by Riley Knight
“Thanks,” Ben said, and there was what appeared to be a completely genuine smile on his face as he looked over at Isaac. He knew that Ben had been waiting for, and maybe dreading, the phone call from the social worker, but it had never come.
Which was a bit disappointing. Isaac had found himself wanting to know what was going to happen if Sammy was going to be coming into Ben’s life in a more significant way. Isaac, after all, was definitely hoping to be a part of Ben’s life himself, and he had found himself charmed by the kid.
He’d always wanted a little sister or a brother. Part of him thought that Ben was the luckiest guy in the world to get one of his own, and so unexpectedly.
“I’ll see you soon,” Isaac told him, and he knew that he would. He would make sure of it. After all, he knew where Ben lived, and where he worked. He might need some time to adjust to what had changed between them, but he also thought he wouldn’t need as long as he might have thought.
Greatly daring, Isaac leaned over, trusting to the darkness to hide him, and brushed a kiss over Ben’s lips. It was a brief one, but he was shaking by the end of it. They were, after all, right outside his parents’ house, but there was no way they could see him, right?
“Goodnight,” Isaac whispered, and then, before he did something stupid, like demand that Ben take him home and do more of those sinfully delicious things to him, he slipped out of the car and into the much more chilly embrace of the spring night.
Ben started the car but stayed nearby as Isaac made his way up the long driveway and toward the front door. Only when he had reached the front patio did Ben speed away, and it warmed Isaac deep inside to think that Ben had just been watching him, making sure that he got home safely.
Isaac turned the knob and then frowned. It didn’t turn. It stuck in place, and Isaac stared at the offending handle because he couldn’t remember a single time in his life that his parents had felt the need to lock the door. They were always too far away from town.
But the door was locked. Isaac stared at it and then slowly, moving as though in some sort of terrible dream, he moved around the house to the kitchen door. It was some sort of mistake, he told himself. Just a weird thing that had happened. Maybe the doorknob was just jammed, and it wasn’t locked at all. Or his mother had absently locked it. Just one of those things …
The wind stung his eyes as he made his way around the side of the house to try the kitchen door. As much as he was trying to talk himself out of panicking, he couldn’t honestly say he was all that surprised when he found that door handle, too, refused to turn.
Hopelessly, Isaac went around the front again and knocked on the door. When he’d gotten out of the car, it had been after eleven, and both of his parents went to bed early. He didn’t actually think he’d get an answer, so when the door slotted open just a bit, an inch or so, he was surprised.
“Just go.” It was his mother, and she looked anxiously back over her shoulder. “Your father is furious. He says you’re not welcome under his roof anymore. Just go, or he’ll call the police!”
Maybe Isaac should have made them do it. Maybe he should have caused a scene, made his mother embarrassed by having the police come to her house, which she would hate. Maybe Isaac should have fought her, demanded to talk to his father, who was too much of a coward to even kick him out to his face.
He didn’t do any of that, though. Instead, he just turned around and, feeling nothing other than a terrible, cold, yawning emptiness, he walked off the patio and toward the street.
It would take him hours to walk into town, and he just had to hope that, once he was there, he could find Ben’s apartment. And that Ben wouldn’t turn him away at the door, too.
THIRTEEN
It was far too late for the phone to ring now, and yet, Ben kept on staring at his cell. He had decided. He knew what he was going to do, but he would never have the nerve to actually do it if he didn’t talk to the social worker soon.
It was three in the morning. She certainly wasn’t going to call now, there was just no way in hell, and yet Ben kept staring at the plain, blank, unresponsive screen of his phone, as though he could somehow force it to light up just with the pressure of his mind.
Every time he caught himself doing it, he told himself he was being ridiculous, and yet, he still caught himself doing it again. It might be as much as half an hour later, or, more often, it would be five minutes or less, but he always went there.
With a laugh that was half a sigh, Ben forced himself to put down his phone and recline back on his couch. He had things to think about, and he should definitely be in bed at this point, but his mind was whirling and twisting like a cyclone on speed, and he knew he would just lay awake if he tried, staring helplessly at the ceiling as he tried desperately to make his eyes close.
