by Wendy Qualls
Dave took them through some strange network of back roads he must have known well—he didn’t once consult his phone’s GPS—and they ended up in an utterly dark parking lot at an overlook, out of sight from the main road. The headlights briefly illuminated a sign for a trailhead, meaning they were probably at some sort of greenway or park, but Lito didn’t get a chance to actually read the name.
“Wish it weren’t so cold outside,” Dave muttered. “Give me one sec.” He clambered through to the back—impressively agile for someone with such broad shoulders—and fiddled with something until there was a clunk and the back seat folded down entirely. Dave reached up to open the shade on the sunroof, then motioned Lito back to join him. There was barely enough light to make out the gesture. “Not sure I can name all the constellations anymore, but I can at least point out the major ones.”
“Wait…you meant you actually want to tell me about the stars?” Between the flattened back seat and the huge cargo area, Dave’s Jeep easily had enough room for both of them to lie down in. He’d assumed the whole astronomy thing was just a cheesy pick-up line, but apparently not.
Dave snorted. “I’ll have you know I bought this Grand Cherokee precisely for this super-giant sunroof. I sleep back here sometimes when I go camping, and I like seeing the stars.” He patted the carpeted floor beside him. “I also needed something big enough to haul Lumpy and Woozy around in. I put a sheet down when they’re here so I can take it out and wash it, but I’m glad I left that at home tonight. The delightful dog smell is still pretty permanent, unfortunately—I can promise you’re not going to get covered in fur and dried slobber, though.”
“Yeah, thanks for that.” Lito gingerly climbed through and settled himself on his back. There was still a good eighteen inches of space between his feet and the back door of the Jeep, which meant probably eight or so for Dave. The man was a damn tree. Even without the full use of his night vision, Lito could sense Dave’s presence in the enclosed space. The air did smell a bit like Rottweiler, but—whether it was his imagination or not—it also smelled like the man next to him.
“I’ll start with the easy ones,” Dave said, his voice quiet and serious. “You don’t get the full picture at this time of year, especially with the moon so close to full, but that bright swath across the sky just above the horizon is the Milky Way. Look out the back window there. It’s not visible unless you’re really out in the middle of nowhere, but in the summer it’s a smear of light overhead and it’s stunning. You can read all the charts and diagrams about how the universe is laid out and why galaxies are shaped different ways, and that’s great, but it’s always blown my mind that you can actually see it. We’re looking sideways from the inside and you can see with your own eyes that the Milky Way really is flat. And huge.”
“Makes you feel little by comparison?”
Dave’s rumble of amusement was low enough Lito felt the vibration in his bones. “I’ve never in my life been little,” he replied. “That’s if you ask my mom, anyway—I was a ten-pound baby and just kept growing from there. But yeah, I think that’s part of why it gets me. We’re…we’re nowhere, you know? And yet we don’t even acknowledge we’re insignificant. All the constellations—Orion is centered around that line of three brighter stars just there, follow where I’m pointing—all the constellations are only because the ancient Romans literally assumed we’re the center of the universe. That our stupid little human dramas are important enough to make up all those countless stars. It does put things in perspective.”
Lito was having a hard time with perspective at the moment. The night sky was beautiful, no question, but Dave’s bicep was within nibbling distance as he pointed out the three brighter stars. Even in the near-total darkness, Lito could still tell how well-muscled the guy was. They both smelled a bit sweaty too, after the long search and all the tromping around, but Dave’s deodorant was heady and slightly spicy and Lito had always had a weakness for that whole masculine scent thing. Which was outweighing the dog smell by a large margin now. “Tell me another one?”
Dave’s head turned, like he was trying to make out Lito’s expression in the dark. “Up there, then.” He reached down and folded his hand around Lito’s, then pointed them both upward toward a clump of brighter stars in the other half of the sky. “Those four make the ‘cup’ part of the Big Dipper, which is also a part of Ursa Major. It’s a bear in Roman mythology, but weirdly enough it’s a bear in a lot of other cultures’ stories too. Ursa Minor is right there next to it, including the Little Dipper. You see them?”
