“Give it a minute.” Eddie took a sip of his. “Taste the oak?”
“Oak?” Andrew smacked his lips. “All I taste is alcohol. To be honest, I’m not really that fond of tequila.”
“Next sip, let it roll around on your tongue a little. Maybe it’s an acquired taste.”
Andrew took a bigger sip and wound up gasping for air after he choked it down. “I guess maybe it is.”
Eddie laughed. “Sorry.”
“You enjoy drinking this? Really? It’s not just a test of manhood?”
Eddie put his hands up as if in defeat. “Order something else. I promise I won’t be offended.”
“Maybe it will grow on me.”
“Maybe you should get a strawberry daiquiri.”
“That’s low. You want to buy me a drink with training wheels?”
“If you’re drinking for a good buzz, and you don’t want anything more complex…”
Andrew let that go past without comment.
“Maybe if I knew what you’re looking for, I could make a better suggestion.”
“I’ve had a seriously craptastic week. I was looking forward to loosening up. But that”—he pointed to the amber liquid in his shot glass—“is going to melt my flesh.”
“No problem.” Eddie reached over and took Andrew’s tequila away. “What do you like drinking? Order that.”
“I don’t mean to rain all over your tequila parade.”
Eddie glanced at the diners in the booth next to theirs. “Don’t worry about it. More for me.”
“Do you really like it?”
“I do. Tequila is a big deal with my dad and my uncles. And cigars.”
“Really?” Andrew thought of his own father and felt irritated all over again.
“My dad loves all that old-school man shit like Cigar Aficionado magazine and shaving with a straight razor. He sees it as a mark of sophistication. He’s compensating, maybe. He was the first in his family to get a college degree. That’s a source of pride with him. He put us all through college.” Almost all.
“He should be proud,” Andrew said gently. “My dad grew up poor and went to college. He earned graduate degrees. It’s no small thing.”
“The old guys in my family like to sit on the patio at night.” Eddie smiled at the memory. “They drink and smoke and argue about shit. When I was a teenager, they’d let me sneak a cigar or some tequila, and my mom would have a fit.”
“Sounds like fun though.”
“They relax and tell stories that get more fantastic every year. My dad likes to offer his brothers and uncles the best of everything, so he reads up on the Internet and they all argue the merits of a reposado over an anejo or whatever. Tequila is about pride and tradition—not just doing body shots for a rush.”
“Like you ever did that.”
Eddie’s eyebrow shot up. “Dude, I worked in a strip club.”
Andrew had to hide his reaction to that when Tim came back with their sweet potato fries and a rémoulade sauce for dipping. Andrew asked for a glass of white wine.
“I’ll get that right away, sir.”
When he came back, Andrew took a big sip of the crisp, dry wine and sighed with relief.
“Guess that hits the spot,” Eddie remarked.
“It does, thank you.” Andrew’s belly warmed, and he started to unwind. “It’s refreshing rather than scorching.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Eddie smiled and sipped his own drink. They both reached for the same sweet potato fry and smiled awkwardly at each other. The fries were perfect: sweet, crunchy, sticky, and salty. As they ate, Andrew finished his first glass of wine and asked the waiter to bring a second.
They were still sitting like that, companionably silent, when the waiter came back with their food.
“Here you go, grilled salmon, baked potato, and steamed veg. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can get you.”
“Will do.” Eddie nodded, and Tim left them to their meal. Andrew took a bite of his salmon and groaned with delight. The fish was seasoned simply and had golden-brown grill marks. His potato was rich and shamelessly buttery. The vegetables perfectly tender. He was going to let Eddie order for him more often if this was any indicator of the type of meal he liked.
Andrew fell on his food like a starving man. He glanced up when he realized he’d paid no attention to his date for far too long. Eddie was watching him eat.
“It’s okay?” Eddie asked.
“Delicious.” Andrew brought his napkin to his lips. Eddie’d eaten about half his food, but Andrew was nearly done. He felt his cheeks go hot. “God, what a hound. I guess I eat fast.”
“You’re enjoying your food. There’s no shame in that.”
Yes, I feel shame, Andrew thought. Shame for keeping you off balance all night when you’ve been so nice. “You want to know something?”
