Winter Ball (11 page)

As the rest of the team broke into smaller groups of involved conversation, Richie confessed—not privately this time—that his head hurt. The offered beers were given a rain check and Skip and Richie went home instead. They’d played in the morning mist, but as Skip drove home in the early evening, rain was already setting in.

“Sorry about your head,” he apologized, squinting as the drops hit the windshield.

“My head doesn’t feel that bad,” Richie said impishly. “I just wanted you to myself.”

Skip grimaced, still concentrating on the road. “Sorry about that victory hand job—maybe we can do that next week.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Richie smirk. “Yeah, well, I understand that pity hand jobs are even more awesome. Wanna see?”

Skipper found himself smiling. “Can we wait until we get home?” he asked, pretty sure this was a yes since they both wanted to live.

“Yes, but barely,” Richie said, voice sober.

They managed to get inside, dashing through the rain, before Skipper tried a gentle, sore-nose-friendly kiss.

Richie returned it just as gently, and Skip pulled away and smiled, feeling on even keel for the first time since he’d seen Richie with the sledgehammer. Carefully, he framed Richie’s face with his palms. “I’ve been waiting for that,” he said softly.

“Just the kiss?” Richie hopefully palmed Skipper through his sweats.

“Well, that too,” Skipper said, his brains somewhat scrambled by the kiss and Richie’s firm touch. “You want I should shower?”

Richie shook his head. “Naw,” he whispered and kissed Skip again, pushing him back to the couch. Skip sat down abruptly when the backs of his knees hit, and Richie’s busy hands were lifting Skip’s sweatshirt and T-shirt up and over his head. He shivered for a moment—the heater hadn’t kicked in and the clouded light from outside was not enough to warm the darkened room. Then Richie licked gently, delicately, at Skip’s chest and his teeth closed around Skip’s nipple, although he didn’t suckle. Skip let out a needy sound he wasn’t proud of.

Oh! He hadn’t imagined this, had he? Richie’s touch—a lot more confident now than last week—so rough, so exquisite, that Skip moaned. He pulled in a breath and tried to control himself, but he’d waited, wanting, studying every text like ancient Sanskrit, trying not to weenie out like a teenager over their exchanges.

He clasped Richie’s head to his chest and arched his hips.

“Shh….” Richie moved up, and Skip, mindful of his injuries, let go immediately.

“It’s okay,” Richie whispered against his ear. “I’m here.”

He tilted Skip’s jaw and moved in to kiss some more, and in the meantime slid his hand down Skip’s pants. His hand was rough and cold, his grip no-bullshit.

“Ah….” Skip breathed. “Ah…. God, Richie. Gonna shoot like
now
!”

Richie chuckled and licked his neck. “You said you didn’t get hard. I remember. You don’t have that problem with me, do you?”

“Not even,” Skip breathed.

Richie shifted his weight on the couch and his grip on Skip’s cock went away. Skip opened his eyes and Richie had shoved his own jeans down to his feet and was kicking them off with his shoes. His cock was mostly full, and Skip didn’t need Richie’s hand, urgent, driving him to touch it.

It was the thing that had been missing from his grip all week.

He stroked slowly, strongly, and Richie’s shaky “nungh” in his ear intoxicated like alcohol, but it sent him higher. Richie’s grip resumed, and then Richie, always enterprising, swung a leg over his hips so they were cock to cock.

“Your hands are bigger,” Richie rasped. It was maybe the only time he’d heard Richie confess that there was something he couldn’t do.

Skip wrapped his hand around the two of them, feeling Richie’s length against his. Oh God, there was something erotic, raw, and carnal about their
cocks
grinding together.

“You feel so good,” Skip whispered. “Ah, God, Richie, this is….”

Richie grunted and thrust inside the circle of Skip’s fingers, his movements slow and intense. With a little cry, he broke, thrusting in a quick frenzy, but Skip knew it wasn’t going to do it. This thing, this was
amazing
—but it wasn’t going to bring them to orgasm.

Skip let go of their members, then leaned up and pulled Richie down on him. “Shh,” he whispered. “Do you have lube in your pocket?”

Richie looked up and smiled, his eyes crinkling above the mask. Then his expression fell. “I’m not supposed to… you know… get too… jiggled.”

Skip smiled, nuzzling his cheek. “Just sit on me and move slow,” he whispered. “I’ll stroke you.”

