by Cameron Dane
Hunter looked up just then and locked on Alex’s gaze. The heat in Hunter’s stare annihilated every last one of Alex’s senses. Blood roared in Alex’s ears and sent his heart to beating out of control. And thank God it did, otherwise it would have flooded straight to his cock and he’d have to stand here and explain a raging hard-on to three too many people. Dark, unchecked desire lived in Hunter’s eyes for a split second, drying Alex’s mouth and making him speechless. Before Hunter banked most of the heat, one thought flashed like a neon sign visible to only Alex, and it said: I WANT THIS MAN TO OWN ME.
Shit. On the inside, Alex reeled. He’d never wanted anyone to possess him. Ever. Yet his flesh burned under Hunter’s scrutiny. Alex managed to tear his stare away from Hunter, look down, to find he still had his hand cupped under Hunter’s. Unimaginable heat sparked between where their skin touched. Alex yanked his hand away and just managed not to hold it against himself as if injured.
While Alex’s mind and heart vied for record speed racing, Sarah finished applying the cream to Hunter’s hand and wrapped it in gauze. Alex glanced up again, and Hunter abruptly looked away. Alex didn’t know whether to weep or whisper thank you. The reprieve from Hunter’s intense, almost frightening focus allowed Alex to regain full function of his brain. At the same time, the loss of that attention washed a chill through him under his clothes, as if someone had taken away the sun. What in the hell is this man doing to me?
Before Alex could even begin to contemplate an answer, Jace looked at his watch and then clapped his hands. “Okay. The chicken should be done.” He stepped back in front of the grill and lifted the lid, releasing even more hickory-scented goodness into the evening air. “Let’s eat.”
* * * *
Three hours later, as Sarah, Jace, and Jasper waved good-bye to Alex and Hunter from the porch, Alex didn’t know what to think. Hunter had been quiet and subdued through the meal and dessert. He had definitely let everyone else control the conversation. In fact, Alex had almost felt as if Hunter had somehow separated himself while remaining in the group. The strange, unspoken dynamic had repeatedly tugged a strange pain in Alex’s chest for most of the night. A dull ache had grown steadily within Alex all evening, prodding him to help Hunter in some way. Only Hunter had not reinitiated any eye contact with Alex, and in fact had radiated a vibration that said stay away. If Alex had sensed the push away being directed only at him, it would have cut him deeper than he might like to admit, but he’d sensed caution in their hosts in regard to Hunter too, most particularly Sarah.
When they reached the sidewalk, without words, Hunter veered toward his truck. Alex walked to his car, his steps not as light as he’d hoped for when Sarah had answered the door earlier this evening. Alex felt as if he’d gone into a signing meeting anticipating a great, profitable venture only to find his potential new business partner still on the fence about the deal.
Alex chanced a glance at Hunter, and the shadowed profile of the tall, muscular man unlocking his door rushed a shiver through him. Damn. Practically speaking, Alex had seen -- hell, had been with -- men more classically handsome than Hunter. Many of them existed. Many of them gay and within Alex’s reach. Yet none of them had ever ignited such hunger in Alex as Hunter had tonight with just that one look. None of them invaded Alex’s thoughts when he should have his mind on work or when he did something as simple as brushing his teeth. None of them engaged the protector in Alex that witnessing the rare flashes of loss in Hunter’s normally shuttered eyes did. None of them were Hunter. Simple as that. Period.
Damn it.
As if he sensed Alex staring, Hunter looked Alex’s way, and their gazes collided. Once again Alex felt stripped naked. He felt as if Hunter had run to him and bent him over the front of the car. Unlike anything Alex had craved in his adult life, he envisioned spreading himself open and offering his hole for a rough fucking. Oh God. Alex shuddered where he stood, and his cock shot to full attention, jamming against his jeans. Twenty feet away, Hunter’s nostrils flared, as if he could smell Alex’s arousal. Holy fuck. Right then Hunter slid his gloved hand over his crotch, visibly rubbed himself, and it looked as if lightning shot right through his body.
A soft, feminine murmur suddenly carried across the night breeze, and the sound snapped Alex’s attention to the porch and his hosts. Jace and Jasper had Sarah sandwiched between them as they stumbled into the house in a tangle of passion. Geez. Alex had totally forgotten their presence. A deep, intoxicating waft of desire definitely scented the air tonight. Alex turned back to Hunter, and instead of getting a yes signal from a man he wanted with an unnatural desperation -- for Alex at least -- he watched the taillights of Hunter’s truck get smaller as the guy pulled farther way.
