Make a Right (13 page)

Cade’s hands flexed. He was a bigger man than Tuck. He could have knocked Tuck down or physically pushed him out of the way if he’d wanted to.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t or wouldn’t look away from Tuck, pleading with his body no matter what the words he said. “What are you doing?”

Tuck lifted one hand to stroke Cade’s cheek lightly with his knuckles, watching Cade’s lips part and his eyes close. “What do you think?”

If it had only been Tuck who wanted this, he would have let it pass. But it wasn’t. Cade needed this maybe more than Tuck did. He was just too proud and stubborn to ask.

And Tuck took care of his man when he needed something. Always. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it until the sun grows cold,” he told Cade, who listened with pleading and denial warring for dominance on his face. “It’d take a lot more than this to stop me from loving you.”

“Tuck…”

“It’s okay,” Tuck said, because it would be. It had to be. He took Cade by the hand, rough palm to smooth, and laid it over his heart. “I’ve got you. You know that.”

Cade rested his head against the wall, watching Tuck, not stopping him. Not wanting to. He spread his fingers wide over the spot where he’d feel Tuck’s heart beating. “Why don’t you hate me by now? You don’t make sense. Anyone else would have walked away.”

“Yeah? Good for you I’m not anyone else.” Tuck kissed Cade, once, a light brush across his lips. “What I am is yours.”

Cade searched Tuck’s face, his lips parted and his body drawn tight as a bowstring. “You shouldn’t be.”

“No?” Tuck turned his head to press his lips to Cade’s palm instead. “Too bad for me, then, because I am.”

“Tuck…” Cade’s arm jerked. Hurt a little, but that was okay. “If this happens, it won’t solve anything.”

“No.” Even Tuck knew that. “But it could be a start.”

“
God
.” Cade pressed his forehead to Tuck’s. Ground against him in a sharp spike of pain and a rasp of shaved hair like stubble burn.

“It’s okay, babe,” Tuck said, trying to gentle him down. “It’ll be okay if you let it.”

Cade scoffed.

“Don’t believe me?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” Tighter still Cade held him—and looser, too, trailing his hand from Tuck’s chest to his waist, to his belt. “You make me someone I’m not,” he said. Tuck could see the walls crumbling, even if just for now. “You make me wish I could be…”

Tuck would have asked him what he meant by that, but there was something Cade needed more than words. Himself too. He lifted Cade’s chin, tasted the breath that escaped him, and slanted their mouths together.

Cade breathed a small moan between Tuck’s lips.

“It’s okay.” Tuck stroked a mirror reverse path up Cade’s chest, bare and warm and sleek. “I won’t hurt you.”

“I know you won’t mean to.” Cade covered Tuck’s hand and gripped it tight. He drew in one more deep, rib-aching breath and pressed his other palm to the middle of Tuck’s back. “I’ll be the one who hurts me. Just like always, God—” His laugh broke down the middle.

Enough.

“Stop fighting,” Tuck said, moving his mouth against Cade’s with each word. “I’m tired of fighting.”

They hovered on the knife’s edge, they hesitated, they breathed…

Cade gave way first. Forward, pushing, taking Tuck where he could, hands sliding across him and not gentle about it. Not stopping until he’d pushed Tuck onto the bed and stood above. Thick down velveteen billowed around him, the pillow drowning-soft under his head, and Cade on top of him before he’d barely noticed the first two. They didn’t matter anyway. Just Cade. Just this.

Tuck stretched out to fumble with the lamp. He pressed the button that dimmed the light to darkness, leaving them with nothing but shadows and sounds and senses. He could still make out the dark shadows and moonlit angles of Cade’s face through the sheer curtains over the west-facing windows, and that was enough. He’d
seen
. Now he wanted to
feel.

He let go and let Cade in, on top of him. Almost the way he used to. He’d propped his weight on his elbows and stretched out with one leg between Tuck’s, his thigh pressed tight to Tuck’s groin. Tuck’s cock throbbed with the strength of a heartbeat, jerking between them and stinging where the zipper dug in.

Cade didn’t move. He watched Tuck close, too close to be so still.

Tuck had promised once upon a time that he’d take care of his boy. Always. And so he did.

“Stop thinking,” Tuck said. He took Cade’s hand and moved it from his stomach down to his cock, pressing and molding, waiting for Cade to groan deep in his throat before he rocked his hips up. He echoed Cade’s second moan. Should have guessed how difficult it would be not to thrust up into Cade’s hand.

