by Evelyn Drake
Sitting up turned out to be more of a challenge than he’d anticipated. Sore didn’t even begin to describe how he felt. Every muscle in his body complained as he moved, from the top of his scalp to the bottoms of his feet. It forced him to move slowly, and he felt as if his body were swollen. Not just the joints, but his whole body. And when he got to his feet, he moved with uncertain care as he gave them more weight. Thankfully, his body’s complaining seemed to hit a threshold of agony that it didn’t seem determined to move beyond. It was an agony he could live with .
Moving to the chest of drawers across from the bed, Steve rummaged through the drawers to find something he could wear. He found an assortment of swim trunks of varying sizes. He found his and hers terry cloth robes. And he found a collection of socks .
With a smile, he took a pair of the socks and put them on his feet before adorning his softened cock with a third. Putting socks on his feet had been a much greater challenge than he’d anticipated, and he had to sit winded on the bed for a moment afterward .
He’d never experienced electrocution before. He’d seen it but had never done it to someone or had it done to him. He could not have been more sore if he had run at top speed into a brick wall five times over. He hurt, he simply hurt, and every movement he made was done with muscles that would rather lie still .
He closed his eyes and wondered if he could simply go back to sleep, but the clink of dishes in the kitchen had him climbing to his feet .
Walking with careful steps, he made his way out of the bedroom with a compliment to the chef ready on his lips .
“Holy shit,” Steve said, stopping in his tracks when he saw Michael. While his own body might have felt swollen, Michael actually looked swollen, and he, too, moved as if his body hurt. The sight of him made Steve want to kill Sigmund all over again—but this time more slowly .
Michael looked up from the stove top island and barked out a snort of laughter at the sight of Steve with his three socks. Michael’s smile stretched from ear to ear, and Steve fell in love all over again as his heart swelled inside his chest .
He’s an angel, he thought as the morning light through the window haloed Michael’s head .
Steve had to clear his throat before he trusted himself to speak again. They’d both said the L word, but he wasn’t sure how much gush Michael could handle, and he didn’t want to scare the man off by coming across too love stricken. But he was; he was completely stricken. He was over the top in love to the point that he would sing love ballads outside Michael’s window if he thought Michael could handle his unfiltered adoration .
“What?” Michael asked, laughing and looking bashful under Steve’s love filled gaze. He gave the French toast a flip before doing the same to the bacon sizzling in another pan .
“Just seeing what love looks like,” Steve said, testing the waters for how sappy Michael could handle it. Michael’s grin grew bigger and he kept his attention on the food, but he didn’t say anything .
“You talk to all the boys that way ?”
“Only one ...”
They shared quiet smiles, and Steve took a seat on a stool across from where Michael worked. He’d managed to find a t-shirt that fit his runner’s frame perfectly .
“This is amazing,” Steve said, eyeing the golden brown French toast, bacon, over-easy eggs and the pitcher of orange juice. “How did you do all this ?”
“The freezer was fully stocked and there were a few things in the fridge, stuff with longer expiration dates .”
“Need any help?” Steve knew he could burn toast with the best of them .
“Nope, I got this,” Michael said with a smile, but then his face sobered as his gaze drifted over Steve’s body .
“You hurting ?”
“I suspect no more than you. You look rough, babe.” Steve slid off the stool and moved around to Michael’s side of the kitchen island. He laughed when he saw that Michael was wearing a shirt and nothing else, his long, muscular legs bare from the hip down .
Stepping behind Michael, Steve gathered the hem of Michael’s shirt in his hands and lifted it above Michael’s head. He hissed when he saw Michael’s naked body and the intense bruising and welts that covered it .
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Michael said quietly .
“Bullshit.” Steve’s hands turned him around, and he dropped to his knees to study Michael’s torso. His fingers searched Michael’s body along with his eyes, looking for shadows or bloating that could be signs of internal bleeding. With a sigh of relief, he sat back on his heels, feeling more assured that if there was internal bleeding, it was minor and his body was handling it. “What he did to you...” Steve whispered, looking up at Michael .
