Choked Up

by Hank Edwards

  Mark nodded. "Yeah."

  "Good." Pearce dipped his head lower and ran his tongue over the furrowed muscle of Mark's anus.

  Dropping his head back to the mattress again, Mark moaned as Pearce thrust his tongue into the center of his hole, licking and sucking at the tender flesh. Pearce's hands were hot and damp with sweat against the cool skin of Mark's ass cheeks, spreading him open wide to allow his tongue even deeper. Mark gasped as Pearce rubbed his stubbled chin over his hole. Pearce leaned back and let spit drop down along Mark's crack, then used a finger to push the saliva into him. Mark groaned at the invasion and focused on relaxing his muscles as Pearce slid his finger in deep.

  "That okay?" Pearce asked.

  "Yeah, feels good," Mark assured him.

  "Good." Pearce added more spit and another finger, then another, sliding them faster in and out.

  "God, that feels good." Mark lifted his head and looked at him. "I want your cock inside me. Get the lube."

  Pearce pushed to his feet. "Don't move."

  "Don't worry about that." Mark kept his legs in the air and listened to Pearce rustle around inside the nightstand drawer for the lube and a few towels.

  Since Mark had been given an IV of a mixture of sedatives during his abduction in Barbados, he'd had blood drawn multiple times to check for, among other things, HIV. A month ago, the final blood test had come back negative, and they had both been happy to stop using condoms. Mark thought the milestone had helped them get a little closer after the events of Barbados, but there still seemed to be some barriers that needed to come down to get them back to where they had been just before that trip. Maybe after his own realizations that afternoon, they could edge a little closer to that intimacy.

  In moments, Pearce was back between Mark's upraised legs. He'd lubed his cock, and it jutted out from the dark, trimmed bush like a glistening monument. Pearce had some lube on his fingers and quickly slicked up Mark's hole, his long fingers pushing in deep. He wiped his hands on a towel, gripped Mark's ankles tight, and looked him in the eye.

  "Ready?"

  Mark nodded. "So ready."

  They'd had intercourse over the last few months, several times, and with each of them on the receiving end. But to Mark there had always seemed to be a hesitation to Pearce's lovemaking. It was as if Pearce were holding back, treating him like a fragile keepsake he was afraid he might break. Mark appreciated that side of Pearce, the tender, considerate, protective side, but right then, he wanted the animal, passionate intensity of the man he'd known before. The one who'd just been sucking his cock.

  "Fuck me," Mark said. "Hard and deep."

  Pearce stared at him a moment. "Yeah?"

  "Oh, yeah."

  With slow, steady movements, Pearce entered him, and Mark closed his eyes. The sting of his initial entry quickly gave way to that familiar feeling of fullness, of completeness.

  Pearce leaned over him for a kiss, his cock deep inside Mark, and when he rose up again, he said, "I love you."

  Mark smiled and pulled him down for another, longer kiss. When they parted again, Mark said, "I love you, too. So much."

  Pearce straightened up, clasped Mark's ankles, and thrust. Mark rode the full length of Pearce's cock, tightening his muscles with each withdrawal and feeling the first sparks of climax when the following plunge rubbed against his prostate. Pearce's hips moved faster with each charge, and Mark stroked himself in time. He was on the cusp of orgasm when Pearce pressed into him deep and tipped back his head to grunt up at the ceiling.

  "Oh, fuck yeah," Mark said. The thought of Pearce's cock erupting inside him, coating him with cum, filling him, pushed him over the edge as well. Cum splattered across his torso, and when he had finished, he lay panting and drained.

  "God, you're beautiful," Pearce said, his voice low, sultry, as he rubbed the semen into Mark's skin. "I love you."

  Mark looked up, wincing a little as Pearce eased out of him, feeling both empty and fulfilled, and said, "I love you, too, Aaron." He raised a hand for assistance, and Pearce helped him up off the bed, then pulled him close for a kiss.

  "I need a shower," Mark said. "And I need to check the oven."

  "You shower," Pearce said, following it up with another kiss. He rested a palm against Mark's cheek and looked into his eyes. "I'll take care of the oven."

  Mark turned his head to place a kiss in the center of Pearce's palm, felt the stickiness of his own cum and tasted himself on Pearce's skin.

