New tricks

New Tricks

Q
UINN
D
ONAHUE
rolled and shrugged his shoulders as he trudged up the stairs. It had been a long, hard day at the barn, and he wanted to crawl into bed and sleep until the next morning. Or maybe have a hot bath first to soak some of the stiffness out of his muscles. He and Aaron had just moved into the new apartment, and they hadn’t really had a chance to use the huge tub yet. He grinned to himself. He could soak the stiffness out of his muscles and transfer it to some other part of his body. Apparently thinking of Aaron had re-energized him.

He fumbled for his keys and unlocked the apartment door, then pushed it open. It was dark inside, and he felt a tiny, unreasonable twist of disappointment. It was Aaron’s day off; obviously the guy had better things to do than sit around waiting for Quinn to show up. Just because
Quinn
had been looking forward to this all day, it didn’t mean that Aaron was quite so pathetic.

He pulled his boots off and lined them up next to Aaron’s on the mat, then shrugged free of his jacket and hung it on the only empty hook. He headed down the hall to the main room and almost jumped when he heard a familiar voice speak from the shadows by the window. “You’re home.” Aaron sounded—different. Quinn wasn’t sure what the difference was, though, and he sure as hell wasn’t sure why Aaron was sitting all alone in a dark room.

“You okay, man? Is something wrong?” Quinn worked at Aaron’s family barn, and everyone had been fine when he’d left, so whatever the news was, it couldn’t be too bad. Still, this was strange, and Quinn took a step toward the windows.

“Stop.” Aaron’s voice wasn’t loud, but it was firm, and Quinn did as he was told.

“What’s going on, Aaron?” Quinn wasn’t worried, exactly, but he was definitely off balance. He tried to silence the nagging voice in the back of his mind, the one that suggested that maybe Aaron was tired of playing house, tired of Quinn altogether….

“Stay where you are and turn the kitchen light on. Don’t adjust the dimmer, just turn it on.” Aaron’s voice was still quiet, still authoritative.

“Aaron…” Quinn started, but then he shook his head and did as he was told. The kitchen lamp wasn’t bright, but it cast enough light for Quinn to see Aaron slouching in an armchair, a chair that he must have moved there just for that purpose. He looked like he was….

“Aaron, are you wearing a suit? What’s going on, Aaron?”

“Stop asking questions. If you need to know something, I’ll tell you. Otherwise—just trust me.” There was a pause, and then Aaron’s voice sounded more familiar. “Okay, Quinn? Will you trust me?”

Quinn was beginning to get some idea of what was happening. “Have you been watching porn again, Aaron?” He caught himself. Aaron had been a virgin when he’d hooked up with Quinn, and Quinn had been the furthest thing from innocent. If Aaron wanted to experiment a little, then it was damn well Quinn’s
privilege
to be asked to participate. “I mean—sorry. No questions.” He nodded slowly. “Yeah, Aaron—I’ll trust you.”

“Okay. Excellent.” Aaron sounded like a little boy being told he was going to get a treat. But then he took a moment as if to collect himself, and when he spoke again his voice was back to being calm and firm. “Stay where you are, and take your jacket off. Throw it on the couch.” A pause as Aaron watched Quinn obey, then, “Jesus, Quinn, on the
couch,
not the floor. How are you such a slob?”

“It’s not easy to throw
fabric
, Aaron. Are we doing this or not?”

“No questions.” Aaron was back on his game. “Take your socks off.”

“My socks?” That didn’t seem like the right order to Quinn.

“Quinn, if you can’t stop asking questions, I may need to do something about that. Do you want me to tell you to put your socks in your mouth?”

“Aaron, this game is over if you tell me to put my socks in my mouth. They’ve been inside my sweaty boots all day, and….”

“Then you should stop asking questions.” Aaron paused. “Unless you want the game to be over. Do you want the game to be over?”

Quinn thought about it, but not for very long. “No. I don’t want it to be over.”

“Good. Me neither.” Quinn hadn’t realized that Aaron was leaning forward until he shifted back and stretched his long, lean body out from the chair. Damn, Quinn liked it when Aaron stretched. “Take your socks off, Quinn.
Ball them up
, and then throw them
on
the couch.”

