Make a Right (2 page)

“Maybe what?” Tuck teased. He cracked wise when he got nervous, but Cade knew that.

Cade’s light brush on his wrist firmed into a solid bracelet of fingers around flesh, his palm at rest over Tuck’s beating pulse, holding him back as if it were a reflex he couldn’t help.

Tuck stopped. He was crazy enough about Cade that it made things he didn’t know the names for wrench inside him to put on the brakes, but he had to be sure. “Tell me, okay? Tell me I’m not reading you wrong.”

Anyone else would have said Cade looked expressionless, but the lips that were as soft and smooth as they looked, that parted beneath the brush of Tuck’s thumb, told their story. Nerves and doubt and, underneath that, wanting this enough to make himself let it happen. But he still needed a push. “Why are you asking?”

Tuck would have thought Cade would know, but… “Because I get things wrong sometimes. And if this isn’t what you want—really don’t want—then it ends now, before I hurt you.”

Cade drew his tongue over his lips to moisten them. “You care that much?”

There was enough wistful wanting there to give Tuck the courage to kiss the back of Cade’s hand. “You really need to ask that? Yeah. I do.”

Cade shook his head. Hard to tell, in the moonlight, what he might be thinking. He was a hard one to read at the best of times. Only Tuck could get through. “Why?”

“Why?” Tuck repeated. “You mean, why do I care?”

Cade nodded.

Tuck didn’t know how to answer. He tried anyway. “Every time I close my eyes, you’re there. I dream about you when I’m asleep. When I’m awake, mostly all I think about is you. It feels right, being with you.” He shrugged helplessly. “What else can I say?”

Cade’s always unexpected smile flashed out bright and quiet, and surprised too. “I thought you didn’t like Romeo.”

“I don’t.”

“But you want to be him. You make me think, sometimes…”

“Think what?”

“That maybe you could be,” Cade said. He rolled to his back, letting himself be as vulnerable as a guy like Cade could be. Brave and scared. Stubborn and take-your-breath-away gorgeous at the same time. A mystery Tuck would never get to the bottom of. Loved. Loved so much it could be scary if Tuck let that happen, even if Tuck didn’t know how to say
that
. Yet.

“You care,” Cade said. “You’re the first one who did.” He swallowed hard, but he made the first move and drew Tuck down toward him, on top of him, almost as needy as Tuck. “You made me want this. Don’t ask again. If you do, I’m gone.”

Tuck shut his mouth, fast. Then he realized he could do better things with his lips. He could kiss Cade as much, as long, and as deeply as he wanted; he could kiss Cade until they were out of breath and drawing warm, shallow drafts from between one another’s swollen lips. God, so good.

Almost better was the discovery that Cade’s skin was soft and smooth, warmer than Tuck had thought it would be. Taut over his slim stomach when Tuck slid up the hem of the T-shirt Cade slept in.

“Your hands are freezing,” Cade murmured, not moving away.

“I was out in the cold for a while,” Tuck said. “I’ll warm up.”

Slim fingers stroked the top of Tuck’s head, sliding through his hair, awkward and clumsy as he felt. Cade’s lips were sweet when Tuck fitted their mouths together, his heartbeat as fast, and the silence that blanketed them broken in whispers of rushing breath, hushed sighs, and the smooth waves of Cade moving beneath him… God, he made Tuck so hard. The things he wanted to do, that he would do—only—

Tuck stopped, pressing his forehead to Cade’s chest.

Cade stilled, a little wary. No. A lot wary. “What?”

“I want to make it good. You know?” His face burned hot. Nobody wanted to admit this, especially not a guy eighteen years old. “I’ve been with girls. Not with men.” He kissed the cleft of Cade’s chin. His heart pounded so loudly in his ears he could barely think. “I don’t know how to do this. Do you?”

Cade opened his eyes fully to look at Tuck, widened pupil to widened pupil, so close together their eyelashes all but tangled. He didn’t take that question lightly, and Tuck was glad. Made it less embarrassing for him to have confessed his secret.

“Can I trust you?” Cade asked.

Tough question, easy answer. If the person who’d asked it would believe you. Ask a foster teen if they had trust issues. Go ahead. Still. Tuck didn’t have to think about it for one second to know his heart. He put as much of that as he could into one word: “Always.”

