Homebird

by Amy Lane

  Crispin moaned. “Lederhosen!” he gasped, pulling back to fiddle with the buttons, and Luka’s laugh sounded strained.

  “I will be back shortly,” he said, a certain grim humor in his voice. “Be ready!”

  Crispin’s fingers were shaking so badly he thought he was going to have to rip off the buttons himself, but he managed. By the time Luka came back into the room, naked, erect, with a washcloth in one hand and a condom and lubricant in the other, Crispin had dropped his lederhosen to the floor and toed off his boots. He was in the process of wrestling his button-up shirt and T-shirt over his head when Luka’s warm hands ran up his rib cage, calming him down.

  “Slowly, take your time,” he whispered. They hadn’t turned on the lights yet, and the darkness made his voice sound smoky.

  Crispin breathed out and managed to pull the shirts off, grinning triumphantly at Luka as he threw the mess over the couch.

  His grin faded, though, when he saw the intent purpose in Luka’s eyes.

  “You are so pale,” Luka murmured, running a finger across Crispin’s shoulder. “It’s like touching sunshine.”

  Crispin bit his lip. “And you are so beautiful. It’s like touching fire.”

  Luka was the one with the shy smile this time, and then he took Crispin’s mouth again, kissing hard and intensely until Crispin pressed their naked bodies together and moaned, willing to come right there, on each other’s stomachs, as long as they didn’t have to break off that kiss.

  But Luka didn’t do that.

  Instead he turned Crispin in his arms, kissing down his neck, down his spine, framing his arms and then his hips with his warm hands.

  “Mm… bend over, Crispin. I was not lying. I need you… submissive tonight. Is that all right?”

  “Yes,” Crispin sighed, relaxing against the back of the couch.

  Submissive he could do.

  He spread his legs and shivered as the cool air caught under his balls and along his taint. He felt the warm, nubbly damp of the washcloth then, in his sweaty creases, around his passage.

  Luka spent time there, not just washing but massaging, loosening, and Crispin was thrusting against the couch before he was done.

  “Luka, are you going to, you know—”

  “Rim you?” Luka asked, sinking to a crouch behind him. “Yes….”

  Crispin cried out, beating against the back of the couch with his fist. “God, Luka, you’re good at… this!”

  His tongue kept plying its sensual madness, but he’d added the small toy from the night before, and Crispin couldn’t stay coherent.

  The toy dipped in and out, and Luka’s tongue dipped in and out, and then the toy penetrated, stretching, staying put at the widest point while Luka’s tongue laved around it.

  Crispin started to shake uncontrollably, thinking This is it. He’ll fuck me now, I’ll know what the world is again, but that’s not what happened. He left the toy there, stretching, just barely on the edge of discomfort, and stood up, kissing Crispin’s neck again, reaching around to tease his nipples, plucking them just hard enough to arouse, not quite hard enough to hurt.

  Crispin, who had never dreamed of BDSM in his wildest fantasies, began to yearn for the pinch at his nipples, for the burn and ache in his ass, for the forcefulness of total possession and not the play of this dreadful teasing.

  “Harder,” he begged as Luka played with his nipples. “Harder… oh please….”

  Luka leaned over him, tapping the toy all the way in with his thigh. Crispin keened and shuddered, not full enough to fight, too full to relax.

  “Oh God, it’s… it’s not enough…,” he sobbed, and Luka still didn’t fuck him.

  “Shh…,” he soothed, giving Crispin’s cock a long, hard stroke. The pleasure grounded him. It aroused him plenty, but it reminded him of hard touches, of the mastery his body craved right now.

  A delicate, insistent thrum started in the back of his head. It’ll come. It’ll happen. It’ll come.

  “Trust me,” Luka whispered. “Your body is starving. Let me feed it a little at a time.”

  Another stroke of his cock, hard, almost painful, grounding, and Crispin managed a deep breath. And another. And….

  There.

  He was in the floaty place, the pleasure place, where his body didn’t sink under the sensation but rode it instead.

  He groaned, relaxing, ready for whatever else Luka wanted to do to him.

  Touch him.

