Delilah strolled past him, giving him a little finger wave before slipping out.
“Babe—”
“No, I can’t—” He leaned back against the wall, the foundation of his well-bricked life sliding from beneath him. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Wait, I’m sorry,” Macy said in a rush. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just—I don’t know. I told myself that even if you took me up on the offer, I’d be okay. She’d just be performing a service for you. But this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I’ll fly up there and we’ll talk. This was a mistake. I’ll make it up to you. I just—you know I get paranoid. You’ve been so distant, I started to think you were cheating and . . . I thought this would let me see if—I’m sorry.”
He closed his eyes and let his head tip back against the wall. Macy. The girl who was so desperate not to repeat her parents’ marital mistakes that she’d go as far as hiring a goddamned hooker to prove her guy was true. Macy, who wanted to be married so badly. Macy, who had chosen the wrong man for those dreams. “I won’t make you happy.”
“No, you do! I love you. I—”
“I’m sorry, Mace. I haven’t been fair to you. This isn’t going to work.”
“
What?!
No, you are
not
breaking up with me, Hunter Riley. The wedding is almost here, and I’ve
waited
for you.” The pleading tone had left her voice and now she was pissed. “So get the hell over yourself and come home or let me come up there. You don’t get to break up with me like this. So I made a stupid mistake. So what? We love each other. We move past it.”
Each word was a jab to his chest, and though he was angry, he felt like the biggest shit for doing this to her. Without intending to, he’d used her. She’d been easy. Safe. His parents had already loved her and with her being a virgin, it had given him a way to avoid dealing with a side of himself he hadn’t wanted to think too hard about. But he’d only been going through the motions of being in a relationship with her. She was the type to orchestrate, to paint the picture how she wanted, and he’d let her place him where she wanted him. Exactly where he didn’t need to be. “I do care about you, Mace. But not like either of us deserves.”
“Shut up,” she said, tears in her voice now. “You’re just scared. You love me. I know you do.”
His shoulders felt like they were weighted down with boulders when he pulled in a breath and let it out. Now or never. The truth. “No. I’ve only loved one person that way in my life. And he’s not you. I’m sorry . . .”
“
He?!
Jesus H. Christ you’ve lost your mind. I’m coming up there—”
“Don’t bother. I won’t be here. We’ll talk soon. But I need some time.”
She started yelling incoherent things then, but he couldn’t have this conversation right now. He’d told her what she needed to know. It was shitty. He’d hurt her. But any drawn-out conversation would end with the same conclusion. He felt it in his gut. He was done. Had been for a long time even if he’d been too scared to admit it. He told her good-bye, doubting she heard it over her own voice, and hung up the phone.
When he finally looked up, Devon was standing there, pale shock marking every inch of his face.
That’s when Hunter realized exactly what he’d admitted right in front of Devon.
Well . . . shit.
Hunter pushed off the wall, turned his back on Devon, and went into the hotel suite. He’d told Macy the truth because she deserved it, but the confession had slipped out before he’d considered the consequences of Devon hearing it, too. Bone-deep exhaustion moved through him. “Maybe you should go.”
There was a long, quiet minute, and Hunter thought maybe Devon had just walked right back out. But then Devon’s voice came to life with the force of a thunderclap. “Go? Oh, is that what you think? You burst into my restaurant tonight. End an engagement right in front of me. Declare to someone else that you used to love me and then kick me out so you can get hammered and wallow? Screw you, Hunt. You don’t get to do that.”
Hunter rubbed a hand over his forehead, his heartbeat pounding at his temples. “You don’t owe me anything, Dev. You don’t have to sit here and deal with my mess.”
“I can’t believe all these goddamned years.” A hard shove came from behind him as Devon knocked him forward a step. “You fucking
loved
me?”
Hunter cringed, still not turning around to look at him. “Pathetic, right? You think you’re helping a straight guy figure himself out, and I fucking get feelings.”
Devon gave a frustrated growl and grabbed Hunter’s arm, spinning him around with surprising strength considering how much broader Hunter was than him. “I really want to punch you right now.”
“Do it,” Hunter said flatly. He’d actually welcome the pain. Maybe it’d distract him from his life burning up around him.
For a second, Dev looked like he might throw a swing, but then he held his arms out to his sides. “Why didn’t you say something back then?”
Hunter scoffed. “Because up until that last night, I still didn’t understand whether the feelings I had for you were best friend feelings or if it went beyond that. My head was all over the place. I knew our friendship had been changed forever, that we couldn’t go back. I knew I thought about you way too much. But I also knew that whatever I felt for you didn’t matter anyway because something more between us would be doomed from the start.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t have the guts to be open about it. You—the guy who had given up everything so that he could be exactly who he was—would have to fucking hide things for me. No way was I going to do that to you just because of my family’s shit. Plus, you were anti-relationship. I knew you didn’t want that kind of thing. You were just helping me figure shit out. I would’ve looked liked a jackass if I had made some big I’m-in-love-with-you speech.”
“Oh? You knew exactly what I did and didn’t want, huh? You were a mind reader in your spare time, too?” Devon asked, sarcasm dripping off his words.
Hunter’s lips clamped shut.
