Making Promises (39 page)

“First of all, I’ll cook, because I have plans for tonight and sitting on your toilet is not one of them.” Shane straightened with a pot in his hand and a rather affronted look. His cooking couldn’t possibly be
that
bad, could it? Mikhail took the pot and set it on the stove and continued, with a look of determination on his face.

“And second of all, you really are extraordinary. Please—don’t blow this off. Don’t shrug like it is nothing. You are wonderful. And important.

And so, so beautiful. I need you to know that. I am an awful, pissy, jealous, temperamental little man—don’t think I don’t know it is so. You could be the one person I have ever met to turn this into a good thing.

Whatever….” Mikhail stopped for a moment and looked away, and Shane was grateful, because he was sweating from the praise and the careful scrutiny. Mikhail grabbed his chin and made him meet that lovely, intense pair of blue-gray eyes, and Shane started to sweat again.

“Whatever happens, wherever we end up, you remember I said this here and now. You remember that you can’t go be a hero without hurting people who care about you. You… dammit, you make better decisions with your body, please. Your absence would leave a hole in the world, and there are not enough furry dragons or horny cats to fill it. You understand?”

Shane tried with a grin, but it sobered at the honest anger he saw burning in Mikhail’s eyes. They hadn’t talked about this since that day in San Francisco—Shane had thought the subject was closed. “I’ll be careful,” he said now, pretty sure he could keep that promise, but Mikhail just shook his head.

“God, Shane—you don’t understand at all what I am saying. Tell me something—there is a pill box on your counter. Tell me what it is for?” Shane looked over his shoulder at the little ‘weekly calendar pill box’ that he’d gotten the last time he’d been to the doctor’s. “It’s got some vitamins in it and some antibiotics. And some anti-inflammatory meds.

And something like Benedryl that knocks me out so I don’t take it. And painkillers. Lots and lots of painkillers. I don’t like those, either.” He looked back at Mikhail. Mikhail’s jaw was clenched and his eyes were narrowed, and he was shaking his head. “Go. Go take your shower.

Go take your shower, and I’ll make food, and when I think I can do this without kicking you, I’ll lecture you like an old Russian mother about why Making Promises

you are a fucking idiot and I should hit you on the head with a frying pan for doing this to me.”

“Now come on….”

“I said go!”

Shane did. He’d never really had a mother, but he got the feeling that from Mikhail’s perspective, he’d done something for which ass-kicking was seriously involved.

Mikhail tried to talk to him about it as they sat at the little table by the kitchen, eating mac ’n’ cheese and green beans with butter, and Shane was still puzzled. Finally, he sighed. “Look, Mickey—I get it. You’re worried. If I promise to take all the pills that don’t make me throw up, could you give it a rest for a minute and let me hold you? I got a new movie for us…
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
” Mikhail perked up, willing to be distracted for the moment, and the evening got infinitely better. The movie was charming, and best of all, Shane watched it propped up in the corner of the couch with Mikhail backed up against him, which was something neither of them had done when they were watching television at Mikhail’s. Come to think of it, it was something Shane hadn’t been able to do a lot of, period. Brandon hadn’t been a cuddler, and he couldn’t remember his girlfriends being that excited about watching movies on the couch. Mikhail seemed to be a pro, though, leaning his head against Shane’s chest and sitting still and bonelessly while they both became absorbed in the movie. All sorts of tension Shane didn’t know he had went sliding out of his body, and sometime after the ending credits, when he handed Mickey the remote to channel surf, and the end of
CSI: New York
(which is what Mickey decided on), he fell asleep.

He woke up to a cool burst of air on his stomach and insistent hands on his sweats, pulling them down past his hips.

“Oh hello,” he muttered bemusedly, and then Mikhail took his flaccid cock completely into a hot, moist mouth, and he said it with emphasis. “Oh hel-
lo
!”

