Grand Adventures

by Dawn Kimberly Johnson

  After a brief pause, Court said, “I live closer.” He stepped around the desk and reached for Esav’s hand.

  Esav met him halfway, braiding his fingers with Court’s. Tension melted from his shoulders in reaction to the contact. “I missed you,” Esav admitted.

  Court ducked his head and blushed. “I missed you too.” He led Court out of his office and down the hall to a stairwell. “I have a little studio upstairs for now. I’m here all the time, and I didn’t know where I’d end up wanting to live, so, uh, yeah. A studio.”

  Smiling at the familiar ramble, Esav followed Court up the stairs, staring at his ass the whole way. Court punched his code into the keypad, and Esav took the opportunity to text his friends, letting them know he’d get home on his own. Then he turned off his phone, knowing they were sure to call or text back with failed attempts to be funny about their stodgy friend hooking up.

  “So, uh, do you want something to drink?” Court asked once they walked into his studio.

  “I think we had this same conversation ten years ago.” Esav closed the door and then pressed his chest to Court’s back and circled his arms around Court’s waist, holding him tight. “Damn,” he sighed. “You feel just as good now as you did back then.” He buried his face in Court’s neck and took in a deep breath. “Smell just as good too.”

  “I want you just as much now as I did then.” Court pushed his ass against Esav’s erection and rolled his hips.

  With a growl, Esav nipped Court’s ear. “I need to get you naked.” He mouthed Court’s neck, licking and nibbling, as he unbuckled his belt and then shoved his pants down.

  “I’m supposed to take my shoes off first, I think.” Court held on to Esav’s head and arched his neck, giving Esav more room to work. “Otherwise I can’t walk.”

  “You don’t need to walk.” Esav scooped Court into his arms and walked over to the bed in the corner of the room.

  “That is so hot.”

  “What?”

  “You,” Court said. “You’re huge and strong and”—he licked his lips—“hot.”

  “Glad you think so.” Esav grinned and set Court on the bed. “Lose the shoes while I take care of your shirt.”

  Within moments, Court was lying on the bed naked, propped up on his forearms, watching Esav undress. He flicked his gaze from Esav’s chest to his face to his dick, like he couldn’t decide what to focus on. “Hurry,” he said hoarsely.

  Esav peeled off his last sock and tossed it aside. “Ready.” He climbed onto the bed and slid up Court’s body, enjoying the glide of their skin against each other.

  Reflexively, Court parted his knees and spread his legs, making room for Esav.

  After settling on Court’s warm body, Esav cupped the sides of his face, brushed his thumbs back and forth over Court’s cheeks, and then leaned down for a kiss. Sliding his lips over Court’s heated Esav’s belly and hardened his cock. He licked his way into Court’s mouth and held his face still as he alternately nibbled on his lips and thrust his tongue in and out.

  “Love kissing you,” he whispered. “And touching you.” He grazed his teeth over Court’s jaw and down his neck and then sucked on his skin.

  “Are you giving me a hickey?”

  “Uh-huh.” Esav sucked harder, feeling his balls draw up at the idea of Court walking around with his mark on his neck. “You taste good.”

  When Court’s moans were coming out in a steady stream, Esav moved his mouth back to Court’s and kissed him again. “Should I ask what you want, or are you going to give me the same answer as last time?”

  “Same answer,” Court said. “But this time you top first.” He grasped Esav’s dick and stroked it. “I want to feel you inside again.”

  “I want that too.”

  After kissing Court yet again, Esav moved down his body, pinching his nipples, kissing his belly, and licking his balls. Then he stuffed a pillow under Court’s ass, spread and raised his thighs, and buried his face between Court’s firm globes.

  “Ungh! Esav!” Court yelled when Esav flicked his tongue back and forth over his pucker. “Yes. So good.”

  Esav agreed. He licked the hot skin and then pointed his tongue and pressed it through the tight ring of muscles, fucking Court with his tongue.

  The words Court babbled became indecipherable. He held on to Esav’s hair, keeping him in place, and bucked against him, trying to get more sensation inside his hole.

