Inertia: Impulse, Book One Page 8

  He and his hands were good friends for a reason. He drew a deep breath and pushed away the impulse to escalate matters.

  If things never went any further than that intoxicating brush of a kiss they’d had the other night, so be it.

  He didn’t catch another word of the movie. All his awareness was hyper-focused on Gavin’s hand, which had come to rest on his knee, his thumb stroking almost unintentionally, making it impossible for Derrick not to be conscious of the touch. He moved closer, silently requesting more contact, encouraging Gavin not to be so hesitant but leaving the ball in his court.

  When the movie ended, Derrick found himself irritated with it for doing so. Now he’d have to go home, and that one touch would haunt him for days, or weeks, or however long it took for one of them to work themselves up to trying this again.

  When Gavin hesitantly proposed that Derrick stay and have dinner with him, Derrick accepted.

  Cooking dinner with someone was a novelty. Not that they did anything different than when he and Devon barbecued together, but still, it was different. They worked in tandem preparing the food in the kitchen before taking it out to the balcony, and it felt intimate somehow. The awareness that still charged the air between them made every passing brush, every exchange, no matter how light-hearted and chatty, somehow more.

  “You cook for yourself a lot?” Gavin asked, leaning against the railing of the balcony as Derrick grilled the steaks. He’d been fascinated by the herb rub Derrick had made for them and insisted on getting the recipe.

  “Pretty much all the time. I could eat out if I wanted to, but I’m a bit of a tightwad, really. Which is why I do things like use an ancient cell phone without texting and repair appliances that I should have retired twenty years ago. I cook my own meals and take leftovers for lunch. I don’t tend to eat out unless it’s a social thing.”

  “I really should do the same, but I’ve discovered I hate cooking for one. When it’s for company, I really enjoy it, but when it’s just me, I can’t seem to make myself care.”

  Derrick shrugged uncomfortably, wondering why he felt awkward discussing his solitary existence. Would Gavin think he was boring? Or pathetic? “I guess I just got used to it, over the years.”

  He didn’t protest when Gavin insisted he didn’t want Derrick driving after the two beers he’d had with dinner. Two beers with food weren’t enough to impair him, but he was plenty happy to play along and return to the sofa. When Gavin chose a sitcom to watch, Derrick suspected he’d done it for the same reason Derrick had chosen the movie, picking something they could easily ignore.

  And when Gavin leaned his head on Derrick’s shoulder, light and tentative, he was sure of it. Gavin still smelled incredible. His cologne and shampoo combined with the lingering essence of beer and steak. Even the faint hint of underlying tobacco didn’t detract from it.

  As he had earlier, Derrick reined in the impulse to escalate things. He knew nothing about the previous relationship Gavin had been in. Physical attraction hummed and snapped between them like electric currents arcing through the air; the constant tingling buzz made it impossible to think of anything else but his determination to let Gavin move at whatever pace worked for him.

  And why was he suddenly scared? Why did the idea of putting his arm around Gavin—which seemed to be what Gavin had invited him to do—and simply being close to him frighten Derrick far more than the thought of kissing him?

  Because in kissing Gavin, or groping him, or hell, even going to bed with him, Derrick could convince himself it was just lust. Nothing more than hormones and too many years of abstinence. A good time with nothing else at stake. Snuggling could mean something else. Something that involved way more than he felt sure about permitting just yet.

  It wasn’t the idea of sex that scared him. He could handle that, and he could handle just being friends. It was the somewhere in between, where feelings could happen, that he wasn’t sure about.

  But Gavin felt good against him. Right. Closing his eyes for a moment, Derrick drew a slow breath and laid his arm over Gavin’s shoulders, silently inviting him to make himself comfortable. And Gavin did, slipping down a little to make more room for Derrick’s arm, laying his head against Derrick’s chest, where his heart hammered within the too-tight confines of his ribs.

  Derrick had no clue what show they were watching. He couldn’t hear over the drumming in his ears and he didn’t want to even look at the screen, nor could he stop glancing down at Gavin’s hair just below his chin. It took all Derrick’s willpower to keep himself from leaning down and nuzzling his face in Gavin’s hair to try to get a better whiff of him.

