Rough Road (2 page)

“Nice. Happy belated.” He raises his can in mock salute. “Is that gonna be a thing? You’re going to say I’m too young and you’ll stop flirting and feel all guilty?”

Damn it.

“I was thinking something along those lines,” I admit.

“Don’t.” He points. “I don’t need or want a daddy, and the only person who decides what’s best for me is me.”

I start a little at his vehemence. It’s surprisingly bossy and self-assured for someone his age. How much experience can he be speaking from? Okay, I’ve got to stop thinking of him by his age. He might be young and hot, but I’ve got “sassy old queen” down to an art.

“Well, I don’t want a daddy either.” I jut my chin. “But I don’t usually play in the kiddie leagues.”

Just then a lab-coated doctor walks in. “Mr. Russell?” He looks up from my chart and reaches to shake my hand, but drops his when he sees the sandwich I’m holding. I try not to act too guilty. He glances over at Wish and then back at me. “Your son?”

Ouch.

Wish grunts. “His friend.”

“Ah. Okay, then.” The doctor eyes my sandwich. “You might have asked first, but yes, it’s okay for you to be eating.”

“I asked his nurse,” Wish volunteered. “She said it was fine.”

“Okay, well, Mr. Russell, you’re going to have significant bruising on your chest and shoulder from the seatbelt, and you’ll probably be sore for a few days. Take it easy, and you should be okay. I’m writing a script for—”

I hold up my hand. “No, don’t. I won’t fill it. I’ll just take Advil.”

“Okay, sure. Well, the nurse will be in shortly to discharge you. Okay.” He pats his pocket absently, gives a brusque wave, and walks out of the room.

Wish dissolves in laughter. When he’s collected himself, he grins at me and does a perfect mimicry of the doc. “Okay.”

“Okay.” I grin back.

The redheaded nurse returns and goes through the discharge paperwork for me. When she’s finished, she gives us each a brisk nod and props the door open.

Wish takes the sandwich out of my hand, rewraps it, and returns it to the bag.

“Come on, S-Class. Let’s get you home.”

“I’m not the car, you know.”

He snorts and holds out a hand to steady me as I stand up. “And you’re not the suit either. I get it. And I’m not my age or my hard hat.”

“Then I would really like a ride home.”

I can see why he’s a little touchy about my pretentious car; he drives a beat-up old F-150. I give him directions to my house—it’s a god-awful monstrosity of a thing on the lake. I bought it because the price was right, but never got around to remodeling it to something less gaudy and ostentatious. Unlike Ben and Dave’s house, which exudes class and charm, mine screams,
Look how much money I have!

I’m not ashamed of the money.

I
am
a little ashamed of the house. He’s going to think I’m an epic douche.

“So, where are you from, Wish?”

“Minnesota.”

“And now you’re in Florida. Did you get tired of the snow?”

“Mom got sick last winter. My brother was living here already, and he talked her into coming down so he and his wife could take care of her during chemo. She loved it here, so I moved too. No point staying in Minnesota all alone.”

“How’s your mama now?” I hold my breath.

“She’s good. In remission.”

I let out the breath. “I’m glad to hear that. When you said ‘loved’ instead of ‘loves,’ well, I worried.”

“Ha. Well, she doesn’t much care for Florida in July.”

“The heat has a way of making people ornery.” It’s part of what I love about living here: the tension bubbling under the surface is sensual in a primal, earthy way. It gets me so fucking hard.

“What about your dad?”

He grimaces. “Remember what I said about being very Catholic?”

I nod.

“Divorce in a Catholic home is not pretty. We aren’t on speaking terms.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugs. “He made his choices. What about you? You from here?”

“Indeed. Born and raised. That’s my house.” I blush as I point to the great big stucco thing with the tiled roof. “You can park in the garage if you want, but I need to enter the code to open it.”

“Okay.” The truck idles in the driveway as I type my password on the touch pad. He pulls into the spot where my Benz usually sits and turns off the engine.

