Tough Love (14 page)

“Not right now, no. I would like that sometime, though, if you’re still willing. I see him wincing and touching his shoulder when he works in the kitchen, and it makes me feel bad.”

Yes, and Steve had left it way too long. Really, it was almost too late. The thought that he’d maybe missed the window to comfort Chenco made him ache with loss.

Chenco ran a hand down Steve’s arm. “I’m not talking about Randy right now. I’m talking about playing. With you.”

Mayday.
“Playing how?”

Chenco’s smile sent shivers down Steve’s spine. “However you like, Papi.”

Steve sat up straighter in his chair and caught sight of Randy milling about in the kitchen.
There’s your out.
“Everyone’s still up. They might come outside.”

“We could go somewhere else.” When Steve kept quiet, Chenco’s cheeks stained red. “Forget it.”

Get a fucking grip, Steve.
He swung his body to face Chenco. “I’m not saying no. But I need to know what you want.”

“Well,
I
want sex, but I assume you’ll still tell me no.”

That’s right, it’s not happening,
Steve wanted to say, but once Chenco looked at him, sauce mixed with shy, fire dancing in the back of those hesitant eyes, he was undone. He didn’t speak, only stroked the side of Chenco’s face. Those brown eyes softened, guards coming down.

Chenco nuzzled tentatively into Steve’s hand. “Do you
want
to have sex with me?”

Yes, Steve did. He ached for it like nothing he’d ever yearned for, a want that terrified him. “I’m too old for you.”

Steve almost laughed at the angry look Chenco gave him. God, to be twenty-four again. Thinking this, though, only made Steve remember how lost and helpless
he
had felt at that age.

“I do want you.” Steve gentled his voice. “I just don’t know if it’s a great idea.”

“What, do you think I’m going to be some kind of moony stalker? If we have sex, I’ll assume I’m moving in? Why can’t it be about having a good time?”

Because I’m an old, tired man who forgot how to be carefree a long time ago. Because I’d love you to move in, even if I never so much as touch you, and that’s really fucking crazy.
“I don’t think you’re a moony stalker.”

“Okay.” Chenco relaxed a little. “I meant what I said. I don’t sleep around.”

Steve couldn’t hold back a smile. “I know. You’re choosy. I like it.”

“Booker says I’m a frigid prude.” Chenco’s face clouded. “Do you know, he hasn’t called me since that night? We’re due for another show soon, but we haven’t rehearsed. He doesn’t know about the trailer—hasn’t asked.” He ran a weary hand through his hair. “I think I’m going to have to move in with Lincoln. I don’t want to, but I don’t have any choice.”

Yes you do. Come stay with me. Play or don’t play, but stay. Let me make everything okay.
Steve bit the entreaty back. “You always have choices.”

“I had one choice—to let my mother turn me into someone I wasn’t, or to go off on my own. I chose my pride, and this is what it bought me. I live the real-life version of those romantic stories where the duke’s daughter runs off with the stable hand. They don’t live happily ever after. They live in abject poverty, miserable, cold, hungry. They have each other and nothing more, and pretty damn quickly it isn’t enough.”

“Do you wish you would have gone the other way?”

Chenco shook his head. “I don’t. But…I wish the fairy tale were real.”

Steve couldn’t bite his tongue anymore, not without taking it clean off. He couldn’t stop this train, but if he schooled himself, if he did his job, he could keep it under control. Straightening in the chair, putting his hands on his knees, he looked Chenco dead in the eye.

“Kneel.”

Pleasure curled in Steve’s belly at how gracefully Chenco complied with the command. The boy was nervous, yes, self-conscious, afraid of rejection, afraid of being mocked—but he was determined too, and he was here, obeying. Playing. Brave, beautiful, proud Chenco, kneeling before a man.

When Steve’s hand slid into that dark, curling hair, Chenco shuddered, and the reverberation rang all the way into Steve’s soul.
So much want.
So much yearning, so much need, but so much
strength
.

This confident man wasn’t Gordy. How had he ever seen the two of them as the same?

