Beyond Moonlight
Authors: Piper Vaughn,M.J. O'Shea
.: Notice :.
Free Short Fiction
Distributed at mjandpiper.blogspot.com, goodreads.com, and allromanceebooks.com by Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea
This is a work of fiction. Characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the authors.
Beyond Moonlight © 2012 Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea
All rights reserved worldwide. This eBook may be distributed freely in its entirety courtesy of the authors, Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea. This work may not be sold, manipulated, or reproduced in any format without express written permission from the authors.
This work contains graphic language and sexual content between two men and is not intended for anyone under the age of 18.
~*~*~*~
~*~*~*~
Spoiler Warning:
These scenes are more like vignettes than actual short stories. They are intended as a sort of behind the scenes look at the events that take place between
Moonlight Becomes You
and
The Luckiest
, and were originally published as freebies on our joint blog, Babes in Boyland. This collection is considered book #1.5 in the Lucky Moon series (
The Luckiest
is book #2). Please be advised that there are
major
spoilers
for
Moonlight Becomes You
in the following scenes.
~*~*~*~
.: Aftermath :.
Shane jogged offstage, waving, to the roaring of fans after Luck completed their final encore song. The show had been exhilarating, fun, wonderful…and the longest goddamn hour of his life. After that song with Jesse, after their kiss, all he wanted to do was take Jesse in his arms and disappear for days, weeks, as long as it took them to get back to the place they were at when they were kids and nothing was more important than the way they felt about each other.
Jesse was waiting for him on the side of the stage, smiling like he always used to. Shane couldn’t believe he’d been fooled for even one second.
“Hey,” he murmured.
Jesse came up and kissed him, sweaty concert face and all. “Hey, yourself,” he answered in that voice Shane loved, accent nearly gone, all Jesse. The contacts were gone too and those gorgeous gray eyes looked up at him adoringly. Shane knew he looked the same way right back at Jesse. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to it.
“Love you, Jess,” Shane said. Once hadn’t been nearly enough. He wanted to keep saying the words over and over. They’d been waiting to come out for more than eleven years, after all. Jesse smiled and reached up to kiss him again.
Dre, who’d been brushing by them, stopped short. Nick ran into him, followed by Will. Shane had to hold his hand out to keep them from toppling down.
“Wait. Love you? What the hell?” Dre choked out. His caramel skin turned ashen. He gaped at Jesse and Shane, clearly looking for a sign that he hadn’t heard what he thought he just heard. “I thought Shane took off and made us look like assholes because you two were fighting and now you’re all lovey? And since when is Kayden’s name
Jess?
”
Shane glanced at Nick. “You didn’t tell him?”
Nick shrugged. He looked annoyed. “Not my shit to tell.”
Jesse cleared his throat. “It is me, Dre. Jesse.” He ran his hand down Shane’s arm and twined their fingers together. Dre’s mouth opened and closed, fish-like, for a few seconds before he clamped it shut. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you.”
“
Jesse
Jesse?”
Jesse nodded. “Yep.”
“What the…
fuck?
” Dre reached out and grabbed one of the beams that crisscrossed along the wall backstage.
Shane chuckled “That’s pretty much the reaction I had.”
“And you knew this all along?” He looked at Shane accusingly.
Shane shook his head. “No. Definitely not. Not till Chicago, although I’m not sure how I could’ve missed it.” Every time he looked at Jesse, his face felt more familiar, small and delicate, but still the guy he’d fallen for all those years ago.
“But…” Dre gestured at Shane and Jesse. “Why, how…Jesus. When the hell did
this
happen?”
Shane smiled. He pulled Jesse’s hand up to his mouth. “A long,
long
time ago,” he answered.
“And an hour ago,” Jesse added.
Shane couldn’t help laughing. He was so damn happy it didn’t matter if they weren’t making sense. Dre looked pissed and confused. “Listen, it’s a long story, bro. Jess and I will sit down and tell you another night. Right now, I need to eat and get some shut eye.”
“Whatever. I don’t get you, dude. And you…” Dre looked at Jesse and sighed. Then he pushed past them to the stairs that led to the band’s changing rooms.
“You think he’ll be okay?” Jesse asked.
“Yeah, he’ll be fine—and if not? I ruined over ten years of my life for those guys. It’s my turn now.”
“And mine.” Shane couldn’t help but smile at the possessive look on Jesse’s face.
“I can’t keep my hands off you,” Shane moaned. He wrapped Jesse in his arms. “So much of me still can’t believe this is happening.”
“Me neither.” He gave Shane a hesitant smile. “You ready to go?”
“Definitely.”
Jesse’s hands shook a little while he waited for Shane to unlock the door to his sleek, modern condo. The place was a little scary. Being alone, really
really
alone, with Shane for the first time after everything that had happened between them was a hell of a lot scarier. Shane opened his door, then turned to look at Jesse.
“Hey,” he murmured. “You okay?”
“Just nervous, I guess.”
Shane chuckled. “It’s just me, Jess. Remember all those afternoons we hung out in your room and played music and kissed and stuff. We can be like that again, right?”
“You don’t think you made me nervous back then?” Jesse’s stomach was weak, but it felt good. Fluttery and wonderful and exactly like he remembered. He hadn’t let himself feel it all those long months on the road. Every time the giddy happiness tried to come up he’d forced it down as hard as he could. It was nice to finally let go.
Shane cupped his face with trembling hands and kissed him slowly.
God,
it was amazing.
“You make me nervous too. And happy, and scared and like I can barely keep from laughing half the time over nothing. I think that’s what it’s supposed to feel like when you’re in love.”
