by KC Burn
“Yes, I am local. And you are?”
“Sorry. I’m Paolo, the events manager here at the resort.”
“Hi, Paolo, nice to meet you. What’s the problem?” If Jeremy hadn’t sent someone to get him, Raven had no idea what sort of problem Paolo had that a random kilted dude in the smoking area could help with.
“There’s a romance writers conference here next weekend, and one of the events is a game show. I had some local firemen lined up, but with the rash of wildfires we’ve had lately, the department is stretched too thin, and they had to cancel. Hopefully no one gets hurt, but I’m left with a few spots that need to be filled, and I was hoping maybe you could help out. There are a couple of other events I could use you for too.”
Raven blinked. It wasn’t like he had a whole lot of pressing engagements and all. “I don’t know, Paolo.”
“You’ve done a fantastic job charming the ladies at the reunion. It would only be for a couple of hours on Friday and Saturday. I know this is completely last minute, but I can offer cash. More if you’ve got another guy who could also show up in a kilt. No stripping or anything would be required.”
Stunned, all he could do was stare at Paolo, who looked eager and desperate as he named a dollar figure. Better gig than pretending to be Jeremy’s date, even if the money wasn’t quite as good. Then again, Raven couldn’t really expect to get the kind of money Jeremy was paying unless he included sex, and the amount Paolo offered was certainly fair. The work didn’t sound difficult, and he didn’t imagine his former profession would be an issue, especially not in this capacity. He also didn’t imagine Paolo would have chased just anyone out here, kilt or not. He must know or suspect that Raven was here in some sort of professional companion capacity.
Fuck it. This could be the start of something good.
“I’m Raven. And I think we can work something out. I’m working at building a new business for professional eye candy, and I’d love to have you as one of my first clients. I’ll make sure I have an associate available to attend the event with me next weekend.” He had no idea where that bullshit came from, but there was no denying his words eased Paolo’s mind.
“Oh, good. I was worried I might have got the wrong end of the stick and that you really were that guy’s boyfriend.”
Raven couldn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes. Frozen pigs would fly in hell before he’d claim Jeremy as anything beyond a business acquaintance. But this would be neither the time nor place to get into such details with… a potential client. Instead he set his mimosa down, stubbed out his cigarette, and pulled a plain maroon business card out of the black leather sporran hanging above his groin. There was nothing on the card aside from his cell phone number in white serif font.
“Here’s my number. I’m still waiting on my graphic designer to finish up so I can print up our final business cards.” Oh, God, the bullshit was flowing free. Raven hoped this wasn’t going to bite him in the ass, but getting paid to show up and look pretty for a bunch of romance writers sounded like just about the perfect gig for the slightly damaged, unemployed version of himself.
Paolo tucked the card into his pocket. “Perfect. Can you come with me to the office so we can go over the details?”
“Sure thing. Just let me finish up my mimosa, and I’ll be right there.” Raven held out his hand.
“Thank you, thank you.” Paolo shook his hand. “You’re saving my butt. I really appreciate it.
CALEB WOKE with a smile on his face and a hard dick in his hand. Sadly, it was his own and not the one belonging to the beautiful guest in 305 he’d been dreaming about. Closing his eyes against the morning sun, Caleb filled his mind with the sexy, blue-eyed man. Mere minutes in his company had sparked a desire stronger than any Caleb remembered for another man.
305 could have been a model for sure. Sleek, pale, and toned. Taking a firm grip on his cock, Caleb tugged, imagining the meeting with that guy going differently. Imagined himself being more aggressive, like his cousin. Instead of acting as he’d done, avoiding staring at that thin towel, pretending the gorgeous hotel guest didn’t get his blood rushing south, Caleb envisioned the two of them in a much different scenario.
The strong Florida sun and his Cuban heritage combined to give him tanned brown skin, and the thought of the contrast between his hand and that pale, creamy skin as Caleb stroked and caressed it raised goose bumps on his nape.
