The Tinder Stories Page 7
“No, you just fuck them,” Chris snapped, and stood up.
Morgan leaned back in his chair and regarded Chris with an unreadable expression. “It seems I do, yes.”
“Not tonight, you don’t,” Chris said with the most sarcastic smile he could muster and grabbed the keys to his bike off the counter.
It grated on him even more when he’d made it all the way to the driveway without Morgan coming after him, but that was nothing unusual. Morgan never came after him when they argued, and their disagreements never varied from this same pattern. Depending on whose house they were in, either Chris or Morgan ended up leaving the scene before things escalated to the shouting level, and the other person never chased after the one who’d left.
That would only be something people in a real relationship did.
He jammed his helmet on his head and straddled his bike, glad he’d ridden his motorcycle instead of driving his car. Chris had no intention of going straight home, and his bike was really good for blowing off steam.
He rode for an hour and a half through the winding streets of Oceanside until his growling stomach forced him to stop for something to eat. Chris downed a couple of fast-food tacos, thinking regretfully of his favorite Chinese food that he’d brought to Morgan’s that night and was now probably gracing the inside of the garbage can.
Stomach full, Chris hopped back on his bike and took the long way home, passing close to the beach and glimpsing one or two couples sitting near the fire pits. He let himself pretend for a minute that something like that would be nice—to just sit in public with someone who actually liked you and wasn’t afraid if other people knew. Sort of like how things would be in a real relationship.
Chris blinked and scolded himself firmly; that was not what he’d started out wanting from Morgan, and it wasn’t what he wanted now. They weren’t right for each other, the two of them. The age difference and power struggle and continuous bickering made it clear that this was definitely not a match made in heaven. They just didn’t suit.
Except in bed, a voice whispered, too insistent to be drowned out by the hum of Chris’s engine. You suit just fine there. More than fine.
His cock twitched at the thought, and his bike veered slightly before he dragged himself back under control. Yeah, so they had sparks in bed, so what? Sex was a poor excuse for staying with someone you didn’t even like that much. Never mind the fact that his dick was like iron in his tight pants just from the thought. Never mind the fact that he found himself leaning forward in his seat to get a little more pressure on his erection. And never mind the fact that he was breaking the speed limit so he could get home and jack off.
Chris had already swung a leg over the seat before he’d even come to a complete stop in the garage. Yanking the key out of the ignition and slamming a hand down on the electric garage door opener on the wall, he didn’t stop to see if the door even lowered before he was inside his house and ripping at the Velcro closure on his fly.
It was still and dark and silent in his living room, his erratic breathing the only sound he could hear as he dropped down on the couch and finally got his pants open. His breathing changed from soft panting to a sharp hiss when Chris finally got his hand around his cock, finding the head wet and slippery and all the skin taut beneath his fingers.
He was still dressed in full riding gear, minus his gloves, but it didn’t matter when he started stroking himself and his head fell back against the couch with a thump. A tight fist and sharp pulls brought him right to the edge of orgasm in record time. Chris tried to hold it off, thought maybe he could convince himself that this had nothing to do with Morgan if he made it last longer than thirty seconds, but just the thought of Morgan’s name and the wicked things he could do with his mouth made it a futile task.
Two more strokes and Chris was groaning out loud to his empty house, thrusting up hard into the tunnel of his fingers and feeling slick, wet warmth coat his hand and fall onto his rumpled T-shirt. It was a long time before he moved.
He spent the rest of the night alternating between flipping channels on the television and giving the telephone sidelong glances. Morgan wouldn’t call; he never did. Chris usually didn’t either. There was the very rare occasion when Chris was able to admit to himself that he’d been a dick and would call Morgan to apologize, but those times were few and far between. And Morgan never called, whether he’d been a dick or not. He just showed up a few days later, and whatever they’d argued over was forgotten.
Chris shoved the phone to the floor.
