by Lanyon, Josh
Austin nodded, unconvinced.
“No?”
“It depends on what else is going on at the shop by then. Whitney might send someone else.” Like Theresa. Hopefully not, but it was a possibility. “On the bright side, at least the cellar will be sealed off for a time. They keep it unlocked.”
“Those storm doors should have been locked. They’re usually locked, but it’s spring and there’s a lot of gardening and repair work going on, folks looking for tools, going in and out… It happens.” Jeff tilted his head, appraising Austin. “So this might be your only trip down this way?”
“Yeah.”
Jeff said softly, “Then unless you’re just dying to try the key lime pie, why don’t I pay the bill and we get out of here and go someplace private?”
Austin’s heart skipped a beat, and the sneaking fatigue born of a long day, a rich meal, and more than enough wine vanished. He’d enjoyed the evening even more than he’d expected to, and he felt pleasantly confident that the best was still to come.
Jeff signaled to the waitress.
They ended up going back to Austin’s hotel. He had wondered if Jeff would prefer somewhere off the beaten track—Motel 6 in Atlanta?—but he made no objection when Austin suggested returning to the Stonewall Jackson Inn. If he wasn’t relaxed, he was doing a damn good imitation of it.
“That was an amazing dinner. Thank you,” Austin said as the Honda sped down the quiet streets past the stately, old homes limned in moonlight. It had been an amazing dinner, but not because of the food or drink. Austin had plenty of wonderful meals in his line of work. No, the difference tonight had been the company. Whatever else Jeff might be, he was unnervingly easy to talk to. It had been a long time since Austin had felt this kind of connection with another man.
Jeff said, “It was my pleasure,” and, without taking his gaze from the road, lifted Austin’s hand, pressing it briefly to his mouth. It was about as old-fashioned and courtly a gesture as you could ask for, but Jeff did it so lightly, so naturally, Austin barely blinked, though his mouth was suddenly dry at the sensation of unexpectedly soft lips against his bare skin.
Jeff, still not looking at him, was smiling. Austin felt his mouth curve too.
Chapter Six
Austin’s hotel room was softly lit, the polished tabletops glowing, the books and paintings and flower vases lustrous. The bedding had been turned down.
“Uh-oh,” Jeff murmured. “Is it a school night?”
Austin laughed. It had a breathless sound to it. He turned, and Jeff was right behind him, almost stepping on his heels. It was startling, but it made it easy to reach out, each moving to steady the other and somehow winding up in a hug.
Not a clinch. A hug.
It was unanticipated and surprisingly sweet to simply be held in strong arms. No demand, not even a request—just an ordinary hug. Which somehow, in these circumstances, seemed anything but ordinary. Austin could feel Jeff’s heart pounding against his own chest, and he picked up the fragrance of Jeff’s cologne, now diffused with wine and his own light male scent. Jeff smelled warm and alive in the pristine perfection of the hotel room’s recycled air.
He rubbed his smoothly shaven cheek against Austin’s. “Hello,” he murmured.
“Hello,” Austin whispered back.
Jeff’s mouth sought his, and there was an artless misjudging of lips and distances before they were kissing again, sharing breaths, laughing. Austin found both the fumble and the laughter reassuring. He didn’t particularly want to go to bed with a porn star.
The kiss moved from companionable to dizzying in a couple of thudding heartbeats. Jeff’s mouth pressed harder against Austin’s, parting his lips with a delicate tongue, tasting him in a long, fluid kiss. Jeff tasted sweet, structured, and muscular. An earthy Barolo perhaps. Colorful with complex, focused flavors and a long, mellow finish.
“What would you like?” Jeff asked after a bit. “Anything. Just ask.”
“I…” What exactly was on offer? Another of Austin’s preconceptions toppled. He hadn’t expected quite this…generosity.
“Let me suck you off.”
Austin’s breath caught in his throat. “Are you sure?” His voice came out sounding thin and ragged, because if Jeff meant something else—for example, the more likely, I want you to suck me off—the disappointment was going to kill him.
