The Innocence Series: Complete Bundle

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The Innocence Series: Complete Bundle Page 38

by Riley Knight


  This bareness between them, this openness and honesty, felt good. They had completely trusted each other, and there was something so perfect about that, a meeting of hearts and maybe even souls instead of just bodies, as it had started out.

  Sam pressed his leg between Gunner’s, his hands slipping down to rest on the tempting curve of his perfect round ass. It was like he could never get enough like it wasn’t even possible, but now he was going to get a chance to try, at least.

  For how long they made out like that, pressed close together, Sam didn’t know. Neither of them rushed ahead, but finally, it was all getting to be too much. The sky in the east was lightening, the black gently touched with gray, and then gold, and Gunner’s hand was cold as he slipped it finally inside Sam’s pants.

  Not that Sam cared about chilly fingers, not when they were wrapping around his warm, throbbing cock, which felt like it had been diamond hard for hours now pretty much nonstop. Skilled fingers rubbed over his entire length, and he moaned and gazed into Gunner’s eyes and let it work him up, far too excited already and very aware that it wouldn’t take long.

  “Gunner,” Sam moaned, and his own fingers fumbled at Gunner’s jeans, tugging open the button so that he could slip his hand inside. He found Gunner just as hard as he was, thick and leaking all over himself, and they stroked each other into a frenzy right there on the side of the road as the sun slowly peeked over the horizon and started to light up the world.

  Their lips met, their tongues tangling in a frantic dance as they let themselves go. Sam’s hips fell into a rhythm, a dance as old as time itself, rocking, plunging forward, while the pleasure built into a tight coil inside of him and he let it happen. He clung to Gunner as his only stabilizing point, so that the rest of his body could arch and convulse and moans could spill from his lips as he surrendered to the bliss he was being given.

  It flooded through him, washing away all of the uncertainty, all of the frustrated longing, which had been his companion for so long. Sam sought out Gunner’s lips and cried out into the kiss as he felt the warm, slippery wash of Gunner’s cum as it coated his fingers.

  Only then did Sam’s body truly relax, and he groaned as he clung weakly to Gunner, his whole body feeling like the muscles had been replaced with jello.

  “We’d better get home,” Gunner murmured, his lips moving sweetly over Sam’s cheeks, his forehead, the tip of his nose, and finally, his mouth. Home. Sam’s home, and Gunner’s home, too, as had become so very clear in the time that Gunner had been gone.

  “Yeah,” Sam murmured, his voice still hazy with bliss. “Yeah, baby, let’s go home.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  He was doing this to himself. Why? Sam wouldn’t force him to, and Mike wouldn’t say anything, and it seemed like there was a pretty good chance that Ben and Isaac never had to know. This could just stay Gunner’s secret because he knew that the people who already knew, he could trust.

  But what if?

  What if Gunner ended up having to testify against his ex? What if his ex got out, and Gunner needed people around him that he could count on? What if, what if? There were hundreds of what ifs, and Gunner knew better now than to think that he could keep a secret like this forever.

  He’d tried that, and he had learned that things had a nasty habit of coming out right at the worst possible time. That had almost cost him Sam. Was he willing to take the risk that it would cost him Sam’s family, too? Not only would that be pretty sad for Gunner, but it wouldn’t exactly be a lot of fun for Sam, either.

  “Are you sure?” Sam asked, squeezing Gunner’s hand. They had come in while the morning light was still growing into full, midsummer day, passed out for a few hours, and now stood, hand in hand, outside the door which would lead into the house. Gunner knew, because Sam had told him, that Isaac and Ben were both home, that Ruby was off at day camp, and Amanda was at work.

  In short, there would probably never be a better time, and it was the right thing to do, for so many reasons. So Gunner slipped his fingers into Sam’s and squeezed back, nodding to the man who was somehow, miraculously, his boyfriend again. How could he put that at risk by being dishonest?

  Sam would support him either way, but Gunner had the idea that Sam would approve more if Gunner did the right thing, the honest thing. Since Sam’s approval meant everything to him, that made the decision that much easier.

