3. Damon

CHAPTER 3

DAMON

Nash plucked the phone from Damon's hands and set it out of reach on the dresser. He hadn't meant to make Taylor feel bad, and even when he realized that he'd hurt him, he didn't know what to say, or how to say it, to fix things. A lame apology text didn't seem like it was good enough. He'd have to do better.

Damon hated that everything felt so complicated all of the sudden. Things with Nash had started out easy. Friends with benefits. No strings. No commitments. The only rule was honesty if they took someone else to bed, and safety was paramount. But when they'd entered into the agreement, there hadn't been anyone else Damon was interested in enough to bother looking twice at.

He wasn't even sure now how things had started with Nash. They were friends, and then they were more, and it was that easy for them.

"Get in bed, Damon," Nash said. Damon lifted his gaze and looked at Nash. He had the whole boy-next-door vibe going on, with his soft smiles and his naturally friendly personality. If Damon could bring a guy home to his parents, it would be this one.

Damon peeled his clothes off and climbed into Nash's bed. He watched Nash undress, admiring the body he knew almost as well as his own. Because Nash worked out with Colby at least once a week, he had more muscle than he used to, but because he still ate whatever he wanted, it was covered in a layer of softness that Damon loved.

When Nash got in next to him, Damon rolled over and went in for a kiss, and Nash indulged him. Damon needed to not be thinking right now. Or maybe ever. Thinking was overrated.

Nash's mouth still tasted somehow of marshmallow and chocolate. They should've brushed their teeth before bed because now Damon was thinking of Taylor again and wondering how his lips would taste.

He pulled away with a groan and flopped onto his back.

Nash, unfazed as always, propped himself up on his elbow. Lifting his hand, he dragged a fingertip down the slope of Damon's nose.

Damon cut his gaze over to Nash. "I'm not a cat."

"I know you're not a cat. You're a boy with a crush in one hand and regret in the other."

Damon was glad for the dim light, or Nash might've seen the blush on his skin. As it was, his face was so warm he wondered how he wasn't glowing in the dark.

"Talk to me," Nash implored. He settled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Taking one of Damon's hands in his, he laced their fingers together.

"I wish we could do this in a field somewhere. Can you imagine lying under the stars? No lights for miles. Just us and the darkness and stars." Damon could almost picture it. The stillness of the night. The crickets. Nash's quiet breath in his ear.

"You hate camping," Nash supplied helpfully.

"So we wouldn't camp. We'd lay under the stars."

"Sounds like camping to me."

"It would only be one night." Damon rolled onto his side and curled into Nash, still clinging to his hand like it was a lifeline. "It doesn't bother you?"

"What doesn't?"

"That I like Taylor."

Nash reached over with his free hand and brushed the hair off Damon's forehead. "It would bother me more if you didn't. We've talked about this, Damon. We're together, but allowed to look. You're allowed to like."

Damon felt impossibly young sometimes when it came to relationships. His upbringing was strict and he had used it as an excuse to never date. He'd never been into girls, but the idea of bringing a boy home wasn't something he wanted to contemplate. Not dating at all had been preferable. And then Nash happened.

There had been a healthy number of hookups before Nash, mostly in club bathrooms or with someone he met on an app. Quick hand jobs. Hurried blowjobs. Things that only whet his appetite instead of satisfying it. It wasn't until Nash that Damon wanted more. He wanted a relationship. Something meaningful.

"It's important to me that we're happy, Damon. Making things right with Taylor would make me happy. Him happy and, therefore, you'd also be happy. If you should decide to take him on a date," Nash paused to kiss the top of Damon's head, "I want all the details."

"I'd have to tell him about us."

"I'm aware."

Without warning, Nash rolled Damon onto his back and straddled him. He pinned his wrists to the bed beside his head, lighting his whole body up like a firework.

"You're going to make things right with Taylor. And if you ask him out, you need to tell him about us so he can make an informed decision."

"And if he says no?" Damon could scarcely breathe. Nash did that to him—stole his breath and his ability to think. Not that the latter was necessarily a bad thing.

"He won't."

Nash seemed so sure of it that Damon let himself believe it too.

Nash's body blanketed Damon's and he brought their mouths together. Damon loved the way Nash kissed, the way it started off slow and lured Damon in. Nash coaxed his way into Damon's mouth then deepened the kiss, getting his whole body involved now. His hips flexed, grinding his erection down against Damon's. The grip he had on Damon's wrists tightened.

Damon could get away with a single word. He knew that, but he liked convincing himself he couldn't. It made him feel like Nash needed him so much that he wasn't willing to release him so easily.

Sometimes, Damon liked to struggle against Nash's iron grip, but tonight he willingly surrendered to Nash's whims. Basking in the attention, he let everything else fall away as Nash kissed him breathless. Damon savored the feeling of Nash's stubble rasping its way down his body.

"So good," Damon mumbled. Nash's hands had released his wrists, but Damon kept them where Nash had left them. He closed his eyes because by now he could picture how Nash looked from memory as he kissed his way around Damon's body. Teasing him with almost touches and caresses in the places he didn't need them the most.

Nash nudged Damon's legs apart and slotted his body in between them.

"Bend your knees."

