Smoke and Mirrors

by Lillian T. MacGowan

  “Now?” Naim asked, even his whisper breaking. “Now…”

  Deck squeezed out a sloppy handful of the stuff and angled himself on one elbow, grasping hold of Naim’s cock, slicking it and wrenching a sharp shout from Naim. “Fucking now. Fuck. Me.”

  Naim ripped his hands away, smacked them against the back of powerful thighs pushing up and pressing his desperate cock to Deck’s ass. Deck gripped his thighs, freeing Naim’s hands, and he dropped one onto a solid bicep, reaching down with the other, then shoved himself into Deck’s unbearably tight body.

  Deck groaned, lifting his hips, trying to take Naim deeper. He let loose of his legs and squeezed them to Naim’s sides, pressing his cock farther inside and their chests together. He keened out pathetic, needy noises and didn’t give a fuck, too full of Naim to care about anything else.

  Naim fell against him, sighing, his face in the crook of Deck’s neck, and he bit down, arching his back and quivered with ache and the mindless pleasure of it.

  Grabbing a handful of hair, Deck lifted his head, and they sought each other’s mouths, kissing wet and sloppy. Naim pushed himself up, bracing himself, and Deck clutched at his hair and his sweet flexing ass.

  Naim pulled his mouth away and leaned up, wild black eyes meeting Deck’s as they panted and stared, both men shaking and always struck by the feeling of being joined.

  Deck filled his hand with Naim’s hair, brushing it to the side, needing to see his perfect face. He grinned, lusty and full of Naim and wanting and deeply in love, and Naim grinned back shakily, wanting and needing things he hadn’t known existed until now.

  “Good?” he panted and smiled.

  Deck groaned in response, and Naim watched his face as he pulled back. He watched Deck’s nostrils flare, his head arch, and he resisted the urge to lick his way up Deck’s neck, remembering what Deck had said to him when they’d first made love, wanting more to see than to taste, wanting to watch what they could do together.

  He shoved back inside with a tight growl and braced his knees on the bed, pushing hard with more leverage. Deck yelled shamelessly.

  Naim began to move and slam at Deck. His eyes burned into Deck, his fingers bruised Deck’s solid muscle, and Deck met him with each pounding thrust, digging his fingers into the soft flesh and firm muscle of Naim’s ass. They would both leave marks on each other again. Deck’s other hand held Naim’s hair away from his ferocious face, and their gazes never broke contact. They panted and mewled and groaned and whimpered, neither knowing nor caring who made what sounds, the headboard of Deck’s bed beating against the wall with the same savage pounding that Deck’s body was taking and needing more of.

  Sweat dripped from Naim’s chest onto Deck’s, splashing and cooling his already soaked skin. Drops trailed from his brows and temples, the jerking of his body shaking them off, and Deck opened his mouth, catching them with his tongue, tasting Naim and his feral frenzy. Damp flesh slapped at damp flesh, Naim’s stomach slapped at Deck’s cock, and they moved voraciously, Deck’s body devouring Naim as much as he was being blissfully destroyed.

  Naim’s cock throbbed and the tightness hurt with the pleasure, Deck’s strong body meeting him, beating at him, clenching, flexible, but unyielding. He growled, loud and broken, their eyes fixed and Deck appeared almost frightened by the brutal intimacy.

  Deck clutched at him almost as ruthlessly as Naim’s pummeled, violent and mindlessly desperate. The eye contact was overwhelming and terrifying and pushed him over into an orgasm as vicious as his lover, and he arched and roared, dripping cum from his already overused cock.

  Naim followed immediately, surprised by the suddenness of it, triggered by Deck’s cries and the squeezing of his body. He poured out into Deck, pulsing cum with each thrust, his back bowed, his body dripping sweat onto Deck’s beautiful, shining skin. His mind emptied with his body, and there was nothing but this feeling; fire and liquid and blood made of thick, bubbling light.

  They twitched and writhed in aftershocks, panting, sweating and dizzy, silent but for breath caught and beating hearts.

  Deck still held Naim clasped to him, muscles trembling. Naim lay on him boneless, sweat and cum dripping from between their chests and bellies, down Deck’s sides. They didn’t care.

  After a long while, Deck tested his ability to speak. “What…was…that?” The words came out harsh and hoarse.

