Second Chances (21 page)

“What?” he rasped out.

“Don’t fucking leave me. Don’t break my heart.” And I couldn’t look at him. He nodded into my chest, closed his eyes, and smiled.

September 2006

T
HE
weather in San Francisco was fantastic any time of year, but the sun seemed to be out every day I had been there, and I was so relaxed I thought I was turning into Jell-O.

It didn’t hurt that my friends Bill and Chris had wined and dined me all over Marin and Sausalito. I’d long ago done all the touristy shit, and Castro Street left me a little high and dry. For some it was the Mecca of gay life, but for me it seemed a little… redundant. If I was looking to get laid, I’d have headed there in a heartbeat, but that wasn’t why I was there.

Antonio was due to drive up from Los Angeles later. He’d decided on the spur of the moment to visit his mom and let her see Jason for the first time in several years. His sister also lived in the area, so it made sense to do it before school started. It was a little funny that this trip came up so suddenly when he found out I was going to be out there. Alone. In San Francisco. With a million other gay guys.

And the phone call was, I don’t know, hysterical. Ridiculous. Fucking amazing. “I decided to come out and visit my mom and sister. When can I see you?”

I waited while what he said sunk in. “What the fuck, Antonio? I’ve been here twelve hours.”

“You don’t want to see me?” he carefully asked.

Fuck. Fuckity fuck. “When will you be here?”

He needed to leave again early the next morning to get back to L.A. and his mom and Jason. She wasn’t in the best of health, it turned out, and he didn’t want to leave Jason with her very long. Antonio was also hoping to visit some of the suppliers of computer components he used, to talk to them about some design ideas. He really should have stayed in Los Angeles but had insisted on coming up for the day. And night. It was beyond cute that he insisted on seeing me. I couldn’t help but laugh and tell him no way was he pissing on my leg to mark his territory.

Hanging up on his sputtering denial, I’d arranged for us to take a tour of the wine country. I was up and ready when he called me from his rental and let me know he was downstairs. I grabbed my wallet and key and went down to the front of the hotel. I climbed in and said hi, then started to give him directions. Before I knew it I was pulled into a kiss. “Now that’s a proper welcome,” he said and laughed.

We headed across the Golden Gate Bridge and up into Marin. The conversation was light and fun, and it wasn’t long before we pulled into the first winery. We got out and walked around until the tour started. Afterward, they always gave customers the opportunity to buy a bottle of their wine and light snacks, so I grabbed a bottle of a Shiraz, some cheese, and baguettes.

We walked out into the vineyard and sat and drank wine and fed each other cheese on crusty French bread. I asked him about the flight, and how Jason was doing. How his mother and sister were. “I love them and it’s good to see them. Jason needs to know his family on my side so he sees where he comes from,” he said.

The sun was warm and nice, so we stretched out on our backs, talked about nothing, and dozed. I woke to him leaning over me. He studied my face and eyes for a long moment, then whispered, “I missed you” and kissed me. This one was tender and spoke of things I wasn’t really ready to talk about right now. My heart gave a little leap, but I pushed it back down.

Antonio was fine with showing how much he cared for me, loved me, when we were alone, or in a safe place where nobody knew us. But he was still scared of Jason finding out we were anything other than buddies and the news getting back to his ex-wife. The fact that he had an ironclad custody agreement didn’t mean anything to him. He almost lost his son once and that seemed to make everything else secondary.

And could I really blame him? I didn’t have a kid, but I was an uncle and would kill anyone who tried to mess with my little nieces and nephews. I just didn’t get that our relationship was a danger. Jason already knew me and was comfortable with me. The ex had met me, and I’d even picked him up and dropped him off a couple of times when last-minute massage clients came up.

Right now, that wasn’t a deal breaker. We were just starting whatever this was, and it was nice. Since my birthday, we had a couple of sleepovers. There was a solid connection based on friendship, and the sex, the sex was great. We’d exchanged blowjobs and jacked off together but hadn’t taken it further yet.

I wasn’t sure I was ready to commit to anybody right now. Much less a man with the issues Antonio had. But that didn’t stop me from taking what was offered. The sweet kisses. The promise of more.

“It’s about time for us to head back to the hotel so we can beat the traffic across the bridge,” I told him. He grunted and laid his head on my chest. I pulled him into a hug and held him for a few minutes, then popped his ass and told him to get moving.

“Fucker,” he laughed as he climbed off me and up.

“If you’re a very good boy the rest of the afternoon, we’ll see,” I growled. He stood over me for a second, just looking at me until he got what I meant. The slow, red flush that went over his face told me everything. He reached down to help me up and we made our way to the car and headed back to the city.

W
E
WENT
out to dinner at the oldest Italian restaurant in the city. It’d been rebuilt after the two big earthquakes in 1906 and 1989 that made San Francisco such an interesting place to live. The meal was terrific and relaxed. But Antonio looked at me and blushed more than once.

Finally I asked him what was going on. “What you said earlier,” he leaned over and whispered to me.

I thought back and then remembered what he was talking about. “So you mean you like the idea of me fucking you?”

He looked everywhere but at me and said, “Jesus, do you have to announce it to the world?”

I grinned and said, “Waiting for the answer, babe.”

He nodded and fiddled with his flatware.

“I think that can be arranged. Want dessert? They have great
panna cotta
here.” I was playing it cool but inside, I was anything but. It felt like all the blood in my body was pooled in my crotch and that was at war with where I needed it to be able to think. Because taking this step meant something to me. It took things from just messing around to baring my soul. I couldn’t just fuck—I wasn’t built that way. I made love.

In the cab on the way back to the hotel, I asked the driver to stop at a drugstore. He caught my eye in the rearview mirror and grinned. I winked and reached over and rubbed Antonio’s leg. He started to pull away, but then relaxed. I leaned over and said, “Nobody knows us here, it’s okay.” He nodded. After I ran in and bought condoms and lube, we arrived back at the hotel and went upstairs.

