Red Fish, Dead Fish

by Amy Lane

  Jackson gibbered, propping himself on the wall, wanting to tangle his hands in Ellery’s hair, wanting to hold him, anything. But Ellery kept sucking, stroking, a delirious pressure that melted Jackson’s brain, his needs, his best intentions.

  Jackson didn’t even notice the hand switch off until two fingers, slick with spit, groped and then breached him, not rough enough to hurt, just rough enough to get his attention.

  Ellery pulled away from Jackson’s cock, sucking hard enough to make a popping sound, thrust those two fingers, stroked Jackson’s shaft, licked the end—and closed his eyes.

  Jackson would have protested—no. God. No. But the cool air hit his sensitized head, and Ellery scissored his fingers.

  Climax rushed him, a scalding volcano from his thighs, his spine—he came, knees giving, pleasure and shame exploding behind his eyes.

  With a little groan he sank to the carpet, falling into Ellery’s arms.

  Ellery tugged his hair until he leaned back. “Look at me,” he commanded. Jackson closed his eyes, and Ellery tugged again. Ellery’s brown eyes bored into his own, intensity squared. Semen striped across Ellery’s cheeks and dripped off his chin, sliding from the long bridge of his nose. “What do you see?”

  “I want you,” Jackson told him, asshole aching for possession, cock tingling and ready to go again. “You’re beautiful.”

  Ellery’s eyes darkened, and he pulled Jackson into a sloppy, bitter kiss. Jackson licked the come off his lips, his cheeks, then suckled the point of his chin. Ellery whispered, “You’re beautiful, Jackson Rivers. I want you. I want you so bad. I love you.”

  Jackson moaned faintly, the word abrading the skin he’d been trying to grow back over his emotions. His heart was still so raw. Here was the pain Ellery should have been worried about.

  “I love you too,” he breathed as Ellery nipped at his throat. Not saying it would have hurt worse.

  “On your back, legs spread. I need inside you. Like breathing.”

  Oh God yes. Even the best rugs were rough on the skin, but Jackson didn’t care. He wriggled out from the wall enough so his head didn’t hit, then spread his thighs and bent his knees, biting his lip as he watched Ellery spread lubricant on his fine cock. Jackson reached out, whimpering a little, because he wanted to touch, but Ellery shook his head.

  “I’ll come,” he admitted hoarsely. “Just a touch. Just a breath. Wait!”

  “What in the hell—”

  Ellery stood and gave Jackson a hand. “Bed,” he told him unequivocally. “Ribs, Jackson.”

  “Fuck the—”

  Ellery started kissing him again, and he came to on the bed, knees spread, with a pillow shoved under his ass and Ellery’s tongue rimming his asshole while his fingers stretched him again.

  Jackson closed his eyes, his identity slipping away in the dreamy pleasure. He knotted his fingers in Ellery’s hair and tried not to shake off the bed, abandoning any attempt to control the sounds he made, the words or half words, the things he might say.

  He’d agreed to submit. He’d agreed to trust. Trusting meant letting Ellery choose the time, choose the position.

  Ellery was the one person in his bed who had never let him down, never hurt him, never used him.

  Jackson was only peripherally aware of Ellery moving, of Ellery’s cock at his stretched and sloppy entrance. He was deep under, in the world where he would do anything, say anything, endure anything to just know Ellery would be there, that Jackson could cling to his hand when he was lost.

  Ellery breached his asshole, and Jackson was abruptly present, in his body, where the immediate pleasure threatened to overwhelm him. His body and skin were real again, and Ellery thrust inside him, hard and committed. They were a part of each other, and Jackson couldn’t breathe.

  “Ellery!”

  Ellery cupped his cheek, shoved a thumb into his mouth as he bore forward, and Jackson sucked hard, the dreaminess replaced by nerve centers exploding outward. “Mmm!”

  Ellery passed the first tight barrier and then threw his hips forward, filling Jackson to the point of delirium, to the point where words didn’t exist anymore.

  Heedless of his ribs, Jackson grabbed his thighs and invited him closer, harder, deeper, and was rewarded by another merciless thrust.

  Augh! Yes!

