by Ana Ashley
“Really.”
“Then why have you barreled in here and claimed me like a caveman?”
I heard a rumble in his chest. It was fucking sexy, and I was in two minds about skipping brunch altogether, but then I remembered we’d stripped the bed already and couldn’t have another shower because our bags were in the car.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said in my ear.
A cough brought our attention back to the room, and I glanced at David who had his hair all over the place.
“Guys! We leave you for two minutes!” Jean-Paul said.
“See? I told you, babe, we should have—” Jean-Paul covered Dorian’s mouth with his hand.
“Let’s have breakfast so we can go home, okay?” he said with one last look toward his husband.
28
Max
I was glad I’d taken the train to the Hamptons instead of renting a car because I was now happily sitting in the back of Joel’s rental car with a snoozing Isaac leaning against me.
Isaac had fallen asleep within minutes of us leaving the house and hadn’t stirred for the whole journey. We were only ten minutes from my apartment, so I was going to have to wake him soon, but I was enjoying him against me and how he sighed in his sleep whenever I ran my hands through his soft curls.
I’d never dated a guy with curly hair before but hadn’t expected it to be this soft. Or maybe it was just Isaac’s hair. I wondered what he would have looked like as a child. With his beautiful blue-green eyes and his streaky brown hair, he must have looked like an angel.
“You really wore him out, hey, Max?” Joel teased from the driver seat.
“Shut up.” As far as quips were concerned, this was a poor one, but I couldn’t muster the will to care. Plus, I wasn’t exactly embarrassed to have kept Isaac in the bedroom most of the weekend. We would have plenty of time to go back and explore the Hamptons over the next two months. Maybe spend Thanksgiving at Jojo’s house and see the Christmas lights and the markets.
“Maybe he wouldn’t have crashed like a kid on a sugar low if you fed him more than that raw cookie stuff.”
“Be careful with what you say next, David. our friendship is holding by a thread.”
He laughed. “Come on, that stuff looks pretty gross.”
“I don’t know, baby. I can think of a few things we could do with it,” Joel added.
“Guys!”
“Sweetheart,” David said to Joel, holding his free hand, “I like my baked goods… baked.”
Isaac finally woke up, no doubt because of the cookie-dough-themed argument.
“Hey, baby, sleep well?” I whispered in his ear.
“Hmm, very. How far away are we?”
“Not far, just a few more minutes.”
He kissed me and then looked out of the window. His smile woke all the butterflies in my tummy, and I made a promise to myself that I would take him out exploring the city as soon as he settled in my apartment.
“When do you start work?” I asked.
“In two days. Dorian has a few things he needs to tie up, and then he’ll show me around properly for the next four days until they fly out.” Isaac paused. “Can you believe they’re going all the way to Paris to adopt their daughter?”
“I can’t believe the guy that used to prank me at school is going to be a dad, so yeah, it’s all a bit crazy.”
I put my hand on his chin to make him look at me. “A penny for your thoughts?”
“Nothing much. I need to call Alex when we get home. When are you back at work?”
We were just turning the corner to my apartment, so I didn’t push for more.
“I’m back at the hospital tomorrow afternoon. We’re here,” I said as Joel whooped after finding a good parking spot.
“Guys, how about a drink before we go since we’re parked and all?” Joel asked.
“Yes.” The three of us replied in unison.
We left our bags in the car and went to my local café. Café Amore was run by Tony and Bob who’d been together since they met when they both served in the Vietnam War.
The day I’d got the keys for my apartment, Joel insisted we checked out the local hangouts. We’d walked past the café and saw Tony and Bob sharing a brief kiss. The moment the doorbell dinged announcing our arrival, they were quipping like an old married couple, which they kinda were.
It was the same every time we went in. They’d pretend to not stand each other, but as soon as no one was looking, they couldn’t take their hands off each other. It was really sweet. I had great admiration for everything they’d gone through together, from serving the country to fighting for the right to share their life as a couple.
“Antonio. Roberto,” I said as we walked in.
“Boys! Come in; let me give you a slice of this new pie I created. You gonna love it,” Tony said in his raspy voice.
“Oh stop it, you old fool. They don’t want to eat your nasty ass pie.”
“If it’s that nasty, why did I see you put your finger in it earlier? Huh?”
“Hey, guys.” I waved at them, laughing.
“Oh, there’s a new one,” Bob said, turning to Isaac. “He’s pretty, who does he belong to?”
“Me.” I pulled Isaac to me, placing my arm around him with my hand resting on his waist as he hid his beet-red face in the crook of my neck.
“Four coffees, Bob,” Joel said.
“And four slices of your pie, Tony,” I added.
We sat in a booth and waited for our food.
“So I belong to you, huh?” Isaac said, leaning into me to talk into my ear.
“Oh yeah, baby. Let me get you upstairs and I’ll show you how much.”
His face went red again.
We talked about nothing in particular while we ate but made some loose plans to have dinner together before Joel and David left for Portugal.
