Winter Ball (2 page)

Right now, as Richie leaned back in his seat, Skipper was trying really hard not to shudder.

“So,” Skip said, keeping his voice even with an effort. “Melanie? Dreams?”

Richie cracked open his bottle of water and drank deep. When he was done, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and let out a breath. “I want strings,” he murmured to himself. “I do. I just… you know. I sleep with the girl, and the next day, she’s all vulnerable, and I’m all nice to her, and I think, ‘I can do this. I can take care of this girl. She’s a nice girl, and we had fun,’ you know?”

Skip thought back to his last relationship. It had been a while. Oh yeah. Amber of the brown hair and the tight T-shirts and ass-enhancing jeans.

God, she’d been fun. A wicked sense of humor, a filthy mouth, and an obsession with rimming Skip until he came.

Not even thinking about the rim job could make Skip hard, and that was sort of unnatural. That had been part of the reason he’d broken up with her. Yeah, he’d given the requisite reciprocation in bed, but it had felt very… very much like he was filling out an invoice and rendering payment for services performed.

Amber had really loved sex, and Skip hadn’t. It felt like a cheat, really, being with a girl when she was going all out and Skip was going through the motions. Amber had cried the last time they’d been in bed together.
I get in bed feeling all sexual and attractive, and I don’t know what you do, Skip, but you make me feel slutty and ashamed.

That was no good.

So Skip got it. He got what Richie was saying. “Yeah,” he responded into the quiet. “I get it. You think, ‘Nice girl. I like her a lot.’”

“Yeah!” Richie looked at him, big green eyes shiny and colorless in the light. “You
do
. But something about touching them—you know. Guys at school going off on boobs—I remember that. I remember being
so excited
when I got to see my first boob. I’d been jerking off, like, three times a day, just because that thing sprang up and I needed to keep it down, right?”

Skipper stared. “Jesus, Richie, were you going for a record or something?”

“What? Three times a day?”

“Yeah. It takes me too long to get hard—I couldn’t do it. But you were saying about girls….”

“Well, I thought I’d be so excited, seeing boobs, and Sierra Donovan showed me hers. I totally expected, like, super boner, you know? But there she was, shirt pulled up, boobs… boobing… and I got… nothin’.” He shivered at the memory. “I went through the motions, used my mouth, was real gentle, she even let me put my hand down her pants, which was good, ’cause she came and she walked away happy.”

“But you?” Skipper asked. He shifted in his seat, because embarrassingly enough, imagining Richie, a teenager, stroking someone else’s naked flesh was actually making him a little hard. Usually that didn’t happen unless he was alone in the dark, touching himself.

“I… I didn’t get a stiffie until I got home that night,” Richie said thoughtfully, gazing at his hands on the steering wheel. “And… and it’s like that with all the girls. It’s gotta be in the dark and it’s gotta be closing my eyes and just feeling their hands on me. But in the morning, I look at them and….”

“Yeah,” Skipper muttered. “I get that too.”

Silence fell. The heater wasn’t on, and Richie shuddered, probably because the car was cold inside. Skip went to pull his sweatshirt over his head, because he always ran a little hot.

“No!” Richie protested. “Skip, man, you don’t gotta give me the shirt off your back.”

Skipper paused because taking the sweatshirt off was awkward in the car. “That’s good,” he mumbled through the folds of fleece. “’Cause I’m stuck.”

Richie laughed and slid his hands up Skip’s arms, trying to untangle him from the damn sweatshirt, and Skip struggled and fumbled, trying not to clock Richie in the face or anything. It was a short tussle, but that didn’t stop Richie’s hands from skimming his ribs, his stomach, his chest, his neck. Little touches, impersonal probably, but by the time Skip had wrestled off the damned sweater, he was sweaty, breathless, and, irony of ironies, hard.

He wadded up his sweatshirt and shoved it in his lap.

“Hey!” Richie laughed, grabbing for it. “After all that effort, I’ll take the frickin’ shi—” His hand brushed Skipper’s crotch, and they locked gazes. “…irt?”

Skip closed his eyes, leaned back his head, and moaned. “Please don’t think I’m weird,” he mumbled. “Please. Just… you were talking about sex and then—hey!”

Richie stroked his dick through his shorts again, and everything in Skip’s body tingled.

“Sorry,” Richie mumbled, but he didn’t sound sorry at all. “That’s just….” He took one finger and started at Skip’s groin, then ran a touch up the length of the thing as it was mashed to Skip’s body under the soccer shorts and Under Armour. Richie got to the tip and his finger caught on the ridge through three layers of clothing, and Skip moaned again, closing his eyes.

