Covert Read online

  I mean, I like having my cock sucked, but I can sound like a man while I get it done.

  Though, to be fair, I’ve only had my cock sucked the one time.

  Frustrated at the guy being interviewed, and feeling like I maybe dodged a bullet, I turn to my aide. “Okay, what’s next?”

  The young man, who’s been in my employ for the last four years, has his eyes glued to the floor. “I—I...”

  “Jason, just spit it out.”

  “I’m graduating at the end of the semester and you will need a new aide because I am going back to my hometown.”

  I should be more grateful; he’s giving me over a month’s notice. But I’m thinking about how damned inconvenient this all is and I’m having a hard time finding gratitude.

  “What about the campaign? I had you in charge of all those initiatives.”

  “I have organized those so that whoever comes in after me knows where we are and what our next steps in those initiatives will be.”

  “I don’t suppose you have any suggestions for your replacement?”

  “No sir, all of my friends are graduating with me.”

  “Well, this is a real pickle. What the hell am I supposed to do?”

  “I’m sure you can go through the same School-to-Work program that you used to hire me. It’s still going strong and the students are all good candidates.”

  “Sounds like an entire pain in my ass.” I say, feeling more annoyed by the second.

  “Which is why I’ve already begun the process,” he says, looking a little smug.

  Okay, fine.

  Well, the new kid is going to be a problem.

  First of all, he’s not a kid. Not really. He’s twenty-two and his name is Magnus. He’s got a strong, slender build, eyes the color of a blue Texas sky, and darker blond hair that looks like it bleaches out in the sun.

  Second, my radar may be rusty, but I’m pretty sure he’s gay.

  I mean, it’s ridiculous to even consider such things because he’s twenty-two damned years old…but he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen in my life and he holds himself with such quiet confidence that it hurts to look away.

  I interviewed about a half dozen students from the current class of candidates, making the mistake of trying to look for somebody who was a freshman, thinking I’d be able to keep them with me a good long time. But this year’s batch of freshman are a bunch of clueless saps, and they don’t know jack shit about the job of being an aide to a State Senator.

  Magnus, on the other hand, just started his senior semester of college, but is also getting his masters at UT, making him the perfect fit. I did my due diligence, read his resume, checked in with his professors, and got a glowing recommendation from the School-to-Work coordinator who had placed him with me. I even spoke to his previous bosses and they all agreed; he was about as perfect a political aide as anyone could possibly have.

  When he arrived for his interview I wanted to fly out of my skin. I have lived with this unfortunate thing my entire life. I’ve been able to manage it by scratching the itch here and there and keeping my focus on the work at hand. But one look at Magnus and I no longer have an itch; he’s set my entire body on fire.

  I stand up, grab my braces, and all but snarl out, “My legs are cramping, I need to move. Let’s take this interview on a walk.”

  Chapter Four

  Magnus

  How the hell does one describe Christopher Morris? He reminds me of the big bang theory, a small man into whom is condensed all the power of the universe and driven to go beyond himself to make this world a better place than he found it.

  He’s also arrestingly handsome, with beautiful dark brown hair shot through with a hint of silver, bold eyebrows, and a sharp jaw. The power with which he carries himself is…sexy as hell. I feel like such a greenhorn around him, with my off-the-rack clothing and untested theories.

  He peppers me with questions about policy and working with folks across the aisle, a necessity in a state like Texas. He doesn’t consider it distasteful or difficult to come to an agreement with people who have policy differences. I think he rather likes it.

  I learn more from listening to people who don’t agree with me and I make sure that he understands that. Our energies are so different that the ebb and flow of the conversation is easy, enjoyable. He can’t help but be dynamic in his speech and gestures, but when I answer his many, many questions, he listens with a quiet intensity, leaning in, the omnipresent soft street sounds punctuated by the metallic clanking of his walking braces.

  So few people do that these days, wanting to make a point rather than reach for a solution.

  I can see where the conservatives like him, he doesn’t pull any punches and his language leaves something to be desired. There’s no doubt, however, that he’s getting the job done.

  And there’s no way in hell that he’s straight, not with the way that he’s looking at my lips.

  Our meander takes us across the First Street bridge, where our interview becomes more of a conversation.

  We pause in the middle of the bridge to admire Town Lake, which is really just a dammed-up section of the Colorado River. I pivot to the south and point past the Palmer Auditorium. “My apartment’s just a few blocks that way, behind Sandy’s.”

  Christopher wrinkles his nose. It’s not the fanciest area of town, but it’s pretty damned homey to me and it’s a damned sight better than the dorms.

  “Oh, don’t be so judgmental. There are so many things to do within walking distance. There’s the rodeo at the Coliseum, concerts at Palmer Auditorium, Zilker is just to the left of us, Peter Pan lets you take beer on the putt-putt course, and we’ve got Aqua Fest every summer.”

  “Do you even like any of those things?”

  “Hiking at Zilker is fun, and who doesn’t like putt-putt?”

  Christopher gives me a sideways glance that makes me laugh and he almost stumbles over a crack in the sidewalk.

  Uh huh.

