Paint It Black

by Amy Lane

  Blake spent a long time there on his nipples, until after a particularly sharp bite, Cheever arched up and bit Blake’s neck, hard.

  “Suck me or fuck me!” he begged, raking his nails across Blake’s shoulders. The hint of pain made Blake grind against the bed, pushing his abdomen against Cheever’s cock, which spurted hotly with precome.

  They didn’t have a lot of time here. “Which one’s it gonna be?” he asked, caught between the two heady promises. “Which one you want, Cheever. I’ll give you anything—”

  “Fuck me!”

  Blake’s head came up, and he made eye contact, sweat breaking out across his back, his forehead. “I’ll be gentle,” he promised, barely able to talk, knowing what this meant. These last two months, Cheever had taken him, and now he was giving that trust in return.

  “Fuck gentle.” Cheever half laughed. “Be thorough. God, I need you—there. Exactly where you’re thinking. Please, baby, please.”

  “Okay,” he grated. “But I’ll die if I don’t taste this first.”

  He slid down and took Cheever’s cock into his mouth, loving it—how it stretched his lips, filled his throat. Cheever thrust up, like he couldn’t help himself, dripping copiously, salty and bitter and good.

  “I’m gonna come,” Cheever moaned.

  Blake pulled off for a moment, and took the opportunity to slide a finger down Cheever’s crease, into his stretched, oiled entrance. Oh wow, his boy had been playing hard with himself. He was stretched and hot, and he clenched around Blake’s finger greedily.

  “Blake…,” Cheever whimpered, and Blake licked up and across his cockhead one more time before rising up on the bed.

  “You are just too delicious all over,” Blake whispered, taking his mouth again. “And you sure do seem ready for me.”

  “I am. I trust you.”

  The words almost sent Blake over. He moaned and positioned himself carefully. “Tell me,” he rasped. “How fast, how far—”

  Cheever grunted and pushed down, opening up enough to glide over Blake’s head. “Keep going,” he begged. “Just… oh God… please… don’t stop….”

  Blake went slow, because he knew it was all about the stretch, and because he needed to be ready to pull out if Cheever changed his— “Oh!” His head popped all the way in and sweat washed Blake’s body again. “How are you?”

  “More!” Cheever demanded, and Blake slid all the way in. “Yes! Yes, that’s perfect! Now move!”

  Blake chuckled roughly as he began to slide out, then in. “Anything you want,” he said, thrusting a little bit harder. Then a little bit more.

  “Faster!”

  Blake came to a stop, his muscles trembling, no hesitation left, just the boiling certainty of Cheever’s body locked securely around Blake’s cock.

  “Slow,” he said. Slow and long and deep. Until Cheever opened for him and every muscle relaxed. Until Blake found his sweet spot, obvious because Cheever arched off the bed and howled when he hit it. Until Cheever let out a breath and melted, still aroused but submissive, soft and yielding, riding the buzz until Blake broke and started hammering him hard, fucking him wide open.

  Cheever lost his mind then, gibbering, begging, his face slack, limbs flailing. Blake caught his hands above his head and slowed a little more.

  “Take it easy,” he whispered. “I’ll take care of you.”

  “So close!” he gasped.

  Blake shifted to his knees and slung Cheever’s thighs up over his shoulders. “Cheever,” he said, making his voice strong.

  “Blake?”

  “Grab your cock, sweetheart. Yank just like you want it.”

  Cheever did, his low groan cueing Blake in to fuck him blind.

  Sweating, pounding, hearing Cheever’s cries rising, Blake took him up, up, to the clench of Cheever’s ass on his cock sending him over, the sight of Cheever, head back, eyes closed, as he shot over his stomach and chest, searing behind his eyelids as he went.

  He rutted for a moment, his cock awash in spend, Cheever’s body loose and hot around him. Finally, he fell forward, both of them sticky and sweaty and neither of them repentant in the least.

  “God!” Cheever blew out a breath, using his wet hand to push his hair out of his eyes.

  Blake chuckled and freed it of the strands of hair, then licked it methodically, from fingertip to webbing, tasting Cheever’s come.

