Admiring Jesse Read online

  Was it wise to meet a stranger? And was my admirer even a stranger? He sure seemed to know a lot about me. Should I get others to come to the restaurant with me or take my chances since we’d be meeting in a public place?

  All these thoughts were running through my head still when later Gilbert came home. I had plopped down on the couch with the package next to me, doing little more than cruising the channels on our remote.

  Gilbert eyed the package next to me. “You get something else?”

  “Yeah. A video game. And an invitation to dinner.”

  He sat on the sofa on the other side of the package and picked it up. “Oh, cool, this is the game you’ve been wanting.”

  I nodded.

  “Enrique’s?” He smiled a little. “He does seem to know you a lot.”

  “Yeah. Should I? I mean, isn’t this whole thing just a little weird?”

  Gilbert seemed to think about that for a second, and then shrugged. “At least he chose a restaurant to meet you at. If you get any bad vibes you can leave.”

  “True.” I bit my bottom lip. “So you think I should go?”

  “What do you want to do, Jess?”

  “I guess I want to go. No one’s ever paid this much attention to me for Valentine’s Day. It’s kind of sweet. Weird, but sweet.”

  He laughed. “Yeah. Then go for it. If you want, I can stop by Enrique’s when you go to see if things seem on the up and up.”

  “Yeah? You’d do that?”

  “Of course.”

  * * * *

  I didn’t know what to wear, really, and was still wondering about it after I got out of the shower shortly before six the next night. I stood peering into my closet, wearing only my white terry cloth robe, when my doorbell rang.

  “Gil, are you going to get that?” I called out.

  But there was no answer from Gilbert and the doorbell rang again. I supposed maybe Gilbert had left our apartment while I was in the shower, because I knew he had been there before.

  Abandoning my clothing choices for the time being, I headed down the hall to the front door just as the doorbell rang a third time. I looked through the peephole and saw Gilbert standing there.

  Laughing, I opened the door. “Did you go to get the mail and lock yourself out again?”

  He shook his head. “No. These are for you.”

  I looked down and saw that he held a bouquet of a dozen blue carnations. He thrust them into my hands. “Were these left for me?”

  “No, Jess. I’ve come to pick you up for our date.”

  “Our…date?” Suddenly I couldn’t breathe as I stared into his very serious blue eyes. My heart beat hard and fast. “I don’t understand.”

  “I know. Can I come in?”

  Numbly, I stood aside to let him in and he closed our front door. “Gil?”

  He smiled now. Bright and beautiful. “It’s me, Jesse. I’m your admirer. I sent you all those gifts.”

  I swallowed, feeling more than a little disappointed as it dawned on me that Gilbert had likely just sent me all those things to be nice. To make this Valentine’s Day a little more special than the ordinary ones from years before.

  “Oh.” I nodded, trying to think of what I could say. For a few days it had been nice thinking maybe there really was someone out there who liked me.

  He blinked, looking at first confused, and then crestfallen. “I-I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “No, don’t be. I just, I guess, well, I thought, maybe I really did have an admirer.”

  “But, don’t you get it?” Gilbert asked.

  “Get what?”

  “You do. It’s me. Jesse, all those gifts, what they said, the notes, I feel that. For you. I want you to be my Valentine.”

  I could only stare at him, because I couldn’t form words to respond. It was like wanting something your whole life, or most of it, and finally being told that, yes, you can have it, and being so dumbfounded, you’re left speechless. I knew I had to say something because Gilbert was looking very uncertain and a little sad. I didn’t want that.

  “You—”

  “I can hardly believe it,” I finally managed to say. Here I was standing in nothing but my bathrobe hearing Gilbert say he wanted me. Me.

  He blew out a breath. “Do you think you could maybe feel the same way?”

  “Maybe?” And then I was giddy and smiling. The rush of happiness like being high. “I’ve had a crush on you since I was in the fifth grade.”

  “Only a crush?” But the frown, the sadness was gone, and replaced by a spark of hope. Which made me even happier.

  Still a bit hesitant, I took a step closer to him, close enough to reach for him if I wanted to take that chance. I could touch him. Put my hands on his arms or even put my arms around him.

  “I never dared hope for more,” I admitted. “Even now, you’re telling me you sent me those things, and it was because you’re…you’re interested in me. It’s like a dream. I don’t want to wake up and find out that only my subconscious made you my admirer.”

  Gilbert made the first move. He wrapped his arms around my waist and brought our bodies flush together. I had to crane my neck a bit to be able to look into his eyes. “You aren’t dreaming, Jess. I want you so much.”

