The Story of Us

by Barbara Elsborg

  “I’m too full to eat another thing.” Zed groaned.

  “Oh no.” Caspian pouted. “That’s ruined my plans.”

  “Okay, just one chocolate strawberry.”

  Zed chuckled and slung his arm over Caspian’s shoulder. “It’s been great, hasn’t it?”

  “They haven’t heard us play yet.”

  “Hey, we’re good. Don’t worry.”

  “You’re good. I’m average.”

  Henry tapped Caspian on the shoulder as he and Zed were heading for the bar. “We’ve been looking for you two.”

  Jonas took Zed’s hand. “Come outside.”

  Caspian followed the three of them to a tree that had been draped with fairy lights that hung in strings.

  “We want to thank you,” Jonas said. We feel like the luckiest guys alive. We took a risk when we opened our house to Zed but it turned out to be the best thing we ever did. We never really told you why we had you come and live with us.”

  “I thought Jackson asked you,” Zed said.

  “He did.” Henry cleared his throat. “I had… I had a younger brother. His name was Edward. He got involved with drugs when he was a teenager and overdosed aged seventeen. He was a friend of Jackson’s at boarding school. Jackson was the one who found him in the grounds of the school. I was twenty-one. Jackson felt he’d failed Edward. But I never blamed him. Edward was bent on self-destruction. I think Jackson saw a way for us both to help you.”

  “You were the light in our home,” Jonas said. “You brought Henry and I closer together. And along came Caspian and our family was complete. We have loved having you live with us. There’s not been one moment when we’ve regretted it.”

  “This is for you.” Jonas handed Zed an envelope.

  Zed opened it, gasped and turned to Caspian. “Tickets for a holiday in Hawaii next year.”

  What? “I hope you have a lovely time,” Caspian said. “Take pictures.”

  “For you too, you idiot.” Zed elbowed him.

  Caspian opened his mouth to remind him he couldn’t go to the States and then closed it again.

  “This one is more personal, but it does benefit you both.” Henry turned to Caspian. “Your criminal record has been removed from the Police National Computer. An exception has been made because of your heroic action on the Thames. You’re no longer on licence. All restrictions have been lifted. You’ll be able to travel wherever you want. There’ll be no bar to you adopting children if that’s what you’d like to do. The families of the girls who died have been told your record has been expunged, and whilst not…happy, accepted you deserved another chance. You have your life back.”

  Caspian had sort of heard what Henry said but couldn’t take it in.

  “You’ve also been put forward for the George Medal for an act of conspicuous bravery.” Henry smiled at him.

  “I can go to Hawaii with Zed?” Caspian mumbled.

  Henry laughed. “Yes.”

  Zed sighed. “Did you hear what Henry said?”

  I heard. Fuck, I heard. “Yeah, we can go to Hawaii. We can bike down a volcano.” He turned to Henry and Jonas. “Thank you.”

  Henry dragged him into his arms and held him tight. “You saved everyone on the boat that night from death or serious injury. If Zed had been killed, we’d have fallen apart. If you’d not survived, how could we have convinced Zed to carry on? If you’d both died, our hearts would have broken. If I’d lost Jonas…”

  “I wasn’t thinking,” Caspian mumbled.

  “Yeah you were. You knew what would happen if Tamaz detonated that bomb. You knew that you and Zed would probably die along with many others. You chose Zed’s life over your own. What you did was insanely brave.”

  Henry clung to him so tightly, Caspian struggled to breathe.

  “I wondered,” Henry said, “if you’d do me the very great honour of taking my surname as yours. You don’t have to tell me now. Think about it. I won’t be offended if you say no.”

  “I don’t need to think about it. I’d love to be Caspian Steele. Even though it does sound like I’ve been cast in steel. Caspian, Man of Steel. I’ll shut up now.”

  Caspian was nervous about performing. He’d joined Zed in the recording studio a few times, but never played in front of an actual audience. He had his lucky marble in his pocket, though once they’d started, he forgot there was anyone watching at all. They played old favourites by Queen, Bruce Springsteen, Take That, and a couple that he and Zed had written together. Everyone was dancing. Carried on a rush of adrenaline, Caspian knew he’d never played this well before. Definitely time to stop before something went wrong.

  “You tired?” Zed asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Come on. Let’s go back to our room. You can lie down.”

  “And you can lie on top of me.”

  Zed laughed as he tugged Caspian back into the castle. “I thought you were tired.”

  “I’m never that tired. I’m going to make you see stars.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “Absolutely. If I’m willing to give you the stars and the moon, I reckon you should be willing to sacrifice Uranus.”

  Zed groaned. “That is a terrible joke. Definitely time to leave.”

  They were hard long before they were naked, shedding their shoes, then clothes along the corridor on the way to their room, leaving a trail to the bed. Caspian allowed Zed to propel him there, but it was Zed beneath him now, pinned down by Caspian. Zed writhed and groaned as Caspian landed kisses on the delicate skin below his ear.

