“What are you doing here, Kay?” David’s breath was warm on Kieran’s face, his voice soft, the angry edge gone.
“I came to…” To what? Ask about a part in a movie? That was so… not…true. It was what he’d told himself, but it was not at all why he had fl own across the country and shown up at
240 Gardner ~ His Leading Man
David’s door in the middle of the night. And maybe he could even admit that now, sitting here in this cab, driving through the snow, with David’s arms around him and David’s mouth so close to his. Except he couldn’t force out the words. As hard as he tried he couldn’t make himself say it. So he shook his head and tried to swallow the lump in his throat.
“Christine Ferrar says I should give you the part of Michael, that you want it. Is that why you’re here, Kieran? For a part?”
“No. Yes. Partially. God, David, I don’t know. No, it’s not the part. It’s not the part at all. I mean, I want to play Michael, but I came here because I want to be with you.”
“And you fi gured that getting a part in my movie would accomplish that.”
Kieran nodded. “Yeah.”
“And you fi gured that if we spend months working together every single day that it wouldn’t be long before we were back in bed, that it would be inevitable.”
“Pretty much. Isn’t it?”
David didn’t answer. Instead he asked, “And is that enough for you, Kay? Is that all you want, some meaningless fl ing, my cock up your ass every night for the duration of the fi lming?” Kieran opened his mouth to fi nally say it, everything that was all bottled up in his heart, but David continued. “Because it’s not all I want. It’s not even close. And it won’t be enough because I still love you, Kay. I never stopped. I loved you since that fi rst time I saw you in Macy’s.” He laughed a little. “God, sometimes I think I loved you before I knew you. So no, I’m not giving you that part so we can have an affair. I want it all, all the time, every day, every night, forever.”
“Me too,” Kieran whispered. “God, David, me too.” Aware of nothing but the man who had just pledged to him, Kieran leaned forward that fi nal inch and brought their mouths together.
“David, look at the snow! It’s like a blizzard out there.” Kieran turned from the wide window above the sink and smiled, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “I think we might be stuck here for a while.”
David returned the smile as he crossed the worn blue and white linoleum and wrapped his arms around his lover. “You think?” He nuzzled the sensitive place just under Kieran’s ear, heard the catch in his breathing. “Good thing we brought plenty of food with us.”
Yesterday they’d driven through steadily falling snow all the way from Manhattan to the farmhouse in Western Massachusetts.
Arriving after dark, they’d unloaded their bags and the rest of the supplies they’d brought before crawling, shivering and worn out from the drive, into the big sleigh-bed, though neither had been too worn out to make love before they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
That morning they’d wandered through the two-hundred-year-old farmhouse hand in hand and David had shown him all the small things that he himself loved about the place, explaining his plans for the rehab and hoping his lover would see what he saw, rather than what everyone else saw, which was all the work and expense that lay ahead.
But he needn’t have worried, because Kieran had seen only charm and potential. He’d run his fi ngers over the window panes with their wavy glass. He’d exclaimed over the enormous claw-foot tub and stroked a reverent hand over the beautiful old molding with its graceful curves and exquisite curlicues. He hadn’t even blinked at the peeling paint or the water-stained ceiling or the drafts that were strong enough in certain places to blow your hair back from your face. And though he hadn’t thought it was possible, David had loved him even more for that unmitigated sense of optimism.
242 Gardner ~ His Leading Man
“How much do you think is out there?” Fascinated by the winter wonderland on the other side of the glass, Kieran turned in David’s arms and shaded his eyes against the brilliance of the morning sun. “I bet there’s like a foot.” David laughed. “Says the California boy with nothing but sneakers to wear on his feet.”
“So what? We’re not going out, right?” Leaning his head back against David’s shoulder, Kieran twisted his neck to look up at him. “And as long as we keep the fi re built up, I won’t need shoes or even clothes. In fact I was thinking I’d just stay naked all weekend.”
“Now you’re talking.” David pressed against his lover’s deliciously tight little butt. Through the twin layers of their sweat pants, he could feel the heat radiating off Kieran’s body and his dick stiffened in response.
“I’m so glad you brought me here.” Kieran sighed. “I totally love this place.” A dazzling smile lit his features.
David’s heart fl ipped over and he got that funny fl utter low in his belly, the same one he got every time he looked at Kieran.