  “That was so good,” Cheever mumbled, searching Blake’s face. “Why didn’t we do that sooner?”

  Blake paused and sucked Cheever’s thumb into his mouth, hard enough that he felt Cheever’s ass clench again as his young body thought about arousal. He let the thumb go with a pop and began rocking without urgency, deep in Cheever’s body.

  “’Cause you weren’t ready,” Blake murmured. He felt a low headache starting behind his eyes, and his eyelids fluttered closed against it. Cheever’s body felt so good.

  Cheever lifted up to kiss him, and Blake opened for him, melting, closer to Cheever in that moment than he’d ever been to any human being.

  “Ready now,” he whispered, nibbling on Blake’s lower lip and tugging on it.

  “Again?” Blake’s movements began to have purpose, and his cock swelled up all over again, his body beginning a tingling that didn’t feel like it would stop.

  “Oh God,” Cheever moaned. “Yes. Just like… just like….”

  Blake rolled his hips, tried again for Cheever’s sweet spot.

  Cheever’s body arched off the bed while his head fell back, and a long, slow, prolonged orgasm rippled through his body, clenching Blake’s cock so hard he couldn’t stroke anymore, just stopped, convulsing in his own aftershock, both of them spilling together.

  This time when Blake collapsed, he rolled off Cheever to his side, his head pounding worse than ever.

  He closed his eyes against the light, and his next sound wasn’t one of pleasure.

  “Blake?”

  “Ouch,” he mumbled, throwing his arm across his face. “Too much light!”

  “Goddammit!” Cheever muttered. “Didn’t you have any water or anything?”

  He rolled off the bed and slid on some underwear as Blake tried to piece together the events before he’d gotten out of the shower and saw Cheever naked and playing with himself.

  “I brought some in with the takeout,” he apologized as Cheever squatted by the desk, finding the bag underneath.

  “Yeah, here.” Cheever helped Blake sit up and handed him a bottle of blue Gatorade, still a little cold from the cooler. Blake started drinking—not gulping, just drinking at a reasonable rate.

  “Thanks,” he sighed.

  Cheever came back with two ibuprofen tablets, which Blake downed immediately.

  “So much.”

  Cheever sat down at the edge of the bed, sliding his fingers through Blake’s hair. “Not sure whether to be mad at you for not eating or flattered for being that hot,” he said, but he sounded smug, so Blake figured he knew which side of that fence he’d slid down on. “I wish you’d take care of yourself, you know?”

  Blake kept his eyes closed, but he smiled a little. “All that matters is that I finish,” he mumbled.

  “Kell says you come out of concerts like this.”

  Augh! “It’s embarrassing that you know that.”

  But Cheever kept stroking his hair. “Just… you know. Take care of yourself. Make sure there’s something left for snuggling.”

  Blake turned over to his side. “We could snuggle now.”

  Cheever’s soft laughter was his reward. “We could eat now.”

  “Killjoy.” Blake grunted and tapped his hip. “Let me up. I’m going to shower again. Trav’s getting us up at 5:00 a.m. so we can be at the airport on time.”

  “Ugh. Fine. You shower first, then start eating—”

  “We could shower together,” Blake asked hopefully, because he didn’t want to let go of Cheever’s supple, responsive body.

  “No.” Cheever’s kiss was unexpe
cted and welcome. “I still want you. And you need food. One of us has to be the grown-up.”

  Cheever stood up and helped Blake do the same, his hands kind and brusque. Blake found himself under the water, rinsing off the traces of lovemaking, exhausted and puzzled.

  How did he get to be the grown-up again?

  He didn’t have any answers, but after they ate and brushed their teeth, they settled down to sleep, Cheever being the big spoon tonight, like always.

  But not being the grown-up, surprisingly enough.

  “Can I ask you something?” His voice in the dark startled Blake just enough to make him twitch. “Sorry—you were sleeping.”

  “No,” Blake mumbled. “Go ’head.”

  “What made you fall for my brother?”

  Blake’s eyes shot open. “I could have used some warning for that.”

