Chapter Eight

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph." Stef gasped the words in the time it took Brandon to swallow his dick whole. Brandon's chuckle rumbled through his chest and Stef let his head drop back. He braced himself with both hands on the table. Brandon pulled off slowly.The cool air bathed Stef's dick for a couple heartbeats before Brandon swallowed him down again.

"Daddy likes it when you do that," he managed, making Brandon laugh hard enough that he had to slide off Stef's prick.

"Don't do that," Brandon said, rubbing his cheek against Stef's hip. "You'll make me choke."

Stef's cock stood straight up from its nest of curls, and with a shift of his hips, he bounced it off Brandon's chin. "I'm flattered but less talk, more action."

Brandon grasped Stef's cock, slowly stroking it. "Is that how it is? You don't like it when I talk to you?"

Stef gasped. "Jesus."

"No, I'm Brandon." He aimed Stef's cock at his mouth and made a quick swipe with his tongue. "You prayed to Jesus earlier."

"Ha ha ha." Stef's balls drew up. Too soon to come.

Brandon sucked him in deep, and Stef was done. He jerked away, but Brandon held him firm. He shot off, still in Brandon's mouth. So warm. Wet. Pleasure made his knees shake and his heart…

Well, his heart did something unexpected. It melted, opening to this solemn man with his unusual gift. "You bastard," he whispered, and Brandon smiled against his softening dick.

"I'm sure you'll return the favor."

"With interest."

Brandon kissed his balls, then hoisted himself up. "Shall we take this to the bedroom?"

"Yeah." Bedroom sounded like an excellent idea. With the lights off, so Brandon wouldn't see what had to be plain on Stef's face. Stef had always been one to give his heart away easily, but usually it took more than good wine, a blow job, and a mystery to get to him.

Because Brandon was a mystery. How had he come by his gift, and what would it take for him to control it? Stef might not be able to help him answer all his questions, but he'd do his best.

He always fell fast, but this time he was making his own ears ring.

The bedroom was all he'd hoped it would be. He returned Brandon's favor and then they found a way to make each other happy. The scent of him, the taste. Stef did his best to embed all of it in his memory in case things went sideways. They fell asleep wrapped up in each other, and as far as Stef was concerned, they could have stayed there forever.

Real life, however, had other ideas.

Someone's cell phone chimed before the sun had fully risen. It wasn't a sound Stef recognized. "That yours?" he managed, making himself cough.

"No?" Brandon buried his face deeper into the place between Stef's shoulder and his neck.

It chimed again, bringing more of Stef's brain online. "Could it be the SPAM phone?"

"Fuck." Brandon unraveled himself from the blankets, his feet landing heavily on the floor. "Where the hell…"

He rustled around in the clothing that lay strewn all over the floor, cursing the whole while. "Here." He sat back on the edge of the bed and read the text aloud. "Here's my address. Be here before noon."

Stef pushed up onto his elbows. "What?"

"No name and even fewer manners, but apparently I'm supposed to present myself to Clancy before noon today."

"Is today Saturday?" Stef had seen patients yesterday, so most likely it was a weekday.

"Hell if I know. Look, you want first shower?"

Stef reached for Brandon's hand. "We could shower together."

"You and Daddy need to chill. If we do that, I won't get anywhere by noon." Brandon sounded tart, but there was a smile on his face.

"Go shower. I'll lounge here till you're done." And until I figure out what day of the week it is.

"Of course." Chuckling, Brandon left Stef to his own devices.

Stef rolled onto his belly, hoping his dick would take the hint and calm down. They had to track down Clancy. That was way more important than more sex, even though it might not seem so now.

A thought hit Stef, making him roll over. "Hey, I'm coming with you, right?"

Brandon didn't answer. The bathroom was on the other end of the primary bedroom and the shower's hiss penetrated the door. Stef dragged his naked ass out of bed and knocked on the bathroom door.

"I'm going with you, right?"

Still no answer, so he opened the bathroom door. Steam coated the mirror and the air was dense with the scent of lavender soap. From what he could tell, the shower and bathtub were separated from each other, and there was another door that must lead to the toilet. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. How do you see in here?"

Brandon cracked the shower door and stuck his nose out. "Did you say something?"

"I'm coming with you."

"I thought you wanted second shower."

"No, I'm coming with you to find Clancy."

A couple of beats passed before Brandon said, "Sure," and the shower door clicked shut.

Stef grinned and went back into the bedroom. He'd give Brandon some privacy now that he had what he wanted.

A reason to keep hanging around.

As Stef had requested, Brandon made coffee while Stef showered. They'd figured out it was Tuesday and Stef texted Roxie to ask her to reschedule his appointments. Andrea got a longer message which included the words SPAM and necromancer, and she'd sent back a series of big-eyed emojis that he couldn't be bothered to translate.

Layla blew through on her way to work. If she was surprised to see Stef, she didn't let it show. She left them with a vague threat of retaliation if Sparky was found anywhere but Brandon's room, though as soon as she closed the front door, Sparky wandered out from wherever she'd been hiding.