  When Esav couldn’t hold back any longer, he kissed Court’s opening, lightly bit his thigh, and said, “Tell me you have condoms here.”

  “Yeah. Nightstand.” Court pointed a shaky hand.

  Esav threw himself across the bed, opened the nightstand drawer, and found a sealed bottle of lube and a new box of condoms. He got the packaging open quickly, rolled the rubber over his swollen shaft, and then drizzled lube into Court’s channel before coating his cock with it. When they were both ready, he lay down on his side behind Court, lined his dick up with Court’s hole, and slowly pressed his way inside.

  “Oh God, yes,” Court moaned. “Love that. So good. Don’t stop.”

  Clenching his jaw to keep from spilling right then, Esav kept sliding until he was all the way in. “You’re so damn tight,” he grunted.

  “Maybe you’re just really big,” Court said.

  As turned on as he was, Esav still chuckled. Only Court could make him hot to the point of explosion while at the same time making him laugh. He nuzzled Court’s neck, grasped his dick, and then started pumping in and out of his body while he stroked him off.

  “Yesss.” Court slammed back, fucking himself on Esav’s cock. “Right there. Harder. Don’t stop. Harder.”

  After a few more thrusts, Esav pulled out, flipped Court onto his back, and then plunged back inside again. He grabbed Court’s ankles, held them up and out, exposing Court’s opening completely, and slammed his cock in and out at a furious pace.

  Court threw his hands over his head, bracing himself against the wall as he tried to meet every thrust. “Close,” he yelled. “So close.” The tendons in his neck tightened, his eyes widened, and then he arched his back and yelled Esav’s name as he pulsed shot after shot of seed over his belly and chest.

  Esav’s orgasm hit before Court’s was done. He released Court’s legs, held his dick deep inside, and pressed his lips against Court’s, moaning into his mouth as he came deep within his body.

  Neither man talked for a couple of minutes, both of them gasping for air and waiting for their hearts to slow. Eventually, Esav pulled out, got rid of the condom, and then wrapped his arms around Court and held him tightly.

  “You didn’t answer my question earlier,” he said.

  Court met his gaze. “What question?”

  “What brings you back to Colorado?”

  Biting his lower lip, Court looked away. “Do you still have that bluntness policy?” he asked quietly.

  “I think of it as speaking my mind, but yes.”

  “You,” Court said.

  “Me?”

  “I missed you.” Court looked into Esav’s eyes. “ I know you might think it was just one night back then, but for me there were a lot of years leading up to it and even more years thinking about it after. I can paint anywhere, but you’re here, so, uh.” He gulped. “You’re what brought me back.”

  God, Court was cute. Esav kissed his forehead. “Were you planning on letting me know?”

  Furrowing his brow, Court said, “Huh?”

  “A phone call? A text? An e-mail?” Esav grinned. “One of those planes that flies by and writes messages in smoke? Were you going to use some form of communication to tell me you were here and wanted to see me?”

  “Yeah. Well, not the smoke one, but the others, yeah. Eventually. When I got my nerve up.”

  “Seems I took care of that part for you,” Esav pointed out.

  “Seems that way.” The look in Court’s eyes held a world of longing, and Esav desperately wanted to fulfill it.

&
nbsp; “What’s the next part of your plan?” he asked.

  After biting his lip again, Court looked up at him from underneath his lashes and said, “What are my options?”

  Esav cupped Court’s cheeks, tilted his head back so their gazes met, and kissed him tenderly. “You can have whatever you want.”

  “What if I want you and not just for one night?” Court asked hoarsely. “What if I want you for all the time?”

  Esav’s heart swelled. “Anything you want,” he said before taking another kiss.

  Cops and Comix

  RHYS FORD

  Dearest Teej and Eric—

  I have so much faith in your love. So much faith in you. You are our stars, our hearts, and our sun. So much joy to both of you.

  THERE WAS a dead body on his floor. Well, the comic book shop’s floor, but it was his shop, so technically it was his floor.

  And if Alex’s heart kept trying to squirm its way out of his rib cage as it fled from terror, there would soon be another one.

