22. Donovan
TWENTY-TWO
DONOVAN
Two days after poker night, in which Kingston’s friend Lani indeed walked off with most of the pot and everyone gushed over Beck’s chocolate pecan cookies, I make a phone call I’ve been putting off for weeks.
Beck left an hour ago to meet Lani for lunch downtown, and I procrastinated by throwing the ball for Cleo until my arm was sore and she collapsed at my feet, thoroughly worn out. But now I force myself to page through my contacts and hit the number for Joan Starr, agent extraordinaire. I breathe slowly and channel a confident, successful actor. Wasn’t that Beck’s advice—to act the part if I don’t know what else to do?
The coward in me is hoping she won’t pick up, but after three rings, I hear her bark in my ear.
“Van! How’s the play coming?”
“I’m fine. How are you, Joan?” I say, because she likes it when I push back at her.
“I might need cataract surgery, but I’m still here so things could be worse. Now you go.”
“So the short answer is I don’t have a draft for you—yet.”
“Yet?”
“I’ve been working on it,” I answer truthfully. “But it’s pretty slow.”
“What else is there to do in the sticks?” she asks. “You’re still in Massachusetts, right?”
“Connecticut.”
“You sick of it yet? If you were in the city, I could get you three auditions this week.”
“Plays?”
“Commercials, mostly. TV’s ramping up, too.”
A job is a job. I’ve done both before and was grateful for the paycheck and the experience. But watching Beck these last few weeks, I’m not sure what I want anymore. He’s living on passion. I already hit my goals—I was on Broadway; my show was nominated for Tonys. I paid off my student loans and have worked steadily as an actor for four long years. Now I’m thirty and I have no idea what’s next.
“There’s a theater group at the local art center here,” I say. “I’m teaching a class about auditioning there soon. But it’s just a one-off. The play is… going okay. But I don’t know…” I stop, frustrated with my inability to articulate what I’m feeling.
“Teaching. Interesting,” Joan says. “Look, Van. You’re a good actor, you’ve got some hits under your belt. You might think I want you to write that play so we’d have a great hook for your next part—and we would. You are writing a part for yourself, aren’t you?”
I think about Julian, his breezy exterior and his insecure center, and nod, then realize she can’t see me. “Of course.”
“But I had an ulterior motive for nagging you to write something. I could see you burning out on the grind. Eight shows a week ad nauseam. It gets old, and I could see it happening to you. That’s why we decided you should take the summer off, remember? You needed to shake things up. And it sounds like maybe it’s working. You’re confused. That’s a good sign.”
“But if I’m not acting…” I stop before finishing my own sentence with the truth—if I’m not acting, I don’t know who I am. In New York, I knew who I was, what I wanted. I was Van Eastman, NYU grad, Broadway actor, man-slut, perpetually living with crappy roommates, and always striving for the next audition, hookup, and place to live.
In Rosedale, I’m Donovan. I have stability. I have a house and a dog and—Beck. I didn’t think I wanted any of that.
But it’s hard to imagine going back to the city now, embarking on the painful chore of looking for an apartment, doing rounds of auditions, trying to find a producer for my play. It sounds exhausting, and I know where I’ll be at the end of it—the work will be satisfying, hopefully, but everything else... I guess I’m over it, in a way.
Julian in my play is over it, too. Huh. How about that?
I tune in to what Joan’s saying. “…can still act. When I took you on, I told you I could find you opportunities, but the kind of career you were going to have was up to you. I have clients who only book three jobs a year and they’re happy. I have others who aren’t happy if they aren’t overbooked. And it’s okay if you change your mind. I used to be a kindergarten teacher, if you can believe it, when I was young and dumb, until I found my religion—theater. I’ve been an agent for thirty years. I’ll die at this desk, on this phone. But that’s me.”
“You’re amazing,” I say, grateful for the millionth time that Joan signed me after my first so-called agent tried to get me to exchange sex for a part.
“I know. But so are you, kiddo.” She’s a shark when it comes to contracts, but she actually cares. One in a million. “Now, call me when you either have a play for me or you want to book a job. Until then, get some sun, read some books, kiss a boy.”
I laugh. “You got it, Joan. Thanks.” I hang up, feeling as light as one of Beck’s almond meringue cookies. Then I hear a car outside my window; I take a peek and see him climbing out of the GTI. I jog downstairs to meet him in the hall.
