by Willa Okati
Gavin’s cheeks pinked appealingly. “Maybe I do.”
Music to Ford’s ears. He set Gavin carefully on his feet and stood back a few inches to better admire him.
His jaw dropped. “What the hell happened to you?”
Gavin grinned. Normally, Ford would have been all over that with some more kisses -- honest to God, kissing Gavin was addictive -- but…
“You should see the other guy,” Gavin said proudly.
“Gavin.” Ford hovered his touch over the bruises and scrapes on Gavin’s pretty face, not so pretty now. A real shiner well on its way to black-and-blue, an unpleasant bruise over his cheekbone, scratch marks, and worst of all, a swollen lip. “You’re this banged up and you let me kiss you that hard?”
“I wanted you to.” Blushing or not, Gavin stood firm. “And you really should see the other guy.”
“Who?”
Gavin’s grin widened and brightened. “Guess.”
Criminy, if getting into fights lit him up like this, Ford wondered if Gavin should take up boxing as a hobby. Or maybe not. Ford couldn’t take seeing him hurt like this again. “Don’t,” he said, settling for stroking Gavin’s neck, as the nape was the only place he could be sure Gavin wasn’t all battered up. “Just tell me who.”
“Roger.”
Okay, that was a different story, and it called for some celebration. Ford took an exuberant chance and picked Gavin up by the waist, then spun him around. “Hot damn!”
He put Gavin down before he could protest, but for the first time Ford wondered if maybe Gavin might not have. “How bad is he?”
“Broken nose. Maybe some stitches,” Gavin said.
“Amazing. Huh.” Ford’s pride dimmed a tad. “Did you get in trouble?”
“I got fired.” Gavin blazed with pride. And… a little something more. Ford wasn’t sure he liked either of those possibilities. It worried him that Gavin was so glad to walk away from something he’d loved.
Gavin picked up on that. He wouldn’t have before. “I need to tell you why.” He took Ford by the hand and pulled. It really was a night for firsts, wasn’t it? “Sit before you fall down,” he said, sounding worried now. “What’s wrong?”
Ford fought down the pall that tapped its fingers impatiently, wanting to color over his pleasure again in shades of gray. “Nothing.”
“You’re a bad liar.” Gavin led Ford to the couch and arranged them so that they faced each other, exactly as Ford and Kayla had sat, only completely different somehow. In the lamplight, the bruises and marks on Gavin’s face softened. Or maybe that was just his general mood.
He studied Ford the way Kayla had. Ford grew a little more uncomfortable than he had with her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Ford lied.
“Uh-huh.” Gavin tried to quirk one eyebrow. It didn’t work so well with a black eye beneath it. He settled for propping his chin on his hand and his elbow on his knee and frowned at Ford. “You look…” He stopped. “I don’t like it.”
Do not let him see you doubting. What else would make him run farther or faster? Dum-dum. “I’m fine,” Ford said. He forced the uneasiness down.
Gavin wasn’t buying it, and his reluctance told Ford he knew he was about to make it worse. “We need to talk.”
“I really hate conversations that start with those words,” Ford confessed.
“Not like that.” Gavin took a deep breath. “I hope.”
“I don’t like those much better.”
“Then let me finish. First. Here. I got you something. No fair calling me a girl, okay?”
Synchronicity. A guy had to love it. Or he didn’t.
“I promise I won’t,” Ford said. He kept his word, though he was kind of hard put not to laugh or aww when Gavin worked a stuffed tiger that reminded Ford of Hobbes out of his pocket and tucked it down the front of Ford’s jeans.
“You like symbolism,” Gavin explained. “And I kind of broke the other one. Well, I didn’t. And I can fix it. But it’s a long story. Hold on.” He breathed, visibly working to keep cool and vocal while digging in his pocket, and pulled out a flyer for an exhibit at the museum. He pressed it, careful as if it were glass, into Ford’s hands.
“I’m confused.”
“Yeah. Just --” Gavin rubbed the back of his neck. “Open it. Carefully.”
Still puzzled but not a little intrigued, Ford unfolded the paper with as much caution as he could muster up, and he wasn’t bad when he really tried. Unfortunately, finding the hidden treasure didn’t provide him with any clues.
“Ashes?”
