Numbers Game Read online

  “It’ll heal,” Hunter said. “Everything does.”

  I frowned for a moment, then allowed it to dissipate for fear that he would question the reasoning behind it.

  The whole while I could only think: why had he said that?

  Rather than dwell on it, I decided to lean forward and look at the portfolio that he’d brought with him.

  I hated to say that I was falling after only a few dates, but seeing him—and his beautiful art— made everything all the better.

  Hunter Cross cleaned up well. In a nice gray suit and with his short black hair slicked back, he appeared every bit the professional, albeit one with tattoos covering his hands and the left side of his face.

  “Hey babe,” he said as I opened the door.

  “Hey,” I replied, stepping aside so he could enter my apartment. “Come in, come in.”

  He stepped inside and viewed the interior of my home with careful and considerate eyes.

  “This is a nice place you got here,” he said.

  “I only just moved in a few months ago,” I said.

  “You plan on staying here for the time being?”

  “I’m thinking about it,” I said. “I like the area, it’s close to my job, and it’s relatively close to—”

  “Me?”

  I paused before I could say anything, surprised that he would state something so brazenly.

  Rather than wait for him to stew in anticipation, however, I smiled and said, “Yeah. Close to you, too.”

  He smiled and crossed the distance between us to lace his arms around my waist. The height difference, though great, was easily closed by his long arms. He slid a finger into my belt loop and smiled as he leaned down to press a kiss against my temple.

  “What was that for?” I asked.

  “For being cool,” he said. “And for agreeing to be my date.”

  “I like you, Hunter. You’re cool. And you’re hella hot.”

  “Thanks babe. So are you.”

  “So,” I said, separating him from my belt loop and looking down at my simple gray-and-blue suit. “Shall we get going, or… did you have something else in mind?”

  “Other than this?” he asked.

  He leaned forward.

  He cupped the back of my head in his hand.

  He kissed me.

  His lips—electrifying against mine—smelled of peppermint, tasted of chocolate. A part of me wanted him to take me then and there, just like he did several nights ago, so we could both experience the emotions and the sensations with a clear and level head, but another realized that we would be late if we decided to do that.

  “Mmm,” I said as he pulled away. “You taste delicious.”

  “Thanks. You do too.”

  “Shall we get going then?”

  I took hold of his hand and began to lead him out the threshold.

  The tattoo shop was crowded with people of all shapes and sizes, ages and genders, backgrounds and tattoo histories. Though most were well-dressed in suits and long dresses, some had opted for lighter ensembles that displayed their tattoos and other various jewelries.

  “Hunter!” a man with a shaved head and several intricate skull tattoos said as he stepped forward. “So glad you could make it.”

  “Thanks Dan,” Hunter replied.

  “And who’s this you have with you?” the blonde, stubble-haired man asked, turning to face me.

  “This is my date, Dan.”

  “Adam Warwood,” I said, extending a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you too,” the man replied, shaking my hand. “Hunter—you have got to try the whiskey that Greg brought in. It’s absolutely amazing.”

  “Sorry, Dan,” Hunter said. “I told Adam here that I wouldn’t drink tonight. Besides—I’m driving.”

  “Shame,” Dan said. “So—how’s things been going, Adam? Staying out of trouble?”

  “For the most part,” I replied.

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “I teach at Crestwood High.”

  “Oh! Warwood.” The man snapped his fingers. “You’re my son’s math teacher!”

  “That’d be me,” I replied. “Mr. Warwood the Math Hound.”

  The men around me laughed as an attractive woman devoid of tattoos and with long blonde hair came forward. “Hunter,” she said.

  Hunter stiffened beneath her gaze. “Felicity,” he said.

  “How have you been?”

  “I’ve been… well,” he said, then slid an arm around my shoulders and drew me close to his side. “This is Adam, by the way. My date.”

  The woman frowned as she looked at me. “I see,” she said. She extended a hand for me to take and only mildly shook it, as if she detested my presence. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you too,” I said as the woman turned and walked away. I frowned as I watched her make her way toward the keg of whiskey and proceed to speak with another group of women.

  “Who… was that?” I frowned.

  “Oh? Hunter didn’t tell you?” Dan asked. “He’s bi.”

  “Dan,” Hunter growled.

  “What? Nothing wrong with liking both dick and pussy.”

  “I was going to tell Adam that later,” Hunter said.

  Oh, I thought, then frowned.

  The attractive tattooist ran a hand through his slicked-back hair and sighed. “Can we talk outside, Adam?”

  “Sure,” I said, then turned and followed my companion into the dark and lonely night.

  Outside, headlights from passing cars cut through the shadows of the night, lighting downtown in brilliant spectacles of light. Lucky Stars— which bolstered a shamrock and a star as the primary focal point in its logo—glimmered in said light, causing me to grimace unintentionally and raise my hand to shield my eyes.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was bi,” Hunter said.

  “Why are you sorry?” I frowned.

  “Because I know a lot of gay guys don’t think bisexuality is real.”

  “I think it’s real,” I replied.

  “You do?”

  I nodded and closed the distance between the two of us. “Seriously, Hunter—don’t worry about this. I don’t care. It’s no one’s business who you sleep with.”