  Cheever’s soft puff of breath was his only acknowledgment. “Sorry. I’m curious. I get that it was a long time ago—”

  “Ten years.”

  “And that you and Briony are supercool and you love his kids—”

  “Like my own.”

  “But… but why Kell?”

  Blake grunted. “Your brother isn’t bright”—and when Cheever sounded like he was going to agree vociferously, Blake kept right on going—“but he knows it.” Oh yeah, that was sobering. “So he keeps at it. He kept studying. Briony helped him, and he listened to what she had to say, and that’s how he got his degree. He knows Mackey’s got, like, stupid talent, but Mackey worships the ground Kell walks on, so Kell just keeps trying to live up to that. He knows his brother isn’t going to ever leave him out, and he’s grateful. He tried to protect you and Mackey when you were kids, and sometimes, that was bad and backfired. But mostly, it just came because he’s your brother and he loves you. I….” Blake’s voice dropped, because he was never not going to love Kellogg James. But he couldn’t imagine having the same relationship with him that he had with Cheever. “Any sane person would love Kell.”

  “Oh.” Cheever sounded so disheartened, and suddenly Blake knew what he needed. It was a truth, one Blake had known for a while now, but he’d put off saying it because when Cheever left him…. September? Would it happen when he left for tour? It didn’t matter. If he said it, Blake thought the leaving would hurt worse.

  Well, nothing would hurt worse than when Cheever left him now.

  “But it’s not nearly the way that I love you,” Blake said, closing his eyes against the heartache he knew that would bring.

  Cheever’s arms tightened around Blake, almost convulsively. “I love you too. Like so big. Like mountains and sunrises and stuff.”

  “And oceans,” Blake murmured. “And deserts and planets.” Every word, every comparison, opened up a chamber in his heart that would flood with pain when the time came, but he couldn’t help it. He already proved his one strength was pushing through and not leaving anything for the end.

  THE THOUGHT bothered him, though. During the short plane ride home, Blake sat between Kell and Cheever, a wide-awake filling in the rock star Oreo, and fiddled with his phone.

  Cheever was leaning his head against the window, knees drawn up underneath him, so sound asleep Blake wasn’t sure he was going to wake up when the plane touched down. He looked so vulnerable, so defenseless, and Blake couldn’t help thinking about the wounds they all carried, and the way he seemed to love Cheever with no self-protection, no guards, no plan B. At least when he’d been in love with Kell, he could cover the ache with empty sex.

  There wasn’t another soul, another body that would fill this ache. And he couldn’t stop feeling, couldn’t stop falling, because Cheever was right there, and the promise might be a lie, but Blake was too ragged to do anything but soak it up and believe.

  He opened his notes app and started writing.

  Mountains fall. Deserts bloom. Oceans turn to sand.

  Moons decay. Stars explode. That leaves me where I am.

  All alone in an empty room.

  His head filled with chords, a delicate guitar riff, a breath of air before the next part. He tapped those in too.

  I opened my heart, it filled with love, with sex, with power, with new.

  With every door I pulverized, I knew I’d be missing you.

  All alone in an empty room.

  More power chords, the riff was bloody now—he tapped some notes to help him remember what it would be like, since he didn’t have his guitar to learn it in his hands.

  I know you’re gonna leave me. It’s like the night following the day.

  I can’t do much but hold on tight, until you go away.

  Just don’t leave me

  All alone in an empty room.

  He added some more notations, some ideas for drums, for the bass line, for the two guitars.

  And then he sent it to Mackey, who was sitting in front of them with his mother and Trav. He didn’t think Mackey had his Wi-Fi on too, but he must have, because about five minutes later, Blake got a text bubble.

  THIS IS BRILLIANT. You can’t sing it.

  I thought for the new album. He frowned. Mackey was usually so supportive.

  You will break my brother’s heart. Jesus fucking Christ, have some faith.

  Blake looked at the text and fought the burning in his eyes. Damn these Sanders boys. Who gave them the right to have a window to his soul? Every goddamned one of them, even Stevie.

  “He’s right, you know,” Kell said softly, and Blake looked at Cheever quickly, to make sure he was still asleep.

