by Allan, S. H.
Owen got himself comfortable. He rubbed his hands over Tom’s arse, then dipped his head and teased at his pink hole with his lips and tongue. Working up some spit, he gradually softened his tongue till he was lapping at Tom’s hole in broad swipes, Tom moaning his pleasure. He’d always loved rimming Tom, loved the way Tom lost control. Now, as he feasted on Tom’s body, licking and probing him in the most intimate way possible, he began to acknowledge to himself why he loved it so much. He was controlling Tom, mastering him, owning him.
“Please, Owen—” Tom whimpered.
Owen lifted his head. “Please what?”
“Please—please fuck me.”
“Open your eyes and ask me again.”
Tom obeyed him. His eyes, those beautiful, liquid eyes, were soft with surrender. “Please fuck me, Owen.”
Owen could hardly suppress a groan of his own at that. “I’m gonna fuck you so hard, Tom. And I want to hear you while I’m doing it. I want to hear how much you love my cock in your arse.”
“Yes, yes,” Tom agreed frantically.
Grabbing the lube, Owen coated his dick in the stuff, leaving Tom’s hole alone. Tom liked a bit of burn, and he was more than ready to be fucked, loose and open from the rimming.
“You keep that arse nice and high for me, you understand?”
“Yes—” A gasp of agreement.
Owen slid his hands up the backs of Tom’s legs and pressed forward, pushing past the ring of Tom’s muscle and letting the head of his cock settle for a moment. Tom’s muscles gripped him almost painfully tight before he thrust all the way home. The meaty arrow of his dick plunged into the hot grip of Tom’s body, his balls meeting Tom’s in a prickly kiss. They both grunted with pleasure.
“Jesus, Owen, fuck me hard. I’m gonna come in about ten seconds.”
Owen took him at his word. He fucked Tom brutally, letting go of a part of himself he wasn’t sure he’d ever let entirely go before. He thought, This body belongs to me, and he stamped his ownership on it, on Tom, without holding back anything.
And Jesus Christ, but Tom loved his roughness. He howled as he came, squirming on Owen’s dick and shooting spunk all over his belly. His arse quivered and pulsed on Owen’s dick, drawing an orgasm from Owen that was longer and more intense than any Owen remembered. Better even than that magical first time with Tom.
He slumped on top of Tom as Tom’s legs dropped to the mattress, and for a minute they simply lay there, panting. Then Owen said, mumbling the words into Tom’s ear, “I love you, Tom. And I promise, things are going to change. I’m going to be the boyfriend you deserve from now on.”
Tom
TOM shifted, pushing at Owen’s shoulder till he lifted his head.
“What are you talking about? I don’t want you to change, Owen. I love you just as you are.”
Owen flopped over onto his back. “I know you do.” He sighed. “But you know what? You shouldn’t. You deserve better than you’ve been getting from me.”
What?
Tom sat up and looked down at his lover. Owen’s expression was troubled, and Tom realized he was serious. A sickening suspicion bloomed inside him. Why the hell would Owen feel guilty? His heart clutched, and a lump rose in his throat as he contemplated what might be coming.
“What have you done?” he whispered, even as his mind raced forward. Owen had said he’d be a better boyfriend, so he wasn’t planning on going anywhere, right? But what if his regret was over something Tom would find difficult to forgive?
Owen’s blue eyes widened in astonishment at Tom’s expression, and he sat bolt upright. It might have looked kind of funny if Tom hadn’t felt like he’d just been stabbed.
“Hey, I’ve not done anything!” Owen exclaimed. “What, you think I’m trying to confess something here?” He scowled then, looking offended. “Why would you even think that?”
If the fear had felt like a heart seizure, the relief felt like jumping off a bungee platform. Tom blew a blast of air out of his lungs that turned into laughter. “God, you scared me then!”
But Owen was still scowling. “I mean it. Why would you think that?”
