by Rachel Kane
It was everything Mason had waited for. Everything he had told himself he could not have, even as he lived in desperate hope that it would come for him someday. The best of both worlds, a man who cared, a man who wanted him…and a relationship he did not have to be open about.
Was that unfair? It hardly seemed to matter now, with the kiss breaking, with Liam’s legs slipping away, with the quick motions of belts and buttons and zippers, the swift practicality of the way Liam lifted his hips to let Mason slide his jeans down. Why couldn’t he enjoy this secret? It wasn’t like the world needed to know any of this. It didn’t need to know Mason was gay, any more than it needed to know Liam had worn briefs the color of red-hot cinnamon candy, cut high so that the curves of his muscular ass could be emphasized, could be touched easily, grasped in each hand, while his cock stirred inside its crimson pouch. Mason’s urge was to rip that underwear away, to expose Liam completely, and yet he made himself wait, second by agonizing second, promising himself he wouldn’t rush, as much as he wanted to.
With Liam groaning in pleasure, Mason kissed his thighs, moving slowly inward. He lifted Liam’s leg, feeling the thickness of it, the strength, the way the dark-blond hair was thicker here than on his chest. Yet the hair ended right behind his knee; Mason was strangely reminded of his last trip to the beach, where the sea-grass gave way to smooth sand. The cords on the underside of Liam’s knee brushed Mason’s lips, and he followed them up to where they disappeared into muscle. Further up would be Liam’s ass, another treat he must deny himself, if only for a minute, a second, just a little longer. Let him bring Liam to the absolute peak of frenzy, to match what Mason was feeling inside.
Liam’s fingers, the backs of them, touched Mason’s cheek, a stroke of such tenderness it made him shiver. Liam’s nails were slightly cooler than his skin. Mason was surprised he could feel that.
“I love this so much,” whispered Liam. “The way you tease me like that. But you can’t tease forever. I need you...inside me."
It was matter-of-fact, like telling someone to wear a jacket because it was cold outside. Be inside me because I need you. Practical.
This is what Mason had been missing his entire life. Someone who didn't wrap everything up in drama, who didn't require poetry, who wasn't constantly on the verge of a breakdown. Someone who understood life could be simple: I want this, so do this.
Yes. He could oblige this. There was nothing he wanted more. And yet every good contractor knows occasionally you must pad out the hours, must make the project last longer than the client expects. It's how the client knows you're serious. How he understands what a difficult, demanding, possibly life-threatening job you're doing. And so rather than use his hands to strip this last layer of cotton and elastic from Liam's pliant body, he leaned forward and took the waistband in his teeth, tugging it down like a dog pulls at a favorite toy. He even growled a little at it, and where his temple pressed into Liam's hip, he could feel, rather than hear, Liam's silent laughter at this.
His chin stroked Liam's cock, which may as well have already been bared, considering how clear its outline was beneath those candy-colored briefs. They left nothing to the imagination. Here was his shaft, there the flare of his head...and there, most exciting of all, the dark spot from where his lover was leaking precum in anticipation. No red carpet could have been more welcoming, and he released the waistband for just a second, so he could pull Liam's clothed cock head into his mouth and taste the precum through the fabric, tonguing it roughly, knowing just beneath that cotton was Liam's slit, where more of this salty nectar awaited. He sucked him into his mouth, briefs and all, as far as he could get before the natural limits of the garment restrained him; no deep-throating through the underwear, but he could get a good couple of inches in his mouth, and if Liam's groaning and writhing on the bar was any indication, he loved it.
He had been so eager last time to get into Liam. The night had felt so short, so rushed, that intense need to penetrate him, to claim him, to feel his muscular tunnel squeeze his cock, to send his ropy cum up into his lover… Had he cheated poor Liam that night? Had he not spent enough time pleasuring him? Yes, Liam had come, his cock spurting between them, rubbed by their flat bellies, the ridges of their abs, but Mason knew he had not worshiped Liam's cock the way it deserved. He was determined to make up for it.
Just, maybe…not making him come. Not yet. Let him suffer a bit.
