My Guys

by Tanya Chris

  A few minutes of quiet drowsiness were interrupted by the arrival of another party. When Derek stiffened next to me, I opened my eyes.

  Amanda. I hadn’t forgotten Derek’s climbing crush, Amanda. She and her partner—a tall, muscle-bound guy with short cropped hair—stopped and looked up at Derek’s rope still hanging from halfway up the route.

  “I can get our rope out of the way if you want,” Derek said.

  “Oh, hey. Derek, right?”

  He nodded. I could feel his arm itching to pull away from me. Twice it twitched, bumping me from my resting place. With the third twitch, he removed it completely, his shoulder shifting away from mine.

  “That your gear?” Amanda asked.

  “You can use it. Maybe I can get some beta from you.”

  “Having trouble with that move, are you?” She looked him over critically as if evaluating where his shortcoming might be. “It took me a while too.”

  Derek got to his feet and pulled his rope down, coiling it out of her way. He remained standing, watching, while she led up with her own rope. She quickly reached the point where he’d stalled, then continued past it all the way to the top. It seemed like she was up and down again in mere minutes.

  “So ... left, bump, bump, right?” he asked her when she’d finished untying.

  She pantomimed the sequence with her hands. “I think that’s it.”

  “I was trying to jump there. Left, dyno, right.”

  “Nice, if you can do it. I’m not that great a jumper.”

  “Guess I’m not either. I’ll try it your way.” He looked over at me, which I took as my cue to stand up and belay him.

  Amanda pulled her rope down while Derek and I set ours up. I put him on belay fearfully. I was about to have a lot of witnesses, not only Conrad and Leon, who were sitting up now that Derek was getting ready to climb, but Amanda and her belayer, who appeared to be sticking around as well.

  “It’ll be fine, Lissie,” Derek said. “Wish me luck.”

  I grabbed his face and pressed my lips against his. He opened his mouth for me, sucking me into him.

  “Now that’s how to wish someone luck,” Amanda’s partner said when we broke the kiss.

  “You wish,” she responded, to which he flashed a look that clearly communicated that he did wish.

  Derek seemed to stand an inch taller as he stepped up to the rock. He started climbing without even a backwards glance at me, signaling his confidence in himself and in my belaying. I followed his movements closely, being extra careful to make sure he had plenty of slack.

  When he got to the place where he’d fallen before, he reached up with his left hand, testing the hold Amanda had used. He lowered his hand; his body tensed. I paid out an armful of slack, bracing against the impact as my eyes followed his jump. Conrad inhaled sharply behind me and then Derek caught himself on his right hand. His body swung off-kilter between his two hands and his feet flew out behind him. While we held our collective breath, he settled his feet back onto the rock and started climbing again.

  As soon as he had both feet on the ground, he scrambled over to me. He lifted me up and swung me around in a circle that caused the ropes over our head to twist together. He kissed me, then reached behind me to shake hands with Leon and Conrad who’d come over to congratulate him.

  “Didn’t like the hold?” Amanda asked.

  “Knew I could stick the dyno,” Derek said with a shrug. He sat down to change his shoes while I dealt with the rope.

  “Looks like I’m going to be moving to your area.” Amanda said. “I’ve got a teaching position starting in September. Maybe you can show me some of the local rock.”

  “Of course, sure. Um, hey, have you met Lissie?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  I came over and shook her hand. “I’m just a beginner,” I said.

  “Stick around this guy. Looks like he’ll teach you some things. You going to climb this, Frederick?” she asked the guy lurking behind us. He shook his head. “Then let’s get out of here.” She headed off with Frederick trailing along behind her. I felt sorry for Frederick.

  “She’s intimidating,” I observed.

  “Not just to you,” Conrad agreed. He turned his attention to Leon who was flat on his back with his arm over his eyes again. “You ready to climb yet, you lazy dog?” He poked Leon’s side with the toe of his shoe.

  “Climb, climb, climb. That’s all we ever do. You’d think it was fun or something.” Leon staggered to his feet and hoisted his pack. “Lead on, MacDuff.”

