by Kelly Jensen
“I love your house,” Brian said.
Mal smiled. “Thanks. I do too.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Nearly as long as I’ve been teaching. My parents helped me with the down payment and I got a good rate.”
He’d have had to. Real estate in Morristown wasn’t cheap. Twenty years ago, though . . .
“Is the basement finished?” A handful of stairs led down from the front door as well.
“It’s a half basement, rest is garage, and yeah. I only use it for storage and workout space, though.”
Nodding, Brian held out his bag. “Where can I put this?”
“You didn’t need to bring anything.”
“Of course I brought something.” Brian stepped forward, and whether unsteady on his legs or simply slow off the mark, Mal didn’t step back. “Hi.” Brian smiled, knowing the breath carrying that single word would have touched Mal’s lips.
Mal returned his smile. “Hi.” He leaned in.
Brian met him in the middle, and what he’d intended as a tease, a quick peck, a kiss that said hello, I’m here, turned into, wow, I am so happy to see you. Any anxiety Brian had felt about coming here tonight, about their date, fell in a heap around his feet. He set his bag on the floor, ignoring the rustle and clink, and framed Mal’s face with his hands. Kissed him soundly. Took his mouth and possessed it—committing the curve of each lip to memory, the taste of him, the warmth, and the fact that Mal was not a passive kisser.
With a rumble in his throat, Mal leaned in a little more, shifting his face so that the not-quite-smooth skin of his cheek rubbed over Brian’s palm. He hooked fingers into Brian’s belt and pulled him closer and deepened the kiss, his tongue being the one to make the first official move, inviting Brian inside, toying and playing.
“Mmph.” Brian fell into sensation, as his body heated and chilled, and the thrill of kissing someone he wanted raced from lips to dick, before curling around his balls. “Want you so bad.”
“Been thinking about this all day,” Mal returned, pausing to nip at Brian’s lips.
“Why did you make me wait so long?”
“Had to make sure you wanted it.”
Brian put his hand to the growing bulge at Mal’s crotch and squeezed. “Oh, I want it.”
Mal shuddered and moaned, his hips rocking forward, his shoulders back, as though his body was dealing with mixed signals. Chuckling, Brian slid a hand around Mal’s back and reeled him in again, snatching his mouth into another kiss. With his fingers, he molded the outline of Mal’s cock, straining behind denim, and grinned into the kiss as Mal bucked and swore and breathed. Knowing Mal wanted this as much as he did was such a turn-on.
“Hold up.” Mal gripped Brian’s arms, holding him in place.
Brian’s heart tried to push through the front of his chest. Surely Mal didn’t mean to—
“If we keep on like this, I’m going to do something awkward with my leg and ruin the moment.”
“Oh crap, your leg.”
“I know. Mood killer extraordinaire.”
Brian pressed a quick kiss to Mal’s lips. “Never.” Figuring out how to get off—if that was where this was leading—around the leg brace was going to be interesting, though. “Couch?”
“Couch.”
Mal led the way to the generous living area, walking without crutches, his gait stiff-legged and almost painful to watch. Brian guessed that offering a hand, an arm, or a shoulder would kill the mood, though. In Mal’s position, he’d be insulted by the gesture.
“Where’s your crutch?” he asked instead.
“I’m supposed to be trying to walk without it. Short distances. It’ll be easier when the doc unlocks the brace all the way so I can actually bend my knee.”
“No kidding.”
“Right now, the idea of bending it makes me break out in a cold sweat.”
“Then don’t think about it.”
“I’m killing our vibe, aren’t I?” Mal was standing in front of his couch, hands on hips, surveying the terrain as though planning an entrenchment.
Brian grinned. “Not at all. Get yourself set up so we can get back to showing each other what want feels like.”
Mal chuckled. “So, ah, in the name of expediency, what are we talking here? If we’re going to do something with pants off, I kinda need to get them off now.”
Unable to help himself, Brian started laughing. “Wow.”
