Bad Boyfriend

by K.A. Mitchell

  Stroking the belt gently down Eli’s spine, Quinn murmured, “Took it good, boy. Jerk yourself off now.”

  Eli folded deeper into the bed as he got one hand on his dick, ass high in the air, legs as far apart as he could keep them.

  Quinn used a hand to pull Eli’s cheeks apart and worked the tip of the belt in quick lashes against his hole, a hot stinging little tongue.

  “That’s it, honey. C’mon.”

  Eli kept his lips together, but the desperate groan managed to whine through his head. He’d been high on the edge for so long, it only took a few strokes to put him right there again, the warning prickle not only in his balls now, but everywhere on his skin and deeper inside his ass.

  The sting increased, or maybe Eli’s skin got too sensitive, but the spike of pain sent him over, heat filling him, flooding him, burying him. Quinn switched to lighter taps of his hand on the cheeks until Eli collapsed uncaring into the streaks of his come.

  “Christ.” The belt hit the floor, and Quinn scooped Eli up with an arm under his hips. “You are so fucking hot.”

  Quinn’s dick was plenty hot as it slid under Eli’s balls and between his thighs, along skin scalded from the snap of leather. After a few thrusts, Quinn drove them both forward into the mattress, his cock riding the crack of Eli’s ass, the root driving more pressure on the hot swollen skin around Eli’s hole, pleasure and pain making the blood try to stir his own dick to life.

  “Christ,” Quinn grunted again as his hips jerked faster. But when he spurted warm and slick along Eli’s back, it was Eli’s name he kept repeating, and Eli fell asleep to soft wet kisses on his back and neck.

  Under the insistent pressure of his bladder, Quinn shifted out of sleep. Eli was lean muscle and warm sleepy skin underneath, and Quinn really didn’t want to move. He dragged his watch up to his face. Oh three thirty. Carefully separating their sweaty, comey skin, Quinn eased away and stumbled into the bathroom. On his way back, he switched off the lamp and tripped over Eli’s jeans. The streetlight showed him a flash of white as a folded note fell out of a back pocket.

  If he got busted, Quinn’s story was that a teacher’s instincts for apprehending note-passers kicked in, but he knew when he unfolded it he had no reasonable excuse. Eli shared a lot of his body in bed and his opinions with his mouth, but very little of his life. Eli knew everything about Quinn, but was hoarding his own details like an old lady hoarded cats.

  The note wasn’t addressed to anyone, but the content was clear. Eli hadn’t made his share of the rent payment in two months and his roommates wanted him out. Because he’d lost his job? Because he spent his money on clothes like his vintage magenta shirt that reminded Quinn of something he’d seen in the eighties?

  He refolded the note and stuffed it back into Eli’s black jeans. When Quinn sat back on the bed, Eli’s eyes opened so suddenly and so full of a wary alertness, Quinn’s heart jumped at the thought that he’d been caught reading the note.

  “Fuck.” Eli groaned. “Now I’ve gotta pee.” He rolled off the bed.

  Quinn was sure Eli wouldn’t have wasted any time tearing into Quinn if he’d been caught, so he lifted the covers and climbed underneath while waiting for him to come back.

  Eli had lost some of that alertness on the trip to the bathroom, like he’d fallen back asleep while pissing. He hit the mattress hard and let Quinn tuck him down into an embrace without complaint. Quinn reached over his head to the alarm, giving him enough time to either drive Eli home or fuck him before he had to go to work. That decision he’d leave to Eli in a few hours.

  Quinn might have felt guilty about trying to influence that decision if when the alarm chirped Eli didn’t instantly arch his ass into Quinn’s hand.

  “Do we have time?” Eli asked.

  “Not if you want me to drive you home.”

  Eli sank back down.

  “But if you want to stay here today, you’re welcome to hang around. Or you can lock up. The bus stop is about half a mile, though.”

  “Ooo. You’d leave me here to go through your porn stash and dig through your medicine cabinet?”

  “I think my life can withstand your scrutiny. So, shower now or later?”

  Eli arched his ass toward Quinn’s hand.

  “I was hoping you’d say that.” Quinn leaned over to switch on the lamp and find lube and a condom.

