by Cole McCade
He was going to break. There was no stopping it, no holding back, and he tangled up another fistful of Wally’s hair, struggling to say something, anything, but all that would come out were those helpless sounds that ripped right from the pit of his taut-locked stomach to rise up to his lips.
But Wally stopped. Wally stopped, lifting his head, freeing Joseph’s cock in one last gliding, luxuriant stroke of flesh on flesh, pulling him back from the edge and holding him there by the barest thread as those fingers continued to play him, working in rushing rhythm, every push and pull tugging on the strings of his body until he rocked into each touch helplessly, looking up at Wally while the other man watched him with something dark and consuming that Joseph had never seen before burning in those black-devil eyes.
“Are you with me?” Wally whispered, and twisted his fingers to stroke just right; pleasure washed Joseph’s vision white, and he choked out a snarl. “Are you with me, Joseph?”
“Yes—yes, Walford, yes…” He struggled to breathe, need locking him in shackles that bound his will, his mind, his body to the whim of deep-piercing pleasure. “Fuck…fuck!”
“Shh,” Wally soothed again—then slipped his fingers from Joseph’s body.
He hadn’t known he wanted this so much until it was gone, leaving him empty, aching, a sore delicious throb inside wanting more. Every second that Wally took to unzip his slacks and slick his cock with lube was a second too long, every passing breath building between them in locked eyes and the hiss between Wally’s teeth as he gripped himself and sheened his full, thick length in glistening oil. Then he nudged Joseph’s thighs apart with spread knees, fit himself between his legs, and Joseph trembled as those gentle, loving hands slipped beneath his hips, lifted him just so, held him bare as hot, thick flesh pressed against him, hard and burning and making him suck in his breath with anticipation, fear, he didn’t know, but the promise in that sensitive tremor of sensation tore him up inside.
Don’t, he started to say, when Wally hesitated, gaze flicking over his face, searching. Don’t make me wait…
But he didn’t need to say a word. Wally moved as if he heard him—as if he knew him, inside and out. Slim hips pressed forward. A firestar of pain split Joseph open, and he grit his teeth, fighting not to move, to flinch, to twist away when he wanted this. He knew pain. He knew pain that was unforgiving, that was hateful, that was unfeeling and cruel and mindless—but this was pain that he had chosen, pain that came with pleasure and desire and the sudden calming pressure of a sweetly intimate kiss. Wally claimed his mouth, teased his lips apart, delved into him with licking caresses and broken groans, their voices mingling as their mouths crushed together, and for every inch of pain that surged deeper and deeper into Joseph, Wally kissed him just as deeply until he opened, surrendered, went lax and let the tide take him as Wally began to move.
Joseph had never in his life given himself to someone this way. He’d never known what it was like to give himself to anyone this way, when he’d learned so quickly that offering himself with both hands would only leave his heart used, bruised, and tossed aside. And yet here, now…everything he gave, Wally took so tenderly, so softly: filling him in lingering, savoring strokes that bloomed into gasping bursts of sensation each time he sank deep and full; touching him as if he were made of glass and beauty; giving back tenfold with a warmth and reverence that made him feel sainted and honeyed and utterly possessed. Sheltered. Cherished.
Loved, in a way unlike any other.
Once more, Wally’s fingers laced with his, hands pressed palm to palm and pinned to the bed, holding Joseph down, enveloping him in the overwhelming pressure of Wally’s body. Once more Wally kissed him, the flick of his tongue penetrating as deep and intimate as the flared, stroking head of his cock, moving in rhythm with the flow of their bodies, the friction that trapped Joseph’s cock between them and taunted him with the glide of sleek sinew and the rough fabric of Wally’s shirt. Once more and again, and again, and again Wally thrust into him with a depth and slowness that gave Joseph no choice but to live each moment of searing, heart-rending sensation as if it were the only moment he had, the only moment there ever would be.
