by Avril Ashton
Love.
“I missed you,” Levi said against Van’s mouth. “I missed you. Every minute. Every day. Every fucking second.” He clutched Donovan’s face. “Donovan.” Fuck, he licked his lips and tasted the tears. “Donovan.” It blinded him, that surge of emotion. That flood of tears he’d had no intention of shedding. “Don’t leave me again. Don’t lose us again.”
“Never.” Van’s voice was equally husky. “I promise. I promise.” When Levi blinked away the tears he saw that Van’s face was wet, too. “I’m home.” He kissed Levi’s chin. “I’m home.”
He was.
Levi linked their fingers, the ones against Van’s cheek. “Then finish what you started.” He contracted around the dick pulsing inside him. Van’s teeth flashed and he pushed Levi’s left leg up as he increased his tempo.
In a blink they went from gentle to hard and raw with Levi’s knee at chest level, and Van’s cock driving into him.
“Aaahh!” Levi convulsed. “Fuck.” He gritted his teeth, fighting the orgasm churning at the base of his spine. He looked down at their bodies joined, at Van’s cock pistoning out of him. The sight, and Van’s expert knowledge of his body had him at the edge immediately.
Van threw his head back, moaning as he rolled his hips. Screwing deeper and pulling a hoarse curse from Levi. He savored the burn where their bodies were connected, the uncomfortable position that made his back protest. The sweat dripping from Van’s body onto his.
Levi closed his eyes, muscles working. He shoved a hand between them, circled his cock, and with two strokes he was done. Crying out, body arching as he came, cum splattering onto his belly. He gasped at the sensation, blood roaring in his ears. Before he came down off that high, Van’s mouth was on him, tongue flicking over his, and his ass was filled as Van emptied inside him and collapsed onto Levi’s sweat-slicked chest.
Levi held him, ignoring the sticky mess between their bodies, and the sweat that made the slide of their skin so slippery. His muscles kept squeezing at Van, milking him, and the other man’s body flinched every time.
After a moment, Van lifted his head to stare down at Levi. His lips were pulled back in a smile. Not quite sad, but not quite joyous either. He touched Levi’s face, traced it with one finger, from his forehead to his chin.
“I love you,” Van whispered. “There was never a moment in the past seven years where I didn’t ache to be right back here in your arms.” He brushed his knuckles against Levi’s cheek. “You’re so home to me.”
Levi gazed up at him with his fuck-drowsy eyes, sweat glistening in his beard, and shining on his skin. Fucking gorgeous. This man. Fucking gorgeous. He turned his face into Van’s touch, kissed his palm. “Welcome home.”
Chapter Thirteen
The temperature wouldn’t let Donovan be great, numbing his toes, breath visible with every exhale. His body was wrung out. Raw, every part of him, ass flooded, back scoured with Levi’s nails.
But his heart. Man, he was too amped to sleep. So he’d grabbed the blanket off of Levi’s bed after round three, made them both a cup of coffee and grabbed Levi’s hand. Two flights of stairs took them to the roof, where he was now freezing his face off, but see shit like that didn’t matter.
Because Levi was snuggled up against him under the blanket, sipping on his coffee. Warm on Van’s shoulder, chasing away shadows that only brought the chill. Van’s happiness that a smell, and a feel and a taste.
Levi.
Here under the Brooklyn sky that hadn’t yet relinquished its hold on the night, with the silence so still, and the salt of the nearby ocean in his nostrils, Van was happy.
“Izek comes home tomorrow,” Levi said into the quiet.
“I heard.” He rubbed his jaw across the top of Levi’s head,
“He might not remember you.” Levi lifted his head, eyes and words apologetic. “He’s— I didn’t talk about you, and he stopped asking after a while.”
Van bit back a smile. “We’ll be fine, Izek and I.”
“I just want you to know.” Levi looked worried, mouth turned down, and Van couldn’t have that. “If he does remember you, he might be angry. He’s all about the silent treatment, that kid.”
“Don’t worry, I can handle it.” He brushed a kiss to Levi’s nose. “Tell me about him.”
