Page 13 of Free Fall #1

Sejin

“D on’t wait up for me,” I say, kissing Sarah Kate’s fuzzy head and handing her down to Leenie where she’s sitting on the floor helping Jeremiah with some Legos. When I scrub my hand lightly through Jeremiah’s hair, I’m met with a sweet smile that makes my heart squeeze fondly.

“Oh?” Leenie asks, looking tired.

Martin’s still out, having picked up a hauling job at a plumbing client’s house earlier in the day.

The guy has a bunch of logs he wants moved from one end of his property to the other, and Martin has the brawn and the truck to make that happen.

So, Leenie is still alone with the kids, though it’s well after dinner.

I feel guilty leaving her with them. I’m sure she could use a break.

But I’ve been working all day too, first at the preschool and then the coffee shop. The season has really started now, so the place is bustling.

Plus, I’m going to get laid. So…

Sorry, Leenie! Happy parenting!

“Yeah. I’m meeting with a…” I hesitate. Dan made it quite clear at the coffee shop the other day that he’s not a friend, but I’m also not going to call it what it is in front of Jeremiah. “A friend.”

“You have a friend?” Jeremiah asks.

“I have lots of friends, buddy.”

“Don’t you just,” Leenie says casually, and I snort.

If she only knew the “friends” I’d made as I travelled across the country from West Virginia, crashing on hookups’ and even strangers’ couches—or in their beds—until I could scavenge enough money to continue on my journey here.

There were even a few guys I let pay me for, well, things we did together because I needed the cash and they wanted to give it to me.

But who cares? Here I am now in Mariposa, and I’m sure Leenie loves having me on her sofa.

Ha.

“I might be in really late or even not until morning,” I warn her.

“Have fun,” Leenie says, wiping snot from Sarah Kate’s nose and checking the time on her phone. “Martin should be home soon. Don’t worry about us.”

“Alright.” I bend to kiss her forehead. She looks up, surprised. “Thanks for letting me stay here so long, Leenie. I promise I’ll get out of your hair as soon as I can save a little money.”

She grabs my hand and kisses the knuckles. “You’re fine. Go have fun tonight.”

I accept that response and as I’m driving toward the campground where Dan is staying in his van, I think about the journey that’s brought me here.

The tug of adventure. The need to escape.

The sense that no matter how much I love West Virginia, and love my family, it isn’t really mine .

Those enthusiastic phone calls from Martin, who’d made his way here four years prior after a stint in a trade school in Albuquerque and marrying Leenie there.

He’d lured me in, convincing me to come out and join him. Then came my mom’s death…

Nope. Nope, nope, nope.

I’m about to get laid. I am not thinking about her, or that , or the fact that it’s been five weeks since I last called my dad. We’ve texted, but he’s worse than Martin when it comes to texts that hold any meaningful content. Our last interaction essentially went—

Hey, Dad, I miss you. How are you?

Fine. You?

Good. Doing great.

Great.

That had been it. I could have tried harder, but it’s like pulling teeth.

Phone calls aren’t much better. Face-to-face, we do okay.

I can read his body language, and he can read mine.

It’s the distance that’s killing our relationship, and maybe the grief.

And maybe the fact that I left at all. I don’t really know how he feels about that.

I don’t really know how he feels about anything.

But I need to stop thinking about him now because I’m turning into the campground.

The lights are on in Dan’s van and I wonder what it’s like to live in it.

Is it really that different from living on someone else’s couch?

At least he has space to call his own. I’m still packing my clothes in and out of a duffle bag that gets shoved behind the curtains in the living room when I’m out of the house.

I sniff my armpits, suddenly worrying I forgot deodorant after my shower.

I’d been too focused on making sure I had time for a fast douche of my ass in hopes of getting fucked again.

I’m definitely interested in topping too, but maybe tonight we can take turns.

We haven’t made specific plans about what we’re going to do together, and visions of various options for physical pleasure stretch out in front of me like an ocean of delightful potentialities.

My dick grows thicker, and my heart thumps rapidly. Dizziness floods me as the door to the van slides back to reveal Dan, shirtless in just his boxer-briefs and nothing else. Fuck, yes. He wastes no time, and I’m all right with that.

I get out of my car, locking it behind me in a daze, and start toward him.

