The Foster Family, page 24
“Hey.”
The bed dipped and the room warmed because Charlie crawled over him and stretched out beside him, curled slightly on his side and holding his head up with one hand. “Where are you?”
“Broken shelves and broken pictures and….” Malcolm was well aware he was making no sense, that he sounded high or drunk.
Charlie caressed his cheek and bent over him to kiss his slightly parted lips. His tongue sought entrance again, and Malcolm parted his lips further to allow it. Because it felt nice. He wanted the slippery wetness, the connection, the certainty that Charlie was still his rock.
“There’s the Internet for the shelf,” Charlie said. “And a picture-frame shop for the broken glass.” He let his thumb linger on Malcolm’s cheekbone. “Nothing irreparable.”
Malcolm blinked and met his gaze. “Say that again.” He made it a command, but the whisper in his voice gave away the plea.
“Nothing irreparable,” Charlie said again. “I said to get comfortable. Why are you still in wet jeans?”
Malcolm continued to stare at him. “What do you plan to do?”
Charlie grinned, a softly wicked expression. “If I’m your rock, then I fully intend to pin you between the rock and the hard place, Malcolm Holmes.”
“What? Are you a switch now?”
In answer, Charlie bent and took his mouth in a kiss that literally curled Malcolm’s toes. “When you need me to be, yes.”
“I didn’t say I needed—”
Another toe-curling kiss accompanied by one big hand slipping over his chest, down his stomach, and under his jeans. The touch not only didn’t linger on the scars but ignored them completely. Malcolm was used to Charlie lingering, acknowledging the marks of his past. He trembled as Charlie’s fingers bypassed the sensitive area, whimpered when his tongue thrust deeper and his fingertips brushed the head of Malcolm’s flaccid cock. It was a tiny trickle of sensation, there and gone, and Charlie’s hand was traveling back up along the length of his torso to cup his chin.
“Here’s what I know,” Charlie said, holding Malcolm’s face still and looking into his eyes. “If you need me to hide the knives and the blades, if you need me to hold the pieces together while you disintegrate in the rain, then you need this.”
Disintegrate. There was no being put back together from that. There was no recovery. Shattered bits could be pieced back into a cracked and imperfect whole. Powdered self was nothing. It blew away on the wind. It trickled down the sewers in the rain. Malcolm swallowed hard against the encroaching tightness in his throat and blinked away the sting behind his lids.
Charlie pushed an arm under his shoulders and draped a leg over his. “Here’s what else I know to be true. When I fuck you tonight, Mal, you’re going to dissolve into nothing.”
Was that supposed to be reassuring?
“You’re going to melt and I’ll absorb you, and you’ll be part of me and you’ll never doubt that I love you. That I am never leaving you. That nothing, nothing will ever be able to come between us again.”
“Kerry.” Malcolm formed the name. His heart bled it. His voice failed him.
“Not even Kerry. We were never meant to have a boy between us.”
“You want him.” A whisper of sounds this time that formed the thought, albeit lamely, and Charlie smiled.
“We both do, and if he comes back, we’ll figure it out. But he won’t be between us. He’ll be beside us. With us. We’ll figure it out.”
Malcolm finally found a modicum of motor control and lifted a hand to touch Charlie’s face. “Where did you come from?”
“Forged in the fires of Leslie Brixton’s personal hell.” He smiled, and this was a broad, playful smile that warmed Malcolm in a way nothing else on earth ever did. “However much I hated that job, and eventually her, it gave me something we both needed.” To prove his point, he bent for another kiss, and Malcolm lost track of everything but that heat and desire and total annihilation Charlie could wreak that Malcolm had never been subject to before.
It left him breathless and numb, floating in a sea of uncertainty. It wasn’t how their dynamic worked. It was too close to the fall before he hit bottom where blades and blood were the only things he could actually feel anymore.
When he stared up at Charlie after that kiss, all of this must have shown on his face because Charlie smiled and lazily traced nothing in particular over his skin. “Do you trust me?”
