All Kinds of Tied Down

by Mary Calmes

  Hot water had never felt so good. I stood under the spray much longer than I needed to, and when I finally finished, the dessert they’d ended up ordering was there. I’d forgotten how much eighteen-year-old boys could eat.

  I changed into the lounge pants the girls had bought me and walked out into the living room, still towel drying my hair.

  “Are you really—oh.”

  Looking up, I saw Drake standing over Cabot but staring at me. “Am I really what?”

  “Gay,” Cabot squeaked.

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling. “Why?”

  Drake shook his head like he wasn’t sure. Cabot swallowed nervously, his eyes locked on me.

  They were both sort of overwhelmed, and I understood why. I was probably the first other gay man they’d met.

  “Let me hang this up, and I’ll talk to you guys, okay?”

  They nodded in unison.

  Returning to the bathroom, I hung up the towel and then checked the locks on the suite’s door. When I turned to walk back, Ian was right there, having moved up silently behind me.

  “I didn’t hear you.” I chuckled, moving by him.

  He stopped me with a hand on my bicep.

  “What?”

  His eyes didn’t leave mine, but he said nothing.

  I cleared my throat. “Do you have an extra T-shirt in your bag?”

  “Why, because now you’re done walking around half-naked?”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Both those boys nearly swallowed their tongues when you came walking out of the bathroom,” he groused, shoving me backward. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

  I was lost.

  “And could those pants be any tighter?”

  “Knock it off,” I said playfully, thinking he was teasing.

  “Are you guys coming back to talk or what?” Drake asked, coming around the corner.

  “We’ll be right there!” Ian yelled over his shoulder.

  Drake’s eyes opened wide in surprise and he backpedaled away fast.

  “Why’re you shouting at him?”

  “I’m not!”

  “Are you listening to yourself?”

  “Hey, guys, we’re gonna watch TV in the bedroom!” Cabot announced loudly before I heard quickly slammed doors.

  “That’s perfect,” I groused. “Now you scared them.”

  “I didn’t scare anybody,” he snapped, clearly exasperated.

  “Yeah, you did. They’re just kids, Ian.”

  “I don’t fuckin’ care.” He sounded angry and belligerent and mean.

  “You know, you’ve been a surly asshole all day. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “You!”

  “Me?” I was taken aback.

  “You’re pissing me off.”

  “Why? What’d I do?”

  “You shouldn’t—” He stopped speaking and took a step forward, into me, pinning me up against the door, his thigh between mine, spreading my legs, hands on my hips.

  I felt a throb, a pulse of want that spread down my spine and flushed me in heat. It was, for a split second, like drowning. “Let go,” I said, begging him.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re dangerously close to being thrown up against the wall.”

  His breath hitched. “Yeah, okay, do that.”

  My gaze met his.

  “Do it,” he dared, licking his lips.

  “Ian?” I murmured, hands on his face, easing him close. “What’s going on?”

  His brows furrowed.

  “What do you want?”

  Still nothing.

  “I can’t guess this time. You have to tell me.”

  He coughed softly.

  “Please.”

  The muscles in his jaw corded. “Yesterday, when we—when you—” He swallowed hard. “I felt like I belonged to you.”

  I had treated him like that, because in bed, I couldn’t hide my feelings. My desire to own him, to make him mine, was obvious. I worried about that and so worked to keep things casual and light between us out of bed. But it seemed like maybe that wasn’t what he wanted—or more importantly, needed.

  The way he was looking at me… the light came on.

  All of his frustration, his anger, was about ownership.

  It all suddenly made sense: his unease in the car, the fidgeting like his skin was suddenly too constrictive, acting as though he wanted to get away from me. He needed grounding. He needed to know where he belonged, and to whom.

  “And is that what you want?” I asked as he smoothed his hands up my sides, his head tipping forward so his lips brushed over my collarbone. “To be mine?”

  The shiver was all the answer I needed, even if he lied.

