Hot Jocks, page 19
The next couple of minutes are kind of a blur. Marlow yelped, puppy fashion, then collapsed in the newcomer’s embrace, his large body limp, his head sinking slowly against the other man’s chest. Seeing him like that, so totally submissive, so utterly helpless, pushed my arousal level past the point of endurance. I shuddered, feeling precum shoot copiously into my gi pants. Baxter rushed forward, yanking the unconscious assistant away from his opponent, simultaneously dispensing first aid and vitriol in equal measure.
The rest of the group closed in around them, unwilling to see their entertainment end so soon. Aware of the growing damp patch at the front of my BJJ trousers, I saw an opportunity to make my exit and took it, heading for the changing area and the welcome, evidence-erasing utility of the showers.
What they wouldn’t erase, though, what they couldn’t erase, was the fleeting expression I caught on the newcomer’s face as I made my way past him where he sat on the mat, inches away from a groggy, just-resuscitated Marlow.
It was pleasure: sheer, unadulterated pleasure.
Come lunch, the mystery of the stranger’s identity was finally solved and proved to be a whole lot more interesting than the meal: grayish roasted meat of unknown origin, a similarly unidentifiable green vegetable and potatoes that were for once not mashed but simply tasteless. The Brits on the course plowed their way through the food. Stéphane, the acknowledged cuisine connoisseur among us, rolled his eyes as he always did, and I found myself laughing.
“Think of it as part of the survival training,” I told him. “If you can take this, live ants’ll be a cinch.”
The others didn’t particularly like my sense of humor, so I decided to change the subject, waving my fork toward the table where the newcomer was sitting, still sexy, still intoxicating, still infuriating, still perfect.
“Who’s he?”
Stéphane shook his head. “Monsieur Choke-Choke? Je ne sais pas. Some guy who’s getting over an injury, I think.”
“He didn’t act very injured this morning. Why’s he here?”
“To help us on the paperwork before he gets fit and goes back into the field. Ex-MI6, apparently. Mandella or something.”
“Mondello? Curtis Mondello?” Donnelly, without a doubt the quietest of the group, looked up. “Heard of him.”
This was logical, because Donnelly’s ex-MI6 as well. I probed a little further, hungry still for more information.
“Know him, do you?”
“Nah. Just vaguely heard he’d joined CI5. He was in Berlin and Bosnia, and I was in the Middle East.”
Well, that was my curiosity sated. I decided to leave it at that, determined to ignore the magnetic, mesmeric effect the new guy was having on me; vowing not to let myself get sucked in; committed to staying away from temptation.
My commitment didn’t last the week; I clicked with Curtis the instant we were introduced at a formal briefing session the next day. I wasn’t the world’s greatest expert on intelligence analysis, and I’m still not, as I’ve always been more of a frontline type of guy. But Curtis made his specialty come alive for me. He was a fascinating conversationalist and talked about intelligence… well, intelligently. I liked picking his brains, and he seemed happy to let me.
Now and again, we’d sit together at one of the mealtime food-torture sessions and wrangle over a problem. I started to look forward to seeing the glint of amusement in his brown-black eyes when I made an absolute balls of something. Or the flicker of approval when I—once in a while—nailed a tricky strategic concept.
We never discussed what had happened with Marlow; something told me that the subject was out of bounds. Besides, I was still trying to rid myself of the image of the two of them in each other’s arms, antipathy like passion flowing red hot between them, the sweat on their bodies anointing their unholy union, and then the conquest, Marlow sleeping soundly in the marriage bed of Curtis’s lap, swathed in white cotton and the scent of his musk—
Things only got tougher the more time we spent together. Curtis had an easy grace, and I’d been watching him get slowly fitter, drill by drill, day by day. Hell, the man was attractive. More than that, I wanted him.
But I didn’t like men. Not anymore.
Yeah, right.
