Dare to Hope

by Caitlin Ricci

  “I don’t want you to go back to Manhattan tomorrow.”

  “I know you don’t. I’ll call you when things get bad.”

  That wasn’t good enough, not by a long shot. But Samuel was starting to realize Chris might not be that easy to convince to stay.

  Chris pulled away from him and bounced a little as he walked to the window. “I’m on edge and worried about tomorrow. Feel like distracting me for a while?”

  “That depends on what you have in mind.”

  Chris was smiling as he turned around and faced him. “Were you serious about spanking me before? I could probably go for something kinky right about now.”

  Samuel stared at him, and as the seconds ticked by, he began to see Chris’s mask crack open. He could be the sexy, sassy man he pretended to be all the time, but he wasn’t that way now. He was angry and hurt, and Samuel went up to him to pull him into his arms again.

  “It’s going to be okay tomorrow,” Samuel promised him.

  Chris laughed humorlessly. “You’ve never seen Bran extremely pissed. I may need body armor and full-on riot gear to get through it.”

  Samuel doubted that very much. “If he’s angry at you, it’s for the same reason I am, because he cares about you and is worried over whether you’ll hurt yourself again or not.”

  “That’s guaranteed, so let’s not focus on that too much, since worrying won’t change anything about it,” Chris said dryly as he pulled away and Samuel looked down at him. “Now, about that spanking…?”

  Samuel had no idea what he was doing as he spun Chris around and had him facing the wall. “Do you really want to be spanked?” he asked as Chris practically vibrated under the hand between his shoulder blades.

  “Yes. Please.”

  Chris’s voice had already gone soft, and Samuel felt his body responding to him instantly.

  Samuel shook his head. “Too bad. You’re not getting that tonight.”

  He let go of Chris, who instantly turned around with a pout marring his perfect full lips.

  “Damn. I was looking forward to having your hand on my ass. So, mister not-so-kinky, what do you want to do instead?”

  “I’m going to give you a massage.” He took Chris’s hand and led him over to the bed, where Chris easily lay down on his stomach without having to be told. “I may not be a master at it like you, but I can give a good rubdown. Do you have some oil or cream around here somewhere?”

  Snorting, Chris looked over his shoulder, and Samuel smiled at him.

  “Baby, you can rub me wherever you want to, whenever the mood strikes you. And there’s tiny bottles of hotel lotion in the bathroom. It seems like lemongrass, which is kind of nice.”

  Samuel left to fetch a couple of them. Once back, he rested a knee on the bed and sat across Chris’s ass, running his hands down Chris’s back. He’d lost a lot of his muscle, but Chris wasn’t skin and bones either, simply under what Samuel would have considered healthy.

  “How long until you can come back here?”

  “Assuming Bran doesn’t try to kill me tomorrow? A couple of weeks. Maybe a month. I might not make it back until Christmas, assuming I still have a best friend after tomorrow. I haven’t decided yet. Have you given up trying to keep me here past tomorrow night, then?”

  “I know when to admit defeat. You’re more stubborn than Bran.” Samuel opened one bottle and squeezed the contents onto his palm, then rubbed his hands together to warm it up before applying it to Chris’s skin.

  “Yes, I am. And more patient too. Were you really waiting for me to come here to see if we could have something, like Bran said?” Chris quietly asked him as Samuel watched him close his eyes.

  “I was hopeful you would so we could explore the possibility, yes,” Samuel admitted softly as he concentrated on spreading the lotion all over. He started doing full-palmed strokes up and down Chris’s warm back.

  Chris sighed. “That feels really good. I should have come here four months ago, when Misha first left. Back when I was better and not nearly as stressed. Maybe then we could have had something. Have you dated anyone since I last saw you? And I’ll use that term loosely to include random hookups and glory holes.”

  “No, I haven’t. We went out to the club a few times, all of us together, but just for some drinks and dancing. We sorta share Bran a bit on the dance floor.” Samuel found a tight spot by Chris’s shoulder blade and worked it a bit harder with his fingertips, making Chris groan.

  “Now, when you say that you share my best friend, if you mean that you dance with him the way I danced with you at Renegade, I will kick you in your dick.”