“If you’re so sorry,” he whispered, “stop touching it! I’m embarrassed enou—”

Richie caught Skip’s hand and brought it to his crotch.

Before Skip even knew what he was touching, his hand closed around a hard cock pushing against Richie’s underwear just like Skip’s was.

Skip’s eyes flew open, and he and Richie regarded each other tensely in the dim light. For a heartbeat Skip thought the moment was over—Richie pulled back just a notch, and his hand relaxed on Skip’s prick.

And something in Skip must have really wanted the moment to go on, because
his
hand tightened. Richie closed his eyes and parted his full lips….

Skip wanted to taste him more than he’d ever wanted to taste anything in his life.

That first brush of lips was so soft it almost didn’t happen, but it
did
, and Richie didn’t jerk away or protest or complain, so the second one went a little harder.

Richie’s lips were a little rough, but Skip teased the seam of them with his tongue, and when he opened his mouth, the inside felt softer, like a girl’s, but with this incredible
heat
.

Skip was cold—he’d given up his sweatshirt, and he wanted that heat.

He pushed forward, swept his tongue in, felt Richie’s response. A shudder racked him, taking no prisoners, and he clenched his hand around Richie’s cock, almost like he was holding on for dear life.

Richie moaned and fumbled at Skip’s soccer shorts. Skip sucked in a breath, and Richie’s clever little hand slid inside and then beneath the Under Armour, which he flipped down with a tight elastic
thwack
. Skip’s cock sat exposed and quivering in the sensitizing chill.

And then Richie slid his hot, rough hand over the cap and squeezed the shaft.

Skip whimpered into his mouth, helpless.

Richie pulled his head back. “Grab mine,” he commanded.

Skip angled his body so he could use both hands to strip Richie’s shorts and Under Armour down under his ass. He held Richie firm with one hand on his hip and then snuck a peek to make sure he was giving Richie’s fireplug dick a firm and hearty handshake.

Richie moaned and his cock pulsed in Skip’s hand.

Skip closed his eyes again—he had to, because the shudder that rocked him at the feeling of warm flesh in his palm,
that
was too big to endure with eyes wide open.

A breath of air caught Skip’s leaking cockhead, and the frisson of yearning that shook his body alarmed him on some level.
I need. I need I need I need….

He didn’t think he was the kind of guy to need. Amber had called him cold—he was pretty sure most of his girlfriends could agree with that. But Richie’s mouth was hot and open, and his cock seared the skin of Skip’s palm.

Richie’s hand started to jerk almost spasmodically, but Skip felt the rhythm he was trying for. He whispered, “Sh… sh” against Richie’s cheek and took that small, bony, rough hand in his own and taught him to stroke, a little slower, a little smoother….
Oh! Oh yeah!

“Skipper,” Richie begged, and Skip moved his hand back to where it belonged.

Hard and a little slower, smoother. Richie’s every moan, every whimper, drove Skipper up another notch into the unexpected inferno of passion that had opened up in Richie’s Honda Accord.

The music changed from Milky Chance to Mumford & Sons, and as the guitars and banjo and keyboard raced to a pinnacle, a sharp, pounding drive in Skipper’s stomach told him he was going to do the same.

Richie gasped, and a spurt of hot precome scalded Skipper’s fingers. Skipper wanted… wanted… oh Jesus… he wanted so much from this moment, from Richie, from….

He moved his hand off Richie’s hip to his jaw and positioned him for a kiss, a wild, passionate plundering. Richie kept stroking his cock, every callus a delicious bout of friction, every hard-handed squeeze
exactly
what Skipper needed.

Uh… uh… oh God, Richie’s calluses caught on Skip’s ridge, and it felt so… so good… so….

His entire body tingled, even his elbows and his scalp, and then his taint and his ass and his nipples and… tingling, tightening, cranked until breaking, and… oh… oh… oh….

Richie came for real, his body arching and bucking until he broke the kiss and his come, sticky and creamy and practically boiling with the heat from that furious little body, ran down the backs of Skipper’s fingers, made his grip messy and smooth, and
that
did it. He arched his ass off the car seat, closed his eyes, and let the tingling take over his entire body, let it ride him, saw stars, and came.

He kept his eyes closed while his breathing adjusted. When he opened them, Richie was right there, his face inches away, his mouth swollen with Skipper’s kisses, cheeks reddened from Skipper’s stubble, eyes wide and shiny and shaken.

