Jack: Grime and Punishment: The Brothers Grime, book 1

by Maxfield, Z. A.

  “Jack, you’re awfully pale.” Ryan put his arm around Jack’s waist. His intent gaze bored into Jack, flaying him, making him feel exposed and defenseless. “Are you in pain?”

  “Yeah.” Jack grunted. He guessed even good acting couldn’t hide his physiological response to pain. No fair dating a nurse. “It’s been a long couple of days.”

  “Why didn’t you say something? I have ibuprofen in my car.”

  “Ibuprofen would be good.” Just then Kim and Jerry emerged from the stairwell with a broom and disinfectant spray. They both wore protective gear because of the blood spatter on the gallery floor. “I’ll just get my guys started on this board-up and—”

  “Yo. Token Chick is not a guy, oh Mighty Payer of Wages.” Kim pulled the top of her Tyvek suit apart. Underneath she wore only a lime-green bra. “Behold, breasts.”

  “Sorry.” Jack would have laughed if he felt better. “Very nice, although I’m not considered a connoisseur.”

  “I’ll get some pain reliever for you,” said Ryan. “Maybe I can find a bottle of water or something.”

  Kim pointed toward the stairwell. “There’s a pop machine at the base of the stairs.”

  “Okay.” Ryan tilted his head and spoke directly into Jack’s ear. “Are you sure you’re up to this? I can help out while you wait in the car.”

  “That’s very nice.” Jack leaned his head on Ryan’s shoulder and briefly let the man take some of his weight. “But I need to double-check window measurements.”

  “Kim can do it.” He turned to Kim. “You can measure the windows, right? Jack looks like he’s going to faint, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t help him get somewhere soft before he falls and breaks his neck.”

  “I’ll be fine, chief. Just go,” said Kim. “Jerry will double-check me.”

  Ryan patted Jack’s arm. “At least go sit in the stairwell for a minute?”

  “I’d have to burn my only suit afterwards.”

  “All right, forget it. You’re coming with me. You’ll sit in the office and wait for the paperwork. Kim will find you if she needs anything.”

  Ryan’s words made sense. Sometimes pain clouded Jack’s thinking. Kim and Jerry were solid professionals. She’d probably measure the window herself again anyway. Measure twice, cut once. They knew what they were doing.

  “Okay.” Jack let himself lean on Ryan while they descended the stairs. He’d grown stiff just standing there. It took a while to get down that single flight because he had to take steps one at a time. Ryan bought him a soda from the machine and gave him a few pills. He took them while he and Ryan walked to the office together.

  “I’d be worried about your blood sugar if I hadn’t seen you eat.”

  “It’s nothing. Yesterday was tough, and I’m achy.”

  “Given your color and the way you’re sweating, that’s gotta be the understatement of the year.”

  “Probably,” Jack admitted.

  “I deal with firefighters and cops all the time. You guys never do what’s good for you.”

  Jack’s laugh startled a boy slinking out of a ground-floor door. God, he couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen. He took off running, but Ryan blocked his way.

  “Hey!” Jack shouted when it looked like a collision was unavoidable.

  The kid pulled up short and gave them an appraising look. “Hey.”

  “You okay?” Ryan asked.

  Jack noticed how skinny the kid was. The uneasy way he stood on the sidewalk, trying to act tough.

  “You guys want some company?” The kid’s dark hair fell into one of his brown eyes, and he tossed it back in a gesture he must have practiced in a mirror. “Threesomes cost extra.”

  “How old are you?” Jack demanded.

  Ryan put his arm on Jack’s to calm him. “Knock it off, Jack.”

  That gave the kid some traction. He grinned at Ryan like they had a new private joke. “Yeah, Jack. Knock it off.”

  Ryan took out his wallet. Jack gaped at him. “You’re going to give him money? Are you—”

  “I know what I’m doing.” Ryan offered the boy a business card and a strip of three condoms. “Look. I don’t know you, but take these. If you want a safe place to stay, call the number on this card. Nobody asks questions. They’re just there to help. If not, use the condoms.”

  The kid shoved the card and condoms into the pocket of his jeans. His chin jutted out. “I always use a rubber.”

  “That’s good to know. How do you find your dates?”

  “What do you think?” The kid laughed at them. They were obviously way too old and stupid to understand anything. “Old guys like your man here love my ass.”

