by Jaime Samms
Thank you, Kearn. A few days off with that hotness was so not a bad idea after all.
One would think after having stabbed his nemesis in the shoulder with a shoe and saving the man he loved in the process, Ira would be over the goddamn nerves.
He wasn’t.
They fluttered up inside on wings of brittle-edged steel. As he closed out his last bill and delivered it to his table, he tried to gain control of the swarm. It was a useless attempt. They sliced through every net of logic he tried to throw over them.
Jed had already closed out his cash and counted his tips, leaving the late-night crowd for Kearn and Angela to deal with. He sat at the staff table in the corner and waited for Ira to finish. And as Ira carried the dirty dish bin around the main seating area to clear his tables, he could feel Jed’s eyes on him. His attention burned through Ira’s skimpy outfit, causing not a little bit of discomfort for his dick, twitching in its tuck.
“Hey.” Jed closed a big hand around his wrist as he passed. “Come here.”
“Jed!” Ira tugged for his freedom. He might as well have been trying to free himself from a boa constrictor. Jed only held on tighter. “I’m working here.”
“I highly doubt Rex is going to mind if you’re an extra minute longer with his change.” He glanced to Rex’s table where the golden-haired beauty was leaning against the back of his booth seat while one of his guys—Stewart—leaned close to whisper something in his ear. Rex had his eyes closed and his lips parted. The scene did Ira’s poor, trapped cock no favours.
“Here,” Jed demanded, pulling Ira closer. “Put the bin down.”
“Oh, you tell me what to do now?” Ira asked, hoping to gain a bit of equilibrium.
“I do.” Jed stared right at him, unapologetic.
“What makes you think I’ll listen?” God. His voice was too breathy.
“Down,” Jed said.
Ira set the bin on Jed’s table and stood there.
Jed’s smile was both joyous and dirty. He yanked, and Ira stumbled forward, falling into his lap. “Hey!”
“No one is here who cares,” Jed said. Indeed, only Johnny, Rex, Stewart, and Carver were left in the bar area, and Jerry and his partner sat on the lower level by the fireplace talking quietly. Kearn had his back to them at the other end of the bar.
“What are you doing?” Ira stared at him, trying to keep his breathing under control.
Jed pulled him close to whisper in his ear. “Which panties are you wearing? The pink thong? With the lace?”
Ira gasped and jerked back. “What?”
“You heard me.” Jed grinned at him. “I’ll be taking them off later, so I was just getting mentally prepared. You know”—he winked—“positive visualization and all that.” He slid his hand along Ira’s spine, over his ass, and patted lightly. “Looking forward to taking them off and untucking you. But you’re taking your sweet time with closing your tables, so I need a mental image to tide me over.”
Ira groaned. He was going to be hobbling around for the rest of his shift, imagining Jed picturing him next to naked. “I hate you right now,” he muttered, freeing himself and getting to his feet.
Jed grinned. “That’s too bad, because after I untuck you, I was planning on—”
“Stop!” Ira held up a hand. “Do you know how much a tucked hard-on hurts?”
Jed managed to look a tiny bit contrite as he blinked at Ira. “I’ll kiss it better. Promise.”
Ira ground his teeth. “Does. Not. Help.” He grabbed his bin and stalked off to the sound of Jed chuckling behind him.
When he was safely far enough away that Jed couldn’t reach him, he turned around. “Black lace, actually. With the little bows.”
Jed’s flush and slight moan were satisfying indeed, and Ira all but strutted back to the kitchen.
It didn’t take more than ten minutes more to finish his shift and say good night. When he came out, pulling on his bomber jacket and toque, he was surprised to see Jed’s table empty.
“Said he went to get his car,” Johnny told Ira from his barstool.
“He has a car? Because he told me his truck was getting a tune-up or something.”
Johnny shrugged. “Drives something in the winter. I never paid much attention.” That was probably a lie. Johnny had paid an awful lot of attention to Jed before Ira had come along. Jed hadn’t noticed, but Ira had, the moment he’d met Johnny.
“You okay?” Ira stopped next to his stool.
