North Shore

by Santino Hassell

  Yeah, I thought as I deliriously scooped up some more. Pretend this is your cum. I dragged the flat of my tongue along my fingers before plunging them in my mouth. Pretend you have me fucking covered.

  “You’re a mess,” Luis said, voice a growl. “It’s all over your face.”

  I took all three fingers into my mouth, sucking obscenely, then dragged them down. “Am I?”

  “Yeah, you are.” Luis stepped in closer until his thighs hit the dryer. He lifted his hand, causing me to freeze in place. He braced my jaw with his big hand while I panted like a beast. Then he jerked me forward a bit, just enough to make my pulse race before running the rough pad of his thumb over my mouth. “You got it all over these big fucking lips of yours.”

  I let him drag my lips apart, leaning into him and panting audibly now, but I didn’t say anything to encourage him. He didn’t need it. He slid his thumb over my lower lip and half into my mouth, wiping it of ice cream, and then sucked it into his own. My hand twitched with the need to grab my dick and ease some of the pressure, but I kept them pressed against the dryer. I didn’t move them even when he smoothed his saliva covered thumb along the bottom of my mouth, which was also sticky. I held it together until he leaned in and dragged his tongue over my chin.

  A moan tore out of me. A louder one followed after he yanked my hair back to angle my face up for him to bathe with his tongue. The wet velvet slide against the roughness of my stubble caused me to tremble. When his tongue grazed my lower lip, I groaned so loud it was fucking obscene.

  He pulled away, lips parted and breath coming out in great gusts. He stared at me from beneath his eyelashes, so intense it was almost frightening. His hand was still bracing my face, fingers tight and caught in my hair. He yanked my head back again, just a little, and I let him. And when he leaned in to tongue at my jaw and the side of my mouth, licking at the rest of the ice cream, I let him do that too.

  I put a hand on one of his big shoulders and groaned again. The power in his body was incredible. I wanted him to unleash it on me, to shove me to my knees and force me to take his dick in my mouth. Fuck my mouth wide open until it was his cum all over my chin and jaw and mouth.

  There was a moment when Luis just stood in front of me, clutching me and staring, and I thought he would step away. That he’d brought me to the brink of me begging him to just use me, then he’d walk away. But he didn’t. He yanked me into the wettest, most sensual kiss I’d ever had laid on me. He covered my mouth with his own, his soft lower lip dragging against my sticky skin, and swept his tongue into my mouth.

  He made that mmm sound again, drew back so our lips smacked loudly, then went in for another wet kiss. His tongue was everywhere—tracing over my lips, delving in to drag along the inside of my cheek, then sliding out again to tease at my chin. That’s when I realized he wasn’t kissing me. He was literally licking every smidge of ice cream off my flesh and from the inside of my mouth. I didn’t care. I sat there and let him treat me like a delicious dessert he wanted to savor, and a fog fell over me. In the haze, nothing mattered but his mouth and taste and his hands.

  Luis leaned away again, just slightly. I narrowed my eyes at him and hoped it looked like a challenge, but I probably looked as hungry as I felt. The next time he drew me in, our lips pressed together, and it was a real kiss.

  Our tongues coiled in a wet dance that I couldn’t get enough of. I needed more of his touch, those strong fingers digging into me, and more of the wet heat inside his mouth. I grabbed the back of his neck and held him in place. No escape. No backing away to take the measure of me. I needed him to fuck my mouth with his tongue until I couldn’t breathe. Until I couldn’t think.

  Luis reached between us to move the container of ice cream out of the way. I immediately slid to the edge of the dryer and yanked him against me. His dick pressed against my own, but instead of grinding against him the way I wanted to, I just held him there. The pressure was delicious enough combined with the thorough way he was exploring my mouth, and it was dizzying. My head was spinning. I was falling down a rabbit hole, and I couldn’t stop myself or bring myself to care.

  The ding of the washing machine cut through our frantic kissing. I jumped and pulled away. The reality of the last several minutes crashed down around me. The basement spell broke with both of us staring at each other wide-eyed and flushed, and trying to calm erratic breathing.

