Bliss

by Lisa Henry

  Back on the outside, after he’d found Emmy and let himself start thinking about what had happened in Beulah, he had thought that maybe he could find some guy and figure out where exactly along that fuzzy scale between straight and gay he landed. But he hadn’t. Because he’d missed Rory. He’d wanted Rory. Only Rory. And he was glad now that he’d waited for this moment.

  Rory crooked a finger inside him and hit that spot, and Tate gasped, almost jumping off the bed. “Fuck!”

  “Found it,” Rory said with a smug grin.

  “Find it again,” Tate suggested, his body jerking as Rory obeyed. “But with your cock.”

  “I’d prefer to give it a go with my tongue,” Rory replied, slinking back down the bed, leaving Tate cold and wanting again. “Don’t think it’s long enough, but it’s still worth a try.”

  “Are you serious?” Because that still seemed a little . . . weird? Or maybe because it was something Lowell had made him do with Aaron, Tate had figured it was supposed to be degrading. Something that a top didn’t do. “You’d do that for me? You’d like it?”

  “Yeah, and so will you,” Rory said, ducking down between Tate’s legs.

  “I have . . . um . . .” Tate’s voice wavered as Rory’s tongue flicked against his hole. “Shit. I have a lot to learn.”

  Rory chuckled, his breath somehow hot and cold at once against the wet skin of Tate’s hole. He poked his head up from between Tate’s legs. “I’d prefer if you didn’t use the word shit when I do this, though. If you don’t mind.”

  “F-fuck,” Tate said, half barking out a laugh, and fell back onto the mattress again.

  Which was good because once Rory started lapping at his ass in earnest, there was no way he would have been able to keep himself upright. He shivered and trembled, feeling that tongue darting inside him, licking in circles, even fucking back and forth a little. So wet, so nimble and playful and almost ticklish, but holy hell, Tate wasn’t laughing, he was fucking sobbing. It felt so good. It felt so, so good. Even though he’d done this before and had it done to him, it was nothing like this. Nothing.

  He really was new. This was new.

  But the best thing was, that the love he felt now . . . That wasn’t new at all. It just needed to be seen in a new light.

  And to be here, making love to Rory as if for the first time, provided plenty of that.

  “Rory,” he gasped, his breath hitching. He reached down and tugged at Rory’s hair. “C’mon, please. I need more.”

  What he needed was to be able to see Rory’s face. To hold him close. To kiss him maybe, even though his tongue was currently in Tate’s ass. Yeah, that was another weird thought. Not disgusting, just a little weird.

  Rory shifted back and then stretched his body out over Tate’s. He laid a trail of kisses up the side of Tate’s throat and huffed a little in surprise when Tate turned his head to kiss him.

  “You ready?” Rory murmured.

  Tate nipped at his bottom lip. “Stop asking me that and fuck me. No fingers. No tongue. Fuck me with your dick, like a man.”

  “Let me get a condom.”

  “They tested me at the hospital. Negative, and there’s been no one since.” Tate held onto him. “You?”

  “No one,” Rory whispered.

  “Then fuck me bare,” he urged.

  Rory huffed again. “Jesus.”

  “C’mon,” he said, hooking his legs around Rory’s and urging him closer. He could feel the blunt heat of Rory’s cock pressing into his balls and shifted to tilt his pelvis up. Right where he wanted it. Rory’s dick at the exact angle it needed to be to fill him, if only he would just push. Tate growled in frustration. “Do it!”

  Rory pushed.

  That first sting of penetration felt better than Tate had remembered. Rory was slow, almost too slow, but Tate was suddenly too breathless to complain. He wondered if he would ever get tired of feeling this, the moment when Rory’s cock breached his body and Tate had to fight to let it in. The sting, the pressure, the strangeness of feeling his own body stretch to accommodate Rory: all of those things that had terrified him at first, but he knew now were the prelude to mind-blowing pleasure. Pleasure that he genuinely wanted, and not with anyone else. Just with Rory.

  Rory’s worried face hovered over him.

  “Don’t,” Tate said. “Just fuck me.”

  Rory nodded. He leaned down and kissed Tate, open-mouthed, their tongues sliding together. Then he placed his hands on either side of Tate’s head, rested his weight on them, and began to thrust.

  Tate groaned, his eyes rolling back. For all his dirty talk, for all his demands that Rory just fuck him, this was what he wanted, and Rory had known it. Slow and sure, with Rory rocking them both into an easy rhythm. Small, sweet kisses that Tate had to raise himself up off the mattress to chase. Eye contact. Touching.

  Tate ran his hands down Rory’s sides, feeling rib and muscle. Learning the way his body moved as they fucked. Tate’s cock was achingly hard, straining and rubbing between their bellies. It throbbed in time with his heartbeat, with his ass. With Rory inside him. He moaned and clenched hard on Rory’s cock.

