Mine (2 page)

His usually blue-green wonderland eyes flicked to Chris. To see them clouded and flat pained me. “Do you want coffee?”

“Please.”

He got up again, his hand sliding over the top of my head. My hair was buzzed close to my skull and I knew he liked the feel of it under his fingers as many times as he’d told me. “Your phone is right there; you dumped it when you came in doing your shuffling zombie impression.”

I smiled at him and reached for my iPhone on the coffee table.

“But don’t call,” he ordered. “Text. I don’t want you to get stuck talking.”

“Yessir.”

“Knock it off,” he snapped irritably. “And we’re gonna talk about you smoking again.”

“I wasn’t smoking,” I assured him. “I was just in and out of a lot of back rooms and clubs last night. I quit. I told you I would, and I did.”

“Okay,” he said as he went through the swinging door into the kitchen.

Watching him, I realized that he must have been in bed with me before he got up. He was still dressed in his flannel pajama bottoms, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and heavy wool socks. But this was November in Royal Oak, Michigan, so it was already cold. By December Landry would have the space heaters out of storage. The radiator was not enough to keep the apartment the toasty warm that he liked it to be.

“Sorry,” I said to Chris as I punched in the security code on my phone. “I won’t be long.”

“Sure,” he replied, smiling at me.

I just needed to send a message with my total for the night. I was carrying close to sixty grand, but I sent the message that I had thirty and knew that when they saw the net, somebody would call to arrange a pickup. Usually I never carried even thirty, much less double that, but more than one of my usual clients had finally paid what they owed me. I had been floating several guys for a couple of weeks, and it was nice that they had all come through as promised. I had never thought, as close to the holidays as we were now, that they would all make good on their debts. It was a testament to the relationship we had that no one had welshed. It wasn’t my favorite thing to do, pay other guys’ vouchers to the house, but I didn’t like to be a hardass and collect with muscle unless I had to.

“Done,” I told Chris, putting the phone face down on my right thigh.

“So, Trevan.” He squinted at me. “What is it you do?”

What to say. “I’m in collections,” I answered vaguely, so not wanting to get into it.

“Like, what kind?”

“He’s a runner,” Landry supplied as he walked back into the room with a cup of coffee for Chris and one for himself. He passed his brother a small mug and put his enormous café au lait cup down on the coffee table before leaning back beside me so his back was pressed into the left side of my chest.

I put my hand in his soft, silky mop of hair, pushing it back out of his face, pulling his head down into my shoulder. The sigh that came up out of him made me smile, and watching his eyes close was very satisfying.

“You collect for a bookie?” Chris asked me, dragging my attention away from my boyfriend, who was basically thrumming with need.

“Yes, that’s what a runner is.”

“Do you carry a gun?” Chris wanted to know, scrutinizing my face.

“No, that’s asking for trouble.” I shook my head. “And most of the time I don’t get into any. I have regulars, and it’s not a big deal. When I do need backup, I have a friend that comes with me. My boss is a businessman. He gets the line from Vegas; guys bet with me once they know what it is; some lose, some win; I collect what’s owed.”

“It’s still illegal,” Chris reminded me.

“True,” I agreed, “but in all seriousness, with no record and the extent of my crime being the movement of money from point A to point B… what do you really think the cops would do to me if they caught me?”

“I guess not much.”

“Not that I want to find out, but I also must point out that the number of cops I collect from is vast.” I waggled my eyebrows at him.

“Is that how you met Landry?” he asked me with a trace of a smile. “Is he a closet gambling addict?”

“Hardly,” I assured him. “No, we met the old-fashioned way, at a party, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off him.”

“Eyes,” my boyfriend scoffed, nestling closer, turning his head to kiss my cheek.

“What?” I chuckled.

He turned to face me, his left hand reaching, fingers trailing over the right side of my face as he leaned forward so his lips could open on the side of my neck.

“I’m here,” I soothed him, my voice soft, coaxing. “Baby, I’m here.”

