by Cindy Dees
“Not a word.”
“Spencer said Homeland Security had shut down the press.”
“Can they do that?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Are we going to keep moving indefinitely?” Chas asked quietly.
“I hope not. Ideally, Spencer will figure out what happened in New Hampshire and that Poppy has nothing to do with it. Then we can turn her over to the authorities and they can work at finding her family.”
Except even as he said the words, he got a strange, painful pang in his gut.
Without comment, Chas turned off the lights and crawled into the king-sized bed, and Gunner followed suit. Sleep eluded him as he tried to figure out the source of that pang.
After about an hour of staring up at the ceiling in the dark, Gunner was startled when Chas rolled over and flung an arm and a leg across his body. He froze. All the years’ worth of fantasies tore through his head. He’d imagined sex—all kinds of it in every conceivable way—made up pillow talk conversations that they might have had in his head, even envisioned simply snuggling with Chas. Like this. Exactly like this.
To be here now, with Chas draped all over him, warm and lithe and relaxed, was more than the universe could possibly have paid him back for stealing his career out from under him.
Gunner’s right arm happened to be over his head when Chas rolled against his side; he’d been stretching out an old shoulder injury. Now he eased his arm down, sliding it carefully under the pillow Chas was lying upon. It was a tense few seconds, but at last, Chas’s head was resting on his shoulder beneath the thin pillow. It would be so easy to flex his forearm and embrace Chas, drawing him closer and holding him there all night long—an event ranked much higher on his life’s bucket list than he’d admitted to himself until this exact moment.
Chas shifted a little in his sleep, and his palm slid down Gunner’s belly, perilously close to his private parts. Whoa. He would never forget the first time they’d been having a sleepover and Chas had, in his sleep, fondled Gunner’s cock. It had woken him instantly. He’d lain there in the dark, his face flaming with shame, loving every second of Chas’s fingers wrapped around his eager erection.
He’d attributed it to the general horniness of being a teenager, but that wasn’t all it had been, and he knew it. He’d responded to Chas’s touch, to Chas’s young body pressed against his, the smell of him, the feel of him—
Umm, it was exactly the same way he was reacting now. In fact, he was rapidly acquiring a painfully insistent boner. Chas’s fingertips rested close enough to his pubic hair to twine into the curls, to wrap around the base of his throbbing dick, to measure the length of him by feel—
Chas shifted in his sleep, and instinctively, Gunner wrapped his arm around Chas’s shoulders. Don’t go. Don’t stop. The words burned into his brain with searing directness. He wanted this man. Wanted to be touched by this man. Wanted to make love to this man.
He wasn’t in the habit of admitting to himself that he was gay. It felt weird now, but thankfully the weirdness had nothing whatsoever to do with Chas. Chas felt great. More than great.
No matter how awkward and clumsy he’d ever been, Chas had always made it all feel exactly right. Back in high school, neither he nor Chas had known what they were doing. Oh, Chas had known what he wanted, but he’d been too shy to spell it out clearly for Gunner. As for Gunner, he’d never given the idea of sex with a boy much thought prior to that first sexually charged encounter with his best friend. The one thing he hadn’t counted on was being so turned on by the sight of Chas’s tight, pale ass just waiting for him to plunder it that he’d nearly exploded before ever actually getting to the sex act.
It was a memory he rarely allowed himself to access. For the most part, he kept it locked away tightly in the furthest, darkest corner of his mind. But lying here tonight with Chas’s fingertips moving ever so slightly on his belly, easing toward his hungry cock millimeter by millimeter, he went there in his mind.
The thing he never ever admitted to himself was that it hadn’t been just about the sex, although the tight heat of Chas’s body accepting him into it had been so graphic a turn-on that he could barely control himself while Chas panted and adapted to the invasion.
No, it had been an emotional thing for him. He loved Chas. As his best friend, as the brother he’d never had… and as the one person on earth he wanted to share the intimacy of sex with more than anyone else. And that had been a staggering revelation at the ripe old age of seventeen. He wasn’t ready to love anyone, let alone his male best friend.
