by Rhys Ford
As nightmares went, it was a good one, very well directed and starring a well-rounded cast of nearly everyone I loved, past and present. An odd inclusion was my actual mother, something I’d never experienced before. I’d barely thought of my mother, Ryoko, much less dreamed about her being featured in my own private Valentine’s Day Massacre.
I couldn’t wake up from what I was seeing. No matter how hard I tried. Carefully walking through the dead and dying, I went from body to body, looking at the remains of faces I had in my heart. Finally stumbling upon Jae-Min, I bent over to cradle his head. His dark eyes opened and looked up at me, trusting and vulnerable in pain.
That's when I brought my Glock up to his temple and blew his head away.
Screaming probably wasn’t a strong enough word for what I was doing when I jerked up out of the nightmare, but I wasn’t being particular. I just needed to audibly expel the horror and hatred I had inside of me when I came out of the darkness.
“Agi! Cole-ah.” Jae was frantic, running his hands through my hair, then cupping my face. “I’m here. It’s okay. Just a dream, de?”
It took a long minute before I could speak, and my heart pounded, trying to break free of my body. Jae left for a second and came back with a bottle of cold green tea. Urging me to sip at it, he kneeled by my side until the shakes were gone and I could look at him without closing my eyes.
“Fuck.” I needed to learn another language. Something stronger than Korean or English because, from what I could tell, neither had good enough curse words. I needed something that sounded foul and spitting with some guts to it.
“Do you want to talk?” he asked softly, as if speaking too loudly would send me off the deep end again.
I shook my head and reached up to touch his face. He’d turned on the sconces framing the window above the headboard, and their soft light cast his face into golden planes and deep blue shadows. His lashes brushed my thumbs when he blinked, tickling my skin.
“You are one of the best things that has ever happened to me,” I whispered.
“Better than pizza and beer?” Jae teased.
“Better than whiskey and bacon,” I reassured him with a gentle kiss.
Jae’s smile was half-shy and mostly erotic. The black-winged angel who’d first enticed me shone through the worried young man who’d held me until my world righted itself. Now, Kim Jae-Min had other plans for me besides comfort.
His fingers were warm on my belly, roaming along my rib cage and feathering the scars he found there. He touched other places, other things, and any thought of sleep crept away. My cock thickened when his palm grazed over my hip bone, and I reached for him, wanting to pull Jae closer in.
He wasn’t having any of it just yet. Stretching his arms out over his head, Jae worked his shoulders from one side to the next, that sensual, secretive quirk still on his lips. Naked, he was a thing of beauty. Lean, hard muscles moved under his pale, flawless skin with the barest shadow of hair under his arms and between his legs. I knew the landscape well enough, a silken dream to touch with hidden spots of musky velvet I liked to lick, because he squirmed under my tongue.
“Sit up. With your back against the headboard,” Jae whispered. I must have looked at him like he was more than a little bit crazy, because he kissed me on the corner of my mouth. “Move.”
The sheets were hot, and damp from my sweaty thrashing, so they stuck to me as I slid up. The sound of a familiar drawer opening made my mouth water, and despite the aches along nearly every inch of my body, I found I needed Jae around me.
Good to know he was thinking the same thing.
Jae wasn’t one for preambles. Foreplay was a few rough kisses and maybe some fondling. He played dangerous games sometimes, trusting me not to overpower him and just take what I wanted. It was what he was used to. Our gentle lovemaking confused him, but he found himself liking it. And then there were times when he needed to take, and be taken. For Jae, it seemed to connect us on some level only he understood. It’d taken him only a few weeks to learn it was okay to go slowly sometimes.
Apparently, this wasn’t one of those times.
He straddled my thighs, leaning in to place his mouth on mine. I had to work for the kiss, drawing out his encouraging moans with supple licks of my tongue. The faint light from the sconces made his body gleam, and I stretched my arms out to touch his shoulders, skimming my palms over his tender skin. My calluses caught on his smoothness, roughing his ivory skin to rosy patches. Nuzzling his throat, the scruff on my chin left behind a thicker burn, marking him as mine.
