Bitter Taffy (24 page)

He was alone, as vulnerable as any human being could be in front of another, on Derek’s bed.

“Have you started?” Derek called. Rico could hear him moving around, probably turning off the lights and the television and such.

“Right now,” he answered breathily.

He had to close his eyes at first, forgetting that it was Derek’s bed, forgetting that the lights were on and he was sprawled in the middle of white sheets. He had to concentrate only on the cool air moving over his heated skin, on the way his nipples puckered as he drifted his fingertips over them.

That felt nice. He pinched his nipple a little more forcefully, and a full-body shudder racked him. He rolled over to his back and let his thighs fall open, shivering again when a burst of air from the fan hit his crease, his taint, his balls. His cock, already semierect, swelled thickly against his thigh.

He didn’t palm it. Not yet. The moment stretched out, all about teasing himself, about being lost in sex when Derek finally walked in—about trusting that Derek wouldn’t hurt him or laugh or leave him hanging.

The thought of Derek walking in, seeing him sprawled out with the toy shoved in his ass, made his cock harder. His breathing quickened, and he fumbled for the toy and the lube. His cock he left, throbbing,
aching
for attention, because he hoped it would be the first thing Derek touched.

Derek’s going to touch me.

Ah! One of those whole-body shivers again. He propped his feet up, spreading himself as much as possible to the air, and dumped lube on his fingers.

Cold.

Cold, right at the tender heat of his orifice, smoothing, penetrating, stretching. He was panting now, and every now and then a faint, breathy moan issued from his throat.

He bore down on his own fingers, wanting more, practically gibbering to himself for
somebody
to
for God’s sake
touch his cock and fuck his ass.

He fumbled for the toy then, and it was slippery,
tantalizingly
slippery, sliding through his fingers, pushing against his opening before skimming off, and he groaned in frustration.

“Need help?” Derek asked.

Rico’s eyes flew open, and it was just like he’d imagined: Derek leaning against his closed door, shirt unbuttoned and unbelted pants hanging to his knees. His erection bulged against his boxers, peeking out from under the elastic on the top, shining with precome.

With a burst of determination, Rico shoved the toy
hard
,
and the head popped in. “Nungh….”

He shuddered again and his whole body started to vibrate like a piano string tapped frantically at perfect pitch.

“So,” Derek said, semiamused but mostly aroused, “you’re just going to make me watch?”

Rico shoved the seven-inch length of the toy in to the base, feeling every veined ridge as it slid in. “You do what you have to,” he taunted. “But I haven’t touched my cock yet, so—”

“Don’t,” Derek commanded. His clothes hit the ground before Rico had time to withdraw the toy. “Let go.” He crawled across the bed, and Rico’s hand left the base of the dildo before his mind had time to catch up.

“
No
!” he whined. It just hung there, the head inside of him, the rest of it on the bed, and every whoosh of the fan teased him, from the crack of his ass to the head of his dripping cock.

“Trust me,” Derek purred, seizing the base and pushing in just a little at a time.

“
Nnn
….” Rico flailed for a moment as his body—which had been given to pleasure—was now taken over by Derek.

Derek licked the dripping head of his cock with a flat tongue. “Trust me,” he commanded again, and Rico had no choice. Of
course
he trusted Derek. He knotted his fingers in that careless sand-colored hair and held on.

“Trust. You.” His throat felt raw and tortured. When Derek engulfed his cooling cockhead with a hot mouth, he arched up hard, trusting that Derek knew what he was doing.

Oh
God
,
did Derek know what he was doing. He sucked viciously, squeezing Rico’s shaft with his mouth and thrusting the toy in slow, tantalizing strokes.

Rico’s noises had gone from faint moans to full-out repeated cries.

Derek shoved the dildo in to the hilt while he bottomed Rico’s cock in the back of his throat, and Rico arched his shoulders off the bed and screamed—

But he didn’t come.

His body shook with the effort, and he spurted enough precome to make Derek swallow, but he held on to himself.

“You waiting for something?” Derek asked, teasing Rico’s frenulum with his tongue.

Rico tugged at his head. “You,” he said gruffly.

Derek’s mouth tasted like precome and sweat, and Rico knotted his fingers in his hair and pulled him close, welcoming the warmth of his lean body over Rico’s chilled skin.

