No Pressure

by Elle Keaton

  This time it was Buck groaning into Joey’s ear. He didn’t know how long he could keep this up. His groin ached and he felt himself starting to tighten, all from touching Joey the way he wanted to, worshipping his exquisite body and magnificent soul.

  “Joey, I…” Buck didn’t know how to say he wanted more. Everything was too much; he was greedy and grateful at the same time. Joey turned in his arms, pressing his body against Buck’s, arms around his neck and leg over Buck’s hip. “Wait, fuck, underwear.”

  Desperately they pulled their underwear off before coming back together, hot and needy. Joey threw his leg back over Buck’s hip. Buck felt like his individual cells were orgasming from the press of Joey’s skin against his. Shuddering violently, he pulled Joey as tightly as could against himself.

  Joey scooted up a few inches, his swollen member now pressed firmly into Buck’s stomach—Buck hadn’t known that was an erogenous spot for him; his breathing was fast and shallow, and he didn’t know how much longer he could hang on. When his own painfully hard flesh slid under and between Joey’s butt cheeks, everything shot to eleven. Oh, god, Buck thought, oh god, oh god. Joey’s crease was hot and tight, gripping him. Buck’s cock kept bumping roughly against Joey, coarse pubic hair rubbing against his own.

  Grabbing Buck’s face with both hands, Joey attacked his mouth, pressing his hot tongue inside to plunder and taste, suck and lick, and all together it was too much for Buck’s sensation-starved body. Against his will he started coming, a fucking unavoidable freight train of pleasure rolling from his balls. He tried to stop, to last longer, but his body had other plans, his orgasm so hard and long it almost hurt. Buck could feel his cock pulsing with need. Joey came with him, and the sensation of Joey’s body shuddering against his had Buck throbbing again, breathing in the scent of their sex and bodies. He rolled over on his back, keeping Joey plastered to him with one arm while they both attempted to recover.

  “Um, wow,” Joey said into Buck’s armpit. “I don’t know if I will survive when we finally get around to, you know, sex sex.”

  Buck chuckled. “Yeah, that was…wow. Sex sex, huh?”

  “Yeah, that.”

  Joey’s breathing started to even out. Buck tucked him under his chin, not wanting to get up and deal with the mess, but knowing he would regret it in the morning if he didn’t. Reluctantly, he slid out of bed, his feet cold against the bare wood floor. Joey didn’t even let out a whimper. He warmed a washcloth before returning to clean them both as best he could in the dark. Then Buck tugged Joey back to his side and the covers over them. Holy banana fish, that had been incredible.

  He thought sleep would claim him, and it did, but until his eyes slid shut, Buck lay peacefully staring at the ceiling, savoring the electric hum of sex under his skin and rubbing gentle circles on Joey’s back, feeling the slide of soft skin over muscle and bone. Finally, he slept.

  Screaming jolted him awake. Joey sat up, too, looking confused and adorably bewildered. The noise was coming from Konstantin’s room. They both leapt out of bed, then laughed because they were stark naked. Buck dragged on his cargo pants; it was clear that he was the more awake of the two.

  Konstantin’s room was pitch-dark. Buck switched on the small bedside lamp. The boy had stopped screaming and instead was sobbing into his pillow, his eyes tightly shut against whatever was tormenting him. Buck sat on the end of the bed and stroked the sweat-damp hair from his forehead. Xena, who had been snuggled at the bottom of the bed, skootched up to lay her head across the boy’s waist. Christ, the dog was as big as Kon.

  Joey stood in the doorway. Soon the crying stopped. Without ever truly waking, Kon drifted back to a deeper sleep where nightmares could not reach. Buck remembered his mother complaining about his own night terrors, although he suspected that Kon’s were actual terrors and not just something conjured by a sleeping boy’s brain.

  They slipped back to their room. Buck felt awkward taking his cargo pants off again, since he hadn’t pulled on his boxers.

  “Hey,” Joey whispered, shuffling closer, “you need help with those?”

  Buck laughed. Leave it to Joey to help him feel more comfortable.

