Gambling on Love

by Jane Davitt

  Only the fact that it was a booth—everything bolted to the floor—stopped him from flipping the table. Instead he had to maneuver out of his side, then reach along the other seat to drag Craig out too. When he started to pull him by his shoulders, though, the guy screamed, a stifled, breathless shriek.

  What the fuck? Abe’s gaze went to Gary, who still smiled as if he’d forgotten how to stop, one hand wrapped around his glass, the other . . . Abe couldn’t see where Gary’s right hand was, but from the strangled moans pouring out of Craig, he could guess. Craig’s face was shiny with sweat, his eyes screwed tight. Abe let go of him and stepped to the side, partly to shield Gary and Craig from the bartender’s view, partly to get a look at Gary’s hand.

  When he saw it, he winced, his balls drawing up in sympathy. Gary had grabbed Craig’s cock through his jeans and was methodically twisting and mauling it, working hard enough to catch flesh in the folds of denim as he tightened his grasp. He released it, only to shove his fingers lower and get a firm grip on Craig’s testicles, pressing down hard on the heel of his hand.

  “Don’t! Don’t! Ah, God, please—”

  Abe felt mildly aggrieved Gary was dealing with Craig—it wasn’t Gary’s fight—but running alongside was a glow of pleasure Gary cared enough to want to dish out some payback on his behalf. Still, any moment someone was bound to notice what was going on. “Gary. That’s enough.”

  Gary’s smile widened. It wasn’t a good look on him. “It will be when Craig tells us how sorry he is for being a dick.”

  “Suh-sorry!” Craig bleated without hesitation. “Let go of me! I’m fucking sorry, okay?”

  The moment Gary shifted his weight, Abe saw relief bloom on Craig’s face. Gary brought his right hand up, studying it reflectively. “Remind me to wash this.” He raised his eyebrows. “Unless you’d like to lick it clean for me, Craig?”

  “Fuck you,” Craig snarled, with more bravado than sense. He struggled out of the booth—Abe stepping aside to give him plenty of room—then doubled over, clutching his crotch and groaning.

  They were attracting attention now; the people in the next booth craned their heads, their curiosity plain. Abe cleared his throat. “I think I’ve had enough fun for one night.”

  Gary produced some bills from his wallet. “That should cover it.”

  “Glad to see you’re leaving, gentlemen.” Cody walked around Craig as if he didn’t exist and picked the money up from the table. “Saves me having to get all macho on your fine asses and throw you out.”

  He didn’t seem too concerned about what had happened, and the look he gave Abe was amused, if not approving. Abe reconsidered his opinion of the man.

  “Yeah, we’re going.”

  Craig muttered something Abe didn’t bother listening to and hobbled off toward the men’s room, his expression daring anyone to comment. Nobody did. The whole unpleasant incident had gone down too quickly and quietly for people to grasp what’d happened, and Craig was a stranger.

  Cody tracked his progress across the room, then turned back to Gary. “And you’re done playing with your friend.” Cody stared at Gary. “We clear on that? No following him back there, no waiting around in the parking lot for him.”

  Gary slid out of the booth, his movements smooth and graceful. He smiled at Cody, all charm, his eyes gleaming. “Don’t worry, I’ve nothing more to say to him.”

  “That was a conversation? You talk dirty,” Cody said wryly. He stepped back and gestured to the door. By the time they’d grabbed their coats, Cody was already back behind the bar, flirting with a customer.

  The air outside was cold and still, fresh enough after the murky warmth of the bar to make Abe feel light-headed when he drew in a few deep breaths. He shrugged into his coat, hurrying before he froze. There was a bench on the sidewalk, snow covering it like a cushion. Gary scooped up a handful and used it to clean his hands ceremoniously, drying them on his jeans.

  “You do that kind of thing often?” Abe was aware of his body’s reaction now the fight—if it qualified as one—was over. He was hard. Not aroused, but hard. His emotions boiled up with no outlet but his mouth and his dick . . . and he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. He wanted to come, voiding his anger and disgust with Craig and his ambiguous gratitude toward Gary, but he didn’t want to use Gary to do it. Even if Gary was part of the reason he felt that way.

