Jack: Grime and Punishment: The Brothers Grime, book 1

by Maxfield, Z. A.

  Behind the bed a picture window looked out over an amazing garden. From where he stood, Jack could see a pergola covered with wisteria vines and beyond that, a gently rising slope crowned with fruit trees. The other walls held framed panoramic landscape photographs, and they added color and drama to the room. There were several pictures of a forest in all different seasons. There were some of the ocean. A couple Jack recognized as Iceland.

  Just looking at the pictures gave Jack gooseflesh. He felt as if he could fly into one of them and hover between the vast green pastures, or soar out over the cobalt-blue water and look down at the way sea foam eddied around volcanic rock formations.

  He could almost feel the chill of ice or the warmth of sunshine coming from behind the glass.

  Ryan returned, carrying a bottle and two glasses. “I picked a white. Okay?”

  Jack shrugged. “I’m no expert.”

  “I’ll just put them on the nightstand.” Ryan set the glasses down without a sound. He turned and walked toward Jack, skin still glistening from their rendezvous on the stairs.

  “I—” Jack had no idea what he’d been about to say. Ryan’s fair skin bloomed with a deep flush while his swollen lips begged for kisses. His eyes glittered with faint fresh longing.

  Jack’s feet felt glued to the floor. He nodded toward the bed. “Maybe we could—”

  “Sure.” Ryan stepped forward and placed his palms flat on Jack’s chest. Jack shivered when Ryan slid his hands down Jack’s torso. Ryan undid the button on Jack’s trousers and carefully lowered his zipper.

  Jack closed his fingers over Ryan’s “Wait.”

  “Wait?” Ryan’s absurdly pale lashes lifted. They were longer than Jack had realized and distracted him for a second or two.

  “I’m covered in scars. No surprises, okay? It’s not pretty, some of it.”

  “I think I can handle it.” Ryan smiled as he pushed Jack’s trousers and shorts down over his hips and braced him while he stepped free of them. While Ryan got rid of his socks, Jack closed his eyes. He didn’t have to look. The image of his lower body was burned into his retinas. Scars from surgeries on the broken bones in his legs. Scars from knee replacement, scars over his lower torso where they’d had to stabilize his pelvis.

  He had scars on his back and arms too, but they weren’t as unappealing. They were the normal wear and tear of doing business as a boy child who liked a little thrill. He’d earned them the old-fashioned way, falling off skateboards, surfing, and rock climbing. They didn’t bother him.

  In his mind, those surgical scars were directly linked to his mortality, and Jack had a hard time looking at them. They should make him feel resilient, he knew. But somehow, they only made him feel ugly.

  “They’re not so bad, patchwork man. Just some surgical graffiti. It says, ‘Dr. Huesos was here.’”

  Jack laughed. “Easy for you to say.”

  “Easy for me to see past too. So what? You use a cane, and you’ve got some scars. You’re a hot guy with a terrific body. Did you think a few scars would make me want you any less?” Ryan palmed Jack’s hips. “Cause it’s all good. You’re a fine man, Jack Masterson.”

  “All right.” Jack’s dick reacted predictably to Ryan’s hands. The cock that had barely flagged from their encounter on the stairs grew positively, painfully erect while Ryan felt him up. “You’re killing me here.”

  “I plan to rescue you”—Ryan practically purred—“as soon as you tell me how you want me.”

  “Any way. Every way.” Jack hooked his fingers in Ryan’s belt loops. “Can we get these off?”

  “Sure.” Ryan stepped away, then slipped his trousers and shorts off, giving Jack a tantalizing view of his firm, well-muscled ass in the process. Fine golden hair dusted his body. It caught what little light there was and winked like sparks off his skin.

  Jack nudged Ryan up against the bed and kissed the back of his neck right below his hairline. He planned to lick and kiss every vertebra, to caress and massage every muscle, until Ryan poured like liquid gold in his hands.

  “Can you get up on the bed?” Jack asked, and Ryan complied, climbing up onto his bed and kneeling with his back to Jack’s chest. Jack continued kissing down Ryan’s spine, down to the top of his ass crack. Jack thumbed the dimples on either side of Ryan’s ass, kissing each in turn, secretly naming them Frick and Frack, because he was never going to forget that, was he?

