by Janey Chapel
Jay looked at him, surprised. “That wasn’t a career. It put food in my stomach and paid my mom’s propane bill. I mean, I liked the driving, yeah, what kid wouldn’t? But when I think back on it, it’s like a kudzu vine, choking the life out of me. I was lucky to get out.”
Something he’d said seemed to register with Patrick, because he nodded. “So, wait, how long have you been here?”
“Well, I got permission to move out of state in 2006 and finished my parole down here. So it’s been four years, almost five,” he said. “I wanted to give a little back if I could, so Bryan hooked me up with Stem, who runs a topnotch wrestling program for inner-city youth. I work days there, running the conditioning program, and I spend most nights at the bar. I think Ron—that’s the parole officer in Morganton—he wanted to get me as far from where I’d been as he could. I figure that’s why he sent me down here.”
All that telling tired him out, and he stretched, his satiated muscles loose and relaxed.
Patrick made a soft sound. “How many other parolees did he send Bryan’s way?”
Jay glanced over at him, wondering what he was getting at. “None that I know of. The staff comes from all over.”
“That’s not luck, Jay,” Patrick said. “He saw something in you, something better.”
Maybe. But Jay still considered himself a lucky bastard. He’d seen other, darker endings to similar stories. Speaking of which….
“What about you?” he asked.
Patrick raised his eyebrows. “What about me?”
“What’s your story? Give me the short and sweet version if you want, but I’ve got no place to be.”
With a slow smile, Patrick said, “High school, college, Marines, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.”
“That’s not fair,” Jay protested. “I spill my guts, and you skate by on that?”
“Hey, you said short and sweet,” Patrick reminded him.
Jay scoffed. “Try longer, and not as sweet.” When Patrick remained silent, he shifted closer and propped himself up on his elbow, mirroring Patrick’s position. “If I ask questions, will you answer them?”
Patrick’s smile faded, leaving him looking serious and every year of his age. Slowly, he nodded.
“Why join the Marines out of college? Isn’t it usually the other way around—enlist in the military, and get money for school?”
Now it was Patrick’s turn to roll onto his back and stare at the ceiling. “I had just graduated and was looking for a job when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990,” he said. “It seemed like a bully move, and I wanted to do something about it. Now I understand there was a shitload more than that going on under the surface, but I’d never been one to look too hard at things. Like you just said, I skated.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“No, I know,” Patrick said, not letting him finish. “I stayed in because by then it felt like home, like family, like I guess Bryan’s does for you. In some ways, it was easier than getting out and figuring out how to be a civilian again.”
Jay nodded. Bryan’s Marine stint had come a decade earlier than Patrick’s, but he spoke often of how difficult the transition had been from military life to civilian life. Jay felt certain that experience had played a part in Bryan’s choice of vocation as a parole officer, and now his avocation, his own version of a halfway house for a fortunate few.
“Then what happened?” he asked.
“I came to a crossroads,” Patrick said. “I was debating whether to re-up again when I met a recruiter from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Academy, and he showed me another path I could take.”
“An easy transition,” Jay murmured.
“Easier, anyway,” Patrick said. “A lot of the same kind of routine and discipline, and that feeling of being part of something bigger than just yourself, but in the real world, so to speak.”
“And how’s that worked out?” Jay asked.
“Fourteen years of sex, drugs, and rock and roll,” Patrick said, tilting his mouth up at the corner. “I ended up in Vice & Narcotics. If I’d been a little younger or you’d been a little older, we might’ve crossed paths under, well, let’s call them less desirable circumstances. I’ve spent some time working with the sheriffs up in the back country the past couple years. Those growers lead them a merry chase.”
He didn’t seem to be blaming Jay personally, which Jay appreciated. It looked like Patrick had had his own struggles to figure out who he was and what he wanted. Jay wondered where being gay fit in the equation. He decided he’d ask, and if Patrick didn’t feel like answering, Jay knew he’d find some way to get around it.
“Have you always known you were gay?” he asked.
At that, Patrick nodded vigorously but didn’t say anything.
“That must be hard,” Jay said, reaching out because he couldn’t not reach for him, touching him, reinforcing the connection they shared. He shifted closer, sliding one leg between Patrick’s and putting his head down on Patrick’s chest. “To feel like you have to hide so much of who you are.”
Patrick wrapped one arm around him and said, “Sometimes.”
Jay rubbed his cheek on Patrick’s chest. “You don’t have to hide anything from me.”
He felt Patrick’s hand come up and tangle in his hair as his chest rose and fell under Jay’s cheek. After a minute, Patrick said, “I see you can dish out a little bit of what you got, when the occasion arises.”
“What do you mean?” Jay asked.
Patrick tugged on him until he raised his head. “The whole ‘be yourself, take people where they are’ thing. Bryan hasn’t cornered that market, you know.”
Jay felt himself flush. “I guess. It worked for me. I’m telling you, man, I lucked out.”
With a soft snort, Patrick pulled Jay back to him, and Jay settled comfortably against his chest. He could feel the rumble of Patrick’s voice under his cheek when Patrick said, “This time, I think I’m the one who lucked out.”
