Smoky Mountain Dreams (10 page)

He went to work on his own cock with his other hand, but
Christopher stopped him. “Let me suck you. I want to. You’re so big. Christ.”

Jesse wasn’t going to decline, and he let Christopher’s cock
slip from between his lips, kissing the tip a little playfully, but Christopher
was hell bent on getting Jesse’s cock in his mouth again. He slid down Jesse’s
body until the hot, wet damp of his breath made Jesse’s dick jerk. Then he was
sucking and pulling, and fuck his mouth was good. His tongue so talented
against just the right spot.

“
Fuck
.” Jesse grabbed Christopher’s
hair, tugging and hoping to give him some warning. He couldn’t see anything but
blue spots, and nothing else came out of his mouth but a wordless, loud groan
as he shot a load so big that he felt some of it slip out of Christopher’s
mouth and slide down Jesse’s cock and balls, a slick mess that Christopher
eagerly lapped up moments after he’d swallowed the bulk of it. Jesse jerked and
ached with the resolution and release.

 “Goddamn, you’re good,” Jesse managed after a while. “I…just
goddamn.”

He noticed that Christopher was still twitching like he was
having a few aftershocks, and when he collapsed down on Jesse, Jesse wrapped an
arm around him, both of them shivering while their damp cocks rubbed together
between them.

“Thanks,” Jesse murmured.

“Anytime.”

Anytime
, Jesse thought, a shiver
racing over him hard.
Anytime.

They got their jeans back up, both of them grinning and
laughing into the darkness.

“Thanks,” Christopher said. “I kind of needed that.”

Jesse grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him in
for a fast kiss. “Me too. So, I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little
cold in here now.”

“Yep. And we really should get out of here anyway. The park
closes in—” he checked his watch. “Crap. We really have to hustle.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost midnight. If employees aren’t out of the park by
then, we turn into pumpkins or something.”

Jesse stood, searching for his gloves and pulling them on
quickly. “Turnips,” he said. “If this is old Appalachia remade in a theme park,
it’d have to be turnips. Or beets. Or potatoes. Pumpkins came later.”

Christopher accepted Jesse’s hand up and patted his jacket
pockets until he found the small key ring. “If I get to choose, I’ll take a
beet. They’ve got such a nice flair to them.”

“Nice colors,” Jesse agreed. His eyes landed on Christopher’s
chin. “Hold on. You’ve got—” He leaned in and licked off the clump of semen.

Somehow that led to more kissing they didn’t really have
time for, and Christopher finally put an end to it by shoving against Jesse’s
chest. “We should hurry.”

He used his flashlight to lead Jesse toward the front of the
mill and into the shop front that customers came through during the bakery’s
operating hours.

Jesse frowned. “We’re not going back out the way we came in?”

“Oh no. We’ll just go out the front.”

“What if someone sees us?”

“That’s okay.” Christopher unlocked the door and held it
open, waving at several other employees who were walking past.

“Why did we come in that way, then?” Jesse watched
Christopher lock the place back up.

Christopher grinned cheekily. “I was trying to impress you.
Did it work?”

“Hell yeah.” Jesse found himself laughing as he followed
Christopher under the sparkling lights of Smoky Mountain Dreams, early-fallen
leaves crunching underfoot.

At the staff parking lot, Christopher offered to drive
Jesse to his car, hoping he’d be able to operate a motor vehicle safely given
he was still shaky from great sex. Being with Jesse had been better than he
could have imagined. “Employee parking isn’t far, and performers get the
closest spots.”

“Why’s that?”

“In case we’re running late we won’t have so far to run to
get to the stage.”

“Smart.”

“Necessary. For some of us more than others.”

“You run late a lot?”

“Never. I like my job, but more importantly, my voice is a
dime a dozen. I’m early. Always. I don’t want to give them any reason to look
for a replacement.”

“You undersell yourself. Again.”

“So you keep telling me.” Christopher motioned toward his
Yaris, suddenly very conscious of his compact car. He bet Jesse drove something
nice. He’d seen a BMW and a Mercedes at his shop before. “This is me.”

Jesse didn’t say anything at all, and Christopher was
pleased that he’d had it professionally cleaned a week prior in preparation to
visit Gran. He always liked to take her out for a nice lunch when he visited,
and she complained if there were too many fast food bags on the floorboard.

“You can put the seat back,” Christopher said, glancing as
Jesse folded up in the seat, his long legs nearly to his chin. “Go on back as
far as you need.”

Jesse adjusted himself until he fit more easily and buckled
up while Christopher got the heater going, their breath puffing in the space
between them.

“Which lot?”

“F.”

Christopher pulled out of his space and drove slowly toward
the F lot, caught behind other cars exiting the park and watching out for
teenagers on the side of lots A through E, lingering, as always, a few hours
after the park itself closed.

“Tonight was nice,” Jesse said, talking over the blast from
the heating vents. “Thanks for dinner. And dessert.”

“It was my pleasure.”
Was it ever.

Jesse shifted in his seat. “I’d like to call you. See you
again.”

“Well, you’ll be seeing me again about the locket.”

“I’d like to see you and for it to have nothing to do with
the locket.”

Christopher’s stomach flipped, but he cleared his throat and
said evenly, “That’d be cool. Sure.”

Jesse pointed. “That’s me. The Nissan Quest.”

