by Lola Darling
***
It doesn’t take me long to locate the place. Even if I hadn’t known what they did here, I could guess from the shabby exterior, the rundown feel of the building.
And the couple dozen kids ambling around the yard. Some younger ones playing a raucous game of tag, and a few older ones lying on their backs in the grass, cloud-watching maybe, or just talking. Two of them, a boy and a girl who must be about seventeen, are holding hands as they watch, though the moment they hear me unlatch the front gate, their hands spring apart guiltily.
“Is there a Father Kendrick here?” I ask them, since they seem the most likely to be semi-paying attention to who enters this house today.
The girl just stares at me, but the boy jerks his thumb toward the front door. “Kitchen,” he says.
It’s odd. I expected to find Paul talking to the kids, maybe about religion, or sharing a Bible verse or … I don’t know. Anything but this. But when I find my way through the house to the kitchen, helped along by a couple adult staff members just inside the entrance who I explain my quest to, there’s Paul, shirtsleeves rolled up to his biceps, elbow-deep in a sink full of suds.
“You’re doing dishes?” I ask from the doorway, leaning against the frame for a moment. We’re alone in the kitchen, at least for now, though the traffic in the house seems ceaseless and unpredictable.
He glances over his shoulder at me, those eyes of his a shock all over again when they latch onto mine. If he’s surprised to see me here, he doesn’t let on. After a moment of eye contact, he turns back to the sink. “I do whatever they need me to. Whatever will help. With this many mouths to feed, though, dishes are always a pretty safe bet.”
“Are you always this …” I start, then sigh when I can’t quite find the word I’m looking for.
He raises his eyebrows expectantly.
“Unpredictable?” I finally blurt.
“I wouldn’t call volunteer work unpredictable for a man of the cloth,” he replies evenly.
I shrug one shoulder, an unconscious imitation of his usual move. “Maybe not any other man of the cloth.” I take a step closer, and he slowly draws his hands from the sink, wiping them one at a time on the tea towel beside him. I can’t stop watching those mesmerizing hands. The hands that coaxed a stronger orgasm from me than I even realized possible. “But a man like you?”
He steps away from the counter, closer to me. The air between us electrifies. We’re still a foot apart, and yet already I can feel his body against mine, the ghost of all the places on my body that he’s already touched.
My eyes won’t tear themselves away from his curved lips. They bow in a little, secretive smile, and I swear my knees shake at the sight.
“You don’t know what kind of man I am.” His breath ghosts across my lips as he speaks, an aftertaste of mint. He takes another step closer, and my pulse leaps in my veins. “Why are you here, Darren?”
It’s the first time he’s said my name, and fuck, it does terrible things to me. Terrible, pleasurable things. I imagine him gasping that name as I take his cock in my throat, or wrap my fist around him the way he took me.
“I found something of yours. Wanted to give it back.” Yet I make no move to reach for my pocket, or take out the watch. Some instinctive part of me knows that the moment I do, this meeting will be over. And I want this to last as long as possible.
“I already told you I can’t do this.” He frowns, and turns away from me. “You aren’t very good at listening to instructions.”
“Never have been, no.” I lean against the counter. “Well. Aside from when you have your hands on me, for some reason. Then it was pretty easy to obey.”
His shoulders tighten, his back still turned. “You can’t be here, Darren.”
“Why not?” I ask, suddenly reckless, not caring about the line I’m treading. “What’s so bad about this? It felt pretty damn good to me. And you seemed to enjoy it.” I watch him carefully, judge by the tilt of his head and the ripple that runs through his muscles that he’s remembering the garden every bit as powerfully as I am.
He wants me too. Whatever he claims, I can see it written all over his body.
I reach out to grasp his arm, spin him around, and when I do, his green eyes fly straight to mine, burning up with hunger. But his mouth remains a hard, angry line.
“Stop doing this,” he says, his voice low and throaty.
“Doing what?” I ask, even though a part of me understands what he means. My tongue darts out to wet my lips, and his eyes track its progress hungrily.
