Bonfires

by Amy Lane

  He reached the small of Aaron’s back and those busy hands were at work again, undoing his fly and shucking his jeans to his ankles, then helping Aaron step out of his tennis shoes and socks. Aaron started to turn around, wanting to take Larx into his arms, to be naked together, but Larx had plans, seductive ones, and Aaron was suddenly lost in the feel of masculine hands running up his calves, cupping the backs of his thighs, running up the front, just barely missing the big bundle of toys in the center.

  “You were hurt,” Aaron mumbled as Larx stood up, pressing against him. He was naked, his cock hard and unmistakable and dripping, even, as it pushed into Aaron’s left cheek.

  Larx held him hard, arms under Aaron’s and around his chest, the rasp of the gauze wrapped around his bicep and shoulder inconvenient but not unwieldy. “Not the last two days,” he said, arching his hips again.

  “You were tired,” Aaron tried again, and Larx pinched his nipples hard enough to sting. “Ouch!”

  “Tell the truth!”

  Oh.

  “You were hurt,” he said again, but not with the defensive edge. Some of the arousal seeped out of his body, naked in Larx’s living room, and he was left with the knowledge he’d been trying to fight since Tuesday. “I… I was so scared. I… didn’t want to hurt you.”

  Larx planted a reassuring row of kisses across his shoulders. “I’m here,” he whispered. “I’m here, and I’m fine.”

  “That wound….” Aaron didn’t want to talk about all of it, about the terror of having your partner, your other half, the first and third beats of your heart, suddenly yanked out of your life.

  But Larx knew. Larx read minds for a living. He paused again, resting his cheek against Aaron’s neck. “I’m here today. It’s the only promise I can make. You get that, right?”

  Aaron nodded, thinking his heart was suddenly too sore for sex. Then Larx smoothed his hand slowly from the base of his neck down his spine, lighting a fire under his nerve endings with every inch. When he got to the small of Aaron’s back, he pushed with the flat of his other hand against Aaron’s shoulder blades until he was bent over, clutching the couch under his chest, his ass out in invitation.

  It was as vulnerable as he’d ever felt in his entire life.

  Larx lowered his face to Aaron’s, and Aaron turned his head so they were eye to eye. “Do you trust me?” Larx asked seriously. “If you don’t yet, it’s okay. We’ll trade places—you’ll take me over the couch and it’ll be great. But if you do, I’ll make it good, Aaron. I swear. Just trust me, here. Can you do that?”

  Aaron’s mouth went dry. Do you know what you’re asking?

  But of course he knew. He’d trusted too. He’d had the rug yanked out from under his feet. But he still trusted Aaron not to do that.

  “Yes,” Aaron graveled. “I trust you.”

  Larx’s lazy, sleepy, sexy-confident smile actually made Aaron’s cock throb.

  “Good,” he said and took Aaron’s mouth in a long, drugging, urgent kiss. Aaron groaned, knees going a little wobbly, and Larx chuckled before breaking away. He went back to Aaron’s neck—that was really starting to turn Aaron’s key—and kissed a line down his spine, down again but quicker this time. When he got to Aaron’s backside, he squatted and started massaging Aaron’s cheeks.

  “You’ve got a great ass,” Larx said, kissing him just inside the crease. “I mean, I know we’re supposed to be over stuff like that, but I really do like it. It wouldn’t be a deal breaker or anything if you just had a couple of bony yabs sticking out, but I seriously worship your behind.”

  He never stopped squishing, kneading, separating, smoothing his thumbs down Aaron’s crease, along the insides of his thighs. He paused and Aaron heard a sucking, popping sound, and then his finger, wet and slippery with spit, traced down again.

  Rubbed his pucker, which made Aaron gasp and tingle.

  Rubbed it again.

  Got it wet again and rubbed it some more.

  Aaron moaned against the couch, remembering performing this act and hungering for just this reaction from Larx.

  Now he understood.

  Larx penetrated him with one finger, the other hand continuing that insidious massage. Aaron gasped and wiggled, the discomfort giving quickly way to an achy sort of pleasure. He expected another finger then, but Larx stood up, still stretching, and drizzled lube on the blue plug.

