33.
Staring down at the pile of paperwork in front of him, Brian sighed heavily. The words on the paper might as well have been written in a foreign language for all the sense they made to him. Try as he might, he was unable to concentrate; he was unable to focus on his job, not when his mind was filled with what had happened the night before. Justin had made him a promise – he had promised he would try. A small smile fluttered across Brian’s face; a promise, that they still had a chance of a future together. The thought didn’t even make him want to grab his crotch to see if his balls had been traded in for a pussy, considering he had once said that thoughts like these were puke-inducing.
Giving up on trying to read through his notes, Brian leaned back in his chair and blew out a slow breath. He, too, had made promises. And they hadn’t choked him. They hadn’t caused flash flooding, or plagues of locusts. And fire and brimstone hadn’t rained down upon him when he had told Justin that he loved him. Words – he finally understood, irrefutably, why words were so important. Because if he hadn’t told Justin how he felt, then Justin wouldn’t have peered out from behind his self-imposed walls. He wouldn’t have made Brian that promise. And he wouldn’t have had the chance to hold his lover during the night.
God; to see behind the walls that Justin had constructed had nearly broken something inside him. Justin had finally let him in - had finally let him see just how much pain and suffering had been going on inside that cherished, blond head. To know that he had blamed himself – to know that Justin had thought that he had been unable to satisfy him when they had lived together… Brian shuddered. Justin had more than satisfied him – it had been his own guilt and self-loathing that had pushed Brian to trick as heavily as he had done; that, and his inability to trust the depth of Justin’s devotion to him.
And it had only been the tip of the iceberg that Brian had glimpsed behind those walls. Month upon month of self-imposed loathing had more than tarnished his Sunshine – it had all but permanently snuffed it out. Brian shuddered again when he thought about how close he had come to losing Justin in a way that made lies and miscommunication seem like nothing more than a rectifiable mistake. If Justin had succeeded… If he’d left this world, Brian knew deep in his gut that he would have soon followed. Not in some Romeo-esque, falling-on-his-sword type of way; no, nothing that dramatic. But he would have simply stopped. Stopped living. Stopped being. Stopped existing.
He’d begun to think that he’d been failing to make headway with Justin, that he had still been losing him. No matter how tightly he had tried holding on, it felt like Justin had been slipping through his fingers like smoke. Justin had been looking at him with blank eyes for so long that he had been convinced he had merely been waiting for Justin to walk away from him once and for all. But something had changed in Justin while they had been talking – something he said had triggered some sort of pivotal thought in Justin’s mind. And Brian had seen the glow that Alex had spoken about all those months ago flicker to life behind those wounded eyes.
“It was ours.”
Swallowing hard, Brian nodded slightly. Justin had been right – it had been their fault. Their fault and their relationship. He’d been too panicked about letting Justin get closer than he already had been, and Justin had been too scared that when push came to shove, Brian would choose his family and friends over him. It was up to them to fix it; to put those fears to rest. He truly was becoming fluent in Justin Taylorisms; their talk had left Justin pale, and the only word that came to mind to describe him was fragile. It hadn’t taken a lot to coax Justin back onto the couch, where they had made light conversation, agreeing without a word to shelve the heavier subject of what remained of their tattered life together.
And as Brian had watched him, Justin had curled up in a ball on the end of the couch, and had simply gone to sleep. Eyes shut, cheeks flushed, and lashes forming a curtain over the bruised skin beneath his eyes. His entire body had ached with the need to curl down behind that slim body, and hold him close; to breath in his natural scent, and ward off any of the monsters that might threaten the sleep that Justin had so obviously needed. Instead, he had sat on the floor near Justin’s head, and had combed his fingers lightly though his hair; tousling the strands with his fingers before smoothing them back into place as he listened to the quiet little snores that escaped Justin’s slack lips.
When Daphne had come home, she had taken one look at them and sighed before quietly suggesting to him that he help Justin to bed. Warm and docile in his arms, Brian had done what Daphne had said and had guided Justin to his room. It had been in that darkened room that Justin had turned into his sanctuary, that he had finally gotten to alleviate that ache; Justin hadn’t said a word as Brian pulled the covers up over his shoulders, but when Justin reached out and took his hand, Brian had heard the silent plea as clearly as if Justin had shouted it.
He had eased himself down beside his lover and when he slipped his arm under Justin’s neck, the blond had curled into his arms and let out a sigh that had sounded half-weary, half-mournful. And in the quietness of the night, with his nose buried in that tousled, blond hair, Brian had felt something inside himself settle when Justin had relaxed in his embrace and tucked his head under Brian’s chin like he had done so many times in the past. Another drawn-out sigh, and then the familiar weight of Justin’s hand sliding across his waist and onto the center of his back. Holding on, for the first time in longer than he could remember.