“Tempting me.”
“Turnabout is fair play, Father. I can’t stop thinking about you. And I know you want to take me again.”
Those eyes flick back to mine, seemingly surprised, as I raise my hand to trace my fingers up his stomach. It’s the first time I’ve been the one to touch him. The fabric of his black off-duty shirt is primly starched, but through it, I can still feel the raised ridges of his muscles, every bit as well-defined as I knew they would be. I trace those muscles up, toward his pecs, taking my time. Never taking my eyes from his. “Tell me how to please you, Father,” I whisper.
His lips part, his eyelids half-closed now with pure, burning want. I risk a glance away, down to his crotch, and my smile widens as I see his need growing there.
He wants me. Every inch as badly as I want him.
But then there’s a soft crash from another room, the patter of running feet, and he jerks away from me, back to the sink, shoulders hunched high around his ears. His fists are clenched at his sides. “Get out of here.”
“Paul …”
“I said go. Don’t try following me again.” Those shoulders clench, his muscles corded through his shirt.
“Fine,” I snap. I rip the watch from my pocket and set it on the counter beside him, with a little more force than strictly necessary. “I only came to bring you this anyway. You left it in my sister’s backyard.” I inject a bit more venom into that statement than necessary, too. Suddenly, a dark, injured part of me wants to remind him exactly how we got to this point. Whose fault this really is. “You know. When you had me on my knees with your hand on my—”
“Stop.”
The pain and anger in his voice stops me dead. I glance from his bent head, to the watch on the counter. He’s almost shaking, staring at it now. All my love, said the inscription, and I can’t help but wonder who that means. Who Marcus was.
Why Paul won’t let me past his guard, when he clearly has no qualms about smashing through my own resistance to take what he wants.
I turn around and storm out of the safe house without a backwards glance.
Chapter Six
The club reeks of booze and sweat. I didn’t smell it earlier, when we were playing—I never really notice my surroundings when we’re playing, which I think is probably half the reason I do it so much—but now that our last set has finished, now that the beat has stopped thundering through my veins and rolling off my drumsticks and the last chords of Monica’s solo have faded from the fringes of the club, the real world rolls on in. Bringing with it the dark, grim reality of the crowd we just entertained. The venue we’re still stuck playing, even after all this, after everything Gabby went through.
Just another gross bar filled with the usual late-night losers trying to drink away the pain of this city.
Well, at least when I finish breaking down, I can join them. I pull my drum set apart, piece by careful piece, to pack it myself, because it’s not like we can afford stage hands or anyone to help us lug this all around. That stuff is for big name bands.
For the successful. In other words, not us.
Another fresh wave of pain rolls through me as I think about what that means, not just for all of us, but what it did to Gabby. Knowing how hard we try, how talented we are. How still, no doors open for us. They inch open a crack, and we reach for them, and then again and again they just slam in our faces.
God, I need a fucking whiskey.
> At least the drum set is done. I grab the last case and haul it into the back room, to grab my change of clothes before I carry this all out to the truck. It’s dark in the backstage—Henry and Monica must have already left, and switched off the light on their way out. Like I don’t even exist. Thanks, assholes.
I kick the door shut behind me with one foot, reaching for the nearest light switch with the other.
“Leave it off,” a low voice interrupts. My heart leaps in a combination of fear and recognition. Because I know that voice.
“Paul?” I ask the dim room. With the door shut, only a tiny amount of light filters in from the one grimy window to this backstage room, looking out over a parking lot. The lot lights filter the whole room in dim orange. Just bright enough for me to make out his silhouette in the corner, leaning against the back wall. He pushes away from it and walks into the center of the room, close enough that I can see his head, tilted toward me.
That’s about it. My eyes are still adjusting. “What are you doing here?” I shake my head, snap out of the surprised pleasure that was my initial reaction. Remember how last time went? “You told me to leave. That we should never see each other again. You were pretty fucking forceful about it, as I recall.”