  “I would never—” Jack sputtered. “Kid, that shit is dangerous. You let us—”

  “Gotta bounce, Gramps. Places to see, people to do.” He turned away, but Ryan caught the sleeve of his hoodie.

  “Keep the card,” Ryan urged. “You never know when you’ll want something different.”

  The kid yanked away and took off running. Jack and Ryan watched him disappear beyond the oddly yellow light. “Whose card was that?”

  “A friend of mine from Children of the Night.”

  “Shouldn’t we do something?” Jack wasn’t at all happy. He was conditioned to rescue people even if they didn’t necessarily want to be rescued. “He’s underage. We should call the police.”

  “He’s long gone. If we try to force him, we’ll only get ourselves in trouble.”

  “But he was just a kid.” Jack’s chest felt tight. He wanted to bang on the door the kid came out of and seriously fuck up his john.

  “There are hundreds, thousands more just like him out here every night trying to get enough money to eat or score or bed down somewhere warm.”

  “We had the chance to take one off the street, and you offer what? A card and some condoms?”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t do what you think is right,” Ryan said quietly. “I’ve been down this road before. You can only give a kid like that the chance. You can’t make him take it. If he calls the number on that card, it gets him off the street. The decision has to be up to him.”

  “What if he wanted help and was afraid?”

  “If he’d even hesitated for a second, I’d have made the call for him. I’d have waited until someone came, or taken him to the shelter myself. Did he seem like he wanted help to you?”

  Jack snorted in disgust. “He seemed like a little shit.”

  “I know it’s hard.” Ryan took Jack’s hand. “I give all the help I know how to give.”

  If Ryan hadn’t sounded so wounded right then, Jack might have reminded him that for a guy who had everything to offer, Ryan seemed pretty lacking in the hope department too, with his talk of lost causes and losing streaks.

  Jack shook his head. He didn’t say anything, but he wondered if maybe some people just didn’t know how to let themselves believe in something. Maybe some people needed a little push.

  “I thought I was going to get laid tonight?”

  Chapter 16

  By the time Ryan pulled Jack into the foyer of his house, the ibuprofen was taking the edge off Jack’s pain. Desire took him the rest of the way. At the moment he felt nothing but the throb of his dick as he followed Ryan halfway up the stairs and pushed him against the wall. Ryan kissed like there was no one else in the world but Jack.

  “Jack.” Ryan lifted his mouth from Jack’s and backed up a stair. Jack had to stretch on tiptoe for another kiss. While he did that, Ryan unbuttoned Jack’s sleeves. Jack brushed Ryan’s hands away. Ryan would have to wait, because Jack needed to explore every inch of his body. Jack tussled with him, mindful of his unsteady legs and the possibility of a fall.

  If they made it to the top of the stairs, the situation was sure to become a heated battle they could both win.

  Ryan grew impatient. “Just let me get this—”

  “Oh, all right.” Jack’s shirt finally fluttered over the railing to the foyer below. Ha
nds now free, Jack was able to thumb Ryan’s light brown nipples, to breathe hot, moist air on them while he watched them pebble up. He licked his lips before diving in.

  Now let’s see how they taste.

  “Ah, Jack.” Ryan wrapped both hands around the back of Jack’s head and arched up into his caress. They rubbed their hips together in shuddery confusion. Jack groaned against Ryan’s neck as the evidence of Ryan’s arousal came to rest snugly against his own hard cock. Ryan moaned his name again. “Jack.”

  Ryan raked Jack’s spine with his trim fingernails. Jack reached for Ryan’s belt buckle, ready to tear it open with his teeth when it seemed uncooperative. Ryan helped him, opening his belt and zipper without comment. White-hot passion rode Jack as he kissed his way down Ryan’s tight abdomen to the elastic of his underwear, tugging the fabric off to kiss the dusky skin of his groin.

  Suddenly it wasn’t enough, and Jack pulled Ryan’s pants and shorts down over his hips. He gave a happy gasp when Ryan’s cock sprang free. To taste it, Jack had to fall to one knee on the carpeted stairs and stretch his bad leg out behind him. As far as positions went, it wasn’t the worst he’d ever been in. Discomfort took a backseat to desire any day. Once settled, he pressed his face into the musky, damp skin of Ryan’s groin and nosed around, delighted by the nest of curly hair he found there. Red hair—a tangled brush of glittering, coppery strands—a secret treasure.