  “What’re—”

  “Sh—your knees are gonna go, and mine aren’t twenty anymore.”

  Aaron gasped at the coolness of the lube and then sort of whimpered when Larx removed his finger. That had felt so very good—

  Oh!

  The plug was smooth and slick, and Aaron tightened around it, clenching, relaxing, clenching. It was invasive, a little thicker than one finger but not as thick as two, and just long enough to tease his prostate.

  Larx laughed, shoving the plug forward and smacking Aaron’s cheek. “Clench and stay clenched or it’s going to fall out,” he warned.

  Aaron pulled in a breath, and Larx helped him stand up before walking him—very slowly—around the couch.

  Every step made his limbs tremble more, made his arousal ramp higher. Larx would slide his hand back every few steps and tap the thing into place, which made Aaron want to cry. Oh—so unfair. So… oh God.

  He was shaking by the time Larx spread the towel on the battered corduroy couch and helped him lie down, ass on the towel, one knee propped up and the other spread wide while he rested his foot on the floor.

  He had a sudden awful thought.

  “Movies?” he said, making sure.

  Larx nodded and bit his lip hopefully. “Swear.”

  “Okay—let’s do this thing.”

  And then Larx did the best thing, which was sink into the couch with him, knees between Aaron’s spread thighs, cover Aaron’s wide, pale body with his own wiry, strong one, and kiss Aaron hard, insistently, with all the passion in his soul.

  Aaron kissed back, wrapping his arms around Larx’s shoulders and crushing him tight. His body shook with arousal and invasion, but also with need to have Larx skin to skin. God, Aaron needed him, needed this, needed the reassurance of flesh and bone, of body and blood in his arms.

  Larx broke off the kiss for a moment and slid off the couch so he could kneel at Aaron’s side. He brushed Aaron’s hair from his temple and pulled him into another kiss.

  “We’re going to play for a minute,” he said softly, breathing like he was restraining himself. “I’m gonna play with the back and you’re gonna play with the front, okay?”

  Aaron barely kept back his laugh. Of all the times for Larx’s teacher voice to emerge….

  Then Larx took one of Aaron’s hands and wrapped it around Aaron’s throbbing cock. He moaned breathily, and Larx whispered in his ear. “Wait for me, then do whatever you need to there, ’kay?”

  Aaron nodded, stroking slowly, strongly, just to keep himself grounded and on the couch. Very carefully, Larx reached between his asscheeks and slid the plug out.

  Aaron sighed with the relief, and then… oh, he clenched against nothing, wanting so hard, so bad. Larx fumbled with a little bit of lube, and then one finger breached Aaron’s ass again.

  Aaron moaned in relief, squatting down, wanting more, and Larx rewarded him with another finger.

  “Oh God, yes,” he groaned as Larx began pumping two fingers back and forth. Aaron’s cock throbbed in his hand, and he added the other hand, just to steady himself. He had control there, and it helped him, grounded him, as Larx added one more finger and blew his mind.

  “Aah….” His voice shook, a deep vibrato grunt, and Larx laughed softly, lowering his head to engulf the bell of Aaron’s cock in his mouth.

  Aaron shook so much his teeth chattered, and he came, spurting hard into Larx’s mouth. Larx swallowed again and again while Aaron’s fist tightened and stroked, and still Larx’s fingers kept moving inside Aaron’s ass.

  When Aaron’s climax stilled, they stayed there�
�invading, stretching, and oh God, arousing enough to keep Aaron hard.

  Larx took his mouth again, hot and dripping with come, and Aaron fell into the kiss, the decadence and earthiness that was sex and Larx and their bodies twining in sweat and heart and spend.

  “You ready?” Larx asked, spreading his three fingers a little, just to the point of pain.

  “Oh God,” Aaron moaned, needing him inside.

  “You’re ready, right?” Larx taunted his backside again.

  “All of you,” Aaron rasped. “I need all of you.”

  Larx pulled his fingers out and wiped them on the towel and then scrambled up on the couch between Aaron’s knees.

  “All of me,” Larx vowed, easing into Aaron’s ass.

  “Too gentle,” Aaron pleaded. “All, now, hard.”

  Larx paused to smile. “Oh yeah.”

