by E M Lindsey
Wyatt didn’t hesitate. One hand flew over Mat’s cock, a little drier than he liked it, but so fucking good, Mat didn’t care. Wyatt’s other hand moved to find Mat’s face, thumbing at the corner of his mouth before dragging him into a wet, biting, desperate kiss.
Mat lost all sense of rhythm on the cock in his hand, but Wyatt didn’t seem to mind taking charge. As he stroked Mat, he met the other man’s palm with his own thrusts, and it was only seconds after Wyatt’s hot seed shot out that Mat followed him, tumbling over the edge.
Chapter Twelve
Wyatt could safely say he’d never had sex like that. Yes, he’d traded hand-jobs, and yes he’d been horny enough that he was gagging for it—especially during his younger years—but he’d never fully lost control like that, not even with his ex. His orgasm had never been ripped out of him, leaving him half-floating and only barely aware of his surroundings.
Wyatt had expected it to be more uncomfortable than anything. Not only was he in an unfamiliar space, but he was with Mat, who had never done anything sexual with a man before. He expected to be walking Mat through the basics, gently urging him to push past things he was taught to revile rather than want. He definitely had not expected Mat to jump in with so much enthusiasm. He definitely hadn’t expected to come that hard.
He wound down with his forehead pressed against Mat’s collarbone, the other man having collapsed beside him before turning them both to face each other. Wyatt’s arm was curled up a little awkwardly under his head and slowly going numb, but he had no desire to move. With his other hand, he traced a line from Mat’s naked hip to his chest, circling through sparse hair. He paused suddenly, when his fingers encountered something a little cold, and very hard.
“Is this…” he asked.
Mat huffed a small laugh. “Piercing, yeah.”
“Is it…will it hurt if I touch?” Wyatt asked. In truth, most of the men he’d ever slept with had been clean-cut and wouldn’t have dreamt of modifying their body with ink or metal. And most of the time, Wyatt never really thought about it. If it wasn’t something he could touch regularly, or smell, or hear, the concept was always more abstract. But he was more than curious now, and—as his dick indicated by a slight twitch—he found it very sexy.
“Go ahead,” Mat said. He thrust his chest toward Wyatt’s fingers a bit and let out a tiny sigh when Wyatt began to explore his nipple. “It feels good.”
“Is that why you did it?” Wyatt asked. He moved to the other side of Mat’s chest, surprised to find that nipple bare.
“Honestly, I just liked the way they looked on Sage. I first saw them when we showered at the gym and it was…hot. I hadn’t really let myself think of guys as attractive for so long before that, it was like a slap in the face.” Mat let out another soft breath, then leaned forward and buried his nose in the top of Wyatt’s hair. “Does it feel weird?”
Wyatt let out a startled chuckle. “No. It’s different, but I like it.” He pulled back, blinking rapidly, and turned his head to the side to see if he could make out anything about Mat, but the room was too dark. He contemplated asking Mat to turn the lights up, but that would mean his lover getting out of bed, and he didn’t want to lose their closeness just yet. Instead, he let his fingers wander, over his collarbones, down his ribs, over his stomach. Mat was thinner than Ioan had ever been, and Wyatt could feel the dips and curves of well-defined muscle. “What color is your hair?”
Mat hummed, then laughed. “God, it’s…” He paused, then cleared his throat. “Never mind.”
Wyatt frowned and reached up, tipping Mat’s chin up before kissing him. “It’s what?”
“I was going to say that it’s weird you don’t know something like my hair color, but I realized that’s kind of a dick thing to say. I mean, it doesn’t really matter to you, does it?”
Wyatt grinned and drew him in for another kiss. “I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t curious. Whatever it is wouldn’t change how I feel about you. But it’s still something I like to know.” He dug his hand into Mat’s hair and let the textured strands run between his thumb and forefinger. “Is it dark?”
“Yeah,” Mat murmured. He laid his hand on Wyatt’s hip and drew a pattern along his skin. “It’s dark and it used to be kind of curly, but now it just kind of has these annoying waves to it. I definitely favor my mom’s side of the family.”
