The Growing Season

by Diana Copland

  “I can endorse that plan. I want you naked, too.” He reached for the hem of Danny’s T-shirt, and then paused. “Okay?”

  Danny lifted his arms over his head and let Sam remove his shirt.

  One of Sam’s hands moved over Danny’s chest, touching him gently. “Look at you.”

  “I’d rather look at you.” Sam undid the cuffs at his wrists, and the shirt slipped to the floor.

  Shoes were kicked away; trousers were opened and dropped in a flurry of motion. But when Danny covered the thick cock straining against Sam’s white cotton briefs with his hand, Sam stilled on a sharply indrawn breath. Danny stroked the hard heat, rubbing his thumb over the tip, and Sam grunted softly. Steady fingers slid beneath the waistband and slowly slipped them down Sam’s lean legs as Danny sank onto his knees.

  “Danny...” Sam’s hand touched his head, his fingers in Danny’s hair. “You don’t have to...”

  “Shut up, Sam.” He looked up the long body. “I want to, okay? I really, really want to.”

  A slight smile curved Sam’s lips. “Never let it be said I kept you from doing something you really, really wanted.”

  Danny’s attention went back to the heavy, thick cock in front of him. It arched toward Sam’s flat belly, and Danny encircled it with his hand, loving the velvety strength against his palm.

  “Very nice.” He stroked up, sliding his thumb over the tip and catching a single drop of pearly liquid. When he brought it to his mouth and sucked, the salty tang burst over his tongue and he hummed. Sam was tall enough Danny was going to have to pull his hard prick down from his belly in order to take him in his mouth, but he was the perfect height to nuzzle Sam’s balls.

  Sam made a guttural noise when Danny pressed his lips to the soft sac, spreading his legs slightly to give him more room. Danny mouthed one ball, then the other, but when he pulled them both into his mouth to suck, Sam’s hand moved into Danny’s hair. He didn’t try to direct him, he didn’t pull, he caressed, and Danny found the feel of his fingers reassuring. When he’d thoroughly sucked Sam’s balls, even licked the skin behind them and inhaled Sam’s scent, he reached for his cock, pulled it toward his mouth, and wrapped his tongue around the head.

  Sam groaned. “Jesus, yes.” Danny looked up through his lashes, and took Sam in as far as he could. It had been a while but he’d always been good at giving head, and he relaxed his throat and didn’t stop until his nose brushed the thick curls at Sam’s base. It didn’t take long before Sam was touching his face and easing back, his cock slipping from Danny’s mouth.

  “I’m getting too close.” Sam put his hands beneath Danny’s arms and lifted him to his feet.

  “I don’t mind if you come in my mouth.” Danny leaned forward and licked, then sucked one of Sam’s small, tight nipples.

  “I mind if I go off before I can at least return the favor.” He bent and kissed Danny, took a quick nibble of his lower lip, then whispered in his ear. “Take off your pants.”

  Danny reached for his fly, his hands trembling, but he wasn’t afraid. He wanted to feel Sam’s mouth on him. He finally got the jeans undone and shoved to his feet, toeing off his shoes so he could kick them away. He lay on the bed in a shaft of moonlight and offered his hand.

  Sam took it, his eyes moving over Danny slowly. “God, you’re so amazing.” He knelt on the bed, leaning forward to kiss Danny gently on the lips.

  Sam’s lips moved slowly down his body, tracing his collarbone, sucking his nipples, his tongue tracing a line from his navel down. By the time he was eye level with his cock, Danny was panting and impatient. He reached down and took his own prick in hand and lightly smacked Sam’s cheek with it.

  “Hello, remember this?”

  Sam chuckled. “In a hurry?”

  “Hey, it’s my turn.”

  “So it is.”

  Sam didn’t waste any more time. He engulfed Danny to the root, sucking hard, and Danny’s toes curled.

  It didn’t take long before his balls begin to throb, and he grabbed the hair on the back of Sam’s head in warning. Sam pulled away, sliding up Danny’s body and kissing him deeply on the lips. He felt Sam’s hardness brush his thigh, and it was the first time since they’d been downstairs that he felt a slight quavering in his belly. He wanted Sam inside him, but the warning tremor made him afraid he might not be ready. Then Sam sucked on his earlobe before whispering in his ear.

