Rory got on his hands and knees and crawled over, sitting cross-legged in front of him. Yamane’s eyes were open and on him. Some horrible, angry thing welled up inside of him, and blood rushed to his head. Rory reached out and delivered a vicious slap to Yamane’s cheek.
“How could you not call me, you bastard? Why didn’t you take the car and go? Are you stupid? I could take anything in this world, live with anything, as long as you’re safe.” Rory felt close to tearing at his hair.
Yamane made a strangled noise and launched himself at Rory, throwing his arms around him and kissing every inch of skin he could reach, finally finding his lips. Rory responded, at first more out of desperation and a need to feel that Yamane was with him and all right than any kind of sensual urgency. He dug his hands into Yamane’s hair and murmured inane endearments into his lips. He broke the kiss and placed several more on Yamane’s closed eyelids. Yamane straddled Rory’s crossed legs, pressing himself against the younger man’s body, and clung there.
The blood rushed to Rory’s head, singing through his veins, roaring in his ears. And oh shit, he had three cracked ribs, healing bruises, and some pain, but mostly pleasure and inexplicably, desire consumed him. Now, now at the most inopportune time, in the least attractive damn place, he felt like he could swallow Yamane whole and spit out the jewelry afterward.
“Oh, damn, you pick the worst possible --” Rory pulled Yamane out from under the table and rolled him onto the floor beneath him. Yamane’s eyes widened as Rory ground into him, his hard cock finding an answering bulge in Yamane’s jeans.
Yamane’s head fell back and he breathed Rory’s name as he pushed back to get more friction.
“Oh, jeez. Yamane.” Rory took the smaller man’s hips in his hands and humped him into the hard floor. “This is --”
“No!” Yamane pushed him off and grabbed for Rory’s belt. “If this is all I get, then I get to taste you, damn it.”
“Shit.” Rory was shocked by the speed at which the smaller man unearthed his dick. It dropped out into Yamane’s good hand, and he no sooner had hold of it than he was tasting it, giving it experimental licks along the planes and ridges, teasing the tip, which was leaking precum in slippery strings into his mouth. Rory watched the process with a kind of horrified fascination, harder than he’d ever been in his life.
“Oh, baby,” Yamane said, twisting his hand around Rory’s cock, slicking it with saliva as he gave one last look up into Rory’s eyes. “Swear to me you want this.”
“Are you kidding me?” Rory clenched his teeth.
“Swear it. Out loud. Say it,” Yamane ordered.
“I want this. I want you. Only you, Yamane, please --”
Yamane lowered his mouth onto Rory’s cock and swallowed around the tip, deep in the back of his throat. Rory’s head hit the floor hard. He didn’t think he’d ever felt anything quite so exquisite in his life. He watched as Yamane’s head bobbed up and down, his cheeks hollowed and his eyes closed. He looked…worshipful. And, oh hell, there wasn’t a thing about Yamane Rory didn’t like, didn’t want, didn’t love.
“Hey.” He tried to move Yamane away when he felt the first sparking electric sensations frost his balls that signaled he was going to come. “Hey, I’m --”
Yamane slapped his hands away and then rubbed a slick finger around his asshole, and Rory spun into a whole new world. He jerked and shuddered, shooting into Yamane’s hot mouth. Between swallows, Yamane growled a little, deep in his throat, and Rory felt it all the way to his ancestors’ graves.
“Yamane.” He stared at the ceiling when those lips pulled off him with a pop. Yamane crawled up his body and shared a kiss that tasted like sex and man and his own cum, and he loved it. Wanted more of it. He pulled Yamane to him, digging his fingers through that silky hair and kissing him as deeply as he’d ever kissed anyone.