He’d been a giant jerk about it. Said the wrong things, acted the exact wrong way. Chas had laid himself and his heart on the line for him, and Gunner had emotionally kicked the guy in the teeth. Told him it was a terrible mistake. That he felt taken advantage of. That it would never happen again. And worst of all, that he wasn’t attracted to Chas in that way.
Every word had been a lie.
And that was the thing he hid the most from, that he rarely confessed to himself. Only in moments like this, late at night, alone with his thoughts and regrets, did he dare confront his hypocrisy.
Tonight, the guilt overwhelmed him, flooding through his consciousness, lodging underneath his breastbone with a burning sensation ten times worse than indigestion.
He’d treated Chas like crap. Sweet, loving, generous, honest Chas.
Which made him a gigantic asshole.
He sighed and turned his head, burying his nose in Chas’s blond hair. They lay like that for a while, him inhaling the wholesome shampoo scent of Chas’s hair, and Chas’s palm, warm and light, on his lower belly, just above his groin.
It was intimate and personal, and Gunner took a while to absorb that. Truth be told, he’d never lain with any human being afterward like this. He always felt dirty afterward. Sullied.
All that time, the only person he’d wanted was Chas. How had he not seen it earlier?
Chapter Six
WHAT. AN. Idiot.
How had he missed it all these years? He wanted Chas as his lover.
The notion exploded across his brain with all the fiery brightness of a fireworks display. And in its black, echoing wake, the questions poured in. Was it a bad idea? Should he risk their friendship in that way? What if it didn’t work out? But what if it did? It was one thing to know that he was attracted to guys sexually, but was he ready for a full-blown gay relationship?
He thought back over the years, and certain aspects of his life clicked into place. He’d never been interested in the porn magazines the guys snuck into their gear and jerked off to in the field. He’d privately wondered if something was wrong with him.
For a few years, he’d wondered if his high school encounter with Chas had ruined him somehow. Changed him. Made him incapable of getting satisfaction with women. As he’d gotten a little older—and a lot less ignorant about sex—he’d figured out that was ridiculous, of course.
But he’d never made the leap of logic to identify himself as a man who wanted a long-term relationship with another man.
Which, in retrospect, was not only stupid but a massive act of denial. He’d known somewhere, buried deep in his gut, that he was all-the-way gay. He’d just been desperate to avoid the complications it would bring to his life. He loved being a SEAL. Loved fitting in. Being part of a band of brothers. He hadn’t wanted to risk all of that. But he’d denied himself even thinking about the kind of relationship that might bring him long-term happiness. Not to mention an actual happy ever after.
Nope. He’d chosen to pretend for years that he wasn’t gay at all rather than admit that he wanted the whole gay enchilada.
And then Chas had called him, scared out of his mind and in deep trouble.
Everything else had fallen away. The SEALs. His career. All that had mattered was getting here. To Chas. To the only person he’d ever loved. The person he’d always loved.
The only thing that mattered was that he loved this human being.
He sighed deeply, and the lift of his chest made Chas shift against his side. His hand slipped lower, and Gunner gasped.
Chas’s fingers landed against his semirigid dick, which lost the “semi” quality in the time it took his heart to beat twice. And then his cock was rock-hard and he could count his pulse in its nearly painful pounding. His engorged flesh jumped under Chas’s touch, and he bit back an urge to groan aloud. He squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on controlling his body. Must not blow my load. Must have self-control.
Chas’s magic fingers slipped beneath the waistband of his underwear and slid around the base of his cock, caressing and lightly pulling at it so as to tug gently at his balls—his ready-to-burst balls that ached like mad between his legs. They drew up against his body like eagerly ticking time bombs, awaiting the signal to explode.
Gunner realized his lower back was arching slightly, his hips lifting hungrily into Chas’s hand. His whole existence narrowed down to a single spot—his crotch and Chas’s fist around his cock.
