Chapter 4

Four

Titus entered the house, greeted by the chilly embrace of air conditioning. He closed the French doors behind him. He was still wet, and the icy tendrils of water clinging to his skin were a welcome contrast to the undeniable heat now burgeoning within himself.

You need to calm down, big guy. He's here to seed your yard, not you.

True.

But Titus could not stop thinking about those dark brown eyes, and how that enticing blush kept returning, creeping up Pedro's neck and face, an unconscious revelation of?—

Of what?

He thought about his conversation with Roz earlier, and how he'd joked about pizza delivery.

No way. It can't be that easy.

Glancing across the shadowed room, he saw a framed picture of himself and Violet on the bookshelf. It was from their senior prom. They were both smiling, young, and in love. Titus had always attributed Violet's wry smirk in the photo to her secretly knowing she was pregnant with Tucker.

Now, it took on a whole new interpretation.

"Just what're you up to, Violet?" Titus said aloud in the empty room.

It wasn't like he'd been completely isolated from civilization. Other service people had come to the house, older men like Carlos. There was the pest control guy, Luke, and he was on Norman Kicklighter's UPS route. Clark Huckabee was his mailman. But they had been coming to his house since he was little, and his parents had lived there. They weren't as old as his mom and dad, but they were somewhere in that stretch between. To Titus, those men were more like family, distant uncles he'd always known and would never consider–

You need to calm down .

Pedro was different, though, fresh and exciting. It was a connection beyond their being the same age, something fundamental that Titus couldn't quite put his finger on. He'd been physically attracted to men since his early teens, but choices he'd made bypassed the opportunity for exploration. He'd chalked it up to fate. Being a loyal husband and a devoted father was his destiny. Any libidinous thoughts he'd kept confined, limited to pictures in a magazine or catalog.

But what he'd just felt with Pedro surpassed the physical. That urge was there, too, no doubt. But there was something else. It felt inherent, profound even, and downright exhilarating. Most exciting of all, it felt–

Reciprocated.

Surely he was projecting, just imagining deeper meaning in common courtesy. Isolation sometimes plays tricks on the mind. He could hear Roz now– That's what insane hermit men do, you know? They imagine things… like pizza delivery with special add-ons.

But Titus hadn't imagined those blushes, the awkward hesitation, the averted glances.

He was looking down, hoss. Checking. You. Out.

Maybe he was just shy, meeting someone for the first time—his employer.

An employer wearing next to nothing.

Normally, Titus wouldn't have thought twice about what he had on. He swam laps every morning, alone. Sports were in his DNA, locker room etiquette instinctual. Besides, it wasn't as if he were naked.

He removed his towel. The swimsuit, still wet, was nearly transparent.

Oh, shit.

Isolation had forced him to shop via mail-order catalogs. He had assumed the swimwear he'd chosen was fashionable, as the catalog he'd ordered it from was current. It was one of those stretchy ones, but not itsy-bitsy, like those worn by competing swimmers in the Olympics. It was a box cut, white with navy trim, and had little slits on the outer thighs. Stylish, he'd thought. So much so that he'd purchased three in different colors, all of which had looked quite enticing on the handsome men modeling them.

His thoughts returned to Pedro—his sweet smile, demure and magnetic.

Titus felt himself stir. He looked down again and saw his cock shift, serpentine, gliding ever so slightly beneath the silken spandex.

"Oh, no."

Had something similar happened during their brief encounter? Was that why Pedro's eyes were drawn there? Movement? Surely, he would have known. But at this moment, tossed between waves of euphoria and shame, he wasn't certain. Now, it was his own face that flushed scarlet.

Violet was the only person on earth he'd ever been intimate with. Sex between them had been regular until a tumor was discovered during an ultrasound. Once that tumor was biopsied and found malignant, lovemaking had evaporated quickly. After Tucker's birth and Violet's treatment and death, Titus had continued to isolate himself. Aside from masturbation, he had not had sex in over four years.

He used his hands and the towel to fan himself, hoping the frigid air on his damp swimsuit would help cool him off down there.

It didn't.

He now had a full-blown hard-on, testing the resilience of the suit's pliant fabric, pressing against it like a miniature tent pole. In fact, he was so hard it hurt a little.

No wonder Pedro had noticed. I have a little circus going on down there.

Roz entered the room. "—I don't know, Tucker, We'll have to ask your father. Oh, here he is."

Titus fisted the towel to his crotch. "Mph."

"Well, well," Roz said, crossing her arms. "Modesty? That's a color I'm not used to seeing you wear."

"You can see right through this dang swimsuit. I didn't notice until it was wet."

"It's white. That happens sometimes."

"Well, there should have been a warning on the label."

"Some people buy them for that reason, T. You bought it from one of those catalogs, didn't you?"

"Whaddaya mean, those catalogs? It was International Male."

"Over-priced and cheaply made. All that skimpy stuff. I'm surprised it's not mesh."

Titus blushed. "They have some of those, too."

