Beyond Moonlight (3 page)

Jesse started playing again, but Shane had stopped listening to the music. All he could see was Jesse’s face: that stunning smile; pale, flawless skin; those gorgeous, dark-lashed eyes. There was nothing that wasn’t beautiful about him. When they were kids, Shane hadn’t seen it right away. That slow-blooming attraction had snuck up on him, in little stomach flips and lightning quick moments when Jesse’s smile or his eyes or his laugh made Shane’s heart stutter in his chest. Until one day he’d realized that suddenly everything about Jesse turned him on, that somewhere along the way, without ever intending it, he’d fallen for his best friend—
hard
.
 

Shane couldn’t deny his body’s immediate response to Jesse’s new look, that instantaneous spark of lust that had driven him crazy all spring and summer. He was only human—a fact made painfully clear by his fuckups over the years—and Jesse’s Kayden incarnation was sexy as hell. But even back then, when Jesse was more nerdy than chic, when he still wore glasses, when his body wasn’t tight and lean as it was now, Shane had wanted him. Desperately. More than anyone or anything. He’d wanted to be Jesse’s first, his last, his everything. He still did.
 

“Marry me.”

The words were out before Shane could stop them. Jesse’s playing broke off in a discordant jangle of notes. He stared at Shane in wide-eyed shock. “What?”
 

Shane felt heat creep up the back of his neck. He hadn’t meant to just blurt it out like that. For weeks he’d been thinking about it, trying to come up with the perfect proposal: where to do it, when, whether or not he should invite Jesse’s family to come and be there for the surprise. All that time he’d spent mulling it over and tossing around ideas, only to ruin any kind of grandiose plans by bursting out with it completely at random. And now he couldn’t read any reaction on Jesse’s face aside from the shock.
 

Shane sat up straighter and cleared his throat. It wasn’t the way he’d intended on asking, but the words were already out there and it wasn’t as if he could take them back. Not that he actually wanted to.
 

“Sorry, Jess,” he said sheepishly. “I wasn’t planning on just saying it like that, but I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. It’s like I told you before, it was always you. For a little while I thought you were someone else, and I’m sorry for that. I don’t know how I could’ve missed it.” Shane paused for a second and swallowed thickly. “But you have to know there’s never been anyone else. Even when you were pretending, even when I didn’t have the first fucking clue, it was always,
always
you. I’ll never want anyone but you. I’ll never
love
anyone but you. This is forever. You and me.”

Jesse was quiet for a long time. He stared at Shane in silence, his expression giving nothing away. Shane stared back, trying to fight off the nerves that were wrecking his stomach. He clenched his hands into fists at his sides to keep them from shaking, but his pulse raced erratically and his heart battered painfully against his ribcage. Finally he managed to swallow and forced two words past his suddenly dry lips. “Say something.”

Jesse blinked and dropped his gaze. He sat there for a moment, his eyes fixated on the notebook at his side. Then he put down his guitar and got to his feet.

Shane barely breathed as he watched Jesse round the coffee table. A mix of dread and anticipation twisted his belly into knots.
 

Jesse paused for a second to move Shane’s guitar from where it rested on the couch to the floor, and then sank down into Shane’s lap without saying a word.

Shane instinctively gripped his hips and pulled him closer, but before he could say anything, Jesse’s mouth was on his.
 

“I love you,” Jesse whispered. His tongue trailed teasingly over the curve of Shane’s lower lip.
 

“Jess,” Shane started, but Jesse didn’t seem to be in the mood for conversation. He deepened the kiss, his tongue gliding over Shane’s, and while a distant part of Shane was aware that Jesse hadn’t actually answered his question yet, he couldn’t bring himself to pull away. He moaned quietly and returned the kiss, his hands sliding up Jesse’s back, over the buttery soft material of his T-shirt, to grip Jesse’s hair.
 

Jesse whimpered and ground down into his lap. Shane could feel Jesse’s cock, already hard and full, pressing against his own through the material of his jeans. He kept his hands in Jesse’s hair and arched up, needing contact, craving friction. Jesse broke the kiss, but he didn’t move back. He pressed down hard, his movements picking up speed, his breaths coming faster and faster.

