Page 32 of Housesitter

Shepherd narrowed those ridiculously blue eyes as he tilted his head back. “In that case,” he said. “...do you know anything about how to fix the starter motor on a lawn mower?”

That was random.

Kel flicked through the Rolodex of polished lies that would slide him through the conversation to what he wanted in the least possible time. It ranged from ‘I could start your motor’ to ‘no’, but something in the middle was probably the better—

“I could try.”

That sounded like him. Or rather, it didn’t sound like him, but Kel was pretty sure that he had just said it. He could feel the shape of the words in his mouth. In fact, he had to clench his jaw to keep what felt like an offer to ‘have a look’ from getting past his teeth.

It made the smoke recoil in disgust and sink back down under his skin. The withdrawal of its scorching confidence left him cold. Goosebumps prickled on his arms.

“Huh,” Shepherd said thoughtfully. “Funny. That is almost hotter than the lying, but… It can wait.”

He tightened his grip on Kel’s belt and pulled him away from the bar. They headed toward the dance floor. Kel grimaced as he put his arm out to block an over-enthusiastic drunk from grapevining back into them.

“I don’t dance,” he said.

Shepherd gave him an amused glance back over his shoulder. “Knees,” he said. “I remember. But the fire door out to the alley is over there.”

He pointed.

It was.

Kel stopped resisting.

Shepherd’s hands were braced against the brick wall, fingers spread over the chipped smear of old graffiti. Sweat glazed the exposed nape of his neck and stained his T-shirt. Kel pressed a quick kiss to the spot, the skin salty and cedar–scented, as he fumbled with his jeans.

“Still determined not to let me in the house, huh?” he said.

Shepherd hitched out a laugh as he twisted his head around to graze a kiss over Kel’s jaw.

“I’m good at rules,” he said.

“But you like liars.”

“Didn’t say I liked rules,” Shepherd countered. “Just that I’m good with them.”

Kel finally managed to get his jeans unbuttoned. He pushed them down to his thighs, denim rough as it caught, and slid a condom onto his cock. It was already hard, slivers of pleasure firing back along his taint as he grazed his fingers back along it.

He snugged the band around the base and turned to pull Shepherd’s shorts, already loose, down over lean hips. His fingers grazed over raised scar tissue, slick and smooth under his touch.

His brain tried to file it under ‘the scar’. He’d noticed it last time they fucked and thought nothing of it. Everyone had scars. This time though, he had a better view, the long muscles of Shepherd’s back illuminated by the light over the fire door. Kel traced the raised, clotted circle scored onto Shepherd’s thigh with his thumb.

“We did a show and tell about my scars, but you don’t mention this?” he said. “What happened?”

Shepherd twisted at the waist to look, as if he’d forgotten it was there. He wrinkled his nose and shrugged it off.

“Oh, that?” he said. “It’s nothing. Possessive ex. You know what they’re like.”

Kel leaned back to get a better look. Straight lines scored top to bottom of the circle, and a sort of tree rune was blistered on top of them. The whole thing was just slightly bigger than Kel’s hand.

Which did raise the question of how he’d missed it the first time, but…the answer was that he was self-involved. He already knew that.

“I don’t know about that,” he said. “The worst mine ever did was steal my football jersey.”

“Yeah,” Shepherd said agreeably. “It’s the same thing, more or less.”

It wasn’t, but usually Kel wouldn’t have cared. Today he was still on the high of people—for once in their lives—playing the role he needed them to. The idea it might end, that he could be thwarted again by something as irritating as someone just not wanting to cooperate? That bugged him.