  Frick, Frack, and the crack in the middle. Sounds like a children’s book.

  The good thing was Ryan seemed to like it when Jack laughed against his skin.

  “What are you doing?” Ryan slipped away, laughing. “That tickles.”

  “Nothing,” Jack said in a way that made it sound like it wasn’t nothing at all. “Kneel up, and let me get at you.”

  “No.” Ryan dissolved into squirming fits. “This is embarrassing.”

  “I’m serious.” Jack turned Ryan around to give him a good, hard kiss. He let his cane fall and braced himself against the bed. “I’m not flexible enough to be Mr. Smooth, baby. Why don’t you put your ass where I need it, and we’ll see how embarrassed you feel with my tongue in it.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” Ryan started to turn around again, but he glanced back. “As long as we’re entering into negotiations, do you plan to slap my ass?”

  Jack hesitated. Is this another test? “Would you like me to?”

  “Hell yes. I’d be insulted if you didn’t.” Ryan shifted and put his ass right in Jack’s face. “’Bout there, you think?”

  “Yeah, that’s good.” Jack couldn’t believe he was about to give Ryan’s ass a nice firm slap. Ker-smack! “How’s that?” Jack didn’t give Ryan time to answer before he swiped his tongue over Ryan’s tight sphincter. A loud gasp let him know he was on the right track, and Ryan didn’t move, not at all, except to push back against Jack’s mouth.

  Jack pushed his face in between Ryan’s ass cheeks to flick and tease the wrinkled bud, and then he thumbed his way into the cleft for a better angle. Ryan leaned forward, letting his head drop to the bed with a thud.

  “Ah, God. Yeah. Just like that.”

  Jack tongued along the pristine white skin between Ryan’s pucker and his sac. He licked at Ryan’s balls from behind. The flavor, salt and musk, the man-smell and earthiness of private places never failed to make Jack’s mouth water, and he hummed when he went back to teasing Ryan’s hole.

  “Shhhhit,” Ryan hissed.

  When Jack didn’t think Ryan could take more teasing, he speared his tongue and pushed it against Ryan’s hole, fucking right into him with everything he had, gliding into the spit-slicked aperture, and feeling the tense muscle tighten around him.

  There was nothing like that, like being inside the heat and need of a man, feeling his most essential, helpless desire against a cock or a tongue, or probing with fingers until all will left his body and he was nothing but sensation and greed.

  “Ah, God, Jack. Please,” Ryan begged. “More. I need more.”

  Jack pulled back and gave Ryan’s ass a few solid slaps, knowing he would feel the reverberations of each in quick, percussive bursts of fire against his hole.

  Ryan shivered. “Shit… Shit.”

  Jack slapped him again and then once more, loving the way Ryan moaned his name each time.

  “That’s mine.” Jack stopped Ryan from rubbing his darkly engorged cock over the duvet cover. His slaps left red ghosts that warmed and sweetly stained the skin of Ryan’s ass. Jack laved each pink print with the flat of his tongue and blew a breath to cool the reddened skin.

  Ryan begged for more. “Please, Jack. Please. I need your goddamn cock.”

  “Lube and condoms?”

  “In the nightstand.” Ryan gasped for air. “Please, now.”

  Jack got what he needed and rolled a condom over his cock. He slicked Ryan up and worked him open until first one finger, then two slipped inside him easily.

  When Ryan responded by hissing and pushing back aga
inst Jack’s hand, Jack replaced his fingers with the blunt head of his dick and poised himself at the entrance of Ryan’s tight channel.

  “Here we go,” Jack said as he pressed forward. “Let me know if I hurt you.”

  “You can’t hurt me. I just need—” Ryan’s voice was ragged, and his words slurred. “Yeah. Yes. Ah, God.”

  Ryan’s ass was a hot vise that made Jack’s nerve endings jangle like ten thousand volts of electricity rushed up and down his spine. He started with short, sharp strokes and let himself glory in the exact claiming moment when his balls came to rest against Ryan’s softly furred thighs, and Ryan was open, exposed to him all the way.

