Just Like This (Albin Academy)

by Cole McCade

  Rian slipped his arms around Damon’s neck, gathered up handfuls of his hair, clutching them just to savor the stark coolness of soft strands trapped between the fire of Rian’s needy, sensitive palms and the taut heat of Damon’s throat. But he hardly had a chance to drag Damon’s shirt off before, with a near-desperate urgency, Damon’s hands took control of his body, pushing Rian over, easing him onto his side with Damon against his back, one large, rough hand smoothing over his hip, his ass, before ripping his pants off to leave him bare.

  Bare...and spread open as Damon nudged his leg forward, the calluses on his fingertips electrifying sensitive skin as Damon stroked beneath Rian’s thigh, coaxed his leg to bend until he was vulnerable and spread open with Damon pressed against him from behind and completely controlling, dominating him with that bulk he loved so much. But Rian whined softly, hungrily as Damon slid against his ass, first denim...then burning bare flesh, teasing him with the shape of Damon’s cock stroking against him instead of giving him what he wanted with an urgency that made him feel like a little wild animal. He squirmed his hips back against Damon—only to freeze as Damon let out a soft, rumbling chuckle against his ear.

  “What’s the matter?” Damon rumbled. “Desperate to get those wildcat claws in me?”

  “Don’t be cruel,” Rian whispered.

  “You like me that way,” Damon answered—only for those thick, coarse fingers to slide into Rian without warning, slicked with lubricant and spearing deep, striking Rian like lightning and burning through him.

  He went wild, completely out of control; thrashing, writhing against the bed, clawing at the pillows and muffling his cries against the cotton pillowcases. When Damon did this to him, it made him feel owned, completely consumed...but nothing branded him more than the sensation of Damon’s cock pressing into his sore emptiness, replacing his fingers and stretching him so thickly, filling him so perfectly until he stopped feeling anything but together.

  Together...and completely taken over as Damon clutched at him as if he was the most precious thing in the world and fucked him deep, fucked him long...

  ...and held him close as they sought more and more and more again, together.

  Always together, until they dissolved into each other and lost themselves for hours, drawing each moment, each thrust, each tandem movement out until Rian never wanted this to end.

  And even if his body could only take so much...

  Silently, as he twined his fingers with Damon’s and held back his cries and completely fell apart, Rian hoped this feeling would last for the rest of their lives together.

  * * *

  Rian really hoped the kids didn’t wake up anytime soon.

  Because if they needed anything, they’d have to hope Damon’s legs actually worked, because Rian didn’t think he was getting up for the next two days.

  God, he’d needed that.

  ...though he was lucky he hadn’t ripped out a filling, tearing up mouthfuls of the pillow.

  With a muzzy sound, he spat out cotton, smacking his dry lips together, then forced his fingers to unclench from the sheets; he stared down at the stretched-out puckers gouged in the pale green fabric. He...he didn’t think cotton-poly blend was supposed to stretch out of shape like that...

  At his back, Damon let out a breathless chuckle, one thick arm flexing as it tightened against Rian’s body, hand splaying against his stomach. “...someone was a little pent up.”

  “Oh shut up,” Rian muttered halfheartedly, grumbling and snuggling back into the broad warmth of Damon’s body, the comforting familiarity of his frame and how Rian always seemed to fit so perfectly into Damon’s contours and edges. “Your fault. You made me do that.”

  “Blame I will willingly accept.” Warm lips pressed to Rian’s shoulder; Damon let out a drowsy rumble, his voice content and low the way it always was after sex, a certain sweetness to it. “You okay?”

  “Mm. More than.”

  Yawning, Rian shifted—gingerly, he felt like he’d been beaten to a pulp and he half loved it, half knew he’d regret it the next time one of the twins asked to be picked up and carried. But he twisted onto his back to look at Damon...then caught himself, tipping his head back to look up at the canvas mounted over their bed.

  That ethereal tree that always seemed to be reaching for more, so much emotion captured in jagged edges and sharp slashes, Rian’s every angry feeling poured into the shape of the very man who inspired such vivid, rich, beautiful depth and complexity.

  He let out a tired laugh, stretching his arms over his head, shifting lazily and contentedly in Damon’s arms. “...the second I started that canvas, I should’ve known I was doomed.”

  Damon tilted his head, gaze drifting to the painting. “...you could’ve picked a better subject.”

  “Never in a million years.” Rian feathered his fingertips to one of Damon’s stark, graceful cheekbones. “No one else captured me the way you did.”

  With a chuckle, Damon kissed his fingertips. “I always wondered why you never submitted that one for a gallery showing.”

  “Because it’s all mine. Just like you.” He wound his arms around Damon’s neck and drew him down so Rian could brush his lips over his husband’s. “That’s the problem... I don’t want to submit anything I paint from my heart. And it feels like everything from my heart comes from you, and that I don’t share.”

