Sidelined (4 page)

“I’ll make you scream for your mama, and then I’ll fuck you in front of her.” Tracy eased the tip inside as he spoke. Levi’s eyes went dark for a moment, a hiss eased from between his clenched teeth. “And you’ll like it. Is this what you want, Bitch?” Tracy thrust his hips forward, hard, fast, going deep in one motion that made his head spin. Fuck, Levi was tight. And fucking hot. He clawed Tracy’s arms with long nimble fingers, leaving marks that would show tomorrow, but Tracy didn’t care. He was inside Levi Brody.

“Is that all you’ve got? Am I supposed to be impressed?” Levi surged around him, his abs crunching as he wrapped his legs around Tracy’s ribs. Two long arms pulled him down until their mouths met. Heat radiated from his body. The scent of musk and sweat filled Tracy’s senses. His own lust roared back. “Fuck me. Hard. Make me sweat.”

Tracy couldn’t stop the groan that clawed its way up from his chest as Levi’s lips claimed his in a hard kiss. He slammed into him, giving him what he begged for. Moving hard and fast, pinning Levi to the bed, he slid his arms under the man’s shoulders and let the storm brewing outside come to silence the sound of the one raging inside the overly-heated room. Teeth gashed his tongue, holding him while Levi sucked him inside his mouth. Primal grunts filled his ears. He didn’t know who grunted. Could have been him. Levi’s body became slippery with sweat. He moved with Tracy, his body hard and agile. Fucking him, oh god, he didn’t have to worry about hurting him. In words or deeds. Or leaving bruises. Tomorrow, he’d have bruises to match. Felt so fucking good.

“You feel real nice on my dick. I could make you my regular bitch.”

“I’m better than your regular bitches. Fuck, Blondie, feels so fucking good. Make me hurt.” Levi’s voice turned soft as he bit his way down to Tracy’s neck. Sharp teeth on his jugular made him sweat. He didn’t care if the man didn’t know his name. He’d answer to Blondie if it meant he could make Levi’s trailer shake. If the damned bed were on a frame, it would be splinters. Tracy rammed him hard, holding him against the bed. Trapped, impaled, his body shaking from use. “Make me come.” The request was accompanied by teeth sinking into Tracy’s neck.

“Bite me again. And I’ll make you shoot so hard your head will explode.” He reached between them with one hand and gripped Levi’s dick. Sweat and pre-come slicked him, making it easy to stroke him off. He didn’t move; he buried his face in Levi’s hair, inhaling the faint shampoo scent that remained in the soaked strands. “Feels so damned good being inside you. You feel so good, I could stay here forever. Just like this. Deep inside you. Your pulse beating a rhythm around me, your scent, your mouth. Like I died and went to heaven. Levi. Come for me. Let me see your face, your eyes. I want to watch you fall apart.”

Levi let go of his neck and angled his head back, meeting Tracy’s gaze. “I’m close. So damned close. Fuck me, slowly.” Fire swam in the golden depths, the real Levi hiding somewhere behind that. Tracy wanted to know that person. The one he’d never met. He wanted this to never end. He moved ever so slowly, the heat inside Levi growing incredible as his orgasm spilled over Tracy’s hand. His muscles growing tight around him pushed Tracy over the edge. He drowned his own scream of pleasure and pain against Levi’s lush mouth, holding the man while he trembled beneath him. Lightning flashed close by. Thunder shook the trailer. And the heavens opened up as the electricity failed. “Missed you so damned much, Bo. So damned much.”

Chapter Three

Bo lay passed out somewhere in the back, his parents with him. Levi couldn’t stop shaking. Gay. And the Marine was dead. Poor Bo. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head low. As much to hide his face as to hope the urge to vomit passed. Gay. Bocephus just blew the fucking closet wide open. Jesus!

“We don’t want no god damned faggot on our team.” A helmet ricocheted off the metal locker and skittered across the concrete floor. Levi didn’t look up to see who the asshole was. He couldn’t let them see how badly he was shaking.

“The man just lost his…friend. Have some respect.” Dale Shannon, always the voice of reason and strength rattled the lockers with the not-so-soft words, shouted in anger. He could count on one hand how many times he’d heard the man scream at a player and still have four fingers left over. “The man died in service to this country. What they meant to each other is not our business.”