Mikhail giggled around him, which really blew his mind, and then he was no longer flaccid, and his mind was still getting blown. Or rather, his cock was getting blown, and his mind had lost enough blood flow to completely check out of the equation. He got too big for Mikhail’s mouth, 238

and that eager, fine-boned fist came into play, and Shane threw his head back against the couch cushions and moaned.

Abruptly Mikhail’s motions on his body stopped, and Shane opened his eyes and sat up a little to see why. That strong fist started to move again, but Mikhail kept his gaze locked on Shane’s. Very deliberately he extended a pointed tongue and licked the purple skin of Shane’s cockhead, and Shane’s spine vibrated like a plucked guitar string.

“I love doing this,” Mikhail murmured. “It used to be a matter of professional pride, you know?” He opened his mouth and hollowed his cheeks, and Shane grunted and whimpered, and Mikhail still never dropped his eyes, even as he came up and released Shane’s body with a pop. “I used to just think, ‘Hey, at least I am giving good service for payment’, and that was good.” He did that same move again, and Shane made the same noises with a little more oomph, and Mikhail kept talking.

“And then, when we moved here, and I was doing this because I did not know any other way, it was still an exchange.” That little pink tongue, scraping the underside, exploring the slit on the top, playing with the harp string, which was oh-so-tender. “I did this, I did it well, and in return, I did not have to be alone. And I thought it was good.” He lowered his head and moved his fist, and Shane felt his cock bottom out on the back of Mikhail’s throat, and then Mikhail swallowed, and Shane fisted his hands through that wild, corkscrew hair and closed his eyes so tight he saw stars. Mikhail pulled back, and the air hit Shane’s body, and he opened his eyes again and tried hard to listen seriously to what his lover was telling him.

“But with you,” Mikhail continued, licking again, just to tease, “it’s different. I could do this all”—lick—“night”—lick—“long”—suck. “Just to hear you make noises. Just to see your face when I do it. Just to taste your come in my throat.” He pumped with his fist and engulfed with his mouth, and then his other hand made an end-run, and Shane felt a spit-slippery finger tease his entrance. He groaned and held back, not wanting to come while Mickey was talking to him, but… oh God. Oh God. He needed… he needed….

“Will you, Shane?”

Oh God… what did he need? “Will I what? Jesus… Mickey….” Because that evil finger and its twin were stretching and probing, and that tongue was never not busy, and Shane’s brain and his cock were about to Making Promises

part ways for a couple of seconds, and he had the feeling Mikhail really needed him.

“Will. You. Come. For. Me?”

Well, that he could do. “Ohhhh
fuck
yes!” And he did.

IT WAS not the only orgasm of the night. It was not even the only orgasm of the hour. But it was an important piece to what made up the puzzle of Mikhail’s curious mind, and Shane was mulling it over as they lay—in bed, finally—naked, sated, and drifting in and out.

It was different being in Shane’s bed.

For one thing, it was bigger—and that was fun. For another, it wasn’t a child’s bed with a pedestal and drawers underneath, and it seemed that, without a parent in the house, this was a real thing for Mikhail. Since it was the first time Shane had brought someone to his new home, this symbol of the life he wanted to live as opposed to the one he had been living, it was a real thing for Shane too.

For another thing, they had company. As soon as they were done shaking the springs and making noises, the cats all jumped up on the bed, licking the sweat off of their faces and purring as they curled into little limp balls between their legs and settled down for the night. Mikhail crooned to them—Kirsten Dunst, in particular, seemed to have made him her pet, and they spent giddy minutes touching noses while she kneaded the pillow next to his head.

At last, however, Shane had gotten up to let the dogs in, and the cats were satisfied that their new favorite human wasn’t going to change sides and go batting for the canine team, and they were lying in bed, naked and warm under the comforter and enjoying the touch of skin on skin. Shane nuzzled the back of Mickey’s neck and said, “I think I get it,” and Mikhail startled and said, “Wha?”

Shane giggled into the hollow of Mickey’s ear. “I get it, you know. I know why you’re so afraid of Deacon. The guy’s just a guy. He’s nothing scary. He’s protective of his family, sure, but you’ve got him built into this 240

scary patriarch guy who’s gonna tell you to go away and that you’re not good enough for me, and I think I know why.”

