by Tal Bauer
“She needs to say hi.” Mike tried to hide how he adjusted himself as he crouched down and reached for Etta Mae, scratching behind both her ears. Etta Mae melted into his touch, sitting and then flopping sideways, her tiny tyrannosaurus legs waving in the air as she begged for a belly rub. Grinning, Mike gave her one with both hands, and her eyes rolled back in her head.
Tom shook his head and headed for the kitchen, dumping his briefcase and his keys on the counter. Rushing, on autopilot, he put her dinner together and popped it in the microwave. When the timer went off, he heard her run for the kitchen.
“You’re a spoiled princess.” She ignored him.
Hands snaked around his waist and lips pressed against his cheek. Tom spun, wrapping his hands around Mike’s neck as their lips met. It wasn’t a Hollywood romance, candles and roses and dripping with sensuality, but as they kissed in Tom’s kitchen to the sound of Etta Mae’s smacking jowls and the crunch of dog food, Tom felt his heart burst just the same.
Mike steered Tom out of the kitchen, his kisses getting deeper, hungrier. Hands tugged at his shirt, pushed his suit jacket off his shoulders. Reached for his belt. Tom couldn’t get Mike’s clothes off fast enough, couldn’t get his hands everywhere they wanted to be. He wanted to cup Mike’s cheeks, rip his suit off. Run his fingers through his hair, squeeze his ass. Mike was more coordinated than he was, and Tom’s clothes ended up in a trail from the kitchen to the stairs: jacket, tie, shirt, undershirt.
And then, Mike reached for his zipper.
Tom’s mental faculties fled. His bones turned to jelly, and he wilted in Mike’s arms as Mike got a hand down his pants. He gasped against Mike’s kiss, clinging to Mike’s shoulders. “Mike— I want—”
Mike pushed Tom against the wall beside his stairs, pinning him back. He dropped to his knees, yanking Tom’s suit pants down.
He nearly came undone at the sight of Mike on his knees before him, gazing at him with the hungriest look he’d ever seen on a man. Mike reached for him, licking his lips.
Tom’s knees buckled, but Mike held him up, and Tom grabbed Mike’s hair, dug his fingers into the strands. Heat, wet suction, the vibration from Mike’s gleeful hum. The heat in Mike’s eyes as he looked up at Tom nearly sent him over the edge.
Twenty-five years and only his hands for company meant he was a rocket with too short a fuse. His fingers yanked, tugging on Mike’s hair. “I’m—Mike—Shit!”
Mike wrapped both hands around Tom’s waist and gripped his ass. His gaze flicked up, eyes burning.
Tom groaned in Mike’s hold as his body caught fire, pulling him inside out from the very center.
When Mike pulled back, Tom slumped, sliding down the wall until he was on his knees with Mike. Mike’s hand fumbled for his own fly, tore at his belt. Tom was in a haze, a fog, delirious with honeyed joy. His limbs were heavy, too slow. But the world snapped into high def when Mike moved for his own fly.
Tom reached for him with both hands. Mike leaned forward, resting his head on Tom’s shoulder, his hands on Tom’s waist, hips bucking. “Harder.” His teeth bit into Tom’s shoulder as he whimpered, and then jerked, cried out. Tom pulled aftershocks out of Mike as he writhed and moaned.
Mike eventually drew himself to his feet, slowly, and helped Tom up. Their pants were open and undone, pooling low on their hips. Tom was shirtless. Mike’s suit jacket was still on, barely. He had one arm through it, and his button-down was undone, his undershirt pushed up to his chest.
“Wow.” Tom shook his head. “I didn’t expect that.”
“That was just to take the edge off.” Mike shrugged out of his jacket and peeled off his shirts. He dropped them on the floor. “I’m not done with you. Not by a long shot.”
“I’m forty-six. Not sixteen.” Tom laughed. But, even as he spoke, heat curled in his veins, a bubbling frisson that went straight to his groin.
“What do you want?” Mike reached for him, wrapped his hands around Tom’s waist. “Teach me how to touch you. How to make love to you. Tell me what you need.”
“Everything.” He said it automatically, his soul speaking before his mind could override his desires. “I want your touch, your everything. Make me feel like a real man again.”