  Ellery fucked him with purpose—this act was everything. It was their bodies meshed together, their pleasure releasing endorphins, their climax rendering them weak and vulnerable before each other. It was trust, it was promises, it was fulfillment of every hope Jackson had ever had for letting another human being close to his heart.

  It was the most terrifying, most exhilarating thing Jackson had ever done, and he watched in wonder as Ellery closed his eyes and pumped his hips, finally turning inward where he could chase his own orgasm, while Jackson’s threatened to obliterate everything he’d ever believed himself to be.

  Hold on. Hold on to who you are.

  Ellery opened his eyes and glared. “Don’t you dare,” he panted. “Nothing back, Jackson. Come for me. Goddammit, come!”

  And Jackson lost who he was, lost the reasons he didn’t trust, the reasons he should have been too scarred to love, the fears that came with baring his soul in front of another human being.

  This climax was a slow, rocking wave that started at his asshole and rippled out, taking his taint, his balls, his thighs, his heart, his breath with it, leaving him a screaming, sobbing, sated naked man where a posturing frightened boy had been.

  Ellery groaned above him, and at first Jackson thought the hot drops of salt on his stomach and chest were sweat.

  But as Ellery came, his eyes were screwed shut, and he fell forward with a terrible cry, burying his face against Jackson’s chest and trembling in the aftermath.

  Jackson felt Ellery’s spend fill him, leaking hotly onto Jackson’s thighs before Ellery was even done pumping into Jackson’s body.

  Not sweat—not sweat. Tears. Ellery was weeping openly on Jackson’s chest, and Jackson held him tight, whispering to him, nonsense words about how he fucked like a god and they were going to be all right.

  He thought he was flattering, lying outrageously, when his own body gave one last shudder and his brain and words shorted out.

  For a moment he and Ellery just breathed, one after the other, their great chest heaves swallowing the whole of the oxygen in the room.

  And in that insidious quiet, that’s when he realized the words weren’t bullshit.

  By all that was holy, Ellery fucked like a god. He’d nailed Jackson to the mattress until all Jackson’s painful self-doubt was fucked away.

  And maybe—with some work, with some patience, with some kept promises on both their parts, it was all going to be okay.

  Jackson grinned and kept stroking the back of Ellery’s neck. He spied the clock on the side of the bed and let out a short laugh. “Well, that was half an hour. What are we going to do until ten o’clock at night? Watch TV and order room service?”

  Ellery grunted and rocked his hips. His cock, which had been softening like a good sexual organ after intercourse, began to grow again.

  “You. Wish.”

  Jackson caught his mouth in another kiss, and Ellery kept rocking. Suddenly they were in the middle of round three, and it should have been slower, softer, with tenderness and sweet words.

  They might get to those in round four.

  Round three was a long-thrusting, brutally hard powerfuck that left them both breathless and dripping with sweat and with come. At the end of it, when Jackson’s cock had spurted again, an agonizing stripe of semen that coated both his stomach and Ellery’s chest, Ellery gave a moan and rolled off him. They both sprawled under the ceiling fan, looking out at the city in the dark through the window.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Jackson panted, too weak to move for the moment, “but I almost think you have something to prove.”

  Ellery rolled to his side, his hair hanging across his brow in
long strips. “Do you love me?” he asked, not even smiling.

  Jackson was helpless against the full-body flush that replaced his fuck-flush.

  “Yes,” he replied, because he’d said it and because the words couldn’t scare him anymore or he’d sabotage the two of them with his doubt. “Yes, I love you. Do you love me?”

  Ellery nodded, his throat working, and he reached out to drag a knuckle down Jackson’s cheek. “I watched you in the hospital for a week,” he croaked. “And some days, it felt like you got thin.”

  “I got scrawny,” Jackson complained, because it was true. You could see his ribs now, and his collarbones stood out in stark lines from his chest.

  “Not like that,” Ellery whispered, rubbing Jackson’s lip with his thumb now. “Like… like you were fading from us, transparent. Like you had given up your body, your life with me, because it was just too damned hard.”

