Payback (18 page)

Chris studied every move I made with a gentle curiosity. “You’re nervous,” he said.

“Yeah, well. So are you.”

And the moment I said it, a silence settled around us that was a little less awkward than some of the others we had shared.

He looked over at the end table beside the sofa and spotted Spence’s picture. It was the same one I had held the night before as we spoke over the phone. I watched Chris closely as he studied Spence’s face in the studio snapshot.

Chris’s words escaped as if of their own volition, unaided by him at all. “He was beautiful.”

I moved closer on the sofa to better see the picture too. When I did, Chris scooted toward me, as if meeting me in the middle. “Yes,” I said, near enough now to feel his heat. “Spence was beautiful inside and out. And more than that, he was a good person. They shouldn’t have done what they did to him, Chris. He didn’t deserve it.”

Chris turned to study my face. His hand came out to rest on my thigh. “No,” he said, his word as gentle as his touch. “No one deserves the cruelties I see, Tyler. I’m sorry those cruelties found a way to reach you. I really am.”

I stared at his hand on my leg. Letting myself go, I slipped his thumb into my fist and held it tight. Again I eyed the photo in Chris’s hand. “No one will ever love me as much as Spence did. I’ll never know that kind of love again. I think maybe what Spence and I had only comes along once in a lifetime. When I lost it I lost… everything.”

Chris twisted his body to face me. His eyes were kind. He carefully placed the picture back on the table. The moment he did, he lifted his hand to lay it to the side of my face.

“That’s not true, Tyler. You haven’t lost everything. You still have
your
life. You’re a good person too, you know. Spence wasn’t the only good part of what you two had together. And as for being loved as much by anyone again—how can you say that? There could be somebody out there right now who’s aching to worm his way into your heart. He might even be closer than you think.”

I looked away. “Chris—”

He didn’t let my interruption stop him. “It depends on whether you give this mythical person a chance or not. Don’t you think? It depends on whether you
let
love find you again.”

I shook my head. “It won’t be the same.”

“No,” he said. “It
won’t
be the same. How could it be?” He scooted closer and began to pull me into a hug, but before he did, he gave me a look, as if waiting for a signal it was all right to do so.

I lowered my eyes and allowed his arm to slide around me. Before I could stop myself, I had pressed my face into the softness of his shoulder as his hand cupped the back of my head and his fingers burrowed into my hair. With his other hand still on my leg, he wove his fingers through mine and held me against him. The skin of his neck was red hot against my cheek. The sensation was so electric, I closed my eyes to shut out all other stimuli. When he spoke, his breath flowed warm and sweet across my ear. I could feel his lips moving against my skin.

“It’s me, Tyler. I’m that mythical person who wants to worm his way into your heart. You know. Just in case you hadn’t figured it out yet.”

I smiled against his shirt, and when he felt my smile, he pulled me closer. While his hold on me tightened, his voice grew softer. I could hear the beating of both our hearts behind it, like the gentle drumbeat behind the melody of a song.

He stiffened. It was as if he knew this was his one big chance, and come hell or high water, he was going to let it all out, damn the consequences. I could feel the intensity and truth in every word he whispered.

“I told you last night on the phone, I can wait, Tyler. And I can. Just don’t ever think you’ll never find anyone again to share your life. Don’t ever think that. If you’ll let me, I’ll prove it to you. I will. When you need me, I’ll be there for you. I promise. When you’re ready to continue your life and stop feeling alone, I’ll help you find your path. You can trust me. Okay?”

I didn’t want to ask the question, but I couldn’t stop the words from spilling out. “Can I trust you with my heart, Chris? Can I trust you with that?”

He twisted his head just enough to lay his lips to my temple. “Yes,” he breathed against my skin. “You can trust me with your heart.”

With that he eased me far enough away that he could study my face. Our eyes held for a scatter of heartbeats. “Tell me you understand,” he said softly. “Tell me you understand what I’m saying.”

My voice sounded strange to my ears. Fractured, breathy, weak. I had never heard myself speak in that voice before. “Yes,” I said. “I understand. Th-thank you.”

