Hobbled (10 page)

When he pulled open the front door, the last thing Danny expected to see standing on his front porch was Luke. But there he was. Oddly enough, he was once again wearing the clothes Danny had just watched him remove not more than five minutes earlier.

Luke’s beautiful grin was back, and he was aiming it directly at Danny’s startled face.

“If you want to watch me undress,” Luke said. “We can do it a lot closer than from one house to the next.”

Danny’s heart gave a jump. “I—I—”

“Mind if I come in?” Luke asked with an easy grin.

“I—I—”

Luke gave his head a little nod, as if he wasn’t surprised by Danny’s stammering. Disappointed maybe, but not surprised.

“In that case,” he said, “I’ll just undress right here.” And with that, Luke pulled his muscle shirt over his head and dropped it at his feet.

When Luke hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his shorts and prepared to push them downward, all the while staring directly into Danny’s widening eyes, Danny finally got a grasp on what the hell was going on. Without thinking too much about what he was doing, he reached out and grabbed Luke’s arm to yank him through the doorway and out of view of any neighbors who might be snooping around, eyeballing his front porch. “Are you nuts?”

Luke giggled as Danny closed the front door behind them. “Are
you
?” Luke asked. “I’m not the one with the binoculars. Spying on the new guy next door and all.”

Danny could feel his ears burning like maybe they were going to burst into flames. It was all he could do to get the words out, but he finally did. “You—you saw me?”

“Clear as day,” Luke smiled. And oddly enough it was a pretty normal smile. The guy didn’t seem mad or anything. Just maybe…
amused.
“The streetlight is aimed right at the side of your house, you know. I even saw your hard-on.” Luke gazed down at Danny’s crotch, hidden now under the baggy shirt.

Most of the blood had left Danny’s crotch, by this time, and was making a beeline north, traveling back to his head. He could feel it surging into his cheeks. “You did?”

“Yep,” Luke said, dragging his eyes back up to Danny’s face. “I liked seeing it too.”

Again, Danny said, “You did?” His voice was softer this time, soft and breathless, even though his heart was banging away beneath his ribs as if a blacksmith were pounding on it with a ten-pound hammer. As shocked and embarrassed as he was, Danny could still not stop his eyes from sliding away from Luke’s handsome face to contemplate that heavenly body below. And with Luke’s shirt crumpled on the floor at their feet, Danny had an excellent view.

He gazed at Luke’s wide, pale shoulders. At the sprinkling of blond hair scattered across Luke’s chest between those two perfect nipples. Danny stared appreciatively at the shadows of a pretty good six-pack delineating Luke’s abs. It was all he could do not to sigh as he studied another patch of blond hair, just verging on red, which trailed its way down from Luke’s tight little belly button and disappeared beneath the waistband of his shorts. Those shorts were bright yellow and looked to be a couple of sizes too big. They were hanging on Luke’s hips by the skin of their teeth. Beneath the baggy yellow shorts, Luke’s legs were bare. They were as fuzzy and beautiful as they had been that afternoon when Danny first laid eyes on them. They were without a doubt the sexiest legs Danny had ever seen in his life. Luke wasn’t even wearing flip-flops, Danny noticed. He seemed to enjoy going barefoot. Just like Danny did.

And if what Luke said was true, he seemed to enjoy looking at other naked guys just as much as Danny did, too. Danny had to take a minute to wrap his head around that thought. But when he did, a smile began to creep across his face.

“Did you say you liked seeing me?” Danny asked, forcing his eyes back to Luke’s face.

“Yeah. I did.” Luke’s hand was mindlessly stroking the hair on his own chest. His eyes were locked on Danny’s, and for a moment, Danny felt like the air was being sucked out of the room. “You’re beautiful,” Luke added in a whisper.

“No,
you’re
beautiful.”

“You have a beautiful dick.”

“No,
you
—” But Danny couldn’t say it. Not yet. Although he sure as hell wanted to. After all, Luke
did
have a beautiful dick, whether he said it or not. In fact, since he’d gotten a glimpse of Luke’s dick in the binoculars earlier, it was about the only thing taking up space in Danny’s head. That and the fact he was about as embarrassed as he had ever been in his life, but even that didn’t bother him much. Not compared to the memory of Luke’s dick.