He nodded, and I heard him breathe. He had been holding his breath, seconds away from a full-blown panic attack that I had missed because I was tired. Normally, I would have been passed out in bed, and he would have gotten up and done his morning ritual and then kissed me before he left. As long as everything went along smoothly, nothing out of the ordinary, familiar sights and sounds, the normal pacing of his day, he was good, he was fine. But if there were changes, bumps, like a blast from the past, it was possible for him to combust. The breakdown I had just quelled was his typical reaction to glitches in his life, at least for as long as I’d known him. If I was there, he reached for me, I soothed him, and he took a breath and went on. It had been like that since we met.

I
COULD
remember the night he finally saw me like it was yesterday. He was waiting near the keg at a party we were both at, and I walked up beside him, grabbed a handful of his gorgeous ass, and when he turned to look at me, I asked him if he could see me.

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “I can feel your fingers too.”

“Are you sure you see me? I’ve been to a lot of parties you’ve been at, and it’s like I’m invisible,” I told him, not moving my hand, instead sliding my middle finger over the crease slowly, suggestively. “I wanna make sure to leave an impression this time.”

His breath quavered, which made my mouth dry. “Consider it made.”

“Lemme get this for you,” I said, letting him go and bumping him gently with my shoulder. “I’ll meet you outside on the balcony.”

“It’s cold out there.”

“It’s quiet. I’ll keep you warm.”

“You’re fulla shit.”

I tipped my head toward the sliding glass door anyway.

He left me then, heading for the patio. I got his beer and another Crown and Coke for me, grabbed my parka, and followed him out. He was shivering when I reached him, and when he exhaled, I could see it. I put my coat around him and stepped close so I could watch him drink.

“What?” He smiled at me, sniffling in the cold.

“You’re beautiful.”

He scoffed. “You don’t hafta flatter me; I’ll suck your cock for you.” He looked over his shoulder. “There’s a corner over—”

“Yeah, I saw you doin’ that at Jimmy Drake’s party,” I cut him off, fisting a hand in his heavy wool sweater so he couldn’t move. “You were on your knees all night, huh?”

His eyes were back, finally actually meeting mine instead of looking everywhere but. I lifted my hand to his cheek and dragged my thumb over his gorgeous mouth. He had full lips, plump and dark and made to be kissed.

“How ’bout I kiss you and after that you can put
your
dick in
my
mouth.”

The huge eyes—blue-green, a color I remembered from a cup I had glazed in a ceramics class in high school, peacock blue, an absolute sum of the two—absorbed my face. “You don’t have to work this hard,” he told me. “I give it away.”

I grunted as I leaned in and took possession of the lips that had haunted my dreams. And he tasted like beer and peanuts with a hint of cherry Life Savers. I pulled away fast, took his beer back, put my drink on the table beside his, turned, and rushed him. My hands were on his face as I kissed him the second time, pile driving him into the wall, taking it all, his breath, his saliva, his whimpers and sighs. My tongue pushed and shoved his, tangling and stroking, as I ravaged him and took what I wanted. My hands went under his sweater, burrowed down beneath the T-shirt and found skin that was sleek, warm, and silky. His smooth stomach trembled under my hand, and when I shoved my knee between his thighs, his hoarse groan made me hard. I kissed him until he had to shove me off to breathe.

“Come home with me and lemme talk to you, because you’re confused about stuff.”

“Not confused,” he panted, long, feathery lashes fluttering. “Whore.”

“Not anymore,” I told him, and kissed him breathless again. I sucked his tongue into my mouth, loosened his belt, worked his jeans open, and got my hand down into his briefs.

His gasp as I unsealed my mouth from his made me smile.

“You’re treating me like a whore.”

“I’m treating you like you’re mine,” I corrected him. “’Cause from now on… this only gets done with me.”

“No one keeps me,” he groaned, pushing up into my hand, eyes closed, mouth open, head back against the wall.

“Until now,” I said, reclaiming his mouth, chewing on his lip. I didn’t let him pull away until, between me jerking him off, putting hickeys on his neck, shoving my left hand down the back of his jeans, and sliding my fingers over his crease, he came in my fist with a shuddering, muffled yell.

“Jesus, you made me come with just your voice telling me to.”

That and a hand job with some frottage thrown in for good measure.

“Fuck.”

