Line in the Shadow

by Clancy Nacht

  Silence prevailed for a few moments. Was Rex shocked into speechlessness?

  Then the leather sofa creaked. Rex shifted closer. He kissed Ike’s cheek, leaning to reach because Ike was still staring at the far wall.

  Rex’s lips brushed Ike’s earlobe as he whispered, “I was yours, Ike. I only ended it to protect you. As long as I was seeing you, you’d be a target for them. But when I sent you away, I thought it was just some fling to you. I didn’t know you lo—” He inhaled sharply. “I thought I was doing the right thing, protecting you, taking the sacrifice for myself.”

  Rex’s loud, stuttering exhale sounded on the verge of tears, his breath humid against Ike’s neck as Rex pressed closer against his side and wrapped an arm around Ike’s waist. “I spent Christmas with Heather and Piper. She broke up with... And she wanted me, Ike, and I thought, ‘Here’s my family again. I can forget all that painful nonsense.’ But I realized I’d rather die alone than forget what we had, than even pretend to belong to someone else ever again. I’m still yours for the taking. I’m sorry, Ike. Do you believe that?

  “I came to you as soon as we caught the last conspirator. I came to tell you that it was safe now, that I was sorry, that I wanted...whatever you’re willing to give me, whatever shred of affection you might have left toward me. I’ll make it right. I’ll tell you anything. I’ll beg, if you want. I’ll fall at your feet.” Rex slipped off the couch as he spoke, kneeling at Ike’s feet and gazing up at him. His hands fluttered uselessly for a moment, then came to rest on Ike’s knees, kneading his lower thighs. “Please, Ike. Let me show you how much....”

  Rex swallowed audibly and licked his lips, fingers squeezing Ike rhythmically. “Let me love you, Ike. For real this time. No games, no confusion. Let me show you how good loving me could be. I’m in over my head too. I’m right there with you. Please.”

  The news that Rex had seen his ex-wife hit Ike harder than he would’ve expected. He was tempted to ask if they’d had sex, but really, that wasn’t what mattered. What mattered was that Ike was here and Heather wasn’t. Rex was on his knees before Ike. In this house. Asking for him. It almost felt like a proposal.

  Ike slipped from the couch down to Rex’s level. He cupped Rex’s face and leaned in slowly, cherishing the closeness. Their lips met, warm and soft, both hesitant like they worried the other would pull away. Then Ike parted his lips and tasted Rex again, skunky beer mixed with perspiration and tears. Rex’s mouth latched onto Ike’s, and Ike grabbed Rex fiercely, worried somehow he might slip away again.

  “Oh, please,” Rex gasped into Ike’s mouth. Rex arched against him, returning Ike’s kisses with a wild fury that left Ike’s lips stinging and bruised. Rex guided Ike’s hands to hem and button, urging Ike to undress him.

  How surreal. Rex walked back into Ike’s life wearing a tuxedo like a modern-day Prince Charming to finally give Ike all that he’d wanted.

  Ike worked loose the button and zipper of Rex’s pants and slid his hand down the front of the boxers. Rex’s cock was hot, stiff and ready. At the tender feel of it against his palm, Ike moaned into their kisses.

  Wonderful as it was, it wasn’t nearly enough. Ike wanted to be inside Rex, to be connected, to make this feel real. After being apart, after all the fear and doubt and recriminations, Ike needed this like he never had before. Sex had always been casual, enjoyable. Even when he was trying to pump feeling and meaning into making love to Rex, there’d never been this level of desperation.

  Ike grabbed Rex’s waistband and yanked his pants and boxers down to his thighs. Rex had worked open Ike’s jeans, freeing Ike’s cock as Ike produced lube and a condom from his pockets.

  They weren’t even half undressed, and already Ike had smeared his fingers slick and breached Rex. More range of motion would’ve been nice, but Ike couldn’t stop, couldn’t force himself to take it slow. He watched as Rex applied the condom to Ike with shaking hands. His chest rose and fell rapidly, nostrils flaring with excited breaths.

