by Damon Suede
Andy leaned in and for once Ruben didn’t feel like he needed to pull back. The fresh-baked warmth of Andy settled his heart. “Ruben? Uh. Thanks.”
Ruben rolled over, bringing him another four inches closer. His knee grazed Andy’s solid leg. “Thank you, man. I’m….” He put a hand on Andy’s abdomen and they both flinched at the contact.
“Ah.” Hot under his hand, Andy’s tight belly thumped with his pulse. His stiff wood was about seven inches south and trapped inside boxers.
Ruben kept his fingers still, conscious of every faint hair on the silky skin.
Any second they were gonna cross that line.
They blinked at each other and looked at each other. In a way the room was as quiet as Central Park under the trees, the two of them keeping pace and slippery with sweat in the green light.
His erection didn’t help matters here. He shifted onto his stomach, where his hard-on lay trapped under his belly, hot as a fresh-fired pistol and so stiff that pressing it flat hurt. The bread smell was stronger with his face buried in Andy’s duvet, even facing away.
Before anything crazy happened, Ruben lifted his hand and stuck it between his pillow and the mattress. “Sorry.”
“G’night, Rube. It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna be okay. You watch.”
“What happens?” Meaning the Apex hitman thing and them both. Ruben looked at the wall for safety. No luck.
“We go out. Out-out.”
“Like a date.” That sounded excellent, actually. Crazy, stupid, and dangerous. But fun. “Maybe dinner? Hang out. Cigar.”
Andy lit up at that. “Yeah. We’re gonna date. I’m gonna date the hell out of you.”
Ruben tried and failed to hide his nerves, apparently.
Andy shook his head gently. “Nothing’s different, Rube. Not really.” He rolled toward Ruben and brought his knees up, hiding the straining bulge in his boxer’s folds.
Not that Ruben was watching or anything. “Plenty’s different.”
Andy uncrossed his arms, his blue-gray gaze gentle. “First step.”
Ruben laughed and sat up again. A strange wave of lust and hope made him feel wobbly. Maybe everything was okay. At the very least, he had a chance to find out what he felt about Andy Bauer.
Andy exhaled and squinted. “Nice to meet you, Ruben. I’m Andy.” He held out a hand.
Ruben took it and shook it. See? Simple. “Same.” He didn’t let go of the strong hand.
Andy squeezed his fingers. “So far so good.” He leaned closer, until his heat bounced off Ruben’s chest. “I like you a lot.”
Ruben frowned. “Yeah? I wish I was smarter or richer or younger, but I’m not.” Facing Andy put them exactly eye to eye.
“I don’t. I don’t wish anything.”
Ruben swallowed, superconscious of his nearly dry boxers and all his other bare parts. Powerless and nowhere to hide.
Andy swayed closer, closer, as if asking permission.
Ruben gave a small nod and Andy erased the space between them. The lips pressed to Ruben’s were firm and sweet. The faint stubble grazed his.
A man. I’m kissing a man.
Andy whimpered and wrapped one hot arm around his bare back, mashing their fronts together, boner to boner, which felt even better. A little too good, actually—
Ruben broke free, hyperventilating. “Okay. Okay-okay. Hang on.”
They stared at each other, chests rising and falling like they’d sprinted at each other. Ruben’s lips buzzed like they’d been burnt.
Andy’s cool eyes glittered wickedly. He wiped his wet mouth. “Sorry. I been wondering about that myself.”
Ruben nodded, dumb with lust. His rigid cock tented his damp boxers till he held it back against him with a hand. I don’t care if he’s crooked, long as he’s not straight.
“Now I know.”
Slowly, Ruben leaned in, leaned in, leaned—
Brrrrp. The house phone trilled—the front desk calling.
Someone must have heard the ruckus. Someone may have called the cops. Someone was gonna come back and finish the job.
Their eyes met and wrestled in midair. Lies and secrecy led nowhere good.
Ruben shook his head, but Andy was already moving toward the handset.
“Yello?” Andy sounded breathless. “No, no. We’re good. Nah, nothing like that. They just got carried away.” Even battered, he began to take control, and the calm mastery crept back into his voice. “My security’s here.”