“Yeah, well, like you said. I’m unpredictable.” His voice sounds strange. Choked. Like he’s repressing a lot more feelings than he’s letting on.
“Paul, what’s going on? I can’t keep doing this back and forth, yes and no, stop and go.”
A soft rustle. He’s uncrossing his arms. “I can leave, if you want.”
A lump forms in the back of my throat. Tightens around it in a stranglehold. “I don’t want,” I murmur, stepping closer to him. I almost expect him to flinch, to bolt, something. But he stands there, rooted in place, and lets me close the gap between us, until we’re only a breath apart. “I want to have you. I want you to take control of me, like last time.”
“You should be careful what you wish for,” he whispers. But then I don’t care, because his lips crash into mine. He grabs a fistful of my hair, pulls me against him, and I wrap both arms around his waist, our hard bodies colliding as our lips part to swallow one another hungrily. Our tongues twine in the space between us, our mouths hot, wet, our breathing heavy.
He tugs my head to one side with a fistful of hair, and that hot, hungry mouth of his descends on my neck, kissing, sucking, nipping at my skin, his stubble scraping along my cheek. My lips part in a groan, and he moans into my neck, devouring me.
“Paul,” I gasp as his teeth catch the sensitive spot where my neck meets my shoulder.
Without warning, his fist in my hair tightens, and pulls me down. I fall to my knees in front of him almost before I know what’s happening.
The second I do, though, my hands are all over him, grasping at the zipper on his pants, eager to wrap around his thick, juicy cock, the outline of which I can already see straining through his clothes.
He lets me unzip him, yank his pants to his knees and push his boxers after. It’s still dark in here, but my eyes have adjusted enough that when I finally catch an eyeful of his full, erect glory, I can’t help but moan a little in delight. God, his cock is fucking gorgeous. Thick, solid, curved upward at the tip just the slightest bit, and straining with lust now. I flick my tongue over his tip, to catch the silvery bead of pre-cum forming there, and he groans, his fist clenching my hair.
“Suck it the way you want yours sucked,” he orders, and I’m all too happy to obey.
I’ve only done this for Adam before, and even then, I wasn’t sure of myself. But I know how I liked it when women—and Adam—went down on me in the past. So I open my mouth and suck him slowly past my lips, my lips folded over my teeth, my tongue pressing along his length, swirling against him, adding pressure whenever his hips buck. I suck him deeper, deeper, until I feel his cock tap the back of my throat. I swallow hard around him, and he grits his teeth.
“Take it deeper,” he says, and I’m not even sure that’s possible. But he’s thrusting his hips forward, into my face, and I have no choice but to open my throat and angle my head forward to let the tip of his cock slide down it. My tongue convulses against his length, a gag rising in the back of my throat, but I manage to tamp it down, control it.
“Fuck yes, right there.”
His hips rock back, and he’s sliding free of my throat, and a fresh rush of oxygen flows down it, the gagging sensation gone as quickly as it arrived. I have a split second to adjust, then he’s thrusting into my mouth again, a little faster this time, and I lift one hand to wrap it around the base of his cock, squeezing just hard enough to constrict his blood flow a little, make him last longer, as I take him into my throat again.
“God, Darren, your mouth is a fucking miracle,” he groans.
We find a rhythm, both his hands wrapped in my hair, and mine alternating between gripping his tight, firm ass tightly, or working his cock along with my mouth, catching him in my fist when he pulls out, and thrusting him back inside when he rocks forward again.
“Yes, yes, yes,” his moans grow louder, more desperate.
Those are my rewards—that, and the twitch and pulse of his cock between my lips as he nears his brink. I love making him lose control. For a second, I think I understand what he means about control and command, because it’s making me hard as a rock, impossibly turned on by the thought that I am causing his pleasure right now. I am making him lose his damn mind, and fuck if it’s not the hottest thing I’ve ever done.
“Fuck, I’m close, Darren.”