  Then Rex looked up, locking their gazes. His expression was a wanton, needy reflection of Ike’s. Their mouths clashed, an inelegant combination of teeth and passion as each squirmed against the bondage of their pants until Ike could settle between Rex’s legs and finally slide into him.

  It felt like home.

  The sound Rex made then was inhuman, bestial, a low, satisfied growl of pleasure. His breaths hitched with Ike’s every thrust as if it was too thrilling to remember how to breathe. He clung to Ike as they kissed, a slow tremble beginning in his thighs and climbing upward until it was a full-body shudder.

  As present and focused as Rex had always felt during sex in the past, now it seemed Rex had even more to give. His entire being attuned to Ike as he took him, and the look in Rex’s eyes when he stared at Ike between panting kisses was so naked, so intimate, that he knew Rex hadn’t been lying about belonging to him. This was his for the taking.

  Rex kissed Ike again and again, halting his clinging for a moment now and then to cradle Ike’s face in his hands or stroke his hair. Then his hands would return to clasping Ike’s shoulder blades or ass, gripping tightly as Rex’s hips twisted and bucked, keeping Ike just where he needed him. Ike had only to give himself up to bliss and thrust with rapid, mindless strokes, and Rex rode him to perfection, making soft grunting sounds barely audible over the solid, heavy thwacks of flesh colliding at speed.

  “Please, please, please, please,” Rex chanted, begging like he still needed to, without self-consciousness or dignity. He pressed closer to Ike, seeming to entreat more with every inch of his body, like nothing but Ike could ever make him happy. He kissed Ike again, his labored breaths barely allowing speech as Rex grew closer to orgasm. He rubbed against Ike shamelessly and seemed to struggle to whisper against his lips, “I love you. I’m so in love. Please.”

  Ike ground his knees into the floor for leverage, making each heavy thrust count. He wanted to bury himself in Rex, secret himself away so he could never be dismissed. He wanted to burrow so deeply into the man that Rex couldn’t walk it off, so any time Ike wasn’t inside him, he’d feel like a hollow shell, waiting, incomplete.

  Gnashing his teeth, Ike let his body take over. A shiver of impending release reverberated through Ike, overwhelming him with need. As Ike came, he pulled Rex’s head back by his hair, exposing his neck. At last. Ike bit Rex’s throat with the primal need to possess. He left bruises, marks anyone could see.

  Clutching Ike’s ass with both hands, Rex tensed and quit breathing with a loud gasp. Rex arched his spine and threw back his head, baring his throat further as if entreating his own possession. He pushed hard onto Ike’s cock, grinding down until every bit was inside him, and then a tremor shot through him. Rex seemed to say Ike’s name, more exhalation than speech, and then the wet heat of Rex’s spunk splashed Ike’s stomach.

  Ike took Rex until he writhed with oversensitivity. When Ike finally stopped, exhaustion caught up with him. He collapsed back against the sofa and gasped for breath. After a few moments, Ike clumsily kissed the bite marks on Rex’s throat and whispered, “I love you.”

  Rex slowly lifted off Ike’s spent cock, seeming reluctant to be separated. His arms formed a loose circle around Ike, holding but not clinging, as though with the fucking over he wasn’t sure if he should. With a half-smile on his flushed face, Rex gazed into Ike’s eyes. “Tell me you’re spending the night.”

  Ike squeezed Rex tight. There would be no shrinking away now. “You’d be hard pressed to uninvite me. I’m all yours.”

  Rex’s relief was unmistakable. He pulled away only long enough to strip off the wreckage of his tuxedo while Ike undressed. Then he kissed Ike again, a lingering caress of lips and tongue different from any he’d given Ike before. After long moments, Rex sat back and stared into Ike’s eyes. A slow smile overtook Rex’s face. Combined with the post-coital glow of perspiration and flushed cheeks, Rex looked almost angelic.

  “How would Kaylee feel about you having a steady b
oyfriend?” Rex asked, sounding as giddy as he looked. “I could submit a CV. I’m pretty sure Piper would give me a reference.”

  Ike laughed and raised a brow. “I think we may be hiring for that position. What do you think you could bring to the job that would distinguish you from other applicants?”

