Emma Holly (7 page)

This was the signal people talked about searching for at parties, the look that said,
I'm interested. Take
your chance
. Eric had seen it plenty of times himself. He just hadn't realized how much power it would have when he saw it in B.G.'s eyes.

"Jesus," he murmured, shivering as he broke the spell. "Wherever I go, you're there before me."

"You're not a virgin," B.G. objected. "You slept with at least three girls in high school."

"I didn't mean that," Eric said with barely breath enough for a laugh. B.G. had skipped high school altogether, so their mothers' gossip mill must have been working overtime. Touched that B.G. had paid attention, and more excited than he could express, Eric cupped the side of his old friend's face. B.G.'s skin was gratifyingly hot. "I mean you're here before me in this. You've figured out what you want while I'm still trying to get my head around it."

Eric could barely hear B.G. when he spoke. "Do you want to? Get your head around it?"

Eric's trousers felt tight enough to strangle his pounding cock. He laid his second hand against B.G.'s cheek, framing his face between his hands. "My head and everything else."

"I've never done it, you know. Not with a man. I'm afraid I won't know how to—"

"I'll show you." Patience shredding, Eric cut him off, pressing his lips, once, briefly, over B.G.'s. "Believe me, I'd be ecstatic to show you anything you want."

"Anything?" B.G. murmured wonderingly.

Eric pulled him forward to kiss again, groaning as B.G.'s mouth opened eagerly. Whatever his slowness at getting laid, B.G. had managed to learn a few other things. His kiss was perfect: hard and greedy but not too fast, wet and generous but not messy. Loving every taste, Eric groaned and turned his head for a deeper fit.

They kissed as if neither dared to stop, as if they'd never
get
another chance to do this thing they'd been dying for. A long, slow moan marked B.G. breaking for air at last.

"Take off your clothes," he said. "I've been dreaming of touching your skin for years."

Eric moved his mouth to the pulse that was racing in B.G.'s neck, his hands trying to race just as fast down his shirt buttons. "Years?" he said. "You've been wanting to touch me for
years
?"

"Ever since that weeklong camping trip with the Boy Scouts when we were thirteen."

"No," Eric responded disbelievingly.

"I jacked off in my sleeping bag every night."

"Jesus, so did I."

"I couldn't even ejaculate yet. I just rubbed myself and thought of you lying next to me until I couldn't bear how good it felt. It was the first orgasm I was sure about."

Eric couldn't stand not to be touching him an instant longer. He kissed him again, eating at B.G.'s mouth, not even caring about technique. This time he was the one who broke for air. As Eric swung out of the chair that had formed a barrier between them, B.G.'s eyes glittered with interest. Willingly, he lifted his arms so Eric could peel his sweaty T-shirt over his head.

His passivity was as exciting for Eric as what stripping him revealed.

"Hey," Eric said, finding a well-built chest and an unsuspected set of washboard abs, "you've been working out."

"Some," B.G. admitted shyly. "I liked the way your muscles looked on you." Eric shuddered as B.G.'s hands slid between the tails of his open shirt, caressing his stomach with his fingertips. "I like the way the way you feel, too. I want to kiss you here, Eric. I want to do everything our bodies can."

"We'll work up to 'everything,' " Eric panted, tearing his arms out of his shirt. "Some things take a little prep work."

They rose simultaneously into each other's arms, kissing hungrily again even as they tried to wrench each other out of their remaining clothes. B.G. nearly nicked something crucial as he yanked down Eric's zipper.

"Sorry," he gasped. "Oh, God, you're
big
."

The exclamation made him swell even more, as did the admiring clasp of B.G.'s hand. Eric cursed at how close the unschooled touch brought him to climax. They sank onto their knees as soon as B.G.

kicked off his jeans.

"My bed," B.G. said as Eric started to pull B.G. over him on the floor.

"Here."

