Chapter 19
LUCKY
“Don’t pretend like you don’t love me?” I blurted out loud in the empty house to myself.
I don’t know why I said it. I think I meant to say: “Don’t pretend like you don’t love it.”
But instead, I said: “love me.”
Fuck it. I couldn’t take the words back now. Besides, I could’ve meant them teasingly. I doubted he read much into them. He was probably too distracted staring at the permanent boner I just gave him and wondering how the hell to hide it before his next client came strolling through his door.
I should feel bad. I should feel pity for him at the very least. But I didn’t. I’d had a whole weekend of experience learning precisely what made James (or, more specifically, his cock) tick.
He thoroughly loved every bit of torment I put him through. The more I gave, the more he craved.
And I was starting to get some evil ideas of my own.
Power is addictive.
I changed into my own designated work clothes—namely, a pair of loose gym shorts and nothing else—then set to work on the yard, just as I said I would. Last week, I had left some bushes along the side of the house near the game room for myself to trim today.
I was gonna make James’s yard look decent as fuck.
After chopping up and bundling all the severed tree limbs and walking them to the end of James’s long-ass driveway, I discovered I was finished with the yard work a lot sooner than I expected, leaving most of the afternoon free to fuck around. I played a quick game of pool against myself, then watched TV while sipping on a glass of iced raspberry tea. Then I reminded myself that James had his own home gym, which was a room that could have been an office, but had two workout machines in it instead. I flicked on the lights, turned on the stereo to play whatever was in it (old-school Marilyn Manson, of all things), and did my first genuine workout in an actual gym-like setting that I’d had in a very long time.
I felt like a goddamned prince.
A very smelly, sore, sweaty-as-fuck prince.
To end my day as the self-appointed prince of James Manor, I ran a bath in his ridiculously oversized tub and let my weary body soak in the suds for well over an hour. In that tub of steaming hot water with my arms spread along the rim, I let my legs and feet float around as I stared off toward the window, watching the subtle changes in light as a tree outside that I had just trimmed earlier swayed in the gentle wind.
I lied earlier; now, I feel like a prince.
All I needed was to dress James in a bowtie and black thong, then make him serve me grapes while I sat there in that tub.
That thought made me smile ear to cocky ear.
Maybe that’s exactly what I’ll do. I bet James would love it.
I never imagined this could be my life. I had watched so many weary, drunk, sullen-eyed people sitting in front of slot machines with a cigarette hanging off their lip and a watered-down glass of whatever-with-half-melted-ice at their sides, and pull after pull, they never hit the jackpot.
And there I was, living large, under the roof of a handsome man who cared about me, like I scored my own jackpot.
Don’t pretend like you don’t love me.
My face went red, the words still circling my head like a flock of persistent gulls, squawking and taunting me.
Fuck off, gulls.
* * *
A few hours later, James came home from the bank to find me kicked back in front of the TV, cleaned up, dressed, and waiting for him. He stood there for a while and stared at me. I grinned over my shoulder. “What? Did you have a hard day at work?”
“Note my lack of laughter,” he sassed back—but I spotted the bright glint of joy in his eyes at seeing me.
I threw an arm over the back of the couch, twisting around to get a better look at him. I always loved seeing him dressed up in his shirt and tie, coming back from the bank. “Disappointed?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Disappointed that I’m all clean? That I’m not a sweaty mess for you to run your tongue over?”
James pressed his lips together and dodged that question as he made for his bedroom, his dress shoes slapping along the floors as he went.
A tiny lance of worry cut through me. “Hey, James?”
He stopped before going down the short hallway leading to our rooms, then turned. His eyes were light, but guarded. “Yeah?”
When I rose from the couch, James’s eyes trailed down my body. I knew a lustful look when I saw it. It made me smile despite my worries, that he couldn’t help but check me out.
He glanced up at me, pulling his eyes from my body. “Yeah?” he repeated a touch softer.
I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say. “I … decided to put on one of my new outfits.” I slapped a hand to the thigh of the new pair of black jeans I was wearing, then smoothed out the bottom of my red-and-black-and-white striped polo. “What do you think? You picked these out for me.”
“You … look very nice,” he finally told me, his eyes scanning down my body again. “Really, really nice.” Then his eyes went to the top of my head. “Nice touch.”
