Hardware, power drills, and skill saws covered the shelves. The sanders were on the end next to the Sawzalls.
The bells on the door clanged, and Berry called out a greeting.
I picked up one of the sanders. The shelf was just short enough for Morgan’s crop of blond hair to flash over the top as he walked past.
He hummed while he paced up and down the aisle.
I stood on my toes.
Morgan stopped in front of the cutting tools located directly on the other side. Like before, he held his dancing fingers close to his temple.
“I need the red-handled glass cutter.” His gaze stayed on the floor.
Berry walked over. “I’m sold out, but the Martin brand is really good.”
Morgan’s shoulder jerked, and he clenched his fist. “Has to be the red-handled one.” He dug through the shelves.
“You may have to wait then. I’ve got an order coming in tomorrow. They should be on the truck.”
“Need it today, Berry.”
“And I’m out.”
“You’re supposed to keep extra for me. We agreed.” Morgan rocked on his toes.
“And you buy them faster than I can put them on the shelf.”
“They go dull.”
“That’s why I keep telling you to use the Martin. They last twice as long.” He took one out of the package.
Morgan shook his head. “Need the red one.”
“What if I gave this one to you on the house, just to try it?”
“I only buy the red ones.”
“You wouldn’t be buying it. It would be a gift.”
Morgan fell still and took the tool from Joe’s hand. He held it up to the light, turned it around, and flipped it over. When he lowered it, he traced the flat side with elegant fingers belonging to his strong hands. Tawny muscles made subtle lines on his arms, and there was a hole in the side of his shirt. When he moved to the right, it flashed his navel.
Between the bad lighting and his build, I’d misjudged his age at the bar. He was not a boy but a hell of a gorgeous man.
I jerked my gaze away.
What the fuck was wrong with me? There I was in the goddamned hardware store lusting after some poor disabled guy. The sick feeling in my stomach was compounded by the fact that my dick didn’t seem to care Morgan wasn’t normal.
I grabbed one of the sanders Berry recommended and headed to the back where he kept the nails. There were only two boxes of one-and-a-half inch galvanized so I grabbed both. I turned around and slammed into Morgan. He stumbled back, and I caught him by his arm to keep him from falling into a rack of hammers.
“Jesus, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.”
“You should pay attention then. I’m hard to miss.” He flicked a look up at me, and his mouth curled in a way that made my cheeks burn. Then he went back to staring at the floor.
I let him go and tried to figure out something to do with my free hand. Morgan brushed by.
A ripped seam at the corner of his back pocket flashed a patch of bare skin.
Goddamn. He was commando.
Morgan bent over at the rolls of wiring. The thin denim tightened over his ass, and a few more threads threatened to give way. He turned a little, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he purposely flashed me.
When he stood again, his jeans rode low enough to show off the dimples on his lower back. He caught me watching, tilted his head, and smiled.
I fled to the register.
I needed to make a trip into the city to find a piece of ass before I got myself in trouble.
“Is that all?”
I put my stuff on the counter. “Yeah, that should do it.” Had Berry noticed me watching Morgan? I prayed he didn’t. I’d wind up burned at the stake sure enough.
And I’d deserve it.
Berry turned the sander over. “Damn sticker must have fallen off. You remember how much this was?”
“No.” I hadn’t even looked at the price because I’d been too busy watching Morgan.
“Hang on while I look this up.” Berry dug a book out from under the register.
Morgan appeared at the end of the aisle and sauntered toward me. He stopped a few feet away, and I did my damnedest to keep my eyes from wandering over parts of him they did not need to wander over.
He reached around me and dug through a bucket of chocolates on the counter. My ass wound up pressed to the cradle of his hips and the line of his cock followed the crease of my crack. I gritted my teeth and held the edge of the counter until my knuckle joints showed under the skin.
Morgan plucked a piece of candy from the container, unwrapped it, and his wayward gaze met mine. Almost in slow-motion, Morgan slipped his tongue from between his parted lips. He teased the surface of the candy, leaving a shiny wet line on the edge before slipping it into his mouth. Then proceeded to suck the chocolate from each fingertip with enough force to hollow out his cheeks.
“Here it is.” Berry tapped the page and rang up the sander.
Morgan rubbed against me one last time before stepping back. I fumbled for my wallet while fighting off fantasies of those lips on my cock.
Berry’s bushy white eyebrows bunched up. “You okay?”
“Huh?”
“Your hands are shaking.”
“Uh, no, I’m good. Probably too much coffee.”
He squinted up at me. “You sure? You look kinda feverish. There’s a bug been going 'round. You’d better watch yourself; you don’t wanna get sick.”
Oh, I was already sick as they came. Just not in the way Berry worried about.
“Yeah, I’ll do that.” I grabbed my things. “I’ll see you tomorrow probably.”
He smiled, and his gaze slid from Morgan to me. I didn’t wait around to find out whether or not he suspected anything.
By the time I got behind the wheel, I had the father of all hard-ons pressing against the back of my fly. Jesus Christ, when the hell had I turned into the kind of man who lusted after someone with the mind of a child?
Although it hadn’t been a child rubbing off on me.
