“It’s perfect.”
They stood at the end of a little no-exit suburban street that backed up to a narrow stretch of land running along the railway tracks. Isaac’s heart thumped. David was right—it was perfect.
“The garage would be just the right size,” David added.
“It would. It’s almost as big as the house.” Isaac peered around. “It’s quieter here at the end of the street. Except for the train, I guess.”
David smiled slyly and leaned closer. His warm breath puffed over Isaac’s cheek. “But we don’t mind that particular noise, do we?”
Isaac flushed. Growing up in Zebulon, he’d dreamed of running away and riding a train all the way to the ocean. And on more than one icy Minnesota night, he’d pleasured himself to the train’s distant rumble.
After checking the time on his phone, David straightened the collar of his shirt beneath his jacket. “She should be here any minute.” His pale blue eyes were bright in the way they got when he was excited about something. He ran a hand through his thick, dark hair, fiddling with the bangs that fell over part of his forehead.
They both wore button-up shirts and nice pants, although Isaac wished he’d put on a sweater as he shivered in the gray December gloom. “For California, it sure gets cold here sometimes.”
David took Isaac’s hands and rubbed them with a smile. “It hasn’t even been a year yet, and we’re getting soft. Just think of how cold the outhouse must be in Zebulon today. June said they already have a foot of snow. Maybe I’ll get you some gloves for Christmas.”
Isaac arched a brow. “We said we wouldn’t buy each other anything. We need to save our money, or we’ll never be able to move out. The gloves I have are perfectly fine. When I remember to bring them, that is.” They both laughed.
“Yoo-hoo!” a woman’s voice called. “Are you the boys I talked to about the rental?”
An older, redheaded woman approached from down the street, and David waved. “Yes, that’s us.”
“I’m Margery Hunt.” She thrust out her hand, and David and Isaac introduced themselves. “Let me show you the place.” She turned back up the street.
“Isn’t it here?” Isaac pointed over his shoulder.
“Oh, are you interested in the house? I thought you answered the ad for the basement apartment.” She opened a notebook and held it at arm’s length, squinting.
“There must have been a mix-up,” David said. “We need a place with our own garage. We saw the rental sign out in front of the house and thought that was it.”
“That’s for rent too if you’d rather.” Margery scrawled something in her notebook. “The other house is divided into two apartments, but this one’s a single. Two bedrooms and no basement, although you do get the garage. Of course the rent is higher.”
Of course. Isaac’s stomach clenched. “How much higher?”
“Fifteen hundred a month.”
Isaac couldn’t believe his ears. “It’s fifteen hundred a month for the house?” They could afford that! They’d have to work hard, but—
“Sorry, kid. It’s fifteen hundred more. Three thousand a month, and that’s including utilities.”
“Oh,” Isaac said. He saw his own disappointment mirrored on David’s face.
“Want to see it anyway?” she asked.
“Sure,” David answered. To Isaac, he whispered, “Maybe it won’t be what we want inside anyway.”
“Maybe not.” Isaac threaded their fingers together, and they followed Margery.
And of course the house was just as darn perfect inside.
Despite the faded wallpaper and scuffed parquet floors, it was just what they needed. A regular-sized bedroom for them, a tiny bedroom where they could put a desk, a small kitchen, and a bathroom that needed new tiles and grouting. It wasn’t fancy, or big, but it could be theirs.
Isaac held tight to David’s hand as they peered around the good-sized garage where David could easily set up his workshop. There was even a storage shed in the backyard, which ended at the ridge before the railway tracks. It wasn’t as if it was their dream house or anything. It was way too small, and the neighbors were too close for that.
Still, it would be years before they could afford to buy a place of their own, with land and perhaps a barn for a workshop and a few animals. Isaac still had to finish his GED, and college would be four years if he decided to go.
Margery had kept up a steady stream of chatter as she toured them around. “So that’s about it. It’s a great starter home for a young couple. What do you do?”