Stroking my dick, Jae made short work of any reluctance my flesh might have had about waking up. My cock throbbed, a milky drop already creeping from my slit. He dipped the pad of his thumb into the crevice and came up with my seed, his eyes on mine while he sucked himself clean.
He gripped me and laid the condom cap on the head of my cock, careening his thumb around the glans. Bending over in such a way that made my spine ache, he kissed one side of my dick’s velvety head and then the other, running his tongue under the flange. Sitting back up, he rolled the latex down over me, its fit tugging down on my skin and catching on a stray hair at my shaft’s root.
Even through the condom, the lube was cold, and I chuckled, twitching when a dribble of it rolled down my dick and headed for my balls. His fingers caught it before it hit the sheets, and Jae smeared it around my sac, rolling me in his palm.
“Keep doing that, and I’m not going to make a very good plaything for you,” I said.
“Then why do I have you around?” he teased, winking at me as he lifted his hips up to settle down in front of my cock.
Leaning over until our chests nearly touched, he reached behind and fit me against the crease of his body. His gaze never left me, his eyes only narrowing when the head of my cock began its ascent into his heat. The resistance was exquisite, and I clasped my hands on his hips, slowing him down to a near crawl, so I could fully feel the penetration.
His body resisted me, coyly playing at seduction while Jae pushed down. The slide of his entrance took an eternity of nearly painful pleasure, then I was submerged, filling him as he plunged down on me. Buried up to the hilt, I cupped his left cheek, rubbing my thumb against his lips as he turned into my touch, nuzzling my palm. A cant of his hips brought me nearly to tears, especially when he stopped, poised at the zenith of his motion.
“You are going to fucking kill me,” I gritted out through my clenched teeth. Only about an inch or two of me was outside of his heat, but the cold air on my exposed shaft was a shocking contrast to the suckling warmth of his body.
“I like doing this,” Jae murmured, rocking back until I was engulfed once again. “I like having you like this.”
Sitting back, he spread his hands over my belly, running them down my sides, and up over my hips. His legs were folded, shin down, next to mine, pushing my thighs together. Squeezing his legs together, I felt the pressure on my trapped balls, and I arched, trying to ease the ache boiling there, but his weight kept me trapped against the mattress.
A few more tilts of his hips, and I was gasping, my cock riding a wave of pleasure with my balls twisting in a vise made of my own inner thighs. He rolled as slowly as he could, surging up a few inches on my shaft before coming back down and holding me in place. I clenched the sheets, not trusting myself to keep my fingers from digging holes into his legs. New drops of sweat beaded my forehead and cheeks, a rivulet following the line of my jaw then the curve of my neck.
This time, it was his tongue that caught up the drip, and he lapped away the salt water coming from my skin, taking it into his mouth with a delicate furl.
“I need… you.” His eyes were dark now, nearly black with want. Lying under him, crucified by his flesh and the sheets wrapped around my hands, I couldn’t think of any better way to die. “I want us… together. Without anything between us. I’ve never….”
“We can, baby,” I whispered, letting go of the bed linens to capture his w
rists. He refused my touch, shaking his head emphatically. “We can do it now. I’ve been tested, especially since….”
Gripping my chin so I couldn’t look away, he said, “You can’t trust me. Not with what I’ve done. Not with who I’ve done. It’s not safe for you. I won’t… lose you to that.”
“We’ll check, okay?” I bent my head down and kissed his thumb, the one that took my seed into his mouth. “I’d do that for you. I trust you.”
I almost crossed the line of no return. He heard it in my voice and jerked back, as if I’d slapped him, but he didn’t slide free of me and stalk out. I took that as a good thing.
What he said next, I took as the greatest thing I’d ever known.
“Okay,” he murmured. “I want that from you, agi. I want to feel you… give to me. I want to feel you come inside of me. I don’t know why… I don’t know why you….”
I thrust up, burying as much of myself into him as possible. Pulling my legs up, I cradled him closer until our shoulders touched, and I could wrap my arms around his waist. When I moved my hands over his back, his spine tensed and became hard pearl bones under my fingertips. Between us, his cock rubbed against our hot skin, leaving a trail of moisture between us in a sensual, wet kiss.
