by Anne Tenino
Nate shambled along, still zoned out from multiple shocks, although Seth’s stride was as jaunty as usual. Tarkus pranced between them, the red Frisbee locked in his jaws, as if he hadn’t a care in his little doggy brain—which he probably didn’t. The relief that had washed through Nate when he realized Tarkus was safe was being replaced by a stronger feeling—one that he hadn’t felt in years.
Seth—he’d talked Nate down off the ledge; he’d protected Nate from the potentially devastating sight of his dog dead by the roadside; he’d been sharp enough, intuitive enough, to find Tarkus; and he’d climbed a fucking tree.
Once they made it back inside, Nate made sure Tarkus had water and food, although he might as well not have bothered: as Seth released his belt from its impromptu leash duty, Tarkus paid no attention to anything but the Frisbee.
Seth scrunched his nose as he peered at his fingers. “Yuck. My hands are filthy.” He dropped his belt on the floor and held up his hands like a doctor waiting to glove up. “You got any industrial-strength hand soap?”
“Sure. Under the counter. Also hand sanitizer, olive oil. The usual suspects. Help yourself.” Nate squeezed Seth’s shoulder. “But don’t go anywhere, okay? I’ll be right back.”
Stalking into the mudroom, he grabbed a roll of wire off the shelf above the soapstone sink, then headed outside to secure the damn gate. Nobody ever needed to use the thing again as far as he was concerned. Five loops around the latch could be overkill, but he wasn’t about to go through this again. Next time, he might not be so lucky.
Lucky.
He stood in the yard, heedless of the wind kicking up and penetrating his shirt like an ice beam. I’m lucky. Here. Now. The cabin lights glowed soft and golden in the windows and French doors along the deck, gilding Seth’s hair as he scrubbed his hands and turned his head to say something to Tarkus, who’d curled up on his bed with the Frisbee between his paws. Seth walked into the living room and knelt by Tarkus’s bed, offering him something from his pocket—probably one of Pearl’s homemade dog treats. So lucky I found him. He fits this place. He fits us. He fits me.
Something warm expanded in Nate’s chest—and hello: his dick stirred in his pants as well. I want him. I do. But would Seth want him back? Only one way to find out.
He circled the deck, entering the mudroom to stow the wire and wash his hands at the sink. Peering at his reflection in the window, he made a valiant—although not entirely successful—attempt to tame his hair with his damp hands.
He scrubbed his palms along the outside of his jeans. Now or never. Taking a deep breath, he walked out of the mudroom in time to see Seth about to thread his belt through his belt loops.
“Leave it off.”
Seth’s chin shot up, his eyes widening. “That . . . seems a little unfair. Why am I the only one with his pants sagging down his ass?”
Nate held Seth’s gaze as he unbuckled his own belt and drew it off. He tossed it on the counter. “Better?”
Seth blinked rapidly. “Uh . . . Nate? What exactly are you doing?”
Nate closed the distance between them, then grasped Seth’s waist gently and pulled him close. “Making soufflé.”
“Aren’t . . . aren’t soufflés those big poofy things that rise until they practically escape their pants—uh, pans?”
“Mm-hmm.” Nate nuzzled Seth’s neck, the spot just below his ear.
“Um, so . . .” Seth inhaled the word. “Is something rising now?”
Nate pressed his pelvis forward so the heated bulge at the front of Seth’s jeans aligned with his own. “What do you think?” he murmured, his lips grazing Seth’s skin.
“Am I . . . uh . . . Oh my God Nate, really?”
Pulling back, Nate smoothed Seth’s hair off his forehead. “Is that okay? I don’t want to push you into something you don’t want, but I’m feeling so . . . so close to you right now. Like you’re here.” He grasped Seth’s hand and pressed it over his heart. “Inside.”
Seth’s eyes were huge, blue irises almost swallowed by his pupils. “Do you want to get . . . closer?”
“Yes.” Nate pressed a kiss to his throat.
“How—how close exactly?”
“This is good. For a start.”
“Hold on a minute, will you?” He pushed Nate back. “Look, I’m totally into this, being with you, but I need more, I don’t know, information from you. Like—like I think this means you have, you know . . . feelings for me.”
