by Daryl Banner
His stroking of my cock through the meshy material of my shorts was too firm and well-paced to be accidental. He had to know what he was doing. He had to be awake in some way.
I was leaking, too. Badly. I had so much pent-up tension below my waist that it ached to come out of me.
The way Lucky moved his hand was expert, so unexpectedly nuanced and intuitive, like he was linked to my brain and knew exactly what I wanted.
And it wasn’t like I needed an interpreter to know what he wanted, either, whether in his dreams or otherwise. He might as well have been kneading a metal rolling pin against my ass instead of his cock and I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. He wanted in. He was hungry. He had been kept waiting long enough.
So had I.
The pace of his hand increased. I was fast approaching the point of no return. The intensity and speed of his humping my ass increased too until my whole body was rocking.
He and I both, as one, rocking, moving.
His breaths turned vocal. “Ughnn …” He groaned sleepily into my ear. “Fuuuck …”
All I did was breathe, sink into his muscular hold, and float.
I reached the edge. And then exploded.
“Oh, God, God …” I finally let out as I came, shot after shot, filling my underwear. My eyes rocked back as I flew over the sky, soaring, soaring.
His hand didn’t stop.
I reached down to grab hold of his fist, since my cock was reaching that sensitive spot when it was no longer pleasurable to stroke. I couldn’t free myself, and Lucky was clearly having too much fun jerking my cock—or whoever’s—in his lusty dreams while humping my ass—or whoever’s. I just had to bear it, like a price for only a second ago feeling so good.
And then he came.
Desperate breaths exploded into my ear as he grunted, clung even tighter to me, and let it all out. As he did, he stopped stroking me and, instead, simply squeezed with all his might.
I gritted my teeth and whimpered out, half in pain, half in pleasure.
Then he relaxed, the weight of his body pressing against me as his hand and his hips ceased movement. A calm breath rushed over my neck, and then all I knew was the quiet push and pull of air as Lucky returned himself to sleep.
I stared ahead, wide-eyed, at the window where a spread of city lights and distant stars watched over us. My wet shorts grew cold. His hand remained there, like a big five-headed dog guarding its treasure.
And I was left even more confused than before. Was he really dreaming? Was he awake? The result was the same, I supposed: He owned me, he held me like his property, and he took me in every way that strange, otherworldly night.
Chapter 10
LUCKY
I opened my eyes to a bed that was all mine, bright as a sandy white beach midday, and the sound of shower water drumming softly against the wall. It was just past ten o’clock, and a growl of desperation quaked through my empty stomach.
When James came out of the bathroom, he had a strangely triumphant look on his face, like he just scaled a mountain. “Your turn,” he said, chipper, then tossed me a towel and whistled as he went for his bag to put away some things.
No idea what the happy hell was up with him.
Undressing in the bathroom, however, I discovered a mystery of what the happy hell must have been up with me at some point during the night. The inside of my shorts were stained and slightly damp, like I jizzed in them in my sleep.
That couldn’t have happened, right? There was no way that I creamed myself like a whimpering twelve-year-old in bed.
I just had a horny dream and leaked, I decided. I had a horny dream and I leaked … a lot.
I couldn’t even fool myself.
I balled up the shorts, then stared up at my naked self in the mirror. I hated seeing myself in the mirror. My ribs poked through where once I had a solid six-pack. I had lost considerable weight over all the months when I didn’t have regular access to a gym or a fully-stocked kitchen. The street was my gym. Playground monkey bars made friends with my hands. And every scrap I was able to stealthily acquire became my protein shakes.
But when James looked at me, it felt like he was looking at the guy I used to be back in school. He saw the cut, ripped, chiseled motherfucker no one wanted to mess with. He made me feel like my old self again, whether he knew it or not.
I twisted the knob of the shower, then let the hot water run over my body, filling the big hotel bathroom with steam.
Heaven.
