Bad Idea (Stonewall Investigations Miami Book 1) Read online

  “Ah, Fox?” I said, pointing up at my closed eye, which I’m sure had jizz all around it.

  “Oh shit!” Fox realized there was some friendly fire. He got up with a laugh and hurried to the bathroom. As he walked away, I couldn’t help but stare (with my one good eye) at his ass and the way it moved as he walked. Taught, firm muscles seemed to dance under the shadow of his body hair, just the perfect amount.

  Since when did I think there was a perfect amount of body hair for a man?

  I tried not to think too much about it. I also tried not to stare at Fox’s still-hard cock as he walked back from the bathroom, a fluffy white towel in hand. He was a big guy, in more ways than one.

  And yes, I’m talking about his penis. Holy shit was that thing big. And the way it swung in the air, from left to right, like some kind of erect elephant trunk… I think I could even spot a drop of precome… Fuck, I was getting hard again.

  That… wow. Huh. That never happens.

  I brought my eye back up to meet Fox’s, who was standing next to me, his hard cock almost in my face, towel in the other. And then he did something odd, something I wasn’t expecting.

  Something I also very much needed in that moment.

  He got down, crouched, and started to wipe away around my eye, cleaning my face. As gentle as if he was a mother bird preening a chick. I tried to avoid his gaze, but my eyes were drawn to his like magnets. I couldn’t help it. The heat was still flickering inside me, threatening to ignite all over again. This was the most aroused I’d been in a long time, and it was all because of Gabriel “Fox” Morrison, the man who changed it all for me.

  “Thank… thank you.” I stammered out as he stepped back, his big cock swinging as he moved. I was hypnotized. I wanted to taste, to lick, to suck.

  And then it all hit me at once. Fox was a man. I was a man. I was straight.

  I was supposed to be straight. I had lived my life thinking I’d end up with the fantasy fed to me since I was a kid: I’d have a beautiful wife with a white picket fence holding in our well-trained shepherd dog and two kids, a boy and a girl.

  That’s what I had envisioned, what I was expecting.

  Fox came in and drove a monster truck directly through that quaint little image, tearing it to shreds and forcing me to consider an entirely new reality.

  This is one night. One drunken, emotional night. There’s nothing to reconsider.

  I had to get to the bathroom. I needed to splash water on my face, and I needed a moment to myself. Regret was starting to show its wart-covered head. I was beginning to feel the short breaths that foreshadowed a panic attack. I hadn’t been hit by one in a while, but I guess getting jerked off by your new buddy/potentially first serious man crush tended to exacerbate anxiety problems.

  I stood up, keeping myself from looking down at Fox’s huge rod, which was pointed at me like it was a compass Fox used to get around.

  Fuck… I want him so damn bad.

  “Um…” Now was my chance. He was looking at me, his hands at his side. His body was… wow. I thought I knew what sexy was, but I hadn’t… I had no idea what sexy was. Not until I saw sex-personified standing in front of me. I felt like I had been walking around with the lights off my entire life, and Fox had reached over and flipped on the switch.

  He was perfect. Tall, broad, muscular without being intimidating. He had a few ridges of muscles where his abs rested, covered by a thin layer of soft, dark hair, which got thicker and thicker as my eyes traveled south. He had a pair of V muscles that cut down his hip, aiming my gaze at the object of my intense desire and fascination.

  “I’m, uh, I need to go to the bathroom.” I left for the sanctuary of Fox’s bathroom without another word. Inside, I closed the door, locked it, turned the water on, looked at myself in the toothpaste-dotted mirror, and mouthed “what the fuck” over and over and over again.

  When that was done, I proceeded to splash the prescribed water over my face. I grabbed one of the soft white hand towels Fox had hanging on a silver ring by the sink and pressed it against my face.

  It smells exactly like him.

  Sweet. A scent I didn’t want to let go of. Like a freakazoid, I covered my face and took in a deep whiff.

  I’m losing my mind. This is crazy.

  I let the towel drop. Back in the mirror, my reflection looked a little more lively, my cheeks a little more pink.

