part0004

“So, why am I here?” Phil asked. He couldn’t believe Lana was capable of such treachery when she could barely remember what her car looked like on most days.

Landon shrugged. “I guess your manager likes me. She did me a favor.”

“Did she now? Some favor. Hold that thought, cowboy. Un fucking believable.”

Phil had his phone to his ear and his manager’s line buzzing by the time he stepped into the hallway.

“Yep?” Lana answered.

“Explain,” he said.

“Oh, Phillip, Phillip, Phillip . What time is it? Are you in New Orleans? Well, whatever. You’ve been such an ass.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “ Excuse me?”

“It’s true. I mean, you’re a misanthrope on the best of days, but we tolerate it because you outsell everyone else in the zone by a long shot, but lately, you’ve been…”

“I’ve been what ?” he said through clenched teeth. He was used to interference in his life. He expected it from his pushy family and know-it-all peers, but this…this went too far.

“Bitchy. You’ve been bitchy, Phil. We hadn’t seen Landon visiting you at work in a while, and I figured something was up. Logical conclusion was that your foul mood at work had something to do with your personal life.”

“My personal life is really none of your business.” He’d been avoiding the guy for a reason. Actually, twenty-three reasons, each of which was one year long.

“Normally, I’d agree, but you’re bringing down the mellow vibe at the office, and you need to fix that before you come back.”

“You set me up?”

“Gleefully. Landon appreciated the help. Said you were being a turd.”

“I seriously doubt he used the word turd .”

“I was being polite. You should try it sometime. You seem to have forgotten how.”

“I haven’t forgotten. I use politeness selectively, and this situation doesn’t call for it. You don’t feel like you’ve overstepped just a teensy bit?”

“Nope. See you Monday. Enjoy New Orleans.” Lana hung up.

Phil growled and shoved his phone back into his pocket. “Unbelievable.” For once in his life, he’d done the admirable thing—the generous thing—and let Landon go. He’d pushed him away in increments so he’d drift away and toward better things. It was true that Phil loved him. Maybe loved him too much . When everyone including his best friend in the world had said, “You’re going to break his heart,” he’d ignored them, writing them off as naysayers and doubters. And things had been wonderful for a year and then into another. Then the doubts settled in. Landon was twenty-three years old and Phil was his first serious boyfriend. Phil was getting to the “forever” stage of his life where he wanted to know some things would stay the same—that there’d be some permanence. Landon had hardly had time to play the field. Obviously, he’d find someone better, given time, and it wouldn’t be him with the broken heart when he and Phil went their separate ways. It would be Phil. Who could fault him for trying to minimize the hurt he expected?

Sighing, he slipped the key into the door slot yet again, and pulled the lever. He stepped into the room to find Landon leaning against the corridor wall, fidgeting Phil’s suitcase handle.

“All squared away?” Landon asked.

“If you’re asking if I understand how I ended up here, yes.” Phil shoved his hands into his pants pockets and canted his head. “The better question is what did you intend to do with me once you got me here?”

Landon stepped forward and brushed his thumb across Phil’s lips. “Baby, what is wrong with you?” he asked.

Phil sidled around him and made a beeline for the wingback chair near the balcony door. “I’ve been asked that question a lot in thirty-one years.” He flopped onto the seat and crossed his legs at the knees, bobbing the top one. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Phil?” He mimicked his own voice, adding extra whininess. “I almost always have the same answer. ‘Oh, you know, just being a big flaming queer and spreading my rainbow joy so I can ruin your day.’” He scoffed. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I am who I am.”

Landon leaned against the dining table and crossed his arms over his broad chest. He was a bigger man than Phil generally preferred. Tall and naturally athletic. Strong . Before Landon, Phil had always dated slick banker types or artists with trust funds. Beyond his tongue, there was very little that was slick about Landon. His blond hair was always a bit overlong and shaggy. His eyeglasses were usually smudged. Usually, he missed a button or two on his shirt and Phil had to redo them all. His fitted jeans usually had some holes and frays he’d come by through hard work. More often than not, he wore cowboy boots, even when the temperatures in North Carolina, where he was attending school, approached a hundred degrees.

Phil had cleaned him up, and Landon cleaned up very nicely, but left up to his own devices, he reverted to old habits. Those same habits had Phil’s cock perpetually rock hard and his common sense in shatters back when Landon had been a not-quite-virginal nineteen-year-old. Phil couldn’t take the blame for being the one to break him in, and he didn’t even want to guess which cowboy had done the job.

“Are you seeing someone else?” Landon asked, pulling Phil out of his thoughts.