  “Yeah. I’m sure.” Gunner saw the smile in Sam’s eyes, and he knew for sure then that he’d made the right call. Sam wasn’t going to try to shame him into doing anything, but Sam really did seem to value honesty, and damned if Gunner wasn’t starting to, too.

  Sam leaned in and briefly kissed Gunner, just a brush of their lips together, but it made Gunner feel like he was glowing from the inside out. They pulled back from it, grinned at each other, and then Gunner reached out and wrapped his fingers around the metal of the doorknob, cooler than the air around it but already warmed up in the heat of the day, and pushed the door open.

  Inside, there was a scene that was almost embarrassingly tender. Isaac was washing up some breakfast dishes or trying to, but he was smiling as Ben wrapped himself around him from behind. Ben’s hands were intimately on Isaac’s flat stomach, Ben’s chin on Isaac’s shoulder, and at that moment, it was clear that there was no one else in the world for either of them.

  Seeing it made a lump rise in Gunner’s throat. He had never seen his own parents touch each other like that. They had seemingly only had slightly more use for each other than they had for him. Watching these two, seeing how very in love they were, even after a decade of marriage, it made Gunner think that there just might be such a thing as forever.

  Whatever he’d thought, though, this clearly wasn’t the perfect time. Gunner turned to look at Sam, who gazed back at him, and then indicated the door behind him with just a nod. They had no business interrupting something as sweet, as loving, as this was.

  Gunner nodded and then reached behind him, groping for the knob once more. But Ben turned around, and there was a look of understandable surprise when he saw Gunner there, Gunner, who had disappeared without a word, Gunner, who was hand in hand with Sam despite everything that Gunner knew Sam had told his big brother about what had happened between them.

  “Huh. Look who the cat dragged in,” Ben drawled, and Isaac turned. Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t for Isaac to cross the room, to draw him into a hug. Such a thing had never happened before, and Gunner found his eyes stinging and an annoying lump in his throat as he hugged Isaac back.

  “Sorry,” Gunner muttered, a little bit awkward as he pulled away from Isaac, withdrawing toward the door. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. We can catch up later …”

  The whole time, Gunner was fumbling with the knob, but Ben gave him a stern look, the one that always shut Ruby up even in her biggest bratty moments, and sat at the table as he beckoned Gunner and Sam over.

  “No. Get your asses over here,” Ben directed, and Isaac went to sit beside his husband, an expectant look on his face, as well. “First you disappear off into nowhere, leaving Sammy to mope around and make himself obnoxious, and now you’re back, and you wanna just disappear again? I don’t think so.”

  A reluctant smile pulled at the edges of Gunner’s lips, and he shrugged to himself as he dropped down into a chair. But he didn’t let go of Sam’s hand, and Sam, by some miracle, also didn’t let go of his, and that made it easier.

  “I have to tell you guys something,” Gunner spoke up, rushing the words. Now that the moment was on him, he sort of just wanted it over with, so that he would know what was going to happen with this. If he was going to lose this family, he needed to know it before he let himself get attached.

  Though truthfully, it might be a little bit late for that already. Seeing Ben and Isaac was already just a little bit too good, almost as much as coming home and seeing Sam had been.

  “I figured,” Isaac admitted, while Ben added, “So talk.”

  So Gunner di
d talk. He told them more than he had intended to, honestly. He had thought he would just blurt out that he had a criminal record, but the look on Ben’s face, and Isaac’s, too, suggested that they wouldn’t be okay with the short version. So the whole story came out, how he’d been kicked out by his parents, his descent into criminal behavior, finally being caught …

  … And jail. He didn’t shy away from that, and he forced his eyes to stay fixed on the two men in front of him. It was hard not to feel like they were his judges, like that judge from long ago who had set him on the path which had led him here couldn’t have changed his life any more than these two men possibly could.

  When it was over, Gunner very carefully, deliberately, pulled his hand away from Sam, wiped them both clear of sweat on his denim covered legs and then took Sam’s hand right back in his once more. It was over. Whatever happened, at least he’d told the truth.

