Digging Deep

by Jay Hogan

  Caleb groaned once again. “Are we there yet?”

  I laughed and tweaked his nipple. I’d taken about two-thirds of him. It was tight but comfortable. I was elated. Fucking A. “Now, where were we?”

  Then his thumb grazed my damp cheek and he frowned, a question in his eyes. Ugh. I hadn’t even realised. Wow. That had to be a good look. A guy who cried in the middle of sex just because he managed to take a half-load of cock? Pathetic much? Shit. This had been a bad idea from the start. I didn’t need to look down to know my dick was in serious wilt. Goddammit, fucking icing on the fucking cake.

  I huffed and began to pull off, but Caleb held me in place. “Hey, where the hell do you think you’re going?” he murmured and kissed my nose. “I know I don’t always pay attention, but I think we missed the important bit, just before the fat lady sings.”

  I snorted and dropped my forehead to his. “Please. Can we agree on no fat ladies, or any ladies whatsoever for that matter being mentioned in relationship to sex between us, ever again?”

  He nodded and turned his lips to brush my damp cheeks. “Just as long as you stay put. I think you’re amazing, Drake Park.”

  “Really? Even if I cry like a fucking baby?”

  “Really. Especially because you let me see how important it is for you. I feel fucking privileged. Now, where were we? If I recall correctly, there’s an arse somewhere here I’m supposed to fuck.”

  And before I could stop it, my heart cracked open just a little more. I pushed up off his chest. “Such a charmer.”

  He grinned lasciviously. “I aim to please.”

  He wrapped a hold around my half-hard cock and pumped it a few times as I gently corkscrewed on his dick. It was a match apparently made in heaven, as I was back in play in seconds. Then, framing his head with my hands to balance and keep control, I started a super slow pump on his dick and watched his eyes roll back as my own world turned to stars.

  “Yesss,” he hissed, gripping the sheets in his fists, his face flushed.

  The effortless glide, though not deep, still caught my prostate on each pass, sparking pleasure through to my core and the urge to ram him home was damn near overwhelming. But soon the syrupy slide became an intoxicating alternative, equally addictive and promising its own epic conclusion.

  Caleb rolled his hips gently, changing up the angle and slightly altering the rhythm while I held the depth. We had this partnership down, and I felt I could ride him forever, caught in this purgatory of sensual delight. That was until he took hold of my cock, and just like that, forever became mere seconds as I fell apart in his skilled hands within a few strokes. Just moments later he stuttered beneath me and arched to meet my pleasure with his own, neither of us managing more than a few ecstatic moans to herald the event, a million syllables less than it deserved.

  When the waves of sensation fell to a rolling simmer, I eased myself off slowly and curled at his side. There was a familiar telltale throb in my arse, but it was a welcome reminder, nothing more, and I relished the sensation. Caleb wrapped both arms around me and drew me tight against him.

  “You want some fries with that?” He nuzzled my hair.

  I chuckled. “Idiot. I’d ask to supersize it, but… yeah, maybe not.”

  He huffed out a laugh. “I have to say, Mr Park, that was pretty damn spectacular.”

  Understatement of the fucking year. My eyes pricked. Ugh. Not again. I wiped my cheek on his chest, and if he noticed the dampness, he said nothing. “I’m in full agreement, Mr Ashton,” I answered, running my fingers through the hairs on his chest and relishing the rough feel of it on my skin. I’d never really been one for body hair, but I was getting fonder of it by the minute.

  “You okay?” he asked softly.

  I lifted my eyes to his and kissed that insolent mole on his cheek just because I could. I wriggled my hips and tested the southern equipment a bit. “So far, so good.”

  He breathed a sigh. “Good news.”

  I hugged him close. “The best.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Drake

  TWO WEEKS later and I was still riding the high of being in an actual grown-up relationship again, and, yes, I was still struggling with the word “boyfriend,” though Caleb threw it around like damn fairy dust as often as possible just to piss me off. I don’t even know why I was so resistant to the concept. It was just a word, after all, and we were dating and exclusive, both key features of any said boyfriend scenario, right?

