Laying a Ghost (31 page)

He got out of the car and shut the door with more force than was necessary then trotted around the front and grabbed onto John with both hands, spinning them in what anyone watching would have thought an awkward whiskey-induced dance. “We did it.”

“
You
did it,” John corrected, halting them and pulling Nick to him for a fierce, exuberant hug. “And for all that it hurt you to see that, you can’t be minding it now, can you?” He kissed Nick hard. “And God, I’ve been wanting to do this all night --”

John’s mouth was eager against his, both of them still more than a little overwhelmed with all that they’d gone through, their reactions not quite normal now. Everything seemed heightened and exaggerated by the sure and certain knowledge that they’d saved a life in a way that most people would have said was impossible.

Nick groaned and ran his hands over John where he could. “Do you have to go back?” he asked, kissing John again. “Will you feel guilty if you don’t?”

“I told my mother I might, but you saw what it was like; she won’t miss me, and it’s nearly eleven o’clock now.” John’s lips dragged slowly over Nick’s throat, leaving his skin tingling. “And none of that matters, because I’m not leaving you tonight. Now can we go inside?” John’s breath was warm against Nick’s neck as he bit gently at the sensitive skin. “Want to show you how much I’ve missed you today --”

Nick’s hands tightened involuntarily on John’s hips. “Inside’s good,” he gasped, tugging at John to get them moving in the right direction even though he’d have been happy to just stand there for as long as John wanted to continue to do what he was doing.

Slowly, between and sometimes during kisses, they managed to make their way to the house and through the doorway. John kicked the door shut with his foot and pressed Nick up against the wall, his tongue exploring Nick’s mouth. Nick gave back as good as he got, practically vibrating with the knowledge that for once he’d been able to change things, to save someone.

“You make me feel --” John’s voice trailed off as he started to undo Nick’s shirt, kissing each exposed inch of skin with an eager hunger that Nick shared. “God, Nick -- I want to tear every stitch off you and fuck you right here where we stand, but I want to take hours doing nothing but this as well.” He slid his hands inside Nick’s shirt, caressing his chest as he smiled at him. “I don’t think I’m making any sense, am I? And that’s your fault too.”

“You don’t need to make sense.” Nick closed his eyes for a second or two and then opened them again so that he could look into John’s intensely blue ones. “Just don’t stop touching me. John ... I’ve never felt like this before. I was always ... being done to, trying to figure out how to get through it without going crazy, but now ... it feels like I could actually
do
something. Like ...” He trailed off as John’s lips and tongue found his nipple, teasing it until it contracted with a twitch of pleasure that sparked behind Nick’s again-closed eyelids and down to his cock.

“Like what?” John murmured without taking his mouth away from Nick’s skin, the words creating half-kisses that were maddeningly light. “You can do anything you want to me, you know that, and if you don’t, I’m telling you now. Suck me, fuck me, have me on my knees for you. Tonight there’s not a chance I’d say no to you.”

Nick just got harder at the thought. He started to unbutton John’s shirt, wanting to touch skin. “If I can do anything,” he repeated, barely above a whisper, “then I want you upstairs in my bed. I want your mouth on me, I want ... God, John, I just want you. I want you.”

John stepped back without taking his eyes off Nick, finishing the job Nick’s hands had started and shrugging out of his shirt, taking another step back, and then another, heading towards the doorway, and beyond that, the stairs.

“Come on, then.” John extended his hand to Nick, his shirt hanging down from his other hand, a splash of light in the dim room. “For God’s sake, come on, because I can’t -- I can’t --
Nick
.” His voice dropped and caught on a soft groan. “I can’t breathe for wanting you. I can’t bear it, needing you this much.”

Nick followed like a man in a dream, reaching for John’s hand and, for a moment, more than half convinced that he was nothing more than a ghost, insubstantial. It was almost a shock when his fingers closed around John’s, warm and solid and alive, and Nick couldn’t wait long enough to get upstairs -- he had to step closer to John and kiss him right then, once and fiercely.

They stopped twice on the stairs to kiss again, Nick’s shirt joining John’s on the steps, abandoned there as they found their way to the bed and continued to undress each other, hands learning the form of each other’s bodies slowly. When John’s hand brushed against Nick’s bare and hardened cock, making it jump, Nick quivered and bit his own lip. John’s body was perfect, hard and compact, well muscled, his belly flat above the erection that rose up to meet it, and Nick couldn’t keep from touching the smooth skin.

