by Jerry Cole
Asher took his time, pausing often and letting Daniel adjust. His hips worked in little circles whenever he stopped moving forward, getting Daniel used to the motion, and occasionally his little stirring motions would press against that place inside Daniel again, making him tighten and squirm, sparks of pleasure like little fireworks erupting across his skin. By the time he was fully sheathed, Daniel was hard again, flushed and biting his lip, gripping the grass in order to fight the urge to touch himself. Asher was inside him, thick and heavy and impossible to ignore, making Daniel dizzy with a desire he'd never felt before but wanted so much it was enough to make him almost crazy.
Asher stopped, holding still inside Daniel though both of them were desperate to move, giving the other man time to get used to the sensation, and to the burn that accompanied it. "How are you feeling?" he asked, breathless, stroking Daniel's stomach with a shaking hand. "Do you think you can handle it if I move?"
"Please," Daniel insisted with a frantic nod. "Please, do it."
Asher shifted at once, pulling back in a slow slide that left Daniel shivering and feeling strangely empty. And then the other man slid forward again, a smooth, quick strike that Daniel felt all the way up his spine, making his heart skip in his chest. He gasped, babbled Asher's name, and the other man pulled back to thrust again. Daniel, completely overwhelmed, clung to Asher's shoulders and shook with every blow. Even the ones that missed the place inside of him that sent fireworks rushing under his skin had their own kind of pleasure. There was the strange stimulation of having his insides stirred up this way. His cock bounced and dripped with every driving thrust in, the rushes of wild, unexpected pleasure dizzying.
Asher was whispering a litany of curses, his expression an agony of pleasure as he tried to hold back, to draw this out further. He leaned over and Daniel caught the other man's mouth in a sloppy, distracted kiss, groaning as the angle of Asher's thrusts changed. Asher caught both of Daniel's hands, lacing their fingers as he rocked his hips against the deepest parts of Daniel's core. Daniel made an attempt to roll his hips as well and match the other man's pace, but it was difficult to do anything but lay there and feel it, every thrust scattering his thoughts to the winds.
Asher let go of one of Daniel's hands in order to catch the smaller man's hips instead, tilting them up for a different angle, one that drove against Daniel's spot even more solidly than before. Daniel cursed, throwing his head back as hot, liquid pleasure rushed through him, repeating Asher's name like he was begging. Asher throbbed inside him and Daniel knew the other man was close. Unable to resist any longer, Daniel reached up to stroke himself, twitching and tightening around Asher as he felt himself approaching his own end. Asher stared down at him, taking in the wanton image of Daniel flushed and spread open and desperately seeking his own climax. Daniel, too wrapped up to be embarrassed, stared back, crying Asher's name as he came, splashing his own seed across his chest and tightening around the man inside him. Asher, a few wild thrusts later, buried himself as deeply in Daniel as he could. Daniel watched Asher's face in rapturous awe as the other man came, pouring himself out inside Daniel in a hot flood. Daniel could feel it within him and the realization was almost shocking.
Asher pulled Daniel close as he finished, burying his face in the smaller man's dark hair and breathing deeply while he came down. Daniel clung to him tightly, lightheaded and feeling strangely empty without Asher inside him. Not to mention sore. He'd probably feel that a lot later. But for now he'd never felt so content.
"I could do that forever," Asher chuckled, nuzzling Daniel's ear.
"I'm in," Daniel replied, and though he'd meant it to be part of the joke, it came out more serious than he meant to. Asher pulled back a little to look Daniel in the eye, gauging how honest he was being.
"Danny..." he said slowly, but Daniel cut him off, rolling away.
"I know! I know..." Daniel sat up and reached for his clothing. "You're not the kind of guy who does commitment. I'm not the kind of guy you change for..."
Asher put his arms around Daniel from behind, kissing the back of his neck. "I'm sorry," he said, and Daniel could hear the aching sincerity in his voice.