“We’re both carpenters,” David answered. “Although Isaac goes to school as well. It’s an alternative school with flexible hours for students who are a little older.”
Isaac added, “I’m still an apprentice carpenter. David does the designing too.”
“Carpenters, hmm? That’s a good trade. Do you make furniture and such?”
David nodded. “I’ve been fortunate to stay very busy since we moved here. Word of mouth has been good.”
And fortunately for them, people in San Francisco were willing to pay huge amounts of money for custom furniture, cabinets, and fancy places to sit in the backyard called gazebos.
“Where are you boys from?” Margery asked.
“Minnesota,” David answered.
Isaac knew she could hear the German in their accents but didn’t explain any further. Most “English” people—as the Amish called anyone who lived in the modern world—were nice, although a few had treated Isaac and David like zoo animals once they found out they’d grown up Amish. Especially when they found out they’d lived in an ultraconservative sect that didn’t even have indoor plumbing and had hardly any contact with the outside world.
At least now Isaac and David had learned a lot and could usually get by without being endlessly confused.
“Minnesota, huh?” She smiled kindly. “I hail from Wisconsin originally. My husband’s people were from Modesto, so we ended up here in the Bay Area. Do you live in Dublin, or are you looking to move here from somewhere else?”
“Right now we’re living in the city with my brother Aaron and his wife Jen,” Isaac answered. “They have a town house in Bernal Heights. She’s a doctor, and my brother teaches math.” Why was he telling her that? Focus and get to the point. People don’t want your whole life story. “It’s been great living there, but we’d really like our own place somewhere a little quieter. We figured Dublin might be good since it’s the end of the BART line and we can still get into the city.” The online listing had said it was “steps” from the train station, although it was a fifteen-minute walk. But Isaac didn’t mind.
“So you own two houses on this street?” David asked.
“Three, including the one my husband and I live in.” She led them down the driveway and pointed to a bungalow with faded red trim and a fence that needed fixing. “It was his bright idea to buy these houses as rental properties years ago. I think it’s time to sell them and stop being landlords. He’s not convinced, even though his back has gotten so bad that he can’t do much of the handyman work around the places anymore. So, what do you think? Can you take the house? If you’ve got your references and such, I can get the ball rolling today.”
With shoulders slumping, Isaac and David shared a glance. Isaac said, “I think we’d better see the basement apartment.”
David stripped down to his briefs and stretched out on the bed with a sigh. He knew he had to let it go, but he couldn’t get the house out of his mind. Before they got their dream house, they needed to find a place that would do in the meantime. The cramped basement apartment Margery showed them was…fine. They’d have neighbors upstairs, though, and David would need to find a space to rent for his workshop.
He’d hoped that if they could find an affordable house to rent with a garage, he could save money on the workspace and get a tax write-off—which he wasn’t sure he quite understood, but it was apparently a benefit of working from your house. Most importantly, he could spend more time with Isaac.
Isaac had been working so hard between school and carpentry with David; if they could work from home, it would make it all so much easier. David loved the idea of not having to take crowded buses to his workshop.
Still, it didn’t seem worth it to move out of Aaron and Jen’s town house until the right place came up. Yet the more they looked, the more it seemed impossible to find anything in the Bay Area that was even in their ballpark. Even though he’d been putting away a bit every month to save for first and last months’ rent, it wasn’t enough.
Leaning a slim hip on the doorway to the adjoining bathroom, Isaac leered. “How you doin’?” He ran a hand over his sandy hair, which he kept short. After years with shaggy Amish haircuts, they both liked their hair neat and trimmed.
David waggled his eyebrows with a chuckle. They didn’t always understand the jokes on TV, but Isaac loved that one from the show about friends. Lifting his arms over his head and keeping them in place, David wriggled down a bit on the mattress.
Isaac’s eyes gleamed as he licked his lips. “Want it like that tonight?”
