by Daryl Banner
“It did.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “And … And I felt you up?”
“More than that. You jerked me off.”
“And you came? You actually came?”
“That, I did. And hard.” I watched his surprised face. “Oh, and by the way, you did too. A lot.”
He drew silent and looked off. Then a short huff shot out his nostrils. “That explains the wet spot in my shorts that morning.”
“Hmm.” I had wondered about that. “Guess it does, huh?”
“And it clearly proves that I can’t hide what I feel for you,” he added softly. “Even in my dreams.”
Those words caught me. I waited for him to say more, like he was kidding, or maybe he would just laugh it all off, but he did neither. “What exactly do you feel for me?”
The shadow fingers kept dancing high above our heads. “I feel a lot of things. Shit, I don’t know. Can’t really put it into words.”
“Try.”
He grunted, almost annoyed. “It doesn’t matter, man.”
“Hey, you’re the one who said you ‘can’t hide how you feel about me’. You can’t just leave me with that. Now you have to fess up.”
“I don’t gotta fess up to nothin’.”
I chuckled, then let my eyes wander to the windows. “Alright, I know we’ve only known each other for a few days now …”
“Yeah.”
“But … it really feels like a lot longer than that.”
“Yeah.”
Was he agreeing with me? Or was he pissed because I teased him about having feelings for me? “It … feels like just yesterday I was scolding you for your language at a table in Alberto’s.”
“Fuck Alberto’s.”
I chuckled at that. “Yeah. Fuck Alberto’s,” I agreed.
After a moment, Lucas let out a long sigh, then mumbled, “I guess I’m just sort of waiting for this … dream … to end.”
Those words sobered me. I turned back to him with concern. “What do you mean? End? Why?”
“I dunno. ‘Cause everything good always ends.” He shrugged. “Maybe that’s what’s really on my mind. It’s only a matter of time before …” He sighed, leaving all the rest of the words unsaid.
“Before what?” I picked up for him. “I just bought you a crap load of clothes. I gave you a room. You’re here under my roof with me. There’s no rules. I’m not kicking you out or anything.”
“I know.”
“And … I mean, on that same token, you’re also free to leave whenever you want.” Fuck, those words hurt to say out loud. “I mean, not that I want you to leave. I don’t. But … you’re not a prisoner here. You can make your own choices.”
“That, I can. And did. I’m here, after all.”
“So, while it may be easier said than done, Lucas, please just try to … relax a bit. Accept that this could be your new life, if you wanted it to be. Accept that I’m not just some fickle person who’ll change his mind and throw you out on the street again when I’m bored. Does that sound like me?”
“Nah.”
“So just relax. I mean, it might not always be easy here. I’m not promising paradise or anything. It’s just a roof. And food. And, well, me. But the important thing is that I’m giving you a chance here to … start over. More or less.”
“Start over …” he mumbled in wonder.
His elbow brushed mine under the sheets. It was amazing to me, how there was so much room on this bed, and yet there were mere inches between our bodies, like we still couldn’t stand to be farther apart than we were right then.
I wanted to touch him. So badly. I couldn’t let us devolve back into being afraid of one another, not after all the progress we had made over the past week. He had made the first step by inviting himself into my bed every night, didn’t he? That had to mean something. It couldn’t be for nothing. The last move was his.
It was my turn.
But just when I went to touch his arm, he turned onto his side, facing me and causing me to withdraw my hand. “No rules, huh?”
I searched for his eyes in the dark. “No rules. Like I said.”
Suddenly, he put an arm around my waist and pulled himself against my side.
Oh, wow.
It felt like heaven, the way he held me close.
I froze right up under his touch, but ever slowly, inevitably, the warmth from his body made me thaw to nothing but a puddle at his mercy. It wasn’t long before I melted into his strong arms.
I could have lived there forever, embraced by Lucas.
“You forgot one rule,” he mumbled sleepily.
