Afterburn Read online

  The Todd brothers were contractors and they’d built a fantastic kitchen for Mona Marchetti. She’d lived in that kitchen, spending most of her days there, until the day Bas’s youngest sister Rita had talked their mom into moving to Florida where her widowed sister lived. Since Rita lived in that area too, dividing her time between teaching at Florida State University and doing something she never talked about at the Florida Center for Advanced Aero-Propulsion, it meant at least one of his siblings could keep an eye on their mother. The rest of the family used Rita’s place as a staging area for all their east coast air show dates so Mona saw her babies on a regular basis.

  Bas pushed open the kitchen door and led the way inside. Behind him, he heard Ryder’s soft footfalls on the flagstones. Tossing his keys onto the granite counter, Bas leaned over the sink, turned on the water and thrust his hands beneath the faucet. He reached for a bottle of soap and gestured toward a door on the far side of the room.

  “Bathroom’s over there if you want to wash up. I’ll have lunch put together in a few minutes.”

  Ryder grinned and headed across the kitchen. Bas stared at the man’s very fine ass until the bathroom door shut. He finished washing his hands. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so intensely attracted to a man. Usually, he suffered from flash in the pan lust. Even the last man he’d been with had started that way, but even though the relationship had evolved into something else, it hadn’t ended well. And he didn’t really want to think about what had happened a year ago, not when he was going to spend the next hour with Ryder Beckett.

  Opening the refrigerator, Bas took out the salad he’d made that morning, the container of dressing, and the foil wrapped loaf of bread he’d spread with garlic butter. By the time Ryder reappeared, the bread was in the broiler, the antipasto salad and homemade dressing on the table and Bas had his hands full of plates and silverware. He quickly set the table while Ryder sniffed the air appreciatively.

  “Umm. Garlic.”

  Bas laughed. “Good thing you like it. I cook with it all the time. The air around the house probably smells of garlic 24/7.”

  Ryder looked at the container of salad dressing. “You make your own dressing? Impressive.”

  With a shrug, Bas pulled a couple of glasses out of a cupboard. “My mom taught us all to cook. I make my own dressing and garlic spread. The bread is loaded with real butter mixed with mashed roasted garlic cloves.”

  A cross-eyed expression of bliss settled on Ryder’s handsome face. “My God. I’m in love.”

  “If you are, you’ll have to get used to kissing a man with garlic breath then,” Bas joked, then realized maybe he’d chosen his words a little too carelessly.

  Ryder’s eyes darkened and he stepped into Bas’s personal space. Their hips brushed and Bas felt his cock spring to life. He held his breath as Ryder leaned in.

  “If it means I get to kiss you, I won’t mind the garlic at all,” he whispered.

  His head dipped and once again, Bas felt the incredible rush of excitement and lust he’d experienced in the apartment. Ryder Beckett wound him tighter than a two dollar watch with nothing more than a light brush of lips. That small, teasing contact made Bas want to push the man onto the table, strip his faded jeans from his long legs, and feast on the cock he could now see outlined beneath the button fly.

  “The bread,” he murmured and slipped away from Ryder, reaching for an oven mitt.

  Minutes later they were seated at the table, eating antipasto salad with Italian dressing, and munching on the crusty bread that dripped with melted butter and creamy garlic spread. Ryder apparently didn’t have any problem with eating lots of garlic. He devoured the bread and when he finally sat back from the table, apologized for making a pig of himself.

  “Sorry man, but that beats fast food and chain restaurants all to hell,” he sighed. “You know how bad it gets when you’re reassigned and in the process of moving.”

  Bas nodded. He did indeed know. Luckily, he was finished with all that now. He’d settled down in the house he’d grown up in, all of his siblings having married and moved into their own homes. By virtue of his sexual orientation, his family had all assumed he’d never get married, never have kids. While he was in the Air Force, they and his parents had all decided that he should get the property. His brothers, Cristiano and Maxim, and twin sisters, Valeria and Veronica, inherited the business in equal shares since they were in fact the Flying Marchettis. Rita hadn’t gotten anything, but she hadn’t wanted or needed anything either. Technically, the house still belonged to Bas’s mother, but to the family, that didn’t mean anything because she refused to live in the house without her husband of forty five years.

