A Younger Man (11 page)

In a similar stance, Matt crossed his arms and leaned on the top porch railing. His focus laser sharp on Noah, he blurted, “Is Zane, like, your boyfriend or something?”

Shit.
“No.” The denial burst forth from Noah as fast as Matt’s question had. “Not all of my new friends are going to be…”
Christ.
Noah zipped his lips. He and Janice had openly explained to their children why they’d gotten divorced, and that Noah wanted to fall in love and have a relationship with a man, but they’d felt deeper conversations needed to come naturally and in their own time.
I guess this is one of those times.
His adrenaline rushing much too fast, Noah forced himself to face his son head-on. “Not everyone is going to be like me, Matt.”
Shoot.
“What I mean is, not every man I introduce you to is going to be someone who wants a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend.”

“Sirus and Grey are.”

“I know. That’s different. They’re a couple.”

“Do you like Zane, though?” Matt pressed. “Like, do you want to kiss him and make out with him and stuff?”

“Jesus, Matt.” Wild heat rode up the back of Noah’s neck, and he suddenly wanted a drink. “This is not an appropriate conversation for someone your age.”

“Why not? I asked Mom the same thing about Tom when he came to our house for dinner the first time. She didn’t think it was wrong.” From the porch, Matt fixed a pointed stare down on Noah. “You didn’t either when I told you about it.”

“Fair point.” Damn, this was what Noah got for praying for smart kids.

“Thanks.” Matt beamed. “I’m doing really well on the debate team. Coach says I might go right to the first chair in my second year. That has never happened in our school before.”

“That’s great, Matt. Congratulations.”

Matt came back down the steps, stopping in front of Noah. “So what’s your answer?”

With another sigh, Noah dropped to sit on the steps and tugged his son down with him. “My answer is that finding someone interesting and attractive isn’t always enough.” He crossed his arms against his knees and rested his head against his forearms, his focus on Matt. “Other factors have to come into play too, mainly how the other person feels, and who they are able to like in a romantic way.”

“In my debate class, Coach would have told you to simply state what you mean. Which is, you kinda like Zane, but he isn’t gay.”

Fuck.
Noah muttered, “Another point to you.”

“Sorry, Dad.” Shock of all shocks, Matt scooted closer and rubbed shoulders with Noah, instigating closeness in a way teenage boys rarely did. “I like this girl at school, but she only wants to hang out with this boy who is already practicing with the high school basketball team, so I know how you feel.”

Noah nudged Matt’s shoulder in return. “That’s her loss. You’re a great guy.”

“You are too, Dad.” Matt even smiled without looking away.

“Thanks.” Glancing up at the rapidly rising moon, Noah cursed and checked his watch.
Still have some time.
He hauled Matt to his feet. “You want to drown our losses in a couple of beers before I have to take you home?”

“Can mine be a float?” The kid knew their ages-old code, and that Noah meant a root beer, not an alcoholic beverage.

“Why not?” Noah replied. “I could use one too.”

“Awesome.” Matt booked it to the truck. His speed and enthusiasm reminded Noah of times when simpler things had made everyone around him happy. Matt rolled down the window and shouted, “Let’s go!”

Noah climbed in behind the wheel and started them to town. As they passed the west cabin, Noah noticed soft light twinkling from within. The sight twisted a sweet pain in Noah’s chest, but this time he managed to put a clamp on his imagination before he could paint a picture of Zane inside. Noah reminded himself that he could never have the younger man.

Hell, the truth was, Noah might never have any guy—at least not with a depth of closeness and trust he’d achieved in his marriage with Janice. Noah refused to dwell in a pity party anymore, though. He’d lost an element of his relationship with his parents, but he had one hell of a fantastic son in Matt. And with what Matt had said about Seth, maybe his eldest supported Noah too. Along with still having a friend in Janice, Noah knew he had a heck of a lot more than most men who came out of the closet at this stage in their lives did. Anything else that came along with the good fortune of still having a family was just gravy.

And what Noah had learned through being married to someone he loved with all his heart, but wasn’t insanely attracted to sexually, was that mashed potatoes all on their own were still very filling. If he had to, Noah would learn to live and thrive without ever tasting a drop of gravy.

Truth was, he didn’t have any choice.

