Asbjorn felt at ease being in charge.
Suddenly, the weight of his debt crushed Sean’s shoulders. It made his knees feel as though they would buckle. He leaned against the man he loved even harder, his head thrown back, his eyes closed.
“Whatever you want, Asbjorn.” He said it like he meant it.
ASBJORN FROZE, AND the movement of his hands stilled with a sudden sense of unease. This side of Sean was new to him – this man, this brave, strong, pigheaded marvel who never gave up was just rolling over for him with guilt written all over his face.
He’d have preferred a good fight. He wanted a full partner, a lover, a mate. Sean might have uttered those four words in a voice full of conviction, but his body told a tale of stubborn determination: he’d pay up if it killed him.
He didn’t want that for Sean. Not that proud, crippling feeling of indebtedness. Something happened after that crimson-stained hunting trip. The fallout had affected them both and its consequences were mostly unintended. His mission to keep Sean safe and guilt-free had threatened to rip them apart, and they both struggled, holding hands with anxious despair, reaching across a chasm that yawned between their feet. Their mutual balance was not yet restored.
Asbjorn considered the man whose body melted into his with such languid grace. Feelings of love and protectiveness and – yes, profound respect – filled his chest, and he found he could no longer endure the tension between them.
“Sunshine.” His hands slid off Sean’s arms, finding purchase on his slender hips. “Sean, I....” He searched for words, his mind in turmoil. “I love you and want to be an equal partner to you. I want you to be an equal partner to me. All this” – his fingers brushed the shorter man’s waistband – “all this is just bedroom games. I won’t play if there is any chance of a misunderstanding....” Asbjorn feared his words were failing him.
He could see himself tying Sean up, bringing him to the highest peak of ecstasy, then fucking him into the blue beyond. He would, in fact, really enjoy doing just that – but not at the expense of their real-life, egalitarian relationship. Yet the right words would not come and his hands dropped to his sides in defeat.
SEAN FELT THE WARM hands leave him, and he averted his eyes. He needed to focus on something else for a while. White ceiling, yellow wall... the swirls in the polished wooden headboard were interesting. A few deep breaths later, he turned back to have a good look at Asbjorn, or what was showing above the covers.
His blond hair was no longer cut short. It curled around his ears. There was still a hint of bruising around his eyes, and his lip was no longer split and swollen. He had stubble. Sean reached out to feel the bristles with the palm of his hand. Soft and sharp at the same time.
“You didn’t want me before, and you don’t seem to want me now.” His breath hitched, but he pushed through. “We were both pretty beaten up from last weekend, but that had never stopped us in the past. And we’re fine now. What’s wrong? What aren’t you telling me?” His voice was gruff and stubborn, yet he failed to meet Asbjorn’s eyes.
“I want you. Just... not so meek.” Asbjorn cleared his throat. He talked slowly, and his words were careful and measured. “You want to marry me? Then be my partner. I won’t have anything less.”
The words sparked action.
Meek, indeed.
“Sorry if you misunderstood, Bjorn. I thought you’d have enjoyed it if I were a bit... softer. At least once in a while.”
Asbjorn let out a breathy laugh. “I would enjoy that very much, as long as there’s an understanding that it’s just bedroom play.” His expression grew serious. “I might enjoy it a little too much. I love you too much for that, Sean. I refuse to risk what we have by letting my dark side rear its ugly head again.”
His dark side.
Again.
And again.
Turbulent thoughts were stilled by long, slender fingers running down Asbjorn’s temple, soothing the soft, short hair in place and tracing farther, outlining the angular jaw. Sean sighed with wonder. His boyfriend – his fiancée, now – was rugged and masculine, even beautiful. As far as Sean was concerned, the inside matched the generous packaging to the last detail. His lips tugged into a crooked smile.
“I’ll let you know if I ever feel you’re crossing the line,” he said in a voice that has grown husky as he set his lips on Asbjorn’s firm, sweet mouth. He covered Asbjorn and cradled his face in his hands. “I want you,” he said and brushed their lips. “I want to possess you and be inside you and mark you as mine. Would you call that meek?”
