by Jez Morrow
“That’s God’s truth,” said Jack, sensing the darkness within him. He wanted to put his arms around him, or at least a hand on his shoulder, but Martin’s posture was screaming stay away.
“I don’t trust anyone,” Martin said.
Jack had nothing to answer that.
After a very long pause, Martin asked, “You’re not going to tell me I can trust you?”
Jack shook his head. “You can. But you’ve got to figure that out for yourself.”
Martin was a harder, sadder, soberer man than Jack had known before. More reticent, more nervous—as if Martin could become more of any of those things. Jack saw that Martin had been hurt, hurt more deeply than just another bullet wound could hurt him.
“Can I rip out someone’s throat for you?” Jack offered.
Martin ducked his head, startled. “What?”
“Somebody did something to you,” said Jack.
Martin started to object. Then he looked far away, staying silent. He lifted one finger from his coffee cup to signal the end of that conversation. But some remote, safely guarded part of him seemed to appreciate the offer.
Jack served the plate of eggs on the kitchen table and sat across from Martin as he ate. Martin’s every little motion captivated him. The shadows of Martin’s eyelashes moving on his sharp-boned cheeks made his presence intensely real. Jack saw both strength and delicacy in Martin’s hands as his long fingers closed ‘round his coffee mug. Jack memorized the shape of his prominent knuckles, the hollows between the tendons in the back of his hand. Jack imagined those strong delicate hands on his body. His body responded with a heated shiver that ran straight down from his hungry eyes to his groin. He hoped Martin would just assume he was cold.
Martin put down his fork, and said at last, “I read your police report.”
Of course Jack had gone to the police when Martin disappeared. Jack had omitted the turning-into-a-wolf part from the story and any details about how he happened to be on the scene. But he hadn’t told any outright lies in the police report.
“Who else did you talk to?” Martin demanded, suspicious.
“The FBI,” said Jack. That much should have been obvious.
Martin had worked for the FBI before he disappeared.
“No one else?”
“No.”
Martin’s lips formed a brooding pout, unconsciously seductive. His build was big-boned, spare, elegant. He had a beauty that was both masculine and feminine. Jack sensed vulnerability and savagery in him, an animal strength with a delicate touch.
Martin’s wide topaz eyes glanced furtively everywhere but at Jack. He met Jack’s gaze fleetingly and glanced away.
Guiltily, Jack wondered if Martin had seen the hunger in his eyes. Jack had been imagining slipping his hands under Martin’s bulky sweater onto that hot, taut body.
The gray cat yawned on the window ledge.
Martin nodded aside. “Is she giving me a hint?”
It was very late.
“Stay,” said Jack. “Please stay.”
Martin shook his head. “They’ll look for me here.”
“Who will?” said Jack. “Martin, who even knows you’ve ever been here?”
Martin’s topaz eyes blinked at him, startled.
“No one,” Martin had to admit. “I would look for me here.”
Jack tossed his napkin on the table between them. “Penalty flag. Fifteen yards for paranoia.”
Martin had crossed beyond caution and was jumping at shadows now.
“Aw, shit.” Martin pressed his fingertips to the bridge of his nose. He looked like he was trying to keep the thoughts from running out of his head.
Jack asked, “When is the last time you had a good night’s sleep?”
Martin shook his head, trying to think. “Probably December. Before last.”
“Stay,” Jack insisted. “Stay the night. The guest bedroom is all done now.”
Martin seemed on the edge of knee-jerk argument, then relaxed in his chair, even slouched a little. “’Kay.”
Jack threw Martin’s gym bag in the second bedroom, and laid out towels for him in the guest bathroom, which lay at the end of the loft hall that overlooked the great room.
He bade Martin good night as Martin headed for the guest bathroom to take a shower.
* * * * *
Jack had always been able to see in the dark and his eyes were accustomed to it by now.
Martin, just coming out of the lighted bath, had not adjusted to the darkness. He was quite blind for the moment. He could not see Jack in the bed through the open doorway at the end of the hall, wide awake and watching him, admiring the soft sheen of his bare skin. Martin was naked and beautiful.
And he was lost.
Jack could see Martin feeling for the wall to find his way.
To the wrong bedroom door.