He had to. He absolutely had to or there was nothing left. It terrified him to be this guy, the one on the bottom. The one not in control. Yet Charlie waited patiently for his answer, and what other answer was there to give but “yes”?
This time when Charlie bent, it was to kiss then lick at the small hollow at the center of Malcolm’s collarbone. “You’ll like this, Mal. You’ll like what I can do for you when I’m allowed to use my own judgment. I’ve learned a lot under you in fifteen years, you know.” He licked lightly over a nipple and Malcolm sighed. Then he nipped, and Malcolm’s body burst off the bed and some animal noise came out of him as the tingle of that knifed through his body.
“What was that?”
Charlie chuckled. “You should pierce them. That would make it even better.” He nipped at the other one, and Malcolm twitched and groaned, savoring the sharp zing of sensation that went right to his balls.
“God, Charlie!”
“Yeah,” Charlie promised.
Malcolm had the fleeting thought that he could get numb to that touch, but Charlie had already moved on to search out other sensitive spots like just below his ribs, where a bite had to be strong enough to leave a mark, he was sure, but the resulting throb of pleasure that pulsed through his entire body made it worth it. Or the inside of his thigh, revealed as Charlie stripped his jeans away, so close to his balls and dick it was terrifying. And exhilarating. Or the back of his knee, and for that, he either had a leg in the air, exposing his ass, which was nerve-racking, or was sprawled on his stomach, completely at Charlie’s mercy. Which was… soothing in a way he hadn’t anticipated.
“God, Charlie,” he breathed.
“Yeah.” Charlie’s weight descended on him, full across his back, legs straddling Malcolm’s. “I know, right?”
Malcolm breathed out a huge sigh. “Right,” he agreed, setting his head on his pillow and sinking into the bed under Charlie’s weight. “So right.”
“I know, Mal.”
“You really think you’re going to fuck me?” Malcolm asked, bemused by the idea now, rather than terrified. At least for the moment, because in that moment, Charlie was the best blanket ever.
“Roll over.”
Charlie didn’t get up so much as lift himself to hands and feet, like a tent over Malcolm and wait there for Malcolm to roll onto his back.
“Now what?” Malcolm asked, settling in and sighing as Charlie came back down and lay on top of him again.
“More of the same.” Charlie kissed him then, devouring every sound and nipping at his lips until Malcolm gripped the back of his head and held him still long enough to get his tongue deep into Charlie’s mouth.
The result was spectacular. Charlie sagged, his cock hardened and dug into Malcolm’s hip, and he was the one making the sounds and melting.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Malcolm said when they both had to make room for breath.
“Keep talking, smart-ass.” Charlie grinned at him, then slipped his grip and slithered down his body, kissing and licking as he went.
Malcolm tensed, waiting for the teeth and the shards of pain, but there was only heat and wetness until Charlie’s face was buried in the thick thatch at Malcolm’s groin.
“Jesus, you smell good, Mal,” Charlie said.
“Just be careful what you bite down there.”
Charlie laughed, and the vibration hummed along Malcolm’s skin. He shivered and groaned, spread his legs as Charlie maneuvered, and the next thing he knew, Charlie’s mouth was sinking over his cock. No warning. No preamble. Just hot, tight suction that made Malcolm’s eyes roll back and his throat close around a shout.
He was still struggling for breath and coherency when something else caught his attention, and it wasn’t Charlie’s mouth. “What are you doing?”
“Hand me lube and you’ll see.”
“Charlie….”
Charlie looked up from between his legs, and it was so familiar a sight. And so foreign, because he wasn’t waiting for a command or looking for approval. He was just looking, pausing, patiently waiting for Malcolm to catch the fuck up.
“Hand me the lube,” he said again.
Malcolm stared down at him.
“Trust me?” Charlie asked.
Malcolm lifted a hand to rub a palm over one nipple, remembering that bright spot of pain and focus and release of tension and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Then hand over the lube, baby.”
Malcolm reached into the bedside drawer and fished it out.