Skipper probably looked the same.

They stared at each other for a weighted moment. Skipper let go of Richie’s cock at the same time Richie let go of his.

“Here,” Richie muttered, reaching into one of the fast-food bags. He pulled out a handful of napkins and gave some to Skip. Skip looked at them dumbly. Richie, using gentle movements, took his own napkins and wiped off Skipper’s cock.

“Oh,” Skipper said, feeling dense.

“Here, Skip, lift up your hips.”

Skip did, and Richie pulled his shorts up.

“Thanks. Do you want me to—” He gestured vaguely with the napkins, and then realized Richie’s come was still running from his hand.

He stopped, mesmerized, and then, almost like he couldn’t help it, he moved his hand to his mouth and sucked on the webbing between his thumb and forefinger.

It was salty and bitter, just like Skip’s own come (boys tasted, just because), but something about how raw it was, tasting Richie like this, rocked Skip, cracked him open to the core, and he shuddered, almost pulling his knees up to his chest, because his groin ached fiercely, and he almost thought he could come again from the taste of Richie’s fluids on his hand.

He opened his eyes and Richie was close in the confines of the car. He took Skip’s hand and searched for the places Skip hadn’t gotten, then started licking, very slowly, very deliberately, until Skip’s fingers were clean.

Skip whimpered again. Oh hell. He wanted. He most definitely wanted again. But shouldn’t they say something? Do something? Oh God, he and Richie had just kissed and given each other hand jobs and…. Skip’s whole body screamed at him.

We must do this again. We
must
do this again.

“Richie,” he gasped, breathy because Richie’s tongue was still wiggling on the back of his knuckles. “Wh—”
What do you want to do? What did we just do? Why haven’t we done this before? What are we going to do now? What does this all mean?

“Bowling,” Richie said, like he couldn’t catch his breath either.

“Bowling?” Skip’s chest hurt with the unspoken questions.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Richie said, nodding like Skip was slow and not catching on.

“Wh—”

Richie’s thumb was covered in ejaculate, and he shoved it into Skip’s mouth. Skip closed his lips around it, flattened his tongue, and sucked hard. His own come filled his senses, and oh, how bad did he want Richie’s again?

“Tomorrow,” Richie repeated, like he was insisting. “We’ll get dinner. I’ll come to your place and watch movies afterward. Tomorrow.”

He was nodding, so Skip nodded too.

He pulled away from Richie’s thumb, scraping the underside lightly with his teeth.

“Tomorrow,” he said breathily. He couldn’t seem to get a good lungful. His whole body refused to cooperate.

He needed to get out of there.

He leaned forward and pecked Richie chastely on the lips, then grabbed his sweater, which had fallen to the floor, and bolted out of the car. He paused with the door open, feeling bereft, feeling relieved.

“Tomorrow?” he asked, suddenly needing to hear it again.

“I promise,” Richie said, searching Skipper’s eyes intently.

“Good.” Skipper nodded.

Richie seemed to see what he’d been looking for, because he smiled, and Skipper shut the door, tugged on his sweatshirt, and hopped into his own car as Richie turned the ignition.

“YOU GOT
a girl comin’ tonight?” Clay Carpenter looked at him funny, and Skipper uneasily pulled out the collar of his green polo shirt.

“No,” he said shortly, tossing his squishy brain-shaped stress ball in the air and keeping an eye open for his phone line. He and the other IT guys all had a rhythm down—you exercised, threw shit in the air, fiddled, fidgeted, and fucked off, right until your phone line rang, and then you did all of that
and
answered boring questions about how Grok make computer go.

“You shaved. You’re blond—I don’t see stubble until a week after you shave, and you have a jaw out of a DC comic book. There’s no reason for you to shave. What’s the fuckin’ deal?”

Skipper turned to eyeball Carpenter, who was, as usual, out of standard dress code in a baseball jersey and sweats. Carpenter was a big guy—order the extra-special chair big—but he was also dry, funny, and he had a fondness for adorable kitten videos. Skip had once watched him spend a quarter of his paycheck on Doctors Without Borders when an earthquake hit Nepal, because he’d seen something in the disaster footage that had broken his heart. (Skip had never asked what, but he’d pitched in $100 himself, just to make Carpenter feel better.) Skip brought him soy lattes and bran muffins in an effort to help him slim down, but when Carpenter let out a bellow and a screech against his never-ending diet, Skip would go out and fetch his cheeseburger too. He was a friend, not a judge, and whatever Carpenter’s deep-seated emotional issues with food, he was a genuinely good man.