“Yeah.”
Helena patted his shoulder. “You going over there without reinforcements?”
“She won’t talk if Matt’s around.” Miranda and Matt still did not have the level of closeness Matt had with the other kids. It bothered Evan, but he didn’t know how to change it. “And I figure I’m the one she wants to scream at, so….”
“You think this is a revenge boyfriend?”
“Well, Elena thinks so, and I’m inclined to believe her.” He frowned a little. His former sister-in-law didn’t have children, but he mentally deferred to her because of her gender. He wasn’t sure if that was logical or a skewed sense of gender politics. Either way, it made his head hurt. “She’s acting out because of Matt and I.”
“Could be, though that’s sort of closing the barn door after the horse… something. You know what I mean,” she said. “Or maybe she likes this boy.” Helena laughed. At him. “Why don’t you ask her?”
Evan gave her an eye roll in return as he leaned forward. He shut down his computer, then began to gather things together on his desk.
“And maybe don’t start off with that stern accusatory thing you do,” she continued breezily. “Ease into the screaming match.”
“Thank you for your advice. I’ll take it under consideration,” he said. He was being sarcastic, but Helena knew him well. She knew his tendency to blow up first and ask questions later. She also knew when to kick him in the shins.
“Good luck.” She gave him a sarcastic head pat.
And then she was gone in a wave of expensive perfume and heels a good three inches higher than the ones she had worn when she came in. Helena’s nights had gotten progressively more exciting and glamorous since she got involved with popular Broadway playwright Shane; suddenly pizza and late-night television had become theater and parties and gallery openings as his notoriety on the scene increased.
Evan hadn’t even realized gallery openings were a real thing. He thought they only happened in movies.
But Shane was hot right now, and Helena loved shedding her cop’s mantle and shaking off the horrible things they saw every day in Vice—and walking into a beautiful world where a person drank champagne and admired pretty things.
He envied her ability to step out of her skin. He’d never learned how.
MIRANDA LIVED in a tiny walk-up on the lower West Side, sandwiched between a pet store and an Indian restaurant. Five floors up the twisting, cramped stairway, Evan huffed with annoyance. Her share of the rent was an occasional drain on his finances, but the neighborhood was decent, and her roommates were all as reassuringly afraid of their parents as he hoped his daughter was.
Evan held a bag of Chinese food in one hand and knocked with the other, hearing the muffled sound of a television.
“Coming!” someone called, and Evan shifted his weight, subconsciously moving his body to one side. The shooting was a few years in the past, but one never entirely got past a shotgun blast through a closed door.
He assumed, however, that Miranda didn’t have quite that strong a temper.
Locks were unhooked, and finally the door opened, Miranda standing expectantly in the doorway.
“Dad,” she said loftily, chin lifted with a regal tilt, looking as imperious as someone could, wearing pajamas with kittens on them.
“Miranda.” Evan leaned down to kiss her cheek, brushing aside her dark blonde hair.
She sighed, then pulled him into the apartment.
They managed to put off the arguing and instead indulged in heavy silence while setting the teeny-tiny table Miranda and her roommates ate on. Two bedrooms, four girls; two chairs at the table, one love seat—he assumed they existed in shifts.
“Where’s everyone else?” Evan asked as he dug into his Kung Pao chicken. With a fork.
Miranda twirled sesame noodles on her chopsticks. “Sonya has a night class, Naib is at the movies with her boyfriend, and Rae’s at the gym.” She gave her father a serious stare down. “We have about an hour for our discussion.”
In his head, discussion had air quotes around it.
“I just want some information, Miranda. I don’t like being the last person to know something so… important. And personal.” That was the rub—under all the anger simmered the sad fact that his daughter hadn’t come to him about something so big.
She poked at her white box and noodles, scowling. “Fine. His name is Kent. He’s going for his master’s in international business after he graduates in January. He’s an only child. He’s from Connecticut, and he’s… wonderful.” She peeked up at him with Sherri’s eyes, and he found himself missing his wife with a profound ache. She would be so much better at this than he was.
