Corey shrugged. “I’ve been able to work again. But something was still broken in me,” he said. “And tonight...you healed it. So thank you.”
Doug blinked. “Sure. You...ah, you’re welcome.”
“Catcha later, Doug.”
Then Corey sprinted back up the stairs, and disappeared inside, back to his party.
When Doug stepped into his own apartment, Stewart was lying on the couch. He turned his head and looked up. “What did he want?”
Doug closed the door behind him and walked over to Stewart, kneeling beside the couch. “To thank me,” Doug said.
“For what?”
“I’m not really sure, to be honest. I still think Corey’s a bit whacked out of his skull as a human being.”
Stewart chuckled. “He doesn’t say thank you often,” he said. “Just take it for what it is and don’t poke the cobra with a stick.”
Doug captured Stewart’s lips, and Corey’s kiss faded away, fluttering off into the wind and disintegrating. Stewart hooked his arm around Doug’s neck and deepened the kiss, and it was all there was, that rush of feeling that blotted out everything else.
He’s perfect. He’s for me
.
Pulling back, Doug smiled. “Come to bed.”
In the bedroom, Stewart turned on the sound machine, raising the volume on the bubbling brook until the party noises were drowned to a mere hum in the background.
Despite the occasional sound of Corey’s shrill laughter breaking through their soothing shield, they made love in the darkness, slowly and passionately. It was a little strange of course, having Stewart back in his apartment, in his bed, gliding in and out of his body while Corey’s party raged above them.
But Doug had let go of trying to define what was good and right and normal. Lines blurred and bent, filaments crossed each other in tangled webs of energy, and roads branched off in unpredictable directions.
Normal
was in the eye of the beholder, and sometimes the path to happiness involved bushwhacking and slicing and carving it until it yielded to individual desires. It wasn’t simple, and there was no getting through it unscathed from the bleeding prick of thorns along the way.
But the sweet, rousing satisfaction Doug found in the heady, silken flesh of the man in his arms, gave him one certainty.
It was worth it.
THE END
About the Author
Darien Cox lives in New England, bouncing back and forth between the mountain and the ocean states, anywhere there’s a wave or a ski slope. A nature lover and thrill seeker, he enjoys exploring the intensity, insanity, humor and chaos that accompanies cupid’s arrow, whether it’s love at first sight or just the overwhelming power of lust. Mystery, thriller, and paranormal elements are occasionally tossed in to further spice up the mix, because let’s face it—sometimes the world is not enough.
Find Darien online at dariencox.com.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents