The bittersweet flavor of Eric’s flesh burst over his palate and made him groan. He ran his tongue around the spongy cap, exploring the shape and texture. When he flicked over the shallow groove beneath the helmet, Eric grunted and bucked his hips, forcing the blunt crown deeper into Cole’s mouth. Cole accepted him, groaning at the alien sensation of Eric’s dick sliding over his tongue.
Slender fingers wove through his hair, urging him to continue. “Oh yeah, Cole…suck me. Suck my cock.”
Hearing Eric sputter those dirty words, feeling the smooth skin quiver under his tongue’s manipulation, pushed Cole to take more, to hollow his cheeks and suck hard, while bobbing up and down over Eric’s prick. He pushed down, trying to force the entire length into his mouth, and took more than he could manage. The bulbous head of Eric’s prick butted up against the back of his throat and made him gag.
Sputtering and embarrassed at his lack of experience, he backed off and let Eric slip from between his lips. He glanced up at Eric, glad the darkness camouflaged the heat suffusing his face, but wishing he could see Eric’s expression and know if he was doing a good job or not. Though he didn’t want to mess this up, he had no idea what he was doing. It was harder than it looked. He was operating on pure instinct and the memory of what he liked done to him.
Eric’s fingers tightened on Cole’s scalp. His other hand reached down and petted Cole’s cheek. “Don’t stop, babe. I’m so close. Make me come.” He grabbed his dick by its base and brushed the weeping tip over Cole’s mouth. “Please, finish me off.”
Cole’s lips parted and he licked the salty ambrosia off the tip of Eric’s cock. Surprisingly, it wasn’t bad. A little bitter, maybe, but nothing gross, like he’d been half afraid of. His tongue dipped into the slit, searching out every drop. His hands rose and bracketed Eric’s slim hips, pulling him forward, wanting Eric to take what he needed.
He slid his mouth off Eric’s prick and looked up at him. “Do it. Fuck my mouth. Come for me.”
Eric groaned and his hips bucked forward. With his hand still around the base of his cock, he set a fast rhythm, shuffling his length in and out of Cole’s mouth.
His jaw began to ache, but he persevered, taking everything Eric had to give. He concentrated on keeping his teeth out of the way, his tongue moving along the firm shaft, keeping his jaw loose on the intake and his lips tight on the withdrawal. Saliva pooled in his mouth, making the slick glide of Eric’s cock over his tongue more smooth. Just when he thought lockjaw was going to set in, Eric stiffened and cried out. His dick pulsed, growing impossibly larger, as spurt after spurt of creamy seed spilled into Cole’s mouth.
The force behind Eric’s release made Cole gag, but he quickly recovered and swallowed what he could, gently suckling Eric as he shook and shivered through the last of his climax. When Eric began to soften, Cole lifted his head and let Eric slip from his mouth. He sat back on his heels, feeling inordinately pleased with himself and horny as hell, all at the same time. His dick hung out of the front of his pants, hard enough to jackhammer concrete, and his balls ached like heavy stones hugging the base of a tree. While he sucked Eric, his own need to come was superseded by the desire to satisfy Eric and not fuck it up. Now that he’d accomplished what he set out to do—and judging by the strength of Eric’s climax, he’d done a pretty damn good job even if he did say so himself—his own body was screaming for relief.
Wonder if it would be bad taste to ask Eric to return the favor. It didn’t take much imagination to picture Eric’s pretty mouth wrapped around his dick, swallowing his load and moaning to beat the band, like his come was the next best thing compared to Tom and Jerry’s ice cream.
The downstairs lights blinked on, illuminating the stairwell and the foyer where he was still kneeling in front of Eric. Cole blinked, his eyes trying to adjust to the sudden change. “What the fuck?”
Eric gasped and hastily stuffed himself back into his jeans. “Who is—?”
A loud gasp sounded from below, right before he heard a shrill female voice scream, “Oh my God!”
He knew that voice. Cole turned, his movements slow as molasses, and saw Karen standing at the bottom of the landing, her eyes wide and a splayed hand covering the lower half of her face.
