The Backup Boyfriend (The Boyfriend Chronicles) (15 page)

What was wrong with him? Dylan didn’t appear to want him anymore. Alec wasn’t supposed to want Dylan.

Christ, why had he agreed to come today?

Redheaded Rob sidled up to Dylan’s side with an appetizer in hand. “Anyone know where can I get more of these apple thingys?”

Noah eyed Rob up and down before sending the man a brilliant smile. “I’d be happy to show you.”

“Fantastic,” Rob said with a grin.

Alec watched Noah escort the man away and forced his gaze to remain on the two men, despite Dylan’s disturbing proximity.

“Should we warn Rob that Noah will probably hit on him?” Alec said, finally risking a glance at Dylan.

“Nah.” Grinning, Dylan studied the two men as they disappeared into the crowd. “Why ruin the surprise?” With barely a glimpse in Alec’s direction, he went on. “Let’s go get our playing card.”

And, as he followed Dylan, Alec focused on the crowd around him. He needed to stop searching for the return of The Look. He needed to stop wondering if it would reappear in Dylan’s eyes.

More importantly, Alec needed to figure out what he’d do if it did.

Turns out, Alec had no reason to worry how he’d respond to the return of a Dylan who stared at Alec with that familiar heat in his gaze. The day ended much like the start, with a fiery sun lingering just over the horizon and nothing resembling desire appearing in Dylan’s eyes.

In fact, he’d almost disengaged completely.

The restaurant patio brimmed with bikers, and chatter and laughter and the clatter of cutlery filled the air. Alec had laughed when Dylan pretended to weep with relief when they smelled barbecue being served to the participants—the fleeting sign of humor from Dylan the first since the morning.

Their five-man team had eaten dinner while debating the day’s best bike sighting. Oddly, Dylan stayed out of the friendly argument, silently focusing on his food instead. And there was something obscene about the way Dylan wolfed down his barbeque. Watching Dylan lick the sauce from his lips and fingers constituted a form of torture. Fortunately, with the dinner dishes mostly cleared, they all sat around the table sipping their beers while Dylan’s friends told stories about past poker runs. The conversation was a welcome distraction from the finger porn and the almost withdrawn look on Dylan’s face.

“Alec,” Charlie said, the middle-aged man startling Alec out of his stupor. “You ever think of buying a real bike?”

Being the newbie, Alec had borne the brunt of the group’s good-natured ribbing all day. Each man had his favorite brand of motorcycle. Alec had quickly learned their preferences as the men tossed about their favorite insults along the way, insults such as “foreign piece of shit,” “BMW stands for big money waster,” and “Harleys are for people who think professional wrestling is real.”

“A better question, Charlie”—Alec met the redhead’s gaze with a lazy hike of an eyebrow—“is when are you going to grow a real beard?”

The burst of laughter from the table was loud, but Dylan simply gazed out across the patio deck, not even a hint of a smile on his face.

When his chuckle died away, Charles rubbed the patchy hair covering his cheeks. “How long you been riding, anyway?”

“A little over a month,” Alec said.

“Holy smokes, you
are
a neophyte,” Charlie said.

Dylan suddenly leaned forward in interest. “But the man’s got a mind like a friggin’ steel trap. I think he’s got a photographic memory.” He turned to Alec—

And good God, Alec should have been embarrassed by the wave of pleasure caused by the simple attention.

“What year did Honda introduce the CB750 to the US market?” Dylan asked.

“1969,” Alec replied.

“How many years did Harley Davidson make the Knucklehead engine?”

“Eleven.”

“When did Indian produce its first V-twin?” Charlie fired off.

“1907,” Alec said. “But there is some debate about the date.”

Charlie’s brother, Rob, let out a whistle. “He’s like a walking Wikipedia.”

“Maybe,” Alec said with a laugh. “Just don’t ask me to help you with a tune-up.”

Dylan tilted his head in Alec’s direction. “It’s true,” he said. “He doesn’t know the difference between a Phillips and a flat-head screwdriver.”

Rob barked out, “You gotta be kidding me?” at the same time several incredulous groans came from rest of the men. Alec grinned, amused the friendly ribbing now extended to his abysmal mechanical skills, but mostly relieved because Dylan
not
teasing Alec had felt so wrong.

“Time for the traditional birthday toast.” Rob lifted his beer. “To Rick Adams.”