The sound John made was close to anguished, and his hand rose to capture Nick’s wrist. Nick was expecting John to drag their linked hands down to John’s cock -- and he was already anticipating the moan he could coax from John then -- but John shuddered and released him a moment later, rolling to his back and tilting his head to stare at Nick in a wordless invitation, his hands flat at his side. As Nick watched, John’s fingers spread and dug into the covers, but his body remained still; his legs spread slightly, utterly open to Nick’s gaze and touch.

Nick hadn’t forgotten what John had said before, so he decided to take advantage of that now. Of course, it required
knowing
what he wanted to do, and that was only a problem because there were so many things he wanted to do to and with the man lying beside him.

Slowly, Nick slid down between John’s thighs, spreading them wider, and licked a trail up along the skin there. He tongued John’s balls, watching as they tightened and John’s cock twitched in response. “God, I love your body,” Nick murmured, running his hands up and down John’s thighs and feeling the soft, slightly wiry hair crinkle against his palms. He licked John’s shaft all the way to the tip, tasting salt there.

He felt John’s hand rest lightly against his head for a moment, stroking his hair in encouragement or, he couldn’t help hoping, just because John couldn’t help touching him. John’s hand dropped to his shoulder, with his thumb tracing along Nick’s collar bone before it returned to its original position on the bed.

“It’s mutual.” John’s hips lifted an inch or two, so that the head of his cock rubbed slowly against Nick’s parted lips. His voice sounded tight, as if he was struggling to keep control, but there was enough humor underlying it to make Nick relax a little. “But I think you can see that for yourself.”

“I like seeing it.” Nick licked the shaft again and then traced the ridge under the head with his tongue, listening to John’s intake of breath. He slid his index finger into his mouth and sucked on it, wetting it. As he slipped that hand between John’s legs and teased his opening with the slick fingertip, Nick paid attention to John’s reactions, noting the quick rise of hips, and he used that moment to close his lips around the head of John’s cock, sucking and licking avidly as he breathed in the scent of him.

John made an inarticulate sound and Nick felt the tremor that ran through him before John made what felt like a deliberate effort to relax, his breathing slowing. “You’re entirely too good at this. I’m not sure I can -- Christ, Nick --” John’s head fell back and his hand reached up blindly, clutching at Nick’s arm. “Are you going to fuck me, then?” he asked with a directness that was unexpected but not unwelcome. “I want you to. Want you in me, Nick.”

Nick’s cock throbbed at the thought, and he hitched himself up onto one elbow, meeting John’s eyes as he pushed his finger slowly inside him. John’s eyes closed briefly, his body tightening around Nick in a clench of heat that Nick knew would feel amazing around his cock. “I want to. God, I do. But I’ve never ... I never have.”

Hearing himself say it out loud made him flush; he was too old to be as inexperienced as he was. He had a sudden, painfully clear memory of Matthew on top of him, fucking him hard, the taste of Matthew’s sweat sharp on his skin.

John slipped his hand around Nick’s neck and brought his head down, kissing him slowly, sliding his tongue over Nick’s and flickering it against the roof of his mouth. “Aye? But you want to? You want me?” Nick nodded and John smiled. “I can’t see a problem then.”

Nick would have grinned back at him, but as it turned out he was too busy kissing him hungrily and reaching for the lube. He’d done this part before, and he was so eager that he didn’t feel self-conscious at all as he slicked John up, two fingers pushed deep, fucking him slowly and rubbing over the spot that made John groan and arch beneath him.

“Like this?” Nick shifted so that he was over John, hand still working between his thighs, mouth still swallowing John’s gasps and cock thrusting against the hot, moist line where John’s leg met his body. “Can we do it like this?” He wanted to be on top, where he could kiss John and watch his face.

“Any way you like.” John sounded as if he was having trouble fitting words together. “I told you that. I meant it. Yours. I’m yours.” John arched up so that his cock rubbed against Nick’s belly, his face twisting as he sucked in a shaky breath. “Nick -- please --”

“God.” Nick kissed John one last time and forced himself to move away long and far enough to fumble a condom onto his erection, and then, trembling, he lined up and started to press inside.