  When Gavin lifted his head and tilted it back to look at him, Derrick’s eyes immediately went to Gavin’s lips. His fingers tightened on Gavin’s shoulder and when he finally managed to tear his eyes away from Gavin’s mouth to meet his gaze, he knew Gavin had seen the stare.

  And then Gavin wet his lips with his tongue.

  Derrick caught a nervous breath, torn between the impulse to act and that tiny, nagging hint of uncertainty that maybe Gavin wasn’t ready for that yet.

  Gavin smiled, looking faintly amused. “You really don’t know an invitation when you see one, do you?”

  “Guess I don’t. Look,” he said haltingly as he tried to form his racing thoughts into words that would actually be intelligible when he spoke them. “You know, it’s been a while. And I don’t really know what I should do here. What you need.”

  Gavin looked up at him a while longer, his eyes wide, pupils large and dark, before he pushed himself up. He pulled his glasses off, his movement slow and deliberate as he laid them on the coffee table, giving Derrick plenty of time to back out. Then Gavin turned and kissed him.

  Derrick heard himself moan, his arm tightening behind Gavin, sliding down to wrap around his back and draw him closer. He tasted as good as he smelled, even the hint of beer on his breath. It was strange; fulfilling the promise of contact that had been hovering between them all day both relieved Derrick’s tension and made it ten times worse. It threatened to send something ravenous to the surface that he hadn’t known lurked beneath.

  The touch of Gavin’s hand on his face, stroking his cheek and jaw, felt good. Gavin’s cool fingers against his skin both soothed Derrick’s nerves and brought them snapping to attention. And when they moved down to Derrick’s neck it was even better. Derrick gasped into the kiss at that touch on his sensitive skin. As his mouth opened on the inhalation, he felt Gavin’s tongue against his lips.

  Oh, sweet Jesus….

  Any thought he had of taking things slow promptly dissipated. He wanted Gavin’s body against his, and they shifted simultaneously. Derrick turned as much as he could without drawing his legs up onto the sofa, and Gavin drew his knees under him, the motion giving him a height advantage that he used to take control of the kiss. His hand buried itself in Derrick’s hair, his mouth covered Derrick’s. His lips urged Derrick’s open, his tongue sliding in, stroking.

  Derrick’s other arm came around Gavin, trying to draw him even closer. He wasn’t sure how Gavin ended up in his lap, straddling his hips. Gavin loomed over him with a hiss of denim-on-denim as Derrick, without any thought or intention, shifted beneath him, seeking friction against the hard-on trapped beneath his fly.

  “God, yes…”

  He didn’t know he’d spoken, panting the words between increasingly urgent kisses. He rolled his hips again beneath Gavin, beyond self-consciousness, not caring if it was too forward, too suggestive. Gavin didn’t seem to mind; his own body moved to increase the pressure. As that first kiss had done for his nerves, the rubbing of Gavin’s cock against his beneath the layers of denim both soothed the insistent, throbbing ache in Derrick’s balls and made it far more desperate. He groaned, his hands clutching at Gavin’s back, the kisses passing beyond exploratory and heading straight into demanding.

  When Gavin’s hands closed in his hair, gripping it, Derrick arched his spine, his hips lifting
as he responded to the pressure drawing his head back. The pull on his hair was tight, good, skirting the edge of uncomfortable in an absolutely perfect way. He tore his mouth away from Gavin’s with a whimper as the pull became harder; overwhelmed, he tried to catch a panting breath and get a grip. With every response, every sensation, Derrick felt closer to the brink of flying completely, insanely out of control.

  “Sorry,” Gavin murmured as his hands released Derrick’s hair and Derrick almost groaned at the loss. He shook his head in silent denial as his brain tried to remember how to make words.

  “No… no… no need.”

  Abandoning any further attempt at speech, he pulled Gavin back to him, taking over the kiss. Hard, urgent, edging toward rough as he tried to find an outlet for that plaguing need for more. He was aware, now, of the rise and fall of his hips, knowing full well what it suggested. He wanted Gavin. God, he wanted him, and just the wanting felt intoxicating. He was high, beyond thought or reason, doubt or control.

