Rock N Soul (27 page)

Chris was standing close behind me again. I could just
tell
.

“I finally get to see you naked,” he purred into my ear.

A weird squeaking noise escaped my throat. I hurriedly finished paying and stuffed the boxes into my jacket pockets, then headed for the exit. When I was far enough away that the cashier couldn’t hear me, I muttered, “Dude, not cool.”

“What do you mean?” Chris asked. He was smirking like a fucker, so I scowled at him.

“You know what you were doing,” I said. “Now shut up. Brandon’s back.”

I walked over to Brandon and grinned at him. “All covered.” I patted my pockets. “Now, where were we?”

“I was about to give you the ride of your life,” Brandon said, his eyes dark and heavy-lidded.

“Cool,” I said, then grabbed his hand and pulled him into the hotel.

The door to the room had barely shut behind us before we were kissing again, and I couldn’t remember if I’d made the move or if he had. The kiss was faster, harder this time than in the bar, and my heart rate sped up as he started push-walking me over to the bed.

We fell onto it together, which was far less comfortable than it looks in the movies—his elbow hit what must have been my pancreas and I’m about eighty percent sure I kneed him in the crotch. Must not have been very hard, though, because after a couple of seconds of rearranging our limbs, he settled between my legs and pressed up against me, and the hot length of his cock tenting the front of his pants didn’t seem like something that had sustained a recent injury, so I grabbed his hair and pulled his face back down to mine.

If getting on the bed had been awkward, the kissing was definitely not. He kissed like he had a fucking doctorate in the subject, teasing my lips and the inside of my mouth with his tongue and making low noises in his throat when I kissed back. I curled my fingers in his hair and tugged at it while he ground down against me.

Brandon leaned up and pulled off his jacket and T-shirt, tossing them off to the side. I took the opportunity to yank mine off too. He had a light dusting of hair on his chest that tapered into a line that ran over his toned abs and disappeared into the waist of his jeans, and I let my eyes follow it as far down as I could see. He grinned and reached down to press his palm against my cock through my jeans. The pressure made me close my eyes and arch off the bed, moaning loudly. I wasn’t a virgin schoolboy or anything, but damn, it had been a long time since anybody touched me, and the sensation was intense.

Brandon lay down on top of me again and then started rocking against me so that our dicks pressed into each other through two layers of clothes. I moved my hands to his back and dug my fingers into his shoulder blades while he kissed my neck with just as much skill as he’d been kissing my mouth earlier.

He used his teeth to nip at my earlobe, and my eyes flew open in a delighted kind of surprise, and that’s when I noticed Chris standing there beside the bed staring at us.

I’d actually forgotten for a few minutes that he was there, but now that I’d seen him, I couldn’t go back to ignoring him. And besides, he wasn’t looking quite as . . .
pleased
as I’d imagined he would.

I mouthed “What’s wrong?” at Chris, but he just shrugged. He put a hand on his stomach and slowly dragged it down toward his waistline. I put forth a huge effort to pull my eyes away from where his hand was heading, but that turned out to be a bad idea because the only place my eyes were willing to go from there was straight up to
his
eyes.

“Tell me what you want,” I whispered, my eyes still locked on Chris’s. I hadn’t intended to say it out loud, but Brandon clearly took it as a request meant for him, while Chris licked his lips (the bastard) and smiled at me.

Brandon put a hand between us and started unbuttoning his pants. “Just keep doing what you’re doing, baby,” he said, his voice low and thick with lust. “I’ll take it from here.”

Chris kept his eyes on mine and said, “Lick his neck. Just the tip of your tongue.”

I shivered and ran my tongue over Brandon’s neck, pausing to suck lightly at the place where his pulse beat against his skin.

“Eyes on me,” Chris said. “Don’t stop watching me.”

I moaned, and my eyes crossed as Brandon started undoing
my
pants. Chris took a step closer, and I used my teeth to nip at Brandon’s neck while still keeping eye contact with Chris.

