“Darwin?” An uncertain note had returned to Tom’s voice. “Was that…too much or something?”
“Fuck,” Darwin managed to grind out.
“That was perfect. Fuck!
You’re
perfect. You almost made me come by just
talking about sucking me off. Fuck.”
Although still hesitant, Tom’s breathless laugh had gained a little confidence. “Want more?”
“Definitely. My head might explode but I don’t really give a shit if it does.” Darwin’s hand moved faster on his cock. “Talk to me.”
“Should I beg some more or can I suck you?”
Darwin was actually panting. “Suck me.
Now.” He knew he sounded like a caveman but that was just too fucking bad. Air was at a premium at the moment.
There was a pause before Tom spoke again. When he did, he sounded just as breathless as Darwin felt. “I start by kissing your thighs. When you growl at me to quit teasing, I lick your balls until you grab my head and hold me still while you shove your cock in my mouth.”
“Fuck!” Darwin realized he’d switched from caveman communication skills to potty-mouth caveman communication skills, but there was nothing he could do about it.
He was just a few strokes and another sentence or two from Tom away from coming.
“I suck it the best I can but your cock is huge and thick and fills my mouth,” Tom continued, his words coming faster and faster until they were running together in a gasping rush. “You’re holding my head, fucking my mouth, and all I can do is take it as you shove your cock to the back of my throat, faster and faster, until you come and I swallow everything you give me.”
It was too much. With a rough sound, Darwin came, his eyes screwed tightly closed as he imagined filling Tom’s mouth with his cum. He could hear the small gasps and groans as Tom came as well, and the sounds of the other man’s excitement drew out his orgasm until his body shook with exhausted tremors. Taking two shaky steps to the bed, Darwin collapsed to lie diagonally across the mattress.
For a time, they didn’t say a word, although Darwin knew Tom was still there.
He could hear him breathing.
“You’re amazing,” Darwin finally said.
“You too.” Tom’s voice had that sleepy, satiated, totally unafraid, post-phone-sex sound that Darwin loved.
“What are you doing tomorrow night?”
“This, hopefully.” Tom sounded as if he were smiling.
“Want to go out first? We could get that drink I keep promising you.”
“Sure.”
In the next few seconds of contented silence, Darwin felt his eyes beginning to slide closed. “I’d better say goodnight before I fall asleep,” he yawned.
“Would you mind…” As Tom trailed off, Darwin could imagine the way the other man was nibbling on the inside of his bottom lip. For some reason, that image started getting him aroused again.
“Would I mind what?”
“Shit,” Tom sighed. “It sounds so incredibly cheesy.”
“Now I’m curious. Would I mind doing what? You know you can’t out-cheese me, so don’t worry about that.”
Tom gave an embarrassed laugh. “I was just wondering if you’d mind staying on the phone? You know, until one of us falls asleep. If you don’t have unlimited minutes, though, I totally understand…”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Darwin replied, holding the phone to his ear as he shifted around so his head was actually in the vicinity of the pillows. “Want me to talk or sing or something?”
“I’m not five,” Tom said, sounding a little insulted but mostly amused. “You don’t have to sing me a lullaby.” After a pause, he asked, “Can you sing?”
“Like an angel,” Darwin said, the corners of his mouth twitching with amusement.
“Too bad you just said you don’t want to hear a lullaby.”
“Great,” Tom grumbled. “Now I’m curious.”
Darwin did laugh at that. “Well, since you asked so nicely…” After clearing his throat, he started singing, “Get out on that dance floor and shake that ass for me! How low can you go, huh? Let me see!” He stopped, grinning as he listened to Tom howl with laughter.
“Oh Lord,” Tom wheezed when he’d apparently gotten his laughter under control. “Was that DJ B. Serious?”
“Yes,” Darwin said primly. “Glad you recognized the artist. But, you know, if my self-esteem wasn’t so rock solid, you could’ve really crushed my dreams by laughing at my singing.”
This just set Tom off again. “Sorry!
Sorry!” he gasped. “I fully and completely support your singing dreams.”
“Uh-huh.”
Darwin kept his tone skeptical, although it was all he could do not to join Tom’s laughter—it was infectious.
“I’d believe you more if you didn’t have laugh hiccups.”
“No, really,” Tom assured him. “You really do sound like an angel.”
“Really?”
