“For what?”
“Coming to talk with me.”
“Oh.” Harrison fidgeted. “That’s not really something to thank me for, is it?”
“Well, you could have not.” Paulo leaned back against the door only because if he didn’t, he might sweep Harrison into his arms. He was pretty sure he’d got the hint from their interactions in the living room, but what if he was wrong? “I thought you might not.”
“I’ve missed you, Paulo.”
“I’ve missed you too, love.”
Harrison’s smile grew watery, and he pushed up his glasses and knuckled at the tears. “Pru lied to me, Paulo. By omission, but still… She let me cry on her shoulder about you standing me up.”
He wouldn’t let his anger show. Not this time. Definitely not this time. Instead, he nodded slowly.
“But then she gave you this address.”
“She did.”
“It’s not really for her to decide our fate, is it?” Harrison asked quietly. “I mean, I love Pru—”
“I love her too.”
“—and I’m sure she means well in a…strange…way. But ultimately, if you and I…” Harrison trailed off. “Paulo, I’m so sorry I sent you away. I really thought I was doing what was best, but I fucked up. I fucked up so bad, Paulo. I should have been honest about what I needed. I hope you’ll forgive me in time.”
“Forgiven.”
“Paulo, that’s not how forgiveness works.”
“Then consider it a placeholder, right? I want to be with you. I’ll do any goddamn thing it takes.”
Harrison nodded. “Me too.”
The same hope that had seen him all the way from Midday to Omagh filled Paulo again. “Do you really want to? Be together again?” he asked.
Harrison nodded quickly and pulled the glasses from his face so he could swipe at more tears. “I just don’t know how.”
“Recklessly?” Paulo guessed. “That’s what we did the first time.”
“I don’t think reckless is the answer.”
When he looked up, Paulo was shocked by how blue Harrison’s eyes were. It could have been the tears, but he thought, no, it’s those glasses. Glasses Harrison didn’t need.
“Ari?” Paulo asked quietly. He pushed off the door with his palms and slowly stepped forward, reaching for the glasses Harrison held. For a moment his lover looked almost fearful, and his eyes darted between Paulo and the glasses, but Paulo put a comforting hand on his shoulder and said, “I only want to see. I’ll give them back.”
With obvious hesitation, Harrison handed over the glasses, and Paulo raised them to his eyes. They were a little smudged, but otherwise, he could see through them perfectly. There wasn’t even distortion at the rims. They were just glass, no prescription. He lowered them.
“Why do you have these, Ari?” Paulo asked. True to his word, he put them back in Harrison’s hand.
“I…”
Paulo Fernández had a head for business, not for psychology, but it wasn’t hard to emulate Harrison after so many years together. He asked quietly, “Are you hiding behind them?”
Harrison’s eyes widened, and his hand twitched. He was itching to put them back on his face.
“Do you want to make love with me?” Harrison whispered.
Paulo nodded without hesitation. “More than almost anything.”
“Almost?”
“I want you, Ari, even more than I want to make love with you. I just want to be near you.”
It wasn’t a casual line. Something had clicked in Paulo’s head. A hint of understanding. It didn’t change anything…yet. But maybe it could. Maybe this glimmer of understanding would make all the difference? Maybe…?
“Remember when you were still studying for exams?” Paulo asked. A wrinkle formed between Harrison’s brows. He supposed that was a vague question. “We stayed up all night. You were chugging energy drinks, and I kept the pizza pockets coming.”
Harrison nodded slightly.
“I won’t word this right, so forgive me. But something about anger not being a real thing?”
For a moment Harrison stood there thinking, and then he said, “Well, it’s a real thing, but it’s a coping mechanism. It hides hurt, shame, guilt…other real emotions. There’s always something behind anger.”
“Exactly. That was one of your test questions.”
“You remember that?”
“I do,” Paulo said. “So, what if my anger is like these?” He gently traced the frames of the glasses Harrison held. “What if it’s something I’m hiding behind?”
