The Blueprint, page 7
“I can’t believe we’re sleeping in bunk beds,” he grumbled. “It was fine when I was by myself, but now it just feels like a sleepover. Like Mom’s going to bring us both a snack once we get settled in.”
I perked up. “You think we’ll get a snack?”
He sent me a baleful glance, still toweling off his hair. “You do realize we’re grown men.”
“Says the man in Marvel Comics pajamas.” Well, I tried not to comment.
He sniffed. “These are limited-edition collector’s items.”
“They also serve as a visual warning that you’re a dork. Now you can alert people without even having to open your mouth.”
I flopped in the bunk and wriggled into the indent he left with his body. The sheets smelled like Kelly. As he continued to glare at me with his hands on his hips, I arched an eyebrow and pointed at the smaller bed. “I’m sorry. Isn’t your suite one floor up?”
He scowled and climbed the ladder—carefully. What seemed like a great time as kids now looked a little dangerous for an almost six-foot man. I waited patiently for it, and sure enough, there was an audible “ow” as he hit his head on the ceiling. If I remembered correctly, that started to happen after his growth spurt in eighth grade. It was still funny.
“I’m a grown man,” he muttered, and I heard the creaking of the bed as his weight settled on the top bunk. And then louder, “If it weren’t for you, I’d be in full-sized comfort tonight.”
“Pipe down, tiny,” I said smugly. “This full-size bed is for full-size adults.”
“Neanderthals, you mean.” There was the rustling of sheets as he tried to get comfortable. “If anyone cares, these sheets are also too short.”
“All your fussing just makes it better down here, you know. Better than a goose-down comforter.”
He laughed. “Bastard.”
“I’ll have you know I’m the injured party. I gave up a night with Hannah for this.”
“Hannah Larson? That swimsuit model?”
“That’s the one.”
“I thought she was mad at you.”
“She was.”
When she saw me with Marta at the after-party, she got over her snit and we fucked in the darkness of the outside patio, mostly because she didn’t care about me in the first place. She just liked to fuck football players. I didn’t judge. I liked to fuck hot girls. So we were even.
Kelly’s noise of disgust made me realize I’d said some of that aloud. “You should be thanking me. I heard she’s a real biatch.”
“Who told you that? TMZ?”
It was his turn to sound smug. “You got a better source for celebrity gossip? They also reported one of your teammates opened a club called O3, and a lot of the team came out to support him. There’s pictures and everything.”
“Pictures?” My eyes popped open. Pictures of us partying at a club? Coach Taylor would have us running gassers all damn night.
“Don’t worry. You looked pretty good. Thanks for the invite, by the way.”
“I invited you,” I said crossly. “You said you were busy.”
“I never said anything of the kind.”
“You said….” I huffed a breath and called for patience. I absolutely asked him, and he absolutely said he was busy. I had bigger issues to worry about than Kelly’s selective memory. “You want to go next weekend? As long as I leave early enough, we could go on Friday.”
“I have plans with some friends next weekend.”
“Plans to do what?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Let me guess. You’re going out with Paige, Holly, and Connor to a local bar. You’re going to have a couple drinks and bitch all night about your classes and the faculty. Then you’re going to get home in time for….” I thought for a minute. “Love It or List It.”
“Wrong.”
“Love It or List It Too.”
“Damn.” He laughed. “I’m getting old and predictable, Blue.”
“Getting?”
He threw something down at me, and I reached up one-handed to catch it in the dark. I didn’t even know what it was, but at that point, instinct demanded I catch anything thrown at me. It was a stuffed robot.
I turned it over in my hands and smiled in the dark. Actually it was the stuffed robot.
I’d won the stupid thing at a fair when we were in seventh grade. I carted it around the park for a while and complained how nerdy it was just to get Kelly nice and riled up. Eventually I pretended not to want it and gave it to him, much to his glee. Truth be told, I was determined to win that robot for him the very moment I laid eyes on it.
