The Mating of Michael (25 page)

“Oh-ho,” Michael laughed. “It’s like that is it? Very well, Mr. Gallway. But I think I need a safe word. How about ‘clusterfuck’?”

“Is that a safeword or an order?”

Michael gave James a chance to get undressed alone in his bedroom. By the time he was naked, his nerves had taken over and his erection had deflated like a slow-leaking balloon. It was slightly chilly, or possibly, he was hyperventilating and about to pass out. He shivered as he used his hands to swing his bare legs up under the cold covers. Part of him wondered what the hell he was thinking letting anyone, much less a gorgeous, whole man he was crazy about, see his unattractive appendages. But James understood it was an issue he had to get past. It was a test of sorts—for both of them. It felt heavy with the chance for disaster.

Michael came in.

“Hey, babe.” He looked at James with those big brown eyes. He undressed quickly, dismissively, his gaze never leaving James’s face. Michael was only semihard himself, but he was lovely and lean and delicate as a nymph as he stepped to the bed and slipped under the covers.

James shivered as Michael’s legs tangled with his. It was difficult, but he didn’t pull away.

“It feels so good to have all of your skin,” Michael said. He rolled on top of James and propped himself up with his hands on either side of James’s head. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah.”

Although James didn’t like to be in the bottom position, he accepted his current surrender as an act of courage. Besides, he’d get to turn the tables, and he planned to make the most of it. And it did feel nice to have Michael naked on top of him without the heavy cloth of his sweatpants between them. He could feel Michael’s cock in exhilarating detail as it expanded against his groin, a heady witness to the way he turned Michael on. It made his own cock grow heavy as Michael gazed down at him, those big brown eyes dark with sin, full lips parted. Was there any more beautiful sight in the world?

James tilted up his chin, silently demanding a kiss. Michael smiled. “You just can’t help topping from the bottom, can you?” he purred as he leaned in. James would have had a smart reply but his mouth was occupied with a much more pressing concern—Michael’s wicked tongue.

He palmed Michael’s pert little ass with both hands—still amazed at how it fit his large palms perfectly—and gave in. Michael kissed him and just barely rocked against him until they were both rock hard and precum was slicked between them. God, the man could kiss. With more determined thrusts, James could come like this.

He broke away to look at the clock. “Fifteen minutes.”

“My timer did not start yet!”

“You’re on top. You’re on the clock.”

Michael hissed and pushed himself up. “Fine. Then I’d better get started, hadn’t I?”

With a look part daggers and part promise, he began to lick and nibble at James’s neck. “Do you know your Adam’s apple was one of the first things I noticed about you? It’s very masculine and just a bit geeky. I love it.” He scraped his teeth against it.

James swallowed, causing it to bob up and down. “You’re very strange,” he said, his voice deep.

Michael kissed lower and dipped his tongue into the hollow at the base of James’s throat. “You have a long neck. Not too thick and not too thin. It’s perfect.”

“Thank God,” James quipped, but he started to shiver as Michael shifted his thighs to the outside of James’s hips and sat up a little so he could pepper James’s shoulders with kisses. The position, quite deliberately no doubt, dangled the soft sac of Michael’s balls over the head of James’s dick in the most decadent and filthy manner. He groaned.

“And your shoulders. Definitely one of my favorite James Gallway body parts. They’re so broad and
manly.
” James rolled his eyes as Michael licked and nibbled his way across the right shoulder, sucking hard enough to leave a little mark. He reached around and pulled James’s hands away from their favorite place on Earth, Michael’s ass.

“Hey, now,” James warned.

“I’m on top, remember?” Michael pinned them up by James’s head so his elbows and shoulders were flexed, bunching up his muscles. “Look at that,” Michael whispered. “You have such gorgeous muscle tone from the swimming.” Michael sucked on James’s bicep.

“Hmmm,” James agreed doubtfully, but he couldn’t stop himself from flexing a little.

“That day I saw you at the pool, and that drop of water slid down your chest, you made me so hard.” Michael mimicked the path with his tongue.

James was already extremely turned on, but a spike of hot lust speared through him at those words. He pushed his hips up, and Michael held firm so that he pushed against Michael’s perineum. The friction was exquisite.

