“Did you feel it?” Wish asked, still holding on despite himself.
Despite himself, Sammy didn’t move away.
“I feel something.”
Dammit. Don’t do that. That soft voice, so hesitant and yet wondering, tugged Wish in a direction he really didn’t want to go. He was sure Sammy had no idea what he was doing or saying, and he couldn’t blame him for simply being himself, but his control was slipping. Maybe this hadn’t been the best idea. He could still back out, drop out of volunteering at the tryouts and let Sammy fail. They would never cross paths again. He wouldn’t have to worry about the fallout from letting anyone down, since no one was expecting Sammy to make it, and Sammy himself was probably used to it.
Yet even while he thought it, he knew he could never do that exactly for that reason. He wasn’t going to be like all those others in this kid’s life, always dropping out, or pushing away just when he came to trust them. Wish knew what that felt like, and he had never abandoned anyone before. He would be damned if he let this walk-on be the first.
“Do you feel warmed-up yet?” His voice was husky. He coughed, trying to hide it.
“Sure.” Not meeting his eyes anymore, not even as sparsely as before.
“What we’re going to do next involves some balance. We start off slow to get the feel for it, just like this.”
Wish took a few steps back and then almost immediately took a lunge forward; back leg bent and front leg at the perfect angle so his toes stayed just ahead of his knee. “Now, like you’re a yoga nut.” He lifted his arms and bent back, feeling his shirt strain across the wide expanse of his chest as he did so. He squeezed his core muscles to keep his body static but flexible, and then rose to fall forward into the next. His breathing slowed, the low position immediately relaxing him as he entered the hypnotic sort of zone only football provided, where the outside world shrank down to just enough beyond his own body to be aware of the other players and nothing else. Exercise soothed the raging beast in his mind, offering calm to his pacing thoughts when he needed it the most. He was barely aware of Sammy, lost only in the mountainous dexterity of his limbs and the groaning fault lines of a continent of supple flesh.
Quiet words broke into his mental sanctuary. “You really look like you’re enjoying yourself.”
Wish stood up, almost sorrowful at being pulled away from one of the things he knew best. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll get to feel that too, someday.”
He hardly knew what he was saying. He couldn’t have said what he was referring to, when he suggested Sammy felt something. His neck burned and he could feel himself coloring, turning patchy-pink around his cheeks and ears. Like the flip of a switch, his relaxation was gone and he was shaking, breathing quickly. He looked at Sammy sinking into his first proper lunge and something inside him bent the wrong way, and then snapped clean in half.
He grabbed onto Sammy’s lower waist, rougher than he intended. Fingers spread wide, his thumbs slid low across the younger man’s shorts; Sammy barely reacted at first, probably thinking this to be an accident, and then he gasped softly as Wish flattened out his hands and slid them forward, around to the front of his shirt and then beneath to caress the softest, silkiest stomach he had ever known. Touching Sammy was like skimming water, pure glide. He brought his hands up, shirt bunching around his wrists, stroking deeply into that coffee-colored abdomen and rising all the time. He could have counted ribs if he was so inclined, but his head lowered and he breathed out hard against the back of Sammy’s neck, focused on memorizing every line and contour all the way up to that slim chest. His grip flattened. Small warm nubs peaked against his palm.
Wish stayed perfectly still, his blood buzzing and his head entirely blank for this one single moment. Sammy leaned back against him, his butt moving to the gap between Wish’s thighs. He fit perfectly. Wish closed his eyes, senses spiraling, lost in the pleasure of someone’s body against his.
And then Sammy was gone. Wish opened his eyes, blinking dizzily. Sammy stood several feet away, holding his hands low in front of him, looking confused and almost frightened. “Aloysius, I can’t. Do that, I mean. I don’t even know if I’m…it’s not you…”
What have I done?
“No, it’s okay. I understand.” Wish rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand and then sighed heavily, shoulders slumping. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
Sammy started to speak and then seemed to forget what he wanted to say. He shrugged instead. “It’s okay. But I think I should go home now.”
