Beneath the Stain - Part 4 (9 page)

Trav massaged his rim gently, and Mackey moved his hands down, spreading his asscheeks and pulling back long enough to make a demand.

“Ain’t my first time,” he muttered. “Need it
now.
”

“Mackey, slow?” Mackey might not remember, but Trav remembered the blood, the violation, Mackey’s torn body.

“Mackey
fast
!” came the impatient reply, because apparently Mackey didn’t connect the dots there.

“But—” God, who wanted to bring that up now?

“Now!” Mackey insisted, and Trav thrust two fingers in, his own impatience showing.

“Ah….” Some of Mackey’s urgency faded, and his hands fell back against the bed. He spread himself before Trav like an offering, and as Trav moved his fingers, stretching, he was suddenly conscious of what he was doing in this bed with a scalpel’s touch of power.

Mackey, who gave nothing to nobody, was giving him
power
.

All Trav had to do was take it.

Trav thrust fingers, invaded, caressed. He spared a moment to push on Mackey’s prostate, see how sensitive it was, and while Mackey jumped a little, it was clear that his real joy was the stretch.

“More,” he begged, eyes closed, and Trav built the pressure inside him a little more, and a little more. “Ah…. God, Trav, please. I need it… need
you
!”

Trav greased himself up quickly, almost cursing Mackey’s youth and impatience. He wanted to feel Mackey’s hands on him, have Mackey explore, find his places too.

But right now, not as much as he needed inside Mackey.

He paused for a moment, his erection poised right at the gate, and Mackey opened his eyes.

“I’ll do for you, Trav,” he promised. “I’ll make it real.”

Trav closed his eyes, helpless. Mackey’s best try. It was all he could hope for. Slowly, slowly, he thrust inside.

Mackey sighed, pushing out against Trav’s invasion, conversely swallowing him whole.

Trav moaned and dropped his head to Mackey’s shoulder, getting his bearings, trying not to just rut and come as Mackey closed around him with a grip of iron.

“So tight,” he whispered, shaking, almost embarrassed by his lack of control. He’d done this before—couldn’t remember
not
topping, actually, although he’d bottomed once or twice. But Mackey’s heat was destroying him, taking out his controls, and it didn’t help that Mackey’s eyes were closed, his face slack with abandon.

He was just
giving
himself to Trav, and Trav had the sudden notion that he hadn’t earned this yet.

But he couldn’t fix that now. Mackey was taking him on faith too, and Trav needed to give a little back by taking care of Mackey’s needs. Trav started to move, gentle thrusts forward, gentle pulls back, and forward, and back, until Mackey wrapped his legs around Trav’s hips and urged him on.

Mackey’s stomach knotted tautly with muscle as he clenched and jacked his hips up so Trav could pound into him.

“Ah, God, yes!” Mackey muttered. “Needed this. Needed
you
.”

Trav closed his eyes against Mackey’s fierceness, needing his own space, the basic selfishness of sex, to keep him from losing it, from rutting and claiming and howling like an animal.

He’d promised tenderness.

That thought slowed him down.

“Sh,” he whispered, dropping a kiss on Mackey’s forehead. “Sh. It’s okay. I’ll take care of you.”

“Faster?” Mackey begged, but his voice quavered.

“More,” Trav whispered back, moving strong and sure. Not faster. Not frenzied.

Mackey sighed and clenched, and Trav had to laugh helplessly as a wave of need, of almost-orgasm, washed over him. Mackey knew how to fight dirty.

“More,” Trav whispered again. He wasn’t going to be quick and forgettable. He wasn’t going to be a teenaged grope in the dark. They were men. Men made things right.

Slow. Slow. Dropping kisses on his closed eyes. Clenching Mackey’s hip to pull him tighter. Nuzzling his temple to calm him. Swallowing his moans of need.

“Augh! More!” Mackey demanded when Trav’s skin tingled icily, frozen with want. Trav shook hard with need and closed his eyes as his body took over.