When he gets out of the car, we stare at each other for a long moment. I want to invite him in. I want to climb him like a tree. I
want
. But he’s so damned young.

“You don’t know me.” He gestures toward the door. “And I can see you have a nice place and maybe you’re second-guessing bringing a virtual stranger here. I get it. Why don’t I go, and then I’ll call you later in the week. Fair warning, I’d like to ask you out on a real date.”

“No.” I shake my head. “It’s not about you being a stranger. I’m trying not to think of you as a corruptible young thing.”

“Here I thought we were going to finish our sandwiches, and all this time you were planning to corrupt me? Eddie S-Class, I do believe you have a dirty mind.”

Oh boy, did I read that wrong. “Oh my gawd.” I cover my face with my hands, peeking at him between my fingers. “I’m so embarrassed.”

“Mmm. I like it. How would you corrupt me? I mean, I know I’m younger than you, but this ain’t my first rodeo. I’m curious. How would you do it?” Okay, maybe not so wrong at all.

“You want me to . . .”

“I want you to tell me, in great detail, the story of my own corruption.” He crosses his arms over his chest, leans back against his truck, and watches me expectantly.

God in heaven, he really means it.

“Let’s go inside.” I reach for the button to close the garage door.

“No.”

“No?”

“No. I want you to tell me out here, in your garage, with the door open, where anyone in the neighborhood who happens to be going for a walk can hear you talking dirty. And, S-Class? Make it
dirty
.”

I don’t know what it is about him that makes me go for it. Maybe it’s because he came to the hospital to save me from my own boredom. Maybe because of the teasing nickname. Maybe it’s because I haven’t had truly awesome sex in long enough that I’m starting to forget what it’s like.

Temporary insanity.

I take off my suit jacket, and hang it on the never-used coat hook by the door. My tie is next—I toss it to him as I reach for my cufflinks, which go in the pocket of my pants. I unbutton my shirt slowly, never breaking eye contact. Any minute I’m going to take it too far, and he’s going to look out that open garage door and stop me.

But he doesn’t. When I hang the shirt with my jacket and turn back toward him, his gaze drops to my shoulder and chest, which are turning purple and black and a dull red. His eyes widen, and he swallows.

I clear my throat. “I’d start by stripping us both naked. Me first, so you can watch.”

Reaching for the button at the top of my trousers, I spare a moment to press the heel of my hand against my dick and close my eyes against the rush of pleasure.

“Take it out. Show it to me.”

I unzip, pull my cock out, and hold it in one hand like an offering. He examines it for a long time, long enough to make me uneasy, but my semi hardens under his gaze. Finally, he meets my eyes again.

“A dick piercing? I’m feeling a little corrupted already,” he teases. “What would you do next?”

I kick off my shoes, push my pants and briefs down my legs, step out of them, and fold them carefully before setting them aside. I turn around as I take off my socks, and wiggle my ass a little for his viewing pleasure. When I straighten up and face him again, he’s got one hand pressed against his own zipper. If I cross the garage to him, I’ll be naked in plain view of anyone walking by, practically on display. It
really
turns me on. Who knew my exhibitionist streak ran that deep?

The first step is the hardest—moving from the idea of exhibitionism to the reality of it—but then I find myself smirking as I amble toward him. I hurt from the accident, and I’m a little freaked out, but the captivated expression on his face is like a drug.

I reach for his T-shirt, tugging it up to expose that flat twenty-four-year-old stomach.

When his hand claps down on my bruised shoulder, I hiss sharply, meeting the challenge in his gaze. He squeezes—he didn’t grab it by mistake. I let my eyes roll back in my head as I exhale, waiting for the pain to cede to pleasure.

“You . . . like that, don’t you?” The squeeze becomes a caress as he explores the edges of the still-forming bruise. He digs his fingers in a little under my clavicle and the frisson of delicious agony draws a whimper from my lips.

“Okay, Eddie. This is the point where we go inside and have a talk.”

