Coda Books 01 - Promises (MM) (21 page)

I kept my fingers moving in and out while I moved myself into position. Then, as smoothly as I could manage in my extremely aroused state, I pulled out my fingers and slid my cock in without breaking rhythm. It worked well. I was all the way in before he realized and tensed back up. This time, I didn’t think it was an objection, just reflex. I froze, waiting for it to pass.

“Are you in pain?”

A heartbeat, and then, “No. Not pain.”

“Good.” I used the hand that wasn’t propping me up to gently rub his shoulders some more. “I know it feels strange right now. I know it feels like there’s no room for me, but there is. Just try to relax like you were a minute ago.” He took a couple of deep breaths, and then I felt him relax around me. “Good.” Still, I didn’t move, although it was one of the hardest things I had ever done. “Tell me when you’re ready.” I knew exactly how, after a few seconds, that first feeling of fullness and discomfort and slight pain would start to feel like something much better.

I kissed the back of his neck and felt him squirming a little under me, trying to accommodate me. Then his breath caught. He let out a soft moan. Then his whole body seemed to relax a little more, and he pushed his ass up against me.

That was good enough for me. Very slowly, I started to move. Only two or three strokes and he was with me, panting underneath me, arching his back against me. I knew I wouldn’t last much longer. I slid my hand underneath him. His hand was still there, although it wasn’t moving. I pushed it away and grabbed his cock, started to pump it in time with my thrusts. He lifted his hips up off the bed, which gave my hand more room to work and allowed me to penetrate a little deeper at the same time.

“Oh Jesus, Jared.” It was almost a sob. “Oh Jesus, I can’t….”

“Can’t what?”

He didn’t answer, just shook his head.

“What’s wrong?”

Nothing
seemed
to be wrong. He was definitely pushing against me, breathing hard, his erection thrusting in and out of my hand as I pushed in and out of him, and I knew he had to be close.

“It’s too much,” he managed to gasp out.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Fuck,
no
!”

Thank goodness for that. I wasn’t really sure I could have stopped if he had said yes. I was speeding up now, both my thrusts and my hand pumping on him. “Stop fighting it, Matt,” I said softly. “Just let go.” And amazingly, he did. He went rigid and made a low, guttural cry into the pillows. He tightened around me, his whole body clenched and shaking underneath me, and I came, too, hanging onto him as tight as I could and hoping I didn’t actually leave teeth marks in his shoulder.

For a minute, we stayed that way, me on top of him but no longer inside of him, both of us breathing hard and trembling from the strength of our orgasms. And then he suddenly pulled away from me, turned around, and grabbed me. He rolled me so that he was on top of me and crushed me hard against him. He was still shaking.

I ran my hands up and down his back, feeling the tremors finally die away. We stayed like that for a while, just holding each other and running our hands over each other and letting our breathing get back to normal. He kissed my neck a little, but he didn’t say anything, and the longer we went without talking, the more I worried about it.

“Matt, are you okay?” I finally asked.

He laughed shakily. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.” I pulled back, grabbed his head and pulled him away from my neck so I could look into his eyes. “I’m serious. I want to know if you’re okay with what just happened.”

He smiled down at me, and I didn’t see any shame or regret in his eyes. He looked tired and sated and completely at ease. “Jared, I am somewhere way beyond ‘okay’.” He kissed me and pulled my hair so he could kiss my neck. “That was amazing. Although….”

That made me worry all over again. “What?”

“The aftershock is kind of strange.”

I relaxed again in his arms and laughed a little. “I know.”

“I feel sort of—I don’t know.
Soft.
”

“I know what you mean.”

“It feels that way for you?”

“I always feel like my legs aren’t quite attached right anymore. Like they’re somehow loose in my hips. Like I’m a Barbie and somebody pulled my legs off—”

“No!” he growled fiercely into my ear, his hand pulling hard on my hair. “Not a Barbie!”

“Okay.” I laughed, surprised at his response. “Ken, then.”

He relaxed a little, but it felt forced, and when he looked down at me, he looked troubled.

“You could pass for Ken. Long-hair, hippie Ken.” His hands pulled on my curls again, but not as hard this time.

