Gambling on Love

by Jane Davitt

  “Jesus, Fox.” Abe groaned. “Lower? Please?”

  Abe’s cock was mouthwatering, a solid, beautifully shaped column, but Gary shook his head. “Later, if you—”

  “Ask nicely? Beg?” The raw edge to the words told him Abe wasn’t rebelling, only describing what he wanted to do.

  “Using your mouth to suck me would work better.” Gary straddled Abe’s chest. “I won’t tie you up. No point when you’ll be on your hands and knees soon, whimpering like the cock-hungry slut you are, but there’s a headboard there for you to hold on to. Do it. Both hands, and if you let go, you won’t get anything you want, Abe. My games. My rules.”

  For a moment he thought he’d gone too far, too fast. Abe’s eyes widened at “cock-hungry slut,” color burning in his cheeks, but those gray eyes were bright with excitement, tempered with amusement. Gary smiled down at him, sharing both emotions, and wondered if he’d ever shown Peter that expression. Probably not. Peter wouldn’t have appreciated the amusement.

  The headboard was narrow slats of wood with curved metal bars connecting them, an abstract representation of ivy on a tree. Gary only cared that there was something sturdy and smooth for Abe to hook his fingers around, biceps swelling as he tested the strength of the metal. Gary leaned over and nuzzled briefly into Abe’s armpit, inhaling the musky scent captured in the hollow, the dark hair soft against his lips. From there, he pressed a kiss against each wrist, on the inside where the veins ran blue under the thin, taut skin. A flurried pulse beat against his lips, betraying more than Abe’s face, which was schooled to blankness.

  Abe could pretend to be calm all he liked, but he wasn’t fooling Gary.

  Gary put one hand on the top of the headboard to brace himself, and the other on his dick. He rubbed the head across Abe’s lips with a careless, contemptuous flourish.

  “You want to suck it? Go for it,” he invited. Abe opened his mouth obediently, but Gary snorted. “No. You want it, you do the work. Come on. Show me how much you want it.”

  With a confused grumble of a murmur, Abe raised his head from the pillow and strained upward, trying to reach the cock Gary held an inch out of reach. He extended his tongue and managed to drag the tip of it along the shaft, but Gary tilted his wrist, taking the prize out of reach again. He wasn’t cheating by moving—his ass remained snug against Abe’s chest—but he could frustrate Abe with the smallest of twitches.

  Abe tried again, intent on his hunt now, darting out his tongue, sometimes managing to get in a brief lick, often tasting nothing but air.

  It was frustrating for Gary too. He craved more than a fleeting flick of warm wetness, but he loved Abe’s desperation. A thread of awareness ran between them, fragile enough that he didn’t dare examine it too closely, but he felt its tug. It told him when Abe’s impatience tilted toward annoyance.

  Gary put his hand on Abe’s forehead, pinning him against the pillow with light pressure from his fingertips. Abe swallowed back what might have been a protest, his lips parted, waiting.

  Without a word—he couldn’t spoil this with speaking, though he knew what to say to make that humiliated, ecstatic flush rise again—Gary painted Abe’s lips with the slick head of his cock, leaving them glistening.

  Abe wanted to lick them. Gary could see how much it cost Abe to lie still and wait for permission. He didn’t give it. Instead, he drew away and took back what he’d given, lapping at Abe’s mouth with lavish sweeps of his tongue, obliterating every trace of pre-cum but leaving Abe’s lips still shining.

  “Do you hate me now?” he said into Abe’s ear.

  Abe’s head moved on the pillow, a single shake. No.

  “You’re so good at this.” It wasn’t entirely meant as a compliment. Gary enjoyed these games, and the sheer fucking rush of being in the driver’s seat made his cock throb, his climax close, but the Abe he’d left hadn’t known how to do this. When had he learned? Who’d taught him? Gary hated that Abe had grown and changed without his supervision and approval. Which was insane. He’d changed too, and Abe had every right to get out there and explore his sexuality, making mistakes along the way, sure, but having fun.

  Every right.

  It didn’t stop Gary from wanting to be cruel to him, to punish Abe for showing other men his throat and offering up that strong, perfect body for them to use and conquer.

