Back Piece

by L. A. Witt

  After a while, Daniel stirred. “What time is it?” he murmured into the pillow.

  Colin twisted around and picked up his phone to check the time. As he came back to Daniel, he said, “Little after eight.”

  “Damn. No wonder I’m hungry. Want to go get something to eat?”

  Colin hesitated, but hell, even he liked the idea of eating right now, though it remained to be seen if that would last once there was food in front of him. “We can do that.”

  Daniel started to get up, but flopped face-first on the pillow again. “Except your bed is so comfortable.”

  “We don’t have to go right this second.” Colin combed his fingers through Daniel’s hair. “And like I said, you can sleep here tonight if you want.”

  “God, yes.” The corner of Daniel’s mouth rose in a sleepy grin. “You might not be able to get me out of this bed. Ever.”

  I could think of worse things.

  “Stay as long as you want.” Colin traced his fingers over the blank canvas that was Daniel’s back. “So are you still thinking about that back piece?”

  “Mmhmm.” Daniel opened his eye. “You game for it?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “Well . . .” Daniel lifted himself up onto his forearms. “It doesn’t bother you to be working on someone you’re sleeping with?”

  Colin thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “Why would it?”

  “Like, what if we . . . I mean, we’re not dating”—his eyebrows flicked up as if to say I don’t think?—“but if we broke up or something?”

  “I’d be more concerned about it bothering you.”

  “Should it?”

  Colin shrugged. “I don’t think so. The artwork is personal. For you. If things go sour between us, it’s still your tattoo with your meaning attached.” He trailed his fingers up Daniel’s spine. “I’m just the guy who put it on. But do think about it. Decide if you really want me to do it.” He flattened his palm between Daniel’s shoulders. “If you want someone else to do it, it won’t hurt my feelings.”

  “I’ll think about it.” Daniel smiled sleepily. “I really do like your work, though.”

  “Thanks.” He trailed his fingers across Daniel’s powerful shoulders, imagining all this smooth skin crisscrossed with lines and shading. “So, what are you thinking of getting?”

  “Well . . .” Daniel hesitated. “It’s kind of . . .” Color bloomed in his cheeks.

  Colin squeezed Daniel’s arm gently. “Tattoos are personal. If it means enough to you to put it on your skin for the rest of your life, don’t be embarrassed about it.” He paused. “I mean, unless it’s the entire discography of some terrible boy band, in which case . . .”

  Daniel burst out laughing. “Damn. There goes that idea.”

  Colin rolled his eyes. “Don’t think you’d be the first.”

  “Seriously?”

  “All the shit I’ve put on people’s skin these past few years?” He quirked his lips. “You’d have to work pretty hard to surprise me.”

  “You sure about that?”

  Sobering, Colin arched an eyebrow. “Okay, now I’m really curious what you have in mind.”

  “Eh, probably nothing too shocking.” Daniel turned onto his side, distracting Colin with that taper of his waist and the faint grooves between muscles that would be, after a few more months at the gym, exquisitely defined. Colin couldn’t resist tracing those smooth contours with his palm, and Daniel shivered, squirming beneath his touch. He put his hand on Colin’s arm—Colin couldn’t decide if it was to keep him from pulling away, or just because he wanted some more contact. Either way was fine by him.

  And weren’t we talking about something?

  He cleared his throat. “So the, uh . . .”

  “Tattoo?”

  “Yeah. That.”

  Daniel smiled. His thumb traced soft arcs alongside Colin’s forearm. “Right. So, the tattoo. The thing is, I had a really religious childhood.”

  Colin nodded. “I remember.”

  “And . . .” Daniel fixed his gaze on his own hand resting on Colin’s arm. “Even when I was younger, a lot of it didn’t quite add up. And I mean, maybe it was because of all the anti-gay shit.” His eyes flicked up to meet Colin’s. “It’s hard to follow along when you keep hearing about Christ’s love and God’s grace and how much God hates something that sounds an awful lot like what you are.”

  “Man.” Colin cringed. “I can’t even imagine.”