“I need to tell you what happened.”
Ford nodded, caught up in the story and in the intensity of Gavin’s stare. It wasn’t like Gavin’s usual. He seemed more focused. Clearer. His irises even seemed a lighter brown.
“Donny came by the museum today.”
Ford’s heart sank like a stone thrown off the Empire State Building.
“Wait.” Gavin gripped Ford’s wrist. “I’m not done.” He looked a touch worried himself, and his speech rhythm grew more uneven. “Donny came by. I did not invite him. Roger told him where to find me. Hence the --” He waved at his face. “Still proud?”
Ford had to think about that one. Hard to do when he kept hearing the name “Donny” echo over and over in his head. “I didn’t even know he was in town.”
Gavin’s grip on Ford tightened. “Neither did I. I swear.”
“I believe you.”
“You’d better.”
Ford wasn’t sure. He wanted to believe, and he knew he could trust Gavin, but… there were things Gavin held back when he wasn’t able to get the truth out…
Gavin blew on the ashes in Ford’s hands. “He’s gone. From here.” He tapped over his heart. “Seeing him again. I thought if I was ever dumb enough to fall for someone again, it’d end up just like it did with Donny. So I refused to risk it.”
The ashes stirred in Ford’s hands.
“He made assumptions. That’s Donny. Just figured he could walk right back in.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because. And I’m not done. I saw him. I knew. What I wanted. What I didn’t. I’m here.” Gavin placed his hands beneath Ford’s, holding them up. “Donny’s there.”
“Now I’m really confused,” Ford said. He eyed the ashes. “Kind of light for a human body…”
Gavin laughed. “No, it’s not his corpse. Or… sort of. This is a picture of him. A stupid damn picture I kept in my office to remind me of why I didn’t get involved. Do you understand now?” He closed Ford’s hands around the ashes, squeezed, then let go. “Blow them away.”
Chapter Eight
“Gavin,” Ford said. Weird how those tables turned. Now he was the one who didn’t know what to say. He’d asked for a sign. Whoever it was out there that delivered had come through in more spades than he could process. It made him feel as if he were on a roller coaster going through loop-the-loops.
Gavin jostled him. “Blow them away.”
“Not on the floor.” Ford stood and nudged Gavin’s foot, wanting him to come along for the trek. His den window wasn’t far away, and Gavin slipped ahead of him to open it.
Ford took a deep breath, held on to hope, and blew the ashes out into the night with an exhale that he pushed until the last whiff of air escaped him. He didn’t know he’d started shaking until Gavin curled under his arm. “It’s okay,” Gavin said.
Ford hugged him. He couldn’t have done anything else.
Gavin patted his back. “This won’t do,” he said in such utter seriousness that it made Ford laugh despite himself. “I thought this would make you happy.”
“It does.” Ford thrust his hands into the night wind streaming past his window to get rid of the last of the soot. He let those two small words sink in and wipe away whatever these weird conflicting feelings were.
Gavin wouldn’t marry him. Probably not ever.
But if Gavin loved him enough t
o choose him over Donny…
That wasn’t nothing. More than. Something, a big something. More than he had hoped for, come to think of it.
Ford let go and let -- made -- the lingering traces of “not good” wash away, and when he turned back it was with a big grin that made Gavin relax and return the enthusiasm.
“Check it out,” Gavin said, displaying his bruised knuckles with all the pride of a schoolyard scrapper. “Not bad. Right?”
“Pretty impressive, if you ask me,” Ford said. He admired them with due respect and actually a heck of a lot of pride. “Did you knock out any of his teeth? Or twist his ear off? Maybe literally kick his ass?”
“Could be. I know for sure I broke his nose. The rest is a blur. It was good, you know? Just good to…” Gavin ran out of words, but Ford knew exactly what he meant to say.
Or so he’d thought. Gavin grew serious again and took Ford by the arms, a sure sign that he was about to say something big. “There’s one more thing.”
Ford chose to trust. “Tell me.”
“That’s not all I came for.”
Ford. Chose. Trust. “What else?”
He almost missed the madcap sparkle in Gavin’s eye before Gavin tackled him, and for once in history, a guy the size of Ford went down like a stone under the impact from a guy the size of Gavin. “I came for this,” Gavin said from atop Ford before Ford had stopped seeing double, and kissed him harder than he’d been kissed at the doorway. Kissed like a free, wild thing.