Kelly tried his hand at winning the prize twice, but that dog was never gonna hunt. In fact, that dog was curled up by the fireplace with a cup of cocoa and a good book. I loved Kelly to bits and pieces, but throwing a ball with any degree of accuracy was not exactly in his wheelhouse.
Since boys didn’t win stuffed animals for other boys—at least not in my father’s world—I had to play it cool. It only took me fifty-six bucks—all the freaking money I brought to the fair and probably twice what the thing was worth—before the carnie begrudgingly pulled it down.
At that point my father gave me serious side-eye. When I finally gave it to Kelly, my father’s suspicious side-eye turned into outright glaring, but it was worth it. I smiled at the memory of Kelly stroking its plush material reverently. It’ll live at my house, Blue, but it’ll be ours. And don’t worry. I’ll always take care of it.
Guess he kept his word.
In the spirit of friendship, I boomeranged it right back up there. His dramatic “ow” when I hit my target made me sigh with satisfaction. “Maybe I’ll come with you.”
“To Schmitty’s?” He sounded skeptical. “You in the mood for watered-down drinks and oversalted peanuts?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know if we’re going to have room,” he said starchily.
“Kelly,” I growled.
He knew what a big deal it was for me to offer up a Friday afternoon. Our only real day off was Tuesday, but it made it hard to hang out with… well, anyone who wasn’t in the NFL. So I tried to make exceptions. It didn’t always work out.
“All right, all right, you can come. Since you beg so pretty. Maybe we’ll even see Hannah there,” he said, his tone cheeky.
I chuckled. He loved giving me a hard time. As far as the Hannah thing went, I didn’t care that she was a grade-A bitch or that she was the ex-girlfriend of two other players on the team that I knew of. Maybe more? Her past was her past. Her attitude was her problem. She wasn’t looking for marriage, and neither was I.
“Say what you want, but she’s still hot as fuck,” I said.
I had to stifle a groan into my pillow at the very memory of her riding my cock like a champion jockey, tits in my face, hands gripping my shoulders. I was pretty sure we busted that patio chair, the way it groaned and squeaked for mercy underneath us. The next person who sat in it was probably due for a horrible surprise.
“She’s pretty, I guess.”
“Hot,” I corrected. “Unbelievably hot. And now, instead of spending the night with her, I’m blue-balling it in your stupid bunk bed.”
“No one’s stopping you from rubbing one out,” he said with a yawn.
It wouldn’t be something we hadn’t done before—quietly, so the other one couldn’t hear. The other one always heard. I didn’t feel like it, though. I felt like something a little more satisfying. “Not the same. There’s nothing like the tight grip of a pussy around your cock, yeah?”
“Not exactly what I like, Blue.”
It was my turn to yawn. “Oh yeah? What do you like, then?” There was no response forthcoming. His silence made me flick open one eye and squint at the upper bunk. “You asleep?”
“No.”
“Then why didn’t you answer?”
“How do you answer something like that?”
“With words, mostly.”
“Hardy har har.”
“So,” I prodded. “What do you like?”
“Stuff,” he finally hedged.
“That’s real descriptive. And not a real answer.”
“Hmm.” There was rustling above me as he settled into his bed more comfortably.
As the silence fell around us again, I realized the bastard knew he didn’t give me a real answer, and he wasn’t going to give me one either.
I scowled. It wasn’t important, but there was nothing I hated more than Kelly keeping some part of himself from me. I was kind of possessive that way. That got me to really thinking about what he liked that was so fucking secretive. I already knew he was gay, so he probably liked to fuck and be fucked. What was the big hairy deal? Did he think I was some sort of homophobe or something?
Or was it something more? Was he one of those Fifty Shades people? Maybe he used whips, chains, and blindfolds. Safewords. My eyes widened. Sweet Jesus. He probably put a saddle on some old guy and rode him. Maybe he even called the guy Daddy while he set spurs to his wrinkly old ass.
I needed a safe word for my own imagination.
“Do you….” I swallowed and started again. “Do you have a cowboy hat?”
