Love Me Like A Rock (9 page)

What he wanted to be doing was drawing Sean.

And once he let that thought out from under the heavy boot he’d laid on it when it was clear Sean was freaking out at the idea, Austin couldn’t think of anything else.

Sitting became pure torture. Pacing the small lobby was the answer, although that collected some peculiar looks from the occasional student or professor who passed through on their way home for the night.

He didn’t wait for students to finish pouring out of the studio when the open session ended before he was pushing his way in and heading over to where he knew Sean would be getting dressed.

Trying to act casual, as if he hadn’t seen the man behind the privacy screen naked a hundred times now, hadn’t taken nearly every part of Sean’s body in his mouth, and a good few of them in his ass, nearly broke him.

Austin crossed his legs and adjusted his short pea coat over his crotch, because a visible hard-on wasn’t going to do anybody any favors.

Yet.

“Don’t bother getting dressed,” he said, keeping his voice low but casual. Nothing drew attention faster in a crowd of gossipy students than whispering. “You’re not done posing.”

The heavy thump of a boot hitting the floor and a sudden, sharp inhale were his only answer.

Message received. Good enough.

He helped Knapp clean up the studio again, flashing back to the first night he and Sean had spoken—more than just spoken, of course—until the jeans situation became precarious again. She accepted his explanation that he was waiting for his friend Sean.

Austin was conscious of a peculiar aftertaste in his mouth as Knapp waved and headed out the door. A dissatisfaction with the words he’d used about Sean.
My friend Sean
was certainly an accurate descriptor. And there was no reason for Knapp to have any more information about their relationship than that.

Their relationship.

Did they have a relationship? As insistent as Austin had been that he wasn’t available for any such thing, only an idiot would deny it. He’d stopped sleeping with his occasional fuck buddy. He’d stopped even looking at anyone else. He got impatient at the idea of not being able to spend time with Sean when he’d expected to do so. And even when he did his Austin thing where he forgot the rest of the world existed because he was obsessed with an art project, Sean was there to bring him food and return his attention to the world around him.

Should he have said something else to Knapp?

He tried to imagine it. Tried to mouth the words silently.
My boyfriend Sean.
The shape his lips formed made his belly wobbly.

The final couple of students exited the studio, a pair of older women from town who Austin recognized from their regular attendance over the past couple of years. Austin was three steps behind them at the door, closing and locking it as soon as they were far enough down the hallway not to hear the click of the lock.

No sense drawing unnecessary attention to the private drawing session he was about to instigate.

“All clear, O Naked One,” he called out as he strolled back across the studio.

Sean stepped out from behind the screen, navy robe hanging open from his shoulders. Austin kept his eyes off the sway of Sean’s soft cock and balls. The idea of what he wanted to do was distracting enough without locking on that visual.

Not yet.

“What are you up to?” Sean asked, a smile pulling one corner of his mouth back.

Austin dragged one of the floor easels front and center, half a dozen feet from the table Knapp used for sitting poses so the model wasn’t on the floor.

“There’s nobody here but us chickens,” he said, and the slap of his hand on the table sounded like a shot in the empty room.

Sean walked toward him, eyes locked on Austin’s. Electricity crackled between them and Austin didn’t have to look down to know Sean was getting hard.

Austin backed away rapidly, because getting too close to Sean right now was dangerous, and he wanted to draw, damn it.

With a smirk, Sean ditched the robe, hopped up on the table and stretched out like one of those naked girls on the fresh sushi table in a Vegas hotel, head propped on one hand.

“Don’t move,” Austin said absently, eyes flicking back and forth between Sean and his sketchpad every two seconds. “God, I love drawing your cock. I can practically taste it in my mouth when I rub the charcoal in.”

“You’re killing me,” Sean groaned, the muscles in his forearm bunching.

Austin bit his lip to keep his smile under control.

“Just a little while longer.”

“I had no idea you were such a sadist.”

“You’ve seen me cox,” Austin reminded him.

“I think I need a safeword.”

