Night Swimming #4
“So sweet,” Eric said. “Yes, they survived. They were about to go out there, guns blazing, to take out a lone policeman crouching behind his SUV. We didn’t want to kill them—we simply wanted to stop them from hurting you.”
Brady swallowed, aware this was the first real admission he’d had that his friends—yes, friends—had done highly illegal things to keep him alive.
“Thanks,” he whispered.
Eric kissed his temple. “Don’t mention it. Come on. Let’s eat. Talk about other things. Pretend we’re just two men having a nice evening.”
Brady gazed into his blue, blue eyes, and found they weren’t ice blue right now. They were the jewel blue from the pool. “Okay,” he conceded. “Not hard to do.”
Eric gave him a pleased smile. “Was that a compliment?”
Brady shrugged. “I’m not great at them, but sure.”
And that brought a laugh. “Excellent. Come. Sit. I don’t know Jason that well, but I find that either he or his boyfriend has excellent taste in patio furniture.”
Brady found himself in a comfortably padded chair drawn up to a wooden table.
The dining and lounging area was mostly under a lattice, probably meant to keep the furniture—and the people—out of the scorching sun in the summer.
He saw misters and ceiling fans attached to the lattice and realized this place could be quite comfortable most days.
And that the smells coming from the boxes were amazing and he hadn’t eaten since strawberry donuts that morning.
Dinner passed in a haze. The Thai food was delicious, and Eric’s company was…
charming. He talked about his kittens. And trips to Provincetown, where apparently men with six-packs and speedos skated through a nice boy’s dreams. He talked about whale watching and the worst snowstorm he’d ever seen—one winter in Minnesota (God rot it), where he was determined to never visit again.
“The people were sweet,” he said ruminatively. “And so much more progressive and delightful than they will ever be given credit for in the media. But I was snowed in for a month, and if I never see another can of Campbell’s soup again, I will live a happy life.”
Brady laughed like he was supposed to and asked what seemed to be a reasonable follow-up question. “What were you doing there in the first place?”
The night was already on the cusp of too cold, and suddenly Brady shivered. Eric’s eyes had shuttered, that natural charm and warmth cut off, and he was left in the chill of the desert.
That, more than anything, drove Brady home to the fact that he had stepped off his normal life a week ago and only now recognized uncharted territory.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped. “Dumb question. I shouldn’t have asked.”
And the next expression that passed over Eric-should-have-been-Charlie’s features was… sorrow.
“It should be okay to ask,” he said with a very European shrug. “Most of my lovers don’t have to ask. But you….” His mouth quirked up, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “You’re a very good boy, you know. Not simply ‘a deputy’ or ‘a policeman,’ but a nice man. I’ve never been with a nice man before.”
“Not even as a kid?” Brady asked. “I mean, my first boy wasn’t gonna be forever, but he wasn’t a Nazi oligarch either!”
Eric sputtered, that moment of tension gone. “Well, thank God for that,” he said, and his natural, wicked grin was… oomph. Right in the solar plexus. “But no….” His expression went sad again, not distant. “I’m not a nice man,” he said ruminatively. “But I would really love to take you to bed.”
Brady should have argued. He should have said, “I don’t really do one-night stands,” or “I like you too, but I don’t see how this could have a happy ending.
” But that little shiver of awareness, of liking that had beset him from their conversation watching the sunset, had evolved into full-grown want, an enormous, needy ache in his stomach that he couldn’t ignore.
And even if he could have ignored it, where was he? Who was he? He’d wanted to be a cop so badly—it was who he was, who his father was, even, God rot him, who his uncle was—and now? Now that identity wanted to kill him.
This entire day he’d been crouched behind his cop shop, screaming for backup that wasn’t coming—until he’d gazed into Eric-not-his-name’s not-so-icy blue eyes.
Why would he ignore the one thing that seemed to make sense to him in a chaotic and uncertain universe?
