by Max Walker
Sam and I both looked to each other. “What was your date’s name?” I asked.
“It was Nick. Nick Ricks… why? Why do you two look like that? Do you know him?”
Sam looked like he wanted to vomit. It was exactly how I felt.
“Jesus Christ.” I said, feeling like dots were being connected in ways I couldn’t have foreseen. “Nick is the prime suspect in the murder I’m investigating. We think he had a secret relationship with Sam’s roommate. I’m starting to think he murdered Sam’s roommate and tried to frame Sam’s best friend.”
Angel’s face cracked with shock. “Are you joking me? Really?”
“And get this,” I said, “he lives down the block from Stonewall.”
Now it was Angel’s turn to cover his mouth. “Holy shitballs,” he said behind a closed fist.
Peter looked between all three of us, confusion painted across his expressive face.
“The Stonewall threats…” Angel said. “They were against me?”
“I don’t know.” I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “Nick has a history of homophobia. I think he may be lashing out at all of us.”
“Was he really here?” Sam asked, looking around the tent, no longer concerned with the sheep munching on a stack of hay. A few kids took our places as we moved back to the center of the tent, all of us keeping our eyes peeled.
“Could he be following us?” Angel asked.
“Following who? What in the dear good Lord’s name is going on? Should I be grabbing my mace?”
I briefly broke down the case for Peter, filling him in on what happened. Angel was able to fill in the gaps about Nick, noting he was in the closet and pushing drugs even back when they started dating. His parents were influential figures in the church where he came from, and he never shook off what he had been preached to about gay people.
“We dated for about six months,” Angel said, crossing his arms against his chest. “I didn’t really feel it, but I was going through some shit back then, and he, well, was hung. It made me stay with him even though I saw some pretty big red flags early on. He had really fallen for me, though. Even though we only hooked up at night and hung out for a few hours in secret, he still fell hard for me. On the fifth month he got a tattoo on his forearm, dedicated to me. Angel wings. He said I had been sent from heaven, that it had to be the only answer.” Angel shivered, as if feeling a cold draft. “My answer was to break up with him a few weeks later.”
“How’d he take the break-up?” I asked.
“Not great. He called me nonstop and confronted me on a few different occasions, begging for me to take him back. I gave him one condition: come out. I didn’t want to be anyone’s dirty secret.”
Sam shook his head. “He didn’t come out.”
“Nope.”
Peter huffed. “Good. He didn’t deserve you.” He leaned in and kissed Angel on the cheek, love and adoration mixed with concern in Peter’s gaze.
“So is there a chance that he never stopped feeling things for you?” I asked.
Angel didn’t get a chance to answer. Someone started to shout inside the petting zoo tent. We looked around, all of us confused and high-strung. The muscles in my body tensed, ready for anything.
“Oh, sir! Sir!” The shouting was coming from one of the petting zoo attendants. “Pennywise! Stop eating his pants! Pennywise, stop!” Her face looked equal parts amused and embarrassed. She ran over and grabbed a goat from behind Peter, the frustrated animal letting out a loud bleat.
Peter cocked his head and turned around.
Sam, Angel, and I only took a few seconds to register what happened. We all broke into laughter simultaneously. Peter’s bare ass was out in the wind, a clear hole having been chewed into the back of his pants. His pale cheeks looked like two little spotlights. He covered himself with his hands and turned back to us, his cheeks (the ones on his face) looking like they were on fire, but laughter also coming from him.
“Oh my dear baby Jesus in a Gucci handbasket! That bitch ate my pants!”
Peter’s exclamation only made us laugh harder. Sam doubled over, holding his stomach. Angel was laughing as he grabbed the spare shirt another giggling attendant brought over. Angel wrapped the bright orange shirt around Peter’s waist, letting Peter tie it off, all of us splitting in half at the surprise mooning.
“How did you not realize a goat was eating your ass?” Angel said between chuckles as we walked out of the tent.