  The first thrust into Aaron’s body lit up every nerve ending like a chemical flare, so bright it was painful.

  “Larx!” Aaron howled, and Larx rocked back, made ready for the next thrust.

  “Louder,” he whispered wickedly, and suddenly the sheer carnality of being fucked naked into the couch in the middle of the day was just as amazing as the eroticism of being, oh hell, as loud as he fucking wanted.

  “Fuck me!” Aaron shouted, freed and shaking with arousal again. “Hard! God, hard!”

  “Damned straight,” Larx crowed, following up with a flurry, a solid rabbit-pistoning of Larx’s hips thrusting his cock into Aaron’s ass with precision and speed.

  Aaron couldn’t scream enough, couldn’t groan, couldn’t shout enough.

  They were alone, naked, two people in the world, and Larx, his Larx, his lover, his partner, his companion, was inside him, filling his empty places, taking control of Aaron’s body like Aaron couldn’t have a pulse without him.

  He wouldn’t.

  The terrible frenzy reached its maximum, and Aaron started to tremble, his ass aching, his cock swollen and primed once again.

  “Oh God, Larx, baby, I need you with me!”

  Larx shook terribly, his arms giving out as he fell against Aaron, body slick with sweat, hips rutting furiously as he groaned his climax into Aaron’s shoulder.

  Aaron’s orgasm detonated in the pit of his groin, a force-ten explosion rippling out, taking over his limbs, washing his vision black and white and black again, rattling his heart in his ribs, the marrow in his bones.

  The sound he made into Larx’s neck was barely human, and the echoes were still dying when both of them collapsed, limp as flags of surrender.

  Heartbeat, breath, Larx’s breath, Larx’s heartbeat, Larx’s skin.

  Their heartbeats. Their breath. Their skin.

  Them, together, still joined. Larx peppering his face with little kisses, nuzzling his neck. The thunder of their heartbeats passing like a summer storm.

  “Larx?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think you killed me.”

  “Heh-heh-heh-heh….”

  “You’re not even a little sorry, are you?”

  “No. Give me a sec and I’ll get up so we can shower, and I can kill you again.”

  “Heh-heh-heh-heh….” He stared up into Larx’s faintly dusty ceiling fan, which was lit gold by the sun coming in through the sliding glass door.

  He’d had good moments, beautiful moments, wife and children and family moments.

  He knew what happiness felt like, the kind that filled a man up and made his eyes burn, made his soul sure this was the path he was meant for.

  Moments exactly like this one, with the man he loved in his arms.

  THEY HAD to move eventually. The feeling of come leaking from his behind made Aaron a little panicky until Larx used the towel to wipe it up.

  “Handy, that,” Aaron said, looking around for his shorts.

  Larx shook his head. “Move it to the showers, I’ll get your clothes,” he chided. “I’ll be right there.”

  He was too, joining Aaron in the warm water as Aaron stood, dazed, trying to pull back into himself.

  “Stop,” Larx said, soaping his chest. “You’ll hit earth soon enough. Float until you don’t need to.”

  Aaron blinked and looked at him, trying to formulate a question. “What now?” was the best he could manage.

  “Today?” Larx kissed his cheek and moved to soaping his back and stretched, slippery backside. “Today you go back to bills when you can, and I work on some of my own, and the kids get home, and dinner, and….”

  “I mean all of it,” Aaron reiterated. Words. He had been fucked almost wordless. He had no idea it was even possible.

  Larx cupped his cheeks. “I understand someone was going to make me a chicken coop,” he said winsomely. “So we could live in my small house like one big happy family.”

  Aaron smiled, the floaty feeling drifting away and leaving contentment and promise in its wake. “I like this idea,” he said, kissing Larx because how could he not? “This is your best idea.”

  “You like that?” Larx whispered. “That’s good, Deputy. ’Cause it was your idea, and I’m saying yes.”

  “You are a smart man.”

  Larx grinned.

  They were going to have such a life together. Aaron had plans.