Taking a deep breath, Ben tensed his shoulders up as much as he could, even drawing them up toward his ears, and then deliberately relaxed them. He needed a backrub, he realized, as his shoulders and upper back muscles twinged in protest of his attempt to release the tension in them. A backrub, someone with good, strong hands.
Isaac had good, strong hands. And he’d been pretty good at helping Ben release some tension earlier that day. A smile lingered on Ben’s lips as he thought about it. He would never have thought that the good, innocent Christian boy would be quite as willing to be corrupted.
Isaac had shown no hesitation at all, though. He had jumped right in, without even a murmur of the protest that Ben had been expecting. As much as he liked Isaac, as much as he wanted the gorgeous man’s tight little body, he had already decided he would back off if Isaac showed even the slightest sign of not being into it. But there had been no sign of that, no matter how much Ben had been looking for it, ready.
How far would they go, Ben wondered? His smile widened as he thought of the things that he and the pretty young man could do, and at that moment, it didn’t seem to matter so much that Isaac was untouched. They would see what happened. Ben found himself fascinated, actually …
He drifted off into a daydream, one involving him fantasizing vividly about how it would feel to have those impossibly beautiful lips wrapped around his aching cock. Would Isaac be willing to try that?
And then he was pulled rather rudely from that dream by a rapping at the door, a knock that was somehow both tired and urgent at the same time. He rubbed at his eyes and then plucked at the front of his jeans, which felt just tight enough to be uncomfortable with the way his mind had been going.
“Who the hell is coming by here at 3 am?” Ben grumbled, and he honestly couldn’t think of who it could be. Sure, he had friends, but no one that he was really that close to. Certainly not 3 am urgent rapping on the door levels of close.
Carefully, he opened the door a slit, keeping the chain on, and peered out. He saw one tired, sad blue eye through the gap, a shade of blue so bright, so vivid, that he couldn’t possibly mistake it for anyone else in the world.
“Isaac!” Ben shut the door just enough to take the chain off and then pushed it open again. His eyes skimmed over Isaac’s body, eager for the sight of him. He didn’t know quite why it made him so happy to lay eyes on the younger man. Hadn’t he decided that a relationship was a bad idea with someone so young and innocent? Not that Ben was much for the relationships to start with.
He couldn’t deny the way that his heart skipped a beat in his chest when he saw the young man, or the way his stomach clenched with something like fear when he saw how tired he was, how disheveled, how dusty. He might not like it, but he felt something for this young man, something which he had been sure that he would never feel.
Romance wasn’t for him, he reminded himself, but he still reached out and wrapped an arm around Isaac’s shoulders. His jacket was cold, and Ben pulled him into the apartment, finding him pliant and willing. As soon as Isaac got close enough to him, he wrapped his arms around Ben and clung to him like his life depended on it.
No one had ever held Ben like that befor
e. Like he was crucial. Like he mattered. It was strangely intoxicating, and Ben hugged him back, letting the door shut behind Isaac.
“What happened to you?” he asked, stroking his hands over Isaac’s chilly body. It got pretty cold at night still, and Ben tried to use the heat of his own body to warm Isaac up a little.
“My parents,” Isaac finally spoke, though the sound was muffled by the way he shoved his head against Ben’s shoulder. Not that he was complaining. Isaac felt perfect against him. “They told me to leave.”
Ben gently led Isaac to the comfortable, overstuffed couch, guiding him down onto it, sitting beside him and then when that wasn’t enough, he pulled Isaac outright onto his lap. Isaac kept his arms around Ben’s shoulders, clinging to him, still like his life depended on it.
“They kicked you out?” Ben asked, and he had to fight off a surge of the most red-hot, intense rage that he had ever felt in his life. This wasn’t just anger. This was a desire to hurt the people that had so obviously hurt the man that Ben …
Cared about. That was all it was.