“Shit!” Cole scrambled to his feet.
Karen dropped her hand, her expression twisting from hurt to pissed off in the blink of an eye. “You bastard. How long have you been fucking him behind my back? No wonder you didn’t want to get married.”
“Karen, wait.”
She shook her head, her long blonde hair whipping from side to side, and hurried away in the opposite direction. Cole started after her, only to be pulled up short by Eric’s voice.
“Cole, what the hell is going on? Who is that woman?”
He looked back over his shoulder, his gaze connecting with Eric’s guileless blue eyes, while his head filled with white noise. There was no fast and easy answer for that, so he said the only thing that came to mind, “That’s Karen,” before dashing down the stairs after her.
Long after Cole disappeared downstairs and the loud crack of the back door slamming echoed up to him, Eric remained immobile. Cole’s parting words replayed again and again inside his head. That’s Karen. As if that was supposed to explain everything?
Anger, hot and heavy, pulled him from his catatonic state. Who the hell did Cole think he was, bringing Eric home with him, sucking his brains out through his cock, despite the fact that he had a girlfriend? Or was it fiancée? Hadn’t she said something about a wedding?
Jesus. He sure knew how to pick men, didn’t he? Unfortunately, this time around, he had no one to blame but himself. Cole had all the classic signs of someone locked in the closet, Eric just hadn’t wanted to recognize them for what they were. He was a fucking idiot.
Eric leaned forward and flipped up the light switch. A bulb winked on overhead, illuminating the area around him, and cast dim fingers of light into the two adjoining rooms to either side.
To his left sat a small kitchen. He could only just make out part of the fridge and the corner of a waist-high counter from where he stood. He didn’t care to see more of the kitchen, so he turned toward the room to his right. There he found an equally tiny living room, barely large enough to hold the matching black leather love seat and recliner, and a small black lacquered entertainment center.
Well, he had two choices. He could go into the living room and have a seat, or he could leave. Eric glanced at the door, still standing open, and considered leaving before Cole returned. He didn’t know of any way out of the building except the one he’d been shown on the way in, where the happy couple were undoubtedly fighting right that very minute, so he chose to sit and wait. Facing Cole seemed like the lesser of two evils. Besides, running away also smacked of cowardice and he wasn’t a damn coward. He faced his problems head on and this time would be no different. He would stay, listen to whatever lame excuse Cole came up with, and then calmly tell him exactly what he could do with his wandering cock, specifically that he could shove it up his own ass and rotate on it until Hell froze over.
As much as he would’ve liked to give Cole the benefit of the doubt, the evidence was not leaning in his favor. Even if Cole hadn’t been using him for some kind of bi-curious experiment, he was still a cheater and, as far as Eric was concerned, a slimeball.
Without his knowledge or consent, Cole had made him into the other woman…man, whatever. That pissed him off. He was not going to be someone’s dirty little secret.
Eric stepped into the living room and bumped his hip on a shoddy-looking telephone stand just inside the door. An automated voice filled the air. “You have one message.” The machine recited a time earlier in the evening, and then the message played. “Hey, Cole. It’s me.” The woman’s voice paused. “I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been away for the last week at my parents’ house, thinking things over. I’ve decided that maybe I overreacted by ending things between us so quickly.” A man’s
voice sounded in the background, calling the woman in to dinner. “Listen, I won’t be home until later tonight, but I was hoping we could talk. I’ll swing by your place on my way home. Talk to you soon. Bye.”
Eric stared down at the red light on the answering machine as if it had teeth and was going to jump off the stand and bite him. Chewing on his lip, he tried to shove down the overwhelming sense of hurt welling up inside him.
The message confirmed one of his questions, but it opened the door for so many others. Cole wasn’t cheating on the woman, but it was obvious they’d just ended things. And she’d been the one to dump him, not the other way around.
Did Cole want her back? Was that why he’d run out of the apartment as if his ass was on fire?
Eric stumbled to the love seat and perched on the end of it. He slumped forward and rested his elbows on his knees. Rubbing his hands over his face, he settled in to wait for Cole and the opportunity to give the man a piece of his mind.
