Fugly (6 page)

“But Fallon and Todd and the guys you go after in clubs—”

“They must be seeing what I see.” Jake pulled open a desk drawer, lifted out some photos, and slid them toward David. “I got these off the Internet. They’re a good approximation of what I have. Or seem to have. Or whatever.”

Frowning, David flipped through the pictures. “This is how you look to yourself?

Seriously?”

It was understandable that he’d be appalled and more than a little incredulous. The photos showed people beset by rosacea, psoriasis, and other conditions that seemed to turn flesh into a lava flow.

“And how Todd and Fallon look to me,” Jake said. “And how I look to them. And how I must look to every guy I put the make on, judging by how they react to me.”

David’s brows were still drawn. “Christ.” He put the pictures on the desk, face down.

“I don’t get it. You look perfectly normal to me.”

“That’s what my doctor said.” Jake gathered up the photos and shoved them back in the drawer. “What did you mean about the three of us being cursed?”

“I was being facetious. For the most part. Now…maybe not.”

“If you have any theories,” Jake said, “I’d love to hear them. You have no idea what a mind fuck this has been. Just when I start to write myself off as a drama queen, I talk to Todd or Fallon, or try to pick up some guy who appeals to me, and I get slapped back into the Twilight Zone.” He shook his head and let out a limp chuckle. “I’m not ashamed to say I’m getting a little desperate.”

“Okay, I’ll give it some thought.” David got up.

“You’re not leaving yet, are you? I’ll be meeting Todd and Fal in another hour or so, and it would be nice if you could—”

“Get you to shut up?” David walked around the desk. He stopped beside Jake and swiveled the desk chair.

Immediately, Jake’s breath began to skip off the top of his lungs. He hooked four fingers beneath the waistband of David’s jeans and jerked him forward. Open-mouthed, breathing more heavily, he nuzzled the growing, warming mound to the left of David’s zipper. David’s fingers speared into his hair, rearranging it, coaxing Jake’s scalp into tingles that complemented the shimmering of sudden arousal in his groin.

This offer couldn’t be resisted. Rarely could Jake resist David, no matter how much energy he poured into convincing himself this was not the man he wanted, was not the man whose face belonged in romantic reveries, whose body belonged in erotic fantasies.

He especially couldn’t resist David now. Those men Jake did deem worthy of wet dreams wouldn’t come, in both senses of the word, anywhere near him.

Empty for too long, Jake’s hands slid around David’s hips and clutched his ass.

“You need this,” David murmured, his concealed, thickened cock pushing persuasively against Jake’s mouth.

“Yes,” Jake breathed against it. Beneath his suit, he’d begun to sweat. He restlessly palmed his own plumping dick and looked up.

He didn’t have to say,
I need you to kiss me. I love it when you kiss me
. His slack lips and imploring gaze were certainly expression enough. How embarrassing, he thought dimly, to have need written all over his face. But David didn’t taunt him. David certainly read that need—they’d been friends and office fuck-buddies for almost two years—but David didn’t say what he justifiably could’ve said:
Guess
I’m
calling the shots for a
change. Guess you need me more than I need you for a change.

David merely undid his jeans and dropped to a squat in front of Jake’s chair. And Jake thought how sultry David’s hazel eyes looked beneath his heavy lids, how full of invitation…and forgiveness.

Jake dipped forward. They held each other’s face, and their lips pressed together.

Stubble scraped through stubble to scratch at skin. Tongues thrust and slid. Even their fingers took part in the kiss. Glorious, this closeness with all its wet, hot abandon. Jake thought he might melt off the chair.

“How do you want it?” David asked on a single humid breath.

Jake kissed him again. David smelled faintly of April air and tasted of plums. “I need to be fucked. Do you mind?”

They were both contentedly versatile, so Jake was a little surprised to hear David’s soft chuckle.

“What’s wrong?” Jake asked.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a stupid question.” David got to his feet. “Lock the door, turn off your phones, get what we need out of that bottom drawer, and strip off everything but your shirt and tie.”

Jake lifted his eyebrows. “Think you could be any more demanding?”

“I could.” David smirked. “Why? Do you want me to be?”

He
never
smirked when they were about to have sex. Jake gaped at him for a few seconds then went about doing what he was told. He was too damned horny and grateful to be confrontational. David nudged off his shoes, pulled down his jeans and underwear, and kicked them aside. His erection poled the bottom of his T-shirt away from his belly.

