The Mating of Michael (21 page)

“Oh, God,
James
, feels so good. So good. Oh, yeah. Oh, fuck.” Michael’s words and sighs and moans made James so hard and so turned on. He dared remove the hand wrapped around the base of Michael’s cock and shoved it down his sweatpants. He could still control Michael’s movements with the hand on his hip, and God, it felt so incredible to touch himself while Michael’s cock was hard in his mouth. He was so hypersensitive with arousal and so close.

Michael’s fingers stroked his hair, then his cheeks. His thumb went to the corner of James’s mouth where it could feel the cock slipping in and out of his lips.

And that felt so dirty, James lost it. He felt the orgasm churning in his balls, and a second later, he exploded. He moaned around Michael’s cock. And Michael, still thrusting, growled his approval.

“Oh, fuck, that’s so hot. Oh, babe.”

He thrust harder for several seconds, and then, while James was still shuddering from his own orgasm, Michael said, “Oh—I’m coming.” He tried to pull away. But James reached up with his semen-soaked hand and pulled Michael tight with both hands on his hips. James sucked him hard.

Michael cried out. Cum flooded James’s mouth, and it was a little too much and a little too bitter, but the
idea
of it was awesome, and he just swallowed as quickly as he could. He held Michael there, unable to believe he had a warm, living male coming in his mouth, that it was Michael, beautiful Michael.

Finally, it was done, and Michael gently disengaged himself. He fell to the side of James on the bed, limp-limbed and sweaty.

“Come ’ere,” he said, trying to tug James down from the headboard. It was extremely lazy and ineffectual tugging, but James went.

He scooted down to lay on his back, carefully making sure his sweatpants were in place, then he couldn’t resist rolling onto his side so he could look at Michael. Naked, damp, and sated, Michael was so lovely it took James’s breath away. His skin all but glowed. His dark hair was a glorious mess. His eyes were sleepy and content as he gazed back, his lips swollen and red from kissing.

James tried to memorize this image. He wanted to remember it always. It could inspire a thousand stories.

So out of his league. What was Michael Lamont doing in his bed? James had just had the most amazing experience of his life, but… he suddenly felt anxious about what came next. He liked Michael intensely, no matter how much he’d tried to guard himself against it.

“Did you know you were a top?” Michael asked with a little smile.

“I am?”

“Oh, yeah.”

James thought about it. He hadn’t liked the feeling of being passive. But directing Michael had been as arousing as hell. “Interesting. I guess I’d better order
Domination for Dummies
. Wouldn’t want to leave my natural inclinations unexploited.”

“I’d be happy to help you exploit them,” Michael said, running a finger up James’s chest.

James just looked at him, his breath caught somewhere in his chest. He was afraid to trust this. He could feel the walls inside him rattle, as if reminding him they were there, and that they were there for a damned good reason.

Michael must have seen something on his face, because suddenly, he looked vulnerable as hell. He sat up on one elbow, face stricken. “Do you want me to go?” he asked quietly.

Christ, had so many men really just taken sex from Michael and then thrown him out? It made James want to rip them apart with his bare hands. And it made him want to pull Michael to his chest and reassure him. And suddenly, his own walls were no longer there, or at least no longer important.

“Fuck no, I don’t want you to go,” James said firmly. He interlaced his fingers with Michael’s to emphasize his point.

Michael studied his face, as if he didn’t quite believe it. “I really like you.”

James shook his head. “Why?”

“Because you’re intelligent and funny and brave. You’re super cute….”

James rolled his eyes.

“You
are
. And I love your mind—your sense of fantasy and fun and compassion. I think I’ve had a crush on you ever since I read
Troubadour Turncoat
.”

James worried his lip. He was uncomfortable with what Michael was saying. Michael was in love with an illusion. He felt obliged to try to burst that bubble, even though it was self-immolation to do so.

“Michael, I’m permanently handicapped. And my career isn’t going well. My book sales are way off. I’m not doing great financially. I don’t know what the future holds.”

“Hmm.” Michael considered that. “You also have a hard time trusting people.”

“People leave,” James said simply.

