Things were, indeed, moving too quickly. When did I drift from resenting Niall’s very presence to comparing him to the sweetest, richest stuff that could ever slide over my eager tongue?
I was a fucking idiot. And I was—I suspected—going to be even more so.
When he moved, it was toward me, when I’d expected him to wheel around and take the clean clothes to the bathroom to dress. His body still carried the slightly damp aroma that skin has after a shower; it had that clean, soft look that follows. Then his hand lifted to slide around my neck, and I was having trouble remembering why I was so fucking tense in the first place.
“I don’t know how to say it, Tanner.” He breathed his words into my ear. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m angry with Greg, and I’m upset for Judith and the others, and maybe I’m nervous, too, though only because I don’t know what I’ll need to see me through this. But what I don’t need is to dig around in all our old stuff as well, all the old misery.”
“Sure.” I cleared my throat. “What we feel—”
“What I feel is you, Tanner, every time I breathe, every time I turn around.” His voice was ragged. “That’s the only real thing I can think about at the moment. I mean, where the hell have I been for the last three months, not coming to find you, not calling you, not remembering what I liked about you rather than what pissed me off?”
I let my head drop back as his lips nudged at my neck. My vision was going a little hazy. His mouth at my ear was making me even more of an idiot, couldn’t he see that? Couldn’t I see that? “I constantly provoke you, Niall Sutherland,” I whispered back. “Bait you, when you hate argument so much. I’m jealous and volatile and demanding and judgmental.”
And always so fucking, fucking wrong about you.
“Yes.” His laugh brushed my throat with its vibration. “You have your moments, I’d say. So it unnerves you to see me half naked. Well, I could say the same for you. If you don’t want this to happen, you need to stop wandering around in those pathetically loose shorts. Don’t you realize how low the waistband slips? How I can imagine tracing the trail of your hair all the way over your belly and down?”
His breath sounded uneven. His fingers were very tight on me. I thought I’d never feel anything so good!
Then his mouth was on mine, and I stopped thinking altogether. He grabbed my shoulder tightly, pulling me to him. In return my fingers snagged on the thin loops of the toweling fabric at his waist, tugging him in tightly against me so that his hip grazed mine, and my knee nudged in between his thighs. He tasted as good as he felt, but then I’d always known that, hadn’t I? My mouth pressed so hard on him I was afraid I might split his lips, but I wanted to taste it all, lick at it all, smell the skin and taste the mouth and feel his smooth muscles flexing under my fingers.
I couldn’t help but notice the towel was slipping at its knotted fastening.
“Tanner.”
Time was telescoping into just this minute, just this need. I couldn’t take note of anything else in life, even if it were full of danger, bereavement, mystery… fear. The need roared its way through my veins and begged my arms to hold on to Niall, tight.
“What the fuck are we doing?” I gasped. When he started to laugh, I stuttered on, “I mean… hell, of course I know. But now?”
“You want to stop?”
Stupid question, another of those rhetorical ones. “You know those movies?” I wasn’t keen on the begging note in my voice, but I guess I didn’t have a lot of control over it at that particular moment. “When the guys and girls are facing hideous danger but they still find time to make out? How many times have you thought how unrealistic, how damned stupid that is?”
He laughed again, but very softly, and close against my neck so that the sound tickled the hairs. I decided to abandon any protest. After all, since when was life like the movies?
“You said we had time. He wouldn’t arrive until dark.”
I threaded my fingers through his damp hair and tugged his head back. He groaned, and the lids drooped over his eyes like they were too hot to stand it. His throat convulsed, and I watched the throb of the pulse in his neck.
“I did, didn’t I?”
Niall gasped. “We’ve both been around to check the site, we’ve both had some time to prepare for Greg. Now it’s just us, Tanner, just us for this brief hiatus. I don’t know what else I want to be doing but this.”
