“I’ll tell you how,” said Michael, gritting his teeth. “Most of us start like it’s a joke between friends, you know, pretending it’s just until we can get it with girls so let’s jerk off together or whatever. Some of us get laid by older or more experienced men who may or may not care about our feelings, but are probably not into hurting our bodies, because it’s hard to get it up if you’re in pain. And then some of us get ourselves into really bad situations with strangers who don’t care about us at all and end up getting used.”
“Which were you?” asked Tristan gently, unable to stop touching Michael’s face, conveying without words the tenderness he was feeling in that moment.
“All three.”
Tristan tightened his grip on Michael. “I’m sorry. I thought it would be like picking up girls for sex, you know, at the mall or something.” He smoothed the hair on the back of Michael’s head, down to his neck. “Which I’ve done, so I’m not a total novice at this sort of thing.”
“Oh, Sparky, a guy looks at you? You are the girl.” He smiled and then shook his head. “Still want that lemonade?”
“Yes…no…I want” ‑‑ he tightened his grip on Michael ‑‑ “I want…”
“I know.” Michael helped him to his feet. “Come on.” He took Tristan’s hand and walked him into the living room. “We probably ought to talk.”
Chapter Five
Michael dimmed the lights until Tristan could just barely see. His living room was small, furnished with not much more than a large sofa on an oriental rug facing the fireplace.
“I really love this room,” said Tristan, echoing his earlier sentiment. “It’s like a room in an historic home, and it feels like the best place on earth for a good book. It must be great when you have the fire lit.” He was babbling, and he knew it, but Michael didn’t seem to mind too much.
“Yeah,” said Michael. “Too hot for one today, but sometime soon it’ll get cold enough. I don’t use the heater; I just light the fireplaces.”
“Fireplaces? Plural? There’s more than one?”
“Yes, I have a Franklin stove in the bedroom with a gas log for warmth. I only need it once in a blue moon, but it’s got character. I put one in my mom’s place first because she asked me to, and then I liked it.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I like old things. I wanted a house that felt like it wasn’t all wired for cable and satellite and broadband. I wanted it to feel like a home, not an office.”
“You nailed it,” said Tristan, settling onto the couch and sinking into the soft cushions. The leather felt like a baby’s skin against his hands, and he sighed. “How do you live without all that stuff, though? I don’t watch an awful lot of television, but I have to admit to being a little bit of a CSI and NUMB3RS junkie.”
“I have a television; it’s just not obvious.” He smiled. “I do have two bedrooms ‑‑ one I use as a media/office room, but you’d never know it unless you searched. The bathroom’s big enough; the kitchen I kept old-fashioned by buying refurbished appliances. This house is all about the wood, so most of the effort has gone into the carvings and moldings.” He seemed to look around again, as if he needed to check that it was still right, and then said nothing more.
The topic of Michael’s house was, if not exhausted, momentarily worn out. Tristan had little idea what to say. He looked at his hands, which were folded carefully in his lap, and wondered if it would be okay to just reach over and grab Michael by the hair. That would be bad, he decided, probably.
Michael saved him by slipping an arm around his shoulders. “So let’s start again, Sparky. Why are you here?”
“You’re really going to keep bugging me till I tell you?”
Michael nodded.
“Here goes, okay? Even when I was a kid and I was reading those Dick and Jane books, I thought I’d probably be better off with Dick, you know? So Viper dumps me; she stands me up, see? Then her brother answers the door, and long story short, he was hard and leaking on his jeans because his girlfriend was there, and I thought, Aha! That’s what I’m talking about. I mean I just own it. Sign me up for one of those! It was all I could do to keep from licking him, or just taking a big bite right through the denim, and I was only saved from the embarrassment of a lifetime because his girlfriend came up from behind him, with her mussed-up hair and kissed-up lips, and I thought, Well, shit. Got to come up with a plan.”
“And that was your whole plan? Borders, Gay Lit 101, and a cup of coffee with a rice crispy treat?”
“Well, yeah. I had condoms; I’m not stupid.”
“My lucky day.” Michael rolled his eyes.
