Prodigal

by TA Moore

  He sucked in a shaky breath as Morgan bit his earlobe hard enough to sting and then licked the marked skin. The dull pain of it shot down his jaw and morphed into tingles of pleasure just before it hit his spine.

  “A while?” Morgan guessed. He pushed his hands under the waistband of Boyd’s jeans and gripped his ass, fingers hard as he kneaded the flesh and muscle. Boyd whimpered under his breath as his cock thickened and ached in reaction, a line of hot sensation strung from his balls to his asshole. “This year? Ever?”

  Boyd sucked in a breath warm from Morgan’s body.

  “Don’t be an asshole,” he said.

  “Well, it’s kind of my move,” Morgan drawled.

  It surprised a laugh out of Boyd that he wasn’t entirely sure Morgan deserved. He licked the hollow of Morgan’s collarbone with a long, wet swipe of his tongue and pushed himself back.

  “I’m not a virgin, and it hasn’t been that long.”

  It took him a second to do the math in his head and remember exactly how long. Four months, maybe. After the fire out in the old tenements on the east side of town, when he needed to blow off steam and hooked up with an ex. That was a mess.

  Morgan smirked up at him, mouth wet and red from teeth and the scrape of Boyd’s stubble. “So you just want me that much. Good to know.”

  A small, clear, and very outnumbered voice noted in the back of Boyd’s head that it probably wasn’t so good for him that Morgan knew that. It was a bit late to worry about it, though.

  “You could just shut up,” Boyd suggested, “and get on with it.”

  Morgan raised dark-blond eyebrows in response to the challenge. He leaned in and chewed a kiss into the underside of Boyd’s jaw with teeth and tongue and the tight, wet suction of his mouth. Boyd swore, his voice thin and ragged as he sucked in a breath and Morgan licked up his cheek.

  “I can do that,” Morgan murmured against his ear, close enough that his stubble tickled as he gave Boyd’s ass a quick squeeze. He adjusted his grip, sweatpants tugged down and caught across Boyd’s hips, and picked him up to flip him over onto his back on the couch. Morgan shifted around, one knee under him, and propped himself up over Boyd. “See?”

  Boyd spluttered for a second. He wasn’t used to being manhandled or loomed over. It was probably weird how hot he thought it was, lust slippery and hot as it twisted in the pit of his stomach. He propped himself on his elbows to stretch up and skim a kiss over the corner of Morgan’s mouth.

  “Is that your way of saying you want to go on top?” he asked.

  Morgan pulled back from him. There was something hard and sharp around his mouth and the set of his jaw, but it was gone before Boyd could really identify it. Morgan cupped his face in one hand, palm almost hot, and rubbed the pad of his thumb hard over Boyd’s mouth.

  “Looks like I already am,” he said. “Any objections?”

  Boyd caught the pad of Morgan’s thumb between his teeth and sucked it lewdly. After a second, he let it slip from his mouth.

  “I can roll with it.”

  Morgan’s mouth slanted with a flash of dark humor. He lowered himself down on top of Boyd, the lazy sprawl of his long body heavy. He could feel the nudge of Morgan’s erection against his thigh and his own cock trapped between their bodies. It throbbed with thick, heavy pleasure with every breath Morgan took.

  “Oh, you will.” Morgan dropped the promise and a kiss against Boyd’s mouth. “Later.”

  He reached down and over Boyd’s hip to tug at his sweatpants. The band scraped over Boyd’s cock until the hard length of it slid free. Morgan wrapped his hand around it with a growl of appreciation as he dragged his wet thumb over the head.

  “Fuck,” Boyd groaned as he arched his hips against Morgan. He reached back over his head and hooked his arm around the arm of the couch. The leather was cold as he dug his fingers into it.

  Morgan smiled against his throat as he tugged at Boyd’s cock with quick, rough strokes. He tightened his fingers around it, and Boyd swore and squirmed against the cushions. Sex was like the job. It pinned his attention down into his own skin. The static distractions of the rest of the world fell away, and all that was left was the heavy weight of need in his balls and the champagne fizz of raw nerves under wet skin.

