Deliver Us (16 page)

“Ooh! We could do it with one of those fancy saws you have in the garage!” Gabriel exclaims excitedly. “Those are pretty sharp.”

“Gonna help me?” Darrek smiles with a wink, “You could be my accomplice.”

Gabriel takes a huge bite of his sandwich and moans around it. He waves it at Darrek and mumbles, “This is an awesome cheese steak!”

“I know!” Darrek agrees, washing down another bite with more rum. “Kyle gets all the credit, though. He discovered them. I never went out much at all until he started dragging me to places like this against my will in an attempt to make me less miserable and get my sorry ass a life.”

“He’s the one that gave you our number, right?” Gabriel asks, his face losing its smile.

“Yeah.”

“Did you tell him you called Diadem? That you’ve been seeing me?”

“I haven’t really told him much,” Darrek admits. “I don’t know why. I tell him about everything else. He’d probably understand.”

“You should talk to him. Seriously. Be honest with him,” Gabriel insists.

“You think so?”

“Yes. I do. So will you? Talk to him, I mean....”

“I guess so. Sure,” Darrek relents, squinting at Gabriel over his sandwich and trying to figure out the cause of the intense look on his face.

By the time they’ve walked back to Darrek’s house, the alcohol has mostly worn off, their drunken giddiness long gone. Darrek opens his door, fitting the key into the lock with Gabriel at his back. The sound of eager dog barking from inside is the only noise in the dark, cold night. As soon as the door is open, Sierra pounces on Darrek with happiness. He scratches behind her ears and hugs her before leading her to the back door and outside into the yard.

Returning to the front door, he sees Gabriel stepping inside and shutting the door behind him.

“Are you... staying?” Darrek asks, watching Gabriel unbutton his shirt slowly, top to bottom. It hypnotizes him as gradually more and more skin is revealed.

“I’m staying,” he nods, stepping closer.

Darrek tugs his shirt over his head in a swift, fluid movement, releasing it and letting it fall to the floor as Gabriel gets the last button slipped free of its hole and shrugs the shirt from his shoulders.

His hands restless by his sides, buzzing like electricity is surging through them, Darrek tries to keep them there, and still, as his eyes skim helplessly over Gabriel’s chest and arms, hungry, drinking him in.

“Touch me,” Gabriel tells him. “It’s okay. Go ahead.”

“Thank you,” he whispers in response, capturing Gabriel’s mouth in a kiss and pressing their bodies together, with one hand palming the curve of Gabriel’s ass and the other stroking up over his chest, mapping the contours and lines, the firm muscle, the silky-soft skin.

They breathe into each other, moaning softly. As Gabriel kisses him back, pushes deeper, his tongue slipping between parted lips, he guides Darrek back in the direction of the stairs, leading up to the bedroom.

With one hand on the railing, Gabriel murmurs, “Come on.”

“Wait. I don’t know if I can do this,” Darrek confesses breathlessly, his face flushed. “I’m probably an idiot for saying this, but... I think I want it too much. I want
you
too much. It’s... it’s so much easier when you’re making me do it, when it’s out of my control and I’m just following orders. To have you... like
this
... I can’t go back from this. It changes things....”

“You think I’m going to run out on you like Sara did,” Gabriel frowns, kissing him again, simply because he can’t help it, he can’t
not
be kissing Darrek.

“I have a knack for destructive relationships,” he admits. “I know that now. And... I don’t want to let myself care about you if you
can’t
care about me back. So, if you
can’t
... then I think you should go.”

Darrek steps backward, up onto the first stair, putting distance between them.

