by DJ Jamison
Trent nodded an acknowledgment, before dragging the last of Xavier’s clothing off and standing to undress himself. Xavier watched him, feeling uneasy now that Trent’s body wasn’t against him, making him feel secure even if he was tied up. He tugged a wrist, testing the strength of the tie. He could get loose if he really wanted, but he wanted to trust Trent, so he didn’t do it.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Trent said conversationally, obviously reading some of Xavier’s feelings in his expression. “I told you I wasn’t walking away again, and I’m not.”
Xavier huffed an exasperated sound.
Trent ignored him and continued. “I know it hasn’t been easy waiting for me while I’m up there with Helen and the kids. But you’ve got to stop doubting my commitment. I said I’d come back to you, and I meant it.”
He climbed on the bed, straddling Xavier’s body, skin to skin. Their cocks bumped and slid as he settled and Xavier squirmed under him.
“Easier said than done,” he mumbled.
“Quiet,” Trent scolded. “I’ll do the talking here. Unless you want me to gag you?”
Xavier really didn’t. He shook his head and pressed his lips into a tight line, indicating his agreement to shut up.
Trent nodded. “Good job.”
Xavier rolled his eyes, and Trent chuckled, obviously enjoying this little exercise.
“I’ve told you it’s complicated. So, you’re probably worried I might decide to stay indefinitely up in KC. What-if, what-if. You always have a what-if, don’t you? But there are no what-if’s when it comes to you, Xavier.”
He leaned down and sucked a nipple into his mouth, gently licking it while he reached across and pinched the other one hard.
Xavier moaned and jerked under him, surprised by the two sensations that were at odds.
Trent lifted his head. “I will be back. I just need time to work out the last few details.”
Xavier averted his gaze, his jaw clenched against the emotion rising in him. Liquid pooled in the corner of his eyes, a result of frustration more than sadness. He wanted to believe in Trent, but once again, he was qualifying his promises. He always needed some time, or to figure out a few details. Xavier wanted concrete plans, not empty promises.
“I can see you’re not convinced,” Trent said.
He slid slower, placing kisses down the center of Xavier’s chest and abs. He circled his tongue around Xavier’s belly button and slowly licked from one hip to the other without going any lower. Xavier’s cock grazed his chest as he knelt over him, and Xav lifted his hips to grind against him.
Trent sat up, out of his reach. “No coming until you believe me.”
Xavier pursed his lips, a pout forming. He did not like the sound of that.
“I have a plan to come home,” Trent said. “I will find a way to bring my two lives together. I just need you to trust in how much I love you.”
He dropped down and teased at the tip of Xavier’s cock with his tongue. Xavier made a broken sound and thrust his hips up. Most of Trent’s upper body was on his thighs so he didn’t have the leverage to move much. Trent sucked another inch inside and rolled Xavier’s balls in his hand.
Xavier pulled his legs up, planting his feet and lifting his ass, begging for some attention. Trent grinned and reached under his bed.
“You look like you need something, Xav.”
Xavier bit down on his lip to hold back his curses. He was trying to obey Trent’s edicts, but it was tough to silence his voice.
Trent lifted lube and a butt plug out of his box. Xavier’s eyes widened, and he shook his head no. He didn’t want toys, he wanted Trent.
Trent eased up to kiss his cheek. “It’ll be good. Look, I used one.”
He turned, giving Xavier a view of the rubber loop handle between his cheeks. He slid a finger through it and eased it out an inch before pushing it back in.
When he looked back, Xavier’s eyes were bright with lust. Trent moved back into position between his legs.
He drizzled lube over his fingers and worked Xavier open. Once he was relaxed and taking three fingers, he lubed up the plug and placed it at his opening. “Ready?”
Xavier nodded, chest heaving for breath, and Trent began working the plug into his ass. It burned as he stretched. Xavier’s body was tenser than usual during fucking, and he had never liked the feel of hard, silicone toys without the same warmth and give of a man’s cock.
