by P D Singer
“You meant it when you said ‘forever,’ so yes.”
“I meant it.” He pulled back a little farther and began hunting in a pocket in the general vicinity of a lump that had been the only drawback to hugging him. His other lumpiness didn’t have any sharp corners to it.
The mystery was a small box, which he opened. The contents flashed a small counterpoint to the city lights and the stars. “I had to guess on the size.” Dante took my left hand, aimed the ring over the fingertip and repeated his words from earlier. “‘Whither thou goest, I go’.” He kissed me chastely, the kiss of promise rather than of passion, and I answered it the same.
“I—” Pulling a similar box from my own pocket, I showed it to him. “I had to guess on the size, too. But you just put this ring on me and I want us to match—we’ll have to trade it in.”
His sudden intake of breath was what I’d hoped to hear. I stuffed the box back in my pocket. “I got two.” He found my hand and pressed a ring into it. It was smooth under my touch, domed and rounded, and I meant to put it on him. Sliding it onto Dante’s finger, I repeated, “‘Whither thou goest, I go’.” It slid all the way on—he’d sized his own perfectly. Without releasing his hand, I leaned over and met his lips again, sealing our vow. Then we were tight against each other, and for the second time in two days, we were leaking at the eyes, but these were much happier tears.
“I now pronounce us husband and husband,” Dante whispered into my ear.
“Don’t I wish.” I’d been thinking about destinations where we could make ourselves official.
“It’s true. Quirk of Colorado law, left over from the frontier days when there wasn’t necessarily an official around to do the ceremony. The couple declares themselves married and it counts. You register it when and if you can.” He nuzzled my ear. “‘When’ will be after some laws get changed, but trust me, this counts. You are officially stuck with me.”
“Good!” I wanted to be stuck on him, to start our wedding night. “For an elopement, this could have used a bit more planning.” I had a double handful of his butt, taut within his dress slacks.
“We could go back upstairs and have them serve us a slice of that decadent chocolate torte for our wedding cake.” Dante suggested. “Or there’s champagne at home.”
“Home” never sounded more like poetry. We got down Flagstaff Mountain and back in record time.
“Critters, your daddies are home! And we’re married!” Dante bellowed at the top of the stairs. The sugar glider swung upside down, chittering, one of the cats opened an eye to say, “Yeah, yeah,” and two came to strop their wedding gifts of cat hairs all over us. I reached down to stroke our cats. Our cats! We had a lot more organizing to do to get this official.
“Weren’t we supposed to carry each other in over the threshold?”
“If you can figure out how we carry each other at the same time, we can try again.” Dante rummaged in the kitchen for some wine glasses and set them next to the champagne. “Tell you what, if you want ceremonies, we can invent whatever you like and everybody can sniffle along with us, although I refuse to wear a tuxedo jacket with tails that drag on the ground.”
The mental image of that get-up jolted me out of my traditional thinking. “I still think we should have a party. Celebrate with our friends.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea. But for now…” Dante twisted the wire cage off the champagne bottle and motioned me to him. “Help me open this.”
We held the bottle on the counter between us with one hand each, and used the other hands to wiggle the cork out. The pressure inside the bottle shot the cork out between us, bouncing it off the ceiling and sending it skittering across the floor. A little foam followed the cork, rolling over the lip of the opening and over our hands, christening us as a couple. An unplanned ceremony, but I liked it. “I, too, pronounce us husband and husband.” We left our hands on the bottle while we kissed again.
Dante poured for us and handed a glass to me. “To us; to a long and happy life together.” We clinked our glasses.
“To us,” I agreed, and tasted, skipping the twined arms and trying to feed each other sips without spilling. Getting my mind around suddenly being a married man made me drain that glass faster than might have been strictly wise, but Dante refilled it and led me to the couch.
“Still in shock, Keith?”
“A little.” I leaned against his chest, under his arm. We’re about the same height until we sit down, because I’m more legs and Dante’s more torso. “But glad of it.”
“I want you to always be glad of it.” He rubbed his cheek against my hair. We sat quietly, drinking the champagne, and then having to laugh, because Harpo and Domino were using the cork for a game of kitty-soccer, batting it back and forth through the living room.
