The Alpha's Widower by Susi Hawke
Chapter One
Laurie
“Ding, Dong the Dick is Dead”
“Matty, can you get the door please? I need to get the soap out of Kiki’s eyes. How she managed to go from blowing bubbles to wearing it is beyond me,” I grumbled as I lifted my screaming daughter onto my hip and headed to the kitchen sink.
“Okay, Dad. But will you make Chris quit banging on the table? It’s bugging me,” Matty shot his brother a glare as he went to answer the door.
My younger son had one ear pressed to the table while he banged different pieces of silverware against it in a non-stop audio assault of Bang! Bang! Bang!
While it was obnoxious as hell to the rest of us, Chris couldn’t hear it. I could only assume he was focusing again on the different vibrations the various implements made as they struck the dented laminate surface.
The doorbell rang again with three insistent ding-dongs while Matty leisurely made his way through the dining area and around the corner to the foyer. I kept an ear out to see who was at the door, while laying Kiki back over the sink and using the sprayer to wash the soap from her face.
“Ow! Daddy, noooo! That stings!” she shrieked, her high-pitched voice and the rushing water adding to the din in the room.
“Shh, I know, baby. Keep your eyes closed, let Daddy help you,” I soothed as I quickly worked to remove the offending soap.
The temperature in the room dropped about ten degrees when a frigid voice spoke above the melee a few seconds later.
“I see things are about as well organized as they were the last time I was here. No wonder my son could never remember where he lived. I wouldn’t want to come home either if this was what I had to face. Honestly, didn’t they teach you how to run a household in that backwater village where you were spawned, Laurence?”
Straightening my back, I focused on Kiki and bit back the angry retort I wanted to give. No, it wasn’t worth the energy to get into it with Tristan’s mother. Even he called her the Ice Queen. But… still. His mother, his right... not mine. My job was to be the dutiful omega husband who never spoke a word out of turn, even to this bitch.
“Hello, Helen. I will be with you in a moment. Kiki had a little issue with her bubbles a few minutes ago, and we’re getting soap out of her eyes. Perhaps you’d like to sit down while you wait?”
I didn’t bother looking at her to see the upturned, sneering lip and raised brow I knew were being sent my way.
“Bubbles? How on earth could a child be hurt by those? Aren’t they non-toxic? Only you would find toxic bubbles. And why was a three-year old like Kimberley playing with them without supervision? You know, Laurence, if you’d only let us hire you a nanny like proper families are meant to use, the children wouldn’t be injured by toxic bubbles. And what in the world is the deaf one doing pounding on the table? Should he really be allowed to handle forks and knives? Don’t you know that deficient children need more supervision than abled ones, Laurence?”
“Chris isn’t stupid! He just can’t hear,” Matty interrupted in defense of both his brother and me. “He likes to pound on things because he can feel the noise it makes. See? That’s why his ear is against the table. And Kiki’s bubbles aren’t toxic, I swear! It’s because soap hurts if you get it in your eyes.”
“I’m done now, Daddy! Let me get down, please.” Kiki’s bright blue eyes popped open imploringly as soon as I shut off the water. Whether or not she was still in any discomfort, she was in a rush to go inspect her rarely seen grandmother.
“Hold on, Kiki. Let me dry you first.” I grabbed a clean dish towel and quickly wiped her face dry before setting her down. I took a little longer than necessary to wipe the sink area and gather my wits before turning back to face the she-devil from Sherman Oaks. Also known as Helen Adams, my bitch of a mother-in-law.
Turning to her with my best socially-approved smile, I found her still standing in the doorway between the dining room and kitchen. She was visibly scanning the room, looking for any signs of filth or neglect that would solidify her bad impression of me. Biting back a sigh, I looked at Matty.
“Sweetie, would you ask Chris to stop now so I can hear myself think? Tell him to bring me the silverware to wash while I put on tea for your grandmother, please.”
Matty rushed to comply, while Helen shook her head. “Tea won’t be necessary. I don’t intend to stay in this hovel for a moment longer than I must to deliver my news.”
Mercifully, Matty had silenced Chris and the room was suddenly still. It was so quiet, in fact, that I could hear the blood rushing in my ears from the sudden cessation of noise. Then Kiki started in.
“Hi, Grandma Adams! Can I have a hug?” she held her chubby arms up with a winsome smile to her grandmother. Helen shook her head and took a step back.
“No, dear. You’re all wet. Just... run along and play with your dolls. I need to speak to your father. We will visit when you come live at Grandmere’s house this weekend. Go on now.” She made a shooing motion that would have pissed me the fuck off if I hadn’t paused at what she’d insinuated.
Was Tristan planning to make us go live with his parents? Had he not paid the rent again on yet another house? Please, please tell me this isn’t so. I couldn’t move a third time in two years, and especially not to the seventh layer of hell that was the Adams Estate.
“Matty, take your brother and sister outside and play, please. Stay in the backyard where I can see you, and tell Chris to stay away from the gardening tools. I need to speak to your grandmother privately.”
Helen’s eyes narrowed as she watched Matty patiently sign to Chris while Kiki ran to wait by the sliding door for her brothers. Helen turned back to me with a sneer.
“Does Matty do all the parenting around here? You do realize my heir is only seven, yes? Surely you can manage to do more than supervise chaos? One would hope you were at least capable of feeding them properly. I’m not sold on your cleaning abilities, so there must be something you bring to the table around here, hmm?”
Not needing to defend my parenting skills, I walked over to the table and pulled out a chair for her highness then stood behind the chair opposite her, my arms resting on its back as I leaned over it.
“Please have a seat, Helen. Perhaps you could begin by telling me what’s earned me this rare privilege of a surprise visit?”
She took a handkerchief from her bag and dusted the chair and table edge before daintily sitting down on the edge of the seat with her hands stiffly clutching her purse.
Dressed immaculately in a mauve pants suit with low heels and her ever-present string of pearls, Helen made an attractive picture to those who didn’t know her intimately.
Her make-up was perfectly applied, and her short, auburn hair curled as though she’d just left the salon. Even her French manicure was perfectly glossy and without a smudge.
“I’ve come with news, Laurence. Nelson and I received a call from the sheriff last night, just past midnight.” Forgetting that she’d used it to wipe away the imaginary dirt from my table and chair, Helen lifted the hankie she still had clutched in her hand and dabbed at her dry eyes with it. “Tristan has been taken from us, Laurence.”
“Excuse me? Taken? I don’t understand...” I was confused and babbling, but I honestly had no idea what was happening right now. “Why did the sheriff call you and not me? Was there a ransom demand?”
Helen lowered her handkerchief and shot me a withering glare. “No, you imbecile. Not kidnapped, taken. He is deceased, Laurence. Nelson’s office is arranging the cremation as we speak.”
I moved around and dropped down onto the chair, completely shell-shocked. “Wait. Excuse me? Shouldn’t I be the one to make these decisions? And why wasn’t I the one notified? I don’t understand. Wait... Tristan is... gone?”
“This right here is a perfect example of why you’re not the one handling things. Tristan lived on our benevolence, and we will decide how our son is interred and remembered. As for your other question, the sheriff called us so the senator had warning that his heir had been found dead in a car wreck with an omega whore. Both of them had been drinking, and there were drugs on the scene. Nelson had quite the mess to clean up, let me tell you. If you’d kept my son happy, he wouldn’t have been out behaving like that, I know that much is true.”
Ignoring her accusations, I focused on the meat of the story. Tristan hadn’t come home for the past three days because he’d been out on another bender with a sex worker, huh? Figures. I stared past Helen at our three children playing in the yard, wondering how I would tell them.
Tristan hadn’t been the most involved parent when he’d bothered to be home, but he was still their father. I’d long ago come to terms with the fact that the alpha I’d thought I’d married back when I was an innocent college student wasn’t the reality of the man I’d ended up with, but I’d tried to keep the worst of his unpleasantness from the children. Even now, I still found myself defending the bastard to his mother.
