String Boys, page 26
And in answer, they heard Chloe crying downstairs and Craig’s warm voice, vibrating through the floorboards.
Seth groaned softly, burying his head in Kelly’s shoulder. His erection—oh God. In the last six months, he’d been made of erections, but at the sound of his father’s voice, it throbbed quietly into flaccidity. “This isn’t fair!”
Kelly’s strained laugh just emphasized the point. “Mijo, I don’t know if I can let my mother hear me—”
“I know!” They giggled some more, their hands growing familiar and languid on each other’s skin.
When they finally settled down, Kelly curled up next to him, settling like a cat—still for the moment but twitching, ready to chase mice should he hear one.
“What now?” Seth asked sleepily.
“Tell me about your astronomy class,” Kelly commanded.
“Sure. If you tell me about sketching a nude model.”
Kelly snorted. “His penis was very oddly shaped.”
“So’s the universe.”
They started giggling again.
And then they talked and talked and fell asleep when the air in the house was so still, they could smell the foggy cold of dawn.
They woke up to the smell of eggs and bacon, and the feel of the other body in bed.
Before Kelly could roll away, Seth pulled him close, and Kelly went, both of them grunting with exhaustion and excitement.
“Seth?”
“Yeah?”
“This sex thing—we’ll get to it.”
“God, I hope so. Today. Definitely today.”
“But here’s the thing.”
“You keep talking, I’m gonna sleep through bacon.”
Kelly pinched him. “Stop it. Anyway, the thing is, waking up with you next to me is about the most awesome thing ever. Can we remember that?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go get us some bacon.”
“And some sausage.” Seth laughed, that high-pitched “dee-erp!” that had haunted him from high school, and Kelly kissed him, quick and hard, before rolling out of his arms.
They dressed in sweats, and both of them put socks on, because the chill outside seemed to be seeping in through their toes, and then ran downstairs, the muffled thump of their feet on the hard blond wood sounding through the house.
Craig was actually doing the cooking, forking bacon onto a plate covered with paper towels to sop up the grease. An egg casserole sat on hot pads on the table, and Linda was setting down a platter of fruit.
Lily, Lulu, and Agnes were already starting on the egg casserole, their hair back in ponytails, their faces freshly scrubbed. Chloe banged on the table from her portable high chair that affixed to the table with clamps.
“You hungry?” Seth took a piece of cantaloupe and cut it up into little pieces for her and then grabbed the little plastic bowl and put some egg casserole in it with her dull fork.
She looked at the egg casserole skeptically, poking it with a slender finger.
“She doesn’t eat eggs?” Seth asked.
“She doesn’t eat much,” Kelly said with a sigh. “We keep taking her to the doctor, and they don’t know what to tell us. She’s just… I don’t know. Behind. On everything.”
Seth handed her a piece of cantaloupe and smiled at her, and she giggled back. “But still awesome,” he said loyally. Matty’s daughter. It was still hard to believe.
Breakfast was as lively as dinner had been, and Seth and Kelly promised the girls that they’d go to the aquarium and sightsee with them the next day. But sitting next to Kelly, feeling the thrum of blood under his skin, remembering the night before, both of them flesh to flesh, Seth knew he and Kelly wouldn’t be any good at all to them if they didn’t get some time to themselves.
He needed, in a way that precluded food and air and even music.
He needed Kelly to be a part of him.
They showered after breakfast, while everybody was gathering together to leave, like they were getting ready for a normal day. Seth used the bathroom in his dad’s room so they could get done faster, in time to hug everybody on their way out.
As he was shutting the door, Craig said, “We’ll call on our way home.” He gave them both a look that spoke of that long-ago day when he’d seen more than he’d cared to through a two-inch strip of curtain. “We’ll give you an ETA, so remember to keep your phones on!”
And then they were gone.
Seth eyed Kelly with a certain grim awkwardness. “Should it bother us that they know what we’re gonna do?”
“Who cares!” Kelly gasped back, grabbing his hand. “I’m just so excited we’re gonna do it!”
They ran upstairs together, shedding their clothes as they went—but leaving their socks on.