Shit. Damn. Fuck.
The slightest spotlight put on Hunter seemed to chase him back into his solitary world.
With one look down at the waste of hard cock leaking a damp spot into his jeans, Alex climbed into his car and took his erection home to his trailer for a beer and a pile of paperwork.
* * * *
Hunter barely got into his apartment and slammed the door before tearing at his belt, pushing his jeans past his hips, and freeing his cock. Oh fuck, yes. The release from confinement alone flung Hunter halfway toward release. His rigid shaft spiked weighty and straight at attention, and his balls already pulled with shiver-inducing pain and pleasure in his sac.
In total darkness, Hunter touched his dick and then cursed when gauze abraded the sensitized length. His cock too hard and hurting to ignore, Hunter tore off his glove and closed his two fingers and thumb around his thickness, moaning as he began to stroke his needy flesh. The scars on his damaged palm added an extra layer of sensation to each glide from root to tip, and Hunter hated that an evil of war gave him pleasure in any way. Normally Hunter jerked off with his other hand; if he could have walked away from this handjob, he would have, but Hunter could not erase Alex Quick from his mind.
A collage of images depicting every moment they’d crossed paths filled Hunter’s vision, and he could not get the man’s rich, smooth voice out of his head. For such a savvy, wealthy businessman, Alex possessed an occasional awkwardness that allowed him to become more than a movie star, jerk-off fantasy. In a perfect world, Hunter could imagine himself talking and laughing with Alex in bed in the mornings before play turned to a hot bout of sweaty, dirty sex that left them both gasping for air and running for a shared shower so they weren’t late for work.
Another moan escaped Hunter, filling the dark entry of his apartment. He rocked his hips and pulled on his dick with as much speed as he could, trying with force rather than finesse to make up for his two missing digits. Needing more, Hunter let his eyes fall closed. He pictured pulling to a stop by the side of the road the next time he went to work rather than simply slowing and waving as he passed Alex. Without words, Hunter would kick open the door, his pants already open from stroking himself, his cock -- thick, long, and hard -- on display for Alex to see.
Oh yeah. His balls so sensitive, Hunter jerked with one rub over the swollen orbs. With his ass plastered against the door, he writhed in response to every nerve ending in his cock screaming for release, so very ready to come. Help me, Alex. Hunter whimpered, seeing himself on the side of that road, Alex stalking ever closer. Touch me. Make me come.
In just those damn little black running shorts, Alex stopped right in front of where Hunter sat, Hunter now turned sideways with his legs spread and his boots dug firmly into the metal step, his jeans bunched at his hips. In the vision, Hunter had his gloved hand wrapped around his rock-hard shaft. He bit his lip to hold back a needy noise as a pearl of cum formed in his slit, the bead growing ever bigger under Alex’s open stare. Just as the drop of precum crested and threatened to roll down Hunter’s length, Alex dipped down and darted out his tongue, catching it right on the tip. He let his tongue slide up the thick head of Hunter’s cock for the barest second, just enough to make Hunter gasp, and then swallowed down Hunter�
��s early seed.
Oh Christ. In the apartment, Hunter went still, his movements now entirely linked to his fantasy. In his imagination, Hunter saw Alex bent over at the waist, looking up at Hunter through a heavy-lidded gaze. Alex hummed against Hunter’s too-sensitive dick, moving his lips up one side of the shaft and down the other. As Alex tormented Hunter’s flesh with repeated grazing of his lips, Hunter rubbed himself from root to tip in time, fully convinced he had Alex’s mouth oh so close to claiming him completely. Every time Alex moved his lips or occasionally gave Hunter an enticing lick, his ass swayed, barely covered by those little shorts, and drove Hunter mad. Between watching Alex wiggle, wanting to rip those shorts off him, and barely keeping from shoving his dick into Alex’s mouth, Hunter almost bit his lip clean through to keep from screaming.
“Fuck… Fuck…” Hunter clawed down the man’s back, digging into muscle in his bid to hold on to his control. His hips churned against the fabric seat in his effort not to thrust. “Alex, Alex, Alex…” Hunter buried his hands in the man’s blond locks, keeping them tethered in another way.