Liam was made to suffer. The agony on his face was beautiful, like some Renaissance sculpture, a man frozen in the moment before the sword caught him, face twisted in wrath and pain, except what twisted Liam's face was laughter, then a serious look, then closing his eyes and throwing back his head and moaning softly. "Jesus, Mason, what are you… Yeah, babe, please, just do it…your tongue…please…”
He had moved beyond English, to some simpler, more primitive language of pure need. Any minute now, he was going to jerk his hips and try to push his sheathed cock deep into Mason's mouth, coming and coming.
Mason backed away, lifting his head from Liam. "Come onnnn…" Liam begged, and standing, Mason smiled down at him, down at the sweat forming a shiny patch on the hollow of his chest, down at the spit-soaked front of his briefs. Oh, that hunger in Liam's voice. That need. It echoed and mirrored his own. But he had to go slowly. Had to give Liam what he deserved.
Now was the time to remove every last shred of clothing from his lover, and he did it like in a dream, where the air is as thick as molasses, pulling, tugging, back to using his teeth, but also his fingers, inching the waistband downward.
Nothing slow about the way Liam's prick stood up once it was free. It climbed upwards, towering above Mason's head, where he had rested his cheek against Liam's thigh. Did he dare to touch it with his hands? Yes. Yes, he encircled it with fingers and palm, squeezed his way upwards, milking it of more precum, which drizzled stickily down to his fingers, ready to be tasted.
His own cock was leaking too, so much that it was getting cold inside his clothes, and without the long ceremony he'd performed on Liam, he quickly shed his outfit, letting everything fall to the floor. He climbed onto the darkly shining wood of the bar. The brass fittings were so cold that where his skin touched them, gooseflesh appeared. He'd have to warm himself by the fire of Liam's body.
There was so much of that body to explore, so many corners and niches and flats that needed to be looked at, stroked, kissed. Yet, in the end, Mason's desire told him he had waited long enough. He couldn't, he just couldn't delay one more minute, not when his lover's cock stood there twitching in the open air, untouched, needing his lips around it. It was his bound duty to take care of that cock. It was the right thing to do.
He started at the bottom. He tongued Liam's tight balls. They were big in their sack, big and full of cum in a way that excited Mason, knowing how much of a load might spray onto him at any moment. He wanted to suck Liam, but he also wanted to be covered in that cum, wanted it pouring out over his face, onto his chest. Maybe they could go cock-to-cock, using each others' cum for lube. He worked his way up from the balls, working his way around, kissing the nest of hair at Liam's base. Up that shaft, feeling every vein, every little ridge, tasting the precum where it dripped and dripped, until his tongue passed the flare of the head and came to the slit itself.
He kissed that slit, then opened his mouth wide.
24
Liam
There are moments in life when you get exactly what you want, even though you don't realize at the time that it's what you wanted most. To the extent that Liam could think clearly at all, at this moment, lying on this bar, he understood that what Mason was doing to him was something he had always wanted.
A joke back home in the city was that the gay community was all bottoms, no tops, so Liam had prided himself on a certain versatility in the matter. He could fuck or be fucked, enjoying both equally. It might have seemed from the outside like something odd to take pride in; you didn't hear straight people talk about how liking bot
h missionary and reverse cowgirl made them more well-rounded. But in his world, when it seemed like everyone wanted to get fucked, it had been a useful position to take, easily sliding into the top role.
Maybe a dishonest one.
Because, deep down, what he wanted more than anything was to bottom. He wanted to be the recipient of a cock, a thick, powerful cock that would fill him up, the cock of a man, a real man who didn't have to ask questions, who could read his body and its needs by hand, who could just tell.
This, in Mason, was what he had found.
Yes, Mason was sucking him off right now instead of fucking his ass. True. But more importantly, Mason had taken total charge of the situation. It was Mason who had pushed him onto this bar, until his back pressed against the dark wood. If Liam closed his eyes, he could imagine the bar full of people, gathering around to see Mason and his little slut, eager to watch as Mason took his ass.