“It’s cold,” Kelly muttered, crawling into bed. “I don’t care how dumb it looks. I’m not sucking on your feet.”
Seth pulled the covers over their shoulders and giggled. “I hope not. My thing is about three feet north.”
Kelly rolled his eyes and reached under the pillow, producing a bottle of lubricant and a washcloth from the bathroom. “You’re taller than that. I’d say three and a half.”
Seth snickered. “Wouldn’t that make me seven feet tall?”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about!” Kelly pulled down the covers, mindless of the chill. “You have a bruise on your chest—and oh my God. Your chest!”
Seth grinned a little. “Still working out.” The grin faded as he traced Kelly’s collarbone with his fingertips. “You’re still too thin. I….” He shrugged and brushed Kelly’s chin. “I miss when this was rounder.”
Kelly captured his fingertips and kissed them. “Not my fault,” he said. “I grew two inches.”
Seth knew his eyes widened. “Nuh-nuh—serious?”
“Yeah. Mom measured me on my birthday. I’m actually taller than Matty.” Some of his glee faded. “As tall as he was the last time we measured.”
Seth rubbed his full lower lip with a careful thumb. Neither of them wanted to talk about Matty—he knew that. But Seth had fed his daughter that morning, held her sleeping weight in his arms.
Chloe was the little burden that would keep Kelly home after Agnes had left, would keep them apart if Seth couldn’t find a way to go home.
“You were always bigger than Matty,” he said soberly. “Always kinder. You ever wonder why I didn’t crush on him?”
Kelly shrugged. “’Cause I would have committed fratricide?”
Seth laughed softly. “Sure.” His thumb found the silky hairs of Kelly’s upper lip. “Are you growing this out? Like a chia-stash or a goatee?”
“Naw. I just really wanted to rim you, and I figured I’d give you less razor burn this way.”
“Uhm… uh… so….” The warmth, the intimacy that had formed around them as they took their familiar inventory of the changes time had wrought boiled and steamed around them. Seth’s head sank into the pillow, and he dropped his shoulder back, spreading his body out for Kelly’s plunder, inviting him to live up to that reckless promise.
Kelly’s laugh had a raw edge to it, a fully adult sound that said he knew what he’d just done, and he was unrepentant. He thrust his tongue into Seth’s mouth and took and took, leaving Seth breathless.
Kelly’s hands weren’t idle.
He tormented Seth’s nipples without mercy, stroked Seth’s upper arms, his stomach, his hips. One hand, rough from doing laundry and dishes, slid along his thigh and around his groin, and Seth actually found some words.
“Don’t tell me you forgot where it is!”
Kelly’s chuckle made him, if anything, harder.
“I know. Just wanted to make sure you remembered who it belongs to.”
Seth scowled, then reached down Kelly’s body, groping him roughly. For a moment he froze. So much effort. So much mental and physical effort to be nothing but gentle when they were in bed and naked.
But Kelly grunted and bucked into Seth’s hand, and Seth couldn’t stop for the world. Kelly’s cock filled his palm, wider, maybe even longer than it had been when they’d started doing this, was it already three years ago?
God, they’d been young.
They were supposed to still be young, but Seth would be turning twenty, and Kelly was eighteen. They were real adults now, not kids screwing around.
And Kelly’s cock, thrumming in his grip, felt serious, like this thing they were doing, it had consequences and echoes.
Seth closed his grip, squeezing some, and stroked again while Kelly kissed him, kissed him until the thoughts, the hesitation, stopped swirling around his brain, kissed him stupid, until he moaned and spread his legs, inviting any exploration, any possession Kelly would take.
“Me.” Kelly pulled Seth’s nipple into his mouth and sucked hard, and Seth let go of his cock to bury his hands in Kelly’s coarse straight hair. “You belong to me.”
“I know,” Seth gasped. “Won’t ever forget.”
Kelly gave a whimper and moved to the other nipple, his hand skating around Seth’s cock again to fondle Seth’s sac, his tightened, aching testicles.
“Nnung….”
“Hurt?” Kelly let go.