You don’t deserve him. You don’t deserve someone like this.

Jesus, nothing was ever more true, but when Steve started to draw back, Chenco looked up at him, wounded, confused, and it was over.

With a sharp pull, Steve drew Chenco’s face right into his crotch.

The sharp, hot breath of surprise against his fly was better than any caress. Steve watched, want and pure, red lust burning as Chenco’s lips parted, as he stared at the bulge in front of him. The saucy bottoms Steve had tricked with in his youth would have leered up at him and reached for his fly. Gordy would have nuzzled in like a grateful bear cub, sucking up musk.

Not Chenco. He hesitated, yearning but holding back, wanting but not daring to take. There was fear there, but it wasn’t of Steve. It wasn’t even trepidation over kneeling, no hesitation of being caught giving a blowjob beneath the stars. Chenco feared being seen, period. Of being tough without his drag. Exposing his vulnerability to anyone, no matter how safe they were. Letting Steve take his control away, being the one who played
that game
.

He feared it, but he faced it.
Oh, baby.

For the first time in fifteen years, it was Steve who choked. It was Steve who didn’t have the guts to reach for his fly, who couldn’t bring himself to force Chenco’s face into his groin, though it was what they both wanted. Fucking hell, he wanted Chenco stripped
down
while he knelt, wanted to fuck his face so hard everyone came out to see what the ruckus was about. He wanted them all to see, wanted them to know this boy was his. He wanted— He wanted—

Steve gripped Chenco’s hair, yanked it until his boy’s hot breath burned against his leg, half of Chenco’s face pressed into Steve’s thigh. He kept him pinned there by his hair, clamoring for control.

He couldn’t do this.

Chenco turned his face into Steve’s leg and bit him lightly through his jeans.

Steve’s hand tightened on the curly dark hair, and he felt Chenco’s scalp fighting the pressure. This wasn’t playing, this wasn’t a scene—and if it was, Steve wasn’t the fucking Dom. Was Chenco, though, or were they flying blind together?

With a whimper, Chenco bit harder. The more Steve tugged, the more Chenco cried out and the deeper his teeth went, until Steve could feel the burn of Chenco’s jaw pressing through the denim into his thigh. God, but it was glorious.

With a choked roar, Steve crammed that wicked mouth to the hot length of his cock. What he should and shouldn’t do was forgotten as he ground Chenco’s face into his rod, fingers digging in as Chenco bit here too. Jesus fuck, but he wanted to pound into that mouth. He wanted to back Chenco against a wall and slam into his sweet face until Chenco came undone around him.

He could do it. He could take him right now. Right here. He’d asked for it, begged for it. Fuck, it’d be so good, so sweet, and Steve could show him,
really show him—

“
No.
”

Steve wasn’t aware he’d pushed Chenco away, not until he was standing over him, looking down at a red-faced, confused boy.

“Did…did I do something wrong?”

“No.” Steve fought for breath, for control.
Give him an answer. Not the truth of why you stopped, but give him something. Anything.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. But I’m not going to face-fuck you on the patio.”

Chenco sat back on his heels, placing his hands delicately on his thighs. “Because I’m too young?”

“Because I said we’re not. You want to play, you play by my rules, and I said we’re done.” He let out a shuddering breath. “I told you I play with pain. I don’t know if I can ease you in.”

“You mean you think you’ll hurt me not in a good way?”

Steve ran a hand over his smooth scalp. “I mean I can’t make it nice. You rile me up like nobody has in a long time, and I don’t know that you’re ready for zero to sixty. Don’t tell me you are. You don’t know what it is yet I’m talking about doing with you.”

“I would if you told me. I could show you how much I’ll surprise you.”

Steve could not, could
not
answer, so he clammed up.

Chenco eased a little, reluctant but accepting. “Are we done, sir?”

God yes, get me out of here.
“Yes. Get up and go inside.”

It had been the worst scene ever, Steve thought as Chenco rose. He had to give him another round, soon, if only to clear up this mess, but nothing more. Chenco was not Gordy. Chenco was fire and danger, and he deserved so much better. This was a bad idea, and Steve had to
stop
.