I chuckled and licked a line up the side of his neck to behind his ear, sucking the sensitive skin before returning to his sweet mouth. The man took direction well, and I liked that. I wiped my hand on the T-shirt I was wearing under my own sweater.

“What are you doing?” he snapped at me, shoving me away from him so he could take a gulp of air. “If you do that, you’ll have my cum on you.”

“It’ll just be the first of many times, right?”

He whimpered in the back of his throat. “Nobody wants me. I’m all used up and—”

“Nope.” I refused to hear it. “You’re a light, you’re my light, gonna be just mine.”

The tears came so fast. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m the guy you’ve been blowing off for the last three months,” I told him, watching him tuck himself in, now that his brain was working again, and zip up. It was a shame not to be looking at his beautiful, long cut cock anymore, but I didn’t want anyone else getting an eyeful. “I told you, I see you all the time, everywhere, and you never gimme the time of day. I just got sick of it, figured it was time to do something about it.”

He lunged at me, arms wrapped tight around my neck, face in the side of my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry… forgive me.”

“Nothing to forgive, you didn’t see me. Now you do.”

“Now I do,” he agreed and shivered hard.

“Your name is Landry, right?”

He nodded, pulling back from me.

“My name’s Trevan. Buckle your belt, ’cause we’re out of here.”

And he kissed me, laid one on me that was full of trembling hope and happiness that maybe he could rest and stop running and stop being alone unless he was on his knees.

I had been watching him for a while, stalking him when we showed up at the same places, and had tried to talk to him on a number of occasions. But he was so busy giving himself to anyone who asked that I, a good guy, a patient guy, a gentleman, never blipped on his radar. Because I liked what I saw outwardly—he was really just beautiful—I had to see if there was anything else there at all. Normally, no one caught my eye or kept my interest, so the fact that he had, had to mean something. Upon investigation, I discovered things about him.

The man was not a drug addict, but he did them to fit in. He didn’t really like to drink, but he did that too. He had vices that he could give up in a heartbeat because they were never his, just convenient excuses for others to put aside their inhibitions and use him. I told him no one but me was ever putting their hands on him again. The smile as he cried was heartbreaking and dazzling all at the same time.

Since he was the only reason I had gone to the party, once I buckled his belt for him—he hadn’t followed the last of my directions, too busy launching himself at me—I took his hand and led him back through the crowd. When I felt him stop, I turned and saw some guy with his hand on Landry’s bicep. Landry squeezed my hand tight, and I saw it in his eyes, the pleading. This was the very first test: was he really leaving with me, or would I let him go? It was funny but I never once thought, why didn’t he just tell the guy no. I understood, he had to see what I would say, what I would do. He couldn’t stick up for something, for the idea of us together, if he didn’t know he could count on it.

“You know me?” I asked the guy there, the stranger holding onto my new boyfriend.

“No.”

I shrugged. “And you don’t wanna. Let go.” My voice was flat, my stare was level, and I stilled, waiting.

The stranger took my measure. “Whatever.” The guy balked and then turned to look at Landry. “I’ll catch you later. I’ll bring the lube and condoms.”

But he didn’t, because I took Landry Carter home with me, to my apartment, to my kitchen table where I fed him, and then to my bed to sleep.

“I thought you wanted to fuck me?” he asked worriedly, standing in my bedroom freshly showered and dressed in a pair of my pajamas.

“I wanna hold you,” I said with a smile, grabbing his hand, yanking him down on top of me. When I rolled him over on his side and spooned around him, brushing the hair away from the back of his neck before I kissed it, I thought he was going to fly apart with the trembling.

“Oh God.” He was back to crying.

I chuckled, and he took a heaving breath before snuggling back against me. When I woke up in the night, he was wrapped around me, head in the hollow of my neck, arm over me and leg over mine. He was very cute, and when I bent and kissed his forehead, Landry’s sigh was deep and long and content.

He needed me, and I needed him just as badly. No one ever let me just love them because I could. Men looked at me and saw a guy without a “real” job, a guy with only a high school education, a guy without a future or prospects. I looked scary, dangerous, and so they walked the other way. No one ever took the time to know me, to learn about my plans and what I wanted my life to be. They wanted a guarantee. No one wanted to build on me—no one but Landry.