Strays and Lovers Read online

  Eddie sat lost in the silken heat of Gray’s body. He could hear the pounding of Gray’s heart—or was it his own? Gray’s lips and fingers were gentle on his scalp. His cock had found a home nudged solidly against Gray’s hairy thigh. His precome was seeping already, leaving a snail trail of moisture on Gray’s pale skin.

  It wasn’t easy, but Eddie finally managed to squeak out the words. “So tell me, baby. What is it you want me to do?”

  Gray took one of Eddie’s hands and slid it down his back until it rested on his butt. He wormed his way closer and shuddered when Eddie’s finger slid inside the cleft of flesh and came to rest on Gray’s heated opening.

  “I knew you’d figure it out,” Gray said with a gasp.

  Eddie’s voice was so throaty he sounded like a bullfrog. With his tongue exploring Gray’s belly button and his finger lovingly probing a different hole, he managed to mutter, “I may be old, but I’m not senile. I can usually find my way when I’m pointed in the right direction.”

  “Good to know,” Gray said around a fluttering laugh.

  This time it was Gray who led Eddie up the staircase to the bed. The faintest blue of a stormy dawn lit the way before them.

  As they climbed on trembling legs, their thundering hearts never quieted once.

  GRAY BREATHED two little words that wafted from his lips to blow softly across Eddie’s face. “Let me.”

  Gentle hands pushed Eddie down onto the bed until he was flat on his back. Gray extended one leg and hovered naked over him. Lubricating his fingers from a jar of oil on the nightstand, he reached beneath himself and gathered Eddie’s cock in an exquisite caress. He rolled a condom smoothly into place, and when it was secure, he once again circled Eddie’s cock with his fingers, stroking it gently, filling his hand. Eddie shivered, gazing up at Gray, who was so enraptured by what he was doing that he’d thrown his head back, mouth agape. The sinews in his neck stood out as taut as bowstrings.

  Eddie reached up and ran his hands over Gray’s chest as Gray directed Eddie’s cock to where he wanted it to go. Watching from below, frozen in anticipation, Eddie grasped Gray’s hips and steadied his descent as Gray lowered himself down onto him. Eddie’s long cock slid easily in, as if it had always belonged there. When his entire length was consumed inside that well of exquisite heat, and Gray had calmed his own trembling body enough to accept it completely, Gray opened his eyes and gazed down at Eddie.

  Only then did Gray begin to move. Easing himself upward, letting the head of Eddie’s engorged cock slide along and through his tender sheath.

  Gray smiled. His voice was a shriveled husk. “You like that.”

  Eddie had no voice. He could only nod. His hands never stopped traveling over Gray’s lean body. The heat of Gray’s firm flesh on Eddie’s fingertips and palms stopped Eddie’s heart, it was so glorious. The angelic expression on Gray’s face during each and every downward caress, as he accepted Eddie deep into his very core, hypnotized Eddie. And while Eddie reveled in the fucking, his gaze could not for a moment leave Gray’s face, or Gray’s unfocused eyes, or the way Gray’s lips parted in mesmerized abandon every time Eddie’s cock slid deep inside his body.

  Still buried in Gray’s depths, Eddie pulled himself to a sitting position and gathered Gray into his arms, holding him close. With his face pressed to Gray’s chest and the pounding of Gray’s heart hammering in his ears, Eddie took control of the movements.

  Gray ceded his power happily, draping his arms over Eddie’s shoulders and burying his mouth in Eddie’s hair. Eddie could feel him giving himself up entirely to the sensations flooding through him. As Eddie’s cock plunged into him on every upward stroke, Gray gasped and moaned. A string of nonsensical words escaped his lips that might have been Swahili for all the sense they made to Eddie.

  But still Eddie understood them. Or at least he understood the well of emotion they sprang from. For he felt those emotions too.

  A splash of heat struck Eddie’s chest. He looked down to see Gray’s semen splattered over him, although no hand, neither Gray’s nor Eddie’s, had stroked Gray into ejaculation. It was the hottest thing he had ever seen.

  “Oh God,” Eddie muttered.

