Getting Lucky

by Daryl Banner

James let out another nervous titter, then he shook his head. “Sorry. Can’t tell with you sometimes.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. You’re just so … hard to read.” He resumed pulling big leaves off the lettuce. “Sometimes,” he added.

  Since his back was partly turned to me, my eyes were drawn down his body to his ass, which wiggled a bit as he worked.

  Why did I take that as an invitation to draw closer?

  I slowly came up to his back and began inspecting his work over his shoulder. At my mere presence, James’s work slowed. His whole body tensed up. He could probably feel me breathing on his neck. It was like he was expecting me to do something to him.

  To be perfectly honest, I was resisting an instinct to grab his ass right there and really make him freak out. I bet his cheeks would fill my hands perfectly.

  But I didn’t do anything at all except loom over him like the shadow of a brick wall at his back. Even his breathing changed, his throat all tightened up like I was exciting him.

  Or scaring the shit out of him.

  Then James turned his head slightly. “Oh, by the way,” he said in an everything’s-fine-and-I’m-totally-not-nervous voice, “If you need to, uh … use my laundry room, you can totally help yourself.”

  I smirked. “You saying I smell?”

  “No. Not at all. You smell great.” He cringed. “I mean, you smell just fine. I was just thinking about all the clothes in your backpack—your shorts, your hoodie, your tank top …”

  “Keeping an inventory for me?” I teased him. I kept forgetting how observant James was. “You wanna smell my socks to see if they need to be washed, too?”

  James finally got his pinch of confidence, straightening up his spine. “Yeah, sure. Stuff them in my face.”

  “Don’t test me,” I warned him.

  He was about to say something else, but stopped and thought the better of it. Instead, he just grunted and shook his head. “Hard to tell with you.”

  I leaned against the counter right by James, too close to him, my body and my words deliberately invading his space. “So you’re saying I’m hard to read, huh?”

  “The detergent is above the washer,” he went on, ignoring my taunt, “and both the machines are super easy to figure out. Like, they don’t need any instruction. Just pop in all your clothes, toss in a capful of detergent, tap a button …”

  “I find you pretty easy to read.”

  He lifted his gaze to meet mine. He said nothing in response.

  Maybe it wasn’t all sexual tension I was sensing. Maybe James was having worries about bringing a total stranger into his house. He wanted to trust me, but also wondered if he’d made a mistake. His mind was still lingering on his mother’s impromptu visit and worrying over how he was going to explain me to his friends and family. Maybe he considered not explaining at all, hiding me here for weeks, or months, or however long I dared to stay.

  And if I ever decided to leave, where would I go?

  I only just got here and already am planning my exit route.

  “Do you?” he finally asked, breaking eye contact with me to hastily assemble our sandwiches.

  He took so long to respond, I’d completely forgotten what he was responding to. “Do I what?”

  “Find me easy to read.”

  “Oh. You shitting me?” I snorted. “You’re the easiest. Every thought you have is laid out on your face.”

  “Is that so? Alright.” He puffed up. “So what are you ‘reading’ from me, then? What’s on my mind?”

  He wanted to put me to the test. That, or this was his secret way of getting a peek into my brain and what the chances were of me grabbing him and bending him over his own kitchen counter. To be honest, I wondered the same damned thing. “I think you’re pretty nervous about having me here,” I told him. “Maybe second-guessing your generous hospitality a bit. You’re figuring out how to hide me when a friend comes over. I’ll probably get used to your closet after a couple more days of hiding. Hell, I already memorized half your wardrobe while your mother dropped by.”

  He met my eyes. “You think I’m embarrassed of you?”

  “Maybe. Or you just don’t want people getting the wrong idea, like you said. You know. That you met some nineteen-year-old you barely know and invited him to stay in your big house.”

  “It’s not that big,” he argued automatically, his voice echoing down its cavernous depths to comically prove him wrong.

