His heart was beating like he’d never done it before.
No need to think about that. He had better things to do. Aidan lowered his mouth to Caleb’s cock, laving the head while still working his finger in small, gentle circles. He swallowed Caleb down to the root at the same moment he pushed in, the tight ring of muscle clamping around his finger.
He would have said all sorts of things—yes, good, just like that, you’re so beautiful, you feel so perfect, let me do this for you—if his mouth hadn’t been full. It was safer to use his tongue this way, licking and kissing, dragging it over the slit, than it was to let something irrevocable slip out of his mouth.
Caleb squirmed when he slid in deeper, a formless movement that took on form as Aidan curled his finger. Caleb bucked his hips, thrusting down against Aidan’s hand and up against his mouth.
Aidan worked a second finger in and Caleb moaned. The sound thrummed inside Aidan like the missing note of a chord, and when it had gone silent, all he wanted was to hear it again. He was so hard he ached, the tip of his cock leaving wet smears against his thigh every time he moved, but he couldn’t stop touching Caleb, who was breathing in fast, ragged gasps
“Aidan. Aidan, I’m gonna—”
Aidan thrust his fingers in and swallowed him to the root. Caleb’s orgasm came crashing down, loud and forceful and hot, clamping around his fingers and spurting into his mouth. Aidan caught it in flashes—Caleb’s eyes squeezed shut and the dark fans of his lashes against his cheeks, one hand clenching the sheets and the other in Aidan’s hair—and thought he might die from how beautiful it was.
He was one ghost of a touch away from coming himself. One of his hands was free now, and he wiped his mouth, but didn’t reach for his erection.
“Holy fuck. That was… you are really good at that.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You didn’t have to do that. We talked about you fucking me,” Caleb ventured after a beat.
“Mm. Did we? It slipped my mind.” Aidan shifted his fingers inside Caleb, and Caleb shivered. “Refresh my memory.”
“I told you I wanted you to fuck me. I still do.”
“Articulate,” Aidan observed, and Caleb laughed. He’d been charmed by Caleb’s earlier shyness, but he was equally as proud to have fucked it away. All these little details, the glassy darkness of his pupils and the sweat at his temples, Aidan had some hand—two hands—in making him look like that.
“You can go ahead,” Caleb said. “You’ve been waiting. I already came, I don’t need to come again.”
Aidan raised his eyebrows. “I disagree.”
With his still-slick fingers, he set a slow pace, listening to Caleb exhale. Caleb was satisfied, his cock lying soft on his stomach, and yet he was letting Aidan continue to explore his body. It felt like cheating, how easily they’d arrived here, like they’d skipped half a dozen steps. Maybe Caleb was this free and vulnerable with everyone.
Even as he thought it, Aidan knew that wasn’t it. He couldn’t think about that. Better to watch his fingers disappear into the tight clench of Caleb’s body, letting the long, slow anticipation crowd out all his other thoughts. Sex was the only thing he liked to wait for. The taut, yearning stretch of the moment resembled nothing else in the frantic chaos of his life.
He wanted to touch himself, so he touched Caleb instead, gently stroking his cock back to its full hardness.
“Fuck,” Caleb whispered.
That was as good a cue as any. Aidan removed his fingers and slid his dick in, sheathing himself inch by slippery, careful inch. It was tight and perfect, a knock-out rush of sensation. “Jesus,” he said, then leaned forward until he could devour Caleb’s mouth in a kiss. It was sloppy and hard, their tongues wild and their teeth nipping into lips, but Aidan’s restraint was all focused elsewhere, driving into Caleb in deep strokes, making it last.
He was shuddering with the effort, his arms stiff and his muscles burning, by the time Caleb whimpered some breathless word that might have been “Please.”
Fuck. He’d thought he was prepared for this and he’d had it all wrong. It should have been like the other times: something filthy and fun, a game he knew how to win, a way to show off. But that one little noise brought home all the feelings he’d been evading. His gaze caught Caleb’s. No one else had ever drowned him in tenderness like this.
