by T. J. Klune
“Rude,” I said. “But true. Now, let’s go back to the part where you were trying to get into my pants and you thought it was a good idea to insult me. And then we’ll talk about how there will be an unexpected fisting in your future if you try that again.”
“Unexpected fisting?” he asked, eyebrows climbing almost to his hairline. “What the hell is that?”
“Um, it’s pretty self-explanatory. One day you’re going to get fisted. Unexpectedly. Get with the program, Mayne.”
“How are you even going to pull off unexpect—you know what? I don’t even want to know.”
I smiled sweetly at him. “That’s a good boy. Now tell me more how I’m a fucking idiot.”
He reached down and rested his hands on my shoulders, squeezing lightly before he turned me around on the stool slowly until I was eye level with his crotch. I really wasn’t complaining. I thought about pressing my face against him, just to see what would happen, but I was more curious as to what he intended to do. He stood above me, looking down, a strange expression on his face before he reached behind me and grabbed the makeup wipes. He pulled another stool over and set it in front of me. He sat on it so we were face to face.
I was nervous, unsure what was happening, and I opened my mouth to say something sarcastic or biting, but I swallowed it away at the intensity on his face. He was focused, but on what I couldn’t yet say.
He put the package of wipes in his mouth, holding them in place with his teeth. Our knees knocked together, my bare skin against his denim-clad. It was rough, but it grounded me, making the moment less surreal.
Because here was a man, for all intents and purposes a selfish man, watching me like I might be the greatest thing in the world.
He reached for me, and I didn’t even think to flinch. He grabbed the edges of my stool and pulled me slowly toward him, spreading his legs wide to accommodate both of mine between. We were close now, almost unbearably so.
He took the wipes from his mouth and set them in his lap.
He said, “You think that I would only want you when you’re Helena.”
My skin felt hot and stretched too thin, like I was brittle. I didn’t agree or disagree with him, merely breathed shallowly, wondering where this was heading.
But yes. Part of me thought that.
He didn’t seem to need a response. He brought his hands to either side of my face again, thumbs brushing against my cheeks. Then, just as carefully, he reached up, fingers between the wig and my scalp, tugging on it gently. He unfastened the pins that held it in place, setting them on the vanity behind me. Once it was loose, he pulled it from my head, carefully setting it back behind us. I wanted to admonish him and make sure it was put on the mannequin head I kept for my wigs, but I couldn’t seem to find my voice to say so. He studied me for a moment, eyes searching for something that I wasn’t privy to. It should have been more uncomfortable than it was, being so closely watched. Those blue eyes I knew so well flickered across my face.
He must have found what he was looking for, because he nodded to himself and reached for me again, this time going for the wig cap. He slid it off my head and it fell behind me, almost immediately forgotten.
His hands were in my matted-down hair, fingers rubbing gently over my scalp. I closed my eyes at the sensation, his fingernails dragging deliciously along my skin.
“You think that I want you to be this,” he said quietly. “All the time.”
I chose to believe it was rhetorical, because I didn’t trust myself to speak, unsure of what words would come out or if my voice would break. Because yes. That’s what I thought.
His hands fell away and it took me a moment to open my eyes. His legs pressed against mine and all the other sounds of the club were muted and soft. Someone was warbling along to an old Paula Abdul song and there was the clink of bottles in the bar, but it felt far away from where we were.
Darren opened the packet of wipes, taking one out and setting the rest back on his lap. He gripped my chin with one hand and brought the wipe up with the other, starting at my eyebrows. He used a firm hand, almost like he knew what he was doing, like he’d been doing this for years.
“I remember,” he said as he began to wipe away Helena, “the first time I saw you.”
I did too, something seared into my memory, but it wasn’t about me, right then.
“You were this… fierce thing,” he said, moving the wipe to my left eye, pressing carefully to the eyelid. “Tall and gorgeous and fucking bitchy as all hell.” He set the wipe down behind me and then pulled out another. He started in on the other eye. “And I didn’t think I’d ever seen anything as amazing as you before.”
My throat clicked audibly as I wondered where this was leading to. Because he was talking about Helena, not me.
“You were with Paul,” he continued. “Though I didn’t know who he was at the time. All I wanted to do was find out who you were.”
He finished with my eyes and used another wipe on my cheeks. My lips, though, there wasn’t much lipstick left.
He didn’t say much more until he’d finished. By the time he sat back, my skin felt raw and my heart was tripping all over itself in my chest.
“And then you disappeared,” he said. “But you came back. As her.”
I froze.
He sighed and took my hands in his. “You were Sandy when I first saw you,” he said, squeezing my fingers. “You were Helena when I saw you again.” His eyes darted away. “And you were Sandy when I was an asshole. That was on me, and I don’t know that I’ll ever forgive myself for that.” He took a deep breath and let it out slow. “I don’t care if you’re Helena. I don’t care if you never put on a wig again. I will take anything you’re willing to give me. But just know that it was you I saw first, Sandy. Not her. I don’t need her or whatever division you think exists. I don’t want just part of you. I want all of you.”