Tom stared at him, bewildered by his irritation. “Um—because of what you said?” he offered in a tone of voice that suggested Owen was asking him to confirm the bleeding obvious. Which he was, in Tom’s opinion.
Owen didn’t smile. “I didn’t say anything to suggest I’d done something bad. Just that I was going to be a better boyfriend. Why would you immediately assume I’m talking about, what, cheating or something?”
It was a fair question. The answer was easy too, though not to admit to.
“I suppose,” Tom said slowly, “because it’s my biggest fear.”
Owen looked shocked at that. “What? Why? What reason have I ever given you to worry about that?”
Tom sighed. He flopped back down on the mattress and covered his eyes with his arm. He couldn’t look Owen in the eye as he admitted the truth in flat voice. “You’re twenty-four. When I was your age, I was fucking everything that moved.”
“Oh right, so obviously that’s what I want be to be doing?”
Tom laughed without humor. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t blame you if you did. You were just a kid when we got together—”
“Yeah, and that’s how you’ve always seen me, isn’t it, Tom? It’s still how you see me! Christ, you act like you’re my father sometimes.”
Tom moved his arm away from his eyes. Not that Owen noticed. He was too busy contemplating the duvet, apparently fascinated by the swirling pattern.
“That is not how I see our relationship, Owen.”
“Oh really?” Owen sounded unconvinced; then he looked up and met Tom’s gaze, his own unhappy. “You know what I realized today, Tom? Much as I love you, the fact is, we don’t have an equal partnership.”
“Of course we have an equal partnership!” Tom protested. “Didn’t I transfer half the house to you?”
“Yes, you did,” Owen agreed. “Even though I pay way less than you toward the mortgage. You’ve always been incredibly generous, Tom. That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“You take care of everything. You indulge all my whims.”
“I like taking care of you—”
“Whenever we go out, you drive. You arrange all our holidays because I’m too lazy to search for flights on the Internet. Last week you spent two hours finding the best car insurance deal for me because I was busy playing FIFA 13.”
“I don’t mind.”
“You should mind. You sent my mum flowers for Mother’s Day and let me take the credit when she phoned up to thank me. You always pay when we go out.”
Tom laughed. “This is silly.”
Owen turned a serious look on him. “You don’t admit to me that you’re stressed at work. You always tell me you’ve got everything under control, as though I can’t handle the truth. As though I haven’t noticed you’re not sleeping properly.”
“Owen. I—” He broke off, seeing for the first time that this wasn’t just about who paid the bills.
“And,” Owen continued, lying down to settle his head beside Tom’s on the pillow, “you never told me that you like to submit.”
Tom closed his eyes.
All true.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“We’ve been together for five years, Tom. You couldn’t tell me in all that time?”
Tom shook his head, eyes still clamped shut. “You were so young when we got together,” he whispered. “How could I corrupt you with all that? It was bad enough I was ten years older. I just wanted us to have a normal, healthy relationship. God, Owen, your dad was already looking at me like I was some kind of pervert!”
Owen gave a bark of laughter. “What are you talking about, you idiot? My dad loves you!”
Tom opened his eyes. Owen’s blue eyes were dancing with amusement.
“He didn’t love me then
,” Tom said. “Believe me. We had a couple of very uncomfortable conversations at the start.”
“Christ, Tom, he is my dad! It wasn’t easy for him. He didn’t see the gay thing coming at all. I play rugby, for God’s sake!”
Tom laughed weakly at that.
“But he does love you. He was just saying to me at Christmas how glad he was I met you so early on. Probably thinks meeting you stopped me going out and fucking half the gay men in the free world.”
“Lesser of two evils?”
Owen chuckled. “Probably, yeah. Well, what parent wants to think about their child having sex with anyone?”
“Or vice versa,” Tom agreed, shuddering.
“The thing is, though,” Owen said, gently moving them back to the subject, “for whatever reason, you still treat me like some immature kid who can’t take care of himself. Who you can’t corrupt by asking for sex the way you really want it.”