  “Any stars yet?” Caspian breathed the words into his ear before he licked Zed’s neck and worked his way slowly down his body.

  “Not yet.”

  He drew on Zed’s flat stomach with his tongue, then blew over the places he’d licked while Zed shuddered and clenched the sheet in his fists. Caspian curled his tongue over Zed’s angular hip bone, nipped it, then pressed his face into his groin, rubbing him with his chin before turning his face to his cock.

  A pearl of moisture beaded at the tip. Caspian ran his finger along a vein then scooped up the precum and sucked his finger, his mouth watering with the salty tang that was so uniquely Zed.

  “I’m full now,” Caspian said.

  Zed laughed, his fingers dipping, diving and pulling at Caspian’s hair. “You can’t manage just a little more?”

  “Maybe.” Caspian slid the rough flat of his tongue from Zed’s balls up to the rounded crest and licked over it before reversing the journey. When he nibbled Zed’s hip, Zed let out a strangled groan.

  “Don’t muddle up where you’re biting,” Zed panted.

  “I’ll try not to.”

  “If you do, you’ll be the one seeing stars because I’ll buck you off the bed.”

  Caspian wrapped his hand around the base of Zed’s cock and fed it into his mouth while he looked up at him. Short, fasts sucks had Zed lifting his hips to get him to take more. Long, deep sucks had Zed running his fingers over the hollows in Caspian’s cheeks. Everything they did primed Caspian’s lust, sending shivers and goose bumps racing over his skin. Every touch of Zed’s skin, cock, balls, wound his own body tighter.

  “I love you, I love you, I love you.” Zed whispered the words over and over again.

  “Only three love you’s? I was hoping for four.”

  “Don’t push your luck.”

  Caspian fumbled for the lube, found it pressed into his hand and while he still kissed and licked Zed’s cock, he pressed a lube-coated finger against the entrance to Zed’s body, circling the puckered hole, pushing, pressing until the muscles relaxed and let him in.

  “I love you too,” Caspian whispered. “I love sticking my fingers up your arse.”

  Zed’s body shook as he laughed. “How many love you’s said at inappropriate times is that?”

  “I’ve lost count.”

  When Caspian found the spongy gland that made Zed arch his back in ecstasy, the thrill was almost as strong for Caspi
an. The giving of pleasure, making Zed happy, making him smile was a flame burning inside Caspian. He thought he couldn’t love Zed more than he did, and then something would happen that showed him he could. He couldn’t imagine life without him. He didn’t want to. When they died, Caspian wanted them to die together.

  Not yet though.

  Zed’s words became incoherent as Caspian slowly brought him off. He pulled back, sped up, let Zed take charge and fuck his mouth, thrusting deep enough to bruise his tonsils before Caspian regained control. He pulled off with a soft pop, then wrapped his lips around Zed’s balls. Pressure from his tongue, quick flicks, gentle rolls would drive Zed towards his breaking point.

  “Please,” Zed whispered. “I need to come. Now.”

  Caspian let him out of his mouth but kept pushing into him with his finger, then two fingers, pumping them in and out. “Not until I’m inside you.”

  Zed opened his eyes. “You’re joking.”

  “No, and you’re on top. I’m tired.”

  Zed chuckled.

  Caspian reached for a condom and Zed caught his wrist. “We don’t need it.”

  Fuck. Caspian wanted to ask if he was sure, but no words emerged from his mouth.

  “I want to feel you come inside me. I want to feel your cum inside me, then dripping out of me.”

  Caspian whimpered.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I was hoping to last ages, drive you insane with need, but now you’ll have to make do with thirty minutes of fabulous, furious fucking.”

  “Shut up and lie on your back.”

  Caspian did as he was told. Zed squirted lube onto his hand and rubbed it up then down Caspian’s cock. When he started to do it again, Caspian grabbed his hand.

  “No more. My brain is telling me you’re giving me a hand job. I’ll be spurting all over your chest not inside you.”

  Zed came up on his knees and reached behind him to push his fingers into his own arsehole. “I figure the more stretching and more lube the better, right?” He bit his lip and stared at Caspian the whole time.

  Caspian swallowed his whimper. “Need a hand? A finger? Two? Three? Four?”

  “Stop before you offer your entire arm. That’s not going to happen.”

  Zed straddled him on his knees, then lowered himself down, reaching for Caspian’s cock to hold it in place. It was such a fucking turn on watching him do this that Caspian forgot to breathe. Zed pushed down slowly and kept pushing until Caspian’s cock was buried completely inside him.

  Caspian let out a long groan.

  “It feels different,” Zed panted.

  “More like a Lamborghini than a Ferrari?”

  “You always feel good but you’re hotter, warmer, tighter around me.”

  Zed clenched his anal muscles, Caspian sucked in a breath, then leaned up and kissed him. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered into Zed’s neck.

