Ascension (7 page)

“Conner.” Ro framed Conner’s face in his hands, turning that handsome man’s gaze back on him. “I don’t know about love, because I don’t know you, not really. But I’ve had a crush on you for half my life.” He huffed and rolled his eyes. “Well, and now, too. You’re… Look, I compared every man I met to you, you know. I wanted you to come visit me like you did Laine and Sev, wanted your attention. You never gave it to me, then… Then you did, and I hoped… But I didn’t see you again. I thought you were mad at me for snooping or something, and it hurt.” Ro laughed at how ridiculous he sounded, like a kid instead of a man.

“It’s all right. I just haven’t had anyone tell me that and I thought you were just babbling anyway.”

But Ro could tell Conner was disappointed.

“I wasn’t mad at you, either,” Conner continued. “I mean, seeing that stuff, yeah it bothered me, but not because I was mad at you. I didn’t want you looking at those articles and pitying me. The fact is, except for my death, I had a really good life.”

Ro arched a brow at Conner. “Well, I would think that the death part would never be good. I didn’t enjoy it.” He barely repressed a shudder. “I felt like every nerve ending in my body was throbbing with agony, then it just quit, and you were there, and I died.”

Conner tipped his chin and began caressing Ro’s butt again. “Yeah, but it took me several hours to die, Ro. I’m not saying it was less painful for you, but the time it was dragged out—I don’t like thinking about that, or remembering when Laine found me. That was even worse almost than being carved up. My life until then was good, though. I wish I’d been brave enough to come out, but I wasn’t, and if I had been, I would have lost Laine sooner, or never even had him.”

“Why did you stay away from me then?” Ro asked.

“Because I was ashamed. I thought, here’s this man I’ve watched grow from a cute, awkward teenager into this sexy, sleek guy.” Conner smiled a little, one side of his mouth tipping higher than the other. “I tried not to think about you, but for the first time in ages, I got hard. I wanted you, but what was the point to that?” Conner shrugged. “Looking at the picture of me you had, there was just a lot of things that hit me. Then your mother passed away, and she went right up. I knew I didn’t want to go where she went. I wasn’t—” Conner stopped, took a deep breath then let it go. “I’m
not
ready to go anywhere. I want to be right here, watching over my friends, the people I love, even if it hurts to see them growing old, to know they’ll die and I may not ever see them again then.”

Conner brought one hand up to cup Ro’s chin. “And it hurt like a mother to find you being fucked by some guy in the alley.”

Ro had thought he’d felt like a slut before, but hearing that Conner had seen him letting JD use him was absolutely mortifying. He squirmed and tried to wiggle free. Ro wished he knew how to make himself disappear. Surely spirits could do that. All he wanted was to hide away, like in a closet or attic somewhere.

“Fuck!” he yelped as he went from looking at Conner’s neck and chin to total darkness. “Fuck, what’d I do?”
Don’t panic, don’t panic! I’m a damn ghost, spirit—whatever! What could possibly hurt me now?

Despite that logic, Ro was in full freak-out mode seconds later. He couldn’t see, everything was black, so black his eyeballs ached from straining to pick out even a hint of where he was. The air was hot around him, and, even though he knew intellectually that he couldn’t suffocate, his body—corporeal or not—hadn’t got the memo.

Ro kicked and slapped at the darkness. He thought he touched something but it wasn’t firm enough to give resistance so he figured he was imagining it. He tried to yell, but fear clawed at his throat, then bands of steel were around his waist and the scream tore free—but it didn’t make a sound.

Chapter Eight

“It’s just me, Ro, it’s just me,” Conner said quietly into Ro’s ear as he kissed the curve of it. “Ro, it’s okay.”

“Can’t breathe,” Ro rasped out.

Conner started to argue that but decided it’d just be quicker to remove them from the small enclosure. When Ro had popped away from him, Conner had been astounded. It’d taken him a while to learn that trick. Then it dawned on him that Ro probably didn’t
know
that trick, and most likely was freaking the fuck out because he’d just vanished and reappeared somewhere else.

It had only taken him seconds to concentrate and locate Ro’s position. Leave it to Ro to have zapped himself into Sev’s attic. Dusty, dark and hotter than hell, it’d give anyone fits. If Ro hadn’t panicked, he might have recognised where he was, but he had panicked, and now Conner had his arms full of clingy, sexy man again.

Conner took them both to an open meadow made into an almost magical-looking place by the moonlight. He laid them atop the swaying grass, willing them to have some weight so that the tall strands bent under them.