His deep voice was so close, it tickled my ear. “What’s that?”
Lucas slid a hand down my body until it came to a firm and deliberate stop at my crotch, cupping my cock and balls firmly. “No coming until I say.”
My face flushed red in the dark.
Fuck, this kid owns me so bad.
Chapter 18
JAMES
I killed the engine and stared at the front of the bank.
It was Monday morning. I was exhausted from a night of endless sexual torment at the cruel, playful hands of Lucas—yet simultaneously floating on a high of ecstasy. Lucas gave me the exact perfect combination of sweetness and cruelness. He worked me up, then denied me release, over and over. The thrill of finally getting to come—and yet knowing that Lucas was going to prolong my agony as long as he pleased—was so damned overwhelming, I could hardly concentrate on anything else.
Let alone going back to work Monday. At my boring bank.
Where Lucas totally wasn’t.
I’m already dreaming of when I’ll get to go home and see him.
Was it unhealthy, the insanely explosive dynamic that ignited between us over the past week? Was it sick, to crave his touch so badly that I sat there in the parking lot with both my hands tucked away in my crotch, feeling the electricity radiate off my dick?
Was it wrong, to want him as badly as I did?
To obey his every command when he felt bossy?
And then to cuddle him in the night when he turned into maple syrup at my side?
Lucas is a drug I am irrevocably, irresistibly, uncontrollably addicted to, and I don’t ever want to stop.
He woke up with me that Monday morning, which was a first, since I was usually first to rise and make breakfast as he slept in. Lucas came with me to the kitchen, the sun still not yet risen, and I made us eggs while he sat on the counter next to me in nothing but his black briefs. His sleepy eyes watched as I cooked, smiling whenever I looked at him, and then I sat on the counter with him and we ate our food holding our plates to our chins like two little boys. I felt half my age whenever I was around him. He gave me new life. He was my fountain of youth.
With him, anything felt possible.
Then he swatted my ass—hard—as I left the kitchen, and when I turned to shoot him a look, he said, “No rubbing one out at the office, James. I’ll know if you did.”
Nine days. Over a week since I had any release.
I was so crazy for Lucas. Or just plain crazy.
When I finally got out of the car and crossed the parking lot to the back employee entrance, Lewis slipped out the doors, pulling a cigarette from the breast pocket of his security guard uniform. He eyed me as I approached, then lit up. “Well, well,” he mumbled as he flicked his lighter closed and let out a swirl of smoke. “Look at what the cat dragged home.”
I winced. I was hoping not to be confronted so soon. “Sorry I missed out this weekend. Really, I wanted to go.”
“Wasn’t the same without you, man.” He took another drag, then let it out. “Quinton and Duncan had no buffer between them. Those two drama queens had at it for a whole hour before we even got our Friday night started. No offense.”
I quirked an eyebrow. What was I supposed to take offense to that time? “Uh, none taken …?”
“I called them queens. Isn’t that a gay slur?”
&n
bsp; I rolled my eyes and swallowed a laugh. “Oh man, really, you need to quit worrying about offending me all the time.”
Lewis shrugged at that, then blew smoke out his nostrils. “Well, you’re my first and only gay friend I ever had. So did you get whatever it was taken care of?”
It took me a second to realize he was referring to my lie. “Yes. I did. I got it all …”
I thought about Lucas pressing me to the shower wall.
I thought about his hand gliding down my wet body.
I thought about how achingly hard I felt and how desperately I wanted his lips on mine.
I thought about the crack his hand made landing on my ass.
“… all taken care of,” I finally finished, staring glassy-eyed off at the parking lot.
“You’re gonna come with us next time, though.”
I looked up at him. “Why?”
That might have been the wrong thing to say. He scrunched up his nose at me. “Really? ‘Why’ …? Man, are you avoiding us or something? Already planning an excuse to not go next time? Shit, you’ve been acting weird lately.”
