Fever Pitch Read online

  “Does your dad live in the house in Eden Prairie where you grew up?”

  “No, Mom sold it when we moved. He lives in a condo. Though he’s always spent a lot of time in his law firm’s California office. Especially so lately.”

  Aaron had more regular breathing now. Time for phase two.

  Giles let his knee brush Aaron’s arm a few times, and when Aaron didn’t withdraw, he let it linger ever so lightly. “We’re in the same place as we’ve always lived, but we did a big remodel last year. I’m the last one in the nest.”

  Aaron’s knee pressed tentatively into Giles’s. “You have brothers and sisters?”

  “One of each. Both married and moved into the Cities. Hannah lives in Linden Hills. Mark’s in St. Paul and just had his first kid. What about you—are you an only?”

  “Yeah.” On the blanket, Aaron mimicked Giles’s position. His hand brushed Giles’s, but instead of pulling away he let it linger. When Aaron spoke next, his voice shook. “Probably a good thing I’m an only child. My parents are awful together. They shouldn’t have had me.”

  “Well, that’d be a shame, because we wouldn’t be here right now.” The line was a bit cheesy, but the knee beside Giles’s became more sure of itself, the fingers lacing more deliberately, so hooray for dairy products. Pressing his whole thigh closer, Giles captured Aaron’s hand. “So, birthday boy. Did you get all the presents you wanted?” Aaron pressed their legs together, gaze drifting to Giles’s crotch. Giles bit back a smile. “Or maybe…something is missing?”

  Aaron’s breath caught, pupils dilated, lips parted. He looked Giles dead in the eye, all his longing and desire naked between them.

  Here we go.

  Giles kissed him softly—a lover’s kiss, which he never did with tricks. With Aaron he wanted to kiss, though. He teased the sweet, pink flesh until it plumped, coaxing him open but not letting himself inside. He drugged them both with long, sexy sips for a minute, nuzzling Aaron’s cheek. “This okay?”

  Aaron’s shuddering breath sent excitement along Giles’s spine, awakening the urge to pin Aaron down, drive him over the edge. Giles held himself in check, waiting.

  It was very important Aaron say yes.

  Aaron drew a deep breath. “I—I don’t know.” When Giles lifted his head though, Aaron’s hand shot out and clamped on Giles’s biceps, keeping him from retreating. “I…” Blue eyes fluttered open, regarding Giles with lust and fear.

  Giles let him fumble for a moment, but the guy was drowning, going down by his own struggles. “Hon, have you done this before? With a guy?”

  Aaron nodded woodenly. “Once. A…little.”

  Giles didn’t have the heart to push him, though it angered him too. Why the hell were they always so ashamed? Except whatever tortured Aaron moved even Giles’s hardened heart. He stroked Aaron’s dark hair, brushed his thumb along a perfect cheekbone. “Hey. It’s okay. I promise.”

  Aaron clearly expected to be tarred and feathered any second.

  Giles kept touching him, trying to calm him down and not just so he could get back to kissing him. “Seriously, it’s only the two of us here, and I don’t kiss and tell. If this is something you want, you can have it. If not, it’s okay, because I—”

  He couldn’t say anything after that, because his mouth was full of Aaron.

  As hesitant and sweet as the first one had been, this kiss was raw and wild, curling Giles’s toes. This wasn’t some fumbly gosh-I-never kiss. This was someone who knew exactly what he wanted. Gone was the slick, sarcastic guy from the laundry room—this Aaron was sweet, slightly clumsy and ready to go. They rolled across the blanket, tearing at each other, dueling with their tongues and teeth.

  Giles landed firmly on top and pinned Aaron with his thighs, cupping Aaron’s face and diving deep into that hot mouth.

  With a shiver and a soft cry, Aaron stopped fighting, digging his fingers into Giles’s back as he let his legs fall open.

  God yes. Taking firm grip of Aaron’s hair, Giles thrust harder.

  They were so hot and fast they almost came like that, Aaron gasping as he pushed up and up and up. Giles worried he was too rough, but the more he tugged that pretty hair, the more Aaron came apart.

  I want him in my mouth.

  Breaking the kiss, Giles nipped his way down Aaron’s chin and neck, dragging his mouth over to the pert nipple and lightly taking it between his teeth through the fabric.

