Give Yourself Away (16 page)

“I adore bare feet. I adore your bare feet.” He let his gaze wander up March’s body and whistled. “I knew you had to have a beautiful cock. A guy as gorgeous as you couldn’t have an ugly dick.”

March let out a choked laugh. “What’s beautiful about it? It’s just an average—”

“Average what?”

“Wand.”

Caleb tsked. “This is not just an average wand. It’s a deluxe model. It’s the perfect length, perfect girth, traced by jeweled veins perfect for exploring with my tongue. The head’s dark and shiny, and that cheeky little slit keeps winking at me and offering tiny pearls of precome. And your balls? Heavy and tight. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. On sale on eBay. Offers, please.”

March thought Caleb was pulling his leg, but the way Caleb looked at him told him he wasn’t.

“You have a great body,” Caleb said. “I know I’m embarrassing you but you do.”

“I thought breathing on me, licking and mouthing me was bad, but looking at me and talking about me has the same effect,” March said in a choked voice. “Actually, before I disgrace myself completely, maybe I should pay a quick trip to the bathroom.”

“You’re not going anywhere.” Caleb dropped to his knees and took most of him down in one long swallow.

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. How can…? What…? Shit.” March shuddered.

Caleb swallowed against the head, squeezing the muscles of his throat before pulling back to work March in and out of his mouth. March leaned against the door, frozen with shock, immobilized by lust, unmanned by a mouth. Caleb wrapped one hand around the base of March’s cock and pressed down hard enough to suppress his need to come. Caleb circled his tongue around the head, licking, slurping, fluttering, and it was a moment before March registered most of the strange sounds were coming from him and not Caleb. But his throat stopped up when Caleb ran his teeth up and down his shaft. No one had ever done that before. There was an edge of danger to it that flipped his switches and made his knees shake.

When Caleb dipped his tongue into the slit, then looked up at him with precome glistening on the tip of his tongue, March moaned.

Caleb swallowed, licked his lips and smiled. “You taste good.” He brushed his face and hair against March’s dick, winding March’s guts into a tight knot, but at least Caleb kept a firm hold at the base of his cock.

When Caleb took him in his mouth again, the sensation of heat and pressure had March arching toward him, thrusting more of his dick between Caleb’s lips.
I want to fuck his mouth. Oh shit. Tell him.
His hips were already telling him.

“Can I…fuck your mouth?”

Caleb nodded.

Christ, I said that out loud.
But Caleb had nodded. March threaded his fingers in Caleb’s hair, careful to avoid the place he’d been hurt, and shifted his hips slowly back and forth.
I can go slow. For a few seconds at least.

Caleb groaned around his cock, groaned again when March laid his hand over Caleb’s cheek and felt the place where his dick surged in that beautiful mouth.

March’s hips sped up; he thrust harder, then deeper, as he stared into Caleb’s dark eyes. He never wanted to stop doing this. Never, never, never. Then he gasped as he flew.

“Jesus!” Orgasm seemed to come from nowhere. His hips jerked hard as he filled Caleb’s mouth with come. Each spurt was accompanied by a wrench of pleasure deep in his gut and March wanted to do it again, even before he’d stopped coming.

Caleb finally let him free with a quiet pop and licked him clean. March pulled him to his feet. There was a smear of come at the side of his mouth and March wiped it off with his thumb.

“That was…un-fucking-believable,” March whispered. He put his thumb in his mouth and sucked it. “I do taste good.”

Caleb whimpered. “Bathroom?”

“Through the bedroom. Second door on the right. You okay?”

“Give me a minute.” Caleb bolted.

March slid after him. He knew he shouldn’t have looked through the crack in the door, but when Caleb yanked down his pants and jerked off over the toilet, March stood frozen. Moments later, Caleb was cursing and wiping his come off the toilet lid. He flushed, zipped up, washed his hands, sprayed March’s aftershave in the air and stepped out, straight into March.

March pressed him up against the door. “Don’t you dare do that again.”

Caleb groaned. “Never jerk off? I’ll die of frustration.”

“You know what I mean.”

“You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“Aren’t you allowed to want me as much as I want you?” March asked.

“I didn’t want you to feel you had to reciprocate.”

“Do I strike you as the kind of the guy who would feel that?”

