TOUCH LIKE BREATHING (THREE SHORT EXCERPTS)

 

sequel to After Anna

from eXtasybooks

 

 

 

 EXCERPT ONE (short, adult language, non-explicit)

 

Will figured they’d give each other some space after the split, try to figure out how to go on together as friends and partners. Tyler backed off for what, a fucking couple of weeks at work, tops, so determined to make things better between them that if he could have fixed them single-handedly he would have. In no time he was in Will’s face again offering—no, expecting the same friendship and closeness they’d always had. Will couldn’t figure how Tyler could act the same as always, same old horseshit, joking around, eyes warm on his and crinkling easily at the corners, turning deadly serious when the job got rough, still expecting the same responses from Will that he’d always gotten.

But Will didn’t know what normal was after they’d put their mouths on each other, ran their hands and mouths over each other’s skin, sucked each other off until their legs were shaking, insides shaking, blind and crazy with it, aware of nothing and no one else. Going back seemed impossible, though he wanted to, wanted things simple and uncomplicated like before, wanted to bury everything else between them just as deep as he could.

Hell, Tyler had been doing just fine. Will was the one having difficulty forgetting. He was more than a little disgusted with himself, at how it fucked with his head, but he guessed he was coping. Until they’d nearly fucked everything up again.

It felt damned strange to Will, hanging out together after work that first time, but he’d let Tyler’s certainty that they could handle it suck him in. Went to a bar with him. It was like a test.  Pass it, pass go, collect two hundred and he’d beat it. He’d be okay again, they’d be okay again.

Right. Will laughed under his breath, exasperated, shook his head and kept walking. 

Hanging out at a bar was something they used to do together all the time and Tyler acted like he always had back then—like Will’s best friend, no more, no less. Will had felt lost.

He remembered the dark, the heat, the hubbub of people talking, music vibrating into his skin.  Watching Tyler tip back a beer. The movement of Ty’s throat as he swallowed. Will drank a little faster, trying to wash that particular sight out of his brain.

He should have left right then, was getting ready to stand up and go in fact, even though Tyler had driven, but Tyler stood up first. He looked down at Will a long moment, face unreadable, then headed for the bathroom. Will watched him walk away, the broad shoulders and slim waist, the hint of a strut. He remembered Tyler’s mouth moving over his, insatiable. The taste of Tyler in his mouth.

Will closed his eyes and lowered his palms slowly onto the notched wood of the table, slid them over the edges and gripped hard. Tried to breathe, keep his sanity, keep himself from moving.

Then he got up and went after Tyler.

 

*****

 

EXCERPT TWO (short, non-explicit—warning for language)

 

He swung the door open, walked down the stairs and got in the car, started the engine and drove away down the block. The further away he got, the heavier the weight on his chest became. 

Another block.

Can’t you just tell him the truth? Tell him you don’t know how to go back to what you were. Tell him maybe you don’t want to.

Another block.

Shit, tell him something—tell him you don’t know what to tell him. Just stop running!

Will did a U-turn, not braking before he swung the wheel. The car rolled over a good five yards of sidewalk before he got her back on the road. The weight on his chest jostled with the car, sinking down to his toes and taking all remaining oxygen with it. He tried to find some anyway, breathing hard. His hands shook like he had palsy, couldn’t see the road anymore. All he could see was Tyler’s face that afternoon in the goddamn car, in the darkened apartment. Will stepped on the gas. 

And there was Tyler in the headlights. On the sidewalk, then wandering onto the grass, then back onto the sidewalk again, weaving unsteadily.  Will pulled up beside him, flung open the door and jumped out. Tyler didn’t look up. He had a sock on one foot but no shoe. On the other foot he had a shoe but no sock. Will laughed, a panicky edge to it because the weight on his chest was more than he could handle anymore. 

Tyler jerked a little at the sound as if he’d just realized Will was there.

“Where you going?” Will asked. His voice rasped.

Tyler looked up at Will. His face was solemn. “After you,” he said.

The weight on Will’s chest was suddenly such a big shitty unsupportable ache that he bent over from it, hand bracing on his knee. “Shit,” he said, trying to breathe. “I don’t fucking know what to do anymore, Ty. I don’t think I can go back to before. I wanted to try, I swear to God I did, but I can’t.”

Tyler’s hand came down on his back and rubbed. “Don’t,” he whispered and leaned his warmth into Will. “It’ll be okay, Will. I promise it will.”

“It won’t.” It hurt, but something in Will wouldn’t let go. Hadn’t let go in a long, long time, not since Anna. “Ty, I’m not,” Will whispered back, “not…okay.” He took a deep breath. “And you, you bastard—it’s so easy for you.”

Tyler laughed, jagged, all edges. “You’re fucking kidding me, right? There’s no alternative for me. I’m not letting you go. So what’s left but to make it work?”

