by Willa Okati
“Aww. I like you better when you’re bad.”
“Good nets me peach cobbler.”
“Bad nets you booty.”
“I can’t lose for winning, then.”
“Sucks to be you, doesn’t it?”
Harper watched his muse moving about the kitchen, lingering over the slim strength of his fingers as he measured, tasted, and worked his undeniable magic. His teeth would explode from the sugar and he would in all likelihood spend the night holding Rory’s hair back while he revisited too much candy. Seemed like a decent trade-off if it meant he could spend these lazy morning hours doing nothing more than sipping bold, rich coffee decadent with cream, as sweet as sin and dark as death, and watch Rory at work.
“I think I like being me today.”
Rory replied with a knowing look, its sharp edges softened by mutual understanding. He hummed under his breath and splashed vanilla extract into his bowl, licked the spoon, and drummed out the bridge of “Freebird” on the counter.
Harper shook his head and addressed himself to his fresh cup of coffee. If Rory didn’t have the muse gig, he’d make one hell of a barista. Never burned, never sour, never weak.
If he stayed, then maybe…
“If doesn’t equal is,” Harper murmured into his cup. “Neither does it equal ‘must be.’”
“Say what, now?” Rory tossed three eggs up, juggled each one, and cracked them on their way down, one-two-three, yolk and white coming in for a perfect landing without a fragment of shell gone awry.
“Nothing.”
“Bzzt. You’re a rotten liar, Harper. Your nose twitches.”
Harper touched the tip of his nose. “Seriously?”
“You don’t trust me now?” Rory poked the batter warily. “Doesn’t look like the recipe page,” he muttered. “Try again. What’re you babbling about over there?”
“I’m babbling? That’s rich. I had a dream that’s bugging me. Nothing to worry about.”
“What’d you dream about?”
“Can’t remember,” Harper lied, hiding his nose behind his mug in a long swig of coffee in case Rory hadn’t been pulling his leg.
“When’d you dream it?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Harper muttered.
Rat-tat-a-tat-tat. Tat, tat.
Harper replayed the rhythm in his mental ears. “Shave and a haircut, two bits? That’s not in your usual repertoire. Or has the vanilla extract gone to your head?”
“That would be the door. Distracted much?”
“So answer it already.”
“I’m up to my nipples in pie batter!” Rory huffed. “Fuck you for it.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be ‘flip you for it’?”
“It’s more fun my way. Finish your coffee.” Rory wiped his floury hands on Harper’s shirt and ignored Harper’s yelp of protest as he Tom Cruise-ed his way to the door. “Hi! We don’t want any.”
“Not even if the first one’s free?”
“Lisa?” Harper craned to see past Rory. “You made it.”
“You knew she was coming over? Shoulda said, Harper. I’d have started baking earlier. We coulda had a real klatch here.”
“I’m all verklempt with regrets. Come on in, Lisa.” Harper stood, stretching his arms over his head. “She’s here to hand deliver the next three scripts to Janie.”
“‘She’ is standing right here.” Lisa stood on her tiptoes to wave at Harper over Obstacle Course Rory. “Are you decent?”
“Not if my life depended on it.” Rory whipped gracefully as a Greyhound en pointe to the side and lifted Lisa’s hand to his mouth for a kiss. Unfortunately, he chose the one with a menthol light snugged between two fingers. “Jeez. Avaunt, foul fiend.”
“Up yours, my love,” Lisa said sweetly, swaying her way past. She stopped three steps out of Rory’s reach, in the middle of a lazily swirling cloud of flour dust, sneezed, and came up with watering eyes. “Holy Christ.”
“You can smoke three packs a day, and a little sugar bothers you?” Harper teased.
“This is not a ‘little’ sugar. This is enough sugar to fire up a fleet of ADD rug rats. It looks like an accident in a Sara Lee factory in here.”
Rory shut the door with unnecessary force. “Bite your tongue, woman. Sara Lee wishes she had my chops.”
“You have chops?”
“I have mad chops. Here, taste this.” Rory skidded to his fleet of sticky bowls, hefted the sloppiest in the crook of his arm, and thrust a spoonful of glop at Lisa. To Harper’s horrified fascination, Lisa shrugged and sucked the goo between her lips.
