by K. Z. Snow
Jackson lifted Adin’s left hand and stuck the third finger in his mouth, tightening his lips around its base. “There. There’s your ring. It’s the best I can do at the moment, since I don’t wear jewelry or smoke cigars.”
“A spit circle?”
“Hey, it’s a spit circle straight from my heart. Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it,” Adin said almost demurely.
Jackson held out his left hand. “My turn.”
Adin slipped the appropriate finger into his mouth. Jackson stared at the soft cincture of his lips, felt the moist leaf-curl of his tongue. In a few seconds Adin gagged and pulled away. “Your finger’s too long.”
“My dick’s a lot longer.”
“That’s different.”
“I hope so. I wouldn’t feel like the stud that I am if I had a wiener with knuckles. Well, brass ones, maybe.”
Adin began snickering. “Or a penis growing out of your hand.”
“That wouldn’t be so bad. At least I could blow myself whenever I wanted to.”
Adin snorted. His snickering increased.
Jackson joined in. “All right, let’s get back on track here. Do you want to pledge your troth? Not that I know what the hell a troth is.”
Laughter fading, Adin looked at his finger. He bent it forward and touched the base with his thumb. “An oath,” he said quietly. “To be faithful, primarily.”
Jackson grabbed his hand before they had a chance to explore that path. “Come on, let’s go to bed.”
Before they could get up, Adin cupped the back of Jackson’s head and urged his face forward.
The kiss was extraordinary. Their lips whispered together in introduction, then sealed perfectly, with exquisite slowness. Their tongues stole out and touched, then twined. It was passion meted out in small degrees. Firmness relaxing into softness tensing into firmness again. A feathery brush and demanding crush; a moist withdrawal and reentry. Never the same, always new.
Adin tasted faintly of wintergreen, so tonight his lips were like buttery soft mints melting against and behind Jackson’s lips. Then a familiar, bristly scratch of stubble brought Jackson back to the man again…beautiful, but not perfect.
They were both discovering and coming home to each other. Nothing Jackson ever conjured could compare with this transcendent magic.
Nothing could compare with Adin.
Rising, finally, they walked with arms around waists to the bedroom. The linens didn’t require much rearranging. Jackson and Adin paused before they undressed to kiss again, this time with hands in hair and mouths gliding over faces and throats. Maybe they sensed there would be no tangle tonight. They were wrung out, and their morning shower would come soon enough. But Jackson knew there was a better reason than that, and if he knew, Adin surely did, too. They simply preferred the more profound and tender intimacy of kissing, a quiet joy.
Slipping beneath the sheets, they automatically assumed their non-lovemaking position—one body spooned against the other. Tonight, Adin was behind Jackson. There was no light to turn off.
Jackson didn’t feel drained; he felt full, and serene. He'd emerged from the Prism of Nezrabi unscathed, his multifaceted mission accomplished. He now had time to spend with the man he loved … for a blessed while. It was spring, and greening lawns would give the neighborhood’s urchin houses cheerful skirts to wear. He had many reasons to be thankful.
One overrode all the rest. It might look like we won't live happily ever after, but maybe we will. He'd always believed in trying to beat the odds.
Adin slid an arm over Jackson's ribcage, draped a leg over Jackson's legs. Closing his hand over Adin's fingers, Jackson curled them against his chest. He felt the solid, sloping heat of his lover's body, molded against the length of his own, the sultry breeze of his exhalations, the tickly froth of his pubic hair and occasional twitch of his drowsy cock.
“Are we married now?” Adin said to the darkness. He put a final kiss on the top of Jackson's back.
The darkness answered, “Yes.”
Epilogue
Kipling got it wrong. The sun didn’t come up like thunder; it came up like a spike in the fucking eye. Cursing, Ivan trundled to the heavy drapes on his lake-facing balcony doors and yanked them shut. Hands on hips, he wondered if he should try hitting the sack again or just brew up some espresso. He decided to decide later.
Going to the couch, he flopped onto it with a grunt and stretched out, arm over forehead. He’d have to come up with some rite to keep weird dreams from disrupting his slumber. Hell of a night it had been. And not the only one, either. He tried to remember those half-sleep terrors but couldn’t call up any clear images. The only thing he was fairly sure of was Jackson Spey being part of them.
Rolling his head to the right, he squinted at the spiny puffer fish on his cocktail table. That’s how he saw the Prism of Nezrabi today—a curiosity that took up too much room and gathered dust. Fat lot of good it was doing him. He didn’t know how to activate it and couldn’t risk concocting his own abracadabra. The damned thing had a reputation, after all.
It could put him in a world of hurt. Not only through some magical misstep on his part, but because Spey was tripping out on him again. And if Spey tripped out enough, Ivan knew the quality of his life could take a rapid nosedive into Lake Doodoocaca.
Fucking wizard. So let him become deranged on his own time. Ivan had more succulent fish to fry than a spiny puffer.
These soothing thoughts helped him relax. Life wasn’t bad, not bad at all. He’d get a good chunk of change by selling the Prism, could wash his hands of that ghoul Bothu, find a juicy tidbit to replace icky Miki in the coven, and maybe get his dick stretched by Christy tonight.
Ivan’s eyelids began to drift closed as he ruminated.
Oh yeah. Fortune would descend on him. But good.
The End
About the Author:
K. Z. Snow is a multi-published author who describes herself as “grossly overeducated and grossly underskilled.” Although K. Z. has written in a number of genres, her real love is m/m fiction. She lives an unremarkable life in rural Wisconsin, where she cooks as little as possible, reads and writes as much as possible, and enjoys spending time with her unremarkable friends and unremarkable dogs.