by Leta Blake
Casey’s mouth was on his again before his brain un-frazzled, and he let himself be tugged up again as they mauled each other while trying to get their clothes off. Finally, naked and hard as a rock, he rutted up against Casey’s stomach and pubes, hungry for his own orgasm.
“Fuck, Joel, you’re hot as hell, babe,” Casey muttered, dropping down on top of him as they stretched out on the sofa.
Joel gripped Casey’s butt, reveling in the fleshy mound of it as they kissed and licked and bit. He moaned as Casey sucked a kiss into his neck hard enough to leave a mark later. Squeezing his eyes closed, he breathed in the scent of Casey’s skin and licked the sweat on Casey’s shoulders.
“You’re perfect,” Casey grunted in his ear. “Squirmy and hot. So fucking eager… Jesus, Joel, you’re just—”
“Shut up. Suck my dick.”
Casey laughed, kissing Joel’s breath away, and he moved slowly down, pressing wet, shivery kisses along Joel’s chest and neck and teasing his nipples, which made Joel bark with laughter until he pushed Casey’s head down closer to where he wanted it.
Casey resisted, slowing down, licking along Joel’s dark treasure trail and kissing the soft part of his belly before sliding his hands beneath Joel’s knees, shoving them back and smiling filthily.
“I bet I know something you’ll like,” Casey whispered. “Close your eyes.”
Joel stared at him, heart pounding, cock thudding, and pre-come pooling on his stomach. Nervous saliva filled his mouth, but he swallowed it down, closing his eyes on Casey’s shining face and the glittering tree beside them. In the darkness behind his lids, he could see his pulse beat in colors firing rhythmically in the darkness.
“Shh, just relax,” Casey murmured, his breath caressing the inside of Joel’s thighs.
Joel knew what was coming. He’d seen porn. And yet when he felt the heat of Casey’s breath against his butt cheeks, he squirmed and covered his face with his hands.
“Oh, fuck, Casey,” he whispered. “You can’t. That’s…oh, Jesus.”
Casey murmured reassurances and then licked a slick, hot stripe from one butt cheek to the other. Joel groaned as Casey spread him wide. “Look. You’re perfect here too.”
Joel felt tears push up behind his lids, and he pressed his hands even tighter over his face. His heart beat hard in his throat. A cry of fear and desire, of need and old hurt he couldn’t even understand, began to slip from his mouth in a slow keening.
Casey’s tongue was gentle on his asshole, and Joel quivered all over as Casey kissed him there again and again, with too-good teases that surpassed the ticklish bliss Casey’s tongue had demonstrated on the roof of Joel’s mouth. Joel spread his legs slightly, inviting Casey deeper, squirming and tensing, his hips moving in a seeking rhythm he couldn’t stop. The sensation bore into him, body and soul, tearing open something inside that left him begging and shameless even as he broke. Tears of pleasure and fear slipped out and tracked down his cheeks.
Casey didn’t stop, though he hummed soothing sounds that trembled inside Joel through the sweet instrument of his questing tongue. Joel’s cock convulsed, spilling pre-come, and he circled his hips in a vain attempt to find a less overwhelming position.
“It’s too—oh fuck!” He whimpered, lifting his hips greedily as Casey swathed his hole with broad sweeps and then went back to painting delicate designs over his spasming anus.
Clenching one fist in Casey’s hair to keep him in place and holding his other hand fast over his own sweaty, tear-wet face, Joel let go of the last of his pride. Shaking harder than he could ever remember, Casey’s tongue on his asshole became the center of his world. He whispered desperately, “Need to come. Please, help me come.”
Casey took Joel’s cock and stroked it feverishly as he shoved his tongue deep into Joel’s ass.
“Oh, fuck!” Joel cried, his body clenching all over. He roared with pleasure. Come spewed from his cock and spattered his chest and stomach. He whimpered and moaned, his heart thundering as Casey milked every spasm out of him before bending low to lick and kiss his hole gently again.
“Stop,” he choked out, tugging on Casey’s hair. “Too much now. Stop.”