Mike’s eyes smoldered, a scorching inferno that sizzled against Tom’s skin. He leaned in, kissing Tom gently, so at odds with the heat in his gaze. He promised delirious passion with his eyes, and gentle, lingering sweetness with his kiss. A lover’s touch, and a night of unbridled desire, enough to make Tom’s bones melt. His gaze said he would devour Tom, and his kiss, his touch, said Tom would love every moment of it.
“Let’s go upstairs. To the shower.”
It was silly, but Tom zipped up his pants. Mike had already seen everything worth seeing, but a touch of shyness still lingered. Mike mirrored him, and they padded upstairs in their suit pants and wingtips and nothing else.
Tom started the shower, adjusted the temperature, and then turned into Mike’s hold. They swayed together, hands roaming, chests pressed together. Warm skin against warm skin. The feel of another man. God, how he’d craved this. He’d never really allowed himself to acknowledge just how much he missed the feel of another man, or wanted another man’s hands on him.
Mike cradled his face. Kissed him gently. Ran his hands down Tom’s chest, down his abdomen, to his fly. He waited, his eyes flicking back up to meet Tom’s.
Tom nodded as his body started to tremble.
Slowly, Mike peeled Tom’s pants and briefs down. In a moment, Tom was naked, completely naked, in front of Mike.
“Beautiful,” Mike whispered. “You’re so beautiful.”
Tom snorted. He ran his hands down himself, seeing only patchy chest hair, narrow hips, his slender legs, the hair on his thighs mostly rubbed off and bare in places because of the friction of his swimsuit. “I’m not.”
“You are.” Mike kissed him, and kissed him again.
Tom found Mike’s fly and reciprocated, peeling Mike’s small, sexy briefs and suit pants down his legs. He smiled, and a burn raced through every nerve in his body. Mike was going to be an amazing lover.
Naked together, for the first time. Mike tugged Tom close, wrapping him up. Their bodies aligned, fit perfectly together. Tom clung to Mike. Mike groaned, curled over him, and ran his hands down Tom’s back, over his ass. Squeezed. And then—
“What is this?”
Shit.
Tom’s cheeks burned, center-of-the-sun hot, suddenly. He stepped back and covered his left ass cheek with both hands. “Nothing.”
Grinning wide, Mike tugged at Tom’s elbow. “C’mon. I saw it. Show me.”
“You saw nothing.”
“Oh yes I did.”
“Nope.”
Mike stared at him. Tom sighed. He turned, but kept his hands over his left cheek. Finally, he dropped them, and watched over his shoulder as Mike got his first good look at his one lasting youthful indiscretion.
A rainbow tattoo sat in the center of his left ass cheek, a bright, gaudy stamp. On top, a golden crown perched askew, like a queen’s tiara that had tipped after a wild night. He’d had a wild night when he got the tattoo. One night in 1991, an alcohol-blurred evening filled with Peter and laughter, hopes and dreams, and then and this lifelong tattoo. He’d loved it when he first got it. A statement, a declaration to the world. He was who he was.
And then he’d hated it, and hated looking at it in the mirror. He decided not to, and for years, averted his eyes, never catching sight of it. Shame crawled under his skin whenever he inadvertently did. But, eventually, the tattoo and his own identity settled into a quiet solitude, both hidden from the world forever. Or so he thought.
Mike ran his fingers over his tattoo, tracing the arch of the rainbow, the tilt of the golden crown. “I’ve wanted to get one, but never have.”
“It’s not as painful as they say. Feels like a fingernail scratch.”
“Maybe I’ll get a matching rainbow tattoo on my ass.” Mike
winked.
Tom kept his mouth shut. He looked away.
Steam poured from the shower, and Mike held open the wide glass door. He’d renovated his master bath along with everything else, widening the shower, making it big enough for two, like everything else. He and Mike easily fit under the spray. They took turns wetting their hair, shaking the water out of their eyes. Mike’s blond hair turned dark, plastered to his head. He reached for the body wash and Tom’s loofah, and then started to soap Tom down.
He washed every finger and up his arms, across his chest. Around his neck, and then down. Down, skirting past his groin to his thighs and his legs. Mike squatted, washing his feet, in-between his toes.
“Turn around.”
Tom did, and braced himself against the shower wall, beneath the spray. Water sluiced down his back, down the canyon of his spine, and into his cleft. Mike’s soapy hand trailed up the back of his thigh.