  “I know,” Hunter sighed. “It’s just… I don’t want to fuck this up, you know?”

  “How will you fuck this up?”

  “First the club, then the unprotected sex, now… this.” He shook his head and fidgeted with one of his sleeves.

  “Seriously,” I said, reaching down to take hold of his hand. “You don’t have a thing to worry about.”

  “You’re sure?” he asked.

  “I’m sure,” I replied.

  He offered a smile that could’ve melted my soul had I the time to react to it. Instead, the door burst open and out came a screeching woman.

  “You bastard!” she screeched. “You bastard!”

  “Felicity,” Hunter started, turning to face the woman. “Please, just hear me out before—”

  She slapped the man—hard—and even managed to draw blood from the corner of Hunter’s lip.

  “How could you replace me with a man?” she asked. “How could you?”

  “Felicity,” he started once more. “We broke up three months ago. Now if you’d excuse me, I’d like to have a good, quiet time with my date.”

  “You bitch!” she screeched. She reared her hand back to slap Hunter again, but was stopped when the man reached out to grab her hand.

  “Stop this,” he said. “This is no way to act in public.”

  “But you,” she started, then burst into tears. “You—”

  She didn’t have time to finish.

  She turned and stormed off—bawling, sobbing, and wailing like a whale that’d been stranded along the shoreline.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, reaching up to touch his cheek.

  “I’m fine,” Hunter sighed. “Goddamn. I really don’t want to b
e here if she is.”

  “You think she’ll come back?” I asked, watching the woman as she rounded the corner and disappeared from sight.

  “If there’s drama, Felicity’s bound to be a part of it.”

  “I hate people like that,” I replied. I reached out to wrap an arm around his waist and leaned into his body to show solidarity with him. When he bowed his head against the top of mine, I tightened my hold on his waist and said, “You want to go home?”

  “Do you?” he asked.

  “I want to go to your home,” I said.

  He blinked as he pulled back to look at me.

  “Just to get away from everything,” I said.

  “All right,” he said, then reached into his pocket and withdrew his keys. “Sucks that we have to leave, but I don’t want to deal with any of this bullshit tonight.”

  “It’s cool,” I said.

  I turned and followed him back into the building.

  “Hunter!” a red-headed woman cried. “You’re bleeding!”

  “Don’t worry about it, Sandra,” Hunter replied. “We’re leaving.”

  “Is this about Felicity?” the Latina woman asked. “By God. You know I’ll kick that white bitch’s ass if you want me to.”

  “No need,” Hunter said. “Like I said: we’re leaving.”

  “But you deserve to be here just as much as anyone. Its your shop.”

  His shop? I thought. He hadn’t let me in on that particular detail of his life.

  “I know, Sandra. Thanks for coming, and tell Dan to close up for me once this is all said and done. Okay?”

  The two hugged before Hunter turned and gestured me toward the back door that we’d come in through.

  “You want to talk about it?” I asked.

  Hunter nursed the small cut that’d been inflicted by one of Felicity’s rings and looked up at me as he readjusted the cold compress against it. “About what?” he asked.

  “Felicity. Your breakup. Your being bi.”

  “There really isn’t much to say,” the man replied, then sighed as he lowered the bloodied compress and set it on the counter. “She cheated on me. We broke up. She’s become obsessed with the fact that I’ve been trying to date other people.”

  “Other men?” I asked. “That seemed to be the main reason she freaked out.”

  “Yeah. I’m fairly certain she thought she’d ‘cured’ me of ‘being gay.’” He used air quotes to enunciate these points. “I think she saw it as an affront to her womanhood.”

  “Probably,” I said, stepping forward. I reached out to press a hand against his cheek and sighed as I set my thumb over his lip. “I’m sorry that your night was ruined.”

  “It wasn’t ruined,” he said. “You’re still here.”

  I smiled, then leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his lips before drawing forward and wrapping my arms around him.

  “I’m glad I get to spend the night with you,” I said, pressing my head against the expanse of his chest. “It means a lot to know that you forgave me.”

  “It was an accident, Adam. Accidents happen.”

  “I know, but still. I was a complete dick. You could’ve thrown me to the curb then and there.”

  “But I didn’t,” Hunter said. “You know why?”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because I like you.”

  “You do?” I asked. Hunter nodded and reached down to take hold of my hands. “I like you too,” I said after a moment’s hesitation. “I… know that’s a bit forward of me to say, considering we’ve only known each other for a short amount of time, but I just felt I should say it.”

  “Thank you.”

  We held each other in the moments that followed, drowning in the emotions reverberating between the two of us. I hoped— prayed, actually, which was something I hadn’t done in quite a long time—that this would work out, that everything would be okay, that nothing would come between us regardless of the differences in our work life, and as such leaned back to look into his beautiful green eyes, at his scuffy face, at his perfect though injured lips.

  “What’re you smiling at?” he asked.

  “You,” I said.

  “I see. You know what else would make me smile, Adam Warwood?”

  “What’s that?”

  “If you’d like me take you to bed—for real this time.”

