“You’d let an ex-con do you just to find out how far down the tats go? See how many piercings he has? Living dangerously, aren’t you?”

  Eric touched Dwayne’s face, rubbed a thumb over his cheekbone, noticing for the first time that he had scars. One just under his left eye, tiny, almost invisible—so maybe it was old, but it was there. He stroked it lightly, then another, above his lip on the right side, not so old or faded; and one on his chin. So many. But they didn’t detract from his beauty. “That’s not why I’d let you take me to bed,” he said.

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Then why?”

  Eric wasn’t sure how to answer that. Lust. Intrigue. Desire. But more than all those things… “I want you,” he said at last, feeling the inadequacy of the statement deep in his gut but unable to find the right words to explain.

  “An ex-con?”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “If it’s true—”

  Eric kissed him. Hands gripping both sides of Dwayne’s head, he prodded until Dwayne parted his lips and allowed him to slip his tongue inside and taste properly. Dwayne tilted his head up after a moment, and he relaxed, splaying his hands over Eric’s sides. The fervor waned, but not the slow-burning intensity.

  Eric dropped his hands, sliding them down over Dwayne’s shoulders to slip around his waist again. He lifted his shirt to find skin, feel the warmth there, and pressed both palms to Dwayne’s back, drawing him closer and pulling a moan out of him that vibrated through Eric and left him panting. When they drew apart, Dwayne’s eyes were dark again.

  “True or not, it isn’t what I think about,” Eric assured him.

  “Then what do you think about?”

  “That I had Angel in my life because of you. I needed him. Jack….” Eric sighed. “Jack left. Angel was there, and honestly, I might… I would be a very different person without him. You saved him.” He shrugged. “In a way, you saved me too. And Marianne. Angel is a good person. Having him for a best friend saved me from turning into my father, and believe me, the world does not need two of him.”

  “And for that, you’re willing to fuck me?”

  “I want to know the man he turned his life around for.”

  “So what?” Dwayne backed out of Eric’s embrace. “He felt guilty for me taking the rap.”

  “He did good things, Dwayne. He did good things because he had the opportunity. You gave him that.” Eric reached for him again but succeeded only in capturing his hands. “He did them and I benefited from them, Marianne benefited. Lots of people did. You inspired him to be better. That’s worth something.”

  Dwayne pulled at his hands, but Eric held fast. Dwayne’s gaze slid sideways, away from Eric’s face, seeing something Eric couldn’t. “I didn’t want his life to be fucked up.”

  “And so yours was.”

  Sharp and fast, Dwayne’s focus came back, nailing Eric, boring into him. “Not his fault. No one made me take the blame.”

  “I know. Doesn’t change the fact your life was ruined. But you have it back now.”

  A small snort puffed out, ruffling the hair on Eric’s forearms. “Not worth much.”

  “There, see, now that.” Eric yanked him off-balance and wrapped him up in a tight embrace. “That’s not true, and not okay to say.”

  “You don’t know me, Eric.”

  “I will.” Eric tilted Dwayne’s head up to look into his eyes. “If I have to figure it out one tattoo at a time, I will.”

  “Angel says you always want shit you can’t have.”

  “Angel’s full of crap.”

  Dwayne just looked at him, unconvinced.

  “Okay. So he’s not full of crap, but that was before. I’m turning over a new leaf.”

  “And who says you can have me?”

  Eric stepped back, though he didn’t let go of the fingers of Dwayne’s left hand. “Can I?”

  A sharp intake of breath and Dwayne jerked, almost pulling free, but Eric tightened his grip. He wasn’t letting him get away now.

  “I don’t know.” Dwayne eyed him like he thought Eric might sink fangs into his arm any second. “I don’t know there’s anything to have.”

  “Only one way to find out, isn’t there?” This time Eric backed him until he once again fetched up against the counter. He leaned down the few inches that separated them and raised Dwayne’s chin so their lips were inches apart. “We can start here.”

  “You’re a fucking scary bastard.”

  Eric grinned briefly before he took Dwayne’s mouth in another devouring kiss.