  “Define ‘that kind of thing’ and use small words. I think Craig’s stupid rubbed off on me when I touched him.”

  “You know what I mean. Don’t fuck with me.”

  They were at the truck now. The hood and windows wore a light dusting of blown snow. Gary paused by the driver’s door and looked up at Abe, his face showing nothing. “You looked hurt. I don’t handle that well. If I got in the way of you punching him and you want an apology, I’ll give you one.”

  “I did want to punch him.” And how childish was that? “I don’t need you fighting my battles. I could’ve handled him.”

  Gary sighed, his breath a faint cloud hanging between them. “No, you could’ve hit him. It’s not the same thing. That would’ve hurt him physically and it wasn’t enough for me.”

  “So you humiliated him instead? Shit, Gary, that’s—” Abe folded his lips, pressing them together before he said something Gary would probably take as an insult.

  “Yeah, I did. He deserved it. He was awful to both of us.” Gary scrunched up his nose. “Maybe I enjoyed it too much, but God, Abe, your face— He wouldn’t shut the fuck up, and it was killing you to have me hear it.”

  “Yeah, it was embarrassing,” Abe acknowledged, his voice steady. “Nothing you don’t already know though.”

  “True, but if it bothers you to hear about me with Peter, you should know why it screwed with me to hear that piece of shit talk about topping you. Asshole.” Gary turned and spat, the action natural enough, unstudied enough, to make some tightly wound coil inside Abe’s chest slacken. “Jesus, how far down the barrel have you been scraping?”

  “He wasn’t like that before,” Abe protested, not defending Craig, but himself. Craig hadn’t been a bad choice at the time. “He was fun and he got the job done. I’ve had worse.”

  Gary snorted, irritation plain on his face. “Well, you deserve better.”

  Abe ran his index finger down the bridge of Gary’s nose and over his lips, a slow caress that bled away some of his confusion. This was a Gary he recognized: fussing over him, indignant on his behalf. “I’ve got better.”

  “Stop flirting with me.” Gary shivered and moved closer. “Cold out here.”

  Abe put his arms around Gary and brought him closer still. “I’ll take you home. Warm you up.”

  “This time we get to do the shared body heat thing, right?” Gary tilted his head back, the clean line of his jaw drawing Abe’s gaze. Gary was all edges. If Linda did portraits, she’d use nothing but straight, slashing lines to sketch him.

  “If that’s what you want to call it.” It still felt unreal to have Gary right there, but every time Abe kissed him, a little of that wore off. He kissed him then, Gary’s mouth softening and yielding under his. He needed more than a kiss, and it was difficult to break away. “Let’s go.”

  “Sure.”

  They drove for a mile in silence, Abe’s thoughts a tangled mess. He replayed the scene with Craig in his head, wondering if he could’ve done anything differently and headed Craig off. Probably not. Craig had seemed different from the start, petulant about his substandard motel situation and spoiling for trouble. Maybe he was always that way when he got rejected; Abe wouldn’t know, since he hadn’t rejected Craig the first time they met. What he did know was that when a man got mad at the world, he lashed out at whoever was handiest. Didn’t mean Abe had enjoyed being the focus of all that spite and aggression. Shit, where did Craig get off doing that to him in front of Gary? They’d spent one night together, and from what Abe recalled, Craig had enjoyed himself. Abe had done his best to make that happen. Repaying tha
t by flat-out humiliating Abe was ungracious to say the least.

  The more he thought about it, the more he wished he had gotten to punch Craig, though maybe Gary’s retribution had matched Craig’s offense better.

  “You’re grinding your teeth. Stop thinking about him.”

  “I’m not—okay, yes, I am, but I’ll stop.”

  “Good boy.”

  Gary had spoken lightly, but Abe tensed, his fingers tightening around the wheel. “Don’t call me that. I don’t know what you think I am—”

  “A man who likes taking orders, who’s got no one around to play with? You can’t think I’d judge you, Abe. Not after the way I spent the last five years. Being a submissive isn’t the same as being weak.”

