Bad Influence by K.A. Mitchell
“Eli’s new career,” everyone echoed. Including Silver.
He sipped, but he didn’t taste anything. His ears got hot. And it was as if his clothes had disappeared and he was standing there naked. Not naked in the fun way, or even in the businesslike way of shooting a vid and standing around naked while people moved lights and brought the camera an inch from your asshole. But like those dreams in middle school and high school where he was naked and everyone was laughing because they all knew.
His friends had careers. Silver waited tables while waiting to find out if he was going to jail. He hadn’t graduated from high school. Shit, he half hoped the judge locked him up before everyone found out just how much nothing he really was.
After Eli’s third glass of champagne, Quinn broke out his Daddy voice to urge Eli to eat something, and while everyone was stuffing their faces, Silver slipped around the cabin to lie on the cushions covering the long bow. The late-afternoon sun baked the open space, but Silver stretched out on his stomach and let the heat sink into his back and ass muscles, while his belly relaxed on the giant heating pad of waterproof cushion.
His head faced the tip of the bow, but he sensed someone moving behind him. Despite knowing it couldn’t be a threat, his muscles tensed, though he didn’t roll over. It couldn’t be Zeb—as much as Silver wished it was. Zeb had been trapped listening to Eli tell some story. Eli buzzed on expensive champagne wasn’t much different from Eli sober, except that he had an even bigger disregard for personal space. No way was Zeb escaping unless he dumped Eli on his ass.
From the slit of his eyes he noticed leather deck shoes. They were almost like the ones Zeb had on, except they weren’t. Not with the tiny green-and-red tag that meant they cost twenty-five times more.
“According to the catalog the Sunseeker company dutifully sends me each year, we should only be lounging here if we are blond and in bikinis,” Gavin said.
Silver rolled onto his side. “I can manage half that requirement.”
“And far more attractive than anyone in a bikini I’ve ever seen.” Gavin held out a glass and recrossed his legs as he lounged. “I tasted the nonalcoholic and it’s a disgrace. I apologize.”
Silver took it and sipped. He didn’t know what to expect other than fizz, so the creaminess startled him. He couldn’t describe all the different flavors, but right then he decided he definitely had expensive tastes. Too bad he couldn’t even afford a bottle of store-brand water most of the time. No point getting used to that.
He passed it back. “Aren’t you afraid your boyfriend will go all pissed-off cop?”
“No. Though Jamie’s bristling can be fun to encourage at times. I believe you enjoy yanking his chain as well.”
Silver peered down at the cushions and stuck his finger onto one of the sunken buttons as Gavin kept talking.
“It’s a passion and intensity I admire. Like Eli’s. It’s hard not to want to see it brought to the surface.”
Silver had barely gotten around to believing Gavin liked him. Now it seemed like he was pointing out exactly what Silver lacked. As if he didn’t already know.
“It’s not the same for people like us.”
Whoa. Did Gavin just compare himself to Silver?
Gavin held up the champagne and took a sip. “It’s harder for us to find something that stirs our passions.”
Silver couldn’t help the glance at Gavin’s crotch.
“Not that one, necessarily.” Gavin’s laugh was short but sweet. Satisfying to know Silver could amuse a guy like Gavin.
“But when we do find something important to us, it burns just as brightly. Even though we may not show it like they do.” Gavin paused.
This was the place where Silver was supposed to say something equally profound. Or at least agree. But he didn’t want to agree. The only thing he’d ever wanted with the kind of passion he saw Jamie and Eli fling at everything was Zeb. And that was a hell of a thing to stick a guy with. Like the way Marco expected Silver to have all the answers.
Maybe that was what Gavin was trying to warn him about. That until Silver had a thing of his own, it wouldn’t work with Zeb.
Gavin had gone silent, and there was only so much poking Silver could do to the button.
“I guess.” He wasn’t trying to be a sullen brat about it.
“Is Zeb one of the ones with that intensity?”
Silver shook his head. Zeb could get all wound up about teaching or anything else he knew a lot about. But it wasn’t like the way Eli and Jamie were. And not all snotty know-it-all like Nate. Zeb was committed. If he went into something, he went all the way. Which was why that door slammed in Silver’s face was something he’d never seen coming. Funny that as razor-sharp as the memory was, it didn’t cut as deeply as it used to.
