Crushed Page 10

  “He doesn’t.” Wes led Nathan into the kitchen, which was nothing more than a narrow passageway with a fridge and sink on one side, stove and cabinets on the other. Opening one of the cabinets, Wes shoved the paper into a trashcan out of sight. “But he stayed the night. He wanted to and I couldn’t really say no.”

  “Why not?” Nathan asked before he could stop himself. “You two didn’t—no, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. He is your boyfriend, after all.”

  “I didn’t sleep with him, if that’s what you’re asking.” Wes looked at him, the pain in his eyes so bright that Nathan took him into his arms without realizing it. Resting his head on Nathan’s shoulder, Wes picked at the collar of Nathan’s shirt and whispered, “I slept on the couch. I didn’t…I didn’t even want to leave Tom’s last night.” Nathan rubbed his hands along Wes’s back in a soothing gesture. “We haven’t had sex since last weekend. That’s one reason he’s mad at me right now. He thinks I’m holding out.”

  With a faint grin, Nathan teased, “Are you?”

  “I just haven’t wanted to,” Wes admitted. He hugged Nathan tight and sighed. “He’s so…he’s not what I want. It’s not love, not anymore. I don’t even know if it ever was. Sometimes? And God, I shouldn’t be telling you this—”

  “Tell me,” Nathan said, kissing Wes’s hair. “Please. I’m not like him at all, I promise. You can tell me anything you want.”

  Wes buried his head against Nathan’s chest. “Sometimes when he and I…sometimes I thought of you,” he breathed. “So I guess I was lying to myself all along. I never did get over you.”

  And I’ll make sure you never will. As far as Nathan was concerned, there was no Roger.

  Chapter 17

  “The bathroom,” Wes said, gesturing at one of the closed doors in the hallway. Then he opened the other. “And the bedroom.”

  Nathan stepped into the bedroom and grinned. “Jesus, it’s so clean.” He ran a hand over the top of the dresser, where a few bottles of cologne stood against a mirror that reflected the room back at him, then picked up an empty hanger that hung on the knob of the closet door. “You should see my place. You actually use these things?”

  Wes laughed and watched Nathan walk through the room. Besides the dresser, there was a desk with a metal dorm chair pushed against it, a small bedside table, two overflowing bookcases, a pillow for the dog to sleep on, and a full-sized bed. A boombox sat on top of the desk, CD cases stacked on either side of it—most of the CDs were of country artists Nathan didn’t know, with a few Broadway scores thrown in. The bookcases were crammed with paperbacks, college textbooks, and on one bottom shelf were all four yearbooks from their high school. When Nathan reached for one of the yearbooks, Wes shook his head. “Don’t,” he said, his cheeks heating up. “Please.”

  Nathan smiled back at him. “Why not?”

  Wes didn’t answer, but his blush said enough. Drifting away, Nathan wondered what silliness might be written about him between the pages of those books.

  The other bookcase was stacked with videotapes and more CDs. As Nathan perused the shelves, the dog passed him, circled her pillow, and sank down on it with a yawn that ended in a tiny yip. Nathan squatted down to rub behind her ears before he turned toward the neatly made bed, its pillows hidden beneath covers tucked into the mattress. Sinking down to the edge of the bed, Nathan stretched out along its length. So inviting. “I love your bed.”

  Wes laughed. “Thank God I changed those sheets earlier.” At Nathan’s quizzical look, he added, “Roger slept there last night. Between the booze and his smokes, I had to air out the whole apartment this morning.”

  Nathan buried his face in the clean bed sheets and drew in a deep breath. “They smell clean now,” he said. Rolling onto his back, he folded his hands behind his head and looked up at Wes. “Like you.”

  There was an unreadable expression on his friend’s face. With a smile, Nathan asked, “What?”

  Wes set one knee onto the mattress by Nathan’s legs. “If you only knew how many nights I dreamed of you in my bed.”

  Taking one of Wes’s hands in his, Nathan pulled him down beside him. “Well, here I am,” he joked. “A dream come true. What did you have planned?”

  With a laugh, Wes propped himself up on one elbow and ran a tentative hand across Nathan’s stomach. “I never really got that far,” he admitted. “Just thinking about you lying next to me was enough to make me come.”

