Building Us: A Gay Romantic Comedy and Adventure (Marketing Beef Gay Romance Book 2)

by Rick Bettencourt

  “Well, he sort of did. But that was after the paternity testing started.” She held a hand up. “I’m being honest here. She had Adam, the guy from the—”

  “We know who he is,” Dillon and I said together, catching each other’s glance in surprise.

  “Mikey’s hopes were raised that I’d finally found out who knocked me up. At this point we were living in Settlement and I got into fentanyl and other prescription drugs that my mother confiscated.” She kicked at a patch of dirt, adding to the grime on her white espadrilles. “I made matters worse.” She looked up. “I’m sorry. Truth is, I don’t know who the hell knocked me up. I was high on ecstasy at a rave.”

  “I was working in Boston for a marketing firm.”

  “I know that now. But coincidentally the paternity test, from the cup you drank out of at some hotel in Salem, came back with mixed results. Adam Lehman got you drunk, I heard?”

  Dillon cleared his throat. “Umm, we had a few at the lounge of the Hawthorne Hotel.” He eyed me.

  “He had your glass analyzed?” I asked.

  “I’m hearing this for the first time too.” Dillon placed a foot on the bench where Dina sat. “So what do you mean by mixed results?”

  “Well, they were inconclusive. My mother insisted other bodily fluids be acquired to determine for sure. Like I said, I fed the lies. I’m sorry, but Mikey’s hopes were starting to get up. He’d met you both and liked you.” She placed a hand to her forehead. “God, I could use a drink.”

  I noted a convenience store across the way. “Can I get you water or a soda?”

  She chuckled. “I could rip through a six-pack of Bud.”

  I leaned back and changed my mind. “Bad idea.”

  She winced with an assured smile. “Probably.”

  “Dillon,” I said, “maybe we’re pushing her too hard. I’d hate to be responsible for her going off the wagon.”

  She waved a hand at me. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve caused enough grief in my life.”

  Dillon sat beside her. “So Darlene gets my sperm and sweat from the costume they had me wear.”

  “And the bed you…you slept in,” I added.

  “Thank you, Evan, for reminding us about the wet dream I had while staying at Darlene’s mansion.”

  “Well those samples confirmed a relationship,” Dina said.

  “A relationship?”

  “It stated you were related to Mikey.” Dina nodded. “At that point he was ecstatic, but I knew something was off because the investigator found out you weren’t even in Seattle when I got pregnant. I didn’t want to let Mikey down any more than I already had. I turned to more drugs.” She thumbed her temple with fingers splayed along her forehead.

  Dillon sat quiet for a moment, elbows propped on his knees and fingers templed under his nose. “Dina, do you know who your father is?”

  “Not really. I never met him. My mother said he screwed more women than the bolts he was alleged to rivet onto aircraft wings at Boeing.”

  Dillon sighed. “My dad worked at Boeing too.” He leaned back. “My sperm donor screwed bolts and many women too.”

  “What?” Dina and I said. My body went numb.

  “He was a ladies’ man, left me and my mother when I was three years old. I met him once…at his funeral. He died before I moved to Boston.”

  At this point, I needed to sit too and took residency to Dina’s right. “Darlene mentioned him the other day,” I said, leaning forward. “I had no idea.”

  “Dina, I think you’re my half sister.” Dillon patted her knee.

  She beamed. “Then you’re Mikey’s half uncle.”

  Chapter 70

  Dillon

  Aboard a ferry chugging through Puget Sound, I wrapped an arm around Evan. We’d visited my parents’ graves and welcomed a boating diversion and some vacationing to clear our heads. Windbreakers purchased in the lobby of our hotel slapped our skin as the northwest winds gusted and sprayed occasional rain. The glimpses of Mount Rainier through breaks in the overcast day were breathtaking. As we neared the harbor to return to our hotel, the sun shined bright and green flora cast an iridescence I remembered from childhood.

  “It’s not quite our Mediterranean cruise,” I said as we disembarked.

  “I don’t need a trip to Madrid or Mykonos.” Evan stepped onto the pier. “I just need you. I’m proud of what you’ve done, Dill. You’ve not only turned our business around, you’ve given a kid some hope and made our relationship stronger.”