Chapter Two
Martin missed the turn into the guestroom and felt his way instead through Jack’s open bedroom door.
Jack held his breath. Was Martin truly lost?
Time stood still in wonder and hope.
Martin made an extraordinary, raw, beautiful silhouette in Jack’s doorway. Jack was about to ask Martin if he knew where he was going.
Then Jack decided not to tell him.
Martin moved slowly into the room, blind, with tentative steps, until his knee met the edge of the bed. He felt about for the covers and crawled in.
His warm leg brushed Jack’s leg.
And Martin jumped as if lit on fire. He could not have moved faster had he actually been on fire. He broke into a sudden panicked flailing of limbs, trying to scramble out of the bed. He fell off the side of the mattress in a twist of sheets onto the floor.
Jack’s warm chuckle followed him over the edge.
Martin thrashed on the floor, trying too hard to get unwrapped from the sheet. He sounded embarrassed to death, “I’m in the wrong room.”
Jack’s voice, already deep, dropped in desire. “I don’t think so.” He reached down. His strong hand closed on Martin’s arm. “Come back to bed.”
Martin’s head waved side to side. “Let me go. I didn’t mean—”
“You never lose your way, Martin,” said Jack. “Please don’t run. I won’t hurt you.” Then he backtracked a little, “Okay, I could hurt you but not on purpose. I swear. Come back to bed.”
Martin’s eyes, bright in the darkness, were wide, glassy in fear.
“I—let me go,” Martin protested but he had stopped trying to pull away. He was only talking now. “I didn’t mean to come this way.”
“You didn’t really lose your way in the dark,” said Jack.
“But I’m not—” Martin started. He could not even bring himself to say the next word. He restarted, “I’m not that way.”
“I didn’t think I was either,” said Jack. “But here we are and you can’t tell me you don’t want to be here, because I don’t know why you don’t pass out with a cock that big getting that hard.”
He could see Martin blush darker in the darkness. Protest all he want, Martin’s body betrayed his long, hot, hard desire. Martin’s eyes were terrified. His lips had the swollen look of passion.
Tears spilled from his beautiful eyes.
Jack leaned down and kissed the tears from his cheeks. He tugged, gently urging, on Martin’s arm. “Come to me.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Martin whispered, but Jack felt him yield to his pull. Martin crawled back onto the bed and Jack drew the sheet around them both.
The first brush of bare skin on bare skin took Jack’s breath away. The warm touch was magical. Martin’s leg slid against his. Jack drew Martin into his arms. Martin laid a hesitant hand on Jack’s hard-muscled chest, a tremor in his long fingers amid the handsome scatter of dark hair, and Jack never felt more a man.
Their swollen cocks touched. Martin flinched as if touched by flame, and Jack inhaled a sharp gasp with the blazing jolt of desire. Jack pulled Martin’s b
ody against his own, full-length, drawing a sound from the depths of Martin’s soul, a groan of passion, a gasp of astonishment. Martin’s breaths came quick against Jack’s chest, hot, frightened, impassioned. Jack felt Martin’s hands exploring his body, his touch painfully tentative, filled with fear and wanting. Jack could tell Martin was terrified but he could not pull away.
Jack lifted Martin’s chin to make him face him, breath to breath. Martin’s nostrils flared like a frightened animal. He was so incredibly beautiful that Jack could not hold all the emotions that swelled and overflowed inside him. Jack leaned in and grazed his lips tenderly across Martin’s soft lips. Just that simple touch sent spears of heat straight to his hard-on. Jack slid his tongue across Martin’s trembling lower lip. Martin’s lips were soft and yielding. Jack kissed him fully, as if he might gladly drown in his kiss. He plunged his tongue into his mouth to ravage every moist hidden place. Martin’s tongue slid against his, joining and shying away.
Martin shuddered as if overwhelmed with sensations too intense to bear. Martin came up for air with a gasp.
Jack traced kisses along Martin’s jaw. The slight unshaven roughness was sweet and unexpectedly exciting under his lips, and his own cock moved in heated surprise.
He laid Martin back and crouched over him. Hungrily he let his tongue trail down Martin’s long, elegant throat, along his collarbone, down to his smooth chest. He grazed his teeth on the small hard nub of one nipple over Martin’s pounding heart.