“Hell yeah, I’m sure.” Jeff’s hands went to Austin’s zipper at the same instant Austin’s hands went for his own waistband. Austin laughed again, although it felt slightly hysterical, this mutual desperation to get him out of his clothes. His trousers were down around his ankles in a couple of beats. His briefs followed, once he’d navigated them around the flagpole of his cock. Jeff gave him a gentle push, and he sat down, knees weak, on the foot of the bed. Jeff knelt before him.
“Oh yeah. That’s what I’m talking about,” Jeff said softly, and it seemed touchingly heartfelt.
Austin closed his eyes, sucking in a deep breath at the trails of lightning flashing through his skin as Jeff’s hands closed on his hips, Jeff’s breath warm against his belly.
Austin’s cock was erect and straining; his nerves felt as dangerously exposed as bare wires as Jeff’s fingers moved to stroke his thighs. All his body hair seemed to stand up crackling in a storm of static electricity as Jeff bent, closing his mouth over the sensitive head of Austin’s cock.
The noise—naked and uninhibited—that tore out of Austin’s throat filled him with distant astonishment.
The next sound he uttered was more of a squeak as the hotel-room door jumped beneath a sudden knock. Jeff’s fingers dug into his thighs as he steadied himself, and that wonderful mouth stopped working its magic.
“You expecting someone?” Jeff asked in an urgent undertone.
“No.” Austin expelled a long, rattled breath. “Maybe they’ve got the wrong room?”
They listened tensely.
The knocking began again, this time with more energy.
“Crap.” Austin rose, scrabbling to drag up his pants without doing himself injury. He started for the door on shaky legs. “Hold that thought.”
Jeff didn’t respond. His pose was wary, intent. Austin wondered if he’d run out and hide on the balcony if someone walked into the room. He felt a flicker of sadness. It was a shame because he really liked Jeff, but where could you go from that?
He raked his hair out of his eyes, flipped the security bar over, and dragged the door open.
It took a second for his eyes to adjust after the muted light of the bedroom. Cormac Cashel stood in the brightly lit hallway. He wore black jeans, a black sweatshirt with a skull-and-crossbones logo, and his perpetual scowl.
“Hi,” Austin said, surprised.
“I wanted to see you.”
Austin spared a quick look over his shoulder, but Jeff was standing out of sight behind the corner. “About wha—” The rest of that was lost as Cormac pushed into the room and wrapped his arms around Austin, hugging him tightly.
“I want to be with you tonight,” he panted in Austin’s ear. He smelled of pot and Irish Spring and nervous perspiration.
“Huh?”
“I…want to…be…with…you,” Cormac gasped out as they wrestled. Austin freed his right arm and tried to push him away, but Cormac was strong and agile, and he kept enfolding Austin while trying to cover his mouth with his own.
It seemed to be his night for hugs, but the intent here was clearly different from Jeff’s earlier embrace.
“What are you doing?” Austin demanded, finally wriggling out of that human straitjacket. The question was mostly rhetorical. He could hardly fail to understand what Cormac was doing—or at least attempting to do.
Cormac reached for him again, the hammer hit the wrestling bell, and it was round two. Austin tried to bat Cormac’s clutching hands away as Cormac gulped out, “I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.”
“You feel what?”
“Faulkner said tha
t.”
“Faulkner said that?”
“William Faulkner. The greatest American novelist who ever lived.”
Someday this was going to be funny, but all Austin could think about was Jeff standing a few feet away listening to this—and the fact that Cormac must not discover Jeff’s presence in Austin’s room. Not least for the sake of Cormac’s own dignity.
Losing patience, he stiff-armed the younger man, who gave an oof.
“Knock it off!”
Cormac gasped, “You can’t say you don’t feel it too. I knew the minute I saw you. It’s like I’ve known you all my life. You’re exactly how I pictured. Exactly. Well, except for your awful accent.”
Oh great. Another guy who’d spent his formative years pawing through magazines and daydreaming.
“I don’t feel it. I don’t even know you.”