“He’s more steady. Like Quinn.”
Gavin nodded. He’d been leaning back on his hands with his Gucci-clad feet toward the bow, but now he sat forward, cross-legged. The stem of the glass was still between his fingers. When he noticed it, he swung it over the rail, an arc of pale gold catching the sun splashing into the water. There had to have been thirty or forty dollars left of champagne, now mixed in with fish pee.
“I am sorry you didn’t care for the champagne or the sparkling juice. I could break into Jamie’s not-so-secret stash of KZ sodas. Or I have Pellegrino.”
Was that Gavin’s passion? Hosting parties and smoothing things over? He’d only been sitting here talking because he felt bad Silver didn’t like the drinks? How pathetic could he get? Silver had actually thought Gavin was trying to tell him something deep. Just in time he stopped himself from blurting out a refusal.
“Thanks. That sounds good.”
When Gavin moved, Silver stopped him.
“You don’t have to get up. One thing I can definitely handle is carrying stuff out from a kitchen.” Where maybe Silver could also manage a few minutes alone. Quinn and Jamie were in the cockpit, pointing at the board full of screens. Eli and Zeb were in the stern, Eli dropping pieces of bread over the side while some fish knocked each other senseless trying to get it.
Silver ducked down through the hatch. Holy shit. This would be a pricey apartment.
He couldn’t imagine what it cost to have this kind of setup on a boat.
A couch faced a plasma TV screen, and he caught a glimpse of a double bed through another door. He wasn’t sure if he was about to open the door to the head or the fridge, but he picked right. Tiled shower stall, sink with a mirror, and a toilet.
He made use of it, washed his hands, and then dropped the lid to sit and catch a few minutes of peace. Before getting arrested, he’d been surrounded by people all the time and felt completely alone. Now it was nice to have a few friends who cared, but this much interaction was fucking exhausting.
He shouldn’t have locked himself away. Too much time to think right now wasn’t good. Eight days until his court date. Four days after that and Zeb would be gone.
If Silver wasn’t in jail, he would be—well, wasn’t that the million-dollar question?
And he’d used up all his lifelines. And probably his alone time.
Hesitant steps tapped on the wooden stairs. Bingo.
“Silver?”
Zeb. A twist of the funky center lock and the door swung in. Moving around it didn’t feel too seductive, but Silver figured he didn’t need to work it too hard. Zeb had followed him down here. And there was one thing Silver was even better at than carrying food out of kitchens.
He found a good lean on the open doorframe, despite the wide lip that he guessed made it watertight.
“Yeah?”
Zeb started a smile but lost it when he swallowed. Silver remembered he had permission to touch and trailed a finger over the bob in his throat, down to the open collar of Zeb’s shirt.
Zeb took a deep breath. “I was going to ask if you were okay, but it wasn’t why I came down.” His gaze dropped to watch Silver’s hand slide fully under the collar to disappear around
Silver yanked him forward and, dammit, forgot about the three-inch-high lip separating their feet. Zeb tumbled into him.
Silver caught a sink edge to the ass and a towel bar to the back but wrapped his arms around Zeb and managed to keep them on their feet.
Zeb started laughing, and Silver couldn’t help it spilling out of his own mouth as he shut the door and twisted the lock.
“Guess we’re alone now.” Zeb waggled his eyebrows. Silver had to sit on the toilet seat to get his breath.
Oh yeah. He was fucking awesome at seduction.
It hadn’t been the plan, but laughing felt good. Not that he hadn’t had fun sex with other guys, but no one had ever seemed to set him off like Zeb. And since they’d both pretty much been learning their way around back then, there had been some funny moments. Like learning why you should never put tingling lube on your dick.
Zeb braced himself with a hand against the glass shower door as he wound down. “Part of your pirate kink?”
Silver stood. “Consider yourself my prisoner.” He’d meant it as a joke. Not anything kinky.
But Zeb leaned back against the tiny space of wall, eyes dark green, chin tilted to the side to expose his woodsy-smelling neck, and Silver couldn’t remember what was so funny.
