Personal Best 3 Read online

  Yeah, things were good.

  He let his eyes close and relaxed, holding everything he needed in his arms.

  Chapter Two

  JESSY WOKE up slowly, Mike snuggled up against him, warm and heavy.

  Huh. His swimmer was still in bed. Sleeping. He couldn’t help but preen a bit. Looked like he’d tired Mike out enough to actually sleep for longer than a couple of hours.

  Either that or something was wrong.

  Sliding his arm around Mike, he touched his finger to the base of the plug. Mike moaned, hips rolling easily, even in his sleep. Mmm. Nothing wrong with his baby.

  He lay there for a while, just holding Mike. And then he couldn’t help himself; he had to jostle the plug again. Mike murmured, humming softly, lips on his shoulder. He could feel the heat of Mike’s morning erection. It matched his own.

  He slid his finger along Mike’s crease.

  “Jess.” Mike groaned and stretched, pulling away from him.

  “You a little sensitive, baby?” he asked, wrapping his hand around Mike’s ass and tugging him back in.

  “Mmmhmm. Full. Full for you.”

  “Yeah. I could take you right now, and you’d be ready for me.”

  “Yes.” Mike vibrated a bit, moaning low for him. Sweet baby. Horny man.

  He reached with his free hand and tweaked Mike’s nipple.

  Mike’s eyes popped open, staring at him. “I’m awake.”

  Chuckling, he leaned in for a kiss, pinching the nipple just as their lips met. Mike’s gasp was sweet as hell. He pushed his tongue between Mike’s open lips, sweeping in and fucking Mike’s mouth. He played with the plug some more, his prick jerking. As Mike woke up, the lean body jerked and shuddered, riding the pleasure, riding the plug.

  Fuck, he wanted. He didn’t just take, though. He held out, just pressing a finger against the plug now, letting Mike’s undulations move the plug inside his baby’s body.

  “Jess.” Mike stretched up, hands grabbing the headboard as Mike’s pretty ass rolled up toward his touch.

  Christ, that was sexy.

  He shifted so he could kiss his way down Mike’s body, stopping to torture the left nipple. Meanwhile, he was still busy working the plug with his fingers. Mike’s nipples were hot, pink, showing signs of his attention. It made him hot and his hips shifted, sliding against the cotton sheets. Groaning, he wrapped his lips around Mike’s nipple and sucked hard.

  Mike fed him one groan after another, just rippling and sobbing for him. He moved to the other nipple, licked it, blew on it, but otherwise let it be.

  “Jess. Tease. Damn.” Mike stared at him, eyes hungry.

  “I’ll get where you want me. Eventually.” He gave Mike a wink and licked his way down Mike’s amazing belly, the abs rolling for him.

  “A-almost better than swimming.”

  “Almost?” He tugged the plug out to its widest point, twisted it, and shoved it back in again.

  “Oh!” Mike’s shoulders left the bed, eyes going wide.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Chuckling, he nibbled at the tip of Mike’s cock, taking in the clear drops beaded there.

  “Smug bastard.” The words would’ve been more impressive if Mike hadn’t been gasping.

  He let his lips rub against the tip of Mike’s cock as he grinned. “Your smug bastard.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, mine.” And didn’t someone sound just smug about that himself?

  Jessy took the tip of Mike’s cock in his mouth and sucked hard, playing with the slit with his tongue as he slid his fingers, very slowly, back beyond Mike’s balls, heading for the plug again. Mike’s muscles went tight, shuddering and shaking, waiting for him. He drew it out, moving his fingers back up to roll Mike’s balls before once again sliding them toward Mike’s plugged hole.

  He tapped the base of the plug once.

  “Jess!” Mike jerked, humping the air for a second.

  “Want you.” He tugged the plug out and surged up, pushing into Mike’s heat, just like that.

  “Yeah. Yeah, yours.” Right off the mark. Boom.

  “Mine,” he agreed, covering Mike’s mouth with his own, taking the kiss.

  Mike rocked between his mouth and his cock, moving hard and fast like there was some music Jess couldn’t quite hear. Groaning, he moved with Mike, the lean body tugging him in. Mike sucked on his tongue, pulling good and hard on him. Groaning, he moved faster, finding one of Mike’s nipples between his fingers and pinching.

