“I know what people see when they look at me. I’m big, I’m intimidating, I’m scary. I learned to stay away from everyone, especially at night, and especially girls. They call the police if I get too close. Or, worse, pull their mace out. Guys want to try and fight me to prove something to themselves or to their bros. My professors usually discount me. They figure I’m just a jock and I won’t have much to contribute anyway. Or they’re starstruck. And I’m a hick from West Texas. I knew how to ride and shoot before I learned how to read, and I’m still more comfortable out on the ranch than I ever am around people. That’s what people see when they look at me: big, scary, dumb hick in a cowboy hat.”
“Jesus, Wes, that’s not at all what I think when I look at you. Not even close. I mean, yes, you’re big, but you worked hard to put on that strength. And yes, you’re a cowboy, and I can’t even tell you how much I don’t usually like cowboys, but…” Justin was babbling, his words running together, gesturing with his champagne flute. He shook his head. “You’re not dumb. Not at all. You have a full athletic scholarship, and you’re not a general studies major. I bet your GPA isn’t anywhere close to 2.5.”
“3.8,” Wes said softly.
“See? That’s a lot better than my GPA. And you’re not scary. Not at all. Not in any way. You’re the gentlest man I’ve ever met.”
Wes shifted. He rolled his champagne flute between his palms. Watched the bubbles rise and burst.
“Hey.” Justin’s fingers landed on his wrist, squeezing softly over his pulse. “Fuck anyone who thinks that about you.”
He set down his glass and grabbed Justin’s hand, kissed his fingertips. Laced their fingers together. “I’d rather only do that with you.”
“Well, I’d rather that, too.” Justin grinned, but there was a shadow in his gaze again, something that flitted across his features before vanishing as he downed a gulp of champagne. He set the flute on the patio table and stood, holding out his hand. “Take me home, cowboy. I need you to ravish me. Make love to me all night long.”
Wes dumped a handful of euros on the table as a tip and took Justin’s hand, looping it around his elbow. “Yes, sir.”
Later, Justin lay sprawled across Wes’s chest as the Paris night breeze dried their sweat. He tangled his fingers in the fur on Wes’s chest, dragging his fingernails across his pecs, dipping into the valleys of his muscles as they caught their breath. Wes had one hand in Justin’s hair, the other stroking over Justin’s thigh, hiked up and thrown across his hip.
“I meant it,” Justin said. He spoke to Wes’s neck, his words tickling the sweat that lingered on Wes’s stubble. “About how I’d rather you only fuck me.”
Wes pulled back enough to peer down at Justin. Gold glittered in Justin’s gaze, Paris’s eternal reflection.
“I know maybe I’m reading into things, and maybe this isn’t more than what it is. Maybe this is just Paris, just a summer fling. And if that’s all it is, I get it. I mean, I’ll accept it. I’m not going to chase you at school. But—”
“Justin.”
Justin’s mouth closed.
Wes brushed his lips over Justin’s. “There’s no one else. I don’t want there to be anyone else.” He kissed Justin again and again.
“Same,” Justin breathed. “That’s what I was trying to say. I only want you.”
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.”
He captured Justin’s lips before he could reply, rocked his hips back and forth, slid in and out of Justin as Justin’s legs wrapped around his waist. Wes thought of white swans, of Friday night lights, of racing down the field, sprinting past the linebackers, juking past the safety, and then nothing but yards of grass and the uprights in the end zone, waiting for him to bring it home.
And there in the end zone was Justin, smiling as the stadium wind ruffled his hair, holding out his hand to Wes.
He’d kissed Justin before he confessed how far he’d fallen, but he couldn’t stop the roar of his orgasm, the blaze—the sudden, searing rush—that followed his realization. Love, desire, craving, the run he’d been