  After that he spent a lot of time and energy kissing and plying Dwayne with attention. The talking stopped for a while, replaced by soft sighs, moans, and grunts as Eric fumbled with buttons and shirt cuffs to get them both naked at least from the waist up. He couldn’t deny he did want to see how far the tattoos went… what else was pierced. But more than that, he wanted to feel the moment Dwayne finally relaxed into his touch. He chased goose bumps over the other man’s body with his tongue, stripping his shirt off to pursue them down his arms, stopping once in the crook of his elbow to suck a hickey between the stars. It showed up only as a darker patch of skin, not obvious unless you knew it was there. He looked up to find Dwayne staring at him.

  The man’s chest was heaving, his eyes wide, lips gone slack. Eric dropped his arm, ran his hand up to his shoulder. “What is it?”

  Dwayne shook his head.

  “Tell me.”

  “Just….” He closed his eyes, depriving Eric of the view of the emotions that tumbled over one another there. “Stupid.”

  Eric gave him a tiny, gentle shake. “Not to me. Talk.”

  “That tattoo chased a lot of people away.”

  Eric slid his hand back down until his thumb glided over the array of stars. “I’m not running.”

  Dwayne didn’t say anything.

  “I’m not.” Eric resumed his exploration of Dwayne’s body, playing with the nipple piercings with his tongue for long moments when he realized how it raced delicate shivers through Dwayne. Slowly he eased them toward the couch, trying to decide if he should stop and pull the bed out now or wait. He kicked the coffee table aside and maneuvered Dwayne so a firm push sprawled him onto the cushions.

  Dwayne gaped up at him, arms splayed, legs sprawling apart, eyes once more glittering. “Now what?”

  Eric stared down at him, gaze following the lines of a dragon tail as it disappeared under the waistband of his jeans. His belly was flat, smooth. Only a short dusting of black curls graced the center of his chest. Swaths of black ink covered much of the rest, but there was a decided lack of skulls or flames. A tribal design banded one bicep and a vine of roses the other. Dwayne followed his gaze.

  “Angel’s mom. She grows them. She visited me once a week.” A wry smile twisted his lips. “More than my own ma ever did. Wrote me off the second she saw the flashing lights.”

  Eric knelt at Dwayne’s feet. “I’m sorry.”

  He just shrugged. “Happens, right? But Auntie May….” A wide, goofy grin splashed across Dwayne’s face, setting Eric’s heart skipping. “She was there. Long drive for her to come tell me about her rose garden and her boy’s new girl, his rich best friend.” Dwayne reached up to rake his fingers through Eric’s bangs. “Kept sayin’ how very pale ‘the poor boy’ was.”

  Eric snickered. “I was. A total geek. Angel taught me how to play ball. Never got into a single fight, but after I met him, I never got called a faggot again.” Eric bit his lip. “You knew about me.” Somehow that piece of information made his gut twist. “I never knew a thing about you. Angel never said a word.”

  “Auntie May, she forbade him talking about it. She told him she’d take care of everything and he was to forget it ever happened. Get on with his schooling. I knew she had. I knew she wanted him to move on, not dwell on it, not become the person he’d been headed for. I told her it was all good. She never let me down after that. Every week, like clockwork, she was there. She came got me when I got out. Put me up until I couldn’t stand living off her anymore. She’s a good woman.”

  Eric nodded, remembering how much he preferred Angel’s mom’s kitchen to his own formal dining room, the endless discussions of basketball and roses to listening to his own father plan out his life for him.

  “She raised a good son,” Eric said. He lifted his gaze from the roses to meet Dwayne’s eye. “And a good nephew.”

  “Okay.” Dwayne reached down, gripped Eric’s upper arms, and hauled him forward. “We’re going to stop talking about Angel’s mom now, because it’s totally killing the mood.” He mashed Eric’s face into his belly, not hard, but with a firm hand on the back of his head. “Kiss the dragon, boy-o.”

  Eric grinned and gladly followed instructions, lapping and nipping his way down the scales until he reached denim. He flicked Dwayne’s pants open and continued, tugging at the heavy material to get it out of his way.

