Chapter 14
S OMETIME IN THE middle of the night, Brantley had woken Daniel and suggested they move to the bed.
Ever since then, Daniel hadn’t slept a wink.
He’d slipped beneath the covers and shut his eyes, but the lethargy that had given him a couple of hours’ respite after their…
moment had faded. Now, he was left staring at the bamboo ceiling fan and thinking about how much he loved watching Brantley come undone for him.
And how he wanted to see it again. And again. And fucking again.
He rolled over and stared at the peaceful face on the pillow beside him, and his heart ached. God, he was a fool. A fool to have thought he could ever go back there and keep his heart out of the fucking equation.
Even now, he wanted to trace his fingers over Brantley’s stubbled cheek so he’d open his eyes and look at him, but he balled his fists and shoved them under the pillow to quell the urge.
He needed to get a fucking grip on himself. This was temporary. That was the plan. It was two weeks and then he would be going home. Back to Chicago. Back to the job he’d worked so hard for. Back to the life Brantley had orchestrated for him.
Turning to his side, he looked at the window he used to crawl through back in the day and smiled at the memory.
He remembered the first time he’d done it and scared the hell out of Brantley.
After that night, though, his professor would wait for him to arrive.
Sometimes, he’d even fall asleep before he got there.
Usually, they were the nights he would spend studying at the library, but each time he crept inside and roused Brantley from his sleep, he would roll over and smile at him in a way that would make his whole fucking world spin.
As the covers rustled and the mattress dipped, he turned his head, but Brantley’s eyes remained closed.
The thought was absurd, but Daniel hated the fact that sleep was stealing time away from him.
Yet on the other hand, he was scared of what he would say if Brantley opened his eyes.
With the way he was feeling, he wouldn’t put anything past his irrational brain.
The truth of the matter was he didn’t want to spend his time with Brantley angry.
If this really was the last time they would be together like this, surely he could find a way to push aside all of their past baggage and enjoy him.
He’d dreamed of moments like this. Of lying in this very bed with Brantley again, and never in any of those scenarios was he angry.
So why couldn’t he just be fucking happy?
Sitting up, he swung his legs over the edge of the mattress and rubbed his hands over his face.
This wasn’t supposed to be so complicated.
He was the king of one-night stands, for fuck’s sake, and he had been ever since he’d left Florida.
He’d constructed a wall so high that no one had even come close to getting over it—but then again, no one was Brantley.
Daniel glanced over his shoulder, but this time his eyes caught and held on to the ones that haunted his every waking, and sleeping, moment.
“Leaving so soon?”
Daniel shook his head as Brantley ran his palm over the empty sheet, and then he lay back down beside him. The room remained silent save for the soft thumping of the fan and his own beating heart as he waited—for what, he wasn’t sure.
“Can we call a truce?”
He looked over at Brantley and opened his mouth to speak. Before any words could come out, though, Brantley placed a finger over Daniel’s lips.
“I had no idea how much I hurt you back then. I thought I was helping.”
He gently clasped Brantley’s wrist and drew his hand away as he asked, “By deciding what was best for me?”
“I didn’t want you to resent me,” Brantley admitted. “But, in the end, I made you hate me…”
As the words lingered between them, the pain in Brantley’s expression tore at Daniel and he brought their hands to his chest.
“I don’t hate you ,” he said. “I could never hate you…”
“But?”
The only way he could ever be with Brantley was honest, so he held his stare as he told him the brutal truth. “I hate what you did to us. I hate that you chose how we should end. And I fucking hate that you decided that my life was better off without you in it.”
As Brantley’s fingers dug into Daniel’s chest, his eyes glistened and his cheek bunched, as if he were trying to hold his emotions back—and Daniel felt like an asshole.
He opened his mouth to apologize, but Brantley shook his head.
“I know,” he said, and raised his hand. It shook as he ran his fingers down Daniel’s cheek. “I’m such a fucking idiot.”
Unable to bear Brantley talking about himself that way, Daniel nipped at his fingers and whispered, “It’s done now.”
“Right. But?—”
“Shhh. You want a truce, then let’s call a truce and see where we go from here. I don’t want to be angry with you, and no matter how unwise it may be, I want to spend every minute I have with you enjoying them. Okay?”
brANTLEY TRIED TO think of any words that could possibly express the emotions vying for supremacy, but nothing came. So when Daniel whispered, “Roll over,” he naturally went.
