Chapter 1
JAKE
I LOOKED over at the body next to me—long legs, flat stomach, smooth chest—and closed my eyes, wondering how the fuck I got here. Not literally, of course, because “here” is the bed in my hotel room. I know damn well how I got here. But “here” as in how did I get to a place where I want—no, where I need to touch another man; to feel that stomach, that chest under my fingers and those long legs wrapped around me. And not just any man—Nate. My best friend since the day I was born. And that I mean literally.
OUR mothers had grown up together in a small Southern town. Next door to each other, in fact. My mom was the fifth child in her family—four older brothers. Nate’s mom was third in a family of eight, also the only girl. Both wanting to get away from all that testosterone, they’d been inseparable since childhood. Same classes, same Girl Scout troop, same church group. Same everything. So it was no surprise that, when my mom got engaged to her high school sweetheart, Nate’s mom followed a month later. They had their weddings two weeks apart, the summer after graduation, bought houses next door to each other in that same town, and then decided together a few years later that it was time to start a family. They announced it to their husbands only after they came to the agreement with each other. And yes, I mean “a family.” That’s how we grew up—like we were one family.
Luckily, my father was very easygoing and Nate’s dad? Well, he just wanted to please his wife. Besides, they each knew what they were getting into when they started dating our moms. It was a package deal. You couldn’t have one without the other. So it was no surprise to anyone that as soon as Nate’s mom went into labor, my mom’s contractions started. Several hours later, Nate and I were lying side by side in one hospital bassinet, right in between the two hospital beds occupied respectively by each of our mothers.
The doctor told Nate’s mom that something had happened during her labor, fuck if I know what, but the bottom line was she couldn’t have more kids. So that was it for my mom too. When I asked her if she ever regretted not having more children because her best friend couldn’t, or if she ever wished she had a bigger family, she laughed and said we were a family of six (including Nate and his parents) and she didn’t want a family any bigger than that.
So you see: Nate and I were destined to be best friends. I don’t even think I had a choice in the matter. Not that I minded, of course. How could anyone mind being friends with Nate? He was always so fucking likable. As long as I can remember, Nate’s had nothing but kind words for everyone around him. He’s one of those people that everyone is drawn to. And when he’s talking to you, you always feel like you’re the only person in the room, like you have all of his attention. Well, almost always, that is. When I happen to be in that same room, you have to fucking share Nate’s attention with me. Tough shit, I had him first.
Anyway, he always seems to know when I walk into a room. Even if I’m not saying anything and his back is turned. He somehow knows and he stops whatever he’s doing (coloring with crayons when we were in preschool, learning how to write his letters in kindergarten, standing at the front of the room in the ninth grade writing the answer to a calculus problem), turns around, flashes me that Nate smile, and then gets back to work.
Of course, that road goes both ways. I can always sense when he’s walking into a room too. It’s almost like things are empty until that moment and then suddenly they aren’t. Suddenly, things seem right. That’s when I look up from whatever I’m doing (breaking some fucking toy when we were in preschool, learning how to spell “fuck” when we were in kindergarten, fucking some cheerleader in the corner of a basement full of drunken teenagers when we were in the ninth grade), and I see him walking into the room and, of course, flashing me that Nate smile. That might seem weird, I guess, but no one thought anything of it in our town. Not even that cheerleader when I stopped mid-pump to turn around, catch his eye, and return his smile, before I could focus on her again and finish the deed. After all, we were our mothers’ children and everyone knew they were inseparable. Besides, that’s just the way it’d always been between us, since the day we were born.
Other than that deep connection, the connection that I can’t even put into words, we’ve always been completely different. And I mean completely fucking different. Where Nate is fair, with blond hair and piercing blue eyes, I have an olive complexion, black hair, and green eyes. He’s always been very slender, a swimmer’s build, whereas I’m more muscular, big biceps, six-pack even when I’m not in the middle of a sports season. So even though we’re about the same height (his 6’ 1” to my 6’ 4”), I outweigh him by a good fifty pounds.
But the differences aren’t only in our appearance. Like I said, Nate has always been mister kind, mister nice to everyone. I swear he actually rescued a kitten from a tree branch once. A fucking kitten from a tree branch. I’m not all that nice. In fact, I can be a real prick. I have a violent temper and sometimes I just want to hit something or someone, feel the adrenaline running though my body.
After I got into a few fights in high school, some people in our town started thinking that I was a little crazy—fuck, maybe they thought that I was a lot crazy. The thing is: I didn’t care. I’ve never given a fuck about what most people think, and unless someone is a good friend, and really that’s just Nate, I really don’t think about them at all. I’ve always been too busy with practice (in high school it was football in the fall, basketball in the winter, then baseball in the spring), trying to get into some girl’s pants, and, of course, hanging out with Nate. The rest of it, well, it just never mattered to me.
