Unwrapping Ainsley Read online

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  He glanced up at me and grinned. Damn, if he kept flashing those dimples I was going to be in even bigger trouble than I already was. “Looking for your porn stash.”

  My face went red. “I didn’t keep any porn stash so put the damn mattress down before you topple it over. Or worse, get crushed beneath it.”

  “Me thinks you’re lying.”

  Of course, I was lying. I had a favorite porn mag that I kept under the mattress. I had completely forgotten about it. I stalked toward Ainsley to snatch the magazine before he did, but I was too late.

  “Aha!” he cried, stepping back and allowing the mattress to resettle. He waved the magazine at me like it was the pride flag. “I can’t believe you hid it in the most cliché of places. Not very imaginative of you. Let’s see whose pics were responsible for your adolescent jizzing.”

  “Ainsley, give me the damn mag!” He opened the magazine to a random page, and I charged him to yank the magazine from him. I didn’t want him to know about my secret fantasies. They were for me alone. I hadn’t even shared them with Luke.

  “No-uh! I want to see what filthy mind you have.” When I would have caught him, he jumped onto the bed, laughing at me. “You’ve been acting like such a sweet saint since we met.” He flipped another page, retreating all the way to the other end of the bed so his back was against the wall. He bounced on the bed as though he was a little child.

  “You’re so asking for it,” I growled at him, eyeing the bed, wondering if it would hold both our weight. I skirted to the foot of the bed to reach him, but he danced away to the top, giggling.

  “Hmm, looks like someone’s into bondage,” he remarked, opening his mouth in mock horror.

  “That’s it! You can’t say I didn’t warn you!”

  I didn’t want to break the damn bed by getting on with him, so I instead grabbed at him. I caught his legs and yanked. He gave a squeal as he toppled over. I grasped him around the waist, losing my balance, and we both tumbled to the bed, me on top of him. The bed protested under the impact of our bodies.

  “Oh god, you’ve killed me,” he wheezed from beneath me. He grabbed my shoulders and pushed. “Get off me, you big oaf! I can’t breathe!”

  “You have to promise no more teasing.” I stared down into his face but eased off him just a little to give him some breathing room. “And no mentioning what you just discovered. Ever again.”

  “Scout’s honor,” he wheezed, hands tightening on my shoulders as he pushed.

  “You weren’t a scout.”

  “Fine. I wasn’t. Now, will you get off?”

  I tried to resist but couldn’t. Later I would go home and think about the madness of what I did, but I was caught up in the playfulness of the moment, courtesy of Ainsley.

  I tickled his sides. I didn’t even know if he was ticklish so when he erupted into a giggle that turned into a full laugh, I was more than satisfied.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” he cried, wriggling beneath me, gasping for air. “Willy!”

  “Give me the magazine, and I’ll stop.”

  His hand shot out immediately, and he threw the magazine which sailed over my shoulder and landed on the carpet behind us.

  “You have it!” he gasped. “Now stop.” Giggles made his face turn red from the lack of oxygen. “I swear I’m gonna pee, Willy! Stop or I'll pee on the bed!”

  “Not until you say you’re sorry for reading my dirty mag.”

  Ainsley dragged a deep breath into his lungs then cried in a loud voice that nearly deafened me, “Martha!”

  I immediately stopped tickling him and clamped my hand over his mouth. “Are you crazy? You can’t call Mama. She’ll actually come to investigate.”

  He mumbled beneath my hand which I removed so he could speak. “It got you to stop so it worked.”

  “But at the expense of my mother finding us like this!”

  He grinned up at me, still trying to catch his breath. “That’s technically not bad. They’ll think we’re so in love with each other.”

  “Boys, is everything okay in here?” Mama asked, charging into the bedroom just as I had predicted. Dad wasn’t too far behind. Her cheeks flushed when she saw us. “Will, what are you doing? You’re crushing him! You have to be gentle! He’s not built like Luke!”

  “Luke?” Ainsley asked, looking puzzled. I got up off him, feeling awkward and silly now that the playful mood was gone.