  I had panicked. It was dumb, I was being dumb, but I couldn’t help it. This was a lot of fucking crap to unpack. This was the first night I had as a single man in a long time, and I spent it acting out one of the deepest, most erotic fantasies I’ve ever had.

  And I had no idea what to think about it.

  Did I love it? Of course I fucking loved it. Did I want to do it again? I wish Fox and I had never stopped.

  Did any of this make me gay?

  Now there was the million-dollar question.

  If this were only a one-night thing, something that sparked out of some random circumstances and heavy drinks and nothing else, then I’d answer with a flat no. I think everyone had more than a right to experiment consensually with whoever they wanted and not have to be labeled from that experience.

  But… well, this wasn’t something random or fleeting. This had come from thoughts I had been suppressing for years. From countless nights in my dark bedroom, gay porn pulled up on my laptop, my face lit up by the screen, the guys in the video doing things that made my cheeks red and my dick leak.

  And then there was the kiss that Fox and I shared. The initial kiss that threw the lit match onto the tinder in my chest was still tingling on my lips. In a way that none of my kisses with any female ever did… And my body’s reaction to Fox’s was another giveaway.

  Just thinking about that man, standing out there with his massive cock in hand, got my own dick hard in seconds.

  Another splash of water. I had to get out of the bathroom before Fox started to think I had drowned myself.

  I opened the door and stepped out, heading toward the living room. I expected to see him still standing there naked, waiting for me to drop down to my knees. The idea made me nervous and excited and really fucking horny.

  Instead, though, Fox had put on his black briefs and a tank top and was sitting down on the edge of the sofa bed, which was already set up and looked ready to go, a pale yellow quilt spread over the mattress that was sure to inflict murder on my back. When Fox saw me coming in, he threw my clothes to me.

  Not gonna lie, seeing him dressed had a part of me disappointed (and you can take a wild guess as to what part that was). Another, much smaller part felt some relief. Only because there was so much to think about. I needed more time to myself so that I could really try and sort through it all, even though all I wanted to do was sort it out with Fox’s naked, writhing body against mine. The hard planes of his muscles against mine…

  I pushed out any thoughts of Fox’s naked body. I put on my underwear and my shirt, leaving my shorts off for now. After all, he’d seen it all—not like there was much need to hide anything.

  “You feeling good?” Fox asked. He stood up, brows wrinkling together.

  He must be worried about me…

  “Yeah, better than good,” I said, not lying to him.

  “It’s just, well, I don’t know. I don’t want you to feel bad about anything.”

  “Not at all.” I shook my head, my expression staying solid. “I… well, it was… really good.” My cock twitched at the thought. “I’d never… done anything. Not with a guy like that… like you.”

  “Well,” Fox said, the concern in his gaze being replaced by something else. Something more primal. “There’s a lot more in my toolkit than a handy-J, just sayin’.”

  “Oh, I’ve got a feeling I know exactly what you’re talking about.” I tried so hard not to drop my eyes and look at his noticeable bulge, but… well, I failed. I failed miserably, my focus shifting downward to that delicious package of his, covered up but not erased from my
memory.

  I looked back up, locking with Fox’s hazel gaze. “I…um… you…” I looked behind him, to the made bed he had set up. There were even pillows that appeared to have been covered with fresh white linen, propped up against the back of the couch, adding an inviting touch to the sofa bed. “Thank you, Fox… you didn’t have to. I can sleep on a wooden plank and be fine.”

  And by fine, I mean dead. I’d be dead.

  “Oh no, this isn’t for you,” Fox said, sitting down, leaning back and fluffing up the pillow. A spring shouted loudly under him as he propped an elbow on the bed. “I’m taking this. You can get my bed.”

  “What? No way. I’m the one crashing your little beach house getaway. I’m not going to take your bed.”

  He stood up again, crossed his arms. “Little?”

  I laughed at that and shook my head. “You know what I mean. And stop trying to distract me. I’m sleeping on the couch bed.” As if to emphasize it, I moved around Fox and flopped down, stretching out and rolling over.