  It was the trade of slick, impatient kisses and Morgan’s skin under Boyd’s mouth. The sound of skin and leather and then Boyd’s hand on the back of Morgan’s neck as he dragged him closer. There was a scar under his jaw, a comma of proud flesh half-hidden under the heavy line of bone and scruff of tawny beard, and divots had been taken out of the knuckles he brushed over Boyd’s cheek. It was oddly gentle for a second, almost tentative.

  “You know, Mac told me to stay away from you,” Morgan said as he slid his hand back to tangle his fingers in Boyd’s short dark hair and cup his palm around the back of his skull. “He was real worried I’d lead you astray. Guess you’ll be wanting to keep this our little secret.”

  He squeezed Boyd’s balls as he asked that—hard enough to make Boyd hiss in protest as he bucked his hips up off the couch, but not hard enough for him to ask Morgan to stop or to miss the way Morgan waited smugly for an answer.

  It sounded like a shakedown, a threat of exposure that could turn into a promise of silence in return for… whatever. Boyd’s spare couch, maybe. It was probably more than what he had in the bank right now. It probably was. Mac had filled Boyd in on Morgan’s record and the shady dealings the cops hadn’t been able to pin on him. A smart man would take Morgan at face value.

  Smart people didn’t have a GED and an extra goddamn couch in their living room, though.

  “You don’t get secrets in small towns,” Boyd said as he gave Morgan a shove. “And Mac doesn’t get a say in what I do. Or who. Move.”

  Morgan moved back without objection. He sat back on his knees, faded denim dragged tight over his groin, and shrugged.

  “Whatever,” he said. “I get it. Big talk, but you don’t want anyone to know the town’s golden boy—”

  Boyd rolled his eyes and sat up. His cock protested the movement, his ass and stomach still tight with the expectation that he was about to come. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of Morgan’s jeans and yanked him up into a clumsy, off-balance kiss. Morgan exhaled in surprise and then hesitated, cautious as he brushed his hands over Boyd’s shoulder and hip.

  “You don’t know me.” Boyd unzipped Morgan’s fly and pushed his jeans down over his lean hips. His cock was hard, flushed with arousal as it pressed flat across his stomach, and his balls were smooth as Boyd slid his hand down to cup them. “So don’t pretend you do.”

  He pushed Morgan back into the couch and knelt down on the floor. Boyd kissed his way down the tight splay of muscle and tanned skin while Morgan sprawled back, arms cocked over the back of the couch and thighs spread. His muscles were tense and his breath ragged, caught behind his tongue as Boyd scraped his teeth over the tight ridges of Morgan’s abs and flicked his tongue into the dip of his navel. The ugly flush of the bruise just under Morgan’s ribs made him pause.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “A dickhead,” Morgan snorted. “It’s fine.”

  Boyd kissed the mark anyhow with a careful, feathered graze of his lips so he didn’t make it worse.

  Kiss it better, flicked through his head. He dismissed it with an internal snort. It wasn’t that sort of sex.

  He abandoned the bruise and followed the sparse trail of dark-blond hair down to Morgan’s groin. Fine skin, a few shades lighter than the rest of Morgan’s body, was pulled taut between his bony hips, and Morgan’s cock seemed bigger at this angle. It wasn’t outrageous, but it was bigger than… previous ones. Not the length so much as the width of it. It was heavy, the ridge of veins obvious through thin skin.

  “You gonna…,” Morgan stammered. “You don’t have to… do that.”

  Some perverse competitive instinct reared up in the back of Boyd’s head as though it were a challenge. He let it.

>   “I told you,” he said as he pressed an openmouthed kiss to the tight base of Morgan’s cock, the pulse of trapped blood against his tongue. “No one tells me what to do.”

  He started to lick his way up Morgan’s cock and then hesitated as his ears caught up with his mouth. That sounded a bit…. Boyd sat back on his heels, arms braced against Morgan’s spread thighs, and squinted up at Morgan’s slightly blurred face.

  “I mean, I want to do it,” he said. “If you want me to stop, that’s different. Obviously. I can—”

  Morgan lifted his hands, palm up, off the back of the cushions. “No,” he said, voice strangled in his throat. “I just…. Go ahead. If you want.”

  “Thanks,” Boyd said sarcastically. “I appreciate that.”

  Morgan snorted and propped his head against his hand, fingers buried in his hair. “Shut up.”

