Melting Point (5 page)

Brady frowned. “Not expectin' much, Gage. Know I don't have a right to after the way I strung you along, but shit”— he placed his hand flat over Gage's thundering heart and shook his head as if he couldn't believe he was
admitting
things—“I'm a helluva lot more cheerful when you're around, and that's got to count for something.”

“This is you being cheerful?”

Brady's laugh whooshed through Gage like a hot blast from a vented roof. “This is me.”

“And what about the touching thing?” This morning's fun in the shower notwithstanding, he needed to know that a not-high Brady would be down with Gage's very hands-on methods.

“I have some . . . control issues.” At Gage's smirk of
duh,
he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know. If I'm in charge, then I get to decide what you can do to me. What you can touch. And see.”

Like his scars, Gage assumed. Maybe more.

Brady's brow furrowed. “Gage, guys like you don't go for guys like me. When we were together before, I felt like I was your good deed of the month.”

Anger flared. “It's late and you've been high for considerable portions of the day, so I'm going to pretend that you haven't insulted both of us with that statement. Pity is not a turn-on for me. I screw guys who get me hot and push my buttons, and you, Brady Smith, push all my buttons. The only good deed I'll be doing tonight is for the angels.”

“The angels?”

“Haven't you heard? Every time I make you come, an angel gets his wings.”

Brady dropped his smoky gaze to Gage's mouth for a beat. “We really need to leave. Now.”

Gage sighed. “Well, normally I'd be all over that like a drunk on the tamale guy, but I'm babysitting my coworker as he tries to figure out if he's gay enough to get his freakin' V card punched.” Supercute bafflement crossed Brady's brow. “Long story. But you're here and I know you hate the clubs, so the fact you came out to see me warms my cold, cynical heart.”

“You haven't got a cynical bone in your body, Gage.”

That was true, he supposed. Cynicism kept people from trying. And fucking hell, wasn't he a trier all the way?

“Okay, no cynical bones, but . . .” He rolled his hips against Brady and let him know that a bone of another color needed attention.
And what have we here?
Encountering Brady's own rock-solid erection set his balls quivering and another dirty rub sucked out a “fuck” from the big chef's throat. The way his face went soft brought this morning's sexy times back on replay. Seeing Brady's eyes fly wide in that shower, his color rise, his mouth turn slack as Gage wrung every last drop of cum out of him was worth all the frustration of the past three months.

The
th-thunk
in Gage's chest told him he could do casual with anyone, but not with the guy who twisted him up like a pretzel and had more scars inside than out. He was going to swing for the fucking fences.

“Tell me about the tat below your pec. The snake.”

Brady scowled. “Christ. Now?”

“Not Christ, just Gage.”

“Let's leave—”

Gage muscled him flush to the pillar. “Tell me or I'll make you come right here in front of everyone.” Gage might be a show-off, but public sex acts were not his bag—of course, Brady didn't know that. The low lighting, their half-hidden position, and the revelers in their own sexed-up worlds meant no one would probably notice anyway, but Gage was banking on Brady's reserve. With each kiss, rub, and suck, he would peel back Brady's layers, one tattoo at a time.

Turning his body to mask his actions from the milling crowd, he coasted a hand down the front of Brady's jeans and cupped the weighty bulge he found. “You're halfway there, and you know I'm an exhibitionist to the boner. My mouth's already watering at the idea of tasting that big, fat cock of yours.” He tongued Brady's earlobe and earned a heartfelt moan. “The story behind the snake, Chef. Or I will milk you dry, right here, right now.”

A slow, obscene rub against Brady's growing hard-on drew a husky, full-throated sound.

“I—I got it after I joined the Marines on 9/12.”

It shouldn't have surprised him that Brady would enlist the day after the towers fell, but something heaved in Gage's chest at that reminder of Brady's service.

“Why a snake?”

“They're symbols of renewal and purifying, and my life up until that point had been pretty aimless. I wanted to start fresh, shed my old self.”

“Did it work?”

“For a while.” Brady paused. “It took me time to figure out that you can't get rid of the old you so easily, not even with a new job, new skin, new mission. It's always there, so you have to find a way to live with it. Coexist.”

Finding the Dempseys when he was ten years old had been Gage's fresh start, but what had happened before with his mom still clung like a sheen of flop sweat. Two halves of his life, now overlapping in a way he wasn't sure he could handle.

Moved by Brady's insight, Gage drew back to get a better look. Lit by the club's flickering video screens, his dark eyes shone with awareness. The guy knew what he was about—and it was sexy as fuck.