Asbjorn’s eyes widened. Their brilliant blue darkened the slightest bit. “No.” The word came out like a tight rasp.
“Would you want that?” Sean asked, pinning Asbjorn’s shoulders with his elbows. Asbjorn was solid and strong. Sean didn’t have to worry, like he used to with an ex-girlfriend from long ago, about breaking her. The revelation was freeing. He brushed his lips against Asbjorn’s again and gave him a serious look. “I mean, do you even bottom?”
A BREATHY CHUCKLE ESCAPED Asbjorn as he relaxed under Sean. He’d been with only a few guys while on shore leave, and those that had asked him that question had walked away disappointed.
Then there had been that threesome, that infamous break-up fling with Don and Adrian where, in the heat of the moment, he let them do what they thought best to take his pain away. “Just once,” he said.
Sean’s eyes stilled with understanding. “Recently, right? Let me guess... Don?” He gave a breathless laugh.
“Yeah, but this is different.” It was different, even though Don had been far from a casual fling. Don was one of his best friend. “I love you... differently than I love them, Sean. I want to love you forever.” He smiled into Sean’s searching eyes. “Whatever it takes, sunshine.”
“Only if you really want it,” Sean said with a serious expression on his face.
Asbjorn nodded. “I do.”
“Only if you’re sure. We don’t need to do things because other people do them.” Sean laughed. “In fact, we rarely do things other people do. Really, Bjorn....”
“Equal partners, remember? The only reason I’d never done it with anyone I didn’t trust with my life was because I didn’t want to be seen as the ‘weaker one.’ And don’t even try giving me crap over it. It’s just how I feel about it. When it’s not done right, topping someone can be, well....” He was searching for the right words, not wanting to offend Sean, but not wanting to lie either.
“A dominance gesture,” Sean said.
“Yeah.” Asbjorn’s face fell. The secret was out.
“And you don’t enjoy being dominated. You don’t submit well. You are an intractable, incorrigible alpha.” There was a playful note in Sean’s voice, but his face was all business.
“I guess that’s one way to put it,” Asbjorn said, and flexed his shoulders to free them. He wrapped Sean in a tight embrace. “But you’re different. I trust you. I know you won’t hurt me, and I know you won’t hold it over me. I know you won’t pick on me wanting you inside me so bad.”
“It’s been a while since I’ve been with a guy worth conquering. I’ll storm your castle and raid your cattle and carry off your serfs. I’ll defeat your weapons and then I’ll pin you down and bring you to such pinnacle of ecstasy, you’ll be begging for it. And when you are begging for it, not caring that your castle gate is in splinters and you and everything you owned now is my fair loot, only then I’ll bury myself in you.” Sean’s cheeks were red and he was gasping for air, but he maintained eye contact while looming over Asbjorn during his dramatic delivery.
Asbjorn knew he could have cut him down right now and embarrass the hell out of him for his florid prose.
Or he could play along.
The instinct to vanquish ran strong in his veins, but Asbjorn took a deep breath, inhaling the essence of the man above him. “Come bury your sword then, oh mighty warrior.”
Asbjorn did enjoy it, aware that Sean undertook every s
tep of pleasuring him with an air of serious dignity. The stretch and burn of the prep, the mental discipline to relax – the joy of knowing that this was Sean’s hands and Sean’s lips. And Sean was his sunshine, the man he was willing to die for if need be.
Yet receiving this kind of attention was very different from giving it. To relax, he had to focus on the fun parts, and to enjoy the fun parts, he had to relax.
He felt Sean’s hard length against his leg. Sean was enjoying this, he got off on making him feel that way – and then his finger skipped over something inside, and Asbjorn jolted like a fish on a line.
“That’s what makes it so good,” Sean said after he swirled his tongue around his crown for the last time.
