Sidecar Page 17

  For a moment, Joe was torn. For a moment, Joe wanted to keep kissing as badly as he wanted to pull back, button his shirt, mask his vulnerability. Then Casey made that sound again, that wonderful, purring sex sound, and Joe swallowed it with another hard, tenderizing kiss.

  He moved one of his hands to Casey’s back and scrunched the stiff white shirt in his hand, pulling at it until he found the soft, sleek skin right above his belt. He spanned his hand across it, then delved into the backside of Casey’s slacks, warming himself on the softer skin there.

  Now it was Casey who pulled back, begging. “God, Joe… now… please?”

  Joe pulled back, bumping the steering wheel with his elbow and trying not to throw the car into neutral, because it didn’t always take the clutch. As he pulled back, his knees knocked the keys from the ignition, and Joe took three deep breaths and leaned forward, rested his forehead on the steering wheel, and laughed softly.

  Casey groaned comically and thrust his hips up a little like he was seeking relief.

  “Kid, I’ll do anything for you, I swear to God I will, but if you make me fuck you in a Ford Escort, I’ll never forgive you.”

  Casey started to laugh breathily, and Joe took heart.

  “Besides,” he added, “you said you needed hope. Now all you have to hope for is that it’ll be worth the trip back home.”

  Casey turned toward him, his eyes still half-hooded, his lips parted and swollen, with razor burn on the fair skin of this neck. “Damn. Damn. I don’t have to guess that. I know.” He took a deep breath. “Now go get us some coffee, and I’ll hit the head, and then I can drive us home, okay? You need to rest up. I’ve got us some plans.”

  THEY were both cranky and achy by the time they got to Foresthill. They’d stopped once for dinner at a fast-food place and stretched out, but by the time Joe, who was driving again, pulled Lynnie’s car down the wide, flat space that doubled as a driveway, he felt like if he didn’t lie down, he’d die.

  He unfolded his long, wide body from the car and stretched his fingers to the stars, growling as he did so to help release some of the tension, and he watched as Casey did the same. They’d listened to Tesla and Pearl Jam almost the whole way up—when Casey was still in high school, Joe had taken him to a Night Ranger concert at Cal Expo, and Tesla had blown the snot out of Night Ranger as the opening band. Casey might still have liked Madonna, but Tesla was from their home turf, and it was a sentimental favorite. The result was that in spite of the cranky, achy part of traveling, he was in a good mood, and the tension, the worry of what they were going to be like together, had melted more with every mile.

  So, after stretching easy in the moonlight, he reached in and grabbed their coats from the back and threw them over his arm. “I’m going to go put some jeans on and let the dogs out,” he said, stifling a yawn. “I need to move a little before we go inside, okay?”

  Casey nodded and turned his face up to the crystalline sky. It was cold and looking like snow up here, but unlike the valley and the flatlands, it wasn’t raining. “Could you bring out a sweatshirt for me?” he asked. His clothes were still back at the duplex, and Joe knew they’d probably be there for a while. Casey had made it very clear that he had to honor his commitment with Alvin, and Joe understood. They would make time. They would date.

  But first they’d make love, and Joe would make it everything.

  He had a pretty good idea of how many lovers Casey’d had since he’d arrived on Joe’s doorstep, and as unfair as it was, he wanted Casey to forget them all. If Casey had been saving the best of himself for Joe, then Joe wasn’t going to make him sorry.

  He walked into the house quietly, not wanting to disturb Lynnie, and found her awake on the couch, fully dressed, looking moodily out the window. The dogs clattered up to greet him, Hi’s tail thumping on the walls and floors as he and Rufus vied for the honor of licking him to death, and he patted them on the head before giving them their heart’s desire and letting them out to see Casey.

  He looked back at Lynnie and saw that she was standing up and that her three suitcases of clothes were packed up on the floor next to her.

  “Lynnie?”

  “I’m going to stay with Stacy,” she said quietly. “I’ll be there until I fly to my folks’. You can forward my mail if you want, but I think I called everyone today.”