The color stinging Mal’s cheeks took off ten years. His glasses flashed as he dipped his chin. “I know. Maybe we should just eat?”
Brian made a show of sniffing the air. “I don’t smell any food.”
“That’s because I haven’t cooked it yet.”
“What are we having?”
“Tuna steaks and this bok choy mushroom thing my brother makes that will blow your mind. That is if you like mushrooms. Do you like mushrooms?”
“I love mushrooms. I also love that you planned sex food.”
“How so?”
“No lasagna.”
Mal joined him in the laughter. “Yeah, I think we’re both old enough to figure out what not to eat on a date, heh?”
Sobering, slightly, Brian put himself between Mal and the couch, and cupped Mal’s cheek again. “I’m still turned on. Even more so knowing you figured we’d be getting busy tonight.”
Mal made a soft sound. “Want you so bad.”
The echo of his own need lit a fire in Brian’s veins. Leaning in, he captured Mal’s mouth again and kissed him with a heated languor that was theirs alone. A balance between the desire thrumming through his veins and the need to take care of Mal, to let him set the pace.
Shifting his lips to Mal’s jaw, Brian kissed his way out to one ear before trailing his tongue down the side of Mal’s neck. There, he nipped the cord of muscle and exhaled into the warm hollow of the throat. Mal was mouthing his hairline, kisses that missed their mark, but still meant something. The grip of Mal’s fingers at his shoulders held them together.
Brian flattened his palm to Mal’s chest and took a moment to appreciate the heat radiating through Mal’s simple long-sleeve T-shirt. Skin was less than a millimeter of cotton away. Pressing his mouth to Mal’s shoulder, he breathed. Mal kissed his neck. After sliding his hand downward over taut abs, Brian tugged on Mal’s belt, and slipped his fingers behind the waistband of the jeans. Another pull and he got busy with the belt. Then the button, then the fly.
Mal quickly proved he wasn’t the kind of guy to stand there and be pleasured—though Brian wouldn’t care if he was. Brian knew that sometimes it was hard to reciprocate, and sometimes you just wanted to feel. To be worshipped. On a good night, everyone got their turn.
Mal was pushing Brian’s coat from his shoulders, and Brian paused to let it fall to his elbows, then flicked the coat toward the chair alongside the couch. His sweater joined the coat, and then Mal started in on his shirt buttons.
“This color suits you,” Mal said as he dragged the russet shirt away from Brian’s shoulders.
“Hmm,” was all Brian managed in return as he helped remove Mal’s shirt, adding that to the pile they were creating. He cupped the hard ridge at Mal’s crotch again. His own dick pulsed in response, and the urge to press his groin to Mal’s became overwhelming. Grabbing Mal’s ass, Brian crushed their hips together and groaned as the pressure he’d sought ground against his erection.
Mal huffed at his ear. “I need to sit.”
Brian sidled out from between man and couch and let Mal turn around and ease himself down. Once settled, Mal started ripping Velcro and unbuckling black plastic.
“Are you going to be okay without the brace?” Brian asked. “I could suck you off.”
“You can do that anyway, and I’ll be . . .” Mal winced. “Damn it. I hate this.”
Brian knelt in front of him. “Don’t. This is temporary. Yeah, it’s going to make this interesting, but . . .” Okay, reminding him that he had two functioning legs, e
ven if they weren’t the steadiest right now probably wasn’t going to improve the mood.
Mal read the thought in his eyes. “My brother tells me the same thing all the time. I’m just frustrated. And horny.”
Putting on his most charming grin, Brian leaned in. “Me too. Here’s what we’re going to do: I’m going to blow you. Then we can relax and figure out whatever we want to do later.”
Mal crooked his eyebrows together, his expression gathering toward something negative, and then he relaxed and nodded. Pressed his palm to the side of Brian’s face. “Having you here, kneeling in front of me, is blowing my mind.”
God, he was sweet.