  “We were just playing, Mama,” I told her, avoiding Ainsley’s question. “I swear he’s fine. We were having fun so you and dad can get back to the baking, and I’ll get on home, check on things at the clinic, and come back for dinner.”

  “Alright then,” Mama stated. She started backing out of the room before she saw the magazine on the floor. “I guess this fell when you guys were horsing around.”

  “Mama, no, don’t…” I trailed off in horror as she already picked up the porn magazine. I hadn’t looked inside in years, but I still remembered what was on the cover. A bunch of naked gay men in raunchy poses, leaving nothing to the imagination. I’d hidden my porn addiction when I was younger from my parents, and now when I was thirty-eight years old and over it, they were finding out about it.

  “Oh my!” she cried softly, and although her cheeks went red, she couldn’t stop staring. With long strides, I reached her side and plucked the magazine from her hands.

  “Nobody in this room will talk about this ever,” I stated, rolling up the magazine in a coil.

  Mama shrugged. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s not like your dad and I didn’t find your stash before.” With that bombshell, she headed for the opened door, throwing over her shoulder, “Ainsley, you may have to teach him to be gentle, love.”

  I sputtered as my mother and father exited the room, leaving Ainsley and me alone again.

  “I can be gentle,” I said on a scowl.

  The minx grinned at me, fingering his gorgeous hair. “Don’t worry. I only like gentle sometimes.”

  I couldn’t fathom if Ainsley was purposefully flirting with me, or if it was just something that flowed naturally. It was already bad enough that I wanted to find out what he was like in bed. I didn't need to know he liked it rough. After the past four years of using my hands for satisfaction, I doubted I had it in me to be gentle the first couple of times.

  “I need to go,” I said, backing toward the door. "The bathroom is two doors down."

  “Go? Where?”

  “I have to check on the animals at the clinic,” I answered, which was thankfully true. “I’ll take a shower, then I’ll return.” At the door, I paused and held onto the doorknob. “You can handle this for a couple of hours without me, right?”

  “Um yeah, sure. I told you I’m good at acting. As a model, I had to do some acting classes as well.”

  I nodded at him. “I’ll see you later then.”

  I left before I changed my mind because of the light that had gone out of his eyes. Him reminding me that he was a great actor didn’t help at all. What if he was just into the role-play of everything? What if the connection I felt with him was only one-sided? I needed some distance between us to get my head together.

  Chapter Seven

  Will

  Spending the afternoon away from Ainsley was more torture than I could have ever imagined. It wasn’t even that I was nervous about what he would do or say in my absence. I couldn’t get how playful he was out of my mind. It had been a long time since anyone had gotten me to laugh as much as he had done in the space of a few hours. As I worked around the clinic, checking up on the animals under our care, my mind kept drifting to Ainsley. His fashionable hair, the dimples in his cheeks when he smiled, the way his laughter started with a giggle before exploding from his slender frame. Ainsley had affected me so much that I had forgotten about Brody and his lack of contact.

  More than once, I paused to call Ainsley before I remembered I had forgotten to ask him for his cell phone number
. I tried not to call my mother, but I caved in at the last minute when I finished my rounds. We ran an overnight stay clinic where sick animals were under surveillance throughout the night, in case they took a turn for the worst.

  In my office, as I packed up to go, I rang my mother’s house phone since she was always losing her cell phone and was more likely to answer the landline.

  “Happy holidays!” she sing-sang her greeting. Her happy tone said a lot. She had, at least, not found out that Ainsley and I were frauds in love.

  “Hi Mama, it’s just me,” I said. “Happy holidays to you too.”

  “Will, is everything okay?”

  “Yes, I’m just about to leave the clinic. Is everything alright there?”

  “Of course, everything is fine” she responded. “I have to say, William, when your sister let the cat out of the bag that you were dating online, I was skeptical and worried for your sake. But, your young man is an absolute delight.”

  I mentally scolded myself for the way I turned warm under her compliment. “I knew you’d make him feel at home.”