“Stop being such a baby and I’ll blow you as soon as I’m done.”

“You’ll get your ass up here and ride my dick.” Sean’s growl ripped out of his throat like paper tearing. And suddenly Austin’s hands were shaking like they never did when curved around a drawing implement, but he could hardly blame them, because all of the blood in his body had just shot out of a cannon toward his dick.

Staying where he was, keeping his feet rooted the floor by sheer willpower alone when every cell in his body was pulling toward Sean’s naked body like Austin was made of magnets and Sean was true north, was an act of self-torture.

He drew, lines and shadows and the dense physical there-ness of Sean, and the act of dragging his charcoal across the paper was different than it ever had been before.

This wasn’t the first time he’d sketched Sean. Austin regretted that he had no memory of that first session, when Sean had noticed him and Austin had simply seen another model on whose body he could practice seeing, and transferring that sight to the page.

But somehow he hadn’t seen, had he? Not really. He’d focused on angles and curves, dips and swells of skin and bone and muscle, without seeing the man beneath them at all.

And now every ounce of his attention was focused on Sean and the man himself shone through his body like Austin was reading a book under a bright yellow sun.

As much as he’d come to love Sean’s attention, to bask in it and to compare it to the relative stinginess of Vinnie’s occasional regard, it occurred to Austin that he’d maybe been just the tiniest bit stingy himself.

It wasn’t that he lacked in intensity or focus, exactly. But Austin couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d turned that focus on another person. Not even with Vinnie had he ever paid as much attention as he was paying to Sean right now, and in the past few weeks.

I focus on art. I focus on winning races. But otherwise…

Otherwise, Austin knew he spent most of his time off in his own world, zoning out with his own thoughts, or drifting along on a pot high to unwind. He’d wanted Vinnie to pay more attention to him, but Austin hadn’t actually offered any kind of reciprocity on that unspoken demand, and for the first time it occurred to him that maybe he hadn’t actually deserved any more from Vinnie than what he’d gotten.

Maybe you weren’t any better for him than he was for you.

It was a revelation. One Austin needed to communicate with his body. On Sean’s body. Right now.

He dropped his charcoal on the table and kicked his shoes off under the table, then strode over to Sean, leaning over the table to press a kiss on Sean’s waiting mouth.

“I think you make me a better person,” he admitted when they came up for air.

Sean shook his head. “I’m not trying to make you anything.”

“Ugh. Fine.” He blew a sharp puff of air up, making his bangs bounce. “Being around you makes me start acting like a better person. And if you crack a joke right now, I will junk-punch you.”

“Ouch. No, Austin.” Sean pushed his hair back with both hands, staring at his face and smiling. It was amazing how much of his smile Austin could see with his face shaved, even though he missed the scruff and the way it brushed against his skin. Sean pulled his face down. “This isn’t a joke. Not to me.”

“I think maybe not to me either,” he whispered and brushed his lips against Sean’s. Then he stripped and climbed on, but Sean stopped him with a hand on Austin’s hip when Austin leaned down to grab a condom from his jeans.

Sean shook his head, eyes locked on Austin’s. “If neither of us is sleeping with anyone else…”

Austin hesitated. He hadn’t said anything about Vinnie in ages. And the truth was, that old pull didn’t exist anymore for Austin. His thoughts ran on channel Sean twenty-four-seven. But doing this now, after Sean had said that, was making a promise. That they were in an exclusive relationship. No one else allowed.

Sean waited, patient eyes always on him. Paying attention, the way Sean did.

Like maybe I could count on him to do that always…

Then Austin slid down, holding his breath, and fucked himself on Sean’s dick until he forced scary thoughts like that out of his head.

Chapter Nine

“Aww, shit. Not this again,” Austin complained, surfing the web instead of finishing a paper for his art history class.

“What?” Vinnie, not looking up from his own laptop.

“They’re bringing up the fucking NEA shit again.”

“The budget committee?”

“Yeah.”

“Your name come up?”

