Bonds of Love

by Snyder, J. M.

  For some reason that thought turned Matt on more than he wanted to admit.

  The thing with bears had been a childish fetish, nothing more. But Vic watching him as he slept, perhaps brushing his fingers through Matt’s thick curls or trailing a tender hand down Matt’s back, that made him feel…

  It made him feel loved.

  Slipping off the bed, Matt placed the bear against his pillow, then pulled the covers up to its feet as if tucking it in. Let Vic have his laugh. Matt would laugh last when he made his lover hold the bear the next time they had sex.

  At that thought, Matt felt a familiar stirring in his groin. Stretching as he stood, he glanced down over his chest, across the flat planes of his stomach, to the thatch of dark hair kinked at his crotch. His ruddy dick peeked from the cloud of hair, inquisitive, as if it heard someone say, “Sex.” Matt’s blood began to stir, racing through his veins and reigniting his headache as it picked up speed. A pulse began to beat in his head, just above his right eye.

  No, he wasn’t feeling quite that good yet. With a firm hand, Matt pushed his cock down to point at the ground and tried to curb his lustful thoughts.

  He noticed a pair of his pants laying on the floor at his feet. He’d worn them to Kyle’s party—the memory of that disaster was like a bucket of ice water dumped over the flames of his arousal. God, if he never saw or heard from Jordan again, it’d be too soon.

  Bending to pick up the pants, Matt noticed the empty holster where his cell phone usually hung from his belt. Without thinking, he reached for his hip as if to assure himself the phone was there—it wasn’t of course; he slept in the nude. But the phone should’ve been on his belt.

  It wasn’t on his bedside table, or Vic’s. Squatting down, Matt rummaged through the pockets of his pants, which jingled with change and keys, but his phone wasn’t hidden in their depths. A search of his back pockets turned up his wallet and nothing else.

  Had he dropped the phone? Maybe last night, while undressing?

  Matt shook the rest of the clothing, but his phone didn’t fall from the folds of fabric. He scrambled through Vic’s jeans, digging into the pockets, thinking maybe his lover had picked it up, but it wasn’t there either. Damn it.

  Next, he ran a hand under his bedside table, then as far under the bed as he could reach. Nothing. That phone was pretty pricey; Matt had a bad memory for phone numbers, and the ones he had to know were programmed in that phone. Vic’s cell, though it was out of commission at the moment. His parents’ numbers, both at home and at their beach house in Key West. The gym number, and the people on his swim team. He also used the notepad feature to store the PIN numbers to his bank accounts. Stupid yes, and if someone got hold of the phone and his wallet…

  He patted down his pants again to assure himself the wallet was safe. He even flipped it open to make sure his ATM cards were inside. So just the phone was missing. Where the hell could it be?

  With his pants in one hand as he thumbed through his wallet with the other, Matt drifted from the bedroom down the hall. “Vic?” he called out. Music played softly on the stereo in the living room. As he passed the kitchen, he heard the steady chop chop chop of a knife on a cutting board and stopped in the doorway. “Where—”

  “Jesus!” Vic swore amid the sudden clattering of metal.

  Matt glanced up from the wallet to find his lover standing by the sink, sucking his thumb. The wooden handle of a large kitchen knife poked from the stainless steel sink. A spot of bright blood flecked the front of his white tank top and for a second Matt thought more blood splattered the countertop. Fear bloomed in his chest. “Oh, my God,” he started, crossing the kitchen before he realized Vic had been cutting tomatoes. “Are you all right?”

  Vic tried to frown at his nicked thumb, but his gaze kept sliding down Matt’s naked body to linger at his crotch. “Damn, Matty,” he growled. “Warn a man next time, will you?”

  A slow grin made its way across Matt’s face. “Oh, you want me to go get dressed?” he teased.

  “I didn’t say that,” Vic murmured, his gaze fixed on Matt’s crotch. As if aware of that blatant stare, Matt’s cock twitched with interest as his balls grew heavy and warm. Vic took a step toward him, reaching for his elbow with his uninjured hand. Matt moved closer and found himself in a tight embrace. Planting a rough kiss on Matt’s temple, Vic asked, “You feeling any better?”