Their bodies ground together, and Rico’s ass clenched tightly around the silicone invader. Every beat of his heart drove the ridges more tightly against his muscle ring, and he smoothed Derek’s hair back from his face with shaking hands.

“Me?” Derek asked, smiling impishly. “That’s what you’re waiting for?”

Rico didn’t feign the desperation. “Please?”

Derek’s grin turned sultry, and he grabbed the lubricant from next to Rico and squeezed it on his fingers, then reached behind his back. Rico watched avidly as Derek grimaced at the invasion, and then… then….

His face relaxed in total welcome of his fingers.

Derek shuddered hard and wrapped his slippery fingers around Rico’s cock, squeezing, slicking. And before Rico could whine, could beg some more, Derek positioned Rico at his entrance and slid down, slow, so slow, taking Rico’s cock and riding him, making his own needy sex noises as he sat.

He hit bottom, shuddering, his thighs clenching Rico’s hips, and Rico reached up and stroked his stomach. Derek clasped one of his hands and leaned forward, starting to rock, while Rico moved his hand to fist Derek’s dripping cock.

For a moment they were complete and completely equal. Derek rocked forward and backward, his body tight and hot and around Rico, and Rico kept up his own pump on Derek’s shaft, rubbing his thumb across the slickness of the head.

Ah… God… yes. Now
that he and Derek were one,
now
he could relax, could let go, could let the orgasm ride through his asshole, his taint, that sweet grip on his cock.
Now
he could arch up and lose himself in Derek’s body, could let the pressure in his own body peak and crest and wash through him, tumbling him weightlessly into the surf of come.

Above him Derek tilted his head back and cried out, shuddering, ejaculating messily over Rico’s stomach and across his mouth and cheekbone. As Rico sank down against the mattress, he licked his lips, tasting the clotted salt-tang of it. Derek slumped forward and Rico popped out, both of them running with Rico’s semen, neither of them caring.

It took a few minutes for them to catch up with their breathing, to come back to themselves.

“After,” Rico panted.

“Afterwards?” Derek asked muzzily. “Afterglow? Afterlife?”

“After the game,” Rico said, smiling a little. He kissed Derek’s temple tenderly. “After we take my cousin and his boyfriend to the city and show them a good time. That’s what, three weeks? So then. After I get used to leaving my dog with Adam. After we get back. Ask me again.”

“Ask you what again?” Derek asked, but he didn’t sound muzzy or out of it anymore. He sounded careful.

Rico regarded him soberly. “Ask me when we’re moving in together. I’m pretty sure you’ll get a better answer.”

Derek smiled slowly. “So, after?”

Rico nodded, closing his eyes in the aftermath of sex in spite of his best intentions of staying awake for this conversation. “Yeah,” he said. “After. ’Cause you know I love you, right?”

“Yeah,” Derek whispered, kissing his jaw, by his ear. “And I love you too.”

“Good. Then we should move in together soon. ’Cause that’s how you trust someone when you’re in love.”

He heard Derek’s sleepy chuckle and figured that “after” would be good enough for them both.

A
T
FIRST
Finn was going to try to get Mari to watch the animals, and she was all for it. But at the last minute, her kid got sick, and Derek called on Miguel.

Miguel had lost his business financing at the last moment, and Derek had already filled his position with another intern. At present Derek had him on the payroll as a freelance manager, but he’d actually gone back to work for Darrin at Candy Heaven to make ends meet and to raise money for another attempt.

Derek and Rico were picking Adam up at work for another softball game when Derek saw Miguel and brought it up.

“Babysit your dog?” Miguel said, looking like Derek had just chopped off his finger and Miguel was waiting for the pain.

Derek winced, and Rico smacked him on the arm. He’d never seen Derek make a social misstep before, but when Finn had called them that morning to say they might not be able to leave the next day because Joshie was having a bad reaction to the chicken-pox vaccine and Mari couldn’t leave him, Derek had looked stricken. Rico figured it had something to do with that promise—made three weeks ago on this day—that he’d give Derek a solid answer on the moving-in thing. If anything, he spent more time at Derek’s house than ever—if it wasn’t for the time he took to walk the dog and help Finn and Adam with transportation, he’d say he
was
living at Derek’s house. But there was something about that promise—having all of your possessions in a place, and your name on the bills, and the address on your driver’s license—that made “living together” much more a thing.