I forgot I put on my black cap. I brought a hand to it, cocked it sideways, then shrugged. “You can take the boy outta the beach town, but … can’t take the motherfuckin’ hat off his head.”
James laughed at that, some tension in his face released. “Nice and clean. You look really, really nice.”
“Your bathtub is ‘really, really nice’, too,” I said back to him, half-mocking the way he ogled me with his words.
He met my eyes and shook his head. “That was mean as fuck, what you did to me this morning.”
“Shut up. You loved it,” I teased him, shoving my hands into my pockets.
He took a deep breath, then let it all out as his eyes wandered over my body again. “It’s a good thing you dressed up, because as it turns out, we’re going out for drinks tonight.”
The news came as a surprise—a very pleasant surprise. “Fine with me,” I blurted right away.
The truth was, I was itching to get out of the house. I would have jumped at the suggestion to go fucking anywhere. Hell, he could have asked if I wanted to watch birds shit on cars at a local parking lot and I would’ve said yes.
“It’s my friend Duncan,” he explained as he pulled off his tie and disappeared in his room, then kept talking. “The one I told you about last night. He demanded that he meets you, so I agreed that we’d join him for Happy Hour at this place we like to go to called Ringers.” He popped his head out of his room while unbuttoning his shirt. “Hope that’s alright with you.”
“Totally.” I watched him unbutton.
But then James disappeared back into his room. I heard the click of a belt buckle releasing, then the swish of clothing. “He is being a total dick about it, too. He wants to know what the big deal is. Why I canceled going with them. Well, I mean, he knows why. But he wants to see why, if that makes sense.”
“Makes sense.” I came to his bedroom doorway, then watched as he slipped his legs into a pair of jeans with his back turned to me. I licked my lips as I watched his butt work its way into those pants. The way he moved was doing something to me. “How loose are the bartenders at this Ringers place?”
James turned quickly at the sound of my voice. For a second, he looked like he wanted to protest that he was getting dressed, but then maybe reminded himself that I’d seen him naked half the weekend and showered with him—twice.
“Loose?” he finally asked.
“Yeah. Are they gonna check my ID?”
“Oh … uh, yes. Yes, they will. We’ll just make up a story,” he went on, speaking a bit too fast. “We’ll come up with something. You’ll order a soda, then say something about how your dad’s an alcoholic. Or you just don’t drink. He’ll be fine with either excuse. He won’t judge you too hard. I mean, he’s a schoolteacher, so—”
“Why not just tell him the truth? That I’m not old enough?”
“I …” James let out a short sigh, then went for his closet to pick out a shirt. “I just … I haven’t quite figured out how to, uh …” His voice trailed off.
I nodded, following him. “You don’t want him to know.”
“It’s not that. It’s … It’s just …” He let out another sigh that revealed more of his frustration. He pulled a red polo off of a hanger with conviction. “Duncan is a schoolteacher.”
“You mentioned that.”
“And his students … well, most of them are near your age. He might hear that I’m … involved with a …” James gestured toward me, then shut his eyes in frustration, crossed his arms, and bowed his head. “Can you not make me explain it, please?”
“You think he’ll think it’s weird. Like you’re cradle-robbing or something. It embarrasses you, being involved with me.”
James looked up at me at once. “You do not embarrass me.”
“But my age does.”
He made his way to the bed and carelessly tossed the red polo onto the bedspread. “Can we please just get on the same page here?” he begged me as he took off his shirt and pitched it aside. “It’s bad enough that Duncan’s on my ass about this. I just don’t want him causing more trouble. Guilt-tripping me. Whatever.” I watched his smooth, broad back dance as he worked his way into the red polo. “I mean, we go way back, the two of us.”
I decided to play it cool. I came right up to him and smoothed out the collar, which was sticking up in the back. “Just tell me what you want me to say, James. I’ll say it. I can be twenty-two. Or twenty-five. Whatever you want.” I gave his shirt a tug, pulling him close to me. “But I won’t say my dad was an alcoholic. That bastard’s addiction isn’t alcohol; it’s money.”
A flicker of guilt crossed James’s face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be insensitive about … him. The words just flew out of my mouth.”
Don’t pretend like you don’t love me. I flinched at the memory of my own words this morning. “No big deal,” I mumbled too quickly.
His face was so close to mine when he turned to get a look at me. “Let’s get our story straight on the car ride over. It’ll be fine.”
