by Amy Lane
“There goes Deputy George. He’s got his dog’s balls on his rearview mirror—don’t mess with him. You know what we call him?” Larx was almost laughing too hard to finish.
“Don’t. Please.” Now Aaron had his hand over his eyes even as he was sliding into bed.
“We call him the—”
“If you say ‘Castrator,’ I’m leaving you.”
“Fixer,” Larx said, his smirk so broad it hurt his cheeks. “We’ll call you the Fixer.”
Their giggles quieted, but their eyes still twinkled as they looked at each other, the dance of light through their curtains almost as seductive as music.
“I can’t fix everything,” Aaron said breathlessly, and Larx slid his fingers through Aaron’s still thick, blond hair.
“You fix my heart just being here.” Larx closed his eyes as they kissed, losing himself in Aaron’s touch and smell, in his presence, his body touching Larx’s, their skin bare against the other.
“Mm….” He tilted his head back as Aaron nibbled down his neck, rubbing gentle teeth against Larx’s collarbone.
“You brought out goodies,” Aaron murmured. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
Larx looked at the largish plug he’d selected and closed his eyes again, suddenly embarrassed. “It’s been a long time,” he said, because “God, I need to be fucked!” was a little bawdy for all the sweetness in their bed at the moment.
Aaron just chuckled. “You are not fooling me for a second,” he said. “You’re a man with needs!”
“Yes!” Larx covered his eyes. “I have needs. And most days, you satisfy those needs just fine—”
Aaron sucked Larx’s aching nipple into his mouth, and Larx gasped.
“But today…,” he prompted.
Larx had spread his knees already under the covers, and the air was kissing along his naked flesh, tantalizing the tender bits that didn’t usually get set free.
“Today I’m in need,” he admitted.
Aaron chuckled and scooted down the bed, tapping Larx’s leg so he’d lift it and give Aaron access to the treasures between his spread legs.
“Today I can answer your needs,” Aaron told him and then disappeared behind the V of Larx’s splayed body.
Larx felt Aaron’s tongue licking up and between his testicles, slowly, methodically, digging into the base of Larx’s cock, flattening, getting the underside with a full-court press. Larx let out a groan that probably rattled the windows, and he didn’t care.
Ah, God, he really did need.
Aaron engulfed him, a carnal cave of heat, and Larx tried not to thrash on the bed, his body craved so badly. Aaron tightened his mouth, his tongue, his palate, and pulled up slowly, until Larx’s whimper echoed in his own ears.
“Hand me one,” Aaron whispered, and augh! Larx fumbled, for the plug, for the lube, picking in the end something longer, thinner, that could slide in and out and… and fuck him. He yearned for possession, and Aaron seemed to know that as he took the toy from Larx’s hand and the tube of lubricant with it.
The coolness of the lube dribbled between Larx’s asscheeks, and he let out a gasp of relief. Oh… oh yes. He wanted. So badly. Aaron’s finger wasn’t nearly big enough, but two fingers made a beautiful ache.
“So tight,” Aaron murmured, his breath fanning Larx’s sensitized cockhead. “Like it’s trying to trap me.”
“I’d rip your dick off,” Larx threatened crudely. “God, Aaron, that’s… perfect. That’s wonderful. More. Just fucking more.”
Ahhh…. Larx made his entire body go limp, because the thrust of the cool silicone toy was not nearly as organic as Aaron’s body inside him.
But the fullness, the stretch, oh, that was needed, and then Aaron sucked on him again, and fucked him with the toy, slowly, both ends, rhythmically, slowly, slowly….
“Faster harder Jesus, Aaron, fuck me!”
For a moment embarrassment threatened to return, but Aaron pulled back and thrust harder, harder, the base of the thing stretching and popping from Larx’s sphincter, and Aaron’s mouth a treacherous heaven, hard and soft, brutal and sweet, again, again, again, again, overwhelming him, overriding the stress, the confusion, the anger, the ache of loneliness that had overtaken Larx’s heart too many times in the past weeks.
His climax bore down on him like a freight train, and he knotted his fingers in Aaron’s hair and gibbered, begging him to please, please, just… oh yes… just keep doing… oh God… yes… just… fucking that.
