Taking In Strays (2 page)

“You can pet it, if you want to,” Donny giggled as he made a small thrust with his hips at the man. He laughed outright when Parker half carried him into a bedroom and then tossed him face first onto a bed. Donny bounced and lay prone.

“Be gentle,” Donny said seriously, but then giggled yet again. “Okay, don’t be, that’s okay, too.”

The bed was a queen size, the carpet tan, the walls white, and the side table a cheap, plain thing from a discount store. Turning his head sideways to breathe, Donny blinked at the one bit of color; a three foot square painting of red flowers. It was a very nice painting.

“Let me guess,” Donny surmised, his mouth unfiltered by his intoxicated brain. “Your lover picked that out?”

“My
Ex
, actually. Go to sleep,” Parker growled, his deep voice feeling as if it were massaging Donny from the top of his head to his toes deliciously.

“Tell me your first name and I will,” Donny bargained petulantly.

After a short pause, Parker replied, “Peter.”

Donny laughed outright. “Peter Parker? Like that spider dude in the comic books?”

“No,” Parker replied, irritably, as if he had heard that joke one too many times before. “Like, as in my name.”

“Peter,” Donny said the name with a small, sleepy nod. “I can get used to that.”

“You’re leaving in a few hours, remember?” Peter reminded him as he tossed a spare blanket on top of Donny.

“Oh, yeah,” Donny replied airily, as he drifted off to sleep. “Guess I am.” Secretly, though, he was beginning to have other plans.

Waking up to morning sunlight coming through a window told Donny two things, that he had slept through the night and that his headache was just as spectacularly bad as he suspected  it would be. All instincts told him to put a pillow over his head and to ignore that he was alive for a few more hours.

Peter Parker had other ideas. As Donny groaned and tried to shift the pillow, his hands encountered clothing folded neatly. Not so neatly now that he was tugging them toward him. He smelled, not Parker’s manly scent, but the scent of a nice fabric softener. The man was lending him clothes. The man wanted him to leave. Seeing his naked, wet body, the night before, hadn’t enticed the man to let Donny stay longer.

Donny’s mind replayed last night for him in lurid detail He had been a stinking, drunken whore. No, a stinking, drunken,
slut
, he amended. He hadn’t taken a dime for that total lack of judgment behind the bar. He wondered if that made it worse. Getting some fast cash might have been almost excusable rather than the fact that he had wanted to get his ass banged by a complete creep. He couldn’t even remember using a condom.

Stupid! Donny groaned to himself and then realized that he had groaned out loud when Peter’s deep voice came from the vicinity of the doorway.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah… Well, no, actually,” Donny amended and didn’t have to do much to sound sick, in pain, and totally pathetic. “I’ll get out of your hair, anyway. I promised.”

Donny hoped that Officer Parker would take pity on him, because he wasn’t sure how he was going to accomplish that feat. He was already pulling the clothes and his pillow over his head and burrowing into the soft mattress. Even the sound of his own voice was making his head want to explode.

“Take a few more hours,” Peter mercifully relented.

“I’ll be sure to call the Pope and have you deified, as soon as I wake up again,” Donny promised, mumbling the words into his pillow.

“What?” Peter asked in concern, not having understood a word of it.

“Thanks,” Donny said, louder, and then winced and groaned again as the sound made his head throb.

Peter, definitely in line for sainthood, didn’t ask anymore questions.

It was good just to lay in the dark under the pillow and clothing and try to survive the hangover. Unfortunately, Donny’s thoughts weren’t going to give him or his pain any consideration.

Was Peter gay? If so, was he, Donny, interested? Of course he was. The man was a living statue of perfection with a bulge in his pants that promised that opening that package wasn’t going to be an unpleasant surprise. But… well, there didn’t have to be any
but
. Those had always been good enough reasons before. A shake of his butt, a slide of a hand down the front of his jeans, and Donny had always been able reel men in, right and left, to satisfy his cravings without regrets or any deeper thoughts about wanting more than that.

So why was he lying there, feeling like trash for last night’s mistake, and wondering if making any move on the Perfect Cop would be a good idea?

