After Ben (31 page)

Watching Morgan then was like observing one of their online debates from a distance. Earlier, he had been full of conversation and sought physical contact—stealing pepperoni and kisses while he mocked the TV commentary—just as he would joke and fool around in their private chat sessions. In the kitchen, he withdrew as if Theo were an Internet opponent rather than a lover.

Theo didn’t understand his sudden emotional sea change. He could only stand and watch as Morgan’s eyes flickered back toward the refrigerator. When Morgan almost imperceptibly shook his head and turned toward the door, Theo spoke. “I did that right after Ben died.” He swallowed, then started again. “No. No, that’s not entirely true. I did that after I ran out of beer after Ben died. I hadn’t ever had an issue with alcohol or my temper before, but I hadn’t ever lost a partner of fifteen years either. It was a very bad time.”

“That was the first time you lost your temper?”

“Like that? God, yes.”

“What about since then?”

Theo held out his hand. “I’ll show you.” Seconds stretched out, long and thin between them. His hand felt heavy—weighted—strangely difficult to hold up with Morgan just staring at it, at him, like he didn’t know him at all. “I’ll show you everything if you’ll let me.”

Morgan’s fingers slowly curled around his. They walked to Theo’s study in silence. He pulled down a box from the shelves there, removing the lid, lifting out reminders of some of his very worst days. He passed Morgan a broken picture frame, the glass a spider web of cracks. Ben smiled out from behind the fractures looking relaxed—gorgeous—his legs stretched out as he leaned against his little red Alfa Romeo, glass of champagne in hand, head haloed with cigarette smoke.

“I broke this the first time I lost my shit. Ben loved that car.” Morgan’s eyes lifted, watching as Theo tried so hard to smile. “He died in it. Once I ran out of alcohol to anesthetize myself, I had to deal. I had to. It just took me a while.”

“Who were you so angry with?” Morgan asked.

“Myself. I should have been with him. I should have… I should have done a lot of things.”

Theo took back the picture, not looking at it again as he put it away. “I broke this one just the other day.” He removed another photo frame, the image capturing a moment from their most recent office party. Joel and Evan stood on either side of him, while Maggie made rabbit’s ears behind his head. Theo and Maggie were obviously laughing. Joel and Evan looked across at each other, divided by cracks in the glass.

“Why did you break this one?” Morgan sat on the edge of his desk, cradling the picture in his hands. “Explain to me what happened.”

When Theo didn’t speak, Morgan’s eyes locked on his. “Tell me, Theo. I need to understand.”

Theo scrubbed at his face before replying. “I thought I lost you.”

Morgan frowned. “We weren’t even together yet.”

“Oh, you had me already, Morgan.” He stepped between his legs. “Yeah, you had me already, and finding out… well, even thinking that you were the same age as them made me think I’d lost you too. It set me back there for a while.” He shrugged.

“I’m still not sure I understand why you thought that way, Theo. Were you really hung up on a number? Are you still?” Morgan waited for answers that Theo didn’t have.

He looped his arms around Theo’s waist, resting his forehead on his chest, voice muffled by Theo’s shirt. “I lost my temper too. I don’t do that shit in real life, Theo. I do it online instead, but when you cut me off—” Theo wrapped his arms around him, squeezing him, silently saying sorry. “—I waited at the shelter for Joel for two days. For two fucking days, Theo. Do you have any idea how boring that was? Most of the time I had to wait outside, and it was so fucking cold. I didn’t have Joel’s cell number, or even know where he worked. I hardly knew the guy, but his name was my only link with you.” He paused, dragging in a breath that was a half-choked laugh. “When he finally turned up this morning I kinda lost my shit with him.”

“Oh fuck, that poor kid.” Theo shook his head. “Me, too.”

“I heard you fired his ass.” They both tried hard not to laugh, sounding a little crazy. Theo turned to the box, about to replace the lid. Morgan’s hand over his was warm and firm.

“No, show me the rest. I need to know you. Show me everything.”

Theo did.

M
ORGAN
understood things through touch, then processed everything he learned verbally. Theo thought he was the most tactile person he had ever met. He was unapologetically nosy their first night together, working his way from room to room, asking questions, stroking things, turning to survey Theo’s expression carefully before moving on.

