Damage Control

by Lynn VanDorn

  For a moment Tyler considered leaving his own pants on, but Josh had already seen him naked under brighter light than this and seemed to still want him. No point in fucking around at this stage, he supposed.

  Josh’s eyes followed him as he shimmied out of the soft gray pants. He shook his head.

  “What?” Tyler asked, freezing in place, wondering if Josh had changed his mind.

  “You’re just so damned beautiful, that's all.”

  Beautiful. Tyler flinched a little at the word. He wanted to be handsome, but knew his face couldn't quite achieve it. He wanted to be tall, as well, and that was another thing that was never going to happen. Not in this lifetime, at any rate. He told himself to be grateful that Josh, for whatever reason, said the word “beautiful” in a way that didn't come out as either condescending or mocking. Josh seemed to mean it, to think that Tyler would want to hear it, and maybe there was a part of him that did. Even after all these years, he latched onto any praise thrown his way like a starving dog snatching at scraps of food. It was a failing he thought he'd stamped out, but apparently not, because he wanted to hear Josh say it again, and again, and again.

  Tyler smiled for Josh, then slowly pivoted for him, giving him a show because he seemed to appreciate it. “You like what you see?” he asked. He basked in the heat of Josh’s gaze.

  “Too much.” Josh shook his head again. “You have dimples above your ass,” he added, apropos of nothing. “Two perfect dimples that I want to run my tongue over.”

  Tyler grinned. “You approve, I take it.”

  “Too much. Far too much.”

  “There’s no such thing as too much,” Tyler said, and crawled first back on the bed and then onto Josh. He tucked his ass against Josh’s groin, then leaned forward to properly pay homage to Josh’s body, something he had wanted to do for a very long time. Longer than he was comfortable admitting to.

  That morning Tyler had gone straight for Josh’s dick, but tonight he wanted to explore everything like a greedy kid set loose in a toy store. He cupped Josh’s face and kissed him. Josh tucked his gloved hands behind his head and kissed Tyler back with the ardor of a man who wanted to grab hold of him and reverse their positions but was nevertheless managing to restrain himself.

  Tyler ran his hands down Josh’s upraised arms and was delighted to learn he was ticklish, even if he did have to remind Josh not to move his hands.

  “Don't tickle me, then.”

  “Spoilsport,” murmured Tyler. He licked at Josh’s lower lip until he opened up and let him inside. Josh sucked on his tongue and Tyler curled his hands into Josh’s hair. He sighed as Tyler’s lips trailed down his neck, then gasped and twitched when Tyler bit his earlobe.

  “More,” demanded Josh.

  “I want to bite you all over,” Tyler whispered in Josh’s ear. Josh’s skin flushed at that, starting at his chest and moving upward. Ah, the good doctor liked that idea very much. Tyler moved lower and drew one of Josh’s nipples into his mouth. He sucked, then bit it, and Josh’s spine bowed in response.

  “This is harder than I expected,” Josh said, his voice a little ragged. “I think I want to touch you even more because I can't.”

  Tyler looked up at him through his lashes. “That’s the whole point.” Then he licked a line down Josh’s chest to his navel.

  Josh had lovely, defined muscles he would no doubt know all the names for. Tyler, whose anatomy knowledge began and ended with the major blood vessels Brad had made him memorize, nevertheless knew a nice specimen when he saw one. He ran his hands and lips and teeth over firm ridges and along smooth lines until Josh’s breath came out in short gasps. Then Tyler trailed his mouth down to Josh’s cock, which he licked from base to tip.

  “Are you trying to fuck me or kill me?”

  “So impatient,” Tyler chided, and moved so that he sat between Josh’s legs rather than straddling them. He caressed Josh’s thighs and felt the muscles quiver under his fingers as Josh trembled. At the same time, he sucked Josh’s cock. Not enough to get him off but enough to keep him interested.

  Josh groaned. “So much for being nice. Are you going to make me beg?”

  “Not tonight,” Tyler said. He moved so he could grab the bottle of lube from the bedside table. He poured a good amount onto his hand and coated his fingers.

  “Tyler, what are you doing?”