Luke smirked, but it wasn’t a mean smirk. More of a
resigned
smirk. Like maybe he was wondering what Danny was thinking. “I figure we’ve both got it bad.”

“Got what?” Danny asked. Then he knew. “Oh.”

Luke reached out and touched Danny’s cheek. Danny could feel that simple touch burn all the way down to his jawbone.

“Tell me, Danny. Just tell me. Be upfront. Do you want me?”

Danny’s heart could be heard all over the house, or he imagined it could. Talk about tell-tale hearts. “Yeah, Luke, I do. I want you more than anything. But—”

“But?”

And Danny let go. Eighteen years of frustration and longing and uncertainty came pouring out. He couldn’t have stopped it if he wanted to. His mouth was a runaway train barreling down the tracks. And even Danny knew it was heading for a cliff. There was no happy destination on this particular rail line. At least he didn’t think there was. It only went to hell and back. Or so he thought.

“I’ve never done anything like this before in my life, Luke. I’ve never been with a guy, you know,
that
way. I’ve got all these big plans about coming out and declaring to the world that I’m gay but I keep chickening out when it comes to doing something about it. It was hard back in Indiana in that little farming community I grew up in. You should hear the way they talk about gay people. Like they are pond scum. Perverts. Creepoids who’ll steal your kids and have their way with them. I never once heard the word ‘gay’. They don’t call people like me gay back there. They call people like me queers and cocksuckers and faggots and homos and, and, a million other names. And it’s not even the words they use that’re so terrible, it’s the way they use them. The way they
say
them. And it’s because of those words that I’ve spent my whole life hiding from what I really am. Even hiding it from myself, I guess. Scared to death I’d find myself in exactly the position I find myself in right now. And now that I’m here, now that I’m in that position and the truth is out, the only thing I want to do is—is—”

Danny stumbled to a halt, stunned to find he had tears burning his eyes. They hadn’t fallen yet, but they were about to. Jesus, that wasn’t supposed to happen. He hadn’t meant to let
everything
go like that. He actually felt drained. Drained, but good.

Luke stepped closer. So close Danny could smell the mouthwash on his breath.

“Is what, Danny? What is it you want to do?”

Danny sucked up a big blob of snot that was threatening to dribble out of his nose. After just spilling his guts like that, the last thing he wanted to do was cry. That would sure be the icing on the cake, wouldn’t it? Luke must already think he was a whiny, immature moron.

But he wasn’t
looking
like he thought that, Danny noticed. He was looking—
concerned.
Wonder of wonders, Luke was looking like he actually understood.

Danny gasped when Luke took another
step closer and folded him in his arms. Gently. Comfortingly. There was nothing sexual about it. Nothing—
intense.
It was merely something a friend would do. A friend doing what he could to make another friend feel better. It was a
good
thing to do. A
kind
thing.

Danny closed his eyes when he felt Luke’s bare arms slide around him, when he felt Luke’s hands pressed softly to his back. Bending his head, Danny lowered his face into the crook of Luke’s neck. He inhaled Luke’s clean scent and gave a tiny shudder to feel the simple warmth of the man this close. Luke was making a shushing sound as he held him, and Danny closed his eyes, still embarrassed, but comforted too. And he found himself accepting the comforting. It was as if he had waited for it so long,
needed
it so long, and suddenly, here it was. Offered. Just like that.

And it was wonderful.

Without Danny even thinking about it, his arms came up to return Luke’s embrace. The feel of Luke’s naked back beneath his hands was so astonishingly
electric
,
Danny had to close his eyes for a minute and just
think
about how it felt. The heat of Luke’s bare torso seeping through Danny’s shirt, warming Danny’s chest. The flow and ebb of muscles underneath Luke’s satin skin.

Luke seemed to happily accept Danny’s hug. He seemed to enjoy the feel of Danny’s arms around him. Edging just a little closer, and being almost a head shorter than Danny, Luke rested his head on Danny’s chest. The top couple of buttons on the dress shirt Danny had thrown on were unbuttoned, and Luke burrowed his face into the opening to press his cheek to Danny’s bare skin.

Danny pressed his face to Luke’s hair and inhaled the clean scent of it. He could feel Luke’s pale eyelashes sweeping across the hollow in his throat. Could feel the gentle scrape of Luke’s young stubble on his skin. Luke must not have shaved for a couple of days. It felt wonderful.

