“You want to be with me? Do you really want to be together?”
Armi held him by the nape. Their eyes locked, and Hayden’s heart pounded at the intensity of Armi’s gaze.
“I thought we already were.” Armi nipped his lower lip and tugged. “I don’t want this to end after the weekend.”
Joy leaped through him, and the gnawing anxiety eased. “I don’t either.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I want to be with you, Hayden. Only you.”
Throwing caution to the wind, Hayden couldn’t deny the wildness that sprang up at Armi’s touch, and he finally conceded. “I only want you too.” He began to move faster and faster, driving into Armi, possession and hunger his companions. “Only you. No one else gets to touch you. No one else can have you. Only me.”
“You.” Armi’s head thrashed on the pillow. “Only you.”
Lips clinging, they rolled on the bed, Armi ending on top. Moonlight streamed in through the open curtains, highlighting the naked desire on Armi’s face.
“God, you feel so good wrapped around my dick.” He palmed Armi’s shaft and rubbed him from root to tip while digging the fingers of his other hand into the creamy white skin of his hip. “Hot and tight.”
Armi rode him, and Hayden lost himself in the fiery brilliance of Armi’s eyes. The sheer force of his climax lifted him off the bed, and he jerked and twitched as Armi squeezed his throbbing cock. Armi followed a minute later, his release spattering across Hayden’s abs and chest. He cuddled Armi close, still inside him, and kissed his cheek.
“Mine,” he whispered when he could gather his breath to form words. “You’re mine.”
**
“Well, that was a day and a half,” Hayden joked as they boarded the plane for home. Even though he’d become accustomed to flying private with Boris, he still got a thrill that this was his life. Even more so now because it was with Armi.
They’d spent the weekend working, watching the game in Alabama, then heading to Georgia right after for the game the following afternoon. As he’d suspected, Russell had booked a single room with a king-sized bed at that hotel too. Not wishing to get into a discussion with Armi about it while they were busy with football, once they’d settled in their seats for the flight to Teterboro, Hayden couldn’t help but bring it up.
“Are you going to say anything to Russell tomorrow?”
Armi had been gazing out of the window as they sailed past puffy white clouds. He had a strange, almost wistful expression on his face.
“I don’t know. He’s got a lot more on his mind than the hotel rooms.”
Was he really going to make excuses? “I mean…yeah, but it’s a broken ankle. He’ll heal. What he tried to do to you was wrong on so many levels.”
“I know. But does it matter now?”
“Why wouldn’t it? He tried to take advantage of you.” A question he hadn’t thought of sprang to his lips, and before he could think, Hayden blurted it out. “Would he have succeeded?”
Brow furrowed, Armi turned a confused face to him. “What’re you talking about?”
“Forget it,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean it.”
But Armi was persistent. “You did. Do you still think I would’ve slept with him, that I’m so easily manipulated, I would’ve done anything he wanted? I thought we settled that.”
Tension crackled in the air between them as they stared at each other. Hayden broke the stalemate. “No, I’m not saying that. Really. But I hope now you see how devious he is. He planned this whole seduction thing to get you into bed.”
“But I don’t want Russell. I want you.”
Those three simple words hit him so hard, they left him breathless.
Armi reached out his hand, and Hayden took it. It was all so new to him, this feeling of belonging, of caring for another’s emotional well-being as much or even more than his own. Knowing how kind and nonconfrontational Armi was, how he didn’t like hurting anyone, Hayden was ready to step in and guard Armi from abuse.
“I want you too.”
Armi’s smile lit his face. “Then there’s nothing to worry about.”
Hayden knew that was being overly optimistic. He needed to be on guard at so many levels—his past, Russell’s manipulations,and Armi, who remained frustratingly optimistic and generous with his time and heart. Hayden was happy to play the watchdog.
