Exquisitely Hidden: A Sin City Tale

by M. Jay Granberry

  It feels like forever when the reporter finally walks out the front door.

  “Hey, baby,” I say in a voice that’s deep even to my own ears. An infectious smile moves across his features, and I find myself smiling in return.

  “Boyfriend, huh?”

  “Yeah. Kinda has a nice ring to it.” Adam unbinds his fingers, reaching up to touch the shorn locks of his hair. “Right?”

  I push off the wall, crossing the short distance between us. “Were you ever planning on having that conversation with me? Or is this like a name-it-and-claim-it type of thing.”

  “No.”

  “No, you weren’t planning on having the conversation or no to the name and claim?”

  Adam lets out a shaky breath, humor lighting his eyes. “No to the name and claim.”

  “So, you wanna ask me to go steady? Do I get to wear your favorite leather jacket?”

  The humor in those eyes moves down his face, tipping up the corners of his mouth. I take the seat on the cushion next to him but even the twelve inches of space is too far. I reach across the foot of space and draw him nearer. I sigh when his chest molds to mine and his head finds the curve of my neck. His body in my arms, his scent filling my nose—this is right.

  “I missed you, baby,” I say into his ear. “I was so pissed and hurt I wasn’t sure that we’d ever be here again.”

  “I wasn’t either. I thought for sure you’d move on and replace me with someone with a whole lot less bullshit and a whole lot more open.” Adam groaned, his shoulders shaking with the force of it. “I know being with me isn’t easy. It won’t be easy, but I’m working on it. I’m talking to someone who’s helping me work through the shit ton of issues I need to deal with. But I realize I want to work on me with you.”

  A year ago, those words would’ve been impossible for him. The fact he said them, that he admitted to wanting me—not just sex with me, but a relationship where we share, and talk, and grow together—validates something in me I didn’t know needed validating. I pull his face from my neck and look into his bottomless eyes.

  “Can I kiss you?”

  Adam drops his forehead on mine and whispers, “Please.”

  I brush my mouth over his. Once. Twice. Three times. He pulls in a sharp breath. His fingers slide around the back of my head as he parts his lips, tongue teasing across his full bottom lip to touch mine. But I’m not in a teasing mood. I invade his mouth, thrusting my tongue against his, reacquainting myself with his flavor.

  God, I’d missed this. The way just one kiss, one touch, lights me on fire.

  “Fuck, baby.” I moan against his moist lips. “God help you if you didn’t mean it. Because now that I have you, I’m never letting you go.”

  Adam tilts his head, his eyes glazed with passion. “I’m yours,” he says with a guttural groan when I suck on the pulse point under his jaw.

  “I’m here. All you have to do is take me.” I recognize a version of the words I said to him by the pool, when we first arrived in Las Vegas, what now feels like forever ago.

  And I dive in.

  With a hand on his chest I force him back until I have the space to straddle his lap. My thighs spread wide on either side of his. Looking down at him from this angle, his face tilted up to mine, it seems almost ordinary for me to lean down and take his mouth. Yesterday, or the week before that, this would’ve been a dream. Something that evaporated under the light of day and the lucidity of consciousness.

  I sensually undulate against his body. Our lips lock. Denim-covered dicks grinding. Adam’s nimble fingers pop the button on my shorts and deftly pull down the zipper. We both pause, my forehead on his, our breaths coming out in hot gasps as he pushes my shorts and underwear down below my hips, freeing my impatient and needy cock.

  “I want this—you—but I didn’t bring . . . I wasn’t planning on—”

  “I’m negative, but if you wanna wait for the paperwork . . . Fuck, baby . . .” I pant as his hand curls around my erection, stroking up with a firm grip and twisting around the tip.

  “I’m negative too,” he says in a rush. “But we need. . . lube.” He raises his hips, pulling out his wallet, fishing through the front pocket until he finds what he’s looking for. Smiling up at me he takes out a single packet of travel lube. Thank you, Jesus, because I need this—him—so bad.

  Desire becomes a primitive need, to be fucked. To feel this man—my man—inside me, around me, raw. To know the pressure of him bottoming out, with stiff and continual thrusts that will have me trembling from the need to blow my load.

