The Virgin Manny

by Amy Lane

  Channing rolled his eyes, but Tino thought about how true it probably all was. “Don’t hurry for us,” he said, making his voice sincere. “We’ll have more of you this week, okay?”

  Channing shrugged. “We’ll see,” he said, and they were gone.

  Sammy fell asleep after cookies and before the end of the next movie, and for a half an hour, Tino and Jacob sat in enthralled silence and let the end of Revenge of the Sith play out.

  The credits started to roll, and Jacob spoke into the silence.

  “You know, I want kids.”

  Tino grinned at his playful friend. “Good, because you are one!”

  Jacob laughed. “Seriously. I mean, I want to earn a good living so I can support them, but….” He sobered. “Tino, do you want kids?”

  Tino had never really thought about it. “You know, it’s weird. I guess… you know. We always assume we want a family, but… that always starts with one person, right?”

  Jacob just looked at him, waiting for him to catch up.

  Tino looked at Sammy, who had fallen asleep on his back with his arms splayed wide and his mouth agape.

  “Yeah,” Tino said, remembering Channing’s views on the subject. “I want kids. I want more than one. I want to adopt or surrogate or… I don’t know, grow them in our own bottle or whatever. I like families.” He grinned at Jacob. “I grew up with one.”

  “So,” Jacob intoned. “You both want jobs, kids, families, and hot panting screaming naked time.”

  Tino blushed. “That’s inappropriate speculation.”

  Jacob’s chortle made Sammy choke on a snore. “That’s beard burn on your neck, man!”

  Tino covered his neck with a hand. “You suck,” he muttered.

  “No, dude,” Jacob said seriously. “That’s a skill you need to acquire!”

  Tino couldn’t help it—he laughed, and they talked.

  For hours.

  At ten o’clock Tino put Sammy down while Jacob went to the bathroom. He checked out Sammy’s room carefully, making sure nothing was out of the ordinary, before he left Sammy sleeping in his T-shirt and shorts.

  Then he checked his room. And stopped, the hair on the back of his neck rising. He organized his Star Wars tchotchkes by movie—and the Phantom Menace Yoda was next to the New Hope Luke Skywalker, and Qui-Gon Jinn was in Return of the Jedi.

  And his collection of Lee Childs and Kathy Reichs books was completely out of order.

  And his laptop was open when he hadn’t used it that day.

  Fuck.

  He hadn’t needed his room keys all day—Sammy had been much easier to handle—and he kept them on a separate ring than the car keys. With a tremble in his hands, he rummaged in his desk drawer and pulled out his keys, then locked his door as he left.

  It wasn’t until he got downstairs that he remembered he’d forgotten to lock the window.

  Crap.

  “Jacob?” he asked as he got down to the sitting room.

  “Bro?” Jacob had fetched some more cookies and milk while Tino had been putting Sammy down, and Tino flopped on the couch next to him. Hell, they were both up; what was going to happen?

  “Could you remind me to grab the screens that fell down into the yard when you leave? I’ll put them in the windows when I go back up.”

  Jacob wrinkled his nose. “That’s a little low-class for a place as swank as this, you think?”

  Looking around like a cartoon character, Tino proceeded to tell Jacob the true story about Mirella the malicious maid.

  Of Warriors and Wives

  JACOB stayed with him until after midnight, when they heard the roar of Channing’s car in the driveway. Tino and Jacob pulled themselves out of their movie-coma slouches on the couch, and Tino walked Jacob outside in time to see Jen get out of the driver’s side and walk around to help Channing out of the passenger’s.

  He was obviously inebriated.

  “Oh my God,” Jen said, teetering on her heels under Channing’s tipsy weight. “I haven’t seen you this drunk since college!”

  “I never got drunk in college!” Channing proclaimed, and Jacob and Tino met eyes and smirked.

  “That is a huge-assed lie,” Jen laughed, “and you know it! Tino, a little help here?”

  “Yeah, sure—”

  “I’ll get his other side, dude,” Jacob offered.

  “You’re Tino’s friend,” Channing said, draping his tuxedo-clad arm over Jacob’s shoulders too. “I like you, but not as much as I like Tino.”