  “Because, in my humble opinion, you should be wearing less, not more. And,” Joey stripped and hopped into the bed, “what’s with being shy about your body? You have to know you’re gorgeous, right?”

  Buck didn’t have an answer for that. He had always felt uncomfortable in his skin. All his life he had felt like an impostor walking around in the wrong body. The body he wore was one people commented on and seemed to like to look at, but the person inside didn’t match. He got into bed without answering and snuggled up to Joey, holding him tight again, wrapping his arms around the man who was slowly but surely chinking away at the wall around Buck’s heart.

  “It’s hard to explain,” he said into Joey’s hair.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “No—I mean, yes, it’s easier when it’s dark. Okay?” Joey’s hair moved against his chin.

  “I’ve always felt one or two steps out of synch. With my parents, friends…my parents especially, I guess. It wasn’t bad enough being a Swanfeldt, one of the last “founding families of Skagit,” but my family had to be reclusive, too. I didn’t figure all this out until middle or high school, but—” he sighed, not knowing how to put this into words, “—it’s like the façade of my family life was so at odds with the reality. My dad was this pillar of the community, even if he only owned an auto-repair shop. Everybody thought he was so funny, such a great husband and father. At home, though…” How to word this? Buck struggled for a few more moments, trying to line the right words up in his head.

  Joey turned in his arms, pushing Buck onto his back and slinging his leg and arm over him in a full-body snuggle. “You really don’t have to explain.”

  Buck knew he didn’t, but it felt good to get the words out. He’d never had anyone he could confide in. “It’s like…my dad, he used all of himself up being this great guy outside the house. When he got home, he was done trying. Nothing me or my mom did was enough, right, adequate. As a young kid, it wasn’t a big deal, or maybe I was less aware, but the older I got the worse my dad was. The more erratic his behavior became. Would he be in a good or bad mood when he got home? Would he want dinner to be ready or would he be late, and then angry because dinner had sat and congealed while he was out being a good ol’ boy. Would he be happy with my grades or would he dismiss the A’s because art class was for ‘pussies’?”

  “I hated parent-teacher conferences because he always charmed the teachers, making it sound like he was involved in my life somehow, when he couldn’t have cared less. He forced my mom to join the PTA because he thought it would look bad if his wife wasn’t doing her duty.” Joey made a sympathetic noise, hugging him tighter.

  “I was too small, too clumsy, too loud, too quiet…too gay in the end, the worst failure of all. The only thing we shared was cars. Sometimes I hate those, too. I hated that I liked them, that I understood how an engine works. I hated that it was the only space in our lives where he would talk to me.”

  “Fuck, Buck—oh, jeez, never saying that again.” Joey snickered, his breath ruffling Buck’s sparse chest hair.

  “I hope you do.” Buck chuckled.

  “Wait—too small?”

  “I didn’t start my growth spurt until I was seventeen, end of junior year. By that time, he was dying of cancer and not telling us. I grew six inches over junior summer and another four by my eighteenth birthday. It hurt, I can tell you that.”

  “Hmm, well, I like the results.”

  “Let’s try to go back to sleep, ’kay?” Buck carded his fingers through Joey’s hair, soothing Joey or himself, didn’t matter which.

  “M’kay,” Joey murmured.

  The next morning, they woke to two pairs of bright eyes watching them intently. Xena saw his eyes flutter open and her tail started waving, thumping against the floor. Kon, because darn that was too l
ong a name for a little guy, jumped up, exclaiming something in Russian. Buck shook his head; he didn’t understand. Kon frowned, then pointed at his stomach and repeated, “golodny.” Buck replied by pointing at his on stomach, asking, “hungry?”

  “Hungry!” Kon repeated. “Hungry, hungry!”

  The dog was bouncing around, too; she also understood the word.

  “Looks like we are going to have to get out of bed.” Buck poked Joey in the back. The man was a bed hog; despite being relatively slight he had managed to take up two-thirds of the mattress. Buck was relegated to the far edge while Joey snoozed in contentment splayed out on his stomach, rat bastard. Joey only grumbled in response to Buck’s poke, turning onto his side and curling into a ball. The man had had a difficult week.

