Authors: Stephanie Ganon
"I prefer incorrigible homosexualist, but gay will do."
"You and your made-up words. You think you're real clever, don't ya?"
Bo feigned surprise, his eyes growing round. “Don't you?"
"We both know you can be
very
clever when you put your mind to it."
"So...how do you feel about her being here? The way she left, well, things between you were never resolved, and even when I met you, you were still so angry."
"Can't say I've thought about it much.” His appetite suddenly gone, Duff stared at the congealing butter on his plate, wishing he could change the subject to anything else at all. After three years, Lily had come back into his life. Duff felt nothing but numb. Maybe the shock hadn't worn off yet.
After he'd seen how beaten up she looked, he didn't think about anything other than getting her safely inside. Now that some time had passed, though, the old bitterness was creeping in. He'd been cursed from the moment he'd met her—doomed by love, and later, consumed by hatred.
She'd probably never lost a bit of sleep over how she'd used him up and sucked him dry until a better opportunity had come along. Where was her fancy lover now? Had she ditched him too, or had he been the one to say
adios?
He watched as Bo removed the plates from the table and loaded the dishwasher.
Bo Lawrence had saved him, coming into his life during a time when the last thing Duff had expected was to fall in love again. Falling for a man hadn't surprised him as much as discovering he remained capable of love.
But Bo had made it so easy.
Bo was a good-looking man, and his dark brown eyes were his best attribute by far. Duff often compared it to gazing into pools of hot milk chocolate. Of course, he also had a hankering for Bo's six-feet-two form, flat stomach, and plumpish yet somehow muscular ass. The shock of thick, graying hair on a man not yet thirty-five also gave him a thrill. Duff liked to pull that hair at night, and fortunately Bo wasn't tender-headed.
Duff went to him and swung out a hip, bumping his partner playfully. Bo smiled and handed him the utensils, which Duff dutifully fitted inside the dishwasher's slats. He enjoyed these moments the most. Their easy silences never hid underlying tension. They just
got
each other and had from the very beginning.
They had literally run into each other at the supermarket one afternoon when Duff had discovered his food supply dwindling. After he narrowly escaped Bo's rogue shopping cart, they got to talking, and before Duff knew it, he had a dinner date that turned out to be more date than dinner. He'd just instantly liked the clean-cut younger man with the quick banter and the sweet smile, and invited him over for burgers and beer.
Later that night when Bo had touched his knee, his strong hand moving up to unzip Duff's jeans, there had been no hesitation. The sex had been electric, and Duff wanted more. In the days following their first encounter, he'd struggled with doubt, battled with notions of who he was and how his life was supposed to be lived. But love won out. Within a month, he realized he'd found his ideal lover and companion. Bo moved in soon after.
Bo dried his hands, and Duff shifted behind him, winding his arms around Bo's hard midsection.
"What's that about?” Bo asked. “Not that I mind."
"It's about loving you so much it hurts sometimes. It's about leaving this kitchen and going off to our bedroom for something a little more satisfying than breakfast."
"Better than my omelet? What could we do in the bedroom that would taste better than my omelet? Did you taste the biscuits? Those were homemade, hot stuff."
Grinning, Duff took Bo's hand and steered him from the kitchen. Lily's sudden reappearance had thrown him for a loop, and the more he thought about it, the less he wanted to know her reasons for returning. His man had a way of taking his mind off anything that irked him, and Duff's wordless plea begged Bo to perform some of that magic again.
Once inside the bedroom, Duff remained standing as Bo sat on the edge of the bed.
Bo wrapped his arms around Duff's middle, pulling his lover closer. Duff sighed, sensual heat spreading through him as Bo's firm yet gentle touch melted away his ills. Bo's wet lips swept liquid flame over Duff's taut abdomen, teasing and tempting, building a fire below until his balls ached for release.
Moaning softly, Duff thrust his hips forward, raking his hands through Bo's hair. “You haven't even really touched me yet, but I'm damn near comin',” he rasped, his face contorting at Bo's tortuous licks across his hard stomach.
Bo responded by flicking his tongue along Duff's navel, spelling out his wicked intentions with fluid precision.