“Yeah,” Isaac admitted. “Or my mom did. My dad just locked the doors and kept me out, but my mom told me that I had to go.”
Ben forced himself to count to ten and then again, only backward. Slowly. After he’d done that, he felt like he could speak without his tone of voice being too terrifying to Isaac. Hopefully. Rage still simmered in his stomach, ready to explode out at any time, but he wasn’t angry at Isaac.
“Because of me?” Ben’s hands slipped up into Isaac’s coat, but not into his shirt. His intention, as strange as it was, was to provide comfort, not to try to seduce the younger man. It was weird, but there it was.
“Because I left with you,” Isaac whispered, and then he just held on to Ben, his slender arms surprisingly strong. “I have no place to go, Ben. I’m sorry that I bothered you so late, but I don’t know anyone else, other than the people in the church and I don’t think they’d welcome me in, either.”
Which meant, Ben realized, that Isaac had lost everything. His whole family, really, including the extended one of his church. What must that feel like? Ben didn’t know. He did know, though, that it had hurt, that it had taken him awhile, to nerve himself up to the point where he could walk away from his mother, who had always been all the family that he had.
Now he had Sammy, too. And Isaac had him. Maybe he wasn’t much, but he would be there for Isaac, for whatever that was worth. Funny how he barely knew this man, and yet he already wanted to take care of him.
“You can stay here,” Ben spoke before he even thought about the full impact of the words. This was a man he had known for literally less than a week. He had no call to be inviting Isaac to stay here, but where else could the man even go? “At least for a little while. Until you can get a new place.”
Isaac pulled back to look at him, and to Ben’s embarrassment, those big, jewel-bright eyes were wet with tears. He wasn’t used to being around men who cried, but after what Isaac had been through that night, maybe anyone would be crying.
Though Ben wasn’t in a hurry to admit to anyone else, to himself, at least, he had to admit that his eyes had been more than a little bit damp himself the day he had finally walked away from his mother. It didn’t matter how much parents messed their kids up, he had realized. It still hurt when you lost that connection. He and Isaac had that in common now.
“I can?” Isaac asked, and he gave Ben a look that made him feel about ten foot tall and like the superheroes that he and Sammy had been talking about earlier that same day. This was the sort of feeling that a guy could get used to, he figured.
“Yeah. Until you’re back on your feet,” Ben told him, stroking over his back, up his slender neck to mess with his soft dark hair. “You can get a job, make some money.”
Isaac dropped his gaze, his eyes thoughtful, slightly lidded as though he tried to protect himself. It was sad to see, but it was probably a good thing. In Ben’s experience, the world wasn’t kind to people who didn’t do their best to shield themselves from it. It had struck Ben early on that Isaac didn’t do that nearly enough. Still, he didn’t like it.
“I don’t know what work I can do,” he admitted. “I’ve never done anything but work for the church, and I don’t have any training for anything else. I don’t know who would hire me.”
Ben looked thoughtfully at Isaac, and his pretty face and his tight, beautiful body, and a crazy, insane, impossible idea came into his mind. He might have a job for Isaac, he realized, if he thought that Isaac could hack it. Didn’t he curse the lack of available help in town every night that he worked?
Trained or not, Isaac could certainly serve people beer and nachos. It wasn’t exactly rocket scientist. And people tended to like Isaac, he’d seen it in the way that the social worker and Sammy had both warmed up to him quickly.
“Look, let me talk to some people,” Ben said. He didn’t want to promise anything too soon, not until he knew if his boss would be willing to hire someone just based on Ben’s say so. Of course, it probably wouldn’t be a problem since Ben’s boss knew just as well as Ben did that they needed the help. “Maybe I can find you a job.”
Isaac nodded, and it touched Ben, made a warm glow spread through his whole body, that Isaac could still trust him. Isaac would have every right not to trust anyone, after being kicked out of his house by his own parents, but he still trusted Ben. Though he had only just met him such a short time ago, Ben could see it in Isaac’s eyes.
