Ten

Sacha

 

Sacha tried to rub the grit out of his eyes. A heat wave had made it impossible to sleep for several days and showed no signs of letting up. Instead of sleeping, he’d spent the last night wrenching ancient drywall and two-by-four framing away from the boarded-up front windows so a breeze could hopefully sneak inside. Frustration-fueled and poorly planned, the “five-minute” project had turned into hours when it became clear that he would need to pull all the drywall and plywood away from both inside and outside to allow even the smallest breeze access. When five a.m. rolled around, sleeping had been pointless.

He’d finally gotten rid of Chris Meyer, again—the man was relentless—when, from his side of the frosted glass, Sacha spied a lanky figure bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet. His heart pounded in his throat, making him slightly lightheaded. Sacha had hoped Seth would stop by; he was too old to start texting and couldn’t bring himself to call. He knew it was ridiculous; Seth had given Sacha his number. It didn’t help that in the days since the coffee-zombie incident Seth had managed to insinuate himself into Sacha’s daily thoughts and fuel his nightly fantasies. It was inexplicable. They had known each other for three or four hours, tops.

Besides, Seth was far too nice for him, and younger. There was no reason to imagine a hot younger man would find anything about Sacha compelling. It was pathetic. A laughable fantasy to imagine the minute Sacha decided to live “out” he would meet someone; life didn’t work that way. He turned the doorknob anyway, heart pounding.

“I brought treats,” Seth said after admiring the results of Sacha’s overnight labors. He held up a small white paper bag, the kind pastries come in. “Fresh out of the oven.” In his other hand he held a dented silver thermos. “And coffee. Lots of it.”

“Danish?” Sacha reached to snatch the bag out of Seth’s hand, but the asshole jerked it out of range.

“Ah, ah, ah. You must want these pretty bad. What are you willing to do for one?” Seth teased, a wicked gleam in his eyes.

Seth looked good enough to eat, and Sacha was a starving man in more ways than one. Without thinking, Sacha moved toward Seth. Their chests were touching while Seth still held the bag of pastries out of reach. Seth’s breath was hot against Sacha’s cheek; his pupils dilated, reducing his irises to a strip of chocolate brown.

“Oh yeah?” Seth cocked his head to the side, exposing more of his neck. Seth smirked and the pink tip of his tongue swept out, moistening his lips. “I dare you.”

Fucking hell, he’d never backed down from a dare in his life. Sacha growled under his breath before inhaling deeply, worshipping the lingering scent of sweat and maleness that was Seth-specific. The striation of browns that made his eyes appear caramel when the light hit them right was easy to see and impossible to look away from. A week of this man in his dreams and he had no self-control.

Seth was playing a dangerous game. Sacha’s hands dropped of their own volition to rest on Seth’s hips. Seth’s lips parted. Sacha didn’t miss the invitation. Ignoring the cacophony of voices in his head telling him this was a bad idea, he pressed his mouth against Seth’s.

Fucking hell, it was perfection. Like a confection, sugary, hot, and sweet. It was impossible to resist sweeping his tongue across Seth’s lips.

Sacha loved kissing. When he’d slept with women it was his favorite part, almost always better than the long drag toward orgasm. This kiss was explosive, a ticking bomb ready to go off. If they kept going, eating at each other’s mouths, licking, nipping, sucking, Sacha probably could come from that alone.

Seth murmured something when Sacha abandoned his lips to trail hot kisses across Seth’s cheek and down his neck where he stopped nipping, now gently sucking where Seth’s neck and shoulder met. The low groans and murmurs coming from the man in his arms spurred him on. Abandoning Seth’s neck, Sacha returned to ravaging his mouth, sucking on his lower lip and his hot, eager tongue.

“Jesus Christ, Sacha, just… ungph.” If Seth could speak, Sacha was doing something wrong.

A hard thump against his hip had Sacha pulling back and looking down. Seth was trying to grab onto him but still had the thermos in one hand and the pastries in the other.

Sacha chuckled. “Don’t you even think about dropping that bag.”

“Dude, please. You’re killing me.” Seth’s body shuddered against Sacha’s, his eyes half-mast and his lips swollen from their kissing.

“I don’t think so. You were asking for punishment.”

“Shit.” .

Sweeping his hands underneath Seth’s T-shirt, Sacha slowly traced his fingertips up Seth’s flat stomach to his nipples, which were hard under his touch. Sacha rubbed them both with his thumbs before flicking one of them, making Seth moan decadently and shudder again.

“So fucking responsive,” Sacha ground out. The thermos thudded against the hardwood flooring, and Seth used his free hand to grab at Sacha’s hip, pulling them closer.

They needed to stop before they ended up writhing and naked on the floor of the Warrick. In theory it sounded hot, but Sacha suspected one of them would end up with slivers in his ass.