Jay closed his eyes and let the heat of Patrick’s skin lull him back into a sleepy, satisfied state. Yeah. Maybe this time they’d both gotten lucky.
IV
PATRICK took that last night—those remaining eight hours—and made every minute count. He encouraged Jay to keep talking and emptied the minibar of everything chocolate and salty; they paid the price of the seven-dollar Michelob and split it. They even dozed from time to time.
But mostly Patrick touched Jay, and Jay touched him. The room became a dark, warm cave where tomorrow couldn’t intrude and yesterday didn’t matter a damn. Hearing Jay talk about his life, and knowing from the depth of his own experience how very differently Jay’s life could have gone, made Patrick want to track down a certain deputy sheriff, and a certain North Carolina parole officer, and pump their hands in gratitude. And he’d find a way, somehow, to let Bryan Degraffenreid know the impact he’d had, though based on what Jay had said about him, Patrick doubted he’d do much more than deflect the thanks to his bar staff.
Jay woke him at one point when he rolled out of bed to use the bathroom. He apologized for waking Patrick when he crawled back in bed, but Patrick waved him off.
“I was thinking,” he said softly. “It couldn’t have been easy for you, either, being a gay kid up there.”
“Out in Hicksville, you mean?” Jay asked, laughing as he slid beneath the covers and pulled them up. “Dude, I had no idea I was gay. My backseat plan with Kirsty was about as far as I’d gotten down any sexual road. I’d never had the time, and hadn’t figured out that I didn’t really have the inclination, and then….”
“Prison.”
Jay nodded. “Even there, I just thought, you know… isolation creates a certain… pragmatism when it comes to that. It wasn’t until I got out that I really figured out what I wanted. Who I wanted. And even now, I’m not….” He paused, seeming to search for words, and then said, “I’m not a casual person.” He indicated the space between them and said quietly, “This isn’t casual.”
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Patrick reached for him, driven to touch again, to let his body speak for him, expressing his own response to Jay’s openness. As the night stretched toward dawn, he learned the fit and feel of Jay’s shoulders and arms, while Jay counted out the muscles in Patrick’s stomach one by one. Under the covers, in the nest of the bed, Jay became a smell, a feel, a taste. Patrick ran his fingers through the tangled length of his hair, pressed his fingers into the strength of Jay’s thigh, buried his face between Jay’s legs and tasted him, thrust first his fingers, then his cock deep inside him. Jay opened for Patrick, denying nothing, encouraging everything. He told Patrick what he wanted, and then showed him. “You go first,” he whispered. “Then me.”
When the room started to lighten, Patrick woke up for the final time, still wrapped around Jay, his dick still nestled between the cheeks of Jay’s ass. He made himself look at the clock. Six a.m. Two hours left. Jay stirred against him, flexing back, pushing his hips into Patrick’s. Like a signal his body had been trained to answer, Patrick’s penis started to fill yet again. Involuntarily, he pressed against Jay, and Jay moaned a little, moving onto his stomach and spreading his legs, lifting his arms up to wrap around his pillow.
Patrick’s heart flipped. He’d thought he might be sated. He thought maybe they’d wrung themselves dry. Apparently not. He didn’t wait any longer. Couldn’t wait. He’d never felt urgency like he did with Jay. Never felt like the world might end if he didn’t get inside Jay right then, right at that moment. In just two nights, Jay had trained him to take what he wanted, when he wanted it. He’d trained Patrick well.
Patrick rolled on a condom and pushed his way inside Jay, using only the night’s leftover lube to ease his way. Jay gripped the pillow tight when the first few inches bruised their way in, and Patrick stretched himself out on him, spreading his weight, holding him down.
“God,” Jay mouthed into the pillow, and then he flexed his ass, drawing Patrick deeper. Without the usual finger-stretching, his ass felt like a hard, tight fist. Patrick surged forward, pushing his way in, and he might have found an instant to regret the force he’d used if Jay hadn’t spread his legs wider and groaned underneath him, a long, luxurious groan that said whatever Jay felt, it wasn’t forced.
They fit, he and Jay. His erection fit solidly inside Jay’s ass. Their arms were almost the same length, and Patrick stretched them out and hooked his fingers with Jay’s. He’d wanted Jay spread-eagled on a bed, and the reality of it was better than anything his mind could have imagined. Inside, Jay throbbed, the muscles rippling up and down the length of Patrick’s cock like clutching fingers. Patrick’s chest fit perfectly against the breadth of his back. They fit like they’d been meant to do just this, just like this. He didn’t care what Jay had done, didn’t care about pot farmers or grand theft auto. He took a minute to appreciate all the things that had made Jay the man he was, all the things—like the man said, the good and the bad—that had led them to this place, this stolen time.
He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, slotted together, pulses racing, breathing hard, determined not to move, determined to enjoy it, to remember it. Longer than he would have said he could control it, given the heat and pressure of Jay. They let it build without moving, urgency stretching and deepening into insistence, then necessity.
When Jay’s fingers started trembling in his, Patrick thrust a little. When Jay tried to buck up, to get on his hands and knees and take him deeper, Patrick pressed down on him, hard, forcing him to be still, and gave him that extra length, that harder thrust. Jay wriggled underneath him, his own control starting to go, muttering, “Fuck me. Do it. Now.”
