Only for the Weekend

by Jen FitzGerald

  All this affection is probably just five long years of pentup suppression breaking free of its bonds. Tucker knows the gist of Cole’s loss. He isn’t naive enough to think Cole’s been celibate all this time, either, but club hookups are so impersonal. They take care of the symptoms, but they rarely address the cause of what ails someone. Either you learn to live with the diagnosis or you go somewhere else seeking treatment.

  Tucker learned to live with the diagnosis.

  Beneath his ear, Cole’s heart beats a steady thumpa-thumpa , the sound comforting and soothing.

  A thunderous boom precedes another profusion of color.

  Tucker twitches again.

  Cole’s arm tightens around him. “Hey.”

  Tucker tilts his head back to look at Cole. “I’m fine. Really.”

  A shower of gold, purple, and green fills the sky above them, brushing their skin in a muted reflection before fading away.

  Before he realizes what’s happening, Cole has rolled them both, cradling Tucker’s neck on his arm and hovering over Tucker. “Do you have some sort of PTSD or something? You should have said. I’d have taken you home.”

  Like the artillery shells exploding above them, light blooms in Tucker’s chest. Unlike the display, it doesn’t fade as quickly as it appeared. Tucker might be in trouble. No, he’s definitely in trouble.

  He traces Cole’s cheek, over his nose, and across the other cheek with a fingertip. “No, I don’t have PTSD or anything, I promise. My mind’s been wandering and they just keep surprising me is all.”

  Blues and greens illuminate the night for a few seconds and then it’s dark. Cole’s mouth covers Tucker’s. He’s nipping and sipping at Tucker’s lips. Tucker opens his mouth to the slide of Cole’s tongue along the seam. They kiss long and deep, over and over, making out like teenagers. Cole’s hard against his leg, and Tucker himself is firming up. He’s very aware of where they are, and he knows Cole is too, so neither makes a move to escalate things. Tucker’s pretty sure the only reason they’re even making out this much is because of the darkness and the fact that everyone else is situated below or in front of them. That doesn’t stop him from enjoying it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The fireworks last for a good hour or so. Once the last artillery shell has echoed into silence and the family cheers and whistles in thanks and appreciation, everyone staggers to their feet and shuffles around, gathering blankets and picking up trash. Within half an hour, there’s a line of taillights headed back to Ten Rigs.

  The house is cool and quiet as Tucker follows Cole up the stairs and into his bedroom, admiring the man’s ass all the while. He’s seen it in the flesh now too, and what he wouldn’t give for an opportunity to get a little more up close and personal with it. He’s not sure how Cole feels about any sort of back-door action though. Not every queer is into it. Most, yeah, but not all. That’s not a concern for tonight though.

  It’s been another long day outside in the heat. Add in the time spent on the lake and in the lake under the blazing Texas sun and, well, that’s a recipe for exhaustion. The good kind for sure, but exhaustion nonetheless.

  Entering the room eases some of that though. The cool blues and off whites exude a placid atmosphere. The air is cool, but not too cool after a day spent mostly outside.

  Tucker showers first. He pulls on his pajama boxers and a light tee shirt and goes in search of hydration. He’s back with several bottles of water and is perched on the corner of the bed scrolling through Facebook when Cole comes out of the bathroom. His dark hair is slicked back from his handsome face and a healthy layer of whiskers shadows his jaw. The white towel is bright in contrast to the golden hue of his skin. Tucker’s dick stirs in admiration. Cole’s got lean, muscular calves, a great ass, and a narrow waist leading upwards to well-rounded arms and broad slightly sunburned shoulders. It’ll probably fade easily into tan, but it could still be uncomfortable while sleeping, despite Cole’s ridiculously high-thread-count sheets. Plus, there’s no way Tucker’s gonna pass up an opportunity to get his hands on Cole’s body again, even if it is just the man’s shoulders.

  “Hey, sugar, your shoulders are really pink. I’ve got the greatest stuff for sunburn.”

  Cole turns his back to the mirror over the dresser and peers over his shoulder to get a look at it. “Yeah, that might be a little tender tomorrow.”

  Digging around in his bag, Tucker pulls out a jar of gel. He holds it up, drawing Cole’s gaze. “This works great, I swear. You want?”