Phil scoffed again. “No. I may be a flirt, but I’m not a slut.” Anymore . Not that there was anything wrong with being a slut. He’d had his phase, but he’d always been safe. He couldn’t really bring himself to feel guilty about understanding his sexual needs and finding willing partners to meet them. “You think I’d move on so easily?”

“So, are you admitting that we’re not together? Because you never gave me the courtesy of a formal breakup.”

Phil turned his hands over in concession. “Okay. We’re broken up.” There was still the small matter of the incredible amount of shit Landon had in Phil’s apartment, but he’d figured he’d have Ronnie—his best friend and Landon’s stepmother—clear it out the next time she visited the East Coast. Traveling from Wyoming with his precious godchildren probably wasn’t so easy. They still needed booster seats and other kinds of heavyweight gear.

“Oh, I see.” Landon nodded sagely and rubbed the sexy scruff on his chin. Another first for Phil. He hated facial hair on everyone else, but it just added something to Landon’s already masculine appeal.

“Want to put that in writing?” Landon asked. “Send me an email or text message or something so my brain can process it? Because, shit, I didn’t think breakups worked that way. Usually, there’s at least an argument or something. Or some passive aggressiveness. There wasn’t any of that, was there? Everything was fine, and then you just stopped being available. Stopped coming home.”

And Landon had gone back to sleeping at his own place, which Phil had hoped.

“What’s wrong, Phillip? Did you decide I wasn’t your type after all?”

“You were never my type, so that wasn’t the issue.”

“So, what is the issue?”

Phil bobbed his knee some more and locked his gaze onto Landon’s icy blue one. Letting the anger out had to be hard for Landon. He was so laid-back usually. He wasn’t the kind of man to internalize offenses and slights. Hell, he’d even forgiven his mother for abandoning him and his young siblings in the callous way she had. But this— this bothered him.

“Is it my father? I’m pretty sure he’s stopped hoping I’ll wake up one day and not be a fag.”

Phil cringed. Nobody could really blame John for that, and he’d never actually heard John use that word—not about Landon or anyone else. Perhaps it had felt implied, and sometimes perception was important than reality.

There was nothing easy about acknowledging one’s queerness, much less being out with it. The only reason Landon had kept their relationship a secret from his family as long as he had was because Phil had insisted. He knew it’d cause turmoil in Landon’s family and in that insular little community they ranched in.

Phil tipped his head back against the chair and stared up at the high ceiling. “John doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Okay. We can run down a whole laundry list of maybe-that’s-it items. Or perhaps you could save me some words and just tell me what the problem is? That’s the grown-up way to solve problems. Talking.”

“And that’s just it.” Phil righted his head and met Landon’s gaze again.

“What is?”

“Being grown-up . That’s what this is about.”

“Excuse me?”

Phil gave the cowboy a moment. The implication was bound to settle in on its own.

He furrowed his brow and squeezed the edge of the table so hard his knuckles went white. “Are you fucking with me?”

“Not anymore. No.”

Landon let out a startling bark of laughter. “You must be shitting me.” I was old enough to suck your cock and jerk you off, but now I’m not old enough to be your boyfriend?”

Phil winced at the harsh words, but they were true, even if said aloud they sounded utterly ridiculous. “Not if you’re only going to be my boyfriend for a little while. No.”

Landon narrowed his eyes so much that Phil wondered if he could even see. “Run that past me again. We both know I score a little better than average in the intelligence department, but you’re not making a whole hell of a lot of sense.”

“It’s simple. You need to be with other people.” Not I want you to be with other people , but I need you to be . No man in love would ever want that kind of pain. He wouldn’t be able to compartmentalize this. He was going to hurt, and for a long time, but it was for the best, and better now than later.

“I need to?”

“You’re young. There’s no way you can possibly know what you really like. I think you felt safe with me, but that’s not enough. You should want more than that.”

“ Huh .” Landon’s nod came slowly. He nudged up his glasses and jammed his hands into his pockets. “Okay. I see.”

Phil pushed up an eyebrow at Landon’s flat tone, and his stomach lurched. “Do you really? Usually when people take that tone, they mean the exact opposite.”

“No, I really do see, immaturity aside. I understand simple English phrases and a whole lot of complex ones, too. You know, like, Do that thing with your teeth, baby , and You’re my favorite toy ever . I liked being your toy. Did you get bored with me?”

“No!”

“Then what?”

“You’re being purposefully dense. It’s probably not your fault you can’t think straight. How many horses have you been thrown from onto your head in your short life?”

Low blow, and Phil knew it, but what else could he do? He needed Landon to stop fighting him on this.

“Keep cracking jokes, asshole.”