“I have another cat toy for them.” I wobbled into the bedroom to find the condom box. Blowing one up like a balloon made Dante do a double take, but then he grabbed another and puffed it to a huge round ball. We flicked the misshapen spheres to the floor, attracting Pawlina’s attention, and sat back to enjoy the floor show. Our three cats rolled over, swatting, pouncing, and enjoying the novelty, until someone stuck a claw through the latex. The pop startled the kitties under the couch and brought our attention back to each other.
“Good use for them.” Dante slipped one hand into my shirt and his tongue into my mouth. “Since we don’t need them any more.”
The words turned my legs to rubber. Since my first sexual experiences, the importance of protection had been part of my awareness, had been a controlling factor of my sex life. Now, my partner—my husband!— and I could leave that behind. Touch each other without barriers. Pounce on each other without patting pockets or opening drawers first. Or checking the condoms for claw marks.
“Let’s go to bed now,” I suggested, and Dante escorted me to the bedroom.
We undressed each other with great deliberation, unbuttoning and unzipping, sliding fabric away from flesh in what felt like a ritual, unveiling each other’s bodies slowly, on this, our wedding night. He ran his hands over my skin, dark against my paleness, and my own hands were ghosts against his flesh. I knelt to get his trousers off and stole his socks, one at a time, marveling at the beauty of him and that we were pledged. His erection, hard, thick, throbbing, bobbed before my face. I captured it, nearly purple in my hands, clasping his cock but not stroking. A small kiss at the tip, where a bead of moisture had formed, drew a gasp from him and tightened his hand on my shoulder. I’d suck him soon, but for now, admiration. I licked and stood up.
He stripped me the rest of the way and stayed kneeling at my feet, running his hands up and down my legs and over my butt. I stood before my love, wearing nothing but my wedding ring.
“Keith…” Dante cut off his words by pressing his mouth to the side of my cock, holding it to his lips with the palm of his hand, licking a single swipe up to the tip. “I want…” He came to his feet.
“Yes.” My husband could have whatever he wanted tonight.
“You haven’t even heard.” On his feet now, he embraced me, our hard bodies and hard cocks crushed together.
“Doesn’t matter, you can have it.” My mouth wasn’t exactly under my control—I started at his neck and up his chin, pausing at his mouth to stroke his chin, then his lips, and across to find his little flat ear. His hands flexed against my ass, parting my cheeks and pulling me against his cock.
“Let me top again tonight.” His voice was husky, the words nearly a growl.
“Yes.”
“Oh, Keith…” He thrust his mouth into the bend of my neck and bit, hard enough there might be a bruise. “I’ve been wanting…”
“We could have before.” I would have toppled us both onto the bed without any more talking, but he wasn’t done.
“No. I had to be sure. Really sure.” He found my earlobe and sucked. “Now I am. Sure of you. Sure you love me.”
“I love you, you ass.” Maybe that wasn’t mus
hy but it was honest. “I’ve never gone bareback, either way.” And if he didn’t stop talking, that wasn’t going to change soon enough for me. I pulled us both over onto the bed and wrapped my legs around him.
“Eager little bottom, are you?” He nipped my ear. “Slow down, this is important.”
“Speed up a little, this is important.” I wanted him, NOW. “Lube, Dante.”
“Okay, okay.” He reached into the drawer for the bottle. “Roll over.”
On my belly and with legs spread, I waited for the cold drizzle of slickness, which he worked into my hole with two fingers. His other arm held me from below and his cheek lay hot against my skin. His hips weren’t still—his cock pressed rhythmically against my leg. “I’m probably not gonna last long,” he admitted to my back.
“Dante, please, just…” The need was going to overwhelm me soon. “Will you please just get started?” His hand left my ass and finally stroked more lube onto his shaft; I could feel the bumping against my leg.
At last he was a warm pressure against my crack, heated hips against my butt, and then oh, a welcome fullness in my ass, sliding in, opening me, widening me with his flesh. Pausing with just the head inside, he waited until I nodded, pressing up and in, giving me his whole thickness. At last, we touched and there was no barrier, no separation, our most intimate skins rubbed together, and when he did come, he left his warmth within me. I left mine everywhere: Dante rolled us to our sides without uncoupling and wrapped his hand around my shaft for the few strokes it took to bring me to climax. I didn’t want to move; his lips lay against my neck. Our rings clinked, a tiny metallic cheer, when I wrapped my fingers into his. My ring was a bit loose; we’d get it sized later.