Before pulling away, he whispered into Seth’s ear, “I think I’ve earned a Danish now.” Seth was flushed, and his hair had gotten tugged out of its band. Sacha couldn’t recall when he had run his hands through Seth’s hair, but he had dreamt about it more than once over the past week.

“I’m going to start bringing pastries every day,” Seth said, breathless. “Holy fuck.” He swiped a hand across his mouth before handing the bag to Sacha. “You can have first choice. I think I blew a fuse.”

The apricot Danish was very good. It almost melted in Sacha’s mouth, but it didn’t hold a candle to the taste of Seth on his lips.

“I’m finishing getting the ceiling down.” Sacha pointed at the wooden slats the plasterboard had been mounted to. “I ordered some cleaning supplies to strip the tiles, which is going to take a fuck-ton of time.”

What he didn’t say was that he needed a distraction before he dragged Seth over to the tangled mass of sleeping bag and mostly flat air mattress. He had a feeling there wouldn’t be much protest, but Sacha needed a breather, self-control. As short a time as they had known each other, and now knowing what Seth tasted like, Sacha needed this whatever it was to matter. He hadn’t imagined the chemistry between them.

He had to adjust himself before he got back up on the ladder. Seth smirked and licked his fingers suggestively. Sacha groaned. He was in capital-T Trouble.

“Hey.” Several hours later, Seth’s voice dragged him from reliving the kiss. Again. Sacha’d finished pulling down the remaining ceiling plaster on the main floor and was propped against the ladder, planning the best way to get the rest of the wooden framing down with as little damage as possible. He could see where workers had fastened the frame into some of the tiles with woodscrews.

Seth had stayed to help, and Sacha enjoyed having the company. Seth proved to be quietly efficient, not asking a lot of questions or engaging in meaningless chatter. Without asking, he had sorted the trash and recyclable materials into separate piles. Then he had found a spare set of gloves and worked on removing the remaining framing around the huge windows.

“What?” Sacha didn’t look at Seth, instead planning for the next stage of deconstruction.

“Why don’t you come back to my place for a shower again? Bring your stuff; you can toss it in the wash. You won’t be able to finish any of this tonight.”

The right thing to do was to say no. He had already accepted a great deal from Seth. But Christ, a shower and clean clothes? That was an offer he couldn’t turn down. Not only could he not bring himself to refuse, he wanted to run out to his truck and roar over to Seth’s, running every single stoplight along the way to stand under the cool rain of a shower until he couldn’t feel a single speck of dust on his skin.

Something must have shown on his face, because Seth grinned. Setting the broom he was holding aside, he tugged off his gloves. “All right then. My place it is. You wanna ride with me?”

Sacha followed Seth in his truck, parking on the gravel strip in front of his house. Seth waited for him before unlocking his front door and stepping aside so Sacha could bring his duffel in.

“You hop in the shower. I’ll throw these things in the washer for you.”

Sacha hardly heard a word. He was so fixated on rinsing the sweat and grime off his body, it was like he couldn’t breathe. Unlike the gym, here he could take his time and not feel weird about it.

Like the house, the shower was a tiny piece of shit. Sacha barely fit inside the flimsy beige enclosure, and he had to scrunch down to get his head under the spray. Regardless, the experience was bliss. He was so tired of having to go to the gym to get cleaned up. Scrubbing the plaster dust and dirt from his skin and hair, he gloried in the cool water splashing across his shoulders. An indecent groan of pleasure escaped his lips. This shower was better than any sex he’d ever had. Yet.

He still remembered his first hot shower on American soil. It had been both glorious and frightening. Glorious because he had been filthy from months, if not years, of systematic shelling and ongoing skirmishes even before the outbreak of war in Bosnia. There had been no facilities for orphan street children. Frightening because it finally hit him that he was never going back. That his life was now in the United States and he had a responsibility to make the best of it. Hot water gushing over his shoulders and tears running from his eyes, Sacha had washed his homeland from his body.

When Sacha’d arrived in the United States in 1990, aged 12, the American family that had taken him in already had five other kids. A couple of their own, the rest homeless like himself. There was never enough of anything to go around: food, clothing, beds, space, or comfort. Still, Sacha hadn’t cared that he shared a bedroom with a seven-year-old, nor about hand-me-downs or a lack of books and toys.

That reminded him that he still hadn’t heard from Parker.

Parker Crane and he ended up being roommates for the six years Sacha had been in foster care. Sacha refused to contemplate what kind of trouble Parker might have landed in this time around. After almost twenty years in law enforcement, he still shook his head over Parker’s escapades… and, somehow, Parker had nearly always managed to include Sacha in them.

There was the time Parker had been certain the creepy neighbors had abandoned their dog in the backyard. That had ended badly. The dog had been left out in the yard because the neighbors were cooking meth in the basement. Those neighbors disappeared and new ones moved in. Parker convinced himself that they were spies. They weren’t spies. The husband was, however, having an affair while his wife was working swing shift.