  "Just turn the oven off. Lasagna is ready once we're done cleaning up."

  Pearce's eyebrows went up. "Lasagna? Damn, you really earned this pre-dinner fuck, didn't you? What's the occasion?"

  Mark tweaked Pearce's nipple as he laughed. "Pre-dinner fuck. Nice. And I just thought you deserved your favorite meal. We've had a rough few months, and I know my… struggles, have made things that much more difficult."

  Pearce pulled Mark against him again. "You went through a terrible ordeal, something I can't even imagine. It takes time to heal from something like that."

  "Yeah, well, I think it's past time." Mark pulled back, staying in Pearce's arms but resting his hands against the firm swell of Pearce's chest as he looked into his eyes. "I saw bags of candy out for Halloween and suddenly realized it's October. I mean, it's fucking October! Where the hell did the year go? I lost the entire summer to what happened on Barbados, and I need to put it behind me and move on."

  Pearce dropped his gaze, letting it linger somewhere around the hollow of Mark's throat. "I'm glad to hear you saying that. I know you've been working hard with the therapist to learn how to put it all in the past."

  "Yeah, I think today was a big step in the right direction. I'm not quite there yet, but it's like I can see the path I need to take now." Mark ducked his head to catch Pearce's gaze. "You okay?"

  Pearce nodded, but something was troubling him, something big, and it made Mark more than a little nervous.

  "I'm okay," Pearce said. "Go get cleaned up. I'm starved. I worked up an appetite at the gym and here in the bedroom."

  "Okay, I'll be right out." Mark slipped out of Pearce's arms, shivered in the chill now that he was away from his warmth, and hurried into the bathroom to shower.

  4

  Pearce switched the oven off and used hot pads to remove the foil-covered lasagna. He set the pan on the stovetop, peeled back a corner of foil, and breathed in the aroma. Mark's lasagna was the best he'd ever tasted, and he had no idea what it was that made it so different from all the other versions he'd tried.

  He tightened the corner of the foil and moved to the sink to get a glass of water. As he stood nude at the sink, Pearce stared straight ahead at the small plaque Mark had found at an artist's booth during one of their trips to the DC Farmer's Market. It was a gentle poke at Pearce's tendency to just dump his dishes in the sink and walk away. The plague showed a sink full of dishes with a message that read Your Mother Doesn't Live Here.

  Pearce shook his head. Ain't that the fucking truth.

  His mother, Elena Gillett-Pearce, gave birth to him on a stormy April night, then spent the next eighteen years dragging him around behind her like a dog. She liked her bourbon neat, her men edgy and unpredictable, and her son to stay at arm's length. Over the course of his life, Pearce could recall maybe five times that Elena had cooked a real meal, and each of those had been because other people were visiting for a holiday.

  And those other people never came back a second time.

  How Elena had lucked into marrying a decent man like Roger Greene, Pearce's second stepfather and the only one he thought of and referred to as Dad, was beyond him. But Pearce was grateful that Roger had seen beyond Elena's brassy attitude, her tendency to wear outfits much too young for her age, and the overindulgence in cigarettes and bourbon, and brought her and her young son into his home.

  The marriage hadn't lasted five years, but Pearce still kept in touch with Roger, more often than he did his own mother.

  "Wow, I like t
his. Nude at the sink."

  Pearce jumped and turned to find Mark standing in the kitchen doorway with a towel around his waist. He must have seen something in Pearce's expression, as his smile faltered, then slipped away altogether.

  "Hey, sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," Mark said. "You okay?"

  "Yeah." Pearce flashed a smile he could feel wasn't at all convincing and got busy grabbing utensils from the drawer.

  "I've set the table already." Mark stepped up beside him and touched his arm. "Come on. What is it?"

  "Let's get dressed and grab some food. We can talk over dinner."

  "Sounds serious," Mark said. "Should I be nervous?"

  Pearce leaned in to give him a quick kiss. "Not at all. We're good. Let's get dressed."

  Soon they were seated at the glass-topped dining table, and Pearce lifted the first bite of lasagna to his mouth. He closed his eyes and moaned around his mouthful of noodles, meat, cheeses, and sauce.