“Definitely. An angel who wants to see how low I can go.” Tom’s voice shook at the end and he started laughing again. Unable to hold back anymore, Darwin laughed as well.
“I could listen to you all night,” he said.
When silence greeted his comment, Darwin bit his cheek, wondering if he’d pushed too far.
“You too,” Tom finally answered. “I kind of wish you were here with me.”
Darwin sat up. “Want me to come over?”
“No!” The answer was brutally quick and honest.
Disappointed, Darwin flopped back down so his head hit the pillows. “Maybe another time.”
“Yeah,” Tom agreed, although he didn’t sound as if he actually meant it.
Darwin had the panicked thought that Tom might be getting cold feet about the whole thing. Maybe he’d never want to go out with Darwin again. “This is good too,”
he hurried to say. “Don’t get me wrong. I just…it’s nice to see you. In person, I mean.”
Tom’s silence made his stomach drop. “Isn’t it?”
“Of course,” Tom said, and Darwin started breathing again. “It’s great seeing you too. I’m just…sometimes I get a little freaked out.”
“Because of what happened last spring?”
“How do you know about that?” Tom asked sharply. “Did my sister tell you?”
Darwin winced. He’d known asking would be pushing his luck. “’Course not.
You’d just made a few comments about not dating for six months, so I figured something bad had happened around then.” After a short pause, he admitted, “I did some checking in the back issues on the local newspaper’s website.”
“Oh.”
The single syllable made it hard to read Tom’s reaction. “I didn’t mean to pry. I was just being…” He waved a hand in the air, trying to come up with the right word.
“Nosy?” Tom filled in for him.
“Pretty much. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I get it,” Tom said. “You should know anyway. I don’t mean for it to be some huge secret. It’s not like I’m ashamed of what happened.”
Darwin almost bit his tongue in half trying to keep from asking questions. He made what he hoped was an encouraging noise, although it sounded a little like a dying duck.
“A guy… His name was Dave. He tried to pick me up at a diner one night. I said no but he waited for me, grabbed me in the parking lot.”
“Fuck.” The word was out before Darwin could stop himself. He held his breath, hoping he hadn’t shut Tom up for good.
“He…he beat me up, shoved me in his car.”
Darwin was up, pacing, a heavy pulse beating at his temple.
“Choked me until I passed out.”
Locking his free hand around the back of his head, Darwin pulled his chin to his chest and clamped the phone hard against his ear.
“I woke up at the hospital. They told me someone saw what happened and called the cops, gave them the license plate. The cops pulled him over and found me in the backseat under a blanket.” Tom’s words had gotten faster and faster until they were running into each other.
“Tom.”
“It ended well, at least. I think a lot about what would’ve happened if no one had seen, if the cops hadn’t pulled him over. I wonder if I’d be dead now.”
Darwin choked, blood roaring in his skull.
“I feel like I should be living every day like it’s my last, smelling the roses, taking advantage of my second chance at life… You know, all those clichés.”
There was a silence. Now, when Darwin knew he should be saying something, he couldn’t squeeze out a single sound.
“The problem is,” Tom eventually continued, “I’m too fucking scared to do anything, stuck at home or at the office or even in my fucking truck. He didn’t kill me but he sure as fuck took away my life.”
“No.” Darwin finally forced out a word.
“No. He didn’t take anything away. Every day, you’re better. I can tell. That motherfucker didn’t get any part of you.”
It was Tom’s turn to be quiet for a few moments. “I should’ve been better.”
“Better?”
“Stronger. I should’ve fought harder. I shouldn’t have let him take me.”
Darwin was pacing again. “Sometimes there’s nothing you can do. Sometimes they’re
stronger.”
“
You
would’ve gotten away.” Tom gave a short, humorless laugh. “No, you would’ve killed him.”
Darwin’s whole body jerked as if he’d run into a wall. “What?”
How does he know?
Was it that easy for everyone to see what he really was?
“You’re strong and brave and…well, big,” Tom said. “I’m none of those things.”
“You’re all of those things,” Darwin shot back. “Well, maybe not big.”
Tom just snorted.
“And I told you. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do.” He took a breath, hearing Cal’s voice in his head, telling him to be careful, not to reveal too much. “I was…a prisoner once.”
“You were in prison?!”
“No!” Darwin quickly corrected. “Not like that. I was…in the military at the time. I didn’t commit any crimes.”
