When I grunted, he dropped his head down to gaze at me, his dark hair falling messily over his forehead. Determined eyes glinted out from underneath it. I watched him rise up on me, then sink back down. A rivulet of sweat trickled from the hollow of his throat and down between his nipples.
“Never been anything like it,” he whispered. “Never been anything like you.”
I sobbed aloud, swear to God I did. I’d never heard him say such a thing in my life. It had been too long for me, too, and what defense did I have against such pleasure? “I’m sorry.” I didn’t even know what I was apologizing for. “I’m sorry. I never meant… it’s perfect….”
Incoherence snatched at my throat again, closing it to nothing but guttural sounds. My legs tensed, and my hands gripped him way too fiercely, but I wasn’t really in control of anything anymore. I dragged him down, sitting him on my lap, trying to get deeper and deeper inside him. I panted and I cried out, none too quietly.
He took a hand away from the couch and grabbed the hair at the back of my neck, wrenching my face up to look at him. His lips were pursed, and he looked grimly beautiful. We sort of glared at each other, and then as the climax started to roll its relentless path through my body and my limbs started to shudder, we clung to each other. He dropped forward to press more of his upper body against me, his reawakened erection squeezed between our heaving bodies. I licked at his skin, desperate for his taste, and then stretched my head up, bracing my teeth against his neck.
As he came again, I heard his growl, and felt the warm wetness of his come against my belly. I don’t remember many more details, or not any that made sense. My climax was wild and messy in coming, and my head throbbed like when I’d been shot, when I felt nothing but sharp sensation and the falling, falling….
My hips lifted up from the couch and my sweaty flesh slapped fiercely against his, and I pumped for an impossibly long time up into him, again and again, never wanting to lose that feeling, never wanting to lose that touch, that intimacy.
Never wanting to lose him.
Wednesday 20:05
I GUESS in the movies the lovers lie post-coitally in bed, heads resting on plump pillows, arms artfully draped over each other, while maybe sharing a cigarette. Their upper bodies shine with stray—and attractively lit—trails of sweat, and the bright white, well-laundered sheet crumples modestly over their legs.
Didn’t I say before, life’s not like the movies? But at that moment, there was no question I preferred my real life.
I was slumped on the couch, and Niall was sitting on the floor at my feet. We were both still naked. His upper body rested against my legs. If he turned his head just that little bit more, he’d be staring directly into my lap and he could probably reach over and take a taste of my dick, those firm lips enclosing the crown, that rough tongue teasing the fragile skin that strained around the shaft….
I was getting hard again. It defied medical science. I thought I’d already died from joy.
The towel lay an arm’s length away from him on the floor, discarded after he’d used it to wipe us both down. A stray bead of sweat ran down his upper arm, but he ignored it now. His sigh was small but satisfied.
“Niall. You said something this morning.”
He leaned back on the couch cushion and looked up at me. “Yes?”
When he licked his lips, my cock stirred gently on its bed of curls, maybe in anticipation. What the fuck are you doing, Tanner, opening up these wounds again? “You said about falling for me.”
He nodded. It made his body nudge deliciously against mine. “It’s true. It always has been, I just never told you properly. I should have told you a whole lot more, but it was never my forte. I admit I didn’t try hard enough.” He sighed into my lap.
I watched my pubic hairs stir with his breath, and goose bumps rose across my lower belly. This was where I wanted to be, right? Who I wanted to be with. I should never have let myself lose it all. “And I should have told you a whole lot less,” I said, hesitantly. “I should have learned when to keep my mouth shut.”
“But that’s not your way, Tanner. If you weren’t talking—”
“—we were fucking. Yeah, right.”
He grunted. “It’s not that simple.”
“I fucked up.” That’s simple, right?
“No. We both made mistakes. Get over it, Tanner. Trust me.”
“I do,” I protested, but not totally convincingly. “I accused you of things I’m so fucking ashamed of I can’t even bring myself to apologize for them. I let you down when you needed me.”