And once more and again, and again, and again, Joseph cried out Wally’s name, their voices mixing in gasps and whispers and groans caught between their lips, casting a spell that bound them one to one and lifted them together into something that threatened to destroy Joseph, heart and soul.
When he broke—when he broke, shattered and shattering, cracking and crumbling and bursting apart—he spread himself wide, straining upward, lifting himself into Wally, begging wordlessly for everything. Everything Wally had to give; everything Wally was, everything Wally could ever be. He didn’t care if he was Walford Gallifrey, Walford Wilson, Walford the Ringmaster, Walford the strange, delightful, hauntingly beautiful man who shadowed his life and filled his dreams.
All he cared was that the man who arched above him, who tossed his head back in a tumble of silver and black, who cried out Joseph’s name as he shuddered and rocked his hips and filled him with the sensation of wet, spilling warmth…
All he cared was that he was everything.
* * *
JOSEPH DIDN’T KNOW HOW IT had gotten to be so late, as he languished in bed with Wally. The afternoon light had turned that strange deep shade that came right before sunset, as if someone had punctured the sky and its pink blood melted through the sunlight like ink through water. In that light Walford glowed, breathless and sweat-slicked and sprawled against the bed with one arm draped over his head, languishing while Joseph traced the lines of his body: outlining the ridge of one pectoral, following the dip below his sternum, slipping up into the blend of the trapezius muscle and then down to find the faint arc of lithe sinew framing his abdomen. Wally sucked in a laughing breath.
“Hold still.” Joseph chuckled.
“I can’t. That bloody well tickles. What are you doing?”
“Mm, not sure.” He tapped his fingertips along the sleek slope of Wally’s waist. “Think I’m trying to figure out if you’re art or architecture. Maybe I’ll pull a Da Vinci and say they’re one and the same.”
“Maybe you’ll stop trying to make me blush, and come here.” Wally slipped his arms around Joseph’s neck and tugged. “Down. You’re too far away.”
With a laugh, Joseph let himself sink against him, winding them together until they fit in a comfortable tangle. “You never let me have any fun.”
“Not when it involves tickling me, I most certainly do not.” Wally nosed at him. “But are you all right after that, darling dear?”
“Very. I seem to be having a lot of firsts with you; I’ve never done anything like that before.” He winced as the slightest shift twinged pain up inside him, a sort of deep, stretching pull that he wanted to savor even if, hovering in the background, was that throbbing, tingling soreness that warned him that even letting Wally turn the tables, he’d still pushed himself. “Though I might need to rethink how rough I’ve been with you.”
“Don’t you dare.”
Joseph grinned, a little curl of pleasure settling in the pit of his stomach. “You like it?”
“Don’t make me say something obscene, Joseph Benedict Armitage.”
“I didn’t even know you knew my middle name, Walford Caesar Gallifrey.”
“Esquire,” Wally emphasized, and Joseph burst into laughter.
“Yes, your lordship.”
“Mm.” Wally turned his head to look at him with a small, bemused smile. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh so much as you have lately.”
“It’s something that happens when you’re happy.”
“So you no longer think you’re not allowed to be?”
“No.” Joseph leaned in and kissed the peak of Wally’s chin. “I’m happy now. The MS doesn’t get to decide if I accept the joys that come into my life. No one and nothing gets to decide that but me.”
“Good,” Wally said, and snuggled
into him with a contented purr.
Joseph let himself settle and relaxed into the deep pre-twilight languor, watching how the light fell through the room and turned the air into liquid, a sea of translucent gold. He’d started to drift off, lulled by Wally’s body heat, when his phone vibrated from the pile of clothing on the floor. He groaned, burying his face in Wally’s chest.
“If it’s Miriam again, I’m breaking the phone and changing my number.”
He felt more than saw as Wally stretched to lean over the side of the bed, shoulder jostling Joseph as he rummaged around, then sank back. “No…it’s a New Orleans number. No name on the caller ID. It’s not Miriam unless she’s run away again.”