  Then, his phone rang.

  Luis cringed with his whole body and briefly shut his eyes in annoyance.

  “Let me move my shit,” I said quickly.

  He didn’t say anything, so I slid off the dryer and turned to the washing machine. My dick was trying to punch a hole through my leggings. It was so hard it hurt. I subtly adjusted as I yanked out my belongings in a giant wet ball, and shoved them into the dryer. My hands were still shaky as I fumbled with the dials, probably choosing all the wrong options. Meanwhile, his fucking phone just kept ringing. Over and over while he stood behind me without speaking.

  I inhaled deeply after the dryer was going loud enough to cover the sound. Once my heartrate steadied a bit, I turned and found Luis looking down at his phone. It was great timing for me to haul ass out of there but, for some reason, it annoyed the shit out of me. Here I was having a panic attack over having had his tongue in my mouth, and he was texting.

  “All yours,” I said, and hurried by him.

  Luis caught my upper arm. “Wait.”

  “What?”

  He forced me to face him, using all that delicious strength to his advantage. And God help me, I instantly started fantasizing about him holding me down and fucking my brains out again. Or holding my head and jaw while he shoved his thick cock down my throat.

  I met his eyes again and found them wild. Blazing. He was as turned on as me.

  “We good?”

  “We’re the same as we were before,” I grit out.

  Luis’ lips pursed, and it seemed like he wanted to say more. I hesitated for just long enough for his phone to start ringing again. He swore in Spanish and glared down at it.

  I took the opportunity to hurry up the stairs.

  North Shore ch 7

  Chapter Seven

  Charles

  The sound of the doorbell once again startled me awake. I needed to figure out how to disable the fucking thing. It had become a real obstacle to me sleeping in while hungover and miserable.

  Groaning, I yanked my raggedy quilt over me, shifted around, and realized I’d fallen asleep in the sunroom after getting blazed. I’d also killed another bottle of wine, but that was a minor detail except for the way my head was spinning.

  The doorbell rang again. This time my unwanted visitor leaned on it until it rang continuously. The only people who would dare to be this obnoxious were my friends or…

  I bolted upright, heart pounding.

  “Charles, open your fuckin’ door!”

  Jace’s accent always came out strongest if he was yelling or speaking too fast, and now wasn’t an exception. The sound of it calmed me enough to stand on wobbly legs and peer down at the sidewalk. The sunlight was brutal for my headache, but a smile stole over my face.

  The sight of my squad standing near the curb while staring up at my windows drowned my Landon-related fears. Ashton was looking more leggy than usual in a short black romper that barely hit mid-thigh, and Mere stood beside him in the tallest spiked heels I’d ever seen and some gauzy Fashion Week monstrosity, and Jace wore skintight white pants and a flowy dark blue poet’s shirt. Stephanie was the only one who didn’t look like she’d just come in from a MET gala but was gorgeous as ever in a plain black sundress. They looked so hilarious standing together in this blue-collar Staten Island neighborhood, that I wished I’d had my phone charged and handy to take a picture.

  I shoved up the screen and leaned halfway out the window. “You look like an aesthetically pleasing band who has no idea how to play your instruments,” I called down to them.

  Jace flipped me off
. “I’m really good at playing with instruments, boo thang. Just ask—”

  Stephanie covered his mouth, laughing. “Don’t scandalize the neighbors with your dick talk.”

  “Let us in!” Jace demanded after turning his face away from her hand. “Or I’ll describe what Chris and Aiden did to me last night really fucking loudly.”

  “Okay, I actually want to hear this up close and personal, so I’ll be right down.”

  The little cloud that had been hovering over my apartment for days shifted away, just a little, and was replaced by genuine excitement. I hadn’t seen my friends in so long that I’d started telling myself that maybe I was better off alone. With just my misery to keep me company, my fucked up head had convinced me that seeing them would only make me feel worse. I tried to be a good person and a supportive friend, but I couldn’t deny that I was sometimes jealous of their lifestyles. I equally couldn’t deny that I’d felt abandoned after learning that every single one of them had found lovers while I was away. The icing on the cake had been Caleb getting engaged.