  “I want you to fuck me.”

  Danny went still, his eyes wide. He caught Sam’s hair and pulled his head back so he could look into his eyes. “Seriously?”

  Sam smiled. “You don’t want to?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Danny managed. “I just—haven’t been asked that very often.” Never, in fact.

  “Well, Danny. I would like it very much—” he kissed Danny’s chin, “—if you would fuck me.”

  “Okay.”

  Trembling at the thought of being inside Sam, Danny went up onto his knees and reached for the drawer in his bedside table, returning with a bottle of lube and a condom. Sam casually reached for a pillow and slid it beneath his hips, then, unembarrassed, spread his legs.

  Danny dropped the bottle twice before he got it open, but he finally managed to get lube on his fingers. He rubbed them together to warm it and scooted forward between Sam’s legs.

  When he ran his fingers up Sam’s crease, he felt the wrinkled flesh of his opening on the first pass. He’d had this done to him at least a dozen times, but he’d never been the one giving and not receiving, and suddenly he was very much afraid he might do something wrong and somehow hurt Sam. He sat back, taking a deep breath.

  “Too much?”

  He looked up into Sam’s eyes to find him watching calmly.

  “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, Danny. We can just touch each other, blow each other. I don’t care. I don’t want you to be scared...”

  Danny frowned. “I’m not scared.” He huffed. “Okay, that’s a lie. I am scared. But not in the way you think.”

  Sam lifted onto his elbows. “Tell me.”

  Danny took a deep breath. “I’ve never done this before. And I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Sam’s gaze remained steady. “You aren’t going to hurt me.”

  That irritated him. “Okay, so I’m not as big as you are, but listen, Mr. Big Prick, I happen to know if he doesn’t know what he’s doing, even a pencil dick can cause some damage.”

  Sam sputtered, then laughed. “Christ, you’re adorable.”

  “Hey!” Danny didn’t like that much better.

  “I didn’t mean that you wouldn’t hurt me because you’re not big enough. I just had that in my mouth. It’s plenty big, thanks very much.”

  Somewhat mollified, Danny was more ready to listen.

  “I meant that I’ll tell you what I like, so there’s less chance you’ll hurt me. Okay?”

  Danny hesitated, and then nodded.

  Sam lay back, still smiling, and Danny put more lube on his fingers. When he brushed Sam’s opening again, Sam let his legs widen even more and he angled his hips upward.

  “Go slow.”

  “Even I know that part.”

  Danny circled the furled skin a few more times before pushing in with the tip of his index finger, and he felt the tight sphincter muscle. He pressed a bit more firmly and Sam’s body gave. His finger slipped into the clenching heat.

  “Jesus, you’re tight.”

  Sam grunted. “I don’t do this a lot, either.”

  Danny looked up at him. “Then why?”

  “I like it, but guys take one look at me and assume I only top.”

  Distracted when Sam’s channel squeezed tighter and then relaxed, Danny carefully began to move his finger in further.

  Sam didn’t have to offer much instruction. Once Danny started, he fell back on what he liked, and before long he had two fingers slipping inside. He curled his fingers and searched with the tips, and knew the moment he brushed Sam’s prostate
.

  He jerked, gasping. “Fuck!”

  “Jackpot.” Danny grinned and stroked the gland again, and Sam’s back arched.

  “Oh, my God.”

  Danny’s fingers stroked into him, brushing the sensitive spot on each incursion, and Sam was groaning when Danny leaned up to kiss him full on his open mouth, his tongue thrusting in time with his fingers. He added a third finger and twisted, and Sam gave a guttural cry and caught Danny’s hair in a hard grip.

  “Now.” It wasn’t a request. Danny smiled against his mouth.

  “You sure?” He pumped Sam a few more times, intentionally nudging his prostate and Sam’s hips jerked up.

  “Come on, Danny. Please. Jesus, I want you. You want me to fucking beg?”

  Danny didn’t make him beg. He slipped his hand free and donned a condom with trembling hands, added more lube, then positioned the head of his cock at Sam’s opening and thrust.