Sacha turned the shower off. Stepping out of the tub, he hesitated before grabbing a towel off the rack. He should have brought his own.

There was a soft tap on the door. Seth’s voice followed it. “When you’re dressed, come out to the backyard. I got the barbeque going. It’s really nice outside.” Sacha heard Seth’s footsteps fading to silence as he walked away.

After drying off, then dressing in shorts and a T-shirt, the only clean clothing he had, Sacha glanced at himself in the tiny mirror over the matching tiny sink. The salt was overtaking the pepper in his hair. Tired eyes, a few new lines on his face; better not to look.

Wandering through Seth’s tidy house on his way to the backyard, he noted that while there were a lot of plants there wasn’t much that was personal. A single framed photograph, no knickknacks, nothing that screamed “Seth” to him. He snorted. Like he knew who Seth was.

“Hey, how was the shower? You look better.” Seth was sitting in one of several ratty plastic lounge chairs, long legs stretched out in front of him, an open beer on a small side table between the chairs.

The slight breeze fluttering into the backyard, across his body, and through his damp hair cooled Sacha’s still-overheated skin. Flopping down onto the chair next to Seth’s with a groan, he leaned back and shut his eyes.

Lack of sleep and exhaustion from the unending construction threatened to overwhelm him. Sacha was suddenly so tired forming words was impossible. So he didn’t; he lay back in the creaky chair and let the breeze, the sounds of the neighborhood, and the fragrant scents from Seth’s garden wash over him.

A light touch grazed his shoulder. Snapping out of a hazy dream, he grabbed the wrist of whoever touched him. Seth, of course, his brain told him. Awareness sizzled under his skin. He knew Seth felt it too; he dropped Seth’s arm before he pulled Seth onto his lap or down to the ground so he could further explore his body like he wanted.

“Didn’t mean to startle you.” The sun was directly behind Seth, so Sacha couldn’t see him clearly, his face thrown into deep shadow. “I’m gonna grill chicken and veggies, sound good?”

Sacha’s stomach rumbled. Seth chuckled.

“I’ll take that as a yes, big guy.” He turned and headed into the house. Sacha was momentarily blinded by the glare of the sun as he moved away. “While you were napping, I called a friend. His boyfriend got called out of town, so he’s at loose ends. He’s going to be here in a few.”

“I wasn’t napping,” Sacha mumbled, but Seth was inside already and didn’t hear his ridiculous protest.

Sacha’s ass was still firmly planted in the lounge chair when Seth’s friend arrived. He was a little shorter than Seth, slender, with crazy curly brown hair. He tripped on the way down the back steps, nearly losing hold of the six-pack of beer he had in one hand.

“They don’t call me Grace for a reason.” Smiling, he stuck a hand out. “Micah Ryan, thanks for letting me crash your dinner.”

The two men were funny; clearly there was significant affection between the two of them. Seth brought up the Warrick, and the three of them spent the rest of the evening discussing the building, renovations, and general Skagit history. Micah was a local and knew a lot of random facts about Skagit.

“So, yeah, the Warrick brothers were local lumber barons who cashed out their investments in land to start a bank. This is all before any kind of banking regulation, and the brothers were somehow ousted and replaced by the Cutler family. I think one of the Warrick brothers lost the bank in a bet?”

“No way!”

“It was a pretty big scandal for the time. Skagit had like 2,000 permanent residents at the time, so everybody knew everybody’s business. Kinda like now.” Micah snickered.

“Skagit is still pretty small.”

“Man, if I wasn’t so busy with work right now I’d totally come over to help you out. Maybe I’ll stop by, if it’s okay, and get a tour?”

Sacha found himself agreeing.

The evening light faded, and Micah gathered himself to leave, muttering about his evil cat. Sacha made to leave as well, but Seth stopped him with a hand to his shoulder as Micah exited through the side gate, managing not to trip this time.

“This may sound crazy, but you’re welcome to crash on the couch here. It has to be more comfortable than the pancake you’ve been sleeping on.”

It was probably the beers that had him nodding without hesitation, or maybe his near inability to move. Lack of sleep, beer, and the thought of something not hardwood underneath his body as he slept sounded like nirvana. He wasn’t certain who was more surprised that he accepted, him or Seth.

“I’d offer you the spare room, but it’s still full of boxes from when I moved in. I haven’t bothered to unpack everything yet. You could share my bed but,” a naughty grin spread across Seth’s face, eyes filled with blatant appreciation, “when I get you there it’s not going to be for sleeping. And, sadly, I think that’s what you need most right now.”

Sacha found himself prone on a lumpy, slightly musty couch hardly long enough for his body, a sheet and light blanket thrown over him. He barely heard Seth as he moved around, locking up the house, before falling into a deep, mostly dreamless sleep.