Chapter 3
Somewhere in between interminable rounds of chopping for vegetable hash and mopping up what felt like endless puddles of water, I started needing a drink. I had a fridge full of the local Ninkasi ale upstairs and a bottle of good bourbon that had been my last Christmas present from Randy two years earlier. I didn’t have a good excuse to be craving other choices.
I hauled a load of towels down to the ancient machine in the basement. Our building was a two-story brick relic of the 1920s that had been rehabbed lightly during the Alberta Street revival of the early 2000s, but much of the original setup remained—shop on the main level, storage and a battered cast-iron deep sink with a laundry area in the basement, and the apartment upstairs. The building seemed quieter than usual, the basement stairs creakier.
Ordinarily, I looked forward to the relative peace of Saturday nights—just me and my kitchen, no employees needing things, no customers to deal with—it was the calm before the tidal wave of chaos that was the Sunday morning brunch rush. But this week my feet were tapping as I diced onions and my mind was wandering. I kept picturing Lance’s eyes, the way they’d traveled over my skin, the way he’d licked his hot-as-hell lower lip . . . My dick twitched.
I reminded myself that whatever heat Lance and I generated probably flared up whenever his twenty-two-year-old self got near a horny, lonely gay man.
Wait.
Where the hell had that thought come from?
Horny, sure, because it had been just me and my hand in the two years since Randy and I had split. But I was not lonely. I got out . . . some. Okay, not often. But still I got out . . . never? Had I been to a bar since Randy and I split? Had I been out on my own in the ten years prior? Randy had been the hub of our social circle. I’d been content to stay at the fringes, his sidekick, but not really close to the ever-revolving group of friends and acquaintances. When we broke up, he’d gotten the friends, not that I’d really made an effort to keep them.
But was I really that pathetic that I couldn’t go to a bar? Grab a drink? Maybe talk to some people? My urge for a drink returned tenfold as I moved the towels to the dryer. I needed food and I sure as hell didn’t feel like cooking for myself. I could zip downtown, get some dinner from one of my favorite street carts, then get a drink. . . .
I wasn’t fooling myself. I knew exactly which corner I’d end up at, which bar’s neon sign beckoned me just as surely as that Ducati I’d pictured earlier. Damn. I had no business coveting the fine piece of Italian engineering that was Lance, but the urge was there, every bit as strong as the craving for whiskey and a few hours to forget about soggy towels and minced onions.
Besides, it wasn’t like I had to actually take Lance home or anything. Flirty boy would back the hell down as soon as he saw how ridiculous I looked in a bar full of pretty young things. Maybe I wouldn’t end up with the shiny chrome model, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t go out, kick the tires, maybe find a serviceable Yamaha to spend a few forgettable hours with.
Two hours later I had a clean kitchen, a showered body, and a belly full of Moroccan rice from the street cart catty-corner from Slaughters. The scent of fried food hung heavy in the crisp January air. The black-shirted bouncer at the door for Slaughters didn’t even glance down at my ID. I hadn’t been carded for buying liquor in years. In keeping with my I-just-want-a-drink plan, I hadn’t put on club clothes after my shower—just tossed a flannel over a clean T-shirt and cargo pants.
However, in line for drinks I noticed something: somehow, in the decade since Slaughters had been a regular haunt for me, the gay scene in Portland had gotten a lot more plaid. A lot of guys younger than me sported those pretentious hipster beards, along with little caps that looked like they should be selling newspapers. My beard was because of my cursed fair skin—in addition to freckles that made me look ten, my cheeks got a rash if I shaved too often. So bushy red beard it was. But what was with all these young guns sporting the chin sprouts? Maybe Lance didn’t have an unhealthy thing for older dudes. Maybe he just had a plaid-and-beard fetish.
Tons of ink on display, too. What the hell? In my time away from the scene, apparently I’d gotten fucking trendy. I ordered a whiskey. That was probably all trendy now, too.
