by Rachel Kane
He slid into Alex's arms, got onto the bench with him. There were such limits to what they could do here. Anyone could walk by. And yet the garden was the most private place. Surely he could get away with a kiss. A simple, small kiss during business hours, during the time when he was needed inside.
But there were things he needed, and one of those things was the taste of Alex's tongue, the softness of his lips, the catch in his breath when their bodies touched.
How had it happened, that he would win the love of someone like this, someone whose eyes were so deep that Judah might fall in forever, someone whose murmurs were barely audible where lip touched lip, someone who fit him so perfectly? And yet he had, and this was his prize, being able to kiss this boy any time he wanted, like now, right now, with Alex's hands pulling at his back, pulling up his shirt.
"You know we can't go too far," he whispered into Alex's lips.
"Are you afraid of getting caught?" Oh, that wicked smile.
"I'm not afraid of anything, not anymore." How could he fear, when Alex's fingers were playing up his spine, touching his skin, pushing the shirt up and out of his way, no obstacle to his quest.
His entire body wanted Alex. It always wanted him. There seemed to be no end to this hunger, it plagued him when they were apart, and could only be fulfilled in these private moments together. The nights were spent in a tangle of exhaustion and laughter and then sudden silences as they were brought to their respective climaxes, over and over, so that their love life had developed a passionate rhythm of its own, the entire span of daylight hours spent with a rising tension that must be released.
He could feel that tension inside himself now, pressing himself against Alex. Alex felt it too, and he could tell from the hardness he felt between them. Alex lifted his legs and brought them around Judah in a pantomime of the night before, but this was no mere show; it put their cocks closer together, with only these ridiculous outfits separating them from touching as they needed to touch, and Judah found himself gasping when Alex lifted his hips, grinding against him.
This was not simply a prelude to later. Not with the look of seriousness now in Alex's dark eyes. The way he rubbed against Judah had a point in mind, to pleasure himself, to pleasure Judah. The idea that they could be caught only added to the thrill of this, and Judah found himself biting his lip at the delicate tortures Alex was causing with his cock right now. It was all he could do not to rip Alex's clothes away, to fuck him right here, outside, on the bench. Just the idea of it seemed to drag him closer to Alex, pressing harder, his cock almost in pain from the pressure. Their kisses deepened, tongues dancing to the music of the pulses that throbbed inside their chests.
Judah's cock strained. He could feel it leaking, yearning for Alex, in the way it did constantly now. Last night Alex had been slowly licking him, drawing his fist up and down Judah's shaft, yet refusing to suck on him, and it had driven Judah crazy with lust, his slit pouring out his precum, driving him to the absolute edge, before Alex had shown him mercy and swallowed him down.
This was just as intense for him.
"Oh god," whispered Alex, "you're going to make me come. Fuck, you're fully clothed and you're going to make me come, just rubbing against me like that. Oh fuck, Judah, I love you, do you know that?"
"I love you back," said Judah in a voice that was practically a whimper, practically begging to reach the point of climax. "All I ever want to do is come with you."
"Come with me," gasped Alex, throwing his head back, his mouth open, those lovely lips wet and plump and ready to be nibbled. He thrust his hips upward, meeting Judah's cock with his own, and finally Judah couldn't stand it, these bits of clothing were just unnecessary obstacles, and he reached between them and unzipped himself, then Alex, pulling Alex's cock into the daylight—or, rather, into the shadows between their bodies. He held both cocks in his hand, stroking them, his palm and fingers growing wet from the precum leaking from them both, hypnotized by the way Alex writhed beneath him, gasping and moaning, lost in his own pleasure.
This meant everything to Judah. This was what his entire life had been missing. Someone who depended on him. Someone who trusted him. It was an expression of faith that had opened something in Judah's heart that he had never realized was closed. It wasn't just sex—oh, it was sex, it was so much sex, it had so much to do with these two bodies with their whimpers and their purrs and their desires—but it was more, it was someone entrusting his entire life in his hands, letting him take the lead in a way he found himself naturally suited for.
So when he came just now, it wasn't only pleasure that coursed through him, sending his seed splashing down onto Alex's shirt and shorts, making his hand even slicker as it flew over their shafts. It wasn't just the tightening of his balls and the way pleasure seemed to blossom upward to envelope his entire body, nor the way Alex so quickly responded too, his own cock sending a load arching between them, his hips thrusting upward. It was that, but it wasn't only that.
It was a sense of safety, of security, of needing and being needed, of a kind of partnership he had not in his virgin days dreamed possible.
A sort of trust he had never been entrusted with before.
As he collapsed against Alex, spent and thrilled and for the moment exhausted and yet ready to go again, as he collapsed into that post-coital thoughtfulness that filled men's minds in the split-second after coming, he realized he had never felt this close to someone in his life, and this closeness, this closeness, was the point of every quest, the treasure hidden in every dungeon. What did he need gold for? What good was silver?
This was everything, and he had it in his hands.
It was his.
And he was Alex's.
That night they gathered in the kitchen, a solemn procession. Alex kept a special watch on Judah, whose nerves seemed to be getting the better of him. He put a steadying hand on Judah's shoulder. "Excited?"