  I shrugged. “I don’t give a shit, really. If you gotta hide me—”

  “No. I’m not going to hide you, Lucas.” He froze, then winced. “Sorry. I meant Lucky. I meant to say Lucky.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “It’s just that ever since you went and told me your real name, now when I look at you …”

  “I said it’s fine.”

  “Alright.” He sighed as his hands returned to putting together our sandwiches. Despite the nervous titter in his voice as he spoke, his hands worked with precision and care when it came to our lunch. “I don’t want to hide you. I really don’t. You’re a human being. You deserve …” He couldn’t seem to figure out how to finish his sentence. Then, just as he carefully set the final slice of bread on top, he gently slid one of the sandwiches in front of me. “A decent lunch,” he finally finished, then resumed making the second one for himself.

  Maybe it was that one moment when I realized I’d made the best decision of my life to get in that car that morning with a man I barely knew. Sometimes, recklessness paid off. “Hey, James.”

  He looked up from his sandwich. “Yes?”

  “Call me Lucas.”

  To that, he withheld a smile, said, “Yes, sir,” then brought his sandwich to his lips.

  Chapter 11

  JAMES

  I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I could barely contain myself at the hotel the whole weekend. Now Lucky was under my roof, living in my house, and I was going to have to be around that hot piece of ass every day.

  Lucas. Not Lucky. Lucas.

  And he wasn’t just a hot piece of ass. I knew that. He was so much more. He was strong, and also sensitive. He was ambitious. He was curious, yet cautious.

  Also, he was hot.

  Okay, fine, I’ll stop being coy and acting like I wasn’t noticing that fact every second of our Sunday evening at my house. He was hot. Crazy hot. I knew that already, of course, but having him in my house and around me all the time made me so much more aware of it than before.

  Maybe because the close proximity made my fantasies with him more possible.

  Also, he was nineteen.

  That was another fact that sobered me. And froze me to the spot. And kept me from daring to touch him, or daring to stare too long, or daring to let my mind wander off too freely.

  “You wanna break, or should I?”

  Lucas’s voice jerked me out of my thoughts. I lifted my gaze to find him waiting on the other side of the pool table for my answer. He had his cue stick jabbed into the ground like a spear, gripping it with both fists and staring at me over its tip.

  Staring at me like he could eat me for dinner.

  Staring at me like he’d had men like me for dinner.

  I couldn’t possibly be making all of this up in my head. Just his stance right there reeked of sex—and he knew it. How the fuck was I seriously expected to contain myself for however long he stayed at my house, let alone for that afternoon and night?

  How long was I expected to endure this endless, evil foreplay before I exploded from anticipation?

  “Either you’re gonna break,” said Lucas, “or else I will.”

  Whether he meant the double entendre or not, I was seconds from breaking, and his stating that nearly threw me over the edge.

  I took a breath, then grabbed my cue stick. “I’ll break.”

  I positioned myself at the other end of the table—which put me right next to his body where he still stood like some Greek god awaiting his challenger, hi
s eyebrow cocked and the corner of his mouth pulled up in an arrogant smirk.

  I took aim, pulled back my stick, then made my shot.

  The balls scattered like my sanity.

  A striped ball and a solid fell into either side pocket.

  “Damn,” he sang, then broke away from his pose to observe the table. “You hit that shit like you meant business.”

  I put on my best cocky smile, coming around the other side of the table. “Been playing for a while, you could say.”

  He watched me as I scoped out what I wanted to hit next. Just when I got into position, he asked, “So which are you?”

  I peered up at him. “Which what?”

  “Which side are you playing for? Which team?”

  My mouth parted, totally caught off-guard. I thought he already knew. “I’m … I’m gay. I figured it was sort of obvious.”

  He screwed up his face. “No shit. I meant stripes or solids.”

  Boy, did I feel stupid as fuck. I clenched shut my eyes. “Sorry. Of course you did. I’m just—” I shook my head and repositioned myself, flushing horribly. “Stripes. I’ll be stripes.”

