Safe Heart (Dreamspun Desires Book 102)

by Amy Lane

  “That is good news. Now I’m going to fly my boyfriend home and bang him like a bunny. You’re welcome for that mental image. Don’t let it stick.”

  He gave Glen another brief hug, and then, to Glen’s surprise, took Cash into one as well, murmuring something quiet in Cash’s ear.

  “Yessir,” Cash said. “Will do.”

  Then Damien was off, and the two of them were alone in another hotel room—this one glorious and affluent… and scary.

  “You’ll do what?” Glen asked querulously. He twitched with that sort of restlessness that pinged at his skin when he was too tired to settle down. But he couldn’t be tired, could he? He’d only been up a couple of hours, and he and Cash had to talk, and there was the ocean, and—

  Cash’s hand in the small of his back settled him. “I’ll make sure you sleep some more,” Cash said. “I’ll make sure you don’t drink too much. I’ll take care of you.”

  “I don’t want to sleep,” Glen said on a yawn, but Cash only chuckled.

  TWO hours later Glen awoke feeling refreshed—and not in pain. Cash was sitting next to him on the bed, reading a little on his phone, and Glen took a moment to study him in the sunlight.

  His bruises were fading, which meant they had entered the ugly green/purple stage. Even though his eye was blackened and his lip swollen, Glen could still see his beauty. His eyes were still that lively brown, and his mouth still had that dare-me angle. His lips were curved up slightly as he read, and Glen thought for the thousandth time that he really was one of the prettiest boys Glen Echo had ever had in his bed.

  “What?” Cash asked quietly, glancing up from his phone.

  “Just thinking you’re pretty,” Glen said with a lazy smile on his lips. He couldn’t help it; his arm didn’t ache like it had, his bruises and stiffness had settled into “ordinary” as opposed to “excruciating,” and he had this brave, strong, clever man looking at him like he was special.

  “Good,” Cash said impudently. “’Cause you’re the finest man I’ve ever known. I’m glad you like my looks.”

  “Like your soul,” Glen corrected. “You… you sure did mean it about staying.” Something in his chest loosened, and he felt free to breathe again. He’d trusted Cash twice—and Cash had fled.

  But this time, Cash had stayed. Every time. Even when Glen had wanted him to go. Seeing him dangling from that helicopter, climbing that rope, hanging half outside of it—that had terrified Glen.

  But at the same time, Glen had realized what it meant. It meant Cash was prepared to stay for the rough stuff. He certainly had this go-round.

  That trust hadn’t been misplaced—not those first two times. Cash simply had to realize he had it in him to be that guy. And now he knew, and Glen could trust Cash again, trust himself again, and his world wasn’t broken anymore.

  Cash slid down the bed so they were eye to eye. “I want to stay for always,” he said softly. “I mean, I have to go perform, but… but I want you to visit. I want to come home to you. We can get an apartment where Spencer can have dogs, maybe.”

  A grin stretched Glen’s cheeks. “Already making changes in my life?”

  “You sure made changes in mine,” Cash said.

  His lips on Glen’s weren’t unexpected, but there was a rawness, a vulnerability, to his kiss that Glen hadn’t tasted before. Glen rolled slowly to his back, and Cash followed, his hands busy and gentle with Glen’s clothes.

  “What exactly are we doing here?” Glen asked in surprise as his madras shirt fell open and he realized he was naked. Cash’s nimble fingers had even removed his socks. Then Cash came back and kissed him and Glen realized Cash was naked too.

  “We’re making love,” Cash said, pulling the covers out from under Glen’s hips so he could cover them both with them. His eyes were wide and sober. “I… I’d never really made love before, until you and me in Nayarit. I… I want this to be better than that.”

  “Mm….” Glen kissed him, thinking, Sweet! while his body woke up and said, Sex! Yes! Sex with Cash!

  Cash pushed the kiss until Glen’s hips thrust up, Cash sprawled across his chest.

  “As I recall,” Glen said fuzzily, “this is not your usual.”

  Cash stroked his lower lip, which even Glen knew would be kiss-swollen by now. “You and me are going to try this again.” He kissed Glen some more, his hands smoothing up and down Glen’s chest, his stomach, only teasing below Glen’s belly button.