  “Yes, of course. It’s my pleasure having him here. Your father likes him too.”

  “Uh, Mama, our relationship is still quite new,” I said, hoping to prepare her from now for the inevitability of my breakup with Ainsley. I never anticipated my parents would like him so much. I always knew they would be hospitable. Treating people well was in their nature. I just never thought they could be drawn to him so soon. Like the way I was. He really was a good actor.

  “It’s not how long you’ve known the person, son. It’s about the quality time you put into your relationship, and I must say I am quite pleased by what I saw today. I don’t remember hearing you laugh like that in such a long while. It’s obvious you care about him so much, and he looks at you with love in his eyes.”

  I swallowed the incredulous sound in my throat. I should have known she would be trying to push us to the altar. One way or another she was not going to stop until she either had us saying ‘I do’s’ or coming clean about our fake relationship.

  “He’s very special,” I replied weakly, not sure what else to say. The problem was that I really did believe Ainsley was special. Mama was right about my laughter. Much of the joy in my life had gone with the death of my husband. Sure, I had fun at times, but there was a big hole in my heart, which served as a reminder that I didn’t have anyone else to love and who loved me. Just my family so that was an almost given. I still believed that I didn’t need a spouse to be happy, but it really didn’t hurt. “Can I speak to Ainsley?” I asked her.

  “He's taking a nap,” she answered. “He practically fell asleep in the chair watching one of your father’s classic reruns with him. Do you want me to wake him?”

  I did. I wanted to hear his voice. The way he called me Willy to annoy me but gave me butterflies instead. “No, please don’t do that. I’ll be over soon anyway.”

  “Good. I think he was missing you too. If it’s any consolation.”

  “It is.” If he did indeed miss me, and not faking it. “I’ll see you in approximately an hour.”

  “Can’t wait. Love you.”

  “Love you too, Mama.”

  After hanging up the phone, I left the assistant in charge, reminding him to keep in touch if any of the animals took a turn for the worse. As much as I was looking forward to having dinner with my twink— I really needed to stop thinking of him as mine— I couldn’t neglect my duties as one of the only few vets around Birmingham who worked at an overnight staying facility.

  It took me almost an entire hour to get home because of the traffic. I didn’t bother to park in the garage since I planned to go out again. The temperature had dropped again, and I turned up the thermostat. While waiting for the place to get warm, I grabbed a can of beer from the fridge and headed up the stairs. I was slightly hungry, but since I would eat at my parents, I didn’t bother to prepare or heat up any food. I was more interested in taking a shower and getting dressed to see Ainsley again. He couldn't be as spectacular as I remembered. My mind was probably contriving these weird memories of how good he had felt when I had him pinned beneath me on the bed.

  I stripped in the bedroom, pausing to stare at the framed photographs on my bedside table. They were photographs of my late husband and me at our wedding, our last vacation together in Cancún, and an older picture of us when we started dating in high school. Everyone had thought we were just friends then, especially since we had been practically inseparable since the beginning of high school. We had publicly come out together, and even though initially shocked, several people who knew us always commented that they should have known. We had always been close, and our romance had been straight out of a fairytale. He and I had been good together.

  Though I still felt an ache when I thought about him, I didn’t have that overwhelming feeling to break down into tears. Not wanting to analyze it and make too much of it, I continued to the bathroom. Where the rest of the house was modest, he and I had splurged on the bathroom. Not only was it designed with fancy his and his sinks and even two toilets, so we were out of each other’s space, but the design had taken into consideration both our love for bathroom sex. Despite being the bottom in our relationship, or because of it, he had been quite anal about personal care. Although active, our penetrative sex life had happened only once in a while. Maybe three times for the year. I never complained, and if there had been times I wished to have penetrative sex with him, I would squash the feeling without broaching the subject to him. I had loved him and hadn’t wanted him to do anything he wasn’t comfortable with. If having him in my life had meant no penetrative sex at all, I would have gone along with it just fine.