“No!” Tom interrupted. “Don’t you dare start thinking that I’ve been secretly longing to be spanked all this time! It’s not like I was in the lifestyle and gave it up to be with you.”
“Well, what was it like?”
“It was nothing! I found it sexy, so I bought some mags and DVDs to wank to. Oh, and once, I went to a club, though I only watched.”
“Did you do anything with any doms?”
“Nope. I let one boyfriend spank me a couple of times, but it wasn’t anything much. He wasn’t a dom.”
“You never wanted to try it out properly? Be honest, please, Tom. You went to a club, so that tells me you wanted to do more than just wank about it.”
Tom felt himself flush but forced himself to be honest. “I suppose I was interested in exploring it at some point—with the right partner.”
“And that’s not me?”
Tom thought of the way Owen had just fucked him. The effortless way he’d taken control, reducing Tom to a heap of quivering need. His cock hardened again, just at the thought.
“If you wanted it, you’d be my perfect partner,” Tom admitted, flushing even hotter. “But I would never ask you to do anything you don’t want to, and I don’t need it anywhere as much as I need you.”
Owen paused. “And if I want it too?”
Tom returned Owen’s searching look, his heart suddenly beating way too fast. “Do you?”
Owen gave a soft laugh. “Oh yeah. I watched one of your DVDs this afternoon, the college student one. And God, did I want to be that professor!”
“So why did you present yourself like a sub when I got home tonight?”
Now it was Owen’s turn to look discomfited.
After a brief silence, he said, “It didn’t occur to me that you would see yourself in the sub role.”
“Why?”
“For the reasons we’ve just been talking about. You’ve spent the last five years taking care of me. The idea that you might ever want to give up control just didn’t occur to me.”
“So it was nothing to do with you wanting to be the sub?”
If Tom had entertained any doubts, they were dispelled by Owen’s reaction.
“God, no! Wasn’t that obvious from the way I just fucked you?”
Tom smiled, embarrassed and pleased at once. “That was hot.”
“Fucking hot. I want to do it again. I want to do everything to you, Tom.”
“What do you mean ‘everything’?”
Owen gave a grin, inching closer and palming Tom’s arse firmly. “I want to spank this. Hard. I want to hear you beg for my cock in your mouth and your arse. I want to tie you up and torture you with pleasure and refuse to let you come. How’s that for starters?”
Tom moaned.
“But that’s not all I want,” Owen continued, more seriously. “I want us to be equal partners the rest of the time. Which means no more indulging me like a kid. And no more hiding your problems from me. You have to talk to me, Tom.”
Tom’s heart swelled in gratitude. Owen wasn’t going anywhere. He was in this for the long haul, just like Tom. “You’re right. And I want that too. I’m so sorry I treated you like a kid, Owen.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry for behaving like one.”
“But can I still indulge you sometimes? I like organizing our holidays, and you know you hate trawling the Internet for deals.”
Owen laughed. “So long as you let me indulge you back. And tell me what’s going on in here.” He kissed Tom’s forehead.
“Yeah, well about that. I’ve decided to meet up with Jo Kennedy. Speak to her about making a move.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I was going to call a meeting of the partners first, but you know what? I already know how it’ll turn out. So I’ll text Jo tomorrow and set up a coffee for Monday.”
“Wow. Look at you being all decisive!”
“You know me. It might take me a while to make a decision, but once I do, I commit.”
“Yes,” Owen agreed, smiling. “You do.”
They lay there for a while, entangled in each other’s arms, sharing occasional kisses and love murmurs.
“Fancy watching a flick?” Owen said at last. “I could bring up a DVD and some beers and snacks.”
Tom smiled. “What were you thinking of? We’ve still not watched Final Destination 4, have we?”
Owen got out of bed and grabbed his robe. “I was thinking of Double Indemnity, actually,” he said casually. “That’s your favorite, isn’t it?”