  Buck shooed Kon out of the room, then slid out of bed and into yesterday’s clothing. He still felt bemused from last night; about Joey in general. His plan to woo Joey, to date him (maybe), had jumped on a high-speed express train. Buck didn’t know if he should stay on or jump off. Was he even cut out for…whatever this was? Mostly he was confused by all the emotions he was feeling. He shut the connecting door behind him and collected Kon and Xena; together they tromped downstairs to see what the day would bring them.

  Twenty-Nine

  Joey woke slowly, luxuriously, contented. He sensed immediately that Buck was not in the bed with him. He didn’t have to stretch out a hand to feel for his body; he knew the bed contained only himself. The digital clock by the bed said it was 9:18 a.m. Buck, no doubt, had been up at a normal time. Holy crap, Joey could not remember the last time he had slept this late or long. He was almost drunk from it.

  Details from yesterday seeped into his slowly awakening brain and he bolted upright. How was it possible a house, albeit huge, with six adults, fifteen kids, and at least one dog could be this quiet? He fumbled around for his clothes and dragged them on. A quick stop at the bathroom to make sure he didn’t look too ridiculous—nothing he could do about the myriad of colors around his eye—and then he headed downstairs, where it was eerily quiet.

  He finally found them outside in one of the barns. One of the barns. The farmstead was huge. The first barn he’d checked had been empty of people but stocked with bales of hay along one wall, stalls on the other two with horses in them. Joey shuddered; he disliked horses for lots of valid reasons, but the most important was they had enormous teeth to bite with.

  Thirty yards farther was another enormous barn. The barking, squealing, and laughter drifting out were music to Joey’s ears as he made his way across the muddy ground. He stood in the open doorway for a few minutes watching the antics of kids, dogs, and adults. Somehow he had missed that Brandon and Stephanie also had a herd of mammoth dogs. Where had they been yesterday when they rolled in? There were at least five of them, St. Bernards or something. Big goofy dogs with big goofy barks. Brandon had what looked like a basketball that his dogs were halfheartedly chasing down the center of the barn, while Xena had her own crew throwing a tennis ball in the other direction.

  Seeing Buck’s tall form amongst the kids, Joey headed toward him. One of them said something and Buck looked up, a broad smile brightening his face when he saw Joey. Wow, it was possible to feel someone’s gaze. Buck’s was hot and heavy; Joey felt almost naked. Crap, he was going to need to adjust himself if Buck didn’t knock it off.

  “Hey,” Buck said as he drew closer.

  “Good morning. Well, good mid-morning. I can’t believe I slept that long.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t wake up during the epic waffle cook-off,” Buck replied.

  “So, what’s happening? Anything?”

  “Weir was by this morning to talk to the kids again. Especially Kon, for some reason. Well, Ira talked to Kon and Weir stood around looking irritated. It was pretty funny.”

  “Why Kon?”

  “I think it was that thing he said yesterday about going to church.”

  “Hmm.”

  Kon was in his element. His sidekick Xena would drop and retrieve the neon-green ball for no one else. When one of the other kids threw it, she just ignored it. Kon would stomp over and grab the disgusting, spit-laden ball, glaring at whoever had thought it was their turn, then throw it for Xena. She would ecstatically race after it, leaping to grab it out of the air, then come back and drop it at Kon’s feet. Again, and again, and again. Joey got tired just watching them.

  “That dog is going to be exhausted,” Joey said.

  “So is Kon.”

  “I was thinking…”

  “Again?” Buck laughed at his stupid joke, but then so did Joey. He rolled his eyes.

  “The church thing. Why would Kon think he was going to a church unless, maybe, somehow he was supposed to go to church. But not for worship, maybe in another capacity.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, at the hospital we occasionally see groups of refugees. Usually they have been sponsored by a nonprofit or church group. The church provides shelter until they get on their feet. That’s how I met one of the new nurses. She came to the States from Somalia with her family about four years ago, went to nursing school, and just started at St. Joe’s a few months ago.”

  “And?” Buck was looking at him intently.

