by Willa Okati
“Maybe you like melons more than you say you do,” Rory murmured, wrapping his fingers around Harper’s cock. He thumbed the head, taking his time.
Harper breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. He was almost too sore for this, too worn out. He combed his fingers through Rory’s hair, not sure if he urged Rory on or reprimanded him. Rory was going to be walking funny for at least a day as it was.
That last part, Harper didn’t mind. At all. Rory walking with a hitch and a limp, still feeling Harper’s cock buried balls-deep inside him every time he took a step… Harper hissed between his teeth and hardened.
“Insatiable,” Rory crooned, sliding down to lap at Harper’s cock. He cupped Harper’s balls and curled his fingers, prodding the middle two at Harper’s hole. “Want in here again. Can I?”
Harper’s hips jerked up. He raised his head to watch Rory licking delicately at his cockhead, catching thin strings of creamy white precum on his tongue. “Anything you ask for, it’s yours to take.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“So do something about it.”
“So maybe I will. Starting with this.” He sucked Harper’s cock between his lips, rolled his tongue as if Harper were a juicy plum and ducked his head, sinking down.
The pressure of his throat when he swallowed drew a not-quite shout from Harper, who shook with the adrenaline rush and the shock of two fingers’ worth of penetration, shallow still, so good he wanted to come and never wanted to come at the same time. Wanted to stay strung out like this forever, naked and sweaty, tangled up with his muse.
“That’s my boy,” Rory rasped, dragging his tongue under Harper’s sac. “Like I said. Insatiable.”
* * *
Rory gleamed with sweat, his chest rising and falling like a furnace bellows, on his back in sheets half-rucked off the bed, his legs splayed over a growing wet spot, Harper’s cum trickling from his ass.
“You’re gonna be the death of me.” Rory licked his lips, looking puffy and dry from too much kissing. “I like that in a man.”
“Mmf,” said Harper, burrowing his head in Rory’s armpit. “Shh. No talk. Sleep.”
“Aww, is someone tired?”
“Mmf!”
“Fine, fine. Wuss. The younger generation has no stamina.”
Harper bit the soft meat on the underside of Rory’s arm. “Just fucked you twice,” he grumbled over Rory’s yelp.
“Yeah, and I came three times to your two.”
Harper wished he could purr. Yes, Rory had come three times, one without a hand on him, nothing but cock pegging his prostate and hips grinding. He’d taken Harper’s breath away, keening spitted on his cock, toes curled, and tearing the sheets with his tangled thrashing.
His cock made a valiant attempt to rise. “Jesus Christ, no,” Harper groaned, cupping himself. The organ subsided at the contact to sore skin.
“I could go again,” Rory said hopefully.
“Not unless you want it to fall off, Rory. I’m too attached to both mine and yours to take the chance. Lights out. Go to sleep.”
“Pfft.” Rory rolled to his side, tucking his arm under Harper’s head. “Whippersnapper.”
Harper closed his eyes and hummed, pleased. He rubbed his thumb over the wing of Rory’s shoulder blade. “What did you mean before, when you said you thought NYC would sound different at night?”
“Quieter.” Rory was the one to yawn this time. “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen Guys and Dolls.”
“Young Brando,” they said in harmony.
Harper threw his arm over Rory’s chest, fully content with playing the girl for once. “Say good night, Nicely-Nicely.”
“Eww. Stubby Kaye. Nice guy, but that mental image right there pretty much took care of any lingering desire to fuck again tonight, thanks.”
“Mission accomplished.”
“Harper?”
“Mm-hmm?”
Rory hesitated. “All this stuff I can’t tell you about my past, about how the muse gig works, the rules, and me being what I am, you honest to Dog really do want to keep me around?”
“Not want. Will.”
“Heh. Okay, then.”
“Rory?”
“Whaaat?”
Harper snickered. “Sorry, chump. You keep me awake, I keep you awake. I had a thought.”
“Don’t hurt yourself.”
“Jackass.” Harper pinched him. “Can you tell me what you’re not allowed to tell me?”
“Say again?”
“I mean specifically.”
