by Josh Lanyon
“Well, I knew that was coming,” I said, although I hadn’t.
He said stubbornly, as though arguing with me -- or maybe himself, “I miss you. I miss talking with you. I miss -- laughing with you.”
“I am pretty damned adorable,” I said, “but as I recall we weren’t doing a lot of talking, let alone laughing, at the end there.”
He said, “You know that I didn’t -- that I never wanted to hurt you. You know --”
I cut in flippantly, “Kill me, yes. Hurt me, no.”
“Adrien.”
And it was my turn to have trouble meeting his eyes. I said -- and it wasn’t easy -- “I don’t think I can, Jake. I don’t think it’s even fair to ask.”
Silence.
He said finally, without inflection, “All right.”
And the funny thing was, that terse acceptance, the lack of any emotion, was somehow harder to take than if he’d begged or bullied.
He drained his beer, set the bottle beside the untouched one on the counter, and said without looking at me, “I guess I ought to get going.”
I nodded. I didn’t think I could get a word out if my life had depended on it.
He walked out of the kitchen, and I rose and followed him to the door. He took my key off his ring and handed it to me. “I’ll let you know when Nina is formally arraigned.”
I nodded. I felt the warm brush of his fingers pushing the key into mine all the way to my heart. I focused on the key because if I looked up, I’d see what he was feeling. Worse, he’d see what I was feeling -- in a minute what I was feeling was going to be spilling out of me, and it didn’t make any sense. It had been over long ago; we had just finally got around to saying good-bye, that was all.
Neither of us said a word. Neither of us moved a muscle.
Finally Jake said, huskily, “I lied. I didn’t come here to tell you about Nina Hawthorne, and I didn’t come here to ask you to be friends again.”
I raised my eyes. “I know,” I said.
Chapter Eighteen
His face stilled -- except for his eyes. Something blazed back into life there, and I recognized it because I’d felt it when he’d walked back into this room after a two-year absence.
I reached for him, and he wrapped his arms around me, and for a minute it could have been a hug good-bye…or maybe hello…because then his hands smoothed their way down my back, pulling me closer, closing on my hips, drawing me against him, unashamed of his arousal. Naked honesty right there, stretching the soft fabric of his jeans, poking against my groin.
And for once I had nothing to say. Jake’s mouth found mine, his lips molding hot and soft to my own. His tongue tentatively tested the seal of my lips; I parted them and he pushed inside. It was startlingly sweet and achingly familiar, like finding harbor. Like I had been waiting decades for this, traveling leagues, Odysseus sailing at long last into the blue crystal waters of Ithaca -- and never considering the trouble ahead.
I lifted my lashes and met Jake’s tawny stare. Another switch flipped, and with something like shock I felt my cock rising as I finally turned back on. My breath caught on a half sob; relief made me a little giddy, and I leaned against him, making fun of us both like his kisses were making me swoon.
But I didn’t fool him. His arms wrapped around me and he said softly, against my ear, “Okay?”
“Oh yeah,” I said, nodding into his shoulder. “You don’t know.” I craned my head, seeking his mouth again, and he was right there, opening to my kiss, welcoming me home.
He tasted dark and bittersweet, like my memories -- only more intense. My heart pounded hard, blood drumming away in my ears, like spring’s freshet after the ice began to break. I kissed him with all the hardness and hunger in me -- let him feel it all: my anger and grief and frustration. When we finally broke apart Jake didn't look shocked; he looked…predatory. Hot. Ravenous. Forty days in the wilderness and -- well, not paradise at the end of it -- maybe steak dinner with all the trimmings. His eyes glittered.
“Oh, baby,” he muttered, and I laughed unsteadily as his hands slid beneath my T-shirt, shoving the thin cotton up to find bare skin. And it felt wonderful, those big hard callused hands moving over me, stroking and petting, relearning…
His dick was hard, rock hard through the Levi’s -- he had to be in pain -- and I pressed closer, rubbing against him. Briefly, I wondered how much of this was me wanting the past back, the remembrance of all that heat and power -- tempered with the occasional tenderness -- because there were safer and saner ways to relive old times. We weren’t either of us the same people, and this…was…madness.