Sometimes he paused mid-inhale, as if he wasn’t quite ready to ask about his current object of fascination. The more times he did that, the more clearly Theo could see him building a body of knowledge, compartmentalizing his belongings into mental categories such as decorative, meaningful, or ask again another time. Eventually Theo parked himself on the couch, carton of ice cream in hand, slowly licking chocolate from his spoon as Morgan brought him things to classify.

A carved figure—its dark wood smooth as silk—was thrust under his nose. “Where’s this from?”

“Um… Mombasa. Or Morocco. Maybe Mozambique? It definitely began with the letter M.”

“And this?” Morgan held an intricately carved ball of jade-colored stone in his palm.

“Hong Kong.”

Morgan’s blinks were slow as he slotted each new piece of information away. “And what did you think of Hong Kong?” He leaned forward, opening his lips to the spoonful of ice cream Theo held up to him, maintaining eye contact.

“H… Hong Kong?” Theo stuttered, watching him slowly lick stray chocolate from his lips. “I felt very tall there.”

Morgan smiled, dumped his objects of interest on the coffee table, then straddled Theo’s thighs. “Yeah, I did too. I’d like to kiss you some more now. Are you done with your ice cream, Theo?” He didn’t wait for an answer, leaning back, shoving the container onto the table behind him, his torso a long, tight, twisted length, before straightening up again. Theo rested his head on the back of the couch, looking up at him, suddenly feeling not quite so tall.

Morgan jumped as Theo’s ice-cream-cold fingers pushed under his shirt. “Sorry,” he said as he pulled his hand back. “Is this okay?” This time his fingers slid over Morgan’s shirt, moving upward. Morgan nodded slowly. Theo paused before asking, “Are we okay?”

The dark gaze that met his was shadowed, inscrutable.

Behind Morgan, the coffee table was covered—littered—with objects Ben had brought back from their travels. Most of them he could identify, at least guessing the correct continent of origin. A few things just were. Theo couldn’t remember exactly where they came from or what their backstory was. His chance to discover the answers to Morgan’s questions—what made him choose this? Does this mean something? Why did you bring this home?—was long gone.

For the first time, Theo looked at the reminders of his old life and wished he’d asked Ben some of Morgan’s questions himself, instead of taking each object for granted. Why hadn’t he ever really looked at the amazing things that filled their home and just fucking asked what drew Ben to them? The man had been like a magpie, attracted to things that sparkled just for him. Theo used to get quietly pissed at his haggling with merchants—Ben had been completely shameless as he dickered prices down, laying on his charm until he struck a deal that pleased him. It was left to Theo to resolve issues with overweight luggage or extortionate shipping costs.

Maybe if he’d been less irritated by logistics like importing that fucking mirror from Milan—so old,
tesoro
, imagine all the lovers who looked into this same glass—he might have asked Morgan’s questions himself. If he’d shown more interest then maybe Ben would have asked him to come shop with him that very last time, instead of leaving him at home looking over columns of other people’s numbers. Worry had only just begun to nip at his ankles right before the cops arrived. Ben had been dead for hours already, alone.

He held onto Morgan a little tighter. “I want us to be okay.” His voice sounded weird to his own ears. He pressed on through the high, tight feeling in his chest, determined to say things this time, pretty certain that after all of Morgan’s questions—online and in real life—he needed to hear things out loud. “I want us to be okay, so much, Morgan.”

Morgan lowered his head and kissed him.

J
UST
a few minutes later, the insistent ringing of a phone made Theo pull away, breathing hard. Fumbling in his pockets, he found his cell, switched it off without looking, and dumped it on the floor.

“Might that have been important?” Morgan asked, smiling at Theo’s answer of, “Not more important than you.” He took the opportunity to pull Theo’s shirt the rest of the way off, having only partially removed it as they’d grabbed and twisted and humped their way horizontal onto the couch. Before the phone interrupted them, he hadn’t cared too much about stripping Theo completely. Once he had access to Theo’s stomach and chest, which he’d licked and kissed his way across with obvious pleasure, getting Theo’s shirt fully off hadn’t seemed that important. After their cell phone interruption Morgan pulled his shirt off too, throwing it behind him, knocking something from the coffee table.

Neither of them looked to see what had fallen.

Morgan shoved his sweats down. The way he held himself up on one arm—bicep and triceps taut—as he shimmied out of his clothes made Theo want to bite him. It was an increasingly hard urge to resist, because Morgan was edible.

