The Locker Room (16 page)

Read The Locker Room Online

Authors: Amy Lane

Tags: #Paperback, #Novel, #GLBT, #Contemporary, #Romance, #Contemporarygay, #M/M Romance, #dreamspinner press, #amy lane

“Xander?” Chris asked, his voice playful, and Xander managed a

shaky, “Glarrghhha?”

“Race you!”

“Awww… fuck you, Christian!” Xander gasped, shuddering, a

train wreck of sudden want slamming up against his chest. “You"re dead.

I"ll make you come so hard your hair"ll get shorter!”

He made it out of the shower with trembling legs and managed a

frantic towel down of his hair and his chest and the rest of the body, even

as he padded, wet-footed, across the cream-colored carpet. When he got

to the bed, he saw that Chris had been busy when he"d been showering—

hell, probably even when he"d been running, and the “sleeping in” was

just a ruse.

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Amy Lane

There was his lover, that prime, muscular, powerful, amazing body

spread out on the bed, his knees spread, his backside in full view. He had

his own plug—the kind with the graduated beads—inserted deep inside

his body, and his cock, huge and rampant and purple, already drooling

pre-come, being stroked in his fist.

“You want to fuck me?” Chris taunted. “You want it? You"d better

hope I come first. That"s the rule, right?”

Xander groaned and fell on the bed, splaying his knees as he

hovered over Chris. He didn"t take time to kiss or to nuzzle, he simply

devoured that hard, fat, wide cock, taking it all the way to the back of his

throat, even as he fumbled with Christian"s hard testicles. Chris

chuckled, but it was a breathy, aroused sound, and as Xander fell upon

him he wriggled underneath Xander to engulf Xander"s aching erection

in his willing, wet mouth.

Xander growled, having gone from quiet introspection to
now now

now now gotta fuck/be fucked NOW!
In record time. God—he didn"t

know how the rest of the world felt, and he"d heard of people growing

bored with lovers, losing interest, losing “spark,” but he could not

imagine, ever, not craving Christian"s willing touch on his body, not

needing his hands, his mouth, his tongue…
oh God,
(as Chris tormented

him by pulling on the weighted plug)
his fucking cock!

But Xander had an advantage in this game—he was taller. He had

full access to the private playground that was Christian"s erogenous

zone. Chris"s cock went down his throat easily (because Xander

practiced) and his balls (large, heavy) were easily played with. His

(exquisitely sensitive) taint was exposed by his spread legs, and Xander

teased it with the gentle scrape of his nails. Around his cock, Christian

begged/whimpered, the sound muffled and desperate—and vibrating

right through Xander"s cockhead.

Xander had to squeeze his eyes tight and concentrate in an effort

not to come.

Goddammit, it was time to play dirty!

He moved to the bright pink handle of the toy and gave it a tug.

Christian made frantic grunts around Xander, and Xander chuckled, the

sound muffled by what was in
his
mouth, as well. Chris was so sensitive

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here—the entire area between his cheeks seemed to have an electric hot

wire straight to his groin. His nipples, not so much (Xander"s nipples

were
very
sensitive) but play with his ass, and the entire general area? If

Xander just tickled his taint and pulled on that plug just… so….

Xander"s cock flopped out of Chris"s mouth, as Chris squealed and

started to gibber.

“No no no no no no no no…
God, yes!”

Xander pulled up with his mouth and sucked on only the

mushroom head, swirling his tongue and hollowing his cheeks to make

the most of the pressure. He"d wrapped one hand around the base and

was pumping the shaft slowly, in time, while with his other hand he was

pulling… slowly pulling… slowly… the largest ball was now wedged

solidly in Chris"s entrance, and Chris choked out a helpless cry, and

then, in desperation, lunged up with his chest and sank his teeth into the

tender part of Xander"s thigh. Xander grunted, but kept going, making

that ball move… move… move….

It slid out, leaving the next one in line, and Chris groaned and let

go of Xander"s thigh, probably leaving a big hickey, but Xander didn"t

care. He was still concentrating, and the next ball came out as

excruciatingly slowly as the first one, and the next, and the next, and

when they grew too small to matter, that was when Xander started

pushing them back in again.

And that was when Chris lost the race, but not in the usual way of

coming in Xander"s mouth until Xander couldn"t swallow anymore.

“Forget it,” he gasped. “Just fuck me. C"mon, Xander. I give.

Game over. I need you.”

Xander got rid of Chris"s sex toy in a hot hurry, because whatever

Chris wanted, whenever he begged for it, that was top priority and totally

serious. He didn"t flip Chris around, because there had been a thread of

needing in his voice, and Xander wanted to see his eyes. Instead, he

swung his own body around and splayed Chris"s thighs up over his

shoulders, angled his hips and drove in.

Chris"s head was thrown back, and his eyes were closed, and he

was completely immersed in his own pleasure. Xander thought he looked

beautiful, and bent down, kissing his neck, his chest, his shoulders, and

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Amy Lane

not moving his hips at all. His cock was almost overstimulated, and there

was still that enflaming weight in his bottom, and his whole body was

trembling with need, but he needed to kiss Chris, be tender to him,

treasure him, more than he needed to move.

Chris caught his breath, and then lifted his hands from where

they"d been scrabbling in the bed, and held Xander"s face in place before

capturing his mouth. Xander closed his eyes, lost in the kiss, completely

and totally immersed in the man he loved until his chest ached with it,

and somewhere in there, of their own volition, his hips started to move.

