by Amy Lane
Tommy suddenly got serious. “This ain’t no trial run,” he said soberly. “This is us, and this is real life, and tonight was about one of the best times I’ve ever had. I’m serious, man. I didn’t think I’d ever have a good holiday again after my mother died. You just gave me something true. It was beautiful.”
Chase blushed. “How am I supposed to find words for that?”
“You don’t.” Tommy captured his mouth then, hard and hot and furious, and ’Chelle and Kane had done the regular dishes when Chase hadn’t been looking, but the dessert dishes were still there. It didn’t matter. They left them to do in the morning. Chase opened his mouth to Tommy and took over, walking Tommy backward and turning lights off as they went. Tommy got to the bed and shoved the covers down while Chase stripped out of his jeans and baseball shirt as quick as he could. By the time Chase was naked, down to his bare feet and long toes, Tommy was too, and lying there, his knees spread, his crease and asshole shiny with lube. He was thrusting a fingertip inside himself, and then the whole finger down to the first knuckle, even as Chase watched.
Tommy’s breathing was already quick and thready, and his hips were thrashing around, and Chase was as hard as he’d ever been in his life.
“Stop,” he commanded roughly. “Use two fingers.”
Tommy did, letting out a high, breathy whine, and Chase rubbed his thumb across the top of his own cock, then leaned over Tommy’s bucking body and thrust his sticky thumb into Tommy’s mouth so Tommy could taste his pre-come. Tommy sucked it deep inside a hot mouth and moaned around it.
“Hot and fast, Chase. Need it. Please.”
Chase thrust inside him, grunting because he was so tight. God… every touch on his skin was magic, as though here, in the privacy of their bedroom, he got to be Ethan and every brush on his skin allowed him to fly. Tommy’s clench around his cock was almost painfully tight, but Tommy was begging him with every breath, “Deeper… deeper… oh Christ, fuck me deeper, dammit!” and Chase had to, had to sink into him as deep as he possibly could.
He thrust down to the hilt and Tommy screamed, Loki the lunatic sex god alive in Chase’s arms, raising his hips, fucking Chase with his slippery tight body, and Chase clenched his hips, braced his arms, and fucked right back.
“Pushy fucking bottom,” Chase hissed, and Tommy’s fierce sex-grin was as challenging as they got.
“You want to top, earn it!”
And Chase did, thrusting furiously, all of his joy in the moment, his joy at being alive and strong and happy charging through every stroke.
“Grab it!” he commanded, wanting to feel Tommy come all over them both. He wanted it, hot and vital, on his skin; wanted to touch it, taste it, wanted to lick it from Tommy’s stomach and remember that life was sweet and bitter. “Grab it,” he growled again, when Tommy clenched the covers next to him instead. “Grab your cock, stroke it… stroke it hard… I need your come, Tommy, need it on me, need to feel it….”
“Oh fuck!” Tommy came explosively and Chase howled, bucking without control. His arms gave out, and he thrust maniacally for a minute, finally biting Tommy’s shoulder in frantic need as he came and came and came.
His hips finally stopped pumping and he collapsed, sobbing for breath, against Tommy, feeling the hot stickiness of Tommy’s spend between their stomachs. He didn’t give Tommy a chance to even move, just kissed and licked down his body, stopping for a moment at Tommy’s nipples and then suckling on the tenderness of his stomach, the sharpness of his hipbones, the furriness of his thighs. Tommy groaned a little, his cock, flaccid and spent, stirring reluctantly, but even when Chase sucked it into his mouth and slurped, feeling it harden wasn’t his ultimate goal.
Tommy’s taste, tangy and real, not even pleasant, but visceral and alive, like blood but better because it was all about life and not about death or hiding or fear—that’s what Chase wanted. Tommy groaned and spread his thighs and Chase continued to lick the crease of his thighs, the crease of his backside, his taint, and below. It was his own taste now and he didn’t care, didn’t care what it was or where it had been, it was them, and they were alive, and they were in love, and there was nothing dirty about that, nothing that could shame him, nothing that could repel him about this act of remembering the taste of being alive.
Tommy groaned and started to beg some more, and Chase answered by moving up, taking Tommy’s now-hard cock into his mouth, and sucking hard and without mercy until Tommy cried out and came again, just a little, into the back of his mouth.