  Aaron cried out, arched and crushed Giles’s face tighter to him.

  Giles nursed through the shirt until the fabric was hot and soaked with saliva, until the nipple was a hypersensitized rock and Aaron was so far gone he’d have spread himself for the football team. His whole body flooding with the rush of power he’d stumbled into, Giles pushed up Aaron’s shirt and kissed his way down the center of Aaron’s body, lingering over the quivering belly, smiling as he undid the fastening of Aaron’s jeans before tugging the denim over those slender hips to reveal his prize.

  Aaron’s cock thrust at Giles’s neck as he nuzzled it and lifted his head to take inventory: cut, nice-sized, not too big, not too little, not too long. He teased the tip, running his tongue along the slit and chuckling as Aaron yelped and jerked against him.

  “S-sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” Giles drew the whole glans into his mouth before licking the thick vein. He smiled around his mouthful as he watched Aaron buckle off his elbows, gasping and trying to part knees trapped by his jeans.

  “Ohgod.” Aaron gasped as Giles sucked him deep and slid those jeans all the way down to his ankles. The next time Aaron opened his legs, his knees fell easily apart.

  Giles knelt between them, hefting Aaron’s slightly furry ass in his hands, nuzzling the hot cleft with his thumbs as he parted it. So responsive. So much so Giles’s conscience began to prick at him, reminding him it wasn’t usual for his straight-boy tricks to let him push the tip of his thumb into their asses.

  Lifting off Aaron’s cock, he gazed across the heaving body he pleasured. “Are you too drunk? Should I not be doing this?”

  Aaron gave him a crazed, furious glance and rammed his cock into Giles’s cheek.

  Laughing, Giles went to work, though now he only teased the shaft, licking and sucking at the side, measuring the weight of the balls in his hand as he pushed those pretty thighs wide and licked the crease of Aaron’s leg. Aaron began speaking in tongues.

  “Please, ohgodplease.”

  When Giles took those sweet sacs in his mouth, first one, then the other, then both at once, rolling his tongue around them, Aaron’s sigh became a discordant, frustrated aria.

  Against Giles’s thumb, Aaron’s hole flexed, hot and pleading.

  Groaning, Giles pushed him sideways, licking his way down Aaron’s taint, the tendons in his chest tightening as he shut down the whisper saying this was way, way too much too fast. Holy shit, did he want to do this. He’d rimmed just once, that guy at all-state orchestra his junior year. The openly gay, deep-voiced bassist had been quite emphatic about how much he enjoyed rimming. Giles hadn’t minded it either.

  He should not rim Aaron Seavers, the not-so-straight boy, Aaron Seavers who had at best done a little with a guy prior to their current foray. Giles should not risk taking advantage of a sexy but confused young man who might have had a bit too much to drink and wouldn’t normally let him do this.

  Giles shouldn’t, no—but he did.

  When Giles’s tongue first stole across that puckered skin, Aaron yelped, but on the second pass he stilled—all but his hole, which flexed and begged for more. Giles circled flicks of tongue before giving insistent pressure at the ring, knocking at the door, asking if his tongue could come in and fuck. Somehow they ended up with Aaron on his knees with his face pressed into the blanket, almost sobbing as Giles sucked and licked at him.

  Giles shook with the fever of what he
did, of what Aaron let him do. He whispered over the trembling flesh, urged those cheeks wider with his palms and slicked Aaron’s entrance with his spit, wearing down those terrified, needy muscles until at last they yielded to him, until when his tongue pushed forward it nudged inside.

  Aaron’s whimpered arpeggio made Giles’s cock throb in his pants. “Ohgod.” A sob wracked Aaron. “Giles—Giles, I’m gonna come.”

  Giles gave his target one last lick and flipped Aaron onto his back. Kneeling over Aaron, Giles fumbled with his jeans, freeing his dick before descending, shaking, on top of the pliant boy beneath him.

  “Tell me you want this,” Giles whispered at Aaron’s neck as he tentatively held their cocks together in his grip. “Tell me this is okay.”

  “Please.” Aaron’s breath blew hot on Giles’s cheek as he thrust.

  Giles pulled away to look Aaron in the eye. “I’m serious. Say it. Tell me you’re not too drunk, that you actually want this when you haven’t had four beers and not enough food.”

