short & horrific

Title: The Last Baker [15]
Author: shorthorror
Pairing: Brian Haner & Zachary Baker
Rating: NC-17
Summary: This beautiful asshole just came around and started ruining everything for me. I was the last Baker, and I'd promised my father our name would not die with me.
Disclaimer: I am confident the readers can distinguish between what is real and what is fiction. I need not state the obvious.
Dedications: To my loyal readers, and the extraordinary people who have yet to be discovered.


0.5
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen


Please forgive me for any spelling errors you may encounter on the way. I've been really sick lately and unable to write for you, and this evening has all I've been able to snag. And even now I'm being bitched at to get off the computer. So here is the latest installment. And to anybody wondering how many more parts there will be, I'm aiming for twenty ;)

Love
shorthorror

I stood over a large steel pot of boiling water, just getting ready to drop in a bunch of the homemade spaghetti somebody had made for me at some point in time. Before I let the hard strands fall my doorbell rang. I sighed, feeling rather annoyed because now I had to shut off my stove completely. I set the pasta down on the counter and left the kitchen, taking the single step up from my kitchen flat and into the hallway that breezed by the living room and lead to the front door. When I opened the door I was taken aback by who it was standing there smirking. But really I shouldn't have been.

"Brian? What are you doing here?" I asked him, not sure if that came off as rude or not.

He gave a lazy shrug. "I was just driving around and I began to think of you... and your lips. So I stopped by to get a kiss."

Brian took one stride forward and stood an inch away from me, looking down and into my eyes. Before he even brought our faces closer, Brian threaded his fingers through the hair behind my ear, letting his palm slide down my neck and down the dip of my shoulder. I didn't think until Brian touched his lips to mine. He kissed me with feather softness and desire. It was more than just a kiss. Brian was letting his mouth dance with mine. My eyes fought to open up after he'd pulled away with a shiver inducing part of moist skin.

I could hear the distant call of birds and the faint washing of the Pacific ocean just behind my house. The sun was going down and all around a veil of summer evening glow tinted our world orange. The salt was forever strong on the breeze and invigorating, much like the kiss I just shared with Brian Haner. I felt sorry for anyone who couldn't experience something so prodigiously mesmerizing.

"You're a liar," I accused Brian smilingly. "You didn't come for just one kiss."

The taller man bit his lip and rolled his eyes. "Okay, maybe I didn't just come for a kiss."

"What else did you come for?" I asked, growing increasingly curious as each second passed.

"I don't quite know. Maybe I'll figure it out if you come for a walk on the beach with me?"

"But I'm cooking." I told him.

Brian pressed his lips to mine again unexpectedly. This time, he ate up my lips with passion, murmuring his content against me. I felt the current of excitement prickle my skin after he'd tore our mouths apart once more. "Go get your shoes on." He told me.

All I could do was smile and nod before I went back inside to find something to wear on my feet. I threw open the doors to my first floor closet and found a pair of beach sandals. Quickly, I slipped them on and left through the front door, closing it behind me and joining Brian as he made his way down the front walk. His car was parked right out front of my house and it beeped a little farewell after Brian locked it from afar.

We cleared the small decline of grassy hill that dropped down only to become the long strip of sand that was the beach. Anybody that lived their lives in Huntington Beach knew the significance of that very beach we walked upon. It was host to endless childhood memories, drunken nights with your best friends from high school, tourism and even first times. But today, it was the setting on which Brian and I observed the blazing essence of life descend into it's sleep. The clouds formed in the strangest stripe patterns as the sun focused it's lingering rays underneath them, turning the sky a cotton candy pink and violet mixed with burnt orange and deepening blues that drifted in from the East. The sky's magnanimous glory was only comparable by the glittering liquid blanket of calming ocean below it. Just like we had been, the two of the highest valued elements were at silent competition for importance and beauty. It was hard appreciate one more than the other.

"Wow, the sky is beautiful." I said after we had stopped for a minute or two to drink in the natural splendor of Earth. I turned to Brian and discovered he wasn't even staring intently out into the open water and the never ending space as I was. Instead, his eyes were fixed with mine.

"It's nothing compared to your eyes."

I didn't know what to do but blush and try to look away. But Brian grasped my chin and forced me to look back at him.

"I don't really say stuff like this out loud but, I really like you Zack. I do. And it's making me as frustrated as it's making you."

"How do you know it's making me frustrated?" I asked him.

Brian grasped my hand as he sat down, pulling me to the sand along with him. "Come on Zachary. You hated me when I first came around, and now that you're starting to feel these weird new emotions towards me, it's all you can think about. It's distracting you from the real world. Isn't it?"

I nodded. He was absolutely correct. It was like he had picked the line directly out of my head.

"I've been with guys before. But none like you. I've never had to work so hard to get somebody to like me," Brian admitted. "You're different than most people."

"Is that a good thing?" I asked.

Brian looked down at our hands entwined in the sand. Eventually I looked down at them too when Brian brushed his thumb over my skin fondly.

"It's a very good thing Zack. I think you're exactly what I needed to get myself back on the ground. You're not afraid to speak your mind and tell it like it is. Other people are usually intimidated by me and obey my every command. But not you."

"You're just lucky you met somebody that was used to giving orders rather than taking them."

"I'm just lucky I met somebody like you period." Brian said.

I stared down at the sand and Brian stopped rubbing the pad of his thumb over my hand. "Brian... I talked to Greta today."

"About what?"

