I Can See for Miles (15 page)

“Ah, so
he
bottomed,” Maggie said, bouncing up and down excitedly.

“What the…?” Jason said, coming out of the kitchen and almost colliding with Charlie and his wife. “Um… Maggie, honey, what are you doing to our boss?”

“He’s not my boss, he’s my bitch,” Maggie retorted, turning her head and growling at Jason as he gripped her under the arms. “Let go of me, you don’t understand—he got laid last night!”

Any hope Charlie had of Jason helping him rid himself of the growth he had attached to him flew out the window when he saw the way Jason’s eyes lit up, just like his wife’s. “Oh come
on
,” he groaned, pulling at Maggie’s hands.

“Josh, right?” Jason grinned. “Is he big? I’ve seen the size of his feet, dude. How was it? Did you bottom?”

“That’s it, fuck off, both of you, or I’m gonna fire your asses!” Charlie snarled, taking in a deep breath as Jason lifted Maggie off him and into his own arms. “I’m going for a shower and a change of clothes. Start getting breakfast ready.” Charlie straightened his T-shirt and headed for the stairs, where he stopped halfway up to lean over the banister and dropped them both a conspiratorial wink. “It was fan-fucking-tastic, yes, he’s huge and no, I did not bottom.” He chuckled at the whoops and hollers from Jason and Maggie and shook his head at the little dance they did in the hall before he stomped up the rest of the stairs to his room.

Charlie turned on the shower and climbed in, quickly soaped his body, and then stood under the cascading water, sighing as it flowed over his body and soothed his aching muscles. Not that he minded having aching muscles, not when the reason for them was a night in Josh Donald’s arms. He smiled to himself, and his cock twitched interestedly as his mind replayed visions of Josh above him, shaggy hair falling into his eyes and the hottest whimpering sounds falling from Josh’s lips when he slid in, slow and deep. He’d never felt so connected to another human being before as he had when he was buried inside Josh, and not just physically.
Is that why you rushed to tell him you’re going blind?
You felt
so
connected you lied to him about the appointment?

“Shut up,” Charlie said aloud into the quiet of the bathroom, grabbing the shampoo and quickly washing his hair. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head back under the flow of water and rinsed until his hair was soap free, then grabbed the towel waiting on the shower curtain pole. Rubbing the towel over his hair, Charlie opened his eyes, and his blood ran cold in his veins.

He couldn’t see.

“No, no, no,” he muttered, rubbing the towel over his eyes, hard. “Not yet… please… I’m not ready yet….” Lowering the towel, he opened his eyes again.

Slowly the bathroom appeared before him, and he felt the breath hitch in his throat. Opening the bathroom cabinet, he picked up his drops and drew the clear fluid up into the dropper, then placed two drops in each eye. Blinking quickly, he opened and closed one eye after the other, judging the vision in each. He could hardly see anything at all through the fog of his left eye, and he knew the vision in his right was definitely dimmer than a few days ago. Sitting down on the closed toilet seat, Charlie lowered his head into his hands and wiped at the terrified tears that rolled down his cheeks.

T
HE
next few days passed quickly, with so many activities and outings to local places of interest that Josh and Charlie didn’t really have much time alone together. Charlie had managed to drag Josh into the office for a ten minute make-out session after lunch, but apart from a few stolen kisses, they had had to make do with discreet, passing touches and whispered promises.

Sitting back in the chair in his office, Charlie took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He had the beginnings of a headache, and his left eye now had a definite film over it. It was a bit like trying to look through a really dirty window. He sighed heavily. He hadn’t seen Josh since breakfast this morning. Jason, Tom, and Mike had taken everyone on a nature trail, and Charlie had been stuck in the office catching up on paperwork. He had also spent the majority of the day on the telephone with the principal of a blind school in Arizona, ironing out the finer points of having large classes of children stay at the camp during the summer. Their business would bring a lot of money and prestige to the camp and possible recommendations to other schools in the future, which he couldn’t afford to pass up.

Yawning, he was in midstretch when his cell phone vibrated on the desk beside the keyboard. He picked it up, his thumb automatically pressing the little message envelope, and squinted at the text on the screen, surprised to see how late it was, by the time stamp. It was from Josh.

Come outside.

Charlie pushed his glasses back on and made his way to the heavy wooden front door. Opening it, his breath caught in his throat at the horse and rider illuminated in the light from inside the living room.

