5. Chapter 5
Chapter 5
NOLAN
JUNE
“Dude, how’s the beach?” The enthusiasm in Slater’s voice makes guilt and bile rise in my throat. I’ve been avoiding his calls for the past week and a half since Caspian and I fell into bed together. It’s easier to lie to my best friend when I can’t hear his voice, and it’s a pretty fucking loaded question.
How’s the beach? I wouldn’t really know, because Cas and I have barely left the house other than a quick grocery run and a stop at an art supply store. The beach is right outside the back door, but going would mean tearing our hands and mouths off of each other long enough to get dressed.
Last night Caspian deep throated me and edged me for nearly an hour, sucking me until I was right on the edge, then pulling off to tease my nipples and tongue fuck my mouth before starting all over again. When I finally came down his throat, the orgasm was so intense I actually cried after. Tears streaming down my fucking cheeks, cried , from a blowjob.
My cock swells at the memory, and I move my hand to my lap and squeeze my growing erection through my shorts. The click-clack of Caspian’s typing pauses and he looks over at me with a hungry, heated look in his eyes. I’ve gotten to know that look well over the past ten days, and it doesn’t do a damn thing to calm my body down. Just the opposite, in fact. He licks his lips and sets his laptop on the coffee table.
“No? You still there?” Slater’s voice echoes in my ear, reminding me that I’m still on the phone with him.
“The beach?” I croak. “It’s great.”
Caspian lifts his hips and shoves his shorts down. He doesn’t have any underwear on underneath, which isn’t a surprise at this point. I don’t think the man owns a pair, actually. His heavy cock springs free, only half-hard. He spreads his thighs and relaxes into the couch again, acting like I’m not even here as he wraps his hand around his dick and slowly starts to stroke.
“Good. You need a little sunshine in your life. You’re sounding a lot more like yourself again too. I hate to say it, but I don’t think the East Coast really agreed with you,” Slater says.
“Mm,” I hum absently, mesmerized by the show going on right in front of me.
Every upward tug of Caspian’s fist makes his cockhead swell and darken. The veins lining his shaft get fuller with every stroke. His eyelids flutter and he lets out a quiet moan that I know is for my benefit. My cock drools precum and my hole flutters with need.
“I might be able to move some things around at work and get up there at the end of the month.” Slater’s voice sounds far away over the rush of my pulse in my ears.
“Cool, yeah, great. Listen, I’ve gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.” I don’t even wait for him to say goodbye before I hang up, toss my phone blindly aside, and throw myself at Caspian.
*******
“Is that an ‘I desperately need caffeine’ grump face or an ‘I got another rejection email’ grump face?” Caspian asks, setting a steaming mug of coffee down in front of me without waiting for my answer.
I pick it up and take a deep gulp, unbothered by the way it scalds my tongue and burns my throat all the way down.
“The second one,” I grumble.
“I’m sorry.” He gives me a sympathetic smile, then rounds the table to close his laptop and pick up his own mug. “You really need to stop reading your emails before you’re even out of bed.”
I take another sip of my coffee, feeling the sour look on my face melt and my heart beat a little faster.
“Maybe if I didn’t wake up all alone every morning, I could find something else to do instead,” I tease, shifting in my seat to feel all the places I’m still sore from him grabbing me and fucking me last night.
He arches an eyebrow and gets up from his chair, leaving his coffee behind. He comes around the table again, the playful, sultry look in his eyes making butterflies dance in my stomach as my breathing speeds up.
“Aw, if you need more of your man, all you have to do is say so.” He scoops me out of my chair effortlessly.
My surprised yelp turns into laughter as I wrap my legs around his hips and my arms around his neck. He sets me back down on the table and cups the back of my neck, drawing me in for a kiss.
My man. That’s what he called himself. I repeat the phrase over and over in my head as our lips move against each other in a deep, slow rhythm. He’s just being Cas, confident and flirtatious. Two and a half weeks together and it’s hard to even remember that this man I’m getting to know so well is Slater’s little brother.
Our tongues tangle and our hands roam, tugging each other’s clothes and groping at each other’s skin without any real intent. Our cocks are both hard, grinding against each other as I thread my fingers through his hair and swallow the soft, needy moans he feeds me, but there’s no rush in the kiss or in our touches. We still have months of summer ahead of us. Plenty of time for me to find a job. Plenty of time for everything.
*******
“That looks fucking amazing.” Caspian’s voice pulls me out of my focused trance, and I look up to smile at him.
Behind him, the sky is painted pink and orange with the sunset. The windows are open to let in the evening breeze, filling the house with the sound of the crashing waves and the far-off noise from the boardwalk, voices drifting across the wide-open expanse of the water and the sand to create a relaxing hum of white noise. It’s become our nightly routine to work on the couch together, the click-clack of his keyboard part of the beach symphony that lulls me into a creative space to draw.
I glance back down at the drawing I’ve been working on. I caved a few days ago and ordered a new digital sketch pad. It was a wildly irresponsible purchase considering I still haven’t gotten so much as an interview yet, but Caspian convinced me that it was an investment. I couldn’t apply for many of the game design jobs without a proper portfolio to include.
“Thanks. Once I’m finished with this one, I think I’ll have a decent enough sample to attach to my résumés. Why the hell not, right? The worst they can do is reject me, but so has every ‘sensible’ job I’ve applied to.” I let out a humorless chuckle and he reaches over to squeeze my calf reassuringly.
“It’s only been three and a half weeks. The right job is going to find you.” I want to roll my eyes at his constant optimistic platitudes, but the sincerity in his smile makes it impossible.