Except those I was forced to commit.
“You were a prisoner of war?” Tom asked, sounding horrified. “How long?”
Cal was yelling in his head again. “Not sure. I was…sick for a while at the beginning.
Nineteen months that I remember.”
“Fuck,” Tom breathed. “You were a POW
for a year and a half and I’m whining about a beat-down.”
“I didn’t mean…” Darwin trailed off and started over. “What happened to you was horrible. It makes me want to kill the bastard who hurt you. I didn’t mean to dump my shit on you. I just wanted you to know it wasn’t because you were weak or scared or whatever. On a bad day, it can happen to any of us.”
“Thank you.”
There was a silence that Darwin had no idea how to fill. Knowing what happened to Tom, talking that tiny bit about what had happened to him…Darwin just felt drained.
“You know, it’s good to know something about you,” Tom said, as if hearing Darwin’s wordless request to fill the silence. “I know what you’re like—funny and sweet and kind of goofy—but I don’t really know any, you know,
details
.”
“What do you want to know?” Darwin dreaded this. He’d answer but it wouldn’t be the truth. It couldn’t be.
“This is probably enough for one night.”
Tom laughed a little. “I might’ve googled you after we met.”
“Yeah?” Darwin didn’t like the sound of that. Who knows what might come up under “Darwin Bloom”? Nothing about
him
, that was for sure. “Find out anything interesting?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Tom said, and Darwin relaxed a little. “How’d you live to be…what? Twenty-five or so?”
“Twenty-seven,” Darwin corrected.
According to my fake driver’s license, at least.
“So how’d you manage to escape internet humiliation for twenty-seven years?” Tom asked. “As pretty as you are, I expected naked pics at the very least. No vengeful ex-boyfriends posting videos of you in your furry costume on YouTube?”
“Nope,” Darwin said lightly, although he was starting to sweat. These types of conversations could end badly. “It’s the reward of a virtuous life. That, and not dating much.”
“Virtuous?” Tom snorted. “For a virtuous boy, you sure have a filthy imagination.”
“You complaining?”
“Not in the least.”
Tom moved his beer in circles, watching the trails of condensation form on the scarred wood of the bar. It felt strange that Darwin knew what had happened to him six months before—the basic facts, at least. Even though Tom knew it was stupid, he still felt almost embarrassed. What had happened to him wasn’t his fault, he knew that, but it still made him feel weak. He should’ve been able to fight back, to escape on his own.
“Hey.”
Darwin’s growl of greeting made him jump. He twisted around on his stool and looked up at the grinning, hard-jawed, impossibly gorgeous face, unable to resist smiling back. “Hey.”
“Am I late?” Darwin took the stool next to Tom’s, somehow managing to move close enough to bump knees and tangle their legs together. Tom enjoyed the contact for a few seconds and then shifted away. Touching Darwin was a scary, mind-blowing thing. It made him feel a little drunk and ready to explode from his skin. There was no way Tom could’ve kept his legs where they’d been and expect to have a normal conversation.
“Nope.” Tom feigned cool while his heartbeat raced. “I’m early, as always.”
“I like that,” Darwin said, snagging Tom’s beer and taking a drink.
“Hey!” He couldn’t fuss too much though. There was something sexy about Darwin drinking from the same glass Tom’s lips had just touched. It was kind of like a kiss on a time delay.
Placing the glass back in front of Tom, Darwin just grinned and ordered two more beers from the bartender. “Sorry. I was really thirsty.”
“Too thirsty to wait ten seconds to get your own?”
“Yep. That thirsty.”
Feigning a scowl, Tom pulled the beer protectively toward his chest. “And what do you mean you like that I’m always early?
I’ve always thought it was kind of neurotic and…well, weird.”
“That way,” Darwin explained, “I don’t have to sit here nervously waiting for you, wondering when you’re going to show up or if you’re going to blow me off.”
With a huff of laughter, Tom took a drink of his newly reclaimed beer. “No, I get to do that instead. Great.”
His face uncharacteristically serious, Darwin looked at him. “If I say I’m going to show up, I’ll be there. I would never leave you hanging.”
Tom swallowed. Looking at the other man’s solemn expression, he believed it. For some reason, this opened up a whole new pit of fear in his stomach, deeper and wider than any his minor freak-outs had caused.