Special Delivery: Special Delivery, Book 1 (9 page)

“If you turn out that bad, I promise I
will
kidnap you. But you won’t, Sam.”

“How do
you
know? You’ve only met me twice.”

“And had quite a phone conversation too.”

“Sure. So, if I fail school, I’ll sell my ass and do phone sex.” Sam rolled his eyes at himself. Mitch stopped walking, and Sam did too, but the fire had gone out of him now. “I don’t mean to be so pathetic. It seems to happen naturally.” There was a long, uncomfortable pause, and Sam used the time to try and stare a hole in the ground in the hopes it would swallow him whole.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see the highway. They had come out on Chestnut Street, which at this point was a series of gas stations, two car dealerships and a smattering of fast-food places. One of the gas stations was sort of a truck stop, and Sam could see several semis lined up along the side of the building. One of them had a blue cab. It was nearly over, and as usual he’d bungled everything.

“Why
don’t
you leave?”

Sam frowned at him. “What?”

“Leave Middleton. Leave Iowa. Get out there in the wide world and see for yourself. Find out if you’re pathetic, or if it’s what people told you to be and you started to believe it.”

For several seconds Sam could only stare at him. “Leave school? Leave—everything?”

Mitch shrugged. “Finish your semester, obviously. But yeah. Then go. Walk out and into something different. Don’t be safe. Just go be.”

“You’re serious.” Sam tilted his head to the side. “Is that what you did?”

Mitch’s grin was rueful. “No. But it’s what I wish now I had.”

Sam didn’t know what to do with this. Denial seemed the safest road. “I can’t.”

“You can.” Mitch nodded to the highway. “We should keep heading on.”

“But how do you know?” Sam was more unsteady now than when he’d first stumbled drunkenly out of Los Dos. “How can you look at me and know?”

He expected—wanted—Mitch to tell him he was only making conversation, or being clever, or something, anything to dismiss it. But Mitch seemed pained.

“I don’t know. Forget I said anything.” He picked up his pace. “Chicago is calling. Double-time, Sunshine.”

Sam ran after him, lost and foolish. He knew he should shut up and make these last few minutes count, but he was rattled. He felt like he’d gone into the wrong bar to meet the wrong Mitch. Wasn’t this guy supposed to be making lewd propositions and trying to feel him up under the table or do him in a bush, or something? What was with the philosophy shit?

Goddamn it, they hadn’t even
kissed
.

That last thought rattled in Sam’s head as they wove their way through the cars and trucks in the parking lot to Mitch’s rig, and the blue cab became a lightning rod for all Sam’s fears and frustrations, sucking them all in and honing them to a single point standing for everything he was, everything he wanted and would never be, and everything about to slide out of his hands. Which was probably why when Mitch turned toward him with a wry,
Well, this was fun
look on his face, Sam stopped the words before they could come out by grabbing Mitch’s shoulders, pulling him down and kissing him.

The kiss was rough and terrifying—Sam was pretty sure he’d blown everything with this insane gesture, and since he was already fucking up, he decided to make it the biggest fuckup on record. Mitch would tell people for years about the crazy psycho college kid who stuck his tongue down his throat in a truck stop parking lot, who had to be all but surgically removed from his body so he could get to Chicago on time. “He was a good lay,” he could hear Mitch saying in this imagined future. “Too bad he was batshit crazy too.”

But Mitch wasn’t pushing him away. At first he sort of froze, but only for a few seconds. There was one more pause as Mitch clutched awkwardly at Sam’s shoulders, and then, as if he’d been fishing for a gear and found it, he kissed Sam back, rough and deep.

“Up,” Mitch murmured, kissing Sam once more before turning him around and pushing him into the driver’s seat before following after. “In.”

They fumbled their way around the gearshift and the console—Sam had a brief glimpse of a dashboard which could have rivaled the cockpit of an airplane, and then all he saw was Mitch as the truck driver shoved him against a gray curtain hanging between the driver and passenger seats. The curtain gave way, and then they were through it, and Sam fell backward onto the floor, dragging Mitch with him.

