Page 56 of The Quarterback
He wanted to explore Colton’s body. Learn him head to toe. Learn what made him tremble and gasp, what made his toes curl, what made him scream Nick’s name. What left him breathless and unable to speak.
Colton groaned. Nick felt Colton’s erection, half-hard and growing, but Colton backed away and went to the patio couch, where he poured two glasses of wine and sat, watching Nick.
Before, they’d sat catty-corner with a respectable distance between them as they ate. Now, Colton had set their plates side by side. Their thighs touched, knees brushing, arms gliding against one another as they reached for their wine and shared smiles over dinner. When the steaks were finished, Nick turned toward Colton and took his hand, and they gazed into each other’s eyes as they sipped the last of their wine.
Colton looked awestruck, smiling like he had when they won the national championship. He ran his thumb over Nick’s knuckles as he told Nick stories about growing up in Sugar Land, about the first time he’d picked up a football. His first youth game, age five, when he’d been so excited to get his hands on the ball he ran it all the way down the field in the wrong direction and scored a touchdown on his own team. It was herd ball, though, and no one kept score.
“That was the last time my dad was at a game.” Colton’s thumb went back and forth. “He never came to another one. He never came to anything ever again, in fact.”
“He missed out on an amazing life.”
Colton tried to smile. It faded fast. “I used to think he left because I made that wrong touchdown. That I let him down, at five years old, and he never forgave me.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’ve been trying to win ever since to see if he’ll come back.”
Nick squeezed Colton’s hand hard, so hard his own hand ached almost as much as his heart did. The sun had set, and Colton was lit by the glow of the patio lights, little solar globes that winked on after dark. The golden light caressed Colton’s cheek and one side of his neck, danced in and out of the hard line of his bicep and the shadow of his elbow. He was loose limbed and slouching on the couch, his body angled toward Nick, knees and chest pointed right at Nick’s heart, like he was signaling his play and aiming where he was going to throw the football.
Nick kissed Colton there on the patio, gliding closer until they were in each other’s laps. Colton melted against him, his arms encircling Nick as his lips moved over Nick’s, and their tongues danced while stars rose over the city.
“I dreamed about this,” Colton whispered when Nick pushed him down on the couch and spread out on top of him. “It used to be hard to have dinner out here and not imagine making out with you.”
“You’ll have to tell me if the real thing is as good as what you dreamed.”
“It’s so much better.” Colton’s hands slid through his hair. He kissed Nick slowly, reverently. “I, um.” His gaze skittered beyond Nick, pupils blown wide and traced with gold from the patio lights. “I get tested annually with the team,” he breathed. “And everything came back negative after my last physical.”
Nick didn’t understand, not at first. He frowned.
“And I haven’t been with anyone since then. And, well, you…” Colton said.
Oh. Jesus. He was going to have to think about these things again now that he was divorced, wasn’t he? He thought back, twenty years of physicals in a blur. “Twenty years of negative results for me.”
Colton bit his lip. “We don’t have to worry about knocking each other up, I guess, either.”
Nick laughed. “No, we don’t.” He took Colton’s hand and guided him through the patio door into his bedroom.
They undressed in the darkness, only the little globe lights and the city’s soft midnight casting the faintest flickering glow across the walls. It was just enough to catch a spark inside Colton’s eyes, turn his pupils to flames as they fell into bed.
This time, they went slower, savoring each other. Nick ran his fingers over every inch of Colton’s body. He traced the line of his calf and where his knee met his thigh. Felt the brush of Colton’s leg hair against his palm.
He discovered Colton was ticklish behind his knees when he ran his middle finger up the backs of his legs and that he shivered all over when Nick put his lips on the juncture between his thigh and his hip, where his skin was baby soft. He trailed his tongue around Colton’s hip bones until he found the valley of Colton’s lower back. His ass was as firm and round as basketballs atop his long legs. Nick had always been an ass man, and he spent a long, long time exploring Colton’s, getting both hands on the meat of his cheeks before biting Colton’s pale skin and sucking a hickey on the juiciest curve. Colton was a trembling, quivering wreck by the time Nick kissed his way up each of his vertebrae. He was breathing hard, one arm curled beneath his chest and the other fisted around the base of his cock.
“You’re not supposed to touch yourself,” he whispered in Colton’s ear. “That’s my job.”
“I’m trying not to come,” Colton whimpered. “I’m so fucking close.”
“Roll over, and come in my mouth.”
Colton groaned, flipped to his back, and started coming even before Nick got his lips around his cock. Nick sucked and hummed as Colton spasmed and cried out his name.
Then it was Colton’s turn to explore, and Nick forgot how to breathe as Colton went at him like he was on a personal mission to uncover erogenous zones Nick didn’t know he had. When had his biceps and his belly button become connected to his cock? Why did Colton’s teeth scraping over his pec make his back arch and stars dance behind his eyelids? Had nipple play always made him pant his lover’s name, or was that magic uniquely Colton’s? He was reduced to babbling nonsense while Colton sucked his nipples to diamond nubs, chanting Colton’s name as his cock turned to granite.
Colton was hard again—ah, youth—and Nick wrapped his legs around Colton’s waist and drew their hips together. Colton thrust against him, cursing, his weight balanced on his shaking left arm as he grabbed Nick’s hand with his right.
Twenty years of marriage, a son, a woman he’d thought was the one. All the love he and Cynthia had made, all of it, suddenly paled as Colton breathed his name and kissed his knuckles, as he thrust and his aching cock ground against Nick’s. He was trapped in Colton’s shining eyes and the touch of his lips and the feel of his body.
He came shouting Colton’s name and pulling him down for a kiss. Colton collapsed on his chest as their lips pressed together, and Colton came a second later, his come hot and wet between their bellies.
They breathed each other in when they refused to tear their lips apart, not even to drag in oxygen.
Passion. He’d thought he knew what that meant.