It wasn’t until I was mid-shower that I realized I didn’t bring my backpack into the bathroom with me.
That was a first—an absolute first. I never let it out of my sight. Yet there I was, scrubbing my pits with a bar of soap as if all of my most valuable, earthly possessions weren’t sitting in a completely exposed black backpack wedged between the bed and nightstand.
I trust James, I reminded myself. I ought to trust him, especially since I may be going home with him today.
The whole notion struck me anew, as if I’d actually forgotten his offer the night before. I prayed that offer still stood. My whole life could change if I had a place to call my own. Even if it was just for a little while. Even if it was tragically temporary. A fully-stocked kitchen, I dreamed. A bed, an actual bed. A house. A roof …
And a person to share it all with. A person to trust.
But I also knew that people often showed their best side at first. I didn’t know what kind of person James truly was when he took off his happy mask. Was this a smart move, going to live with someone who might have a short temper, or major jealousy issues, or a dungeon in his basement he planned to keep me locked up in?
This was a calculated decision of utter recklessness.
Caution wasn’t an ingredient I could stomach any longer. The taste of caution was the same as suspicion, as wariness, as mistrust and paranoia and terror. Caution was something that made me sick to my stomach every night. Caution was what prevented me from getting more than three or four hours of sleep a night.
Recklessness felt freeing.
Recklessness gave me strength, and assuredness, and hope for a major change in my fortune.
And James was a man—perhaps the first in my life—who made me feel like I could take the wheel and call the shots. He gave me the control. He gave me the choice.
I knew what I’d choose.
When our bags were packed and that fateful noon o’clock was only minutes away, James eyed me with a tinge of anxiety in his eyes and asked the question that proved all his thoughts mirrored mine: “Did you think about my offer?”
I slung my backpack over a shoulder, then faced him. “Yeah, I did. Let’s do it.”
His eyes flashed. “Really?”
“You’re offering a bed. You’re a decent guy.” I shrugged. “I’d be an idiot not to take it.”
That made him smile. Then he let out a short chuckle and said, “Well, that sounds great! Especially after last night, I sort of feared that you’d … uh …” He shifted uncomfortably as he rubbed a hand through his hair.
I quirked an eyebrow. “What about last night?”
He lifted his gaze to me. “Uh … last night. The, uh … thing.”
“The movie? Don’t worry about it. It was just—”
“Oh. Uh, no. The …” He swallowed. “I meant during the night. In the middle of the night. While we …” He nodded at the bed.
I was so confused. “While we what?”
He looked pale, like he was about to pass out. “I …” He shook his head. “Y’know, never mind. My head’s in a fog. I could go for some lunch, since it’s too late for breakfast. How about you?”
I frowned. “What about last night?” I prodded him.
“Lunch,” he insisted. “And I gotta check out now, or else that bastard will charge me a late fee.” He clicked off the TV, tossed the remote at the bed, then picked up his bag. “Let’s go.”
I eyed him suspiciously as he walked by, but didn’
t make any more of an issue of it, despite how lost I was. I was sure he’d bring it up later again.
If it was of any importance.
* * *
After checking out without a problem, James got us both some chicken tenders at the hotel diner downstairs where he told me a bit about what to expect in Little Water—small minds, prying eyes, and a lot of elderly folk on porches, to put it simply—and I learned that James liked his coffee drowned in so much cream and sugar that you couldn’t even taste the damned coffee.
His car smelled clean and leathery, which was expected; that fucker was the kind I bet washed his hands before and after he took a piss. There wasn’t a speck of trash on the floor nor dust on the dashboard. I sat in the passenger seat with my black backpack hugged to my chest. Our elbows kept accidentally touching, since we both apparently wanted to rest our arms on the center console. Eventually, we seemed to settle into sharing the console, though our elbows still flirted with one another, every bump in the road making them kiss. Other than that, we mostly listened to the radio the whole time while I stared out the car window, watching the city I knew shrink in the side view mirror.