  I slipped a hand in his rear pocket. “I have some additional ideas about cementing our relationship.”

  “You do, do you?”

  Our room at the Four Seasons Hotel offered views of the bay, but that didn’t occupy our time when we returned. Even the wine I’d ordered remained untouched.

  Instead, by the bed, Evan’s eager mouth met mine, and he pulled me down. His soft lips caressed and soothed me. “I want you inside me.” His warm breath invited me further, and I kissed him more.

  “I want you, Evan. I want you more than anything. I want you always.” I got lost in our bond. Words were futile. I’d never wanted anyone more than I did Evan. I wanted him to know that. My big mouth said it, but I didn’t know how to express it fully.

  His warm tongue soothed any apprehension I had, and my body shuddered. He removed my windbreaker. “Lie down.” He eased me into a seated position and slid off my sweatshirt.

  As I sat on the edge of the bed, with his smiling face hovering over me, my heart pounded against my chest, and my cock crimped in my jeans.

  “I want to take care of you.” Evan undid the top button of my pants as I lay back, then unzipped me. “I love you, Dillon Deiss. Forever and more.”

  I scooted up onto my elbows as he removed his shirt. “I love you too, Evan McCormick-Deiss.”

  His head popped out of his T-shirt. His pecs’ girth and washboard abs had returned with all the exercise he’d been doing lately. “I think it’s time to lose the McCormick.”

  “What?”

  He undid his corduroys and slid them down. His erection strained his underwear. “I’m Evan Deiss.”

  I rose. The bed creaked and I kissed him. Our crotches thumped, and as we kissed harder they slowly ground together. I clutched his firm ass, and he reciprocated. I pulled away from his forever-seductive mouth, with its pink lips framed in dimples, to look into his eyes and take in more of him. Saying, “God, I love you,” at this point would’ve been an understatement. Instead, I kept quiet.

  Evan eased me backward until my calves hit the bed and lowered me with his gaze. His finger laid me down, and he knee-walked over me, his thighs by my sides. He lowered and kissed me. His tongue licked down the scruff of my chin, down my neck, across my Adam’s apple where he stopped and kissed it. Farther down along the gape of my neck, he lapped and worked his way down to my chest. He kneaded my pecs and bit a tit tenderly.

  I squirmed, and my heart slammed against my rib cage.

  His hands clasped my hair as he toggled between my nipples, licking and sending currents of electricity through my body. My hips rocked. We hadn’t taken off our underwear. When I pressed against his crotch, I oozed. He moved down farther, licking my abs and navel along the way. Finally his warm mouth met my erection, and he sucked me through my briefs. I wanted to come but held his shoulders to stave off my release and steady my whirling mind. Evan grunted sexy sounds, and hearing his pleasure excited me.

  He slid off my soaked underwear and took my freed girth into his mouth.

  My back arched, and my hands gripped the sheets. “Oh…God…Evan.”

  He sucked me readily, edging me close enough to enjoy but not end the ride. When I thought I couldn’t handle any more—with my heart racing, my blood boiling, my cock screeching for release—he stopped.

  “I want you inside me.” He rose, and a dime-sized wet spot in the apex of his briefs revealed his own excitement. He shucked his underwear, and his manhood bounced liberally.

>   I elbowed my way up. “Let me take care of you.”

  “No.” He cradled me in a knee-walk onto the bed, reached into the nightstand, and removed the lubricant he’d packed. “It’s all about you.”

  I kissed his chest. “It’s all about us.” I pressed a hand into his back and nibbled where his wine stain marked his tit. He shivered and pushed the back of my head to work me deeper into his chest. I nibbled more and tweaked the other nipple with my free hand.

  His knees quaked. “Dillon. You make me feel so good.”

  My hand worked its way down his taut abs, leaving ripples of gooseflesh in its wake. I wrapped a hand around his cock and jacked him slowly. He grinned. His head fell back. I loved pleasuring him and seeped precum in my arousal.

  Evan uncapped the lube and lathered his hole.

  I squirted some in my hand. I ached for his tight heat around me, for him to ride me hard and fast the way we both liked it.

