The One That Got Away (14 page)

Pulling the spoon out of the pot and laying it on a plate to keep the stovetop clean, David followed down the counter, pressing the front of his body against Trace’s back, his fingers curling into the brunet’s hips. “If word gets out you can cook, Jackson, I’ll be beating them away from the door with a stick,” he said, peering over Trace’s shoulder at the fresh bread.

Trace chuckled. “Enjoy it while you’ve got it. I know you: living off takeout Chinese and drive-through crap. Just yet another reason I have to take care of you,” he teased, turning his head so he could kiss David’s cheek.

“At least the Chinese has vegetables,” David defended, sticking out his tongue playfully. His stomach chose that moment to growl. Looking down, he chuckled. “Will it be ready soon? I’m starved.”

“Awww,” Trace sympathized, rubbing the back of his arm against David’s tummy. “Get out some bowls and put the wine on the table. We’ll eat dinner. Then we can talk about dessert.”

David’s body reacted instantly to the potential for double meaning in that statement. A reaction he vigorously quashed, knowing full well Trace wouldn’t be offering him the kind of dessert he was really craving and, if he were, they’d be skipping the dinner part altogether. Lifting the bowls down from the cabinet with his left hand one at a time for fear of breaking them, he set the table and poured more wine, carrying their glasses and the bottle to the table one at a time.

Trace gave the gumbo one more good stir, but he was preoccupied by thinking about the man moving around behind him. Actually, preoccupied with the thought of the “dessert” he’d mentioned. More kisses. More touches. The corners of his mouth tilted up. He was looking forward to it.

EYES riveted on the movie, Trace slid his hand for the popcorn bowl, missing altogether to rub across David’s chest as his fingers hit the outer edge, and he paused, laughed, and started feeling around for the popcorn again. It probably would have been easier if he weren’t half-draped over David, who was holding the bowl at his side away from Trace.

“Quit groping me. I’m trying to watch the movie,” David teased, moving the bowl into easier reach. Truth was, Trace had picked a movie David had seen multiple times, and he was far more interested in watching the emotions crossing Trace’s face than the TV screen.

“How did I miss seeing this?” Trace asked, chuckling as the pirate bemoaned the missing rum. “Have you had this all along and I just missed it?” He dug into the popcorn and ate it out of his palm, laying his head to the side against David’s shoulder.

David tilted his head toward Trace, resting his cheek against the dark hair. “Yeah, I’ve had it since it came out. It’s great for decompression.”

He shifted slightly, stretching his arm along the back of the couch.

“It’s hysterically funny, is what it is,” Trace said, snorting at the pirate’s muttered comment about living with the woman. He shifted further on his hip to lie in the hollow against David’s body, hand snaking up to steal the bowl of popcorn.

“Hey!” David poked Trace in the side.

“Ack!” Trace twitched and tried to cover his side with the bowl. He picked up a popcorn kernel. “Here,” he said, holding it to David’s lips.

“Oh no, I’m not so easily bribed,” David warned. “If it was chocolate maybe….” White kernels flew up into the air as David’s fingers attacked Trace’s sides.

Trace flailed, trying to get away and stop David’s hands, not doing too well at either. “No no no, please! Not with the tickling again! Jesus!”

Trace squirmed, trying to get away from David.

“Please what?” David asked, looming over Trace and pinning the flailing arms at the wrist above Trace’s head.

Trace tilted his head back and offered David a poor-pitiful-me look.

“Please stop tickling me,” he begged. “It makes me crazy. You know that!”

“Hmmm.” David pretended to consider the argument. “What’s it worth to you?” he asked, running his fingers up under Trace’s T-shirt.

“A kiss?” Trace offered freely. As the days had passed since the poker game, a kiss had become more and more commonplace, yet not at all common in Trace’s experience. Each and every one felt special. He wasn’t uncomfortable being so close to David anymore; in fact, he’d 
discovered that David was even better to cuddle with than a woman. He liked being wrapped up in David’s arms, and he could also appreciate what David’s touch did to his body. Every morning he woke up hard and aching, and every morning the idea of rubbing against David until he came sounded better and better. Trace chewed his bottom lip as he looked at David craftily.