He worked on the button and zipper of Yamane’s jeans, wondering how to reciprocate, when Yamane took his hand and showed him what he liked. Stroking hard and fast, Rory skimmed a thumb across the slit of Yamane’s uncut cock and Yamane’s cum splashed into his hand. He couldn’t help himself; he lifted his hand to his lips and lapped at it, tasting Yamane,
the bitter and briny flavor of man, licking it off until he realized Yamane was watching him with shocked eyes, probably waiting for him to get grossed out, or…
“You’re not the only man I’ve ever thought about this way, you know,” Rory said quietly. He kissed Yamane, sharing his taste and his scent. “You’re just the only one I wanted badly enough to complicate my life this much for.”
“What does that mean?” Yamane asked.
“That means you can stop looking at me as if you’re afraid I’ll change my mind,” Rory told him, placing another searing kiss on his lips to seal the deal. “We need to move.”
Wordlessly, Yamane stood and went to the closet to pull out his bags, which he had already packed. Rory got his own things and followed him to the car. Together they placed their bags in the trunk. Rory got in on the driver’s side. When he put his hand on the stick shift, Yamane took it into his own, placing something in his palm. Rory saw it was the tiny white gold key to the padlock on Yamane’s chain. He pulled the slim gold chain holding the crucifix he was wearing off over his head and gave it to Yamane to add the key.
Yamane didn’t speak. Instead, he worked the key onto Rory’s chain and handed it back. Rory replaced the chain around his neck. Yamane stared straight ahead as the car left the motel and flowed into the midday Las Vegas traffic.
14
“You can breathe now, Yamane,” Rory said an hour and a half north of Las Vegas. “I think it’s okay.”
Yamane said nothing. Out of the corner of his eye, Rory could detect Yamane nodding his head.
“Really,” Rory tried again. “We made it, we’re okay.”
“Stop the car,” Yamane said suddenly.
“Why? There’s nothing for miles.”
“Stop the car!” shouted Yamane. He was opening the door before Rory even had time to respond. Rory came to a crawl on the gravel shoulder, and Yamane jumped out of the car, screaming, roaring, smashing his good hand on the hood until Rory, fearing he’d do something really stupid, effectively blocked him.
Rory stayed by his side as if Yamane were having a seizure, and made sure no harm came to him. Years of frustration poured out of Yamane like pyroclastic debris, scorching and obliterating everything in its path. Finally, sobbing but spent, unable even to pick himself up off the ground, Rory picked Yamane up and sat with him, holding him like a baby until he fell into a deep sleep.
Rory placed Yamane, now sleeping like the dead, into the passenger seat and buckled him in. He stretched his arm, massaging his shoulder. “You’re not as light as you look,” he murmured as he returned to the driver’s side.
After driving for an hour, Rory heard Yamane stir. “You are a handful, Yamane.” He sighed.
“You saved me again.”
“I did nothing of the sort. You would have run if I hadn’t come. Your instinct for self- preservation must be pretty strong, I think.”
“No,” Yamane said. “I’d made up my mind I wasn’t going without you. I could have let her kill me. I just didn’t give a damn.”
“I’m glad we didn’t have to find out.” Rory read the many signs they passed on the highway. “We’d better find a place along here to eat and sleep. I didn’t plan to drive north. I just went that way out of instinct, but I know some people in Salt Lake City, and then we can cross the country on the eighty.”
“I don’t care where we go. Just let me know when you need me to drive.” “Is this a bad time to ask if you brought the cash I left you?”
“I brought it,” said Yamane sourly. “Your note made me feel like a whore.”
“But a very, very good whore. By my count, there was about twelve thousand there.”
“Yeah, I’ve still got it all.” Yamane looked out the window.
“On a lighter note,
we’ve now got about forty-three thousand total. I won more than I ever have.”
“You’re like a freak of nature. You’re supposed to lose in Vegas, didn’t you get the memo?”
“What happened to the girlishly delighted Yamane who liked money?”
“You didn’t hear? He got someone else killed,” said Yamane, overflowing with self- loathing. “That kind of thing makes a guy feel shitty.”
“No, Yamane.” Rory slowed the car. “He didn’t die. The man Amelia stabbed was going to be okay. Alexander said he got stabbed in a crowd of doctors or something. He’s going to make it. Was he--”
“I can’t talk about that right now.” Yamane closed his eyes. “Who’s Alexander?”