“He’s a fucking queer. What the fuck is wrong when they let queers in the Marines?”

The locker shook violently, and the room became deathly still. Levi looked up to see Dale Shannon holding a man a foot taller than him and at least twenty years his junior against the locker. The man’s feet barely touched the floor, and he was turning red. Two of the trainers pulled Dale off, and the asshole with the big mouth slumped to the floor gasping for breath.

“You’re new here. If you want to stay here, you will not ever utter any of that in my presence again. Do you understand me?” Dale shook off the trainers, his voice deceptively calm. Levi could see the tension simmering just below the surface. He could feel the anger and the ugly percolating in the players gathered around him. This was ugly. And going to get uglier.

Levi linked his fingers together and leaned forward again, trying to stop his legs from bouncing. He needed to get out of here. To find someplace quiet until this could all sink in. Bowen Murphy was gay. And he’d missed it. Completely missed it.

“This has nothing to do with us as a team. Bowen is going through something right now. We treat this like the loss of any loved one. Support him while he grieves. He needs to know he’s got a family here. And he does. No matter what else he said or how it sounded. He is part of this team, and we’re standing by him. And that’s the final word on the matter. Now get showered and get out of here. Keep your mouths shut to reporters. Respect. That’s what makes you a man.”

And with that speech, Dale Shannon turned and walked out, leaving the stunned players to grumble to themselves. No one dared say anything out loud, but Levi could hear the whispers.

Slayer leaned forward and nudged his knee. “This isn’t going to be as simple as all that.”

“No.” Levi agreed. He still couldn’t stop the shakes. He had the strangest urge to go find where they’d carted Bo’s carcass to when he’d finally been tranqued. “His dad looks like a right bastard. Wonder how it happened?”

“Don’t know. We’ll find out. Or maybe we won’t. You look at that picture of Bo at the Super Bowl, you can see it. We just thought…you know…Bo was the last person I thought would…how do you justify letting someone stick his dick up your ass? I don’t get that. I don’t think I support that, not even for ‘Cephus.”

Levi rose from the bench and slammed his locker open, shoving his helmet inside. He dragged his red jersey over his head, followed by the pads. Just shoved them all in the locker and grabbed his keys. He had to get out of here. Out in the sun and the heat. And drive. It didn’t matter if he was filthy; he had to go.

“Hey, 501, what’s the deal, where you going?” Slayer shouted after him as he clomped across the locker room, cleats grating on the floor.

“Away from all this homophobic bullshit.” Levi turned to shout at his friend. Slayer’s eyes opened wide, his mouth half open to say something that never came.

“The QB is a fag lover. Who would have suspected? I guess all those times you threw to Murphy was you hoping he’d be your boyfriend. Making him look good so he’d suck your dick. Or was it you doing the dick sucking?”

Slayer grabbed him by both wrists and hauled him back, but Levi kept charging, headfirst after the son of a bitch.

“501 ain’t no fag, you asshole.” Slayer came to his defense, but he wouldn’t let Levi go so he could take the mother fucker apart.

“Sure looks like one from this side of the room. His boyfriend’s boyfriend is all blowed up. Now he’s got a chance to be Mr. Murphy.” It was the wide receiver who sat the bench all last season. One that should have been traded or cut outright. Nothing but a thug pulling down millions of dollars to sit on his ass.

“At least Murphy knows how to handle a ball. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt you to take some lessons…on ball handling.” Levi snatched his arms out of Slayer’s hands and stalked out of the locker room, leaving stunned silence behind him. He didn’t care what they thought. He had to go now. Before he outed himself. “Oh God, Bo. What did you do?”

“It smells like a whore house up in here, Leviticus.”

Levi sat up in bed, kicking off the sheet that clung to his leg. He hurt all over, like he’d taken on the whole Green Bay defensive line and lost. The pale light coming in through the windows told him it was morning, rainy and cooler. Thank the fuck for that.

“Morning, Judah. So what brings you out to the back forty?”

He threw his legs over the edge of the bed and covered his nudity. His toes nudged the used condom on the floor beside his flip-flops. Well, that explained the aches at least. Wonder who the lucky bastard was.

