He Came from Ice Read online

  He Came From Ice

  The Elements of Ice - Book 1

  Kody Boye

  He Came from Ice

  The Elements of Ice, #1

  By Kody Boye

  Copyright © 2020. All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by KDS Cover Concepts

  Edited by Various

  Formatting by Kody Boye

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within critical articles and reviews or works within the public domain.

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is coincidental.

  Contents

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part II

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Part III

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Part IV

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Part V

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  About the Author

  OtherNovels by Kody boye

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Hi, he said. How r u?

  Normally, butchering English would’ve turned me off. But since he was on a phone, I could excuse it.

  Fine, I replied. You?

  I didn’t expect an immediate response—or one at all, if I wanted to be honest with myself. It wasn’t often guys sent me messages on apps like this, especially guys like him.

  His username was IceFire. His profile described him as a tall, Caucasian male with short blonde hair and blue eyes. His physique, listed as ‘athletic,’ was confirmed in a profile picture which displayed little more than a black-and-white torso, and a fade shrouding his eyes from view—typical fare of the guy who wanted to be ‘down-low.’ He was a sight to behold, all broad-shouldered and slim-wasted, heavily-muscled and the slightest smattering of hair across his stomach and his chin, but that didn’t matter. The picture could’ve been a fake, which wouldn’t have been unlikely considering it was his only one.

  Either way, it didn’t matter.

  His opening come-on was proof enough of where this was going.

  He wanted to get laid.

  But with me? Couldn’t he have found someone better?

  “Last pickings,” I muttered, easing my dinosaur of a laptop up onto my lap.

  I decided to ignore the fact that I was most likely his pity hookup and watched the scrolling RSS feed on the side of my browser until the incoming message notification lit up the inside of one tab.

  I clicked.

  Sure enough, it was Mr. IceFire. He sure was persistent.

  I opened the message and waited for the apartment’s shitty connection to load the message before leaning forward.

  Want 2 hang out?

  I could’ve laughed at the response.

  Downtown, a second message came in. 6th street.

  I looked out the window and surveyed the surroundings of east Austin. While it was getting late, I could probably still catch the bus if I hurried. It wasn’t as if there would be cops waiting to catch me jaywalking or anything.

  Was it worth it though?

  I turned my attention back to his username and waited for his profile to load before skimming through it. The first thing that caught my eye was how well put together it was. The second was that it actually used proper spelling and punctuation, unlike his messages, which meant that either he was trying to impress someone by being smart, or he actually was smart.

  I lifted my eyes to the top of the profile.

  Looking for: Friendship.

  Friendship? With a picture like that?

  Sighing, I leaned back against the wall and lifted my glasses to rub my eyes, contemplating when the last time I’d gone out had been or whether or not I’d even enjoyed myself, much less with another, possibly-attractive guy.

  Despite the usual persistence found in the guys on these sites, IceFire didn’t send another message.

  I considered my options before me.

  After a little less than three minutes, I opened my mouth and said, “Fuck it.”

  What club? I typed.

  Thunder, he replied.

  Chapter Two

  A long and unfortunate half-an-hour later, I stepped off the bus near the end of Sixth Street and made my way toward the club where Mr. IceFire was hopefully still patiently waiting for me.

  Austin, Texas—live musical capitol of the world. Flanked on both sides by varying restaurants, bars and clubs, the street resembled something like a cross between an exotic carnival ride and a brick-and-concrete wasteland meant to tailor to various bikers and cowboy culture. The gay district—comprised of three clubs, one of which had recently closed—loomed strong: one, the less flashy of the two, the other, the Thunder club, which IceFire had invited me to. I managed to slide past the cover fee on the chance that it was Funky Friday and entered the club after being IDed with few expectations.

  A quick scan across the club showed no sign of IceFire.

  I couldn’t blame him for that though. He was but one body in a sea of glistening, shirtless torsos—lost in every gay man’s utopia on Sixth Street. He’d find me. It wasn’t like it would be hard, being one of the few guys with glasses or hair that hadn’t been covered in enough mousse to burn the ozone layer.

