Page 14 of Summer Skin

IT TURNED OUTAndi had absolutely nothing to do with the disappearance of Jake Miller. “She was on a flight back from the Hamptons the night he disappeared, she’s not the murderer,” Chase told Brooklyn. “Solid alibi.”

His sister took in the new evidence, blowing a cloud of smoke out one side of her mouth before handing the cigarette over to Chase. It’d become a morning ritual, the two of them vanishing into the woods once their aunt dropped them off in front of school. Making a game out of the story Brooklyn concocted about the mysterious disappearance of their high school’s quarterback.

“Murder?” Brooklyn’s brows drew together and the corner of Chase’s mouth lifted. She always took the game seriously, as though this were a real missing person case to solve. “Unless you know something I don’t, Jake is still out there, alive. There’s still a chance we can bring him home.”

“Right. Sorry. I meant to say, there’s no way Andi’s involved in Jake’s disappearance.”

“That’s because you like her, don’t you?”

“Not in the way you’re thinking.”

“Huh.” Her head cocked to one side. “So it’s Aven?”

Heart stuttering in his chest, Chase opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“Never mind, your face says it all. Be careful with that one, okay?”

“Careful, like how?”

“From what I’ve heard,” Brooklyn said, her nose wrinkling, “he kind of makes the rounds but never settles with anyone, does he?”

“I mean, I guess,” Chase said glumly. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t spent countless hours thinking of that himself.

“Anyway, just be safe, we haven’t even cleared his name off the list of suspects,” she told him with a serious expression, and then changed course. “I asked Colleen if I could use her car, you know, so I can get a job.”

“What’d she say?” Chase asked, though he could probably take a guess.

“Ha! She told me I can babysit the kids in the neighborhood if I want to make money. Seriously, me with children?” She blew a line of smoke in his direction, and he waved it off. “Unmixable things.”

It was nearly the same thing she’d said to Chase when he wanted to use the car, and when he’d tried mowing neighborhood lawns like she suggested, every door he’d knocked on was already set up with a gardener hired to care for their over-manicured yard.

“Anyway—”

“Hey.” Aven appeared from the forest through the morning mist like some sort of sparkling vampire out of Twilight. “Thought I saw you two darting out this way.”

“Holy shit!” Brooklyn yelped, pointing the lit end of her cigarette in his direction like some sort of makeshift weapon. “You can’t creep up on people like that, Sinclair!”

He tilted his head, flashing her a smile. “You know my name?”

“The entire school knows your name.” A classic eye roll followed. “You’re not exactly invisible.”

“Well, kind of. Invisible enough to sneak up on you, anyway.”

The corner of her mouth twitched. “Fuck. Got me on that one.” She twisted her wrist to glance at her watch, a hand-me-down from their mother. “Time for me to report to Hell.” Her eyes went to Aven, then darted over to Chase. “You coming?”

“Um.” He scratched behind his head, glancing toward Aven for a clue as to why he’d been tracked down in the woods.

“Be there in a second,” Aven answered for them.

“Yeah, okay,” Brooklyn said, a little slowly. “But don’t forget who all’s on the list of possible abductors, Chase.” She gave him a pointed look, then turned on her heel, spinning away.

There was a quiet sort of hesitancy as Chase looked at Aven, remembering his smooth words, his talented mouth, and the way he warmed up every bit of Chase’s insides last night. But Brooklyn was right, tangling with him wasn’t exactly the safest choice. It was likely a sure as shit way to get his heart broken, and he could see the crash coming from outer space.

Still …

There’d never been anyone on earth harder to resist than the man standing in front of him right now, giving him those eyes. The ones that said he didn’t regret kissing Chase one single bit.

“Hi, Matthews,” Aven said, a cocky grin on his mouth. He ambled toward Chase until they were toe-to-toe, the familiarity of his scent filling Chase’s head with images of the two of them tangled together on the beach. The warmth of his breath brushed across Chase’s cheek, and he leaned in. “I’ve been thinking about you all morning. I want to kiss you again. Can I?”

Chase tugged his bottom lip into his mouth. An echo of Brooklyn in his head, her likely warning. There was a choice to turn away from the person he yearned for or to go all in and trust Aven Sinclair not to mess with his heart.

A breath in, a breath out, the lure of moss-green eyes patiently waiting, and then he fisted his hand into Aven’s shirt and tugged, pulling him in. It wasn’t at all gentle, not like the night before. Aven took his lips in a demanding kiss, and Chase wasted no time kissing back, moaning into it, hungry for the taste of Aven’s mouth.

He stumbled backwards until he hit the bark of a tree trunk, and Aven’s hand slid to Chase’s chest, grazing his nipple with the edge of a thumb, and he arched into it, craving the touch.

“More,” he gasped, breaking the kiss.

“More what?” Aven got a hand in Chase’s hair, tugging his head back until their eyes locked.

“Want you to touch me,” he confessed.

“Touch you here?” Aven placed his fingers over Chase’s chest, where his heart was beating faster than a jackrabbit.