  “Dunno.” Naim was muffled against Deck’s chest. Vaguely registering feeling a little sticky and gross, Naim more threw than rolled himself off Deck with a grunt.

  “That was…fucking…awesome.” Deck declared, still, actually, in awe.

  Naim chuckled, exhausted. “Yeah. Yeah, it really was.”

  “How do you do that? How did you do that?” Deck turned his head, staring at Naim wide-eyed as though the secrets to life, love, and the universe could be found in his face.

  “Do…what exactly?” Naim’s mind produced little more than, Good. Feel. Happy.

  “That. I dunno. Holy fuck,” Deck breathed, still staring and starting to grin like the beautiful fool he was. “Yes. That. That’s what that was.” Naim opened an eye and looked at him curiously. “It was a holy fuck. Like…God.” Deck nodded, pleased with himself, pleased with Naim, and happier than he’d ever been in his life.

  Naim snorted and tried to grin.

  Deck bounded up and sprawled himself across Naim, who oomphed and laughed. “God, I fucking love you,” he shouted and snuggled into the most perfect man he’d ever known.

  Deck woke a few hours later to something wrong; he was alone in the bed. He waited, thinking Naim might be in the bathroom, then got up after three minutes. Plenty long enough. He padded up the hall, seeing the kitchen door open and the light on. He crept quietly across the dark living room hoping for the chance to watch Naim for a minute before making his presence known. Sue thought that was a great idea too, so he trotted in front of Deck, who promptly stepped on him, causing the cat to yowl, hiss, and bitch slap the shit out of his father’s foot, claws fully extended. Naim clattered and swore in the kitchen. Deck grabbed his foot, hopping around swearing and begging Sue’s forgiveness, and Sue fucked off in a snit.

  “The hell are you doing? You scared the shit out of me.” Naim appeared in the door between the two rooms.

  “Fucking motherfuck balls cunt of hell,” Deck commented, leaning his bare butt against the back of the couch, holding his foot up to his face and squinting.

  Naim laughed at the ridiculous spectacle and switched the living room light on.

  “I woke up and you were gone and I didn’t like it so I came looking for you and saw you were in the kitchen, so I stepped on Sue.” Deck muttered to his foot, contorting bizarrely to get his leg up that high.

  “Deck.” Naim shook his head. “Come…put…” he stuttered and looked around, grabbing a pile of napkins Jen had left on the card table. “Put your foot down, you’re bleeding all down your leg.” He knelt in front of Deck. “Plus that looks…very weird.” He squinted.

  “He’s mad at me now.” Deck worried, peering around for Sue.

  Naim dabbed at Deck’s bloody foot and ankle. “I’m sure he’ll forgive you, my love. We all do eventually.” Naim tried not to laugh.

  Deck forgot all about Sue and looked down happily at Naim. That was the closest he’d come to voluntarily saying he loved Deck. In fact, he’d not repeated the words or anything close to them since New Year’s Eve, when Deck asked him.

  “I don’t think you need surgery or stitches, cupcake.” Naim looked up at him, grinning. “But go sit down and let me clean it properly, okay?” He slid a hand up Deck’s leg as he stood to get first-aid supplies from the bathroom, but Deck stopped him, grabbing him around the waist, and nuzzled his face against Naim’s.

  “What are you doing out of bed?” Deck mumbled against his ear.

  Naim pulled back, smiling. “I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. Turns out I was really hungry.”

  “Probably because you use
d up a lot of energy trying to pump my rump through to China,” Deck explained.

  Naim’s jaw fell. “Wh-what?” He laughed.

  Deck giggled, and Naim was still laughing as he wriggled out of Deck’s grasp. “Go sit down.” He headed for the bathroom, slapping Deck’s butt on his way. “Idiot.”

  Deck winced a little and went to the kitchen. Noticing the sandwich fixings on the counter, he decided that wasn’t good enough. He put them away, pulling out the makings for a killer firefighter’s omelet instead.

  “Deck…goddamn it.” Naim reentered the kitchen with first-aid supplies as Deck washed peppers. He threw a smile over his naked shoulder. “Will you sit please? You’re bleeding all over the floor.”

  Deck looked down. “Oh. Shit,” he mumbled, surprised. Turning the water off and shaking his hands dry, he sat gently at the kitchen table. Naim snickered.