With a general murmur of agreement, the small band of men raised their mugs, and Alec glanced at Dylan. The subdued mood suddenly clicked, and Alec mentally kicked himself in the ass.

Christ, how could he have been so
blind
?

Alec slowly set his drink down. Today was Rick’s birthday, the friend Dylan had spent every year honoring by organizing a massive fundraising event. The one who the proceeds were donated in honor of. The name splayed on the side of Dylan’s garage.

Catching his eye, Dylan sent him a small smile, but his usual twinkle of good humor was gone.

The table began to discuss tomorrow’s route, and Alec leaned closer to Dylan, his voice low. “You okay?”

Slouched in his chair, legs spread in a relaxed position, Dylan shrugged. “As well as can be expected.”

For the first time in weeks, Dylan held his gaze too long, lingering beyond a respectable time frame. And what started out as a worried feeling on Alec’s part took a long, slow slide into something else…

Several seconds ticked by during which Alec knew he needed to shift his attention somewhere else.
Anywhere
else. But Dylan sabotaged the attempt when his eyes dropped to Alec’s mouth and turned a darker green. A shade Alec was very familiar with.

It was the look a small part of him had been hoping to see all day.

Despite the cool breeze, heat flushed up Alec’s neck. He sipped his beer and shifted in his seat. Unfortunately, repositioning himself in his chair brought his knee up against Dylan’s, the contact sending a jolt through Alec’s body.

His throat suddenly felt twice baked and lacking in moisture. He carefully set his mug down, licking the foam from his lips and very aware Dylan watched the procedure with intense interest.

Shit.

Now that his beer sat on the table, Alec didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he tucked his hair behind his ears. Dylan’s gaze seemed to follow his every movement, and Alec’s pulse picked up speed, the conversation around them fading.

The time had come to stop pretending. Nothing was the same since they’d resumed their friendship. Right now the seemingly innocent contact of knee against knee distracted Alec to the point where he couldn’t follow the conversation, not when Dylan’s gaze kept crash-landing back into Alec’s. Asking questions Alec couldn’t answer.

Making dark promises Alec shouldn’t want Dylan to keep.

Dylan’s expression stuck with Alec as they settled the bill and made their way back to the hotel with the rest of the group. When Alec entered his room, alone, he tossed his keys onto the dresser, restless. Sweeping his gaze across the boring beige décor and the king-sized bed made Alec feel…lonely.

And he was so tired of being alone.

Alec was standing in the same spot contemplating a shower when a sharp knock at the door made him jump. The sound echoed in the hotel room and, no doubt, down the hallway. For a moment, Alec stared at the door, a deep-seated feeling of anticipation and dread and inevitability welling in his chest. He knew who stood on the other side.

He knew what Dylan wanted.

But did Dylan really want Alec, or was this just a convenient way for Dylan to deal with a difficult day?

As soon as the thought popped into Alec’s head, he tensed.

A second knock came. Mind reeling, Alec crossed the carpet and opened the door, still wondering what to do when he saw the man. Dylan stood with his hands on his hips, T-shirt tight across his shoulders, bare feet poking out from the bottom of his frayed jeans. For some reason, Dylan looked angry.

Three thudding heartbeats later, Alec said, “Dylan, don’t you think—?”

Like a brake released on a bike revved to full throttle, Dylan fisted his hands in Alec’s T-shirt and crowded him up against the doorjamb. Alec struggled to finish his question, confused, but Dylan’s intentions became clear when his lips landed on Alec’s.

Dylan pressed Alec’s mouth open wide. Several damp,
hungry
kisses followed that left Alec little room for thought. Somewhere in the back of his brain, he realized this was their first real kiss. One that hadn’t started out fake or been dulled by the effects of alcohol.