THE NEXT day was an overtime shift, and Chris was glad for it. He needed the money, but more than that, he needed the distraction. The argument with Morgan the night before had kept him awake until long past midnight, and Chris was annoyed at himself for giving a shit.
The station where he’d picked up the shift was nearer to the freeway than Chris’s own station, so many of their calls were for auto accidents rather than actual fires or medical aids. Chris didn’t mind; it was something different from the norm, and it was nice to work with a medic partner who knew nothing at all about him and Morgan Daniels. No questions, no knowing looks, no smirking. Just work, and lots of it.
They were kept busy all day long, so much so that they didn’t have time to do the grocery shopping for dinner. Supper was takeout, picked up on the way back from the hospital where Chris and his partner Greg had just dropped off the latest victim of rush-hour traffic.
He sighed now and poked at the last of his lukewarm pasta. He could have made something ten times better than what they’d gotten from the merely average Italian place around the corner. At least there was what looked like homemade pie on the counter; one good thing about working at a station in a busy neighborhood was the never-ending supply of baked goods that were dropped off for the firefighters.
It managed to stay quiet long enough for Chris to down two pieces of pie—ice cream included, naturally—and settle himself in one of the recliners near the television for nearly an hour after dinner. He was just thinking about possibly going to bed early when the alarm rang for the seventh time that day.
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, heaving himself up and making a beeline for the garage.
Greg made a sympathetic noise at him and Chris felt a twinge of guilt; this was his job, after all. Even though sometimes it beat the shit out of him.
Yet another accident on the freeway, this time involving a motorcycle. Chris’s ears perked up on the way as he listened to dispatch come over the radio and brief his captain on what they could expect once they got there. It wasn’t often he went on calls involving bikes, and when he did, it both intrigued and horrified him. The intrigue was for the details: How did it happen? Was it the rider’s fault or the cars around him? How could it have been prevented?
The horrified part was because Chris knew it could just as easily have been him.
They pulled over on the side of the freeway where the two police cars had already blocked a lane for them. One of the other firefighters on Chris’s engine hopped down and began placing safety cones all around the rig, although Chris had a feeling the rest of the freeway would be shut down shortly, if the debris from the rider’s bike strewn all about the road was anything to go by.
The debris, however, was nothing compared to the actual state of the motorcycle. Chris had just grabbed the medic box and come around the front of the engine to look for the patient when he saw it. Blinking, unsure of what he was actually seeing due to the darkness, he was barely aware of when he dropped the drug box with a crash.
The bike was literally broken in half.
Even that alone wouldn’t have stopped him so solidly in his tracks. Chris had seen his share of ugly things in his two years on the department. Blood, gore, burns, broken bones—there really wasn’t anything that turned his stomach these days. There was no room in his line of work for shrinking violets; this sort of job didn’t lend itself to the pleasant side of life. No, it wasn’t just the mangled stat
e of the motorcycle.
It was the fact that it was Morgan’s bike.
The rotating lights from both the fire engine and police cars glinted off the cherry paint on the one intact side panel of the bike. It created a surreal sort of disco effect, especially considering that Chris found himself transfixed by the flashing light as he walked like a zombie toward the wreckage.
The front wheel and handlebars were closest to him; the seat and rear tire were a little ways off. Completely forgetting about the medic box, Chris found it difficult to take a deep breath as he crouched down next to the bike and reached out a trembling hand to touch it.
The only thought that was clear in that instant was that Chris hadn’t called Morgan after their fight. Never mind the fact that Morgan had been the one to act like the asshole this time, never mind the fact that Morgan never called, never mind the fact that this argument had been no different than the one they’d had last week and the week before that.
It didn’t matter. Chris knelt there on the freeway, one hand on the remains of the motorcycle before him, and none of it mattered. Fragments of pictures began flickering through his mind, sort of like an old filmstrip with no sound. Morgan lying sated and stretched out in Chris’s bed. Morgan raising one sardonic eyebrow at him. Morgan dressed in crisp suit and starched shirt, dropping his briefcase on the floor of Chris’s foyer and reaching for him with a wicked smile and a cock already hard in his slacks.
