OffsideChanceFormat2 (26 page)

When
the tremors in his body ceased, Will slowly withdrew his fingers. Cum slicked
out onto the sheets. He released Jude’s softening dick and placed a kiss on his
lover’s hip. The harsh sound of labored breathing filled the room. His own.
Jude’s. Will helped him straighten his legs, one at a time. Without asking,
Will scooped Jude into his arms, moved him to the pillows, and climbed into bed
beside him. He turned off the lamp and adjusted the covers over them.

Jude
turned to face him, arm over his stomach, and he buried his face in Will’s neck
and sighed. Will held him and allowed himself to drift into sleep, though
knowing there was no way either of them would ever be the same again.

Chapter
Fifteen

The
warm body currently spooned against Will shifted and stretched. Cold rushed in
to fill the space Jude left. Will rolled in time to see Jude walk naked from
the room. Morning light filtered into the room, but Will could tell it was
still early. Jude would shower and leave for class.

 
Will knew Jude had a class later in the
morning. Will heard the toilet flush in the bathroom and then expected to hear
the shower start as Jude got ready for school, but he didn’t. Instead, Jude
padded back to the bedroom, his hair standing up on one side, his eyes only
half open. He lifted the covers and wiggled back into the warm space. “Are you
going to class?”

“Too
hung over. Need more sleep.” Jude ran his hand down Will’s side and pulled him
closer. Will angled his arm under Jude’s head and let the man tuck his nose
into the notch over his collar bone. Will felt him smile. “Too fucking sore to
sit in those hard seats in the fucking gym. I should just drop the classes.
It’s been one disaster after another.”

“If
you think you should. As many classes that have been cancelled, I would. But
you paid for those classes.” Will brushed Jude’s hair back from his face just
as Jude opened sleep glazed eyes, and all Will could do was stare dumbfounded
into those wicked amber depths.

“If
I dropped them, I’d be out of your hair even sooner. Go back to Alabama. Back
into defending criminals… watching the system fail every one of them one way or
another. The guilty going free. The innocent getting screwed.” He sighed and
burrowed his face into Will’s neck.

“God,
you’re warm. I could stay here forever.”

And
Jude was right. This was too warm and comfortable—he really could stay like
this forever… or as long as the cold weather persisted. Sometime later, soft
lips touched his pulling him out of sleep. Then, a not-so-soft hand wrapped
around his dick. It wasn’t exactly easy to ignore. Something about the soft
kiss and the tickle of a tongue had him sweating. Will opened his mouth and
fell into the sweetest bliss he’d ever experienced. Long fingers clasped the
back of his neck as a knee pushed between his. He moaned into the mouth that
was devouring his and pulled the scorching hot body as tight against himself as
he could. He brushed his fingers through silky hair, pushing it from his lover’s
face.

Arched
eyebrows over exotic eyes dominated a delicate face. Fuck, he could… “Jude,” he
sighed, licking deep into Jude’s mouth as orgasm shook him. “Jude.” Jude shook
in his arms, his orgasm almost silent. He broke the kiss with a whisper of Will’s
name. His eyes fluttered closed. His fingers eventually grew still, the hot
sticky mess of their combined orgasm the only evidence of their gentle
lovemaking.

When
Will woke up again, he was alone. Sun shone through the sheer curtains covering
the windows. The room was warm enough that he no longer needed covers. The
heavy silence was suddenly shattered by a car horn outside. The smell of coffee
brewing reached his nose from downstairs. He threw off the sheets and groaned
as his feet hit the floor. Fuck, he was sore. He hurt in places that he didn’t
know he could hurt. He also then discovered that he was covered in
jizz
and the sheets reeked of spunk. He should go buy
several more sets if he and Jude were going to continue to fuck like rabbits
every night.

He
dropped his head into his hands and groaned. He was fucking a dude. An
incredibly attractive dude, but still a dude. Without a condom… he’d lost his
fucking mind. He’d never forgotten the condom. Never. His coach back in
freshman year had pounded that into their heads.

