Nobody's Hero

by Katey Hawthorne

  Eventually he pushed my shirt up over my navel, and we pulled apart with a faint, sweet kissing sound, breathing like we'd forgotten to for the last couple of minutes.

  I said, "God, you're good at that."

  He laughed. "Right."

  I kissed him again, this time quickly, and reached down to help him get my shirt off. "Even better than I expected." I threw it behind me blindly, added to the pile.

  He swallowed, his eyes fixed on my bare stomach. In a voice gone ego-pleasingly faint, he said, "You, uh, expected?"

  I leaned forward and grabbed for his shirt, pressing my lips against his again. He made even the tiniest kiss about the connection between us, about the heat inside us. He ran his hands all over me, up my back, down my side, brushed the thin trail of pale hair down the flat of my belly into my jeans. Gentle, almost careful, a barely there touch like a static charge.

  "Imagined," I said into his lips. "Wanted. Whatever."

  "No way."

  Jesus, what did it take with this guy? Jumping into his lap and trying to get him naked wasn't good enough? Not that I minded the challenge, and I'll sure as hell never turn down a chance to talk dirty. "I think about it at your desk, especially. Wonder if that chair would hold us. All the goddamn time." I shifted my hips forward again, earning a sweet little gasp from him. I jerked the hem of his shirt upward. He cooperated, sitting forward and helping me get it off.

  I froze just after I got it over his head, still holding it in one hand, looking down at the work of art I'd just unveiled. "Fuck me," was all I could say.

  Not even just his body, which was great, but not in some extraordinary perfection way. What turned it into an expression of appreciative surprise was that his right side, starting just beneath his pectoral and ending inside the jut of his hip bone, was covered in a huge, black, knotted Celtic cross tattoo. One cross-arm stretched into the center of his torso, finishing with an intricate knot just beneath his sternum. The other stretched around his side, finishing in the same way just before it curved around to his back.

  He bit his bottom lip but at least seemed to take it in the right spirit. "Uh, I mentioned the Catholic part, right?"

  I ran my fingers down the length of it. Like I'd uncovered this weird artifact that explained everything. (Hey, not a lot of blood to the brain. I was in no position to construct a decent metaphor.)

  Man. It is always the quiet ones.

  When I got to the end, I tucked my fingers into his jeans and leaned forward, flattening my other palm against his chest. His heart pounded hard, and he turned his face up, lips parted, sinking one hand into the back of my jeans and trying to pull me impossibly closer. God, what I would've given to send electricity racing all over him just then, to let him see just how good I could be to him.

  I settled for, "You are so fucking hot, Kellan."

  He gave one of those abrupt little laughs. "Shut—"

  But before he could finish, I shut him up with my mouth. The taste of him was familiar now, wrapped up with mine, still tinged with whiskey, and I drank it in. It was thoughtless then. Our hands had all those new places to explore; one of mine rubbed at the back of his neck, fingered his hair, the other still flattened against his chest, tracing the lines of him down, then up.

  He shifted his hips under me again, pulling my ass forward with both hands before returning to petting me. But one hand strayed to my thigh, up, up. I ran my thumb along the dip in his shoulder, down to his stiffening nipple, the same pale pink as his lips, and rubbed at it, spreading my legs just a little farther so my knees pushed into the back of the couch and my cock thumped against him. He broke off the kiss to gasp, and I buried my face in his neck, opened my mouth, and sucked at the soft part of it, pushing with my tongue. I took my other hand out of his hair and fitted it between us, finally. Jesus Christ, finally. His erection was hot even through his pants, and when I lifted so I could flatten my palm and feel it up good, he clutched hard at my ass.

  I had him unzipped before I even knew what I was doing—and sure enough, white waistband with the word JOCKEY in gray print and a fat seven inches straining against white cotton underpants.

  No shit, when his fingers found my button, I started to drip; I thought I was going to lose it right there.

  I felt him up through his underwear. He swelled again to my touch, shifting and sighing under me. He tugged at my pants so they hung open and low on my hips, returned the favor, pulling me down with his free hand for another kiss. I was just thinking that I needed to get his pants off—as in, five minutes ago—when he started sitting up. I sat up to crawl off him for long enough to get out of my jeans.