The two weeks of induction disappeared fast, and soon the final assessment loomed large over our heads. We were all nervous, up to and including the normally laid-back Stéphane. At first, he’d been happy to go out for a drink and some halfdecent food in the neighboring village, but he was now to be found in his room most evenings, sweating blood over the intricacies of worldwide antiterrorism techniques. Me, I was pretty well up on that stuff, although the SEALS don’t see it quite in the same hierarchical order as the Brits. But then I’m adaptable. We’re colonials, they’re the center of the earth, and once you’ve got that figured, you’re fine.
Frustrated and irritated with the cook’s latest excuse for an evening meal, and reluctant to tramp down two miles of country lanes for warm beer alone, I decided to be the model student and go over some case reports for the following day.
“Hey, Keel. Still at it?”
I looked up and saw him in his loose-fitting jiujitsu pants, hair tousled, torso bare, and had to swallow the sound that came to my lips—the chord of longing; the note of lust.
“Yeah. But getting there.” He had a scar, I noticed. It was angry, looked recent and was located right next to his heart, directly beneath the breastbone. Must be the famous injury, I surmised. My gaze traveled downward. “Isn’t a little late for rolling?”
He grinned. “Of course. But gi pants make for good pajamas. Got much work left?”
“Too much. Paper pushing isn’t my thing.”
“Uh-huh. Takes time. I feel a bit like that about Baxter’s novel approach to grappling: ‘Learn or die trying!’”
“You look like you’re doing okay,” I said stupidly, thus giving away the fact that I’d been monitoring his progress, his recovery. Luckily, he seemed to take it as astute observation or something; his face registered no surprise.
“I am. Should be back in the field once I’m finished with you lot and seen you all head off into the sunset with the CI5 tattoo on your asses.”
“That kind of depends on whether I make it.”
“You’ll make it,” he said quietly. I waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t. Instead, he changed the subject. “You’re with SEALS, right?”
“Uh-huh.” Now it was my turn to elaborate, but my mind had gone blank, desire and anxiety finally getting the better of me, making my heart race, my cock pulse, my balls ache. I wanted him so badly, but I couldn’t say it, shouldn’t say it. Because he might reject me, and then—
Curtis frowned, half turned to go. “Well, I’ll leave you to it then.”
“Sure.” I was disappointed and hoped he couldn’t see it, then told myself not to be so goddamn stupid. This guy was bound to be as straight as I’d thought I was ten short days ago.
Before he left, he bent over the desk to look at what I was doing. His body smelled of some sort of spicy deodorant, and it sparked off an immediate reaction—one that I squashed mercilessly. He straightened, put a hand on my shoulder. That just made things worse. I think I probably flinched, because his touch didn’t last more than a second. Then he suggested I get some sleep and disappeared.
Sleep? He had to be joking. I wanted the CI5 tattoo, or whatever indelible stamp this place was going to make on my future. It was just that I wanted Curtis, too. I lay in bed and imagined him, naked but for those baggy white gi pants, holding me, pinning me, locking me, choking me, just as he had Marlow; the more I tried to put it out of my mind, the more vivid the images became. In the end there was only one solution, but even as I felt the climax shake me I could still smell him, could still hear him, could still feel the touch of his hand on my shoulder, promising pleasures both endless and exquisite.
For the next couple of days, I managed to steer clear of Curtis Mondello, with the exception of some course work in the company of the others. We were down to seven guys now, and Stéphane had started rolling his eyes whenever anybody approached with a serious expression of his face, expecting news of yet another termination from the CI5 induction squad.
It was getting to me as well. Thursday’s BJJ class seemed like a good way of working off excess energy and, despite the possible risk of Curtis showing up, I’d almost been looking forward to it.
How dumb was that. Seeing Curtis arrive, hearing him laugh, watching him strip down to white pouch boxer-briefs that left little to the imagination—it was more than I could handle, fanning the flames of a deep-seated sexual attraction I wanted desperately to extinguish. I stiffened at the sight of him stepping into his gi pants, the bulge of his substantial manhood sharply outlined through the thin cotton fabric. He caught me staring and grinned.
Beautiful bastard.
It had to happen. Shortly before the end of training, coach Baxter beckoned me opposite the object of my unbidden fantasies, and I discovered that my mouth was dry. By then, I’d acquired a reputation for being the one to beat, and I wasn’t sure how to play this. So far, Curtis had got the upper hand over his rivals, but they weren’t the best of us.