"I'm about to die," he said.
As they passed the little window where, as a kid, Alex had climbed into the dark and foreboding house, a trick of memory made him feel small again. Made him feel like time had shifted backwards, and they were on an adventure through a house they didn't belong in, where they might get in trouble, the worst trouble, and the idea thrilled him. He would've loved it if Judah had been his friend back then. It would have saved so much time, falling for him back then, being together with him for all their years of their youth and their new manhood, and he imagined, in that moment, what it would have been like to have had Judah in his life that long. It made his heart hurt, that strange sense of loss that he had not been together with him a decade, longer, but it wasn't really loss at all, because he had him now, and he was never going to let go of him.
"Hey, this reminds me," Alex said to Mason, "you owe me ten bucks for last time."
Mason raised an eyebrow. "The bet? You've been holding on to that for all these years?"
Judah said, "Be glad he's not charging you interest."
Liam looked at the ramp that covered the basement steps. "Please don't destroy my home. Promise me this is going to work without damaging everything."
"Trust me," said Mason. "This is what I do for a living."
"Extracting statues from basements?"
"Exactly. It's a basic handyman skill."
They followed Mason down the steps, sticking to the sides to avoid the ramps. Alex took slow and careful steps. In some way he felt like a baby, just learning to walk, after the cast had come off. Not that he missed his crutches. If he never heard that awful step-click again, it would be too soon.
Beside him, Judah was getting more and more tense. He could practically hear the what-ifs in Judah's head. What if something went wrong, what if the statues broke, what if—
He clutched his lover's hand and squeezed it tight, hoping to impart a little confidence in him.
Not that Judah needed extra confidence. What happened out in the garden today proved that. He'd gone from a shy and retiring virg
in, to a lusty lover who could not be denied...and who Alex definitely didn't want to deny. Ever.
But now was not the time to be thinking sex-thoughts—certainly not with everybody gathered together, but also because this was the fulfillment of a promise. Liam had told Judah he'd work on this, and he had. Down in the basement there were ropes, chains, rugs and dollies, ready to get these statues moved.
"Looks like we turned the place into a BDSM dungeon," said Noah, nudging one of the chains with his toe.
Judah wordlessly pulled forward, Alex still holding on to his hand, toward the dark room at the end of the labyrinthine hall. Lights were on, yet it still felt like a descent into a dark and unknown world. God, how he remembered creeping down here as a kid; even now the memory was so clear. Except instead of being startled by bared fangs emerging from the shadows, he was filled with respect...even love. Because there in the storeroom, lit by construction lights, were two noble lions, lions who had stood secret guard over Superbia Springs nearly a hundred years, and the look on Judah's face when he saw them was enough to make Alex fall in love all over again with this big, handsome man who couldn't hide a single emotion.
"They're beautiful," said Alex.
"And they're almost free," Judah answered.
Mason came up behind them and cracked his knuckles. "All right, let's get to work."
Alex could have helped, but no one would let him, everyone afraid of him putting too much pressure on that recently-healed fracture, so he slipped further down the hall to watch.
Rightfully Mason should have led this process, but it was Judah calling the shots, Judah who saw exactly how it had to work, the pads placed against those bronze flanks, protecting the statues from harm, the chains placed low; five men squeezed into the back of the small storeroom, all pushing at once and then, for the first time in a century, the lions moved, emerging from their cave, and Judah, their protector, suddenly reminding Alex of a kid on Christmas day, his face lit up as he saw his plan coming to fruition, first one lion removed from the room, then the next. Wheels were slid beneath them, and they were mobile again, able to be pushed through the hall toward the steps, where the real effort awaited, pulling them up to the kitchen, then carefully extracting them from the house itself, to the front porch, where they would live, flanking the stairs leading up to the front door.
That was what Judah had finally worked out, the proper placement for them, these mighty lions greeting each visitor in turn on their arrival to the house. And Liam had agreed. It was just a matter of getting them there, having them emerge from this dungeon. The agreement itself was everything. Liam and Judah were closer now, as brothers, than they had ever been. There was a friendship between them, a warmth, that had made Alex feel so happy.
Everyone's attention was on the lions, but Alex couldn't help but take one look back at the storeroom, the place he'd visited as a frightened kid, the room that had terrified him so much. It was so plain without the lions. Just a room. Dusty, cobwebs in the corners. Nothing frightening at all.
The slip of paper on the floor caught his eye, and he walked into the room.
It lay in a perfectly clean spot on the floor, a square that had been protected by the base of one of the lions for all this time. The paper seemed pristine, and it was crisp when he picked it up.
"What's this?" he asked, although too quietly; the men in the hall didn't hear. When he unfolded the paper, and saw the signature, he knew he had to get their attention. "Judah! Liam!"
They paused in their labor and turned back toward him, and all he could do was hold the paper out to them. "Look what I found."
"What is it?" Judah asked.
"I think you want to see it. Can you read it in this light?"
Judah nodded, taking the paper from his hands. "Oh. Um...Liam."
