A Fool and His Manny

by Amy Lane

  Dustin grabbed his erection and pulled it way from Quinlan’s mouth, stroking slowly. “You gonna let me do that?” he whispered. “Just take it away from you? This is your body to play with, Q. C’mon, man, show me how to have nice things.”

  Quinlan sucked him down to the base, pulling Dustin’s hand away, replacing it with his own. He sucked hard and slow, torturously, and Dusty braced his feet against the floor and settled in for the ride.

  He was digging it, too, head back, eyes closed, when he felt Quinlan’s fingers, slick with lubricant, skating along his crease. His eyes flew open and his hands shook in Quinlan’s hair before he mastered himself, reminded himself that he wanted this, that he’d given this power to Quin and damned if he was going to take it away.

  Very deliberately he widened his stance and bent his knees, shuddering when Quinlan grazed him harder, deliberately.

  “Good boy,” Dustin whispered. “You know what you want.”

  Quinlan’s finger, penetrating slowly, made him hiss, and its withdrawal made him moan. Yes—oh yes. He was looking forward to this—had used his own fingers on occasion, had, in fact, been about to do this very thing to himself when Quinlan had gotten back from Kentucky.

  It was much better now that Quinlan was doing it. So much better.

  “Two fingers,” Dustin whispered. “Two, so I’m ready for you.”

  Quinlan groaned around his heated, hardened flesh, and Dustin squatted down, taking two fingers right against his rim. “Mm… that’s good, Q, but this is getting awkward. How about I get on the bed, hands and knees. You can fuck me like that, can’t you?”

  Quinlan pulled back and shuddered. “Yes… oh please, Dustin. I want this so bad.”

  Dustin’s rough chuckle made everything doable, everything normal. “I told you I liked it when you begged.”

  He pulled away from Quinlan’s oh-so-tempting mouth and propped himself on the bed, bottom up, hanging over the edge. He was spread and vulnerable, a piece of meat for the taking, but he knew that’s not how Quinlan wanted him. Quinlan stood and draped over his backside, kissing down his spine, down toward his cheeks, before biting softly.

  “Ooh…. Q… hurry, man. We can take our time with this later. Right now is all about your need.”

  Quinlan straightened, and the next thing Dustin felt was his cockhead, slick and rigid, right against Dustin’s entrance.

  He closed his eyes and relaxed. “C’mon, Q. Do it. Your choice. Your body. Your power….”

  “My Dusty,” Quinlan rasped and thrust in.

  Ooh… oh yes…. “Wow… keep going… it’s awesome.”

  And he did. Slowly, so slowly forward, and Dustin shuddered, fingers biting into the sheets as he tried to keep his noises down and his ass pointed up. Oh God. Then backward, right up… right up until he almost popped out… and then forward… oh… oh… oh hell….

  “So good,” he praised. “You’re so good. C’mon, Q. Faster. Faster and harder. You’re using up all my patience here. I’m a bossy fucker, right? Don’t you want to take me? Take me hard? Take me fast? All yours. Yours for the taking. C’mon, baby, fuck me!”

  Quinlan thrust hard and deep, and Dustin closed his eyes and bit his arm, because “Damn, that’s good.”

  And Quinlan kept going, hard and deep and fast, like he’d done this for years, like he hadn’t been damned near a virgin two weeks ago, afraid for Dustin to so much as touch him under his shirt.

  But not now.

  Now he was a powerhouse, hungry, demanding, driving, just like Dustin knew he could be, and Dustin had nothing to do but shake in ecstasy and try to keep his groans to himself.

  “C’mon, Q… so close… gonna stroke myself, ’kay? Just keep going… gonna come around you… it’s gonna feel so good….”

  Oh yeah. His own hand grounded him while it ramped up his arousal. His flesh felt hard and hot under his hands, and Quinlan kept going, hard and fast and deep but not out of control, never out of control, and for a moment Dustin hated him, wanted him as lost and at the mercy of his own body as Dustin was.

  And then, just as his climax started building, taint, balls, spine, thighs, Dustin surrendered. He was Quinlan’s. He’d given the reins up this time, and this was Quinlan’s show, and he was doing marvelously.

