by Willa Okati
“Tuck…” Cade stopped himself.
He thought Cade meant yes; he worried that Cade meant no. “Talk to me.”
“You get your wish. Did you think? I didn’t.” Cade shut his eyes tighter than tight and laughed, though it wasn’t funny at all. “Help me.”
Tuck could not say no to that. Not when Cade asked it of him and meant it. “You’re sure?”
“Don’t talk. Don’t ask. I don’t know what I’m saying. Just—”
The helpless breaking of words undid Tuck. He couldn’t see Cade hurting. Not without doing everything he could.
“It’s okay, babe. I’ve got you,” Tuck said. “Shh.”
Cade shuddered, nodded, and kept his silence.
Tuck still didn’t know where they stood, he and Cade, not in the long run. But he knew for sure what he could do now.
He held Cade still and bent his head to breathe in the scent of his man, dark and musky, salty and hot. Last thing he’d thought would happen tonight, but he’d take it; by God on high, he’d take it.
Tightening his hold, Tuck parted his lips over the now-full stiffness of Cade’s cock, straining the zipper of his jeans, and mouthed the rising stiffness beneath. The thin denim wet through with his saliva and the salty taste of precum.
He slipped beneath to cup Cade’s balls. So tight, so full. He had to be aching, desperate for some release. Tuck was a fool for love. Of course he’d hoped there hadn’t been anyone else for Cade since him. He wasn’t stupid, though.
But there hadn’t been anyone else in Cade’s bed after all, had there? Tuck would bet his life on it. He knew what Cade looked like, how he moved and how he tasted when it’d been a while. Watching Cade now, as finely and tightly strung as a high wire, told a tale of six months of sleeping alone. So help him, it went to Tuck’s head.
A groan slipped free of his lips, echoing reverberations against Cade’s fully hard cock that made Cade gasp and lose some of his balance. If Cade hadn’t caught himself, he’d have fallen to his back.
Tuck laved the ridge Cade’s cock made, wetting the cotton so thoroughly it clung to Cade and hid less than nothing. Hard, needy, desperate. The head of his cock almost peeked above his waist. His cheeks had gone apple red; a bead of sweat trickled down his neck and pooled in the hollow between his collarbones; his lips were strung apart and his pupils dilated wide.
Been just as long for me as it has for you, Tuck thought but didn’t say. He nosed at the wet patch he’d made, breathing deep. “Love your smell. Always loved the way you smell.” He took the fabric delicately between his teeth and tugged, chafing it against Cade’s dick.
Cade groaned, fisting his hands in the tousled bedspread. His legs fell farther apart, silent permission and voiceless pleading for more. Stubborn was just the way Cade was too. When he needed more, he wouldn’t ask. Tuck had had to learn to know.
Like now. He knew. Tuck mouthed up the length of Cade’s cock and sucked below the cherry crown. Cade jerked, betraying how desperate he had to be to thrust up and in.
“I got you, babe. I got you,” Tuck soothed. His hard-on throbbed behind his zipper, begging to be set free. Not yet. He palmed himself, groaning louder at the pulse of pure pleasure and the flash fire of want. Made him crazy for more. Easy now, he told himself, thrusting into the palm of his hand and no more.
Cade first. If this was going to happen, it had to be for Cade first. Just like always.
“Tuck…” Cade slid his fingers through Tuck’s hair and pulled, tilting his chin back, and then it was rock back on his heels or fall. “Wait. Let me—”
Confused, Tuck licked his lips. “Not hurting you, am I?”
“No.” Cade’s throat worked. He stared at Tuck through the ring of those dark, dark pupils. “Look at you.” He nudged Tuck’s shoulder in an effort to push him back farther, but Tuck got it now. Hard to miss with that stare riveted on him. “Show me?”
Tuck understood, and it made him hiss in a breath. “Like this?” He slid his hand inside his jeans and massaged himself.
“God,” Cade whispered, staring. “Your hand.”
Tuck didn’t have to look to know what Cade saw; he’d seen it in mirrors, in window reflections when Cade was in a rare reckless mood. His fist, wrapped around his cock, bulged obscenely inside the denim. Almost impossible to move in the limited space and just enough to set a man on fire for more.
