Borrowing Trouble(46)

“Are you crazy?” Jay closed his eyes and Landon pressed forward. “I was scared I’d fallen that weekend we spent together just working on the deck and drinking beer. I knew I probably had the moment you started humming your song to me the other night. I’d never been in for real love, but that moment… I thought it had to be love. But last night, after Millie told me Bethany said she was coming home, I did worry, I had a moment of panic.”

He held Jay’s face, stroking his thumbs over Jay’s cheekbones. Jay’s beautiful, soulful brown eyes roamed Landon’s face. “But the moment I absolutely knew I could trust you, that you’d be here today, if not tomorrow or the next day, I knew you were mine. I knew then I loved you.” And Landon meant every word. He’d realized after he’d talked to his folks and decided to take the job, that he’d been patient, waiting for the right opportunity to finally strike out on his own to come. Jay would come too, with just a bit more patience. He had such faith in the man.

“I thought I’d lost you.”

“Nope. I told you I’d wait it out, and I meant it. I believe in you, Jay. You’ve always been up front with me. So don’t doubt me, either.”

“I won’t.” Jay dropped his forehead to Landon’s and one, two, three breaths later, the man f*cking sobbed. And Landon held him as Jay wept. Jay mumbled tearful words of sorrow for hurting people, and guilt for not feeling guilty that he’d wanted Landon. He said words of love and hope in that laughter-through-tears way that made Landon smile and hug the man closer.

Finally, Jay pulled back and looked at Landon with a wet smile. “So, what’s this job? Do you have to move?”

“No. It’s at that little private school in Starkville. It’ll be a bit of a drive, but my friend is the assistant headmaster. She knows about me and while, like us living here, teaching there and being out wouldn’t be totally wise, they do have other quietly gay staff, otherwise she’d never have offered.”

“That’s great. I’m so happy for you.”

“I’m not leaving you, Jay. We have time. I start in the winter semester, but I’ll still be living right here.” Landon paused. “What about your kids? How… how’s that?”

Jay sighed and explained a bit about how the night went. Landon wasn’t surprised Clint had figured it out, not based on the looks the boy’d given him.

“Oh, Ms. Lynne is a pain in my ass, I tell you,” Landon snapped. “But daddy had warned me.”

Jay’s eyes grew wide. “So he does know.”

“I think so, why?”

“Nothing, he’s just the one who told me you were here this morning, if I wanted to talk.”

Landon chuckled. “I feel like there should be a country song about this.”

Jay huffed. “I have the feeling we’re not quite there yet.”

Landon smiled and pressed a kiss to Jay’s mouth. “No, but we’re closer every day. Your kids are proof, even if it takes Millie time. Times are a changin’.”

“So he says to the former heterosexual.”

Landon didn’t know why that made him laugh so hard, but it did. They both did, for a long while. Laughed and kissed and just were light and free in the little house in the country.

“Former, eh? Prove it,” Landon growled, nuzzling Jay’s jaw, grinding their cocks together.

“I think I can handle that.” Jay let out a quiet moan, one that rolled right through Landon. Then Jay stunned Landon into stillness by whispering, “I want you to do me.”

Landon met Jay’s unguarded gaze, all the feeling there almost undoing him. “What do you—” Before he finished his question, Jay’s quirked eyebrow told him he’d been asking a silly question, but he hadn’t wanted to assume. “Jay, babe, you don’t have to…”

“I want to, though. I love how it felt when it was us, together like that. I just… I want you to know I mean all of this, that I’m here in this one hundred percent.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to let me f*ck you, Jay.”

Jay grimaced, but still smiled. “Good because I was hoping you’d be gentler than that since it’s my first time and all.” Jay suddenly looked nervous, but his open, vulnerable expression was steadfast. “I don’t wanna just seal it with a kiss. This is important. I want you to make love to me.”

“Yeah?” Landon’s voice faltered, the gravity of what Jay offered hitting him right in the chest, making butterflies burst in his stomach. The moment felt heavy, important. Perfect. Jay nodded once, then kissed the corner of Landon’s mouth and whispered, “Yeah.”

Landon took Jay’s hand, took a deep breath, and led him up the stairs and to the bedroom.





Chapter 19


Once upon a time, Jay thought maybe he’d feel less manly, or perhaps more gay, if he lay with a man like this. Yes, now that he thought back on it honestly, he could recognize those moments in which he’d thought he might like being taken care of in bed. Those moments had been pushed back, chalked up to being random, fleeting thoughts every man gets in life where he thinks about some sexual taboo to get his dick twitching.

Now though, with Landon having already stripped him slowly and having kissed him over every inch, Jay’s body buzzed, and it was singing with a need he didn’t know he’d had. To be touched, to let go, was a scary-as-hell thing for a split second, but since he surrendered to Landon’s hands and lips and tongue, Jay almost wept at how deeply he felt. His heart pounded and his stomach clenched in pleasure as he gasped for breath. Jay felt like he’d come apart and Landon was slowly pulling him open.