Lanyon, Josh - Adrien English 04 - Death of a Pirate King (22 page)

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Oh, yeah.” Agreeing with everything I
wasn’t saying. Huge mistake this, and we both had to know it -- and I’d’ve
killed anyone who tried to get between us. His fingers fumbled with the top
rivet of my jeans, worked it free as my shaking hands fastened on his
waistband, yanked at his belt buckle. He made a furious, desperate sound in the
back of his throat, bit the curve of my neck and shoulder.

I sucked in a sharp breath, grabbed at his shirt while he
bent to jerk my Levi’s down. A couple of his shirt buttons popped off and flew
across the room. My laugh didn’t sound like me, although I thought the idea of
him eventually staggering out of my place with his clothes in tatters was
pretty damned funny, and he yanked my boxers down, freeing my cock -- which
immediately began to wave with Pick Me! Pick Me! enthusiasm. Some body parts
never learn.

Shrugging out of the damaged shirt, Jake said roughly, “I
still dream about you.”

“I have nightmares about you.” I dragged my T-shirt over my
head, threw it aside.

He gave another of those choked laughs as he stepped out of
his trousers and briefs, his cock bobbing up, looking red and somehow
disheveled. And for a strangely polite moment our dicks bowed and scraped to
each other in formal greeting -- like the first act of
The Mikado
or something, and then his cock kissed me hello, and
mine nuzzled him back. Our attitude queer and quaint, all right.

Jake pulled me back against him, like any space between us
was too much, and his dick pressed painfully into my naked belly. I wound my
arms around his neck again as he picked me up, backing me against the wall --
hard.

“Ow,” I muttered, wriggling into better position as he hefted
me higher. I hooked my legs around his hips. I’d forgotten how strong he was.

“Sorry…” His hands smoothed the small of my back as he
cradled me close, his face resting in the curve of my shoulder for a moment.
“So sorry,” he said, and his voice sounded choked. But maybe it just sounded
that way smothered against my skin because when he raised his head, his eyes
were dry -- shadowy in this light -- and there was nothing to read in his face.
His breath warmed my face, a hint of beer but mostly just himself.

The blond hair on his chest teased my nipples; his dick was
poking rudely up along my crack. I pushed back instinctively, but he shifted so
our cocks were rubbing against each other instead. It felt good. Very good.
Just that. Friction. It’s not always a bad thing.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I replied ruefully.

He rested one hand against my face, cupping my jaw. I tried
to look away, but he leaned in, licking my mouth and then nipping my lower lip,
a delicate sting. I closed my eyes and he rubbed his face against mine, the rough
velvet of his jaw rasping against my mouth and nose and eyelids.

“I missed you,” he whispered against my face, and he kissed
me again.

A shiver rippled through me, and then another, and I was
disgusted to find myself trembling -- adrenaline overload, that’s all that was.
I lowered my brow to his shoulder, humping against him. He humped back and we
began to pick up the pace.

Ramming against him, breathing him in, I drew back enough to
look down between our bodies and I could see Jake’s cock, wet-tipped and huge
and flushed, driving against my own. It was fascinating watching us scraping
and parrying with each other, hips rocking, slipping right into that old
rhythm.

Not a dream. This was Jake. Jake and me. It was for real.
Painfully, exquisitely real.

He hitched me more comfortably against the wall, I threw my
head back, banging it, hardly noticing as the two Edward Borein etchings of
Spanish missions swung gently back and forth against the plaster. Tightening my
thighs around him, I arched my spine. He thrust against me, and I bucked right
back. We rubbed and ground against each other in what felt like an increasingly
desperate race for release.

The buzz started in the root of my cock, like sparks shooting
up -- flaring along my nerves like wildfire, racing out of control. My balls
tightened, and I jerked my hips in confined, fierce movements. The pictures on
the wall rattled.

Jake groaned deep from within, thrusting back hard, and then
the past and present seemed to fuse in a white-hot tangle like a magnetic storm
dancing across the sun’s surface. I slammed into him, hanging on for dear life,
and Jake clutched me back like I was his life preserver in a lake of fire.

“Jesus
Chris
t
!” he cried out.

