Hobbled

by John Inman

  “You’re making me hungry,” DeVon growled to his friend. “Stop talking about food.”

  “Speaking of food,” Danny ventured. “You wouldn’t by any chance happen to have an extra red licorice whip on you, would you? Those things look pretty good.”

  “Sure,” Bradley said. He dug around in his back pocket and pulled out a fat wad of them. They were all tangled up and out of their wrapper and covered with pocket lint. It looked like Bradley’s mom had run them through the washer along with about three hundred towels. Maybe more than once.

  “Uh. Never mind,” Danny said, trying not to barf.

  Bradley shrugged and stuffed the lint-covered candy back in his pocket. “Suit yourself.”

  Danny looked from one kid to the other. He had the strangest desire to either laugh his head off or slap the shit out of both of them. He couldn’t decide which. “What in God’s name would make you think that noise we heard last night was the sound of some guy getting murdered? I think you’re letting your teensy-weensy imaginations run away with—”

  “We heard noises like that the last time a guy was killed too,” DeVon said. Once again his eyes were bulging out, and Danny had to admit the kid looked really scared. He had licked the licorice off his front teeth so he didn’t look so stupid either. “The killer is right here in the burg. We know he is. We think we know who it is too.”

  “Oh, please. Who?”

  Bradley opened his mouth to answer but DeVon slapped him in the back of the head, shutting him up.

  “We can’t be talking about this here. Too many ears.” And he looked around like Hercule Poirot waiting for the murderer to come barreling out from behind a curtain.

  Danny bit back a giggle. These guys were too much. “Look, kids, it’s been fun, but I really do have work to do. So why don’t you run along and play. I hear Seattle is nice this time of year. Why don’t you go there?”

  “Fuckhead,” DeVon said.

  “Dick breath,” Bradley said.

  “Deranged munchkins.” Danny grinned.

  DeVon poked a finger in Bradley’s ribcage. “Come on. Let’s go investigate you-know-who in the you-know-where.”

  Danny laughed. “And while you’re there, stick the evidence up your you-know-what.”

  Grumbling, DeVon and Bradley stomped off and disappeared around the corner of the house.

  Danny watched them go, shaking his head in a good-humored sort of way, and wondering if Luke would mind making a licorice run to the supermarket. Damn, those things really did look good. He’d make it worth Luke’s while if he would.

  Danny gave a lecherous little smile, imagining how he would make it worth Luke’s while.

  Chapter 9

  LUKE unlocked Danny’s front door with his brand-new key. Frederick looked up from the back of the couch at the sound of the door opening. Seeing Granger padding along at Luke’s feet, Frederick puffed up his fur and spit out a string of obscenities before sailing across the house and diving through the pet door with a clatter.

  “Asshole cat,” Luke muttered, relocking the door behind him.

  He was earlier than he’d told Danny he would be, but he just couldn’t bear to open one more box of crap. He missed Danny, and now that he was here, Luke planned to do something about it. He had showered back at the house; he was commando under his baggy cargo shorts and muscle tee; and Luke Junior was ready to rumble. A very sexy smile played at the corners of Luke’s mouth as he brushed his young cock with his hand through the fabric of his shorts, simply because he couldn’t bear not to.

  The house was quiet. He hadn’t seen Danny in the yard for the past couple of hours, or standing at the upstairs window spying on him with a hard-on, so Luke suspected he was taking a nap. It was Luke’s every intention to wake him the fuck up.

  Luke’s dick flopped around in his shorts as he quietly climbed the stairs. By the time he reached the top step, his pecker was rock hard and begging for action.

  Luke tiptoed down the hall and peeked through the door of Danny’s bedroom, which was standing wide open. If he had been a praying man, Luke would have dropped to his knees and thanked God Almighty for the gift he had just bestowed upon him.

  That gift was Danny, sound asleep, lying on his stomach on his bed stark naked. His legs were flung wide, one with the cast, and one with the electronic beeper silently flashing green, telling every cop in a twenty-mile radius that Danny was right where he was supposed to be.

  And boy was Luke glad he was.

