Could still appreciate his good looks.
“Less raging, more dog-rough.”
“Not in any state to look after me then,” I whispered. We caught each other’s eyes and something hung in the atmosphere between us, unsaid. Or maybe we each waited for the other to say it first, and lost our bottle.
“Nah, probably not,” Steven said, and his eyes narrowed momentarily. Maybe studying me, maybe just flinching in reaction to another hammer-blow inside his head. “Although I can’t believe you’re seriously considering taking the day off work. I don’t see why I should suffer if you get to bunk off.”
“Ah, Bill’s understanding, underneath it all.” I waved my hand while I still had some semblance of hand-eye coordination. “A hangover is a simple matter of being dehydrated. You get better as the day progresses if you drink enough water and coffee and juice and anything else you can lay your hands on. I’d rather have one of those than a migraine. My head?” I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “Fuck, I wish I could get a head transplant sometimes.”
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Steven’s hand twitched on the worn surface of the table and for a moment I thought he was reaching out to me. By the time I’d realised it didn’t matter, there was no-one else in the house to discover us, he’d frozen again, or at least withdrawn.
“Yeah. I like to be left alone when I feel one of these fuckers coming on. I hope I’ll be okay. I’ll skull as many painkillers as my stomach can take and hopefully sleep the worst of it off. You need any more coffee? I’m gonna make a fresh lot, so…?”
“Nah, I’ve had three mugs already.” He reached into his pocket, withdrew a pair of shades and slipped them on.
I told myself it was my need for a drink, some painkillers and a lie-down which made my heart skip but constructing a wall of denial was as futile as fighting the damn pinching at my neck, the throbbing behind one eye. Oh, sure, I could hit them with medication and lessen their effects. Maybe. If I was lucky. But the combined pain would only dissipate completely in its own sweet time. Likewise, this thing, this crush on Steven—and, God, how I hated that juvenile way of describing the fact I just wanted his cock in me again—would only fade when it had had its fill of eating away at me day and night.
Complaining about being so hung over he felt as if even his teeth were on fire, he was still shit hot. Oh, he couldn’t have been in that much pain or he wouldn’t have even managed to pull himself out of bed, but for someone who thought he looked ‘dog-rough’, he sure had my attention. Even a little ragged around the edges. Hell, that only enhanced his appeal to me. The messy black curls, still damp from the shower he’d earlier whinged about, invited my touch.
“I better get off,” he said.
“I know the feeling.”
He caught my eye—or at least, I thought he did, from behind those shades—and rose, steadily enough for a man who felt as awful as he claimed to. “Never, ever take me drinking on a work night again, Blackman.”
“Hey.” I raised my palms in feigned innocence. “You could have said no.”
“Are you suggesting I wanted it all along?” The slow-emerging grin lit up his face like the rising sun and my God, he might have claimed to look and feel dog-rough but I didn’t think he’d ever looked better than he did at that moment.
A man who’d fucked me, and who was still willing to flirt. Oh boy, it would be so easy to get caught up in something that would eventually hurt.
“Like I said before, I doubt it would be possible to make Steven Kenton do something he didn’t want to do.”
“You better believe it. Well, look after yourself. Some of us have to work today—”
“Hey, I will too no doubt; it’s just that—”
“You have the advantage of being able to work from home.”
“Which also means I get Bill calling up every-bloody-when, asking me to take care of one meaningless task or another just because I have a laptop and I take my work home with me.”
“If he calls you back today, just ignore it.”
“Yeah, think I will. Sure you won’t have another coffee?”
“Nah. I’m gonna head off. Look after yourself, yeah?” he said again, and I murmured something in reply, allowing my gaze to follow him out of the room, but the throbbing in my cock would have to wait. It was being overpowered by the throbbing in my head.
Steven pulled the door shut behind him, not slamming it like he usually did, and the gratitude at his thoughtfulness made me laugh. Of course he wouldn’t slam the door, but it wasn’t out of concern for me. The poor guy was hung over.
Caffeine. I needed caffeine and painkillers. And bed.
But first, a call to Bill to break the bad news that he’d be a man down today, the prospect of which made me feel almost as nauseated as the migraine did itself. I always felt like such a fake when I pulled a sickie, but what else could I have done? A day in bed spent trying not to die, first of all, then trying to work.
The combination should, in theory, keep my mind off Steven. And my dick out of my right hand.
Chapter Eight
As predicted, Bill had grumbled a bit when I’d phoned in, but accepted it in the end. He knew deep down how much work I did at home, and my health complaint was genuine.
He hadn’t liked it, though.
I left my phone switched on, on my bedside table, just in case of emergencies. If the landline rang I’d leave it to go onto voicemail and if the caller was that keen to get in touch with me, they could send a text, or ring my mobile. If they dared. Bill, for instance, knew better than to call me when I had a migraine. If he kept me from sleeping off the effects of either pain and sickness, or the wonder-drug Imigran, my recovery would be delayed and he’d have to cope without me in the office. So I’d told him.
And so I had peace and quiet to recuperate.
While I waited for the medication to kick in and for the throbbing all over my skull to wear off, there was nothing to do but lie there and think of Steven.