“Concierge. I gave him money to keep an eye on you.”
“You did?”
“I told you I’d be there for you, didn’t I?” Rory stared straight ahead. “I told you; you’re precious to me.”
“Thank you.” Yamane looked like he was going to cry again.
“Don’t start up again, Yamane, or I swear I’m going to give you children’s allergy medicine and buckle you into the back seat when you pass out. Speaking of which, we’d better stop while we’re still in Nevada or Arizona if you plan on drinking on a Sunday, because once were in Utah, we’re in God’s country.”
“Really?” asked Yamane. “I could use a drink and a smoke.”
“How foul,” said Rory. “I could go for a beer about now, though…”
Rory pulled off the highway after they hit the Arizona border at a small town with a GAS/FOOD/LODGING sign and found a serviceable chain motel next to a mom-and-pop Mexican restaurant called El Diablo Azul. Rory and Yamane checked in, and as soon as the door closed behind them, Rory froze. He had no idea what to do with his hands.
Yamane looked up at him with an enigmatic smile on his face. “Everything changed today.”
“Yeah.” Rory watched him. “No regrets, though, right?”
“No!” Yamane was quick to reply. “Well. Does that include this motel?”
“It’s not quite the Venetian.” Rory locked the door. “Sorry.”
“No problem. So far no one’s tried to kill me here.”
Rory kissed him on the cheek, feeling shy. “That’s the spirit, princess.” He went in for a deeper kiss, and his stomach made a sound like an angry mountain lion.
Yamane looked down. “When was the last time you ate?”
“I --” Rory thought back. “I don’t think I’ve eaten in about twenty-six hours. That’s probably a record for me.”
“I haven’t eaten anything either. Let’s go get something.” Yamane took Rory’s hand and started back toward the door. “When Amelia kidnapped me, she withheld food to see if I’d beg. I went about forty-eight hours one time. I think with water I could go seventy-two.”
Rory’s blood froze. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No.” Yamane kept walking. “You can go longer if you drink water.”
“How sick is it that you know that from experience?” asked Rory quietly, squeezing his
hand.
Together they headed through the afternoon heat into the little restaurant next door to their motel. It was all but deserted. They noticed one motorcycle in the parking lot.
The restaurant looked like a million other small cantinas with a long, deep, rectangle- shaped space with a cashier’s desk in front, a built-up wooden bar in the back, and scattered Formica tables in the center area. Yamane and Rory headed for the bar first, which was deserted until a man with a smile on his face came out of the back to stand behind it.
Rory ordered beer for himself and bourbon on ice for Yamane, and asked if food was being served at that hour. The bartender told them to seat themselves anywhere. They took a table in the middle of the room and sat down right under the cool air vent.
“Heaven,” said Yamane. “This is heaven. Your car’s air-conditioning doesn’t work, Rory.”
“The air works -- it just works poorly. If I didn’t have to do all the registration paperwork, I’d just buy another car,” said Rory, fanning himself with a napkin. “That’ll teach me. I never use the car on campus so I didn’t bother, and now look.”
A waiter came with cold water, menus, and a big basket of homemade tortilla chips with salsa. “You like it spicy?” he asked.
“I do,” said Rory. “Yamane?”
“I guess. I eat spicy Asian food all the time.”
“I bring the spicy salsa,” said the waiter. “Muy picante.” He smiled and left them to their chips. He came back with bowls of salsa and marinated vegetables.
Rory could hardly believe just a few hours ago he’d been jacking Yamane’s beautiful cock. He blushed. Yamane was fanning his mouth around a jalapeño wedge.
“I have a feeling I’m going to want to drink a lot.” Yamane cooled off his tongue. “I’d better switch to beer.”
Rory ate chips as he watched Yamane cross the room. The only other customer made his way to the bar at the same time. The man was tall and beefy-looking, but soft around the center and past his prime. He had a head full of graying hair and an amused, if florid face.