  Boyd rubbed his hands along Morgan’s thighs, across bare skin and just a fuzz of hair up by his balls. He licked along the hard length of his cock and traced the ridge of veins with his tongue from base to head. Morgan sucked in his breath, and the hard lines of his abs were thrown into high relief as Boyd flicked his tongue under the hard ridge before he finally wrapped his lips around the slick head.

  “Fucking hell,” Morgan groaned.

  He tasted of sweat and precome, the taste of salt and pennies sharp in the back of Boyd’s throat. Boyd wrapped one hand around the base of Morgan’s cock and squeezed as he sucked his way down. The thick cock filled his mouth and stretched his lips tight around it, and he pushed his tongue against the firm underside.

  Between his legs, Boyd’s cock ached as it pressed against his stomach. He reached down and grabbed it with his free hand. It was already slick with precome smeared down the length of it by Morgan, and Boyd stroked himself impatiently as he worked his tongue over and around Morgan’s cock.

  He lifted his head and let the cock slide from between his lips. Morgan growled under his breath at the loss of sensation but stayed where he was, sprawled out with arms tucked behind his head. The long muscles in his thighs as Boyd ran his hand along the hard length in slow, twisted strokes. The velvet-fine skin creased under his fingers.

  Once it was slick and shining, he took as much of it as he could into his mouth again until his tongue was pinned flat and he could feel the pressure in the hinges of his jaw.

  He pulled all the way back until only the head was caught behind his lips, and he let it pop lewdly out. The cock stood proud against Morgan’s stomach, a dribble of come smeared over his stomach.

  “You want me to finish?” Boyd asked. “Or do you want to fuck me?”

  Morgan looked down at him and grinned crookedly. “Yeah.”

  Boyd licked the taste of Morgan off his lips. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  He gripped the thick cock again and jerked his hand in short, impatient strokes. Morgan made a desperate sound in his throat and arched his hips up to fuck Boyd’s hand, the rigid control he’d hung on to while he was in Boyd’s mouth lost.

  Boyd leaned in to kiss the head.

  “I like your cock,” he said. His own, neglected as he focused on Morgan, twitched, and he gave it an absent tug.

  Morgan choked out a laugh that flirted with being a groan. “Yeah, well, yours was okay too.” He dragged in a rough breath and set his jaw. The muscles in his thighs clenched, hard as stone, and he grunted a curse. “I’m going to come.”

  Boyd dragged his hand down in one long, smooth stroke and wrapped his lips around Morgan’s cock. It slid deep into his mouth as Morgan thrust up, a thick groan caught in the back of his throat, and his come spilled hot and sticky over the back of Boyd’s tongue. He swallowed twice and cleaned Morgan’s cock with his tongue and lips before he let the half-softened length of it slip out of his mouth.

  “Doesn’t that make you want to gag?” Morgan asked after a minute.

  “No,” Boyd said. He wiped his mouth on the back of his wrist. “If you could make it taste like ice cream, I wouldn’t argue, but it’s okay. If I like you, I’ll like it well enough.”

  Morgan leaned down and cupped one hand around the back of Boyd’s neck, thumb tucked into the hollow behind his ear and fingers buried in his hair. He kissed him, slowly and sweetly as he probed the inside of Boyd’s mouth with his tongue.

  “I guess I taste all right,” he said as he leaned back. He glanced down at Boyd’s hard cock, which was tight and red with frustrated hunger, and bit his lower lip in telegraphed appreciation. “Oh yeah, I was going to fuck you on your nice white sheets, wasn’t I?”

  “They’re black.”

  Amusement flashed through Morgan’s eyes as he reached down and wrapped his hand over Boyd’s. He dragged them both up, fingers twisted together around the almost painfully tight length of his cock. “Kinky.”

  Boyd groaned a ragged surrender to whatever the fuck Morgan wanted to do to him now and leaned into a kiss.

  Someone hammered on the door, a tattoo of knuckles against wood that sounded urgent enough to hook into Boyd’s professional instincts. He pulled back, but Morgan tightened his fingers around his neck.

  “Don’t.”

  “It could be important.”

  “It’s not.” Morgan brushed a kiss over the corner of his mouth. “Trust me.”

  The door rattled in the frame again. Boyd groaned under his breath and reached up to pull Morgan’s fingers away from his neck.

  “I’ve got to check.”

