One Shot

by Vicki Tharp

  Alex wandered out of earshot. This wasn’t any of his business. Elijah walked up to him and offered a bottle of water. “Thanks, man.”

  On set, Vin adjusted the lighting while Niko watched one of the monitors. Sebastian and Grant were talking, their voices growing louder and carrying.

  No one paid Alex or Elijah any attention. As Alex tipped the bottle of water back, he caught Elijah staring at the play of his throat while he drank. That question burned in Alex’s mind again. The one that wanted to know why Elijah had disappeared after Alex’s scene.

  Alex wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Essentially, they were alone, but he dropped his voice. “Where did you—”

  Grant gave Sebastian a push that set the slighter man back a step. “What I need, Bass, is some fucking space.” His booming voice reverberated in the open space.

  Everyone on set turned and stared.

  “If you need some time off, I’m sure—”

  “What I need is to work.” Grant’s gaze landed like mini grenades on every person on set, one after the other, like little bombs of caustic emotion and cutting shrapnel. “Anyone here got a problem with that?”

  “Grant.” Niko had that tone that couldn’t be ignored. That tone that could mow grown men down to size. “Take five. Get your mind right, and come back here ready to work, capiche?”

  “Yes, sir.” Grant’s gaze raked across Sebastian one final time as he turned and stormed off down the hall, the meat of his fist hitting the wall as he passed with an echoing, emphatic, frustrated, “Fuck.”

  Niko turned back to the set. “Alright boys, let’s get this done.”

  “Dude’s got issues,” Alex mumbled to Elijah.

  “You telling me you’ve never had an off day?” Sebastian said as he walked by. The fangirl had vanished, and the protective momma bear growled. Alex could practically feel the scrape of unsheathed claws across his back.

  “Quiet on the set,” Niko hollered out and turned his attention to Reyes and Darius who had been uncharacteristically quiet during and after Grant’s blowup. “And action.”

  Alex and Elijah settled in to watch. The set looked like an auto repair shop, complete with a fuckable height tool chest, chain hoists, and a souped-up, cherry red, ‘57 Chevy Nova.

  Against the backdrop, Reyes and Darius kissed and stripped and sucked. Niko cut in for direction once or twice, and at different times, Reyes and Darius had to go to the Ready room when their boners flagged.

  By the time Grant came through the set’s fake door sometime later, Darius had Reyes bent over the tool chest, pounding him from behind.

  Elijah stood so near, the heat radiated from his body like a banked fire looking for a breath of air to spark it off. The heat reminded Alex of his scene and Elijah’s subsequent disappearing act. “Where did you go after... after I’d finished. When I looked up...”

  Elijah shifted, and his hard-on brushed against Alex’s thigh. Alex’s blood heated, the rest of the sentence evaporated from his brain.

  “You wanna know why my shoot went so fast?”

  That wasn’t what Alex had asked, but yeah, he’d bite. “You’re a natural?”

  “Hardly. I was as nervous up there as you were.”

  Elijah’s voice dipped and turned into a gruff whisper that made Alex’s balls heavy as if they hadn’t been drained in weeks.

  That close, Alex caught the faint scent of musk and sweat clinging to Elijah’s skin. “It was your shoot.”

  Gah. The sexual alchemy made Alex’s wood turn to steel. He cleared his throat. “Yeah?” Alex kept his eyes on the scene unfolding on the set, but his focus remained on Elijah.

  Elijah leaned in, his breath warm on Alex’s neck. “Yeah. It made me hard as fuck.”

  6

  Grant took a bite of a roast beef sandwich and tucked it into the pouch of his cheek. “I owe you all an apology.”

  Everyone had gathered up at the residence for the lunch Sebastian had catered in. Niko and Rose sat at opposite ends. Elijah sandwiched himself between Alex and Sebastian on one side of the table, while Reyes, Darius, and Grant sat on the other. A chair short, Vin had pulled up an extra chair and squeezed in at one of the corners.

  Grant chewed up the bite and swallowed, his gaze going to Sebastian who’d sat as far away from Grant as he could get. “You especially, Bass. That wasn’t one of my finer moments.”

  “It’s cool.” By Sebastian’s flat tone, and the way he looked past Grant instead of at him, Grant’s actions were far from ‘cool.’ Ever since Grant’s blowup, the normal, upbeat Sebastian had remained decidedly subdued.

