by R. M. Grace
No, no, no! Not again!
Thirteen
Loveren's screams force him awake to find he is thrashing within the covers.
“Don't leave me,” he mutters into the stuffy room before cool fingers wrap around his forearm and cause him to jerk.
“It's okay, you had a nightmare. Makes a change from it being me.”
A nightmare?
To picture what he saw as such is not correct. Mostly, it was a dream and a great one at that.
How could it have turned rotten like that?
His breathing is hoarse and uneven. When he tries to swallow, his mouth is so tight it feels like it is shrinking.
“It's okay, I'm here.”
“You jumped.”
“Jumped?”
“You left me,” Love mutters with his hand raking through his hair.
“I'm here, look.” Cade pulls his hand away and places Love's open palm between his pecks where his heartbeat is strong. “See, that's me here with you. I'm not going anywhere.”
Cade holds his hand until his thoughts recollect and Cade's presence wipes away the fear.
Love's dry tongue darts over his lips to add moisture, but it isn't anywhere near enough.
He slips his sweaty hand down Cade's skin. Within the darkness, he feels Cade flinch when he settles against his scar. He traces the indent with his fingers and wishes he could kiss it better. The wound may have healed on his skin, but it still brings suffering to his insides.
God, how scared I was when I found him.
The wait for the ambulance was the scariest time in his life. He will never forget how that moment felt until his dying day. But time has wore it down and new, memorable times now replace a huge chunk of the pain.
I almost lost him.
“Tell me what happened.”
Love's smooth touch drops away from his scar and he sighs. “You were Lois Lane.”
Cade laughs without reservation. “Are we talking original Lois, or a remake? I fancy myself as Erica Durance's version of Lois. She's feisty, kick ass and takes no crap from anyone.”
The words go unheard by Love. All he can see is the way Cade's body suspended in the air right before he jumped.
“I couldn't save you. You said I was Superman, but I couldn't stop you jumping.”
Cade rubs his hand over his back in a comforting gesture and tells him once more, “it was a dream. Everything is okay.”
“We were on the coast. We were standing on the cliff's edge. You said I'd catch you if you fell, but I couldn't.”
“Were we on holiday?”
“What?” He didn't expect the response and cannot understand the relevance. “Must have been. It was Devon, I think.”
“And I got close to the edge? Doesn't sound like something I would do.”
“It was you, trust me. You said you could do anything now because you were happy.”
“I am.”
“But you jumped and I couldn't catch you like you wanted.”
“Why?”
“I don't know. I tried, but couldn't reach you. I'm not Superman. That's what you called me. You put me on a pedestal and I couldn't deliver.”
“Did you want to save me?”
“Do you have to ask?” Love scratches at his stubble, unsure why Cade would question his motives.
“Perhaps you don't love me as much as you say,” Cade offers before he leaves a moist kiss on his shoulder.
“There's nothing I care about more.”
“Or maybe there's something holding you back.” He trails more kisses up his neck as he squeezes his feverish bicep.
“Like what?”
“I don't know—a secret, or fear maybe? Maybe you're scared you won't live up to the man I've built you up to be in my head. You're afraid you'll let me down and lose me.”
Love settles against the pillows and considers this.
“Tonight was amazing. You're amazing. No one means half as much to me as you do. You know that. So, what I'm thinking is you're scared of something else.”
Love gulps and glances across the room. The night was amazing. Sure, the inevitable occurred sooner than he wanted. Yet, Cade found pleasure knowing it was him dishing out the pleasure. It was intimate and everything he's ached after for years.
“There's nothing.”
Cade props himself onto his elbow and leans his forehead close. His fingers trace circles above his belly button and tug at the dark tufts of hair just below. “Please just say it.”
Love fidgets with discomfort and wishes he could somehow go back in time and not tell him about the dream.
I should have told him I couldn't remember. That's what anyone else would have done.
“We're best friends, Love. Before anything else, we are friends. We tell each other everything.”
“What, like you told me your feelings without hiding them for years?”
“That's different.”
“How?”
Love rolls onto his side with the truth burning on his tongue. Yet, as soon as those plump lips graze his, he swallows it.
What's the point in telling him when he will just tell me to go back on the meds?
“I guess I felt rusty. What we did—”
“First in a long time, I know. It didn't feel like you've been out the game at all though.”
“I thought . . . Well, I wanted it to be great for you.”
Cade chuckles and presses into his lips. When he parts from the lazy kiss, he wraps a hand around his waist. “You're the best and the only one I need. You make me feel things no one else can. If that was you being rusty, then I don't know how you can better mind-blowing. But I'm excited to find out.”
Love cups his lover's chin and pulls him back for another kiss. “I don't want to lose you.”
“You won't. I can't live without you. You saved me before and I know you will if I need you to again.”
Love closes his eyes and presses his forehead against his. “I promised I would meet you and I was late.”
When Cade pulls away, Love can feel his eyes piercing through the darkness. “So that's what's worrying you? You called the ambulance and they got me there in time to save me. Everything is fine.”
