A Fool and His Manny

by Amy Lane

  He didn’t need warning. He hunched his body down, impaling himself on Dustin’s tremendous cock. His gasp, his moan, were lost in Dustin’s self-satisfied roar, as he began fucking Quinlan’s body like it had been designed for his pleasure.

  Oh God, maybe it had been.

  Quinlan’s mouth was moving, he was trying to make words, but it meant nothing. All that mattered was Dustin’s body inside his own, Dustin’s hard thrusts splitting him in two, his tender words making the stretch, the burn, the ache, a glorious thing.

  “Lookatcha, Q. You were made for me. I could do this all night. Feel me? Feel me inside you? It’s where I’m s’posed to be. You can tell, right? Tell I belong here?”

  Quinlan moaned. “Yeah. Yeah, Dusty. Keep… oh God… there. Keep fucking me. Please… oh please, Dusty. Don’t stop. Oh God… don’t stop….”

  The begging came as naturally as the wantonness, the animal need. Quinlan needed. Dustin would provide.

  Dustin sped up the pace, harder, faster, deeper, and Quinlan’s begging turned to an endless keen as Dustin’s cock stroked, again and again, that place where the pleasure was so exquisite it bordered on pain.

  “Come for me, Q. One more time. Let it go. I need to see you—”

  “Oh God…. Dusty! Dusty! I can’t… oh God! So….”

  “Come!” Dustin roared, and Quinlan’s vision went black this time as Dustin dragged another climax from his healing body and then pumped, scalding, irrevocably, inside him.

  Quinlan lay there and shook as Dustin collapsed on top of him. He was nothing. Blank. Unmade. Orgasm had washed him clean, made him nothing but a receptacle for Dustin’s needs—and Dustin had repaid him by pulling him into the stratosphere, showing him how to fly.

  Disparate sensations added themselves to the whole.

  Dustin’s weight, hot and sweating, anchoring him to earth. Dustin’s harsh breath in his ear. Dustin’s cock, still solidly wedged inside Quinlan.

  Come, running thickly down the tops of Quinlan’s thighs.

  “How was that?” Dustin asked, breathless, happy, cocky as hell.

  Quinlan opened his mouth to say it was amazing. Tremendous. Beautiful.

  And to his horror, a sob slipped out.

  And another. And another.

  Dustin whispered his name again and again, kissing his temple, holding him tight as he let out the fear, the uncertainty that had kept him from giving his body this completely to anybody else.

  That had kept him from falling in love until just now.

  With Dusty.

  “I gotcha,” Dustin whispered, not asking questions—not even surprised. “Don’t worry, baby. I gotcha. Nothing’s gonna hurt you here.”

  Quinlan had no answer to that. He cried harder, until he couldn’t move another muscle, couldn’t shed another tear, couldn’t do anything but rest his cheek against Dusty’s magnificent chest and close his eyes to sleep.

  Soaking Up the Sun

  “Q, SUNBLOCK!”

  Quinlan looked up from fixing Petey’s plate in the shade of the patio and frowned. “Petey, I got you, right? Your ears are covered?”

  “And my nose, Quin. I look like a dork.”

  “You are a dork—but you’re a dork without skin cancer in ten years. Now go sit and eat, okay?”

  Dustin rolled his eyes, and Sammy laughed next to him.

  “Does he even realize he’s getting pink?” Sammy asked, eyes dancing. For once Sammy was tan and healthy and Quinlan was pink and sort of scrawny. Dustin thought foully that the whole world needed to be fit and happy, and he was going to make that his goddamned priority.

  “No. Where’s the sunblock?”

  Sammy handed him a bright yellow tube of it. “You’re going to take matters into your own hands?” he asked, but he was peering at Dustin with a sort of measuring look.

  “Have been for a few weeks now,” he said, daring Sammy’s disapproval. Three weeks since Quinlan had come home at death’s door. Two weeks since Dusty had taken him to bed and he’d wept in Dusty’s arms. Two weeks of Quin in his bed—or him in Quinlan’s bed, but that’s not the way he thought of it—and Dustin wasn’t feeling any less protective.

  All that… that sweetness, running around without Dusty to keep it safe? For so long! Dustin knew it was irrational, but the thought made him grumpy and foul and close to tears.