Michael’s brow scrunched up in pain, and he tucked himself against James’s chest. He hesitated. “My mom told me once—relationships end until the one that doesn’t. So you can’t be sad, really. Because if the wrong ones didn’t end, you wouldn’t be available when the right one came along.”

James thought about it. “I’m sure that makes sense in some alternate reality.”

Michael giggled and pinched his side. “It totally makes sense.”

James tentatively put his hands on Michael’s back. The skin was so soft, and Michael’s back so beautifully shaped. It felt incredible to pull him tight and hold him, almost better than the sex. Okay, not really, but it felt damn good.

“You’re too beautiful for me,” James whispered. “When you first approached me, all I could think was that life didn’t work that way. The most beautiful boy in the universe doesn’t come knocking on the grisly recluse’s door. If I wrote that plot, I’d be laughed off Goodreads.”

“Don’t they say life is stranger than fiction?” Michael asked sleepily.

“Nothing is stranger than my fiction.”

Michael laughed. “That’s true. Anyway, you’re very sweet, but I’m not that beautiful. Honestly. I’m short, and skinny, and too fem. I have a nervous stomach, and I suck at sports.”

“Don’t forget the nose.”

“What about my nose?” Michael said in mild outrage, looking up to meet James’s eyes.

“It’s large,” James said solemnly. “A monumental proboscis.”

Michael huffed and snuggled closer, so close that when he blinked, his eyelids tickled James’s chest. “You use your sarcasm to try to keep people out.”

That struck a bit close. James swallowed. “You use your sexuality to try to pull people in.”

Michael stared up at him. “That’s true.”

James pushed the hair out of Michael’s eyes. “Given the current situation we find ourselves in, apparently you’re much more effective at your strategy than I am at mine.”

“Also true,” Michael said, getting a little gleam in his eyes. Then he yawned, hugely. He covered his mouth, abashed. “Excuse me.”

“I’m the one who woke you up in the middle of the night. Want to sleep?”

Michael hesitated, looking uncertain. “Here?”

“I told you I wasn’t going to throw you out,” James said quietly. “I think maybe we should discuss your taste in men.”

Michael smiled. “At the moment, I’m quite happy with my taste in men. I wouldn’t mind sleeping, though.”

“Mmm.” James was thinking that he had to get up, unfortunately, because the inside of his sweatpants was coated in cum, and he didn’t want to sleep like that. He worried about how far his chair was from the bed, and how he could do this gracefully. These were all things you didn’t have to think about when you lived alone and weren’t having sex with someone.

As if reading his mind, Michael pulled away. “Those pants must feel sticky. Let me get something to clean you up.” He popped out of bed.

“You don’t have to do that,” James said, but Michael was already gone.

Fortunately, when he returned with a wet cloth, he only handed it to James and then slipped back into bed, making no further move to be helpful. James pushed the cloth under the waistband of his sweats and wiped himself up. It was still uncomfortably wet, and he wished he could just take it all off. But he couldn’t, wouldn’t, not with Michael here. With a sigh, he tossed the cloth onto the rug and lay back down. Michael pulled the covers over both of them and wrapped around him again. James pushed Michael’s hips back, not wanting him to entangle their legs, not wanting Michael to be able to feel how thin his were. Michael obliged without comment, but he kept his arms wrapped around James. It was not as suffocating as it ought to be. Or at all.

It had been a long time since anyone had held James. Years and years. It felt so sweet it hurt.

Michael fell asleep in minutes, but James lay awake for a good hour, cradling Michael in his arms, stroking his skin softly. He alternately felt hope—hope that this could really be something, that Michael was something new and marvelous and real—and fear and a bit disgusted with himself for getting in so deep so fast.

He and Michael had had sex. He’d made Michael come, and Michael hadn’t for one second seemed disgusted. Of course, James had managed to avoid the big reveal, but still… It was amazing. They had touched and kissed and gotten off together, and… and Michael still wanted him. He was still here.

People leave.

James knew he had to make a decision. He could keep pushing Michael away and save himself from the potential of pain. Or….