He squeezed himself and pushed into the pressure, fucking his fist with small, stuttering thrusts; he let his head fall back and his mouth open. “Imagining it’s you,” he said.
Cade groaned. He covered his eyes, grinding the heels of his hands on his cheeks, and tugged at Tuck’s hair. Too hard, stinging, but Tuck didn’t mind. Cade’s hips lifted, stopped, held him there, shuddering. “You still—God, the way you still get to me—”
“Shh. I know, babe.” Tuck let go of himself only because he had to or lose it right then, right there. “Lie back. Rest yourself.” He lifted as high as he could on his knees and licked one tiny stripe over Cade’s cockhead, still showing just a little out of the top of his jeans. “Let me take care of you.”
He eased Cade down, keeping himself wedged between those long, lithe legs. Not going anywhere and making sure Cade knew it. He sucked the precum off Cade and no more, flicking his tongue in Morse code dot-dot-dots up Cade’s stomach as slowly as he could, when he wanted to take Cade wholly into his mouth and suck. Drain him dry.
He set his lips to the spot just below Cade’s navel and breathed words against his skin. “You’re everything. Know that.”
“Tuck…” Cade said, breathless. He squeezed Tuck’s shoulders with his thighs. “Fuck, I—”
Missed you, was what he didn’t say. Tuck still heard it, clear as day.
“You need this?” He indulged himself with one hard, hard suck and tasted Cade when he drew off and ran his tongue along his lips. He held Cade’s hips still, the effort needed for both of them. Tuck was going to explode without some friction, some skin against skin. Swear, he’d come in his pants like a teenager again if he didn’t—but he couldn’t—
Cade shuddered and breathed harsher, faster. “Close, God, so close. Tuck, please…”
Tuck reined in his building orgasm but only just. A little longer. Make it last. The taste he’d gotten wasn’t nearly enough. More. More.
He carefully bit down on the tab of Cade’s zipper and drew it down, slow and easy. Yielding to temptation, he licked Cade’s skin as he hooked his fingers beneath the waist and pulled both jeans and briefs down, baring Cade in one surging rush.
Cade came off the bed with a strangled shout that he muffled by pressing the back of his arm to his mouth. Cold air had to feel like something on his hot skin.
Tuck gritted his teeth until the raging rush to fuck, fuck, fuck settled from inferno to hearth fire. “I got you,” he said. “I got you, I promise.” He wrapped his fist around Cade’s cock and guided it into his mouth, sucking Cade as deep as he could take the man.
He drew off only to say, “Fuck my mouth. Hard as you can. Want it.”
But Cade was already past that, Tuck thought, and so was he.
“Shh. Shh, it’s okay.” Tuck took mercy on him and went to work bringing Cade off the way he needed. He cupped Cade’s balls in his palm and rolled them gentle, easy. So full it made his nuts ache in sympathy and made his mouth water with eagerness.
Tuck sucked on the crown and traced his lips, painting them with precum, taste and smell. Cade could come on his face if he wanted; hell, Tuck loved it when Cade let that happen or couldn’t hold back. Loved the cum hot on his cheeks and chin, closing his eyes and feeling stripes on his eyelids.
“Come on,” he urged, rubbing his face against Cade’s cock. “Come on.”
Cade shook his head and groaned. Still denying himself.
Okay. Tuck knew what he needed. I’ve got you. He drew Cade back deep into his mouth and held him between his lips, kneading Cade’s thighs and holding him down by his hips. With each lash of his
tongue and seal of his lips, each slide that thrust the taste of Cade into the back of his throat, he urged Cade on.
Give it up, babe, let me have it, I want it, you want it—
God, he couldn’t help himself. Tuck squeezed his eyes shut and did away with the fastenings on his button fly fast as he could, only far enough to give himself room to scrub his palm against his dick and thrust into it. Almost there, don’t want it to stop; I need more than this; I need Cade. Always need Cade.
“Let me see you,” Cade said, raw whisper sandpapering Tuck’s ears. He slitted his eyes open to find Cade raised on his elbows, watching him with hazy eyes and pure want. Just like nothing had ever gone wrong between them. “Tuck, let me see you come.”