  Joe looked at her unhappily. She was so tiny. He hadn’t told her, but the day after she’d shown up on his doorstep, he’d shown up on Brad’s. Brad had looked worse than Lynnie by the time Joe was done, and he’d worn his newly battered face to jail when Joe had placed an anonymous call to the cops about the five baggies of rock on the coffee table. Lynnie hadn’t done the drugs—she swore up and down that she hadn’t—but her respiration had been elevated and her pupils dilated just from being around them. When she’d told Joe a month later that she was pregnant, Joe had thanked God—quite literally—that the baby in her belly wouldn’t be like the too-thin, too-angry children he had been caring for in the NICU lately. He held them every night and closed his eyes and wished that the power of touch, a thing he’d held sacred all his life, didn’t seem to hurt them quite so much.

  And now as he looked at her, he knew that any move he made, any attempt to hug or to say good-bye, would do the same thing.

  “Are you sure? You know you have a place here,” he said quietly.

  “Look at him,” Lynnie said, her voice troubled. Casey was greeting the dogs with hugs and pets and excited jumping, and Joe felt his entire face glow. “He’s so happy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know, you told me when we first started going out that you swung both ways.” She laughed humorlessly. “I thought it was very progressive, you know. Sexy. You didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought, you’d be with whoever you wanted.”

  Joe blushed, even in the dark. “I was not aware,” he said dryly.

  “Yeah, well, it turned my key,” she said, her voice just as dry, and Joe laughed a little. They’d done that—been ironic with each other, teased without hardly inflecting their voices. It had been one of the reasons Joe had loved being with her. “It did,” she repeated, her voice sinking. Neither one of them had moved to turn on a light, but there was enough moonlight coming in through the window to make her pale face vulnerable and cold. “I never, ever in a million years thought you’d choose him over me.”

  Joe pulled in a breath. “I never thought it would be a choice,” he admitted painfully. “My whole… my whole goal was to get him grown, for him to be whole and well and independent. When I met you—”

  “You were pining for him without knowing it,” she said, and she wasn’t smiling at all. “I’d love to stay here and have my baby, Joe. But the thing is, you’d want that baby so bad, watching me leave with it would kill you. I’ll go now, before you get attached. You and him”—she smiled just a little—“you and him, you’re going to have to find your own baby. Don’t worry. I’m sure he’s out there. But my mistakes are mine to keep.”

  She bent down then like she was going to grab her suitcases, but Joe beat her to it.

  “I’ll help you,” he said quietly, and he took the two big ones. “We filled the car up as we got it up here. I’d like to have it serviced for you, with the trip and all.”

  “Not necessary,” she said. She swung her purse over her hip, grunting. The tight jeans she had, the ones that circled her tiny waist and pegged at the ankles, didn’t give her a lot of room with the five months of baby, and she was going to have to stop wearing them soon, but her oversized shirt would probably accommodate her until she was due. “I’d….” She sighed. One of the dogs barked, and they both looked outside to see Casey throwing a stick into the dark beyond the porch light. God, his body was lithe and tight, small muscles, small frame. He probably could have worked out and bulked up, but Joe liked him small, small and sturdy. They’d built the garage and remodeled the top floor and built the chicken coop and gardened together. Joe had no worries about Casey
’s strength.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said, not wanting to see her go. They’d lived in an uneasy peace these last few months. She’d cooked and cleaned, and he’d told her not to because he was used to doing it himself or taking turns with Casey. It hadn’t been a good system, but it had worked for them.

  “I really do,” she said, not looking at him. “Because once he stays here tonight, I’ll have a constant reminder that you picked him and not me, and you did it before you even knew you could have him.”

  He grimaced. “It was a near thing,” he told her, thinking about how pretty she’d looked in the sunshine and how cold she looked now.

  “Only because I could have your babies, Joe. And I still lost by a mile. C’mon.”

  So he helped her out and loaded her car while Casey looked on from the edge of the shadows. Joe hadn’t had time to get that sweatshirt, so as Lynnie backed up and turned around to leave, Casey came up close to him, shivering.