Imagination only went so far, though, when his lover's curious and probing tongue was exploring his entire length of cock. Sucking on it, swallowing Liam's little offering of precum.
Those attentions began to quicken, as Mason got more seriously down to business. He had a hand on Liam's base, to control how much cock went down his throat. Liam could feel every hot surface of his mouth, every slickness, felt like he could tell every tastebud on Mason's tongue, he was so sensitive, so attuned to every millimeter of flesh touching flesh.
He didn't deserve to be loved like this. He knew that. He was aware that lurking somewhere behind all this desire was a guilt that would have to be dealt with later. Everything had to end eventually, and soon the practicality of guilt and loss would come to the fore.
Can’t I turn it off for a while, he asked himself in an agonized inner voice. Can't I just enjoy this, without trying to make it about all the things I've lost?
Mason looked up at him, and slowly came off his cock, the wet shaft bouncing, tapping him on the chin. Mason's eyes shone from his exertions.
Please don't ask, please don't ask me what's wrong.
He was studied. He was considered. Mason understood something was going on. Yet he did not say a word. He seemed to grasp Liam's need for silence.
How had he ever found someone he connected with on this level, this nearly telepathic level? How could Mason read his mind like this? It had been such a chance meeting, such a random thing, a brief encounter with a stranger that had blossomed into…this.
This. This way that Mason had of knowing what he needed. Pushing his thighs apart, lifting his knees, raising his ass so that Mason could reach it. Kissing his ass, tonguing it with a vigor that pushed every other thought out of Liam's head, like he knew, like he knew how to erase Liam's mind, how to ease his suffering, by causing even more suffering in the body, this need, this insatiable appetite for being fucked.
He closed his eyes again and let it happen, let it all happen without too much attention to the particulars. Yes, he needed to be prepared, and yes, he enjoyed the tongue, the lips, the fingers. He liked it all. But he needed Mason's cock. He needed that thick thing pressing into him, that moment of crisis, of fear, the hint of pain. The fear that this time it might be too big, it might not go in. What a strange and delicious fear to have. He wasn't some kind of size-queen, it wasn't like he went around with a ruler or anything, measuring prospective cocks, no, but when he found a man like Mason—and, he had to be honest with himself, he had never found a man like Mason before—that thickness, that heaviness of prick, brought out the bottoming need in Liam like nothing else. It was like he needed it to be just a little too big, a little too daunting.
Then, the moment. The grand entrance. The way it burned, the way it stretched him. He opened his eyes long enough to see the seriousness on Mason's face, the way he was trying to be so careful not to hurt Liam.
You can hurt me, he thought. You can do anything you want with me. I'm yours. I don't deserve it, but I'm yours.
But what he truly deserved, and what Mason believed he deserved, were two different things, and Mason's entrance into his body was as delicate and gentle as it was absolutely unstoppable. He was going in, he was taking claim of Liam, but he was going to take care of him, too.
So much guilt raged in Liam's heart over that.
Don't take care of me. Don't care. Please don't.
Some floodgate of emotion had opened.
His eyes cried hot tears.
Mason started to ask something, started to pull himself out, but no. That's the one thing that couldn't happen. Liam pulled him back, locking his legs over Mason's back. Lifting his hips to receive Mason. Making sure he understood, Mason shouldn't leave. Ignore the tears, ignore the sobs welling up from some mysterious pool of sorrow Liam didn't even know existed.
25
Mason
He was in, he was sliding his entire length in, feeling every bit of himself clenched in Liam's tunnel, when he saw the tears in Liam's eyes.
His first thought was, I hurt him, and he started to pull out; that was when Liam trapped him with his thighs, nearly forcing him to push further in.
No. This wasn't about pain. Not physical pain. Mason understood Liam well enough to know that. This was something inward, something he had been holding back for some time, and only now, at the most vulnerable moment a man can have, could those feelings come out. He understood, too, that what Liam wanted was for Mason to keep fucking him, keep driving into him, as though it could drive the sorrows right out.
