by Willa Okati
“I may just.” Hannah lifted on tiptoe to kiss Tuck’s cheek. “Oof. There’s an en-suite shower in this room. Just saying.”
“You didn’t complain before.”
“That was before I showered. Sweet dreams, guys. By the way, theoretical physicists do dream of electronic sheep. Ask me about it in the morning.” She glanced behind Tuck and frowned. The tiniest bit, only for a second.
“Hannah?”
“Nothing.” She squeezed his hand and let go. “The coffeepot’s set for seven thirty. I’m holding that and all other forms of caffeine hostage until you’re awake and with me.”
“Unfair,” Tuck called after her, and then she was gone, padding silently on bare feet down the hallway. Leaving him with nothing to do but push the door closed with a smooth snick of a perfectly aligned lock.
And then there were two. Tuck toed out of his sneakers, then swung a left to the dresser with only a casual glance at Cade. Not so much effective, since he could see Cade reflected in the dresser mirror.
“This is getting to be a habit,” Tuck said to Cade’s reflection.
Cade almost-smiled again. He held the gaze for a count of one, two, three before he looked away, down at his work. He had laid out almost everything Tuck had packed and almost nothing of his own. He stroked the shirt he’d chosen, Tuck’s favorite, with that new thoughtfulness in his every move.
Interesting. Possibly positive. “You okay?” Tuck asked.
“Today…” Cade started, choosing his words carefully. He pulled his shirt over his head almost absently, probably not even realizing what he did. “None of it was what I’d expected.”
No kidding. But he hadn’t said so as if it were a bad thing, had he? “You had a good night after you allowed yourself to have one,” Tuck said. “Go on, admit it.”
Cade’s lips looked so soft when he let them ease into that smile of his. Sweet. Tuck wanted to taste them. All he needed—maybe—was one more push. “You think so?”
Tuck sat on the bed to test its softness. And, maybe not so incidentally, to get closer to Cade. He caught Cade’s hand and pressed his lips to the back. “You know what? I do. You were happy.”
Cade stroked the ragged edge of the duffel. He wasn’t really looking at it, but at something in his memory, when he replied. Maybe he was seeing fireflies. “I was,” he said and sounded as if that surprised him. “I really was.”
“Then why let it end now?”
God damn his mouth that never knew when to stop and came out with this kind of bomb at the very worst times. All his good humor gone, Cade went still as stone. “Tuck, don’t.”
Hell. No reason not to go for broke now. Tuck reached for Cade, a space open where Cade could come into his arms if he chose. “I suck. I’m sorry. And I mean that.”
Cade took a breath that brought him back to life but not to peace of mind. “It’s not… No, let me finish.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t something I wasn’t thinking about either. It was me who said it first. Every time we’re together, it’s impossible not to start drifting back to the way we were, and after what happened, yes, that is a bad thing.”
“Uh-huh.” Tuck eyed him. “Funny how you don’t look me in the eye when you say that.”
“Damn it, Tuck.” Cade started unpacking his own goods, not going easy on them at all. Jerk, tug, toss. “It’s a bad thing because you promised when this was over, we were over.”
Tuck nodded. He tucked his chin down and drummed his fingers against his arm. “If you still wanted that, was what I said.”
Cade shut his eyes. He hadn’t missed that, and he hadn’t forgotten. Tuck knew. But he needed time to think that through, really think about it. Just Cade’s way.
And so Tuck waited.
The room wasn’t that much bigger than their first apartment. When Tuck breathed in, he could taste Cade’s scent, warm and musky from a long day, salty, and bearing one last hint of soap from his morning shower. The breadth of his chest, covered with its light down of hair, was a faint pink spreading from the neck down. His stomach flexed with his sharp breathing.
God, but Tuck wanted to taste that skin. To sweep his lips across it and trace circles with the tip of his tongue around—everything.
“What do you want from me?” Cade asked. He opened his eyes, barely, the irises dark as night beneath the hood of his lashes. “What do you think’s going to happen?”
That was Cade, man. Too proud to back down and at the same time daring Tuck to keep pushing and see who backed down first.
“I don’t know,” Tuck said. He took Cade’s hand in a tighter grip and didn’t let go. “How about you tell me?”