“Well, probably, but—”
“But I can’t just ‘turn it off,’” Paulo said. “It’s not like you taking off the glasses. It’s not that easy.”
Harrison shook his head sadly.
“But does that make me a hopeless case?”
In the whole world, there was only Harrison, his wide blue eyes, and Paulo’s thudding heart. Say no… He wanted to beg.
“No one’s hopeless.”
Paulo slowly closed his eyes and ran his hands up Harrison’s arms. When he reached those thin shoulders—bonier than they’d been in the past—he squeezed them tightly.
“I want us to be right again, Ari.” Eyes still closed, Paulo felt Harrison push forward until he was against his chest. He let his arms wrap around Harrison’s waist.
“Will you…” Harrison’s voice was muffled. He couldn’t tell if he’d just trailed off, or if the question was lost in the fabric of his robe and the beat of his heart. Slowly Paulo opened his eyes, his throat tight, nervous anticipation coursing through him.
“What did you say?”
Harrison raised shining eyes to him, hope and fear clearly battling across his face. “Will you come to therapy with me?”
There was a time in his life where the suggestion that he should sit and talk about his feelings would have insulted him. Feelings were for women, talking about feelings was for his mother. But the man who’d thought that way was long ago changed at the hands of Harrison Miller. He hadn’t set out to craft Paulo into someone else, Paulo had simply learned to be better by being near Harrison.
Paulo leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. “Even if you were to say to me now that we’re done, Ari, I think talking to someone would be healthy for me. At least for a while.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want us to be done.”
“I don’t want us to be done, either.”
“And not just because of the therapy. Or because you went halfway around the world. Or because you apologized to Michael. Or because you’re so beautiful I think I’m gonna die every time you come in the room—”
“That’s a new one,” Paulo teased.
“I love you so much, Paulo. I love you and I miss you. Maybe we can carry on without one another, but I don’t want to.”
Harrison wrapped his arms around Paulo’s neck and pulled him down into a long, lingering kiss. It reminded him of one of their first kisses, the morning after that Kansas City foam party, where they lay pressed against each other in bed and kissed until they were so hot and hard they had to get off or expire.
Carefully, Paulo guided Harrison down to his pallet on the floor, his caress gentle and questioning. He’d forced so much on Ari after Ashmore. Not sexually—he’d always tried to be understanding there—but emotionally. He’d taken his emotional garbage and dumped it over Harrison’s head.
They kissed on and on, deeper and deeper, hands laced together, legs tangled. A passionate, unencumbered sort of making out. Blissful. Amazing.
Paulo broke the kiss, his brain a haze. “I don’t want to force you, Ari.”
“To have sex?” Harrison asked.
“That too. but I mean to be with me. I don’t want you to feel like you have no choices.”
He groaned as Harrison ran his hands up under Paulo’s robe, and he willingly lifted himself and moved to be parted with his clothing.
/> Harrison brought his head back down, tongue gently tracing the seam of Paulo’s lips, enticing them apart the same way Paulo had taught him in their early days together.
“I was going to say yes, you know,” Harrison said, hooking his fingers in the waistband of Paulo’s boxers and pushing them down as far as he could. He pressed up against Paulo; the cloth of his pajama bottoms were frustrating as hell. “That night at the Bentley party.”
Take it slow, take it slow…
Did he even have condoms? Jesus. Jesus. Jesus! Harrison had made short work of his own pants, and suddenly they were really touching, touching like they hadn’t touched in a year and a half. Paulo groaned, a low, hollow noise that came from deep with him.
“Stay still,” Harrison whispered, arching up and nibbling playfully on Paulo’s bottom lip. Almost simultaneously their cocks twitched and Paulo moaned.
“Hard to stay still when you’re, nnm, doing that to me, love.”
Harrison placed kisses all over Paulo’s face, at the same time moving slowly so that the sensitive skin of their cocks rubbed together.
Paulo groaned, but as promised, remained as still as he could. This was better than every fantasy he’d had during their time apart. The smell of Harrison, the taste of him, the feel of his flesh, were more vivid than anything he could have ever imagined.
