Rough Canvas (41 page)

Marcus seized the bed covers, using them as a counter pull as he pushed when

Thomas shoved, drawing back and coming together as Marcus’ climax rocketed

through them both. For a few remarkable moments Thomas held both their weights on one arm, keeping Marcus hard against his chest as he stroked him to the last drop. Then his balls convulsed, beyond the point of no return.

He shouted out his own climax, too powerful to stop the reaction, and a deep

guttural cry from Marcus joined his, his hips rocking up to take all of Thomas’ seed, heart thundering against their locked fists. Thomas rammed him without thought now, just all physical need and animal feeling, everything right, everything as it should be, no need for a mind when the heart and soul were so large and overwhelming, filling the room with heat.

When at length he slowed, a lifetime later, his hand was slippery with the cum that had jetted out of Marcus. With his warm and wet knuckles Thomas rubbed his Master’s cock, up and down as Marcus twitched at the increased sensitivity, all his muscles shuddering.

While at first Thomas was filled with deep male satisfaction at the trembling post-coital reaction of his lover, as his own post-climactic haze cleared off, he realized Marcus was still breathing too fast, too deep. He was rocking back against Thomas as if they were still fucking. Pushing, drawing away, pushing, pushing…

Marcus’ hands were clutching the blanket spasmodically. Lowering his head to the covers, he pressed his face there, his back curved in a painful bend as if something far greater than Thomas’ weight still rested on him.

“Hey…” Thomas withdrew, pulling him back in his arms, but he had to follow

Marcus down the side of the bed to the floor. When Marcus put his arms over his head, covering his expression, his body still rocking, Thomas’ heart broke. He wrapped both arms around him as the first sobs crashed over his Master.

He was overwhelmed by Marcus’ grief. The way he leaned into Thomas, almost

toppling over so he was half curled into Thomas’ lap. The weight of what he was carrying seemed to be hurting him too much to allow anything but a fetal position to brace himself against it. Thomas curved protectively over him.

Now knowing what he knew, Thomas suspected the grief wasn’t solely for Marcus’

father. Eventually, an unloved child realized there was no obligation to love back. But the man Marcus had become could mourn being born into a family where he wasn’t

wanted, didn’t fit. Feel the hurt of standing on the outside of what so many others had.

Of knowing there was no way for it to be different, caught between hate and longing, not hate and love.

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After talking to Owen, Thomas realized there was another reason he’d fallen in love with Marcus. While he loved Marcus certainly for the individual, sexy, complicated man he was, Thomas also had found a spark of his own father, who had carried so much responsibility and never thought to question or resent it.

When the family farm had failed, Thomas’ father had turned to the hardware store
his
father had started, which wasn’t more than a side interest at that time. He worked contract jobs in between building it into a thriving concern. At times the money had gotten so tight Thomas’ mother had turned to neighbors to provide a meal for them, tucking away her pride.

She’d hidden the knowledge from Thomas’ father, and Thomas knew she’d done it

so he’d never falter, never think she had a moment’s doubt in him. He suspected there must have been times his father had wanted to crack, so afraid he wasn’t going to make it all come together, take care of his family, live up to that love in his wife’s eyes.

Marcus went out and forged his dreams out of less than nothing, formed his own

family, protected them, even tried to protect Mike. And had lost them all. From the violence of his reaction now, Thomas thought it likely he’d never let himself break over any of it, because he couldn’t. He couldn’t handle the pain of it until…he had someone he trusted enough to see it.

A different version of the same words Marcus had said to him, during that first bad fight in the Berkshires.

Different situations, different men, but the glue always the same. The thing that made it all work. His father had had his mother’s unwavering love, his children’s respect. Marcus had him.

Hold me together…

“Always, Master,” he murmured, holding him tighter. “It’s going to be okay. We’re together now. Always.”

The polish had come at a high, high price.

Thomas kept stroking his hair, murmuring and rocking, until at last Marcus started to rein it back in, pushing himself up, swiping his hand at his nose and eyes.

“Okay?” Thomas kept a hand on his bare shoulder, moving his fingers slow and

easy over the firm flesh.