“Look, I’m sorry you got involved, and thank you for lunch, man. Although, it’s not like you didn’t work really hard to get yourself involved. At least admit that,” said Tristan.
“Sparky, when you’re right, you’re right.” Still, Michael didn’t move. He just sat there with his arm around Tristan, his own shoulders shaking with laughter.
“Anyway, I loaned my car to my sister, which is why I was boarding today, so I need a ride home,” said Tristan. “Please?” He thought being polite couldn’t hurt.
“Not taking you home.”
“What?”
“Not returning you. I like you. I’m keeping you.” He got up and asked again, as if he hadn’t just said the strangest thing, “Still want that lemonade?”
“Um, yeah,” said Tristan.
Michael held out his hand. “Then come help me make it,” he said, pulling Tristan along like a toy. He lit the stove again, starting the sugar syrup, and mixed the lemon juice with water. “I think there are some frozen raspberries, if you want to add them, there in the freezer.” When he’d finished boiling the syrup, he turned back to Tristan, who gripped the counter tightly with both hands. Michael faced him and put his arms around him, sliding his hands into the back pockets of Tristan’s jeans. He nudged Tristan’s feet apart and stepped between them.
“You were shorter when I ticketed you two years ago, but you’ve grown since then,” said Michael. “I’m…”
“Ripped.” Tristan slid his hands over Michael’s strong arms, daring a caress of Michael’s chest. “I’ll bet you have great abs.”
“Not really. I’m not strong, but I’m fast, even though I can never catch a certain hooligan when I chase him through the neighborhood behind the skate park.”
“Well, if you’d just said you wanted to kiss me…”
“I wanted to kiss you then; I want to now. How about it?”
“Caught me,” sang Tristan, looking into Michael’s eyes.
Michael leaned in then, pulling Tristan’s hips closer and tasting his lips with his tongue. Tristan opened to him and moaned a little when he felt Michael squeezing his ass. It was a good kind of squeeze. Hard, but not pinchy, and it brought him more in contact with Michael’s cock, which felt damned fine.
Tristan brought his hands up and ran them through Michael’s short hair, digging his fingers into the scalp a little, massaging him, holding him still, and using his thumbs to trace the features on Michael’s wonderful face.
“So good,” Tristan whispered between kisses, not even aware that he’d spoken until the words were out. “You’re…so hot.”
Michael moved from Tristan’s lips, finding and licking the junction between neck and shoulder. Tristan dropped his head back to give him more skin, but miscalculated, and his head smacked back on the cabinets.
“Jeez, baby, looks like you need to wear that helmet inside too,” murmured Michael against his skin. Michael moved back, and Tristan made a noise when he lost contact. Michael smiled. “Back soon,” he said and went to stir the sugar syrup into the bowl of lemon juice Tristan had made earlier. He added the raspberries to the lemonade, poured the mixture into a pitcher, then placed it in the fridge. “It’ll be a while before this cools to a nice drinking temperature.”
“Yeah?” Tristan was still dazed.
“Yeah, a little while.” He took a ribbon of Tristan’s long r
ed hair in his hand. “This is like fire,” he said. “Red hair is often curly, but yours is like silk.”
“Mmmhmm,” said Tristan, being stroked and loving it, like a cat.
“You are so beautiful. I thought that the first time I ever saw you.” Michael kissed him, hard, still holding his hair, winding it in his fist.
“Yeah?” Tristan liked the small tug, liked Michael’s possession of him.
“Wanted you,” said Michael.
“Me?” Tristan kissed him back, loving the taste of him, loving how his beard was scratchy, and his skin was tough from shaving.
“Started calling you Sparky because when I ticketed you that first time, I looked into your eyes, and this shock went straight to my balls,” Michael said into his hair.
“No kidding, really?” Tristan wanted more skin, so he started to unbutton Michael’s Hawaiian shirt. Under his assault, Michael’s shirt opened in seconds. He stopped what he was doing and just gazed at Michael, his hands over his mouth.
“Sparky?”