He leaned in and sucked on Brady's bottom lip. “I said I'd make you come if you didn't tell me about that tattoo. You know what, Brady? I. Lied. I'm gonna make you come anyway.”

Swallowing Brady's protest with a deep kiss, Gage unzipped and wrapped his hand around that magnificent erection. A moan spilled from Brady's throat. He pushed back with his entire body, which only rocked that hot cock into Gage's hand. If Brady really wanted out, he could muscle Gage away, dislocated shoulder or not.

He did not.

Gage knew this was crazy, not him at all, but this thoughtful, stoic man had wedged under his skin in a seriously dangerous way. He would do anything to make him lose all rational thought. Show the world who he belonged to—and maybe who belonged to him. Brady continued to grind against Gage's palm, his free hand fisting his tee, his eyes darkening further with desire. Begging Gage to unlock this cage he was rattling.

Gage managed to push out on a ragged, desperate breath, “The things I want to do to you, Brady. The filthy, beautiful things.”

“Laissez les bon temps rouler
.
” Brady licked the corner of Gage's mouth, a move that shot an invisible thread of pleasure to his aching cock. “That's N'awlins for ‘Let the good times roll.' ”

Thank you, universe.

But wouldn't you know that bitch had a killer sense of humor and chose that moment to demonstrate her comedic timing? A pink-and-blue blur caught the corner of his eye. Gage shot out the hand not wrapped around his man's dick and grabbed the collar of an Oxford button-down.

“Where do you think you're going, Virgin Mary?”

Jacob had that sheepish look that seemed to be finally working for him. Toby, with a hand on Jacob's back and determination in his booted foot, was rocking Big Bad Wolf.

“Just outside to get some air,” Jacob murmured with a shy glance at Toby.

Leave the word
air
off the end of the sentence and they'd have a more accurate description of what was happening here. Gage split a look between them, then back at the gorgeous, fucked-up guy whom he wanted nothing more than to get naked with. Times like this, he wished he wasn't the only sober adult male in Boystown.

“Let's not wank before we can walk. No one's getting laid until I say so.”

Brady nipped his ear, sending a roll of lust through Gage's body just when his brain needed clarity. “You owe me a blow job, Golden.”

chapter six

“I
CAN'T BELIEVE
you made them go on a date first. With milkshakes.”

Brady was trying to open the walk-in fridge at Smith & Jones, but his good arm refused to cooperate. Gage firmly steered him six feet away to a chrome counter.

“Let me, gimpy,” he said with that indulgent/impatient tone he sometimes got. Tonight's tee read: “Save water. Shower with a firefighter,” and heat scored through Brady as he recalled how much water they'd saved this morning. “Of course I made them get to know each other first. I'm responsible for that kid.”

“You're twenty-four, and he has to be at least five years older than you.”

Gage grinned as he pulled open the heavy stainless steel door. “Old head, young shoulders, that's me. No way was I letting my charge go with that whoremonger Toby without setting a few ground rules first.”

Ground rules? At the Melrose diner a few blocks away from the bar, Gage had corralled the foursome in a booth, ordered chocolate malts all around, and proceeded to grill Toby on his intentions. Not that said intentions weren't as clear as the dirty grin on his face: introduce his dick to that virginal ass faster than you could say “toss me the lube.” But Gage wanted to make sure Jacob was okay with the gory specifics. All that was missing from
The More You Know:
Cherry-Busting Edition
was the dolls as Gage explained to a squirming Jacob “what would happen” and how he could stop “at any time.”

Kind of sweet, really.

Gage called out from inside the fridge, “What am I looking for?”

“Fontina cheese, top right shelf. Ciabatta bread, shelf below it.”

Brady watched mesmerized as Gage scooted around Brady's kitchen like a dancer, so comfortable in his skin. They'd cooked together a couple of times before, in those early days when Brady couldn't understand why someone like Gage would waste his time with someone like him.

Still not gettin' it.

“I remember what it was like my first time,” Gage said as he ping-ponged between slicing cheese and melting a knob of butter in a pan, “and I would have loved to have someone take me under their wing and assure me that I didn't have to do something I didn't want to.”

“What happened your first time?”

He turned, holding up his hands to calm the concern that had crept into Brady's voice.

“Don't get me wrong, I wanted it. But the guy was a lot older than me and I was majorly desperate to become this person I thought I was meant to be. I was so sure that once I'd lost my virginity and transformed into my gay butterfly self, then everything that had happened before would make sense.”

“You mean when you were a foster care caterpillar?”