“What’s that?” Eddie tilted his head to the side.
God, he’s handsome.
“If you didn’t answer my messages or return my calls—if you asked me to dinner and said nothing about why you disappeared—I’d be angry or hurt.”
“Did you want me to be angry?” Eddie’s uncertain brown gaze lifted to Andrew’s. “Is that what you need?”
“No.” Andrew’s eyes stung at the simple question. What I need?
“If things are moving too fast, just say so.” Eddie folded his hands and waited. “Even if you don’t feel like talking. Let me know where I stand.”
“Is that what you think? That I’m trying to back away from you? That I’d blow off your calls rather than tell you to your face things weren’t…that I—”
“Well? Are you? We went from zero to fuck city in like…five-point-three seconds. I’d understand if things went too fast for you. If you want to back up, go slower, think things over, I’d understand.”
“Oh my God, is that what you thought?” Andrew pushed his plate away. “No. I had a family thing. I got there and realized I’d forgotten my phone charger. I didn’t bother buying a spare. I just… I couldn’t talk about it to anyone.” Andrew decided that was as much as he could say.
Eddie nodded after a while. “If you say it wasn’t personal, I believe you.”
“Thank you.”
“I hope you know, I’m here if you ever want to talk.”
“I know. Thank you.”
“Then enough said.”
After another prolonged silence, Andrew spoke. “There aren’t a lot of people in my life who’d stand by me without asking questions.”
“Maybe there should be.” Eddie finished off his first glass of tequila.
Andrew’s chest hurt. Actually, his whole body ached. After a few days at his dad’s place, after emerging back into the real world, he felt raw. By failing to answer Eddie’s calls and texts, Andrew knew he’d let him down. Yet there Eddie sat, waiting patiently, offering companionship and good food, and asking for nothing in return.
Eddie’s kindness astounded Andrew. At the most basic level, Eddie offered an uncomplicated refuge. At the most profound, his behavior was a breathtaking leap of faith.
Eddie raised his second shot in a toast. “Salud.”
Andrew lifted his wineglass automatically. “Amor y pesetas y tiempo para disfrutarlos.”
“Ah, listen to you. You speak Spanish? My mom is going to eat you up like a cupcake.”
“Is that good?”
Eddie laughed. “Yes. That’s good.”
Andrew gazed into Eddie’s eyes for a long time. If there was anyone in the world he could trust to confide in about his dad, it would be Eddie.
“Are you busy on Saturday morning?”
Eddie pulled out his phone. Andrew watched as he glanced over a multicolored display with shapes in the date boxes. “I’m on the books to make sales calls, but I think I can get Gabe to switch with me.”
“Here.” Andrew took his phone out. “I’ll text you with an address. Can you meet me there?”
“Yeah. What is it?”
>
Andrew hesitated. “I’ll explain on Saturday.”
Eddie seemed to accept that. “Fair enough.”
“Thanks.” Andrew sighed, relieved he didn’t have to say more just then. “In the meantime, I wish I knew how that tequila tasted on your lips.”
Eddie shot the dregs of his second drink even though he’d told Andrew not to. “Only one way to find out.”
Chapter 16
Eddie kept Andrew’s headlights in his rearview mirror on the short drive back to his house. Thank God for food and the time they’d spent eating it, or neither of them would have been fit to drive. Eddie pulled into his garage, and Andrew parked behind him.
The scent of jasmine and barbecue smoke lingered on the air. He could hear his neighbor’s television playing some action film too loud—machine-gun fire and the whop-whop roar of a helicopter from his open window, a shocking staccato that burst the bubble over an otherwise quiet evening.
Eddie had just emerged from the shadowed garage interior and was keying the code to close the door when Andrew took a running leap and jumped on his back, making the breath rush from his lungs. He lost his bearings as he tried to stay upright, automatically catching Andrew’s legs piggyback style as Andrew’s arms came around his neck.
“Oh my God.” Andrew’s lips caressed the skin below Eddie’s ear. He huffed a laugh that raised the hair on the back of Eddie’s neck. “You smell delicious.”