“Yes,” Lito breathed. God, he really was acting like a teenager, wasn’t he? Dave’s hand was warm and bigger than his own and Lito was already getting dizzy imagining what those hands would feel like on his body.
Dave obviously noticed—instead of letting Lito’s hand go, he lightly ran his palm down the outside of Lito’s forearm. The barely-there touch drew goosebumps…right up until he accidentally elbowed Lito in the forehead.
“Shit! Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Dave propped himself up on the offending elbow. “What I intended to communicate in a more suave and much less clumsy way was, are your eyes adjusting to the starlight yet? Because I can see you now, but doing something more than just looking would be even better.” He ducked his head a bit. “Smacking you in the face wasn’t what I meant, though, so I guess I can’t see as well as I thought I could.”
Lito lightly shoved at Dave’s shoulder, mostly just for the excuse to touch him again. “There, we’re even now.” Dave didn’t pull away, barely even registered Lito pushing him, so Lito gave into temptation and turned further to bury his nose against Dave’s collarbone. “Same for me, though,” he murmured back. “I can’t see your expression, but I can at least tell where I should be kissing.”
“Mmm—feel free to kiss me anywhere you like.” Dave dropped down to lie on his side too, so they were face to face in the almost-dark. “Hope you’ll forgive me if I accidentally get you in the face again, though.”
“I’d forgive you anything right now.” Lito had to grope a bit to get his hand positioned properly over the edge of Dave’s jaw, but once he had his bearings it was easy to hone in on Dave’s lips.
Goddamn. He thought he’d been ready, thought it would be like all the times he’d done this before with whoever he was dating or fucking at the time, but Dave managed to be simultaneously both tender and forceful. Lito had to fight to keep his brain from dissolving into mush. Not that he’d mind that, with Dave so skillfully teasing him into trying to keep up, but if he let the incredible rightness of the kiss drag him under he knew he’d be begging Dave for all sorts of embarrassing things soon after.
“You taste like pineapple,” Dave murmured. “Now I want to kiss you after every meal so I can keep track of how you taste each time. What about the rest of you, I wonder?” He shifted sideways and downward, so he was nuzzling along Lito’s jawline. “Like right…here.”
Lito may have groaned at the feel of Dave’s tongue doing fantastic things to the tender spot right under his earlobe. “Fuck,” he breathed. “I think I just forgot everything you tried to teach me about stars.”
“Did you?” Dave licked again, this time accompanied by the barest hint of teeth. “I should stop, then, and tell you again.”
“Shut up.” It took a few tries, but Lito eventually managed to insinuate a hand under Dave’s coat and t-shirt. Everything was more intense in the dark—the heat radiating off Dave’s body, the way Dave’s breath ghosted over the spot he’d just licked and sent shivers down Lito’s spine, the press of his own cock against his zip like it thought it could get free by way of sheer optimism. The way the hair on Dave’s chest caught at Lito’s fingers as he slid his palm upward. Fuck. It was so tempting to just grab Dave’s hips and slam their pelvises together so they could grind on each other, but Dave was still being maddeningly slow. Coming across as a
complete idiot with no self-control would be…not good.
That resolution got infinitely harder when Dave started mirroring Lito’s moves, sliding a hand under Lito’s shirt and running his fingertips gently back and forth just above the waistband of his jeans. “This okay?” he asked quietly. “Because you teased me about this being a ‘typical teenager thing,’ but right now I honestly do feel like I’m seventeen again. I haven’t had my hands on anyone else’s cock in way too long and I’m dying to see what I can do with yours.” He pulled back just enough to press another firm kiss to Lito’s lips. “Reciprocation is highly encouraged, of course.”