Still, he was worked up enough that it wasn’t going to slow him down. He moaned, body tightening at the intrusion. Trent wiggled the plug, working it past his body’s resistance, and gradually it slid home.
Trent wiped the lube from his fingers and climbed up Xavier’s body to kiss his lips.
“Sorry, sexy, if that was too much.”
“I’m okay,” Xavier said.
Trent smiled. “You’re doing great. And this next part is the best.”
“What’s that?” he asked, a bit more wary after the sex toys came out. God knew what Trent would want to experiment with next. Maybe he should just tell him he trusted him to come home and be done with all these games. Trent’s dedication to this trust exercise alone was breaking through some of these doubts. Why go to all this trouble if he didn’t intend to return to him?
“Do you trust me?” Trent asked, as if he’d read Xavier’s thoughts. But he was asking Xavier to trust him with his body, a much easier proposition than trusting him against all the world’s complications.
Xavier grinned. “I could say yes, but I’m curious what no will get me.”
Trent laughed and pinched his nipple hard enough Xavier yelped.
“You like being punished, huh? Maybe you'd like it if I spanked you?”
“Uh ...”
“Maybe next time,” Trent said.
He reached behind himself and tugged out his own butt plug. Then he grabbed a condom and slid it down Xavier’s cock.
“Fuck,” Xavier moaned. He couldn’t believe it. Trent was really going to take his cock. “Are you sure?”
Trent climbed forward and angled Xavier’s cock against his opening. “Very sure.”
He pushed back, and Xavier felt pressure against his cockhead before hot, tight velvet engulfed him. He groaned as Trent slid down his cock, sinking all 9 inches with relative ease. He couldn’t take Xavier in one quick thrust— Xavier had never had a partner do that— with a couple of rocks of his hips, Xavier slid in deep.
“Oh fuck,” Xavier gasped. “I’ve never had someone take me so quickly.”
Usually, fucking someone was quite the production. Xavier had to spend a long while prepping them, working his way up to three and sometimes four fingers to adequately stretch them. Even then, he had to take his time, working in an inch at a time and giving his partner plenty of adjustment time in between moves. It could be exhausting, one more reason Xavier enjoyed bottoming. Much more relaxing.
But this was amazing. Trent had taken him in just a few thrusts with no prep work. He panted, bracing himself on Xavier’s chest, but he didn’t appear to be in any pain.
“That’s what the plug was for. I was lubed and stretched for you.”
“Mm.”
“You’re still fucking huge,” Trent said with a grin.
Then he shifted his hips, and they both lost the will to speak. They communicated with their bodies, and as tempted as Xavier was to rip his hands loose of the restraints and flip Trent over to fuck his brains out hard and fast, he resisted. He rode the gentle waves of pleasure that gradually increased in force as Trent rode him. The view couldn’t be beat, he thought, as he watched Trent’s lean form above him. Trent’s head was thrown back, revealing the long column of his throat shadowed by stubble and flushed red. Xavier’s eyes tracked the full-body flush down to Trent’s chest, where it spread around his nipples and dipped down to his abs.
His gaze trailed lower, watching Trent’s hard cock bob as he rocked his body. It was slender, curved just a tad to the left and flushed a deeper r
ed than the rest of him. Xavier wished, not for the first time, that his hands were free.
“Want to touch you,” he said.
Trent moaned, wrapping his own hand around his cock. “Didn’t think that through,” he said, between heavy breaths. His hips were slowing, and his chest heaved for breath.
Xavier lifted his hips, hammering his cock up into him, ramping up the intensity of their thrusts and giving Trent a little room to catch his breath.
Thrusting his hips up and down stimulated the butt plug in his ass that he’d nearly forgotten about as he focused on the feel of Trent around his cock. The plug pressed against his prostate as he brought his hips down, then eased up as he thrust up. The dual sensations were driving him out of his mind, and he thrust wildly, crying out, as his orgasm hit him with the force of a truck.
“Fuck-fuck-fuck!”
