by Ella James
“Ride me,” I manage.
I feel him tighten around the toy, which makes the ribbing on the inside grip my shaft. I’m gonna come soon—fuck. I stretch my legs, lifting my hips to thrust up toward Sky. He grunts as I fill him deep. I can feel his body tremble. One more pump from his hole stretched around me…one more warm slide of the toy over my cock…and the ring tugging my balls…and the plug shifting, and I’m shouting as I blow.
I reach out to touch his back as I do, wanting the connection. As soon as my hand brushes his sweaty, chill-swept skin, I feel my cum filling the sheath, and I feel Sky’s explosion dripping down my balls.
“Ohhhh shit.” It feels like heaven. Like I might black out from system fucking overload.
He makes a hoarse, spent sound as he moves off me. I can feel him panting as he crawls between my legs and starts to take the toy off…and out. He pulls the cock sheath off me, and I groan as the thing comes off, dragging soft silicon over my sensation-shocked cock. He gives it a gentle squeeze, a little “thank you,” and cum drips all over my abs. I moan as he pushes my balls through the ring, and then he’s drawing the plug out. All my junk is wet and cool and sticky—but I’m dirty, and I fucking like it.
When I drag my eyelids open, I find Sky smirking down on me, sitting back on his haunches, like his backside’s not aching.
“Who’s in charge here, Vance Rayne?” he whispers.
“You.” I’m smiling as I shut my eyes, so I’m surprised when Sky drapes himself over me, his heavy body almost too much weight before he props up on an elbow. His mouth closes over mine and he kisses me deep, biting my lip before he moves his toothpaste-scented mouth off mine.
“Nah, I’m not. You’re the one who makes the world turn.” He smiles against my cheek, a fleeting thing, before he sucks at my throat hard enough to leave a hickey. “I still like to toy with you, though.”
He gives my chin a parting nip, and shivers wrack me.
Then he’s off the bed and into the bathroom, taking our toy with him. He comes back a few minutes later with a towel around his waist and a warm, damp wash cloth. When I reach for it, he doesn’t give it to me. His gaze holds mine as he cleans me with care.
“Don’t worry about me, Rayne. I can sleep if you’re beside me.”
He lies on his side and hugs me to his chest, kissing my forehead before draping one arm around me.
“Love you.” He sounds worn out.
“I love you, my Sky.” I squeeze him hard, and I can feel his body slacken. “Go to sleep,” I whisper—and he does—within the minute.
I wait as long as I can before I slide my arm out from behind his neck and reach under my pillow. After another moment to be sure he’s sleeping, I close my lips around the inhaler, compress the top, and fill my lungs.
2
Luke
I wake up in the blue light of dawn feeling heavy. It's the kind of good, sleep-heavy that I’d relish on the yacht. I’d wedge my leg between Rayne's warm ones, wrap an arm around him from behind, rub my morning wood against his flank, and shut my eyes and see what happened first: sleep drags me back under, or my dick won't deflate, so I have to stroke V's hips until his swelling cock wakes him and he rolls over toward me, warm hand trailing down my chest as he goes for my dick.
He’d pump my erection as I wrapped my hand around his, working him even as he still had his eyes shut. We'd get off together, and I'd go back to sleep. That's who I am when I'm with Rayne. I haven’t had trouble sleeping in a long time—not until this past week, and that’s only because I’m going back to Evermore this morning. When I’m with him, I relax. Even if he isn't holding me, I feel him right beside me on the mattress, and it soothes me.
Even today.
My cock is hard, but I don't want to rub against his ass just yet. He's on his right side, facing away from me—which means he’s lying on the side where he had broken ribs. I want to kiss him there right now, but more than that, I want to watch him as he sleeps. He’s so perfect.
I’m thankful every day that I found him. That he found me. That his swine of an ex-fiancé let him go so I could catch him. That my Rayne was a mess and drank himself sick, got himself left on an island. Got so desperate that he swam out to my yacht. Sometimes I think about him gliding through the inky water all alone that night, nobody knowing where he was, and it makes me sick with retrospective worry.