  As much as I would have liked to soak the cold out of my body in the Jacuzzi, I ignored it to take a long shower instead. The multi-shower jets warmed me up soon enough, revitalizing me. Washing my dick, an image of Ainsley beneath me on the bed filled my mind. I felt guilty for thinking about him this way, but damn if I could have stopped myself. I pictured him lying on all fours, naked, that sweet ass of his tilted in the air.

  “Fuck,” I moaned as I rubbed my dick harder, stroking faster. I paused to squeeze some conditioner into my hand to make my cock slicker. He would look hot locked into a spreader bar, immobile to do anything but take the length of my cock. If only I ever had the courage to try anything like that.

  I groaned, my body overcome by spasms as I nutted on the tiles. With a moan, I continued to lazily stroke my cock. My balls tightened as another image of Ainsley on his knees cleaning up my cum came to mind.

  I released my cock, not ashamed that I had used Ainsley as jerk-off material, but I was concerned at the hold he was having over me in such a short time. I had to keep my hands off him as much as possible. I dreaded having to do things with him that my family would expect. Like kissing and touching. If I didn't kiss Ainsley at least once in their presence they would be puzzled.

  Quickly finishing my shower, I ran my hand over the stubble on my jaw and contemplated shaving before I gave up on the idea. I dried off then returned to my bedroom to get dressed. I caught myself reaching for another pair of sweatpants and paused before pulling it on. I hadn't thought much about wearing sweats when I had dressed for the airport. I had been too excited about meeting Brody to have contemplated what to wear. I had also dressed for comfort since I had rounds to do at the clinic.

  This time around, I replaced the sweatpants and avoided the telling voice in my head, giving off warning signals. I ended up putting on the newest pair of black jeans I owned and a black and red plaid shirt I even ironed. I hadn't noticed before then how much plaid I had in my closet. Luke must have worn plaid a lot too because some had belonged to him.

  The traffic to my mother's house wasn't heavy, so I arrived only twenty minutes later. My sister's car wasn't parked in the yard, and I was relieved for that because I didn't want her facing Ainsley without me. She knew too much and could say something stupid to ruin
this time from me. For the first time, Christmas was approaching, and there was no talk about finding someone to hook me up with.

  The front door was unlocked which made me frown. Although we didn't live in the heart of the city and the neighborhood was quite peaceful, I often warned them of the dangers of leaving their doors unlocked. One morning Mama had found a homeless man raiding her cupboards. She had turned around and invited that man to stay for breakfast.

  “Who's home?” I called as I entered the house. I fully expected Ainsley to meet me in the hall, and when he didn’t, I tried not to be disappointed.

  “In the living room, dear!”

  I followed my mother’s voice to the living room, the pace of my heartbeat quickening the closer I got to seeing Ainsley again. Upon entering the living room where mother was still trying to add to the already well-decorated tree, I swept my gaze over the four corners of the room.

  “Where’s Ainsley?” I asked, my tone coming across more anxious than I intended.

  “He left,” Mama replied. “He said something about having a change of heart and that you two don’t suit after all.”

  Everything inside me died. My enthusiasm plummeted, and this tight feeling clutched my heart and squeezed. I inhaled, and it burned, sucking the air into my lungs.

  “How long ago did he leave?” I asked.

  “Heavens, Martha!” Dad cried from where he was sitting in his favorite chair, a newspaper in hand. “Don’t scare the boy like that. He’s bound to take you seriously.”

  “Oh hush, Frank, I’m just having some fun.”

  “You mean you’re kidding?” I asked Mama. “He didn’t leave?”

  “Of course, he hasn’t left,” she answered on a chuckle. “He didn’t say, but it was obvious he couldn’t wait for you to get here. We could see how often he was checking his phone.”

  Except he didn’t have my phone number, so he must have been talking to someone else. I frowned. “That was really cruel of you, Mama.”

  “I refuse to feel guilty,” she replied. “Y’all pranked me enough in your childhood. It’s finally time I played catch up.”