  “I want this.” Aaron stared up at him with bright, focused eyes, his hips still trying to reclaim the friction. “I’m scared to death, but I want this so bad I feel like I might blow up if it doesn’t happen.”

  “Good enough.” Giles caught Aaron’s mouth, tightened his grip on their cocks and started to fuck.

  It was the most wicked, delightful sex of his life—the pretty, popular boy coming apart in his arms, Giles’s nose full of musk and his tongue still remembering the feel of that hot, tight muscle spasming around it. Aaron greedily sucked off the last of the taste from Giles’s mouth and thrust his cock between their bodies. Giles reveled in the knowledge he could do anything to Aaron right now. If he’d had condoms, he could have gone inside that tight ass, and Aaron would have helped guide him in.

  As they chased release together, as Aaron wrapped his legs around Giles’s back, Giles let himself unlock a quiet fantasy that this wouldn’t be a shame-and-blame trick, that when he dropped Aaron off, they’d exchange numbers and talk about doing this again sometime. As they fought to reclaim their breaths, sweaty chests pressed together, throbbing cocks deflating amidst a tangle of cooling spunk, Giles let himself imagine how he’d go down to Eden Prairie for the Fourth of July. How they’d snuggle on a blanket together and hold hands. He allowed himself the fantasy of heading off to Saint Timothy, planning when he’d be able to have a weekend with his boyfriend. His boyfriend Aaron Seavers, who loved to be rimmed by the lake.

  Stupid fantasy. But Aaron had gotten all the way under Giles’s skin. He let himself indulge.

  This lapse, of course, was a mistake.

  As the high of orgasm wore off, Aaron’s face shuttered. The cute boy Giles hoped was different bore the same wooden expression as so many of the others. Shock. Shame. Fear.

  A recoil-fuck after all.

  Unwilling to watch the mask go all the way up on his pretty trick, Giles rolled off Aaron, cleaned himself with the edge of the blanket and arched his hips to put his jeans to rights. Still, Giles had embraced his inner idiot, and he had to try a bit more, in case. “You okay?”

  Talk to me. Be with me. Let me in more than your ass.

  Aaron nodded stiffly, visibly shutting down. “Yeah.”

  Swallowing a sigh, Giles climbed to his feet. “I might have some wet wipes in the car.”

  He didn’t, and Aaron wouldn’t need them. This was, of course, an excuse to leave, a chance for Aaron to wrap himself back up in his closet, to pull up his jeans and find a way to pretend he hadn’t bent over and begged Giles to fuck him. Now that the hormones were appeased, it was the time for rationalizations and compartmentalizing.

  Giles had served his purpose. He had nothing more do but drive Aaron home.

  Aaron had undone Giles’s defenses so much, though, that as he pulled up to Aaron’s house, Giles couldn’t stop hoping he was wrong. Even if they never made out again, he didn’t want to say goodbye to Aaron. Give me one sign, and I’ll give you ten different ways to stay in contact with me. Ask me to kidnap you tomorrow so you don’t have to go to Eden Prairie, and I will. Ask me to come visit you. Ask me anything, give me one, tiny, baby reason, and I’ll give you anything you want.

  Aaron didn’t. He never so much as looked Giles in the eye, barely grunting a farewell before double-timing it to his front door, not once glancing over his shoulder.

  Giles watched the front porch light turn off, shrouding the driveway and his hopes in shadow.

  “Happy birthday,” he told Aaron’s darkened front door, then backed out onto the street, leaving his boyfriend fantasies behind him in the dust.

  Aaron stumbled blindly through the house, heading straight for his bathroom. After peeling out of his clothes, he turned on the water and stepped into the tub. As soon as the spray hit his face, he started to cry.

  He wept all the way through his shower, sniffling as he toweled off after and climbed into a pair of boxers, but when he tunneled under his sheets and pressed his face into the down of his pillow—there he sobbed. He was not sad so much as he was overwhelmed, as if something huge and heavy inside him had burst free.

  Aaron had let Giles do that to him. Giles had made him say it, admit it, and he’d done it all. That was him. That was Aaron Seavers, the part of him that had winked at Tanner, that Tanner had rejected. The part of him that Giles had not.

  Gay. That had been very gay.