  Conrad shook his head at us and they tromped off through the underbrush.

  “You feel good, don’t you?” I asked Derek when we were alone.

  “I feel invincible.”

  “You know what you need? What you deserve? Birthday sex. Congratulations sex.”

  He glanced around doubtfully.

  “No, not in the woods. How about a hotel? Let’s get a hotel tonight and celebrate. A hot shower? Some quality naked time?”

  I ran a hand down his chest. He sucked his stomach in and grabbed my wrist to stop its downward movement, but he didn’t pull my hand away from him. I put my other hand in his hair and took a step closer to him.

  “Hmm?” I asked against his lips.

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Did you want to do any more climbing today?”

  “Mm-mm,” he said, not letting my mouth leave his.

  Chapter 23

  The water was hot, at least, and the room looked clean, if well-used. It wasn’t an ideal spot for a romantic tryst, but it beat a tent with nosy neighbors.

  We’d taken a steamy shower together and now Derek had me pulled against him so tight that my feet didn’t touch the floor. He walked us to the bed.

  “There’s something I need to do.” He lowered himself between my legs so I’d understand what it was. “I need to do it until I get it right. Be patient with me?”

  “You’re invincible.” I tangled my hand in his hair. “You can do anything you want to badly enough.”

  “You have no idea how much I want to do this.”

  He lowered his mouth to me. His movements against me were tentative and soft, but his focus was in the right area. He threw my legs over his shoulders much as he did when he was about to fuck me. A surge of lust went through me at the thought.

  “Right there,” I said. “Right where you touch me when we fuck.”

  He changed his angle slightly and drove his face into me, making me gasp. A little choked noise escaped him. I started to pull back, afraid I was smothering him, but his hands kept me firmly anchored.

  Now I felt the eagerness that had been disguised by timidity. He ravished me with more passion than skill, but his enthusiasm coupled with a good amount of mental imagery—imagining how his cock would replace his tongue—brought me closer than I’d ever been with him.

  There was still something missing, though, some kind of not-quite that Nate had. Hovering on the edge of orgasm, I couldn’t wring the exact details from my pleasure-soaked mind. I only knew that it wasn’t quite right.

  Concern over how Derek would react if I didn’t come took the edge off. My arousal level dropped, and Derek could tell. He hesitated, slowing down, backing off. Fear was returning—to him and to me. I faked a moan to give him encouragement.

  No.

  No, I wouldn’t do that. I forced myself to relax, to accept the possibility that I wouldn’t come and that it would be OK. We’d try again another day. I took a deep breath and shifted my hips against him. We’d gotten out of alignment from my twisting.

  “Hold me hard,” I told him. “Keep me this way.”

  He curled his hands from my ass around my thighs, securing me tightly to him. The firmness of his grip anchored me. I ran my hands from his head down to his shoulders, enjoying the bunch of muscles across his back, the strength of him dedicated to pleasing me. The pleasure ramped up higher. My moans became real again.

  So close. He could get me s
o close. I was wanting him to a-little-more-this-way or something-over-that-way, and then I thought: I’m the one who’s feeling it. Of course I knew exactly, and he couldn’t possibly.

  Taking charge of the final push, I put my hands on the back of his head and held him still and moved against him. I lifted my hips, grinding them against his face, his tongue, angling and moving exactly-so until the sensation burst inside me. I held him still to me, pulling as much from the moment as I could before slumping back against the bed, drained.