  From the end of the table, Niko said, “As much as this is a job, we’re also family here. You need something, you ask, capiche?”

  “That go for all of us, or just stud muffin down there?” Darius asked, his eyes lit with their usual mischief.

  “Speaking of muffins,” Reyes piped in, “After that scene with Grant, mine is—”

  Rose dropped her salad fork. “We’re eating, Reynaldo. No one wants to hear about your raw ass.”

  “Jesus, I didn’t mean anything by it.” Reyes’ voice deflated as if Rose had stuck a pin in him and burst his bubble.

  Darius helped himself to some of the sliced apples. “Yeah, besides, man, you keep talking like that and you’ll scare the new kids away.”

  Beside Elijah, Alex chuckled and shifted in his seat, his muscled thigh coming into contact with Elijah’s. Elijah’s nerves pinged, and the zap must have short-circuited his salivary glands because his mouth went dry and he had to gulp water to get his bite of the sandwich down.

  Was Alex man-spreading or was the contact intentional?

  “You okay over there?” Alex asked Elijah with the innocence of a kid, though that spark in his denim blue eyes relayed the exact opposite. Alex didn’t shy from the contact, he twined his lower leg behind Elijah’s.

  Elijah’s brain flashed to that moment during Alex’s scene when Alex had stood and shaken the tension from his long limbs. Even when Alex’s dick had been at half-mast, everything about that man turned Elijah’s crank.

  From Alex’s long and lean athletic body to the muscle mass and visible veins, to the tiny bee tattoo on his left ribcage, to the deepest blue eyes Elijah had ever seen, and to that openness, that curiosity buried deep within them.

  Whatever that attraction was, for once Elijah had no intention of fighting it. Who says you can’t enjoy your work?

  Glancing at the clock above the stove, Elijah counted down the minutes until he and Alex would shoot their scene together. He couldn’t wait to get his hands, his lips, his tongue, his mouth, on the man pressed calf to thigh up against him.

  Elijah wanted to hear Alex growl and groan as he gave him pleasure. Wanted to feel the heat of Alex’s body, feel the pulse of his release, and taste the salt in his sweat and cum.

  Alex bumped Elijah with his knee. Right. Alex had asked him if he was okay.

  “I’m—” Elijah’s voice squeaked worse than when he’d first hit puberty. The bastard was enjoying seeing Elijah squirm. He cleared his throat. “Fine.”

  Elijah turned his attention back to the ongoing conversation. Reyes pushed his plate away. “I’m just saying, stud muffin over there really gets into his role.” Reyes bobbed his chin, indicating Grant. “If I didn’t know he was straight, I’d think he was actually enjoying himself.”

  Grant beaned Reyes with a cherry tomato from his salad, his lips curving up a fraction. “It’s called acting, numbnuts. That’s what Niko pays me for. I can sell it. My ratings would be crap if it didn’t come across as real.”

  An hour later found Vin and Sebastian prepping the same set Elijah and Alex had used for their solo scenes for their dual scene. When Vin had the lighting ready, he turned to Niko and said, “Ready when you are, boss.”

  Niko’s expression flattened. “You know that makes me feel old when you call me that.”

  Vin reminded Elijah of the lanky emo kid from high school with th
e all black clothes, and the too-long hair, and skin too thick, and the quiet emotions that ran too deep. The kind of kid that held a façade up to the world so no one could see the real person behind it.

  Come to think of it, Vin probably had been that kid.

  All grown up, but still closed off.

  But there was light in Vin’s eyes and perhaps a hint of a grin on his lips when he said, “Yeah, I know.”

  “I should have left you on the streets where I found you.” Affection, not malice, laced Niko’s words.

  Vin lifted his camera, an uncharacteristic full smile on his face as he turned toward the set. “Probably, boss, probably.”

  “Alex, Elijah, we’re going to start with you two on the couch.” Then to Vin, Niko said, “Remember, neck down on Alex. You can shoot them kissing from behind Alex’s head.”

  “Got it,” Vin replied.

  Cat had dressed Elijah in a black designer T-shirt and cargo shorts, while Alex had been given athletic shorts and a Clippers T-shirt that showed off his athletic body. Elijah followed Alex onto the set, and his eyes kept drifting to the drape of fabric over Alex’s fine ass.