Richie flashed that mask-broken smile again and rifled through his jeans on the ground. He came up with a little pocket bottle of lubricant, which he offered to Skip. He straddled Skip’s middle again, turning so he was facing away.

“You wanna, uh….” He rested his cheek gently against Skip’s knee and started to stroke Skip’s cock—not too fast. Skip knew he was trying not to make the ride too rough, and Richie
definitely
didn’t want Skip’s thing in his mouth, not now when his whole face was pretty tender.

But Skip got to run his hands down Richie’s ribs, over his thighs, and around his backside, which was replete in ginger fur.

Richie hugged Skipper’s knee tight like he was trying to hide. “I’m sort of a furry little bastard,” he apologized, as though maybe Skip hadn’t noticed the past few times they’d been naked.

“I like all of you,” Skip said throatily. He lubed up his fingers and teased Richie’s pucker.

Richie let out a little “Ah… ah… ah….”

“That part too,” Skip whispered.

“Definitely!”

“You like that part?”

“Definitely means ‘more now,’” Richie cracked gruffly. “Ah… oh man… that’s… that’s good….”

Skip stretched him gently, waiting until the rim around his fingers was slack and open. Richie continued his maddeningly uneven stroke on Skip’s cock. Skip had to keep himself from arching into that caress, turning it into the whole meal when it was supposed to be a snack.

“You ready?” He moved his fingers and slid both thumbs inside. Richie’s muscles clamped down on him and Richie groaned, turning his head and biting the inside of Skip’s knee.

“God…. Skip… oh Jesus….”

Skip pulled out quickly and wiped his fingers on the inside of the sweats sitting next to him on the couch. Richie moaned and his arms shook as he braced himself on Skip’s knee and swung his leg over. The face he turned toward Skipper glistened with sweat.

Skip gripped Richie’s thighs as Richie positioned himself with his knees on either side of Skip’s hips. He rose slightly and placed Skip’s cock right there, at his warm, loosened entrance. Part of the head slid in and then stopped, and Richie leaned his head back, mouth parted, eyes closed, and hissed softly as he slid down.

Halfway. He grunted and raised himself, the friction driving Skipper a little crazy. He had to force his hips to stay planted as Richie lowered himself again, a little lower.

And up.

And a little lower.

And up.

And…. “Ahh.” Skipper groaned, long and low, as Richie slid all the way down this time. He stopped, quivering, impaled on Skipper’s erection. His cock, red and fully erect, splatted lightly on Skip’s lower abdomen in time with Richie’s breathing.

“Damn, Richie,” Skip said, part in admiration and part in agony. “That’s… you’re so good….”

“I want to move,” Richie moaned. “But… I can’t….” He shifted his hips back and forth, Skipper rubbing inside him but not stroking, not the way they both wanted. Oh. Of course. He couldn’t rock himself that hard—not with every bounce jarring his sore head.

“Rise up,” Skip muttered. “About halfway. Prop yourself up on the couch and sit still.”

Richie complied, both of them breathing delicately as he moved. Then Richie grabbed the back of the couch with one hand and planted his other hand on Skip’s shoulder. Skip grabbed his slim hips, held firmly, and then started to thrust.

Slow, slow, slow, hard, slow, slow, slow, hard….

Not too hard. Not too fast. Slow, slow, slow, hard.

Richie started to whisper and beg, but Skipper couldn’t go any faster. No knocking about his head—that was the golden rule.

“C’mon… faster… c’mon, Skip, faster… harder… oh please… please… please…. Skipper….”

He was begging—
begging
, his voice cracking—and Skip couldn’t stand it anymore. “Grab yourself, Richie. As fast as you can. Fuck your own fist, dammit, jack yourself off—”

“
Yes
….”

Skip continued—slow, slow, slow,
hard
, slow, slow, slow,
hard
—as his body screamed with the need to go faster, harder, to come, dammit,
come
! And Richie’s hand flew on his own cock as he gibbered, “Fuck fuck fuck fuck….
Skipper
!”

Slow, slow,
hard
,
hard
,
hard
,
hard
,
hard
….

“Oh my God,
yes
!”

Skipper had to close his eyes because Richie’s come splashed up—it hit Skip’s chest, his mouth, his cheeks, and his hair. It missed Skip’s eyes, but Skip kept them closed anyway. Richie’s ass clenched and convulsed around Skipper’s cock, and that was Skipper’s edge.

Skipper moaned, his entire body suffusing with light as a long, slow, shattering orgasm rolled through him and spurted out of his cock, into Richie.