“What’s that?” Wyatt asked.
“Colombian. She was born there, in Bogotá, but her parents moved to Sacramento when she was like six. My dad’s like…the whitest white guy ever.”
Wyatt laughed, shaking his head as he drew his hand away and traced a line down the edge of Mat’s face. He had a five o’clock shadow which scratched at the pads of Wyatt’s fingers, giving way to more smooth skin along his throat. “Well, I can hardly judge that, eh? My father came from Wales, my mother’s distant family from France. It doesn’t get whiter.”
Mat leaned in to nip at Wyatt’s jaw. “So, um…can I ask how I…you know…”
Wyatt knew what Mat was struggling with, and he quickly moved to take his arm out from under his head. His hand was totally numb, but he forced it to function, cupping Mat by both sides of his cheeks. “You were amazing. Incroyable,” he added for emphasis, mostly because he knew just how much Mat loved to hear him speak French. And it was funny—it used to annoy him when he would date people who didn’t speak it and they called it romantic. But maybe it was Ioan’s refusal to even try that made it feel so much better when Mat wanted to hear it.
“Mm,” Mat said. He sounded exhausted, and he stretched alongside Wyatt’s body. “I should…I should get up and show you around. And…do you need to get home or…”
Wyatt shook his head. He knew that logically he should have Mat at least give him the lay-out of the apartment, and in truth, he probably should go. This was new, and a little fragile. He didn’t want to ruin a delicate beginning by being needy or over-staying his welcome. But with the way Mat was clinging to him, the soft note of insecurity and hesitance in his tone, Wyatt didn’t think the other man wanted him to go.
“I can stay,” he finally said. “If you want me.”
“Oh, I want you,” Mat said, and chuckled at his own double-entendre. “I feel like I’m about to pass out, but if you need anything, don’t hesitate to wake me. Okay?”
“Okay,” Wyatt murmured. He snuck in for one last kiss, then gave in to the exhaustion ready to pull him all the way to sleep.
Leaning back against the picnic table, Wyatt closed his eyes and basked in the sun on his face. There was a bite to the air, but it was warm enough to go around without a jacket, and frankly he needed something to help keep him grounded. He’d been reluctant to make the second appointment with his doctor, but he needed official confirmation—his vision was getting worse.
At twenty-six, Wyatt had been told that his vision had plateaued—he wouldn’t be getting any of it back, but he wouldn’t lose more either. His right eye was totally blind, but his left still had something. If hard-pressed, he could see blurry detail, movement, and shadow, and he had plenty of light perception to help him get along, so he didn’t need someone sighted all the time. With Pomme, his life had been his own.
But a few weeks before everything went to hell, Wyatt noticed his visual field was shrinking. He chalked it up to stress, and promptly ignored it once Ioan’s scandal had gone public, but a few months after moving to Fairfield, he was forced to confront it head-on.
He felt alone the first time he’d sat for his exam, but hours later, he’d been in James’ shop—and not long after that he, James, and Mat had spent the evening eating badly cooked take-out and trying to give James relationship advice.
He and Mat hadn’t quite been there yet—still in the stage where they’d been circling each other, and Wyatt was convinced that Mat would never be interested in him. It was different now. The news wasn’t much better—he was still losing vision and his only real hope was a stem-cell treatment that was still too exp
erimental to give him any real idea of what his chances were at slowing the progress. His doctor had referred him to another one in Montréal who happened to be an expert in the field. Had he stuck with his decision not to get involved in a relationship, he could just go home. But now, he had someone else to think about. Now, he had someone else he wanted to think about.
Reaching into his pocket, he told Siri to call Mat, then leaned back and waited for the other man to answer. It was in the middle of the day, so there was every chance that Mat was busy at the shop, but eventually his lover picked up.
“Hey, you,” Mat said, sounding somewhat surprised to hear from him. “I thought you were at the doctor.”
“I was,” Wyatt said, knowing he sounded subdued. He’d always hated feeling like a burden, but he reminded himself that although this thing with Mat was new, he was allowed to rely on the person who cared about him when things were tough. It was just a difficult habit to break. “I was hoping,” he started, forcing the words out.