Rory was used to Yamane’s good looks and unusual fashion sense. He was trying to imagine a small-town stranger’s reaction when he distinctly heard Yamane say, “What the hell did you just say?”
“Oh, here it comes,” Rory muttered under his breath as he got up and walked to the
bar.
“I said, why don’t you cut your hair? You look like a woman. Are you one of those trannies? Do you even still have your dick?”
Yamane sputtered with outrage. “Of course I have a dick or I couldn’t tell you to suck it, could I?”
The man started to come after Yamane, but before things could get out of hand, Rory stepped between them.
“Yamane,” he barked. “Did I fail to inform you how painful it is to have the shit beaten out of you?”
“Did you hear?”
“Of course I heard,” said Rory. “Why is it you’re only brave when someone’s about to kill you?”
“Freaking homo,” muttered the man. He had a look in his eye that told Rory he was trying to get Yamane’s goat because he knew he could.
“Look, you.” Rory was losing patience with the both of them. “He may be a freaking homo, but he’s my freaking homo, and if you don’t mind your manners you’ll be enjoying that beverage you’re drinking glass and all, do I make myself clear?”
“You’ve got some nerve, kid.”
“I do,” said Rory. “What’s it going to be -- do you act like the man your mama hoped you’d be and let me buy you a drink, or do you go home in a paper sack?”
The man tilted his head and considered Rory carefully. “I like you, red.”
He laughed.
“Now who’s the freaking homo?” hissed Yamane from behind him.
“You?” He pointed at Yamane. “Not so much. My name’s Frank; pleased to meet you.” He held his hand out to Rory, who shook it.
“Mine’s Rory, and this is Yamane.”
“Okay, I’m drinking single malt whiskey, if you’re buying,” said Frank.
“The hell you say.” Yamane glared. “That swill you were drinking before was made for lighting barbecues.”
“Well, I’m drinking single malt whiskey now that he’s buying,” said Frank, jerking his thumb toward Rory. Then he burst out laughing. “Yammy, I think I’m really getting to like you too; the world must be coming to an end.”
“Color me thrilled,” sneered Yamane.
“Who the hell are you?” Rory asked Yamane incredulously. “Jeez, you’re like this bipolar multiple personality, Ran Yamane action figure.”
“I’m hungry, damn it!” Yamane pounded his good hand on the bar. “I’m so hungry I could kill something and eat it right now. And I need nicotine, you sadistic, health-loving prick. I’m going back to the table and eat those chips. Get me a couple of beers.”
Rory and Frank
watched him go. “Newlyweds?” Frank asked.
“You’ve got no idea,” said Rory. “Is that your bike out there?”
“Yep, isn’t she a beauty? Much better than women or testy little men, I’d guess.”
“I think you might be in a position to help me out.”
“Burying the body will cost you extra.”
Rory laughed. “You two are a lot alike. Actually, I wanted to know where you’re headed.”
“San Diego,” said Frank. “How’d you know I don’t live right here?”
“I can’t believe anyone who lives here would come out at this time of day.” Rory took a deep breath. “I’ll tell you about it over dinner, if you’ll join us.”
“Okay,” Frank said. “If you’re buying.”
“Sure.” The bartender finally returned, and Rory put in his drink order.
On the way back to where Yamane was sitting, Frank said, “What the hell are you doing? You don’t look like the type to get mixed up with a guy like him.”
“What can I say? Love is blind,” said Rory, sitting down next to Yamane. “Yamane here is the acknowledged world master of queer fu.”
“Oh, no, you did not just say that.” Yamane shot him a sour look and drank the last of Rory’s beer.
“You’ll have to excuse him; he’s had a bad day,” said Rory. “People are trying to kill him.”
“Jeez,” Yamane said. “What a buzzkill.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s okay; we’re not going to let them.”
Turning back to Frank, Rory said, “We’re headed southeast, and since you’re headed southwest, I thought you might enjoy using my gas card, to confound the enemy, if you know what I mean?”
“Somebody tracking you?” asked Frank.
Rory nodded.
“Is it legal to use your card? Not that I care much.”
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