Off World 2: Sanctuary

by Stephanie Vaughn

  “Oh, baby. Baby, c’mere.” Sandy opened his arms and Alex moved in. Sandy raised his chin to make room as Alex slipped his arms around Sandy’s waist and settled in against the wide chest. “Did Sotheran do it himself?”

  “Yeah.” Alex nodded and Sandy stroked his hair, combing his fingers through the silky dark strands.

  “When?”

  “The night I saw you at Nelly’s. Four days ago, I think. You wanted to talk and you went up to my room to wait, but when I finally got there, you weren’t there -- when they walked me up.” Alex untucked his head and leaned back, gazing up at Sandy. “Where’d you go?”

  Sandy sighed, trying to decide how much to tell Alex. “I, um, I got waylaid. Why didn’t you comm me?”

  “I did.”

  “Oh.” Feeling like the lowest life form on terra, Sandy closed his eyes and wrapped his arms tighter around Alex. “God, I’m sorry. Shit. I should’ve thought…”

  “It’s okay.” It was the defeated little shrug that did Sandy in. “I handled it.”

  “Sure, by yourself. You shoulda had me -- Sarhaan, Kai, at the very least -- helping. Sleeping on some stranger’s couch. You did sleep on the couch -- right?”

  “Yes, Mother, I slept on the couch.”

  “Well, don’t say it like it’s completely ridiculous. You’re a good-looking guy with a great body. Of course he’d want you.” Sandy tilted Alex’s head back, pushing the hair off Alex’s forehead with one hand to get a clear view of those blue eyes. “Who wouldn’t?”

  “Astonishing, isn’t it, how many are able to resist my exotic allure?”

  Alex might be mocking, but Sandy wasn’t. “Yeah, it is. I don’t know how anyone could look at you and not want you. If they talked to you -- got to know you, even a little -- then it’s even more unbelievable.”

  “I think you must’ve taken one too many blows to the head, Sandy. That, or there’s something off with your eyes.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my eyes. I can see just fine.” He wanted to kiss Alex, ached to, so much that holding back caused a physical pain in his chest. Those eyes. That mouth. The smooth, pale skin with the tiny scar high on one cheek. “Alex—”

  Sandy gave up fighting, closed his eyes and leaned down, tilting his head to find the perfect angle to kiss perfect Alex’s perfect mouth. Alex wasn’t panicking, but Sandy took things slowly nevertheless as he moved in, teasing Alex’s spare upper lip, drawing it in between his teeth. Alex’s hands at the small of his back gripped the material of his shirt. As Sandy leaned forward, their lower bodies pressed together and he groaned at the glorious pressure of Alex’s hardening dick pressing on his.

  Letting his hands slide down Alex’s body, Sandy gripped Alex’s arms and pulled the man closer for a more thorough kiss. He loved the way Alex tasted, smelled, felt in his arms. Sandy needed to get closer, couldn’t seem to get close enough. He wanted to be right next to Alex’s body, skin to skin, to hold that slim body between his hands as they rolled across the bed. As they fucked.

  Sandy broke away, came back for another kiss, slid a hand down to cup Alex’s ass and press him closer. He groaned and kissed Alex again. “Alex. God, you feel good. Oh, yeah.”

  “Sandy, hold me.” Alex wrapped his arms around Sandy’s neck and squeezed. Lifting himself up onto his toes, Alex would have climbed into Sandy’s lap if they’d been sitting. Instead, he wrapped one leg around Sandy, rubbing his now fully erect cock against Sandy’s.

  Alex was tall, but Sandy was both taller and heavier, so having Alex lean his full weight on Sandy wasn’t a problem. Except that there was no reason for this awkward fumbling when there was a perfectly good bed at hand. This was the same apartment, after all, that Sandy had used for the months the guys had been gone on the run to 10-Hygiea.