My opponent was gazing at me with the faintest hint of a sardonic smile on his outrageously handsome face and, as we reached for each other, I knew the only thing to do was to fight honestly. So I did, until I swept him onto his back pretty heavily. I regretted it instantly, feeling like a bully as I strove to apply the armlock that would cause him to submit. Baxter nodded approvingly, but guilt and the uneasy memory of Damian Marlow—proud, arrogant, hospitalized Marlow—severely dampened my will to win, and I loosened my grip without finishing the move. Curtis was frowning now, whether from pain or irritation I wasn’t entirely sure. Probably best if I didn’t find out.
I fell into his open guard again, more gingerly this time, not wanting to hurt him, not wanting to be hurt, seeing the sheen of sweat on his tanned torso through his open jacket and captivated abruptly by the thought of what it would be like to touch the scar there, to feel his heart beating under my hand, to caress the angry scarlet of that mysterious fault line until it was gone, vanished, erased by my tactile attentions. I became powerfully aware of the smell of him, shockingly aromatic, spicy and sweet, and saw that unusual light in his brown-black eyes, the one that invariably signaled pleasure, or success, or both—
A second later I was on my back and he was straddling me. “Looking kinda dazed there, Keel,” he whispered, his mouth and tongue mere millimeters from my ear.
Considering the way his package was pushing seductively onto my own, my being dazed was hardly surprising. I had the horrible impression I was blushing, but Curtis ignored it, holding me with a tournament-worth ferocity, strong arms encircling my neck and right arm, muscular legs wrapping so strongly around my thighs and shins that it became difficult to tell where I left off and he began. I tried to think of Amanda, my childhood sweetheart and ex-wife—and stopped when Curtis thrust his hips against me, screwing his pelvis deep into my crotch. I was suddenly unable to recall Amanda’s face, made blind to her memory by the sight of my captor’s preternaturally attractive visage as it dominated my field of vision. He pressed his forehead onto mine, as if to seal the join made elsewhere by our bodies, his soft lips but an inch away, his hot breath upon me like sexual incense, filling my nose, flooding my mouth, his grip on my gi growing tighter, more possessive with every passing second, smiling as he claimed his victory, grinning as I lay helpless and horny beneath him, surrendering, resisting, surrendering, resisting…
I’d like to say that I fought as hard as I could, that I did everything in my power to roll him off of me.
In truth, I struggled just enough to maintain the status quo, wishing this moment, this guilty pleasure, would go on for longer—much, much longer.
But wishing didn’t make it so. Curtis shifted position, trapped my extended right arm, jumped up and swiveled around me, falling back onto the mat—and straight into a perfect arm-bar. I tapped immediately, accepting both losses, and sat up to see him looking flushed and triumphant, like a kid after a particularly exhilarating roller-coaster ride.
“Thanks for going easy,” he said, grinning. “I really needed the ego boost.”
I didn’t answer. What could I tell him?
“How disappointing,” intoned a voice from above us. It was Baxter, looking pained. “How utterly demoralizing. Keel, yours was a performance entirely devoid of passion—”
“Not entirely,” said Curtis. He winked at me. “I mean, it’s like you say yourself, sir: once you get the mount, you get the match. He did what he could.”
“He needs to do better. Switch partners!”
I spent the remainder of the session being alternately felled, pinned and submitted by everyone else in the group and, following further verbal flagellation by Baxter, I had to assure him that my form would return to usual by the next morning. I made a weak excuse about an upset stomach, which wasn’t entirely untrue, although the real source of the problem lay a little farther south of that.
The rest of the day passed in a blur. What made it worse was Curtis’s final, casual comment in the changing room, declared so softly I wasn’t sure if I’d simply imagined it.
“We should practice those moves again. After dinner. Meet me here.”
I didn’t eat that evening, preferring to push the gluey brown mass around a bit and provoke some sympathy from Stéphane, who’d overheard my earlier comments about not feeling good. Then I headed for the gym, thankful that the others were too interested in their last-minute studies to worry about either my intestines or my whereabouts.