  We move toward each other at the same time, kissing in desperate bursts, broken by the hurried movements of clothes being removed. Once stripped and completely bare, I once again straddle his lap.

  He runs hands over my shoulders, down the individual lines of my ribs, finally cupping my ass, spreading my cheeks, and circling his finger around my entrance. I have no control of my hips pushing back toward that finger or the moan when he breaches me, but that’s where he stops.

  I force my eyes open and find his face serious, eyes glossy with emotion.

  I cup his face in both of my hands and kiss his forehead and his sculpted cheekbones, the scruffy jaw, the kiss-swollen lips. His eyes flutter closed, and he lets out a jagged breath.

  “I wasn’t sure that I would ever have this again,” he whispers. “That I’d ever have you . . .”

  I press my lips over his, cutting off his words. I lift my head a fraction and stare into his eyes as I whisper back, “We’re here now, baby, and that’s the only thing that matters.”

  Then there are no more words.

  Just his body underneath mine, our lips smashed together, our deep moans and breaths creating intimacy, almost too close, too all-consuming. I need him this close, so close I am no longer me, and he is no longer him—we exist as us.

  He presses forward, pushing me onto my back, yanking my thighs wide.

  “Look at you,” he says coarsely, leaning down, wrapping his mouth around my dick. Sucking me down his throat.

  “Adam . . .” His name is a shout is ripped from my lungs. My hands automatically move to his soft hair on the sides of his head.

  He shakes off my hands. Mouth moving back up my cock in a slow, agonizing pull. Letting it flop on my stomach with a wet slap.

  “So fucking gorgeous,” he murmurs, reaching for the forgotten packet of lube.

  The muscles low in my stomach clench as I watch him tear the packet and spread the liquid on his fingers, getting them slicked up and greasy. One finger delves between my ass cheeks, circling the puckered hole just enough to make me rock toward it, seeking deeper penetration.

  I growl when he finally breaches the tight ring of muscle, slipping into the channel of my ass, preparing me, teasing me open to make room for more. A second finger joins the first and then a third, and I’m stretched wide, riding his fingers in jerky movements and uncoordinated thrusts of my hips.

  “Oooh, you like that, huh?” he asks, but I’m too far gone to answer. The sensations override my ability to speak or think. I’m only capable of feeling.

  “I can’t wait to get back in that ass,” he says, pulling his fingers out. He squeezes lube on his dick and drizzles the cool liquid on my hole.

  “It’s mine,” he says low, almost to himself, but I hear it. He enters me bare, no rubber between us, just him plunging into me. I’ve never been raw, never given any other man what he’s getting, and it’s flawless.

  “You. Are. Mine.” His words hit me with finality as he drops to his elbows and rocks deliberately against me.

  You are mine. Those words travel through my ears, skitter across my heart, and embed themselves in my DNA as truth. My truth. From the first moment we met he was inevitable, and I couldn’t resist even when he pushed me away, even when he pretended, I was nothing to him. I wanted to be claimed, to be his.

  He starts to fuck with momentum, harder, faster, deeper, taking me to that place where pleasure and pa
in meld, igniting my nerve endings and stealing my breath. Yesyesyesyesyes.

  “So good, baby . . . so fucking good. Please don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.” I beg in between breaths. My eyes roll to the back of my head.

  Precum smears on my belly where the tip of my dick touches the skin there.

  “How did I ever think I could walk away from this—from you?”

  I don’t have an answer for that. I wish I did. Maybe we could’ve saved ourselves from hurt feeling and hurt egos. He reaches between us, his rough hand jerking my dick while he plunders my ass, power-fucking me until I lose track of space and time, until my body is shaking, and my balls draw up to the shaft.

  “Just like that, baby . . . Fuck me, just . . . like . . . that.” I moan around stilted breaths. Pressure grips my dick, making it throb in time with his thrusts and I can’t fight it.

  “I’m about to . . .” I say in warning of the orgasm barreling down my spine.

  “Who is making you come, Seth?” he says through clenched teeth, slapping his hips hard against mine. “Who?” he demands with another hard thrust.