“Yeah. Oh, Jesus. No.” Marcus bolted from the floor, disappearing into the

bathroom. He managed to kick the door shut before Thomas heard him start to get rid of probably a gallon of Jack Daniels and vodka.

Wincing sympathetically, Thomas rose and went to the adjacent bathing area to run water in the Jacuzzi tub. He selected the temperature Marcus liked and increased it a few degrees up from that. Moving to the sink, he began to clean himself with a cloth and soap, keeping an ear tuned to the bathroom. Three pauses, followed each time by more vomiting. Marcus must have been drinking since he’d last seen Thomas.

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The evidence was in the penthouse as well, in the unmade bed, dishes in the sink, paperwork tossed on the floor. Thomas pulled on his jeans, shrugged into his shirt and made the bed while he waited. As the minutes passed, he suspected Marcus was

probably in there hoping he’d disappear. He heard the sink running, the sounds of teeth being brushed, a mouth being rinsed that would probably never be able to taste Jack Daniel’s again.

“Got a bath out here when you’re ready.”

“Go away.”

Thomas stifled a smile. “Come out here and stop being such a girl.”

That did it. The door opened and Marcus stood gloriously naked in the doorway.

He’d washed his face, but as Thomas well knew, everything else to use for cleaning up was in the Jacuzzi part of the bathroom. Marcus glared, but otherwise seemed at a loss for words. And he looked tired.

Thomas rose from the bed. “Tomorrow you can go back to being invincible. But for tonight, why don’t you let the guy who loves you enough to kiss you with stale liquor and cigarettes on your breath take care of you? Get you into the tub and scrub every part of you that needs scrubbing.”

The teasing light died out of his tone, replaced by something else as Thomas

stopped in front of him. “Maybe after that, you can try sleeping while I hold onto you and thank God that you kept on loving me until I figured out what a gift you are?”

As Marcus’ expression changed, Thomas moved forward another step, put a hand

to his face. “Please, Master. Give me the gift of taking care of you.”

“I already did.”

“C’mon, then. I’ve got a bath run. It’ll do you good.”

Marcus gave him a searching look but complied, moving into the bathing area.

Thomas tried not to hover, but was nevertheless glad he did. When Marcus lifted his leg to get into the tub, he lost his balance.

“Whoa…got you. Here.” Thomas eased him down into the warm water. “Don’t

think Jack’s completely out of your system yet.”

“Good thing he isn’t. Else, probably wouldn’t have let you…” Marcus’ face was

turned away, his jaw pressed to the cool porcelain. When Thomas laid a hand on his hair, tangled there, he didn’t move, but he felt the focus of Marcus’ awareness as if he’d fixed that potent gaze on him.

“I’m glad you did. It was about time you let me all the way in. Course, maybe it was the first time I’d earned the right to do it.”

Marcus turned and looked at him then, a hundred thoughts passing between them,

none of them needing saying.

“I don’t know why I care,” Marcus said abruptly. “He didn’t ask for me. Why

should it matter to me what his expectations were?”

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“I think he was just the straw,” Thomas suggested gently. “Do you have a good

memory of him? Even one?”

Marcus looked down into the water. “He took me to the barber once, when I was

six. We had ice cream afterward, sat in a park. He put his arm along the back of the bench and talked to me about going to school. How to get along with other kids, not to let them push me around, but not to jump into a fight, either.”

“That’s your favorite memory of him. That’s how you were able to call it up so

easily.”

Marcus lifted a shoulder.

“Hold onto that one. That’s the only one that matters anymore. Why don’t you get your hair wet? I’ll wash it.”

Marcus complied, sliding down and beneath the water’s surface, and then

emerging, slicking the ebony silk of his hair to his skull. As he settled back, scraping water from his face with his hands, he turned a considering eye to Thomas. It had some of its usual arrogance to it, cheering Thomas considerably. “Remember, shampoo

followed by conditioner. Use the ones in the black bottles.”

Thomas eyed the array of hair products on the corner of the tub and snorted. “God, I forget sometimes how gay you are.”

When he reached across to grab the shampoo, Marcus seized his waistband and

hauled him into the tub. Even wrestling him, Thomas managed to be overpowered and held under for at least five seconds, water sloshing over the sides.

