A Younger Man (46 page)

Shit. We’re in love. And we said it out loud.
Noah lost the power in his limbs a little bit more. Before Noah could give a warning, before he dropped face-first onto the mattress, Zane lifted his weight off Noah. With a groan he pulled his cock from Noah’s ass.

Zane fell to the bed beside Noah, on his back, and looked up at Noah with flecks of brilliant sapphires still burning in his eyes. He reached up and flitted his fingertips over Noah’s lips and cheeks. “There aren’t words good enough for me to explain how much I love you, and for how blessed I feel that you stopped on the sidewalk that day and let me into your life.” He continued to graze his fingers over Noah’s shoulder and arm, almost absently, as if it were as normal and natural a part of his day as breathing. “I was going to tell you something like that a minute ago,” Zane chuckled, and new pink bloomed under the afterglow still making his skin glisten, “but when you started coming so powerfully, I lost myself, and all I could do was fall into the pleasure you were feeling and willfully let it suck me into the abyss too.”

Noah’s chest expanded with perfect, wonderful pain. “Believe me,” he dipped down and brushed a kiss to Zane’s lush lips, “I’m familiar with the sensation.” His arms and legs finally gave out and he fell onto his side. “You won’t pull many back-to-back orgasms out of me like you just did, though.” Noah stretched the full length of his body and groaned happily as each muscle flexed and pulled. “You wiped me out, honey.”

Zane wrinkled his nose. “Oh, I don’t think so. If we had the time,” he grabbed Noah’s wrist to look at his watch, even though he wore his own, “I think I could entice you into the shower, suds you up, and have you hard and ready to go again by the time I rinsed you off. As it stands right now,” Zane rolled out of bed, “you’ll have to settle for a warm washcloth and the promise of next time.” Shades of deep midnight clouded Zane’s eyes. “I want to get back to Duncan and Hailey so they can see that I’m really all right.”

Reluctant as hell to move from this cocoon, Noah pushed to sit upright at the foot of the bed. “Seth would have called if they were upset,” he pointed out, following Zane to the bathroom with his stare, admiring his nakedness, “but I understand your need to get back to them.”

Zane paused at the bathroom, his hand on the door frame. “Thank you.” His gaze slid to the open bedroom door and the hallway beyond. His features hardened, and Noah knew he replayed the ugly scene with Clint in his mind. Zane came back to eye contact with Noah, and a mixture Noah could read as embarrassment and gratitude lived in his stare. “For everything.”

Zane disappeared into the bathroom then. Noah rushed across the room and right in behind him, determined to eradicate the tumultuous emotions still visibly living inside Zane over the situation with Clint.

Noah found Zane already wetting down a couple of washcloths. “You don’t have to thank me.” Noah accepted one of the damp washcloths with a murmur of appreciation. “Don’t even try to tell me you wouldn’t do the same if our circumstances were reversed.” His focus remained pinpoint on Zane as wiped down his dick, sac, and inner thighs.

As Zane washed his front down too, he glared at Noah. “But that isn’t the situation we’re in; the reality we live in has you turning over a substantial amount of money to someone on my behalf.” Wet cloth in hand, Zane jabbed a finger full of promise at Noah’s chest. “I’m going to pay you back every cent you give to Clint. Instead of paying him on a schedule, I’ll pay you.”

A sigh escaped Noah. “Baby, you make my life richer than any amount of money ever could.” He held up a hand before Zane could protest. “But again, I understand why you want to pay me back and keep things square between us. I’ll take the money on whatever schedule you need us to make.”

Openly studying Zane from top to bottom, awed by his sexiness, Noah growled and tugged the man in close. “But just so you know, you could probably do a few things to negotiate a lower monthly payment with me—things you couldn’t do with that bastard Clint.” Noah swiped up the other damp towel, but rather than finish cleaning himself, he reached around Zane and rubbed the nubby fabric between the smooth hills of Zane’s pert ass, down to his hole. “You could probably do a whole hell of a lot of things and get whatever rate you want.” Noah dipped down, barely letting their lips touch, as he worked just the tip of his cloth-covered digit into Zane’s ass to both tease and clean his body.

Zane leaned into Noah, holding onto his biceps, and a little trilling moan played in his throat. “Yeah?”

Noah licked just inside Zane’s lips. “Yeah.”

