by A. M. Arthur
He arrived promptly at eight. The house was easy to find. It stood in the middle of a street of nearly identical two-story homes, set apart by its light blue paint and black shutters. Instead of a porch, it had a small stoop guarded by the bronze statue of a rabbit standing upright holding a small lantern in its paw. He looked down and discovered he was standing on a straw doormat shaped like a fish. The whimsical touches made him smile.
The short, weedy driveway was car-free. He’d entertained thoughts of an awkward interaction with Shannon, even though Jaime promised she’d be out of the house. He didn’t know what Jaime had told her, but there was really no polite way to inform your new boss that you were teaching her brother all about gay sex. He had no idea how she’d react—or how he’d face her on Monday.
Jaime opened the front door before Alessandro could find the doorbell. His smile was tight with what had to be nerves, and he looked one loud noise away from bolting. A flicker of concern dimmed some of Alessandro’s anticipation. What if Jaime wanted to call the whole thing off?
“Hey, come on in.” Jaime gave the screen door a push.
Alessandro grabbed it and stepped into a cozy, brightly painted living room that smelled faintly of patchouli and cinnamon. A red rug and tropical drapes stood out against mismatched furniture. Four packed bookshelves covered one wall. An archway led into a kitchen and dining area just as eclectically decorated.
Jaime stepped around him to close the door. They stood there for a moment, looking at each other without actually meeting the other’s eye. Alessandro didn’t know what to do next. Had this been a regular booty call, he might have started with a lewd joke, maybe a hard and fast kiss. Had this been a real date with a guy he was genuinely interested in, he’d have opened with a clever comment a compliment.
Other than “you look comfortable,” he wasn’t sure what to say
“Cool place,” he said, which was kind of lame but true. He did like the hominess of the Winterses’ house.
“Shannon calls it flea-market chic,” Jaime replied.
“What do you call it?”
“Home.” Some of the tightness melted out of Jaime’s smile, and he looked more like himself. “Do you want something to drink?”
“Sure.”
He put the duffel down on the sofa, then followed Jaime into the kitchen. The counters were lined with plastic tubs of white and brown powder, probably flours and sugars, and they had an actual convection oven that looked restaurant quality. A metal shelf on the far wall held an assortment of sheet trays, pans and mixing bowls.
“Shannon likes to experiment at home.” Jaime opened the refrigerator door. “We’ve got Coke, soy milk, water, and beer.”
“Whatever you’re having.” He took a risk and hoped Jaime didn’t choose the soy milk.
Jaime hesitated, then pulled out two cans of Coke.
Alessandro accepted the chilled soda and took a long gulp.
The kitchen island stood between them, and Jaime seemed content to stay on the opposite side of it. Alessandro toyed with the tab on his can, uncertain if he should just ask outright what Jaime wanted to do tonight, or if he should be more slick about starting the conversation.
“Can I ask you something?” Jaime said.
“Go ahead.”
“Back in high school, were you really pulled out of class by police for having a knife?”
A chill crept along Alessandro’s skin as his past was suddenly tossed into his face like a glass of ice water. Jaime’s distance made a hell of a lot more sense. He put his soda down on the island and flattened his palms against the cool granite. “Technically, no,” he replied, voice tight. “It was in eighth grade.”
Jaime nodded, his expression going unfocused, distant. “And you spent time in juvenile hall?”
“Three months for destruction of personal property.” His temper rose a notch. “I was a pretty angry kid, Jaime. All of that happened during my first year in foster care, and then I started straightening out. I got into a little trouble in high school, but nothing serious. Why? Who told you all of this?”
“Some people we went to school with came into the bakery today.” Jaime spoke to his Coke, and a slight blush rose in his cheeks. “They saw us driving around Friday and thought they needed to warn me about you. That you’re trouble.”
He didn’t need to ask, but he did anyway. “Who was it?”
“Justin Maddox.”
Hearing the name again made Alessandro sick to his stomach. Justin and his constant threats were one of the biggest reasons he’d fled Perch Creek after graduation.