* * * *

Hugging his pillow, Zane rolled onto his back, unable to sleep. He seemed to be having the problem a lot lately. Even more than when he’d first started having money troubles, and that was shocking. He hadn’t thought he’d ever have more insomnia than the first few weeks after taking Clint’s loans.
Or then the first time I couldn’t make a payment.
Zane groaned, but not even the thought of finding a way to get Clint a few more dollars quickly, within the next week, could fully pull him from what kept him awake tonight.

Noah. And how it felt to straddle his lap outside tonight.

God, Zane hadn’t ever sat on somebody in quite that way; everywhere his body had touched Noah’s still buzzed with awareness of the contact. Right where he lay in bed, Zane’s thigh muscles contracted; he remembered doing that very thing while sitting on Noah; he could still feel the man’s hard waist rub against his legs. Then when he’d touched Noah’s nipple—purely by accident—the man had sucked in a sharp breath and his entire frame had tensed.
He liked it.
In that moment, though, in his naïveté, Zane had thought Noah’s response had happened due to an injury, not a sexual response. But having spent pretty much the whole night reliving those few moments of physical closeness since they’d happened, Zane now thought Noah had reacted in such a way because Zane had excited him, had made the rigid man’s body stir with life.

Oh God.
In the darkness, Zane moaned. Just in thinking he’d aroused Noah in some way, Zane swelled with growing hardness, and his shaft began to tent the sheet covering his nakedness. He’d never slept completely nude before, yet tonight he’d forgone the only other pair of sweats he owned. He’d consciously decided to slip off his underwear before crawling into bed too.

Immediately, Zane’s thoughts had drifted across the lake, and he wondered if Noah still wore the sweats he’d borrowed.
Noah. In my clothes. His skin touching up against sweatpants I’ve worn a thousand times.
At one point during dinner, Zane had excused himself to use the restroom, and at the foot of his bed he’s seen Noah’s underwear folded on top of his damp cargo shorts. That meant Noah did not have an extra layer between himself and Zane’s sweats, and that knowledge made Zane’s nuts tingle with awareness and his dick get even stiffer.

What is the matter with me?
Zane didn’t understand his body’s responses, yet he couldn’t kill this waking dream or keep his thoughts from shifting back to outside, by the dock, to straddling Noah while the last vestiges of daylight twinkled all around them.

As if Zane could see Noah right now, he stared into the man’s eyes, the brown color like the richest blend of coffee. Zane’s heart fluttered in response. His prick twitched, but the rest of his body didn’t feel right; his legs weren’t tense and his fingers couldn’t feel warm skin either, and the loss of those things put a damper on his memory.
Damn it.

Panic seized through Zane’s entire being. Certain he would lose Noah’s image entirely if he didn’t act quickly, Zane shifted to his knees in bed. He shoved the three king-size pillows between his thighs, giving him something to straddle.
Oh yes.
Zane spread his thighs, bore his weight down on the pillows, and he swore Noah’s hardness and body heat rubbed against his inner thighs, nuts, and ass.

Better now, Zane began rocking his hips back and forth, feeling only Noah’s rock-hard stomach scraping against his flesh. Zane rubbed his own chest, across his nipples, and the tactile sensation vividly brought back the moments when he’d run his hands over Noah’s skin. Noah materialized completely in Zane’s thoughts, in his bedroom, and in response Zane whipped his lower half faster and faster on top of Noah, needing the feel of that hot, solid male flesh between his thighs.

Zane stared down at Noah, at the fire in his eyes, at the hard lines mapping his roughly beautiful face, and wanted to do anything that would make him happy. Noah deserved only good things in his life, and Zane wanted to be the one to give him everything. Zane whispered, his voice choked, “Tell me,” and brushed his fingers over Noah’s hard lips, feeling the man’s breathless desire. “I want to make you come.”

The words
“Touch yourself for me,”
filled Zane’s head. He nodded, eager to please, desperate to assuage this hunger consuming his being whole. As Zane ran his hand down his belly, he trembled. When he wrapped his cock in a smothering-tight hold, a shudder rocked through his frame. Early ejaculate beaded down Zane’s shaft, giving him all the slickness he needed for the task. Zane dragged his fist up and down his pole with full strokes, and he kept up a steady rocking of his weight down onto the man beneath him, loving every swish of contact between his balls and ass and Noah’s hard flesh. Line after line of crazy-excited nerve endings zapped against the surface of Zane’s cock, making more blood rush to his shaft and harden his member, but Zane did not slow down.

