The Trouble With Tony (13 page)

Jack arched up into his hand with a moan.

He thought,
Please
, because it had been so long, so long since he’d felt desirable, since he’d wanted anyone like this. It had been a whole other life ago, and he hadn’t thought he’d ever feel that way again.

Tony made a hungry sound in his throat and pulled Jack back against him, even as he started to undo Jack’s belt. Jack let him do it, let him unbutton and unzip, never breaking the kiss. And when Tony’s hand closed around him, he reveled in the spike of arousal that burned through him like a flash fire.

Yes, yes
. It was so sweet to feel again, to feel like this again, so powerfully aroused his head spun and his knees went weak—wanted and wanting. Trudy was right; it was a precious gift.

“Tony,” Jack murmured, and though it meant dislodging that caressing hand, he rolled in Tony’s arms and pressed against him, deepening the kiss and rubbing his exposed cock against Tony’s clothed one. The denim over Tony’s iron hardness was perfect friction. But Jack wanted so much more. “Massage room,” he said, pressing Tony backward.

They undressed each other along the way. “What do you like?” Jack murmured as they reached the doorway.

Tony groaned. “Anything. If it involves getting off with you, I’m good with it. I want to do everything.”

Jack’s pants were already slipping by the time they got inside the room, so he toed off his shoes and pushed them down and away, never breaking the kiss. His fingers finished unbuttoning Tony’s shirt and pushed it off. Tony tried to do the same.

“No,” Jack said, breaking away to tug his shirt back onto his shoulders. “Unbuttoned is okay, but leave it on.”

“Why?”

“My right arm. It’s not pretty.”

“I don’t care about that,” Tony said sincerely. “You’re a goddamn hero. Heroes have scars.”

Jack swallowed a lump in his throat. Did he deserve those words? He wasn’t sure, but he knew he wasn’t ready to hear them. “Not this time, okay? I don’t want to be thinking about it.”

“Okay, Jack. Whatever you want,” Tony relented softly. He kissed Jack’s neck and moved his big, broad hands over Jack’s chest under the open shirt. His hands were just calloused enough to feel like a little bit of sandpapery heaven on Jack’s sensitive skin.

Jack pushed Tony’s trousers the rest of the way down and then pulled him close. He basked in the sweet ache of all that lovely skin against his own, the feel of Tony’s large, heat-flushed cock against his stomach.

“Oh God, it’s been a long time,” Jack whispered.

Tony’s strong arms locked around Jack’s waist. And, in a surprise move that might have originated in his high school wrestling days, he lifted Jack up and set him on the massage table.

“Hey, maybe I wanted
you
here,” Jack protested with a smile.

“Let me make love to you, Jack. I’m primed to go off like a rocket launcher already. Besides, you already had me here. You know, it’s polite to take turns.”

He said the last so seriously Jack laughed. “I can tell
you
had siblings.” But Jack let Tony’s hands guide him down.

“Where are those stirrup thingies?” Tony found the lever. “Ah. Here we go.”

Jack felt a flush of humiliation and a sharp tug of desire. He covered his face. “Oh my God. Why does this feel like payback for every prostate and ob-gyn exam I’ve ever done?”

He felt Tony place one socked foot, then the other, in the stirrups. Then Tony’s arms were around his hips pulling him down to the edge. “Oh, you’ve got some payback coming all right,
Doctor Halloran
,” Tony said in a wickedly breathless voice.

Jack peeked out from under his arm just long enough to see Tony’s admiring gaze inches from his hard cock. “Oh God,” Jack groaned. He covered up his eyes again in an attempt to curb his own arousal and soothe his pounding heartbeat. That effort proved futile as Tony began to lick. “Oh my God,” Jack whispered. “Oh fuck.”

Jack squeezed his eyes shut and rode the exquisite pleasure as best he could. Tony pushed out his knees, and he was completely, helplessly exposed in the stirrups. Tony lathed every bit of him like a mother cat on Ecstasy. He began at Jack’s taint, licking and sucking, moved up to his balls, taking first one, then the other into his mouth and tugging sinfully.

“Shit,” Jack muttered.

Tony licked up his cock, planting open-mouthed kisses and teasing the head with his tongue until Jack was whimpering. Then Tony pulled him deep into a soft, wet, heat.

“Tony, oh fuck, oh my God.”

The pleasure of it was intense, and when Jack had a sudden acute wave of reality—
this is really happening to me, this is really Tony’s mouth
—the bliss of it sharpened so tight he almost lost it. He thrust up into Tony’s mouth with a groan.