Danny’s arms tightened around him, holding him close.

Luke’s words were muffled because his mouth was against Danny’s chest now. Danny could feel Luke’s lips move on his skin when he spoke. It was the most erotic thing Danny had ever felt in his life. His dick began to move. Danny couldn’t have stopped it if he wanted to.

But it was Luke’s words that filled Danny’s mind at that moment, not the fear of his lengthening dick being discovered. Not yet.

“Danny. I had a hard time coming out, too. My dad’s not the only one in my family who’s gay. I guess you know that already. I’m gay too. I haven’t had much experience, you know,
sexually,
but I do know I’m gay. I think you are, too. And I think you’re a virgin. And I think maybe you don’t want to be a virgin anymore.” Then he chuckled. “God knows
I
don’t want you to be a virgin any more either.”

Danny laughed. “Really?”

“Shit, yeah.”

And ever so gently, Luke tilted his head back and touched his lips to Danny’s. Mouths closed, barely making contact, the kiss was pristine. Pure and sinless. It was the kiss of two children. Two innocents. But still, it made Danny’s heart start hammering again.

Luke lifted his lips from Danny’s and looked him in the eye. “Let me stay with you tonight, Danny. Let me sleep in the same bed with you. Please. We won’t do anything you aren’t ready to do. In fact we don’t have to do anything at all, if you don’t want. I just want to be next to you. Can we do that?”

Danny couldn’t speak. The circuitry that led from his mouth to his brain seemed to be malfunctioning, and he didn’t know the number for tech support. So he simply nodded.

Hand in hand, they climbed the stairs together. Luke’s footsteps were silent on the carpeted steps. Danny’s weren’t. In fact, all Danny could hear was the pounding of his own heart and the clomping of his plaster cast on the risers.

There was a smile blossoming on Danny’s face. He could feel it there, stretching his cheeks apart.

Casting a shy look at Luke, Danny saw another smile blossoming to life. This one was on Luke’s face.

When their eyes met, Luke lifted Danny’s hand and pressed it to his lips.

Because he couldn’t seem to stop himself, Danny leaned in and brushed his lips against Luke’s ear as they continued to climb the stairs. To his own amazement, he felt his shyness simply deconstruct. Poof! It evaporated from his mind like morning mist hit by a red-hot rising sun. Of course, as soon as his shyness went away his hard-on came back. And it came back with a vengeance. In three seconds flat, Danny’s cock was so hard inside his shorts, he had to fight the urge to touch it. Then he began to tremble.

“I want you so much,” Danny breathed, and Luke pulled him through the bedroom door, smiling.

“Then let’s do something about it,” Luke said. “Let’s do something
now
.”

T
O
D
ANNY
,
it seemed he and Luke were not simply the only ones in the house, they were the only ones in the
world
. Nothing existed anywhere in the whole frigging universe except the two of them. At least it felt that way inside his head. Consequently, Danny was a little surprised when Luke quickly marched from one bedroom window to the next, closing all the drapes. In just a few seconds, Luke managed to shut out the neighbors and the night and the streetlights and the stars, and seal the two of them into a heavenly cocoon of comforting, blissful shadow. The only light spilling into the room came through the doorway leading out to the stairs. When Luke closed that door, the room was pitch-black. It was so dark and silent, Danny could hear their breathing.

Then Luke stripped away the darkness by switching on the lights. All of them. The ceiling light, the desk lamp in the corner, the stupid little lava lamp on the bookcase, and lastly, the bathroom light, which cast a long golden beam of light across Danny’s bedroom floor like a river of magma pouring out of the john. By the time Luke was finished, the comforting shadows were chased away for good, and Danny’s bedroom looked like a Broadway stage with every spotlight burning and every footlight glowing.

When he was satisfied that he had flicked on every light there was, Luke smiled at Danny across the room. “I don’t want to miss anything.”

“I guess you don’t.” Danny grinned. While he was proud of himself for being nonchalant enough to offer Luke that grin, Danny still had to admit it probably wasn’t the most easygoing grin he had ever come up with. He was a little nervous. Well, no. He was pretty much scared to death. And just when he thought his shyness had taken a hike, too.