by Willa Okati
If he told anyone in the audience, they’d think he was nuts.
Cade would understand.
The decision made itself for Tuck. Wasn’t something he could put into words, but it sat easier than he’d thought behind his breastbone, a spark of warmth. A coal waking up, impatient to burn.
Thomas had waited half his life for something he knew wasn’t going to happen, and he hadn’t tried to change it. Just lashed himself with his own thorns and stood back to suffer.
Father Michael had left his robe and rosary behind to go—well, who knew where?
Hannah and Megan had grown up.
That left just himself and Cade, Tuck thought. And in the end, it wasn’t that easy, no.
But it wasn’t that hard either. And it didn’t matter which way it happened. Only that it did.
Tuck hooked his thumbs in his pockets and grinned up at Cade, as cheeky as the seventeen-year-old boy he’d been when they first met. “Are you gonna dance with me now or what?”
Chapter Twenty-six
Cade tipped back his head and laughed, and be damned to anything else. He took Tuck’s hand, and Tuck took his. Just like the way they’d practiced. Different in the ways they hadn’t.
The music wasn’t quite the same, a new song starting. The tempo was slower and newer, not older. Tuck thought he heard a saxophone before a woman with a voice like honeyed whisky began to sing words he couldn’t make out but still understood from the way she sang them.
“Dancing” wasn’t what Tuck would call this. They moved, sure, but this was almost—almost—as if they were alone in the apartment, where everything had gone wrong, but that was different too.
Crowd be damned. Circled about so by Cade, leading him, Tuck could have closed his eyes and breathed in the smells of home, where things had never gone wrong and always right.
He could hear the creak of their apartment floorboards underfoot and knew if he took two steps in the wrong direction, he’d bump up against the edge of the bed and take Cade tumbling down with him.
“Look at me?” Cade stroked Tuck’s side, tickling where he would know it never failed to tease Tuck awake on the rare occasion when he did drift off. Same as Tuck knew where to caress Cade and coax him back to the real world.
Tomato sauce and wood floors shining with orange-scented polish. A bottle of red and a bottle of white, both left open, and a long-empty bottle of the best of the best between them, the candle fitted into its neck burned halfway down and sweet with beeswax.
Tuck looked at Cade. Always had. Always would.
“I missed this,” Cade said, turning him around with a real gentleman’s grace, even when he stumbled. “Six months ago, I tried to tell myself I didn’t.”
“But you were wrong.”
Each breath Cade took moved their chests together. Soft now, but he drew in a sharper pull of air with the jolt of sense memory that came hand in hand with the moment, recalling when they strove as hard for each draw as they pushed against each other in rumpled sheets washed soft as down.
To look at Cade was to want him. To be held by him was to crave more. Missing something this sharp and hard meant a man shouldn’t let it go. Wanting it as fierce as a fire would consume an open field, that meant more.
But…they’d changed. Both of them. In small ways and in larger shifts. When Cade bent to press his forehead to Tuck’s, he could tell Cade knew that too.
Only, one thing had changed and stayed the same. Them. Who they could make each other.
“You know it’s not gonna be easy,” Tuck said, tilting back to look Cade in the eye. “Some things have to be different. So this doesn’t happen again. You get that, right?”
“I do now,” Cade said. His lips were so close. He touched the tip of his tongue to the top of the bow of his mouth, too pretty for a man of his shape and angles but suiting him better than any other. “I wish I’d—”
Tuck touched his mouth to Cade’s to shut him up. One kiss, quickly there and gone, but sweet enough to make a lasting impression. “That’s one thing,” he said, steady and true. “The past stays in the past.”
Cade’s forehead wrinkled in confusion.
“Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I’ve had enough of that.” Tuck took control for one turn around the small circle they’d made for themselves on the lawn. “We’ve talked it to death. Way I see it, we both know it by heart.”
Cade nodded, still a little puzzled but with a light dawning. “It’s action now.”
“Doing, not saying.” Tuck ignored the rules of the proper dance and put his arms around Cade’s waist to slow them down, almost stopping. “And not being stubborn asses about it either.”