In the car on the way up here when he’d glanced over and caught a glimpse of his passenger’s profi le. When they’d stopped for gas and Kieran got out to knock some of the snow off the roof of the rental car. When they’d sat across from each other in the diner eating greasy burgers and drinking Dr. Pepper. Every time he felt that fl utter he knew, without a doubt, he was the luckiest man alive.
“You really love it?” David touched his lips to the corner of Kieran’s jaw. “Even though there’s no TV?” Nibbled just there.
“And you can only get cell phone reception in the southwest corner of the smallest bedroom? Do you even love that?” Kieran laughed. “I especially love that. I love that there’s somewhere we can go where people can’t call and bug us.” Again he twisted his head around, touched their lips together. “And I love you. Did I tell you that today?”
ENCORE! ENCORE!
243
“Once or twice maybe.” David’s hand slipped inside the waistband of Kieran’s sweatpants, stroked the warm skin of his belly. “But feel free to tell me again, as many times as you want.”
He dipped his head and covered Kieran’s mouth with his, kissing him long and slow and deep. And oh, it was so, so sweet.
Without breaking the kiss, Kieran turned and wrapped his arms around David’s neck. Plunging his fi ngers into David’s hair, he held on, kissed back. He pressed close, their bodies fi tting together just as they always had, just as they always would.
“I think we should live here.” Kieran’s lips moved, his breath slipping between their mouths.
David caught Kieran’s lower lip between his teeth, tugged.
“Kind of hard to manage a television career from out here in the sticks of western mass.”
“I don’t care. I told you, I’m done with television.”
“That’s how you feel now, but once we’re done with the fi lm, you’re going to want another project. If the right one comes along—”
“Not another TV show, not if it means going back to LA.” David felt the guilt of that down to his toes. The last thing he wanted was to impede Kieran’s career, especially now that, except for the role of Michael, he was technically unemployed.
“Kay, I told you we could go to LA. As long as I’m with you—”
Kieran shook his head. “No. That’s not what you want. It’s not what I want either.”
“What do you want then? Tell me and we’ll do it.”
“Well...” Kieran hesitated, then leaned back in David’s arms and took a breath. “Here in Massachusetts we could get married.
I mean, if we want to... Some day. No pressure or anything. I’m just saying.”
244 Gardner ~ His Leading Man
David was sure his heart was about to leap out and into his lover’s waiting hands. Kieran wanted to marry him.
With almost superhuman effort, he controlled the grin that wanted to break across his face. “No pressure, huh?”
“None. It was just a thought, something I was thinking because, you know, this is Massachusetts and they have marriage equality and all.” Twin spots of color bloomed in Kieran’s cheeks and his body vibrated with tension.
David’s body, every single cell, vibrated with joy. Kieran wanted to marry him.
“Mmm.” David rubbed their cheeks together, felt the light scrape of beard stubble. “It’s a good thought. I like it.”
“You do?” Kieran’s breath caught as David’s tongue fl icked inside his ear.
“Yeah, I do.” David angled their bodies and brought their cocks together. “So are you asking me to marry you, Kieran?” Squeezed twin handfuls of fi rm, round ass. Felt the desire, never far from the surface, rear up and paw the air like a stallion. “You want to be my husband?”
“Yeah, I do.” Kieran’s lips brushed the corner of David’s mouth. “I want to get married right here. Can we do that?”
“Right here? In the kitchen? In front of the sink?” Kieran laughed and David’s heart turned over.
God, he would never tire of that sound.
“Not here in the kitchen, you goof, here at the farm. We could do it in the summer and have the ceremony outside. We could have all our friends here.” Kieran’s eyes shone with excitement.
“Can we do that? But not the press. I don’t want the press because they’ll turn it into a circus and I don’t want—”
“Shhh. Okay. Whatever you say. We can do anything you want.” David’s chest felt too small for all the happiness welling up inside him, like he might burst. He saw everything he felt refl ected in his lover’s smile. “Kieran, I’d marry you today, right now, if we could.”
ENCORE! ENCORE!
245
“I love you,” Kieran said and hugged him tight. “I can’t believe I wasted all that time apart from you.”
“Don’t think about that. You’re here. I’m here. And we’re not going anywhere, except maybe back to bed.” He gave Kieran another squeeze, the bulge under his sweats making his intentions clear.
