by Black Deja
“Thank you,” Lucas whispered before he saw Anthony checking the body, making sure Ira was dead. Lucas felt the gentle touch of hands running over him, Creed’s hands.
“Lucas. Lucas, baby. I got you. Stay awake, Lucas. Anthony!”
He heard Creed, wanted to answer him, but it was as if Creed was shouting at him down a long, dark tunnel.
“I’m calling for an ambulance, Creed. We’ve got him. He’ll be okay,” Anthony said before Lucas passed out.
The next moment Lucas remembered was being held in the ambulance, his body rocking back and forth with the speed of the vehicle, glowing lights surrounding him and strange faces. He looked for Creed, but he wasn’t there. He needed Creed, needed to touch him and know he’d be there forever.
The reassuring smile of the paramedic was kind, but it wasn’t enough. He needed to see Creed’s golden eyes reassuring him, feel his strong hand in his. He needed him there always. Whatever was going through him, it was fast because he’d barely thought of what needed to be done to make that happen before he was slipping away again, his awareness vanishing.
When he awoke again, he was cold and shivering. Immediately, warmth surrounded him, and he melted into the comfort.
“That’s better,” he sighed.
Lucas was tired, but he opened his eyes and found himself in a hospital room. The room was nice, furnished in wood with comfortable chairs, a marble sink, but he didn’t care about any of that. He cared about Creed standing next to him, tense and waiting.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Lucas?” Oh, Creed. His lover was so upset with him, his shoulders rigid and his lips tight with tension. He wished he could kiss him, would try if he weren’t so tired right now. “I woke up, and you weren’t there. Left a note about seeing that crazy asshole.”
“I thought I could help,” Lucas whispered.
There was more movement, and Anthony came into view. “You couldn’t help him, Lucas. Ira was crazy, like batshit crazy.”
And, with Lucas lying in bed swaddled in blankets, Anthony told him about the sealed records of Ira’s history, of how he’d spent time in a mental ward after fatally harming a school friend.
“The child Ira killed? Ira’s family possessed enough money to hide it away and pay off the family, but eventually everything dark comes to the light,” Anthony finished. “It was a matter of time before that man snapped. Won’t be coming back, though. Made sure of that.” Anthony’s phone buzzed. “You see this, Lucas. It’s a fucking phone ringing, a sound I should have heard earlier coming from you, but don’t worry. You and I will talk all about it later.”
Anthony bent low and kissed the top of Lucas’s head gently. “You need to fix this with your man here, Lucas. I’ll be back. Have to answer some questions.”
Lucas smiled as Anthony pressed his shoulder with a strong hand and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Creed waited until Anthony left then continued. “If I hadn’t seen the note, hadn’t been running out of the house to try and find you and nearly ran Anthony down, we never would have made it in time, Lucas. When we got there, we went to the door, but it was locked. By that time, Anthony had gotten a call about Ira’s history plus the knowledge that Tommy had been missing.”
“He killed Tommy, Creed. Put his head…” Lucas didn’t finish.
“I saw him, baby.” Creed shook his head. “We made it through the back door, and Anthony went in with guns blazing. You were the only thing on my mind, Lucas. Not Tommy. You. But, the way you left, just decided it was okay to go, to leave without saying anything?”
“I thought you’d stop me.”
“Was it that, or was there a part of you that wanted to go to Ira, that still loved him? I have to wonder, Lucas. Do you really need me, love me because when you go off on your own to—”
“Marry me, Creed,” Lucas said, interrupting Creed’s words.
“What?” The shock of Lucas’s words cut through his lover’s pain. His confusion apparent at first, then a light of hope lit his eyes, softened the hardened edges that worry had produced.
“Marry me, Creed Hamasaki.”
Creed’s eyes widened, and he stepped closer, placed his hand on Lucas’s.
“You asked if I need you. I do. I need you in my life forever. I need there to be no question of how important you are to me, to wear my ring so that if I’m ever in an ambulance again, you can be with me, no barriers, no reason for anyone to separate us.” Lucas didn’t want to be without the man he loved ever again for any reason.
“Lucas, I want that more than anything, want you to have my name.” Creed swallowed deeply, his eyes scanning over Lucas, searching.
“Good, because that means the children we have will, too.”
Creed gasped, closed his eyes, and nodded. “I need to fucking sit down. I need a chair.”
“No, what you need is to come and lay beside me.” Lucas folded his hand into Creed’s. “Make me warm, Creed. Kiss me, hold me, help me know this isn’t a dream and the man I love is next to me, will always be there.”
Creed opened his eyes and looked at Lucas for a long time. Then he took a deep breath, relaxed his shoulders, the tension there disappearing, and eased himself onto the bed careful to avoid the IV line Lucas wore.
“Are you sure, Lucas?” His breath was warm against Lucas’s cheek as he kissed along his neck and put a strong arm around his waist.
