“Want the tour?” he said.
“Sure.” I put the bags of socks down on the table and followed him down the hall.
“Bedroom, bathroom.” He pointed to the rooms on the right and left of me. “And living room slash study slash library slash storage room.” The apartment was shaped a bit like an hourglass, but it was adorable. All the furniture was old and patched, but it wasn’t dirty.
“And this is Napoleon. He thinks he’s going to take over the world.” Dusty reached behind the couch and pulled out what looked like a black ball of fuzz. On further inspection, I realized it was a kitten with huge blue eyes. Dusty cradled him like a baby in his arms and Napoleon meowed and I died, right there, in the middle of Dusty’s living room.
I’d always heard about the appeal of guys with babies, and I’d never really gotten it. But Dusty holding a kitten and scratching its belly as it purred like a little tank? Pantie-meltingly sexy.
“Here, you want to hold him?” I’d never had a pet before. My parents had always said no when I’d asked for one every single birthday and Christmas. A lot of the time it was because we were renting in a place that didn’t allow them. I’d always wanted a dog, but now I was seeing the cat appeal. Big-time.
Dusty passed him over to me and he mewed at me.
“He’s just saying hello. If you scratch him right here, he’ll be in love with you forever.” He put his fingers under Napoleon’s chin and scratched, which made Napoleon close his eyes and start purring again. Dusty moved his hand and mine took his place under the kitten’s chin.
“I didn’t know you had a cat,” I said as Napoleon snuggled closer to my hand.
Dusty sat down on the couch that took up much of the limited space.
“I didn’t plan on it, but then the woman downstairs found a litter of kittens and she asked me if I wanted one and I couldn’t say no. Could you say no to him?”
“Never.” I sat down next to him, making sure I didn’t jostle the sweet little kitty. “This really isn’t that bad, Dusty.” He had it organized at least. There was a bookshelf in one corner with quite a few worn paperbacks on it and an ancient television, one of those with the big wooden box around it, across from the couch with a DVD player that looked very out of place on top of it.
The walls were pretty bare, but here and there were a few pictures. It wasn’t what I’d expected, from the few times I’d been in guys’ apartments and dorm rooms. Usually there were more than a few posters of half-naked girls, or at least a Playboy or two hanging around, and lots of beer cans and chip bags.
“It’s not much, but it’s mine. And Napoleon’s. It’s really his place and I just live here.”
Everything was quiet except for Napoleon, who was still purring away.
“So are you still mad at me?” he said.
I couldn’t lie. “I’m not happy about it, but it’s not completely your fault. I’m going to have it out with Renee and the rest of the residents of the house when I get back about it.”
“Do you have to? I mean, they don’t have to know that you know.”
“But they lied to me, Dusty. I can’t just let that go.”
“You’re right.” He stroked Napoleon’s head and sighed. “So I have something for you. Something to say I’m sorry. Or at least start saying I’m sorry. Do you want it?”
“Does it have anything to do with the socks?”
“Nope.”
I had no idea what this could be. Dusty took the now-sleeping Napoleon from me and placed him gently in a little kitten bed on the floor beside the couch.
“Be right back. Oh, and close your eyes.” I gave him a look and did what he said. He left the room and went into his bedroom. I listened as he came back and placed something on the floor in front of me.
“Okay, open.”
I looked down to find a clear plastic bucket with a huge bow on the lid. It was absolutely filled with...
“An equal ratio of Skittles and M&M’s. I actually counted them out. Did you know they don’t put the same amount in each bag? I learned that around five this morning when I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“Do you mean to tell me you sat and counted all of those?” There must be thousands of them in there.
He put his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, it took a while.”
I looked down at the bucket again and shook my head. “You are so weird, Dusty Sharp.”
“Is weird good?”
I stood up and stepped over the bucket and pulled him toward me.
“Yeah. Weird is awesome,” I said before I tilted my face up and kissed him. He took his hands out of his pockets and wrapped them around my waist, pulling me up so I was on my tiptoes. I pulled away from his mouth, which tasted like chocolate.
“Did you eat any of them?”
He grinned.
“They were uneven, so I had a few left over.”
“Oh.” I shrugged and went back to kissing him. It was a little bit slower than last night. Softer. Like a tentative first kiss. Like we both knew we could take our time. I let the taste of him flood my senses as his hands slipped under my shirt and set off every nerve ending. He pushed me back, and we nearly tripped over the bucket on our way to the couch. He laid me down and got on his side so he wasn’t on top of me.
He pulled some hair loose from my bun and twirled it around his fingers. “Want to try it slower this time? We have all day.”
“What do you mean by slow? I think I need to see a demonstration before I commit to it,” I said with a serious face.
“I was thinking something like this,” he said, giving me a slow kiss before moving down my chin and to my neck. “And this,” he said, pulling aside one shoulder of my shirt and kissing down my clavicle, moving my bra strap aside.
“And this,” he said, coming back up to my mouth and sliding his hands upward, under my shirt.