After a long pause filled with fidgeting, his thoughts surging and blaring in his mind, Gabriel responds, laughing sadly. “Honestly, I don’t want to care about you, Darrek. I’ve trained myself not to care about people. Not like
that
... but... god. It’s too late. That’s... that’s why I was late tonight. There
was
no emergency. Ben lied. I lied. I was on my way over here, and I froze. I couldn’t go any further at first, and just parked on the side of the road for a full hour because I
do
care about you. I already do! And it scares the fuck out of me! You have no idea.... I was so hard on you, so rough and cruel to you during our sessions because I wanted to push you away. I know we joked about it, but I
did
want to scare you away. I wanted you to hate me, to be afraid of me. But it didn’t... it didn’t fucking
work
! You’re too strong, too stubborn, too damn resilient. So, I don’t have a choice anymore. Don’t you see? I’m fucked! You were supposed to be the one that belonged to
me
. That’s the way it works. I call the shots. I make the rules. I keep things in control. I’m not in control anymore. I don’t know the rules. Please, make me leave, Darrek. Tell me to get the fuck out. Tell me I’m a horrible person, that I don’t deserve you and your sweetness, that I’m sick and perverted and disgusting. I want you to. Please! Please make me leave, because I
can’t
.”

A muscle in his jaw twitches, and he looks up defiantly at Darrek with shining eyes.

Darrek grabs his hand and pulls him up onto the step with him, kissing him.

“Don’t do this...” Gabriel begs. “Please... you should be with someone better than me. You’re a
good person
. I’m
not
a good person.”

“Make love to me. That’s what I want. I want you to love me,” he whispers against his lips.

Gabriel presses their foreheads together, teeth clenched and swallowing a hiss of pain. Then he hugs Darrek with his arms looped around his neck.

“I don’t want to hurt you. I’m, like, infecting your new life with these dark, horrible things. I should go,” Gabriel insists. “I’m gonna go.”

“You’re not going anywhere. My eyes are open, Gabriel. Let’s go to bed.”

Darrek tugs at his hand as he begins to climb the staircase.

Gabriel doesn’t budge.

“You were right,” Gabriel says quietly with his feet planted. “This
will
change things.”

“Things have already changed. If you feel that way about me, then it’s too late to go back to the way things were. This is really happening and it’s okay.”

“Yeah.”

“You know what happens at the end of the movie
Alice in Wonderland
? She has this world build up around her. And it seems good at first—exciting and exotic. But it’s not
real
. No matter how good it seems, it’s just a daydream and under the surface it’s all twisted up anyway. It all falls apart, and she wakes up.”

“I’m still not a girl,” Gabriel tells him.

“It’s a metaphor!” Darrek says, exasperated. “You can’t hide from reality forever. Eventually you have to wake up and live. You might even find out that it’s not as scary as you thought it’d be.”

“So, I went from being a rabbit to being a girl?”

“I’ll carry your ass upstairs if I have to. I am bigger than you, you know,” he warns.

“Hey, who’s in charge here?” Gabriel frowns mock-seriously. “And I’d like to see you try.”

“
Nobody’s
in charge. That’s the whole point. And okay,” he shrugs, ducking and grabbing Gabriel’s legs, throwing him over his shoulder, ass in the air.

“Put me down, Grealey!” Gabriel yells, swatting at his back. “Darrek! I can fucking
walk
, you know! Okay! I get it! You’re strong as an ox. Now put me down!”

“Sorry, Master. Just following orders,” he laughs as he carries him up to the bedroom with ease.

It’s still very early and close to dawn when Darrek sneaks back into bed wearing only his boxer shorts. He’s tired, but not sleepy. Smiling, he savors the aches radiating throughout his body, knowing that Gabriel is the one that put them there and that they are proof of his lover’s attentions and affection.

Turning onto his side, he watches Gabriel sleep. He’s naked and stretched out on his stomach with only the thin sheet covering him. Darrek watches for a long time, enjoying the vulnerable softness in the delicate, ivory skin of Gabriel’s face, and the sight of him with all of his many defenses down.

When he had let Sierra out, Darrek had also brought back something with him, selected and plucked from the untended garden beside the rear entrance of the house. Darrek trails the petals of the violet-colored daisy over the gentle curves of Gabriel’s supple lips, over the small cleft in his chin, down over his neck and arm.

Gabriel does not stir; he just twitches his nose when Darrek tickles it with the flower. Darrek chuckles at the reaction. The rays of the sun, filtered through the curtained window, slant and shift as minutes and then hours slip by.