Peace. He’d forgotten what it felt like; forgotten that he had spent hours in the past watching Justin sleep. Feeling the heat of his breath against his throat, and the familiar, heavy warmth of Justin’s body slackening when he fell further into sleep. Brian had only let go of him once during the next hour; he had slipped from the bed and toed his shoes off, before crawling under the covers and guiding Justin back into his arms. And when Justin had fisted his hand in the material that stretched across his chest, Brian had closed his eyes and slept better than he had in months.
He had woken at two am; Justin had twitched within the circle of his arms, and as he had opened his eyes, Justin had rolled over and pressed back against him. Back to chest. Thighs pressed close. And the curve of those soft ass cheeks pressed up against his groin through the thin material of Justin’s pants. Brian bit back a groan at the memory. He had buried his face in Justin’s hair; had skimmed his lips over the sleep-warmed skin at the nape of his neck as Justin had grasped his hand where it had been resting against his stomach and pulled it further around himself. And the need inside him had slowly risen, along with his cock, as Justin had burrowed further into his arms. Memories had cascaded through his mind; sounds and images of things long past. And he’d been helpless against the onslaught.
He’d been helpless to shut away the memory of what Justin’s skin tasted like when he was writhing beneath him, on the verge of orgasm, as sweat beaded across his skin. What the flush of sex looked like as it slowly mapped its way across that soft, ivory body and mottled his skin pink. The salty tang of his cock when he sucked it into his mouth, or just how fucking tight Justin’s ass was when he was buried balls-deep in it. The sounds that Justin was incapable of biting back: whether it be high-pitched gasps or gut-deep moans, or the pure filth that would spill from between kiss-swollen lips as he begged Brian to fuck him harder, deeper, more, more, more.
And as those memories tore through his brain, he’d been powerless to stop the slow rock of his hips against Justin’s ass. Justin had mumbled in his sleep, but he had still pressed back against him; a lazy roll of his hips, and Brian had rocked back against him in answer. Another rub of his cock against that rounded flesh and he had become so caught up in his memories that he found himself curving his hand inside Justin’s pants and trying to ease them down over his hip before he quite knew what was happening.
For the space of a few seconds, he had visions of tugging Justin’s pants off and pressing his cock into his tight hole. Of thrusting, and grunting, and burning away the past in a storm of necessity and passion; of reminding his quixotic lover of everything they had once shared together, and the fact that he would always be the first man who had tasted and touched his body. But as quickly as that thought filled his head, Brian was edging away from the temptation in his arms and dragging a shaking hand down over his mouth. He knew Justin wasn’t ready for that - his lover had admitted that sex was the furthest thing from his mind, that he simply wasn’t able to give Brian that kind of relationship.
Desperate to respect the boundaries that Justin so obviously needed; determined to prove to him that he was serious about wanting this chance, Brian had tucked the blond under the covers and had slipped away into the night. The twenty-minute drive back to the loft had been a lesson in self-control, but he had barely made it through his front door before he was pulling his jeans down to mid-thigh and jerking his cock in a rough motion that had him dropping to his knees and spilling his cum within a half-dozen strokes. His orgasm had been painful in its intensity and had confirmed what he already knew: it didn’t matter what trick Brian sought out. No one would ever bring him to his knees the way Justin did.
Brian couldn’t help the self-depreciating smile that crossed his face. Alex was right – there were moments when he wondered what the fuck it was he was doing. He barely recognized the man who looked back at him in the mirror each day. But then he’d catch sight of the photograph beside his bed, and the image of his lover looking back at him would strengthen his resolve. He would fix this. He would continue to work with Alex, and then he would work on getting his lover back where he belonged – in his arms, and in his bed. And if the little twat thought he’d ever have the chance of leaving him again… well… he had another thing coming.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The soft knock on his door had Brian looking up and a smile crossing his lips when he caught sight of Justin standing in the open doorway with a bagged lunch in his hand. Beckoning him closer, Brian closed the folder he had been reading as Justin closed the door behind him, and then crossed his office to sink down into one of the chairs that was on the other side of his desk. Tilting his head slightly, Brian watched as Justin’s gaze jumped from the desk to his face and back again for a minute, before he finally met Brian’s eyes.
“You weren’t there when I woke up.”
There was a strange tone in Justin’s voice, and Brian sucked his lips into his mouth. The tentative agreement between them was still too new for him to voice what had happened, but he still felt the need to be honest with Justin. And when the blond tilted his head, Brian nodded.
“I went home,” he said finally. “I didn’t want to assume that I could stay.”
Justin nibbled on the edge of his lip as he nodded, and Brian leaned back in his chair slightly.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked, and Justin lowered his eyes before jerking his shoulder.
But when Brian murmured his name, Justin squared his shoulders and lifted his eyes. Resolution shone in his gaze, and he licked his lips briefly before he spoke.