  “Mm.” Rumbling deep and low, Damon bowed over him, nudging their noses together, another soft kiss plying Rian’s lips apart. “So should I worry you’re going to divorce me, when you finally start sending your paintings out?”

  “No!” Rian laughed. “Maybe I just need to change my mindset. Decide I want the entire world to know how much I love you. Scream it from the mountaintops with every new piece. That’ll get me to start submitting my work, right?”

  In truth, though...

  It didn’t matter if another of his pieces ever made it into a gallery in his life.

  He still hadn’t figured out what he’d wanted to prove—to his parents, to some nebulous and unnamed judging eye of society—when he’d set out to create work on its own merits, without the influence of his family’s social status.

  But he had a new family now, and they gave him a worth that didn’t need anyone’s standard of merit to be valid. And as long as he had that...

  He could fill up their home with painting after painting, sculpture after sculpture, things that he made with his own hands.

  Just like he’d made this life with his own hands.

  His own hands, and Damon’s.

  Maybe it wasn’t perfect. Maybe sometimes they had to lower their voices so they wouldn’t bicker in front of the children, when they started one of their little snip-fights that always ended in kisses and torn clothing on the floor and laughter and wondering what they’d gotten so worked up over in the first place. But he knew, now, what the enough he’d been searching for all this time had been.

  That he hadn’t wanted more.

  He’d just wanted to belong.

  He didn’t need perfect.

  He just needed right.

  He just needed the light in Damon’s eyes, as Damon whispered, “I love you too, Rian.”

  Then sank down to claim Rian’s mouth, drowning him in warmth, in sweetness, in passion, in need.

  In a love that was all he would ever want.

  That told him all he had ever needed...

  Was a love, and a life, just like this.

  * * *

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  Author Note

  I was never adopted, yet being of partially Indigenous descent while never having much contact with the two I
ndigenous nations I can trace from my family tree means...much of Damon’s feelings came from a very personal place. My father’s side of my family used to have papers declaring our enrollment in a particular nation, generations old and missing long before the days when everything was kept in triplicate and recorded digitally. I spent a large portion of my life searching for those papers, seeking out resources, even learning as much as I could of a dying language, only to realize I was searching for a connection I’d never had but desperately longed for; hungry to be part of something, but reluctant to insert myself where I felt I didn’t belong.

  Many people in the U.S. of full or partial Indigenous descent end up feeling displaced—assimilated, something in our past or our families’ pasts pulling us away from our roots.

  We often feel lost, and like we can never go home to a place that wasn’t ever home to start with.

  So we try to build.

  And we hold on to what we build with everything we have.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to Deb for being willing to take a chance on me, and being so patient with me through the struggle to get this book completed.

  Thank you to my friends—my chosen family, the Fight Club—for picking me up on days when I felt like it would never end.

  And thank you to my porcupine gromp for those late nights sitting quietly on the phone just to keep me company while I wrote frantically...and just for being you. <3

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  Keep reading for an excerpt from The Secret Ingredient by KD Fisher.

  The Secret Ingredient

  by KD Fisher

  Chapter One

  Adah

  All my life I’ve been running. Running through the woods so fast I thought I could leave myself clean behind. Running from the reverend anytime he got that mean look in his eyes. Running to get free.

  Now I’m setting down roots. Roots that will grow stronger and deeper with time. Roots that no storm can wash away.

  I glanced around the apartment. Our new home. Sunlight bouncing off the yellow walls and settling down on the black and white checked floors. Sloped, slightly uneven ceiling in the living room. Exposed brick wall behind the couch. Windows thrown wide open, filmy white curtains drifting in the warm breeze. A heavy door with a heavier lock I checked three times before I signed the lease.

  “Mom!” Peter poked his little blond head through the bedroom door. “This whole room is really mine?”

  “Yep.” I shook the suds off my hands and grinned. “All yours. But you better keep it clean. Understood?” A shudder rocked though me at how much I sounded like my mama.

  “I will. It’s so cool to have my own room.” With that, he disappeared back into the tiny bedroom, door closing softly behind him. I loved the sound of my son’s voice, still high and sweet and colored with the nasal Midwest accent so different from my Ozark tongue.

  It was time he had a room of his own. Living in an efficiency studio in Chicago had been fine when he was a toddler, and tolerable when he was too little to be bothered by the lack of personal space. But next year Peter would be ten. He needed room to breathe. We both did.

  And we’d found it in Maine. In this second-floor walk-up so close to the ocean I could smell the salt air. The place wasn’t exactly big, but it was affordable and clean and only a ten-minute walk from the restaurant. I didn’t mind that I’d be sleeping on the pull-out couch and waking up at all hours to the chattering of gulls and drunken sounds of men arguing in the bar next door. Drawing in a long, slow breath, I plunged my hands back into the soapy water and resumed scrubbing the kitchen floor.