He allowed himself to cry out, his voice echoing in the space of their room, Aaron’s mouth working him, milking him, as he poured all his frustration and worry from the past few weeks right down Aaron’s throat.
Aaron took it all and pushed up to hold Larx as the trembling overtook his body.
“How you doing?” Aaron whispered after a moment.
“Nungh….”
Aaron laughed and kissed his temple.
“Did you forget something?” Larx asked, deliciously uncomfortable as he worked the plug in his ass.
“Nope. Thought you’d want the reminder while you were… uh, returning the favor.”
Larx grinned lazily and pulled Aaron down for a kiss, tasting himself on Aaron’s tongue. “My pleasure,” he promised and then rolled to his side so he could kiss his way down Aaron’s body, stopping at all the vital points. His collarbone, his nipples—oh yes, his nipples—and then down, with careful kisses on his scars and careful nibbles on his hip bones.
The whole time he was vibrating, aroused again by the pressure against his prostate, by the plug still in his ass.
By the time he was eye to eye, so to speak, with Aaron’s generously sized body, he almost couldn’t concentrate on his job.
“Larx,” Aaron hissed. “Swing around so I can play.”
Larx did, swinging his bottom so his hips were up near Aaron’s head, almost weeping with relief.
Aaron’s cock in his mouth was a sensual experience in itself, fat and long, precome salty on Larx’s tongue, the head pushing against the back of his throat. Larx fell into his work while Aaron… fiddled. Played with the handle, pulled the thing out, slid it in, harder. Harder. Harder. And Larx kept sucking, harder, and longer, and faster, and—
He buried his face against Aaron’s thigh. “I’m gonna come again,” he panted, shaking.
“I’m gonna come once!” Aaron panted with a particularly hard thrust. “Let’s see who gets there first!”
Larx laughed helplessly, then took Aaron into his mouth again, using his free hand to stroke delicately, his thighs, his balls, his taint….
“Oh!” Aaron cried out as Larx penetrated him gently, just a fingertip today, still working his mouth over Aaron’s cock.
Aaron’s spurt of come, silky, sweet, and salty, into the back of his throat was as erotic as the plug being thrust into his backside, more so, because it meant Larx had pleased the man pleasing him. When he buried his face into Aaron’s thigh and screamed and spurted, it was with the freedom of orgasm, the ultimate joy of give and take, the amazing flight of holding his lover’s cock in his mouth while his lover pleased him too.
This time Aaron pulled the plug all the way out and put it on the towel on the dresser to clean later, and Larx flopped around on the bed, coming to a rest with his head on Aaron’s shoulder. Aaron wiped his thumb along the side of Larx’s mouth, taking one last trickle of come, and then sucked it off, and the two of them regarded each other soberly, with the air of men who had accomplished a great thing.
“That was….” Aaron panted.
“So necessary.”
“Like breathing.”
“We need to do that way, way more.”
They laughed then, relaxed, sweaty, and Aaron rolled over and took Larx into the safety of his arms.
“We’ll get married,” Aaron said, voice rough.
“Yes.”
“Because this is forever.”
“I promise.”
“Don’t leave me.�
��
“Swear.”
“And no more secrets.”
Larx sighed. “I’ll try. Sometimes, what’s in my heart—”
“Complicated.” Aaron sighed over his head. “I know. But trust me, okay?”
“Deal.” Larx curled against him, ready for his man-nap before round two, and suddenly he let out a wholly inappropriate giggle.
“What?” Aaron asked, his own voice drowsy as well.
“Wait until I tell Yoshi.”
Aaron’s deep chuckle rumbled against his cheek and lulled him to sleep.
WILDFLOWERS
“MARRIED?” YOSHI demanded as they ate lunch in Larx’s office. “Married?”
Larx shushed him, but Nancy, Tane’s sister, was sitting with them this day, and she took up the cry. “Seriously? Married?”
Larx grimaced, a little embarrassed but secretly as thrilled as a girl in a romance movie. “Yes. Married. Like they do in the storybooks, right? It happens.”