“He’s a great kid.” The pride was so evident in his voice as he told Van about Izek’s honor roll status, and his love of science and technology. “He’s seventeen, Van. Even has a steady girlfriend.” Wonder filled his voice. “Soon he’s gonna be headed off to college. When did that shit even happen, huh?”
When they weren’t paying attention. Van looked forward to seeing Izek face to face, but he didn’t think he’d be able to brace himself enough. He’d been in love with that kid. “How does that make you feel?”
Levi took a sip of his coffee then put it down next to him. Staring out into the distance, he spoke. “Proud. Old.”
Van snorted. “Dude, you’re forty.”
“Like I said. Old.” He glanced at Van then away again. “I was always going to take you back. That’s why I had Dutch keep you away. If I saw you, if I had been allowed close enough to touch you—” Breath left him loudly, and he shook his head. “I was always going to take you back.”
“You needed time.”
“Yeah.” Levi grasped Van’s hand and squeezed. “I need to tell you why I stayed with Pablo.”
Van stiffened then took a breath, blew it out and forced himself to relax. Anger was always his default reaction when he thought about Levi and Castillo together. But that shit was hypocritical when he’d been less than chaste these past seven years himself. “Okay.” He nodded. “Tell me.”
“When your father threatened Izek and I, Dutch gave me a choice. Take Izek and disappear or stay and lose Izek.”
Van frowned. “What does that mean? How would you lose Izek?”
“I was driving the car when Gia got—” He choked. “When Gia died. Dutch said he’d charge me with her death, and since you didn’t have any claims on Izek, yet, he’d go into foster care.”
“That son of a bitch!” Van exploded. “You knew all this and still begged me not to kill him?”
Levi patted his thigh. “I know what I said, but that was anger talking. You’re not like him. Or your father. And I don’t want you to be.” He cleared his throat. “He got me the place in Philly because I wanted to be as far away from California as possible. I was…coping. Izek wasn’t, but I did my best since Dutch left me alone. Then one day he showed up and took me on a drive, pointed out Pablo. Told me to get close to him. He didn’t say why.”
Van swallowed all the angry words that burned his tongue, choosing instead to hold Levi tighter. To listen. It was not an easy thing.
“Of course I said no, but he just told me pick my poison. Him or your father. I picked him, again. I did what he wanted. I don’t know how it happened, but I ended up sharing my story with Pablo. Not that Dutch had sent me, but what happened with us. He proposed an arrangement, a new house, and protection if I saw him again.” Levi twisted around to look Van in the eye when he said, “I said yes because I knew with a man as dangerous as Pablo around Dutch would stay away. I was right. He never contacted me again. Pablo made it possible for me to work. It was a physical arrangement, exactly what I needed, and I was able to walk away when I wanted.”
“Did you know who he was?”
“Yes.”
He’d never be okay with the history Levi had with Castillo, but he had no right to be angry, or judge. There was no way he could fault Levi for what he’d done to survive. “I hate that I wasn’t there for you,” he murmured at Levi’s ear. “But I’m grateful to Castillo for protecting you.” The words weren’t the easiest to speak, but they were true. And since they were imparting truths… “I didn’t want to say yes.”
“What?”
“When you asked me to marry you,” he murmured. “I didn’t want to say yes.” It had been a spur of the mome
nt proposal on their kitchen table, Levi’s dick in his ass after Izek went off to school. Words uttered during orgasm weren’t supposed to be so fucking shattering. They weren’t to be taken seriously. But in the aftermath, they’d stood ankle-deep in broken dishes and scattered cereal, and Levi hadn’t taken back those words.
He’d repeated them.
“You looked as if I’d punched you in the face.” The hurt hadn’t all drained away from Levi’s voice, and Van was learning to not wince every time he heard it. “Then you disappeared for two days.”
“I went to Dutch, told him I was gonna tell you the truth. Who I was, and why.”
“Why?” Levi asked.
“Why I had come into your life.”
“No.” Levi shook his head. “I mean, why did you want to tell me the truth?”