  “I was lucky to have put my ducks in a row so I could spend the last six years of my career here. I grew up to the sound of sonic booms, and Edwards has always meant home to me,” Bas admitted. “Coming back here was bittersweet. My dad had just been diagnosed. My siblings took it hard too. I suppose it was easier on me because I’d spent fourteen years away from home. Plus, I’d been to Iraq. I understood war and death in a way they didn’t. My father got it. He always had an uncanny ability to know me better than I knew myself.”

  Ryder’s expression sharpened. His posture tensed slightly and Bas knew what the other man would say before the words even came out.

  “Did he know you were gay?”

  Bas nodded slowly. “Yeah. Like I said, he knew stuff about me before I even did. He’s the one who sat me down and gave me a speech about the birds and bees at age 11 or 12. He also gave me a speech about being open minded and about how some people were different. Not better. Not worse. Just different. And he told me to never be afraid to go after what I wanted nor be ashamed of who I am.”

  “Wow. You’re lucky.” Ryder toyed with his empty water glass. “My dad was a Ranger. When I came out to him at sixteen he told me I’d better never say the word gay to him again. I didn’t. I left at eighteen for the Air Force Academy and you’d have thought that was a slap in the face to him as well since I hadn’t chosen to enter his branch of service. I don’t speak to him. He likes it that way and it’s easier on us both. I talk to my mom on the phone though. They live in Indiana.”

  “You’re an only child?” Bas felt a wave of sympathy wash over him for the pilot. Although his parents had always accepted his sexuality, he knew a number of people whose families struggled with it.

  Ryder shook his head. “I have a brother. He plays hockey professionally. My father brags about him constantly. When I was a Thunderbird, my dad never told a soul. But my mother made up for it. She was so proud. She told my aunts, uncles, cousins, the neighbors. The rest of my family is okay. It’s just my dad who has issues.”

  Bas started to say something about families and tolerance but then something Ryder had said clicked in his head. His mouth dropped open and Ryder gave him an odd look.

  “Your brother…is he Ryan Beckett?” Bas finally managed to ask.

  With a laugh, Ryder nodded. “Yeah. Mr. I-Lost-My-Front-Teeth-But-Look-Ma-I’ve-Got-the-Stanley-Cup!”

  “Damn!” Bas shook his head in awe. “I love your brother!”

  Ryder’s dark blond brows rose. “Won’t do you any good. He’s not gay.”

  For a moment, Bas thought Ryder’s gruff tone meant he was serious. Then he noticed the twinkle of humor in the man’s eyes.

  “I love how fiercely your brother plays hockey,” he quantified, leaning across the table to flick a finger across the back of Ryder’s hand. “I don’t want to suck his cock.”

  The emphasis he placed on the last two words of his sentence sent a wave of color to Ryder’s cheekbones in a flush of arousal. “Well, that was pretty forward of you, Sebastian,” he said with a laugh.

  “Call me Bas.” Bas touched the back of Ryder’s hand again. “I’m not sure how to do this, getting involved with someone in the military. When I did it once before, it turned ugly. I haven’t so much as touched another man in the year since that
ended. Some of it was fear of exposure. I’ve only been off active duty a few months and didn’t want my sexuality causing a problem at the end of my career. The rest of it was probably just the depressing sense that I won’t ever have a true relationship. I’m doomed to a life of quickies, one nighters, and fuck buddies.”

  Ryder half rose from his chair and planted a hand on the table, leaning in close to Bas’s face. “I’ll have a quickie with you if you want. And an all-nighter. But a one nighter?” He shook his head slowly. “Don’t think so. And I’ll fuck you, buddy, but it won’t be because we’re friends. I like you and I want the chance to see if there’s more to this attraction than just the need to get naked with you.”

  “For today, getting naked sounds damned good,” Bas murmured and tipped his face up to Ryder’s.