  He grabbed me by the front of my shorts and held me there, biting his lip. He was looking straight at the tent I was pitching, but eventually his eyes—they were so, so fucking dark—found mine. He swallowed hard.

  For a second, I thought he was going to call it off.

  But he smiled and said, his voice all rough, like he hadn't spoken in years, "I, uh, imagined something too. At work."

  Now we're talking. "Tell me."

  He let the front of my shorts go and guided my hips so I could back off him and stand without falling over the coffee table. I dropped my pants, and he started wriggling out of his.

  "Yeah," he said as he lifted his ass off the couch, which meant I was staring at his erection trying to bust out of those absurdly sexy white underpants. God, it was so…Kellan Sexy. Kind of dorky and cute but mind-bending all at once.

  "I, uh—" He interrupted himself again by kicking off his jeans and reaching out for me when I climbed back on top of him. "At the copier."

  "Fuck, that was hot." I kissed him, replacing my knees on either side of his lap but not sitting down yet. Then I kissed his ear, his jaw. "I had to go jerk off."

  "Jesus." He ran his fingers so softly up the inside of my thigh, to the lower hem of my shorts. "I was on my knees…"

  My legs had that quivery feeling, but I wasn't sitting just yet. I hadn't quite decided what I wanted to do to him first; where he was going with this confession would dictate where I'd go with my ass. The anticipation was incredible, like I'd scream, like I'd die. I kissed his face, ran my hands all over him. "Yeah."

  "All I could think…" He trailed off again, kissing my neck, his fingers moving up and up, to the softest part of my thigh, tickling, so close. "I have a, uh, fixation, kind of. Maybe you noticed."

  I put my forehead against his, hands at either side of his face, and laughed even as he tugged my shorts down around my hips until my ass was halfway out. I don't think I could've cracked the joke with anyone but him. "Is it too soon to tell you I love you?"

  He laughed and then lifted me up, rolled us over, and pinned me flat. Two seconds and I was on my back, my head resting comfortably just below the couch arm. There was even a pillow convenient, and he was over me, grinning with that goddamn gorgeous dimple owning his face.

  Oh my God, whatever that was, do it again. Do that all. Fucking. Day.

  In this spirit, I rearranged myself, parting my legs so he could fit between them, and he lowered himself slowly. I pulled him down with my hands in his hair until we were there—that first moment where two bodies, naked or very nearly, fit into each other in that singular way. The one where all the parts really click into place, stomachs rising and falling in synch, cocks pressed tight between hips, thighs fitted between thighs, mouths gasping together, still connected. The thrill raced all the way through me and then back again, and I shifted under him so we both sighed, Kellan with a kind of "unh" sound into my lips.

  Just a few seconds of it, and he started kissing his way down my chest, stopping at all the good spots on the way. His mouth was just as persuasive there as it was against mine. He teased my nipple with his hot tongue, made my skin prickle and my cock pound. At the same time, his hand slipped softly downward, tugging my shorts the rest of the way down. A flash of self-consciousness finally hit me—always does when I'm the first one to lose all his clothes. Bu
t by then he'd moved his mouth farther down, licking a line across my belly and then kissing it, lifting himself up so he could get the shorts off all the way.

  Another tattoo: a yellow and blue shield that filled the space between his shoulder blades. Upside down, I read the word O'Shea in script beneath it, shifting with the flex and stretch of muscle as he threw the last of my clothes at the table (and missed), then went back to putting his mouth all over me.

  This was so much better than I'd expected. Not even because he was so keen on this blowjob idea, but because he was hot. I knew that, but he was so hot, in such completely unexpected ways. Like…like—

  His hand, which had been slipping up the inside of my thigh again, found my balls. They'd pulled up tight, and his gentle-hot touch sent me reeling. He pressed his hot, eager lips to the inside ridge of my hip bone, opened his mouth, and sucked at my skin. The hair on my arms rippled. My cock, standing straight and just barely brushing against his pale shoulder, ached for attention.