“Ah, fuck!” Tuck bit his cheek, tasting copper, and let go. All Cade ever had to do was ask, and away he went. He thrust into his fist, stripping himself empty, hand locking on to Cade’s leg tight enough to leave fingerprint bruises.
Cade collapsed back onto the bed; Tuck thought Cade had come, and he’d missed it, but no. He gritted his teeth and pushed away the last of the fog clouding his head, surged forward and sucked Cade wet and sloppy. Cade rolled his head to and fro on the tangled sheets. Close, then, but not there.
Took this extra touch sometimes. “It’s okay,” Tuck said. He drew off to rub Cade, as ragged a rhythm as he’d sucked, and pressed his face to Cade’s groin, where his hair would fall forward and cover Cade and himself from view. “It’s okay, babe. Love you so much.”
“God!” If Tuck hadn’t held him down, Cade would have arched his hips clear off the bed when he came, shooting thick streaks on his face.
Tuck laughed, silently exulting, catching what he could and lapping away the rest. He licked Cade clean and sucked him gently as Cade softened, not stopping until Cade hissed and pushed him off.
Even then Cade’s cock twitched, trying to rise again. Wanting more, the way it had always been between them. More. Explosions, fireworks going off in his hand and on his tongue. Every time. Since the beginning. Still. This thing they had between them, it wasn’t dead. Couldn’t be, and Cade knew it. He had to.
There wasn’t any saying good-bye for them. Cade had to know that too.
Tuck rested on his heels and looked at Cade, who’d struggled to sit upright. He shook his head, not able to speak yet, and reached for Tuck—
And a fucking car out on the street below backfired. BOOM.
Cade froze.
Time. Stopped.
And then it started again.
“Don’t,” Tuck tried to say, but it was too late. Cade had already fumbled upright on shaking legs and pulled his jeans up too rough, too fast. Had to hurt. The wet denim clung to him, and his lips went white with the effort just to stand tall and proud, proud again, damn him for being so stubborn.
“Cade, stop.”
Cade wasn’t listening. Hell no, he was all but gone, making for the door. Lashing himself as harshly as if he had a bullwhip in his hand, deaf to Suzie-Q whining and scrabbling after him with her toenails clicking loud as gunshots on the floor. “This—I knew, this—God, I shouldn’t have come, I—”
Tuck twisted about awkwardly and almost fell—then falling in truth when Cade blew past him. “Damn it, Cade, get back here. We can fix—”
Too late. He moved like a whirlwind, Cade did, faster than a man who’d just gotten off that hard should be able to. Tuck reached the door just in time for it to slam into his face and bruise his nose.
Fuck! Tuck thumped his forehead hard against the wood to give himself a matching set of shocks of pain, and when that wasn’t enough, slammed his fist against the door in a two-knuckle punch that made it rattle in its frame. Fuck!
One beat of silence. Two.
And then, Tuck listened to—well, nothing.
Nothing at all. He stopped, pressing his ear to the wood. No noise outside of sneakers shuffling down the corridor, and it hadn’t been long enough to have missed running or a second slam of the door to the stairwell.
Cade was still out there.
Maybe it was a good idea. Maybe not. Tuck opened the door anyway.
There Cade stood, head pressed to the facing wall as Tuck had done. He clenched one fist tightly enough to vibrate.
Tuck’s tongue lay still. He couldn’t say anything now. It had to be Cade; he knew it somehow. Again. For once and for a miracle, no neighbors were in the halls and no doors were cracked for eavesdroppers’ convenience.
And so he waited.
Not for long. “There’s a thing I can’t get out of my head,” Cade said without warning or preamble. “Megan called me Dad once. Did you know that?”
Tuck hadn’t.
Cade went on, rushing, wide-eyed with panic as if he wanted to but couldn’t stop. “She’d fallen asleep in the rec room, so I carried her up to bed. She was thirteen. So skinny her bones almost poked out. Carrying her was like carrying air. Me. She called me—”
“And? You were like a dad to her, sort of.” Tuck raised one shoulder. “Same as I was to Hannah.”
Cade shook his head sharp, hard, no doubt forgetting he didn’t have long hair to whip his cheeks with. “That’s different. You’re different. But me? I fuck up everything I touch.”
Tuck stiffened. “Wait a damn minute. What’s that supposed to mean?”