  Leaning against the steel-reinforced glass door to his comic book shop, Alex pressed his fist against his chest, willing his galloping pulse to calm down. His racing heartbeat not only ignored the scolding, it seemed to kick it up a step, until it felt like he’d injected jalapeno juice directly into his veins. Fear apparently mimicked an overdose of Mexican food—or at least that was how Alex saw it.

  Outside, Los Angeles continued on its merry way as if there wasn’t a dead body lying facedown in front of Planet X’s bargain table.

  A scrubbed-out butter container with his leftover pad thai hit the floor when his already cold fingers went numb. Some part of his brain hoped the top hadn’t come off, more because he’d really liked how the pad thai’d come out, pretty well considering it was the first time he’d cooked something that exotic. Belatedly, he wondered if he should check on the man—if it was a man. From where Alex stood, he couldn’t actually tell.

  He took a step toward the too-still form on the universe-patterned industrial carpet he’d scored from a theater closing but then stopped in his tracks, nearly stepping on the dropped butter container. Normally he was through the door by nine, anticipating opening the shop at ten, but today he’d been running a bit late. Thankful for the single designated space he got from the strip mall, he’d parked his Mini up front and got out to open the door, figuring he’d just open a little bit early and do anything he needed to catch up on while waiting on customers.

  But now, with a dead body, it looked like Planet X probably wouldn’t be opening anytime soon.

  “Shit, it’s a crime scene,” Alex said to no one in particular. The dead body surely didn’t care. If it even was a dead body. “How long do they need to keep the store locked up for a crime scene? God, that was selfish. Shit, how long has he been there?”

  He stopped himself, realizing that had to be probably the dumbest thing he’d said in his lifetime. Obviously, the man wasn’t there before the store closed. His night crew did get lazy sometimes, but they weren’t so dim as to not notice a dead man lying in the front of the shop.

  Alex studied it, pushing his new glasses up. He was still getting used to the wire frames. After so many years of wearing thick black plastic, he’d let himself get talked into a supposedly more modern look. In reality, he suspected his mother’d just had a fondness for Harry Potter.

  “Okay, maybe someone’s just screwing with me. It’s probably a mannequin or something.” Alex peered through the dim store. “Josh. He’s an asshole. He’d do something like this.”

  Alex forced himself farther in, leaving his keys in the door. The carpet was mostly purple with swirls of stars and planets forming patterns over the floor. It was difficult to tell if there was blood or not, but Alex was fairly certain the large stain by the man’s ribs hadn’t been there when he’d left yesterday.

  If it was a mannequin, then it was a damned good one, because its knuckles were hairy and banged up in places, and its black sweatpants and hoodie were rumpled enough for Alex to catch a peek of bruised, pale skin over its waistband. He couldn’t see any evidence the body was anything but human—and a deceased one at that.

  “Shit.” His day’d gone from crappy to apocalyptic, although—he grimaced—probably not as bad a day as the guy on the floor. A very dead guy. “Sorry. Um, sir. Okay. Let’s check your pulse. Maybe you’re just… resting.”

  He put his hand on the man’s back, hoping to feel breathing or something, but Alex felt nothing pushing back up against his palm. Nope, the man lying on Planet X’s carpet was definitely dead, human, and from the smell, rotting at an alarming rate.

  Alex didn’t know what exactly dead smelled like, but he kind of knew what dead felt like. Sort of.

  The closest thing he’d come to handling a dead thing was when he’d gone fishing with his uncle one summer and caught a perch. He’d been excused from cleaning the flopping thing because he was six, and in retrospect, he hadn’t even been sure if the hook’d been baited. More than likely they’d given him a pole and told him to dangle it over the pier like the other boys were doing—a pole he’d almost dropped into the water when the fish bit his line and he’d jumped up in surprise.

  There’d been pictures and oohing over him, and when it was all said and done, he’d wondered out loud when it was time for the fish to go home. His uncle explained quite frankly—and brutally in Alex’s mind—about death and how the fish was now going to be dinner.