Chapter Five
You’re going to regret this, Cole. I swear it.
Karen’s parting words rang in Cole’s ears as he wearily trudged up the stairs, his head hung low. Any buzz he’d had earlier was long gone. A pounding headache had moved in to take its place.
Karen was furious. He’d tried to explain, but she refused to hear him out. Instead, she’d jumped to conclusions, choosing to believe he’d been seeing Eric on the side, even while they were together. That she could believe that of him, after two years of being together and his being nothing but faithful to her, hurt him more than he cared to admit. He cared for Karen, didn’t want to see her hurt, but having her catch him with Eric, seeing her reaction, brought his latent feelings to the surface. It made him realize that although he didn’t want to deal with the repercussions resulting from coming out, he couldn’t put it off any longer. He wanted to step out of the closet and into the sunshine. Finally, he felt ready to embrace himself for who he was, without worrying about how it would affect anyone else.
No. That wasn’t entirely true. He did care how his realization would affect one person.
Eric.
Standing next to Karen, seeing the woman he could have easily ended up spending the rest of his miserable life with, made him that much more aware of how lacking his attraction was to her. With Eric, right from the moment he’d laid eyes on him, he’d felt an inexplicable pull in his direction. The chemistry between them was real and good, so strong it was unsettling.
Cole paused in the doorway of his apartment. He pinched the bridge of his nose, stalling for time while he tried to steel his courage. He knew what he wanted. All he had to do was go for it. Lay it all out in the open and hope Eric wanted the same thing.
In time, he knew that he could fall for the younger man. It wasn’t a question of if he could love him, more a question of when. If Eric could be persuaded—and Cole was going to try his damnedest to make sure he was—then Cole planned for them to share a lot more than a single night of passion. He wanted it all.
He stepped through the door and looked around for Eric. He found him in the living room, sitting in the dark, with his face buried in his hands. Cole cleared his throat, not wanting to startle him.
Eric’s head jerked up. His gaze landed on Cole and narrowed. Damn, that didn’t look good. He knew he had some explaining to do, but…
“Well, that was certainly quick. I guess your girlfriend decided not to stick around for an encore, huh?”
Cole winced at the sharp tone of Eric’s voice, straightened his spine and crossed the room. He reached over and flipped on the lamp beside the love seat and plopped down on it next to Eric. Eric scooted over, practically falling off the other side in order to put as much space between them as he could.
Cole sighed. He didn’t know why he’d expected Eric to be a little more understanding. Things never seemed to go as easy for him as they did for everyone else. “Could you maybe wait to hear me out before you start jumping to conclusions? I’ve had about enough of that for one night.”
Eric arched one blond brow, his forehead wrinkled. “Why should I care what you want? Am I supposed to feel sorry for you now? Poor Cole, who has to deal with two pissed-off lovers in one night. Tsk, tsk, you really should have known better than to bring home a new playmate before you got the key back from your ex. You must have been absent the day they taught that lesson in ‘How to be a Dog 101’.”
Frowning, Cole wiped his damp palms on his pants. “It’s not like that, Eric.”
Eric rolled his eyes. “What’s it like then, huh? Explain it to me. Make me understand because after what I’ve seen and heard, I’m having a hell of a time understanding.”
“Karen is not my girlfriend. We broke up weeks ago.”
Eric scowled. “Mm-hmm. I know that. She called and left a message. Said she was willing to talk about taking you back. That maybe she’d been a little hasty in dumping you.”
“Shit.” That explained why she’d shown up out of the blue. He’d been wondering about that.
“So…? You want to explain things, or what?”
Cole held Eric’s gaze, imploring him to listen. Eric had no reason to accept his word for the truth, but that wasn’t going to stop Cole from trying to explain. “Karen and I dated for about two years. There weren’t any bells and whistles going off between us, but I was comfortable in the relationship, safe. As long as I was with her I could keep my head buried in the sand and ignore what my psyche, my fantasies, had been trying to tell me for years.”