Because, he realized, it wasn’t simply a need to hook up and get his rocks off. He could try to lie to himself, but the truth was obvious even to him. Last night had been all about running away, about not facing the words that his father had shouted at him in anger, disappointment, and disgust. He didn’t want to face the fact that his father had rejected him utterly and had meant it, when he had said that he never wanted to see Donny again. Trying to hook up with Peter Parker was just more of the same; avoiding the future and what he was going to do next.

It was more pleasant to think about hot police officers and maybe getting past that man’s zipper, than thinking about where he was going to live now and how the pampered only son of the mayor was going to make a living.

Was Peter gay, though? Donny was almost sure that he was. Something in his look, his voice, or his protectiveness when Donny had lied about being afraid of his father, had triggered a sixth sense. The man might be a police officer and sworn to protect, but he could have dumped Donny’s ass at the precinct headquarters and satisfied that requirement. Even his partner had insinuated that Peter might be the type to consider taking drunken young men home with him.

How often he might have considered it, but had followed through with it, was the next question. It might be nice to teach a man a few new tricks, but Donny much preferred someone who knew their way around another man’s erogenous zones. Peter didn’t seem the type to bang guys behind bars, but Donny could see him taking men to dinner and having one-nighters easily enough. A guy that good looking, probably had a lot of men panting after him.

An image of men surrounding Peter, offering him their asses, gave Donny an instant hard on. He reached underneath himself to free his cock from the fold of a blanket and stroke it.

“Coffee?”

Donny started, pulling his hand away in embarrassment. He opened light sensitive eyes and peered out from under clothing and pillow to see Peter staring down at him with a mug of steaming coffee in one hand.

“I thought you were going to give me a few hours more?” Donny whispered.

“I did,” Peter replied, keeping his voice low.

Time, it seemed, had skipped merrily by while Donny had been thinking lust filled thoughts.

“You should drink something,” Peter insisted.

Donny considered the possibility of getting his body upright enough to drink coffee and was surprised when he felt only a dull throbbing headache and an aching body that was agreeable to getting something besides booze into it.

“Sounds good,” Donny grunted and very slowly pried his body out from under clothes, pillow, and blanket.

Sunlight stabbed at Donny’s eyes, and his stomach contemplated turning inside out, but he was man enough to blink rapidly, deny a vomit reflex, and continue sitting up. He took the coffee cup in two shaking hands and slowly managed to get it to his lips without dumping the contents into his lap.

Peter was watching him. When Donny raised eyebrows, the man motioned to his own face in several spots. “You hit the concrete pretty hard. You have some bruises and scrapes. Are you sure don’t want to go to the clinic and get checked out?”

“I’ll live,” Donny replied between sips, implying that he had suffered worse, when the truth was that he hadn’t. A pampered son of the city mayor didn’t get knocked around by anyone or anything. Last night had been his fault. Last night, he had rather enjoyed forgetting who he was right up until his body had decided to kiss the pavement. It was a bit unsettling to realize that being a sleaze had been all right after getting staggering drunk. It made Donny wonder if the drink had revealed something dark in his psyche, a self hatred that believed every filthy word that his father had called him.

The coffee was expensive and good. It was perfect for washing out the foul taste in his mouth, settling his stomach, and making him feel almost human again. Peter tucked big hands into jean pockets and kept watching, silently. Handsome, calming, patient, and friendly, Donny thought, the man was unreal.

“Are you gay?” Donny asked point blank, his mind still incapable of any verbal foreplay.

Peter straightened from his relaxed stance, but his hands didn’t leave his pockets. “Yes,” he replied easily enough, but something moved behind his eyes that hinted at shadowy thoughts; maybe fears and bad memories. “I’m not going to try anything, though,” he continued. “I brought you here to sober up, nothing more.”

Donny lowered his coffee cup and sighed. “That’s disappointing, actually.”

Peter blinked, taken off guard, and then looked uncomfortable. “Look,” he began, one hand coming out of his pocket and smoothing over his crew cut, but Donny stopped him. He could guess the rest. His welcome was over.

“If I can take another shower and have another cup of coffee, I’ll be good to go.”