Casey climbed up his body and peeled Joel’s fingers away from where he still hid his face. “Oh, Joel,” he murmured, his eyes soft with adoration that Joel couldn’t pretend he didn’t see. “Oh, baby.”
Casey kissed him, and Joel cried quietly as Casey gently caressed his mouth with his tongue and lips. His heart broke open, a shattering that splintered through him. Shards of hope and fear pierced him and made him cry harder.
Casey was there, holding him, whispering in his ear. “Are you okay? What can I do?”
Joel clung to him, words gone, unable to translate his vulnerability into vowels and consonants. “Hold me tighter,” he finally got out.
Casey did just that, squeezing him tight enough that they both fit side by side on Joel’s couch. Staring at the Christmas tree, watching the lights sparkle in the dark room, he leaked tears as the moon ripened in the sky out the window. Slowly, he came back to himself.
Casey’s lips pressed gentle, undemanding kisses against his shoulders, holding Joel tight in uncompromising arms. The sound of Bruno coming back in through the dog door broke the spell, and Joel sat up, his limbs still trembling, to grab his shirt from the floor. He wiped away the mess of come drying against his skin.
“Hey,” Casey said from behind him. His voice was so gentle that Joel felt it like a caress down his back. “You all right?”
“I’m fine,” Joel snapped. Shame gurgled in the pit of his stomach, and he stood without looking at Casey. God, he’d cried like a little kid. “I’m going to wash off.”
Bruno came around the corner warily, and he eyed them like they’d been doing something he didn’t approve of. Casey huffed a laugh. “Your dog thinks I was murdering you.”
“Yeah. Maybe you were.”
Casey rose from the sofa. “Joel, wait. Let’s talk.”
“I just want to shower off.” Joel walked briskly, naked and exposed, toward the bathroom. “Just give me a minute.”
He heard the impatient, worried sound Casey made, but thankfully stubborn Casey Stevens didn’t make an appearance, and Joel locked the bathroom door behind him before sitting down on the toilet and covering his face.
“What the fuck?” he whispered. He scrubbed his still-damp cheeks with his fingers and reached to start the water. As steam filled the small room, he stared down at his bare feet outlined against the linoleum floor.
What had Casey Stevens done to him? Fucking asshole. He’d ruined him. That’s what he’d done. He’d irrevocably and completely ruined him.
Now what was he supposed to do? How was Joel ever going to let this be over now? He’d have to cut out his own heart to make it out of this “holiday fling” alive. How could he have been so stupid?
He wished he had his phone to call Becca. She’d talk him down from this ledge. Probably. Or she might push him off it, actually, knowing her.
“Joel?” Casey’s voice came from outside the door. “I’m not trying to invade your space. But I’ve really gotta piss.”
“Um, right.” Joel wiped at his face again and rose to put his hand on the door. He caught a glimpse of his red, tear-stained face in the not-yet-fogged mirror and pulled his hand off the knob. “Skunks, man. Piss outside.”
“Oh. Right. You okay in there?”
“Just washing off.”
“All right. I’ll just…piss outside.”
Joel glared at himself in the mirror and whispered, “Get it together, asshole. You’re fucking this up.” The worry and insecurity in Casey’s voice twisted those painful shards that had pierced him so thoroughly.
He stepped under the water stream, washed the come away, closed his eyes, and tried to wash his panic away too. Yet it clung to him, and he grabbed some soap, trying desperately to scrub it off.
Chapter Eighteen
After Casey
dressed and pissed on the bushes along the property line, he headed back into Joel’s trailer. Hanging his coat up on the rack, he wondered if he was going to be donning it again soon—if maybe Joel was about to kick him out.
He’d had sex with a lot of guys over the last few years but none of them affected him the way Joel did. And none of them had broken down while being rimmed. Casey was at a loss about what to say or do, but he wasn’t going to leave unless Joel actually told him to go.
When he resumed his place on the sofa, Bruno padded over to him with wide, worried eyes. Casey ran his hand soothingly over the dog’s head and back, whispering, “It’s okay, buddy. Our pal Joel gets scared sometimes, and when he’s scared he gets prickly.”