“Yeah?” Eddie galloped around as they neared the back porch, giving Andrew a bouncy little ride. “Do you like this? Think you can hang on while I unlock the door?”
“You just try to get rid of me.” Andrew clung like a limpet up all three steps, his hands dropping to cop a feel of Eddie’s chest while Eddie keyed the lock and opened the door.
“Down you go,” Eddie ordered so he could turn off the alarm system. He turned to find Andrew staring at him, a happy, slightly leering smile on his face. Eddie toed off his shoes, and Andrew did likewise before they walked to the kitchen in stocking feet. “Come here.”
Andrew walked over, unhurried.
“May I pick you up?” Eddie indicated he wanted to lift Andrew up onto the counter. Andrew nodded, and Eddie accomplished the thing in one smooth move. Eye to eye, he cupped Andrew’s face between his palms and brought him in for a kiss. Andrew gripped his shoulders and opened for him, moving closer, as if he was still starving and Eddie was the only food for miles.
“Ah, God.” Andrew raised his chin when Eddie drew back to catch his breath. “You make my head spin.”
Eddie pressed kisses down to the base of Andrew’s throat while he worked to undo the buttons of his shirt. Andrew tugged the fabric of Eddie’s T-shirt and sweater up to pull them off over his head.
“Wait.” Eddie struggled free. The heavy St. Christopher pendant he wore around his neck fell to his chest with a thud. Andrew picked it up to examine it.
“’Behold St. Christopher,’” he read, “’and go your way in safety.’ That’s nice.”
“A gift from my mom.”
“Graduation?”
“Nope. She gave it to me when I came out. She told me I’d better heed those words, glove up, and stay clean. I never take it off.”
Andrew laughed. “That’s one way to bypass a safe-sex lecture.”
“My mother leaves nothing to chance.”
“She must be something.” Andrew let Eddie’s shirt fall to the floor with no fanfare, and then they were skin to skin, warm and slightly sweaty. Andrew raked his fingers lightly over Eddie’s nipples, causing him to let out a low moan.
Eddie leaned into Andrew’s touch. “I like that.”
“What else do you like?” Andrew asked breathlessly.
“I like this.” Eddie unbuckled Andrew’s belt and started on his zipper. “I want to suck it. I want to carry you down the hall and throw you on the bed and have my way with you.”
“Okay, wow. You make a very valid argument. I won’t stop you. This time.”
Eddie let Andrew shove his jeans to the floor, but instead of putting him back down, he hoisted Andrew over his shoulder. Eddie carried his happily chortling lover to his bedroom and threw him down on the bed with a satisfying whump.
Andrew removed his socks before he scrambled up to the pillows to lie perfectly, beautifully naked in the center of Eddie’s bed.
“Much better.” Eddie settled between his legs. Andrew’s cock bounced against his belly with every move he made, and Eddie had to adjust his own dick in his jeans to accommodate his reaction to seeing Andrew bare and rosy with arousal.
Slowly, Eddie ran his fingers over the tops of Andrew’s thighs. Energy practically crackled in the downy-soft hair he found there. Andrew’s muscles trembled. Eddie cupped Andrew’s ball sac, stretching it gently as he teased the sensitive strip of skin behind it with the tips of his fingers.
Andrew hissed his response, shifting beneath Eddie’s touch. Eddie leaned down to press smiling kisses on the root of Andrew’s cock, going slow and easy. Savoring as he plied his tongue all along the length to the tip and back down again.
“Eddie.” Andrew arched under Eddie’s lips, punching his hips uselessly into the air, asking for more.
“What do you want?”
“Suck me,” Andrew moaned. “Suck me; suck me.”
Eddie licked up the long column of Andrew’s dick, memorizing the earthy flavor and scent of his skin. Andrew’s fingers dug through Eddie’s hair, a firm tug that went right to his dick. At the first touch of his tongue on the hot, flushed head of Andrew’s cock, he hummed his approval, and Andrew’s hips shot up again.
“Eddie!”
“Keep your hair on.” Eddie opened his mouth and took him in, loving the bright, fresh wash of salty fluid on his tongue. He wrapped his hand around the base of the alabaster length, jacking it twice and dipping his head down to take Andrew deeper.