  That long body squeezed tight around him, rippling at the pinch. He twisted the nipple again, ass humping hard, plunging his prick into Mike over and over. Fuck, he could feel every fucking touch all around his cock. Jess gave one last pinch and then slid his hand down, found Mike’s cock, and wrapped around it. He squeezed hard and let each plunge of his cock slide Mike’s prick through his fingers. Mike threw his head back, throat working, heart pounding furiously.

  “Come for me, baby.” He scraped his thumbnail across the tip of Mike’s cock.

  “Yeah. Yeah.” Mike’s belly went bright red, heat sprayed over his fingers. Mike’s body squeezed tight around his prick, milking his own orgasm from him. Making him shout.

  “Love.” Mike’s eyes rolled a little bit. “Damn.”

  “Uh-huh.” He let Mike take his weight, enjoying Mike’s hot, slick skin.

  “Mmm. Time for breakfast? Laps?”

  “If you’re up to laps right away without something to eat or a nap, I’ve done something wrong.”

  Mike’s laugh filled the fucking room. “Have you now?” The little shit. The fucking sexy wonderful little shit.

  He went for Mike’s ribs, keeping the laughter going. Every laugh vibrated all along his cock, Mike’s wiggling driving him crazy. Christ, there was no way he was getting it up again. Still, it felt fucking amazing. Bending, he wrapped his lips around Mike’s throat and added a raspberry to his assault.

  “B-bastard!” Mike was cackling, making him chuckle.

  He just nodded and kept tickling, easing off when the laughter took on that edge that meant Mike had had enough. Cuddling back into the covers, Mike held on, eyelids going heavy again. Oh, he’d worn his swimmer out again. Go him. He pressed a kiss to each eyelid, his prick slipping out of Mike’s body. Moving to the side, he settled next to Mike, arm across the trim waist.

  “Mmm. You feel good, Jess.”

  “Yeah, so do you.” He kissed Mike again and let his own eyes close. “A short nap and then we’ll get the day started, ’kay?”

  “’Kay.” Mike nodded, chuckled, already asleep.

  He breathed Mike in, enjoying the early morning cuddle. He woke up on his own often enough it was a novelty.

  Chapter Three

  MIKE RAN down the front porch to grab the mail, the late October wind getting chilly. There was a parcel waiting, and it gave him pause, made him sort of stop and look for a minute.

  He’d gotten four letters in the last two weeks—nothing serious, pranks and shit. The first one was a Halloween card that said, “I hope you die.” The second blank with a razor blade inside. The third one was a letter that just said, “Die, fag,” with a big lipstick kiss on the bottom, which looked bloody and gross. Yesterday’s was a birthday card.

  He hadn’t told Jess. He wasn’t sure why, really, because he should, but it just felt so nasty, so creepy, and Jess would get all puffy and growly and everything else was real good. Still, Mike didn’t relax and pick up the package until he saw Aunt Kathy’s return address. He grabbed the package and the rest of the mail before hurrying into the kitchen as the rain began to fall.

  “Oh, a package. That from your aunt? First birthday gift of the year, isn’t it?” Jessy was at the counter, reading the morning paper, wearing his sweats with no top, drinking his coffee.

  “Yep and yep.” He sorted through the mail real quick, swallowing hard at two more cards with printed labels. “I’m going to go get a sweater on.”

  “Leave the mail and I’ll go through it as s
oon as I’m done with this article.”

  “’Kay.” He took the two cards, left the rest and the package.

  “You getting love letters or something?” Jessy asked, looking at him over the top of the paper.

  “Huh?” He felt his cheeks heat. Stupid. “Nah.” He turned and headed toward the bedroom.

  He could hear Jessy’s steps on the stairs behind him. “You’ve got me curious now, baby.”

  “It’s nothing. Just mail.” He didn’t know what to do. If he hurried, Jessy’d know something was up. If he didn’t, Jessy’d catch him and….

  Well.

  Know something was up.