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He slowly shook his head.

“Okay. Maybe here?” Aven’s hand drifted down, dipping underneath the hem of Chase’s t-shirt, letting in the chill of the early morning air and a shiver of goosebumps. His fingertips caressed the curve of Chase’s belly.

Another shake of the head.

With a heated look, Aven dropped his hand to cup Chase’s dick through his jeans. He gave it a light squeeze and Chase gasped, feeling it all the way to his toes. “This where you want me to touch you, babe?”

“Yes,” he breathed, certain and needy. “Please.”

Aven made a low, throaty noise, rubbing his palm over Chase’s cock through denim, and Chase pushed into it, hips bucking to meet the touch. His head thunked back, knocking against cedar, eyes fluttering shut as Aven worked him through layers of clothing, Chase fervently wishing for no barrier at all to the blaze of Aven’s touch.

A trail of kisses danced up the line of his throat, and Aven breathed Chase’s name into his neck. “Let me suck you,” he said, the words rushing out.

Chase’s eyes blinked open in surprise, the way Aven was staring at him was intoxicating, a lure, a way for him to get anything he asked for.

His heart was racing, a too-wild drumbeat in his chest. “Aven,” he said, a bit of disbelief in his voice, “you really want me like that?”

“Mm.” Aven’s nose nuzzled along his jaw. “I’ve been thinking about it since that night. After Halloween when you jizzed all over yourself in my room. I had to stop myself from begging to suck you as soon as I shoved the covers off. You have no idea how perfect you are.”

There was no way he meant it.

But his hand was right there, popping open the button on Chase’s jeans, and Chase lifted up, allowing Aven to slide his pants and boxers down low enough for his cock to jump out, already full, and hard, and honeyed with pre-cum.

“Oh,” Aven said, looking down like what he was seeing wasn’t quite real. “You look so fucking good.”

“Um.” Chase gulped, not exactly sure this was real himself. “Thanks?”

“I want to make you come really hard,” Aven said in a very serious tone, continuing to intently study his dick.

Chase’s teeth scraped over his bottom lip. This whole thing with his cock hanging out in the middle of the woods while Aven breathed all over it was starting to feel a tad weird. “You haven’t done this before, right? How will you know what to do?”

“Trust me, I’ve had dozens of blowjobs. I’ll figure it out.”

“Oh. Alright then,” Chase said with a laugh. “Go on then, Mr. Romance.”

Aven looked up. “You want me to romance you, babe?” His eyes searched Chase’s face, looking for a sign to sweep him off his feet into a candlelit bed of pine needles nestled fancifully in the forest. “Let’s just see what you like,” Aven decided. “Okay?”

Chase gave him an eager nod, and Aven immediately dropped to his knees, right there on the damp ground, a couple hundred yards from school, where they were supposed to be in their seats studying some dead white man’s poetry rather than each other’s bodies.

Wrapping a hand around the base of Chase’s dick, Aven gave him a couple of tugs before meeting his eyes. Then all at once, his cock was enveloped in a sweet, wet heat as Aven pulled him into his mouth. Chase had been blown before, a few times, and on one occasion by a girl who’d been able to take him all the way down her throat. But he’d never wanted it in quite such a needy way, like being with Aven was going to turn him into a weak-kneed, begging mess.

There was no finesse, no fancy tricks in play as Aven worked Chase with his mouth, but it felt good. Felt amazing, really, and seeing Aven so greedily try to fit more dick into his mouth caused a warm, familiar pressure, signaling he was mere seconds away.

“I”m not going to last,” he gasped, his hand tugging on Aven’s hair in fair warning.

Aven pulled off. “Come in my mouth,” he ordered, his voice a little rough, and he went back to eagerly sucking Chase’s cock. It was a familiar fantasy that Chase had played a dozen or more times in his head, the two of them sharing this intimacy with each other. And as Aven attempted to take even more dick into his mouth, Chase couldn’t hold back, shuddering to a climax, the other man swallowing him down.

His vision went soft, and he steadied himself with a hand in Aven’s hair, a bit wobbly as Aven wiped across his own wrecked mouth, looking nothing short of obscene.

“Pull your shirt up, babe,” Aven said, his tone demanding urgency, and he rose all at once to his feet. “I need to come all over you. Make you messy. Make you mine.”

Pants dropped to his knees, shirt rucked up, Chase’s eyes linked with Aven’s.

Make you mine.

The words continued to ring, and Aven shoved his jeans down, freeing his cock. His breath was heavy as he stroked himself with one hand, the fingernails of his other biting darkly into Chase’s chest. He kissed Chase, once, right on the mouth, and Chase dipped forward for more, but Aven made a helpless noise, a sound of desperation, and rasped, “Chase,” from the back of his throat before spilling his load all over Chase’s cock. Jizz here, there, jizz everywhere, sticking in the fine hairs creeping up towards Chase’s belly.

Looking down at the other man’s semen smeared across his body, Chase felt a sense of being used.

Of being marked.

And it only made him want more.