  “Ian?”

  He nodded, his lips parting, his teeth scraping gently over my skin. “This whole time,” he said, his voice thick and full of gravel. “Right here, all along… you’ve been here.”

  My whole body tensed as I girded for what could happen, and for what I could lose.

  “I don’t—I mean—” He inhaled sharply. “I’m—”

  “It’s okay,” I said gently.

  “Shit,” Ian muttered under his breath, pressing his face down into my shoulder, hands tracing over the muscles in my back.

  “Tell me,” I urged, nuzzling his temple, kissing gently, tenderly, moving my lips along his jaw.

  “What the fuck is with these pants?”

  Not what I was hoping to hear, but I could work with it, with the fact that he liked what he saw. Taking hold of his hands, I moved them under the elastic waistband and back over my ass before squeezing tight. “They’re for taking off,” I whispered raggedly in his ear.

  “Miro,” he choked out, lifting his head, his lips hovering over mine as he ground his rigid shaft against my thigh. “I need more.”

  “More what? More kissing? More sex?”

  “Fuck, yeah, all that,” he husked, lifting his hands from where they were down the back of my pants, one sliding up and over my hip, the other slipping around front to cup my length.

  I thrust forward into his fist, and he moaned before he pressed a kiss to the side of my neck. “And?”

  “I’m stuck,” he said, stroking my cock, drawing it from beneath my waistband. “It’s like I’m all I can be, like this is it, unless….”

  The lazy touching was driving me wild. I needed his mouth on me or he had to be rougher, tug my flesh until I came. “Unless,” I growled.

  “You stay with me.”

  It took me a second to parse his words because my entire focus was on his body: its proximity, his warm breath, his hooded eyes, and his demanding hands. “Stay with you?” My heart hurt, listening to him dredge his feelings up from the deep, but I had to know what was buried in him, in his heart.

  “Shit,” he groaned and tried to let go of me, but I pushed my hard, leaking dick into his hand and he clutched at me automatically.

  “Do I feel good?”

  “Oh fuck yeah,” he rumbled, pressing close to shove his own cock, straining against the front of his sweats, over mine.

  “Maybe you should stay with me instead.”

  “Okay.”

  “Should I ask you to move in with me?”

  “Please,” he said, seemingly without thought or hesitation.

  “Because then you’ll know, whether we’re in a car together transporting witnesses or if you’re alone on the other side of the world, that you have a home with me.”

  “Yes.”

  “And when you know you belong to me, with me, then not being able to touch me in the car won’t make you feel like you’re gonna crawl out of your own skin.”

  His gaze met mine.

  “Because when we get home, behind closed doors, I can do whatever the fuck I want to you.”

  “Yes,” he rasped, tearing at his sweats, shucking them down enough to allow his longer, thinner cock to bounce free.

  I grasped both together, tight, and he moaned l
ike he was in pain.

  “God, why haven’t we been doing this since…. Jesus, Miro, you’re the smart one.”

  Was I?

  I gripped the back of his neck tight, holding him still as I slid my hand up and down our cocks, jerking us both, loving the feel of his skin pressed to mine.

  “It’s more than just—” He shuddered. “—this.”

  “I know,” I soothed, then moved fast, shoving him face-first into the door, pinning him there with my bulkier frame, my chest against his back. “Don’t move.”

  He stood silently, breathing in and out, and I pulled up my pants and left him at a run, getting to my bag, finding the lube, and noting the closed door that led from the main room to the bedroom, and then, as I passed by, that the one leading from the bathroom to the bedroom was similarly shut. As professionalism went, ours was out the window. But Drake Ford and Cabot Jenner were going to be our charges in Chicago, and since we’d first emotionally saved them, and then physically, I wasn’t too worried about them saying a disparaging word about either Ian or me. But even if they did, I could have cared less.

  Ian needed me.