“How long have you known him?”
“Four months. Well—longer, but just in a group.” Miranda’s face began to reshape into a slight smile. “But four months ago, we started dating.”
“And that’s great. I’m glad you’re happy and he treats you right,” Evan said diplomatically. More stabbing of chicken chunks. “But what really concerns me, honey, is you talking about marriage so soon.”
The smile fled, and Miranda went back to a frown. “Aunt Elena had no right—”
“Elizabeth overheard and was upset,” he cut in, firm in staving off any annoyance at her baby sister. “I went to your aunt out of concern.”
“You should have called me directly.” Miranda sat up straight, dropping her dinner on the table. “Okay? That’s part of the problem.”
“Or part of the problem is you hiding—”
“I’m not hiding him. I just don’t want to deal with your overprotective… crap.”
Evan put his fork down, keeping his cool. “It’s not overprotective to want to know what’s going on with your life.”
“Then ask.” Miranda’s voice got a hint louder. “Or are you too busy with your job and your boyfriend to care about your children?”
“Please.” Evan sat back hard in his chair, even as his stomach tightened. “That’s a cheap shot.”
“At least when Mom was alive I had her to talk to. I could ignore your workaholic tendencies.” Miranda sniffed as she lifted her chin defiantly. “But now you’re the only parent I have, and you’re doing a crappy job.”
Chapter 3
MATT RELAXED against the headboard, flipping through the channels with the remote. One of the things he’d insisted on when they moved into the new house was an adequate number of televisions—that meant expanding past the normal living room/family room dynamics.
It was a big house with lots of rooms, and sports needed to be accessible in all of them.
Except the bathroom. He lost that argument.
He checked the time on the clock radio, noting it was nearly eleven, and went back to his aimless scrolling. They paid almost two hundred dollars a month for satellite—why the hell wasn’t there live sports on right now? He’d already watched all the recap shows, and Jesus, was he really going to settle for rugby?
The top step creaked, so Matt knew when Evan got home. He muted the television and waited expectantly, considering the two possibilities of his boyfriend’s mood at this moment.
The doorknob rattled, and Matt prepared himself mentally.
There was either going to be a door slam or a weak—
It was a slam.
“Hey,” Matt said, mild as he could manage. Evan had shed his overcoat and suit jacket downstairs. His tie hung askew and his handsome face was carved into a block of “what the fuck.”
“I swear to God,” Evan started.
Matt got out of bed to meet him halfway around the foot of the bed. He stopped, eyeing Evan’s red cheeks and perspiring forehead. “How’d dinner go?” It was so very rhetorical.
Evan slumped, even as he growled in response. “She was impossible.”
“See? So everything is fine.” Matt put his hands on Evan before he could say another word, smoothing his palms over Evan’s damp shirt.
“She was just… accus
atory and defensive, and I literally could not hold my temper.” Evan’s anger simmered and then faded as the tension became resignation.
“You yelled, she yelled, and now that that’s over with, you can schedule an actual conversation.”
Evan dropped his head against Matt’s shoulder. “We yelled all right. She’s using this guy like a shield—like….”
“Like she’s trying to get back at you?”
Evan sighed. “Yeah.”
Matt pulled him closer, until their bodies were aligned. They slotted together with ease, and Matt felt a bit more tension bleed out as Evan relaxed. “She needs to get it out of her system. You know her.”
“Yeah.”
Miranda was full of anger, and she didn’t always know how to express it—which was Evan’s MO and reason number one the two of them clashed like titans. As far as Matt was concerned, they could schedule this shit in ink on the calendar once every six months.
“I was hoping to get a bit more time to rant and rave.”
“It’s late. I’m tired.” Matt shrugged, rubbing at the back of Evan’s neck. “I’m sure you raged enough in the car ride home.”
“I’m pretty sure someone called 911 to report a homicidal maniac driving a minivan over the Cross Bronx.”