The angle was off, and he hadn’t expected it to be so tight -- it was totally different from a mouth or fist. It almost hurt, and that realization made him wonder if it was hurting John. He looked at John anxiously, then kissed him because it was too hard to look at John and
not
kiss him, and John was tense but Nick didn’t think it was tense in a bad way. He pressed forward again, shifting so the angle would change, and froze when he slid deep, his mouth open, his eyes wide. “John,” he whispered in awe, as the other man met his gaze.

“You feel --” John shook his head and reached out, stroking his hands over Nick’s sides, restless, uncoordinated touches. “Can’t tell you how good you feel in me.” He bit down on his lip as his hands paused and clutched at Nick’s hips, pulling him deeper still. His face looked distant for a moment as if he was exploring his body’s reaction, and then he smiled and his attention was fully on Nick again. “Tell me you’ll be wanting to do this again, love.”

“Probably eight times a day,” Nick gasped. He was already moving without even needing to think about it, his body knowing exactly what to do, and it felt so incredible that he wondered how he’d gone so many years without it. The heat of John’s body around him, and the way their bodies moved together, thrusting and rubbing ...

“Nick --” John lifted his hand and ran it over Nick’s chest. His hand was warm and the callused skin on his fingertips dragged and caught at Nick’s nipple as he rubbed them over it in a rough caress, drawing a moan from Nick. John’s hand moved down and then dropped to his own cock, wet-tipped and hard, curling around it for an instant, sliding along it and then releasing it as he groaned, his eyes closing as a shudder ran through him. “I don’t want to come -- not yet. Don’t want this to end --”

“Then don’t do that.” Nick shifted his weight onto his good hand and used the other to catch John’s before pinning it to the mattress at head level. He pulled back and thrust forward quickly, and they both groaned. Leaning down, Nick kissed John slowly, propped up on one elbow now so that he could feel John’s erection sliding against his stomach with every thrust. “God, you feel so good,” he murmured against John’s lips.

He felt John’s wrist flex and tense within his grasp as he pushed inside him, mirroring the shifting pressure around his cock. John was kissing him back, seemingly as content as Nick to draw this out as long as possible, with long, slow thrusts that were starting with a gasp and ending with a whimper as they moved together, finding a rhythm that was gradually increasing in speed no matter how much they tried to hold back.

The sounds John was making were intoxicating. Nick didn’t think he’d ever done anything to make Matthew sound that lost to pleasure, that needy. John’s gaze was fixed on him, eyes wide and wild, his face showing everything that he was feeling in a way that increased Nick’s arousal just by looking at him.

“Nick, oh Christ --”

John was barely coherent now, his words emerging in between labored, harsh breaths, his chest rising and falling quickly. His free hand was resting against Nick’s ass, running over it in short, swift strokes, with his fingernails scratching lightly at the skin.

Nick couldn’t help it -- as much as he wanted to keep doing this, he was moving faster, thrusting into John more roughly. His fingers slid across John’s palm to entwine with John’s fingers, and he was making small, involuntary sounds with each thrust. “John.
John
.” The knowledge that he was going to come swept over him, unavoidable and joyous. “I can’t ... oh God, yes. Yes.”

John’s hand clenched hard on his as he came, deep inside John’s body with John’s arm around him, holding him close. The intensity of his climax left him shaken and breathless, staring down at John, unable to look away.

The hand on his back moved up to the back of his neck, and then John pulled him down and kissed him, pressing his lips against Nick’s half a dozen times, murmuring his name between them. “Nick -- oh God, lad --”

His hand rubbed restlessly against Nick’s neck and his kisses became desperate, his teeth biting at Nick’s lip, his tongue licking over the bitten, swollen flesh a moment later. “Touch me, will you?” he whispered frantically. “I don’t -- I want it to be your hand on me. Please, Nick, fuck, I can’t wait -- so damn close --”

The flash of guilt lasted only a second before Nick pushed it aside in favor of doing what John had asked. He moved just enough to be able to wrap his hand around John’s gorgeous, flushed cock, the skin hot and silky smooth against his palm as he began to stroke it. John gasped, arching beneath him, and then started to come. He was almost silent as the first jolt of fluid striped his chest and belly, his body tightening around Nick’s sensitive flesh, and it wasn’t until it was over and John had relaxed, going limp as he tried to catch his breath, that he whispered Nick’s name again.