“Sure, sure. Whatever you want.” Wish touched his forehead again, closing his eyes and fighting with everything he had to pull a mask of calm down over his face in the instant before he had to reveal himself again. Keep it together. Just a little longer. “Where do you live? Wait, I guess with your dad, huh?”
“Yeah. I guess everyone knows where that is, right?” A pause as they made their way down the sidewalk back towards the truck. “Do you live around here?”
“I do. Why?”
Sammy shrugged. “This just isn’t the kind of place you come to unless you live nearby. You know?”
I know. People make assumptions all the time. You know what it’s like.
“Yeah, yeah, I live here.”
Sammy buckled up. “Cool.”
No one said anything more all during the long drive to the Roe’s grand house, three stories with fully-furnished basement and attic. Wish knew; everyone knew; because once a year the local newspaper ran pieces on the elder Roe, flaunting images of beautifully modernistic rooms. Cutting edge electronics filled every room, from the entertainment system to the ludicrous bathroom sink. Everything glowed, and not just because the rooms were prepared before being photographed; the house was immaculate at all times, maintained by at least two separate cleaning companies who sent in no other than their best for such an important man. Not once had there ever been a single glimpse of a life beneath perfection in that house, no signs of sporadic hobbies or the telltale left-behinds of a teenage son. Wish felt absurd and worthless dropping off Sammy at the start of the long driveway, lined with fragrant leaping bushes trimmed to elegance.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Wish said, desperately. “At tryouts. After tryouts.”
Sammy stopped with his head low, poised to close the door. “Sure, yeah. Tryouts. I’ll be there.” And even he knew he was obviously lying. He slammed the truck door and sprinted away, almost falling up the porch steps in his haste to get away.
To get away from me.
Wish’s heart twisted, wrenching in on itself. Sammy wasn’t going to show up tomorrow. He had been chased away, pressured by something he wasn’t ready for.
That’s my fault. This is all my fault. Why did I do that? What have I done?
Why did he even care, when Sammy hadn’t even been his type in the first place?
He drove blindly, unseeing. He drove on autopilot, drifting home with his reflexes delayed, echoing through his thoughts before finally being registered and completed.
He trusted me. I was going to help him. We were going to work together to make this happen. And now it won’t. I ruined his chance. I ruined it.
Reentering that quant neighborhood, stuck so suddenly in the midst of the bustling city, he drove the long way around to his apartment just to avoid going by the park again. He found the apartment complex where he lived and parked haphazardly, not caring to try again to actually get between the lines. Up the twisting stairs, a single flight of dingy green carpet and nondescript walls; everything smelled faintly of citrus cleaner.
He unlocked the door and fell inside, starting to shake. Pigskin, his peach-faced lovebird, greeted him with a soft flutter of peridot wings from her perch in the corner of the room. He dropped a handful of food into her dish; she tried to nuzzle on his hand and he pulled away, not wanting to feel her soft warmth. Normally, he would handle her as he had when taming her from a young age, but not this time. Not today. He felt her curious, disappointed eyes f
ollow him to his tiny bedroom, where he collapsed just inside the door onto a stained orange futon he bought at a third of the regular price just hours before actually moving in.
The futon creaked under his weight. He turned and hid his face in his arms, heart racing and spine crawling with shame for himself and what he had done. The look Sammy gave him, one born of baffled incomprehension, was one he knew all too well, too.
His father’s face filled his mind, as those blue eyes he inherited suddenly narrowed into a slant of pure anger. They stood at the bottom of the stairs with his mother off to the side, her own expression unreadable, but her arms folded over her chest as she watched, closing him out for good.
That long-past argument filled his head, voices vibrating with hurt, reverberating around his apartment, lashing him with each pass.
What have I done?
All alone but for a bird that was small enough to perch on his little finger, Aloysius Johnson cried in the silent, broken way only the strongest of men can.