  Except this was Abe, and Gary had never been good at hurting Abe. It always boomeranged back, karma in action. Being jealous of the faceless strangers in Abe’s past made him feel more childish than powerful.

  He gave up on deciphering his emotions. Too complicated, too messy—and what topped the list was arousal. He was turned on, and he was back with the first man to ever make him feel that way.

  He returned to his original position and tapped Abe’s cheek with his finger. It was one of Peter’s signals, he realized when he saw the confusion in Abe’s eyes. Shit. Never mind. Brazen it through. He did it again, this time adding a quiet, “Open up.”

  With Abe’s mouth open, welcoming, he took his time sliding home, letting Abe explore with his tongue and teeth, allowing Abe to adjust his breathing. When he was in as deeply as he could go without choking Abe, he held still.

  “You’ve got what you wanted,” he told Abe. “Show me what you can do with it.”

  It would be difficult for Abe to move his mouth along the shaft of Gary’s cock, or curl his tongue back to play with the sensitive tip, but Gary didn’t mind. Too much attention and he’d come, pumping into Abe’s mouth, groaning out his pleasure. He could get hard again easily enough and fuck Abe’s ass, but he wasn’t sure he could recover from the embarrassment of losing his control.

  After a minute or so, he pulled free of the clinging heat of Abe’s mouth, wiping his cock partially dry against Abe’s cheek.

  “Tell me you can do better.”

  It was unfair. Abe had been physically limited to the point where all he could do was lap and lick at the underside of Gary’s cock, but fairness never counted for much in this game. Abe’s fingers tensed on the bars, but his voice was calm, showing a nice level of respect. “You know I can. Let me show you? Please?”

  “You only get one chance.”

  Abe’s lips twitched in what wasn’t quite a smile. “I blew it, huh?”

  Gary gave him a glare with no force behind it. “Lucky for you you’re not into getting your ass spanked, because I still hate your puns.”

  “Yeah? That would’ve gotten my ass red, huh?”

  “Sizzling,” Gary promised him, picturing spanking Abe. As a fantasy, it was ripe with potential. For real? He wasn’t sure. He shifted back a little, taking most of his weight on his knees and putting his dick out of reach. “So I guess you get fucked without the foreplay. Poor you.”

  “Poor me.” Abe did something that made his biceps flex, on purpose, Gary was sure. Tease. “I can still come, even if you don’t touch me.”

  “You’ll come when you’re told to.” The words were rich and bitter on his tongue like dark chocolate. Jesus, he could get addicted to the power he held over Abe right now. It wouldn’t carry over once they got dressed—he didn’t want it to—but here in bed, he was in charge and he fucking loved it. “Can you do that?”

  “I don’t know.” Abe frowned, clearly giving it some genuine thought. “It sounds hot, but realistically, I don’t know. How long do I have after you say it? Are we talking seconds? A minute?”

  Gary couldn’t help grinning. Abe still had a smart mouth. “Are you sure I can’t spank you?”

  “Tonight, I’m sure. Ask me another time and that might change, but right now, I want you to fuck me, Fox.” Abe held his gaze. “Can you do that?”

  The deliberate echoing of Gary’s words was a challenge he had no intention of ignoring.

  “Turn over.” He got off Abe and reached for the lube and condoms. “Let me show you what I can do to your ass that doesn’t involve my hand hitting it. Hard.”

  “You sound tempted. I thought that w
asn’t your thing either?” Abe rolled to his stomach. “You want my hands back where they were?”

  “I said Peter never spanked me. I didn’t say the idea had no appeal.” Abe’s ass was taut enough that Gary wanted to try bouncing a dime off it as well as his hand. “And, no, hands and knees for now.”

  He wanted to fuck Abe from behind so they wouldn’t have to look at each other. He didn’t know about Abe, but something told him one glance at Abe’s dick, rigid with need, would send him over.

  Added to that was his unwillingness to let Abe see how much this meant to him. He’d wondered what fucking Abe would be like over the years, picturing himself on the receiving end when he was in the mood, but mostly setting the scene like this.

  Without haste, giving time to reduce his arousal to a simmer, he rolled on a condom. The cool cling of latex against his cock felt unfamiliar, but that wasn’t surprising. Peter had never allowed Gary to fuck him, and he’d never done more than press a dry, oddly clumsy kiss to Gary’s dick. Any climaxes Gary had achieved had been through the application of his hand or Peter’s to his erection, or as a response to something—Peter’s cock, a dildo, something—shoved up his ass.