"Me too," Daniel agreed. "I spoiled the mood again." He turned back with a sad smile and kissed Asher, tender and lingering, then pulled away and began to dress himself.
"I'll probably forget about this when I'm home anyway. I'll just go back to how I was..."
Asher leaned past him to tug Daniel's shirt out of his hands. When Daniel turned, Asher kissed him, and pushed him down into the grass again.
The second time was rougher, more desperate, and silent.
Chapter Seventeen
They stayed in the meadow for the night, making their shelter against a large tree. Now that they were so much further down the mountain, there was almost no risk of snow, so they slept without worry, curled up together in the same sleeping bag. Dawn over the meadow the next morning was beautiful, mist winding through the birch and aster.
Daniel was an expert at ignoring his feelings. They carried on following the creek as though there was no conflict between them at all. They were only slightly quieter than they had been yesterday.
"Your limping is worse," Asher observed, frowning. "Is your ankle bothering you?"
"Not quite," Daniel laughed. "It's something else that's sore."
"Oh, right." Asher turned a little red, though he was grinning. "Sorry about that. Want me to carry you?"
"I'll be fine." Daniel rolled his eyes.
"I really don't mind." Asher tried, opening his arms like he expected Daniel to just leap into them.
"Asher!" Daniel, exasperated, sighed. "I got this far with enough bruises and fractures to choke a horse. I think I'll survive a little post coital soreness!"
Asher gave up, embarrassed.
"Besides, it's not that much further anyway, is it?" Daniel pulled the map from his pocket and unfolded it, checking where he thought they were against the landmarks. "We'll be at the falls soon. And that's less than four miles from the trail head. Look, you can see the water speeding up before the falls."
The stream, which had been mostly placid until now, had grown more quick and shallow as it approached its end. Daniel felt a rush of excitement tempered by regret. He ignored both.
"I think they might be just past this wood here," Asher mused, peering at the map as the trees began to thicken around them again. "If that's the right mountain then—"
A distant yell—the unmistakable sound of a human voice—echoed in the distance. Asher and Daniel looked at each other once, then took off towards it, rushing in their delight.
"Carter!" They heard more clearly as they got closer. "Price!"
"It's a search team!" Daniel said, elated. "They're looking for us!"
They rushed towards the voices, hearts pounding, Daniel limped ahead of Asher so that the larger man wouldn't leave him behind.
"Hey!" Daniel tried to call out, breathless and stumbling from the effort. "Hey!"
But his calls seemed to blend in with the search party's or get caught on the wind. He gave up, saving his breath for his limping run, leaning heavily on his walking stick, his ankle protesting every step as it had been for days.
"Daniel," Asher, hurrying after him, called out, quiet but insistent. "Daniel. Danny!"
He grabbed Daniel by the shoulder, dragging him to a stop. Daniel turned, confused, and started to ask why, but Asher put a finger to his lips. "Something doesn't feel right," Asher said, "Just humor me for a second, okay?"
Daniel frowned, but if he couldn't trust Asher after all this, then what was the point of any of it? He nodded, staying quiet as Asher took the lead, moving cautiously forward through the underbrush. Soon they heard voices again, not far ahead of them.
"Carter! Price! Are you out here?"
Daniel's eyes widened as he realized it was Donahue's voice. He'd never expected his boss to be out here personally searching for him. He started to step forward, but Asher put
out a hand to stop him, giving him a look to keep him silent.
"Sir, it's been days."
Daniel, after a moment, recognized secretary Susan's voice.
"I'm certain if they were alive they would have been found by now."
"I can't just give up, Susan!" Donahue scolded the woman. Daniel saw the couple come into view a little distance away, moving between the trees with flashlights though it was early in the day. Asher pulled Daniel down beneath the cover of the bracken. "If the bodies haven't turned up then there's still a chance they're alive!"
Daniel smiled, touched by Donahue's unexpected concern. Asher's concern had obviously been misplaced.
"And if they're still alive, I have to kill them myself!"
Daniel's blood went cold.
