of my damn thoughts—and letting need guide the way.
Yet I knew…one wrong move and this could end with some awkward moments and hard feelings, and I didn't want either for us. He was an unexpected friend, and one I wasn't ready to lose.
But his hands shifted down to my waist and his knuckles stroked the small of my back in the most precious way, and I fell over the edge of reason. It was like those seconds between stepping off the high dive and splashing down in the pool, when all sense of balance and equilibrium went wild before recalibrating as the weight of water took over.
I cupped his face and pressed my lips to his in a kiss that was too tortured, too desperate to be the kind of first kiss he deserved. We clawed at each other, pushing and pulling and grabbing in a battle for touch that would have no end.
"Tell me we're doing this," he panted against my lips. We'd edged out of the kitchen and into the hall, and we were one hard shove from landing in my bedroom.
"What is this?" I asked. I needed him to spell it out. Draw the map and show me the course. There could be no miscommunication here. "What do you want?"
Cole pressed his face to the crook of my neck, his lips exploring my skin as his hand traveled down until it squeezed my cock. It wasn't the clumsy effort of a curious straight guy, and that knowledge did more to me than his tight grip.
"I want this," he said, releasing a hot breath on my neck. "I'm not, I mean, I don't usually, I—I wasn't sure…"
Grabbing his shoulders, I pushed him back far enough to catch his eyes. My touch was rough, nearly punishing, and I would have regretted that if it weren't for the blissed-out sigh on Cole's lips.
Yesssss.
"Say it," I ordered, my hold on him tightening.
"I want you. So much that it hurts," he said, his words tumbling out in a gasp. "And I'm gay."
I studied him, my eyes narrowed. "Did you just now determine that?"
He shook his head, his lips folded in a firm line, and he took charge. He yanked me off the wall and steered us into my bedroom. It was dark but I didn't care when Cole's mouth found mine again. He stripped my clothes off, and his followed without hesitation.
I pointed to the bed with a nod. "Prove it," I said.
For Cole, those were fighting words. And this fight? It was one I wanted in on, too.
He wasted no time flattening me against the mattress, and before I could catch my breath, my cock was in his mouth, his lips were pressed up against my groin, and I was packing months and months of need and loneliness, desire and relief, into a groan.
He sucked me deep and hard, and his hands were everywhere. Tight around my thighs. Teasing my crease. Mapping my chest and belly. And then his hand found mine. Our fingers laced together, our eyes met. Seeing him there, his eyes watering as he took all of me, his impatient hips rolling against the bed, it was like spotting land after a rough night at sea. It was relief.
And it had me erupting like a geyser.
I was vibrating, shaking and shuddering and completely fucking spent, and a disaster of half-formed words were falling from my mouth in poor excuses for praise.
"You taste like the ocean," Cole murmured after I'd exploded down his throat for approximately seven years. "I liked it."
That was all I needed to hear. It was everything I needed to hear. Even though my cock was wet and sticky and lazing on my belly, I was gearing up for round two. Fuck yes. Hell fucking yes, and round three, and maybe four.
"On your back, McClish."
Chapter 5
Cole
Life was different in Talbott's Cove after that night.
Owen was awake first. I didn't have to look outside to know he was on the dock, readying the Sweet Carolyne, because recent weeks had taught me he was a creature of habit. A habit that excused him from acknowledging that we'd spent the night curled around each other. It was simpler this way. Simple was good, at least for today.
But as the dawn broke into day, I was increasingly confused about where things stood because it wasn't like we sat down for tea to sort it all out. My brain preferred the precise, and without it, I was edgy and untethered. Aside from the tug of my sore, satisfied muscles, it was an ordinary outing on the water followed by a trip to the general store, and dinner on the porch, and the entire time, I wanted to scream "What is going on with us?"
Of course I didn't. I'd made it to thirty-two years old without experiencing a relationship of any substance. Dating in Silicon Valley was fraught with complications. People were drawn to me for my money, my status, my power, but never once for me. On most days, I doubted that anyone in the Valley knew me at all. Sure, I was the CEO—err, former CEO—with the temper and the track record of transforming the industry, but that wasn't the sum of my parts.
But Owen…he didn't know the CEO. He didn't know any of it, and in that, he was the only one who knew me.
And that was what made the possibility of Owen telling me it was a one-night thing the worst scenario. That he didn't want more, or didn't want more of me, and it would be finished for us.
