Shattered Glass (38 page)

light and shadow. The past weeks of my life were an imitation of the transient scenery out my window. As was this entire day.

Blink. Another scene. Blink. Another.

Darryl was driving. Peter was curled up in the back seat, sleeping off his arrest. He snuggled the box filled with the incessantly mewling cat. Darryl was the only one with energy.

He tapped the steering wheel rhythmically while mouthing songs only he could hear. I was too tired to contemplate what that music was; and I was too drained to do what I wanted: to crawl back there with Peter and banish from memory that look of fear when had they cuffed him. His mask of indifference had fallen back into place moments later, but I would never forget the terror in his eyes before they shuttered and blanked.

Begone began to yowl. My ears made an attempt to crawl into my head, but I didn’t give in to the urge to scream. Or shoot it.

I know just how you feel, cat.

The parking lot behind my home was empty. Reporters would be back in the morning, but it looked, for now, like we had one less shit-storm to deal with. As I reached for the door handle my shoulders relaxed.

“I don’t know if you’re what Rabbit needs,” Darryl said, gripping my keys on his thigh and staring out the windshield.

“And you are?” I said, equally quiet so as not to disturb the subject of our conversation.

Darryl rolled his eyes and gave me a look of contempt.

“You’re such an asshole sometimes.”

“I’ve been advised of that. It’s good to be consistent.”

Darryl smirked unexpectedly and dropped the keys into my palm. “I hope you’re what he needs.” “Where do you fit into what he needs?” He looked over his shoulder at Peter and smiled. “I used to be the one who took care of him.” If he was implying that I was the reason things were different, I wasn’t going to apologize.

Darryl turned to me once more, focused. “Rabbit’s the rock we cling to when we’re drowning. He needs a mountain to hold him up, not another storm that’ll wear away at him.” The poetry of those words shocked me. Not just because I had realized their truth long ago, but because they were in Darryl’s voice. “You should be a writer,” I said, uncomfortable with his scrutiny.

“You should be serious once in a while.” He grabbed my ear and pulled me closer. I let him, because I was too damn bushed to fight off a black belt in Jiu Jitsu. “Hurt him, and I’ll tie you up, spend days cutting your balls into deli-thin slices and feed them to that cat.”

I yawned in his face. “Honestly, it’s not a cat,” I insisted when he released my ear.

“Dare, knock it off,” Peter commented drowsily as he sat up and looked out the window.

The ceiling light ticked on as Darryl opened the door. Peter’s face was half in shadow, but the illuminated side was imprinted with my seat design. I’d never had the opportunity to think of Peter as cute. Right then, he was ridiculously so.

“Why are you grinning?” Peter yawned, managing to look even more adorable as he tried to simultaneously give me a suspicious glare.

“Darryl told me to be your rock. People say I can’t follow directions. I gotta disagree.” I pointed to my crotch.

Peter laughed quietly.

“Loser,” Darryl said and grabbed the cat. It yelped as he yanked the box. I opened the door and flipped the seat up so Peter could scoot out.

The driver’s side door slammed, and the distant echo of Begone’s howls told me that Darryl was almost inside the house by the time Peter gathered up all our paperwork and dislodged himself from the backseat. He lost his footing partway out and fell into my arms.

“Well, hello there,” I said, nose-to-nose with him.

His eyebrow shot up. “You’re really strange tonight. My arrest makes you horny and goofy?”

I palmed the hair away from his face and kept an arm circled around him. He smelled like sweat and cigarettes. I didn’t care.

He felt amazing. “You look cute.”

“Fumbling and exhausted?”

“Vulnerable and unguarded.” He took that as a cue to mask his near-smile and pull away from me. “Shit. Goddammit, Peter, I thought we were getting somewhere.” “We are. I just…things are happening so fast with you. I can’t sort what’s real from what’s just these intense situations we’re forced into.”

“Join the club,” I muttered.

I took a deep breath and shut the car door quietly, bending to pick up the papers he’d dropped when he stumbled.