They were in some sort of room: small, but also spacious, given it was in the cab of a semi. Sam saw the black of a flat-screen television and what appeared to be a mini-fridge and microwave.
He has half an RV in here,
Sam thought, but when Mitch’s body pressed to his, he didn’t think of anything else, except if this semi had a TV, it probably had a bed.

“I gotta get to Chicago.” But Mitch nibbled his way down the side of Sam’s face as he spoke, and his hand fumbled at Sam’s fly.

“Take me with you.”

In the dark, he could see the outline of Mitch’s face as it lifted over his head, but he couldn’t read the other man’s expression. He could guess it, though, when a hand kneaded gently at his hips.

“You want to come?”

The whole universe stopped as the question hung in between them. Nothing moved, and there was no sound. There was only Sam and the furious beating of his heart, and Mitch and the soft, unsteady breaths warming the air. Mitch was serious. He was seriously asking, and Sam, though angry, considered taking him up on it. He could even see it: they’d drive to Chicago and then head on south, and west. They’d ride all day and make love all night.

Together.

Except as quickly as the vision rose, it faded away.

Sam pressed a hand to Mitch’s chest and stared at it. “I can’t.”

He wanted Mitch to push him, to drive him to saying yes the way Emma would. But Mitch didn’t. He only bent down and brushed a soft, sad kiss to Sam’s lips. “I gotta go.”

“Kiss me first.” Sam couldn’t stop touching him. “Once more, before you go.”

He felt Mitch’s smile at his lips. “So you can leave me blue-balled again?”

I don’t want to leave you at all.
“Yeah.”

Mitch took Sam’s mouth, and Sam wrapped his arms around the other man’s neck and surrendered to him. Mitch moved against him, sliding his hips over Sam’s, pressing their imprisoned cocks up along one another as he delved deeper and deeper into Sam’s mouth, echoing the contact above and below until they were humping one another and panting. Mitch gripped Sam’s waistband, tugged hard, and they tumbled into the act they’d been dancing around all night.

“Only for you, Sunshine.” Mitch coaxed Sam’s hips up so he could pull his jeans down. “Only because it’s you.”

“We can be fast.” Sam fumbled as he tried to help Mitch undress him.

“I don’t want to be fast, but we’ll have to be anyway.” Mitch pulled back, drawing Sam upright with him. “Take off your shirt so I can taste your skin.”

Sam was so hard he hurt as he squirmed out of his T-shirt, tossing it off into the darkness, crying out and arching as Mitch’s mouth opened against his chest. He clutched Mitch’s head and tried to aim him at his nipple. This inspired Mitch to rumble wickedly and reach up to tweak one of the tiny peaks gently before sucking the other sharply between his teeth. Sam gasped as Mitch’s hand slipped down and took his dick in possession, stroking it several times before letting it go, rising and pushing Sam to the floor.

He made quick work of Sam’s shoes and his already half-removed jeans, and then, when Sam was naked except for his socks, opened his legs wide, lifted his ass high and sucked on the inside of his thigh. Mitch remained clothed, which Sam found highly erotic. Sam aimed his hips toward Mitch’s mouth, gasping as those lips dragged down to the juncture of his thighs and his waiting cock.

The sex this time was a blur. A lubed finger entered Sam, and he held his legs against his body, spreading himself as Mitch entered him. He gave over to the sensation of being fucked, to being with Mitch, of letting go so much he was practically a rag doll. The Technicolor explosion in his head built as the other man thrust, and once he’d come, it took only a few strokes to bring himself along after.

On the cold, metal floor of the semi, with Mitch still pressed inside him and with a pool of cooling semen on his naked stomach, Sam was, for one moment, complete.

Then Mitch pulled away, and it was over.

He pressed a kiss to Sam’s face. “Oh, Sunshine.” Another kiss, this one lingering on Sam’s lips. Rising, he gathered Sam’s clothes and handed them to him.