  “Hm.” Rex stood with a wince and held out his hand to Ike, twining their fingers as he tugged Ike into a dimly lit hallway and led him past portraits of Rex as a child. It was surreal to be in this inner sanctum after so much stonewalling and distance, but Rex’s warm grip on Ike’s hand was solid proof it was really happening.

  “As an applicant, I have a strong commitment to monogamy, child-rearing, and sex acts illegal in much of the world,” Rex answered as he led Ike into a dark room and flipped a switch on the wall.

  The light hanging from the ceiling fan illuminated band posters and action figures that belonged to a teenage boy from another era, one before Ike’s. Bare-assed and weak-kneed, Rex crossed the shag carpeted floor and sat on a double bed whose geometric blanket and Day-Glo pillowcases betrayed their vintage. The bookcase headboard was crowded with trophies, and it was easy to imagine Rex sleeping here before his parents died, easy to picture the overachieving, handsome boy the CIA would snap up and cultivate into the sometimes frightening man now lounging in front of Ike with a thoughtful look on his lined face.

  Oblivious to the dissonance between the then and now, Rex continued his articulation of merit. “Should I get the position, I intend to bring to bear my years of experience troubleshooting relationship problems, spoiling little girls, and solving international crises before breakfast. I never steal the blanket or the pillows, don’t snore or sleepwalk, and you’d have to search forever to find someone more smitten with you, Mr. Graves.” He patted the bed beside him and smiled at Ike. “I just want to be with you every night I can be, Ike, until you’re sick of me.”

  Ike fell into bed with Rex and wrapped a leg around him so he couldn’t squirm away. “You’re hired. The pay is lousy, and there’s no insurance program, but I don’t think you’ll ever find anyone more in love with you.” He kissed Rex slowly and rubbed their noses together. “Also, I steal the covers and might snore a little. I mentioned the in-love-with-you part though, right?”

  “Still?” The word came out breathless and ragged. Rex tangled their legs together and pressed his body against Ike’s from head to toe. “Even after I sent you away? You forgive me?”

  Tenderly, Ike slid his fingers through Rex’s hair, watching the strands of dark and light rolling over his callused fingers. “Those people were dangerous. They killed my sister, and probably out of stubbornness or lust or just because I...” Ike trailed off. “Well, I probably wouldn’t have done the sensible thing on my own. I would’ve been reckless and put Kaylee in danger. You did right. It hurt a lot, but it was right.”

  Rex exhaled heavily and nodded. “I just wanted to protect you and Kaylee. It hurt so badly to—” Rex’s eyes turned liquid again, luminous with barely restrained emotion. He closed them and buried his face in Ike’s shoulder as if he could hide from what he was feeling.

  After a few seconds, Rex seemed to get it under control. It was like something fundamental had changed between them and now Ike was allowed to witness the Rex behind the impassive, charming mask. Though Rex still repressed so much, he didn’t hide from Ike the act of regaining control.

  Finally, Rex spoke. “I thought when I sent you away I was forfeiting any chance of feeling real passion ever again. I love Heather, Ike. She’s a wonderful woman, and I was in love with her once, with what she represented, with the opportunity she’d given me to pretend I’d ever have a child of my own... But she never made me feel like you do, so lightning-struck and wild. Whether it was ever returned or not, I’d have been following you like a kicked dog the rest of my days, watching from a distance to keep you safe.

  “I don’t believe in true love or fairy tales, but I do believe in a hunger so consuming that there’s no fighting it. I’ve seen patriots with that hunger for their country, soldiers for blood, oppressed subclasses hungering that way for power and freedom and the right to demand respect. That hunger can win wars and destroy lives, turn ordinary men into heroes. You do that to me.”

  Ike averted his eyes, feeling humbled. He tightened his arms around Rex, so overwhelmed that for a moment he couldn’t even form words. Breathing slowly, Ike tried to plan his words. So many ideas flooded his mind that it was difficult to express them.

  “There’s a reason I don’t write love songs. Or haven’t. I write about what I know. Before you, I never felt love in this way. I love Kaylee. I loved my sister. I even love Nate in a way. But I was never in love with him. Never in love with anyone. I wanted to be. I thought, sometimes, that my parents were right. That there was something wrong with me and I’d never feel fulfilled or whole.”