Cade nearly laughed in the way he used to, the humor that had awakened over the years in his eyes, the softness of his lips. “Agreed.”
“Except there’s one more thing I need you to know.” Tuck stopped and gave Cade a shake, hard enough for Cade to know he meant this and easy enough not to hurt him. Never to hurt him again, in ignorance or on his way to the road paved full of good intentions that led to places not so good at all.
Cade listened to him, silent, but the way he held Tuck spoke of more. A hunger growing inside of him, finally loosed of its chains. Truth be told, that plus the dark light in his eyes burned its way inside Tuck and made him shiver. So good. “Then say it.”
Tuck held him fast. “I won’t give a damn about the past. I won’t. If you don’t. Takes two.” He made himself back up two steps, then one more, but not so far that he didn’t lose Cade’s hand. “Deal?”
Cade regarded him steadily, with the hunger not gone or satiated but purring in a lion’s rasp, deep as the sky soaring up above them. Deep as the darkness of a lover’s night. He drew Tuck back to him with the easiest of tugs, bringing them chest to chest, and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind Tuck’s ear. “All in,” he said. “Deal.”
His kiss tasted sweeter than honeyed wine and hot as raw whisky. Tuck barely even heard the wedding guests, neither their bringing their hands together in quiet clapping nor their small murmurs of delight at a piece of fairy tale unexpected. He had no ears for them. Only for Cade. And in Cade’s kiss, he couldn’t help but fall, as he always had, caught in Cade’s spell now and forevermore.
And that was as it should be, he thought. Finally.
Chapter Twenty-seven
That was as it should have been. This was better.
With the curtains drawn in the guest bedroom, daylight dimmed to the next best thing to dusk. Even if the air did grow close and warm, as far as Tuck was concerned, that was all the better. Felt like New York on a summer night, where clothes were not necessary and best when cast aside to fall where they wanted.
Or maybe like that one July afternoon in August at St. Pius’s, when everyone else had gone on a day trip and they’d hidden behind, doing things that would have shocked the saints, and kissed for hours after, until their lips were numb and sore and neither of them sorry in the least.
As neither of them were sorry now. Finally.
Tuck stumbled into their borrowed bedroom as clumsily as the kid he’d been, laughing into each kiss when he could get the breath to.
“Something funny?” Cade asked, his mouth on the soft spot beneath Tuck’s ear, leaving marks from stubble and the graze of his teeth. Tuck drew in a sharp breath and angled up. He hooked one leg behind Cade’s. What did you know? Those dance lessons were good for more than one thing.
“It’s all funny,” Tuck said. “Everything. You. Me. Here.” He took Cade by the sides of his face, wishing to God his hair would hurry up and grow back—but not minding the shortness so much now—and kissed him with all the want burning within him. “I still think Romeo’s a moron. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”
“What?”
“To be a fool for love.”
Cade groaned against Tuck’s skin, but he shook with amusement too, and that was more than good enough for Tuck. “I missed you
,” he said. “Just so you know, I’m going to keep saying that.”
“Tonight you can. Not afterward.” Tuck reached for the buttons on Cade’s snow-white shirt. They were small and slippery, but his hands were steady. Each slipped through its hole and drew the body-warmed linen panels farther apart, baring skin he abruptly, absolutely had to taste.
Thought became action. Tuck bent, dropping to one knee, pressing his mouth to the salty-hot skin as he went. He stopped only when it was time to play, hooking two fingers beneath Cade’s belt. “Babe. Can I?”
“Don’t ever ask again,” Cade said. The words were one thing, their meaning another. Don’t ask meant don’t have to ask.
It did not, on the other hand, mean don’t tease. Tuck planned to take advantage of that. He’d earned this, damn it, and fuck him if he hadn’t gotten addicted to this particular torment.
He mouthed Cade’s cock, good and gloriously hard, fancy slacks stretched as obscenely tight as they could go over the hard line of him. Got him good and wet, the fabric clinging to him and Cade breathing in quick bursts, shallow gasps that became a strangled shout when Tuck cupped, molded, and pressed his palm against Cade.
