“If I could just get one last moment with him. With Eugene. Then I’d tell him he was good. That he made my life better for thirty-one years. That he gave me the best years of my life.” Hank paused briefly, looking bewildered at Colton. “Why did I never tell him, son? Why did I never tell him those things when he was still alive? Why did I wait? And for what?”
“Hank…” Colton soothed, squeezing his shoulder tighter in reassurance.
“Why am I like this? Why am I… this kinda man? He deserved to know that I loved him.” His voice broke, a pitiful sound that matched how pathetic he felt escaping him. Taking a step forward, Colton wrapped him in a hug, his hold secure and unwavering.
“He did,” he mumbled into Hank’s hair.
“Did he?” Hank asked, bitterness tinting his voice. “Did he really?”
“Of course he did.”
“But I never told him. That he was everything. That I was nothing before him. Nothing now.” He hadn’t, had he? He’d always assumed Eugene knew, but what if he hadn’t? What kind of person did that make him?
“Doesn’t matter. He knew,” Colton spoke. “Just like I know. And you never tell me either,” he chuckled quietly. “But I still know.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Finn
Now
“Fuck, it’s cold!” Finn jumped on the spot, his dick bouncing up and down behind his boxers, Hank starting the shower. “For a second there, I thought my balls were gonna fall off.” He grinned stupidly at the image of the both of them running the last stretch of the road in the rain on their way back from the diner. What’d been forecast as snow ended up being ice-cold rain instead, soaking them both to their underwear within minutes.
“You’re a nurse, so you oughta know, I guess,” Hank smiled back at him, his cheeks flushed, drops of rain hanging from his beard. “Can balls actually freeze off?”
“Hmmm.” Finn pretended to think long and hard. “They’d have to be frozen solid, I guess, and then you’d have to break them off.” He made a snapping gesture with his hands, a crunching sound like a branch being broken in half, and his best sadistic facial expression.
“For Pete’s sake, kid!” Hank winced. “Don’t say stuff like that. Now my balls hurt!” He instinctively grabbed said balls in front of his drenched jeans, phantom pain flashing in his eyes. Finn chuckled, rubbing his arms, the skin all dark pink from the cold. Hank reached inside the shower again, humming. “Get in. It’s ready. Nice and warm.” He nodded at the small shower, steam filling the air around them.
“Don’t you ever just wanna sayfuckinstead ofPete’s? I mean, who’s Pete, anyway?” Finn squinted through the steam, his lenses fogging, making it impossible to read Hank’s expression. He was probably making that overbearing frown right now that was usually accompanied by anI-give-upsigh. Like he was only just able to put up with Finn. He wished he could tell over the running water if Hank was sighing. He bet he was. It was strangely reassuring, satisfying almost, that he could predict all these small things about Hank by now. Expressions he used often, like that ever-presentnow,or his low humming sounds and familiar mannerisms.
Removing his glasses, Finn folded them, placed them on the sink, and then pulled down his wet boxers.
“No idea, but I guess I’m from a different generation,” Hank spoke. “Kids nowadays throw that word around like goddamn confetti.Fthis andfthat.” He shrugged, before starting to remove his pants, too, then his navy Henley that clung to his broad chest and soft stomach like a second skin. Inches of delicious skin covered by a thick layer of hair, a mix of black, brown, and gray. The familiar scent of the woods and sweat now mixed with the smell of rain blending into an intoxicatingfragrance. The slope of his broad shoulders that begged—just fuckingbegged—to be licked. The outline of his pecs, and in the center, the protruding nipples that were just a tone darker than his skin. His soft waist, the hip bones covered in a layer of cushiony fat.Love handles.Finn had always wondered about that expression, but now he knew exactly what it referred to. Were they still love handles if you weren’t in love?Hmmm…Hank’s thick cock stood proud against his bulky stomach, his balls hanging heavily between his furry tree trunk thighs.
Fuck, despite his teeth clattering from the cold still lingering in his bones, Finn’s mouth began to water at the sight in front of him. He was so goddamn delectable. Hank was everything that Finn had always loved in a man. A body that deserved to be fucking worshipped and have a city—no, scratch that—an entire country named after it. If he wasn’t so useless with his hands, he would build a fucking altar in honor of Hank’s gorgeous body and pray to it on his knees every goddamn day. Shit, he was already on his knees for this man, wasn’t he? Literally and figuratively speaking.