Harrison licked his own hand slowly, making sure it was slick, and then he reached between them and gripped both their cocks. Paulo almost came.
“Jesus, Ari.”
“We can’t be loud,” Harrison whispered. “Everyone will hear us.”
“And this is your solution?” Paulo asked, begging silently for more, while aching for relief. They’d only done something similar the one time, years ago, and it wasn’t nearly so well executed. “I’m about to scream your name, Ari.”
Harrison shoved himself up again, trapping Paulo’s mouth in a searing, sealing kiss. They tangled their tongues together, dancing wildly against each other, grinding harder and harder.
The rhythmic pressure built inside of him. Maybe his plane had gone down in the Atlantic. Maybe this was heaven. It felt that way. Don’t stop, Ari. Never stop!
“I love you,” Paulo grunted into Harrison’s parted lips, and then he broke the kiss and cried out as quietly as he could manage, cum spurting between them. Harrison followed on a whimper.
For a moment they hung there, suspended, until weakness took over and they collapsed, Harrison on his back and Paulo beside him.
For a long time after, they breathed and laughed quietly and held each other. Harrison snuggled closer and whispered quiet things to Paulo.
He had almost drifted off, when something Ari had said earlier came back to him in a rush, and Paulo cracked one eye open.
“You were going to say ‘yes’?”
Harrison nodded without opening his eyes. His blond lashes kissed his flushed cheeks.
“What does that mean, love?”
“Case comigo? Remember?”
Paulo’s heart thudded wildly.
Harrison continued sleepily. “I was going to recklessly tell you, sim. Absolutamente.”
“But now?”
One beautiful blue eye cracked open. “Now what? Now it’s not so reckless. It’s well considered. And the answer is the same. Yes, I’ll marry the hell out of you, Paulo Fernández, just never let me go again.”
Moments
A Moment with Chancey and Seamus
“Marie called this evening,” Chancey Bo Clearwater said as he sat down on his side of the bed. The mattress gave a bit under his weight, and he absently smoothed his hand over the duvet. “She wants to see us.”
“That right?” Seamus replied. Chancey didn’t bother hiding the appreciation or lust on his face as he watched Seamus strip off his dirty work shirt and toss it into the corner. The flesh he exposed was pale and well-muscled. Seamus Williams was young, hard from physical labour, sexy as fuck, and best of all: Chancey’s.
“S’right. Now get over here,” Chancey growled. “You’re too damn far away.”
“The kids are downstairs.”
“They are. What’s that got to do with you standing a bit closer?”
“Would you believe me if I said I don’t trust ye?” Seamus teased, raising a dark eyebrow. “You get handsy, Mr. Clearwater. I come near, and I’m likely to get myself pawed.”
Chancey grinned. There was a slew of presents underneath their Christmas tree, all with his name on them, but he didn’t need a thing this season, because he had Seamus. Not a world away. Not through a computer screen. But real as sex and right in front of him. Damn right, Chancey couldn’t be trusted. He wanted the Irishman every day, and every which way. He didn’t feel like a man in his forties. He felt like a teenager. Hell, he could probably give his teenaged self a run for his money.
“So what’s it that Marie wants?”
“Says she needs to talk. Something important, but she wants to meet face-to-face and…oh.” Chancey’s brain shut off at the sight of his fiancé. Seamus had turned away from him and was lowering his jeans with tantalisingly deliberate slowness. He looked over his shoulder at Chancey and half-smiled.
“What’s that you say?”
“I…can’t remember.”
“Oh, should I get dressed, d’ya think? Am I bothering you?”
Chancey pushed himself up and strode toward Seamus, grabbing him, pulling him close. His naked back and half-naked ass drove Chancey wild, and he kissed Seamus’s neck, running his tongue in a pattern over Seamus’s skin, tasting his salt, loving it.