He bit Shane’s lower lip, quick and sharp, and reached up to thread his fingers into Shane’s hair. “Fuck me,” he said, jerking Shane’s head back. “Now.”

 
Shane’s entire body shuddered at those three words. Fuck, it made him hot when Jesse showed his dominant streak. Jesse bottomed most of the time, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still completely in charge. He had Shane wrapped around his little finger, but that was just fine. Shane was happy to be there.

He grabbed the hem of Jesse’s T-shirt and pulled it over his head. Then he sat forward just a bit so Jesse could do the same for him and shuddered some more when their bare chests touched. Jesse’s head fell back and he gave a little moan. He arched in Shane’s lap, sinuous and slow.

Shane grasped Jesse’s hips and licked a path up the line of his jugular to the underside of his jaw, pausing to nip and nuzzle at the tender skin. He followed the line of Jesse’s jaw to his ear and bit him there too, just a tiny sting, before he moved back down Jesse’s neck and tongued the hollow at the base of his throat.
 

Shane continued on from there, trailing his mouth across Jesse’s pecs to lavish attention on pebbled pink nipples. He slid lower and lower, touching and kissing as he went, until only his upper torso remained on the couch and his thighs were parallel to the floor. It wasn’t the most comfortable position in the world, but it put Jesse’s crotch right above his face, and him at the perfect angle to suck Jesse in deep and let Jesse ride his mouth.
 

With that thought in the forefront of his mind, he tugged on the waistband of Jesse’s lounge pants. He couldn’t pull them down very far with Jesse’s knees straddling his chest, but he got the front down enough to spring Jesse’s cock free. As usual, Jesse wore nothing underneath, a fact that still made Shane rock-hard, despite the number of times he’d slid his hands into Jesse’s pants in the past and made the hot discovery of smooth, bare skin underneath.
 

Jesse choked out a moan when Shane took the heavy length of him in hand and circled his tongue around the ridge. He sucked Jesse’s cockhead briefly and took a moment to flick delicate licks at the hypersensitive spot just under the slit.
 

Jesse gave a shudder that Shane felt all the way down to his toes. “That feels so good,” he whispered, bracing his hands on the back of the couch, his fingers digging indents into the soft leather. “
More
.”

Oh, God.
Shane loved the way Jesse said that word, all breathless and needy. His own cock hardened even further and strained uncomfortably against the fly of his jeans. He worked at his button and zipper with one hand until he’d freed himself to the cool air in the room. Then he focused all of his attention back on Jesse, licking long and slow up the underside of that pretty cock, and then moving down to nuzzle Jesse’s tender sac. He sucked one of Jesse’s balls into his mouth, rolled it on his tongue, and released it with a pop, then treated the other to the same care.
 

Jesse trembled hard, his thighs shaking. Shane knew how sensitive Jesse was there, how too much stimulation could make him come before he was ready. So with one final, sucking kiss, he turned his attention to Jesse’s shaft instead. He feathered his lips up to the head and sucked Jesse in as deep as he could, relishing the feel of Jesse hot and hard and pulsing against his tongue. When Jesse’s breathing got more erratic and the motion of his hips increased, Shane stopped his own movements and let Jesse fuck his mouth the way he always wanted. He didn’t bother keeping a hand around Jesse’s base to stop him from pushing in too deep. Jesse seemed to know instinctively just how far he could go.
 

Jesse rode his mouth in quick, shallow thrusts. Shane shivered at the feel of that thick cock sliding past his lips, over his tongue, in and out, his own dick throbbing with the need for some type of friction. He ignored it, though, instead sneaking his hands into the back of Jesse’s pants, gripping that tight, little ass and squeezing hard. Jesse went still for the slightest second, and then started pumping in earnest, a long moan tearing from his throat.

“Shane…gonna come…”

Shane hummed his encouragement around Jesse’s cock and dipped his fingers into the crease of Jesse’s ass, tracing the cleft until he reached Jesse’s pucker. For a moment he teased that ring of muscle with his fingertips, just light enough to make Jesse moan in frustration and push seekingly into his touch, and then he pressed
hard
.
 

Jesse cried out; his body went rigid. Shane pulled back just a bit when the first jet of warm, salty wetness hit his throat. He didn’t stop what he was doing, though. He licked and sucked until Jesse was entirely spent and half-slumped, panting, against the back of the couch.
 