“Well, yeah,” Yoshi said, rolling his eyes. “To you, maybe. But you get shot teaching science and subdue psychopaths with shotguns. I mean, just because you think getting married happens doesn’t mean it happens to the rest of us!”
Nancy patted his arm. “Honey, Tane will ask you. Or, you know, show up someday with rings and say, ‘Wear it or don’t. I’m wearing it because it’s how I feel.’”
Yoshi looked at her sourly and waved his left hand with the etched stainless steel band on it. “It’s like you were there.”
Larx stared at him. “That’s a wedding ring? It’s awesome!”
“It’s a not-wedding ring, because we had a not-wedding,” Yoshi muttered. “He helped Berto move into Aaron’s old house and came back with the rings and that super not-romantic proposal she just mentioned and told me that I shared his goddamned pain so I should share his goddamned joy.” Yoshi shrugged, and his cheeks heated. “Okay. So maybe it was a little romantic.” Then he looked up from his egg-salad sandwich—which everybody was eating, because Easter Sunday had been last weekend and who had anything else?—and sighed. “But it’s not a summer wedding in your backyard, with the sun setting and a white canopy and your daughters singing and your sons ushering people to sit and the whole town there, because Aaron’s running for sheriff and why wouldn’t you invite people—is it?”
Larx stared at him. “That’s what we’re having?”
Yoshi nodded. “Yeah. I won’t let you settle for anything less.”
“You guys, I was thinking some friends and some cake—”
“I’ll do the flowers,” Nancy said on a happy sigh. “I bet the girls will help me—”
“Don’t count on Olivia,” Larx muttered. “She’s going to be pregnant through August, and she might just try to hurt you.”
“How is she doing?” Nancy asked kindly. She’d had Olivia in her class, as had most of the teachers at Colton High.
“Better,” Larx said simply. He wouldn’t tell them about the two tearful, emotionally fraught phone calls he’d gotten during her two weeks in Auburn. Aaron had been there afterward to pick up the pieces, and they seemed to be all stitched together now. What mattered was that Olivia was coming home tomorrow afternoon, and on Sunday night Elton’s father was going to try the family introduction thing again. Larx didn’t have a lot of hope he’d fix things, but hey, it was a free meal. “That reminds me!” He was happy to change the subject. “Candace—her first day back at school is Monday. What’s the buzz in the hallways?”
Yoshi smirked. “The buzz is, the heroic principal went up against her homicidal stepdad and saved everybody’s life, hurray! And what was Yoshi doing when this happened? Yoshi was home, feeding teenagers pizza. Because Yoshi likes teenagers a little better than Yoshi likes guns.”
“Okay, Douchy, you can stop talking about yourself in the third person now,” Larx told him. “We all know the world would have fallen apart if you hadn’t constipated three teenaged boys and caused my daughter to break out.”
“That was the grease in the pizza, not me,” Yoshi said with supreme righteousness.
“And it doesn’t have a thing to do with”—Larx’s playfulness faded—“whether or not anybody at the school knows about the nature of her abuse or the procedure afterward.” He didn’t even want to say the words in the high school environs. Candace’s trauma was her own—Larx wanted to make damned sure she had control over who knew about it. If the whole school was buzzing about her, he’d make arrangements for her to go to school in Truckee—he wasn’t going to subject her to the additional pain of having her private life on display.
“I haven’t heard a whisper,” Yoshi said, just as soberly. “I asked her geography teacher—the one whose class her friend attends—if her friend has said anything or is the type to gossip. She said the girl’s life revolves around Candace as a friend. She’s been sad and distracted since Candace left, and she’s really excited that she’s coming back. Period. So I think we’re bringing her to a safe place.”
Larx nodded. “Good. If we get even an inkling that it’s not, we pull her out and we shelter her.” If Candace could trek twenty miles across the mountains in the snow, sleeping in a snow shelter to stay alive, the least they could do was help her navigate the pitfalls of high school society. Larx was damned well going to try.
“Deal,” Nancy said, and Yoshi nodded in agreement.
“How about Jaime—how’s he doing?” Larx looked at Nancy because she usually ate lunch in the staff room, and she had more of the pulse of the teachers than they did.