He dove in, cheek gliding over freshly shaved skin, inhaling Zeb in deep breaths, tasting his sweat in the skin under his ear.
Zeb groaned with the first touch of tongue on his skin, and Silver couldn’t wait to hear what sounds he’d get when his tongue got to the really interesting places.
Grabbing at Silver’s shirt, Zeb shoved the tank top up as far as he could get it. “Off. Soon as I saw you on the dock I’ve been wanting this off.”
Silver leaned back enough to peel off the shirt and tank, then in to kiss Zeb.
His mouth opened, and Silver drove his tongue in, slid it along the winey taste of Zeb’s, then lost himself in the way their mouths worked together. The way the intensity went to his head, the frustration with the pathetic need to stop for fresh oxygen.
Zeb’s palms stroked up and down Silver’s back, firm, solid. When they shifted for a breath, Silver got his fingers between them to pop the button on Zeb’s fly.
The weight of Zeb’s hands on Silver’s shoulders stopped him right as he eased the zipper clear of the bulge.
He met Zeb’s gaze, the eyes almost black, a narrow rim of green around the wide pupil. “Is this okay? Did you think about it?” And decide not to have sex with a guy who’s positive? was the part of the question Silver couldn’t make himself say out loud.
“I did.” Zeb blinked, then his lashes hid his eyes as he glanced down. “Spent all morning in church thinking about it.” When he looked back at Silver, there was the familiar twist in the corner of Zeb’s mouth. “Had to keep a hymnal on my lap.”
The heat and pressure of his palms slid down over Silver’s pecs.
“Yeah.” Zeb’s thumbs brushed Silver’s nipples. They weren’t super sensitive, but his cock appreciated the contact just fine. “Thought about this. And this.” One hand shifted lower, thumb petting through the hair right below Silver’s navel. “In church.” Zeb leaned in for a kiss and then shook his head. “During the sermon. Then you show up looking like that.”
The last bit was swallowed up by Silver’s mouth because they were kissing again. Bodies held only far enough apart to let hands get to the flesh that made groans echo in the tiny space. Silver wrapped his palm around Zeb’s dick, a charge rushing to his own cock at the satiny weight of it, the throb of blood under the skin. Silver raised his head to probe the inside of his lips with his tongue. If that hard kissing hadn’t reopened the split, Zeb’s dick wouldn’t. At least that’s what the want pulsing inside told Silver.
He was about to hit his knees when he realized sitting on the toilet lid would be a whole hell of a lot easier.
“I stopped on my way home from church. To buy condoms.” Zeb’s pause made the blood pump harder in Silver’s cock. “And lube.”
“Is it wrong how fucking hot it is that you stopped for that on the way home from church?”
“I’m the one who was thinking about it when I should have been listening to the sermon.” Zeb’s voice was rough. “So no. Or yes. God, Silver, I don’t care.”
Silver dropped onto the convenient seat and met Zeb’s cock eye to eye. Silver hadn’t had much opportunity to make comparisons back in New Freedom. But he’d seen enough by now to appreciate what Zeb had. The thick ridge that made the head look like a big button, the way the shaft got a little thicker in the middle. The skin a healthy red, pubes neat, sac soft and heavy below. Silver’s mouth watered. He wanted to swallow him whole.
A clear drop welled from the slit, and he licked it. Then stopped. “Condom?”
Zeb made a strangled, cut-off sound, but Silver was pretty sure it was “Oh fuck.”
Zeb’s dick bumped against Silver’s lips. He avoided the crown and moved his mouth down the shaft, full intent kisses, tasting salt-sex-man.
“You jerked off.” He made sure the words vibrated against the tight skin.
Zeb made that strangled sound again. Definitely oh fuck. “Had to. Or I’d’ve come in my pants when I saw you—uhn—the marina. Please.”
Silver used his tongue on the underside. Tracing the vein from root to tip.
“Please.” It wasn’t a whine but no less desperate, and Silver had to spare a hand to make room in his pants for his own needy dick.