“Helen, he didn’t live on your benevolence. We both know that Tristan worked hard managing his father’s public relations department. He earned every dime he made.”
She snorted in a rarely seen inelegant manner. “Please. Cards on the table, Laurence. It’s just us here, right now. My son had gambling problems that constantly sent him running to his father for monetary help. Add in the drugs, alcohol and his penchant for cheap omegas, and my son wasn’t the poster child for working hard. Now. Let me tell you what’s going to happen. I’m not paying for you to remain in this house, and my son left no provision for you to inherit from his trust, which means you’re now dependent on my good will.”
“Excuse me? I’m his husband, and the father of his children.” I looked up at her in confusion. “Why wouldn’t I inherit?”
Helen dabbed her eyes one last time then put her hankie away in her purse before looking back at me triumphantly. “You are eligible to receive your joint assets. Since you own no property and his trust is in our family name, that only leaves you with whatever pittance you have in your personal accounts. The trust is in the name of the Adams Family Foundation and goes to the current Adams heir at the age of thirty. Tristan would have been thirty next month. Now, since he hadn’t received it yet, it reverts to the next heir, Matthew.”
I blink at her in disbelief. “You’re cutting us out because his birthday was three weeks away? And now it’s all going to Matty? Doesn’t that mean I’ll be in charge of it as his parent anyway?”
She shook her head. “No. I am the executor of the trust, not you. Matthew will receive it at age thirty. Until then, he will live with us and we’ll see to his education. We’ll take the broken one and the girl as well, don’t worry. You’ll have twenty-four hours after the funeral on Thursday to vacate this house and turn the children over to me. If you don’t raise a fuss, I’ll grant you supervised visitation once a month and settle a small allowance on you.”
An icy smile crossed her face then. “Fight me on this, and you’ll get nothing. I’ll still get the children, either way. Trust me, Pumpkin. You’re an omega with no ability to provide for them, and their grandfather is a senator. Now, I need to be on my way, there will be people bringing cards and flowers for my loss. I need to be home to receive them. You’ll receive the information about the funeral from Nelson’s assistant, Sandra. Do not embarrass the family. If you or the children need proper funeral attire, let Sandra know.”
Before I could even formulate a response, she was up and leaving the room, without so much as a backward glance for her grandchildren. I heard the front door firmly close a few moments later, and bowed my head with relief. The only evidence remaining from her impromptu visit was the scent of Chanel no. 5 floating in the air.
Despite how he’d died, and the fact that there’d been no love left between us since Kiki’s birth—a birth he hadn’t bothered to attend—I still couldn’t help the tears that were already welling up from the news of his death. Tristan was a shitty husband, and a spoiled trust fund baby who’d preferred to be out on the town rather than home with his family...
But... he was also the father of my children. And an alpha who I’d given my word to love, honor, and cherish until death did us part. Well, I guess we were parted now. And even if I wasn’t in love with him anymore, I still mourned the loss of the boy I’d once known. The young alpha who’d had stars in his eyes and a silver tongue filled with promises.
Ah, well. I stood and steadied myself, then walked over to the door. I needed to let the children know, and then after they were in bed later, I’d give into my own tears for the loss of life and figure out what I’d do next.
I had three days to figure it out, because come hell or high water, I’d be leaving here with my children after that funeral and not looking back. No matter what I had to do, I would not let them be taken away from me to live on that cold estate, and be sent to boarding schools like their father before them. No, my babies would remain with me, thank you very much.
A fresh wave of nausea hit me then, and I rubbed my flat stomach with a sigh. Yes. All of my babies would be raised by me, without any interference from the Adams’.
* * *
It was nearly midnight as I stowed the last of the luggage into the back of my minivan. The car was the one thing that had, thankfully, been only in my name and safe from Helen’s touch. Between that and the eleven hundred dollars and forty-seven cents I’d pulled when I’d closed our accounts yesterday, I had what I needed to get my family out of here and back to the home town I’d left in the dust over a decade before.
I’d spoken to Gramps and he’d been all-too-happy to welcome me and “the tykes” into his home. Fresh country air and farm living would be good for all of us. It was time to leave the city and the reach of Helen Adams behind, and go home where I belonged. It was time to go back to MacIntosh Meadows.
After I roused Matty and Chris, I sent them to use the bathroom one last time while I got Kiki up and ready for the trip. Once they were all settled safely into their various seats and belts, I ran back in and did one last check around the house to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything of importance. Everything else could be sold by the landlord, or whoever wanted to deal with it.
When I turned off the lights and locked the door behind me, I pressed a palm to the cheap plywood and said a silent goodbye to the life I’d led here, and the husband I’d lost. Turning with a sad smile, I went out and got myself settled into the van and started the engine. I was ready for our new beginning.
Chris and Kiki fell asleep before I left the driveway, but I could feel Matty’s eyes on me in the dark vehicle as I made my way toward the interstate.
“Where are we going, Dad?” He asked finally. He spoke in a rarely-heard, soft, almost hesitant voice.
“We’re going to my hometown, to live with Grampa Harold. You’ll like it, Matty, trust me. Gramps lives on a farm, and there are a lot of animals. He’s excited to finally meet you guys.”
“He’s the old man who sends us two dollars in our birthday cards, right? And that gross fruitcake thing at Christmas?”
I chuckled quietly. “Yeah, that’s him. Two dollar bills and fruitcake.”
After a few moments thought, Matty spoke again. “Why haven’t we met Grampa Harold before, Dad? Or gone to see his farm?”
Not wanting to speak ill of the dead, I shrugged. “Your father always had a lot going on with his job at your grandfather’s office, you remember. We always meant to go visit, but every time I’d plan a trip home, something came up.”
“Did Papa not like your Gramps? Or was it because he lived on a farm instead of in a nice estate?”
Trust a kid to hit it on the nose with the truth. “Hmm. I wouldn’t say your father disliked Gramps, it was just... bad timing?”
“Okay, Daddy. I suppose that’s probably true.” I knew from his tone of voice that Matty wasn’t buying what I was selling, but he was either feeling polite or was simply too tired to argue. “When will we be there?”
I merged onto the southbound ramp of the highway and smiled back at Matty’s reflection in the rearview mirror. “If we don’t have to stop too many times? Sometime Saturday afternoon, I’d say. It’s about eight hundred miles, and I’ll need to stop at a motel tomorrow night so I can sleep instead of driving the whole way.”
“Wow. I hope you brought Chris’ crayons and Kiki’s dolls then. Because this is going to be a long trip if the kids get bored, you know.”
I smiled at him not lumping himself in with the kids. “Don’t worry, buddy. I’ve got activity bags back there for each of you, and a full bag of snacks next to the drink cooler. We’re all set, I promise.”
Matty yawned and leaned back to watch the lights go by outside his window. “Okay, Daddy... love you.”
“I love you too, Matty.”
Tequila Mockingbird by Rhys Ford
Prologue
You cracked me open
Sucked out my filthy core
Held my heart in your hands
And gave in when I begged for more
—Begging Again
“FUCKING HELL,” Forest spat as he fell back into the garbage again. The damned Dumpster’s sides were too tall. Or he was too short. Either way, he couldn’t get the hell out of the thing, and his arms were now shaking from the numerous times he’d tried.
The last thing he wanted was to be there in the morning. Someone would find him, and that someone would bring down the cops on his head. Cops meant social services, and that meant he’d be spending a good amount of time fighting to get out of plastered walls and plastic suburbia.
He’d rather die in the Dumpster.
He just didn’t know if he could try to get out again.
He hurt so damned much.