Tommy had to reach down and haul him up, and he left a trail as he went because he’d come again too. When he got there, his head on Tommy’s shoulder, Tommy kissed him just like Chase had tasted Tommy’s body: without reservation, without shame, everything in the thrust of his tongue about tasting love and flesh and life.
They had to stop eventually, and Tommy wiped them down, but they didn’t get dressed immediately and they hardly had words until they were almost asleep.
“I’m so glad,” Chase said when they were almost asleep.
“So glad what?”
“So glad I stopped. So glad I’m here. So glad… just everything.”
Tommy nodded, and then passed his hand under his cheek, and then again, and then again. Chase wasn’t sure how it happened—was never sure how it happened—but suddenly Tommy was the one in tears, Tommy was the one sobbing until his body couldn’t hold out, Tommy was the one lost in Chase’s arms, saying “Me too… oh God… me too… I’m so glad….” until they fell asleep, sticky, sated, warm, and tangled together in happiness and exhaustion.
TOMMY had been right—Chase missed school. While Tommy was working, Chase spent some of his time going to his classes and talking to his professors, explaining things and generally trying to clean up his mess. The school actually had a policy for Chase’s situation, which was good news, because it made it possible to sign up for all of the classes he’d gotten an incomplete in and have them guaranteed upon his return. He was given a stern talking-to, however, and told that this exception could only be claimed once.
Chase looked at the rather self-important man in the suit who was signing his paperwork and said, “Of course. If I’m ever going to commit suicide again, I’ll make sure I follow through.” He held out his wrist for emphasis and sort of enjoyed watching the guy squirm. It was petty of him, but then, the idea that he’d just randomly bleed out in search of attention seemed awfully damned petty too.
So when that was accomplished, he had little in the way of things to do. He worked out with the guys from Johnnies, and that felt damned good. His little welcome-home party, Thanksgiving—those could have been flukes, but apparently porn friends were real friends, and without the constant friction of who was shooting a scene with whom, they were actually even a little more fun to hang out with. Dex and Kane especially were there for him; Ethan too, but when Chase’s hour and a half was up, he needed that other thing, that drive. As tempting as it was, he refused to work out more than an hour and a half—being fit was one thing, but Tommy was right. It got boring after a while.
It occurred to him that wanting to be an engineer, wanting to finish school—those were the good parts of his vision for a perfect life, a perfect family. Improving himself, using his natural gifts at math, at planning—that was positive.
It occurred to him that not everything in his life before Tommy had been painful, or a lie. Not all of his actions were misguided. He’d had a good plan; it just needed revising.
A few days after he reregistered for school, he went out and bought a couple of things for Christmas.
Tommy already had decorations, but Chase took a look at the box and decided they needed to go bigger this year. He grabbed Dex, Kane, Donnie, and Kevin (because they were more impressive when they hunted in a pack), and together they hit the sports stores, the mall, and (much to Kane and Kevin’s intense chagrin) a couple of craft fairs.
Tommy came home later that day and found that the house had been dec
orated, from bottom to top, and that the house was full of people.
Tommy loved it, went with it, and forgave Chase for doing most of it himself when he saw that Chase had left the tree.
They listened to old Christmas songs (Donnie’s boyfriend knew where to find them on satellite radio, and he seemed pleased to have something to contribute) and sang them, feeling silly, and Tommy decorated the tree. At the top was a brand-new silver star with a picture of Tommy and his mother in the center, and Tommy’s glare promised dire things coming Chase’s way, just for making him delve into such sentimental places.
It was fun—it was joyous—but it wasn’t the best part.
The day after they decorated the house, Chase went and had a long talk with Doc. He’d been attending his mandated therapy regularly, but this was special. He’d talked about his father, he’d talked about Tommy, he’d talked about dreams for the future, but he hadn’t talked about this.
“What do you think made her do it?” he asked without preamble. His knees weren’t clutched to his chest this time. They were splayed out, and his forearms were resting on them assertively. He wanted to tackle this one head-on.
Doc didn’t bat an eyelash or drop a stitch. “Your mother? Hard to say. She was probably depressed as it was. Your father—not an easy man to live with.”
“Was it me? Was it because I was gay?”
Doc shook his head definitively. “Had nothing to do with you, Chase. Even if she put it on you, it wasn’t your fault. You may not think so—you may never truly believe it—but I do.”
Chase nodded his head. “See, the thing is… I’m thinking about it.”
“Thinking about what?”