Liam looked over his brother's shoulder, and his eyes widened.
Judah read, with his voice shaking:
My darling Rupert, it began. Though I cannot send you this letter, for I dare not expose these feelings to the world and ruin us both, destroying all we have worked for, I write these words as though you might someday hear them. This gift you have given me is too much; my heart is not strong enough; my will weakens. I find myself on the verge of showing up to your door and demanding you as my groom, no matter what the world might say of us.
You have given me a gift I may never show the world...and I do not mean only the lions, although they are exactly right, exactly perfect, and exactly wrong, in all the same ways your love is. I mean your heart, which you have given to me, and which I can never publicly claim.
I must hide both the lions and your heart, but Rupert, I tell you that one of these days the world will be different. One of these days we will proudly and loudly love. We will speak our words openly, in the daylight air, and I only hope to survive long enough to meet that day, where you and I can walk freely together, hand in hand, on the streets of your fair town.
I have always, I must admit, felt like an interloper in Superbia. I came here with a mind for business, not for emotion. Yet what I found was far richer than any vein of gold. Yes, these hot springs will make me rich, wealthy beyond my wildest dreams. I would trade it all for one minute—one solitary minute—where I could claim you as my own. You tell me that things are changing, that the world will one day see our love as valid and true. I long for that future, where I can tell everyone that you made a home for me here, a home where I was a stranger, where I felt I did not belong.
How shall I close a letter like this, a letter you will never see? Even now, the men are coming to entomb the lions in the most distant room I could find, as though I am hiding you away. Here is how I close: I love you, Rupert Mulgrew, and my love for you will never die.
Yours eternally,
Silas Cooper
“Oh my god,” said Judah, his voice weak in the silence of the hall.
Alex’s hand found his, and Alex could see that the three couples were all together, all of them moved by this love-letter from another age.
“This place is a gift,” Liam said. “It brought us all together, it gave us a future as a family.”
Alex was struck by the truth of this. Before the Coopers had come back to town, Superbia Springs had been nothing but Cooper’s Folly, an abandoned, derelict house good for nothing but scaring kids.
And now?
Now it was the place where he lived with Judah.
The men returned to their labors, but Alex pulled Judah aside, just for a moment. He reached up and touched Judah’s cheeks; was that a tear he saw reflecting in the light?
“You old softy, you’re as moved as I am.”
Judah laughed quietly. “God, I wanted to burst into tears. What a sweet letter. And to think, he knew it would never be read. Knew the man he loved would never see it.”
“Tells you something, doesn’t it? It tells you we must never shy away from telling the people we love, how much we love them.”
Judah wrapped his arms around Alex. “Then let me tell you something, Alex Roth.”
“Ooh, you’ve got that manly tone in your voice.”
“In those Henry James books you’re always talking about, do they have happy endings?”
Alex laughed, surprised by the tangent. “Almost never. They’re…bittersweet, I guess you could say.”
“Well, there’s the difference between you and me. I like a happy ending.”
“That explains your performance out in the garden today.”
“I’m just thinking about those statues, how they sat down here for a century, holding a secret… Everything about this house makes you think long-term, you know? The walls are so old, the statues are old, the floor beneath us… So what if… What if…”
Alex pressed more tightly against him. “What if what?”
“What if we started talking about the long-term? What if we started talking about ourselves in terms of…the rest of our lives?”
“I like where you’re going with this, Mr
. Cooper. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“You know what I’m thinking.”
“I know I know. I’m asking you to say it.”
Judah blushed. “Marry me, Alex. Let’s make this official. Hell, you already live here, you already have your store here—”
“So you want to get married because it’s convenient, since I’m already here?”
“Why are you making this so difficult?”
Alex laughed. “Because I love seeing you blush. Because I love making you say what you feel. You can’t fix your way out of this one. You’re going to have to feel, and feel, and feel. And listen to my feelings too, because I have so many to tell you about—”
“Is that a yes?”
“God, yes!”
He had never been held this tightly before, and it felt so safe. Down the hall, the men had noticed something going on back down here, and they’d started moving back towards Judah and Alex, smiles of recognition on their faces, as though they knew what was happening. All his friends, coming to see the way Judah loved him.
“Guys, I think we have some news,” started Judah.
“Oh my god, did you give him a ring?” asked Noah. “Did he give you a ring, Alex? I swear, he never told me, I would’ve taken him jewelry shopping, you have to forgive him, it’s probably something with hobbits on it or something—”
Alex held out his bare hand. “No ring, not just yet. Although maybe we could get matching lion rings…that would be appropriate, wouldn’t it?”
“My little brother…engaged? I can hardly believe it,” said Liam.
“Damn, Alex,” said Mason. “You couldn’t have made a better choice. Now we won’t just be friends, we’ll be brothers-in-law…in-law? Twice removed?”
“Whatever you want to call it,” said Alex, “we’re going to be family.”
Judah’s hand slid to Alex’s waist, and pulled him so that they were hip to hip. “If only I’d known such good things could happen from nearly hitting someone with my car! I’m going to drive so crazily from now on.”