“Of course. Who else to wave around as an example of wasteful government spending except the congresswoman’s queer son who draws naked fags?” Austin’s voice was bitter in his mouth, like salt. “As if I’ve ever gotten a dime of government funding for my art.”

“Carlisle probably does though, and maybe even for the art museum,” Vinnie said, being reasonable, which was annoying when all Austin wanted was to bitch out loud and have someone agree with him.

Not that Vinnie was wrong. Carlisle’s art museum, where the students held their final project art show every semester, no doubt had received grants at some point for different exhibits.

“Yeah, well, some new ultra conservative group, think Westboro Baptist Church, without the God stuff, has gotten wind of my show.”

It had been quite a coup, really, scoring an individual showing at the museum when those were normally reserved for the seniors. The small burning coal of pride Austin had felt at being honored with a solo was something he’d tucked away in his chest and hadn’t let out around anyone else yet. He wasn’t even sure his suitemates knew it was coming up. He hadn’t wanted to make a big deal about it, even if his inner five-year-old, never too far from the surface, danced like a kid on a sugar high whenever he thought about it.

“Come with me,” he said impulsively. The weird distance between him and Vinnie hadn’t subsided, and he missed his friend.

“To your show?” Vinnie raised a black eyebrow.

“Yeah. They’re going to picket. If you’re coming, we can fuck with the protestors,” he said, pushing.

He was lucky his mom didn’t give a damn about him doing stuff like that. Hell, some ambitious intern on her staff would probably put together a fundraiser email about it and get a promotion for drumming up new money.

Vinnie’s parents were not at all of the same mindset.

“My father would love that,” he said dryly.

Vinnie’s father loved to show off his perfect son in the interviews and photo spread his assistant carefully organized to promote his holding company that had fingers in pies all across the nation.

Now that Austin thought about it, Lim Real Estate was almost certainly global by now.

Unplanned appearances by Mr. Lim’s son in the press were not approved.

“You know it’ll just get them worked up,” Vinnie said, shaking his head. “And you hate that stuff. There’ll be articles for months. Fringe bloggers writing about you from now until after the election next year.”

“So what?”

“It’s not smart to feed them drama. You know you’ll regret it later.”

Vinnie’s rational analysis of the situation only pushed Austin’s back up further. He’d been mostly joking about fucking with the protestors, because he didn’t give enough of a damn to put that kind of energy into what was clearly a total waste of space.

His insistence on arguing for Vinnie’s attendance just pissed his roommate off, though.

“I’m not up for being a spectacle because you’ve got a bee up your ass about something for five minutes. You’ll forget about all this and I’ll still be getting lectures from my father at graduation. You never think about the fallout.”

Which stung a little, mostly because it was true. As long as he wasn’t actively embarrassing her—and even then his mom’s staff would probably find a way to spin it to her advantage—Austin was pretty free to do what he wanted. Her lack of ambition for any office higher than the one she currently held, and the security of her seat, made her, and his, life about as free from the restrictions of campaigning as any politician in the country.

“Fine.” Austin slammed his laptop shut and retreated to his room. He shouldn’t have bothered.

* * * * *

“Would you go with me to an art show?” he asked Sean over Korean ramen they’d cooked on Sean’s illegal hot plate, because it took forever in the microwave.

“Sure. Whose show?”

Austin slurped up a mouthful of spicy noodles, letting the simple ease of being with Sean—
“Sure. Whose show?”
—wash over him as he tried to screen out the little seaweed bits with his teeth. Because gross.

“Mine.”

“Really? That’s great! I didn’t know if you’d want me to come,” Sean said, grinning. “This show is a pretty big deal, right?”

“It’s pretty cool, yeah.” He kept his eyes on his bowl. “They don’t normally offer solo shows to juniors, and if they do it’s usually in the spring.”

“So, you’re like the rock star of the art department, huh?” Sean hooked a hand around Austin’s thigh and dragged him closer until their legs were pressed together.