  His hand cupped my jaw and he tilted my head back a little farther before sealing his lips over mine in our first kiss. I whimpered and locked my arms around his neck, desperately bridging the small bit of distance between us. I’d been kissed before, but it was never like this. Never this heady sense of complete rightness. Not to mention my dick rose to full attention within my robe and pressed unashamed into Gilbert.

  His hands lowered to grab my ass through the terry cloth robe. Teeth nipped my bottom lip, and then Gilbert sucked it into his mouth. Then we were coming up for air and he leaned his forehead on mine.

  “I wanted to come up with some big romantic gesture to get you to see it’s you I want. I never thought you’d think I was a stalker or something.” He laughed.

  “It was romantic and so sweet. But what about the meeting at Enrique’s?”

  “I wanted you to feel comfortable. I didn’t think you’d want someone you didn’t know to come pick you up here,” Gilbert said. “Our reservation really is at 7:30. I thought, you know, maybe.” And then to my surprise, he was blushing and trying not to meet my gaze.

  I laughed and kissed him. “You were hoping to get lucky first?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, guess what?” I reached my hand between our bodies and placed my hand over his prominent crotch. “You are.”

  Gilbert’s breath caught. “Happy Valentine’s Day to me. Come on.”

  He practically dragged me down the hallway to his room. I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind anything at that point because I was in a happy and excited haze.

  We faced each other, standing next to the bed, and then started kissing each other again. Over and over, like we couldn’t get enough, couldn’t get to know each other’s taste fast enough. I threaded my fingers through Gilbert’s blond hair and tried to climb up his body.

  He broke our lip lock to laugh a little. “Somebody’s eager. Lie down. I need to get the lube and condoms from the bathroom.”

  I shook all over as I dropped my robe to the floor and then lay naked on my back on the bed, my mind swimming with the words lube and condom. We were really going to fuck. Gilbert and me, it was really happening.

  I’d had sex before, but it was never like this, never with someone I wanted this much, cared about as much as I did Gilbert. It was wonderful and overwhelming at the same time.

  As I waited for him to reemerge, I wrapped my fingers around my cock, rubbing my thumb along the slit.

  “Hey, hey, don’t get too ahead of me,” Gilbert said when he came out holding a strip of condoms and a small bottle of lube. “I want to do that.”

  “I certainly won’t stop you.”

  I watched Gilbert shuck his clothes, leaving them pooled in a heap on the
floor as he came toward the bed looking very much like a predator.

  When he reached the bed, Gilbert kneeled next to me, and just when I thought he was going to lean over and kiss me, he scooted down between my legs and wrapped his hands around my cock, bringing it toward his mouth.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  His tongue was a little cold as it swiped over the bead of pre-cum on the tip, then twirled down the shaft, tracing the veins as he licked his way to my balls. I decided right then I had died and gone to heaven.

  Gilbert’s tongue lapped at my balls for a moment before it made its way back to the slit and then he opened his lips and drew my dick inside the moist heat of his mouth. I resisted the urge to shove myself down his throat, not wanting to choke him. But damn, it felt good. He grabbed the base of my cock and inched it deeper. Just as I thought he’d deep throat me, he pulled my dick out with a loud, wet smacking noise, before sucking it down again.

  I dug my fingers into the covers on his bed, my legs quivering, as the sucking became more intense, sometimes with Gilbert adding a scrape of teeth against my heated flesh.

  I’d not had a lot of blow jobs, but I determined right then I would definitely rectify that lack in my life. And I couldn’t wait to try out my own skills on Gilbert. I hoped there’d be plenty of opportunities for that.

  The tingling had started in my spine, the blessed indication I was getting close to release. I touched his hair. “I’m gonna come,” I warned.

  Gilbert nodded and sucked harder, deeper, taking me as far as I could go and I couldn’t stop myself from yelling his name, probably loud enough for our neighbors three floors away to hear us. For a long time after I had come, Gilbert continued sucking and swallowing until I was a mass of quivering jelly.

  He finally released me, staring down at me with a pleased and wicked grin.

  “Proud of yourself?” I managed to gasp out after a moment.

  “I am.” He reached for the lube and squirted out a large quantity onto his long fingers. “Can’t wait to be inside you.”

  I angled my ass so it would be easier for him to prepare me. He slipped two slick fingers inside me, stretching and probing. Even though it would be awhile before I would get hard enough it still felt good.

  After several minutes of stretching and prodding my prostate, Gilbert withdrew his fingers and rolled a condom over his erection. He lifted my legs high in the air, hoisting them onto his shoulders, and then pushed slowly inside me. As he thrust deep into me, grazing my prostate over and over, I couldn’t help feeling thrilled I was splayed out in Gilbert’s bed being totally fucked. He leaned over and kissed me, thrusting his tongue into my mouth to match his thrusts in my ass.