Says you. Ruben had the oddest sense of standing on a ledge a half mile above Park Avenue, no wings and no way down. The pitch black only made it easier for him to imagine jumping toward the lights like a dumb animal. He knew what a mistake felt like. He knew what needed to happen. He knew what Andy wanted and had no idea what it would cost either of them.
Sure enough, as Andy talked to his doorman he ambled back toward the bed and stroked Ruben’s hair. The firm pressure of his fingers made Ruben close his eyes in treacherous pleasure. Then he was hanging up and back on the bed.
“Think you can sleep?”
Ruben was worried, exhausted, and so happy his heart wouldn’t stop chugging in his chest. He nodded before he found his voice. “Y-yeah. If you think it’s okay”
“I trust you.”
Ruben snorted. “If I have a wet dream, you’re in big trouble.”
Andy laughed. “I’m a gambler.”
“No shit.” A few minutes later, Ruben got to watch him fall asleep. Ruben lay still and counted all his blessings stretched out on the bed beside him.
Ruben felt too anxious to sleep and too excited to care. The stakes had gotten too high. Blind and stupid didn’t begin to cover it, to stick around fighting shadows that fought back. If AA had taught him anything, to take any kind of step, you had to put your foot down.
Ruben knew this was a mistake. Money. Revenge. Blackmail. Kidnapping. Assault.
The first thing, the best thing he could do was hail a cab to JFK right now and fly his ass back to Miami and stay in the drunk tank for a week.
The last thing he needed was to stay in this fancy cage throwing pebbles at dragons.
The worst thing would be to give in to his lust and Andy’s smile.
Only one thing kept him from doing the right thing.
Stupid heart.
CHAPTER TWELVE
NO BATTLE plan survives first contact with the enemy.
Ruben’s eyes were still closed, but he could feel Andy’s warm weight on the mattress a foot away. It couldn’t be more than five o’clock in the morning, but he felt wide awake stretched out on the Pratesi sheets. He’d slept with Andy.
In his bed. In his arms.
They’d curled together so naturally. They’d shared this crazy bed without any disasters. Sexual crisis averted. They could take their time, figure things out like adults.
He had every intention of behaving himself, of sliding out and sneaking down to his room to shower and dress, but he took a breath of their blended scent, his own familiar musty scent spread over Andy’s fresh-baked sweetness. After being single so long and getting sober, the dozy closeness felt sharper than he remembered. And though it felt sexy to touch Andy like this, no freaky kink-outs had occurred that sent either of them scurrying for cover. He just wanted to look at Andy a little and then he’d go.
He turned over onto his side. Without him making the conscious decision, his hand closed over Andy’s stiffness through the boxers. He didn’t pull it, but he couldn’t help exploring. He gave it slow, rhythmic squeezes from blunt crown to scratchy base, weighing the heft and the heat of it.
Andy’s breathing didn’t change, but his cock went from hard to rigid. One long vein swelled into an urgent pulsing seam up its side. The head seemed especially sensitive.
Mouth dry, Ruben plucked at the underside, feeling sneaky and exhilarated at his own boldness at stealing pleasure from someone so unexpected, so beautiful. His heart thudded with a terrible certainty he refused to analyz
e.
Andy’s breathing shifted, and his trim hips shifted slightly against the clasp of Ruben’s arm, the press of his abdomen.
Ruben stroked the hard ridge of Andy’s knob, but lightly, lightly in the ring of his thumb and index finger. He used the inside of his rough knuckle to pet the damp swell there, and Andy’s erection lost all flexibility.
Andy squirmed a little in the dark. His head tipped on the pillow. He’d be awake any minute.
Thief.
Ruben kept his deep breaths steady and as quiet as he could. His broad boner had pushed above the waistband of his shorts, and he could feel the oily slip of his foreskin rolling back and forth, back and forth by millimeters. Holding Andy, touching Andy, wanting Andy felt so right he couldn’t remember why he was supposed to want anything else.
Andy’s hushed voice startled him. “Oso. You woke up.”
In the light spill from the street, Ruben could see shapes, and at certain angles a little color. He didn’t want Andy to turn on the light yet. The dark felt safe, sexy. Any second that lamp would snap on, and they’d have to be sensible.