  Nothing could have prepared him for how it felt. Absolutely nothing. He’d never imagined how tight it would be, how hot. He went slow, remembering it was necessary at first, but the feeling of Sam’s internal muscles clutching made him afraid he wasn’t going to last long enough to get Sam off first. He closed his eyes and concentrated on fending off the inevitable as long as he could. When his groin was finally resting against Sam’s ass, he stopped and took shallow breaths.

  “Danny.” Sam’s voice was soft, and Danny opened his eyes, looking down into his handsome face. His brown eyes were wide, and full, and he looked at Danny with an expression he’d never seen on anyone’s face before. “Kiss me?”

  Danny leaned down, opening his mouth over Sam’s, kissing him deeply. Sam’s arms came around his neck and his legs around his hips, and he broke the kiss to whisper raggedly against Danny’s ear.

  “Now.”

  Danny pulled back and shoved in, and Sam moaned. It was so perfect, so thrilling, Danny wanted to hear it over and over again. He tried to be careful, he tried to go slow, but Sam was having none of it. He pushed up each time Danny thrust down, and babbled, “Harder, faster, Jesus, harder!” and Danny did whatever he asked, addicted to the feeling, addicted to the sound of Sam gasping and grunting and begging beneath him. Skin slapped skin, the bed springs sang, and Danny could only be glad his brothers’ bedrooms were on the other side of the very large floor.

  Finally all of it, the sounds and the tightness of Sam’s body and the pace became too much, and Danny felt his balls pull up tight against his body.

  “Sam, fuck, I’m gonna come, I’m sorry but...”

  “Yeah, okay...I...oh, fuck!”

  Danny rose up onto his elbows, driving in hard, and Sam reached down and roughly stroked himself. It was the fucking hottest thing Danny had ever seen. Sam pulled on his cock once, then again, then his back bowed and he groaned, a long, drawn-out sound as he shot gleaming stripes onto his sweaty, muscular stomach. What had already been tight squeezed down so much it was almost painful, and Danny gasped. He followed Sam over, coming so hard his vision blurred and sound roared in his ears and he quite simply forgot how to breathe. His muscles seized, and then for long moments he was aware of nothing at all.

  He came back to himself collapsed on top of Sam, whose chest was still heaving and whose fingers were running repeatedly through Danny’s damp hair.

  Sam was whispering breathlessly in his ear. “Danny, sweetheart, you okay? Talk to me, babe.”

  “I’m okay.” Danny laid his face on Sam’s neck, his heart pounding behind his ribs. “I’m okay.”

  Sam’s laugh trembled. “You scared me. I thought you’d passed out.”

  Danny snorted, wondering if he hadn’t. “You wish you were that good.”

  Now Sam’s laugh was strong. “Baby, this time it was all about you, and I know you were that good.”

  He stroked his hand down Danny’s sweaty back, and Danny allowed himself a small, smug smile.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Danny woke abruptly the next morning, blinking against the bright sunlight coming in through the windows. He’d forgotten to close the blinds the night before. But then, he’d been preoccupied at the time. Sam was still asleep, pressed against his back; Danny could tell by the slow steadiness of his breathing and the looseness of the arm that lay over Danny’s waist. It felt good, and the morning quiet was soothing. Until his doubts began to rise up once again.

  The sex had been fantastic, better than he’d had any right to expect given the drought that preceded it. But now Danny couldn’t help but wonder what it meant, and what happened next. Sam had come back to this side of the state because of his mother’s illness, but that was over now. He lived in Seattle, his business was there. It only seemed natural that he’d be leaving, and perhaps soon. What if the night before hadn’t meant as much to Sam as it had to him? Danny closed his eyes and pressed his face into his pillow, his chest aching. He didn’t want what they’d shared to be a one-night stand, but did he have a right to expect anything more? He could feel the walls that Sam had so lovingly pulled down trying to reconstruct themselves.

  A door slammed somewhere and men’s voices drifted through the house. He grimaced and pulled away, glancing over at the clock on his dresser. It was eight-thirty. And it was Friday. Will’s guys were back to work, and Jose and Leroy were probably in the driveway leaning against the back of Sam’s truck, just waiting to start in on them the minute they appeared.

  There was a loud thump out in the hall and Sam groaned, rolling to his back. He looked at Danny, his eyes heavy with sleep.

  “What the hell was that?”

