When his fingers reached Daniel’s neck, he gently coaxed his head down. As their lips met in a gasping kiss, Daniel finally rolled his hips. Spurred on by the groan leaving Jensen’s throat to be lapped by his own lips, he started to really move.
Their mouths only parted to pull in desperate air before latching together again, and Daniel thought,This is what sex is supposed to be like. He’d forgotten over the years of selling his body to people he didn’t know or care about. But like a heavy rain dispersed the ever-present city pollution, he remembered. He remembered what it was like to be so surrounded by a person but never close enough. He remembered searching hands that could spend lifetimes tracing bodies and never finding satisfaction. He remembered feeling whole.
His head felt light, like he could float away or maybe he already had. With each roll of his hips and each tug of his hair, he found that high place people spent their lives searching for. Whether it was a nirvana he didn’t think he believed in or a heaven he didn’t deserve, Daniel had stumbled across a place deep in his chest that was so used to just being a cavity. With each brush of their tongues and each thrust from below him, he felt something significant start to thread itself through his heart.
He felt cared for with Jensen’s hands cradling his head. He felt truly desired, not just his body but Daniel himself, as Jensen breathed out his name like a prayer. And God help him, he felt happy as he found his release with Jensen’s hand around his length and another twisted through his hair. Worst of all, he felt rightness as Jensen filled the condom with a shout.
Sex hadn’t been like that for years. Not since he’d failed out of college and moved to Sevier and gotten the only job that would pay for his mounting bills. Not since he’d been young and still full of hope. Daniel wasn’t sure if he should thank Jensen and beg him to stay forever or run before the sweat had a chanceto cool on his overheated skin. He wasn’t sure if it actually mattered.
Good things always ended too soon, and lightning didn’t strike twice. Jensen was leaving the next morning, and Daniel would go back to his unfulfilling life.
9
A sigh leftJensen’s lips as he turned off the car. He wasn’t exactly morose. Especially not at the prospect of his parents’ company. The brick and stucco house he was parked at was one of two places he felt comfortable. Until he’d moved into his current home, it was the singular place he knew he wouldn’t be judged or forced to fit into a precut and -labeled box.
His parents had bought the suburban home when Jensen was just three years old, and he couldn’t remember anything that came before. Since then, the garden had been redone several times, more specifically whenever his mother decided she was going to be on top of it. The roses leading up the walk were the only things that had survived his mother’s decades-long feud with landscaping, and that was because they really didn’t need to be taken care of.
Inside were his two favorite people, and Jensen was excited to embrace them and eat a hearty helping of whatever his mother cooked for lunch. Basking in their calm presence was the best way to decompress after the craziness of his morning. Which was why he wasn’t sad or particularly depressed. But his morning had lacked one component he was actually looking forward to.
Daniel had left sometime during the night, after Jensen had fallen asleep in blissful contentment. Their coupling had been so good that he hadn’t considered being insecure about the morning after. Usually, he was so strung tight about awkward morning conversations that he told his hookups they needed to leave before he fell asleep. Some of them got upset by the apparent brush-off, but Jensen knew they’d hate him babbling and freaking out about social etiquette, warring with his need to be alone, more.
Yet he wanted Daniel in his space. That was insane enough on its own, but Jensen also felt cheated that he hadn’t gotten to wrap himself around Daniel and have a cozy morning together before he had to leave. In the moments it had taken him to wake fully, before realizing Daniel had left, he fantasized about strolling to get coffee and a quick bite to eat together. He’d daydreamed about kissing him goodbye and making promises they’d stay in touch.
But Daniel had swiped all those options off the table, his phone number on the nightstand the only proof he’d been there at all. Jensen had entered the contact into his phone, taken a picture of the paper, then tucked it into his wallet to make sure he didn’t lose it, but he wasn’t sure he planned to use it. Besides, what if it was a fake number Daniel had given him just to lessen the sting of leaving? That didn’t really make sense, Jensen could admit that, but his anxieties had flared up the moment he opened his eyes and realized he was alone, and now all the illogical, worst-case scenarios seemed plausible.
With another sigh, he pulled on the door handle and got out of his car. The San Francisco summer heat assaulted him, the sun beating down on his head, adding another layer of sweat to his body. In the time it took for him to cross the threshold of his parents’ house, the sweat he’d wiped off in the airport bathroom had been dutifully replaced with a vengeance.
He quickly kicked off his shoes, not caring that they landed on either side of the rack his mother had set up. Shoulders slumped, he dragged his feet into the kitchen, chasing the smell of stewed tomatoes and herbs. A corner of his lips kicked up when he saw his mother, all but dancing around the kitchen in her checkered apron.
Her curly brown hair was pinned up in a bun, steam from the stove making it go a bit frizzy. Predictably, she was wearing her house clothes but had every ring Jensen’s father had ever given her adorning her long fingers. Not much had changed in the room over the years, making it more familiar and nostalgic than most of the world was. From the somewhat tacky and very dated design choices down to the rooster plates displayed on top of the cabinets, every stitched-together piece of the room filled Jensen with ease.
This was home. This was a place that didn’t force him to get used to constant changes. It was years of happiness baked into the taupe walls and discolored grout. It was stability.
It was impolite of him to stand in the arched doorway and stare at his mother getting food ready without offering to help.
“Do you need assistance with anything?” Jensen stepped further into the kitchen.
His mother startled slightly before abandoning her station and shuffling across the floor. “How was your trip back?” Her hands went up to frame his face. “Are you all right?”
Jensen puffed out a breath. “I was fine when I called you after the plane landed, and I’m still fine.”
Satisfied enough, she let go of him, returning to the stove. “A lot can happen in a little time, especially in an airport. Your aunt Daria met a psychic on one of those shuttle buses to the parking lot, and now she’s living in Connecticut with her husband, and they have three beautiful kids.”
“Mom, Aunt Daria was already engaged to Charles. The psychic didn’t do that.”
Pointing a wooden spoon at him, she shook her head. “She was having second thoughts about marrying him. If she hadn’t met that psychic, she could be living in Tampa with her mother.”
Jensen rolled his eyes the moment her back was turned. “I got to my car just fine, and traffic was light. Uneventful. I didn’t run into a single medium, figuratively or literally.” He sat on a stool and rested his elbows on the kitchen island. “Where’s Dad?”
“He’s doing a puzzle.”
“A puzzle?” he asked, already getting up.
“Uh-uh.” His mother whipped around, sauce from her wooden spoon splattering on the counter. “No, you don’t. You’ll sit here and eat lunch with your mother. Then you can go help him.”
Jensen’s shoulders sagged, but he sat back down. He had spent countless hours of his childhood in the spare room, putting together puzzles with his father. His mother rarely joined in, but she’d sit in the plush corner chair and read while they silently slaved over that week’s challenge. His father had once joked they should enter into competitions. Of course, that got a deep laugh out of Jensen, since neither of them could handle crowds and the mention of timed competitions made them both shudder.
“Good boy,” she remarked. Moments later, she set down a plate in front of him, laden with pasta and vegetables. When he raised his eyebrows about the amount of food on his plate, she raised hers back. “You’re too skinny. Did they not feed you at the conference? I knew I should have sent you with a few meals.”