Curtis was waiting for me, sitting spread-eagled on the mat, stretching out his long legs, his deadly weapons, obviously deep in thought. He nodded at me as I entered, a solemn acknowledgment, and I went into the locker room still unsure whether this was one giant put-up.
Or maybe it was a test. Was I going to be the next one packing his bags for a speedy exit?
On the mat, we shook hands, and I found myself nervous, too nervous to prevent Curtis taking a firm hold on my kimono and attempting an immediate takedown. From somewhere, though, came a surge of defiance, and I unbalanced him, ready to send him flying. Then I stopped, remembering the injury, the mysterious scar.
“Keel, I’m not made of glass. Stop treating me like I’ll shatter.”
I did stop and found myself bringing every trick I knew into play. It was hard to pin him down—he was good, damn good.
Finally, I found a weak spot, hooked my leg around him and took him to the ground, landing on top of him, between his legs, in his guard. I started to get up, realizing this could be awkward, and knowing full well that any more contact would lead to an inevitable outcome, one I couldn’t override, one I wouldn’t even want to.
One that could have me ousted from CI5.
Curtis foiled my attempt to withdraw, wrapping his long legs round my waist as I tried to rise, then using them to draw me deeper into the guard and his viselike embrace until I stumbled forward onto his body, flush against him, face-to-face, chest to chest, groin to groin. He looked into my eyes, his own unblinking, unwavering, silently demanding my answer to the question that I’d long denied.
“Maybe I’m out of practice,” he said softly, but I could feel his hard-on through the supple white cotton of his gi pants.
Oh, god.
In answer, I kissed him, savagely and urgently, pretense abandoned, uncertainty resolved. He responded with feral enthusiasm, both hands cupping the nape of my neck, pulling me closer, until our sweat-soaked chests slid over each other, the flesh-to-flesh contact unbearably sensuous. One of his large, erect nipples brushed against my own, stiffening it instantly, making me groan.
“Ahh.”
Curtis blinked, startled by the sound. He came up for breath, gasping for air, his eyes filled with—what? Pleasure? Joy? Fear? “Keel, I didn’t—”
The words were like gunshots, deadly verbal artillery, and I pulled back, terrified that I’d got this all wrong. “I’m so sorry—”
Curtis laughed. “Don’t be a dope. I was just going to say that I didn’t want us getting disturbed, so I locked the door while you were changing. So, you’re a nipple man, huh? Me too.” His hands, warm and tentative, caressed mine skillfully, stroking them from base to tip, flicking them until I moaned once more, louder, longer, more intensely. He smiled, satisfied with his handiwork, and allowed his hands to wander downward, onto my abs, toward my belt. “This is what you want, right?”
“Yes,” I hissed, feeling the palm of his hand slide deep into my groin, right against the head of my erection, his expert fingers massaging my balls with breathtaking urgency. “I’ve wanted it—wanted you—for so long. Ever since you arrived.”
“Then take me. Please…” The almost plaintive tone to his voice aroused me past the point of no return and, in the second that followed, I had to hold back from devouring him completely.
Instead, I found myself nodding, reaching for his jacket as he quickly pushed mine from my shoulders. “Montada,” he breathed, and I obeyed, bundling him roughly into position, laying myself against him, body to body, cheek to cheek, mounted, grapevined, helpless, mine.
His body shook as I moved against him, the cloth of my gi pants dragging languidly over his throbbing cock and heavy sac, again and again. “Been a while since I…had a guy, Keel…but oh, god…”
Finally, I understood that he’d been every bit as desperate for this encounter as I had. The realization was mind blowing; I felt like a starving man faced with a feast of Epicurean proportions.
The time to gorge was close at hand.
The deep dark eyes of my willing captive turned wild with lust. His hands ran restlessly over me, through my hair, across my neck, along my flanks, everywhere, urging me on with warm, wordless encouragement. They slid into the back of my gi pants and stayed there, kneading and petting and stroking and squeezing, perfectly at home, fully at ease.
