Accidentally in Love (17 page)

Cal shifted his position, sneakers scraping the driveway, and bent to stretch out his hamstrings again. It had been a while since the last time he’d gone running, and he was a little worried he wouldn’t be able to keep up with Tom. Hell, he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep up with Tom, who ran all the time and had longer legs to boot.

Boots
. Tom wearing them would have been Cal’s only chance.

“Hey. You sure you want to do this?” Tom asked as he joined Cal.

“What, you think I’m that out of shape?”

“I know you aren’t.” Tom was wearing another of his too-big, shapeless Tshirts, and once again Cal found himself wanting to rip it off the man for reasons that had nothing to do with sex. He wanted to be left alone one day with Tom’s wardrobe and a match.

“Well, come on. Let’s do this.” Cal bounced up and down experimentally.

“How about we head for the river and circle back around Forest Road?” Tom suggested. “It’s almost five miles, but we can cut out a corner here and there if you’re feeling tired. I don’t want you to be too stiff tomorrow.”

“That’s not what my
boyfriends
usually—” Cal caught himself before he could complete the automatic riposte. “Sorry.”

Tom gave him a patient, mildly amused glance. “It’s okay,” he said. “I left myself wide open for that one. How about I let you set the pace?”

Cal bounced on the spot a few more times, psyching himself up before he set off, Tom beside him.

“Not too fast,” Tom warned when they reached the first corner. He wasn’t even sweating.

Cal sucked in a lungful of air and gratefully slowed his pace a little. “I don’t want to hold you back.”

“I don’t run to break records,” Tom said. “I do it because it makes me feel good. Slow is good too.”

Cal had never really bothered to take his time in bed. Learning what someone liked when it wasn’t likely that he’d ever have the chance to put that knowledge to use again seemed pointless. Taking things slowly with Tom, though, that had a definite appeal. He pictured himself easing into Tom, inch by torturous inch, making them both moan—and stumbled, his concentration broken.

“Are you okay?” Tom said, his hand shooting out to steady Cal.

“Yeah. Sorry.” They kept running but more slowly. “Guess this isn’t one of my strong suits, but I think we knew that.”

“Well, try not to fall. You wouldn’t be as much fun with a broken ankle.” Tom gave him a crooked grin.

Cal focused on putting one foot in front of the other. He could feel his heart thudding in his chest, and he was aware of the sweat making his shirt stick to his back and shoulders. “I might not be much fun if I pass out either. Can we slow down some more?”

“Sure. We can even stop.” Tom went from a jog to a walk, obligingly slackening his speed.

Cal shook his head. “Not that slow. Just slower.”

“It is better if we don’t stop completely,” Tom allowed as they set off again. “Okay, we’re taking all the shortcuts.”

“Thank God,” Cal said fervently. He’d never thought of himself as an athlete, but he’d assumed he was in reasonably decent shape. Discovering he couldn’t jog for half a mile without coming close to passing out was humbling.

Talking used too much oxygen, so he left it at that. Gradually, he fell behind Tom, never far enough behind that Tom had to slow down to close the gap, just enough to allow him to find his own pace. He eyed Tom’s ass for a few moments, or what he could see of it with that baggy T-shirt hanging down, but after a while, his surroundings began to blur.

The thud of his sneakers became in sync with the pounding of his heart, a hypnotic beat that lulled him into a space where the sweat dripping down his face and the burn in his chest stopped bothering him. They were there, and he wasn’t ignoring them, but they had receded into the background like the river and the grass around him, smudged, indistinct sensations, not sharp and clear like the gasp and pant of his breath.

He began to feel as if he were on a moving walkway, with each step advancing him impossibly far, a man from a fairy tale wearing seven-league boots. This was easy; this was simple. He was going to do this every time that Tom did, the two of them running together, conquering the city mile by mile.

He was invincible, winged of foot and—

“Halfway there,” Tom called back over his shoulder, and reality hit Cal along with a cramp in his right calf as painful as a thrust from a blade.