It was strange to me how little I missed it.
Pulling off the freeway, it wasn’t long before we were driving past farmlands, rows of corn, and vast stretches of grass and nothing. It gave me a surreal rush of feelings I couldn’t even try to name, being in an environment like this. One of my first thoughts was about a friend in high school whose family owned a ranch. He was going to host a post-prom party there. I was so stoked about it, imagining how that night was going to go down.
I had no idea back then that I wouldn’t make it to prom.
I wouldn’t even make it three days into my senior year of high school before running away.
We pulled off the road onto a long driveway that led up to a very wide one-story house. The lawn stretched on forever, and the driveway was lined with uneven trees, the largest of which was nearest the house, casting a huge shadow over the garage doors, which slowly opened as we came closer.
Inside, his garage was spacious enough for two big vehicles side by side, though he only seemed to have the one. There was an empty workbench, tools along the wall, and a big green trash bin. The garage was otherwise totally empty and clean.
James parked the car, then took a breath. “Here we are,” he announced to the steering wheel as he turned off the engine. He faced me, his eyes shimmering with anxiety. “So, uh … you ready to see the house?”
Was it wrong to be addicted to how much of an effect I had on him? I made him so damned nervous all the time. I wondered if our flirting elbows charged him up the whole ride over.
And was it just me, or did James get even more good-looking since we left the hotel? His eyes were brighter out here away from all the smog, and there was an air about his face that was inviting.
I literally had an urge to lean in and kiss him, like we were boyfriends or some shit.
Now, I know I’m fucked up.
“You okay?” He quirked an eyebrow. “We can just sit here and do nothing if you want.”
I wrinkled my face, pulled from whatever daze I was in. “Why the hell would we do that?” I unclicked my seatbelt, then popped open my door. “Let’s get a look at your house already. My legs are cramped up in this car.”
“Yes, sir,” he muttered teasingly.
Once we climbed out of his car, James led the way inside. The door leading into the house opened into a huge, spacious kitchen. Seriously, I could have done three damned cartwheels and still not have made it to the huge refrigerator on the other side, which had a big glass door through which you could see all its contents lit up inside. In the center of the kitchen was a huge marble-topped island, upon which there was a stovetop and a slate cutting board.
No, I wasn’t going to react. I was going to play it cool as fuck, too above it all to make a single gasp or wide-eyed expression of awe at the staggering size of his house.
But seriously. Holy shit.
“Kitchen,” announced James unnecessarily, then tapped the side of the fridge as he glanced back at me. “You can help yourself to anything. There’s juice, milk, filtered water, and iced raspberry tea—my personal favorite. Snacks in the pantry right behind you.”
On the other side of the stool-lined breakfast bar of the kitchen was the most airy living room I’d ever seen. It was like the lobby of a resort with enough area to host an aerobics class without even moving the furniture out of the way. The room had dark wood flooring and was so clean, I could see reflections. An L-shaped leather couch with a lounger and a separate loveseat decorated the center, looked down upon by a flatscreen hung over the mantle of a mighty stone fireplace, its stones meeting a thick wooden beam at the top that ran along the vaulted ceiling.
“You live here all by yourself?”
James didn’t seem boastful or proud of his gigantic house in the least. He just shrugged. “Yeah … I do. Just me. I don’t even own a pet, despite having the space for one. Or two. Or six.”
“Hmm.” I glanced upwards. For a one-story house, the ceiling was so damned high that I doubted I could even reach it with a jumbo ladder and stilts.
“Truth is, this house was given to me by my grandfather who couldn’t bear to live in it after grandma died.” He stopped by the fireplace and adjusted a slightly off-centered picture that sat on the mantle. It was of an old couple, presumably his grandparents. “He shuddered at the thought of total strangers making a home of it. Really, I was doing him a favor to move here two years ago, even though it tripled my commute to the bank.”
“Sorry ‘bout your grandma.”
