Goldilocks: A Man, a Jersey, and a Tight End (27 page)

On the dresser, the old clock that Jim wound every morning with a key ticked off the seconds.

Tick
,
tick
,
tick
,
tick.

“
What
is troubling you?” Scott asked of the ceiling.

“I think we’ve had this issue hanging over us like the sword of Damocles for some time,” said Jim.

Tick
,
tick
,
tick
,
tick.

Argh. Jim was going to make him participate in the conversation just by dropping comments like that and then not explaining himself. “
What
issue?” snapped Scott.

“What issue do you think?” asked Jim.

Tick
,
tick
,
tick
,
tick
,
tick.

“I don’t know,” snarled Scott. “You’re the one who sees it dangling like a fucking sword.”

He
felt
Jim’s eyes snap at the swear word.

Tick
,
tick
,
tick
,
tick
,
tick
,
tick
,
tick.

“Why us?” said Scott. “We’re fine. Aren’t we, Jim?”

Tick
,
tick
,
tick
,
tick.

Jim didn’t answer him, and tied spread-eagle on the bed, Scott suddenly wanted to curl around himself. Suddenly he wanted to hide, and he couldn’t. “Jim?”

“I’m here, baby.”

But that wasn’t enough. He needed to
feel
Jim there. He needed to
know
Jim would be there. “I need you,” said Scott, and he hated like hell how his voice sounded.

And Jim was there in a second, warm and present, lying next to him, almost
on
him, and those warm brown eyes were looking into Scott’s. “I’m here, baby.”

Scott exhaled with relief. The panic he’d felt a moment ago completely gone. “Let me up?”

Jim’s eyes read him. “But we haven’t talked about it.”

“Is this about Joshua? Because it’s just that he’s so…so…”

“Submissive.”

“Yeah.”

“Like you?”

“No! Christ, no.”

“Then why does it bother you?”

God
. What did Jim do? What was it about his voice or the way he looked at Scott that made the breath start to huff in his chest and that choky feeling start in his throat? His eyes prickled. “I’m a man, Jim.”

“Thank Christ,” said Jim, smiling a little. “So’m I.”

“But I respect you.”

“You think I don’t respect you?” said Jim, looking honestly shocked.

Scott was silent.

“Scott, I…I…” Jim realized that everything he was about to say merely emphasized his physical attraction to Scott.
I worship you. I can’t stand to be without you
. Scott was just lying there, and Jim suddenly felt that what he said next was going to be so important that it would define their relationship for years.

“If I were to be stuck someplace,” he said, “without anything but the bare essentials for survival. And the powers that be said,
you can have one other person there to help you get through this
, I’d pick you.”

Scott was looking down, his golden lashes flickering. “You would?”

“Absolutely.”

“And not just for the mind-blowing sex?”

Jim paused. “Well, that
would
have been factored in. Of course.”

Scott gave him the barest smile. “Of course.”

“But it wouldn’t be the main consideration. You’re the man who’s got my back. I know that.”

Scott looked up at him. His eyes had gone that deep golden color that made him look like a lusty tiger. “I love you.”

“Yeah, I love you too.”

“You gonna untie me now?”

Jim peered at the clock on the dresser. “I figure another ten minutes should be enough for what you did to Joshua.”

“Jim!”

Jim chuckled. “Then I’m gonna come back in here and finish fucking that pretty ass.”

Scott grinned, wriggling his butt happily into the waterbed mattress. “Yes, Sir.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Go out long!” cried Scott, taking three hopping steps back, throwing arm retracted.

Wearing a muddy, flapping Giants jersey emblazoned with the number 56, Brian ran into the officially-marked end zone and raised his arms for the pass that was never completed.

A Browns jersey with a mud streak down the back and a pair of holey jeans sticking out hit Scott smack in the chest and brought him down.

“Wah!” yelled Joshua, jumping up and pouncing after the ball as it bounced across the lawn.

Scott just lay there. Halfway down the field, Joshua turned around and looked back at Scott, who still lay on the ground, as if stunned.

Joshua came trotting back. He’d filled out a little in the past few months. Freddie encouraged him to eat properly and had him working weights to deal with the stress that ate away at him. But he was still tall and rangy, the thick hair sticking out at a weird angle from the sweat and the game. “You okay, Scott?” he said worriedly.