Jesse ground his face into Shane’s neck and hugged him as tightly as he could. They walked awkwardly into Shane’s condo, kissing and holding each other, dropping instruments and duffel bags, pants, shoes, shirts…by the time they got to Shane’s enormous bedroom and the pale-green tiled bathroom beyond, it was just them, sweaty skin, swollen lips, hair crunchy from stage products, eyeliner smeared from half-shed tears.
Jesse reached into the shower and turned it on, shocked when an icy blast hit his arm. Shane chuckled and turned the knob until the water was warm and the room filled with steam.
“C’mon, Jess. I always wanted to do this with you when we were kids.”
It was something that Jesse, in his past incarnation, would’ve never dared to dream of. He and Shane, wet, huddled as close as they could get under the showerhead and still squeezing tighter together. Warm water rinsed them clean of sweat and grimy makeup. Jesse reached for Shane’s shampoo and poured some into his palm. He massaged it into Shane’s hair and reveled in the moans and whimpers he got in return.
“Love your hands on me,” Shane murmured. “I always have.”
“Me too.”
Shane smiled and filled his palm with shampoo to return the favor. “You used to be so shy when I wanted to touch you. Like you couldn’t believe I really did.” Shane’s long fingered hands slid through his hair, lathering gently. Jesse shivered. It felt so perfect. They were finally touching the way it was meant to be. No anger, no resentment, just wonder.
“I guess I
couldn’t
believe that you really wanted me. I was dorky and chubby and so damn insecure. That’s what made it so easy to believe that you were done with me. I didn’t even question that you really meant it.”
“Oh, God, Jess. I
wasn’t
done with you. I loved you so much. That day was torture. I fucking cried that night. For hours. I almost called you so many times.” Shane’s voice cracked.
“Shane, it’s over. We’re here now.” Jesse wiped the shampoo from Shane’s forehead and guided him under the water to rinse his hair clean.
“How can you be so wonderful to me?
Fuck
. I took eleven years of our life together away. We could’ve been like an old married couple by now. You and me always. Like it was supposed to be.”
Jesse’s chest ached at the thought of the time they could’ve had. But it was gone, and all that was left was the future. “It can be like that now. I still don’t want anybody else. I never did.”
“Me neither. None of them. I just want you.”
Jesse smiled. “So let’s start tonight. We can’t pretend those years didn’t happen, but they’re gone and we’re back, right?”
“Yeah.” Shane gulped and wrapped his arms tightly around Jesse. “I’m trying to be cool…but I just have these moments where I start fucking panicking.”
“About what?” He squeezed Shane back.
“What if you never came to find me? I thought about you all the damn time, about looking for you, trying to apologize, even though I had no idea where to start. I’d have never found you. Not in England. Not with a different name.”
Jesse smiled. “Yeah, I was hiding in plain sight, I guess you could say. You knew where I was all along; you just didn’t know it was me.” He reached up and took Shane’s face in his hands, that wonderful, familiar face, older but exactly the same. “Listen, don’t worry about it, okay? I was never not going to reach out to you. Sure, I had this whole revenge plan in my head, but I swear most of it was me wanting you back in my life. I just went about it the wrong way.”
“I don’t care. I have you back. That’s all that matters. It was always you, Jess. Always.”
“Even when you thought I was someone else?” Jesse teased. He had to tease to cover the thickness in his throat.
“I’m such an asshole,” Shane muttered.
“Babe, I was kidding. Come on, let’s get out of here. No more beating ourselves up. Time for loving, okay?”
Shane turned off the water and grabbed a towel from the hook on his wall. He dried Jesse off with long, gentle swipes before running it cursorily over his own skin. When he was finished, he pulled open one of the drawers under the sink and withdrew a bottle of lube and some condoms.
“Are we going to need these?” Shane asked. He looked sweet and unsure and so unlike any version of Shane Jesse had ever seen that he had to grin.
Jesse reached out and took the lube from his hand. “We definitely need this,” he said. Then he plucked the strip of condoms from Shane’s fingers. “And these too. For a while at least.”
Shane smiled shakily. “Now I’m nervous.”
“No need to be,” Jesse lied. His stomach was quaking as well. But someone had to lead the show, or they’d both end up in a shaky ball in each other’s arms. “We’ve done this before, right?”
“But that wasn’t
us
. It was…different.”
“Well, it’s us now. Exactly how it would’ve been all those years ago. Except I’m not an insecure virgin anymore. And you? You’re still every dream I’ve ever had.”
Shane groaned. “I love you so much.”
“Come show me.” Jesse held out his hand, and tried to hide the tremble.
Shane
was
every dream he’d ever had. Even when those dreams were angry, there was yearning, love, and desperate want threading through them and holding him together. The anger was gone, finally, and all that was left was the love and the yearning. The want had magnified to a need so big he could barely stand it and Jesse wanted to feel it all.
They sank slowly onto Shane’s big, expensive bed. It was a far cry from the rickety twin Shane had back when they were kids—where they came together on that wonderful night when they’d come so close to where they were about to go. Jesse wanted to feel Shane inside of him. All of Shane, not just his magical fingers. Even that much was so many years ago Jesse didn’t know what was real and what was long held fantasy.
“I want you,” he said and pulled Shane close. “Just like it should’ve been a million years ago.”
“You don’t want to fuck me again?” Shane asked. “I...I loved it.”
Jesse had loved it too, after he let go of his stupid anger and pride. But it wasn’t what he needed. “I do want to be inside of you again. Of course. I want
all
of it with you. But tonight? Right now? I need you. Like we always planned.”
“O-okay.” Shane agreed, but he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know if he could go through with it, take Jesse like he always used to want to. He wanted to be the possessed, the taken, the one who was surrendering. He needed to show Jesse that this time it was forever.