  Flames came to life in Ryder’s eyes as his face closed in on Bas’s. Warm, garlic-scented breath wafted over him and Bas grinned. As swift as a striking cobra, Ryder took Bas’s mouth in a hot, garlic butter flavored kiss. Bas couldn’t remember the last time a kiss had so affected him. Well, he couldn’t if he discounted the one in the apartment an hour earlier. Ryder’s kisses turned him inside out. Emotionally, the touch of the pilot’s mouth on his rocked him to his core. Sexually, he’d never known a kiss to so completely take hold of his libido. His cock had gone rock hard. His balls ached as if he’d been engaged in foreplay for an hour. He knew damn well he’d leaked pre-cum too. He could feel the lubrication as the head of his cock rubbed against his briefs.

  Tangling his tongue with Ryder’s, Bas sighed into the man’s mouth. He just knew the sex would be off the scale hot. His reactions told him a lot about how Ryder affected him. No way would he be satisfied with a single night from this man so he felt lucky that Ryder wanted more. The slight scrape of stubbled cheek to his own more smoothly shaven one had an eroticism to it that Bas had never felt with anyone else. In the past, he hadn’t really cared about the men he’d been with and kisses were rare because they spoke of intimacy. He didn’t know much about being intimate with a man. Other than his last relationship. Which he would not think about while kissing Ryder Beckett. If things didn’t work out with Ryder, Bas didn’t want to think about what Ryan Beckett might do to him…

  Bas winced and Ryder broke the kiss.

  “Are you okay?” he asked huskily, reaching out to touch Bas’s lower lip with his thumb.

  Bas smiled and nipped Ryder’s appendage. “Yeah. I was just thinking your brother might turn me into a hockey puck if I don’t treat you right.”

  A low chuckle escaped Ryder as he got up and rounded the corner of the table to stand beside Bas’s chair. He slid his fingers into Bas’s hair, caressing his scalp. “Ryan likes me to be happy,” he whispered and tugged on the short strands of hair.

  Bas stood and put his arms around Ryder, pressing his denim clad hips to the pilot’s. He rubbed slowly, feeling his cock grind against the one that strained at Ryder’s fly. A low moan came from the man in his arms. Ryder gripped him by the shoulders, pushing his chest into Bas’s.

  “You don’t know how much I want to be naked with you,” he murmured, his mouth trailing hot kisses along Bas’s jawline.

  Slipping one hand between their bodies, Bas pressed the flat of his palm to the long ridge of Ryder’s cock. “I do. I want it just as much,” he rasped.

  “We’re alone, aren’t we?” Ryder’s tongue trailed along the sensitive line of muscle from the back of his ear, down his neck to his shoulder.

  “Fuck, yeah. It’s my house. I live alone.”

  Bas shuddered then as Ryder gripped his ass with both hands.

  “Unbutton my jeans, Bas.”

  With shaking fingers, Bas popped open the button fly on Ryder’s worn jeans. Warm flesh met his questing fingers. Ryder went commando.

  Bas moaned and wrapped a fist around Ryder’s cock. “God! It’s been too long. I need to…”

  Without warning, he pulled from Ryder’s hold and dropped to his knees. A moment later the fat head of Ryder’s cock rested on his tongue. With a twist, he swirled that tongue around and around Ryder’s cock as he sucked more and more length into his mouth. The salty sweet taste of pre-cum fill his mouth. The scent of musky, aroused male filled his nostrils. Bas could sense his arousal exceeding its usual levels. Something about Ryder turned him on so completely that a couple hours after meeting him, there Bas was, kneeling on his kitchen floor with the man’s dick down his throat.

  God, it felt so good too! Bas loved sucking cock. He loved the taste, smell, texture and sensation of having a cock in his mouth, on his tongue, and pressing against the back of his throat. He didn’t mind penises that were considered smaller although monster dicks gave him pause, but for Bas, those just a bit on the large side of average turned him on most. Ryder fell on the large side of average. Oddly, Bas thought Ryder’s penis looked a lot like his own cock. Just over eight inches, cut, curving slightly to the right. They were very similar in body size and build too.

  “Jeez, Bas. Your tongue…it’s amazing,” Ryder panted. “No one has ever sucked me so well. For a guy who doesn’t do relationships, you deep throat like a pro.”

  Bas backed off, letting Ryder’s dick slip from his lips. “Relationships have nothing to do with sucking cock. I love sucking cock. It was the first thing I ever did sexually. It has always been a huge turn on for me.”

  Ryder stroked his hand over Bas’s head. “I love the way you do it, but if you keep it up, I’m gonna fill your mouth with cum.”