  And just as Dustin gave himself completely over to his lover, Quinlan groaned, thrusting furiously, lost in the ego destruction of orgasm, surrendering to the forces of sex, just like Dusty himself.

  Dustin’s hand at his own cock paused and squeezed, and climax crashed over him like a hurricane, destroying him with its force, leaving him flat on the bed trying to pick up the detritus of his soul.

  Above him, Quinlan groaned and collapsed, pumping inside him, arms strong and hard on either side of his shoulders. Dustin pushed his feet out behind him just so he could feel Quinlan’s body, skin to skin, against his own.

  His ass hurt, but everything else in his body felt amazing, loose and euphoric and so, so mellow.

  “I may never move,” he mumbled.

  “We’d have to move sometime,” Quinlan told him, lips tickling Dustin’s shoulder even as his cock softened a little and slid out of his body.

  “Why?”

  “Because if your uncles find us like this, I’ll die.”

  “Heh-heh-heh….”

  “No, seriously. I’ll die, Dusty. They’ll have to cart me out of here in a wheelbarrow. I’ll probably still have a hard-on.” His stomach shook. “My mother would never live it down.”

  Dustin’s next laugh shook the bed, and to his great delight, Quinlan slid off him and lay, faceup and naked, laughing too.

  “Like that thought?” Dustin asked, turning his head so he could kiss Quinlan’s shoulder.

  “It’s absolute perfection,” Quinlan admitted. “Oh my God. The only reason not to go out like that is—”

  “We wouldn’t get to do this again, and that would be a crying fucking shame.”

  Quinlan smiled, closing his eyes. “Yeah. That would be a tragedy right there.” He opened his eyes and looked at Dustin, both of them sideways on the bed. “I love you, Dustin Matthew Robbins-Grayson. I’m not sure if I’ve said that yet.”

  “I love you back, Q. I’m going to love you until the day I die, and then I’m going to keep on loving you until you join me, and we can be horny, noisy ghosts. I will never not love you. You understand?”

  Quinlan nodded, his eyes shiny but his chin and lower lip firm. Dustin’s boy wasn’t going to lose it. Not now. “I think I’m starting to get it.”

  “Good. ’Cause we need to wash up, get dressed, and maybe find a way to put the sheets in the washer without the whole world seeing. You down with that?”

  Quinlan closed his eyes. “We won’t be fooling anyone, you know that, right?”

  Dustin shrugged. “Who’s talking about fooling people? I just want to be courteous and pretend we didn’t just have sex in my uncles’ house while there were people here. If anybody gives a crap about our feelings, they’ll do the same, you think?”

  Quinlan’s eyes did that thing where he was trying to figure out if what Dustin said would work or not. He finally bit his lip and shrugged. “We’ll never know unless we try,” he muttered.

  “Awesome. I’ll take the shower first. You strip the bed.”

  Quinlan started to laugh softly.

  “What?”

  “You are probably the bossiest man in and out of bed that I could possibly have ended up with.”

  Dustin nodded soberly. “It’s a good thing you did end up with me, Q. You wouldn’t let me take care of you if I didn’t boss you around like I do. And you need someone to take care of you.”

  Quinlan nodded, touching Dustin’s cheekbones with gentle fingertips. “I need you,” he admitted.

  Dustin smiled. “Yeah. I knew that.” The he pushed off the bed and gave Quinlan a brief kiss on the mouth. “I need you too.”

  It was time to get busy. He wanted to get the kids home so he and Quinla
n could retreat to their own little garage citadel and be completely by themselves some more.

  He liked this activity pretty much above everything else.

  The Originals

  TINO walked through the kitchen, looking out the window for Dusty and Quinlan. The kids were all lounging quietly, Sammy and Cooper were reading in the shade, and—

  A sound from the rooms across the hallway echoed quietly, and he froze.

  “Tino? What are you doing in the—”

  And that sound again. Followed by the unmistakable squeak of bedsprings.

  “Oh,” Channing murmured coming up behind him. “That’s actually quieter than I expected it to be.”

  “You knew?” Tino muttered. “You knew they were going to go do that?”