"But I need—"

"I can't wait." Eric ran his hands hard down B.G.'s back. They were naked now, and the press of skin and muscle felt heavenly. The tiny lick of hair over B.G.'s tailbone demanded licking of its own. Eric mouthed his neck instead and struggled not to bite. God knew what B.G. would think of that. "Rub yourself against me. I want to feel it on me when you come."

"Wait," B.G. pleaded, fumbling to open the refrigerator door.

"Damn it, B.G. This is no time for a snack!"

"Wait," he said more softly. "Wait for me. Just a little longer, and we can do whatever you say."

He grabbed a container of Crisco from the bottom shelf.

Seeing it, Eric's brain refused to compute anything at all. He shook his head to try to get some of his blood to move farther north. He hoped B.G. didn't mean for him to take him in the ass right now. It wasn't that Eric didn't want to; he just didn't think his fuse was long enough to do it as gently as he should.

His shoulders shook with a little spasm as B.G. pried up the lid.

"I like it slippery," B.G. explained. "And I want to touch you. I want us to touch each other."

" 'Kay," Eric said, swallowing back his eagerness. "Lay it on me."

"Enough?" B.G. asked, scooping up a fingerful.

It was a truly pitiful amount. Eric reminded himself that this was B.G.'s first encounter with a man. Eric needed to treat his pride carefully. Then he thought,
To hell with it
. This was B.G., who hated when people handled him with kid gloves. Eric would treat him the same way he did when they were arguing over whose big sister was stupider.

"Don't be stingy," he said. "You said you liked it slippery. Give me enough to grease you up like a pig."

B.G. laughed, and suddenly everything was okay: the wait, the awkwardness, the fact that Eric wasn't quite the expert B.G. thought. They smeared the shortening over each other, laughing and gasping and squeezing anything squeezable in long, tight strokes. Straining penises flipped through shiny, admiring fists, while nipples grew taut beneath pinching thumbs. Eric discovered B.G.'s balls were hypersensitive, enough that he jumped whenever Eric cupped them. For his part, B.G. demonstrated a rather amazing facility for leaving hickies. The hand play went on longer than Eric would have guessed he could stand, and surprisingly, B.G.'s tolerance was the first to break.

"Lie down," B.G. said abruptly in a strange, breathless tone.

"Oh, now you've gotta have it. Now that you've held me off and teased me for half an hour."

"Fuck it," B.G. said, his face going dark. "Fuck it, I want you now."

He pushed Eric back with a strength and an aggressiveness Eric hadn't known he possessed. Braced on one straight arm, B.G. gathered their thickened shafts together in a well-greased fist.

"Hold me," he ordered. "Wrap your hand next to mine."

Eric did as he demanded, then groaned when B.G. began to thrust through the channel their fingers formed. Their dicks were like dueling swords, one going up while the other was dragging down. Because B.G. was angled up from his knees, it was possible to witness every inch of the drama, though it was a struggle to keep his eyes from drifting shut with bliss. The most sensitive parts of their penises squeezed together, growing redder and stiffer with the repeated sliding back and forth. It wasn't long before Eric was about to burst.

"Two-minute warning," he rasped, then shuddered as B.G. took this as a signal to speed things up. The oiled rims of their erections made an insanely erotic clicking sound. "All right. Thirty seconds… maybe.

God." The top of his skull was threatening to lift off, and his balls felt as if they were filled with steam.

Despite the near-blinding sensations, Eric couldn't take his eyes off the head of B.G.'s cock. His slit was leaking a rivulet of pre-come. B.G. glanced down to see what Eric was looking at, then blushed tomato-red.

"I want to kiss you," he said.

"Later," Eric put off, grinding his teeth for a few more seconds of blessed agony. "Later. I want to see you shoot. I need to watch it to know it's real."

"I love you," B.G. said.

No one else could have made that declaration sound matter-of-fact. Eric's gaze flew up, burning with emotions too big to hide. B.G.'s eyes tilted with his gentle smile.

"Watch," he said softly. "Watch if that's what you want."

"Kiss me first," Eric countered, half growling out the words. "Hold off coming until I'm done."