Abruptly, he braced himself on the couch and knelt up. He was almost face to face with me, his eyes dark and angry. “This is what really pisses me off, Tanner. I never blamed you for those things, not like you seemed to think. I was angry with you. Yes, a hell of a lot of times! Especially at that stupid fight. I punched you, right? You were talking such crap—I was talking such crap—but I didn’t know how else to stop it. But my anger didn’t come anywhere near, did it? Nowhere near the anger you had for yourself.”
“I… what the fuck do you mean? I didn’t—”
“Yes, you fucking did!” His body shook with his exclamation. “Will you trust me on this too?” He touched my jaw, as if tracing the shape of where he’d marked me all those months ago. “You’re fine as you are. You’re good. You’re so good! I fell for you just as you were, and I stayed with you because of what I knew you could be. That’s all I ever wanted. I never went seeking anyone else in bed, I’m telling you the truth. But not just there. I never wanted anyone else, period.”
“Niall….”
“I tried to make it work with us. I tried, but badly, and I blame myself for what I did wrong, but I want to make it good again.” He flushed. “You probably didn’t know what to think of me.”
I had to laugh at that. “I thought you were the greatest thing that had ever happened to my life.” Fuck, didn’t I ever tell him that?
He frowned. “I thought you said things like that for fun. I thought it was all just a game to you.”
“No,” I protested, but more gently now. His vehemence shamed me. I’d been wallowing, all right. Shit, I’d turned my humiliation and misery into a career in itself. Everything had sunk into self, self, self. But now—well, now I had another body, mind, and soul to consider, didn’t I? I shifted around to be able to touch him better, but I was damned careful not to push him away. I could feel the gentle stirrings of his cock against my leg. “Maybe that’s how I played it at first. I said I talked a lot of shit, right? But some of it was true. It just got… lost.”
“The way we felt… it was strong stuff.”
His hand cupped my face, and I nuzzled up against it. “Strong stuff? Fuck, we were in each other’s pants before we even knew how many sugars we took in our tea or what newspapers we read.”
Now it was his turn to smile. “How should the game have been played, then? I think we both needed guidance.”
“Got none.”
“No,” he agreed.
Our eyes met. “More of a partnership, I guess,” I hazarded.
“Like we have been these last couple of days? Like we’re facing up to this crisis now?”
“Yeah. We’re pretty damned good at that, aren’t we?”
“Pretty damned good,” he echoed. “When we’re not fucking, of course.”
I started to shake my head at him, laughing again, but he reached to nibble at my ear and I kind of forgot the plot.
“I still feel like that, Tanner.” He looked askance at me, a little wary. “It’s still strong stuff for me.”
“Me too,” I whispered back. I expelled a slow, relaxing breath. It felt like a barrier crumbling in my chest.
He sank back on to his haunches, his body nestling on mine once more. I hadn’t mistaken the stirring between his legs. A trickle of pre-come dampened my thigh. “It’s been bad without you.”
“Yeah? For me, it’s been shit.” I sounded almost cheerful. �
�You’re the one who exposed me. I never settled properly here, never got myself any new stuff, never put any effort into bringing old friendships over. I never felt right, here on my own.”
“You never set your music up.”
I shook my head. “No, I didn’t, did I? That was my self-punishment, I think. This trailer was never meant to be anything but a bolt hole.”
“Despite that, you have friends here. You get along with everyone, Tanner.”
I smiled and rested my hand on his head. “Sure, that’s Tanner MacKay, that’s Mac, the trailer me. Friends with everyone. The only guy I ever had trouble with was you. Still do.” I ran my fingers through his hair. “I hurt you.”
“I’m tougher than you think, maybe. Tougher than you in many things.”
I started to protest, but decided against it. “Enough already. We’re just different.”
He laughed softly against my skin. “I don’t want to be you, Tanner. Old or new. I just want to be with you. I want to do it all again.”
“The sex?”
He rolled his eyes. “That as well, though you’re going to have to find some lube somewhere.”
“In the kitchen,” I said, indecently quickly. “I’ve remembered, I think there’s something in the first aid kit.”