Lazily, as if Chas wasn’t actually awake, his hand slid up and down the shaft once. Again. Gunner literally started to quiver in anticipation. An urge to wake Chas up and beg for more hovered on the tip of his tongue.
At what point Chas woke up, and at what point he shoved down and kicked off his underwear, Gunner wasn’t sure. But gradually Chas’s fist tightened, moved more purposefully, gripping his dick with more authority and stroking it with a hint of demand in it. As if he was claiming Gunner’s cock for himself and expected it to perform for him.
Gunner’s whole world became that fist on his erection in the dark. Waves of pleasure broke over and through his body, washing away everything else that had come before. This—this—was the thing he’d been craving all these years. The sex he’d had with women paled by comparison.
Chas’s hand pumped over the head of his cock, gathering the precum collecting there and smearing it around the engorged hood. Oh Lord, that felt good. A faint groan escaped the back of his throat as his entire body clenched around the slippery, tight sheath of Chas’s hand pumping up and down with more intent now.
With shock, Gunner realized his hips were matching the time of Chas’s fist. He was a puppet on strings, totally controlled by Chas’s hand. He wanted this too much, had wanted it for too long to deny it, to deny Chas, to deny himself. He gave himself over to it with a long, low groan and let his need take over.
Chas pushed up on his elbow and then knelt beside him, never letting go of his cock. He pulled on it hard enough to make Gunner arch up off the mattress, and then slammed his fist down on it hard enough to pull the head almost painfully tight. Gunner’s nerves screamed their pleasure as they also screamed for release. Chas gripped the base of his steel-hard erection tightly, and then—
Oh God, he circled the tip of Gunner’s erection with his tongue. His wet, slick, quick tongue that flicked across the sensitive tip hard enough to send a micro-orgasm shivering through him. But those fingers ringing the base of his cock so tightly prevented a full volcanic eruption. His ball sac contracted in anticipation, demanding in no uncertain terms to come, and come now.
“Give yourself to me,” Chas whispered around his cock. “Surrender.”
Not a word in his vocabulary. His body tensed.
Chas slurped at his shaft, running his tongue in a lascivious line along the underside of his cock from base to tip. He then gave a long, hard suck on the tip, easing up to circle the tender flesh lightly. “Surrender.”
“No.”
“Huh.”
Gunner heard the challenge accepted in that single grunted syllable. He should have known better. He should have known that while he was busy playing straight dude, semi-monk, Chas might have gone out and gotten himself an education in sex.
Chas’s lips closed around the head of his cock, and Gunner had just long enough to register what was about to happen before Chas’s mouth slid down his erection, taking more and more of it into that wet, hot, dark cavern that was the best blow job he’d ever had.
Deeper and deeper Chas pressed. Gunner felt the muscles at the back of Chas’s throat moving against the tip of his penis, and it was a huge turn-on. Who knew? And then Chas was moving to straddle Gunner’s thighs, getting the angle just right, and slowly, he pushed even farther down on Gunner’s erection.
A swallow. So. Damned. Tight. The guy was actually deep-throating him.
Disbelief exploded behind his eyes as the tightness and intimacy of it blew his mind. He heard a gurgling noise and realized that it was coming from his own throat. His body was trembling now, shaking with the effort of not slamming his dick all the way down Chas’s throat. He felt more helpless than he could believe, but more shockingly, he loved it. He loved having this man play him like a violin, demanding responses from him that he couldn’t stop himself from giving if he tried.
Kneeling over him now, Chas slid his free hand lower. He cupped his balls, lifted them and rolled them around in their sac. They felt like stones, they were so tightly drawn at this point. And then one of Chas’s fingers slid even lower, pressed against the clenched sphincter of his ass.
No one had ever penetrated him there, and he froze. But then Chas’s mouth slid up and down his shaft, his tongue doing swirling things all around his engorged flesh, erasing all thought and leaving him a mass of jangling nerves in desperate search of release.
