Chapter Sixteen
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A little less than three hours later, the game is over and our team was victorious. I’m sprawled on the chaise end of the sectional, and Allie’s lounging on the long end with his head in my lap. We’ve already fucked twice, as promised, and now we’ve gotten back into the snacks. As I extract another Cheeto from the bag, Allie gives me a look so dubious I almost glance over my shoulder. What?
“Are you seriously eating those with chopsticks?”
I crunch down on the powdered-cheese-encrusted snack food and chew idly before answering. “Of course. Doesn’t everyone?”
“No. Definitely not.”
“Are you sure? It seems like the only sensible way to go.”
“Positive.”
“Then what do other people do about the cheese dust issue? It’s bad enough it gets on my shirt—” The dubious look is back. “Or would, if I were wearing a shirt. But it gets under your nails and it’s impossible to get rid of. I can’t have fluorescent orange cheese powder on my hands.”
Allie sticks a hand in the bag—a hand!—and extracts an entire fistfull. He eats them one at a time, pausing between each and keeping eye contact throughout. He’s sass eating. That’s what he’s doing. I’d be annoyed, but I’m honestly impressed. When he’s finished, he shows me his hand, covered with exactly the shade of orange I’m afraid of, and proceeds to lick. First his palm and then finger by finger.
Despite having gone twice in the past two hours, I’m immediately hard. When he’s finished, he shows me his palm and then his knuckles. Despite not seeing a shred of evidence, I catch him by the wrist.
“You missed a bit. Here, I’ll help.” I abandon my chopsticks to the side table and take his wrist in both hands, sucking first his pinky finger, followed by his bare ring finger, and then his middle finger. It’s…downright obscene. Judging by the way the blanket draped about Allie’s waist is tenting, it makes him feel as turned on as I do. Convenient, that.
I suck beyond the second joint and slide toward the knuckle, taking his thick finger toward my throat. I work at him until he’s desperate and moaning, squirming on my lap, his own mouth opening and closing as if he wants nothing more than to have something in it. That can be arranged.
Popping off his hand, I grab his jaw hard enough to make him startle.
“Suck me.”
“Yes, sir.”
It’s somewhat garbled because I’m holding him so roughly, but I’d recognize those words anywhere. They’re some of the finest words in the English language, especially when coming from someone like Allie. After I let go, it doesn’t take him long to come onto his knees and yank the blanket off my lap and get down to business, head bowed and sucking like…
My head drops back, and I cup the back of his skull, wishing not for the first time he had some hair for me to grab. I settle for taking an earlobe between two fingers and rubbing, which, judging by the way he arches his spine and spreads his legs wider, is something he enjoys. What I’d like to do is give it a hard twist and make him gasp, but if he bit down in surprise, I’d only have myself to blame. I settle for increasing pressure until he whimpers, and my dick jerks in his mouth. So hot, preposterously hot.
When I twist oh so slowly, he full-on squeals, and it’s all I can do to keep my come from spurting down his throat. Though it’s not as if I’m going to come on him, not in his sister’s living room—so I may as well. I grab both his earlobes and subject them to the same vicious treatment, making him pant and groan and squeak. The cacophony of his noises is at a fever pitch, and it makes me want to try something.
With his ears hot and throbbing between my fingers, I score the back of his neck with my nails, dragging them toward his throat, and forcing an incredible sound around my cock. That’s it. He sucks me hard, and I picture piercing him, breaking that barrier, literally getting under his skin, raising blood, and yeah, I’m done for. I shoot down his throat, and his hips thrust forward. I can tell by the sloppy way he’s finishing me that he came too. Good. The idea draws another pulse of orgasm from me, and I drop my head back again, gentling my grip on his lobes and pinching lightly until he’s done.
I pat his jaw, fingers landing behind his ears, to let him know I’m finished, we can be finished. He lets my cock slide from his mouth, and he collapses once again, head in my lap where I stroke him, so pleased with him. Because damn, that felt good, and I love that he loves to be hurt, can come from being hurt and sucking on my dick, and that’s enough.
“So this sports thing isn’t so bad.”
He laughs and burrows into my side, and it’s not long until he’s fallen asleep.
*
A few hours later, he wakes with a snuffle and rubs his head into me. I squeeze his shoulder to let him know I’m awake. India used to scold me for being preternaturally still, so I’ve learned to let people know when I’m conscious, lest they do things in front of me they wouldn’t otherwise.
He rolls up off the couch and stretches, the blanket dropping to the floor and leaving him standing there, naked. My god is he marvelous. I could look at him all day. And all night. What I ought to do is get him some water, feed him, and get him to bed. That wasn’t a particularly strenuous or intense scene, but he’d already been hollering and fist-pumping his way through the game.
If I’d known I’d get to see him this excited about something, anything, I would’ve done this a long time ago. Maybe I’ll see if I can’t get tickets to a live game. Or would that irritate him?