“No,” Caleb muttered. “For a guy new to this, you’re very confident.”

“I’m just getting into my stride. I’ve discovered I like ordering you around. Take your clothes off.”

“Not my T-shirt.”

March sighed. “I can turn off the lights.”

“I will if it’s dark enough. But you have to promise not to look.”

Telling March he couldn’t look at Caleb’s back was like dangling a chicken over an alligator’s nose and expecting it to be ignored. He wondered if it was a sort of test, though. Caleb had been hurt by an ex who’d not only cheated on him but hit him. March had to prove he could be trusted.

He tugged Caleb into the bedroom and closed the door. It was dark but not pitch black.
Please take off your clothes.
His silent plea was answered and Caleb stripped, his T-shirt the last item to go. That blowjob had been the best he’d ever had. Should he have told him? March hadn’t known how good they could be. He’d had a few half-hearted ones from a couple of women, but he liked the raw physicality of being with a guy, one who knew exactly what worked, who’d let him do what he wanted. March had liked being in charge, liked how Caleb let him be in charge. He liked Caleb’s scent, the way Caleb held him. How could he go back now?

I’m not going back. This is what I want. It’s always been what I wanted. The only reason I’ve waited is guilt.

Caleb stood naked in front of him, his cock back to semi-hard. The thrill of having turned Caleb on made March’s heart gallop. Caleb wasn’t as broad and muscular as he was. He looked as if a strong breeze would blow him away. March wanted to be that breeze, but not to blow him away, only closer.

They stared at each other for a long moment before Caleb stepped forward and their lips crashed together. They gasped into each other’s mouths, hands surging and sweeping and grabbing until March slid his hands down the sides of Caleb’s body and caught his wrists. He dragged Caleb’s arms above his head as he pushed him back against the wall. How could the taste of him be so intoxicating? The feel of him be so exciting? Their hips rocked together, bodies in rut as March fucked Caleb’s mouth with his tongue.

Then Caleb switched and shoved March against the wall, and somehow that was just as hot. Caleb pushed his knee between March’s thighs, rubbing his hip harder against March’s cock as their kisses grew deeper and wilder. They might have only just come, but March could feel them both hardening. Caleb circled his pelvis, mashing their cocks together, and March shuddered with pleasure, fire shooting up and down his spine.

All the things March had wondered whether he’d want to do—let another man stick his cock in him, let another man lick his arsehole, let another man come inside him and let himself come inside a another man… Now he knew. The wondering was over. He knew.

Caleb pulled back to take a breath and March smiled.

“What’s that smile for?” Caleb asked. “You look like Mr. Cat Who Got the Cream. And I think that was me.” He winked.

“I want all of it.”

“All of what?”

“This. You. I feel like I’ve been blind and can suddenly see. I had no fucking idea. I thought, but I didn’t know. Now I do.”

He released Caleb’s wrists and dropped his hands to Caleb’s butt, spreading his palms and squeezing.

“So what’s different with a guy?” Caleb asked. March slid his cock against Caleb’s, and Caleb chuckled. “Apart from that.”

“We don’t have to hold back. We were both instantly turned on. We know exactly what we like and we like a lot of it and that’s okay. Wanting sex and having sex is okay. Thinking about having it is okay too because when you’re with a guy you know he’s thinking the same as you.

“You have no idea how hard it is to make a woman come. They all need touching in a different place, in a different way. You have to work at it. They have to work at it. If they lose concentration for a moment, that’s it, you’ve lost them.

“But you only have to look at my dick to make me hot, and I swear if you looked long enough, I’d come without you touching me.”

Was that a flicker of concern on Caleb’s face? If so, it quickly vanished but, shit, he shouldn’t have blurted all that.

“I want to do everything,” March said, tugging him across the room.

“You need to slow down.”

But Caleb allowed himself to be pulled onto the bed next to March and they lay on their sides, staring at each other.

“No full-on fucking,” Caleb said.

March bit back his disappointment. “Why?”

“Condoms, lube, electric probes?”

“I have condoms and I’m assuming the last was a joke, but…” March hissed, “…there has to be a chemist open somewhere within a fifty-mile radius.”

Caleb snorted.

“I’ll drive and you can go in,” March said.