He rocked, giving Cade something to thrust into but not enough to make him come, even when Cade did moan and tug at his hair in wordless begging. The tug became a yank, the sting in Tuck’s scalp making him purr as he rose.
This was his man, who liked a bit of rough. Who could top him like no-fucking-one else in the wideness of the world and knew what he liked. When he wanted to give it.
Looked like he was in luck. Cade’s nostrils flared, and his lips thinned tight, but there was no hiding that devil’s sparkle in his eye. Wasn’t something Tuck considered himself overfamiliar with, but something he planned to strike a match to every damn time he could.
“Get on the bed,” Cade ordered. “On your back.”
And just in case Tuck had been inclined to protest—which no way in hell he would have—Cade pushed him, sending him where Cade wanted him. Tuck landed with a bounce that rumpled up that Richie Rich duvet just fine.
He propped himself on his elbows and took in the view, because it was a view well worth taking his time over.
Who’d blame him? Cade with his coat off, his shirt open, slacks outlining every inch of his gorgeous cock.
“You’ve got me here,” Tuck said. He propped himself on his elbows, disobeying a bit. Just a bit, to tease him. “What are you gonna do with me now?”
Cade drew his belt free of its loops and tossed it to the floor. “What do you think?”
“Fuck me.” Tuck shuddered, head to toe. His cock strained against his pants; thank fuck they weren’t jeans. He had to palm himself now to press down and calm, but oh, that brought sharper glints of light to Cade’s eyes.
“Soon,” Cade said. He shrugged the shirt off his shoulders and let it fall. Tuck thought he might tease over his slacks, groping the wet spot, but no. He took the two steps to the edge of the bed, his groin within reach of Tuck’s head, and took him by the nape. Held Tuck there as he did away with the barriers in their way and freed himself.
Tuck couldn’t look away and didn’t want to. Ever. “Yeah?”
Cade laughed, dark and smoky. A tiny bit shaky. His hands didn’t shake at all when he drew the tip of his cock over Tuck’s lips, leaving the taste of sticky salt behind that demanded to be licked off. “What do you think?”
“I think this.” Tuck rested his weight on one arm for the sake of capturing Cade by the hips and holding him there, tipping himself almost off balance to lap at the head of Cade’s cock.
One taste wasn’t anywhere near enough. Nor was two. He sucked at the crown, milking Cade for the flavor of him and the slippery drops that he cradled in the cup of his tongue that he spread down Cade’s length in noisy slides of lips over shaft, taking him deeper, deeper still—
Cade pushed him back, careful but rough. He shimmied his hips to free them of the slacks and let them fall, stepping out of them as fucking gorgeous as a man could be. He took himself in hand and pumped.
“No fair teasing,” Tuck protested.
“Then get yourself undressed, and I won’t.”
Tuck arched an eyebrow. “Kind of hard to do by myself when I’m flat on my back.”
“Is that you asking me for help?”
“Nope.” Tuck savored the pause as much as Cade’s cock stiffening darker, harder, jutting up toward his belly. “That’s me telling you.”
“Demon.” Cade would have crushed Tuck if he hadn’t taken his weight on one arm, so fast and rough did he bend to kiss him breathless and half-blind. “I guess I owe you one.”
“Don’t owe me anything.”
“God.” Cade kissed him, teeth bruising lips, both of them harsh on one another the only way harsh should be.
Cade wasn’t near as careful with the buttons as Tuck had been, but any complaints there? No way. Tuck stretched luxuriantly and arched his chest, loving the feel of air on his skin. Loving better Cade’s hurricane of kisses and bites, of hands that roamed everywhere, of teeth that caught Tuck’s nipple between them and bit, making him shout and lift his back off the bed.
Cade pressed him down and held him there. “Don’t move,” he murmured, making fast work of getting those damn pants out of the way. Hell if Tuck wasn’t half as soaked as Cade, his balls aching-full and his cockhead wet.
“Fuck,” Tuck swore, making a chant of it. Cade’s mouth drawing him in, hell, it couldn’t be more different than his go at a blow this morning than if they were two different men.