“If I was there when I said I would be, then I could have stopped him. It shouldn't have happened. I still see you lying on the floor with blood everywhere. I knew then you'd never hear me tell you how much you mean to me.”
Cade grasps his hands and squeezes. “I remember waking up to see your worried face. But I woke, that's the main thing. I'm here now and I know what I mean to you, even if it's late.”
When he leans in to steal Cade's lips again, he cannot let them go. The gentle affection and tiredness soon gives way to enough passion to leave him breathless, but wanting more at the same time. And within the otherwise silence of the early hours, moans fill those four walls and capture the hours with all the love either could need.
Fourteen
They spendthe months leading up to December together as usual. Every spare moment they find, they share in one another's arms, be that in bed in passionate trysts, or on the sofa watching anything from wrestling to films they have no interest in. They venture out for walks to the park, or go shopping in town. After all the years they've missed, their only aim is to make up for time. The days, however, go too fast within their enjoyment.
Christmas is days away, but the weather is not cooperating with the festive period. The sun, although radiating no warmth, is out and proud. And each day, Cade wakes up asking where the thick, white clouds are.
“I'm giving up,” he huffs. He drops the netting and steps away from the window. “This was going to be the best Christmas as well.”
“Hey, I'm still here, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. It'll still be the best Christmas, but I wanted it to be perfect.”
“And it will be.” Love glances up from his desk and smiles.
Since the night they first made love, the motivation unlocked itself
from inside his mind. And his imagination has been working in overtime ever since. First, it came piece by piece, but now the floodgates are open. There's no denying Cade is the key to his writing's return.
Or is it down to the pills?
Not only has he got his rough notes and research in order, but he's started a new novel. The genre isn't horror as he loved writing before, but a love story. He didn't think he were capable of such, but onwards and upwards. With a new direction, he finds he cannot remember how he came up with stories of gore and monsters as he did before.
He has based the story around him and Cade, using what his lover told him about his spontaneous outburst in the park that night. And how his feelings have led them to this place now, so full of love and life.
He will finish the final scene before Christmas Eve and, with Cade reading it as he goes, he is hopeful it will be a hit. Cade sure seems to like it, even if he does keep trying to pester him into telling him how it will end. He teases Cade with it, but he honestly doesn't know how it will end yet because he's letting his characters do the work for him. He is praying it'll be a nice ending, but it's looking dubious as it stands.
“Sorry,” Cade says as he slips his arms over his shoulders and runs his open palms over his chest. “You know what I mean.”
“I know.” Love drops his head back as he pushes upwards to sneak a kiss.
“Do you remember when we used to walk near the fields when the sky was purple and the snow hid the grass?”
“I do. That one year when we walked to the church. and you wore that grey beanie under your parka hood.”
“Yeah, that was the best day. Obviously it's gone down the ranks with all we've done since, but it was special. You called me an eskimo, do you remember?”
“Yeah, I rubbed your nose with mine. I was so close to kissing you then. We were standing by the gates by the graveyard.”
“Why didn't you then?”
Love laughs and glances away with a pink blush spreading over his cheeks. “I chickened out. You kept smiling and touching me and I convinced myself you liked me that way. Then you talked about a guy you liked, so I let it go.”
“I kept trying to get you to kiss me, so when you didn't, I assumed you weren't interested. I got embarrassed and made a guy up.”
“Like Alec?”
Cade buries his face into Love's neck and laughs. “That was extreme, I admit.”
“You dated an imaginary person for a year.”
“We all do crazy things when we're in love and can't be with that person.”
“But that's a bit extreme.”
After the nightmare Loveren had of Cade jumping from the cliff, he admitted to Alec being a fabrication. He said he thought telling him would settle Love's fears of inadequacy.
According to Cade, there was a guy he met who he spoke to about Love. After pulling the guy in a club, Cade stopped it going any further once at his flat. The guy was disappointed, but when he guessed the reason for him stopping, Cade asked for his advice. His advice was to be honest. So, Cade lied. He couldn't remember the guy's name, so invented one for their pretend relationship.
Love should be mad, but he's relieved instead. He realises now he has been trying to match up to phantoms. Sure, they both have pasts, but they cannot change that. None lasted longer than a handful of months, and he and Cade have already gone passed that milestone.
“You won't let that go, will you? I should have kept it to myself and saved my dignity.”
“It's fine. It's just an odd way of making someone jealous.”
Cade nips his skin hard enough to cause him to suck in a breath.
“Well, I wasn't planning on being with anyone. I got sick of dating guys just to look normal in front of you when you were the only one I wanted.”
“Of course you did, I'm amazing.”
Cade bites harder and receives a sharp hiss in response.
Fingers slip under the bottom of Loveren's top, lifting the material to touch skin. They didn't want to rush things, but neither seem capable of keeping their hands to themselves. They have come too far now for it to matter any more.
Lips lift to Love's ear to nibble along the lobe. Cade's tongue darts out to send heat over the pointy tip and tingles trailing his neck.