Both of his hands came up to caress my face. His thumbs slid across my lips as if he wanted to actually
feel
the words I had spoken. He leaned forward and kissed the tip of my nose. Then he pulled back, smiling.

“See? No tongues. I’m patient. Just like I said I was.”

His eyes sparked with life. Maybe it was for my benefit, maybe it was for his own, but he coughed up a tiny laugh. He let out a whoosh of air like a man who has survived his first skydive. Still happy to be alive and in one piece. Perhaps he had not been prepared to open himself up to me so completely. But he had, and now he seemed glad it was over. Still, his thoughts were more with me than with himself. His next words proved it.

“Do we really understand each other?” he asked softly.

I nodded. “Yes.”

He slid the back of his hand along my jawline. Once again he brushed my lips with his thumb.

Before I could stop myself, I reached out to do the same. I hesitantly touched Chris’s full lips with my fingertips, then I slid a hand over his closely shaven cheeks. His skin felt like silk. As smooth as warm milk. Closing his eyes for a moment, he leaned into my hand as if enjoying my touch. When he opened his eyes, he smiled.

“Now feed me,” he said. “I’m starving.”

Later, after setting the table and microwaving the cold pizza to warm it up, I found Chris standing by the living room window, but he wasn’t looking out.

He was staring at the baseball cap in his hand. It had been hanging on the hat rack by the door.

He grinned when I entered the room. He pointed to the insignia on the cap. “Mickey Mouse,” he said.

I took it from his hand and tossed it back on the hat rack. “I bought it in Disneyland. Spence and I went there last year.”

He stared at the hat rack for a moment, before allowing me to lead him into the kitchen.

After dinner, I stepped out onto the porch with him as we said our good nights. He breathed in the night air.

“I smell hibiscus,” he said.

I nodded. “Around the corner of the house. And there’s another bush in the backyard.”

He looked up at the stars overhead and I followed his gaze. The big dipper was right there. I had the oddest sensation I could simply reach out and pluck it from the heavens.

“Chris,” I said softly. “I’m still not ready. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, as softly as I. “But I’ll be here when you are.”

With that, he reached out to brush his fingers along the inside of my arm, giving me a chill. Then he turned and walked away.

L
ATER
THAN
night, I woke with Chris’s scent still in my head. I lay naked on the bed, eyes wide, staring blindly into the dark. My mind was a boiling cauldron of memories, impressions. The feel of Chris’s hand on my leg. The moist warmth of his lips on my temple. The gentle way his breath stirred my eyelashes. The heat of him. The clean fragrance that roiled off his body. The caring way he spoke and moved and smiled.

The way his voice carried directly into my heart as we sat on the sofa and he whispered his feelings to me—his feelings
for
me.

Alone in my bed, the darkness lay over me like a lover. I could feel it pressing its feverish limbs against me, holding me in place. My hand slid across my chest. I trembled at the sensation of heated skin beneath my fingertips. It had been so long since I let desire take me over I had almost forgotten how it felt. I imagined my hand to be Chris’s hand. I brushed my fingertips—
his
fingertips—over the tender skin of my stomach. Then I trailed my hand along my hip until I felt the bristle of hair on my thigh. Would Chris’s leg feel like that? Would he tremble as I was trembling now when my hands explored
his
body? Would he react as I was reacting? Would he feel the same hunger, the same need I felt?

Would his cock lie hard against him, against me, moving gently with the rhythm of his thumping heart as mine was? Would I feel the satin heat and iron hardness of it when I slipped it into my hand, as I was doing to myself? Would his knees come off the bed, as mine did, when I skidded my thumb over his urethra, smearing warm drops of desire across the head of his cock like myrrh? Anointing. Causing him to gasp. Causing him to shudder. As I was gasping. As I was shuddering.

I stroked the hardness in my hand, gently at first, my mind still afire with thoughts of Chris. I could feel his hands on me as they came out of the darkness—out of my imagination—to touch, to explore, to learn the feel of me. To discover what I needed, what I liked. To share with me what my body was experiencing. To make love to me just as my mind was making love to him.