  “You keep talking like that and you’ll make me come,” Nathan warned. He took Wes’s chin between his finger and thumb and, with a gentle tug, urged him closer. “Speaking of…come here.”

  Closing his eyes, Wes leaned in, his hand smoothing around Nathan’s waist as their lips met. Tenderly Nathan eased his tongue between those pinked lips, licking away the sweet taste of iced tea. He felt Wes’s hand at his waist, fumbling to unzip his jeans, thumbing open the button and then rubbing along the hidden length hardening in his boxer briefs. Nathan thrust into that eager hand and moaned, fisting his own hand in Wes’s hair and holding him as they kissed.

  By the time someone knocked on the door to the apartment, interrupting them, Wes had Nathan’s shirt open and his tank top hiked up above his stomach. One hand teased Nathan’s nipples, and Nathan’s lips tingled with their kisses. He was breathless and hard; the slightest movement made his underwear cut into his cock and he wanted to just strip off his clothes, lie naked and wanting on the bed, let Wes cover his whole body with his kisses. Wes’s shirt had been tossed aside, and now the dog’s paws rested on it, where it lay discarded on the floor. As Wes licked down the length of Nathan’s throat, Nathan tried to slide out of his jeans without making his friend move off him. Whoever it was at the door knocked again.

  “Fuck,” Nathan muttered as Wes sat up. Kicking his jeans to his ankles, he grabbed Wes around the waist and pulled him back down beside him on the bed. “Don’t answer it.”

  Wes laughed. “What if it’s our food?”

  “What if it’s Roger?” Nathan countered.

  That killed the mood. Wes pushed away from him and shuddered as if suddenly cold. “It’s not,” he whispered, glancing at a clock on the dresser. It was a little after five. “He said he was going out tonight after work.”

  “With you?” Nathan traced the knobs of Wes’s spine with one hand.

  Wes shook his head. “No, I didn’t want to go.” He forced a laugh that Nathan didn’t like to hear. “He hung up on me after that. But if that’s him…God, I’m dead.”

  When he reached for his shirt, Nathan sat up. “Let me answer it,” he said, standing. He tugged his jeans back up but didn’t bother to zip them or smooth down his tank top—instead, he pulled off the thin shirt he wore over the tank and threw it aside as he kicked off his shoes. “Be right back.”

  “Nathan, no.” Wes followed him out into the hall. With a resigned sigh, he added, “Zip up your pants, at least. If that is Roger…”

  “You said it isn’t.” But Nathan almost wished it was. He wanted to open the door and see Roger’s lupine grin fade as he took a look at the erection bulging through Nathan’s open fly, the tank top pulled up to the middle of his chest, his bare feet, and behind him Wes would be topless, hair disheveled, both their eyes shiny with lust. “Did you want something?” he’d say. He could almost hear the words over the pounding of his heart in his ears as he unlocked the front door. Oh, hell, yes, he was looking forward to that scene. He could not wait. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner Wes is all mine.

  But on the other side of the door stood a young Asian man, a thin plastic bag in one hand, a receipt in the other. “Delivery,” he announced. Then he glanced at Nathan’s face, set in anger, the exposed stomach, the open jeans. “Okay,” he said, taking a step back. The look on his face asked, Why me? “I get all the weirdoes.”

  Wes peered around Nathan and smiled at the guy. “Hey,” he said. “Nathan, zip up, please.”

  The delivery guy nodded as if in agreeme
nt, but Nathan just laughed and fumbled for the wallet in his back pocket, his fingers trembling with unspent energy. Dude, I was ready to kill, he thought, pulling out a twenty dollar bill. You don’t know how lucky you are. If you’d been Roger, you’d be dead.

  “Here you go,” he said, holding out the twenty. The delivery guy took the money quickly, as if afraid Nathan might come across the threshold at him anyway. He gaped at Nathan’s crotch, where his thin underwear was so tight it almost didn’t hold in his aching erection, but tented up from his open fly obscenely. “Keep the change.”

  “Thanks,” the guy muttered. When Wes reached for the bag, the guy relinquished it, then he tripped over his own feet as he turned and stumbled down the stairs two at a time, eager to leave.

  Nathan shut the door behind them and laughed. “You’d think he’d never seen a hard dick before,” he said, cupping his erection and squeezing to keep it up. “You really hungry? Or can we get back to where we were before we eat?”