“Great,” she said, nodding. “As you very well know, he’s stayed active in his clubs, has started hanging with the drama kids, and is signed up to take the PSAT practice courses starting next weekend. Your boy is doing okay; you can relax.”
Larx rolled his eyes. “Never,” he said, meaning it. “We can never relax. You think I relax about my kids? You are sorely mistaken.” No finish line. There was no finish line. You just kept running the best race you could.
For a moment they were quiet, because everybody had been worried about Livvy, and then Yoshi spoke up.
“Seriously—you think we’re going to stop badgering you about the wedding that easy? I mean, Larx—this is going to be Colton’s social event of the year!”
Larx just shook his head. “Aaron runs for election in the fall—don’t you think he’ll have enough on his plate?”
“Nope,” Nancy said smugly. “Just leave the details to us.”
“I don’t even believe this,” Larx muttered.
“No, seriously. We’ll take care of it,” Yoshi reassured him.
“Guys, we haven’t even told the kids!”
Nancy and Yoshi looked at each other in evil agreement. “You have a week,” Yoshi said.
“That’s fair,” Nancy agreed. “A week. You said he asked you three weeks ago? You have a week to tell the kids, or we tell them you’re both eloping to Tahoe.”
Larx stared at them. “You’re awful people.” He meant that.
“We’re awful people who are going to arrange your wedding,” Yoshi said sweetly. “I think you should be nicer to us than that.”
“I think he should bring us sandwiches,” Nancy said thoughtfully. “Sub sandwiches. Because Jesus, egg salad is going to make me fuckin’ puke.”
Yoshi agreed, and then they both started talking about wildflowers in mason jars and who they knew who decorated cakes as a hobby, and Larx spent the rest of his lunch lacing his hands behind his neck and wishing for a teleportation device.
And trying not to dread Sunday, when the whole family had to face Olivia’s in-laws for one more happy try.
COLTON HAD one “fancy” restaurant, a steakhouse, with tablecloths and limited seating and a waitstaff that sort of trickled down from Reno because Colton didn’t have quite the amount of gambling despair. Aaron and Eamon ate there sometimes for dinner when they were discussing administration, because Eamon liked the place. He’d treat Aaron, usually, because the pric
e was pretty steep, and Aaron was always grateful.
Elton’s father had made reservations there for ten, which meant they pretty much took up the floor, and Larx brought Jaime because, in his words, “This guy fuckin’ owes us big.”
Well, not that Jaime ate a lot, but Aaron wasn’t going to argue.
The dinner started awkwardly, plastic smiles and the obscenely loud clatter of utensils. All the boys were dressed in button-down shirts and sweaters, and Christiana had busted out with a full-skirted dress and heels. The black skirt had a tiny white print of Jack and Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas on it, and Aaron heartily approved.
Olivia was dressed in a sapphire-blue tunic and leggings, her baby bump just barely visible when she sat down. Elton wore a suit, like his father, and Cheryl was wearing slacks and a sweater with sparkles.
Larx had even managed a sport coat over his sweater, and Aaron had too. Aaron had been a little dismayed at how much alike their sweaters looked—but there was nothing they could do about it now. It was like they were all hoping the awkward finery would make people forget about the couple invading Larx and Aaron’s home and saying nasty things three weeks before.
But then, it had been a big three weeks.
“So, Olivia,” Shawn McDaniels said cordially, “I hope your, uh, treatment went well?”
Olivia laughed. “It’s not like they pumped me full of drugs and zapped my brain, Mr. McDaniels. We just went over medication I could use while pregnant and nursing and talked about regimen and meditation techniques. It was just that we had to journal every day and practice everything we were taught, so, you know, by the time we got home, it was habit.” She rolled her eyes. “Lots and lots of habit.”
“Will you be able to take that habit and go back to school after the baby’s born?”
Aaron and Larx both sucked in a breath, because Olivia had talked frankly the day before about how much she needed her people right now.
“We’ll see,” she said, with a confidence Aaron admired. “Right now there’s colleges in Reno which are closer, and online courses that I can complete without leaving home. I really would rather take things slowly, sir. Taking care of myself, taking care of my people—the degree in biology will come.”