David nodded, anticipation sparking over his skin as the knot of anxiety in his chest unraveled. With Isaac he’d always been able to let go and be free, ever since the first night they’d tumbled to the forest floor in a rush of kisses and desperate release. When he gave Isaac control on nights like this, it was as if he was made new again, all the rough edges sanded away smooth.
With a few tugs and a kick, Isaac shed his T-shirt and plaid boxers. He straddled David’s thighs, his balls rubbing over David’s skin. Lips parted and breath coming shallow already, Isaac leaned over and pressed David’s wrists to the mattress. “You know the rules.”
“Uh-huh.” David was getting hard already.
“I wish—” Isaac bit off his words and kissed David. Their tongues slid together as they opened their mouths and slowly explored.
No matter how many times they kissed, David never got sick of it. Even though their kisses weren’t furtive and forbidden anymore, the taste of Isaac’s mouth and the scrape of his stubble still sent David’s pulse skyrocketing and set his body humming like an engine. Isaac’s breathy little murmurs and moans filled David’s ears and flowed through him like water.
He broke the kiss. “What do you wish?”
Still holding David’s wrists to the mattress, Isaac sat up. A flush crept up his neck, yet he didn’t look away. “I wish we had our own bed that we made ourselves. With posts.” He nodded to the gray padded headboard looming over them. “Not that this one isn’t nice, but I want to…” He took a breath and blurted out the rest. “I want to tie you up. Only when we do it like this, and only if you want it.”
Arching up his hips, David groaned. His cock strained in the confines of the cotton briefs. “That would be… Oh yes, I think I’d like that.”
Isaac grinned and rubbed his thumbs over David’s wrists. “You’d look so good, waiting for me.” His smile faded. “I still don’t want to hit you, though.”
David laughed. “I don’t want you to either. And I don’t want to hit you.”
“Lola said some people like to get whipped. Like, for real! With actual whips and stuff. I don’t get it.”
Isaac’s friend from school was a never-ending source of information about things that Isaac and David didn’t understand. She’d sent Isaac some links about this “BDSM” stuff, and he and David had watched videos on their laptop with the sound down very low and their eyes extremely wide.
“We don’t have to do anything we don’t want to.” David arched his hips again, needing friction and not getting it as Isaac still sat across his thighs. “When we have our own place, we’ll definitely make a bed that you can… That you can tie me to.” Saying it out loud made his heart skip.
Isaac’s puzzled frown vanished, and he bit his lip. “And you’ll lie there and do what I say.” He leaned over again, his breath hot on David’s ear. “What a good boy you’ll be. Mein guter junge.”
A shudder rippled through David as he gasped. “Yes.” Even though at twenty-three he was several years older than Isaac, in these moments he loved for Isaac to take charge.
Isaac let go of one of David’s wrists to reach down and stroke him through his briefs. David didn’t move, moaning. With his arms extended above his head and Isaac’s weight over his thighs, he was deliciously trapped. Isaac kissed him roughly, and the thought of being actually tied down sent blood rushing in his ears.
They could design the posts and headboard so that he could be bound with his arms straight above him, and also at the corners. Ideas and shapes flashed through his mind, and he almost wanted to stop and sketch the design.
An image flooded his mind—spread-eagled with his arms and legs restrained.
Crying out into Isaac’s kiss, David bucked up. “Please, Isaac,” he moaned. He’d sketch later.
“But I love you in your underwear so much,” Isaac teased. Then he relented and kneeled beside David to tug the briefs off.
When David was free of them, Isaac grabbed the bottle of lube from the drawer in their bedside table and moved between David’s legs. His arms still in place over his head, David lifted his knees to his shoulders. Sitting back on his heels, Isaac smiled, running his hands over the globes of David’s ass. “Such a good boy.” He bent over and sucked the head of David’s cock.