  “Promises, promises,” Bas teased.

  Slowly and carefully, Ryder backed away from Bas. “I want naked. Rolling around on the sheets with dicks flopping naked. Not quickies in the kitchen. Where’s your bedroom?”

  Standing, Bas took Ryder’s hand and led him out of the kitchen. They walked down a hallway lined with doors. Ryder chuckled.

  “This is a lotta house for a single guy,” he commented.

  “When my brothers are in trouble with their spouses they come home to spend the night. The next day, they apologize and all is well. Our bedrooms are pretty much intact from when we were children. Except mine,” Bas explained easily, trying not to fixate on the fat erection exposed by Ryder’s open jeans. A single glance showed him that it bounced and bobbed with every step Ryder took. Bas suppressed a shudder of lust.

  “I turned my old bedroom into an office after I redid the master suite and took it for myself,” he said as he tugged Ryder’s hand, pulling him through the open doorway at the end of the hall. “The room looks nothing like it did when I was growing up. If it did, I wouldn’t be able to sleep here knowing that I and all my siblings were conceived in this room.”

  Ryder chuckled and twined his fingers with Bas’s in a caress. He stepped closer. “It needs new memories,” he murmured. “I’ve a yen to help you make them.”

  Cupping the back of Bas’s head with his free hand, Ryder pulled him in for another kiss. Bas melted. He could have kissed Ryder all day it felt so good, so sweet, so torturously lustful. And it felt so damned right. At the moment, he didn’t care that Ryder was active duty. He didn’t care about all the problems inherent in being gay in the military. He just cared about the man in his arms, the one who made him feel things he’d never felt before. Ryder filled him with a sense of freedom. Every touch of his hands and lips intoxicated Bas in a way no man ever had.

  The rational part of his brain had begun sending out warning notices. He’d just met the guy a couple hours ago. It was too soon, too complicated, too dangerous, too…fucking hot. Yet, he couldn’t resist. For himself, he didn’t have many worries. His job as a civilian contractor didn’t stipulate that he had to be heterosexual. But Ryder couldn’t be out and proud. Walking down the street with the guy, holding hands in public, it was all a big no-no. Not that Bas had any right thinking of those things. He hadn’t even fucked or been fucked. Maybe they wouldn’t be compatible…

  He choked back a derisive snort. The foreplay promised to be a p
re-cursor for the hottest sex of Bas’s life. At thirty-eight years old, after twenty years of furtive, non-personal encounters, Bas wanted more. He wanted intimacy and caring. Apparently, Ryder did too. How things would shake out was anyone’s guess, but Bas had to take the chance and make that first step.

  Ryder stroked his tongue into Bas’s mouth, the thrusts matching the small involuntary thrusts of his hips. Bas tugged at Ryder’s t-shirt and pulled it free of his jeans, yanking it over the younger man’s head as their kiss ended. He stared at the pale golden skin, dusted with golden freckles across the tops of the shoulders. The lean, muscular body looked a lot like his own except that Ryder had a totally hairless chest and a treasure trail from his navel downward.

  Licking his suddenly dry lips, Bas slipped his hands into Ryder’s open jeans. The soft, worn denim hung from the younger man’s hip bones. As Bas curved his hands over Ryder’s taut buttocks, the jeans slipped and fell to the floor. In moments, Ryder had shucked out of his shoes and socks and stepped clear of the jeans.

  Heart thundering like a herd of buffalo − hard, heavy, and relentless – Bas stared at the naked man before him. A tribal band encircled one bicep high up on his arm. The other bicep had a Thunderbirds insignia tattooed on it with an inverted number five. For a moment, Bas admired the artwork, jealousy pricking him. He’d been number five as well, but he’d never thought to get it tattooed on his body. Seeing it on Ryder made him want one. He took pride in his accomplishments in the Air Force and in his service to his country. He’d never been one to brag, but there was something intrinsically personal about the notion of wearing that insignia with the inverted five on it. He wanted one fiercely now. Almost as much as he wanted the man who wore it.

  “You have too many clothes on,” Ryder protested breathlessly as Bas bent his head and traced the five on the red, white and blue tattoo with his tongue.