Put a Ring on It (5 page)

This time the kiss was real, Kieran’s cooler lips warming under Theo’s, the taste, the spark there like it had been in the beginning. Theo slid his hand down lower, over Kieran’s hip, shifting around to the waistband of his slacks.

Kieran covered Theo’s hand with his, pulling away from the kiss.

“I’ll make you a sandwich and steam up the bathroom for you,” Theo offered.

While stripping off his slacks, Kieran kept a hand on Theo’s arm and pulled him down on the bed.

Theo could work with that. He ran a hand up Kieran’s cool, hard thigh. “Or we could warm you up like this.”

Again Kieran intercepted Theo just as his thumb was about to hit interesting territory. “Tell me what’s going on.”

A proposal, then Kieran disappearing for hours while Theo wondered if he’d ever see him again. Everything was going on. And yet the way Kieran meant it, nothing was going on. Why was it so hard for Kieran to accept that Theo wanted to marry him, that all of today, every bit of it, had been for him?

As they lay on their sides facing each other, Theo entwined their fingers and kissed Kieran’s knuckles. Trying to get that hint of a smile back on Kieran’s face, Theo said, “Am I doing a voice-over recap? Previously on—”

Kieran squeezed Theo’s hand but spoke softly. “Stop. Stop performing.”

The first time Kieran had said something like that, they’d been dating for a month. He’d looked around and said, “I don’t see an audience, Theo. It’s just us.”

Theo had been terrified. There was no “just” about it. No one had ever bothered to notice how hard Theo worked to entertain before. Not that he minded. It was fun to make people smile, to make them like him. He was good at it. But with Kieran’s dark eyes studying Theo across his kitchen counter, he’d felt empty. Naked. There was nothing behind the curtain for Kieran to see. And if there was, well, he definitely wouldn’t like it.

But as Theo’s heart had raced like a frightened rabbit, Kieran had held his gaze, and eventually, out of the silence that stretched between them, Kieran had smiled. Not the little one, but something that transformed his face, and he’d leaned across the counter to grab Theo and kiss him.

Over time, Theo had grown used to those comfortable silences. Moments when Kieran would just meet Theo’s eyes and smile. Moments when that look made blood turn electric and pulse to the ends of his fingers and toes and hair. Moments when Kieran noticed Theo when Theo wasn’t doing anything at all.

Those quiet moments usually led to spectacular sex, but Kieran had stopped Theo from going there twice. Kieran wasn’t smiling now. Not even close. And Theo couldn’t stand this quiet, endless space.

“Aren’t you the one who hates talking about things?”

Kieran released Theo’s hand and pushed up to sit, one leg hanging off the bed. “It’s going to be my fault that you proposed to me, completely out of the blue, in front of hundreds of people?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“It sounds like it. Like you went through some kind of crazy public stunt, for what? So we would talk about my feelings.”

Theo started to connect the dots. “Are you pissed because—?”

“I’m not pissed.”

Theo let that lie go. “Are you frustrated because I proposed to you or because I proposed in public?”

“God, Theo, you know how I hate—”

“People?” Theo suggested, leaning up on his arm.

“People knowing too much about me. Anything about me.”

Most of the time Theo forgot the ten-year difference in their ages. Forgot that he was almost five inches taller and forty pounds heavier than his boyfriend. But when Kieran hunched like that, irrationally pissed, like he was a toddler on the verge of a tantrum, Theo remembered Kieran was barely out of college.

Eying Kieran’s back, Theo smoothed out the champagne and silver jacquard duvet cover. “I apologize for not being aware of how public it would feel to you. It was only the
Susan
cast. Coworkers.”

Kieran twisted to shoot Theo a look. “And everyone in Times Square.”

Theo accepted that with a slight nod. “Objection noted.”

Kieran made a grating sound in the back of his throat.

“To answer your earlier question, I know you don’t like talking about feelings, but I wanted to make mine clear.” Theo rolled so that his head was near Kieran’s hip, to get in range of his eyes. “I asked you to marry me because I love you. I want to spend forever with you.”

Kieran looked at him then.

“When you said yes and accepted the ring, I thought that meant it was what you wanted too.”

“Theo.” Kieran put a hand on Theo’s cheek, fingers stroking across his eyebrows.

Theo bit back a joke about whether he was due for a maintenance trip to the salon and waited.