It took Jesse a couple minutes to recover. Once he had, his hands came down to help Shane into a sitting position. He settled into Shane’s lap again and buried his fingers in Shane’s hair, giving him a slow, sultry kiss that left Shane both completely dazed and so turned on he thought any second he might just spontaneously combust.

He moaned into the kiss and ground feverishly against Jesse, his cock so hard it almost hurt.
Oh, fuck yes.
Kissing Jesse would never get old. It was like coming home every time, so amazing, so wonderfully familiar, but at the same time sizzling hot and incredibly intense. He’d never experienced anything like it with anyone else.

“Need you in me,” Jesse whispered against Shane’s lips.
 

Shane nodded his agreement. “Yeah.” He was desperate to be inside, to feel Jesse’s snug heat around his cock. The very idea brought another moan out of him. “Ride me.”

He watched while Jesse dug into the space between the couch cushion and the armrest and pulled out a small bottle of lube. There were several bottles strategically hidden around his condo just for moments like these. They’d learned pretty quickly that sometimes the bedroom was just too damn far away.
 

Jesse handed him the lube and then stood long enough to strip off his lounge pants. Shane clicked open the bottle and poured some of the lube into his palm. His jeans were still on, but Jesse made no move to remove them, so Shane shoved them down a bit more and slicked up his cock as Jesse straddled his lap again. He reached between Jesse’s legs with two long fingers to rub the remainder of the lube over his entrance.
 

The second he was done Jesse lifted up onto his knees and positioned himself above Shane’s cock. “Need you,” he said again.

Shane groaned. “I need you, too, baby. I—” His words broke off as Jesse started to sink down onto him and his cock was enveloped by tight, slick heat. “Oh,
fuck
.”

It was so good. Shane didn’t think he’d ever get used to the feeling of pushing into Jesse, bare, without any barriers between them. They’d only been having sex without the condoms for a couple of weeks, after having their blood drawn for testing by a private physician while they were still on tour. The first time they’d forgone the condoms after getting their results, they’d fucked like rabbits from night until dawn. It was so intense, so much more than he’d ever imagined. Shane was grateful the person sharing that with him was Jesse. It was right; as it should be. He wasn’t sure he could’ve ever risked sharing that intimacy with anyone else.

“I love you,” he murmured. Then he kissed Jesse again and started to move.

Jesse couldn’t contain his soft sigh as Shane began to thrust inside him. The material of Shane’s jeans was rough against his inner thighs, but the feel of Shane inside of him was absolutely perfect. It’d never been this way with anyone else. Not that there had been very many others, but enough so that Jesse knew what he had with Shane—the way they touched and kissed; the way their bodies fit together—was right and rare and precious beyond words.
 

Sometimes when Jesse thought about it too much, his chest would ache for all the time they’d lost, all the time they could’ve spent sharing each other. But as he’d told Shane, the past was done and over with. They had the future and it stretched out in front of Jesse, bright and thrilling and glorious as the sunrise. It was terrifying, in a way, loving someone so much. He didn’t doubt for a second, though, that he was exactly where he’d always been meant to be: back in Shane’s arms, in his bed, in his heart.
 

Jesse looped his arms around Shane’s neck and kissed him, eyes closed, grinding down in slow circles. He swiveled his hips and rode Shane’s cock, moving just the way Shane liked, reveling in Shane’s moans and the feel of Shane’s fingers clutching at his back.
 

“Open your eyes, Jess.” Shane kissed him and traced the inside of his upper lip with his tongue. “Look at me.”

Jesse did as Shane asked, his eyelids fluttering open. He met Shane’s gaze, and his breath caught at what he saw in those deep blue eyes: love, lust, adoration, yearning. As much as he returned all of those feelings, when Shane was inside of him, it was almost too much, too overwhelming. No one had ever looked at him the way that Shane did.
 

After a few moments, Jesse closed his eyes again and buried his face against Shane’s throat. He drew in a deep breath and trembled at the familiar, beloved scent. “Love you.”

“Me too,” Shane murmured into his ear. “You feel so good. I love the way you move on me.”