  “Ditto,” Jacob said, completely sober. Jacob was the best friend to have when you were drunk—Tino remembered well. He didn’t get mad, he took everything you said at face value, and he was gentle to you the next morning. “I like you, but not nearly as much as you like Tino too.”

  Channing smiled loopily at Jacob and then turned to Tino. “He can bring pizza over any time,” he said.

  “I’m glad to hear that, my man,” Tino muttered. “Channing, do you think you could, I don’t know, remember how to use your feet or something?”

  “Sure,” Channing said, and then belched.

  “Holy mother of God,” Tino gasped, eyes watering. He looked up at Jen accusingly. “How much did he drink?”

  “Way too much,” Jen said, nodding. “It wasn’t his fault, though. I got him to knock back a Kamikaze, and that should have been fine, but his coworkers just kept coming up to him with full doubles and toasting him. He tried to go slow at first, but you know….”

  Tino knew. After the first couple, you forgot how much you’d had. It’s why overpouring laws had been put in place—once a body got inebriated, sometimes it forgot how to stop. The things you learn in college when you’re puking up shit you haven’t eaten yet.

  “It’s been a while,” Channing confessed to Tino. “I… I don’t usually get drunk.”

  “This is true,” Jen said, as though she’d been asked to verify.

  “I like to be in control,” he sloshed.

  “This is also true.” She nodded with limpid eyes.

  “I’ll be embarrassed in the morning.” He looked at his shoes mournfully, and Tino had to laugh.

  “I have no doubt,” he said, kissing Channing’s forehead with gentleness. “Here, we’ll get him upstairs, and—”

  “I’ll stow the car and take off,” Jen said.

  Tino grimaced. “Jacob, see her off, okay? I’ve got to get him in bed before he passes out, and I don’t want—”

  After the mess with Mirella, Tino didn’t want anybody alone.

  “Yeah, bro.” Jacob helped Channing clear the threshold, and then Jen stood at the doorway while they maneuvered him up the stairs. Tino took it from there, and Jacob trotted away saying, “Dude, call me if shit gets real, ’kay? Enquiring minds want to know.”

  “You know it, brother,” Tino said, meaning it, and Jacob’s quick grin let him know that they were solid. Tino knew Jacob took his little sister seriously, Jacob knew that Tino was good—and that he was thinking hard about what he was going to do after his time as Channing Lowell’s manny was up.

  And that they would probably be friends and family members until they died, which was great for both of them—they wouldn’t have it any other way.

  So Jacob went down to watch out for Jen, leaving Tino with a very drunk Channing and the door to an empty bedroom.

  Tino had to pull Channing’s keys from Channing’s pocket, and by the time they stumbled into the room, Tino was breathless and sweaty—and amused.

  Channing was a pretty decent drunk, which relieved Tino. He’d held enough pugnacious college students while they’d threatened to beat the crap out of him to know that being a nice drunk was sort of an underlying indicator of being a really sweet guy. Channing was sincere and kind and extremely concerned that Tino not think any the worse of him for wobbling on his feet and saying, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I had too much to drink. Just… so tired. So tired” the whole time they were getting into the room.

  Once they go
t there, Tino had just enough time to slip Channing’s suit jacket from his shoulders—because it was a really nice suit—before Channing sort of pitched forward diagonally on the king-size bed.

  “I like this bed,” he purred into the comforter, and Tino had to agree. The wooden bed frame and brown-and-purple comforter were both masculine and whimsical—sort of like Channing himself.

  “It’s a very nice bed,” he reassured. “But how about you roll over and I can get your pants, okay, my brother?”

  “I don’t want to be your brother,” Channing muttered, doing what Tino asked. “I don’t want to be your brother or your daddy. I don’t even want to be your boss. I just want to be….”

  Tino had started to unbuckle his belt, telling himself that it was fine, he was just helping the guy out of his suit so he’d be able to sleep and he did not feel like a perv for seeing his boss in his T-shirt and boxers when the guy couldn’t guard himself from Tino’s prying eyes.

  “Yeah,” Channing said, propping up on his elbows and looking Tino earnestly in the eye. “I want to be that guy. The guy you undress. You gonna undress me tonight, Tino?”