Tuck guessed they might be, actually. He scratched at the sides of Cade’s head in lieu of hair, bitten-short nails scuffing, not scratching his scalp. He strained against Cade’s arm holding him firm at the waist, keeping him from thrusting up into that warm wet tunnel of a mouth, going too far and too fast to make this last.
He shoved Cade’s shoulder. “Get up here,” he said, voice rough from desire and resonant with his hunger for more, for anything, whatever Cade would give him and what he sure as hell hoped Cade would. “We’re both naked. I say we do something more about it.”
“God, you are unbelievable.” Didn’t sound like a bad thing, the way Cade said it now. “Unbelievable…”
Tuck was pleased to be right when Cade climbed atop him, stretching out full length, swollen cocks sliding hard and fast in the smooth skin between groins and hips, fucking against skin made slick with musky sweat.
Not enough, though. He shoved up, lifting Cade off him. “Follow my lead.”
Tuck could tell Cade knew what he wanted. Cade jostled Tuck half in teasing and half to get Tuck right where Tuck was sure they both wanted him, straddling Cade’s lap.
Cade didn’t let him fall while he bent and twisted to dig the lube out of the bedside table drawer. A condom came with it, static cling molding it to the side of the bottle.
Tuck scowled at the thing and held the foil square in front of Cade’s face before flicking it to the floor. “No one but you. You get that?”
Cade’s kiss told Tuck that he did and that it wouldn’t need repeating either.
Still kissing him, Cade took the slick from Tuck and put it to damn good use. Too hard, too rough, too eager, but good. So good.
Cade lifted Tuck and eased him down. He butted his head beneath Tuck’s chin, straining to wait, to let Tuck get used to it.
Hell with that. Tuck took the reins, and he ran with them, rising. “Whatever you can give, I can take.”
“You always could,” Cade said, his own jaw clenched tight. He lifted Tuck and eased him halfway down—lifted and thrust and slammed their bodies together, ass to thigh, again and again. Never the same twice, no rhythm from the beginning, but be damned if they needed that now. All that mattered was more.
Tuck bit Cade when he came with no time to warn the man, but that was okay. Cade’s nails dug into his back, sharp stings that’d leave half-moon marks to enjoy every day until they healed, and flooded Tuck, f
illing him with everything he’d held back for far too long.
They stayed as they were, gasping uselessly for deeper breaths of the humid air that tasted of sex and each other. “Here,” Tuck said, sucking up one last love mark on Cade’s neck. “And there. Just so you don’t forget.”
“As if I could.” Cade’s cum slicked his cock, making it easier and the most impossible thing ever to lift Tuck off. His arms wouldn’t take Tuck’s weight and dropped him on the bed, but that was okay, because Cade himself came tumbling after, his head at rest over Tuck’s heart.
And that too was as it should be.
He smoothed Tuck’s hair where he’d pulled too hard, not easing away the sting but reminding him of it. There was no pleasure without a little bit of pain.
After the past few months—years—Tuck thought maybe he ought to get that tattooed somewhere. Probably on his ass. He’d make Cade do it too. Thinking about what he’d have to do to convince Cade? Not a bad thing.
Tuck settled with a sigh. “Some kind of wedding.”
“Some kind,” Cade agreed, slow and sleepy.
Then there was nothing but the sound of the bed settling, sheets falling into folds, and breath slowing in time with the beat of noisy hearts. Tuck thought maybe that was it. That they’d fall asleep now, together; that’d suit him fine.
But Cade moved beneath him, shifting up. He turned his head on the pillow and nudged Tuck’s chin up to get a better look at him. “A house?” he asked. “Is that still what you want?”
Tuck propped his chin between Cade’s nipples, to the right of his heart. “Damn right. Only I’d do it different this time, that I promise. We’ll be in debt for the rest of our lives. I’m up for it. You?”
Cade nudged him down and lay still, stroking idly through Tuck’s hair, sifting the strands that dried into curls.
“Me?” he asked, taking in the comfort Tuck gave him and giving Tuck the strength he’d learned to lean on. “A home of our own, me and you,” Cade said, rolling the words on his tongue with what sounded like hope. Like happiness. “I think I’d like that.”