Page 14 of Finley
Daniel drained the rest of his drink and was about to tell Derek to can it, when Brantley Hayes finally stepped through the sliding doors and out onto the balcony. Daniel slowly lowered his arm and took a step away from his friend, who’d discreetly slipped back into the crowd of people, and as his eyes traveled up to latch on to the man who’d snared his attention, his heart skipped and his cock throbbed.
Professor Hayes, dressed for work in preppy sweaters and dress slacks, was undeniably hot. ButBrantleyHayes, relaxed and casual, had always been fucking irresistible.
As people shuffled around him, Daniel willed Brantley to look at him, wanting that first eye contact. And when he finally had it, the expression there just about brought Daniel to his knees.
The joy that lit Brantley’s unusual-colored eyes was evident as he gazed at him, but it was the intense focus and determined set of his jaw that had Daniel two beats away from climbing the stairs and dragging him to his bedroom.
It appeared that Brantley Hayes had definitely received his note this morning, and he was telling him in no uncertain terms that whatever reason had brought him back home, he wasmorethan willing to explore what was currently sparking back to life between them.
Daniel refused to look away from the one watching him, and he was just about to head up the stairs when gentle fingers landed on his arm.
“Finn?”
Brantley raised his wine glass slightly in acknowledgment and then let his eyes move just beyond his shoulder.
Fuck, not now. Not fucking now,he wanted to say. But he didn’t. Instead, he tore his gaze away, figuring he’d track that man down soon after he’d dealt with whatever his mother needed him for.
“Finn, there’s someone who wants to say hello to you. You remember Kathy, don’t you? Her son is thinking about going into law next year, and he wanted to pick your brain about Chicago.”
Fantastic,he thought as he looked back to the balcony. Brantley was now talking with another man who had his back toward him, and it wasn’t until they both turned his way that Daniel realized exactly who it was—Professor Jordan Devaney.
“They’re just over here,” his mother said as she pulled him through the bevy of people drinking and eating.
Several of them gave him a wave and said a quick “Welcome back” as he brushed by, but he didn’t give a flying fuck what anyone other than the two men watching him was saying.
It was obvious that he was the topic under discussion by the fierce observation he was currently being subjected to. Brantley was speaking quietly with his colleague, whose eyes were boldly tracking over Daniel with no subtlety whatsoever.
When he caught the man’s appreciative gaze, Daniel narrowed his eyes and then looked to Brantley. He was watching him with just as much focus, but the reaction Daniel had to him was completely different.
He wantedthatundivided attention. In a room. Alone.
He slicked his tongue across his lower lip and let his eyes linger over every inch he could see of Brantley. The long legs he’d once entwined his with. The dark, windswept hair that was cut perfectly around his ears but still long enough to hit the collar of his shirt—and the dusting of grey through it, and at his temples, which was new. New and totally fucking sexy.
When they’d first met, Daniel had spent way too many hours thinking about and trying to decide what color Brantley’s eyes were. In the end, he’d come to the conclusion that it all depended on the light. At the moment, he was too far away to see, but soon, he would be close enough to notice if they were the dark green they became when his professor was aroused, or that gorgeous peridot shade they were any other time of the day.
Gorgeous eyes in an already-too-handsome face. Brantley Hayes was in a class all of his own when it came to men.And fuck,Daniel thought, he was still the pinnacle of perfection in his eyes.
From the top of his thick hair to the tips of his Italian loafers, he was brains, class, and sex, and in those khaki shorts and black linen button-down shirt, Daniel wanted to touch every part of him.
Touch him, fuck him, and then forget him.
When Daniel brought his attention back to both men, Brantley’s friend leaned in toward him and whispered something that had his professor raising his wine glass and draining it.
“So, Daniel,” an unfamiliar voice said from over his shoulder.
He sighed in resignation. The quicker he spoke with this guy and his mother, the quicker he could track down the one eyeing him from the balcony.
“YOU ARE SO fucked,Professor Hayes.”
“Would you keep your voice down?” Brantley muttered before he drained his glass and watched Daniel turn away from them.
It wasn’t that he disagreed with Jordan’s observation. He just didn’t want everyone else around them to know his predicament.
Christ. The potent man who had just been led away by Camille Finley was in no way, shape, or form the same young man he remembered.Oh, no…Daniel Finley, my Finn,had most definitely changed. And damn, if he’d been nervous before, he couldn’t deny the way his pulse was now thrumming. Daniel had grown into, quite possibly, the sexiest man he’d ever laid eyes on.
Tall—yes.
Muscular—yes.