Chapter Three

My apartment's vibe is sort of industrial. But it's also my stuff, so it's like a rainbow vibrantly exploded onto the black-and-metallic furniture. Very suited to a studio above a queer nightclub where the evening revels pulse through the floor.

Laur makes no movement to take off his coat as he takes in this view. Not unimpressed. Not suspicious. A strategic evaluation.

I step nearer to help him with his clothes, ready to kiss and undress, to ignore whatever disaster had happened to the rest of his body. This bout of wildly passionate, totally protected sex is the best he'll ever get.

Laur wanders out of my reach as if he doesn't notice me, strides up to my swiveling computer chair. "All right. Take your clothes off."

I scoff at his command and stick my hands into my shorts, pushing them a little lower and posing. "Is that all?"

His gaze travels over my body, pausing on my crotch and then back to my face. "Yup."

Laur pulls my computer chair to a clear space in the room, sits, and stares at me. The intensity makes me uneasy. I want him to want more of me, to consent enthusiastically to kisses at the very least. But if the only thing he wants is a private striptease, I'll wear down his resistance.

He stops me at the first sway of my hips. "Just normal. I want to see it all."

It all. Not you. The request ripples through me. Dehumanizing. Who the fuck is this guy?

I tear out of my clothes like it's a quick change. I only pause at the red thong.

Laur regards me with piercing, cold eyes and I feel as if I'm removing my clothes at the threat of violence. Like his gaze is a loaded gun. I yank off the underwear and let it join the litter of my clothes on the clear hardwood. There. He can see it all.

The bass thumps dimly on the floor, and images drizzle through my brain. This man would be king of the hate fuck. Kneeing over me, slamming his ass onto my prick. Bent over my kitchen counter commanding me to go harder. These thoughts hit me like a bullet aimed and fired from his crystal-blue eyes straight to my cock.

Laur beckons me nearer using two fingers of his left hand. The right rests on his knee, the glove tips crumpled. I strut over to him, not suspecting any trap.

He cups my balls in his gloved hand, rolling them over the leather. His right hand, the really mangled one, strokes across my ass possessively. His grip would be unmistakable. Hot as a brand.

He does nothing but look. As if my cock is a piece of museum art. But he's a critic. Hard-eyed and unforgiving, he studies my cock to find the flaws in my family jewels.

I struggle to breathe, shaking apart from this … unexpected lust. By the time he slips his hand away from my balls, my cock is painfully rigid under his unkind judgment.

Say something!

I badly want to tease him back under my control, but not only can I not think of anything, I'm not sure I'd have the courage to speak. Somehow, this angry little man has taken complete power over me. When did that happen?

Finally, he takes pity on my anguished dick and strokes the base delicately. I suppress my relieved sigh, but he notices. He holds eye contact while he leans closer, his mouth inches from my bursting cock-head. His breath tatters what's left of my calm, when he whispers, "When you come, I'll swallow."

Fuck, that's hot.

Laur grazes just the tip with his tongue. Sucking with an artificial delicacy. Tightening his lips with a cruel softness.

I groan. The huskiness, the raw want in my voice startles me. I drop a hand on his head in the hopes of coaxing my cock deeper. My fingers slip as he stiffens and shifts away. But his grip—the fingers on my balls—tighten, bordering on pain. He glares.

Is he afraid of me? Worried I'll grab him by his scruffy beard and fuck his face? Or that I'll wrestle him to the floor?

Do it. Tear up this little shit's ass.

Should he be afraid of me?

I tuck my hands behind my head and smile down at him reassuringly.

Laur, who had never been reassured in his life, sucks a little harder. Runs his tongue in wet circles around my head.

"You're a goddamned tease."

He swallows my whole cock to the base and sucks hard as he withdraws, sending rockets of pleasure through my spine. Until my cock slips out of his mouth with a wet pop. "Naw. Teasing is your job."

Laur raps his tongue along my shaft in quick beats of bliss, but he also pinches at my balls. My cock is a rope in an overwhelming game of tug-of-war between pleasure and pain. When I can't handle the mixed signals, almost immediately I step back.

He smiles as mischievously as any twink, even with the beard. "I torture."

Drop this bitch and fuck him. Show him not to play mean games on men twice his size.

Before I can sort out if this is a good or a terrible idea, the champion of mean games yanks me closer and swallows my shaft completely. I forget how to think as he deep-throats with a ferocity I've never experienced. My cock is at his mercy.

I didn't expect that I'd be the one fighting back orgasm. I was supposed to exhaust his defenses, to convince him he wanted that beautiful cock inside him. But at this rate…

His hands leave me only long enough for him to remove his right glove. The only piece of clothing he's taken off so far. When he presses a bare knuckle between my clenched ass cheeks, I realize…

Oh, fuck!

Laur is a top.

****

I haven't been fucked since … well, before I discovered P!nk's "Slut Like You." With his unnatural fingers exploring the crease of my ass, teasing around my pucker, I'm not sure I want that to change, but I can't speak. He might stop sucking my cock to answer.

And you want to make him swallow everything.

The need to come is relentless. My balls boil in his left hand and the right claws and pokes at my entrance without quite committing.

This time when I put my hands in his hair, he lets me touch him. But he does slither off my cock to remark, "You're very spoiled, Stagger."

Don't let him stop. Fuck his face!