“This okay?” Mike’s voice hovered behind him, over his shoulder. Tom turned toward the sound and nodded. A kiss dropped to his shoulder blade, the center of his back. One of Mike’s hands landed on his hip. The other—
Tom groaned, resting his head against the shower wall. Pleasure snaked up his spine, grabbed his balls from the inside and tugged. He spread his legs and pushed his ass out, deepening Mike’s touch.
Eventually, Mike pulled back, dropping kisses to his back, his shoulders. Tom missed his fingers, clenched around nothingness. He wanted more.
He took the loofah from Mike and added more soap, and then washed Mike, more quickly than Mike had washed him. He wasn’t thinking about slow, not anymore.
Mike kissed him under the spray and tossed aside the loofah. It hit the tile and rolled over, completely forgotten.
They kissed until Tom palmed the water off, and then kissed some more. As Mike dried Tom, ruffling his hair, patting down his body. While Tom steered him backward to the bedroom.
Mike slowly spun Tom and guided him down on the bed, following him and bracing on his hands and knees. His knees nudged at Tom’s thighs, spreading them wider.
“I want to rim you,” Mike whispered.
Tom sighed into Mike’s kiss. His head tipped back and he shivered, just at the thought. “Please…”
Mike kissed his way down, down, down, over Tom’s chest, his ribs, past his trembling belly.
He tried to escape and he tried to chase Mike and his tongue, writhing forward and back. Cries fell from his lips, whimpers and moans as he reached for Mike, blindly tried to grab his hair and his shoulders, anything he could reach. He got a handful of Mike’s hair and tugged. He felt open in a way he hadn’t felt for a long time. Between the shower, and Mike’s fingers, and now this.
He was ready. He was more than ready.
“Condoms?” Mike’s voice was back to that low growl, rough and grating.
Tom made a vague motion to the nightstand and mumbled something. He scooted back, grabbing a pillow and shoving it under his hips as Mike lunged for the drawer. The new box of condoms, his old bottle of lube, and his new bottle of lube were in the drawer, next to his porn-pad, an iPad he’d bought and devoted solely to his tiny gay porn collection.
Mike ended up over Tom, his chest and his hip right in front of his mouth. He nipped at Mike’s skin, sucked one of his nipples into his mouth. Mike shuddered and nearly faceplanted on the mattress. He turned his heated gaze to Tom as he sat back, one long line of condom wrappers and the new bottle of lube in his hand.
“You plan on using all those tonight?”
“Maybe half.” Mike grinned. “You up for it?”
“With you? Yes.”
And then Mike poured lube into his hand, and against his hole, and he shivered from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes. Squirmed, and tried to push down, into Mike’s touch.
“Are you ready?”
Mike deserved an award for his patience. Tom would have had sex with him in his car, but Mike had brought them home, got them upstairs, into and out of the shower, and now into bed. And they were better for it. He was ready, more than ready. He nodded.
A tearing wrapper, and then Mike hunched over himself. Squirted more lube into his palm, and then lined them up.
Mike pitched forward, one hand landing beside Tom’s head. “Tom…” He stared into Tom’s eyes, breathing hard.
“I want this, Mike. I want you. I want all of you. This, and more.” Tom cupped Mike’s cheeks and stroked his thumbs over his stubble. “Make love to me.”
Mike slid his hips forward. Tom gasped, arching his back, his neck, his eyes rolling back in his head. Mike froze. Waited.
Yes, this. God, this. He’d missed this so, so much. The feeling of another man inside him, entering him, parting him. Being filled. His body sang, a violin string quivering on a held note. Mike kissed him, over and over, from his lips to his eyes to his chin, and one hand grabbed his hip, stroked over his leg, his thigh. “Tom, Tom, Tom…” He kept chanting Tom’s name in between each kiss, peppering Tom’s skin with breaths and lips and nips.
Tom wrapped his arms around Mike and held on as Mike rocked into him, surrounded him, swept him away. Kisses, breathless sighs, hips rocking. Pleasure like a rake over his nerves, raw bolts of lightning shooting through his veins. Perfection, the feeling of rightness, of putting the missing pieces back into the puzzle of his life.
Eventually, Mike pulled back and rolled Tom over, guided him to his hands and knees, and slid within him again. Tom shuddered, and kept trembling when Mike pulled him up and into his arms until he was leaning back against Mike’s chest. Mike’s arms wrapped around him, and his hands stroked over his chest and down.