  Zed came back onto his knees and began to move. How he could undulate his hips in the perfect rhythm, jerk himself off and breathe at the same time was beyond Caspian. Then Caspian began to move too, driving his cock up into Zed faster and faster. They were both moaning, gasping. Caspian caught hold of Zed’s hip with one hand while the other made a fist around Zed’s hand where he held his own cock. Maybe I can multitask too.

  They were caught up in a maelstrom, hair sticking up, lips swollen, pupils blown. Caspian wasn’t sure they’d ever moved this fast when they were fucking but the sounds Zed was making were his power source. Inside Caspian, every cell bubbled and fizzed with excitement. The rhythm was frantic and Caspian could feel orgasm racing toward him. Electricity arced down his spine and set fire to his balls.

  Zed came with a loud gasp and Caspian followed. At that moment of release, the fireworks exploded outside, the dark sky lighting up with colour. Everything seemed to stretch as if a rocket had been fired up and didn’t stop ascending. Orgasm went on and on through a series of bangs and hissing and crackling, splattering the sky with red and green and blue.

  “I promised I’d make you see stars,” Caspian said.

  The two of them collapsed laughing into each other’s arms.

  SUMMER TEN

  Epilogue

  May

  Young inventor Caspian Steele scoops award for devising a way to harness surplus energy from household appliances, enough to produce a third of the electricity used daily by an average household.

  June

  Young part-time composer Zed Mallinson wins a BAFTA for the soundtrack of the latest Bond film. Is he Oscar-bound?

  July

  Henry picked up the postcard from the mat. “From Zed and Caspian,” he told Jonas.

  “What does it say?”

  “Read it with me.” He pulled Jonas closer. “A line from each of them.”

  Today we biked down the volcano, Zed had written.

  Zed is a wuss, wrote Caspian.

  At least I arrived intact.

  But I got there first and I only had to have ten stitches.

  I shouldn’t have hit him so hard, wrote Zed.

  Henry laughed. “Oh God, if I didn’t know that Zed was reining him in…”

  “Keep reading!”

  I asked Zed to marry me.

  I’m making him wait, Zed had written.

  How long?

  The answer is yes, wrote Zed

  xxxx

  The End

  About the Author

  Barbara Elsborg lives in Kent in the south of England. She always wanted to be a spy, but having confessed to everyone without them even resorting to torture, she decided it was not for her. Volcanology scorched her feet. A morbid fear of sharks put paid to marine biology. So instead, she spent several years successfully selling cyanide.

  After dragging up two rotten, ungrateful children and frustrating her sexy, devoted, wonderful husband (who can now stop twisting her arm) she finally has time to conduct an affair with an electrifying plugged-in male, her laptop.

  She writes stories about two guys, two guys and one woman, and one guy and one woman in most genres—contemporary, paranormal, sci fi, suspense, urban fantasy. Her books feature bad boys and quirky heroines, and she hopes they are as much fun to read as they are to write.

  She loves hearing from readers and can be contacted at bjelsborg@gmail.com If you’d like to hear about future releases please ask to be put on her mailing list.

  Other books by Barbara Elsborg

  There are a few linked books in my list but all can be read as standalones.

  Contemporary MMs

  The Story of Us

  Edge of Forever

  Cowboys Down

  With or Without Him

  Give Yourself Away

  Every Move He Makes

  Falling (Fall and Break book 1)

  Breaking (Fall and Break book 2)

  Drawn In

  Paranormal MMs

  Dirty Angel

  Bloodline (Norwood book 2)

  The Demon You Know (Norwood book 3)

  Archangel’s Assassin

  Short Stories (MM)

  Zeke’s Wood

  Contemporary MFs

  Strangers

  Summer Girl Winter Boy

  Kiss a Falling Star

  An Ordinary Girl

  Perfect Timing (Bedlington book 1)

  Something About Polly (Bedlington book 2)

  Doing the Right Thing (Mansell brothers book 1)

  Finding the Right One (Mansell brothers book 2)

  Digging Deeper

  The Princess and the Prepper (novella)

  Snow Play (novella)

  On the Right Track (novella)

  Contemporary MMFs

  Anna in the Middle

  Susie’s Choice

  Girl Most Likely to

  Talking Trouble

  Just What She Wants (novella)

  Starting Over (novella)

  Paranormal MFs and MMFs

  Perfect Trouble MF

  Po
wer of Love MF

  Kiss Interrupted MF

  Jumping in Puddles MF (Norwood book 1)

  Rocked MMF

  The Small Print MMF

  Worlds Apart MMF

  The Consolation Prize MF (Trueblood book 1)

  Falling for You MF (Trueblood book 2)

  Lightning in a Bottle MF ((Trueblood book 3)

  The Misfits MMF(Trueblood book 4)

  Fight to Remember MMF(Trueblood book 5)

  Lucy in the Sky MF (sci fi)

  Taking Stock MMF (sci fi)

  Just One Bite MF (novella)

  Short Stories (MF)

  Saying Yes

  The Bad Widow

  The Gift

  Dragon Race

  Two Birds, One Stone

  Romantic Suspense (MF)

  Chosen

  Crossing the Line