“Tyler, shut up. I want to go back to the apartment. I want…”

“What?” Tyler’s eyes glittered under the streetlights. He waited.

“Shit.”

“Just say it.”

“I…I…fuck. Okay. I want to go back to your apartment with you.”

“Yeah, okay.” Tyler looked confused. 

Will lost all patience. “I want to fuck. I want to make you come so hard you go blind. Clear enough for you?”

The smile died off Tyler’s face, his lips tightening. His eyes were all pupil. “Not an option, Will.”

“We can see other people, right? Keep up appearances.”

“No.”

“I don’t care anymore, Ty. I just want…”

“Don’t.”

“Then what?”

“We keep trying.”

“Tyler, no. C’mon.”

Tyler looked at him for the longest time, losing the battle in increments, staring into Will’s eyes with a mixture of acceptance, sadness and something softer, shoulders loosening fractionally, breaths deepening. “Fuck you, Will,” he said, and his voice was soft, quiet. He licked his lips. “Blind, huh?”

 

****

 

EXCERPT THREE (short, explicit sexual situation)

 

“You slept with her, too, dipshit.”

“So I did. Which proves I am not a snob.”

“No, you dated Darla. That proves you’re not a snob.”

“How?”

Tyler smirked. “Well, Darla. She had no class. Ye Olde Chestless Wonder.”

“She had no class because she had no breasts?”

“Ha! I told you you’re funny. Except when you’re not. Got nothing to do with it. I just remembered the breast thing is all.”

“Sure. It all comes down to the feminine attributes with you, Ty. You know that?”

“What? She had no boobs, Will. No fault of her own, but hey, I have eyes. At least Tina had boobs.”

“Yeah, in place of brains,” Will said and smirked down at him.

“Yeah, speaking of brains. You thought you were in love with Ye Olde CW. Classy as potted meat.”

Will felt his face go hot. “Okay, well, that was a couple of years ago.”

“How was she on blowjobs?” Tyler asked, being obnoxious, and Will’s face flamed hotter. Tyler grinned. He tried to prop an elbow on Will’s leg to hold up his head, but there wasn’t enough room. His elbow slid off, perilously close to Will’s balls again. Will gave him a warning look, which he ignored. “Say, did you know I out drank Lenny the Lush one time? Wasn’t easy, either.”

“You got drunk with Lenny? Why in the hell would you—”

“And one time I was loaded and I bowled a 220.”

“Thought you didn’t bowl.”

“I said I was drunk, didn’t I? Oh, and I did a handstand drunk, once, remember, after you told me you could do them and now—”

“Yeah, I remember. You fell on your face and almost broke your—”

“—I’m gonna do you. Right now, right in the car.” He grinned agreeably up at Will, but his eyes promised it was gonna happen. 

Will’s mouth fell open. He closed it before something was said about catching flies and then swallowed, apparently the wrong way. “And you nearly threw up, too,” he managed to get out, then started coughing. Tyler reared up and slapped him on the shoulder. He put some weight behind it, too.

“Stop hitting me!” Will gasped and coughed some more.

“Can’t help you get choked up so easy.” Tyler’s hand moved to Will’s zipper. Will’s fingers curled around Tyler’s, stopping the movement. He glanced down, then up at the road, then back down again, warning Tyler with a look. Tyler reached without looking, his palm curling around Will’s knee, rubbing gently. His hand moved up, cupped Will’s leg inside his thigh, then further up to his crotch. Will grunted at that first touch, moving in tight, hard strokes against his hard-on. 

And Will was hard, straining against the zipper of his jeans, hard enough to hurt. He opened his mouth to yell at Tyler, reached a hand down to shove him away and instead spread his left leg open wide and his right one as far as he could and still keep his foot on the gas. Tyler grasped the zipper of his jeans and pulled. 

Will’s chest heaved, trying to suck in more air.  It didn’t seem real, not even when Tyler pulled the flaps of his jeans open as wide as he could and yanked his underwear down to get at him. Will cursed but didn’t pull away, looking down at Tyler’s mop of hair, shot through with warm brown and red highlights. He felt heat and suction lower around his cock, surrounding, tightening.  Ty’s mouth, oh God his mouth, his tongue licking and wrapping around him, so wet, so sweet, so insane, and too late, way too late to stop. Tyler’s mouth slid up and down, clumsy, determined, devouring, and Will went out of his fucking mind, arching into his mouth, jerking his leg hard against the car door and moaning, the helpless sound of it astonishing even himself. 

The driver of a green convertible in the right lane honked frantically as their car veered, heading towards it. Will saw the driver’s mouth open in a terrified O and swung the wheel left, Tyler’s mouth leaving him as he looked up a second, making sure everything was under control, then sank back down. Will groaned again, deep, looking blindly out the windshield, trying desperately to remember that they were going to crash with his dick in Ty’s mouth if he didn’t take care of business first.

 

****

 

 

 

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