He’d brought his overnight bag in with him earlier and looked ready to grab it and hit the shower. I pulled him into a hug and kiss first, then felt him relax.

“We need to talk about this first,” I said. I wanted him to be comfortable, but I needed him to know what this step meant to me too. There was a small loveseat in the room, and we sat facing each other, legs tangled up.

I took a deep breath and dove right in. “I haven’t been with anyone except Brian, well, and now you, in over ten years.” I stopped to let it sink in and tried to find the right words to explain how I felt. He nodded for me to go on, and I told him the whole story of how Brian and I’d met. How we became friends and were for several years. Then how the friendship turned into love. When I realized I loved him I wasn’t with anyone until he and I decided we wanted to be together.

“When he cheated on me, it almost destroyed me. Antonio,” I started, and all the emotions that were my relationship with Brian were right there, right then. “I loved him, I trusted him. We said ‘I love you’ and ‘There won’t be anybody else,’ and then he did that to me.” I could feel the tears threaten to drop.

He started to reach out for me, but I put out a hand. I needed to get through this alone. “And I found a way to forgive him, but there wasn’t anybody else when he was gone.”

I reached up to rub my eyes and looked at him. “What I’m trying to say is, I can’t do casual, and that’s what we’ve been doing. We’re buddies, and now we have benefits. But, Antonio, if we do this… if we… if I make love to you, I mean it.” I reached out to him then and grabbed his hand. Squeezed tight and saw the vulnerability in his eyes.

“And it has to mean that
you
mean it too. That you want to be mine. That we’re going somewhere with this,” I said. I pulled his hand to my chest. “If you don’t mean it, I’m done. I won’t be giving anyone another chance.”

I stopped there. I’d probably said too much already, put too much on him. Asked more than he could, or would, give. So then I waited.

“Can I talk now?” he asked. I nodded. He kept his hand over my heart and bent down to kiss where his hand lay. “I never meant for this to happen. I never pictured myself in love, didn’t know I was capable of it. Fuck, the only person that ever got that far in was my buddy Jake.”

He caught what sounded like a sob in his throat before it could escape. “We grew up together, and when I got out of school, right before I went to boot camp, Jake got into a thing with a gang in the hood. I, he… fuck Mark, they shot him before I could get there and he died in my arms. On the goddamned street. And I loved him. Fuck, maybe I was in love with him, I don’t know.” He shook his head and looked away to compose himself.

I held onto that hand on my chest. When he got himself back under control, he started again. “I can’t promise you it’ll be easy for me. That I won’t be fucking scared off my ass. But I know this much.” And he pushed me backward and climbed on top of me. “I love you, and I will do anything,
everything
, to be the man you deserve. Don’t give up on me. Please. I’ll beg you if you want me to, but please Mark, just don’t give up on me.”

There aren’t many moments in life when someone bares his heart and soul wide open for you. I was lucky, I was blessed with it twice. Brian, now Antonio.

“I won’t, but you have to promise you won’t either,” I said.

He reached down and held my head between his two strong hands. “I won’t. I swear it to you,” he breathed. “Make love to me, Mark. Make me yours.”

I nodded. He kissed my forehead and stared at me for a minute, then got up. Took his bag and went to the bathroom and started the shower.

I laid there for a couple of minutes and said a couple of prayers. Thanked God for letting me find someone again. Whispered to Brian that I would always love and remember him, and that he was right when he said Antonio loved me. Then I got up to get myself ready, get my iPod out and lower the light. Opened the condom package and lube and set them on the nightstand.

When Antonio was finished showering, I was already waiting to jump in and freshen up. I gave him a quick hug from behind as he stood in front of the mirror brushing his teeth. Let him feel me against his back, ran my hands down his front and cupped him. Ground my half-hard cock against his rock-hard ass, then jumped in the shower. “Wait for me in bed,” I told him.

When I was finished, I could hear Tuck and Patty on my iPod in the other room. The lights were just bright enough that I could see him stretched out waiting for me.

I went to the bed and lay on my side. He rolled over to face me. I pulled him to me and kissed him. I started it slow and easy, wanting him to see how much I cared. I let him explore me with his hands. I ran mine down his back and grabbed his ass, stroked and squeezed it.

When the kiss started to gain in intensity and heat, I moved on top of him and deepened it. His mouth was on fire. He sucked my tongue like he had my cock. I could feel how hard he was, and how he ground his hips up against mine to get some friction. He still shaved his crotch, and my dick appreciated the smoothness and the hardness.

Being with him was different, because he was used to being the aggressor, I could tell. I worked to tame him, make him remember what being relaxed and letting me take the lead felt like. His body knew what it wanted, and I knew how to make him feel good.

I slowly pulled away from the kiss to move my attention to his jaw, lightly dropping kisses behind his ear and nibbling his earlobe. He tasted like salt as I let my tongue trail down his neck to his shoulder. My hands roamed over his chest and down his sides, stroking him like I did during a massage, long and slow and steady. My mouth painted long wet stripes across his chest and lingered around his nipples.

I heard him as he murmured, “Please,” and I let him have what he wanted. I sucked and licked and bit his nipples, worked one with my mouth and the other with my fingers. Antonio thrust his chest up begging, sometimes for me to stop and sometimes to never stop. Always
More
,
please
. I had him totally into the feelings, the heat.

When I raked the flat of my tongue and scraped my teeth over his stomach and abs to his crotch, he groaned, and I moved between his legs, forced his legs wider. My mouth sucked the crease where his leg joined groin, and I raked my teeth across that thin, tender flesh. He shivered, his cock leaked drops onto his belly.