I smirked approvingly. “It’ll be fine,” I agreed.
Famous last words, right?
* * *
An hour and a half later after grabbing a quick bite to eat, we stepped out of his car and began approaching the front of Ringers, one of the only two bars in Little Water. The place was busy as hell for a Monday evening, which I guess wasn’t that surprising; in a town like this, there were only so many options one had for entertainment or blowing off the steam of another workday.
His friend Duncan was already there, waiting. Duncan was a couple inches taller than James and looked older, yet they were the same age apparently. He had a nerdy-cute look about him, wearing designer glasses and a loose plaid button-up shirt with the sleeves messily rolled up to his elbows. When we approached, he stood from his stool and his eyes were on me right away. He squinted through the smoke of the room as he sized me up.
I put out a hand first. “Lucas,” I introduced myself. “You must be James’s friend Duncan.”
Duncan nodded stiffly, then shook my hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He gave James a distracted nod, then returned all his attention to me. “So what’s your poison? First round’s on me.”
James and I shot a look at one another. “I’ll just take a Coke,” I told him. “I don’t drink.”
Duncan eyed the pair of us, then shrugged and sat on his stool. “Alright, then. That’s fine with me. Coke for Lucas. And two dirty-ass up-to-no-good martinis for us.”
“Actually, I’m driving,” James put in, “so I should also just—”
“Dude, I can’t drink alone,” Duncan complained. “C’mon. You gotta drink with your pal, damn it. Make Lucas drive y’all home. You trusted him with your house already. What’s it to you to trust him with your vehicle?” He shrugged, then flagged down a nearby server. “Two dirty-ass martinis and one clean-ass Coke, please.”
The server took off. I couldn’t help but smirk at this Duncan character’s brusqueness. He reminded me of a friend I’d made and lost on the beach last year. He was one of the first guys I met who taught me survival skills and was kind to me—kind in a very dry-humored, self-deprecating, awful sort of way. Maybe that was why I clicked with Duncan so quickly.
“So I’ll be honest,” Duncan started, “you aren’t anything like I expected. Not that James described you. At all. He didn’t.”
“What’d you expect, then?” I asked him.
“I really have no idea. Maybe that’s part of the reason I had to meet you. See for myself what would make my friend flip his life upside-down.” Duncan sneered teasingly at James, whose face was on its way to becoming a tomato. “I guess you’re basically the gay equivalent to a pair of double D’s, aren’t you, Lucas?”
“Hey, I’m just a guy like any other, nothing special about me at all.” I shrugged, then elbowed James. “We just hit it off.”
James met my eyes right then. I gave him a reassuring smile. This is going well, I thought to myself.
“So give me the story,” said Duncan, slapping the table. “I’m dying to hear it. Let’s go.”
It was James who spoke up. “Long and short of it is, Lucas and I met the last time all of us were at the Royal Flush. Two weekends ago. I couldn’t get him out of my mind that whole week, so I went back on my own that following weekend, which you already know about.” James flicked his gaze over at me. “We clicked really well. Lucas is between living arrangements right now. So I thought—”
“Let the total stranger move into your house,” Duncan finished for James with a smear of sarcasm sauce on his attitude burger. “I know the rest of the story. But …” Then he turned and studied me. “Don’t get me wrong, Lucas. I know we only just now met, but I’m actually getting zero bad vibes from you. I know a whacko when I see one. You, sir, are not a whacko.”
I narrowed my eyes uncertainly. “Uh, thanks.”
“But I’m still having trouble with the logic here. I mean, James here, my friend for years, I know what he’s like. He would hesitate to let Quinton stay in his guest room if he showed up wanting a place to crash because he’s a little wild, cries when he’s drunk, and showers twice a week. James is the kind of guy who locks the car doors when I stop for gas halfway to the casinos. James will check the deadbolt on the hotel room door—twice—before going to bed.”
“Duncan,” he muttered warningly.
“I’m just saying. It doesn’t make sense yet that you’d let Lucas here—no offense, seriously, just trying to wrap my brain around it—stay in your house. After knowing him for … how long?”
“A couple days. And the reason is simple,” James began.
I cut in, tired of the charade. “The reason is I’m homeless.”
James turned his head to me, wide-eyed.
Yeah, that wasn’t exactly what we had discussed in the car. I went off the script and dove straight into the truth.