David narrowed his eyes suspiciously. He knew that Trace was becoming comfortable with their kisses, but he still wasn’t sure where this was headed. Stopping his fingers’ torment, he leaned back on the arm of the couch, stretching one leg out on the cushions, the other resting on the floor. “I’ll consider it, but you have to kiss me and I’ll be the judge.”

Trace scrambled up on his knees on the cushion, looking over at David. “So the kiss has to be good enough or I get tickled again, huh?” he asked, amusement twinkling in his eyes. He loved this teasing between them. It fed his own natural flirtiness. This was different from their normal hanging out from years past—and better. He scooted closer on his knees toward David.

A smug smile spread over David’s face. “That’s the idea.”

“Hmmph. I’ve been told I am an excellent kisser, I’ll have you know,” Trace retorted playfully, shifting until he was as close as he could get without actually lying on top of the other man.

A sharp tug on the brunet’s belt loops brought him crashing down on top of David. “So prove it.”

Trace caught himself on one hand, but not before their bodies thumped together and his hair tumbled over his shoulder. He hummed in consideration, being challenged, and slowly pressed their lips together. It was a light, caressing motion. Smiling, Trace pressed more firmly, extending his tongue to trace along David’s lower lip before he gently sucked that bottom lip between his own. David’s lips curved as Trace’s 
caressed them, gasping as the kiss grew more aggressive. Angling his chin, he caught and sucked at Trace’s tongue, his legs falling open and arching up as Trace’s body settled against his groin. Trace rubbed close, deepening the kiss into a hot, passionate mesh of lips and tongues. He raised one hand to delve into David’s hair and hold him in place.

One of David’s hands ran over the swell of Trace’s ass and higher, slipping under the soft shirt and kneading the muscles of the broad back.

Trace put all his effort into the kiss, groaning as he felt David’s hands on him and his body’s reaction. It happened faster every time. Sometimes David just had to look at him with that glint in his eyes and Trace’s pulse sped. Dragging his lips away from Trace’s, David buried his face against the brunet’s neck, trying to calm his racing heart. Every time they touched, it got worse, harder to stop. David didn’t want to pressure Trace. He was always excruciatingly aware that this was Trace’s first time trying for a relationship with a man that was more than simple friendship, and he didn’t want to do anything that would damage that friendship. It would be one thing if Trace wasn’t as affected as David was, but he was. David could feel the hard length of the other man’s erection pressing against him.

Unable to stop himself, he arched up against the swollen shaft.

Head tipping back, Trace gasped as he felt David’s thigh slide hard against him—against his now-hard cock—and his eyes rolled back in his head. “Jesus,” he whispered starkly, and he shuddered as he shifted his hips to tentatively push back. “David, oh God….”

David’s stomach flipped, a shiver traveling up his spine, his nipples hardening into tight peaks. How did you resist when the man of your dreams was lying in your arms making delicious needy noises? He gripped the back of Trace’s head with one hand and his hip with the other, holding him close but still. His lips grazing Trace’s ear, he rasped, “If we’re stopping, we need to do it right now. If we don’t, I’m going to make you come. My hands. My mouth. I don’t care….”

Every night for two weeks Trace had gone to sleep thinking about David touching him—gently as they kissed, playfully as they tussled, distractedly as they worked, and passionately, at times like this. The idea was more than firmly set in his mind, and Trace was so turned on because the idea of David’s hands,
David’s mouth
on him made his head spin.

“Please, David,” he asked, lips grazing David’s cheek as he pulled his head up to meet his eyes. Trace wanted the other man to know that he really wanted this. “Don’t stop.”

With a throaty groan, David’s mouth crashed into Trace’s, all gentleness gone from his kiss. This was claiming, possession, passion in its most elemental form. David’s hips ground up again, his legs spreading wider, cradling Trace against the intimate juncture of his body. Trace felt swept under with David’s kiss, swept off his feet, swept along with the wild current. He didn’t want anything different. He gave as good as he got, arms curling around David best he could as he moved against David’s hips. The hard muscle of his thighs and the hard cock covered by denim were equally enflaming. David was as turned on as he was. Trace gasped against David’s mouth and for the first time pushed himself hard against David to get more stimulation, choking out a soft cry as pleasure burned through him. Dear God. They were making out on the fucking couch, and he was about to go up in flames.