  “What if a group—say, human trafficking shitheads—lured vulnerable people somehow? Or had connections to shitheads in other countries? Human trafficking is a huge problem; I went to a public talk by a victim a few years ago. She had been taken off the streets of Bangkok, but it happens all over the world. And, before you ask, here in the US, too. Maybe it’s a group claiming they are sending them to a better place but instead forcing them into slavery or prostitution? I’m sure you noticed that this group is oddly homogeneous. They look like the Russian version of anime characters with their huge eyes and androgynous bodies.”

  Joey paused for a minute to gather his thoughts. He knew he was right about this. “But what if Konstantin overheard something he wasn’t supposed to and misinterpreted it? Or maybe whoever sold him told him that so he wouldn’t be upset about leaving, but it was a partial truth?”

  Thinking about that sweet boy, all the kids, being sold like so much meat, made Joey sick to his stomach. That it might be through a trusted institution…his stomach clenched again and he was glad he’d missed the waffle war or whatever had happened in the kitchen.

  “Damn.”

  As luck would have it, Buck had his cell phone on him. Reception at the farm wasn’t great, but he had a few bars. The two of them snuck out of the barn, away from the watchful eye of Sammy and the other agent. Mindful that there was another one somewhere in the house.

  “Remember when we met?” Buck asked.

  “At the grocery store?”

  Buck blushed a deep shade of red, and lord, it was adorable, a six-foot-four adult man, blushing.

  “No,” he muttered, not looking Joey in the eyes. “I mean at the hospital after me and Micah were chased by the Russian mob, or whoever they were.”

  “Oh.” Joey thought a second. “I don’t recall; that was a crazy night.”

  “Wait.” Buck put a hand on Joey’s shoulder to stop him from going any farther. “Why are we sneaking out? Shouldn’t we just tell Sammy or someone what we think?”

  They were standing in the lee of the first barn Joey had peeked into. Joey looked up at him; when they were standing this close he had to crane his neck a little to see his face. He wasn’t sure how to phrase what he was thinking. But he also didn’t want to get on Adam Klay’s bad side again by “going off half-cocked playing detective.”

  Technically he wasn’t so much playing detective as checking something he was curious about. And he’d, hopefully, have Buck with him. Okay, so he was kind of playing detective, but he still didn’t want to wrongly accuse people. He wanted to make sure he was right before he said anything. People’s reputations and livelihoods were at stake. Skagit took its churches seriously.

  “I just want to check somet
hing first.”

  “And you don’t think maybe Adam and his team are already checking the same thing?”

  “What were you going to say, about when we first met?”

  Buck pouted. “It’s only going to encourage you.”

  “Well?” Joey prodded him.

  “Well, the woman who was in my car, the one with the head injury?”

  Joey nodded.

  “She said something about elders. I mean, she really didn’t say much, and it probably means nothing.”

  “The Dutch Reformed here has elders.” Come to think of it, he remembered that one of the churches in the area had split from their founders a few years ago. It had been a big scandal; the reasons had been that the local church didn’t want to perform same-sex marriage or allow women in the higher ranks. A reminder, Joey thought, of the many ways Skagit was still a very small town.

  Thirty

  Buck toed the ground in front of him, creating a small mud puddle with the toe of his boot. Drizzly rain had started to fall again and the wind was whipping it in all directions, even up. Gray clouds blanketed the sky and the horizon. He was beginning to feel chilly standing around in only street clothes with no jacket on; Joey was starting to shiver, too. He knew whatever Joey was thinking was a bad idea, just as he knew he would go along with it. He needed to make sure Joey stayed safe, and if he didn’t agree, he figured Joey would sneak off without him. No doubt Buck’s decision would come back to bite him in the ass.

  They were just going to have to hope no one noticed them leaving the property. Buck had asked Weir to have Miguel rescue the Datsun from the warehouse district; no way in hell would he have driven it up this rocky, muddy driveway. That was a recipe for a new undercarriage. Buck had driven Joey and Xena to the Bianchi farm in Sheila. Sheila was a little rougher and a little tougher than the Datsun.