“
Ow
,
ow
,” he muttered, and dropped to the curb with both hands clamped around his leg. “Tom!”

Tom stopped immediately and jogged back to him. “Cramp?”

“Yes, goddamn it.” Cal flexed his foot, toes toward the sky. It didn’t help, and he was grateful when Tom knelt down and dug a thumb firmly into the taut muscle, even though it hurt like hell. It was like having someone else rip a Band-Aid off for him when he knew it had to be done. “
Ow
, God.”

“I know. Give it a few seconds. Take deep breaths,” Tom advised. Cal did his best to follow directions, but damn it, it
hurt
. He’d forgotten why he’d thought any of this was a good idea in the first place.

A few seconds later, the cramp eased, and he relaxed. “Whew.”

“I can go back and get the car,” Tom offered.

“No way.” Cal was much too stubborn for that. He’d have had to be bleeding at the very least. “I’ll walk. Go on, you finish your run and I’ll meet you back at the house.”

Tom snorted. “Yeah, that’s going to happen.”

“If you just stop running, you might get a cramp too,” Cal pointed out.

“I already
have
stopped,” Tom said with inescapable logic. “If you think you’re up for walking, let’s go, and you can get into a hot bath. It’ll help.”

“So will alcohol,” Cal said. “Applied internally, before you say anything.”

Tom hooked his hand under Cal’s elbow and brought him up to his feet. “Cold beer, hot bath. Got it.”

Walking back to the house took longer than running away from it had, which made sense but still didn’t seem fair. The cramp didn’t return, but Cal felt tense, anticipating a return of the agony every time he took a step. The muscles in his calf felt as if they’d been ripped apart and glued back together wrong.

“I’m sorry,” Tom said when they were within sight of the house. “I shouldn’t have made you do that. It hasn’t been that long since you were hurt, after all.”

“That’s not why I got a cramp,” Cal said. “They can happen to anyone, and even before I got beaten up by that jerk, I’d still have been a gasping, sweat-soaked wreck by the end of the first mile.” He reached out and patted Tom’s shoulder reassuringly. “And I wanted to do it. For a few minutes there, I was really enjoying it.”

Tom brightened. “Yeah? It feels great when you hit your stride, huh? Runner’s high.”

A twinge from his calf made Cal wince. He nodded, ignoring the pain. “Felt good,” he agreed.

“That’s why I like it so much. Well, that and it tires me out. It’s easier to sleep when I’m tired.”

“Insomnia?” Cal asked. He slept too soundly to notice if Tom had a tendency to wander the house late at night.

“Sometimes.”

“You try counting sheep?” They turned onto their street and immediately had to step onto the sidewalk because of the huge old tree blocking their way. The trees that lined the length of the road must have been planted many years before and grown larger than anticipated. Now they straddled the curb, pushing it upward in some places and destroying it completely in others.

“People don’t really do that,” Tom said. “Careful, those roots.”

Cal stepped over them carefully and felt the answering ache in his calves. “Sure they do.”

“Count sheep?” Tom frowned at him, definitely not the look Cal preferred. “Do you?”

It hadn’t been a question Cal had considered having to answer himself. “Um…no. Not so much. Not actual sheep.”

“What
do
you do when you can’t get to sleep?”

An elderly lady walking an equally elderly spaniel was in earshot, coming toward them at a slow pace that was still faster than Cal’s. Cal waited until they’d passed by, the dog sniffing suspiciously at them both and its owner giving them an apologetic smile, before answering.

“I jerk off. Works like a charm.”

“Oh, I do that too,” Tom admitted without hesitation. “It doesn’t really make me sleepy, though. Just…relaxed, and that’s not the same thing.”

“I guess not,” Cal said, caught up in a vision of Tom lying sated and sprawled out on his bed, his hand still resting on his cock, his stomach wet, that long, muscular body at ease. Definitely something he wanted to see for real. He flashed Tom a grin. “Maybe sex will work better. Feel free to ask for help anytime.”