Mikhail grunted and pulled the cat close enough that she started to lick the sweat off his neck. Shane figured that meant he was listening and soldiered on.

“You know, you had your mother, right, but you didn’t have any men around who weren’t after your body.”

“I had my dance instructor and choreographer,” Mikhail said unexpectedly, and Shane felt another puzzle piece in his head.

“What were they like?”

Mikhail let out a humorless chuckle. “Complete bastards.” Yup. That piece fit too. “See? You’ve got men who are complete bastards, men who are complete users, and nobody to protect you from the bastards and the users. Your mom had her hands full protecting you from yourself. You just expect Deacon to be a bastard or a user—he’s not a lover, but he
is
important, and you just don’t have another spot to put him in.”

“Benny said he was scary,” Mikhail protested, and Shane chuckled into Mikhail’s shoulder.

“Benny’s sixteen years old. She worships him. She
needed
a protector. The day I met her, her dad was trying to take her baby from her because he’s a complete crazy asshole fuckhead. She got pregnant in the first place because another asshole fuckhead slipped her a roofie and date-raped her. Don’t you see? Benny
needed
Deacon to be the person who was going to keep her safe from these guys, and Deacon lived up to it. So she’s going to see him as scary—to other people. But she’s still a kid, and we can give her that. You’re a grown man, Mickey, and this is getting ridiculous.”

Shane kissed his shoulder gently and then along to the side of his neck, and Mikhail kept his eyes determinedly on the cat.

“Why is this important now?” he asked at last.

Shane blew out a sigh. “Because your mom wanted you to stay until tomorrow night. Tomorrow’s the first of the month, Mikhail—it’s the day the family gathers to see if they’re going to be able to stay here in Levee Oaks or if they’re going to have to move. The general consensus is, if they Making Promises

move, we’re all moving with them. I know it sounds stupid—a bunch of grown people following folks around the state. But this is our family now, and we don’t want to let it go.”

Mikhail froze beneath him, and Shane could tell the full implication of the words hit him and hit him hard.

“You would move?” he asked, his voice tiny.

Shane kissed a stubborn jaw and wrapped his arm harder around Mikhail’s chest, mostly because his body had started to shiver under Shane’s embrace. “For you, Mickey, I’d stay. But I’d rather you didn’t force me to make that choice.”

“You’d stay? For me?” Again that still, small voice. Shane hated it.

He wrapped both arms around Mikhail’s shoulders and rested his cheek against his hair.

“Did you ever doubt it?”

“I shouldn’t have,” Mikhail whispered. “I shouldn’t have.” He took Shane’s hands and raised them to his lips, and Shane could swear he felt hot tears falling on their backs, but he wasn’t going to make it a thing.

As it turned out, they were late for the gathering anyway. Rosie called just as they were getting into the car, Mikhail’s nerves be damned.

Shane was jumping up and down, literally bouncing on his toes like a child by the time Mikhail ended the conversation—she was going to give Deacon a chance. Oh God—all that worry, and The Pulpit might get to stay right where it belonged. By the time they’d set up the times and the dates with her, Shane was gunning the motor so he could whip around the block and get them to The Pulpit.

Deacon was standing on the porch, looking so terrified and worried that Shane slipped in the mud in his hurry to get up to him and tell him the good news.

The slow, beatific smile of joy on his face as Shane spilled the details warmed Shane to his toes, and he bolted inside, trying to get to the others before they voted. Yeah, sure, they could go back and vote again, but the results had the potential to break Deacon’s heart, and why take that chance?

By the time Shane realized that he’d left Mikhail outside with the object of his deepest fears, Deacon was bolting inside the house like a kid, and Crick was doing a one-handed catch to keep him from sprawling over 242

the kitchen table with enthusiasm. Mikhail came trotting in after him, looking like he would be content to hide in a corner for the rest of the night, when Benny spotted him, let out a squeal, and ran up for a hug.