  So I’d stayed away. Avoided social media and happy couple, or throuple, pictures, and holed up in my apartment while allowing my phone to die for days at a time. But now that they were here? I was speeding through brushing my teeth and washing my face, left my hair as the wild mass of curls it was, and jerked on a pair of oversized sweatpants in my effort to get downstairs.

  I went through a list of questions for each of them as I hurried down, but my thoughts scattered once I stepped into the entryway. There was a spoon sitting in the middle of the mat by my door. The spoon from last night’s ice cream makeout session.

  The sight of it transported me back to the basement and the memory of our demanding, hungry kisses. We’d been desperate for each other even while pretending the mutual want was just teasing or a stupid game. Even after fleeing to my apartment, I’d pretended that all night long while refusing to jerk off to the thought of him. My continuous hard-on was why I’d once again decided to get super high. It was only in the light of day could I admit to myself that I’d have let him do me right there in the laundry room had we not been interrupted.

  “Charles!”

  I grabbed the spoon and yanked the door open, letting in a flood of sunlight and my ridiculously loveable friends. Stephanie instantly pulled me into a big hug, squeezing me tight, before Ashton and Mere did the same. Jace hung back and pointed at the spoon.

  “Are you doing heroin or something?”

  “Jace!” Stephanie protested, laughing. “What the fuck?”

  He shrugged. “I’m just saying.”

  I shoved the spoon into my pocket. “No heroin. And, uh, I’ll explain. Upstairs.”

  Away from Luis’ prying ears, assuming he was home or tracked my movements the way I’d been tracking his. For all I knew, he looked at me as nothing more than a fun little challenge and had a slew of people sending him dirty Snaps and trying to hookup every night. I had noticed that he went out and came home at all hours.

  Yeah, I was paying way too much attention to someone I was supposed to be resenting until the end of time.

  “I don’t have anything to offer you guys,” I said once they’d settled their gorgeous selves around the living room. “The food and drink situation is so dire that I had Rosé and peanut butter with saltines for dinner last night.”

  “Rosé?” Stephanie shook her head sadly. “Really, Charles?”

  “I know, right? But it was that or going into the world, and I’m not prepared to walk the ten minutes down Forest Avenue to hit up the liquor store just yet.”

  The four of them exchanged worried glances before Ashton held up a shopping bag with one of his big sunny smiles. “Luckily, we brought refreshments.” He removed a gold wrapped bottle. “Champagne.” He wrestled a package from the bottom. “A charcuterie platter.”

  “And me and Steph ordered a bunch of Fresh Direct for you, which should be arriving tomorrow,” Jace said with a winning smile. “Can’t have your skinny ass getting any skinnier, can we?”

  “Oh, you should talk,” I scoffed. “You tiny little bastard.”

  “Hey, I literally do not get any bigger. Caleb said you had lost weight when he saw you, and now you’re looking really underfed, lovely boy.” Jace was smiling at me, but his dark eyes were serious and he was giving me that critical once over. The one I could never escape from. If there was anyone who could identify the signs of me sinking into the cloud of my depression, it was Jace. “Friends take care of friends. Don’t make me fight you about it.”

  “Spoiler,” Steph chimed up. “Jace will win. I’ve seen him do an arm bar on Chris when they were watching the fights, and it wasn’t pretty.”

  Jace pretended to dust dirt off his shoulders, and I couldn’t help but smile at them. I also felt like the ultimate shithead. I’d been outright avoiding them for over a month, which I was sure they knew, and yet they were here with snacks and champagne while trying to distract me.

  “Do I get to grill you all on your new relationships yet?” I asked once I was folded into an armchair with a stomach full of meat, cheese, and champagne. “Now that you’ve spent thirty minutes criticizing Staten Island commuting.”

  “Hey, we took a city bus for you,” Mere said, pointing a tiny knife. “Not even an Express bus. We looked like freaks.”