  * * *

  Cole meets Tucker’s gaze. His throat is thick with how much more he wants than just gel rubbed on his shoulders, even after today’s interlude in the lake. He doesn’t know how to say so. Nodding, he offers his back to Tucker.

  The schlicky sound of Tucker rubbing the gel between his hands is obscene in the quiet. The touch of Tucker’s hands, cool and slick, makes Cole jump, his skin is so warm. Tucker’s hands move in gentle circles over Cole’s shoulder blades. Desire snakes down Cole’s spine. Want pools in his groin. Budding arousal makes his dick twitch. His breath hitches and his fingers curl into his fists.

  There’s no noise save the brush of Tucker’s hands across Cole’s back, along his arms, and the faint whisper of their breathing. Cole lets his chin fall to his chest. Closes his eyes and savors the feel of hands on him that will be gone in just a few moments’ time.

  Cole peers into the mirror, watching what he can see of Tucker, hands and arms flashing in and out of the reflection as he continues to smooth gel into Cole’s shoulders and back. Cole wants more so badly he can practically taste it.

  Fuck it. Tucker hasn’t pushed for an intimacy Cole wasn’t willing to offer as the weekend has progressed, but he’s welcomed whatever overture Cole has made.

  Cole whirls around. Their gazes collide. Cole’s breath hitches. He searches Tucker’s face, his eyes, and reaches out. He cups Tucker’s face with both hands, Tucker’s five o’clock shadow scraping lightly against his palm. God, he wants. He opens his mouth to ask, but closes it, not even sure how to ask or what to ask for.

  Tucker’s eyes flash, pupils blow. A nanosecond later, Tucker steps forward, covering Cole’s mouth with his own, hands sliding down to Cole’s ass, pulling him flush.

  Lips part, heads tilt, and the kiss deepens. Electricity pings through Cole’s body like a pinball in a machine. Cole clutches the soft cotton of Tucker’s shirt as they kiss and kiss and kiss, alternating between deep and filthy and slow and sensual. Cole’s completely hard now. He wants so much. He wants to be touched and held, even if it’s just this once. Words stick in his throat, so he tugs at Tucker’s tee shirt instead, pushes at the towel still somehow wrapped around his waist, plucks at the waistband of Tucker’s boxers, and hopes Tucker gets the message.

  He does.

  “What do you want?” Tucker whispers into Cole’s mouth even as his fingers trail up Cole’s arms, as his hands brush down Cole’s chest.

  Cole’s stomach loops and a delicious chill washes over him. He’s panting, overwhelmed in a way he didn’t expect. He can barely think. It’s been so long. Hand jobs in a lake are one thing—sex in a bed is something else entirely.

  He swallows to engage his vocal cords. “Just that, yeah. Touch me. Please. I don’t… Just. Anywhere.” He almost doesn’t recognize his own voice, it’s so raw. He doesn’t even need to come. He just wants to be touched like he means something to somebody. Just for a while.

  Tucker kisses down Cole’s neck, licking and nipping along his shoulder, back across his chest. He licks a nipple and tweaks it. Cole gasps. Tucker does the other one. Cole’s hands adventure along Tucker’s shoulders, his arms, his smooth bronzed skin sliding beneath Cole’s fingertips.

  Tucker drops to his knees, dots sucking kisses down Cole’s abs, circling his belly button with his tongue. Cole is so hard, his dick aches. Tucker rubs his nose in the coarse hair that surrounds Cole’s navel and leads the way to his groin. Cole’s ass hits the edge of the dr
esser and his fingers curl around the edge.

  The head of Cole’s dick disappears into Tucker’s mouth and he swirls his tongue around the corona. Cole gasps and his vision whites out for a moment; he bucks forward. Tucker sucks him down and Cole’s hands land on Tucker’s head. The urge to fuck his face is overwhelming. It takes whatever brain cells are still functioning to hold back, but Tucker squeezes the fleshy part of Cole’s hips. Cole gazes down into Tucker’s face, and the sight of his lips all plump and red around Cole’s erection makes his dick twitch. Tucker’s blue eyes are big as he pulls back.

  “You don’t have to…” Cole says, voice raspy, heart beating a mile a minute.

  “I want to.”

  “Okay.” He nods quickly, as if Tucker’s going to change his mind.

  “Cole?”

  Cole blinks and focuses again.

  “Whatever you want to do is okay.” His eyebrow arches.