“No, I haven’t. This weekend, it’s just that I had—”
“Yeah, a thing, a ‘personal’ thing. Sure. Whatever you say.” He flicked the rest of his cigarette to the ground and stomped it out.
“Lewis …”
“See you inside,” he grunted, then pushed into the building.
Just then, my phone vibrated. I pulled it out and stared at its face. Out of the frying pan and into the flaming pit of lava.
I answered. “What do you want?”
“Oh, screw you,” came Duncan’s voice. “I had to cover your ass, like, twenty times all weekend. You should be kissing my ass.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m sorry.”
“You know how Quinton is when he gets wasted. He went all twenty-questions on me. Grilled my ass as if I knew the real reason you didn’t come and wouldn’t say. The guys aren’t buying it.”
“What’s the big damned deal??” I blurted. “I canceled. Once.”
“You never cancel, James. You’ve gone every single time. It’s our thing. Without you, shit got all weird and out of balance. I had a whole room to myself. Quinton got weirdly weepy about how tormenting it is to have hot chicks in his coffee shop, and how the girl at the front desk was giving him the cold shoulder.”
“She’s into him,” I mumbled, my head already pounding.
“Tell that to Quinton. What a crybaby. And I didn’t have you there to help balance him out. Lewis was copping an attitude. Get it? Copping an attitude? I’m so clever.”
“I just got an earful from Lewis about what a shitty friend I am for not going. I don’t need another from you, Dunc.”
“Dude, Quinton even went once and he had the fucking flu.”
“It wasn’t the flu.”
“Tell me he’s gone.”
I blinked. “What? Who?”
“Your guy. Don’t tell me he’s still with you. He’s moved on by now, hasn’t he? He’s gone, right?”
My silence was his answer.
“James.” His voice turned hard. “You. Me. Ringers. Tonight.”
“Tonight? Why?”
“And you’re bringing him with you.”
My eyes flashed. “N-No. I’m not bringing him. No way.”
“Yes, you are. Tonight. Six o’clock. I’m gonna meet this special man of yours who you got to butt-bump all weekend. It’s Happy Hour Monday. I have to see this dude for myself.”
“No. I’m not bringing him to Ringers.”
“Yeah, you are. It’s my only condition.”
“Huh? Your only condition?”
“Yep. Do it or else I’ll tell the guys.”
I stamped my foot on the ground. “You can’t fucking tell the guys. If you tell Quinton, his big mouth will spill it to his brother, who’ll spill it to my sister Jules, then my whole nosy family will know. The last thing I need is my mother on my doorstep again.”
“Too late. It’s ultimatum time, buddy.”
I scoffed into the phone. I couldn’t believe he was being so unfair to me. “I should never have told you about him.”
“Shut up. You love me. And now you owe me double.”
“Double?”
“You stood me up last Saturday. And now you made me have to deal with the guys all by myself this past weekend. I mean, really, who’s the shitty friend here? You oughta be thanking me.”
I sighed, frustrated. Lucas wasn’t even old enough to drink. And Duncan didn’t exactly know that yet. How was he going to react when he learned that my “special guy” was practically the age of his students? And if he dared spill a word of it to Quinton, then everyone would know.
I was cornered, no matter which way I spun the web.
“Fine,” I finally gave in. “I’ll … I’ll talk him into coming out with us tomorrow night.”
“Tonight. Not tomorrow night. Tonight.”
“Fine. Tonight. It’s a date then, asshole?”
“It’s a date, you cock-whipped dipshit. Ugh, I need to wash my mouth with soap before my students arrive,” he moaned. “It’s just a matter of time before I accidentally slip an f-bomb in class and have thirty-two millionaire moms and dads in my face screaming about corrupting their precious children’s ears.”
“I still hate you.”
“Tonight. Six o’clock. Be there.” Duncan hung up.
I pocketed my phone, sighed, then took the walk of shame into the bank where I passed right by Lewis, who stood in his place with his arms crossed, eyeing me with judgment.