  “China, huh?”

  “China.” Deck nodded and grinned as Naim knelt in front of him, peroxide in hand.

  He put a tea towel under Deck’s bleeding foot and dabbed at it with gauze he’d found in the medicine chest. “Where’s my sandwich stuff? I told you, I’m starving.” He looked up, unscrewing the cap to the peroxide.

  “I put that shit away. You need food. Real food.” He looked away from Naim, thinking he probably shouldn’t be naked if Naim was going to kneel in front of him like that and accomplish much of anything not involving one or both of their cocks.

  Naim ignored Deck’s suspiciously plumping cock. “You realize of course that it’s half three in the morning?” He dribbled peroxide onto Deck’s foot.

  “So? You don’t go back to work for two more days, who cares if it’s almost four,” Deck replied, honestly questioning Naim’s logic.

  Naim sat back for a second and thought. “You may just be right,” he mumbled. “Well then.” He looked up. “What are you making me?” He smiled and looked back down to smear Neosporin on the shreds of Deck’s foot.

  “Omelet. Firefighter’s omelet.” Deck nodded, feeling damn good and wide awake. But he’d better put some jeans or something on, and he was glad Naim wore his shorts and the giant white thermal. They could work on another attempt at China later. Right now he wanted to feed this beautiful jinni.

  Naim glanced up from the Band-Aid in his hand. “And that is…?”

  “Yummy.”

  Naim snorted, applied several Band-Aids, and looked up again. It seemed like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what.

  “You really didn’t have to do that.” Deck stared at him.

  Naim laughed. “Now you tell me?”

  “It’s not my fault. Do you know how many times I had to look at you like that when I was in the hospital?” Naim blushed slightly and glanced away. “I was worried they were gonna end up treating me for blue balls.” Deck grinned and leaned forward for a kiss.

  “That’s not actually a condition, Deck.” Naim chuckled.

  Deck waited patiently for his kiss, so Naim leaned over to the floor, and placed a sweet, gentle kiss to each of Deck’s bare feet. When he sat back up, Deck looked dazed and shaky. Naim smiled, stood, and shoved his hands in Deck’s hair, kissing his head. “Go put some clothes on before you freeze. Or, more likely”—he gazed at Deck’s lap—“I don’t get fed.” He winked, and Deck laughed, jumped up, and ran to the bedroom.

  Naim finished washing vegetables, thinking of Deck and the hospital and Play-Doh and all the ways his life had changed over recent weeks. It was overwhelming, made more so by the fact that he seemed to comfortably accept it all.

  He shrugged and decided to not think about much more than Deck wrapping himself around him, having finally successfully crept up behind him. “Go sit,” Deck murmured in his ear. “You’re a terrible cook.”

  Naim turned, his face scrunched. “I’m what?” he exclaimed. “You realize of course, that France is the culinary capital of the entire universe?”

  “Whatever. You tried to fry potatoes in olive oil. Go sit.” Naim glared and smacked his denim-covered ass again, hard, and Deck jumped, chuckling but feeling it.

  Naim opened the fridge and pulled two beers out, glancing up as Deck raised his brows. Deck nodded, and Naim opened both bottles, passed one over, and sat.

  “Omelets and beer at half three in the morning. Two months ago my life was either sleep or surgery at this time. What did you do to me?”

  Deck laughed. “Nothing you didn’t need, if that was your whole life.”

  Naim looked at him funny. “Yeah. I think you’re right.”

  Deck threw him a wink as he chopped vegetables.

  “I can help with that, you know. I am a surgeon after all.”

  “Nope. You already fixed my foot. No more doctoring for you on your days off.” Deck shook his head.

  “So, if my apartment caught fire on your day off, you’d tell me to call 911?”

  “Nope. But I would know you’d been trying to cook.”

  “I’m an excellent cook, asshole. Even…even with my…sordid past.” Deck turned and glanced at him, surprised. “They don’t let you be French if you can’t cook,” Naim grumbled.

  “Yeah, ya know, I was wondering about that.”

  Naim grinned over how often and randomly Deck shifted gears, and knew he wasn’t talking about cooking. “About France?”

  “Yeah. Sort of. I mean English.”

  Of course.