  “How’d you—”

  “He sent it to me. Jesus, Blake, we’re practically in each other’s laps.”

  “It’s a good song,” he said stubbornly.

  Kell looked at it, his lips moving as he read the riff. “Fine. I’ll sing it.”

  Blake stared, but Kell wasn’t giving in.

  “No. I’m totally and completely serious. It’s a great song. You’re right. But you can have a great song out there to break my little brother’s heart for the rest of his life, or you can have a great song out there that his older brother sings and he can give a rat’s ass about. Briony knows I don’t write shit like this. I give her cards that say ‘Babe, you’re awesome!’ and she’s happy. This is fuckin’ poetry. Don’t let it ruin your life.”

  Blake clenched his jaw against the ache in his throat, and Kell threw a brotherly arm over his shoulders. “Man, it’s like that song you wrote me. It’s great. We should do it on tour. But it guts me, because I know how much that hurts.”

  Oh fuck me! Blake took a shuddery breath and turned his face into his brother’s shoulder. “You knew?” he managed to ask.

  “You’re not that hard to figure out.” Kell kissed his hair. “But you’re my favorite brother. I hate to see you in pain.”

  Blake took a deep breath and tried to pull himself together. By the time the plane touched down, his eyes were only a little red, and that could be blamed on lack of sleep.

  Cheever woke up as the plane landed, dazed and out of it, and Blake could only be grateful as they steered him down the aisle and to the gate. He really wasn’t sure what to say.

  THEY MADE it home, and the rest of the summer passed in a blur of rehearsing the new album, then recording it, then—when Mackey was finally up for the two-hour set, which was the least he’d settle for—rehearsing to finish the tour.

  Blake showed Mackey the song Cheever wrote, and Mackey came back the next day with complete instrumentation. Mackey said they should put it on Blake’s album, but Blake refused.

  “The fuck?” Mackey squinted at him.

  “Think, Mackey. All that kid has wanted his entire life is to be a part of you guys. I mean, I know he spent eight years acting like that was the last thing he wanted, but trust me—it’s the only thing he’s wanted. Don’t put his song on my album, where it’s gonna get lost. Put it on Outbreak Monkey’s, where he can be part of the band.”

  Mackey tilted his head. “That’s a great idea, but I
hate where you got it. This album? It’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be like, Nebraska, or like if Kurt Cobain hadn’t self-destructed and Dave Grohl spent part of his time with the Foo Fighters and part of his time with Nirvana.”

  Blake stared at him. “Are you high? All this bullshit about not getting high, and what in the fuck are you taking for your back? Be truthful now—you finally caved and did edibles, right?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Mackey snapped. “No. I’m not high. This is a quality fucking album. And that song you’re gonna let Kell sing is going to make it.”

  Blake grunted. “Look, how about we keep that one on Outbreak Monkey’s too. That way you can sing it.”

  Mackey glared at him. “Trav!”

  Trav showed up at his elbow before he even stopped shouting. “What?”

  “Would you make this asshole take credit for some of his own fucking work? Please? I am killing myself not to be a total douchewaffle and save all this shit for myself, but if he doesn’t stop talking bullshit, I’m taking his songs and good luck trying to get people to remember he wrote them.”

  “Cheever wrote one of them,” Blake argued. “With your help! And if you love the other one….” He swallowed. “I’d be… you know, honored if you sang it.”

  Trav gave him a crooked smile. “I think that’s an awesome idea. Mackey, shut up and tell the man thank you. He just gave you some quality songs for the next album. Blake, all you need is one more, I think, and this one will be complete.”

  Stevie and Jefferson spoke up from their corner of the sound room, where they were leaning against each other and playing a game on their Switches.

  “It’s gotta be new,” Stevie said, his eyes intent on his game. “None of the other ones are up to the quality of the tracks we’ve got laid down.”

  “Write our brother a better goddamned love song,” Jefferson said, not even looking up.

  Blake didn’t even ask them how they knew about “Empty Room.” He’d done the instrumentation on it and performed it so they could hear it, and they’d vetoed it immediately—on the grounds that it would break Cheever’s heart.