Tom grinned. “Ah, yes. Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. It’s a great movie. Not quite my favorite, though.”
Owen’s face fell. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Tom said casually. “It’s not a patch on Swedish Sub Slut 3: The Whole Smorgasbord.”
Owen burst out laughing. That fabulous big, generous laugh of his. He dived back onto the bed, landing on Tom and knocking all the air out of him. “I fucking love you, you nutter,” he said happily.
“Yeah, well, I fucking love you too,” Tom replied. “So kiss me again before you go and get that porn.”
“Ya know,” Owen mused out of the side of his mouth, Bogey-style, “this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
“Casablanca isn’t film noir. Though some of the shots—”
He never reached the end of that sentence. Owen’s lips pressed to his, and their tongues tangled.
It was just him and Tom.
The rest of the world would just have to wait.
EVA CLANCY is a long-standing lover of all forms of romance but most particularly M/M. She traces her love of the genre back to reading Maurice by E.M. Forster in her last year of school in 1990. Although it was not a set text for her sixth-year English exam, she wrote about it anyway and likes to think that was why she got an A!
In between working her day job, looking after her two children, and arranging the occasional date with her husband, Eva writes sexy, romantic fiction featuring both contemporary and historical heroes. Eva lives in the UK with her family.
Visit Eva on her web site: http://evaclancy.blogspot.com
Twitter: @Eva_Clancy
E-mail: [email protected]
Home on the Range
Anna Martin
GRAY filled his paintbrush and carefully loaded the paper in front of him with color. Rich and bright, the paint filled his ink drawing and completed a section of the detailed diagram of an esophagus he’d been working on for several hours.
Although the heat outside was oppressive, here in his studio the air conditioning was cranked up as high as it could go, as Gray liked it. He allowed himself a moment to stretch his neck from side to side and scratch at his beard before continuing with the illustration.
Gray didn’t look like an artist; he knew that. He didn’t look much like a rancher either, although he seemed to be roughening into one of those with time and age. Lean muscles graced his tall frame, toned from physical labor and living with a man who made his life on cattle and horses. Gray could handle a horse just fine
—the cows he avoided, where possible.
Outside his window the ranch spread away into the distance, the heat shimmering on the horizon. If Gray were to look up, it would be laid out for him, the endless miles of dirt and sky, but even though he’d set up his drawing board so it faced toward the wide windows, he was rarely distracted by the scenery. Not when he had a job to do.
Technically the ranch didn’t belong to him. It was owned by his husband of seven years, the same husband who had been away for nearly four months now. The economy had gone to shit, and in an attempt to save his business, Colt had been forced out of the county to do research, network, and hopefully find an investor or two.
Gray missed him something crazy.
But he didn’t think about that either.
Kings of Leon blasted through the stereo—Gray found their mix of rock and country blended into the background while he worked, just as he liked it. He had a playlist on his iPod and played it on shuffle. The band’s back catalog was large enough to allow him several hours before he heard a repeat. Mostly he ignored the ranch hands who teased him about his choice in music—he was only just forty. Not too old to enjoy the modern stuff.
Tuned in to his work as he was, Gray didn’t notice when the sleek black truck came down the long drive and pulled to a haphazard stop in front of the house. What he did notice was the blaring of a horn, cutting through “Day Old Blues.” When a familiar face popped up through the sunroof, he dropped his paintbrush with a start, laughed in delight, and ran barefoot through the house, down the stairs, and out onto the deck.
“Colton Maverick, you ugly motherfucker,” he drawled, slowing to a halt and leaning his hip against one of the posts that surrounded the veranda, his arms crossed over his chest.
Colt jumped down from the cab of the pickup he affectionately called Betsy and lifted his wide hat from his head. His sandy-brown hair had been cut, cropped short to his head, and he’d trimmed his beard back short too. Gray decided he liked it.
“Alastair Graystone,” he responded, using the full name he knew Gray hated.
“Come here,” Gray demanded.