15. Bud

Finally,I had him in the palm of my hands.

Joe Cocker was blaring and my cock was harder than ever behind the hat covering my crotch.

I swayed my body to the music.

I swiveled my hips one last time.

And as Joe belted out ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On' one last time, I was about to place the hat back on my head and give Pascal the big reveal, when suddenly—

I saw Pascal's eyes roll back into his head.

I watched his head roll back on his neck.

And like a tree falling in the forest, Pascal went down, landing on the floorboards of his bedroom so hard that I heard the thud over the music.

"Fuck!"

I dropped the hat and jumped down off the chair, yanking the needle off the record before leaning out the window. "Pascal! Pascal, can you hear me!"

There was nothing but silence from Pascal's open window.

"Shit!"

I wrestled my jeans back up around my waist, shoving my hard-on inside as I bolted down the stairs and out the door of the flower shop.

I sprinted up to the patisserie and rattled the door handle, but it was locked.

I dashed around to the side of the building and glanced up at Pascal's open window. "Pascal! Pascal, can you hear me!"

There was no way of scaling the side of the patisserie to the second floor, but I was going to have to find a way in somehow.

I raced around to the back of the building and shook the handle of the locked rear entrance. That was when I saw Handy Andy's painting ladder lying on the ground next to the building. I saw that he hadn't quite finished painting the back yet.

I seized the ladder and hauled it around to the side of the patisserie, then leaned it up against the wall, leading straight up to Pascal's bedroom window.

The ladder wobbled under my weight as I clambered up it as quickly as I could. Arriving at the open window, I looked inside to see Pascal lying on the floor.

Had he fainted?

Had he had a heart attack?

Was he out cold… or dead?

"Oh no," I whispered. "I think I strip-teased him to death!"

I climbed through the window and dropped to my knees beside him.

Desperately I patted his cheeks, trying to wake him.

"Pascal? Can you hear me? Answer me, dammit. Fuck!"

I started to panic, then forced myself to calm down. "Don't freak out, Bud. Keep a cool head and try to think. Think what you need to do." Suddenly a thought jumped to mind. "The Bee Gees. I need to bring him back to life with the Bee Gees. Fuck, what was the song again? Tragedy. I think it's Tragedy."

I straddled Pascal, trying frantically to remember the lyrics to the disco song. "Shit, how does it go again?" My brain was scrambled and all I could do was make up my own lyrics in my head, trying to find the rhythm as I sang, "Tragedy! When you kill someone and you feel so dumb it's a tragedy! No, wait, shit… that's not the right song at all."

I couldn't remember what to sing.

I had no fucking clue what I was supposed to do.

All I knew was, I had to save him.

I had to save the man I loved.

"The kiss of life," I uttered to myself. "That's the only thing that'll save him now."

I took a deep breath, then bending low over the top of him I planted my lips firmly on Pascal's.

I kissed him.

I breathed the air from my lungs into his.

And suddenly—

Pascal's eyes popped wide open.

Mine opened just as wide.

For a moment we stared in shock at each other, our lips pressed together, our faces so close that we both went cross-eyed.

Then suddenly I sat bolt upright, my legs still straddling his torso, my chest heaving with panicked, anxious breaths.

From the floor, Pascal looked around us, confused. "What happened? Where am I? Why does my head fucking hurt like hell?"

"We're in your room. You fainted. I think. I was doing a… dance… in my window and before I knew it you went down like a ton of bricks. I climbed a ladder and saw you lying here and I thought you'd had a heart attack so I…" I didn't quite know how to finish my words.

"And so you kissed me," Pascal finished for me.

"I didn't mean to. I mean, I did. But I wasn't trying to take advantage of you, I swear. I was… I was…"

"You were what?"

"I was trying to save you."

Pascal smiled. "I think that's exactly what you've done. There's only one question left to ask."

"What's that?"

"Why did you stop?"

Pascal reached up with one hand, cupped the back of my head, and pulled me back down into the most passionate, desperate, deepest kiss I'd ever known.

He groaned into my mouth.

His tongue delved deep and mine did the same.

My breath was short, my nostrils flaring in a frenzy of yearning.

I needed air and pulled out of the kiss, but I still wanted to have him, to taste him, to claim him.

I licked his neck.

He took my earlobe between his teeth and nibbled gently at first, then bit harder.

I grunted, my longing for him almost out of control.

My cock ached and strained against the jeans that I hadn't quite managed to button up as I fled my place to rescue him. The pressure from my bulging crotch began to inch the zipper down, as though my dick was ready to free itself.

Beneath me I felt the growing mass of his cock too, swelling inside his jeans as he rubbed and ground his pelvis up against my straddling body.

I was about to reach down between my legs and explore further when, without warning, Pascal seized me by the shoulders and tipped me left, shoving me onto my back on the floor as he took the top position, straddling me in one swift move.

I grunted again, the weight of him slightly winding me, catching my breath just in time before he planted another long, hard kiss on me.

His hands draped themselves down my hairy chest.

His fingertips twisted my nipples.

I flinched and broke out of the kiss once more, this time to tell him—"Be gentle with me."

Pascal smirked. "A big strong man like you? Why on earth would I need to be gentle?"

"Because… well… I'm kind of…"

"‘Kind of' what?"