Sex was always easy between the two of them. As easy as their conversations and laughter, their shared love of books and classical music and the comedies of W. C. Fields.

Still, Jake couldn’t seem to forgo his pursuit of young, buff, pretty men. He’d worked hard to make himself appealing to them. Being a handsome man who attracted other handsome men had opened plenty of doors for him and helped him ignore the one large, looming door that remained closed at his back—the one to his parents’ home—and the door he hadn’t been able to find, the one leading to great success.

Leaning against the desk with his arms crossed, David watched as Jake stripped down to his shirt and tie. Then David leaned forward, grasped the tie, and reeled Jake in for a kiss and a feel. Jake’s cock twitched as David petted it. Their mouths resumed playing together.

“This is my favorite fantasy,” David said. “You giving in to me, your pants off and tie loosened”—he pulled the knot down to Jake’s sternum and kissed his throat—”and your shirt open.” He undid the row of buttons, top to bottom, then eased the sides apart and pushed the shirt back onto Jake’s shoulders to expose his chest.

“Really?” Jake said, finding it hard to draw air.

“Mm-hm.” David dipped down to glide his hands and mouth over Jake’s torso.

“You have some pretty tame fantasies.”

“I’m happy with them.”

David had a real talent for oral stimulation, from ears to mouth, nipples to crotch.

Knew when to go rough as hailstones, when to be gentle as a June shower. Moaning quietly, Jake cradled David’s head and rubbed his face and parted lips against the short, freshly washed hair, its color so rich and deep an auburn it would’ve been the perfect color for an expensive car.

Then David moved his hands to Jake’s back, surveying its contours for a moment before letting his fingertips follow the gully of Jake’s spine. He grasped Jake’s ass cheeks as his fingers teased the fissure.

His mouth again found Jake’s. “I beat off when I think about this, you with your goddamned Armani or Versace or whatever-the-fuck shirt—”

“D and G.” Jake flicked his tongue against David’s.

“Wide open and ready to fall off your shoulders, and your goddamned Gucci tie—”

“Vintage Hugo Boss.”

“Absorbing sweat from your chest.” David ground his hips against Jake’s.

Yeah, Jake was sweating now, and David’s confession combined with that buck of hard cock made him whimper.

David reached behind himself. “Change places with me,” he said in a guttural voice.

“Lean over the desk.”

“I’m not sure it’s high enough. We’ve never—”

“Just do it, will you?”

Jake did it. David lifted Jake’s shirttails to expose his ass.

“Oh Christ, that’s a pretty sight,” he said, as if the sight pained him. He lovingly stroked the curves.

Suddenly, a slap replaced the caress, its sting accompanied by a flat, smacking sound.

“Ow!” Reflexively, Jake began to straighten and turn, but David flattened a hand on his back. That hadn’t been a flesh-on-flesh slap. Sonofabitch must’ve grabbed the ruler lying beside the cup full of blue and red pencils.

“Don’t give me ‘ow’. That didn’t hurt…much. Bend over.”

“David, what the—”

The ruler snapped against his right cheek again, then the left.

Jake’s hips jerked forward, butting his boner against the side of the desk. “Have you turned into Sister Mary Kink or something?”

“I’ve been itching to smack you for two years, you supercilious prick. I figured I might as well get a thrill out of it.” Another smack. “Damn, you’ve got the palest, smoothest ass I’ve even seen on a man. It’s fun putting some color into it.”

David fondled the globes for a moment, obviously enjoying their feel, then withdrew his hands. As much as Jake hated to admit it, the brief spanking—more so, knowing it must’ve turned on the spanker—sharpened his arousal. When David’s hands returned, Jake puckered at the sudden, cool slickness of lube borne on deft fingers. The stuff quickly warmed beneath David’s touch.

A gentle swirl-and-poke was just fine. Not exactly novices at this, they could gauge each other’s desire-level well enough not to waste time on fussy preparation when it wasn’t necessary.

Today, it definitely wasn’t necessary.

“Turn around,” David said, his voice throatier, sexy as hell.

“Just don’t whack my prick.” Jake turned. “Jesus, I didn’t realize you hated me so much.”

“I don’t hate you, you bastard. I’m crazy about you. If I hate anybody, it’s myself.”