Scott howled, got ahold of one of Joshua’s legs, and brought him down.

“Hey!” Joshua yelled, getting tickled and screaming at the outrage of it.

And “
Ooomph
,” he said, when Brian leaped on him as well.

“No Browns player sacks my quarterback!” yelled Brian, rolling Joshua and grabbing him in inappropriate places.

Joshua screamed and laughed.

“He doesn’t even seem like the same young man,” said Jim, watching them from the window.

“Oh, he is,” said Freddie. “He’s less anxious with you all, but it’s still a struggle for him with strangers.”

“Brian said he’s seen him on campus talking to other students. So he’s making friends.”

“He is learning to interact. Slowly.” Freddie set down his coffee. “A colleague of mine from the literature department mentioned him the other day. Raved about his poetry.”

“Really?”

“Of course, I knew he was brilliant,” said Freddie, smiling, “but it was nice to hear it from somebody else.”

Jim sat back, stirring his coffee.

“It would be a scandal if it got out that we are lovers,” said Freddie. “But it doesn’t seem to bother anyone that we are roommates.”

Freddie and Joshua would be moving into their own place this weekend. Joshua had seemed quite calm about it. Where Scott and Brian might have reacted to impending change with fretting and stubbornness, Joshua seemed to be content to go wherever Freddie led.

Freddie, however, was looking apprehensive and like he wanted to talk.

“Have you met any of your new neighbors?” asked Jim.

“I have. A young couple next door. Totally cool. Of course, Joshua is still nervous about them. I’m glad your lot are so close by. He’ll have someone to talk to. It’s hard enough being shy. It’s…different for him,” said Freddie, “because of the way we are.”

“You think your relationship makes things more difficult for him?”

“No,” said Freddie, but the way he was pulling at his ear, staring at the coffee table, said
maybe
to Jim. Jim set down his coffee cup.

“Freddie, the young man that followed Scott home was a victim just looking for another predator to hurt him. The young man out there in that yard is healthy and happy and learning to take care of himself. Do you think he’d be that way without your relationship?”

Freddie steepled his fingers in front of his face and leaned his forehead on them. “I hate to do anything to hurt him.”

A soft smile creased Jim’s face. “We always feel that way about the ones we love, but you can only do your best.”

“See, you can just
say
that.”

“You have to trust him.”

“That’s what Paul says.”

“Paul is, occasionally, right.”

“Only occasionally?” said Paul, coming in from the bedroom. “Sorry, had to do that conference call.”

“How’s the deal going?”

“Ah. If I don’t get an ulcer, it’ll be great.”

“Don’t talk like that in front of Brian,” said Jim. “Brian has become convinced lately that we are old and feeble and prone to geriatric illnesses. He’s been hounding me about our diet.”

Freddie laughed. “He must have been talking to Joshua. Joshua’s got me eating oatmeal every morning. I don’t even know how it happened.”

“Hmm, sounds like something Brian would do.”

“Yes, Scott would just sit there and tell you how unhealthy whatever you were eating was until you’d be unable to swallow it.”

Freddie stared at him. “That’s what Joshua does when I smoke my pipe.”

Paul grinned. “Three evil little minds working together.”

* * * *

“So. First you have a housewarming and invite all of us.” Brian was sitting on the hot tub, holding the football between his knees, and enumerating a list to Joshua. “Then Scott and I give you gifts. Freddie can’t say anything because they’re gifts.”

“Geronimo!” There was a streak of golden skin and a giant
sploosh
behind Brian. Water rained on him from above, and he whirled. “Scott!”

Scott paddled to the side, looking pleased with himself. “Time for the wet boxers contest, gentlemen. I’ll be the judge, and you be the contestants.”

Joshua looked shyly at Brian, but he wasn’t as easily embarrassed by either young man these days. “Can I tell you what I want?”

Brian looked delighted. “Yeah?”

“You know that, um, leather thing you, um, wrap around your, um, you know.”

Brian and Scott exchanged looks. “Oh, I’m sure we can find a cock-and-ball ring
somewhere
around here,” said Brian.

“I’ll have to check for size,” said Scott.