  On his haunches, Evan lowered onto me and whimpered when I penetrated. Slowly at first, he budged up and down. We always took it easy for starters. I lay still and let him find the proper angle but, like always, my hips were unrelenting and bucked, wanting to go deeper. He held me back. I couldn’t control myself. My cock pressed forward like a disobedient teenager tempting curfew until finally Evan gave way, and I fucked hard.

  Evan squealed. His erection swatted until he took control of it. We sweated and grunted. After some time, I eased him off me, stole a hot kiss, and rolled him over. Quickly I penetrated again and explored the mouth I’d memorized with my tongue. We spoke in gasps and moans.

  His nails raked my back. “It’s been…too…long.” His legs girded my hips. “You drive me crazy for your sex. I love fucking you.” Our tender lovemaking turned hot and horny in an instant.

  “And…I love…to fuck…you.” I slowed my pace for fear of shooting off. When Evan talked dirty, I was hard-pressed to resist fate. Even the times over the phone, I’d lost it readily.

  “I love you, Dillon.” He swept hair from my eyes.

  “I love you, Mr. Deiss.” I knuckled his cheek and returned to my deep thrusts. The friction of our bodies hastened. Our physicality progressed beyond where it had in the past. I stared deep into his gorgeous blues. Our mouths collided and our souls gathered in breath. Our typical lust-filled sex that had marred many sheets evolved into something more on that Seattle bed. Like a thirsty desert anticipating for a monsoon, those three words said time and again soaked deep this time. “I love you!”

  “I love you,” I replied.

  Our bodies rocked and Evan’s legs locked around my butt. I didn’t know I could go deeper and pressed in more. Our chests joined in a tightened heat. Our hearts beat together, pounding love. A pressure 1,000 times sexier than the lust boiling in my balls yearned for release. It throbbed deep inside, but I didn’t want to let it out for fear of ending the bliss. Yet when Evan’s muscles tightened and his gasps quickened with urgency, I knew the conclusion—or was it a new beginning?—neared.

  Our mouths breathed in each other’s souls. Love coursed through our veins and suffused our hearts. With our hands locked together, a hot rush raked over us. We came, gushing like a ferocious river, drowned under its force, no longer in control, no longer apart but dissolved into a bank of one. The climax lasted a lifetime.

  In the throes of orgasm, Evan’s feet swayed by my sides like a slow-motion scene at the cinema. I yawed as if wrenching out from my body and saw myself fucking, sweaty and thrusting hard. Evan’s face was twisted in beautiful euphoria below me, our sweaty mass, a collision of lust and devotion.

  Weeks passed, and this orgiastic part of our movie continued—a montage of events as I happily chomped popcorn watching the show: Evan receiving a mysterious phone call on our way home from Seattle, his face dimpled in an expression of joy. We toast champagne as our offer is accepted on the Old Farm Road house in Salem—after the seller’s other fell through. At our new house, we unlock the door for the first time as owners and make love on the kitchen island, on the grand staircase, in the marble shower, in the walk-in closet, and back in the pantry.

  Still in this hyper-climax of life, I slurp soda, watching Evan and Dillon building us on the projector screen in front of me.

  Weeks turn to months.

  I adorn our front porch with a display of pumpkins, mums, cornstalks, and bushels of hay as Evan returns from the mall with a thud of the Ford’s hatch. He’s wearing a pair of black logger boots, laced with thick yellow ties.

  “Do you like them?” He juts a foot out, and in his hand carries shopping bags, a bare-chested male model on one and slew of other totes behind it. “They were on sale. I just had to get them.” I drop the autumn berry wreath I’m about to hang on the door. “Come here.” I take him upstairs.

  The film flickers; I eat a candy bar and drink more soda from this transcendent view of my new life.

  In our master bedroom, three times the size of our old one in Conant, I make love to Evan. He’s naked except for his new pair of boots, which sway beside me, diffusing their leather scent and elevating my hyper orgasm further.

  I’ve learned that over time, love shifts from pure passion and sex to a sense of caring and respect that makes love even hotter.

  Chapter 71

  Evan

  When I came home from shopping, Dillon hurried me upstairs and we fucked so hard, I came twice. Ever since Seattle, our sex had been in such a hyper state that I flushed my testosterone prescription and never refilled it. Dillon more than satisfied me. In this fantastic fuck, he made me keep my boots on, the little devil. Lately our sex had been a cocktail of raunch mixed with passionate lovemaking with some pours a little heavier on one ingredient than the other.