“I don’t know anyone in New Orleans.” Joseph cracked one eye open, then rolled over to prop himself up on one elbow and held his hand out for his phone. “Give.”
Wally handed the phone over, and Joseph eyed the number, then swiped the call and lifted the iPhone to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Dad,” Willow said.
Joseph shot up in bed so hard elbows and knees went knocking everywhere, and Wally let out a grunt but Joseph hardly noticed, his heart a slamming fist. Her voice was the same—the same as he’d heard it every day, every night, that Hi Dad, and he’d thought it was his voicemail again but he heard her breathing, she was real, she was there… “Willow?”
Wally jerked, shoving himself upright. “What? Willow? Is it really?”
Willow laughed, and Joseph clutched his burning, pain-locked chest. “I can hear Uncle Wally,” she said. “Yes, it’s really me.”
“Willow—Willow, baby girl, oh God, I’ve been so worried—”
“I know. I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Where are you?”
“I…I can’t tell you that.”
“Why?” He clenched his fist, his hand tight on the phone, the edges digging into his palms and he didn’t give two fucks for the pain. “Is that man keeping you? Is he forcing you not to tell me?”
“He’s not forcing me.” Willow sighed. “I’m wanted by the police. You know that. I have to…I can’t…I just can’t. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even be calling you, but I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand missing you, and leaving you wondering if I’m okay.”
He closed his eyes. Fuck. Fuck. He wanted to—he didn’t know. Weep with sheer relief, joy. Find her. Tear her away from that Vincent Manion man, protect her. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t and she wouldn’t let him, and that was the hardest part, knowing that if she wanted his help she’d tell him and she’d chosen not to because it was her life and she’d asked him to let go.
Wally’s hand fell to rest against his back, supportive, steady. Joseph took a calming breath and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Just…tell me, sweetheart. Did you really do what the police said you did?”
“Yes,” she answered, simply and matter-of-factly.
“Why? Why would you do that?”
That wasn’t his daughter. Wasn’t his little girl. Even if he remembered his little girl sitting in the police station, bloody and wide-eyed and nearly catatonic after she’d been pulled off that Erin girl at the bus stop, and he’d held her and soothed her and taken her home and wiped the blood away while she’d rocked and shivered and whispered red, red.
Had he really been seeing Willow, all this time?
Or had he missed something inside her that he wasn’t capable of understanding?
“I had to,” Willow said. “I had to make a choice.”
“I don’t understand.”
“And I…I don’t know how to make you understand. Just…” She blew out, crackling against the phone. “I’m not a good person, Daddy. I’ve tried to make good choices, but I’ve always had these thoughts, I’ve always buried all these feelings until they come erupting out when I can’t hold them in anymore and I hurt someone, and I should have been sorry but I wasn’t—”
“That doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you human. Would a bad person have done everything you’ve done for me over the years?”
“Yes.” Her voice hitched. “Because I’m completely selfish. I did those things so I could stay with you, because I love you. I did that for my love. My selfish love. Even bad people can love someone. Sometimes good people make all the wrong choices, and bad things happen. Sometimes bad people make all the right choices and good things happen, but they’re still…I’m still…”
“No. I refuse to believe that. Who put all this in your head? Is it that Vincent guy?”
“No one put this in my head!” Her words rose, cracked, lowered on a shuddering breath. “I killed that police officer to save Vin’s life. I made a choice instead of hesitating and refusing to move one way or the other. And when I did, for the first time I saw myself clearly when I’ve been in denial for so long.”
The hand against Joseph’s back, Wally’s attentive, silent warmth, were the only things holding him up right now. “Willow…”
She laughed, weary and pained. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to go on a serial killing spree or start setting fires or punching old ladies. I just…need to know myself, Dad. I need to figure out who I am when there are no expectations of me except the ones I put on myself. I feel like I never have.”
“Is that my fault?”
“No,” she said, and he heard the smile in her voice. “It’s just how life went.”
He couldn’t accept that. He couldn’t let this end this way.