Christ. Who was he kidding? He was already in so deep it would hurt if Michael walked right now.

There was no decision to make, really. When, against all odds, the miraculous happened and the spaceship landed for you and the hatch opened, you got on. The end. It didn’t even matter if you would wind up as food or taken on a trip to the stars. Some things were worth the risk.

Maybe life
was
stranger than fiction. A few hours ago, he’d been in one of the darkest moments of his life, and now, right now, he was in the happiest, most incandescent stillness. Joy.

Please. God, let me have this, at least for a while.

James kissed Michael’s neck and finally fell asleep.

J
AMES
DREAMT
he was swimming in a viscous, warm fluid that was doing amazing things to his cock. He woke up to see the blankets pulled down and Michael’s dark hair working away over his groin. Michael hadn’t pulled his sweats down far, only enough to free his cock and, well, damn if James was going to complain about that.

God, he could get used to this.

“Wanna touch you,” James mumbled as soon as he was fully conscious.

Michael lithely scrambled around without stopping his mouth action and presented James with the very naked lower half of himself—very naked and very hard. Lords of the seven heavens, but he made James’s mouth water. He’d watched a lot of porn over the years, and he’d thought virtual sex was the only kind he was ever going to have. It blew his mind that he had a real, live cock to play with, and such a gorgeous one at that, full and pink, and with that sexy foreskin pulled back just enough to let the glans peek out. With a grateful sigh, James rolled onto his side and eagerly drew Michael in.

Second time having sex and it’s sixty-nine. Hell fucking yeah.

The sensation of Michael’s hot mouth on him as he himself got to taste and feel Michael was even better than it had been the night before. At some point, he’d convinced himself that sex with another person wouldn’t be that much better than masturbation. God, he’d never been so ridiculously wrong in his life.

Several minutes later, minutes filled with groans and heavy, muffled breathing, and more pleasure than ought to be legal without a license of some sort, James felt that Michael was close. He grew impossibly hard and made continual whimpering noses around James’s cock. James felt Michael start to go, and he pushed himself in deep and rolled over the edge at the same time. And,
fuck
, that was perfect, coming as Michael pumped into his mouth, like some ouroboros of escalating bliss. At last, they both flopped back, breathing hard. Michael scrambled around again and kissed James’s lips and cheeks in brief, silly pecks.

“Breakfast?”

“You offering or ordering?” James grumbled.

“I’m offering to cook if you’re offering up the groceries. Do you have eggs?”

“No, I have sperm. What the hell do they teach you in school these days?”

Michael giggled. “Chicken eggs, wise ass. In your refrigerator.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, I have chicken eggs.”

“Awesome. I make a mean scrambled egg.”

Michael hopped out of bed and pulled on his jeans. He absentmindedly pushed James’s chair closer to the bed so it was within reach. With a yawn and a stretch, he left the room.

James looked at the chair for a long moment, his heart beating hard. Then he smiled.

J
AMES
WASN
’
T
quite sure how to act with a boyfriend. Chris had come over regularly, and they’d watched movies and sometimes cooked meals, but Chris had never been very affectionate. Michael was something else. He couldn’t seem to keep his hands off James—nudging his arm, placing a hand on the back of his neck and rubbing affectionately, leaning against him on the couch, or giving him a quick kiss, or a not-so-quick one.

It made James feel… giddy. Like Mary Poppins and Dick Van Dyke skipping through a colored wonderland giddy. Michael liked him as much as he liked Michael. He liked James so much he wanted to be touching all the time.

The Saturday morning after James lost his blowjob virginity—twice—they had eggs and toast, then spent time on the couch reading the news on the Internet. They each showered separately and spent more time on the couch comparing their tablet book libraries. James’s tended to more classic sci-fi while Michael owned mostly modern sci-fi and m/m romance. Michael didn’t mention going home, and James didn’t either. They took a nap in the afternoon and did sixty-nine again with Michael teaching him the agony and the ecstasy of edging and James trying out a little bit of toppy aggression with some mild ass slaps, which turned Michael into a moaning puddle of surrender. James fucking
loved
it. It was
the best thing ever.