A welcome distraction from the curse Mother Nature had very kindly laid upon me, and—I reasoned with a subdued laugh—it might have worked out to my benefit, medically speaking. If the migraine was related to problems with my blood pressure behind one eye, the fact thinking about being assfucked by Steven the night before made my dick hard meant the blood flow was diverted somewhere south of my boxers’ waistband.
Sometimes I experienced visual disturbances or olfactory hallucinations—smelling burnt toast when there was none in the kitchen, for instance. But hearing things? That I’d never experienced.
So when I thought I heard the front door click, my heart skipped and I lifted my head off the pillow, suddenly alert.
Though my thought processes were made sluggish by pain and the medication that—
thank God—was doing its job, I nevertheless managed to figure out a burglar wouldn’t have had a key to the front door. So it had to be Gary or Steven coming back from work unusually early.
Lifting my mobile off the bedside table, I clicked a button to make the screen light up, pleased when the LCD glow in the curtained murk of the room didn’t make me wince in agony.
Lunchtime. Much earlier than I’d thought. My sleep-fogged mind had had its perception of time messed with as well.
Footsteps tapped up the stairs, the mustn’t-thud-too-loudly ones of a man trying not to disturb me. But then, why come home at all? Unless he’d forgotten something, and that wasn’t like Gary, so maybe Steven—
Two short raps at my door before it creaked open. Again, I lifted my head off the pillow, muttering, “Fuck, “ as I did so.
“Still sore?” Steven grinned, and I let myself drop back again. Just the person I wanted to see. Just the person I didn’t want to see.
“Yeah.” The boner from earlier had gone down, and without any five-fingered help from me. I hadn’t fancied lying in my own spunk and getting out of bed again to go get cleaned up was more than my fucked-up sense of balance could have cop
ed with. So I’d killed the desire for orgasm with a little magic pill, a few hours’ broken sleep and the promise to myself that I’d crack one off as soon as I was able to stand in the shower without the spray making me wince.
“Came back to see how you were.” The door clicked shut again, with Steven on this side of it.
“Fine.”
“Liar. Are you really?”
“No.”
“How bad is it?”
“Still thumping a bit. Not as sharp as it could be.”
“Medication’s working, then?”
“Think so.” I ran a hand through my hair and gave the matter some thought. A monumental operation given how slow-to-react my brain was when dealing with reason and logic. “You didn’t have to come home to check up on me.”
“No. I didn’t have to.” He approached the bed but not to sit on or crouch by the near side.
The mattress dipped behind me and my stomach failed to turn over. A good sign.
Pained and sluggish, but no longer in danger of throwing up. The drugs were working and chances were I’d feel human before dinner this evening. If I managed to eat anything, that was.
“Just felt like checking up on you.”
“You sound as if you’re a lot better yourself.”
“Yeah. I am.” Twin thuds, muted as he—I guessed—kicked his shoes off onto the carpet. The mattress dipped again as his weight shifted and he curled himself against my back, above the duvet. His weight and presence warmed me without being overbearing and I let myself relax against him. “Is this all right?” he asked, slipping his arm around my waist, probably not wanting to cause me any discomfort in what he imagined was my delicate state.
I wanted to say no. Blame it on feeling under the weather, rather than my reluctance to get close to anyone. But the dying migraine and victorious medication must have been playing with my common sense too. “Yeah.”
“Seems like I’ve recovered faster than you have.”
“I told you. Hangovers fade. Migraines just get worse unless you catch ‘em quick enough.”
“Kill it with medication?” He spoke in a whisper, which almost made me laugh. He’d never be a nurse. He looked too devilish to be a ministering angel.
“Think I just about managed it. Still really dozy though. Feel spaced out.”
“Damn.” Steven tutted, a low click very close behind my ear. If he lay any closer I’d be able to feel his breath on the back of my neck.
The thought made me shudder.
“Better not take advantage of you,” he went on, still quiet, but with laughter dancing at the edges of his voice now.
“Got a funny way of checking up on me, Steven.”
“I’ve told you before, Christopher. A Kenton hand-job. Stuff of legend. It worked before.”
“God damn it, you’re all heart.”
“Tell me you didn’t feel better after that time I made you come.”
Just like that, I was hard again. The manipulative bastard. God, I loved it. “All these years I’ve been relying on painkillers, caffeine and bed rest.”
“That’s where you’ve been going wrong.”
“I didn’t think you got Kenton hand-jobs on the National Health S—” The rest of whatever I’d been about to say—probably nothing important—caught in my throat. He hadn’t even touched me yet but his arm lifting off my waist was enough to make me jump.
“Carry on. Don’t let me stop you.”
“How am I supposed to speak when I don’t know what you’re going to do next?”
“I think you know very well.” Though he’d just come in from outside, his hand was nevertheless warm on my back. I still shivered, though, when he got to my waist. Hipbone.
Waistband. “I didn’t just come back to check up on you.”
“No?”
“Someone’s been thinking about me.”
“What makes you think that’s for you?”
“Because you’ve been too sleepy to watch your Supernatural DVDs. Gotta be for me.”