“
Yes
!” Mackey hissed, triumph sounding in every sibilance. He dug his fingers into Trav’s biceps hard enough to hurt, but Trav liked it, liked the strength, the closeted violence. Mackey wasn’t weak. He wasn’t a toy. He was small and strong and he could survive anything. Sweetness in bed included.

“Yes!” Trav whispered back. “C’mon, Mackey, help me out.”

He pulled back for the better angle, relieved when Mackey fumbled for his own cock to give himself a hand.

“
Nungh!
God,
Trav
!”

Trav had no words. He needed. He took. It was the sum of who he was, and every breath, every frenzied smack of flesh, his on Mackey’s, Mackey’s on himself, made the need more and  powerful and painful.

He
needed
!

His hips rocketed without his permission, and he wrapped his hands around Mackey’s shoulders, the better to contain him to make sure he stayed
right there
where Trav could fuck him, could keep him, could possess him inside and out.

“Augh!” The come-sound tore from Mackey’s throat, and Trav felt it spurting on their stomachs, hitting his chest as Mackey tilted his head back and ripped out that sound again.

His final clench around Trav’s cock did it, and Trav closed his eyes, the brutal onslaught of climax tumbling him in its wake.

Oh hell, he’d wanted slower, softer, sweeter—

“
Now!
” he hissed, then convulsed, so buried inside Mackey he lost himself, lost the core of who he was, all of him taken in by McKay James Sanders, never to return.

He couldn’t stop shaking, didn’t want to pull out. Mackey’s body was furnace hot, pulling at him even when he was spent, and Trav fell to his elbows, burying his face in the hollow of Mackey’s neck and shoulder.

To his surprise, Mackey stroked his hair with come-sticky fingers. “Sh,” he whispered. “Sh. S’okay, Trav. S’okay. We’re gonna be okay.”

Trav sob-laughed for a moment, still shaking. “Promise?” he asked, feeling pathetic, a thirty-five-year-old child in the arms of a man barely old enough to drink.

“Hope,” Mackey reassured him, nuzzling his ear.

Hope had brought Mackey to his room, had brought Travis to Mackey’s life.

“Strong enough,” Trav murmured, and he let Mackey’s body bear his weight and trusted that maybe he wouldn’t hurt Mackey Sanders like the rest of the world. And that if he did, even by accident, Mackey could take it.

H
E
GOT
up eventually, came back with a washcloth, and wiped them both down. He was especially careful around Mackey’s backside, and Mackey grunted, then looked away.

“What?” Trav asked, and Mackey shrugged.

“Lotta strangers got the key to that room,” he said, clearly
embarrassed.

“I am shocked,” Trav said dryly. “Shocked and appalled by anonymous rock star sex. I shall turn in my orgasm card now, never to go backdoor again.”

Mackey smirked at him irritably. “Now who’s being a snarky little shit?” he asked.

Trav smiled, feeling slow and mellow. He’d been keyed up for so long. “Scoot over, Mackey. I want some covers too.”

“Wait—let me get my underwear. My balls get in the way if I sleep naked.”

Oh geez. Of all the things. Trav started to giggle. “Are you saying you don’t want to get your balls in a twist?”

Mackey glared at him, but his lips were quirked up and it had no real heat. “Well, since
you
seem to have yours in a twist enough for both of us, I’m thinking one of us has to keep hanging low.” He’d wiggled out of bed, and Trav rolled into his place, not even grimacing at the wet spot. When he was situated, he turned sideways, extending one arm over his head and waiting for Mackey to snuggle in next to him.

Mackey fished his tighty-whities out of his sweats and wiggled in, then looked at Trav warily. “You meant it—I’m staying the night.”

Trav swallowed. “You promised,” he said, unnerved at how easily this man made him feel about twelve years old.

“What if I get up to write?” Mackey asked, holding very still.

Trav remembered those times in the hotel room, Mackey up, tuning his guitar, playing softly, making notations in the cheap notebooks Trav now bought in gross.

“Come in here,” Trav said, his throat dry. “I can sleep through anything but shelling and antiaircraft fire.”