  We’d been out to dinner a few times to places I knew had good choices for me, and Caleb was learning the peculiarities of my disease with every menu selection I made. He was always interested and tried to guess what I would choose before I said, just to see if he was getting things right. Mostly he was.

  I’d bottomed once more for him, and it was just as amazing as the first time, possibly better, as I was way more relaxed about the whole thing, and Caleb knew the drill, ha ha. We made love like we’d been doing it for years. And although I hadn’t topped him yet, we’d covered every other scenario and possibility in the gay man’s go-to sexual encyclopaedia, and then some. To say we were compatible in bed was putting it mildly―we had that one in the bag. I couldn’t look at the guy without sporting a semi.

  Caleb had also planned a hike on Saturday, at the mention of which I had thrown him the world’s biggest eye roll and immediately said no. That was until he told me he’d researched a two-and-a-half-hour track that had three proper toilets, albeit long-drops, all located at scenic picnic stops along the way. That had earned him a blow job and a stop at the donut shop before we headed out. It had been one of the nicest days I’d had in a long time. Getting out in the bush like any other normal guy without having to worry about embarrassing pit stops was worth every penny of the sore muscles after, the sorest being my cheeks from the grin I wore all day.

  I’d even dragged the poor man to an antimining protest meeting the previous night, and what’s more he’d gone without a word. Now if that wasn’t boyfriend material over and above, I don’t know what was. We were about to file our seventy-odd-thousand-signature petition with the government next week, and we needed volunteers willing to fly to Wellington and front-up for the official handover.

  For all that he willingly attended, Caleb had spent the first half of the meeting looking decidedly uncomfortable and eyeing up every attendee as if they were a potential terrorist suspect. It was kind of cute, but did earn me a few concerned looks from my committee members, who no doubt worried we’d been infiltrated.

  He’d then spent the second half of the meeting playing what looked suspiciously like Candy Crush on his phone. I didn’t know which concerned me more and decided in the end to just ignore him and be thankful he came for my sake. I didn’t need his devotion to my causes, just to me, and he’d shown that in spades. Later that evening I made sure to reinforce my gratitude for his company with a spectacular hand job, which he returned with bells on, and, hey, everyone’s a winner.

  Regarding the boyfriend label discomfort, I think the whole relationship thing was feeling just too new and raw to be named anything, let alone something as solid as… well… that.

  And on that subject, I’d caught up with Aaron a couple of nights before when Caleb had taken his partner, Leanne, out for a meal. The poor woman was still being put through the mill over some kid at a drug bust. She was worried about her upcoming promotion and Caleb was worried about her. Both of us had been so focussed on each other, and our jobs, that we hadn’t given as much time to our friends as we needed to and it was time to address that.

  I’d taken the opportunity to see how Aaron was doing after the breakup—depressed, bitchy, and self-pitying answered that question, but he was certainly entitled to a few weeks of that and I was more than happy to indulge him. We trash-talked his ex, watched a tear-jerker of a movie, and laughed at the latest RuPaul’s Drag Race episode. He’d reminded me then that Jared the Jerk had loved throwing the boyfriend word around as well—Aaron h
ated Jared possibly more than I did—but that I’d apparently liked it back then. So maybe it was that association that had me nervous. It was one of the few things Jared and Caleb had in common. No, actually. It was the only thing they had in common, and I needed to remember that.

  And, yeah, that might possibly have been the more honest answer to my resistance about it. I really tried not to compare the two because they were so different, but it was hard. It was hard because Jared had also appeared to be equally into me and accepting at the beginning. So I guess I was waiting for the other shoe to drop with Caleb as well, knowing this time it would hurt even more.

  For all that I thought I’d loved Jared at the time, now I wasn’t quite so sure, and didn’t that terrify me. The idea that I might already be in love with Caleb was ridiculous, but dammit, not impossible, and I was fighting it all the way. Caleb and I barely knew each other, but there was no denying what I felt for him was deeper than anything I’d had with Jared. I was falling hard, and the thought of losing him scared the living shit out of me.