Ro wouldn’t look at him, just held onto Conner and buried his face in Conner’s chest. Conner didn’t want Ro to be ashamed. All he’d done was have sex with someone. It wasn’t like Conner hadn’t done the same with anonymous men before he’d hooked up with Laine. It was stupid of him to get his undies in a knot because Ro had sought out an escape from his pain with another man.
Then. Now, he’s mine.
Conner didn’t think Ro would mind, either.

Conner tipped Ro’s chin up, having to tug a little harder than he’d hoped to get Ro to meet his gaze. When he did, Conner spoke. “I don’t care who you’ve been with. It doesn’t matter now. This is a new start for us. It embarrassed me to admit that I hadn’t bothered to get off in so long. I honestly had no desire, until I looked at you one day.” Conner forced himself to continue, pushing past his discomfort at making himself vulnerable. “I saw you, it was after your twenty-first birthday, maybe a year or two later. I’m bad with time.” He gave Ro a kiss on the tip of his pert nose. “I remember thinking you’d grown into yourself and admiring your determination to stay in McKinton with your family when they needed you. Not many children do that once they grow up. They just leave their parents behind and go on with their lives, you know. Then I noticed how attractive you were, the way your hair glinted under the light in your room, or the way the wind lifted it and spread it out behind you.”

Conner dipped his head and took another kiss, this one from Ro’s parted lips. He sighed afterwards and smoothed a hand down to cup Ro’s butt. “I knew there was something about you, something that fascinated me and soothed me at the same time that it stirred me up. I wasn’t ready to think about sex, not when it came to myself, though. Understand, the fucker who killed me, he beat off while he did it. More than once.” Conner couldn’t repress the sick feeling it gave him still.

Ro gasped before sucking his lips in, sealing them tight. Then he opened his mouth and licked those swollen lips as he pressed a hand over Conner’s heart. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. It didn’t mention it in the reports I read. I didn’t mean to make light of it before, when you, uh, came.”

“It wasn’t in the reports because he came into his handkerchief, and I guess he burned it or something. I don’t know because he was doing it again when I died.” Conner’s stomach turned, and if he’d thought it would have helped purge the memory, he’d have rolled on over and puked. Time had taught him that such an easy riddance wasn’t possible, so he kept talking past the tensing and rolling of his belly. “I never told Sev. I didn’t want anyone to know.” Conner looked in Ro’s dark eyes, so big and framed with such thick long lashes he could happily lose himself in the depths of those peepers. “I understand feeling dirty, Ro. Somehow, him doing that was worse than him killing me. It made me feel less human, less valuable, like a cum dump for the sick fucker. And that’s how I died, feeling hurt and nasty.”

“Conner,” Ro began, only to stop and sob quietly. He nestled right against Conner, stroking Conner from thigh to shoulder then back down, over and over until a tension Conner hadn’t been aware of left his body, loosening his muscles and taking with it the anger and shame that had cropped up in him.

It was enough—Ro’s touch and that relief from emotions he didn’t want to feel. Conner leaned over and pushed Ro onto his back, Ro’s arms going around his neck to embrace him as he lowered his mouth to Ro’s.

The slick warmth and sweet taste of Ro zinged through Conner, settling firmly in his groin. His cock sprang up, hard and eager, his balls drawing tight to his body.

Oh no you don’t. Not again. I’ll last long enough to make love to Ro one way or another.
He grabbed his cock at the base, squeezing firmly. When that didn’t help, he added a pinch. Pain flared but he got himself under control. Conner rubbed his hand up, over Ro’s flat belly, over his ribs, willing Ro’s clothes away as he went. It didn’t take more than a thought for Conner to be naked as well, then it was fire and need as they were skin on skin, their incorporeal forms every bit as sensitive to each other’s touch as living beings would have been to one another.

Ro’s body was exquisite, felt exquisite beneath Conner’s larger one. Conner pinched a nipple at the same time that he sucked on Ro’s tongue. Ro arched and moaned for him. Ro’s cock poked at Conner’s thigh. Conner felt the pre-cum leaking from Ro’s tip, smelt it in the air.

“Fuck,” he rasped as he dragged his lips along Ro’s jaw to his neck. He sucked the tender spot under Ro’s ear as Ro undulated and panted beneath him. Ro grabbed Conner’s ass with both hands and pulled, urging him forward, parting Conner’s cheeks and exposing his hole to the night breeze. Whether Conner really felt it or only imagined it didn’t matter. It was as factual a sensation in his brain as any other erotic experience had ever been.