The cat hopped onto the table, her attention on Brandon's coffee. "Don't even think about it," he scolded her.

Stef grinned into his own mug. "So how did you end up with such a charming housemate anyway?"

Brandon held his coffee mug with both hands, glaring at the cat. "Which one? The cat or the woman?"

"I meant Layla."

"Bulletin board at work." Brandon took another sip of coffee. "And if you're wondering why, I ask myself that on the regular."

"Hey." Stef showed Brandon his palms. "Whatever works."

"Nah, she's fine. This place is too big for just one person, although if I'd known how excited my mother would get, I might have held off. Mom is now convinced the gay thing was a passing phase and that one of these mornings I'm going to wake up in Layla's bed."

He spoke smoothly, as if any angst the situation caused him had been pushed aside. "Given last night…" Stef said.

"Exactly."

The two men shared a glance, one much hotter than the coffee. Stef looked away first. "Your eyes better not be making promises your dick can't keep," he murmured, the rim of his coffee mug resting against his lower lip.

Brandon's soft laugh made Stef's cheeks flush.

"What about you?" Brandon asked. "Are your parents waiting for you to meet Ms. Perfect?"

"Nope." Stef shrugged. "As long as Mr. Perfect shows up and we make arrangements for grandbabies, Mom will be fine."

Did I really just bring up grandbabies? Stef's cheeks got even warmer, but Brandon didn't seem to notice. He refused to connect Brandon to anything more serious than, well, this conversation because Brandon would leave.

Just like the others had.

Fortunately, Sparky chose that moment to leap off the table and somehow knocked her tube askew in the process. That gave Stef something to fuss over, which saved him from digging himself in any deeper.

When he had the cat sorted, they finished their coffee, both paying more attention to their phones than to each other. Which was okay, in a we both need a little space kind of way. Not that Stef could truly ignore Brandon. The man across the table gave off an energy that made Stef aware of him even as he was reviewing a summary of the clinic's expenses for the month.

Yeah, he was already in too deep.

"I should probably go for a run." Brandon stared at the table as if it had suddenly gotten really interesting.

"I thought you had to see Clancy before noon."

Brandon didn't say anything long enough to make Stef's heart beat faster.

"You're not changing your mind, are you?'

Brandon sat back abruptly. "What's he going to tell me? Let's figure out a way for you to bring more critters back from the dead?" He pitched his voice high for the last bit, though Stef couldn't tell if he was mocking Clancy or himself.

Betting it was a little of both, he did his best to stay calm. After all, he had no real stake in whether Brandon talked to Clancy or not. "I mean, I'm happy to keep trying to figure out a way to send these poor animals back to the great beyond, but there's a strong possibility Clancy will be able to tell me how without all the failed experiments."

Brandon stayed quiet, staring at the ceiling.

"You know, at graduation I was closer to the bottom than the top of my class." Much closer to the bottom, something Stef rarely confessed. "It wouldn't have mattered, really. The stuff that I'm good at doesn't show up on multiple-choice tests."

Stef paused, giving Brandon time to quirk an eyebrow at him. "Is this where I confess to being a secret failure, too?"

Stef grinned. "Nah, you're good. I just wanted to say that it was probably my determinedly average GPA that brought me to SPAM's attention in the first place. Andrea never asked to see my transcripts when she let me buy into her practice, and any clients would just see my diploma on the wall. I've always wondered if it was my slightly screwball approach, the one that gave me mediocre grades, that made SPAM think I'd be a good one to work with.

"I guess," he went on, "that has me a little bit jealous of you. It's obvious why they're interested. You've got a skill."

That got Brandon to shift his weight, at least, causing the chair to squeak. "Sure. A skill. Every so often I can bring roadkill back to life. Yeehaw."

"But you can learn to do more."

"I don't want to do more." Brandon sprang to his feet, turning his back on Stef. He stood with his head down, arms hanging loose. "Trust me, dude. Nothing good's going to come from what I can do."

Stef stood slowly and came around the table. He stopped when he was close enough to feel Brandon's heat, to feel his body's faint tremors. "He might be able to tell you how to turn it off. That would make it worth the trip, don't you think?"

Brandon straightened, exhaling a long breath. Without turning his head, he reached back until he had a hold of Stef's hand. "You're still coming with me, right?"

Stef interlaced his fingers with Brandon's. "Yes."

"If he can tell me how to turn it off, I guess it'd be worth the trip."

Stef moved closer, managing to wrap an arm around Brandon without letting go of his hand. "I can think of many ways meeting with Clancy could go, but I don't see it making things worse."

"I hope to hell you're right."

By mutual agreement, they climbed into Brandon's Lexus for the trip to… wherever Clancy the Necromancer was hiding out.

"You want me to navigate?" Stef asked, settling into the leather seat that was downright luxurious.

"Already put the address in my map app. We're going to need to take the ferry."

Smiling, Stef buckled in. This was going to be an adventure!