David kissed him with startling passion, both tender and wild, as he ran his thumbs over Jake’s nipples. Their cocks rubbed against each other and poked at their pubic hair. “Wait

’til you read my story.”

“The one that—”

“Yeah, the one that’s going to be under your back in two seconds. Now lie down.”

It was all too much to process. The static of excitement that filled Jake’s body had also shorted out his brain. He fumbled onto the desk, sliding over papers and folders, feeling an occasional pen roll beneath his ribs or rubberband stick to his damp skin. As he shifted into a fuckable position, something thumped to the floor.

“Don’t worry,” David said. “It’s only the stapler.”

Good thing the computer had its own desk.

David leaned forward and gave Jake’s cock a quick, firm suck. “Pull your knees farther back,” he said, helping get them in the position he obviously wanted. “There, that’s good. Now pull your scrote skin taut.”

“It’s already tight.” Hell, his balls felt throttled.

“Tighter, then. I want to see your nuts.”

Jake opened his mouth and closed his eyes and tried to stretch the skin of his sac snugly over the contents. “I’m starting to hurt,” he whispered. Now he
really
craved some dick up his ass.

He’d never before felt this vulnerable during sex—weak and aching with hunger; legs spread wide to a man intent on honing that hunger and doling out satiety on
his
terms; eager to take whatever he was given.

Too late to turn back now. He’d asked for it. What’s more, he wanted it, vulnerability or no.

With his fingertips, David simultaneously traced the outline of Jake’s balls and the path of his taint.

“I need it,” Jake said. “Now. You can’t…do this right…with me lying on the desk.”

“Bet me.” David gripped the undersides of Jake’s thighs and shoved his legs backward.

In an instant, Jake’s knees were nearly to his ears, and hard, sheathed cock probed his ass. Groaning, he gripped his wood. The cramping congestion that filled his lower abdomen crested as David crept deeper and lapsed into a slow, determined rhythm.

Jake couldn’t tell what broke him. Whether it was his own pumping hand or David’s thrusting cock, the orgasm came within minutes, its repeated, deep clutch-and-release taking control of his body and making his limbs spasm. And David came too, his dick pulsing perceptibly as he uttered a muted cry and went rigid all over.

Jake’s mind cleared as his climax began to wane. That shit David had said, what was it all about?
“I’m crazy about you.”
What did that mean? Especially in the context of those epithets? None of it made any sense.

“You just reminded me again why you’re my favorite client,” he said as David withdrew.

David laughed lightly and carefully peeled off the condom. “Bullshit. I hardly make you any money.”

“Yeah, well, the rest wouldn’t deliver me from celibacy.” Jake fumbled off the desk.

“And do it so well. Now who gets to use the bathroom first?” His fond smile faded when he noticed that David’s expression had changed. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Jesus. The blotches on your skin, they’ve gotten worse. They’re even a little bumpy.”

“
Bumpy
?” Jake felt himself blanch beneath those roseate patches. “Maybe…maybe it’s from the excitement. You know, blood pumping and temperature rising and all that.”

His laugh was brittle. “You give me fever.”

“Maybe.” David didn’t sound convinced.

Jake touched his face with trembling fingers and hurried into his office’s small restroom. David followed and stood beside him as he gazed bleakly into the mirror.

“But I don’t look any different to myself,” he said, trying to keep shrillness out of his voice. Wide, confused eyes stared back at him. “Why would I suddenly look different to
you
?”

“Let’s wait ’til we meet Todd and Fallon to talk about it. I’d like to hear what’s been going on with them before I toss any ideas out.” David, who’d already disposed of the condom, turned to leave the room. “Hurry up, okay? I need to clean up too.”

“David?”

He stopped just outside the door. “Hm?”

Jake’s mouth moved into a half-smile. “Thank you.”

Neither of them had yet put their pants back on, and Jake suddenly realized how strong David’s legs looked—he bicycled a lot—and how delicious they felt clenched around his body, their perfect dusting of dark hair both soft and coarse against his skin.

“My pleasure,” David whispered, returning his smile.

Almost five weeks and counting.

None of us had spotted the tall man or his beautiful alleged spouse since the night of the ass clutch, so I’d done some asking around. The couple
had
been seen before but not with any regularity. Either they preferred keeping to themselves, or they were occasional visitors to rather than residents of the city. I’d come up empty-handed.