  More, his body demanded, gripping fistfuls of the back of Gavin’s shirt, thrusting up against Gavin.

  More. Gavin responded, pressing down to meet him.

  Derrick leaned back, reclining as far as he could against the sofa, no more concerned with the message he sent by moving toward the horizontal than with the blatant grinding of his hips against Gavin. He drew Gavin down tighter above him, picking up the pace, rubbing against him urgently. The delirious thought occurred to him that he should be thankful he’d jerked off that morning, or this would already be over.

  He didn’t want it to be over. Not nearly over. He wanted… God, he wanted Gavin’s skin. It didn’t occur to him to ask first; his hands simply obeyed the imperative without thought or hesitation, releasing their grip on Gavin’s shirt at the shoulders to seize it lower, pulling it up.

  The way Gavin’s body tensed didn’t register, not at first, even when Gavin drew back and panted, “Oh, God. Wait… wait.”

  For a moment there was no comprehension, beyond the fact that Gavin’s mouth no longer moved against his, that the friction of Gavin’s cock no longer ground against his own. It was gone, and he wanted it back. He was moving for Gavin again, seeking his lips, when the words finally penetrated.

  “Wh—what is it? Have I…?” He became aware of his hands clutching Gavin’s shirt, pulling it up. His stomach sank. The mindless wanting faded into the background as rational thought returned. His balls throbbed with agonizing insistence even as mortification set in.

  He’d gone too far. Gavin didn’t want this.

  “Oh. Sorry. Sorry.” He let go of Gavin’s shirt, trying to sit up, queasy with humiliated rejection. “Sorry.”

  “Um, no. No, it’s not you. God.” He wasn’t sure if it was any consolation or not that Gavin looked as tortured by the sudden halt as Derrick felt. His dick was still painfully hard within his jeans, a condition that was only marginally improved when Gavin shifted off his lap, relieving some of the pressure.

  Gavin took a moment, futilely trying to straighten his clothing as though it would help him organize his thoughts. “I need to tell you something. Before this goes any further. If it does.”

  “Okay.” Derrick pushed himself back up to sitting, raking his hair back from his face and pushing it behind his ear. He forced his thoughts away from the desire to get back to what they’d been doing. Gavin sounded far too solemn for that.

  He blew out a calming breath. “Okay. Say what you gotta say, then.”

  It seemed to take Gavin forever to answer. The longer he stared at the floor without meeting Derrick’s eyes, the more apprehensive Derrick became, his gut sinking in fear.

  Gavin’s voice was halted and shook when he finally spoke. “Um, I’ve mentioned that my last relationship wasn’t, uh, wasn’t the best.” Derrick nodded, even though Gavin wasn’t looking at him, willing Gavin to continue. “He refused to find out his status. His… his, um, HIV status. And I didn’t know that until it was too late.”

  The temperature in the room seemed to plummet. His skin prickled with cold sweat. Derrick felt himself shutting down. His mind, even his body seemed to go so numb he might as well have been dunked in Lake Huron in January. His emotions fled, leaving him empty. Those glorious moments of feeling everything bled away into feeling absolutely nothing.

  He stared at Gavin, not really seeing him. A dull mantra pounded at brain like a drumbeat.

  I knew it. I knew it.

  Yes, he’d known it was a bad idea to get involved with anyone, but he’d chosen to do it anyway. He had no one but his own fool self to blame for that. He shut the chiding voice up, closed it off. He turned Gavin’s words over in his head methodically. He dissected and analyzed them dispassionately, his face blank.

  When he spoke, his voice was flat. Empty.

  “You. You, um. You didn’t take precautions, I take it?”

  Gavin flinched, looking away a split second after something haunting made his eyes go distant and unfocused. “Not always. It wasn’t what I wanted. Not really. It’s… it’s complicated.”

  Derrick gave a slow nod. He took his time examining that, measuring out the passage of seconds in the thunderous beating of his pulse in his ears. Gavin’s voice sounded far away, nearly lost in the cacophony.

  Again, an inflectionless voice he barely recognized as his own spoke.