He perhaps would have crouched there on the street indefinitely, playing the movie in his head over and over again, if not for Greg dropping down next to him with the drug box. “Matthews?” he asked, puzzled.
Chris blinked and literally shook himself out of his daze. He started with a shake of his head and then made himself remove his hand from the piece of metal, shaking it as if he could get rid of the feel on his skin. “Yeah. Where is he?”
“The vic? Dunno.” Greg shrugged and indicated the shrubbery to the side of the freeway. “They can’t find him.”
He turned his head to stare at Greg. “They what?”
“They can’t find him. Look.”
Chris cast a glance over his shoulder and realized Greg was right. No less than three firemen and two police officers were combing the bushes with high-powered flashlights, shouting to one another as they searched. “The fuck?” he said in wonderment, rising to his feet.
“Guy was thrown, I guess,” Greg said, getting up with Chris. “They’re gonna start using the infrared heat sensor in a minute if he doesn’t turn up.”
Chris strode toward the shoulder of the road where Greg’s captain was directing the rest of his crew to start setting up the infrared sensor. “Don! The fuck? You can’t find the victim?”
Don shook his head sharply. “He’s probably down the embankment, but it’s too damn dark to see. The infrared cam’ll find him.”
There really was nothing for Chris to do but wait while they raised the tall ladder on the back of the fire truck and sent up a firefighter with the infrared. He and Greg stood next to each other, craning their necks up high and waiting for some signal that the camera had detected a heat source in the bushes.
“Got him!” came the call, finally, just as Chris thought he might go insane with the waiting.
Greg nudged him and Chris started toward the side of the road, knowing the searchers wouldn’t move the patient until Greg and Chris had ensured he was safe to transport. He and Greg half slid down the little hill, gravel crunching and rolling under their feet, until they arrived at the spot where two guys stood over the man who lay partially concealed under the bushes.
The victim lay facing away from Chris, one arm bent at an odd angle beneath him. Chris didn’t have to be on top of him to know the arm was broken, but that was probably the least of the patient’s problems. Chris dropped to a crouch and went to open the drug box, vaguely wondering when he’d switched over to autopilot. It was good, though. The routine was methodical and calming. He was a little blank and distant, but that was okay, right? Made his job easier.
He swallowed against the constriction in his throat and steeled himself. Greg finished the initial check, and after securing the neck brace around the unconscious rider, he looked up at Chris. Chris nodded at him, and they both reached out their hands at the same time to turn the patient to his back. In one smooth, practiced move, they settled him in the dirt, and Chris took a deep breath before glancing up at the victim.
Not Morgan.
Chris almost laughed out loud in relief before remembering where he was and snapping his mouth closed. It wasn’t Morgan; it was someone else. Some poor unfortunate bastard who was probably going to spend months in recovery, if he even lived. Chris watched Greg put the IV port into the back of the man’s wrist in preparation for the needle he’d receive in the ambulance.
Not Morgan.
If he’d been asked the question an hour ago, Chris could not have said with any sort of certainty how he would feel about Morgan being taken away from him. After all, hadn’t he spent the last several months reminding himself that this wasn’t a relationship? Why the hell should Chris care if Morgan was or wasn’t around?
But that was an hour ago. Now, as Chris and Greg loaded the patient as carefully as they could into the back of the rig, Chris knew the answer was different.
AS SOON as his relief showed up, Chris hopped into his truck and drove. He didn’t turn on the radio, choosing instead to put the window all the way down and listen to the sound of the air rushing through. He knew he wouldn’t have heard anything that the stereo played anyway.
He got where he was going and was out of the truck before even being conscious of stopping in the driveway. There was a key on his key ring, and Chris realized vaguely that he’d never even used it until now. Slipping it into the lock, he let himself into the house and listened to the silence.