  “Fuck,” Morgan grumbled. He let go of Boyd and slumped sulkily back against the cushions. With one hand he cuffed his soft cock and lazily played with it. “Fine, but don’t take too long.”

  Boyd hesitated, his mouth dry and balls indignant. “A minute,” he promised as he scrambled to his feet. “Just let me see who it is.”

  He tucked his cock back under his sweats and padded barefoot into the hall. Halfway to the door, the question of who it was answered itself.

  “Goddammit, Boyd,” Shay yelled through the closed door. “Answer the door. It’s not even one yet. You can’t be asleep.”

  Fuck.

  Boyd stumbled over his own feet as his brain reset. He licked his lips and swallowed hard, the taste of Morgan still salty and faintly bitter in his throat.

  Fuck. Boyd snorted to himself as he scrubbed his hands over his face and tried to think. This couldn’t get any worse.

  He realized he was wrong as he heard the rattle of keys on the other side of the door. He’d given Shay a spare in case of emergencies.

  “Hold on,” he blurted on. “Let me… get my pants on.”

  Shay snorted as he unlocked the door and let himself in. “What? You got something I haven’t seen before all of a sudden?” he asked as he shoved his keys into his pocket. “What the hell happened in Huntington that you couldn’t tell me over the phone? Was it another wild goose chase? Or….”

  Boyd stared at him for a second. He’d known Shay most of his life. As kids he and Sammy followed the teenager around, even though they’d couldn’t tell if he was the coolest person in town or the biggest jerk. When Shay got married, it was Boyd, all of sixteen at the time, who was his best man in Sammy’s place. Two years later Boyd propped Shay up and poured coffee down his throat before he took him to the courthouse to get divorced.

  It had been years since he actually paid attention to how Shay looked. Now his brain tripped over itself as it tried to pick out any shared features and hold them up against the easily vivid image of Morgan in his head. The hair matched, and both of them were taller than Boyd, but Shay had a rangy build and lean, clean-cut features, as opposed to Morgan’s muscles and heavier bone structure.

  Not that that proved or disproved anything. They’d never looked much alike, their different dads’ imprints stamped on their faces.

  “What?” Shay asked. He rubbed his hand down his face. “I got something on me?”

  “No,” Boyd said. He shoved both hands through his hair and clasped them around the back of his skull. “Di
d Mac call you?”

  Shay scowled. Time had helped Boyd come to some sort of peace with Mac, but Shay had never tried. Boyd didn’t blame him. Mac, back then still Patrol Officer Macintosh, had made Boyd feel responsible for what happened to Sammy. That was bad. But he’d out and out accused Shay of murder.

  “Yeah,” Shay said. “I didn’t answer. He knows if there’s something I need to be told, that you can tell me.”

  Shay waited, jaw set and mouth thin as he braced against the news. Boyd didn’t know what to say. Or he did, but he couldn’t quite get the words out. They were stuck in his throat like brambles and guilt. It had been a hard enough story to tell in the first place, before Boyd made it impossible.

  “I don’t know—” Boyd stammered. “Look, it’s still—”

  Shay rolled his eyes—they were blue, but warmer than Morgan’s near gray—and brushed past him.

  “I drove here from the airport, man,” he said as he headed toward the main room. “I need a drink and a good night’s sleep. Just spit it out and get it over with. It’s not like I’m expecting it to be—”

  “Wait,” Boyd interrupted as he grabbed at Shay’s arm. “I need to tell you—”

  “Good news,” Shay finished over him. He twisted his arm free and gave Boyd an exasperated look over his shoulder. “What the hell is wrong with you tonight?”

  He stepped into the main room, clocked the couch, and flushed pink all the way to his ears. The last thing anyone would call Shay was sheltered. He was a hell-raiser as a teen, took a break for a stint in the army, and returned to take up where he left off—but he still blushed like a Victorian maiden. He turned briskly on his heel and raised one hand to scratch his temple and block out that view of the side of the room.

  “You’ve got company,” he said. “What the hell, Boyd. Do you even know his name?”

  Boyd clenched his jaw on the old argument. He didn’t need a protective big brother or anyone to run his life for him, but he didn’t think it would do any good to claim the high ground tonight.

  “I know his name,” he said through gritted teeth.

  From the other side of the room, Morgan said, “Morgan, if you wanted to know.”