by Aiden Bates
Now, I felt like some unseen force had crept up behind me and shoved me right into the pool.
“Yeah, it’s fine. Of course, it’s fine. Lots of people do it. Besides, it’s not like either of us are dating anyone. This helped both of us break a dry spell.”
“Nothing dry about it, actually,” Pedro said with a smile.
“Ugh, that was a terrible joke,” I groaned. But it helped break the tension a little, and I was reminded that even though this was a little awkward and definitely new, Pedro was still my friend. None of the things I enjoyed about Pedro’s company had changed, and now? Well, maybe there was another thing we could do in our spare time. I shivered at the idea but tried not to show how affected I was by the thought of sleeping with Pedro again. Even so, I found myself glancing at his lips. “So, we’re good?”
“Wasn’t that what I just said?” Pedro grinned, and I couldn’t help grinning in return.
“So, just to let you know, like, just in case… I did pick up some condoms,” I said.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Just in case either of us brings someone home, you know? It might be helpful to have something handy,” I explained, like a mature adult.
“Right, of course. We’re grown-ups. That makes total sense.” Pedro came closer to my position at the counter. “I’m in better shape now. Maybe I should think about opening up to someone.”
He was close enough I could smell him now, and once again he smelled delicious; honey-sweet.
“Y-yeah… I was thinking the same thing. You know, the first step is getting your own place. Second step is getting back into the game,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. I felt myself drawn closer to him in a way that didn’t feel like hormones and medication.
“So, we’re both in the game then. That’s good,” Pedro said. And as we were drawn closer and closer to each other I noticed his eyes had an intensity I hadn’t seen in them earlier.
Unbidden, more images from this morning, interlaced with fantasies, came to mind. The morning sunlight playing over his warm-hued skin as he drove into me over and over again, those amber eyes studying me from between my thighs. The taste of his mouth as he kissed me, the press of his hard body behind me as he bent me over the counter…
“Yeah, great,” I agreed, breathlessly. I should stop this. I turned to leave through the entryway of the kitchen, but I couldn’t help myself. Later, I could blame it on the bad batch of pills or my own loneliness. Something. But now, I halted and turned back around.
Pedro hadn’t moved. He was absolutely still, his eyes tracking all my movements. It felt grounding and more than a little satisfying to be the clear object of all his attention.
“Since we are two friends in a dry spell… You know… Being adults and all—”
That was as far as I got before Pedro’s mouth was on mine, hot and insistent.
All the tension that had kept building and building finally broke, and I sighed as my mouth opened, almost on its own, to let Pedro in. He held my waist and I twined my fingers in his hair, pulling him even closer. He pressed me up against the wall, and then began to suck and bite at my neck. I shuddered at the sensation of his tongue lapping at my skin.
I worked at taking off his shirt, and Pedro pulled away just enough for me to pull it off of him. I used the space to start guiding him back to my bedroom. I don’t know who undressed who or what parts of my own clothing I pulled off and what pieces Pedro did, but between us I was half naked before we stalled somewhere around the living room. I’d just managed to get Pedro’s belt off along with his jeans, and I now shoved my hand down the front of his boxers.
“Oh, fuck yes, Charlie. Sooo good,” Pedro groaned.
“I want this in me,” I said, wrapping my fingers around his thick cock and giving it a glacially slow stoke.
“Dios, angel. Who would have thought you’d have that kind of mouth on you,” Pedro replied as he tried to buck his hips to urge my hand to move faster.
This felt good. Before, things had been shocking and sudden and out of control. This wasn’t that. We both knew what we wanted, both knew what we were doing.
I pushed him toward the couch.
“I’ll show you exactly what kind of mouth I have on me.” I got on my knees in front of him, raking my nails up his bare thighs until I reached the line of his boxers. He tilted his hips, and I guided his boxers down his legs and off before admiring the sight in front of me. I could smell his arousal, and now I didn’t have to wonder how he tasted, I could just lean forward and…taste. So, I did.