“It’s more like Adam’s dog,” Rico said, glaring at Derek.

Derek had the grace to look ashamed. “Sorry. You know, forget it. We can just do this some other weekend or—”

Miguel had been restocking the fudge in the refrigerator case, and suddenly he shook himself like a dog shedding water. “You know what? That’s fine. I mean, it’s a stupid crush, and it’s not like he’s been anything but decent to me.” He looked over his shoulder to where Adam was busy running stock from the loft down the stairs like he was running ammo to the front lines of a bitter and brutal war. Intent on saving the world through sugar supply, Adam almost didn’t look up, and when he did, he paused to wave.

“How’s it hanging, guys? Too bad about Joshie—man, that game would have been nice.” He set down the two boxes in his arms and called, “Katia, if you could fill this stock for me? That’d be great, and you can go eat afterwards.”

The waifish girl with blue hair who had showed up the last time Rico had been there looked at Adam with adoring eyes and nodded, trotting to the boxes with enthusiasm.

Miguel watched the by-play with a pained expression and turned back to Rico and Derek. “See? Finn was in here yesterday getting
so
enthused about the trip to the city, and Adam was like, ‘No, man—don’t get too excited, we don’t have our plans made yet.’ It was… yeah. I’d like to do something nice for the guy. Katia doesn’t talk to anybody but Adam and Darrin, you know? Not even Joni, who’s totally in love with her.” Miguel shrugged resignedly. “It’d be spiteful not to help him out.”

Rico shook his head. “You’re like… like a TV person, do you know that? That’s really nice of you.”

Miguel shrugged again. “Do I need a key or something?”

“Yeah. Can you stop by tomorrow morning? I’ll text you the address.”

As Rico pulled out his phone and started tapping, Adam came down the stairs again, balancing two boxes on his hip.

“Hey, Adam! Miguel says he can watch Clopper while we’re gone—the game’s still on!”

Adam stumbled down the last step. Darrin—who just happened to be walking by—steadied him. “Oh thank God,” Darrin said, taking one of the boxes and walking toward the sour barrels. “He goes to the baseball game, you guys can
finally
get your shit together, and I can start figuring out who this blue-eyed kid with the Star of David is who keeps fucking up my dreams.”

Rico froze right after hitting Send. “You’ve been dreaming about Ezra?” he asked, his entire body still. Next to him, Derek quit breathing.

Darrin’s eyes widened and he shook his head frantically. “No. I absolutely have
not
been dreaming about someone who may or may not put you two yuppies on hold. Nope. Not Ezra, not big blue eyes… just, you two, move the hell in already, you’re messing up my vibe!”

With that Darrin flounced off, leaving the four of them in his wake, three of them staring at Rico.

Surprisingly, Adam spoke up first. “Well, even if he does show up, it’s not like you’d go back to him anyway. What-the-fuck ever.” He turned on his heel and resumed stocking.

“Who’s Ezra?” Miguel asked, puzzled.

Rico shifted uncomfortably. “Uhm, you know. Exes.”

Miguel’s eyes widened and he stared at Derek like Derek might not have heard.

“Yes,” Derek said shortly. “I know about Ezra. And how lovely that Darrin is apparently dreaming about him. Isn’t that nice? I think that’s nice, don’t you think that’s nice?”

“No!” Rico said, appalled. “I think it’s creepy as hell.
I
don’t dream about him. I’d really prefer it if nobody here gave him a second thought!”

Derek regarded him through narrowed eyes. “Yeah?”

“Swear!” Rico held his hand up like he was testifying. “Not a single dream—not since….” He looked at Miguel and smiled gamely. “Uh, come over tomorrow morning, okay?”

Miguel nodded, holding his hands up and backing away. “Deal.”

Rico let out a sigh of relief, grabbed Derek’s biceps through his T-shirt, and hauled him out of the store through the side entrance, which was not assaulted by the full fury of the sun in early evening.

“Adam, we’ll be outside—hurry it up a little!” he called through the open door, although he and Derek had plenty of time to get to the game. He just didn’t want this conversation to last any longer than absolutely necessary.