The server brought our drinks at that convenient point. After the server left, Duncan, calm as ever, took a long, languid sip of his martini and set it down. “Between living arrangements … I believe that’s how James put it to me on the phone.” He shrugged. “Well, you didn’t exactly lie to me, to be fair.”
“No, I didn’t,” reasoned James a bit tersely.
“But hey, I’m not here to judge. The best of us fall on hard times.” Duncan gave me a reassuring nod. “If you saw the shoebox I had to live in my first few years after college … oh, man, nothing teaches you humility better than having twenty cockroaches for roommates. Maybe I should have taken one of James’s rooms. Of course, he didn’t have his grandpa’s house back then.”
“I know all about humility,” I confessed, then took a sip of my Coke, swallowed, and set it down softly, my eyes full of thoughts. “I don’t think I got a decent night’s sleep in a year. Not until this special guy took me in.” I looked over at James, who regarded me with a curious, touched expression. “Saved my life, really.”
James’s lips parted as he watched me. He couldn’t speak.
Duncan, dry as a bone, said, “Well, you saved James’s dick, too. He’s been single so long, I’m surprised it hasn’t fallen off yet.”
James smiled tightly. “Duncan’s such a good straight friend. Always looking out for the welfare of his gay buddy’s dick.”
I gave James a microscopic smile, then reached over and gave his thigh a squeeze. “I know all about that.”
James stiffened up, then swallowed hard.
“So tell me,” Duncan cut in, “where are you from? Like, your family, or where you lived last, or wherever.”
I let go of James and propped my elbows up on the table to face Duncan. “Just north of the beach a ways.”
“North? How far north?” he inquired. “Fairview? Briarthorn? Silver Meadows?”
I couldn’t quickly think of a reason not to tell him the truth, so I just let it out. “Northpoint.”
Duncan lifted a dubious eyebrow. “Northpoint. Really.”
“Yep.”
“Hmm.” Duncan eyed James as he took another generous sip of his martini, then looked back at me as he set down his glass. “I know a colleague who actually teaches in Northpoint. At a private school, like me. Ever heard of Wilfred Academy?”
My back stiffened. My dad had wanted to send me there, but I insisted on staying in public school with all my friends I knew. It was my mother who persuaded him not to enroll me.
“I think so,” I answered vaguely. “Heard of it, at least.”
“Nice area,” he murmured back, watching me coolly over the rim of his glass as he went for another sip.
James rose from his seat abruptly after that. “I gotta go take a leak. I’ll be right back.” He cut through the crowd and was gone.
I stared after him, concerned about the sudden departure.
Duncan leaned over the table, pulling my focus back to him. “You know I teach at a private high school for a living, right?”
I squinted. “What’s your point?”
“I know a rich kid when I see one.”
I felt my insides turn to ice. My elbows slipped off the table as I crossed my arms. My defenses went up instantly. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I’m no fuckin’ rich kid.”
“You’re not a homeless kid, either.”
“Not anymore.”
“How old are you, anyway? Eighteen? Nineteen? That’s why you’re not drinking, isn’t it?”
It was unsettling, how direct Duncan got when James wasn’t around. “How could you know that?”
“Because I’m smart as fuck. But more importantly, unlike my buddy James, I’m able to think with the right head.”
I stared him down, my jaw tightening.
“Listen.” Duncan let out a sigh, then put his arms on the table. “I’m not here to crucify you. I’m just looking out for James. He’s a good man with a big lonely heart. He’s been hurt before. I care about him. You look out for your friends, too, don’t you?”
“I don’t have any friends,” I shot back.
He shifted in his seat, his eyes still on me. “If I’m being frank, Lucas, you don’t look like a guy with malicious intentions. I might even dare to say you look nice. Caring. Concerned. I don’t doubt you’re into my friend, and I don’t doubt you care about him. But you’re also young … and I know young minds. Do you have goals? Is there something you’re trying to do with your life?”
“Why are you getting into my business?”
“You look to me like a bright young guy with promise. I want to know my instinct isn’t off. Did you even graduate high school?”
I flicked my eyes away from Duncan, frustrated and uneasy. What was that guy trying to do? Push me out of James’s life? He didn’t even know me for more than a handful of minutes.