He’d thought that when Morgan had first leaned his dark-fuzzed head close, sharing chocolate-flavored kisses. Each lap of his tongue into his mouth made him hungry for more. Pretty soon he was stretched out under the man, legs apart, lifting his hips to get some relief. Theo watched Morgan strip, admiring his long, lean body, and the way his inky black hair emphasized his paleness, wanting to bite his shoulders, his neck, his belly.

“What are you staring at?” Morgan asked, then ran his tongue from one of Theo’s nipples to the other, his rough-wet tongue making Theo shiver.

“You.” He arched, feeling the dragging pull of Morgan’s suction at his chest all the way to his dick.

“Yeah?” Morgan’s teeth were sharp, so sharp, his almost-bites just the right side of enjoyable.

“Oh, yeah.” His hands were on Morgan’s head, pushing through his short, clipped hair, alternately feeling it as silk under his palms or as tickling prickles when he moved his hands. Morgan shifted up his body, lips deep pink and wet, kissing across his face, then slipped his tongue between Theo’s lips again, pushing deep. Theo sucked on Morgan’s tongue, just a little, just enough to make him thrust down, hips rolling. When he pulled back, telling Theo to get his fucking pants off already, looking pissed and so incredibly turned on, Theo couldn’t make himself move, certain that if he even grazed the fabric of his pants across his cock, he’d shoot.

It was like being a teenager all over again, he thought. He’d felt the same when he hid in a corner of the dressing room during practice for the end-of-year play, still half-dressed in his costume while one of the seniors sucked hard on his neck. Theo had still been able to hear the drama coach’s shouted stage directions, as well as people walking up and down the hallway right outside the dressing room. The senior he was with had sucked on his Adam’s apple at the same time as he tightened his grip on Theo’s dick. When he’d shot—instantly, blinded like he was spotlit—the senior had whispered, “Damn, I’m good,” leaving them both breathless and laughing.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Theo.” Morgan’s hands were on him, fast and firm, dragging at his pants.

“No, no, don’t touch me.” Scrambling on the leather couch cushion, hands slipping, Theo managed to get up, pushing Morgan down, switching places. “I’ll come right now if you do.” He dropped kisses over Morgan’s face, his throat, and all along his collarbones, tongue lapping the bulge of an old break. He sucked it a little while Morgan stilled, then relaxed under him. His long legs lifted, and Theo could feel the rub of Morgan’s thighs against his waist, his heels bumping his ass cheeks as Theo settled between his legs, bracing on his forearms. When Morgan shifted underneath him, Theo shuddered, skin prickling, feeling everything center toward his balls. He still felt far too much.

Theo wriggled back, pulling up on his knees, hands sliding up the insides of Morgan’s legs. He shuffled closer, leaning in, burying his face in the crease between Morgan’s torso and thigh, breathing in deeply while pressing his palm against the inside of Morgan’s knee, opening him up wider. When he turned his face, sucking one of Morgan’s balls into his mouth, the “Oh, fuck” he heard was long and low. He moved to his other ball, licking the drawn-up skin, flicking it with his tongue while muffled curses rained down on him—Morgan had his forearm over his mouth, his whole body arched.

Beautiful.

Theo lifted his head, releasing a ball before licking—tongue flat, tasting as much skin as he could—up the length of Morgan’s cock. He groaned at the top, sucking the swollen, almost purple tip, tasting his sticky precome and loving it. Everything about Morgan tasted so good to him. He sucked around the firm circumference of his crown, running his tongue tip around it, making Morgan whine, both arms pressed across his face now, chest heaving. When Theo pulled off, he swore, threatening Theo, making him laugh.

He moved back down to Morgan’s balls, cupping them in one hand while he shoved his own pants down, unable to resist the urge to touch, to grip, to jack himself quickly. Morgan’s swearing took on a frantic edge. They looked at each other then, black eyes meeting gray, cheeks flushed, mouths slack, both so close to coming.

“Come on,” Morgan grunted. “Come on, come on, come on.”

Theo licked up his cock again. This time Morgan held it up, knocking it against his cheek, his chin, his mouth, before Theo sank down, sucking, tongue pressing, lips tight. The noises Morgan made were obscene, glorious, making Theo shiver. Wriggling backward, cock still in his mouth, Theo lay down, braced on one forearm, the other sliding up Morgan’s lightly haired chest. He reached a little farther, fingertips sliding over Morgan’s licked-wet lips. When Morgan lifted his head, sucking his fingers in, teeth grazing his knuckles, Theo felt his own dick leak on the leather beneath him, slicking him.