“Sounds like a plan.” Kieran dropped a quick hard kiss on David’s lips. “But give me one second. There’s something I need to do fi rst.” Another kiss. “Wait here, okay? Don’t come up till I tell you.”
One second turned out to be more like fi ve minutes. But at last Kieran’s voice fl oated down the stairs.
“Okay, c’mon up.”
Kieran met him at the bedroom door in a black negligee that, although it covered him from throat to ankle, concealed nothing as the whisper thin material was completely sheer. Underneath he wore nothing, his erection standing out against his fl at belly. He held out a hand and smiled shyly. “Hi.”
“Hi.” David took the hand and let Kieran draw him into the bedroom.
He’d closed the curtains and lowered the shades, shutting out as much of the morning light as possible. Twin tapers burned on the nightstand and cast a golden glow over the pillows.
“I wanted it to be romantic,” Kieran said as he led David to the bed. “But I was too tired when we got here last night. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s more than okay. I love it.” David reached for Kieran.
“God, you’re so beautiful.” Drew him close.
“I wanted to be sexy for you.” Kieran wound his arms around David’s neck, pressed close. “You like it?”
“You don’t have to do anything special to be sexy for me. But yeah, I like it.”
“Good. I’m glad.” Kieran tugged at the drawstring of David’s sweats, untied it. “Now let’s get these off, shall we?”
246 Gardner ~ His Leading Man
David let Kieran undress him, enjoying the feel of those hands on his skin and the way Kieran kissed every inch of fl esh as he bared it. By the time he tumbled them back onto the mattress, David was ready to beg.
“Kieran, please, I need…”
“I know, me too.” Kisses rained over David’s face. His forehead, his eyes, his cheeks, nose and fi nally his lips were kissed and kissed again.
David ran his hands over Kieran’s body, his back, his hips, his ass, that perfect and utterly male body covered by material as sheer as a breath. Who could have known that would be so damn erotic.
“Want me to take it off?” Kieran seemed to read his mind.
“No, I like it. It’s so…sensual. I can still feel you, but it’s so much more, you know?”
Kieran nodded. “I know.” He kissed David again.
“Where’s the lube? I need you right now.” David stroked his cock with long, languid pulls as Kieran got himself ready. At last he lay back, legs spread, arms open, a smile of invitation curving his lips.
“C’mon, David. Don’t make me wait.”
As he crawled up between Kieran’s legs, David uncapped the lube and slicked himself up. He positioned the head of his cock then made himself stop. “Kieran, open your eyes.” Kieran’s lashes fl uttered, his eyes opened and their gazes locked. “Do it,” Kieran whispered. “Take me. Fuck me.” David pushed. Kieran’s body yielded, and he was inside, the tight silky heat of Kieran’s ass gripping him, Kieran’s eyes fi lled with so much love David felt like he could drown in it.
They both groaned.
“God, so good, David.” Kieran sighed. “Feels so good, but, please, move.”
David chuckled. “Your wish and all that.” ENCORE! ENCORE!
247
He pulled back, pushed in, again, and again, and again. They set up a rhythm,
their
rhythm
, with Kieran rocking into each thrust, little mews of pleasure bleeding from his lips along with barely coherent murmurs of love and encouragement.
Despite the chill of the room, sweat broke out all over David’s body, but he hardly noticed. His concentration was total, his joy complete as he pleasured himself and his lover. He had everything he wanted in this man beneath him. His body, his murmurs of love, the sounds he made were all David had ever wanted.
“Oh, oh, David, close.” Kieran’s head rolled from side to side on the pillow. He gripped his cock, pumped. “Oh, God, faster, harder. Fuck me harder. I want to… I need to…” David sped up, slamming into Kieran again and again. Deeper, harder, faster.
“Coming,” Kieran gasped, his hand a blur of movement as he jacked himself in time with David’s thrusts. “Ah, David.
Aaaaah.”
His ass clamped down, ribbons of spunk shot through his fi ngers and his beautiful face contorted with pleasure.
One more thrust then another and David shoved in deep as his own orgasm erupted from his cock. He swelled and pulsed and pumped his cum into his lover’s body, not going entirely still until he’d given every last drop he had to give, until he’d fi lled Kieran and in the process emptied himself.