Chapter 15 #2
“You know…might be fun to all go out one night.”
“Ahh, I don’t think so.”
“Why?” Daniel asked.
Brantley screwed his nose up. “We just have very different friends. That’s all.”
“Hmm. Are you sure? Or is it because we’re younger?”
Brantley rolled his eyes. “No, nothing like that. I swear.”
“Okay. Fair enough. You’d know better than I would. So,” Daniel said as he tapped his fingers on the table, “what do you have to do today?”
“I have to grade these exams. School breaks up for vacation at the end of next week, and these need to be done. Can you give me an hour or two? Is that okay?”
Daniel stood and unbuttoned his shirt, and when it was all the way undone, he lowered to the beach lounger over by the railing. He climbed on and lay flat on his stomach, facing Brantley. Then he winked and pulled his sunglasses down.
“That’s more than fine. I’m just going to lie here and watch you while I think about later. Is that okay?”
Brantley groaned and pulled some exam papers out of the bag on the table, the same one he’d been carrying around for years. And when he looked over at him, Daniel caught the smile he’d fallen for the first morning he’d ever woken at Brantley Hayes’s home.
DANIEL SMILED AS he tiptoed around the balcony that surrounded Brantley’s house until he got to the side where the professor’s bedroom was.
It’d been a little over three weeks since that night he’d had the best fucking orgasm ever with my teacher —and every night since, he’d been coming around to Brantley’s house after studying and climbing through the guy’s window.
His fucking window, he thought with a grin.
He remembered the first night he’d finished up late and practically run down the beach, only to find that all doors had been locked. But that light, the same one Brantley had told him that he would leave on if he was home, had been on.
As quietly as he could, Daniel had walked around the balcony until he’d found the three rectangular windows with the curtains half drawn and spotted his professor asleep in the wicker chair shoved into the corner of the room.
He’d looked fucking beautiful that night.
His feet were propped up on a matching ottoman, and he had a book open on his lap over the light cotton pajama pants he was wearing, and Daniel stood there for a few minutes just to watch him.
If he hadn’t been invited, it might have been creepy, but when those gorgeous eyes opened to find him standing there, a smile spread over Brantley’s mouth that was so breathtaking Daniel’s heart just about stopped.
That was the night he’d fallen for Brantley Hayes. And now, his professor left his window open so he could come to him whenever he could. Tonight was no different.
When Daniel reached the bedroom, he nudged open the window and crawled inside. He spotted Brantley in the large platform bed and crossed over to it. As he kicked his shoes off, he swept his gaze over the man lounging back against his headboard and took in every detail he could.
The ever-present book across Brantley’s lap made Daniel smile.
So did the silky line of hair trailing up from his pajama pants.
Daniel couldn’t count the number of times he’d wanted to ask him to take them off, but he hadn’t wanted to push his luck.
He still couldn’t believe he was allowed to be there in the first place. But there he was.
He pulled his T-shirt off and tossed it over the chair before removing his pants and walking around the side of bed, where he stepped up and then knelt down carefully, so as not to startle the sleeping man.
As the mattress dipped under his weight, Brantley opened his eyes and a slow smile curved his lips. He held a hand out to him, and when Daniel slipped his hand inside, he closed his eyes and savored the warmth of that touch. Not only the physical, but the much deeper connection it brought with it.
“Studying late again, I see.”
Daniel shuffled forward on his knees and yawned. “Yeah, but I got it done.”
“Mhmm. Such dedication,” Brantley murmured as he moved the book from his lap to the bedside table. “You must be tired.”
Daniel slid beside Brantley into the bed and wondered why it all felt so right.
From the moment he’d met his professor, he’d sensed a connection and chased it down with the tenacity of a bulldog.
But the overwhelming sense of security he felt when Brantley turned the light off and embraced him was what was so unexpected.
He didn’t come from a bad home. He had a fantastic family. A loving mother and a sister who drove him crazy. But Brantley…he filled something inside Daniel that he hadn’t even known was missing. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“You’re awfully quiet tonight. Usually, you crawl in here, wake me up, and don’t stop talking until you pass out. Are you okay?”
Daniel nuzzled his face into the dark hair beneath Brantley’s cheek and then kissed a spot over his heart. “Yeah. I’m just enjoying this.” Then he stretched his body along the side of Brantley’s.
He chuckled. “So I can feel.”
“You’re so warm,” Daniel said, tracing a line along the fine trail of hair that led to the drawstring of Brantley’s pants. “Can we…”
Brantley craned his head up to look down at him, and Daniel flirted with the bow tied there.
“Can we what?”
He made sure to keep his eyes on Brantley’s as he slowly pulled the end of the tie. “Can we lose the pants tonight?”
When one of Brantley’s hands stroked down his hair, Daniel arched back into it and let his eyes fall shut.
“Nothing else. I just want to feel you against me. Naked and warm.” He held his breath, waiting to see what Brantley would do or say. But he didn’t say anything. Instead, he brought his other hand up to cradle his face, and Daniel worked out exactly what he made him feel—loved.
Not as a son.
Not as a brother.
Not as a friend.
But loved in a way he’d never known before. As a man. And this man made him feel like the best version of all of those people he had to be.
“Finn,” Brantley said as he brushed his lips over the top of his. “You slay me.”
Daniel’s fingers fumbled a little at the intensity of those words, and he wondered if Brantley could sense how much Daniel cared about him, even though it’d been such a short amount of time. He loosened the pants and ran his fingers under the elastic waist as he moved closer.
“So, is that a yes?”
Brantley rolled them across the mattress so he was on top and said, “Yes.”
When Brantley kissed his way down Daniel’s neck and sure fingers inched his boxers down, Daniel moaned and lifted his hips in an effort to hurry it along.
Brantley raised his head and smiled, and Daniel couldn’t stop himself from rising up and recapturing that mouth with his own.
He slipped his fingers inside Brantley’s pajama bottoms and shoved them down over his hips, and when he finally got his hands on his ass, the sound that left his professor could only be described one way—bliss.
That groan was total bliss to his ears, so he squeezed him again, and Brantley dropped his forehead to the crook of his neck.
“God, Finn. Let me get out of these.”
Daniel reluctantly let him go, and they both kicked out of their clothes, their eyes locked, their breathing labored.
When they finally came back together, every inch of Brantley lined up with Daniel, and he swore he could feel the pulse throbbing in Brantley’s cock as it rubbed against his own.
He caressed all of Brantley’s bare skin, and when he got to his ass and squeezed it once more, Brantley grunted and nipped at his lower lip.
“Nothing else, huh?”
“Well, what’d you expect? I’m young and horny, and you feel amazing. I can’t help but— Oh, fuck,” Daniel said when Brantley placed his hands on the pillow by his head and started a slow body roll.
He parted his legs, and as Brantley nestled in between them, Daniel ordered himself to relax and enjoy. This wasn’t about sex for him; this moment was about getting closer to the man now running a hand down his arm.
“You’re so beautiful, Finn. A young, blond beach god with eyes the color of copper.
I don’t know what I did to deserve you, and heaven knows I should tell you to go, but clearly, that ship’s sailed…
” Brantley laid his head on Daniel’s shoulder and whispered, “I want you. And I’m selfish enough to keep you for as long as you let me. ”
It was on the tip of Daniel’s tongue to say, Always, but he thought that it might freak Brantley out.
So, instead, he wrapped his arms around Brantley’s waist and closed his eyes.
As the weight of Brantley blanketed him, Daniel drifted off to sleep secure in the knowledge that if what he’d just said was true, then Brantley would be his—forever.