The Stolen Suitor (19 page)

“I wasn’t gonna stick around where I wasn’t wanted.” Mabe sniffed, tilting her chin farther into the air. She had tried to make Billy jealous by hanging on other boys. That had been the stupidest thing she’d ever done, because then everyone thought she was easy—still did, to this day—when the truth was only Billy and Frank had ever gotten into her bed. And those rumors had only driven Billy further away.

Mabe and Billy stared at one another.

“Your blasted pride,” Billy said in disgust, shaking his head.

“
Your
blasted pride. Your daddy gave you an excuse to doubt me, ’cause I was poor. ’N’ you took it.”

“And you made sure to rub it in my face.”

Mabe said nothing, but she lifted one eyebrow.

Billy sighed heavily, deflating. He suddenly looked old. “Mabe, I don’t think I’ll ever understand what did and did not happen between us, though I’m surely to blame for at least half of it. But Eric is
my son
. I shoulda been a father to that boy.” His voice was rough and his hands trembled on the table. Dear Lord up above, he was practically crying.

And Mabe did feel pretty damn guilty all of a sudden. “Maybe I shoulda told you,” she admitted reluctantly. “But…. Frank wanted to marry me. He wanted everyone to think he was the daddy. ’N’ you got engaged to Polly. Then, later, you had little John and your girls…. I guessed I figured there was no use makin’ things complicated for the lot of us. God knows, this town is small enough as it is.”

Billy nodded. He wiped his face. It was a moment before he could speak. “Losin’ John was the worst thing that ever happened to me, Mabe. The very worst thing. Even harder than losin’ Polly.”

“I can understand that.”

“And to know I have another son…. That I could have…. He’ll never replace John, of course. But I want to know Eric. And I intend to…. Well. I just want you to know—I intend to tell Eric the truth. And I’m not askin’ for your permission.”

Mabe straightened her spine. “Welp. If he’s gonna find out, it’d best come from me.”

Billy thought it over. He finally nodded. “All right. But I want it done this week.”

“Fine.” Mabe stood. “Guess I’ll get back to work, then.”

“You don’t have to finish. I’ll pay you for the whole day.”

Mabe’s temper shot up and she put her hands on her hips. “If you think I’m gonna leave with this kitchen in this state, you have another thing comin’! I do have my self-respect, Billy Stubben.”

He huffed. “All right! Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I’ll just go check e-mail in my office.”

And avoid seeing all the hard work
, she thought. “Go on, then. And when I’m done, you can give me a check. A nice fat one.”

She hadn’t meant it to come out like that, but she sure recognized the flare of heat that momentarily lit up Billy’s eyes. It was nice to know he still had a bit of randy boy underneath that upright exterior.

She may have swung her hips more than necessary as she got back to work. But as she scrubbed the kitchen floor, she began to feel afraid.

How was Eric gonna react when she told him that Frank Crassen wasn’t his daddy? What if he never forgave her?

“KISS
me,” Jeremy said, which was a little redundant since they’d kissed their way out of the car, kissed their way to the door of the trailer, kissed as they stepped up into it, and kissed heading down the hall toward Jeremy’s room. But the truth was, he could never get enough of Chris to suit him.

“Kiss you where?” Chris asked, all sultry-like, as he nibbled Jeremy’s bottom lip.

“Everywhere is good. I can point out a few key spots if you need directions.”

“I think I can guess,” Chris chuckled. He was always laughing, which Jeremy loved. He’d never been around someone who laughed as easily as Chris, who made Jeremy want to laugh too. “And this time you can be as loud as you wanna be.”

“Okay,” Jeremy said, already testing his newfound freedom with a loud gasp as Chris nuzzled his neck and rubbed his swollen groin through his jeans. “Oh, yeah!”

He could feel Chris smile against his skin.

They’d managed to sneak off together a half-dozen times since that first time, all of them at the river after dark. Jeremy had gotten as many love bites from mosquitoes as he had from Chris, and they’d learned to stay as covered up as possible. Now he couldn’t wait to get Chris’s clothes off. All of them.

“You sure your mom and Eric won’t be back?” Chris asked.

“Ma’s cleaning house for Mr. Stubben, and Eric’s at Big Basin. But I have a lock on my door just in case.”

“Good.”

They made it into Jeremy’s small bedroom, and Jeremy locked the door. He held himself back, hand on the doorknob, and just looked. He needed to slow down and appreciate this moment—a hot man, Chris Ramsey, was in his bedroom, ready for anything. And he was all Jeremy’s.