The parts I replay the most from that night are the ones that have nothing to do with my dick. Sitting on the deck, smoking the joint we passed between us.
I can hear him murmur, "You okay, man? It’s all right." I can see his face, the openness and kindness of his beautiful Rayne face. The warmth in his eyes and the quirk of his mouth and the watchful, careful way that he regarded me—a miserable stranger. Then in the bed… I remember I rolled over, facing away from him. Wanting so much to be touched, to feel him pressed against me, but unable to ask. Unable even to invent things to talk about with my tantalizing stranger.
I think about the way he wrapped his arm around me in the bed there. Snuggled up to my back. He just...gave me himself. No strings attached. Like he wasn't everything that's pure and loving, holy. Like he was just something I could take or leave. I couldn't sleep that night—a lot like last night. Every time I shifted, he'd loosen his grip on me. But then he'd reassess and pull me up against his chest again, and sometimes kiss my shoulder.
It felt unbelievable. To be held by a man that way. To be kissed and stroked and, later, when I fled into the shower, to see Rayne’s grin and sexy bedroom eyes. I remember I fell right to my knees and just blew him. Couldn’t even help it. Like a magic spell.
When we were there on the yacht this past time, I confessed that after we met, I did the same thing he did. Came back here to San Francisco, holed up in this very bed, and couldn't get out for almost two days. Replaying everything he said and did. Every breath and groan and grunt. I wanted him so much, I felt like it would kill me.
When I did get out of bed, I broke all my own rules. Found him on Instagram with a fake account I made. Within a month, I found him looking at my stories on the PL account, and I knew he'd found out my identity somehow.
I think about those years now—the time I spent waiting for him. I don't even remember that much. Maybe some part of me knew that I was waiting, but the rest of me was rolling forward in time, into another future. One where I knew I would never be happy. One where I didn’t even have the energy to care.
I can see it all on fast-forward: into the car and down the streets and to the church and up the stairs and to my desk…and down the stairs and to my car and down the streets and back to home and lying in my bed. And putting on a tie, and socks. And back into the car. And underneath the cold sheets, curling up until they warmed. And sleeping in a little ball, hugging a pillow. Stroking my dick.
I had no hope for a real life. And then the cabin.
I’d like to visit there sometime. Get back in that boat with Vance. That boat saved my life, maybe. Because of Rayne and those quiet woods and his kisses, because of his arms around me in the bottom of a cold rowboat, I didn't die.
Couldn't follow through with New Years, though.
Also couldn't handle when he showed up at the church. I smile now—a sad smile. I was so mad at Pearl. Man, I'd never been so mad at her. I found out he was coming three days before he arrived. Couldn’t bring myself to tell Pearl that I knew him personally until the day before he flew in. I gave her a list of stuff I’d seen him eat on Instagram and told her she should put him in my townhouse. But that she should tell no one—including him—that I’d been personally involved, because he and I didn't get along.
And Pearl knew. She told me recently that she could tell just from my face...that it was something.
I prop my cheek in my palm, letting my eyes caress each inch of his skin. Beautiful V. The world's most perfect human. The most kind and gentle, smart and charming man. And he's mine. I'm certain that I don't deserve him. I can hear my mom say, "It’s a fierce love
Mr. Rayne has for you. God’s own sort of selfless love." Always makes my throat knot up.
I want to wrap myself around him right now. I just want to protect him. Why is it that that's the one thing that’s impossible with this life that I have? I do it, even though I hate to wake him: I wrap him up. The curtains glow faint orange, streaks of amber stretching through the shadows toward the bed. Our bed. I brush my lips over his short hair, kiss behind his ear. I thank God—thank you, thank you—for protecting what's under this soft hair and his warm skin. What's under these bones I love more than the world. He could have died. He could have really hurt his head. But it was okay.
It's okay now.
Just some shorter hair. I miss his long hair, but I also love this short hair, showing off more of his strong, squeezable nape. There's a dark freckle—sort of a flat mole—just below his hairline. And his hairline looks good. Got the good hair stylist. Got the better boxer-briefs—the luxury brand I wear because some personal shopper got me hooked on them.