Ford had asked for a sign of Gavin’s love and a clue that this was meant to be, no matter what the twists or turns and roundabouts. They didn’t come much clearer than this. He wound his arms around Gavin, hugged him tight, and started to laugh. Gavin didn’t mind. He bit Ford’s lip, but it was with love.
Gavin loved him.
Ford could feel that now, and he liked it. More than he’d dreamed.
And did Gavin stop at just one kiss? Uh-uh. He moved around, too fast to track, his lip apparently bothering him not at all, pressing his mouth to Ford’s, then to Ford’s jaw and chin and his neck. Stretched out atop him in that manner, he had Ford wholly at his mercy, and it became pointedly obvious what he’d knocked Ford down for.
“Really, really have to get you into a fight club,” Ford said between kisses.
“Huh? Never mind.” Gavin shook off the query and dived back in. That alone would have been good enough. Forget good. Great. But then… he goosed Ford. Goosed him! Tickled along his ribs and dug in, growling like the toy tiger that, huh, apparently remained caught between them.
Ford would have hated to toss it aside. He didn’t do that to gifts. Gavin on top of him, hungry for it and as enthusiastic in showing it as Ford always had been, was admittedly a much bigger gift. And Gavin had no such qualms. He yanked the tiger free, tossed it -- somewhere -- and while he was down there went for the zipper.
“Slow down, tough man. We -- Oh.” Ford had gotten up onto his elbows; he went down again with a thunk of his head on the floor when Gavin wrapped his fist around Ford’s cock before he’d even gotten it out of his jeans. “You’re not playing around, are you?”
“Maybe.” Gavin looked up at Ford, the angle odd for Ford to get a decent look at him, but what he saw took his breath away. Gavin had come to life. “Maybe not. Double negatives. I’m lost. But I want this. Can I have it?”
“God. You don’t even have to ask that.” If Gavin hadn’t been in a particularly delicate area of Ford’s body with his hand locked in place, Ford would have hauled him up to kiss him silly. Sillier. A newly awakened Gavin was a creature that glittered with something close to impishness that demanded proper appreciation.
Or for Ford, a proper retaliation, because one good move deserved another, and like heck he’d miss out on a chance to play, really play with Gavin. Call him an overgrown bear cub or a deer or whatever, Ford didn’t care, not as long as he got to enjoy this for all it and he were worth.
And as it turned out, that was quite a lot.
Undressing? Not so much an option. Ford tried. He liked nothing better -- almost -- than the sight of Gavin bared to his eyes, sleek and supple and firm, and he wanted a chance to nibble Gavin’s pretty ass. To be honest, he’d had that in the back of his mind ever since Kayla had pinched Gavin.
Ford struggled to catch hold of a zipper, a sweater edge, anything. Besides being hungry for the full beauty of the visual, he wanted to make sure he didn’t accidentally squish or hammer any spot on Gavin that might be bruised or sore from his tussle at the museum. But every time he tried, Gavin growled and writhed just out of reach, as eager as Ford -- or more -- to do the exact same thing.
“Time-out.” Ford wrapped his arms around Gavin in an unfair but necessary bear hug to haul him to a stop. Gavin grumbled and used his teeth on Ford’s ear. “Time, I said. Or do I have to put you in the corner with your nose pressed against the wall?”
“Could if you wanted to,” Gavin said, his tongue delicate against the shell of Ford’s ear.
Ford had to gulp for air over that one. Wouldn’t he ever love to -- “You’d need a box to stand on.”
Gavin pinched him. “Okay. Other way around.”
Sweet God. Ford had to shut his eyes and work to keep himself under control. “Or…” he started. He wanted this so much; it’d been years since anyone had been willing, and maybe, maybe tonight…
“Or?” Gavin stilled.
Ford had to look at him then, pleading though he might be and dumb as that might appear on a guy built like a wall. “Or you could fuck me.”
Gavin’s silence was the all the answer Ford needed. “I don’t -- I’m not -- Fuck.”
“That’s the idea,” Ford said, trying to joke again.
Gavin recovered well. “I’m not saying no. Maybe someday. Not tonight.”