And yet we were kissing again. We were locked onto each other as though we had just discovered this incredible thing you could do with two mouths pressing close and moist against each other. And the taste of him…the flavor of him… Horrifyingly, unbearably sweet -- sweet in the way crack must feel hitting the bloodstream of an addict after years of staying clean.
As our kiss deepened, one of his big hands slid down and palmed my ass, and I groaned, desperate for that closeness -- why the hell were we wearing so many clothes on a hot summer night? I wrapped my arms around him, and he moved right into them. He felt harder, leaner, fiercer than I remembered -- all taut muscle and energy. He was smiling against my mouth, liking my hunger, my demand.
Fleetingly I wondered what Paul Kane was like with him. What Kate -- his wife -- was like. But I shunted those thoughts away, because I wasn’t going to stop. Air raid sirens couldn’t have stopped me.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Oh, yeah.” Agreeing with everything I wasn’t saying. Huge mistake this, and we both had to know it -- and I’d’ve killed anyone who tried to get between us. His fingers fumbled with the top rivet of my jeans, worked it free as my shaking hands fastened on his waistband, yanked at his belt buckle. He made a furious, desperate sound in the back of his throat, bit the curve of my neck and shoulder.
I sucked in a sharp breath, grabbed at his shirt while he bent to jerk my Levi’s down. A couple of his shirt buttons popped off and flew across the room. My laugh didn’t sound like me, although I thought the idea of him eventually staggering out of my place with his clothes in tatters was pretty damned funny, and he yanked my boxers down, freeing my cock -- which immediately began to wave with Pick Me! Pick Me! enthusiasm. Some body parts never learn.
Shrugging out of the damaged shirt, Jake said roughly, “I still dream about you.”
“I have nightmares about you.” I dragged my T-shirt over my head, threw it aside.
He gave another of those choked laughs as he stepped out of his trousers and briefs, his cock bobbing up, looking red and somehow disheveled. And for a strangely polite moment our dicks bowed and scraped to each other in formal greeting -- like the first act of The Mikado or something, and then his cock kissed me hello, and mine nuzzled him back. Our attitude queer and quaint, all right.
Jake pulled me back against him, like any space between us was too much, and his dick pressed painfully into my naked belly. I wound my arms around his neck again as he picked me up, backing me against the wall -- hard.
“Ow,” I muttered, wriggling into better position as he hefted me higher. I hooked my legs around his hips. I’d forgotten how strong he was.
“Sorry…” His hands smoothed the small of my back as he cradled me close, his face resting in the curve of my shoulder for a moment. “So sorry,” he said, and his voice sounded choked. But maybe it just sounded that way smothered against my skin because when he raised his head, his eyes were dry -- shadowy in this light -- and there was nothing to read in his face. His breath warmed my face, a hint of beer but mostly just himself.
The blond hair on his chest teased my nipples; his dick was poking rudely up along my crack. I pushed back instinctively, but he shifted so our cocks were rubbing against each other instead. It felt good. Very good. Just that. Friction. It’s not always a bad thing.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I replied ruefully.
He rested one hand against my face, cupping my jaw. I tried to look away, but he leaned in, licking my mouth and then nipping my lower lip, a delicate sting. I closed my eyes and he rubbed his face against mine, the rough velvet of his jaw rasping against my mouth and nose and eyelids.
“I missed you,” he whispered against my face, and he kissed me again.
A shiver rippled through me, and then another, and I was disgusted to find myself trembling -- adrenaline overload, that’s all that was. I lowered my brow to his shoulder, still humping against him. He humped back and we began to pick up the pace.
Ramming against him, breathing him in, I drew back enough to look down between our bodies and I could see Jake’s cock, wet-tipped and huge and flushed, driving against my own. It was fascinating watching us scraping and parrying with each other, hips rocking, slipping right into that old rhythm.
Not a dream. This was Jake. Jake and me. It was for real. Painfully, exquisitely real.