“I want to be here. I want to be with you. And it’s not that I want to keep my options open.”

Skydiving must be like this. Theo would have to ask Dane. Endless, dizzy space. Falling forever, praying for an anchor, something to slow you before the crash. Despite the buzzing in his ears, Theo heard himself say, “But you don’t want to marry me.”

Theo knew what Kieran was doing before he twisted the ring off his finger and offered it to Theo on an open palm.

“It’s beautiful. If I were going to marry anyone, it would be you.”

“Wait.” Theo curled Kieran’s fingers over the ring. Without releasing his fist, Theo slid forward to sit next to Kieran. “Let’s call this morning a rehearsal. I’ve got my notes, and I think I can get it right this time.”

Theo wasn’t giving Kieran a chance to interrupt.

“Kieran Delaney-Schwartz, I love you. I used to wish I could live at the theater, until I met you and had a reason to come home. I always want to have a you to come home to. So maybe, if sometime you decide you want to get married, I hope it will be to me.”

Kieran was never easy to read. The face he wore when he was about to smile was the same one he wore when he was about to get pissed off enough to explode.

Theo gently opened Kieran’s right hand. “I hope you’ll wear this as my promise to wait until you’re ready. However long it takes.”

Theo meant every damned word of it. He just hoped this part of Kieran making up his mind wasn’t going to take too long.
Please give me something.
Theo couldn’t watch Kieran’s face anymore, so he stared at the ring on Kieran’s palm.

Kieran took it between his fingers and slid it onto his right ring finger. “Yes.” His voice was steady and strong.

Theo straightened. A hint of a smile softened Kieran’s eyes.

“No takebacks?”

Kieran shook his head. “But I think kissing might be the one part of that do-over you left out.”

Theo wrapped a hand in Kieran’s shirt and dragged him down onto the duvet. “I think I can improve my blocking.”

Kieran lifted himself from Theo’s chest. “Did you say blowing? ’Cause you’ve already set that bar pretty damned high.”

“Oh, you are so on.”

MOST GUYS
were nothing but cooperative when a blow job was on the table. As obstinate as Theo’s boyfriend-slash-maybe-fiancé could be, Kieran was no exception. His faint smile became a grin as Theo rolled Kieran onto his back.

He lunged up to meet Theo’s kiss, mouth warm and open. The familiar taste, the way their tongues slid together, that perfect fit, got Theo’s breath hot and heavy before Kieran’s hands landed on Theo’s shoulders.

The groan that followed had as much of relief in it as arousal, and he wasn’t sure which felt better. This. They hadn’t lost—Theo hadn’t lost—this. The words had been trying too hard, but the way their heads moved and that effortless choreography of tongues and hands, this was them. No need to fake it till you make it.

He ground down into Kieran’s hips, feeling the gasp in his chest before he fed it into Theo’s mouth on a strong, slick tongue. After gathering the bottom of Kieran’s shirt, Theo tugged it over Kieran’s head, revealing the hard angles of his chest, the narrow strip of hair leading from between his nipples to thicken and widen below his navel.

Kieran glanced up at him, eyes half-lidded, mouth wet.

Everything got crowded inside Theo’s chest, tight, hot, choking his throat. God, he loved that face. That man.
Why? Why can’t you just say it? Why is it so goddamned hard for you to say?

He swallowed back the words before he found himself shaking the answers out of the stubborn bastard and redoubled his efforts to prove the feelings on Kieran’s body, bending to kiss and lick the spaces that made him crazy. Teeth on his collarbone, nose brushing his armpits, the insanely sensitive inside of his elbow. Theo could get Kieran hard just rubbing a thumb there, and loved to torment him when they were riding in a cab, knowing how desperate Kieran got with every red light between them and bed.

His hips jutted above the black waistband of his Calvins, inviting a long, sloppy kiss on each as Theo put his palm on the hard heat under the stretchy cotton.

“Theo. God. Uh—wait.”

Kieran’s rough whisper pulsed warmth to Theo’s balls before his brain had time to process the words. He dragged smiling lips over the ridge, flicked his tongue on the dark red flesh peeking out from the elastic. Tilting his head up, he watched Kieran’s throat work before he managed to grate out, “The duvet.”

Right. The duvet. Theo wished he had never made such a big deal about finding the damned thing. He was about to say
fuck it
, but Kieran was already wriggling around to shift onto the sheets. With a grunt of frustration, Theo dragged it off to the side. While he was occupied with that, Kieran stripped off his boxer briefs.