Quinn tried not to grin and did as he was told. He looked down at his feet; it was strange how naked they looked. He wondered if Aaron was looking at them too.

“Now your top shirt.
Slowly
. Make it a show, Quinn. Make me want to touch you.”

Quinn absolutely hoped he’d be able to persuade Aaron to touch him. As soon as possible. But he wasn’t all that into putting on a show; he preferred to be the one watching and judging. Or at least, that had been his preference before Aaron; now, he liked to watch and
admire
. But this was Aaron’s thing, and Quinn wanted to play Aaron’s game. He unbuttoned the shirt, forcing himself to move slowly, but he was pretty sure that instead of looking sensuous and seductive, he was looking uncoordinated or possibly drunk. He forced himself to keep going, running a hand up his chest under the shirt and pushing it off his shoulder, then doing the same with the other hand on the other side. He held the shirt there, halfway down his back with the sleeves caught just above his elbows, and he remembered how stiff his muscles were and rolled his shoulders again.

Apparently that was enough; Quinn was lucky that Aaron didn’t have much real-world knowledge of this sort of thing.
Lucky that Aaron didn’t have much real-world experience about boyfriends in general
, that nasty voice in the back of Quinn’s head added. But Aaron couldn’t hear that voice, and he seemed pleased. “Very nice. Let it fall to the floor.” Aaron’s voice was a little husky, or at least Quinn hoped it was. “Now just stand there. Let me look at you.”

It was strange; Aaron looked at Quinn all the time, but it didn’t usually affect him like this. Well, it usually
affected
him; any attention from Aaron was good, and it tended to lead to sex, so that was good too. But there was something different about this, about Aaron looking at Quinn like he was appraising him rather than just waiting for Quinn to notice him. It was getting Quinn pretty hard, pretty fast.

“There’s a new mark on the side of your neck. What did that?”

“How can you even see that? It’s so dark in here….” Quinn caught himself. No questions. “It’s just scratches. Your asshole brother hit me with a hay bale. He thought it was funny.”

“Why did he hit you?” Aaron sounded more serious than usual; actually, he sounded like he might be about to get Quinn in trouble for fighting at work.

“We were just screwing around. He was tossing bales down from the top of the loft, and I said something about how he was too slow, so he started pelting them down really fast….” If it had been a normal night, if they hadn’t been doing whatever it was that they were doing, Aaron would have laughed at that. But things were different this night.

Aaron barely moved, just reached into his jacket’s breast pocket and pulled out his phone, then hit a number and held it to his ear. “Danny? It’s Aaron. I’m at the apartment. You were careless today, and you damaged my property. I don’t like it, Danny. Don’t do it again.” He clicked the phone shut without waiting for an answer.

Quinn stared across the room. “Aaron, what the fuck! That’s—Jesus, Aaron, that’s a little much, don’t you think? Why did you drag Danny into this?”

Aaron’s gaze was fierce. “I’m not going to warn you again, Quinn. No more questions.” He stood up and took a step closer, then another. It was
Aaron
, Quinn reminded himself. Big, goofy Aaron, who caught spiders and put them outside instead of squishing them. Just
Aaron.
But Quinn’s skin tingled in an unfamiliar if not totally unpleasant way as the hair on his back and arms stood up on end. And his cock got a little bit harder.

“Put your arms out to the sides,” Aaron ordered, and after Quinn obeyed, Aaron closed the remaining space between them. He stood close but didn’t touch, and again he was inspecting Quinn, as if looking for more damage. He lifted one hand and brushed his fingertips along the scratches on Quinn’s neck, and Quinn forced himself to stay still, to not move away from the tickling or toward the warmth. He did tilt his head a little to give Aaron more room when he leaned in and gently kissed each of the long, shallow scratches, and Aaron either didn’t notice or didn’t mind. “You’re beautiful,” Aaron whispered.

But then he stepped away. That wasn’t at all what Quinn had been hoping for, but he managed to maintain his discipline and kept his feet still, his arms stretched out to the sides. Aaron smiled and reached out to run his fingers along the waistband of Quinn’s jeans, just skimming the flesh before moving upward, underneath the fabric of Quinn’s T-shirt. Aaron’s fingers were cool against Quinn’s warm skin, and when Aaron curled his hands so that his nails scratched a little, Quinn could feel the goose bumps rising.