He fished a condom out of the side pocket of his cargo shorts, tearing the wrapper with his teeth before going back to lick every inch of Zeb’s shaft. This Silver knew how to do. Hell, he was really damned good at it. And if he could rock Zeb’s world back then, all this experience should be good for sending him into orbit.
Silver pulled the condom out.
“We’re okay without it.” Zeb’s breathing was uneven, but Silver understood every word.
Still, he hesitated.
“Your mouth is healed, right?”
Silver made a jerk of a nod. He wanted this, nothing between them, like he’d wanted their clothes to melt away, their bodies to melt into each other. They couldn’t fuck raw, but maybe they could have this. Zeb’s hands landed on Silver’s head, dick right at his lips. He waited for the rough tug forward, waited to be dragged onto a cock until it filled his throat. But fingers sifted through his hair, and a thumb brushed gently across his unbruised cheek. Because this wasn’t every other guy, it was Zeb.
“I want to feel you. Please.”
Silver parted his lips and sank down. Zeb made a sigh like it held every bit of air in his lungs, showing the relief he might have after hearing the apocalypse was canceled. The hand on Silver’s head cradled his neck, steady support instead of pressure.
Not a hand keeping him there like Zeb thought Silver would stop, and not tickling soft like he was too fragile. But like he mattered. Wasn’t just a wet hole.
Silver pulled back enough to circle the thick ridge at the crown with his tongue, leaving only the tip in his mouth, then went down to the base, swallowing, holding Zeb deep.
His fingers gripped Silver’s neck but didn’t push, didn’t grind into Silver’s nose.
Silver rocked back and forth to make his throat tighten and squeeze around the head.
Zeb grunted as if he were the one who couldn’t get a breath. One hand rubbed the base of Silver’s skull, the other combed through his hair in time to the ohGodohGodohGodohGod bursting from Zeb’s lips.
Silver’s left eye watered. Not from choking, but from the hand in his hair. He’d gotten used to guys wanting to play with it, but it had never been right. He’d gone so far as to buzz most of it off at one point because it bothered him. How wrong, how different it was.
He’d missed this more than anything. Zeb’s fingers in his hair. The way he’d stroke it sometimes like he didn’t know he was doing it.
Silver forgot everything he knew about getting a guy off fast and hard. He clung to Zeb’s hips, and Zeb’s hand slid through his hair. It wasn’t Silver giving a blow job; it was them doing something together. A steady bob at their pace. Silver flicked his tongue not for effect but for a taste, sucked for the silky press on his palate, for the sound Zeb made when Silver swallowed around him.
He didn’t need the verbal warning when Zeb gasped. “I’m—” Silver felt it in the grip on his hair, the shake and shudder in Zeb’s legs, and the throb of the vein against his lips. Silver wanted Zeb’s orgasm as deep inside as he could get it and took him down to the root, Zeb’s cock gliding on the thick come that coated Silver’s tongue and throat from the very first blast.
When Zeb’s hips stilled, Silver swallowed and drew off slowly, keeping the tiled floor pristine.
Zeb’s fingers made circles against Silver’s scalp as they both caught their breaths.
Zeb’s thumb pressed into the corner of Silver’s mouth, wiping something away.
Silver’s stomach dropped straight down into the water below them, and he scrambled to his feet, turning to look in the mirror.
“What’s wrong?”
He ignored Zeb in favor of getting an inch from the glass and examining every inch of his lip, inside and out.
“It’s okay.” Zeb wrapped his arms around Silver from behind, leaning over his shoulder so both their faces stared back from the mirror. “See?”
What Silver saw was his mouth swollen and his eyes wide with fear. Zeb was the opposite, happy and relaxed—which, yeah, Silver had something to do with, so yay on him for that.
Silver nodded. Zeb kissed his neck, his shoulder, a soft trace of lips, leaving a buzzing path on the skin, one hand spread wide on Silver’s stomach.
His dick had wilted in that moment of panic, but the kisses, the ones under his ear with a hint of tongue and teeth—added to the way Zeb’s fingers were petting along the trail of hair—reversed the blood flow. By the time Zeb’s fingers were skating toward the waistband, Silver’s cock was stretching up to say hi. He tucked his abs and rocked his hips to force the meeting, getting Zeb’s knuckles to barely graze the head.