“Ah, God.” Andrew arched. “More.”
Eddie bobbed his head slowly, tightening his lips and using kitten flicks of his tongue to drive Andrew wild with need. He dived down, allowing Andrew as far into his throat as he could, and swallowed, giving Andrew the most intimate caress he knew how to give.
“Oh yeah. That’s it.” Andrew lifted onto his elbows and let his head fall back. He was pure sex like that, the long column of his throat exposed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he gave up a gasp and another moan. Eddie smiled around Andrew’s cock and fingered the slightly wrinkled pucker of his hole.
“Thish o’ay?” he asked.
“God, yes.” Andrew let his legs fall farther apart. Eddie pressed his finger in half an inch, testing Andrew’s reaction. A shudder racked through Andrew’s whole body. “Christ, do that again.”
Eddie swallowed around Andrew’s cock, and as he did it, he plunged the tip of his finger into Andrew’s hole. The bed shuddered as if an earthquake shook it. He got a fresh burst of flavor on his tongue. That answered one question—Andrew wasn’t strictly a hands-off-my-ass top.
Eddie pulled off long enough to ask, “Do you want my cock?”
“Yes…God, fuck me.”
Eddie let go of Andrew’s cock and crawled across the bed to reach for condoms and lube from the nightstand. When he turned around, Andrew tackled him, nearly knocking the breath from his lungs, pushing him over and straddling him.
“God, you’re perfect.”
Eddie lay flat on his back looking up at Andrew, whose happy expression was playful and yet predatory at the same time. “I’m hardly perfect.”
“You’re perfect for me.” Andrew bent over him, cupping his face, offering happy kisses and dirty kisses and kisses that drugged Eddie’s senses completely.
Andrew rained kisses over Eddie’s neck and shoulders, down to his chest. He ran the flat of his hands over Eddie’s pecs and thumbed his nipples into taut brown buds. “You’re beautiful.”
Eddie shook his head, embarrassed. “Shut up.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
“Sur
e.”
“I have a thing for big men.”
“Not really a secret, papi,” Eddie teased.
“I couldn’t breathe the first time I saw you.”
“That was mutual, if you want to know the truth.”
“A big, handsome man like you… That’s like waving a red flag at a bull with me. I pictured fucking you through the floor.”
Andrew squeezed Eddie’s biceps, and Eddie flexed back, fighting his hold a little. Andrew’s pupils darkened, and he took a deep breath.
“Grab the headboard.” Andrew showed Eddie what he meant by hooking Eddie’s fingers over the top of his plain sleigh-style bed. “And keep your hands right there.”
Eddie adjusted his body so he was comfortable with his hands up. “You really do have a control kink, don’t you?”
“I do.” Andrew eyed him warily. “Is that going to be a problem?”
Eddie’s mouth was so dry he couldn’t speak. He shook his head no.
“I top.” Andrew peered down at him, daring him to argue the point.
“Okay,” Eddie croaked.
“And I love being fucked, but only on my terms.”
“That seems”—Eddie cleared his throat—“fair.”
Andrew leaned over and kissed Eddie’s nose and then both his eyelids. “You want that, don’t you? You want to be my fuck toy.”
Eddie glanced away but answered truthfully, “Yes, I do.”
Andrew kissed him again, this time so gently Eddie’s eyes burned. Their gazes locked. “Between us, here, in private. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Ever.”
“I understand.” Eddie’s desire to submit wasn’t a one-time deal. Thinking back, he’d probably disappointed a lot of men who expected to be dominated in bed—men who had made assumptions based on his size and strength. Men who hoped Eddie would give them what they needed, and ended up walking away unsatisfied.
Andrew had tapped into something very private in Eddie’s nature. Eddie was dying to let go.
Andrew spread his hands over Eddie’s cock and balls, massaging him through the denim fabric of his jeans. “First we need to get you out of these.”
When Eddie would have taken his hands from the headboard to help Andrew undress him, Andrew issued a sharply worded order for Eddie to keep his hands where he’d put them.
Eddie: Grime Doesn't Pay (The Brothers Grime Book 2) Page 12