“Are you sure?” It wasn’t fair to ask. Ford knew that, no matter how much he wanted that dark-edged burn of Gavin’s cock in his ass. He could at least, and did, grab pleasing handfuls of Gavin’s bubble butt and knead. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”
“You heard the lady. It’s a nice ass.” There. Gavin was getting really and truly back into the game now, arching up with sensual pleasure as Ford worked him over.
Ford took a chance. “It is. You know what I like best about it?”
“Hmm?” Gavin mumbled, suddenly busy with pushing Ford’s shirt up to attack his stomach. He stuck his head underneath, making Ford laugh at the sight, and stop laughing PDQ when Gavin caught one nipple between his teeth and sucked.
Ford almost -- almost -- bucked Gavin off with his surge and groan. Gavin wriggled out and popped up, his eyes wide, glasses askew, and his hair standing on end with the static.
“I didn’t,” Ford panted, “say stop. Please don’t stop.”
Gavin slid beneath the shirt and tweaked where his lips and tongue had been. “Good to know.” He pinched and rode the wave of Ford’s reaction. Actual fascination came dangerously close to overriding healthy lust. “Could you actually come this way?”
“For God’s sake, shut up and kiss me,” Ford begged.
“That’s my line,” Gavin said but did as he’d been told anyway. And stayed there like a good boy should, even through Ford’s skimming his shirt nearly off his back with the need to stroke and massage his smooth skin and knuckle over the wings of his shoulder blades.
Gavin took a breath. His arms shook, but Ford thought that was lack of practice at being on top. Gave him hope, and so did what Gavin said next. “You were saying?”
Took Ford a few beats to remember. The hard press of Gavin’s cock right there, separated from his only by Gavin’s slacks, brought it all back. Determination gave Ford a nice clear head. Sort of. Enough to jerk open those damned pants and slide them off Gavin’s hips.
Holy…
“You’re not wearing underwear,” Ford blurted, betting he looked even more startled than Gavin had upon discovering the joys of nip sucking. He had to laugh at Gavi
n’s shy but naughty wiggle that slid his slacks down, then groan and grit his teeth at the motion on the ocean when Gavin tried to kick them off. They caught on his shoes. Eh. Not a big deal. The naked cock, now that was a much bigger and better deal.
Best of all, Ford had all that smooth, firm swell of ass to play with as he liked. “I was saying,” he started over again, dodging every time Gavin tried to kiss him. “This is my favorite part.”
Gavin frowned with puzzlement when Ford traced two rounded lines over his ass. “Come again?” He groaned before Ford could hoot and hid his face.
Ford pulled him back up again, giddy on sex, but wanting this so much, it made him fumble. “Right there,” he explained, feeling uneasy for the first time ever when he and Gavin were this close to naked. “It’s a shelf.”
Gavin blinked his good eye. “Huh?”
“A shelf.” Ah heck, the only real way was to show him, and maybe once he’d gotten a taste… As carefully as he could, Ford spread his legs and raised them. Yes, the way he had to scrunch up was a total bitch, and the angle was kind of more impossible than he’d thought, but when he rested his bare feet on the taut rise of Gavin’s ass -- perfect. He let his eyes fall shut and sighed. “Shelf.”
Gavin kept his face pressed to Ford’s chest, but his shoulders were shaking. Ford just hoped that was laughter.
Relief came when Gavin pinched him. “Someday,” he said. “Not. Now.” He wiggled to knock Ford’s feet away and very deliberately yanked Ford’s jeans down. Ford couldn’t actually complain; that zipper was becoming a major problem even when open. Especially when open and those metal teeth threatened serious chafing. Ouch.
He definitely couldn’t complain when Gavin’s sigh of relief emerged louder than his own, and he forgot about complaining altogether -- complain about what, again? -- when Gavin writhed eagerly down between his conveniently parted legs and sucked Ford’s cock between his lips.
“Oh God, unh, God!” Ford snagged and twisted handfuls of Gavin’s hair just to hang on and not throw him off again. “No. Wait. Stop. Gavin, stop.”
Gavin let go with a wet pop and stared at Ford. Ford guessed he couldn’t blame Gavin for the incredulousness. What man in his right mind called a halt during a blowjob?