A Solid Core of Alpha

by Amy Lane

  Anderson groaned and thrust his hips against C.J.’s thigh; his cock was rampant and erect under his tight bodysuit. “If you chicken out on me,” he rasped, “I’ll never forgive you.”

  C.J. could barely see, he needed so badly. “No,” he muttered. “No.”

  He grabbed Anderson’s hand then and turned blindly toward the dark blue door on the other side of the beige corridor. They sprinted, and C.J. held his hand up to the vacuum lock panel with so much shaking impatience that it took longer than usual to recognize his palm print and open the door. Anderson used the time to stand on tiptoe and suckle C.J.’s earlobe, and C.J. was almost insane by the time the familiar “swoosh” echoed down the corridor.

  They fell into the apartment, kissing hard, their hands rough and clumsy on each other’s bodies. It didn’t matter—every brush of Anderson’s hands on C.J.’s skin made C.J. gasp, and C.J. was starving for the feel of Anderson’s flesh under his palms.

  Anderson managed to strip off C.J.’s pants first and, to C.J.’s surprise, fell to his knees, placing raw, open-mouthed kisses down C.J.’s chest and then his abdomen as he went. His palms, skating over C.J.’s thighs, were practically teasing, but that was the only tease that Anderson had in him. He grasped C.J.’s cock in his hand and stroked, and C.J. threw his head back, seeking something, anything, to hold him up. He found the doorframe between the front room and the bedroom and leaned against that, and then Anderson said his name.

  He looked down and saw Anderson’s eyes, fathomless in the unlit room, intent on his face.

  “You’ve seen the recordings,” Anderson asked insistently, and C.J. nodded, feeling inarticulate and frenzied. “If you’ve seen them, you know I didn’t do this very often,” Anderson hissed, and then he opened his mouth and swallowed C.J. all the way to the root, groaning when his lips brushed C.J.’s curly ash-blond hair.

  A sound, half growl, half sob, tore out of C.J.’s chest as Anderson moaned around his cock and then tightened his lips and pulled back.

  “Oh God, oh God, oh God ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod… Anderson!”

  C.J. started to spurt come, just a little, and he grabbed Anderson’s hair and pulled him away to keep him from bringing C.J. to a quick, painful climax.

  “Want… inside you,” C.J. grunted, and Anderson looked up and bared his teeth in anticipation.

  “Want that too,” Anderson growled. “And then I want inside you. Can we do that? Can I fuck you back?”

  “Auughhhh….” C.J. had to pinch off the end of his prick, bringing the foreskin over it and clamping down, or he would have come right there. “Clothes off,” he commanded/begged. “There’s lube in the drawer. Get yourself ready for me, Anderson. I need to see you want it.”

  C.J. managed to calm himself down a little while he stripped out of his clothes and his shoes, but that was only because he didn’t watch Anderson take off his clothes. When C.J. got to the bed and Anderson was on his hands and knees, that fine, pale body gleaming softly in the ambient light from computer console, C.J. had to breathe hard and deliberately to not simply stroke himself once and come.

  God, Anderson was beautiful.

  He was still thin, but two months of swimming had left his muscles defined, his waist slightly indented, his bottom with just enough flesh to not be uncomfortable as C.J. slammed into his asshole, which was all C.J. wanted to do.

  Lubricant was slathered over Anderson’s ass cheeks, in his crease, and, as C.J. watched, was being pushed into Anderson’s entrance with two scissoring, stretching fingers, even as a drop or two slithered off his testicles and onto the mattress.

  C.J. whined a little, needing, and then said, “Turn around, Anderson. I want to see your face.”

  Anderson shuddered and turned onto his back, spreading his knees and grabbing a pillow from the top of the bed and shoving it under his hips. “You don’t ask much,” he protested, even as he reached behind his back and put his fingers back into his asshole, shivering with pleasure and want as he did so.

  “Stop that,” C.J. murmured. “I’ll do that.” He came forward and palmed the flesh (lightly covered with blond hair) of Anderson’s thighs, then lowered his head to kiss the inside of Anderson’s knee. Anderson gasped, and C.J. chuckled thinly.