  “Aqua Fest is a damned nightmare. People parking wherever they want. Crowds taking over Auditorium Shores, making a huge mess. Did you see they had to repaint the gazebo after last year?”

  I tilt my hand side to side. “Well, I’m not much for crowds, but the gazebo is fine. My roommate and I eat there for lunch all the time and it’s no worse for wear.”

  My buddy Clarence and I are broke college students, so we come down to the gazebo to sit in the shade, watch the cute college guys on the rowing team, and to spot covert gay couples strolling past us. People watching along the lake is never boring, and it’s free.

  “I suppose,” he says, leading the way to the path that winds down to the waterfront, past the gazebo in question.

  We walk for a while, careful about some of the rougher parts of the path. Christopher’s waxing poetic about Ann Richard’s jalapeño cheese cornbread when his voice cuts out. We’d been walking side-by-side, and suddenly he’s no longer there. I look behind me and find him in a heap on the ground, his walking braces splayed out around him.

  My heart pounds in my chest as I kneel down and arrange him so that he is flat on his back. “Mr. Morris? Mr. Morris? Are you okay?”

  Before I can even find something to put under his legs, he stirs and growls out, “Stop calling me that. Makes me look around for my father.”

  “You fainted.”

  “I know.” He sits up despite my protest and adjusts his body, slowly coming around. His face looks a little flushed, but otherwise he’s okay.

  With a supportive hand still around his back, I ask, “Do I need to call an ambulance?”

  “No, don’t. I’m fine. I just sometimes faint when I get too excited.”

  “Are you sure I shouldn’t get someone? What if it’s your heart?” I ask, taking advantage of the fact that I can stare at his face.

  “Not my heart. Nerve damage from my time in Vietnam. Which happened before you were born.”

  “Not true. I was born in 1968.” I caress his arm
with my thumb and we both draw a sharp breath.

  “Injury occurred in 1962.” Shaking his head, he pushes my hand away and sits up. “I was already married with a kid by 1968. My son is older than you.”

  “Yep, and my father is younger than you. What’s your point?” I say, still kneeling in his space.

  His eyes snap to mine and his shoulders slump. “No point. Never mind.”

  “Fine, but if you’re good to move, I’d feel better if we sat in the shade for a bit.”

  Using my shoulder as a prop, he grabs his braces and stands up, then wordlessly makes his way over to the huge community gazebo. I have no choice but to follow. Somehow, his strong build is even more apparent from the back.

  That is one fine ass under those slacks.

  We make it around the little koi pond, then sit in the shade and enjoy the respite from the hot Texas sun. The breezeway created by the structure allows the wind off the Colorado River to filter through his hair and I’m once again struck by how good-looking he is…at least when he’s not scowling.

  Watching him arrange his walking sticks, I ask, “What happened in Vietnam?”

  His shifts uncomfortably and I wonder if I’ve stepped in it. “Apologies if that’s a sensitive question. You don’t have to answer.”

  He waves off my concern and answers, “It’s not sensitive. And really, I wasn’t badly injured, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. But I was a little too close to a deployment of napalm and spent a little too much time around Agent Orange before that.”

  “Were you burned? By the napalm, that is.” I ask, rubbing my thumb across my wrist.

  “Sure. I was a bit of a mess for a while there. Took a chunk of burning wood to the chest, which went through my five layers of clothing and made it down to the bone. The way I landed broke off the spinous process in my lower back, which is not as bad as a spinal cord injury, and it healed just fine. The Agent Orange is why I’m on crutches, why I lose consciousness sometimes.”

  He pulls up his shirt, revealing rippling abs and deep, gouging scars in his chest, covered in a thick pelt of brown and silver hair, save for a wide swath down his sternum where the worst of the burn is. I inhale sharply and almost reach out my fingers to touch him.

  We exchange a look and he quickly tucks his shirt back in.

  “So…you really do seem okay,” I observe, still not sure if my eyes are deceiving me.

  “Because I am. Vasovagal syncope is pretty harmless. If you’ve ever known someone to faint at the sight of blood, it’s the same thing.”

  “So…you fainted at the sight of me. Great. You know how to fortify a man’s self-confidence, don’t you?”

  “I ain’t responsible for your self-confidence.”

  “And for that, I am grateful.” He seems to enjoy the sass, which I note for later. “Do you think you can make it back to your office, or should I try to snag a cab?”

  He raises a strong, offended eyebrow at me. “What part of ‘I’m fine’ are you having a problem with, Magnus?”

  God, the way he says my name. “Nothing at all, Christopher. Let’s get a move on then.”

  Christopher

  I’d wanted to throw him off with our little walking interview, to find some way back to solid ground, but he was game as I peppered him with questions about policy and compromise. His answers were well-considered, concise, and often funny.

  His eyes are sapphires in the sun and his lips are as vexing as they are beautiful. If I could bottle his smile, I’d be a rich man.

  The number of times I nearly stopped to pin him against the next available hard surface…too many to be proper, that’s for damned sure.

  God, the way he was looking at me. Neutral at first, but then to watch the interest bloom on his face…his friends must clean up when they play poker with him.

  He’s such an artist at heart and it felt wonderful to step outside the coldness of politics to stand in his warm, youthful joy for just a few minutes.

