Goldilocks: A Man, a Jersey, and a Tight End (23 page)

He remembered at one point to reach around and release Scott’s prick from its constraints. Scott moaned loudly as he did so. Then Jim just grabbed Scott by the wrists and one leather-clad hip and focused on cramming his entire body into Scott via his hole.

He was crying when he came.

“Oh, baby, oh, God, oh, lover…” Scott was panting and moaning, his cheek against the leather bench, his body quivering with his aftershocks. “I came buckets, baby.”

Jim draped across Scott’s back, sobbing. His breath wheezed.

After a while he heard Scott chuckling. “You all right, Jim?”

“No.” Jim wheezed. “You killed me. I think you broke my dick too.”

“God, no,” said Scott, sounding truly horrified.

“What… I mean why?” Because in two years, Scott had never
admitted
that he needed or wanted the restraints. He never put them on himself. He never offered that to Jim.

“I can’t say it in words, Jim,” said Scott in a simple, calm way. “So I wanted you to see how I feel about it. About us.”

Jim thought he was going to cry again. He wrapped his arms around Scott and laid his cheek against Scott’s back.

“You getting all womanly on me back there, sugar?” said Scott, a smile in his voice.

“What if I am?” Jim was definitely snuffling as he said it.

“Nothing,” said Scott, closing his eyes and smiling. “Nothing at all, darlin’. Happy anniversary.”

“Happy anniversary, Scott. I love you.”

Scott’s smile broadened. “Yeah.”

Chapter Nineteen

“Aww, it’s so cute.”

“It’s disgusting.”

“You’re just grumpy ’cause you don’t have your puppy dog following you around anymore.”

Scott laughed, stretching a leg across the waterbed and pushing the tip of his big toe, gently, against Brian’s hole.

Brian wriggled. “Tease.”

Scott grinned. And poked. Poked. His cock seemed to feel a certain empathy for his toe and started growing. So, Scott changed the rhythm of his poking. Now he poked, rubbed, poked, rubbed.

Brian rolled over. “Want some help there?”

Molten gold eyes half-closed, Scott had slid down onto the waterbed and was stroking in earnest. It having been really only a hypothetical question, Brian crawled over and slurped Scott’s cock down, and Scott just threw his arms out to either side and said, “Yeahohyeah.”

There was a knock at the door then, a chuckle, and Brian felt a very familiar presence just behind his thighs.

He slid up to the end of Scott’s penis, and between flickering licks, he said, “It fell on the floor, I think.”

“Thanks,” said Paul. His warmth disappeared from behind Brian for a minute, and then slick fingers plunged in and out of Brian’s hole, followed, almost immediately, by a long firm presence.

Brian swallowed Scott as far down as he could, feeling his cock swell.

“Kiss me,” he heard Scott say, and Paul’s body pressed down on Brian as he stretched over him, and Brian could hear them kissing each other.

Scott’s cock swelled again, and this time warm come filled Brian’s throat. He swallowed eagerly, his own cock swaying, hardening, between his legs. Every slide of Paul’s against his prostate pumped him up like a tire until suddenly Paul had gone back onto his heels, pulling Brian back with him, and Brian was sitting
on
Paul’s long prick, which seemed to somehow reach as far as his spine. Brian was exclaiming about this quite loudly when Scott’s mouth closed around his cock and somebody’s hands started tugging at one of his nipple rings, and then he just died and went to heaven.

“Ah, there you all are,” said Jim at the door. “I thought we were going to put the water tub up together.”

“I needed a shower first,” said Scott. “Remember? You sent me in.”

“And I came in to give him a clean towel,” said Brian.

“And when they didn’t come back, I had to go fetch them,” said Paul.

Jim looked over his bed, which had six arms and six legs thrown helter-skelter across it like a man-sized game of pick-up sticks. “Thanks for doing that, Paul.”

From under Brian, Paul waved, a weak smile on his face.

“Okay, then,” he said. “Alley-oop, all. Let’s get cracking.”

Brian rolled his eyes. “Yes, Sir.”

“Watch your tone, young man.” Paul smacked Brian’s behind as said behind scrambled off the bed.

“Why don’t we get Freddie and Joshua to help us?” said Scott in that innocent voice that made Jim’s eyes narrow.

“Leave those two alone.”

“Brian said they’re on the front porch reading
poetry
to each other,” said Scott, pulling up a pair of shorts with a wiggle and jump that made three sets of eyes blink.

