CHAPTER TWELVE
Paul got into the rental car and began reversing into the street as I reached the truck. Hank, who was leaning against the wall of his store, pushed himself away from it and walked over to me.
"Hey, Jake."
I paused and looked at him.
"You know, I really hope you lied about that Paul guy being your brother."
"What? Why?" I said, puzzled.
"Because if you're kissing your brother like that, you got worse problems than I thought." He cocked one eyebrow and pursed his lips up.
"Oh, shit," I muttered, feeling my face colouring up. He had seen us. "He's...um...he's a friend. It was true about us not getting along when he first turned up, though."
Hank shrugged. "Look, I don't give two hoots what you get up to. It's your business if you like a fella, but there's a fair few folks 'round here that ain't too fond of that sort of thing, so I wouldn't be making it too obvious at your work place if you want business to pick up again."
"Thanks for the warning," I grunted, my face burning hotter still.
I climbed into the truck and quickly drove after Paul as he headed for the house. We arrived in minutes and I hurried to the door and unlocked it. Paul had brought a slightly larger bag with him this time and he took it into the living room and dropped it by the end of the couch, then turned to wrap his arms around me. His lips touched mine and suddenly I was longing for him, my pulse rapidly speeding up and my dick stiffening in the loose suit pants. Paul slid the jacket off my shoulders and dropped it onto a nearby chair, then began to unfasten my shirt. We continued kissing, tongues entwining as he unbuckled my belt and I put my hands on his chest. He was wearing a buttoned shirt for once rather than a t-shirt and I undid part of it, then jerked the fabric apart in my impatience, sending several of the remaining buttons flying off in all directions.
Paul pulled his mouth away from mine, laughing. "You really have missed me."
"I want you," I groaned.
All I could think about was the last time he was here with me; the way he touched me; the way it felt with his dick inside me. I shuddered and dropped my head forward, pressing my face into his neck. He lowered the zipper on my pants and pushed them down, then quickly unfastened his jeans. I sat down on the edge of the couch and removed shoes and socks, pulled the pants off completely and then wriggled out of my shorts. My erection stood up straight against my stomach, twitching impatiently as I watched Paul taking off the rest of his clothes. He was as hard as I was and in a few seconds he was pushing me down onto my back, lowering his body onto mine, kissing me again as he rested between my thighs, grinding himself against me.
The way I was feeling, I wouldn't have been surprised if I came without him even touching me properly. With everything that had been going on over the past few weeks - the stress and worry - I hadn't even thought about sex, but now it was all over and he was here, suddenly I couldn't wait. I broke the kiss, moaning my frustration as I squirmed beneath him. He pulled away from me and dropped onto his knees on the carpet beside the couch and for a moment I was disappointed until he grabbed me by the waist and drew me down beside him.
"Turn around," he said, reaching for his bag. He pulled out lube and a condom and I turned away, resting my elbows on the cushions, my legs apart, closing my eyes with a groan as he reached around me with one arm, grasping my dick and stroking it slowly while he carefully inserted one cool, slippery finger into me from behind.
"Oh, God," I gasped, sinking lower so that my forehead rested on the couch, making myself relax as much as I could as he added a second finger. It felt better than I remembered, maybe because the first time I had been tense, scared, not sure if I should have been letting it happen. Now I just couldn't wait for him to...
"...fuck me," I whispered.
He withdrew his fingers and took his hand off my dick and I heard him rip open the condom packet, roll it onto himself and squirt out more lube. Then he was nudging against me, guiding himself, pushing forward until the head slipped in. He took his time, tormenting me and I reached down with one hand and grasped my erection, sliding my hand up and down slowly, much as I was tempted to start jacking off at top speed. I groaned again as Paul slid deeper, as far as he could go until his thighs rested against the back of mine. He rested his hands on my hips, holding me firmly as he drew back and then began to thrust in and out, slowly at first, then faster and harder. He was panting for breath just as I was and as I pumped myself more vigorously I knew I was going to last barely a minute. I tried to control myself just a few more seconds, but it was a losing battle and I began to spurt into my hand and onto the couch in front of me. Paul was right with me, holding himself deep in me, jerking and shuddering as he came, then withdrawing quickly and removing the condom before he pulled me away from the couch and into his arms.