He ran one of his hands over my hip. The pads of his fingers smoothed the muscles in my thigh, the back of his hand nudged my legs apart. “I’ll go fetch it.”
I nodded. Then nodded again, when he didn’t seem to be moving in that direction.
“Though the tension between us isn’t so bad, sometimes. Is it?”
I grinned. “Look, I’ll still provoke….”
“And I’ll still struggle with it. We’re opposites in many ways. But you know how I feel.”
His hand stroked gently, firmly. Yeah, I knew. “We can try again.” I whispered it, half-frightened he’d hear my weakness, half-wishing he would.
He shrugged, but he smiled more broadly, and I felt the shiver that ran through him. “It’s what I want. That partnership.”
To get it right. I arched gently underneath him, like a well-fed cat who could still find some appetite for dessert. “Three days ago I hated your guts, Niall Sutherland.”
“I wasn’t too keen on seeing you again, either. Both liars, right?”
“Hate’s meant to be the flip side of love.” And then it was too late to bite it back.
Niall drew in a sudden, sharp breath. “Is that what it is for you?”
Yeah. “Yeah,” I said aloud, feeling a great sense of relief at admitting it, at making myself so vulnerable, at wallowing in such a pathetic dose of sap. But boldly.
“Good,” he replied. He stood up, letting his fingers trail across the ticklish skin of my sides.
I waited for him to reply—maybe say that it was love for him, too—but he turned and silently walked over to the kitchen. Then I realized I shouldn’t need a reply. Not spoken, anyway. What more did the poor bastard have to do or say to make it clear to me? That’s what it was about. Understanding, without having things spelled out to me. Trust in the other person; the ability to take some things for granted.
“I still say it’s a fucking stupid time to be planning a future with some lunatic about to arrive,” I called out. The ache in my groin didn’t agree, of course.
Niall came back through the kitchen arch, holding a small tube in his hand. “Sure.” He didn’t sound like he wanted to discuss it right now. His eyes were on me as he walked back toward the couch. I had the most perfect view of his naked body—of muscles, sinew, skin. Of strong arms, of long legs, of the cutest, thickest, tastiest cock I’d ever had the fortune….
“Turn over,” he said.
“We’ve just got to get through this damned thing with Greg.”
“Uh-huh,” he grunted. He dropped to his knees beside the couch, ran his hand up between my spread legs and cupped my balls.
“Then whatever happens, we can see what we want—”
“What I want,” he snapped, “is your ass. Will you shut the fuck up and let that happen?”
Shit. I didn’t know whether to laugh, whimper or roll over.
He didn’t wait on my bizarre indecision; he just pushed me over onto my belly on the couch cushions. Then he drew me up on to my knees and ran his lips across the soft hairs on my thighs and ass. I nearly came from that alone. His fingertips probed at me, parting my cheeks and finally licking very purposefully—and eagerly—along my crack. I gripped at the tubular arm of the couch and I opened quite shamelessly to him, like I had from the first time I met him. Like I’d decided by now that I always wanted to.
He was almost too careful with me when he pushed in, lying just inside my entrance long enough to let me adapt to the intrusion. He was breathing very heavily. But when he balanced one knee on the cushion and started to move more purposefully inside me, I pressed back to encourage him. We found a rocking rhythm that I was pretty sure would send both of us off some kind of orgasmic cliff, fast and furious.
I tried not to cry out, tried not to shout and babble with the swelling excitement and the rush of ecstasy. Obviously I didn’t succeed; I never had done, not with him. I was briefly glad that none of Junk’s younger kids were around to hear the astonishing variety of swear words and sexual exhortations that I offered up as I came. And, all too quickly, I was shaking with it and my body jerked, and then I’d come. I was limp underneath him and the couch was stickily wet, and I just held him and didn’t want to let go.
The coffee he’d made us earlier lay untouched and forgotten. We had other tastes to satisfy us.