I had to have imagined it. Morgan could barely lift his eyes. But when he had, it was like he knew how good he looked and what a body like his could do to a person.
“Get a grip, Grant.” I glared at myself in the rearview. “You’re turning into a class-A pervert.”
I started the truck and backed out. The road was clear so I made a right. Red flashed in my periphery. There was barely a thump when the bumper of the truck caught the rear wheel of the bike, but it was enough to shove it over and toss the rider on the ground.
“Fucking hell.” I threw the truck in park and got out. Broken spokes on the wheel tangled in the bumper. The rider was on his knees examining his bloody elbow.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t see—”
Morgan glanced up at me. “You really should pay attention to where you’re going.” He stood and ran a hand over one of the busted spokes. “Damn it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You said that already.” He tried to tug the bike free, but the truck wouldn’t let go. Morgan gave up and wiped his scraped palm on his shirt, leaving a bloody smear.
“Wait here.” I tossed a thumb over my shoulder. “I’ll go inside and call an ambulance.”
“What for?”
“You’re hurt.”
“It’s a scrape and a few bruises. I don’t need an ambulance.” Morgan rocked and flicked his wrist and fingers next to his head. “If you want to do something, help me get it loose.” I tried to figure out where to grip the thing without getting to close to him. “Sometime today would be nice.”
We untangled the spokes, and he examined the crease in the wheel. “Here.” He pushed the bike in my direction. “You carry that and I’ll get the rest.” Morgan picked up a flip-flop and put it back on. Then he put his bag of supplies in the bed of the truck.
“What are you doing?”
“You wrecked my bike. I don’t have a
ny way home. So you’re going to give me a ride.” He pulled the bike out of my hands and hoisted it over the edge of the truck bed.
Morgan shook a rock out of his other flip-flop, then climbed into the cab. He tapped the dash, flipped the visor down then up, opened the glove compartment.
That boy in my truck could only land me in jail.
Morgan leaned out the window. “I’ve got somewhere I need to be so if you don’t mind I’d like to get going.” He counted his fingers against his palm then dropped his hand into his lap.
When he wasn’t doing those strange movements, I could almost convince myself there was nothing wrong with him except he couldn’t look me in the eye more than a second or two.
I got in the truck.
“What about seat belts?” He looked around.
“Doesn’t have any.”
“It’s illegal to drive without a seat belt.”
“The truck is older than I am, it didn’t come with any. The law doesn’t apply.”
Morgan kept searching. Maybe he didn’t believe me. Finally he stopped and propped an elbow on the window. “You should see about getting some installed.”
I squeezed the steering wheel. “Do you want a ride or not?”
“Why else would I be in your truck?”
Oh the reasons I could come up with. And unlike the lack of seat belts, none of those could be legal.
“Where do you live?”
“Porter’s Creek Road.”
“Where is that?” Close. It had to be close. Anything longer than three miles was playing with fire.
“You know where the reservoir is?”
Damn it. So much for close. “Yeah.”
“Porter’s Creek is about five miles from there on Water Way.”
“You bike ten miles into town?”
“If I had a car, I wouldn’t be on a bike.”
No wonder his ass looked so good. I cursed myself and started the truck.
Fall painted the dense forest edging the road in shades of gold and red. Every so often, a fat leaf would flutter down and get caught on the windshield. Soon the limbs would be bare. It had been a long time since I’d seen so many trees, and having grown up in Alabama, I’d never experienced this kind of color.
Bits of sunlight broke through the canopy, scattering into nameless shapes on the road. The fragments of light slid across the hood of the truck and trickled into the cab.
Morgan held his hand out over the dash and wiggled his fingers through the luminous patches.
His mouth tilted into a soft smile, and for some reason, the combination left me with the strangest feeling of ignorance.
I thrummed my fingers on the steering wheel and kept an eye out for Water Way. After a few more miles of eerie silence, where Morgan chased the light through the air, the sign appeared on the right.
“Five miles?” I glance at him. He held his hands closer to the windshield. The light shifted direction, pulling it back to the edge of the dash. “Morgan?”
He tilted his head and continued to dance his fingers. The expression on his face didn’t have a name, but it was peaceful.
I squeezed the steering wheel. What was I supposed to do to get his attention? Jessie had whistled so I decided it was worth a try.
Morgan blinked a few times. “Yes?”
“Five miles?” It was a fight to keep my eyes on the road with him looking at me. Somehow I knew it was a rare moment that wouldn’t last.
“Five miles, eighteen mail boxes, not counting the airmail box.”
“Airmail box?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.” He put his hands in his lap. “So what do you do?”
After the lengthy silence, my brain seemed to have trouble deciphering his words. “I’m retired. Sorta.”
“Retired? You don’t look old enough to retire.” He tapped his fingers in an odd rhythm on the dash. It took me a moment to realize he was matching the beat of the wheels as they hit the streaks of tar filling the cracks in the asphalt.
“I got lucky.”
“So you must be rich?”
He had no idea, and neither did that two-faced son of a bitch FBI agent. Living in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere was a small price to pay to keep it that way. “Not really.”