  And, oh God, is Tucker giving him permission to come in his mouth?

  “Yes,” he says, as if reading Cole’s mind, and inhales Cole’s dick again, blue eyes locked onto his, big and heated and encouraging Cole to go for it. He does.

  Suction and heat pull at Cole’s dick. Hands grasp and knead at his hips and ass. Tucker tilts his head, his throat opens, and he swallows, the action causing Tucker’s throat to squeeze around Cole’s dick. Cole groans. His fingers curl into Tucker’s hair and he gives in to the urge to thrust. And fuck, fuck, fuck, the warmth and the wet and Tucker’s touch his overloading is senses. Before he fully registers it, his sac is tightening and his abs are clenching. He’s going to come.

  He tightens his fingers in Tucker’s hair and makes some sort of noise, because even in his state of blissed-out arousal, he remembers it’s bad form to come in a partner’s mouth without explicit consent. But he has consent, he’s pretty sure at this point. So a warning at least.

  Tucker clutches Cole’s ass and hums. Cole’s eyes slam shut, and he comes. Tucker takes what Cole gives and pulls off. Cole’s breathing hard. His head is spinning. He feels warm and bright and like a feather on the breeze. He feels better than he remembers feeling after any other blow job he’s ever gotten. A warm post-orgasm languor envelops him. His body feels loose and he’s not sure his knees are gonna support him much longer.

  Tucker rises. An arm slides across Cole’s shoulders and he’s being led, hopefully, toward the bed. He squints his eyes open to see where he’s going, but he’s in good hands. The best hands, he thinks.

  “Thank you,” he murmurs.

  Tucker’s mouth quirks up on one side and he slides a hand through Cole’s hair. “You’re very welcome. Now drink.” He opens the water bottle and holds it out. “I’ll be right back.”

  Telltale signs of teeth brushing float from the bathroom. It’s a considerate gesture, but he kind of wishes he could have tasted himself in Tucker’s mouth. He’s never done that, never wanted to, but Tucker brings out some sort of voracity in him that surprises him.

  “What about you?” Cole asks when Tucker slides across the bed.

  “What about me?”

  “It’s your turn…”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cole awakens completely surprised and completely hard. This morning, it’s him mashed up against Tucker’s back, his nose in Tucker’s frou-frou smelling hair, his arm curled around Tucker’s waist, and his morning wood nestled into the cleft of Tucker’s ass.

  And if that isn’t an interesting turn of events, Cole doesn’t know what is, but there’s no denying the profound sense of well-being that’s sunk into his being. He had sex last night with not a stranger for the first time in years. He woke up in bed with the person he had sex with for the first time in years. He could probably, if he wanted to, have morning sex for the first time in years.

  “Morning,” says Tucker softly, fingertip tracing circles on the back of Cole’s hand.

  “Um, morning…” Cole doesn’t move and neither does Tucker, aside from that finger. The swoops of his stomach match the slow circular motion. “Should I apologize?”

  “Not at all,” Tucker says and pushes Cole’s hand down to his groin. “Get me off.” He wiggles his ass against Cole’s hard-on. “Get yourself off too.”

  Cole’s breath whooshes out on a rush, his heart thumps harder. He takes a hold of Tucker’s dick. It’s long and thick and velvet in his hand. He strokes and twists and can’t help the twitching of his own hips. Being here, like this…it’s so fucking good. It’s been so long.

  “Got any lube handy?” Tucker pants.

  Heat licks up Cole’s face, not that Tucker can see it, or that there’s any reason to be embarrassed. What selfrespecting gay man doesn’t have a bottle of lube in his bedside table drawer?

  He clears his throat and croaks out a “yes.”

  The bedclothes get kicked off and then there’s lube on his hand and lube on his dick. Cole pulls and strokes the length of Tucker’s hard-on as his own slides pleasurably in the cozy space between their bodies. His eyes slip closed and he nuzzles the short hairs at Tucker’s neck.

  Tucker’s clutching Cole’s hip and ass. Breathless Southern nothings dispel the quiet.

  “Harder, faster,” says Tucker after a few minutes and Cole obliges.

  Cole’s brain goes fuzzy at the pleasure of it all. Their panting breaths, the clamp of Tucker’s fingers, and the slick warmth of Tucker’s behind all hold his focus. His hand picks up speed; so do his hips. Tendrils of bliss whorl down his spine, and it’s all he can do to keep up his part of the proceedings.

