"Hey, Jim," he said, not looking up. He'd nested on my couch like a rodent, burrowing into a quilt that Naomi had sent him last winter and surrounding himself with notebooks and sheaves of paper that created an effect of disturbed woodshavings. His mug of hot tea was perilously close to the edge of the table, and as I watched he reached out, snagged it, and brought it to his lips, all without lifting his attention from the page.

I walked over to the counter and set down the stack of files I'd brought home. I thought about saying something, about the couch, about the tea, but if I said it now while his head was bowed and those blue eyes melted fuzzily to the page, he wouldn't even hear me--or he'd pretend not to. I stared at him a bit from the kitchen, willing him to raise his head, but he didn't get the message, so I stared a bit more. He has a nice shape to his head. His hair fell forward like dog ears and he was frowning, the muscles in his face tensed. He's funny looking, and I've told him so, but what I really think is that he's cute. I know I can't tell him that, so I never do.

"Where've you been. You're kind of late," he said in his vague way.

"Went out for a beer with Simon and Joel." I opened one of the kitchen cupboards. Dried noodles. Dried soup stock. Cans of soup. Dried pancake mix. I closed the cupboard door and felt for a moment the kind of tiredness and irritation that makes you sigh. I didn't let myself sigh. Not exactly.

"You eat?"

"Beer nuts," I said, just to provoke him. "Some nachos." I'd had maybe half a dozen chips stuck together with cheese. "Couple of hamburgers, plate of fries. Not much." I was lying now, elaborating my single burger and half-eaten fries into a felonious act of bodily harm. I wanted him to make dry, mean remarks about my cardiovascular system and my life expectancy. He rarely fails me.

"There's a heart attack in the fridge, if you want it," he said in a bland voice.

I opened the fridge. It was really a pair of burritos saran-wrapped on a plate, vegetarian by the smell, which had blanketed the other congealed odors--onion, butter, peaches--in a pungency of beans. I closed the fridge quickly against the assault.

"If you fart tonight, you're sleeping on the balcony."

"You don't want me to sit on your face then, I take it."

Interested despite myself and not as tired as I'd thought, I wandered over to stand at the couch and then sniffed him. "You didn't eat burritos."

"No. I was over at Gretchen's. She made them and had extras. I had a salad."

"What have I told you about eating lettuce," I said, turning the tables on him, joking in the difficult, wooden way he seems to appreciate.

"That lettuce is for women and rabbits." He tossed his book aside and leaned back, eyes heavy and blue and speaking to me. He was wearing one of my heavy CPD sweatshirts, grey with bold letters. It didn't look good on him. Except that it did. The jeans he wore were clouded white at the knees, and his feet were bare. He smelled of me, in my sweatshirt, but underneath he smelled of sex. I had case files to work on and had hoped to find a game on TV, but then there was this. Not a challenging decision. My dick was already half-hard, and suddenly the day's weight dropped from my shoulders like snow sliding off a tree branch, and I felt need spring loose. It was simple, physical need, the kind that makes you want to exercise every raunchy impulse without conscience.

I reached down and took him by the hair and drew him up off the couch, my fingers tangled into his dark curls. That excited him and he breathed more heavily. I told him with my eyes and face and touch that I was going to use him, that I was going to make him do crude things. He wafted his soft tea breath up toward my face, eyes darkening, and pushed against me. One of his hands was on my shoulder holster; it made me uneasy having his fingers slide down the leather toward my gun, knowing that he was aroused and not entirely predictable. I imagined he was a criminal and peeled his fingers off, then turned him around, drawing his arm up behind him by the wrist. He let me cuff him, but then struggled deliberately to turn me on. I had a hell of a time getting him, cursing and twisting with clever resistance, upstairs and onto the bed. By the time I did, I was sweating heavily and my dick ached in my trousers.

"You're a son of a bitch, Jim! You're a son of a bitch to do this to me!" He snarled it like he meant it and with a hitched sob in his voice, as if I were hurting and betraying him in the cruelest possible way, and his words turned me on so much it was almost unbearable. I had to release him and unzip at that moment. I pulled myself out with clumsy movements, wildly on edge, and nearly came, but stopped in time with a rough squeeze behind the head. I saw stars and paused to draw in deep breaths, making myself relax. He groaned below me, sprawled face-down on the bed, still feigning anger.