“Oh God,” he breathed, and Richie leaned carefully into him, not jouncing. Skipper raised his hands to cup Richie’s upper arms, moving his palms in small circles.

“How’s your head?” he asked, concerned. Hand jobs. This was supposed to be a pity hand job.

“Hurts,” Richie muttered. “I’ll take some pain meds. In a thousand years.”

Skipper laughed and pushed Richie’s hair back from his face. He nuzzled Richie’s cheek, smelling their sex—and ass sex had a smell, there was no mistaking—and Richie’s definitive redhead sweat.

And over all of it, permeating their pores, the smell of wood smoke and rain, as night fell and the world stormed around them.

“Richie?”

“Yeah?”

He blinked hard against the darkness and the spots still flying about his vision. “That was magic. Don’t laugh.”

Oh God. He should have said “Don’t laugh” first.

But Richie cupped his cheeks and held him for a sloppy, come-tinted kiss. He came up for air and smiled faintly. “Not laughing,” he whispered. “Magic. It’s real. I never knew.”

He rested his head on Skipper’s shoulder for a moment then, and together they listened to the rain.

THEY TOOK
showers after that, and Skip had just finished heating some soup and baking a cornbread mix when the power went out. They ate a quiet dinner in the dark and then slid into bed, their shorts still on, and began to talk.

It was funny—they’d known each other for six years. You would have thought they knew everything, right? But Richie’s weight, warm and comforting against Skip’s shoulder, seemed to free him to ask questions men didn’t usually ask. And the darkness—or maybe the comfort of Skip’s arm around his shoulders—seemed to do the same for Richie.

“So,” Richie said, voice comfortable and drowsy, “I don’t get it. Why’d your dad leave you with your mom if she was a mess?”

Skip grunted. “Well, he was probably the reason she was a mess. He… I mean he provided, and he wasn’t mean, but I remember—he’d play with me and watch television and basically be a dad with me after work, but he wouldn’t….” This had never been so clear to Skipper as it was now, when he couldn’t hardly stand to see Richie on the field when they couldn’t at least brush their hands together. “They never touched,” he said at last, his voice aching in the darkness. “All I want to do when I see you is touch you—any part of you—even if it’s just bumping your shoulder. But they—they never touched. And I think she got lonely, after so many years of that. They needed to touch.”

Richie hummed a little and turned on his side. Skipper matched him so they were looking at each other in the dark, the patter of rain loud against the black windows.

“My mom used to whore around,” he said, quiet, like a kid afraid of being caught telling a dirty word. “I mean, my dad used to accuse her of it, and there were guys all the time. Wasn’t supposed to tell nobody about Uncle Billy or Bobby or what-the-fuck-ever. Anyway, she finally took off with that last one, and dad hooked up with Kay and….” Richie’s mouth compressed.

“She whores around on him?”

He blew out a breath. “I wish. Mostly she’s just… just not warm, you know?”

Skip remembered that whip-thin person who didn’t seem to be concerned at all that Richie was bleeding. “Yeah, I know,” he said grimly.

“Was your mom warm?”

Skip swallowed against the lump suddenly in his throat. “Yeah,” he whispered. “She… I mean, even at the end, when she was coughing up blood and just wouldn’t quit drinking… she’d call me into her room at the end of the day and she’d be lying down, a cloth on her head. She’d say, ‘Tell me what you did today,’ and I’d….” This was embarrassing. “I made up stuff, mostly,” he said, grimacing. “She didn’t know the difference. I was this fat kid with zits from like, seventh grade on. Nobody gave a shit if I was there, really, until my complexion cleared and my growth spurt hit, about my junior year. But I told her I was on the track team or the football team, and all the time I would have been practicing, I was working at that burger shack—you know the one on Madison? It’s all boarded up now, but they hired me and fudged the whole work permit thing. Part of the reason I was so fat, really, because it’s all I ate for about three years, but it was food.”

“But she wanted to know?” Richie asked, like he was making sure.

Skip nodded. “Yeah. She did. You?”

“My dad,” Richie said, voice rough. “I mean, he wasn’t always nice about it, but he’d ask about grades, and he’d always give me quarters to go play video games at the pizza parlor if I got good ones.” He rolled his eyes. “Paul and Rob used to steal them, but still. He was trying. It was like, the whole reason he married Kay was because he thought we could be a family, like we couldn’t be with my real mom. Wasn’t his fault. Just the wrong damned person. For me, anyway.”