  My pen drummed on my desk as I eyed those ridiculous cans of Spam, again. More than once I’d thought about taking them home, but they never failed to bring a smile to my face, and some days you just needed that. Besides, they’d become a talking point with my clients. The girls of course thought I was nuts, but they’d given up teasing me about them weeks ago.

  “I’d sure like to know what has you smiling like that.” My father walked in brushing the rain off his jacket and snagging the chair across the desk from me.

  I indicated the Spam, and he followed my gaze, chuckling at the array. “Your boy, I take it?” Geon Park, or Gun as he was more commonly known to his friends, was town-dressed, as he liked to call it. That meant he’d put on one of his three pairs of chinos and something other than a Swanndri or gardening hoodie, but only marginally better. A fashion plate he was not. My mother despaired and kept buying him nice button-downs that he took pride in ignoring until he got “the look.”

  “So it would seem,” I answered, feeling less self-conscious than I’d expected.

  My father nodded approvingly, and something inside me flared a little brighter. My mother was the more open and relaxed of my two parents, and physically I saw myself in her eyes and expressions more, but I had my father’s build, natural reticence, and tendency to be suspicious of all newcomers until proven otherwise. His approval meant a great deal to me.

  “He’s made an effort, I see.”

  I couldn’t hide my grin. “Putting it mildly. Korean, Irish, Fijian, you name it, he’s researched it.”

  My father smirked. “Well, Mrs Seo appeared very taken with him at least.”

  My stomach dropped. Damn Korean gossip hotline. “What did she say?” I thought of the Spam and all the weird and wonderful gifts Caleb had sent and wondered what exactly the two of them had shared in their “long” conversations. Likely I should kill myself now and be done with it.

  My father chuckled. “Relax. She said, and I quote, ‘he’s a delightful young man.’ She also said it was good to hear you were dating again.”

  Heat flooded my cheeks. “Holy shit. So everybody knows, then?”

  My father’s eyes took on a note of amused sympathy. “You really need to ask?”

  I didn’t.

  “Which brings me to the point of my visit.”

  Ugh. Considering the lead up, it was pretty much guaranteed I wasn’t going to like this. “Yeah, I was wondering about that. I mean, it’s great to see you, and all, but you don’t usually make a point of showing up here unannounced. You’re lucky I was in.”

  “I checked with Dana before I came.”

  Oh. “Oh.” A planned visit. Even worse.

  “Your mother and I—”

  Fuck. Nothing good ever started with those words.

  “—were wondering when you were going to bring this man of yours around for dinner?”

  “For a side order of maternal interrogation, you mean?” I snarked.

  “Hey.” He tried to look offended, but I knew better. “Give her some credit. Any interrogation on your mother’s part deserves main course status at the very least.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “She sent you, didn’t she?”

  He managed to look a little abashed. “Of course she did. Do you really think I’d ask you this on my own? Are you crazy? Look, son, your mother may not be Korean, but between the Irish and Fijian, that woman would put any Korean grandmother to shame. She wants to see you happy and settled, and she wants… grandbabies. There, I said it, God help me.”

  “What the…?”

  He held up a finger to silence me. “Can’t blame her for that.”

  I blew out a sigh, speechless for once. Thankfully Dana chose that moment to poke her head through the door.

  “Prim on line two.”

  I apologised to my dad and picked up the phone. “Hey, Prim, how are things?” With her husband away, I’d asked her to call me every couple days to check in just to be on the safe side. She was getting the odd soft contraction of the normal Braxton Hicks type―the body’s practice runs for the real deal. It was nothing to be concerned about, but with Prim’s history, I wanted to keep an extra close eye and was even considering another ultrasound.

  “Hey, Mr Midwife Man. I’m okay, I think. I’m still getting those Braxton Hicks, but other than being a bit puffy round the ankles today, no more than I was with the boys as well, I’m fine. I was out at the mall all morning and just overdid it, I think.”

  My ears pricked up. She hadn’t presented with any ankle oedema when I last saw her a few days ago. “Still, I think I’ll call in tomorrow just to check, if that’s okay? I’ve always been partial to your ankles, as you know.”