He lay there through most of the day, silent even when his weeping was done. He kept his cheek lying against his tear-streaked arm and watched the wall, rising only twice all the way though, to well into the night. Midnight crawled past, followed by the 1 a.m. he nearly forgot existed. An hour after that he dozed on and off in fitful bursts of a handful of minutes at a time, so tired deep inside himself that he ached, and far too achy to even consider real sleep. He wavered back and forth until finally, around dawn, he rose a final time and retrieved the bottle of generic sleeping aid pills he kept in the medicine cabinet along with a few other sparse supplies.
He took five, went back to bed, and collapsed into sleep like a broken bridge.
Only his phone ringing at noon would wake him.
“Uh…” He reached out, pawing for the phone and knocking it onto the floor. Too depressed to bother with standing, he slid off the futon onto his stomach on the floor and retrieved the ringing phone from the realm where cobwebs ruled. “Hello?” He winced. He sounded like a preteen going through puberty, the way his voice grated from sleep.
“Hey, Wish!” Cowboy’s cheerfulness hurt his ears, and his soul. “So, you know that black kid you were all over yesterday?”
“All over? What? I…”
Cowboy interrupted. “It’s okay, man. You like what you like, you know? Anyway, he showed up again and I guess he’s gotten better, but it ain’t gonna be enough. Anyway, he just came up to me after practice and wants to know if he can talk to you since he doesn’t have your number himself.” A small pause. Wish barely picked up quiet, slurred syllables in the background. “Pretty rude of you, right, man? Didn’t even give him your number? I didn’t think you were that kinda guy.”
Wish sat up and put his throbbing head in his hand. “Cowboy…”
“Yeah, I know. Just giving you a hard time. Wanna talk to him or not?”
He couldn’t answer. Fear and humiliation clung to his back. Raising his shoulders defensively, he cleared his throat. “Is it bad?”
Mellow words spilled through the speaker. “No,” Sammy said softly. “It’s not bad. Where are you? Aren’t we going to practice?”
“Sammy…I…”
“I told my dad I’d be hanging out a lot today. If you don’t come pick me up, I’m stuck here.”
For the second time in so long, Wish started crying. Sammy kept speaking quietly. “I’ll just wait here.” There was shuffling from the other end of the line, the phone being handed off. Wish coughed out a quick thank you and then hung up, unwilling even now to let anyone know what he was going through. Exchanging a look with Pigskin, he rushed to find his keys and a change of clothes. Within ten minutes, he was on his way.
Cowboy stood near Sammy, seeming almost to be talking amiably. Wish barely pulled up before Sammy broke off the conversation and ran towards him. Cowboy tipped his imaginary hat and sauntered away.
The truck shifted just slightly as Sammy hopped in. “Hey, Wish. I’m ready.”
He started driving again but couldn’t resist asking, needing to hear the answer. “For?”
“Practice. I did better at tryouts today, but not much. And we lost a day, so now we have to make up for it. Can you do that?” He sounded so cheerful, so much the opposite of himself it was baffling.
“Sure, I can. We can.”
They did.
Over the course of the next five days, Sammy worked harder at this than he worked for anything before in his entire life. Each day after tryouts, they headed to the worn-out park and practiced stretches over and over until Sammy had most of them memorized. They worked on his control and endurance, scattering stones in the grass as enemy players to be woven through. Wish went through the motions of passing off a ball, bringing one of his old ones from home as a prop. Throwing it to Sammy, who then worked his way through the line, all as a single motion. They worked together, getting to know the feel of each other’s rhythm as Sammy learned how to use the protection of a larger player to find his opening. When he collapsed exhausted at the end of their time together, he didn’t complain.
On the third day, Wish brought Sammy back to his apartment to teach him the right way to eat, to have enough energy to last. Pigskin took to her new visitor instantly, perching patiently in his hand with her eyes half-lidded, while he stroked her feathers.
“I didn’t know you had a pet.”
“We did just meet. There’s a lot we don’t know.”
Sammy seemed happy enough, although his forced cheerfulness faded slightly into the realm of calm sarcasm, which only seemed to suit him better and better as the days passed. Wish had no idea when he’d become so adorable, but he kept his hands to himself. Practice was practice, just as it was supposed to be. He didn’t claim to understand Sammy’s change of heart, although he would bet Pigskin knew. That bird seemed to know everything.
