Love And The Real Boy - Coming About, Book 2 (14 page)

Realization dawned. He’d known Rich was the ‘push people away before they can hurt me’ type of guy, but not to such an extent. He sighed. That explained so much.

“What did John-Michael say when you told him?” Patrick asked, thinking it had to be bad to trigger Rich’s personality flip.

“He hesitated.”

“Erm…come again?”

“He didn’t say anything. Said he didn’t know what to say. So my brain went and supplied all sorts of terrible thoughts about what he must be thinking.”

“Uh-oh.”

“And then I went off on him and kind of…kicked him out.”

“Oh Jaysus, Rich,” Patrick breathed.

Rich shot up off the couch and rounded on him, eyes flashing with the holy fire of righteous indignation—the last bite of a dying dog. “Hey,
look
. If he loved me unconditionally and didn’t have a problem with my sexuality, if he wasn’t secretly worried about me being around his son now because I might molest him or infect him with my gayness, then he’d have said so. And I am not
about
to sit around and wait for him to get his sermon ready so he can lay it on me. I don’t need that kind of shit! Haven’t I fucking been through
enough
?”

He’d worked himself into a lather, hands flailing, veins bulging, and to Patrick, it looked like he was close to snapping.
Good, it’s about time you let go of all that bloody tension
. He stood up and rounded the coffee table so that he was facing Rich with nothing in between them.

“I’ve figured it out, then. That’s what’s up with the iceman routine—when shit gets hard, you put on the suit and just push people away, yeah? You’re scared.”

“You don’t fucking know me! Is it so wrong to protect myself? If I lose
one
more person, if I have
one
more person let me down, if I have to fight
one
more fight—well, it might just end me. So fuck yes, I’m scared! I’ve had nobody for so long…” His voice broke. “…I let myself care about Rory, and I fucked that up.

“That about killed me. I can’t do it again. I can’t do it with John-Michael, I can’t do it with his son, and I can’t do it with you. It’s easier to just not care.”

Rich was panting, taking huge gulping breaths to keep the tears inside, and he was once again trembling all over. As much as Patrick ached for him, he was angry too. He didn’t enjoy being manipulated, being kept at arms-length, used for a quick fuck, and then discarded when he got too close. Rich didn’t need to be placated anymore, to be handled delicately. He needed to hear the truth.

Patrick bared his teeth in a parody of a smile and began clapping. “Ah, he is human after all, with feelings and everything. Well congratu-fucking-lations, mate. How does it feel to be a real boy?”

Rich’s eyes went wide, and he gasped. His face reddened, and his head snapped back as if Patrick had punched him—he might as well have. Maybe then he’d have expected the retaliation.

“You son of a bitch!” he shouted, right before he planted his fist into Patrick’s jaw.

Patrick went down like a sack of potatoes, falling ass over teakettle and landing flat on his back. His head spun when he propped himself up on his elbows and stared up at Rich; the man’s fists were balled up, and his chest heaved. It looked as if he were gearing up for a full-on dust-up. Patrick must have been going insane—or had severe head trauma—because he thought it might be the most beautiful thing he ever saw.

It was in that moment he knew that this little dance the two of them had been doing, for him, had become something more. But he knew it would take a little more pushing for Rich to get out of his own way and realize it.

Swiping the back of his hand across his mouth, Patrick cursed when it came away bloody. He licked his lips and laughed. “That all you got, boyo?”

Rich roared and pounced on him, straddling his hips and gripping perfectly groomed fingernails into his shoulders. He reared back and slapped Patrick hard across the face. That only made Patrick cackle harder. Rich wasn’t putting as much force behind the blows as he could have; he was definitely pulling his punches. It was all about just getting some aggression out, which had been what Patrick wanted. It seemed almost cathartic for the guy.

“You crazy bastard,” Rich said in response to the wild laughter. Then he put both hands around Patrick’s neck and squeezed—not hard enough to cut off his air supply, just enough to let Patrick know that he meant business. It was fucking hot. He told him so by bucking his hips, pushing his now-hard cock against Rich who was still straddling him.

