by Leta Blake
“Yes, you do,” Neil said, with a certainty and intensity that was undeniable. “You know me. Look at me and tell me you don’t know me.”
Joshua felt dizzy. He was too hot, and he wiped at his forehead again. The room felt like it might be moving, and he felt Neil’s hand on his elbow, steadying him.
“I don’t know you,” Joshua said again, fixed and slow, his tongue feeling thick with the lie.
Neil simply shook his head, and Joshua couldn’t look away. His blue eyes were intense, piercing, and his expression angry and yet soft at the same time. He moved closer to Joshua, his hand going to Joshua’s elbow, and Joshua shuddered when Neil tipped his head back to get a better look at Joshua’s face and sidled up to him, seductive and incredibly present. Joshua felt young. So damn young. He hadn’t felt this way in a long time. In nearly twenty years.
“I’d never hurt you. I’d never—even if the technology existed, which it doesn’t—though, yes, it could. I could make it happen. But, it doesn’t matter, I’d never use nanites to hurt you. As for the rest…” Neil spoke quietly, soothing and strong in his words. “I can’t explain it to you. It doesn’t make sense to me, either. How I came to be here, how I even know who I was before? It’s been hell. But I’d never hurt you, Joshua. I’ve always wanted you to be happy.”
Joshua felt the cry of denial rip from him. “I don’t believe you!”
“Yeah, you do,” Neil said, touching his face softly. Long fingers traced Joshua’s cheekbone before cupping his face gently. “You don’t want to, and I can’t blame you. But you do. You know it’s true.”
Joshua wavered on his feet. He felt himself giving in, falling forward, it was like gravity and he couldn’t stop it from happening. His eyes burned, and his lashes felt wet. He blinked and trembled. Neil’s mouth was full of need, like he’d been waiting his whole life to kiss Joshua.
And just like that, Joshua knew that he had.
Chapter Nineteen
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Neil said, his mouth wet with Joshua’s spit, his hands unbuttoning Joshua’s shirt, seeking skin and contact and everything he’d ever wanted his whole life.
“Yeah, we shouldn’t,” Joshua said, diving in for another breathtaking kiss, his hands pulling at Neil’s hair, his hard cock pressing into Neil’s hip, and his breathing coming in desperate pants against Neil’s lips. “It’s nuts. I don’t do this sort of thing.”
“I know. I remember.”
Joshua shuddered in his arms, burying his nose in Neil’s neck, breathing there. “You smell the same. This is impossible. I’m insane.”
“You’re not insane.”
“Even if all of this wasn’t delusional, I’m…your donor,” Joshua muttered, his mouth moving on Neil’s neck with a sweet sensation.
“History repeats itself,” Neil said, his mouth on Joshua’s again. “Always with the excuses and delays.”
“God, this is intense, Neil. Is it really you?”
“It’s me. Wanted you forever,” Neil babbled. “Wanted you since you opened the door in your towel back in Nashville. No, no, wanted you before that. Wanted you from the second or third time I laid eyes on you. By the mailbox. Getting your mail.”
Joshua made a broken noise and dove for Neil’s mouth again.
When Neil came up for air, he found he’d steered Joshua to his bedroom, the bed still unmade from the morning before. The towers of books, which he’d carefully stacked and sorted after his freak-out, shook as he slammed the door behind them.
“This is a bad idea,” Neil said again, helping Joshua with the button on his jeans, noting that Joshua’s hands were trembling. Neil pushed them aside, hushing Joshua’s panic with a gentle, “Let me, let me.”
Joshua’s hands went to Neil’s hair again, then under his T-shirt to push it over his head. He skimmed down his back in firm, wanting, grabbing strokes that Neil responded to eagerly with grabbing strokes of his own. He glided his hands down Joshua’s chest, tugging on hair, and then tweaking Joshua’s nipples.
“Don’t wanna lose you,” Neil muttered. “But you’re here, can’t turn you away, I’d be an idiot, and we know I’m not an idiot—”
“Except for that truck thing,” Joshua whispered.
“Touché,” Neil agreed, kissing Joshua’s collarbone, tasting his skin, a floodgate of memory opening in him. “Do you remember your apartment? That ratty old sofa, and you tasted just like this. Your roommate came in, and I wanted to murder him, because you’d had your hand on my cock through my pants, and Christ, I wanted you. What was his name?” Neil asked, urgently, kicking his own jeans off and away, while helping to shove Joshua’s down.