  Returning, finding him frozen where I’d left him, I shoved my pants to my ankles, then his, before kissing between his shoulder blades. Stepping out of mine, I kicked them away before flipping open the cap of the lube.

  “I want to go home with you,” he husked. “I want you to hold me down in your bed.”

  How I was supposed to manhandle him when he was baring his soul was beyond me.

  “I lied, you know,” he confessed when I reached around him to take hold of his dripping cock and stroke him from balls to head.

  “About what?” I asked, sliding my middle finger between his cheeks.

  He gasped and arched his back, pushing back into me, burying my finger to the knuckle.

  “Ian? What’d you lie about?”

  “I-I never dreamed about your couch, M,” he croaked. “I dreamed about your bed and being with you in it.”

  The honesty was going to kill me.

  Jesus.

  “How long,” I demanded, releasing his cock and gripping my own, greasing myself heavily, not ever wanting to hurt him but unable to do any more for him.

  “Since the first time I slept over.”

  Instead of beating him, I dropped the lube beside me on the carpet and leaned forward, my mouth at his ear. “Why didn’t you come upstairs and get in bed with me?”

  “I was scared,” he admitted, hands spread on the wall, lifting his right foot from his sweats so he could widen his stance.

  Wrapping my left hand around his throat, I tipped his head back on my shoulder as I kissed along his jaw.

  “Miro,” he ground out. “I liked it when you came inside.”

  He was trying to kill me. “Oh yeah?” I asked, forcing myself to remain calm, not rushing.

  “When you… when your cum was dripping out of me, and I could feel it in my ass and on my thighs… I mean, I know it happened, yeah? We’re connected.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do it now.”

  “You’re gonna take me in, do you understand?”

  He nodded.

  Leaning back, I took hold of the base of my cock, lined my head up with his entrance, and pushed.

  “Fuck!”

  His muscles clamped down tight, but I was too slick, breaching him, filling him, watching his hole swallow my cock until my balls pressed against his ass.

  “Jerk yourself off,” I directed, hands on his hips, as I pulled out halfway, grinding my shaft over his nerve endings on the withdrawal, and then thrust back in, snapping my hips, jolting him.

  “Don’t stop,” he pleaded.

  His hands fisted against the wall as I repeated my motion, slamming inside of him, pumping rhythmically, no trace of gentleness, only pounding, driving movement.

  His sleek inner walls, the way the muscles rippled and clutched around me—he felt indescribably good, all tight, slick heat.

  “Forgive me.”

  Like there was anything else to do. “Yes.”

  “Keep me.”

  “Yes,” I promised, feeling the slow roll of my orgasm building as my balls tightened and I broke out in a sweat. “Grab your cock. Get yourself off, because I’m gonna come.”

  “Miro—” His voice went in and out on him, cracking. “I need it harder. Please, Miro. Make it hurt.”

  “If it hurts I’m doing it wrong,” I growled, grabbing the back of his neck and shoving him to the carpet on his hands and knees, following him down. “Don’t fuckin’ move.”

  He cried out, voice gone, as I pegged his gland, hands on his shoulders, holding him still as I fucked him.

  He went rigid under me, and I came inside of him as he spurted onto the carpet beneath him. His aftershocks squeezed my shaft almost too tight, and I wanted to pull out, but a single word stilled me.

  “Stay.”

  So I collapsed over him instead, relinquishing all my weight, my face pressed into the back of his neck, panting into his sweaty skin.

  “What if you end up hating me and I lose not only my lover but my partner and my best friend?”

  “I know everything about you,” I said, rolling my head to lick and suck his skin. “What’s there to hate?”

  “All the other women I’ve—”

  “I’m not a woman.”

  “Yeah, I can tell that that since your enormous cock is buried in my ass.”

  “Lemme get—”

  “No,” he whispered, reaching back to take hold of my thigh and keep me still. “Wait.”

  So I stayed there, inside, taking every breath with him.

  “This is good.”

  It was so much more than simply that.