Next time I should fuck someone with less pride. Though that’s one of my favorite things about Allie, so while I sometimes might have to take the long way around, I won’t complain. Too much. Certainly not to him.
He reaches toward me, and I take his hand, wondering if he’s going to shoo me out now we’ve had our fun. But no. He tugs me to my feet and mumbles, “bed,” so I follow, leaving my own blanket to fall on the floor. He tows me down the narrow hallway and to a room at the end of the hall. It must be his sister’s room because it’s got a double bed.
Not the most luxurious accommodations, but the sheets are clean, the bed made, and it’ll mean having Allie close to me for as long as this will last.
I wait for him to take up space on the bed before I lay down next to him. The likelihood I’ll sleep is not high, and it’s not as though I’ll be in pain tomorrow if I sleep awkwardly, whereas he certainly could be. When I take my place next to him on my back, it warms my heart that he uses his head to nudge under my arm, laying his head on my chest and flopping a heavy arm across my ribcage.
It’s impossible not to stroke his head, the tiny amount of stubble under my fingertips creating a sensation that’s downright addictive. I’m expecting to hear the deep, even breathing of slumber, the hot, slightly damp air emanating from his slack mouth in sleep. What I actually get is a soft sigh and a stroke of fingertips across the hair on my chest.
“Why do you act like you don’t like sports?”
“Do I?”
“Well, you don’t seek them out.”
“No,” I agree. Where precisely is he heading with this?
“But you picked up the rules pretty quickly and even made some intelligent comments. You’re clearly not as dense about sports as you pretend to be.”
My throat constricts around a hard swallow. Because I’m not. When I was a kid, I could rattle off baseball statistics like no one’s business. My particular area of expertise was Dominican players, every one of whose status and ERA I could spit out, but I knew all the conference standings on any given day, lived and died by the Mets. Because those are the games my dad would take me to when he could. Which wasn’t often. More often, I’d sneak a call to him after a particularly awesome game, leave a message on his answering machine.
“It’s something I used to keep up with but don’t anymore. Baseball. The Mets.”
He’s silent. What’s he thinking about? “Same. Phillies. I stopped because it used to be something I’d do with my dad. And then…”
Then what? Allie’s never mentioned his father, but I’ve never cared to ask why. None of my business and it’s not unusual, but now my confounded curiosity kicks up and I need to know. He left? He died? They didn’t have enough money to go? Impatience for his answer claws at me, but as so often is the key, I wait. And wait.
“He died when I was eleven, and I lost the taste for it. Used to avoid fields on my way home from school because I didn’t want to look at them and think of him. After a while, I missed the excitement, you know? The teams, the competition, the feeling like you belong to something bigger than yourself.”
I smother a snort. You think, military man?
“I tried basketball and football, but they didn’t hold my interest. Or maybe it was too soon. I don’t know. The first time I went to see the Flyers, I was hooked. I was like the only black kid there, and I felt ridiculous because I didn’t know jackshit about the game. At first, I mostly liked the fights. The checking. Then I started paying attention. Learned the game. Addicted ever since.”
Another piece of the Allie puzzle. Another thread that binds me to him.
“Same. I mean, about your dad. Mine got killed in the line of duty when I was seven. Didn’t go to games after that, even though my mom tried. Got us ridiculous tickets because she thought it’d cheer me up. It didn’t. I went because she was trying so hard and I didn’t want to disappoint her, but I threw up my hotdog in the bathroom at Shea. I think she understood after that.”
Allie nods into me, and for the first time, I feel as though someone has actually understood. What it felt like to kneel on the disgusting stadium floor puking up my guts because I couldn’t express my grief any other way. How I still avoid all of it except in the most ridiculous terms because it hurts too much. Let people think I’m an idiot, some flamingly fey thing who cares more about fashion and antiques than ESPN. As long as they leave me alone.
“Your dad was a cop, right?”
“Why do you sound surprised?”
“Cops tend to be kinda law and order. Not like you.”
For some reason, that makes me bristle. I’m very orderly. And I like rules. A lot. On the other hand, only the ones of my own making. The rest of them…meh. That’s probably what he’s talking about.
“I’m not exactly an agent of chaos.”
“No, but you act like you’re above the law. More impressively, you get away with it. Most of the people I know who act like that have gotten shot.”
I probably should’ve gotten shot, given some of the stuff I pulled in Philadelphia, but that’s ancient history now. The man’s a handful and a half, but I thank the universe every damn day it sent Brandy into my life. I’d have been dead in an alley half a lifetime ago.
“What about your dad? What did he do?”
“He was a DJ on the radio. A good one. Kind of a big deal in Philadelphia. Lucky for me too. The judge I got the last time I got hauled in was a big fan of my dad’s. Gave me the choice of joining up or a stint in juvie. Obviously I picked the Army, and my mom gave her consent because she didn’t know what the hell else to do with me.”
