Make a Right (6 page)

“We’re cool.” Tuck found a grin and forced it out. “I’ve got a show of good faith.”

Cade’s eyebrow lifted. “Really?”

“You did leave some things here. I just now remembered where I saved them for you.”

Cade’s mouth quirked at a different angle. “That’s your idea of truce?”

“It’s my way of trying.”

Cade shifted from smiling on the inside to thoughtful, but the end result seemed so close to the same as made no difference. Tuck’s natural good cheer bubbled up as effervescent as champagne; weird, when he’d had fucking nightmares about this moment. Even if he hadn’t had those bad dreams, this should have sucked.

Maybe it was being this close to Cade that did the trick. Either way, he’d take it.

“Under here,” Tuck said, dropping to a kneel and then his hands and knees to dig beneath the bed. His abrupt movement knocked Cade back down on the mattress, the man only just catching himself. “Sorry. It’s just I had to keep them somewhere, and the bedroom’s empty.”

Did he imagine Cade brushing ever so lightly across the top of his head, almost but not quite sifting his hair? It felt like a silent acknowledgment. A little sorrowful.

He jabbed Cade in the ankle. “Truce, remember?”
Where were they—ah, there
. He could just reach the corner of the dusty box with his fingertips and coaxed it toward him. Wasn’t as heavy as it looked. “Mostly pictures.”

Cade shifted with what seemed like interest. “From when?”

“St. Pius’s. That first apartment in Queens. A few of those cards they used to give us, with the pictures of the saints on them.”

“Icons.”

“Right.” Still hunkered down low, Tuck blew a cloud of dust bunnies off the box and sneezed when they flew straight back in his face. And sneezed again. He jarred into Cade’s legs with the force of the sneezes and grimaced. “Sorry.”

He meant to jostle Cade’s calf, but it didn’t quite come out that way. Once he’d laid hands on Cade… It was too good…better than good, to touch Cade and for Cade to let it happen. Tuck couldn’t stop.

He didn’t want to, fuck no, but a promise was a promise. Tuck drew on all the willpower he could muster and let go of Cade. “Here.” He wiped the rest of the dust off with his sleeve. Eh, the T-shirt had to go at one point or another. “They’re all jumbled together. I—”

He stopped. No. That wasn’t his imagination. That was Cade, taking breaths soft but audible, and that was Cade touching his head again as lightly as Tuck caressed Cade’s leg.

The box of photos slid from Tuck’s mind. He looked up. Cade looked down.

Time stopped again, and this time the ticking of the clock stayed silent.

Slowly, so slowly, Tuck raised himself from hands and knees to just knees, and no, he hadn’t imagined where he’d end up: between Cade’s knees, spread just far enough apart to make room for Tuck. Cade’s cheeks were flushed, a pink that spread down his neck and disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt.

Cade drew one strand of Tuck’s hair through shaking fingers. “I remember other things,” he said, though Tuck could tell he didn’t want to. Some things just forced themselves out of a man sometimes. “I remember sitting like this, with you on your knees. I can’t forget.”

Tuck sat still, very still. This mattered more than anything. More, even, than the girls. His mouth was dry when he asked, “Can’t or won’t?”

“I don’t know.”

Tuck rose higher. He touched Cade’s stomach, moving his fingertips in a slow circle and then resting his palm across the taut skin. God himself couldn’t have made him look away from that dark drowning in Cade’s eyes, in his parted lips and in that look of
please yes/please no.

He laid his hands on Cade’s thighs, thumbs brushing over the inseam of his jeans, their denim laundered so many times they were thin and soft as cotton. They couldn’t hide a shadow, much less the outline of Cade’s half-hard cock or the shaking of his thighs.

“Tuck…” Cade stopped himself.

He thought Cade meant yes; he worried that Cade meant no. “Talk to me.”

“You get your wish. Did you think? I didn’t.” Cade shut his eyes tighter than tight and laughed, though it wasn’t funny at all. “Help me.”

Tuck could not say no to that. Not when Cade asked it of him and meant it. “You’re sure?”

“Don’t talk. Don’t ask. I don’t know what I’m saying. Just—”

The helpless breaking of words undid Tuck. He couldn’t see Cade hurting. Not without doing everything he could.

“It’s okay, babe. I’ve got you,” Tuck said. “Shh.”

Cade shuddered, nodded, and kept his silence.

Tuck still didn’t know where they stood, he and Cade, not in the long run. But he knew for sure what he could do
now.