“Why do you give a damn what I think, anyway?” Patrick croaked and rocked against him again.

Rich made a strained sound in the back of his throat and lunged. He kept one hand on Patrick’s throat, plunging the other into his hair and gripping hard. “Because you’re somebody,” he said and crushed their lips together.

He plunged his tongue into Patrick’s mouth over and over, and rolled his hips. Breaking the kiss, he lifted one of his knees to place it between Patrick’s legs. Then he shifted his weight so that he could rest the other knee beside it. This left Patrick’s legs spread-eagled around his hips.

Rich leaned over him, rubbing their covered cocks together, and nipped at his jaw. Patrick wasn’t used to feeling so on display, so exposed and at another man’s mercy. He didn’t bottom—it wasn’t as if he’d never done it before
ever
, it just wasn’t something he normally did. He‘d never liked giving up control. But he was having trouble caring as Rich continued to rock his hips while he played with the buttons of Patrick’s work shirt. He wiggled his fingers into the opening and, suddenly, ripped it open.

“Jaysus,” Patrick said, a little off-balance by the quick jump from pissed off and fighting, to turned on and groping.

Rich’s hands were everywhere, mapping the contours of his abs, pinching his nipples, gripping his shoulders as they rutted against each other. Patrick’s balls were aching already, and they were still mostly dressed. He started grappling with the fly of Rich’s dress pants, and growled in frustration when he couldn’t undo them blind.

“Off,” he grunted. “Damn it,
off
.”

Rich lifted up on his knees and shuffled back and forth until he was able to pull off his slacks and briefs. He yanked his buttoned shirt over his head and attacked Patrick’s jeans. When they were both finally naked save Patrick’s open shirt, Rich pounced on him again. He grabbed Patrick’s legs and hitched them up until they were wrapped around his waist. This gave him extra leverage for the friction they needed when he lined up their erections.

The feel of all that heat, all that silky, pulsing skin covering the delicious hardness was blissful…almost transcendent. Patrick leaned his head back and closed his eyes. With the absence of sight, he was able to concentrate on his touch, his smell, even on the taste of whiskey when Rich took his mouth again.

Rich must have found a bottle of lube and a condom hidden somewhere, because Patrick jumped at the sensation of cold wetness nudging at his hole without warning. Rich obviously wasn’t in the mood to be gentle, wasn’t in the mood to ask permission…not that Patrick would have said no. His cock twitching against his stomach was a good indication that he was onboard.

He sucked in a breath when Rich nudged a finger inside. It was uncomfortable. It burned, but Rich started pumping his dick fast and rough, just the way he needed, and the rest of his body relaxed. After a few strokes inside his channel, Rich added another finger, teasing and stretching, until Patrick was panting and grabbing handfuls of Rich’s ass.

“C’mon,” he growled. “Do it.”

Patrick’s eyes were still closed when Rich lined up the head of his slick cock and slowly pushed in. He gritted his teeth against the ache, the stretch, until he felt Rich’s balls settle against his ass. He gripped Rich’s ass convulsively both to hold him close and to keep him still.

“You okay?” Rich grunted in his ear, mirroring what Patrick had said to him that first time and sounding as breathless as Patrick felt.

Patrick relished the burn; now that it was in him, he craved it. He knew it would quickly transform into an ache of pleasure, so there was no way he was stopping.

He squeezed his legs harder around Rich’s waist and arched his back. “Yes, go. Go!”

Rich didn’t need to be told twice. Taking pity on Patrick’s relatively untried ass, he threw in a couple of slow, easy strokes before he started an earnest volley of wild thrusts. They both grunted with each push, and Patrick’s sweat-slicked body was slowly migrating across the hardwood floor. Eventually he reached up and grabbed hold of the coffee table legs to keep himself in one place.

