Don't Read in the Closet: Volume Four (138 page)

putting them on.

Oh, god. The chaps. “Sure. I’ll just leave a note on the door.”

Wait. Back to his place?

Jurgen smiled at him, a sated-beast kind of smile, and picked up

his backpack from the floor.

Don’t Read in the Closet – volume four 845

****

but Jurgen had ordered fries with his burger. Nik looked down and

speared a crouton. Mmmm, little carb nugget. He felt like crooning

sweet-nothings to it.

Nik had thought about making Jurgen cough up a fortune for

lunch (because he was worth it, dammit), but he’d really just wanted a

burger. Instead, he’d made Jurgen drive halfway across the city to go

to his favorite burger joint. It doubled as a hipster bar. All they had to

eat were burgers, but they had every form of alcohol known to

humankind and truly horrible lighting.

And honestly? Nik just liked to ride the chopper. Even on the

bitch seat. It was such rumbly, vibrating goodness against his ass. He

made sure he complained a lot, so Jurgen wouldn’t figure it out.

Nik had a feeling Jurgen wasn’t fooled.

“I’m a cop, Nik. It wasn’t that hard to find you.” Jurgen looked

amused, in a slightly patronizing way. Nik made a face at him.

“So what, you asked my mom?”

Jurgen smiled bigger. “Yeah.” He relaxed back into the booth,

arms stretched along the back. It was funny, he really wasn’t that big a

guy. Maybe six feet, only a couple inches taller than Nik. His body

was tight and defined, but he wasn’t overbuilt. He just
felt
big. He was

perfect. Physically. Nik sighed, part pure, hedonistic pleasure, part

resignation. He was so screwed.

“What about your fuck-buddy in Whitetail Rock?” Nik shoved the

crouton in his mouth to shut himself up.
Nice move.

Jurgen looked surprised. “Dave?”

“Dave?” For the very first time, Jurgen looked almost…

uncomfortable. Nik wished the lighting wasn’t so dim in here. He

could swear that Jurgen’s cheeks were a little darker. That
had
to be

his imagination. “Dave who?” he pushed.

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Jurgen dropped his arms off the back of the seat and leaned

toward Nik, elbows on the table. He looked at him intently for a few

minutes. Nik looked back, leaning over his salad. Was this some kind

of staring thing?

“Dave Blaylock,” Jurgen finally said. Then he looked at Nik some

more.

Ah. He was a few years older than Nik. A deputy in the Sheriff’s

department, working under one of the most blatantly homophobic

Sheriffs in the state. Nik’s mom all but picketed outside the

headquarters. Nik sighed and nodded, looking down at his salad.

“That’s part of why I got the hell out of there.” The other part being

his skin color.

“People accept you, for the most part. It’s not so bad.” Jurgen

shrugged. It looked forced.

Nik glared at him. “You didn’t grow up there.”

Jurgen sighed and sat back.

“On no-no-no-no,” Nik said, dropping his fork into his salad and

straightening up.

“What?” Jurgen looked almost amused again.

Nik pointed a finger in his face. “You don’t get to sigh at me like

that.”

“Like what?” Jurgen was grinning now, the big prick.

“Like I have
issues
.”

Jurgen shrugged, raising his arms and linking his hands behind his

head carelessly. Nik opened his mouth to let Jurgen have it, but their

waiter appeared out of nowhere with their burgers, distracting him.

Huh. Jurgen’s fries looked good. Nik should have had those

instead of the salad.

“I didn’t say you had issues.”

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Nik looked at Jurgen narrowly. “Your eyes were saying it.” Jurgen

refrained from comment and reached for the ketchup and mustard

sitting on the edge of the table. “Besides.” Nik snorted. “You’re one to

talk.”

Jurgen looked up from his half-dressed burger, bun in one hand,

ketchup bottle in the other. He had that appallingly cute befuddled

look on his face. “I don’t have any issues.”

Nik snorted. “Um, hello? Fear of commitment, anyone?”

Why, oh why did he never have control of his tongue around this

man? He never had problems with other people, why this one,

frustrating, infuriating man?

But Jurgen, The Obtuse One, just shrugged and went back to

doing his thing to his food. “I’m not afraid of commitment. I never

really
got
it before, if you hafta know. Is there some rule that I should

want one?” He started piling his veggies on his burger, skipping the

onion.

Oh. That was thoughtful. And promising.

“Just the rules of being human.” Nik took a bite of his forgotten

salad to keep himself from saying more. No more croutons left. He

pushed it away and pulled the burger to him.

Jurgen looked up at Nik from under his brow, smirking. He took

insults entirely too damn well. “Then there’s my issue. I’m inhuman.”

The
in bed
was implied.

Nik balled up his napkin, throwing it at Jurgen. It hit his shoulder

and bounced off. Jurgen watched it bounce a foot or so away, to the

edge of the table. He raised his brow at the ball of paper, as if it had

flung itself at him. Kamikaze napkin. He turned to Nik. “Clearly,

you’re human.” He smiled and took a huge bite of his burger.

Dammit, Nik had sacrificed his napkin and had nothing to show

for it. No napkin, no annoyed man.

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Jurgen chewed and swallowed while Nik stared forlornly at his

former napkin. Jurgen sighed, picked it up, straightened it out and

handed it back to Nik. “Maybe I just haven’t met the right guy yet.”

He picked up the ketchup again.

“What?” Nik crumpled his napkin in his fist.
What?

Jurgen shrugged again, drowning his fries in ketchup. “Maybe

someday I’ll meet some guy and that’ll be it. I’ll get what the big deal

is.”

