The Jock (The Team, #1)

by Tal Bauer

He’d always thought kissing his first guy would be harder. That he’d be afraid, nervous. Shouldn’t his heart be pounding? Shouldn’t his hands be shaking? Where was the earthquake in his soul? Why wasn’t his mind screaming at him to stop? He didn’t want to stop.

Where he was from, kids sometimes waited years before they felt actual rain on their faces. It was hard and dry and bitter in West Texas, and most people quit, but his father was a rancher like his father before him. Their parcel of land was small, their herd modest, and they eked just enough out of the dust and the scrub to keep on living for the next year.

“Your drawl with the accent… It’s unique.”

“You broke her heart when you sent those photos,” he’d said, talking to an engine block in the garage instead of to his son. “Why didn’t you sit her down and look her in the eyes and tell her? She deserved to hear the truth from you like you loved her, not have it thrown in her face like you hated her.”

He’d choked this want, this desire, ever since the day he declared to his father he was going to marry the ranch foreman or one of the cowboys down from Montana. He’d been young enough to get away with it, get called hilarious instead of a freak. He’d been laughed at. He kept his crush on the foreman secret after that. Stopped watching the hands work shirtless as they fed the horses, changed the hay, cleaned the stalls. Kept his mouth shut and waited, and waited, and waited for his eyes to start wandering to the girls and their bouncy ponytails at school, to focus on curves and skirt hems instead of happy trails and tight asses and bulges.

He’d be damned if he was going to be the one who shattered everyone’s dreams because he was different. Different didn’t work on the team.

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.

Wes ran his cheek up and down the side of Justin’s cock, then turned and pressed featherlight kisses to the shaft. Inhaled Justin’s musk, the masculine aroma of his body, strong after the summer day. He couldn’t get enough, chasing Justin’s scent all the way to his crotch, to his balls, burying his face in Justin’s hip as he jacked him slowly.

Wes rolled over, pinning Justin to the mattress until they were rocking against each other again, and Justin pressed another condom into Wes’s hand. He slid back inside Justin with a sigh, resting his forehead, his cheek against Justin’s. “You feel like coming home.”

The team is relying on you. Remember why you play this game, son. You can have everything you ever dreamed of. All the way to glory. Justin. They’ll dig into your life. Turn everything upside down. What would it feel like to be outed on SportsCenter?

Going to have to talk about what? How he’d fallen in love? How he’d met the man he wanted to spend forever with? He loved Justin, loved him so damn much, but he’d destroyed what they had, and now there was nothing left. He didn’t even feel human anymore. Didn’t feel like he could ever love again—or make love again. He’d never find another guy as captivating and wonderful and alive as Justin, someone who would feed ducks with him, who’d listen to him talk about the ranch, who could teach him about modern art and ballet, and who would smile when Wes tickled his cheek with a sprig of lavender and baby’s breath. Fuck. His tears spilled over, racing down his temples. His pillow was half salt by this point, weighed down with endless nights of crying. He didn’t move. Tried not to breathe. Maybe Colton wouldn’t notice.

“Yeah, you’re always sorry. You’re sorry, but you can’t do this. You’re sorry, but you changed your mind. You’re sorry, but you used me because you wanted to see what it was like, walking on the wild side for a few weeks. Look, you got it out of your system, okay? You had your little experimentation phase, and now you can go back to your jock life with your tape and your Monster Energy and your stink.” “What? Justin, no! You weren’t an experiment!”

“I love you,” he called after Justin. “I loved you in Paris, and I still love you. You’re everything to me. You’re the first thing I think of when I open my eyes in the morning. You’re in class with me, you’re on the field with me, you’re in the gym with me. I talk to you when I’m alone. When I’m driving in my truck. When I’m jogging or working out. You’re on my mind every minute of the day. And you’re the last thing I see every night. That photo…” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I love you, and I’m not ashamed of that.”

Deliriously happy, in fact. I want you to be the one. Please, let us be an epic love story.

Who am I when you love me? Who am I when I fall in love with you?