“Yeah, that’s…oh fuck. Yeah.” Lito couldn’t control the reflexive buck of his hips at the thought, even as the less-reassuring implications of Dave’s comment filtered through his fuzzy brain. I’m probably just the convenient cock, then. Right place, right time. The only candidate. It should have bothered him more than it did, but he brushed the thought aside—the rest of his brain was filled with yes, touch, please! and plain old anticipation. He slid his own hand down Dave’s stomach (damn, he could feel the definition on those abs) and hesitated over his fly.
“Fuck. Yes. Do it.” Dave fumbled at Lito’s zipper, and a literal shiver ran through Lito’s body as his cock finally got a bit of breathing room. He tried to do the same, but the angle was all wrong and Dave’s muscled forearms were in the way. They ended up doing a bit of not-at-all-sexy awkward groping in the dark before Lito finally succeeded in getting Dave’s jeans open. He was wearing boxers under them, the fabric silky and warm from his body heat. Dave’s low groan when Lito finally pulled him out and got ahold of the hard-on underneath was just short of breathtaking.
“Like this?”
“Nngh.” Dave thrust against him a few times before swearing again and sitting up so he could tug at Lito’s jeans more effectively. “Like anything you want—I’m really not gonna complain right now. Get these down so we can reach each other.”
Lito wriggled his pants down to mid-thigh, then decided screw it and shoved them all the way down to his ankles. The bite of the rough carpet under his hip felt grounding. Welcome. If Dave didn’t care, they might as well fulfill one of Lito’s fantasies too—in this case, that involved rolling them both so he was straddling Dave’s hips. He braced his weight on one arm and ground down on that gorgeous body in the dark.
Dave grunted in surprise. “Toppy, are we?”
Hell yes, because turnabout is fair play. Lito stretched up to nibble at whatever parts of Dave’s skin he could reach above the collar of Dave’s still-sweat-scented t-shirt. “You assume because I’m little, I’ve got to be a bottom?”
“I…” Dave faltered at that, but quickly got his hand back on Lito’s cock and resumed his exploring. “Maybe I was. Sorry—not really thinking with the right head at the moment. ‘S too good.”
“Good.” Lito nuzzled lower and focused on Dave’s left nipple through the thin cotton. “Because beyond the obvious issues like the lack of supplies, I think I’d have a problem lasting all that long inside you.” He was already feeling the flutters that warned of his impending point of no return, and they’d barely done more than make out. Fuck. “You feel so good, you smell so good, and if you—oh!—if you keep doing what you’re doing with your thumb right now I’m gonna have to put some effort into catching you up really, really fast.” He ran his palm over the head of Dave’s cock, smearing precome everywhere, then adjusted to a firmer grip and tried to match Dave stroke for stroke. The backs of their hands brushed together as they moved in tandem, speeding up the more Lito nibbled at those toned pecs, until Dave nudged him upward with a grunt and used his free hand to pull Lito down for a sloppy kiss that was more panting than anything else. Lito shifted his grip one more time and then Dave’s entire body was tensing up and he was gasping into Lito’s mouth. Lito stayed right where he was, easing up to let Dave ride out the aftershocks but not pulling away. Which was just as well, because Dave rallied quickly. The not-actually-a-kiss acquired a lot more technique, then Dave got his free hand on Lito’s bare ass right as he did something new to the relentless rhythm on Lito’s cock—he was too far gone to determine what—and suddenly he was following Dave over in a heady rush.
“Fuck.” Dave held him in place for a few moments, supporting his full weight, then let Lito roll off and flop boneless on the floor beside him. “Just so you know, I think I’ve forgotten everything I knew about the constellations too.”
Now that Lito’s brain was capable of non-sex-related concepts again, he realized the faint starlight really was bright enough to see Dave’s expression. A hint of it, anyway. He looked exactly as blissed-out as Lito felt. “I’d say this experience was still memorable,” Lito deadpanned.
And Dave grinned. “I should hope so.” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a long, contented sigh. “This whole day has been. Thank you.”