I let Jae set the pace. He chose a punishing run, needing to feel the rawness of my cock against his tender skin. It was rough, nearly violent, and so hard I was afraid he would tear himself open. Curled up against one another, I held back as much as I could, prolonging our climax by slowing him down when it felt like my balls were about to rip free of my body and come all over the bedroom. Any language Jae knew was lost to him, replaced by guttural, soft sounds. I didn’t need anyone to tell me what they meant.
Fuck me. Use me. Make me feel something, Cole. Then, in the crying torrent of desire and naked want, I heard a gentle, crying sound escape from his bitten lips.
Love me… that sound whispered.
As much as he hated being what and who he was, I trusted at least one of the things hidden in my tough guttersnipe lover… the young man who saw the world as an oddly beautiful creation only he could capture on film. He saw love amid the weeds and broken cement. He saw the beauty in the aging skin of a man who lived his life as a woman. Even if he couldn’t see happiness for himself, he exposed it for others.
I held him, gripping his shoulders to drive him down onto me. Slick with sweat, he slid over me, anchored by his legs and my hands. His ass clenched, refusing to give me any slack. If I wanted to leave him, I would have to fight for it. I would have gladly surrendered, except I needed the friction and liked the gasping, erotic hitch in Jae’s moans when I found the sweet spot inside of him.
There wasn’t enough leverage for me to fully reach the depths, and I growled, the only warning he had before I flipped us over. Now on his back, Jae grabbed at my upper arms, and I slid my hands under his shins, keeping his legs bent double so I could spread them apart and keep him from moving.
That’s when I did my damnedest to pierce the emptiness he held deep inside of him.
Picking up the pace, I slammed my cock until I felt Jae fold in around me. Angling up, I found the curl I’d been looking for and drew my length against it. With every stroke I took, I made sure he rode me, rasping the head of my dick across his center until his own sex wept with anticipation. Only then did I let go of one of his legs and grip his cock in my hand. It pearled, giving into my touch before my fingers were fully wrapped around the engorged head. A few strokes was all he needed, but I refused to give them to him, choosing instead to lightly skim over the silken skin at the base.
“Cole-ah.” The soft kitten moans were gone, replaced by a demanding roar and the scrape of his nails on my arms. The raking scratches stung, and I laughed at the fierceness in his face.
We fell into a rhythm, the slap of our bodies a thundering beat for the sounds we made. My thigh muscles ached, but I kept my pace steady, drawing Jae’s pleasure out, then returning back into his warmth. He mewled and tried to jerk his hips up so his cock would fill my hand, but I pressed his hips back, snapping forward to fill him once, then twice again.
“Want me, baby?” I whispered, nuzzling his ear. I was close. Too close, really, to make demands, and if he’d been in his right mind, he’d have known it. Instead he merely leaned in and took a bite out of me.
Already on the brink of losing myself, Jae’s teeth working into my skin wiped out my control. I came when he did, falling when he gave me his release. The smell of Jae’s seed inflamed me, and I captured his mouth, needing the taste of him on my tongue. I milked him, working slowly up from the root of his cock until I reached the head. He arched into my chest, his hot come splashing up onto our bellies. When my own climax hit me, I couldn’t breathe, caught between the beautiful expression I’d brought to his face and the electricity pouring out of my dick and into the latex that kept me from filling him.
We collapsed in on ourselves. Jae slithered off me, languidly reaching for the washcloth he’d used to wipe my face of the night sweats I’d woken up from. I took the cloth from him, rolling him gently over onto his back, and cleaned up the drying stickiness on his skin and between his thighs. Stumbling to the bathroom, I flushed the condom and ran cold water over the end of a towel, reluctantly wiping away Jae’s climax.
He was lying on his side facing the bathroom when I came out, his hooded eyes drowsy and satiated. Jae reached for me, hooking his fingers into mine as I turned off the lights. I held his hand as I crawled over him, spooning up against his back. He stretched his legs back, wrapping them through mine so we were joined from the waist down. Slinging one arm around his waist, I bent forward and kissed the back of his neck, blowing on the sweat-drenched hair at his nape.