Thoughts of flipping Trace beneath him, sitting him up and slipping to the floor between his knees danced on the periphery of David’s consciousness, but he couldn’t make himself stop the wild rush of erotic need that was building between them. His body undulated under Trace’s, a perfect counterpoint to the other man’s thrusts, their rock-hard shafts rubbing along each other with every pass. The thoughts of feeling the warm, velvet heat of Trace’s cock in his hand or the taste of his come on the back of his tongue only fueled the fire burning in his balls.

Moaning softly, Trace felt everything in him start to tighten so quickly that he was amazed; he had so much more control than this. But that all went out the window with David. Trace rocked harder, a soft whimper escaping as he bit down hard on his bottom lip. Almost. He was going to get off by rutting against his best friend. The thought struck through him like a shot of lightning, and suddenly he was that much closer to coming. “David,” he whispered helplessly, pleading.

David’s hand closed over the flexing muscles of Trace’s ass, grinding them together forcibly, but it still wasn’t enough. He wanted closer, harder, more! He could feel Trace trembling in his arms. “God,” he ground out next to Trace’s ear, panting. “So fuckin’ close. Just touching you. Want to make you come, want to feel you come against me.”

The words combined with David’s hands on him pushed Trace to the very edge. He thrust against David harder than before, his pelvis rubbing constantly over David’s length, each measure of its length and breadth drawing a gasp out of him. Trace released a low, tortured cry as he lost himself to it, just moving mindlessly, caught on the cusp of orgasm. He was shaking with it.

Writhing under Trace, David wanted to come, needed to come. His balls ached with it. “God! Oh, fuck…. Trace! Make me come. Make me come, baby,” he babbled. “Harder…. God, like that. Fuck me!”

The pleading in David’s voice broke any last reservations in Trace, and he shoved against David’s groin, once and again and again. His breaths were harsh as his hands clenched hard, and then he froze in place for bare seconds before throwing his head back and crying out as he jerked against David unevenly, shuddering into orgasm. “David! Oh fuck, David!”

The tenor of Trace’s voice reverberated straight to David’s cock. He groaned, thrusting up and feeling Trace’s cock jerk and release even 
through two layers of denim. “Trace!” he cried, biting the brunet’s neck as his hips bowed off the cushions into the heavy weight of Trace’s body.

David’s climax rushed from his body, stealing his ability to breathe.

The room was spinning, the edges of his vision going gray when he finally managed to inhale a gasping gulp of oxygen. “Fuck, that was intense.

Having you actually fuck me might be deadly,” David murmured sleepily.

Every ounce of energy had left his body with his orgasm, and he was hanging in a state of suspended, sated, bliss.

Beyond caring about lying against David in wet, sticky jeans, Trace half-moaned, half-laughed, and turned his flushing face against David’s chest. “I think I need to recover first,” he murmured. “I’m stayin’ right here,” he added drowsily.

“We could do that,” David drawled, “but a shower and our clean bed would feel really good. I’d even promise to make sure you get nice and clean.”

Trace chuckled. “Sounds like an excuse to get your hands on my naked ass.” The smile on his face was clear. “But I suppose,” he drew out,

“that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.” Trace crossed his hands on David’s chest and set his chin down on them, meeting David’s eyes evenly. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “I didn’t expect it to be so good,” he admitted. He lifted his fingers and lightly traced along David’s mouth. “I should have. You take care of me.”

David brushed the compliment away, not quite comfortable with the intensity of what he was feeling. “I think you’ve got that backward.

You’re the one that’s been playing valet and chief cook and bottle washer.” His eyes skittered toward the TV just in time to catch the protagonists gazing at each other during a quiet moment. David had given up on finding happily ever after a long time ago, but Trace had him wishing again. That could be dangerous.

The change in David’s tone nagged at Trace, and he shifted uncomfortably. If it were a woman saying those words, he’d think she was either embarrassed or regretful. He hoped that wasn’t the case. He’d gotten swept up in the moment, for sure, but he didn’t regret it. He would only regret it if it caused a rift between them. “Okay,” he said softly, pushing himself up and scooting back, away from David, watching him carefully.