Especially when Cade’s third groan broke on an almost silent curse and he dropped fully onto Tuck, body to body, miles of him that ground and rocked and made Tuck turn the air blue with hissed blasphemies that matched Cade’s forbidden words half spoken and not understood against Tuck’s neck, deep beneath his ear, his shoulders bunching as he strove to go deeper, get tighter.

Tuck bit him. Once. Lightly. On the angle of Cade’s cheekbone, all he could reach. He drew his nails over Cade’s bare back and down beneath the jeans to cover and knead him. “Tonight is all that matters for tonight,” he said. “I’m yours. Take me if you’re going—”

He didn’t get a chance to finish that. Suited him that he didn’t need to. Cade’s kiss silenced the emptiness that demanded more and filled him brimful. A hard kiss, then a soft one, then rough, then across his jaw with a rasping scrape of stubble and teeth over the pulse pounding in Tuck’s neck.

Tuck would have sobbed, if he were that kind of guy. The relief—the need—

He raised his knees and clamped them about Cade’s thighs instead and pushed up, giving Cade what he needed. What he’d take. He kissed Cade back, everywhere he could reach, rubbed and scratched him anywhere else, sometimes deep enough he knew he’d leave lines to match the bruises Cade dug into his hips, his arms, at his sides.

The world
could
spin on an axis like this, and tonight, while it defied all gravity—it did.

Tuck knew what Cade wanted as soon as he drew back to breathe, hot puffs of air cooling the sweat that’d slicked both of them. “Sit up. I want this off.”

He tugged Cade’s belt, the raw-edged leather rough and sharp to the touch. “These too. All of them. If we’re having this night, then we’re doing it the way it should be. Hey.” He rubbed his thumb across Cade’s lips. “Slow is good. Fast is good. However you want it.”

“It’s that easy for you,” Cade said. He hooked two fingers under Tuck’s belt.

Tuck cupped his palm over Cade’s swollen cock and grinned, meaning to tweak Cade’s chain and get a reaction. He needed one as much as the other. “No. Hard.”

There
. Unexpected, though maybe it shouldn’t have been, but
there
. The wild, only partially broken laugh, the growl, and the rough top that Cade could be, all breaking free.
There.

Cade stripped Tuck’s T-shirt away, the cotton barely clearing Tuck’s head, and ripped along the way before he shoved Tuck one-handed back into the bed. He raised Tuck’s hips with a jerk and slid the jeans down Tuck’s legs. Tossed them aside to land who-cared-where.

Tuck stared up at him, a little scared, a lot turned on. His Cade. He nodded at Cade’s waist. “Those too.”

Cade slid off the bed and stood up in profile to Tuck. He flicked the buttons open and let them fall from his hips the way they’d wanted to all day and all night. Beneath, his hard-on stretched his black boxers out in almost obscene relief that made Tuck’s mouth water.

“Touch yourself,” Tuck said, sounding whisky rough and honey dipped, even to himself. “Just once, so I can see.”

Cade closed his eyes and slid his hand into his boxers. Silhouetted against the pale light streaming through the window, the thickness of his fist around his cock was a sight that made Tuck groan and press his hand down hard over his cock to keep from shooting right then, right there, too soon.

Not easy, and not easier still when Cade worked himself, head falling back and lips parting in the kind of desperate more-need-more no one could fake.

“Need you,” Tuck said. His cock throbbed and leaked drops of precum on his stomach. His legs fell apart, spreading for Cade before he had to move or lose all control and come. He rested himself on one elbow and stretched out, reaching for Cade. “God, if I don’t have you right now, I’ll lose my mind.”

Cade shifted his hips, and the boxers fell to the floor. He stepped out of them and onto the bed in the kind of move Tuck used to make, sliding on top of Tuck and slotting perfectly into place. “You’ve got me,” he said, mouth against mouth in a kiss that lasted no more than one long second. “You asked for it.”

Tuck raised his arms to wrap his fingers around the ornate curling iron of the headboard, cold metal scrolls digging into his palms. He wrapped his legs around Cade and grinned. “I know.”

Cade made a sound that might have been a laugh. Probably wasn’t. Didn’t matter when he pressed his face to Tuck’s favorite spot and dragged his teeth across it without soothing the sting.

God, the way they fit together. They’d been made for this. Tuck had thought it would be rough, but it wasn’t yet, though it might get there. He couldn’t keep track. Cade was on top of him, surrounding him, blocking out the moonlight; Cade, behaving the way he had once upon a time.