“Yeah. The right job will come along.”
He leans across the couch and kisses me. I part my lips and push my sketchpad aside, ready to climb into his lap and get to my other favorite part of our nightly routine, but Caspian pulls back and playfully nips at my bottom lip.
“Why don’t we go for a walk? I want to hear more about the summer you spent driving around after high school.”
I chuckle. As interested as he is in making me come screaming on his cock night after night, he’s weirdly just as interested in hearing all about my life. Even more weird, I feel the same way. I had no idea the author world held so much drama, but it’s been fun hearing all about it.
“Sure. Let’s go for a walk.”
CASPIAN
JULY
Slater: Sorry I never made it up last week like I wanted to. Work is kicking my ass. You and No having a good time? Not driving each other too crazy, I hope.
The clatter of pans from the kitchen draws my attention away from my brother’s text for just a second.
“You need any help?” I call out. I would go in and check, but Nolan banned me from the kitchen when I wouldn’t stay out of his way.
“No,” he shouts back with a laugh. “Keep your sexy ass out of here. I told you I can handle dinner. I might be going through a rough patch professionally, but I’m still an adult and I’m perfectly capable of feeding my…” He clears his throat instead of finishing his sentence and my stomach flutters.
Some guys might feel insecure about the fact that he’s still not ready to label whatever it is we’re doing, but I’m not worried about it. We fall asleep wrapped around each other every night, we’ve kissed and fucked so much that I think I know his body as well as I know my own, and there’s something in his eyes that looks exactly the way I feel—happy and peaceful and just a little bit desperate.
“I never doubted it, lover.”
He groans at the pet name and I laugh. Until he’s ready for the b-word, I’m happy to torture him with embarrassing names instead.
CASPIAN: We’re definitely driving each other crazy, but it’s all good. Hope you can make it soon! Don’t worry though, there’s plenty of summer left.
*******
“Cas!” Nolan’s voice is muffled by the bathroom door and the rush of the shower spray.
“In here,” I call, tilting my head back to rinse the shampoo out of my hair.
The bathroom door rattles and then bangs against the wall, letting in a rush of cool air that cuts through the steam.
“Cas,” he says again breathlessly, jerking back the shower curtain.
He just got out of bed, his hair is still mussed from sleep, and he’s dressed in only the pair of boxer briefs he fell asleep in last night. My cock swells immediately at the sight of him. I swear, it’s a Pavlovian response at this point. I can’t even look at him without wanting to kiss him and touch him. Six weeks of sharing a bed and spending nearly every second together and the craving I have for him just keeps getting worse. We’re halfway through the summer, but it’s starting to feel like it’s never going to be enough time.
“Come on in, the water’s fine,” I say with a grin.
“Cas,” he says breathlessly again, smiling from ear to ear. “I got an interview.”
“Fuck yeah,” I cheer. “I knew you could do it. Where is it?”
“It’s barely anything.” He waves his hand dismissively, but the smile on his face doesn’t slip an inch. “It’s a few guys with some rented office space in Portland working on a game idea. It’s a stretch to even call them Indie developers at this point, but holy shit, it’s an interview. They loved my portfolio, and they want to do a video interview first. If that goes well, they’ll fly me out to Portland to talk more about the game and see if we’re a good fit.” He rushes through all the information breathlessly.
“That’s not nothing. That’s fucking amazing,” I growl, reaching out and looping an arm around his waist to drag him into the shower with me.
The curtain falls closed behind him and he laughs against my lips as I tug his sopping wet briefs down and chuck them blindly aside. If this doesn’t deserve a celebratory shower handjob, I don’t know what does.
Nolan moans against my lips and I murmur praise, telling him how fucking proud I am of him until he falls apart in my arms.
*******
Two weeks after his video interview with the game developer, Nolan wakes me up before sunrise with soft kisses on my lips.
“Sorry. You looked so peaceful, and I almost decided not to wake you, but I just couldn’t leave without a good luck kiss.” He pecks my lips again and I slip a hand under his t-shirt to feel his warm, smooth skin.
“Good. I would have been fucking heartbroken if you’d left without a kiss.” I’d love to say that the rasp in my voice is from sleep, but it’s so much more than that. I know that whatever happens with this interview, he’s still going to come back here after. They told him they have several candidates and not to expect an offer on the spot. He’s chewed his lips raw from worry the past few days, but I’m not sweating it. He’s going to blow them away.
“I’ll be back in, like, thirty-six hours. I’m sure you can survive without me that long,” he murmurs with a laugh, nuzzling his nose against mine.
“Hmm… undetermined.” I’m sure his ride to the airport is waiting outside, but I refuse to rush through our goodbye, kissing him slow and deep until the knots in my chest start to loosen. “You’ve got this, Nols. You’re going to knock this out of the park.”
He grins against my lips. “I’m going to borrow some of that cocky confidence of yours for this interview.”
“Do it. Just be sure you bring it back here afterward.”
“Promise.” He kisses me one more time and then climbs out of bed. I blink in the dim pre-dawn light, my heart swelling and beating harder as I look up at him. He looks right back at me with that light in his eyes that makes me sure he’s feeling what I’m feeling.
“I—” he starts to say, then stops and clears his throat. “I’ll see you soon.”
It’s not what I thought he was going to say, but I’ll take it.
“Hurry home.” I add the lightness of a tease to the words, but I’ve never meant anything more. I want to be Nolan’s home, even after the summer is over. But I’m not going to lay that on him on his way out the door.
“I will.”