  Abe slowed for a light, never coming to a full stop because it flicked to green when he approached it. “Spare me the psych bullshit, okay? Look, what gets me—anyone—off is complicated. Deal with it. Don’t take the easy route and try to simple it up by slapping labels on me or shoving me inside a box. I know what a sub is and that’s not me. When I’m watching porn like that, sure, it gets me hot, but that’s porn. When it comes to me in a bedroom, I won’t take kindly to someone trying to get me on my knees, calling them ‘Master.’ No one’s spanked my butt since my daddy when I was eight and set fire to the couch.”

  He stopped talking, aware he was getting heated and loud.

  “Wow. That came out of nowhere. So last night when you said you’d kneel for me if I wanted, that was bullshit, heat of the moment?”

  Abe didn’t want any confusion between them. He spelled it out, reclaiming what Craig had stepped on and dusting it off. “No. I want you in me. I want you bending me over and fucking owning my ass, Fox. I’m not gonna hold back on telling you what I like, the way I did with Craig. I don’t need to. I can’t shock you, never could. But I’m not sure what I get off on lines up with what you think it does.”

  “No labels. Got it.”

  “You’re more confusing than me,” Abe pointed out. “That deal you had with your boss—how much control you gave him—it’s not like you, Fox. I don’t see how you could last five years when you were playing on the wrong team.”

  “Because I was playing the right game.” Gary shifted restlessly in his seat. “I needed the security more than I needed to be on top. I was in a bad place, lonely, bored, stuck, when I wanted to be moving. I didn’t know what he wanted at first, but when he told me, it all clicked into place. God, it was a rush. I was so hard I nearly came in my pants when I crossed my legs, and he loved it. So did I. Make no mistake: I wanted him, not just the money. It took me a while to figure out I wanted to be him even more, and by then it was too late and I was locked in to what we had. But it was all right. It worked for us. I guess I cared about him more than I admitted to myself at the time, because I miss him for more than the sex or the luxuries.”

  “If he hadn’t died, how long would you have stayed with him?”

  Gary turned his head to stare out of the window. “I don’t know.” He made it a warning.

  Abe nodded, though Gary couldn’t see him, accepting that was the only answer he’d get.

  Eight months as closeted boyfriends, eleven years apart . . . They weren’t strangers, but there was plenty they didn’t know about each other. He remembered shy, awkward touches that had become confident, and kisses leaving him aching with arousal, but looking back, they’d been limited by inexperience and by the assumption they’d have time to get to all the things they wanted to try together.

  His first time getting his ass reamed had been painful, though the man grunting behind him had slowed down some when he discovered it was Abe’s maiden voyage, so to speak. It’d still felt like a red-hot poker shoved inside him, but he’d asked for it again the next time he got picked up and the time after that. There was something about being taken that way that made him feel wanted. He’d tried it from the other end and been less enthusiastic. Did it make him submissive? He didn’t think so, but he hadn’t given it much thought before tonight. A lot of guys preferred bottoming; he had never asked anyone else what they got out of it aside from the physical part. He knew what he liked, but he had to trust someone to ask them for it, and generally, trusting a one-night stand was risky.

  Craig had proved his judgment wasn’t as good as he’d assumed it was.

  The silence between him and Gary grew heavier with each passing moment. “I came out of the bar hard as nails,” he finally offered. “I guess part of me got off on seeing you take Craig down, even if I was pissed you didn’t let me do it.”

  “Remember how we met?”

  Abe took one hand off the wheel and scratched his cheek, unsure where Gary was going with his question. “Uh, vaguely. You were getting picked on. Freckled kid, Andy something? A swap that went wrong?”

  “Hockey trading cards, yeah. Andy took mine, wouldn’t hand over his. You loomed over him like the wrath of God, and he caved. I’ve been waiting a long time to repay the favor.”

  Abe laughed, his mood lightening. “Well, okay then. Let’s call it quits.”

  Gary held out his fist and Abe knocked it with his and grinned, the hazy memory coming into focus.

  While he’d been standing over that kid, his palms sweaty, Gary had grabbed back his cards and shoved them deep inside his backpack before taking off, trusting Abe to keep Andy at bay, which he had. They’d always made a good team.

  Gary tipped up the small, zippered bag and shook a bottle of lube and a dozen condom packages onto the bed. Abe eyed them without commenting.