It was a family car if Christopher had ever seen one. A
minivan
to be exact. He told himself not to jump to
conclusions. “Who drives the Mercedes? Or the Beemer?”

Jesse’s eyebrows lifted. “My sister’s the BMW fan. I drive a
Mercedes sometimes.”

Christopher felt a little hot but he shrugged. “I drive by
your shop on the way home every day. I’ve never seen this car parked there
before.”

“Yeah, I don’t usually drive it to work, I guess.” He
studied the minivan with a frown creasing his brow. “It seems excessive for one
guy to have two cars, but I have to admit the minivan is a hook-up killer for
the most part. Not the suave impression I generally like to make.”

“Ah.”

Jesse smiled and shrugged. “Oh well. Guess I’ve blown my
sexy-mysterious cover already anyway.”

“I don’t know. Seems like there’s still a lot about you I
don’t know.” Christopher thought about the picture of the woman and kids back
at Jesse’s office and felt a little sick. He should ask, but somehow the words
remained stubbornly lodged in his throat.

Jesse took out his iPhone and pulled up Christopher’s name. “What’s
your cell number? I’ll text you so you have mine. We can meet up and you can
find out more about me.”

“I don’t have a cell phone.”

Jesse glanced up with eyebrows raised. He put his phone back
in his pocket, sounding disappointed. “That’s too bad.”

Christopher popped open the glove compartment, brushing
against Jesse’s knees in the cramped space. “I’ve got a pen in here. Write your
cell number down and I’ll call you.” He fished out a pen and an old receipt.

Jesse wrote his number in clear, precise block letters and
handed it over. “How about your landline, then?” he asked.

“You’ve already got it in your files at work.”

 Jesse cleared his throat. “I’d really like to hook—well,
actually I’d like to just see you again sometime. Hook-up optional.”

“Me too.”

“Okay then.”

Jesse opened the door and climbed out before Christopher
could kiss him again or do anything more than wave. He waited until Jesse was
inside the minivan—seriously, why a
minivan
?—before
pulling away.

On the short drive up the mountain, his mind whirled over
the same snatches of information, still unable to draw a conclusion. But if Jesse
wanted to know him better, Christopher wanted to make it easy for him to do
that. He smiled to himself.

After all, Jesse was the first bee to come buzzing around
his honey in a long time.

J
ESSE
HADN’T REALLY PLANNED ON
his attraction to Christopher becoming a
thing
. Not even after their moment in the grist mill. He
assumed that, like most of his encounters with other men, it was what it was,
and that was that.

But the next day as he tweaked the design for Christopher’s
grandmother, he found himself thinking about more than the placement of the
acorns and oak leaves. Vivid recollections of Christopher’s open mouth as he’d
reached orgasm and his green eyes burning with lust as he’d sucked Jesse off
tumbled through his mind.

It’d been good sex. Better than he’d had in a while.
Probably because he
liked
Christopher. He was a nice
guy, and Jesse had genuinely enjoyed his company. Most of the time he didn’t
bother finding out more than a man’s name, or maybe he’d force himself to “bond”
over some sports on the bar’s television before asking if the guy wanted to
head out to his car, or step into the bathroom.

Christopher was the first man he’d had sex with in close to
a year with whom he’d had more than one actual conversation, and the friendly
affection he already felt, not to mention the admiration he’d harbored for
Christopher as a fan, clouded things. Hadn’t he learned from Marcy the dangers
of having sex with someone he actually cared about?

“Hey,” Amanda said from the doorway to his office, where
leaned against the doorframe. Her dark hair that shone only half as bright as
her eyes was swept up in a ponytail at the back of her head. She had on her
sweats and wore a determined expression.

“Going running?” he asked.

“Going hamstering, actually.”

Jesse lifted his brows and turned his attention back to the
gold acorn he was working on. “Is that like Pilates?”

Amanda snorted. “Hardly. I’m going to run the treadmill at
the gym.”

“Ah. Cool. Go on. Nova’s got the kids, and I’m almost done
here. I’m just going to finish this up and close shop.”

“How did the follow-up appointment with Christopher Ryder
go?”

“Fine.”

“Huh,” she said, and there was something in her voice that
made him look up. Her arms were crossed and her eyes narrowed.

“What?”

“It’s just I happen to know he canceled.”

“Snooping isn’t attractive, Amanda.”

“Did you forget that I transcribe the voicemails?”

“I meant your current snooping. Right now. This minute.”

“So why’d you say it was fine when you didn’t meet with him?”

“Why’d you ask if you knew he’d canceled?”

“I wanted to see if you were upset about it. He’s cute. And
you said he was gay. I saw how the two of you looked at each other. I admit
that I hoped you’d express some disappointment, but now I think there’s
something you’re hiding. So. Spill.”

Jesse groaned. There was no way out of this. She’d just keep
on harassing him; she’d been this way since they were kids. “I went to Smoky
Mountain Dreams and caught him after his show.”

Amanda’s lips curved up and her eyes glinted. “You did what
now?”

“You heard me.”

“And? Did you see him? Did he like the design for the
locket? More importantly—did he like
you
?”

Jesse put aside his work. “I’m not a twelve-year-old girl
who needs to chat about my crush. Especially not with my sister.”

Amanda moved from the doorway and plopped down in the chair
opposite him. “You are the worst at keeping secrets. It’s like everything about
you just
gives it all away
. I can tell—he liked the
design for the locket and
you slept with him!
”