But he wasn’t exactly wrong about a certain suspicion of his. I still wasn’t completely transparent with James about the family I came from. It was less about me lying and more about me not revealing the whole truth. I ran away from a gold mine to bury myself in dirty sand, street smog, and dumpster stink.
James didn’t know that I came from a rich family. Was that going to change everything? Even if I’ve sworn away that life for good?
Just when I was about to give Duncan an answer, I spotted a man across the room. It was a balding, suited man with a deep red mustache and a ring of thinning hair from one temple around the back of his head to the other.
His eyes caught mine just as mine caught his.
I turned away at once and brought up a hand, shielding my face. I knew that guy. He was a business associate of my father’s. I knew I had seen him on several occasions at my father’s office and even once at a dinner at our house.
What the fuck is he doing out here in Little Water?
“Something wrong?” asked Duncan, concerned.
My stomach was too busy flipping over for me to answer him. I didn’t know what to say or do, anyway. I was paralyzed to my toes, my free hand clenched into a fist.
He leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “Lucas?”
“We gotta go,” I finally choked out, my chest tightened.
“Go? Like, right now?”
“Yes. Right now.”
“Are we in danger or something?”
“I don’t know.”
His face serious, Duncan glanced to the left, to the right, then nodded. “Alright, let’s disappear.”
Duncan tossed some cash at the table, flagged the server, then said, “When our friend returns, can you tell him we’re outside? Thanks.” Then, quickly, Duncan threw an arm over my back—the gesture surprising me—and guided me to the exit. I peered over my shoulder once and did not spot the man again.
We stood near James’s car after that, which was barely within view of the front door in case that man came out for some reason. If I had more balls that night, I would’ve stood by that door until he came out, then slammed him to the wall and demanded to know what the fuck he was doing there.
Why am I so convinced my dad gives a shit where I am, anyway?
Duncan lifted an eyebrow tentatively my way. “Level with me, Lucas. Do we have to call the police?”
“No. But he might if he gets near me.”
“Well, you’ve got me a bit worried. What is all this about? Did you see … an abusive ex-boyfriend in there or something?”
I shot him a smirk, straightening up. “Seriously? Do I look like a guy who gets abused?”
Duncan shrugged. “Well, to be fair, you can’t really tell.”
I kept staring at the front door to Ringers, as if expecting the man to pop out at any moment and approach me, interrogating me on behalf of my father. Truthfully, I didn’t know what the hell to expect. It was the first time I’d seen anyone I recognized from Northpoint since I had run away. I felt like my past had come to find me, like a stalker in the night, refusing to let me go my way.
Really, it just pissed me off more than anything.
I was so focused on the door, I didn’t notice Duncan texting on his phone, the light from the screen painting his face a bright, bluish white. “I told James to stop primping in the damned bathroom mirror,” he explained to me when I glanced his way. “He’s coming out in a second.”
“Alright.”
After another moment, Duncan let out a short sigh. “I know I have the reputation of being the dick among my circle of friends.” He glanced at me. “I … get a bit tired of myself from time to time. Really, my job has made me jaded about today’s youth. I only teach the privileged, these kids who have no idea what it’s like to fend for themselves from day to day, who have no idea what it’s like to work for every cent you’ve got. You …” He shook his head and crossed his arms. “You don’t deserve to have my biases taken out on you just because you’re not a student of mine and I can legally tell you to go fuck yourself with a golden banana without repercussions. That isn’t fair to you.”
I wrinkled my face and peered at him. “You actually want to tell your students that?”
“Some of them. Most of them. Ugh, all of them.” He eyed me. “The point is, you’re not them. I know that. I can tell. I just want to make sure you’re not gonna break my best friend’s heart.”
“We’re just friends,” I recited automatically. “No one’s gonna break anything.”
“Friends,” echoed Duncan dubiously. “You two look like a lot more’s going on than just ‘friends’.”
The door to Ringers swung open. My chest clenched up for a split second until James appeared. He looked around, then caught sight of us.
“You don’t have to protect James from me,” I told Duncan. “If anyone fucks with James—myself included—I’ll beat his ass to the damned concrete.”
With that, I pushed away from the car, approaching James as he came our way. James stopped in front of me, then shifted his eyes worriedly between me and Duncan. “He said something about you wanting to go suddenly. What happened?”
I glanced back at Duncan who stood by the car with a curious, appraising look on his face. I wondered if my last words hit him in the right place, quashing his doubts. “I saw a friend of my fuckwad dad’s in there.”