"I love you," he panted. "So much."
"I love you too," I murmured.
We stayed sitting there on the carpet, just holding each other for some time. Then eventually we hauled ourselves up and went to take a shower together, taking our time lathering each other in shower gel, teasing each other, kissing and stroking, eventually jerking each other off as the hot water turned to cold, not even noticing the change in temperature. By the time we could bring ourselves to leave each other alone long enough to get dressed again, it was late in the afternoon and I realised I was starving hungry. I had eaten only intermittently over the past week and suddenly craved a proper meal.
"Are you hungry?" I asked, fastening my jeans.
"Yeah, for you," grinned Paul.
"Shut up." I shoved him playfully.
"Yeah, I'm hungry. What have you got to eat?" He stepped closer and kissed my neck, then sank his teeth in gently.
"Um...uh..." What had he just asked me? Food. "Probably not much," I said. "I've forgotten about food and shopping just lately. I'll look in the freezer. We could always order takeout."
I pulled away from him reluctantly and went into the kitchen to check the freezer. There was a pack of ground beef in there that I had forgotten and some garlic bread. I knew I had pasta in one of the cupboards.
"You want spaghetti?" I suggested.
"Yeah, if you're going to cook it. Leave the coffee to me, though." Paul slid his arms around me from behind and nibbled my ear. "Would you believe me if I told you this is probably the happiest day of my life?"
"Yeah, I guess I can. I know it's mine," I said, feeling my cheeks warming up. I leaned back against him. "How long are you staying?"
"I don't know, what day is it? Tuesday? I can stay until after the weekend; maybe fly back Monday again."
"Mmm," I sighed. Five days and six nights. I meant to make the most of every minute, but I knew that when he eventually had to go back it was going to hurt a lot more than anything I'd had to go through so far. The only good thing about him leaving was that I knew it would only be temporary. Whatever happened we would be together eventually.
"What are you thinking?" he whispered.
"That I'll come to La Push for a visit soon," I said. "In a few weeks. If business picks up I'm going to have a guy working for me, so once he's settled in he can take care of things for me."
"You're really going to come back?" Paul said, sounding surprised and delighted.
"Yeah. For a week maybe. Suddenly I miss everybody. I've been talking to Sam quite a bit too."
"I know, he said." Paul let go of me and went to lean against the kitchen counter. "Did he tell you they named their boy after you?"
"Yeah," I grinned. "I didn't expect that. For a long time I thought everyone was probably pissed at me for disappearing."
"No, they all just worried about you."
"Does Sam know you're here?" I asked him.
"No. He'd only ask questions and I didn't want to tell him what's really going on just yet. I guess I will when you come to visit."
We continued chatting as I defrosted the beef in the microwave, pulled out a pan and a bottle of olive oil and began frying up garlic and onions. There was a packet of unopened spaghetti in one of the cupboards and I dumped it into a pan and poured in boiling water from the kettle. Paul helped himself to a beer from the refrigerator and passed one to me. I gulped it intermittently whilst adding the beef to the pan, then passata and herbs, spreading out the garlic bread onto a tray and putting it into the oven.
"I always cheat and buy sauce in a jar," Paul confessed.
"That's why my spaghetti is better than yours," I teased. "Here." I dipped a spoon into the sauce and held it out to him. He tasted it and grinned.
"Mmm...ok, it's better than mine. You should move in with me and be my chef."
"Fuck off, I'd only cook half the time, you'd have to at least do something," I joked, turning back to stir the sauce again.
"I can think of plenty of ways to reward you," Paul said.
Shit, were we really joking about moving in together? My heart hammered and I immediately began to imagine what it would be like waking up with him every morning, eating together, sharing a house together - perhaps my old house. Would I really want to move back to La Push again? Give up my business, such as it was at the moment? 'Woah, Jacob, don't get ahead of yourself, you haven't even been back for a visit yet,' I told myself.
We ate together on the couch and then switched on the television, got a couple more beers and spent the evening snuggling together. I couldn't get the idea about living with him out of my head and pretended to myself that we really were. We had five days, I didn't have to think about him leaving yet.
We went to bed at ten, Paul grabbing his bag which was still by the couch and following me to my room.