  “You are freaks,” I informed her. “Now tell me—how freaky are you getting with Tonya Maldonado? Is she good at eating pussy? Because I imagine she basically lives for it. You’re a walking meal prep service.”

  Stephanie choked on her champagne, and Jace obnoxiously pounded her back.

  “Oh she’s more than good,” Mere purred, grinning wickedly. “Morning sex is basically out of the question since she leaves me a wreck.”

  “You don’t even have a job, so I fail to see what you have to get up for anyways,” Stephanie pointed out. “Just sayin’.”

  Mere flipped her off. “Hey, I work! I’ve been doing way more event planning and hosting for QFindr lately. And… I’m still trying to get these dicks to start a fashion line with me.”

  My eyebrows flew up. “Okay, tell me more.”

  Meredith went off on a spiel about starting a fashion line created and modeled by queer people, and I could not help but be engaged by her passion for the dream. To me, it really did sound pipe, but I knew she could make it happen. So could Ashton. They had tons of connections in the fashion industry, so it could likely come to fruition pretty quickly. It was that realization that settled a new stone in my gut even after I’d just felt so uplifted and free.

  I hated the bitter pills I constantly found myself swallowing around my friends, but it happened no matter how hard I tried to smile and encourage. But, at the end of the day, it was a bitter reminder of how much easier my life would have been if I’d been born into their status. Maybe I would have been able to continue studying at Julliard. Or maybe I would have been able to slide into dancing roles without Julliard. Maybe I’d be teaching lessons at an exclusive studio somewhere. There were so many maybes and no guarantees that it helped ease my resentment, but I was still left melancholy.

  Their discussion about various styles devolved into a serious discussion about pricing, and I tuned out. A lot of people assumed I was a slave to fashion because of my often-outrageous clothing choices, but I got most of my shit from thrift stores. And, apparently, me tuning them out meant me once again keeping an ear out for Luis. I sat up straight as soon as the sound of his deep voice speaking Spanish floated up through the window.

  Stephanie noticed me craning my neck to look out the window and smirked. “Who was that?”

  “Just my neighbor.”

  “You’re trying to break your neck to creep on that guy,” Ashton noted around his glass of champagne. “That’s less just and more thirsty.”

  “Ugh. Shut up.” Groaning, I flopped back in the chair with my legs splayed out in front of me. I looked between them slowly before throwing my arm dramatically ove
r my face. “I’m going to run through this quickly, so keep up and do not ask me to repeat myself because I fucking won’t. Seriously. It’s mortifying.”

  Ashton knee crawled forward to refill my glass. I accepted it gladly and took a deep drink.

  “So, the guy I walked in on with Landon? It was my downstairs neighbor. Luis.” Sensing a million and one questions about to bombard me, I raised a warning finger. “Apparently, he’d had no idea I existed since he moved in after I went on the cruise, which I can’t deny. Landon has been cheating on me for years probably, and now he had a free house for like six months. But Landon aside, Luis has been…”

  How has he been? Relentless? Flirtatious? Delicious? A fucking temptation?

  “He felt really bad and has spent weeks trying to make it up to me. I think he can’t stand the idea of me hating him for something that isn’t his fault.”

  “And your stubborn ass has held out?” Stephanie guessed.

  “Uh. Yeah. Mostly.” I took another drink. “Except for the parts where we’ve wound up in compromising positions in the basement during a blackout and when we were both down there doing laundry. We shared ice cream, silently, right before he licked it off my fucking face.” Oh God, it sounded even more absurd when said out loud. I was ridiculous with a capital Dic. Rolling my eyes, I held up the spoon. “That’s why he left this for me outside my door. Returning my property but also reminding me of what happened last night.”

  “Wait, wait, wait, time out.” Stephanie made the time-out symbol with her hands. “He licked ice cream. Off. Your face.”

  I slid down the arm chair, nodding. “I know.”

  “Is he fine?” she demanded.

  “So fine,” I groaned. “And I haven’t had sex in over six months, so I have very limited will power against a walking Instagram thirst trap.”

  “Does he have an Instagram?” Ashton asked, perking up. “I want to see this for myself.”