“I thought it was you! I thought you were reclaiming me or something, after talking about your psycho ex with your hand in my back pocket. I didn’t realize a Stephen King–reading goat would chew through my jeans and expose my pale ass to the entire world. Dear Lordy.” Peter, laughing now, put his hands under the hand sanitizer pump. “Also, who names a goat in a petting zoo after a child-eating clown monster? This torture was bound to happen.”
We continued to laugh our way out of the fair, Sam and I holding hands the entire way. I hadn’t forgotten about Nick, or the discovery we had made tonight, but the laughter and cheerfulness about getting pantsed by a goat made the paranoia feel less real. I’d tackle the new information tomorrow, once the sun came up on a new day, when I had a full cup of coffee and nothing else to interfere with my thoughts.
Right now, though, all I started to think about was how badly I wanted to take Sam home with me after this date. Not only to hold him safe and keep him against me, so that he didn’t have to sleep alone in his apartment, but also because hand-holding wasn’t nearly enough for me.
I wanted so much more from Sam, and I wanted it tonight.
23
Sam Clark
I was having the time of my life. I couldn’t have asked for a better date, or a better way to end a date. The fair had been a freaking blast. Angel and Peter were great, too. I was glad to see Rocky connecting with another detective, someone else who was able to push past Rocky’s tall, but not impenetrable, walls. I had learned that about him. Rocky kept plenty of people at arm’s length, but he didn’t put up a fight when someone challenged him on it, when someone tried to get to know him.
And tonight, as I was following Rocky into his home, staring at that sexy ass of his, all I wanted to do was get to know him. I wanted to get to know each little dip and divot of his body, the valleys of his muscular back and the curves of his ass, down to those strong legs I would totally let him suffocate me with.
“Had fun tonight?” Rocky asked as we walked through his airy living room, the lights clicking on automatically as we passed through his house, moving toward the kitchen.
“It was a blast.” I reached out for his hand and held it.
“Ready for the after-party?”
“There’s an after-party?”
“Oh yeah,” Rocky said, walking over to his wine fridge. He pulled out a soft pink bottle of rosé. He ripped off the golden wrapper with his teeth and popped the cork, letting it fly across the room. The rosé bubbled up but didn’t spill over.
“Jeez, what else can you open with your teeth?”
“Not much. Just champagne bottles, condom wrappers, jeans, belts. You know. Those kinds of things.”
I laughed, crossing my legs at the ankle. Even though the air-conditioning was clearly working, I suddenly felt an entire fifteen degrees hotter.
“Such a talented man,” I said, grabbing the flute of rosé with a smile.
Rocky moved to stand in front of me. Even though his kitchen was massive, probably the size of my entire apartment, he stood only a couple feet away from me, his sultry blue eyes raking over me. As if he were cataloging me. They landed on my eyes, something glittering behind them. His smirk cracked, showing his perfect set of pearly white. His tongue wet his bottom lip as he lifted the glass, taking a drink of the rosé. I watched Rocky’s throat, freshly shaved, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
The air between us was a match away from catching fire.
“This is, uh, this is good.” I swallowed, enjoying the ros
é but suddenly wishing I was swallowing something else.
Rocky tipped the glass, drinking half of his rosé in one gulp. He set the glass down on the counter behind me. The move had him reaching past me, his cologne working as the match that lit my flames.
It must have lit his fires, too. He grabbed my flute of rosé and set it down before grabbing me and crossing the distance that was left between us. His body pressed against mine. His strong, solid, warm body. I wanted to melt into him. Let all my atoms become one with him. All I wanted was to lose myself in him, with him. I looked up, diving into those sapphire-blue eyes of his.
“You’re amazing,” I said, the words feeling more truthful than anything I’d said in a while.
He answered me by leaning in, his lips brushing against mine. “Not as amazing as you.” He kissed me. Soft and slow. His lips pressed to mine, his tongue slowly parting me open. A delicate moan rose from my chest. As he kissed me, his hands moved down to my legs. He wrapped me around him before picking me up. I chuckled into the kiss that still didn’t break, even now as Rocky carried me onto the marble island.