  Chapter 16

  WHEN I helped him to his feet, I was surprised to see blood on his mouth. “What the hell?” I questioned him worriedly, wiping it from his lip with my thumb.

  “I didn’t want to scream,” he confessed, looking at me like he was drunk. “You can still kiss me, it doesn’t hurt.”

  “Ian—”

  “Kiss me.”

  I leaned in, pressing my lips to his tenderly, and he melted against me, arms wrapped around my neck, molding his body to mine. I had missed the neediness in him, and now he was finally confident enough to let me see it.

  “Don’t stop,” he begged when I eased free, needing air.

  “Come with me.”

  He didn’t want to shower, but I shoved him in anyway, quickly washing away sweat and drying cum, and then poured him onto the sofa sleeper where he was fast asleep moments later. I went back to my computer and finished the report for Kage, making sure it was as thorough as I could possibly make it before saving it and closing up. Then I tidied up our belongings, got Ian’s computer from his pack, logged in as him, and reopened the shared document and read it again, putting myself in my partner’s headspace and thinking about what to add. When the bedroom door opened, I glanced up to find both Drake and Cabot looking at me.

  “It’s safe.” I snickered. “Sorry ’bout before, but it’s new with us and still a little volatile.”

  They both rushed forward and took seats at the table, staring at me expectantly.

  “Yes?”

  Cabot cleared his throat. “I—we—” His eyes flicked to Drake and then back to me. “—have questions, if it’s okay.”

  I stopped typing and sat back, crossing my arms over my bare chest. “It’s okay, g’head.”

  Drake cleared his throat. “Do you top?”

  “Yes.”

  “But he’s so—” Cabot coughed, glancing over at Ian and then back to me. “—scary.”

  “Does the fact that I fuck him make him less scary?”

  “Oh hell no,” Drake answered quickly.

  I stared at Cabot. “If you like Drake topping, that’s great. But if you want to try, you need to tell him.”

  He looked startled, how wide his eyes got and how quickly his mouth fell op
en. “And you,” I said, giving my attention to Drake. “If you want him to top, ask him. It doesn’t make you any less of a man if you let him.”

  “Okay.”

  “The only reason not to trade places is if he doesn’t want to and you don’t want to. But if he wants your ass, and you think that sounds hot, then go for it. It’s your bed; nobody else gets a say about what goes on in it.”

  They nodded in unison like trained seals.

  “How did you…” Cabot began, inching closer to me, “get someone like him to trust you enough to let you do that to him?”

  I thought for a moment. “We were friends first, and that’s important.”

  “How did you get to be friends?”

  I grinned wide. “You ever feed a stray cat?”

  “Yeah,” Cabot said, smiling at me. “You put the food out every day. Same place, same time. You have to be consistent.”

  “Yes. You never stop, even though the cat hisses at you and maybe even scratches you, and there’s always the posturing, like, ‘I don’t need this food. I’m perfectly good out here all alone in the dark.’”

  Drake looked over at Ian sprawled out on the bed, his broad, muscular back on display, as were the scars that covered it. “I would have never guessed that he was gay.”

  “Why?” I asked pointedly. “What does gay look like?”

  He turned back to me. “Not like you or him, that’s for sure.”

  “Like me,” Cabot offered. “I look gay.”

  “You’re beautiful,” I assured him. “But that doesn’t automatically make you gay. Once you guys get to Chicago, you’ll see. Gay and straight comes in every imaginable variety.”

  They were eager to talk to me; it was all over them.

  “Tell me how you guys met?” I prompted.

  Drake cleared his throat and leaned forward as Cabot put both elbows on the table and stared at him with so much adoration that it almost made my teeth hurt with how sweet it was. “I was hired this last summer right before school started, by Mr. Jenner,” Drake explained. “I was supposed to take care of Cabot’s horses. He does dressage.”

  “You guys had never met before?”

  “No. Cabot was away at boarding schools this whole time, but he got kicked out.”