  Tino went from his belt to his shoes, setting the wingtips down by the bed. Then he stood up and reached for the waist of Channing’s pants, grabbing by the belt and very carefully not catching the boxers.

  “Sure, Channing,” he said. “I’ll undress you tonight so you can get some sleep.”

  Channing caught his hands as Tino began to tug. “What about tomorrow,” he asked, his alcohol-reddened eyes wide and trusting. “I want you to undress me all the nights.”

  “We gotta talk about that,” Tino said, the room suddenly too small, Channing’s hands on his too hot and Channing’s state of undress too damned intimate.

  “Yeah, sure,” Channing whispered. “You always want to talk about things. And then you kiss me and all I can think is, I want him so bad. Why doesn’t he want me back?”

  “Ah, Channing,” Tino whispered, tugging at his hands and the belt until Channing set them both free. “I want you so bad too.” He slid the pants off and stood up, draping the pants over the back of the desk chair where he’d draped the jacket.

  Channing fell back against the covers, his muscular, hairy legs looking both masculine and vulnerable extending from under the white dress shirt.

  “Then why aren’t you in bed?” he asked plaintively. “I’m a good lover, I swear. I’m worth it, to be that guy. To be your first.”

  Oh hell, the drunk guy was making the sober guy get all teary.

  “I know,” Tino whispered. A month—he’d had his degree a month. He was going to commit himself to a family and a household after a month of freedom? “I want you to be,” he said in a moment of recklessness, flopping onto his stomach so he was even with Channing’s bemused gray eyes. “But I don’t want to hurt you—”

  Channing reached out and rubbed his jaw with a thumb. “You’re not gonna have any faith?” he begged.

  Tino closed his eyes. “I have so much faith in you,” he admitted, leaning forward.

  Channing rolled to his side so they were face-to-face, their breath mingling. “Then let me kiss you….”

  “Not stopping you.”

  Channing tasted like premium alcohol—and like Channing. Tino knew his taste by now, knew the heat, knew the fire that swept his spine and roared in his blood. He was not prepared for how hot the inferno would rage in the intimacy of Channing’s bedroom, with Channing’s unexpected vulnerability and his own terrible confusion.

  Tino suddenly couldn’t get enough of the man on the bed.

  Channing groaned and Tino rolled toward him, sprawling on top of his warm, muscled body. Channing reached around and squeezed Tino’s backside, encouraging Tino to grind against him, and his nerve endings shot with silver light as he felt Channing’s erection through their clothes.

  Oh, look: a man—this man—wanted him, was kneading him, bucking against him, and making incoherent begging noises for Tino to fulfill them both.

  Every reason he shouldn’t fled Tino’s muddled brain.

  “Oh God,” Channing breathed as Tino carefully unbuttoned the white dress shirt. “You’re trying to kill me.”

  “No man ever died from an erection,” Tino muttered, but he was making a wild guess.

  “It’s called priapism.” Channing arched his bottom off the bed, and Tino could feel him throbbing against Tino’s own arousal.

  “You’re giving me a vocabulary lesson now?” Tino shoved his hands against the shoulders of the shirt, and Channing fought to get out of it. Tino heard the pop and tear of stressed fabric and the two cuff links went flying, but then Channing was underneath him, his ribbed tank clinging to his shoulders and stomach, his warm, tanned skin ready for Tino to touch.

  “You spend four hours a day in the car,” Tin muttered, pushing the soft cotton up so he could see Channing’s bare chest. “How are you ripped?”

  “I work out during lunch,” Channing said modestly, but Tino was beyond hearing. He lowered his head to Channing’s abdomen and extended his tongue, licking. The salt of sweat and man flooded him, and he licked again, chasing the sleek skin across Channing’s chest until he came to….

  “They’re adorable!” he exclaimed, circling Channing’s small pink nipples with his fingers.

  “You’re so mean!” Channing whined, holding Tino’s hips more solidly and making sure Tino felt the enormity of his arousal.

  Tino felt it. Moaning, he nipped at Channing’s chest, laving the nipple before sucking the flesh tightly into his mouth.

  And pinching the other nipple while he did so.