Gage grabbed a Granny Smith from the fruit bowl on the counter, a paring knife from the butcher's block, and started to peel. “Foster care was like Disney World compared to living with my mom. She was a real piece of work. Bible-thumper, not too stoked with having a queer for a son.”

Brady knew what that was like. The backwoods of Louisiana weren't exactly hotbeds of tolerance.

“She still around?”

“No, she . . . she's gone now.” There was no missing how Gage's shoulders locked up or the quiet regret in his voice when he said that.

“And your dad?”

“Never knew him. Immaculate conception, according to the momster.” He raised an eyebrow. “I'm not kidding. Except Dad must have been a demon because look how I turned out.”

That was pretty messed up. Brady wanted to ask more, but Gage's body language was fronting a No Trespassing sign. He sought out safer territory. “Who taught you to cook?”

“Ma Dempsey. Mary.” Gage sliced the apple into thin strips, denuded a sprig of rosemary, and started chopping using a very expert back-and-forth knife technique. “I'd been in a few different placements up until then, and the Dempseys were the first to recognize my greatness. In the kitchen and elsewhere.” He grinned. “I finally felt safe with them. I'd never felt safe before. Up until then, other families had a hard time connecting with a kid who was so fabulous.”

“How old were you when you knew?”

“That I was gay? Can't remember. Guess I've always known, but it only really matters when other people know, right?” With two sandwiches of cheese, apple, and rosemary constructed, he popped them into the buttered pan. “When I kissed a very surprised Billy Nicholson during recess in the fourth grade, it became someone else's problem.”

“Yeah, adults don't really like to be confronted with the hard truths.”

Gage's smile was brittle, but still gorgeous. “Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better to lie for longer. Makes for smoother going, don't you think?”

Something sharpened in Brady's chest at that notion. Lying—or refusing to talk about a problem, which often amounted to the same thing—was a given for someone as tightly wound as him. But to hear Gage advocating anything other than the complete honesty Brady loved about him was all wrong.

“You know what they say,” Brady said. “Be yourself because everyone else is already taken.”

“That is what they say.” For someone who was always so at ease with who he was, Gage sure didn't sound all that convinced.

A couple of minutes later, he served up two perfectly browned grilled cheeses. Asshole couldn't even half burn it on one side. “These would go well with beer, maybe a nice cider. Think a fancy place like this could accommodate that request?”

“Probably.”

They settled side by side in a booth with a couple of bottles of Clos des Ducs cider and the fragrant, mouthwatering sandwiches. Close to one thirty in the morning and the restaurant's dark woods and antique mirrors shone with a velvety sensuality. Brady couldn't help the flush of pride at his success. Years in the wilderness and he'd finally made good. Career-wise, anyway.

The pleasurable fullness in his chest might have something to do with the man sitting next to him. Gage watched him closely as Brady lifted the grilled cheese to his mouth. “Don't judge me too harshly, Chef. I'm more of a wing-it kind of cook.”

Brady took a bite. And another. Damn,
ca c'est bon
. The salty-sweet combo of the butter, cheese, and apples exploded on his tongue, while the surprise addition of the rosemary teased out flavors that wouldn't have existed with the other ingredients alone.

“Good job containing your enthusiasm,” Gage said after two more bites and Brady's inability to verbalize how freakin' delicious it was.

“I'm puttin' this on my menu.”

Gage laughed around his chewing. “Bribery so not necessary. You've already got me.”

But for how long? Seeing Gage's hot, young, perfect body gyrating in the middle of all the flesh on that dance floor earlier tonight, Brady had almost turned tail and stomped his size twelve Docs out the door. What the hell was he doing there trying to act like hanging at a gay bar was his normal? Like any of this was normal? The novelty factor might hold Gage's interest for a while, but it couldn't last, and Brady was already feeling things he had never wanted to feel.

Like he wanted . . . to name a sandwich after Gage Simpson.

On finishing up his last bite, Gage rubbed his mouth and leaned back against the leather banquette like a powerful lion in repose without a care in the world beyond his next meal or fuck. Well, he'd already eaten, so that left . . .

“Second time I came here,” Gage said, “I wanted to fuck you over this table.”

Brady coughed as a mouthful of cider made it into his lungs instead of his stomach. Guy was in his head. “This table?”

He thumbed over his shoulder toward the main door. “Maybe that table. Or that one. The point is, you, me, and a table have been earning interest in my spank bank for some time now. But I'll settle for making a smaller withdrawal tonight.”

“Oh yeah?”