  “I may be a horny bastard, Anderson, but God, I’ve been dreaming about this….” His voice trailed off, and he kissed his way down the inside of Anderson’s thigh to the crease of his body. He wanted to take Anderson’s testicles delicately into his mouth, but there was already lube on them, so he pulled away and, instead, traced a line up between them to the veiny, ridged surface of that impressive, thick cock.

  “Don’t make me come,” Anderson pleaded. “I want to be inside you….”

  C.J. took him inside his mouth and swallowed the salty taste of pre-come in the back of his throat, pulling Anderson’s foreskin back with his fist. He let Anderson shudder hard in ecstasy and then sucked, hard, and pulled his lips up, wet and sloppy, so that Anderson would be tormented by the feel of the cool air around the exposed pink skin bared around his crown.

  “Anderson… God, as much as I want you, do you really think you’re only going to come once tonight?”

  Anderson smiled, and it was a triumphant, feral thing. “Please, C.J… please fuck me right the hell now!”

  C.J. positioned himself carefully—he wanted it to be good, smooth, not too tight, not too rough, and the muscles in his back bunched in control as he slid in. Stretch, stretch stretch… pop! The head of C.J.’s cock disappeared, and Anderson spread his knees as far as they would go and cocked his hips and groaned.

  “God, Cyril, please!”

  C.J. spoke through clenched teeth. “Don’t… call… me… Cyril…,” he ordered, every word another inch into Anderson’s body.

  “C.J.! Please!” Anderson begged, and C.J. couldn’t stand another moment and snapped his hips forward, almost weeping when Anderson closed his eyes, tilted his head back and screamed, “Oh, damn, yesssss!” into the sweaty darkness around them.

  C.J. pulled out of his body again and then snapped forward, and Anderson reached between them and begged some more. “Can I… God… forget what I said… can I… please… oh God, I need to come… please?”

  C.J. slammed home again and then started a brutal, pounding rhythm, panting, “Anything you want, baby, bring yourself off… all I need is to see you come. It’s got to be good… please tell me it’s good!”

  “So… damned… good… auuughhhhh!”

  The hot spatter of Anderson’s spend splashing on their stomachs, coating them, tinting the air around them with the sharp smell of come, was all it took. C.J.’s thrusts grew frenzied, and now he was the one begging.

  “Please, Anderson, please can I, God can I, I just need to… please, please, please….”

  “God, C.J., come!”

  C.J.’s whole body felt like it was exploding in white, and the light behind his clenched-tight-shut eyes was brilliant, tinged in red, as he came so hard his balls ached fiercely with each shudder and spurt into Anderson’s clenching body.

  He let out a cry that hardly sounded human and buried his face in Anderson’s neck and made that sound again. Anderson pulled his hands, one of them sticky, up to C.J.’s shoulder and stroked and whispered and soothed, even as C.J.’s cock grew flaccid and slid out of Anderson’s well-used backside.

  He groaned at the loss of contact and then pulled his head back and kissed Anderson again, loving his taste, dying for it still, and Anderson kissed back the same way.

  This time was slower, more civilized, with more exploring. C.J. kissed shoulders, collarbones, and took the time to see what would happen if he scraped the flat, tiny pink nipples with his teeth. Anderson almost screamed and came off the bed, it felt so good—that was what happened! Anderson licked his way down C.J.’s side, under his arm, and when C.J. protested, “I’m stinky,” Anderson looked at him soberly.

  “I know. It’s human, C.J. It’s wonderful.”

 
C.J. whined then, because Anderson’s tongue on the curve of his underarm would have tickled if it was daylight, if they were playing, if there was anything light and easy about their bodies touching in the darkness. There wasn’t. There was no play, there was no giggling, there was none of the laughter or the kidding that C.J. had known with his other lovers. This thing they were doing, it was deadly serious, and C.J. thought hazily, as Anderson cleaned off his cock with a questioning mouth, that tomorrow, they would have time to play. Tomorrow, they would make love again in the morning, and C.J. would teach him how much fun it would be, but now, they just needed, just wanted, just needed so fucking bad! That every touch was desperation, desire, arousal to the point of pain.

  Anderson pushed between C.J.’s thighs, spreading them, shoving the pillow under C.J.’s hips and taking the lubricant from where it had been dropped on the bed.

  “I’ve never done this part before,” he explained, his breath tickling the fine dark hairs all points south of C.J.’s cock.