Cade’s cock slid through the sweat-slick crease of Tuck’s hip, bumping his stomach with blunt, wet strokes. He used to do that to tease, but he was already breathing with the speed of the end coming far too soon. Tuck too. The hell with that. No second-best efforts would be good enough tonight.

Tuck let go of the headboard and sat up halfway, pushing Cade partway off. He caught Cade before Cade got the wrong idea and held him by the nape. “What do you want to bet one of those imps made sure the nightstand drawer was stocked?”

The ploy worked. Cade laughed. “God. Could you not mention them right now?”

“Find out if I’m right or not, and I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

Cade’s kiss delved deep. He held Tuck tight to him with only one arm, the other long enough to stretch out and clumsily rattle the drawer open. He laughed again into Tuck’s mouth when he dropped cool squares of foil and a full, heavy bottle on Tuck’s stomach, the chill of them making Tuck jump and hiss. “Not a word.”

Not a problem. Tuck brushed the condom packets off his stomach and went for the good stuff.

Cade hesitated. He started to pick up one of the packets.

Hell
. Tuck stopped him. “Do we need those?”

Cade’s fingers flexed, reaching to and drawing back from them. “You tell me. Do we?”

There hadn’t been anyone else for Tuck. Now he knew, not for Cade either. Screw caution. He swept the sharp-edged squares off the bed to patter down like rain. “No.”

And he didn’t stop there. He shoved the lube into Cade’s hand and lay back, arms over his head once more and a cradle formed of his legs stretched out long, toes pointed and curled in turn. “Come on. Like we both want it.”

“Impossible man. You never made sense…” Cade shut up, sharp and abrupt. He dropped his head to Tuck’s chest and swirled his tongue around Tuck’s nipple, then bit.

Tuck arched off the bed with a grunt; only his hold on the headboard kept him there. “
Cade
.”

“Shh.” Cade slipped between Tuck’s legs, fingers slick. “Shh, not another word or I can’t hold out.”

Tuck bit his tongue, breathed out, ground his teeth. His arms burned and shook. He didn’t care. Cade inside him stung at first, reminding him of how long it’d been but setting a spark to dynamite too. He ground his knees against Cade’s hips, bone to bone, and breathed shallow, panting.

Babbling too. He could hear himself and hear Cade shushing him with lips and the press of his cheek when he went deeper, and he hadn’t forgotten where to crook his fingers.

Not even a kiss could have muffled that shout. Tuck’s hands slipped and skidded on Cade’s back. Some of the chanting pouring out of his lips, rhythm-beat to the shift of his head tossing on the pillow, began to make sense. “In, inside me, do it, Cade, give it to me hard, need it, need you, now, now, God, Cade,
now
.”

Blunt pressure. Too much, his body not loose enough yet and resisting—flare, burn, stretch, pain—and Tuck wanted it all. He arched his back and let go to let Cade in, all the way on a tight stroke to the root.

He stilled. Cade shuddered, weight on his arms and teeth sharp but not biting Tuck’s neck.

“Missed you,” Tuck breathed into Cade’s ear. His body eased, fucking finally, and shocked him from too full to not enough in the beat of a heart. He clamped on to Cade with all he had in him and bit the dent in Cade’s chin. He set his hand on the small of Cade’s back and pushed. “
Now
.”

Cade slid out, caught himself, and slid in, and Tuck’s head exploded. Red-hot strokes deep inside, Cade panting and swearing over him, cock throbbing between them in want of something more.

Tuck begged him for that “more” between kisses that grew sloppy, both of them too far gone to line up. Cade’s chest hair rubbed Tuck’s nipples raw, and Tuck sucked the soft skin of Cade’s shoulder until Cade hissed with pain but didn’t stop.

He was going to come. Swear, one more push and he’d fly.

Cade laid hands on him, and Tuck’s surge off the bed shoved Cade out of him. Cade knew this too, and he would have laughed if he hadn’t been fucking gorgeous in the twist and grimace of his face, the look of a man who wanted to see his lover come and lick it off but had to,
had to
, go after his own.

Cum smeared into their skin, rubbed deep, and washed off with sweat as Cade pounded him, lifted his legs, and pushed them back painfully, perfectly far.

The headboard slammed against the wall with no bothering to be quiet now. Tuck rambled a stream of nonsense, sounds that weren’t words and words that weren’t sentences, his hand on Cade’s back and his nails digging in, urging him on faster, harder, deeper,
now—

Cade drew blood when he bit, when he came, a groan dragged from the depths of him imprinted in a circle over Tuck’s heart.