  Sliding his hands down to Alex’s ass again, Sandy lifted Alex and walked them both backward toward the bed. “I want to lie down with you. Hold you.” The backs of Sandy’s legs now touched the bed and all he could think of was the last time they’d been in a bed together. “Will you?”

  “Mmmhmm.” Alex squeezed with his legs as he leaned back in Sandy’s arms. “Just hold me?”

  “Whatever you want. Hang on.” As carefully as he could, Sandy lowered them both to the bed, enjoying the view of Alex smiling cautiously down at him. When Alex’s smile slowly faded, Sandy realized he’d just been sitting, staring. “What is it?”

  “Are you going to take your shirt off?” Alex’s fingers were teasing Sandy’s hairline at the nape of his neck, stroking delicately, sending shivers up Sandy’s spine.

  “I could do that.” Sandy was leaning back, his hands bracing their combined weight and gravity was his friend, because it pressed Alex’s cock deliciously down on his.

  “Mmmhmm. I want to see it again.”

  “It’s the tattoo, isn’t it?” Trying to keep it light, Sandy smiled. Knowing Alex might bolt at any minute if he moved too fast, Sandy kept his gaze fastened on Alex’s face as he unbuttoned the shirt. Alex’s gaze never moved from the section of skin revealed by each successive closure unbuttoned. “I think you’ve got a tattoo fetish.”

  Alex didn’t respond, just reached out one tentative hand, only to stop millimeters from Sandy’s chest. Raising his gaze to Sandy’s for the first time, the glow in Alex’s eyes took Sandy’s breath away and Sandy knew what the question would be. “May I?”

  Sandy could only nod.

  Alex’s touch was so faint, so tantalizing, Sandy wondered for a moment if he only imagined it. It didn’t matter, though -- his nipples hardened to a sweet ache anyway when he finally shrugged his shirt all the way off and he was bare before Alex’s gaze.

  “Why doesn’t it go all the way around?” Alex was running his fingers over Sandy’s skin, tracing the designs again, letting his fingers trail upward, beginning at the beltline and leaving a trail of sensation in their wake.

  “The, uh, the tufuga -- the elder who did the tattoo -- he wouldn’t do it the traditional way. The old way.” His dick was painfully hard, too, and Sandy was having a hard time concentrating on anything beyond Alex’s touch and where it might go next. “Said since we were pushed off the islands, it wasn’t right to do it the old way. So instead of a horizontal band around the body, he did a vertical band. Something about… God.”

  “What do you mean pushed off?” Alex’s fingers trailed lightly over Sandy’s belly, stroking small, repetitive motions across the short lines near the waistband.

  “Alex, that’s…”

  “What?” Alex stopped.

  “Don’t stop. I’ll keep talking if you keep touching me.”

  “Deal.” Continuing the maddeningly delicate tracing, Alex followed the outline of Sandy’s tattoo, his touch much too light. Preoccupied by imagining where Alex’s fingers might go next, Alex’s reminder came as a frustrating distraction. “You’re not talking.”

  “Right, um. So, because we didn’t have the land any more, he couldn’t do it the old way. The traditional way. So he did it the same, only different.”

  Lying back on the bed, Sandy reached for his belt buckle, only to have Alex brush his hands away. “Let me.”

  Alex’s voice was soft, as soft as his fingers when he reached under Sandy’s waistband and grazed the sensitive head of Sandy’s dick and the concept of rational speech evaporated. “Oh, Alex. Just—”

  “Just…?”

  Sandy raised his heavy eyelids, moving his gaze to Alex’s hands moving so seductively near his cock. Alex looked into it -- like he was enjoying what he was doing. Alex would have learned how to fake responses with a high degree of believability. “Just anything.”

  “Really? Do you mean it? Because… because I’d really like to… ”

  Alex’s gaze never strayed far from Sandy’s belly, the tattoo, where the tip of Sandy’s dick was just visible over the waistband of his pants. The seconds ticked by as Alex stared.

  “Do it.”

  That got Alex’s attention. “Do
what? You don’t even know what I’m thinking.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Do it.”

