Page 80 of The Evening Wolves

That was putting it mildly. He had spent the night after the fight at Tucker’s shuttling between John and Colt. If you could call it a fight. A fucking disgrace was a better term for it—the pepper spray had caught him by surprise, and although he’d been trained not to let it incapacitate him, it had still interfered with his vision and compromised his effectiveness. A couple of the assholes had gotten in some good punches and then shoved him, and he’d fallen. On the ice, in the dark, he couldn’t seem to regain his footing. All he could do was listen, and so he’d stopped shouting and tried to get to John. Tried and failed, he reminded himself. He had failed yet again.

Then, once John was being seen by a doctor—and undergoing what seemed to be the hospital’s entire catalogue of scans and tests—he’d rushed to check on his son, who was in an emergency department cubicle with cotton plugs stuffed up his nose, his shirt off as a middle-aged Indian woman taped his ribs. And then, once he was sure Colt was ok, he’d rushed back to see if his husband had a cerebral edema, or internal bleeding, or a ruptured kidney. It had gone on and on like that, in and out of rooms, running endlessly under fluorescent lights, like one of those stupid movies John and Colt loved with “Yakety Sax” playing in the background. Until, finally, John had been admitted for the night and had told Emery to take Colt home.

And now, Emery thought, he was paying the price for it.

In their bedroom, John’s newspaper lay on the floor, and the door to the bathroom was open. The shower was running. Water hissed and splashed. The familiar sound of John’s morning routine came—the sound of his steps on the tile, the change in the sound of the water as the spray hit his back. Emery sat on the bed, and after a while, the water stopped. The whisper of the towel. Wet footsteps. John appeared in the doorway a moment later, his body flushed from the heat of the shower, toweling his hair. He looked at Emery for a long time, the towel slowing until he dropped his hand to his side. He still had that lean, swimmer’s build, all that golden skin and dark ink and defined muscle, the kind of perfection that still, with shocking intensity, made Emery’s mouth dry, made him wonder by what twist of fate he was allowed to touch, to care for, to love. Bruises purpled his chest and belly, muscles expanding and contracting with his breathing. His dick was soft, but it looked heavy and full.

It was like being caught, Emery’s sudden awareness of John, of knowing that John was watching him watch John. A flush prickled up Emery’s neck and into his face. For one disorienting moment, it was like they were in high school again, Emery’s desire warring with his better judgment, his gaze coming back to John over and over again, even though he knew he was asking to get burned. And then the moment passed; they were partners and husbands and lovers, Emery reminded himself. They’d seen each other in the throes of passion. They’d seen each other sick. They’d seen each other in desperate need of a bathroom. Emery knew John, knew his mind and body, in a way that nobody else did. And there was no reason he ought to feel that adolescent discomfort at his own desire being exposed, at having the object of his desire fully present and bare to him.

But it lingered, a hint of it—a trace of sweat under his arms, the fresh itch of the Wildcats tee that usually was a comfort pick.

John watched him silently for another moment. And then something happened. It was like watching someone flick a switch. Light came on in his eyes. He twirled the towel against his leg, making a soft whump-whump sound as the cotton hit his calf, brushing the fine gold hairs there, a tiny smile curling his lips. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “Do you know how lucky I am?”

Emery watched him. His heart was beating faster. That prickle came again to the hollow of his throat. John’s dick was filling out now, and there was no mistaking it for a side effect of the warmth of the shower.

Crossing to the bed, John said, “Do you have any idea how incredibly lucky I am?” He dropped the towel and straddled Emery’s legs to sit in his lap. His dick was half-hard now, rubbing against Emery’s stomach, and Emery felt the twist in his own gut, his body’s automatic reaction—years of desire, decades of it, compounded by love.

John scooted up Emery’s thighs, making a soft pained noise as bruised muscles stretched, until his dick was trapped between them. He brought his mouth to Emery’s ear and rutted into him, continuing to harden. Emery was hard too, trapped under John’s weight, fighting against the combination of warm skin, the smell of John’s hair, the friction of bodies. John’s breaths came in uneven bursts—hints of what it must have cost him to move like this, to act like this, in spite of everything he’d been through.

“Slow down,” Emery said, settling a hand on John’s flank. “Your ribs.”

“Fuck my ribs. I need this. I need you.” His mouth was still by Emery’s ear, his breath hot and tickling, and now he leaned his head against Emery’s. He pressed hard, until the contact almost hurt, with a kind of urgency and need that Emery couldn’t unravel. “I am so fucking lucky. I love you so much. You are the most important thing in the world to me, do you know that?” He shuddered, breaking the rhythm of his hips, his dick grazing Emery’s shirt. “Do you?”

“Of course. And I love you, but—John, stop. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“I want you to fuck me. Do you remember the first time you fucked me?”

Emery remembered. The vulnerability that John had tried so hard to mask. The desire like a thing alive, hooking him in the guts. Finally, after all those years, the opportunity to see, to touch, to be present with, in a way that involved no shame, no hiding. Everything laid bare to the other. He remembered the sense of power, and all the years of powerlessness.

He clamped both hands on John’s thighs and said, “Stop.”

“I want it to be like that. You were so slow, so gentle, and you still fucked my brains out. The way you looked at me. I want you to look at me like that every day, like I’m Christmas morning and you’ve been waiting your whole life to open your present.” He was still pressing against Emery, and now Emery was aware of the day’s stubble on his jaw, the roughness of a fresh scab on his cheek. “Touch me.”

“John.”

But John reached down and took his hand, peeling it away from his thigh, and brought it to his dick. It was all so familiar. His hand tightened. He knew, because he’d wanted to know, how John liked it, and his hand moved. John let out a throaty noise. The rhythm of his hips broke again. One of his hands opened on Emery’s shoulder and tightened again, clawing for a moment until he could get a handful of shirt. His breathing hitched. It sounded like he was crying.

“Could we slow down—” Emery said.

“Let’s run away,” John said, his voice clotted, the words almost unrecognizable. “Let’s go somewhere, anywhere, together. We’ve got enough money. Let’s go back to the Virgin Islands. Let’s go to Tahiti, and we’ll lie in a pool all day and eat fresh fruit and fuck our brains out and love each other.”

Emery’s hand still stroked John, the scent of his arousal mixing with the smell of the soap now. “A vacation? Or what are you talking about?”

“It doesn’t matter. I just want to be away from here. Just want to be with you.”

“We can’t just run away. What about Colt and Evie?”

John’s breath hitched again. Emery’s free hand slid to the small of his back to steady him. He felt the dampness there, the first beginnings of sweat. It has to be hurting him, Emery thought. How much does this hurt him?

Then John laughed shakily. “You’re such a good dad,” he whispered. “I love that about you. I’d love to see you with a baby. What did Shaw say? I think my ovaries would explode.”

Emery stopped moving his hand, but John continued to thrust into the circle of his fingers.

“We could do it,” John whispered, clutching Emery to him. “We could do it. We could have a baby—I want a baby with you, oh God.”

He came. Most of the orgasm went onto Emery’s shirt, and the rest spilled onto his hand, running between his fingers, down his wrist. John’s body stilled. And then Emery realized, not quite. He was trembling, his hands still twisted in Emery’s shirt, face pressed against the side of Emery’s head. His breathing was ragged, and when Emery eased his hand away from John’s softening dick, John flinched and let out a low sound that was almost a moan.

Emery shushed him, one hand still bracing him at the small of his back. “Let’s get you onto the bed, and then you need to lie down.”

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