Michael bent and kissed Steve’s lips, guiding him to stand during their kiss with a hand placed beneath Steve’s chin. When they pulled apart, Michael reached for the shirt again and slid it on, seeming embarrassed by the remnants of the beating he’d endured .
“You’re beautiful,” Steve whispered into his ear as he wrapped his arms around Michael from behind. He swayed them back and forth as he rested his chin on Michael’s shoulder, temple pressed to temple .
Michael hugged Steve’s arms in return, and it was only when the French toast threatened to burn that he released his hold on his lover’s embrace. “We’re a pair,” he said, leaning back into Steve’s chest .
“Speaking of pairs, where do we go from here? And—before you answer that, whatever you say—I want a future that includes a ‘you and me’ in it .”
Michael turned off the stove’s burners before turning in Steve’s arms to face him. “It is ‘you and me...,’ all the way. I’m talkin’ Thelma and Louise .”
Steve laughed but then his laughter faltered when he realized how apropos Michael’s declaration was. “What do we do? South America ?”
“The Family’s ties to South America aren’t that strong, but what about Operations ?”
Steve shrugged. “They’ve got fingers everywhere .”
“We could stay here?” Michael said with a smile, sliding his arms around Steve’s neck .
“It would have its advantages,” Steve said, his socked member swelling immodestly and rubbing its covering loose .
Michael slid his hand between them and wrapped his fingers around Steve’s cock .
“You sure you’re up for this... I mean, I know you’re up for this,” Steve laughed but then moaned as Michael’s lips went to work on his neck. He stretched his head to the side to give the man he loved room to work. A small gasp followed when he felt the thick hardness of Michael’s cock slide along his length, before Michael wrapped his hand, as far as it would reach, around them both. Michael’s hips began a slow, rubbing thrust, that had Steve’s eyes rolling back in his head .
“Fuck, I’m such a virgin,” he said as Michael’s touch gave him sensations he’d never dreamed of. “Oh damn, you feel good .”
Michael’s hand slid around to Steve’s lower back to further control the combined movement of their hips, and Steve tangled his fingers in Michael’s hair .
“Michael...” It was more a moan than a word. Steve gasped again when Michael’s hand slid down between his cheeks and began a sliding rub of his hole in time with their rubbing dicks. It was only a moment more before Michael’s tip pushed inside him, and Steve groaned, loud and deep .
“I’m so glad I’m your bottom,” he whimpered. He found Michael’s mouth and took him in a kiss that had their tongue tasting and exploring each other in ways that mimicked the needs of other parts of his body .
A second later Steve found himself facing the counter, Michael now behind him. Following his lover’s guided press, he leaned his hands flat on the counter and spread his feet to match the tap of Michael’s foot .
Michael’s hand appeared as it reached past Steve’s shoulder, and Steve watched as it collected a pat of softened butter and disappeared again. Then, his cheeks were being spread wide and the soft glide of well oiled fingers
filling his senses was bliss .
He felt his hole pucker spasmodically in eager invitation to be penetrated, yet when the stretch came, it burned .
Steve groaned his discomfort as his body struggled to adapt to having two fingers inside of him. But Michael’s gentle kiss between his shoulder blades was bliss, and Steve found himself pushing backward, a blatant request for more of what Michael could give him .
He lost himself in the feel of Michael’s fingers sliding in and out of him in a stroke that curled down, putting pressure against the front wall toward his belly. The sensation that built there from Michael’s stroke had Steve widening his stance, bending his knees and tilting his hips to present his ass to Michael. His fingers stroked a sympathetic back and forth pattern on the countertop, and he rocked his body back into the still burning stretch that Michael gave him. The stretch wasn’t as bad as when he took Michael’s cock the first time, but it had him imagining taking Michael again .
“I’m your hole,” Steve moaned .