"By which you mean, have me kill them, sir."
"Of course Susan, don't be absurd. I'm a gentleman! I don't do my own murdering."
"Of course not, sir. In that case, would it not be more efficient to just wait and let the wilderness take care of them?"
"And risk one of them wandering out alive and word getting back to the Family that I threw their enforcer into the rapids in a leaky raft? Or worse! Someone might actually find the bodies! If I'm going to convince the Family that their man ran off with the money I owed them, Asher Price has to disappear completely! And that means I have to find the bodies first. And if they aren't bodies yet, they will be."
Asher gave Daniel a significant look and Daniel, a little weak kneed, leaned on him to keep himself upright. Mr. Donahue was trying to kill him?
"Besides," Donahue sniffed self-importantly, his voice getting more faint as he moved away from Daniel and Asher's hiding place, "diligently searching makes me look good."
"It would make you look better sir if you were doing it with the rest of the search teams on the Roaring River."
"Well, their bodies aren't going to show up on a river I didn't put them in, are they Susan? Really, use that big brain I hired you for."
The two continued to bicker, occasionally calling out for the missing men, until their voices receded into the distance. When it was safe, Daniel slumped to the ground.
"Holy shit."
"Holy shit is a vast understatement."
Asher sank to the ground next to Daniel, running a hand through his hair, eyes wide.
"I can't believe Mr. Donahue wants to kill me." Daniel let his head rest against the tree behind him, stunned beyond any other reaction.
"Me either," Asher agreed, "I never would have thought that little weasel had the balls. We're going to have to change up our plans."
"What, why?" Daniel sat forward, frowning at Asher. "We're almost out! We can take Mr. Donahue, right?"
"Probably," Asher shrugged, "but not Susan. I've seen that woman's arrest record. She's terrifying. She has killed before and she will again. I'm not going anywhere near her without serious firepower."
Daniel was taken aback for a moment, trying to imagine Donahue's tidy, efficient secretary as 'terrifying.' She did always have a way of appearing where you least expected her.
"So what do we do?" Daniel asked as Asher stood, accepting the other man's hand when he offered it. "Do we keep looking for the trail?"
"He'll have someone watching it," Asher ran a hand over his face in frustration. "If we just blunder out we'll walk right into his hands. We have to get to a phone, but even if we get out of this park, he'll just keep trying. That Susan is relentless."
"Can't we call the cops?" Daniel asked, searching for a way out of this mess. "If we tell them Donahue is planning to kill us, they'll protect us, right?"
"We don't have any evidence," Asher shook his head. "It'd be our word against his. And his word is backed up by a lot of money and high priced lawyers. We won't win. Plus, if the Family finds out I didn't get his money and let him get away without so much as throwing a punch, they'll be after us too."
He leaned against the trunk of a tree, and Daniel saw him fumbling for a cigarette he didn't have. Daniel leaned against a tree across from him, the gap between them wide and stark. Daniel contemplated that distance while Asher, muttering and wishing for nicotine, focused on a plan that could save them.
All Daniel could think about was the things they were refusing to say, the fears they were refusing to deal with. They got along so well so long as they didn't talk about it. If he ignored the disappointment on the horizon, he could be happy with Asher. Happier than he'd been for most of his life. But that couldn't last. As soon as they left these woods, reality would be there to spoil everything. He stared across the gap at Asher, heart aching as he tried to come to terms with the inevitable ending to all of this. Eventually, Asher stopped grumbling about how this was not the way he'd planned to quit smoking, and noticed Daniel's stare.
"What's wrong?" he asked, concern drawing lines between his brows.
"What if we just left?" Daniel tried, heart pounding with futile hope. "Forget Donahue and the mob and everything else. The world thinks we're dead. We could go anywhere. Just start over, you and me."
He expected the look of guilt and pity on Asher's face, but that didn't make it hurt any less.