  She snorted a laugh, but I detected relief in there too. “I’d really appreciate that, Drake. Thanks.”

  “No problem. See you tomorrow about ten, okay?”

  “See you then.”

  She hung up, and I went back to my father hoping he’d moved on from the whole grandbaby thing, but if he had, by the look on his face, I guessed I wasn’t gonna like this topic any better.

  “Your mother liked Caleb when she met him here, you know that, right?”

  Yeah, about that.

  “Of course I haven’t had the pleasure yet, so I can’t say,” he pointed out. “Though I’ve heard his family liked you well enough when they met you a while ago.” He looked at me meaningfully.

  Fuck. He had a point. Hell, Caleb’s whole damn family, or near enough, had met me, and I guess at some level that had to hurt. I’d been unkind. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t avoiding you, I just….” I frowned as it hit me. “Just how did you know about that anyway?”

  He simply raised his brows, and we answered together. “The Korean mama hotline.”

  “But how… oh never mind.” I narrowed my gaze. “All right, if I bring him to dinner, and that’s a big if by the way. But if I do, and if anybody asks anything even remotely sounding like ‘When will I be able to eat noodles?’ I’ll be taking names and striking them off my Christmas list. And birthday list, goddammit.” That particular question was often fired at single Koreans; a not-so-veiled inquiry into the person’s marriage plans, which was everyone’s affair, apparently.

  “I’ll do my best, but remember it’s your mother we’re talking about.” He sighed in sympathy. “You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t take you to visit Mrs Yi.”

  “The fortune teller?” My mouth gaped. Korean mothers often visited fortune tellers to see if their child’s choice in partner was compatible. “You know you’re not really selling this whole dinner thing, Dad.”

  “What can I say? It’s your mother.” He shrugged as if that explained everything, and maybe it did. “She only wants the best for you.”

  “But she’s not even Korean! She’s Irish/Fijian for God’s sake.”

  “Tell her that. Besides, both of those are equally up in your business.”

  “Oh f
or Christ’s sake.”

  “Don’t swear. So I can tell her you’ll bring him, then? Tonight at six?”

  “Tonight?” What the hell? “Dad, I don’t know. I’ll have to ask. That’s kind of late notice. He’s probably working.”

  “He’s not. Your mother checked.”

  “She… what? How?”

  “I think she rang him at work.”

  Christ on a fucking cracker. I was never gonna live this down. Serves me right. I should’ve seen this coming and headed it off at the pass. Now I was paying the price of a mother sidelined. I would’ve laughed, but my head was still spinning like something off The Exorcist, and it continued to do so as my father got to his feet and pulled me in for a hug, and as usual I melted in his arms.

  “Thanks, son, I knew you’d understand.” And with that he left, and I reached for my phone to share the bad news with Caleb, who sounded surprisingly un–pissed off, and even, dare I say it… keen. Huh.

  I, on the other hand, was pissing my proverbial pants.

  Caleb

  IF IT was possible to turn a deeper shade of crimson, I hadn’t seen it, especially not on Drake, but he wore it well. I almost felt sorry for him… almost. Families could do that to you, and he’d been on the back foot ever since we arrived for dinner at his parents’ farm. Seeing him at a loss for words was, I suspected, a rare and priceless experience.

  When his mother had first contacted me about the dinner, I’d felt a little bad about her ambushing Drake. But she was his mother, after all, and far be it from me to get between her and her son at this early stage of our relationship. I wasn’t stupid. I might be wary of pissing Drake off, but his mother was a whole next level. Besides, I’d been looking forward to seeing my prickly boyfriend at the mercy of his family in some kind of karma for the previous weekend with mine.

  Boyfriend. Yeah, colour me gobsmacked at how effortlessly that term slid off my lips these days. It had somehow found a cosy home in my head with little effort at all, and I was hopeless at hiding how chuffed I was about it. Leanne had seen straight through my reluctance to talk about the dinner with my family or any of the rest of my weekend by morning tea on the following Monday.