  Underneath me, the springs pressed up as if they were protesting my sudden arrival. I felt a few almost give out, while a couple more were so firm I thought I was going to break a rib by rolling over the wrong way.

  “It’s terrible, isn’t it?” Fox asked me, a disapproving look on his face. “Please, take the bed and let me take this piece of sh—”

  “It’s perfectly… eh, serviceable.” I wasn’t big on lying, but I wasn’t going to show how bad the situation really was. Not to Fox, who was kind enough to open up his doors to me in the first place.

  And he was kind enough to jerk me off and give me a world-tilting orgasm…

  Fox looked down at me from the side of the sofa bed, lips slanted. “We could share my bed—it’s big enough for two.”

  He said it so factually, almost militarily. As if he didn’t know that the second the two of us were lying down together, we would be tangled up together. Maybe he didn’t know that… why would he know that? To Fox, I was a straight dude going through some shit after a rough breakup. He had no idea that this went way deeper than Wendy. He wouldn’t be able to know that my questions had been planted and sowed years ago, back when I first started feeling conflicted thoughts, and that tonight gave me quite a few different answers while sprouting an entirely new set of questions.

  Sleeping in his bed, sleeping next to Fox… it actually sounded like a grand idea. My body ached for it. I could feel my cells rioting in place, making the urge to say yes so strong, I had to bite my tongue to stop myself.

  I knew what my answer had to be: “No, no. I shouldn’t… Not tonight” What was I saying? I wanted it. The idea of sleeping next to this man set my blood on fire and my heart on turbo. I wanted Fox so fucking bad… And that’s when I knew I had to stop myself. Was that the rum talking? Was it the endorphins that still made my body feel like I was a jellyfish? Or was it the fresh (albeit admittedly mild) pain of breaking up with my girlfriend and losing my stability that was pushing me into this?

  Or was it simply because I wanted Fox’s body on mine like a flower wanted sunlight?

  “Right, of course.” Fox, to his credit, instantly backed off the idea. If he had asked again, I think my answer might have been different.

  That’s when I spotted a photo on a nearby mantle. It was held inside of a five-by-seven matte-black frame and looked incredibly unassuming, tucked in between two large books, one with the words Guide to Miami Birds printed down the navy blue spine.

  “Is that you?” I asked, pointing at the framed photo with my chin. There was a smiling young boy that I already knew had to be Fox. They had the same almond eyes and wide, bright smile. It was one of those Macy’s photos, with the painted-on picnic background and the questionably bright lighting. He wasn’t alone in the picture. There was a woman who also shared the same almond eyes that had cast a spell on me hours before. She radiated happiness as she held an arm around her son’s shoulder, their heads pressed together.

  “Yup,” Fox said, confirming what I had already figured. But instead of falling into a heartwarming story about the time that photo was taken, which I also assumed would happen, Fox seemed to tense and pivot the conversation. “Did you enjoy the drinks tonight?”

  That was… an odd segue. “Um, yeah. Really great rum. Where’d you get it?”

  “Brought it back from a trip to Jamaica.”

  “Nice… nice.”

  I wanted to ask him about that photo so damn bad. Not because I was a nosy person, or because I wanted to make him feel uncomfortable. It was only because I wanted to know more about Fox. I wanted to know about what made him the man he was, who raised him, who shaped him. I wanted to hear all the stories about him learning to ride a bike and scraping his knees only to try again, or the stories of his holidays with his family, or whatever other stories Fox had to tell.

  I just wanted to know… “Is she your mom?” I asked, steering the conversation back to the photo.

  “Yup.”

  Okay, I was done. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it and I wasn’t about to press.

  And then Fox surprised me. “I was seven in that photo. It was for my birthday. She wanted to do something special, said she loved the number seven, thought it meant only great things. She was big into that kind of stuff. We went to the mall and got the photo taken. I remember her being so excited that morning, and then excited later when we were picking out clothes at the mall to wear for the shoot and took the photos. She wasn’t too excited when we had to return the clothes afterward, but we had the photos. Those we never had to return.”