  Joe put a warming arm around his shoulders and pulled him close. God, even that shivering body next to his was a luxury. Casey’s teeth chattered, and Joe pulled him flush up against his front, and shuddered.

  “You feel so right,” he murmured, and Casey burrowed closer.

  “Why’d she leave?” Casey was looking up into his eyes, and Joe realized how far down he had to bend to kiss him—and didn’t mind that much at all.

  “Because she didn’t want to see this.”

  Casey’s lips were cold and the inside of his mouth was hot, and Joe sank into him like he was a down mattress top. Casey reached up and grabbed around his neck, gave a little hop, and then climbed Joe like a tree. He wrapped his legs around Joe’s hips, grinding their groins together and kissing Joe back.

  Joe cupped his big hands under Casey’s ass and kept kissing and walking, grateful for the summer they’d spent laying the carefully flat paving stones and installing the big light that made their little property not look so vast. He’d worked out his muscles helping Lynnie, and now all he wanted was Casey, who was wrapped around him so tight he was almost a second skin.

  Joe made it through the front door, still holding Casey, still tasting him, and he shut the door behind them, knowing the dogs would hang out in their big wooden house by the garage if no one came to get them. The dogs would be okay, but Joe wouldn’t be if he had to let go of Casey. The stairs were tricky, though, and Casey slid down his body then. They parted reluctantly when his feet hit the first step, and then he turned around and tore up the stairs with Joe at his heels.

  Joe caught him before he hit the bed and pressed Casey back against the wall, holding his hands together over his head with one hand and shoving his other hand under the double layer of T-shirt and dress shirt. He felt that smooth skin under his palm and flicked Casey’s nipples, which were extraordinarily sensitive. Casey shivered and thrashed around, and Joe pulled back from that devouring kiss.

  “Stop that,” he rumbled, and Casey went absolutely still. Joe pinched one of those wonderful nipples, watching as Casey whimpered—but didn’t move. He looked directly into Casey’s wide gray eyes, wondering if Casey knew what he was giving. Casey whimpered again and thrust his groin up at Joe’s thigh, and Joe figured that maybe he did.

  Joe released Casey’s hands, as they were over Casey’s head, and said, “Stay there,” experimentally, and sure enough, Casey stayed right there. Joe smiled a little and parted the halves of the shirt and then pushed under the T-shirt, shoving the whole works up and over Casey’s hands, leaving him bare-chested and leaning against the wall. Then Joe kissed that vulnerable, pale neck, and then that exquisitely sensitive chest, and then down, going heavily to his knees to kiss Casey’s hard, tight little stomach and tease the soft skin there with his teeth. Casey’s head thunked back against the wall, and he groaned.

  His hands came down and started rooting in Joe’s hair, and Joe was busy with Casey’s belt and the hook-and-eye fly of the slacks, so he wasn’t going to argue. He dragged the pants and brand-new underwear down, holding Casey’s weight as he slid pants and shoes and socks and underwear over his feet, and now Casey was naked, his cock and testicles large between his legs.

  “God,” he said reverently, nuzzling Casey’s length with his nose and cheeks. Casey shuddered, because Joe’s mustache probably tickled and aroused at the same time. “You’re so perfect.”

  Casey found his hair again, and he had the presence of mind to pull the elastic from the tail so he could finger comb it while Joe used his fingertips and bare lips alone to explore Casey’s most sensitive bits. He stuck out his tongue and traced a path from pubes to tip, enjoying the shudder of Casey’s hands in his hair. He licked a path around the crown and then teased the little slit, loving the symphony of grunts and whimpers Casey made, the pleading noises in his throat, the increasingly urgent tugs he made on Joe’s hair.

  “Ah, God… Joe, please! Please… oh God….”

  Joe opened his mouth and pulled him all in, relaxing his throat and then swallowing, fondling his balls, tugging on them gently until Casey’s scrabbling in his hair became painful and his collapsing knees kept threatening to give out on him. Joe pulled back and wrapped a strong hand around Casey’s surprisingly long, thick erection. “Stand up,” he commanded gently, and Casey nodded, willing—as he always had been—to do whatever Joe asked, because Joe asked him to do stuff for a reason. Casey shored up his knees and Joe went back to swallowing him, taking him as deep into his throat as he could, heedless of the mess of spit and precome that was glazing his lips and dripping down his mustache.