“Shit. You think he recognized you?”
“He did.” I was certain of it the longer I pictured his face. And the longer I pictured his face, the madder I got.
“Let’s go somewhere else,” James suggested. “There’s a pool hall we can hit up several blocks over.”
I nodded. “Let’s hit it.”
Soon after, the three of us were playing pool in the corner of a smoky billiard hall with James and Duncan chugging back beers. Before long, the pair of them were trashed, and I caught myself laughing at their expense more times than I could count.
After winning a game of cutthroat by pocketing Duncan’s last ball (I had been knocked out three turns ago), James tugged his watery, drunken eyes up to meet mine, and a flicker of hesitation went through them. For a second, it looked like he wanted to go in for a kiss, then realized we were in a public place and thought the better of it. Or maybe it was because Duncan was watching over the rim of his glass as he chugged some more beer.
Just kidding. He wasn’t watching shit. That guy was so wasted, he was looking around him in circles with a shit-eating grin on his face like someone was blowing him under the pool table.
That thought made me bite my lip. That’d be a hot thing to make James do to me next time we play at his house.
Yeah, even with my worries, I couldn’t suppress my desire for James. It surged forth at the most inappropriate times, even when I was angry, even when I was toiling over some bullshit or battling persistent doubts of my own. Even as we started another game of cutthroat and that fucking man’s face kept flashing in my mind, I was already planning what I would do to James to drive him wild when we got home. Hell, I was planning what the hell I could do to him right there in the billiard hall. I didn’t care who saw.
But before I could manage anything, Duncan took note of the time, then kicked himself for losing track of it. “This is your fault, James,” he yelled at him in mock anger. “My body feels like it has to make up drunk-time with you because you weren’t there this weekend at the Foyal Rush. And it’s a school night!”
“Royal Flush,” James corrected blithely, belched, then added, “and a work night for me as well.” He glanced my way, squinting. “Hey, I don’t remember coming here with two guys named Lucky.”
“Lucky?” Duncan looked between us, his eyes glassy.
“It’s what I called him when we first met.” James held the pool table for balance. “Lucky. Because I’m lucky to have him.”
“You call him Lucky because you are?” Duncan snorted, then shook his head. “Alright. I’m in need of a bed right now. I’m gonna call myself an Uber. What’s the name of this shit place?”
The realization of Duncan’s words hit James hard as he lifted his gaze, straightened up, and glanced my way.
I shrugged and held out my palm. “Keys.”
“You sure?” James asked, though from the sound of his voice, I think James was the unsure one.
“Yep.” Not waiting for him, I reached right into his pocket and took the keys for myself. James stared at me, wide-eyed, lips parted, as I did so. Considering they were in his front pocket and I had to dig for a second, I think my hand might have come an inch too close to his easy excitable tool. Also, it wasn’t lost on me that we were approaching day ten of his self-imposed sexual torture. “I’m taking the wheel.”
“Can you drive me home, too?” blurted Duncan suddenly. “I don’t know if I wanna throw up in the back of a stranger’s car.”
James blanched. “So you’d rather throw up in mine?”
“Best friends with benefits,” sang Duncan, shoving away his phone, stumbling over to me, and slapping a hand to my shoulder. “I live close by. It’s just a ten-minute detour. James owes me.”
“Great. I miss one weekend and I owe you for life now.”
“Yep,” barked Duncan.
When I sat in the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition, I felt a surge of excitement at the sound. I hadn’t been behind a wheel in so damned long. My left hand hung over the top of the steering wheel while my right gripped the gear shift. A smile spread over my face as I checked my mirrors.
“Two blocks over and all the—” Duncan let out another belch. “—all the way down.”
James sat next to me, and boy, was he trying his damnedest not to look drunk as shit—which he was. He sat up straight in his seat, eyes wide open, and watched as I pulled out of the parking lot and started my way down the road.
The way to Duncan’s place was calm until he heard a song on the radio and wanted it turned up, then started singing along from the back seat. Badly. James gripped the center console and the handle to his door like armrests the whole way, unblinking and staring ahead at the road.
We came to a stop in front of Duncan’s building to drop him off. He stumbled out of the car, then came to the window and shouted, “Behave, you two!” through the glass before staggering to his doorstep and fumbling with his keys.