“Holy fucking balls,” I breathed. “Who the fuck are you?”
That cocky smirk reappeared. “I’m just a boy, standing in front of another boy, asking you—”
“Oh my god, shut the fuck up.”
“It sounded good, right?”
“You don’t want just part of me, you want all of me. How is it possible to get a boner from words?”
“What?” he choked out. “I don’t—”
“That shouldn’t even be a real thing, yet here we are. You with your fucking words and me with a goddamned boner. It’s a good thing I untucked before you got here.”
His eyes bulged attractively. In fact, I was finding pretty much everything attractive about him at that moment. Apparently, I had a weakness for men who wiped away my makeup and then told me they wanted me for me. Who would have thought? Surely not I. Especially with those words coming from the Homo Jock King.
“What’s rule ten?” I asked.
He let out a burst of shaky laughter. “Rule ten.”
Feeling more confident, I said, “Vince told me what he thought it was.”
Darren rolled his eyes. “Of course he did.” Then, “Wait. What? What do you mean Vince told you about rule—”
“Oh yeah, they know all about this,” I said rather gleefully. “Apparently Charlie and Mike spilled the beans last night after your twink bid millions of dollars to try and sleep with you.”
“Nothing about that sentence is even remotely accurate.”
“The Mike and Charlie part is.”
Darren buried his face in his hands and groaned. “Of course they know.”
“Yeah, they came to my house this morning and staged an interrogation while role-playing Good Cop, Bad Cop, Corrupt Cop.”
“Role-playing what? I don’t even want to know what the fuck that—”
“And then they yelled at me for a while, because Paul thought I was stringing you along, but he didn’t know that you could give me a word boner. Hell, I didn’t know you could give me a word boner.”
“Seriously, stop saying word boner—”
&nb
sp; “But then Vince asked why we were fake dating, and I couldn’t really figure it out, because why were we fake dating again? And then I remembered you never would give me a reason. You said I couldn’t ask you. That it was your rule ten.”
He blushed furiously.
“Oh my god,” I said, voice slightly strangled. “How can you make blushing erotic? That’s unfair!”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “How the hell did we even get here? And what the hell was with the following me in Halloween costumes today?”
“Halloween costumes?” I said, scandalized. “Those were motherfucking disguises that were well thought out and appropriate for the situation.”
He arched an eyebrow at me.
“Okay. Maybe not completely appropriate,” I said. “But who am I to say no when Vince wanted a mustache and Corey wanted to wear a peach-colored suit?”
“And Paul?”
I snickered. “Yeah, that was pretty funny. He’s going to be mad at me for at least a week. Totally worth it.”
“And you followed me because you were jealous.”
“Right,” I said. “I was completely—oh no. No, no, no. You don’t get to put that back on me!”
But that smirk was already coming back. “You liar.” He looked like he was crawling his way back to even ground. “You want me. You thought I was fucking around with Caleb and you followed me.”
“Nope,” I said. “We just wanted to go out and eat and happened to choose the same place as you did. Nothing more than coincidence.”
“You threatened the waiter and the hostess.”
I scoffed. “That doesn’t sound like something I’d do.”
“It really does,” he said, amused. “I thought they were acting weird, and if I hadn’t already seen you as soon as we were being seated, I would have thought it weirder than it was.”
“The fact that you think I’d threaten waitstaff to do my bidding shows exactly what you think of me.”
His grin only got bigger. “Yeah, because a person stalking another person would draw the line at threatening the waitstaff.”
“Stalking? There was no stalking!”
He shrugged. “I didn’t say I minded. Not that there was anything you had to worry about.”
“Yeah, I kind of figured when you kissed my butt in the alley.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake—”
“I don’t even remember what we were talking about,” I said. “How did we even get here?”
“I feel like that’s a common question in your life.”
“Better get used to it,” I said, suddenly rather nervous.
His smile softened and became more genuine than I’d ever seen it before. “Yeah?”
“Rule ten,” I said. “Can I ask you now?”
He nodded and took my hands in his again.
“Why did you agree to do this?” I asked him. “Why would you do this for me?”
“Because,” he said. “I thought it would be the only chance I’d get to be near you. To be with you the way I wanted to. I’d wanted you for so long that I didn’t really know anything else anymore. But you hated me and any time I even got close, you’d lash out and I’d fight back and I didn’t want that anymore. I was willing to take anything you’d give me. And if it was this… fake thing, then I’d take it. I thought maybe I could show you I wasn’t like you thought I was. That I wasn’t a fucking asshole. That I wasn’t like my father. I needed to prove it to you as much as I needed to prove it to myself.”
“And was any of this about your father?”
He snorted. “Absolutely not. I learned a long time ago that nothing good would ever come from him for me. Andrew Taylor may be my father, but he’s not my family.” He looked me straight in the eye and said, “This was always about you. I was going to take what I could get, because I thought having you like this was better than not having you at all. And that was one thing I could not stand. The thought of not having you at all.”