He surfaced, spluttering and laughing, and splashed Marcus in the face. “You

asshole. You know this flannel shirt is a Tractor Wholesale original? It was a whole twelve ninety-five off the rack. You’ve simply ruined it.”

And found himself dunked again. When he came up this time, he was hauled

forward to meet Marcus’ mouth in a wet, rough kiss, Marcus’ hands holding his head.

Hair treatments could apparently wait.

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Despite the relaxation a bath provided, Thomas could tell Marcus was still dealing with a lot of emotional debris. After their bath, he wrapped a towel around his hips and went back onto the balcony, seeming to need the open air, deep breaths of the freedom he apparently found high above the world below.

There was another chair, but instead of using it Thomas slid down the side of the balcony wall, lacing his hands over his knees. He stayed in Marcus’ peripheral vision, his bare sole close enough to overlap the smallest toe of Marcus’ nearer foot. An expanse of leg was revealed by the split of the towel, a provocative pose that was entirely unconscious, totally Marcus.

Thomas noticed when Marcus smoked, as he was doing now, he displayed a

different set of gestures and mannerisms. As Thomas studied him, he realized when Marcus smoked, he saw the street kid, the boy.

“You’ve got questions in your eyes, pet. What’s on your mind?”

That was the all-seeing, all-knowing Master he knew. But pieces of the puzzle were still missing, holes Owen wouldn’t or couldn’t fill in. He wouldn’t push, but if Marcus was in the mood, Thomas wanted all of it.

“Tell me more, about your life before.”
Let me all the way in.

Marcus glanced at him. “I made it out, Thomas. I make a lot of money. I have

friends, culture.” An unpleasant, almost cruel smile touched his lips. “I get everything I want.”

”Even me?”

”Especially you.”

”Arrogant jerk.” But Thomas leaned forward, brushed his knuckles over Marcus’

ankle, stroked the calf. “Tell me,” he repeated.

Marcus took a drag so deep on the cigarette Thomas expected to see the paper burn down to his fingers. Abruptly, he leaned down, snagged the front of Thomas’ clean Tshirt. He pulled Thomas to him and kissed him with that hard, forceful and demanding Marcus taste. “That’s not who I am anymore. You understand that?”

Thomas nodded, but he couldn’t help the desire he had to touch and heal all those scars inside that he could finally see. Why had he been fooled like all the rest, when it had been there, plain before him? “Tell me,” he insisted, once again.

Marcus stared at him, straightened. Took another drag and spoke flatly. “I ran

away at fourteen, turned fifteen on the streets here. Dad…” the word came out thick. “I knew what I was then, and Dad couldn’t accept it. Wouldn’t. Tried a lot of the usual things. Beating, tossed me in the cellar for a few days at a time, no food. Prayer… God, 217

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endless prayer. I still get nauseous if I get near a church. Whenever I have a hangover, I try to make a point of puking on the steps of one. I figure it’s the tithe I owe. Sounds bitter as hell, doesn’t it? My mother…”

His tone faltered, then Marcus flicked away the ashes angrily. “Wouldn’t say no to him. Figured he was God in the house, so he had to be right, even if he was wrong. We were just a simple, fundamentalist family, Thomas. Not that well educated for all that.

A lot simpler than yours. Hardworking, though. Dad’s idea of Friday night culture was picking up his beer and cigarettes at the local store and hanging out in the yard talking about how the fags, niggers and wetbacks had ruined America.

“We were the stereotype, what everyone thinks a dumb, white trash family is. I ran.

I doubt they even looked for me. I probably could have walked. Maybe even asked for a ride to the bus station.” His lips stretched in a humorless smile.

“I eventually got back in touch with my brother. He did okay. Clawed his way into college, runs a laundry business in the area. Watches over them.”

“You both do.” Thomas tapped Marcus’ cell phone, sitting on the ledge with the

planter.

“Yeah. Don’t know why the fuck I do. Maybe some of that honor thy mother and

father shit got so beat into me I can’t shake it. I didn’t care so much about him. Least I didn’t want to. Don’t want to. But it happens anyway, as if there’s some stupid part of you that says you have to do it, even if your old man’s a piece of shit. But Mom…”