  Abe’s mouth had been an oasis in a big desert.

  He drizzled lube over his dick, using too much, if that was possible, until it dripped onto the bed in long, transparent threads, unspooling like a spider’s web. Abe would be tight, but that wasn’t Gary’s problem.

  He settled into position between Abe’s legs and guided the head of his cock between the cheeks of Abe’s ass. Placing his hands on those cheeks, he spread them wider, glancing down to see how far off target he was. The hidden skin was pale and smooth, the fine dark hair petering out around Abe’s balls. With so much lube coating his dick, it was easy enough to nudge his cock a fraction higher and lodge it at the small, tight opening.

  When Abe realized Gary didn’t plan to work lube inside him with a finger first, he tensed, then relaxed, slumping forward onto his folded arms, his ass raised submissively higher. Gary pressed forward, taking it slowly, working his way deeper into Abe’s ass, inch by inch.

  Abe moaned, a drawn-out whimper, but there was no hint of pain. Abe could take this, and he proved it by helping Gary as much as possible, the two of them a team working to get Gary’s dick seated.

  Gary paused, sheathed to the balls, his breath coming in short, harsh gasps. “Jesus, you’re squeezing me tight. Ease off.”

  “How’s this?”

  It hadn’t been a complaint, but when the constriction around his dick slackened, it felt better. He exhaled. “Thanks. You okay?”

  “No.” Abe sounded on edge, his hands gripping the covers now, his fingers flexing like a cat’s. “I need you to fuck me.”

  Gary’s body screamed at him to do that, and he would, but he was damned if he’d let Abe dictate the pace. Instead he ran a lube-sticky finger down Abe’s spine, from his nape to the final bone, deep in the cleft of his ass, following each bump with meticulous care.

  He leaned forward and reached under to find Abe’s right nipple, twisting it hard enough between finger and thumb to draw a yelp from Abe. “Got any more suggestions?”

  Abe threw his head back, the glimpse Gary got of his profile showing his eyes were closed, his teeth gritted. What was he blocking out? The room, the past, the fact it was Gary inside him? Gary released the scrap of flesh he’d tormented, soothing it with a careless rub of his thumb, and Abe’s head sank down again, a long sigh escaping him. As answers went, it was communicative enough.

  Gary gave in to the clamor from his hindbrain and let his body do what came naturally, the in-out slide and thrust quickly achieving a rhythm. Abe waited until it’d been established; then, at the urging of Gary’s hand on his hip, he joined in, matching Gary’s moves, bracing so Gary could increase the speed and force of his fucking without moving Abe an inch.

  Abe was rock-solid, his knees planted on the bed, his arms folded again, supporting his weight, his body angled perfectly. He was moaning now, unguarded sounds, pained, enthralled, sweat pearling on his shoulders and back, his skin warm to the touch.

  Gary clamped his mouth closed, knowing if he let a single word escape, he’d be babbling, telling Abe how good this felt, how much he’d missed him, how much, yes, how much he loved him. Anything said midfuck didn’t count, but he didn’t need the memory of saying it lodged in his head like a thorn.

  The room filled with the sounds they were making: the slap of skin on skin, Abe’s guttural keening, Gary’s hissed-out breath. The raw scents of sweat and rut filled Gary’s nose. His senses were crammed full. Nothing existed but this mutual striving while they worked their bodies hard, flogging them toward the point where everything disintegrated in one bright, brilliant flash of pleasure.

  Gary’s balls drew up tight, followed by the warning hardening of his dick when it prepared to deliver its load of spunk into the confining latex. He was too locked in to the pounding rhythm to lose it now, his body surging forward over and over, so he reached around and made a clumsy grab at Abe’s cock, catching it loosely with his fingers. He hoped his touch would be enough to take Abe with him. He wanted to feel Abe’s climax while he was still embedded in his ass, feel the ripple of muscle and the savage, brutal clench.

  “You can—you can—fuck—” Gary closed his eyes, giving up on words that turned out to be unnecessary, because Abe climaxed, his body shuddering, absorbing the final spearing thrusts from Gary.