I wandered around the main bar toward the dancing area. I was not looking for Lance. I was just sipping my whiskey and—
Okay. I was a fucking lying leprechaun. My eyes scanned, looking past the baby lumberjacks and the clump of drag queens and the straight girls getting their groove on until I found a group of young guys in the middle of the dance floor. Lance was with four other guys, but he was far and away the best dancer. Others shuffled their feet while Lance moved like he had that day we’d met, dancing like no one was watching, like he was just having fun with his tunes.
He’d changed into a tight black tank top and gray jeans with a studded leather belt. I leaned against the half wall that separated the dance floor from the rest of the bar. Hell, even if he didn’t notice me, this was quality entertainment—sipping my whiskey and watching pretty boy shake his tail. I wasn’t sure how long I stayed; one song bled into another and the group of friends paired off, some dancing with each other, some heading out for more drinks. Lance danced a while with a blond kid, winding himself around the blond’s lithe body, fucking him with his eyes as he did that ass shaking move that kept showing up on bad TV. My dick got hard watching them move together.
Going dancing with Randy had always pissed me off—the way he collected hangers-on and then “accidentally” got too handsy with them. Other guys fawning all over my guy was so not a turn-on.
Except when it was. Of course, Lance wasn’t my guy, but I still got a little thrill out of how he held himself, how he’d dance away from one guy into another’s space. He used his friends and the guys who approached them like props—there to display his dancing chops—but he never lingered. The blond kid tried to pull him in closer, but he laughed and stepped back.
In that moment our eyes met and it was the freakiest thing—like every cell in my body powered up, charged and ready for action. Like all the people around me, and the clink of glasses and throb of bad dance music, all of that just fell away.
And then he was in front of me, all sweaty and eager. “You came.”
“Eh. It’s a Saturday night. Lots of people go out.”
“Even grumpy old men?” He poked my chest. “Dance with me.”
“I don’t dance.”
“You do tonight.” He tugged on my hand, his wide smile full of mischief. I slammed the rest of my whiskey and set the glass down.
“You’re trouble,” I said as I let him tug me onto the floor. “I hate this music.”
“What?” Our bodies brushed, my nerve endings sizzling like a griddle ready for action.
“I hate this music,” I repeated, my mouth near his ear. He smelled like sweat and hair gel and something sweet that made me want to gobble him up.
“Katy? How does anyone hate Katy Perry?” He looked like I’d insulted his best friend.
The floor was crowded with other dancers, dim lighting masking the drunken lurching passing for dancing around us. I did the same shuffle-in-place move that a lot of his friends had mastered, my basic staple for weddings and other rare, usually drunken, occasions. I called it the please-don’t-trip-over-me step. Lance, however, treated my body like a stripper pole, gyrating in a way that ensured maximum teasing. He was shorter than me, but not so much that our pairing was ridiculous.
Every time his thick thighs brushed mine or his muscular back rubbed against my front, little drops of sunshine rained down on me. He was a disco ball in human form, and I was happy to let him hypnotize me. His ass rotated like his spine was made of ball bearings. He ground against me until it seemed like one of us climaxing on the dance floor was a fine proposition.
I lost track of time until he stretched up, shouting near my ear, “You want another drink?”
“Yeah.” I followed him off the dance floor and down the little corridor that led to the quieter bar area in the back of the club. This lounge area was populated by more couples than the dance floor. A memory passed through me of being one of those pairs, of cuddling and drinking and people watching, a brief whiff of longing. No. I did not miss that sort of connection. Not even a little. The tables were taken by pairs deep in conversation, so Lance and I stood.
I got my whiskey from the bar and turned to let him order.
“You gonna laugh if I order a sex on the beach?”
“Yes. But feel free.” I slid the beefy bartender cash for both drinks.
“I like sweet things.” He looked me up and down. “And beaches. And everything that might happen on them.”
I had to laugh. I was prickly, yes. Sweet, not so much. “You’re looking in the wrong place for that.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. . . . Hey, what time do you turn into a pumpkin? How late can you stay out?”