  In one fluid motion, Luke walked quietly through the doorway and stepped out of his shorts, letting them fall at his feet. A second later, his T-shirt went sailing into a corner. Luke was now just as naked as Danny.

  He stepped to the edge of the bed and looked down at Danny’s naked form sprawled out beneath him. Danny’s arms were flung wide, his face was aimed in Luke’s direction, eyes closed, and he had a little trail of slobber dripping from his mouth. His long hair was tousled around his face and splayed out across the pillow. He was softly snoring.

  Danny’s long frame was so beautiful that Luke just stood there contemplating it, languidly stroking his own cock. Already, Luke was beginning to tremble.

  Danny was thin, but he wasn’t as skinny as he thought he was. He was actually very well proportioned, Luke thought. His legs were long and lean and coated with dark hair. The one calf muscle that wasn’t covered with a cast was hard and pronounced, even in repose. Those gorgeous legs reached all the way up to one of the most beautiful asses Luke had ever seen. It was firm and round and absolutely exquisite. The elegant swell of Danny’s ass was paler than the rest of his body, which was nicely tanned after the many hours he and Luke had spent by the pool this week. The cleft of Danny’s ass was furred with dark hair, and with his legs spread wide, Luke thought he could see the merest glimpse of Danny’s puckered opening. Luke longed to bury his tongue in it. Instead, he dragged his eyes farther north, still stroking his dick and trembling like a leaf, he was so turned on.

  There was beauty beneath Danny’s skin as well. Luke could clearly see the indentations of Danny’s vertebrae and the wales of his ribcage, since his arms were spread wide and out of the way. Where Danny’s shoulders bunched up, being flung wide like they were, Luke could see the corded muscles snuggling up against the skin of his back.

  In clothes, Danny looked skinny. It was true. But naked, he was breathtaking.

  Ever so gently, Luke reached down and eased a strand of hair from Danny’s face. There was a wet towel on the floor at Luke’s feet, so Danny had just showered too. Hmm. Good to know. Luke smiled.

  Luke tugged his glasses off his face and laid them carefully on the nightstand. Where he was going they would just be in the way. Easing himself around to the foot of the bed, he laid his hands softly on either side of Danny’s thighs. Sliding them over Danny’s flesh, Luke relished the feel of Danny’s leg hair scraping across his palms, the texture and heat of Danny’s skin teasing his fingertips. Luke lowered himself down between Danny’s legs and pressed his lips to the swell of Danny’s ass.

  Still Danny snored away.

  Easing himself all the way down onto the bed, Luke laid his hands on either side of Danny’s ass and spread that perfect mound apart until the furry cleft between Danny’s ass cheeks opened wide like a flower. Danny’s ass came up a fraction of an inch, as if eager to be worshipped. Luke obliged by sliding his tongue into the cleft and dragging it across Danny’s sphincter.

  “Do I know you?” Danny mumbled into his pillow. Then he started laughing and flipped over onto his back, grinning down at Luke, who was looking up at him along the scrumptious landscape of Danny’s balls, dick, tummy, and chest. Danny’s dick, by the way, was just as hard as Luke’s, and judging by appearances, just as ready for a little action.

  Luke smiled. “Playing possum, huh?” He shifted targets and slid his tongue between Danny’s balls, tasting, inhaling. He scooped first one testicle into his mouth, then the other. Danny’s hips rose up to meet
his lips. Straining. Pleading. Danny’s hand came down to grasp his own standing cock, which, from this angle, was one of the greatest natural splendors Luke had ever seen in his life. Like Mount Everest. It was there, and Luke was damned well determined to climb it.

  Luke slapped Danny’s hand away and said, “Let me do that.”

  So Danny did.

  Luke wanted to tease Danny and make him beg to be sucked, but Luke couldn’t seem to prevent his own desires from getting in the way. He squirmed up onto his knees between Danny’s outflung legs. Hovering over Danny’s crotch like a happy vulture, he scooped Danny’s cock into his mouth without so much as a by-your-leave.