  “Lots of lube,” C.J. muttered. “One finger, not deep… two… oh Christ, yes! Just like you did with yourself… but… yeah… deeper….”

  “I know what’s deeper, C.J.,” Anderson said, sounding very sober. His fingers inside C.J.’s body were throwing everything into chaos. C.J. loved being fucked, loved being the bottom, and Anderson’s touch was sure and commanding and everything C.J. could plead for in a lover. Anderson scissored his fingers, spreading them and then putting them together and pushing up until….

  “That’s deeper!” C.J. yelped, and Anderson pushed on it again and again and again until now C.J. was begging. “Please! Dammit, Anderson, I wasn’t trying to torture… God, yes!” Because Anderson had risen on his knees, a slender, commanding god, about to claim C.J. as his home planet.

  His cock was big enough to make stretching a question and not a certainty, and C.J. had to struggle to breathe… breathe… breathe. He closed his eyes and saw a planetary ring of fire like the one his stretched anus had become, and then…. “Yessssss….” The head of Anderson’s prick popped in, and now C.J. was the one being hammered, fucked, pounded into oblivion, while Anderson’s once sweet, wide-eyed face, twisted fiercely with the snarl of a predator, and C.J. died and died and died again while being impaled on his body.

  Anderson closed his eyes with his final lunge, and C.J. had been convulsing in climax around his cock steadily for quite some time. C.J. was exhausted by then, orgasmed past pleasure and into pain and still wanting more, but he watched the peace stealing across Anderson’s features when he closed his eyes, set down his burdens, and released into C.J.’s body.

  Anderson fell forward, and this time, it was C.J. whispering into his hair, C.J. saying soothing nonsense words, C.J. telling him softly that he was loved.

  Anderson rolled off of C.J.’s body, and they lay still, their ferocious heat cooling slightly when they were no longer touching, and C.J. turned his head to look into Anderson’s eyes.

  Anderson was curled on his side, and he clasped C.J.’s hand in his as they both panted in the darkness and tried to find words, any words.

  “Thank you, C.J.,” Anderson mumbled, obviously exhausted. “Thank you.”

  “I love you, Anderson,” C.J. said, wanting that to be between them as well as the sex. But Anderson didn’t say the words back, and C.J. guessed that maybe he wasn’t ready, and that was C.J.’s fault for not waiting.

  “Thank you, C.J. Thank you. For the first time in forever, I’m real.”

  C.J. was falling, falling, falling asleep. He reached out for a moment and stroked Anderson’s hair. “You’re real,” he whispered. “You’re real to me.”

  THEY were both hot and sweaty and covered in the mess that came with sex, even as they fell asleep. C.J. woke up a little later, surprised to find Anderson was wiping him off, his pubic area, his backside, his stomach where he’d come when Anderson had been inside him.

  “Let me return the favor,” he mumbled.

  “Later,” Anderson murmured back. “Later. I’ll be back. You can do it then.”

  “Where’re you going?” C.J. asked, not even able to keep his eyes open.

  “Just to get some fruit juice. Shhhh….”

  C.J. fell asleep then, God help him. Fell fast asleep. Anderson returned to their bed much later, and C.J. reached around to clasp him around the middle. Anderson whimpered, like the action hurt, but scooted back into C.J.’s embrace the way he’d been doing since the very beginning.

  “I love you, C.J.,” he whispered.

  “Love you too,” C.J. said back, loving how tightly they fit when there wasn’t anything between them.

  Anderson must have fallen asleep then.

  An hour later, he woke up in time to scream.

  This time, the screams weren’t silent—the raw, keening screech of them blasted around the space station with the force to shatter planets and turn asteroid fields to dust. And they never, never stopped.

  Part 3: Anderson

  Chapter 15

  Two Keystrokes, Three Hits, and One Big Loss

  ANDERSON almost didn’t follow through on what he had to do because he couldn’t stop looking at C.J.

  God, he looked so vulnerable, lying face down, naked, the chocolate and cream color of his skin gleaming lustrous and touchable. His hand was still stretched out from reaching to touch Anderson’s face, and Anderson closed his eyes and relived that tickle down his cheekbone.

  Real.