  He was looking up at the mantle, a distant smile on his face. I could feel the sadness radiating from him like a sudden change of temperature in the room, as if the air had plummeted.

  “She’s beautiful,” I said, meaning it. The shot may have been taken in a mall, but she was giving it all to the camera. Her hair was full, and her complexion was flawless. Her face caught the overblown light like a professional, working her angles not only to look completely happy but also exceptionally beautiful.

  “She had a beautiful soul, too.” He took a breath.

  I got up from the bed, springs squealing, and walked over to the other couch. I took a seat next to Fox and placed a hand on his knee. I don’t know what drove me to do it, but the human connection seemed to have helped. He sniffed and straightened his back, looking up at the ceiling. “Life’s fucked-up, ain’t it?”

  “It can be, yeah.” I rubbed Fox’s knee, totally aware that this wasn’t a “friend” thing to do and doing it anyway. “But it can also be really fucking beautiful, Fox. And a lot of that beauty only shows up after the bad shit happens. Like it needs that fertilizer to grow.”

  Fox didn’t move away from my hand. In fact, his knee moved inches closer to mine, skin touching skin. “I don’t know…”

  “It’s true. Hell, you can see it even in nature… You know, back when I was ten, we lived in California for a year. It was near Malibu, and it was one of the driest years ever recorded. Three days before my birthday, we get woken up by the sound of sirens. It’s two in the morning, and we’re being evacuated, but they didn’t come soon enough. The fire was too fast, too powerful. We could see it barreling at us from the hillside about a half mile away from our property. So we get in the car and slam it, and we… get stuck in traffic. There’s only one road out, and it’s jammed. As fire is closing in on us from behind and from the sides.” I swallowed, not realizing how dry my mouth was getting. I hadn’t talked about this much with anyone, so it was bringing up that acrid aftertaste of distant fear that still haunted my worst night terrors.

  “It was the scariest twenty minutes of our lives. My brother was only four, and my parents were completely losing their shit but trying to keep it together because I had my eyes pinned on them, trying to figure out how the hell I should be acting.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah, his name came up a lot in the car during that time.” I laughed and Fox j
oined, glad I was able to find some comedy in the trauma. “So, finally, we get out of the jam and are able to make it out. There’s massive plumes of pitch-dark smoke behind us, which you could see because the fire underneath was lighting it up in this weird, eerie spotlight effect that I’ll never forget.”

  “But you all made it out okay?”

  “Yup, thankfully. It was close. Really, really close. The house we were staying at was burned to the ground, but all the others on the block were able to be saved. We lost a lot of photo albums and things we can never replace, but thankfully we didn’t lose each other.”

  “Definitely,” Fox said. His hand fell on mine, his thumb started to make almost imperceptible circles.

  But I could feel them. I could trace them, however tiny they were. I could feel every single point of contact that happened between me and Fox, as if it were my superpower. I could tell where every atom of his bounced against mine.

  “So.” I kept my hand stone-still now, as if moving might scare him away, like he were some kind of rare butterfly landing on my hand. My eyes were pinned to the opposite end of the room, as if the white wall had been turned into an interesting pop-up art gallery. I couldn’t look into Fox’s eyes. I couldn’t. I knew I’d drop all my defenses the moment I broke. With his hand on mine, I could feel emotions stirring inside me that had long been thought expired. “After the fire,” I continued, “and since it happened during the summer when school was out, my parents decided to relocate us back to Florida. It wasn’t the easiest of moves, but it was fine in the end. Anyways, back to my original point of this entire saga: we went back a year later to the same neighborhood, and on that same hillside that had been red and orange with angry flames, there was a bright purple, neon pink, and sky blue super bloom of wildflowers. It was something no one had ever seen in the area before. It took a devastating, life-changing wildfire to bring out this blast of new life.”

  I did it. I broke. I allowed myself to look away from the far wall and into Fox’s eyes, his hand still on mine, his thumb tracing even bigger circles now.

  And in that one moment of eye contact, in that split second of human connection, I felt the wildfire spark inside of me and explode into a roaring monster, devastating my entire soul.