Pausing, Alex looked up and held on Hunter’s stare. “Tell me what you want.” His eyes glittered with more clarity than the finest emeralds. Not breaking eye contact, he swirled his tongue around the head of Hunter’s cock. “I need to hear you say it.”
Hunter’s entire being suddenly seized, and everything inside and out hurt terribly. He wanted to turn away but couldn’t, and his throat went raw before getting the first word out. “Suck me.” He trembled on his admittance. “I want to come in your mouth.”
The spark lit brighter in Alex’s eyes, and he dug his fingers deep into Hunter’s hips. With one tug forward, Alex dropped his gaze and opened wide around Hunter’s cock. He went deep fast, taking Hunter down in one smooth, hot, wet motion, filling his mouth with dick. Hunter went taut as a drum all over. Rather than pull up, Alex swallowed, put one hell of a milking massage all around Hunter’s cockhead, and shoved Hunter headfirst into the abyss.
Shouting and bucking his hips, no longer feeling human, Hunter roared and thrust, roared and thrust with release. His body sizzling with countless points of exposure, Hunter dumped line after line of cum down Alex’s willing throat, watching through a desire-filled gaze as the man eagerly swallowed every drop Hunter had to give. It felt like his orgasm lasted an eternity, but eventually Hunter’s body emptied of its excitement and his cock slid from Alex’s mouth.
Alex pressed a kiss to Hunter’s tip and then smiled drowsily. Hunter brushed his fingers through Alex’s hair and roughly whispered thank you. Then slowly the trees and the grass and the sunlight and truck disappeared, stripping the fantasy away one element at a time, until reality finally took Alex away too, leaving Hunter in his apartment entry with a pool of semen on the rug.
Hunter had anticipated disappointment in returning from a fantasy to a lonely apartment but figured at least with a satiated body he could trudge to bed and fall asleep. Only when Hunter pulled up his pants, his cock remained better than half-hard, so much so he winced when tucking and only managed to do up half the zipper. After making his way to the bathroom, he flipped the light to brush his teeth. He moved more like a prowling cat than a sleepy, lumbering sloth. His body -- his entire body, not just his dick -- still buzzed with the ache for contact, putting Hunter on edge. He wet and rubbed a washcloth over his face, and his skin crackled with static, telling him it wanted Alex, not terrycloth, brushing over his flesh. In leaning forward, Hunter grazed his crotch against the edge of the sink, and he clamped his jaw with the reminder that spilling on the floor had not dwindled his arousal.
Hunter’s mind still spun pictures of Alex in front of him, not even letting Hunter see his own reflection in the mirror. More than envisioning the stunning picture of the man running on the side of the road, giving Hunter a spectacular view of such a perfectly formed body, Hunter saw Alex from just a few minutes ago, standing at his car. A streetlight had flooded Alex in a narrow beam of soft light, showing Hunter a forest-colored shadowing in Alex’s eyes, as well as the shiver that had gone through his frame. He issued an invitation. Hunter hadn’t been with anyone in a very long time, but he still knew how to read a come-get-me look, even in a man as cool as Alex. Hunter had a welcome to follow Alex to his trailer for sex. At least I did a half hour ago. Hunter doubted he’d offended the man irreparably by driving away. Hunter’s cock stirred and went even stiffer in his jeans, telling him to take a chance and go find out. Anticipation shimmered through the rest of him, making him feel caged in this apartment and needful of escape.
Hunter stalked through the living room to his bedroom and yanked open the nightstand drawer, his needs ripping at him too painfully to even pause before grabbing a condom and packet of lube. As he stuffed the items in his pocket while going in reverse, Hunter reasoned that Alex had hardly made him nervous tonight at all. Jace had been the one to set that moment of panic in bloom. And even then Hunter had controlled it right in front of an audience. He’d educated himself about his condition and had problem solved his way to success, just as he’d done on a thousand different occasions for a thousand different reasons while in the military.
Without breaking stride, Hunter snatched his glove off the floor on the way out the door.
He needed to fuck someone. And tonight Alex fit the bill.
CHAPTER SIX
The screech of tires spinning made Alex snap his attention up from the paperwork spread across the table in his trailer. A door slammed, the sound right next to his open window, and Alex forgot about the proposal and blueprints for an addition of new bungalows to a hotel Quick Holdings owned on an island off the coast of Georgia. He tossed his reading glasses on the table and searched for his shirt -- where the hell did I throw it? -- when banging on his door threw propriety out the window.