Duff let his hands fall to Bo's shoulders, heart racing as his lover unfastened his jeans and forced them down his hard, swaying hips. A lustful stare passed between them. Bo pulled down Duff's briefs, and both men's gazes drifted to the long, thick cock. Duff rocked slightly on the balls of his feet in his desire for contact.
"Touch me,” he growled. “I don't think I can wait much longer, Bo. Shit, I know I can't."
Bo's eyes twinkled in the dim light of the bedroom. “You're so greedy. You gotta have everything now."
"Just you,” Duff said.
Hot semen dribbled from the engorged tip, and Bo licked it away lovingly. “So good. So sweet."
"Oh God.” Duff groaned as Bo's lips enveloped him, sucking him inside his mouth. “Grab my balls. Squeeze ‘em. Squeeze ‘em the way I like."
Bo did as he was asked, and he soon covered Duff's mounting pleasure from top to bottom, stroking his lover's cock with one hand while clinching his balls in the other. Duff ached all over, the excitement rolling inside him, overtaking his senses. He was a rock. So hard, growing bigger each time he thrust inside Bo's soft, wet mouth.
"Oh, Bo.” Duff was swept up in pleasure, enveloped in the pulsing heat of his lover's mouth. He parted his lips in a guttural moan as Bo heightened his pleasure. He was lost in the sensation racing up his spine, arching his hips into exquisite torture. His chest tightened as the hunger inside him was fed, satiated, erupting like a steaming geyser, a climax of the body and the mind. “Oh, yeah, Bo..."
Duff could scarcely catch his breath as Bo slid his cock from between pursed lips and darted his tongue across the tip, licking him clean. The darkness he'd felt closing around him because of Lily's presence receded, replaced by the love shining in Bo's eyes. He shuddered as another wave of sensual torture spread through him.
Duff sighed when Bo placed a kiss on the pulsing head of his cock and released him.
"You really needed that. You feeling better?"
"It's definitely a start.” He reached for Bo's shirt. “Let's get you out of these clothes."
They undressed and climbed into bed. Duff buried his face in the hollow of Bo's neck, wallowing in his clean, masculine scent.
So many emotions surged up in these moments, but Duff was incapable of explaining himself. The love he felt for Bo lived in him every day, growing and changing but always present. It anchored him, providing safety and security through all of life's storms. Bo had always stood beside him, had been a tireless lover and friend during a coming-out process that had often put Duff at war with himself. Bo had remained steadfast in the face of Duff's denials and about the affection growing between them, weathering Duff's anger and confusion, loving him through the worst of it, and backing off when Duff had needed time alone with the uncertainty that haunted him.
How could Duff feel so good yet so horrible at the same time?
He lay in the arms of the man he loved, riddled with sudden doubts about his ability to be a good lover and friend—and not for the first time. Worse were the feelings he'd battled all morning since Lily's arrival, feelings he'd assumed to be long dead and buried. But those emotions had only slumbered, too easily awakened when she reappeared. He felt choked with bitterness and anger, on the verge of exploding with rage.
There had been a strange sense of relief too. Relief at seeing her again. Relief in knowing she was all right. Despite her faithlessness, Duff had never wanted any harm to come to her. None of that changed what she had done or how she had made him feel after she'd picked up and left. And though Bo's love had been a salve for much of Duff's pain, he realized the wound had not completely healed. It remained raw, itchy, and one hard tug would be all it took to rip open the scab.
Duff swallowed hard. He wasn't the best with words, but luckily for him, Bo was patient. “I love you, Bo,” he said thickly. “I know I don't always know how to go about it the right way, but I love you with all of me."
"I know it, so stop choking yourself up, okay? Now you don't have to say it again for another six months."
"But that's just it. I need to remember to say it every day. You need to hear it every day."
Bo wiggled around, his rock-hard erection poking Duff's abdomen. “You
show
me love every day, Duff. To me, that's better than an epic poetic soliloquy.” He ran a seductive hand across the head of Duff's cock, sending a jolt of pleasure through him.
Duff sniffed, fighting off impending tears. He placed a gentle hand on Bo's neck. “I want you. I want you to do it to me."
No more words passed between them.