  “Huh. Well now, that makes a whole hell of a lot more sense.” Was Ben’s reaction, which was surprising enough, but Isaac was actually wearing a deeply thoughtful frown on his face, not really looking at Gunner for a few seconds as if processing it all.

  Somehow, Isaac was the one that Gunner had really been more worried about. Ben had a past. Gunner knew some of it, bits he’d picked up from Gunner’s comments, more that he’d picked up from Sam. But Isaac, Gunner knew, had been born the son of a Baptist preacher and had some pretty definite ideas about right and wrong.

  Isaac had never come off as particularly judgemental, but then, Gunner had never come out as having a criminal record before. Was this going to be where the fire and brimstone would come out? The judgments, the condemnations?

  Gunner sat and stewed in his own worry, his eyes fixed on Isaac, as were the eyes of everyone else at the table. Gunner felt the tension in Sam’s slender fingers, and he knew that Sam could feel the tension in his, but that was okay.

  Suddenly, Isaac glanced up, his eyes deeply thoughtful as he looked at Gunner. He opened his mouth, and there was a sudden swooping feeling in Gunner’s stomach like the ground had just fallen away from under him, and he was waiting to see if he was going to fall or not.

  “You know, I bet you could get a pardon for that, given the situation,” Isaac pointed out, looking around at all of them as though genuinely startled to find himself as the center of attention. “You served your time, right? I’d be happy to vouch for you if you need that.”

  There was a long, long silence, and in it, Gunner felt his heart, which he’d patched together himself through many long miles on the road, many one-night stands, many benders, break into pieces. But this was a good sort of breaking, a part of the healing process, and Isaac’s words, and Ben’s easy acceptance, as well as Sam’s hand in his own, forged his scared, damaged heart and soul into something better, something stronger.

  “You guys …” Gunner’s voice came out husky, and he cut himself off so that he could clear his throat and try to get himself back under control. “You guys don’t mind? You don’t want me to get out, to stay away from your family?”

  Isaac shook his head, shooting a bemused look at Ben, as though he could barely believe what he was hearing. But his tone was gentle when he spoke to Gunner once more.

  “Of course not. Everyone makes mistakes, and you paid for yours,” Isaac told him, and there was no hint of deception in Isaac’s eyes or anywhere on his face. Even as good as Gunner tended to be on picking up lies, he saw nothing, and he actually wasn’t even sure that Isaac knew how to lie.

  “Besides, boy, what are you talking about, worrying that we might want you to stay away from our family?” Ben reached across the table and clapped his hand on Gunner’s shoulder, squeezing it with just the right amount of firmness. “Don’t you know that you are family?”

  Whatever Gunner had expected, whatever absolution he had hoped to find by telling these men, he never ever could have expected that. He closed his eyes, trying to hide the wetness there, trying to trap it behind his eyelids, and yet he was somehow sure that they all knew what was going on.

  Maybe that should have shamed him more, but it didn’t. How could he feel anything but euphoria? Not only did he somehow, against all the odds, have Sam back in his life, not only had they stopped messing around and admitted what they were to each other. But Gunner had gotten something that he had never even allowed himself to hope for, something that he had needed more than anything but had thought lost forever when his parents slammed the door on him forever.

  He had a family, and not only that but a family who accepted him for who he had been in the past as well as for who he was now.

  All of a sudden, just like winning the lottery or something, Gunner had everything. Everything he could ever want and his heart swelled as he pulled Sam to him, looking at Isaac and Ben and hoping that they somehow knew how much it meant to him.

  And they met his eyes, and somehow, he knew that they did.

  EPILOGUE

  Sam

  “Hey, Sam! Sammy? Where’s Gunner?”

  Sam looked up from Shadow, who was doing his best to take a rope chew toy right out of Sam’s hand, and gazed up at his brother. He had to admit, Ben pulled off the barbequing dad look pretty well, a metal spatula in his hand, an apron covering his jeans and t-shirt.

  It was the middle of September, and school had been going for a few weeks already. Ruby was settling in nicely, and she wasn’t the only one, either.

