Blind Spot Page 4

  “Sure thing.”

  Isaiah got up, presumably for lube and condoms. There was no reason they couldn’t go at it on the couch—it wouldn’t have been the first time—but Ben followed him into the bedroom. He got to keep touching that way.

  It took them a few minutes to undress. Clothes came off one layer at a time, with lots of open-mouthed kisses and caressing along the way, even as their cocks swelled. Clearly, they’d gone headfirst into can’t-keep-our-hands-off-each-other territory, and Ben hoped this was a stage they’d be in for a good long time. Maybe forever, like those couples who drove everyone else crazy. He could see it happening.

  When they were nude as they days they were born but considerably more erect, Isaiah knelt and took the tip of Ben’s cock in his mouth.

  “Oh yeah,” said Ben. It was difficult to say which was hotter, the feel or the visual.

  A minute later, as Isaiah took in more of his length, the beard tickled his thigh. Tickling was not so hot. Once the sensation turned into rubbing, though, Ben was pleased. It was pretty much impossible for him to have too much stimulation during a blowjob.

  “Don’t make me come like this.”

  Isaiah correctly interpreted the remark as a suggestion to ease up. He teased with his tongue for a bit longer before standing up and pushing Ben back onto the bed. “I love your dick,” he said conversationally while grabbing the lube. “Look at that gorgeous thing. So damn glad I don’t have to share it anymore.”

  As was to be expected from a red-blooded man, Ben was very partial to his cock. At the moment he was even more interested in Isaiah’s, which waved appealingly as he crawled across the bed. He was already familiar with that cock, and now planned to map out every centimeter of it, from the dark brown base to the pink-toned head, until he knew it as well as his own. This would take a long time, seeing how he’d enjoyed a good fifteen years of figuring out his dick’s unique characteristics and preferences.

  He was looking forward to every year of learning Isaiah’s.

  “I’m a one-dick man now,” he said. “I mean, other than mine.”

  “Good,” said Isaiah, and he started rubbing around Ben’s hole.

  Some guys got off on a bare minimum of prep. Ben had never understood the appeal, and the process was more than a means to an end for him. If done well, it was a hell of a lot of fun.

  Isaiah did it very well. He wasn’t satisfied until he’d reduced Ben to desperation, in no small part because he stubbornly avoided the prostate.

  “Come on, Ize. Need you now.”

  Finally, finally, Isaiah rolled on a condom and slung Ben’s legs over his shoulders. “You’re so hot, babe,” he said. “Just showing my appreciation.”

  “You can appreciate my ass while your dick is inside it.”

  “If you insist.”

  All the stretching had gotten him plenty ready to welcome Isaiah’s cock with minimal discomfort, which quickly faded into pleasure. “Mmm, yeah. Much better.”

  He took a moment to savor the little moan Isaiah made while sliding in. Ben had known for quite some time that he appreciated aural stimulation, even the subtlest noises that resulted as part of sex, and Isaiah’s quiet expressions of lust therefore made the whole experience that much more arousing.

  “I want to ride you,” Ben said.

  “Be my guest.”

  They rearranged their bodies quickly, Isaiah lying on his back so Ben could lower himself down on his lover’s cock. Once comfortably seated, he started a smooth rocking motion that hit all the right places. Isaiah grunted out his enthusiasm for the rhythm and thrust in counterpoint.

  This wasn’t fucking. It was making love, and it was perfect.

  It was going to be over far too soon, but that was okay. Instead of occasional hookups, they could jump each other whenever they wanted now, and Ben had no doubt that would be often.

  Once Isaiah grabbed his cock, he didn’t last long. Another particularly good hit to his prostate and he spurted all over Isaiah’s sexy chest. Cum-covered was a good look for him.

  Isaiah grabbed his hips during the last wave of orgasm and really went to town. Ben was pliant, trying his best to keep up a pace while his body was ready to crash, and he was grateful it didn’t take long. With a long, low groan, Isaiah threw back his neck and came.