Tom rested his head back on Mike’s shoulder, rolled his forehead against Mike’s neck, and gave in to Mike’s touch, his strokes, the kiss he dropped to Tom’s temple. His orgasm hit him like an asteroid crashing to earth, a sudden blaze and an earth-shaking roar, the slam of impact enough to shock his bones out of place, separate his soul from his body. Screaming, he went ripcord taut, grabbing onto Mike’s arms, his head, anything he could reach.
And then Mike cursed and grabbed Tom in return, holding him close. He whimpered, breathless sounds in Tom’s ear.
After, they collapsed, pitching sideways onto the bed, still pressed together. Tom tried to catch his breath, tried to reason with gravity and the laws of nature again.
Until Etta Mae jumped up on the side of the bed, closer to them both after they pitched over. She stuck her nose out as far as she could, just pressing against Mike’s ass cheek.
“Cold!” Mike jerked away, slipping from Tom. Both hissed, and Tom rolled toward Etta Mae.
“Etta Mae…” Tom shook his head, chuckling. “I’m fine.”
She seemed uncertain, and struggled to get closer. Her tail thumped against the nightstand.
“Mike is going to be sticking around for a long time. You’ll have to get used to this.”
Mike beamed at him and ruffled Etta Mae’s ears.
They took her outside, slipping into their underwear and padding downstairs behind Etta Mae. Mike asked him four different times if he was okay and watched him almost obsessively. “I’m great. You didn’t hurt me.” He might not have been one of those power bottoms he sometimes saw online, but Mike had done a thorough job relaxing him. And, he’d wanted this, badly.
On the deck, Mike held him from behind, wrapping his arms around Tom’s waist and kissing his neck. They stood together and watched the last of DC’s twilight fade away. The sun had set while they’d been busy.
Tom ordered a pizza and then pulled Mike down on the couch. They kissed, trading stories and laughs until the doorbell rang and Etta Mae barked. Tom dashed upstairs for shorts and a t-shirt before he opened the door, and then took them right off and ate in his underwear with Mike in the kitchen.
Later, they both put on clothes and took Etta Mae on her evening walk. Mike walked side by side with Tom, chuckling at Etta Mae’s antics. He kept his hands to himself until Tom sna
ked his pinkie around Mike’s pinkie, a tiny hook of their bodies, but the first time they’d held hands on a DC street. Mike’s smile broke Tom’s heart, and he squeezed Mike’s pinkie tightly.
Etta Mae was bored with the novelty of Mike being in the house by the time they got back. She took herself to bed, flopping into her chair in the bedroom, and started to snore.
“The baby is asleep.” Mike smirked at Tom, stripping out of the clothes he’d borrowed. The shorts and shirt were a little tight, but Tom hadn’t complained.
“She is like a baby. A perpetual toddler.”
“She’s wonderful, and so is her daddy.”
Tom smiled.
“Come here.” Mike held out his hand, and then pulled Tom in for a slow, deep kiss.
“You want to try and get through that whole string of condoms tonight, don’t you?”
“With you, I totally could.” Mike winked. “What do you say? Give it a try?”
“Like I said, I’m forty-six, not sixteen. Or thirty-six.” Tom leaned into Mike, into his touch. “You think you can get me going again? You might regret this.” He sighed. Closed his eyes. “God, you can. Yes…”
This time, Tom sank down on Mike, riding him slowly as Mike leaned against the headboard and caressed Tom’s flushed skin. They kissed and never stopped, and when Mike came, he gasped against Tom’s lips, whispering his name as he tried to climb into Tom’s body. Tom, languid, rode Mike until he tumbled over the edge.
They scooted down and cuddled close, Mike wrapping Tom up in his arms. Tom draped himself over Mike’s chest, pillowing his head on Mike’s shoulder. Exhaustion pulled Mike under quickly, but Tom stayed awake, watching Mike sleep until he drifted off, still lying on him.
Sometime in the early morning, Mike woke him, the best possible way.
“Good morning,” Tom murmured, kissing Mike’s cheek breathlessly, after. “What time is it?”
“Four thirty. I need to go back to my place to grab clothes.”
Tom’s eyes snapped open. “I’ll make you coffee.”
Mike kissed his nose. “You don’t have to get up.”
“I won’t sleep without you anyway.”