  It felt incredible to experience it from the inside, his hands bruise-tight on Abe’s hips, his cock fighting to push inside what had been a haven a moment earlier. He rammed in as far as he could and came in a sizzling, incandescent burst, ceding control of his body temporarily to his primal side.

  He collapsed against Abe’s back, his thigh muscles refusing to hold him up, and bit down on Abe’s shoulder to get the taste of sweat and sex into his mouth.

  Abe twisted his head, blindly seeking. Gary, mindful of the way he was already losing his claim on Abe’s ass, stretched to reach Abe’s mouth with a loose, exhausted, uninhibited kiss, before pulling out and preparing to deal with the mundane necessities that always popped the postcoital balloon.

  “Let me.” Abe’s voice was husky, rough with use. Before Gary could protest, Abe turned and, still on his stomach, drew the condom off Gary’s semi-erect cock. He gave it a puzzled look, as if wondering what to do with it, then shrugged and pinched the open end closed. Still holding it, he took Gary’s cock into his mouth, cleaning it with gentle touches of his tongue, bathing it with spit.

  Moved by the gesture, Gary ran his hand through Abe’s hair, feeling tiny aftershocks race through him, until the smallest sensation became too much. Abe pulled back after a tug on his hair and smiled up at Gary, who returned it. Abe’s expression was dazed but happy, and Gary suspected he looked the same.

  After a final nuzzle to his thigh, Abe edged away. Gary stopped him, pulling Abe up to his knees and wrapping his arms around him, taking Abe’s mouth with a slow, long kiss.

  “You’re making it difficult for me to think about walking away again.” He murmured the words, barely shaping them with his lips.

  Abe’s voice was still husky, but clear and firm. “Difficult? Is that all? You can handle difficult, always could. I want to make it impossible, Fox.”

  Gary winced. He wasn’t sure how well he’d handled difficult situations in the past, starting with that day at school. But if Abe was prepared to give him a pass on that, maybe he’d take it.

  “I’ll give you two hundred for it and throw in the tow for free.” Joe Logan slapped a large, oil-blackened hand on the hood of Gary’s Taurus hard enough to make it rock. “How’s that?”

  “Two hundred? Tell me you’re joking,” Abe countered, more for the sake of it than out of conviction. The Taurus looked worse inside Logan’s workshop than it had by the side of the road. Melted snow dripped off it, exposing a demolished paint job and badly crumpled passenger side, but bey
ond that, the car looked decrepit. How it’d made it as far as it had, Abe didn’t know, but it’d put its last mile on the clock.

  Gary had apparently lost interest in the negotiations. He wandered around the workshop, his hands in his jacket pockets as if he was scared of picking up some oil stains. It wasn’t an unreasonable fear. The air tasted dirty: metal, oil, and cold combined. Despite the frigid temperature, the big doors leading to the wrecking yard stood open, and a breeze swirled around without doing much to freshen the air.

  Logan sighed gustily. “Abe, I’ll be honest with you. Setting this piece of shit on fire would probably raise its value. Two hundred is because I know you, and city boy over there is a friend of yours. Anyone else, I’d be asking them to pay me.”

  Abe sucked air through his teeth and pretended to hesitate. This was a dance, its steps as formal as a waltz, but he wanted the music to end and it wasn’t because his feet were numb. Selling the car wouldn’t stop Gary from leaving. There were buses, rental cars, airports . . . lots of options. Abe wasn’t fucked-up enough to want Gary trapped here anyway, but it might mean Gary was less likely to disappear when Abe wasn’t looking.

  If Gary tried to run away again—

  Abe reminded himself Gary seemed down with the plan of them going to Vegas. He gave Logan a tight smile.

  “Fine. We’ve got a—”

  “Throw in a road map to sweeten the pot and we’ve got a deal,” Gary called over. He was staring at a calendar on the wall, years out of date, featuring Miss July. The calendar had hung long enough to acquire a patina of oil and grime, but the perky bare breasts and bright smile were still visible. Abe had worked for Logan a few times and often wondered how old the model was now and how the years had treated her.

  There was a dusty display of road maps over by the office, along with car accessories such as air fresheners, seat cushions, and floor mats. Abe had never seen anyone buy anything, but he supposed someone had to from time to time.