And that fountain of sorrow splashed up between us, baptizing
belly and chest and chin. I yelled, and somewhere across the universe heard
Jake yelling back.

Echo and answer, and it went on and on in lovely aftershocks,
rippling out into infinity until at last it faded away.

And then I sagged forward, utterly spent, emptied…light as
air. I felt like I could have floated up and out…slipping through the open
window and drifting away across the rooftops and satellite dishes and telephone
wires…sailing away into the faintly smiling stars.

He was breathing harshly against my ear. And beyond that
sound I could hear the building creaking as though in the wake of a storm.

After a bit Jake regained his breath and gathered me up, and
I locked arms and legs around him, letting him carry me into the bedroom.

And I remembered Guy.

Guy
.

The man who so often shared this room with me. Who wanted to
share my life. My lover.

Who was still writing his ex-lover -- who might be with his
ex-lover this very moment.

Or who might not.

“You all right?” Jake asked, lowering me to the bed. “Did I hurt
you?”

“Not this time,” I said, rolling onto my belly and resting my
face in my folded arms.

I had shared this room with Jake before I ever knew Guy.

Not that it made it right. It just…made it what it was.

The mattress springs groaned as Jake collapsed half on top of
me, and his hands moved over me, warm, callused hands smoothing over my back
and butt, stroking, quieting.

It felt so good to be touched again. Except -- I was touched
all the time, caressed and petted by Guy, so why did I feel like no one had
touched me in years?

Jake continued to rub my back in that soothing way and I
stopped thinking -- I was getting pretty good at that -- and eventually his
hand slowed, and stopped. I heard the quiet, even tenor of his breathing as he
slept, and I let myself fall after him into the blue-edged darkness of the
summer night.

* * * * *

I came awake to someone nuzzling me beneath my ear, and even
half asleep I knew the difference, recognized the pleasurable rasp behind my
ear. I rolled over, opened my eyes, smiling, memory moving more slowly than
physical reaction.

Jake leaned on his elbow over me, gently trailing his fingers
down my chest. His hand rested lightly for a moment on my breastbone. I looked
down at his hand. His wedding band was simple: yellow gold, an interlocking
braid. I could see the gleam in the light from the streetlamps through the lace
curtains.

He asked, “How are you feeling?”

I stretched, arched my back, considering the question.
Considered why it had never provoked me when Jake asked. Hell, he’d bossed me
around more than anyone ever had. One of life’s little mysteries. And despite
the fact that tonight I’d broken a couple of my cardinal rules -- including the
one about married men -- I felt relaxed, warm. Better than I’d felt in a long time.

“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m good.”

“Yeah?”

My mouth tugged into a smile. “Yeah.”

He tickled my ribs lightly, and I drew my knees up, rolling
away from him.

“Nah, come back,” he said, and tugged me over. “I’ll stop.”

I flopped back over and stared up at him. “How are
you
feeling?” I asked.

His mouth contorted briefly. I touched the little frown line
between his brows, smoothing it away.

“I figured,” I said. “What’s she like? Kate.”

He seemed to consider the question for a moment, viewing her
dispassionately. “Pretty, smart, aggressive.” I saw the flash of white as he
smiled faintly at some memory. “She’s a tiger.”

I nodded. She’d have to be, I guessed. I looked back across
two years’ worth of wondering, and questioned, “Do you still have that dog?
What was his name?”

“Rufus?” He shook his head. “No. He died last year. He was
pretty old for a shepherd.”

I remembered once wondering if Rufus would cotton to me. We’d
never had a chance to meet, old Rufus and I. Not in a year of seeing Jake.

Had it only been a year? It had seemed much longer. Sometimes
it had seemed like a lifetime. But maybe all lifetimes weren’t measured in
hours, days, and years.

“Are you living at the same place?” I had only been to his
little house in north Glendale once, waiting for Jake on our way somewhere --
somewhere he had no doubt been terrified to be seen with me.

“Yeah.” He rolled on his back and stared up at the ceiling
fan’s blur moving above us in the gloom. “We were going to move, but when we
lost the baby we decided there was no hurry. It’s big enough for two.”

We
. I wondered why
I had started this line of conversation. Really not a good idea.

We listened to the fan whirring softly, spinning away. He
asked, “So you’re finally expanding the bookstore?”