  I swallowed a groan, grabbed the pillow, and stuffed it behind my head. The better to watch him—for multiple reasons, not the least of which was the way his eyelashes fluttered behind his bangs, the way he sighed and smiled against my skin with those pretty lips.

  He left small, benign pink marks between my hips, kissed up to the clipped patch of hair at the base of my cock before he started somewhere else. I shifted my hips, and he—in case I thought for a second he wasn't torturing me on purpose—grinned. Then, all at once, he took one of my balls into his mouth. I almost sat up, the wet shock of pleasure was so intense. He licked me all over, first one, then the other, until I was wet and gasping, absolutely dripping for it.

  By that time, I was propped up on my elbows, legs as wide apart as they'd go, being up against the couch on one side, watching in amazement as he worked me into a state of confused, hot, wet excitement. Then he stopped, replacing his mouth with his hand, and licked my cock from base to head. The sensation I was desperate for magnified by the slickness of his tongue shook me, starting between my legs and racing up and out. My arms gave, and I fell back against the pillow. He licked me once or twice more, just at the head like he was tasting me, then opened his mouth and took me in.

  Fireworks went off in my brain, but I strangled them for a few seconds by closing my eyes and focusing hard, every muscle in my body tight, back arching involuntarily. His mouth was so hot, and his tongue was so clever. His fingers had slipped behind my sac, rubbing all that spit in the direction of my asshole, and Jesus, he could take a cock, look at him, building that steady, unrelenting rhythm with his lips getting pinker and pinker wrapped around me, and fuck that was deep—

  I shifted my hips with him, pushing deeper into the willing heat of his mouth but also angling my ass into a better position. He never let up, not for a second, just kept it building until the waves of sensation were coming too fast and hard to deny anymore. One ran through me, and I shuddered, sighing. Another right on its heels, and his fingers crawled backward, teasing me, almost there. Another, and I said something like, "Oh God," but then another, and I couldn't speak, because it was all I could do to—"Unnh." Another, another, oh God, too fast to tell one from the other until it was one supermassive explosion of light and sound that just crashed me.

  I came with a string of expletives, and he swallowed—I felt him swallow—and another shudder ripped through me, an aftershock almost as devastating as the quake.

  Then I just lay there, gasping and running my fingers through his hair. Smiling.

  "Oh fuuuuck," I said once I could.

  Kellan was in the act of crawling back up toward me. His mouth was gorgeous and red, his eyes burned hot and dark, and I caught sight of a wet spot soaked into his underwear. He kissed me, mouth closed until I opened mine and tasted sex in it. I rolled onto my side and wriggled into place against him, making him close his eyes and clutch at me hard.

  "Okay," I said, my voice weak and rough. "I didn't expect you to suck dick like that either."

  He smiled, kissing my face here and there, mostly just grabbing at my ass and letting me rub him off against my leg. "Don't get too excited. It's my only area of sexual expertise."

  I could finally see, but my legs weren't going to be able to work anytime soon. "No way someone hasn't punched your V-card."

  "No, but not by much." He pulled back just enough that I could see him making that uncertain face. "Um, should probably, you know. Keep it that way."

  "Oh, baby." I kissed him and rolled a little more so he was pinned beneath me. Started tugging off his underwear. The things were fighting a losing battle anyhow. "I'm way too creative for that to hold me back."

  "Fuck yeah." His cock stood at an angle, heavy and…guhhh, no words, just, guh. Now if I could just get my legs to work well enough to put me in blowjob position, we'd be good to go.

  Chapter Four

  I spent the night. Partly because he asked me, partly because we couldn't stop making out, which generally led to a happy ending, another round of drinks to wet our dry mouths and crushed lips, and a resolve to watch an episode from his beautiful collection of Mystery Science Theater 3000. And then the whole thing starting all over again until it was suddenly 4 a.m. and we were falling asleep sitting up.

  And when I'm not paying attention to MST3K, you know I'm hooked.

  I woke starving, with cotton mouth, a sweet, tired soreness between my legs, a vaguely aching jaw, and…a fluffy gray kitten curled up between my knees. When I pushed myself up off my stomach and looked over my shoulder, Morgan looked up from under one of his massive white paws and protested with a little mew. Kellan's side of the bed was empty, as straightened as it could be with me still taking up the other end, and the door was shut, faint music thumping through it. I looked up.