  For real? I thought.

  I smiled and reached out to press my hand against his chest. “I’d like that,” I said.

  He leaned forward at that moment and captured my lips between his, the taste of blood and sweat and peppermint still clear and strong on his tongue. The passion there, though gentle, was unlike anything I had felt before with another man, and while standing there, kissing him, and preparing for what it was that would occur within the following moments, I began to wonder if this was the right decision.

  “You ok?” Hunter asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, pressing another kiss to his lips. “Let’s go to the bedroom.”

  I led him without so much as another word in response, my hand in his and our fingers laced together. When we parted through the open threshold and turned to face each other, I reached forward and took hold of one of the buttons on his suit, popping it slowly and carefully as to not damage the fabric. He leaned forward, then, and pressed his lips along my neck, the scrape of his stubble intoxicating against my skin. I shivered as his lips met my jugular and sighed as I felt his tongue slid out of his mouth to taste the skin there, then continued to unbutton his jacket.

  “Let’s get out of these clothes,” I said.

  He agreed.

  We undressed each other slowly, carefully, delicately, as if we were fragile creatures who would break at any moment, and kissed as though we were star-crossed lovers who had not seen each other for years upon end. As our shirts came off, revealing our torsos and the art upon them, I began to consider the fact that this would be the first time we would be having sex without the influence of alcohol and sighed against his mouth.

  “Something wrong?” Hunter asked.

  “No,” I replied. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “All right.”

  He bowed his head to my chest, kissed my nipples, ran his scruffy face down my chest until he came to the swell in my dress pants. There, he began to undo my belt; and there, he freed me from my pants before taking me into his mouth and swallowing my six inches down to the base.

  I moaned.

  He hummed.

  I moaned again.

  He wrapped his hands around my waist until they came to rest on my ass and spread my cheeks, gripping the flesh there as he bobbed his head up and down my length. I trembled at his ministrations, at his gentle and fluent motions, and tangled my hand through his well-slicked hair as I began to thrust into him.

  “Hunter,” I sighed.

  “Mmm,” the man replied, not taking his mouth off my cock once.

  I didn’t want him to stop. He was doing so well, servicing me so good. But the fact that I wanted to do the same for him urged me to pull him off of my cock and back up for another steamy kiss.

  Then I fell to my knees and did the same for him.

  “Fuck, Adam,” he said, grabbing the sides of my head and thrusting into my mouth. “Shit.

  Goddamn you give good head.”

  I know, I wanted to say, but couldn’t because of the mouthful of cock.

  I chuckled, which caused him to moan, and he began jackhammering my mouth, forcing his cock down my throat until my face was buried in his patch of black pubic hair. I gagged once, but loved the way he was in control, the way he was using me, abusing me, making me do all the things I wanted to do.

  Then he pulled me away, spun me around, and bowed me over the couch before spitting on my hole and sliding a finger in.

  “Shit!” I cried.

  “You like that?” he asked. “You like it when I fingerfuck your ass like that?”

  “I love it!” I gasped. “Keep going.”
>
  He slid a second finger in, then a third. I pushed back against him with each forward thrust and groaned as his fingers curled along my prostate, causing me to shoot precome all over his duvet.

  “Your duvet,” I started.

  “Is going to be covered in my come before the night is up,” he said. “Stay here. Don’t move.”

  I didn’t have plans to, but lifted my head regardless as he turned and began to make his way toward the dresser. “Where are you—”

  “Condoms,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  Good, I thought, ‘cause I need that dick in my ass.

  He returned only a short moment later and slapped the head of his dick against my ass, compelling me to open further for him.

  “Open up for me baby,” he breathed as he lined himself up with my entrance.

  I groaned as he penetrated me—as he slowly began to sink his thick seven inches into me— and reached up to pull him in for a kiss as I wrapped my legs around his waist. He was so thick—so fucking thick. I couldn’t even begin to think how easily I’d taken him the last time.

  “You ok?” he asked.

  “You’re thick,” I panted.

  “Am I hurting you?”

  “Only in the good way.”

  He kissed me—gently, unlike he had before—and leaned back before spreading my legs. He then, in one slow motion, sunk the rest of the way in. “There,” he breathed. “I’m in.”

  “Good,” I said. “Give me a moment to adjust.”

  I flexed my anal ring around the shaft of his cock—black as night with the condom wrapped around its surface—and sighed as I sank against him. “Ok,” I said. “Fuck me.”

  He did—slowly, passionately, taking care not to thrust in too hard less he hurt me. His body fits perfectly against mine, his smooth chest a contrast against the dark hair that covered my own, and his cock felt like the best thing that had ever happened to me. He rolled his hips against mine with each inward thrust and ran his tongue along the side of my face before pressing several sloppy kisses against my mouth.

  Then he began to fuck me.

  Hard.

  I gripped the duvet as if it were holding me to life itself as he pounded away at my ass, causing my muscles to contract and my cock to throb with each thrust. Precome leaked from the weeping head of my dick and covered my abdomen in a slippery mess, giving it just enough lubrication to allow Hunter to slide his stomach across my cock and bring me to even greater heights of pleasure.