Ganymede Tilt

Chapter 1-2

“You don’t look fine.”

“I’m not one of your union members, and I don’t think I’m eligible to vote for the representative yet, so you don’t need to schmooze me.”

Sean grinned. “I can have other reasons for being nice to people besides politics. Come on.” He took Alex’s elbow in his hand to guide him. Alex pulled his arm away.

“I know where I live.”

The fact that he got lost twice on the way to the apartment gave the lie to that. At last they reached the door. Only then did Sean lose his cheeky air and look a little awkward. He’d delivered Alex safely to his door as he said he would. Now what?

Alex looked at him and remembered the fine, hard, and well-muscled body under the cheap suit. He wanted it again. It didn’t mean anything. Three times didn’t make Sean his lover. f**k buddies, no more.

“Come in,” Alex said. Not a question. Not an invitation either. More an order, and it made Sean scowl at once. Not someone who liked to be pushed around. “Please,” Alex added.

Sean shrugged. “I could use a coffee.”

He got nowhere near the coffee machine. As soon as the door slid closed behind them, Alex grabbed him and pushed him against the wall. He left the lights off, and dim glows from panels around the room turned Sean’s pale skin blue and ghostly.

He kissed Sean, sucking his tongue in, and grabbed at his shirt, pulling it open, needing warm skin to take away the chill making his limbs feel cold and heavy. Making him feel like dead weight.

“Alex, wait,” Sean said, pushing him back, not hard, his heart not in the protest. “You’re drunk. I should go.”

“No. I’m not that drunk. Stay. I need you to stay.”

“Alex…there are rules. I’d be taking advantage.” He sounded torn. His eyes looked agonized.

Typical union man, worrying about the rules. “f**k the rules.” Alex wanted to be taken advantage of. Fully. Repeatedly.

Before Sean could protest again, Alex dropped to his knees. Sean’s shirt was open to the waist, and Alex pulled it out of his waistband. He fumbled with Sean’s fly until Sean batted his hand away and undid it himself.

Alex grabbed the pants and pulled them roughly down to Sean’s knees, dragging the underwear with them and making Sean yelp at the friction on his c**k. Despite his protest about rules, his c**k was hard and ready. It was a pale, ghostly thing in the darkness, but considerably more substantial than a ghost, solid and hot in Alex’s hand.

He plunged down on it fast, taking it in deep, too quickly, almost choking himself before he pulled back, trying to calm down. Slowly, he said in his head, trying to control his breathing, getting dizzy again. Maybe he was a little too drunk for this.

Sean rested one hand on Alex’s head, stroked down the side of it. The feel of his rough-skinned hand on Alex’s short-cropped hair, teasing his skin, made Alex shiver all over and forget about his dizziness. His c**k felt too confined in his pants, and he needed Sean touching him. But now he had Sean’s c**k in his mouth, had made him a promise when he dropped to his knees, so he set about keeping it.

He straightened up, realizing he’d started to slouch bonelessly—whether from the drink or Sean’s touch, he didn’t know. Bending closer to Sean, he took Sean’s c**k in deeper, closing his eyes, not thinking of anyone else. He was sure of that. Nobody else. This was Sean Morgan, union man and pain in the ass, by all accounts. But possessor of a fine body and good-sized c**k. His scent filled Alex’s mind, musk and sweat and some cheap cologne, a tang of soap. Sean Morgan, nobody else. He sought oblivion in Sean’s body. He barely knew the man. He didn’t care. He only cared who Sean was not.

Sean ground his hips toward Alex’s face, moaning—quietly. He probably shared an apartment and was used to having to keep it down during s*x. Well, he could yell all he liked here. The walls were thick.

Alex had to unzip his own pants and ease his c**k out, because he was going to ruin his suit otherwise. Cold air on it made him gasp. Damn, the heat was too low in here. How had he not noticed? The chill threatened to shrivel him, but he rubbed warmth and life back into it with the hand he wasn’t using to press into Sean’s hip, pushing him back against the wall. Sean thrust at him harder now, pushing against the restraining hand. He put his other hand on Alex’s head, and his touch was less gentle this time, holding him, guiding him, bringing him closer. Coarse hair tickled Alex’s nose, and the head of Sean’s c**k touched his throat. Too late to take it in deeper. Sean let out a cry and climaxed. His c*m filled Alex’s mouth, hosed his throat. Alex moaned, rubbing himself hard, fast, the taste of Sean exciting him beyond control. He pulled back, spat out what he hadn’t already swallowed, and stood, pulling Sean against him. Sean looked at him through glazed eyes, appearing half-asleep, before he snapped back to consciousness. He grinned.

“Hot.”

“Touch me, for f**k’s sake.” Alex rubbed against him, desperate for the friction, grabbing Sean’s hands to bring them between the two of them. Sean pulled his hands away, gripped Alex’s arms, and swung him around to shove him hard against the wall.

“Your turn.”

“Oh God, yes, Sean, do it.”