Cade thumbed over Tuck’s collarbone, stroking the thick scar tissue there from where he hadn’t missed a bullet. Didn’t bother him anymore. Those were the scars that’d attracted attention, gotten him off the streets, sent him to St. Pius…and, eventually, to Cade.

Tuck leaned into the touch. Nothing sexy about it, but it was almost as good, just for the reassurance of it. The affection.

“This isn’t any one-night stand for me,” he blurted. “You get that, right?”

Cade slowed the rhythm of his touch. Almost stopped.

“Cade?”

“I hear you. I—” Cade shook his head. “Forget it. As long as you want me, you can have me.”

“Promise?”

Cade didn’t answer that, not as such, but he had his own way of saying things sometimes. He brushed hair away from Tuck’s face and let the last few strands slide free. “You wear your scars on the outside,” Cade said, thoughtful, as if he didn’t mean just the marks on Tuck’s skin.

“I don’t get it.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Cade raised one slender knee, drawing Tuck into the space between his spread legs. “As long as you want me, I’m yours.”

Tuck breathed easier. “Then show me.”

Cade almost smiled again. “Dumb-ass.” He caressed Tuck’s bare shoulder. “Don’t think about learning. Just about doing,” he said, easing their clothing far enough out of the way to give Tuck what he needed. “Like this.”

“Like this too?” Tuck found the right place, weight on his elbows, his body lining up with Cade’s. Both he and Cade hissed when skin touched skin. “God, yeah,” he said with a breathless laugh. “Like this.”

“Didn’t need me after all,” Cade said.

Tuck slid his hand down between them, cupping Cade. He bit his lip to calm himself down at that first touch. “I need you, all right,” he said. He nudged closer, tighter and closer still. “Can’t you tell?”

Cade’s cheeks were flushed, and his lips parted. “Anything you want, you make happen. Makes me so mad. Makes me want you when I know I—” He stopped himself. “How? How’s it
work
?”

Tuck’s face warmed. He mumbled a vague denial under his breath, all of it forgotten when Cade raised one leg to brace his foot on the mattress.

“Forget it. You want me, take me. Do it right,” Cade said in Tuck’s ear. “You’re the only one who could. Shh. Shut up. Just kiss me. Don’t stop.”

Tuck could do that, and he did. He kept on, forgetting to think.

There was a lot of risk to this, no doubt, and where it’d take them, Tuck couldn’t say for sure. All he knew for sure was with a guy like Cade, the road had to lead somewhere good. Right?

Tuck would bet his life on that.

Not hard, really. Not when Cade already
was
his life.

Chapter One

People said—and Tuck had learned the truth of it for himself over the years—“once a foster kid, always a foster kid,” no matter how old a man got. He was on the downhill slide toward thirty, and he could still feel in his bones every jolt on the rough road he’d traveled during those years on the streets and those he spent being passed from one home to another.

Tuck could always spot another foster kid, adult or child, and he wasn’t the only one who had the knack. There was always something that gave them away to each other. They’d make themselves as small as they could get to take up as little room as possible, or shout at the top of their lungs to make themselves heard.

Among other things.

Sometimes they shared no more than a sideways glance, but they recognized one another. There was a bond between them, and they knew it.

Some things never changed, and some things changed far too much.

Tuck scanned the length of the bridge that stretched out before him. Gorgeous piece of work. The city kept the road up nice and smooth, but the metal arches and the rococo ornamentation had graced this road like a fine lady since the 1920s. The view from the top was just grand enough for planning committees to maintain pedestrian sidewalks up there behind latticed cages.

Usually around this time of day, there’d be a handful people at the very peak, taking in the sunset. One guy in particular never missed a night, no matter what the weather.

It made him easy to find. At the far left, his head tipped back to let the red-orange of the setting sun warm his face.

Cade.

Sunset lights were kind to Cade, not that he needed any help to take Tuck’s breath away. Still. Always. For a moment, all he could do was look. Cade’s slim hips were encased in jeans loose enough to let him move freely but snug enough to display the lean firmness of his muscles and the length of his limbs. He’d grown up graceful, his long torso stretching elegantly as a dancer’s when he turned from left to right. His slim swan’s neck arched with the tilt of his head, baring smooth pale skin made for being kissed.