Minutes later, we were on the long stretch of road leading back to James’s. He seemed to relax in his seat, finally trusting my handling of his car. I didn’t speed or take turns too quickly. I was completely sober and wanted to take good care of his vehicle.
That didn’t mean I was being good in my mind.
I was full of bad, dirty thoughts.
“I think he likes you,” mumbled James.
My lips curled. “I think you like me.”
James snorted, finding that too funny. “You’re cute, Lucas.”
“You called me Lucky back at the pool hall,” I noted.
“I know. I miss calling you that.” James shifted in his seat and brought his hands to his lap. “Remember when we were just two dudes in an arcade, scared to open up too much to one another?”
“Scared?” I scoffed at him. “Speak for yourself, bitch.”
He chuckled, then peered over at me. “What are we now?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer. James still seemed to be buzzed, but he had sobered up considerably since we left. It still felt like the wrong time to discuss what the hell was going on between us.
“It’s okay,” he murmured over the soft noise of whatever song was playing on the radio. Neither of us seemed to really be paying attention, considering how low the volume was. “We don’t have to call this anything. I understand. I’m not … I’m not trying to make you say anything. I’m just curious.”
I started massaging the end of the gear shift as I chewed on my thoughts. “What do you wanna be?”
“Yours,” he answered too fast, then laughed and brought a fist to his mouth.
It gave me a boost of confidence, hearing that. I lifted my chin and smirked. “Oh, I know that much already.”
He eyed me. “So why’d you ask, then?”
“Because I want to hear it.”
“Hear what?”
“How badly you want me.”
He squirmed in his seat. “But you can understand why that’s difficult for me to answer, right?” He stuffed his hands between his legs. “I mean, I don’t want to be naïve and pretend like we can actually make something work between us.”
I wrinkled my face. “Why couldn’t we?”
“There is literally a decade of time between us, and then some. All of your twenties, for instance. It would be irresponsible of me to want to ‘claim’ you as my boyfriend or something.”
“You speak really articulate for a shitfaced guy,” I observed.
“I’m not shitfaced. I’m buzzed. Barely.” He let out a sigh. “And maybe I’m confused. Maybe I’m just horny. Well, I am just horny. Can you blame me?”
“Nope. I can’t.”
“Fuck, I am so horny.”
“I know.”
“So, so, so fucking horny.”
There were twenty minutes left on this road at the very least before we’d be turning onto James’s street. The road was narrow, and there were only fields of grass, corn, and nothing all around us for miles and miles.
The night, the hum of the engine, and the barely-there music from the radio were our only companions.
So I let out one of my bad ideas to play. “Unzip my pants.”
James turned to me. “Huh?”
“I didn’t stutter, and you’re not shitfaced, so you heard me.”
“Unzip your pants? Now?”
“Right now.”
He reached into my crotch at once and began fidgeting with my pants in pursuit of my button. I didn’t help him at all, sitting in my seat like a king and ignoring his efforts. There was something about making him work for it that gave me a private thrill.
It was addictive, the excitement of having him obey whatever I commanded him to do.
Finally, my button popped open and the fly zipped down. My bulge practically spilled out, fitted as those black jeans were. All the blood in me was already pumping its way down there in waves with eager anticipation. James’s hands expedited that process.
“How’s it look?”
“Perfect,” moaned James.
“Inviting, huh?”
“So fucking inviting.”
“Good. Now get your face in there.”
James didn’t need to be told twice. He leaned over in his seat so far in pursuit of my bulge, his seatbelt choked him at first. He undid his seatbelt, then plunged his face into my crotch. His lips opened up for my bulge, and I felt the heat of his mouth on me.
He tongued the outside of my underwear with such thirsty abandon, my balls already felt wet.
Soaked, even. Fuck, that feels so good.
“It must be heaven down there, huh?” I asked tauntingly from above, keeping my focus deliberately on the road.
His deep moan was my answer, which was both entertaining to hear as well as pleasurable to feel, his moan vibrating my dick.
I let him stay down there for a while as he bathed my whole bulge with his wet tongue. The material of my boxer briefs were so thin and hugged every curve and crevice of my crotch that I felt every single movement of his tongue and his pursed, sucking lips.
I could have closed my eyes and forgotten I was wearing the fuckers at all.