Martin grasped Jack’s head between his hands with a sound like a whimper. His deep chest rose and fell with heavy breaths under Jack’s kisses. Martin’s hands moved in his hair.
Jack slid his arms beneath Martin’s body and held him in a tight embrace, trapping Martin’s long, hard cock between his own chest and Martin’s belly.
“Oh!” escaped Martin’s lips. And again, “Oh!”
Martin was shy but his hips were wanton, rocking back and forth, sliding his erection through the coarse hair of Jack’s chest. Jack felt the wetness of Martin’s readiness on his chest.
Jack loosened his hold and knelt back to see Martin’s cock standing upright, rigid and pleading. A droplet like a tear beaded on its tip wanted tasting. Jack tasted it.
Martin cried out, flinched.
Jack caught his narrow boyish hips between his big hands and ran his tongue up the length of Martin’s shaft, delighted at the small moans coming from his shocked lover. He circled the helmet of his cock and slid his tongue back down again. He nuzzled his balls and the curly autumn blond hair of his groin. He felt Martin shiver. He took Martin’s cock into the velvet sheath of his mouth and heard him groan deeply. Jack slowly massaged Martin’s manhood with lips and tongue until Martin cried out, “No!”
Jack looked up, his lips wet, his hands caging Martin’s narrow hips. “Do you mean that?”
“No!” Martin cried more desperately still.
Jack took him back inside his mouth, teasing, taking pleasure in arousing him. Martin writhed, his head tossing side to side. Then he went rigid, his head thrown back. His back arched off the bed. Martin cried out, a wild feral sound, his hands lost in Jack’s dark hair. He pulsed and pulsed in passion’s throes, Jack’s mouth urging him on.
Martin fell back, panting, vibrating like a struck bell, his eyes wide in wonder.
Jack leaned over him, his dark eyes heavy-lidded, smug. Martin’s loss of control was endearing. Jack was intensely pleased with himself, and hungry. He moved with a daunting menacing sexuality. He meant to have Martin now.
Martin’s eyes shifted down, beheld Jack’s rigid cock with an expression of sheer dread. “Don’t put that in my mouth,” he said. And Jack could tell he meant it this time.
But Martin could be held and caressed and explored. And when a tentative finger made a slow tender assault on Martin’s ass, he made no protest. If a lover was going to say no to this, you didn’t get any farther. Pleasure there was hardwired and there was no learning to like it. Back-door loving was either a turn-on or a complete turn-off. Martin looked only profoundly astonished. And did not say no.
Jack reached over to the nightstand, fumbling at the drawer. He fished out a bottle of erotic massage oil, and placed the bottle into Martin’s hands.
Martin’s wide eyes shifted from the bottle to Jack’s cock. He was expected to do something here. And Jack had apparently been around the block a few more times than Martin ever had. Martin was lost.
Martin’s voice was a nearly soundless whisper, terrified. “I told you I’ve never done this.”
Jack took the bottle from Martin’s hands, poured drops of scented oil onto Martin’s palms and set the bottle back on the nightstand.
Then Jack lay back, folded his hands behind his head and commanded, “Touch me.”
Martin’s face visibly burned. But shyness was only so strong. Passion and desire were stronger. Torn between awe and lust, Martin took Jack into his hands.
Jack’s head jerked back in an ecstatic gasp. It took everything he had not to come right there and then. He looked down to watch Martin’s hands on his cock, enthralled with his instinctive touch. Martin’s fingers teased him to flights of unbearable bliss, amazement and joy. Tears beaded at the corners of Jack’s eyes. Desire glistened at the tip of his rigid cock. Martin’s finger circled, touched it.
“Stop, stop, stop,” Jack choked, even though it was nearly the last thing he wanted Martin to do.
Jack sat up, pushed Martin onto his back and lifted Martin’s legs. Martin, always limber, moved easily, his knees hooked over Jack’s broad shoulders. Jack kissed Martin’s knee that was now by his cheek. He moved forward on top of Martin like a prowling leopard, to hover over him, nose to nose with him.
As Jack’s shoulders pushed forward, Martin’s ass lifted off the bed and Jack’s cock slid in the divide between Martin’s hard, muscular buttocks.