I looked up at him as I lapped at the head of his cock. He was rock hard and dribbling precum, and I chased the trail of it. He was salty and a little sweet, and it was more than enough to urge me to take more and more of him into my mouth.
“Oh, shit.” Pedro gripped the back of my bobbing head. I flicked my tongue around the underside of his shaft, and then sank down on him until I felt the head of his cock tickle the back of my throat. It had been years since I’d done this, but I focused and took a deep breath before relaxing and guiding him deeper and deeper.
“Fuck, Charlie. What are you— Oh shit. Oh god. You feel so good. Take me. Fuck, take me.” Until this point he’d kept his hips absolutely still, but now he started rocking them, attempting to push his cock even further down my throat. My own cock was straining against my boxers, but I wasn’t paying any attention to that. Not right now.
Pedro’s gaze was glued to me, and I couldn’t help but enjoy the way his cheeks were flushed and his full lips were parted on a soft, continuous moan.
Eventually, he tilted my head off, and I looked up at him, raising my eyebrow.
“No, Jesus. It feels amazing. Too amazing. If you keep going, I’ll come. I’m pretty sure you said something about wanting me inside you.”
I remembered. Yes, that was what I had said. And, yes, that is exactly what I wanted.
“Stay right there,” I said, voice hoarse. A second later I was back, lube and condoms in my hand. I tossed them on the couch before pulling off the rest of my clothes. I wanted to go slow, give Pedro a show. I wanted to watch him watch me strip for him. But I was too desperate for that at this point. I wanted him. I wanted him now.
Anything else I had on my body was pulled off as quickly as I could before I straddled his lap. Pedro grabbed my hand and gave me the condom. I rolled it over him from tip to root, and then I traded him and passed him the bottle of lube instead.
“I can’t help but notice these are a perfect fit,” Pedro said, grinning.
“Shut up, you,” I replied. “Besides, don’t you have something you need to be doing?” I nodded toward the bottle in Pedro’s hand.
Pedro cracked the cap and slicked his fingers. He stroked his cock, and then, after a shift of hips and hands, Pedro was there, just there, pressing slowly inside me. The burning stretch gave way quickly to the same feeling of fullness and pleasure I’d felt this morning. Pedro settled his hands on my hips, and I started a slow rocking pace, sighing and moaning as he went deeper, filling me, carving out a place inside me just for him, for his pleasure.
“Pedro, oh my god, yes. Harder.”
Pedro started thrusting up as I slammed down with more and more force. He tightened his hands on my hips so hard I thought I would bruise. Secretly, I hoped I would bruise.
“Like that, angel? Is that what you need,” Pedro asked.
“Yes, yes, please.” I threw my head back, and Pedro wrapped his thumb and pointer finger around the sides of my jaw, not pressing, but just holding me right where he wanted me.
“That’s it, baby. Just sit back and let me fuck you. Can you come like this? Hmm?”
He tilted me back carefully, and the change in angle made fireworks go off behind my eyes. There was a high-pitched noise in my ears, and after a moment I realized that noise was coming from me, that Pedro was punching it out of me as he continued to nail my prostate.
“Pedro don’t stop. Don’t stop, Pedro. I swear to god
, don’t you dare stop.”
“N-n-no, no. I won’t. I promise. I promise. Come on, Charlie. Come on, angel, I want to feel you come on my cock.”
The words in combination with the current stoking inside me was more than enough to make me disintegrate. I came across his chest in thick spurts, and that seemed to be all Pedro needed before he was saturating my insides.
I collapsed against him, my head coming to rest in the crook of his shoulder. He was breathing heavily, but I felt him lazily trace his hand over my sweaty back. After a little while I felt Pedro’s shoulders heave, and realized he was laughing. At first it started quietly, but then it built and built. Any anxiety I’d had about what we were going to do, where we were going to go now we’d crossed this barrier, eased somewhat. I joined in his laughter.