“Because I loved you.” Van swallowed. “And I didn’t want to say yes without you knowing the truth. Not marrying you wasn’t an option. Not to me. But I couldn’t, because I saw you leaving me, and I saw me not surviving it.”
“Donovan.” Levi sighed his name, lifting goosebumps to cover Van’s skin.
He hugged Levi to him, inhaled him with his eyes closed. Wrapped up like this, the cold didn’t matter. The lack of sleep didn’t matter. Only thing on his mind was this man in his arms, luxuriating in the familiar newness of him, of them.
“I thought you were cheating,” Levi confessed in a tone so low, Van barely made out the words.
“What?” He jerked. “Hell no.”
“The week before everything blew up, you’d been acting strange. You lied to me about where you’d been, and I heard you on the phone one night, whispering.” Levi pulled away slightly. “So I thought what any rational man would in a situation like that.”
“Aw, man. I’m sorry. There’d never been anyone else in our bed…” He grinned. “Except the people we invited in.” Like Gia.
“Sometimes I…” Levi let his words drag out then slowly stop. “Sometimes I wish I had been right, that you’d been sleeping with someone else. I figured maybe it would’ve hurt less.”
“That’s when Dutch popped back out of the shadows, wanting me to do a job.” Van’s jaw tightened as he remembered that fucking fight. Of course, Dutch got his way in the end, because he tore Van’s world apart then sent him undercover anyway.
Only he sent him to Seraphina Cook.
“I-I didn’t know if everything you’d told me had been the truth,” Levi said. “Like what you felt for me or Izek. Like your name, and I felt too much like a fool already to make myself ask Dutch or even Sullivan if Donovan Cintron was real or made up.”
“I’m so sorry.” It would never not hurt Van, the knowledge that Levi hadn’t known if his husband’s name was real or not. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“We weren’t perfect,” Levi whispered. He turned his face into Van’s, lips moving against his cheek. “But we were real.” The stilted quality of his voice told Van Levi was only realizing those words as he spoke them. “The flaws that had nothing to do with your work or Dutch, and everything to do with us. I loved those flaws. They were real.”
“Yes.” Realest shit he’d ever been a part of. “We were real. And we worked.” They had. Absent Dutch’s shady dealings, and the lies Van had to tell to get himself into Levi’s life. “We worked.”
Levi caught the front of Van’s sweater, both hands balled against his chest, gaze boring into him when he sat up. “Let’s make it work again. I want it to work again.”
Van grinned as the first ray of orange sun climbed out from behind the clouds and lit up the sky. “Fuck, yeah.”
“So…” Levi pulled away from Van, sat up straight. “One last thing.”
“Okay?” Van frowned.
“I’ve been in contact with my brother.”
Van blinked.
“With Daniel.”
“Huh?”
“We, uh, we met once.” Van cleared his throat, but didn’t look at Van. “Some of the men out there watching out for us are his men.”
“Wait. Wait. Hold up.” Van held up a hand. “You’re telling me you’ve been in contact with Daniel Nieto, the same Daniel Nieto who’s been on the run from the authorities for God knows how long?”
“Van, I’m not—” Levi grabbed his hand, met his eyes with a pleading gaze. “He contacted me about a year ago. I swear I wasn’t in contact with him back when—”
“I know that.” Van touched Levi’s cheek, caressed him. “I know that, babe. Tell me your story.”
Levi blew out a loud breath. “The phone rang one day, and this fucked up voice on the other end introduced himself. He knew about you and me, knew about Dutch. He’s been watching over me.”
That shit was hard to wrap his mind around. “And you met him?”
“For like five minutes. I went to get gas and I open my car door and there’s this man seated in the back. He spoke, and I knew who he was.”
“So what does he want from you?”
“Nothing.” Levi shook his head. “He calls me once a week, although the past few days we’ve spoken more often. He checks up on me and Izek. We…talk?”
Van chuckled. “You asking me?”
“No, I just…” Levi laughed. “We talk, but it more about me. We sorta skirt over the fact that he’s this internationally wanted criminal.”
“Okay.”
Levi squinted at him. “You’re okay with it?”