Mostly—this time—it was his face. It definitely was his jaw. Or maybe his cheek. Whichever. He just knew he hurt. He tried to remember who told him to always trust guys in a minivan, but Forest couldn’t recall where he’d gotten that information. Whoever it’d been, he’d kick the guy’s ass whenever he found him again.
Because apparently guys in minivans with those happy little sticker children on the back glass really didn’t want to pay for their hand jobs ahead of time.
Now Forest was in a Dumpster because minivan guy thought it would be fun to toss him in there when he was done beating the shit out of him, and he still didn’t have more than fifty cents on him.
Fifty cents did not go a long way when someone needed food. Even dog-food tacos cost two for a dollar, and tax ate up a nice piece of the money pie all on its own.
“Yeah, Mrs. Whatever-the-fuck-your-name-is, tell the principal I’m stupid,” Forest muttered as he glared at the Dumpster’s too-high edge. “Go hungry for a bit, bitch, and you learn math real fucking quick.”
He heard a door slamming—a heavy thick-sounding door—and he froze, hating himself for holding his breath because it was stupid, and doing so made his chest hurt. There were bruises there too, Forest was sure of it, and his back wasn’t doing too good either. From the familiar throbbing along his spine, he was going to be pissing blood as soon as he had to take a pee.
Something slippery under him gave, and Forest went down, biting his tongue when he hit the hard floor. He tasted blood—for the third or fourth time that night—and the light from the streetlamps spun, leaving trails of stars on his eyes.
Swallowing at the salty taste in his mouth, he sighed, “Fuck me.”
A SCRATCHING sound caught Franklin Marshall’s attention. It shouldn’t have. Not in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown where the rats grew fat and happy on some of the best cuisine from the other side of the Pacific. No, this sounded different than a rat or any other kind of vermin he normally found in the middle of the night when he was dumping out the empties from his recording studio.
This sounded oddly human. Not so much the scratching but the murmuring noises accompanying them.
And it was coming from the open Dumpster at the end of the alley.
The Sound was a legacy of a hippie co-op he’d once been a part of. As his former lovers shaved their beards, or armpits as the case may be, and drifted off to respectability, he’d remained behind, mixing records for young artists with more talent than money and certainly with less sense than most. A decade ago, he’d finally gotten sick of the restaurant next door changing hands more often than a five-year-old girl changed her clothes, and he’d bought the place out, called it Marshall’s Amps, and turned it into a lounging coffee shop where he could get a good cup of Big Island coffee whenever he wanted.
With the bad restaurant-roulette gone, the vermin population dropped dramatically, but every once in a while, something—or someone—came creeping around, and Frank was forced to move whatever or whomever it was along.
He was too tired to care. All Frank wanted was to toss the trash out and go pack a bowl.
And at three o’clock in the morning, rousting an undesirable from a Dumpster was sometimes quite dangerous, and Frank knew he wasn’t getting any younger. There was only so much more damage an aging hippie musician could take before he’d have to start begging one of the studio guys to come help him change a lightbulb because he’d gotten the shit kicked out of him by a crackhead.
He put the bottles into the recycle bin and set a box of leftover pizza on the café table he’d set up under his RV’s awning. Ever since the city banned smoking within spitting distance of anything or anyone, he’d given up living in the apartment over the studio and instead opted to toss his bag of bones onto a queen-sized mattress in an old motor home. Owning a building was a headache and a half, but owning a parking lot smack-dab in the middle of Chinatown more than made up for the hassle. Especially since he’d found he rather liked living in a quasi-Gypsy state.
It was a long, cold walk to the Dumpster. Set in the tiny alley between his building and the street-front strip of stores backing the private parking lot he’d parked his motor home on, he’d agreed to let the stores use it for their daily trash on the condition they kept it as clean as they could. Still, people had to eat, and they tossed their leftovers into the Dumpster without thinking to close the lid to keep scavengers out. Frank really hoped it was a possum like last time instead of some old man looking for something to eat.
He needed to go grocery shopping, and short of giving a homeless guy a half-eaten jar of peanut butter and a spoon, he had nothing in the RV for a handout. Sure, he could have sacrificed the pizza, but there was going to be a nice tight bowl of Tai before he crashed for the night, and his stomach might catch a second wind by then. Leftover pizza came in handy for second winds.
His sneakers squeaked on the rain-damp blacktop, and as Frank got closer, it became apparent his vermin didn’t walk on four legs and certainly wasn’t an old man. Not by a long shot. Instead, the Dumpster appeared to be hosting a different kind of scavenger—one in the form of a rather scrawny preteen boy.
And like the possum he’d scared the shit out of the last time, the boy froze to a dead stillness when he heard Frank approach, the faint lights from the street beyond catching his eyes and turning them a demonic gold when he cocked his head to spy on Frank over the lip of the battered green bin. If anything, the boy’s hiss certainly was more possum-ish and less grumbling homeless guy looking for aluminum cans to cash in.
Frank cleared his throat and called out to the boy, “Hey—”
That single word spurred the boy into action, and he grabbed at the Dumpster’s edge to hoist himself up. Either he was too short or the rhino covering the interior of the bin was too slick because the boy couldn’t get traction, and he slid back down the side, landing in the—hopefully—mostly paper trash around him.
“Fuck!”
As swear words went, it was an elegant growl—fluid and heartfelt with a tinge of bitterness to flavor its edges.
It also sounded way too world-weary to come from such a young boy.
Because as Frank drew even closer to the Dumpster, he caught sight of the golden hummingbird of a boy trapped inside of the steel bin and instantly took back a few of the years he’d given him.
But then he poured all of those years—and more—back into his assessment of the boy’s dark, liquid eyes.
As kids went, this one was scrawny—dirty-chicken scrawny with a side of bone—barely enough meat on his frame to do more than move his lanky limbs. A mop of tangled, dirty-blond hair covered most of the boy’s face, but what Frank could see straddled the line between delicate and masculine. Sitting on the verge of puberty, the kid should have been fuller in the face, even a bit chunky around the middle as his body stored up fuel for that impressive height jump from child to man.
When that jump came for this kid, his body wasn’t going to have anything to feed his growth. There was barely enough energy stored in his flesh to leave his skin supple, and Frank winced at the crackle of dry skin on the boy’s downy cheeks, a telltale sign the kid wasn’t eating.
As if the jut of his breastbone and rib cage through the thin fabric of his filthy T-shirt wasn’t enough of a clue.
There was a lot of dead in the kid’s gaze. Dead and suspicion, with more than a few ladles of fear. All of that was wrapped up tight with ribbons of challenging aggression. Frank would have been more cautious if it weren’t for the bruises blackening the right side of the kid’s face or his swollen lip turned deep purple where something had cut it.
Even in the wane of the streetlamp light, anyone with sense in his mind and eyes in his head could see the boy’d taken more than a few knocks from life on his chin. And from the chunk of enamel missing in one of his front teeth, he’d taken more than one blow to the mouth too.
“Do you need some help there, kid?” Frank called out loud enough for the boy to hear him over the rustle of paper and debris. The kid ignored him and continued to flounder, grabbing at the lip for another attempt.
Another struggle to get out of the bin and the boy hit bottom again, a flailing bundle of arms, legs, and curses strong enough to fuel Moses’s drive out of Egypt.
“Here, give me your hand,” Frank said, reaching into the bin. “You’re too short. You’re never going to get out of there without some help.”
“Fuck off, old man. I’m fine.” The kid growled and shoved as much of his ratted-together hair out of his face as he could manage.
“Okay, so you’re fine.” Leaning over the edge of the Dumpster opening, Frank looked down into the bin. Despite being a day after pickup, the Dumpster was fairly clean. “Tell you what. I’m going to toss in this wooden box for you to sit on while you think about how to get the fuck out of there and walk away. If you want to shut the lid when you’re out, that would be appreciated. I don’t like thinking someone’s cat might get into one of these things and get turned into a smashed meat pancake because it was open.”