"Now I know why you're hoarding them up there in the bedroom."

Titus opened his mouth to protest, thought better, then closed it.

Roz changed the subject. "Tucker wants to know if you'll go swimming with him and Shelly after lunch."

He was still clutching the towel to his crotch. It was doing nothing to subdue his arousal, though. The pressure may have been contributing to it.

"Later in the day," he said. "I have a few things to take care of first."

"Please tell me one of them is that noise with the refrigerator."

"Yeah. Yeah, sure thing. Let me shower and I'll get right on that."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"I'm going to hold you to it," she said, pointing. "I'll keep the kids out of your hair in the meantime. Lunch in two hours."

"Make it three, please? Oh, and make an extra plate… for Pedro."

Roz paused, raising an eyebrow. She studied Titus, who was still hunched over with the towel on his privates.

"You're having lunch… with the gardener?"

"I prefer the term yardman. But, yes, I'm having lunch with Pedro. We're going to discuss new landscaping plans."

Roz held her scrutiny. Slowly, she nodded. "OK, then. I'll make an extra plate."

"Thank you, Roz."

Her gaze lingered long, bemused and intrigued, before she turned and left the room.

Upstairs, instead of going into his bedroom on the front side of the house, Titus crossed to a guest room window overlooking the backyard. He glanced across to the driveway where Pedro was lowering the gate on his trailer. Even in the distance, Titus could see the young man's muscular arms when adjusting the metal ramp into place. He didn't have bulky gym muscle like Titus; his shape was naturally developed, lean and lithe, from hard work.

Why are you thinking about this?

Titus went to his bedroom and tossed the towel into the hamper. He lowered his swimsuit and his dick sprang out, bouncing like a miniature diving board. The only thing lacking was a cartoon sound effect.

What are you doing? Pedro's just here to do the yard. He's not like you, brimming with years of pent-up horniness. He's here to do a job.

Titus looked down at his bobbing erection rising higher to face him. The slit of its opening curved in what looked to Titus like a tiny grin.

I should probably take care of that .

He heard the hum of the lawnmower start from outside, its lazy cadence circling toward the east side of the house.

Titus crossed hurriedly to his own bedroom window. Seconds after he parted the sheers, he saw Pedro roll into view on the mower. Even from here, Titus could see the definition in those strong shoulders and forearms.

Pedro rode slowly beneath and past the window in a diagonal line length-wise across the grass. When he reached the lawn's end, he turned, returning along the adjacent strip. Now, Titus could almost make out his face again, his mind imagining what distance robbed… those dark eyes, the kind smile, that enticing blush.

As the lawn tractor came toward the house, Pedro lifted his water bottle, tilting it back to drink. He was unaware that he was also offering Titus a tantalizing view of his throat muscles and Adam's apple at work. His eyes were closed from the sun, basking as he savored the cool liquid sustenance. When he opened them again, languidly, bottle still raised, he was looking directly at Titus's bedroom window.

Titus jerked away, yanking the sheers closed. He stepped backward, stumbling over a pair of discarded sneakers and falling hard to the floor, landing on his bare bottom with a thunderous thud.

"Everything OK up there?" came Roz's voice from downstairs.

"Yeah. Yeah," Titus said. "I, uh—I dropped… my shoes."

"Shoes? Sounds like an elephant up there."

Titus didn't know whether to laugh or feign offense. He was more worried that Pedro may have seen him. It's one thing to flirt with your yardman, but to stalk him naked from a window was kind of?—

Pervy .

"Yeah. That's it. I'm up here hiding Dumbo. He was gonna be a surprise."

"Let me guess… I need to fix a plate for him, too?"

"Haha. Very funny."

He stood and went to the window again, parting the sheers just a tad with his index finger. There was Pedro, mowing his fourth long strip, eyes ahead, business as usual.

Maybe he didn't see me .

Titus let the sheers close and went into the bathroom.

Through all of this, he still had an erection. Now, it was pointing toward the shower as if suggesting: Come on, big guy, let's get in that hot box and shuck some corn!

He turned on the water and reached for the lotion bottle on the counter, pumping a generous amount in his hand before entering and closing the shower door.

The water was warm, splashing on his shoulders and down his back. The tenderness of his rear end resurfaced with the heat, but he ignored it. He reached down, gripping his cock with his slick hand.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Man, I needed this .

And like that old Saturday morning commercial where it takes only three licks to get to the juicy center of a lollipop, Titus stroked.

One.

Two.

Three.

He seized with a grunt and hot magma shot from him with such intensity that he could have sworn he heard the splat on the opposite shower wall, even over the sound of the running water. His head went light. He reached out, leaning into the tiled wall for support, collapsing into waves of something bordering both ecstasy and exhaustion. His cock was still in his hand, hiccuping with a life of its own, its remaining spillage mingling with the shower water and spiraling into the drain below.