I could tell he was trying to joke, but it didn’t quite come out right, and suddenly it wasn’t funny anymore. “What is it, Matt? Do you think it makes me a girl if you fuck me?”

He sighed and flopped down on his back next to me and stared up at the ceiling. “No. Not a girl.”

“But less of a man?”

He didn’t answer, which of course was an answer in and of itself. I tried not be bothered by it. After all, I had lost my virginity fifteen years earlier. Fifteen years and a half-dozen different relationships in that time to explore the dynamics of top or bottom. In most cases, it hadn’t mattered, but in some, it definitely had. I knew that it could become a power issue, and

I tried to be grateful that he was being cautious of it. Still….

“Jared?” He was on his side now, facing me, his head propped up on his hand. “Are you mad?”

“I’m not sure yet,” I answered honestly.

He pulled me back into his arms. “Please don’t be. It’s not even so much that I think of you that way, as that I worry that you’ll think that I think of you that way and you’ll resent me for it. Does that make sense?” I was trying to unravel that, but he didn’t give me time to answer. “Anyway, I feel better about it now.” And it was true that he didn’t look troubled anymore at all and his voice sounded determined. “I feel better about what just happened than about the other way.”

I still wasn’t sure it made much sense to me, but so what? We had been together just over a month. Not long at all for a guy to go from insisting he was straight to where we were now. We had all the time in the world to make him more comfortable. And in the meantime, he preferred bottom? I’d have to be an idiot to object to that.

“Jared, are you okay?” he asked.

I smiled up at him and repeated his own words back to him. “Matt, I am somewhere way beyond ‘okay’.”

“Good.” He kissed me then, and it was slow and deep and passionate, and his hands were wandering down my body in a very familiar way, and I was surprised to feel that he was growing hard again already against my leg.

I laughed. “Already? I’m not sure I’m capable.”

“Sometimes,” he whispered jokingly into my ear, “you just don’t know when to shut up.”

He rolled back on top of me, lining us up the way he liked to do, and reached down to wrap his hands around both of us. He was fully erect again, and I was getting there. He was kissing me again, and his strokes were slow and deliberate. I wrapped one arm around him, put my other hand on top of his as it moved on us, closed my eyes, and gave up to the sensation of what he was doing. Fucking him had been incredible, but this was something else entirely. Sexually, maybe it was less, but emotionally, I knew it was more. I knew he was telling me something. It was in the slowness of his movements, the way he gripped me tight against him, the gentleness of his tongue running over my lips, the way he whispered my name.

I was still amazed that I could make him this way.

Nothing else mattered. Not his parents. Not having to spend a week apart. Not even Barbie and Ken.

TWO days before Christmas, Lizzy and I were working in the shop. Brian was working on selling it, but until then, it was still ours. I hadn’t seen Matt for four days. My house felt terribly empty, but knowing it was temporary made it bearable. I had been spending a lot of time at Brian and Lizzy’s and had even done one night of babysitting with little James.

Lizzy was counting out change and talking about her favorite topic, my hair.

“Jarhead, you can’t teach like that. What will the kids think?”

“That I’m hip.”

“You are not hip. You’re scruffy. Not the same thing.”

“I thought girls liked scruffy guys.”

“Oh?” She grinned at me playfully. “Are you trying to attract girls now? Is there something you’re not telling me?” I tried to throw a pencil at her but missed by a mile.

Matt walked in at that moment, looking exhausted.

“Hey, Matt, I’m trying to convince Jared to cut his hair.”

He didn’t even acknowledge her but walked up to me and said quietly, “Can we go in back for a minute?”

I was surprised but said, “Sure.”

We went in the back room. He sat down on the edge of Lizzy’s desk, looking down at the floor, and didn’t say anything. Sitting on the desk, he was shorter than me, and all I could see was the top of his head. I could tell by looking at him that he was wound up tight. I waited for him to say something and finally realized he wasn’t going to.

“How’s it going with your parents?”

“Fabulous.” His voice was low and tight, full of sarcasm and anger. He didn’t look up and didn’t seem inclined to say anything else. The silence stretched on. It felt like he was getting ready to share bad news with me, and I tried to keep my pulse from racing.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just wanted to see you.”