Nate couldn’t help his grin. “Sorry. Wasn’t I being clear? Yes—I am so there.”
“Thank God.” Seth’s shoulders drooped and he swayed a little before Nate steadied him. “Because I have feelings for you, lots of them, and, um . . .” Seth bit his lip. “I’ve never been with a guy I’ve really cared about. This is—will be my first time. If we, you know— Wait . . .” He blinked, forehead puckering in confusion. “What’s happening exactly?”
Then he blushed. Adorable. “We’re exploring.” Nate stroked Seth’s cheekbone, following that lovely wash of pink along the edge of his beard. “Finding ways to make each other happy—and in case you haven’t noticed, it makes me insanely happy to touch you. You’ve got all these fascinating textures and colors and—” Nate sucked at the spot below Seth’s ear. “Tastes. Like an interactive game.”
“I’ll give you interactive,” he muttered.
“Excellent. Let’s start with this.” Nate dove in for a kiss, moaning when Seth opened for him. But he didn’t take it deeper, not yet. Soft. Sweet. Thorough, but not sloppy. God, I’ve missed kissing. I’ve wanted to kiss him for days now.
But then Seth pulled back from the kiss—damn it!—although he seemed as breathless as Nate and kept his fists bunched in Nate’s shirt. “I’m trying to talk to you. I thought that’s what people with feelings for each other did before kissing.” He focused on Nate’s chin rather than his eyes. “I mean, I don’t know what’s okay between us. You pretty much know I’m up for anything, especially with you, but I don’t want to—I’m terrified of hitting one of your limits. I mean, what if what makes me happy freaks you out?”
A fair question. “Then I’ll tell you, but I’d never hold an honest mistake against you.” Nate ran his thumbs along Seth’s jaw as he tried to find the best way to put his desires into words, something that had never been easy for him. “If it makes you feel any better, though, I was totally into sex with Nara and Jorge. I didn’t initiate it all that often, but when they wanted it, I was there. Invested. In the moment. Because making them happy did it for me.”
“So the fact that you’re coming on to me now . . .”
Nate quirked an eyebrow. “Welcome to the exception that proves the rule.”
“What if . . .” He swallowed, and his blush deepened. “What if I asked you to strip?”
With excitement prickling his skin like static, Nate made a valiant—and probably unsuccessful—attempt at nonchalance. “Like this?” He let go of Seth—reluctantly—and peeled off his Henley. Seth sucked in a breath as Nate balled up the shirt and tossed it onto the sofa. He popped the top button on his jeans, but Seth grabbed his wrist, then let go as if the contact had burned him.
Seth rubbed his palms along the outside seams of his own jeans, staring intently into Nate’s eyes. “You mean it. You really want this? It’s not—I don’t know—a pity fuck or misplaced gratitude?”
“First, you’re not pitiful. And second, if it was nothing but gratitude, I’d buy you a drink, not do everything but beg you to touch me. Because in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been doing most of the touching so far.”
“Oh really?” Seth’s eyes kindled—finally!—and he slid both hands up Nate’s belly and over his pecs. “What do you call this?”
“About fucking time.”
There was only one way Seth could show quite how much it mattered that Nate wanted him, so he initiated full-body contact, wrapping his arms around Nate’s solid shoulders and pressing their bodies together, his chest molding to Nate�
�s. Skin. God, he loved touching this guy. And being touched by him.
Nate engulfed him, towering over him and bracing his thighs outside Seth’s. Arms so tight around him ribs creaked, although he wasn’t sure whose. It was better than he’d imagined, and he’d imagined plenty the last few nights. But he hadn’t known that every time he’d pull a breath in through his nose that the scent of Nate would feed his excitement, or how Nate would taste as they kissed.
It consumed him until they stumbled. Nate was pulling him back, somewhere, and Seth lost his balance, nearly bringing Nate with him. “What?”
“Bedroom.”
“We’re really doing this?” Damn it, why had he asked? If Nate was going to decide this was a mistake, Seth wanted him to do that afterward. Please don’t let this be extreme gratitude. The pathetic thing was that he’d take it even if he knew that was the reason. He’d take whatever he could get from Nate. He’d even consider himself lucky to have been kissed if Nate called this off right now.