“I, uh… had a bad moment, so I got up, and I wrote it all down. I rang Alex before I left for work this morning, and I’m going to his office later on this afternoon.”
“Bad dream?” Brian asked tentatively, and Justin shook his head.
“No. Bad thoughts. They tend to drown out any reason that I have, and they take over until they are all I can hear,” he said softly.
“Can I ask what Alex said?” Brian asked as he leaned across the desk slightly and Justin shrugged.
“He said that they are a manifestation of my fears,” he said finally. “He said until I face those fears, that I will still have… moments, I suppose, where those thoughts try to drag me back down.”
“And what were the thoughts about?” Brian asked, and Justin blew out an unsteady breath.
“I woke up alone,” he said finally, as he peered down at his hands. “And I let doubt tell me where you had gone.”
Brian sank back into his chair and briefly closed his eyes. Now he knew what that tone was; the two times Justin had woken up alone in a hospital, he had been drinking and fucking his pain away. Even after Justin had come to live with him, memories had pushed Brian out of bed and into the night to find a trick to alleviate his pain. And that behavior had resulted in Justin’s current thought process. He no doubt thought he had gone out looking for sex; it was a thought that he couldn’t let linger. Blowing out a deep breath, Brian leaned forward and braced his arms on the desk. He waited until Justin met his eyes, before he spoke quietly.
“You slept in my arms for four hours. And when you rolled over, I woke up. I was still holding you. You were warm and pliant… and I wanted nothing more than to tug your pants down, roll you onto your back, and taste every inch of you. I had to leave, Justin; I know you aren’t ready for that. I understand… But I had to leave before I forgot that, and I did what my body was demanding and sank inside you. Otherwise you would have woken up in my arms, and not been left to wonder if I was out there fucking some random trick.”
Justin’s eyes widened, and Brian managed to smile slightly as he shrugged when he saw the truth of his statement play out across Justin’s face.
“And you went home?” Justin asked, and Brian nodded, even as he fought back a smile. Justin’s voice had risen slightly at the end of his sentence; it reminded him of the wonderment he had once heard in Justin’s voice the afternoon they had shared ice-cream kisses, when he had asked Justin if he wanted to come over after work.
“Yeah…,” he said softly. “I barely made it through the front door before I was jerking off.”
Color flared across Justin’s cheeks, and Brian shifted in his chair as his cock thickened behind the zipper of his pants. Staring at his lover, he watched as Justin swallowed hard; his eyes were slightly dilated, and his lips were parted as he stared at Brian mutely. But then he shifted in his chair, and Brian saw the surprised look that crossed Justin’s face when he glanced down at his own lap. His eyes flicked back up to meet Brian’s, and the look in them spoke of shocked desire.
Brian licked his lips as his eyes darted across Justin’s face. He’d been honest when he said that he knew Justin wasn’t ready to be his lover again. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t remind the blond of what they had once shared. Taking a deep breath, he rose to his feet and came around the desk. Justin looked up at him, and while uncertainty played across his face, he still took Brian’s hand and rose to his feet; but his hand did rise to rest in warning against Brian’s chest when he stepped closer to that lovely, slim body. Resting his face against Justin’s, Brian breathed in as his own hand rose to stroke gently down Justin’s side. Standing close together, feeling the warmth pressing back against him, Brian spoke quietly.
“Do you know that you have a single freckle on your taint? This tiny little brown mark that stands out against the paleness of your skin; I can find it with my eyes closed. It marks the starting spot on your body. From that single spot, Justin, I can lick up and suck your cock, or I can lick down and rim you until you lose the ability to speak.”
Brian felt the jerk of Justin’s body against his own, and he curled his hand around Justin’s hip to steady him. Knowing every inch of bone and flesh, Brian stroked his thumb across the curve he could feel beneath the fine woolen trousers that Justin wore. Damp air brushed his ear with every breath that Justin took; the skin on his cheek where it was pressed against Brian’s own face had heated at Brian’s words, and Brian turned his head slightly and breathed in the scent of shampoo and soap.
“Your cock is a thing of beauty; for a guy your size, it sure as hell shocked the shit out of me the first time that I saw it,” he murmured.
“You’re a size queen.”
Justin’s voice barely stirred the air between them, but Brian still grinned when those soft words reached his ears.
“Yes, I am,” he said bluntly. “But I also know perfection when I see it. From your taint, I can suck on your balls – tug on them, and feel them roll in my mouth. But the real reward is above… thick, and pink, with the slightest curve that hit all the good spots inside when you fucked me. Thick enough that you take my breath away when I swallow you down, and you lose control and fuck my mouth.”
Brian pressed his lips together and hummed slightly; Justin’s breathing had quickened with each word, and his hand against Brian’s chest had gone from pressing in warning, to fisting the material of Brian’s shirt.