Shirt forgotten, Alex yanked open the door. “What the hell?” died on his lips the second he spotted the man on the other side. Oh dear God in heaven. His mouth watering, Alex sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of a fully clothed Hunter that somehow translated in Alex’s mind to stark, hard, and gloriously nude. Alex quickly read untamed and savage in the black orbs taking over Hunter’s eyes, and automatically took a step back just as Hunter invaded the trailer.
The man’s presence consumed the small space, seemed to shrink it by half, but Alex could only focus on the mass of solid male filling his vision. Alex’s legs hit the edge of the table, and his rapidly thickening cock, trapped behind his jeans, bumped into an equally hard bulge when Hunter stalked into Alex’s personal space. Shit.
Their erections grazed against one another a second time. Hunter looked away for a moment, trembling visibly. When he came back, he scorched the entire trailer with one dark look. “Tell me now,” he uttered, his meaning crystal clear. His glove- and gauze-covered hands hovered oh so close, right at Alex’s hips, but didn’t so much as brush against fabric let alone bare flesh. Raw hunger filled his stare. “Once I start, I won’t stop.”
Son of a bitch, yes. Every breath Alex took filled his nose -- his entire being -- with the musky smells of sweat and sex radiating off Hunter like a predator marking the area. He came.
Hunter leaned in and growled, his nostrils flaring as if Alex possessed an equally intoxicating scent. Their noses almost touching, able to feel each exhale the other took, Hunter met Alex’s gaze with something animalistic in his. “Tell me.” His lips barely moved with his command.
Unbidden, Alex’s passage clenched and then throbbed, his body telling him the answer it wanted him to give. Oh hell. His heart pounding like a motherfucking freight train, Alex caressed Hunter’s stubbly jaw and took a tentative step forward into the unknown.
“Whatever you want to do to me” -- Alex rubbed his thumb over the hard line of Hunter’s mouth, and his voice caught in a way it never had before -- “I want too.” Eyes locked on Hunter, Alex moved his fingers over the cutting slash of Hunter’s cheek and noticed a tremor in his hand as he touc
hed the lines fanning from the corner of this beautiful man’s eyes. “I think I want it more.”
With a rough groan, Hunter slashed his mouth across Alex’s and took him with a dominating kiss. He grabbed on to Alex’s hips and yanked his body in tightly, wasting no time in grinding their cocks into one another with as much force and aggression as he used to thrust his tongue past Alex’s lips and claim ownership of his mouth. Hunter licked deeply and bit hard enough to nick skin, and Alex barely held on for the ride. He curled his fingers into Hunter’s shirt and tried to get a taste of this man he’d fantasized about from the second they’d met, but Hunter shoved Alex’s arms down to his sides and held them there while plundering his mouth as if Alex were a piece of succulent fruit and Hunter hadn’t eaten a morsel in years.
Alex had never been with someone so aggressively domineering, but every time Hunter dug his fingers into Alex’s wrists, holding Alex prisoner as he stole another wet, openmouthed kiss, Alex’s heart rate kicked up another dozen notches and his cock jammed harder and fuller against his zipper, demanding release.
Biting back hard enough to surely sting, Alex struggled against Hunter’s hold and managed to free his hands. “My jeans,” he said while fumbling with the button and zipper, his sudden need making him clumsy. “Pull me out.” Sucking in choppy breath after choppy breath, Alex wanted to scream when the zipper jammed mid-pull. “Oh fuck.” He bit his lip as Hunter shoved Alex’s hands aside and took over the task. “My cock is killing me.”
It didn’t take but a moment for Hunter to rip the zipper off one side of its track and get Alex’s jeans open that way, rather than wrestle with the stubborn metal teeth for a moment longer. Within another split second, Hunter tore Alex’s pants down to his hips and captured his prick in his grip before it had entirely sprung free from his clothes. Alex moaned and jerked under Hunter’s hold, and his shaft somehow thickened even more in the man’s gauze-covered hand. Alex looked up and for just a heartbeat thought he saw right into the depths of Hunter’s soul. Darkness lived far deeper than the color of his eyes, yet the saturation of vulnerability stole Alex’s ability to speak. Alex moved to cup Hunter’s face, but the man grabbed his wrist and pushed Alex’s arm back to his side once more.