“God I want you,” James gritted out.

“Soon,” Michael whispered. He flicked a nipple with his tongue. “I love these. Dark brown, big, and just a tiny bit pouty. They make me so hot.” He sucked on it, sending fingers of pleasure down through James’s stomach to his balls.

James pressed his lips tight to stop a moan. Michael made sure the other nipple got equal attention.

“Your skin is so lovely here,” Michael licked at his sternum. “You have a beautiful chest. And here….” He nuzzled down farther, tickling James’s stomach with his nose and bangs. “No pooch but enough padding to be succulent, and your treasure trail—God, it drives me mad.” His tongue traced paths on James’s stomach, completely ignoring the head of his dick. Michael pushed it out of the way gently with his cheek as he traced the line of fuzz that ran from James’s navel to his groin.

James couldn’t stop a small groan or his hips from trying to bring his cock closer to Michael’s mouth. But Michael only gave it a chaste kiss—or as chaste as a kiss can be when delivered by a sexpot to the head of someone’s dick. “This, of course, is my all-time favorite, all of this luscious beast. But you already know that, and I’ll come back to it later.” He gave James’s balls light pecks. “And these. These bad boys—big and low just the way I like them. They’re definitely getting some attention in a minute.”

“Remember, payback’s a bitch,” James threatened as Michael very deliberately bypassed all the best parts. And then his mind was diverted because Michael was slipping lower and taking the blankets down with him, and suddenly, there was nowhere to hide.

James took in a sharp breath and forced himself not to sit up and grab for the blankets. Michael had released his arms somewhere around the nipple play, and he grasped Michael’s shoulders now in a last bid to keep him from going much lower. But Michael brought his hands up to interlace his fingers with James’s. He held them tightly as he squirmed down the bed.

James shut his eyes and held his breath. He felt a sudden wave of panic. Michael’s hair and then lips brushed his inner thighs. James let out a tense sigh and gripped Michael’s fingers even tighter.
Please.

“Don’t you know that you are beautiful to me?” Michael said. “You are beautiful, and you are lovable, every inch of you.”

James’s clenched his jaw tight, unable to speak as Michael licked at his inner thighs, taking broad strokes up to his balls and licking them lightly before returning a bit lower every time. James had to admit, as positive reward therapy went, it was goddamn effective. His hands started loosening their grip on Michael’s, and his mind was taken up in the pleasure rather than thinking about what Michael was seeing.

Michael pulled one hand loose and massaged James’s legs as he kissed. “Can you feel this?” Michael asked, slipping his fingers up James’s calf to his knee.

“Yeah,” James said, his voice thick. “I still have my sensory receptors. I have a few numb spots, though.”

Michael shifted down and kissed James’s knee. “That’s fantastic. I’m so glad you can feel me.”

“You don’t have to do that,” James said tightly. “You don’t have to pretend they’re not hideous.”

Michael caressed James’s legs with both hands. “I’m not pretending. There’s nothing ugly about you. I want you to understand that, James. I like all of you. I
want
all of you. You don’t need to hide anything from me.”

James felt a crushing pain in his chest at those words, spoken so simply and sincerely as if they were true, as if they were obvious. It felt as if he might crack in half. He let his hands fall to his side, and he looked up at the ceiling, swallowing hard and blinking back heat as he felt Michael kiss his calves and then his feet, massaging them and giving them sweet, open-mouth kisses. He clutched the blankets.

“Oh, God,” James whispered.

“You have pretty feet, actually,” Michael said, sounding a little surprised. “They’re very soft.”

James couldn’t look as Michael lifted a foot, licked up his insole, and then sucked a toe into his mouth. He flung an arm over his eyes and swallowed back a sob, his body shaking.

Michael stilled and then kissed his feet a little more, both of them, before kissing his way delicately back up James’s leg. James could feel Michael’s lips along his knee and inside his thigh before he settled back on top. “Hey. You all right?” he asked gently.