“I don’t know about that…” Austin began, trying to keep his
no big deal
façade in place, but Sean was bouncing in his seat on the floor, head tilted back and crowing about rock stars, which made it impossible not to grin and admit it. “Yeah. I’m a total fucking rock star.”

Sean swooped in with a kiss that left Austin breathless and not giving a damn about his noodles.

“Shit, we’ll have to celebrate. What time is it? Can we do dinner before, or after? And for real, this time. Not fucking instead of eating.”

Fucking instead of eating sounded like a dandy idea.

“Sure. It’s at seven. We could go early, or try to squeeze in somewhere afterward.” Dining in western Massachusetts was not a late-night affair unless you wanted to head up the highway to the twenty-four-hour truck stop up on Route 5.

“After. I know a guy who works at the brewery. He can hold the kitchen for us if we run late. Special occasion, man. This is great.”

Austin didn’t want to stomp on Sean’s happy grin, especially not when that grin was giving him a funny buzz in his belly, like he was nervous or something. Which was ridiculous. There was nothing to be nervous about. His fuck buddy had just said he’d go with Austin to a semi-formal celebration of his art. That was all good, no drama.

He didn’t even think twice. Why does that feel so good? I’m not really mad at Vinnie for saying no.

Except maybe he was, a little. Maybe his asking Vinnie had been sort of a test. That wasn’t fair, but if it had been, Sean was the one who’d passed with flying colors.

“Will your parents come out for it?” Sean asked him as he finished slurping up noodles.

Austin shrugged. He wasn’t privy to his mother’s calendar. “Maybe. I’ll let them know when it is, but there’s a decent chance they’ll be out of the country.” Although maybe not, with the budget fights picking up speed as the most recent continuing resolution that kept the government money flowing neared its expiration date.

“Are those protesters going to show?” Sean’s face showed nothing but mild inquiry.

“Is that a deal-breaker for you?” Austin asked carefully, as if it was only a question of curiosity. As if his heart hadn’t just stumbled at the idea of Sean deciding he couldn’t go after all.

How Sean’s coming with him had become important enough to make a change of heart painful, in the fifteen minutes since Austin had first invited him, he didn’t know.

But it had.

Sean’s presence in his life had become all kinds of important lately.

“No. There’s nothing wrong with your show, or the art department, or naked figure drawing sessions. You know
I
don’t think that.” Sean paused though, then frowned. “Actually I’m not one hundred percent sure the college would be on board with a TA also working as a model. I, uh, sort of haven’t mentioned that to them, what with a TA’s indentured servant wages. Plus, it’s just a naked body. It’s not a big deal.”

The entire rock geek crew had clearly spent so much time in the wild, Austin had noticed, that they’d shed most of society’s ideas of acceptable levels of public nudity.

Austin didn’t hesitate to dump his earlier plans to scandalize the protestors with gay boy outrageousness. Half the reason that kind of thing was fun with Vinnie was because it pushed Vinnie’s comfort zones as much as it did the uptight straight people’s. He didn’t know if it was Sean bringing out the grown-up in him or what, but Austin didn’t feel the same need to act out with Sean.

Or maybe it was the constant sex. Made it easier to play things cool in public if he knew he was going to get epically laid shortly thereafter.

“We’ll keep it low-key,” he said. “We can even sneak in the back if you like.”

“No way.” Sean reached out and tangled his fingers with Austin’s “It’s your big night. I’m proud as hell to go with you. Front door. All the way.”

Right. That’s enough of dinner. Time for dessert.

Tackling Sean to the floor for sex was his new favorite way to finish a meal.

In the end, the “crowd” of protesters turned out to be two men and a woman in baggy clothes and ugly shoes with homemade anti-obscenity signs so tacky Austin was tempted to offer to run up to the painting studio and redo them just on artistic principle’s sake. But then he remembered Sean was taking him out to dinner after the show, and taking him home after that for the epic sex, and decided he didn’t have time for that kind of nonsense.

Besides, his bravado seemed to have been swallowed up in a maelstrom of last-minute nerves and gut-churning anxiety. He clutched at Sean’s hand as they strolled past the three protesters without giving them so much as a glance. His palms were sweaty.

