“Ok. And what is that point?”
“It’s this: if he’s making that beautiful face look sad like that, then kick that motherfucker to the curb and get a new one.”
I laugh. “What makes you think it’s a he?”
“You work in a gay bar.”
I shake my head. “First, as far as I know, it’s straight guys that work at gay bars. And second, Bryson, just where exactly do you think you are?”
“O’Something,” he says twisting around on his stool. “O’Henry’s. O’Daniels. O’Dunno. Why?”
“Bryson, this is an Irish pub. You’re probably the only gay guy in here right now.”
He scans the room again. “Oh, I doubt that.”
He begins to laugh and it’s contagious. Somehow, as crazy as he is, he’s lifted my mood.
And he has a point, doesn’t he? I wish it was that easy. That I could just remove the part of me that desires Davis. But then again, I don’t desire that, do I? When I think about what I was willing to sacrifice just to stay in that room with him. To have him touch me.
To forget that any of that had ever happened would make my life so much easier but that wasn’t my true feeling on the matter. In fact, his coming to town and the anxiety it’s made me feel means one thing: I won’t ever be able to let that day go.
I do have boy trouble. I also have family trouble. And girlfriend trouble. Ex-best friend trouble.
I have no idea what I’m going to do.
10
Chapter 10
When my shift is over, I let my co-workers, Edson and Bianca, drag me out to a bar. I’ve been inside for a while, beer in hand, listening to the throbbing bass line, when I realize that the place just smells good. Tobacco, cedar, juniper. It all keeps hitting me from every angle. In Chicago, there’s no smoking in the bars, so it’s not what’s missing. Then, I figure it out. I keep getting whiffs of amazing cologne everywhere I turn about. Even though there are nothing but guys for as far as I can see,
I notice two shadows converging in a corner and it makes sense. Two guys, under the strobe lights. Obscured but definitely guys. And they are going at it. I feel a quickening in my crotch which makes me think, “Oh, fuck.” I am in a gay bar.
The deal I made with myself when I moved back to Chicago wasn’t to go back into the closet or anything like that. I’m okay with being attracted to guys. And, it’s not even most guys…it’s Davis.
It’s new and everything but I’ve pretty much accepted my bisexuality. Besides, you would have to be out of the closet to go back into it. I’ve only ever acted on the attraction once. I haven’t wanted to do it with anyone else. No other guy did it for me like Davis.
Moving to Chicago was about accepting that Davis and I could never be together. It was a fresh start. I had a job, an apartment, a girlfriend and a few new friends. A normal life. No one making me question anything. No having to choose between a man I was falling for and my family.
At times, I wondered if I was bi at all. Maybe it had been a weird obsession. After fucking my girlfriend and enjoying it. Being in a locker room with guys and not feeling like I wanted to suck all the dicks. Most times, I didn’t feel gay, not even bi really. Could a person feel gay or bi? I didn’t know. I just know that Clay was under my skin, a fact that I found fucking annoying to no end.
“You must be lost,” came a voice at my ear. I spun around, looking for Edson. He and Bianca had gone out back to smoke on the enclosed terrace. I was waiting on them to come back inside.
It was neither one of them. Bryson stood next to me, wearing a half smile. He carried his glass of scotch. He tapped it against my glass. He’s a guy I’d seen many times but always across the barrier of a bar. I had no idea that he was this tall.
“No. Not lost,” I say. “Just looking for my friends.”
“If you’re looking for a friend, I can be your friend.”
He’s drunk, as usual. More than he was when he left O’Reilly’s. I go to give him the brush off so that I can find my friends but then he touches me, and a shiver runs right through me. It’s the first time that a man’s touched me since Davis. It’s only the second time in my life that a man has touched me. A man that I know wants me.
“I have enough friends,” I stammer, trying to keep it light.
He smiles at me and then, thankfully, walks away. I move back to the wall to catch my breath. When I feel bodies behind me, I remember the couple and excuse myself before I go back to the main part of the bar. Some kind of drag queen show starts. Edson and Bianca aren’t back, and I start to wonder if they’ve ditched me.
I feel deep within me that I need to go, that I’m somehow on risky ground here. Like I might break down and call Davis and beg to see him when he comes to town. I’ve been so good at ignoring that side of me. But here I am, sliding backwards so fast that I can’t catch my breath.
What I need to do is go home, curl up with my girl and forget all of this.
But Davis is coming to town. I order another drink and drink it way too fast.
Then, I gather my senses and I do leave. Before I do something stupid.