“Sorry.” Joel’s voice came from behind him. Casey looked over his shoulder to find Joel standing there in just a pair of fresh jeans. His dark, wet hair reflected the colored lights of the tree like hidden flames, and his pale torso glowed, dark hair swirling down the center of his chest and the hickey Casey had given him glaring red on the curve of his neck and shoulder. “Got a little freaked about losing my frosty pants there for a minute.”
“Hey,” Casey said, standing up, relief pounding in him at Joel’s small joke. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“Yeah, you should have. I wanted you to. It was great.” Joel swallowed hard, but his lips wobbled again, and he rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m just… It’s been… I’ve never…”
Casey abandoned Bruno to go around the couch and tug Joel into his arms. “You’ve been lonely.”
Joel nodded.
“Really, deeply lonely,” Casey added.
“My mom,” Joel started and then stopped.
Casey hugged him tighter and cupped the back of his head.
Joel cleared his throat and began again. “My mom was the last person to hold me or love me. No one’s wanted to make me feel good. Ever. And…” His voice broke. “I like it. But it’s… a lot.”
“It’s scary.”
Joel nodded again, like he didn’t want to admit the word out loud. Casey guided him back to the couch, where Bruno jumped up beside them both, pressing his worried face against Joel’s exposed chest and peering up at him.
Joel snorted a laugh. “It’s okay, Bruno. He didn’t hurt me.”
Casey could have sworn Joel’s tone somehow implied an unspoken “yet.” Joel’s muscles moved like coiled ropes under his skin, the shadows compelling. Casey wanted to trace them with his fingers.
“Can I give you a massage?” Casey asked when Bruno finally conceded that Joel was all right and moved to lay on the floor at his feet. “Feeling good doesn’t just have to be about sex.”
“But I like sex,” Joel said, his crooked lips tweaking up. “At least, I like it so far. With you.”
Casey grinned, the heaviness that had pressed on his heart since Joel had bolted for the shower lifting. “You do?”
“Yeah. Rimming is better than it looks in porn, and that’s saying something. Because it looks pretty great in porn.”
Casey laughed outright and hooked his arm around Joel’s shoulders to drag him in close again. “Oh yeah? What else looks good in porn?”
“Fucking. Especially getting fucked.”
“Yeah? You like the idea of a guy fucking your ass?”
“Don’t you?”
Casey shrugged. “Sometimes. I like to be the one doing the fucking usually.”
Joel’s throat clicked. “Did you bring condoms?”
Casey shook his head. “We’re not doing that yet. We’ve got plenty of time. We don’t need to rush into it.” Especially not after Joel’s emotional reaction to rimming. Casey wasn’t ready to push limits when Joel was still so fragile. “Fucking isn’t second-date material,” he joked, though he’d fucked plenty of guys he’d never even gone on a first date with. But Joel didn’t need to know that.
Joel scoffed. “We don’t have a lot of time, Casey. You’re going back to New York after Christmas. Which, for the record, is the day after tomorrow, and, if I like getting fucked, I’d like to do it more than once.” He was wide-eyed and earnest, his expression of resigned determination burrowing into Casey’s flesh.
“I’m staying through New Year’s Day,” Casey murmured, his brain circling around the words Joel had spit out so sincerely. “But, are you saying… Do you want it to be over when I go back to New York? It doesn’t have to be.”
Joel shook his head. “Just stop.” He cleared his throat. “It doesn’t matter what I want, Casey, because we’ve got no future. So, let’s just have this time and be happy we got it.” He rubbed his face. “Fuck, I need a cigarette.”
“You know, when we were kids, you used to boss me around and most of the time I took what you said as the God’s honest truth.”
“Ha. Could have fooled me. You did whatever you wanted when it came to me.”
“If that was true, I’d have kissed you back then and made love to you a million times in the years since.”
Joel closed his eyes.
“But I’m telling you right now, this doesn’t have to be over when I go back to school. Maybe that sounds safer to you. Something with a beginning and an end that you can see from the start. But that’s not what either one of us really wants.”
“You think you know what I want?” Joel gritted out.