  “It was hard,” Jackson admitted. He gave a tentative smile. “But I wouldn’t just give you up. Not without a fight. You know that.”

  Ellery closed his eyes and bit his lip. “I hoped,” he said. “I needed this. Your body, mine. So I could know the hope was real.”

  Jackson could understand that. He bit his lip and looked away. “I needed you,” he admitted. “Needed to know it was real.”

  They lay there in quiet for a moment, and then Ellery swore.

  Jackson’s eyes popped open. “What? What’s wrong? What did we forget?”

  With a sigh Ellery shoved up to sit with his back against the pillows. Jackson did the same thing and then pulled the comforter up against the chill in the air.

  Ellery grunted. “Okay, if I start going to temple every Saturday, will you think I’m crazy?”

  “What in the fuck?” Jackson’s eyes crossed in an effort to make that happen.

  “I just… it’s just that I sort of promised God that I’d do that for a year, if only he’d bring you back.”

  Jackson started laughing, every pump of his diaphragm reminding him that he’d just abused his recovering body, every burst of laughter reminding him that he didn’t care.

  Ellery tagged him on the arm irritably. “It’s not funny. I was desperate, and… and… it was like God brought you back to me.”

  Okay. He nodded. “Ellery?” he said, deadly serious. He leaned forward and kissed his lover tenderly, with sweetness and respect.

  “What?” Ellery the Dominator was gone now, and in his place was the man Jackson found persnickety and irritating—and so very, very dear.

  “That kiss? Our bodies here, together? The fucking miracle that I can tell you I love you?”

  Ellery nodded seriously.

  “That feels like church to me.”

  His lean mouth curved into a smile. “That’s cheating,” he sang softly.

  Jackson nodded and leaned his head against Ellery’s shoulder. “Yeah. Let’s have some snacks and cheat some more.”

  New Currents to Explore

  ROUND FOUR—sweet. So very, very sweet.

  Ellery—never ashamed to bottom—straddled Jackson for round four, rocking back and forth slowly, listening to Jackson’s every whisper, every held-back cry.

  He’d said their lovemaking was holy.

  That thought echoed in Ellery’s bones, in his sinews and the chambers of his heart. When Jackson tilted his head back and moaned in climax, Ellery heard a prayer.

  Ellery’s climax rolled through him, powerful in his body, yes—but secondary to the thing that was happening in his soul.

  He slumped forward against Jackson’s chest, thinking How am I going to put that into a marriage proposal?

  Jackson smiled at him, his mouth quirking up on one side, and then yawned. Ellery grinned and threaded his fingers through that thick dark blond hair before leaning forward on his elbows and kissing him briefly. “Here. You nap. I’ll order room service and….” He grimaced. Jackson was still inside him. “Uh, call—”

  Jackson laughed softly and rolled away. He grabbed one of the wipes he’d brought, and then handed one to Ellery. He used to be fastidious about this—to the point that Ellery felt hurt—but this was just so they could put their boxers on and not rip their pubic hair out when they took them off.

  “If we put on our shorts, can you call your mother?” he asked, finding both pairs in the puddle of clothes near the entryway.

  “Yeah, smartass.” Ellery found his boxers and watched as Jackson slid his on and snuggled back down into bed. He looked tired again, dark circles showing harshly against his still-pale face. Ellery sat down next to him and smoothed back his hair. “Nap. I’ll call Mother and do some work. Would you rather go home later or get up super early?”

  Jackson chuckled, the sound still filthy for all he looked like the cat’s breakfast. “I’m a fan of the early morning walk of shame myself.” His smile up at Ellery was almost impish.

  “Okay. Good. Hamburgers for dinner?”

  “Whatever.” Jackson yawned. “Not picky.”

  Yeah, and not hungry either, given how much Ellery had been able to get him to eat. “Steak,” Ellery decided, but Jackson’s next breath was even and deep. Well, one thing at a time.

  Ellery took his time, putting on a bathrobe before hanging his suit up. He’d just set up his laptop at the desk when his phone buzzed.

  “Mother?”

  “You sound guilty. What are you doing?”

