Chapter 7
B RANTLEY SENSED THE change in Daniel a second too late, and before he could pull out of his embrace, Daniel was pushing him away.
For a minute there, he’d let himself get swept up in the sensual lure and promise of Daniel’s mouth. But as the reality of what they were about to do set in, Brantley knew that it wasn’t the way he wanted to begin this new chapter of whatever they would become.
The troubled man rubbing an agitated hand over his face muttered, “I can’t do this.”
Brantley had figured that was coming. “Okay,” he said, unable to put into words what he really wanted to say. Something along the lines of, But don’t go.
“It’s not okay,” Daniel said as he glared at him. “I should be able to just…”
“Just?” Brantley said, hoping that what he was thinking wasn’t what Daniel was about to say.
“Just take what I want and be done with this. Be done with us .”
Yes, that was exactly what he hadn’t wanted to hear. He’d been so optimistic when he’d heard that Daniel was back. But with every minute that passed and the more he spoke with him, things were starting to look…
“Is that why you came back? To move on? To be done with this? Because I’m pretty sure you could’ve done that just as effectively from where you live, Finn.”
As the anger in his tone reached Daniel, the annoyance radiating off Brantley amplified.
That was too damn bad, though. It pissed him off to no end to think that Daniel had come back to just fuck him out of his life.
And it was abundantly clear that the pressure that had been simmering under the combustible lust had just exploded like a powder keg.
“Why are you so surprised?” Daniel said. “You were done with us years ago.”
Brantley took a step back, his mouth hanging open in shock. Daniel had left under strained circumstances, sure, but he’d never suspected this.
This…deep, underlying anger.
“No, Finn,” he said, tempering his own irritation. “You know that’s not true. I?—”
“ That ,” Daniel interrupted, pointing as he took a step forward.
“That’s the problem right there. I have no idea what’s true.
Back then and now. God, Brantley. Seven years.
It’s been seven fucking years since I’ve seen or heard from you, and the second I got your note, everything I’d ever convinced myself was bullshit came crashing back in.
” Daniel’s jaw bunched where he’d clamped it shut, and he clenched his fists.
“It wasn’t all in your head,” Brantley said. “It was real. It did happen.”
“Yet in one selfish move, you made the decision that it would’ve been better if it hadn’t.” When Daniel’s eyes met Brantley’s, the defeat and rejection this confident man had been hiding became evident.
An uncomfortable silence settled around them as they stood there, closer than they’d been in years, yet more detached than ever before. This emotional distance was so much worse than the physical— that could at least have been overcome.
Brantley knew, right then, that if they were ever going to move beyond this stalemate they were in, something needed to give.
“Finn?”
When Daniel shook his head and looked away, he tried again.
“Finn? Is that really what you think?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Daniel snapped.
Then Brantley did something he hadn’t done since the first time they’d been in this house. He took Daniel’s chin between his fingers and looked him directly in the eye.
“What do you want? Right here and right now—what do you want? Do you want to take me to bed and fuck me until you can forget me? Then let’s go. I figure by Monday morning you should be good, right?”
Daniel’s eyes glittered at him, but Brantley kept his pinned to the man who was shaking with emotion.
“If only it were that easy.”
“It’s not?”
Daniel wrapped his fingers around Brantley’s wrist. Then he pulled it away from his face and tugged him in close. “You know it’s not. Even when you pushed me out that door and out of your life, I stood outside, waiting for you to open it again. I was so sure that you would…”
Brantley remembered. He’d sat inside with his back to the door and listened to Daniel try to reason with him for hours until there’d been nothing to listen to anymore, and when Daniel had left, he’d given in and let his heart crack open and the tears fall free.
“This is so fucked,” Daniel told him. “I knew coming back here would be a mistake. But I couldn’t help myself. I had to see you again.” Realizing what he’d just said, Daniel schooled his features and went to turn away.
But Brantley wasn’t having any of that. He reached for Daniel’s face, took it between his hands, and asked, “How long?”
Daniel’s eyes were direct as they found his. “What?”
Brantley gave in to the urge to smooth his thumbs over Daniel’s jaw, and then he asked again, “How long are you here for?”
Daniel raised a hand to one of Brantley’s wrists, and surprised him by gently encircling it. “Two days…two weeks… However long it takes. I had some time owed to me.”