  “I had a feeling. Quinlan was looking pretty ragged. Dustin’s sort of a hands-on guy. If he was going to fix something, he was going to—”

  A deep, shuddering groan filled the air.

  “That sounds like more than his hands, Channing. I’ve had sex before—I’m pretty sure that was more than his hands.”

  Channing chuckled and wrapped his arms around Tino’s waist. “Yeah. Me too. But hey—we survived Cooper and Sammy in there, and I think Dusty’s actually quieter.”

  Tino groaned. “Oh my God—I tried to block it out. But yeah.” The sounds from the other room subsided. “I’m not upset about that anyway.”

  He wasn’t. Young and in love? It wasn’t so long ago—well, it was Dustin’s lifetime ago, but Dustin was still a baby. Tino had been exactly Dustin’s age when he’d fallen in love with the man currently kissing his neck.

  “Then what’s wrong?” Channing asked, nuzzling his ear.

  “Just… that’s Dusty,” he said plaintively. “And Belinda’s going to have a baby. And… and our babies are getting ready to graduate from school and—”

  “And we’re growing older,” Channing said softly.

  Tino turned in his arms and laid his head against Channing’s wide chest. “It feels impossible,” he admitted. “I love you like we fell in love yesterday.”

  “Me too,” Channing whispered. “You ready to have more different adventures?”

  Tino nodded. “We still haven’t been to Australia.”

  Channing’s laugh rumbled from his stomach, his impossibly gray eyes crinkling in the corners. Yes, he was older—but he looked so much more amazing than he had twenty-two years ago. “How is that possible? We must go to Australia.”

  “Absolutely,” Tino agreed. “It would be irresponsible not to.”

  From Sammy and Cooper’s old rooms came the sound of the shower going off.

  “C’mon,” Channing murmured. “Let’s go sit by the pool and ask the kids about Australia.”

  “Think we could take Nica’s younger kids?”

  “And give your sister and Jacob some time to themselves? What in the hell are you thinking?”

  Tino chuckled weakly. “That we should have kidnapped her kids to Australia years ago.”

  “So they could have had more kids?”

  “God forbid.”

  Channing pulled him to the patio, and once the door was shut behind them, Tino paused again. “Think Quinlan’s going to be okay?”

  Channing sighed. “I think if Dusty has anything to say about it, he will be.”

  “Well, they’re not alone. And now for the hard part.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Pretending we don’t know Belinda’s pregnant until she tells her mother.”

  Channing’s laugh was low and evil.

  “I think you should facilitate that, don’t you?” He mimed texting. “Oh Belinda, is there something your family should know?”

  “That would be evil.” Tino grinned. “I like it!”

  “Well, she deserves it. I thought Charles was going to have a coronary when he realized she hadn’t told anybody.” Channing’s voice filled with affection—as it should have. Charles Wainscott was a family institution. He’d helped Sammy’s adoption come through, as well as Keenan’s, Letty’s, and Felicity’s. He’d helped orchestrate the bone marrow donation from Sammy’s father—which had cost them enough money to make the offering from Quinlan’s mother feel like the insult it was. He’d helped them manage their estate and their children’s money so that now, no matter what happened to their businesses, their personal finances would never fail.

  And he’d been their friend and confidant and champion for over twenty years.

  Not following through on a promise to Mr. Wainscott was actually more of a sin than getting pregnant on birth control before Belinda was out of school. The getting pregnant was a family tradition, after all.

  “I’ll do it,” Tino decided, pulling out his phone. “And then we can start planning weddings.”

  “Joachim and Belinda’s?” Channing said delightedly. “Because seriously—I’ve been looking forward to that.” Channing loved seeing a beautiful bride—almost especially if she was pregnant. But then, Channing had always had a soft spot for Tino’s sisters, which shouldn’t have charmed Tino as much as he and his sisters bickered—and yet it did.

  “And Quinlan’s and Dusty’s,” Tino added, thinking fondly of his gruff nephew.

  “You think?” Channing bumped his shoulder so Tino would look up and see his frown. “Married?”

  “Oh yeah.” Tino pulled his phone out with satisfaction. “That kid growls a lot, but I think he’s got a streak of romance in him. You’ll see.”