  Rather than wait, I stepped up to the bar and settled down on one of the stools.

  I was immediately greeted by a bartender.

  “Hey,” an attractive Asian guy said, leaning forward to offer a smile below an impressively-defined nose and near-mouth-dropping cheekbones. “Anything I can get for you?”

  “I don’t drink,” I replied almost instantly, then realized my behavior. “Uh… sorry. Cola.”

  “No problem.” He filled a glass and passed it over to me before offering a slight frown. “You look a bit down on your luck.”

  “I’m cool,” I replied. “Just waiting f
or someone to find me.”

  “Ah, I see.” The bartender paused. “Anything I can get for you, sir?”

  I nearly started to speak, but stopped when I realized someone had settled onto the stool beside me.

  “No thanks,” the guy said, his deep voice somehow cutting through the jarring madness of techno and pop music.

  After giving the newcomer a brief smile, the bartender scurried off to the end of the bar, leaving me to my cola.

  “So,” the newcomer said. “You must be TheConqueringWorm.”

  I nearly spit my drink. I had to lift my hand to contain my laughter before swallowing and said, “Yeah. That’s me.”

  I turned.

  Though not shirtless, he was easily the man I’d been speaking to online.

  “IceFire?” I asked.

  The man nodded and offered a smile.

  His square chin was the first thing I settled on before my face traversed the fine cleft leading to thin but fine lips. His jawline was the same as the one pictured in his profile, as were the definition of his cheeks and the proud yet proportioned nose, but I hadn’t expected his features to be so strong. What completed them was the military-style buzz cut that perfectly framed his brow with its fine blonde stubble.

  His eyes, though—they completely took me aback.

  He’d listed them as blue, but not like I’d expected.

  They had what looked like aqua rings surrounding already-breathtaking meridian-blue eyes.

  I blinked in an attempt to appear as if I’d just spaced out, but the smirk on the man’s face proved he knew otherwise.

  “Your eyes,” I said after a moment.

  “Yeah,” he laughed. “I get that a lot.”

  “Do you wear contacts?”

  “Nope. Not a day in my life.”

  “Sorry,” I chuckled. “And here I was trying to play it cool.”

  “Hey—don’t sweat it. It’s cool.” The man extended his hand. “I’m Guy, by the way.”

  “Guy?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Just Guy.”

  “Jason,” I said, taking hold of the man’s hand.

  His strong, reassuring grip wasn’t the fleeting greeting I’d expect.

  Guy’s eyes crossed my features before falling to the glass in my hand. “You drinking?”

  “Just soda,” I said.

  “You wanna dance?”

  I didn’t need convincing.

  A minute later, we were one with the sea of bodies, moving to the sound of remastered 80s electronica and mashups of all the Top 30 on the Billboard Charts.

  Our proximity was intoxicating. I wasn’t sure if it was because it’d been so long since I’d been with a guy or if it was because I was just having a good time, but over the next short while, I found myself getting closer to him—whether I was being drawn, quickly, to his musky cologne, or the scent of his sweat that seemed to pull us closer like two opposing magnets. I was so embarrassed and was about to apologize for my behavior when Guy set his hands on my hips and pulled us together.

  “This ok?” he asked, lips so close I could almost feel them on my ear.

  I nodded.

  The only natural thing to do was to put my hands on him.

  Bracing my hands along his ribcage, I tilted my head up to look into his eyes and smiled.

  “Having a good time?” he asked, inching his hands up my chest when our height difference proved to be troublesome.

  “I haven’t been out to the clubs in forever,” I replied, laughing as he snaked one arm out from under mine and draped it across my shoulders. “I wasn’t sure if you were being serious.”

  “I read your profile,” Guy said. “You seemed cool. And now that I’ve met you in person, I can definitely say that you are.”

  Unsure how to respond, I merely smiled.

  Leaning forward, Guy closed the distance between our faces before asking, “Is it all right if I kiss you?”

  I didn’t respond.

  Instead, I pressed my lips against his.

  At that point, I didn’t care.

  I just wanted to have a good time.