  “God, Joe, I’m going to come… condoms….”

  Joe pulled back, smiling a little. “Did you get tested after Robbie?”

  Casey nodded and swallowed, obviously trying to think against the odds. “He was my last guy—I’m still at baseline.”

  Good boy. “I got tested after Derrick, and Lynnie’s totally clear,” he said, because they were testing for that now, when a woman was pregnant. “Can we—?”

  Casey laughed semihysterically. “For the holy love of crap, Joe, yes, we can go without the fucking condom!”

  His laugh stopped when Joe took that sweet cock back into his mouth and tightened down, tugging on Casey’s balls again, and Casey let out a breathless howl and shot down his throat.

  Joe wrapped his arms around Casey’s hips and pulled him close, tasting him full and still pumping in the back of his throat, feeling Casey’s hands tangling in his hair and declaring irrevocably that their relationship was decidedly, perfectly changed.

  Casey’s shudders eased up, and Joe pulled back and wiped his face on his shoulders.

  “Stand up so I can undress you,” Casey murmured, and Joe did. Casey smiled up into his face and pulled the dress shirt off him one shoulder at a time. What was under it was a tank tee, and Casey spent a few moments running his hands over Joe’s beefy, muscular upper arms. He paused for a moment at that long-ago scar from Rufus and moved to the side, where he placed a delicate benediction on the raised ridges left by Rufus’s teeth.

  “I was so scared,” he confessed, rubbing his cheek against it.

  “I’m fine,” Joe said, smiling a little. “I’m fine, but I want to be naked with you, okay?”

  Casey nodded. “I want nothing else on the planet ever,” he said reverently. He pulled at Joe’s tank, and Joe lowered his head so Casey could drag it off.

  Joe toed off his shoes while Casey fumbled with his belt and then, in a flurry of impatience, shoved him down on the bed so he could pull off his pants.

  The impatience ended, though, when Casey looked up and saw Joe looking at him, a little shyly, from the curtain of his straight black hair.

  “Oh!” Casey said, blinking hard.

  “Oh?”

  Casey pushed a palm against his eyes. “Oh God, you’re beautiful,” he mumbled, and then he braced his weight on Joe’s thighs so he could sink to his knees and bury his face in Joe’s middle.

  “I’m fat,”
Joe mumbled, stroking Casey’s hair back from his face.

  “You’re perfect,” Casey said, nipping at the skin on Joe’s ribs. He stretched up and licked at a nipple playfully before pulling back and grinning. “Yeah, I know, you don’t like that.”

  Joe flushed. “It’s the pinching,” he admitted. “I’m not sure about the licking—everyone just starts with the pinching.”

  Casey smoothed his hands over Joe’s chest, which was hairy and broad, and then ran his fingers through the hair. “It’s soft,” he said with wonder. “I’ve always wondered. Guys my age don’t have this.”

  Joe was lying flat on the comforter—he couldn’t cover his hairy old body, so he covered his face. “Please stop,” he muttered, and Casey kissed his stomach and then up between his pecs and then up to his neck, along his clavicle. He got to Joe’s jaw, and Joe tilted his head to accommodate him and then heard Casey whispering in his ear.

  “You are just as beautiful as I always knew you would be,” he said, and then he punctuated it with a solid handshake on Joe’s cock, which surged back to life after its brief bout of embarrassment.

  “Nnng….”

  Casey laughed softly. “And this thing is huge,” he said, pulling back far enough that Joe could see his wicked smile. “I used to try to get a look at that, you know?”

  Joe rolled his eyes—and then rocked his hips into Casey’s sure grip. “I know—I had to lock your side of the bathroom—unh….”

  Joe had his hand on Casey’s back to feel the shudder that racked him as he held it tightly and squeezed.

  Casey pulled back and looked at him soberly. “I know all about sex with men now,” he said, nodding his head seriously. “And I really like receiving, but I want to stay just like this all night, okay?”