  “You don’t want to. The thing is, when I was, I don’t know, ten or eleven, maybe a little younger, I stumbled across a couple of books at a yard sale. One was a collection of Greek myths. The other was Norse. And I couldn’t stop reading them. The stories were just really cool, you know?”

  “Hell yeah. Those were some of my favorites in school.”

  “Right?” Daniel swallowed, and his expression darkened. “A few months later, my mom found them. And the way she and my dad came down on me, you would’ve thought they’d stumbled across a stack of pornos.”

  Colin blinked. “Seriously?”

  “Yep. They didn’t like me reading about false gods. And I was confused as hell. I mean, they were stories. They were myths, for God’s sake.” He sighed as he scratched the back of his neck. Returning his hand to Colin’s arm, warming the cool place he’d left when he’d lifted it away, he continued. “That was the first time I realized these were stories people had actually believed at one time. This was someone’s religion, you know?”

  Colin nodded, but said nothing.

  “And it got me thinking. If the Greeks believed in all of this like I believed in the Bible, and theirs turned out to be just myths, then what if the Bible was the same way?” Daniel laughed dryly. “The ironic thing is if my parents had just left me alone and not said anything, I probably would’ve lost interest in the stories and moved onto the next thing.”

  “But since they made a big production out of it . . .”

  “Yep. So as I got older and started having more doubts, I snuck another copy of those books into the house. Got my hands on an Egyptian collection, too. And I read them a million times. Usually when I was worried I was going to hell.” He avoided Colin’s eyes and gave another soft breath of laughter. “It probably sounds stupid, but those books kept me sane until I got out of that house.” He sighed, and self-consciously added, “I still keep a copy in my rack on the boat.”

  Colin slid a little closer and draped his arm over Daniel’s side. “It’s not stupid. In an oppressive environment like that, I don’t think anyone can judge whatever you had to do to stay sane.”

  Daniel met his gaze, and offered a halfhearted grin. “Better myths than meth, right?”

  “It’d be funnier if it wasn’t so true.” He ran his fingers through Daniel’s hair. “But I’m glad you had something to tide you over until you got away.”

  “Pretty sure I’d have lost my mind without it.” Daniel took a breath. “Which is a really long way of explaining what I want for this tattoo.”

  It didn’t take much for Colin to put the pieces together. “So something from the myths?”

  Daniel nodded.

  “You want to stick with one? Like Greek or Norse? Or . . .”

  “Well, if there’s a way to put them into one design, that’d be awesome. Mostly Greek and Norse. Maybe some Egyptian, if it’s possible to work them together.”

  A few images flickered through Colin’s mind. Realistic pen-and-ink-style gods and goddesses over skin and muscles. Thor’s hammer. Poseidon’s trident. Loki’s wicked trickster grin. Maybe a raven for Odin and an owl for Athena.

  Oh yes, this was doable. He’d never even thought of combining those two pantheons, never mind including Egyptian gods, but this could definitely be done.

  “I think I can come up with something.” He smiled, smoothing Daniel’s hair. “And you want it to cover . . . your whole back? Upper? Lower?”

  “All of it.”

  “
That’s a pretty ambitious tattoo.”

  “I know, but I’ve wanted it for years. And now that I know I can handle one, and I’ve found an artist I trust . . .” He smiled.

  Colin smiled back. “Okay. I’m game if you are.”

  “Sweet.” Daniel gulped. “How many sessions do you think something like that will take?”

  “Depends on a lot of things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, how much detail we decide on. Depends on our schedules. And of course, how much we can both handle in each session.”

  Daniel’s eyebrows shot up. “How much we can handle? Wouldn’t it be more how much I can handle?”

  “That’s the main thing, yes.” Colin held up his hands, flexing his fingers. “But I get tired after a while, too.”

  “Oh. Yeah, that makes sense.”

  Lowering his hands, Colin said, “It’ll mostly come down to your tolerance, though.” When he saw the palpable horror on Daniel’s face, he quickly added, “For what it’s worth, this one will take longer, and it’s going to cover some sensitive areas, but it probably won’t be as painful as the first one. At least . . . not all of it will be.”

  Daniel gulped. “That’s a plus, I guess.” Daniel turned onto his back and ran the backs of his fingers along Colin’s chest. “That damn bird was brutal.”