  He started to finger his entrance as he knelt on the bed beside Josh. “Prepping myself.” He slid one finger in, then two. This was his first time ever doing this to himself with an audience, he realized. Ethan, God love him, couldn't top to save his cute little ass, so Tyler had never bottomed for him. It had been mostly tops before Ethan, though, and Tyler had learned the hard way to prep himself ahead of time. Relying solely on your partner, in his experience, was a recipe for a sore ass, so lubing himself up beforehand just was good sense. He should've done that tonight, but he'd been too impatient and too eager. Not like his normal self at all.

  Tyler’s fingers knew just what to do from years of practice, but he felt vulnerable with Josh watching. His skin burned under the other man’s steady gaze. It was frustrating, especially as getting his fingers to press that magic place inside him in his current position was possible but awkward as fuck.

  His own erection started to flag a little. Maybe this was a bad idea. Scratch that. Of course it was a bad idea. He was pretty much a walking collection of bad ideas.

  Then Josh said, “I… that’s… I want… fuck, Tyler,” and his incoherence washed away Tyler’s momentary uncertainty. He took fingers slick with lube and stroked himself while Josh watched him. “You’re killing me. I want…”

  Tyler reached for the condom and unwrapped it. “Me?”

  Josh nodded, apparently beyond speech. His cock stood at attention, and Tyler slid the condom down his length and added more lube. He straddled Josh and reached between them to position Josh’s erection at his entrance. “Okay,” he said, “here goes nothing.” He took it in slowly, letting his body adjust to Josh’s size. The initial feeling was as he remembered: first discomfort, then a lovely fullness, then pleasure with the tiniest edge of pain that evaporated as he began to move.

  Oh, God, he'd missed this. It was so fucking hot. Not just sexy hot, although it was that, but a cock attached to an actual person was so much better than even the best dildo money could buy. The cock inside him was alive. It twitched and throbbed with heated blood and was attached to a man who seemed to be slowly but surely losing his mind.

  “Fuck me, please fuck me, please,” Josh chanted. His hips surged upward as Tyler rolled his hips down, and there. Pleasure arrowed through him like a bolt of electricity, pooling in his balls and radiating outward. His hips undulated, making Josh hit that spot over and over. The feeling built into an overwhelming crescendo that loomed just out of his reach and he moved faster, chasing it, wanting to be broken under it.

  Tyler dropped his hand down to his cock and stroked it in time with the movement of their bodies. Josh growled at him, sounding both frustrated and crazed, his gloved hands clutching the headboard.

  “Come for me,” Josh demanded.

  Usually being ordered to come had the opposite effect on Tyler, but tonight it worked somehow and he came hard onto Josh’s chest and his own hand. He sank, boneless, onto Josh and clung to him, shuddering with his release.

  For a few moments Josh lay under him, only his hips moving, thrusting upward, then he muttered, “Fuck it,” and rolled them both over, slipping out of Tyler’s body. “Now it's my turn.” He stripped off his gloves and threw them aside.

  Tyler, still floating on a pink, fluffy post-orgasmic cloud of contentment, sighed as Josh leaned down to kiss him. He could feel Josh, still hot and hard, against his leg. “You didn't come,” he said when Josh lifted his head.

  “Not yet.” Josh kissed his neck and trailed his hands up and down Tyler’s body. At first it just felt nice, then it was more than nice. Tyler’s dick stirred, having not gotten the m
emo that the body it was attached to had run out of bones, strength, and the wherewithal to move.

  Josh kissed down Tyler’s neck and chest while he stroked his semi-erect cock, which had decided it was not done for the evening, no matter what the rest of Tyler’s body thought. He moaned, the sensation almost too much.

  “Oh, to be still twenty-five,” Josh said.

  “Then I'd be sixteen, you perv,” Tyler gasped out, and remembered his plan to lose his virginity at that summer picnic all those years ago. What a terrible, idiotic idea that had been, but holy fuck, it was a good thing his sixteen-year-old self hadn't known the reality of how good fucking Josh Rosen would be, because he would've been persistent in his pursuit of Josh to the point of mortification for everyone involved. “Oh, Christ. Besides, there's something to be said for the stamina of thirty-four if you're planning on fucking me twice tonight. God. Please.”

  Josh stopped stroking him, pushed his legs apart, and knelt between his bent knees. “Good point. You ready for round two?”