B.G. grinned at the compromise, then ducked down and kissed him deeper than he'd ever been kissed in his life. For the first time, Eric knew what a soul-kiss meant. Sensation roared outward from his groin, bigger, sharper, until he came with a strangled sound that was barely human, his spine arching off the linoleum as his seed shot from him in a long, hot burst. As if from a distance, he heard B.G. grunt.

Amazingly, he didn't come, though it must have been hard as hell to hold on.

Still shaking, Eric flipped an unresisting B.G. onto his back. Too greedy to ask if it was okay, he shoved B.G.'s hand out of his way, bent to his crotch, and sucked his brutal hard-on into his mouth. The head was melting soft, enchanting him as no other cock had done. It bucked at the sudden pressure of lips and tongue.

"Eric," B.G. groaned. "Yes."

Eric sucked him again, eliciting a quavering moan. Gently, so as not to hurt him, he pushed the heel of his palm against the seam of B.G.'s drawn-up balls.

Given their sensitivity, this was more than his friend could take.

He cried out, instinctively pushing up with his hips. If Eric hadn't been holding
onto him
, he would have

gagged. B.G.'s shaft gave one, hard throb and then he was gone, a pulsing, salty flood.

Clearly B.G. had been waiting for this release; it seemed to go on and on. Eric was happy to let it, milking each spasm with steady tugs. He knew he'd never forget the sound of B.G.'s groans.

As they waned, he let his lips grow softer, licking tenderly upward and across the crown. When B.G.

couldn't bear any more stimulation, Eric crawled up his side and collapsed on his back. B.G. lay in the same position beside him, panting and sweating, powerless to move except for reaching out to take Eric's pinky in the hook of his own. Their breathing echoed through the clean kitchen, making Eric wish he had the wherewithal to start again. His chest was still pounding from his orgasm, his cock still twitching with tingling waves. He felt as if he'd been hit by a very pleasurable truck.

"Wow," B.G. finally said with a contented sigh. "I have to admit, that was more in line with my concept of a first time."

"Mine, too," Eric agreed, though—to be honest—it was far better than he'd dreamed.

The
end of the story left a hanging silence in her little room. Eric eased away from her as if his body hurt.

Charity understood how he felt. What she didn't understand was how he could stop. Disbelieving, she craned her head around. She found herself wishing he looked a little sillier with that raging boner poking from his shirt. Instead, the visual destroyed any hope she had of getting her hormones under control.

"You're going to leave me like this? After telling me that?"

"Those are the rules, Charity. You're encouraged to get aroused, but no one takes or gives release without permission."

On his face was the same uptight look she'd seen on every Dudley Do-Right she'd ever met. She wasn't sure what Eric's problem was, but in her experience, the expression generally meant the man who wore it was dying to be led astray.

Hub
, she thought.
We'll see who gives permission to whom
.

"Just one question," she said before she swung out of bed to re-dress. "Is your boss really that good a kisser?"

His boyish grin wiped away his primness. "He's all that and more. In fact, the only person I've met who comes close to kissing that well is you."

Eric
knew his compliment to Charity would prick as much as it pleased—which was why he'd put it the way he had. What he hadn't guessed was that implying her kisses came second to B.G.'s would exponentially increase her determination to assert her power.

She stewed—very prettily, he thought—during the ferry ride across the sound. The day had cleared until the sky was no more than hazy, making a postcard of the low green islands they chugged around. The Olympic Mountains spread across the horizon like a mirage, their bases blue, their rugged peaks streaked with snow. Despite the drama of the scene, apart from some gulls wheeling overhead on the hunt for fish, every male eye in sight was glued to Charity's knockout body in the demure pink dress.

She was a dark-haired Marilyn decked out as Jackie O, from her gleaming waved coiffure to her cream-colored two-inch pumps. Despite his extensive experience with women—and good-looking women at that—the subtle shifting of her curves behind the knee-length knit left him mesmerized. Even Maurice, normally careful about getting too close to guests, let her coax him to her side by the rail.