Johnny peered at him. He was a little bit drunk, which was unusual for him. He did sit on that stool an awful lot, but he didn’t generally overindulge.
“Yeah, li’l bud. Ah’m good.” He tilted his head and smiled. “Jed’s a lucky guy, huh?”
“Is he?” This was something Ira had been asking himself quite a bit over the past few weeks. Jed had been badly hurt trying to protect Ira from Cedric. Hell, Cedric had tried to shoot him. Possibly, he was only alive now because Cedric was an awful shot. That thought sent a wild shiver through him. Jed could have been killed. Dead. And that was Ira’s fault.
“How come you’re not trying to talk him out of me?” Ira asked. “I’m not good for him.”
“Yeah, you are.” Johnny patted Ira’s shoulder. “He likes to look after things. People.”
“I don’t need—”
“Shhh. Talking here.” Johnny squinted at him, so Ira shut his mouth. “D’you know the difference between me’n you?”
Ira waited, but apparently, that wasn’t a rhetorical question. “What’s the difference?” he prompted finally.
“Diff’r’nce is that you know you don’t need him to look after you. So you can let him do it because he wants to.”
“And you think you need someone to look after you?” If Ira sounded skeptical, it was because he was. Johnny wasn’t a small man. He was boisterous and flamboyant and built like a brick shit house. He clearly did not need looking after.
Johnny stared into the last sip of his beer. “I wanted him to. But he doesn’t always see what’s right in front of him.” Suddenly he focused on Ira. “Don’t let him take his eye off the prize, li’l buddy.”
“I’m the prize in this scenario?” Ira snorted. “Because I didn’t cause him a lick of trouble or anything.”
“Don’t matter. He don’t care about that shit. He cares that you let him be who he is. Do his thing.” Johnny sighed and drank down the last of his beer. “That’s the difference. I don’t think I could. Eventually, it’d get to me.”
“It would get to you that he wants to take care of you?”
“Well. He wants to take care of you. But yeah. If it was me, I’d love it for a while. But then I’d get annoyed. Resentful. You might fight him on things, but you won’t ever resent him.” Johnny smiled. “You don’t judge him. We all know what he’s like, but sometimes, we judge. Tell him not to be so damn nice to everyone. To take care of himself some of the damn time. Stop getting his heart stomped on by assholes who soak up his attention until they suddenly don’t anymore, then start treating him like crap. People use him and he lets them.”
“I’ll take care of him,” Ira informed Johnny. “I’ll take care of him, and I won’t stomp on him. Maybe teach him some fashion sense while I’m at it.”
Johnny grinned. “Yeah, you will.” He frowned. “Not . . . stomp on him, that is.” Shrugging, he patted Ira on the back hard enough it made Ira stumble a bit. “The fashion thing, though, I don’t know. He’s kind of hopeless that way.”
“Well. People can learn.”
Behind Ira, the door opened, and he whirled, stepping back right into Johnny and his stool. He almost tripped, and Johnny had to grab him around the waist, quick even if he was a bit hammered.
“Easy.” Johnny patted his arm.
“Hey.” Jed took a step into the bar. “Just me. You okay?”
“Yeah.” Ira straightened, tugging at his kilt and stomping a foot. “Fine.”
“It’s all right, dude,” Johnny assured him. “
Takes a while to stop flinching.”
How would he know that? Ira glanced at Johnny, but he was already preoccupied by a group of men who had entered the bar behind Jed.
Reaching the bottom of the few steps to the bar area, Jed held out a hand for Ira. “You ready?”
“Sure. Yes.” He smiled at Jed. “Let’s go.” He hopped down the steps and turned. “See you later, eh, Johnny?”
“Later, alligator!” Johnny waved and turned his attention back to the guys who had crowded up to the bar.
Outside, Ira glanced up and down the street. “So?” He squeezed Jed’s hand in his. “Where’s our ride?”
“Your chariot.” Jed stepped to the curb and unlocked—with a key, for pity’s sake—the door of a monstrous green and baby-poop-brown truck.