I bit my bottom lip, praying he wouldn't laugh, and said, "I'm kind of a virgin."

Pascal didn't laugh at all. Instead, a new fire ignited in his eyes. "Just when I thought you couldn't turn me on any more."

I grinned like all my Christmases just came at once. "I turn you on? Really?"

"Of course you do. You're so damn sexy, and yet you have no idea. Do you know how hot that is in a man?"

"Then why are you always so mean to me?"

He kissed me again, then smiled and replied, "That's just French for foreplay. Now what do you say we fuck the virgin right out of you."

Taking his shirt in both fists he ripped it open, sending buttons scuttling across the floorboards. His chest was smooth, his muscles lean. I reached up to lay my hands on his pecs as he flicked the shirt off his back and made swift work of his belt and jeans.

As he tried to get them off, I pushed him into a roll once again, the pair of us tussling for prime position while we both wrangled our jeans off.

We rolled into his bedside table, him back on top, and our jeans were flung loose.

Our underwear followed quickly after, and soon our stiff, throbbing cocks were bumping and rubbing together, painting a few shiny streaks of pre-cum across our stomachs, our loins trying desperately to hold back the deluge about to erupt.

With one fumbling hand he pulled open the drawer of his bedside table, rummaged around and pulled out a condom and a bottle of lube.

He set the bottle down, bit open the condom wrapper, then reached down between my legs and took my thick cock firmly in one hand.

With the other he slid the condom onto me.

He squirted lube into his palm and worked it up and down my condom-covered cock, the pleasure rippling through me.

A moan rose from deep inside my chest.

When he was done slicking my dick, he reached around and fingered his own ass, the lube making soft, lapping noises inside him before he took hold of my cock once more.

Carefully he nuzzled my bulbous crown between his warm, welcoming ass cheeks.

I moaned again as slowly, gently, he took me inside him and glided down the length of my dick.

"Ah, oui!" he breathed, his voice tender and contented.

For a moment, he rested on his haunches, my cock deep inside his ass, his body adjusting to the foreigner inside him.

In that strange, beautiful moment of peace, he looked down at me and smiled. "Gentle enough?"

I nodded.

"Give me your hand," he instructed.

I held up my right palm, and he picked up the bottle once more and squeezed a generous amount of lube onto my hand.

"Take my dick. Make me come. Make me yours."

My heart was already hammering against my chest, but his words made that drum inside me beat even faster.

I took his long, hard cock in my hand, the heat from my palm and the heat from his dick binding us together, as though our very beings were radiating through one another.

Slowly he began moving himself up and down my shaft.

I started stroking him, keeping in time with his rhythm.

Gradually he picked up the pace and so did I.

I raised my hips to meet his body as he came down on me.

I twisted my wrist with each stroke, squeezing the head of his cock and forcing a stammered gasp from him.

The sound he made, the power of my hand over his dick, made the moment even more thrilling.

I chuckled with excitement.

He glanced down at me and grinned. "You like this?"

"I like this… a lot."

He quickened his pace even more, sweat trickling down his brow, his chest.

I jerked him off even harder, his gasps getting louder until he began to cry out with pleasure. "I'm coming. Fuck! I'm going to come!"

"Me too," I panted. "Me too!"

As a shudder of ecstasy ripped through my entire body, and I felt a giant surge of white hot cum fill the head of the condom.

A moment later, Pascal's cock unleashed a jet of cum that splashed across my stomach, matting the hair and leaving pearls scattered across my chest.

He quivered as the orgasm racked his body.

I watched his face and couldn't help but think, in that moment—in that exquisite, unguarded split second—he was shaking off all the things that made him tense and angry and so damn uptight.

In that moment, he looked lost in bliss.

The sight of it made me smile.

Slowly we each caught our breath.

He eased himself off me, then laid himself down on the floor beside me.

He ran his finger over the sticky hair on my chest.

He leaned across and kissed me.

After that, I thought he was going to ask me to leave. I only hoped he'd do it politely.

Instead, he said, "Will you stay with me tonight?"

I could feel my eyebrows arch in surprise.

He noticed. "You don't have to if you don't—"

"I want to," I said, cutting off any chance he had to change his mind. "I'd love to."

He kissed me again, then got up off the floor, held a hand down to me, and helped me up.

I stood without letting go of his hand. I let him lead me to the bed. Delicately he slipped the condom off my waning cock, then he sat me on the bed and laid me down.

I thought he was going to join me, but he crossed the room to his own record player and put a record on.

"A lullaby to help us sleep," he said, as Edith Piaf's La Vie En Rose began to softly play.

He switched off the lights and climbed into bed behind me, spooning me as I listened to the famous French song without understanding a word of it.

"What's she saying?" I asked.

His shoulders shrugged against mine. "She's being dramatic. It's all very French. We love to sing about pain and suffering and dying of a broken heart."

"That's what she's singing about?"

"Pretty much. They changed the lyrics for the English version. It's much sweeter."

"Really. What are those lyrics?"

He pulled himself close and his body warmed me. "I don't remember exactly. Something about pressing me to your heart, where we'll live in a world apart. A place where the roses bloom."

I sighed, wondering when I'd ever felt this happy. "That's a place I'd like to live."

"Me too," he murmured, his voice heavy with sleep. "Me too."