“You’re my best hole,” Michael whispered, kissing and nipping Steve’s back. His cock stood tall, hard and ready against Steve’s hip. “I want you. And I want to get tested. If we’re gonna have a future together, it might as well have fewer complications .”
Steve groaned in protest but his breath turned to that of panted pleasure as Michael’s fingers worked their magic. “Oh god,” he moaned, “why isn’t everyone gay? This feels so fucking good !”
Steve’s ego hated that Michael had touched other men and had given them the same pleasure he gave him now, but his body rejoiced. His cock bobbed in time to his hip’s air pumps, and he groaned again, deep from his chest, when he felt Michael’s free hand pull his hip snug against Michael’s cock. Michael pumped his thick cock against him as he held him firm, and the feeling of being in another man’s care had Steve’s hole milking Michael’s probing finger. It filled his mind with all the things he wanted them to do together, things he’d never considered before. He imagined being on all fours, his mouth making love to Michael’s ass—licking and sucking and kissing—until the moans of his pleasure were the only sounds that filled the room .
Steve’s eyes rolled back in his head and his mouth opened with small, whimpered pants as a tension deep within him grew. “Michael,” Steve whispered .
“Let it go, baby. I’ve got you,” Michael cooed, adjusting his stance. His cock still rubbed against Steve’s hip but now his free hand encircled Steve’s thick and swollen member .
Michael’s stroking caress had Steve shaking from head to toe as his breath came in gasped moans. His hips pumped the air with increasing need and every muscle in his body went rigid as he cried out his pleasure in a guttural moan that started from a place deep within his chest and escaped to fill the room. With surge after surge, he painted his cum across the island’s cabinet doors .
Michael’s arms were around him then, holding him snug and in just the right position as he rubbed his cock, now slick with precum, on Steve’s hip. Steve held steady for him, wishing Michael would allow him to drop to his knees to take him in his mouth and swallow down his cum, but the man had set the rules and Steve would abide. So instead he moved the way Michael had him move and he lost himself in the sounds of pleasure made by the man who had stolen his heart .
When with a loud grunt and pistoning thrusts, Michael gave Steve’s body his passion. Turning, he took Michael in his arms and captured his mouth in an entanglement that had their spent bodies losing their parts in each other .
“You’re my best,” Steve whispered into their kiss .
“You’re my last,” Michael followed, and Steve kissed him deeper .
It was another twenty minutes before they sat down at the round-tabled breakfast nook. It was lined on three sides by tall windows that overlooked the garden of wild flowers beyond. Michael stared out the window, a wistful expression on his face as his fingers absentmindedly rolled the huge, uncut diamond in a small circle on the table’s top .
“You miss it here?” Steve asked .
“I do—I have.” His expression grew more solemn, and he shrugged his shoulders. “It will never be the same now, though. I mean, I haven’t been welcome home in years. But... I had hoped things would change, attitudes would soften .”
He turned his gaze to look at Steve. “You grew up straight.” It was a comment, not a question .
Steve nodded his head yes, and he wondered at the strain Michael must have been under during his youth. “I’m sorry... for whatever you had to go through .”
Michael smiled, crossing his legs as he took a sip of his coffee. It was black and hot and bold, and Michael closed his eyes, savoring the taste .
“What was it like for you?” Michael asked, taking another sip. “Were you the hot jock who slept with all the cheerleaders ?”
“Yeah, guilty,” Steve said, grinning from ear to ear. He didn’t even remember any of those girls’ names now. His smile faded. “The woman I told you about—the one I almost strangled in my sleep—that was Charlize .”
“Oh fuck,” Michael said, putting his cup down .
Silence dragged between them .
Steve glanced out the window at the soft morning light. He’d slept last night without nightmares. He’d slept deep and peaceful. Charlize was dead by his own hand, and he slept like a baby for the first time in over a year .
I am a monster. I didn’t kill her one way so I did it another .
Michael’s hand on his pulled him out of his thoughts .
“Come back to me,” Michael said, his eyes scrunched with worry .
