Truth & Tenderness (20 page)

“Actually I came to see Evan—didn’t realize you’d be here,” Casper said, faux pleasant. “Don’t you usually babysit on Saturday nights?”

“Our kids are out with family. We have a free night to uh….” Matt smirked as he rocked his hips. “Have a good time.”

“Glad you could join us,” Evan cut in. “We need to move on.”

Evan wrestled out of Matt’s arms, then walked away, map and phone in hand. “Let’s go, everyone,” he called.

Casper and Matt shared a long, nasty glare, then followed Evan and the crowd out the door.

E
VAN
FINALLY
cracked and had a drink at the final bar, a hole-in-the-wall with a band and the world’s smallest dance floor. They shared a beer, Matt glued to Evan’s side like a predatory bodyguard, his hands wandering as far as Evan would let them.

Evan… let him.

Everything felt like a test: how long Evan talked to Casper, how affectionate he was with Matt in public, what they discussed about work. Rather than feeling pressured or uncomfortable, Evan leaned against Matt with absolute abandon.

If this was a test, Evan was acing it.

“How drunk do you have to be before you’ll let me kiss you in public?” Matt whispered in his ear. Evan was leaning on a cocktail table, Matt behind him, their bodies lined up perfectly. “And how much have you had so far?”

“Half a beer,” Evan whispered back.

“Is that the answer to both?”

Evan pushed back with his hips just slightly.

Matt bit the back of his neck. “How many drinks will it take for you to dance with me?” Matt asked as he pulled Evan onto the dance floor.

“Half a beer,” Evan said, clumsy in Matt’s arms until he stopped trying to lead.

They slow danced on the floor, ignoring the alcohol-fueled hookups happening around them, some of which might indeed lead to awkwardness at the barbecue.

Evan didn’t care. His body buzzed with desire, his brain shorted in and out; he kept trying to find a memory to match this moment from before, and nothing came to mind.

Nothing.

This was theirs.

“How much… how drunk do you have to be,” he asked Matt breathlessly, “for me to fuck you?”

Matt pulled back, his face a picture of utter surprise as he blinked at Evan. “What?”

“We tried that time and it didn’t work.”
Because I was too afraid and too stupid
, he thought. “But it’s different now.”

He didn’t answer—no, Matt gave him the most perfect answer in the world. He kissed Evan on the dance floor, tender and romantic.

M
ATT
DIDN
’
T
want to say good-bye to Casper—he grabbed Evan’s hand, threw a hundred at the bartender, then headed for the door. The car was parked at Port Authority, which meant a cab ride to Midtown. Evan let himself be pulled along, pliant and smiling like he had a secret in the backseat of the taxi.

“What’s gotten into you?” Matt said, twitching with how much he wanted to be home, now.

Evan shrugged, rolling closer to him as they sped along Tenth Avenue. “You, repeatedly,” he deadpanned. “Now it’s my turn.”

M
IDNIGHT
. T
HE
kids were in bed, Miranda asleep in Katie’s room. Evan in the lead, they tiptoed through the house, stopping periodically to kiss, sloppy and frantic, on the stairs.

“Hurry up,” Evan laughed, pulling away. “It’s sure as hell not happening here.”

He pushed Matt through the bedroom door, then shut it behind them. Turned the lock and leaned back against it, reaching for the top button of his shirt.

“Take off your damn clothes, Haight,” he said, already pulling his shirt out of his pants.

Matt didn’t go for finesse or a sexy striptease. He pulled the sweater over his head, wrestled out of his jeans without looking away from Evan’s face. Evan let everything fall away—clothes, inhibitions.

When he was naked—but more importantly, when
Matt
was naked—Evan pushed off the door.

“Bed?” Matt asked, grinning with anticipation.

Evan shook his head. “Up against the wall.”