But Nate didn’t. “Yeah, we’re doing this.”
He stopped outside the bathroom door, gripping Seth’s shoulders when Seth tried to keep nudging him toward the bedroom. “Hang on a sec,” Nate half panted. “Gotta get some lotion.”
“Oh.” Seth blinked as some of the cold water of reality splashed on him. Of course Nate probably didn’t have lube, and he could forget condoms. He didn’t have anything with him—he’d never thought this would happen. “Yeah, that’d be good.” Really good, because he’d love to suck Nate off, sometime, but right now he wanted nothing more than Nate’s naked body on top of his, weighing him down while they found a rhythm together. “Hurry.”
He didn’t need to say it, because Nate had already been in the bathroom and was slipping back out the door as Seth spoke, a pale-yellow bottle in his hand. All Seth saw was the word unscented before he was working them toward the bedroom again. He needed this so badly. My first time. So weird, but it was. The first time he wanted to be with someone because it was them, together, not because he wanted to get off.
Getting off was secondary. What he really wanted was for Nate to have a good experience. For him to be so totally consumed by it that Seth could tell by looking at him that Nate wasn’t bored or just doing it for Seth. It can’t just be gratitude. Romantic feelings, that was what Nate had said.
The way Nate kept touching him, kissing him over and over, until he could barely get his shirt over his head, convinced him Nate did want this as much as he did. That Nate was totally absorbed.
Seth shoved that thought away as he pushed against Nate’s shoulders, making him stop. Not out of uncertainty, but because he wanted to watch as he revealed Nate’s dick for the first time. He rested his head on Nate’s collar bone and looked down between them as he popped open the jeans and shoved the briefs out of the way.
“Jesus.” God, he’d wanted to see this forever. Since the night they met. Not Nate’s dick, but his own hand on it, stroking him. Not to mention hearing the way Nate groaned, or feeling how his Adam’s apple bobbed against Seth’s forehead as he swallowed. “Need that lotion.”
He looked around, finally spying it on the floor, but before he could reach for it, Nate had pushed him backward onto the bed. The mattress bounced under him and Seth nearly laughed out of happiness. Nate’s expression was so intent, though, that it killed any amusement.
Reaching down, Nate unfastened Seth’s jeans and worked them under his hips, shoving them down his legs in one continuous motion. Then—oh, fuck—Nate dropped to his knees next to the bed and, more carefully, peeled down the waistband of Seth’s briefs. “OhmyGod.” He couldn’t look. Just the brush of Nate’s breath on his cock threatened to make him come. “Hold on, hold on,” he whispered.
Nate didn’t, though. Still touching him as if he were delicate, he pulled Seth’s briefs down to where his jeans were wrapped around his calves, then untied his shoes.
“You don’t have to—”
“Chill,” Nate ordered, taking Seth’s shoes off, then his clothes.
Seth bit his lip. He was a sucker for a guy who exerted control. “’Kay.”
Spreading his hands wide, like he needed to touch as much skin as possible, Nate caressed Seth’s legs, skimming his hands up from the ankles, passing behind his knees, and along his thighs until he was gripping Seth’s hips. Again, breath touched Seth’s dick, but this time he jackknifed into a sitting position and grabbed Nate’s shoulders. “Don’t. Come up here, please?”
As Nate stood, Seth grabbed the bottle, then took advantage of being at eye level with Nate’s cock, stroking it in his hand, spreading the lotion around. It was his turn to be the undresser—disrober?—and he aimed to drive Nate nuts while he completed the job. Difficult with one hand, but not impossible, since at some point Nate had toed off his own shoes.
Scooting back on the bed as Nate crawled over him, Seth made sure they were positioned for maximum physical contact. He pulled Nate down on him, then began caressing him everywhere, rubbing and writhing and generally encouraging Nate to find his groove. Anything would do it for him—he could come from having his palm massaged, if it was this man doing it.
He could, but he’d rather have it like this, with his legs tangled around Nate’s and his hands kneading Nate’s ass and his tongue in Nate’s mouth while Nate thrust against him.
Seth barely made it, hanging on to his orgasm by his fingernails, until Nate was groaning in his ear and spilling on Seth’s groin, then he let go of the tiny bit of control he’d had, moaning loudly enough that he’d probably be embarrassed later, then sucking on Nate’s tongue as aftershocks pinged around inside him.