“Oh right and the little old lady who serves me isn’t going to wonder why I need a ton of lube at this time of the night? It’ll be like that advert where the customer asks for hemorrhoid medication in a quiet voice and the assistant yells, ‘Got a customer here with piles. Which aisle’s the cream?’”

March laughed. “So what are we going to do?”

Caleb shuffled down the bed. “I’m going to map your body with my tongue.”

Chapter Sixteen

Tye told himself he was waiting.
Waiting for the chance to escape. Waiting for Liam to tire of him, tire of his green eyes. Waiting for one of them to die. Tye no longer had any concept of time. He no longer knew how old he was. He
did
know years had passed.

He grew grateful for Liam’s visits. Then, enraged by his thankfulness, Tye switched in an instant, lashed out and paid the price. Or dropped into silent noncompliance and paid the price for that too.

Life fell into a pattern.

Be good.

Be bad.

Be nothing.

Tye broke the pattern by not speaking. Broke it by pretending to warm to Liam. Broke it by reverting to his sullen norm.

Liam took away his books. Took away his games.

Tye kept dancing.

When Liam took away his birds, Tye faltered. He wondered what the point was in noncooperation when all it did was make his situation worse. Liam wasn’t going to let him go. The guy would continue to do whatever he wanted, regardless of the way Tye reacted.

So Tye behaved and Liam gave him his birds back, and a DVD player and porn to watch, along with the occasional movie. Most important, he gave him videos of ballet dancers, along with a thong dance belt and ballet shoes, with the instruction that he only wear the belt when he danced.

Tye tried hard. Ballet moves had to be precise, each part of his body needed to be in a specific position, and if he was the tiniest fraction off, he’d be learning bad habits. The angle of his head, the space between his fingers, the set of his shoulder blades, the placement of his feet—the list was endless. Perfect control over that when he had no control over the rest of his life gave him a sense of satisfaction, gave him hope of freedom because when Tye danced, Liam wasn’t in his head.

What else did he have to do, apart from imagine himself free? When he thought about leaving the room—the stories in the papers that would follow, the requests to go on TV, the reaction of his parents, the reaction of Baxter’s parents—Tye decided if he managed to get away on his own, then he’d do so quietly, go home without fanfare. What did he have to gain from everyone knowing he’d been a pervert’s sex toy for all these years? Who’d believe he’d been unable to escape? Who’d want a damaged little bird with clipped wings?

* * *

Caleb licked and nibbled and kissed his way up from March’s feet. He lingered on his toes and dragged his mouth away before March decided he had a foot fetish. Caleb just found bare feet sexy.

“What happened here?” Caleb asked and trailed his tongue down a scar on March’s shin.

“Surfboard.”

“And here?” On his knee.

“Dry stone wall.”

Caleb licked a white line on his thigh. “This one?”

“My fight with a T. rex. I won.”

Caleb laughed. He bypassed March’s groin and started at his fingers. “This?” He let his tongue drift along a narrow scar running across his wrist.

“Enough,” March said and pulled Caleb up until they lay facing each other. “I want to do something to you.”

“Define ‘something’.”

That scar on March’s wrist… Caleb straddled March’s body, took hold of his wrists and spread his arms. “How did you get that scar?”

“I’ve forgotten.” March was staring at Caleb’s cock.

Caleb shifted his hips and angled his body so that his butt cheeks caressed March’s dick. Then he squeezed.

“Tell me what you want to do,” Caleb said.

“Wh-what?” March groaned and rocked his pelvis to rub himself against Caleb.

Caleb leaned over and kissed him, still sliding on March’s cock. “This is better with lube.”

“It feels pretty fantastic without. Oh God. Bedside cabinet. There’s been a miracle.”

“Don’t move.” Caleb leaned over, knowing his cock was a whisper away from March’s lips, and pulled open the drawer. “A random selection of coins, the menu for a Chinese takeaway, a tangle of earphones, two condoms past their sell-by date…oh, and a magazine called
Hard Boys 4U
. I wonder what that’s about.”

“There is not.” March reared up, accidently brushed his cheek against Caleb’s cock, jerked away and then lay back.

Caleb chuckled and held up a tub of Vaseline. “Your miracle? Arms back where they were.”