Gage inclined his head, a wicked grin building the closer he got. Brady felt like he'd taken a stun gun to the brain with that smile. “I believe I owe you a blow job, Brady.”

Oh yes, he did. Their mouths met, rough and desperate, hungrily searching out the pleasure only
this
combination could produce. That sandwich might have tasted awesome, but Gage's mouth was worthy of ten million Michelin stars.

Everything narrowed to that mouth, his palm stroking Brady's dick, his heart thumping against the flat of Brady's hand. So fast, so vital. And as his body went boneless and weak with desire, Brady's blood surged with strength as Gage poured all that life force into him.

No, it didn't feel like pity. It felt a whole lot more dangerous.

B
RADY'S MOUTH
was the best thing Gage had ever tasted, and Gage considered himself a connoisseur. It was a combination of sweet and spice, unlike anything or anyone that had passed between Gage's lips before. The prospect of what other parts of Brady might taste like, and if they could compete with that mouth, had Gage's heart eating a hole in his chest.

“Gage,” Brady moaned, and Gage swore he could taste that sound. It set off musical vibrations in his blood, a bass beat in his dick, a . . . Brady broke the kiss. “Back to my place.”

“No. Here.” Sure, Brady's loft was only a block away, but it was a block too far. He'd already waited too long. Gage had to taste him now. He fell to his knees outside the booth, yanked Brady to the edge of the leather seat, and parted his thighs. Belt buckle, undone. Zipper, down.

“We can't,” Brady panted in a voice that said,
yes, yes, I want to, but . . . reasons.
“Anyone could see inside from the street.”

True, they were seated about thirty feet from the floor-to-ceiling, blind-free windows that overlooked Fulton Market. This area was a ghost town in the wee hours, but there was always the chance a passerby might stick his pervy nose to the glass. That might have bothered Gage before, but now, the idea of someone seeing him bringing this strapping streak of male to the peak of pleasure tapped into a previously untrodden pathway in Gage's psyche.

Pride. Possession.
Mine.

“Let 'em watch.”

In a moment weighted with uncertainty, Brady stared down at Gage, those dark eyes shining like stones in the moonlight as he wrestled with a decision.

“Take off your shirt, Gage.”

“My billboard not good enough? Oh, right, you can't keep upright whenever you see it.”

Brady rumbled his annoyance from the back of his throat.

“Or you could buy a
Men on Fire
calendar like everyone else. Nineteen ninety-nine plus tax. Get off with the masses
and
help charity.”

“Shirt. Off. Now.”

Gage loved gruff 'n' growly Brady. He stood, and just watching those dark eyes flare as he peeled off his tee was worth the price of admission alone. He gave a little stretch because he knew it showed off his pecs to perfection, and for the hell of it, did a slow turn that produced a rare Brady smile. On his knees again, he moved his hands up Brady's thighs and felt every muscle in the man's extraordinary body flex in anticipation.

“I think you should stand, Brady.”

“Why?”

“Because I need unrestricted access and . . .” Gage paused, his mouth watering at the thought he was about to give verbal shape to. “It'll give you better leverage when you fuck my mouth.”

Brady's expression was priceless. Dude looked like all his birthdays and Christmases had come at once, or POTUS had called to say he'd like to eat at Smith & Jones tomorrow night. Any hesitation Brady had seemed to flee as he stood, pushing his jeans and briefs to his knees in one swift movement—and almost taking Gage's eye out with his cock in the process.

His man was a big ‘un.

Getting that first glimpse this morning under that steamy spray, feeling him shoot off in his hand all over his chest and abs, had kept Gage in a state of permanent arousal all day. Gage licked his lips at the sight of that bulging head so close to his mouth. After burying his body deep inside a guy, giving head was his next favorite thing. He loved the power coursing through his veins as that length thickened and pulsed in his mouth. He never understood people who thought it demonstrated subservience. How could it when you held all that life in your grip?

Bending close, he nudged Brady's thighs apart and licked a wet stripe along his heavy balls, tonguing them reverently, giving each one equal love—okay, he was sort of partial to the right one. Brady white-knuckled the table as he rolled his hips in blatant appeal.

“
Mais,
that's . . .
merde,
so good,” Brady gasped.

Jesus, was he serving up the Cajun speak again? That lazy Southern drawl punched Gage's cock against his zipper, and he had to work not to seek gratification.
He licked the underside of Brady's shaft, before circling that swollen cockhead and spearing the slit with his tongue. Hmm, the salty musk of his pre-cum tasted way better than Gage's very active imagination. Brady bucked, murmuring
no God no please no,
his vocabulary shrinking with every lick.