Chenco brushed Steve’s shoulder with his hand as he passed by. “I would have, you know. I would have let you face-fuck me on the patio.”

A howl of
pure need
clawed Steve’s gut, driving an urge to pull Chenco back. Steve marshaled himself, but only just, and as he heard Chenco slide open the glass door to the dining room, he gave in.

“You can stay.”

Chenco paused with the door half-open.

“You can stay.” This time Steve was able to make his voice a little less rough. “In my house. However long you want. However long you need to, you can stay with me. Your brother is looking for trucking jobs, so he’ll be around for a while yet. You should be here too. I have the room. I enjoy your company. Stay at my house, save your money, figure out what you want, what you need. Even if Mitch leaves.”

For a long time Chenco didn’t say anything. Steve waited for Chenco to ask if they’d have sex if he stayed, and honest to God, Steve wasn’t sure what he’d say. Probably yes, probably he’d sell off any part of his soul if only Chenco would tell him he wasn’t leaving. If they could have more nights together on the patio in the quiet, so he’d see that bright smile and those beautiful eyes every time he sat down to dinner. He’d give anything right then to make him stay, and he was terrified he had no mask and this naked need was written all over his face.

Chenco kept his expression carefully schooled. “I’ll think about it,” he said, and disappeared into the house.

Chapter Eight

The morning after Steve told him he could move in, Mitch and Chenco went to breakfast. It had been Steve’s idea.

“Get to know him,” Steve suggested. “You haven’t spent much time just the two of you. Don’t take him to the trailer, though. It’s not a great idea for him to go back to ground zero.”

Chenco agreed, and fifteen minutes later he and Mitch went out in Steve’s big black Ford F-150, Harley edition. Chenco whistled low as he slid into the passenger seat. “Damn. I should have gone into computer programming. My mother would still love me, and I could have bought this truck.”

This made Mitch chuckle as he strapped himself in and fumbled with the keys. “Shit pile of money his family sits on helps a bit too. But yeah, computers are good.” He fired up the engine, let it rev a minute then put it in reverse.

As his brother led the truck down the drive, Chenco thought of the big blue semi. “So you drive a rig, huh?”

“I do indeed.” His drawl wasn’t as thick as most south Texans, like he’d been away awhile, but sometimes it crept in with a vengeance, which it did right then. “Independent operator.”

“So you travel all over the country?” Chenco couldn’t keep the wistfulness out of his voice.

“Used to. Stick around hubs now more often than not, especially in the western states. So Sam can get a job.” Mitch nodded and reached for his cigarettes. “I’ve seen the country. Right now I like seeing Sam.”

Okay, that was about the most romantic thing Chenco had ever heard, and he didn’t believe in romance. He settled into his seat as his older brother smoked. “How’d you two meet?”

This question made a slow grin spread across Mitch’s face. “It’s a long, wild story.”

Mitch shared some of it as they made their way into town, about Sam dancing in an alley behind his aunt and uncle’s pharmacy, about a long-distance drive which ended with Sam bringing Mitch and Randy together. Occasionally it seemed Mitch edited things out, and Chenco got the idea those missing bits were on the steamy side. He made a mental note to ask Randy about them later. Something told Chenco Randy wouldn’t leave any meat to spoil.

Mitch told several stories as they wove their way through McAllen, some about him and Sam, some with him and Sam and Randy, one particularly crazy one about how Randy met
his
husband, who apparently was some big casino owner in Vegas—but in the middle of his tale, Mitch broke off.

“Forgot to ask if you cared where we ate. Normally I’d say we should hit Taco Palenque, but I figure you don’t want to go there since it’s where you work.” Mitch rubbed his chin and grinned. “I worked in a taqueria for six months when I first cut out of Donna. Lived in a piece of shit on Pecan Boulevard and worked next door.” He took a drag and shook his head, smiling around the butt. “Had some of the best fucking times of my life in those six months.”

“How’d you end up driving a truck?”