Heart on the Run (12 page)

Chapter Nine

“
How did we end up here?” Sprocket asked, running a hand up his bare chest as he stretched.

Chaz licked his lips and watched the lithe figure, the way his tattoos rippled in the dim lighting, the way the light glinted off the piercings…

Here
was Chaz’s bedroom, a tribute to his mother’s decorating skills and Chaz’s own neat nature. White walls, vivid artwork in bold colors, hardwood and clean lines. Having Sprocket here…it just seemed right. He fit the room perfectly, as though a designer had looked around, scoured catalogs, and ordered Chaz a man to suit the room. Which was way too scary and weird to contemplate, so Chaz shook off the whimsy and returned to his study.

“
I’m not sure… But I’m glad we did,” Chaz confessed. “I have wanted this for the past year, and I’m tired of telling myself I can’t have it.”

Quirking a pierced brow, Sprocket shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you about that one, Chaz. You could’ve had it…had me… Anyway, you’re the one who ran, so…”

“
I thought I had good reason,” Chaz murmured, only half listening. He was too absorbed in Sprocket’s artful body to give conversation much of his attention. His eye was drawn in various directions, like a buzzing fly, skittering here and there and wherever something beautiful caught his attention. A nipple, dark and sweet, glinting with silver… Had he touched that last time? Kissed it? Sucked the little nub?

What would Sprocket…

Anxious to appease his curiosity and shore up a few memories for future days, he flattened one palm on Sprocket’s chest. “Don’t move,” Chaz ordered, heart racing. Heat buzzed in his ears, scorched his cheeks, but he didn’t care. So what if he wasn’t used to taking charge in the bedroom? He wanted to… Wanted so many things. He wasn’t sure he’d get the chance to do them all before Sprocket moved on to the next man, and so…

“
Little hard—”

“
Hah!” Chaz snorted, sweeping a quick glance at Sprocket’s straining cock. His mouth watered at a sterling memory…yeah. He had done that…tasted Sprocket, the salt and musk of his skin. Maybe… Shaking off an idea too intimate to consider, he continued, “Little? You must be reading the wrong magazines…watching the wrong porn…something.”

“
Ah hah ha.” Sprocket pushed upward against Chaz’s palm, shoving his rapid heartbeat into Chaz’s consciousness. “I meant, it’s difficult to stay still while you look at me as though I were some gourmet feast.”

Yeah…a feast. That’s what this is.
“I want to feast on you,” Chaz whispered. As far as confessions went, it was a little creepy. He avoided meeting Sprocket’s eyes and bit his tongue to hold back any of the sudden “I’m not a serial killer” denials that sprang to mind.

“
Motion is my natural state. I can’t sit still for shit. The guy that inks me invents new cuss words each time I’m in his chair,” Sprocket warned, shifting on the mattress. “If you’re looking for a passive partner, that’s not me.”

Chaz stared for a minute longer then growled in frustration. “Not passive…just…still. I have handcuffs if you want me to get them—”

“
Just fucking touch me already!” It was Sprocket’s turn to growl.

So he did. Chaz reached out, rubbed his forefinger over one nipple, then enclosed it between finger and thumb and pinched. Sprocket jerked, moaned. Chaz liked that so much, he repeated the action, hoping to hear the sound again.

“
Suck it,” Sprocket whispered, twisting into the touch, demanding more.

“
Yeah?”

“
Yeah… Ahhh.”

Chaz closed his lips around the nipple, piercing and all, and laved it with his tongue. Sprocket gifted him with more moans and a garbled sentence that Chaz preferred to interpret as a variation of “more, please.” He caught the piercing between his teeth and tugged.

Sprocket’s hands clutched him by the hip…by the shoulder, fingers flexing and releasing. “Yeah, like that…just…” His hips bucked. “More…touch more.”

Hard, hot, damp cock smacked Chaz in the thigh, and he remembered… There was more to be touched…tasted. Releasing the nipple and the bit of metal, he bit gently into the firm muscle of Sprocket’s pec, sucked hard enough to taste, but not enough to mark.

The hand on his shoulder pushed him down. Chaz resisted, determined to follow his own path.

He measured his progress in Sprocket’s noises…in yips as he bit and moans as he sucked and harsh gasps as he licked his way from that nipple across to the other, then up a swirling tat to a thick shoulder, around to the soft, furred armpit…over ribs, hair, soft skin, and hard muscle.

Until every breath brought the scent of arousal to his nostrils and the heat of Sprocket’s body warmed his flesh. Glancing up, he met the man’s hot eyes…and deliberately rubbed his stubbled cheek over Sprocket’s straining cock, dragging the bristles against sensitive skin until his mouth was there, poised at the tip.

Dark lashes dipped, shielding Sprocket’s eyes for just a second or two. Long enough for Chaz’s heart to stall and his gut to clench tight. “Sprocket? Are you—”
Hiding something from me?
he finished silently.

His body undulated, the damp cockhead brushed Chaz’s mouth…and Sprocket’s eyes opened, wild and blazing with the same overwhelming need that Chaz was embarrassed to feel himself. Just as suddenly comfortable with that need, Chaz opened his mouth and took his taste.

Familiar.

Earthy.

Beautiful.

Over lips and teeth and tongue…he took what he wanted, confident that Sprocket wanted the exact same thing. Every incremental fraction of flesh scraped along his teeth, rubbed against his tongue, until it nudged the back of his throat. Chaz swallowed, retreated. Sprocket’s fist clenched in his hair, his muscles tensed as though he would protest.

