Prodigal

by TA Moore

  Ten minutes in a lushly appointed office, his ass in a designer chair and a cup of coffee fresh from the secretary to drink, was not going to break him.

  “Sorry about that,” Nathan said as he jabbed his finger down on the mouse button. He swung the chair around to face Morgan and smiled at him. “I have a lot going on at the moment.”

  Morgan glanced around the office. There were blueprints rolled out on top of the coffee table in the corner of the room, its corners held down by awards, and a stack of neatly squared-off billboard posters leaned against the wall in the corner.

  “I can see that,” he said. “You’re a busy man.”

  Nathan leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands over his stomach. He hooked his thumbs over the belt buckle as he nodded.

  “Cutter’s Gap was never the scope of my ambition,” he said. “I’m getting ready to run for the Supreme Court of Appeals. Funny enough, if your trial back in Huntington doesn’t go well, you might end up in front of me again.”

  He laughed as though it were a joke. Morgan didn’t bother. He didn’t need Fernfield to like him. The less he liked Morgan, the better. Maybe he’d pitch in an extra 20 percent to get rid of him faster.

  “Don’t plan on it,” Morgan said. “You wanted me out of town. How much?”

  Nathan tapped his thumbs against his buckle and ran his tongue over his thin lower lip as he stared at Morgan. After a second he pursed his mouth and pulled open the drawer in his desk. He pulled out a silver flask instead of a checkbook and held it up.

  “Do you want a shot?” he asked as he leaned forward to splash some in his coffee. Morgan shook his head and watched as Nathan sat back and took a drink. “My grandfather was a waster and a bully, never held down a job for longer than it took him to get his hands in the till. My father had a bad heart, never did anything with his life but whine for my mother to solve his problems for him. I changed that. Now a Fernfield is going to be a justice on the Supreme Court of West Virginia. My son is going to open a luxury hotel where the Mill used to be, bring work and money back into this town. When people talk about Cutter’s Gap in a decade, I want them to say, ‘Isn’t that where the Fernfields started?’ Not ‘Isn’t that where that boy was murdered?’ I don’t really care about you—no offense—I just want the Calloway case to go away. We all did our part, more than our part, to find poor little Sammy, but I don’t intend to give up my future for some kid that never really, if we’re going to be honest, had one.”

  He smiled all the way up to his eyes at Morgan. “So name your price.”

  “Forty grand,” Morgan said. He grinned briefly when Nathan choked on his coffee. “It would have been twenty, but you convinced me you had more to lose than that.”

  Nathan wiped his mouth. “Nice try,” he said. “Except I’m not paying for you to leave town, Mr. Graves. I can make that happen. One call to Huntington, and they’ll revoke your bail, drag you back in, and stick you in jail until it’s time for your trial. The money is for you to leave quietly before more shit gets flung over my town. A train that may have already left the station after your… display… with Boyd Maccabee when Calloway’s garage burned down.”

  There was something about the way Nathan sneered when he talked about Boyd that made Morgan want to forget the money and just lay him out. It was, he reminded himself, the sort of impulse that had gotten him in this mess.

  “So?” he said. “What’s your offer?”

  “My only offer,” Nathan said and pulled his checkbook out. He scrawled the amount on it, signed it, and pushed it across the table. The checks had his face on them under a campaign hashtag. “Take it or leave it.”

  Morgan took it. He just wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it. Not yet.

  IT WAS 4:00 a.m. when Boyd crawled into bed. So now it was three days. He smelled of smoke and sweat, and he yawned against Morgan’s neck as he pressed up against him. His cock nudged against Morgan’s ass, still soft but definitely there.

  “Why is there a check for ten grand on the fridge?” Boyd asked as he draped his arm over Morgan’s hip. His hand grazed over Morgan’s stomach, casually intimate. It would have been less hot if he’d just grabbed Morgan’s cock.

  Or maybe not, Morgan supposed as he let that idea flicker through his brain and his cock twitched against the sheets.

  “Does it matter?” Morgan asked. “I told you you’d get your money back. Now you do. Some of it anyhow. Who cares how I got it?”

  Boyd didn’t say anything for a moment. His breath was warm against the back of Morgan’s neck as he exhaled. Morgan clenched his jaw against the urge to reach back and shove his head away.