“I want to see your face,” Chris said. “I want to know what you look like when you have a dick in you for the first time.” He took another step closer. “You’re going to love it. I can already tell. You’re going to be such a bottom, Tyler.”

Brandon’s hand slipped into my open pants and past my underwear, and I hissed in pleasure when his fingers wrapped around me. I dug my nails in to his shoulders harder and sucked on his neck.

Chris broke eye contact then and slid his gaze down to where Brandon’s hand was. I wasn’t sure how much he could see from his angle, but it must have been enough to keep his attention.

“Does that feel good?” Brandon asked, and it took me a few seconds to realize that I could answer him out loud without seeming like a psycho.

“Yeah,” I choked out. “Yeah, that’s good.”

“You act like you want to bottom.” He leaned back enough to see my face. “Is that cool with you?”

I pulled my eyes away from Chris to look at Brandon. “Yes.” I bit my lip for a moment. “Just . . . it’s my first time bottoming so . . . you know. Go slow.”

“And use a fucking condom,” Chris snapped. “Don’t let the bastard act like he forgot.”

Brandon was reaching for my jacket and wasn’t watching my face anymore, so I shot Chris the dirtiest look I could muster given that my cock was hanging out of my pants. Chris opened his mouth like he was going to keep hassling me, but luckily at that moment Brandon pulled the condoms and lube out of my jacket pocket and tossed them on the bed beside us, in full view of Chris. I raised my eyebrow at Chris and tried to tailor my expression to mean “There, now shut the hell up.” He just nodded and crossed his arms.

Brandon pressed a kiss against my jaw and kissed his way down my chest and stomach. I momentarily forgot that Chris was watching and squirmed on the bed, letting out a choked half moan when Brandon’s chin bumped into my cock. He smiled and licked a stripe up the back side of it, and I hissed through my teeth and closed my eyes.

Brandon pushed my pants down farther to give himself more room, and he raked his fingernails over the tops of my thighs while he leaned down to nuzzle my balls. They tightened, and I moaned again, not particularly caring that I was turning into much more of a moaner than I usually was with women.

Did Chris ever do this when he was alive? Did he like giving head? Did he use his tongue like Brandon was doing? I imagined how it would have felt in the morning, before he’d shaved, the rough stubble rubbing my inner thighs while he pressed his nose lightly against the sensitive skin there. I could picture him with his mouth on my cock. He’d probably do that thing where he looked up at me through his eyelashes while he slid his lips down over me . . .

I opened my eyes and looked at Chris, my vision swimming a little with lust. “Chris,” I whispered, embarrassingly desperate, and my hand lifted off the bed of its own accord like I was reaching for him. Chris jerked forward before he took a step backward and swallowed hard.

Brandon either hadn’t heard me say some other dude’s name or was ignoring it. He gave my cock another lick, earning himself a low moan that I didn’t actually intend to give, then rolled over to the side of me. “Take your pants off and flip over,” he said. “It’s easier that way the first time. Don’t worry, I’ll go slow.” He gave me a big smile and a wink before starting to remove the last of his clothes.

Chris cleared his throat. “I don’t think I’m gonna watch after all,” he said. “I’ll give you privacy. I’ll, um, wait in the hall.”

I pushed myself up on my elbows and tried to search his face to see why he was backing out, but he was already walking toward the wall of the room. A pretty alarming surge of disappointment flooded through me as I watched him go, and it occurred to me that I wasn’t going to enjoy this if he wasn’t there.

The non-lust-crazed parts of my brain had an explanation for that, and I didn’t have my wits about me enough to push it away. I had it bad. For a ghost. And not in a sexual way, either—that at least would have been more or less easy to ignore. But no, I had it
emotionally
bad. For a ghost.

Fuck my life.

“Wait,” I said, out loud. Chris stopped and turned around slowly. I could feel his eyes on me, and I knew he was metaphorically holding his breath. As if there was really any choice other than Chris at this point.