Devon shook his head, a sound of disgust escaping him. “You had no clue what I was thinking or feeling back then. No. Clue. You know how many potential relationships you’ve ruined for me, you idiot? Not just back then but
since
then. I didn’t date for a reason. Every time I got close to someone, all I did was compare them to you. And they never measured up.” He looked at the ceiling, like it pained him to say the words. “They still haven’t.”
Hunter blinked. “What?”
Devon lowered his head, meeting Hunter’s gaze, resignation there. “You were my best friend for a reason. I loved you way before we ever touched each other. And I thought that was enough, had accepted that it’s all we could ever be. But then when things changed, I got a taste of how much more might be there, and I was a goddamned goner. What we had between us wasn’t something you find every day—or every lifetime. It freaked me out. And then you were gone. Poof. Before I could even figure it all out myself, you disappeared and all I was left with was this big fucking hole in my life. It physically hurts to be in the same room with you right now because now I remember exactly how much I lost.”
“Dev—”
“So maybe you’re right,” he said, crossing his arms. “Maybe I should leave. Because if all you’re going to do is go back to your life in Houston, make up with your girlfriend, and make your family happy, then I need to go. Because, no, I’m not going to be anyone’s secret—friend or otherwise. And I can’t handle this shit again.”
The undercurrent of hurt in his words made Hunter’s chest ache. In that moment, he didn’t see the grown-up businessman. He saw the kid who had run beside him with laughing eyes the night they’d buttered the floor of that other frat house. He saw the guy he’d talked with night after night in the dark of their small shared room. He saw the man who had made Hunter want to be more than the person he’d been raised to be. “Devon.”
“Don’t.” Devon’s defiant gaze didn’t waver. “Don’t look at me like that, Hunt.”
“I’m not going back.”
His jaw flexed. “You don’t know that. You have a career. A life. You’re angry and probably still drunk. And God knows how much trouble we get in when you’re drinking. When your head clears—”
“It’s clear now.” Hunter ventured a little closer. “Maybe for the first time in four years.”
Devon looked pained, every corner of his expression jagged with emotion.
Hunter knew he should back off. Just because he’d laid the truth out there didn’t mean anything had changed. He’d hurt Dev. He didn’t know what Devon’s life was like now. They were strangers to each other. And Hunter had a huge mushroom cloud looming in Houston. But he couldn’t help himself. He got within a foot of Devon, the space between them hardly anything but still feeling like miles. “I thought I had stopped. But now I’m not sure I did.”
Devon didn’t move forward and close the gap, but he also didn’t back away. “What?”
Hunter swallowed hard. “Wanting you. Loving you. I thought I’d let you go, but when I saw you in your restaurant tonight . . . it was like the fucking sun came out for the first time in years.”
Devon closed his eyes then, and everything in his posture seemed to surrender. “Fuck.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Hunter repeated. “I know I’m a mess. I don’t expect you to give me your friendship or anything else. I’m sure you’ve moved on and had probably forgotten about me until I showed up tonight. But I’m telling you what I couldn’t tell you back then, because you deserve to hear it. And I’m telling you that I’m here if you want me—in whatever way that means. I won’t turn my back on you again.”
Devon’s chest rose and fell with a deep inhale and then finally, he opened his eyes. “Forgotten about you, huh?”
Hunter shrugged.
Dev’s eyes met his, steady as stone. “Last season, you had the best stats of any of the pitchers on your team. In the second playoff game this year, you pitched a no-hitter. And two games later, you injured your back against the Yankees and were out for the season. Your pretty fiancée gave an interview while they were carting you off on a stretcher, and she didn’t even glance your way. When you’re having a hard time on the mound, you take off your hat and say some kind of mantra to yourself. And though you look great in white, that road gray uniform makes me think absolutely filthy things about you. I pay for the special MLB package on cable, and I don’t even like baseball.”
Hunter rocked back on his heels, the steadily delivered confession pinging through him and lighting up places he hadn’t realized had gone dark. Devon hadn’t forgotten about him, had followed his career, had watched him play. Had thought filthy things about him . . .
“You’re right,” Dev continued, his voice softening as he closed the minute distance left between them. “I don’t owe you anything. And this is probably the worst timing ever. But hell if I don’t want every damn thing you’ve got to give, Hunt. I never fucking stopped either.”
Everything out of alignment inside Hunter seemed to jerk into place all at once,
click, click, click
—all the misplaced pieces landing just where they needed, locking into one image that had been burned into his marrow a long time ago.
Devon
. From the moment he’d met him, even before he understood what it was, it had always been Dev. He’d been his all along. That’s all he needed to know. The rest they could figure out later.
Hunter wasn’t sure whose hands reached out first. But before the next breath, their mouths came together and all semblance of decorum or decency burned up in the bright, fiery need of having spent so many years apart. Fingers grappled for clothes, hair, whatever they could manage, and the two of them kissed like ravenous teenagers—desperate, sloppy, greedy, bodies shamelessly rubbing against each other. Hunter’s elbow clipped a hotel lamp as they grabbed at each other, and it tipped over onto the carpeted floor with a loud thunk. Light splintered around them on the walls. Neither of them broke away from kissing.