He grabbed one of the discarded shelving boxes the clothing store left stacked up near the Dumpster and tossed it in. The kid jumped back, lifting his feet out of the trash. Glaring up at Frank, he pinned himself against the far wall, coiled up tight, as if waiting for an attack that only Frank knew would never come.
“Now, I’m going to head off to bed. There’s some leftover pizza I’m going to leave out on the table. Grab something to eat and go home, kid.” Large drops of water began to strike the Dumpster’s open lid, rumbling a deep percussion through the thick black plastic.
“Yeah, like I’m going to fucking eat something you leave out—”
“It’s up to you, kid.” Frank shrugged, scratching at his thick graying beard. “Just see if you can close the lid. If not, I’ll do it in the morning.”
He walked away. He had to. The boy’s eyes were burning into him, stealing past the lazy haze of his apathy toward children and his resolute stance on people getting a few handouts, but lifelines were something a person had to braid themselves. Walking away from the kid should have been easy. Even if he couldn’t shake off the wince of pain when the boy pressed his back into the Dumpster or the whimper when he’d landed on his back amid the piles of discarded plastic bags and tissues.
Frank put one foot in front of the other and entered the RV, closing the door behind him with a firm snick. After digging out the chartreuse and orange bong he’d gotten from a friend’s little girl, he sat down to pack in a bowl before he allowed himself to sleep.
Not that he thought he’d be able to sleep with the image of the boy’s haunting face floating behind his eyes.
He was drawing out his first gurgle of smoke when he heard the Dumpster cover slam shut, the lid hitting the bin’s rim with a singsong chime. He’d regret leaving the pizza, especially since he really didn’t think the kid would chance eating it. There’d been talk around the neighborhood of more than one street kid getting roofied and fucked after being given food by strangers.
Bad enough people poisoned cats and dogs. Did they have to go after the kids too? Frank thought as he finished up his hit. The rain struck, drowning out even the pull of his inhale through the bong’s skunky water, and Frank sighed, wondering if he was going to be hit with a raging case of the munchies just because all he had was peanut butter and possibly—now—soggy pepperoni pizza.
When Frank woke up in the early afternoon, the rain was still intent on sliding the city into the bay, and he smacked his lips, tasting a serious need for a toothbrush and possibly a cigarette. Just not in that order. Grabbing his smokes from the RV’s slender kitchen counter, he headed outside to shiver under the awning. Having forgotten about the boy, he stared at the empty box of pizza sitting on the café table outside of his door.
Two quarters on the lid were the only evidence left of the kid’s existence—that and a note scrawled on the inside of the box. The pen the kid used seemed like it was on its last legs or perhaps had higher aspirations on being a tattoo machine for all the ink it leaked. Still, the uneven scrawl was easy enough to read, even if it was a bit misspelled.
“Money’s all I got, but next time I’m around, I’ll give you a blow job, ’cause I took the rest of it and it was a lot. Thanks—Forest.”
“Well shit and Jesus Christ, kid.” Frank frowned as he read the note. “What the fuck has the world done to you?”
IT BECAME a game of cat and mouse—although Frank wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be the cat or the mouse, but it definitely was a game of some kind because not long after the Great Pizza Incident, he found himself lurking in the parking lot hoping the Dumpster kid would show his face again.
Frank left food out and got notes in return—sometimes accompanied by small trinkets, like a beaded bracelet or a Golden Gate keychain. He wore the bracelet, and the tiny metal icon now hung from the RV’s rearview mirror. After a month and a half of chasing the blond kid’s trail, Frank came out of the Amp’s back door with a bag of In-N-Out he’d meant to leave for the boy when he found himself staring at a very filthy Forest sitting at the same café table they’d exchanged food and notes on.
If anything, the kid looked even worse than the first time Frank’d seen him, and the overly hungry look on Forest’s face made his stomach clench in sympathy. There were frozen burritos he could microwave. The Double-Doubles in the bag were going to the kid, even if Frank had to shove them down Forest’s throat.
“Here,” Frank said, tossing the bag to the boy. “Have some dinner.”
“I don’t take handouts,” Forest growled as he dug into the bag and pulled out one of the thick cheeseburgers. “I told you I’d do you for the food.”
“I’m not into little boys.” Frank groaned when he eased into one of the chairs.
“But you keep giving me food,” the kid pointed out through a mouthful of meat and fries. “You gotta want something.”
“Maybe I just don’t want you out on the street.”
“Yeah right, because everyone’s just lining up to take other people’s kids. Whatcha want? Blow or hand?” Forest yanked at the air with his fist. “I’m better with my hand. I can’t throat it right, but I’m working on it.”
The kid’s words hit Frank hard, and he blinked, unsure about what to do with the lump in his throat. “Tell you what, kid. How’d you like a job? I need some help in the studio.”
Can't Touch by Chara Croft
1
Tyson
Being back on campus a week after spring break shouldn’t have been a relief, but not gonna lie, I’d fucked so many twinks over the break that my dick had felt raw when I’d come home. And huh… “home.” If you’d asked me two years ago, living in the dorms would never have earned that label, but first off, campus housing options got better with seniority and I was a junior now—meaning I finally qualified for something that was more like a small two-bedroom apartment than the postage stamp with two twin beds I’d been stuck in during my freshman and sophomore years—and secondly, well… this year, I had Sean.
My cock twitched, and I palmed myself through my basketball shorts, pleased to find that my junk seemed to be fully recovered after the week of overindulging down in Cancun. Although hell, even rubbed raw and with my balls drained dry, my lesser head always seemed to perk up at the thought of the adorable little slice of perfection who I’d been blessed/cursed with as a roommate this year.
I flicked a button on the remote, bored with ESPN and hoping the cable package Sean’s parents had sprung for had something better to offer, and pressed down on my dick with the heel of my other hand as the thought of him started chubbing me up even more. It felt good enough that for a hot second I considered ditching TV for the night and trying my luck with Grindr instead.
I must have made some kind of sound or something, because all of a sudden Sean popped his head out of the little kitchen where he’d been fucking around for the last twenty minutes and blinked those big baby blues at me.
“Did you… did you need something, Tyson?” he asked in that eager, breathless little voice of his that always made me want to do such dirty things to him. “Are you still hungry? I could reheat that chicken breast. Or I could get you a drink? I picked up some more of that vitamin water you like.”
“I’m good,” I said, not bothering to take my hand off my dick since I knew the angle of the couch would hide my bulge from him as long as he stayed hovering in the doorway like that. Then I winked, adding a reminder I knew damn well he’d keep right on ignoring. “Not your job to take care of my needs, sweetheart.”
Although fuck if I wouldn’t like him to.
My cock jerked against my palm, agreeing wholeheartedly. Down, boy.
Sean never seemed to pick up on any of my I-want-to-do-you innuendoes, but he blushed scarlet at the endearment, just like I’d known he would. It was sexy as fuck when he did that, so I’d been slipping them into conversation more and more freely lately even though I knew it wouldn’t amount to jack shit.
As it shouldn’t, because while there would always be another twink to fuck, I knew that lucking into a roommate who had some kind of fetish about pleasing me was a once-in-a-lifetime miracle. And messing up the world’s most perfect living arrangement? Yeah, no. No matter how much my dick begged me to test out just how straight shy little Sean really was, I wasn’t going to risk fucking things up just so I could finally find out whether his ass would fit my dick as perfectly as I suspected it would.
He ducked back into the kitchen, mumbling something about finishing the dishes, and I sighed, letting my head fall against the back of the couch. I wanted him bad, but that was nothing new, so along with another iteration of the don’t-go-there pep talk, I gave my cock a half-hearted stroke and flicked the button on the remote again, landing on some show with dramatic music and shit blowing up.
Mindless and perfect.