“Slow...good,” I said. Once again, my moaning-while-talking issue had returned. He laughed, sending vibrations racing across my skin. Jesus. H. Christ.
We kept making out and he kept moving my clothing, but not removing it. Which was both awesome and totally frustrating at the same time. Also, because he was fully clothed, as well. I’d never seen him without a shirt on, and I had about had it with waiting.
Finally I just started pulling it off him so he had no choice but to take it off.
“About time,” I said, taking in the toned muscles, which, up until now, I’d only felt with my hands. Seeing them with my eyes was something else entirely. He was cut, but not in a gross way. Just...perfectly perfect in every way. And I got to see the tattoo for the first time.
It was two identical Chinese characters. I had no idea what they meant, but I made a note to ask later. I didn’t have any tattoos myself, but I always liked hearing the stories behind them. They reminded me of a tattoo I’d seen before. I couldn’t begin to imagine what Dusty’s meant. I just hoped it wasn’t Gangsta 4 Life or something like that.
“Wow,” I said before going to his mouth. My fingers raced along his blazing skin, and I kissed my way down his neck.
“Fuck, Joscelyn.” I loved when he used my full name. Like he was having sex with it. Really, really good sex. “If we go much further, I don’t think I can stop, and I don’t think either of us is ready for that. Yet.”
His words were right, but I didn’t want them to be. My body was screaming so loud I didn’t want to hear anything else.
“You know, you’re not really being fair. You can’t get me all worked up and then expect me to be able to...shut it off.”
“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve had to jack off since I met you? It’s like I’m twelve again and hiding in the bathroom and praying my parents don’t walk in.”
“Gross,” I said, putting my hand on his chest as i
f I was going to push him away.
“Oh, don’t tell me that you haven’t done it.” My ears betrayed me.
“Not today.” That was a lie. It had technically been today when he’d called me and we’d had our little session in the backseat of the car.
He climbed off me, looking down at his pants. He shook his head as he grabbed his shirt and put it back on.
“I always tell myself before I see you that I can control it, but it never turns out that way,” he said, as if he was speaking to the bulge and not me.
“Are you giving yourself a pep talk?”
He threw his hands up. “Why won’t you go away?” Yep, he definitely was. Talking to his dick.
“I’ll stop being so...seductive,” I said, adjusting my clothes so everything was covered.
“Oh, Red. You can’t stop. It’s just...you don’t have to do anything. You could sit there and do absolutely nothing and it would get me hot.”
Yeah, well, he was the same way.
“Maybe I should start picking my nose, or hocking loogies. What about that?” I said.
“I’d find that charming and adorable.” Napoleon had woken up and was crying from his bed. Dusty went and picked him up. He brought Napoleon up to his face and gave him a kiss. Sweet Jesus H. Fucking Christ.
“Is Napoleon helping with your problem?” Since I didn’t own a penis, I didn’t know exactly how that whole thing worked. I did have brothers, but they were all younger and this wasn’t really dinner-table conversation.
“A little. I’ll get over it. I hope. I’ve had worse.”
He kept looking at Napoleon and not at me and I kept looking at his pants. It should have been the most awkward thing ever, but Dusty was treating it like no big deal.
“Does it hurt?”
“I’m fine, Red. You don’t need to worry about my dick.” Maybe I wanted to worry about it. But he clearly wasn’t going to let me anywhere near it, so I took the top off the bucket of M&M’s and Skittles and pulled out a handful.
“It’s not that bad. Eating them together,” he said, making faces at Napoleon, who kept pawing Dusty’s nose. “It’s like chocolate-covered fruit.”
“Exactly,” I said, cracking an M&M’s between my teeth.
“Do you want anything else to eat? I should have offered.” He walked into the kitchen with Napoleon and looked in the fridge. “I don’t have much, because, as you know, I can’t cook.”
I followed him, enjoying the view from behind. He had a great ass. You could see it was great even though his pants sagged. That reminded me...
“How do your pants stay up?” He closed the fridge and turned around, holding a block of cheese.
“What?”
I pointed.
“How do your pants stay up? I’ve wanted to ask you that for weeks.” I sat down at one of the only chairs as he went to the counter and got out a knife and started cutting up the cheese.
“Can you hold him? He doesn’t like being set down. Little monster.” He handed me Napoleon, who was upset that Dusty was abandoning him, but as soon as I started scratching him under his chin he relaxed.
“I wear a belt, as you can see,” he said, lifting his shirt and showing it to me. Yes, I’d seen it earlier and contemplated how to undo it in the sexiest way.
“But your pants are so saggy.” They were kind of not saggy right now, given the situation, but normally, they were. “They just defy gravity.” Napoleon started batting at my finger, so I waved it around for him to attack. He dived for it, got off balance and nearly tumbled off my lap.
“Um, Jos?” I looked up to find Dusty regarding me with his eyebrows raised.
“Yeah?”
“Talking about my pants isn’t really helping with my current situation.” He gestured in the vicinity of his situation. How long was that going to be a problem for him? Should I offer to leave?