“Not the first time. Remember when she wanted to change majors last year? That was a fun week.”
“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” Evan straightened up, then bumped his body into Matt’s, eliciting a little growl. A challenge.
“I thought we were reminiscing.”
“Shut up.”
It was easy to fall into this, Matt rubbing Evan’s back as they pressed closer together. Evan gripped Matt’s faded T-shirt as Matt slid his knee between Evan’s legs, feeling his erection through those super-proper wool slacks. It made Matt horny as hell.
“It’s a ridiculous mess.”
Matt shrugged, licking the curve of Evan’s jaw. “Usually is,” he muttered, using his teeth to retrace his favorite route. He could taste Evan’s five o’clock shadow and the tang of sweat. He moved his hips in a slow circle against Evan’s pelvis.
“Is this your solution to everything?”
“Yes.” Matt paused briefly. “Do you want to keep talking about this?”
Evan’s entire body heaved in Matt’s arms. “No.”
“There you go.” Matt took his time pulling off the rest of Evan’s clothing, everything ending up in a pile on the floor. He would clean up later, when Evan wasn’t heavy with stress against his body.
Everything moved slowly because they’d been doing this for years, and it was all muscle memory and intimate knowledge. What had started with shock and surprise and unsure hands had evolved into the most erotic sex in Matt’s storied history.
Evan pushed Matt’s hands away when he reached for the waistband of his briefs. He moved just enough to focus on Matt, bowing as he lifted Matt’s sleep shirt up and over.
“I could do that,” Matt whispered, but Evan shook his head.
“Shhh.”
He liked the quiet, and Matt never pushed except when he did, except when he couldn’t help but keep up a running commentary of how much he liked to fuck Evan or touch him or make him scream. Matt let him pull down his shorts and kick them aside, Evan’s face wearing a serious expression.
It didn’t surprise Matt when Evan stayed low, then dropped to his knees. It didn’t surprise him that that was exactly what Evan needed right now.
Matt drifted his fingers over the bristle-soft precision of Evan’s hair, coaxing him into relaxing, into letting go. The warm breath against his dick made him tremble as Evan waited, paused. Breathed.
Then Matt realized Evan was waiting for a reason, and a hot surge of lust pulsed up his spine.
“Okay, baby,” he murmured and grasped the base of his cock, gasping quietly. He stroked once, twice, then reached with his free hand to tip Evan’s head back.
He rubbed his fingers against Evan’s mouth, luxuriating over the warm line before pressing inside. Evan moaned, a sound seemingly coming all the way up from the soles of his feet, and Matt pushed deeper. Everything paused for a long moment: Evan sucking ravenously on Matt’s fingers, Matt jerking himself off in perfectly matched time. Then Evan pulled back, mouth still open, and Matt realized he didn’t want to make either of them wait another second.
No words, just Matt feeding his dick into Evan’s mouth, hands moving in tandem—pushing and pulling, one curved around Evan’s skull.
The switch flipped somewhere deep in Matt’s brain, and the gentle touch became a demand. Evan slid his hands up Matt’s legs, pinching and rubbing until Evan grabbed his hips in a fierce grip.
The desperate hands said “more” and “harder,” and Matt didn’t waste a second to give Evan both those things.
As Evan swallowed around him, he widened his stance, balancing to keep from being knocked to the ground by the force of Evan’s need. The tight clasp of his mouth, the hard rub of his tongue—the head of Matt’s cock brushed against the back of Evan’s throat, and the rhythm stuttered for a second.
He wanted to say, “Slow down for a second,” but Evan knew him too well and knew his body, and so when he sucked harder, Matt couldn’t do anything but twitch.
“Ahhh,” Matt managed on an exhale, grazing his fingers against the skin of Evan’s neck.
Evan swallowed.
“Fuck,” he moaned.
Evan swallowed and sucked and moved root to tip and back again in such quick succession that Matt could do nothing but whimper and spill down his throat.