Andy shifted onto his back, and in tandem, Ruben rolled onto his side, resting one leg over Andy’s, stopping him from reaching for the nightstand.
Andy’s breath caught.
Line crossed. Ruben left his leg there, letting them both get used to the contact. It felt so good that he just tried to keep his breath steady and enjoy the hard body trapped under his thigh. Maybe they’d simply fall asleep. Right.
Andy exhaled and fell still.
Their muscle and bone settled together by degrees, their bodies shifting subtly to accommodate each other. The fused strength, weight, and friction felt too right to put a price on. For the first time in his life, Ruben understood exactly what greed meant: a need so painful that it made the cost irrelevant, any price tag nonsensical. And not knowing the price, Ruben had no plan. Whatever came next, he’d take it and pay for it.
“Too warm?”
Andy grunted in the negative, breathing faster. “Not so far.” His head was cradled by the down pillow about eight inches away.
Ruben closed his eyes and then realized that the broad helmet of his cock was snugged against Andy’s hip. Lying together felt so perfect he hadn’t noticed at first.
Andy had. He didn’t speak, but his heart was going like anything. He began to sweat, and his glute flexed once under the jabbing pressure.
Ruben could feel the dampness against his boxers as his foreskin rolled back. His exposed knob was always hypersensitive to the lightest contact.
Andy sounded nervous. “Is that—?”
Ruben whispered. “Yeah.” Grunt.
Andy inhaled sharply. Even in the dark, he had looked tan against the white sheets, but now Ruben’s dark hand turned that skin to ivory. Andy’s erection jerked twice inside his shorts.
Over and over Ruben closed and opened his fingers lightly, stroking Andy’s abdomen with the broad tips as if digging deeper into dry sand.
Shaky breath. “Rube.”
Andy’s hot skin made him an offer that led somewhere he couldn’t imagine properly. Heaven help him, he couldn’t say no to it.
Ruben glanced down at the tented shorts, silhouetted by the light from outside. “You got a similar problem, boss.” He rested his palm on Andy’s stomach very carefully.
Ruben rocked his hips back, and his foreskin slid forward again, dulling the intense, wet pleasure. “S’okay.”
Andy swallowed.
Part of him wanted to turn the lights on, so he could watch, and part was happy they were still hidden from each other. “I’m touching you, is all. Does that tickle?”
“Mmh-uh. No. But it’s extremely, uhh, sensitive. Jesus.”
“Tell me about it.” Ruben pushed his ridge back against Andy’s haunch. His damp skin pulled back, and his cock head burned with slithery pressure. The blunt snout squashed itself against firm muscle and liked it just fine.
“Ruben.” Andy’s voice lowered. “You’re gonna make me pop like that.”
“No way.”
A sharp intake of breath in the dark. “Yeah. Way.”
“Just petting your stomach.”
“And humping my butt cheek with your knob.” He chuckled.
The raw words made Ruben tense. His balls actually tightened a bit, and his shaft lost whatever flex had remained. “Filthy bastard.”
“Says the big hombre painting me with cocksnot.” Andy scooted up an inch, his ass flexing momentarily under Ruben’s erection.
Ruben was leaking in earnest now. The fabric was smeary between their skin. He scooted closer. “Uh huh.”
“For some kind of hands-free happy ending.” Andy looked down helplessly.
Ruben’s knee grazed the underside of Andy’s balls. “Feels okay though.”
“Yuh. Uh. Rube.” He hissed through his teeth. His heartbeat seemed concentrated in his ribs, right against Ruben’s.
Ruben squirmed in until his stubbled chin grazed Andy’s throat, and the floppy hair was crushed against his forehead. Ruben’s ragged breathing heated the trapped air there. “Nice.”
“Rube, I… God. Ruben, wait. I thought—”
He knew he should slow down, but to stop Andy’s protests he opened his mouth and closed his teeth over the cord of Andy’s throat, tasting the salty muscle. Line crossed.
Andy arched. “Ah! Agh!” His rigid flesh bumped Ruben’s elbow as he ground the bulge behind his balls against Ruben’s knee, and Andy skinned awkwardly out of his shorts, working them down his legs, then dragged off Ruben’s.
Good. Ruben scooted closer still, almost on top now, his cock so hard that the foreskin no longer covered the cap drilling into Andy’s thigh no matter how hard he thrust.