“Scott, leave them alone,” said Jim.

Scott slid a T-shirt over his head. “It’s disgusting,” he said when his golden head had popped through the neck hole. “He’s making the rest of us look bad.”

Brian sat on the bed, tying his sneakers. “Joshua’s a normal person with Scott and me. He only acts creepy around you two.”

“I could only wish a little of that creepiness would rub off,” said Paul drily.

“See? That’s what I mean,” said Scott.

“Leave them alone,” said Jim. “And I mean it.”

Scott picked lint from his shirt, lips pursed.

“Scott?” said Jim, and Scott had to sigh.

“Yes, Sir.”

* * * *

“What are they doing?”

“They’re going to install a hot tub and a gazebo in the backyard,” said Freddie. He turned a page in the book. He was sitting in the porch swing with Joshua lying back under his arm so they could read the book together.

“Should we be helping them?” asked Joshua, sounding worried.

Joshua, Freddie had noticed, always seemed to think he should be helping. “Earning his keep,” as he’d once called it.

“Jim seems to feel it’s some sort of family bonding experience,” said Freddie. “I imagine that means it will involve a lot of arguing and tantrums, so I really don’t mind missing out.”

He could feel Joshua fretting.

“What’s bothering you?”

The long worried pause came first. In the past couple of weeks, Joshua had become only a little more willing to talk. And he always chose his words carefully. “Do you think Scott needs his bedroom back?”

Freddie parsed the question in his own mind, drew some conclusions based on previous conversations with Joshua, and asked back, “Don’t you think Scott would tell you if he did?”

Joshua pondered this. Freddie knew from experience that Joshua might mull over his question for some time, maybe hours. Maybe days. So he turned a page and read out loud. “‘While I am I and you are you, so long as the world contains us both…’”

Joshua followed the words with him, just a whisper. And Freddie wondered if Joshua had any idea why Freddie was reading Browning and Byron of late. Why Freddie, whose taste generally ran to the modernists and postmodernists, should suddenly have a taste for the romantics. If Joshua had any clue at all of what was happening to Freddie.

Because Freddie hadn’t any clue himself.

He recognized some things. Joshua naturally asked for direction, and Freddie was a natural director. He’d had this sort of mutually fulfilling relationship with people before: students, interns, and lovers. He recognized the lust factor also. Joshua seemed so hesitant that Freddie hadn’t acted on it yet. He expected that that was why it seemed so
present
all the time. But the depth of longing was surprising.

Freddie
ached
for Joshua.

“What’s wrong?” Joshua was looking up at him. And Freddie realized he’d stopped reading and was just drifting, swinging back and forth with Joshua pressed up against him, under his arm, silky hair brushing his neck.

“Nothing’s wrong. I was just daydreaming.”

“Oh.”

My God, Joshua had to know, at least the physical part. Freddie had been half-hard for two weeks. Pressed up against him like this, Joshua had to at least be aware.

Maybe he was, and he wasn’t interested. Maybe he was just a very insecure young man in need of a dominant friend. After all, he’d been attracted to Scott, and Freddie was nothing like Scott.

The thought plunged Freddie into a despair that surprised him.

“Freddie?”

Joshua was looking up at him with real worry on his face. Freddie forced a smile, but of course, that only made it worse. Joshua intuitively knew something was being hidden from him, and he assumed the worst. Well, this was ridiculous. Freddie owed it to himself and to the man in his arms to clear the air.

“We need to talk, Joshua. I hope you won’t mind.”

* * * *

He hated the drama of it, because it only heightened Joshua’s anxiety, but Freddie took him to the bedroom and closed the door. It seemed too private a thing to talk about in public.

Joshua’s brows were creased. He kept nervously pushing his hair out of his eyes. He looked like he might burst, so Freddie decided to just say it.

“You must know I’m attracted to you.”

Well, that had probably
not
been the thing to say. Joshua didn’t blink. That wine-colored blush did rise up his neck though.

“I’m sorry. What…what I meant to say was…” Listen to him, fumbling and stuttering like a teenager.

“I didn’t know,” said Joshua. “I thought you felt sorry for me.”

What?

“You’re so smart,” said Joshua. “And I’m so stupid. I thought you felt sorry for me.”

“You’re not stupid, Joshua,” said Freddie, a little sharply. “And I don’t want to hear you say that about yourself again.”