Tony pulled off with a plop and moved lower. Jack huffed in protest as Tony kissed and sucked the insides of Jack’s thighs. Tony worked his way closer and closer to the one particular spot.

“Tony,” Jack said in warning, tensing up as he realized where Tony was going.

Tony worked that wicked tongue over Jack’s skin, closer and closer.

“Tony, stop, I can’t….”

The tongue, unrelenting, swirled just outside his puckered flesh, not yet touching it, but oh so close. Bastard. How could he have possibly known how sensitive Jack was right there?

“Don’t. I swear to God, I’ll come,” Jack said through clenched teeth, even as his brain was screaming,
Oh fucking hell just do it
!

He tried not to whimper
too
loudly as the tip of Tony’s tongue flickered, teasing, right over that oh-so-wanting bit of flesh. But in the end, he had to give it up for a lost cause. The tongue lingered, swirling light, delicious circles on his ring over and over. The sensations went straight to the head of Jack’s cock and to his most primitive lizard brain.
God, so good, so, so good.
His hips rolled, trying to follow that teasing mouth. He found Tony’s hand on his hip and laced his fingers through it, gripping it hard. Tony understood and gave him his other hand. Jack squeezed them both tight in his own, as Tony breathed his name,
Jack
, over that wet skin. Then he sucked hard against Jack’s opening and pushed that tongue deep up inside him.

Jack cursed and whimpered and came hard.

Dear God, he was alive. He was alive, and he felt so goddamn good. He was being loved, and he loved, and yeah, that wasn’t the right word, not yet, but there was an undeniable connection between him and Tony, a connection with the potential of a newborn, all sweet and perfect and with a seemingly limitless future. That was scary and pretty damn fucking marvelous too.

He was in a postorgasmic daze as Tony crawled up his body. Jack felt his hot and throbbing length against his hip.

“Penetrate me,” Jack murmured, as Tony’s mouth came down on his.

Tony chuckled into his mouth. “Euphemisms, Doc.”

“Um… wanna sink the sausage?” Jack sniggered at himself. “Hell. Don’t ask me to think after that Oscar-worthy performance.”

“Actually, you know what? ‘Penetrate me’ is pretty damn hot,” Tony said breathlessly, sucking at a ticklish spot under Jack’s ear. “I could live with that.”

“Then do it.”

“But you just came,” Tony said. “And I’d last about two seconds. Suck on my tongue and I’m done. Besides, I figured if anyone was a top, you were, Mr. Hard Ass.”

“I’ll top you ’til you scream another time, but right now I want you inside me. You can thank your tongue for that, by the way.” Jack wrapped his arms around Tony’s broad back, pulling him closer. His skin felt so amazing.

Tony was between his legs, leaning over his chest to kiss him. The kiss was wonderful, but Tony wasn’t responding fast enough to Jack’s request, so Jack arched up his groin, brushing teasingly against the hardness above him. “
Now
, please.”

“Fuck,” Tony groaned and pulled away. “Got lube?”

“In the cabinet with the condoms. But after what you just did, I’m ready for the second battalion.”

Tony pulled away to grab the lube and a condom from the cabinet. When he turned around, Jack had his knees pulled up, waiting.

“Jesus, do you
want
me to blow?” Tony said, with wide-eyed lust.

“Come on,” said Jack impatiently. “Do it, DeMarco.”

Tony was frozen with a look of stunned lust, so Jack sat up and took the foil packet from his hand. Jack ripped it open with his teeth and rolled it on, then he took the lube from Tony’s hand and slicked him up. His right hand, he vaguely noted, did not shake at all. There was that motivation again. There was a clinical paper in there somewhere, but now was not the time to contemplate it. He lay back down and pulled up his thighs. “Now,” he ordered.

He didn’t have to ask again. Tony stepped between his legs and squeezed lube onto his fingers. He began to press inside.

“Not that,” Jack panted. “The next thing I want to feel is you. I’m good.”

Tony nodded dumbly, tossed the lube aside, and positioned himself. “Jack,” he said quietly. He locked eyes with Jack as he slowly pushed in.

Tony took his time, pressing in as Jack took him into his body, inch by inch. They never broke eye contact. And when Tony was fully inside, it was as if he had punctured some invisible membrane. Emotions suddenly swamped Jack—his sense of unworthiness, loneliness, and bottled frustration came rushing to the surface and out with his breath. Tears stung his eyes but he contained them.