Cade’s cheeks darkened. He was angry now. Good. Better than. See, this was the way it used to be, and Tuck loved it when Cade got riled up before bed. When he was a thin thread’s worth of patience away from pushing Tuck down and covering him, rough fire in the long, solid stretch of his body. Pinning Tuck there with his cock hard against his stomach, ready to fuck him or love him or both, and yeah, that was what this felt like.
Cade knew that too. Tuck could tell. The deepening of Cade’s scent would have said as much if his cock hadn’t, outlined hard behind his zipper.
This was where they’d stand before the need swallowed them whole. Right on the edge. Almost there…almost…
And then, snap. Cade twisted his wrist and freed his hand. He put a yard of separation between them, fast. “Go to bed, Tuck. Turn the light out and say good night.”
No, nuh-uh, not getting away with that now. Tuck followed, pressing back into Cade’s space. Backed Cade into the corner of the bedroom and kept him there.
Cade’s hands flexed. He was a bigger man than Tuck. He could have knocked Tuck down or physically pushed him out of the way if he’d wanted to.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t or wouldn’t look away from Tuck, pleading with his body no matter what the words he said. “What are you doing?”
Tuck lifted one hand to stroke Cade’s cheek lightly with his knuckles, watching Cade’s lips part and his eyes close. “What do you think?”
If it had only been Tuck who wanted this, he would have let it pass. But it wasn’t. Cade needed this maybe more than Tuck did. He was just too proud and stubborn to ask.
And Tuck took care of his man when he needed something. Always. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it until the sun grows cold,” he told Cade, who listened with pleading and denial warring for dominance on his face. “It’d take a lot more than this to stop me from loving you.”
“Tuck…”
“It’s okay,” Tuck said, because it would be. It had to be. He took Cade by the hand, rough palm to smooth, and laid it over his heart. “I’ve got you. You know that.”
Cade rested his head against the wall, watching Tuck, not stopping him. Not wanting to. He spread his fingers wide over the spot where he’d feel Tuck’s heart beating. “Why don’t you hate me by now? You don’t make sense. Anyone else would have walked away.”
“Yeah? Good for you I’m not anyone else.” Tuck kissed Cade, once, a light brush across his lips. “What I am is yours.”
Cade searched Tuck’s face, his lips parted and his body drawn tight as a bowstring. “You shouldn’t be.”
“No?” Tuck turned his head to press his lips to Cade’s palm instead. “Too bad for me, then, because I am.”
“Tuck…” Cade’s arm jerked. Hurt a little, but that was okay. “If this happens, it won’t solve anything.”
“No.” Even Tuck knew that. “But it could be a start.”
“God.” Cade pressed his forehead to Tuck’s. Ground against him in a sharp spike of pain and a rasp of shaved hair like stubble burn.
“It’s okay, babe,” Tuck said, trying to gentle him down. “It’ll be okay if you let it.”
Cade scoffed.
“Don’t believe me?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” Tighter still Cade held him—and looser, too, trailing his hand from Tuck’s chest to
his waist, to his belt. “You make me someone I’m not,” he said. Tuck could see the walls crumbling, even if just for now. “You make me wish I could be…”
Tuck would have asked him what he meant by that, but there was something Cade needed more than words. Himself too. He lifted Cade’s chin, tasted the breath that escaped him, and slanted their mouths together.
Cade breathed a small moan between Tuck’s lips.
“It’s okay.” Tuck stroked a mirror reverse path up Cade’s chest, bare and warm and sleek. “I won’t hurt you.”
“I know you won’t mean to.” Cade covered Tuck’s hand and gripped it tight. He drew in one more deep, rib-aching breath and pressed his other palm to the middle of Tuck’s back. “I’ll be the one who hurts me. Just like always, God—” His laugh broke down the middle.
Enough.
“Stop fighting,” Tuck said, moving his mouth against Cade’s with each word. “I’m tired of fighting.”
They hovered on the knife’s edge, they hesitated, they breathed…
Cade gave way first. Forward, pushing, taking Tuck where he could, hands sliding across him and not gentle about it. Not stopping until he’d pushed Tuck onto the bed and stood above. Thick down velveteen billowed around him, the pillow drowning-soft under his head, and Cade on top of him before he’d barely noticed the first two. They didn’t matter anyway. Just Cade. Just this.