  His world narrows down to his dick, hard and leaking, between their bodies. Impending climax sparks in his sac and he chases the feeling, stroking the dick in his hand as if it were his own, rutting into Tucker’s backside until his orgasm hits him with the force of a Mack truck. He groans and buries his face in Tucker’s neck and erupts all over Tucker’s lower back.

  “Fuck,” Tucker gasps, covering Cole’s hand with his own. They stroke together once, twice, and then Cole’s fingers are coated with warm jizz. Cole melts warm and sated against Tucker.

  They lie quietly for a few minutes. Cole doesn’t even know what time it is, but he’s loath to leave the bed. A worm of worry wiggles into his mind…will everyone be able to tell, just by looking at them, that they had sex last night and again this morning? But why would they? Everyone probably assumes they’re sleeping together anyway. From that perspective, nothing has changed. From his perspective, everything has changed. He got well and truly laid for the first time in months. Twice, even. It’s gonna show.

  “You’re thinking too loudly,” Tucker says. “What’s wrong? You regretting this already?”

  “What? No. ” Cole wipes his hand on the sheet and slides it up Tucker’s arm, squeezes his shoulder. “I don’t and I won’t.”

  “Then what?”

  “Everyone’s gonna know.”

  Tucker snorts. “Possibly. Most of them aren’t paying any attention to you. Pammy might, but only because she’s been watching us so closely. Maybe your grandmother. But that’s it. What can you do about it anyway?”

  Cole sighs. “Nothing.”

  “Exactly. So relish the fact that you actually got some and don’t worry about what everyone else may or may not know.”

  “Okay.” Cole tucks his face into Tucker’s neck and breathes in the scent of pine, sex, and clean sweat. “Thanks.” A moment later, he says, “I guess we should get cleaned up or else we may be permanently stuck together.”

  “Showing up connected at the ass would remove all doubt, wouldn’t it?”

  Cole barks out a laugh and pulls away slowly so as to reduce the rip of hair and skin. He reaches for his boxers, but why? They’ve seen each other naked several times in the last twenty-four hours, not to mention the actual sex they’ve had. There’s little need for modesty at this point.

  He lifts his cell from the nightstand and, surprisingly, it’s after nine. They’ve got to get a move on. Today is the last day and
the weekend will be over after an early dinner.

  “You wanna join me?”

  The surprised expression on Tucker’s face is not unexpected, even though he’s nodding and throwing off the covers.

  “Save time and water?” Cole offers as an explanation. “We need to hurry.”

  “Or what?”

  * * *

  When Cole and Tucker stroll hand-in-hand into the pavilion shortly after eleven, Connie raises an eyebrow from her seat at the table with their mother and Aunt Helen. His mother smiles at him blissfully unaware, but Helen’s got a sparkle in her eye over the rim of her coffee cup. It’s not like she can’t recognize sex-satisfied gay men, Cole supposes. Still, he can’t help the blush. He drags Tucker toward the table lined with half-full chafing dishes and picked-over platters of fruit and pastries.

  “Another vet emergency?” asks Pammy, grinning like a loon, from behind a large travel mug.

  There’s a half-second beat as Tucker scans their immediate vicinity and then says low enough for Pammy’s ears only, “No, actually playing doctor this morning.”

  Pammy’s eyes get big and then she busts out laughing.

  Cole sputters in embarrassment and he turns his own wide eyes on Tucker.

  Tucker shrugs, dimples and cleft chin showing with his smile. “Now there’s no question.”

  “Oh my God.” Cole pushes him away with no real force. The “or what” was arriving at a family gathering fashionably late and being completely mortified that some people were hip as to why, and the “why” really having happened. “You’re a menace to my sanity.”

  Tucker smacks a kiss to his cheek and picks up a large paper plate. “You mean to your libido?”

  “That too, yes.” Something warm blooms deep in Cole’s chest. This give and take, this teasing is good-natured and fun, and Cole wants to keep it. It’s nothing he’s ever experienced before. Michael was quieter about his sexuality and Cole, himself, still awkward. This easy companionship between him and Tucker fills a well he didn’t know was empty. Regular sex wouldn’t be a bad thing either.