Safe Harbor 2: Hiding in Plain Sight (5 page)

Pulling away from Vlad, Joe brought his cum-covered hand to his mouth and licked it clean. Vlad’s eyes were like saucers. He grabbed Joe by the back of the neck and brought their lips together in a bruising kiss, pushing his tongue inside his mouth. Joe shared Vlad’s flavor with him, but broke the kiss to help Vlad put himself back together before someone caught them. They watched the rest of the movie, though Joe mostly stared at the screen without seeing much. In hindsight, he couldn’t believe Vlad had let him do that in a public place. The guy must’ve been unbelievably horny. They’d have to be more careful from now on if Vlad didn’t want to be found out.

Joe closed his eyes, cursing himself. What was he doing? He’d let his dick rule, and it had gotten him in trouble, since he hadn’t been able to stop, to leave Vlad alone. He’d only just figured he was gay and Joe was already trying to get into his pants. Vlad’s kisses were intoxicating, and Joe was very afraid he wouldn’t be able to go back to being friends, even if he should. He opened his eyes when a big fight scene began, and as the carnage played out on screen, all Joe could see was the same thing happening if he and Vlad went on. In the end, Joe’s heart was likely to be the thing bleeding.

Chapter Three

Joe was out of his seat and exiting the theater as soon as the credits started playing. He was in the parking lot looking for his Cherokee when Vlad tapped him on the shoulder.

“I’m over here.” Vlad gave him a strange look, and Joe followed him, feeling totally out of sorts. They got into the car, and Vlad started to drive back to the restaurant without a word. Finally, with the tension in the car so thick Joe could practically hold it in his hand, Vlad spoke.

“Look. I do not know what happened back there, but I’ve never come that hard in my entire life. At first I had so much fear, sure everyone in the theater was watching, but the movie was so loud and no one seemed to notice. I cannot take a chance like that again, no matter how much I want to. I meant what I said, though. I’ve never come that hard. I want to do it again. I want to do it to you. Just not in public.”

Joe’s tongue felt thick in his mouth. “We shouldn’t,” he finally managed to say. Vlad pulled the wheel to the right, and Joe’s hands shot out to brace himself, his heart in his throat. Pulling the car onto the shoulder, Vlad slammed it into Park. “What the fuck, Vlad?”

“You are jerking me around.”

“I made a mistake.”

“That did not feel like a mistake.”

Even in the darkness of the car, Joe could see Vlad’s eyes had narrowed to mere slits, and his nostrils were flaring. A lesser man would’ve been afraid of the guy.

“It was.”

Vlad slapped the steering wheel. “I-I do not understand. You say you will help me figure out this whole gay thing, you answer question after question after question, you agree to have dinner with me and go out to a movie, but you say touching me was a mistake?”

“It was,” he repeated, trying like hell to get his point across. What point it even was at this juncture, Joe wasn’t sure. But there were good reasons for them to go no further. Joe needed to keep repeating them, to concentrate on them.

He flattened himself against the side of the car in alarm when Vlad undid his seat belt in record time before reaching for his. Vlad’s hand rubbed Joe’s cock through his pants.

“This is a mistake? If it is, why are you hard?”

“Natural reaction,” Joe grumbled.

“Bullshit.” Vlad wrenched Joe’s zipper down, and a little whimper of distress that the man would injure his favorite part died in Joe’s throat when Vlad began to jerk him off before leaning down to take Joe’s cock in his mouth.

“Fuck! Vlad!” Joe’s head fell against the window as he tried like hell to get up the gumption to push the other man away even as his ears rang from the impact. Vlad was humming around his length, and Joe was already so far gone, one hand found the back of Vlad’s head and took hold while the other one grabbed the dashboard. Just as he was about to lose it, Vlad pulled off and sat up. “Wha?”

Vlad clipped his seat belt, not looking at him, and put the car back into Drive.

“I was proving a point. Something that feels that good could not be a mistake.”

Oh, it definitely could
. He couldn’t believe Vlad had left him like that, his hard-as-nails dick pulsing and standing up lewdly from his pants. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Glancing over, Vlad said, “I will finish it. If you’ll admit you want this as much as I do.”

Joe groaned. “Vlad, please.”

“Please what? Please swallow my dick again? Please make me come?”