  Dwayne lifted his hips, pressing his groin toward Eric’s face. Eric licked and kissed his way along the dragon’s tail, tugging gently at the little curled hairs of Dwayne’s groin with his teeth until Dwayne was writhing and moaning. The hand on the back of Eric’s head, caressing at first, stuttered, its movement erratic as Eric’s tongue neared the fold of flesh between leg and balls.

  Eric glanced up to find Dwayne watching him intently.

  “Don’t want to force nothin’,” Dwayne croaked. His eyes were too big, his breath too sharp.

  Eric pulled slightly away. “You’re not.”

  Dwayne bit his lip, but he nodded and sighed as Eric bent again to lap gently. He nuzzled, slowly working his chin between Dwayne’s thighs and sucking one velvety-soft ball into his mouth.

  Dwayne’s loud groan and the sound of his body shushing over the couch cushions set Eric’s blood on fire. Dwayne’s cock bumped his cheek. His hand tightened at the back of Eric’s head, and then the knuckles of his other hand ran a hard staccato pattern up and down the side of Eric’s face as he pumped his own cock.

  Eric abandoned the soft sac in his mouth to take the head of Dwayne’s cock between his lips. He pressed the very tip of his tongue to the slit. Dwayne jolted.

  “Ungh!” Fingers dug into the back of Eric’s head.

  Tentative, he touched the tip of his tongue to the slit again, and Dwayne hauled him back by the hair, then shoved. He scrambled and landed on his ass. “What the fuck!”

  “Sorry! No, it’s—” Dwayne lunged for him and pulled him forward again, half on top of him. “Sorry. I panicked. You don’t share… fuck.” He closed his eyes and held Eric’s head against his chest.

  “That was about things that happened to you,” Eric guessed, not even trying to see into Dwayne’s face yet.

  “Do we have to talk about this?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I ain’t going to tell you what they did.”

  Eric remained silent. He needed to know what had set Dwayne off. Had something scared him? Had Eric hurt him in some way? Did this happen every time he had sex? Eric didn’t think so. At least, he’d never seen evidence of any of Dwayne’s one-night stands leaving in a huff. “Does that happen a lot?” he tried. “You pushing guys away like that, I mean.”

  “I ain’t talkin’ about other guys.”

  Eric didn’t know what else to say. He carefully kissed Dwayne’s chest.

  “I said the tattoos protected me.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Long as I had ’em, only one guy ever got to jizz in me.” He shrugged, but his arm around Eric’s shoulders was tight. “Just the way it worked. And I ain’t gonna come in anyone I ain’t talked to about it first.”

  Eric sat up, forcing his freedom from Dwayne’s arms. “Does that work both ways?” he demanded.

  “I’m clean, if that’s what you’re askin’.”

  “That is not what I’m asking. I’m asking if the guys you’ve been with since you got out give you the same consideration.”

  Dwayne’s gaze slid away.

  “That’s bullshit,” Eric fumed.

  “It ain’t like I been hookin’ up with silver-spoon brats on a regular basis,” Dwayne said, pushing himself more upright, thereby increasing the distance between them.

  “And that’s what I am to you?”

  “No. ’Course not. If you were just another hookup—any kind of hookup—why the fuck would I care?”

  “If you know you’re clean, why do you care where your come goes?”

  “Because it’s you.” Dwayne squirmed. “You don’t come dump without askin’ if you care.”

  “Oh.” Heat boiled deep in Eric’s gut. He licked his lips. “That’s—” Sweet. Not that he dared say that to Dwayne.

  “I been at the wrong end of it too many times to do that to a guy,” Dwayne said after a minute. “I let guys do me because most guys I get with, that’s the only way they’ll do it. It’s fine.” He moved, sitting forward on the couch. “We can do it that way. It’s cool.” He began to turn around, but Eric stopped him.

  “No.”

  “No?” He was halfway around and stopped to peer at Eric over his shoulder. “Now you don’t want to?”

  “I want….” Eric pulled in a deep breath. “We can do it—whatever—you want. How you want.”

  For a long moment, Dwayne didn’t move a muscle, just stared at him as though waiting for him to say something else, to take his words back.

  “You sure?” Dwayne asked.

  “Sure I’m sure. I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.” Not now. Not knowing how Dwayne felt about it.

  “You bottom before?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re cool with it?”