  Channing grunted, sounding aroused and helpless, but he was the one who had Tino’s hips in a vise, and he was the one who was rocking them together. Tino whined and sucked the nipple harder, letting go when Channing’s hand drifted under the waistband of his boxers and brushed his crease.

  “God!” he exclaimed, his vision blurring, his attempts at seduction and taking charge blown out of the water by the overwhelming sensation of Channing’s hands on his most tender, sensitive, and vulnerable places.

  “Tino, you’re making me crazy,” Channing grumbled, and with the movements of a man who was not that drunk anymore, Channing rolled over, pinning Tino to the bed with his shoulders and leaving Tino’s midsection open for invasion.

  Tino was out of words. It was his turn to arch his back and Channing’s turn to tug at his swim trunks, pulling them down until Tino’s body was exposed to the air.

  For a moment Tino worried about being ashamed, afraid of being seen, and his heart hung suspended by the worry that his body, his slender hips and aroused manhood, wouldn’t be enough.

  Channing silenced that worry with his gasp of desire in Tino’s ear. “God,” he hissed, “so sexy.”

  “Mm?”

  “Yeah,” Channing reassured, stroking Tino’s hip bones, his abdomen, his flanks—stroking everywhere but Tino’s rampant erection, touching everything but the tender skin even now dampened by the heat of Tino’s arousal.

  Channing rubbed his thumb over the dripping end of Tino’s swollen flesh, and Tino let out a sob.

  “Yeah?” he begged, his skin burning, his breath freezing, all for the need of release.

  “Yeah,” Channing whispered, and closed his hand around Tino’s staff and squeezed.

  “Aughh….” Tino wanted to cry, the pleasure was just so exquisite, but Channing wasn’t holding still. He stroked from the base to the tip, panting in Tino’s ear, his tongue teasing the sensitive whorls, his words ramping Tino up to maximum need.

  “You’re so sexy, so handsome,” Channing whispered. “Feel that? Feel my hand around you? I’m going to stroke you now, okay? And touch you with my mouth and—”

  Tino’s climax ripped through him, stimulated by just the thought of Channing’s mouth on his sensitized skin. His seed spattered over his stomach, over Channing’s forearm, and Channing caught his mouth in a kiss that swallowed his helpless s
hrieks of pleasure and need.

  Channing stopped stroking long enough to wipe his hand on the bottom of his tank, and Tino buried his face into the hollow of Channing’s shoulder, not proud of the broken syllables he uttered there.

  “But… oh God… but Channing—you—”

  “I came in my shorts,” Channing said crudely, and Tino moaned and shuddered for one more spurt of spend. “You like that, huh?” He pushed up on his elbows and took in Tino’s sprawled and wanton form.

  Tino tried to recall any reason at all he should pull his trunks up his hips and roll off the bed and slink away to his own bedroom.

  “I like that a lot,” he said, blowing any chance of Channing forgetting this had happened right out the window. “I….” His entire body flushed—he could see his stomach grow darker from his angle. “I want to do it to you,” he said, shy at the last moment.

  Channing nodded and buried his face against Tino’s shoulder this time. “I’d like that very much,” he said, voice strangled. “But God, Tino—”

  Not like this. This was a drunken grope, the overwrought end to an emotional night. It wasn’t the night Channing wanted for them and wasn’t the moment Tino wanted for himself.

  This was a step into their relationship—it wasn’t the night they plateaued.

  “Yeah,” Tino murmured. “Yeah.”

  “But maybe….” Channing was suddenly the one who looked shy. “Could you stay?” he asked.

  Tino stroked his sweaty hair back from his brow. “You want me to?”

  Channing was nodding when they heard the clatter coming from Tino’s room and froze.

  “What was that?” Tino mouthed, and Channing’s eyes hardened.

  He cleared the bed in a single bound and stood, holding a hand out to Tino as he scrambled to pull up his pants up.

  “Stay there,” Channing whispered, hand still out. “I’m going to go look.”

  “The door’s locked!” Tino remembered. He lunged off the bed and grabbed the keys from his pocket while Channing paused and reached into the drawer of his desk. He came back with a ten-year-old laptop.

  “You’re going to bore him to death?” Tino whispered fiercely, pulling up his trunks.