  That was when he’d started screaming blue bloody murder, and it’d been the last time his uncle took him with them. While he’d never caught another fish ever again, Alex probably would still scream blue bloody murder.

  Much like he almost did when something in the man’s side churned about and a dark splotch on his skin ripped apart, spilling out something startlingly like blackened, chunky cottage cheese.

  His stomach lurched, and Alex practically leapfrogged over himself to get to the front door. He almost didn’t make it. The mall’s bedraggled lily bushes took the brunt of his vomit, but it was mostly water and coffee. He’d lost too much time waking up late and scraping a hairball or five off the living room carpet to make himself something for breakfast.

  Yep—Alex stared at the pool of ick he’d just tossed up into the landscaped green buffer between the sidewalk and the parking lot—mostly water and coffee.

  “Hey, man, you going to be open soon?” Alex found himself looking at a pair of black leather shoes. Glancing up, he recognized the man who owned the printing shop a few doors down. “I’ve got to go take a piss, and I don’t want to use ours. Yours is a lot cleaner.”

  “Um, no,” Alex burbled around his moist tongue. “I’ve got to call the cops. There’s a dead guy in my store.”

  The man frowned and peered through the door, his eyes narrowing in disgust. “Well, shit, now where am I going to go take a leak?”

  DETECTIVE JAMES Castillo parked his unmarked police-issued sedan behind a row of orange traffic cones set up in front of the crime scene. He’d gotten the call on the DB while he was getting coffee a few blocks away, and he’d called in his location, reluctantly accepting to take on the case. Reluctant mostly because of where the dead body had been found.

  He’d grown up with geeks for brothers—hell, he had a hard-core love for more than a few sci-fi shows, but pulling information out of somebody who spent his life parsing out the differences between stormtrooper uniforms or arguing about exactly what Gygax meant by halfling wasn’t his idea of a good time.

  Planet X sounded like a day spent listening to nerd babble as he tried to figure out exactly what was important information or speculation.

  Because, God, his brothers loved to speculate.

  No, he’d prefer a straightforward murder in suburbia any day, where the neighbors were in everyone’s business and the motive usually came down to sex or money—sometimes even both.

  “Who found the body?” James asked, flashing his badge at one of the cops standing guard by the door. He’d
beaten the forensics team to the site, which wasn’t a problem since he had booties and gloves in the trunk of his car, but he wanted to question the witness before the details got fuzzy.

  “Over there, talking to Mancha. Witness’s name is Alex Martin. He owns the store. Has for the past five years. Before that, it was his father’s. Says he only touched the body to see if help could be rendered. Got sick in the bushes over there. At least he had the stomach to make it outside first.”

  “How bad can it be?” He cocked his head at the cop. “Was the store closed for a long time? Deceased in there for a while?”

  “He says no. Night shift closes the store at nine, then takes about an hour to lock the place down. So if he’s telling the truth, the DB’s only been in there twelve hours at the most, but it’s in a serious state of decay.”

  “So, transported.” James contemplated the man standing a few yards away. “I’ll take a look inside—a quick one. Then if you can have him ready to talk to me, I’ll take over.”

  His mind should have been on the job, but James’s cock had other ideas when it perked up at the sight of the tall, slight brunet in glasses standing next to one of the uniforms. From the serious—and slightly green—look on the man’s face, James figured the civilian was connected to the scene in some way, especially since he was talking to the biggest asshole to wear a blue uniform in forever. The rainbow Bird of Prey silhouette sticker boldly displayed on the store’s glass front door was a good omen, and James took a moment to study the store’s owner.

  Alex Martin was attractive. Even flustered by a dead body, he was alarmingly good-looking, though not normally James’s type. No, usually he liked a sturdier man, one he could grab hold of and not wonder if he’d break an arm or shoulder, but the man’s tousled sable mane looked soft, its length nearly begging to be grabbed and tugged on during sex. His mouth was a sin waiting to happen. Full and lush in a sharply angled face, his lips balanced out his enormous owlish eyes, their color masked by the flash of sunlight on the man’s wire-rimmed glasses.