Vlad’s voice was harsh, echoing around the interior of the car, and Joe took a minute to force his cock back into his pants. “Please don’t do this.”

Vlad laughed, but Joe heard no humor behind it.

“Why? We like each other and make each other feel good.”

“It’s way more complicated than that, and you know it.”

Sighing, Vlad said, “Yeah, I do. I am the one who stands to lose everything here. I realize that. But I’m tired of this. I’ve finally figured out who I am. I’ve been so scared my entire life, even when I had no idea what I was scared about. But now I am a grown man, and I know what I want. I want you.”

“And I don’t want to be forced back into the closet.”

“You should not have kissed me. You should not have jerked me off.”

He shot a furious, frustrated look at him.
I should know better.

“You’re right. But that’s why it’s a mistake,” Joe said, rubbing his temples as a sudden headache threatened to give him the final nudge to the loony bin.

“I am not going to let you make me feel dirty about this.” Vlad swiped at his eyes.

Joe felt like an even bigger asshole. “I don’t want you to feel dirty. That’s not what this is about. What we did wasn’t dirty. It was natural. It just…shouldn’t happen again.”

“For a guy who faced down death every day, you are a fucking pussy, you know that?”

Joe’s eyes widened. He’d never heard such venom, but he supposed Vlad had a right to be angry. Vlad swung into the restaurant parking lot, and gravel kicked up in all directions.

“We are here. Have a nice life.”

“Vlad.”

“Go. Just fucking go.”

With another glance at Vlad’s tormented expression, Joey got out of the car. As soon as he’d closed the door, Vlad peeled away, kicking up more gravel. Joe trudged to his Cherokee, climbed in, and put his head in his hands. What had he done? He couldn’t leave things like this. Vlad deserved better. Joe wasn’t even sure why he’d reacted the way he had. But now he needed to fix it. He couldn’t live with himself, knowing he’d caused Vlad pain just because he was chickenshit. He began to formulate a plan.

* * * *

Vlad sniffled, trying like hell to hold in the tears threatening to fall as he drove away. He would not cry over the first guy he’d ever had sexual contact with. It was dumb. Joey probably wasn’t even worth it.

Yeah, he is.

He tried to tell himself to shut up, but no matter how angry he got, the overwhelming emotion rolling through him in waves was still hurt. He’d opened himself up to someone, and that person had shit all over him.

In some ways, Vlad wanted to go back to his sexless existence. He’d at least had some peace. It wasn’t a great peace, but it was there. Now a whole new world had opened up to him and just as quickly had been slammed shut again. Vlad arrived at his place and pulled the BMW into the garage. He wasn’t even sure how he’d gotten home.

Though it was dark, Vlad put his head down as he went to the street to get his mail, so no one would see the sheen of tears in his eyes. Once he had it, he turned and began to trudge inside. He jumped when a Jeep careened into the driveway. His hand holding the mail went over his heart. At the moment, it was pumping like he was at the end of a too-long shift. What the hell?

Joey flew out of the driver-side door and barked out, “Get in the house.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you were right. I acted like a prick, and I’m sorry. So get in the house, or your cock’s getting sucked right here in the driveway. And that’s just for starters.”

Vlad’s mouth fell open, but apparently his feet had gotten the message loud and clear, as they propelled him through the open garage door. Joey hit the garage door mechanism to close it as Vlad led him into the house. As soon as the door closed behind them, Joey pushed him against the opposite wall and dropped to his knees.

“Joey—”

“Shh.”

Within seconds, Joey had Vlad’s cock in his mouth. When he swallowed it to the root, Vlad’s eyes rolled back in his head, and a feral grunt escaped him. Before he even processed what he was doing, he’d grabbed Joey’s head in both hands and begun to fuck the man’s mouth. Joey took everything Vlad gave him, making hot little moaning and whimpering sounds.

“Joey, oh fuck. Want to finish you. Taste you. On the floor.”

He dropped onto the tiled floor, not giving a shit about the cold that instantly seeped into his bones, and arranged himself to take Joey’s dick as Joey sucked his. They both ended up on their sides as Joey moved with him. He’d seen this done in his porn movies, and it had always looked so hot. The reality didn’t disappoint. Vlad was very much afraid he was turning into a cock slut, since right now, all he wanted to do was play with Joey’s equipment for hours. Everything was so new and cool, and finally, finally, felt right. This was what he’d been waiting for his entire life, even when he didn’t know it.