  “Okay,” Boyd said.

  It was twisted how much it pissed Morgan off when Boyd did what he wanted. He didn’t want to talk about the money, and Boyd didn’t want to talk about the money. It was the definition of a win.

  “Maybe I fucked someone for it,” he said into the dark.

  Boyd snorted. “It’s ten grand. That’s not the going rate.”

  “How would you know? I thought firefighters got ass for free?”

  He felt Boyd shrug behind him, a shift of his weight on the bed. “It’s surprising, or not, how many sex workers lock themselves in hotel bathrooms,” he said. “So you’re going?”

  Morgan pulled Boyd’s hand down to his cock and wrapped his long, callused fingers around the shaft. “One last fuck for the road,” he said. “To remember me by.”

  The dull ache in his chest, a mix of self-pity and irritation, faded as Boyd worked his hand along his cock. He swore, low and thick in his throat, and Boyd dragged his thumb roughly over the slick head. Pleasure pulsed between his legs, his balls tender and his stomach tight as his cock hardened. It slid, thick and come slick, through the tight channel of Boyd’s fist.

  “So what?” Boyd asked as he kissed Morgan’s throat. His cock rubbed against Morgan’s ass as he moved closer, and his lean, muscled body pressed against Morgan from shoulder to thigh. “You’re just going to forget about me?”

  Morgan reached back. He scruffed Boyd’s neck with a rough hand and twisted his head to kiss him.

  “I’m going to try,” he said.

  Boyd snorted. It was too dim in the bedroom to make out anything but the vague lines of his face, his jaw, and his temple, but Morgan could feel Boyd’s smile under his mouth. “I thought we talked about you being an asshole.”

  That wasn’t why Morgan said it. If he remembered this, the taste of Boyd’s sweat and his hand on Morgan’s cock, he wouldn’t get very far out of town.

  “You don’t think I mean it,” Morgan said.

  Boyd rolled his eyes at him and shifted position, weight propped on his elbow and his cock pushed between Morgan’s thighs. It rubbed against him with each stroke of Boyd’s fist down his cock, the head hard and wet as it rubbed over Morgan’s taint from ass to balls.

  Lust pulled tight in his stomach, a hard knot of it that dragged at his stomach and thighs. Boyd moaned against his shoulder and hooked a leg over Morgan’s. He thrust against him, cock squeezed tight between Morgan’s thighs, and twisted his hand around the base of Morgan’s cock at the same time. Again. It slid easier this time as sweat and come mixed under his fingers.

  Morgan reached back and grabbed Boyd’s ass, and the ripe curve of muscle clenched as he dug his fingers into it.

  Damp from their bodies, the sheets tangled under them and caught around their legs. Boyd kissed his shoulders and throat as he rode Morgan’s ass.

  He slid his fingers away from Morgan’s cock to grab his hip. He mumbled something against Morgan’s throat, his mouth soft and tongue wet as he spoke, but Morgan didn’t catch it. He pressed his thighs together and made Boyd whimper instead with a ragged gasp Boyd stifled against his shoulder. The curve of muscle under Morgan’s fingers twitched hard.

  Yeah, that was enough.

  Morgan pulled away from Boyd and stretched over the edge of the bed. He closed his eyes and flicked on the lights.


  “Son of a bitch,” Boyd swore as he recoiled back into the bed. He sprawled out on his back, cock wet and slick as it lay on his belly, with his arm slung over his eyes to protect them from the glare. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Nothing that Morgan wanted Boyd to know about. He grabbed a condom and lube from the bedside drawer and crawled back over the bed to straddle Boyd. This was definitely better, he thought smugly as he admired the view.

  “Do you want to fuck me?” he asked.

  Boyd lifted his elbow to peer out from under it. “Sure,” he said. “If you want. I’ll do anything you want me to.”

  Morgan made a sour face. “You shouldn’t make those sorts of promises,” he said.

  “It’s not a contract,” Boyd pointed out with a grin, the careless sort that made him look like a goofball. Sometimes Boyd was so normal that Morgan didn’t know how to deal with it, although he knew Boyd was fucked-up in his own way. Boyd ran his hand along Morgan’s thighs, traced the tight muscles with his fingers. “And I trust you.”