“Ditto.” Now that the fevered, frantic part of the evening was over, Lito had to lock everything away in his memory for later. No telling whether Dave would want to get off together again, but Lito had every intention of saving the experience as future spank bank material. Just the vague thought of Dave’s firm pecs pressed against his stomach was going to make him hard forevermore. “Guess you can cross ‘sex under the stars in the back of your Jeep’ off your list, now.”
Dave rolled to his side, pillowing his head on his bent arm and regarding Lito steadily. “You too,” he said.
Truck sex hadn’t exactly been on Lito’s bucket list to start with, but he nodded anyway. “Yeah,” he echoed. “Me too.”
Chapter 7
Did Spot miss you while you were gone yesterday? I’m glad you came!
Lito sat at his desk staring off into space for way longer than he should have after reading Dave’s text. Was “came” a double entendre? Was Dave flirting, or had he totally gotten over the whole handjob thing and he was talking about the search instead? It seemed wrong to reply to such an ambiguous opener with anything suggestive—especially since he was at work—but pretending last night hadn’t happened might send the wrong signal too. He finally settled on something simple.
She enjoyed all the different smells on me, I’m sure. We’ll keep making progress and someday we can be Team Spot together.
Hopefully that would be subtle enough—especially since the most prominent smell in Lito’s memory was the mixture of sex and sweat (and, okay, dog) while they both lay there panting after getting each other off. He really didn’t want to think about what Spot concluded when he got home.
Work dragged, as it usually did on Monday mornings. He’d run out of “settling in” tasks before the weekend, his office was fully unpacked, and his inbox was empty. Time to bite the bullet and start checking out local artists. “Local” in a general sense, anyway—Black Lake was too small to house a thriving indie art scene, which meant he’d be clocking some time on the road. Dave had implied there was a scene in Nashville, however far away that was. Huntsville, maybe? His regular sources in Atlanta, if it was absolutely necessary. Usually Lito tried to find a painter in the same area the hotel in question was located, someone whose work screamed “look, this is what this town has to offer!” Having reliable last-minute backup sources was a must, though. Artists tended to be artsy, which in Lito’s experience meant they flaked on deadlines a lot more often than the rest of the population. At the moment Dayspring was building a new hotel in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, renovating one near Birmingham, and was rebuilding another one down on the coast in Mobile. Muscle Shoals and Birmingham were close enough for a day trip; Mobile definitely wasn’t.
I have faith in both of you—you’re doing great so far! I’ve got no complaints.
That…didn’t exactly clear up the ambiguity, did it? Lito put his phone down and tried to focus on work for a few more minutes, but he finally gave in and just asked.
Which part of last night are you n
ot complaining about?
Sorry, not fishing for compliments, just still trying to figure out how much to read into the “so glad you came” thing.
Dave’s response chimed almost instantly, a rapid-fire string of texts all in a row:
When I wrote it I meant glad you came along on the call-out
But now that you mention it, I can see how you were confused by my wording
How’s this: I’m glad you came along to the search yesterday
It was just about the best possible first search experience you could have had
I enjoyed chatting with you at dinner—we should do that again sometime
And ON A COMPLETELY UNRELATED NOTE you should know I jacked off in the shower this morning to the memory of how you moaned when you got close to coming
Best ever start to my day, bar none
I’d love to add taste to that particular memory, though
I got to taste your mouth, but not the rest of you
We ought to change that.
Was that clear enough for you? ;-)
It was. It so definitely was. Lito had to shift in his chair to keep his burgeoning hard-on from pressing quite so tightly against his trousers—thank God he had his own office. His sudden intake of breath and racing heart would be difficult to explain to any of his coworkers.
I’m assuming you’re at work (I am too) but any chance you’d be able to do lunch? You’re at the Dayspring Inn over near the highway, right?
Today I’m trimming back kudzu down at the boat ramp off Jennings Drive, so I’ll only be about a mile up the road from you. It’s a beautiful day for a picnic.
No privacy for much else, unfortunately, but that’s probably for the best since I’m a city employee and will still be officially on the clock ;-)