Next, he imagined placing his lips on the long column of smooth neck. A neck that pale and unblemished would show every love bite with startling clarity, and Caleb shivered, picturing the mark of possession. If 305 were his, he’d be hard-pressed to let the man out of his bed without leaving at least one hickey behind.
Caleb’s cock was already hard, and the image of slender fingers wrapped around his length, stroking firmly, coaxed out another spit of precome. Stretching out the fantasy wasn’t going to work. He was too damned eager, and hornier than he’d been in a long while. If the fantasy became real, he wouldn’t let all that skin between collarbone and cock remain untasted, but alone with his thoughts, he let his mind get right to the apex of the action.
Within seconds of imagining an equally hard cock in his mouth—Caleb did love the heft of a solid erection stretching his lips—those pale pink lips were begging for permission to come.
Caleb couldn’t wait any longer. His muscles clenched as his balls tightened against his body. Blood pounded in his ears as he worked his hand faster, everything slick with precome. A few strokes put Caleb over the edge, picturing himself marking that defined torso with white streaks, mouth filled with the salty taste of spunk.
He let himself relax, waiting for his breathing to slow. God, his fantasies rarely focused on one person so strongly, and almost never on someone he’d met in passing like this. But Caleb wasn’t going to question it. Not when it felt so good. In fact, if just imagining it was this fucking good, he should have stayed, tested the waters, seen if 305 had any leanings toward men.
But guys like 305 weren’t for mere mortals like himself. Besides, the simple fact Caleb found him in a hotel room strongly implied the guy lived somewhere besides Orlando. In fact, the guy was probably winging his way home today.
As tempting as it would be to do a super quick cleanup and go back to sleep, he had other obligations, and he’d already slept way later than normal.
After a quick shower and shave, he meandered out to his tiny kitchen to prepare breakfast.
His mom hated his apartment, hated the minuscule dimensions of the kitchen and bathroom, forever telling him he’d have trouble finding a woman who could even imagine living with him, and there was no way he could ever do any proper entertaining. The place was small and boxy and a little too close to the theme parks—he heard fireworks just about every damned night—but he liked it for precisely the same reasons his mom hated it. Enticing a woman to live with him was the furthest thing from his mind, and he also knew when his mom said “entertaining,” she meant having the family over. Having any family beside Jaime at his place was not in any of Caleb’s plans, so his mother hating his apartment was a bonus. It relieved so much of the stress about inadvertently leaving out anything that confirmed his orientation was not what his parents thought. Jaime, of course, could see whatever.
One day, Caleb wouldn’t mind having a little home, a comfortable haven with some character and a bit of lawn. Trees. Renting a small, shitty apartment meant the savings earmarked for a home purchase grew every month, and after all these years added up to a very healthy balance. Only problem was that every time he imagined buying a house, it was in the company of a partner, a man who would be able to fully share his life. The dream of a loving relationship with a man was as much an unattainable fantasy as hooking up with the sexy guy in 305. Perhaps even more unattainable.
Suddenly, his normal breakfast of toast and peanut butter, on a plate at a perpetually single place setting, didn’t provide any satisfaction, but instead looked lonely. Painfully so. Maybe he
needed a pet to liven his place up a little.
Caleb crammed the last bites of toast in his mouth and washed it down with orange juice. He had more to do today than get depressed about his fucking life. He had to go to the bakery, as well as get a gift for a one-year-old girl.
His lip curled. Yeah, that wasn’t going to lift his spirits any.
Chapter FIVE
CALEB PULLED his battered work pickup alongside the curb outside his aunt’s house. After he turned the engine off, he and Jaime sat there, making no move to leave. The huge extended family get-togethers were a mixed blessing. After all, their family was warm and boisterous and loving. Underneath it all, though, was the fear of being himself. It could be quite draining.
“I’m still beat.” Exhaustion made each of Jaime’s words sound ponderous and heavy. Caleb had been able to spot how exhausted his cousin was the second he’d gotten in the truck, his eyes still bloodshot.