  He sat up, cross-legged between my knees. I opened my eyes to find him watching me, his cock thrusting up hard from between his legs. Nate would be stroking himself, but Derek waited. I reached up my arms to him and invited him into me.

  ~~~

  “What made you change today?” I asked, my head in the crook of his shoulder. “How come all of a sudden you were OK with touching me in public?”

  “It was a lousy way to treat you, and I’d already treated you lousy enough.”

  “Well, thanks. It felt good to be acknowledged.”

  “It wasn’t you, you know. It was him.”

  “Him, Nate?”

  “Not him personally, but— We’re not a couple. You’re not ... mine. People see you with me and they see you with him, and what are they thinking? It’s me not being good enough all over again.” His free hand fisted on his chest. “I made you come today, right? You don’t need him anymore. Why do you want him? Let’s just make it you and me.”

  “Derek.”

  He curled into me. “Lissie, I saw how you felt when he took Jenny’s phone number. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “What about Amanda?”

  “What about Amanda? I’ve never had anything to do with Amanda.”

  “You’d like to.”

  “Maybe I used to, but I wouldn’t do that now—to you or to her. It wouldn’t be right to her either.”

  “She’d be a lot more appropriate. Think about it. What would it be like if we were a couple? I’m thirty-eight. You’re twenty-five.”

  “Twenty-six. Birthday today, remember? OK, I know when you asked about introducing you to my parents and stuff before I wasn’t sure, but that was only because I didn’t know you that well. If you were mine, I’d introduce you to them. I’d be honored to.”

  “And what would they think?”

  “Now you’re thinking that you’re not good enough.”

  “I’m thinking your parents would think that. Never mind, this is getting out of hand. It’s not about your parents. It’s not about you not being good enough either. It’s not at all about that.”

  “Then what’s it about? Tell me. Please.”

  “Nate.”

  “You like him better than me.” Derek rolled onto his back, looking up at the water-stained ceiling. “Or you just need two guys to keep you satisfied?”

  “Neither. Shit.” I tried to compose my thoughts. “If I thought you and I had a future together, I’d let him go. And if I thought Nate and I had a future together, I’d let you go, although I’d miss either of you, both of you. This isn’t about forever and ever and babies and commitment, what we have.”

  “Then what’s it about?”

  I remembered what Nate had said when I’d asked him: fun. Not sure fun was the right word, I struggled.

  “Connection, love, mutual pleasure. Fun.” Yes, OK, fun. “You’re a separate person from Nate. So separate, so different. It would be like choosing only ice cream or only potato chips. I feel like gorging myself on all of it.” I sighed, realizing how that sounded. “I’m being selfish. To you.”

  “Only to me?”

  “Nate doesn’t mind. He thinks it’s hot.”

  “What’s hot?”

  “You and me. He likes to hear about it.”

  “You tell him about us? What do you tell him?”

  “About your beautiful cock. About how you make me crazy with it.”

  “Really?” He cocked his head to the side. “I guess you can tell him that.” He took my hand in his. “This is what you want, Lissie? He doesn’t make you sad?”

  “He doesn’t make me sad. Sometimes I make myself sad.”

  “Yeah, I know how that is.”

  “Do I make you sad?”

  “Not most of the time, and I can deal with the rest. You’re sure there can’t be more between us?”

  “We have everything we need,” I said, evading the question. I drew his face forward for a kiss.

  As his arms came around me, my mind drifted to Alex and what he and I had shared. I knew what Derek and Nate couldn’t yet—I knew what that something more was like.

  I knew the sharing that went beyond a few moments of passion or a night’s sleep, the sharing that had nothing to do with a common interest like theater or climbing, the sharing that happened deeper beneath the surface, when two lives had a common end.

  That was what I wanted. And this? This was only what I had.

  But it didn’t suck.

  Chapter 24

  I twisted my hair up. My bangs had finally gotten long enough to pull into a real ponytail so I could keep them out of my eyes for important activities like climbing or going down on Nate.

  “I’m like Pavlov’s dog,” Nate said. “Watching you put your hair up gets me hard.”

  “You were already hard.” I finished securing the scrunchie and lowered my head to take a first lick.

  “I missed you.”

  “Mmm?” It had only been four days.