  Luka’s hands devoured him—neck, shoulders, upper arms, lower. Flank, back, thighs, buttocks, calves.

  It was a sensual inventory, an eroticization of every inch of Crispin’s skin, and he closed his eyes and let it happen to him, not even aware of the steady moaning issuing from his throat until Luka kissed him and it stopped.

  “How are you doing?” Luka asked him, voice thready.

  “I want to suck your cock,” Crispin murmured, surprised to hear the words coming out of his mouth. But he did—he so did. Luka, spending all this time and attention on his body—Crispin wanted him inside.

  “Mm….” Luka kissed him again. “If you suck me, I will come—”

  “Yes!”

  “And you will be left like this, suspended, until I can fuck you again.”

  Crispin had to think about it, his mind moving slowly, methodically. “You could suck me,” he said, shuddering. His own cock, erect and jutting from his body, let a single spatter of precome drop onto his instep, and he moaned.

  “I will,” Luka promised, humor in his voice. “But I want to fuck you first, when you’re like this. Soft and submissive and all mine.”

  Awareness flickered to life as his big brain processed beyond his little brain.

  “I can be all yours anytime,” he promised.

  He wasn’t prepared for the sorrow on Luka’s face or the desperation of the answering kiss.

  He wanted to argue then, but his mind was lost in the pleasure wave drowning his body. He let the kiss subdue him, drug him, until his need to minister to Luka became lost in his need to be possessed by him.

  Luka began to play with the plug, tugging on it, tapping it, twisting it, until Crispin’s knees went weak and his legs began to shake.

  “Is there something you want?” Luka taunted.

  “You,” Crispin whispered. His throat was hoarse from mindless sex sounds. “Fuck me.”

  “Don’t come yet,” Luka whispered, body draped over his, voice feathering his ear.

  “Fi-iiine….”

  Luka pulled the toy out, and Crispin broke into a sweat with the effort to do what Luka had asked of him.

  Luka dropped it on the washcloth on the couch and—oh, thank you, Green Man—pushed up against Crispin’s entrance.

  “Ready?” he asked, his voice as strained as Crispin felt.

  “Please.”

  Ahh…. It didn’t feel like an invasion. It didn’t even feel like penetration. It felt like the empty place in Crispin’s soul was filled.

  Then Luka began to thrust, to retreat, hard, relentlessly, and the floaty, rose-colored veil ripped away, leaving sizzling raw animal sex in its place.

  Luka’s amazing body pounded into Crispin, and Crispin gloried in it. He rode the back of the couch, rutting against it, lost in pleasure, shaking with it, needing to come, but in that removed place where orgasm was a thousand miles away.

  Luka’s pace grew frenzied, frantic, and he grunted, “Your hand, Crispin. Now!”

  Ha! Like Crispin even needed his hand.

  He convulsed, vision going black, cock spewing without being touched as the visceral explosion of climax detonated his body into a thousand disparate stars.

  Coming down was difficult, drunken, dissociative.

  “I came on your friend’s couch,” he mumbled.

  Luka collapsed over his back, laughing, and Crispin sank slowly to his knees, sad because Luka pulled out of him.

  “I wish you’d come inside me.” Oh Jesus. He didn’t talk about come. Or condoms. Or
testing. They hadn’t. Because it was three days. You used a rubber and got tested later and hoped for the best.

  Luka wrapped his arms around Crispin’s shoulders. “I’ll go on PrEP and get tested before I see you again,” he said, and Crispin sagged back into his chest.

  “I’d love that.” And then, oh God, the worst thing he could possibly say. “Tomorrow night can’t be it. It just can’t.”

  Luka’s arms tightened. “No,” he whispered in Crispin’s ear. “No. Not possible. I could hold you for a thousand years.”

  Mm…. He leaned his head backward, knowing Luka’s shoulder would catch him. “I could hold you back.” But he would, wouldn’t he? Luka wouldn’t go see swamis and meditate with Buddhists and dance naked at goddamned Stonehenge with nine-to-five Crispin dogging his travels. “Not back,” he whispered. “Return. I’d hold you in return.”

  “How can you hold me back?” Luka nuzzled his temple. “With you, there is only flying.”