  Oh God. “Well, Jackson and I got out of deposition a little early. We thought we’d take some time to ourselves—”

  “You rented a room and did unmentionable things,” she said. “It happens. Will you be home in the morning?”

  “Yes—I need to drop Jackson off before work.”

  She lowered her voice. “Is he sleeping now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.” They shared a moment of worry, and Ellery thought it might always be this way, worrying about Jackson. “There’s something I need to talk to you about, and you need to share with him, I think.”

  Apprehension shot an ice dart up his spine. “Shoot.”

  “You know Harold Knudsen, my client who contracts for the military?”

  Ellery frowned. “I guess. I mean, I know his firm. I never really thought about him personally.”

  His mother’s sigh on the other end was painfully familiar. “Yes, Ellery, there are real people behind the corporations. I believe us liberals have even made it a slogan.”

  “That was the conservatives, Mother. John Oliver did a thing about it. But anyway, Knut Harold—”

  “Harold Knudsen—don’t be a child. He got an ultimatum from an obscure branch of the military he’d never heard from before today.”

  That dart spread its icy poison to Ellery’s lungs. “Behavioral engineering?”

  “Close. Soldier Modification.”

  Ellery frowned. “That can’t be real.”

  “Oh, I assure you it was real—as in they really threatened to pull all of their contracts from Harold’s company if he didn’t change his counsel.”

  “Mother?” His voice was saturated with worry. This was his parents’ income, and Ellery was not going to be the reason they lost money.

  “Darling, you do know your father is independently wealthy. Money in six banks—that sort of thing. And I have ten clients bigger than Knudsen. I told him to go ahead and hire my old protégé, the one who started her own firm. She squeezed him in, but I needed you to know, somebody in the military is putting the squeeze on me.”

  Ellery’s breath grew shallow. “And on me.”

  “By proxy, I would imagine. Yes.” She chuckled. “I do believe they thought I would try to control you. I find that highly amusing.”

  But he couldn’t smile. “I think we’re going to have to look into that,” he said slowly, thinking of Karl Lacey and some hellhole in Nevada that nobody was supposed to know about.

  And two mechanics in a dust-speck town who would need to be—very carefully—disturbed.

  “Not now,”
his mother said, showing no indication whatsoever that Ellery was not the sort of son who would be controlled. Her voice softened. “You and Jackson need a break. We’re spending tomorrow together before I leave, and then I believe you have your first Thanksgiving before you come back to Boston. Am I correct?”

  She damned well knew she was. She and Jade had walked a careful line around her presence. Jade had politely asked and Taylor had politely declined and then moved her flight forward as a reason. She’d told Ellery quietly that someday she hoped to be welcome at the Cameron table—but this Thanksgiving they were going to be thankful about Jackson, and she wanted to give them room to do that in their own way.

  “I told Jade I’d make German cabbage,” Ellery told Taylor, although he was pretty sure she knew. “She seems to think it’s a myth and nobody really eats that crap.”

  His mother laughed. Ellery had loathed German cabbage as a child, but as he’d grown, it had become one of his favorite things. “Make sure you use at least a pound of bacon and the good vinegar.” Because God forbid he be allowed to remember the recipe on his own.

  “And the dark brown sugar,” he finished. “I remember.”

  “Good. Then I’ll see Jackson early tomorrow, and you have a half day before we go out to lunch. Our schedule is all set, then.”

  “Don’t forget to feed—”

  “This enormously inappropriate cat. Yes. I understand. He has made it known that his bowl is half-full—I take it that is wrong.”

  Ellery had to laugh. “Yes, it is wrong.”

  “What about his place on the table?”

  “Well, it’s wrong, and sick, but sadly not unusual.”

  Her voice darkened. “We shall just see about that.” Then, “Take care of him tonight. Let him heal over the holidays. This other thing—you two can’t go after it guns blazing if he’s not strong.”

  “I understand,” Ellery said. In bed, Jackson was curled in on himself, the covers over his eyes to block out the light. The back of his hand still bore faint bruises from the IV, and he had an appointment in two days to get the last of the stitches out of his stomach. Ellery wondered how long he would nap before the nightmares began. “We’ll get him healthy. See you tomorrow, Mother.”