Tuck stretched out to fumble with the lamp. He pressed the button that dimmed the light to darkness, leaving them with nothing but shadows and sounds and senses. He could still make out the dark shadows and moonlit angles of Cade’s face through the sheer curtains over the west-facing windows, and that was enough. He’d seen. Now he wanted to feel.
He let go and let Cade in, on top of him. Almost the way he used to. He’d propped his weight on his elbows and stretched out with one leg between Tuck’s, his thigh pressed tight to Tuck’s groin. Tuck’s cock throbbed with the strength of a heartbeat, jerking between them and stinging where the zipper dug in.
Cade didn’t move. He watched Tuck close, too close to be so still.
Tuck had promised once upon a time that he’d take care of his boy. Always. And so he did.
“Stop thinking,” Tuck said. He took Cade’s hand and moved it from his stomach down to his cock, pressing and molding, waiting for Cade to groan deep in his throat before he rocked his hips up. He echoed Cade’s second moan. Should have guessed how difficult it would be not to thrust up into Cade’s hand.
Especially when Cade’s third groan broke on an almost silent curse and he dropped fully onto Tuck, body to body, miles of him that ground and rocked and made Tuck turn the air blue with hissed blasphemies that matched Cade’s forbidden words half spoken and not understood against Tuck’s neck, deep beneath his ear, his shoulders bunching as he strove to go deeper, get tighter.
Tuck bit him. Once. Lightly. On the angle of Cade’s cheekbone, all he could reach. He drew his nails over Cade’s bare back and down beneath the jeans to cover and knead him. “Tonight is all that matters for tonight,” he said. “I’m yours. Take me if you’re going—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish that. Suited him that he didn’t need to. Cade’s kiss silenced the emptiness that demanded more and filled him brimful. A hard kiss, then a soft one, then rough, then across his jaw with a rasping scrape of stubble and teeth over the pulse pounding in Tuck’s neck.
Tuck would have sobbed, if he were that kind of guy. The relief—the need—
He raised his knees and clamped them about Cade’s thighs instead and pushed up, giving Cade what he needed. What he’d take. He kissed Cade back, everywhere he could reach, rubbed and scratched him anywhere else, sometimes deep enough he knew he’d leave lines to match the bruises Cade dug into his hips, his arms, at his sides.
The world could spin on an axis like this, and tonight, while it defied all gravity—it did.
Tuck knew what Cade wanted as soon as he drew back to breathe, hot puffs of air cooling the sweat that’d slicked both of them. “Sit up. I want this off.”
He tugged Cade’s belt, the raw-edged leather rough and sharp to the touch. “These too. All of them. If we’re having this night, then we’re doing it the way it should be. Hey.” He rubbed his thumb across Cade’s lips. “Slow is good. Fast is good. However you want it.”
“It’s that easy for you,” Cade said. He hooked two fingers under Tuck’s belt.
Tuck cupped his palm over Cade’s swollen cock and grinned, meaning to tweak Cade’s chain and get a reaction. He needed one as much as the other. “No. Hard.”
There. Unexpected, though maybe it shouldn’t have been, but there. The wild, only partially broken laugh, the growl, and the rough top that Cade could be, all breaking free. There.
Cade stripped Tuck’s T-shirt away, the cotton barely clearing Tuck’s head, and ripped along the way before he shoved Tuck one-handed back into the bed. He raised Tuck’s hips with a jerk and slid the jeans down Tuck’s legs. Tossed them aside to land who-cared-where.
Tuck stared up at him, a little scared, a lot turned on. His Cade. He nodded at Cade’s waist. “Those too.”
Cade slid off the bed and stood up in profile to Tuck. He flicked the buttons open and let them fall from his hips the way they’d wanted to all day and all night. Beneath, his hard-on stretched his black boxers out in almost obscene relief that made Tuck’s mouth water.
“Touch yourself,” Tuck said, sounding whisky rough and honey dipped, even to himself. “Just once, so I can see.”