  “Mail that makes you blush when I ask about it? That’s not ‘just mail.’ It’s not like you to hide things from me, Mike.”

  He stopped on the top stair, looked back. “What if… I….” He took a deep breath, found a half smile. “I don’t want to worry you, Coach. Jess. It’s just mail, yeah?”

  Jess frowned, and he could see the battle in those blue eyes, trust warring with worry, warring with the dominant aspect that made Jess such a good coach. “You’d tell me if there was something wrong, right?”

  He nodded, stepping down to be closer. “If it was something serious, yeah.”

  Jess’s frown remained in place a moment, and then he was tugged close, a soft kiss placed on his lips. “All right.”

  Mike relaxed, cuddling in for a long kiss, and then rubbed their noses together. “Let me grab my sweater.”

  He went up, sat at Jess’s little desk, and opened the first card. It was pretty innocuous, as innocuous as “Die, fag. Watch out” could be. He opened the second, a piece of photo paper falling out onto the desk. There was a man, naked, dismembered, his own face pasted onto it.

  Oh.

  Oh God.

  “Jess! Jessy! I need you.”

  Chapter Four

  JESSY TOOK the stairs two at a time, some small part of him relieved to find Mike on his own, in one piece, even if he was pale. “Mike!”

  There were papers on the desk, Mike pointing. “They’ve been coming and I didn’t want to worry you, but they’re getting worse.”

  Jessy picked up a gory picture of a man with Mike’s face pasted on and immediately turned it over, anger filling him. He read the message, his anger increasing. He was almost shaking he was so pissed off.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “Two weeks.” Mike stood up, went to drawer, and pulled out more. “I thought it was a stupid prank.”

  Jessy scanned them quickly. “Well, it was borderline until this one. I’m not sure the police can do anything even with this, but we’re calling them. Right now.” If he found out who was doing this, he was going to tear them limb from fucking limb.

  “Should we? Am I going to get in trouble for not doing it sooner?”

  “I’m not going to kick your ass for not telling me sooner, no. Wish you had, though—you didn’t have to go through this alone.” He put aside his anger for a moment and wrapped Mike in a hug, just holding on. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, baby.”

  “I didn’t want you to think I was a weenie. They’re just words. Except the razor blade, I mean. I. Creepy, Jess. Real creepy.” Mike pushed close, cuddling.

  “Yeah. Very.” He petted Mike’s back, soothing not just Mike, but himself as well. Creepy was the fucking word all right.

  He was going to call up the company that did their security system, see about getting some extra features put in. At the moment the thing was really only on when they were away.

  “Yeah. Who do you think it is?”

  “Well, you know who immediately leaps to mind. Lee Anderson. I hate to think that someone would stoop so low as to try to spook the competition into doing badly, but it’s not like he hasn’t pulled stuff in the past.”

  “I.” Mike shook his head. “It won’t work. Assholes.”

  “I know. I know.” He stroked Mike’s back. His worry was how things were going to escalate when whoever was doing this realized that. “You done your morning laps yet?”

  “Define morning.”

  He rolled his eyes; damn kid, always getting up in the middle of the night to swim. That was maybe going to have to stop. “Go get them done. I’ll call the police and see what we can get done, though I’m a little concerned it’s going to be not much at this point. They can’t do anything until someone gets hurt, and then it’s too late.”

  “’Kay, Coach.” He got a sweet, soft kiss, and then Mike headed down, already moving easier. Silly kid. Mike couldn’t keep a secret without it stressing the hell out of him.

  He called the cops, managed to speak to a detective, and got a promise that someone would come down to document the letters, talk to him and Mike, but he’d been right: there was precious little they could do. So then he called up an old friend who was doing security now and spoke to the guy for a while about private detectives and bodyguards and what he should keep his eyes open for, how he’d be able to predict when things might escalate from the letters.

  Ken, his old buddy, figured if it was another swimmer things wouldn’t escalate until their next meet, and if Mike won again, the scare tactics would either stop or escalate.

  “Of course it could be a psycho who thinks Mike’s spurned her or made her promises and didn’t follow through or something.”

  “Ken, he’s gay.”