  The ass that Elijah hadn’t been able to get out of his head ever since Alex had dropped his towel the night before. His fingers itched to grab it, his teeth wanted to bite it.

  They’d both just come from the Ready room, but damn, the porn hadn’t gotten him nearly as aroused as the view before Elijah now.

  They both sat on the couch. Half a cushion separated them. Elijah didn’t know if he should get closer or—

  “Scoot together,” Niko said.

  They scooted.

  “More.”

  When they touched from hip to knee, Niko said, “That’s good.”

  Similar to their solo scenes, Niko asked them both some questions from off camera aimed to help them relax and viewers to get to know them a little. Beside him, Alex sat stiff, his answers stilted as he wiped his palms on his thighs and tugged at the hem of his shorts.

  After a series of questions to each of them, Niko asked Elijah, “Why did you want to do a scene with Alex?”

  They hadn’t been given the questions ahead of time. Niko wanted the answers to sound natural, not memorized. Elijah didn’t have to think hard to come up with a response. “I’ve seen his work. I’m a big fan.”

  Alex had been looking straight ahead. A flush rushed up the back of his neck, and he turned to look at Elijah. Damn... those deep, denim eyes...

  Elijah wanted the lights and the camera and the mics to disappear, but that wasn’t about to happen, so he pushed them from his mind and did his best to focus on the man beside him. Cat had done a damn fine job with Alex’s hair. He had that surfer boy, just-fucked-and-out-of-bed look to him, though they’d been up since the butt crack of dawn.

  Elijah couldn’t get past the idea that he wanted to be the one to make Alex look like that for real.

  “Kiss him,” Niko directed.

  But Elijah had already eased forward, running his thumb across the faint stubble growing along Alex’s jawline. Alex leaned into the touch, his eyes drifting closed as Elijah pulled him in for a kiss. Those lips. Tender. Tempting. Tantalizing.

  This time, Elijah didn’t hold back the groan as Alex opened his mouth and deepened the kiss. Alex’s hands fisted in Elijah’s shirt, tugging him closer, forcing Elijah to balance himself with a hand on Alex’s muscled thigh.

  He wanted to ease his hand higher, to cup Alex’s balls, and to feel the thickness of Alex’s shaft in his hands. His own dick strained against his jock, and his pre-cum moistened the material.

  Niko interrupted only long enough to say, “Shirts.”

  Elijah broke the kiss, his breath coming faster as he reached back and yanked the shirt over his head and tossed it aside. His grin widened at Alex’s heated, hooded gaze as Alex reached out and ran a finger down Elijah’s sternum. His eyes fell closed at the touch, imagining other places he’d like those fingers.

  His own hands went to Alex’s chest. Even though Alex’s muscles flexed beneath his hand, when he opened his eyes again, he almost expected Alex not to be there, that he’d spun away like he’d done in their room the night before.

  This time, the look in Alex’s eyes had shifted, a little less stunned, a little more predatory.

  Oh, hell yeah. This was going to be fun.

  Elijah grabbed the hem of Alex’s shirt and eased it up Alex’s long torso, letting his fingers trail up Alex’s sides. They bumped along his rib cage, and goosebumps erupted all over Alex’s flesh. It gave Elijah a thrill seeing what his touch did to him.

  And if the goosebumps weren’t enough evidence of Alex’s arousal, the bulge in Alex’s shorts provided definitive proof. Alex pulled Elijah back into the kiss, this time taking, demanding, devouring more.

  The tug of Alex’s grip in Elijah’s hair sent a shiver of delicious pain across his scalp that had Elijah doubling down on the kiss, loving the contrast between pain and pleasure.

  As much as he enjoyed the kissing and Alex’s fingers in his hair, Elijah craved more contact. He eased his fingers up Alex’s thigh, beneath the loose fabric of his shorts and cupped Alex through his jock. Alex broke the kiss with a hiss, his head falling back, his grip tightening in Elijah’s hair.

  “Fuck yeah,” Alex groaned, his pre-cum starting to drench his jock.

  Elijah hated for all that pre-cum to go to waste, not when it could be slicking his hands and Alex’s shaft.

  Shifting, Elijah dropped to his knees between Alex’s legs, his hands going to the waistband of Alex’s shorts. Alex’s breath caught, his gaze intense as he glanced down at Elijah. Elijah raised a brow, a silent ask for permission, though permission had been granted when they’d signed on the dotted line the day before.