  “So. You said you didn’t know until it was too late. You’ve, um… tested….” A small surge of emotion, pain, tried to pierce the void. He shoved it aside and buried it in favor of that protective stillness. “You’ve tested positive, then?”

  “No,” Gavin said with an emphatic shake of his head. “I still have about four months until I… until I can say with absolute certainty I’m not positive. But I haven’t tested positive yet. My doctor says at over two months since last exposure, that’s a really good sign. Usually it shows up within one to three months. It doesn’t often take as long as six, but it can.”

  “Four months.” He sat with that, silent, and Gavin let him. Anger, unreasoning and unreasonable, began to nibble at the edges of that numb, detached feeling.

  “Why?” The word came out hard and sharp, more a demand than a question.

  Gavin started, frowning in confusion. “Why…?”

  Why didn’t you tell me before I was ready to go to bed with you? Why did you ever start flirting with me in the first place? Why did you call me back when I was ready to let go of this idea and move on? Why were you so foolish?

  “That’s an awful lot of trust to put in someone. Why didn’t you make him get tested, show you proof? Why’d you take that risk?” His mouth curled in a small sneer, and he knew it was ugly and cynical and judgmental, but he couldn’t make himself stop. “No, wait. Let me guess. You just loved him that much, it was worth risking your life.”

  He regretted the accusation immediately as Gavin flinched. Shit. It wasn’t his place to judge Gavin’s choices. He swallowed down the knee-jerk anger, groping around in his head to try to find that frigid calm again.

  “And if I hadn’t said anything, tell me, would you have let yourself get carried away?” Gavin shot back. “Because it certainly felt like it.”

  So much for trying to quell his bitterness.

  Derrick’s voice hardened again. “I was well on my way to sleeping with you, if that’s what you’re asking. But I damn sure wouldn’t have done it without a rubber. Would have insisted on us both wearing ‘em. Sorry, Gav, but two dates? No. Much as I like you, no.”

  He didn’t let himself examine whether or not that was completely truthful. The fact was, it hadn’t occurred to him to buy condoms and bring them with him. He was nearly certain that he would have remembered to ask Gavin if he had them, but maybe not one hundred percent.

  Gavin’s scowled. “I don’t have to justify a thing to you, Derrick, but if you want to know, it wasn’t the first time I was with him. I’m smarter than that, if not by much. We were together for a year. A year is a lot of time for trust to build.” H
e grimaced. “Misplaced trust, but it is what it is.”

  Stop being an asshole, man.

  He couldn’t seem to check himself. The throbbing pain at his temples wasn’t helping, either. He hated the anger, hated the fear making him lash out. The nothingness was better, but that seemed to have abandoned him.

  “Trust. Right.” He had to move, surging to his feet to pace restlessly before turning to look at Gavin again. “I could ask just what sort of trust leaves a guy white as a sheet when he looks at a text message, what kind of trust punches holes in his walls, but I guess that’s none of my business.” He moved to the sliding balcony door, bracing a fist on the glass next to his head and staring out without seeing anything. A hint of movement in Gavin’s reflection and the sound of the refrigerator opening and bottles clinking told him Gavin had grabbed another beer for himself.

  Derrick wished he could do the same.

  Gavin’s voice, when he answered the charge, was soft. Ashamed. “I said it was misplaced.”

  The bitterness bled away, and in its place came sorrow. That was even worse. He wouldn’t let himself feel that. Not again. Not ever, ever again.

  He didn’t know how long he stood there, systematically replacing grief with nothingness. He did it with slow, methodical precision. He tackled it with the same careful accuracy he’d dedicated to building Gavin’s shelves. A small eternity lapsed, filled with endless, echoing silence. Gavin still stood in the kitchen, waiting. He knew it, and he knew Gavin was hurt, and afraid, and a hundred other things Derrick didn’t want him to feel, a hundred things that made every instinct in him yearn to comfort and protect.

  But there was nothing he could do for Gavin. Not without destroying all the stability he’d worked so hard to build.

  Minutes ticked by as he stared unseeingly out the patio door. He knew what he needed to do, but he absolutely didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to take that irrevocable step that would push Gavin, and whatever might have happened between them, away forever.