  Channing settled a possessive arm around his waist as they walked to the shaded patio on the other side of the pool. “Well, you growled a fair bit too when we met, remember?”

  “Stop it!” Tino started texting Belinda gleefully.

  “Stop what?”

  “You’ll get me all nostalgic again. And seriously—we’ve got plans to make. Weddings, Australia—Channing, we’ve got so much to do!”

  Channing’s laughter did what it had since the day Tino had come knocking at his door, delivering his sister’s dinner boxes.

  Fed his soul.

  Looking Out Over the Future

  QUINLAN woke up and felt immediately for Dustin—but he was gone. He patted a surprised kitten, who immediately gnawed on his finger, kicked out with his back feet, and tore off across the apartment with all the grace of a herd of wild boar.

  “Hello, Nutjob,” Quinlan muttered. “Where’s Dusty?”

  He scowled and tried to put a finger on the thing that had awakened him.

  Smoke. Not house smoke—cigarette smoke.

  Quinlan sat up in bed, irritated. In the six weeks since he’d returned from the tour, since they’d been living together, Dustin hadn’t slipped once.

  But tomorrow was the fourteenth of October.

  Quinlan had been as nervous as Nutjob at the vet’s office—although less destructive, and hopefully less of a skin-shredding pain in the ass to all involved. He’d been distracted and off his game with the kids—he’d had to write his daily pickup/drop-off schedule on his wrist for the days he taught classes, because he’d messed up the sequence twice and been late to his own classes and early to pick the kids up from their after-school activities.

  He’d had to call Dustin at work several times to pick up cat food or milk or laundry detergent, and the fact that Dusty had been all copacetic about it and hadn’t teased him at all told Quinlan all he wanted to know about how not okay he was.

  As Quinlan padded to the door, the smell receded, and Quinlan had a chance to cool off.

  If Dustin was sneaking a smoke now, it was because he’d exhausted all his patience trying to keep Quinlan from grabbing the ceiling with his fingernails, like a cat, and just holding up there, hissing, until he finally got to meet his mother in person.

  By the time he got to the porch landing, Dustin was at the bottom, throwing something away in the garbage cans by the garage. He trotted back up the stairs and grimaced when he saw Quinlan waiting for him. Quinlan had to smile—he was wearing boxer sho
rts and a hooded sweatshirt, in deference to the October chill.

  “Sorry,” Dustin muttered as he got to the top.

  But Quinlan didn’t want to talk about sorry.

  “Did you like the set?” he asked—a stupid question, because Dustin had told him a thousand times yes.

  Dustin wrapped an arm around Quinlan’s shoulders, smelling like breath mints and hand sanitizer and only a little like tobacco. Together they looked out across the yard and across the quiet suburban neighborhood Dustin had grown up in.

  “I love watching you play,” Dustin murmured. “You were really good tonight.”

  “Sammy’s the star of the show,” Quinlan told him honestly. Sammy was maybe the best piano player he’d ever heard live—not just his ability but his showmanship, the way he played with the crowd. Quinlan was accompaniment—he’d known that since they were undergrads together, and for a little while he’d resented it.

  But then Sammy had collapsed in his arms after they’d played the set of their lives, and Quinlan, Bobbie, and Chrissy had sat in a hospital room with him for the next eight hours while he got platelets and fluids.

  And Quinlan had a little come-to-Jesus talk with himself about the things he had and the things he didn’t have, and how he would be grateful for what the gods had bestowed. One of the things the gods had bestowed was Sammy’s friendship, from which all Quinlan’s good fortune—including the man at his side—had sprung.

  “Yeah, well, you’re the star of my show,” Dustin told him—very neatly not stating that Sammy was the focus of the musical group. Nice move, Dustin—my heart approves. Dustin kissed his temple. “And that song you played—your solo. That was all for me.”

  Quinlan nodded, closing his eyes and remembering the rollicking piano that supported the plaintive trumpet solo. It was his own composition for part of his doctorate, which included a body of work.

  But school assignment or not, it meant something to him.

  “It’s called ‘Dusty Waters,’” he said shyly.

  “Ooh!” Dustin crowed. “Yeah? You even named it for me? You didn’t tell me that!”