Read The Best Man: Part Three (FINAL) for Free Online

high, and Patrick’s arm snakes out, dragging his palm along the length of Noah’s outstretched arm to his hand, holds it in a tight grip as if trying to anchor him back to reality.
    Noah sighs and peels his eyes open, stares blankly at the kitchen, the draining board full of the crockery he’d picked out with Connor one Sunday afternoon, the picture on the wall Connor’s mother gave them, the washing machine still full of his and Connor’s clothes. He doesn’t move, but awareness is creeping back in, bringing with it the icy claws of guilt. “What have we just done?”
    Patrick huffs against the skin of his back, turns his head to press his mouth to Noah’s shoulder. “What we had to.”
    That much is true. This tension’s been building for so long that it had to come to a head eventually. Although not like this; it shouldn’t have been like this.
    “God,” he groans. “I am so fucked.” And yet he still doesn’t move, even if the hard edges of this breakfast bar are digging into him, the chill of the tiles against his chest making him uncomfortable.
    Patrick’s still buried inside him, and he doesn’t want to move, and Patrick doesn’t seem inclined to either. Patrick laughs, low and dirty.
    “That’s the idea.”
    Noah can’t help huffing his own laugh at that, jabbing his spare elbow back in an attempt to catch Patrick with it. “No, you perv—I mean. This whole situation.” He sighs again, the happy high of his euphoria dwindling away, leaving behind emptiness, and nothing. “Marrying Connor and I’ve just slept with his best man.”
    They fall into silence, and Noah wonders what Patrick’s thinking. If he’s feeling guilt, thinking of his best friend. If he’s regretting this, in the way Noah should be, but isn’t.
    “Well,” Patrick says eventually, and then he’s standing up and peeling away, his cock slipping out, leaving Noah feeling the loss. “If we’re gonna fuck up, then we might as well do it with style.”
    Noah blinks, and he stands up as well, tugs up the trousers that are still bunched around his thighs. “What d’you mean?” he asks, and he turns to face Patrick, the breath knocking out of him at the sight of him. Flushed skin, glazed eyes, swollen lips, hair in total disarray. He looks like the very definition of fucked out and, god, Noah wants him, still, even now.
    “I mean…” Patrick smiles, trails a finger up Noah’s chest to this throat, then cups the side of his jaw, thumb brushing over his bottom lip. “I’m not done with you yet.” He dips in for a kiss and Noah lets him, their lips clinging as Patrick pulls away to add, “Let’s go to bed.”
    A hot shock of excitement and desire pierces Noah’s chest even as he frowns. “It’s one thing getting caught in the moment and doing something stupid,” he says, and then Patrick presses a soft kiss on his lips again, and then another, like he can’t stop, can’t get enough of him. When there’s a pause long enough to speak, Noah says, “Going to bed together now is making a choice.”
    “I know,” Patrick murmurs before going in for a deep, hungry kiss this time, stealing Noah’s breath from his lungs. When he’s finished, he pulls back and steps away and holds out his hand, his eyes dark and wanting. “You coming?”
    Noah swallows away the guilt that’s making him feel empty. Lets the look in Patrick’s eyes fill the emptiness, the way he’s just torn him apart at the seams and stitched him back together.
    He takes Patrick’s hand, and he follows him to bed.
    This time it’s slow. The urgency of before is gone, although the desperation for each other is still there. Patrick strips him of his remaining clothes, then removes his own, and they crawl into bed together, naked and kissing and clinging on.
    They do nothing but kiss for so long that Noah’s head swims with it, lost in this ocean of intimacy and the terrifying rise of emotion. He’s feeling things he never expected, feels like