Somebody catch the motherfucking mule that just kicked the crap out of Lucky’s chest. No? Bo said no? “What do you mean you can’t? It’s legal now, even if some bigoted shitheads don’t like it.” His hands stopped listening to his commands and shook so hard he gripped the counter by his head to keep from toppling off his knees.
“Being legal’s got nothing to do with this.” Oh, for an appearance of The Dimple now.
“But you said you loved me. Wanted us to be together. To have a… family. For us to be a family. Together.” Family. More than Lucky deserved. He should have known his dreams were too good to be true. He didn’t deserve happy. Not after the shit ton of crap he’d done in his life.
Bo placed the ring box on the counter and took his time letting go. He dropped down onto his knees and took Lucky’s face between his palms. “Loving you has nothing to do with this.” A kiss took a bit of the sting out of rejection, but not much.
“Then what does?”
“Look at me.” He pulled Lucky’s head up until their eyes met. “If and when we decide to stand in front of our family and friends and pledge our lives to each other, I want it to be because we both want to. Not because one of us feels honor bound or afraid or anything else. Those aren’t good enough reasons.”
“But—”
“But nothing. When all this is over, if you still feel the same way, then we’ll talk. But no ring on my finger can make me love you any more than I already do. And if I have to say words for you to know I’ll always, always be here for you, then I’m not doing something right.” The next kiss lingered, Bo rubbing his lips against Lucky’s without trying to go farther.
For some reason, the simple contact of skin to skin felt more intimate than sex, cutting Lucky open and letting Bo get to the places inside he usually kept hidden behind a wall of bluster and bad temper.
The kiss gradually deepened. Lucky parted his lips and welcomed his partner’s tongue into his mouth, the taste of green tea and syrup. His partner. Not his husband.
One day. One day when Lucky didn’t have to search for words or wonder how to say them. When he wanted to marry Bo so badly he could get past his own self-doubts.
Bo loved him. Said he did. Showed he did. Lucky would show the commitment he once ran from. “I want to give you power of attorney. And if something goes wrong, do the right thing. I don’t want Charlotte to have to make the decision.”
“Why me?”
“She’s so softhearted and never gives up. She’d have me on life support for the next fifty years.” Lucky shuddered. “I’d like to think you love me enough to let me go.” And he trusted Bo to do right by him.
Bo blinked a few times, eyes glimmering. “I do. But we’re not going to have to go there. Everything will turn out fine. You’ll donate a part of you and come back home. To our home. In two months, you’ll be good as new, and your dad will recover.”
God, are you listening? “Yeah.”
“Sure you don’t want to let your parents know you’re alive? That it’s you doing the donating?”
Oh hell no. “And risk them telling me to fuck off again?”
Bo snorted. “They didn’t tell you to fuck off.”
Steel bands tightened around Lucky’s chest. He wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t. “They told me not to call back. If that’s not ‘fuck off,’ I don’t know what is.”
“One of these days, I want us all to sit down and talk. The man they turned their backs on isn’t the man you are today.” The world became a better place when Lucky had Bo’s lips against his forehead.
“Maybe one day.” When Hell froze over.
“Lucky, I mean it. You talk a good talk, but I know it bothers you not to have your folks in your life. What if we have kids one day? Would it be fair to keep Grandma and Grandpa away from the kiddies?”
“You don’t understand…”
“No, I don’t. I’ll never understand what it’s like to have a living mother I can call and talk to. Or a father who taught me to hunt and fish. Gave me useful advice instead of a smack across the mouth. Who smelled of sweat from an honest day’s work instead of booze.” Bo shook his head. “Sorry. I shouldn’t say such things. Sometimes, though, I’m jealous of you. You had a wonderful, close relationship, and I want you to have that again.”
Maybe not the words Lucky wanted right now, but the words he needed. Bo still wanted a family with him.
Good enough for now.
And if and when Lucky survived, they’d talk about trying one more time to reach out to his parents. Hadn’t he and Bo promised while waiting to die in a tunnel in Mexico? But when he did reconnect, he wanted to introduce the family to his husband.