His cock spasmed, spilling into the condom, and he was vaguely aware of Trent stroking his cock harder as he tried to reach his own tipping point.
Fuck it. Xavier ripped his hands free of the ties on the bed frame and grabbed Trent’s cock in one hand, stroking hard, and twisted his nipple with his other.
Trent went off like a firework. He keened, his voice a high-pitched whistle as his back arched and he came hard, shooting across Xavier’s chest.
Chapter Twenty-One
Trent lay draped over Xavier’s chest, face buried in his neck. He was reluctant to separate their bodies. He’d come here with a point to make, but he felt vulnerable despite his show of strength.
Xavier’s avoidance had killed him a little more each day. It was so easy to imagine how they might gently drift apart, letting one another go because of circumstance.
Trent wasn’t about to let it happen, even if it was less frightening than getting his heart broken. He had to put the power in Xavier’s hands now.
“You’re shaking,” Xavier murmured.
He wrapped his arms around Trent and squeezed him tight against his body to still the trembling moving through his limbs. It wasn’t the aftershocks of a good orgasm, but nerves.
“You stopped answering my calls,” he said thickly.
“I know.”
Trent lifted his head, staring down into Xavier’s eyes. His body shifted and he grimaced as Xavier slid out of him at last. Trent hoped it wasn’t an omen of what would come next.
Don’t let him leave me empty again.
“You know?” Trent said. “That’s all I get?”
“I’m sorry, okay? Every time we talked, you were more entwined in your life there. You were picking up shifts in the OR, you said. So, you’ve got a solid career there, while the clinic is closing here. Plus, you’ve got this whole family who needs you. I can’t compete with that.”
“It’s not a competition!”
Xavier sat forward, depositing Trent in the bed beside him. Rolling to his side, he reached behind him and tugged out the plug, a grimace on his face. “I can’t talk with this still in me.”
“Sorry.”
Xavier tossed the plug on the floor, dealt with the condom, and then scooted up against the headboard, looking more comfortable.
“Better?” Trent asked.
“Yeah,” Xavier said. He pulled back his hair, finger combing it into a ponytail before letting it fall around his face. A sure sign of his own nerves.
“I know it’s not a competition, but it would be karma if you left me for your family,” he said finally. “I’d never be able to ask you to choose me instead. Not after our past.”
“I can’t choose,” Trent said. “Just like you couldn’t. It’s not a choice.”
Xavier nodded. His face twisted with pain, but he didn’t argue.
Trent grabbed his hand and squeezed it.
“This whole show of mine was about trust, you know? Trust in me. Trust in what we have. I need you to believe that I am coming back to you when the time is right.”
“What if it’s never right?”
Trent kissed him softly. “No more what-if’s. It will be. I asked Helen to sell her house.”
Xavier looked shocked. “What? But that’s her family’s home—”
“Yes, and they can’t look anywhere without reminders of Byron. They’re struggling, and they need a fresh start. They won’t forget him, but they all need a home that doesn’t hit them over the head with grief at every turn.”
“Where will they move?”
“Where do you think? I’m bringing them to Ashe. I have to go back and help them get the house on the market and get moved. It’ll take some time …”
Xavier crushed Trent in a full body hug and his words were lost. “Man, I thought I’d lost you again.”
“I thought you didn’t want me back, maybe.”
Xavier squeezed him harder. “I want you,” he said thickly. “But what will you do for work?”
“I talked to the medical director. There’s a place for me on the surgical team when I’m ready.”
“And you’re okay with doing surgery again?” Xavier asked. He looked so concerned for Trent it was adorable.
“Yeah, I think so,” Trent said. “I think with you and Helen and the kids in my life, I’ll have more balance. I can do what I love without having it be the only thing I love.”
“So, there’s no reason we can’t be together,” Xavier said slowly, as if feeling out the words. He looked stunned by the realization.
“Nope,” Trent said. “I’m coming back to you, Xavier. I always will. So, for fuck’s sake, will you stop avoiding me?”