When I could move without distraction of near pain, near pleasure, I took off my gun and holster and put them away in the bedside table. My trousers hung open, belt ends dangling. The sight of him at my mercy kept my dick stiffly upright, tucked against my belly. I'd left him awkwardly tossed on the bed, ass positioned just right for fucking if the bed itself had been higher or lower, legs spread, knees bent but not touching the floor. I took off my shirt, unbuttoning it slowly to prolong the pose of his discomfort and my own anticipation. I walked away to toss the shirt in the laundry basket, removed my undershirt and then considered myself in the dresser mirror, stroking my jaw and smoothing back my hair. Behind me, he snapped rude remarks into the covers.

I came back to stand behind him and touched my nipples, each shaping into readiness like a cocked gun hammer. I'd grown more practiced at this since we'd hooked up, more certain of what I liked. It still felt somewhat odd, though, and I didn't waste a lot of time on this twiddling. I shucked off my trousers instead, and boxers and shoes and socks, until I was naked and could feel the heat coming off him against my bare skin, then I wadded up one of my socks and stuffed it with careful design into his mouth. He bit at my fingers and made a muffled, mournful sound while grinding his hips frantically into the bed. It wasn't the most effective gag, he could have spit it out if he'd wanted to, but he mouthed around it as if it were the real thing, his face turning slightly red.

He looked frustrated and needy and I pushed him fully onto the bed, making him groan again as his body was shoved across the mattress. He began humping the bed and I slapped his ass hard through the thin denim, which should have stopped him if he'd been obedient instead of greedy. He continued to rub himself off so I flipped him over. His wrists were going to hurt when we were done if I didn't take more care. I climbed up with him onto the bed and pushed him into place, head on a pillow, thighs spilling open. The crotch of his jeans was a ripe mound and I knew it must be painful by now, the cramp of need outweighing desire. I let him berate me with his eyes and left again to dig out the better restraints, designed for sex rather than law enforcement. Somehow their purposefulness made them less exciting to me--to him, too--but I was getting used to them.

I brought them over and realized the keys to the cuffs were downstairs on the kitchen counter. When he realized where I was going he barked at me through the sock, and made vile eyes of outrage, and I laughed. It was a quick trip but the interruption took the edge off my hunger, leaving me half-hard by the time I returned.

"You're going to behave, aren't you," I said, not really a question. He glowered prettily and I took the sock out and tossed it away.

"Whatever, man." His voice was dry, rude. "Motherfucking pig."

He was so good. I manhandled him, uncuffed him, and took a moment to rub his hot wrists. He gave a little murmur and didn't object as I repositioned him, drawing his arms above his head, restraining him to the lowest rail. His face had lost its pretense of resistance and he was smiling goofily, which I wanted to be annoyed at. I tried, but he made me happy, so I settled down on top of him and licked my way into his mouth. The sock taste was fuzzily apparent yet not awful. I'd tasted worse and heard it called a meal.

"Come on, man," he said after I broke away to sniff his hair. "You should let me go now. There are people looking for me."

"No one's looking for you, sweetheart."

"Oh yeah...." There was a sad, defiant pause. "Well, there are."

I sat back and worked the sweatshirt up his body and over his head, where I left it bunched up around the padded cuffs. His bothered curls clung to the pillow in all directions, a dark corona to his pale face. He had on a necklace, beads on a leather thong, which I'd given him after our first month together. I was possessive that way. He liked it. I liked seeing it on him, around his neck, above the stretched length of his body. I marked his body with my gaze, tracing its hollows and lines. He lay still and breathed, watching me back from glittering eyes, teeth showing their bite through his parted lips.

He seemed to want to say something, but remained silent as I began touching him. I touched him to display how completely I owned him: lightly, unhurriedly, in the places that I wanted to touch, which were not necessarily where he wanted to be touched. His nipples hardened, though, and his hips grew even more restless. The entrapped bulge at their center radiated a pulsing, focused heat and one spot was growing wet and fragrant. I broke and fell between his legs, slid my arms under his thighs and nuzzled his crotch. He yelped then sobbed as I mouthed him through the denim with the goal of driving him to desperate words. His legs kicked around me as if he were a swimmer trying to reach the surface; I bit the hardness in his jeans, where the wet spot was soaking wider, and heard him cry out. I rubbed my cheek there, over and over, drawing the scent of him into my skin.

"Jim, please--oh, fuck--come on--"

I wished he hadn't said my name, but forgave him. He was bucking against me now, begging with his strong body. I bit him again and once I'd started couldn't stop. I teethed down around his balls. He was gasping, tossing his head, trying to flex his thighs and calves around me like a nutcracker. He'd slipped into a hoarse, rhythmic chant--"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck"--and I matched its cadence with my teeth until he came, shouting.