There were things he’d hoped never to have to share with his cowriter, and pornographic moans over Rory’s talents would have been one of them. Harper squirmed in his seat and took refuge in his coffee, knowing he couldn’t blame the curling steam from the cup for his pinkening cheeks.
“Aww. Does somebody still have nightmares about vaginas with teeth?”
“They do have teeth.” Harper gave her a dose of innocent, frightened eyes.
Lisa flipped him off. “Just so you know, if you ever wake up with a bruised dick, I’m going to laugh myself silly.”
“Not gonna happen while I’m around.”
“If you’re wrong, then at least you can kiss it better.”
Rory’s low, dirty snicker was the aural equivalent of the graffiti scribbled on a thousand locker room walls.
“Would you two stop? Lisa, scripts are on the kitchen table.”
“You’re kidding me, right? In that mess? Where?”
“In the Tupperware box.” Harper pointed, hoping he remembered right. “Red lid.”
“Professional.” Lisa used her fingertips to lift the box. “Give me a canary and a hard hat. I’m going in.”
“Funny.”
“Oh, shi -- Harper!” Rory leapt back from the oven. A gout of fire that would have been impressive if it hadn’t been issuing from Harper’s oven curled after him. “Harper!”
Could muses burn? Was it the same as dumping water on a witch? Harper moved so quickly he was aware of no space or time passing between knocking over his mug and arriving at Rory’s side. He hip-checked Rory out of harm’s way. “Lisa, fire extinguisher on the wall --”
“Heads’ up!” Lisa plowed between them, nozzle at the ready.
Harper watched glumly as his oven overflowed with white foam.
“That was my pie crust,” Rory bitched.
“Now it’s performance art,” Lisa comforted.
“Sorry, Rory.” Harper kissed his temple. “It’s trash. Rescue the cobbler filling and try again.”
“No fair turning my own advice on me.” Rory caught Harper by the chin and planted one on him regardless of viewing audience, slipping his tongue smoothly through Harper’s lips. He tasted of vanilla, cloves, and slightly scorched dark brown sugar.
Lisa cooed. “You two are adorable. I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Don’t you wish your boyfriend was hot like me?” Disaster forgotten, Rory shimmied his hips and tossed a hand towel over his shoulder. “Wanna stick around and watch me go for a back draft this time?”
“I’ll pass, thanks. If the cobbler turns out decent, save me a bowlful.” Apparently resigning herself to sticky fingers and a dry-cleaning bill, Lisa gathered the Tupperware box under her arm and patted its snugly sealed lid. “I can hardly believe it, Harper. Six scripts in two weeks, and from what I hear from Janie, they’re good stuff.” She sniffled, and then pointed at him. “You’d better not forget the little people on daytime TV when you’re a big-shot Rialto writer, mister.”
“You’ll never be little people to me, and you know it.” Harper propped his weight on the table. He caught and squeezed her hand. “Who says I won’t hire you away, anyhow?”
Lisa scoffed. “As if. I want the head writer position on Twilight Rising when you’re gone and you’d better not forget it. Once you’re all signed up, I can gossip about ‘I knew him when’ and hi
s mysterious yet hunky associate who turned out the next Six Feet Under meets Queer as Folk meets The Riches meets --”
“Meets enough hyperbole to choke a horse. Lisa, it’s not that good.”
Lisa’s jaw dropped. “Not ‘that’ good, and there’s an actual meet set up to talk contracts? Not that good? Rory? Can I kill him? Just a skosh?”
“Sorry. I’m kinda attached to the guy.” Rory snugged up behind Harper, wrapping his arms around Harper’s waist and tucking his chin over Harper’s shoulder.
“Oh my God. I’m out of here before I toss my cookies.” Despite her scorn, Lisa planted a kiss on Harper’s cheek and reached over him to tweak Rory’s nose. “If she likes these, and given the way she orgasmed over the first three I’ll wager she will, Janie’s going to be in a good mood and that makes for an awesome day. She said she’d try to arrange for a meeting between herself and a bigwig this week. Are you going to show?”
“For what? To pace by the doors?”