Cade closed his eyes and slid his hand into his boxers. Silhouetted against the pale light streaming through the window, the thickness of his fist around his cock was a sight that made Tuck groan and press his hand down hard over his cock to keep from shooting right then, right there, too soon.
Not easy, and not easier still when Cade worked himself, head falling back and lips parting in the kind of desperate more-need-more no one could fake.
“Need you,” Tuck said. His cock throbbed and leaked drops of precum on his stomach. His legs fell apart, spreading for Cade before he had to move or lose all control and come. He rested himself on one elbow and stretched out, reaching for Cade. “God, if I don’t have you right now, I’ll lose my mind.”
Cade shifted his hips, and the boxers fell to the floor. He stepped out of them and onto the bed in the kind of move Tuck used to make, sliding on top of Tuck and slotting perfectly into place. “You’ve got me,” he said, mouth against mouth in a kiss that lasted no more than one long second. “You asked for it.”
Tuck raised his arms to wrap his fingers around the ornate curling iron of the headboard, cold metal scrolls digging into his palms. He wrapped his legs around Cade and grinned. “I know.”
Cade made a sound that might have been a laugh. Probably wasn’t. Didn’t matter when he pressed his face to Tuck’s favorite spot and dragged his teeth across it without soothing the sting.
God, the way they fit together. They’d been made for this. Tuck had thought it would be rough, but it wasn’t yet, though it might get there. He couldn’t keep track. Cade was on top of him, surrounding him, blocking out the moonlight; Cade, behaving the way he had once upon a time.
Cade’s cock slid through the sweat-slick crease of Tuck’s hip, bumping his stomach with blunt, wet strokes. He used to do that to tease, but he was already breathing with the speed of the end coming far too soon. Tuck too. The hell with that. No second-best efforts would be good enough tonight.
Tuck let go of the headboard and sat up halfway, pushing Cade partway off. He caught Cade before Cade got the wrong idea and held him by the nape. “What do you want to bet one of those imps made sure the nightstand drawer was stocked?”
The ploy worked. Cade laughed. “God. Could you not mention them right now?”
“Find out if I’m right or not, and I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
Cade’s kiss delved deep. He held Tuck tight to him with only one arm, the other long enough to stretch
out and clumsily rattle the drawer open. He laughed again into Tuck’s mouth when he dropped cool squares of foil and a full, heavy bottle on Tuck’s stomach, the chill of them making Tuck jump and hiss. “Not a word.”
Not a problem. Tuck brushed the condom packets off his stomach and went for the good stuff.
Cade hesitated. He started to pick up one of the packets.
Hell. Tuck stopped him. “Do we need those?”
Cade’s fingers flexed, reaching to and drawing back from them. “You tell me. Do we?”
There hadn’t been anyone else for Tuck. Now he knew, not for Cade either. Screw caution. He swept the sharp-edged squares off the bed to patter down like rain. “No.”
And he didn’t stop there. He shoved the lube into Cade’s hand and lay back, arms over his head once more and a cradle formed of his legs stretched out long, toes pointed and curled in turn. “Come on. Like we both want it.”
“Impossible man. You never made sense…” Cade shut up, sharp and abrupt. He dropped his head to Tuck’s chest and swirled his tongue around Tuck’s nipple, then bit.
Tuck arched off the bed with a grunt; only his hold on the headboard kept him there. “Cade.”
“Shh.” Cade slipped between Tuck’s legs, fingers slick. “Shh, not another word or I can’t hold out.”
Tuck bit his tongue, breathed out, ground his teeth. His arms burned and shook. He didn’t care. Cade inside him stung at first, reminding him of how long it’d been but setting a spark to dynamite too. He ground his knees against Cade’s hips, bone to bone, and breathed shallow, panting.
Babbling too. He could hear himself and hear Cade shushing him with lips and the press of his cheek when he went deeper, and he hadn’t forgotten where to crook his fingers.
Not even a kiss could have muffled that shout. Tuck’s hands slipped and skidded on Cade’s back. Some of the chanting pouring out of his lips, rhythm-beat to the shift of his head tossing on the pillow, began to make sense. “In, inside me, do it, Cade, give it to me hard, need it, need you, now, now, God, Cade, now.”