“I’m sorry if I came on too strong,” Bryson says, grabbing my arm as I pass him. I almost don’t notice him standing there in front of the bar, drinking his scotch.
“No,” I say. “It’s fine.” I start to pull away from him. I need to go. The feeling is overwhelming.
“Did you find them?”
“Who?” I say, moving.
“Your friends,” he says following me.
“No,” I say. I stop moving. The first drag queen ends her performance and a slow song begins to play, something melancholy. Strobes lights climb blue and red across Bryson’s brown face.
He shakes his head, looks at me tenderly. “I don’t like that. The idea of you being friendless. Come here.”
I go to him without thinking about it and he wraps me in a hug. Without warning, I begin to cry. Maybe it’s the alcohol or all the thinking about Davis. The fucking impossibility of it all. Whatever it is, the hug feels so good. He holds me and eventually my tears cease, the tension drains away. Tension I didn’t even know I was holding. I don’t want to let him go.
But I must. And I have to let Davis go, as well.
11
Chapter 11
I wake up to a pussy in my face.
Theodora is kneading my chest and her position is not exactly the best good morning. The cute little orange tabby came with the house.
The day I moved in, Rebecca informed me that we had a third roommate. Theo had shown up the first day and made herself right at home. She had such gorgeous eyes we were powerless to stop her. Now, we have the privilege of being her loyal servants. I’m generally good about complying, but not right now.
“Get off, Theo,” I tell her. “We don’t have that kind of relationship.”
“So now, you’re cheating on me?” Rebecca says angrily, and I feel my heart drop.
Well, until I move Theo over and catch sight of my girlfriend at the doorway to our room.
She wears a sexy teasing look.
“Trust me, babe,” I say, relief washing over me. “I’m a one kitty man.”
My girlfriend’s an early riser and she’s already done more in the few hours she’s been awake than most will do in a day. And she does it without coffee. She comes over, hops in bed and snuggles up next to me. “You smell good,” she murmurs cuddling even closer.
“You do, too.” I kiss her forehead and run my fingers through her hair. She smells like her mint shampoo, her honeysuckle lotion and bright new day. I’m genuinely happy to see her. We’re so busy that we don’t get to spend as much time together as we would like together. “What have you been up to?”
“Well,” she says, “You know what tomorrow is, right?”
I smile. How could I not? “It’s our anniversary,” I say. I’m a manly man, but not a Cro-Magnon.
“I have something special planned for us,” she says, bringing her face
close. She kisses me and at first it feels strange, slightly off, but I kiss her back anyway until it starts to feel right again. I hear a purring in my ear and it distracts me. I look up to find Theo, bathing herself on the bedside table.
“She’s jealous,” Rebecca says, laughing.
“Maybe she’s hungry? I’ll go feed her,” I say sitting up. I tell myself it’s not just an excuse to get out of bed.
“I just fed her.”
I look the kitty in the face. “Well, then, you’re banished, Theo. Get out.” Our cat stops and looks at me. Then, she climbs down gingerly and stalks out of the room, her tail up, as if to say, you don’t banish me, I leave.
“Now, where were we?” Rebecca whispers into my ear. She pulls me down next to her again. I close my eyes as I touch my lips to hers. This is Rebecca, I tell myself. My girl. The woman that started off as my roommate until we realized we had much more chemistry than that. She takes care of me. Gets me off. Cooks me food. Bakes me things that are so impossibly light and fluffy. And on top of that, she’s sexy too. So, yeah, I kiss her with all my heart.
I put thoughts of Davis out of my mind. Back in the cage where they belong because I don’t want to think them.
How out of nowhere his lips were glued to mine. I couldn’t talk. Couldn’t speak a word. I couldn’t even breathe.
My pulse thudded in my ears. His hands all over my body, touching my sensitive nipples and making me squirm. He caressed my sides, lightly tickling me, sending heat tripping over my skin in his wake. He traced my midsection, with his rough palm, running a fingertip along my abs. My breath caught, and a groan spilled out of his mouth into mine.
His hands swooped down the slope of my back and then I was in his embrace. I had never felt more protected and secure as I did when he pressed my body into his. It was like I belonged to him. He was claiming me. I was his.
I felt his tongue as it gently tasted my upper lip, teasing and probing into my mouth. I was kissing my friend’s dad, but I didn’t care. Suddenly all the worry about labels and the past, and hell, the future, fell away. I was making out with a man, no Davis. And I loved it. I didn’t care.