  Samuel chuckled. “Do you honestly think Kaden would allow that? So, no. Just dancing, in a purely fun and innocent way. I think Bran keeps those special moves for behind closed doors, you know? Or should I say when they’re alone, but knowing about Kaden’s kink, I’m not sure that’s the truth.”

  Laughing, Chris reached back to touch Samuel on his thigh, momentarily distracting him. “Yeah, I remember that kink. Not the most fun thing in the world to see my best friend having sex in the kitchen we were eating in only an hour or so later.”

  He shivered, and Samuel smiled down at him.

  “Now a question for you. Why did you get the tattoo?” Samuel asked.

  Chris took a long time answering him, as Samuel continued to work away the tension in his back. “The short answer? Because of you.”

  Samuel knew it had something to do with him or his heritage, but a tattoo was something permanent and lasting. Chris hardly knew him, and they hadn’t even determined whether things would work between them, and if they didn’t, the tattoo might become an unpleasant reminder of things Chris might rather forget a few years down the line.

  “I’m going to need more than that.”

  “You were the first person to really tell me that I was worth more than what I’d let myself become. At first I started reading about Maori tattoos to find out what the hell yours might mean. I never did figure that out, by the way. But a few weeks into reading about the tattoos, I decided I wanted one, to remind me of what you said. I see it every morning, and it tells me that I’m supposed to be better. No random sex, no getting so drunk that I pass out with some guy’s number written in marker across my hip. Just me, trying to be normal. We aren’t even really friends, and so it’s not like I got it because I’m in love with you. I got it because it’s a reminder of how I can be. And it looks damn pretty on me.”

  Samuel nodded as he listened to Chris explain it to him. “We are friends, in my eyes anyway. You know much more about me than most people around me. And you’re right. The tattoo suits you very well. It tells your story.”

  “Friends might be impossible,” Chris quietly said.

  “Why is that?” Samuel had a good idea, but he wanted Chris to speak his heart.

  “Because friends don’t get jealous when their friend shakes the hand of another guy. I wanted to smack Jeff’s hand off yours when you two touched. If anyone had actually rubbed up against you at the club, I’m pretty sure I would have clawed their faces off. I want you, but we aren’t like that, and I can’t imagine seeing you with someone else. So friends is a complicated, likely impossible kind of idea. Maybe someday when we’ve both moved on, but right now I can’t picture it.”

  Samuel leaned back a bit and reached below Chris, encouraging him to lift his body away from the bed so he could unfasten his shorts. He wiggled the fabric down some until the top of Chris’s crack showed and took a seat across his upper thighs.

  “I understand better than you think. Remember in one of our many games of crazy truth or dare, I told you I don’t share very well, but a handshake? That’s pretty harmless.”

  “Did you see what you were wearing? I thought I’d come just looking at you,” Chris said with a snicker. “And why are my shorts down? Not that I’m complaining. I’ve got condoms in my bag if you want them.”

  Samuel gave his ass a light smack. “Get your head out of
the gutter. I’m just moving my massage farther down. Your ass consists of muscles, did you know? And they’re tight too.”

  “I’m very tight, if you want to check,” Chris teased him.

  “I have no doubt of that, believe me.” Samuel’s cock felt uncomfortably confined in his own shorts after seeing Chris’s suntanned butt. Who tanned their buttcheeks? Obviously Chris Romanoff, and it was damn sexy. “Please tell me you don’t sunbathe in public, because remember how I said a handshake was harmless? Well, baring your ass in public is not.”

  “You’re not going to like that answer, actually. I belong to a private nudist beach. All naked, all the time.”

  “Let’s just say if you end up here, there’ll be no more of that shit. If you’re mine, you’re mine alone, and no one sees your ass but me.”

  Chris chuckled and squeezed Samuel’s thigh. “Sure thing. Of course, if you were mine, then I’d get to have you naked all day sometimes. A complete no-clothing day, and if you get dressed at all, you have to do the laundry or some other horrible chore I can’t stand doing.”

  Samuel laughed. “And if I’m yours, you can slap anyone’s hands off me.” He wiggled Chris’s pants down some more until they rested under his cheeks and applied more lotion, starting to rub it in and massaging the tight glutes.