Nash's breath on Damon's dick was unnervingly arousing. If he wasn't as hard as steel already, he might've fainted from how fast the blood rushed to his cock.

Damon complied, bending his knees and spreading his legs as wide as he comfortably could, giving Nash all the access he needed to drive Damon mad. Every time Damon was with him, he thought it couldn't get any better…and then it did. It seemed almost impossible for sex to feel this good. Like it shouldn't be allowed. Or should at the very least come with a warning label.

Nash kissed the inside of Damon's thighs, then nuzzled in close to Damon's sac. It was a unique kind of heaven and hell all rolled up together, the way Nash teased him, dragging his tongue over Damon's balls, up the underside of his cock, following the thick vein all the way to the tip. Then going back to the places Damon hadn't even known were erogenous zones until Nash had discovered them.

The crease of his leg. Nash paid special attention to the skin around Damon's belly button, tormenting him until he squirmed and writhed, doing his best to get any kind of meaningful friction on his dick.

Nash laughed, as he did sometimes when Damon got impatient with his exquisite torture.

"Need something?" Nash asked, already sliding himself lower again.

"Asshole."

A finger dipped down below Damon's balls and pressed against his taint. "Is that a request?"

Damon whimpered. He didn't know what he wanted and that was the crux of the matter. He wanted too much. He wanted Nash and Taylor in different but equal measures. Nash was the known. The comfortable and the compelling. Being with Nash was as easy as breathing.

Taylor wasn't unknown, at least Damon hadn't thought of him that way. Up until recently, Taylor had been the known quantity. And, sure, Damon had liked him, but now he couldn't look away.

It wasn't only the makeup because Taylor wasn't always wearing it. Even when Damon had seen him looking as he always did—in torn and faded jeans with his signature grease-splattered diner apron over top his shirt, Taylor was attractive. But there was something about him now. His confidence had grown three sizes and it was hotter than hell.

Confident men were Damon's weakness. Nash had proven that over and over again. Just as he was proving now, taking Damon's throbbing cock into his mouth. Swallowing it down. Caressing it with his tongue in sinful ways that had Damon writhing and moaning.

God, Nash's mouth was a gift and a curse. He'd talked his way into Damon's arms, then his bed, then his fucking heart. The things he'd done to Damon were only eclipsed by the things he'd done for him.

"Nash." Damon's voice sounded strained. His body was too tight from pleasure. "Please."

"Please, what? What do you need?" Nash kissed along the inside of Damon's fuzzy thighs. "Tell me what you want. You know the deal."

Nash would give him whatever he wanted, so long as he asked for it.

But sometimes it was hard to get the words out. He almost couldn't believe that he could have these things and the way they made him feel. Loved, and light, and invincible. Sexy and shy all at once. It was like Nash found all the different versions of Damon that lived inside him and knew how to coax them out.

"I want your fingers." Damon pressed his eyes shut. "In my ass. I want your fingers in my ass, and I want you to kiss me until I can't think."

Nash fumbled around in the half dark and retrieved the lube, then settled in next to Damon with slippery fingers. Once Damon asked for something, Nash was good about not making him wait and it wasn't too long—though it felt like eternity—before Nash's fingers were dipping inside Damon's hole.

First one. Slow and gentle like the way Nash kissed him. Damon always savored that first intrusion. That first little sting of tightness before he remembered to breathe and let Nash inside. It was hesitation followed by absolute exquisite pleasure.

"I love your fingers." Damon wrapped his arms around Nash and held tight, as if to keep him from escaping, even though he knew Nash wasn't going anywhere.

"I love how you feel on me." Nash slanted his mouth over Damon's and his kisses grew in intensity, sweeping Damon away. When Nash slid a second finger into Damon's slippery hole, he keened and clutched Nash tighter.

When Damon couldn't kiss anymore because he couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything but thrash and beg and cling to his lover, Nash kept his mouth busy on Damon's neck. He whispered things Damon couldn't hear over the rush of his own pulse. Things that sounded like honey-coated praise. Gentle little words that felt almost as good as Nash's fingers striking Damon's prostate over and over.

Nash brought Damon to the edge of his orgasm, his body tight and hot all over. Nash kissed the whimper back into his mouth when he pulled his fingers out of Damon's ass and wrapped his hand around Damon's cock. Damon came with a handful of strokes. The whole world whited out for a moment and when Damon opened his eyes a second later, Nash was kneeling over him.

Damon loved watching this. Loved watching Nash let go. Using his cum-coated fingers, Nash took hold of his cock in an overhand grip and stroked himself hard and fast before switching his grip and leaning down. He planted his free hand next to Damon's head and stole a kiss.

Damon reached for Nash. Unable to not touch him, he dragged his hands over Nash's chest. His arms. His back. Wherever he could reach.

Nash slammed his mouth down against Damon's and muffled his cries as he coated Damon's stomach with cum.

After, Nash flopped down next to Damon and pulled him close. He tilted his chin with the tip of his finger and kissed Damon so softly he could cry.

"Aren't you going to clean me up?" Damon frowned.

"Soon, but first…" Nash kissed him again.

Sometime later, after a shower and more kissing, Nash and Damon curled together in the darkness.

"What if he doesn't forgive me?" Damon asked.

"He will." Nash kissed the back of Damon's neck. "Don't worry."