  A heartbeat later, the come spilled from him. With a pleasure that was almost agony, his own juices filled the condom he wore. As he emptied himself into the bubble of latex, Gray clung tightly to him, holding him as close and as deeply inside himself as he could. It was almost as if he too could feel the gushing of Eddie’s come. And for all Eddie knew, maybe he could.

  When his convulsions slowed, Eddie opened his eyes and gazed up into Gray’s face. Again, Gray’s lips were parted, a sheen of sweat sparkled his forehead, and his hands were trembling at the back of Eddie’s neck. The scent of pleasure rolled off them both, colliding on the air, warming the bed beneath them, mixing with the earthy scent of Gray’s come drying on Eddie’s chest.

  “Stay inside me,” Gray whispered, his lips once more in Eddie’s hair.

  Obediently, Eddie gathered Gray’s lean body yet again into his strong arms and held him close, his softening cock still buried deep in that wonderful well of heat and acceptance.

  “That was incredible,” Eddie managed to breathe.

  And then, as if their hungers were suddenly quenched, they collapsed onto the bed.

  Eddie lay with Gray wrapped snugly in his arms while the storm outside began to quiet, moving off across the mountains to the east. It was almost as if the release of their own passions had calmed the heavens as well. A hushed silence settled over them, reclaiming the old house, while the first light of a cloudy dawn fell across their cuddled bodies on the bed.

  Soon the patter of small feet and a plaintive cry for breakfast told them the day had begun in earnest. And their night together must end.

  They slipped reluctantly away from each other and began to dress silently on opposite sides of the bed.

  Eddie snuck a glance in Gray’s direction and saw that the old sadness had returned to his face.

  With only one shoe on, he bellowed, “No!” and stomped around the bed to gather Gray once again in his arms.

  Gray didn’t fight back. He accepted Eddie’s embrace and dropped his head to Eddie’s chest. Eddie couldn’t see it, but he thought maybe Gray was smiling.

  “Thank you,” Eddie whispered in his ear.

  Gray nodded, his forehead still resting at Eddie’s throat. “You’re welcome,” he barely muttered.

  “Please tell me I can see you again.”

  Once more, Gray nodded. His fingers tightened at Eddie’s back. This time before he spoke, he lifted his eyes to Eddie’s face and smiled.

  “Okay,” he softly said. “If that’s really what you want.”

  Chapter Five

  ONCE THE second storm had blown away, the sun quickly returned, as it always did. The high desert began to dry out. The endless blue of the crystal California sky shone through again. The days were flooded with golden light, and the stars peppered the night with countless sparks of fire. The air grew brisk and clear in the mornings and sweltering in the afternoons. The old familiar heat shimmer returned to dance across the horizon. Thanks to the rain, splashes of pale green colored the sage along the hiking paths, and their brittle stalks softened. Wildflowers bloomed in the crevices of sand and stone. Waxy white flowers blossomed atop the endless stalks of yucca that grew along the hillsides, laying their cloyingly sweet fragrance on the windless desert air.

  Eddie’s animals came out of hiding and roamed the dog and cat runs again, sucking in the fresh air, prancing and playing in the drying grass. They groomed themselves as if they knew any future possibility of adoption might very well depend on how spiffy they looked.

  The first days after Gray’s visit were confusing for Eddie. His thoughts never traveled far from the hours he and Gray had spent in Eddie’s bed. Even a week later, Eddie could feel the softness of Gray’s skin on his fingertips, could taste Gray’s juices seeping across his tongue, feel Gray
’s breath flowing over his chest as he slept. He could feel Gray’s mouth on him, and he could never for a moment forget the sensation of Gray lowering himself over him, his warm sheath happily accepting Eddie’s long cock without a moment of hesitation.

  Most of all, he remembered the heat that burned in Gray’s stunningly pale eyes as they lay joined in the bed, one man buried deep inside the other. How Gray had seemed to relish every second of their coupling. Every convulsive piercing. Every hungry gasp and cry and stuttered, moaning breath.

  Which made it all the more confusing that Gray hadn’t tried to contact him since.

  Gray’s time was taken up with work, of course. Eddie knew that. He also knew Gray didn’t have a phone, since he couldn’t afford one. But it wasn’t a long walk from the cabin Gray rented to the Desert Sky Pet Refuge, where Gray must have known Eddie was aching to see him again.