“I’m probably as bad in bed as I am in law enforcement,” Brady joked weakly, his voice cracking.
Eric’s hand on his as it rested on the table made his breath catch.
“You’ve had a really shitty day,” he said softly. “It doesn’t have to be forever. You don’t even have to look at me in the morning. But for tonight this could be the thing to save your life.”
Brady gazed into those eyes, by rights arctic blue, but now warmer, the tight, close blue of a glorious autumn day. “I wouldn’t be ashamed of sleeping with a kind man,” he said. “It’s not nice to turn away from the person offering you a lifeline when you’re drowning.”
“Let me clean up,” Eric told him, pulling the back of Brady’s hand to his mouth and kissing it so gently Brady wanted to cry. “It’s nice of everybody to offer you a place to sleep, but I would prefer you in my bed, no matter how temporarily. Finish up, and we’ll leave.”
THEY LEFT the pool lights on, which made the entire moment seem ephemeral, more like a stolen heartbeat in a fairy grotto than any real time.
Brady allowed himself to be towed across the street, his eyes focused on the stars peering down intrusively from the void above.
“What do you see there?” Eric asked, turning to pull Brady into his arms.
“Judgment,” Brady said, feeling despair edge in.
“Fuck ’em,” Eric said, and suddenly the stars were gone because Eric blocked them out, and all Brady could see was his face in the moonlight.
He was so beautiful.
Brady closed his eyes and met his mouth, the heat welcome, the seduction unnecessary. Eric’s smooth hands framed his face, and Brady allowed himself to be guided, placed, pillaged.
The groan came from Brady’s soul, and he lifted his own hands, no longer passive, to hold Eric’s face in turn.
The sound that came from the other man’s lips was almost as desperate as Brady’s had been, and a tiny piece of Brady’s mind engaged on how Eric had been almost as lonely as Brady before this moment.
Brady found that connection, followed it as the kiss gained momentum, exploded, pulled them both into that secret cave of loneliness and lit it with their need.
Brady barely noted being hauled into the camper and shooed down the narrow hallway. He did remember to ask about the kittens, to which Eric replied, “They’re at Ernie’s. He’ll watch them.”
And that was all Brady needed. He undressed in the bathroom, careful of his knees and elbows in the cramped space, and left his wet clothes hanging on the efficiency-sized shower.
The bedroom was just steps away, and Eric met him there, his skin cool and his warmth radiating, and Brady fell into him greedily, palming that smooth skin, welcoming the heat between them as it blossomed until his skin burned for Eric’s next touch.
Brady balked a bit as Eric bent him over the surprisingly soft bed, and he turned in his arms, scooting until his ass was completely on the sheets, his legs spread.
Eric knelt between his knees and moved up to kiss him some more, smoothing his hair back from his temples tenderly. “I wanted,” he said between feathering his lips along Brady’s cheekbones, “to give you plausible deniability.”
Brady swallowed at that, reality temporarily intruding. Who was this man? Where did he come from? But in the end it didn’t matter. Today he’d saved Brady’s life, for whatever reason. Tonight, when Brady had thought he was as lonely as a star, this man had warmed him like the desert sun.
“What kind of coward would I be,” Brady asked, “if I didn’t look a kind man in the face when he was making love to me?”
A special sort of pain crossed over Eric’s fine patrician features. “And that,” he murmured, “is why it’s making love.”
He took Brady’s mouth again and then moved down his body, taking time at his pleasure points: his neck, his nipples, his hipbones, his….
Ah, God! His mouth, hot and merciless and tender and brutal, worked Brady’s cock with abandon, and Brady, already in that world, propped his feet against the mattress, cupped Eric’s skull through his short hair, and thrust without shame, without propriety, crying out in arousal because his body demanded his sounds.
Eric’s tentative finger, already slicked, played with his entrance, and Brady actually whimpered.
“Hurts?” Eric asked, glancing up Brady’s body, and Brady shook his head.