We were going to be fine.
14
Pedro
Marcos was eating a slice of pizza.
We were at Cireno’s, so that wasn’t weird. What was weird was the way he was mostly ignoring the slice on his plate and staring at the table, only occasionally taking a bite of his cheesy concoction before staring at the table again.
As for me, every day my appetite increased. I was eating a big bowl of chicken alfredo. Well, I was actually devouring a big bowl of chicken alfredo as per Camden’s instructions to load up on carbs and protein.
“Chew properly,” Marcos warned. He seemed to be doing it out of reflex and not because he was actually taking any notice of how I was chewing. Either way it made me stop just like it did when we were kids.
“I’m chewing fine,” I said around the lump of chicken I had in my mouth. Just the same, I did as I was told before I swallowed.
“You’re going to choke,” Marcos said, referencing for only the forty-nine thousandth time that one time I almost choked when I was a kid. Finally tearing his gaze away from whatever he was staring at so intently, our eyes met over the table. I could instantly tell there was something up with him just as much as he could instantly tell the same about me. We were almost twins like that.
“What’s wrong?” Marcos asked.
“Why don’t you tell me? You’ve been staring at that table top for most of lunch.”
“You first,” Marcos said, shaking his head. “I’m older.”
“That means you usually go first, then, right?” I said, countering.
Marcos ignored me. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing.” It was a lie. Just because we knew these things about each other didn’t necessarily mean we were always ready to cop to them from the get-go.
“You seem good. You seem happy,” Marcos said, but with a significant note of suspicion in his voice. Like, maybe I was up to something? Something that made me happy when I shouldn’t be? That was a laugh. If anyone was ever pumping the brakes on getting in trouble when we were growing up, it wasn’t Marcos. At all.
“I am,” I said, carefully. “And?”
Marcos finally took another bite of his pizza. His very cold pizza. “I don’t know. It’s good. It’s different.” He chewed a little and continued looking at me, thoughtfully, before gesturing at me with his slice. “Is it the new place?”
“Yes.” There was no point in denying the inevitable, especially not when he was asking me pointed questions, and anyway, I hated lying, absolutely hated it. Of the two of us I was definitely a better liar than Marcos, but that was mostly because nobody expected me to lie because I usually don’t. “Yes. Having the new place is great,” I said, deciding to kind of not spill everything, at least not all at once.
“Great,” Marcos said, flatly. “If the new place is putting you in a better mood, then what is it? What’s wrong with you, dude?”
“N-nothing. Not really.”
Marcos stared at me for a little bit and then tilted his head and shrugged, like he was agreeing with something, though I wasn’t sure what. He sighed and rolled his eyes a little.
“I’m sorry I was in your business so much when you were living with us. I know part of the point of moving out of Mami’s was to not have people constantly in your business. But, you know, I worry about you. I spent a lot of time worrying about you when you were asleep, and it took over my whole life. Worrying about you became part of my identity, and it became a way to…replace dealing with all the way things changed when we all came back from Malmur. Taking care of you became an…avoidant coping mechanism.”
I shook my head quickly, not disagreeing with him at all, but I was just about to faint down dead at hearing Marcos say what he was saying.
“An avoidant coping what now?”
“Shut up.” Marcos looked like he realized I was about to snort and crack up at him. “It’s what Oliver said to say. To you,” he added, more quietly.
“I mean, yeah. You didn’t come up with all that yourself. I know that for sure!”
Marcos rolled his eyes, like he couldn’t believe he had actually gone through with it and said it out loud. “Anyway, you don’t have to avoid coming around, you know? We’ve been…talking a lot…at home.”
“And Mitch and Oliver told you to get off my case? And…you finally listened? Maybe?” I said, teasing. We were more than brothers, we were friends. And who do you give more shit to than to friends and your family? We were both. It was normal to harass each other.