“I don’t know where to start. I want it all,” he admitted in a rush.

Chris’s smile faded and his eyes got a hungry look. He slowly pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it. His fingers went to his belt and he rubbed the buckle with his thumb, causing Jeremy’s shaft to pulse against his zipper in sympathy. Chris slowly undid the buckle, unzipped, and pushed his jeans down and off, discarding his shoes and socks too. Jeremy didn’t take another breath until Chris stood there without a stitch on. Jeremy had felt that body, had dreamed of that body, had gotten his hands and mouth on parts of it. But it was different to see Chris like this, naked as the day he was born.

He was solid, thicker around the waist than Jeremy, and bigger in the biceps and shoulders than he looked fully clothed. His legs were lean, lightly muscled, and had dark hair. He was manscaped, Jeremy thought, with just a bit of dark hair left on top, and his low-hanging balls were bare and soft-looking. His penis was circumcised, thick and blunt, hard and jutting. Staring at it made Jeremy’s knees want to fold and his head swimmy with desire. He clutched the doorknob harder.

“Take your clothes off,” Chris said, his eyes dark and intent.

Jeremy blinked, coming back from a lust-fueled daze, and found the strength to move. He shucked his clothes quickly, not even caring that his body was far from perfect. Chris stared at him as if he was a buffet of his favorite foods.

“God, Jeremy,” Chris said, his voice rough.

“I want to do everything. Can we? I bought… stuff.”

Chris flashed a quick grin. “Me too. In my pocket. But—”

“What?” Jeremy found it impossible to just look any longer, so he took a step forward and stroked Chris’s proud, hard flesh with two fingers in a light tease.

Chris closed his eyes and swallowed. “Since it’s your first time, I want you to do me. I’ve had dreams about having that sweet, uncut monster of yours inside me.”

Sweet, uncut monster.
Lord, it was ridiculous and made Jeremy feel like a God at the same time.

Wait… what?

“You’d let me do that? I mean… you want that?” Jeremy asked, unable to believe he’d heard it right.

Chris just gave him a “just watch me” look and sank to his knees to do a little preliminary worshipping at the altar.

But Jeremy stopped him with a hand on his elbow. “Wait.” He took a deep breath, trying to calm his nervous excitement. Chris had made it clear in their previous get-togethers that he loved to suck Jeremy’s cock. And Jeremy loved to have Chris do it. But right now he wanted to give rather than receive. He needed to show Chris how much he felt since he’d never dare say it. “Can I touch you this time?” Jeremy asked.

One corner of Chris’s mouth turned up on a smile, and he ghosted a finger over Jeremy’s cheek. “Sure. I’m all yours.” He lay back on Jeremy’s bed, tucking his hands behind his head and parting his thighs slightly, raising one knee and letting the other leg turn out. His dark hair and pale skin popped against Jeremy’s blue comforter.

He’d never seen anything so appealing in his life.

“Oh wow,” Jeremy breathed. He knelt on the bed and ran his hands up Chris’s legs, surprised at the softness of the skin on his inner thighs.

Chris sucked in a sigh and didn’t move.

Jeremy nuzzled, feeling the texture of Chris’s skin on his cheek, tasting him with kitten licks and fleeting sucks. His calves. The insides of his knees. His thighs. His sac, which made Chris squirm and breathe in rapid little pants.

It was lovely there—warm and smelling of earth and musk and flesh. Jeremy closed his eyes and let the scent move right through him, soak into his blood, and make him harder and ready, oh so ready for anything.

He gently tugged one firm-squishy ball into his mouth, the skin loose, almost like Jeremy’s foreskin. He ran his tongue over it, around and around.

“Jeremy, God!” Chris muttered from far away.

Jeremy tried the other one, holding it in his mouth while using his tongue to pet the underside, to reach out to tickle the space behind. Chris’s hips came off the bed, and Jeremy moaned around his mouthful.

“Oh God!” Chris gasped, half-laughing.

He must be ticklish there, Jeremy surmised.

He let the egg-shaped morsel in his mouth slide out, and he licked his way up Chris’s shaft. He loved the meatiness of it, the short, brutish power of the way Chris was built. From root to tip, he was probably no more than five inches, but he was wide with a big, broad head, and he throbbed with life and raw sexuality.