“What?” His chuckle was a bit of a relief. “What the hell do you think I’m into?”
I realized the thing to do would be to leave it alone, but I was good and annoyed by then. And bold—especially when that daddy-rides-a-lot disappeared from my vision like a puff of smoke, thank God. “What, you think I can’t handle it?”
“Oh my God,” he swore. The covers rustled some more. “Can we just go to bed already?”
“Fine by me.” I closed my eyes serenely. I gave the top bunk a hard jab, and he yelped. “As soon as you answer the damned question.”
“Fine. You want to hear about my sex so badly? I’ll tell you.”
“Good.”
He paused so long I thought I might have to jab his bed again. And then he spoke a little hesitantly. “I like being held down sometimes. Overpowered.”
Even though I was prepared for some dark sex-dungeon kink, his answer gave me pause. I opened one of my eyes and arched my brow in the darkness. That wasn’t what I expected him to say. Maybe because I spent my life surrounded by a bunch of muscle heads who liked to be in charge 24-7. Someone willingly giving up control—maybe even needing to—was interesting.
After a moment I realized he was waiting to see how I’d react before he went any further. I cleared my throat. “Is that so?”
“Yeah. I like a guy who knows there’s a time for slow and soft and a time to bite down on my neck while he fucks me into the mattress.”
And then interesting segued into hot. I opened my other eye, and despite myself, I felt my dick stir a little. Thank God it was dark. I could tell my face was red as fire. It was one thing to hear it, quite another to get aroused by it. I willed him to stop talking, but once he started, he seemed a little out of it.
“I like the feel of a hard cock stretching me almost beyond what I think I can take. I like to feel it in the morning.”
Fuck. “Oh yeah?” I said lamely. The stirring had turned into half-hardness, and with equal fervor, I almost wanted him to stop talking and keep talking.
“Yeah. And I like a guy who can take a dick too.”
Time the fuck out.
I shook my head as though to clear it. That image certainly worked to lift whatever spell I’d been under. I’d seen Kelly’s dick. It wasn’t as big as mine, but it was nothing to sneeze at. Taking that dick would take more of a man than me.
I cleared my throat. “We should get some sleep.”
“Mmmhmm.”
Well, that was an experiment I wouldn’t soon repeat. When someone told you to stop asking about your sex life, you fucking did that shit. Otherwise you might find yourself getting turned on by something that was more than a little gay.
I furrowed my brow. Not that there was anything wrong with that. But I was straight, and I had no desire to explore anything else, despite what my all-too-hard dick had to say. It would go down. It had to. Because I had no intention of rubbing one out to what he’d just said. That would be more confusing than satisfying, and I didn’t need that shit.
It was another hour or so before I heard it—a soft sound. My ears strained to differentiate it from all the other normal night noises, but it was slow going because I was pretty sleepy. But then the tumblers in my mind suddenly notched into place with a soft click.
Skin on skin.
I froze. It was so soft I wouldn’t have heard it if I’d been sleeping. Despite all his big talk about me just “rubbing one out,” he’d probably been up there in his bunk, listening, waiting for me to fall asleep. I glared up at his bed. Now I couldn’t stop hearing it. I knew that sound just like every other guy in the universe—he was working his dick up there as quietly as humanly possible.
It wasn’t anything we hadn’t done before—hell, in this very room—but the things he’d told me somehow made it more personal, more intimate. Because I knew exactly what he was picturing. He was probably imagining some guy holding him down, fucking him, working him over, and it was… fuck, it was doing something to me.
I wanted to leave the room, maybe even go to the bathroom until he finished, but I didn’t want him to know I knew. I didn’t even want him to know I was awake. So I lay there, frozen and hard as hell and tried not to listen. He made a soft, strangled noise as it must’ve gotten really good, and I gave up the ghost. I shoved my hand down the front of my pants and pulled out my cock.
What the hell do you think you’re doing?
Why’re you asking me? I obviously don’t know!