  The magnitude of that, the truth and realness of it all, swamped him again, and he sobbed so much he had to drag his wastebasket closer in case he threw up.

  He never did, though, and in fact once those shuddering waves of shock had passed, Aaron felt better. He was a bit wild, as if his belly throbbed raw without skin, but he wasn’t so overwhelmed by his vulnerability. If anything, he felt motivated by it. Happy.

  Giles. Oh God, thank you, Giles. He was so high at that moment he wanted to call him. Except he didn’t have a number. Or a last name. Shit. Giles had said, but Aaron had been too drunk to remember.

  A man possessed, Aaron thumbed through his yearbook. Five hundred damn people in his class, and he scanned them all, each page, each face, until, thank you God, at the end of the Ms, there he was. Giles Mulder.

  Aaron couldn’t find his phone number—there were twenty Mulders in the online phone book and thirty in the paper one in the kitchen—but Aaron was too scared to be that bold anyway. He’d have to be indirect. Googling led him to Facebook, though Aaron had to make an account because he didn’t have one. Opening up a private message dialog box within the friend request, he got ready to compose a message.

  Aaron couldn’t think of a single, solitary word to say.

  He tried for an hour, starting several different notes before deleting them, almost sending one that said simply, “Hi,” but bailing on that too.

  Maybe he shouldn’t do this. Maybe the lake hadn’t meant anything to Giles. Maybe if Aaron connected afterward, it would be awkward.

  Maybe—his heart tightened—maybe Giles would laugh.

  He told himself that last fear was totally off, that no way a guy who’d kissed him like that would mock him, but he couldn’t be sure because he had been wrong before.

  As Aaron tried to sleep, a new emptiness bloomed inside him, a sense of loss he could not shake. It ate at him until five in the morning, when it burned through the bottom of his heart and seeped into his bloodstream. He dreamed of it, his subconscious filling out the blanks. I have to find a way to connect with Giles. Waking or sleeping, that thought became the center of Aaron’s world.

  When he woke, he had an idea.

  It was so crazed and mad and perfect he could only stare at the ceiling for several seconds. After getting out of bed, he threw the stack of brochures on his sheets and pawed feverishly for the one he was looking for.

  In the end he found it in the recycling bin on the back porch. He read it cove
r to cover, making notes. He put on his studio headphones, blared his Favorites playlist, and worked as if the hounds of hell were on his heels. He went to the website, double-checking himself, choosing all the right words and phrases he knew his father would insist on. Though he took a break to eat lunch with his mom, he resumed his notes immediately after, cramming for the most important exam he’d ever take.

  When his father arrived at three, Aaron came out to greet him, the brochure and his pile of research clutched in a steady hand.

  “I found my college.” He handed the brochure to his father.

  Jim Seavers glanced at it with a dubious expression, but when he read the name, he raised his eyebrows in mild interest. “Not bad. A bit pedestrian, but adequate.” His steel-blue gaze lifted to hold Aaron’s. “Why did you choose it, Aaron?”

  “It has an excellent teacher-to-student ratio, and all the teaching professors have full doctorate degrees, not just masters. It’s ranked number twenty-two in its class by U.S. News & World Report. It’s only an hour away and is under thirty thousand a year, which is hard to find in a decent private liberal arts college these days. It has several outstanding academic fields, including pre-med and pre-law.”

  Jim stared at his son for several seconds before giving Aaron his first real smile in years.

  “Well done. I’m surprised but impressed. We’ll fill out the application tomorrow morning and submit it. Shouldn’t be a problem getting you through the hoops if it does turn out they’re a bit full, as one of my partners did his undergraduate degree there and could help us grease the right palms.” Jim tossed the stack of careful research aside. “Saint Timothy it is.”

  The hollow space inside Aaron unknotted, easing into hope.

  Chapter Four

  Unfortunately Aaron’s thoroughness in his case for Saint Timothy somehow solidified Jim Seavers’s belief that Aaron’s focus in college would be pre-law. Jim filled out Aaron’s course schedule online, declaring Aaron’s major as a double Business and English. His father’s managing didn’t end there, though. Instead of spending the summer hiding out in the condo as he’d planned, trying to finally compose a Facebook message to Giles or at least simply ask to be added as a friend, Aaron all but lived at his dad’s law firm, organizing the file room.