Keeping Promise Rock (42 page)

“Damned straight. And you know what you’ve got to convince that tasty hunk of man to give you?”

Crick sighed. “He’s still afraid of hurting me… ouch!” Jeff laughed. “Which is why I’m your physical therapist and not the guy in your bed, I guess. You know, Crick—sometimes, you’ve just got to take matters into your own hands.”

Crick passively allowed his arm to be twisted like a pretzel and then re-formed to something like a human limb again while he stared into space with a busy brain. He suddenly had an idea—and he was pretty sure it was better than the idea that landed him in Iraq in the first place.

How To Save A Dying Pride

DEACON sure did like young Private Blood-loss. He was going to hate to let him go.

“Look, Andrew,” he was saying, pacing back and forth in the little stable apartment that Andrew had been living in, “we love you here. I mean, flat out—I couldn’t have done it without you this last year. You eat at my table, you play with the baby—there’s not a whole hell of a lot I wouldn’t do for you. But… and not this month, and probably not next month, but we’re coming up on a time when….” He looked away. Andrew was watching him with patient eyes, and Deacon found his pride was sitting up and roaring in his chest, because Andrew wasn’t just a friend, and he wasn’t just an employee. The guy was
family.
Saying this, having this conversation—well, it felt like he couldn’t provide for his family, and that hurt.

“You’re worried about paying me,” Andrew said, and Deacon grimaced.

“Yeah. Don’t worry about the apartment. You’re welcome to stay as long as you want. We like you here. And you’re
always
welcome to eat at our table—but in a couple of months, if things don’t improve, you may want to go looking for another job.”

Andrew snorted. “Yeah, because having a front row seat to you working yourself to death is gonna be sooooooo entertaining. No worries, Deacon. You just offered me room and board. I’ll work for that until things get better.”

Deacon looked around the little apartment to avoid gaping like a fish. The room next door was stuffed with tack and extra saddles and bags of grain—you could barely see the cot next to the wall. They’d done Andrew’s up right, though. It had padded carpeting—a dusty blue—and they’d replaced the cot with Crick’s old twin bed with the drawers underneath it, as well as his end table and lamp. They’d bought him new bedding, though—the old stuff was sort of stained. It was fairly obvious that Crick had always had the sex drive of a hamster on Spanish fly.

Deacon had even bought him a small television and some nice blankets to hang the walls with—the place looked homier than most dorm rooms or first-year apartments, at any rate.

“You can’t just….” Deacon swallowed past the lump of pride and embarrassment. “I mean… don’t you have plans with your life?” He managed to look at Andrew in time to catch the boy’s rather sardonic smile. “I think you and I are a lot alike, Deacon—and there’s not a whole lot of places in the world for men like us anymore. I like it here. If you don’t mind, I’m going to call the place home for a while.” Deacon was pretty sure his embarrassment alone raised the temperature in the stall apartment about ten degrees. “I don’t mind,” he said, swallowing again. “In fact, I’m much appreciative.” Andrew grinned then. “Good—now go to bed. Man, Crick needs to be nailed into the wall more than any man in history.” It was true—Crick had been snarky and snarly for the past week, and Deacon knew he was a little disappointed about the sex. And so was Deacon for that matter. It just… damn. Deacon just wanted him too bad.

And by the time they were done with the finessing part, the part that made sure Deacon wouldn’t hurt him or be too rough with his healing body, well, one of them—usually Deacon—was falling asleep.

But still, being told to go nail your boyfriend was more than a little embarrassing.

“I’ve got bills to do tonight,” Deacon sighed. It was the first of the month—time to decide who to pay and who to put off—not exactly Deacon’s favorite chore.

Andrew sighed and shook his head. “Deacon, you know, I know you love this place, and I know your father put a lot into it. But this isn’t the only place in the world—or, hell, even in the state—where you can make a horse ranch work. Maybe you should think about just picking up and moving while you can. I’d come with, you know?” Keeping Promise Rock

Deacon didn’t realize he was just standing there, mouth-breathing, until he caught some dust in his throat. The idea was… it was….