Today was going to suck.
When I got into my office, my phone vibrated. Again.
And it was vibrating with my own house number.
Lucas.
I answered right away. “Something happen? What’s wrong?” I blurted right away.
A tiny chuckle came through the line. “Seriously? Just because I call you, you think I’ve burned down your house?”
I sighed, let out a little nervous chuckle of my own, then took in a deep, steeling lungful of air. “Sorry. I just minutes ago got chewed out by two of my friends already for missing out on the weekend. I’m a little bit on edge.”
“Sure, yeah. You’re a little bit … on edge, aren’t you?”
The second, unintended meaning in those words that Lucas just emphasized grabbed me right by the nuts. I squeezed my legs together and refrained from squirming. “You’re a dick, Lucas.”
“Hey, you’re the one who wants it this way,” he argued back. “I’m just helping you live out your fantasy—by owning and taking care of your most prized possession.”
His words “taking care of” rang with a sinister undertone. His version of “taking care of” involved a lot more torment, denial, and sexual hunger than most people’s definitions would. He kept me in a permanent state of desperately wanting more. It was cruel and evil and drove me crazy.
And yeah, I loved every second of it.
But I could still pretend to resist him, couldn’t I?
“So why’d you call?” I asked him. “Other than to torture me while I’m at work.”
“I want you to do something for me. In the spirit of … taking care of my prized possession.”
I lowered my voice. “Your prized possession is in perfect agony, thank you. It’s right here between my legs, safe and sound.”
“Good. Take it out.”
I froze up. “Wait. What?”
“I said take it out.”
My eyes shot up to the door, then to the small window to my side that overlooked the parking lot. “But I’m—”
“Do it. C’mon, James.” His voice carried a certain authority that gripped me and held on tight. “Take it out of your pants.”
“What are you doing? I … I have a client in five minutes.”
“Do it.”
He was obviously sitting at my house, bored, and wanting to play around with his new toy.
Namely: the toy between my legs.
My face was going red for no reason at all. No one was hearing these words except me and him. “I’m at work,” I whispered. “I can’t just whip it out and—”
“Sure, you can. Your office has a door, doesn’t it?”
All of my insides were shaking with excitement. Of course I wanted to ignore the world and just follow his orders no matter what. Of course I wanted to cancel all of my clients, appointments, and whatever else just to be irresponsible as hell on the phone with Lucas. But there I sat, glued to my chair in fear.
His voice became a touch softer. “Is the door open?”
I clenched shut my eyes. “Yes,” I finally croaked.
“Close it.”
I glanced down at the schedule book on my desk, opened to today’s date. My first appointment of the day was in five minutes, right at the top of the hour. And that was assuming I didn’t have a sudden walk-in to help, too, which almost always was the case every Monday morning when some bozo needed something done on his account and had been forced to wait all weekend.
“Alright,” I hissed into the phone, then came around my desk and gently closed the door. No, it didn’t have a lock. Heart racing, I quickly returned to my desk chair. “Done.”
“You don’t gotta whisper everything.”
“Yes, I do.”
“This is gonna be so fucking fun.”
“I’m nervous.”
“Is your dick out?”
“Lucas, I swear …”
“I asked is your dick out?”
I peered down at my pants, still buttoned and zipped up. “No.”
“Why not? Get that little fucker out.”
“What’re you calling ‘little’?”
“You have to get it out. You know why?”
I shivered with apprehension—or excitement; I couldn’t tell the difference right then. “Why?”
“Because it’s mine now, sucker.” He laughed wickedly into the phone. “Now unzip your pants and get that dick out for me.”
I was going on nine days of not having had any kind of sexual release, all the while being cockteased (whether intended or not) by the young, gorgeous Lucas. I was drunk with horniness, and so dizzy with desire that I felt compelled to do a hundred different risky things I would never normally do.