“What’s wrong?” Hank stood naked in front of him, a puzzled look in his eyes. “You feel sick?” There was an edge of worry in his voice.
“Nah, I’m good.” Finn shook his head before entering the shower, the scalding hot water hitting his sensitive skin like tiny bullets.Just fantasizing about building a temple where I can pray to your cock.Shit, his hole clenched around nothing, reminding him it’d been close to twenty-four hours since Hank had last been inside him. Closing his eyes, he tipped back his head and surrendered to the hot water, the pleasure-pain all-consuming. When he started to feel that prickly sensation on his skin, he opened his eyes, Hank standing right in front of him, his familiar hazel eyes looking straight at him, drops of water clinging to his brows and lashes.
Reaching for the body wash, some no-brand cheap stuff from the local store in a toxic-looking aquamarine color, Finn moved a little so that Hank could get under the hot spray too. Reaching out his hand between them, Hank nodded at the body wash, and Finn opened the cap and poured a generous dollop of thePacific Bluefragranced soap into Hank’s open palm. After placing it back on the small metal shelf in the shower, Hank soothingly started from his neck, moving outwards over his shoulders as he soaped up Finn. His hands, so large, the skin rough, and yet his ministrations were so careful and tender. Finn failed to bite back a pitiful moan when Hank started massaging his shoulders, digging his thumbs into the tense muscles and achy joints, tension slowly bleeding from his bones.
“Fuck… Hank, that’s nice. Don’t stop,” he nearly sobbed, tilting his head back and closing his eyes as the warm spray hit his face. Hank’s hands swept in circular movements along his chest, one large palm covering each of Finn’s pecs, rubbing across them, his thumbs brushing lightly at first, then more demanding, across Finn’s pointed nipples.
“Like this,” Hank hummed. “You like it like this?”
“Yeah, exactly like that,” Finn moaned, the sound outdrawn, echoing off the tiles. Or perhaps he was delusional, and he was just imagining it, the sound so loud inside his head. “Don’t stop.”Don’t let me go. Don’t ever let me go.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” Hank purred, and Finn’s eyes sprang wide open as he looked at Hank. He was met by a smug yet shy smile, eyes filled with heat. Then Hank pinched his nipples at the same time, the lovely pain coursing through Finn’s chest like an electric current, luring a clipped hiss from his lips.
“You saidfuck,” he spoke in disbelief, the pain turning into a dull throb as Hank’s thumbs circled soothingly back and forth over his raw nipples.
“Only for you, kid.” Hank smiled, and why did it suddenly feel like Hank had just handed him the entire world on a platter with those words?Only for you, kid. Only for me.“Yes.” Hank smiled even broader, and it wasn’t until then that Finn realized that he’d actually spoken the last sentence. “There are many things that I do for you,withyou, that I’ve never done with ortoanyone before.” His face transformed, a sudden seriousness inhabiting it, his eyes turning a shade darker. “You make me wanna do things, try things that I never thought I’d want.Need.” Finn swallowed, the shower so,sohot—too hot—his skin itchy and heated. He took a step forward, trying to move around Hank, but Hank spread his right hand across his chest, stopping him. “Don’t run away from me, Finn. Just because some things are hard to hear, don’t mean they don’t need to be said.”
Fuck, who was this Hank, and what had he done to the man of few words that he usually spent his days with? He wasn’t entirely sure that he liked this version of Hank. Well, perhaps dislike was too strong of a word. Unnerving, maybe. Yes, Hank’s words were unnerving. So was the scrutinizing way he looked at Finn right now, his eyes boring into his, almost as if he was trying to invade him. Like one of those sci-fi movies that used to scare the fuck out of him as a kid.Body Snatchersor some shit like that.
Reaching for the body wash, Hank poured more soap into his palm and started washing Finn’s stomach and obliques, his strong hands pulling needy noises and mewling moans from Finn’s lips. Brushing his hands through the soaped-up hair beneath Finn’s belly button, he leaned in, pressing a faint kiss to Finn’s lips before slowly dropping to his knees. Finn wanted to protest—this was not a good position for Hank—but the words died on his tongue when he felt blunt fingers coasting along his crease, then brushing, prodding, poking at his hole.