“Paul.” Joshua moaned. “I can’t believe it’s really you.” Joshua gazed at Neil with wide, shocked eyes. His mouth was open and red from their kisses. “How? Is this a dream? Really, Neil, honestly. Tell me—am I losing my mind?”
“I don’t know—maybe. I ask myself that question all the time.” Neil knelt at Joshua’s feet, and ran his hand over Joshua’s stomach. The chest hair thinned to a line under his navel that ran to the top of his underwear, and Neil licked his lips, wanting to get beneath them. “We can’t do this,” Neil said.
“We shouldn’t. It’s too fast,” Joshua agreed, pushing his underwear down, his cock bouncing up looking achingly hard and rosy.
“Christ,” Neil said again, pushing his own off, too, watching Joshua’s eyes go impossibly wider at the sight of Neil’s cock. “Hey, hey.” Neil grabbed Joshua’s hands. “This can stop any time. We can slow down.”
Joshua nodded. “Yeah, slow down.”
And then things went completely out of control.
Joshua grabbed handfuls of Neil’s hair, guided him forward, and pressed his dick into his mouth. Joshua’s cock tasted like heaven on Neil’s tongue, and he sucked eagerly, desperately, before rising up again to push Joshua back onto the bed, kissing him, as they moved against each other in a frenzy of clutching, grabbing, and grinding. A swell of moans and whispers and cries rose in the room.
Neil clutched the condom in his hand, his fingers trembling as he rolled it on. “If we do this, there’s no going back. I don’t want you to regret it. Just tell me to stop.”
“Please, Neil,” Joshua said, his voice rough and vulnerable, his legs spread and his cock throbbing visibly against his stomach. Pre-come pearled on the head, and his thighs trembled.
Neil met Joshua’s lust-filled gaze, eyelids heavy and mouth bruised with kisses. The hair on Joshua’s chest didn’t hide the flush of red up over his skin and up his neck. Joshua was open and begging for him. It was more than Neil had dreamed of his entire life, more than he thought he’d ever have. He couldn’t stop now. He should. He should stop it before it all went to hell. Neil growled, grabbed his own cock roughly in one hand, and managed not to come.
Neil threw Joshua’s legs up to his shoulders, lined up, paused, staring at Joshua’s small, quickly lubed hole and the thick head of his big cock. He hesitated again. “This isn’t how I wanted it. Not back then. Not now. Wanted it to make sense—for you to understand. This isn’t how I wanted it.”
“Me, either. But I’ll take what I can get,” Joshua said, reaching for Neil’s ass and pulling him in.
Neil’s eyes rolled up against his will—dammit, he wanted to see Joshua! He wanted to see it all! Joshua’s asshole trembled and opened, stretching tight, so damn tight, around his cockhead.
Joshua’s noise of shock brought Neil’s focus back to his face, and he watched as Joshua’s eyes and mouth scrunched with the effort to take Neil in. In that moment, Neil knew Joshua hadn’t done this since his husband’s death. The knowledge was unsurprising but intense all the same, and he breathed deeply to try to control his own urge to shove inside the only man he’d ever loved and wanted like life itself.
“Shh,” Neil soothed, backing out all the way, only to have Joshua grab at his ass again and haul him forward with a deep grunt. Neil pushed against Joshua’s hole and moaned as he sank into t
he hot, velvet grip of him. He kept his eyes on Joshua’s face, watching in amazement as Joshua’s eyes told him everything—the intensity of Joshua’s emotions, the moment pain turned to pleasure, and the shock of the girth of Neil’s cock putting pressure on Joshua’s prostate.
“Oh my God,” Joshua breathed, using his grip on Neil’s hips to still him with his cock half-buried inside. “I’ve never…oh my God.”
Neil held himself steady, bending low to kiss Joshua’s collarbone, to tongue his nipples and press kisses to Joshua’s heaving chest. He licked his soft chest hair and breathed in the sweetest scent he’d ever known—Joshua’s skin. And then he moved, a shallow thrust. Joshua grabbed Neil’s face, pulled him down, and the wet, slick slide of the kiss and the tight grip of Joshua’s ass around his cock was perfect. Tears stung his eyes. Joy and a deep sense of rightness swept through him, followed immediately by nearly excruciating fear.
“This can’t happen,” Neil said, because he’d never thought he’d have Joshua. “We can’t do this. You need time. I need to explain. You’ll want to be sure.”
And yet he was doing it. He was rolling his hips and fucking Joshua with intimate, intense, deep strokes, and Joshua was staring at him, mouth open, eyelashes fluttering with each thrust. Completely out-of-control noises issued from Joshua’s throat, shocking noises of want, physical ecstasy, and desperation.