He arranged Matt the way he wanted: facing the wall, braced against his arms. He dropped to his knees and pushed Matt’s legs apart just enough to reach his goal. Evan pressed his lips to the base of Matt’s spine, then traveled down between his asscheeks and wetly kissed his hole.

This wasn’t new. Evan listened to Matt curse, then buried his tongue inside his lover. In, pull back, in again. He tightened his fingers against Matt’s hips, holding him in place.

Matt’s entire body was moving, pushing back greedily to get more and more of Evan’s mouth.

Evan dropped one hand to his lap to take his dick in hand. He stroked in time with the plunge of his tongue until he was moaning into Matt’s skin through the spit-slick kisses.

When they were both moaning and moving with abandon, Evan found his moment to pull back. “Here or on the bed?” he asked, moving his hands over Matt’s back and hips and thighs.

“Bed,” Matt moaned out, still rocking back against Evan.

M
ATT
LAY
facedown on the bed, shaking and rubbing against the bedspread in his frantic need to come. Evan straddled his thighs, aggressively sliding two fingers and too much lube inside him. Matt loved this, needed it, but the next step kept his body tense.

“Calm, calm, easy,” Evan murmured, increasing the thrust of his fingers. “Just let me in.”

Matt couldn’t stop moving.

“Up now, like that.” Matt knew how to rise on his knees, slope his back and open his hips. He saw Evan in that position, knew the gorgeous sound Evan made when Matt pushed inside him.

He didn’t make that sound—he jerked and flinched at the pain.

“Do you want me to—”

“Don’t stop,” Matt moaned as he pressed his face into the comforter. His voice shorted out with one last fevered gasp. After that it was just silence save their shared labored breathing as Evan breached Matt’s body with his own. The pain was overwhelming, the burn seemed to rip him in half—but he didn’t say no or stop or jerk away. He relaxed as much as he could, breathing in a slow rasp against the mattress.

Evan was as gentle as he could be, pushing his dick inside slowly and carefully. He wrapped an arm around Matt’s chest, anchoring them together, and whispered in Matt’s ear. “God, I love you, you feel so good. Let me in, baby, let me in.”

“Yeah,” Matt breathed. “Oh….” Something caught in his psyche; the hot stab of pain turned into pressure, which turned to an anxious thrust backward. His breath stuttered, his entire focus on his growing sense of need.

Evan waited, his movements small and gentle until he seemed to sense Matt’s readiness. “Now okay? I’m gonna…,” Evan muttered, and then everything in Matt’s world tilted sideways.

His arms slid until his chest hit the bed; Evan went with him, the angle and penetration taking Matt’s breath away.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Every time Evan slammed forward, the word forced itself out of Matt’s mouth. Matt heard the bed hitting the wall; he heard his own voice crying out in sheer surprise at how much he never wanted it to end.

Evan drew a sudden deep breath, eased back a little way, then pushed in with a shudder until Matt jerked like something lit up inside him.

“…ohgodohgod,” Matt babbled, fingers scrabbling against the comforter as he fought to push back and pull away from Evan at the same time.

“Oh God,” Evan gasped. “Oh fuck, Matt.”

Yes, so good—Matt was in total agreement, but he couldn’t speak beyond moans or register anything past the painful, beautiful ache from Evan’s pounding movements. He crossed the place, that line in his head where he ceased to be anything but in this moment.

His whole body rocking, writhing, Evan grew louder, more vigorous, as Matt lost himself in the sensation, listening as Evan’s words got more filthy, more brutal, until they dissolved into guttural sounds.

Matt was floating in bliss, even as his body was taken and lovingly bruised. He absorbed it all, greedy and passive at once. The urgency to come peaked as Evan jerked hard against him, the sensation of his orgasm shaking Matt loose.

Evan reached around to stroke his cock once, twice, and then Matt lost himself in coming.

H
UMID
,
HOT
,
sticky—Evan would normally be up and out of the bed, eager to wipe off and be comfortable. But for now, the sprawl against Matt’s back felt too perfect to disturb. He pulled out slowly, soothing the murmured hitch in Matt’s breathing with a kiss against his shoulder.