There was no reason that should have been sexy. If Mason were a better person, maybe he would've put a stop to the proceedings right there. If he were good and noble, he would've wrapped Liam carefully in his arms, holding him gently, prodding him to talk about whatever was on his mind.
But Mason wasn’t a better person, and something about the naked sadness on Liam's face made him want to fuck harder, to thrust and push until this fucking was the only thing in Liam's mind. Hands to either side of his lover, he leaned down and licked the tears from his cheek. Liam lifted his head and kissed his own salt from Mason's lips.
"Fuck me hard," he whispered. "Pound my ass…please."
No invitation had ever been clearer, and yet it was hard to move, Liam's legs had such a tight grip on him, and his ass was gripping too, so tight that it was only the thick layer of lube on his cock that let him move at all. This boy wanted him inside.
Wanted...him.
A strange shudder rippled down Mason's back.
No one had ever wanted him like this. Plenty of people had needed his services—that's what comes of being the only handyman in town—but no one needed him. He was a well-liked but replaceable part of the landscape, like a tree in the park everyone enjoys, but no one misses too much when it goes.
This was different. This was like Liam taking ownership of him. It didn't matter that Liam was the bottom, didn't matter that his sole desire was to get fucked… Liam owned him. He would've done anything for the man beneath him. Would do anything, right now.
Do you realize how I'm at your mercy? he thought, his hips by now moving almost automatically, leaving behind any slowness, any delicate pauses, in favor of the rough, mechanical pounding Liam had begged for. Pistoning into his ass, like Mason was powered by steam. Grabbing the brass fittings of the bar for support, going hell-for-leather on that ass, sweat dripping down his chest, joining the pool that rippled down Liam's belly, the little pool shaken over and over like it was in a land of earthquakes, every thrust, every shudder causing it to move. Liam shone beneath him, that gleam of sweat from hard work, the kind of sweat Mason almost fetishized, the salty taste of it, the musk of it.
A wild thought entered his head: Liam should move here. Yes, yes, they'd joked about it, half-talked about it, all that. Offered in a way he knew would be refused. But this thought was all seriousness. It was, in fact, oxygen to his lungs. The idea of Liam here all the time changed Mason's whole view of the world. Maybe, with him here, he could come out of the closet. Forget all the fucking blac
kmail the Mulgrews had laid down on him, forget the threats, veiled and open, they'd uttered over the years, desperate to make sure nobody ever suspected their darling son was involved in such sodomitical sins.
Fuck all of that. If Liam would stay, he could do it. Couldn't he? Then he could fuck him every day, every hour, just like this, fucking him all the way from tears to laughter and back, this moment of absolute connection, looking down at his face, staring eye-to-eye until that final second when his whole body was wracked, when it was no longer his own, when the imperative to come was so intense that it took over every nerve-ending, every muscle, every inch of skin, and with one final thrust that refused to pull back out, his body released him into a climax as vast as the ocean, vast as the night sky, and he poured his cum into Liam. Not enough, no, not enough, he yanked himself out of him with a wet, surprising sound, tore off the rubber while he was still coming, and doused his lover in seed, Liam reaching for it, pulling at his super-sensitive cock as it dripped, rubbing Mason's cum between his fingers, rubbing it onto his chest and belly…and onto his own cock as well, their cocks now touching, Mason providing his natural lube, hands somehow encircling both cocks at once, squeezing, squeezing, until Liam gasped and he added his own gift to this display, his cum spurting straight up into the air, coating their cocks and hands, like some union had been formed between them by the touching of their seed, like they were cum-brothers now, wondering at what connection they had embarked on.
Mason slid beside his lover, his hand still not leaving Liam's cock, but holding it more gently now, letting it finish dripping onto his fingers, kissing Liam's cheek, his jaw, his lips, sore and softening from his own orgasm yet something deep in his spine begging to do it again, right now, now when it wasn't even possible, and so, possible or not, he did not give Liam a moment to rest, not even a single second, before he was kissing his throat and collarbone again, once more working his way down Liam's body, now covered in sweat and cum, desiring to fuck him just one more impossible time.