Instead of talking through my issues, I'd skipped the preseason NFL game and
retired to the guest room to work on some programming projects after we'd eaten. It was an out for Owen. If he didn't want anything more than a deckhand, I wasn't going to force the issue.
But then, a couple hours after I'd opened my laptop and dived into coding headspace, he barged into the room wearing only his boxer briefs. I blinked twice as I dragged my glasses down my nose because holy fuck, that man was beautiful. He was a bear. A big, pouty bear.
He beckoned me toward him with a hot stare. "It's late. We're going to bed," he growled.
"We're going to bed?" I repeated. "You mean—"
"Get your ass in my bed right now," he barked. "What are you even doing in here?"
I gestured to my laptop. Did he want to know the specifics of the program I was developing? That didn't seem likely. Owen was one of a dying breed that lived happily without the quicksand of the internet. He preferred walking inside the bank to speak with a teller when making a transaction. He relied on maps and tide charts rather than modern—and surprisingly finicky—navigation systems. He even had an old-fashioned rotary phone on the kitchen wall. Before I'd arrived, there was no internet access in his home. I'd fixed that, of course, but that wasn't something he needed to know.
"Working," I said, and I hoped it didn't sound overly evasive.
We hadn't ventured into the realm of discussing my profession, and that was good enough for me. Owen knew I owned a technology firm—didn't think it was necessary to mention that it was the biggest one in the world—and I lived outside of San Francisco, California. The rest of it was just details, and I couldn't find a reason to share them with Owen. It wasn't that he wouldn't care or wasn't interested, but that I didn't want to spend all of our time talking about me. He, and this quaint town, were the most interesting things I'd ever encountered, and I wanted to soak up all of it.
My time here had already served the purpose of getting my mind away from boardroom headaches and Project DaVinci nightmares, and if anyone in town recognized me, they hadn't made an issue of it.
A sound rumbled in his throat that sent shockwaves through my body. "I meant," he started, rubbing the back of his neck, "why the fuck are you working in here? Why aren't you down the hall?"
My eyes darted to the screen for a moment, hoping to find the words between the lines of code. I could offer an excuse about needing quiet or my gear but knowing that he wanted me again—that he wanted me at all—changed things. It gave me a bite of confidence I'd never known I was lacking.
"I didn't know you wanted that," I said.
Owen cocked his head, squinting at me. "Was there something vague about my dick in your ass this morning?"
Gulp. I could still feel his weight on me, his hands on my hips, my groans on the mattress.
"I wasn't sure whether you would want that," I said, "again."
"That?" He kept squinting at me. "Why are you uncomfortable saying the words?"
I looked back to the screen, the one place I always knew what to do and how to communicate, but before I could formulate a response, Owen was wedging himself beside me on the bed.
"Put this thing away," he said, his voice husky in my ear.
I obeyed. Of course I did. How could I do anything but exactly what Owen wanted when his lips were ghosting over my neck and shoulders?
His big hand settled on my chest and tugged my shirt up, over my head. He drew his knuckles down the center line of my abs and dipped just below the waistband of my shorts. His fingers didn't move any farther down, instead stroking the fine trail of hair and stirring me to life.
"Did I not take care of you, baby?" Owen asked.
Open-mouthed kisses covered my chest, and I felt myself unraveling like a tightly bound spool of thread. My head dropped back to the pillow, my legs parted, and whichever weight I'd been carrying in my chest today transformed into desire.
"Ah, no, you…you're amazing," I said, my eyes closing as his tongue found my nipple. "But it's complicated for me."
Owen shook his head against my belly. "You're thinking too hard," he said, his fingers hooking around my shorts. "I've wanted you since you tried to shoot me off your boat, and if you didn't know it then, you knew it when you started whipping your shirt off in front of me every afternoon."
He sat up to slip out of his boxer briefs, and the motion sent his thick cock slapping against his belly. I reached forward, hungry for it—for him—and led him down with a firm grasp on his length.
"It's hot out there," I murmured, dropping a kiss on the corner of Owen's mouth.
He gave me don't I know it eyes. "You're hot out there."
He reached between my legs and trailed his fingers along my crease. I'd surrender everything in the known world to feel him there, more gentle than any man his size had a right to be, for the rest of my life. And it wasn't just his touch. It was his everything.
"I don't want you to go," he panted, "when the summer ends."
Boom. Just fucking boom went my heart.