Thank god for that because who knows what would’ve happened to him if he’d stayed? His father being a DJ, though? I doubt that got him killed. And because I’m tired of exercising patience and we’re apparently baring our scars, I just ask. “How’d he die?”
“Stupid, really. Probably shouldn’t have happened. He wasn’t feeling well one day and he ignored it, but finally my mom got him to go to the ER. Meningitis. He was throwing up, confused, light-sensitive… If they’d done anything about it, instead of assuming he was high because he was black—” The anger in his voice and in his body is barely restrained, and my insides clench. Meningitis can be tricky, but maybe he didn’t have to die. Some fucking racist hospital staff might have killed him by not doing their goddamn jobs.
“I’m sorry, Hart.”
“Yeah. My mom did the best she could, but she was pretty messed up for a long time after he died. Ended up losing the house, having to move to a shitty neighborhood, and took two full-time jobs to keep me and my sisters fed and clothed. Even then, we were on food stamps for a while. She didn’t have a whole lot of time to look after us. Kendra and my other sisters never got into all that much trouble, but I more than made up for it.
“I think Kendra is so careful with money because she sees our mom as a cautionary tale. She bought this place and then put aside a bunch of her SGLI—you know, death benefits?—for the kids to go to college. Tries not to dip into the rest much. So she bartends to make money and takes part-time classes to get her MSW. It’s not ideal, but it lets her be around more than my mom could be. Doesn’t want my nephew growing up like I did, getting involved with street life.”
The look on his face is part-wistful, part-regret.
“I was looking for a family, you know? People who would be around, who would have my back. It was easy to see that in the gang that ran the blocks around our house. Plus, they always had food and girls and…”
He sneaks me a look, and I keep the neutral but interested expression plastered on my face, though the compassion wants to seep through. That’s when the smile lights up his face, and I can see the cocksure and charismatic adolescent he must’ve been. “The sneakers, man. They always had the best kicks.”
“Which helped you get the girls,” I supply.
The brash grin I get in response makes me want to wrestle him onto his back and have him again. I want that hard-earned arrogance to be mine, for his iron will to bend to mine. “Yeah, it did.”
“Did you like sleeping with women?”
“Sure. Still do. Plus, if I wanted to have sex when I was a teenager—” And who doesn’t? “—girls were pretty much my option. But I…I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. I’ll have sex with women and it’s good, but the people I’ve wanted to be with, not for a night or not just to hang out with, but as a…partner?”
Ridges form on his forehead, and I want to wipe them clean. You can be with whomever you want, in whatever capacity you want. Tell me and I will do my best to make your dreams come true.
“I like men.”
I nod, knowing precisely what he means, though I suspect he gets more pleasure out of having sex with women than I ever have. “I hear you.”
It takes him a second, but then he’s looking up at me through narrowed eyes. “You’ve slept with women?”
“That’s surprising?”
“Uh, yeah. You kind of seem like a gold star gay.”
I snort, which is incredibly indecorous, so I make up for it with an indolent wave of my hand. “Occupational hazard.”
Hart’s brows crumple, a line forming in his flawless skin. “Wait, what? You fuck your clients?”
“Sometimes. Not all of them.” I shrug. It’s not really a big deal.
“You fuck people for money?”
“No,” I clarify, “though some of the best people I know in this world are sex workers, so you need to tread carefully. I train people for money, and sometimes having sex is part of that. I also happen to beat the shit out of people, teach them to cook, and listen to them talk, among other things. I hardly think sex is the strangest part of my job.”
He considers this for minutes, and I let him. It’s easy enough because he’s rested his head on my chest again. It’s possible he’ll fall asleep before he figures out how he feels about this, though it’s also possible his mind’s too busy for that. Eventually he rolls up and looks me in the face. “Have you had sex with anyone else since you met me?”
Not a question I particularly want to answer, but what the hell. “No. Why? Would you like to be informed if I do? That’s a reasonable ask.”
“No, I…I guess I’m a little thrown, that’s all.”
“It’s not every day you meet someone who has my job.”
“No, it’s not. Have you ever…fallen in love with any of them? Your clients, I mean? Seems like it’d be easy to do.”
You’d think so. “I haven’t. I mean, I have a great deal of affection for many of my clients, but I’ve never felt the need to settle down with any of them. Playing for keeps isn’t my MO. I did, however, train the person I’ve ever come closest to marrying.”
“Oh, yeah? Do I want to know what he was like?” There’s a teasing lift of his eyebrow, but I think he really is curious. Boy is he going to be surprised. Thing is, he could see for himself, and wouldn’t that be fun? It’s something I find myself wanting, and what’s the harm in offering? He may well say no.
“Actually, I’m supposed to have dinner with her, her husband, and a couple of other friends of ours next week. You could join us if you like.”