  The first pull out was pain and bliss as their bodies adjusted to invasion and penetration. Then they played out the drama and electrifying animal pleasure of fucking at its most primitive. Jack lost himself in the grip of powerful sensation as Ryan met his thrusts with desperate cries. They heaved and rose and fell, gripping and flexing until they found a perfect rhythm together. Until Jack’s balls felt like they were climbing up into his throat, and he wanted to scream, to pour out passionate cries while he emptied his cock into Ryan’s ass.

  He took Ryan’s cock in his fist, giving him pressure and friction, something to fuck into while he held Ryan’s hips steady. He fucked Ryan’s ass with everything he had. Jack’s hips had a mind of their own, and he let them go, let himself buck and rock and plunge his dick into Ryan while Ryan practically screamed his enthusiasm.

  “That’s it. Come for me!” Jack shouted when Ryan’s ass clamped down on Jack’s cock. Jets of hot spunk filled the palm of his hand. “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s it.”

  Ryan trembled beneath him, crying out, “Jack. Ah, God, Jack.”

  Jack cradled Ryan’s spent dick through the last of its spasms while he let himself finish, giving Ryan’s ass one last shuddering stroke of his dick as his heat flooded the condom. Neither of them spoke. They lay frozen in time, locked together in the throbbing, watercolor lassitude of fucked-out repose.

  At last, Jack pulled gently free. Some unexpected wave of tenderness made him lay the flat of his hand over Ryan’s abused-looking ass to soothe it.

  Ryan rolled over and shot him a smile so angelic—and at the same time so filthy dirty—Jack’s heart did a happy flip.

  “You look good like that.”

  Ryan stretched languidly and sighed again. “Well fucked?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “How do you look when you’re fucked? Am I going to find out?”

  “Hell yes,” Jack teased. “If you think you’re man enough, you can go right ahead and start now.”

  Ryan smiled at him again, and goddamn if Jack wasn’t ready to bend over and let Ryan give it a try. “I think I’m going to need a nice warm towel and a few minutes to recover first.”

  Jack bent over to pick up his cane. Every molecule in his body cried out that he’d done too much. Ligaments popped. Joints creaked. Bones ached. His dick felt like he’d left it out in the sun too long.

  Is that going to stop me from enjoying everything Ryan has to offer?

  Nope.

  Jack gave Ryan one of his own less-than-angelic smiles. Ryan’s face and upper chest turned a delicate shade of aroused. “I’ll get that towel. You go ahead and recover.”

  Chapter 17

  Jack rolled from the bed and rose slowly to his feet while every cell in his body sang its unique pain song. Hips definitely hurt. That made his back spasm. His thigh muscles and left knee felt like someone was tearing the muscles away from the bones. Things hadn’t progressed to the place where he’d feel the pleasurable pain of a well-fucked ass, because he and Ryan had fallen into a sound, contented sleep. It wasn’t likely to get that far either, as Jack had woken in agony a couple hours later. Even so, he’d lain there, debating whether he should wake Ryan and try.

  Jack doubted very much he’d be able to get himself up for another round, no matter how tempting it was. The lower half of his body was so frozen if he tried anything, his legs would probably snap off at the hips like a GI Joe’s.

  He’d finally gotten up, because if he was standing, at least he could contemplate moving enough to find a solution—either showering to warm up his muscles or looking for more ibuprofen. Or both. But currently he was getting used to being upright, and the pain he experienced in his legs just from bearing the weight of his body took his breath away.

  To distract himself, he looked out the window. He saw the whole garden from where he stood. Ryan must love his place. No wonder he wanted to do whatever he had to do to take it back and make it his sanctuary again. It was still dark outside, but landscape lighting cast pools of creamy illumination along the edges of a wide brick patio, where old-fashioned steel gliders with thick padding flanked a low glass table. Next to that, an old wooden wheelbarrow extended its usefulness as a planter, overflowing with a riot of pretty flowers in shades of red and purple and white.

  Jack wondered if Ryan had planted it, or if he paid gardeners to keep the place up. It looked like a hell of a job, but Jack didn’t underestimate Ryan Halloran.

  Behind him on the bed, Ryan shifted beneath the covers. “Hey.”

  Jack turned. “Hello, Sleeping Beauty.”

  Ryan’s smile was wry. “What a line.”