He crouched down next to me, adding forms to the pile. “I like you. You like me. I keep saying that. Can’t we decide what

that means later, in your bedroom or someplace quiet? Not out in the parking lot where reporters were, and maybe still are, lurking, along with ex-girlfriends, and friends.” He paused.

“Ugh, Cai’s inside. With Rosa and Darryl and the FBI. Privacy isn’t an option, is it?” We both stood, Peter running a hand through his hair.

“Go back to the part about my bedroom.” I clicked the car alarm, tucked my keys in my pocket and used that free hand to cup his neck, pulling him into a kiss.

Still warm and languid from sleep, his body sighed into mine.

His lips parted, tongue leisurely delving into my mouth as if he’d been waiting all day for me to take this initiative.

He tasted of apple juice. He tasted of cigarettes. He tasted of salt and sweat and every one of my fantasies. I sucked his tongue, my pulse climbing unsteadily. He moaned, and I dropped the papers to the ground, ignoring their fluttered protest as I held Peter to me.

The hot heavy sounds of our breaths, the feel of his body against mine, the taste of him, all of it overwhelmed the outside world. The night closed in around us, sheltered us from nosy neighbors and other interruptions. There was just us, molded together, with his hands on my hips and mine cradling his face.

My stomach fluttered with warmth. “Peter,” I breathed, tilting my mouth and capturing his lips again. He answered with a whisper of my name, fisting handfuls of my jacket. His needy moans urged me to push him back against the car. I reached down, buckled his knees with my hands and lifted him atop the hood. His shorts rode up and my hands lingered at his thigh, rubbing up under the fabric, feeling the soft copper hair under

my palms. He folded his legs around my waist, grabbed my collar and yanked me into him again.

I crashed into his mouth and met his tongue with a fierceness born out of weeks and years of denial. Seeing him spread out on my car, his stomach heaving with breaths, lips wet, eyes hooded and dazed; my cock ached with how badly I needed to fuck him, how desperately I wanted to watch his body jerk with the force of my thrusts. I shuddered with need, digging my nails into my hands. I took a deep breath and got myself under control.

This wasn’t about me. It was about Peter. My stone angel, battered by the world and refusing to back down from it. Peter, who never asked for anything for himself.

I took advantage of his vulnerable state to be the aggressor.

Gripping the sides of his shorts, I jerked them down below his waist, pulling him to the edge of the car at the same time. His tshirt rode up, revealing pale skin with sharp shadows of muscle.

With a gentleness I didn’t feel, I traced each one with my tongue and dragged my mouth along the valley at the center of his stomach.

Looking up, I whispered reverently. “You’re exquisite.” His muscles quivered against my lips; his feet dropping from my back as he curled his fingers into my hair. His throat moved in an unsuccessful attempt to swallow a moan, it was almost too loud when it escaped. Loud and plaintive. “So damn gorgeous,” I continued, gliding my hands further up to bare his chest.

“Austin,” he murmured, arching his back and pulling my mouth closer to his skin. The passive order drove the blood from my brain to my cock.

My tongue dipped into his belly button. He writhed in

response. I kept him squirming plunging in and out, licking deep, until his moans became grunts and his hips undulated against my chest. Climbing higher, I tasted every freckle, every inch of skin on my path to the darker, larger brown discs on his chest. He inhaled sharply as my teeth grazed his nipple, fastening his fingers into my scalp as I gently pulled the metal ring with my tongue. He panted each breath with every light pinch or pull of my teeth. My eyes flew up to judge his reaction.

The moonlight illuminated the ghost of lashes trembling against his cheek. His rabbit-quick heart beat against my lips, hammering in time with my own. His hips began to rock faster in invitation. I dropped my hands lower, tracing the carved edge of flesh that led into the waistband.

“Tell me what you want.”

“Anything,” Peter gasped evasively. He didn’t push my head as I expected, though his fingers relaxed and tightened in my hair until the gelled strands softened in his grasp.

“Tell me,” I repeated. I wasn’t going to be satisfied unless he had asked me for something. I’d prefer begging.