“Don’t say it, agi.” His voice was soft, a pleading entanglement I’d resigned myself to.
“I’m going to one day,” I responded. This time I kissed the rise of his upper arm, lightly scraping my teeth over the tender skin there. “I might not wait until you’re ready to hear it.”
“It’ll… break me, Cole,” Jae whispered. “This… is so much. I am so scared….”
“I’m scared too, babe.” It was easy to admit, especially to the man I’d fought so hard to have. We each bore scars from the battle that brought us together, both on our skin and in our souls. “Shit, you wiped up my nightmares tonight. You don’t think I’m scared?”
“It’s different for you.” He shimmied back into my embrace until there was no room between us. “When you’re scared, you push forward. No matter what your dad said, you never run away. All I do is run away.”
“You can always run to me, you know,” I suggested, resting my chin on his shoulder.
“I think that’s what I’m most afraid of, agi.” The quiet between us was ripe with emotion. “Suppose I run to you, and you’re not there?”
“I’ll be there, babe,” I promised. “You have to have faith in someone. I know it’s fucking hard. And if I let you down, then you have my express permission to kick my damned ass, because it would be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Hell, it’s probably the biggest scary thing in the whole damned world after someone’s kicked in your teeth, but have faith in me. Let me… love you. Please, just let me love you.”
Chapter Sixteen
BOBBY found me on my hands and knees scrubbing the porch steps. Elbow deep in fake-pine smelling foam, I nodded a hello at him and told him there was coffee on in the office.
Before I’d even brushed my teeth, Detective Wong called me to talk about the case and give me the go-ahead to go back into the front of the building. Jae offered to postpone a family portrait shoot and help me clean up, but I let him go with a kiss. Wong’d told me the lab had someone do it for me, a favor for an ex-cop. I thanked him for it. I was being sincere. I’d left the force in a hail of bullets, shot by my own partner. That led to a bunch of scars, an enormous cash payout, and the collective hatred of nearly every cop I’d ever known. Wong was a big fric
king surprise.
There wasn’t a drop of blood on the slats, and the grass was soaked to the roots. Still, I’d put down the Pine-Sol and bristle brush I’d brought out, and unrolled the garden hose. The damage to the posts had been mostly cosmetic, but I wanted someone in to look at the window frame that’d been hit. The glass rattled when I’d touched it, but it seemed to hold. That’s when I started scrubbing the porch down.
I needed to wash yesterday off my porch. Hell, I wanted to wash yesterday right out of existence, but the porch was at least something I could do about it.
The screen door creaked behind me as Bobby joined me out on the porch. I’d poured so much of the cleaner down onto the porch floor I couldn’t even smell the coffee in Bobby’s cup. He settled down in one of the Adirondack chairs I’d bought so Claudia and I could sit out front and people watch when we were really bored. She scolded me for being silly, then arrived the next day with long, thick pillows, because the hard wooden seat would make her butt hurt.
“Hey, Lady Macbeth,” Bobby grumbled, and nudged my ass with the toe of his sneaker. “Give it a rest. You didn’t cause this shit.”
“I know.” I splashed the rest of the bucket over the area and rinsed off the froth with the hose. After winding the hose on the rack, I went inside to wash my hands and get a cup of coffee. By the time I returned, Bobby’d already set himself up to watch a gaggle of young hipster students settling into an outdoor table at the café across the street.
“They’re like some mutant love child of a beat poet and an unwashed grunge rocker,” Bobby snorted. “How is that a good look?”
“I don’t know. Claudia wants to tie them all down, hose them off, and shave the nuked hamsters they’ve got growing on their faces.”
The café’s granola-munching owners did one thing right; they hired a guy named Joe who could make a mean sandwich. On lazy days… and some not so lazy days… I would pop over to grab a pastrami on toasted sourdough and curl myself up in a feral ball to eat it in peace. I’d more than once walked the gauntlet of pretension and theatrical ennui. It was more annoying than the pseudo-intellectuals who gathered there on Saturday nights to discuss the age-old contest of Batman versus Superman.