Tuck knew that body better than his own. He’d traced it with lips and tongue and hands more times than a man could count without breaking out the chalkboard and some brain-twisting equations. He’d braced his knees against the sides of those lean thighs and ridden the man attached to them, strong hands kneading his hips. He’d pressed a fiery line of kisses to the wings of Cade’s shoulder blades and down his back to where it narrowed to a small waist. Dipped his tongue between the musky cleft beneath and slid his cock deep inside.

It was the first time he’d laid eyes on Cade in six months.

The hurt of being left behind never had faded. That old pain dug sharp claws into Tuck’s stomach now. It was his fault, why they’d ended when they ended. He’d own that.

That didn’t mean that during every day of silence and separation he didn’t pray to God for a way to make it right.

People said God worked in mysterious ways. They also said the universe had a twisted sense of humor.

The way Tuck saw it, they were both right. He hadn’t seen this coming, and he couldn’t help seeing how fitting it was.

He tapped the edge of an envelope against his palm, an envelope he’d carried out here for a specific purpose. The weight of its heavy, creamy paper had become as familiar to him in the three days since it’d hit his mailbox as the keys to his taxi were a long-accustomed weight carried in his pocket.

Time he quit dicking around and taking “no” for an answer, wasn’t it?

Tuck folded the envelope double to fit in his back pocket, sized up the length of the bridge once more and the distance between him and Cade, and waited for Cade to realize he was there. He would. Separation or no separation, there were still ties that bound. There had to be.

It didn’t take long. Cade lowered his camera and turned his head, searching. He spotted Tuck without much effort; then again, Tuck hadn’t been trying to hide. He lived his life in the open, balls out, diving in headfirst. Cade was the one who liked his quiet and his peace.

Tuck thought—hoped—maybe Cade started to smile at him before he remembered why he’d stopped. Maybe. He definitely didn’t miss the brief hesitation before Cade made a move toward him, leaving his peace and his pleasure in the setting sun behind him like a discarded cloak.

Well. He’d figured this wouldn’t be
easy
. Tuck took a seat on the railing, just wide enough to balance on, and waited.

“Tuck,” Cade said when he came within earshot, camera still in hand. He looked wary and angry. And uncertain.

That last was what kept Tuck going through the awkwardness that shaped the ever-widening gap between them. “You look good,” he said, because it was the truth. He kept his mouth shut about the hair, and about the dark circles under Cade’s eyes he saw now that Cade had come close enough to spot them.

The corner of Cade’s mouth lifted in a half smile. “You never were a good liar.” He stopped just out of arm’s reach, keeping the best part of a yard’s distance between them. “You’re always climbing up to me, aren’t you?”

Tuck shrugged. “How else am I gonna be level with you? Besides, who says it’s got to be the journey
or
the destination? Why not both?”

He almost made Cade laugh. A good sight, that.

But only almost.

If at first you don’t succeed, right
? Tuck dug in the pockets of the light jacket he’d worn and retrieved two six-ounce bottles of pricey Italian sodas. Cade wouldn’t let himself indulge except on special occasions. The man could squeeze a dollar until it squeaked. Not that Tuck really blamed him. Life on the streets, in foster homes, and eking out a living in the big city taught a man to count his pennies.

Yeah. A prickle of anger stung hotly under Tuck’s skin. His trying to make some cash, scrounge up a life with a better class of rats for
both
of them, had been what’d busted them apart and brought them here now.

He’d own his personal blame, sure. He just forgot sometimes that he wasn’t the only one at fault. The difference between them was that Tuck wouldn’t roll over and die. Maybe it was a fault, maybe a virtue. Maybe both.

Either way, if it gave him a fighting chance at winning his man back, well. Tuck wouldn’t hesitate.

“Raspberry and black cherry,” he said, refusing to let Cade decline the bottle when Cade would have done so. He balanced it on the railing between them. “Your favorite. My treat. The money’s already spent. No take-backs allowed once it’s a done deal.”

Cade glanced up at Tuck once, his expression as unreadable as it’d been back in the first days they’d known each other at St. Pius. Tuck thought he wanted to say something but didn’t. He shook his head instead and traced one of the beads of moisture on its way down the glass side of the bottle.

Tuck watched the drop of water and, to be honest, envied it. “You’re looking at me as if you’d like to eat me up,” Cade said. He must have felt it, for he sure wasn’t looking at Tuck when he spoke. “You never change.”