Smiling, Brian turned to kiss Mal’s palm. “Give me a few minutes, then I’ll really blow your mind.”
Groaning, Mal settled back on the couch, legs spread. Brian pushed Mal’s jeans down and pulled out the hard length of his cock. Mal fisted his shaft, pointing it toward Brian’s mouth, and Brian swallowed. He could already smell Mal’s skin and that whiff of sweat that always clung to testicles. The scent of arousal hung thickly between them, and Mal’s lap was warm and inviting, the erection bobbing before Brian’s lips the cherry on top of a sundae.
“I rubbed one out thinking about exactly this last week,” he said, making sure his words ghosted over the dark-pink head of Mal’s dick.
“Fu-uck. I want to feel your mouth on me before I come.”
“Tell me you jerked off thinking about me.” Leaning in, Brian flicked his tongue out to catch the bead of pre-come collecting in Mal’s slit.
“I did. I did!”
Brian opened his mouth and swallowed Mal down.
Mal hissed as his hips bucked. “Oh, Jesus.”
Brian lifted his gaze, knowing what the sight of a man on his knees, lips stretched around the girth of your cock, could do. How it made you feel. Mal didn’t disappoint. His mouth opened in a soft O and his head fell back, exposing the column of his throat.
Mal was well-built. Lean and rangy like a runner, with the shoulders of a wide receiver. His pecks were dusted with hair a shade lighter than his head. The gray creeping in only made him sexier. His nipples were small and hard, and he had freckles, damn him. Clustered and spread, pale against his winter skin. Brian wanted to do so much more than suck Mal’s cock. He wanted to lick those nipples and count the freckles. Find out if Mal was ticklish. Taste him. Make him whine.
The pulse of Mal’s cock against his tongue indicated he was close, and Brian stopped plotting what they’d get up to next. One orgasm at a time.
Tightening the ring of his lips, Brian eased his way back up Mal’s shaft, pressing his tongue to the prominent vein on the underside, and then sucked his way back down, opening his throat to take it all, again. Mal couldn’t fuck his face, not like this. Brian could make sure he felt as though he had, though. He dug one hand under Mal’s hip and wrapped the other around the base of Mal’s cock, and put everything he had into making sure Mal would remember him and his mouth.
It didn’t take long. Mal was so beautifully responsive, even with the limitations of his braced leg. He panted and gasped. Every deeply guttural moan seemed to echo through his skin, because Brian felt all of them. Mal gripped Brian’s hair and stroked his ears. Whispered words of encouragement and called him “baby” more than once.
Then he managed a hip spasm and came, flooding Brian’s mouth with the bittersweet taste of pleasure—sweeter in this instance, because Brian had wanted it so much. Dropping a hand to his own cock, Brian swallowed, stroked, and then followed Mal half a minute later, spilling into his palm.
He hadn’t counted the strokes, but it barely mattered. He hadn’t come this fast in twenty years. With this little effort. Panting softly, he put his cheek to Mal’s left thigh and looked up. Mal had his eyes closed, but he still found Brian’s face, fingers drifting over Brian’s cheek in a light caress.
“That was amazin’,” Mal slurred.
“Mm-hmm.” Brian smiled, the curve of his lips widening as he felt the pull and tingle of a mouth that had worked pretty hard. “So, if you have a PhD, why don’t you go by Dr. Montgomery instead of Mr. Montgomery?”
Mal’s laughter jerked through his body. “So not what I figured you were going to ask.”
“We can talk about what you taste like if you want.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Brian grinned. “So . . .”
“I did for a while. When the letters were all fresh and shiny. Then I got sick of explaining that no, I’m not a brain surgeon, and no, I don’t earn a brain surgeon’s salary, and I decided I preferred being a mister.”
“Makes sense.”
Mal was quiet.
Brian kissed his knee. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing.”
“Mal.”
“You’re still staying for dinner, right?”
Brian sat up and lifted a hand to Mal’s shoulder. Touched his neck and turned his face downward. “Look at me.”