I looked at Brandon. “I’m sorry, man, I need a minute first. I’ll be right back, okay?”

Brandon’s eyes narrowed a little. “Are you bailing on me?”

“No.” I fought the urge to look over and lock eyes with Chris. “Maybe? I told you back at the bar that I had a boyfriend. I need to know that he’s okay with this first.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Brandon said. He motioned down at himself. “
Now
you need to call him?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll just go call him, and I’ll be back.”

Brandon narrowed his eyes even more but nodded, and I scrambled off the bed and made a beeline for the bathroom.

In the bathroom, I closed the door behind me. Chris had followed me in and stood there with his hands shoved in his pockets and the tips of his ears tinged red as he stared down at the floor. “You don’t have to stop,” he said. “You want him. And you deserve some stress relief after everything I’m putting you through.”

It felt weird to be having this discussion with my straining dick pointing at Chris through my open pants, so I tucked it back inside and refastened the button of my jeans. Not the zipper, though—it was way too dangerous to zip my pants when I was in this condition, so he’d just have to deal with an unzipped tent for a few minutes.

“Just, um, make sure he actually puts the condom
on
, you know? It’s important. Don’t be silly, wrap the willy.” He continued staring at the floor.

“Okay, I’m going to need you to stop with the condom rhymes,” I murmured. Then, more seriously: “Don’t go.”

He still didn’t look up, and I wanted very, very badly to grab his chin and force his eyes up to mine. After a moment, he shrugged at the ugly green tile on the bathroom floor. “I just wasn’t having fun anymore.”

“I want you to be there, okay?” I said. “I . . .” Fuck, how could I explain this without saying something stupid? Ugh. “It won’t feel right if you’re not there.”

“I’m just watching him touch you and hearing the sounds you’re making and I keep thinking . . .” He sighed. “That, you know, it should have been me.”

“Because you’re horny?” I asked, ignoring how much I hoped he would disagree.

“Because—” He broke off. “I don’t know. I just wish it was me, that’s all.”

“Chris,” I started, but I wasn’t sure exactly what to say after that.
I was closing my eyes and imagining it was you
seemed awfully melodramatic. So did
If you weren’t noncorporeal I’d let you have me against the sink right now
. And I especially couldn’t say
Why the fuck did you have to kill yourself an hour before we would have met anyway?
So instead I just shrugged and said, “I wish it was you, too.”

The outer door of the hotel room shut heavily, and Chris and I both jumped at the sudden sound. Chris turned and stuck his head through the bathroom wall to check the room. “He’s gone,” he said when he pulled his head back. His eyes shot to the floor again.

“I don’t blame him,” I said. There was a long silence, then Chris finally looked up at me. “What the fuck are we going to do?”

“God only knows,” I said, laughing a little under my breath. “This situation is about sixty kinds of fucked up.”

He smiled a tiny, tiny smile. “Yeah. It really is.”

And then, because thoughts of the night Chris died had snagged in my mind and this whole thing was feeling shimmery and unreal anyway: “Could I have saved you?”

His forehead wrinkled. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head hard. “Never mind.”

“Well,” he said after it became clear I wasn’t going to relent and tell him. “This whole idea backfired dramatically, didn’t it?”

I snorted. “Yeah. I guess it did.”

“Do you want to go find a theater and see a movie or something?”

“Sure.” I left the bathroom and found my discarded shirt, Chris trailing behind me as always. “I’m gonna go, um, freshen up. Don’t follow me.”

Chris raised an eyebrow. “I just watched a guy suck your cock. How is watching you in the bathroom any different from that?”

“You’re a dick,” I said, a little more centered now that I could go back to insulting him. It just felt more natural. “I need like five minutes.”

“Are you going to, you know . . .?” Chris waggled his eyebrows at me and made a lewd motion with his hand.

“No, you asshole,” I snapped. “I’m going to go wash some dude’s spit off of myself and brush my teeth so my mouth doesn’t taste like a bar. Now leave me alone.”