His hips were bucking against me in a lazy rhythm, and I brought my hand around us. We groaned at that, and I was ready to come all over us. It could have been the friction, but it was mostly his words.
"I—uh—yeah," I stammered. It wasn't right to conceal my identity any longer. I had to tell him the truth about me, about who I was, and why this was complicated. "Yes, I want you. I want to stay. With you. But I should tell you—"
"The only thing you have to tell me is how you want me fucking you," he said as he crawled between my legs.
And that—along with his tongue teasing the head of my cock—shoved every thought of Silicon Valley to the back burner.
"I need," I said, groaning when Owen's fingers pressed between my cheeks. All the fucks, yes. My eyes drooped shut, and stars and rainbows danced behind my lids. "I need to get some lube from your room. You're too big for me without it."
He looked up, confused. That had the unfortunate effect of separating his mouth from my erection.
"You don't have any?" Owen asked.
I shook my head as a whiny groan rattled in my throat. My hips jerked upward, seeking his attention. I was shameless when it came to him.
"What kind of gay man are you?"
I looked away, not sure how to respond to him. Wasn't it obvious that I wasn't good at this? That I didn't know how to be all these versions of me—the boy billionaire, the tech nerd, the gay man—at once?
"The kind that didn't expect to get laid this summer."
Owen brought his palms to his thighs with a decisive nod. "Well, you're getting laid tonight. Tomorrow night, too. We've got a couple more weeks until the seasons change, but I'm comfortable putting a checkmark next to autumn if you're up for it."
I sat up on my knees and roped my arms around his waist. "I'm up for anything."
Owen's gaze darkened as he stared at my mouth. His palm cracked over my ass, and as I yelped in surprise, he said, "Go get in our bed."
I'd never chased after a man before, but when Owen marched down the hall, his erection slapping against his belly loud and proud, I wasn't ashamed to say I powerwalked myself right into that bed.
Where last night was new, and urgent and rough in the best ways, tonight was lazy indulgence. There was no rush, no awkward moments. We had a feel for each other now, and we knew this wasn't ending at sunrise. That made all the difference.
Owen was nestled between my legs and teasing my cock with light, feathery kisses while two fingers moved inside me.
"Need to fuck you," he whispered against my thigh.
My cock couldn't get any harder. It wasn't possible. And I was wrong; there was reason to rush and it had a lot to do with the orgasm winding its way down my spine. His teeth nipped at my inner thigh, and I was damn near floating when he bit down while his fingers circled my prostate.
"Oh my hell yes please," I cried.
Owen chuckled as he reached for the condom and lube he'd left near my shoulder. Cool liquid between my legs had me tensing back a shiver. I gasped, clench
ing as his fingers pressed into me, cold and thick.
"Relax, baby," he murmured. "You want this, remember?"
And yeah, I did. I really fucking did, and I breathed through the pressure as Owen stretched me. His touch was firm but careful, and he was always asking what I needed. He had half his arm up my ass but he was respectful about it.
Fuck. This man. I was damn lucky to get lost in his cove.
He nudged my thighs open as his fingers found my prostate again, and a hungry, desperate cry caught in my throat. "Get inside me," I growled. "Give it to me. Don't make me wait anymore."
I watched the rise and fall of Owen's chest as his cock replaced his fingers. When he pushed past my resistance, my gaze scraped up to his gorgeous face to see bliss softening his features. He leaned forward, his heat wrapping around me like a blanket as he braced his elbows on either side of my head. My hands went to his shoulders and my ankles to his ass as he thrust into me. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes hazed over with heat.
"Good?" he asked, flattening his hips against me.
I nodded, no words available as every nerve, muscle, and cell in my body converged on the dual goals of coming right this second and making this last as long as possible. Owen eased back, dragging his cock from me on a slow, torturous path. Our eyes met and then shifted downward, and we watched as he disappeared inside me again.
"Ah, fuck," he hissed.
He was fucking me slowly now, all rolling hips and long, heavy thrusts, and I was about to lose my mind. I reached between us, suddenly frantic to find my release, and stroked my cock.
"No no," Owen said, moving my hands to his waist before taking my cock. "This is for me."
"But I need—"
"I know," he said, cutting me off with a kiss. "I know, Cole. I need it, too."
His grip was unforgiving, but his gaze. Fuck, that gaze. That was what got me. He had me flying apart within minutes, one hot spurt after another.
"Your turn," I rasped, my eyes glued to his abs as they rippled with each glorious thrust. "Give it to me, Owen."
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