  As he rolled back, the sight of the bruises and welts on Eli’s ass drove the breath out of Quinn’s lungs. He hadn’t thought he’d hit him that hard. At the same time, a possessive pleasure curled around Quinn’s spine, the primitive part of his brain whispering mineminemine.

  “Christ.” He reached out to touch and then his hand fell away. “Your ass. I didn’t—”

  Eli sat up. “I did. I’ve spent way too much of my life trying to justify myself. I like how getting spanked feels, and no one’s going to make me feel bad about it. You can guilt all you want—”

  “Whoa.” Quinn dragged Eli down on top of him. “Save fighting for when there are enemy combatants around.”

  “Sometimes those enemies pretend to be friends.”

  Quinn pulled Eli close against him, wrapping him in arms and legs. “I wouldn’t betray you, Eli.”

  Eli didn’t try to get free, but the waiting tension in his muscles said he was still ready for war. “You make a good shield, but I can handle my own battles.”

  “Don’t turn your back on valuable resources. I got top grades in military history and strategy.” Quinn winked. “Brief me.”

  Eli ground his hips against Quinn’s. “Briefing later. Fucking now.”

  “Deal.” Quinn knew the advantage of a tactical retreat. He rolled Eli under him and closer to the lube.

  Eli jerked a little as Quinn slid a finger inside. Quinn raised his head.

  Eli grabbed Quinn’s arm to keep him there. “Don’t worry. Anything I don’t like you’ll hear about.”

  Quinn knew one thing was a guarantee. He took the sweet waiting dick in his mouth and sucked until the hard length stretched his jaw all the while fucking his finger in and out of the soft, tight heat.

  Eli’s hands tugged at Quinn’s hair. “Fuck me, c’mon, fuck me, fuck me.”

  Quinn knelt between Eli’s legs and rolled down a condom, Eli’s eyes tracking his every move.

  “You miss it,” Eli said out of the blue.

  “What?”

  “Fucking bare. It must feel really good.”

  “It feels good fucking you.”

  “That was almost sweet enough to make up for being so patronizing. Do. You. Miss it?”

  “No.” Not when it meant trading Eli for it. Eli looked as if he was going to say something else, so Quinn went on. “Fucking bare feels good, fucking feels good. Fucking you, Eli Wright, feels amazing with a rubber on, so Christ, please, can I?”

  “Yeah.” Eli flashed that crooked tooth and hiked his heels up on Quinn’s shoulders.

  It was amazing. Not just the heat or the tightness or the way Eli worked his muscles on Quinn’s dick. It was this man under him, strong and unbroken, despite the way the world treated guys who were so open about their sexuality. It was the fingers with black nail polish digging into Quinn’s arm, the way those gray eyes kept fluttering closed and then opening to stare back as Quinn fucked faster and harder. It was the outrageously sensual mouth that told the world to fuck itself that was groaning and whispering, “Please, jerk me off, please.”

  Maybe that was the key. That Eli needed Quinn to meet him strength against force as much as Quinn needed Eli storming into his life to shake him out of his rut.

  Then Quinn forgot everything but the way sparkling pleasure washed through him and into Eli while Eli jerked and splashed warmth high up on Quinn’s chest.

  As his heart slowed, Quinn remembered that moment of clarity. He rolled out of bed. “I’ll be home by four. Be here.”

  Eli propped his head up on his elbow. “What? No sixteen hundred, lieutenant?”

  Quinn thr
ew a towel from the bathroom at him. “Be here.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Being a housewife was awesome. Eli spent the morning online and the afternoon channel-surfing bad TV, making lots of commentary with no one to tell him to shut up so they could hear. At about three it occurred to him that maybe he should run down for a pile of clothes. Quinn had a washer and dryer in the back hall next to the kitchen. Eli had called Sam, the only roommate he was reasonably sure didn’t hate him, and asked her to box up anything of his that wasn’t in his room and told her he’d pick his stuff up in a few days.