“So big,” Joshua whimpered when Neil bottomed out inside him and then withdrew, a long, sweet pull from Joshua’s clinging, tugging heat.
Neil meant to say that he could stop, that he’d pull out if it was too much, but he shushed Joshua and murmured, “You’re doing great. You feel so good.”
“Better than I ever knew,” Joshua said in awe.
“Yes,” Neil agreed. “So good.” It didn’t even begin to cover it. He felt like his heart would stop, or like it might beat out of his chest. He felt like his brain had stopped ruling his body, because by all rights he should be still clothed, they both should, and instead they were moving together, sweaty and entangled, emotions pouring from them in waves.
Joshua’s legs scraped along Neil’s sides, and he rocked up to meet Neil’s thrusts, his ass convulsing around Neil’s cock. His fingers twined into Neil’s hair like he was never letting go.
“Can’t take it,” Joshua grunted, his body tensing and then shuddering under Neil. “Too much.”
Neil tried to slow down, to pull his cock free, but Joshua squeezed him in tighter with strong thighs and moved his hands from Neil’s hair to grip tightly at Neil’s ass cheeks, keeping him inside, as his hole clenched on Neil’s cock to hold him in place.
“Oh God,” Joshua cried, and his head tossed on the pillow. “Is it really you? Tell me it’s you, Neil.”
“It’s me,” Neil agreed, staring down at Joshua’s face, watching every expression as it moved across his features. A jumble of emotion and confusion, and underlying it all a vibrant joy that seemed to drive Joshua from within, as he strained beneath Neil, trembling all around him, and clinging to him with everything he had.
Neil kissed Joshua’s wet lips, sucking on them as they fucked and pulsed together, scrambling at each other, gripping and sweating, until Neil noticed that a tear was running down the side of Joshua’s temple. He touched it with his fingers, bringing the liquid, salty wet to his mouth and licking it.
“Hey, hey, you’re okay,” Neil said. “You’re okay, Joshua. I’ve got you. I’m here.”
Joshua’s face crumpled as he hiccupped a soft sob, his legs wrapping around Neil’s lower back to hold him inside his ass. His arms were all the way around Neil, strong and desperately pulling him so tight and close that Neil almost couldn’t breathe. For a moment, he felt claustrophobic, and then he felt Joshua’s pulse beating along the length of his cock, buried so deep inside Joshua’s tight body, and the feeling disappeared. He was in Joshua, and he’d never wanted to be anywhere else.
“Don’t leave me again,” Joshua whispered, sounding shocked by his words, like he still couldn’t tell if any of this was real. “I don’t care if this is true. I just need you. I need you, Neil.”
“It’s true. It’s true, Joshua. Shh, I’m not going anywhere.” Neil thrust, feeling Joshua jolt under him as he fucked into him. “Feel me? You’ve got me. Feel me in you?”
“God, yes,” Joshua gasped. “You’re huge.”
Neil kissed Joshua’s eyebrows, his eyelashes damp with tears, and his mouth, before saying, “I’ve loved you for you twenty years, dammit. You’re an idiot if you think I won’t love you at least twenty more.”
And then he fucked him without holding back, pounding into his ass as hard as he could, making Joshua cry out, and twist, and scream for more. When Neil wormed a hand between them to grip Joshua’s cock in his palm, squeezing in rhythm with his unrelenting thrusts, Joshua’s face contorted, and he sounded shocked and overwhelmed as he shot a thick, heavy load of come between them.
Joshua jerked and trembled, crying out as Neil didn’t let up the thrusts, not until he felt the rush of orgasm in his own balls, and he buried himself as deeply as possible. Shaking and staring down at Joshua’s wide brown eyes, he came so hard it was agonizing, his entire body lighting up with unbearable pleasure. He didn’t know or care what Joshua heard or saw in that moment; giving over to the intensity of his orgasm was all he could manage. When he finally shuddered his way to the end of it, he’d collapsed on Joshua’s chest, drooling as he jerked gently under Joshua’s soothing, petting hands.