“Jack called to tell me that your car was still sitting in his parking lot. He’s had a bit of a problem with vandalism, so I retrieved it for you.” Jude placed a set of keys on Levi’s dresser and stood against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. “I guess she didn’t want to stick around for breakfast in bed.”

Levi swiped his hands through his sweaty hair and stared his brother down. Dressed in pressed khaki shorts and a bright green polo shirt complete with web belt and leather driving moccasins, his brother looked like he just fell off the cover of Southern yuppie magazine. That he stared at the discarded condom on the floor with a small sneer told Levi exactly what he thought of him.

“At least I can get someone to share my bed. Even if it is for one night.” Levi wondered exactly how the two of them had sprung from the same two sets of loins. Jude with his manicured fingernails and styled hair. The man never broke a sweat, that Levi could ever remember at least. Always so damned perfect…perfectly uptight. Yet Levi turned out to be the gay brother. Go figure that one.

“Bar trash. Looks like she tried to beat the shit out of you. I assume trying to get away.” A malicious sparkle entered his brother’s amber eyes. The smile he turned on Levi was the same one Levi saw in photos of himself. Just not quite so…lawyerly.

“Don’t you have any ambulances to chase?” Levi stood up, letting the sheet fall. He didn’t care if his nudity offended his brother. This was his house, and Jude could go fuck himself.

“It’s Saturday. I was going to go play a round of golf as soon as the storm passed.”

“But retrieving my car got in the way. Sorry, bro, you could have just said no. I’d have gotten to it sooner or later. Which makes it your problem, not mine.” Levi found the suitcase he was living out of and searched through for a change of clothes. A pair of cargo shorts, wrinkled but April fresh. He grabbed a workout T-shirt and a clean pair of briefs, then started to head for the bathroom but Jude stepped in his way.

“I came to ask if you would like to play with us.” The lawyer mask fell away, and Jude was just Levi’s little brother. The same one that tagged along and made a nuisance of himself when they were kids. He was just about the only family that Levi had left. “And to find out why you didn’t show up at football camp this week.” And right back to being an asshole.

“I fear that I would have been escorted from the facility by armed security. I believe the press conference yesterday made it abundantly clear that I’m persona non grata in New Orleans.” Levi pushed past his brother and went into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. But Jude was already in the door so it bounced off him instead of closing. Levi shrugged and leaned over the toilet. If the man couldn’t take a hint then he could damn well watch while he took a piss.

“Not that camp, Levi. The one in town. High school. The one you went to. Ring any bells? I sent you about a million text messages regarding the situation.”

“And I ignored every message you sent.” Levi shook and flushed. He turned on the shower and cursed the low water pressure.

“Dammit, Levi, I got you that job hoping it would snap you out of this malaise you’re in. So you won’t sit around on your ass—“

“I’m such a God damned burden to you, Jude? How do you qualify that? I put your ass through law school. I bought the land your mansion is sitting on. I made sure you had as much as I could give you after I left home. If I want to sit around on my fucking ass, I am damn well going to do it.” He flung the cheap plastic curtain aside and stepped into the fiberglass garden tub.

“Levi, that’s not what I meant.” Jude flushed the toilet, causing the water to practically shut off.

“Fuck, Jude, get out. I’m tired of listening to you for one day. You sound like our father. I never listened to him. What makes you think I’m going to listen to you?”

“Because sitting out here in this relic isn’t good for you. It’s not about money; it’s not about being a failure or a burden. It’s about getting up and getting out and doing something. Something that doesn’t involve beer and pain pills and self-pity. I love you, Levi, I don’t want to watch you self-destruct. And if I knew you planned to live in this shit hole, I never would have hauled it out here.”

Only half listening, Levi soaped his hair and slicked the jizz off his stomach. He had a limited supply of hot water, and he didn’t want to waste it. “I don’t have anywhere else to live. The townhouse in New Orleans that I need to put on the market. That’s about it. And before you suggest it, I’m not living up in that monstrosity that you call a house so don’t even go there.”

“It’s a perfectly nice house, and you can have the whole second floor until you have a place of your own.”

“It looks like a medieval torture chamber masquerading as gothic revival or something equally disturbing. Dude, why did you build that thing? And I’m not moving in with you. If you flush the john again, I will chase you down and kick your ass.” Levi moved under the limited spray and rinsed the shampoo from his hair.