  Eddie could just as easily walk or drive to Gray’s cabin but was afraid to because he didn’t want to seem like a needy twit. He would much rather have Gray reestablish contact than the other way around. But after a week of solitude, during which he had seen no one but four customers, three of whom had adopted pets and one who was still thinking about it, Eddie finally came to the conclusion that he didn’t much care if he came across as needy or not.

  He wanted to see Gray again. That’s all it boiled down to. He wanted it more than anything. On this particular afternoon, he caught Louie staring longingly through the porch rail in the direction of the winding path that led to Gray’s cabin. Louie had brought the two men together to begin with, leading Eddie to Gray’s front door unannounced. And because of that meeting, Eddie and Gray had gotten to know each other a little better. The seeds of friendship had been born, and look what those beginning seeds had blossomed into. Maybe Louie was remembering that day now. Or maybe Eddie was stuffing his own wishful thoughts into the poor dog’s brain. His own wishful thoughts about making the trip again. After all, who was to say how Gray might react to finding Eddie on his doorstep again unannounced? Hell, maybe he’d be happy about it. After the night they had spent together, why the heck wouldn’t he be?

  A grin spread across Eddie’s face. He stared down at Louie, and Louie stared back at him. The little guy was almost grown now. Terrier size. His white coat was forever frazzled, as if he’d been zapped with thirty or forty thousand volts of electricity, then fluffed up with a teasing comb and tossed into a cyclone. His eyes were amber and round and endlessly curious. His little pink tongue was forever licking his snout as if tasting the scents he discovered on the air.

  “Go see him, then,” Eddie said. “It’ll give me an excuse to go searching for you. Incorrigible dog, worried master, that sort of thing.”

  Louie cocked his head to the side, causing one ear to invert and flop over one eye. “Say what?” he seemed to be asking. “You want me to simply run off into the wild, alone and unprotected? What if I get eaten by a wolf? And who said I was incorrigible?”

  “There’s not a wolf within a thousand miles,” Eddie said out loud, surprising himself that he was crazy enough to carry on an imaginary conversation with a dog. But then, horny, infatuated people probably do all sorts of insane things. For all Eddie knew, maybe he was actually giving a pretty good impression of somebody acting with maturity and restraint. You know, like, sensible.

  Yeah, right.

  He refocused his attention on the dog, who was still looking at him strangely. “Go on now, Louie. Go find Gray. Go. It’s his day off. He should be home. And no, I will not apologize. You know perfectly well how incorrigible you can be. Don’t play the innocent with me.”

  Louie jerked his head around to stare off across the yard and out past the highway, down along the path that meandered into the scrub. Then he jerked his head back and stared deep into Eddie’s eyes. He tasted the air with his tongue like a snake. His tail gave a twitch, then started to wag. Then it started to wag a little faster. A sly look appeared in his little mongrel eyes.

  “Go,” Eddie whispered again, his teeth flashing white in the sunlight. “You did it once. Do it again. Go to Gray, Louie. Go on now. Go find Gray. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Actually I’ll be stuck to your ass like piece of Scotch tape.

  Louie seemed to finally get the message. He leaped into the air, gave a merry yip, and sailed off the back porch like he’d been shot from a catapult. He raced across the yard, tail high, and Eddie’s heart stopped for a second when Louie flew across the old county road without looking in either direction first. Happily, the fates were kind. No traffic was coming. Moments later, with a final flash of his snowy tail, Louie disappeared down the hiking trail that led straight to Gray’s rental cabin two miles farther on.

  “That ought to do it,” Eddie mumbled to himself. Stepping through his back door, he gathered up his backpack, threw in a bottle of water, and, since it was almost lunchtime, added a box of donuts that happened to be handy. He took a minute to admonish Lucretia and Fred to guard the house while he was gone, hung a Be Back Soon sign on the front door, and, feeling pretty pleased with himself for being so all-fired sneaky, headed off at a brisk pace on his long legs in the same direction Louie had taken.