Martin’s eyes were wide and questioning.
Jack was afraid Martin wouldn’t allow him to do what he wanted desperately to do.
Martin’s expression became a kind of terror. He did not speak. His lips only parted, expectant. Fearful. These were uncharted waters.
But already standing up between their sweaty bodies was Martin’s cock, rigid again and lifting to touch the coarse line of hair that ran from navel to cock on Jack’s flat belly. Even for the size of it, Martin’s cock was perfectly hard, and straining with rekindled fire.
Jack leaned over him until they touched forehead to forehead, sharing impassioned breaths. He kissed Martin’s lips tenderly. Martin’s hands grasped at Jack’s muscular shoulders.
Jack gazed into Martin’s eyes, his gaze asking, pleading. Will you let me? His swollen cock prodded, seeking, finding, hesitated at the gates. Martin’s eyes were wide, reflecting wanting and sheer terror. He could not say yes but would not say no, trusting Jack to lead him on this midnight road which only two may travel.
Jack pushed. His glistening cock slid easily through the tight gate to heights beyond his dreams and soaring upward.
Martin was either in ecstasy or pain. His mouth opened in a silent cry, his eyes nearly shut, lashes fluttering as if in the grip of something too intense to bear.
Jack thrust deep. Martin’s body enveloped his manhood, joining flesh and animal soul. Jack never felt so powerful. His body moved in the timeless dance everyone knows without ever learning, withdrawing slowly and penetrating again.
Driven by overpowering desire, Jack lost control. His thrusts came quick. All the stars in their heaven ignited. A shuddering, consuming blaze enveloped him.
Martin, under him, cried out.
Still captive in the grip of ecstasy Jack thought he’d hurt him but even as he thought it, Jack felt the strong jet of Martin’s ejaculation against his abdomen. A startling blaze of wondrous ardor leapt still higher inside him and Jack thrust again, harder than he meant to. He gave more than he thought he had, gave and gave in rapturous waves. Martin uttered deep raw groans, coming hard, and Jack gav
e again in another spasm of blinding pleasure.
Jack panted in a dazed, shimmering shock, letting the lingering pulses subside, his head bowed, sharing Martin’s breaths.
He opened his eyes. Hadn’t realized he’d shut them. He was a little surprised he wasn’t blind or dead after the rapture.
He took Martin’s beautiful face reverently between his trembling hands and beheld him like something holy. “Oh, my love. How could I have known? How could I not have known?”
Jack kissed Martin’s mouth, and kissed his wide eyes shut.
Martin gulped for air. And he started to sob. Jack held him to his chest. Martin cried in a rending rush of tears, not from sorrow or pain or anything he could define. It was a release of loneliness flowing away, his cries like bad dreams leaving.
At last, Martin’s sobs quieted. He laid his cheek on Jack’s chest, his breaths slowing, his wet lashes matted together.
Jack turned him ‘round so that Martin’s back was toward him, fitting into the curve of his body spoon-wise, with Jack’s arm over him, protective. They dozed a little ‘til Jack’s cock, resting peacefully against Martin’s buttocks, stirred, grew, became rigid again.
And again.
They lay together in a hot, wet, sticky embrace. Jack nuzzled Martin’s sweaty hair. He felt him tremble, softer tremors now. Martin’s exquisite body molded to his, fit together as if made for him.
The world was still quaking in aftershock. Martin seemed so very fragile, as if he’d been burned to ash by a thunderbolt. He had been thoroughly kissed, fucked and adored.
They had made a pretty fair mess of the sheets. Jack pulled the bedding off and put on fresh sheets as Martin rinsed off in the shower.
Martin returned in the dark. He slid between dry, crisp linens to join Jack, no flinching away this time. Jack surrounded him with warmth.
They nestled together to sleep just as the first robin’s experimental notes sounded in the blackness before first light.
* * * * *
Jack gazed upon Martin sleeping in the morning light. The sensual fullness of his lips captivated him. The delicate skin of his closed eyelids was blue-cast, tired. Martin had been crying. The shadow of his eyelashes drew delicate fringe patterns on his cheeks. The fine golden bristle Jack had kissed last night showed on his chin and along his strong jaw. He needed a shave.