Rory clued in after a moment’s baffled silence. He tugged Harper closer and spoke against his forehead. “Clever son-of-a-gun. I’m not telling you how old I am, which I can’t say is numbered in centuries, not decades. Definitely not telling you I’ve worked with Poe. Guy was a friggin’ fruitcake. And I’m not at all telling you the Clerk’s got a stick up his ass the size of Long Island when it comes to rules and regs.”
“That much I’d already noticed,” Harper said dryly. “He mentioned ‘probation.’ I’m saying it, not you. He told me if you screwed the job this was your third strike. What’d happen after that?”
“Nothing. Forever. “
The two words rang hollowly in Harper’s ears. “And if they give you a five-star rating for what you’ve done with me, and you leave? What then?”
Rory spoke almost too softly to hear. “Nothing that matters. Ever.”
Harper kept his eyes firmly shut and pressed his forehead over Rory’s heart. “Rory? Is there any way to rig it so you get fired with a retirement package in New York?”
Rory sighed heavily and shook his head. “That’s something I can’t ‘not tell you’ about. Not even if I wanted to, and I can’t ‘say’ I do. It’s a compulsion I can’t fight. My tongue goes numb and I can’t breathe. They take staff retention seriously.”
“Damn.” Harper wilted. It’d been worth a try.
“One thing I’ve learned, Harper… you’re a smart guy. Let the brain work while you sleep.” Rory planted a sleepy kiss atop Harper’s head and settled. His breathing evened on a count of three, muscles going slack. Out like a light.
“Hummingbird,” Harper gibed, quietly, not wanting to wake him. He breathed deeply of the smell of Rory’s overheated skin, the pepperiness of cloves almost too sharp, burning his nose. He rested his hand on Rory’s hip and stroked over the bone, caught by an unpleasant thought.
Was this the way it’d be when Rory disappeared, if he couldn’t stop it? Softly out, like a snuffed candle, leaving Harper to wake up alone in a bed already gone cool?
Harper shivered.
“Gotta work inside,” Rory mumbled in his sleep. Or was he really asleep at all? “Think… way he thinks. Clerk. Sneaky… sneak it by him.”
Harper raised his head. “Rory?”
Rory snored softly. Sounded genuine.
“Huh.” Harper lowered himself to rest again on Rory’s arm. Though he was tired enough to sleep the sleep of the dead, he never more than dozed before the sun came up.
And when it did, he was no closer to understanding than he had been before.
Chapter Nine
“Three times to voice mail and four rings before you finally picked up. Persistence really is the key.”
“Mmf.” Harper cracked open the eye on the half of his face not buried in his pillow and immediately shut it against the blinding blaze of sunlight. “Lisa? What time is it?”
“Time for lazy asses to get out of bed, no matter how well fucked.”
“Lisa.” Certain things were not conducive to early morning conversations with a woman he considered in many ways a sister.
Her rich cackling told Harper she knew exactly what was going on in his head, and enjoyed every second of his embarrassment. Harper revised his opinion of her to sister who moonlighted as Satan. Better.
Rory snored fruitily next to Harper, flopped on his side, and head butted his ribs. “Wha’s she… zzz…”
&
nbsp; Lisa finished her snickering. “I’m playing messenger chick again today. That Shelly girl, the P.A., totally flaked. Hasn’t shown up for work in over a week.”
The reminder of Shelly a.k.a. the Clerk woke Harper faster than an intravenous shot of caffeine. Minus the technicality of that being fatal. What’s he up to now? Harper didn’t like the sound of it.
He cleared his throat and hoped not to betray his unease. “And?”
“And Janie told me to tell you, quote: ‘If he thinks he can pry his ass out of bed, he might want to get down here. Now.’ Emphasis hers, prurient curiosity all mine. What’s up, Doc?”
“Got me.” Harper rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Give me a land-speed motivation. What was her rage level, on a scale from ‘lukewarm coffee’ to ‘heads will roll’?”
“That’s the creepy part. She was smiling, Harper. Smiling like a kid with a strawberry lollipop and a bowl of ice cream. I’d say if you could achieve warp speed, do it. Oh, and bring Rory with you. She asked for Rory. Toodles!”
Lisa disconnected. Rory scowled at Harper, his hair disarranged from sleep and spiked at bizarre angles. Harper had an almost irrepressible urge to smooth it down, and possibly while he was at it, lick his finger and try to wipe a smudge off Rory’s nose.