“Usually, I’d be sacked out by now,” I admitted. “I’ve got to be up by four to get stuff ready to open at seven.”
“In that case . . .” He took a big sip of his drink, then moved directly in front of me, so close our bodies almost touched. “How about we skip to the part where you get all toppy and commanding and tell me how I’m getting done.”
Wow. My blood rushed straight to my groin. So much for finding an older, cheaper model. I wanted every shiny, sparkly piece of Lance. Right the hell now. “Who said it’s going down like that?”
He batted his eyes at me. He had the longest lashes I’d ever seen on a guy. “You’re here. You’re not asleep. But, hey, if you’d rather I get all toppy and commanding and tell you how to get done, I can work with that. Not my usual MO, but I can make an exception—”
I hooked a finger in his belt loop, smashing him to me with enough force that our drinks sloshed. He was a wall of hard muscle, his thighs pressing into me, all strength and heat and hardness, showing me how turned on he was. My dick responded before my brain had a chance to catch up, blood pounding in my groin.
“You’re a brat.”
“Yes. Yes, I am.” He grinned widely, like I’d just cracked some sort of code. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Someone,” I said, emphasizing the not-me part, “should teach you some manners. And patience. And subtlety.”
“Boy. That’s a lot of lessons. And we only have . . . what? Four and a half hours? Better get started.”
His breath was warm and sweet against my face, his body heavy against mine. I swore I could feel his heart beating. Music from the dance floor filtered back to the bar area and there were people on both sides of us, but everything seemed to go still, the moment dragging out. My brain zeroed in on his lush, full mouth until I had no choice but to kiss him.
I claimed his mouth, no sweet and fruity first kiss—no, this was a rough and dirty fuck of a kiss, one where I told him with my lips and teeth exactly what happened to bratty boys. And he answered me just as enthusiastically, his mouth parting to welcome my tongue, his body arching into me.
Gasping, I broke away. “Go. Tell your friends you’re leaving. You drive here?”
“Rode with my friends. You gonna be here when I get back?” He said it shyly, not like the bold guy who had just about sucked my tongue off.
I nodded. A sane man would walk out the door while he was gone, but I’d left sanity behind about an hour ago. I could no more leave than I could help myself from watching his retreating back, ass swaying in his skinny jeans. Nope. Definitely not escaping. I was going to end up doing the one thing I’d sworn not to—bring him home with me.
“You ever ridden a bike?” I asked when he returned.
“Bike? Like ten-speed?” One of his eyebrows quirked. In Portland, where half the city bike commutes, one can never be too sure of these things.
“Like Harley.”
“Yeah.” He nodded, but he didn’t look too terribly sure.
I’d parked across from the barricades the police erected each weekend to handle the happy-go-drunkly Portlanders. I got him the spare helmet from its storage spot. His smile was eager, but his eyes were still a bit wary.
“Just so we’re clear, this is a one-time deal, okay? This isn’t the start of something.” Much as I wanted to fuck, I also didn’t want to be the asshole who led the kid on. I could let myself be this stupid once, but a repeat absolutely was not in the cards.
“We’re clear.” He glanced around before stretching up and brushing a kiss across my lips. “Let’s go.”
“Here.” I handed him the helmet and my motorcycle jacket. All he had on was a cotton shirt over his T-shirt and I didn’t want him to freeze before I could heat him up.
Judging from the death grip he kept on my waist, he’d ridden a bike just about never. I took it easy, navigating the slow streets back to Alberta. The wind whipping my body was a pleasant sting, not a harsh slap of bitter cold. It was a mild, dry night, the sort of not really winter that people put up with the rain to get. Gradually, Lance’s grip loosened and he leaned into me, his head pressed against my back.
I wanted to keep driving until we hit a little patch of dirt and fuck him under the cool breeze and stars. But I didn’t have all night. Instead, I had a ticking clock of hours until my alarm would blare and a whole bucket list of things I wanted to do to him.
Too soon, we arrived at my place. I parked the bike in the alley behind the shop, next to my beat-up Ford truck. I unlocked the service entrance door and flipped on the light for the stairs that led to the apartment.