“Did someone order a white knight upon a fiery steed?” Josh smirked, doffing an invisible cap at Charlie.

Charlie closed the front door behind him and made his way down the steps. “Seriously? My God, you really are gay,” he drawled, lifting a hand and patting Dottie’s soft neck. “What are you doing here?”

Josh’s grin couldn’t have gotten any wider if he’d tried, and it was infectious because Charlie found an answering one on his own face. “I thought you might like to come for a little moonlit ride with me. I must confess I may have had to agree to call our first child after Mike to get him to saddle my girl for me—and if it’s a girl, Maggie, ’cause she’s responsible for the provisions, some wine, and something soft to lie on while we look at the stars.” He patted the backpack hooked over Dottie’s saddle and the blanket draped over his own long legs. “What do you think?”

“What do I think?” Charlie swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat. “I think I’ve never seen anything so corny in my entire life, and the best offer I’ve had all day.”

“Then hop aboard, fair maiden.” Josh held out his hand to give Charlie the leverage to climb up behind him on Dottie’s back. Turning his head and lifting his chin to receive the kiss he was obviously angling for—and Charlie was more than happy to oblige—Josh smirked and handed the reins to Charlie. “There is, however, one fault in my master plan… you’ll have to drive. I didn’t eat enough carrots as a kid, and my night vision is crap.”

Rolling his eyes, Charlie slipped his arms around Josh’s waist and grasped the reins, pulling on the right one to turn Dottie around and tapping the big horse’s side gently to urge her on. “Well, mine isn’t much better, dude. Luckily for us, Dottie doesn’t need a map.”

They ambled along in silence, feeling the movement of the horse beneath them in its rolling gait. Neither of them felt the need to speak, not with Josh’s head leaned back on Charlie’s shoulder, his hands resting on Charlie’s thighs. Nor with Charlie’s cheek resting on Josh’s soft, dark curls and the scent of his spicy cologne filling Charlie’s nostrils.

“We’re by the riverbank, where we picnicked during the pony trek,” Charlie said, his lips brushing against the soft skin of Josh’s ear. “Is this okay?”

“It’s perfect,” Josh said, and took his weight from Charlie’s body and allowing him the room to bring Dottie to a stop.

Swinging his leg over Dottie’s broad back and jumping to the ground, Charlie led the horse over to a patch of grass and looped the reins over the lower limb of a tree so she didn’t wander off. Charlie reached up and took Josh’s hand, helped him down, and then grabbed the blanket and the backpack from the saddle. “By the bank?” he asked, offering Josh his elbow.

“Yeah. I love the sound of the water flowing along,” Josh murmured, his unseeing gaze seeming to zero in on the river, guided by his now over sensitive ears. Charlie spread the blanket out on the grass and watched Josh for a few moments as Josh closed his eyes and let the sounds and scents of the forest wash over him. Charlie smiled and did the same, listening to the whisper of the wind through the trees, the rustling of nocturnal creatures through the bushes, and the splashing of fish coming up for insects on the surface of the rushing water. Inhaling deeply, he could smell the freshness of the grass, the slightly dank smell of the river, the leather of Dottie’s saddle, the slightly acrid tang of horse sweat and, beneath that, Josh. Opening his eyes, Charlie grasped Josh’s fingers. “I think we’re ready,” he said softly, easing Josh down onto the blanket. He investigated the contents of the backpack, pulled out two bottles of beer, and handed one to Josh. “Looks like Maggie thought she was feeding the five thousand. There’s a bit of everything in here.”

Josh laughed, holding his hand out for food. “She knows I’m a growing boy,” he retorted.

Opening a Tupperware box of strawberries, a germ of an idea skittered across the surface of Charlie’s brain. He moved closer to Josh on the blanket, took a piece of the succulent fruit, and traced the outline of Josh’s lips with it.

“What’s that?” Josh frowned, grabbing Charlie’s wrist.

“Open your mouth, city boy, and you’ll find out.” Charlie’s reply was husky. What started out as innocent teasing had turned into something entirely more decadent. Something that had his breath hitching in his throat and his blood heading south at the sight of Josh’s lips parting and his tongue sneaking out to lick the strawberry held in Charlie’s fingers.