And it was about that time that I learned that there was only so much boner-making words a person could take without recourse. My limit came with this was always about you and went over the edge with not having you at all. Add in the fact that it was said with such a level of earnestness that only Darren and Vince seemed to be capable of… well. It was really more than I could take.
So I don’t know that I could be blamed, then, when instead of acting as a normal person would to a strange and somewhat scary confession of feelings (say by announcing said feelings in return), I launched myself at him instead.
He let out a squawk unbefitting of someone his size and stature as he fell back off the stool, landing on his back on the floor with me on top of him, the skirt hiked up around my thighs as I lay flush against his chest, ear over his heart.
“Ow,” he said.
“Yeah.” I grimaced. “That was my bad.”
His body shook slightly underneath me, and it took me a moment to realize he was laughing at me.
“It’s not funny,” I pouted.
“You just tackled me. I tell you I have feelings for you and you tackle me? Sandy, what the hell.”
“Maybe you deserved to be tackled,” I muttered, and then his hands were on my hips and I completely forgot about anything else I wanted to say.
I lifted my head slowly to look down at him. His eyes were open and his gaze was soft, almost like he was fond of me. I’d never seen him look at me like that before, and it did things to me.
“Um,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said when he could feel the things it did to me.
“I’m usually not this easy,” I said with a frown. “It actually takes quite a bit more—”
He gripped my hips, holding me down as he began to push up, grinding into me gently. “I guess I should take all the credit for that, then.” And before I could come up with a suitably witty and devastating retort that would have left him emotionally eviscerated, he surged up and kissed me.
It wasn’t like the times before. It wasn’t because of necessity. It wasn’t because of desperation. It felt almost like relief, like sweet, giddy relief that maybe we could finally have this. That it could be ours. That it could be real. There was no deception behind it. No half truths. He wanted it, and given by the way I was clambering all over him, I definitely wanted it.
The problem with making out with a man with big hands and who seemed to like sucking on your tongue is that eventually, clothes become horrendous obstacles that should be destroyed at all costs (and you wonder, really, in some far reach of your lust-addled brain, why they are even necessary to begin with). I didn’t even know how it happened, though by the look on his face, it must have happened quickly. One minute I had his tongue down my throat, and the next, I had his shirt rucked up around his armpits while I scraped my teeth against his nipples, his hand pressed to the back of my head, holding me against him, fingers tensing and flexing, digging into my scalp. The groan he let out as I flicked my tongue across one hardened nipple vibrated against my lips. Wanting to hear more of it, I bit down.
I heard a lot more of it.
Also some cursing, but he didn’t let me go.
If anything, he pulled me harder against him.
“Greedy,” I mumbled against his skin.
“You have no idea,” he gasped as I continued my quest south.
“You’re lying on the floor upstairs in a gay bar where I’m about to show you I don’t have a gag reflex,” I told him as I palmed his dick through his jeans. “I have some idea.”
He gaped at me, face flushed.
I grinned at him.
He said, “You don’t… what?”
“At least I’ve found where all your blood has gone,” I teased. With a practiced flip of my wrist, I snapped open the first button on his jeans, pleased to find they were button fly. I didn’t know why that did it for me, but it did.
He grunted as I mouthed the head of his dick through his briefs, wetting the fabric. He lifted his hips as I pulled h
is jeans down to midthigh. I thought about prolonging this further, really making him work for it, but I didn’t have the patience. I’d told him that I couldn’t be Helena, not all the time, and that was the truth. But she was never far from the surface, always a piece of her raring to break through and take what she wanted.
And right now, Helena Handbasket wanted some cock.
I pulled his briefs up and over his dick, resting them under his balls. I was pleased to see he didn’t shave them. His cock was a pretty thing, not the monster cock one would have expected someone like Darren to have. In fact, it wasn’t much different than my own, maybe a little thicker. It had a wicked curve to it, arching up toward his belly button, the tip flushed red and skin tight.
The noise he made when I wrapped my hand around it and squeezed was almost a sigh, and the muscles in his stomach clenched and contracted. I settled myself between his legs, resting my chest on the floor, my dick aching deliciously. Darren propped himself up on his elbows, staring down at me with wide eyes. He made an appealing picture, mouth slack, tongue wetting his lips, his nipples slick with my spit.
“You know,” I said, almost conversationally, jacking him off slowly with a dry hand, knowing it wasn’t quite enough friction to get anywhere aside from driving him slowly insane. “I’m really very good at cock sucking.”
“That right?” he said hoarsely.
I wasn’t sure where this ego trip was coming from, but I liked it. Maybe it was more Helena than me, but there was something wonderfully dangerous about having the Homo Jock King spread out before me like this, chest heaving and wanting. “That’s right,” I agreed, mouth close to the head of his cock, so much so that I knew he felt my breath on his skin. I jacked him down, making sure my pinkie brushed up against his balls. “And you are so very, very lucky to find out just how good.”
And because life could always stand to be a bit pornier than it actually was, I spit on his dick, a trail of saliva catching on my bottom lip and falling on his cock. I squeezed as I jacked upward, the slide creating a squelch that caused his hips to thrust up.
“You’re going to want to hold on to something.” I grinned up at him.