“Okay, then.” Mackey slid in next to him and mirrored his position, arm over his head, eyes wide in the dark.

Trav put his hand out just so he could flatten his palm against Mackey’s chest and feel the air move it in and out. “What are you thinking?” Trav asked softly.

“You said the big scary word, and I’m a coward.”

Trav closed his eyes. “It’s real,” he said. “Let’s go with real for now.”

Mackey’s kiss surprised him, and he opened his eyes.

“I do, you know. Love you. That’s real.”

Trav felt the smile before he knew it was going to happen. “Then turn around and let me spoon you, McKay. Can we do that?”

“Yes, Travis Ford, we can do that.”

Warm, warm and still, trusting, limp as a sleeping puppy. He filled up Trav’s arms like nobody had in his life, gave himself more wholly than any other lover Trav had known.

Sure, Trav was borrowing him against a time when he felt whole and complete inside. But Trav was certain Mackey would claim himself whenever he was ready.

Bonus Scene

B
LAKE
WATCHED
Mackey and Trav hold each other on the couch and felt a sad little pang. They looked happy.

Not that he blamed Mackey—Trav was a good-looking guy. Not all of Blake’s self-professed time “glazing doughnuts” had been for rent. Blake wasn’t a stranger to being lonely, to taking comfort when it was offered.

Since getting out of rehab, Blake found that the little group in the sitting room was all the comfort he seemed to need.

Mackey wandered off to bed early, unraveling the bandage on his hand as he left. Yeah, Blake might have fantasized about throttling the little shit during the past year, but God—after their conversation in rehab?

Suddenly Blake saw him in a whole new way.

For one thing, he was human.

For another, all the reasons Blake had loved their CD in the first place—the anger, the pathos, the pain that cut deep—those were
real
reasons. Those were
real
things in Kell, Jeff, Stevie, and Mackey. God, especially Mackey.

Trav got up and went to bed too, and in the back of his head, Blake wondered.
Have they yet? Are they doing it?

And part of him was…

Aroused.

He cast a look under his lashes at Kell. No, his co-lead guitarist wasn’t great-looking, but he was… solid. Blake might have been new to self-awareness, but he recognized that he found that attractive. His childhood had been a dicey drifting from trailer parks to shitty apartments, and he had never managed to find the sort of emotional connection that made playing with Outbreak Monkey a haven and a hell.

Having a friend like Kell—dogged, tenacious, loyal—changed that.  Now that he wasn’t high all the time, Blake recognized that he wanted to cling to Kell with gnarled fingers. He didn’t ever want that solid sense of a person in his life to leave.

Which was why it was sort of disappointing that Kell was so obviously
not
inclined like Mackey. Yeah, Blake might have only done the occasional guy when he needed rent—or was desperate and a little high—but he
had
done them, and he’d be willing to sacrifice his sort of vision of heterosexuality if it meant he could lock into that feeling of being cared for, of knowing that the people in his life weren’t going away.

That depressing line of thought was interrupted by a text. He checked his phone surreptitiously, pressed Ignore, and tried to focus on the two bridiots (as Kell called them, ’cause they were brilliant idiots) in
Tanked
as they tried to convert an AMC Pacer into a fishbowl. Apparently it was harder than it looked. His phone buzzed again, and he checked it again, scowling.

Kell eyed him from the other side of the couch. He was currently leaning his head against his upper arm, which probably indicated he was about ready to go to bed. In a way, Blake missed the bad old days when they used to go out, get girls, and then bring them back to their hotel rooms. The sex had been nice because seriously, Blake wasn’t a looker but the rock band gave him mystique and getting laid was nothing to sneeze at.  Even better, it had been something they’d done together. Blake had talked to the doc in rehab about how badly he seemed to need the brothers’ approval, their companionship, and Cambridge’s response had been sort of sweet.

“Blake, I know they’re screwed up, but most families are. Think about it like being a little kid, about needing someone to watch you jump off the swings or jump off the high dive. You never had that—not even close—and now that you do, you want Trav the dad and Kell the mom and Jeff and Stevie the brothers to see all the shit you can do.”