That made me relax a little, but I knew there was something else going on. “That’s all?”

He nodded but didn’t say anything, and he was still staring down at the floor.

I walked closer, and he tensed up a little, like he might bolt if I made any sudden movements. “Matt, look at me.”

It took him a second, like he had to work up his nerve, but when he glanced up at me, I saw it in his eyes. He was barely holding himself together. Coming to me hadn’t been a whim.

It had been an act of desperation. He didn’t just
want
to see me; at that moment, he actually
needed
me, although he could never have said it. He looked sad and terrified and lost.

I could tell he was embarrassed for me to see him this way but desperate for me to help him somehow.

I went to him, put my arms around him, and he grabbed on to me like he was drowning and buried his face in my shoulder. He was shaking, his breathing ragged, and I thought he might be crying but trying hard not to. At that moment, I hated Joseph more than I ever had before. I hated that he could break Matt, who was usually so strong and confident, in only a few short days. I don’t know how long we stood like that—several minutes at least. I just held him, rubbing his back and shoulders a little, making calming sounds until his breathing was steady again, and he finally relaxed.

“I’m sorry, Jared,” he whispered.

“Shhh. Don’t be silly. You have nothing to apologize for.” I kissed the top of his head.

“What happened?”

“Nothing, really. I’m just losing my fucking mind.” He laughed, but it was harsh and humorless. “I can’t stand it. I can’t stand
him
.” He took a couple of deep breaths, and then said, in something closer to his normal voice, “I miss you. I hate that we have to be apart right now.”

“Me too. Why don’t you come over tonight? They don’t have to know.”

“I’m on nights this week.”

So he was working nights and spending the days with his parents and probably barely sleeping in the meantime. That explained a lot about his present state of mind.

He pulled back, stood up, and turned away from me. Even with his back to me, I could see him putting himself back together, wiping his eyes, standing straighter, squaring his shoulders, putting on that carefully controlled, guarded expression. “He’s drinking, Jared. A lot. And he never knows when to keep his mouth shut. This is the worst it’s ever been.”

Just then, Lizzy poked her head around the corner. “Can I come in?” she asked quietly.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need to get into the safe.”

Matt took a deep breath and then turned around. He was still tense, but he had most of his usual confidence back. To anybody else, he probably looked as calm and in control as ever.

But I could still see the anger and sadness in his eyes. “It’s okay, Lizzy.”

She headed for the safe but watched him out of the corner of her eye the whole time. She got what she needed out of the safe and started out but then stopped and turned to him.

“How bad is it, Matt?”

He shrugged. “Pretty bad.”

She thought about it for a minute, and then said, “Why don’t you all come to dinner on Christmas?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t do that to you. Not after the way he behaved last time.”

She walked over to him and put a hand on his arm, looking way up into his eyes. “Matt, you’re family now. You should be with
us
on Christmas. And if that means we have to put up with your father, then we will.”

He looked at the floor, then glanced at me, and then at her. “He doesn’t know….”

“I figured as much. We’ll be careful.”

“Really?” He sounded hopeful.

“Really.”

He smiled and hugged her, much more gently than he ever hugged me. She looked so tiny in his arms. “Thanks, Lizzy.” She started to head back out, but he said, “Oh, Lizzy, one more thing?”

“Yes.”

“Jared can’t cut his hair. I wouldn’t have anything to hang on to. It gives me good leverage.”

I had never seen Lizzy turn quite so red so fast. I knew I was blushing too. Matt laughed at us both. And hearing his laugh at that moment was worth all the embarrassment in the world.

I WAS in the kitchen with Mom and Lizzy when Matt and his parents arrived on Christmas day.

Matt came in immediately and said quietly, “He’s drunk. Lizzy, I hope you don’t end up regretting this.”

Before she could say anything, Lucy came in. She obviously felt awkward after the debacle of their last visit, but she thanked Lizzy for inviting them, and then Brian brought James in, and the three women were immediately talking about sleeping patterns and nursing habits. Matt, Brian, and I cleared out in a hurry.