“That’s why I’m here.” Cormac tried to wrap his arms around Austin again, despite Austin’s squirming determination to keep a respectable distance. “We’re going to get to know each other. That’s what I’m aiming for.”
Oh, that’s what he was aiming for. Because it felt like Cormac had trained his sights significantly lower. Austin pushed him back again. “It doesn’t work like that!”
“Well, how does it work?” Cormac was starting to sound irritated too. “I know you’re gay.”
“That doesn’t mean… Look, I’m just not…” Austin tempered the truth at the last instant as it occurred to him how lonely and desperate Cormac must be to brave what he had to know was almost certain rejection. “I’m in a relationship. I can’t do this with you.”
“He wouldn’t have to know.”
“I would know.”
Cormac continued to clutch him, breathing unevenly, but at last his breaths slowed. His hands loosened their grasp. “I don’t understand. The second I saw you, I knew you were the one.”
“I’m sorry.” Austin was sorry. Cormac was so very genuinely puzzled that the feeling wasn’t mutual.
“Are you sure you don’t want to?”
“I’m sure.” Despite the physical evidence to the contrary. That was more about Jeff standing two feet away, his silhouette half-merged in the other shadows, than the friction supplied by wrestling around with Cormac.
“Well, all right, then.” Cormac reluctantly turned away. Austin grabbed the door for him.
“Good-bye,” Cormac said disconsolately.
“Good-bye.”
“Maybe when you come back to catalog the cellar next time?”
“I… Probably not.”
Cormac went out.
Austin closed the door and leaned against it.
Jeff came around the corner. “You okay?” He looked serious—too serious.
Austin said, “Hey, it’s not funny.”
“It was pretty funny from where I was standing.”
Someone pounded on the door.
“Oh shit,” Jeff muttered, drawing back.
Austin waited till Jeff was out of sight before yanking the door open. Cormac was rearranging his T-shirt with one hand and offering a sheaf of papers with the other.
“Will you at least read my stories?”
Austin took the stack of papers automatically. Where exactly had Cormac stored them? Probably better not to think too much about it.
“Uh, yes, if you’d like me to. I don’t write fiction, though.”
“I want you to read them.”
“Okay.”
Crestfallen, Cormac nodded and turned away. Austin closed the door, locked it, set the papers on the table, and moved into Jeff’s obliging arms.
“Let’s try this again,” Jeff said.
Yes. This. These muscular arms, this hard, taut body, that warm, smiling mouth.
Jeff murmured, “Did you put out the DO NOT DISTURB sign?”
“Do you think it’ll do any good?”
Jeff laughed. “Not in this town.”
* * * * *
Velvety, vibrant, voluptuous pulses of pleasure… There was a reason so many of the attributes used in describing wine were sexual. A very good reason. Austin threw his head back on the pillow, gulping for air, shuddering head to toe with the exquisite sensation of Jeff sucking his cock. Once again that crazy, nearly unrecognizable sound tore out of his throat as Jeff’s tongue pressed and lapped where he was most sensitive. Was it something unique to Jeff, or was it just some temporary chemical imbalance? He was sort of hoping for chemical imbalance, because falling for Jeff would be such a foolish thing to do.
Round, rich, red… Lights were flashing behind his eyelids, and nerve shocks of colors were tingling through every fiber in his body. Austin felt like he was lighting up, incandescent and luminous with feeling. So much feeling it didn’t seem possible to contain it in a human shell. Jeff took him deeper still, that incredible hot, wet mouth moving on him, his breath rolling down the sensitive skin of Austin’s inner thighs, and Austin flung his arm across his face to keep himself from yelling. Or to smother the sounds, because there was no corking them completely.
He’d been in a state of partial arousal for most of the evening, and that skillful dredge and drag, the combination of pressure and pull, had every muscle in his body clenching tight, hips jerking as the tight, soft, warm lips brought him so relentlessly, lovingly to the breaking point.
Come the vintage. Where had he heard that phrase? Was it biblical? Was it…?