His hot scent fills my nostrils, his taste all over my mouth, salt and heat and pure sex. I can feel him about to burst and I suck him in more eagerly now, wanting to swallow every ounce of his cum, lick his cock clean and beg for more.
But then.
“God I’m gonna fucking cum all over you.”
He’s right at the peak, one thrust before I know he’s going to burst, and suddenly he grabs my hair in his fists again and pulls out of my mouth entirely. I open wide as he reaches down to grab himself, and comes with a loan moan, all over my parted lips, my cheeks, down my throat. “Fuck, Darren,” he cries out as he comes, and I lean in to lap at his tip, cleaning every drop from him, swallowing the cum that shot into my mouth and across my lips.
I feel filthy, dirty, used … And hot as fuck. Jesus. I never knew it could be like that.
But as I’m there on my knees gazing up at him, his hands still in my hair but gentle now, caressing me, his cock still twitching as he loses blood in front of my face, the door flings open and the light switches on.
There’s no hiding. There’s no doing anything, except turning to gape in the direction of the wide open door.
Henry stands there, framed by the light outside the storeroom in the hall, and the even brighter lights he just flicked on in here, so he seems to glow almost. He stares at me, open-mouthed, and I stare back, still covered in Paul’s cum, and poised on my knees before his half-naked body.
For a seemingly endless moment, none of us move. We all gape at each other, as though waiting for someone to burst out with a joke, break the ice.
But my mind is racing ahead. Straight to the conclusion I know Henry is reaching. Because, there’s a reason Monica is the only band mate I’d told about Adam, about exploring my sexuality, so far. I hadn’t even told Gabby yet, before she … My chest clenches.
Because Henry has always wanted me. Lovable, sweet, short, scrawny Henry, who I adore, who is absolutely some guy out there’s perfect mate. Just not mine, not my type at all. It seemed easier to let him go on thinking I was straight, than to explain …
But now I’m staring across the room at him and reading all kinds of pain in his eyes, and I know I’ve made a terrible mistake.
“Henry …” I start.
That does it. That breaks the ice. He spins away from us, lets the door slam behind him as he races down the hallway. Away from us. Away from me.
Fuck.
“Friend of yours?” Paul asks, and the fact that he’s still here, still standing beside me, making no move to cover up because I can’t cover up now either, reassures me. I’ll deal with Henry later, find some way to explain.
“Yeah,” I mumble as I reach up to wipe my cheeks. “Sorry about him.”
Paul’s hand appears in front of my face, and I let him pull me to my feet. He takes one look at my face, still covered in his juices, and smiles a little.
“Pleased with yourself?” I ask him, teasing.
He grins at me. “Very.” Then he leans in to flick his tongue across my lips, my cheeks, and next thing I know, he’s licking my face clean, bending down to catch my neck too. I moan softly as he does, but when he draws away again, his eyes are sad.
“Who’s Marcus?” I ask softly, before I lose my nerve. Before he walls himself back up in that place where I can’t reach him, can’t break through.
He closes his eyes, but I see the pain written all over his face. He makes no effort to hide it. “My first lover,” he admits in a low tone. “He’s gone now.”
I swallow hard. “Gone, as in …”
Paul’s eyes flick open again, somehow seeming darker and harder than their usual sea green. “He died,” he says simply, but those eyes tell me there was nothing simple about it at all. “I spent a lot of time after that losing myself. Fucking everyone and anyone who moved. Trying to escape the pain. None of it worked.” He reaches up almost self-consciously, the first time I’ve ever seen him not looking calm and in control, and tugs gently at the white collar around his throat. “The church was the only place I was able to find peace, eventually. But that came with its own chains.”
“Being in the closet again?” I suggest.
“Not just that. Being celibate completely. Being cut off from that avenue of pleasure.” He gives his head a tiny, sad shake. “I’ve been in the priesthood for five years, and I’ve never … Never even once been tempted by these old feelings. This old lifestyle. But when I first laid eyes on you in that pew …” Those same eyes lock on mine, and I feel my chest tightening in desperation.