  "How do you do this?" Pearce asked. "This is unlike any lasagna I've ever had before."

  Mark smiled before taking a bite. "Just added a few different ingredients along the way until it all seemed to work together."

  "Well, whatever it is you're doing, don't stop."

  "Okay, we've talked about the dinner," Mark said, setting his fork down on his plate and fixing Pearce with a steady look. "Now tell me what's going on with you."

  Pearce took one more bite before leaning back in his chair. He stared at his plate as he chewed, wondering how to begin.

  It was simpler to just say it aloud, so he met Mark's gaze and said, "I need to go to Detroit for work."

  Mark blinked. "Detroit?"

  "Yeah. Harris summoned me to his office this afternoon, and Agent Bata was in there waiting."

  "Oh shit," Mark said. "Agent Bata came here? Just to talk to you?"

  Pearce nodded and leaned forward to hunch over his plate, breaking eye contact with Mark. "Yeah. He's got a case he wants me to help him with."

  "Is it Morgan?" Mark's voice sounded small, distant, and it opened up a cold, empty spot inside Pearce. This was the tone he had become used to after they had returned from Barbados. Mark had been withdrawn, frightened of everything outside the walls of their apartment. It had taken weeks to get him comfortable enough to venture out with Pearce at his side, weeks after that for him to be okay to go out on his own. Now months past the "event", as Mark's therapist referred to it, and he was steadily moving closer to a shadowy semblance of the man he had been before. Pearce didn't want Mark to lose any of the progress he had made.

  "It's a murder case," Pearce explained. "Well, four linked murder cases, to be exact."

  "You didn't answer my question," Mark noted.

  Pearce looked him in the eye. Mark had lived through the events in Detroit right alongside Pearce. And he owed Mark his life; Pearce knew that. It wasn't why he loved him, but it went a hell of a long way toward showing him the depths of Mark's courage. He only hoped Mark could find a way to tap into that courage again, because he was going to need it.

  "The victims are all the same type," Pearce continued. "Four men, early twenties, all strangled and left in a wooded area, positioned with their hands outstretched and head turned to the right."

  "Strangled and left in the woods?" Mark frowned, then his eyes widened. "Oh my God. Like your stepbrother, Jeremy."

  Pearce nodded. "Like Jeremy."

  "Oh shit." Mark put a hand over his mouth, and his gaze frosted over with a sheen of panic. "He's doing this. Morgan's calling you back to Detroit. He's trying to draw you out."

  "Maybe," Pearce said, though he knew Mark was right.

  Mark looked at him and frowned. "Maybe? You know that's what's happening. During your time together at the academy, you had to have told Morgan about your stepbrother, about the reason you wanted to become an agent."

  Pearce took another bite of lasagna, but he could barely taste it now. "Yeah, I did. Of course I did."

  "Then it's got to be him trying to get your attention," Mark said. "Murdering those men to lure you back to Detroit to finish things once and for all."

  "Why not just fucking come here and do it, huh?" Pearce asked, the words exploding out of him in a rush. He sat back and spread his arms wide. He could feel the furious intensity in his expression as he stared at Mark, but he couldn't pull it back now that he'd started, couldn't tamp it down. "I mean, why the fuck does he have to take innocent lives to get my attention? He could just fucking drive here in eight hours, wait for me in the parking lot, and get it over with in one shot."

  Mark paled, and Pearce put his head back so he could look up at the ceiling. Shit. He had gone too far, much too far. Again. He had tried to make this as simple as possible, but his temper had, once more, gotten the best of him, and now he needed to backtrack and try to smooth things over. He took a breath, then another, and looked at Mark.

  "I'm sorry," Pearce said. "I shouldn't have said that. I got carried away."

  Mark looked away. For a moment, Pearce was afraid Mark might cry. But as he watched, Mark pulled himself together, straightened his spine, and lifted his chin to look at Pearce with a steely determination.

  In a surprisingly steady voice, Mark said, "Okay. He wants to play? Let's play. When do we leave?"

  "Oh no." Pearce pushed up from the table and paced between the dining area and the living room. "You're not going. No way, not a chance."

  "What?" Now Mark was on his feet, glaring at him. "Why not?"