"You know that wouldn't work, Danny," Asher said, like he was breaking the news that Santa wasn't real to a child who should have figured it out by now. "Even if the Family wouldn't come after my head, we wouldn't get far with no money or identities. It's not that easy to just abandon your life and start again."
"We could try," Daniel pushed, the corners of his mouth pulled down in grim desperation. "I've got some savings. We'll go somewhere they don't care about who we are. An island somewhere. Or a mountain. If we could live out here, we could make it work."
Asher sighed, looking away and rubbing at his eyes. "No, we can't," he insisted. "You think camping out for a few days means you're prepared to be homeless and hunted by the mob? I won't put you in danger like that."
Daniel's hands tightened on the hem of his sweater, clutching it in white-knuckled fists. "Are you saying that because it wouldn't work," his blood was rushing in his ears and his voice came out louder than he meant it to, "or because you don't want to be with me?"
Asher looked stunned for a moment, caught off guard by Daniel's intensity. "Danny, you know it isn't… Look, we can deal with this later."
"No! I'm tired of pretending this isn't a problem." Daniel was shaking with something between heartbreak and indignant anger. "I can't just pretend this is enough for me. It's not like I blame you for me not being good enough. I'm not an idiot. I know I'm nothing special."
"Danny, that's not true—"
"Stop trying to save my feelings," Daniel demanded, pinning Asher with a fiery, wounded glare. "I'm not a kid or some fragile thing you have to take care of. You keep putting it off like it'll be easier for me if you ditch me as soon as we get home. I know what I am, Asher. I'm bitter and lonely and weird and up until a few days ago I thought I was straight. Now I try to think about going back to how my life was before, to living any kind of life without you in it, and it feels like dying."
He paused to push back the angry tears that tried to overcome him at the thought of the empty, lonely life he'd lived before this. Asher, his expression tortured with guilt, reached out, then thought better of it, opened his mouth to say something, but couldn't find the words.
"I don't expect you to spend the rest of your life with someone like me," Daniel's voice was choked, but he pushed the words out anyway. "I just can't stand to keep pretending everything is fine. It hurts, thinking about what it could be like, when I know it won't happen. So if you won't stay with me when this is over, if you don't want to be with me, just tell me now and stop pretending. That's all I'm asking. Just get it over with now."
Asher just stared at him for a long moment, conflicting emotions rioting across his handsome features. Hurt and guilt and shame boiled up towards anger while Daniel watched.
"You're so full of shit," Asher blurted out at last, startling Daniel. "You're honest
ly going to stand there and say you're not good enough for me? Were you not listening when I told you I work for the mob? Do you think I can just settle down with someone while I'm living that kind of a life? That we could have some kind of cute domestic fantasy while I'm breaking kneecaps on the weekends? It was never going to be anything but a fling because I can't be with anyone. I can't put anyone through that. Especially not someone I… Someone I genuinely like!"
Daniel listened in silence, his expression frozen in a look of angry hurt.
"Try to understand…” Asher pushed his hair back with a frustrated sigh. "The more I liked you, the more I’ve realized I can't risk being with you. The worse it would be if you got hurt because of me."
Daniel just shook his head. "Fine," he hissed. "Fine! If it's so painful to be around each other, then I'll leave! I'll go and find Donahue. It's you he wants dead after all. He doesn't care about me. So just figure out your own way home. It'll probably be easier without me."
"Danny, don't—" Asher tried to protest as Daniel hobbled onto his walking stick and started to limp away. Asher reached for Daniel's shoulder and Daniel knocked his hand away.
"Don't touch me!" Daniel snapped. "I don't ever want to feel that again. Just leave me alone!"
Chapter Eighteen
It took almost an hour for Daniel, limping, to find Donahue and Susan.
"Carter!" Donahue called in surprise as Daniel stumbled out of the underbrush. "We've been worried sick! Is Price with you?"
Daniel shook his head, exhausted, as Donahue hurried closer, gesturing for Susan to help Daniel stand.
"Did he survive the river?" Donahue asked. "It's been days! We were getting ready to give up on you."