He looked up, his eyes locking me in place as he opened my legs wider. His hand rubbed my growing bulge as he licked his lips.
Instead of unzipping my pants with his teeth, his lifted my shirt, pulling it off my head. He ran his hands, slowly, up and down my body. His touch was making my vision fill with stars.
And then he leaned forward, and he started to kiss my chest, and I almost came right then and there. He moved to my pebbled nipple, his breath sending chills down my spine. Rocky’s lips closed around my nipple, causing me to take a sharp breath, feeling his tongue flick up and down, his teeth gently clamping down. His hand held my lower back as he moved to my other nipple, kissing his way there. My hands got lost in his hair as I dropped my head back, feeling as if the recessed kitchen lighting were the gates of heaven opening up for me.
This had to be heaven. It had to be what heaven felt like.
Rocky’s hand moved to between my legs. I opened them, letting him rub on my rigid length.
“Fuck, I love how hard you get. I can feel you throbbing through your pants.” He bit on his lower lip as he rubbed me. Another moan lifted from my lips as I started to rock upward, pushing myself into his hand. I never had someone talk so dirty to me, especially not someone who looked like Rocky. A muscle in his chiseled jaw twitched as he got down, the most devilish of grins playing on his face, highlighted by a little bit of sandy-blond stubble.
“Open a little wider. There you go.” He was between my legs now, looking up at me. He leaned forward, grabbing the zipper of my bulging pants between his teeth. With that same devilish grin, he pulled down.
“You weren’t lying,” I said, my black mesh briefs now exposed, my cock straining to break free, the pink of my skin showing through the paper-thin material.
“I never lie.” Rocky leaned forward, taking a deep breath as he wrapped his lips around me. Instantly, I could feel the heat from his mouth radiating through my briefs. I could see Rocky’s erection outlined against his thigh, but he was still fully clothed. I sat there in my mesh jockstrap, shirtless, and hornier than I’d ever been.
“You look so fucking good in these,” Rocky said, those blue orbs of his flashing with the red-hot heat that was beginning to overtake both of us.
“They’re way different than my Hanes, huh?”
“Very.” He grinned as he rubbed me. I leaked right through the mesh. With a smile, Rocky leaned for and lapped it up before he pulled the waistband forward, my cock popping up, the tip still leaking. I gripped the edges of the island, and my eyes rolled back as Rocky took me into his mouth.
An overwhelming sense of ecstasy enveloped me. There was no better feeling. I was sure of it. As Rocky’s head bobbed up and down, saliva coating me, dripping down my already tight balls, I was sure there would be no better feeling in the world than this.
Except for one thing. One thing I wanted to try with Rocky. He came up for breath, and I took that as my chance. I put a hand on his chin and lifted him up, making his lips touch mine. We kissed, and I could taste myself in an intoxicating mixture between me and Rocky. Somehow, though, I managed to stop.
“Take me upstairs,” I said against his lips.
I didn’t even need to be specific. Rocky grabbed me and picked me up off the countertop. I wrapped my legs around him and kissed his neck as he carried me through his house, up the stairs, through the hallway, and stopping just outside the locked door. With one hand, he input the code, my lips still trailing around his neck, sucking on his skin, leaving behind red marks shaped like me.
The lights clicked on. The Velvet Room’s pleasant eucalyptus scent came over me. I breathed it in, the scent reminding me of the first time Rocky had brought me here. He set me down, our stiff erections rubbing together through the clothes. I put my hands on his hips and brought him toward me, smiling, feeling my heart pounding so hard I was nervous Rocky would feel it, too.
“Your turn,” I said as I began to unbutton his shirt, revealing the tanned and corded muscles of his chest, covered in a dusting of light blond hair. I moved forward, taking in a breath, kissing him.
Soon, I had him completely naked, his hard cock jutting out and throbbing in the air. I took him in both my hands, his heaviness turning me on in ways I couldn’t even begin to describe. Blowing him gave me just as much ecstasy as I got from before, hell, possibly even more. I loved the sensation of fitting him in my mouth, feeling him tense as I hungrily sucked on him, using both my hands and lips to make sure I covered every goddamn inch of his dick as I possibly could.