  There it was. Morgan wished he could ignore it, but he couldn’t.

  “Why?” he asked.

  Boyd squinted at him for a second and then propped himself up on his elbows. He was all hard muscle and long bones, but he hadn’t worked as hard on the look of it as Morgan had. There was a crease of soft skin over his stomach as he half sat up, and it made Morgan want to shove him back down into the mattress.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “Halfway,” Morgan said, just to remind himself it still stung.

  Boyd screwed up his nose at him. “Since when do I do anything halfway?” he asked. “And you care about me. What other reason to do I need to trust you?”

  He shrugged and grinned like the naked idiot he was. Morgan sighed and leaned in to kiss him, one hand cupped around Boyd’s jaw.

  “You’re so fucking gullible,” he muttered as he lifted his head slightly, just enough that he could still steal kisses between words. “You’re lucky that I love you.”

  Boyd braced a hand against his chest to push him back. “Yeah?” he asked uncertainly as he searched Morgan’s face. “I mean—”

  “I love you,” Morgan repeated. The words felt like stones in his throat, they were so unwilling to come out. He’d never said it to anyone before, not really. I love your cock and I love it when you do that didn’t count, even if they placated the dumber men he’d fucked. The sound of it, out loud and from his mouth, made him want to crawl off the bed and go find something to punch. But it was true, and when would he get the chance to say it again? “But I don’t think it changes anything.”

  Boyd stared at him for a second and then smiled slowly. “It did,” he said as he pulled Morgan down onto the bed. “You did.”

  It was all eager hands and impatience. Fine, dark body hair matted under Morgan’s mouth as he sucked on light-brown nipples, hard under the scrape of his teeth and flick of his tongue, and ran his hand up Boyd’s thigh. Boyd grabbed Morgan’s ass and pulled him closer. Their cocks pressed together between their sticky stomachs as they ground against each other.

  Morgan dragged himself away long enough to pull on the condom and slick his cock with lube. He flipped Boyd over onto his stomach and ran his slippery hands up the backs of his thighs to the firm curve of his backside. Boyd rubbed his cock against the tangled sheets as Morgan worked lube into his ass with thumb and fingers. He groaned halfheartedly when Morgan pulled him up onto his knees, but he didn’t argue either. Instead he braced his elbows on the bed, back hollowed out in a long, clean curve of muscle and smooth skin.

  “Your next boyfriend?” Morgan said as he wrapped his hand around Boyd’s hip. He rubbed his thumb along the slippery crease of Boyd’s ass and to the small of his back. “When you fuck him, remember this.”

  Morgan pressed his sheathed cock against Boyd’s lube-slick asshole as Boyd spluttered a startled laugh that turned into a gasp as he stretched to accommodate the width of Morgan’s cock He was tight and hot as Morgan worked his way into him with slow, steady thrusts. The long muscles in Boyd’s back tightened, and he flexed his fingers in the rumpled sheets as he pushed back into Morgan.

  “God,” Boyd gasped. He shifted his knees on the bed and braced one hand in front of him on the headboard. He curled his fingers into the carved gaps in the wood. Five days in Boyd’s bed, and Morgan was already going to miss that headboard. It wasn’t the only thing, but it was the one that didn’t make him ache. “Why do I love you again?”

  Morgan buried himself inside Boyd with one hard stroke that jarred Boyd forward against the bed. Pleasure squeezed back down his cock and into his balls, a hot weight that pulled at his stomach and spread heat down his thighs.

  “You make bad choices,” he said as Boyd gasped and trembled under him.

  Boyd glanced back over his shoulder, and a smile hitched the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know,” he said raggedly. “Seems pretty good right now.”

  He pushed his hips back to meet Morgan’s thrusts so that Morgan’s cock was buried deeper inside him. Morgan swore under his breath and chewed the inside of his lip as he hung on to control. He wanted to fuck Boyd into the mattress, rough and thorough, but he wanted it to last all night too.

  For what was left of the night.