He also passed over a paper towel, which Sam used to clean himself. He stumbled into his clothes, feeling heavy and sad, and a little angry. Not at Mitch, but at something. He couldn’t name it, which angered him even more. When he was dressed, Sam stood and faced him. This couldn’t end, and yet it was about to. Sam felt tongue-tied and lost, unsure of what to do now.

It was Mitch who acted—he reached for a pad of paper up by the driver’s seat, and after scribbling something on a page, he handed it to Sam. “In case you ever decide to put out that lease.” He was teasing, but there was a gruffness about him that left Sam aching all over again. Sam took the paper, pocketing it with an almost wooden nod. Mitch helped him over the captain’s chairs to the door and handed him his phone.

“You sure you’re gonna be okay walking?” Mitch looked doubtful. “I could drive you near home at least.”

Sam shook his head. “I’ll be fine.” He tried to smile but gave up and kissed Mitch one more time softly on his lips. “Thanks.”

“Bye, Sunshine.” Mitch closed his door.

The semi pulled onto the road and onto the interstate.

Everything felt surreal as Sam watched Mitch go, as he walked to his car, which only faltered twice before starting. He drove home slowly, playing echoes of the evening over in his mind, but by the time he reached Cherry Hill, it almost seemed like a dream.

It did become a dream once he went to bed. He dreamed of Mitch kissing him, Mitch pressing inside him, Mitch smiling at him. He woke hard, aching and ready to cry.

I should have gone with him.
Sam didn’t know how he could have, but as he woke that morning, all he knew in life was he should have gone with Mitch, no matter what the consequences.

Mitch was gone. It was too late.

Sam went through the next few days in a zombielike state. Twice he almost called Mitch, but he couldn’t think of what to say. He ignored Darin entirely, and when Keith caught him in the hall and asked him what the fuck he was doing, Sam ducked beneath his former bathroom buddy’s arm and went to class.

Sam didn’t care about anything. He felt wrong and empty, except when he lay in bed. There he felt raw and hurt and terrified. Not even a visit to his mother’s urn could make these feelings go away, and he couldn’t understand why.

The night before school term ended he lay in bed with Judy clutched in his hand, stroking her side as he stared at Mitch’s contact information typed so carefully on the screen.
Come get me,
he wanted to say.
Come back, and take me with you. I don’t know why I want you, but I do, so please, please come get me.

Sam didn’t call him. He went to bed, and the next day, as he knew he would for the rest of the summer, he got up, got showered and went to work.

Except when he got there, Delia waited for him, one hand on her hip, the other resting at her side. She held something black and small inside her hand, her fury radiating off her in icy waves. “Where were you the day you unloaded stock? The day you asked me to give you a free apartment? Where were you
really
when I called for you?”

Sam stilled. Something told him the wrong answer would send him to hell, but the trouble was, he didn’t know what the right answer was. He fished for a safe response and settled on Emma’s lie. “I was in the shelves, and I didn’t hear you.”

Delia’s smile was tight as she lifted whatever it was she held. “No. You weren’t.”

Sam frowned, then froze as he got a good look at what she held in her hand.

It was a security tape.

Chapter Seven

“What—” Sam’s voice broke, and he swallowed to try to right it. “What’s that?”

“Security footage. I borrowed it from the bike shop. I knew you were up to something in the alley, and this morning I realized I could find out exactly what by checking the tape.” Delia didn’t smile, not even in triumph. “I
watched
it. I watched it, Sam, and I was nearly
sick
.”

Sam wasn’t feeling so good himself. But Mitch had shut the door. What had they done outside? What—? He took a step backward and glanced around, wondering who else was witnessing this little scene. There were no customers—Delia would never do this in front of
customers
. Steve, though, was in the pharmacy, and Sam could see from the temp pharmacist’s expression he listened to every word.

Delia took a step closer to Sam. “What did you do in that trailer? With that
man
?”

Sam’s face was hot, but his blood was cold. Honestly, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand upright. “I—I—” He couldn’t manage anything else. This was his worst nightmare come true.

This was about to taint the best thing that had ever happened to him.