Sharing a grin, Brandon reached out and traced Tash’s jaw with the tips of his fingers. The touch, though tentative, was one Tash longed to sink into.
“Okay. I’d better turn off the pasta water anyway. We don’t need to burn the house down.”
Tash concentrated on the long lines of Brandon’s back, watching the flex of muscles play through his thin Henley shirt as he brought the pot to the sink and drained out the water. It had been so long since he’d been attracted to someone to even think about sex, he worried if Brandon, young, virile, and obviously experienced, would find him lacking.
After Danny died, he’d spent a year mourning what might have been and the life he’d lost. There’d been no need for sex or even friendships with other men. Darkness, solitude, and guilt followed him, making him invisible to the world. After coming out of his self-imposed exile, only because Valerie threatened to call their mother, he decided to rejoin the living. Innumerable nights were spent aching to be touched, to rid himself of the sheer loneliness that clung to him with a talon-like grip.
Well-meaning Valerie had set him up on dates, even forced him into a singles club. He’d had no fight left in him and went simply to keep her happy and off his back. Inevitably he met men and even had a few short-lived flings, but nothing that left any mark on his life. He’d be hard-pressed to remember their names or faces now.
As Brandon walked toward him, an uncertain smile appearing, then disappearing as quickly as it came, Tash knew with certainty he could never forget this man, and though his heart hurt because he knew Brandon’s youth would eventually separate them, the promise he’d made earlier to stay away disappeared like an early spring snow on the city streets.
Tash was a veteran of the war of love and heartbreak. He’d been a prisoner but never yet a victor, and though there wasn’t a doubt in his mind he would lose yet again, he kicked the doubting devil off his shoulder. Tash held out his hand to Brandon.
“Come with me.”
Chapter Nine
There was nothing to be nervous about, Brandon decided as he held tight to Tash’s hand. From the start, there’d been a connection between the two of them he couldn’t explain. He’d read about people who saw one another and instantaneously fell in love, and laughed at it, but now he wasn’t so sure how funny it was. Tash’s hand in his was as real as it could get.
On silent feet he followed Tash up the staircase to the second floor of the house. There were only three rooms upstairs, but the hallway was wide and gave the appearance of spaciousness. They halted outside of a closed door.
Tash smoothed his hand across Brandon’s jaw and drew him in for another toe-curling kiss. He melted against Tash, heart rate kicking up an almost painful beat as their lips met. He opened his mouth, and Tash’s smooth tongue slipped inside to twine with his. A sound echoed in the air, and Brandon recognized the desperate, needy moan had come from him.
Brandon slid his hand up the defined muscles of Tash’s chest, feeling the pounding of Tash’s heart beneath his fingers. Their kiss deepened, and he wondered if Tash was as nervous as he was, then forgot about everything else when Tash’s arms came around him and cupped his ass.
Brandon’s body electrified; if he were a Christmas tree, he would’ve lit up. He rocked his pelvis into Tash’s, needing that hard contact, wanting Tash to keep touching him forever. When Tash pulled him closer and popped the button of his jeans, Brandon moaned with delight.
“I think we can get rid of these; what do you say?” Brandon still had enough of his senses left to hear Tash whisper into his ear. Unable to form a coherent sentence, he simply nodded, allowing Tash to pull down his jeans. Thank God they weren’t the trendy, skinny kind but plain simple boot cut. He stepped out of them, slightly embarrassed to be almost naked while Tash remained fully dressed.
A brief smile flickered over Tash’s face as he released the string to his own sweats, letting them fall at his feet. He reached over and pulled Brandon’s Henley over his head, tossing the shirt to the side, never once taking his eyes off Brandon.
“This is how I’ve wanted to see you, almost from the moment I met you.” Tash massaged Brandon’s shoulders; his warm hands were wonderfully strong, and Brandon couldn’t help but arch into his touch. “But I never dreamed of it happening.”
Before today, Brandon had given up on dreams. Too many years and regrets had passed. “Things change.” Brandon gasped at the feel of Tash’s hand grasping his cock, which had swelled to almost painful fullness. “Dreams can change.”
Their lips met again, and this time it was a harsher, more demanding Tash. Brandon, determined not to disappoint Tash with his obvious inexperience, pulled the man hard up against him and plunged his tongue into Tash’s mouth while his hands roamed over the hard planes of Tash’s body.
When he and Zach had been lovers, Brandon had been too scared and not invested enough in the relationship to consider the intimacy of anal sex. But now, with Tash’s mouth hot against his neck and his hand wrapped around Brandon’s cock, he ached for it. Brandon’s body clenched tight, and his insides quivered at the thought, not with fear but rather with suppressed desire.
“I want you so badly,” Brandon whispered against Tash’s cheek. “I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want you.”
Tash pulled back, his gaze burning with heat and hunger. “I don’t understand why I’m so lucky, but God help me, I want you too. So much so I can’t think straight.” He cupped Brandon’s jaw, a grave expression on his handsome face.
His heart pounding, Brandon waited, holding his breath, wondering if Tash would change his mind. To Brandon’s utter relief, Tash opened the door to his bedroom and held his hand out. “Come.” The uninhibited smile transformed Tash’s face.
Exultation spread through Brandon, and he entered the room almost giddy with a combination of happiness and need. With a swiftness Brandon hardly expected, Tash straddled him on the bed, his knees pressing on either side of Brandon’s hips.
“Hi.” Tash’s white teeth gleamed in the dim light of the bedroom. He bent down and gave Brandon a sweet, soft kiss.
“Hi.” The air around them fairly sizzled with sex. This was what he’d missed, what he’d waited to feel with a lover. A connection that went deeper than the mere physical. Their gazes locked, and Brandon swore Tash could see down deep into his soul.
Tash began a lazy exploration of Brandon’s body with his tongue, beginning with the pulse jumping madly in his neck, that soon had Brandon writhing on the bed for release. Brandon’s cock had never been so full, so hard. He’d read in books where men said their balls ached for their lover and had rolled his eyes in disbelief. Now he understood.
“God, that feels so good.” He trembled, the sensations rippling through his body in waves. Tash was being so incredibly loving and tender. Any moment now Brandon might fall apart, and he didn’t want that.
He wanted this to last forever. Now he had to make Tash want that too.
The tip of Tash’s tongue circled Brandon’s belly button, then snaked down to lick the slant of his hip bone, ignoring Brandon’s heavy erection that stretched up to his stomach. Every whispering touch, each caress, drew Brandon further and further into a deepening haze of pleasure he had no control over, so that without even thinking he spread his legs and opened himself up to Tash.