I woke up from my nightmare completely drenched. It had been the same dream every night since we came back from the Hamptons two weeks ago. The bedsheets were bunched up around my waist and twisted around my legs.
“Max, baby, are you okay?”
I turned to him and reached out to touch his face. He was still there, but his face was full of worry.
“You were having another nightmare. Do you suffer from nightmares? You didn’t have them before.”
I shook my head and got up to go to the bathroom. Yeah, I had never suffered from nightmares. To be honest, they weren’t really nightmares, just bad dreams. And they were stupid dreams. I knew they were, which is why I didn’t want to talk to Isaac about them.
I turned the shower on and let the water run warm before I stepped in. I had no clue what the time was, but it was still dark outside.
Isaac stepped into the shower after me. He turned me around and pulled me into a kiss. My body reacted immediately.
“You know it’s illegal to have a midnight shower on your own, right?” he said.
“Oh really?” I ran my hands down his chest, and his nipples peaked with my touch.
“Yes, it’s a new law to help conserve water. You need to be up to date with these things, you know?”
“Well, in that case, we’d better make the most of this shower.” I went down on my knees and took Isaac’s hard cock into my mouth. I loved his smell, the taste of his precum, the noises he made when I played with his balls as I sucked his crown.
This moment, when we were together like this, made all the bad, irrational dreams go away.
I turned him around and spread his cheeks to expose his hole. I dove in, licking and sucking like I couldn’t get enough of him. He nearly came when my tongue entered him, but I was too quick and tugged on his balls to keep him from coming too soon.
“Fuck, Max, you’re trying to kill me.”
“No, baby. I’m trying to love you,” I said, pulling a condom from my washbag.
“Can you do it faster?”
I could, and did. As soon as I’d sheathed my cock with a condom,
I grabbed the lube and used my fingers to make him ready for me, thinking I’d been a genius for keeping extra condoms on a shelf right next to the shower.
I was slightly bigger than Isaac, and the last thing I wanted was to hurt him, so I was always very thorough with my preparation.
He always complained I was too thorough, and this time was no different. When I entered him, he moaned with so much pleasure it was almost a sigh of relief. I didn’t quite feel the same way because the tightness and warmth of Isaac’s body always made me feel too close to exploding.
Once I was as far in as I could go, I started moving slowly. My hands went from his hips, slowly up his back, and around his chest. I put one hand on his throat and turned his face to me so I could kiss him.
“So good, Isaac. You feel so damn good.”
“Max, I need to come. Please.”
I was just as close to coming undone, so I latched my mouth on his neck and sucked hard, knowing I’d leave a mark there. At the same time, I tightened my hold on him and attempted to change the angle of my thrusts so I could hit his prostate.
Isaac put one hand on my back to pull me closer into him and the other around my neck. The neighbors were probably going to complain about the noise, but Isaac’s voice was like a balm to my soul.
I didn’t allow myself to come until Isaac had his orgasm. He kept having aftershocks as my cock touched his prostate over and over again, and I kept going so I could drink in the essence of his voice as he called out my name.
Isaac pulled away from me and turned around. His hands cupped my face. I’d hoped the cascading water from the shower had masked my tears.
“Shit, Max. What’s happening?” Concern was etched in his voice and his face.
I couldn’t reply, so I kissed him, and because I didn’t want to worry him, I kept the kisses light and gentle. His hands roamed down my body until they found my still-hard cock. He removed the condom and stroked me until I was the one begging for relief.
We finished the shower after I came, and Isaac made a fuss of drying me with his towel and then took me back to bed. The sheets were clean, so he must have changed them before he joined me in the shower. As if I couldn’t love this man anymore.
We lay facing each other. Isaac took hold of both my hands and brought them to rest against his chest.
“I hope you’ll tell me what’s bothering you, Max. I just want to support you.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, “silly, really.”
“Whatever it is, if it’s giving you nightmares and making you cry when we’re making love, it’s not silly.”
“Is that what we were doing?”
“Max, I love you. I think we established that in Lisbon. To me, what we do goes beyond sex. It’s sex with a million other layers of greatness on top. Love is just one of them. The biggest one, but there are more.”
“You’re an amazing person. I love you so much.”
He traced my face with the tip of his finger.
“I just don’t want to lose you,” I finally confessed.
“What makes you think you’re going to lose me?”
“My dreams. They make me believe you’re going to go away. That you’re not going to like what you see anymore and you’ll go back to Portugal.”
I couldn’t stop the tears flowing freely from my eyes.
Isaac got closer to me and kissed my face. Wherever there was a tear, he licked it clean.
“You’re a bit salty, like the ocean. Have I ever told you how much I love the ocean?” he said gently. “Let’s sleep, baby. We have a day off tomorrow; let’s do something together, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed as my eyes felt heavy with sleep.
He still hadn’t stopped kissing my face, but his kisses had become even more gentle.
“Love you,” I whispered.
“Love you, too, Max.”
I fell asleep again, but this time, my dream was good.