The other thing about Nate is that he’s a fucking genius. Seriously, even as a kid he was scary smart. Our small town never had anyone like him go through that school. They didn’t know what do with him, how to teach him. Shit, that’s why he was always at that front of that room, doing calculus problems on the board—even the teachers couldn’t figure that shit out, but to Nate, it all just made sense somehow. He once told me he could see the numbers and how they worked together in his head. I never understood what the fuck that meant. I’m surprised they didn’t graduate him early, especially when he took the SATs during our sophomore year and got a perfect score. He didn’t miss one fucking question. That’s how he got offered a full ride to so many colleges.
Now I’m not stupid but I’m no Nate, not even close. Thankfully, I’m not too bad at sports and my rough side turns into an asset on the football field, so I, too, had my choice of a few schools. Senior year, Nate and I looked over our lists of schools, found the ones that matched, and picked a school with a good football team and a great science program. That’s how we ended up moving to New York when we were eighteen.
I STARTED thinking back to that first day in New York, ten years ago, but I snapped back to the present when Nate sighed and moved a little. It was enough, though. Enough to move the sheet over his leg, enough to have the moonlight shine across his waist, his hips, his cock. It’s perfect—pink, smooth, long, and thick when it’s hard. Until last night, I had never seen it hard.
All those years of friendship, all those nights sleeping over at each other’s house, in each other’s bed. Somehow, I had never seen it hard and I sure as hell never thought it would happen like it did last night. Last night—fuck! We’ve always been almost like one person. I’ve never known where he ends and where I begin. But that was never more true than last night, when I licked him, sucked him, heard him moan.
My entire body shuddered with that memory when I looked over at Nate. I worried the movement would wake him, but he was still breathing heavily, fast asleep. I closed my eyes, draped my arm over them, and thought about last night. His slender, almost concave stomach, his smooth chest, both of them heaving as I ran my hand up and felt his skin. I had to run it up because I was on my knees in front of him, opening the buttons on his jeans, pulling them down to his ankles. I could see his excitement as he bulged to get free from his boxer briefs, and I was more than willing to help. First though, I let my face rub over the bulge. Let myself feel him through that fabric that was becoming more and more wet by the minute from his leaking dick. I wanted to taste it. To taste him.
My hands were shaking with anticipation, with lust for him, as I slowly pulled the briefs down and saw him in the flesh. God, I wanted him so much that I couldn’t stop shaking, and then it wasn’t just my hands. My whole body was trembling with anticipation, need, and desire. I tried to calm down. I looked down toward the ground, closed my eyes, hoping I could regulate my breathing, but he was so close to me. I could smell him; I could feel his heat against my face. Fuck calming down!
I opened my eyes, took his cock into my mouth, and swallowed him down to the root. I don’t know how I did that; it was the first time I’d ever touched another man’s cock, let alone sucked a man off. But it was Nate, my Nate. My desire to consume him was so desperate, my need to have him be a part of me physically so overwhelming that I think any gag reflex I might have had just shut down, went to hide, knew it had no fucking place in my throat. Not when Nate was there. I moved my head up and down, let my tongue twirl around his skin, and then he moaned.
I hadn’t ever heard him make that sound, hadn’t ever seen him experience that kind of pleasure until that moment, and realizing I had evoked his reaction was almost too much. I almost came right there. I took a moment to calm myself down again—thinking, I am twenty-eight fucking years old and that is way too old to be losing my load in my pants.
I pushed the orgasm back down and kept going. I took just the head of his cock into my mouth and sucked hard. Again he moaned and he put his hand on my head, combed his fingers through my hair, and started crying out my name, over and over again as his hips bucked forward and he pushed himself into me. Slowly at first, then more quickly, still moaning my name, pulling my hair toward him until he was completely buried in my mouth, and then he released.
I could feel his warm liquid in the back of my throat and I swallowed furiously. I didn’t want to spill a drop. This was part of Nate in me and I was going to keep all of it. When he stopped pumping into my mouth, I looked up at him with my lips still wrapped around his cock. I didn’t want to move. I wanted to keep him in me forever. But then his knees buckled, his eyes closed, and he crumpled to the floor.
I caught him in my arms and at first I was petrified, but his breathing was regular. I guess he’d had more to drink than I realized, and that, combined with the orgasm, just knocked him out. I carried him to the bed. Then I sat and watched him sleep, made sure his breathing remained even and he was okay.
After I was certain he was just tired and sleeping it off, I noticed the wetness in my pants. Fuck, I came just from sucking him off. Hopelessly pathetic, I know, but then, he’s Nate, my Nate. No one else does it for me like him. No one else ever has, no one else ever will. I just hope, when he wakes up, he’ll forgive me for sucking him off while he was so drunk. I just hope he’ll understand. Fuck, what a mess.