  He looked so sleepy and tousled that Danny gave in to the urge to kiss him. What they had might be fleeting, but he wasn’t going to think about it right now. He pushed his doubts down, even though he knew they’d be back later.

  “Will’s guys,” he answered. “And yours are probably waiting down in the driveway. Time to get up, handsome.”

  Sam grimaced. “You said you weren’t a morning person.”

  “And you said you were.” Danny arched a brow. “So who was lying?”

  “Hey, I’m usually a morning person. At least when I haven’t been up half the night...” He stopped and blushed, and Danny grinned.

  He leaned close, taking a quick nip of Sam’s neck. “When you haven’t been up half the night getting fucked through a mattress?”

  “Okay, you earned that gloat.” Sam sat up and grimaced, shifting uncomfortably before throwing his legs over the side of the bed. Danny would never tell him how pleased he was about that. He’d try not to strut.

  Ten minutes later they were showered and dressed and on their way to the door when Sam gently caught Danny’s arm. “Do your brothers know?”

  “About what?” But Danny knew what he was asking, he just didn’t want to. He tried to continue down the stairs, but Sam’s grip tightened. Apparently he wasn’t going to get away with that with Sam, who gave him a patient, level look.

  “Danny.”

  Danny sighed heavily. “No.”

  Sam pulled, and Danny resisted for a moment, then allowed himself to be drawn against Sam’s chest. Sam lowered his head, his mouth near Danny’s. “Baby. You need to share that with them. They’ll never understand you if you don’t, and it isn’t fair to any of you.”

  Danny had never been one for pet names, but Sam calling him “baby” was like having warmth poured over him. He leaned into his strength and rested his head against a hard collarbone. Sam was so tall, so strong, and Danny felt his gentleness surround him. “Okay,” he murmured. “I’ll talk to them.”

  Sam pressed a kiss to his head. “Good.”

  They went down the stairs hand in hand. They passed several of Will’s crew sanding the woodwork, and one of the guys eyed Sam as they walked by. Even the morning after, with his tie thrown over his shoulder and a day’s growth of beard, Sam looked damn fine in his black slacks and gray shirt.

  Danny paused in the door between the lounge and the entry. “Want some break
fast?”

  “I’ll get something at home. I need to go change and then I’ll be back.”

  Will passed them heading up, and gave them a snappy salute. “Morning.”

  Sam nodded at him and reclaimed his jacket. “Is it always like this around here in the morning?”

  “Every day but Sunday.”

  Danny was going to detour through the kitchen to grab a Yoo-hoo and a banana, then head out to work after showing Sam to the door. Sam settled his jacket on his shoulders, and Danny had just lifted his chin to accept a quick kiss goodbye when the doorbell rang. He crossed the entry and opened the door.

  Tag Sommersby was there along with a tall, distinguished-looking man in a gray suit. Danny studied him briefly before turning to the boy.

  The blond teenager looked anxious, and Danny frowned. “Hey, Tag. You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Um, is Cal home?”

  Danny looked between the boy and the man with him and felt a frisson of alarm. “I imagine, but I haven’t seen him yet. If you want to come in, I’ll see if I can find him.”

  “That would be good.”

  Danny opened the door and gestured them in, and Tag paused once they were inside. “I’m sorry, Danny. I should have introduced you. This is my dad. Dad, this is Danny.” Tag blushed. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your last name.”

  “Redmond.” Danny closed the door and offered his hand. “Mr. Sommersby.”

  The man’s hand dwarfed Danny’s but his handshake was polite.

  “Des?” said Sam, who was still standing in the wide doorway to the other room.

  “Sam!” Desmond Sommersby approached Sam with a smile, his hand extended. “I haven’t seen you in years.” The smile tempered slightly. “I was sorry to hear about your mother.”

  Sam acknowledged the sentiment with a subdued nod. “Thanks.”

  Cal and Devon came in through the dining room, and Tag immediately spotted them.

  “Cal, I have to talk to you.” The boy’s voice was shaking.

  Cal frowned, obviously concerned. “What’s the matter, Tag?”

  “I heard something, and then I saw some papers, and I knew you had to know, so my dad and I came over because he knows more about it than I do and he can tell you the details...” He was talking so fast he was almost unintelligible, and Cal put a gentle hand on his arm.