“Babe,” Mat interrupted. “Do you want to come by the shop and sit with me for a while? I’m taking walk-ins, but we never get people in on Wednesday afternoons.”
Wyatt felt his heart leap, but he hesitated. “It…I would love to, but what if they notice?”
“What if who notices?” Mat asked, his tone confused.
“The others. Your…friends. Brothers. You said you needed time to process what all of this is before you told them about us,” Wyatt reminded him.
Mat laughed softly. “I did say that, and I know it’s only been a few days of this whole thing being official but…” There was a muffled sound, then Mat laughing and Wyatt was pretty sure he’d said something like, “Shut the fuck up, I’ll tell you in a second!” He huffed and came back on the line. “Sorry, everyone around here are morons. As I was saying, the other night only proved that I want this. That I want you. I don’t care who knows. I just…trust me, they’ll know before you get here.”
Wyatt breathed out, then let himself smile. “Thank you.”
Mat chuckled. “You really don’t have to thank me. This is me being a greedy bastard who wants to have you around all the time. Do you need a ride?”
“No,” Wyatt said. “I have my app to get me there, and I’m not far. See you soon?”
“I’ll be waiting,” Mat told him. “And I can’t wait.”
Wyatt heard more shouting and wolf-whistles in the background, and though it should have made him nervous, instead he felt…happy. The emotion he was feeling was happy. Maybe he really was finding his place here in Fairfield. The trickiest part of it, he was coming up on the end of his six-month stay. He didn’t have any particular job prospects now, and with a medical procedure coming up, there were no easy answers. The one thing he did know—he wanted to be with Mat.
Chapter Thirteen
It was stupid of him to assume he’d be able to keep Wyatt a secret for longer than a day with the people he considered family. Tony was in the shop that day, bouncing Jazzy on his knee as he watched Mat take shit about the phone call. He had a knowing smirk on his face, though he kept his mouth shut and eyes down, which Mat appreciated.
He knew he wasn’t going to get hate for any of it, but coming out in any capacity was terrifying. And this was the first time he’d be saying this aloud to anyone except Tony and Wyatt. He licked his lips and turned to face the room.
“Seriously, who is she?” James demanded, pointing one of his ink-bottles at Mat. “There’s no fucking way you kept some stranger a secret, so spill.”
Mat rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks flushed. “Um.” He glanced at Tony again who gave him a nod.
Unfortunately, it was not missed by James who jumped up to lean over his partition, right into Tony’s face. “Fucking spill.”
Tony turned his face away, lifting his hands to sign at his daughter, ‘You want to go play?’ Jasmine kicked her feet and giggled, and Tony escaped the shop a second later with his daughter in tow.
With a glower, James turned back to Mat. “I am your soul-mate, your best friend, and you told Tony first?”
Mat rolled his eyes. “This is so not about you, dude.” He cleared his throat and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.
It was Derek who noticed the distress on Mat’s face first, and he stood up, holding a hand out to silence James. “Hey,” Derek said quietly. “You know whoever it is, we’d never judge you, right? We just want you to be happy.”
James seemed to catch on that it was serious, and his face fell. “I was joking, Matty. Fuck, it’s…no one here is gonna care.”
Mat scrubbed a hand over his face and took in a shaking breath, checking his words to make sure they all came out right. “So…a few months ago when um…when Wyatt started teaching me braille? I realized…no,” he stopped, shaking his head. He wanted to be transparent about this. “I knew before then. I knew in college. Maybe even high school. Um. So, I’m…I’m bisexual.”
There was a ringing silence, then James sat down in his chair. “Okay,” he said after a beat.
Mat’s cheeks were flushed, and his heart was racing. “Is that…I mean. I didn’t keep it from you on purpose or anything. I’m not apart.” He shook his head, knowing that was the wrong word. “Apart…” With a breath, he tried to calm his heart and find his words. “Ashamed.”