  He’d thought he’d either have to sell lots of his clothes or beg to store them at Nate and Kellan’s, but if Quinn wasn’t asking Eli to leave, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Quinn brought home a chicken dinner already made and slid it into the oven to warm. Eli glanced between the oven and Quinn’s crotch and then raised his eyebrows. Quinn made the right decision, dragging Eli onto the couch and making Eli’s toes curl, barely shoving their clothes out of the way as Quinn jerked them both off in his hand.

  “Thanks for being here,” Quinn said into Eli’s neck where the T-shirt he’d borrowed was bunched up.

  “You are totally welcome.” Eli could really get used to having a boyfriend.

  As Quinn pulled out some plates and they served themselves from containers on the counter, Eli began wondering when things would go wrong. There was always a catch, and for the most part, Eli could handle that. He didn’t expect a free lunch, and he wanted to see where the hook was before he swallowed it.

  Between forkfuls of chicken and mashed potatoes, Quinn told Eli some of the dumb excuses students had given him for not turning in their projects. Eli thought it was kind of mean to make stuff due on a Friday when most of the kids were probably already thinking about the weekend, but he supposed it was better than having stuff due on a Monday.

  “So how has it been freelancing instead of working at the paper?” Quinn asked.

  There it was. Clunky segue, but Eli got it. He might not have turned in projects on time and earned straight A’s, but he knew what was going on. Quinn was expanding his Daddy role. Maybe Nate had been a little freer with information than Eli thought.

  “It sucks. I’m broke.”

  Quinn waited for Eli to go on. Something about his patience dragged the words past Eli’s lips.

  “And I don’t know what else to do. It’s not like I didn’t try a lot of those part-time service jobs before. But I guess…” Eli had told more than one customer to shove their I-asked-for-skim/diet/dressing-on-the-side picky shit. “I’m not really a people person.”

  “What did you like about the paper?”

  As pep talks went, this beat one of Nate’s pull your head out of your ass, Eli speeches. Eli thought about it for a minute, then pointed at the logo on the bag the food had come in. “I like using pictures to make people do stuff, think stuff.”

  “Like advertising.”

  “Did you take a course in career counseling? Look, I know. I think I’d be good at that shit. But they want you to have a degree. I can’t afford a degree, and I barely got my high school diploma.”

  “That’s surprising. You’re a hell of a lot smarter than most of the kids I teach.”

  Eli sat back in his chair. “You think some compliments and baked chicken entitles you to the history of my life so far?”

  Quinn smiled. “No.”

  Eli pushed his hair out of his face and narrowed his eyes.

  Quinn went on, “I thought awesome sex, bringing you dinner, compliments and streaming your favorite movie on Netflix while I grade some papers entitled me to a tiny bit of that interesting book.”

  “Really. You want to know what my favorite movie is?”

  “You can watch whatever you want, but according to Kellan, whose number I took off your phone, your favorite movie is some confusing chick flick called Sliding Doors. You are a closet romantic.”

  “That’s about all I keep in the closet. You stole Kellan’s number to find out what my favorite movie was?” Eli couldn’t decide if that was over-the-line controlling or sweet.

  “No, I called him to find out what you liked to do. I had a feeling if I asked you, your answer would be fuck.”

  Eli pretended to consider for a second. “True.”

  “As much as I enjoy sharing that favorite activity with you, I have to get these grades done. And a man of my advanced years can only get it up so many times in one day.”

  “You make up for it in endurance.”

  “I’m pleased you noticed.”

  “Does it bother you?” Eli pushed the corn around on his plate.

  “Not being able to fuck you as often as I want?”

  “No. Being—me being so much younger?”

  “Nope. I’m thinking in ten years, people will be even more jealous of my hot younger boyfriend.”

  Ten years? Like Quinn had had with Peter? Eli couldn’t imagine much farther ahead than ten days. He liked this. Liked the idea of a boyfriend, especially one that came in a Quinn package, but ten years. He took his plate over to scrape the uneaten corn into the garbage. “I can cook. If you tell me what you like.”

  “I remember. Tarragon in the eggs. That was good.”

  Eli started to wash his plate, but Quinn took it out of his hands.

  “I have a dishwasher. Let me get the movie downloading for you, and I’ll work out here.”