I nodded.

He didn’t ask anything else. Apparently I remained a lot more
curious about him than he was about me. That reminded me of something, though.

I turned my head, studying his face in the dimness. “Guy said
he saw you parked on the street in front of the bookstore a few times.”

He closed his eyes, his mouth curving in an odd expression
that was not truly a smile. “Twice. I thought he spotted me. I wanted to talk
to you, and you weren’t taking my phone calls.” He opened his eyes. I could see
their shine like something feral in the night. “By the second time it was
obvious he was pretty much living here, and I wondered what the fuck I thought
I was doing.”

I had no answer to that. I wondered what the fuck we thought
we were doing now. He moved suddenly, shifting around. He bent, rubbing his
face against my cock, leisurely running his tongue down its length, tasting
from base to tip.

I jumped and then sighed, settling more comfortably in the
sheets, enjoying this, enjoying the care and attention from Jake’s soft and
warm mouth -- hard to believe a man who could say such hard things could have
such a sweet and soft mouth.

He took his time lapping at my skin, coaxing it back to
sensation and reaction. I murmured my pleasure. Stretching out alongside me,
his soft, sweet lips pressed my own and his hand closed on my hip, guiding me,
the other hand linking fingers with me. That was nice. I didn’t remember ever
holding hands with him before.

“Something funny?”

“Well, yeah,” I said.

He didn’t ask what -- maybe he knew it was better not to
know. His mouth feathered over my skin, drifted to my shoulders, traced my
collarbone. He’d shaved before coming over. For some reason I found that
touching.

I half turned, humping against him and he stroked my flank,
his mouth fastening on my nipple, and the sting of pleasure was surprising.
Funny thing because I had never liked that from anyone but Jake. Somehow when
it was Jake sucking that tight little nub, discreetly teething, it was
different. I groaned and thrust up at him.

“Can I have you?” Jake asked.

“Uh, you can borrow me,” I said shakily, and he said gravely,
“Thank you. I promise to return you in working order.”

My skin felt too tight for my body, too hot, my heart
pounding too hard -- and I thought that it would be nice to go out like this,
check out in a kind of spontaneous combustion of sweat and sex and semen.

Serve him right to be stuck with the body.

He thrust back against me, slow and easy, and I heard myself
making a keening sound as he tongued and tugged my nipple.

“Oh, yeah,” Jake said in a guttural whisper, “you do love
that.” His thumb tracked the wet slit of my cock, stroking, tracing. I could
feel his own prick, engorged and beginning to push for attention, needy and
neglected.

The nightstand drawer scraped open, and I heard him fishing
around. I resented his notion that he would know where to find the things he
needed, that I had changed so little -- but the fact was, I hadn’t changed in
the little things. And maybe not as much as I wished in the big things.

Finding what he needed, he attended to himself with quick
efficiency. I rolled over, stretched out, and he stroked a light, possessive
hand down my spine. “You have no idea how often I’ve dreamed of this.”

I shook my head -- I’d had dreams too, but there was no point
talking about this stuff. His finger tracked the crack of my ass, teasing as he
found the sensitive places. I moaned, squirming into that touch, separating my
legs, offering him access. The sheets felt cool on my belly and my half-hard
cock.

His hand rested on my shoulder. “I want to watch your face.”

“Closet romantic too, huh?” I said, but I let him guide me
over onto my back, and I bit back the other things I could have said, pulling
my knees up, opening for him.

Taking my cock in his big hand, he said, “You’re the most
beautiful guy I’ve ever had.”

I snorted, thinking he probably said that to all the
beautiful guys -- assuming there was time for talk between the beatings.

Then his slick fingers circled my hole, pressed a fingertip
inside, and withdrew.

I gulped.

Watching my face -- though he couldn’t have seen much in the
soft darkness -- he pressed in again, a little further, and I closed my eyes,
wanting to focus on the feel and forget the emotions of it. A second finger
followed, and then he flexed his hand, and I felt that knowing press on the
spongy tissue of prostate -- too knowing, but I focused on that sensation and
shut out the rest of it, letting him stretch and stroke me as though it were my
first time, giving into his strange pretense that I was fragile and terribly
precious to him.