  "It's too fucking dangerous is why not," Pearce said, hearing the tone and volume of his voice but unable to bring it down. "You've been making some really good progress lately. And I don't want to risk losing you."

  "Oh, so I get to stay here all alone and worry about you while you run off and risk your life tracking down this psycho?" Mark shook his head and turned away to start clearing the table. "I see how it is. Nice one-way street we've got here in this relationship."

  Pearce watched Mark walk into the kitchen and out of sight, then hung his head, chin resting on his chest. Jesus Christ, could one thing be simple? Just one? He listened to the clatter of silverware and plates amid running water and forced himself to walk up and lean in the kitchen doorway.

  "Mark, will you stop that, please, and come into the living room to talk?"

  Mark continued rinsing the dishes, his jaw tight and his movements sharp and angry.

  "Mark? Please?"

  With a quick twist, Mark shut off the water and turned to face Pearce. "Fine. Talk."

  Pearce reached out a hand. "Come in the living room and sit on the couch."

  Mark's shoulders slumped, and some of the fight drained out of him as he released a breath. He extended his hand to Pearce and allowed himself to be led out of the kitchen and to the couch. They sat side by side, Pearce making sure to press his leg against Mark's, needing the contact, to feel connected.

  "I have to do this," Pearce started. "Morgan is a darkness from my past, mine. He's become something much worse than even I could have imagined. I knew he had an edge, a cruelty that he tried to cloak with sarcastic jokes and innocent zingers, but I never thought him capable of what he's done this past year." Pearce shook his head and looked down at the floor, grateful when Mark reached out to take his hand.

  "I understand you have to go back there," Mark assured him. "I do. But why can't you let me come along?"

  "Having you there would be great, it would, but it would also be a distraction. I wouldn't be able to focus completely on the case. I would be thinking about you, worried whether or not you were safe."

  "But, don't you see?" Mark asked. "That's how it's going to be for me here. Stuck inside this apartment and knowing you're putting yourself at risk back in Detroit. Aaron, I know that city, I was born and raised there. I could help you."

  "Bata knows the city, too," Pearce said in a gentle tone. "You still have some work to do here, getting comfortable being out in public. This apartment is a safe place for you, and
I don't want to risk you having a setback."

  Mark squeezed Pearce's hand tight, and Pearce expected him to let go and pull away after that. But instead, Mark surprised him by turning to face him and keeping hold of his hand.

  "You've been so patient and so understanding during all of this," Mark said. "We've been focusing so much on me getting past the event that I think we've overlooked what you went through. I've been selfish, and I want you to know I plan to do better by you, by us."

  "Mark—"

  "No, Aaron, let me finish," Mark interrupted. "I need to say this. Some lady dropped a jar of pickles at the store today and scared the shit out of me. It sounded like a gunshot, or a bomb. It got my heart racing, and I started to feel that shaky, nervousness again, like I did right after we got home from Barbados. I felt as though I was in danger. The feeling stuck with me for a bit in the store, but then I got in line and I looked around and realized it's already more than halfway through October. The entire summer is gone, vanished, and I barely got a chance to enjoy it."

  "You needed to get better," Pearce said. "That takes time."

  "I needed to be with you," Mark said. "And I was, physically, when I wasn't holed up in the bedroom or curled in a ball in a corner. You got me out of the apartment, out of myself. You were so patient, so careful, and so loving. You taught me self-defense moves and then got us into that class together. You did all of that, and you didn't ask for a thing in return."

  "Well, I don't know if I'd go that far." Pearce thought about the nights driving home when he had changed his route to cruise past the bars he used to frequent before he'd met Mark. The urge to go in for a quick drink had been so strong. He could stop in, talk with men who would flirt with him and touch his hand or press their knee against his. There would be men in the shadowed corners who would give him lingering looks filled with dark promise, men who didn't need anything more from him than some physical satisfaction.

  But he had resisted, though he had more than a few times locked himself in the bathroom and furtively masturbated as he thought about his past conquests. Those few times had left him feeling empty and guilty afterward. And when he thought about it, a majority of the times he’d jerked off over the last few months, he had found himself thinking about Mark, remembering times they had been together or imagining encounters to come.