  Much as he wanted to collapse on Isaiah, he really hated getting cum in his chest hair. Somehow, therefore, he dredged up the energy to lift himself off Isaiah’s dick before he hit the mattress in an uncoordinated heap.

  Once Isaiah cleaned himself up, he gave Ben a sated smile. “You’re staying tonight, right?”

  “Course I am.”

  “Good.” He scooted closer—how was he still able to move?—so they were near enough to call it cuddling. Not plastered all over each other, which was no good when they were both sweaty, but side by side with arms touching.

  Ben dozed off. When he woke up, Isaiah was watching him and looking extremely pleased with himself.

  “You have a thing for wearing me out to the point I can’t stay awake?” asked Ben.

  “Yep. Tells me I was very thorough.”

  Ben’s stomach rumbled.

  “And I worked up your appetite,” added Isaiah.

  “Yeah, well, I wasn’t focused on eating earlier.”

  “Let’s hit the fridge, then.”

  They ended up sitting together on the couch with beef stew, which Ben felt much better for inhaling. He set aside his bowl with a yawn. “Great. You sexed me up, you fed me, and now I’m ready for bed.”

  Isaiah reached for his phone. “I should put my sister out of her misery first. She’s gotta be waiting to hear how her interfering turned out.”

  “Incredibly well, I’d say.”

  “Yeah, and I’m sure that’ll come back to bite us in the ass someday. Here we go: Thank you. Oh, look at that, she’s already typing a reply,” he said with no surprise whatsoever. “Let’s see, she says, Ben got his head out of the sand? Thank God.”

  “I’m not sure if I should be concerned she thinks so little of me, or grateful she wants me to be with you anyway.”

  “Don’t overthink it.”

  It was good advice, and anyway, he had better things to do than worry about Marlene’s opinion. Namely, scooting over so he could put his head on Isaiah’s shoulder.

  He traced the outline of one pec, enjoying the simple pleasure of being able to touch Isaiah outside of sex. “It’s more fun on this end. Love, I mean.”

  “You’re not going to give up on your gift, are you?”

  The comfortable presence of Isaiah’s arm resting on his shoulder told him they both wanted the non-sexual touch, and knowing it made him feel more confident somehow. This relationship had to be right.

  “Never. I’ll be a matchmaker until I die. Actually, I can see myself old and frail, trying to get a couple nurses together before I kick the bucket.”

  “Sounds like you.”

  Knowing what the people he set up could have just made his work that much more special. He’d spent his life looking at love from the outside, and sure, it was satisfying to his sixth sense when people found their partners, but this was something different entirely. It was viscerally real, and he started to suspect this was the magnet-latching happening to him. Maybe they were magnets who’d been trying to come together for the past year and a half.

  He’d been an idiot to wait so long for this.

  “Ize?”

  “Yeah?”

  “My lease is up in three months.” Ben had liked his apartment just fine ever since he moved in four years ago. Suddenly it lost all appeal because Isaiah was on the other side of town, though to be honest, anything less than the same place wouldn’t have been close enough.

  “Don’t renew it,” said Isaiah. He dropped a kiss on the top of Ben’s head. “Move here.”

  “I was hoping you would say that.” Isaiah owned his place, so it made far more sense that Ben did the relocating.

  “I’
ve waited long enough for this. I’m sure, babe.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Even without the cupidar?” His voice wasn’t harsh, just curious.

  “Yes. I’ve come to the realization that you being my number one priority tells me everything I need to know.”

  There was more to life, and love, than his gift. It was all clear now, his past thoughts about Isaiah lining up to spell “You love him, idiot” in neon lights, and somehow the blind spot didn’t seem so important anymore.

  “Just so you haven’t only heard it from my sister,” said Isaiah, “I love you.”

  “Love you, too, Ize.”

  Other people were going to have to make do with less help finding their partners for a while. The lion’s share of Ben’s time would be devoted to enjoying his own man.

  Epilogue

  A Year Later

  Ben had no sooner gotten through the front door than he announced, “We have to get boutonnieres after all.”