Mal complied, his expression abashed.
“Yeah, you should feel like that,” Brian said.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re embarrassed by what you asked me.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just . . .”
“Endearingly awkward. Kinda shy. Sweet. And the man I plan on spending the night with. Got it?”
“Because I owe you a blowjob?”
“Maybe I want to call you doctor and act out a long-held fantasy.”
Mal looked vaguely horrified for a second, and then he laughed.
Mal stopped mid-hum when Brian leaned in behind him. The fragrance of the soap Brian had used to wash up didn’t quite mix with the lingering scent of orange and sex, but the combination had Mal smiling. Brian was here, in his house. In his kitchen.
Brian kissed his cheek from behind, lips brushing Mal’s ear more than his face. “Only me,” he murmured. “Though if I lived with a tiger, I’d be jumpy too.”
“A tiger . . . Oh. You’ve met Lois.”
“You call that thing Lois?” Brian’s weight left Mal’s back as he stepped away.
Mal shifted his own weight and turned from the cutting board where he’d been getting a start on dinner. “Did you call my cat ‘a thing’?”
“It . . . She? Your cat is huge. Like the size of a dog.”
“A small dog.”
“I was scared to leave the bathroom.”
Mal laughed. “You were scared of my cat?”
“I did say huge, right?”
Shaking his head, Mal returned to his fish preparation. “The only time you need fear for your safety is when she decides to start kneading your lap. And maybe when she thinks your chest is a good sleeping place. Or your back. She is heavy. Has nearly smothered me a time or two.”
“And yet you continue to share your house with her.”
“She lets me stay. It’s a cat thing. Someone needs to organize her meals.”
Brian’s laughter was soft. “So, what can I do to— Ah!”
Mal glanced down, already knowing what he’d see: Lois testing the steadfastness of Brian’s leg as she leaned against it, purring. His leg would be next, and then she’d have her paws (and claws) stretched upward, nearly reaching the counter because she was a large cat, as she demanded her piece of tuna.
“Hold still and she won’t knock you down,” he advised.
“Tell me the cat is the one who broke your legs.”
“Ha! No. Shh, Lois. Give me a sec.” Lois’s purr had deepened into a rumbling yowl. “Want to feed her?”
“No. I do not. Where was this beast when I arrived?”
“Probably hiding. She can be shy.”
“I refuse to believe it.”
Grinning, Mal put Lois’s portion of tuna on a plate and handed it to Brian. “Can you put this on the floor for her? Beside the fridge there. It’s either that or invite her up onto the counter, and I think you’ve been traumatized enough for one night.”
Brian took
the plate and crouched to put it on the floor by the side of the refrigerator. He snatched his hand away and danced back a step as Lois practically threw herself at the tuna.
“I nearly got eaten!”
“You’re more dramatic than I’d have guessed,” Mal said.
Looking somewhat sheepish, Brian dusted ginger hair from one leg. “As need requires. So, before I was so rudely interrupted, I was going to ask what I can do to help?”
Mal indicated the bag he’d rescued from the floor near the front door. “Unpack your bag?”
“Oh, right. Forgot about that.” A light flush still highlighted Brian’s cheeks—the glow of a good orgasm. Beneath that, he seemed slightly surprised, as though he wasn’t used to being forgetful. “I brought red and white wine because I didn’t know which you liked. Or what we were eating. I’d drink anything with whatever, but Si—I have friends who put a lot of stock in that sort of thing.”
“Snobs.”
“Exactly.”
Brian set the bottles on the counter beside the bag and reached in for a cardboard box. “I do know that chocolate goes with everything.”
Mal’s grin felt a little strange until he realized it’d been a while since he’d smiled so often and so wide. “You went to all the trouble of buying me wine and chocolate and then got lucky the minute you stepped through the door.”
Brian kissed his lips softly before whispering, “I know. I should put my bag of tricks back in the trunk of my car.”