“Thanks.” Standing there in the center of the room, he looked so small, like a lone pawn on a chess board. “I loved her. She lived her last few years battling dementia. She kept calling me Carson. I have no idea who Carson is. No one did.”
“Maybe someone from her past,” I suggested as I took another couple of steps into the living room. Just the sound of my shoes slapping the hardwood floors echoed all around me. “Obviously he was someone who was special to her. Maybe that’s … what she thought of you.”
Ugh. Listen to me. Being a sentimental little bitch.
James chuckled at that. “I’ve never really been anyone much special to anyone.” He eyed me. “So do I call you Lucky or what?”
I was busy running a hand along the back of his couch and missed the question. I looked up. “What?”
“Lucky? Or … Lucas?”
For a brief moment, I didn’t know which name to prefer: the one I’d been given at birth, that all my old friends called me, that I wrote at the top of all my school homework and assignments, that I had seen on my driver’s license for the short two-ish years in which I had a vehicle … or the name I gave myself on the street because it sounded close enough to my real name, yet alien enough to not stain my character with the bad blood of what I might or might not have been forced to do to survive.
Was I sick yet of wearing the name? Or was it the name that was wearing me?
“Lucky,” I answered, not noticing quite how tightly I gripped my backpack before making the choice—tight enough to inspire a cramp and a light sheen of sweat.
Did it even matter anymore? He knew my real name. Why was I still being so guarded?
What exactly am I protecting?
“Lucky.” James gave me a smile and a tiny nod, then shoved his hands into his pockets. “Lucky it is.”
I met his eyes. It wasn’t my imagination. He was twenty times more attractive now that we were free from the city. Maybe it was some kind of psychology trick, but James looked kinder, smoother, more handsome, and maybe even stronger—despite the fact that I knew I could fold him in half at any moment if I wanted.
Not that I wanted to. If anything, I was ready to fold someone else in half, if anyone dared to fuck with James. Wasn’t he on my team now? Isn’t that what friends do?
Is that what this is? A friendship?
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Why did that word seem so inadequate?
“So wanna see the rest of the house?” asked James brightly, unaware of any of my thoughts.
“Lead the way,” I responded.
We passed the front foyer where the large glass double front doors were and into a hallway that led to two closets, an office, a workout room, a bathroom, and one of his guest bedrooms. The hall dead-ended into a big ass game room with a red-topped pool table, a small black-and-white checkered couch in the corner with yet another flatscreen on the wall—this one considerably smaller than the mammoth one in the living room—and a modest bar in the other corner by a tall floor lamp that looked like a piece of art. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined the walls, showing off a spread of gangly, overgrown bushes that half-shielded the field next to his house, past which you could spot his neighbor in the distance.
“Do you even know your neighbors?” I asked as I walked past the pool table, running a hand along the soft red felt. “Nearest one looks half a mile away.”
“My neighbors are more like acquaintances, really. They knew my grandparents.” James walked up and rubbed a spot on the window. “Smudge,” he complained to himself.
My eyes trailed up to the poolsticks lined up on a rack that was mounted to the wall. This dude had to be loaded. I was getting the creeping sensation that James wasn’t the modest, bumbling, unconventionally handsome guy I first took him to be.
When I brought my gaze back to him, he was still fussing with that smudge on the window.
My eyes trailed down his backside, and then I tilted my head.
James had a fine ass. And I’m not just saying that. James had the kind of ass that could make a pair of boring khakis sing. It was shapely, filled-out, and literally invited my hands toward them.
And my hips toward them.
And maybe my cock, too, if it won’t make him squeal too loud.
Maybe that’s the upside to having your nearest neighbor be a mile in any direction.
“So do you host parties here?” I asked, still staring at his ass.
He chuckled at that, glancing out the window. He didn’t even know my eyes were making a feast out of him. “Not really, but sometimes I have my buddies over to play pool or watch a game.”