  Tomorrow I would start my new job. Head chef at Bella Vista, a fine-dining Mediterranean venture opened by the restaurant group I’d spent the last five years in Chicago busting my tail for. Riccardo was taking a big chance on me, and I was determined to do him proud. Smiling softly to myself, I lifted my eyes to my freshly pressed chef’s whites hanging on the bathroom door. I’d seen the pictures of the kitchen. My kitchen. I’d scrolled through them hundreds of times trying to picture myself running the operation. Brand-new and bigger than any space I’d worked in before. Gleaming pots and pans, top-of-the-line range, everything open to the tastefully decorated dining room. I wanted to squeal with excitement but bit my lip and started in on scrubbing the baseboards.

  I lost myself in the methodical work of cleaning and nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of two loud raps on the glass pane of my front door. My eyes squeezed shut and my whole body stilled.

  Squaring my shoulders, I stood tall and let my gaze shudder over to the door. All my breath rushed out of my body and a smile tugged at my mouth. A middle-aged lady with black rimmed glasses and shoulder length brown hair beamed at me and lifted a hand in greeting.

  “Hi there.” I tried not to sound too breathless as I yanked the door open. It stuck a little bit but that was just fine with me.

  “You must be Adah. So nice to meet you in person. I’m Vanessa.” The woman thrust a bouquet of sunflowers into my hands and let herself right on in.

  It took my whirring brain a moment to catch up. Right. Vanessa Tyler. My landlady. The sweet woman who’d spent the last month filling my email inbox with helpful tips about my new city in Maine. The fairy godmother who, upon discovering my single-mother status, dropped the rent by four hundred dollars a month. I wanted to hug her but that really wasn’t my style.

  “Nice to meet you, ma’am.” I rubbed the back of my neck nervously and a few drops of soapy water slithered under my T-shirt.

  “Ma’am nonsense. I do love that accent though. Where’d you get that? I thought you moved from Chicago.”

  “Sure did.” I bit my lip to hold back the instinctive ma’am I’d been raised to keep in my mouth. “But I grew up in Missouri.” I tried for a smile. “You’ve got quite the accent yourself.”

  Vanessa laughed, a hearty chuckle, and batted the air with her hands. “Well, that’s because I’m from so far north I practically grew up in Canada. You’re lucky I’m not speaking goddamn French.” She winked and glanced around the apartment. “You getting settled in okay? Place looks great. Nice to know you’re clean. The last guy was a real disaster. Pizza boxes stacked as high as my shoulder.” This word was pronounced without the final r. “Where’s your young man?”

  Peter, never one to pass up a grand entrance, burst out of the bedroom and waved at Vanessa. “I’m here.” My boy wasn’t shy, I had to give him that.

  “You certainly are. And what a handsome young man! What’s your name, sir?”

  “Peter. Peter Campbell. Nice to meet you.”

  “And you’re polite! I’m Vanessa.” She extended her hand and Peter shook it without hesitation. “I live right downstairs. You liking South Bay so far, kiddo?”

  Peter nodded and I took a moment to admire my son’s earnest politeness. I’d been busy when he was little, swamped with culinary school and work, but he still turned out sweeter than any of my siblings despite all the manners forced on us. “It’s really pretty. I think I might miss Chicago, though. It seems a little boring here.”

  “Well how about tomorrow I take you to the beach while your mom here gets cooking?”

  Peter’s blue eyes flashed wide and I could practically hear the please, Moms radiating off him.

  I pressed my lips together. As nice as Vanessa seemed, I didn’t know the woman from Adam. I’d hired a nice woman with state background checks from a reputa
ble nanny service to take care of Peter for the two months until he started school. “Oh, you don’t have to do that. I’ve got a sitter. You’ve been too kind already.”

  She nodded seriously. “Look, I get it, Adah. You don’t know me. I’m just your landlady. I could be a total weirdo. But I was the principal at Water Street Elementary for almost two decades. I can give you references, and I won’t charge you.” Her expression was soft, the sort of open kindness I’d always looked for in my own mother’s eyes.

  “Really, you don’t have to do that. You’ve done so much as it is.”

  “Mom,” Peter whined, “I wanna go with Ms. Vanessa. The beach.” He cast a wistful look out the window.

  Guilt twisted in my stomach. After two full days of driving, retrieving the keys from underneath the flowerpot Vanessa described in great detail in one of her emails, and collapsing onto the couch for a fitful few hours of sleep, I hadn’t exactly prioritized fun excursions for Peter in our new hometown. When we’d discussed moving up to Maine, we’d spent hours looking at slideshows of hiking trails, lighthouses, and wildlife in the frozen north. So far all we’d done was clean, eat pizza, and walk around the corner to buy light bulbs. Not exactly thrilling stuff for a nine-year-old. Or for a thirty-one-year-old, for that matter.

  Vanessa tapped away on a giant smartphone. “Okay. I just sent you a list of five references you can call. Teachers I worked with, admins in the district, and my best friend Sally. Oh, and the pastor at my church for good measure.”