“Austin?”

“Peter,” I said, smiling evilly while plucking teasingly at the button of his shorts. He moved fluidly, propping up on his elbows. I almost lost it when his lip disappeared between his teeth. Then I recognized the crinkling of his eyes. In that second an intrinsic puzzle piece locked in place.

Peter wasn’t shy. He wasn’t being coy or seductive. In Peter’s world, everyone wrested a price for an action. Peter was calculating what price I would extract and deciding if he could pay it. He never asked for anything for himself because he was

already paying for everyone else.

It was on the tip of my tongue to reassure him that this was as much for me as it was for him, but it wasn’t. I was nervous, inexperienced and knee-buckling scared. I hid it well because he was so damn fucking hot that my brain kept firing synapses to the area that controlled my cock. Fear had a tight grip on my emotions. Standing in the middle of a parking lot wasn’t helping matters. The feel of his skin against my palms; the subtle trembles he couldn’t hide; the way his chest heaved from being overly aroused, all that did a lot to maintain my erection. Barely.

My heart beat erratically, not only from arousal or the public display we were putting on; I was wholly terrified to take that last step. There wasn’t a drop more of denial available after tonight.

“No strings, Peter.” It hurt to say those words. I wanted strings. Strings and chains and possibly glue. Superglue. Triple-bonding, weapons-grade epoxy.

I waited, patiently. It wasn’t the acceptance of a blow job stopping Peter. It was the asking for it. And, more specifically, it was me he had to ask. His eyes flickered. The blue disappeared in a spill of black, and the tip of his tongue curled up to lick his front teeth. “Suck my dick, Austin.”

Gay Sex Three, Straight Sex Nil

When those words computed, I would have testified in court that my cock jumped in an attempt to escape my zipper.

Taking a deep breath, I glanced around us, checking to make sure there wasn’t a group of videographers ready to upload our tryst into Internet infamy. I heard music a street over; it faded

quickly, and the hush of the dark morning settled back around us. Sweat pooled in the small of my back and trickled down my neck. I took a deep breath of summer air and reached for his shorts.

My body refused to allow me a suave, steady hand for my first blow job. He was wearing
my
shorts. Shorts I was familiar with. And my fucking fingers were behaving like chopsticks. I shakily fumbled with the small plastic button, and I accidentally —on purpose—twisted it off in frustration and then went for the zipper.

To my ears, the zipper was audible in space. Peter’s breath held, his stomach still and tense. Either he was anticipating what was coming, or his zipper was really loud. I met his eyes.

Anticipating. He was definitely anticipating.

His tongue poked between his teeth, daring me. I held his gaze while slowly pulling his boxers down. He lifted his hips, bringing the heat from his body closer to my face. I shuddered a breath and scooted the boxers down to his thighs. He lowered back to the car. My hands made a shaky trek over dips and curve of his hips, stopping when I felt the tip of his cock brush the edge of my thumb. I looked down.

As much as I wanted this—fantasized in vivid detail about the feel and the taste of him—it took serious resolve to wrap my hand around his cock. The feel was familiar, and that took the edge off my anxiety. It also helped that I was aroused.

Excruciatingly so. My tongue rolled along the top of my mouth, anticipating the slide of velvet skin and slick of precome. It wasn’t the nine inches every gay ad peddled—for which I was grateful. The length was still a problem, though. More than six in

—

“Did you forget the lyrics?”

“Huh?”

His mouth tilted in a smirk. “If you’re going to break into song, we’re going to get arrested.”

I checked my position, realized I’d been standing there with my mouth half open, holding his dick like it was a microphone.

“I’m deciding how this works.”

“The word ‘suck’ should give you a clue.” My eyes never left his cock. “This relationship can only take one smartass if it’s going to survive.” Pornos and previous blow jobs were all I had to go by. They montaged in my head, trying to give me instructions. Lick the base. Slowly slide the tip of my tongue along his shaft on the way to rimming the head. Fondle the balls. Pump the shaft.