  The shudder ran through them both.

  “Tate,” Rory whispered, saying his name like a prayer.

  There was only one reply for that. Only one thing Tate could say in return and have it mean half as much. “I love you,” he murmured, clutching at Rory’s nape.

  Rory’s eyes widened, and his rhythm faltered. “Thank you. God. Tate, I—” His face seemed to crumble. “I love you too.”

  “Good,” Tate said, pulling his head down for another kiss. “Because I told you I wasn’t done with you yet.”

  Rory moaned into the kiss. “God. Are you . . . I’m not gonna last.”

  “Almost.” Tate rocked his hips and slid his hand between their bodies. Jerked himself. Clenched down on Rory’s cock and shivered as it nudged against his prostate again. Sensation sparked through him, lighting him up. His balls drew up, and he moaned again. Almost. A part of him didn’t want this to ever end, but he was wound so tightly now that something had to give. He squeezed his cock. “Rory. Shit, Rory.”

  Rory thrust again, harder than before, and that was all it took for Tate to come apart. His cum spattered both their bodies, and soon Rory was tumbling behind him, hips jackhammering and eyes squeezed shut as his cock pulsed deep into Tate’s body and flooded him with warmth.

  Rory fell forward, breathing heavily into his ear.

  Tate shifted, and they lay facing each other. With another partner, Tate thought, he would have already been dressing. But he didn’t feel the same with Rory. He wasn’t embarrassed by being close, by being naked together. He didn’t mind if Rory knew he needed him for more than just fucking. That he needed him for closeness, as well.

  Rory reached for Tate’s hand and laced their fingers together. “Did you mean what you said?”

  “Yes.” Tate squeezed his hand. He smiled at Rory and saw everything he was feeling reflected back in his eyes. “Just us now. I love you.”

  And saying it seemed like the easiest thing in the world.

  inter came slowly to Beulah. It wasn’t bitterly cold like Rory remembered from the outside. It was cool and fresh—a temperate winter, much like the temperate summer before it. At night the temperature dropped low, but the days were pleasant and sunny. No trudging through sleet and muck to get to work. No shivering alone in his bed-sit at night, blankets pulled around him, tapping on the heater to try to make it work.

  When it came time to leave his house, it didn’t take long for Rory to pack his belongings. He’d never really had the chance to make the house his own. Never got around to putting pictures on the wall, like Aaron had suggested he do. He didn’t feel any regret at all when he locked the door for the last time and left the key in the mailbox. He never wanted to see this place again.

  The taxi driver loaded his suitcases for him, and made small talk as they left the neighborhood. He looked at Rory curiousl
y once or twice. He probably knew Rory’s face from the news, either from his own trial or from Lowell’s more highly publicized one—coverage ran almost 24-7 after the guilty verdict was handed down, and Lowell was the first person in Beulah to ever be sentenced to a jail term. However the driver recognized him, he didn’t mention it. Didn’t ask any uncomfortable questions. Rory was grateful for that. He settled back in his seat and watched the passing scenery.

  Pretty houses, well-tended gardens. People stopping to talk. Kids playing.

  Paradise.

  Rory sighed. It had all seemed so perfect once. Too perfect, as it turned out.

  Maybe now Rory could learn to appreciate the middle ground. Find his place—and real happiness—in imperfection.

  The driver hummed some tune. “Just up here?”

  “Yeah, on the left,” Rory confirmed. He smiled as he saw Tate waiting on the footpath, Emmy at his side. She was holding a cardboard box and thrust it toward Rory the second he opened the taxi door.

  “Rory! Look! Chickens!”

  Four startled bundles of fluff chirped up at him.

  “She couldn’t wait to show you.” Tate shrugged. “Which is why we’ve been standing here for a half hour instead of inside the house where it’s warm, like sensible people.”

  Rory beamed at the excited look on Emmy’s face. “Did Daddy build the coop yet?”

  Tate made a face.

  “He said you’re going to,” Emmy told him.

  “Is that right?”

  Tate was suddenly busy with Rory’s luggage, lugging it toward the front door. Rory shook his head, paid the taxi driver, then followed Emmy inside. As they hefted Rory’s luggage down the hallway, Paula poked her head out of her room. “Ah, you’re here! Please tell me you’re going to build that chicken coop before you even consider unpacking, because let me tell you, if you don’t, I’m going to go out there and build one myself, but I’m going to put our daughter in there instead of the damn chickens.”

  Our daughter. She hadn’t been talking to Tate, either. She’d been talking to Rory.

  Our daughter.

  Rory warmed from the inside out.