I had to be going crazy. Still, it didn’t stop me from kissing him. My back pressed into the back of his bedroom door. I gasped when his large hand ground down between us and past my shorts, past the compression.
“Did you cum?” he husked out.
“Back when you sucked my nipple,” I admitted. “I couldn’t hold it. Felt too good.”
“And you’re hard again?”
“Never went down.”
His hand encircling my sticky cock. He moved that hand, gently rolling the skin forward and causing me to twitch. I moaned against his lips and he sucked my mouth, sliding his tongue in so that I was tasting him. He tasted so good.
I nearly lost it when he took my copious cum and smoothed it across the sensitive head of my cock. I groaned, crushing my lips back into his, feeling my body shake with pleasure.
He suddenly pulled back, moved a little bit across the room from me. I was panting, out of breath. My pulse was speeding. My legs and arms were shaking.
“You’ve been waiting for that?” he said.
I couldn’t respond. My mouth was dry, my lips clinging to one another. He’d taken my breath away. My mind wouldn’t slow down. My cock somehow felt even harder than before. I was going to shoot again at any second.
I rushed over to him and grabbed him. He let me. I pressed my face against his hairy chest, moved my nose against him, inhaling his fresh, manly scent. I crushed my lips against his muscular pecs. He smelled so good. He felt so good. His thick husky body. The size of it. I felt his hands come down against my back, rubbing me gently. The stickiness from the one hand on my skin. I didn’t want him to ever to let me go. I didn’t want to ever let him go.
It felt good to have him kiss me and possess me like that. I didn’t know why I wanted it or what it meant. I just wanted to be close to him.
Before I knew I was doing it, I was sinking down, wrapping my arms around his waist. Then, I let go and I was sat back on my heels and reached for the waist of his linen pants. I tugged on them and they came down. I was face to face with his cock. It was long and dark purple now. Throbbing. He was horny for sure. A pearl of precum shone right at the slit of his urethra. I reached out with the tip of my tongue and took it into my mouth. It was salty and tasted just how he smelled.
That ignited a hunger in me because suddenly, I was up on my knees and about to plunge my mouth down on his cock.
“Whoa,” Rebecca breathes. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing,” I say, breathing hard. I hadn’t realized how hard I was kissing her. I’m already on the verge of coming. “Nothing. Just missed you.”
I take her, and I kiss her again, managing to push away the guilt I feel for being so overwhelmed by Davis. I crush my lips against hers, loving the softness that answers my roughness.
She pulls away. “You miss me just from me going on my morning errands?”
“I always want to be near you.”
She smiles and there is a tenderness that’s angelic which washes across her faces.
In about a minute, with some focus, Davis is gone for good and I have my hands up under her shirt and around her beautiful, perky breasts. She moans as I take them in my hands, her nipples between my fingers. It doesn’t matter that they are different from the flat pecs Davis has. I’m still attracted to women, I know that without a doubt. My dick is still giving her the salute.
Once I dip my fingers down between her lovely, perfect thighs, I prime myself to breach her slick, wet hotness there, and I can’t.
Not that I am unable to do it…in fact, I really want to. But, I just can’t. Something is different now.
Even though Mr. Clay has rejected me, I know for sure now that I felt something real with Davis. And that’s why I can’t get him out of my mind.
And yes, what I have with Rebecca is real in a way. It’s fun. But, what I felt with him was like every inch of my skin on had been set on fire.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, a shy sexy smile on her lips, her hair arrayed on the pillow like she’s a hair model. “You want mama to take care of you?” She shifts into position. The girl loves being in control. I love letting her be in control. She keeps a hand on my chest as she starts to inch her way down from my neck to my chest and then, my abs, I know that some of the most fantastic head in my life is on order. She’s good at what she does. Except that I can almost taste Davis in my mouth, the memory of him is that strong. And I just can’t.
She strokes my chest asking me again if I’m okay. I tell her I am. That I have a lot on my mind. For a second there, everything with Mr. Clay is on the tip of my tongue. I want to tell her. I want to get it out. She deserves to know. If he asked me to, I’d leave her for this man and that’s not fair to her. I realize then that I’m considering it. Seeing him when he’s in town. Even though I know I shouldn’t.
Maybe it wouldn’t come to that. Me and Rebecca breaking up. Maybe we could come to some kind of agreement where I get to see him for one night while he’s in town or something. Or maybe she knows some trick to help me get over him.
But something stops me.
I can’t tell her.
Taking Lead Page 6