  Crispin smiled dreamily. As far as he could tell, they hadn’t landed yet.

  THEY MADE it to the bed eventually, with a brief stop in the kitchen for some fabric cleaner for the couch.

  Finally they fell onto the mattress, laughing, still buzzed and, in Crispin’s case, disoriented.

  “Wow,” he murmured, head pillowed on Luka’s shoulder. “I am so… floaty.”

  “It is a good thing you never embraced BDSM,” Luka said, his deep chuckle under Crispin’s ear reassuring. “You’re such a sub.”

  “Submissive?” Crispin hadn’t done it, but he’d read about it. “Is this subspace? It’s cool.”

  “It’s where you go to relax yourself, to not fight what your body is doing. It’s actually a form of meditation—you’re very good at it.” Luka let out a sigh. “Subs need to negotiate. You’re good at standing up for yourself, but you give orders. I don’t think that sort of transaction is your thing.”

  Crispin thought about the things he’d read. “It’s just that… you know. Making yourself naked, vulnerable to someone—that’s a thing you have to do in your head anyway. The rest seems… overkill.”

  “Mm.” Luka shrugged. “It can be very pleasurable, but see? Most of the negotiating in BDSM is to clarify the relationship—it helps people get to know each other very quickly. With you, it was like I’ve known you—”

  “Forever,” Crispin sighed.

  “Yes.” Luka nuzzled his neck. “I could know you forever.”

  Crispin gasped and laughed, waking up a little. “Ticklish!”

  Luka’s quiet chuckle rumbled through them both, and they turned so they were both lying on their sides. “Sorry. Are you always so ticklish?”

  “I don’t know.” Crispin shrugged. “Nobody close enough to tickle, remember?”

  “Yes. I do now.” Luka reached out to trail a finger over his cheekbone. “Why is that again?”

  “Shy,” Crispin told him promptly, although after what they’d done, after the intimacy they’d shared, it sounded a little bit like a lie when he could swear it was the truth.

  Luka frowned, maybe hearing the lie now too. “A little, yes. But—”

  Crispin shook his head. “Maybe it was just you, did you think about that? That maybe my entire life I was waiting for a handsome stranger to tell me I had nice eyes?”

  Luka grinned. “It had not occurred to me. I am glad I was your handsome stranger.”

  “Me too.” He sobered. “Not a stranger anymore, though.”

  “No. Would you really have me in your safe little home?”

  Crispin tried to think of all the reasons—safety reasons—why letting Luka into his home would be a mistake. All the lies he could have told, all the bad things he could be—but he couldn’t scare himself with horror stories, not tonight, when Luka had gone to such lengths to be safe, to treat him with such exquisite care.

  “Yes,” he said with no hesitation. “It’s boring, though. You’d have to deal with my cat, who thinks he owns the bed. And I work. I work nine-to-five, forty-eight weeks a year.”

  “That’s a month in the middle,” Luka said happily. “Do you travel?”

  Crispin had to laugh. “Well, mostly me and the guys go places, but they take their own vacations with their wives. I usually go somewhere with my sister. Her husband’s an environmentalist—nice guy, but his idea of a vacation is camping somewhere with no Wi-Fi and no running water. Millie likes that, but she also likes to go to the city to see plays with me, or museums or gardens and things. Which is good, because I’m not really excited about sleeping on the ground.” Uh-oh. “I mean, I know you’re, like, a free spirit—”

  Luka’s lips twisted. “I said I’ve done it before—I didn’t say it was the only place I could sleep.” He let out a sigh. “I do like the out of doors, though. Are there places to walk near you?”

  “Hiking trails? Sure. Some amazing national parks or forests in driving distance. The ocean, the mountains—if you don’t mind staying in a cabin, I don’t mind tromping through snow.”

  “Mm…. what will it be like this winter?”

  Crispin had to think about it. “Well, it gets cold, but we live in a valley, so it’s not cold enough to snow. Lots of rain, some frost—though not as much with climate change. The foothills have snow, if you get nostalgic, although the vegetation isn’t as lush as, say… Fiji or New Zealand.”

  Luka laughed and took the hint and did something wonderful.

  He told Crispin about his happy childhood—and it had been happy.