The stretch down under intensified, but not in a bad way. Asbjorn closed his eyes. He could do that, because he trusted Sean. Then the fullness and the good feeling disappeared, and Sean leaned away. His eyes sprang open. “Uh?”
“Just getting more lube,” Sean said. “You still want this? We can switch, if you’d like.”
No way in hell would he do that. “Just get on with it,” he croaked.
“When the time is right,” Sean whispered. “I don’t want it to hurt.”
He did swear and encourage. He tried to make Sean hurry up and take him, both to feel him enter and to get it over with – but he did not beg. He refused to beg.
“I’m ready for you.”
“You sure?”
Asbjorn paused. “Please.” There. That was just being polite and definitely did not count as begging.
“Okay.”
Another little stretch made him writhe his butt against the sheets.
“Here, put this under you,” Sean said, and positioned a pillow under his butt cheeks, like he had done to Sean so many times already.
A rustle of condom package, the familiar scent of strawberry lube. Then he felt something wet and blunt and hard press against him. He bore down.
Sean’s tip was in. He felt the force of it from his toes up to his back, and it hurt like a bitch, but if Sean could take it, so could he. He focused on his breath.
Sean’s thrusts were slow and short, designed to stretch and ease their way this first time around. Asbjorn counted his breath as Sean ventured deeper and deeper, and pain gave to fullness, and fullness gave to pleasure. He felt Sean’s corona skip over that place again, and his dick began to harden in earnest.
“You like that?” Sean was hunting for feedback
“Yeah.”
“Can I go harder?”
“Please.” Just a polite word. It definitely did not constitute begging.
Soon they were rocking the bed. Sean lifted one of Asbjorn’s knees up over his shoulder. “I think you’ll like this,” he said when he put Asbjorn into a position he so often assumed himself. And then he buried himself all the way. It was... good. In a different way.
He reminded himself to relax and yield, focusing on the feeling of pleasure rather than the open vulnerability he felt.
Sean wrapped his hand around Asbjorn’s erect length. There was still lube on it, and Asbjorn felt himself slide in and out of Sean’s fist with every thrust. Sean hit that place again.
“Yeah, there,” he said, realizing he spoke only once he saw Sean smile in response.
He focused on not fighting it, not resisting. Trust. There was trust, and a whole lot of pleasure. There was love too, and when he felt Sean stiffen and grimace in an effort to hold off a while longer, he offered his seed first.
“Let it rip,” Asbjorn gasped.
Sean did.
They stayed like that for a long while, enjoying their closeness.
SEAN PULLED OUT AND cleaned up and brought Asbjorn a glass of water. “Well?” he asked.
“It was different,” Asbjorn said.
“Did you like it?”
“Yeah... but, only because it was you. If another guy tried that, I’d kick him in the teeth.”
Sean gave him a measured look, choosing to overlook the fact that Don had been, technically, another guy. “That’s fair, I guess. We don’t have to do this again.”
Asbjorn put the empty glass on the nightstand, reached for Sean, and pulled him in for a hug. “We can. I just feel so....”
“Emasculated?”
“No. I’m still the same guy. Vulnerable, I guess.”
They let the words bounce around the walls for a while.
“Did it hurt bad?” Sean asked the dreaded and obvious question.
“It fucking hurt like a bitch at first,” Asbjorn admitted. “But then it changed. But pain is just pain. I’ve had worse. And I guess it gets better with practice, right? I mean, you do it. I’m not hurting you like that, right?”
“Yeah. It gets awesome with practice. But I don’t want you to feel vulnerable, sugar.”
“I don’t mind feeling vulnerable if it’s you, sunshine,” Asbjorn said. “As long as you don’t call me sugar.”
CHAPTER 15
Two weeks later, when they no longer looked like they had got beaten up in a dark alley, they dressed to look moderately conservative and took the bus from Newtonville to Watertown. When they got to the bus turnaround, Asbjorn beckoned Sean to disembark. “This is the last stop. Now we walk a little.”
“That wasn’t far at all,” Sean said. “We could have walked the whole way.”
