Chapter 9
D ANIEL GOT BACK to his mother’s house later that afternoon. When he walked in, she was putting the tomatoes away in the fridge.
“Hey there,” he said as he dropped his sister’s keys on the bench and leaned down to give her a kiss. “I thought you went to the store earlier?”
She turned her cheek up to him, and when his lips met it, she said, “No, I just went out. I thought you might need some privacy to, you know…talk.”
He tilted his head to the side and eyed her. “Oh? Well, thanks.”
“Hmm, you’re welcome,” she said, and then put a hand on her hip. “So? When are you going?” Her eyes sparkled at him.
He frowned. “Going where?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
He took the lettuce out of her canvas shopping bag and went over to the fridge. Once he’d put it in the crisper, he gave her a smile. “To Brantley’s.”
Her face lit up as she walked past him with the bananas. Then she stopped, looked up, and said, “Thank you.”
“Thank you?”
“Yes. For finally telling me.”
“Ma—” he started.
“No, stop right there. We aren’t going to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make excuses for why you didn’t think you could tell me. But now that I know, I do want to know one thing.”
He swallowed and wondered if he would be able to answer whatever she was about to ask. God, what if she asks when this all started? What if she freaked out that Brantley was his teacher—well, ex-teacher .
“How long have you loved him?”
That was not what he’d been expecting.
“Huh?” He couldn’t believe she’d just asked him that.
“How long have you loved him, Finn?”
He couldn’t deny her when she used his name that way, and honestly, he was so tired of not telling someone how he really felt that he gave in. He leaned back against the kitchen cabinets and shook his head.
“Feels like forfuckingever.”
She wandered over to him, stopped, and took his hand in hers. “Language, son. Is he the reason you left?”
His mouth went dry at the compassion in her eyes, and he nodded, unable to think of anything to say.
“And he’s why you’re back, isn’t he?”
To that, he could manage an answer. “Yes.”
Releasing his hand, she moved beside him and rested against the cabinets, just as he was. Her head barely reached his shoulder, and when he looked down at her and she smiled, the weight of the world seemed to lift right off him.
“How long have you known?”
She raised her eyebrows. “I suspected midway through your first year of college.”
That had him rounding on her. “What? No you didn’t.”
“Yes…son, I did.” She patted his arm as he tried to convince his brain that everything was copacetic. “A mother knows these things.”
“Ahh…”
“Okay, let me clarify. I didn’t know it was your professor, but I knew you were seeing someone.
I also knew that you were trying very hard to keep it a secret.
So I figured I would wait, and eventually, when you were ready, you would tell me.
It wasn’t until I saw you with him at a function that I really knew. ”
He was trying to keep his mouth shut and not falling open on the floor but, from the wide grin on his mother’s face, he must’ve looked as poleaxed as he felt.
“It was a faculty meeting at the dean’s house about a year in for the top students.
I remember the way you two stood next to each other and were so careful not to touch, but you both talked like you had been doing it for years.
You finished each other’s sentences like a couple would. And Finn, I won’t lie—it scared me.”
He went to walk away from her, but she took his arm, halting him.
“It scared me because I could see how much you admired him. And even though you were legally of age, I wasn’t sure you knew what you were doing. I knew that if he was the one you had been secretly meeting with, then he really had the power to hurt you.”
He clenched his jaw, refusing to think about the pain he’d locked deep inside himself that his professor had eventually caused. He didn’t want his mother to see that.
“And he did somehow, didn’t he?”
“Ma…it’s not what you think.”
“Was it because he told you to go to Chicago?”
“Can we not talk about this? It was a long time ago.”
“I know,” she said softly. “But I see it in your eyes, son. You’re angry. Every time his name is mentioned or he’s here, you get…agitated.”
“Well, he deserves it,” he snapped, and then walked away from her. When he was across the room, he looked back.
She was still standing by the cabinets. “Does he? Maybe he was just doing what he thought was best for you.”
That was exactly what Brantley had thought he was doing, but as always, Daniel kept getting stuck on— “It wasn’t his decision to make.” And with that, he went down to his room to get his bag.
It was time to confront this thing head-on.
WHEN brANTLEY ARRIVED home, he made sure to pick up after himself.
The only problem with that was his house was close to immaculate.
That was the way he liked it. So, after thirty minutes of straightening things up, he was left to sit and think about what he’d just invited into his life with a block of chocolate and a cup of coffee, and all he kept coming up with was: heartache.
What the hell am I doing to myself? he thought for the umpteenth time several hours later.
It isn’t like Daniel hasn’t told me what he’s coming here to do.
Yet I’m inviting him to stay anyway. Why?
Probably because, somewhere in the back of his brain, he believed he could…
What ? Change his mind? And even if I do, then what? My life is here, and his is ? —
Knock, knock, knock.
He put the final square of chocolate down and glanced at the clock.
It was four forty-five. He didn’t think Daniel was the kind of man to show up early, especially this new no-nonsense version of him.
So he got to his feet and made his way to the front door.
But it was Jordan standing on his wraparound balcony with a bottle of wine in his raised hand.
Brantley shook his head. “Sorry. No can do.”
“What? No gossip over wine? You promised me details.”
“I don’t have any details to give. He didn’t stay, remember? And I have a five o’clock appointment, so you need to leave.”
The disappointed pout that pursed Jordan’s lips was almost worth the argument Brantley and Daniel had had the night before.
“You cannot be serious right now. Who is more important than me? And don’t you dare try to lie to me, Hayes. I saw the way that boy looked at you. I deserve all the dirty details.”
He was about to open his mouth and tell Jordan that he would explain everything later, but right as the words were about to come out, Daniel walked around the side of the porch and stopped directly behind his friend.