Sean used one hand to pull Alex’s face closer to his, gripping the side of it, kissing him hard, a bruising kiss, his bristles scraping Alex’s smoother skin. He got his other hand down between them and wrapped it around Alex’s c**k. If his hand, his workingman’s hand with its calloused and hardened skin, had felt good on Alex’s scalp, it felt incredible on the much more sensitive skin of his c**k. Sean teased the underside with his thumb, scraping the heated and tingling flesh. Alex wavered between pleasure and pain, a teasing, nearly scream-inducing sensation. He ground into Sean, wanting more friction, more stimulation, gasping out Sean’s name over and over.

Sean Morgan. Nobody else. Even with eyes closed, there was no confusing him. Rough hands, his own scent, his coarse hair, all so different…Alex arched away from the wall, Sean pulling him closer, one arm around him, the other stroking him rhythmically faster and faster, bringing him closer and closer, until Alex released, sought refuge in the blinding light, the deafening scream of his mind in ecstasy. Nothing else, no pain, no humiliation, just the point of light his mind had become as he sagged into the arms of the man he barely knew, the man he sought peace with.

Sean shook him gently and called his name. “Okay,” he heard Sean say, “let’s get you into bed.”

Yes, bed. He’d like his bed. The alcohol he’d drunk seemed to have suddenly asserted itself, and he was sleepy, floppy in Sean’s arms. Sean maneuvered him to the bedroom and stripped his jacket off before letting him drop onto the bed. Alex lay flat on his back, eyes closed, as Sean took his shoes and pants off, leaving him wearing only his open shirt and his underwear.

Sean sat on the bed, and Alex felt a hand come to rest on his thigh and stroke it. He opened his eyes to see desire still clear on Sean’s face. Did he want more?

“Alex, I want to f**k you so bad.”

“No. I don’t bottom.”

Sean sighed, but he stayed where he was, his hand resting on Alex’s leg, rubbing his thumb gently on the sensitive skin of the inner thigh.

“Don’t you have to go back to the party?” Alex asked.

“No rush.”

They were silent for a few minutes, Alex drifting close to sleep, ready for that oblivion now. Sean had given him some peace for the night. Sean…still close by. He raised his hand, reached for Sean, and heard a muttered swear word. Had he startled Sean? But Sean took his hand and smiled when Alex looked at him through half-closed eyes.

“I thought you were asleep,” Sean said.

“It all went wrong,” Alex sighed out in little more than a whisper. His eyes closed again.

“What did?” Sean asked. His voice sounded so distant. But he still held Alex’s hand. He’d go soon, Alex knew, but he was here now, making the night less cold.

* * * *

“Heather came home an hour ago,” Kathleen said. Kathleen Morgan, Sean’s mom, and his third boss, the leader of the union.

“I was busy.” Why did his mom have to be so ready to babysit Heather’s son? He’d sneaked quietly back into the apartment he shared with her at almost 02:00, expecting she’d have come back from babysitting and be in bed. But no, she’d waited up for him, sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. No wonder she looked tired.

“You do remember you have a meeting with the safety committee tomorrow?” she asked.

“Of course I remember.” With her reminding him of his union duties every five minutes, he could hardly forget.

“Are you prepared, or have you been too busy?” He heard the stress she put on the busy. Too busy with Franklin and not the union.

“I’m prepared. Look, I’m going to bed. Like you say, early meeting.”

“I’m just concerned, Sean, that you’re letting down the members, taking on this extra work. I’m sure Mrs. Franklin has lots of activists. She doesn’t need you.”

Should he tell her that he had plans beyond being an unpaid volunteer activist? No, he couldn’t explain his ambitions to her now. Not if he wanted some sleep tonight. He’d have to soon though. The secret ambition had become a heavy burden.

“Mom, she’s the union’s preference for representative. I’d think you’d be happy I’m working to get her reelected.”

“You have other priorities.”

No. He really didn’t. But she’d always set his priorities for him. It would take her a while to get used to the idea of him setting his own.

Which would be worse, he wondered, that she thought he’d spent hours schmoozing for Franklin? Or that he’d actually left early and had s*x with a SolCorp executive? s*x with management? She’d probably have a stroke. Not just s*x. He’d ended up watching Alex sleep for a couple of hours, lying beside him, imagining what it would be like to wake up every morning in a double bed with a gorgeous man. Not Alex specifically. He was indeed gorgeous, but if he wasn’t going to let Sean f**k him, then they were sexually incompatible, so nothing could come of it. Though for someone he supposedly wasn’t sexually compatible with, Alex had certainly made him see stars with that blowjob.

No. He wasn’t looking for a lover. He stood up from the kitchen table. “I really do have to go to bed. Good night.”

He felt her gaze, still full of both disapproval and disappointment, follow him out of the room as he headed to his bedroom, ducking under the bar he’d bolted in the doorway to use for pull-ups. Part of his home gym, he’d said. A way to stop the door closing and make the room drafty, she’d said.

Sean made it to his room without being called back for just one more argument. He stripped off and put his suit on a hanger carefully, though he tossed the rest in a heap in the corner. Then he fell into bed and slept, dreaming of lean, dark limbs entangled with his.