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“Dev—”
“So maybe you’re right,” he said, crossing his arms. “Maybe I should leave. Because if all you’re going to do is go back to your life in Houston, make up with your girlfriend, and make your family happy, then I need to go. Because, no, I’m not going to be anyone’s secret—friend or otherwise. And I can’t handle this shit again.”
The undercurrent of hurt in his words made Hunter’s chest ache. In that moment, he didn’t see the grown-up businessman. He saw the kid who had run beside him with laughing eyes the night they’d buttered the floor of that other frat house. He saw the guy he’d talked with night after night in the dark of their small shared room. He saw the man who had made Hunter want to be more than the person he’d been raised to be. “Devon.”
“Don’t.” Devon’s defiant gaze didn’t waver. “Don’t look at me like that, Hunt.”
“I’m not going back.”
His jaw flexed. “You don’t know that. You have a career. A life. You’re angry and probably still drunk. And God knows how much trouble we get in when you’re drinking. When your head clears—”
“It’s clear now.” Hunter ventured a little closer. “Maybe for the first time in four years.”
Devon looked pained, every corner of his expression jagged with emotion.
Hunter knew he should back off. Just because he’d laid the truth out there didn’t mean anything had changed. He’d hurt Dev. He didn’t know what Devon’s life was like now. They were strangers to each other. And Hunter had a huge mushroom cloud looming in Houston. But he couldn’t help himself. He got within a foot of Devon, the space between them hardly anything but still feeling like miles. “I thought I had stopped. But now I’m not sure I did.”
Devon didn’t move forward and close the gap, but he also didn’t back away. “What?”
Hunter swallowed hard. “Wanting you. Loving you. I thought I’d let you go, but when I saw you in your restaurant tonight . . . it was like the fucking sun came out for the first time in years.”
Devon closed his eyes then, and everything in his posture seemed to surrender. “Fuck.”
“You don
’t owe me anything,” Hunter repeated. “I know I’m a mess. I don’t expect you to give me your friendship or anything else. I’m sure you’ve moved on and had probably forgotten about me until I showed up tonight. But I’m telling you what I couldn’t tell you back then, because you deserve to hear it. And I’m telling you that I’m here if you want me—in whatever way that means. I won’t turn my back on you again.”
Devon’s chest rose and fell with a deep inhale and then finally, he opened his eyes. “Forgotten about you, huh?”
Hunter shrugged.
Dev’s eyes met his, steady as stone. “Last season, you had the best stats of any of the pitchers on your team. In the second playoff game this year, you pitched a no-hitter. And two games later, you injured your back against the Yankees and were out for the season. Your pretty fiancée gave an interview while they were carting you off on a stretcher, and she didn’t even glance your way. When you’re having a hard time on the mound, you take off your hat and say some kind of mantra to yourself. And though you look great in white, that road gray uniform makes me think absolutely filthy things about you. I pay for the special MLB package on cable, and I don’t even like baseball.”
Hunter rocked back on his heels, the steadily delivered confession pinging through him and lighting up places he hadn’t realized had gone dark. Devon hadn’t forgotten about him, had followed his career, had watched him play. Had thought filthy things about him . . .
“You’re right,” Dev continued, his voice softening as he closed the minute distance left between them. “I don’t owe you anything. And this is probably the worst timing ever. But hell if I don’t want every damn thing you’ve got to give, Hunt. I never fucking stopped either.”
Everything out of alignment inside Hunter seemed to jerk into place all at once, click, click, click—all the misplaced pieces landing just where they needed, locking into one image that had been burned into his marrow a long time ago. Devon. From the moment he’d met him, even before he understood what it was, it had always been Dev. He’d been his all along. That’s all he needed to know. The rest they could figure out later.
Hunter wasn’t sure whose hands reached out first. But before the next breath, their mouths came together and all semblance of decorum or decency burned up in the bright, fiery need of having spent so many years apart. Fingers grappled for clothes, hair, whatever they could manage, and the two of them kissed like ravenous teenagers—desperate, sloppy, greedy, bodies shamelessly rubbing against each other. Hunter’s elbow clipped a hotel lamp as they grabbed at each other, and it tipped over onto the carpeted floor with a loud thunk. Light splintered around them on the walls. Neither of them broke away from kissing.
Hunter gripped Devon’s hair and stroked his tongue deeper in Dev’s mouth. He couldn’t get close enough. He wanted every part of him, and Devon seemed to be of the same mind as he pressed Hunter against the back of the couch, mashing their bodies together. Everything went hot and needy inside Hunter.
He’d managed two years of celibacy without much struggle, but now he wasn’t sure he could handle two minutes of it. His cock went hard and obvious against Devon’s thigh, and he rocked against him, not caring if Dev felt exactly how bad he wanted him.
Devon groaned and pulled away from the kiss, panting. “We should probably slow down. Catch up. Take our time.”
“Probably.”
“Want to?”
“Nope,” Hunter said, letting his hand slip between them and finding Devon as turned on as he was. He gave him a stroke through his slacks, relishing the feel of his heat against his palm. “You?”
“Hell no, especially not when you’re doing that. Fuck.”
Hunter smiled. “I’ve gotta warn you. I still don’t know what I’m doing.”
Devon laughed, playful desire in his eyes as he hooked a finger in the belt loop of Hunter’s jeans. “Saved yourself for me, big man?”