I left my hand in my lap but didn’t bother giving my cock any more attention. It was obviously ready to get back into action after the post-spring-break breather I’d been taking, but for real, heading out to find a fast fuck just felt like too goddamn much work after the day I’d had. Two pop quizzes and a brutal workout a buddy of mine had insisted on torturing us both with after he’d caught his girl cheating… I was worn out just thinking about it. Besides, home—a.k.a. the cozy little haven Sean had turned our dorm into—was so damn comfortable, not even the idea of getting off could get me excited to leave now that I’d grabbed a shower and some food and was all settled in on the couch.
Food Sean had had ready and waiting for me when I’d gotten back from the gym.
I grinned, flicking to some true crime show when the explosions started to get boring. There was no question that Sean was hands-down the world’s best roommate. He spoiled the shit out of me, treating me like a king and jumping to do my bidding even before I knew what I wanted half the time. He was so damn attentive, sweet without being annoying, that it had taken me awhile to get it through my head that he really was straight.
Flash back to move-in day:
“Hey sweetheart, I’m Tyson Graham, gay as fuck and all yours for the duration. Mind if I take the room at the end of the hall? Wouldn’t want my guests to disturb you since they tend to get loud when I fuck them.”
When I’d winked, he’d blinked up at me with those big eyes and a mouth that dropped open into a perfect “O”—exactly the right size and shape to fit around my cock—and along with the petal-pink blush that had stained his cheeks, it had been all I could do not to bend him over the overstuffed couch he’d already replaced the threadbare campus-provided furnishings with and see just how loud I could get him to be for me.
Yeah, that’s me. Not much for the art of subtle. I’d figured getting it all out on day one would either rip the Band-Aid off any potential personality conflicts with my new roomie or else set up realistic expectations to avoid those conflicts later. Instead of running scared or ripping me a new one, though—or dropping to his knees and letting me test out my theory about his mouth—sweet little Sean had just stammered out something about how he’d never lived with anyone before, didn’t know any gay people but wouldn’t disturb my guests—blush, blush—and would be-the-best-roommate-ever-he-promised before darting into his room and hiding out for the rest of the day.
I’d say that I wasn’t sure whose dick he’d had to suck to land in upperclassman housing for his freshman year, except that even without him tossing that “I don’t know any gay people” line into his introduction, it had become obvious pretty quickly that he was too damn straight to have ever so much as seen a dick other than his own, much less gotten his wet dream of a mouth on one.
How could I tell? Well, in addition to my own predilection for walking around in as few clothes as possible, I made sure to keep up a steady stream of man-candy coming and going at all times, and not once had I seen Sean’s eyes stray or any telltale bulge-action happening in his pants. And yeah, I’d looked for it. Thought about it way too damn much, too… including when I was balls-deep in some other little blond twink. Generally one I’d picked up because of how much he reminded me of my all-time favorite roommate.
Sean never brought anyone home himself and spent too much time here studying to be dating anyone on the side. Hell, I wasn’t even sure the kid ever jerked off… another thing I’d kept my eyes and ears open for.
Straight or not, the way he was always so quick to try and make me happy, I figured I could probably get him to bend over for me and like it if I ever pushed the issue, but I’d decided on a strict hands-off policy as soon as I’d realized what a good thing I had going with having scored him for a roommate. Young and innocent and sheltered and eager to please… the thing was that I liked the kid, a bit too much to make him just another notch on my bedpost. Well, that and the fact that I was also too damn selfish to want to fuck with how smooth our home life was, no matter how much my dick tried to convince me it would be worth it.
Hadn’t stopped me from slipping a little lately, though. Calling him sweetheart and baby and sugar, just to see him blush. Accidentally-on-purpose rubbing up against him to double- and triple-check my theory about whether or not it might turn him on. Heaping on the praise for all the sweet-as-shit things he did for me every day, since that always got me more blushes plus a kind of dazed, happy look that almost made him look well-fucked.
And… shit. I was fully hard now just from thinking about it. What I needed to do, once and for all, was stop fucking tempting myself with what I’d already decided not to go for. I flipped back to the show with the explosions, spreading my legs wide to give my package some room and draping both arms over the back of the couch to make sure I kept my hands off it until it calmed the fuck down and forgot about Sean and his temptation of a mouth and perfect, heart-shaped little ass.
Didn’t help that he chose that moment to wrap up whatever he’d been fussing with in the kitchen and walk right past me, that sweet little ass I’d just decided not to think about anymore swaying just enough to make me groan.
“Did you say something, Tyson?” he asked, whirling to face me. All big eyes and hopeful, please-tell-me-what-I-can-do-for-you smile.
I cleared my throat, all too aware of the steel pole lying flush against my thigh. “Got homework?” I asked, my voice sounding like gravel anyway.
Hands off, Tyson. And no, he did not just sneak a peek at my junk, did he? Had to be my wishful thinking.
“Yeah,” Sean said, breathing the word out on a sigh as his shoulders slumped a little. “Um, I always have homework.”
My lip quirked up. Little overachiever. He was so damn cute and sincere. Taking classes way above my pay grade even though he was two years behind me. I knew he was here on all sorts of scholarships—academic ones instead of an athletic one, like me—and that his parents were overbearing assholes with high expectations. Out-of-state parents, thank fuck. It made me grit my teeth every time I heard him on the phone with them, and even if I only caught one side of those conversations, I could guaran-damn-tee you that they didn’t appreciate their boy like they should. It wasn’t just me he liked to please. They said jump and he said how high… then made sure to go above and beyond what they wanted. Not that it ever seemed to earn him anything but a lecture on how he could have done even more, based on what I’d overheard.
Fuckers.
“I… I guess I’ll go get to it,” Sean said, his cheeks pinking up as he ducked his head and prepared to disappear for the night. “Good ni—”
“Hold up,” I said, lurching forward before my brain could kick in with anything resembling good sense. I snagged his wrist and tugged him toward me, not hating the way he gave a pretty little gasp and practically fell in my lap at all.
He righted himself, regaining his balance, but didn’t say a word about the way I was still holding onto him.
Good boy.
My cock flexed.
Wait, no. If I let myself like his oh-so-sweetly-submissive responsiveness too much, I was going to get myself in real trouble. And still restraining him like this? Definitely more temptation than I could handle.
I made myself let go of his wrist and lean back in my I-don’t-give-a-fuck pose again.
“Did you need something?” he asked, worrying that pretty lower lip of his.
“You’re always studying. Why don’t you take the night off for once, baby?” I said, patting the tiny slice of couch I wasn’t occupying. “Watch some TV with me.”
“Oh,” he said, eyes going wide as they darted between me and the shit blowing up on the big-ass flat screen mounted on the wall.
The kid came from money. His parents had decked this place out, and I half-suspected that it was some sort of power play to show Sean that even if he’d earned his own way—those academic scholarships were no joke—they were still the ones calling the shots.
“Um, what are you watching?” Sean asked, shocking the shit out of me.
Unlike me, he never just vegged in front of the TV, and even if he had been so inclined—I’d have put money on the current show not being his jam. Not that I had a single clue what the show was, and I highly doubted Sean did either, but he was still looking at it like joining me might be a good idea after all… and yeah, my cock liked that a lot.
“Sit,” I said instead of answering his question.
Mistake. At least it was if I was trying to keep my cock under control. Because the thing was, I’d noticed a while ago how Sean responded to orders. Not gonna say I was an asshole about it, but I guess I’d always been a bit of a bossy fucker, and not gonna lie, the way he was so instantly, unquestioningly obedient when I used a certain tone of voice… damn. It went to my head. Both of them.
And sure enough, Sean sat just because I’d told him to, legs folding instantly and that delectable little ass of his hitting the couch cushion next to me almost before the word had fully left my mouth.
“Okay,” he breathed out, eyes glued to the screen as he twisted his hands together in his lap.