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” he answers, his eyes flashing happily when he sees me. “What’s got you all bouncy?”
“Had a… reassuring conversation with my agent. How did your lunch go?”
“Amazing. Lani is a force to be reckoned with. She turned her friend Nicole’s designs for wallpaper and throw pillows into a seven-figure business in three years. We talked a lot about planning for growth.”
“See, I told you, cookie empire.”
He grins, pink lips and white teeth, and my gaze fastens on the glimpse I get of his talented tongue when he says, “Maybe so.”
“So, you busy right now?” I hadn’t exactly intercepted Beck to get him to have sex with me, but now that the idea’s in my head, it seems like the best one I’ve had all day.
His gaze strays in the direction of the kitchen. “I guess I don’t have to start dinner for a little while. Why?”
I put my hands on his waist and nuzzle his neck, lightly biting the tendons where his neck meets his shoulder, then soothe the spot with my tongue.
He shivers and laughs and pushes me away. “Right now?”
For a second, I think he’s going to turn me down and I experience a flash of doubt. Am I presuming too much? Trading on the convenience of living with someone I’m attracted to—someone I continue to be attracted to, no matter how many times and how many ways we get each other off?
But then he shrugs. “Okay.”
That’s all the green light I need. I grab Beck around the waist and half carry him down the hall, ducking into the TV room with its conveniently oversized couch. Beck laughs as I lose my balance and we tumble down on the cushions in a pretzel of arms and legs. I kiss the laughter out of his mouth, and he arranges us so he’s lying underneath me, his head on a throw pillow. Sex with Beck is always fun. It’s all about pleasure, from the small pleasures of the noises he makes when I do something that makes him feel particularly good, to the overriding pleasure of losing myself in his soft skin, the welcoming heat of his body when he lets me in. He’s been so generous with me—I want to give him something back. I do a quick mental inventory to see if what I’m offering is practical, decide that even though I haven’t done any special prep, it should be okay as long as lots of lube enters the picture.
Between kisses I ask, “Do… you… want… to… top?”
He rears back and squints at me. “Now?”
“Sure. I’m up for it. But we might have to relocate to a room with lube.”
“Surprising that Jack and Pete don’t have bottles stashed all over the house,” Beck jokes. “Though they probably would appreciate it if we didn’t fuck on their couch.”
“Your room or mine?”
“Yours, I guess. I feel less guilty about Cleo that way.”
I climb off him and offer him my hand to pull him up. We race upstairs, and the second we get to my room and shut the door, I lose my clothes. Beck’s faster than me, and by now he knows where I keep everything, so he’s got condoms and a bottle of lube out on the bedside table by the time I’m pulling aside the comforter. I climb onto the mattress and settle on the pillows against the headboard.
“You do this often?” he asks, joining me on the bed and flicking open the bottle.
“Not a lot,” I admit. “But I don’t hate it.”
“That sounds like a ringing endorsement,” he says dryly. “Donovan, we don’t have to.”
“I know we don’t have to. I want to.” That much is true. I don’t usually have sex with the same person more than once or twice. Beck and I have done almost everything but this, and somehow I don’t want to miss out on knowing what it feels like to have him inside me the way I’ve been inside him.
He looks like he’s going to say something else, but instead he kisses me, which is a distraction I appreciate—his tongue is in my mouth as his lube-slippery finger breaches my hole. He’s had as many as two fingers inside me before, when giving me what I’m not mad to call the best head of my life. But this is different. He opens me up with purpose, shallow but sure strokes that have my cock swelling in anticipation. He doesn’t stop kissing me, multitasking like a pro, adding more lube, more fingers, all the while expertly licking into my mouth.
By the time he’s up to three fingers, I’m a quivering mess. My lips are throbbing, my hole is stretched but ready for more, my erection, which neither of us has touched, is an angry red. No wonder I’m lightheaded, since all my blood is either in my cock or my kiss-swollen mouth.
“Ready?” he whispers against my temple.
I’m a little overwhelmed already, finding it difficult to summon the words to answer his question. How nonverbal will I be once he actually has his cock in my ass?
“Yeah,” I manage to say, which seems to satisfy him because he leaves for a second to wipe his hand on a tissue, then roll on a condom. We discovered we use the same brand, so he has no problem with the ones I keep stocked.