I cup my hand around his tight ass in those briefs. The ones he’s got on right now are maroon. Mr. Rayne in red. What could be better than this gorgeous, warm, sleeping man with his arm stretched out and his cheek pressed to his bicep on the pillow. There are covers over his legs, but I nudge one of my calves between his. He shifts his hips, arching back against me even in his sleep.
I really shouldn't do this—I should let him sleep—but I kiss him where the freckle is.
I love you, I say to him in my head.
I love him, I say to God. Please spare us more pain. Please don't let this hurt him too much. In whatever way it could. And if it doesn't work, if no one wants me at the church, just let us go. Let it be easy on him. I can walk away if I have to. I just want to keep Vance Rayne. For long enough to make him Vance McDowell.
I hug him harder than I should, my arm around him and my palm pressed to his chest. He feels almost feverishly warm, cuddled against me. I swallow, closing my eyes. Thinking of fevers reminds me of getting outed. Which makes me think about the week before. When I sat here and dared God to just…take me. Thanked Him, even, for letting me get so sick, and for Pearl’s last-minute destination wedding.
At first, I had this eerie sense of surreality. But toward the end, I got scared. I was too weak to get up, to get water or to grab my phone. I was shaking so hard.
That's when I wanted V. My chest lit up with pain at thinking I would die without him. How strange—all I want is just to die in his arms.
I didn't want to live. I had tried it, and it hadn't worked. I couldn't do it, and I didn't want to keep on trying. I was tired. But I ached for V. My soul ached. I could feel it crying out, like in the Bible. I didn't understand that language until I met Vance.
I remember praying, "Please." Please. Please. Please just help me. Anything.
Feeling bad and dizzy, feeling like my brain was on a merry go round. That's the last thing I remember.
After that, just little swatches of the car's roof…movement as they carried me in. The next thing I remember is V's face. How he seemed extremely pissed off, for the first time ever. I remember thinking that I'd never seen him look that angry. Turns out a nurse had gotten an IV started, and I guess I didn’t like it. He told me later he was furious at the nurse—as if the woman had a choice.
I would open my eyes, and Rayne would be there, looking tired and unshaven, his eyes radiating love and affection. He would trace my hand with his fingertips, and sometimes he would lean in through the rail and kiss my palm.
I didn't know the details, but I didn't care. Rayne had come to save me. I had been the worst coward, but somehow, he still wanted me. He stroked my eyebrows and he kissed my cheek, and I was loved by him, and it was all I needed.
I remember how I thought he'd left, when Pearl and Arman were driving me home. I was so sleepy, and I couldn't find him. I said something to Pearl like how she better get him back.
And then he was here. In this bed. This is where I found out I'd been outed. I could see it. I could see God's plan, for just a second. Taking something off me that I couldn't lift without help. I wasn’t sure how to do it. Maybe didn't have the courage, either. I never had to come out as a gay megachurch pastor.
I was outed as the love of beautiful Vance Rayne. My Vance—so gorgeous that some people online laughed about it. That someone who looked like a swarthy, sexy pirate would want a square like me.
I kiss his jaw now, warm and rough with stubble, and he turns his head so our mouths can meet. I love kissing him when he's asleep. One open-mouthed kiss, and his probing tongue in my mouth makes me want to be inside him. Or have him in me. I don't know which one I want more.
He turns more fully toward me, lifting his eyelids, and I can tell from his face that he's trying to assess me, to see how I’m doing.
"You okay?"
I can see him in the hospital bed another day he asked that. My chest hurts at that memory.
“I’m okay.”
We kiss again, so hot and deep my cock is throbbing.
Rayne smiles, heavy-lidded. "Someone woke up ready to go." He grins, not breaking eye contact as his hands find my cock and one hand works me while his other wraps around my balls, rolling and then squeezing harder than I expect.
I can't help a sharp moan.
"That right?" Now his eyes are open more. I reach for him, catching his thick tip in my hand, dragging my thumb over the little slit where he leaks when he’s worked up.