“Look, it all seems shitty now, but …” Ben smiled and brushed his lips over Isaac’s cheek and then those full pink lips, teasing at them lightly with his own. “It’ll seem better in the morning, I promise.”
FOURTEEN
The golden beams of mid-morning sunshine came in through the windows, touching Isaac’s face and rousing him from sleep. At first, what he saw, what he smelled, what he felt around him didn’t make any sense. Everything was wrong, and his first thought was that his parents must have moved him again.
It wasn’t uncommon, after all. Once every couple of years or so, their whole family picked up and left the area, often the entire state. So waking up in this state of confusion was almost something that Isaac was used to.
What he wasn’t used to was the surge of sadness that went through him when he realized what had actually happened. When he recalled the feeling of that cold brass doorknob, stubbornly refusing to turn to let him into his own house.
He closed his eyes briefly and burrowed back into the blankets. The bed under him was soft, though, and the blankets were warm, and there was someone beside him, someone warm and who smelled good.
Ben. He was in Ben’s bed, where they had finally fallen senseless after an argument which had lasted a good half an hour about who would take the couch. Isaac had insisted that he should, Ben had said that, as the guest, Isaac should take the bed.
Well, they’d settled that argument well enough, Isaac figured, since he and Ben were both in this bed. Despite everything, Isaac couldn’t help but smile as he looked down into Ben’s sleeping face, as he traced over the shape of those slightly parted lips, first with his eyes and then with gentle fingers.
He shouldn’t touch Ben, who was just trying to sleep, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. His fingers moved of their own accord, and the skin of Ben’s lips was smooth and slightly dry, so soft and lush. How could he resist?
“Sorry,” he murmured, and he meant it, when Ben stirred, and his eyes drifted open. It seemed a shame to wake up someone who had looked so peaceful. There was this constant tension in Ben’s face, but when he slept, it faded away entirely, and there was just peace and beauty.
“Mmm. You watchin’ me sleep?” Ben drawled out the words, and it made Isaac shiver a little. He hadn’t gotten used to the local accent, and it was especially hot in Ben’s beautiful, rough growl of a voice, deeper and lower even than usual with the thickness of sleep.
“Just for a few seconds,” Isaac told him h
onestly, and then he was captured, Ben’s strong, calloused hand hooking in the back of his neck and pulling him close for a slow, soft, sultry good morning kiss.
Isaac shuddered and gave himself to it. There were so many firsts for him with this man. He’d never woken up in a bed with anyone else before. He’d never been kissed good morning, or not like this, anyway.
One thing he had done, and quite often, was wake up aroused, sometimes to the point where he couldn’t even think, he had to take care of it. Being around Ben all night, smelling him, feeling his body against him, had only made that particular problem that much worse, it seemed, because he was so hard that he was sure he could crack diamonds.
“Hmm, what’s this?” Ben hummed when the kiss got more serious, and their bodies came together as though drawn by strong magnets to each other. The sheet was tangled around Isaac, but that wasn’t a thick enough layer, and the tip of his erection brushed over Ben’s hip in a way that the other man couldn’t possibly miss it.
“It’s just, in the morning sometimes …” Isaac tried to explain, wondering if he’d really offended Ben. He attempted to pull his hips away, but he felt the heat of Ben’s hands, seemingly hot enough to burn him even through the sheet, as Ben captured both cheeks of Isaac’s ass and pulled him closer against him. Even if Isaac wanted to get away, he wasn’t sure that he could, not with this huge hunk of a man holding him with those big, strong arms.
“Relax. I’m not offended. It happens to all guys,” Ben murmured, and then he rolled onto his side, too, offering some tangible proof of his own arousal. Isaac let out a soft, half strangled little moan as he felt the rigid length of Ben’s thick erection against his own, and he couldn’t even help but move a little bit against him, even as his limbs were still slow and stupid with sleep.
It did? That was honestly news to Isaac. He’d never had anyone to talk about this sort of thing with, and part of him had thought he was some sort of deviant for waking up already ready to go.