The terror radiates through me and does nothing to quell the fire in my cock. He could just stand up and walk out. He still had on his boots and coat. I deserve to be abandoned for strutting around like I owned his ass. I open my mouth, uncertain what's going to come out.

"Please, keep going, Laur. Please."

Begging. Great choice.

Laur smirks and licks his lips, only accidentally brushing my desperate cock.

Apparently, it's the correct choice, because the man dives back into the best blowjob I've ever gotten. His left hand joins the right, squeezing the dense muscles of my ass and it's only now that he's stopped manhandling my balls that I register how tightly he'd been clawing them. The blood rushes back and they throb and tingle. Now those same fingers grip at my cheeks, spreading me open. I don't care. As long as he keeps yanking my hips into his face, fucking himself with my swollen cock.

"Thank you."

Laur rewards my politeness by shoving two of his blunted fingers past the resistance of my tight ass and twisting them deep.

"Fuck!" The pain pushes me over the edge. Not surrendering to orgasm, more like having it beaten out of me. Like he'd broken the dams of my restraint and now there's nothing left but the flood of cum and longing for him.

And he keeps going, sucking hard, gobbling my cock as it spasms, fucking me with his shortened fingers so that I wobble forward. He won't let me go until my cock softens and my strength is completely sapped away by the sheer force of the orgasm.

"Fuck…"

Laur only shrugs me off his shoulder, like my entire weight is an insect that landed on his arm. He rubs his mouth with the back of his gloved left hand, wipes the right off on the back of my leg.

His cold eyes lock on mine and I know I'll do whatever he wants. If he says suck, happily. If he tells me to turn around and raise my ass in the air, it'll be done.

But he says nothing. He pushes the swivel chair back and finishes tugging his right glove over his wrist.

He's going to leave. Just like that.

I grab my chair to hold him. "Laur, how about I—"

"Not part of your deal." Laur stands and walks toward the door as if I'm not even there.

Oh, fuck … fuck my stupid arrogance.

He's not the type to melt into compliance with a few well-placed apologies. I could beg and coax and it wouldn't make a damn difference. The diamond toughness of this angry little man won't relent…

Unless you make him.

No, I'm not getting more than that soul-shattering blowjob. Just like he'd said.

Laur adjusts his coat. "Want to see me again?"

"Yes," I say, too quickly. "Tonight? After the show? I could comp your ticket."

"So can Jude." He smirks, amused by the idea. "I don't like being teased."

That makes no sense. Not with the bulge in his jeans. Not with the way he watched.

"I'll come back next week."

Everything in my soul sinks through my knees and into the floor. "A week?"

If he notices, he doesn't care. "Do you dance again next week?"

I nod. Next week is Teddy's teaser, but I'm one of his backup dancers.

"Then I tell you what…" He stands near me, looking up into my face and then gives me a little push. I drop into the chair where he wants me. He touched my chin and I look up. "After you tease that whole room again, after you make those sluts howl like bitches in heat, I expect you in that bed. Facedown. Ass up. Wearing a blindfold and handcuffs and nothing else."

****

"Laur?" Jamie wanders through the costume closet. "I met him at some Pride advocacy thing. Maybe a protest. I don't remember."

I can't get the guy out of my head. How could Jamie just forget? "What kind of work do you do together?"

"He works at a government clinic helping people navigate the system. Like health insurance, housing, and shit."

"Oh." Great. I'm obsessed with customer support.

Jamie rejects a purple sequined suit jacket and keeps digging. "Why so interested?"

I'm not prepared to explain. "Just curious. Do you know what happened to—"

"No! But I'm dying to know. You gotta find out!"

"Huh?" Their enthusiasm is confusing.

"He won't talk about it. Jude knows, but she won't say. But, hey, Chard Stagger, no man can resist your charms."

I scoff at the idea. If there was one man who could… "I only had one conversation with the guy."

And one hell of a blowjob.

"Take one for the team, Chard. Find out his secrets." Jamie laughs, then picks up another costume to test. "But seriously, if you do fuck him, Chard, don't lead him on. He's really sweet and he doesn't deserve false hope."

Really sweet? Yeah, right.

****

By the next Tuesday, my mania reaches its peak and I can barely sit at the bar.

"Do you need the night off, Chard?"

I haven't felt this out of control since I started taking medication. A wild mess of impulse and reaction, fidgets and desires, and the whole swirl of madness centers on a man who might not even show up.

"Chard?" Jude is talking to me.

"No, thanks. I'm fine. It's better if I have something to do. Thanks for noticing. You know, you're a great boss. Just the best. Do you need anything out of the storeroom?" Then I gasp because I've said all that in one breath.

Jude smiles. "Who are you waiting for?"

"Nobody." If she knows, I won't be able to resist prying.

"Well, Mr. Nobody is going to make you miss your call."

"Shit! I came out here to tell you the fireman's hat is missing. Someone took it to a party—not me, I swear—and it didn't get—"

"So? Go as something else." She cackles with a mischievous delight. "Go as a soldier."

I don't get the joke. "Okay."

I'm ready to scurry when she grabs my arm. "Chard!"

I return to the stool and smile up at her.

She fills a tumbler with sparkling water. "No booze. Be sure you wrap it up. And have a fun night even if Mr. Nobody doesn't show up."

Great advice on all counts. "Yes. Thanks, Jude."

Who cares if my particular nobody is here or not? There's an entire room of somebodies waiting to see me naked.