Well, this should be interesting. How much did he hear?
“Let’s clear up your first mistake, shall we…” Daniel said.
Jordan whirled around to face him. He was shorter than Daniel by more than a couple of inches, and by the self-satisfied smile on Daniel’s lips, he was enjoying that fact quite a lot.
“ He is not a boy. And second,” he said, plucking the wine from Jordan’s fingers, “ I’m his five o’clock appointment. But you should come back tomorrow. I promise he’ll have plenty of dirty details to give you by then.”
When Daniel’s eyes moved past Jordan’s stuttering self to find his, Brantley’s knees weakened and his palms started to sweat.
Christ, that look promises all kinds of depravities.
True to Jordan’s personality, he stepped aside and made a sweeping gesture that Daniel should pass, and without sparing him a second glance, Daniel walked forward and handed Brantley the bottle of wine.
“Afternoon.”
“Good afternoon,” he replied, rather pleased with himself for having gotten that much out, considering talking was now at the bottom of his priority list.
“Tell him goodbye now, Brantley.”
His cock pounded at the order, and when he looked at Jordan, he was busy fanning his face and mouthing, “Call me,” as he walked away.
Bringing his attention back to Daniel, he asked, “Would you like to come inside, Finn?”
“I told you what I wanted this afternoon. I’ve come to collect it.”
He knew exactly what Daniel wanted, because he wanted it too: the kiss he’d left without the night before. And, as he took a step back and put the wine on the entry table, Daniel followed.
“You didn’t bring a bag,” Brantley pointed out as Daniel kept advancing.
“I did,” Daniel told him, and then he took his hand to pull Brantley close. “I just wanted my hands free when I finally got them on you.”
“God, yes,” Brantley murmured, and Daniel finally lowered his head and touched his mouth to his.
DANIEL WANTED TO kiss Brantley for the rest of his life.
That realization was nothing new. He’d known that fact since the first kiss they’d ever shared, and standing this close to him again only solidified that that want had not changed.
He brought a hand up to the back of Brantley’s head to hold him still, and as he gently ghosted his mouth over the lips under his, he said, “Don’t go shy on me now, professor,” and then stroked his tongue along the seam of Brantley’s lips.
A groan left the man he was sampling, and as they sized one another up, the heavy breathing between the two of them was all that could be heard.
Brantley then stepped backward to lean against the wall and tugged on Daniel’s shirt, urging him to follow.
He did without hesitation, and shifted his hips in close so he could rock his erection over the one he could feel in Brantley’s shorts.
Then he took that handsome face between his hands and said, “Give it to me. I want the kiss I didn’t get last night.
The same one I was denied every day I was away from you.
The kiss of a man who invited me to stay in his bed for two weeks. ”
He lowered his head, and just when their lips were about to meet, the hand on his chest held him off. He narrowed his eyes on the face angled up at him, and he wondered if Brantley was about to say no.
That clearly wasn’t what he had in mind, though, as a slow smile curved Brantley’s lips and he smoothed his palm down to Daniel’s ass, pulling him even closer.
“I invited you to stay in my house,” he said. “ You invited yourself into my bed. Between my sheets, if I recall.”
“I didn’t hear you say no,” Daniel countered.
The grin that curved Brantley’s mouth was a total fucking turn-on.
They both knew he’d never say no. And that hint of cockiness under all of that educated charm made Daniel’s dick ache.
God , his thin linen pants were not doing shit to conceal his arousal, but Brantley’s shorts… they would have to fucking go.
Later.
After.
He placed his palms on the wall, caging Brantley in, and when he jutted his chin out toward him, Daniel finally took the kiss he’d been dying to take.
It was desperate and unrestrained, and Brantley parted for him in an instant. Daniel slid his tongue inside the second he had permission, and as the taste of the man he’d been dreaming of since the day he’d left hit him, Daniel was barely able to hold himself back.
Brantley tasted exactly as he remembered: salt, mocha, and coffee. Three things that always went hand in hand with his professor. The beach, his ever-present coffee, and the chocolate he always ate when he was nervous—which he clearly had been this evening.
It was the perfect blend, pretty much a drink on the man’s tongue, and it was intoxicating as hell to finally have it back on his taste buds.
Daniel ground his hips against Brantley’s, and when the hands on his ass flexed and hauled him in closer, he shoved a foot between his spread legs and got them as close as two bodies could be while fully clothed.
He wanted nothing more than to get his hands down Brantley’s pants, but he was more than aware of why he was there, and if they jumped straight to the naked part, then they’d unlikely be able to go back.
Reluctantly, he lifted his mouth and sighed when Brantley’s breath washed over his lips. “Want to help me get my bag?”
The dilated eyes focused on his made Daniel smile. So did the fact that Brantley was unable to speak.
“My bag? You know, with my clothes in it? It’s sitting out on your porch.”
“You don’t need it.”
“Oh? So I’m just going to parade around your beach house naked? How scandalous.”
Brantley hummed and drew Daniel back toward him so he could rub his hard-on against him.
Daniel bent his head to put his mouth by his ear. “You need to let me go.”
“Why?”
“Because the next time we kiss like that, I want you naked, and I think we need to talk a little before that. Don’t you?”
“So, you mean it? You’re going to stay? For the whole two weeks?”
“Yes, I’ll stay. But Brantley?”
Brantley’s eyes opened, and Daniel made himself take a step back. “That’s all it is. Two weeks. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Warn me?” Brantley asked as he straightened and ran a hand through Daniel’s hair.
“Yes. Just remember—I’m not the same person I was when I left. Know that and we should get along just fine.”