“No. Yes. Everything aches.” Seth felt like he was whining, but he was lost. “Kelly… man, I….” He was shaking hard, like he was on the edge of coming but couldn’t.
“Shhh….” Kelly kissed down his body, took Seth’s cock into his mouth, and sucked.
Seth exploded, hard and completely, like he’d never been touched before, and Kelly kept sucking, kept nibbling, his fingers doing their dance again, until he grew hard all over again.
The shaking eased a little but didn’t quit, and Seth moaned. “I still want you.”
Kelly shoved at his legs again, and at first he thought Kelly wanted him to hold them up. But Kelly sat back on his haunches and eyed him with complete practicality.
“Hands and knees,” he said, all but crossing his arms and getting out a diagram. “I think that’s how I want you.”
Seth could hardly put two words together. “Because…?”
“Because.” Kelly gave that smile where his nose wrinkled and his eyes got small, and Seth couldn’t ever deny him what he wanted when he did that.
He rolled over to his stomach, pulling his knees underneath him, crouching like a kid playing leapfrog.
Kelly leaned over, tracing soft lips down Seth’s spine, breathing into his ears, on the back of his neck, using his palms and fingertips to mark Seth with his heat.
Seth crouched there and moaned, letting Kelly call the shots, letting his desire build and his erection throb with renewed life.
“When’d you get to be such a tease?” he breathed, shuddering as Kelly’s tongue flicked toward the back of his cheek.
“When you sent me a picture of a redneck with a black eye,” Kelly said, his breath disturbing the fine hairs on Seth’s backside. He rasped his teeth in the same place, and Seth’s brain—never very reliable on planet Earth—began to fuzz out, leaving only Kelly’s touches in place of words and rational thought.
“Yeah, well, you sent me a picture of your super-hot boss. Oh my God! Kelly!”
Kelly was apparently done with banter. He was right at the part where his tongue did intimate, probing things into his sensitive places. Seth tried to say the words, tried to tell him that he liked this—this was good, this was great, Kelly should maybe penetrate him, maybe, oh my God, fuck him right now and forget about extraneous humans who had nothing to do with this place, right here, where, oh dear Lord! Kelly was thrusting a finger deep inside him, deep, and now two, stretching, and oh… God, there were no words… no words….
Seth buried his face in the sheets and screamed, his entire body shaking, sweat breaking out from his shoulders to his lower back.
He didn’t come, but that was due to a supreme act of will.
Kelly’s filthy chuckle behind him didn’t make him sweat any less. “Good?”
“I want….”
“What?” Kelly scissored his fingers then, stretching more, and Seth sobbed.
“Fuck me,” he said clearly, the shame of the obscenity burned away by pleasure and need. “Fuck me. Stick your cock up my asshole and fuck. Me.”
Kelly made a sound behind him, a grunting, helpless sound, and then he shifted on the bed. Seth felt the shock of cold lube dribbling down his crease before Kelly thrust in, muttering “Damn you, Seth!” before shoving all the way in to the hilt.
Not gentle. Not slow. Not like last time. Seth fought the urge to tense up, which would make the pain more, and relaxed instead, welcoming. He’d begged for this. He needed it. Pain didn’t bother him.
Emptiness did.
Kelly paused, breathing harshly, his cock throbbing deep inside Seth’s body, and Seth sighed and melted, every muscle relaxing in submission.
“Move,” he urged, not sure if Kelly could even hear him.
Kelly must have, because he pulled back slowly, and Seth whimpered. Going. He was going. Then Kelly thrust again and he almost sobbed.
“Yes!”
Ah! Again! And again! Every thrust forward was a victory that lit up his nerve endings, filled him, made him whole. Every pull back was a tease, a torment, a fear of being left alone.
Again!
“Harder!” Seth begged, shaking. Sweat prickled his forehead, his lower back, and Kelly’s hands on his hips slid around as he tried to get a better grip.
“You’re killing me!” Kelly gasped. “I’m gonna… oh God, Seth, I’m gonna—”
“Oh please.” Seth’s stomach contorted as the first sob rocked him. “Please, Kelly. Come.”