“You bet we’ll be there,” Rory butted in. “Moment of triumph, Harper. Shh. Don’t say ‘if.’ Have I ever steered you wrong?” He stropped his cheek on Harper’s neck.
Harper tried to stifle a moan.
Rory smirked against the soft skin beneath Harper’s ear. “Lisa, to spare your innocent virgin eyes, if you don’t want to watch this head into NC-17 territory I’d suggest you --”
“Already on my way,” Lisa called, en route to the door.
She stopped with her hand on the knob and turned back to them. An unusually soft smile, for Lisa, curved her mouth and made it beautiful. “Would that even a fraction of the world got as lucky as you two,” she said. “There would be no more war. Take it easy, kids, and do something to celebrate, would you?” She thumped the box under her arm. “The world is soon to be your oyster. I suggest champagne.”
“She’s right, you know,” Rory murmured for Harper and Harper alone to hear. “You’ve just about got it made. What’re you going to do next? Disney?”
Try and figure out how to keep you, Harper thought.
With an effort, he shoved the worries to the back of his head. “I’m considering eating peach cobbler off your chest and ice cream off your cock.”
“Jesus Christ,” Lisa complained as she shut the door behind her. “How are you two even real?”
Harper hugged Rory tight enough to make his ribs creak. Lisa could see it as plain as he could. He and Rory belonged together.
No way could he -- would he -- let this end.
“Hey. What’s going on in there?” Rory prodded Harper’s head.
“Nothing,” Harper fibbed, turning to collect Rory and finding him naked as a jaybird, hard, and ready, his cock darkening where it bobbed heavy between his legs. “Whoa!”
“Is that a complaint?” Rory preened.
“Absolutely not. Where’s the ice cream?”
* * *
Three more pie-crust accidents later, neither Harper nor Rory complained about necessary cleanup. At all.
“Hey. Don’t fall asleep on me in here. You’ll drown.” The wet slickness of Rory’s tongue trailed a line up Harper’s back, his mouth cooler in comparison to the water pattering down around them and beaded on the tiled walls of the shower.
“Can’t talk. In the zone.” Harper propped his forehead on his arm and groaned.
Rory chuckled quietly. “Never met a guy who loves his showers as much as you do. Let me wash your back.”
“Whatever you want, it’s all yours.”
“Careful about those open-ended invitations.” Rory nibbled his shoulder. “I know you hide the loofah in some kind of katana space in here. Gimme. And the girlie shower gel. If you’re going to do a job, do it right.”
“Under the seat.” Harper waved behind himself in the general direction of the shower’s small inset bench. “You could lather me with something rose scented and I don’t think I’d complain right now.”
“Note to self: Harper is remarkably pliant when wet. Maybe you’re half kelpie.” Squishy noises filled a short pause, culminating in the rough, soft, slick scrape of the loofah over Harper’s back. He moaned without shame and arched his spine, giving Rory access to as much skin surface as he could possibly expose.
“Big day today,” Rory remarked, scrubbing with a gossamer touch. “Ready to claim your laurels?”
“There’re no guarantees. Down and to the left.”
“This far down?” Rory tickled Harper’s ass.
“Wasn’t what I’d had in mind, but I like this better. Don’t let me stop you.”
Rory clicked his tongue. “Uh-uh. Eyes on the prize. Go over the list one more time to ease my mind.”
Harper tucked away his disappointment at Rory’s deferment of his invitation. He spread his legs, giving his waking cock room to comfortably grow. “Synopses. Breakdowns. Treatments. Sample scripts. Real scripts. All in Janie’s hands. Two-thirty teleconference in her office. She’ll call me when she gets the word.”
“And what’s the word gonna be, Mr. Neuroses?”
“The bird is the word. Kidding!” Harper jumped away from Rory’s pinch. “You’re bad for my sense of humor. Or good. I’m not sure which.”
“At least you know how to smile. I wondered, when I first met you.”
“Sentimentalist.”
“That’s me,” Rory agreed, sounding as lazily content as Harper. “I’d have called you a great big sap.” He draped himself over Harper from behind, molding his chest to Harper’s freshly washed back, and emitted a noise as close to purring as made no difference. “Nice.”