And fuuuuck, I loved how he tasted.
“You’re about to break through those briefs.” Rocky said during a moment when I came up for air.
“What were you saying about taking things off with your teeth.”
He smirked as I stood back up. I walked to the bed but made a turn, going to the sex swing instead. I grabbed it, steadied the thick black ropes, and sat down, the mesh of my underwear becoming fully see-through.
“Maybe don’t take them off just yet.”
“Oh no?”
“No.” I looked at him, my feet on the ground so the swing wouldn’t move. “These are backless.”
“Oh, I know that.” Rocky stood there, slowly stroking his cock, those thick trunks of thighs framing his heavy balls.
“I want you to fuck me, Rocky. I want you to take my virginity.” I said it before I could even have a second thought. Not that I could think of anything except holy shit how is that going to fit inside me? I was nervous as all hell, but I knew Rocky would never do anything to hurt me, and so I trusted him fully. I wanted to give myself to him. All of myself.
His eyes took on an even deeper shade of lust. He stopped stroking. “Fuck, Sam, you don’t know what you’re doing to me right now.”
“Do it, Rocky. I want my first time to be here, with you. On this swing.” I lifted my legs, the swing moving slightly back and forth. I held on to the soft ropes.
He walked over to the table, opening a drawer and pulling out a condom wrapper and a bottle of lube. He opened the black-and-gold wrapper, with his teeth, and rolled it onto himself.
I opened my legs wider. He grabbed my ankle and said, “Here, put your feet in these straps.” He grabbed two straps I hadn’t even noticed. I lifted my feet and slid them in, holding on to the swing so that I didn’t fall back.
My cock pushed against my briefs, but my ass was fully exposed and my hole pulsed with the air that brushed against it. I looked at Rocky with wide eyes as he spread lube on two of his fingers.
“I’m going to stretch you open first,” he said, running the slicked-up fingers down the bridge between my balls and my ass. I gasped, the pads of his fingers pushing against my entrance. At first, I wasn’t even sure his fingers would fit inside me.
“Relax. Take a deep breath. Let it out. There you go. One more time. That’s it.”
One of
his fingers pushed past the firm ring of muscle, entering me on my exhale. The swing moved as I dropped my head back and moaned as if I were possessed.
“You like that, huh?”
I was only able to get out “Mhmmm,” before Rocky slipped in deeper, making my eyes bulge.
“Think you can take two?” He pressed his second finger against me, sending a barrage of firecrackers exploding through my core.
“Yes, please, Rocky.”
My toes curled in the air. The swing moved again, bringing me closer toward Rocky, moving me harder onto his finger. The momentum pushed his second one in, pulling another surprised gasp from my chest.
“That feel good?”
I nodded, chewing on my lip as I looked into Rocky’s deep blue eyes, his two fingers moving inside me, pressing against me from the inside. My briefs were soaked through with precome, the mesh doing nothing to stop the near constant flow.
“Fuck, baby, you’re so sexy,” Rocky said, nibbling on my calf. “Every piece of you. I want to memorize every fucking piece of you. I want you tattooed on my body. My fucking soul.”
His words felt more genuine than anything I’d ever heard in my life. Maybe that was the effect of having the sexiest man alive finger you.
I thought about it very briefly. Before all my thoughts were obliterated by Rocky curling his fingers and applying more pressure. “Oh shit, Rocky. What, oh fuck. Keep going.”
I couldn’t even get my question out. My eyes shut and rolled back as Rocky started sliding his fingers in and out, still curling them, still rubbing against my sensitive prostate. My lips were shaped into a permanent O, bliss replacing the blood in my veins.
And then he pulled out of me, leaving me needy and hungry for more. I looked to him, our eyes locking, a mutual passion almost tangible between us.
I knew what was coming next. My heartbeat pounded faster as Rocky took a step back, as if admiring me, his cock still rock hard and looking much bigger than his two fingers did.
My gaze locked onto his, my lips forming the shape of a silent plea.
