Landon's Desire (Book Three of The Pulse Series 3) (6 page)

“I’m on it.” He threw a hand towel over the beer tap and ran out of the room.

“Your water,” Landon loosened the cap and handed it to her. “Mik, leave him be. I want him to come to me when he’s ready. No pressure, no guilt, one hundred percent on his terms.”

“Fine,” Mikala held her hands up in surrender, “Carl’s off limits I got it.”

***

“Will I hit send?” Carl asked, once all the boxes on the order form were ticked.

“Go for it, then I want to talk while I have you alone,” Mikala said.

Minutes later, Carl handed her a printed copy of the order conformation. Sitting across from her, he studied Mikala’s face, waiting patiently while she filed the order away.

“So, we’re alone, what’s on your mind, honey?”

“I’m not going to mention names, that way you won’t get pissy and I can safely say his name never crossed my lips.”

“I don’t like the way this is playing out, I’m going to come out of this looking like an asshole I know it.”

“Too bad,” she said. “You don’t need to say a word, just listen.”

Carl placed an elbow on the desk, resting his chin in his palm pretending to show interest.

“I think a friend of ours is having issues dealing with something of a personal nature that happened the night of a certain dinner party, when I made arrangements for him to be an escort,”

“If this has to do with Landon, I’m not interested.”

“No names, remember?” Mikala warned, before continuing. “Something happened that night, I’m not sure exactly what but it’s really bothering
our friend.
Whatever happened, it really affected him.”

Carl knew immediately what she was getting at. He remembered Landon’s short tempered mood that night. The only mystery was what happened on Landon’s date, and what it had to do with the kiss he and Carl shared. Landon had definitely done a one eighty, he hadn’t been flirting or teasing in any way and Carl was missing the overt attention.

“And, why are you telling me this?”

“Carl, I need you to be totally honest with me,” Mikala came around the desk and sat in the chair next to him. “Can you be completely honest, I swear to God I won’t tell another living soul?”

“Not you too,” Carl sighed.

“Is there the slightest possibility, even the tiniest sliver of a chance, that you might have feelings for men?” Mikala reached out and squeezed his hand. “Because if there’s the remotest chance, you need to stop lying to yourself, fuck everyone else, who cares what they think? But stop lying to
yourself
.”

“Mikala, I don’t wish to get into this with you,” Carl said, rising from his seat. “My sexual orientation is nobody’s business but my own, is that clear enough for you?”

“I’m not trying to be nosy, Carl.” Mikala stood at his side. “I’m concerned. I think Landon needs you more than he’s saying and you need him too.”

“In all the years I’ve known you, have we ever discussed my personal life?”

“No, not really.”

“That’s right,” Carl straightened the knot of his tie, tucking the length into his pinstripe vest. “You know why?”

Mikala shrugged her shoulders and swallowed uncomfortably.

“Because it’s none of your fucking business, that’s why,” Carl opened the office door, turning as if he were about to apologize. “If there’s nothing else, I have a job to do.”

Mikala stood with her jaw gaped open as Carl walked out, pulling the door closed behind him.

Carl couldn’t help noticing Landon at the end of the bar with a newspaper and a coffee. He was propped on his elbows engrossed in something he was reading. Normally, as if Landon’s radar kicked in when Carl entered a room, he would turn in Carl’s direction and give him a wink or smile even, but his head stayed down as Carl moved closer.

Carl was feeling a pang of something he couldn’t identify, a stirring in his belly he hadn’t noticed before now. It felt almost like butterflies, he shook the thought from his head and busied himself with work.

It seemed that every move Landon made, Carl was well aware of it. There was a magnetic energy, an alluring pull exuding from Landon that kept Carl gazing in his direction. This fixation was almost hypnotic. The next thing Carl knew, he was standing before Landon, just standing there staring. Landon looked up through his lashes and waited.

Landon folded his newspaper and moved it to the side, “Carl?”

Carl blinked a few times stirring from his thoughts, “Yes?”

His brow knotted, tipping his head Landon asked, “Are you okay? You’re acting strange.”