When March did as he was told, a thrill of pleasure warmed Caleb’s gut. He scooped a small amount of the pale grease onto his finger and put the lid on the tub before he came up on his knees and rubbed the lubricant over his hands. He reached behind to slide his fingers in the seam of his own butt and wrapped his other hand around March’s cock.

“What are you doing behind you that I can’t see?” March croaked.

“Giving you the finger. What do you think?”

March scowled.

“My hands are all sticky.” Caleb wiped them on March’s chest but the protest died on March’s lips as Caleb lowered himself and began to rock against March’s dick, letting it glide through the slick channel of his backside and squeezing his butt cheeks.

March reacted at once, groaning and gasping, and desire coiled low in Caleb’s stomach, his heart rate increasing.

“Can I touch you? Christ.” March’s eyes were glazed. He kept licking his lips.

“Soon.” Caleb wanted March desperate to touch him, wanted him to do it without thinking, without pulling back. Wanted March to want him as much as he wanted March.

He looked down at March’s cock as he rubbed himself against him, watching it appearing and disappearing between his thighs, giving a delicious scrape to his balls as his own cock bounced with excitement.

Caleb hadn’t gone bareback since he’d escaped. He’d had himself checked. He’d gone to three different places just to make sure because, once he read about what could have happened, he thought there was no way he could have escaped infection. But he had.

Only, now, he found himself wanting to feel March inside him, wanting March to come inside him. March’s cock swelled in Caleb’s hand and March gave a quiet groan. March moved his hands to Caleb’s hips and dragged him down harder on his shaft, their balls slapping together.

“Christ. I’m going to come again,” March moaned.

He wasn’t the only one. Caleb squeezed his muscles and wrapped his fingers around his own cock, letting his palm drift over the tip before he dragged his fist down. The breath stuttered in his chest as March bucked beneath him and exploded, shooting come over his own belly. Caleb followed, his body spasming, light and heat exploding behind his eyes.

March pulled him down, ate at him in a greedy kiss, their come gluing them together.

“Oh fuck,” March grunted. “I feel like a teenager but if I come again, I think it’ll kill me.”

Caleb pushed himself up. “So what was the Vaseline in there for? Makeup removal?”

March growled. Caleb loved his growl.

“Diaper rash?” Caleb asked.

“Be very careful. It’s for my hands when I’ve been rock climbing. The chalk dries them out. Vaseline hydrates them.”

“Phew. I was worried that joke I made earlier about piles—”

March roared and Caleb leaped off the bed. “I get first go in the bathroom, right?”

“We can use it together.”

Caleb faltered. “No. My back.”

March fell back against the mattress. “Fine. You go first.”

March woke with a start, reached for Caleb and found an empty bed. He groaned as he sat up because he ached, but in a good way. He began to reach for the light, then remembered and drew back his hand.

“Caleb?”

There was no answer and no sound from the bathroom, so March flicked on the bedside light. Caleb’s clothes were gone but there was a note on the pillow.

Gone to work. Didn’t want to wake you. Last night was fun. Caleb.

March wished he had woken him because he had to go to work too. He couldn’t believe how much lighter he felt, as if he’d been carrying something heavy around with him and finally put it down. And with that thought guilt surged back.

He clenched his fists. It wasn’t wrong to want Caleb. It didn’t mean March had forgotten what happened all those years ago and the way he’d felt, but Caleb had touched a place inside him that he’d thought was dead, and brought it to life. March had fucked around over what he wanted for long enough, he’d ached with sadness for long enough. He’d never forget, but he had to move forward.

Why had he fought this for so long? Wasted all this time? Hurt Annabel? He felt an idiot now. Caleb, too, likely thought he was an idiot.

March showered, grabbed a bite to eat, shoved his cell and his pager in his pocket, picked up his briefcase and locked up. When he reached his car, he gave a short laugh. A single red rose had been tucked between the wiper and the windscreen. He took it back into the house and stuck it in a glass of water.

His good mood lasted all the way in to work and only weakened after he’d parked and was heading toward the Arts Department.

But the ground didn’t open up and swallow him. No one looked at him any differently, at least not until he reached the staff common room.

Andy came straight over and held up crossed fingers.

“I’m not a vampire,” March muttered.

“What the hell’s been happening? The rumor mill has gone wild. Why didn’t you call me after you were suspended?”