  Morgan stretched himself over Boyd’s back. He licked a kiss over the back of Boyd’s neck, along the bony jut of the spine under his skin. He hooked one arm over Boyd’s shoulder, his hand anchored against the shelf of bone and muscle and reached down to wrap his other hand around Boyd’s cock. It twitched eagerly as Morgan squeezed his fingers around the base and then stroked up to the tip.

  “God,” Boyd gasped as he went still, caught between the hand on his cock and the cock in his ass. He dropped his head down between his shoulders, dark hair matted with sweat, and he trembled as Morgan fucked him. “That’s…. Morgan, I can’t—”

  Morgan ignored the halfhearted plea for… something… and tightened his grip. He rubbed his thumb along the heavy vein that traced the underside of Boyd’s cock and felt the pulse of orgasm before the come splattered over his fingers.

  Morgan smeared the sticky spill of it back along Boyd’s cock and down over his balls, his fingers rough as he milked the last drop of pleasure out of him. It was his. He wasn’t going to leave it for someone else to use. Although—as Boyd shuddered and begged under him—he knew that didn’t make a lot of sense. It didn’t matter.

  The brace of Boyd’s arm finally gave way, and he collapsed, boneless and sated, onto the mess they’d made of the bed. Morgan, still buried inside him, went down with him. He pressed his face against Boyd’s neck for a second, breathed him in now that sweat had outpaced the smoke on his skin. After a moment he rolled over onto the pillows and reached down to strip off his condom. He tossed it and then curled his hand around the base of his cock, the pulse of blood hard against his fingers.

  He didn’t ask, but he did wait for Boyd to crawl down the bed and pull Morgan’s hand away from his cock. He laced his long fingers through Morgan’s, work callused and Band-Aids still patched over the palms, as Morgan spread his thighs to make room for Boyd’s shoulders.

  The old, itchy discomfort was still there, under his shoulder blades and behind his knees, but he liked to watch Boyd—the breadth of his shoulders and the way his muscles moved under his skin as he curled his arm under Morgan’s ass, his scrape of dark stubble against Morgan’s thighs and the underside of his cock as Boyd tongued wet, openmouthed kisses from balls to head.

  Muscles twitched down the back of Morgan’s thighs in reaction as Boyd lapped a drop of come from the head of his cock. He tucked one arm behind his head, twisted his fingers roughly in his hair, and watched as Boyd took him in his mouth. His balls felt heavy, the need to come cramped in his thighs and between his ass as Boyd pushed his tongue up against the underside of his cock. As Boyd lifted his head, Morgan’s cock slid wet and shining from between his lips and then disappeared as he took
the length of back into his mouth.

  “Fuck,” Morgan groaned as he dropped his head back against the pillows, his eyes screwed shut, and came in the back of Boyd’s throat. He felt Boyd work his tongue and mouth around him as he swallowed and then let Morgan’s softened cock slip free to lie against his stomach.

  Morgan kept his eyes closed as he felt Boyd shift from between his legs and flop onto his back next to him on the bed. Their hands were still tangled together, and Boyd’s arm was folded over his chest. Morgan rubbed his thumb over the thin skin on the inside of Boyd’s wrist and then lifted it to his mouth. He let his lips linger on the scuffed knuckles.

  “Do you think you’ll ever find him? The real Sammy?”

  Boyd rolled over onto his side, one leg tucked through Morgan’s, and didn’t say anything for a second. “What if we have?” he asked. “From what you told me about your childhood, there’s nothing to say you aren’t him. Two DNA matches say that you could be. From what you told me, there’s nothing you remember from when you were a kid that says you couldn’t be.”

  “Except I’m not.” Morgan let go of Boyd’s hand, sat up, and swung his legs out of the bed. The wooden floor was cold under his feet as he leaned over to brace his elbows on his bare knees. His cock hung between his thighs. “People don’t get those stories.”

  “Would it be so bad if you were him?” Boyd asked. “You know I don’t care, but you know the odds are… not against it.”

  “Life’s against it,” Morgan said. “Happy ever after is for kids. We get… what we take until someone else takes it away. Besides, I thought you didn’t care.”

  Boyd got up and crawled to the edge of the bed. He sat down next to Morgan and leaned against him, his chin on Morgan’s shoulder and his hand resting on Morgan’s thigh, fingers spread over the muscles.