He kissed Caleb, plunging his tongue into Caleb’s mouth, and thrust his hand between their bodies to bring him off. It was effortless. Inevitable. His orgasm was a flood of sweet relief, a flash of pleasure bright against the backs of his eyelids. He collapsed afterward, boneless and thoughtless, and nuzzled the side of Caleb’s neck.
Caleb made an appreciative noise, combing his fingers through Aidan’s hair. “Glad we did that. Now we can do it again later.”
“You’ll have to peel me out of bed first,” Aidan mumbled, his mood deflated by the mention of later. There would be precious little of that. This arrangement would end as soon as Quint was in prison. Aidan would have to break up with Caleb publicly, of course. Otherwise disappearing wouldn’t do anything to keep him safe.
“We could switch,” Caleb said.
Aidan was so caught up in his own thoughts that he didn’t take the meaning for a second, and when he did, it made him smile despite everything. He dropped a kiss under the corner of Caleb’s jaw. “Could we,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.
They had a few more days. He was already in too deep, so what difference did it make if he dug himself in a little deeper? He had to enjoy his time with Caleb while he could. Once he left, he’d never have anything like it again.
They’d given away half a million by the fistful in a matter of hours. A barrage of hugs from strangers, tears, scorn, indignation, inappropriate touches, and some shockingly personal questions had prevented Caleb and Aidan from speaking to each other. Caleb had realized too late how easily a crowd like that might have turned into a mob, and he was relieved when they dispersed along with the last of the cash. He had to turn out his jacket pockets apologetically in answer to a few stragglers who approached them on their stroll through the park, but luckily no one got angry.
Aidan was quiet. Caleb reached for him, no longer pretending it was for any purpose other than his own pleasure. A long moment passed before Aidan took his hand out of pocket and accepted.
They didn’t have to talk. It was a brisk, sunny day. He was happy to hold Aidan’s hand and step on crunchy leaves in companionable silence.
He wasn’t sure Aidan was happy, though.
“Have you read the news lately?” Aidan asked.
“To see what people are saying about us? I look sometimes. It’s all pretty much the same, and a lot of it’s wrong. But we’re getting attention.”
“A few states have launched criminal investigations into Quint Services,” Aidan said. “It won’t be long before he gets arrested. We need to make sure he turns himself in first.”
So they’d have control over the situation and could switch Quint for Oz. Caleb nodded, not willing to say that out loud in public. “It’s good that there are investigations. That’s what you wanted.”
“Yeah.”
That didn’t sound like the answer of someone getting what they wanted. It wasn’t wise to discuss the details here, so Caleb let a little time elapse and changed the subject. “I can’t stop thinking about this morning. It was so good. I’m glad we didn’t wait.”
That, at least, elicited a smile. “Some of us haven’t had fifty girlfriends,” Aidan said. “If you never know when you’ll get your next chance, you learn to seize the moment.”
“It wasn’t fifty,” Caleb protested.
“Fine,” Aidan said. “Forty-two.”
“Wait, really? I didn’t even know that. How…” Caleb trailed off and examined Aidan, who’d blanched and was now staring resolutely at the distant edge of the lake. “I didn’t introduce you to all of them.”
“I knew anyway.”
“
You keeping a spreadsheet or something?” Caleb asked, the joke falling flat as soon as he’d said it. He was freaked out and couldn’t identify why, and Aidan was obviously embarrassed.
“I was in your apartment often enough,” Aidan said. He held still like a prey animal seeking camouflage in its surroundings—no, like a runner trying to get into the Nowhere. “There were always traces. I can’t explain this in a way that doesn’t make me sound like a creep.”
“You’re not a creep,” Caleb said, distracted, wondering what Aidan had seen. Lost earrings and forgotten scarves. Soy milk in the fridge. Tampons in the bathroom trash, maybe. None of those things guaranteed a precise count of the number of women who’d come through his life in the last decade.