"About us." I confessed.

Brian cocked his head. "You did?"

I sighed. "Of course. I tell her everything."

"Oh. Well what did she say?"

Greta's voice echoed in my ears as I lifted my eyes to the darkening sky. The sun was almost gone and the sky had flushed magenta and indigo. The initial stripes of the clouds had broken up and they now soared in blotchy lines. "She told me to just run with it."

"You weren't before?" Brian asked me.

I shook my head. "Not really. I was thinking a lot. I thought maybe I'd made a mistake letting myself get so close to you. I told Greta that I was hesitating to let you in."

"Why?" Brian's voice dropped to an almost whisper.

I looked at him and suddenly felt the sharpness of his heated chocolate eyes questioning me.

"Because... I don't know how to trust."

Brian sighed and let go of my hand but no distance was made. Brian pulled me down into the sand to lay beside him as he circled me in his arms. I felt stiff against him until I remembered to relax. He played with my hair a little bit and continued to speak.

"I would love to say that you can trust me, but words aren't ever enough guarantee. All I can do is ask you to give me a chance," Brian divulged. "I know we've made our differences clear, but we can always put them aside."

"I already have." I told him.

Brian gave me a smile that I couldn't help but get too involved in. I dipped in to press our lips together for a long time. He tasted like everything I had ever wanted to taste in a kiss. His flavour was something I could never recreate, though I would love to be able to capture his taste in some kind of inordinate and unreasonably priced dish. It would be one so rare that kings across the world would not be able to have it. The feeling of soft skin brushing against mine was like being stroked with ribbons of sun kissed satin. We rolled over in the warm sand, disregarding any of the grains if they found their way into our shoes or between our toes. Fighting for dominance, lusting for touch and realizing we could get both coincidingly, we remained pressed together on that beach.

I kissed him until the sun left us behind.

After what felt like hours of making out, we finally pulled away from each other, breathless. Brian giggled as I panted and laid my head down on his hard chest.

"I didn't think somebody could get tired out from kissing." Brian said in a quiet voice.

"It's hard to breath with your tongue down my throat." I declared.

"I bet."

After a long moment of silence I had to cut in and allow him to know what was going through my mind. "Brian, if you really want this to work between us, you have to make me a promise." I said in a low and intensely serious tone.

"Anything." Brian whispered.

I sighed deeply as his eyes searched me for words even before I said them. He seemed to do that a lot. "Promise that you won't go parading around telling everyone that we're together. Nobody at the restaurant needs to know about us. You're big shot friends at the paper don't need to know that you're dating me, okay?"

"I already know what you want from me Zack. I'll keep us quiet. but I hope that doesn't mean I can't take you out and show you off."

I shook my head. "No, it's not like that. We can go out together. It's just... I don't want any of my employees knowing that I'm dating you. If they knew, they wouldn't look at me the same. And the only thing I value more than them is my reputation."

Brian giggled before kissing me on the cheek. "Oh you and your monstrously huge ego."

It had gotten too dark to see clearly. I tried peering down the beach but all I could really see was the ocean reflecting the moon's light and shadowed sand for miles and miles. The wind was gaining strength and I was starting to feel the pangs of hunger making my stomach gurgle.

"Let's go back now." I said as I shivered.

Brian let me up off of him and then got up himself. We brushed the sand from our clothes before starting back to my house. Brian found my hand and held it immediately after moving away from the beach.

"So what are you making me for dinner?" Brian presumed.

I laughed. "So I have to make you dinner too?"

"Hey," Brian began. "Cooking for two is better than cooking for one. You should know that."

So I was roped in to preparing spaghetti with my own signature sauce made with fresh tomatoes from my garden in the back, spicy Italian sausage, green peppers and the slightest bit of cayenne. Before bringing out the plates for Brian and I, I went ahead and unlocked my special china cabinet to retrieve some of my father's genuine hand blown stemware from the kilns of Milan and filled them with some of the wine I had kept from Greta's retirement party. Before bringing out the plates topped with pasta, I ripped off two leafs of parsley from the bunch I had in my vegetable crisper and garnished my simple creations.

At first our meal was quiet, until Brian started making subtle little noises of appreciation for the food. I glanced over at him, chewing with my mouth closed and saw him marvelling over his plate.

"What the fuck did you put IN this stuff!?" Brian demanded.

I swallowed before answering. "Italian sausage."

"Why does everything Italian taste orgasmic? The fucking pasta and the sauce, and the wine and your cum. It all tastes like what God's shit must taste like."

"You have a funny way of complimenting things." I laughed heartily.

"I know, but it makes you laugh. And you're cute when you laugh, my little pin cushion." I made reference to my piercings.

That night was much different than any other I'd spent with Brian. We ate dinner together, making jokes and laughing. Then we did the dishes together and ended up having a soap bubble fight that ended when I got some of the technicolor foam in Brian's eye. After everything was clean and up to par with my expectations, we cuddled up together in my living room on my seldom used sofa to watch movies on my TV that seemed to be collecting more dust than human contact. I almost forgot how great it was to have high definition satellite television with three thousand channels and a surround sound speaker system.

My heart was warming and beating hard as Brian and I laid down together on my couch, close and comfy beneath one of the decorative blankets. If this was what it was going to be like when we were together, I knew it would call for some amazing times and the discoveries that promised to come. But if I didn't learn to open and trust him and our secret, I knew I wouldn't ever be able to truly open up and be myself around him. This was only our beginning.