Dylan tipped his head to take more. His tongue stroked Alec’s and sent a spike of pure pleasure straight to his groin, and every rational thought in Alec’s brain went on permanent sabbatical.

~~~***~~~

Dylan couldn’t remember the last time, if ever, the need to be inside someone tore through him with such intensity.

But as they’d sat at the restaurant, Dylan in the middle of a self-pitying sulk—and,
Jesus
, shouldn’t he have recovered from the loss of Rick by now?—Alec had tucked his hair behind his ear, exposing the line of his jaw. Dylan had been momentarily transfixed, imagining his tongue tracing the angle and his lips on the pulse at his neck. He longed to mark Alec’s skin. Dylan had spent the day trying to keep his hands off as promised, but he was suddenly struck by the insatiable desire to bury himself inside Alec and not come up for air.

The need was all consuming. Crushing. Driving him insane.

And right now felt too friggin’ far from what he had, which was fucking fabulous, to all that he wanted, which was
everything
. All of Alec splayed on his back, ankles over his head with Dylan buried deep in his ass. In an attempt to bring him closer, Dylan hooked his fingers in Alec’s jeans and maneuvered their bodies inside the room, trapping Alec against the wall.

Two hard cocks now pressed together through several frustrating layers of denim and cotton briefs.

“I need…” Dylan groaned against Alec’s mouth as he kicked the door closed. “You can’t—”

Leave me like you did before
.

Dylan dove in for another soul-drugging kiss before trying again. But the mental image of the two of them folded together like a pretzel was too much, mucking with his ability to speak. “I…
damn
—”

Just like that day at the clinic, the words tumbled chaotically in his mind. He struggled to arrange them in the correct sequence, but they escaped without consulting his brain. A rambling mess of “need” and “can’t” and “now” randomly slipped from his mouth between hot, messy kisses, in no particular order and with no particular meaning.

In a fumble of hands and flying fingers, Dylan worked on Alec’s clothes because he wanted them gone, gone,
gone
. Hips still trapping Alec against the wall, Dylan shoved Alec’s T-shirt over his head, static leaving a few wayward strands of hair sticking up in all directions. Dylan tossed the fabric aside and reached for Alec’s jeans.

Dylan got the button undone and grunted in victory, only to have things briefly deteriorate when Alec tried to help with Dylan’s shirt. Fingers skimming up Dylan’s chest, Alec hampered Dylan’s efforts, slowing him down. And when Alec reached Dylan’s nipples… Shit, now Dylan could barely see straight.

He batted Alec’s hands away. “Stop helping.”

Impatient, he wanted Alec naked
now
, because this wasn’t just about getting off. An orgasm wasn’t Dylan’s only intent. He wanted to be
inside
Alec when he came and to watch Alec’s face as he did. He wanted to see the color rise on his cheeks and the dark, I’m-so-close look in those blue eyes. He needed to feel Alec’s cum spill on his skin.

Dylan wrestled the front of Alec’s jeans into submission, flicking open the zipper before plunging his hand down the front. Two frustrating seconds passed as Dylan searched for the waistband of the briefs beneath.

Holy hell, he’d never felt so clumsy during sex before. His fingers finally tunneled inside and stroked the fully erect cock, hard, yet covered in the softest skin. Dylan circled Alec’s slit with this thumb, smearing the precum, and Alec choked back a sound that resembled something like a sob. And Dylan?

Dylan remained silent, so grateful to have Alec back in his arms he could barely breathe.

“Off,” Dylan grunted out.

Alec complied, pushing his jeans to the floor and kicking them aside. Dylan spun them both around and backed a gloriously naked Alec toward the center of the room. His mouth consuming soft lips, Dylan detected a hint of barbeque smoke and fresh air clinging to Alec’s hair as he steered with one destination in mind. One purpose.

One goal.

When they hit the bed, Dylan kept moving forward, and they both tumbled down, bouncing on the mattress.

Dylan landed on top of all that bare skin and let out a satisfied hiss. “Yes.”

One arm braced beside Alec’s head, Dylan bent forward, straining to unfasten his own jeans and still keep their lips sealed. The open-mouthed kisses turned downright filthy. Alec met him turn for turn, his tongue stroking Dylan’s, but his hands remained wrapped around Dylan’s biceps. Whether Alec was holding on because of the insane pace or because he refused to interfere again, Dylan wasn’t sure. With a grunt of satisfaction, Dylan finally got his jeans unzipped.

He only got as far as unfastening the front before he pulled out his dick and lowered himself down, too eager to take the time to remove his clothes. Their cocks lined up side by side as though they’d been waiting for the two men to get over themselves and get with the program, and Dylan let out a long, slow moan.

Because he so fucking agreed with the sentiment.

It dawned on him that he hadn’t asked Alec if this was okay, if Dylan was allowed to be here like this, stretched on top of him. But when Alec groaned and thrust his hips in search of friction, Dylan figured, at this point, asking the question would be pretty damn stupid.