He saw none of this, though. Titus's eyes were closed and Pedro's face had returned to his mind's eye–his black coffee eyes, the slight tilt of his smile, and that telling blush creeping up his neck and into his hair. Oh, how Titus wanted to be that blush, wanted to caress that skin, wanted to taste the firm flesh of that neck while his fingers raked through Pedro's soft ebony locks.

He opened his eyes and saw his wilting penis. It winked at him.

Thanks, hoss. I needed that .

He straightened himself from leaning.

"Holy cow!"

The tiled wall was beaded with clear water and what looked like a white paintball fired at close range. He studied the viscous tendrils exploding outward from the center, creeping slowly down, and forming a milky, translucent Rorschach pattern. To Titus, it didn't resemble the typical generic design most people saw–faces, animals, insects.

No.

What Titus saw was a flower, a very specific flower—a camellia. Nostalgia snatched at him, his thoughts flashing to childhood and his grandmother. She had adored those shrubs, had giant ones on all four corners of her house. She once told him that the blooms of a camellia symbolized undying love.

He heaved a deep sigh, smiling at the reverie before disengaging the hand-held shower to rinse the wall.

After washing and toweling himself dry, Titus was surprised to find he was still bearing more weight than usual down below.

"You need to calm down." At this point, he could have been addressing himself or his dick.

He put on some loose shorts and a t-shirt, then combed his hair. When he stepped into the closet seeking his sandals, he became consciously aware again of the sound of the mower and its whereabouts outside.

He's on the move .

Titus crossed back to the window with the sheers and looked out. The front and side yard were complete.

He's in the backyard now .

Titus ran out of the bedroom, practically skipping down the stairs.

He crossed the study into the den and to a rear window. The curtains were open and—this time—he stayed far enough back that he didn't think he could be seen observing.

You're a stalker .

"It's not stalking. I haven't even left my house," he whispered.

He could hear Roz in the kitchen and the sounds of her unloading the dishwasher.

You're following him from window to window, dude. It's desperate… and a little creepy.

"I can't help it. I… want him."

What if he doesn't want you?

Titus thought about that. He didn't have an answer.

Outside the window, roughly twenty feet away, Pedro stopped mowing and cut the engine off. He stood, circling the lawn tractor back to the container for clippings. He unfolded a disposable refuse bag and emptied the receptacle into it, setting it on a section of the grass already mowed. He replaced the container, but before he climbed back on the mower, he reached for his water bottle in the cup holder, lifting it high and draining it.

Titus watched all of this as if riveted to the latest episode of ER. There was something about Pedro's neck that was so incredibly sexy, the way it stretched taut, the way his Adam's apple bobbed with each swallow.

"Damn."

Pedro opened a small cooler compartment on the mower and dropped the empty in. He paused before returning to his work, shielding his eyes and looking toward the glaring sun. When he lowered his head, he ran his fingers through his hair, combing all the way to the back of his neck where they lingered, massaging. His gaze went to the pool.

"Yeah. That's right. It's hot. Go ahead and take a dip. Cool off."

Pedro's hand lowered and crept up under his t-shirt, rubbing his chest and exposing his navel, giving Titus a good glimpse of his smooth belly and the light treasure trail there.

"Yes, sir, it's hot. So, hot. You should probably take that shirt off."

As if he heard, Pedro's hand slipped from beneath the fabric. He gripped the hem of his t-shirt with both hands and reverse-peeled it off in one swift movement.

Titus felt woozy. He was standing a good five feet from the glass, everything perfectly framed.

Pedro used the shirt to wipe his chest and mop his armpits. He then shook the bunched fabric out and tucked it into the back of his jeans, where it hung like a foxtail. Titus could see his muscles better now, not cut at all—just as natural and beautiful as a hot summer day. His chest was lightly dusted with dark swirls surrounding two small rose-colored nipples. So perfect.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

Pedro removed a fresh bottle of water from the cooler and pressed it to his forehead, giving Titus an exquisite view of his armpit. He then held the bottle to the back of his neck with both hands, exposing both pits.

Titus unconsciously took two steps toward the window. He was hard as a rock again, his dick leading the way.

Pedro opened the water bottle. He lifted it to his chest, circling his pecs and nipples. His other hand crept down his belly, hooking on the waistband of his pants and, for a moment, Titus was convinced that Pedro was going to empty the bottle there. Instead, he raised it high and poured it on his face and head, allowing its cool contents to cascade down all over him.

"DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE REFRIGERATOR!" Roz called from the kitchen.

Titus jumped, physically jarred by the interruption. He felt like one of those secretaries in the popular soft drink ad. The one where they all take a diet soda break at the window to watch a hot construction worker removing his shirt before turning up his own can of the cola.

"I'll be there in a minute," he shouted back, shaking his head to dispel the sensation.

When his eyes returned to the window, Pedro was back on the mower, reaching down and turning the key. The engine revved, and the tractor began moving again.

Titus looked down at the slight pup-tent in his pleated Nautica shorts.

Yeah. I may need a minute .