“You are so…” Tristan stood back to look. “Oh.” He couldn’t stop himself; he went straight for one brown nipple encircled by blond hair sort of just calling him and wrapped his lips around it. He licked it, working it with the bead on his tongue, feeling it harden under his probing. He rubbed his face in the fuzz on Michael’s chest, the crinkliness of it going straight to his cock, before taking over the other nipple.
“Oh, hey.” Michael cupped the back of his head. “You…hey.”
“Yeah, oh, this is good,” he said against Michael’s chest, his brain melting from the sensual stimulation. He tried to sink into Michael then, his face rubbing the tan flesh, his hands tracing the muscles. “I wish I could tell you how this makes me feel.”
“Yeah.”
Tristan moved like a blind man reaching out, wanting everything. He was trying to crawl inside Michael and feel him from the outside at the same time. Tristan’s hands shook as they explored.
“It’s been a while for me,” Michael murmured.
“What can I…what should I do?” Tristan was at a loss.
“Oh.” Michael cupped Tristan’s face in a tender gesture. “I’m trying to think if I was ever that young.”
“Hey.” Tristan pulled back, stung. He might not know how to ask for what he wanted, but he for damn sure knew what he wanted. He caught Michael around the neck and pulled him in for a full-body embrace and a searing kiss that he was sure left little doubt that, though he might be young, he was not to be dismissed casually.
Michael took Tristan’s shoulders in his hands and forced him back.
“What?” asked Tristan, bewildered. “No good?”
“Are you kidding?” said Michael. “I feel like a junior high school kid; I’m about to come in my pants.”
Tristan’s face burned. “I…well, me too.” He laid his hands on Michael’s chest, sliding them up to his shoulders, reaching out to bring Michael back. Tristan pulled Michael hard against the whole length of his body again and surged against him. “Do you have a load of laundry you need to do? Because I’m like, so close if I touch my fly button I’ll go off.”
“Sparky,” Michael panted, his hips snapping against Tristan’s in a powerful thrust as he forced the younger man against the counter, lining up their cocks through the fabric of their pants, using the zipper to scratch him a little. “The things you say sometimes make me think…”
Tristan came so fast his hips jerked, and he shook and slammed against Michael, who held him close and followed him over the edge. Their mouths joined then, in passionate combat, their lips fused and their tongues searching until their hearts slowed down a little. Michael gently lifted Tristan up onto the counter and held him.
Tristan wrapped his arms and legs around Michael and put his head down, his teeth grazing the space where Michael’s neck met his strong shoulder. “So good,” said Tristan with a sigh, clinging to him like a monkey “I want more… I want everything.”
For an answer, Michael just rubbed his face in Tristan’s hair. “Chased you lots, Sparky,” he murmured into the stuff, marking the skin of Tristan’s neck.
“Caught me,” repeated Tristan, moaning softly at the burn and sting of the blood Michael was bringing to the surface of his delicate skin.
“Would you like to take a bath?” Michael asked. “I have a big tub.”
“Are you planning to take it with me?” Tristan jumped down from the counter. He started across the kitchen to the hall door and turned to find Michael staring at him with hot eyes. “What?”
“You are so beautiful, Sparky,” Michael said, pushing away from the counter to follow him.
Tristan dipped his head so his long hair would hide his face. “You make me feel beautiful.” He allowed Michael to pass him and watched the way his body moved as he led him to the only bathroom in the small house, situated between the two bedrooms.
Michael’s footfalls were silent, catlike on the hardwood floors compared to Tristan’s, and Tristan had an idea that he did everything in that same measured, deliberate, and conscious way. He wondered if Michael brought dates home often, and if he did, were they more like him? Were they older, more sedate, more grounded and less likely to do something as stupid as humping him like a puppy while he tried to make lemonade? By the time Tristan heard Michael turn on the water, his face was on fire.
“What’s up?” asked Michael.
“Nothing really,” said Tristan, looking around what seemed to him a relatively large bathroom. Like every other part of the house, this room was beautiful, spare, and presumably carefully remodeled. The focal point was an enormous claw-foot bathtub, slipper shaped, with a high back. It impacted the eye, thought Tristan, the graceful, essentially fluid shape of the tub against a geometric backdrop of gray and cream tiles. It was exactly the kind of bathroom that Tristan pictured for mystery novels and trendy bed and breakfasts. It was a monochromatic man’s room with no place for extra paper, or his sister’s endless zippy bags for cosmetics.