Nik stared at him. Why was he surprised? He was the weekend

hook-up. He had no right to be upset in any way. The worst part was

that Jurgen wasn’t even looking at him. Not in that must-avoid-eye-

contact way of not looking, just not concerned with what Nik was

thinking.

Oh shit
. “So, Dave Blaylock, huh? He’s pretty hot.” Nik looked

down and began assembling his burger blindly. Hopefully Jurgen

wouldn’t notice the wobble in his voice.

“It’s not exactly like that.” Nik looked up sharply. There was an

odd note in Jurgen’s voice. He cleared his throat and went on. “It’s just

an occasional thing. Casual hook-up.”

This time when Nik opened his mouth, it was with his full

knowledge and consent. “Kind of like me?”

That slow smile of Jurgen’s bloomed. “Well,” he drawled. “I was

hoping to upgrade you to a regular sort of thing.”

“That’s enough for you? Coming into the city every couple weeks

to fuck me silly?” Nik wanted to slap himself unconscious once the

words were out of his mouth.

Jurgen looked at him levelly. “Yeah,” he said. Nik found it

depressingly easy to believe him. “Not enough for you, huh?” Jurgen

looked at him calmly. Waiting for Nik to end things, he supposed.

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Nik opened his mouth. God help him, but he couldn’t make

himself do it. Finally, Nik shrugged philosophically. Hopefully it

looked convincing. “I can live with that.”
For a while.

If anyone asked, the chaps made him do it.

****

a kind of horrified excitement. He was sitting across from Nik’s desk,

in the visitor’s chair. Fidgeting. Thankfully, once again the other two

GTF’s were absent from the office.

Nik did some fidgeting of his own. “He left this morning.”

Sam sat back, grinning, as if he’d orchestrated Nik’s whole mid-

week sexcapade. Slowly he lost his smile, getting his pensive look

instead. “So, he’s still white, and you’re still not…”

Shit
. Nik sighed. “Yeah.” He looked down at his hands, fidgeting

with the handle on his desk drawer. “It’s um, possible that I’m sort of

over that.” He wasn’t sure what he was saying, but it seemed to be all

Sam needed to hear, judging by the ridiculous smile on his face.

Then Sam cleared his throat and valiantly tried to neutralize his

facial expression. “So, he brought handcuffs and you let him put them

on you.”

Nik squirmed and hid his eyes with his hand. “The first time was

an accident.”
And it happened right on this desk.

It was a speaking silence.

Sam cleared his throat again. Nik flinched. “I, um, I thought you

weren’t into that.” Nik could hear the gleeful smile in his voice, even

if he probably wouldn’t see it on Sam’s face. Assuming he had the

balls to look.

“He made me pick a safe word.” Nik peeked between his fingers.

Sam’s mouth was hanging open.

“Oh.” Sam’s voice was a whisper. More of the throat clearing.

“What did you pick?”

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Not the question he’d been expecting. Nik looked up at Sam from

under his hand. “Lemonade.”

“Lemonade?” Nik nodded. “Do you like lemonade?”

“Does it matter? Yes, I like lemonade.”

“Shouldn’t you have picked something you didn’t like, to make

sure there were no, um inadvertent exclamations at an important

moment?”

He dropped his hand and stared at Sam. “Who screams out

‘lemonade’ in the middle of sex?”

Sam blushed. Nik was momentarily grateful for his dark skin.

“You’d be surprised,” Sam mumbled.

“Who have you been seeing? I’m your best friend, shouldn’t I

know these things?”

Sam twisted his lips sardonically. “No. Besides, we’re talking

about you. So, if he made you pick a safe word…” He raised his

eyebrows inquiringly.

Nik sighed. He’d gone this far, he may as well cough up some

more details. He watched his fingers trace the edge of his desk. “I just

told him I’d had a bad experience once. So he made me pick a word,

but it was really just the, um, bondage.” Sam’s eyebrows were still up.

Shit
. “He promised me no pain.”

Sam stared at him a minute longer, then he suddenly grinned

hugely. “It’s hot, isn’t it?”

Nik couldn’t stop himself from smiling back. “Yeah.
Way
hot.”

Jurgen came up the next time he had a weekend. This time he

called first. “How’d you get my number?” Nik asked in surprise. He

hadn’t given it to Jurgen, and Jurgen hadn’t asked. Even though Nik

dropped a couple of hints.

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Jurgen sighed patiently into Nik’s ear. “Your mom.”

Nik needed to have a little chat with his mom. “Does she know

this is a fuck-buddy arrangement?” He could practically hear Jurgen’s

shrug through the phone.

Jurgen stayed both nights this time.

Then he came back the next weekend.

Nik had to admit, for a guy who was supposed to be a fuck-buddy,

he sure liked talking with Jurgen. Sometimes they just hung out at his

place. Maybe they were more friends-with-benefits.

Of course, Nik did most of the actual talking, except during sex.

But otherwise, Nik was in charge of the conversation. He didn’t so

much like how often he managed to steer them toward serious stuff.

“I don’t care. Why does it matter if I like sex the way I do? I just

do. People who don’t like it can kiss my ass.” Jurgen was all stretched

out, legs in front of him, reclining back on the couch, beer in one

hand, tortilla chip in the other, game on TV. He leaned forward to get

more salsa. The man liked his condiments.

“That’s easy for you to say, Trooper Closet Case.”

Jurgen turned and looked at Nik in surprise, salsa-loaded chip