The Jock (The Team, #1)

by Tal Bauer

if he wore nothing but chaps, he could make ten grand a night at the gay clubs in Dallas. He’d look right at home driving the herd down Main in Fort Worth, too, tipping his hat to women in sundresses and giving them that shy little grin. God, did women hurl their thongs at Wes every day? What about men? How many men saw him and wanted to hit their knees, run their fingers up the those tight, denim-covered thighs?

Wes smiled, and Justin nearly hit the floor, nearly sank to his knees and wept like his mom’s friends did on Sundays at their church. That smile, Christ almighty. That smile could melt his bones. It was an aw-shucks grin, a grin that said, I’m trouble,

Justin eyed Wes as he brushed dust and lint from his cowboy hat. When Justin gazed out the window, watching Paris roll by, he caught Wes’s reflection gazing at him.

What Texan came to Paris and fell for a cowboy? There was something Freudian in that. There had to be.

Wes, the cowboy football player he could have met any other day in Texas, on campus, even, but who he’d met here. In the city of love.

And another part of him whispered back, I’m not sure what I want with this man is friendship. Not anymore.

Wes’s veins, the thoughts running wild in his head. Take his hand. No, don’t risk it.

He held your arm today. What did that mean? It meant he was drunk.

He was meant to love the white swan. But he was tricked by the black swan. I could fall in love with you, if I let myself. It was Paris, and it was summertime, and it was the wrong place and the wrong time. He wasn’t ready for this yet, wasn’t ready for his heart to catapult out of his chest and chase this man, crave him. He wasn’t ready to fall in love. But there was this guy named Justin, and it seemed Wes didn’t have a choice in the matter, because he was already on the way.

Justin, too, gasped, his eyes so full of joy that Wes’s heart ached. Justin smiled—not the smirk, not the playful giggle, but a beaming grin. In your whole life, there will never be a moment like this again.

He wanted to see what Justin looked like when their lips met, if his eyes would go wide or if he would smile. Wanted to see, somehow, the lightning they’d created between them arc from his lips to Justin’s.

“Wes,” Justin whispered. They were so close, bodies aligned, Justin seeming to fit into all the nooks and crannies of Wes’s oversized frame.

Perfectly. They fit together perfectly. Like drawing Justin close was something he was meant to do.

“Is this really happening?” Justin whispered. “I hope so.” His voice trembled.

He kissed Wes as if he’d wanted to kiss him from the moment they’d met, the moment Wes had walked through the door and seen him in the slanted sunlight. And Wes held him tight, held him like he was precious and perfect and everything Wes had ever wanted. Because he was. In that moment, beneath the lights of the Eiffel Tower, Paris under his skin and inside his veins, Justin was everything he’d waited his whole life for.

“Take me to bed, cowboy.”

Was this happening? Was this really happening? Justin in his arms, Justin pressing kisses to every inch of his face.

Justin’s thighs squeezed his hips, hands cradling his face as he gazed at Wes like he wanted to devour him.

Wes made a noise, a grunt, a groan he’d never admit to. His palm landed on the pillow next to Justin’s head as his vision went sideways, and he had to close his eyes and hold his breath as Justin’s thumbs went to work on his nipples.

He stilled when he felt Wes’s flagging erection. Their lips clung together even after he pulled back a fraction of an inch. Wes tried to chase the kiss, tried to chase Justin. No, no, please. He leaned in, dug their foreheads together. He was shaking.

“You succeeded. Got me all spun up ‘bout you.” He laid his accent on thick and heavy, like slow honey under a summer sun.

Justin tasted like sunshine and a hint of sweat after a long day wandering Paris.

And there was his lover’s cock, right in front of his face. The first one he could touch that wasn’t his own.

His mouth watered, so suddenly, so much, he almost drooled down his chin. Fire burned through him, a coil that went all the way down his spine and settled in his belly. Dropped lower.

he gasped, cursed, panted Wes’s name and clawed at the sheets, gripped them in two fists. “Fuck, where did you learn…” Wes popped off, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He could taste Justin’s cock all over his tongue and his lips. “Okay?” “Keep going,” Justin pleaded. “You’re a goddamn natural.”

Wes swallowed, swallowed again, but still, come dribbled out and down his lips as he kept moving his mouth up and down Justin’s shaft. The taste made his head spin, made him crave more, again, right now. He licked Justin clean, then sucked one finger after another into his mouth. “Yum. Finger-lickin’ good.”

“Holy…” Justin grabbed him. Kissed him, hot and dirty, all tongue and teeth, searching for his own taste inside Wes’s mouth. Wes braced himself on the mattress and got one hand on his fly, popping the buttons and freeing his cock, finally achingly hard, achingly stiff.