  “Why?” asked Isaiah. “Regardless of what your mom says, I don’t need flowers to feel like I’m getting married.”

  “I know.” Ben had never considered it his problem that their simple wedding plans weren’t to his mother’s taste. “We got a new client at work today, and you’ll never guess whose match she is.”

  “In that case, don’t leave me in suspense.”

  “Jake’s.”

  Isaiah’s eyebrows shot up, so he definitely hadn’t guessed. “My brother pinged your cupidar? Are you going to tell him?”

  “Wasn’t planning on it.”

  Ben had let Marlene in on his secret after she’d made one too many remarks about how long Isaiah had kept his love hidden. It didn’t seem fair that she thought Isaiah was the romantic coward in their relationship, and once she knew, she understood why Isaiah hadn’t seen any reason to confess his feelings. She’d also asked Ben approximately a million questions about his gift, so he wasn’t looking to go through another inquisition any time in the next decade.

  “It might be for the best,” said Isaiah. “Jake’s not the most open-minded guy about things he can’t see with his own eyes.”

  He really wasn’t, and Ben didn’t need one of his future in-laws thinking he was mentally unbalanced. “I like your brother and all, but he’s a skeptic through and through.”

  “True. You’re planning to get him to meet this woman anyway, I’m sure.”

  “Of course,” said Ben.

  “Okay, that’s great, but what does Jake’s love life have to do with boutonnieres?”

  Ben had it all worked out. “She’s a florist. It’s perfect. All we have to do is order boutonnieres and ask Jake to pick them up the morning of our wedding. We’ll have him get there early, so he has plenty of time to flirt.” It would be the easiest match he ever made.

  “Only you would see our wedding as a chance to matchmake.” Isaiah smiled fondly. “I guess I can wear the stupid flower for my brother’s sake.”

  “It’s a small price to pay.”

  “And hey, if Jake bitches about picking up boutonnieres and then finds the woman of his dreams when he gets there, I’m gonna get a lot of teasing mileage.”

  The Pences were a bunch of teasers, which Ben still found odd but all the same preferred over his own, less-than-warm family. “Well, I’m glad you’ll both make out in the deal. I aim to please.”

  “You please,” said Isaiah with a smile. “I just don’t get all this fuss about how we look. I’d marry you in my pajamas.”

  “You sleep naked,” said Ben.

  “And your point is?”

  “If we got married without any clothes on, I’d have to interrupt the ceremony to give you a blowjob, and that would get awkward with our families watching.”

  Isaiah shuddered at the idea. “On second thought, suits are good.”

  Ben laughed and kissed him. “We’ll save nudity for the honeymoon.”

  He might not care about a fancy wedding, but he had definite thoughts what came after, including a great deal of time spent enjoying marital sex. They’d work in some time enjoying the Caribbean cruise offerings, of course. He was looking forward to snorkeling. All the same, a honeymoon was supposed to be a sex-fest, and Ben had ordered new chaps for the occasion.

  In six and a half weeks, Isaiah would be his husband. Ben couldn’t wait. It didn’t matter anymore that he hadn’t found anyone with his gift, because he knew they were perfect together even without his sixth sense.

  Not bad for a recovering romantic coward.

  The End

  www.jessiepinkham.net

  BONUS SAMPLE CHAPTER

  SURVIVORS

  Jessie Pinkham

  Copyright © 2017

  Chapter One

  I can stand in front of my family’s memorial stones without crying now, possibly because I’ve run out of tears. I reach down for the reassurance of patting Sadie, my chocolate lab.

  “Tim would be mortified that his name isn’t carved evenly,” I tell her. My brother was a graphic designer and as such a stickler for visual details.

  Sadie licks my hand in response. The dog is my constant companion, to the point that she howls if she can’t sleep in my bedroom. After Mom, Dad, Tim, and Paula died I think she’s been terrified of losing me, too. There’s no immediate danger of that; I think it’s been pretty clearly established that I’m one of the ‘lucky’ eight percent.