But it wasn’t his choice.
It had never been his choice.
“Let me speak to him,” he said.
“Dad…”
“Let me speak to the man who took my daughter away.”
She said nothing. But then came the sounds of the phone moving, shifting, a veiled murmur before a new voice came over the line: deep, silky, strangely accented, the voice of the kind of man any father would warn his daughter against.
“I am here,” the man Wally had called Vincent Manion said—and Joseph snapped.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” he barked. “What gave you the right—”
“She did,” Vincent interrupted smoothly. “I gave her a choice, and she chose. I am sorry, Joseph Armitage. Would that this could be a normal world, a normal life, in which I would come to you and ask you for your daughter’s hand, and toast you over the dinner table, and bring you fat, laughing grandchildren to dandle on your knee. But this is not that world.”
Joseph hung his head, scrubbing a hand over his face. Wally slipped his arms around his shoulders, leaning into him, and Joseph leaned back; he couldn’t imagine what he might do if he was dealing with this alone, but he’d probably already be out the door and on his way to book a flight to New Orleans to hunt his daughter down. Even now he wanted to snarl, to shout, to demand, to threaten, to cajole, but it wouldn’t do anything.
He’d been trying to let Willow go for so long, but he’d never thought it would be like this.
He swallowed thickly. “Promise me you’ll keep her safe.”
“We keep each other safe,” Vincent murmured. “We are among friends. Our life is not one of hardship, or sorrow.”
“Is it true? Are you really a murderer? Is she?”
Silence: measured, thoughtful, and he wondered what lie this Vincent Manion would craft, what velvety manipulation in pretty words. But all he said, when he spoke, were two words, quiet and honest and plain:
“Not anymore.”
“You can’t expect me to accept this. To be happy with it.”
“I cannot give you any other choice, if you wish Willow to remain a free woman. To have her own life, rather than one behind bars. It is what it is.” Vincent sighed. “Is Walford Gallifrey with you?”
Joseph opened his eyes, turning his head, meeting Wally’s wide, worried black gaze. “Yeah. Wally’s here.”
“May I speak with him for a moment?”
No, Joseph wanted to snarl, as if V
incent might somehow reach through the phone and take Wally away, too. His emotions sharpened to a razor’s edge, ready to cut, and if he spoke to this man any longer one or both of them would bleed. He worked his jaw.
“Sure. Fine.” He pulled the phone from his ear without waiting for Vincent to respond, and thrust it at Wally. “The kidnapping asshole wants to talk to you.”
* * *
WALLY TOOK THE PHONE IN numb fingers. He wasn’t ready for this. For any of this. For Willow’s voice to come into their lives like a shade; for the way Joseph trembled and leaned so very hard into him; for his past to whisper down the dark tunnels of his life and find its way into his ear. He swallowed and lifted the phone to his ear.
“Vincent?”
“Walford.” Deep, rumbling, familiar. “Did we ever expect life would take this path?”
“Never.” Wally felt quite the traitor, that it brought him a spark of joy to know Vincent was alive, well, with Willow, when Joseph was so very distraught. “It’s good to hear your voice.”
“And yours. Yet after everything…it is my fault that another person has left you.”
“No. No, it’s not.” Wally pressed close against Joseph, both offering and giving comfort, and smiled even though his eyes prickled. “I needed to stop…hanging my every hope and heart and dream on people who were always meant to walk different paths. You found your elsewheres and elsewhens…I needed to find my own.”
“I still owe you a debt.”
“Simply be happy,” he pleaded. “Make her happy. That’s all I ask of you, dearest boy.”
Vincent paused, a laden and pregnant silence, then said, “She would like to speak with you.”
“All right, Vincent. All right.” He listened as they passed the phone; there was something in the way Willow and Vin spoke to each other, something familiar and intimate, that eased the last of Wally’s doubts even if he couldn’t understand what they’d said. The next breath that sighed through the phone wasn’t Vincent’s, and Wally perked. “Willow?”