“No,” James said in a rush, scooting his chair to the entrance of his partition. “No dude, that’s not…I just thought maybe…but I didn’t want to assume.”
Mat cleared his throat, allowing himself to process what he was feeling. Wyatt would be there soon, and he didn’t want to be a hot mess when his boyfriend arrived. Wyatt sounded distressed and Mat wanted to be able to focus on him and not all this.
“Anyway, it’s kind of a lot, and Wyatt’s still dealing with whatever he’s got going on from his ex and shit, so if we could not make a big deal out of this…?” he tried.
James blinked. “Hold the fuck up. Did you say Wyatt?”
“Yes,” Mat answered, meeting James’ gaze with a challenging stare. “Wyatt. And it sounded like he had a bad fucking day so please be chill.”
James got a look in his eye, and Mat fought back a sigh. “For him, we’ll be chill. But can we talk about all those times you walked up to Sage and made out with him to save him from the big-bad ladies hitting on him in bars when really you just wanted to put your mouth on his beautiful mouth?”
Mat covered his face with one hand. “It was not about that,” he groaned.
“Wait!” Derek shouted. “Hold the fuck up. Why didn’t you ever make out with me, asshole? Sage and I have the same face. And I know you’re not attracted to his personality more than mine!”
“I hate you all so fucking much,” Mat groaned. He was saved by the bell, literally. The shop door opened, and two women walked in, one of them with an appointment and the other for support. And as much chaos and bullshit that went on at the shop, Mat knew the guys wouldn’t out him in front of strangers. James looked a little disappointed, but he went back to his sketch for his own appointment, and Mat was left on his own until his phone buzzed.
Wyatt: I think I’m nearby, but the GPS is telling me I’m at the shop and I know it’s not here. Want to come and find me?
* * *
Mat: Two seconds, I’ll be right there.
He shoved his phone into his pocket and stepped outside, coming to a halt when he saw Wyatt fifty feet away, leaning against a planter stuffed with flowers. He was parked in front of the Korean BBQ place, looking a little distressed with a white-knuckled grip on the top of his cane.
Mat jogged over, losing his breath a little at just how gorgeous the other man was. “Hey, you.”
Wyatt perked up almost instantly, standing up straight. “Ah, hi. Sorry for the…getting lost thing. I’ve only been here once.”
Mat blinked, but realized he’d never actually seen Wyatt at the shop at all. A few times at Niko’s, and a few times at the bar, but that was it.
“No worries. GPS gets funky around here because all the places share the same address in the system. I didn’t even think of it.”
“Well, now I know,” Wyatt said with a grin. He reached out, then hesitated before touching Mat, his expression a little worried.
Mat wasn’t having any of that, though. He slid right into Wyatt’s space and gripped him by the hips. “Do I get a kiss hello?”
“Do you want one in public?” Wyatt asked, a hint of teasing in his tone.
Mat dipped his head low and brushed his nose against the other man’s. “Hell yes, but if you’re not comfortable with it…”
His words were cut off by Wyatt’s mouth, lips pliant and soft, tongue wet and a little demanding. Mat groaned into it, letting it go on for a little more than was probably proper for being on the side of the street. When he pulled back, he pressed one hand to his flushed cheek and let out a shuddering sigh.
“Good?” Wyatt asked.
Mat grinned. “So good. You? I mean, how are you feeling about you know…all this. With me?”
Wyatt’s hand, which had been on Mat’s face, moved to the crook of his neck and held him there. His face was contemplative for a second, then he grinned a little wickedly. “Si le verbe aimer n’existait pas, je l’aurais inventé en te voyant.”
Mat groaned, dropping his head down to rest against Wyatt’s shoulder. “Come on, man, are we still doing that?”
Wyatt shrugged, laughing a little bit at Mat’s whining. “You don’t want me to seduce you with French anymore?”
Mat pulled away, staring at his own reflection in Wyatt’s dark glasses. “Is that what you were doing?”
“Maybe, a little bit,” Wyatt confessed with a sheepish grin. “Maybe I like to tease you. Maybe I like to make you work for it.”