So much better. He’d never come like that. It wasn’t about the strength of the orgasm, it was about the way his heart had swollen up and exploded at the same time. In a good way. Exploded like a piñata, showering happiness and bliss all over Seth’s body and mind. “Fucking fantastic,” he murmured.
“Mmm.” Nate seemed to agree. His head was resting against Seth’s neck, and for a second there was a hint of moisture and the brush of Nate’s lips against his skin, under his jaw.
As reluctant as he was to leave the warm nest of blankets—and warmer expanse of Seth’s back—Nate slipped out of bed at his usual time the next morning. Although he didn’t have to report to work until two, since he was scheduled for night shoots for the next three days, they had a haunted house to stage.
Seth murmured in his sleep and nestled deeper into the pillows, but didn’t wake. From his bed in the corner—that damn red Frisbee tucked between his paws—Tarkus tracked Nate to the bathroom.
I could have lost him. If not for Seth, he could be gone. But if not for Tarkus, Nate might never have had the courage to take the final leap into intimacy with Seth. With Nara and Jorge, although the attraction had been there, he’d waited for them to make the first move. This time, he hadn’t been willing to wait, to trust to chance.
In the days before Nara, when Nate imagined he might be able to go along with sex with no real connection, if only to belong, he’d tried it once or twice. It hadn’t turned out well—wasn’t worth the hassle and recriminations and the burden of expectations for so little return. Turned out, if he didn’t put out—one way or another—his erstwhile partner withheld touch as a punishment.
Which made no sense—if you wanted intimacy, why refuse to be intimate, even if it didn’t go as far as a come-shot? Orgasms lasted maybe fifteen to thirty seconds, if you were lucky. Cuddling and kissing could go on for hours. Making a life—sharing a life—sleeping with someone to sleep with them, the closeness in the night, the companionship, knowing you weren’t alone, meant more to him than where he stuck his dick—or if he stuck it anywhere at all.
He’d seen how other men his age—and younger, because let’s face it, you’re not a kid anymore—seemed to charge into sex with little thought for the after. Yeah, maybe they had enough regard for consequences to take appropriate safe-sex precautions, but they didn’t think a
lot about the emotional precautions. Where did you find a condom for that?
After last night, Nate doubted there was an emo-condom in the universe hefty enough to protect him from his feelings for Seth.
And what about Seth’s feelings? He’d allowed Nate to mesh their lives in a way Nate hadn’t let himself want since Jorge. What could Nate give him in return? What if Seth wasn’t ready for Nate’s peculiar brand of devotion?
Confidence. Yeah, Nate could give him that. The self-assurance to face his family, pursue a real career path that wasn’t hedged by their expectations. The freedom to follow his dreams. I just have to figure out how.
He took a quick shower, but when he heard Seth murmuring to Tarkus, he didn’t bother to shave. He cracked open the bathroom door to see Seth crouched by Tarkus’s bed in nothing but his boxer briefs. The curve of his spine as he rubbed the dog’s belly—God, sculptors would barter their first- and second-born to capture something that perfect.
Wrapping a towel around his waist, Nate padded over and trailed his fingers along Seth’s bare shoulder. “Good morning. We don’t have a lot of time before your friend arrives. Want to grab a quick shower while I make breakfast?”
Seth gave Tarkus a final pat and stood. “Good morning to you too.” He kissed Nate’s cheek. “Probably be a good idea, huh? I mean, Lucas can take his chances, but I try never to smell like sex when I meet my grandmother.”
“About that—”
“We don’t have to figure this all out now, Nate. I’m good with just knowing you might like that kind of . . . closeness with me again.” He lowered his gaze, his fingers twirling in Nate’s chest hair.
With one knuckle, Nate raised Seth’s chin until they could look each other in the eyes. “No. That’s not what I meant. Our connection—” Nate wrapped his arms around Seth’s waist and pulled him close, skin to skin. “This connection is important to me. When I said it was the exception—well, I may not initiate sex very often, but if it means we stay close—”
“I’m not going to force myself on you. It’s not the same if I know you don’t really want it.”