  Abe had gone uncommunicative the moment the door closed behind them. He’d picked up Sailor and stroked him until the cat squirmed to be let down, and he’d poured them each a bourbon, but his gaze had gone to the bedroom door so often that Gary had tossed back his drink, grabbed Abe by the hand, and taken him in there.

  “We’re going to do this,” he told Abe. “And it’ll be fucking spectacular because my ego won’t accept anything less than a hundred times better than how it was with shit-for-brains.”

  A reluctant smile appeared on Abe’s face. “God forbid anyone’s better than you at something.”

  “When it comes to sex with you, yes.”

  Abe undressed, doing it with as little fuss as if he’d been alone in the room. “Get naked, Fox. I want to take a look at you.”

  “Not much to see. Unlike you, I didn’t end up with a body like Superman on a good day.” Gary sighed. “God, you’re fucking gorgeous.”

  Abe didn’t blush, but he held his jeans in front of him a second or two longer than normal, looking adorably shy—not that Gary would’ve shared that observation with him. Abe was strong without being bulked-up for the sake of it. Useful muscles with a purpose. So fucking sexy.

  “I’m nothing special.”

  “Trust me, you are.” Gary stripped quickly. “Me, I’m the same skinny, short kid I always was.”

  “Are you fishing for compliments? Because I could come up with a few if you need them.”

  Gary stood naked and extended his hands out to the sides, offering himself up to Abe’s gaze. “One will do, but you’ve got to make me believe it.”

  Abe looked him over, head to toe, without speaking. It wasn’t difficult to stand still and take it. Peter had trained him better than to fidget. Even so, under that appreciative stare, his composure shredded.

  Finally, Abe reached down and patted his erection, tall and stiff. “That a good enough compliment for you?”

  “No. You’re so sex-deprived anything would turn you on.”

  Abe smiled. “True. Okay, your dick’s bigger than it was. Nice.”

  Gary glanced down. “I’ll have to take your word for that. The last time I measured it, I was thirteen.”

  “You measured it? For real?”

  “Yeah. Well, no. I’d read the stats about what was average and I wanted to make sure I was ahead of the curve. So I jerked off until it was as big as it was going to get, then didn’t want to stop to
fuck around with the ruler because I was having too much fun.”

  Abe stepped forward and ran one hand down Gary’s chest and lower, the drag of his fingers arousing, though the caress ended before it reached Gary’s dick. “You’ve filled out. You fit your skin better now. And you’ve never had anything to worry about when it comes to this.”

  He slid his hand down to cradle Gary’s balls and stroke his cock, fingers moving in a slow, deliberate path, up and down.

  Gary sighed, slung his arm around Abe’s neck, and pulled him closer for a kiss. He was a teenager again with Abe, nervous, excited, and horny. He’d done things in the past eleven years that left him feeling grubby—Abe too, probably—but that stopped mattering when they were kissing. Abe’s mouth couldn’t make him forget about Peter entirely, but it offered a brief respite.

  Abe bit at his ear, tugging on the lobe, a puppy with a slipper. “Can I suck you?”

  “Mm. Yes.” Abe began to drop to his knees, but Gary stopped him. “Not like that. I want to come in your ass, so you only get a taste.”

  “You’re playing games with me.” Abe’s voice was level, a hint of wariness showing in his expression.

  Gary nodded. “Yeah, I am. Is that a problem? Do you want to keep this vanilla? Because we can.” He didn’t plan out sex—Peter had, but Gary preferred to keep things looser than that. If Abe wanted bland, he could do it. After the last few years, it would have the charm of novelty. It was enough to feel he had some control again.

  “No, but don’t force things. I don’t need the bells and whistles. Only you.”

  “You’ve got me,” Gary promised him. “On the bed, on your back.”

  When he had Abe spread out for him, that long body tense with anticipation, Abe’s cock dusky red, a glossy film of fluid across the crown, Gary gave a sigh of pure pleasure. “Jesus, you’re an honest-to-God centerfold.”

  Abe grinned, losing some of the tension. He patted his stomach. “No staples.”

  “I can see that.” Gary got onto the bed and bent over, running his tongue over Abe’s flat, hard belly. “Nope, no staples there.”