  “I’m talking about someone who may not have ever met him, Jessy. Sometimes fans who aren’t balanced get these ideas in their heads and become quite dangerous.”

  “You’re not reassuring me here, bud.”

  “Well, better to know all your possible suspects than to focus in on one and get caught by surprise.”

  Jessy sighed. “Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  “I’ll fax you a list of guys I’d trust to look after my own life. That way if you need someone you don’t have to wait on me to get back to you.”

  “Okay, thanks, man.”

  “No problem. Good luck, and take care of that kid. He’s going to be the next Olympic champion.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, I know.”

  Everyone was starting to know Mike, certainly everyone in Texas—local boy doing good. Which opened their pool of suspects even further, it seemed. Funny how he was almost wishing it was Anderson again; at least then they knew the enemy.

  He didn’t want to bring a bodyguard in, not yet, not unless he had to. Mike didn’t need that kind of disruption. Jessy headed out back to watch Mike finish up the morning’s laps, finding himself noticing every single noise the house made as he walked through it. He got outside, observing as Mike moved, knowing that Mike wasn’t focused, wasn’t hitting the wall, was worrying. He turned the music off and waited for Mike to stop, to tread water and turn toward him.

  “The wall, Mike. Remember? Nothing else matters.”

  “Yeah. I know.” Mike nodded, sighed. “I know.”

  “Go on, finish up and then we’ll go upstairs.” If the water and the wall couldn’t get Mike’s mind off the situation, he was pretty sure he could find something that would.

  “I’m sorry, Coach. I’m trying.”

  “I know, Mike, but you’ve got to do more than try. You know better than to let things rattle you. These mind games just mean they know you’re unbeatable.” Sometimes it wasn’t easy being the fucking hardass, but a hug and a cuddle wasn’t going to get Mike through this. “Go on. Finish those laps and focus on that damned wall.”

  Mike nodded, back to the water, body moving instinctively, slicing through the water.

  Jessy paced along the side with Mike under the pretense of watching his strokes. Truth was, he wasn’t focusing much better than the kid, and he needed to pull it together before Mike got out of the water and looked to him for guidance.

  Of course, Mike had been dealing with it for two weeks. He grinned suddenly, remembering the shoulder injury. Apparently two weeks was Mike’s solo coping limit.

 
He went and sat, relaxing as he concentrated on Mike. He could see it, when Mike stopped thinking, stopped worrying, just focused on the water and the wall, the rhythm of the music not even affecting his swimmer now.

  Christ, he could watch Mike swim in that groove forever. It was a beautiful thing. For him, a necessary thing. Mike moved for the better part of an hour and then headed for the ladder, reached for a towel.

  “Nice job. You found your flow and hit that wall right on.”

  He went over and rubbed the towel along Mike’s arms, drying the kid off. “You cold? Want a shower first? Some food?”

  “I could eat and, yeah, I’m cold. Oatmeal and toast?” Mike pressed close.

  “Yeah, baby, sounds good.”

  He got Mike inside, turning the heat on as they came in, and quietly locked the door to the deck. Mike looked, shook his head a little, then started getting out the pan and oats, the milk and jar of peaches.

  He came up behind Mike, slid his hands around Mike to rub the trim belly, and dropped a kiss on Mike’s shoulder. “Just being safe, yeah? It doesn’t mean a thing.”

  “Yeah. Maybe it’ll stop on Halloween. Maybe it’s a prank.”

  He nodded. They weren’t going to be there on Halloween, though. He’d take Mike out to something fun for his birthday. Just in case.

  Mike put the oatmeal on the stove, added honey and wheat germ and cinnamon to the mix, and put nuts and wheat germ in their bowls. The movements were easy and familiar, routine. They made him smile, remembering Mike’s initial grumping about his diet. Mike fixed both their bowls, and he mixed Mike up a glass of milk with a little protein powder in it, to balance out the carbs. Yeah, this was what they needed. Act normal and not let it ruin their lives.

  They sat and ate together, him stealing peaches off Mike’s plate now and then.

  “You know what I want?” Mike asked.

  Jessy waited, trying to guess—coffee? Dr Pepper? Hot chocolate? Pizza?