  Colin chuckled, tracing one of the swallow’s wings with a fingertip. “You did pick one of the touchier places to get it.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  “Hey. Hey. I warned you it would hurt.”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  “At least it’s temporary. Everything negative about a tattoo is temporary—the pain, the itching, the expense. I mean, unless you get the wrong tattoo, or a bad one.”

  Daniel grimaced. “I can’t even imagine getting one and then regretting it.”

  “It happens a lot. And the thing is, the artist can almost always see it coming.”

  “Like, people getting their partner’s name tattooed on?”

  “Yep.” Colin rested his hand on Daniel’s chest. “Tattoo regret is a real thing. So don’t feel like you have to rush into this one.”

  “I’m not.” Daniel shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about it for years.”

  “Which is good, but also make sure the actual design is what you’ve been thinking about. Tattoos are not a game of ‘close enough.’”

  “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades?”

  Colin laughed. “Exactly.” Turning more serious, he slid his hand up to Daniel’s neck. “I mean it, though. Don’t be afraid to tell me you don’t like the design, or to go with somebody else.”

  Daniel nodded, running his palm up Colin’s arm. “I won’t.”

  “Good.” Colin leaned down for a quick, light kiss, but Daniel apparently had other plans. His fingers curved around the back of Colin’s neck and up into his hair, and he teased his lips apart with his tongue.

  And if Colin had any thoughts of this being brief, those evaporated when Daniel gently tugged his hair back and started kissing his neck. Little by little, they went from kissing and touching to breathing hard and rubbing together, dragging nails along skin as hardening cocks pressed against each other.

  Daniel pulled back, sweeping his tongue across his lips. “You know, I always heard sex wasn’t as good as it is in the movies. God, was that wrong.” He teased Colin’s nipple with this thumbnail. “It’s so much better than I thought it would be.”

  Colin squirmed. “Oh, is it?”

  “Hmm.” Daniel snaked his arm around Colin’s waist and drew him closer. “Well now I’m not sure. We might need to do it again. You know, to refresh my memory.”

  Colin laughed and let himself be pulled into another kiss. “Second time usually lasts longer, too.”

  “Does it?” Daniel grinned against Colin’s lips. “In that case, we should definitely do it again.”

  “Well, if you insist . . .” Colin rolled him onto his back, and Daniel dragged him down into a breathless, hungry kiss. Jesus, Daniel couldn’t have possibly known how much he turned him on. It had been ages since Colin had been with someone who wanted it this much. Of course he did—after all these years without being with a man, Daniel probably wanted to make up for some lost time.

  Fine by me.

  “You should . . .” Daniel panted against his lips. “You should get a condom.”

  Colin’s entire body broke out in goose bumps, but he hesitated. “You’re not sore, are you?”

  Daniel shook his head. “No. I can still feel it. Wouldn’t say I’m sore, though.”

  “Just tell me if it starts getting painful.”

  “I will. Now get a condom.”

  Eyeing him, Colin grinned. “Someone’s getting demanding.”

  “If you knew what it was like to get fucked by you, you’d be demanding, too.”

  Colin laughed and kissed him once more, then leaned away to get some condoms and lube. Daniel started to get up on his hands and knees, but Colin stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Actually, I want you on your back this time.”

  “Oh. Uh. Okay.”

  “Here.” Colin put a pillow down and patted it. “Put this under your lower back. It’ll be more comfortable.”

  Daniel looked at him, then the pillow, but he didn’t protest. He turned onto his back with the pillow under his ass while Colin took care of putting on the condom and lube.

  Once everything was in place, Colin positioned himself between Daniel’s legs. He put a little more lube on Daniel, and his fingers slid in without too much effort. Good—meant he was still relaxed, and didn’t need to be prepped all over again.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Been ready for a while,” Daniel said. “Waiting on you.”

  Colin chuckled as he guided himself in. “Sounds like someone wants to be teased until he goes crazy.”

  Daniel groaned. He started to speak, but Colin chose just that moment to press the head of his cock against him, and Daniel trailed off into a moan.

  “Same as before,” Colin said softly. “Breathe and relax.”