The final day of Hell Week, Coach Graham looked around at the panting walk-ons and shook his head. “You’re all a bunch of disgraces. But, some of you sucked less than others. I’ll post the results on the door,” he pointed at the bubble, “in a couple days. Next week this time, you poor fools who passed will finally get to go inside. Now, go home.”
Without a word, Sammy and Wish piled into the truck and headed back to the apartment. After greeting Pigskin, Wish sat down heavily. Sammy followed much less gracefully, practically falling into his spot. Their hips touched. Neither one of them moved away.
“That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Sammy admitted.
And if you pass, it only just gets different. Not easier. But he smiled anyway and said truthfully, “You did the best you could. Now we just wait.”
Sammy touched Wish’s knee. Sparks shot up his leg. “Do you think I made it?”
“I think everyone noticed how much you improved.” Which, as they both knew, wasn’t quite an answer.
“I want to thank you. For helping me.”
Wish turned his head to respond. Their lips met unevenly, the clumsiest kiss Wish had ever experienced. He blinked and looked into Sammy’s eyes uncertainly. “What are you doing? If you think you have to repay me…”
“No.” Sammy lowered his eyes. His fingers tightened on Wish’s knee. “I just did a lot of thinking. A lot of things I don’t know for sure. I just know that I…” He choked, unable to finish.
Wish nodded. He lowered his voice. “Like this, silly.” He took Sammy’s thin face in his hand, almost exploding immediately at how smooth and right that sharp jaw line felt cradled against his fingers, and pulled him in closer. They kissed again, soft and chaste this time, and Sammy’s body pressed against his in a perfect fit, as though they were made for each other. Eyes closed now, Wish let his hands wander where they would, gentle and asking with light caresses for an answer of movement and encouragement before heading any further. Exploring each other tentatively, slowing down the fervid rush of the past week to a crawl where only a few minutes seemed to last a lifetime.
Somehow, buttons
were undone and zippers pulled down. Sammy’s shirt lay on the ground, neither of them sure who put it there. Small dark fingers exploring above and below the waistband. Wish let his thighs slip apart and then his shorts were gone, whisked away to the floor. The bulge in his underwear strained against the fabric. He was lost in that sensual place where movement was everything; his hips squirmed with anticipation and he reached out to wrap one hand around the back of Sammy’s head.
Sammy looked up at him with round, innocent eyes. “I’m not sure how to do this,” he confessed quietly.
“That’s okay,” Wish breathed, quivering. “I’ll teach you.”
Holding gently to Sammy’s head, Wish guided him down and caressed the nape of his neck, the tender place between skull and spine where tension gathered. Full lips encircled his throbbing member, warm mouth finding its way. Sammy’s tongue wandered, trailing burning heat up and down Wish’s hard length. He lost himself in the feel of black curls wrapping around his fingers like little vines, fighting the fire burning out of control deep inside him. He wouldn’t rush this. He refused to rush this and frighten this precious, trusting man who was giving him everything. His breath rasped. His back wanted to arch, his voice to moan; he wanted to bury his face in Sammy’s slim chest and taste his scent. His body moved, wanting to rise and fall like a tide. Toes curling.
Impossible to last another second, Wish let his back arch and released Sammy’s head so he could pull away. The fire inside him burst out like an imploding star, shaking him until nothing was left.
Full, warm lips sought his, letting him taste the slick passion of himself. Unthinking, he slid his hand between spread legs, taking hold of Sammy’s erect manhood. Sammy whimpered, arms and legs going weak. Wish let the younger man rest down against his chest, laying comfortably with eyelids half-shut, and began to stroke rhythmically, pulling arousal up to the tip of his shaft and then all the way back down. Sammy’s forehead pressed against his shoulder, hips rising up off his body before descending again, over and over. Breathless now, shaking apart, they moaned together. The moment came rapidly, an ascension to feverish rapture, and Sammy squealed out in high pure pleasure, which set Pigpen to flutter her wings in alarm.
Omega Wanted: Bad Boy Mpreg Romance Page 74