"You're not going to make me sleep in the guest room again, are you?" he teased.
"Yeah, of course, you're a guest, aren't you?" I said, trying to keep a straight face.
"Ok, then." He turned towards the other room. "I don't care, you snore anyway."
"I do not snore!" I exclaimed.
"How would you know when you're asleep?"
"Well, if I do, I guess you'll have to put up with it." I snatched his bag out of his hand and took it into my own room. Grinning, he followed me and shoved the door closed after him.
When I woke the next morning, it was completely different from the last time I'd slept with him. I opened my eyes slowly and the first thing I saw was Paul's chest. He was lying on his back, one arm under me, my head on his shoulder. I smiled to myself and didn't move, watching his chest rising and falling slowly as he breathed.
Eventually after a few minutes I slid quietly away from him and went to use the bathroom, clean my teeth and have a quick freshen up. Paul was still sleeping when I returned to my room and I bent over and brushed my lips against his. His eyes popped open at once and he grabbed me in his arms, pulling me down onto him.
"Morning." He kissed me warmly, then rolled me onto my back and pulled away. "Stay there. Don't move a muscle." He got up and disappeared into the bathroom.
I stretched my arms out either side of me and grinned up at the ceiling as I waited for him to come back. It was barely seven o'clock and unless I got a phone call, I didn't plan on going into work. We didn't drag ourselves out of bed until nine and then it was only as far as the bathroom for another shower. I was just towelling myself dry when my phone did ring. It was Hank.
"Have you seen the papers?"
"No, I...uh..." I didn't really want to tell him I only just got out of bed, he'd probably guess what I'd been doing. "I haven't been out yet," I finished.
"You're on the front page. Well, Stewart is. They've made him look like a real jerk. I wouldn't be surprised if you start getting some calls for work again."
"Good, I hope so," I said. "I'll pick a copy of the paper up later."
Paul and I had coffee and then in the absence of any breakfast foods in the house, went out to a diner for brunch and then to the supermarket to stock up on groceries. I picked up a copy of the paper and Paul drove the truck back to the house while I read the article out loud. We were just pulling into the driveway when my cell rang again.
"Jacob, it's George Deakins," the voice on the line said. My first ever customer. He'd been back twice since then for various works.
"Hello, Mr Deakins."
He explained he had seen the article in the paper and also heard about my trouble beforehand. He wasn't surprised at Stewart's antics and asked me to book his car in for new tyres on Friday. As soon as I hung up, I had another call - a job for Monday from another customer who apologised for not turning up for his booking during the trouble.
By the end of the day I was booked out for most of the following week, several of the jobs being for people who had cancelled Gillespie's after having read the paper. After I finished making the last booking, I called Dave and told him he had a job starting Monday morning if he wanted it. He was delighted and promised to work hard and prove I was doing the right thing by hiring him.
Luckily I didn't actually get any jobs for that week, except for Mr Deakins' tyres on Friday, so I was still able to spend almost every minute with Paul. It wasn't until Sunday that I let myself think about him leaving again and then I found I was glancing at the clock repeatedly, thinking the time was going much too fast.
I picked half-heartedly at dinner that night. We ordered pizza and I noticed Paul didn't seem to have much of an appetite either. Eventually he gathered up the pizza boxes and reached out to put them on the coffee table, then scooted along the couch towards me and wrapped his arms around me.
"You look sad," he said.
"I don't want you to go," I said at once. "I don't want you to leave me." I wanted to cry and held it back with difficulty.
"I know, I don't want to go either," Paul said, hugging me tighter. "It's going to be so hard driving away."
"I'm going to visit real soon, I promise," I said. "As soon as Dave is ok to run things for a little while on his own."
"I'll be waiting; doesn't matter how long it takes you."
"I love you," I said. "I never thought I'd say that to anybody."
"I'm glad it's me."
We spent another couple of hours cuddling each other on the couch before heading for bed. Our last night together for a while. All week we had pounced on each other almost desperately as if each time would be the last chance we'd get, but now it really was the last chance and we took our time, holding each other, kissing, making love gently and finally falling asleep in each other's arms.
When I opened my eyes just after six-thirty in the morning, he was gone.