  “I wish. I’d have to read up on the laws here to see what constitutes assault, because I don’t think I’d be good at stopping with just a slap. I can be a violent little thing when I want to be, as Kaden heard earlier. I really shouldn’t have been so mean to him. He was just yelling at you, and I couldn’t stand that. Question, though, what do you think of my ass?”

  Samuel grinned. “I’m speechless. And if we’re strictly friends, then don’t ask such questions.”

  Chris propped himself up on his elbows and looked back at Samuel. “I’m not the one that said we had to be just friends. You set that boundary, not me, so I’ll ask you about my ass all day long. And I’ll show it off and parade around in front of you all I like. In fact, get off and I’ll do a little of that for you right now.”

  Samuel planted both palms on a buttcheek and pushed down. “Stay right where you are, because if you turn over, we won’t stay just friends. I’m not made of stone.”

  Chris just grinned at him. “That was kind of my point. A bit of fun before I go, something to remember me by. It sucks that I’m leaving tomorrow. New Zealand isn’t my home, and I really do have stuff to do back in Manhattan. But I’m going to miss you. And I wish I had been what you wanted. Maybe I was before I started cutting again. But it’s crap that you waited for me and I waited for you, and I’m not good enough to deserve you. Kind of a waste of time. It was good to see you, though.”

  Samuel reached down and pulled Chris’s pants up halfway. “Turn over.” When Chris complied, Samuel zoned in on the fabric where it got caught on Chris’s very erect cock. He made eye contact with Chris. “Before I deal with that problem, you need to stop saying you’re not good enough for me. That’s a lie. I want you healthy for you first and foremost, and I come in after that. And you didn’t waste your time coming here and neither have I, or will I if you go back to Manhattan.”

  Chris rested his hands behind his head. “How’s that just-friends thing working out for you now? Also, do you like shaved guys or a bit of fluff? I feel cleaner without the hair. And fine, I get what you’re saying about me being healthy. But my problem with that is: this is my healthy. So to me it is like I’m not good enough. And there’s no if I go back. I’m going to be on a flight to New York tomorrow at ten. That’s just how it’s going to be. And in a few days, I’ll call you, and if you pick up, you’ll get to talk to me while I cut. That’s my reality. I’m sorry it’s not better, but this is me being healthy.”

  “This healthy can still hurt you badly or even get you killed, so I beg to differ. But I’m not arguing with you right now. I have better things to do.” Samuel once again pushed the annoying fabric out of his way to expose Chris’s cock. He had spent hours and probably days wondering what Chris would taste like. It was time to find out.

  “Yeah, you do. Rules about holding your head?” Chris asked him. “And when are you going to let me help you out? I can see how hard you are from here, and you weren’t that discreet when you were rubbing against my ass with your cock a few seconds ago.”

  Samuel licked his lips, moved back, and lowered himself onto one elbow while wrapping the fingers of his other hand around Chris’s girth to lift him toward his mouth. “You can touch my head. Just don’t force me.”

  “As if I could make you do anything you didn’t want to do.”

  Chris choked on his last word as Samuel slid him into his mouth, taking him down halfway before withdrawing to the tip and going back down all the way. He felt Chris lay his hand over the top of his head and rest his other on his left shoulder, lightly squeezing him.

  “I’ve wanted in your mouth for so long or you in mine, this is like the best feeling ever,” Chris moaned as Samuel flicked his tongue over the tip, enjoying the moisture Chris’s body gave him.

  Looking at Chris’s groin area, Samuel felt his own body heat up even more. The whole area was clean of hair and tanned to perfection.

  Chris pushed him down a little, then quickly removed his hand. “Sorry. Don’t stop. Fuck, don’t ever stop this. Sure you don’t want to move to Manhattan and live in my bedroom? It’s got a decent view.”

  Samuel reached down, took Chris’s waxed balls into his palm, and rolled them gently while loving on him. His saliva wet the area, and it was all Samuel could do not to reach down and touch Chris where he longed to most, to use the lubrication to ready him for Samuel’s possession, but he held back, barely.