Jumping back to reality Carl scowled, taking a step closer. “I have no idea what it is with you fucking people but if you don’t butt out of my private life I’m going to…well I don’t know exactly what I’ll do…this is so fucked.”

“Take it easy, Babes.” Landon said, smiling.

Carl shook his head, an exasperating glare in his eyes. “Quit screwing with my head, Ace. I can’t take much more. This sudden interest from everyone is pissing me off, I don’t know where it came from or why I’m the center of everybody’s attention, but you all need to fuck off and leave me alone.”

“Don’t know who pissed in your cornflakes this morning, but Carl my man, you need to get a grip.” Landon stood, placing his hands on the bars edge and leaning forward. “I’m not fucking with you. Man up and quit denying who you really are, then maybe your friends will stop asking.”

“I’m not.” Carl started to spew out the same tired old words Landon was sick of hearing, he grasped his tie, yanking him forward. Carl stopped, his eyes widened.

“Holy shit Carl, even you have to be getting tired of hearing the same old shit coming out of your mouth. What are you so afraid of? What is it that scares you so much?”

“I’m not scared,” Carl huffed.

“You, Babes, are scared shitless.” Landon released his hold, smoothing Carl’s tie back into place. “I’m not going to push but I’m here when you want to talk, there’s no one that will understand what you’re going through better than me. I’m a floor away when you need me.”

The anger that had Carl wound up like a three day alarm clock started to subside, the color was leaving his face and calm seemed to settle into his chest. He took a deep breath and stepped back. He didn’t say another word, maintaining eye contact until Landon turned and walked away.

This thing, this feeling of need and want, whatever it was, had to be dealt with. He
was
in denial, had been for more years than he could remember and it all seemed to be caving in around him.

Best friends since grade one, Tyler and Carl were inseparable. The last year of high school was when Carl noticed Tyler in an entirely new light. He noticed the way Tyler’s body was changing, the muscles that formed his rippled abs, the defined V of his oblique’s and the light dusting of hair that trailed into the waist of his jeans. Like any other seventeen year old, Carl walked around in a constant state of arousal, only it wasn’t the girls causing it, it was Tyler.

He kept his secret to himself as long as he could, using Sandy, their mutual friend, as the excuse for the boner Tyler would catch him sporting. Tyler nicknamed him Horn Dawg, he’d laugh but only because Tyler had no clue.

One drunken night, the way it seemed to always play out in the movies, Carl found himself alone with Tyler laying under the stars in the middle of a wheat field. The conversation turned to sex, as it usually did with the pair, but this conversation turned serious fast, as Carl rolled on top of Tyler and pressed his lips gently against Tyler’s.

He waited for Tyler to punch him out, but instead Tyler wrapped his arms around Carl’s neck and pressed his tongue into his mouth. To Carl’s amazement Tyler’s hands roved over his body, the feel of his hand against his erection had Carl gasping for air. Rolling around in the carpet of wheat, they undressed each other, clumsy and awkward. A new experience for them both, they groped and pulled, rubbing against each other causing delicious friction until they were sweaty and breathless. Hands clamped onto each other’s cocks they stared not knowing what to do next.

“Go down on me,” Tyler begged. “I’ll go down on you.”

Carl nodded and they moved into sixty nine positon on their sides. Tyler’s dick sat in his face, the musky male scent of him causing Carl’s heart to race faster than it already was, threatening to explode in his chest. He licked a circle of saliva over his lips and touched them to the tip of Tyler’s cock. A sudden rush tingled up Carl’s spine as he opened wide and slid down Tyler’s shaft. The taste was like nothing he imagined, strong and salty, but not as repellent as girls had told him. In fact it wasn’t half bad.

Carl let out a moan that would have wakened the dead, when Tyler’s hot wet tongue glided up his length and then Tyler sucked him in deep. Heaven couldn’t describe the way it felt to be buried to the hilt inside Tyler’s mouth. All Carl could think of as his mind fell into a euphoric haze, was if he died now he’d die happy.