“Needs,” he admitted, which was not something he’d ever said to a lover. Wanted, yes. Responded to, well, yes.
But voiced a need?
No. Because this, being in bed with a man, was already such a miracle Brady had been willing to take whatever his partner would give.
But he lived in a world without rules now, without shame, and he shamelessly craved what Eric was offering.
Eric understood, chuckling as he thrust not one, but two slick fingers into Brady’s channel, and Brady cried out, his voice guttural, his body pushing down to allow them entrance.
“Oh God,” he groaned, “please. Please, yes.”
Eric swallowed his cock while he thrust his fingers inside, and Brady cried out again, his fingers knotting in Eric’s hair until Brady let go to beat the mattress, almost sobbing with want.
“Are you going to say it?” Eric teased, his breath soft on Brady’s cock. “Or is it easier to simply take you, fuck you into the mattress, let you be quietly grateful.”
Well, that’s how Brady had done it in the past, but not this time. Not in this new, exciting place without rules, without restraint.
“Please fuck me,” he begged, the freedom of it shivering through his blood. “Please shove your cock in my ass and take me.”
“Hallelujah….” Eric pushed up onto the bed fully, covering Brady’s body with his own, and Brady spread his knees and lifted his ass, feeling wanton, feeling slutty, but feeling powerful too.
This man—beautiful, brave, mysterious, and kind—wanted to be inside Brady’s body, and Brady wanted it so bad.
It was a miracle.
His cock was… oh wow. Brady maybe should have handled the equipment before allowing it access. But Eric was patient and slow until Brady was gibbering with need, and finally, finally, he was seated all the way inside Brady’s chamber, and Brady felt his eyes burn with the perfection of it.
“Hurts?” Eric asked again, his tongue flickering out to taste the brine at Brady’s cheekbones.
“Needs,” Brady repeated. “Thank you. Thank you for—ah, God, yes!”
Eric had started to move, pulling out, thrusting gently, pulling out again, thrusting with a little more force.
Every fuck was a new, higher place, and Brady tilted his head back and simply complied with all that pleasure, yanking him inside out, putting his soul on display with his cravings and his weaknesses and then…
giving him everything he’d ever desired.
Above him Eric was grunting softly, his forehead shimmering with sweat until Brady’s entire body blossomed, welcoming that great length into Brady’s soul, and as Brady convulsed, spurting come, crying out, Eric gasped and came, flooding Brady’s senses, his body, his asshole, with heat, viscous and real, marking him inside and out.
Eric collapsed on top of him, still inside Brady’s grasping, needy orifice, and Brady kissed his temple, so replete he wasn’t sure he could move, even to clean himself out.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “Thank you, Charlie. Thank you.”
For a moment Eric stiffened in his arms, but Brady whimpered. “It’s okay,” he mumbled. “Please. You just have so much of me. Let me have a little more.”
“Okay,” Eric whispered. “Okay. But only you.”
“Only me,” Brady told him. “Only you.” He wasn’t sure how else to say it, but it was important.
Eric chuckled mirthlessly and then kissed Brady like he needed it. He pulled back and searched Brady’s face in the tiny bit of ambient light coming in from two of the porches across the street.
“You could have had plausible deniability,” Eric told him, looking stricken.
“It’s a poor substitute for having you,” Brady replied. Inside he made a vow to not regret this moment, no matter what the consequences. He’d wondered at his limits, at what he was made of.
Apparently, whatever stuff made up Brady Wilson Carnegie, it wasn’t a substance that would let him betray a lover who had touched his soul in the dark of a starry night.
“Sleep,” Eric mumbled. “Forget my name if you like. You’ve given me so very much.”
The words sounded like goodbye, but Brady was fading. Not goodbye, he wanted to say. Beginning. How do you not know the difference?
But it didn’t matter. His body was satisfied, and finally, finally, his brain was at peace, and it was time to recharge for another day.