His muscles are unreal. Each one is long, sinewy, and striking, and they stand out with every movement he makes. I actually choke on my own spit at the sight of his six-pack and the muscles encasing his ribs. Holy beautiful body, Batman. Holy bruised and scraped-up face, and arm, and hip and…

“What happened to you?” I ask, stopping mid-step into the van. “You look like you were dragged around the parking lot.”

Dan winces and rubs his purple-red jaw. “Took a rough fall.”

“Climbing?”

He nods.

“How?”

“Things happen.”

“I…wow. You look like hell.” I circle him in the tight space of the van, trying to see all the various injuries. “Have you put Bactine on this?” I ask, sliding a finger on the feverish skin next to one of the bigger scrapes on his thigh. “Have you put anything on any of it?”

“I poured some alcohol on earlier. It’s fine.”

“Do you have a first aid kit?”

Dan stares at me, his hazel eyes seeming to glow in the low light, and I can’t figure out what he’s thinking. Maybe I’m being too intrusive. Maybe he doesn’t want me here after all. Maybe I should just offer to suck him off and go…

“It’s here,” Dan says, turning to a cupboard and quickly undoing the locks that keep the doors from swinging open when the van is in motion.

He tugs a medium-sized plastic toolbox out of the way, and then grabs a slightly bigger white box with a red cross on it.

Popping it open, inside is an entire drugstore’s worth of first aid supplies.

He removes iodine, Bactine spray, and a few bandages, both the stick-on kind and wrap.

Taking it all over to the bed, he sits down with a little wince, and then meets my gaze again, but this time with a quirked brow. “Wanna play doctor?”

I huff a laugh, close the van door behind me, and turn back to him. “If you’re down for that, sure.”

“I might not be able to go quite as hard tonight, not like I did last time, but I can still eat your ass and suck you off.”

I lick my lips. “Why, Mr…” I stop. “What’s your last name?”

“McBride.”

“Ah, Mr. McBride, that’s a very dirty thing to say to your doctor.”

His smile is sharper than expected, but it cuts into me.

It’s pleasure, and hurt, and desire all at once.

Huh. Pretty weird reaction to some random hookup’s smile, but what can I say?

This Dan guy does it for me. In every fucking way.

What that means about my taste in men, I don’t know, but it can’t be good.

I’m probably going to break my promise to my mama. I mean, he lives in a van for fuck’s sake. He doesn’t want to be friends for even fuckier sake. But…his smile, and his body, and those eyes…

Unf.

I play around at being his doctor and given how hard his dick is by the time I’ve dabbed, sprayed, bandaged, and wrapped his various injuries, all while trailing my fingers up and down his skin, and occasionally licking and biting his nipples, I think he enjoys my doctoring skills very much.

“Want to get rid of these?” I whisper, tugging on the waistband of his underwear.

“Because I really think I should inspect your dick. Make sure it’s all right.

It seems in distress…” I rub my thumb against the material stretched over the head of his cock, enjoying the wet patch that soaks through.

His tanned skin is flushed, his breathing rapid, and his nipples tight.

My head spins that he wants me this much.

“Yeah,” he says. “Get rid of them.”

I work them carefully over his injuries and throw them to the floor.

He groans and reaches toward me as I bend for a kiss.

Just like last time, I’m blown away by how fast the kiss escalates from our lips barely touching to wet, deep, and hard.

I feel like I’m going to die if he pulls away, but I also want to get my own clothes off.

My cock aches against my now too-tight jeans.

Dan breaks off to whisper, “Take your hair down.”

I oblige, and the dark tumble seems to mesmerize him.

He reaches up to thread his fingers into it before pulling me in for another kiss.

He’s completely in control, even though I’m the one still dressed, still half-standing, and ostensibly the “doctor” in our game.

But he’s got hold of my hair, and he might as well have hold of my balls because I’m at his mercy.

He guides me through the kiss, altering the angles with tugs against my head and groans into my mouth.

I’m startled by how much I like it. Because, while I enjoy some good hair-pulling, I don’t typically like being at someone else’s command, and yet nothing about this feels demeaning or like Dan is using me. More like Dan knows what I want better than I do, and he’s giving it to me.

“Suck me,” he whispers.

“Now?” I ask, dazed. My lips ache from the intensity of our kisses, and my cock is throbbing. I want to get my pants off and get naked so we can rub skin to skin, and he can eat my ass like he suggested earlier…