I heard him, and yeah, I know he’s right, but now? I want to chase the ache his fingers are tracing along my chest. I lean into that hand, rewarded with a dull throb north of my heart.

“Come on, man. I may only be twenty-four but I know enough about the game you’re playing to know we don’t do this without talking. In the house, now.” He nudges me away from him, sending another jolt through me.

I swallow, pulling myself together. I thought I wanted him before, but now? It’s like a madness inside me. I have to have whatever it is he’s promising.

Leading him inside, I say, “Just so you know, my house is . . . Well. It doesn’t really reflect my taste, you know?”

“You took your cock out in the garage and you think I give a fuck about your furniture?”

Right. Hookup house call, not a date. It’s not like I even have a thing against casual sex. I love casual sex. I just can’t help feeling like I’m taking advantage of him.

He follows me into the kitchen, and I notice him glancing around, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Still hungry?” he asks, holding up the bag of half-eaten sandwiches.

Not for food.
I shake my head, and reach for the bag. I stick it in the gigantic-but-mostly-empty refrigerator. Knowing he’s watching, I bend over and pull out a couple of water bottles, letting the chill from the fridge wash across my naked skin and pucker my nipples.

He makes an appreciative noise behind me, and I glance over my shoulder. “See something you like, Hard Hat?”

“Oh yeah. Is that another piercing?”

I stand up, laugh, and hand him a bottle. “You want to see it again, we’d definitely better have that talk.”

“You like pain.”

It’s a statement, not a question.

“Yes.”

“Sexually, you get off on pain?”

“Yes.”
God, yes.

“Would you want me to hurt you in the course of having sex?”

Ah. There’s the question.

“Do I need pain to get off? No. But for me, it’s better that way. If it got you off too, fuck yes, I want you to hurt me. But if you aren’t into that? No big deal. We could do the vanilla thing, have a nice time, say good-bye afterward, and let that be that.”

“That was remarkably uncoy, S-Class.”

“I’m forty-four years old. I’m not going to apologize for what gets me off.”

“Good. Because hearing you talk about it gets me hard.”

Oh, there is a God, and angels really do wear hard hats.

“‘Red’ and ‘yellow’ for safewords,” I tell him. “I doubt you’ll push me hard enough to need them, but if I say ‘yellow’—”

“You need a break. You say ‘red,’ everything stops.”

I study him carefully. He’s confident, the flirtatious smile back on his lips. Twenty-four years old. What in Hades am I about to do?

“You really have done this before?”

“Eddie, when I walked over to your car to see if you were okay, your welfare was my only thought. Then you started talking about sex dreams and angels in hard hats to your friend, and my curiosity was piqued.”

Shoving a hand through his hair, he steps up close to me. We’re about the same height, but he’s brawnier. He runs his other hand down the center of my chest, then brushes it back up to pinch and pull at one of my nipples before he continues, teasing me all the while.

“When you got out of the car and I could actually see you? So handsome and swishy and wincing in pain, you made me hard. I wanted to fuck you. I wanted to see you wince from pain I inflicted. Not because I thought you’d like it, but because I like it. The fact that you do like it? That it could be more than a jerk-off fantasy?” He shakes his head, then goes on.

“I had a guy I played with in Minneapolis. He was a little older than me, and into paddles and crops. He didn’t care for a naked hand on his ass, but every once in a while, he’d let me. I loved that. Skin to skin, my handprint . . .” The hand on my chest slips back up to my bruised shoulder and grips me again. “Would you let me?”

I’m lost for a moment in the sensation of his hand, rough and warm, on my shoulder. Finally, I nod. “Yes. You can slap my ass, my legs, chest, and face. No closed fist though.” Oh, I’d love to really brawl with him, but confessing that seems too intimate. Admitting you like pain is one thing. Pain can be sterilized. Violence though, and a sexual craving for it, tends to creep civilized people right the fuck out.

He releases my shoulder and touches my hair, so gentle. “Any other limits I should know about?”