He coughed out the dust and blinked and tried to think past the muzz in his head that came with too much thinking about the subject and too little sleep.

“You’ll have to excuse me, Drew,” he said at last. “I think you blew my little tiny mind.”

Andrew chuckled and yawned and stretched, looking at Deacon pointedly. Deacon grinned and took the hint. Time to let the man sleep.

He took a shower when he got in the house to wake him up for a little bit and then sat down in front of the bills and started to strategize on how to pay one guy and put the other guy off. When that got old, he moved on to the lawsuit paperwork for Jon, which actually seemed to be working, since they’d managed to get a few clients to pay up what they owed and to shut their yaps about “horse AIDS” (fuckers!). He was almost done with that when he heard a noise from the bedroom.

“Ouch!”

Deacon was half out of his chair. “What’s wrong, Crick—something snap? Something bleeding? You okay?”

“I’m fine, dammit—just using a muscle that hasn’t been worked in a while. Hold….” Crick made a sound then, a sighing, sexy kind of sound, the kind of sound that made Deacon’s dick ache and his palms sweat.

“Mmmm… yeah, hold on a sec….”

He dropped his pen on the hardwood floor with a clatter and had a hell of a time picking it up. By the time he’d gotten himself situated, he was listening to Crick breathing on the other side of the wall and trying to remember his own name.

“Deacon?” Crick called, still breathless and wanting.

Deacon. Oh yeah. That was his name. “Ye—ah?” His voice cracked half an octave in the middle of the word, and he stood up slowly, wondering what was going to be waiting for him in their bed.

“C’mere a sec, wouldya?”

Deacon stood at the doorway, trying to remember his own name again.

Crick was lying on his back, his injured side artistically covered by sheets, but otherwise completely naked. His knees were bent, and his legs were spread a little, enough for Deacon to see that he’d oiled up his body 286

from his rampant erection to his sagging, heavy testicles to the fairly large adult toy that was protruding from his dilated asshole.

Deacon couldn’t move. He might have made a sound—something whip-spiffy, like “uhhhnghh….”

Crick gave him a crooked smile, the kind with the upper teeth gnawing gamely at his lower lip. “Deacon?” And Deacon realized how hard this was for him—how exposed he felt, with his wounds covered in sheets and the most vulnerable parts of his body on display.

“Shut up,” Deacon muttered, shucking his sleep-shorts, briefs, and T-shirt. “I’m getting naked.”

“Yeah?” The hope was hard to hear.

“You wanted wine and flowers?” Deacon muttered, getting down to business with the plug. He tugged at it gently, feeling the resistance, enjoying the power as Crick groaned and his cock flexed, the length of it coming off his stomach and snapping back with a slap.

“No,” came the strangled reply.

Deacon tugged again. “Getting impatient, were we?”

“Ye-esss….” Crick writhed as Deacon teased him, so Deacon got on his hands and knees and pinched Crick’s sensitive nipple with one hand while he tormented Crick’s lower body with the other.

“Couldn’t think of another way to tell me?” Deacon asked wickedly, giving Crick’s cock a good stroke just as a change of pace.

“I got a doctor’s note,” Crick whined, and Deacon went back to playing with the toy in the way it was intended to be played with. “I didn’t have a chance to g-g-g-givvvv… God, Deacon, stop fucking with that thing and fuck
me
!”

Deacon laughed, low and evil, and moved down to suck Crick’s cock into his mouth, in spite of the lube, and Crick bucked against him and whimpered some more. Deacon scooted around the bed and positioned himself between Crick’s knees.

“You really want me there?” he asked, eager and giddy and ready to play. “I mean, that plug is pretty damned tight… it might even be bigger than me… you sure it doesn’t just feel better there?”

“Gawwwdddd… Deacon!” Crick begged, and Deacon grabbed it and yanked, liking the slippery, heavy way it slid out of Crick’s ass, liking the Keeping Promise Rock

way Crick’s entire body came off the bed, shuddering, and the way his cock jerked against Deacon’s stomach, spattering come between them.