  I reach up to grip the back of his neck, pulling his head down. “You are,” I say between our lips.

  “That’s right, it’s me. It’ll always be me.” His tongue sweeps inside my mouth, collecting my response. He pulls back, his body going harder. “I want the words; tell me.”

  “Only you . . .” I manage to gasp right before my ass clenches around him and pearly ropes of semen lace my chest.

  He doesn’t last even one more stroke before he’s shooting inside me, collapsing against my chest. The hot rush of liquid flooding my channel and shallow strokes spread the mess between my ass cheeks.

  We stay just like that for long minutes. Bodies glued together with semen, sweat, and heat. Our arms are wrapped tightly around each other. Our hearts in sync.

  I run a lazy hand up his spine and a tremor shakes his shoulders, making him burrow closer. Our breaths slow eventually, evening out. I am drifting, almost asleep, when he asks in a low voice, “Can we talk? I feel like I need to explain.”

  “Yeah. Let’s . . .” I try to sit up, but he doesn’t budge.

  “Just like this,” he says into my chest. “Let’s talk just like this.”

  “You okay?”

  “I’m getting there.” He sighs, and on instinct I tighten my arms around him.

  “My mom was beautiful,” he starts quietly. “At least to me she was. Even when she was using and lost so much weight that her skin hung on her bones. She had wide, blue eyes, with a long, straight nose, and full lips.”

  “Is that where you get these from?” I ask, running my thumb over the curve of his mouth.

  “Something like that.” He chuckles but it’s a sad sound, and I feel his cheek pull against my chest.

  “She moved here from Gipson City, Illinois, to be a showgirl but got caught up.”

  “In what?”

  “The Vegas nightlife. The parties, the drugs, the men. When she was all used up, no longer the prettiest or youngest girl on the block, she got pregnant with me and we moved to Pahrump where she . . .” His voice catches but he clears the emotion and continues, “She became a prostitute in one of the brothels.”

  “It’s legal there but the normal citizens don’t really take to the working girls too well. You know?”

  No, I didn’t know. But I can only imagine a young mother, with no family, and fake friends, doing what she needed to do to survive and becoming the community pariah as a result. “I can imagine.”

  “My first memory of my mom is of her asking me to tie the tourniquet around her arm to help her shoot up.” He takes a deep, heaving breath.

  “So anyway, some times were better than others. Sometimes she’d be like other moms, laughing and joking and cooking dinner. Other times I’d be in state custody because I was stealing food from the 7-Eleven down the street from my house because I hadn’t eaten in a couple of days.”

  Pain radiates from his voice and body at the memories. These god-awful, fucked-up memories no child should ever have, let alone live through.

  “Every time the state took me away from my mom, I was placed in a transition home, a group home run by Mrs. Norcross, the woman we saw that day at breakfast.”

  I nod to let him know I’m listening. I know where this story is going. Somewhere in the back of my mind I recognized it that day. The way he froze when she touched him. The terror in his eyes when he heard her voice.

  “I don’t know why Mrs. Norcross singled me out. I think she knew even when I was young, I was . . . that I liked boys instead of girls. So, she made me do things, sexual things, mostly to her. If I wanted to eat or take a shower it came with a price tag.”

  I stare at a hole in the ceiling and grind my teeth. I’m happy he wanted to do this with my arms holding him and my body grounding him.

  “So,” he continues, “looking like this”—he waves a hand in the general vicinity of his face—“being gay, my mom being a known drug addict and prostitute. It was all fucked-up in my head. In some ways it still is. And I took it out on you because it was easier not to let you in, to tell you to leave, before you could tell me to go.”

  “Why would you think I’d ever tell you to go? Baby, since jump all I’ve wanted is for you to stay.”

  At that Adam props himself up on my chest, his chin digging into the muscle of my pec.

  “Even after hearing all that?” he asks, his eyes sober, searching mine.

  “Especially after all of that,” I say, staring at my beautiful, broken man. I try to pour every ounce of care, and concern, and love I feel for him into my gaze. For all the times he didn’t feel it before. For all the people who should’ve loved him and should’ve cared but didn’t.