Carefully, after his breathing had settled and he could hear that Joshua’s heart rate had slowed, too, Neil pulled out of Joshua’s embrace, holding onto the base of the condom as he withdrew from Joshua’s ass. Neil didn’t look at Joshua’s face, afraid of what he’d see there. Regret? Anger? Neil didn’t know for sure. Having sex like this wasn’t how Joshua operated—at least it never had been before. Neil was suddenly terrified that even though everything Joshua believed was absolutely true—he was Neil Russell, despite all logic and scientific explanation—somehow Neil would screw it up, and Joshua wouldn’t believe him anymore, or, worse, after having lived so long without him, Joshua would find he didn’t love him after all, much less need him, as he’d claimed mid-fuck.
As the head of Neil’s cock popped past the tight ring of Joshua’s anus, Joshua gasped. Neil glanced up to see if it was pain that had forced that noise from Joshua’s throat. He met Joshua’s eyes, and tears prickled at the sight of the soft, hopeful, slightly terrified adoration he saw there.
Quickly, he examined Joshua’s hole—he’d been rough at the end—and found that it was gaping a little but was otherwise fine. It would be tight and tiny again within minutes, and yet Neil knew from Derek that gaping like that felt empty, and he didn’t want that sensation for Joshua. So, he sucked on three of his fingers, and pushed them into Joshua’s slick, hot ass, feeling the velvet softness of the inside of Joshua’s body against the pads of his fingers. He’d pull them out one by one until Joshua wasn’t hungry for them anymore.
Joshua sighed, and Neil slid up next to him, keeping his fingers inside, moving them in slow, pumping motions that seemed to soothe Joshua, who relaxed as Neil rested his head on Joshua’s shoulder, gazing up at his face.
“Okay?” Neil asked.
“No,” Joshua said, a freaked-out chuckle underscoring his word. “I just had sex for the first time since Lee died with someone I think is the reincarnation of a man I was in love with years ago. And I just had the most intense orgasm I’ve ever experienced. But you are my Neil, I know it, I can feel it—and I am really not okay.”
“Me, either,” Neil said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Neil kissed Joshua’s shoulder. “If you panic now, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’m a mess. I’ve been a mess since I saw you in Scottsville. It’s been hard enough living without you all these years. If you freak, and leave, and I have to do this without you—oh God, listen to me. Or don’t. Don’t listen to me. I sound like
a maniac.”
Joshua’s ass clenched on Neil’s fingers as he let out a soft chuckle. “Look, considering I’m basically having the same thoughts, only replace ‘freak and leave’ with ‘wake up to find myself in a mental hospital,’ I’m a little relieved to hear I’m not alone in this.”
Neil’s heart thumped, and he said, “You’re not alone.”
Joshua snuggled in closer, and Neil found Joshua’s prostate, moving his fingers over it automatically.
Joshua groaned and writhed. “Oh, God,” he said, and Neil rubbed harder, watching in avid fascination as Joshua’s face crumpled in reaction. He forgot all about taking his fingers out of Joshua’s ass and instead poured more lube over Joshua’s hole. As Joshua whimpered and said his name in an awed voice, Neil grabbed another condom and moved over Joshua, pushing back into his tight, throbbing slickness. He moaned as Joshua’s ass seemed to grab at his cock and suck him in.
“Neil,” Joshua breathed, his hips angling up to take the slow, gentle, rolling thrusts. “Don’t stop.”
“Couldn’t stop if I wanted to,” Neil said. “You’re everything I knew you’d be. No—more.”
They fucked slowly, kissing and whispering confessions.
“I never stopped loving you,” Joshua said, his eyes full of vulnerability and an urgent need for Neil to know. “Do you believe me? Even when I was with… When I was married, I loved you. I was ashamed, but it was true. I dreamed about you.” Joshua angled up for a kiss. “Tell me you believe me,” he breathed against Neil’s lips.
“I believe you,” Neil said, but it didn’t matter now. Lee was gone. Neil was here. And he had his cock so deep in Joshua that Joshua seemed shaken apart by the sensation of it. The past didn’t matter to him. He’d never thought he’d have this, and now he did. Nothing else made any difference.
“Never stop,” Joshua said as Neil thrust into him and then pulled mostly out again. “Never leave me.”
Neil knew that he’d have to stop fucking Joshua at some point, if only to get some food and water, but he readily agreed to Joshua’s demand. He rested his elbows on either side of Joshua’s face, tangled his fingers in Joshua’s short hair, and watched Joshua’s face shift with each thrust against his prostate—surprise, pleasure, need. And as irrational as it was, Neil felt a stab of smug pride that his cock was apparently bigger than Lee’s, apparently bigger than anyone Joshua had been with, because Joshua seemed continually awed by the size of it, breathing shallowly at times, and then whimpering about how good it felt, how intense the stretch.