Wednesday 21:00
I STOOD inside my trailer, facing the door. It was slightly ajar, and the furniture had been moved around to allow us better access in the cramped room. I was freshly showered—taking care not to disturb my dressing—and fully dressed in shirt and jeans. So was Niall. We’d even eaten, just some stuff on toast that I hadn’t really noticed because I’d preferred to catch his hand and lick the butter off his fingers and watch the lustful smile creep across his mouth.
We’d stopped talking a while ago. We didn’t need to chat. We wanted to touch, so we kept doing that, and that was enough for anyone.
I intended to stand in this position for as long as it took. I knew Greg was coming.
I was ready for him.
Wednesday 21:15
FOR A second, I didn’t understand what I was hearing. Sounded like feeding time at the zoo and a walk in the Rainforest, all rolled into one. Guess I hadn’t really registered the unusual silence outside my trailer until the parakeets set up their cries.
I must have jumped, because Niall touched at my arm to calm me.
“It means he’s here,” he said quietly.
Dylan wasn’t on the site to bark a warning when anyone approached, of course, and when I’d suggested to Niall that he rig up some string and tin cans across the corridors between the trailers, I’d been treated to a particularly contemptuous glare.
So then he’d told me that he’d negotiated with Zac to leave his pet birds behind him for a few hours. “They’re used to the usual crap that goes on,” Zac had told him. “But if anything different happens around my trailer, without me around, they’ll scream like blue murder.”
And it looked like we were hearing that in action.
GREG’S SHOCKED and angry expression as he approached my trailer would have been more amusing if it hadn’t been for a couple of things that disturbed me way more than any joke. One was Sheri’s horribly white face as she stumbled along beside him. He must have driven to the park, though there was no sign of a car. But he could have parked it behind any of the nearby trailers and it’d be hidden. The walk to mine was a short one.
I couldn’t see if she’d been seriously hurt, though she was walking okay by herself. He’d tied her arms behind her back and gagged her, and he kept her close to him by means of a belt around her waist. From a distance, the bindings looked simplistic but effective. She wore
one of her brilliantly bright, skimpy shirts and cropped jeans, but her shoes were badly scuffed and her legs dirty, as if she’d tried to run away but fallen in the attempt. Her gaze darted from me to Niall, then back again. She was scared and bewildered, and trying very hard to be brave.
I was the one she looked to. She was only nineteen.
The other thing that disturbed me was that there was no sign of Simon Wagner.
I didn’t step right out of the doorway, but I knew Greg could see me quite clearly. He halted about ten feet away. His looks were as young and fresh and keen as ever, but now his eyes were wide and wild and his whole demeanor had changed. He was wearing a heavy jacket, with bulging pockets that hinted at trouble. Sheri wriggled a bit, and he jerked angrily at her belt. He reached inside his jacket with his free hand, and I thought I saw the glint of a knife at his own belt. When he settled her and returned his attention to me, there was a gun in his hand. It rested almost casually against Sheri’s side.
I could feel Niall moving at my shoulder. I stared only at Greg.
“So where’s Simon, Greg?”
He ignored my question. “What the hell’s that noise? If you’re up to something, MacKay—”
“Chill,” I said, as calmly as I could. “It’s only some birds. What, you wanted me to clear every last shred of nature off the site? Be reasonable.” Niall came and stood beside me so that Greg could see both of us framed in the doorway. I lifted my voice a little so that it carried well enough for us all to hear. The birds were quieting down by now, the intruders having passed Zac’s trailer and moved on out of their territory. “Greg, where’s Simon?”
He glared at me, still not answering. “I know you have a gun, Tanner. Niall does, too, of course. Throw them out here to me.”
I hesitated. He wrenched at Sheri’s binding, and she gave a soft cry. I reached to the back of my jeans and pulled my gun out of my waistband. I threw it over to where he stood. After a brief, tense moment, Niall did the same. Greg nudged them with his foot and then kicked them over toward Junk’s trailer. They slithered in the dust and came to rest just under the steps. They wouldn’t be seen unless someone was specifically looking.
Dreamspinner Press Year Four Greatest Hits Page 94