“Well, I don’t want to rush you, but I have a night shift,” Peter told him. It sounded practiced. Donny could imagine him trying it out repeatedly, along with some other phrases, to find something that was forceful, but not too rude. He supposed that, ‘
Get the hell out of my home, you stinking slut!’
was not
something that Peter would say. He was far too nice. Again, Donny wondered why there wasn’t a man hanging onto that tower of perfection that was Peter Parker and fending off all comers. Maybe there was a flaw that he wasn’t seeing?

Donny found himself staring at Parker, trying to imagine the man drowning kittens, evicting little old ladies from their lifelong homes, or drop kicking someone in a spate of domestic violence. The image refused to come. Those big blue eyes, coupled with a soft, kind expression couldn’t possibly hide a serial… well, anything that didn’t include the word
love.

Peter seemed to think that the stare was his cue to leave. He made a small clearing of the throat noise, took Donny’s now empty mug, and headed, presumably to where a kitchen was located to get more.

“Good going,” Donny grumbled to himself, derisively. He might have managed something clever, maybe even sexy, after that next cup of coffee. Instead, only half way caffeinated and still struggling with the lingering effects of his hangover, he was reduced to staring contests.

Looking dubiously at his donated clothing, Donny found them surprisingly close to his own size. The thought of the rather bland button down shirt and khaki shorts being the property of some faceless ex of Peter’s, gave Donny a sudden jolt of jealousy and envy. This person had been in Peter’s very personal space, a place that Donny was most likely, by his own actions, never going to enter. If Peter wasn’t disgusted with him at this point, Donny would have to start questioning his tastes.

Balling the clothing up under his arm, and awkwardly rolling out of bed, Donny was steadier than he imagined he would be. Things ached and stung, from passing out on concrete, and the slutty fuck behind the bar, but youthful resilience was helping him recover quickly. As his dad used to say, ‘
if you’re going to be stupid, you had better be toug.’.

Donny didn’t want to think about his father, just then
.
He wanted to think about Peter and his hope that the man would decide to join him in the shower. Odds of that actually happening were nil, of course, but fantasizing that it might, kept him from thinking about the fact that he might not have any place to go, once he left Peter’s apartment. He didn’t have a job, a bank account, or a vehicle in his name. His father had ejected him out of his home, figuratively speaking, naked and crying, and there was no going back.

In the bathroom, Donny put the clothes on the sink edge, stepped into the shower, and turned the water on very hot. He ducked his head underneath, leaning on both hands against the tile, and tried not to choke on tears again. He was a man, damn it! There was nothing to cry about. He knew that it was time he was out on his own. He should be able to stand on his own two feet and do something with his life other than being the Mayor’s son.

“Almost done? I have your coffee,” Peter called through the door.

Donny jumped a little at the unexpected sound, but then felt an irrational anger, as if it was Peter’s fault for not joining him in the shower and distracting him with hot sex. Blaming a man for not getting into a sex fantasy was wrong on so many levels. Maybe his father was right, Donny thought, and he was having mental problems?

“Almost done,” Donny replied as he began soaping up and washing off places he’d missed during his drunken shower the night before.

“No hurry,” Peter assured him. “I can always heat it back up.”

Donny gave his aching head a small
thunk!
against the wet tile. A really nice guy, Donny thought again. Why couldn’t he have met this guy at the Mayor’s mansion while the man was on security detail? Why today and not last week? Why after a drunken, slutty binge and not dressed to the nine’s and drinking champagne at a party?

Would he have noticed Peter, if Peter had been given his promotion and joined the Mayor’s security detail? As Donny turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, he had to wonder. Security had been a faceless shadow, always on his heels. A bigger than usual shadow might not have raised one of Donny’s eyebrows. How the mighty have fallen, he thought irritably. Now he was the one that needed to be noticed.

The spare clothes were snug across the shoulders and in the crotch. Donny tugged at his inseam and adjusted himself with a grimace, as he marveled that the owner of the clothes had been even slighter than himself. After stuffing wallet and cell phone into too tight pockets, he raked fingers through his wet hair and stared at his bruises and scrapes in the mirror. He looked like a sickly feral cat brought in out of the rain, hollow eyed and unappealing.