  “If we’re gonna do the thing,” Glen muttered, as Cash worked his way down Glen’s throat, “you’re going to have to touch that eventually.”

  “More to it than a blowjob and a fuck,” Cash said before he opened his mouth over Glen’s nipple. He pulled it in gently, then harder, teasing the end with his tongue.

  “But they help!” Glen gasped a little desperately. His body was screaming things like Five months and no blowjob? and Roll him over and take him, dammit!

  But Cash was taking his time, and Glen…. Glen was hungry for what he was doing. Hungry for the slowness, hungry for the care. Cash lifted his head and smiled wickedly, ran a lazy tongue across Glen’s nipple. “Stay right there,” he murmured. “Don’t change a thing.”

  Cash rolled off him and ran to the bathroom, coming back before Glen could even think to protest.

  “You’re short an item there,” Glen said warily, not wanting to push up on either arm.

  Cash shook his head. “You’re negative,” he said. “I’m negative. And we’re not doing this with anyone else.”

  Glen couldn’t help it. His eyes burned, and his throat ached. This was a promise. From a guy who’d figured sex was a blowjob and a bend-over, this was for real.

  “Okay,” he said gruffly. “O—”

  Cash kissed him, hard and thorough, straddling Glen’s naked body with his own. Every time he tried to pull away to kiss more of Glen’s skin, Glen hauled him back and kissed his neck, his collarbone, his nipples, then back to his mouth because he didn’t want this contact, this face-to-face, to end.

  Cash ground his erection hard against Glen’s stomach. “I was going to love on you…,” he gasped.

  Glen bucked up, his cock searching for a home. “Mission accomplished. Need you now!”

  Cash reached for the lube one-handed, dumped some on his fingers, and reached around behind himself. “I’m so ready,” he confessed on a little sob, body shaking as he stretched his entrance. “I was gonna go slow, gonna top, but—”

  Glen cupped his face in both hands, smoothing back that unruly sand-colored hair, seeing this for how he meant it. “But it’s just us. We have all the time and all the tries in the world.”

  Cash shuddered, and his lube-slick hand gripped Glen’s cock tightly, stroking up once, twice. Glen grabbed his hips, squeezing as he shuddered. “This could end really early,” he rasped.

  “You just said we had all the time in the—” He closed his eyes and lowered himself down. “—world!”

  Ah! The grip of his asshole was sweet. Tight and slick, personal in a way Glen had forgotten sex could be.

  “Sure,” Glen mumbled, his hips arching up until he smacked against Cash’s asscheeks. “We can take forever.”

  He lowered his hips, almost to the point of falling out, and Cash moaned. “No, we can’t,” he admitted. “Fuck me, Gecko. Please!”

  Ah! It was the only license Glen needed. He grabbed Cash’s hips firmly and started bucking his hips as hard as he possibly could, unwilling to let go of him, unwilling to let this perfect moment of lovemaking pass with anything less than total possession.

  “Yes!” Cash begged. He sat up, arching his back, thrusting his chest out, his cock smacking Glen in the stomach as he bucked.

  Glen reached for it, loving the length, the thickness—it could have been longer or shorter or shaped like a carrot, and it still would have been Cash’s—perfect and hot in his palm.

  He squeezed hard, keeping rhythm in Cash’s ass, and Cash reached for his nipples, pinching in complet
e hedonistic surrender.

  Oh, that was Glen’s lover: someone who could master his own body, who could pleasure someone else. This man wouldn’t settle for a quickie, wouldn’t use a blowjob as currency, wouldn’t bend over because someone expected him to.

  This man would take pleasure and give loyalty, and Glen didn’t want to give his body to anyone else.

  Cash let go of his nipples, letting his hands drop as he cried out, and Glen slowed his hand on Cash’s cock to hard and powerful.

  “Ah! So close.” Cash leaned forward, catching his weight on his hands, and took over the rhythm, squeezing his muscles with every stroke until Glen’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his thighs and stomach started to shake, and—

  “Augh!” Cash’s come, thick and hot, slid over Glen’s hand, and he let out a sound like a sob. “Come. Please, Gecko! Come for—”

  The orgasm rolled through him. Slow and strong. Filling Cash up whether he wanted it or not.