  He’d grown up as quickly as he could, but Quinlan had been waiting for so long.

  Sex had been every bit as wonderful as Dustin had always suspected—but he suddenly saw, as he never had before, how it could leave a person vulnerable and at the mercy of an untender world.

  Until Quinlan had sobbed in his arms, he hadn’t realized what an act of bravery falling in love was.

  And now that Quinlan was in love, unquestionably, without doubt, adamantly in love, Dustin realized how much he had to lose.

  So Sammy, checking to see where Quin and Dusty were—once Dustin might have bridled at it, felt like his cousin wasn’t having enough faith in him. But now he knew what an awesome responsibility he’d assumed.

  Quinlan deserved more than one person worried about him.

  But Dusty still got the mantle of chief worrier.

  Sammy nodded. “Good—he’s looking happy. Scrawny, but happy. He used to be the biggest flirt—I haven’t seen that in him for a couple of years.”

  Dustin frowned. “Really? Quinlan?”

  “Well, first couple of years of college—it was like he made it his job to be friendly.”

  “And he was crushing on you,” Cooper said dryly next to him.

  “And he was crushing on me,” Sammy admitting, giving Cooper a gentle shoulder bump. “But he got the job with your folks, and, you know. Suddenly had to be an adult all the time. He looks younger now—like he’s not so scared of messing up.”

  Dustin could see that—in fact, given that terrible storm of weeping, it made so much sense. “Well, I’m messing up if I let him get burned,” he said, urgently needing to touch Quinlan again, just to reassure himself that the happiness could last.

  “Oh—before you go—” Sammy checked the phone in his back pocket. “The uncles say their lawyer is coming over about three. He’s going to need to talk to Quinlan, since you guys are here.”

  “Oh crap!” Dustin palmed his forehead.

  “Crap what?”

  “Crap, Dad and I forgot to tell him that guy stopped by!”

  “Dusty!” Cooper laughed. “That was three weeks ago!”

  “Well, yeah! But the first week was scary. We were afraid there wasn’t going to be any Quinlan left to tell! And after that, you know—cats, school, kids, work—”

  “Life,” Sammy said philosophically.

  “Life with cats,” Dustin added, dark threatening undertones clear in his voice.

  The cats had been a barrel full of monkeys—but they’d also been an actual barrel full of super destructive monkeys determined to play with or annihilate everything in the apartment. Snoozer especially was a stealth bomb of mayhem. Dustin and Quinlan’s first argument had been about where their underwear was disappearing to and why none of it was coming back in the laundry. As they were arguing, the damned kitten had trotted into the bedroom, seized a pair of Dusty’s boxers from the neat piles on the floor, and dragged them out into the living room.

  They’d watched in openmouthed surprise as he’d hidden the boxers behind the entertainment center—with all their brethren, Dustin’s and Quin’s.

  Quinlan’s chuckle had broken up the rather tense silence. “I’m sorry, Dusty—so sorry. That’s….”

  And Dustin had kissed him stupid and taken him to bed, and they’d had to do laundry at eleven at night or they wouldn’t have had anything to wear the next week.

  “So, are the cats worth it?” Cooper asked, like he really wanted to know.

  “Absolutely,” Dustin said, and then he smiled with all his teeth to hide just the teeniest bit of evil. “I’d get at least two if I were you. I’m going to
go get his shoulders before he goes up in flames.”

  “Sunblock?” Quinlan said as he drew near. “Who’d I miss? Kids—who didn’t get sunblock? Letty, did you get Conroy?”

  Conroy turned to him, panic written in every line of his body. “Letty doesn’t put sunblock on me! Keenan does!”

  Quinlan regarded him with puzzlement. “But you and Letty always get each other—what happened?”

  Conroy—now a solid, muscular fifteen, darted his eyes to his crotch and then back to his chatty, flirty stepcousin in embarrassed horror.

  Quinlan’s jaw dropped. “Oh.” He swallowed and got one of those looks Dustin’s mother always got when one of the kids reached a milestone she wasn’t prepared for—like when Belinda had casually announced that she’d gone on the pill because Joachim was a keeper. “Keenan, did you get Conroy’s back?”

  “Yes,” Keenan said from Conroy’s other side. The boys were playing chess while they ate lunch. “And he’s going to beat me, so I should have let him burn.”