“I love you, Dante.” I brought his knuckles to my mouth for a tiny nibble that didn’t last long—sleep was sucking at me.
“Love you, too, Keith.” He pulled out but didn’t roll over, only pulled the sheet over us. “And you’re gonna wake up in the morning and still be married to me.”
We woke up Saturday morning and made love again, this time with me topping. I was perfectly content to spend the rest of my life figuring out which way I liked it better. Well, bare. I liked it best bare, with Dante, in a life that rolled out with possibilities.
He asked me about them, once we were up and dressed. “So are we going to go repair cleft palates in Mexico for our honeymoon?”
“Mmm, no. I think we plan a trip just for us first.” I pulled him away from his coffee cup for a kiss. “The cleft palate thing needs some coordination.”
“You aren’t giving up the idea?” Dante had brought the textbook on goats upstairs already and had indeed wiped away a thick layer of dust.
“No, not at all, but for doing something concrete, in John’s memory, I thought…I’ll probably need a couple of classes, but that isn’t impossible, the metro area is brimming with resources.” I drained my coffee and considered a third cup plus some aspirin —two glasses of champagne last night had gone slightly to my head and the prospect of mowing our lawn loomed. “But I think I should do some sort of outreach, or support for teens. Do what John needed way before he got to my office. Then I’d have a better shot of accomplishing something truly useful.”
“Is this instead of or in addition to your practice?”
“In addition to. Part of.” I stood up and came to rub his shoulders. “I won’t do anything drastic without discussion, Dante. Except start the lawnmower this morning.”
He winced. “Might as well get it over with. And I need to get downstairs and flip the sign; someone’s waiting in their car.”
“Happy vetting.” I leaned down to rub my lips against his hair. “I’ll go mow.”
But the person in the car wasn’t there to see Dante.
The young man came to stand at the gate, watching me trundle out the mower. He didn’t come in until I was almost ready to pull the cord and start the engine, and then I paused, unwilling to drown out what he might say.
“Are you Dr. Hoyer?” He tried to meet my eyes a couple of times, but he seemed fixated on the golden ring glittering on my hand. He looked familiar; I might have seen him recently and thought I knew where.
“I am. What can I do for you?” He looked like he was about sixteen or seventeen. That he was standing in the sunshine, breathing, sent a pang through me for a young man who would never do those things again.
“I was a friend of John Carsten’s,” he said softly. “Do you need your lawn mowed?”
I left him with the machine and went inside to make some iced tea.
About the Author
PD Singer lives in Colorado with her slightly bemused husband, two rowdy teenage boys, and thirty pounds of cats. She’s a big believer in research, first-hand if possible, so the reader can be quite certain PD has skied down a mountain face-first, been stepped on by rodeo horses, acquired a potato burn or two, and will never, ever, write a novel that includes sky-diving.
When not writing, playing her fiddle, or skiing, she can be found with a book in hand. Her husband blesses the advent of ebooks — they’re staving off the day the house collapses from the weight of the printed page.
Pam is always glad to hear from readers; feel free to send a note to [email protected] or hunt up the news at http://pdsinger.com.
Other books by P.D. Singer
Fire on the Mountain
Snow on the Mountain
Fall Down the Mountain
Blood on the Mountain
Return to the Mountain
The Rare Event
Spokes
Donal agus Jimmy
Prep Work
O'Carolan's Seduction
Training Cats
Tail Slide (also available as Slip/Slide/Snow in the anthology Out in Colorado)
Visit at Pam's website.
More from
Rocky Ridge Books
From Eden Winters
Diversion
Corruption
Collusion
Manipulation (coming soon)
Summer Boys
The Match Before Christmas
Fanning the Flames
A Lie I Can Live With
Tinsel and Frost
Highway Man
Almost Mine
From Cari Z
Wanting More (with bonus story Favorite Dish)
From Z. Allora
With Wings (The Dark Angels Book 1)