Brantley slipped his hand into Daniel’s and thought he caught a flicker of pain enter his eyes. He’d put that there, and he vowed that he’d do whatever it would take, even if it meant letting Daniel go, to remove it.
“Okay, then. So let’s take this one day at a time. I asked you to come home, and you said yourself the one place you truly call home is through those doors over there.”
When Daniel looked beyond his shoulder and his fingers tightened, Brantley could sense the war waging between the man Daniel was now and the one he’d been the day he’d left.
“Stay here,” Brantley suggested. “Even if it’s with you in my room and me in the spare. I asked you home because I want you here. The reasons you came are your own. We need to talk about this, Finn. I need to know how I can make it better. Please…don’t leave it like this.”
DANIEL DIDN’T WANT his heart to hurt the way it did as he stared into Brantley’s eyes, but that’s exactly what was happening.
Every time he made a move, every time he got close, Brantley would look at him in a way that brought all of his long-suppressed emotions back to the surface. It was frustrating as fuck.
He studied the achingly familiar face only inches from his own.
The stubble lining his jaw also had those new touches of silver in it, but beyond that, Brantley Hayes looked the same.
Just as sexy as he had the first time Daniel had seen him.
Sophisticated sex. That was how he’d always thought of his professor.
Until he took his clothes off—then he could barely think at all.
“I’ll take the spare,” Daniel said. Brantley’s lips curved, and Daniel heard himself ask, “How is it possible that you’re even better looking now than you were back then?”
“Me?” Brantley chuckled. “You had me changing my clothes for close to an hour before I came to see you tonight just so you might consider giving me a sideways glance.”
That hint of vulnerability in a man who’d always been so confident brought Daniel out of his foul mood.
“Well, it paid off,” he said. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”
Several seconds passed, and when Brantley slid his hands into his pockets, Daniel did the same, thinking it was probably the wisest move.
“So…” Brantley started.
“So.”
“I don’t want to just assume, but I’m guessing your mother still doesn’t?—”
“Know that I was sleeping with my professor throughout college? No, I couldn’t quite work out a way to tell her.”
Brantley nodded and frowned in the way he did when he was concentrating, and Daniel had to fight the urge to stroke his thumb along the furrow between his eyes.
Unaware of the scrutiny he was under, Brantley ran a finger along Daniel’s jaw. “When you say it like that, it does have a sordid sound to it, doesn’t it?”
“I think it has a fucking hot sound to it, personally,” Daniel said, causing Brantley’s eyes to find his. “But maybe that’s because I was the one in your bed.” He swept his eyes around the living room. “And on this couch. And, if memory serves, every other flat surface you could get me on.”
“Finn,” Brantley whispered, and went to take a step forward.
“No. I can’t have you touch me right now.”
“Okay. I’ll stay over here.” Then Brantley walked around behind the couch, once again putting it, and some much-needed distance, between them.
Smart, smart man. “Good. Because we both know once you touch me, there’s no way I'm going to be able to keep my hands off you. And I need to work out a way not to hate that I want that so fucking much.”
Brantley winced. “That’s… Wow. Finn, I had no idea. I mean, I knew you were upset the day you left, but I guess I just assumed you decided to say, ‘Fuck it,’ and went off to finish college and have fun.”
“Have fun?” Daniel asked. “Really? I assume you mean fun as in fucking around? That’s really what you thought of me?”
“You were young, Finn. So young,” Brantley said.
Once again, Daniel’s anger boiled.
“I wanted you to experience life, to really know what you wanted?—”
“I knew what I wanted,” Daniel shouted.
When Brantley dug his fingers into the cushion of the couch, Daniel lowered his voice. “It wasn’t your decision to make,” he whispered. Jesus , who was he kidding? He couldn’t stay there. He needed to leave before he did or said anything more.
He turned on his heel and walked toward the open doors. Picking up his flip-flops, he was about to walk out when he heard his name. Then he looked back at where Brantley remained standing behind his couch, his fingers still clutching the leather.
“Will I see you tomorrow?”
Instead of answering, Daniel asked a question of his own. “How many nights over the last seven years have you lain in bed and wondered who was touching me?”
The broken expression that crossed Brantley’s face told him all he needed to know, but when he didn’t respond, Daniel started to make his way down the back stairs.
“Finn!”
He was halfway to the beach when he saw Brantley standing at the top of the stairs.
The white curtains were swirling around behind him in the breeze as he looked down at him.
“Every night. I’ve thought about it every night since you left.”