Breathing raggedly, I shoved up to my knees and began jerking myself off with both hands, one hand cupping and rolling my balls, my other sliding along the shaft. I gave myself a thumb-flick against the head on each upstroke and after the six or seventh wasn't sure how long I could hold back or even if I wanted to. A trembling strain threaded through my dick. I groaned, forced open my eyes, and looked down over my captive, my property. He was flushed all over, sweating, broad chest heaving. The pulse in his throat still jumped. I moved up over him, straddled his torso. He bared his neck for me, offered his face. I could feel that gesture pull the first unraveling skein of come from my dick. I jerked myself harder, with ecstasy, and came at length in hot arcs that splashed across his cheeks and hair. He licked a hot coin of it from his lip and it disappeared into his mouth like money I'd given him.

Release left me breathless but still hard, and I was ready for more. It was embarrassing, if I let myself think about it. I tried like hell not to. When the subject was under discussion, Blair was not allowed to attribute my staying power to sentinel senses. It was just one of those things.

He'd opened his eyes now and was giving my equipment a dreamy, admiring look that I had no problem with. I took hold of the railing above his head and pushed up closer, nudging the head of my cock through his lips. He opened up wide like a porn star. Jesus Christ, I loved him. My hand clenched on the rail and I grabbed his head with the other, curls like an explosion in my palm, and began riding his mouth. He sucked at me, sometimes fast and hard, sometimes gentle, until it hurt to think. I pulled out and rubbed across his face, sliding in my own seed, sawing my cock back and forth against the roughness of his unshaven jaw, unable to distinguish the moment when pleasure became pain. I lost myself in this one sensation and only stopped when he murmured "Jim," making me realize I needed that sizzling vibration again. I shoved back inside him, wet heat closing around me, and he hummed with unrelenting kindness until I came again, hard, slamming with selfish lust into his mouth, spilling down his throat. I gasped his name once as I came.

After that, I finally unwrapped him from his jeans and laid him out for myself like a present. I jerked off again on his belly, just because he was mine and I could.

"You planning to shove that up my ass or just keep playing with it?" he complained sharply when I'd finished.

"I plan to fuck you stupid, which shouldn't take too long," I said, then wondered if I'd really said what I meant. The way that he snickered told me there was room for doubt. I gave him what should have been a standard-issue scowl if I'd been able to make my face behave. Sated and amiable, I think the scowl came out half-heartedly at best. I dug in my bedside drawer for lube and condoms. I tore the package open and snugged myself in right away, then returned to bed and began working lube-slick fingers into the tight breach of his ass. He wriggled around, spurring me to take a better grip. I pushed at his legs and his cold feet walked playfully up my chest to my shoulders. I kissed one and moved it back to my chest to cover a nipple. He obligingly rubbed me a minute with the ball of his foot, then I returned to readying him. He sighed when I pushed two fingers deeper and massaged the clingy heat of his interior.

"Now, now, now," he demanded.

I arranged myself closer and pressed inside. His dick softened even as mine hardened. I had a shameful flash of supremacy at that moment, loving the way the clench of muscle yielded as I slid in, how the curves of his ass flexed, the weight of him in my hands--helpless, pliant--as he was forced to take me inside. I nudged in half-way, gauged the ease, then pulled back and slid in up to the hilt with one long stroke. He arched and gasped, and his faced shuttered in its pleasure, eyes closing against the storm.

I fucked him for a long time, taking it easy, changing speeds, rhythms, the angle of strokes, bringing myself to the edge and then relaxing to continue. I kept my hands on his ass, his legs, anywhere but his dick. He called me terrible names and kicked at me. I told him I'd pull out and jerk off on him again if he didn't behave himself. He rattled at his restraints and cursed and rolled his ass around my own dick in a way that made me light-headed. Slowly, fueled by erratic strokes against his prostate, he grew hard, thickening to a sweet, red fullness that waved at me from his belly. I wanted to touch him then, but waited a while longer. When I gave in, I took a handful of lube and fisted his cock. I don't know what I'd been waiting for, because he picked up the rhythm of my hand right away, the muscles of his ass tightening around me sharply, sending white-hot notes of pleasure rolling through my organ. It was perfect for the two or three minutes it lasted, and then we both came with a bullet and a hell of a mess.

He made me untie him after that, and I was spent, so I did. He cozied up next to me, one leg flung over mine, the sleek hair of his body whispering against my skin. We dozed for a while.

"You sure you aren't hungry," he said, maybe an hour later, into my shoulder.

I woke up a little. "Why. You hungry?"

"I could eat."

We both thought about that, or I did, and I thought about getting out of bed too. But in the end I just turned out the light and we both slept, with the Discovery channel talking to itself quietly below, of zebras.
 

(Not in frames? Click here to go home.)