Crick groaned, and Deacon dropped the plug and pushed himself closer, setting himself right there at Crick’s sloppy, softly dilated entrance, and captured Crick’s mouth in a hungry, wanting kiss.

“So you’re all done now,” he teased, sliding forward enough for Crick to clench around his swollen cockhead, and Crick groaned. “I mean you pleasured yourself, and you came, and now, I just need to go beat off in the shower, right?”

“Fuck you, Deacon,” Crick moaned, and Deacon laughed, that shiver of power zinging right up his spine. Oh God—all this time of being at Crick’s mercy, of living his life in the sure knowledge that Crick held his beating heart right there in his hands, and finally, Deacon got a little back.

“I thought I was fucking you, Crick,” he said, and then he teased just a little too much because
he
couldn’t stand it anymore, and he slid his cock home inside Crick where he’d always wanted to be.

Crick came off the bed then too, growling with urgency, and Deacon pinned him down with a hungry, half-angry kiss and hard hands on his shoulders. Crick returned the kiss, and Deacon’s hips started to piston—

not smoothly, but rough and hungry and demanding. Crick’s head fell back, and his eyes closed, and Deacon growled back, wanting…

wanting… oh God, how he wanted this, wanted this moment, Crick’s body, Crick’s complete submission just to him.

He hit Crick’s prostate, felt it slide under the ridge of his cockhead and Crick’s head came off the bed and he sank his teeth into the tender joining of Deacon’s neck and shoulder, and that about did him in.

“You done? You ready to be done?” he taunted, putting his hands on either side of Crick, and Crick fell back against the bed again, wrapped his arms around Deacon’s ribs, and begged him some more.

“Oh God… Deacon, come. Please, please, please, please. I need to feel you… God, just fuck me and fuck me and… cuuuuuuuummmmm….” That last word was on a long, drawn-out hiss as Crick’s body spasmed again, and Deacon couldn’t last another second. With a final, brutal thrust, he was flush against Crick’s ass. His vision darkened, and his cock jerked inside Crick’s body. He buried his face in Crick’s neck and made a groan that was spawned pretty much from his taut, twitching groin.

Crick echoed it, his arms coming up around Deacon’s shoulders to anchor 288

him, hold him, press their bodies together as they shivered in the aftermath of being one whole person instead of two damaged souls.

It took a while for Deacon to pull out—long after he should have been thinking about Crick’s comfort—but Crick seemed reluctant for him to go. Deacon slid to the side, and Crick’s arms came around his shoulders, and then he bent and pulled up the sheets to cover them both.

Deacon panted against Crick’s chest, grateful for the sheet to hide them. He lived in fear of the day Parry Angel learned how to use a doorknob—she could already climb out of her crib.

“Did you really get a doctor’s note?” he asked when he had his breath back, and Crick grunted.

“Yeah—I thought you’d be a stubborn asshole about not wanting to hurt me. Turns out I was right.”

“So why didn’t you produce the note?” Deacon asked, smiling. His eyes were closed, Crick was there, and all was right with the world.

Crick didn’t answer, and Deacon looked up to see what he was thinking. Crick turned his brown eyes away, looking troubled.

“What? Why didn’t you pull out the note and say ‘Deacon, fuck me silly’?”

“Would you?” Crick asked softly.

Deacon grinned, trying for once to be the guy who lightened the mood. “I thought I just did.”

“Yeah, but would you, if I’d asked? Deacon, you’re awfully closed-up these days. I know you’re trying to keep the worst of shit from me, but… it’s like….” Crick sighed and moved his hand to push at the hair that had fallen into Deacon’s eyes. “It’s like you’ve gotten used to being all alone. Even with Benny and Jon, you’re still alone. You… you’re so focused on keeping The Pulpit, on being your father, you’ve forgotten to be Deacon. The only time I’ve seen you be open with anyone here is when you’ve got the baby on your lap.”

“Yeah,” Deacon muttered, turning away from that soothing hand.

“The baby can’t talk yet. Just wait. Eventually I’ll run away from her too.” Crick’s hand rubbed his shoulder, his upper arm, and Crick placed careful kisses from the tender center of his neck down the curve of his spine between his shoulder blades.