  He nodded, then watched keenly as I took aim. With my face burning red, I squinted, pulled my stick back, then let it fly. The cue ball cracked across the table, sending the striped twelve toward the pocket. Unfortunately, it didn’t send the ball into the pocket, distracted as I still was by my own embarrassing error, causing it to bounce off the wall and tap the two ball.

  Lucas grinned. “My turn.” He came around to my side of the table, then leaned over it to inspect his angles.

  His act of leaning over the table gave me a very upclose view of his tight ass in his jeans. The shirt he still wore with the dice on them was small for him, so it pulled up as he stretched over the table, giving me a glorious peek of his lower back muscles and the top of his ass cheeks.

  Because thank the gods, Lucas’s pants were low-hanging on his hips, and he was going commando today.

  He took such a long time to take his turn, I was convinced he did it on purpose just to agonize me even further. And it worked; my eyes were glued to his cheeks while my cock grew hard at the subsequent thoughts tiptoeing through my brain. Then when he finally thrust his stick, his tight ass wiggled from the force—boing, rock hard—and he remained in that suggestive, bent-over pose as he watched the balls draw their chaotic geometry across the table.

  Yeah, the fucker’s doing it deliberately.

  I came around the table, partly to seek a better angle for my shot and partly to hide any evidence of my erection, and felt a tiny stroke of courage. “So what about you?” I asked, super casually, as I lowered my stick to the table.

  “Hmm?”

  “Which team do you play for?” I pulled my stick back, then let it fire. The cue ball flew like a bullet and sank the fourteen in the corner pocket, then came to a stop perfectly aligned for me to sink the nine next. “And I’m not talking stripes and solids.”

  Lucas smirked at me, stabbing his cue stick in place on the ground as he gripped it powerfully like a stripper pole, staring at me from behind it. He looked so striking, strong, and dominant standing like that.

  But a smirk wasn’t an answer. “Well?” I came around the table and aimed for my next shot, lowering my eye to the stick. “Guys or girls? Or are you not going to answer me?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve only dated girls so far.”

  “Really? Only girls?” I pulled the stick back.

  “But I look at guys.”

  I thrust forward—and the stick barely tapped the cue ball, sending it on a wimpy, unintended journey to the seven ball, which it barely touched, then sat in place.

  I straightened up. “Just look? What does that mean, exactly? You’ve never … done anything?”

  He shrugged again, frustratingly flippant as ever, then took his shot from right where he stood. The ball flew across the table, hit one of his own, but didn’t make it into the pocket.

  “You have a lot of oomph,” I pointed out, “but your aim’s off.”

  He shook his head. “Pool isn’t really my game.” Then he met my eyes, his own shiny with mischief. “You wanna give me some pointers, mister expert?”

  That offer hit me right in the dick. “Uh … pointers?”

  “Yeah. Pointers.” He gave his cue stick a firm, suggestive grip and a pat on the end. Of course, I couldn’t not picture that stick being something else entirely.

  And that thought didn’t help my hard situation downstairs.

  I shook my head too quickly. “Nah, you got this.”

  “C’mon.” He beckoned me over with a lift of his chin. “Show me what I’m doing wrong over here so I can have a fair shot.”

  I shifted slightly, ensuring my boner wasn’t too visible before I came around the table. “Alright,” I muttered, giving in. “First off, your arm is too—”

  “Show me.”

  His voice was like steel, strong and authoritative. “That’s what I’m doing,” I protested.

  “Nah, you’re just telling me. I want you to show me.” He laid his stick on the edge of the table, then half-bent over it. Once again, I was given that glorious view that started my situation in my pants to begin with, except this time, he was eyeing me full-force, and I wasn’t allowed a chance to sneak even one tiny peek. “Get your ass over here and show me.”

  My stomach literally shook with the kind of excitement that made you feel just as good as you did sick. When you hadn’t had such stimulation in a long time, any attention from a guy could literally make you feel like you were going to toss your cookies.

  Let alone a hunk as gorgeous as Lucas.

  “Fine,” I said, shoving a cork in all my bubbling emotions.