“Frankly, it sounds like Justin has a personal grudge against you,” Jaime said hesitantly. “Does he?”
“Yeah, he does.”
Alessandro didn’t want to lie to Jaime, but five years ago he’d made a promise to keep his mouth shut. And in all that time, through all of Justin’s snide comments and insinuated threats, he’d kept that promise and not talked. He couldn’t tell Jaime the whole truth. Alessandro wasn’t sure even he knew the whole truth about that night. He would, however, tell Jaime enough to keep him off Justin’s radar. Justin could easily make Jaime’s life hell.
“I guess it’s none of my business, right?” Jaime asked.
“It was a long time ago. If Justin wants to hold onto the past and keep hating me, that’s his choice.”
“I figured as much, but I just…” He floundered a moment. “I wanted you to know, I guess, that he hasn’t forgotten.”
“If Justin gets in my face, I can take care of myself.”
“Okay. Cool.” Jaime gulped down more of his Coke. “You want to go upstairs?”
The flirty way Jaime asked sent a bolt of awareness straight to Alessandro’s groin, reminding him of exactly why they’d made this date. He drained his own soda in a few long pulls, then put the can down. “Definitely.”
Jaime took his Coke with him, and Alessandro snagged his duffel on the way back through the living room. A steep, narrow flight of stairs led up to a brief hallway that was really three doors in a circle. The center door was open and was obviously the bathroom. The shut door on his immediate right was painted dark purple. Jaime pushed open the door on the left and flipped a switch on the wall.
Alessandro drank in the intimate details of Jaime’s life, represented in the small bedroom. A double bed took up a majority of the space, and one entire wall was a built-in bookcase stuffed full of books. Thousands of books of all shapes, sizes and thickness, broken up here and there by painted ceramic animal figurines. Landscape photos and posters covered another wall, a collage of foreign places most people would never see in their lifetime. There was no desk, just a mobile laptop cart next to the bed. The room was tidy, clean, not a speck of dust anywhere, despite the book hoard.
He put the duffel on the bed, then wandered over to the bookcase. Brushed his fingers over the face of a painted tiger statue.
“My mom used to paint those as a hobby,” Jaime said. “I don’t remember, but Shannon does. She said Mom stopped when I was young.”
“They’re really good. Realistic.”
“The tiger was always my favorite, too. When I was at my sickest, Shannon had a hospital bed installed in the living room. I didn’t come upstairs for a solid year because I couldn’t make the stairs. She brought that statue down for me. It sat on my bedside table. Kind of made me feel like my mom was with me, you know?”
Alessandro nodded, oddly touched by the story. He hated thinking of Jaime that ill. He much preferred the vibrant, if slightly nervous, young man in the room with him. He turned and found Jaime standing very close behind him, his bright blue eyes intent. Alessandro didn’t have any mementos of his parents. He’d learned to leave things behind, to only keep what he could carry. For him, the best way to remember his parents was with his memories, to know they were with him every time he looked in the mirror at his mother’s eyes and his father’s smile.
He really didn’t know, but for Jaime’s sake, he nodded.<
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“I want to kiss you,” Jaime said.
His heart kicked up a notch. “So kiss me,” he replied, making the words a challenge.
Jaime did. He attacked Alessandro’s mouth, and Alessandro took what he gave. Their bodies pressed together. Jaime was already half-hard, and that only fueled Alessandro’s excitement. Hands pulled at shirts and arms and pressed at hips. Alessandro drank in the yeasty flavor of Jaime’s mouth, opening to invite his tongue inside to explore his own mouth. They were both fully hard and panting by the time they broke the kiss.
“Can I suck you off?” Jaime asked.
Alessandro sucked in a hard breath. “Hell, yes.”
Jaime sank straight to his knees in front of him. He fumbled a bit with the belt and fly, not used to undoing those things backward, and then Alessandro’s jeans fell to the floor. He kicked out of the jeans, then yanked off his shirt. Jaime studied his tented boxers as though memorizing the image, and the absolute innocence of the moment sent another surge of arousal through Alessandro.