“Sure thing.” I went back to petting Napoleon while Dusty cut up cheese and then got some crackers out of the cabinet and put them on a paper plate.
“Want some?” he held the plate out to me and I took a few pieces of cheese and some crackers. I wasn’t hungry, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Dusty got out two glasses and poured me a soda and sat down. It was probably more comfortable for him that way.
“So, socks. What’s with the socks?” I said, trying for a subject change.
He smiled and took one of the bags and opened it.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this entire apartment is linoleum. From the living room and down the hall and out here. As you know, linoleum can be very slippery, especially if you’re wearing new socks, and especially if it is freshly cleaned. So, let’s put Napoleon back in his bed and get some socks on your feet, Red.”
* * *
“Sock sliding? We are seriously sock sliding?” I said when Napoleon had been shut safely in Dusty’s bedroom so we didn’t run into him.
“I have a lot of free time,” he said, putting a pair of the new socks on his feet as I did the same. “And I used to drink that time away, or smoke it away, or do other bad things with it. After I decided not to do those things anymore, I had to find sober ways to occupy my time. You’ve only met sober me. Drunk me was way more fun.”
“I don’t know about that. You’re pretty fun now. And I used to be no fun at all.” He took my hands and pulled me to my feet.
“You ready, Red?” He got in a position that made me think of runners preparing to sprint.
I copied him, getting down. “Ready.”
“And...GO!” We both took off running and then slammed on the brakes, trying not to crash into each other and also to keep our balance. I made it down the hallway, and Dusty got all the way into the kitchen.
“No fair,” I said as he moved backward to the door to prepare to go again.
“I’ve had a lot of practice,” he said, getting down. I joined him at the door and we went again, but this time I tried to push him but he dodged me and I ended up not going very far.
“Cheaters never prosper, Red.”
“Whatever.”
“Oh, don’t pout. It’s too cute. Here.” He held out his hands and we faced each other. He started running backward and I planted my feet. I was afraid he was going to trip on something, but I was too busy squealing as he pulled me along the length of the apartment.
“Again!” I said the second we stopped.
“Let’s try this.” He went and got my sweatshirt and tied it tight around his waist and then had me hold the end. It reminded me a bit of sled-dog racing. He took off and I slid along behind him. Dusty was right—the new socks worked great.
We went again and again until we were both panting and laughing too hard to keep going. We both fell on the couch and he put his arm around me and pulled me close.
“Is this allowed?” I said, turning my face and looking at him.
“I think I can control myself. For the moment. We might need to bring out Napoleon again.” As if he’d heard his name, Napoleon mewed from Dusty’s bedroom.
“Poor little guy. I’ll go get him.”
I opened the door to Dusty’s bedroom and I heard him rustling around in my candy bucket.
“You’d better not be sticking your paws in my candy bucket,” I yelled out, taking my chance to look around his tiny bedroom. There was about enough room for his bed and that was about it, except for a dresser, a basket of laundry and a few knickknacks. I picked up the crying Napoleon and cuddled him.
“It’s okay, buddy.” I gave him a kiss and he licked my face.
“Thanks, I needed that.” I wasn’t snooping, exactly, but I was curious about Dusty. I still knew so little about him. He was cleaner than I thought he’d be. I saw one lone picture frame on his dresser and picked it up.
br /> It was of Dusty, a few years ago, with his arm slung around another guy. A guy I knew.
The picture frame slipped out of my hand and crashed on the floor.
“Jos!” Dusty heard the crash of the glass and rushed in. “What happened?”
“N-nothing. I just... I dropped something.”
“Be careful. Come over here. I don’t want you to step on the glass.” He moved me aside, since we were both still wearing just our socks.
“I’ll get the broom,” he said, leaving me standing there, still holding the kitten.
How was it possible? Why would they be in the same picture? Clearly, they were close if they were in the same picture.
“Who is that, in the picture?” I blurted out when he came back. I saved myself from saying his name.
“What?” He stopped, his arm holding the broom out.
“The other guy in that picture. How do you know him?”
And then he said the thing that pulled the world out from under me.
“He’s my brother.”
Chapter 18
I nearly dropped Napoleon. Nathan was Dusty’s brother. How was that even possible?
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Just one thought ran through my head. One line, over and over. Get out, get out, get out.
“I—I have to go. Right now.” I set Napoleon on his bed and shoved past him.
“Jos, what’s wrong?” Everything. Fucking everything. I grabbed my purse and my keys and threw myself down the stairs with abandon. If they collapsed and took me with them, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Then I wouldn’t have to ever explain to Dusty the reason I’d freaked out and fled his house after dropping a picture of his brother that I didn’t know he had until he told me. A brother that was now dead.
Dusty pounded down the stairs after me, but I had a head start.
Shit, I didn’t even have my shoes on. I got in my car and peeled away from his house, heading for the only place I could think to go. Tears streamed down my face as I drove, and I had to keep wiping them away with my hand so I could see and not crash into someone. The snow was just barely starting to float down from the sky, but it was too warm still for it to actually stick to the ground.