  Matt’s shrug settled his body against Vic’s. His lover rubbed over Matt’s hip and down the small of his back to grab one meaty buttock in his large hand. “I do now. You seen my phone?” When Vic pulled his thumb out of his mouth to answer, Matt peered at the cut on his thumb. “You all right?”

  “Fine,” Vic murmured. And he was—the skin around the wound was smooth and shiny, as if burned. With a start, Matt remembered the fire that seemed impossible to extinguish at Kyle’s party, the flames that continued to lick Vic’s fingers no matter how tightly he closed his fist. This was the same hand, and though the fire was gone, some remnant of the power must’ve remained, because the fresh cut had closed, cauterized. As Matt studied Vic’s hand to assure himself it no longer bled, his lover prompted, “Where’s your phone?”

  “I don’t know.” Satisfied Vic wasn’t going to bleed to death on his account, Matt showed him the empty holster on his pants. “It should be right here. I swear I had it when we left for Kyle’s, because I remember catching it on the seat belt when I got out of the car. Hey,” he said, inspired, “you think maybe I dropped it last night when we got home? It could still be in your car.”

  He made a move toward the door but Vic tightened the arm around Matt’s waist, stopping him. “Hold up, lover boy. Sexy as you are, I don’t think the neighbors are going to appreciate the sight of your fine ass sticking out buck naked from my car.”

  With a laugh, Matt brandished his pants. “I’ll pull these on…”

  But Vic took them from him and let them fall to the floor. “I like you this way,” he admitted. “Let me go check the car. I’ll be right back.” His eyes flashed with ill-concealed mirth at Matt’s pout. “Don’t touch those pants. If you’re wearing them when I get back…”

  “You’ll what?” Matt challenged. He crossed his arms and struggled to suppress a grin, but the erection that was working its way up to point at Vic gave him away.

  “I’ll just have to take them off,” Vic replied, heading for the doorway.

  Once he disappeared into the hall, Matt considered picking up the pants, jangling the keys in the pockets, making enough noise to let Vic think he was disobeying. It might lead to something fun, now that his headache was gone…

  Reading those thoughts, Vic spoke into his mind. ::I’ll take them off,:: he warned. Opening the front door to their apartment, he sent a mental image of Matt lying on his back, Vic above him, teeth bared above the bulge hidden at the crotch of Matt’s pants. As Vic’s mouth closed over the bulge, Matt felt a spike of pleasure being driven into his cock and radiating through him. ::With my teeth, maybe.::

  Matt almost fell over himself scrambling to pull on the pants.

  * * * *

  Chapter 19

  The phone wasn’t in the car.

  Vic kept his mind open as he searched, letting Matt see the interior of the car as he saw it. Matt paid close attention to the edges of the scene, where Vic’s gaze didn’t travel, hoping to see the phone in the periphery of his lover’s vision, but no such luck. For a full ten minutes Vic tore apart the car—under the seat covers, under both the driver and the passenger seats; in the back, he shoved a hand between the seats and the back rests, felt around under the front seats, even pulled the back seats forward to check the trunk. He looked in the glove compartment; he moved the front seats back and forth hoping to find it. Nothing turned up.

  As he made his way back into the building and up the stairs to the apartment they shared, Vic kept his gaze on the ground, just in case Matt had dropped the phone coming in. Matt thought it unlikely the phone would still be around
if that were the case. When Vic picked up that thought, Matt felt his lover’s mind stretch open like a net draped over the building, reaching out to cover everyone inside; flashes of other people’s thoughts filled both their heads as Vic glanced through them, not snooping, just looking to see if anyone had found a phone or knew someone who had.

  Again, nothing.

  By the time Vic reached their front door, Matt knew there was only one place the phone could be. Improbable as it seemed, he must’ve dropped it at Kyle’s. Without thinking, he shielded that thought from Vic—his lover glowered at the mere mention of his coworker’s name, and Matt didn’t want him in a bad mood. Now that he felt better, he had other plans. Later he’d call Kyle and see if he’d found the phone. Maybe it fell off Matt’s belt in the downstairs bathroom, or by the bar near the pool. Maybe one of the other guests found it and turned it in. He could swing by in the morning and pick it up on his way into work, if it were there. If not, he’d just have to write it off and get another one.

  At the moment, though, he had other things on his mind.