As agreed, we spent the day together. I wasn’t due at the hospital until tomorrow, so I had a whole day and another night with Isaac until my double shift.
I wanted to show Isaac around the city, but we ended up walking around Central Park all day. It was a cold mid-November day, so I’d insisted we go shopping so Isaac had a coat that was more adequate for the New York winter, but he didn’t want to leave the open space of the park for the busy stores.
We took photos of each other and the two of us together and sent some to Alex. He replied immediately telling us to have a good time and that he missed us.
He also said that Sofia was still refusing to call him papa and that Max was loving his new home at Alex and Joana’s house. Apparently, he was now Sofia’s protector and wouldn’t let anyone other than family get close to her. How he knew who was family or not was anyone’s guess.
“Do you miss them?”
“Of course I do.”
“But?”
“I like your butt,” Isaac said, pulling me closer and leaning for a kiss. “I miss them, but I can keep in touch with them. I can video chat and exchange photos. But if I’m there, I can’t be with you, and that is so much more painful to consider.” He reached up to my head to stroke my still-too-short hair.
“Come on, you. Take me home. I need to warm up, and there’s only one way I can think of that will work.”
“At your service.” I followed as he pulled my hand in the wrong direction before he corrected himself.
We stopped at the store to get some ingredients to cook dinner and then went home.
My building was an old fire station that had been converted into residential apartments, so it wasn’t unusual to see a homeless person sitting outside the main front door, hoping to get some shelter from the cold.
I always carried a card with me with my name and the address of a temporary shelter where they could get food and sometimes a bed for the night. It kept the neighbors happy that the homeless didn’t stick around very long once they had somewhere to go.
I spotted the small figure as soon as we turned the corner. Usually, we got older homeless men, but this looked like either a very small person or a very young one.
“Hi there, are you looking for somewhere you can stay the night? Maybe get some food?”
I put my hand in my jacket to get a card out when the person looked up at me.
It was a girl. She couldn’t have been older than fourteen or fifteen, with long dark curly hair that was tied in a ponytail. She had a big bruise on her face that extended to her big brown eyes that were looking at me like a deer in headlights. I felt immediately protective of her and wanted to know who’d done that to her.
“Are you Massimiliano Moretti?”
The air rushed out of my lungs. It had been years since I’d heard that name. I felt Isaac’s presence next to me, anchoring me as though he knew I needed him.
“Who are you?”
“Lucy… Lucia Lopez. I’m your sister.”
29
Isaac
When the girl called Max by what sounded like his full name, all color drained from his face, but her next statement caused him to lose balance. He took a half step back and leaned into me. I was pretty sure he was completely unaware of how hard he was gripping my hand.
“I don’t know who you are, but you have the wrong person. That’s not my name, and I don’t have siblings.” Max pulled me toward the door of the building.
“I can prove it,” Lucy said with determination and then pulled out her phone. When she found what she was looking for, she showed Max the phone.
He shook his head as he looked, but I could tell that whatever it was confirmed what Lucy had said.
It was getting dark, and the temperature had lowered significantly. I wasn’t sure what Lucy wanted, but she looked like she may need help, and I needed to get Max warm since he’d insisted earlier in giving me his coat.
“Why don’t we go upstairs and talk properly?” I squeezed Max’s hand. It felt cold in mine, but I hoped he could still fee
l my silent plea that he probably needed to hear the girl.
“Okay, fine,” he said, unlocking the front door of the building.
I smiled at Lucy and asked her to follow us up. She looked a little unsure but put the phone back in her pocket and came up the steps behind me.
When we got inside the apartment, Max asked Lucy to take a seat on the sofa and dragged me toward our bedroom.
I closed the door behind me so Lucy wouldn’t hear us.
“What the fuck!” he said, fortunately quietly enough that he wouldn’t be heard outside.
“You really don’t know her?” I asked.
“No.” He was pacing the room, running his hands through his hair.
“I thought your name was Max James.”
“It is. Massimiliano Moretti is my birth name. I changed it a while ago.”
“What was it that she showed you on the phone?”
“My birth certificate.”
I stepped in front of Max to stop him from wearing down the carpet and put my arms around him.
“Baby, it sounds like there’s a story there. You can tell me what it is, or not. It doesn’t make a difference to me because I love you no matter what. But that girl out there”—I pointed toward the living room—“looks like she may be in trouble. Hear her out.”
He put a hand around my neck and pulled me in for a kiss that left me breathless, as though he was trying to take some of my strength for himself. I let him take whatever he needed and then followed him back to the living room where Lucy was still sitting in the same place we’d left her.
We sat on the ottoman Max had in front of the sofa, leaving the coffee table between us.
“Do you want something to drink?” I asked. “Or eat?”
She shook her head.
Max cleared his throat, steeling himself. “Who are you really? And how did you get a photo of my birth certificate?”
Lucy brought a hand to her mouth and chewed on her nail. Her whole demeanor had changed as though she’d used all her courage to approach Max and was now afraid to do what she came here for.