  Danny watched him, chewing on his lower lip. He looked like he was trying to bite back a gasp, and Luke thought that was the sexiest thing he had ever seen in his life. Luke’s eyes never left Danny’s face as he went to work on that perfect hard-on. Luke wanted to see Danny tremble as much as he was trembling. He rolled the head of Danny’s dick around in his mouth, teased the slit with his tongue, and periodically circled his fingers around Danny’s glans as he sucked. If Luke had had a stopwatch handy he would have seen he’d succeeded in making Danny start trembling in fifteen seconds flat. Probably some sort of world record.

  Luke was so happy about his accomplishment, and so damned turned on by now, that he slid one hand along Danny’s stomach and chest and hooked a finger in Danny’s mouth. Danny closed his lips around it, and while Luke sucked at Danny’s cock, Danny sucked at Luke’s finger. They both seemed to enjoy what they were doing, but Danny had a nagging feeling he was getting the short end of the stick. So he flipped around to face the opposite direction, and without asking permission or sending an RSVP or anything, he pushed his mouth over Luke’s cock and sucked it all the way down his throat.

  Luke didn’t bother biting his lip to prevent a gasp. He simply gasped. It was a happy gasp, too, don’t think it wasn’t.

  Moments later, Danny and Luke were both gasping and gulping for air. The bed was squeaking as if a flock of bats were trapped in the mattress. Both boys moaned and writhed around while Granger stood in the doorway with his head cocked sideways, wondering what the hell was going on.

  Danny and Luke came within moments of each other, swallowing it down like ice cream and savoring every drop. When the shudders and groans and gasps and cries had finally quieted down between the two of them, they fell happily into each other’s arms and pulled each other close.

  Danny pressed his lips into Luke’s ginger hair and the words he had been afraid to say just fell out into the air. He didn’t even know they were coming.

  “I love you, Luke. Jesus. I love you so much.”

  Luke tensed in his arms.

  When Danny realized what he had said, his first reaction was to wonder why he didn’t feel afraid that he had spoken the words. His second reaction was to wonder what Luke had thought of them. It was Luke’s silence that suddenly made him a little worried. Good God, what had he done?

  He gripped Luke’s shoulders and pushed him far enough away to look into his eyes. What he saw there made Danny’s heart do a somersault. It was a somersault of relief.

  Luke’s face was still flushed from sex. He had tears in his cornflower-blue eyes, but he was smiling at the same time. As Danny watched, one of those tears spilled out over Luke’s strawberry-blond eyelashes and skittered down his freckled cheek.

  Without thinking about it, Danny flicked out his tongue and licked the tear away. It was delicious.

  Danny took a deep breath, and said, “If you don’t say something in the next five seconds, I’m going to implode.”

  “Don’t do that,” Luke said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I love you too.”

  “You do?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I thought maybe you should say it first. After all, I was the one who seduced a virgin. I figured the second move was up to you. I think you just took it.”

  “I think I did. So what are we going to do about it?”

  Luke gave that question about three seconds of thought time. “I think maybe what we have to do is figure out a way to stay together. Permanently. We have to tell our dads, lay it all out in the open, and then whatever they say, we stay together anyway. I’m not leaving you for nothing.”

  “A teacher once told me that double negatives are wrong. Just plain wrong,” Danny said with a grin. “But everything else you just said was absolutely right. That’s exactly what we’ll do. So that means—what? We’re lovers?”

  “I ache just thinking about you, Danny. I don’t think we can be anything but lovers.”

  “I ache thinking about you too.”

  “I love you, Danny.”

  “I love you too.”

  “I really love the way you come.”

  “I really love the way you come.”

  Luke grinned. “I’m glad DeVon and Bradley aren’t around to hear us now, or they’d be puking on their tennis shoes.”

  They both laughed.

  They quieted down and continued to stare into each other’s eyes. Then Luke ducked his head to press his lips into the hollow of Danny’s throat. His hands splayed out against Danny’s warm back and pulled him close. They both smiled and closed their eyes, Luke’s lips on Danny’s throat, Danny’s lips in Luke’s hair.