Whether it was his words or the sudden motion of his body, or the combination that did it, Patrick couldn’t say. All he knew was that they snapped at the same time. Patrick pummeled him. He drove Jay into the bed. He put all his weight on him, his chest and shoulders pushing down, his arms trapping Jay’s beneath him, leaving him totally vulnerable to whatever degree of demand Patrick could muster.
He let go. He let everything go. Rough, primitive, even brutal—Patrick let it all out in long, strong thrusts, his dick feeling like it got both punishment and reward each time he shoved his way back deep in Jay’s body, compelled to return to the heat the instant he withdrew. He felt huge, hard as steel, stroking like a piston into him. Jay took it, took him, relaxed his body, stopped trying to get up onto his knees, and accepted each thrust with a whispered, “Yes.”
Jay curled his hands under Patrick’s and brought their arms in close to their bodies, changing the leverage, changing the angle. The next thrust made Jay inhale sharply, his body tensing under Patrick’s again. Patrick pulled out and then propelled back in, harder and faster, hitting the same angle, crushing Jay’s fingers in his and spreading Jay’s legs open even wider with his knees. He could feel sweat dripping from the back of Jay’s neck, and he set his face there, drinking it, licking him, his hips moving mindlessly now, out of control.
For being so slow at the start, the finish came hard and fast. One deep thrust made all the muscles in Jay’s back coil up, his neck taut under Patrick’s mouth, arching first away then back toward him. He slammed his hips into the sheets, and Patrick could smell it when he came, feel the grip on his dick tighten even more, a grip like a heartbeat, rhythmic and regular. Patrick drove in one more time, going as far as he could, wanting to crawl right up inside Jay’s body. He held Jay down and shook, feeling Jay’s muscles clench down on him, feeling himself swell inside Jay and then explode, wave after wave of shaking pleasure, feeling goose bumps on his arms and back and between his legs.
They used the better part of the last hour just recovering, remembering how to breathe, getting their hearts sorted out, back where they belonged. They showered together, the hot shower and steamed-up bathroom another warm cocoon. Patrick pulled clean clothes from his duffle, but Jay made do with his clothes from the night before, brushing the brick dust off his jacket and scrubbing the disaster zone in his jeans with a wet washcloth. It would do, he told Patrick, until he got home. They bagged breakfast in favor of sitting on the bed, talking some and touching some more.
However short the time they had, Patrick knew he’d be able to look back on it and say they had made the most of it.
And when eight o’clock rolled around, he stood up, wrapped his arms around Jay and hugged him tight.
“I’m expected back at noon,” he told Jay.
Jay sighed. “And I’ve got a list as long as my arm of things to do at Stem’s today.”
Patrick picked up his wallet and cell phone, handing over the phone when Jay put his hand out, asking the question with one raised eyebrow. He watched as Jay punched his number into the phone, his fingers flying over the keys, and when Patrick reciprocated, poking tentatively at Jay’s unfamiliar phone, Jay took it from him with a little grin, and Patrick rattled off his number.
Jay took a deep breath as he handed back Patrick’s phone. “I’d like to see you again. I know it’s not a good combination, a cop and an ex-con—”
“Screw that,” Patrick said, cutting him off. “I don’t give a shit about that.”
He didn’t. Connections that held any weight were hard to come by, let alone with someone who hadn’t just accepted him but who seemed, in precise and glorious ways, to understand him.
Jay smiled at him. “Someone might.”
“Yeah, well, screw them too.”
Jay apparently liked that. He reached over and kissed Patrick, long and deep.
“It’s a four-hour drive,” Jay said as he drew back. “When you come back for the trial, you could stay with me, save your department some money. It’s not fancy, but it’s all mine.”
Patrick grinned. “I don’t think the department sweats a Holiday Inn, though I appreciate the offer. But what makes you so sure I’ll come back for the trial?”
Jay just smiled at Patrick, touched the center of his chest with his hand, and opened the hotel room door. As he left, he
said, “I may not know you well yet, but I know you well enough to know that.”
Patrick watched the door close behind him and felt a stupid, silly grin stretch across his face. He wore the grin all the way home, the whole two-hundred-mile stretch up Drug Alley.
Forget the four-hour drive. If he pushed it, he could cut that to three, easy.
About the Author
JANEY CHAPEL found a paperback romance in her grandmother's bookcase at the age of eleven, inhaled it in one sitting, and then proceeded to devour thousands of romance novels in a variety of genres over the course of several decades. Eventually, her husband said, "Stop reading! Start writing!" After a lifetime in the South, Janey now lives in the Northeast with her husband and daughter, where she volunteers with the PTO, struggles to adapt to actual winter, and writes fiction in her spare time.
Visit her blog at http://janeychapel.livejournal.com/.
Also by JANEY CHAPEL
http:/www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Copyright
Get What You Need ©Copyright Janey Chapel, 2010
Published by
Dreamspinner Press
4760 Preston Road
Suite 244-149
Frisco, TX 75034
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by Mara McKennen
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