  Conroy’s discomfiture passed, and he looked at the chessboard again, preening. “I wouldn’t have let you burn even if you beat me,” he said smugly, and Keenan rolled his eyes.

  “I appreciate that. Now move!”

  “So who’s the sunblock for!” Quinlan demanded, and it was Dustin’s turn to roll his eyes.

  “You, dumbass. You’re going to go up in flames any minute now. Hold still!”

  “Oh.”

  Dustin was watching for the flush that patterned Quinlan’s chest and throat, and he wasn’t disappointed.

  “Now let’s move somewhere the kids aren’t eating, okay?”

  “If you go behind the pool house, we’ll know you’re making out,” Felicity said smugly. She’d spent much of the summer at the pool, and her naturally golden skin tone was now a dazzling dark tan, and the long hair she’d pulled into an effortless knot was streaked gold. She’d gotten really pretty in this past year, and Dustin wondered how freaked-out his uncles were going to be when they were suddenly neck-deep in randy teenage boys.

  “Then we won’t go behind the pool house,” Dustin told her. “And we’ll keep that in mind if you ever have any company here.”

  “Who wants to make out? Boys are gross.”

  Quinlan and Dustin exchanged glances.

  “Are girls gross?” Quinlan asked carefully.

  “Kissing’s gross,” Felicity told him. “I’ll let you know if I meet anyone I want to kiss, and then you can worry about me going behind the pool house. And thank God you guys stopped pissing back there. That was gross.”

  “I am saying!” Quinlan muttered, and Dustin pulled him to the far corner of the shade.

  “Wasn’t so bad when we were Petey’s age,” he defended, smoothing cream on Quinlan’s back. “I mean, you know. Beat having to dry off.”

  Quinlan scowled and shook his head. “No. Just no. Next little boy I have to raise is going to know the difference between the toilet and the neighbor’s bushes if I have to draw a picture.”

  Dustin tried and failed to fight back the chills. He dropped his head and kissed the back of Quinlan’s neck, remembering Quinlan with his siblings, wanting to see him with more children, their children, raised in a house a little smaller than Tino and Channing’s, loved with the full force of the giant family currently squabbling, playing, crushing, laughing, growing up around the pool.

  “Dusty…,” Quinlan murmured, shoulders curling forward in a combination of embarrassment, probably, and arousal—definitely. Dustin could see that over his shoulder.

  “Sorry,” he murmured. “Just… you know. Thought about you, raising kids. Made me hot.”

  “Yeah?” The shyness in his voice was going to kill Dustin, plain and simple. “You, uh… not tired. Being the oldest and all.”

  “Like father, like son,” Dusty murmured. “Want my own eventually. Don’t know what to tell you.”

  “That would be good,” Quinlan said softly. “I mean… not right now, ’cause we’re new, but….”

  “Someday.” Dustin nuzzled his ear, thinking he needed to put sunblock on it too.

  “Yeah.”

  Dustin pulled him back against his chest, even though the sunblock was sticky. He just wanted to touch him too much to care. Across the pool he watched Sammy jerk his head like someone had knocked on the door, and he remembered he had a purpose here.

  Priorities, dammit.

  “Shoot—Q. Something happened when you were sick—something I forgot to tell you about ’cause you were sick and we were worried, but we need to deal with it today.”

  Quinlan tried to pull away.

  “Get back here—I don’t have your ears or your chest yet. Seriously, do you guys go out in the sun at all when you tour? Or do you just hide in the bus with thermal blankets over your faces, hissing when live people walk by?”

  Quinlan hissed. He honest-to-God hissed like a vampire, and Dustin chortled so hard he almost fumbled the sunblock.

  “I’m glad you’re amused,” Quinlan said, continuing to stand still while Dusty mastered sunblock. “What did you forget to tell me?”

  “Some douchebag came to talk to you—looked like Lurch from The Addams Family. He was going to leave papers for you, but Dad sent him packing and told him to call Tino and Channing’s lawyer. Which he did, apparently, ’cause Mr. Wainscott is coming over today and needs to talk to you.” Quinlan threatened to turn around, but Dusty clamped a hand on his shoulder. “You can talk from there!”