  Then I went and fainted like the fifty-two-year-old, decrepit man that I am.

  I felt like such a fucking idiot, thinking that this kid, this Magnus, could see something in me. It’s easy to impress someone with your service record and a few scars, but show them your reality, and they’ll scuttle away faster than a cockroach’s hind legs respond to the light.

  At least that’s what I assumed he’d do.

  But he kept looking at me the way he’d been looking at me all afternoon, and by the time we made our way back up to my office, I was coming out of my skin.

  “You understand that I am more of a centrist than anything else,” I ask, closing the office door behind him, nearly falling on him as I pick up his golden scent, like sunshine and the ocean.

  He makes no move to sit down and instead casually leans against the door. His physical presence, and that broad smile on those plush lips, overwhelm my usually bullet-proof defenses. “Well, being from Texas, I’m just surprised you’re not a Republican.”

  I gulp, trying to remember that I’m a Marine, that I’m tough as nails, and that I am in control of my impulses. “They go too far for my taste. But I don’t entirely disagree with them, and if that’s going to be a problem for you, I should know now.”

  He pseudo-thoughtfully scratches his chin while hitching up an eyebrow. “That’s interesting. Where do they go too far, and where do you agree?”

  I clear my throat and shift on my braces. “I, uh. I like some of their business initiatives, but the “tough on crime” ideology from both sides of the aisle is horseshit, and I’m not a fan of them telling people what to do with their bodies, plain and simple.”

  He shifts away from the door while crossing his arms, closing the space between us with a teasing smile, like he knows exactly what he’s doing to me.

  “Senator, are you a feminist?”

  Raw interest flares in his eyes and I choke on my own spit.

  “Son, never use that word around me. I get back to my district and people start calling me a feminist, I’ll be out of a job faster than you can say George Strait.”

  He uncrosses his long arms and places his hands on his hips, his strong, lanky body in an open posture. Looking at me with naked interest.

  “Senator, I haven’t been anyone’s son in a long time. And if you don’t mind my saying, I doubt very seriously that straight is a word that applies to either of us.”

  Chapter Five

  Magnus

  I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, other than standing in front of State Senator Christopher Morris, Vietnam war hero, and realizing he’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a man. I don’t even give a shit about the job at this point. I can get a job. What I don’t have is this man in my life.

  I mean, have you ever met someone and just…known…that they were going to be in your life? That’s how it was when my buddy Clarence and I met the first day we moved into our dorms, and it’s how I feel now.

  And I’m just full enough of myself to try and make it happen.

  Understand, I didn’t know that I wanted all of *this* until the man in dual forearm braces revealed a thoughtful, subtly radical politician who has the secret decoder ring to get good old boys agreeing to compromises they never thought they’d make. Fuck, that’s hot.

  He’d done a piss poor job of covering his interest when I entered his office, and our odd walking interview only amplified this sparking buzz between us. His facade is a yo-yo and I keep poking at it, seeing what opens him up to me. He respects my words, but it’s my body that he’s responding to. Every time I shift, I feel the heat of his attention. Right now, it’s on my Adam’s apple; he keeps eyeballing it as if he’d like to lick it.

  So I swallow, good and slow.

  His braces clink as he steps up to me, managing somehow to make the fact that he has to look up still pretty intimidating. “What did you say to me, son?”

  Shit.

  Deny, deny, deny. Act like you were joking, change the subject for go
d’s sake.

  “I’m calling you a bundle of sticks, Senator. A cigarette, if you will. And don’t call me son. Not my particular kink.”

  I have no excuse for this unwarranted bravado…other than the fact that I want him to bend me over this priceless antique desk of his and fuck me till I can’t walk.

  I mean, no. No. I want him to use my mouth like a fuckhole.

  Shit, not that. I want him to jizz all over my lips and lick it off of me.

  Goddammit, I just want him to use me and wring me out like a dishrag until I’m dehydrated.

  Ooookay, I’m gonna need a goddamn breath.

  I mean, I’ve had plenty of sex with guys my age, but who doesn’t like an older guy? I’d just never been with one to know for sure, but after today I’m pretty sure I’m a silversexual, a greymo if you will. I’m not sure why I hadn’t figured this out before. I have the same taste in music as guys Christopher’s age, and from our walk, I discovered that neither of us feel like we quite fit in… Hell, maybe it’s because I never knew my father. I’m sure it’s all of the above and I’m sure that the psychologists would have a field day with me

  Ask me if I care.

  Ask me if I can stop myself at this point.

  Christopher Morris is the complete package. He’s manly, his eyes crinkle when he thinks, and his hands look rugged, like he knows the value of real work. He’s ripped under those fine clothes of his and he’s looking at me like he can’t decide which way this should go.

  “I think we’re done here.” He says, snarling as he points to the door.

  “Good,” I say, lunging at him.

  I grab his shoulders and pull him in for a rough kiss. Our lips crash together, and he fists my shirt, a frustrated groan rumbling up from within him. I go to pull back, wondering if I’d somehow fucked it up, but he reels me back in and we kiss, desperate for each other. He drops his braces and holds on to me, anchoring himself with his hands on my ass.