He threaded his fingers into Jaime’s hair, soft against his skin, in what he hoped was an encouraging touch. Jaime pressed into his hand like a cat. He grabbed the waistband of Alessandro’s boxers and pulled them down in one swift motion. Alessandro watched Jaime carefully while he stepped out of the boxers and kicked them aside. Watched how Jaime’s lips parted, how his tongue flicked out to wet them. He somehow managed to look both eager and hesitant.
“Whatever feels good,” Alessandro said softly.
Jaime glanced up from beneath a fringe of thick lashes and smiled. He wrapped his right hand around the base of Alessandro’s cock, then flicked the tip of his tongue out to lick the head. Alessandro hissed air in through his teeth, caught off guard by the light, teasing laps of Jaime’s tongue, as if the tip of his dick was a lollipop. His hand tightened in Jaime’s hair and he had to force his fingers to relax.
Jaime found some confidence in that reaction, because he screwed his lips around Alessandro’s cock and took in what he could, working his tongue along the underside. He avoided scraping with his teeth and created a rhythm with his hand and mouth that soon had funny noises ripping out of Alessandro’s throat. He let himself be noisy, when he was normally quiet, because he didn’t know any other way of showing Jaime that it felt good. Felt great, in fact, despite Jaime’s inexperience. Jaime licked and sucked and stroked him until his thighs trembled.
He had both hands tight in Jaime’s hair, and he watched his cock sliding between those beautiful red lips. He wanted to hold his head and fuck right into Jaime’s mouth, but no rough stuff tonight. He just focused on the amazing heat and pull of Jaime’s mouth and on the orgasm pooling his balls.
“Close,” he said.
Jaime pulled off, but his hand never stopped its hard stroke. “Should I stop?”
“Whatever you want. I can get hard again pretty fast.” And if he was going to end up fucking Jaime later, like he hoped, he’d need to take the edge off or it wouldn’t last very long.
“I want to feel you come in my mouth.”
Alessandro’s stomach tightened at the perfect dirtiness of the words coming out of Jaime’s aforementioned mouth. “Okay.”
Jaime was on him again, both hands holding his hips while he worked to get as much of Alessandro’s cock into his mouth as he could. He choked once, and the vibration curled up Alessandro’s spine. He made an incoherent noise, managed a garbled warning and then pleasure blasted through him as he came. Jaime tried to keep up, but a bit of spit and semen dribbled from the corner of his mouth, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand.
Alessandro swayed a little on his feet as the last whispers of his orgasm faded away, leaving his entire body thrumming with satisfaction. He pulled Jaime up to his feet and kissed him hard, tasting himself on Jaime’s lips and tongue. Jaime’s erection pressed into his bare abdomen, and Alessandro couldn’t wait to get that into his mouth again.
“That was fucking awesome,” Alessandro said.
“I loved it.” Jaime grinned at him with a fierceness born of pleasure and confidence. “What else can we do?”
The hesitation and the need for direction gave Alessandro an idea. He slipped his hand down between them to cup Jaime’s erection, earning a gasp. “We’re going to do a hell of a lot, you and me. Take off your clothes and get on the bed.”
Chapter Seven
“Take off your clothes and get on the bed.”
The words sent a jolt of arousal straight to Jaime’s dick. He had absolutely loved sucking Alessandro off. Even though he was the one on his knees, he’d had the power. He’d gotten Alessandro to make the most wonderful noises and facial expressions. Jaime loved the feel of a hard cock in his mouth, the taste of it on his tongue. Even though his lips were a little swollen and his jaw ached a bit, he could have done that for hours and never complained.
But they were just getting started. He did as told, taking off his shorts and briefs first. He hesitated with his shirt, though, fingers playing with the collar.
“Jaime?”
He glanced at Alessandro, whose concerned eyes made his insides crumple. He didn’t want to scare Alessandro off. “It’s a pretty big scar.”
Alessandro furrowed his eyebrows, not understanding. Then his gorgeous face smoothed out. “Your heart surgery?”
