Chapter Sixteen #2
Evan eased to his feet and moved for the doorway. “So, now that you know, I understand if you don’t want to stay here or hang out with me anymore.”
Jesse jumped up and grabbed him by the shoulder. He spun Evan around to face him. “All this time I’ve been thinking you might just be smarter than me, and then you go and say something like that.”
Evan blinked at him. “How can you still want to be with me after knowing how I disregarded another person so callously?”
“Because it wasn’t your fault he died, Ev. The guy clearly had some serious issues, and if you didn’t trip him off, someone or something else would have. How were you supposed to know what he was going to do? You couldn’t have. If you did, you would’ve gotten him help, I know it.”
“I think you’re taking this too lightly.”
Jesse laid his hand on Evan’s cheek, trying to tell him with his eyes what he felt in his heart. “If I am, then it’s because the only thing that matters about your past is that it brought you to me now. Nothing you’ve ever done will make me walk away from you.”
Joy, relief, pain, grief, choked Evan’s throat.
He wrapped his arms around Jesse and leaned against him.
“Jess,” he said, his voice hardly a whisper.
“I don’t know why I’ve told you everything.
It’s not the way I am to talk and express my feelings to someone else.
But with you…you’ve broken me down. You make me feel so vulnerable. ”
Jesse strengthened his hold on him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you.”
“No, it’s okay.” Evan pulled away enough to look into his eyes. “It shouldn’t be, but it is, because I know my vulnerability is safe with you.” He lowered his head and shook it. “I’m sorry. I’m not making sense.”
Jesse combed his fingers through Evan’s hair.
“You are making sense, and you’re right.
I’ll never do anything to hurt you.” He kissed Evan’s forehead, his cheeks, and lifted his chin to kiss him lightly on the lips.
He drew back and kissed Evan on the tip of his nose.
“Unless you keep dropping your head and making it hard for me to kiss you. Then I might be forced to get rough with you.”
A ghost of a smile flickered on Evan’s lips, and he rested his forehead against Jesse’s. “Can we go back upstairs? I really need to be close to you right now.”
Jesse startled at Evan asking if they could go back to bed. When Evan wanted it he took it, but he sounded so fragile, almost desperate. Jesse drew his fingertips across Evan’s chest, took him by the hand, and led him out of the music room and upstairs.
Evan sat on the edge of the bed with his back to him, listening as Jesse retrieved the lube. He stared down at his hands, wondering why he felt so nervous as if it was his first time. The answer flared in the front of his mind. He pushed it away, too fearful to face it.
Jesse glanced at Evan, his heart constricting at how strained he looked, so different from the confident man he had grown used to.
It made him fully understand how much the guilt over Brian’s death had weighed Evan down as he carried the pain of it alone for nearly four years.
He crawled across the bed and knelt behind him.
“Maybe we should wait until later,” he said softly.
Evan turned his gaze back toward him. “No. Please, Jess.”
Jesse shifted to Evan’s side. He placed one hand on Evan’s chest, the other on his shoulder, and guided him back to lie on the bed. Evan moved at Jesse’s commands, lifting his hips up to push his running pants off. Jesse took over for him, shed his own boxers, and brought his body over him.
Jesse caressed Evan’s face with his fingertips, having so many things he wanted to say to him, to tell him he had fallen in love with him, that he could never picture any of his days to come without him, but feared saying the words so soon.
Evan gazed up at Jesse, seeing an emotion on his beautiful face, in his stunning indigo eyes, that he prayed was true, and at the same moment, knowing he didn’t deserve it.
He lifted his hand, resting it on the side of Jesse’s face.
Jesse closed his eyes. He turned his head toward Evan’s hand, laying a warm kiss in his palm.
Evan drew his legs along Jesse’s sides. Jesse leaned his weight down on his left elbow and slipped his right hand with lube-slicked fingers down Evan’s body.
He gently massaged and worked Evan open, wanting to make him feel as physically special as he had become to Jesse emotionally.
He felt Evan’s body melt under him. He slowly withdrew his fingers, took hold of his own arousal, and guided it into Evan.
Evan exhaled a ragged breath and wrapped his arms around Jesse.
Jesse lowered his head, brushing his cheek against Evan’s and softly kissed his throat and neck, moving his hips in gentle thrusts.
He took one of Evan’s hands and raised it to his lips, kissed along the back of it and locked their fingers together.
Evan buried his face against Jesse’s neck, realizing that for the first time in his life he wasn’t simply having sex, he was making love.
Jesse could feel Evan’s turmoil of emotions and lifted his voice in a comforting whisper. “It’s okay, Ev. You don’t have to be alone anymore.”
Evan squeezed his eyes shut, allowing two tears to escape and roll down his temples. “Stay with me,” he said in a trembling voice.
Jesse nuzzled into Evan’s hair. “I will. I’ll always take care of you.”
Evan let his head fall back on the pillow and met his eyes. “Jesse.”
Evan’s soft murmuring of his name told Jesse he felt the same for him, that those three words were lingering on Evan’s tongue as well, and Evan held the same fear of saying it too soon.
He didn’t understand how it was possible to feel something so powerful for someone he had only known a few days, but he did, and he knew from the sheer intensity of his emotions it was more than a crush, more than a fling.
He gazed down into Evan’s azure eyes. Too soon or not, he didn’t care.
A time frame shouldn’t be placed on when emotions should be articulated.
When they were felt and known to be true, they should be expressed.
Jesse lowered his head, his lips touching Evan’s in the softest of caresses. “Evan, I love you.”
Evan pulled Jesse’s breath into his body. “I love you too, Jess. So very much.”
Jesse felt Evan’s pain and fears retreat against the joy their confession brought. He put his smiling lips to Evan’s and met him in a deep, slow kiss as he continued to make love to him.