Chris lost focus again, and begged a little, “God, yes… like that—”

And to Xander"s surprise, he came, just like that, shooting slick and hot

between their bodies before he wrapped his legs around Xander"s hips

and begged, “Don"t stop!”

So Xander didn"t. He kept thrusting, kept thrusting, and then kept

hammering, and pounding, until his entire body grew cold and then hot

and the pressure in his groin, his balls, his ass grew excruciating and a

primal sort of scream was ripped bleeding from his chest, and he came

and came and came, as Christian spasmed around him.

He couldn"t seem to stop kissing Chris. Small, tender, pepper-

sprinkled kisses scattered on his cheeks and his chin and his nose and his

forehead and his lips. The last one on the lips, Chris stopped him, opened

his mouth, and let Xander plunder, and Xander did, a sort of desperate,

mangled softness in the touching.

Finally, they had to stop. Xander rolled to his side and pulled Chris

next to him. He reached behind him and gasped as he divested himself of

what felt to be a pound of stainless steel up his keester. He let it drop on

the nightstand to clean later, and then they just lay still. Their breathing

evened out, and they grew quiet as Chris pulled the comforter over their

hips.

“That was a surprise,” Xander said quietly, and Chris nodded his

head and burrowed his face into Xander"s chest.

“The other way hurt so much,” Chris murmured in explanation. “I

thought I"d try something else this time.”

Xander nodded, like that made sense, but lovemaking had left him

open, vulnerable, and susceptible to stoically hidden pain. His vision

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89

grew blurry, and he dropped a kiss in Chris"s hair, and then a tear, and

then another one of each. He felt tainted, and soiled, and like he"d

corrupted that entire wonderful moment between the two of them.

There was a reason they tried not to touch on the third game day of

the month.

But he wouldn"t taint the moment further by recrimination, or by

reprimand. It was bad enough that the pressure bandage had been ripped

off by the act of making love, and the wound was open and bleeding and

infected and it hurt too much to bear.

Two tears turned to three, to five, to Xander, stripped of his

pretense that it was an ordinary day, holding Chris to his chest in what

had become their marriage bed and howling into his own hard-bitten

palm.

THE first time Christian had gone home with a woman, he"d called

Xander in guise of a cab to come pick him up.

They"d had to stop the car four times for him to throw up on the

way home.

When it had been Xander"s turn, he"d sat stoic in the car,

unspeaking, and then murmured something about taking a shower. Chris

had found him in the freezing shower, forty-five minutes later, huddled

in the corner and scrubbing absently at his arm until the softened skin

had abraded and bled.

It was their one true lie.

The day they"d first seen the house, Chris had told Xander that they

would have to find some way to cover, and Xander had nodded. Uh-huh.

Escort supermodels to separate events. Have Penny"s friends beard them

when they had to attend fundraisers. Find ways to look sheepish when a

pretty girl was mentioned. They"d seen the tape; they"d seen the shy

smiles of the guys caught having a heterosexual relationship that no one

was supposed to know about. They were going to have to do that.

For a year, it had worked.

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Amy Lane

For a year, they had played under a sweet man who understood

strategy but not motivation, and who had won a whole lot of college

games that way but couldn"t seem to win a pro game. And then the

owners had tried a reorganization, and they"d gotten Coach Strauss

Wallick, and their carefully orchestrated cover had gone to hell.

Wallick was an old school coach in the body of a short, trim, fifty-

year-old man. Every coach they"d ever had would scream at them about

being whining little girls, even female athletes heard that, but Wallick?

His gold standard for the puling fuck-up was the “bitching little faggot.”

When Xander dislocated his knee in that first season with Coach

Wallick, he"d come back three weeks early, for fear of being a “bitchy

little faggot.” When Chris had broken his nose that year, he"d let the

court doc bandage his face, stop the bleeding, and had gone out on the

court and run his heart out, just so he didn"t have to hear those words.

“Whatsa matter, boys? You spend all night giving it to each other

up the ass? You wanna play better? Get a woman, fuck her hard, and

stop being a bitchy little faggot!”

It was hyperbole, sports talk, men-being-men, right? Except when

you had a secret the size of Chris and Xander"s, every repetition of the

word “faggot,” “bitch,” “man-gash,” “fuck-twunt,” “queer”—God, the

list went on and on and on and on—and it hurt worse, ripped worse,

scoured their skin with barbs worse each time they heard it. What used to

be just talk, just locker-room banter, just the same dumb bullshit they"d

heard all their lives—

Suddenly every word made them cringe.

It was that year, their second year, after Xander had won NBA

Rookie of the Year, after Chris had led the league in assists and free

throws, when everything should have been golden,
that
year, that Chris

started drinking.

It had been
that
year when the third game of the month had started

to mean something horrible, had become some sort of festering black

mark of their own secret shame.

Because Coach noticed the two of them. He"d marked them—hell,

the whole media had marked them. They were the happiness twins,

right? They were the dynamic duo, Super-Xan and Bible Boy (Christian,

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91

right? Get it?) They were the odds busters: they"d played high school and

college and pro together, and really—who did that? There were scores

upon scores of stats that said not one goddamned team of two had ever

made it through the draft intact. But Xander had the natural talent, and

Christian had the drive to match him, and together, they were

unstoppable.

By the end of that year, that second year, Chris had started drinking

and Xander had dropped thirty pounds of supposed baby fat and started

taking ibuprofin and Pepto-Bismol for breakfast.

“Hey, you two—gonna go out and get laid tonight?” Coach would

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