His fingers flexing into Noah’s muscles, Zane pressed himself against Noah harder and began a slow grind between their cocks. “God, I’d like to try one or two of those things right now.” He started to sway even more, but abruptly pulled away. “Shoot.” Shaking his head, he tunneled his fingers through his hair. With another curse, he set his big, soulful stare onto Noah. “I can’t.”

Noah groaned, but the grumbling held a mountain’s worth of understanding. “I know. Go.” He slapped Zane on the ass and nudged him back into the bedroom. “It’s a crime to cover that body, but go ahead and get dressed.”

Moving back into the bedroom, already out of Noah’s sight, Zane called out, “I know how you feel. But we’ll be together again soon.”

Soon.
The word sat like a lead balloon in Noah’s gut. As he quickly finished cleaning himself and drying off, the terrible weight of more separations and sporadic stolen moments dug a hole inside him, one that clandestine meetings in motel rooms and lunches where they didn’t eat a bit of food couldn’t fill. “Soon” wasn’t a word that satisfied everything Noah wanted and craved with this man. “Always” was the only one that made Noah’s heart feel full and healthy with every nourishing thing it needed to survive.

Shit.
Noah stumbled on his way out of the bathroom. Already dressed, Zane sat on the edge of the bed, one foot pulled up to the mattress, sock in hand. The sight of him doing something so simple, such as putting on his shoes and socks, grabbed at the very heart of everything Noah wanted with Zane. A normal life. Every single day. Together.
But is Zane there already too?

Rushing across the room to where his pants and underwear had landed, Noah hastened to get dressed. But still, his attention slid repeatedly to Zane, and the ache in his soul for permanence grew. Drawn to Zane, needing to get close enough to feel his life force, Noah moved to sit at Zane’s feet, where his own shoes and socks still lay. “Listen…” His heart pounding and his hands shaking, Noah looked up at Zane, into the warmth burning in his blue stare, and waded into the waters of the only future he wanted. “Our relationship changed today,” he said, while putting on his socks and shoes. “In a big way.”

The sight of Zane’s lopsided smile turned somersaults in Noah’s stomach. “Yeah.” Leaning forward, Zane brushed his fingers through Noah’s hair and then grazed the softest touch across Noah’s cheek, making Noah shiver. “I thought I’d be terrified to tell you how much I love you, but in the heat of that moment the truth just flew out of me. Once it did, I wasn’t scared anymore. You’d said it too, and I knew you meant it, and it was exhilarating and liberating and insane. And like you always have a way of doing,” with a gentle hand around Noah’s neck, Zane drew Noah to his knees and pressed the sweetest kiss against his cheek, “the way you said it, the passion and conviction in you, made me feel so safe.”

An invisible rope between their bodies tugged Noah hard in his core, with such power that not even fear would let him ignore it. “I’ve had strong feelings for you from almost the beginning. Even when I told myself they were inappropriate and I held back, I couldn’t stop what I felt. But then, when I was sick, and you spent those nights with me…” Everything inside him seizing with welcoming pain, Noah kneeled before Zane, his heart and soul flayed open for Zane to see. “Baby, when I got to see your face as I fell asleep, and hear you moving around in the morning, I understood it would be a hundred times harder to say good-bye every day afterward, knowing we couldn’t be together all night. And it was hard. It is still. At night, I lie awake with the thought of sharing a bed with you all the time.” Bracing his hands on the bed on either side of Zane, Noah spoke his heart, no matter the lump in his throat or the catch that had latched onto the swell of love filling him inside. “I want to make a home with you, Zane. If you’re on the same page, I want us to make a plan toward us living together one day in the near future. All of us. That obviously includes your brother and sister too.”

“I don’t…” A sob wrenched out of Zane. His hand flew to his mouth, and he reared back and shook his head.

“Just hear me out,” Noah pleaded, a rasp coating his voice. “Soon enough Rita is going to want this cabin back so she can sell it. But that’s okay. My cabin is larger anyway, and there is plenty of land to redesign the layout of the house and add more rooms. I’m pretty competent with additions, and the elements I don’t have proficiency in I know the right people to call who will be honest and deal straight with me. But I also know you pretty well too, so I know your immediate thought is that I will take over and it will become about me supporting you and taking care of you financially, but it won’t be that way.” With a clutching hold, Noah implored Zane to believe him. “I would never want to make you feel small; it would crush me if I ever thought I had. I want us to do this together, with your input all the way, and we’ll work out the finances so we’re both taking care of the expenses together.