“You gonna get busted for missing curfew?” I asked at the top of the stairs, trying to remind myself why this was an epically stupid idea, and why it had to be a onetime deal.
“Nah. It’s not like that. My parents know how much I want to get into graduate school. I live at home to save money, but they know I have my own life. I’ve got the basement now. It’s almost like an apartment.”
“Almost.” I turned to face him, and whatever retort I’d been planning died as I looked into those big brown eyes. The wariness was back. He wasn’t quite so full of swagger now, and something strange and tender unfurled in my gut.
I needed to cut that shit out right now. I dragged him into the apartment, kissing him before I even got the door shut. Our tongues tangled, picking right up where we’d left off in the bar. He was my favorite kind of kisser—almost rough with intensity and totally committed to it, oxygen be damned. I kissed him until I forgot all the logical reasons why this was a terrible idea, until I forgot how young he was, until I lost track of myself.
He mouthed a trail down my neck. I knew where this was headed and I helped him along, putting a firm hand on his shoulder. His eyes were glassy with need, the crests of his cheekbones smudged with pink. So fucking beautiful.
“Go on, then.”
“Oh, yeah.” He breathed out a warm huff of air against my chest before he sank to his knees.
He looked up, waiting. I wasn’t usually one to get off on power plays and games, but whatever little dance we’d started back at the club licked through me, making my hands more sure, my voice more gruff.
“Get it out.”
“Yeah.” He unzipped me and slid out my cock. “Oh. My. God. How are you not hitting it every night if you’re packing this monster?”
“You ask to take a picture and you can get your ass back down those stairs.” I tipped my head against the plaster wall. His awe hit me like a shot of whiskey. I knew I wasn’t all that. My dick was thick and long with a broad head, but not porn-star huge.
“Not happening.” Holding my dick in one hand, he licked around the head, tracing the crown.
“More,” I ordered. “You can do better than that.”
“Oh, yeah.” He opened those gorgeous pink lips, sliding me into his mouth, keeping a hand on my dick.
“Suck it.”
He moaned around my dick, starting a shallow bob with a quick rhythm. He was damn good at coordinating his hand and mouth. I didn’t care about whether he could deep throat—all I cared about was getting more of that slick heat.
The rhythm stuttered as he unzipped his pants, hauling his cock out one-handed. His cock was on the shorter side but thick, with a gorgeous vein snaking around the shaft and a plump, uncut head.
“Yeah. Stroke it for me.”
He swallowed my cock. Deep. I felt him start to gag and he retreated.
“Sorry. Never been with someone so hung.” His smile was just as intoxicating as the compliment.
“Here, honey.” I helped him out, holding his head with one hand while I started a gentle glide of my hips. He got the idea, his lips dragging hard against me on the upstroke, his tongue working my head on his way back down. Damn.
Pleasure thrummed through me, and the need from two years of celibacy made my stomach tighten and my head swim. Slowing down my thrusts to try to make this last, I let him take over again. Watching him slowly work his cock was its own kind of pleasure—one that warmed me up and made my balls tingle.
“Harder.” I liked a lot of friction from his fist, something he fast figured out, going for bonus points by sweeping his thumb against my balls.
“Feels so good. You want me to come this way?” It was almost a rhetorical question; I was about thirty seconds away from blowing, so the only question was whether it was going to be his mouth or his fist.
“Do it.” He doubled up on the motion of his hands, pumping his cock with lightning-fast motions while giving me the rough stroke I craved. His mouth was warm and tight against my crown, his bob shallow but perfect.
“Fuuu . . .” I gritted out a warning.
His answering moan was all the encouragement I needed, my head clunking against the wall behind me as I shot down his throat, spasm after spasm racking my body as he swallowed around my cock. My knees threatened to give out and I had to push my shoulders hard into the wall.
I looked down to see his head tipped back, his fist all wet. Damn. I’d missed the moment he’d shot. But the knowledge that he’d gotten off from sucking me was enough to make me shudder again. I had to take a few deep breaths to get enough blood flow to my brain for speech.