  “Does that mean something if I am?”

  “Only means something if you say you are but aren’t,” Dwayne replied. “You’re sure.”

  “You wouldn’t even come in my mouth. You… did what you did for Angel. I’m sure if I say you can do this however you want, I can trust you not to hurt me.” Eric smiled and touched Dwayne’s thigh, pushing slightly to get him to turn back around and face him. “I’m very sure.”

  Dwayne plunked back onto the couch and searched his face. “You got stuff?” His voice was gruff. His eyes held a different kind of glitter.

  Eric nodded, scrambled on his knees to the table at the far end of the couch to retrieve lube and condoms, which he tossed onto the cushion next to Dwayne.

  For the first time that night, Dwayne touched him first, fingers grazing over the stubble on his cheek. “You sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Dwayne nodded, guided Eric’s head between his legs, and offered his cock.

  Eric didn’t take his eyes off his lover as he took the head in his mouth, laved the flat of his tongue carefully over the tip, and watched an allover body shudder carry Dwayne away. His head lolled back and his hips bucked up. “Fuck yeah,” he muttered, the words drifting up toward the ceiling and falling in a light rain of curses over Eric’s bent head.

  Dwayne guided his progress, pushing his head until his cock ran over the back of Eric’s tongue and made his eyes water, then relaxing and letting him come up for air. It was sweet and slow, designed to get him hard, and it drove Eric crazy with want. He’d been with guys who just wanted to fuck his mouth and guys who were content to let him do all the work. This collaboration of desire was new. The muskiness of Dwayne’s sweat infused his taste buds, and he breathed it in, closed his eyes to better feel the friction of curly hair around his face.

  He was lost in the slow, lazy rhythm when Dwayne twitched, squeezing his thighs together slightly and gripping his hair. It wasn’t the same desperate clawing as before. Just a gentle curl to get his attention. He dragged himself up from the comfortable haze to look at Dwayne.

  “Fuck, that’s….” Dwayne looked at him. Eric still had his lips wrapped around his cock, Dwayne’s hand still in his hair. Dwayne trailed fingers down Eric’s cheek again. “Get up here.”

  Eric nodded, gave him one last deep swallow, and gently released him, kneeling up to wiggle his arms around the other man’s torso.

  “You have too many clothes on,” Dwayne told him.

  Eric nodded. He struggled to his feet on wobbling legs and popped his jeans open, but Dwayne swatted his hands away to pull them down himself. He wasted no time getting the rest of Eric’s clothes off and pulling him close, mimicking the nuzzling Eric had given him earlier. When he closed his mouth over Eric’s cock, the wet heat drove a groan from Eric’s chest. Eric ran his hands over Dwayne’s cornrows and played with the dangling braids, listening to the clacking of beads as he rocked his hips and sent himself deeper into the amazing heat.

  Dwayne kneaded at his buttocks, slipping strong fingers ever closer to his hidden entrance, teasing as he drew near and trailed away again without quite touching.

  “Dwayne,” he tried to complain, but a few swipes of Dwayne’s tongue and coherency melted away. Fascinated by the sensation of Dwayne’s tongue piercing rolling along the underside of his cock with every stroke, Eric got lost in the haze of lust. Every once in a while, Dwayne pressed the nub just behind the head of Eric’s cock and sent a thrill of resonant pleasure though him that made him curl his tailbone in and thrust deep. The next time fingers came close to his hole, he spread his legs a bit, hinting, and the fingers brushed, light and frustratingly fleeting, over sensitive skin.

  “Oh God… fuck.” His legs wobbled, and he gripped Dwayne’s shoulders to steady himself.

  Both hands disappeared, and he swore again, leaning more fully on his lover to keep from crumpling.

  A moment later one big hand wrapped around his cock, holding him tight, and Dwayne released him from his mouth. He glared down into the man’s wicked grin.

  “Relax, sweetcheeks.”

  Cool drizzle trickled between Eric’s cheeks, and he shivered. The lube thumped back onto the couch, and Dwayne followed the cold trail of slick, long fingers warming and spreading it.

  “Fuck me,” Eric whispered.

  Dwayne laughed. “In a minute.”

 

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