Michael slipped his shirt off and looked straight at Tristan while he removed his sticky jeans and shorts. “That’s a feeling I wasn’t nostalgic about.”
“It’s not an everyday occurrence for me, either.” Tristan looked at Michael, whose body was fit and tanned and ripped. Michael had lied ‑‑ the man had abs to die for. “I think if I hang out with you much I’d better get used to it,” he said thickly.
Michael turned a slightly pink shade at that revelation and came over to help Tristan out of his clothes. He kissed all the skin he found as he revealed it, peeling off Tristan’s shirt and undoing the belt on his jeans. When they were both naked, they stood and stared at each other for a long time. Michael broke the connection first by turning away and picking a stick lighter off a shelf to light candles. He dimmed the overhead lights until the room was lit by only the candles’ glow.
The tub was pure luxury, all white porcelain and surrounded by a silky white fabric shower curtain that Michael pushed out of the way as he sank in first, his back against the raised lip of the tub. He looked…so hot. Tristan was still, and Michael watched him quietly.
“I, uh, guess I should…” said Tristan, slipping into the water without a splash. He sat at the foot of the tub, facing Michael, and squeezed himself over to the side of the faucet. Tristan looked anywhere but at Michael’s eyes, which he knew would be amused at his expense.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” said Michael softly. “I get to hold you; it’s my tub, my rules.”
“Oh, okay.” Tristan practically swam through the water to sit with his back to Michael’s chest. He felt the man inhale and exhale, his own chest rising and falling with Michael’s. “This is nice.”
Michael picked up a tiny bottle and poured a little of its contents into the water, swishing it around. The smell of something vaguely familiar teased at Tristan, and he closed his eyes, trying to place it.
“A little aromatherapy,” said Michael. “Nice after a long day of argui
ng with unrepentant criminals.”
“Christmas…” said Tristan. “It smells like Christmas.”
“Yeah, I guess. It’s probably the rosemary; it has an evergreen smell. It kind of reminds me of food,” said Michael. “But then again, so does everything. I’m kind of a foodie.”
“I got that when you made sugar syrup for the lemonade,” said Tristan. “FYI, even mothers don’t do that anymore.”
“My mother does,” said Michael.
“Figures.” Tristan ran his hand through the water a little, moving it in ripples. Michael’s arm came around him then, stroking the taut muscles on his stomach, slipping lower to brush his cock, which responded with shocking enthusiasm.
Tristan could feel Michael smile against his neck. “You respond so instantly.”
Tristan tried to hide his face in his wet hands.
“No, Sparky, it’s not a bad thing. I like that. Are you kidding? It’s hot.”
“I’m like that with you.” Tristan put his hand over his shoulder to hold Michael’s head where it was, next to the skin on his neck. Michael’s touch was making him sigh and shake and want things he was afraid to ask for. “Not everyone.”
“There’s something I want to ask you.” Michael kept his voice carefully neutral. “Am I even remotely someone you could see yourself with? Dating, I mean? Not just a trick from Borders because you were curious, but someone real to be with. I don’t mind being, you know, just the guy you caught on your very first fishing expedition.”
“Oh, no!” said Tristan. “That feels, like, a million dumb ideas ago.” He stroked Michael’s hair thoughtfully, glad his back was turned so he didn’t have to have look him in the eyes. He didn’t even stop to wonder why that seemed so much more intimate than bathing with the man. “I think you may have saved me from, at best, an embarrassing afternoon.”
“I’m glad you think so,” said Michael, who seemed to be waiting for an answer to his question.
“I didn’t expect to find someone I liked,” Tristan began. “I just wanted to know how it felt to be with a man. Maybe figure out, you know, how to do it. Anonymously, sort of, so I wouldn’t have to look like a total asshole to that same guy twice. That’s really dumb, isn’t it?”
Crossing Borders Page 4