“Being a father.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I just… I don’t ever want to do to my kid what my people did to me.”
Doc put down his knitting and smiled.
And all of the hard work he’d done, all of the pain and the stupidity and the bullshit in the past, and all of the scary stuff in the future, it all suddenly seemed worthwhile. And all of the hard work to come had a purpose.
CHASE came home that day feeling exhausted but pleased, and Tommy (who’d had the day off and was sitting in front of the Christmas tree, shaking a stuffed ornament at Paulie the kitten) looked up and smiled.
“Good day?”
Chase nodded and came and sat down next to him. “Yeah. Good day. Tommy, you want to open a present early this year?”
Tommy turned to him, surprised, and watched as Chase pulled out his cell phone and pulled up Mercy’s number. Very deliberately, Chase showed it to Tommy, and watched as a slow smile of recognition and understanding bloomed across that long-jawed, sharp-toothed, impossibly beautiful face.
“We’re gonna do it?” he demanded. “We are?”
Chase bit his lip, smiled, and hoped for the best—which was really the most colossal gift he could ever give, even if Tommy didn’t know it.
“Yeah.”
“Woo-hoo!” Tommy lunged at him, knocking him to the floor on his back, and Chase only managed to keep hold of the phone with an act of will. “We’re gonna be daddies!”
“Yeah, Tommy. You think?”
“Shut up, sit up, and call the mother of your child, dammit. I want details. Due dates, genders, what color to paint the walls—c’mon, Chase, you’ve ’bout killed me with this!”
Chase stopped and looked him in the eyes. “This is the easy part,” he cautioned, and Tommy rolled his eyes.
“You think I don’t know? Now c’mon, dammit! It’s like the Best. Gift. Ever!”
Chase laughed and looked at the phone again. In Dex’s garage were two bicycles—a matched set, one for him and one for Tommy. Tommy’s had the baby stroller attachment (Dex called it a booger—Chase had no idea why) and Chase figured he’d hold up the rear. That was supposed to be Tommy’s actual Christmas present, the thing waiting under the tree.
But this here—this call he was making? This was the bike, the action figure, the expectation and the joy. This was the everything he’d ever wanted, and he thought that giving it to Tommy was about six thousand times better than getting it himself. Giving it to the both of them? It was amazing.
His hands didn’t even shake as he hit Mercy’s number and brought the phone up to his ear. Mercy answered on the first ring, and he was grateful.
“Mercy? Yeah. You still want me to be the daddy?”
His planning brain started making whole new pictures. They were glorious.
“SO,” JOHN was saying behind the camera, “what do you two have planned for life after Johnnies?”
Chance looked at Tango and smiled. Tango leaned forward and nuzzled him a little, their lips parting as they met. They pulled back from the half kiss and faced the camera again.
“The world,” Chance said, and Tango grinned that terrific, manic grin.
“The world,” he repeated. This time, their mouths opened for the kiss, and the picture faded to black.
About the Author
AMY LANE is a mother of four and a compulsive knitter who writes because she can’t silence the voices in her head. She adores cats, knitting socks, and hawt menz, and she dislikes moths, cat boxes, and knuckle-headed macspazzmatrons. She is rarely found cooking, cleaning, or doing domestic chores, but she has been known to knit up an emergency hat/blanket/pair of socks for any occasion whatsoever or sometimes for no reason at all. She writes in the shower, while commuting, while taxiing children to soccer/dance/karate/oh my! and has learned from necessity to type like the wind. She lives in a spider-infested, crumbling house in a shoddy suburb and counts on her beloved Mate, Mack, to keep her tethered to reality—which he does while keeping her cell phone charged as a bonus. She’s been married for twenty-plus years and still believes in Twu Wuv, with a capital Twu and a capital Wuv, and she doesn’t see any reason at all for that to change.
Visit Amy’s web site at http://www.greenshill.com. You can e-mail her at [email protected].
Also by AMY LANE
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Romance from AMY LANE
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Jerking Off
A Few Observations About Porn
Hamster Riots
Eyes Closed in the Sun
Tidings of Comfort
And Joy
Loki, the Lunatic Sex God
Sunlight and Shadow
Flying
Turbulence
Crashing
The Boy with the Detachable Soul
Fragile Fucking Flower
Red Wall, Red Water
Bicycle
Home Movies
About the Author
Also by Amy Lane
Romance from Amy Lane