But he still didn’t get up.

“Too heavy?” he whispered, arms tight around Matt’s chest.

“Yeah, but don’t move,” Matt answered, his voice hoarse and quiet.

Evan didn’t move.

They lay there until the cooling of their bodies made them both twitch and Evan couldn’t delay the inevitable. “Stay here,” he said, sliding off Matt’s muscular form with reluctance, and onto wobbly knees.

“No argument.”

In the bathroom, Evan snapped on the light. As he removed the condom to tie it off, he caught sight of himself in the mirror.

He looked debauched and… smug.

Biting back a laugh, Evan threw the condom into the trash can, then washed his hands with the cloth next to the sink. He knew there would be a conversation when he got back into the bedroom. He knew they had issues to work through.

But right now, he felt so fucking buzzed and satisfied and—in love with Matt.

W
HEN
E
VAN
returned with a washcloth, Matt was far ahead of him. He had stripped and remade the bed and cleaned up and was putting a pile of sheets in the hamper.

“How long was I in there?” Evan asked, wrapping his arm around Matt’s middle. “I thought you were down for the count.”

“Second wind,” Matt replied. Truth was, once the afterglow started to wear off, he’d felt a little uncomfortable. And not just because his ass hurt.

Did that just happen—as fucking amazing as it was—because Matt was jealous and Evan felt guilty?

Evan rocked his hips against his ass. “Again? I might need some sugar or something to boost my energy.”

“That’s okay, Casanova.” Matt pulled away. Not angrily, not even because he was uncomfortable. More that he needed to talk (they needed to talk) and he didn’t know where to start.

“Are you sorry we did that?” Evan asked suddenly, his voice taking on the sharp quality that had been plaguing them all too often lately.

“No.” Matt turned around, now very aware they were naked with the lights on and about to slip into a tense conversation.

Matt sat down on the bed, wincing at the pull in his lower back.

Evan’s face went tight.

“No, I’m not sorry. I’m just a little… I don’t know. Too old not to notice that this came along at a really weird moment for us.”

Evan dropped the damp washcloth in the hamper. He walked a few paces before settling down next to Matt. “Maybe it was that beer,” he started, a little smile crossing his lips as he attempted to make a joke. “And maybe it was me just trying to concentrate on the good parts and not the bullshit.”

Shaking his head, Matt ran both hands through the sweaty mess of his hair. “I don’t like bullshit, Evan. I don’t want it to be fights and fucking, because that’s not who we are.”

“No, we’re not.” Evan leaned into Matt’s side so they were shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. “We won’t be.”

The silence wove around them, not entirely uncomfortable. Matt blew out a sigh and Evan slid his hand into Matt’s.

“Casper Vaughn is a dick and I don’t like him,” Matt said
eventually.

“We work together,” Evan said, tightening his grip on Matt’s hand. “But we don’t have to see him outside of that if you don’t want to. He’s going through a lot right now.”

Matt’s insides squeezed with tension even as he kept his hand relaxed. He looked at where their fingers were entwined and thought about how it felt perfectly natural. Grounding.

I don’t care
, Matt thought, but he nodded. “Sorry. He just rubs me the wrong way.”

Evan sighed. “Yeah. He’s been off lately. This breakup with Tony really messed him up.”

“Maybe he hooked up with someone at the bar crawl,” Matt said hopefully, and Evan laughed.

“Extra awkward at the GOAL barbeques.”

Don’t care. Let him go sniff around someone else.

T
HEY
GOT
under the covers eventually, and Evan clamped on to Matt’s body like he was physically keeping him in bed lest he try to escape.

“We’re okay, right?” Evan asked when the lights were out, his head on Matt’s shoulder.

A beat too long and then Matt turned in his arms, landing a kiss gently on Evan’s mouth. “We’re gonna be okay,” he murmured.