He’d remember that image until the day he died: Justin’s throat around his cock, his perfect lips sealed all the way around his shaft. He’d watched porn like this, had jerked off imagining a guy on his knees—or him on his knees, or both of them blowing each other at the same time—but this, the reality of the moment, of Justin, was beyond anything he’d imagined.

“I’m gonna come,” Wes grunted. He tugged on Justin’s hair, trying to warn him. But Justin seemed as greedy for Wes’s come as Wes had been for Justin’s,

Justin sucked him until he was soft, until he was shivering and flinching and overstimulated and he had to pull Justin off his cock and drag him back into his arms. He rolled, taking Justin with him until they were side by side, foreheads and noses and lips pressed together.

“Okay?” Justin asked, brushing his nose against Wes’s. He seemed almost nervous, the confident sex bomb who’d gone down on Wes and rocked his world, vanished. He watched Wes carefully.

“Are you sure?” Justin whispered. His hand found Wes’s and squeezed. Justin was trembling. “We don’t have to.” “I want to. I want to do everything with you. But do you want this?”

Justin clenched on an in stroke and told him to curl his fingers toward his belly button and stroke again, and when he did, Justin arched like he’d touched a live wire, his thighs spreading wider, his fingers clawing at nothing as he silently screamed.

“Justin?” He nuzzled his cheek. Waited until Justin’s eyes flickered open and he kissed Wes back, soft and slow. “Can I make love to you?” Justin’s eyes went wide. He stilled. “Are you sure?”

“I want my first time to be with you.” His first time, his first guy. Maybe, a quiet voice in his heart said, his last guy. His only guy. Some of his friends were getting married or were ready to propose. They’d found the one. What if he had, too?

Mine, mine, mine. If he didn’t screw this up, if he was a good enough lover for Justin, if he could captivate Justin half as much as Justin captivated him, then, maybe, Justin would want to keep him.

Justin smiled. He hooked one ankle around Wes’s waist. Rubbed his hand over Wes’s arm, his shoulder. “Make love to me.”

Justin squeezed his arms, dug his fingers into his muscles. Curled his leg, beckoning him fractionally closer. “No, just give me a moment. You’re good, you’re so good. God, Wes…”

Anything except for Justin, looking like perfection beneath him and between his arms. “Okay,” Justin breathed. “Okay, keep going.”

“Yes,” Justin murmured. “Yes, God, yes. Perfect.” Justin’s words tumbled between their kisses, spilled into Wes like summer rain.

His heart was bursting, so damn gone for this man, gone like he’d made a breakaway and was full speed to the end zone. Gone like he was ready to do this, ready to fall in love with a man, ready to open the door he’d always kept shut and see what lay on the other side.

he’d fallen a little deeper, and now here he was. With his first lover. Maybe, hopefully, his last.

He balanced on one hand and reached down, fumbling for Justin’s hard cock, weeping precome onto their bellies. He stroked, and Justin went electric, shaking and gritting his teeth as he gasped Wes’s name. “I’m gonna come if you keep doing that.”

“Good. I want to see it.” He wanted to see Justin come apart because of him, spill over into orgasm because of him. Gasp his name and shake apart because of him. He squeezed again, stroked, twisted his hand over Justin’s cock head.

I’ve fallen so deeply for you, Justin. But what’s going to happen now?

Justin laid his hand over Wes’s, squeezing before taking the flowers. He inhaled, grinned, and swayed slightly with his eyes closed, a look of bliss on his face that melted every one of Wes’s neurons. Had he made Justin smile that way, look like that? Had he, somehow, made Justin that happy, so joyous he seemed like he was about to float away? Like Wes had to hold on to his hand to keep him tethered to the earth?

“I think you could give me some shots of protein another way.” Justin went fuchsia, and he turned into Wes’s chest, smothering a smile as he ran his fingers down Wes’s flat stomach. “I already calculated that into your daily nutrition.”

“I’m sorry,” Justin gasped after he shot down Wes’s throat. “I thought I’d last longer. Jesus, that was too good.” Wes licked his lips. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

Every night they made love, and each time was different. Justin rode Wes and held his hands, the lights of Paris dipping into the curves of his naked chest, the planes of his trim, tight muscles. He lay on his stomach and Wes spent a half hour eating him out, exploring his hole with lips and tongue, French-kissing him in a whole new way until Justin was a panting, quivering mess. Wes slid inside him then, kissing his way up his spine and the back of his neck to whisper in his ear, “Mon amour, tu as mon coeur pour toujours.”

“I think I could spend the rest of my life with you, and you’d still surprise me.” Justin’s gaze was equal parts searching and adoring, like he was appraising a fine piece of art, a priceless wonder they’d stumbled on in the museum. “I think there are whole oceans inside of you.”