Finally, an uncertain amount of time later, Gabriel sighs and peeks open his eyes.

“Morning!” Darrek grins widely from beside him, biting eagerly at his bottom lip, the points of his gleaming-white teeth pressing small dents in the rosy flesh.

“God. You’re a morning person, aren’t you?”

Gabriel stretches and groans, rolling onto his left side so that he faces Darrek. Darrek shifts closer and momentarily places an oversized hand on Gabriel’s bare hip, brushing long fingers over the silky-smooth, sleep-warmed skin. He had laid the flower aside a while ago, but now he picks it up again and trails it down the center of Gabriel’s chest. As it moves lower and skims to the side, over his taut abdomen and the ridge of his hipbone, along his thickly muscled thigh, Gabriel’s eyes slip closed.

He tries not to smile as he asks, “Why do you have a flower?”

“I had to get up and let my girl out earlier,” Darrek confesses. “I picked this for you from the garden while I was outside. It was there when I bought the place—the garden. I don’t have much of a green thumb, so it’s kind of gotten overgrown lately. I was tickling you with this. You didn’t wake up, though.”

“I’m a heavy sleeper, or so I’ve been told,” he replies, suppressing a shiver when Darrek strokes the silken edge of the purple petals across the length of Gabriel’s morning erection and down between his legs. “How come I’m naked and you’re not?”

“Because I had to go outside and you’ve been in bed sleeping half the day,” Darrek whispers back. “I have to admit, I kind of like it this way.”

He captures Gabriel’s lips with his, reaching across Gabriel and laying the flower on the nightstand. Using a hand on Gabriel’s side, Darrek rolls Gabriel onto his back and straddles him quickly with a slide of his leg. He can see the realization in Gabriel’s eyes when he finds himself on the bottom, with Darrek heavily on top of him, trapping him. His lips purse, the amusement in them fading fast and his eyes going wide with a cold flash of panic.

“Darrek....”

“Relax. You can tell me to stop anytime,” he assures him, brushing the back of his hand down the side of Gabriel’s neck, shifting his hips so that he can better feel the line of Gabriel’s dick against his belly, his own member nudging against Gabriel’s left hip. “I just want to make you feel good. I never get to see you, or touch you. That’s all I want to do. Nothing scary, and no more than that. May I? Please?”

The previous night they’d made love for hours, but it was almost pitch dark the whole time with not a light on throughout the whole second floor at Gabriel’s insistence, and even when they had been face-to-face, with Darrek’s legs hooked over Gabriel’s shoulders, Gabriel had kept Darrek’s hands pinned down above his head, unable to touch or do anything but take it.

“Please, Gabe,” Darrek asks more softly, brushing a hand over Gabriel’s tensed jaw, willing away the mistrust in his eyes.

Gabriel nods, a faint pink flush starting to color his fair cheeks.

Darrek kisses him first, though. Their lips parted, they press together, breathing into one another. The point of Darrek’s tongue breaches the gap first, finding the heated softness of Gabriel’s. Eyes locked, hands roaming, exploring, Darrek dives down, opening wide and sucking Gabriel’s tongue, licking back into the cavern of his mouth, under his tongue, along his teeth. Pulling back, he catches Gabriel’s lower lip in a gentle bite and tugs on it with a grin. He’s playing with him, trying to tease away the darkness lurking at the back of Gabriel’s eyes.

Inching downward, he brushes his mouth down the arcing line of Gabriel’s neck, over his collarbone and the slight curve of his heaving chest. Gabriel’s breath is coming in rapid gasps, his hands tangling in the cascading waves of Darrek’s hair. Moving to one side, Darrek seals his lips around each of his nipples in turn, the left and then the right, licking over the dark, hardening nubs with the flat of his tongue before releasing them and going lower. Kissing a line down the center of his body, between his abdominal muscles, his tongue delves down into Gabriel’s navel. Sliding to the right, Darrek scrapes his teeth over the place just above the ridge of his hipbone and glances up at Gabriel’s face.