Mostly, he wanted to stay where he was. Forever. If he didn’t hear yea or nay about the job, he could keep Rory for at least a little longer…
“Guess we’re goin’ to the studio, huh?” Rory pressed his lips to Harper’s bare shoulder, his touch gentle. “Hey,” he said, quietly. “Don’t flip out.”
“It has to be something to do with In Outré.”
“No kidding, Sherlock. Trust me on this one. Whatever it is, it won’t be bad. We did good work.”
“I know we did.” Harper gave in to his baser desires and brushed Rory’s hair out of his eyes. He refused to spill the thought pounding at the forefront of his mind: If Janie wanted to see him with an update on the head writer’s position, and if they’d decided to hire him… God, he wasn’t ready. “Thanks to you.”
Rory nuzzled Harper’s shoulder and sighed, deeply contented.
Harper tried for a grope that turned into a caress and became a solid grip. “We could, instead --”
“No. Sorry.” Rory kissed his throat. “Go get dressed. Me too. Although I wonder what she’d say if I showed up naked? Watch and see if I don’t, one day.” He hesitated. “If I had time, I mean, I would. If I knew I could stay, I’d…”
“Rory.”
Rory smirked, and it looked forced. “Never mind.”
“Yeah.” Harper tucked his hands behind his head. “I’m not kidding. We could stay here.”
“And waste all that hard work? No.” Rory climbed out of bed, not looking back.
Harper flopped on his back. Christ. Who would ever have figured the job opportunity of a lifetime would make him want to hurl or that he’d hope and pray not to be hired?
* * *
Rory wore a faded T-shirt with a cartoon junkyard dog and jeans that were more hole than jeans. At Harper’s insistence, he’d produced a pair of flapping-at-the-heels Birkenstocks. Every stitch of it argued over. Harper could translate, and knew that no matter what he said, Rory didn’t want to go in and get life-changing news any more than Harper did.
They hadn’t had enough time.
Sacrificing his dignity, Harper wore a polo shirt Rory made unmerciful amount of fun of him for, khakis, prompting Rory to ask in a phony Nob Hill accent if they were heading to the country club afterward, and mismatched Converses because Rory never mentioned those for some reason, but which Harper suspected he got a huge kick out of. They could use the laughs.
Lisa quirked a newly plucked, almost invisible yet brightly magenta eyebrow at Harper, wolf-whistled at Rory, and ushered both into the writer’s room.
Janie waited for them. Coiffed, artfully made-up, polished, and immaculate enough to eat off of, if a man were so inclined. Muffins sat on a faux-silver platter next to a decanter of coffee and a pitcher of smooth, sunshine-colored orange juice.
“That can’t be good,” Rory muttered behind Harper. He shook himself like a dog and stepped out, cocky grin to the fore and ogling Janie with truly Playboy-worthy sleaziness. “What’d we do to rate the five-star treatment?”
Janie casually wrote on a notepad and pushed it toward him while gesturing to a laptop set up for teleconference. They had a fine view of a cluttered office and an empty desk chair on the other end.
Harper read over Rory’s shoulder: BEHAVE, OR I WILL MAKE YOU SORRY YOU WERE EVER BORN.
Good luck with that in regards to someone who was never actually born, Harper thought. “Morning, Janie. What’ve we got going on?”
Janie daintily poured herself a doll-sized Styrofoam cup of orange juice. “Have a seat, you two. We’re waiting for Mr. Grudnik to get back from his smoke break.”
“Mr. Grudnik?” Rory asked, flipping one of the chairs around before parking his tush. Harper could almost see gears turning and switches flipping. “The guy who wrote from Rialto? The letter guy Mr. Grudnik?”
“One and the same. Harper? Do you need some water?” Janie leaned on her crossed arms and frowned at him.
“I’m fine,” Harper replied, carefully not returning her direct stare.
Rory’s warm palm came to rest on Harper’s thigh as Harper sat down. “Take it easy,” he murmured for Harper’s ears only. Harper wasn’t entirely sure Rory hadn’t transmitted the words directly into his head. “Don’t flip until there’s reason to flip.”