Landon dropped to his knees in front of him and yanked Phil’s shirt free of his slacks.

“What are you doing?”

“Being your favorite toy.”

He unbuttoned and unzipped, and had his hand inside Phil’s briefs before his mind caught up to his eyeballs. He grabbed his wrists, but Landon never really needed his hands. When he had his mind set on doing something, he found a way. Of course he was industrious, though. He was a cowboy. He was used to finding ways around tough situations, and really, Phil wasn’t making it all that hard for him. His cock was right there at the slit of his briefs, and Landon didn’t let small barriers stop him. He turned his head and set his teeth gently into the turgid flesh, pulling a groan from Phil’s chest. Phil’s nuts tightened and belly clenched as Landon sucked him through the fabric, a sinful mix of gentle abrasion and wet heat.

The tip of his cock pressed through the opening—the ultimate “ Here I am! ”—and Landon chuckled before lashing his tongue across the slit. “Making pearls for me?” He drew the head into his hot mouth and sucked, dancing his tongue repeatedly over the weeping opening before pulling more of Phil’s dick into his mouth.

Phil put his head back and closed his eyes. So good . Landon just got better and better at it, and Phil would be lying if he’d said he hadn’t enjoyed every minute of the practice. Landon put a hundred percent of his effort into everything he did, including pleasuring his man. He practically begged to do it sometimes—to let him make Phil feel good. It’d always been so hard telling him no, but Phil worried Landon would think he wanted him only for that. He may have been Phil’s favorite toy, but he’d become so much more, and Phil didn’t deserve him. Not yet.

Landon let Phil’s cock fall from his mouth and lobbed some spit on it before pulling it back between his teeth. Wet. Sloppy. Every lick and slurp seemed to have a specific purpose. To tease, to titillate. To make Phil lift his hips to thrust deeper into Landon’s mouth. To make him let go of Landon’s wrists.

He gripped the chair arms as Landon took Phil’s cock down his throat, moaning around him. His blond head bobbed up and down, and fingers tightened around the base of Phil’s shaft. Hard enough to hurt a little, but even that felt good.

When Landon snaked his other hand down the front of Phil’s pants to grip his sac, and the tip of his thick middle finger pressed against Phil’s asshole, he cried out and bucked harder.

“Fuck! Oh God, fuck .”

Landon kept pumping his fist as he took every bit of Phil’s cum down his throat. When he was done, he licked his lips and rolled his gaze up to Phil. “You didn’t say no, Phillip. You don’t recoil when I touch you. You like it. I think you like it a lot.”

“That’s never been an issue.”

“That’s right, because when we’re in bed and we’re touching, the only life experience that matters to you is what I learned the last time I touched your dick. In the bed, I’m a grown man, right?” He pulled himself up from his knees, but kept a grip on the chair arms, right in front of Phil’s hands. “Somewhere, there’s a disconnect, isn’t there? Or maybe not. You don’t have a problem with cuddling and flirty fun when we’re out and about, but you never really intended to commit, did you?”

Actually, the moment Phil decided he’d wanted to—which was a hell of a lot sooner than he’d ever experienced—he’d also decided he needed to let Landon go. It had just taken him longer than he planned to work himself up to it. He’d never wanted anyone more.

“Answer me.”

Phil sighed and fixed his gaze to the ceiling. “I committed as much as I could.”

“I see. And can I ask you a question?”

The fact he had to even ask if he could present the question didn’t bode well. “What, Landon?”

“Is that why in over two years you still haven’t fucked me?”

Shit. The gentle swirls on the ceiling plaster seemed to be revolving all of a sudden, so Phil closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. Flesh to flesh seemed like such a turning point, and once they went there, they couldn’t go back. Phil had been so casual with his body before he’d gotten with Landon. He fucked and was fucked, and that was that. But…he didn’t ever want to think that way about anything he did with Landon—that that was that . Landon deserved more than that.

“I see,” Landon said again, this time softly. He pulled away and strode to the desk. He sat in front of his computer and woke up the sleeping screen. “I’ve got finals next week. Need to get in a couple of hours of studying. When I’m done, we can go down to dinner. You always travel with a dark suit. That should be fine.”

“What?”

Landon put on his headphones, hit a key on his computer, and a second later, a thumping beat emerged from the ear pads.

Phil tucked his dick into his pants and zipped up.

Landon turned and lifted one side of his earphones. “Could you press my dress shirt? If you don’t mind, I mean. You’re better at it.”

Phil crooked up an eyebrow. Apparently Landon was going to act like that, and Phil didn’t know what to do about it…except to walk to the closet and pull out the fucking iron.