“Jeez….” I might still have argued, but the thrill in my nerves was too vivid now to think straight. I just wanted to laugh, and punch the air and other ridiculously childish things! My whole body seemed to be shaking, and I wondered and marveled at how I was so affected by him. I kissed him again—and again—and then took my mouth around his jaw and along the rim of his ear, licking playfully at his neck. He shuddered under me, his tongue darting out to moisten his own lips. Then I found myself standing in a pool of damp toweling, and the skin pressed against me and writhing under my hands was stark fucking naked. Niall was naked, and his hands were up and under my shirt and it was the most magnificent feeling I’d had since birth.
“God.”
It was a breathless, awed little sound, and I had to double check that it had really come from Niall. He peeled my shirt back up off my head, and I was happy to let him. When he pushed forcefully at me, I stumbled, and my legs banged back against the couch. His fingers brushed against one of my raised nipples, and I moaned aloud. “Same from me.”
“Huh?”
“Gasping like school kids. Listen to us.” He bent his head down and tightened his lips around my nipple, flicking his tongue over the tip.
I winced and bit back a sob of pleasure. “Okay, point taken. Someone doesn’t act like one.”
“Tanner, I don’t want to hold back.” He sounded—astonishingly—shy. “I don’t want this to be confused. To upset us… to anger us.”
“Never. I want this. I want you.” I was back to the begging, and I didn’t give a shit. How the fuck had I ever managed without him all this time? I’d been some kind of pale imitation of myself, an empty shell, a washed out impression.
Niall pressed up against me, and I could feel the muscles of his legs as they tightened. Better than that, I could feel the heat of his groin against the thin cloth of my shorts and the swelling insistence of his erection, hot and greedy against my thigh. I ran my hand down over his hips, tugging at skin that was too taut to grab hold of, then across his belly and down between his inner thighs. He tensed against me, and when I curled my fingers around his shifting balls, he groaned. I fondled one, sliding my palm around it, feeling its creases, the way it nudged against its partner, both of them hanging heavily in the sac. His feet shifted and he spread his legs further apart. His breath was very, very loud. His cock twitched above my knuckles, nudging its damp tip against my belly, the pubic hairs tickling between my fingers.
I ran my other hand down his back, tracing the knobs of his lower spine, running a single finger down between the crack of his buttocks. His breath hitched, and his head dropped forward on to my shoulder.
“Tanner. Oh God.”
We stood there, naked apart from my shorts, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. He had one hand at my neck and one at my waist, his fingers digging into me as if he thought I might make a run for it. As if. His tongue darted out and licked at the sweat in the hollow of my throat, and he moaned softly.
I kissed at his forehead, the only part of his face I could reach, but it was enough. With one hand, I caressed the skin between his legs; with the other, I teased at his ass. When my front hand closed firmly around his swelling cock, his head snapped back up. His eyes were very bright and for a second they didn’t focus on me. But when they did, the ferocity was deep, dark and shocking. And fucking brilliant. His skin was flushed, his lips slightly parted. I stabbed at them with my tongue, and he opened up and sucked hard on me.
I started to pump his dick and his back arched, pressing his torso against me even more closely.
At the same time, I slid a couple of fingers further down between his cheeks, probing for his asshole.
“Yesss….” This time it was my moans we listened to, gasping with childlike delight. “Want you, Niall. Want to touch you, fuck you.”
My fingers found the indentation of his entrance and stroked the creases of skin around its pucker. They felt very taut, the hole closed. He felt like a treasure that hadn’t been discovered yet, and I was no fucking Indiana Jones, was I? I was suddenly, embarrassingly nervous. Three months apart was feeling like years. I nudged at him with just the tip of my digit, feeling my way. He arched more, pushing his ass out against my hand, and then my finger slid into him.
We both cried out. Shakily. Delightedly! It was a shock, but it was also a thrill beyond anticipation. For a few delicious seconds we still stood there, holding each other tightly, as I gently pumped him and thrust my finger into him in the same rhythm. Then he grunted and planted his hand on my head, tangling his fingers in my hair and tugging at the roots of it. I felt the pressure and paused. When he started to push me down, I dropped carefully to my knees in front of him.