He let Charlie take it. He wanted to follow this wherever it was going, because the tightness had closed up inside him, then exploded and ripped him open, and instead of backing away from the mess, Charlie had crawled inside him and begun to clean it all up. To put things back where they belonged. Some dusty bits of Malcolm’s psyche were being rubbed clean and put back, and he hadn’t even known those bits had fallen loose.
He dropped his head to the pillow when the familiar sound of the lube snapping open reached him. The cool touch of it at his entrance wasn’t a surprise, but he flinched anyway.
“I know it’s been a long time,” Charlie soothed, rubbing his finger over the delicate skin and gently prodding. “Don’t worry. This isn’t going to be a bad thing.”
“A long time.” Malcolm sighed. “Forever. And never you.”
Charlie kissed him, on the ball sac, maybe because it was closest to his lips, and shushed him. “It’ll be good.”
“It’s backward,” Malcolm said. It wasn’t really a protest, exactly, because Charlie was popping his slick finger inside, just a fraction. Barely at all, and it wasn’t a bad thing. It was just….
“It’s me, serving you.”
Malcolm lifted his head and stared down at him. “Have we ever talked this much during sex? Ever?”
Charlie grinned up at him. “Are you complaining?” He lifted an eyebrow, and in that instant, the sensation of being breached for real sent Malcolm into a mini mental tailspin. He couldn’t have responded if he’d wanted to.
Charlie kept his attention, his clear blue eyes steady and reassuring as he worked his finger inside Malcolm and slid his tongue gently over Malcolm’s cock and balls.
“Okay?” he asked.
Malcolm groaned as that finger dug deep inside him, and he dropped flat onto his back again.
“Charlie,” he breathed.
“Yeah.” Another promise, this one accompanied by a long, slow swallow of his cock and a steady, gentle thrusting finger. It wasn’t enough to hurt, even when Charlie added another. It was the constant barrage of sensation, the sucking and the stretch and the feeling as though he was being possessed but not used. Not used like the way he used Charlie when he did this. Not used the way they had used all those other men between them because Malcolm couldn’t bring himself to get this close.
When Charlie added a third finger, the stretch became real, and Malcolm moaned, tried to wrap his head around the idea that Charlie planned on actually fucking him. How was that supposed to work when they woke up the next day and—
“Stop thinking so damn loud,” Charlie admonished, and Malcolm sighed at the loss of Charlie’s mouth on his cock.
“Don’t stop,” he said, an edge of his usual control in his voice.
“Trust me,” Charlie reminded him.
He took his fingers back then and climbed between Malcolm’s legs, spreading them farther and gazing down on him. “You know the deal,” he said softly. He grabbed his own pillow and cocked his head. “Lift.”
Malcolm did, because what else was there at this point? There was only trust. There was only the fact he loved this man with everything in him he couldn’t control in his ragged little world. The rest was a mask he wore, even for Charlie. And Charlie looked at him through that distortion every day and accepted the distance it created because he loved back.
“God, Charlie.”
“You keep saying that, Mal, and it’s going to go to my head, you know.”
Malcolm laughed. He honest to God laughed, and Charlie grinned his wide, heart-stopping grin as he blithely lubed himself.
“You going to ask if I’m sure about this?” Malcolm asked.
Charlie leaned over him and kissed him hard, and Malcolm opened his mouth in invitation. The invitation was accepted, of course, and then some as Charlie scoured his mouth and whipped the rest of Malcolm’s thoughts from his head.
Malcolm would wonder later what he had expected. Charlie’s cock working into his body was the same as the preparation had been. Firm and determined and very real. Possessive. Honest. All the things Charlie was, and Malcolm didn’t think anything at all as it happened other than that it was the only way things could be between them.
He would have been crude enough to tell Charlie he needed a good fucking to screw his head on straight had the roles been reversed. But Charlie didn’t roll that way. Charlie just got shit done, and it amused Malcolm to realize he was what needed doing this time.