I give him a slow stroke. "Like a steel bar," I smile, and he breathes harder as I give him a few more strokes.
“Fuck…I’m ready.”
“Get or be got?” I whisper.
He smirks a little. It becomes a teasing grin. “I want what you want.” His mouth finds mine again, making my heart pound with a few deep, gentle kisses.
He pulls away, stroking my shaft and cupping my balls. "This day is about you, Sky babe. Tell me what you need so I can give it to you."
I shut my eyes, and his mouth sucks at the base of my throat. "I know how to fix you up. Take you away." His voice is low and raspy, making my balls draw up. "Lemme get the lube and I'll be in that in about ten seconds."
Vance
Sky rolls over, giving me a view of his ass, which is looking mighty fine in deep green boxer briefs—this fancy brand he likes, that he's got me wearing because they're so damn comfy.
I'm so hard by the time I get back to him with the lube, I'm throbbing just thinking of wedging my dick between those taut cheeks. The internet has marveled over Luke’s rear end for years. Nice and thic, but all fucking muscle. Like the rest of him.
I got him bulked up again down on the boat. He ate a bunch of pasta, lean protein, and this good vegan sherbet we found at a port, and we both lifted almost every day. We came back stronger, and since we got home, he’s been hitting the home gym like a maniac.
I lube my fingers good and spread him open.
Usually when we do this, whoever's bottoming stays on his back so we can see each other. But I’m betting that right now he's needing to check out. That's why he's face-down with his arm around a pillow. He just wants to forget the day ahead, and I want to help him do that.
I push two fingers in, stroking so deep that chills pop out on his skin, and when I think I've got him lubed, I repeat, making him groan as he lifts his hips off the mattress.
I tug on his big balls, rolling them together in my hand. "Looking good, McD." I stroke his sac lightly, just the way I know will drive him insane, and he grinds his dick into the sheets.
“You’re good,” he groans.
I slick some lube on myself and rub my head against him. I'm so hard. My legs feel weak with wanting in him.
I reach under him and give the base of his cock a squeeze. "Ready for me, baby?"
"Yeah,” he rasps.
I stroke his back, getting ready to push in and make him see stars. Instead, my Sky rolls over. He leans up so he can kiss me, his mouth bruising then gentle. His
hands stroke my nape, and then his fingers cup the back of my head as if to say mine. He rises up so we're both on our knees, breathing hard as we go at each other.
He's working my cock, and my fingers are getting sloppy with his as a hot throb simmers in my dick and balls.
"Can't get enough of this," he murmurs, his cock pushed against my side; I feel the slickness at his tip as I cup my hand around his tip.
"Same here. Ever." I run my fingers down his forearm, touching the bone of his wrist before my fingers tangle with his. "I love you, Luke McDowell."
He smiles, looking sleepy-eyed and satisfied and maybe just a little sad.
"Lie down, husband.” I kiss his jaw. “Let me take you away."
I know he loves it when I call him husband, because his eyes flare and his mouth twitches at the corners. Even if he's sad or upset—the word is like magic.
He stretches out on his back, eyes on me as I pump his cock, trace a finger down a vein. I tease his balls then wrap my arms around his thighs so I can pull him closer. He looks relaxed and lust-drunk as I lift his balls and rub my cockhead where he wants it.
"Love you,” I tell him again.
He shuts his eyes. "Love you more."
His eyes open and hold mine, a soft smile on his lips. I push inside—just the tip of my dick—and he shuts his eyes again and groans as he tightens and then relaxes for me.
“’S okay,” I murmur. He relaxes on a deep breath, and with one thrust, I pump him full. He loves that part. He doesn't have to say it because his body trembles every time I fill him.
This morning, he makes a sound that's part grunt, part groan. His jaw slackens so his lips part, and his chiseled abs contract and expand with his deep breaths.
I had this plan to make him wait, to draw it out and make him squirm before I kissed his prostate with my cock. But he's already groaning. He looks rapt, and almost pained with taking me in.
I push deeper, and he arches up off the bed. "Oh God."