“I know that you trust me more than you trust anyone else in the world.”
“Oh yeah? What makes you think that?”
“Because you let me lick your ass, man.” Casey grinned. “And you haven’t kicked me out yet. And you’re sitting here looking at me like you hope like hell that what I’m saying is true.”
“So what?” Joel ran a hand into his hair. “It doesn’t make it true.”
“What’s your big fear? That we make a go of this and…what? What’s so scary about the idea of us carrying on when I go back to school?”
“We can’t work out. What you want, who you are? It’s not what my life is going to be.”
“Who am I, Joel? If you know the answer to that, tell me now. Because I’m just figuring that out for myself. I started seeing a therapist to get to the heart of what I wanted and who I am, but I haven’t felt more me in my entire life than I have when I’m holding you, making you feel good, letting you be you too. Fuck, why would I want to let that go? Why do you?”
Joel vibrated beside him on the sofa, arms around his knees and his eyes focused on the top of the starless Christmas tree. “You’ll leave me. In the end, you’ll leave me.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“And you don’t know that I will.”
Joel shuddered. “What’s your future going to be? You already said you don’t want to live in Knoxville because of your dad. You want a fresh start. Well, guess what? I don’t get a fresh start. I’ve got Vreeland’s, and I’ve got my pop to take care of.”
“Those plans are negotiable. I’m not committed to any of them. I just want something for myself, to know who I am and what I want. And now I know. I want you. I want this.” He touched Joel’s bare shoulder, but Joel shrugged him off.
“Where will you live? In your parents’ house across the lake while I’m here? How will you feel introducing me to your friends or their friends? I’m not like your family.”
“Where I want to live isn’t really second- or third-date conversation material,” he tried to joke.
“You think you want to live with me?” Joel gestured at his living room. “Look around, Casey. Do you really think this is what I want for you?”
“There’s nothing wrong with this place.”
“For me, maybe. But for you? No. Don’t you get it?” Joel’s voice pitched up desperately. “You’re Casey Stevens, son of Jonathan Stevens, vice president of one of biggest petroleum corporations in the country. You’re going to NYU, man! You can’t just…” He waved his hand. “You can’t.”
“None of that matters to me.”
&n
bsp; Joel sputtered. “It matters to me. You think I’m going to let you throw away your degree and move into a trailer with me?”
“Throw away my degree?” Casey snorted. “I can work on branding and marketing in Knoxville.”
But Joel was caught up in his rant. “What kind of love is that? Letting you give up so much potential to be with me? Who would I be if that’s the kind of love I gave you?”
Casey’s heart flipped in a scary roll that took his breath away. When he caught it again, he asked slowly, “Now you’re ready to talk about love?”
Joel threw his hands in the air and turned away. “Forget it.”
“You love me?”
“What do you think? I’ve loved you since we were kids.” Joel glared at him over his shoulder. “Sometimes I really think you’re an idiot, you know that?”
“You say I’m Casey Stevens, right? Do you think that means anything important to anyone who isn’t you? Don’t you get it? I’ve been living in New York City, and no one gives a shit about who I am, Joel. I come home, and I’m here just a few days with you, and I feel…alive. For the first time in forever. For the first time in my entire life, it’s awesome to be Casey Stevens. Because of you. Not NYU or my apartment in the city. It’s because Joel Vreeland loves me.” He touched Joel’s chin, lifting it to stare into his eyes. “You love me.”
“Don’t use it like a weapon.”
“I’m not.”
“The hell you’re not. You’ve got me quaking here, man.”
Casey took Joel’s hand and pressed it against his chest so he could feel his pounding heart. “And you’ve got me terrified that you’re going to throw this away—throw us away—because you hate my parents’ money, or you’re ashamed that you don’t have as much.”
Joel didn’t pull his hand away. “Get serious. If you really moved in here with me, can you imagine your parents coming to visit you here?”
“No. And that’s fine with me.” Casey shrugged, releasing Joel’s hand. “But if you don’t want me to live here, I wouldn’t have to. I could get an apartment. Until you were ready for us to be something more, and we could figure out what we want our living arrangements to be then.”