Conner rolled them over, putting Ro on top then, because a memory sparked in his mind, one of him and Laine. It wasn’t a turn-on, more of a warning from his subconscious, he figured, reminding him that even when he’d been alive, he’d been the one getting fucked. Laine had always topped, and Conner wasn’t sure he could trust himself to go slow if he tried to take Ro now.

Ro raised his head, confusion puckering his brow. “You want me to ride you?”

Conner shook his head even as his cock twitched at that idea. “No, I want you to fuck me. It’s been a while, remember?” He decided he had to risk being tacky when Ro gave him an exasperated look. “Longer even, because I didn’t top, not with Laine.”

Ro jerked back a little at that. “I don’t—I’ve never topped, Conner. I’d rather have you in me this time. Please?”

Conner started to argue and Ro reached behind himself, doing something that Conner couldn’t see.

“I told you, I was hurt,” Ro said after a moment. “But I’m not now, and I don’t want that…time to be in my mind, to have any power over me.”

Like Conner’s last memory had held him prisoner for so long. Conner got it.

Ro blanched and scrabbled to sit on him, peppering Conner’s face with kisses. “Crap, I didn’t mean anything bad, I just know how I am. I’ll wallow, like I had been for months since Mom passed away.”

Conner caught a handful of Ro’s hair and began winding it in his fist. He cupped a round, soft butt cheek with his other hand. His fingers brushed over Ro’s pucker and Ro froze before moaning. They’d talked enough, he thought.

When he kissed Ro again, Conner put every bit of his need into it. Years of pent-up and ignored desire flowed from him as he hungrily claimed Ro’s mouth. Ro whimpered and clutched at his shoulders, then rocked so that Conner flipped them over again, pinning Ro beneath him.

Conner thumbed Ro’s jaw, pushing his head back. It exposed more of Ro’s long neck and Conner took advantage immediately. Possessiveness soared through him as he saw that even in this form, he left marks on Ro’s skin, purple love bites that he hoped remained for days. He worked his way down to Ro’s collarbone, nibbling and dotting Ro’s body with hickies.

Ro panted for him, cursed and urged him on. When Ro stared begging and tried to reach for his own cock, Conner caught his wrist and pulled Ro’s hand up to hold it above Ro’s shoulder. “Leave it there unless you’re gonna touch me.”

Ro immediately buried his fingers in Conner’s hair. “Please. Fuck, God, please, Conner!”

Conner licked his way to one dark, taut nipple. It looked almost black in the night, like rich dark chocolate. Conner nipped it first, and Ro groaned, holding his head there as if demanding more.

The bittersweet taste of Ro’s skin was the strongest aphrodisiac. Conner straddled Ro’s body, planting a knee between Ro’s legs, right up against Ro’s balls. His other knee was beside Ro’s left hip. Ro began rubbing and humping away as Conner worked his tit into a hot, swollen peak.

Then Conner went after the other one. He used his hands to trace patterns down Ro’s sides, up to his neck then over his biceps to his forearms. Back and forth Conner went as he loved on Ro’s nipples. When he was satisfied and Ro was begging him for more, Conner reached down and palmed Ro’s balls. They were snug in their sac, pressed close to Ro’s body.

“You gonna be able to wait until I’m in you?” Conner asked, forcing the words past his lust-dried throat.

“If you hurry,” Ro gritted out. “Hurry!”

Conner looked at the long, thick length of Ro’s dick. He wanted to taste it, to try to take it all the way into his throat, but he’d have to wait. Ro wanted him in a different way, and Conner was going to see to it that Ro got what he needed. Conner manoeuvred himself into a better position, kneeling between Ro’s thighs, then he slid down onto his belly. He got his hands beneath Ro’s ass and pushed. Ro grabbed the backs of his legs and pulled them up, raising his hips and spreading his ass for Conner.

“I don’t have lube, but…” Conner used his thumbs to spread Ro open more, then he licked over the tight little swirl nestled between Ro’s cheeks. “Oh, oh hell.” Fuck, he’d missed this, how had he not realised? Conner dived in, rimming Ro like he was starving for it, sucking and laving that little hole until it was wet and gaping, slicked with saliva and almost ready for him.

Conner sucked two fingers, coating them well before letting off and pushing them slowly into Ro’s pucker. The velvet warmth of the man, the way his ring clenched and his inner walls rippled around Conner’s fingers, was almost too much. The need to be inside Ro was like a weight pressing down on Conner, threatening to steal his breath unless he hurried.