The familiar sensation of his impending orgasm growing closer, caused Carl to jerk back but Tyler had other ideas as he clamped his hand to Carl’s ass and held him in place, sucking harder and faster until Carl shot his load into the back of Tyler’s throat and he felt him swallow. Tit for tat as it was, Carl felt Tyler’s dick thicken, a sure sign he was about to follow suit, a strike of panic in Carl’s gut and Tyler let go, filling Carl’s mouth with his hot seed. At first he didn’t know what to do, he took a deep breath and swallowed as a second load squirted from Tyler.

When Carl woke just as the sun was rising, he found himself alone and naked. He quickly dressed, got on his bike and road home, all the while thinking of excuses for his parents, for not coming home last night.

A police car was parked in the driveway. Carl couldn’t believe his mom had called the cops. He skidded to a stop, abandoning his bike on the pathway and ran in the door.

Just as he opened his mouth to explain himself, he saw his mother’s face, it was tear stained and she wiped away more as they seeped from her sad eyes.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” he asked, panic grasping hold, he knew it was far more serious than being late.

His father put his arm over his shoulder. “There’s been a terrible accident son.”

“Okay,” Carl said, looking from his parents to two police officers sitting on the sofa. Confused but not wanting to know anything more, with a sickening feeling like a lead weight sitting in his belly, he shook free from his father and started for the stairs to his room.

“Tyler Cooke was found dead at the side of Sunnyvale road.”

He heard the words but refused to believe his best friend was dead. When the police questioned the events of the night, he chose not to lie it wouldn’t do any good. His mom had always told him never to lie then he’d not have to remember what he said.

Carl would never forget the look on his father’s face when he awkwardly told the police what they had been doing in a field after midnight. Drinking under age was bad enough, having oral sex with another guy was devastating. It was the moment he saw his father visibly cringe as he revealed the facts that hurt most.

Dealing with Tyler’s death and confessing the unthinkable, he sat shaking with sweaty palms and beads of sweat running down the back of his neck. What should have been a wonderful experience had turned into the worst day of Carl’s life.

“No son of mine is a queer!” his father roared, and one of the officers had to hold him back. “He’s lying, tell them it’s a lie, Carlton…tell them this is some kind of a joke. I don’t have a gay son.”

Those were the last words his father ever said to him, from that day on his mother played the go between. If it had to be said, his father’s words came from his mother’s mouth.

The decision to go away to school was the only right move. With his mother’s support, he packed up his belongings into his Datsun shit box and never darkened the doorstep again.

There were countless nights spent with strange women in a crusade to prove his inner demons wrong. A variety of women as expansive as the State of Texas, his demons raged on. Never fully satisfied sexually, his thirst never quenched while a storm of need clawed at him, he finally surrendered and gave up the quest, locking the beast away. He became that born again virgin he heard tell about.

With a brand new business degree under his belt, a list of rejection letters a mile long and a few meager dollars to his name, Carl came across
Pulse
and a bartender wanted sign on the door.  Mikala had just taken sole proprietorship of
Pulse
and had big plans for the place when Carl asked for the job. They hit it off immediately and ten years later, business degree forgotten, Carl stood polishing glasses behind the bar.

His eyes locked on Landon as he came back into the bar with two cases of clean glasses from the kitchen. Senses on high alert, he watched Landon intently. The muscles in his back swelled through the material of his snug t-shirt as he carefully emptied glasses into the allotted slots out of the public eye.

“Fuck,” Landon called out, as a glass fell to the floor shattering into a million pieces. He got on his knees and started picking up pieces of glass and placing them onto a bar towel.

Carl grabbed the hand brush and dust pan, got down on his knees and helped Landon clean the mess.

“Thanks,” Landon said, without looking up.

“Don’t mention it, I like a clean area to work, you’ll never get it all cleaned up that way.”

Mikala glanced over the bar and cleared her throat, startling them both. “I need your help boys. I have an important job for you.”

“Sure thing, Mik,” Carl was quick to answer.

“A client needs two body guards to watch over a bachelorette party, he wants good looking escort types. I’m picking you two because there’s no risk of things getting out of hand and I have no one else.” She was quick to explain. “You’ll take them to the strip club, you escort them home at the end of the night.”