“Charlie….” It was the last thing he could remember saying as Charlie seated himself fully and began to rock, slowly at first, but with more power and aggression as Malcolm caught his rhythm and began to move with him.
He expected to last longer. This wasn’t his thing, after all, but no. In this too Charlie knew what Malcolm needed. He needed hard and deep and true. And he got it. It whited out his mind and made him reach blindly to find Charlie’s hands, twine his fingers with Malcolm’s, and hold him to the bed while he pounded.
Malcolm stopped trying to meet him thrust for thrust and loosened his death grip on Charlie’s hands to let his lover resume control. He let Charlie hold his legs open and pried his eyelids up when Charlie demanded to be able to see him. He didn’t mean his body or his face. He meant he wanted to see Malcolm. He wanted to see into Malcolm, and that demand, that pure, honest, loving command was what tightened Malcolm’s balls and bowed his back and finally, Malcolm let go of the tightly held sounds.
Once more that band holding Malcolm’s tongue loosened, and his shout, as he came, bounced around the room, overpowered Charlie’s groans, and echoed until the only sound left in the room was that of their heavy, sated breathing.
CHARLIE COLLAPSED beside his lover afterward and marveled. Malcolm had let him do this, and he hadn’t thought it possible. In his own mind, it was no different from their usual dynamic. Malcolm was his Dom, his safe place, his strength and power, and that hadn’t changed. The only difference was, Charlie didn’t wait this time. Not for Malcolm to draw all the straight lines in his head or compartmentalize the emotional backlash of Kerry leaving. He didn’t wait for Malcolm to calm all the insane upheaval the kid had brought into their lives.
This time, Charlie had seen the road of drought stretching between them while he waited for Malcolm to sort himself out. Without the dubious sanctuary of his draining job at the gallery to occupy his time and energy, the road had been too long. Too desolate. Charlie hadn’t been willing to wait, so he did what he had taught himself to be very good at, and got shit done.
He chuckled, and Malcolm glanced at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Malcolm rolled to face him. “Not allowed, Charlie.”
Charlie grinned and caressed his flushed cheek. “I was just thinking that I was getting things done….”
Malcolm shut him up with a searing kiss, and free-floating bits of Charlie’s own psyche slipped into their moorings. He moaned happily and reached for more.
“Very funny,” Malcolm said, moving away to mock glare at him. “Don’t get it into your head you’ll be doing me all that often, Charles.”
Charlie’s heart clenched. “You didn’t like it?”
Malcolm’s gaze and his expression softened. “You know I did, baby. Because it was you. Because you were right. It was what I needed. I had no idea.”
“You aren’t the only one in this relationship, Mal. It isn’t always up to you to figure things out, make the decisions, and call the shots, and I’ve been a selfish prick, making it seem that way. I was getting so thin from that job. It was messing with everything in my head, and it took Kerry and his obsession with those stupid albums to make me see how far from me I’d gotten.”
Malcolm cupped his face. “I should have seen it.” He flopped onto his back and ran fingers lightly over his scars. “Not like I haven’t seen what a shitty job can do to a guy before.”
Charlie propped his head on one hand so he could see Malcolm’s face. “What do you mean?”
“The foster demon,” Malcolm said. And for a long time, it was all he said. Long enough that Charlie’s hand started to tingle and he had to reposition himself. He elected to use Malcolm’s chest for a pillow, since his own was still under Malcolm’s hips and he didn’t really want to think about what was probably leaking all over it.
Malcolm wrapped a strong arm around his shoulders, and Charlie remembered back into the mists of their early days when he’d always fallen asleep like this. He wondered when he’d stopped, but Malcolm started talking to him again, distracting him.
“The foster demon had this terrible job. He was a super in a neighborhood where people didn’t always pay their rent on time. He grew up in that neighborhood. I think he took the job because he thought he’d be able to make things better for the people he’d grown up with. The old ladies in their shabby, run-down, freezing little apartments. The single mothers. He could fix things and do some good. Prove it was possible to get out of that and make it.”