  Anderson had read and re-read every scrap of fiction in the archives. He’d started to memorize the things he loved the most before he deleted them to make room for the holodeck, thinking that if he lived, the words would at least live in his mind—what was left of it, anyway. His vocabulary was extensive, encyclopedic, in truth, but in spite of that, he could not find a better word for the feel of C.J.’s flesh against his hands, against his chest and his thighs, surrounding his cock, invading his body. It was all real.

  It was real in a way that Anderson hadn’t been sure existed, not even after he walked down the plank of the shuttle and was introduced to other people for the first time in ten and a half years.

  He could remember Cassie’s warmth and Marshall’s exotic, steady kindness, but those had seemed distant and far away. Nice to imagine, but not necessarily real. A new program, instituted by Bobby and Kate, perhaps? Henry and Risa helped? It was possible. His forebrain knew it was what happened, but his instinct, the one who had lived with his own dreams for nearly as long as he’d lived with his flesh and blood family, was not so sure.

  C.J., though. C.J. was like nothing he had imagined. His looks were striking, and then they were seductive. The light green eyes in the dark-skinned face had made Anderson want to look, and look again, and keep on looking. Seeing that cream and chocolate colored skin every morning as C.J. had emerged from the shower had been… wonderful.

  But even that might have only been Anderson’s imagination, if it hadn’t been for the touch, the warmth, the smell of him, every day, every night, as they’d shared quarters, shared interest, shared lives.

  Anderson understood C.J.’s concerns in that same distant, untouched way that he understood that Cassie and Marshall weren’t holograms.

  Of course there were other people to love out there. He’d seen that on board the ship. A guy didn’t just fall for the first person, no matter how available, in the same way he hadn’t fallen for Alex or Henry or Peter or… whatever that other guy’s name had been.

  Anderson had looked. While C.J. had been watching Anderson’s life for the past ten years, Anderson had been trying, in fits and starts, to imagine what his life would be in the future. He’d smiled at men as he’d gone shopping, attempted to flirt with them, even accepted invitations for coffee at the nearest kiosk. He hadn’t told C.J. about this; these moments seemed… hallucinatory. The men had not seemed real. Their hands on his knee had seemed like electric currents and wind. His polite refusal to see them again or to visit their quarters felt as de
tached, as impersonal, as a decision not to watch a video he’d seen too often, or, more likely, had no interest in seeing at all.

  But not C.J. Coming back to C.J.’s quarters had felt, every day, to be more and more like the shuttle, except better, because in a million years Anderson wouldn’t have put all of those eclectic, harmonizing, rich and lustrous colors together in the same place. C.J. must be real, or his home on board the station wouldn’t have felt like such a haven. C.J.’s smile, his big, goofy, don’t-take-anything-seriously smile, had put Anderson at ease on his first day at the station. By the third day, it had started butterflies in Anderson’s stomach. By the thirtieth, watching C.J. smile, knowing that smile was waiting for him in the morning when they woke up side by side or when his physical therapy was over, it became an obsession. A thing he must have.

  It was another way Anderson knew he was real.

  Watching that smile die in this past month had been another thing for which to hate Alpha. Anderson, who had spoken the math of emotions for the preceding ten years, had worked out the simple equation. If Anderson = C.J. smiling < Alpha = C.J. not smiling, then the only way to eliminate the bad half of the equation was to zero out Alpha.

  It was really very, very simple.

  Planetside, stationside, it didn’t matter. Anderson wanted C.J. He needed C.J. in order to feel real and not like a rapidly disintegrating program of data bits directing air currents and electricity into motion. Without C.J., Anderson was a series of ones and zeroes, polarized by magnetic interference, a blank screen. Alpha made C.J. unhappy. It was Alpha who had made C.J. not want Anderson for the past two months. Alpha who had made C.J. think that Anderson wasn’t well enough, wasn’t emotionally healthy enough, for a relationship to flourish.

  Alpha had been created for Anderson in desperation. C.J. simply loved him. There really was no other option.

  First, Anderson cleaned up that fine, fit, limp body, marveling that the sweat and the fluids and the detritus of sex remained even when the act was complete. This was something he hadn’t known. It wasn’t often mentioned in the romance books—although “clean up” was mentioned, exactly what was being cleaned was not.