I was now questioning and answering myself with equal levels of rising panic, but I wasn’t about to stop touching my dick. I normally liked to take my time with a good jerk session and tease myself a little. Pinch my nipples. Rub my balls and then build up again. But there was no time for that. Some part of my subconscious wanted to come at the same fucking time.
I stroked up and down. My calloused fingers were almost too hard. Like every guy since the beginning of whacking off, I knew how I liked it—how hard and soft to go. By the time he made another helpless noise, and I could tell he was coming, I was right there too. I damn near bit my lip bloody to keep quiet, toes arched, muscles straining. Without warning I came so hard my vision whited out for a second.
I glanced down to stare in disbelief at my hand, now covered in my come. What the fuck was that? The memory of his words combined with just two little sounds—soft and barely discernible—had launched me into one of the hottest orgasms of my life. I took off my shirt as slowly and quietly as possible and wiped my hand off thoroughly. Then I balled up the shirt underneath my pillow. There was a soft sigh above me as Kelly clearly settled down to sleep, and I cast another baleful glare upward.
It didn’t mean anything. I was just ramped up, and I hadn’t had sexual relief like I usually did. I hadn’t had sex in like…. I calculated briefly in my mind. Four days. Oh. Well, there went that theory.
So what if his words turned me on a little? It’s not like anything actually happened. Not like he’d actually come down to my bunk and turned that perfectly shaped ass around and let me pound him through his childhood mattress. Picturing him making those soft sounds while I fucked him made my palms a little sweaty.
And when did I start noticing anything about Kelly’s ass? I blew out a breath. I needed to chill out. I was just a horny guy, and let’s face it, horny guys thought about some pretty unspeakable things. Railing your best friend like you were getting paid surely went on that list. Right?
Right.
I put it firmly out of my mind. And with those weird thoughts quashed, sleep came quickly.
Chapter 8
Kelly
AFTER SURVIVING my self-imposed doomsday with no blowback, Monday ran by like a fresh autumn breeze. The PowerPoint presentation I’d created on acceleration was well-received, even if one kid in the first row insisted that stunts achieved in the Fast & Furious franchise were possible. Midweek was long and tedious, and by Friday, the fresh autumn breeze I started the week with had turned into fetid, rotting garbage with extra eggs. But the weekend was upon me, and that meant beer, nachos, and no one calling me Professor Cannon for another two days.
Blue was already reclining in a chair on my tiny porch by the time I got home. I shook my head with a little grin at how relaxed he seemed with his hands linked behind his head and his eyes closed, basking in the setting sun like a house pet. I tried to fight the happy little tingle that zinged through my body, but it was a losing battle. He was there to see me, even if it wasn’t in the romantic way I wanted.
Go ahead, Tingle. Do your thing.
I wasn’t going to get all mushy and gross, but I liked coming home to someone. No, scratch that. If I just wanted to come home to someone, I guess I would’ve accepted Robert’s proposal. I really liked coming home to Blue. It made me wish… things—things that were never going to happen.
He was sleeping so fitfully I almost felt bad disturbing him. But I gave in to temptation, leaned forward, and brushed my hand across his jaw. The stubble was rough on the sensitive pads of my fingers. I knew it was stupid and that if he woke up, I’d have some splainin’ to do, but my fingers roamed almost independent of my brain and slid up and stroked his cheek. The skin there was soft and flushed from sleep and the sun, and if I didn’t think it would be a complete violation, I would’ve dropped a kiss there, like a creeper.
And just for a little while, a few, stolen little seconds, he was mine.
I blew out a breath and dropped my hand to his shoulder—a safe place. I nudged him a little, and he stirred. “C’mon, you big lug, time to get up.”
“No,” he murmured.
I knew better than to try to wake him as though he were Princess Aurora. The man slept like a bear—a big deaf bear. I socked him in the arm. Hard. “Blue.”
He grunted and came awake with a start, and he scowled when he sat up. His hair was adorably ruffled as he rubbed at his abused flesh. “Jesus, Kel.”