  “We can do this,” Luke said, his voice muffled by the hard lump of Danny’s Adam’s apple bobbing around against his mouth. “I know we can. We’re adults. Our dads will just have to accept it.”

  “They’ll accept it. I know they will.”

  And as if the mere mention of their fathers set wheels in motion elsewhere in the world, at that very moment, their two telephones rang: Danny’s landline, and Luke’s as well, the cord of which still trailed up the side of Danny’s house and through Danny’s bedroom window from the house next door.

  “Well, shit,” they said in unison.

  Luke and Danny scrambled around to answer their respective phones. When they had the receivers in their hands, they sat on opposite sides of the bed, backs to each other, all hunched over.

  Luke reached behind him and clasped Danny’s hand.

  That simple act made Danny’s heart flutter happily.

  Smiling a fearless smile, Danny said, “Hello. Pop?”

  SURE enough, it was Danny’s dad on the phone. Judging by snippets he could hear of Luke’s conversation on the other side of the bed, it was his dad on the phone too. Wow, Danny thought. Was this a coincidence, or what, that they would both call at the very same moment? Their two fathers must be psychically connected.

  Danny could sense his own dad smiling over the phone. It was another psychic connection, this one between father and son, and it always sort of surprised Danny when he felt it.

  “Well, Danny, you sound more chipper every time we talk. I think you’re getting used to living alone. Not missing your old dad so much anymore, are you?”

  Danny laughed. “You’re not so old. And I’ve been busy. But I miss you. When you coming home?” Danny tried to ignore the sinking feeling that invaded his gut when he asked that question. God forgive him, he didn’t want his dad to come home at all. Not yet anyway. And thinking that thought, he grasped Luke’s fingers a little tighter.

  “It’ll be another week,” his dad said. “Think you can survive that long without me?”

  “I’ll manage,” Danny said, before he could stop himself.

  And his dad chortled. “I thought you might.”

  “I cleaned the pool,” Danny said, unable to think of any other news flash with which to wow the man. Well, he could think of another news flash, but he was pretty sure his dad would shit bricks if Danny told him point blank he had just taken a lover, and that lover was a man, and they were bound and determined to live together whether their parents liked it or not. Seemed a little too intense for a casual phone conversation. Besides, it would probably get his dad on a plane for San
Diego in five minutes flat, and that was the last thing Danny wanted.

  “You been listening to the news?” his dad asked, suddenly serious.

  “Sometimes,” Danny said. “Why?”

  “There was another murder last night. At least they think there was. Another young man is missing. They haven’t found his body yet, but if they do, that’ll be the sixth one. Six. I hope you’re keeping the doors locked and all that.”

  “Sure, Pop. House is always locked up tighter than a drum.” Danny looked across the room at his own naked reflection in the dresser mirror and rolled his eyes. That was a lie. Half the time, all the windows were wide open. It was a thousand degrees outside. Why wouldn’t they be?

  The lie seemed to appease his dad. “Well, good. Keep it that way. At least until they catch this guy. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “Don’t worry,” Danny said. “I’ll be careful.”

  Somewhere just out of reach, an errant thought was jiggling Danny’s brain. What the hell was it? Something to do with those damn kids. DeVon and Bradley. Then that thought was interrupted when Luke lay back, and with his own phone still to his ear, rested his face against Danny’s bare hip. Danny looked down and stroked Luke’s hair. They smiled at each other. While Luke was listening to whatever the heck his dad was talking about, he craned his neck around and kissed Danny’s thigh.

  Danny snapped back to the present. “I’m sorry, Dad. What did you say?”

  “I asked how you’re getting along with the new neighbor boy. What did you say his name was? Luke?”

  Simply hearing Luke’s name from a mouth other than his own made Danny’s heart flutter. Holy smokes. If that wasn’t love, what was?

  “We’re getting along great. It’s just a shame I’m hog-tied to this frigging house. I could help him unpack all those boxes he brought with him if I could hop the hedge without summoning a SWAT team and a pack of German shepherd K-9 commandos and fourteen sharpshooters armed with flash grenades.”