“Yes, Creed. I’ll never keep anything from you again. I made a mistake, a mistake that could have cost us forever. I need you forever, Creed. Will you marry me?” Lucas turned into Creed’s body, needing the closeness, the feeling of being wrapped up in love, safe in the arms of the man who loved him.
“Lucas, you never had to ask.” He sighed and kissed Lucas gently. “Lucas Hamasaki. I like the sound of that.”
Lucas’s answering sigh was cheerful, safe, and loved. “Me, too.”
Epilogue
Something was wrong with Myra, but Lucas couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He wasn’t the only one to notice. Anthony had, too, but the coward had left it to Lucas to figure out choosing to focus on his new home on the Hamasaki family ranch instead and putting in extra hours at work. Even Creed had mentioned it, telling Lucas to wait her out.
“She’ll tell you what’s going on when she’s ready,” he said while Lucas lay in his arms one evening.
Now, he and Myra sat on the shore watching as Creed manned the seas with a board and agility. Lucas popped the lid off the container of strawberries he pulled from the bag they’d carried with them and offered one to her.
Myra sighed, “Oh, God. Give me one of those. In fact…” The whole bowl was snatched from his hands, and his little sister went to town, devouring one after the other, sighing with happiness as she munched away. Shaking his head, he reached into the bag for another bowl.
“These are delicious. So fresh, and I don’t feel like crap when I eat them.” Her hair was pulled back from her face, her usually tanned skin paler than normal. Green eyes, like his own, looked at him, dark circles showing beneath.
“Well, that’s good. I didn’t know you weren’t feeling well.” But, from the way she’d looked the last couple days, Myra wasn’t well at all. “Is there anything I can—”
Instead of letting him finish, Myra asked, “So how long will he be in the water anyway? He’s like a fish.” They’d been at the beach for a couple of hours now relaxing as Creed returned to the water, occasionally exited to hug Lucas tightly against his wet body, and charged back out again.
A fish was about right. He wouldn’t be surprised if his future husband didn’t grow fins. He looked out to the ocean and saw Creed with his arms stretched out, the brown of his glistening skin visible from where he and Myra sat on the shore. Lucas had tried surfing a few times, with Creed’s encouragement and laughter, but he wasn’t a dolphin. After drinking enough salty ocean water, he’d decided he’d had enough. He was more content with a book in his hand and taking in
glimpses of the beautiful man he called his own.
“Oowee! That’s one sweet ass he has there. You tap that?” Myra said huskily.
“Myra,” Lucas shouted, his skin warm with embarrassment. He looked around to see if anyone had heard, but they were so far from others, it shouldn’t have been a concern.
“Lucas,” Myra said, mimicking his tone, laughing. She set aside the container, apparently satisfied before taking her hand and pressing it against her waist. “Creed is luscious. Who wouldn’t want a taste of that? I’ll bet you’ve had a taste of it, too, if the howls I heard earlier were anything to go by.”
“Oh, you.” He refused to confirm that he had his tongue deep in Creed’s ass that very morning. No, he would not.
“Oh, hush, big brother. It’s fine. I’m just happy for you both.” Myra sighed then, a pained one that alarmed Lucas. She’d been on spring break for a few days, but she seemed tired rather than thrilled with the time off she claimed to have needed.
Sitting back, she pulled a strawberry from Lucas’s offered container and popped it in her mouth then moaned in satisfaction. It didn’t totally erase the wan tiredness that overwhelmed her features, but the small smile she wore relieved Lucas just a little.
“Myra?” Lucas questioned, unsure of how to ask what he suspected. He was worried but willing to give her the time she needed.
“You know, Lucas,” Myra said as she turned toward him. “You and Creed would make great parents. I watched him the other day with the children and the horses, the way he made them all feel so comfortable especially the little one who wouldn’t stop crying.”
Eliza. She was a beautiful little girl who had lost her older brother, her best friend, in a car accident a year ago. And, though she was in therapy along with her parents, she was still a very withdrawn, very broken sweet soul. Her teachers were concerned about her not talking in school, refusing to do her work, and not playing with friends. With middle school on the horizon, they had to do something, so the therapist suggested the Hamasaki ranch, specifically their horse therapy program.
It was a slow process, but with Creed’s help, she was opening up, eager to work with Creed’s Jewels, assisting with grooming and walking her. Today, Myra was there to see Eliza ride, and the smile that bloomed on the child’s face brought tears to her eyes. It had been a long time coming, and it was wondrous to behold.
“You and he make an awesome team. He’s your balance. He brings you out of your cave and makes you a part of the living,” Myra said thoughtfully, her gaze out toward the ocean.
Lucas groaned. “I’m not in a cave, Myra. Someone’s been reading too many romance novels again.”