Wrap
it up. Don’t take any chances.
Don’t take any chances. You can’t get a girl pregnant, or catch anything that
could do worse than saddle you with a wife or a child support payment if you
wrap it up
. Wrap it up. So what does he do with
the first dude he decides to experiment with but forget that one basic rule.

“I’m
an asshole,” he whispered into his hands.

“I’ve
always thought so,” a familiar voice confirmed from the doorway. The voice
wasn’t as much like Jude’s as he’d thought those first few weeks. Levi was a
little less… or a little more… what? He couldn’t even manage to hit on what
made them different. At first glance they were almost identical, except for
Jude’s glasses and Levi’s tattoos and their hair… Jude hadn’t worn his glasses
last night. “Where’s Judah? Please don’t tell me he’s in the other room,
because that bed hasn’t been slept in.”

“He’s
not here?” He’d been here not that long ago. Will remembered… had they kissed? “What
time is it?”

“Nearly
one. Smells like you two were up until the wee hours of morning. Remind me to
burn those sheets.” Levi leaned against the door frame. He wore a pair of low
slung jeans and a shirt that didn’t quite touch his waistband, leaving a line
of skin exposed. A ratty black hoodie with a faded
fleur di lis
over the left breast and a pair of beat up Converse
completed his outfit. He sipped coffee from one of the kitchen mugs. “Hell,
remind me to redecorate. I was tired of this color anyway.”

“So
what’s next? Wait, don’t tell me, purple polka dots and pretty dancing
unicorns?” He smiled to let his friend know he was kidding.

“Maybe,
I’m more of a fuzzy kitty type person. Unicorns are a bit too out there, even
for me.” Levi didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave the room. He looked as tired
as Will felt but seemed much more relaxed than he had been the night before, an
observation that brought the conversation from the limo back to mind.

“Which
brother is living with Tracy?” Will had met one of Tracy’s sisters, but he’d
only heard about the brothers. There were two of them. The oldest was married
and living… hell, Will couldn’t remember. The second one was a preacher, and a
real piece of work from what the sister had told him. “Avery. That’s the older
one. The one that moved back home…” He tried to think but couldn’t for
wondering if that kiss he remembered was real.

“Avery
is the oldest brother, and he did move back to help with the farm while he and
his wife work through some issues, namely his cheating on her with the
babysitter. But he’s living up at the main house. It’s Rodney, the preacher,
who decided to make a fuss about Tracy having their grandparent’s house. Tracy
didn’t want the fuss so he let the brother move in to shut up his bitching. But
fuck, the asshole is in the next room. And he’s full of hell fire and damnation
if we don’t change our wicked ways,
yada
,
yada
. Personally, I think he moved back just because he’d
heard I’d moved in.”

“So
buy a house or build one or something, you have the money,” Will offered. He
needed to get into the bathroom to wash Jude’s scent off him.

“That’s
too permanent. Maybe. There’s a mansion in town that just came on the market. I’ll
get Jude to look at it next week and maybe make an offer. Or I’ll just build
something out next to Jude’s house.” Levi smirked and propped a foot against
the wall. “Of course, now that his love life has picked up exponentially he
might not come back at all.” The son of bitch was taunting him.

“You
can lean there and smirk all you want, Five, but you have love bites all over
your neck and you look like something the cat dragged in.”

“But
I’m gay and in a relationship with a hot Viking king and we have a bible
thumper… thumping his bible against our bedroom wall… so what if we got carried
away? It’s a vacation for us.” Levi took a long sip from his mug before turning
his trademark smirk up a few megawatts. “What’s your excuse?”

Exactly
what was his excuse? “I don’t know, Levi. I just… I have no idea right now. And
you constantly harping on it isn’t helping.” He scrubbed his stubbled jaw to
distract himself from the vague memory of soft kisses in the early morning
light. “I need a shower and time to figure things out.”

“I
guess you do at that,” Levi said, all teasing gone now. “And, Slayer, for what
it’s worth, it looks good on you… whatever this you and my brother are doing.
You look different, man. You look happy.”