  He knelt on the floor of their bedroom, naked. A tube of lubricant sat uncapped beside him, both his hands and dick already slicked with an oily sheen. The plush rug scratched his legs, but Matt ignored it. Instead he concentrated on listening for Vic’s footsteps—in the hall now, coming closer; they stopped at the pair of pants Matt had left lying in the kitchen doorway. ::Matty?:: Vic called out with his mind. The jingle of pocket change signaled Vic had picked up the pants. ::I thought I was taking these off you.::

  Matt covered his mouth and snickered. ::Why should you have all the fun?::

  He heard Vic’s rough grunt. Caution filled his lover’s mind; he didn’t quite know how to take that response. ::What’s that supposed to mean?::

  ::Come in here and find out.::

  Without further prompting, Vic’s footsteps started again, heading for the bedroom. Matt waited, pulse quickening, one hand straying to toy with the enflamed tip of his already hard dick, which jutted from his crotch at an angle parallel to the floor. When Vic’s shadow darkened the doorway, Matt snickered again, a coy laugh that drew Vic farther into the bedroom. He took one look at Matt on his knees on the floor, erection in hand, and a thin smile softened his harsh face. Matt’s pants hung, forgotten, from one large hand. “What’s all this?”

  Matt sat back on his knees; his legs were beginning to tingle from his position, but he didn’t plan to hold it much longer. “Come closer. You said what, no hands?” He made a show of putting his hands behind him. At the look of confusion on Vic’s face, he added, “To take the pants off if I put them back on.”

  “I said with my teeth,” Vic clarified. His gaze played over Matt’s nude skin like a palpable touch. “But you’re already undressed.”

  “You’re not.”

  He watched the realization of his words dawn on Vic’s face, like the sun breaking through thundering clouds that marred the sky but never materialized into a storm. Dropping Matt’s pants to the floor, Vic’s hands strayed to the fly of his own jeans. “I can remedy that.”

  “Let me,” Matt said. He straightened and rose up on his knees, hands still clasped behind his back. “Come closer, babe. I can’t reach that far.”

  To punctuate his point, he stuck out his tongue and wiggled it as he stared at Vic’s crotch. In two steps his lover crossed the room to stand in front of him. Vic’s bare, blunt toes bumped Matt’s knees; he sat back a bit, covered them with his knees, and leaned down on Vic’s feet as he stared up at his lover. On his knees like this, he was eye-level with Vic’s genitals, hidden inside the jeans. But Matt would get to that.

  First he unfurled his arms and reached up, his hands spreading over the white tank top stretched taut across Vic’s firm, round stomach. Matt tugged at the top, pulling it up to expose a sliver of skin between the hem and the waistband of his jeans. Another tug, and the smooth skin puckered into Vic’s navel, ringed by a sharp, black tattoo in a jagged design that looked like fierce saw blades. Matt stuck out his tongue and licked the bottom of the image.

  This close, he could smell Vic’s familiar scent, an enticing mix of sweat and man and, very faintly, a tinge of shaving cream. Even the skin on Vic’s stomach was shaved smooth; very faint hairs struggled to grow into a line of pubes that would fall victim to the razor the next time Vic was in the shower. Matt’s saliva glistened on the black tattoo as his tongue rimmed his lover’s navel, following the design, once, twice, before slipping into the pocket of skin. In his mind, Matt imagined himself doing the same thing to another dark hole, Vic bent over beneath him as his tongue danced over the trembling skin of his lover’s anus.

  As that thought passed between them, Vic clenched a hand in Matt’s hair and moaned with desirous longing. A shuffled step bumped his leg against Matt’s erect penis, forcing a sharp intake of breath as Matt’s hands gripped Vic’s waist, his breath quick, his heart pounding in his chest and dick. Blowing gently to cool his spit on Vic’s skin, he murmured, “Don’t rush me.”

  Vic’s reply was a gasped, “God.”