“And when I lick down, I know each and every fold of skin between your cheeks; I know that when I run the flat of my tongue across your hole, your entire body trembles, and breaks out in goosebumps. And when I push it inside you, you go from trembling to arching up against my mouth. Trying to get more of my tongue inside your ass… Jesus… the way you react when I’m rimming you… so fucking good… so fucking vocal and open about how good it makes you feel. I could spend hours rimming you, and still be starving for another taste.”
Turning his head, Brian brushed the tip of his nose across Justin’s temple; his cock was rock hard behind his zipper, and throbbing insistently as he breathed in the tempting scent of sweat that was beginning to bead across Justin’s skin. He was incapable of stopping himself from flicking the tip of his tongue lightly across the skin beneath his mouth, and his grip on Justin’s hip tightened when Justin’s head thudded against his shoulder.
“But as much as I miss the taste of your ass, there’s something I miss more,” he murmured, and when a soft sound was muffled against his shoulder, Brian smoothed his hands up and down Justin’s sides.
“My ass?”
It was faint, but the slightly bitter tone spoke volumes and it caused Brian to immediately shake his head as his brain scrambled to climb out of the seductive haze it had disappeared into, and out into the place it needed to be where Justin didn’t think that all he was, was a tight hole for Brian to take advantage of. Baby steps… a reminder…
“No…”
He whispered it, and Justin slowly lifted his head and looked up at him. Brushing his thumb over Justin’s bottom lip, Brian smiled wryly.
“This is what I miss the most. Your taste. The way your mouth fits to mine. The way you use your whole mouth when kissing… the way I could lose myself inside a kiss with you, and not miss the time… Jesus, I miss that.”
Justin’s eyes narrowed slightly, and his chin came up at a stubborn angle.
“Are you seriously telling me that if you could only chose between my mouth and my ass, that you’d choose my mouth?” he asked, and Brian grinned in relief at the disbelief he heard in Justin’s voice.
“Yep,” he said, and Justin snorted when he saw the humor that danced in his eyes.
“Ok, I’ll bite – why my mouth?” he asked, and when Brian stepped closer to him again, a little squeak escaped his lips as Brian lightly pinched his ribs.
“Because, your mouth is mine,” he murmured. “You said, you can fuck who you want… but you can’t kiss anyone but me on the mouth. I hold you to that.”
“I kissed Tommy,” Justin said quietly, and Brian reached out to brush his thumb over that plump bottom lip again.
“I know. I saw,” he said finally. “You made sure his first kiss was everything he’d hoped for.”
Justin looked startled for a minute, before he shrugged as he lowered his eyes.
“I told him that the first kiss you ever give is a gift and it should be treated as such,” he said softly, and then shook his head as a wry smile curved his lips.
Brian wanted to wince as he remembered the thought process he had had when he’d seen the kiss Justin had shared with Tommy. He hadn’t treated Justin’s first kiss as a gift; not the first kiss, or the fact that it had been the first time he had even been with a man. Oh, he’d been careful with that pale body; he’d been as gentle as he could the first time; he’d taken care when he had eased tongue, fingers, and then cock into the virgin tight passage. He hadn’t realized just how precious the gift Justin had given him that night had been.
But now he did - he’d known since Chris Hobbs had tried taking Justin away from him. Had known since he had watched his lover walk away from him with another man. Now he just had to figure out how to show Justin that if he came back to him, that he wouldn’t take that gift for granted. Not now. Not ever again. Easing back from Justin, from the temptation of his lips, Brian gave him a crooked smile, and then gestured towards the door.
“Come on; you need to eat,” he said, and when a small crease appeared between Justin’s eyes, Brian guided him forward with a hand to the small of his back. “If that’s a P&J sandwich in that bag, Sunshine, you are doing yourself a serious disservice.”
He paused briefly, and then licking his lips, he spoke quietly.
“What time are you going to be finished with Alex?” he asked, and Justin shrugged.
“My appointment is at four thirty,” he said as he lifted his hand to chew on his thumb nail. “Why?”
Tugging his hand away from his mouth, Brian guided it towards his own mouth and pressed a light kiss to the damp tip.
“Can I take you out for dinner?” he asked, and Justin blew out a shaky breath as his eyes darted back and forth between his thumb where it rested against Brian’s lips, and his eyes. And when he finally nodded, Brian smiled and released his hand.
“Go to lunch, Sunshine,” he said quietly. “I’ll pick you up at five thirty.”
Justin stepped out of his office, and Brian leaned against the doorway for a minute as he watched the blond walk down the corridor towards the staff room. And when Justin glanced back him with a quizzical look on his face, Brian smiled and gestured him on. It was only after Justin turned the corner that Brian headed back to his desk. Picking up the phone, he shook his head as he felt a small smile curve his mouth; he had a date to organize.