  “Lock the door.” Before he could, Wes reached past Nathan and locked it himself. “God, can you imagine if he just busts up in here without knocking?”

  Nathan didn’t have to ask who he meant. Wrapping an arm around Wes’s shoulders, he tried to rub some warmth into Wes’s cool skin. “I hate him,” he announced. “I hope he shows up here. I’ll kick his fucking ass.”

  “Nathan,” Wes sighed. “Let’s just eat, okay?”

  Holding onto his friend’s waist with both hands, Nathan let Wes lead him to the dining room. He watched Wes unpack the contents of the bag, setting out the take-out containers, the napkins, the packets of soy and duck sauce, the plastic utensils, the fortune cookies. When Nathan reached for a cookie, Wes slapped his hand away. “You eat those last,” he explained. “Zip up and sit down. Aren’t you hungry?”

  “For you,” Nathan said. Instead of redressing, he pushed his jeans down to the floor and stepped out of them. Then he pulled his tank top off over his head. “Weren’t we eating naked, or something?”

  Wes stared as Nathan hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his boxer briefs. When he wiggled his hips in a quick bump and grind dance, Wes’s jaw dropped.

  “We can’t,” he whispered. “Nathan, I won’t be able to eat if you take everything off. God, I won’t be able to keep my hands off you.”

  “Who said you had to?” Nathan asked. Seeing the unmasked lust on Wes’s face, he sighed. “In our underwear then.”

  Before Wes could answer, Nathan was unbuttoning his friend’s jeans, unzipping them, pushing them down and out of the way. Wes’s erection strained at the front of his briefs, just as eager as Nathan’s own. As he held down Wes’s jeans so he could step out of them, Nathan opened his mouth and pressed it to the tented material, his lips closing around the thick shaft hidden in Wes’s underwear, his tongue licking through the gaping flap. “Can this be dessert?” he asked as Wes cradled his head in both hands, holding him in place.

  “Nathan,” Wes gasped. With difficulty he pulled away and helped Nathan to his feet. “We can’t. I’m not—I need to talk to Roger first. Please…”

  Easing his arms around Wes’s waist, Nathan slipped his hands into his underwear and cupped Wes’s ass. “That’s just a technicality,” he breathed, kissing along Wes’s jaw. “As far as I’m concerned, you’ve said you like me. You’ve said you want me—”

  “I do,” Wes sighed, his hands against Nathan’s bare chest, keeping some distance between them. “But I’m still—this is sort of dishonest, you know? I mean, it’s like cheating in a way—”

  “You’re with me,” Nathan pointed out. “We both know you’re leaving that asshole for me. So I don’t see any reason why we can’t be together now if we’re going to be together in the end.”

  Wes laughed as Nathan growled against his neck. “Why does that almost make sense?”

  “I knew you’d see it my way,” Nathan said with a grin.

  Chapter 18

  Wes kept quiet during dinner. They ate at the dining room table, using paper plates provided by the Chinese restaurant. Nathan’s was heaped with a little bit of something from each take-out container, noodles mixing with rice and the remains of a spring roll chopped up in it all, a used packet of soy sauce staining the wooden table in front of him. “I’m a messy eater,” he explained, looking from his plate to Wes’s, which appeared as if it had sections dividing his food, everything was so neatly spaced.

  Wes’s response was just a wan smile.

  Nathan had hoped to get more of a rise than that. He didn’t like the way Wes kept glancing at the door, as if anticipating another knock. Whenever the door to the building opened far below them, Wes jumped, and he held his breath as whoever it was out there climbed the stairs. He didn’t relax until somewhere a door opened and closed and no one interrupted them. Nathan didn’t like that at all. Twirling lo mien noodles onto his plastic fork, he studied Wes. “You don’t have to be afraid of him.”

  “I’m not,” Wes said, a little too quickly.

  Nathan sighed. “You don’t have to lie to me. If he shows up—”

  “He won’t,” Wes murmured, but he didn’t sound convincing, as if he didn’t quite believe his own words. “He said he was going out.”

  “If he does,” Nathan said, “then I’m here. What’s he gonna do? What can he do?”

  Wes shrugged. “I just—I don’t want to hurt him, you know?”