“Please,” he whispered.
I didn’t need asking, I can tell you. I kept my hand on his ass, my finger still teasing in and out of him. I could feel the muscles opening and closing around me, his conscious effort to relax, his body acclimatizing to the invasion. Had he been with anyone else since we parted? The thought had never occurred to me, despite my ridiculous accusations of him, my jealousy of him with anyone else. And I’d given him up to whoever else he wanted. Hadn’t I?
My body ached with passion and frustration. I couldn’t think of it, I couldn’t accept it, not right now. I’d be sensible later, I’d be mature later, but just now I needed him as mine again. I thrust my fingers back into him and heard his groans, as I was too hurried. I slowed and took my other hand off his cock, the thin trails of silvery pre-come looping the space between him and my fingertips. I anchored myself by grasping his hip. His swollen cock jutted out at me, shining with blood-red flesh, quivering, demanding. I moistened my lips, then leaned forward and licked at it.
The cry that stuttered out of him was hoarse and incoherent.
I’d always loved that—sucking him off. It was a greedy pleasure of mine. I loved to feel him shudder against my tongue, loved the way he swelled even further inside my mouth, loved the way he thrust instinctively against me, fucking me in mimicry of how he’d be when he was actually inside me. I started the long, lazy sweep of my tongue from the seeping tip down to the thick base of his cock, sucking the skin back up as it strained against me, flicking the point of my tongue against the thread where it swelled out to the crown. Up and down, and then I sank my lips over him fully. He filled me; I latched on to him, licking, smoothing saliva around him to lubricate it all, pulling back up just to play with the crown. My fingers still slipped in and out of his ass, though my concentration struggled to cope over the pounding in my head. My own cock was hot and heavy in my shorts, and I was sure I had one of those embarrassing wet patches at the front.
I couldn’t care less.
This was what I’d been missing. Did I really think I could forget? I ached for him. I could feel the muscles of my belly complaining, tensed as I knelt there, my groin nagging for attention. His grip tightened in my hair and his ass clenched around my fingering. A low growl rumbled in his throat.
He was close to climax. I was shocked to realize how surely I knew that. How my body still reacted to the shivers of his, how the path of his pleasure was still imprinted on my memory and nerves.
He’s mine.
“Tanner?” He tugged at my hair again and I looked up at him, my lips still busy. “This is… fuck… I can’t stop….”
I nodded to let him know I understood. His head dropped back again, his eyes rolling. Coherent speech wasn’t really an option for either of us; neither of us had full control of ourselves. I stopped the movement in and out of his ass and just concentrated on the caress of my mouth. A shudder ran the whole length of his body, and I gripped at his legs, hoping to hold him upright if they buckled. He grunted something that sounded like my name; then he tensed and became totally still. I relaxed my lips and waited. My reward came seconds after. Hot, sharp-tasting seed filled my mouth, spitting out of him in eager bursts, the thick shaft throbbing gently against my teeth. I felt my throat tighten eagerly, ready to suck it down. It puddled on my tongue, thick and sticky and as tasty as anything I’d ever had.
The pain in my groin was becoming less of an annoyance and more of an agony. I rocked gently back on my heels and let Niall’s softening cock slide out from between my lips. They felt well used and slightly numb. I opened my mouth again, a little gingerly, and let the come trickle out into my cupped palm. The inside of my mouth felt cold again, the warmth and fullness of him no longer there. I put my free hand back to the couch to steady me and I got up on my feet.
He was swaying, and moisture shone in his eyes. His skin was gorgeously flushed, and I could still see the pale impression of my hand’s grasp on his hip. The tendons in his neck were raised; a trapped nerve in his thigh twitched instinctively.
“Shit.” His gaze came back into focus and sought me out. “Tanner,” he murmured, neither question nor statement. He gave a rueful laugh, a very gentle, awed sound. “Shit. Your mouth.”
I smiled back. I always reckoned I gave good head. I hoped he’d return the favor. I needed release, and I needed it from him. I slipped my unencumbered arm around his waist, breathing in the delicious smell of sweaty flesh, fresh come and Niall.