  Sure, it was a little strange, even in open-minded Beulah, to have three adults raising a child together under the same roof, with Mommy and Daddy not even a couple. But they could make it work. They made their own rules now.

  Rory pecked Tate on the lips quickly, unceremoniously dropping his suitcases onto their bedroom floor. “You heard the woman. I’ve got a chicken coop to build before our daughter winds up in the yard. Coming, Emmy?”

  “Yes!” Emmy exclaimed. She tugged on Rory’s hand eagerly.

  “Go on,” Tate said with a smile. “I’ll get dinner started for us, eh? Though . . . not poultry, I don’t think.”

  Rory crinkled his nose, then flashed Tate a grin just as beatific as Emmy’s.

  Two hours later, the chicken coop was built and the chicks were nestled inside. Emmy crouched in the grass, clucking and playing mother hen, while Rory put away his tools and returned the scrap wood to the shed. He surveyed the chicken coop for a moment—not a bad effort for a city kid, splinters aside—and rolled his aching shoulders.

  “Emmy!” Paula called from inside. “Rory! Dinner!”

  “Goodnight, chickens!” Emmy called and was in the house like a shot. Rory followed at a more leisurely pace, enjoying the chilly evening air and the vivid colors of the sunset. He slid the door shut behind him. The house was filled with the smell of Tate’s cooking, but Tate wasn’t in the kitchen. Neither was Paula. Rory figured they must be setting the table in the dining room. He heard a squeal of laughter from that direction: Emmy.

  Smiling, Rory rounded the corner.

  “Surprise!” the people gathered there shouted.

  “Surprise!” Emmy echoed belatedly.

  There was quite the little crowd around the table and a banner on the wall that read, “WELCOME HOME.”

  Rory was absolutely not going to tear up. Not at all. And he didn’t, until Tate slid an arm around his waist, grinned, and kissed him. Then, caught somewhere between laughing and crying, Rory let Tate lead him to the table.

  “Rory.” Cal stood up to reach across the table and shake his hand.

  “I hear congratulations are in order,” Rory said. “Chief justice.”

  “Interim chief justice,” Cal corrected with a smile. “And I’ll need you on my team, you know. Alex can’t do everything herself.”

  “Huh,” Alexandra said, reaching across him for the bread. “I’m sure I can.”

  Cal snorted. “Look at her! She hasn’t even graduated yet. She’ll have my job in ten years, the rate she’s going.”

  “Five,” Alexandra corrected him.

  “Five,” Cal agreed. “I’m serious though, Rory. I could use you.”

  “We’re not talking about work at the dinner table,” Tate announced.

  “Says Mr. Unemployed,” Paula shot back.

  “Someone has to babysit while you’re off at school.”

  Paula elbowed him but laughed.

  That had been a sore point. Paula was ten years older than the other students in her class. Beulah didn’t have night school. Didn’t need it. Everyone got a free education here. So Paula had screwed up her courage and enrolled in high school.

  And Tate would find something, once Emmy was at school herself and didn’t need full-time care. Something that wouldn’t see him cooped up in an office.

  “I brought those plans you wanted,” Aaron said from beside Tate.

  Rory didn’t miss the way Alexandra immediately ignored whatever Cal was saying and zeroed in on Aaron. She wasn’t quitting on him. She’d told Rory that, and he didn’t doubt it for a second.

  “No! No plans, either!” Paula said. “No work, and no plans.”

  Tate rolled his eyes and grinned at Rory. “That chicken coop you just built? Aaron and I are going to take the roof off it and put in a cooling system. It gets hot in summer.”

  “Solar powered,” Aaron said. “It’s a little, um, cost-prohibitive at the moment, and the energy it takes to produce a solar panel is much more than we’d ever conserve using it on a tiny project like this, but we’re going to figure out some alternatives to using a standard panel, find a balance.”

  It would all work out. Rory believed that.

  “All that for chickens!” Paula said with a laugh. “Beulah, Beulah, will wonders never cease.”

  Tate met Rory’s eyes and smiled as he replied, “You know? I don’t think they will.”

  “For chickens,” Emmy announced and spilled her drink all over the tablecloth.

  Everyone rushed to move plates and dishes before they were soaked. Juice dripped onto the floor and, laughing, Tate went to get the mop. Rory leaned back in his chair to watch him.

  If this wasn’t happiness in imperfection, then Rory didn’t know what was.

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  Lisa Henry likes to tell stories, mostly with hot guys and happily ever afters. Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She doesn’t know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects she’s too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other half plotting her escape. She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school systems early in life. She studied History and English, neither of them very thoroughly. She shares her house with a long-suffering partner, too many cats, a dog, a green tree frog that swims in the toilet, and as many possums as can break in every night. This is not how she imagined life as a grown-up.