Duff rolled onto his stomach, raising his thighs to ensure his engorged penis wasn't crushed. Setting his head and upper body on the soft pillows, he arched his back. He wanted to merge with his lover, to be devoured by him. Nothing more. He burned in anticipation. His pulse quickened at the familiar sound of Bo unsheathing a condom.
"Mmm.” The warm lube dribbling across Duff's exposed asshole drove him wild. He drew in a long breath to steady himself, then relaxed against the pillows.
He felt Bo kneel behind him and grab his hips. That one movement sent Duff's heart racing. Bo rubbed his cock across Duff's taint, then pushed in, his thrust slow and gentle. Duff groaned and swayed his hips, moving to meet him. Though his lover had only worked in the tip, Duff still felt swollen and full, each thrust sending a jolt through him, rocking him with involuntary spasms.
Moaning, Bo lunged forward hard, filling Duff completely, intensifying the sensations spiraling through him. Duff drew in a shocked breath. He succumbed to agonizing pleasure as Bo stretched him, deepening their connection. He closed his eyes, fighting for breath to scream, whimpering as Bo's hot cock seared him, sending molten pleasure through his system.
"Yes,” he hissed. “Fuck my ass. Fuck it good."
Bo obliged him, throwing his back into it. Duff spread his thighs greedily and worked his man, tightening his muscles across the length of him. He reveled in the feel of his lover, in the pleasure each raised vein and ridge brought against his nerve endings. Shuddering hard each time Bo slammed inside him, Duff moaned unashamedly, his balls drawing tight as Bo's plunging hips sent him into exquisite agony.
"Please,” he begged. “Just like that."
Bo's hands gripped his waist, forcing them closer, sending Duff into whimpering, breathless ecstasy. Sighing, Duff pressed his face into a pillow as sensual heat spread through his balls and glided upward, nesting inside his belly, threatening to make him explode.
And he did explode—over and over and over, Bo's name tumbling from his lips as he thrashed. Spent, he collapsed onto the wet spot beneath him and moaned upon Bo's release.
Lily watched through a crack in the door and finally understood the change in Duff.
She backed away from the scene, swallowing tightly. Seeing Duff with someone else, groaning in the arms of a man, was like a kick in her gut. It was an interesting development, to say the least, but she wasn't the type to allow a setback to undo her best-laid plans. She'd made a mistake, one she'd spend the rest of her life making up to Duff if he'd let her. If she had to form an alliance with the stud in order to reunite with the only man she'd ever loved, she would do so with gusto.
Lily went outside to the porch and sat in the rocker, her tired bones and battered feet painful reminders of her journey home. But this place wasn't exactly her home any longer; her decision to leave had seen to that. She belonged to no one. Her parents had orphaned her long ago, and she'd spent the better part of her youth relying on the horniness of strangers.
Until Duff.
Sighing, she tried to stop her sneaky thoughts from returning to the scene in Duff's bedroom, but no matter how she tried, all she could see was Duff making love to another man.
At first, Lily wasn't sure if she'd hallucinated the whole thing—three days with little sleep could do that to a girl, after all. But the longer she'd lingered in the doorway—the raw aroma of the men's passions wafting out to her—she could no longer deny what she saw.
Did I drive him to it?
She grinned. Even she wasn't that conceited. No. Duff had a new love in his life, and it just happened that he loved a man. It was as simple as that because Duff was that simple. If he loved someone, he took care of them in every way he knew how. This time it appeared he'd found a handsome young man to dote on.
Lucky boy.
She should leave. That would be the decent thing to do, after all. But when had she ever done the decent thing?
Lily racked her brain in search of an answer.
Yeah. Screw doing the decent thing.
Those were the kinds of thoughts that kept getting her into trouble. Given two choices, she'd always choose the worst, most harmful one. She loved Duff, but instead of making a life with him, she'd run off. What gave her the right to return now, pushing her way into his life when he'd so clearly found happiness?
She had no right. Even the love she'd never been able to outrun didn't give her the right to intrude and, perhaps, hurt Duff all over again.
She'd never given anything to Duff except heartache, and the way things were going, she knew she could be setting the men up for far worse if the bastard she'd run away from came looking for her. But where would she go? Who, other than the softhearted Duff McKay, would take her in?