Rich gripped his legs again and spread them wide. Patrick watched the patterns play under his skin created by the flexing of his abs. He’d have to remember to trace them with his tongue later. Leaning into him, Rich snapped his hips, causing his balls to slap against Patrick’s ass. With the change in angle, Rich pegged him in just the right spot. When he gasped, Rich gave him a wicked grin and began sliding the ridged head of his cock across that spot over and over again. Patrick’s breath quickened, and his orgasm hit him out of nowhere. Groaning, without a hand on his dick, Patrick shot streams of cum all over his chest.

“Christ, Rich,” he shouted as the man fucked the last bit of cum out of him.

Folding himself over Patrick and smearing the cum between them, Rich dove in for another kiss—if it could even be called a kiss. It was licking and nipping, and breathing against his lips, as Rich thrust out his own orgasm. As his body was gripped in convulsions, he whispered Patrick’s name against his ear.

Chapter Twelve

Afterwards, they lay side by side, their bodies being cooled by the chilly floor. Patrick huffed out a breath and craned his neck to look over at Rich.

“You reckon we’ll ever make it to a bed?”

Rich chuckled and rubbed his knuckles over Patrick’s naked stomach. “Eventually.” Rolling over on his side, he took the time to admire Patrick. The man was all hard planes and ropey muscle, truly the product of hard work and a body put to good use. Rich thought his favorite part of Patrick was probably his big barrel chest that tapered elegantly into abs that could have been carved from stone; both were covered in a light dusting of coppery-brown fur.

The same color stubble dappled his sharp jaw and dimpled chin. Those stone-gray eyes were intense as he scrutinized Rich in return. He looked like some kind of ancient warrior, like he should be wearing a kilt and waving around a huge sword.
Wait, do the Irish do kilts?
Whatever…it didn’t matter because Rich’s imagination had supplied the image for him and it was permanently rooted there.

In that moment, Rich was struck with an idea for an ad campaign that he’d been struggling with at work. “Do you think…would you mind if I took some pictures of you to test out an idea I have for work?”

“Sure,” Patrick said, sitting up and reaching for his jeans.

Rich grabbed his wrist to stop him. “No clothes.” He coughed when Patrick raised a brow at him. “It doesn’t have to be weird.”

Patrick stood and stretched his lithe body, a man comfortable in his own skin—a quality that Rich might have envied just a little.

“Whatever you say, mate,” he said, running a hand down his stomach and over his semi to cup his balls.

“Dude, I said don’t make it weird. It’s not porn, it’s an ad—just test shots.”

“All right, I’ll do it, but only if your clothes stay off too…
and
you promise to be in a couple of souvenir shots with me—for personal use only, of course,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

“Fine, fine. Just stay right there. I’ll go get the camera.”

Rich’s company had been contracted by Avoir Lieu, Inc. to create a brand for their new men’s cologne,
Essedarius
—and Rich’s team had been given the assignment. This was just the shot he needed to become a senior executive, but so far he’d been stuck.

When he’d seen Patrick laying there in the aftermath of their argument and subsequent fuck, with his body still ripped from the blood-flow from some good cardio and the soft lamplight throwing his musculature into exaggerated contrast, Rich had been blessed with a stroke of genius. Now he just had to capture good enough test shots to convey his vision to his boss.

He returned from his bedroom with his Canon Mark III, the fancy camera that he’d treated himself to last year, and a professional grade tripod. He shivered a little, partly because he was bare-assed naked, and because he had an equally naked and stunning Patrick waiting for him.

Afraid Patrick would change his mind, Rich rushed through setting up the tripod at the perfect height, adjusting the light, and metering the room. He needn’t have worried, he realized, as he noted Patrick’s revived erection; he was turned on. The boy definitely had some kink.

Rich looked at Patrick thoughtfully, considering the composition, the light source, and the poses that would look best for what he was trying to accomplish.

“Oh! Wait, I have another idea.” He held up one finger to signal that he’d be a minute. “I’ve got to get something from the bedroom. Maybe you could do a couple of push-ups or something—you know, to keep those muscles nice and ripped looking.”