The finger probed again while Chas’s tongue wove its magic. This time his muscles didn’t have control and he didn’t have the focus to stop the intimate invasion.
The number of nerves that reacted, sending bolts of electricity shooting through him, was stunning. How come nobody ever told him he could feel this plundered? And then that tongue whisking up and down, around and under, sucking and pulling, erased even that thought.
White lights began to erupt like tiny fireworks behind his closed eyelids, and his breathing came in quick pants that he was completely incapable of controlling. His body felt like a massive bow pulled tight by its master, waiting with quivering anticipation for when Chas would let loose the arrow and allow an epic orgasm to crash through him.
A single word repeated in his mind. Now. Now. Now….
He realized he was chanting it aloud under his breath, at first a command and then a plea. When he was practically sobbing it, Chas let go of the base of his cock, slammed his mouth all the way down the shaft, and rammed a finger into his ass, curling it forward to stroke his prostate gland from the inside.
Gunner threw his forearm across his mouth, shouting against his own flesh as a massive orgasm detonated without warning, ripping through him, reverberating on and on as his entire body clenched, pumping and pumping and pumping into Chas’s mouth.
He fell back to the mattress, completely wiped out, totally out of breath, without words. He didn’t have the strength to lift a finger or even a toe as his body continued to shudder with aftershocks. Wave after wave of pleasure vibrated through his being.
Eventually, a single thought formed in his mind. He’d been missing out on this his whole life?
He lay there a long time, too shocked to form words. Unlike last time, he couldn’t bring himself to deny that he’d loved it. He couldn’t lie to Chas that it wasn’t the best orgasm he’d ever had. And he couldn’t lie to himself and say that he didn’t want more of that.
He wanted to do that again—Chas to do that to him again—worse than he wanted to live to see another day. He wanted to do that over and over for the rest of his life.
And he wanted more. He wanted to make love to Chas, to return the favor and make his best friend and lover shout with pleasure. He wanted to be inside Chas’s body the next time he came. He wanted to make Chas pant the way he had the last time, the only time, they’d had sex. He wanted to see his dick taken into Chas’s beautiful, slim body, wanted to fuck until ne
ither one of them could stand upright.
“You okay?” Chas asked cautiously.
“Yes. No. Yes.”
“Which is it?” Chas asked.
“I’m….” Gunner searched for words. “Utterly wrecked.” Then, lest he fuck it up again like he had last time, he added hastily, “In the best possible way.”
“You sure?”
“Mind blown.”
“You’re not mad at me?”
“I’m mad at me,” Gunner replied.
That made Chas press up onto an elbow to stare down at him in the dark. “Why?”
“I could’ve been doing that for the past decade.”
Chas laughed under his breath, a gust of humor that slid across Gunner’s chest like a blessing. “Thank God. When I woke up and realized I was giving you a hand job, I thought you might kill me.”
Gunner rolled over on his side and gathered Chas against his chest. “You did kill me.”
They lay together, their legs entwined and Chas cuddled with his ear to Gunner’s chest, for a long time. The late hour was deep and still and matched the peace settling into Gunner’s soul. Finally. He’d made up for getting it so terribly wrong the last time. Twelve years’ worth of guilt was lifting away from his heart as he lay there with his lover.
He heard a noise outside and turned his head toward the window. It sounded like a car door latching gently. Too gently, as if someone had closed it with the intent to muffle the sound.
The skin across the back of his neck prickled.
He rolled out of bed and gained his feet all in one smooth, athletic move. Naked, he moved swiftly over to the window. Standing to one side of it, he peered around the curtains without moving them.
Three men dressed in dark clothing stood behind a black SUV. As he looked on, they pulled ski masks down over their faces.
“Get up, Chas. Right now. Get dressed and grab what you can. We need to be out of here in thirty seconds.”
“What?” Chas mumbled.