  It was a perfect afternoon for hiking. Not too hot—the evening breeze was beginning to stir. The birds played in the bushes at the side of the trail, and Eddie gnawed on a bear claw while he clomped along. Louie was nowhere in sight. He was probably a mile ahead by now.

  After a while, Eddie didn’t see the landscape around him at all, or hear the birds or see the sky. He had turned inward again, thinking back on that one incredible night with Gray. How giving and accepting Gray had been. How unashamed he was of his own body, and how appreciative he was of Eddie’s. And how those two bodies responded to each other. Holy mackerel!

  Eddie’s thoughts came crashing back to earth when he heard the buzzing of a rattlesnake somewhere nearby. Since it wasn’t directly on the trail, he kept going, putting on a tiny burst of speed to leave the snake safely behind.

  Thirty minutes later, Eddie crested the last hill and spotted the cabin up ahead. Warm and sweaty, but not uncomfortably so, Eddie widened his stride again as he came down the home stretch. Already his heart was starting to thump in anticipation. Since Louie was nowhere in sight, Eddie could only assume Gray had taken him inside. Maybe he was preparing to return Louie to his master, as he had done once before. And maybe he was feeling somewhat eager, remembering what had happened the last time he showed up at Eddie’s door. Heck, maybe Gray’s heart was thumping in anticipation too.

  Eddie certainly hoped so.

  Nearing the cabin, Eddie saw no movement on the grounds, no flick of curtains in the cabin windows, no wisp of smoke curling from the chimney. Eddie kicked the dirt from his boots on the first step leading up to the porch. He surreptitiously covered his mouth with his hand and tested his breath. It smelled like donuts. Donut breath was infinitely better than skunk breath, so he didn’t complain. He climbed the rest of the stairs and was just lifting his hand to tap at the cabin door when the door swung open in front of him.

  Gray stood there grinning, and before either man could speak a word, Louie shot between Gray’s legs and hurled himself into Eddie’s arms.

  Eddie let the little dog slather him with kisses like they hadn’t seen each other in a month before he finally turned his eyes on Gray.

  It was then that he saw the plaster cast: a big fat white one, covering Gray’s foot from toes to shin. When Gray moved to steady himself, the cast plunked on the plank floor. It sounded like it weighed a ton. If it weren’t for the crutch tucked under his armpit, Eddie figured Gray would have fallen flat on his face.

  “Holy crap! What happened to you?”

  Gray didn’t have to ask Eddie what he meant. With Eddie staring bug-eyed at the cast on his foot, it must have been pretty obvious.

  “Fell off the loading dock at work,” Gray said, gazing down at the cast as well. As if proving to Eddie he wasn’t a complete
cripple, he wiggled his toes. The cast was so new he still had plaster dust under his toenails. “Broke my ankle, as you can see. A simple fracture. Should have the cast off in about six weeks.”

  Eddie set Louie down and quickly crossed the porch. Tucking a hand under Gray’s free arm—the one not encumbered by the crutch—he steered him gently back inside.

  “You should have told me,” Eddie said, pointing him toward a sofa, which seemed to be where Gray had been spending most of his time since it was rumpled and covered with pillows and had an open book splayed out on the arm. “I could have been getting you groceries and stuff. How long have you been like this?”

  Gray let Eddie lower him down onto the sofa and, after propping his cast on the coffee table, patted the seat beside him. “Sit,” he said, no longer smiling. “And I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t. No phone. No car. Can’t walk for shit. Ruth drove me to the emergency room after I fell, then she brought me home. She also drops groceries by for me every couple of days. And by the way, it’s not your job to keep me fed. I’m an adult. I’m on my own. I’ve always been on my own, and I like it that way. A broken foot isn’t going to kill me.”

  Eddie stared at him. “I wondered why we hadn’t spoken. After the last time we were together, I mean.”

  Gray shifted his leg around to take pressure off the cast. “Well, now you know.”

  They were sitting close. Gray was wearing a beat-up pair of khaki shorts, probably in deference to the cast. His beautiful lean legs were golden in the afternoon light. Eddie ached to brush his lips over them.

  “I missed you, Gray.”

  Gray’s eyes slid to him. His smile didn’t return, but his gaze softened. “Did you?”