Chris found Morgan in the kitchen, casual in a T-shirt and nylon track pants, the remains of his breakfast still in front of him and the newspaper in his hands. The look on his face was one of mild curiosity, not surprise. “Hello, Mr. Matthews,” Morgan said with familiar calm.
Chris didn’t bother letting the usual frustration or irritation rise up. That wasn’t why he was here, and it was all surface emotion anyway; anything he could do to tamp down the real flow of feeling that he thought both of them were ignoring. Except it had turned less into the protection of themselves and more into a habitual game, one that would only end with a winner and a loser, and that sure as hell wasn’t the way Chris wanted to play it.
Tugging gently at Morgan’s T-shirt, Chris had him rise to his feet before stepping into the circle of his arms and kissing him. Light, feather touches across his mouth and nuzzling at his cheeks, Chris closed gritty, burning eyes and breathed in the scent that had become wanted and needed without him realizing it. “I’m sorry,” he said, almost before he knew the words were surfacing.
He felt rather than saw the ensuing frown. “You’re sorry?” Morgan repeated, his hands coming up to rest on Chris’s hips. “That’s not a usual statement for you.”
“That’s why I’m saying it,” Chris replied, shifting closer and liking how he could feel Morgan’s nipples tighten even through the fabric of their shirts.
The confusion on Morgan’s face was almost worth it; was almost worth the terror Chris had felt last night as he knelt on the freeway over what he had thought to be Morgan’s injured form. Almost.
Words would only fuck things up, and Chris didn’t want to talk. A gentle pull at the hem of Morgan’s T-shirt was all it took to walk both of them to the bedroom, and another light tug brought them down onto the bed together. Their clothes were shed without fanfare, and when they were warm and naked and pressed up against each other, Chris became aware for the first time of how hard he actually was.
“I want you,” he murmured to Morgan, and it didn’t escape Chris’s notice that he’d almost used “need” instead of “want.” It also didn’t escape notice that Morgan drew in a
n almost imperceptible breath at Chris’s words, and his pupils dilated enough to make the gray only a tiny sliver around the black.
Morgan reached down and brought one of Chris’s hands to his cock, jutting forward with a little silvery bead of fluid at the tip. “It seems to be mutual,” Morgan murmured, then closed his eyes when Chris wrapped his fingers around and squeezed.
Chris stayed there for a while, running his fingers the length of the silky prick in his hand and drinking in the warmth of Morgan’s body. There was a firm thigh up against his own cock and Chris thrust lazily against it, liking the pressure and the closeness and the silence. A kiss under Morgan’s chin, and then Chris traced the hard line of Morgan’s jaw with his tongue, waiting until he heard another indrawn breath before rising up and urging Morgan to his back.
Chris straddled him and stared down into heavy-lidded, stormy eyes. A roll of his hips made those eyes go from gray to flinty pewter in the space of a moment. “What brought this on?” Morgan finally asked, with a lick to his bottom lip.
He didn’t know, so Chris kissed him instead. Long and wet and with tongue stroking and mating with Morgan’s until both of them were taking deep breaths and grinding against each other. Morgan’s cock was still in his hand, slippery with fluid and feeling hot enough to leave a brand. Chris knew he could get the man off that way, knew he could give Morgan three good tugs and he’d be coming. But it wasn’t what he wanted.
Up and over and then Chris was above him and reaching under the bed pillows for a condom and the expensive lube Morgan favored. It wasn’t their usual position, and Morgan noticed immediately. “Feeling toppy, hm?” he murmured, although the usual light sarcasm that accompanied almost everything he said was absent.
Chris’s answer was to breach him with two slick fingers while holding Morgan’s gaze. He donned the rubber and used the leftover lube on his hand to coat himself, all the while watching Morgan’s face and still not quite understanding what was driving him. Whatever it was, Chris let it take over as he finished prepping Morgan and then slid straight home, pressing right up against Morgan’s prostate and staying there.