Please.
Jerking off his cock with ever-increasing pulls, Zane writhed on top of Noah, trapped in the man’s heated gaze. Noah looked up at him with a dark stare full of raw need, and the sight filled Zane with desires equally base and desperate. With every whip of Zane’s hips, Noah’s thick penis—so fucking hard and hot—pushed against Zane’s ass, into his crease.
Shit. Oh shit.
Zane’s heart thudded so fast he could hear it roaring in his ears. He knew he only had to shift a little bit and Noah’s cock would slip right into his hole. Zane’s channel contracted tightly, and his prick spit out another fat pearl of precum. Beneath him, Noah tensed, and with eyes full of passion, he said,
“Give it to me. I want your ass.”

Biting his lip, fighting his accompanying desire, Zane whispered, “Me too,” and impaled himself on Noah’s shaft, taking him to the root. White-hot fire shot through Zane’s asshole, but he didn’t care. He froze in place, suspended on Noah’s wonderful cock, as the most unfathomable pleasure raced through his ass channel and up his spine, ripped through his balls, and shot through his dick. A split second later electricity jolted through Zane. “Oh God, Noah…” Zane moaned from somewhere deep in his gut as seed spewed from his dick, line after line after line, and washed his belly in sticky, hot cum. Zane rode the wave of release, his passage clenching Noah’s cock with each spurt. He held the man deep inside his ass, each moment confusing pleasure with the pain.

A long minute later Zane blinked, letting wisps of light from the shadowed room back into his consciousness. A white wall filled his vision. He regained his faculties enough to process that he had his forehead plastered to the wall above the headboard, one hand gripping the headboard, the pillows still clutched between his thighs—and that he rode his hand, with his middle finger tucked halfway in his virgin ass.

Oh my God.
Zane’s rectum squeezed around his partially embedded digit. Freaked out, he yanked his hand from between his legs, and bit back a shout as a wickedly strange sensation consumed his now empty hole. Semen streaked down his belly. Sudden cold swept through Zane as he wiped the milky stuff away with the sheet and then tossed the material onto the floor.

As Zane shifted to his back to lie down—his head still full of Noah, and his body still extremely aware of that new invasion in his ass—confusion put his thoughts to racing a million miles a second. Was he gay? Zane had never wondered if he was before. He’d never even really thought about his sexuality, period, but he could not deny he’d also never had such an explicit fantasy about a girl or woman as he’d just had about Noah. Then again, he’d also never had a fantasy or dream of that nature about a boy or man before. Not until Noah. Now, every time Zane found himself in Noah’s presence—or even just thought about him after spending time together—he found himself imagining what it would feel like to run his fingers through Noah’s short blond hair; or he would recall the powerful heat the man’s body emanated and a longing to touch would pang in him. Zane would now surely think about sitting on Noah’s lap purposefully too, and not because they’d gotten tangled up together in a fall.

Now that Zane had experienced this crazy waking dream, something that had felt so real he’d stuck his finger in his own ass as a way to get closer to the sensation of Noah fucking him, he had to rethink everything. Zane had never played with his pucker as a way to arouse himself. Hell, he’d never even thought about playing in that area—at least not until today, when he’d sat on Noah’s stomach and had become very aware of his cock, balls, and ass.

Maybe Zane was just dealing with a late-blooming libido.
Could just be that I’m horny, and Noah is right there, being kind, generous, and attractive.
Zane chuckled, and then pushed his face into his pillow and groaned. He could not play a game of indulging in a curiosity, not with a guy like Noah. It wouldn’t be right. As a result of coming out, Noah had uprooted many elements of his life and he’d put a lot of relationships in jeopardy. Zane would not fuck with that upheaval as part of an experiment, as some way to figure out his emerging sexuality. Noah had been far too wonderful with him, and Zane would not muddy the waters and ruin Noah’s chances with a man who knew what he wanted. That being another gay man. An adult. Someone who had his life in order.