“Yeah.” But James wasn’t all right. He struggled to hold in the emotions that wanted to pour out of him like muddy storm water behind an overwhelmed dam. It swirled inside him, burning and stinging—self-loathing, bitterness, anger, abandonment, loss, fear, resentment—all things he had locked away so tightly. Michael lay carefully to one side and pulled James into his arms, and James lost the battle, great sobs wracking him.

Michael murmured soothing words like
it’s okay
and
I’m sorry
and
I have you
and
let it out
, all the while rubbing James’s back with sure hands and running a hand down his hips and thigh too, as far down as he could reach, then back up, rubbing everything firmly and lovingly. A strange sensation struck James then—his legs were
actually part of him
. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized how much he had disassociated from them, detached himself from those hated things, but he had.

His sobs gradually stilled, and he was left with a huge empty space where so much had been bottled up and freed. It felt okay, though. It felt pretty good actually. He took a deep breath into Michael’s neck.

“That was too much, huh? I’m sorry.” Michael sounded worried.

“No. I just…. No one’s ever….” He squeezed Michael tight. James felt overheated and sweaty from the tears and the emotion, as if he had a fever, yet the press of Michael’s skin against him was exquisite in every way, and he didn’t want to pull back. A thread of renewed desire wove through the lifting darkness in his heart. He pressed Michael closer.

Michael ran his fingers through James’s hair. “I know it’s too early but… I….”

James stiffened, his heart tripping over itself.

“I really like you,” Michael whispered. “I think it’s possible I could… maybe fall in love with you.”

James couldn’t stop a laugh as desire sparked brighter along with something vaguely like joy. “What? That’s the most half-assed declaration I’ve ever heard. I’ll have to write that down.”

Michael giggled. “Shut up. I’m trying not to scare you away.”

“Baby, it would take a hockey mask and a chainsaw.” James tried to sound as if he was joking, but he wasn’t much. He rolled on top of Michael, pressing him down. “And now… It’s. My. Turn,” he said ominously.

“Yeah?” Michael gave him a sexy and relieved smile. “But I didn’t really make it to the good parts yet.”

“Oh, you’ll get the good parts—exactly. Where. I want. To put them.”

Michael got a heated look and ground up into him. Michael’s cock was hard again, and James was too. “God, I love it when you take charge.”

James felt a little thrill at that, and the last of his embarrassment melted away. He felt… really, really amazing. And horny. And oh, yes, he was going to dole out some payback of the very best kind. He started by teasing Michael’s mouth with his tongue—tracing the tip of it along Michael’s lips, sucking gently to the left or right, but never letting Michael pull him into a full-on kiss until he reached up to tug James’s head down and forced one.

James allowed the kiss for a moment, then pulled away with a grunt. “Looks like it’s time for the restraints.”

He managed not to feel too smug when he heard Michael gasp.

M
ICHAEL
HAD
uncaged a beast. He’d known that he had to push to get James past the barrier of feeling so self-conscious about his legs. But he didn’t realize how deep the pain of that went or how much it would affect James when he loved on him there.

He’d actually been surprised and pleased that James had any feeling in his legs, and with the legs and feet themselves. His legs were stick thin, the muscles atrophied from the damage inflicted by the polio, but the skin was pale and soft as a baby’s, especially on his feet, which were not subjected to the normal wear and tear most peoples were. Perhaps all the swimming in the chlorinated water had softened them too. They were downy and fragile-looking, and Michael was happy to show them attention.

When James lost it, he’d worried he’d screwed up big time. But the storm that had gone on inside him had blown over, and now he was filled with a dark intensity that was dangerous and, well,
thrilling
.

James secured Michael’s second wrist to the slatted headboard with a blue and gold striped tie, one of a pair he’d grabbed from the nightstand drawer.

“You’ve been planning this,” Michael said, feeling a little breathless.

James gave him a wicked smile that could have melted the paint off walls.

“Shit,” Michael whispered. He swallowed a slightly hysterical giggle.

James reached over to the drawer again and pulled out a black sleep mask. “I may not have a lot of experience, but I have a good Internet connection and a
very
active imagination.”

“Oh, fuck me,” Michael murmured, with great anticipation, “But… do we have to do the mask? I want to see you.”

James hesitated. “Are you clusterfucking?”

“No.”

“Then we’re on my clock, so take it like a good boy.”