“Yeah.”
“May I see it? The scar?”
The gentle question buoyed his confidence enough to get his arms moving. He pulled off his polo and added it to the pile of clothes on the floor. Alessandro stepped closer, attention fixed on Jaime’s chest. The slim scar had healed well, but it was eight inches long, from his sternum down to his belly. He hated it. Hated that it made him look weak and damaged.
Alessandro traced the tip of his finger down the length of the scar. The smooth touch raised goose bumps along Jaime’s back and shoulders. His belly quivered.
“It’s ugly,” Jaime said to fill the silence.
“It’s beautiful, Jaime.”
He snorted. “Don’t say that.”
“Do you know why this scar is beautiful? Because it’s proof you’re alive, that the doctors could fix you. Without the scar, you wouldn’t be here.”
Shannon had said similar things to him over the years in an effort to boost his post-surgery confidence. It had never sunk in before. Hearing the words from Alessandro made them real, and their truth hit him deep inside.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome.” Alessandro grinned devilishly. “Now get on the bed.”
He did, scooting on his butt to the center of the bed. Alessandro climbed on with him and knelt between Jaime’s spread legs. A twinge of nerves hit him. He didn’t know the script anymore, or what Alessandro had planned. They hadn’t discussed who would be doing who, and Jaime wasn’t entirely certain which way he wanted it. He’d played with himself a few times while jerking off, even going as far as sliding a finger into his ass, and he’d liked the feeling. He wanted to know what it was like to bury his cock into another man and to have another man do the same to him.
Alessandro loomed over him, urging Jaime to lie back, and he settled on top of him, chest to chest, dick to dick. They kissed—long, sensual kisses that made Jaime’s toes curl. Heat and desire pooled in his groin, stoking the fire built there while he was sucking Alessandro. His hands stroked Alessandro’s back and arms, and he brought his legs up to cradle his hips. Jaime’s erection rubbed deliciously against Alessandro’s belly, just enough friction to keep it lively without bringing him too close to the edge.
Alessandro kissed his way down Jaime’s throat, leaving his skin awake and aware and aching for more contact. He paused to nibble both of Jaime’s collarbones. The first light nip of teeth against his left nipple made Jaime jump. The second nip sent a shock straight to his balls as though the two things were connected by a single nerve. Alessandro worked his nipples, sucking and biting, bringing his pleasure right to the brink of pain before
he stopped. He licked a line down the length of the scar, then paused to dip his tongue into Jaime’s naval.
The tickling wetness produced a sharp chuff of laughter. Their eyes met over the length of Jaime’s body. Alessandro’s chin hovered just above his straining erection, but he didn’t pay it any mind. Instead, he sat up a little and said, “Roll over.”
Nerves jumping, stomach tight, Jaime did as asked. Alessandro reached over him to grab a pillow, and he arranged the pillow under Jaime’s hips, which tipped his ass up into the air. Jaime nearly broke his neck trying to look behind him. Alessandro hadn’t gotten any of the supplies he said he’d bought out of his duffel.
Alessandro was hovering over him again. Supported by his forearms, he licked and kissed his way down Jaime’s spine. Jaime pressed his forehead into the bed and relaxed into the sensations. Every nerve sang, and the music went straight to his erection, which was trapped between the pillow and his belly and demanded friction. At the small of his back, Alessandro paused.
Before Jaime could lift his head and wonder what was next, Alessandro pulled Jaime’s cheeks apart. He had just enough time to think the word, and then a tongue flicked at his hole. Oh holy wow. Another flick, then a flat swipe of heat and wet, and a noise tore from Jaime’s throat. He couldn’t keep up with the sensations or emotions. Alessandro was rimming him. Actually rimming him.
And he did so with vigor, licking at his anus, stabbing at the tight muscle with his tongue in a way that made Jaime incoherent. He pushed back against Alessandro’s mouth, wanting more, until his body relaxed and the tip of Alessandro’s tongue wiggled into his ass.