He held Cade still and bent his head to breathe in the scent of his man, dark and musky, salty and hot. Last thing he’d thought would happen tonight, but he’d take it; by God on high, he’d
take
it.

Tightening his hold, Tuck parted his lips over the now-full stiffness of Cade’s cock, straining the zipper of his jeans, and mouthed the rising stiffness beneath. The thin denim wet through with his saliva and the salty taste of precum.

He slipped beneath to cup Cade’s balls. So tight, so full. He had to be aching, desperate for some release. Tuck was a fool for love. Of course he’d hoped there hadn’t been anyone else for Cade since him. He wasn’t stupid, though.

But there hadn’t been anyone else in Cade’s bed after all, had there? Tuck would bet his life on it. He knew what Cade looked like, how he moved and how he tasted when it’d been a while. Watching Cade now, as finely and tightly strung as a high wire, told a tale of six months of sleeping alone. So help him, it went to Tuck’s head.

A groan slipped free of his lips, echoing reverberations against Cade’s fully hard cock that made Cade gasp and lose some of his balance. If Cade hadn’t caught himself, he’d have fallen to his back.

Tuck laved the ridge Cade’s cock made, wetting the cotton so thoroughly it clung to Cade and hid less than nothing. Hard, needy, desperate. The head of his cock almost peeked above his waist. His cheeks had gone apple red; a bead of sweat trickled down his neck and pooled in the hollow between his collarbones; his lips were strung apart and his pupils dilated wide.

Been just as long for me as it has for you, Tuck thought but didn’t say. He nosed at the wet patch he’d made, breathing deep. “Love your smell. Always loved the way you smell.” He took the fabric delicately between his teeth and tugged, chafing it against Cade’s dick.

Cade groaned, fisting his hands in the tousled bedspread. His legs fell farther apart, silent permission and voiceless pleading for more. Stubborn was just the way Cade was too. When he needed more, he wouldn’t ask. Tuck had had to learn to know.

Like now. He knew. Tuck mouthed up the length of Cade’s cock and sucked below the cherry crown. Cade jerked, betraying how desperate he had to be to thrust up and in.

“I got you, babe. I got you,” Tuck soothed. His hard-on throbbed behind his zipper, begging to be set free. Not yet. He palmed himself, groaning louder at the pulse of pure pleasure and the flash fire of
want
. Made him crazy for more. Easy now, he told himself, thrusting into the palm of his hand and no more.

Cade first. If this was going to happen, it had to be for Cade first. Just like always.

“Tuck…” Cade slid his fingers through Tuck’s hair and pulled, tilting his chin back, and then it was rock back on his heels or fall. “Wait. Let me—”

Confused, Tuck licked his lips. “Not hurting you, am I?”

“No.” Cade’s throat worked. He stared at Tuck through the ring of those dark, dark pupils. “Look at you.” He nudged Tuck’s shoulder in an effort to push him back farther, but Tuck got it now. Hard to miss with that stare riveted on him. “Show me?”

Tuck understood, and it made him hiss in a breath. “Like this?” He slid his hand inside his jeans and massaged himself.

“
God
,” Cade whispered, staring. “Your hand.”

Tuck didn’t have to look to know what Cade saw; he’d seen it in mirrors, in window reflections when Cade was in a rare reckless mood. His fist, wrapped around his cock, bulged obscenely inside the denim. Almost impossible to move in the limited space and just enough to set a man on fire for more.

He squeezed himself and pushed into the pressure, fucking his fist with small, stuttering thrusts; he let his head fall back and his mouth open. “Imagining it’s you,” he said.

Cade groaned. He covered his eyes, grinding the heels of his hands on his cheeks, and tugged at Tuck’s hair. Too hard, stinging, but Tuck didn’t mind. Cade’s hips lifted, stopped, held him there, shuddering. “You still—God, the way you still get to me—”

“Shh. I know, babe.” Tuck let go of himself only because he had to or lose it right then, right there. “Lie back. Rest yourself.” He lifted as high as he could on his knees and licked one tiny stripe over Cade’s cockhead, still showing just a little out of the top of his jeans. “Let me take care of you.”

He eased Cade down, keeping himself wedged between those long, lithe legs. Not going anywhere and making sure Cade knew it. He sucked the precum off Cade and no more, flicking his tongue in Morse code dot-dot-dots up Cade’s stomach as slowly as he could, when he wanted to take Cade wholly into his mouth and suck. Drain him dry.

He set his lips to the spot just below Cade’s navel and breathed words against his skin. “You’re everything. Know that.”