Tony stopped, looking guilty. “Did I hurt you?” He stroked Jack’s face with his hand.

Jack couldn’t speak so he just shook his head. He reached out and Tony came down to kiss him, still buried deep inside. They began the dance as old as time.

Tony was right, he didn’t last long. But he stayed inside, kissing and rubbing his face against Jack’s, and before long, he was hard again and thrusting. To Jack’s surprise, he firmed again, too, as Tony nudged the sensitive spot inside him. And when they came together with whispers and soft cries, Jack felt, for the first time since he’d been shipped home, that he was exactly where he was supposed to be.

Epilogue

I
T
WAS
hard to imagine anyplace more beautiful than the Mt. Rainier Skyline trail in October. Toward the top most of the vegetation fell away, no longer sustained in the high elevation. Only the sturdiest Alpine flowers grew. Low scrub, now gold and orange, graced the otherwise barren, haunting moonscape.

Tony and Jack sat at Panorama Point, eating lunch. There were a few other hikers around, but no one seemed bothered as the two of them ate their sandwiches, thighs touching, nor did they take exception when Tony began stroking Jack’s shoulders.

Jack glanced around then gave Tony an arched brow. “Getting kind of handsy there, DeMarco.”

“Wanna get more handsy, Doc.”

Jack looked out at the incredible view. “It would be nice to have sex here, wouldn’t it? But I don’t think the National Park Service gives out day passes for that.”

Tony snorted. “Could be a whole new revenue stream.”

“Let’s write our congressman when we get home,” Jack said with a pleased sigh.

This was the first weekend they’d had a chance to get down to Rainier for the hike. Both he and Jack had testified at Brent’s trial, and it had taken its toll on their time and energy. Brent’s lawyers had fast-tracked the case. He’d pleaded guilty to the murder—the soil samples and his attack on Jack were too damaging to do otherwise. But he’d pleaded temporary insanity, a fit of jealous rage and “emotional turmoil” over Marilyn’s presumed infidelity. He’d gotten away with it. He’d been handed twenty-five years in prison instead of the death penalty. With good behavior, he could be out in fifteen. But it was justice enough for the Whites, and, hopefully, for Marilyn.

Tony was about to retort back when his cell phone buzzed. He took it out of a zipper pocket and looked at it.

Jack raised a brow. “You get service up here?”

“Who knew?” Tony shrugged. He showed the phone to Jack. The caller id just said “Ma.”

Jack made a “well?” face. “It would be memorable,” he said with irony, nodding at the view. He had a point. Tony swallowed and took the call.

He and Jack had discussed it. Jack had put no pressure on him to tell his family, but Tony wanted to. It was time, and he finally had a good reason to come clean. They’d only been seeing each other for two months, but already Tony couldn’t imagine going back to Brooklyn without Jack, pretending he didn’t exist. He’d become too big a part of Tony’s world for that. They were already practically living together.

“Ma,” Tony said as he answered the phone. He listened as his mother bulldozed through her health questions. He finally got a chance to interrupt her. “
Ma.
I have something important to tell you.”

His mother drew in a sharp breath. “You do?”

“Yeah.” Tony’s eyes shot to Jack’s. “Remember a few months ago I mentioned that there might be someone?”

“Yeah?” His mother’s voice was so hopeful it hurt. Damn this was hard.

“Well, so, it turned into something. Something real nice.” His mother’s shriek nearly burst Tony’s eardrum. “Ma.”

“For the love of God, Tony, why didn’t you tell me? What’s her name?” Before he could answer, his mother made a bad job of covering up the phone and screaming into the living room. “Tony’s got a girl!”

Tony hung his head and groaned. Okay, he could have handled that better. “Ma. Ma!” She finally got back on the phone, talking excitedly. He had to yell to interrupt her. “Ma! Just listen to me for one second, would ya?”

“So talk,” Ma said. “What is it? What’s wrong with her?”

Tony swallowed a lump. “It’s not a girl. It’s… a guy, a really, really great guy. I’m gay, Ma.”

For about ten seconds, the world fell away from under Tony’s feet. His mother said nothing, and the surrounding landscape got a bit blurry as panic set in. Tony might have toppled headlong off that vista point if Jack hadn’t been there to squeeze his hand and remind him to breathe.

Finally, his mother spoke. “Is she… I mean
he
… is he at least Italian?” her voice sounded small.