Morgan stopped tapping the dash. “Airmail.” He pointed up. Ahead of us a mailbox had been fastened to a post no less than twenty feet tall.
Airmail. I snorted.
“Do you think they use a ladder or just shimmy up the pole?” Morgan tilted his head, following the airmail box as we passed it. I started to laugh but stopped because I wasn’t sure if he was serious. I mean there was no telling what he understood.
Morgan graced me with a momentary view of his dark gaze. His smile cocked to the side. “I was joking.”
“I knew that.”
“No, you didn’t.” He knocked on the windshield. “Three more then turn left. Dead tree on the right, watch for the squirrels because they’ll run out in front of you.”
“I know the truck is old, but I’m pretty sure it will hold together if we hit a squirrel.”
“It’s not the truck I’m worried about.”
I slowed down as we approached the remnants of a massive oak on the shoulder of the road. Splinters of wood jabbed at the sky. A couple of squirrels sparred with each other at the split in the base. They disappeared in a flash of brown fur as we passed.
I took a left onto Porter’s Creek. Before I could ask where to next, Morgan said, “White house on the right. Picket fence with lots of bottles.”
Bottles?
I had my answer as soon as I turned up the drive. An assortment of bottles lined the narrow cross beams of the picket fence surrounding the front yard of the farmhouse. Top and bottom, the colored glass was twice as bright against the white wash. They’d been organized by hue ascending from light to dark. Size and shape didn’t seem to matter.
There were no cars in the driveway. It wasn’t uncommon for people in a town like Durstrand to be too poor for a car, but no one came to the door. I pulled to a stop next to a pile of firewood waiting to be split. An ax stuck in the center of one of the stumps.
“Your parents home?”
“Parents?”
There was a fresh cord of wood on the porch next to the porch swing. It was gray like the shutters. All the paint on the house was so perfect it couldn’t be more than a couple months old.
Morgan hopped out of the truck. “Why don’t you come in and I’ll fix you a glass of tea.”
I got out to help him with the bike.
“I’ve got coffee if you prefer that?”
“I appreciate the offer, but I can’t.” I started to get the bike.
“Leave it.” He picked up his bag of supplies. “I’ll take it to Jenny’s when you give me a ride back into town.”
“Wait…”
But he’d already cleared the porch and walked inside.
What the hell did I do now?
His voice floated out the screen door. “Tea or coffee?”
“I can’t stay.”
“What?” The hazy image of his silhouette was swallowed by the shadows.
Against my better judgment, I followed him inside. The living room furniture was rustic and neatly arrange around a large wood stove. There was no wall between the living and dining room. The kitchen was in the back. All the appliances were well kept but products from generation that preceded my parents.
“I’m in here.” Morgan’s voice came from behind the half-closed door on the side of a small nook to my left. The sight of his bare ass stopped me in my tracks. “Tea’s in the fridge, coffee’s in the cabinet over the stove.” He turned around, and I stumbled back. The tight confines didn’t offer much of a retreat, and I wound up knocking my hip into the dining room table.
Morgan came out of the room dressed in a clean pair of jeans with holes in the knees. He held a T-shirt in his hand.
“Can’t find the coffee?”
&nb
sp; He rolled a shoulder and stared at the floor. “Or did you want something else?” His dark eyes glittered from behind a curtain of blond curls. Morgan closed the space between us, and my lungs squeezed tight. “Problem, Grant?” He fondled the sleeve of my shirt and trailed his fingers across my chest, stopping over one of my nipples.
He tipped his chin up. This close the full weight of his gaze hit me with the force of a punch to the ribs. He flicked his tongue over his plump bottom lip leaving the pink flesh glistening.
More than anything, I wanted to press my mouth to his and drown in his taste.
“What are you thinking?” Morgan drew a line with his thumb from my chin to the front of my jeans. He palmed the growing bulge and squeezed. “Whatever it is must be pretty interesting.” His exhale warmed my ear. “So is it, fucking me or sucking my cock?”
I couldn’t have told him if I wanted to because the rush of jumbled thoughts made no sense.
Morgan’s bangs brushed my cheek. “Hmmm?” He popped the button on my jeans. “How about I make this easy and start for you?” His free hand fluttered next to his temple.
The disjointed behavior kicked me in the balls, and I pushed his hands away from my crotch. “Is there someone I can call to let them know you’re here?”
He raised an eyebrow, but his stare remained focused near my shoulder. “Call?”
“Yeah, whoever it is that takes care of you.”
Morgan stepped back. “Care of me?”
I felt around for my phone but couldn’t find it. Damn thing was always falling out of my pocket in the truck. “You mentioned someone named Jenny.”
“My aunt.”
“What’s her number?”
“Why?”
“So I can let her know you’re all right.”
Morgan jerked away and raised his fist. I fully expected him to hit me, but it hovered near his temple. The tendons stood out on his wrists and his knuckles were white. A tic jumped along Morgan’s jaw accompanied by that high keening sound I’d heard before. He stepped back.
“Look, I’m sorry people have taken advantage of you.”
His nostrils flared.
In The Absence Of Light Page 2