  Daniel nodded. He was still tight as hell, but he relaxed, and breathed, and slowly yielded to Colin’s cock.

  As Colin pushed himself in, he watched Daniel’s face, letting himself be completely mesmerized. There was nothing in the world hotter than the pure bliss in Daniel’s expression. Eyes closed, lips moving in silent curses, skin flushed—Colin could have watched him all night.

  The only thing more addictive than watching him was fucking him. Colin couldn’t remember the last time he’d been with a man who was so enthralled with every single thing. Any position he could think of was something completely new for Daniel. Every place he kissed or nipped, no one else had beaten him to it. Like his skin was a blank canvas for the tattoo needle, his body was literally virgin territory—six-foot-plus of erogenous zones just waiting to be explored. If Daniel was getting hooked on fooling around, Colin was straight-up addicted to watching, feeling, tasting, and hearing him experience everything for the first time. It was both innocent and erotic, and Colin couldn’t get enough.

  “Oh Jesus,” Daniel murmured, arching under him. “Think . . . think I might come this time.”

  “Oh yeah?” Colin rocked his hips a little faster. “You close?”

  “Uh-huh. Fuck . . .”

  Colin glanced down. Daniel may not have stayed hard the first time, but he was now, so Colin guided his hand down and closed Daniel’s fingers around his own very erect cock. With only a little bit of encouragement, Daniel started stroking himself, and didn’t seem the least bit uneasy about masturbating in front of someone. He was probably too far gone to care, which was exactly what Colin wanted.

  Colin leaned down and kissed him. He kept rocking his hips, and Daniel kept stroking himself, and they moved together in absolutely no hurry at all. Colin tried to stay in sync with Daniel’s hand, but he couldn’t concentrate on anything except how sexy D
aniel looked and how amazing it felt to fuck him.

  “Oh God,” Daniel moaned. “D-don’t . . . stop.”

  “Not gonna stop.” Colin thrust harder for emphasis. “Jesus fuck . . .”

  Daniel whimpered. He squeezed his eyes shut, and his back arched again, and he clenched around Colin’s cock, and a split second later semen dotted his abs and chest, and Colin couldn’t take any more.

  He thrust into Daniel, hard enough to make him grunt, and shuddered, and came as if this was the first time he’d been touched in months, not the second time he’d gone off tonight.

  He collapsed onto his forearms. “Holy . . .”

  Daniel kissed him. “Yeah. That.” Eyes closed, he let his head fall back onto the pillow. “Wow.”

  Colin carefully pulled out and took care of the condom. When he came back to the bed, Daniel’s eyelids fluttered, but slid closed again.

  “Aww.” Colin grinned as he lay beside him. “You’re not tired, are you?”

  “No, but I’m definitely starving.” Daniel opened his eyes. “Maybe now we should go get something to eat.”

  Colin’s demons all tried to rear their ugly heads, but even they were subdued by exertion and by the pure bliss of two powerful orgasms. He was exhausted, drained, and . . . yes . . . food sounded good.

  “Yeah.” He lifted himself up. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 16

  Daniel couldn’t get enough of Colin. Every night they could manage—which was basically whenever Colin didn’t have to work late and Daniel didn’t have to stay on the ship overnight—they were in Colin’s bed. In between, Daniel spent his days counting down the minutes and hours ’til he’d see him again. Between Colin and the gym, his body was constantly a mess of aches and twinges, and he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  This evening, as he drove from Norfolk to Virginia Beach, his heart was going extra crazy. Earlier, Colin had texted to tell him he had some designs ready for him. So now, not only was he going to see Colin, he was going to get his first look at the tattoo he’d been secretly wanting for the past few years.

  He was excited and nervous about seeing the tattoo, but the nerves weren’t as prominent as they’d been in the beginning. Quite the opposite, actually. From the first night he’d been in Colin’s bed almost two weeks ago, Daniel had felt a weird sense of relief. Not because he’d finally shed that annoying virginity, or because he was finally getting orgasms that weren’t his own doing. It was like one night together had put to rest a million nagging doubts. Though he never would have breathed a word about it to Colin or anyone else, the fact remained that throughout his life, Daniel had secretly second-guessed if he was really gay.