Andy groaned under his weight and rocked their hips together until their erections made clumsy, delicious contact. His powerful arms closed around Ruben’s back and squeezed.
Ruben stayed still as possible. Afraid to go further, but not willing to retreat. He laved Andy’s throat with his broad tongue, dragging his rough stubble across Andy’s.
“Zzh. Plea—” Andy wheezed and jerked under him as if electrocuted.
Ruben turned his head with deliberate languor. “What?” Millimeter by twitching millimeter he learned that this double sandpaper scour turned all Andy’s entreaties into shocked, spitty moans.
Andy twitched and gasped at the air. His downy forearms slipped over Ruben’s waist and ribs, struggling for purchase until they lay on their sides and finally Ruben ended up on his back looking up at Andy with their dorks jammed together at an angle. “Oso.” He stroked Ruben’s chest.
“’Sup.” Ruben wiped his wet mouth. He could feel his precum drizzling and gliding between them.
Andy looked down. The glitter of his eyes went dark. “Uhh.”
“What? No one can see.”
“I know. I want to. God, Ruben. What you feel like.” Using both hands, he encircled their erections, squeezing them together. Ruben’s extra skin slipped easily between them. “I don’t know how.”
“This is okay, huh? Like that. Just to see. We don’t need the light to find out.”
“I know. I just want to look at all of you, man. In my bed and ready. I want to see you.” Andy’s soft voice sounded ragged, but he kept milking their cocks with steady, sleazy pressure.
But before Andy could trigger the lights or hit the lamp, Ruben rolled across him and crushed their mouths together, pushing his tongue into Andy’s wet mouth. Even more light felt like too much, too fast. Baby steps.
Andy sighed under his weight, and his arm wrapped around Ruben’s back. He pressed their cheeks together. Sandpaper. He licked Ruben’s earlobe and chewed lightly at it.
Ruben almost blacked out. His ears had always been his weak spot. Touching, licking, biting… all sent him over the edge. Made him crazy. His breath came fast and frantic. His hands hovered, shaking, over Andy’s back. Where to put them? His eyes widened, and final
ly he pulled Andy’s skull closer. “That. That. Oh my God.”
Totally different being this close to a man. Different everything.
First Ruben had known too little, and now he knew too much.
Andy pulled back slowly. “Good to know.” In the dark his smile was a shifting shadow and his eyes barely a twinkle.
Going slow made it better and worse. He didn’t feel out of control, but he could feel the slow, inevitable ratcheting of tension like a car climbing-climbing to the top of a rollercoaster, flirting with the plunge. Only without seatbelts.
Andy’s body strained against his, short circuiting his brain. His rough fingers pulled Andy closer. Even in the dark, the clean, strong angles of him felt right in Ruben’s arms. His cock was granite. The raw slip of his foreskin drilled his knob into Andy’s abdominal ridges.
“Rube, I can’t. I’m—”
“Unph.” Ruben growled and covered Andy’s lips with his own and made a sound of relief and assent. Give it all up, gimme everything. His heels pushed into the creamy sheets and drove their hips together with urgent finality. Ruben strained and struggled against Andy’s perfect flesh, out of control and under Andy’s power. “I can’t take—” He pushed his hand below Andy’s waist, cupping one round cheek and dragging Andy against his front. With nowhere to go, their hard cocks knocked together with electrifying pressure. They pushed toward each other, trying to eliminate the space that separated them.
Ruben growled and held Andy’s mouth against his, tasting the sweet slide of his tongue. He ran one hand down Andy’s spine until two fingers brushed the top of his crack.
At that, Andy’s mouth closed on his throat and up to his ears again. Sucking and biting at him with slobbery ferocity. For once all of Andy’s polish and reserve had melted away, exposing the male animal underneath.
Andy ran a light hand over his haunch.
Ruben stiffened and rolled away, trying to seem casual about it. What if Andy wanted to fuck him? They were two guys; guys fuck things. He hadn’t considered that wrinkle. He wet his lips and focused on not freaking.
Ruben felt like a jerk for thinking it, but he couldn’t change who he was. He wanted Andy, and maybe one day it wouldn’t seem scary, but he was old enough to know how he was wired.