Harper nodded. He would have replied in kind, but for the sudden appearance of a man of considerable size filling the screen. At first glance, the heaviness deceived the viewer into thinking he was built like a linebacker. At second glance, the heaviness revealed itself to be less of a footballer’s build and more of a WWF wrestler’s. Good times.
“So this is the infamous Harper,” the man remarked with no inflection. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
“You look nervous, Harper.”
Someone kicked him under the table. Had to be Rory, though Harper wouldn’t have put it past Janie to bend the laws of time and space to stretch her leg three feet longer than normal in order to reach him, and look perfectly professional all the while.
“Absolutely,” Harper replied. “This is a big day for me.” If only you knew.
Mr. Grudnik grunted, seeming satisfied with that answer. “We’re all busy folks, so I’ll cut to the chase. You should get the contracts by courier today.”
Janie’s lips parted slightly. Harper understood how she felt. Without actual paper in hand and signatures on file, the arrangement still carried a small edge of surrealism.
“Any decisions on the head writer’s position?” Rory butted in to ask. He leaned across to tap at the computer screen. “Wow. I love technology.”
Mr. Grudnik recoiled, as if Rory had literally flicked his nose. Then he chuckled. “I see what you meant, Janie. He’s a character.”
“A joker,” Janie confirmed. “Mr. Grudnik, since he’s asked, what about the head writer’s position? Any word? Since you specifically asked for Harper to come to the meeting --”
“In his position as the show’s creator,” Mr. Grudnik clarified. “As to the other, it’s still up in the air. One of our bankables has taken an interest. We’re waiting to hear back from her.”
“I see.” Janie deflated a fraction of an inch. Harper’s heart pounded in his throat. At rest on his leg, Rory’s hand shook. “And if she declines?”
“Then we’re all decided Harper’s our man.”
Rory’s fingers dug into Harper’s muscle.
“When will we know?” Janie asked.
“Not sure there. Soon. We’ll be in touch.” Mr. Grudnik pointed a pen at the screen. “You. What’d you say your name was? Rory?”
“Aye-aye, sir.” Harper figured only he could tell that behind the bravado, Rory was ready to implode.
“What can I do you for?”
“Janie says you’ve done more than your share on this project. Is that right?”
“Right enough. I helped Harper write almost everything and rewrote the rest.”
“Modest, aren’t you?”
“You don’t have to be modest if you’re good. Ow.”
Janie smiled sweetly as sugar pie at him. “Rory is about as good as he claims,” she admitted. “They make a hell of a team.”
“I’m inclined to agree, but I am curious…” Mr. Grudnik pointed back and forth between Harper and Rory. “Is there a vibe here? You two involved?”
“Yes,” Harper answered, no waffling. “Will that be a problem?”
“I could care less, as long as you don’t let it affect your work if you’re hired.” Mr. Grudnik held up a thin sheaf of paper. “I like what I see here from the both of you. Your two styles mesh well. Inspiration and dedication. Good work, gentlemen, and you, Janie. I wondered if you’d lost your mind when you pitched this our way, and I’m pleased to have been proved wrong.” He reached out, presumably toward the power switch of his computer. “We’ll be in touch.”
* * *
“So. Uh.” Harper coughed as he shut the door to the writer’s room behind them. “What’d you think?”
“I think he thinks we’re hot.” Rory waggled his eyebrows. “Smokin’.”
“Tough for him. I don’t share.”
“Hello, Ebenezer. Possessive today, aren’t we?”
“I have reason to be,” Harper muttered.
“Harper…” Rory had swung around to walk backward in front of Harper, but stopped. “Put the rest aside for a second, okay? This is the opportunity of a lifetime. You don’t appreciate the potential, it’s like taking a crap over my reason for being. Try and show a smidge of enthusiasm, would you?”
Harper blinked. “Never thought of it that way.”
“No doubt you didn’t. You’ve got amazing tunnel vision and a stellar ability not to see the forest for the trees.”
“Sweet talker. Stop. You’ll turn my head.”
“Hope not. This isn’t The Exorcist. Not even Passions, last time I checked.” Rory studied him in great assessing sweeps. “Surface scan indicates that yeah, you are jazzed about it, deep down. And you’re thinking it’s a betrayal. To which I say, balls. For God’s sake, Harper, why not enjoy what you’ve got?”