Cade put his hand up between them to warn Tuck off. “I didn’t deserve—”
“Stop.” Tuck pushed Cade’s barrier away. His head swam with so much to sort through, so many questions jabbing at him like sharp sticks.
Deserve? Man, that made his head hurt. He had to think about that one. Or approach it from a side angle, maybe, starting with the simplest truth he knew. “Brother or father, what’s it matter? You were better to her than any blood family she had.”
Cade scoffed. “She called me Dad. I can’t stop hearing it.”
It took everything Tuck had not to just grab the man and hug him stupid, or hug the stupid out of him. Whichever. But if he let himself try, Cade would completely lose his shit, and that’d make everything worse in the long run. Loving a proud man? Not easy, not even when times were good.
Tuck had to settle, unwillingly because it wasn’t enough, for a simple “I don’t know. Seems like maybe that means you should listen.”
Cade snorted. No response but for a silence that wanted more words.
Trouble was, Tuck’s well had almost run dry. “You want me to make it easy on you? I can’t. But you want to know what I think?”
He waited for Cade to nod, not sure he would, and loosing a deep breath when, finally, Cade did.
“Way I see it, you wouldn’t be here now if you didn’t want to change your mind. To go with me, to the girls.” For starters, Tuck thought but didn’t say.
Cade closed his eyes. His lips moved. No sound came out, and Tuck couldn’t read lips, but he thought that was Cade saying yes and I know.
How could one man break his heart so many times and still leave enough left over to break yet again?
“I’d make it easy if I could,” Tuck said. “Trust me, I’d like to toss you over my shoulder and haul you down the road.”
Cade laughed. “God. You never change.”
“Made you smile. I’m not sorry about that.” Tuck rubbed his forehead. What he had to offer Cade, no choice, didn’t come any easier the second time around tonight. “You’re the one who has to make the choice. Are you out, or are you in?”
Cade stood so still. “Pathetic,” he said, aiming the word at himself.
“You’re really not.” Tuck stood back and swung the door to his apartment wide open. Couldn’t hurt and might help. If ever a man needed to go home and rest his tired head, that man was Cade. “Come on. We can talk about it, fight about it, whatever you want. And I mean talk, not fuck. I’ll be good.”
Sometimes, in rare effervescent moods, Cade had teased Tuck about how he wore his heart on his sleeve. Speak for yourself. The only difference between them was the way Cade’s heart hu
ng loose with ripped stitches and frayed edges, and Tuck had learned how to sew his on tight.
He wasn’t the best man in the world. But he wanted to be someone who could be counted on. Cade used to know that.
The way Cade looked at him now, Tuck thought maybe Cade was remembering that. Daring to take a chance on it. He hoped so. “You promise?” Cade asked.
“I’ll promise to try.”
Be damned if that didn’t make Cade smile, the tiniest quirk of his lips. The weirdest fucking things amused that guy. Go figure.
“What?”
“I think I believe you.” Cade sobered as quickly as he’d betrayed a glint of humor. “If you’re promising you’ll try to be good, that means you want to be bad. Doesn’t it?”
“It’s you,” Tuck said. “So yeah. I do. But a promise is a promise. Hands off unless you say so, even if it drives me out of my mind.”
“As if you were ever in your right mind.”
God but Tuck had missed the way his body warmed to Cade’s teasing.
Still, Cade hesitated. “There’s no other way to do this for Hannah and Megan, is there? Not and keep our promise to be there for them.”
“Not that I can think of. No.”
“Then you need to understand something.” Cade lifted his chin, warning Tuck that he wasn’t going to like this. At all. “What happened tonight can’t happen again. You know perfectly well that if we let it, it will. I’ll hold it together for the wedding. But after that…” He trailed off, shaking his head.
“After that, what?” Tuck asked quietly, though he already knew. “End of the line. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
Cade didn’t flinch or back down, though he looked paler and the circles under his eyes far darker. “Yes. I want you to promise me that as soon as the wedding’s over, so are we. For good. You walk away. I walk away. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
Tuck almost never felt tired and never at all without hope. He did now, without another choice in sight but to agree, even if it was as hard and painful as a Saturday night special jammed against his heart. “If you want it to be over after that, then yes.”
Cade let out a shaking breath. “Promise me.”