  Ryan’s cock bobbed, glistening and needy. Jack pushed his whole face into the jumble of curls and breathed in Ryan’s essence—the musk of his private scent, which competed with the soapy smell of clean skin and something uniquely Ryan, sharp and warm and slightly sweet.

  Jack tasted Ryan’s skin, licking into the hollow places of Ryan’s groin with the tip of his tongue like he’d lap the sweet cream out of a pastry. He drew his mouth over the crease of Ryan’s leg, back into the soft, hidden places behind Ryan’s dick. He nudged Ryan’s balls aside and urged him to open his legs while he traced the delicate skin between them with his tongue. He wanted to press his mouth into the very center of Ryan’s being and breathe him in like the scent of newly mown grass or fire or rain, or any scent Jack wanted to take inside him and hold onto forever.

  “Hey.” Ryan’s knees parted, and Jack caught the briefest glimpse of his tightly puckered hole. It was there and gone again, because Ryan pressed his knees back together. It seemed odd that in this one thing—being on display—Ryan seemed shy.

  “C’mere,” Jack coaxed, reaching up to catch Ryan’s cock. He gently chafed the delicate skin between his palms and then took Ryan into his mouth with reverence. He got a muffled curse and a tremble of Ryan’s thigh muscles in response, but Ryan didn’t pull away.

  Time spun out while Jack explored the feel of Ryan’s firm, cut cock as it slipped against his tongue, his cheeks, and his soft palate. He mapped the shape from spongy head to ridged glans and all along the veins pulsing down its shaft. God, how sweet, taking a man like that. In control, and at the same time, so very much at his mercy.

  Allowing Ryan’s deep, rhythmic thrusting required practice and patience, both of which Jack drew on. He got a familiar rush of satisfaction when he heard Ryan groan with pleasure. Pure lust took Jack out of his broken body, away from his odd little life to somewhere only he and Ryan existed. Where it was so very good—he could be good—and Ryan would shatter like glass, like a shower of stars, all around him.

  Jack had desire, and Ryan pleasure, and now that they were together, they were all that was necessary in the world.

  Ryan cried out when Jack bobbed down over the tight length of his cock. Jack rested his hands on the backs of Ryan’s thighs and relaxed to let Ryan know control was all his if he wanted it. Ryan caught on quick, driving deep into Jack’s mouth, into his throat, giving him time to find rhythm and breath between strokes. He tangled his fingers in Jack’s hair while he tested Jack’s limits, but after the first three or four long thrusts, Jack was so desperate, so eager, he wasn’t sure he had any limits at all.

  Ryan slid into Jack’s mouth slowly, all the way to his balls. Jack held still for him, relaxing his throat around the blunt head of Ryan’s cock, then caressing it with his throat muscles. Hot tears stung his eyes as Ryan pulled back and thrust again, hunched over him, crying out his pleasure. When Jack was able, he hummed around Ryan’s thrusts. He warbled like one of Ryan’s stupid first-date tracks, like a love song in a way, because he surely loved everything he was doing right then.

  “God, Jack.” Ryan shot his hips forward again, and though Jack’s eyes burned, he took every inch Ryan had to give. His own cock throbbed like a bass drum, pounding its deep rhythm through his belly and chest, hammering in his ears and behind his eyes. He licked the swollen veins on the underside of Ryan’s cock, and as he did fresh flavor flooded his mouth. The glistening essence of Ryan’s precum washed over his tongue like foamy seawater.

  “Oh, Christ, Jack.” Ryan nearly whined. “So goddamn good.”

  Jack cupped Ryan’s balls and snaked his index finger out along the hidden damp stretch of skin between Ryan’s legs. Ryan’s muscles clamped down hard when Jack fingered the puckered skin of his anus. Jack met Ryan’s jolt of genuine surprise with a skip of his heart. He pressed the delicate ring of muscle again. The brief spasm of Ryan’s glutes and thighs felt like both a warning and a promise.

  Jack backed off enough to ask, “Okay?”

  Ryan opened his eyes, on his face a mixture of ecstasy and urgency. His disoriented expression preceded a garbled cry of gratitude as he surged forward again, none too gently. This time Jack was ready. He was ready to feel Ryan Halloran—attractive, enigmatic Ryan—fly apart in his arms. Jack was eager to earn one of Ryan’s brilliant smiles or, better yet, the helpless confusion he’d seen on Ryan’s face after they’d gotten off that morning.