“You think she knows about her pool table?” Chancey moaned into Seamus’s flesh, nipping at the sensitive skin of his neck. Turning in Chancey’s arms, Seamus reached between them and began to fumble with the button on Chancey’s jeans. He was getting good at undoing Chancey’s pants in any and every situation.
“If she did, we’d both be dead men.”
The memory of going with his lover to Marie’s pub to help fix a burst pipe in the middle of the night, and then staying to…well…christen the pool table, was all too deliciously clear. If Marie found out what they’d done, she would murder them, but the death would be worth it, because he’d die remembering what it felt like to have his legs wrapped around Seamus’s waist, his back pressed against the felt of the table, Seamus deep, deep inside him.
They’d managed to clean up the mess well enough, Chancey thought. Seamus was convinced Marie would unlock the pub the next morning and instead of going to check on the damage done by the busted pipe, she would spot a single drop of cum underneath the pool table. All of this from a good twenty-five feet away, of course.
“So if it’s not the pool table,” Chancey said, but only got that far before Seamus kissed him into silence. The hot pressure of his lips melted thoughts of Marie out of Chancey’s brain. He probably should be more concerned about Dee and Michael in the house, but as Seamus’s tongue slipped past his lips, responsible parenting went out of his head. If Seamus had moved even an inch toward the bed, Chancey would have raced him for the mattress.
Seamus did move, but to Chancey’s supreme chagrin, he moved away from both Chancey and the bed.
“Where the hell are you goin’?” Chancey demanded.
“Just thought you might want some music.”
Music? Music was the farthest thing from his mind.
“Uh, sweetheart,” he asked, looking down at his erection, straining against his boxers. “The mood is set, you don’t really have to do anyth— What’s that?”
Seamus had ducked behind the other side of the bed and emerged with a large red bag.
“Little gift.”
“It isn’t Christmas yet.”
“Nah,” Seamus laughed. “But this is the sort of gift you have to open before Christmas Day to get the most use of it.”
Chancey looked into the bag as it was shoved into his hands. There was only the single piece of tissue paper, easily removed, and underneath a huge collec
tion of unopened CDs. Chancey carried the bag over to the bed—his arousal fighting with his curiosity. Dumping the music out, he gasped and looked up at Seamus.
“You replaced ’em?”
“Aye.”
“A-all of them?” Chancey began to spread them out. If not all of them, then damn near. Seamus had given him the entire collection of country Christmas music that Chancey had brought with him on cassette. Problem was, Seamus’s truck didn’t have a cassette player, and he only had a CD player in the house.
Dee had tried to set them up a playlist on YouTube but there were commercials and besides, the sound wasn’t the same.
Single artist albums and compilations alike—all of Chancey’s favourite singers were there. George Strait, Alabama, Alan Jackson, Clint Black, Lonestar, Reba McEntire, Keith Whitley, Garth Brooks, John Anderson, Brooks & Dunn, Joe Diffie, Trisha Yearwood, Oak Ridge Boys, and Mark Chesnutt.
He held up That’s What I Call Christmas 4 which had Carrie Underwood and Toby Keith, but also Lady Gaga and Maroon 5.
“For you and Dee,” Seamus teased.
“And I see you got Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.”
“Can’t celebrate without Hard Candy Christmas, can we?”
“Is it strange that this makes me want to go down on you, Shay?” Chancey asked.
“Only if you don’t know how much Mr. Clearwater likes Dolly.” Seamus paused for a second, then said, “There’s something else.”
Chancey let his eyes rove the younger man’s face. Where before he’d been playful and hungry, he now seemed strained. Like he’d done something he’d been sure of until it came time to make the big reveal. That’s when Chancey saw that he’d been holding his arm behind his back.
“Well, let’s have it. What god-awful new country have you bought me?”
Seamus winced, but produced the CD.
It wasn’t new—except that his copy had been on cassette. Not just cassette, but a home-produced demo tape. This was a re-release. The cover art was brighter, but the red cut-offs with white trim were as short as ever. Kaylee Starr’s Christmas album Baubles and Booze.
Seeds of Tyrone Box Set Page 59