  “Things are rough at home,” he said, referring to the fact that his youngest sister and her three kids had moved back home last week, an ugly divorce pending. “Sharing a room with Carrington is really cutting into my quality time with myself. I love the kid and all, but I love myself more, if you know what I mean.”

  I laughed at the frustration in Nate’s voice. He grabbed my ponytail and tugged.

  “You just like having me at your mercy.” He punctuated his point with a deep groan.

  I enjoyed the way Nate could completely surrender to me, the thoroughness with which he soaked in and relished every sensation. I drew his arousal out, nowhere else to be on a lazy Saturday afternoon. When his hips stopped jerking, I slid his dick out of my mouth and sat up, my back stiff from lying between his legs with my neck cranked up for that long. I stretched my arms over my head.

  Catching sight of myself in the mirror over the dresser, I turned to look. My reaching arms highlighted the muscles across my back where they bulged up over my shoulders.

  “Do you think the muscle is sexy?” I asked Nate.

  “Would you stop climbing if I said no?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “But is it?” I pulled my arms down into the classic body builder pose, squeezing my biceps as best I could. “You should see Katrina flex.”

  Nate sat up behind me. With his eyes on mine in the mirror, he reached up and yanked the scrunchie free so that my hair tumbled down over my shoulders, then wrapped his arms around me so his hands cupped my breasts.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think I need a haircut.” I pushed the hair back behind my ears. “This is just a mop now.”

  “I’ll call my sister. Maybe she can work you in today.” He released me and leaned over the side of the bed to find his jeans on the floor.

  “Desi is a hair dresser?”

  “No, Bella. I see enough of Desi at home lately. Come on, I’ll introduce you to Bella. She’s my favorite.” His eyes were on his phone as he composed a message.

  “You’re not supposed to have favorites.” I rose to see if I could find something to wear amongst the pile of our clothes on the floor.

  “Desi and Gwen are close enough in age that they were always a team. Bella and I were the outliers.”

  “And she adored you.”

  “What can I say? I’m adorable.” He stood to pull his jeans up over his hips and gave me his full-wattage smile, his blue eyes sweet beneath the boy-child l
ashes. His phone barked at him. He glanced at it quickly. “She says come by.”

  I took some extra time, putting on makeup and jewelry while Nate watched. When I looked as good—and as young—as I figured I was going to look, we took his car to the strip mall where his sister’s salon was located. Nate introduced me to her.

  “It’s Arabelle,” she corrected when he wandered off to say hello to some of the other staff. She was as slim as Nate and nearly as tall, her willowy figure crowned by a long fall of reddish-brown hair down her back. She had Nate’s eyes, made even more striking by artfully applied makeup.

  “Not Arabella?”

  “No, there’s no A at the end.” She was lifting strands of hair off my head like they were the limp streamers from last night’s party and then dropping them again, like it wasn’t worth the effort of trying to clean them up.

  “Then why does Nate call you Bella?”

  “Because he’s my annoying little brother and he knows it bugs me, but if you’d call me Arabelle, I’d appreciate it.” She led me to the sink and gestured for me to sit down.

  “My name’s actually Melissa.”

  “You want me to call you Melissa?” She tilted back my chair and dunked my head.

  “No, I’ve gotten used to Lissie.”

  “Well, he’s not your annoying little brother. He’s your ... ?”

  “Friend?” With my head tilted awkwardly back and shampoo frothing around my eyes and ears, I felt somewhat disadvantaged. I couldn’t be sure, because she was so beautiful, but Arabelle appeared to be about my age.

  “OK, we’ll call it that. He’s got no shortage of friends.”

  When I didn’t respond, she finished the job in silence, then sat me up and wrapped a towel around my head.

  “No judgment. We’d just like to see him with someone serious one of these days. Come on back to my chair.”

  As she flipped through my hair again, pursing her lips at it in silence, my eyes searched for Nate in the mirror and found him in deep conversation with one of the other hair dressers across the room.

  The woman was older than I was, her blonde hair sprayed into stiffness, a full application of makeup covering her tan face. She burst out laughing and wagged her finger at Nate, then stepped into him. Her hand cupped his ass familiarly. He put a hand in her hair and tugged her head back, then kissed her full on the lips, lingering over it.