  Sliding Doors felt a little too personal this time, with the lying, cheating bastard of a boyfriend and John Hannah being so adorably sweet to a brokenhearted Gwyneth Paltrow. When John Hannah’s character said the line about people coming into your life right when you need them, Eli switched it off. Then he decided Quinn had done enough work for a Friday night and dragged him to bed.

  On Saturday, Quinn drove Eli down to the apartment for what was ostensibly a change of clothes. Eli packed as much as he could stuff in a backpack. If the movie was right about fate, Quinn was here for him at a perfect time, since as of the moment, Eli had no place to live.

  Late Sunday morning, Eli stretched his really happily tired muscles all alone in Quinn’s big bed. Quinn might be older, but he was definitely making up for lost time. Eli wasn’t sure he could keep up with him.

  He sat up suddenly. For the first time in forever, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights had come and gone without Eli putting in an appearance at any of the bars. Maybe there’d be a missing-in-action notice in the personals in the Charming Rag. He’d spent the whole weekend in suburbia with his boyfriend, and nothing about that felt boring or tame. Maybe Quinn had earned an extra chapter of information. Eli could keep it from turning into a pity party by leaving out the part where his homeless situation was ongoing.

  Quinn was still plowing through a giant stack of papers on the kitchen table. Eli found some cereal and was about to eat it dry when it occurred to him that Quinn probably had milk that hadn’t expired in his fridge.

  Eli was slurping away at the counter when Quinn glanced up at him.

  “Does this count as the longest date ever for your Facebook page now?”

  “The Arena probably filed a missing-persons report.”

  “If you wanted to go out—”

  “I’d have had to get dressed.” Eli ran his hand over the super soft T-shirt of Quinn’s he’d appropriated to wear over the one pair of flannel pajama pants he owned. He rinsed off his bowl and sat down at the table, not quite sure how he wanted to say it. For awhile, he’d considered it a badge of honor and flung it in the face of everyone he met. He was pretty sure the whole poor, abused, queer-kid thing was the only reason Nate had hired him at the paper in the first place.

  Eli glanced over at the pile of papers. “You know how I said I barely graduated from high school.”

  “Yeah.” Quinn put down his red pen.

  “My parents kicked me out of the house when I was seventeen.”

  Quinn’s face was still, like whatever he was thinking was too deep ins
ide to show. “Because you were gay?”

  Eli nodded.

  “Shit.” Quinn glanced down at his papers and then back at Eli. The calm expression remained, but Eli knew Quinn well enough now to read the tension in the back of his jaw, though it never carried through to his lips. “What did you do?”

  Eli shrugged. “Spent a lot of time on couches at friends’ houses. My best friend, she and her mom let me stay for the first two months, and it wasn’t too bad. But when it was obvious my parents weren’t going to suddenly give a shit, her mom got worried about legal responsibilities, and I had to move somewhere else. I didn’t always make it to school after that. I was too old to have truant officers chasing me down, anyway.”

  “Did your parents ever try to find you?”

  “You know how you said your grandparents sent you a card when you were in the hospital?”

  Quinn’s mouth curved in a wry twist. “Still get one around my birthday. With a twenty-dollar check. Very polite and appropriate. I send a thank-you card.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t get that. I haven’t seen or spoken to them in five years. I called my sister a few years ago. She’d already gotten married before they tossed me out.”

  “And?”

  “She told me to never call her again because she didn’t want people like me around her kids. My gene pool. It has no deep end. Good thing I won’t be breeding.”

  Quinn waited. Didn’t offer an opinion like Nate, or gee, sorry, man, like Kellan might have.

  “There were a couple of times between friends when I walked all night, slept in the library during the day. And…” Eli hadn’t said this part out loud before, not even to Nate, though as smart as Nate was, he’d probably guessed it. “Sometimes I tricked, mostly for a place to sleep.”

  Eli never looked away, but somehow he missed Quinn getting up because the next thing he knew, Quinn’s arms were around him, strong and hard, Eli’s name a soft whisper in his ear. “Thank God you stayed safe. Thank God you made it this far.” It sounded like a real prayer.

  Eli remembered his irrational fear of Quinn being sick, of never meeting him because he died of bacterial meningitis. It was good to know Eli wasn’t the only one who wasted time on pointless what ifs.