The pleasure simmered in David’s veins as he watched Isaac’s cheeks hollow. He was so lucky to have this—to have Isaac. They did all sorts of things in bed together that David had dreamed of through lonely years. He loved fucking Isaac and being inside him. But sometimes it felt so good to let go of everything and open himself up to whatever Isaac wanted to do to him.
He’d always had so many responsibilities, and even though he and Isaac shared their burdens equally now, it still gave David such pleasure to give up all control and be…consumed.
Sucking hard, Isaac slicked a finger and teased David’s hole before easing inside. He crooked his finger, looking for just the right spot, and when he found it, David shouted too loudly. Isaac stroked inside him and licked up and down his shaft. David pressed his lips together, inhaling sharply through his nose.
Aaron and Jen were upstairs on the third level of the town house, and David knew he and Isaac were too loud sometimes. How wonderful it would be to have their own house where they could scream and shout without being embarrassed in the morning. Not that Aaron and Jen ever said a word.
David clutched the fitted sheet with his fingers, his shoulders starting to twinge as he kept his arms extended. “Please, Isaac,” he said, panting.
With a wet pop that sent a shiver through David, Isaac lifted his head. He pressed his palms against the back of David’s thighs, pressing David’s knees closer to his armpits. Isaac’s amber eyes were dark, and he breathed hard. His faint freckles stood out on his flushed skin. “What do you want me to do?”
He grunted. “You know.”
Isaac slicked his hand. “You want… You want me to shove my cock inside you?”
“Yes. Please.” David watched Isaac pull down his foreskin, the red shiny head of his cock appearing and then disappearing into his fist as he coated himself with lube. Neither of them were cut, and David was glad. He wanted every part of Isaac.
“You want me to fill you right up?”
Nodding vigorously, David wriggled his ass. There was something so obscene and forbidden about saying it out loud that excited them both. “Fuck me.”
Isaac leaned over and kissed him hard before lining himself up and pushing inside. Neither of them had ever been with anyone else, and David was so glad they didn’t have to use condoms. The burn of flesh on flesh curled his toes, Isaac’s cock filling him.
David wanted to run his hands over Isaac’s chest and scratch his nails through the hair scattered there, but he kept his arms above his head. They grunted when Isaac filled him all the way, his hips brushing David’s ass.
“Oh, David.” Isaac moaned. “Du willst mehr, nicht wahr?”
Yes, he wanted more. “Ja. Tiefer.” Wanted it deeper.
Their skin slapped together, Isaac pumping his hips with one hand gripping David’s shoulder and the other around his cock. “You feel so good. You’re so tight. Just for me.” Isaac closed his eyes and tipped his head back, fucking David hard.
“Just for you,” David echoed with a grunt. “Always you.”
“Ich will dich so sehr,” Isaac muttered.
“I want you too.”
His balls tightened, and David wondered what it would be like to have Isaac fuck him while wearing Amish clothes again. The orgasm ripped through him, and he cried out. Isaac clapped a hand over David’s mouth, sending another surge of pleasure burning through him.
He splattered his chest, shuddering and gripping Isaac’s cock with his ass. Nostrils flaring, he panted against Isaac’s palm.
“Love you so much. You’re so good.” Isaac pounded into him, eyes wild as he arched his back and came, his head back and mouth open in silent ecstasy, shooting deep inside David.
When Isaac collapsed forward, he lifted his hand from David’s mouth and kissed him softly. They were a sweaty, sticky mess. Even after almost a year away in the outside world, sometimes David could still hardly believe he was here with Isaac. That this was allowed.
Isaac stretched up his hands to grasp David’s fingers and lower his arms. He pressed a wet kiss to each of David’s palms, his breath hot. “Just think of how good it will be in our own bed,” he murmured. “I wish we could have it now.” Chuckling, he added, “But I have to be patient, I know.”
David wrapped his arms around Isaac and held him close. “Yes. It seems you’ll have to wait.”
Then he had an idea.