His mouth was on me now. I could feel it drawing me in. I could imagine my cock buried in that satin heat. My thoughts were so aflame, the sensations so real, I flung my head to the side to bury my face in my pillow as my balls drew up into my body and the come inside me roiled, begged,
pleaded
to find a way out. The pressure for release was almost unbearable. My breath was a continuing gasp of pleasure and need. My heart a booming thunder inside my chest. Inside my head.

I flung my arm across my face and scraped the hair on my forearm across my lips. I imagined it was Chris’s arm. Chris’s hair.

My hand pumped my cock more urgently now. Unstoppable. Faster. With long luscious strokes. The hardness I felt in my hand was a wonder even to me.

“
Chris
,” I breathed into my skin as my back arched even higher.

And then it happened. At the moment of release, just as my seed began spilling from my body and I cried out with the pleasure of it, I saw Spence’s face peering out at me from the darkness beside the bed.

He seemed sad. Sad but understanding. His cool hand cupped my chin as the come flew out of me, splattering my chest, my face, my pillow. He forced me to stare into his eyes as I emptied myself into the night. Then he did as he would have done in life. He bent his head to lick the juices from my body. To taste me. Relish me.

At the first imagined feel of his mouth on my skin, my eyes flew open and I realized—
I was alone.

I heaved myself from the bed on trembling legs, my come-splattered body still trembling with release. I stood so long staring at the moonlit canyon through the window that my juices began drying atop my skin, so long that my heart ceased to thunder and buck inside me.

I closed my eyes against the night and reached out to take Spence’s hand.

“It’s time for me to go,” I said softly into the shadows, into the memory of Spence before me. “It’s time for me to find happiness again. Let me do it, Spence. Let me go.”

His fingers slid from my grasp, and when I opened my eyes, he was gone.

Lapis Lazuli

I
T
WAS
Saturday night. The Gaslamp district of downtown, just steps from the bay, was host to a bubbling mass of humanity. As they did every night of the week, tourists, locals, and the indigent all came together at the Gaslamp to dance their strange interwoven dance of excess, survival, and need. Most of the time these separate factions simply danced around each other at a safe distance, one never really acknowledging the other. At other times they started bumping heads. The bumping-heads part was the aspect of the Gaslamp—and the world in general—where Chris’s particular talents came into play. A lot of murders happen when human heads start bumping together. When they did, it was Chris’s job to clean up the mess and assign blame.

Chris had asked me to meet him there for dinner. Afterward he wanted to show me the view from his condo by the water and introduce me to his cat, Waldo. Before the showing and the introducing actually began, we sat at a sidewalk cafe, sipping beers, trying to decide where to eat, and watching a steady stream of humanity stroll by. Chris’s foot was snuggled up comfortably next to mine beneath the table, our knees touching. It had been three weeks since I phoned him for the very first time. Not a day had passed since that we hadn’t spoken, either in person or on the phone.

I had yet to pull Chris into my bed, nor had he taken me into his, but the day was nearing. We both knew it.

Tonight I longed to make love to him and would undoubtedly have given in to his slightest urging, but Chris was the one being strong. Not me. He had sworn not to pressure me into beginning that new facet of our relationship until I made the first move. That way, he’d said, he would know I was ready. Chris was a smart guy. He knew I had not completely overcome the feeling that I was cheating on Spence. But those feelings of guilt were gradually fading, and I’m sure Chris knew that too. At least I hoped he did.

While there were many things Chris did know about me, there were also a few things he didn’t know. He didn’t know about the gun stashed behind the furnace in my basement. He didn’t know I had once used that gun to commit murder. And he did not know—not really—that I had made my peace with Spence about taking another lover.

He also didn’t know I was in love with him. But before I could commit to that fact, there were matters that needed clearing up. Spence’s murder, for one. My own act of murder, for another. I knew I would need to come to grips with both crimes before I could totally open my heart to Chris. Before I could open my heart to
anyone
.