“Tuck…” Cade said, breathless. He squeezed Tuck’s shoulders with his thighs. “Fuck, I—”

Missed you
, was what he didn’t say. Tuck still heard it, clear as day.

“You need this?” He indulged himself with one hard, hard suck and tasted Cade when he drew off and ran his tongue along his lips. He held Cade’s hips still, the effort needed for both of them. Tuck was going to explode without some friction, some skin against skin. Swear, he’d come in his pants like a teenager again if he didn’t—but he couldn’t—

Cade shuddered and breathed harsher, faster. “Close, God, so close. Tuck, please…”

Tuck reined in his building orgasm but only just.
A little longer. Make it last
. The taste he’d gotten wasn’t nearly enough. More.
More.

He carefully bit down on the tab of Cade’s zipper and drew it down, slow and easy. Yielding to temptation, he licked Cade’s skin as he hooked his fingers beneath the waist and pulled both jeans and briefs down, baring Cade in one surging rush.

Cade came off the bed with a strangled shout that he muffled by pressing the back of his arm to his mouth. Cold air had to feel like something on his hot skin.

Tuck gritted his teeth until the raging rush to fuck, fuck,
fuck
settled from inferno to hearth fire. “I got you,” he said. “I got you, I promise.” He wrapped his fist around Cade’s cock and guided it into his mouth, sucking Cade as deep as he could take the man.

He drew off only to say, “Fuck my mouth. Hard as you can. Want it.”

But Cade was already past that, Tuck thought, and so was he.

“Shh. Shh, it’s okay.” Tuck took mercy on him and went to work bringing Cade off the way he needed. He cupped Cade’s balls in his palm and rolled them gentle, easy. So full it made
his
nuts ache in sympathy and made his mouth water with eagerness.

Tuck sucked on the crown and traced his lips, painting them with precum, taste and smell. Cade could come on his face if he wanted; hell, Tuck loved it when Cade let that happen or couldn’t hold back. Loved the cum hot on his cheeks and chin, closing his eyes and feeling stripes on his eyelids.

“Come on,” he urged, rubbing his face against Cade’s cock. “Come on.”

Cade shook his head and groaned. Still denying himself.

Okay
. Tuck knew what he needed.
I’ve got you
. He drew Cade back deep into his mouth and held him between his lips, kneading Cade’s thighs and holding him down by his hips. With each lash of his tongue and seal of his lips, each slide that thrust the taste of Cade into the back of his throat, he urged Cade on.

Give it up, babe, let me have it, I want it, you want it—

God, he couldn’t help himself. Tuck squeezed his eyes shut and did away with the fastenings on his button fly fast as he could, only far enough to give himself room to scrub his palm against his dick and thrust into it.
Almost there, don’t want it to stop; I need more than this; I need Cade. Always need Cade.

“Let me see you,” Cade said, raw whisper sandpapering Tuck’s ears. He slitted his eyes open to find Cade raised on his elbows, watching him with hazy eyes and pure want. Just like nothing had ever gone wrong between them. “Tuck, let me see you come.”

“Ah,
fuck
!” Tuck bit his cheek, tasting copper, and let go. All Cade ever had to do was ask, and away he went. He thrust into his fist, stripping himself empty, hand locking on to Cade’s leg tight enough to leave fingerprint bruises.

Cade collapsed back onto the bed; Tuck thought Cade had come, and he’d missed it, but no. He gritted his teeth and pushed away the last of the fog clouding his head, surged forward and sucked Cade wet and sloppy. Cade rolled his head to and fro on the tangled sheets. Close, then, but not there.

Took this extra touch sometimes. “It’s okay,” Tuck said. He drew off to rub Cade, as ragged a rhythm as he’d sucked, and pressed his face to Cade’s groin, where his hair would fall forward and cover Cade and himself from view. “It’s okay, babe. Love you so much.”

“
God
!” If Tuck hadn’t held him down, Cade would have arched his hips clear off the bed when he came, shooting thick streaks on his face.

Tuck laughed, silently exulting, catching what he could and lapping away the rest. He licked Cade clean and sucked him gently as Cade softened, not stopping until Cade hissed and pushed him off.

Even then Cade’s cock twitched, trying to rise again. Wanting more, the way it had always been between them.
More
. Explosions, fireworks going off in his hand and on his tongue. Every time. Since the beginning. Still. This thing they had between them, it wasn’t dead. Couldn’t be, and Cade knew it. He had to.