Myra looked back at him and laughed tiredly. “Okay, but you can be, Lucas. You’re just too contented to go back there now. And, it looks good on you.”
And, that right there took the wind out of Lucas’s sails. She was right. He was in love with Creed, a man that made him laugh, who loved him fiercely, possessively. Waking up next to the person who made his heart race, who woke him with tender kisses before Lucas left for work or held him tightly when they went to bed at night… it was the greatest comfort he’d ever known.
This was where he wanted to be, where he needed to be. Not locked in a room or in his office hiding away from life—stuck knee deep in work—but out in the world living.
“Lucas, are you still with me?”
He’d been lost in his own thoughts and hadn’t even noticed. He turned to Myra whose eyes were wet with tears.
“I’m here, baby. God, what’s wrong?” He leaned toward her, reached out to touch her.
“I’m pregnant,” she said. Her voice was quiet now, empty of the snark it usually held.
“Fuck. What? You’re what?” Ice water couldn’t have been more shocking to his soul. “Myra?”
“Something I’m not ready for, will never be ready for, but you could be. I need you to be.”
“Wait. What?” Myra took his hand and placed it on her belly, and Lucas could feel the roundness there now beneath the long and flowing skirt she’d chosen to wear instead of a swimsuit. Hell, that should have been his first sign. Myra was a swimmer. She loved the water. She didn’t just sit on the shore with her big brother and chat. “Myra, I don’t understand.”
“Lucas, I think you do.” Her smile was watery but hopeful, and whatever Lucas needed to do, he would.
∞ ∞ ∞
“She’s what?” Creed said. He turned to Lucas, rubbing a towel through his hair, skin wet from the shower. Throwing down the towel and pulling on a pair of shorts, he walked over to the bed on legs that looked like they were carved from stone—magnificent and mouthwatering. Creed eased in to sit next to Lucas, careful not to disturb the book Lucas held.
Lucas sighed. “Pregnant. Myra is pregnant.”
“Wow.”
“I just don’t understand how.”
“Really? Well, there’s a man and a woman—Ow!” Creed laughed then opened his arms, arms that Lucas went into gratefully after he tossed his book aside. “You know. You shouldn’t hit me so hard. I could break. I’m fragile.”
Fragile his man was not. In fact, it was his strength Lucas would be relying on very soon and for years after.
“Silly. I could break my hand on your fragile body.” Lucas sighed when Creed pulled him tight against his chest. “That’s not all, Creed.”
Creed hummed then ran his hand along Lucas’s back gently up and down, then round and round, settling him as he did when Lucas worried.
“That feels nice.”
“Mmhm. Good, now tell me what’s going on.”
“Myra wants us to be the fathers for her baby.”
Creed’s hand paused but then continued again, slower this time while his heart thundered beneath Lucas’s cheek.
“She doesn’t want to be a mother, Creed. But, she doesn’t want her baby with just anyone. She chose us, wants us. She even talked to our mom and dad already.”
It was well known that Myra didn’t want children, never had. She’d done everything she could to make sure she wouldn’t have them, but then, by some fluke of nature, here she was. She still needed to finish school, and then she’d be traveling the globe. A child was not in those plans. But, when Lucas had mentioned how his parents might feel, she said she’d already covered that, paved the way so the only answer he could have would be, yes.
Creed bent and kissed Lucas’s head, squeezed him tight.
“Creed?”
“Yes, Lucas.”
Lucas sat up so he could see the man he loved, the person who he hoped would share this journey with him. He had no idea how he would do it without Creed. Lucas didn’t know just how much having a child would mean to him until Myra said the one she carried would be his—his and Creed’s together.
Creed looked back at him, his eyes wet and a small smile on his lips. “A father. I’m going to be a dad.” He leaned forward and kissed Lucas, then, passionately and forcefully diving in, swallowing every gasp and moan and wiping away his tears along the way. “The only question is who gets to tell my mom and dad.”
Lucas laughed as Creed covered him easing his hands beneath his shirt, kneading the flesh beneath as he kissed him again and again.
About the Author
Deja Black had fantasies of men loving men, men who felt strongly, loved hard, and needed a hero. Then one great day she came across a book and discovered the world of m/m writing, encountered others who shared her obsession as much as she did, and found a world where she could not only be accepted for the lives and loves she envisioned, but she could create them too. So why not? Why not take the stories she would write and throw away as a teenager, grow them, dream them, and make them a reality where she could know her own characters, let them live their story, and make them real for someone else? And she did. Now, with the support of her hubby and some intense time management, she is learning to balance her family of two children at home and the many others she teaches each and every day wi
th her passion for writing what she loves to read.
Deja is always interested in connecting with new people who also share her love, so please feel free to contact her at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deja.black.69
Blog: http://dejablack77.blogspot.com/
Email: [email protected]