As Daniel’s heavy arm came down around his waist and he molded his body along the line of his, Brantley tried to enjoy the moment. But he wasn’t convinced that if Daniel’s arm wasn’t there, he wouldn’t shatter into a million pieces.
Not only was he reeling from the hard-hitting truth that he had been the one to cause this hostile undercurrent between them, but he was also the one who’d inadvertently placed a permanent distance between the two of them.
Daniel was talking as if this time, these two weeks, was all they would ever have, and Brantley wasn’t sure he was ready to accept that.
Not when he’d been holding on to the misguided hope and belief that they would reunite, fall madly in love again, and move heaven and earth— or at least their personal belongings —to be with one another.
It seemed now that the likelihood of that happening was slim to none, and it was coming to grips with that that was the hardest of all.
If this really was it for them, then he would do what Daniel asked. He would take each day he could and would enjoy every inch of the man until he walked back out of his life—for good.
THE NEXT TIME Daniel woke, the sun was streaming in through the windows, and the body against his front made him think the decision to stay with Brantley had been a pretty fucking good one.
He curled his arm around Brantley’s waist, and when he scooted back and pressed his naked ass against his morning erection, Daniel decided that this was a much better way to spend his time with this man than arguing.
Kissing him beneath his ear, Daniel ran a hand along the line of Brantley’s hip and murmured, “Good morning.”
Brantley turned his head on the pillow. When their eyes met and his lips parted to reply, Daniel couldn’t resist swooping down to take a kiss. He pressed his lips to Brantley’s, and he immediately slipped his tongue into his mouth, causing a groan to rumble in the back of Daniel’s throat.
God, he wanted him. Wanted to roll him to his stomach and slide inside him. But he didn’t want to rush that. He wanted them to both be in the right headspace, and after last night, he didn’t think that would be now.
So, for the moment, he would settle for kissing, mhmm, oh yeah, Brantley Hayes until he was—“Jesus, Finn”—panting his name.
He released him so Brantley could roll to his back, and when he did, Daniel didn’t waste any time shifting over the top of him. There was no other place on the planet he would have rather been right then.
As Brantley ran his hands over his shoulders and then up into his hair, he grinned at him in a way that made Daniel want to forget waiting and just bury his cock inside the man.
“Let me guess. You think my hair is weird?”
“Actually,” Brantley said as he fingered it, “I was just thinking how sexy it is.”
“Sure you were. I cut it literally the day before I flew down here.”
Brantley’s fingers twisted into the short strands on the back of Daniel’s head. “You did?”
“Mhmm. So it’s weird even to me.”
Brantley chuckled. “Stop saying that. It’s not weird at all. It shows off your pretty face.”
Daniel’s mouth fell open. “Pretty? No one has called me pretty in…years.”
“Why? Are the men in Chicago blind?”
“No. But I’m not real close to people up there, I guess. They don’t know me like you do.”
Something sad flashed in Brantley’s eyes, but it vanished before Daniel could put a name to it, and a smile curved his lips.
“In other words, they don’t know that you used to parade around in shorts so short and tight they should’ve been illegal. Hell, they probably would’ve been if you’d worn them outside.”
“No,” Daniel said before nipping at Brantley’s grinning lips. “They don’t know that. They wouldn’t even believe that.”
Brantley stroked his fingers down the back of his neck, and frowned in deep contemplation. “And they don’t know you used to glitter up this hard body of yours and shake your ass through all hours of the night?”
Daniel rolled his hips over Brantley’s, and, when he groaned, he did it again.
“No. They do not.”
“I feel sorry for them,” Brantley said as he wound his legs over the top of Daniel’s and arched his hips up. Then he winked.
Daniel’s cock throbbed even harder.
“You have a fantastic ass. Always have. Maybe we should hunt down those shorts. By the way, how do you keep it in such great shape? Do you still run?”
When a sharp pinch stung one of his cheeks, Daniel cursed and moved away to stand up. Rubbing his abused posterior, he looked back at Brantley, who was stretched out facedown on the sheets. And fuck if that isn’t an invitation all on its own.