Steve nodded his head but didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say, other than he needed to leave. If he was a monster, Michael was better off without him .
“She, uh, she was amazing,” Michael said, pulling his hand away from Steve to take another sip of his coffee. “Monica had a gun pointed straight at her forehead and she didn’t even flinch. She knew what she was doing, what she wanted. She tried to take control of the situation when Monica first pulled her gun on me. And later, when she and Monica were fighting,” Michael gave a small laugh of remembered dismay, “the things that woman called Monica. I think top on the list was psycho-bitch. Monica decked her, she went down and bounced up like she was on a spring, the whole time telling Monica that she was going to disembowel her and use her intestines to decorate a Christmas tree .”
Steve barked with laughter, smiling, and his eyes shone bright with unshed tears. “Charlize always could trash talk.” He laughed again. “We used to spar together and she’d get me so mad we’d soon be fighting for real. Then the match would end and it was like none of it had ever happened. Water off a duck. It didn’t faze her .”
Steve took a bite of French toast drenched in maple syrup. He groaned as he chewed and when he swallowed, it sparked an intense hunger instead of quelling one. He inhaled the contents of his plate in a matter of minutes, only to look up at a dismayed Michael when he was just about ready to lean over and lick his plate clean .
“There’s more on the stove,” Michael said, taking pity on Steve before he took a hearty bite of his own bacon. Steve took the bait. He returned to the table with a re-loaded plate a moment later and topped off Michael’s cup of coffee .
He was a third of the way through his second plate of food before he slowed down. He fidgeted uneasily in his seat as he tried to figure out what he needed to say next. They had only just sworn to be in each other’s lives forever—and now he was going to back out .
“I can’t go with you,” he said, clearing his throat before trying again. “We can’t go together. “I need to go my separate way .”
“Did you get tired of cock so soon ?”
Steve flinched at Michael’s quick, sharp retort. “How long’s that one been sitting at the tip of your tongue ?”
“I’ve been a straight boy’s curiosity before .”
Steve’s face heated. “You’re not a curiosity,” he said, keeping hi
s growing anger focused on his plate. “And like you said, I’m not straight .”
“Then what’s the problem ?”
“I’m a monster!” Steve boomed, tossing his fork down on his plate with a clatter. “If you’re with me, you’ll die. I killed Charlize !”
“Charlize died. There’s a difference. Charlize died in the middle of a gun fight .”
“It doesn’t matter !”
“Really?” Michael said, leaning forward. “What if it was you who had died by a bullet Charlize had shot? Would that be your advice to her—to tell her she’s a cold blooded killer and a monster because something went wrong ?”
“That’s different,” Steve said, crossing his powerful arms across his chest .
“Bullshit. Don’t dishonor her that way by turning yourself into some kind of martyr. She died . You didn’t. If you think that isolating yourself would be honoring her wishes for you, then you’re a self-deluded fool addicted to lying to himself .”
“What the hell do you know about what she wanted?” Steve said, slamming a fist down on the table hard enough to make the stone bounce and roll .
“I know that she loved you .”
They were the words that stopped Steve’s raging anger in its tracks .
“You don’t know that .”
“I do. I listened in on your conversation yesterday morning. I saw the way she looked at you and heard how worried she was for you. She’d have done anything for you. It was all there .”
Steve sat back in his seat again, still seething in anger, but as he closed his eyes and let it go, he was able to feel Charlize again. Everything Michael was saying was true, he knew. Running was just easier and safer—for him. If he ran, he’d never have to lose Michael. Not really .
He opened his eyes and looked at the man he loved. “What are we going to do? I can’t lose you. I can’t .”
Michael’s smile brightened like a Cheshire cat .
“What?” Steve asked, suddenly nervous .
“There’s something I’ve got to show you.” He picked up the stone and twirled it so that it caught the light. Fractured light in its various colors painted the wall, but as he turned it, the colors dimmed, replaced with blurred specks of darkness .