He hitched me more comfortably against the wall, I threw my head back, banging it, hardly noticing as the two Edward Borein etchings of Spanish missions swung gently back and forth against the plaster. Tightening my thighs around him, I arched my spine. He thrust against me, and I bucked right back. We rubbed and ground against each other in what felt like an increasingly desperate race for release.
The buzz started in the root of my cock, like sparks shooting up -- flaring along my nerves like wildfire, racing out of control. My balls tightened, and I jerked my hips in confined, fierce movements. The pictures on the wall rattled.
Jake groaned deep from within, thrusting back hard, and then the past and present seemed to fuse in a white-hot tangle like a magnetic storm dancing across the sun’s surface. I slammed into him, hanging on for dear life, and Jake clutched me back like I was his life preserver in a lake of fire.
“Jesus Christ!” he cried out.
And that fountain of sorrow splashed up between us, baptizing belly and chest and chin. I yelled, and somewhere across the universe heard Jake yelling back.
Echo and answer, and it went on and on in lovely aftershocks, rippling out into infinity until at last it faded away.
And then I sagged forward, utterly spent, emptied…light as air. I felt like I could have floated up and out…slipping through the open window and drifting away across the rooftops and satellite dishes and telephone wires…sailing away into the faintly smiling stars.
He was breathing harshly against my ear. And beyond that sound I could hear the building creaking as though in the wake of a storm.
After a bit Jake regained his breath and gathered me up, and I locked arms and legs around him, letting him carry me into the bedroom.
And I remembered Guy.
Guy.
The man who so often shared this room with me. Who wanted to share my life. My lover.
Who was still writing his ex-lover -- who might be with his ex-lover this very moment.
Or who might not.
“You okay?” Jake asked, lowering me to the bed. “Did I hurt you?”
“Not this time,” I said, rolling onto my belly and resting my face in my folded arms.
I had shared this room with Jake before I ever knew Guy.
Not that it made it right. It just…made it what it was.
The mattress springs groaned as Jake collapsed half on top of me, and his hands moved over me, warm, callused hands smoothing over my back and butt, stroking, quieting.
It felt so good to be touched again. Except -- I was touched all the time, caressed and petted by Guy, so why did I feel like no one had touched me in years?
Jake continued to rub my back in that soothing way and I stopped thinking -- I was getting pretty good at that -- and eventually his hand slowed, and stopped. I heard the quiet, even tenor of his breathing as he slept, and I let myself fall after him into the blue-edged darkness of the summer night.
* * * * *
I came awake to someone nuzzling me beneath my ear, and even half asleep I knew the difference, recognized the pleasurable rasp behind my ear. I rolled over, opened my eyes, smiling, memory moving more slowly than physical reaction.
Jake leaned on his elbow over me, gently trailing his fingers down my chest. His hand rested lightly for a moment on my breastbone. I looked down at his hand. His wedding band was simple: yellow gold, an interlocking braid. I could see the gleam in the light from the streetlamps through the lace curtains.
He asked, “How are you feeling?”
I stretched, arched my back, considering the question. Considered why it had never provoked me when Jake asked. Hell, he’d bossed me around more than anyone ever had. One of life’s little mysteries. And despite the fact that tonight I’d broken a couple of my cardinal rules, I felt relaxed, warm -- better than I’d felt in a long time.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m good.”
“Yeah?”
My mouth tugged into a smile. “Yeah.”
He tickled my ribs lightly, and I drew my knees up, rolling away from him.
“Nah, come back,” he said, and tugged me over. “I’ll stop.”
I flopped back over and stared up at him. “How are you feeling?” I asked.
His mouth contorted briefly. I touched the little frown line between his brows, smoothing it away.
“I figured,” I said. “What’s she like? Kate.”
He seemed to consider the question for a moment, viewing her dispassionately. “Pretty, smart, aggressive.” I saw the flash of white as he smiled faintly at some memory. “She’s a tiger.”
I nodded. She’d have to be, I guessed. I looked back across two years’ worth of wondering, and questioned, “Do you still have that dog? What was his name?”