  “Yeah?” Trailing two more tormenting fingers down the center of Sandy’s chest, over his belly button, until they reached the snap of Sandy’s pants, Alex’s face broke into a cautious smile. “This is going to be so hot.”

  ***

  A feeling of wonder slipped over Alex as he gazed down at Sandy. Every time he thought he couldn’t be any more amazed, Sandy proved him wrong. So beautiful. So incredibly giving. So sexy.

  Alex closed his eyes to better concentrate on how impossibly good touching Sandy felt. From his position straddling Sandy, Alex flexed his hips and realized his problem immediately: he had too many clothes on. Dropping a quick kiss on Sandy’s mouth, grinding his groin against Sandy as he did so, Alex pushed himself away.

  “Where’re you going?” Sandy’s gritty, guttural tone sent heat flashing through Alex.

  Sandy was hot.

  Desperate.

  It was Alex who was doing it to him.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be right back.” Alex stood and quickly shoved his pants and shoes off, yanking his shirt over his head and dropping it where he stood. In seconds he was climbing back on the bed.

  The first thing he did was remove Sandy’s hand from where it had strayed to stroke his own cock. “If you want something to do with your hands, put them here.” Alex took Sandy’s hands in his and placed them firmly on his own butt. Sandy’s fingers immediately sank into the skin, digging into the muscles beneath, making Alex whimper.

  “Like that?”

  “Perfect. Now don’t move them.” Alex lined his body up with Sandy’s so that their dicks lay next to each other, touching, and flexed his hips again. Sandy’s quick intake of breath told Alex that it must feel nearly as good to Sandy as it did to him, so Alex stroked again. The sight was nearly as entrancing as the feeling, their two cocks touching. The sheer intimacy of it took his breath away.

  He placed his hand on both cocks, spanning them, pressing them closer together, and groaned.

  “Alex.” Sandy was panting, his thumbs digging into Alex’s hips.

  “What?”

  Eyes shut tight, Sandy’s head pressed back into the mattress, the tendons in his neck straining with the effort. “You’re killing me. You know that. And, no, don’t stop. Don’t you dare.”

  “Okay.” Alex began to move, stroking up into his own hand, where it grasped two hard cocks. He tried using both hands and the additional pressure was incredible, but when Sandy jerked and nearly dumped him off the bed, Alex put one hand back on the bed for balance.

  He experimented.

  He put one hand beside Sandy’s shoulder, flexing with his hips and pumping his hand simultaneously. He needed to lean forward, though, and found that by rising up on his knees a bit he found a new angle that created the most amazing friction.

  “Alex, yeah, like that. That’s… God.” His face pulled taut with tension, Sandy choked out his words, but Alex couldn’t stop. It felt too good, The two of them -- together -- it was the most personal, intimate thing Alex had ever been involved in.

  And so incredibly hot.

  It was unbearably hot.

  “Sandy.”

  Alex gazed down at his hand, holding the two of them together, at Sandy’s gloriously straining body, that face a mask of overpowering pleasure. Alex came. His long spurts of semen splattering his hand, their dicks, Sandy’s chest. As Alex’s come rained down on them both, Sandy climaxed and sprays of hot, salty jism went everywhere.

  Staying where he was as random tremors wracked their bodies, Alex could only smile. He couldn’t escape the thought that somehow his pleasure had actually heightened Sandy’s. That Sandy had gotten off on Alex’s orgasm, and it was a revelation.

  Leaning forward, Alex licked a fleck of come from Sandy’s chin. Found another on his neck and tasted it, lapping delicately at the salty taste, distinguishing easily between the flavors of sweat and semen.

  “C’m’ere.” Sandy’s hand moved from Alex’s waist to his shoulder, tugging, and Alex reluctantly leaned sideways to slide off, settling on Sandy’s outstretched arm. Pressing a kiss to Alex’s forehead, Sandy draped his arm over Alex, drawing his lover close and Alex relaxed into him.