  “He’s just at work,” Sam bellowed back, his hands still occupied in wrestling with his enormous dog, trying to keep the toy away from him even as he spoke with his brother. “Mike said he’s going to drop by, too.”

  It was Gunner’s full-time job now, and he, surprisingly, was one of the people who had started school at the beginning of the month. He was doing a part-time course to get certified as a mechanic, and Sam had really never seen him so satisfied, even if Gunner was so busy that they didn’t get to see each other nearly as much anymore.

  It wouldn’t be forever, though. Gunner would finish his program, and then he and Mike were already talking about expanding their business. Sam had been more than happy to step aside, to let them take over fully, which was sort of funny when he thought about how freaked out he had once been that Gunner would take his job.

  Sometimes, he mused to himself, the things which seemed the scariest were actually the ones that were the best. Gunner was happy, and Sam was happy, and even Mike seemed to be happy, though it was sort of hard to tell with him.

  Ruby ran over, her best friend Marcy hot on her heels, as usual. Marcy was a quiet little girl, totally content to be in Ruby’s shadow, but she also seemed to have a little bit of a calming effect on Ruby which was, Sam had to admit, much needed.

  “Beeeennnn,” Ruby whined, bouncing around Ben as he tried to cook. “I want a hot dog. Can I have a hot dog? Marcy wants a hot dog, too.”

  Ben shook his head and laughed, flipping burgers and smokies, amused tolerance on his face. Isaac wrapped his arm around his little sister’s shoulder, leading her away, which was probably a good thing considering the open fire that was involved.

  “No,” Isaac told her. “Not until Gunner and Mike are here. We’re going to wait for them, but we’ll eat as soon as they get here.”

  Ruby pouted, but she accepted that readily enough. Another sign, Sam rather suspected, of Marcy’s good influence on her behavior.

  “When is he going to be here?” Ruby demanded, and Sam’s stomach did flips and his heart clenched in anticipation as he heard a voice that was achingly familiar to him, which, even now, made him shiver with delight.

  “Right now,” Gunner growled, swooping in, looking tired but clean, and happy. He locked his arm around Ruby’s shoulders and gave her a quick hug, sort of wrestling with her at the same time, which made her howl with delight.

  Shadow gave a bark of welcome and walked over to frisk happily around Mike, who was actually smiling, for once, and Gunner, who was playing with the girls. Shadow, apparently, wanted in on
some of that action, and for a few, frantic moments, the wrestling, the play-fighting, was mostly what was going on in the little group.

  Sam shook his head, pasting a superior smirk on his lips as he put his hands on his hips and looked down at the mass of people, and, of course, dog, all tumbled together. He shook his head in mock disbelief as though disgusted, but he had the distinct idea that none of them took it all that seriously.

  “Come on, guys. Grow up,” Sam scolded, and then he felt two hands on him, Gunner’s on his left ankle, Ruby’s on his right. Within the course of a few short, breathless seconds, he found himself pinned to the ground, just as much a part of the frolicking pack as the rest of them.

  It was undignified. It was the sort of thing that, even a few months ago, Sam would have turned his nose up at. But it was sort of nice, he’d discovered, to be included. All this time, he had had the best family in the world on his side, and he’d been too busy being snooty and superior to realize it.

  “Okay, okay,” Ben finally called, while Isaac was setting out paper plates on the picnic tables that they’d set up beside the house. It was sort of nice, this late in the day the shadow of the house stretched protectively over them, giving them some shade, because even in September it wasn’t cool enough that the shadow wasn’t welcome. “Grub time. Come eat.”

  That broke up the impromptu wrestling match pretty quickly, and Sam brushed himself off, shot a grin at Gunner, and then wrapped an arm around his boyfriend’s waist as they went off to feed themselves, and each other.

  * * *

  The sun had gone down, and they had all split off into little groups. Isaac sat with Ben, both of them chattering with Mike, who was almost mellow with a couple of beers and quite a few hamburgers in him. Ruby and Marcy were playing some sort of handclapping game, one which the rules eluded Sam but which he was sure they would happily teach him if he wanted. Amanda was cleaning up in a slow, almost idle way, helped by Isaac’s mother.

 

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