  He looked into Rex’s eyes, still afraid to say anything so pointed, so real, so true. He wished he’d finished his beer and maybe a few more. Ike licked his lips. “When I’m with you, I feel something so much bigger than I’ve ever felt. Every time you were gone, it was like part of me was missing. It was like I was holding my breath until you returned and called me. When I thought I’d lost you for good, I thought... I thought a lot of stupid things.”

  Ike caressed the side of Rex’s face. “Rex, you came into my life on a night where I’d decided I was going to settle for what I could get, rather than what I wanted. That night in the bathroom, I’d given up on making choices for myself. Then you were there like a sign from God that I did have options. I was already so grateful to you for waking me up. Then you saved my life, literally, and I just thought that... On some level I never questioned that we’d be together. I thought it was fate.”

  “Really?” Rex sounded stunned. He kissed Ike hard, then subsided against the bed, seeming disoriented. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and his eyes looked glassy. A dumb grin curved his kiss-stung lips. “So we’re in love with each other then? Does this mean I can become atrociously clingy and show up at your door at all hours and leave a toothbrush on your sink?”

  Rex held up a hand before Ike could say anything. “That was a joke.” Rex laughed. “Well, mostly. Unless you’d like that. Then you’re in for it.”

  Ike laughed. “I wouldn’t object if you left more than a toothbrush on my sink.” He sighed happily, feeling fulfilled in ways he hadn’t known possible, and then squeezed Rex tightly. “I want you to know that you have something to come home to. Somewhere to come home to. I love you, Rex.”

  Rex’s brows drew inward, then lifted, like he didn’t know how to feel or what emotion to express. His eyelids swooped shut as Rex inhaled deeply through his nostrils. His lips pursed, then opened and closed a few times before any sound came out. “I really just hoped you’d still be willing to talk to me. I never imagined...”

  Rex’s voice gave out. He reached behind him for Ike’s free hand and guided it downward along his spine until Ike’s fingertips brushed his opening. Then Rex arched closer and let out a soft growl as he pushed Ike’s fingers into him. The expression of contentment he wore told Ike clearer than words that this—them—was exactly what Rex wanted.

  Rex made no move to initiate anything more serious, and after a few more moments, he whispered, “Promise me you know what you’re getting into—promise you think I’m worth it—and I’ll never leave you.”

  Had Rex ever really left him?

  Ike fingered Rex, watching the tension in his face ebb and flow. “You kept watching me even when you broke up with me?”

  Rex nodded and bit his lip as he wrapped both arms around Ike and clung, letting Ike do what he wanted with his body. “Had to keep you safe. I’ll always keep you safe, Ike.”

  “So, you were still there? I thought maybe... I couldn’t accept....” Ike curled his fingers inside Rex as he remembered the hurt and loneliness. “I think I made up with my mother, though. That can be your punishment: Meeting my pare
nts.”

  Rex let out a quiet sigh and flexed around Ike’s fingers. “Maybe meeting my parents is why I brought you here. It’s the next step, isn’t it? To being family.”

  Ike grinned like a fool. “Yeah, I think it is.”

  The End

  Titles by Clancy Nacht & Thursday Euclid

  Black Gold

  Black Gold 2: Double Black

  The WASPs

  I’ll Be Your Man

  Le Jazz Hot

  You’re Welcome. Love, Your Cat

  Gemini

  Celibacy NOW

  Immortal Sins

  Wyatt’s Recipes for Wooing Rock Stars

  Boyfriend Goals

  The Phisher King

  Cats & Doges

  Line in the Shadow

  Clancy Nacht

  A Model Boyfriend

  Prince Charming Wears Garters

  Still Remains

  The Night Caller

  Pride & Justice

  Effing Gorgeous

  Strange Times

  No Tea, No Shade (Viva! 1)

  Dragged to the Altar (Viva! 2)

  Thursday Euclid

  Asher Beauregard Attempts to Give a Damn

  Built for Pleasure

  About the Authors