  The collective heat from their bodies kept Alex warm in the relative cool of the room, but he would have stayed close even without the chill. Plastered against Sandy’s side, he breathed in the scents of skin and sex as he traced the designs on Sandy’s skin through the slide of fluids combined there.

  “Always with the tattoo. Would you even give me the time of day if I didn’t have it?”

  Alex craned his head back, checking Sandy’s face. Something about the small smile there failed to reassure. “You’re kidding, right? Are you kidding?”

  “A little. I guess. I’m really not sure.” Sandy’s hand stroked idly back and forth across Alex’s back, scratching beneath his shoulder blade and sending shivers up his spine.

  “You can’t be serious. How could you think something like that could even make a difference? It’s who you are. You’re so different -- inside -- from anyone I’ve ever met, I think.”

  “How am I different? How can you say that when I’m using you to get off, just like everyone else in your past did?”

  “Is that how you see yourself? I… that’s so wrong. You treat me better than anyone else in my life ever has. You ask me if something is all right and I feel like my answer makes a difference to you. Like if I said it wasn’t, you’d change what you were doing, or stop altogether. No one’s ever done that for me before.”

  Pulling him closer, Sandy pressed another kiss to the top of his head. “You ought to have so much. I just wish I could give you everything you should have.”

  “You give me too much. More than I deserve.”

  “Hey, D’abu!” Jacob Naslund’s voice carried clearly from the bottom of the stairs. Beside Alex, Sandy stifled a curse.

  “What’s up, Nas?”

  There was a long pause, and then Naslund’s careful response: “Uh, how do you want me to answer that?”

  Sandy sat up, scratching a spot above his temple, his gaze coming to rest on Alex. “Okay, let me rephrase: what can I do for you?”

  “Listen, if you guys have, uh, finished your talk, Sarhaan needs you back at the ship. That thing he and Xuwicha were working on looks like it’s going to happen, so he wants to make sure everything’s ready to fly.”

  Alex looked away. If the crew was about to ship out again, Sandy would likely go with them this time, so he needed to get used to life without Sandy to lean on again.

  “Yeah, right. Okay. With you in ten.” Sandy’s hand cupped Alex’s shoulder. “You’re coming with, right?”

  Unable to hide his response, Alex’s gaze flew to Sandy’s face. Only a few seconds of Sandy’s expectant gaze was all Alex could handle, though. Circling his hand over the ridge of muscle that bridged Sandy’s stomach and his hip bone, Alex stalled. “I, um…”

  “I want you to come with us. I’ll sleep a lot better if I know where you are.” The worry was obvious in Sandy’s voice and Alex hated being one more thing Sandy had to be concerned about. “Alex?”

  “You don’t have to worry about me, Sandy. I’ve got a place to stay for the time being. I’ll get something better, as soon as I find another job. I’ll be okay.” Alex kept his face turned away. Maybe if he didn’t look Sandy in the eye...

  “Alex.” Sandy sighed. “I don’t want to tell you what to do. You don’t have to do anything to please me, God knows. But I’m serious: it would be a big weight off if I knew for sure that you were someplace safe while you looked. In fact, Caleb could probably help you. He kicks ass on the computer and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

  His face concealed, Alex pressed his lips together and thought. Being with Sandy for more than just a couple of hours in the evening would be great. But part of his new life was learning to stand on his own, not cadg
ing off friends, taking advantage of their generous natures. He’d already done too much of that.

  “Sandy, you don’t have to—”

  “I know I don’t have to, but I want to. I really mean it when I say it would go a long way toward letting me be more effective on the job. Besides,” Sandy sifted a hand through Alex’s hair, the smile in his voice obvious. “I like spending time with you and, pardon my ego here, but I think I might even be good for you. I know you’re good for me.”

  Alex couldn’t help an answering smile at that and hid his face against Sandy’s side. “You don’t have to protect me, Sandy. I know you don’t think so, but I really can manage things on my own. I appreciate the offer, though.”