“My . . . what now?” Ira swung a look to Jed. “Are you kidding me? What even is it?”
Jed grinned. “A 1990 Chevrolet Blazer, thank you very much.” He swung the door open and motioned Ira to the passenger seat. “After you.”
Ira tottered on one heel to climb into the insane vehicle. Inelegant to say the least, which was backed up when Jed lightly smacked his next-to-bare ass as he scrambled in.
“Hey!”
Jed closed the door on his protest, and Ira flumped around to face forward and yank out his belt. “Whatever.” He pouted as he buckled up. “Ugliest chariot ever.”
The rumble of the vehicle when Jed started it up made his teeth rattle a bit, but it soon smoothed out. “You’re sure this thing is legal?” Ira asked.
Jed just laughed.
“Thanks for taking me home.”
“Always.” Jed patted his knee. “I’m happy to, you know that.”
“But you could have worked until close.”
“Nah. Kearn sort of kicked me out.” He shrugged. “He’s bossy that way.”
“Because of me, I guess. You all right with the time off?” Ira watched Jed’s scruffy profile. He looked a little bedraggled, even for him, with his not-so-trim beard and longish hair.
“Yeah. I guess it can’t hurt, right?”
“We can spend the entire time in,” Ira suggested. “It doesn’t have to be bad.”
“I could drive you around town in The Beast,” Jed offered with a chuckle.
“No.” Ira considered the huge space inside the truck. “Though it is more comfortable than the bike.” But he was a long way away from Jed. Unbuckling his belt, he scooted across the bench seat and clicked the middle belt over his lap.
“There. Much better.” He looped his arm through Jed’s and laid his head on Jed’s shoulder. “I guess it isn’t all bad.”
Jed took a brief moment to kiss his hair.
“Though it’s probably terrible for the environment.”
“Not like I drive it all that much. And now that Cedric is safely put away where he belongs, and my hip is getting better, we can walk more.”
Ira liked the sound of that. He snuggled a little closer and closed his eyes. “This is nice.”
“Yeah.”
It was nice, Jed had to admit. He’d taken a lot of cabs and bummed a lot of rides off his coworkers the past few weeks. The pain meds for his arm and hip had made him drowsy and sometimes too loopy to risk driving. Now that he was back in the saddle, so to speak, he felt like he was also back in charge of his life a little bit.
With Ira snugged in tight against his good hip, the feeling clicked home.
“This is good,” Jed whispered.
The trip back to their building was a little longer than normal, since he had to go around to the lot at the back of the hotel next door. He was renting a space from them for the truck for the winter months. While it wasn’t as convenient as where he parked his bike, it wasn’t actually that far. It was just long enough, apparently, for Ira to fall asleep on his arm.
A little snorting snuffle erupted when Jed nudged him awake. “We’re home, babe.”
Ira grunted and rubbed his face, half man-speak, half sex kitten. Jed’s cock stiffened.
“Mine or yours?” Ira asked.
The conversation with Kearn about moving in together crossed his mind. It would be so much easier. “Whatever you want.”
Ira undid his belt and shimmied around to half face him. He nuzzled up through Jed’s beard, kissing his throat and jaw and finally finding his lips. For a long time, Jed let him explore. He tasted minty and sleepy and sweet. His tongue pushed into Jed’s mouth with lazy but steadfast determination, and when Jed opened for him, he prodded and licked, a delicate invasion that melted Jed’s brain one cell at a time.
Just as Jed reached over to tug Ira into his lap, Ira moved back until his lips barely brushed Jed’s. “Go shower, then come meet me in my bed. You can take me there.”
“Oh fuck,” Jed whispered.
“Oh yes,” Ira replied, then, like a wisp of winter fog, he was gone and the truck door slammed in his wake.
Jed was shocked just how well the little imp could navigate the slush and ice in those frightening heels. By the time Jed had locked up, Ira was around the corner of their building. Jed had to place his feet carefully, but he had caught up by the time Ira reached the front door.
They scrambled inside out of the fog and chill, and all but tumbled up the stairs laughing and groping. Jed walked Ira to his door, waited for him to unlock it, then stood there, suddenly flummoxed. Should he go in? Say something? Kiss him? What was the polite thing to do when they both knew the sure thing was just a shower away?