“
Don’t,” he muttered, voice raspy.

“
Not.” Chaz ignored the hand, licked his way over the straining cock, found a ridge where the vein was so close to the surface he could feel Sprocket’s heartbeat against his tongue, and laved it with his lips and nibbled it with his teeth, and then followed it like a winding road on a map until he wound his way down, burying his nose in a nest of dark hair, pressing his lips to swollen balls, seeking and finding the softest, most delicate skin just behind.

And still Sprocket gave up those sexy, encouraging sounds as though he knew how they spurred Chaz on, fed his appetite for more.

***

Holy shit, this guy was going to drive Sprocket insane.

No…not guy. Chaz. This was Chaz nuzzling him behind his balls, making his ass clench and breath hitch. This wasn’t some random guy scratching an itch. This was the man who might be able to finally take the itch away.

For how long, though? A night? What if he didn’t run, would Sprocket get a whole week this time? Ooooh, maybe he could keep Chaz interested in him for a month, at least through the holiday season. He wasn’t able to do that last year, but this year, maybe Santa would grant his wish.

Fuck!

Hickeys were being sucked all over his balls, and all he could think of was his future? When did he suddenly want or need a future when sex was involved? It wasn’t like he claimed to be a whore—he didn’t agree with the definition behind that word anyway. He liked sex. He liked having sex. He didn’t think anyone—male or female—should be persecuted for enjoying their own or other people’s bodies. And for him, sex didn’t have to come from one-night stands, nor from the promise of a happily ever after. Sex happened when it happened and that was that. He never played anyone or lied to them, and whether verbalized or not, if he was fucking one person on a regular basis, he didn’t dip his wick in another one…period. So yeah, he got ass but he wasn’t an ass.

This was probably why he stayed friends with a lot of people he slept with, and that didn’t seem strange to him either.

Well, a lot of people but Chaz. Hell, screw the idea of waking up next to his sous chef the next morning, let alone the post coital cuddling. Chaz had kicked his ass out of bed and forced the walk of shame on Sprocket minutes after they shot their loads.

Sprocket had never experienced that walk before…and made himself a promise that night he wouldn’t ever again.

He didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep.

Yet here he was again—in Chaz’s home, in his bed, with him anxious and eager to touch and taste and explore. God, talk about déjà vu.

But this wasn’t the same as last year. This time Sprocket knew what to expect, and he had the ability to change the ending.

He growled in frustration over that thought while hooking his hands under Chaz’s arms and hauling him up. He flipped him onto his back on the mattress and quickly climbed on top.

“
My turn,” he warned with a smile that promised dark delights.

Sprocket spent too long immobile, he had too much energy coursing through his veins…it muddied his thoughts, made him want to do everything at once…Chaz’s neck, his collarbone, his hard nipples. But that was just the northern half, the southern hemisphere also needed. Chaz’s belly—not a six-pack, but the perfect combination of hard muscle and soft flesh—trembled as his fingertips ghosted over it, his thighs fell open in invitation, and his cock draped across his hipbone weeping for notice.

Shit.

He wanted it all…right the fuck now.

Sprocket attacked Chaz’s neck, using teeth and lips to draw delicious moans out of his lover. While his teeth worried the delicate skin behind Chaz’s ear, his hand made its way down his chest to abuse the tight little nub so close to Chaz’s elusive heart.

Determined not to let his mind wander down that path, Sprocket followed the route of his hand and rolled the other nipple between his teeth.

“
Ahhh,” Chaz cried out, his shoulders digging into the bed as his chest pushed into Sprocket’s face.

Hint taken. Sprocket laved the nub, flicking his tongue over it repeatedly before biting down hard enough to get another gasp from his lover. But that was a low, soft exhale of breath, and Sprocket wanted Chaz begging. He used more force when he took the delicate point of skin between his teeth again, sucking hard enough that if they weren’t already dusky they would be now.

Fingers twined in his hair, pulling his head away one moment and shoving his face back in the next. Did Chaz really think he was in charge?

Sprocket released the nipple with a wet pop. “Did you mention handcuffs?”

Chaz’s eyes widened as he nodded slowly.

“
Good.” He climbed off the bed. “Where?”

“
Um…” Chaz head bopped to the nightstand on the other side of the bed.

Walking around to it, Sprocket pulled the top drawer open and laughed. “Holy shit, just call me Aladdin as I explore the drawer of wonders.”

He had his choice between strawberry-flavored or a warming lubricant—he chose the warming one, but made a mental note that he really liked berries. Next to the two tubes of lube was a box of condoms, still factory sealed, and why did that make Sprocket so damn happy? Chaz could’ve run out of the last box and had to buy a new one, but Sprocket wouldn’t allow that type of thinking. He wasn’t a jealous man, but that didn’t mean he had to ponder someone else touching Chaz.

He tossed the lube and condoms on the bed. They were good, but what really made Sprocket grin like the cat that ate the canary were the extras. The aforementioned handcuffs, a variety of cock rings, a purple vibrator, a butt plug, some clamps with chains were bunched toward the back of the drawer, and there were even a few things he didn’t recognize with a quick glance. Those items could wait until another time when he wasn’t in such a hurry to bury himself balls deep in Chaz’s ass. For the time being, he settled on the handcuffs and butt plug.

The plug bounced on the bed next to the other items, the handcuffs he held up with his middle finger. “Key?” he questioned, raising his pierced brow to Chaz.