You’d have to be really invested to keep track. Caleb hadn’t even known the number. He just said yes to beautiful women who wanted him.
In the fiction they’d improvised for their relationship, Aidan had gone into great detail about the moment he knew Caleb was in love with him. He’d obscured his own side of the story. What had he said?
I’m sorry, the truth is I don’t know when I fell in love with Caleb. We were friends, and we were friends, and we were friends, and then… my feelings changed. I can’t pinpoint the moment it happened.
Caleb had thought it was a weak answer at the time. Not the kind of captivating lie they were supposed to be spinning. It had slipped right past their interviewer’s attention, probably by design. It had slipped right past Caleb’s attention, too.
If you’d known someone all your life—long enough to keep a decade-long mental tally of that person’s girlfriends—maybe you wouldn’t know exactly when you’d fallen in love, just that you had.
And if the person you were in love with continually dated other people, you’d notice. Because you’d be hurt. Aidan’s knowledge of the number betrayed a depth of feeling he’d never admitted to.
Caleb could have this all wrong. Aidan could just be weirdly observant. He could have been making up his answer in that interview. That was ostensibly what both of them were doing, or it was what Caleb had been doing at the beginning. Things had changed for him now.
It was a story, and it was a story, and it was a story, and then it was true.
“Hey,” Caleb said, making Aidan turn to face him. He lifted his hand to Aidan’s cheek, ghosted his fingertips down the side of his face, and said, “There might’ve been forty-two, but none of them are here right now. None of them stayed.”
Aidan looked like Caleb had punched him in the gut. “Caleb, I’m not—this is fun, but it’s temporary. It’s not real.”
Fuck. Caught between panic and anger, Caleb forced his voice to stay steady. Maybe he’d misunderstood. “Why not? It felt pretty damn real this morning.”
“I can’t stay, Caleb. You think Quint is the only person who’d lock me up and experiment on me? My life is dangerous. I won’t get you killed. When this is over, I’m leaving. I’ll have to find somewhere to hide. But I’ll dump you in public so no one comes after you, don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry? Don’t worry? What the fuck, Aidan.” Caleb intended to go on, but Aidan reached for him. Caleb didn’t want to be touched, but the plastic smile on Aidan’s face reminded him that they were in public. They had the attention of other people in the park just by virtue of being who they were. They couldn’t afford to raise their voices and attract more.
“Let’s walk,” Aidan said, because they’d stopped moving after he’d revealed his bullshit plan to disappear.
“My life is dangerous, too, you know,” Caleb said, keeping his voice low as they ascended a bridge that crossed the lake at its narrowest point. “This could all go south. We’re committing fraud and who knows how many other crimes. We could both go to prison for a long time. And if we don’t manage to put Quint in prison, he’s going to kill us. Surely you know that.”
“They can put us in prison, but they can’t keep us there.”
“Why, because your Union will get you out? Like they got you out of Facility 17? Aidan, that was me. I did that. I’ve been here—helping you, taking risks with you—the whole time. That doesn’t have to change.”
“Yes, it does,” Aidan said, implacable.
They stopped for a moment because a couple at the apex of the bridge was getting photographed against the backdrop of the lake and the fall foliage. Then one of the women in the couple noticed them and smiled and waved, and the cameras turned their way. Caleb’s face froze. Aidan stepped closer and put a hand on the small of his back, a touch he would have welcomed mere minutes ago.
It was Aidan who made polite, stilted conversation with the strangers after they’d finished the photos. It went on for too long because he wasn’t good at extricating himself from social situations when he couldn’t literally disappear. At least four opportunities went by. Caleb could have jumped in and made their excuses. He didn’t feel like helping.
From the other side of the bridge, someone yelled “Caleb!”
Holy shit. Deb. Here. It didn’t compute at first. His sister was one of the normal parts of life, totally separate from the life where he got his job transferred to space, visited another reality, and stole a trillionaire’s fortune. He’d filed her away.