  Chapter Three

  His lips were all over me the moment we entered his Sixth Street apartment. Hands braced along my hips, mouth pressed against the sharp line of my jaw and body pressed against mine—he snared one hand around my back and pulled me close to him before sliding his tongue into my mouth and taking a hold of the back of his head.

  “God,” I gasped, tilting my head back as his lips fell to my neck.

  I shivered as his flesh pressed against my jugular and his tongue grazed along the curve of my collarbone.

  “You’re so hot,” Guy said, sliding a hand under my shirt, his palm flat against the middle of my back.

  I leaned, took hold of his face, and traced the stubbly contours of his cheeks before pressing my mouth against his.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” Guy asked when he released me.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  Then we kissed, and I was lost to his passions.

  Chapter Four

  Me and him, in the shower—

  The water running warm—

  His hands on my hips, his body against mine—

  His lips pressed against the curve of my neck as an icy shiver ran down my spine—

  * * *

  I could’ve sworn it was all a dream.

  When I opened my eyes, I expected to find myself in my dingy little apartment—twin bed, shitty laptop, 90s-chic TV, window facing out toward a long barren street of East Austin nothing. Slowly, though, it dawned on me what had happened last night.

  I was in Mr. IceFire’s bed. And we’d screwed each other’s brains out last night.

  I allowed my eyes to adjust to the pale gloom offered by the blood-red curtains and ran a hand through my messy hair, taking a moment to let my surroundings sink in. For its size, it was lavishly decorated, arranged in a mishmash of sleek ebony furniture and bearing various glass trinkets atop the bookshelves in the room. It was obvious his favorite color was red. From the carpet, to the curtains—even the wallpaper matched in contrasting hues, as did the separating trim done in a fine off-white hue.

  I wondered what he did to have all this.

  I turned my head, expecting to see Guy still sleeping soundly beside me, but found he was nowhere to be seen.

  I frowned.

  Where could he have gone?

  “Guy?” I asked, standing. “Guy? Are you home?”

  Crouching, I went about gathering my clothes in preparation for what was likely to be a soon and untimely departure, cursing myself for my stupidity but rejoicing over the fact that I’d had a good time. I couldn’t deny that what I’d experienced last night was nothing short of bliss, but I had to keep reminding myself of the true and sad fact—men like Guy didn’t bring guys like me home. The fact that he’d let me sleep over was a miracle comparable to Moses parting water.

  Sighing, I pulled my boxer shorts up my legs and was just about to reach for my pants before I caught sight of a sticky note attached to the lamp on his side of the bed.

  Frowning, I navigated around the bed.

  Jason, it said.

  I plucked the note from the lampshade and lifted it to my eyes.

  * * *

  Don’t leave yet. I went to get us breakfast. Be back in 30.

  — Guy

  * * *

  I couldn’t have worn a stupider grin if I tried.

  Tossing the pants on the floor, I reached down, grabbed my shirt, and pulled it over my head before I went to search his apartment.

  Chapter Five

  “Hey,” Guy said.

  I looked up from my place at the bar. The gorgeous man with the hypnotic blue eyes stood in the doorway, a series of paper bags and a tray of plastic Styrofoam cups in the other.

  “Hey,” I replied.

  Guy kicked the door shut from behind him and made room for the food on the opposite side of the
counter.

  “Sorry I helped myself,” I said.

  Guy took note of the glass of water seated before me and smiled. “You’re saying sorry for water?” he laughed. “We’re not in that bad a drought.”

  “I meant for wandering your apartment. Seems pretty skeevy if you ask me.”

  “To each their own,” Guy shrugged. “Besides—I wouldn’t have left you here alone if I didn’t trust you.”

  I narrowed my eyes in confusion before lifting my glass and taking another sip of my water. I still couldn’t understand why he had allowed me to stay, especially considering that his apartment was not exactly sparse in its contents.

  “Anyhow,” Guy said. He grabbed the paper bags and began to unload their contents. “I really wasn’t sure what you’d be in the mood for, so I just grabbed sausage biscuits and hashbrowns. There’s coffee and soft drinks over there.”

  “Uh… thanks?” I asked.