  “He has no qualms about hurting you,” Nathan pointed out. “If he shows up here tonight, it’ll be the last time, I promise you that.” Wes frowned at his plate as he picked at his food. “What can he do to you?” Nathan wanted to know. “What can he say—”

  “I don’t know,” Wes mumbled. “I just don’t know, okay, Nathan? Can we not talk about this right now? Please?”

  Nathan pressed his lips together, angry. “Fine.” I hate you, Roger. You’re getting between us here and making him scared, making him snap at me, making things strained because he doesn’t want to talk about you. I just want him to get you out of his mind. You are so fucking dead when I get to you. I hate you for making him like this.

  With his fork, Wes pushed the food around on his plate, clearly not interested in eating any more. Nathan stood up from the table. “Come on,” he said, tugging on Wes’s arm to get him to his feet. “You done?”

  Nodding, Wes followed Nathan into the living room. The room was dark; the only light slanted through the gap where the closed curtains didn’t quite meet. It cast the room in a dusky blue from the night falling outside. “Nathan, where…”

  “Trust me,” Nathan said, sinking to the sofa.

  The cushions were cool against his naked back and legs, and he took Wes’s hands in his, pulling him down beside him. Kissing his lips, still salty from the soy sauce, Nathan leaned Wes back along the cushions and crawled on top of him, a tangle of arms and legs and smooth skin that heated as they touched. “Nathan,” Wes sighed, an invitation in his breathy voice. He cupped Nathan’s face in his hands as he gave into the insatiable kiss.

  Nathan trailed his tongue down Wes’s chin and along the length of his slender neck. He left kisses in the hollow of his friend’s throat, nipped at the rigid shelf of his collarbone, and then traced the muscles across his chest, swirling his tongue around first one nipple then the other, until both were hard nuggets between his lips. “Does he ever make you feel this way?” Nathan whispered.

  “No.” The word was mere breath as Wes writhed beneath him.

  Nathan moved lower, licking around Wes’s belly button and then lower still, following the thin line of hair that led into his briefs, where he was hard all over again. “Does he ever love you like this?”

  Wes moaned as Nathan eased the briefs down over his erection, sliding them out of the way. Nathan knew the answer to his question—it was in the way Wes almost sobbed when Nathan took his thick length into his mouth, sucking at the red shaft, his fingers entangling in the kinked hair, rubbing at the soft sac, caressing the taut stomach t
hat quivered beneath his touch. The bastard, he thought as Wes arched into him, hands gripping the arm of the sofa behind his head. All he wants to do is fuck you, is that it? I can’t imagine he ever even cared if you got anything out of the sex or not. As long as he got off, eh? When you’re finally mine, you’ll be the only thing I care about.

  “Nathan, God.” Wes thrust into him, his breath short gasps. He pushed himself up on his elbows, threw his head back, moaned as he raised his knees, spread his legs, Nathan’s tongue and lips and fingers working him until he came in an explosive, breathless rush.

  Tenderly Nathan kissed around the base of Wes’s dick, kissed the cool skin below, his tongue licking the sensitive spot right behind his balls. Wes began to harden again, his inner thighs trembling as Nathan pressed his open lips to the smooth skin and sucked in his breath, leaving little damp circles with each kiss. He wanted more—he wanted this man inside of him, he wanted to scream Wes’s name when he came, he wanted to bury himself in Wes’s arms and his body and his bed, and he never wanted to resurface.

  But didn’t Wes say Roger had scarred him? Inside, where Nathan couldn’t see the bruises or kiss the wounds to make them better. And he wanted to show Wes he wasn’t anything like that jerk, he wasn’t just in it for sex or power or whatever it was that kept Roger interested in this beautiful boy beneath him.

  So he wasn’t going to rush anything—he wanted everything Wes had to give, not just right this moment but all the rest of the days that spanned out ahead of them like a promise. “I want you,” Nathan whispered into Wes’s secret places, his breath hot along his friend’s flesh, his words punctuated with kisses. Guiding Wes’s hand to the hard thickness swelling his own underwear, Nathan laid down beside him, in the space between his body and the couch. Wes shifted so they fit together like pieces of a puzzle, falling into place. “I want you so bad right now.” He kissed Wes’s cheeks, his nose, his forehead; Wes’s fluttering eyelashes tickled Nathan’s chin. “You just don’t know.”