Aaron shifted around and brought his other hand into play, pulling Quinn’s shirt up and over his head while his hands were still in the sleeves. “Stand still,” Aaron said, and he moved around until he was behind Quinn. “You still trust me?” he asked.

“Absolutely.”

Aaron kissed the back of Quinn’s neck before he twisted the T-shirt, knotting it around itself until it turned into a tight band holding Quinn’s arms behind his back. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” Quinn agreed. It was. He’d had bad experiences with this sort of thing, but none of that mattered, because this was Aaron. And letting himself be made helpless was
fine
, now, because he knew that Aaron wouldn’t hurt him. Not on purpose, at least.

Aaron was tracing the muscles of Quinn’s back, and as always, he bent to gently kiss the two long scars that marred the skin there. There wasn’t actually much sensation left in the scar tissue, but Quinn appreciated the thought. He appreciated it even more when Aaron’s hands snuck around Quinn’s waist and ran down over the denim covering his hard cock. “You like this?” Aaron asked, his lips close to Quinn’s ear.

“I like
you
.”

“I want to do more—okay?”

If Aaron kept whispering like that, so close that his lips brushed Quinn’s earlobe and sent shivers down his spine, he could do whatever the hell he wanted, but it probably wasn’t part of the game for Quinn to be quite that enthusiastic. “Okay,” he said instead.

Aaron shifted away, and Quinn would have been disappointed except that he soon realized Aaron was shedding a layer of clothing, which could only be good. Aaron tossed his suit jacket toward the couch and it landed perfectly on the seat; on a normal night there would have been gloating about that, but this night, Aaron’s attention was apparently elsewhere. Quinn heard the rustle of fabric behind him, and then a blue stripe appeared in front of his eyes. Aaron’s tie, held between Aaron’s two strong hands, and moving toward Quinn’s eyes. He kept perfectly still as Aaron wrapped the fabric carefully around his head, covering his eyes, then tied it snuggly, but not tight. “Okay?”

“Yeah, Aaron, it’s okay.” Quinn would have felt better if he hadn’t heard the slight tremor in his voice, and even better if he could have fooled himself into believing that Aaron hadn’t heard it.

Aaron was beside Quinn in a heartbeat, and he pushed up the cloth over one of Quinn’s eyes to look at him more closely. “You’re sure? We don’t have to do this….”

“Aaron.” Quinn made his voice firm. “It’s fucking hot, okay? That’s all. I’m not scared, it’s just—intense.” He tried to use his one functioning eye to convey sincerity and conviction, but he had a feeling he was probably glaring like a demented pirate. He fought back the urge to finish his sentence with an “Arr.”

Aaron seemed convinced despite Quinn’s limitations, and he let the fabric fall back down. “We’re supposed to have a safeword. But, you know—you can just tell me to stop, and I will. Immediately.”

“Aaron, I know that. It’s good. The safeword is ‘safeword’, okay? But I’m not going to use it.” Quinn wasn’t sure what his role was here; it seemed like they were taking a break from Aaron’s game, so maybe he was allowed to jump back to being the older, more experienced partner for a moment. “I trust you, and this is hot, and you can do what you want, okay? My body is yours. Seriously.”

“Mine,” Aaron said, and there was a little bit of a growl to his voice that let Quinn know that the game was absolutely back on. He felt Aaron kiss his shoulder, soft and open-mouthed, and then he drew in a quick breath as strong teeth closed on his flesh, nipping sharply before the tongue returned to soothe. Aaron kissed his way up to Quinn’s neck, and he found a spot there, just in the hollow where neck turned to shoulder, and he nipped again, then sucked, long and hard. Quinn couldn’t see, but he knew he was being marked. Claimed. He didn’t even think about objecting.

He also had no objection to Aaron’s decision to kiss his way up to Quinn’s mouth. It had been too long since Quinn had been allowed to taste Aaron, to feel the smoothness of his tongue and the strength of his jaw. And when Aaron’s hands moved to Quinn’s chest and started stroking up and down his ribs, it didn’t matter that Quinn was tied up, because he would never have wanted to move away anyhow.