  “I’m close,” Chris gasped, sounding miserable about it. “Not yet. Shit.”

  Samuel pulled off and released him. Turning his head, he kissed the smooth skin around his cock, licked his tongue over the softness. Pushing up, he lavished the same attention on the gorgeous ink staining Chris’s torso. He’d craved to do so since the first moment he laid eyes on it.

  “Where do you want me to come?” Chris asked, his voice coming out like a hiss as he dug his fingers into Samuel’s shoulder.

  “In my mouth,” Samuel murmured against his nipple as he kissed it.

  Chris reached down, and while Samuel thought he was going to stroke himself, he ended up grabbing Samuel instead, startling him. “You can’t tell me you don’t want to fuck me when you’re that hard,” Chris said huskily as he gave him a squeeze through his shorts.

  Samuel hissed at the rough pleasure, so tempted to say to hell with his reservations and go for it. “Oh, I want to all right. But it’s not time yet.” He returned to his original spot, dragging his lips down over Chris’s sweaty stomach before taking him into his mouth again.

  “You let me know when it is,” Chris ordered.

  “You’ll know,” Samuel managed to mumble before getting serious about blowing Chris’s mind. Sliding down the length of Chris’s dick, Samuel applied gentle pressure with his teeth on the upstroke, and as he suspected, Chris went wild at the rougher touch. It wasn’t long before anything Chris was trying to say became little more than mumbled, unintelligible cries peppered with the sounds of Chris begging Samuel for more.

  Samuel welcomed the dribbles of precome into his mouth, and he used the tip of his tongue to tickle the hole where he loved to be touched too.

  Chris gasped, and his back lifted off the bed as he scratched over Samuel’s shoulder. “Fuck,” he hissed, his hips jerking and his cock bobbing wildly in Samuel’s mouth.

  Samuel covered Chris’s hips with his hands, steadying him as he took him deeply, his lips pressing against Chris’s base. Hot come sprayed against his tongue and the back of his throat seconds later as Chris shook beneath his hands.

  Samuel took his time cleaning him up, running his tongue gently over him as Chris’s body slowly stopped trembling. He was still breathing heavily, though, and barely had h
is eyes open when Samuel did release him. He didn’t get far before Chris sat up too and grabbed him by the front of his shirt to surprise him with a rough kiss.

  Many men didn’t like the taste of their own come after getting head, but personally, Samuel thought it was very intimate sharing it. Obviously Chris liked it too, as he devoured Samuel’s mouth as if trying to get it all back.

  He flipped Samuel onto his back and separated long enough to position himself over Samuel’s hips and grind into him. “Is it time yet?” Chris asked him, leaning back as he rubbed himself over Samuel’s aching cock.

  Samuel lifted up at the wicked pressure on his erection. It would be so easy just to let it all go and have Chris, but his conscience screamed at him to be fair. Chris didn’t need him to complicate things in his life any further and make his decisions harder. Samuel knew what he wanted, and he needed to let Chris have the same freedom to decide without any strings.

  “Sadly, no. And if you rub against me much longer, I will walk out the hotel lobby with a big wet spot on my shorts.” He tried to laugh, but it was hard when his balls were turning blue right there.

  “I have extra shorts you could borrow,” Chris offered, but he stopped anyway and moved off to the side.

  Samuel snorted. “As if they would fit me. They would hardly wrap around one of my thighs.”

  “I’m going to go shower and get the sweat off me. Want to come? Silly me, of course you do. But if you want to shower with me, conserve water and all that, I promise not to jump on you and screw you into the wall.” Chris blew him a kiss as he got off the bed and went to his bag to pull out what looked like a fresh pair of shorts. “Be here when I get out. That’s not a suggestion.”

  “Yeah, your invitation is purely innocent.” Samuel closed his eyes and groaned in agony when Chris shut the bathroom door, muffling his laughter. He felt like rutting against the duvet just to relieve the pressure in his dick but reminded himself he was forty, not fourteen.

  When Chris came back out of the bathroom, he’d changed but hadn’t put a shirt back on. And Samuel had only partially been able to get himself under control. “Are you staying here for a while?” Chris asked him as he came to kneel next to him on the bed.