  Quinlan grunted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because at the time, you couldn’t so much have lifted a piece of paper to see what it said. And after that….” Dustin couldn’t stop touching him, smoothing his palms over those sleek shoulders, working his fingers over Quinlan’s upper arms. He still had some muscles—and it was just all so appealing.

  “What?” Quinlan moved restively under his hands. “What after that?”

  “After that I got distracted. I mean, you know. I’d waited a while—I had other things on my mind. You things. Sex things. Sorry.”

  Quinlan’s shoulders shook, and Dustin nuzzled the lotion-free space behind his ear. “It’s a good thing you’re cute,” Quinlan muttered.

  “Forgive me?”

  “Yeah. Sure. But I wonder what it was about? My father’s lawyer looks like Lurch, you know.”

  “The guy who tried to move your trust fund out of your bank account when you left home?”

  “That’s the one.” Quinlan turned in his arms and pursed his lips for a kiss. Dustin obliged. “It’s probably a good thing we’ll have a lawyer there on our side. How much do you think I owe Mr. Wainscott?”

  Dustin rolled his eyes. “What are the odds Channing and Tino will actually let you pay for the lawyer they keep on retainer?”

  “But—”

  “Family lawyer. Guess where Sammy would put you on the friends-to-family scale?”

  “Quinlan!” Petey called. “Can we get in the pool yet? I swear it’s been fifteen minutes!”

  “Has not!” Quinlan called back without looking. “You need five minutes more, and part of that’s spent going to the bathroom.”

  “But I don’t have to go!”

  Immediately, in tandem, Dustin, Quinlan, Sammy, Cooper, Conroy, and Keenan all said, “Yes! Yes, you do! Now go!”

  “Aw geez!” Petey sulked, but he got up, wiped his hands and face on his beach towel, and headed for the pool house while not dripping with pool water.

  “Wow.” Dustin was impressed. “When they say it takes a village, they’re not shitting around.”

  “I’m just as happy the village doesn’t have him pissing in the oleander bushes,” Quinlan muttered. “I can’t believe that was a family tradition.”

  “Sammy started it.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  Dustin couldn’t help himself. He cupped the back of Quinlan’s head with his fingers, turned him around, and took his mouth, ripe, lush, and carnal.
/>   And Quinlan, quiet, self-contained Quinlan, who cared for his family with dry humor and efficiency, melted in his arms, compliant and passionate, all in the same kiss.

  Dustin pulled back and took him in, cheeks flushed, breath coming fast, tiny nipples poking out diamond-tipped, and smiled.

  “What?” Quinlan asked, stepping back and looking away while adjusting his board shorts. “What is that look?”

  “That look?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That look is saying that I don’t care what Lurch has to say to you. Those people aren’t your family. We’re your family. I’m your guy. Whatever he has to say, we’re going to be just fine.”

  Quinlan smiled shyly. “Thanks, Dusty.”

  “Whatever. Go eat so we can swim before he gets here. You fed everybody but yourself.”

  TWO hours later, Peter and Tay were ready to come inside and chill out in front of the television. The older kids stayed outside to talk or play or lay out, and Quinlan and Dusty came in with the younger ones. Shortly after that, there was a knock at the door, and Channing Lowell stuck his head in the family room and motioned for Quinlan, who slid carefully out from under St. Peter’s weight where the boy had fallen asleep with his head on Quinlan’s shoulder.

  Dustin pulled himself from his sprawl on the floor and a much welcome nap to accompany him. He’d worked a couple of extra shifts for his father to make up for the week he took off caring for Quinlan, and the nap had been a thing of beauty.

  Quinlan frowned as they were walking through the house and rubbed his thumb over his own mouth, and Dustin took his cue and turned to wipe the drool from his chin on his T-shirt.

  “Thanks, Q,” he murmured.

  “Classy, Dusty.”

  “I do my best.”

  Channing and Tino’s study looked out over the pool and featured two desks across from each other, each with their own computer and file cabinet. It was easy to picture the two men working here at night, after the kids had gone to bed, looking over at each other and sharing a smile, a joke, or just a bit of information.

  The décor was masculine—plain, serviceable furniture, cream walls, cream carpet, pictures of the family and the kids in dark wood frames for contrast—but the furniture, thank God, was very, very comfortable.