  Boots still on, I lay on the bed naked. Dillon snored beside me on his stomach. My eyes drooped. The coffered ceiling in our master bedroom offered a crisscross of cherrywood. I glimpsed at Mrs. Johnson’s painting of us hanging over the mantle and drifted into slumber.

  Downstairs, commotion filled the foyer as the front door opened. Deet greeted the arrival in a pitter-patter of paws on tile turning to the clickity-clack of claws on hardwood. He whimpered and yelped, filling the expanse below.

  “Shit.” I bolted up and shook Dillon by the butt.

  “Huh?” he uttered and faced me with his messed-up hair and sheet-lined face.

  “Get up!” I unlaced the top of one boot.

  “I was sound asleep.” Dillon flipped, and his spent manhood flopped with him.

  “He’s back already.” I removed the boot.

  “Shit!” Dillon rose.

  “Hello!” the voice echoed upstairs.

  “Yes. We’ll be right down.” I eyed the alarm clock’s digital display nearing four o’clock.

  Keys kerplunked in the vase in the hallway. Deet thundered, no doubt circling around for a walk.

  I tossed the other boot to the floor. It landed beside the bag of goods from the mall where I’d picked up a suit for Mikey and the big day ahead. “Why don’t you take Deet for a walk?” I yelled toward the door. Dillon jumped into his pants.

  “Okay!” Mikey yelled. He rustled through the kitchen cabinets for a snack. “C’mon, Deet.” Downstairs, the back door opened as I dressed.

  I wandered to the window and took in our yard. Outside, Mikey tossed a tennis ball, and Deet ran after it. From behind me, Dillon wrapped his arms around me.

  “I think I could get used to this,” he said.

  “Used to what?” I placed a palm over his hand, which rested on my hip.

  “Our family.”

  The following day, we had Mikey dismissed early and picked him at the middle school on Highland Avenue. He wore his suit, the first one he’d ever owned, to school that day because of the occasion. I’d offered him the choice to wear something else and change when we arrived, but he was too proud of what was to unfold and donned it, anyway. He ran to the car, flung open the back door, and hopped in.

  Dillon loo
ked into the mirror. “You ready?”

  “I am.”

  On the other side of Salem in a building decorated with Ionic columns, we sat at a table beside Jack, our attorney. We all raised our right hands at the request of the judge, who swore us in, and peppered Jack with questions. Finally, he addressed us. “Mr. and Mr. Deiss?”

  “Yes,” we said. Weeks ago, I’d already changed my last name to Dillon’s in a similar hearing. This was the first time I’d been addressed as such. The enormity of today’s event sunk in, and while we were both ready to formalize the situation, it still incited a case of nerves.

  The African American judge wore a black robe, and puffs of gray hair ringed his crown. “Are you prepared for Michael to become your legal responsibility as if naturally born to you?”

  Dillon clutched my hand. “We are.”

  “Yes,” I said and noticed he’d grabbed Mikey’s hand too. The kid had been living with us the last few months ever since Dina fell off the wagon and returned to rehab, followed by Darlene committing herself as well.

  “This means you have an obligation to support and educate him and that he would be entitled to inherit as if naturally born to you. Do you agree?”

  I grinned and caught Dillon’s eye. “We do,” we said.

  “Are you prepared to take care of Michael until he’s eighteen or possibly older?” The judge’s friendly face calmed my nerves.

  “Yes.”

  “Beautiful.” He leaned back at his bench. “Would you please tell the court your reasons for adopting?”

  Our lawyer, also a friend and client of ours, nodded to Dillon, who rose. His chair rasped along the floor, and he tidied his suit.

  Behind us, a group of other children with their legal guardians occupied benches and waited their turn. Our gang—Tim, Javier, and their daughter—inhabited a row to the children’s left. Pike and Madeline sat with their baby too. Beside them were Patty from NEFO and Debbie McCandless, engaged to each other with a wedding in the spring. Also, an older gay couple we’d met in the neighborhood, partnered for forty years and legally married for ten, shared the bench.