Xavier laughed and pulled Trent down to rest on his chest. “I guess I can make time in my schedule for a few phone calls.”
“And video chats,” Trent added. “Naked video chats.”
“No lingerie?”
“Okay, lacy, silky video chats with eventual nudity. And money shots.”
Xavier laughed. “We’ll see.”
Trent kissed him long and deep. “Yes, we will see. And then I’ll come back and we’ll touch, just like this. Just trust in me. In us, Xav. I’m not giving you up without a hell of a fight.”
“I believe you,” Xavier said, wrapping his arms around Trent and holding him tight. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
“Four weeks,” Trent said. “Five weeks max. Then we start our life together for real, okay? Nothing will stop me. If the house doesn’t sell, if there’s a delay, I’ll figure it out, but I’ll be back in five weeks no matter what. You have my word.”
“My graduation’s in three,” Xavier said quietly. He forced a smile. “So, I’ll be free of the endless studies when you get here.”
“That’s great, Xav. If I can be here for your ceremony, I will. I want to see you looking all scholarly in your cap and gown.”
Xavier scoffed. “It’s no big deal. The ceremony is all show. I don’t even have to go.”
“I bet Gran would have a few things to say about that,” Trent said.
“Yeah,” Xavier admitted. “You’re right.”
“I always am,” Trent said with a wink.
“You’ll call me?”
“Every day, baby. I expect lots of phone sex.”
Xavier laughed and punched him in the arm. “Don’t push it. You’re not getting any sex until you get back here. You need motivation.”
“Oh, I’m motivated.”
“I bet you are, you kinky bastard,” Xavier teased.
Trent laughed, pressing a kiss to Xavier’s chest. “You really were just humoring me with those ties,” he mused. “You pulled your hands free with no effort.”
Xavier shrugged. “Yeah, but I liked being tied up. It did help me let go and trust you to lead.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, your stupid trust exercise worked, okay? Not because you tied me up, but because there’s no way you’d go to all that effort and planning if you didn’t mean to come back to me.”
Trent rose up on an elbow to look down into Xavier’s eyes. “Damn right, I’m coming back. Don’t ever d
oubt it again.”
“I won’t.”
“And if I need to prove how motivated I am …”
Trent disappeared under the covers and made his case for just how motivated he was. Xavier believed him wholeheartedly by the time Trent left for Kansas City the next day.
This was just the beginning for them. All he had to do was be patient and let Trent tie up all his loose ends.
Soon, they’d be together again. And this time they wouldn’t let anything tear them apart.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Graduation Day
Xavier fidgeted in his royal blue graduation gown. He felt kind of awkward going through all the formality of college graduation at age 30. But Gran and Twyla and the kids were in the crowd, so there was no skipping it. Gran had beamed as she told him she was so happy to see him finally achieve his dream.
They both knew it wasn’t his first dream, not the career he’d hoped for as a teenager. But it had been a dream he’d worked toward for years, and he was finally there.
A nurse. For real.
It was crazy.
The gym was echoing with crowd chatter, the room filled to the brink with graduates and their families for several different college schools. Larger universities had to hold separate ceremonies for all their schools, but a two-year school was small enough to do it in one go.
One long go.
Xavier rose with his row to make his way up to the stage. He was relieved they were nearing the end of a two-hour ordeal, but he was also disappointed he hadn’t seen his boyfriend in the crowd. Trent had said he’d try to be there if he could, but Xavier wasn’t counting on it.
He trusted Trent to return to him eventually, though. After Trent’s hands-on lessons, how could he not? His lips curled in a smile whenever he thought about his boyfriend sexing him up and then promising him the impossible — that he would unify two lives in two separate places so he could be with Xav and have his newly realized family. Not the blood one, but the one that loved him.
The graduates shuffled forward, one at a time, to accept a handshake as the college dean announced each degree confirmation. When Xavier crossed the stage, cheering broke out from his family’s small corner of the bleachers.