Except he only had one life. Deb and Oswin Lewis Quint were both mixed up in it. So was Aidan.
She was marching up the bridge, shading her round glasses with her hand. She’d cut her wavy brown hair short since he’d last seen her.
Before she got to where they were standing, he grabbed Aidan by the wrist and said “Sorry, we have to go,” over his shoulder to the strangers while hurrying down to meet his sister.
“How did you find us?” he asked, breathless, searching for some place they could talk without being seen. The park was disastrously open.
Deb didn’t perceive his distress. She hugged him tight. Caleb hugged her back. It was almost enough to make him stop worrying for an instant.
“There’s an app where people report sightings of you two,” she said. “My own brother. In the city where we grew up. And I had to use an app to know where you were. You know I’m supposed to be in World Lit senior seminar right now? Not to mention I had to find out from some psychic’s premium streaming channel that you and Aidan were finally dating! It cost me ten dollars and all of my dignity.”
“So not that much, then,” Caleb said.
She punched him in the arm with a force at the upper limit of what could be described as playful. Aidan had taught her too well.
“Ow.”
“Hi Aidan,” Deb said. “Don’t think I’m not mad at you, too. But also congratulations, I guess. This has been a long time coming.”
Aidan and Caleb shared a glance. Caleb said nothing, waiting to see what Aidan would say.
Admit you’re in love with me, you asshole.
“Thanks,” Aidan said, as quickly and flatly as possible, dodging the issue.
A generous interpretation of Aidan’s answer was that he didn’t want to lie to Deb about their relationship, whatever it was. Caleb wasn’t feeling generous. They’d already lied to Deb. She’d watched the interviews. Lying to the public felt different when the public in question was family.
If Aidan dumped him in public, Deb would see that, too.
“This is the part of the conversation where you can ask what’s going on in my life,” Deb said. “I think I’m up to date on yours. Or you can take me back to the palace where you live and let me dive into your champagne swimming pool.”
“It’s a little cold for that,” Caleb said.
“You mean the pool’s not heated?” Deb asked with fake outrage. Then she grimaced. “On the other hand, the idea of a swimming pool full of warm champagne is pretty gross. Guess you’ll have to talk to me instead. Let’s go get coffee. You’re paying.”
She shoved her hands into the pockets of her brown leather jacket and strode off, expecting them to follow.
Caleb looked at Aidan. “If you don’t
want us to go with her, you have to tell her that. I’m not softening the blow for you.”
“I don’t think I’ll be the one throwing the punch,” Aidan said ruefully. “We can’t tell her the truth, Caleb.”
“And what truth is that, exactly?” Caleb asked. He could think of a few vicious follow-ups—the truth that we’re great together but you’re too much of a coward to give us a chance—but he kept them to himself out of some foolish hope that maybe Aidan would say the right thing.
“If we spend more time with her, it’ll draw attention to her. She could end up in danger because of us. I don’t want anybody else mixed up in this.”
Deb saved Caleb from whatever he was about to say by stomping back up to them and saying, “What gives? Am I not cool enough to hang out now that you’re rich and famous? My net worth is in the high double-digits, you know.”
“We’re really sorry, Deb, but unfortunately we have another interview later today, and we should get going,” Aidan said.
Deb narrowed her eyes. Her suspicion was justified. Aidan had probably never been that polite to her in his life. After a second, she asked, “Rain check?”
“Yeah,” Aidan said. “This should all be over soon.”
Caleb didn’t like the sound of that.
“Good, I’ll hold you to that,” Deb said.
Aidan gave her an uncharacteristically soft smile and said, “It was really nice to run into you, Deb.”
He thinks this is the last time he’ll ever see her. The realization tied Caleb in tight, anxious knots. It was barely a goodbye at all. Deb was practically Aidan’s sister and he was just going to ghost her without another word.
Everyone left. Caleb knew that. All forty-two girlfriends had left, and sometimes it had hurt, but it had always been okay in the end.
Because Aidan stayed.
Out of Nowhere Page 18