“Mmm.” Harper canted his hips, checking to see if showers affected Rory in a similar manner, and -- aha! “Could be nicer.”
“And they say romance is dead.” Rory licked the soft skin where Harper’s throat met his shoulder. He skated, soap slippery, down Harper’s abdomen and teased his now-rigid cock with one fingertip. “Then again, I’m not about to complain when I could fuck instead.”
“Now who’s the romantic?” Harper scoffed. He rested his weight on his arms and bowed forward. Big shower, plenty of room for what he knew he wanted. “Speaking of fucking…”
He might have imagined the sound, but could have sworn Rory swallowed, on the verge of but not quite hissing. “Wait. You want me to --”
“That was the idea.” Curious, Harper peered over his shoulder. Through the dripping squiggles of his hair, he saw Rory had gone a few degrees paler save for two burning red spots high on his cheeks. “Rory? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Rory coughed and turned hastily away.
Harper turned to better study him, baffled and trying to conceal a stinging sense of hurt. “Look, if you don’t want to --”
“Don’t want to?” Rory’s lips pressed tightly together. “If you knew how much I wanted, you’d --”
“So take it. No-strings offer.”
“Harper…”
Frowning, Harper turned to study his muse. “I’m not unsatisfied, Rory. Blowjobs, handjobs, rubbing off, there’s nothing I haven’t loved. If you don’t want to go this far…”
“God, is it ever not that.”
Worried now, Harper caught Rory by the back of the neck and coaxed him closer, reclaiming the inches Rory had moved away. His body confirmed what he’d said, cock straining toward his belly. “You never hesitate when you want something. What’s wrong with this picture?”
Rory shook his head, stubbornly silent. He could not, if he’d tried, have disturbed Harper more deeply.
“You taught me not to quit, too,” Harper reminded him. He shook Rory’s arm. “Spill.”
“Not this time.” Rory’s cock twitched, belying his hesitance.
Interesting. Maybe the way to getting plowed didn’t involve words as much as action. Harper applied thought to action and turned his back on Rory. Even after all they’d done together that would frighten the fish, they’d never switched up who pitched and who caught. He bent from the waist and grasped his ankles, feet far ap
art on the tiled floor, braced at the shower walls. Water poured from his spine through his spread cheeks.
Rory groaned. He sounded like a man on a diet faced with a smorgasbord, inspiring Harper’s confidence.
“I know you want in here,” Harper invited, his voice sounding strange to him, an octave deeper than he dropped even in the middle of a blowjob. “And it’s not half as much as I want it.”
He waited through the tangible wave of tension and uncertainty, and sagged with relief when Rory’s palms ghosted over his ass. “No one I’ve worked for, they never wanted to… never would have let me even if I’d wanted to --”
Rory had never topped? Was that what this was about? Virginal nerves? Virginal? Rory? He wanted to laugh, but no man would ever forgive another under the circumstances.
“Lucky me,” he said instead. He shivered under Rory’s questing, hesitant touch and hissed when Rory brushed his hole. “More.”
“You really mean it?” Rory fingered him, not yet penetrating and driving Harper mad with mounting hunger. “You do. You mean every word of what you said. God, Harper… your aura. Talk about teeth.”
Harper laughed, spitting shower water. “I don’t bite unless you ask nicely.”
“Maybe later.” Rory exhaled a shuddering breath. The kiss at the small of Harper’s back surprised him. “Got any slick?”
Harper heard the unspoken thank you beneath the question. “Same place as the loofah.”
“Just so you know, I reserve the right to mock the hell out of you when I’m not cross-eyed from blue balls.”
“Knock yourself out. Later.”
“Gonna take care of the blue problem first.”
“I damn well hope so.” Harper undulated in lazy anticipation. Rory swore. The seat lid clanked loudly with the force Rory used to snatching it open. He might have chipped a tile. Harper could not have cared less.
“More is never enough,” Rory muttered under his breath. Harper heard the lube cap popping open.
He thought Rory might not mind if he stepped out of the way and took control. He’d probably enjoy being bent over and dominated.
Not this time. Harper was too far gone. He shouted, loud and random nonsense, when Rory’s slippery finger thrust inside him.