“Do you want me to take you home? You could skip one of these things, you know.” Caleb wasn’t in a hurry to go to the party. He loved his family, but the events that centered around the grandchildren were particularly difficult for him.
Jaime huffed out a bitter laugh. “Right. Mama would never forgive me for missing Juliet’s birthday, and we’re already on the edge of being late as it is. It’d take you an hour to get to my place and back again, which would only get you in shit. Besides, I’m sure someone has already seen us.” He flapped a careless hand toward the house.
“You sure you’re okay?” His cousin worked hard, and nights were always difficult, but Caleb worried there was something else weighing on Jaime. Or maybe he was just projecting.
“I’m fine. Or I will be. The heat wave is supposed to break soon, and I’m going back to days next week.”
“Good. I’m glad.” Caleb opened the door and clambered out before grabbing a large bag from the bakery near his apartment, leaving the sparkly princess gift bag for Jaime to take in. As per usual, they’d gone in together on their contributions to the party, but Caleb had taken pity on Jaime’s crazy work schedule and picked up both the pastries and the super pink girly gift. “Let’s get in there, then. Waiting out here is only going to get us in trouble.”
All too soon they were standing in his aunt’s foyer, the wall of sound like a battering ram after a solid week of mostly his own company in his quiet apartment. Even as a kid, though, he’d found the noise of his family simultaneously comforting and stressful. His little family—him and his parents—was the smallest branch of the Escobar clan, with no extended family at all on the Sanderson side. His mom, though, had two brothers and two sisters, all of whom had at least two kids, and now, several grandkids between them. Caleb might not have siblings, but he’d never suffered from any shortage of cousins.
No one came to greet them, but then there were too many people in the family for that type of formality, and his family was nothing if not informal.
First thing expected of each of them, though, was to seek out their mothers. Jaime gave him a rueful smile before putting an exaggerated swish in his hips and letting a fake, bright smile stretch his lips. Sashaying into the throng of people in the living room where Jaime’s mom was holding court, Jaime drew all eyes as he played up all the gay stereotypes. For which Caleb was unendingly grateful.
Caleb made his way to the kitchen, because without a doubt his mom would be there, helping out with the fuckton of food his family consumed at each of these events. No one host or hostess was expected to provide all the food—everyone contributed—but the sheer amount of food required some management, and typically it fell to the sisters and wives of his parents’ generation who weren’t hosting.
“Hey, Mama,” Caleb greeted his mom as he wedged the large bag of pastries onto an already crowded counter.
“Caleb, I was wondering when you were going to arrive.” His mom rushed to give him a hug, bringing with her a garlicky breeze from the mojo sauce she was dishing out for fried plantain chips.
“You look great, Mama.” He wasn’t lying. Maria Sanderson appeared tired, yes, but still young, hale, and beautiful.
“Thank you, cariño.” His mother smiled at him, and for a moment he was nothing more than her beloved little boy. There had been a time in high school when he and his dad, Jacob, were sure they were going to lose her, but she’d beaten the cancer, and she’d never had another scare. But that didn’t mean he didn’t worry, especially on days when he thought she worked too hard. It also meant he’d never had the courage to come out: at first because he didn’t want to stress her while she was fighting the cancer; then, later, he’d continued the fiction when he realized how much she wanted grandchildren. Playing straight for his family maybe wasn’t the best solution, but he was too terrified to rock the boat, and he’d never come up with an alternative.
He spent a few minutes greeting his aunts before his mom pulled a huge platter of chicken pieces and chorizo sausage from the fridge and shoved it at him. “Take this out to your father. He got elected grill master today.”
“Okay, sure thing.” There might be a lot of tension from hiding his sexuality from his family, but at least Caleb got a good meal out of it all. A rumbling in his stomach urged him to hurry, because the toast and peanut butter he’d had for breakfast was so damned long ago, but his mom put a hand on his shoulder, preventing him from leaving.