Hunter gripped Devon’s hair and stroked his tongue deeper in Dev’s mouth. He couldn’t get close enough. He wanted every part of him, and Devon seemed to be of the same mind as he pressed Hunter against the back of the couch, mashing their bodies together. Everything went hot and needy inside Hunter.
He’d managed two years of celibacy without much struggle, but now he wasn’t sure he could handle two minutes of it. His cock went hard and obvious against Devon’s thigh, and he rocked against him, not caring if Dev felt exactly how bad he wanted him.
Devon groaned and pulled away from the kiss, panting. “We should probably slow down. Catch up. Take our time.”
“Probably.”
“Want to?”
“Nope,” Hunter said, letting his hand slip between them and finding Devon as turned on as he was. He gave him a stroke through his slacks, relishing the feel of his heat against his palm. “You?”
“Hell no, especially not when you’re doing that. Fuck.”
Hunter smiled. “I’ve gotta warn you. I still don’t know what I’m doing.”
Devon laughed, playful desire in his eyes as he hooked a finger in the belt loop of Hunter’s jeans. “Saved yourself for me, big man?”
“Maybe I did.”
“Good.” Devon unhooked the button of Hunter’s jeans. “But don’t worry, we don’t have to go that far tonight if—”
Hunter silenced the next words with another kiss, letting him know exactly what he thought of that plan. When he broke away from the kiss, he looked down at him. “No. We’ve waited long enough. I’m all yours—however you want me.”
Dev’s gaze held his, and in that one look, Hunter saw what he’d been seeing in his own reflection for years. He hadn’t been the only one suffering, hadn’t been the only one with a broken heart. Dev grabbed Hunter’s arm and led him into the bedroom.
Somehow they both sensed that words were no longer needed. They did manage to slow down some once they got into the bedroom, undressing each other with reverent, searching hands, kissing along the paths of exposed skin as they went. And Devon discreetly pulled supplies from his wallet before kicking his pants out of the way. But he tossed the packets on the side table like they’d get to those later, like there was no rush. But there was still a frantic current to everything for both of them, this pounding need to strip down all the barriers, erase all those years of separation, be with each other like they should have from the start. Unlike last time, Hunter had no qualms about what tonight could mean or how it would go—only anticipation. In his world of everything feeling wrong, he’d finally found his way back to what felt right.
Devon guided Hunter to the bed between kisses, and Hunter could feel the power shift between them. Devon was taking the reins, showing him the way without making him feel like some awkward virgin. He put his hands on Hunter’s shoulders and eased him onto his back before climbing onto the bed with him. Skin pressed against skin, hot desire wrapping around them and pumping through Hunter’s blood, as their mouths joined again. God, Hunter had kissed his fair share of people but never had he wanted to get lost in it like this, like kissing wasn’t a prelude but a main fucking event.
After a few more minutes, Devon eased back and braced himself on one arm above Hunter to grab supplies. Hunter found himself admiring the view. Dev had filled out in the last few years, cut muscles replacing the slighter build he’d had in college, but the most noticeable change was the utter confidence. Dev had an air about him now that made Hunter’s heart beat faster. In his daily life, Hunter knew he walked around like the alpha dog athlete. He was used to people letting him lead and have the control, but right now he had no issues turning himself over to this man.
Devon smiled down at him, tender heat there. “Still want this, big man?”
“I might fucking die if we stop right now.”
Devon laughed. “Thank God.”
Devon slipped a hand between them and wrapped his hand around Hunter’s cock, slick lubricant gliding along the heated flesh. Hunter groaned into the touch. “You’re good at that.”
“I know.” Devon stroked him with a firm hand, making Hunter’s toes want to curl, and then leaned down to touch his forehead to Hunter’s. “I told you back then I’d make this good for you.”
Hunter gripped Dev’s bicep, warning him to ease up. “Yeah, but if you keep doing it that good, I’m going to go off before we get there. Two years celibate, man.”
Devon grinned and dipped his hand lower, dragging the lubricant with him. The look in his eye said he knew that he had Hunter at his mercy. Hell, if the guy asked him to bark like a dog, he might do it right now. Anything to keep his body feeling just like this.
“You’re going to want to use your hand on yourself when I try this,” Devon said, grit in his voice—proof that he was hovering at his edge of patience, too. “It’ll make it easier. And tell me to stop if it’s too much.”
“I’m a big boy. I think I’ll be all right,” Hunter said, his voice strained.
“You are. But so am I.” Devon smirked.
“Smartass.”
Devon released him and sat back to roll on the condom. Hunter wrapped his fingers around his own cock while he watched Devon squeeze more lubricant onto his hand. Pulsing need pounded through Hunter as Devon slowly slicked himself up—this strange empty feeling piercing through him, this ache to have Dev inside him. He’d never done this and probably should be scared, but he knew Dev wouldn’t hurt him. Beyond the fact that Dev would stop if he said so, Hunter had bought a secret stash of toys sometime last year and had become a lot more familiar with what his body could accommodate. It was like his subconscious had known to prepare for this moment even when he hadn’t been able to admit the desires out loud.