“It is possible I’m freaking out just the tiniest bit,” he whispered at Sean as they entered the building.

Sean stopped him just outside the white-walled gallery space, straightened Austin’s collar and pressed a swift kiss to his mouth. “You’re going to be awesome. And I’ll map out the exits for emergency escape purposes. We can skip dinner and go straight to the celebratory sex.”

Then Sean winked at him, which was enough to break through the tension and make Austin laugh and stop hanging back.

Constant, epic sex for the win.

* * * * *

“Job well done, rock star.”

Sean pulled him into the alcove where a rack dripping with hangers had held the coats of the art show’s patrons. Austin’s back hit the wall with a sound thump and his mouth was open on a laugh when Sean slid a thigh between his legs and pressed in deep for a kiss.

Sean’s mouth tasted of the cheap red wine the art department first-year students had offered in plastic tumblers all night long. Austin had lost count of how many tumblers he’d downed in the dizziness of having so many people show up for this event.

Free wine was definitely the draw, but he’d take it, because once they got there, the people who’d come for the wine had been sucked in by his latest project, obsessively spinning around the room and arguing about their favorite prints vs. the one that creeped them out the most.

God, being the object of so much scrutiny was a total turn-on. He thrust his dick against Sean’s thigh, ignoring the snort of a late party leaver who ducked in to pull their coat off the rack.

“Did you see how obsessed by your stuff they all were?” Sean whispered in his ear and the sound tickled down Austin’s spine to his asshole, lighting him up as if Sean had dragged his tongue over each vertebra on his way down. “I wanted to stand in the middle of the room and shout,
that’s my fucking boyfriend, everybody.
”

Austin jerked up from the sensual slouch he’d sunk into on Sean’s thigh.
Whoa…

Sean held Austin’s chin in careful fingers so he couldn’t look away without jerking his eyeballs around like a coke addict. “Are you freaking out again right now?”

“A little.”

“Will it help if I tell you some more how fucking awesome you are?”

“Maybe.” Because he did want to hear some more about that, and maybe it would help slow down the rabbit that had startled and shot off inside his chest.

“I watched those people for the last two hours, Austin.” And even though he was teasing a little, Sean leaned back so Austin could see his eyes. See that this part wasn’t for fun. “They were mesmerized by your work. Girls were dragging each other from one print to the next, squealing about which ones they wanted on their dorm-room walls. And which ones freaked them out too much for that. That’s something else, Austin. To pull that kind of emotion out of people.”

It had been a risk, all the work he’d done this summer and fall. Such a departure from everything he’d produced in the past. The ground under Austin’s feet had felt paper thin, like that ceiling of sand that built up when a dune swallowed a forest. And his confidence had felt as hollow as that dune filled with rotting, vanishing trees.

“I thought they were going to hate it.”

“Why?”

“Because none of it’s done with my hands. It’s all computer-generated and sometimes art people get shitty about that kind of thing.”

“Did you make it? Did you find those images and manipulate them and whatever else it was you did?” Before Austin could say anything, Sean answered his own questions. “I know you did, because I
saw
you.”

Sean couldn’t possibly say anything Austin hadn’t already told himself—there was no way a non-art major who didn’t even know the language was going to come up with a new perspective in five minutes of thinking—but it still made Austin feel good to hear it.

“How about we—” Sean pressed his dick into Austin’s hip and rubbed on him like he couldn’t wait to get off. “—get our asses in gear before they close the kitchen at the brewery?”

Austin laughed and tugged his coat on, backing out of the coat alcove toward the exit with his fingers hooked firmly in the belt loops of Sean’s jeans. The curved brick hallway leading back to the art museum was empty of all tipsy stragglers.

“Fine. But after dinner, you have to take me back to your room and fuck me until I can’t move. I want to get
loud
.”

Sean’s eyes widening was the only warning Austin had before he slammed ass-first into a wall of flesh.