  Cash spurted across his stomach again, and he clenched Glen’s cock so hard Glen’s vision went dark with the pleasure.

  “Good,” he groaned. “So good!”

  The climax took over, and he dropped his hand to grab Cash’s thighs and squeeze until Cash gave a final cry and collapsed on Glen’s chest, and Glen’s entire body tightened to the point of unbearable pressure and released like a coiled spring.

  Cash stayed on top of him, keeping Glen inside even as Glen’s come slid out of his body and over his balls.

  “That was messy,” Cash mumbled. He pulled back enough to lick a spurt of his come off Glen’s chest.

  “Yeah,” Glen gasped. “Messy. That’s the word.”

  Cash’s chuckle tickled his skin. “Wonderful,” he said, licking another spot. “Amazing.” And he licked Glen’s nipple.

  “Perfect,” Glen said, catching Cash’s chin and lifting his chest off the bed to meet him in a kiss.

  He tasted Cash’s come on his tongue, and heat and the banked urgency surged in his own loins.

  “Perfect,” Cash whispered. “It will always be perfect.”

  Always was such a big word. Glen needed an honest word first.

  “I have to say something,” he rasped. “But if I say it and you run, they will have to pick up my pieces and donate them to science ’cause I won’t survi—”

  “I love you,” Cash said, voice dropping throatily. “I love you so much. I know we’re going to have to do our own things. I have promises to keep, and your job is your job. But wherever you go, you need to know I’m with you in my heart. And we need to find a way to be together as often as possible, even if I have to learn to fly a damned airplane.”

  Glen closed his eyes; they were burning again. “EMT,” he said, terrified at the thought of Cash behind the pilot’s controls. “We can do EMT.”

  “Only if you lo—”

  “I love you back.” He had to say it—he couldn’t have breathed another minute if it had stayed pressing on his chest.

  “Glen?” Cash said uncertainly, thumb sliding along Glen’s wet cheekbone.

  Hell.

  Glen opened his eyes, embarrassed. He didn’t cry at funerals, weddings, or sad commercials. He hadn’t cried when Cash had left him in a hospital in Jalisco. But dammit if he wasn’t crying now.

  “I love you,” he said, Cash’s face blurring in front of his eyes. “And we’ll plan. You’ll keep your promises. We’ll find a way. We can do it. It can’t be any harder when we’re talking and in love than it could be apart and missing you.”

  Cash took a deep, shuddering breath, and before Glen could ask what was wrong, he collapsed on Glen’s chest. “You’ll have to keep me now,” he sobbed. “You’re the only home I’ve ever wanted.”

  He was sobbing too hard for Glen to tell him that no place would be home without Cash there in his heart. Glen held him, kissing his hair, his forehead, his cheeks, while he cried, figuring that they’d have time for him to say it. Time this week, time next month, time before Cash left to go on tour.

  He’d say it later, after they both slept, clinging tightly together on the bed. That relief, that knowledge that they would have time, would make his sleep deep and easy, make his hurts feel like they were healing as he breathed.

  Of course they’d have time. They’d have all the time the heavens would allow.

  They’d have a lifetime, and it might not be enough, but it would be theirs together.

  Flying into the Sunset

  CLIVE Royer, Cash’s manager, had lost most of his hair and gained a stoop and a potbelly after he left the service, but his sunshiny smile and excited gestures hadn’t changed. Glen stood in the tech booth at the recording studio, listening to Cash and Quincet, his band, finish up vocals on the final song of their album.

  Glen knew nothing about music, but as he watched Clive practically glow with excitement, he had to admit, he shared some of the enthusiasm.

  He really liked that song.

  “That’s great!” Clive said into the microphone after Cash’s last word drifted through the sound system. “That’s a wrap. We work on choreography and costumes next week, so enjoy your time off!”

  The boys—all of them Cash’s age or younger—gave tired cheers and started to put away their equipment. Cash played keyboard on this one, but he’d cut most of the instrumentals earlier. This take had been vocals only, and Glen had no idea how that worked, but he was glad it was over.