  But contract or no contract, Elijah wanted to be confident he and Alex were on the same page. Saying you were willing to let a guy suck your cock in theory might become too much of a reality when a guy settled between your legs.

  Their eyes locked for a beat, the slight nod Alex gave made more potent by its pointed precision. Vin moved in with the camera. Elijah had almost forgotten he was there. For the most part, it seemed that Niko’s style was to allow the scene to unfold naturally between the broad strokes of what had been agreed upon earlier rather than give constant direction.

  Which, as a newbie, Elijah appreciated.

  Alex raised his hips, and Elijah pulled his shorts and jock down together, Alex’s cock catching on the elastic waistband before popping free.

  Sweet baby Jesus.

  If Elijah was going to suck a cock for the first time, this was the one to suck. Greeks would have made marble statues of it. Carving it in stone to save perfection for posterity. Elijah glanced up, checking in one last time.

  “Go on,” Alex said, his voice like honey over gravel—sweet and at the same time, infinitely gritty and hard.

  Skimming his hands up Alex’s thighs, Elijah kept his eyes trained on Alex’s face, wanting to watch his expression as a man took hold of him for the first time. Elijah wanted to see what he could do to Alex, what he could make him feel, but most of all, he wanted to make sure that he stopped if Alex changed his mind.

  Elijah spanned a hand over Alex’s lower abdomen, enjoying the quake of the muscles beneath his hand, enjoying the moment as the erotic tension thickened. Alex’s jaw clenched, sweat formed on his chest, and pre-cum beaded at his slit.

  “You scroting out on me?” Alex grumbled, probably too quiet for the mics to pick up.

  Elijah moved his hand toward Alex’s jutting cock. “Oh, hell no.”

  Oh, hell no.

  Alex liked the sound of that. For a moment there, he’d thought Elijah was going to be the one to wuss out. He’d thought Elijah’s hesitation meant he’d had reservations, but then that grin Elijah got had made Alex’s pulse knock and his cock throb.

  Sweat ran down Alex’s sternum. Not so much from the lights, but from the anticipation of getting Elijah’s han
ds on him. His nerves thrummed—this high-capacity buzz energizing his system like an electric surge on a high-power line.

  Elijah’s thumb swiped through the pre-cum on his tip, slicking the moisture across the head, the touch light and teasing. Alex’s eyes fluttered closed for a count of three as he blew out a breath. When he opened his eyes again, Elijah was there checking in with him, a pinch of worry in his eyes.

  But Alex wasn’t panicking. It felt too damn good. A hand was a hand was a hand. Right?

  Only Elijah’s hand was like no other he’d had on his dick before. The fingers were broad and blunt, the grip firmer, more... experienced? Alex shouldn’t have been surprised, as Elijah eased his hand down Alex’s shaft again and again. After all, who better to know how a guy liked to be stroked and gripped and teased than another guy? Than someone who’d spent the last ten to fifteen years masturbating and learning exactly what it took to make a guy come?

  Elijah’s strokes became firmer, faster, as Alex leaked pre-cum like the Trevi Fountain. Rising on his knees, Elijah sucked Alex’s nipple into his mouth. The sensation sent a zing to Alex’s groin, and he bucked up into Elijah’s hands.

  Alex gripped the back of Elijah’s head, holding Elijah in place. Alex’s breath came in short bursts as his climax built.

  And built.

  Alex’s hips pistoned faster. If they were going to get the blow job in before he came, Elijah better damn well hurry. With a hand on Elijah’s shoulder, Alex guided him down, too hot, too aroused, too orgasmic to think about the fact a guy was about to suck his cock. He’d have time to process what that all meant later. Right now, all he wanted was release.

  Now.

  Elijah worked his way down Alex’s torso. Slowly. Too slowly.

  “Hurry,” Alex managed, more a strangled mash-up of consonants and vowels than an actual word.

  Instead of immediately going down on him, Elijah stopped his strokes, his fingers gently brushing down Alex’s shaft. Alex groaned in frustration. “Bastard.”

  Elijah chuckled. Reaching up, he pulled Alex in for a scorching kiss that was all attitude, tongue, and testosterone. Elijah broke the kiss, his eyes steady on Alex’s as he gripped Alex’s base and eased back down on his haunches.