A spot of pink appeared on each of Joshua’s cheeks. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” said Freddie, grasping Joshua’s arm. He found himself unable to resist and touched the back of his hand to that blush. Joshua’s cheek pushed just slightly against Freddie’s hand, and before he could think, Freddie had gathered Joshua up and kissed him.

“Oh,” breathed Joshua against Freddie’s lips. So Freddie kissed him again. He felt Joshua’s arms come around his back and pressed him down onto the mattress.

Joshua’s mouth opened under his, and Freddie’s hands wandered from his arms to the buttons of his shirt, plucking at them and moving from Joshua’s mouth to his chin to his neck, pushing aside the fabric and laving one nipple roughly with his tongue.

Joshua was breathing hard, hands resting lightly on Freddie’s shoulders, his whole body shaking. Freddie pushed the shirt back from Joshua’s shoulders, helped Joshua remove it, kissed his wrists, his arms, came back to his mouth, and kissed him deeply, tongue pressing into Joshua’s mouth as his hand wandered and found Joshua’s belt buckle and slipped it open.

Joshua made a noise, and his fingers tightened on Freddie’s arm.

“Joshua?” said Freddie. “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing. Don’t stop,” breathed Freddie.

Slipping down the zipper, Freddie found the wet, hard lump in Joshua’s briefs and kneaded it gently, the man arching and shaking beneath him. Freddie crawled up so that he lay almost fully on Joshua, reaching down to open his own pants and release his throbbing cock. Joshua lay there looking up at him, his eyes wide as a startled deer’s.

“Joshua, is what I’m doing making you feel bad?”

“I don’t…” Joshua breathed in and out. “I’m sorry…”

“You don’t want to?” Freddie swallowed hard, closed his eyes, and concentrated on controlling himself. “It’s okay, Joshua. I understand…”

“No,” said Joshua fiercely. “No, I want to.”

In two weeks, Freddie had learned that one had to wait very patiently sometimes for Joshua to find the words. He wasn’t feeling terribly patient at the moment, but he tried.

Joshua’s eyes searched Freddie’s face. He breathed, and his hand touched Freddie’s chest, traveled over it, traveled down and then up again. “I don’t know anything,” he said finally.

“But…you said you had a boyfriend. I thought…”

“I’m not any good at it. He…he said I wasn’t.”

Rage at this mysterious
he
and compassion for Joshua’s hurt warred with Freddie’s lust. “There aren’t any good or bad ways to touch each other, Joshua. It’s just nice, isn’t it?”

Joshua’s eyes were filled with some bitter memory. “I want to make you feel good.”

“I feel good right now, Joshua. Just lying here with you.”

Joshua’s chest rose and fell as he breathed hard with whatever emotion he was feeling. Freddie found his hand drawn to the planes of white skin and lean muscle, his palm floating down to the soft little belly, the trail of hair. Joshua’s jeans opened to the white briefs, his cock still a mound with a growing damp spot. After two weeks of restless sleep and erotic daydreams and frustratingly chaste hugs and cuddles, Freddie thought he was about a step from madness.

“I’ll teach you,” he said. The arrogance of it would make him cringe in the morning, but at the time it seemed the shortest way between point A and the point where he longed to be.

“I’ll teach you to make me feel good, Joshua. And you teach me how to make you feel good. Okay?”

That solemn expression was not exactly the one a lover longs to see, but Joshua nodded his head.

Freddie swallowed. “All right. Let me help you take off your pants.” Joshua lifted his hips and helped Freddie slide the denim down his long legs. Freddie pulled his own slacks off a little wildly, bunching them and kicking them somewhere onto the floor. “Now give me your hand.”

He pressed Joshua’s palm around his cock, wrapped the fingers tightly around it, and had to breathe for a minute. He slid the white briefs down, and a lovely thick cock, dark with blood, lifted its head above Joshua’s silky black pubic hairs.

“Oh,” moaned Freddie. He wrapped his fingers around it and let its weight rest there. God, he wanted to taste it.

“We need a condom.” God willing, they’d need more than one.

“There’s some in my duffel bag,” said Joshua, his voice a whisper. And then Freddie had to kiss him again, legs brushing against legs.

Joshua’s grip tightened, and Freddie gasped and said, “Not yet. Let me…”

He slid off the bed and threw things around from the duffel bag until he found the box of condoms and brought a handful of foil wrappers back to the bed.