“Damn. You’re good.”
“Been a while, but I still remember how things work.” He grinned up at me. At his age, a while meant anything over a month, but I was still irrationally flattered. Half the club would have been happy to break his dry spell and he’d chosen me.
“You got a sink?” he asked, getting up off the floor.
“Yeah. Bathroom is first door on the right down the hallway.”
I went along with him, flipping on lights as we went. Our footsteps echoed on the hardwood floors. Like the shop downstairs, the apartment was long and narrow. A long hallway ran its length from the entry past the small living room, the dining room, the galley kitchen, and the bathroom, ending in the bedroom, which overlooked Alberta Street. The apartment was short on windows and closets, but long on vintage, with the sorts of moldings and curved archways that no one tosses in apartments anymore.
“Here.” I flipped on the bathroom light; the switch was in the hall by some genius of prewar wiring.
“That sink is freaky.” Lance looked down at it. I’d long gotten used to the separate faucets for hot and cold in the ancient pedestal sink.
“Sorry.” I grabbed him a towel from the shelf. “Here. I’ll . . . uh . . . give you a moment.”
I backed out of the room, then rested my head on the cool plaster of the hallway wall. I wasn’t sure exactly what happened now; we’d gotten off within minutes of getting back to my place and I was totally down for round two, but I’d forgotten the sort of casual banter that could get us there.
Not wanting to lurk outside the bathroom like a weirdo, I headed to the kitchen and washed my own hands.
“You got any soda?” Lance asked, coming up behind me. He swallowed, like he was still trying to get the taste of spunk out of his mouth.
“Yeah. We carry HOTLIPS downstairs. You want me to grab you one?”
“I’m down with hot lips.” His look accomplished everything I’d been hoping to find the words for—heat, promise, and mirth all in a single eyebrow raise and curved lips. “Anything but ginger ale.”
“Ginger ale tastes worse than spunk to you?” I asked as I headed downstairs, him behind me. Not wanting to flip on the main overhead lights in the front of the store, I grabbed the flashlight I kept by the stairs for this purpose.
“Hey, I’m not complaining about spooge. It just . . . lingers. Ginger ale, though? That stuff is nasty.”
“Here.” I handed him a raspberry soda from the cooler.
“This is awesome. I feel like we’re sneaking around.” He gestured at the flashlight. “When I was a kid, I always loved the idea of being locked in a toy store overnight.”
“I had a picture book about being locked in a zoo after closing. I must have read that a hundred times.”
“I think we had that one, too. I remember reading it to my sisters.” He smiled at me, and something passed between us, something more than the promise of a repeat. He was right—there was something almost. . . playful about being in the dark room, the glow of the flashlight casting interesting shadows over our faces. He took a long drag of soda, his lips locked around the bottle. My cock woke up, getting a bit insistent about the whole round-two thing.
“Wanna go back upstairs?” I asked, heading back to the stairs before I could do something really outrageous, like jumping him in front of the plate-glass window.
“Yeah.” He followed me up the stairs, the soda dangling from his long fingers. My nerve endings prickled at his nearness.
“You know,” I said as we entered the apartment, “I kind of like the taste of ginger ale. And other stuff.”
“Yeah?” He stepped closer to me.
“I’d be happy to . . . return the favor.” I put a hand on his chest.
“Sounds nice.” His brown eyes held all the sinful promise of hot fudge. “But this is a onetime deal right? No way am I missing a chance to try that monster dick of yours. You got condoms?”
“Oh, yeah.” My cock went straight from interested to painfully erect in two seconds. I hadn’t wanted to make assumptions about what he might be down with, but if he wanted to let me have a shot at that fine ass, I was more than good.
“Bedroom. Now.” I plucked the soda from his fingers, setting it on the entry table that held my mail. My pulse pounded in my ears, driving me to tug him down the long hall to the bedroom, racing like a kid with a present to unwrap.