“Alberto brought a lovely girl with him today. Get him to introduce you. She might have some nice single friends you could meet.” His mother’s smile was so hopeful, so eager, but Caleb couldn’t stop his face from freezing in a rictus. The last thing he wanted was to ask his cousin to set him up with some girl, but he might not be able to escape that fate.
A strangled noise escaped his lips, which his mother must have taken as consent, because she patted him on the cheek and then gestured toward the backyard.
“Go on, now. Get that to your papi. The sooner you drop this off, the sooner you can find Alberto.”
Amazingly, no one seemed to hear his teeth grinding, because in Caleb’s head it sounded like rocks tumbling in a quarry. Even if he intended to seek out Alberto and his new girlfriend, he wasn’t such a loser that the first thing he’d ask is if this girl… whatever her name was… had a damned friend who didn’t mind getting set up with her boyfriend’s desperate cousin. Jeez. Caleb hadn’t dated a ton of people, but he didn’t imagine that sort of neediness was attractive to either gender. His mother, on the other hand, was indeed that anxious. Which meant he had no choice but to appear compliant to his mother’s wishes, or she might just ask Alberto on his behalf.
The platter seemed much weightier than it had a few seconds ago, primarily because his mother had heaped it full of expectations, in addition to the mass of meat awaiting the grill.
On his way out to the backyard, Jaime’s mom waylaid him. Although his aunt Rosa married into the Escobar clan, if one didn’t know better, they’d assume she was one of the Escobar siblings, rather than his uncle Alfonse.
“Caleb, darling. Did you and Jaime bring those pastelitos with you today?”
“Hi, Tía Rosa. Of course we did. What else would we bring?” Because Caleb couldn’t cook or bake for shit. He was just lucky that a good Cuban bakery could be found not too far from his apartment. Their guava- and cheese-filled puff pastries were a huge hit with his family, and Jaime wasn’t the only one who didn’t have time to bake.
“Good, good. Alberto brought his new girlfriend today. Make sure you meet her.” His aunt flicked a glance outside, where Jaime was talking to someone, hand gestures wild and far more exaggerated than when Jaime was alone with Caleb.
Caleb’s jaw muscles were never going to thaw from holding this fake smile on his face. He knew what that look meant. Introducing Jaime to Alberto’s girlfriend wasn’t going to make Jaime any less gay, but there was still hope for Caleb. At least, as far as the family knew.
Then again, his aunt already had grandchildren, and hope for more from Alberto. As much as
she might want it, she didn’t need Jaime to get married and have kids. Unlike Caleb, who was his mother’s only hope. And he couldn’t ever quite bring himself to dash his mother’s hopes. Wasn’t like he had a good reason to do so. The only two men he’d had a relationship with… well, Caleb hadn’t loved them enough, he guessed. Or maybe not at all, no matter how much he tried to talk himself into it, because he’d sure as hell never wanted to come out to his family for them.
Unbidden, the image of a half-naked man in a towel with dramatic red streaks in black hair rose in his mind. The sudden rush of blood to his groin was unexpected and unwelcome, given his present location and company.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll find Alberto later. Gotta get this out to the grill.”
Fortunately, his aunt hadn’t seen anything unusual about his demeanor or hasty departure, but Caleb desperately tried to think of other things, like the woman his grandmother’s age who’d been stark naked when he’d shown up to fix her A/C unit, or the last funeral he’d attended. Anything but 305 and his prominent role in each of Caleb’s jack-off fantasies since Friday night—and 305 had inspired a record number, damn him.
Caleb dropped the platter of meat by the industrial-sized barbecue in the backyard.
“Hi, Dad.” Caleb smiled.
“Hey, kid.” His dad, Jacob Sanderson, peered at the barbecue’s temperature gauge before he clacked the tongs and picked up a few chicken breasts to drop on the grill. “How are you doing?”
Caleb shrugged. “I’m fine. Keeping busy.”
His dad frowned slightly and looked directly at him. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes, things are good.” Caleb did his best to put on an act, but he wasn’t prepared, at all, to deal with his family today.
“Have you spoken to Alberto yet?”