  Epilogue: Sprouts

  PLANS HE followed. The chicken coop came first, him and Kellan and Kirby swearing in the cold sunshine of October, trying to beat the long tree shadows before they had to call it a day. It took them longer than a weekend, because a chicken coop had to be a chicken mansion, someplace insulated and wired to the house, if you lived in the snow. Aaron’s coop at the other house had a door that opened and closed with a light sensor, and he had to back-order one, because letting the chickens in and out was a pain in the ass.

  It was early November before they moved in for real, and by then their schedules and just plain life had forced them to spend enough nights apart that every night without Larx in his arms felt like a hardship, something not to be borne.

  Kellan wrote a letter a week, and while the first one might have been short and awkward, Aaron noticed that the subsequent letters got longer and Kellan began to shake himself out of his sadness.

  Of course, getting his first letter from Isaiah helped, and after retreating to his room and crying for a bit, he came back and read the less personal parts to the family.

  And then the time came for Aaron to put up or shut up.

  The tenacious little reporter contacted him in early November, and with some reluctance, he and Larx gave her a brief, heavily edited statement. They used assumed names and kept all pictures of the kids out of it, but they talked about starting over again so close to fifty, and they talked about their jobs, and they talked about the could-have-happened that had haunted them both.

  Marissa Schroeder told them that they got scads and scads of fan mail when the piece went live, but neither of them looked. As Larx said, it felt like they were talking about somebody else. Their own lives were so prosaic, so very, very normal.

  And their disappointment was normal when none of the girls came home for Thanksgiving—they were all too involved in school, in finals, in the lives they were forging for themselves. Aaron took it in stride. The week before, while Larx and the kids were home cleaning and cooking, he was getting frequent texts from Maureen showing him how she and her friends were getting ready to improvise their own feast. Tiffany hadn’t said much beyond Not coming for Thanksgiving, but with Maureen, at least, he felt like his baby wasn’t alone.

  The morning before turkey day they woke up to six inches of snow—and no Delilah on their bed like she usually was. Larx ran downstairs, concerned, and found her curled up in front of the glass insert, catching the cold light of the new snow. She’d passed quietly, without fuss, truly content as only cats could be.

  Larx had wept then, openly and like a child, before the kids were awake to see. Aaron crouched next to him as he petted the ragged fur, and looped an arm over Larx’s shoulders, feeling
useless. He hadn’t been great at Caro’s tears either, but as Larx began to talk about the old cat, what she’d meant to his family, how she’d been his daughters’ symbol of hope and normalcy during a really difficult time, Aaron found himself making rash promises about dogs and dog pens and Christmas and anything, oh, please, Larx, anything but feel happy again!

  Larx had finally let out a strangled laugh and turned his tear-warped face to Aaron. “It’s okay, Deputy—men cry. It doesn’t always have to mean we’re broken.”

  Aaron shook his head and wiped his eyes with his palms. “A dog,” he said, nodding. “A big stupid dog. For Christmas. Just let me get you a dog.”

  “Sure.” Larx used the sleeve of his sweatshirt to catch Aaron’s tears. “A dog. Whatever you need.”

  “A dog,” Aaron said staunchly, his own voice choked. He’d promised.

  The kids came down eventually, and they mourned. Larx dug a hole in the garden, grateful the snow was new enough that the ground wasn’t completely frozen. Christiana sobbed so hard Aaron was afraid her slender body would shake apart, and he and the boys stood and watched them grieve together.

  It felt only right.

  That night Aaron got home from work in time to hear Larx’s conversation with Olivia, and he was genuinely concerned.

  He’d expected tears, but her voice rose and fell shrilly, almost hysterically, and as Aaron walked into their bedroom, he caught the look of worry in Larx’s eyes as he calmed her down. Finally she hung up, still weeping, and Larx collapsed backward across the bed.

  Aaron flopped on his stomach perpendicular to him, nuzzling the top of his head. “That was rough.”

  “She’s not sounding….” Larx sighed. “She’s sounding off. Not… not centered. Her mom—her hormones really fucked up her brain chemistry, you know? I always thought, you know, maybe if I’d caught it first, if I’d realized how much pain she was in before the whole school thing blew up—”

  “You didn’t make her attitude, Larx. You didn’t make her turn on her kids.” Aaron tried not to get angry or short, because the more he knew about Larx and his girls, the more he realized what a truly good father he was.