Joey removed Vlad from his mouth long enough to say, “Gonna come. Pull off if you don’t want to swallow.” Vlad just tightened the grip of his lips, and Joey swore viciously before commanding, “Come with me.”

The thread of steel in his voice, coupled with the sheer ecstasy that was the experience of getting blown by Joey, was more than Vlad could take. He had to concentrate to keep his mouth tight and moving as his orgasm burst from him. A few seconds later, Joey’s hot, salty cum landed on his tongue, and he swallowed, taking care not to fuck up his first blowjob by getting cum all over the place.

After both of them had recovered their breath, Joey rolled over onto his back. “That’s the first time I’ve ever just dropped and gone at it.” He turned his head and looked at Vlad. “It was so fucking worth it.”

Vlad wanted to ask where this left them but was afraid to break the spell. Two orgasms in the space of less than a few hours left him feeling lethargic. He struggled to his knees and tucked his spent cock back in his black dress pants before pushing to his feet. Joey did the same.

“I, um, I don’t know what to do now,” Vlad admitted, feeling like a total idiot.

“We should talk, and then I should probably go.”

Or you could stay and show me what “just for starters” means. Like maybe what being inside your perfect ass is like.

“Oh. Okay.”

Way to not sound pathetic.

He brought Joey from the mudroom where they’d stopped, up the stairs and through the kitchen to the living room, or, as Vlad thought of it, the scene of the original crime. Joey sat down at one end of the couch and scrubbed his hands down the thighs of his pants.

“Could I get a glass of water?”

He seemed pretty jumpy, and Vlad frowned. “Of course. Hang on.” Vlad jogged back into the kitchen, returning quickly with two bottles of water. It seemed important not to leave the man alone for too long with his thoughts. He gave one of the waters to Joey and took a seat on the chair to Joey’s left.

Blowing out a breath, Joey opened the water and tossed the top on the end table between the two of them. After taking a long drink, he cradled the bottle in his hand. Vlad waited him out, dying a little more with every ragged breath Joey took.

Please don’t break my heart.

“It would appear I can’t stay away from you,” the man said with a rueful smile.

Good. I plan to keep it that way.

Joey looked up at Vlad. “For the record, I still don’t think this is a good idea.”

Vlad threw up his hands, sending water everywhere. He transferred the bottle to the table and wiped the water on his shirt, his gaze not leaving Joey’s. He wasn’t going to let the man off that easy.

“What are you saying?”

“That we’ll need to be careful if we do this. What I did in the theater—that was stupid, and I’m sorry. I should know better.”

“I was not exactly pushing you away.”

“I know, but I could’ve showed more self-restraint than that and will in the future, no matter how hot you look.”

Joey smiled, and Vlad felt the edges of his mouth kicking up. “So what should we do? Can we go out at all? I don’t know what people will think is weird.”

“Sure we can. We just have to play it cool. Friends go out to dinner and shit all the time.”

Americans cracked him up. And shit. What did that even mean? “Okay…and what about when we’re not in public?”

Now Joey’s smile turned into a full-fledged grin. “I strip you naked and do wicked things to your body. Maybe you can do some wicked things to mine too.”

Vlad’s cock began to fill again. “I want to fuck you.” He clamped his hand over his mouth.

I cannot
believe
I said that.

But Joey chuckled. “Probably not tonight, but if you play your cards right—”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“Yes, you did.”

Vlad acknowledged the statement with a slight nod of his head. “Maybe so. But I should not have just…” His hands flailed as he tried to come up with the correct word in English. Usually he did pretty well speaking the language, but sometimes specific things escaped him.

“That’s fine. It’s pretty hard to offend me.” Joey tilted his head. “Like I said, we should talk. We need to know more about each other, particularly me about you, so I don’t freak you out or hurt you. Have you ever, you know, played with yourself?”

“Like jerked off?”

“No, like played with your own ass. Fingers, toys?”

“Oh. That.” Heat flooded Vlad’s face. Someday maybe all this stuff wouldn’t embarrass him. “Yeah, but it felt weird.”

Joey nodded. “That’s pretty normal. Did you find your prostate?”