  Eight percent of us either immune to or able to survive the plague. The global population had been 7.3 billon, or was it 7.4? I think it was 7.4. That leaves… I scratch out the math in the dirt. Just under 600 million people alive by the time the plague travels around the Earth. That, of course, doesn’t count the people who will die in the aftermath, a number I can’t begin to calculate.

  “Though I doubt Tim could’ve done better. Rocks are tougher than his computer programs.” Even for me, and I was never good at computer graphics.

  Sadie leans into me so I rub behind her other ear. She’s one of the few ways I hold on to my sanity. Even after the end of the world, chocolate lab kisses are comforting.

  We stand for another minute in front of the memorial stones. Plague victims were cremated in groups, but I’d needed something to show that my family had existed, so I’d found four stones of roughly the same size. It was a painstaking process to carve the names and the final result is messy, but it has to do.

  My parents, my brother, and my sister-in-law are all represented. My sister is not, another way I hold on to my sanity. Lily was at NYU when the plague hit the US.

  The Severny virus, brought to us courtesy of researchers drilling ice cores on Severny Island, started as no big deal. First everyone Googled “Severny Island” and got a quick crash course in Siberian geography. We’d had virus scares before and this, we all figured, would be just another one.

  Once the virus started gaining traction, the world ground to a halt. It’s a minor consolation, but one of the last stories I saw on TV featured the Diablo Canyon power plant being shut down, and I hope other nuclear reactors around the world were shut down as well. We have enough problems without another Chernobyl or Fukushima.

  People stopped going to work, so we lost communications and utilities, but that didn’t stop Severny. Damn those scientists for digging the virus up in the first place. It had been perfectly harmless trapped in ice for thousands of years.

  The last time I talked with Lily she was trying to get a train ticket home, because the government cancelled flights just hours before she was supposed to fly back. Once that happened and news broke that Severny had gone airborne, panic ensued pretty quickly and we started losing communication.

  Lily could’ve made it across the country by now, but it hasn’t been long enough for me to give up hope. It’s only been a few weeks since we talked.

  In the meantime, Sadie and I keep busy on the farm. Of Mom and Dad’s three kids, I was always the one who loved the farm and we all knew I’d take over eventually, but none of us imaged it wou
ld be like this.

  “Come on, girl,” I say. “Time to help Roy fix his henhouse.”

  Sadie is content to follow me a half mile down the road to Roy Woodham’s farm. He’d retired three or four years ago, passed the farm on to his daughter and son-in-law, but they died of Severny. The youngest of their four girls, Beth, survived and gave Roy a reason to keep living.

  Roy has hope, too. His son was military, stationed in Germany when the plague hit. Roy hopes that his son, daughter-in-law, and grandson are alive—or, realistically, at least one of them is still alive. He’ll probably never know, but these days we don’t question what helps a person get out of bed in the morning.

  There’s no need for a leash with Sadie. She’ll occasionally run to chase a squirrel, but she never goes too far before she comes back. The dog hates to be away from me that much.

  It’s a beautiful northern California day, not that we have enough civilization in place to have the state of California anymore. I used to whistle on days like this, but I haven’t felt like whistling since the plague. Sometimes I sing sad songs for the catharsis, even though Sadie doesn’t think much of my singing ability.

  On the way to Roy’s I think about my food preservation plans. I’m planning a shed built to hold pumpkins, on shelves to maximize longevity. We used to have visitors come to our pumpkin patch to pick their own, which means we planted a lot of pumpkins. I’ll go into what’s left of the town and spread the word that folks are welcome to come get pumpkins when they’re ripe.

  I’ll have protein throughout the winter because the chickens will still lay. Not as many eggs, which will reduce what I can give away on my Monday trips to town, but I’ll have enough. I found a manual grist mill in the barn and an extra at the feed store, which I didn’t pay for because the store owners and employees were all dead. It still felt like stealing, but I’ll be able to grind corn meal.