Steven wrapped his hand around my cock and stroked slowly, not even bothering to push my shorts out of the way. He wasn’t trying to make me come. Not yet. Just touching me.
“Oh God.” I didn’t even have to tell my hips to move, they just automatically pushed against his grip, forcing my cock through it. “I shouldn’t…”
“What?”
“I shouldn’t feel like this.” I could have laughed. “You’re taking advantage of an invalid.”
“Want me to stop?”
“Fuck no.”
“Turn over then.”
“Steven, just—don’t…” How the fuck did he do this to me? Get inside my head, make me hard without even being in the room, then instantly resurrect my not-yet-I’m-too-fragile boner as soon as he laid his hand on me?
“Just turn the fuck over and touch me, will you?”
It wasn’t a polite request. I followed orders by turning over—gingerly—and resettling myself, waiting for him to get his hand on my cock again.
He frowned in obvious concentration.
“Don’t look at me,” I told him. “I feel dog-rough.”
“You look okay to me. Well, you look like death warmed up, but I still would.” And he burst out laughing, before smothering the sound and leaning down to kiss me. “I was just gonna come back and check up on you, you know? But…” He half-shrugged, an awkward manoeuvre while lying down, and I took the opportunity to lean my forehead against his shoulder. I might have looked like I was nuzzling into his neck. I didn’t like being watched at the best of times, but now, while illness would no doubt have bled me of any colour?
Closed curtains made the room dim, but enough light got through to make his features clear so the same would have applied to me. A sleep-blurred pallor plus my hatred of being looked at while another guy touched me.
“You sure this is all right?” he whispered against my hair, shoving and pushing and kicking the covers out of our way.
“Doesn’t seem to me like I have a choice.” I wondered if he’d blame my shaking hands on my temporary illness, rather than nerves. There was more than a little wonder there, too.
They said this sort of thing didn’t land on your doorstep, but it had. Literally. Complete with black curly hair just right for grabbing hold of as I kissed him.
“I don’t have to stop then?”
“You’d better not.”
But it was Steven who whimpered next, a quiet, momentary loss of control, a breath through gritted teeth when I pulled his buckle open and went for his zip. “God. Fuck. Kit.”
Even feeling the way I did, I couldn’t resist preening inwardly. I hadn’t even touched his cock and I’d already reduced him to monosyllabic encouragements and fighting to take a breath.
“Just…gotta…”
“Hmm?” I threatened to nibble at his bottom lip, just sucked it as he broke the kiss, let him feel my teeth almost biting. I’d wanted to do that since I’d first seen his mouth. Actually, that was the second thing. The first thing I’d wanted to do was see what his lips looked like wrapped around my cock.
“…touch you.” He pushed himself against me, like he was trying to fuck me through his clothes, but managed to haul my shorts out of the way. Somehow.
One minute I was wearing them, the next they were halfway down my thighs. I could have pulled them off but whatever. Steven had his hand on my cock again. That was all that mattered.
“You’re gonna put me off, you know,” I murmured against his neck, breathing him in.
“Trying to… God, that’s…”
“You like that?”
“Lemme…your zip…”
“Kit, just, fuck, we don’t have time. Just let me see you— oh God…”
I felt the shudder run through him, arching his spine and pushing his hips against mine. He lay still for a moment and I held my breath, waited for him to make the next move.
Steven let go of me, but only to pull his zip all the way down,
shove his shorts out of the way. Then he was on me again like a desperate man.
His tongue tasted of the countless mugs of coffee he’d had at work to help him sober up and rehydrate. There was the faintest taste of mint there too, and smoke.
I had no idea who was touching who—we ended up tangled, lying on our sides, and the moment Steven ran his palm along the underside of my cock I knew I wouldn’t last long.
Just his palm, no fingers wrapped around me, and it was one of the most erotic feelings I’d ever experience. He wanted to see me come and I needed to but that move was just about touching me for the sake of it, with no end result in mind.
“You distracted me all morning at work.” Though our foreheads touched, our proximity throwing everything else in the room out of focus, I could still make out the curve of his lips, the blade of his cheekbone sharp with a barely-suppressed grin.
“Nah, that was just the hangover.” His nearly-grin was infectious, and I laughed too.
“Do that again. God, Steven, I—” I hissed in a breath and neither of us laughed now. “Need to come.”
“And I needed to see it.”
I hoped he wouldn’t pull away, try to watch; I couldn’t tell him how much I hated that, my loss of control witnessed. Anything to stop it happening. So I pushed myself against him and in the tangle of hands and fingers, our cocks touched and as soon as they did he grunted.
Like the first push inside me last night.
“Wish we had time for more,” he whispered.
“Just shut up and— fuck, just like that—” My voice had become a whine or a whimper, too strangulated to continue, and the way Steven was grinding against me, his hand over mine, forcing us together, just about finished me off.
“Gonna come.” His breath was warm— hot—against the side of my face.
I buried my head in the curve of his shoulder, praying he wouldn’t make me move. Just give me one more minute, just let me come, let me come. The moisture between us was a combination of perspiration from hot, clammy hands and pre-cum from both of us, slick against our cocks and in between fumbling fingers.
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