Before he could make up his mind, however, Ira had him by the coat collar and was once more pressing lips to his. Their kiss was interrupted by Ruby’s door opening and Ruby squeaking out a surprised “Oh!”
Jed disengaged from the kiss to look at her.
“Hi.” She wiggled fingers at them. “I was just . . .”
They waited.
“Um.” Her throat worked. “I know it’s short notice. I got a call to work some walk-in clinic shifts. My rotation doesn’t actually start until next week, but with the holidays, they were asking for some of us students to maybe start earlier . . .”
“You need a babysitter?” Ira asked.
She nodded.
“When?”
“Six a.m.? Have to be at the clinic by seven.”
“Send them over.” He pecked Jed’s cheek. “Jed will make pancakes.”
Relief flooded her face. “You guys are . . .”
“Horny,” Jed growled.
“Oh!” She smirked, thanked them again, and withdrew.
“I was planning on not getting out of bed tomorrow,” Jed complained, albeit mildly.
“She looked desperate.”
Jed placed a hand on Ira’s chest and walked him backwards into his apartment. “Best get a head start then, shall we?”
Inside, Ira hung his coat and grabbed a rag from a basket by the door to wipe his shoes while Jed unlaced his heavy boots and kicked them off. He ducked his head every time Jed tried to make eye contact.
“Ira?”
“You want to shower first?” Ira asked, keeping Jed from questioning him.
“Um. I guess?”
Carefully, Ira placed his shoes neatly on the rack. They looked even more delicate when Ira set Jed’s riding boots next to them.
“Hey.” Jed took his hand and turned him around. “Are you going shy on me?”
“No. Of course not.”
Jed put a hand under his chin and lifted his face. “Then why aren’t you looking at me?”
“Cedric’s gone.”
“And this is a good thing.”
“Of course.” Ira licked his lips. “And your hip is pretty much better. Your stitches are out.”
Jed drew a light thumb over Ira’s once-black eye. “And you can see out of both eyes. So?”
“So I don’t need you to protect me anymore. And you don’t need me to look after you.”
“Ira?”
“What now?”
“I don’t understand. I thoug
ht we were going to shower and—”
“And what? After that, I mean. In the morning.”
“Make pancakes. Herd twins.”
“And then?”
“And then what? Baby, relax. We’ll figure it out. One day at a time.”
“And the next time I can’t pay my rent and have to dance?”
Jed kissed his hand. “I’ll be at the front of the stage making sure no one touches what’s mine.”
“You would let me?”
Jed stared at him. Would he love the idea? No. But would he stand in his way? “That isn’t my choice to make,” he said at last.
“And if I keep dancing, that’s my choice.”
“No one has ever said otherwise.” Jed dragged Ira a little closer, suddenly worried this was Ira trying to pull away, even if he feet weren’t yet moving. “You’ve made it pretty clear you don’t need me to save you. I hope I’ve made it clear that I’m not interested in doing anything other than being here if you need something from me. I like you. I want to be with you. I know you’re a stripper. Or—” he held up a hand “—whatever we’re calling it. I’ve seen you do it. And if you want to keep doing it, that’s your choice. If you want me to be there to keep you safe, ask, and I’m there. If you don’t want me there, tell me that.” He picked up Ira’s hand and kissed his fingers. “I’ll make sure I stay where you can’t see me.”
Ira giggled. “You’re a jerk.”
“But I’m your jerk, for as long as you’ll keep me. I’m not interested in running your life or telling you what to do. But please don’t ask me not to be protective, or not to act on that feeling. You might as well ask me to cut off an arm.”
“Protecting people is who you are,” Ira agreed. Was he worried that if he didn’t need Jed’s protection, Jed would just move on?
“It is part of me, yes. But not all. I don’t want to be with you because you need me. I want to be with you because . . . because who you are fascinates me. I want to see more. Know more. I want everything you are. I don’t want to be your hero. I want to be your boyfriend.”