Jeremy took him in deep. It wasn’t the first time he’d had Chris in his mouth, but at the riverside, he’d never had the freedom or the time to experience it completely, to memorize every detail. The bulb of Chris’s head fit tight, like a cork in a bottle, at the back of Jeremy’s mouth. Jeremy found he could fight the waft of unease that was his gag reflex threatening to trigger, and that fighting it, having Chris cover and press into his soft palate, tongue, and the opening of his throat so completely, turned him on something fierce. He closed his eyes and pressed Chris back there again and again, pulling off, sucking, only to slide Chris back into that spot. Dear God, he loved it. He loved the grunting little thrusts Chris seemed to involuntarily make when he hit that spot.

It was hot, purely dirty in a way that about did Jeremy in. He moaned steadily deep in his throat and squeezed his own excited flesh in his fist.

Chris began to tremble beneath him, thrusting a little more with his hips. “Oh, fuck, Jeremy. Stop.” Chris pushed Jeremy away and scrambled up on the bed. “Christ, you’re gonna make me come. Don’t want to do that ’til you’re inside me.”

Jeremy was close himself, and Chris’s words didn’t help. He squeezed himself at the base hard, taking a moment to calm down while Chris got off the bed and dug around in his jeans. He returned with a packet of lube and a condom.

“Use the lube,” he instructed, handing the stuff to Jeremy. “One finger, then two. Be gentle. It’s been a while. All right?”

Jeremy nodded hard, unable to speak.

Chris smiled at the look on Jeremy’s face and leaned in to kiss him sweetly. Then he lay down on the bed on his stomach.

A naked man on his bed, the view all curvy back and ass this time. It was everything Jeremy had ever wanted. And he was going to….

Holy shit. He couldn’t even think about what was going to happen or he’d never last.

He rubbed his hands up and down Chris’s back and legs for a moment before tearing open the lube packet. He put a dab of it in the hollow at the base of Chris’s spine and used both hands to gently spread his cheeks.

Damn.
He’d watched porn, so it wasn’t like he’d never seen a guy’s hole before, but this was real and overwhelming, pink and clean. The sight, and the slight waft of musk that rose up, turned on something buried in his lizard brain. It gave him a sharp urge to
fuck
and to
fuck right now.

Jeremy leaned forward, breathing Chris in. He placed a light kiss right there. And then another.

Chris laugh-sighed, but he pushed up into the air, begging for more. Jeremy dipped a finger in the clear lube and petted it over the spot where Chris was closed up tight. He felt the rubbery muscle relax under his fingertip.

This was really happening. He was going to have
real
sex for the first time.

Chris didn’t offer up any more instructions, only grunts and sighs and wiggles as Jeremy took his time, turned on by the mechanics of it, the trust and intimacy. He was shocked at how hot Chris was inside, how smooth, at the way his body clutched Jeremy’s fingers. How was that going to feel when it was his
cock?
God, he’d last two seconds.

“Now, babe,” Chris said, pushing his way up to hands and knees.

Babe
. Jeremy thrilled at the word. He opened the condom wrapper with shaking fingers. Chris was patient, waiting for Jeremy to figure out how to roll it on. It was the first time Jeremy had ever put on a condom. The idea of it was sexy,
I’m wearing a condom
, but he wasn’t sure he loved the sensation. Then again, anything that would keep him from going off immediately was probably a good thing.

He put some lube over the condom and got into position, kneeling on the bed behind Chris. He paused with his tip just pushed against Chris’s entrance, ran his hands again up and down Chris’s spine. Maybe he was naive and stupid, but he felt like he wanted to say something, something like
I love you
. It felt like it needed to be said when he was on the brink of taking Chris’s body like this, of becoming part of him in such a private way. He’d never dared hope he would be in love with the person when he did this for the first time. But he was. He really was.

He didn’t say it, only Chris’s name, though the words were in his inflection if one knew how to listen. He pushed inside slowly, trying to pay attention to the resistance, to not fight for it, to let Chris draw him in. But when he felt his balls hit the back of Chris’s thighs, every thought went out of his mind.

“Chris!”

Chris grunted and reached back to grab Jeremy’s thigh and urge him on.

It wasn’t necessary. Nature knew what had to be done, knew the pleasure of push-and-pull, of sliding and friction, of clenching and being clenched. Jeremy’s hands gripped hard onto Chris’s sides as his hips and mind flew.