“Before we get there, though,” everything rushed out of Noah in an avalanche of words, but the need to get everything said, before he forgot, without leaving an argument out, drove Noah with a relentless single-minded focus, “I want to figure out the stages that make sense to show all of the kids the depth of our relationship, what we mean to each other, and how we go about introducing levels of affection between us in front of them.”

Noah explained further, knowing he needed to. “When Janice started seeing Tom more seriously, she and I had a talk about how that would affect Seth and Matt. We knew we needed to agree to guidelines, and we understood from the start we would present a united front for them so they were never confused, and so that they never would be successful in trying to pit us against one another. Janice and I also talked in general about how I would keep her in the loop about my relationships, and we would have the same conversation and talk about being united for the kids when I fell in love with someone too. I still believe in that, and I think it’s vitally important. But being with you, listening to your insights,” Noah tangled his hands in Zane’s, holding on with every ounce of love in him, “you’ve made me see that you need to be included in that talk as well. This conversation about the kids is not just for Janice and me. It’s for all of us. And even on top of that, when I was sick, you made me open my eyes enough to know now that Tom should be a part of everything too.

“I love you, Zane,” dipping down, Noah pressed kisses to the backs of Zane’s hands, “and I don’t want to spend one more night away from you than is necessary. What do you think?” Stripped emotionally naked, Noah sat before Zane on bended knee. “Will you say yes to eventually living with me? Will you let me call Janice and set up a time for all of us to talk soon? Make a plan? Together?”

“Noah… Shit…” Making an ugly sobbing noise, Zane wiped at his eyes as tears streamed down his cheeks. “I was never going to say no; I was just so overwhelmed I didn’t know what to say.” He tucked Noah’s hand, twined in his, against his chest. “I’m so honored you want me in all of these personal parts of your life.”

Noah’s heart cracked open somehow more. “Honey, you are my life. Everywhere I am, you are too.” He freed his hand to wipe away his man’s tears. “There’s no negotiating that.”

Exhaling unsteadily, Zane cupped Noah’s cheek and pulled him in close. “I love you,” he whispered, his lips pressed to Noah’s.

Noah couldn’t tamp down the leap in his heart. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes.” Their faces touching, their gazes connected, Zane nodded. “Yes.”

“To everything?” Christ, Noah felt it, but his soul needed the words.

“To everything,” Zane agreed.

An animalistic noise escaped Noah. With his heart exploding, he crushed his mouth to Zane’s, needing to taste and to seal the deal on their future. Zane licked his way into Noah’s mouth, clearly staking a claim on his man too. But he quickly softened the rough tangle of tongues to something more gentle and loving, taking control, and soothed the beast in Noah who needed to feast.

Brushing one more loving kiss to Noah’s lips, Zane then broke the kiss, but kept Noah close to him. “I reach for you in my bed every night too. I know how I feel about you,” all the light glittering in Zane’s gaze backed up his vow, “and it’s past time to start being more open, and to help everyone in our lives get comfortable with us being together too. Starting right now.” Zane snagged Noah’s shirt from the mussed bedding and thrust it at his chest. “Finish getting dressed.”

“Yes, sir.” Noah saluted smartly. With a grin, he worked his shirt to the right way out and slipped it on. As he did, his mind raced. Noah knew that for Zane, getting
“everyone”
comfortable with their relationship chiefly meant helping his brother and sister get to a place where they loved and trusted Noah as much as Zane already did. Matt more than Seth would need some time to adjust too. Noah’s youngest hadn’t exactly loved it when Tom had taken such an important role in Janice’s life, but the kid had eventually come around and now loved and accepted Tom as an adult with authority and importance in his life. Children were the one area where Noah accepted he would have to exhibit some patience, and because of that he didn’t growl with frustration at the knowledge that he would not be able to fall into bed with Zane tonight. Rather, Noah put himself to a plan of action that would get him on the road to what both he and Zane wanted.
A full life together.

“Let’s go make an early dinner with the kids,” Noah suggested. “Afterward we can all find something to watch together on TV. This can be the first of them seeing us together in some familial way, every day.”