  “Baby, nothing you said to me makes me love you any less.”

  His eyes round and the smile that breaks across his face glows like first rays of the sun breaking over a ridge of mountains.

  “You love me?” he asks flippantly, but I read the disbelief in those eyes.

  “Why else would I put up with all of your bullshit?” I lean up and kiss his smiling mouth.

  The humor fades between us and he once again quietly studies me, eyes intent on mine. “Me too,” he says, his voice heavy with emotion. “I love you too.”

  Adam

  TWO YEARS LATER . . .

  “Why did we agree to host Christmas at our house?” I ask Seth when the doorbell rings for what feels like the millionth time.

  “Because you have it in your head that you missed out as a kid by not having large family gatherings,” he grumbles, wrapping a hand around the back of my neck, and drawing me in for what was supposed to be a fast kiss, but quickly escalates to my hand on his ass and my tongue in his mouth.

  It’s been two years since I told the world I have a boyfriend and, other than the occasional speculation wondering who he is, it’s gotten very little attention. I don’t think we even got fifteen minutes of attention from the press and surprisingly there wasn’t one question about me and Sin, after years spent dangling the carrot that we might be in a relationship. We still get the occasional paparazzo showing up, trying to get pictures, but we really aren’t that interesting. The only thing they’re going to capture is us doing all the ordinary shit that couples do, walking out of our house, buying toilet paper in bulk at Costco, checking out the massage chairs in the home store, maybe catching the new action flick.

  They won’t see the hours of therapy, the late-night conversations, the thousands of little touches that led up to me holding his hand in public. All they get is a picture, and that’s not truly us. I’m still not a fan of having people in our business, but I no longer hide. I have a relationship with him in the open and I love every minute of it.

  Seth pulls back first, nipping my bottom lip before he says, “I’m gonna go get the door before I walk us back to our room, lock the door, and fuck you like the tease you’ve been for the last twenty-
four hours.”

  “Your parents were in the room across the hall,” I say defensively.

  He pulls me back into his body, kissing the sensitive skin behind my ear. He drags his nose up the shell of my ear and whispers, “Baby, I was sneaking boys into my momma’s house at sixteen. I know how to be quiet.”

  The doorbell rings again and he takes a step back, eyes immediately falling to the semi in my pants. “At least I’m not the only one frustrated.”

  I watch his fine ass flex under the material of his black dress slacks as he walks to the door. It would be very bad to have a quickie with a house full of people, right? Plus, the idea of having sex with his parents in the house really does freak me out.

  Sin and Jake walk through the door, arms full of wriggling toddlers bundled up like there is ten feet of snow outside. Seth closes the door behind them as they set the twins down and begin what I’m sure will be a process to get them undressed. Sin reaches for Naomi, but she ducks behind Seth’s leg, playing what looks like peekaboo. Her peal of laughter brings a smile to everyone’s face as she once again evades Sin’s reach.

  “Come here, baby girl.” Seth reaches down for the toddler who willingly comes into his arms, looking up at him full of adoration. Naomi is the more social twin. She’s quick to play and talk. “Let’s get you out of all these clothes,” he coos, shooting a questioning look at Jake over Sin’s head.

  Jake shrugs. “I told her we weren’t in the blizzard in Las Vegas with forty-degree weather,” he says, clearly exasperated.

  “I didn’t want them to get cold,” Sin complains, standing between the two men, peeling off her own jacket and hanging it on the coat tree. Jake takes a knee in front of Noah. Sin’s little boy stands quietly while his dad pulls off the knit hat and gloves, unwraps the scarf from around his neck, and finally pulls off the blue puffy coat.

  “You okay, little dude? Wanna go play with Uncle Adam’s guitars?” I know he threw that last part in for me. Still the asshole. He doesn’t even know where I am in the house, but he’s mocking me. Jake and I will never have the closeness I share with Sin. It just isn’t possible—not enough time, or sweat, or tears, or any of the other terrible slash wonderful shit we’ve gone through—but we have brokered peace. Which will end immediately if he turns his children loose on my studio.