“As long as he doesn’t hurt you and Izek, I’m okay with it. I’m no longer working for Dutch and I’m definitely not gonna do anything that’s gonna hurt you.”
Levi kissed him, a lingering brush of his lips against Van’s. Coffee kisses. “Thank you.”
“Gonna be interesting having Daniel Nieto as a brother-in-law, I’m sure.”
* * * *
They spent the day in bed, crawling out late in the evening only after Levi got the text from Izek saying he was in the car headed to Coney Island. A knot of anxiety tightened in Levi’s chest as he waited. Fact was, he didn’t know how Izek would respond to seeing Donovan back after all this time. Like he’d told Van, they didn’t talk about it. Levi wasn’t keen on revisiting that time with all the pain, and he didn’t want Izek to remember the loss.
So they hadn’t discussed it. Now, out of the blue, Van would be back it their lives. How would their son react?
He took a shower, chasing Van away.
Levi was fucked out. At least for the moment. Fuck, but the night of marathon sex hadn’t been on his agenda in years. His phone went off as he stepped out of the shower, so he wrapped a towel around his hips quickly and grabbed it where it vibrated along the sink’s edge.
“Hello?”
“Are you well?” Daniel Nieto asked.
Levi frowned as he wiped the mirror. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I’m told Mark Dulles is in New York.”
Levi had learned long ago not to ask where his caller got his news. “I—I had no idea.” He didn’t like thinking about Mark Dulles and what he’d done to push Levi out of Van’s life. Yes, he’d been on the way out, but the senator hastened that departure with his threats and the power he wielded. A power Levi could never dream of standing up to. Dulles was a scary man, and the farther he was from Levi and his family the better.
“Your husband might know.”
Van had to have a sit-down with Mark Dulles in order fix that whole list issue, so yeah, maybe he knew his father was in town. “You think he’s a threat?”
“Your husband?”
“Dulles.”
His caller sighed. “He is always a threat, to a lot of people. I’m going to ask again…” He paused and something rustled in the background. “Do you want him dead? It can be done in five minutes.”
He’d asked the same question regarding Dutch. And Donovan. “My answer remains the same.”
“You’re the good one.” He heard the mocking, and the smile. “It is good to know we still have those.”
> Levi shook his head. “I won’t have anyone’s death on my conscience, no matter how much of a monster that person is.” Shit like that might come easily to his caller, and to his husband, but not to him. “I’m not like you.”
“He is the same way, your husband.” He spoke the words slowly, so each one would sink in. “He is deadly and dangerous. Like me. I’ve seen him in action.” There was grudging respect there.
“Mark Dulles has stayed away from Izek and me.” Levi chose to ignore the words that had his stomach knotting. “He’s too busy trying to con his way into the White House to bother with me.”
“Maybe.” But his caller didn’t pursue that topic again. Instead he asked, “The situation with your husband, how is it?”
Levi took a breath, met his eyes in the mirror. “We are giving each other a second chance. And Izek should be coming back soon. ”
“Ah. A family reunion.”
“Yes.” He nodded. “I told Donovan about you. He knows we’re in contact.”
“I see.” Daniel paused. “Then I shouldn’t keep you. If you need me—”
“I know,” he said quickly before his caller hung up. “Thank you. For being there.” Even though he wasn’t, not in the true sense. But the phone calls meant something, built something between them.
“Of course.” Like it was a foregone conclusion, the promise in that dark and wrecked voice. Then a click signaled the call’s end.
Levi put the phone down and grabbed hold of the sink with both hands, staring at himself in the mirror, breathing deeply. His chest and shoulder was red and scratched, evidence of Donovan’s pleasure. When they touched, the years melted away. When they touched, shit exploded. When they touched, Levi became somebody else. Someone he could only ever be with Van.
Together they gave each other a freedom to be…whatever. Whomever. He’d loved that back then, he loved it now. Their bisexuality made it so their sex included both sexes. And they’d taken advantage, especially with Gia. With Levi’s best friend they’d built more than a friendship with benefits, but something less than a true ménage relationship. It worked for them, because they’d been open and honest.