“Mmm,” Josh breathed, “I love strawberries.” He leaned forward and opened his mouth to bite the fruit and pull it from Charlie’s grasp. He chewed the fruit slowly, and didn’t Charlie know he was just doing that on purpose? “What else you got for me in there?” Josh asked, his voice sounding raw and wrecked in the stillness of the air that crackled around them.

“Sandwiches,” Charlie rasped. He grabbed a ham sandwich and unwrapped it quickly, then shoved it into Josh’s hands, trying to ignore his chuckling. “Stop it,” he said, opening his own sandwich. “If we don’t eat all this, Maggie will kill us.”

“Hey,” Josh mumbled around a mouthful of food, “you’re the one who started the whole
9 1/2 Weeks
thing. I’m the innocent party here. I was just hungry.”

“Innocent my ass,” Charlie retorted, smiling at Josh’s pained expression. “Eat your food.” After a comfortable silence, punctuated with the sound of munching and the rustling of the trees, Charlie handed Josh the rest of the strawberries and dealt with the debris of their meal. Leaning back on the blanket and putting his weight on his bent elbows, Charlie looked up at the sky and sighed, heavily. Although the moon was quite low in the sky and casting enough light for a full-sighted person to see comfortably by, to Charlie it was as if the moon was covered by a thick cloud and all the shadows blended into one. Even Josh, who was merely inches away from him on the blanket, was fuzzy and out of focus.

“I can hear you thinking, you know,” Josh said softly, biting a strawberry in half and wiping at his chin to catch the red juice that escaped his lips. “Care to share?”

“Just tired, I guess,” Charlie replied, ignoring the stab of guilt that he had still not talked to Josh about what happened at his appointment with Frank. “It’s been a hectic couple of days. Speaking of which, how was the nature trail today? I’m sorry I missed it.”

Josh laughed loudly, and Charlie had to give him his due for not mentioning the change of subject. “You’re gonna be even sorrier when I tell you what happened,” he said excitedly. “Mario wandered off on his own to… um… how did he put it? Oh yeah, ‘to lay a log cabin’.” He laughed louder at Charlie’s bitten off “Eww.” “He was gone for ages, and finally Greg was like… ‘I’m gonna go find him.’ Well, he found him all right…,” he trailed off, wiping the tears from his eyes.

Charlie watched the delight on Josh’s face with a huge smile on his own, unable to take his eyes off the beautiful man beside him. “Okay, I’ll bite… where was he?” he asked, lifting a hand to absently brush the bangs from Josh’s eyes.

“He had been interrupted in his… um… logging… by a huge skunk!” Josh chortled. “He threw a stick at it in the hope it would run, but he just pissed it off, and it sprayed him. Man, you should have seen him. Greg found him rolling around on the ground with his hands over his face and his pants around his ankles. I nearly peed myself.”

Charlie was shaking with laughter, and tears were rolling down Josh’s cheeks as he relayed the story of Mario’s humiliation. “Poor Mario…. I shouldn’t laugh… but the guy did threaten to kill me,” Charlie said. “Man, that stink hangs around for days. Remind me to sit downwind of him at breakfast tomorrow. Damn, I miss all the good stuff.”

Josh picked up a strawberry and held it in between his thumb and forefinger, just as Charlie had. “What else did you miss?” he asked, tilting his head to one side and batting his eyelashes as he held out the strawberry toward Charlie.

“Dork.” Charlie said, shuffling across the blanket a little, and looping his fingers loosely around Josh’s wrist. Tugging gently, he brought Josh’s fingers to his lips and opened his mouth to take the fruit with his teeth, unable to resist lightly swiping Josh’s thumb with his tongue before he released him.

“You missed dorks?” Josh drawled with a raised eyebrow, and Charlie suspected he didn’t need super-spidey-sense to catch the small strangled sound he made when Josh pushed the thumb he’d licked between his own lips and sucked it clean of juice.

“Ass,” Charlie replied, lifting his hand to press his fingers to Josh’s lips when he opened his mouth. “Do
not
say it… and yes, I missed your dorky ass.” He gasped again when Josh sucked two of his fingers in between parted lips and laved at his flesh with a wet tongue. “
Josh
,” he groaned, biting his lip, and after taking off his glasses, he placed them on top of the backpack on the grass. Rising onto his knees, and with his fingers still in Josh’s mouth, he straddled Josh’s hips and sat down on muscled thighs. “What the fuck are you doing to me?” he murmured softly, sliding his fingers from Josh’s mouth and replacing them with his lips.