March poured himself a cup of coffee. “You know why I was suspended?”

“One of the students claimed you’d propositioned her. Now she’s retracted it. But what happened?”

March could feel ears swiveling as the buzz of conversation diminished.

What am I supposed to do? Just come out and say…I’m gay?
March had thought everything would go back to normal without him having to say anything, but it quickly sank in that now mud had been thrown, the doubt over what he’d done remained, even though Jemima had withdrawn her complaint.

“I’m gay.” But March muttered it quietly, didn’t shout it from the rooftops. Then he was irritated by his cowardice, though relieved he’d said it. Now he waited to see what Andy would say.

Andy didn’t say anything for a long moment, just gaped at him. “When the fuck did that happen?”

March shocked himself by laughing.

“I’m serious.” Andy caught his elbow and pulled him to the side of the room. “You were engaged, practically married, less than six months ago? How the hell can you be gay?”

“Do I really have to answer that?”

“Yes. Did it suddenly happen? Have you always known? What the fuck were you playing at?”

“It didn’t suddenly happen. Yes, I think I have always known, but there was stuff that made me repress it. And I have no idea what the fuck I was playing at.”

“Shit.” Andy blew out a long breath. “That changes everything.”

March stiffened. “Like what?”

“I have to look for a guy for you instead of a woman. Christ, how do I do that? Where do gay guys hang out?”

March relaxed again, knowing Andy was okay with it. “You don’t need to look.”

“You’ve found someone? That was quick. Where? How? Who? I’m only asking because you know Sonia will have me on the rack if I don’t have answers to give her. I might as well have all the details now.”

“His name is Caleb.” There was a swell of warmth in his gut when March said his name. “I pulled him from the sea on a lifeboat call-out. He’s a few years younger than me and he’s a carpenter. I’m telling you nothing else. And I don’t want you to tell anyone that I’m gay.” Coming out was something he had to do himself.

“Sonia will want you to bring him for dinner.”

“Not yet.”

Andy smiled. “It’s serious then?”

March nodded. “Yep. It’s serious.”

Caleb called at a shop on the way to work to pick up sandwiches, water and an apple for lunch. He needed to settle on a place to live but he didn’t want to sign for somewhere without seeing it. He’d have no time to go in the daylight until the weekend. Maybe he could manage until then. He thought of March’s bed and smiled, but Caleb still needed a place of his own.

He worked hard all morning building units for the TVs in two of the lodges. Keith let him use his circular saw, which saved Caleb time and effort, but he had to force himself to concentrate on what he was doing. If his mind kept wandering back to March and his luscious body, he’d end up with no fingers.

Last night had been great, apart from the episode on the beach and apart from Caleb’s tiny niggle of doubt over how fast this happened.

He was glad they hadn’t had full-on sex because he wanted that uncertainty gone before they did. Tonight then? Caleb smiled but it quickly slipped as his insecurity raised its ugly head. Did March want to go out with him, to have a relationship with him? Or did he just want to use him in order to come to terms with his sexuality? In other words, was March only interested in having sex with him?

Caleb worried that now March had stepped out of the closet, he was trying to make up for lost time. Except it wasn’t just that. How could Caleb know March wouldn’t be this way with any willing guy?
Is it just that I’m convenient?
Maybe he should take March to a club. Let him see what was available. March shouldn’t settle for the first guy he’d come out to. How would he know Caleb was the one?

I want to be the one.

Christ, do I have to spoil this before it’s even started?
He already liked March a hell of a lot more than he’d ever liked Mike, and more than he’d liked Simon. Why was he already trying to back away?

Because he’s too good for me. I don’t deserve him. What would he think of me if he knew the truth? None of it was my fault but will he ever believe me?

Academic, because no way would Caleb tell him.

His hand slipped on the wood and a splinter went through a hole in his glove into his palm. Caleb broke off the exposed piece of wood, and eased the glove off so he could pull out the splinter. He should have changed the gloves once he’d seen that hole.

It wasn’t going to be so straightforward to ease the guy out of his heart, but for March’s sake, maybe he had to, or at least give him space to find himself and then hope March found him too.

When Caleb went to get his lunch out of the car, he saw a red rose tucked under one of his windscreen wipers. Panic shot through him before he convinced himself this was March’s work.