  Jack circled Ryan’s tightly wrinkled skin, massaging the muscle, giving the delicate flesh little more than baby kisses with the tips of his fingers, even though he longed to kiss that deeply personal part of Ryan’s body, to tongue it and invade it with his mouth and cock as well. Ryan thrust into him, but now his ass clenched and quivered with every stroke.

  Ryan’s fingers tightened in Jack’s hair, and his balls pulled up. Jack swallowed in anticipation, pressing a finger against Ryan’s hole, pressing just enough to make him feel it, just to the first knuckle. Ryan’s hips bucked. He took Jack’s mouth almost roughly, then spasmed, coming in gushes, calling Jack’s name, muttering curses and praise—a blissed-out litany of sex words and gasping and breathy sighs. Ryan’s hips and legs juddered wildly as he poured every last drop of his essence down Jack’s throat.

  Jack held him through his release, feeling oddly protective, oddly tender. Even though he was on his knees on the stairs of a strange house, blowing a man he barely knew, he felt intensely connected.

  Maybe Ryan wanted to lose himself in sensation. Maybe Jack wanted to forget the part of the house where Nick had died. Maybe it was chemistry or physiology or just plain luck, but at that moment Jack couldn’t think of a single place he’d rather be than right there, licking Ryan’s softening cock clean while Ryan held his head and stroked his hair.

  Ryan collapsed two stairs above the one where Jack knelt, exhausted, and Jack stretched out along the risers to rest his head on Ryan’s thigh.

  Ryan sighed deeply. “God, that was incredible.”

  Jack closed his eyes as Ryan’s fingers described lazy circles on his back. He could have died happy just then, despite the hard-on leaking damply on his trousers. Died happy and gone to heaven—whatever that was.

  Ryan leaned over and pressed a kiss to Jack’s temple. “Give me a minute, and I’ll return the favor.”

  Jack lifted his face toward Ryan shamelessly. More kisses, please. “My head says no one is keeping score, but my dick says gimme.”

  “Gimme?”

  “Yeah. That’s the most sophisticated word my dick knows.”

  Ryan snorted. “I’ve got you covered.
I want that dick of yours in my mouth every bit as much as I wanted my dick in yours.”

  “Oral, are we?”

  “Among other things.”

  “Am I going to find out what those other things are?”

  “All in good time. Hey.” When Jack opened his eyes, Ryan loomed over him. “How are you feeling? Need anything stronger for pain?”

  “Ibuprofen worked well enough. Thank you. Endorphins will kick in later, I hope.” Jack caught the hand on his chest and kissed it. “I don’t want to get sloppy.”

  Ryan didn’t seem ready to move, and Jack was just fine with that. If it weren’t for his cock, which was still fully erect and pounding against his belly like a landlord after overdue rent, he probably could have fallen asleep right there.

  The quiet of the empty house. The way Ryan was stroking his chest. It all conspired to relax him until he felt like he was floating on some carpet-scented cloud.

  Ryan finally moved. “My bedroom is the last door on the left. There’s an attached bath. Go make yourself comfortable while I open a bottle of wine.”

  “Sounds nice.”

  Ryan slid out from beneath Jack and stood, pulling his trousers up just enough to zip them. As he stepped down the stairs in his stockinged feet, his pants hung precariously low on his bare torso. Jack watched him go with his heart in his throat.

  God. Jack had never, ever blown a guy like that. He’d never simply given it all up, never gone buck wild. His throat ached and his body was sore, but he’d gotten more than he’d given just then.

  Way more.

  The memory of Ryan’s smile and the happy little circles he’d drawn on Jack’s skin, the tenderness he’d shown… Jack wanted more of that. As much as he could get.

  Even if beyond the stairs, beyond the kitchen, and down a little hallway there was a room that reminded him of why he should exercise extreme caution.

  It’s just sex, right? Hot guy. Nice night. Just sex.

  Jack walked up the stairs and found the room Ryan called his. He didn’t plan to explore it, at least not at great length, but he discovered right away it held as many clues to Ryan’s personality as Nick’s small room had lacked with regard to his. Hardwood floors formed a foundation for all different shades of brown: rich mocha walls, beige linens, pillows as dark as coffee and as light as cream.