  Matt licked lower, down the slight paunch of Vic’s belly, into the waistband of his jeans. Using his teeth, he bit at the tiny piece of denim above the button on Vic’s fly and tugged. It took some doing—his tongue dampened the fabric as he tried to undo the button, the metal warming beneath his breath and tasting coppery in his mouth—but finally the damned thing popped free. Matt nosed it open; beneath his mouth, he felt Vic’s cock stir within his jeans like a dragon disturbed from its slumber. The fabric beneath his chin began to bulge toward him and Matt took a moment to rub his face against Vic’s crotch, drawing in deep breaths that filled his senses with his lover’s heady musk. With his lips drawn down over his teeth, he traced the outline of that thick shaft with his mouth, massaging its length through the denim. One hand had strayed to his own cock, which throbbed from inattention. When he squeezed the tip, a dribble of cum slicked his fingers before he reined in his control. Not now. Not yet.

  Vic’s hand fisted in his curls, the fingers rubbing delicious patterns into his scalp with an urgency that Matt felt as well. Moving back to the top of Vic’s open fly, Matt licked out, hoping to catch the tiny metal zipper pull with his tongue. But all he found was another button. In frustration, he nipped at it and tugged the denim with his teeth as if he could rip it in two. ::You had to wear a button fly, didn’t you?:: he asked as he fought with the jeans.

  In response, Vic teased, ::You had to use your teeth.::

  Matt’s hands slipped down Vic’s waist to the partially open fly. “Change of plans,” he muttered as he unbuttoned the jeans with nimble fingers. “We’ll be here all day and half the night otherwise, and Lord knows I can’t hold it that long. I’m not the one with superhuman strength.”

  Vic helped him shuck off the jeans, snagging his underpants on the way down. “Superman himself wouldn’t hold out long against you,” he teased, bending in front of Matt to push his clothing to the floor.

  Before he could stand, Matt ducked between his arms to nip at Vic’s hard cock. His hands smoothed over Vic’s bare thighs and around his hips, fingers drawn to the cleft between his buttocks. Opening his mouth wide, Matt took Vic’s length in like a fish on a line, and one thumb strummed across the quivering flesh he planned to attend to next. With a mouth full of his lover, Matt told him, ::Clark Kent has nothing on you.::

  Vic’s hands clutched at Matt’s shoulders as he stood, hunched over, and gave into the tongue swirling along his dick, the fingers plying his ass. Leaning down, he rested his head on top of Matt’s, his breath ragged, his throat making small sounds of consent for which he couldn’t find words. Matt let Vic’s cock slip from his mouth and nosed beneath it, licking along the bare, heated skin of his lover’s hairless balls, then it was back again, the head of Vic’s dick bumping against his lips on its way in and leaving a smear of jism behind.

  After a few moments, the position grew uncomfortable—because their every n
erve was open to each other, every feeling passing between them as easily as their thoughts, Matt felt the strain on Vic’s back as if it were his own. His hands eased up Vic’s buttocks to his lower back, fingers already kneading the sore muscle. “Down, you,” Matt commanded. When Vic took a step back, Matt’s hands trailed over his hips to both grasp playfully at his erection. “Just where you are. Sit.”

  “The bed’s right here,” Vic grumbled.

  But a gentle squeeze of Matt’s hands brought him to his knees, mouth open in an O of pleasure. As he worked Vic’s hard shaft between his fingers, Matt sent one thought into his lover’s mind, an image of Vic on his back on the floor, legs wrapped around Matt’s hips, as Matt held himself up above him on stiff arms and thrust deep into Vic’s ass. “What do you think about…” Matt started.

  Vic lay back in reply, feet slipping free from the constraints of his pants, knees drawn up and spread wide. His slick cock curved over his pubic mound, his balls hanging down to obscure the dark, musky place beneath them. With a grin, Matt climbed into position between Vic’s legs. He ran his hands up Vic’s calves, over his knees, down his thighs; he leaned down and tongued the length of Vic’s cock, giving the slit under its tip a kittenish lick. Vic reached for him and caught fists full of Matt’s hair; Matt turned his face in his lover’s grip, kissed those rough hands, suckled the thick fingers, as he fumbled behind him for the tube of lube.

  Without looking, he squeezed the tube into his palms and knew he’d overshot when he felt a squirt of warm liquid on his thigh. But he didn’t want to bother sitting back enough to watch what his hands were doing. Instead he scooped up the lube and rubbed it onto his dick, then smeared it between Vic’s buttocks. When one finger slipped inside his lover’s ass, Vic arched up away from the floor. Releasing Matt’s head, he gripped at the carpet under him and let out a lusty cry. “God, Matty, now.”