My cock fucking throbbed and I reached down to adjust myself, almost certain that I saw Sean tracking the move out of the corner of his eye this time.
And entirely certain I heard a hitch in his breath like he liked it.
I grinned, then rubbed a hand over my face to hide it. Here I was, playing with fire even though I knew better, but damn if the heat didn’t draw me in like a moth to a flame.
“You want me to switch it to something else?” I asked, giving exactly zero shits about what was onscreen but curious as hell about what he’d say. It would shock the hell out of me if he actually expressed an opinion different than mine. Besides, far as I knew, he never wasted time on mindless entertainment anyway and probably didn’t have an opinion.
Actually, to be honest, even though we’d lived together for what, eight… nine months now? I really had no idea what my cute little roomie did for entertainment. If someone had described Sean to me, I would have said he sounded boring as fuck. He was the perfect son, perfect student, perfect roommate. His weeknight routine of cooking for the both of us, doing his homework, showering way too fucking quick to be jerking off, then going to bed all by his lonesome never deviated. Well, except for study group nights, but I mean, come on. That was just more of the same.
But the reality? Not boring at all.
Maybe it was just because I’d told myself I couldn’t have him, or maybe it was that seductively sweet but totally oblivious anything-for-you-Tyson attitude of his, but for whatever reason, I’d never been as unrelentingly interested in anyone in my life… something my cock was doing its damndest to make sure I didn’t forget at the moment.
“We can watch whatever you want, Tyson,” Sean said, sitting next to me as stiff and still as a statue, like I’d given him an assignment and he was determined to do it right.
And that eager, breathy voice saying “whatever you want, Tyson”? Yeah, certain parts of me thought that was very right.
Too right, if I was going to keep up with my hands-off policy.
Just right, according to my now locked-and-loaded cock.
I hadn’t bothered to make room for Sean when he squeezed in next to me since I was not at all opposed to some forced proximity, and with my 6’4” frame spread out in the exact center of the couch, that meant I’d left him just enough room to wedge himself between the arm of the couch and my thigh.
That’s right, I now had the sweet little body I’d been so good about keeping my hands off up until now pressed right up against my thigh.
I adjusted my dick again—loose basketball shorts or not, I was so primed just from sitting next to him that shit was starting to get uncomfortable—and this time, I didn’t even bother trying to be subtle. And… yep. No mistaking it. Sean’s eyes darted away from the screen for a split second to watch and—fuck me sideways—the tip of his little pink tongue darted out to wet his lips as he took in just how happy to see him I was.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Was I finally managing to turn the kid on?
I started to grin, then realized what a fucking idiot I was being. I’d gone two thirds of the school year without fucking this up, and now just because I was horny, I was risking spoiling my perfect living situation?
I sat up, pulling my arm off the back of the couch where it had been draped behind him and giving him a little space. I hated to do it, but hands off, right? That was the smart course to take, just like I’d been telling myself since day one.
Time to do the smart thing.
“You know you don’t have to watch this shit just because I asked you to, swee—uh, Sean,” I made myself say, impressing myself with my ability to ignore my raging hard-on in favor of the kind of mature decision-making skills I normally gave zero fucks about. “You should go do your homework.”
He didn’t move for a full minute, then his shoulders slumped, just the tiniest bit. “Okay,” he said, so softly I could barely hear it. “If you don’t want me—”
“I do,” I blurted out, my dick overriding all those mature skills I’d just been giving myself a mental pat on the back for.
Sean’s head whipped around to face me, his eyes going wide.
So fucking pretty.
Ignore them.
I forced a smile. “I just know how dedicated you are to your studies, baby. You shouldn’t neglect that shit just because I want you to... uh, watch TV with me.”
I wanted a hell of a lot more than that, but even if I’d let slip with another “baby,” at least I’d caught myself before I admitted anything else.
Sean blushed, right on schedule. Then he yanked the rug out from under all my good intentions: “But I like doing what you want, Tyson.”
“Oh, damn,” I said, choking on a laugh as I scrubbed a hand over my face and tried to pretend that little confession hadn’t just made my cock sing. “Uh, you shouldn’t say stuff like that, Sean.”
He blinked those big baby blues at me, nibbling on his lip. “I shouldn’t?” he finally asked, turning to angle his body toward me on the couch even though I’m pretty sure he didn’t realize what he was doing. “But why not? It’s true.”
I laughed again, because goddamn. If it were anyone else, I’d think he was teasing me on purpose, but this was Sean. Innocent as fuck and too damn sweet to have a clue what he was doing to me.
“You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?” I said, tugging his swollen lip out from between his teeth because I was a glutton for punishment.
So fucking soft and wet. I wanted it.
“What?” Sean whispered, looking confused.
I sighed. I was a bad person, and why I’d been blessed and tortured with someone like him in my life, I would never know. I did know I didn’t want to fuck up our… friendship? Roommate-ship? Whatever it was. Didn’t want him to stop looking at me in that almost worshipful way he had. Didn’t want to hurt him.
“Never mind, sweetheart,” I said, keeping all those things in mind. I made myself stop brushing my fingers over his lips and grabbed the remote, clicking off the TV. “Let’s just head to bed, okay?” (Shut up, cock.) “Er, I mean, you go do your homework, I’m gonna—”
I was about to say “head out,” because no, Grindr wasn’t my first choice tonight, but yes, I was pretty sure at this point that finding someone to fuck—someone else to fuck—was the only thing that was going to save me from doing something supremely stupid. But before I could finish my sentence, sweet little Sean interrupted me.
Sean never interrupted me.
“You’re tired?” he asked, sounding like I’d just told him Christmas was canceled.
And then he pouted.
Fuck me. It was the pout that made me stupid, I swear it. That mouth. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Had just been fucking touching it, breaking a rule I’d set for myself months ago. And clearly, those transgressions were enough to short-circuit my brain.
“Fuck no,” I said, grinding the heel of my hand against my raging dick. I laughed a little explosively, because it was that or start panting like a porn star. “Jesus, Sean. I’m not tired. I’m horny as fuck, and I need to get the fuck out of here to—”
Nope. I could not say the words “go find someone to fuck” with him looking at me like that, even though we both knew damn well what a manwhore I normally was.
“—go jerk off,” is what I settled for.
Sean’s eyes went straight to my dick—which was now unapologetically tenting my shorts and had one of my hands firmly wrapped around its fat length—and then darted back up to meet mine, going even wider.
God, I was such an asshole. I cleared my throat. “I can turn the TV back on for you if you want to watch some, though,” I said, which was so lame I had trouble believing it had even come out of my mouth.
“Um, no thank you,” Sean said, blushing furiously and stealing another glance at my cock—which made it fucking jerk in my hand like it was putting on a show, dammit—before looking away and somehow managing to blush even darker.
His hands were fisted on his thighs, knuckles white.
He was holding so still he was practically quivering.
And… hello, Christmas morning. What was that? A present under the tree, just for me?
My boy was sporting some tent action of his own.
Had he ever actually said he was straight? I couldn’t remember and didn’t bother trying, because I was too busy going from my daily baseline of horniness to too-fucking-turned-on-to-think.
“I don’t want to watch any TV,” he went on in a strained voice. “Not if… if you’re not going to, Tyson.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. TV? He was still on the that subject? Thought he could get away with just ignoring what he’d been staring at—a.k.a. me and my eight-inch salute—and the wood in his own pants, too? Yeah, no. My good intentions were so far out the door they probably should have grabbed their passport, and I gave my mouth free rein to fuck with him.
“Like I said, no TV for me. I’ve got a hot date with my right hand, sweetheart—” unless this night ended up going the way it was starting to feel like it might, “—and I’m guessing you do, too.”
He swallowed hard, but didn’t look at me.