  He talked about wandering the woodlands, being schooled on the dangers (and there were an appalling number of poisonous creatures to look out for), and learning how to be dependent on himself for a playmate, although he never had to be alone.

  “My mother was a writer, yes? So she would work regular hours, but I remember being a small boy and wanting her attention. She would close the computer and smile at me and say, “We can take a break, little Lukas, yes?”

  “But… you said your name was—”

  “Yes—everybody calls me Luka as an adult. I don’t know where it started.”

  Crispin thought about it. “It sounds really good,” he said. “I don’t know. More mysterious.”

  Luka’s laugh had an undercurrent of self-consciousness in it. Crispin fought sleep to touch his chin with soft fingertips—he sort of loved those rare moments of shyness. For someone who seemed to have been everywhere and done everything—and everyone—knowing that there were parts of him that still didn’t see a lot of light was heady stuff.

  “I am not mysterious—”

  “You so are.”

  Luka’s grin was even shyer than his laugh had been. “I’m….” His voice dropped, and the humor with it. “I need to take care of my heart,” he said gravely. “As do you.”

  Crispin frowned. “I don’t think I could have done what we just did if I was careful with my heart. You’ll have to be careful for me.”

  And that was about all he could manage. His eyes closed, and Luka’s heat closed in around him. “As careful as I can be,” Luka whispered. “You want I should wake you to make love?”

  “Only if you wake up and want to make love.” Crispin wasn’t even sure if that made sense or not.

  “With you? Always….”

  Luka awakened him around dawn, his mouth tantalizing Crispin’s nipple. They made sleepy, almost desperate love, and didn’t wake up again until the sun screamed mercilessly through the bedroom window, and by then they had less than an hour to get ready.

  Goodbye Hello

  SHOPPING WITH the guys proved a good way to forget it was their last day together.

  “Oh my God!” Ray complained. “Why do all the great souvenirs have to be for children? These little wooden figures are so cool!”

  “Why do they have to be for children?” Crispin asked, puzzled. “Why couldn’t you just put them on fake snow and call them Christmas ornaments?”

  Ray gasped, eyes big, and gathered the little wooden figures—K
ing Ludwig, Princess Therese, the royal courtiers—into the shopping basket and tripped merrily to the counter.

  Luka approved. “That’s very good—will Link come to you now to ask your opinion?”

  So far Crispin had steered Cam to a delicate silver filigree necklace for Darla, Nick to a hand-tipped lithograph of the city for his wall, and Ray toward the little wooden figurines.

  “No,” Crispin said with a shrug. “His wife is getting text strings of pictures right now, and she’ll send back the ones she wants.”

  “That sounds like a partnership I can understand!” Luka laughed. “And what about you?”

  “Well, Millie got the necklace and earrings, and Todd got the T-shirt.”

  “What about you?” Luka cocked his head.

  “I get the hat,” Crispin told him, nodding so he’d take it seriously. “I can’t even pack it—I’m going to have to wear it home.”

  “Very dapper—but it’s not a real souvenir. Don’t you want something for your mantel?”

  Crispin looked wistfully around the shop—it was a true curiosity shop, selling everything from incense to jewelry. “The one thing I see that I’d want I’m afraid to pack—it’s so delicate.” His eye landed on a couple of porcelain figurines that sat in a glass display case, and his heart gave that sort of thump that let him know he was onto something.

  A pair of plain brown porcelain wrens nestled together, not powerful, not royal—just everyday sort of birds.

  And they were content and beautiful and home.

  “Those are lovely,” Luka said. “Let me speak to the store owner—I’m sure he’s packed for travelers before.”

  Luka disappeared, and Ray came back to ask Crispin’s opinion on something for his wife—at first.

  “So…,” Ray murmured.

  “What?”

  “You two are looking pretty serious for a three-night stand.”

  Crispin’s chest ached, but he managed a level look. “How do we look serious when shopping for tchotchkes?”

  “I’m not sure how—but you manage.” Ray shifted where he stood, looking uncomfortable for a rare moment. “I just want to know how much wine we’re going to need when we get back to the States is all. Broken hearts usually come with alcohol.”