Joshua grinned. “Freddie wouldn’t like…”

“No!” said Scott. “I thought we had you trained to stop saying that.” He swam to the other side of the hot tub and so missed the look Joshua gave him.

“Are they still playing football?” asked Paul.

Jim peered out the window. “Sitting by the hot tub.”

Paul rolled his eyes. “Planning something.”

“Should we be worried?” asked Freddie.

Jim shrugged fatalistically.

Paul laughed. “Jim and I used to worry. Now we just practice damage control.”

“You make us sound like old men, Paul,” said Jim. “It’s only been a couple of years.”

Freddie shook his head. “You seem like old hands to me. Which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to ask how late is too late to call? In the event that someone might have an emergency question?”

“You’ll be fine,” said Paul.

The back door banged open, and Brian came running in. He was filthy and wet, the football jersey slapping around his knees as he ran. “Joshua fell in the hot tub,” he said, laughing.

Freddie stood. “He fell in?”

“Well, actually, Scott took off his clothes and jumped in, and Joshua threw Scott’s clothes over the fence, so Scott pulled him in, and I was just sitting there.” Big, innocent blue eyes under dripping-wet blond hair. “And they got me wet too, but not as bad as they are, so, anyway, they wanted me to come in the house and get them some clean, dry clothes.”

He trotted down the hallway, feet making wet
splat
noises on the wood as he went.

Jim sighed. “I’ll go do something about this.” He rose and looked down at Freddie. “How are you feeling?”

“Well, I’m not as worried about Joshua,” Freddie admitted, “as long as he has Brian and Scott. I
am
a little worried about
me
.”

“What are you two looking at?”

Jim came into the bedroom, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel. Joshua and Freddie had said good night hours ago, and the sounds from the bedroom at the end of the hall had ceased. Paul was still finishing paperwork in his room, and Brian and Scott lay on their bellies in their boxers on the waterbed, looking at a magazine.

“Goldilocks thinks he needs a tattoo,” said Scott.

“Scott’s just afraid that if I get one, you’ll want him to get one too.”

Scott snorted, but Jim said, “Scott knows I’d never ask him to do anything he didn’t want to do.”

Those pretty eyes rolled toward him and away. “Stupid idea anyway,” said Scott. “What’s that one mean?”

“Chinese character for
courage
,” read Brian. “Hey, look, a bear print.”

Scott pulled the magazine out of Brian’s hands. “What kind of moron would want that on their butt? Or…would you have this on your thigh?”

“I want a slinky-looking red dragon around my belly.” Brian rolled onto his back so he could demonstrate the placement of the dragon. His boxers were definitely tented. Which figured because, peering over their shoulders at the thing, Jim could see that half the models were nude men.

Scott noticed Brian’s condition as well. “Here?” he said, lightly tracing the circle with his finger.

Brian looked at him, eyelids half closed, mouth half-opened. “Yeah. Um. No. A little lower.”

“Here?” Scott looked up at Brian, his eyes glowing. And he slid his fingers under the waistband of Brian’s shorts. “Oh, look, Goldilocks. I found your dragon.”

The head of Brian’s cock emerged from the elastic, and Scott bent over and wrapped his lips around it slowly.

Jim set down his dish towel, shed his jeans, and went up behind Scott, wrapping his arms around his chest and nibbling at his ear.

Scott hmmmed approval, either of what he had in his mouth or of what Jim was doing, and Brian lifted his knees, shedding his boxers and opening his legs so that Scott could really get down in there.

That pretty bubble butt had been soaking in a hot tub for an hour, and Jim just couldn’t resist it. He held both cheeks in his hands, licking the pretty pink pucker around and around.

He felt a hand on his leg and somebody’s mouth on his calf and wriggled down to accommodate what was probably Brian’s mouth sucking on the head of his penis.

“Hey,” said Paul. And Jim saw, out of the corner of his eye, two booted feet. Then one booted foot. Then a booted foot and a bare foot. Then one bare foot. Then a pelvis and a cock at his cheek and, with a “May I cut in?” Paul was poking at Scott’s wet hole.

Scott made a very, very enthusiastic sound, and this somehow translated into Brian arching and moaning, and that translated into a very nice buzz along Jim’s cock. He moaned and found Scott’s lips on his for just a minute.