Kelly groaned and fell forward, rutting hard, so hard Seth lost traction and his legs spread behind him as Kelly pumped come into his ass. Seth’s cock ground between his abdomen and the bed, and that was it, that was all he needed, and he lost hold of his orgasm, spasming so hard his stomach muscles hurt.
Oh God. Oh God, oh God! Kelly was twitching behind him, and he was lost, facedown in the bed, bereft because Kelly was pulling out now, and he had nothing to ground him, no framework for….
“What are… what are you…?”
Kelly’s tongue, plied again, hungrily and… so carnal. So forbidden.
Seth screamed and lurched forward, oversensitized, twitching on the bed.
Kelly pulled back, then lay next to him and took his mouth. Seth tasted heat, desire, the earthiness of Kelly’s come, and his body wouldn’t stop shaking.
“Sh… sh… mijo…. Oh wow. What’s the matter?”
For a moment, Seth was afraid. His body was replete, but he needed more. His heart was happy but afraid. With a roar that was almost orgasm, the void of the last six months rushed Seth’s chest, and he started a slow, hard sob.
“I miss you,” he gasped into Kelly’s chest. “Oh God. I miss you so much.”
Kelly moaned—not a sexy moan, a sad one—and they were both crying, kissing, tasting salt and sex on each other’s skin as the final, more painful crest hit them both.
THEY DIDN’T move for a long time, even after they calmed down. They just lay there, arms around each other’s shoulders, breath shuddering, bodies trembling in aftermath.
“That was….” Kelly’s chest rose and fell.
“I don’t let myself,” Seth said, by way of apology. “I don’t let myself miss you. I miss you, and… and I want you too bad. Everybody starts looking good to me, and I don’t want everybody.”
“I just want you,” Kelly mumbled, nibbling his ear. “I hear you. I… I get home at night, and Mom’s with Chloe, and the girls need me, and your dad’s making dinner or doing something nice, and I just… I keep thinking how much easier it would be if you were there.”
Seth rolled so he could rest his head on Kelly’s chest. “I’d be there,” he said eagerly. “I could leave Bridgford and go to Sac State, and we could be—”
“Arrested,” Kelly said, the word falling like a brutal sword.
“I was going to say happy,” Seth mumbled, the truth no easier to hear in Kelly’s arms than it had been in the back of his head for the past three years. “When can I come home?”
“Not this year,” Kelly said wearily. “The local station just did one of those unsub shows—Castor Durant was one of the cold cases.” He grunted. “They left out my name, thank fucking God, but they mentioned ‘a young African American person who may be a person of interest.’”
Seth was horrified. “Like… like when? When did this happen?”
“Right before Thanksgiving.” Kelly let out a breath. “Not even a mention that there were two people at the crime scene that night—”
“I can’t verify that,” Seth said, because he couldn’t. “But… maybe I can visit? Like Easter? Or summer vacation?”
“Just wait,” Kelly begged. “Wait. I’ll come with you some day. You know it, right? I’ll come with you. I’ll…. We can go to….”
“Italy,” Seth said, voice falling glumly.
“I beg your pardon?”
Ugh. Seth hadn’t wanted to broach this, but fuck. Fuck all the things.
“There’s a symphony in Italy, and they want me to come play in the fall. I’ve been trying to tell them no—”
“Don’t you dare!” Kelly fought to sit up, pretty much dumping Seth next to him. “Italy? You have a chance to go play in Italy for a semester—”
Shit. “A year.”
“A year!” And at first, Kelly sounded excited, like Seth had when he’d heard that. And then it hit him. “A year?” His voice trailed off.
“I told them no,” Seth explained patiently. “See, San Francisco has been offering me a place, and they’d let me finish my education at San Francisco State, and—”
“And they’re not going to have any more of a hard-on for you after Italy? Seth!”
“I don’t want to leave you!” Seth argued, the tears threatening again. “Is that so fucking wrong?”
Kelly shook his head and wiped his own eyes with his palm. “No. Baby. No. It’s not wrong. But….” He bit his lip and smiled, crooked, like a broken stick. “I mean, they got rentals in Italy, don’t they?”
“Every weekend in San Francisco,” Seth begged.