Damn it. Theo had been looking forward to a slow unwrapping, making Kieran whine and plead as Theo tasted him through the material, soaking it with spit and Kieran’s precome, teasing with quick touches on skin. Wanted that proof of how much Kieran needed Theo bitter on his tongue, vibrating under his hands, even before Theo peeled his briefs off.

Stupid fucking perfect duvet.

But the rest of this was happening the way Theo planned. Kieran’s back up against the pillows, his legs high and wide, ass, taint, balls, dick all open to Theo’s mouth. He used his shoulders and hands to push Kieran how he wanted, keeping him pinned open as he licked from his hole to his balls and all the way up to the tip. Kieran shuddered, and Theo glanced up, lips teasing under the rim, holding Kieran’s gaze as blood pulsed steadily against Theo’s tongue.

He retraced the path, wetter, harder, a longer kiss at the tip, then watched a clear drop well up from the slit before he lapped it away. Kieran gasped, and Theo looked up again. Heat flared in his groin, affection pounding just as hard against his ribs at the look on Kieran’s face. It was there sometimes even when Theo’s mouth wasn’t on his dick. The eyes gone drowsy, unguarded, a hint of his tongue slipping onto his lips.

“God, Theo. Suck me, please.”

Theo hummed a vibration into Kieran’s balls, throat open to middle C to let the sensation sink deep into him. Theo’s breath supported it through his hand bringing the sac to his mouth, already so tight over the shapes inside as he rolled them across his tongue.

Kieran’s head banged off the headboard, and Theo cupped his ass to slide him lower. He worked the base with his mouth and tongue, getting it slick for his hand. And then the best part, the sound Kieran made when Theo opened his mouth over the head and took Kieran deep. The soft, spongy head stroked across Theo’s palate, fit in his throat like it had been made for him. Weight on his tongue and the thickness so close to gagging him. His eyes watered, but he gulped and swallowed and held his breath, and they were there, Kieran making a soft cry that shifted from D up to an F sharp. Theo backed off and then took him deep again, hand and lips and tongue and throat working to drag out every sound Kieran couldn’t keep back with his dick between Theo’s lips.

Theo loved this, loved sucking cock, loved sucking Kieran’s cock. Theo wasn’t a control freak, God knew he wasn’t anyone’s definition of a top, but having a guy open to him like this, needing him like this, made Theo’s nuts fill and lift as if he was the one getting sucked. And having Kieran, who goddamned well
was
a control freak, open for him like this was so sweet, Theo hardly ever needed more than a few strokes to bring himself off.

Kieran’s groan stretched an octave on Theo’s name, and his eyes watered again, but not because there was a cock in his throat. So close. He’d thought it was safe, just this once, to ask for something. And he’d almost lost everything. But he could be what Kieran needed. Theo could wait. And he sure as hell could give him this better than anyone else. He went hard, jerking Kieran off with lips, tongue, throat. Fast, wet, messy.

Kieran’s hand landed on Theo’s head, clumsy and rough, the heavy band on the ring finger resonating against Theo’s skull. “Please. Let me. I want.”

Theo lifted off enough to whisper, “Go ahead. Fuck my face.”

“No.” Kieran’s fingers swept through Theo’s curls, got caught in a tangle, a sharp sting as the half-bezeled diamond caught. “Not that.”

Maybe it was thinking about the ring and how close it had come to going back in a box. Or hearing Kieran’s emphatic no. Theo didn’t know how it happened.

Hell, he hoped it never ever fucking happened again, thank you very much. But somehow all that heat and pressure building in his dick and balls wasn’t. Like it evaporated. Not the ache where he had to think of something gross to get an inappropriate hard-on under control, but it was gone. The want wasn’t. He just…. Holy shit. He—

He’d stopped blowing Kieran. Everything stilled as he tried to process what the hell was going on south of the border. Or how nothing was going on. Would Kieran notice if he sneaked a hand down to check? He wasn’t numb, not sensitive like he’d come and couldn’t take another touch. Just the go factor had… gone.

Jesus. He was only thirty-five.

“Swing up here and let me suck you too.”

Kieran managed a complete sentence now that Theo’s mouth wasn’t doing anything but hanging limp like—yeah, that wasn’t helping.