I brought my gear-shift-holding hand to the back of his head, grasped a fistful of his hair, and pulled him off my crotch.
“You ready for more?” I asked him without looking down, like he was just an object for my pleasure, a toy that wasn’t even worth looking at.
“God yes,” he groaned, his lips an inch from my bulge.
I smirked. “You sound so hot begging me for more.”
“I want more.”
“What do you want?”
“Please let me suck your dick.”
“I can’t hear you.”
“PLEASE!” I was really enjoying this. “Let me suck your dick!”
“Out here?” I asked him with mock surprise. “Out here on the road? Where all these ears of corn can see us?”
“Please. Yes. Please.”
“Great. Get my dick out then.”
I still couldn’t be bothered to even assist in making the effort any easier for him. Why exert any effort when I can make him do all the work? James loved being put to work for me.
And it showed in the way he maneuvered the waistband of my underwear down to free my dick. It took him a little rearranging, but it wasn’t long before I was freed and James parted his lips.
“Did I give you permission yet?”
James stopped an inch away from my dick. “Please,” he finally croaked. “C-Can I suck it?”
“Maybe my dick needs some respect, first. Kiss it.”
He kissed it at once. The touch of his soft, wet lips on the tip of my dick made me melt. Fuck.
Still, despite what this was all doing to me, I maintained the authoritativeness in my voice. “Kiss it again.”
He kissed it again.
“Tell it how much you love it,” I ordered.
“I love you so much.” His voice shook with excitement. “You are the most incredible cock in the world. It would be a total honor to suck you, please, please, please.”
Under any other circumstance, I would have laughed my ass off at seeing this: an older man with his face buried in my crotch, worshipping my young cock and literally telling the thing how much he wanted to make sweet mouth-love to it.
But right then, I was too turned on to find a damned thing funny about it at all.
“How much better is it than your own dick?” I asked.
“So much better. So much bigger. So much stronger.”
“A dick as magnificent as mine gets to come whenever it wants to,” I reminded him. “A dick like mine deserves to get sucked.”
“Yes, it does.”
“You ready to show it how much you love it?”
“Please. Yes. Yes, yes, yes.”
“Get on it, then.”
James devoured my dick the next second.
I couldn’t help but part my own lips, my breath stolen as I felt his tongue bathe every inch of my throbbing dick. He went up and down its length with eagerness, swallowing my whole dick with his every plunge. Each time he came up, the cool air from the car washed over it, adding to the sensations that rippled through me.
He did not stop nor slow down. I let off the gas a little without realizing it, then corrected by pressing my foot on the pedal again. I was fighting my instinct to squirm or buck my hips beneath him. It wasn’t his speed that stole my breath. It was the passion he put into it, like he was literally in love with my cock and wanted to show it with every single twist and pull of his mouth and every drag of his slippery, warm tongue.
“Close,” I let out at once, my breath catching in my throat. “I’m close. I’m close. I’m close.”
He wouldn’t stop. He wanted it. He sucked even harder.
“James,” I warned, gripping his hair again. He wasn’t having it, refusing to stop, refusing to slow down. “Fuck. James. James. Oh, God. James.”
And then I shot.
And still, James didn’t stop.
I shot and I shot and I shot. A moan released itself from my chest as I finally bucked my hips up, plunging my dick as far into his mouth as I could, finishing my release.
James lifted off of me right then and settled back into his seat, out of breath. When I glanced over at him, he had a look on his face like he was floating at sea.
I seriously didn’t expect him to take me over the edge and then swallow. Of course I was clean and hadn’t engaged in risky sexual activity, but James didn’t know that.
I wasn’t sure whether to take it as a sign that James was totally reckless, or as a sign that he completely trusted me.
Without warning, I reached over and grabbed a handful of his crotch. James lurched forward, surprised, then peered at me with watery, hungry eyes, as if wondering what I was going to do. I only kept my eyes on the road, smirked, and squeezed my grip tighter, not letting up at all.
“You asked me earlier what I think we are now,” I murmured over the gentle hum of the car. “I’ll tell you what we are. We’re a pair of two seriously twisted-up, horny motherfuckers who can’t seem to get enough of one another.”
James whimpered as I squeezed his bulge.
His cock, hard as steel inside the confines of his pants, flexed urgently in response.
Two seriously twisted-up, horny motherfuckers doesn’t even begin to cover it.