“See, you can't keep your hands off me.”
The thick breath doesn't falter, but breaks Love's skin out in goosebumps.
Fingers slide towards his chest, rolling the material away to expose less-defined abs behind a layer of dark curls.
“I don't see how any man could.”
As their lips meet for soppy kisses, Love reaches around to grasp the goods he has been assaulting for the past few months. With a devilish grin, he kneads the firm skin beneath the thin layer, and feels himself reacting.
Leaving Loveren's lips, Cade places kisses down his chin and rolls his tongue over his Adam's apple. A soft vibration plays on his mouth as Love moans against the sensation.
Hands roll back over his stomach to loosen the string on his jogging bottoms, but Cade takes his time not to rush to the obvious bulge inside. Once undone, his fingers delve beneath the waist band to brush against the hair he loves causing friction against his ass. Yet, before he can wrap his hand around the thick head lying prominent against his stomach, a hand grasps his wrist. Although he pouts, Love doesn't care as he pushes him around the side of the chair.
Love pounces, grabbing a fistful of his collar before slamming him against the desk. Pens roll off the opposite side and paper scatters into the air like doves.
“Your work will—” Cade's words cut short as lips claim his own.
Love's hands work to rid the table of the clutter as he tosses papers aside. With no reservations, Love yanks his shorts down, springing the beautiful organ free to slap against his stomach. From his ankles, Love pushes the material away from his feet and grins. There is no better sight in the world than his man against his desk, red in the face and staring at him with pleading eyes.
“You're so fucking hot.”
He digs his fingers beneath Cade's ass cheeks and lifts his full weight to prop him on the surface. The desk creaks backwards, but he can expect nothing less from an eighty pound piece of crap from the second-hand store.
Cade's heels connect with the drawer, popping it open to cause folders and papers to come cascading out in an avalanche.
Cade's lips find his again as passion overrides every sense, and hurried fingers work to remove their clothes. Cade's cap comes off with his shirt before Love flings them across the room. He licks his lips as he glances from the wild brunette strands to the seductive pose his lips take on. And the urgent need ablaze within the eyes that lock with his own.
Lips only part to slip Love's t-shirt passed, then they resume their attack with vigour with his stubble scratching against Cade's shaved jaw to leave red marks. Love's tongue pushes past his lips and tangle within the moist and hungry heat.
Love holds the sides of his face to keep him still as he probes further, taking Cade's tongue into his mouth where he sucks hard while grinding against him.
He fumbles his grey joggers over his hips as he releases Cade enough to allow him some leeway.
A pearl substance trails through Love's stomach hair, which he is about to comment on when Cade's fingers stop caressing and dig into his skin. His body pushes against him hard and the heat encasing his tongue jerks away as he is cast aside.
“What the hell is that?”
As Love turns, his eyes search the scattered items until he finds the white and blue pack.
Fuck.
“Are they your old tablets?”
Panic rushes through Love, but when he reaches for them, he is a second too late. Cade plucks them from his grasp and turns the pack over to inspect it.
“What's this doing here?”
“I shoved them in there when I started the others.”
Cade yanks the side open to pull the sleeves out with a scuffle of foil. “They're a
lmost full; you've hardly touched them.”
“I started that new pack not long before I got the new ones. Come on, put them back and get your ass up here.”
Cade's expression when he glances at him is nothing short of confusion. “So where are your new tablets?”
“In the bedroom somewhere. Come on, I want you.” His lips grace the golden tinted skin before Cade pushes him backwards.
“You mean, you don't know where your medication is?”
“Of course I do, it's in the drawer.”
Love leans back in to make him forget, believing Cade will fall back into the passion without further questions. Yet, an open palm shoves him in the chest.
“Get them.”
“Are you serious? Can't we do that later?”
“Get them, then we can get back to this.”
“Why?” The last thing he wants to do is get defensive, but the panic sets in. “Don't you trust me, is that it?”
“Get your meds.”
Love slaps the box from Cade's hands and they spill to the floor. He plucks his top from the mess and slips it on, but cannot turn to face his boyfriend.
An anger boils inside, twisting Loveren's gut into knots. Not only for Cade making the discovery, but because he was so stupid not to get rid of the box.
To be honest, he'd forgotten all about the meds he hid. Now, it's come back to bite him in the arse.
“You know what? If you don't trust me, then fuck off.”
“What?”
Loveren can tell the words sting by the way his features scrunch together in shock and betrayal. He is cursing himself inwardly for not seeing it sooner, that much is obvious.
As he rushes to pull his shorts back in place with a blush across his cheeks, he glances at Love in disgust.
Love on medication would never jump to such a vicious outburst, that's what he's thinking.
He knows Cade keeps spotting signs he isn't taking medication over the months, but let them slide when he would make excuses. He assumed the new tablets must not dull all his reactions and behaviour. Because that's what he told him. Otherwise he couldn't have convinced him when they finally made love. Yet, not once has Cade saw him take any tablets, or pushed him on the subject, despite his concerns.