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Brantley stopped and tilted his head up, and he knew that the question was in his eyes because Daniel lowered his head and took his mouth right there in the middle of the bar.

Brantley cradled Daniel’s face in his hands, sank his tongue deep between his lips, and thoroughly wiped all doubts and thoughts from his mind of him with anyone other than himself.

Chapter 28

DANIEL COULDN’T REMEMBER ever waking up and been so damn satisfied. Both his body and his soul felt complete, and it had everything to do with the man scooting in closer to his side.

He couldn’t help but smile at the memory of how Brantley had easily won Logan and Tate over. Who would’ve ever expected thathewould end up shooting the shit with those two for the night? But damn, he’d actually had fun.

After rolling to his side so he could mold his body to Brantley’s, he wrapped his arms around his waist and nudged his nose into the hair brushing his ear. “Time to wake up,” he said as he pushed his hips against Brantley’s ass.

The rumble of laughter that escaped him let Daniel know Brantley had been dozing, not really sleeping.

“I’m already awake.”

“Ahh, so you’ve been faking…”

Brantley shifted to his back and looked up at Daniel with a slow smile. “Faking? Ineverhave to fake with you, Finn.” He winked and then explained, “I couldn’t sleep since around five. When all the traffic started up.”

Daniel rested on his elbow as he looked down at Brantley’s disheveled hair. “I told you. Horns, sirens. You name it, you’ll hear it. Well, if I leave the window open.”

“I know. I guess I really am spoiled, waking up to the waves.”

“Umm…yeah,” Daniel said, and brushed a kiss across Brantley’s lips. “Not too many people get to sleep with their windows and doors open to the sound of the ocean.”

Brantley studied him carefully before he said, quite seriously, “You could.”

“Could I?”

Brantley nodded and reached up to stroke his fingers through his hair. “Or…I could buy earplugs.”

Daniel couldn’t help the loud laugh that slipped free. “Is that right?”

“Mhmm… As long as I get to go to sleep beside you and wake up there, I could adapt.”

Daniel stretched out over the top of Brantley, and when he parted his legs to accommodate him, Daniel settled in. “You’d really move up here? What about your job? You’re about to get tenure. I can’t ask you to give that up.”

Brantley took in a deep breath and ran his fingers down his jaw. “That’s the point. You didn’t ask. Trust me—when I first sent the letter, all I was thinking was how incredible it would be if, by some miracle, you came back home…came back to me. I know,” he said, shaking his head. “Selfish again?—”

“No,” Daniel interrupted. Then he leaned down to touch his lips to the corner of Brantley’s mouth. “Oddly…romantic. And very sexy.”

Brantley scoffed. “Sure. That’s why you turned up in such a romantic mood.”

Daniel chuckled and nipped at Brantley’s lip. “It may have taken me a little while to see it that way, but I did. And when I left?—”

“I know,” Brantley said. “It was the same with me. It wasn’t until you’d left that I knew I would do anything to have you forever, Finn. Anything. And how stupid would I be if I let you go because of a job? Mine or yours? Work isn’t what’s going to make me, us, happy…”

Daniel was sure Brantley could feel his heart pounding as it beat a mile a minute against his chest, because when his professor smiled at him like that, there was nothing in the world he wouldn’t give him.

Daniel loved this man. He’d known that seven years ago. And there was no way in hell he wasn’t about to do everything in his power to be with him and make him happy.

“So let’s say, hypothetically, that I quit my job yesterday… Would you think less of me?”

Brantley’s eyes widened, and the look on his face was so far removed from the soft one he’d just had that Daniel’s lips twitched at his shock.

“You did not.”

Daniel tightened his lips and nodded. “I’m afraid I did.”