  Tyler nodded and felt Josh lifting his legs up, then thrusting into him. Tyler grabbed his knees, arched his back, and pushed back against Josh. He was still sensitive and let out an embarrassing yelp as Josh slid all the way in.

  “You okay?” Josh asked, his hands gripping Tyler’s thighs tightly as if that was the only thing holding him in check.

  “God, yes. Fuck me.”

  Tyler found himself folded in two, being fucked right into the mattress, and it was amazing. Better than he would have imagined so soon after coming.

  That upward curve in Josh’s cock hit his prostate at the perfect angle and the pleasure built again, this time more quickly and with more of an edge of pain to it from the intensity of the sensations and his already overstimulated nerves. Tyler started to moan, but as Josh fucked him it grew louder and louder, until it was a good thing they were alone in the house. He wasn't sure his body could come again, let alone untouched, but it wanted to, and then it did, although it was less in his balls and dick and more inside his body and brain, which went white and blank for a moment as it short-circuited from a surfeit of stimulation. In the aftermath, his hole clenched spasmodically around Josh, who swore and moved faster.

  Josh groaned as he thrust, making almost as much noise as Tyler had. His hips stuttered in their rhythm as he thrust forward the last few times, holding Tyler in place by his legs. Then he slumped forward, letting go. Tyler slid his legs down and around him as Josh buried his face in Tyler’s hair and panted for breath. “Oh, Ty,” Josh sighed, his lips against Tyler’s temple, the words more felt than heard.

  “You cheated,” Tyler said. “You weren't supposed to use your hands.”

  Josh raised his head and cupped Tyler’s face with hands that were, perhaps, a bit goopy. Tyler didn't care. “Sue me,” Josh said, then kissed Tyler long and deep. He removed the condom and threw it away, then disappeared into the bathroom and came back with a warm, wet washcloth that he used to wipe Tyler clean. “Will you stay and sleep with me tonight?” Josh asked, grabbing the comforter off the floor and wrapping it around them.

  Tyler wasn't sure how much he'd sleep but he would stay, at least for a while, if for no other reason than he didn't think his legs were currently functional. “Okay,” he said, and let Josh pull him close.

  –—

  Monday, September 19th, 3:05 am

  Josh’s bedroom in an unnecessarily large rental house

  Blue Lake, Wi

  Tyler: We have DONE THE DEED.

  Purvi: Is he a top or a bottom?

  Tyler: That’s my girl, always asking the important questions.

  Purvi: Well?

  Tyler: Not 100% sure, but he let me ride him like a cowboy so currently he's my favorite person in the whole wide world.

  Purvi: Even more than me?

  Tyler: No comment.

  Purvi: Asshole. So???

  Tyler: I'm willing to bet that the good doctor pitches and catches, but we'll see.

  Purvi: Hmmm. Are you going to give me the dirty details or what?

  Tyler: I came twice.

  Purvi: YOU DID NOT!

  Tyler: I totally did. Hand to God.

  Purvi: His dick is that amazing?

  Tyler: His dick is definitely that amazing.

  Purvi: I'm jealous.

  Tyler: You should be.

  Tyler: I had the dream again, tho.

  Purvi: Oh, hon. Are you ok?

  Purvi: Ty? You still there? You want me to call?

  Tyler: No, don't call. I don't want you to wake him up.

  Purvi: You’re still in bed with him???

  Tyler: He's surrounding me like a boa constrictor. Not sure how he's sleeping with my phone’s light on or with every limb around me, but he’s dead to the world, the fucker.

  Purvi: Hold on. You, Tyler Harrison Chadwick, are allowing a man to spoon you. Do I have that right?

  Tyler: Fuck you, P

  Purvi: Hahahahahahaha

  Tyler: FUCK. YOU. SO. HARD.

  Tyler: He doesn't snore.

  Purvi: That explains why he's still alive. Have you gotten any sleep?

  Tyler: Since the dream? Not so much. I feel like I'm going to jump out of my skin.

  Tyler: Him being here is kinda nice, tho.

  Purvi: That's adorable. Like rainbow sparkly unicorn poop adorable.

  Tyler: I swear to God I will fire your ass.