Unexpectedly, he pushed at me, and I sat back down on the couch with a sharp whoosh of breath. “Hey!”
He stepped forward, far too quickly and gracefully for a guy who’d just shot such a luscious load into my mouth, and he straddled me. He reached down to my lap and started to push my shorts down off my hips. At last, at last! The blood in my body was in a delicious quandary as to whether to rush to my head or places more pragmatic. I think I was suffering from the flushed business, too, and when he looked into my face again, he smiled at me. It was a smile like I remembered from when we first met. It was one of those smiles that creased his usually serious face, and shone behind his eyes, and lit a flame under my body like I was tonight’s a la carte menu.
A smile to fall in love with.
I wriggled my legs and feet about, got the fabric down to one ankle, and then I was naked underneath him. My cock sprang up, bobbing shamelessly, and his gaze fixed on it.
“It’s been….” He paused. He was making one hell of an effort to get the words out, and I felt a tug of sympathy inside me. This was more than I deserved, I reckoned. Way more. “It’s been a long time since I did this, Tanner.” His voice was hoarse. “I never wanted anyone after you.”
I stared at him. Ridiculous really, our bodies no more than a foot apart, but all of our actions in sudden paralysis. “Niall,” I said. “I… Niall.” Fuck, now I was having problems in the speech department. “It’s the same for me. There’s been no one.” I started gabbling nervously. “Dammit, I don’t even have supplies to hand, don’t need them… didn’t need them.”
His eyes softened, and he glanced down at the glistening seed in my hand. “Smart move to hang on to that, then. Because I don’t have anything either.”
I half-laughed. Worried he’d think I was presuming something. Pressuring him. Whatever. “Look, it’s okay, we don’t have to do anything more. I don’t want… you know.”
He shook his head briefly, as if to clear his nerves or maybe to dismiss my ramblings. Then he put his hands on the back of the couch, either side of my shoulders and he leaned down. His knees brushed against my thighs. “Oh, but I do,” he muttered. “I want very much.”
On the count of three, my heart started again.
I grinned. I reached between his legs with my precious little handful of lubrication, and I slipped it around my fingers and up into him again. I stretched him as quickly
and as best as I could, afraid I’d rush him like before. My cock twitched awkwardly on my belly, distracting me. It had reached the state where it demanded to be the number one priority of my young life, and I was keen to agree. Niall arched above me, and maybe it was uncomfortable for him, but he was impatient, too, I could tell.
“I’m fine,” he said. “It’s good.” He didn’t exactly push my hand away, but his knees gripped at me, and he started to lower himself down, so I grasped his hips instead. I wanted to ask him if he was sure about this, but I also wanted to be deep inside him. Then my mouth was too dry to argue the point anyway, and next thing I knew, my cock was pressing against warm, slicked skin and easing its way through the initial resistance. One more hitch of my hips and then the head burst hungrily into him.
I gasped. He groaned.
I’d been content with just his hands on my torso, I kept telling myself. After all, I’d never expected to be truly happy again. I’d thought I’d never see him again; I’d built a wall of self-disgust and untenable resentment, and I’d been fucking proud of it. Yeah, I had been a prick. And instead of being left to wallow in a pit of my own making, I’d been given a second chance to talk to him again, and hold him, and now to fuck him.
Incredible.
I held him tightly, and I moved in and out of him as smoothly as I could, as if each stroke were precious. It was just as I remembered, yet something fabulously new. Skin to skin, as we’d always been, as soon as we settled as exclusive lovers. His torso was damp with sweat, and my fingers slipped a little when they rested on the glossy surface of his scar. I felt the pressure of his thighs on me and the warm, crinkle-skinned contrast of his balls against my groin. He was panting, and at some point he started to take control of it all, moving his hips up and down according to his own rhythm. Didn’t bother me in the slightest. I was on my own private expressway, and happily losing my direction all over again.
Dreamspinner Press Year Four Greatest Hits Page 93