They crossed Watertown Square and headed up Pleasant Street. Not much longer, and Asbjorn knocked on a door of a small duplex. A short, black-haired woman opened the door.
“You’re here ’bout the apartment?” she asked, eyeing the two of them.
Asbjorn nodded. “Yep. We heard about you from a friend in school, except he finished his thesis and got a job offer out of town.”
She nodded. “I’m Christina Bruzzi. Well, come across the street, then.” They followed her across the cul-de-sac to a similar duplex and waited until she found the right key on her ring and unlocked the door of the downstairs unit.
“Take your shoes off. I just had the carpets cleaned.”
They did.
Asbjorn had seen it before and had put down a deposit immediately. He trailed behind Sean, holding his breath as the other inspected the built-in butler pantry, the built-in china cabinet, the old woodwork, and the generous windows.
“There are two bedrooms over there and a linen closet.” She opened the doors as she spoke. Across from the linen closet was a small, outdated bathroom. Its walls were overwhelmed by silver, pink, and mint-green wallpaper from the seventies. Its corners were peeling off the wall. “There isn’t much closet space, but you get half a basement and half of the front porch.” Her short figure anchored the room with quiet authority. “There’s one parking space, but you said you don’t have a car.”
“Not right now, anyway.” Asbjorn wasn’t giving up a parking space – in Boston, parking was a precious commodity.
“How much?” Sean asked. She told him. “I love it but that’s a lot.”
“Maybe we could work something out,” Christina said. “Your roommate offered to remove snow for our three houses here ’cause my pop’s too old to do it anymore and my husband has a bad back. So if you two want to help around, we’ll take it off your rent.”
They talked about the specifics. They negotiated the use of her husband’s snow blower for the bigger stretches of the sidewalk. More money changed hands. Asbjorn signed on the dotted line of the rent agreement and Sean signed right next to him.
Christina Bruzzi beamed. She seemed happy to get new renters so fast. Two college-age, strong-looking guys who paid in cash and who agreed to help with her snow removal probably killed several problems with one stone.
Asbjorn glanced over, encouraged by the sparkle in Sean’s warm, brown eyes. “So... you like it?”
“Yeah. Love it. You did a great job.” Sean leaned over and touched his head to Asbjorn’s shoulder, hard pressed not to kiss him right then and there. Yet even that was enough to make the penny drop for Christina Bruzzi.
“What, would it be an issue if we were?” Sean asked, his voice mild and inquisitive.
“Um... what you do on your own is your own business, but my parents are kinda religious, you know? Old-fashioned Italian. Makes no difference to me, I have rainbow friends. But if they find out, they’ll freak.” She gave Asbjorn an accusing look. “Now that I think back on our previous conversation, weren’t you looking for a place for you and your fiancée?”
Asbjorn gave her his 200-watt grin. “Yeah. I did say that. We just haven’t set a date yet.”
SEAN SIGHED WITH SATISFACTION as the last piece of second-hand furniture settled in its appointed place. They were moved in, and even better, he had gotten his best friend to help him. Recent events and their aftershocks had caused both him and Asbjorn to withdraw from their extended network of friends. It was high time to become more social again. He owed Gino a whole bunch of phone calls and more than just several visits. They had started studying aikido at almost the same time back in California, they traveled out East for college, and Sean was a welcome guest in Gino’s aunt’s house in Providence. Hell, Gino even got arrested while working on Sean’s behalf.
“Thanks, Gino.”
“It’s nothing.” Gino Gabrielli grinned, flashing a fierce expression at his friend. “Can’t believe you don’t know anyone else with a truck, though. You made me drive all the way up from Providence!”
“So I get to see you, buddy. Would you like to teach the aikido class tomorrow morning? It’s at nine.”
Gino grimaced at the thought of a morning class. “That means waking up at seven. On the other hand, I don’t get to be an Aikido guest instructor very often.”
“You don’t have to....”
“I’ll do it. As long as I get to sleep in on Sunday.”
Swordfall (The Fall Trilogy, #2) Page 17