The aftermath left Matt with one hand on Evan’s shoulder and one on the footboard of the bed, clinging for dear life. The freight train of his orgasm sent little leftover flares down his legs as Evan pulled off with a wet, messy sound.
“Fuck,” Matt said, licking his lips as he looked down at Evan. Evan’s eyes were wide and needy, his mouth glistening with just enough shine to make Matt’s body burn.
“Get on the bed.”
Evan didn’t say anything, didn’t have to, but Matt appreciated the faint bite he sank into his right thigh before he stood up.
He wobbled, and Matt pressed his hand to the center of his chest.
Their gazes met and held.
The little smile on Evan’s perfect mouth was like porn as far as Matt’s libido was concerned. And maybe his dick wasn’t going to join in anytime soon, but that didn’t mean he was without a whole arsenal of tools.
He pushed Evan, getting just enough resistance to make it fun. “I said….”
Evan stepped back, beautiful but slightly punch-drunk. Matt dropped his gaze to Evan’s cock and licked his lips again.
“On your stomach.”
Evan’s entire body rippled with desire, and Matt’s dick actually struggled for a second, stirring for a comeback.
And God help him if Evan didn’t take the last few steps to the bed and then crawl—fucking crawl—onto the bed and lie down on his stomach.
“I’m going to the doctor first thing tomorrow and getting some Viagra,” Matt swore, walking closer to Evan, who was laid out like a gift.
Evan folded his arms, then looked back to catch Matt’s gaze. The smile he shared was 40 percent lust and 60 percent love. “You keep saying that,” he said, his voice soft, even as he started rubbing his hips against the bed.
This Evan—walls down, sexy as hell Evan—was one of Matt’s favorites. He savored his appearance by taking his time, starting at the back of one muscled calf and working his way up with biting kisses and wandering hands. When he pushed Evan up on his knees, the sound Evan made filled every corner of the room.
“Wish I could fuck you,” Matt whispered against the back of Evan’s thigh, moving to bite where the crease of his leg tempted.
Evan pushed back, and Matt pushed forward with his mouth.
It was how they worked.
Chapter 4
IT WAS almost one by the time Evan showered. Matt
had been relentless, and Evan leaned against the tiles, water splashing over him as he tried to pull himself back together.
The sex still surprised him sometimes. The fierce way Matt held him down and the roughness of his touch even as his words were loving and gentle. When it was fast and breathless, Evan could feel his tightly maintained control slipping away, replaced by a white-hot lust that still brought a flush to his skin.
Embarrassment. Shock. They were faint and distant but there, the idea that after so many years happily married to Sherri and never regretting a second of their lives in or out of bed, he could be reduced to a begging mess under his boyfriend’s mouth.
Also without regrets.
He shut off the water, wincing a little as he bent over. There was a bite mark throbbing on his left buttcheek, and his dick hurt from where it had rubbed against the bedspread, because Matt was busy with his ass and didn’t bother with a reach-around and….
Evan blushed as he stepped out of the tub. He reached for the towel hanging on the hook, biting his lip. There was still a faint hum of want under his skin, and he tried to imagine a time this weekend when they could lock the door and have an extended amount of privacy.
A knock on the door, and before he could answer, Matt opened it, popping his head in a second later. “Just making sure you didn’t drown,” he said, pushing the door open all the way.
“Sorry. Long day, and my boyfriend is apparently a vampire.”
Matt looked only a tiny bit ashamed. “Sorry. I blame all the running you’ve been doing lately. Your glutes are amazing.”
Evan threw the wet towel at his head. “Shut up.”
The running thing was a “couple activity,” which Matt found hilarious and Evan didn’t even address seriously. Matt’s best friend and occasional therapist, Liz, thought a shared activity outside the children or household was important, and since bowling made Evan want to break things against a wall, running won.
He grabbed his shorts as Matt shook the towel out, then shoved it into the hamper.
“Mildew?” Evan asked, sliding the boxers over his hips.
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