He’s between my legs, looking down at where we’re about to be joined, but then he seems to change his mind because he stops before he gets farther than soothing my thighs with long brushes of his hands. “Hang on. I think you should get on top.”
There’s a strange moment of disappointment at not having him like this, and yes, a slight moment of laziness where I don’t want to get up from my nest of pillows. He must sense my hesitation because he says, “I really want to see you ride me.”
Maybe it’s manipulation, but I can’t deny him. And I see his point. For our first time like this, it makes sense to give me more of the control. We switch places, Beck lying back and me climbing on top of him. He doesn’t make me do all the work, however—he shifts me a little and takes his cock in hand, pointing it toward my hole. The first inch pops in easily enough, but then the thick slide of the rest of him has me grunting as I adjust to the sheer size.
“Okay?” He’s biting his lip, and the flush staining his cheeks spreads down almost to his navel. He’s holding himself back, so I nod and say, “Go for it.” He immediately lifts his hips and, his hands on my waist, slams me down with a snapping motion that has me seeing stars.
“Holy fucking shit,” I gasp as the force of our joining jolts through my whole body, pressure and pleasure and the edge of pain mingling together in a potent mix that has me on edge within seconds. It’s a good thing he still hasn’t touched my cock, because it feels as if the second I get a hand on me, I’ll blow.
“That’s good?” He checks in with me again and I nod frantically.
“Come on, keep going.”
He does, building up a punishing rhythm that feels so good I never want it to end.
“You’re fucking tight,” he says through gritted teeth. “Opened you up good and you’re still so—” His pace stutters and I can tell he’s close.
“Yeah, you opened me up so good,” I agree. “Opened me up so your big cock could get in there. Feels so good, Beck.”
His eyes close, and he stops moving, giving my thighs a break. His hands stroke them, as if he knows how hard they’re working. He rubs my pecs, my arms, then pulls me downward, changing the angle and making me moan. He reaches up to kiss me like this—our bodies joined in two places. I can feel the heat coming off him, the sweat on his hairline. I want to lick it off. He’s so fucking hot, and I’m in awe that the sweet kid who makes me scrambled eggs and wants to bake cookies so delicious this small town will fall in love with him is also sexy as hell and better in bed than some vastly more experienced sexual partners I’ve had.
Slowly, he rocks into me while we’re still kissing, and all of a sudden, it’s too much. Too good. Too… real.
I gasp and yank myself back, holding my seat but grateful for the space between us now. He opens his eyes and questions me with his gaze, but I focus on chasing my orgasm. I might want this to last forever, but that’s impossible.
He seems to get what I’m after because he goes all in again, thrusting up with purpose. His hand finds my bare dick that’s straining for any kind of friction to take me all the way there. He’s somehow gotten his hand lubed up, the magician, and the cool gel on my hot, desperate cock causes what feels like a geyser to erupt from me, stripe upon stripe of come coating Beck’s hand, landing on his belly, some getting all the way to his chest as he milks me, never breaking the motion of his hips.
“Oh fuck,” he says, letting go of my cock to grab my hips. He’s positively jackhammering into me, his stamina kind of eyebrow-raising, but I suppose he did come twice last night. First when we sixty-nined after dinner but before dessert. Following dessert, we rubbed off on each other, our kisses tasting like the vanilla ice cream he’d insisted on making after he discovered an ice cream maker in the pantry.
Finally, when I’m not sure if I’m about to beg for mercy or get hard again, he throws his head back, the tendons in his neck straining beautifully as he comes. I can’t feel it through the condom, but I know he’s releasing himself into me and I tighten around him sympathetically.
Once I know he’s through, I lift myself up so he can slowly slip out of me, holding onto the condom. He rolls over to take care of it quickly, and I gingerly lower myself to the bed. My thighs are burning, my ass is sore, but all in the most delicious way.
“Was that okay?” he asks, almost anxiously.
“Was getting fucked by a sneaky sex god okay? Yeah, it was pretty okay.” I have my words, if not my breath, back.
His eyes widen adorably. “Sex god? Oh, my.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” I grumble, closing my eyes.
I hear him shuffle around me and feel him press a kiss to my nose. I’d protest, but I’m halfway unconscious already. “I’ll try not to,” he whispers, and a moment later, I’m asleep.