If he used his original name again and they hyphenated, any kids might be in junior high by the time they learned to spell Schollenberger-Lucklighter. Or maybe Schollenberger-Lucklighter-Harrison?
Something else to worry about. Maybe they’d should throw out all previously used names and pick something simple for a change. Then maybe signing checks wouldn’t take so long. Smith. Nah. Walter got there first. Something short, one syllable. Were there any last names with three letters? Two? Or maybe he’d do like famous people who went by one name.
“Stop thinking so hard.”
“I’m not!” Lucky snapped, though if he contemplated his future any harder smoke might pour from his ears.
“Yes, you are. You got those ‘I’m thinking’ wrinkles right here.” Bo ran a finger between Lucky’s eyebrows.
The bad thing about having someone around who knew him so well was they knew him too well. He couldn’t get away with shit.
“Now, I believe you have an advantage over me. You have on too many clothes.” Bo plucked at Lucky’s T-shirt.
Lucky normally wasn’t one to do as told. But when told to do what he wanted to do anyway? Yeah, buddy. And he’d even swallow his pride and pretend this wasn’t make-up sex to smooth over Bo ripping out his heart.
No. Not fair. Bo wanted the hearts and flowers. Needed hearts and flowers. He wasn’t the kind of guy to settle to make things easier.
Not something Lucky would forget again.
He lost himself in the feel of skin on skin and the prickles of Bo’s unshaven cheeks. The cold tile on his bare ass when he shimmied out of his jeans added to his awareness of the moment.
Tomorrow could go fuck itself. He had today. He had Bo. The house he’d never even realized he’d wanted until Bo opened his eyes. The dog. The cat who’d chosen him. His life was as close to perfect as it had ever been, with him sliding his body against Bo’s.
No time now to worry about condoms or no condoms. With hands and hard thighs to hump and necks to bite and suck, nothing else mattered.
Bo kissed Lucky’s eyelids and ran his callused fingertips over Lucky’s skin, skating over a nipple, brushing against the straw-colored hair on Lucky’s chest.
He wrapped his fingers around Lucky’s wrists, raised them over Lucky’s head and pinned them to the floor. His gaze smoldering hot enough to melt lead, he descended, forcing his mouth down hard on Lucky’s.
What did it cost him to give the roughness Lucky wanted while risking his own triggers?
“You don’t have to,” Lucky murmured against Bo’s mouth.
“I want to.” Bo released Lucky’s arms to slide a cushioning hand between Lucky’s skull and the tile floor. He took both their cocks in the other hand.
Lucky grabbed any bit of Bo his arms could reach. Tugging, holding, never letting go. Not merely sex. Something beyond sex. Something better than a million random back alley encounters with a million random guys. Sex once meant a hurried fuck with some nameless guy. No kisses, no gentle caresses. Just hard, fast, and mean, until they came, zipped up, and slunk away without a backward glance.
With Bo, he’d learned to make sex more than a race to the finish line.
Lucky found friction for his cock against Bo’s thigh, and Bo answered in kind. They fell into rhythm, mouths joined, bodies melded together.
The two of them. Nothing to intrude on them here. How had Lucky ever existed without Bo? How had he ever…
“Oh, damn,” Bo said. That had to be the most erotic thing ever, especially when he jerked, once, twice, three times, adding slipperiness to Lucky’s thigh, all while staring deeply into Lucky’s eyes. Too deep. No secrets, no hidden thoughts.
Laid open. Bare. And trusting Bo to never use Lucky’s weaknesses against him.
Lucky fought not to come, focusing everything on the sheer bliss on Bo’s face, the way he tried to keep pumping Lucky when all his brain cells pooled up in a big puddle of contentment. Where Lucky would be in…
Spasms hit with the force of a bomb. He gave up fighting and let loose, moaning out his passion. Bo grabbed Lucky’s cheeks and swallowed the moan in a frantic play of tongue against tongue. The ebbing shockwaves crested again.
For moments the pleasure held him tight, as tightly as Bo’s arms. Lucky lay on the floor, half on and half off his lover, each breath, each heartbeat a precious gift.
Reality crashed down. He’d proposed, and Bo had said no.
Even sex couldn’t dull the pain.