“He’s…
I don’t know Levi. That’s the problem. Jude is a
he
.
There shouldn’t be a question about what this is.”

“But
there is. And facing it is going to be the hardest part of all of this. Just be
honest. With Jude. And yourself, Will. Most importantly, be honest with yourself.”
Levi left him sitting on the bed in a bedroom that would be any little
princess’s dream room. Levi wasn’t exactly the one to talk about honesty.

After
a not-so-hot shower, which meant it hadn’t been all that long since Jude had
used up the limited supply a shave, and inspection of the many places Jude’s
teeth had found during the night, Will finally made his way downstairs. He found
Levi and Tracy sitting in the kitchen.

A
fresh pot of coffee warmed in the maker, a plate of pastries was in the middle
of the table. Tracy had opened up Jude’s architectural portfolio and was
leafing through the various plans on the table. “This is nice. What do you
think, Liv?”

“A
little too old fashioned for my tastes. That’s more Jude’s style. And Will’s.”
Levi didn’t actually look at the plans. He was too busy staring at Tracy with a
look of complete adoration on his face. Will leaned against the wall in the
hallway for a moment, realizing that neither of them had heard him come down
the stairs. Seeing Levi as this completely different person sometimes left him
feeling lost, almost as if all of his memories of their friendship were somehow
all wrong.

Will
still hadn’t made himself known when Tracy responded. “That’s because you don’t
want to commit to building something on the property you own. Because you think
that you’ll be locked into staying. And Liv, baby, that’s not going to happen.
If you build a house it doesn’t mean you are going to be trapped—” Tracy looked
up. He spotted Will and stopped talking then frowned.

 
    
“Well
Levi, always said he would never go back. But he went back, despite the bad
memories and the pain. I’m surprised he’s stayed this long.” Will skirted the
table pretending not to see the glare Levi was shooting his way. “Wonder why
that is?”

“It’s
because he’s off in the head, but we both know that,” Tracy said, half sighing,
half laughing. “If you build a house or get the keys to Jude’s monstrosity,
then we can have a place to be alone without my brother taking notes. And that
makes sense. Jude is living in your house. Having sex in your bed. So why don’t
you take his house? At least until he decides if he’s moving back home.” Tracy
stabbed at the plans for a version of a turreted Victorian house.
 
“We can see if there is anything more modern
that will make your little princess heart happy. Maybe a Pink Barbie Dream
House or something straight out of a Disney movie.”

“Why
do I love you again? Will someone please tell me why I want to spend the rest
of my life with you?” Levi mused, rolling the plan back up and storing it in
the case.

“We’ve
already established that you’re off in the head,” Tracy teased, stabbing his
finger at the second set of plans. “Now this one, this one would be perfect for
Slater’s lot. It looks enough like his old house, but the interior is so much
more open. I won’t feel like I’m going to bump my head on the ceiling either.”

“You
were there one time, Wright. One time. For five minutes. How would you know
what’s perfect for me?” Will filled a mug with coffee and added cream and
sugar. Tasting the brew he said, “God, Levi you finally learned how to make
decent coffee.”

“He
still makes sludge, which I dumped down the drain. You can thank me later,”
Tracy explained as he pushed the pastry plate toward Will and then went back to
tapping the very set of plans Jude had convinced him would work best. With
modifications. “I was there long enough to know I’m not in the market for a
fixer upper, I don’t care what century it came from. But this… I’d build this
for myself.”

“We
could buy Slayer’s lot since he isn’t interested in rebuilding. The
neighborhood is quiet and not far from the club. We could have a yard, maybe
get a dog.” Levi examined the plans, flipping pages for the room dimensions. “I
could have a walk in closet. And—”

Will
had had enough. He took all the plans from them and rolled them back up. “Not
selling. And go pick your own house out. This one is mine. Jude picked it just
for…” The words died on his tongue with the realization of what Levi and Tracy
had just pulled. They wore matching smug ‘gotcha’ expressions. How in the hell
did either of them know he was straddling that particular fence?