“You planning on actually getting to any of that homework once I let you go, baby? Or are you just going to shut yourself in your room and rub one out?”
His breath gave that sexy little hitch again and he shook his head… still not looking at me.
I leaned in. Fuck, he smelled good. I wanted to lick him. Instead, I whispered, close enough to his ear to watch him shiver, “Don’t lie. You’re gonna wrap your hand around that sweet little cock the minute you’re alone, aren’t you? Jerk one out so fast I bet you get dizzy. Gonna think of me while you do, baby? Because I’m sure as shit gonna—”
I snapped my mouth closed when Sean stiffened, and I don’t mean in a good way. The kid went pale as a ghost in the blink of an eye, still not looking at me and biting that puffy lip of his again, so hard it turned white.
“No,” he said after a moment, sounding like he was about to be sick.
Uh… what? Shit. I’d been so good around him for so long, and now it looked like I’d gone and fucked everything up exactly the way I’d been so hell-bent on avoiding all year.
Before I could apologize or figure out how the hell to try and fix shit with him, he swallowed again, Adam’s apple bobbing, and repeated it in a slightly stronger voice. “No. I don’t… d-d-don’t do that.”
He legit looked like he was going to puke. Or cry. Or both.
“Hey,” I said, cupping his chin and turning his head toward me because I couldn’t handle the no-eye-contact thing any longer. “Sorry, sweethear—uh, Sean. I got a little carried away teasing you, but I’m an ass. Please don’t—shit.”
A single tear spilled out of his eye, rolling down his cheek before I could catch it.
“Baby, don’t,” I said, feeling lower than dirt. I’d made him cry. “I shouldn’t have said all that shit to you. I got carried away. A little excited that you might actually bat for my team, but—”
“You want me to be gay?” he blurted out, sounding shocked as he interrupted me for the second time in ever.
I blinked. “Um, yes?” I laughed, pointing down at my still-raging hard-on. “Clearly, I’d love it if you were gay, but—God, I really am an asshole.”
His eyes were so wide I was worried he’d sprain them. I dropped my hand—yep, I’d still been holding his face because touching him was fucking addictive and I apparently had zero ability to do the right thing. Except, ugh. Now I was going to make myself.
I stood up, shoving my hands into my pockets. Hands off.
“Look, I’ll leave you alone,” I said, exercising epic amounts of maturity and self-restraint this time by not pointing out how yeah, I was still going to go rub one out the minute I made it down the hall to my room.
“Wait,” Sean said, surging to his feet and grabbing onto my arm. “I… I… I am.”
“What?” I asked, covering his hand to pin it against my skin because I was a horrible, horrible person who couldn’t seem to stick to my own rules when it came to him.
“I’m g-g-gay,” Sean stuttered quietly, still pale as a ghost. “I am. I do, um, bat for your team.” He looked down, not meeting my eyes. “I just... I’m not supposed to be, and my mother—my parents—wouldn’t like it if they knew.” He glanced back up at me shyly. “I’ve… I’ve never told anyone before.”
My hand tightened spasmodically over his, something warm and kind of beautiful piercing my chest as I blinked down at him in shock. He’d come out to me? But then, as the way his voice had shaken at the mention of his parents registered, something else—something fierce and ugly—ripped through me, so hot and fast that I saw red for a moment.
I was biased—I already hadn’t liked those fuckers and all their rigid rules and expectations for him—but now, the way he looked legit terrified... Jesus. Just from having caught one side of far too many phone calls he’d taken from them since we’d moved in together, I knew he was right. No way could he come out to his parents. They’d straight-up end him for not fitting into their narrow little worldview, and that thought took me from a case of active dislike to full-on hating them in the blink of an eye.
How fucking dare they not appreciate what a gift they had in their son?
But—did I mention I’m a selfish shit and a total led-by-my-dick manwhore?—so hot on the heels of all that righteous haterade came a whole different feeling. Sean had just told me he was gay... and he’d also just popped some serious wood for me. And that? Oh, hell yeah. I started to grin. I could definitely work with that.
“What you said earlier, all that… that stuff about… what I was… was going to d-d-d-do tonight,” Sean said, still pale as fuck but now peering up at me shyly. “I don’t ever do that.”
“Don’t ever do what?” I asked, feeling dumb for a sec. What was he trying to tell me?
He suddenly blushed hard, color flooding his pale cheeks so fast they almost glowed. “I don’t, um, you know.” His eyes darted down to my cock for a split second and his free hand made a subtle, up-and-down twitching motion that I would have missed if I hadn’t had every ounce of my attention on him.
A twitching motion that was unmistakable.
Now I was the one wide-eyed with surprise. “You don’t jerk off?”
Sean nodded, looking mortified.
“Ever?” I asked, not quite comprehending how that would be possible.
He shook his head. “I can’t,” he whispered, the hand that was still resting on my arm, still locked under mine, trembling. “I can’t touch m-m-m-myself there.”
I opened my mouth, ready, able, and willing to offer a hundred and one dirty suggestions about how I could help him with that, but then I beat them all back with a stick, because he looked all kinds of messed up about that confession and I realized this was not the time to be an ass… even if I definitely didn’t understand what the hell he meant. One dick. Two hands. I may not have been a math major, but it seemed like a pretty straightforward equation to me. How could he not touch himself? Fuck knows if I ever got the chance, I wouldn’t have that kind of restraint.
“What do you mean, Sean?” I asked, a weird jumble of feelings welling up inside me. One part confused, one part still—fucking always, around him—turned the fuck on, and a whole bunch of other parts that were starting to feel kinda worried about him, too, given how shaky he was getting. “You can’t touch your dick, baby?”
With epic levels of self-restraint, I beat back my inner horndog so I could pay attention with the confused-and-worried parts of me. Sean was starting to look wrecked, and not in the afterglow-of-riding-my-cock way I’d imagined so many times. And I… well, yeah, I for damn sure wanted to offer to touch that sure-to-be-as-pretty-as-the-rest-of-him dick of his for him, but more than that, I wanted to get that look off his face. I wanted to figure out what the hell he was talking about and… and make it better.
Jesus, was I getting soft? Sure, he was sweet and I liked him, but for all the guys I’d fucked—spoiler: that would be a lot—I’d never felt this way about anyone before. Never wanted to make things right for someone else without some kind of get-in-his-pants ulterior motive. Never needed to make them right, the way I suddenly, desperately, needed to for Sean.
I let go of his hand and traced the tear track still visible on his cheek with my finger. “Tell me, baby,” I said... not because I was still hoping to fuck him even though of course I’d always be down for that if I ever let myself go there, but just because he was hurting and I had to find out how I could fix it.
Then my hand froze. Hell, my whole fucking body froze, the truth slamming into me like a goddamn three-hundred-pound tackle: I didn’t just like Sean, I didn’t just appreciate him as a too-good-to-be-true roommate or daydream about fucking him because he was the prettiest goddamn thing I’d ever seen, I actually liked him, like the kind of liking that could lead straight into the always-to-be-avoided minefield of shit like… like relationships if I wasn’t careful.
How the fuck had that happened?
And even with the rubble still smoking from the detonation of the oh-shit-I’ve-got-feelings-for-him bomb—and despite my own personal preference for all sex to be quick, dirty, and with absolutely no strings or expectations attached—instead of hightailing it out the door and heading for the closest anonymous Grindr hook-up I could find like I should have been doing, I still had my hand on Sean’s face. I still needed to fix these tears he was leaking. Still had to figure out what the fuck he’d been talking about with his “no touching” revelation, wipe that stricken look off his face, and then find a way to get us back to good.
Maybe even to better than good.
“Tell me,” I repeated firmly, since he always responded so beautifully to being ordered around. I could deal with all the feelings bullshit later, sometime when I could concentrate on navigating that minefield without accidentally blowing something up. Right now, though, I’d just have to forge ahead, because I had other priorities and they were all about making sure my boy was okay.