  I placed myself next to Lucas and acted like his stick was my own. With the small yet notable exception of last night in the hotel room when Lucas was (knowingly or unknowingly) cuddled up against my side, this was the closest I’d ever been to him. Our bodies were nearly cradled as we both held that cue stick and I corrected his angle.

  “You see here?” I murmured, ignoring how nervous my voice sounded. “Line up the shot. It’s all about the geometry of it.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “And your grip,” I noted, taking his hand.

  Fuck. Touching him is stirring awake everything inside me.

  We both were gripping that lucky cue stick, his soft fingers beneath my own, as I helped him aim. Lucas’s face was right next to mine, so close I could feel his every cool, calm breath.

  “Like this?” he murmured back, his voice tickling my ear.

  “Like that,” I agreed. “Just breathe, and make it fly.”

  Lucas pulled back the stick, preparing.

  “No, no, no.” With my hand still covering his, I corrected his angle. “See how you go out of alignment when you pull your cue stick back? Your tip is going upward. You gotta keep it straight.”

  “Straight,” Lucas agreed. His voice is so fucking sexy.

  “Y-Yeah. Straight. So your tip hits right there.” I pointed with my free hand. “Right in the center of the cue ball.”

  “Don’t let go ‘til I complete my shot.”

  My heart was trying to drum its way out of my chest.

  “I won’t,” I promised.

  “Keepin’ it straight.” He pulled the stick back.

  “Straight as an arrow.”

  He brought the stick forward without hitting the cue ball yet. “Straight as a stick.”

  “Straight as a … a …”

  “As wood,” he stated.

  My cock flexed in my pants.

  Then he thrust the stick forward almost calmly, hitting the cue ball with a controlled, patient force. It drove across the table and smacked his seven ball, which dropped into the side pocket.

  “Fuck yeah,” moaned Lucas into my ear, reminding me way too much of what he might say while sticking his cock somewhere.

  I had to squirm away from him, letting go of
his stick. I was pretty sure I was leaking in my underwear. “Great sh-shot,” I got out, blushing from the annoying stutter I let out and my stubborn cock, which wouldn’t obey any of my demands to stop being so damned excited for no reason.

  Lucas looked like he just got a promotion, strutting around the table to where the ball went. “You’re a great teacher,” he told me with a knowing smirk. “Just got my first point.”

  “There aren’t really points in the game, per se. It’s more about who sinks the eight ball first.”

  He shrugged, then lowered his eyes to the table, aiming his cue stick for his next move. Before going, he looked up. “Well?”

  I frowned. “Well what?”

  “You gonna come here and continue teaching me or what?”

  He was clearly a mad sex scientist running an experiment on my nervous system. If I got any more excited than I already was, I’d be in danger of having my cock literally explode in my pants. I would be the first person in history showing up to the E.R. with a case of an exploding penis.

  An exploding penis due to excessive horniness.

  What the fuck treatment does a doctor prescribe for that?

  I came around to his side of the table, then placed my hand on his, guiding him again. This time, I had come to his back side to get a proper perspective of what he was seeing. When his angle was just right, I gave him an encouraging, “Go.”

  Lucas responded by shifting his body slightly.

  His butt pressed against my crotch.

  There’s only so much teasing one man can take.

  “Like this?” he asked, knowing damned well the agony he was putting me through—I was certain of it now.

  Instead of buckling under the weight of his sexual taunting, I leaned into his ear and gave it right back. “Keep the stick straight. Y’know, as ‘straight’ as you are.”

  He heard the quotes around that word, I was sure of it.

  But naturally, Lucas was about as disturbed by my goading as a stone wall would be by an errant poof of wind.

  I’m that errant poof of wind, by the way.

  Lucas launched his stick, the sudden movement of his body sending a shockwave through mine that began and ended at my already swollen cock. With every time Lucas brushed me off, or teased me, or excited me, he owned me a little bit more. The less he acted like he cared, the more crazy I realized I was for him.