  Purvi: No, you won't. What time is it there? I'm about to go to bed.

  Tyler: Just after 3. Jesus, you suck at math.

  Purvi: Fuck you, it's too late for math. Or early. Put away your phone and try to get some more sleep. In the morning, do your yoga. That always helps. Just take it easy on the arm.

  Tyler: Yes, Mom. Night.

  Purvi: Night.

  Chapter 17

  Josh Puts Safety Measures in Place

  Monday, September 19th, 7:58 a.m.

  Josh’s bedroom in an unnecessarily large rental house

  Blue Lake, WI

  Josh woke to an empty bed and a note.

  I didn't run out on you with my fine ass on fire this time. Just couldn't sleep. Ty

  Josh was grateful for the note. Last evening had been so strange that the whole thing felt unreal, part wet dream and part nightmare. First there had been Tyler in the boathouse, then the irritating email from his father, his stupid and embarrassing cleaning frenzy and the subsequent toll to his hands, Tyler stealing into his room and pretty much fucking his brains out, and lastly being woken in the middle of the night by a nightmare-panicked Tyler.

  The harsh light of morning found him angry and disgusted with himself over falling apart last night. Josh had lost his shit in front of Tyler, and for what? Not much in the grand scheme of things.

  Josh felt like burying under the covers and hiding in the bedroom, but all that would just be more evidence of him being a useless, whiny, pathetic—

  Is any of this helping?

  Not really.

  Then stop it. Man up and stop wallowing in self-pity. Be happy you got laid last night. That was pretty awesome. Now get out of bed and go for a run. Your ass could use it.

  Josh let out a gusty sigh, looked at the clock, and saw it was almost eight. When he opened the bedroom door he smelled coffee and it drew him with its irresistible lure to the kitchen. The reward for not hiding in bed: coffee. Sweet, delicious coffee. And possibly sweet, delicious Tyler, if he could figure out where he was.

  After pouring himself a mug of coffee, Josh went looking for Tyler. He had supposedly not run, or at least he'd left a note before doing so. At first, he was nowhere to be found and Josh thought maybe he actually had disappeared, but he found Tyler at last when he went out to the empty screened-in porch and looked out at the lake. Tyler was on the dock, crouched just like he had been on the Chadwicks’ dock the first time Josh had seen him.

  Josh’s heart leapt into his throat and coffee sloshed onto his hand when he couldn't hold the mug steady.
He put it down and sucked at the coffee spilled on his hand. He was about to charge out the door when he saw that Tyler had changed position, and Josh realized with a touch of chagrin that Tyler was doing yoga on a folded blanket he'd laid over the boards of the dock, and not slicing himself open like he'd first thought.

  Josh drank his coffee and watched as Tyler twisted and contorted his body slowly and with beautiful precision, a few poses not seeming physically possible, or at least highly improbable. Several times Josh expected him to overbalance and fall into the lake, but he never did. He transitioned gracefully from one pose to the next with no apparent thought or difficulty. It was, without meaning in the least to be, exquisitely erotic.

  You'd think I hadn't had sex last night. Or that I was still twenty-five. Or fifteen. I need a cold shower and a long run, not necessarily in that order. Josh finished what was left of his coffee, then went back inside to change. He got dressed, grabbed his phone and earbuds, then left his own note below Tyler’s:

  I’m out running, but will return.

  Running tended to help Josh focus and clear his mind, but he had a hard time achieving that this morning. What he needed was to get some sort of grip on his feelings. Josh felt like he was teetering on the edge of a cliff and the tiniest push would send him tumbling over the edge. He needed to install a safety railing. At the bottom of the cliff was him hopelessly in love again and doomed to heartbreak. That was unacceptable, so what he needed was a nice tall barricade on the edge of the cliff that you couldn't accidentally fall over. Even if you, say, fucked a really hot wannabe elf right up against it.

  It would need excellent reinforcements.

  Josh ran, his muscles burning, as he constructed his mental barrier. He posted signs warning to stay behind the yellow safety line and do not climb on the railings. On the safe side of the barrier was rationality. He could see Tyler in all his impossibilities. He was an actor and he belonged in another life in another state. He could not ever be a permanent part of Josh’s life in Evanston. It wasn't feasible.