  Yep. Plain wooden cross hanging over the bed. Still.

  That should've been creepy—possibly even creepier than the BVM (as my blasphemous college Art History 101 prof had called the Blessed Virgin Mary) in the living room. But there was something wickedly hot about his Catholic trappings that I wasn't wanting to examine too closely. I had a feeling they had something to do with his request to keep our activities to anything-but-fucking. But hell, that was kind of hot too.

  Yes, I wanted his dick. It was gorgeous, and every time I'd looked at him last night, I'd imagined him doing that thing where he flipped us over and ended up on top of me, but with me facedown and him nailing my ass to the couch. Or bed. Or kitchen counter. But there was something about having it just out of reach that I couldn't quite—

  Holy shit. Was that bacon I smelled?

  I tried to get out of bed without dumping the cat over the edge. He stood and mewed at me till I scratched his ears, then curled up with his head on my pillow. I detoured to the bathroom, pissed, splashed some water on my face, brushed my teeth with my finger, tried to lay my hair down flat—my cowlicks are murderous, which is why I keep it short—and pulled on my jeans. Only then did I emerge into the living room. The undeniable strains of his Irish-American punk rock thumped from the high-tech speakers, and that wonderful smell… Oh yeah. Definitely bacon.

  Kellan's shaggy hair was a sexy just-been-fucked mess still, and he had his glasses in place. He turned away from the stove and swatted at Wyatt, who watched him from the island counter, with a, "Fuck off." Once the cat hopped off to join his three-legged brother on the couch, Kellan finally noticed me standing there. He scratched at the back of his neck and said, "Uh, morning. Sorry, I know it's gross, but I can't keep him off the counter. Little bastard loves bacon."

  "I don't trust anything living that doesn't." I came to lean against the counter Wyatt had just abandoned. "I can't believe you cook too."

  "Well, yeah. I eat like a horse and live alone."

  "Me too, and my fridge is full of take-out containers."

  He smiled—the shy, crooked one. "So stay for breakfast."

  "Thanks. I was just about to ruin your good opinion of my upbringing and invite myself
."

  His smile became easier, and he turned back to whatever he was doing at the stove. The yellow and blue O'Shea crest showed through his ribbed under-tank. Last night he'd said his oldest brother had gotten one when he turned eighteen, and all the others had done the same after. I admired the smooth, easy movement of his back, the way the shiny track pants hugged his fine ass. I wondered when the last time a man had made me breakfast was. But I said, "What are we listening to?"

  "The Tossers." He reached into a cupboard, grabbed a coffee cup, and started pouring.

  I laughed. Because yes, in my mind, I will always be thirteen.

  He turned and slid the coffee across the counter, grinning. "Plain, or you want whiskey in it?"

  "I'm not that hungover. Maybe just sugar and milk."

  He turned to the cupboards again and pulled out a little bag of sugar, obviously rarely used. "Milk's in the fridge. I gotta flip."

  I went around the counter and opened it. Holy God, he even had vegetables. A little box of cherry tomatoes and fresh carrots and a half-eaten bag of salad, all kinds of shit. I glanced at him over the refrigerator door, noticed that he had fat slices of yellow tomato frying in the bacon grease too. He scratched at his hair, flipping a tomato over and eyeing it for defects.

  Man, the weirdest shit about him got me hard. My cock protested even as it grew heavy. It got too much more action before I left, and I wasn't walking out of there.

  Wasn't my fault if he was sexy. And gave a killer blowjob. And, as it turned out, had already made a promising start when it came to pushing my buttons while—

  He looked up, blinking in surprise. Probably to see me standing there with the damn fridge open, staring at him. "What?"

  I licked my lips and ducked down to grab the milk out of the door. "Nothing."

  When I emerged and closed the door, he was back to flipping, chewing on his lip and grinning like he knew damn well what.

  I threw my coffee together and watched him while enjoying the abrasive, infectious twang of the Tossers, until he seemed content that his flipping was done and turned back around. He leaned against the counter and sipped his own mug, so I could see the outline of the cross down his right side through the shirt.