He paused, taking a deep breath before continuing. Now that he’d started, he wanted to get it all out. “Karen and I broke up two weeks ago. She wanted to get married and start a family. I just… I couldn’t live a lie anymore. Karen isn’t what I want. She isn’t what I need. You are.”
Eric’s eyes widened. “Cole, I—”
Cole held up a hand, cutting Eric off. “No, hear me out before you say anything. I know we don’t know each other all that well yet, but there’s something here, something between us. I felt it on the beach and I feel it even stronger now. If you’re willing, I’d like the chance to get to know you better and see where things could lead for us.”
As soon as the last words poured out of his mouth, Cole’s gaze fell to his lap. Though he was anxious to hear what Eric had to say, he was petrified of being rejected. His pride dangled out on a line and Eric had the power to cut it in half.
When no reply came, Cole lifted his head, scared of what he would see on Eric’s face. His gaze connected with Eric’s. Cole was afraid to breathe, afraid he would blink and the soft, accepting look on his lover’s face would dematerialize into one of scorn.
Coming up onto his knees on the love seat, Eric reached for Cole. A warm palm cupped Cole’s cheek, but it was nothing compared to the heat he saw growing behind Eric’s beautiful azure eyes.
His voice was feather soft when he spoke, “Do you mean that? I want to believe you. I just…” Large, expressive blue eyes searched Cole’s face. “I’ve wanted you since before I knew I was gay. There was just something about you that drew me.” He blushed. “I kinda feel like I’m going to wake up any minute, with wet sheets, and realize this was all a dream.”
Cole grinned and reached out to swipe an errant lock of blond hair out of Eric’s face. His fingers lingered over Eric’s satiny skin. “I meant every word. I want to be with you, Eric. Only you.”
Eric’s attention dropped to Cole’s mouth. His thumb swept over Cole’s bottom lip, making him shiver. Before the shiver had time to work its way down his spine, Eric leaned in and replaced his thumb with his mouth, softly brushing his lips over Cole’s.
Though the kiss began gently, there was a wealth of emotion behind it. Cole’s heart warmed and filled with a sense of peace. This was right. The burgeoning emotions he felt for Eric were the real thing, not the glamour of lust. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but as Eric sought to deepen the kiss, running his tongue over the seam of Cole’s mouth, he believed it with every f
iber of his being.
Eric was the one for him.
Cole tilted his head and parted his lips, allowing Eric inside. The fingers of one hand rose to wind in the silky hair at Eric’s nape, while the other reached around Eric’s back and pulled him in tight, pressing their chests together.
Eric moaned and the sweet sound vibrated along his tongue and into Cole’s mouth. He inched the last bit forward and straddled Cole’s lap, wrapping his arms around his neck. Their tongues twined and danced, mouths moving in concert with each other until both men panted, their chests rising and falling, pushing against one another in an effort to replenish their lungs with oxygen.
Though he didn’t want to stop, Cole had to breathe. He pulled his head back a fraction and eased the kiss until their lips barely skimmed back and forth.
God, he was hard. Not having gotten off earlier with Eric, plus the additional torment of Eric’s hard bottom pressing down into his dick, was working on his control. Too much more stimulation and he would be coming in his pants like a teenager.
That was not what he had in mind. No, tonight he wanted to come buried balls deep inside of Eric.
Cole’s eyelids grew heavy and fell shut. It was so easy to picture pushing Eric backward and taking him over the arm of the love seat. All he’d have to do was yank those snug jeans down over Eric’s tight little ass and shove inside, pump his way to heaven. He could almost feel the inviting grip of Eric’s channel fisting around his cock.
“What?” Eric asked, his hot breath fanning over Cole’s neck an instant before his lips pressed a moist kiss to the side of his throat.
Cole’s eyelids slowly lifted. “Huh?”
“You whimpered.”
“I did?”
Eric nipped at Cole’s earlobe. “Uh-huh. What were you thinking about just now? Something good, I’ll bet, by the way your hips jerked up.”
You May Have Met Him Page 32