  And then he sped up, pounding into me hard and deep, fusing his lips to mine as I felt his body shake with the power of his orgasm. He groaned my name and collapsed on me.

  I wrapped my arms around him, wanting to feel this closeness.

  “I must be crushing you,” Gilbert said after a while. He withdrew from me and placed a soft kiss on my mouth before moving off the bed. A couple of minutes later he returned and lay down next to me. “We’ll have to get up in a few minutes to get ready for our reservations.”

  I nodded and snuggled up to him. “That was amazing. I can’t wait to do it again.”

  Gilbert laughed. “After dinner, I’m starving.”

  “Me too. I can hardly believe it was really you. You really were my admirer.”

  “Am. Nothing past tense about it. And it goes far beyond admiring, Jesse. I adore you.”

  Happiness bubbled up inside me and I just had to kiss him. Long and thoroughly.

  Gilbert slapped my ass. “Come on. Enrique’s is waiting.”

  * * * *

  I should say that was last year’s Valentine’s Day. We moved into the two bedroom and we use the second bedroom for a gym-office combination. Since then we’ve been through several holidays together.

  Easter isn’t usually a big deal to my family, but Gilbert and I were there for his niece and nephew’s Easter egg hunt.

  Independence Day we watched fireworks together huddled under a blanket in the park. Come Halloween, we dressed as Abbott and Costello, though I had to tell Gilbert who they were. For Thanksgiving and Christmas we did that crazy thing couples do where we tried to go to the gatherings at both families’ houses. And I shared my first midnight kiss with him on New Year’s Eve.

  “May I help you?” the hostess asked me as I stepped up to the podium at Enrique’s.

  I smiled. “I’m supposed to be meeting someone here.”

  “A lady?” she asked knowingly.

  “No, uh, a guy, actually.” I blushed a little and then felt stupid for it. I was not embarrassed to be gay or to be with Gilbert.

  She smiled. “No problem. Why don’t you peek inside and tell me if he’s here?”

  I walked around to peer into the dining room and there I saw Gilbert sitting at the same booth he’d reserved for us our first Valentine’s Day. Unable to keep the grin from almost splitting my face, I made a beeline for the table and leaned over to give him a soft kiss before sitting across from him.

  He grabbed my hand. “I was starting to wonder if I’d been stood up.”

  “Sorry, I got a customer at the last moment and she really wanted my help picking a gift for her husband.” I squeezed his hand. “But I couldn’t stop thinking about you and I couldn’t wait to be here.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I can hardly believe we’ve been together for a year. Before last Valentine’s Day, I thought being with someone like you would never happen for someone like me.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Someone like me? You got me. And trust me, Jess, there’s no one else I’d rather be with. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Gilbert picked up his menu. “Going to have the same thing you had last year?”

  “Yep,” I said. “You. And every year after this, too.” I took a small box out of my jacket pocket and put it on the table between us.

  He smiled quizzically at me. “What’s this?”

  My heart beating fast and hard, I said, “Open it.”

  I held my breath as he removed the top of the box to reveal two matching titanium masculine wedding bands. He was silent for so long my stomach fluttered with butterflies. I began to worry I’d made a huge mistake.

  But then finally he raised his gaze to mine and his eyes were shining. “Are you asking me what I think you are?”

  I nodded. “Your answer?”

  “Yes, definitely, yes.”

  “I know it’s not legal or anything, but we can do it anyway, right? And someday you’ll get to open your tea shop or even maybe we can do a bed-and-breakfast, and I can figure out what I’m going to do—”

  “Jesse,” he said, interrupting my babbling. “I said yes.”

  “Oh.” I laughed. “I know, I’m just a little happy.”

  “Only a little?” He leaned across the table and kissed me.

  “More than a little. Do we have to eat dinner or can we go straight home to bed?”

  Gilbert grinned and shook his head. “Pick your food. We have the rest of our lives, Jesse.”

  And we did.

  THE END

  ABOUT SHAWN LANE

  Shawn Lane is a multi-published author of gay romances and believes love and passion know no boundaries. Happily Ever After is for everyone.

  She has been published by Loose Id, Ellora's Cave, Amber Quill Press, Dreamspinner Press, and Evernight Publishing.

  Shawn lives in California and holds down a boring day job in a legal department of a giant corporation dreaming of the nights and weekends when she can create new stories.

  For more information, visit smlgr8.blogspot.com.

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