  Deck glanced at him over his shoulder. “I mean, you barely have an accent, and your English is perfect. Like, swears and those whadayacallem…expressions…”

  “Idioms?”

  “Yeah, idioms and shit. See. You speak English better than I do. Except you use English English, right? Like, lift and pants and all that. Is that from living in England that year?”

  Naim took a drink from his beer and tried not to want a cigarette. “Well, yes,” he started slowly. “But I told you, we went to school in the ICM camp. Most schools in Europe teach English, even in orphanages. And since it’s Europe, they teach British English.”

  Deck looked at him again and took a drink. “Yeah but you weren’t there for… I mean, that wasn’t…”

  Naim smiled softly at him. He didn’t want Deck to be uncomfortable mentioning his foster home. It may be the only part of his past that he’d really come to terms with, but Naim had come to terms with it as much as someone could. The horrifying and miserable memories would never leave him, and he would always struggle with PTSD, but he dealt with it, and in many ways had managed to integrate that part of his past with his adult self in a tolerable way.

  But for a moment, he thought of himself, and his life after he’d run away. Before Paris. Then he blinked the moment away and brought himself back to Deck. Deck would understand what kind of man Naim really was eventually, so for now he would be greedy with their time and Deck’s love.

  He stood and went to the counter, set his beer down, and started cracking eggs into a bowl—one-handed.

  “I went to school in foster care, of course,” he said. “In fact I worked pretty hard at school. Stayed after a lot, joined the footie team, that sort of thing.” Naim paused. “Kept me out of the house, yeah?”

  Deck looked at him, lifted a hand, and ran it through Naim’s hair. “Yeah. Yeah.”

  Naim smiled sadly and took his hand, kissing his palm before setting him back to the food. “I was good at school too. My teachers told me I was very bright. It was…it was nice having people who treated me like a…a person, and not… Didn’t… They didn’t want anything.”

  Deck breathed deeply. “So it wasn’t just Étienne who knew you were smart?”

  Naim paused, and Deck glanced at him nervously.

  “No. But by the time I met him, I’d forgotten all about school.” He looked at Deck. “Six?”

  “Huh?”

  “Eggs.”

  “Oh. Right, yeah, six.” Deck stared. He put the knife down, wiped his hands on a towel, and turned to Naim, taking his face in his hands. “Make it
eight, and I love you.”

  Naim smiled, warmer than before, turned his face into Deck’s palm, and kissed it. He started to realize that these conversations, although necessary to them both, hurt Deck more than they hurt him. “I love you too.” He knew how difficult it was for him to say, just like everything else. So just like everything else, he would say it to Deck because Deck deserved everything he could give.

  Deck’s face lit and nearly exploded. He swallowed hard and bent forward, kissing Naim soft and deep, as much to keep tears from coming as for the affection.

  He pulled back and moved his lips to Naim’s ear, knowing the shivers and gasps that always earned him, but Naim pulled back. “Deck,” he said severely but with smiling eyes, “I’m starving.”

  “Hungry. Right. Me too.” Deck kissed him again quickly and went back to his cutting board. “So um…”

  Naim cracked two more eggs into the bowl.

  “Did you just pick it back up again in college?” Deck asked.

  “No. Well, yeah, but only for half a year. By then I didn’t need it. I took this exam—the TOEFL. It’s a big deal over there. If you do well, it essentially means your English is perfect.” He grabbed a fork out of a drawer and started to beat the eggs. “So I took that and got a perfect score.” Deck smiled, proud. “That combined with some other things, I was able to get the scholarship in Southampton.”

  “You said you were there for a year, right?”

  “Yeah. And I went back a lot after that. It was nice to get away from France.” He smiled, thinking about how much of a difference that family had made to him. “I still keep in touch with them.” He shook his head. “You think you’re picky about your kitchen.”

  Deck gave him a look.

  “I’m serious.” He chuckled. “One time Vivie took a shot at her grandson’s foot because he’d made a mess cooking dinner for his girlfriend.”

  “A shot?” Deck glanced at him, startled. “The hell do you mean a shot?”

  “I mean a shot. With a German Luger.” Deck glared uncertainly. “I swear to God, Deck. She really did it. I was there.” Naim blinked. “Vivie was really intense about her kitchen.”