  “They sound really good,” Glen said, and Clive practically danced around the booth like a toddler listening to Sesame Street’s theme song.

  “Oh my God, they do! I tell you, writing your little adventures off in Mexico took some fast-talking, but it was so worth it to get him back and happy and making that music. Please tell me you’ll bring him back a year after the tour’s over. The rest of the guys are on board. Give him some rest, some sex, some happiness…. Those kids have one more solid-gold album in them after this—I can feel it!”

  Glen chuckled. “Well, he’s already applied to get his EMT training after he comes off the tour bus—you’ll have to see how that takes.”

  Clive rolled his eyes. “Did you hear that voice? That angel’s voice come out of that million-dollar little face? You’re going to take that voice and that face into search-and-rescue operations? Are you shitting me?”

  Glen shrugged. “What can I say? He wants us to be together when he’s not on tour. That doesn’t mean he won’t be ready to go back when it’s time. Just means the kid’s super smart, and he gets bored.”

  Clive grunted. “Well, he’s not going to be bored for the next six months. You’ve got our itinerary?”

  “Yeah. We appreciate the free tickets.”

  Clive grinned. “We appreciate your company being willing to do private air service at three of the venues, on the house. And I understand everyone’s a fan.”

  Glen chuckled. “Actually two of our clients, Tevyn Moore and his husband, Mallory, have asked for tickets as well.”

  Clive’s face went a little slack. “Tevyn Moore the snowboarder?” He grinned at the guys in the booth, and Cash turned and waved at him, then winked at Glen.

  “Gold medalist—yup. He and Mallory saved Damien’s life in that helicopter crash a couple of years ago. Why?”

  Clive’s grin almost reached his ears. “My son is the biggest fan! That’s great. I’ll get them tickets, fly Derry out. I’ll be a hero! Jesus, Gecko, you’re not any less lucky out of the service than you were in it!”

  Glen’s eyes were only on Cash as he disappeared from the sound booth and reappeared almost immediately in the tech booth. “Lucky,” he said mildly. “That’s the word.”

  Cash’s hair was cut and styled, and he was wearing a long-sleeved cropped shirt in a melon color that highlighted his tan and trim little body, as well as bell-bottom jeans that were apparently making a second comeback since the seventies and nobody had told Glen.

  Didn’t matter. Cash was perfect, every teenybopper’s dream, and for the next
forty-eight hours, Glen’s reality, locked in a hotel room with nothing but room service, hot water, and lubricant.

  And them.

  Cash practically leaped into Glen’s arms, and Glen caught him, his shoulder having healed almost completely in the past six months and the graze from the gunshot nothing but a painful memory and a kick-ass scar.

  His mouth on Glen’s was hot and breathless, and Glen fell into his kiss like a bucket into a well—Cash gave him everything he needed to live. They pulled back, and Cash said, “Dinner?”

  Glen growled. “Sure. Dinner.”

  Cash laughed and wiggled down, which did nothing to make Glen any more comfortable. He’d brought Cash back to LA. for rehearsals the month before, and while they’d managed one three-day weekend since, that had been a long time ago. Spence had kicked him out of the apartment with the admonition to get laid, get laid well, and stock up on getting laid so Glen might not rip everybody’s head off while Cash was on tour.

  Glen had promised to try, but he knew it was going to be a long six months.

  Not unbearable, though. He knew that now. With the promise of Cash at the end of the tunnel, with the hope of seeing him during breaks in the tour, with the knowledge Cash would be texting him and calling him when possible and missing him too, this wasn’t going to hurt nearly as bad as their last separation.

  It made all the difference when he knew Cash would be coming back to him and him alone.

  “I mean, real dinner!” Cash laughed. “Clive, can we get some place that serves real food and lots of it and isn’t super fancy or expensive?”

  Clive almost glowed. “I love this kid! I’m on it!” He disappeared out to the hallway of the studio, leaving Glen to look at Cash in dismay.

  “I thought it was going to be us!” he said.

  “It will be.” Cash cupped his cheek and went in for a quick peck on the lips. “These are my friends—I want you to get to know them. So you’re not jealous and you don’t feel like I’m across the world with strangers. Is that okay? I got to know your family—I’d like you to know mine.”