“Rufus?” He shook his head. “No. He died last year. He was pretty old for a shepherd.”
I remembered once wondering if Rufus would like me. We’d never had a chance to meet, old Rufus and I. Not in a year of seeing Jake.
Had it only been a year? It had seemed much longer. Sometimes it had seemed like a lifetime. But maybe all lifetimes weren’t measured in hours, days, and years.
“Are you still living at the same place?” I had only been to his little house in north Glendale once, waiting for Jake on our way somewhere -- somewhere he had no doubt been terrified to be seen with me.
“Yeah.” He rolled on his back and stared up at the ceiling fan’s blur moving above us in the gloom. “We were going to move, but when we lost the baby we decided there was no hurry. It’s big enough for two.”
I wondered why I had started this line of conversation. Really not a good idea.
We listened to the fan whirring softly, spinning away. He asked, “So you’re finally expanding the bookstore?”
I nodded.
He didn’t ask anything else. Apparently I was still a lot more curious about him than he was about me. That reminded me of something, though.
I turned my head, studying his face in the dimness. “Guy said he saw you parked on the street in front of the bookstore a few times.”
He closed his eyes, his mouth curving in an odd expression that was not truly a smile. “Twice. I thought he spotted me. I wanted to talk to you, and you weren’t taking my phone calls.” He opened his eyes. I could see their shine like something feral in the night. “By the second time it was obvious he was pretty much living here, and I wondered what the fuck I thought I was doing.”
I had no answer to that. I wondered what the fuck we thought we were doing now. He moved suddenly, shifting around. He bent, rubbing his face against my cock, leisurely running his tongue down its length, tasting from base to tip.
I jumped and then sighed, settling more comfortably in the sheets, enjoying this, enjoying the care and attention from Jake’s soft and warm mouth -- hard to believe a man who could say such hard things could have such a sweet and soft mouth.
He took his time lapping at my skin, coaxing it back to sensation and reaction. I murmured my pleasure. Stretching out along
side me, his soft, sweet lips pressed my own and his hand closed on my hip, guiding me, the other hand linking fingers with me. That was nice. I didn’t remember ever holding hands with him before.
“Something funny?”
“Well, yeah,” I said.
He didn’t ask what -- maybe he knew it was better not to know. His mouth feathered over my skin, drifted to my shoulders, traced my collarbone. He’d shaved before coming over. For some reason I found that touching.
I half turned, humping against him and he stroked my flank, his mouth fastening on my nipple, and the sting of pleasure was surprising. Funny thing because I had never liked that from anyone but Jake. Somehow when it was Jake sucking that tight little nub, discreetly teething, it was different. I groaned and thrust up at him.
“Can I have you?” Jake asked.
“Uh, you can borrow me,” I said shakily, and he said gravely, “Thank you. I promise to return you in working order.”
My skin felt too tight for my body, too hot, my heart pounding too hard -- and I thought that it would be nice to go out like this, check out in a kind of spontaneous combustion of sweat and sex and semen.
Serve him right to be stuck with the body.
He thrust back against me, still slow and easy, and I heard myself making a keening sound as he tongued and tugged my nipple.
“Oh, yeah,” Jake said in a guttural whisper, “you do love that.” His thumb tracked the wet slit of my cock, stroking, tracing. I could feel his own prick, engorged and beginning to push for attention, needy and neglected.
The nightstand drawer scraped open, and I heard him fishing around. I resented his notion that he would know where to find the things he needed, that I had changed so little -- but the fact was, I hadn’t changed in the little things. And maybe not as much as I wished in the big things.
Finding what he needed, he attended to himself with quick efficiency. I rolled over, stretched out, and he stroked a light, possessive hand down my spine. “You have no idea how often I’ve dreamed of this.”
I shook my head -- I’d had dreams too, but there was no point talking about this stuff. His finger tracked the crack of my ass, teasing as he found the sensitive places. I moaned, squirming into that touch, separating my legs, offering him access. The sheets felt cool on my belly and my half-hard cock.