Tom gave the little snort that seemed to be his version of a chuckle. “I’d say it’s all you think about if it wasn’t just about the only thing on my mind right now,” he said when they reached their house. “Which means the run worked, because any other time, I’d still be obsessing over my parents.”

“Yeah.” Cal stopped at the end of the driveway and reached out to stop Tom too. “Come here.”

“What?”

“Just come here.” He tugged Tom into a hug. “You don’t care, do you? If people see?” He had to assume the answer was no, because Tom wasn’t pulling away.

“No.” Tom sighed against Cal’s neck and hugged him back. Cal wished they could just stay like that all day, even though he knew it wouldn’t be long before his dick got ideas that involved less clothing and a less public forum. “Did you mean it? What you said before?”

Confused, Cal asked, “What did I say?”

“That you’re my boyfriend?”

Cal pulled back so he could see Tom’s face, gauge what he was asking. “I want to be, if that’s what you want. If you don’t…” That was a profoundly depressing thought.

Tom hastened to reassure him. “I do. That
is
what I want. Let’s get you inside.”

Cal let Tom lead him inside and into the bathroom, pausing only long enough to take off their running shoes along the way.

“Sit.” Tom pointed at the toilet lid, and Cal sat. Tom started to run water into the tub. “I’m making it really hot. You should try to keep it that way, so only add as much cold as you absolutely need to.”

“You sound like an expert.”

“When I started running, I was in worse shape than you,” Tom said. “Carrying too much weight, no muscle tone. I’m still too big to be a runner in any competitive way. That’s not what I’m interested in, so it doesn’t matter. Anyway, the first few months, hell, every time I pushed myself too far, too fast, I suffered. Which is why I’m an idiot for not realizing that two miles for a beginner was a dumb idea.”

“Hey, I’ve got a mouth, even if someone stole my leg muscles when I wasn’t noticing,” Cal protested. He got out of his sweat-soaked T-shirt and let it drop to the floor. “I could’ve turned back or told you it was more than I could manage.”

“No, you’re too competitive to do that,” Tom said with a matter-of-fact acceptance of that facet of Cal’s personality that Cal found interesting. He was competitive, very much so, for all his outward casual approach to life, and that bugged most men. “Okay, I’m going to stop apologizing for being selfish now.”

“You weren’t—” Cal began, only to subside when Tom gave him a stern look. “Okay, okay, subject closed.” Steam was curling up from the water gushing into the tub, and Cal winced. “Jesus, I’m going to get out of there looking like a boiled lobster.”

“Don’t say that.” Tom shuddered. “Freaks me out to think of how they cook them, and it’s too much effort to get at the meat. Pick something I like to eat. How about, uh, a strawberry? Or a raspberry?”

“And that gets me eaten?” He knew he should lay off on the innuendo, but it was just too much fun to tease Tom.

Tom rolled his eyes, grinning. “Maybe. If you’re not too exhausted. I bet when you get out of this bath, you’ll be limp, not stiff, and then you won’t be worth eating at all.”

“Ouch.” Cal lifted his ass just enough to tug down his shorts and the briefs he wore under them and glanced down. “Hm. Looks edible to me.”

“It’s not like you know that from personal experience,” Tom pointed out, turning off the water. There was a flush on his face, but that was probably from leaning over the hot water. “Unless you’re way more flexible than I am.”

“Not even close.” Not that Cal had tried, but he felt like he knew either way. He was hard now—no way he could have avoided it when he was naked in Tom’s presence. “Going to stay and keep me company?”

“Sure, if you want. Take it easy getting in there. It’s nice and warm.”

That might have been the understatement of the day, Cal thought as he dipped his toes cautiously into water so hot that his first instinct was to snatch them back. “You just want to watch me squirm,” he said accusingly.

“Oh no,” Tom said without inflection. “You’ve discovered my insidious plan.”

“Jerk,” Cal muttered and gritted his teeth as he stepped into the tub. He knew Tom was right, that this was the best thing for his sore muscles. Still, the intensity of the heat was coming close to overwhelming, and even the blood in his cock was heading north in favor of cooler pastures.