Free Candy Man by Amy Lane Page A

burst his bubble. “Gay. That’s as far as I got. Said we were gay. And we were going to come out. So that was the plan, right? And we were going to put in our papers, and not re-up, and there you go. A boyfriend. A couple. Ta-da!”
    “And….”
    “And we were in the barracks and some guy I’d blown half a dozen times was using the word ‘faggot’ like it’s the word ‘like,’ and I came out. Said maybe not use that word anymore, since I’d blown half the guys in the unit. And I looked at Robbie and….”
    “Oh, Adam.”
    “He called me a fag.” Adam blew out the breath. “Which, I guess he wasn’t wrong, you know?”
    “I’m so….”
    “It was a lonely fucking way to spend the last months of my assignment,” Adam confessed. “I…. You’re real nice. But I don’t know how much trust I got in me.”
    “Yeah,” Finn said softly. “I can see that.”
    “I’m sorry,” Adam said, looking out the window of the minivan. It had been a really nice time—maybe what dates were all about.
    “Don’t be. You up for some ice cream?”
    Adam looked at him and shook his head. “Naw. You can just take me home.” It was over. It had to be.
    “Okay, if that’s what you want.”
    Adam didn’t answer, and he watched the bright lights of downtown J Street flitter in front of his eyes before Finn took a right on Ninth. In another moment, he pulled up in front of Rico’s apartment, put the car in park, and left it on idle. Adam prepared himself for the brush-off, for Finn saying they could still be friends, and he was surprised by the bare hand on the back of his neck. Finn must have taken off his gloves, for one thing, and for another, the pressure was intimate and insistent.
    Adam turned to look at him and realized he’d taken the armrests up and was sitting sideways on the bucket seat.
    “Adam?” Finn said softly.
    “Yeah?”
    “I don’t want a blowjob right now.”
    “Then wha—”
    A kiss. A simple kiss. Mouth on mouth, Finn’s tongue slipping softly inside, Adam opening wide for his invasion.
    Finn groaning, pushing Adam back against the seat, and Adam tunneling his fingers through Finn’s curly strawberry blond hair, shuddering with the want that had just punched him in the nads.
    Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh… oh my God !
    Finn pulled back, panted for a moment, and studied Adam in the light from the streetlamp four houses down. “You want this, don’t you?”
    “So bad,” Adam admitted for the first time, even to himself.
    “We’ll kiss some more, but not further. Not tonight.”
    “It’s your rodeo,” Adam conceded, because nice boys like Finn got to call the shots. Adam was easy. He’d bend over for Finn in a heartbeat, or take him if he asked. Either way, didn’t matter. Adam had no moral code about sex. But he found he had a moral code about Finn , and his moral code went that whatever Finn said, that was the code.
    So when Finn pushed his hand under Adam’s coat and rucked up his sweatshirt, letting Adam feel the coolness of Finn’s fingers against his stomach, all he could do to that was suck in a breath and close his eyes. Finn’s hand went higher, along his ribs, and then he pulled back again.
    “You are all muscle and bone, aren’t you?”
    “I work out,” Adam confessed breathily, and Finn chuckled against his lips.
    “So do I. Wanna feel?”
    Oh hell yes. Adam fumbled with Finn’s waistband, finding the smooth skin of his back and digging in slightly. Finn flexed, and Adam felt them, muscle groups, biceps, triceps, the latissimus dorsi. Yes indeed, Finn did work out, and his flesh under Adam’s palms was intoxicating. Adam pulled Finn closer while Finn continued the kiss—and continued to grope his chest—and in the meantime, the swelling in his groin, the heavy ache of arousal, grew bigger, more painful, and harder to ignore.
    Finn maneuvered, and for a moment the awkwardness of necking in a minivan helped Adam control himself. Then Finn hit the seat