  “It’s pretty cheesy, yeah.” Jack did like looking at a sleepy Ryan, whether he meant the line or not. Ryan was attractive. He had nice bones, good skin. A face that could actually be called beautiful. “But in your case I meant it.”

  “Thanks.” A slow blink, and then a lopsided smile. Jack saw Ryan’s hand creep to his dick under the covers. “Hey, how about you get back in this bed? We could get that whole me-fucking-you thing underway.”

  Jack let his head drop forward onto the windowpane. “God, I wish.”

  “You have to go?”

  “Not exactly. I just can’t move,” Jack admitted.

  “Muscle or joint pain?” Ryan sat up and dropped his legs over the side. When he rose from the bed, Jack envied the fluid grace with which he managed it. At some point, he’d put on silky blue sleep pants. Jack was still bare-ass naked. “What hurts?”

  “Everything.”

  “Are you stiff?”

  “Yeah, and not in a good way, I’m afraid.” Jack leaned against the side of Ryan’s simple wooden headboard for support. “I need something for pain, and then I can stretch out. I’m sorry to be such a mess. Maybe you should just take me home.”

  “I’m no PT, but I can probably help. First things first, though. I’ll get you another anti-inflammatory. Then we’ll get you on my yoga mat, and I’ll help you stretch out slowly. Okay?”

  “I don’t have much choice.” Jack shot Ryan a rueful smile. “I’m too weak to fight.”

  Ryan went to the bathroom and returned with pills and a cup of water. “Take this.”

  “Ain’t I smooth.” Jack did as he was told. His sense of personal shame took a backseat to pain. “I’ll bet you wish all your dates required medical attention in the middle of the night. Talk about taking your work home with you.”

  “Shit happens, so just knock it off. Didn’t you ever get a charley horse right in the thick of things?”

  Jack laughed. “Sure. But I never had a whole-body horse.”

  “Can you bend over just a little and put your hands on the bed?”

  “Uh…” Jack gave that a try. “No. Back’s spasming.”

  “We could try a couple of things.” Ryan let his strong fingers explore a path down Jack’s spine and feather out to the tops of his hips. Jack’s muscles clenched like a vise, crushing his spine, shortening his breath. “Yeah. You’re tight.”

  “Kinda,” Jack choked out.

  Ryan opened the drawer of his nightstand. “Kevin left a couple blunts. I don’t usually smoke, but sometimes people like to, so—”

  “What?” Jack wasn’t sure he’d heard right.

  Ryan held out a small box with three hand-rolled cigarettes in it. “I
think you should smoke one of these, and afterwards I’ll see if I can’t get your muscles to loosen up.”

  “I…” Jack’s mouth snapped shut. “Really?”

  “Is there any reason you’d get in trouble if you do? Drug testing? Allergies? Are you likely to exhibit reefer madness and go on a crime spree?”

  “Uh, no.” Jack didn’t think so. He’d experimented as a kid. Actually, compared to some of the shit he’d taken for pain after the accident, a little pot seemed pretty mild.

  Ryan handed him a blunt and held up a lighter. Jack let Ryan light him up because he figured things couldn’t get worse. He couldn’t fucking move.

  Jack took that first familiar drag and held it in his lungs—not until he was going to burst or anything, but long enough for the drug to start relaxing him—then blew it out in a thin stream.

  “Thanks. God, it’s been forever since I’ve done this.”

  Ryan handed him an ashtray. “Blow out the window, please, as much as you can.”

  Jack did as Ryan asked and tried to send his air outside. “Is Kevin going to be mad I’m smoking his stash?”

  “I doubt he’ll remember he left it.”

  “Is he going to be mad I’m fucking his boyfriend?”

  “Are you fucking Kevin’s boyfriend? I had no idea. Whoever he is, you can tell him ‘Good luck’ from me, ’cause I’ve been Kevin’s boyfriend, and it’s no picnic.”

  “You’re not seeing him?”

  “No.” Ryan gave his head a shake. “The other night was desperation.”

  Jack nodded.

  “What are you going to tell Detective Dave? Because he surely put two and two together at the funeral.”

  “It’s fine. According to Dave, it’s fine.” Jack turned a worried look Ryan’s way. “You can’t let Dave know I said anything about him and me.”