“Whatever, man,” Marcos said.
“No. Dude,” I said quickly before Marcos could really confuse my teasing for not wanting to hear his explanation. “I get it. I get why you worry. I think Oliver is right, but I get that a lot of the reason you worry is because there was a very good reason to be so worried about me. I can’t say it doesn’t bother me, but I get it. It’s no big deal. I’m not avoiding you. I’m just…busy.”
“Busy with what?” Marcos asked. That was Mami all over.
“I don’t know, dude. Life. Physical therapy. Stuff. Just…busy.” I was not going to tell him what I was actually busy with. That was none of his business.
“Uh-huh,” Marcos said, not buying my explanation completely. The advantage of not lying much is that it gave you credibility, so nobody really noticed the occasional white fib or two.
“Is it a job?” he asked suddenly, like a lightbulb about what I was busy with might have gone off inside his head or something. “Did you get a job?”
“No,” I said, more defensively than I meant to. “I mean I am looking, but I’m also feeling life out right now. It’s been a while and I’m just…adjusting to routines out here in the civilian world on my own. I’m just…taking my time.” I shrugged. I did feel guilty that I wasn’t working. It wasn’t my intention to live off of my benefits forever, and I really had meant to look harder than I was looking. I was just…well…busy.
“Anyway…” I wanted to try to change the subject as quickly and as smoothly as possible without looking suspicious, so without anything better to say I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, the thing that had been at the back of my mind for the last two weeks now. “Have you been keeping up with this omega thing? I’ve been trying to watch more news to catch up on—”
Marcos was staring at me, wide-eyed, like I’d just said something awful.
“What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
Marcos kind of shifted his eyes nervously but didn’t say anything.
“What? What’s wrong?” I asked again before a lightbulb also went off in my head. “Oh. Oh. Gross, dude!”
“What do you mean ‘gross’?”
“This whole omega shitstorm hit your house too, right? And, well, that’s…gross.”
Marcos shook his head. “Okay, number one. Grow right the hell up. That’s what people do when they’re married, so suck it up,” Marcos said. I made an exaggerated face of disgust, and Marcos, seeing his opportunity to make things worse, took it. Just like any big brother might. “Mami and Papi do it too, so…”
“What?” I asked, horrified. “Why bring that up? For real?”
“Number two,” Marc
os said, with a chuckle. “Yeah, I was going to tell you. Eventually. I was definitely going to tell you before I told anyone else because, you know it felt right. It’s why we were talking about you, and about what I was like during all that time you were asleep and stuff.”
“And?”
“Okay, yes, the shitstorm hit my house. Like, seriously. Like a category five hurricane, I mean. Mitch and Oliver, you know…”
I didn’t know, actually. I could take a seriously good, educated guess, but I didn’t know.
“When you get more than one omega living together…”
“What, are you explaining the birds and the bees to me right now? Get to the point, dude. You’re stressing me out.”
“Mitch has a heat every month. Oliver, only a few times a year, but when he gets his, it seems to cycle with Mitch’s, and last month they both went on heat together, and… Well, both of their suppressants malfunctioned because they both buy the same brand. So, well. I mean. I had a great time that night. We all about died afterward. I about died afterward—”
“M-M-Marc…” They had told me that the stutter might be worse in times of stress. And hearing about my big brother like this? It counted. It definitely counted.
It counted for him, too, as much as he was purposefully being gross to embarrass me. He was going red, or as red as skin like ours went, anyway.
“Anyway, I really was going to tell you first. I’m kind of enjoying the peace and quiet before Mami knows. But, that’s why I asked you out to lunch. It felt like I was supposed to, you know? It felt right to tell you first because…”
“What?” I asked, getting to about my limit on how much I could handle of this conversation.
“Because, you know, we got pregnant with Juan to save your life. So it made sense to tell—”
“Will you damn well spit it out!”
“They’re pregnant, dude. Eso es todo. That’s all.”