“Okay,” Sean whispered, just like I’d known he would. And fuck, I loved how much he loved to do whatever I wanted, especially when I put some force behind the words like I just had.
He stared up at me with those big, wet eyes and sucked in a ragged breath as he braced himself for whatever he was about to lay on me… and my cock twitched hard.
Yep, I’m a fucking dog. Even knowing he was hurting and with the threat of feelings to complicate things between us now, once I sorted this crying shit out for him, all bets were off. A guy can only be good for so long before he breaks, and when it came to the sweet little bundle of temptation known as my roommate?
Oh, hell yeah.
Break me, baby. Break me hard.
Even if it came with a few explosions, I was done being hands off when it came to sweet little Sean Cabot.
The One Decent Thing by Eliot Grayson
My throat was so dry I had to swallow twice before I could get a single word out of my mouth. “You should get in,” I managed. Aidan stared at me, his face bloodless and ashen in spite of his tan. His massive shoulders filled the door.
Oh God, what the hell was I doing? He’d been a jerk in high school, sneering and laughing at me and at anyone else who had something about them that tickled his fancy. He was a loser: got bad grades, played sports enough to get some jock cred but never practiced enough to really shine, and ended up in a dead-end job right out of school with no prospects and no ambition.
And now he’d been in prison for four years. Who knew what he’d seen and done? What he’d become in there. He might kill me the minute he had the chance. Beat the ever-loving shit out of me for the way I’d ruined his life before he even got it started.
Which was why I was there, of course. It was my fault. I owed him. And maybe I’d been too much of a coward to ever get in touch while he was incarcerated, but in spite of everything he’d done to me in school — well, he was here because he’d offered me a ride and a place to stay when I had nowhere to go. When I had worse than nowhere to go; when I was about to make the kind of mistake you heard about watching one of those missing persons TV shows with the grim-voiced narrators. So here I was, to give him a ride and a place to stay.
Symmetry. It appealed to me, even though getting myself here had taken two panic attacks and half a Xanax, and it looked like I was about to have a third attack, plus the other half of the pill.
If Aidan wanted to beat me up, I probably deserved it.
“Please just get in,” I whispered, and flashed back to that night, when he’d all but begged me to get in his car and go somewhere safe.
His jaw tightened, and something dark flashed through his eyes. Maybe he was remembering the same thing. I jumped as he tossed the bag in his hand into the footwell and climbed in after, my little car rocking and settling from his weight. He shut the door and pulled on his seatbelt in oddly careful motions, like he was afraid to make any sudden movements. Or like he was keeping himself in check.
The car felt too small for both of us, completely filled by his bulk and his presence and the miasma of my terror and doubt. I shifted into reverse and let up the parking brake. Aidan stared straight ahead, his lips pressed into a thin line, his fists clenched on his thighs.
He had huge fists. Cracked knuckles. Calluses on the sides of his fingers. Those were hands that could break me in half.
No going back now. If I made a fuss, or showed even the slightest sign of the strain I was under, those guards might pull him out of the car and take him back in. Do something worse. How would I know? I’d never been closer to a prison before than the signs along the highway that told me not to pick up hitchhikers.
Not that that was a worry right now. Instead of picking up someone dangerous on the side of the road, I’d gone straight to the source.
Try by Ella Frank
Prologue
Planes—Logan was not a fan.
Although, the warm pussy that his cock was currently balls deep inside of was a definite improvement to the cold blue leather of seat 1D in business class, where he had been sitting by himself earlier. Luckily for him, just before the plane taxied out onto the tarmac, the vacant seat, which he’d thought would remain empty, had filled.
And even though it’s changed my plan from sleeping to—
“Shh, hon. If you’re going to moan, I’ll have to shut you up.” Logan brought his right hand up to cup over her parted pink lips.
At first, he’d been under the assumption that this would be the same old boring flight from L.A. back to Chicago. He’d settled back with his usual gin and tonic, unbuttoned his suit jacket, and crossed his feet as he waited impatiently for the trip to get under way. He’d figured if he were lucky, he could have several more drinks and sleep through half the trip.
And what a lucky bastard I am.
While he was draining his small plastic cup, he’d heard a woman’s voice moving closer and closer to the cabin door, calling out, “Wait! Wait! One more!”
And that was when he’d seen—Oh fuck yeah, more—Jessica.
She was a leggy blonde in a pink miniskirt, who had made her way through the door and essentially let him right into hers.
The flight attendant had given her a quick smile. “You’re lucky. We were just about to close the cabin door.”
Jessica had laughed.
And that was what had made his cock take notice.
“Well, I’m glad I ran then.”
“Let’s get you seated. What’s your seat number?”
“Looks like 1C.”
And that, as they say, is that.
Currently, Jessica’s bare ass was seated on the miniscule sink in the back lavatory of Virgin America, Flight 201, and—well, there was absolutely nothing virginal about the way her skirt was shoved up around her waist. In fact, Logan would guess that she couldn’t even remember what the word virgin meant, especially considering how her creamy thighs were spread wide apart with his cock sliding in and out of her soaking wet pussy. And that was just fine by him.
When she’d first stopped near his seat, he’d let his gaze wander from her black heels up to her smooth, long legs. He had made no apologies and offered no excuses for eye-fucking her while sizing her up as a potential—or as of right now—fuck buddy.
She hadn’t seemed to mind though—obviously—because when he’d finally met flirtatious green gaze, the woman had grinned as she indicated the seat beside him.
“Looks like you’re stuck with me.”
“Yes, it looks that way,” he acknowledged.
After she’d stowed her bag in the overhead bin, she slid slowly into the seat beside him and turned, holding out her hand.
That same small hand is currently gripping my suit lapel right now, Logan mused as he punched his hips forward, sinking inside her, as much as the cramped and uncomfortable position would allow.
“I’m Jessica,” she had told him with a bold and assessing gaze, much like his own.
He had looked at the petite fingers tipped with manicured pink nails, and suddenly, the flight had become a whole lot more interesting.
Taking her hand in his, he’d winked. “I’m Logan.”
“Harder Logan!” she moaned, now putting his name to good use.
Well, I’m not going to say no to that, was Logan’s only thought as he braced his feet, which was difficult to do when the toes of his shoes were bent against the plastic vanity taking up the majority of the fucking area he was standing in. But, like a trooper, Logan steadied himself, clasping Jessica’s ass cheek with his left palm and holding the counter with his right, as he started to pound into the woman just as she had requested. He was pushing them closer to that elusive moment, directing them to that heavenly place.
He’d never really thought about getting off on a plane until it had rumbled down the tarmac and moved out of the holding pattern to line up for takeoff. But that had been all he could think about after Jessica had made a show of crossing her legs, and flashing a whole lot more than her upper thighs.
“Well, Logan, I have a feeling this trip just got interesting. Thank you for that.”
He’d given her a smug look that was as depraved as the thoughts now running through his head.
As the plane had shot down the runway with the full force of two jet-propelled engines, Logan had buckled in, preparing himself for the ride. While the front of the plane angled up, much like his throbbing cock, he had finally replied, “I try. So, are you going back home to the husband and kids?”
When Jessica had licked her glossy lips, Logan had immediately imagined that tongue performing the same slick move down between his legs.
“No kids and no husband.”
With that, Logan had known he would be joining the exclusive club, which had nothing to do with virgins.
“Yes,” he hissed out as his balls tightened and his ass cheeks clenched.
Wrapped firmly around his waist, Jessica’s leg strained against him, pulling him in closer, as her eyes widened above his palm covering her mouth. Then, her sweet, juicy muscles clutched his cock like a goddamn vise, and they both found it.
For the admission price of $543.90, they were inducted into the exclusive Mile High Club, and it was worth every last penny.