Austin’s teeth closed on the back of his wrist as the explosion tore through him, flash fire racing, spiraling through the amaranthine harvest.
He swung out into a sparkling blue-black darkness and dropped like a star falling out of the sky.
Seasons later he was aware of Jeff settling beside him, running a lazy, appreciative hand down his torso. Austin wanted to say something, acknowledge what Jeff had done for him, assure him that it truly had been the best he’d ever had, but he was so beautifully relaxed. His cock rested against his thigh, spent, and the rest of his body felt as soft and boneless. He settled for a long, heartfelt sigh.
Jeff stroked his chest again. He smiled faintly, enjoying Austin’s last involuntary shudder of pleasure.
“And I was afraid this was going to be a wasted trip,” Austin mumbled.
“And I was thinking this morning was going to be just another ordinary day.”
This morning Jeff had woken in Carson’s bed. Austin preferred not to think about that.
Jeff lowered his head and licked Austin’s nearer nipple. Austin caught his breath.
“Was that true about having a boyfriend?” Jeff asked after a time.
Austin shook his head. “We broke up three months ago.”
“Yeah? How long were you together?”
Were they really going to talk about Richard? They were.
“Two years.”
“What happened?”
Austin often wondered himself. “It wasn’t anything dramatic. One day I realized I’d be happier on my own.”
“Just like that?”
“No. I hadn’t been happy for a long time, but I hadn’t been unhappy enough to do anything about it.”
“Why were you unhappy?”
“Maybe I expected too much.”
“Like what?” In the moonlight, Jeff’s face was so handsome, so perfect, it resembled a mask.
“It’s hard to explain. The sex was good, and we had a lot in common, so I kept thinking we’d get there eventually.”
“Get where?”
Jeff was beginning to remind Austin of Ernest at his most persistent. He said reluctantly, knowing how sappy he was going to sound, “To…love, I guess.”
Jeff said with genuine astonishment, “You kept thinking you’d fall in love with someone you didn’t love after two years of being together?”
“Well, how long should it take?”
“Five seconds. Give or take a second.” Jeff’s eyes, gleaming in the darkness, seemed to hold Austin’s for what felt like a very long moment.
Austin
swallowed hard.
“Was he in love with you?”
“Who?” Austin asked.
“Your boyfriend. The one you kept waiting to fall in love with.”
“Richard. No. I doubt it. He moved in with a guy from his office six weeks after we split up.” He reached for the hand that was lightly caressing him, lifted it to his mouth, and kissed it. “Did I even thank you? Thank you. You’re the nicest thing that’s happened to me in a long time.”
He sensed Jeff’s smile. The hand he held gave his own a friendly squeeze.
“Where’d you learn to do that?”
“College.” Jeff added lazily, “I majored in criminal justice and minored in blowjobs.”
Austin considered this while the moonlight glancing through the balcony grillwork strewed wavering cutouts of vines and leaves across the ceiling. It seemed a pretty crass statement from someone who professed to believe in love at first sight. But maybe the five-second rule was more of a guideline. Maybe it was a line, period.
“How do you do this, Jeff?” he asked at last.
Jeff taunted gently, “You need another demonstration?”
“You know what I mean.”
Silence.
Jeff pulled his hand away and rolled onto his back. “Sex is sex. It’s all good.”
“It’s not, though. We both know that.”
“I don’t know any such thing. And you don’t know anything about me, Austin.”
“I know you’re in the closet, and I know you like sucking cock. It seems to me there’s a conflict there.”
“It seems to me there’s a conflict there,” Jeff mimicked. “The fact is, you don’t know fuck-all about me or my life.”
Austin clamped down on his impatience, his anger. He had no right to be angry. Jeff was right. He didn’t know fuck-all about him or his life, and just because he didn’t understand Jeff didn’t mean Jeff’s feelings weren’t valid. Maybe Jeff did believe that sex was sex and it was all good and it didn’t matter if you spent your life denying yourself everything you most needed and wanted. Who was to say what Jeff most needed and wanted, if not Jeff?
“So you never have sex with men? This is unusual?”
