THIS WAS harder than he thought it’d be. A holiday that had never invited any special meaning to Trick was now sad and disappointing without Edwin.
It hadn’t even been a week, but Trick didn’t know how much more he could handle. Maybe that was melodramatic. If it was, he didn’t care.
There was nothing good on TV, nothing that would hold his attention and keep his mind from wandering to Edwin and wondering what he was up to at that moment. Hosts he’d never seen before announced performances by musicians he’d never heard of. They were still hours from midnight, but the celebrations were gearing up already. Trick was toying with the idea of taking a Nyquil and heading to bed.
Seven thirty was a little too early for bed, even for him.
Instead he reached over to the little side table next to the sofa and pulled the drawer open. From inside he lifted a box identical to the one he’d given Edwin for Christmas. If he was going to be melodramatic, he might as well go all the way.
Opening the lid of the box, he saw the little vial of fairy dust, blue and sparkly. It was the same color as Edwin’s eyes, and it filled Trick with longing.
He stared at it until the edges of its form began to wobble slightly. It was still difficult to wrap his head around the fact that Edwin had actually gone. Over and over he found himself waiting for Edwin to show up, or reminding himself to tell Edwin something later. It always took a minute to realize he was really gone.
The room was quiet, and Trick was contemplating allowing himself to wallow. It wasn’t going to make him feel any better, but isn’t that what people did after they lost the person they loved?
So this wasn’t a conventional breakup. Trick was still holding out hope that Edwin would change his mind, or the stars would align in some mysterious way that would send him hurtling back to New York City and into Trick’s arms. But surely even a weird sort of limbo-type separation was cause for eating the ice cream right out of the carton?
“What in the holy fuck!” Trick exclaimed, launching himself from the sofa when he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder.
His heart was beating hard enough to bruise the inside of his chest, but when he turned, it stopped.
“Edwin!” Trick hurtled himself over the back of the couch, not wanting to take the time to go around it, and threw himself at Edwin. The force knocked them both backward, upending the lamp on the table next to the sofa and knocking a stack of books off the shelf.
If it weren’t for the 6.3 Richter scale-level collision, Trick might have thought he’d hallucinated Edwin completely. But no, there he was, pinned beneath Trick, staring up at him with wide blue eyes and flushed cheeks.
“What are you doing here? How did you get here? Why didn’t you call? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. You’re here,” Trick said all in one breath. He inhaled quickly before crashing his mouth down on Edwin’s.
He tasted so fucking good. Edwin clutched at him, seeming as desperate as Trick to get close. He slipped his tongue into Edwin’s mouth, chasing the taste of him. He could have wept at how good Edwin tasted. His memory seemed dull and lacking in comparison to the real thing.
Pulling back just far enough to see, Trick stared down at Edwin. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“I must apologize. I tried to call, but Paravale—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Trick repeated. “I’m just happy you’re back. I missed you so goddamn much. So much more than I can even tell you.”
“I missed you too.”
“You’re back for good, right? You’re staying?” A knot of dread formed in Trick’s stomach in the half second before Edwin had a chance to answer the question. He didn’t know if he could handle hearing Edwin was leaving again. If that was the case, he’d put good use to the single closet he had in the apartment and lock Edwin in there.
Forever.
“I am staying. It became abundantly clear as I traveled back to Paravale that this is where I’m meant to be, not there. Paravale is no longer my home.”
“It’s not?” It was shameless, but Trick wanted to hear Edwin say the words.
“No. I belong here. With you.”
“Goddamn right you do.”
That was the end of the discussion. Trick closed the distance between them once more. The kisses quickly became heated, and Trick shifted to line their bodies up. He could feel the hardness of Edwin’s cock as it filled against Trick’s hip.
Blood surged south, and there were far too many clothes between them. Summoning every ounce of willpower, Trick pulled back and stood up, then reached down and secured his hands in Edwin’s to help him to his feet.
“We need to be somewhere that isn’t hardwood planks,” Trick explained.
Edwin nodded and pulled Trick to him once more, sliding his mouth along Trick’s jaw and down the side of his neck. Trick shivered at the contact and reached between them to start working on Edwin’s pants.
Their arms tangled, Edwin managed to unzip Trick’s hoodie and push it off and over his shoulders. The fabric fell to the floor with a soft thud. The sensation of Edwin’s mouth and barely there scruff made Trick dizzy.
It was a flurry of fumbling activity, each of them trying to take the other’s clothes off without actually moving apart. The distance needed to remove Trick’s T-shirt seemed like too much, but once they came back together, warm skin on warm skin, the world shifted back to where it should be. They were naked, completely bare, standing in the middle of Trick’s living room. A fleeting thought of gratitude for heat that actually worked was replaced by a different kind of heat when Edwin spun them around and pushed Trick toward the bed.
His arms were wrapped around Trick’s middle and his mouth was gliding across the curve of Trick’s shoulder, sending shivers skating across his skin. They plowed into the foot of the bed. Trick hadn’t been watching where they were going, all his brain cells centered on Edwin and the way his fingers splayed across Trick’s belly, his pinkie dipping into the curls at the base of Trick’s treasure trail.
Every molecule in his body longed for Edwin’s hands to drop just a few inches lower. His cock throbbed with the need to be touched. Trick didn’t know how much longer he could hold out.
He turned in Edwin’s arms, and when Edwin planted his hand on Trick’s chest and pushed him backward, it caught him off guard. Trick fell back, bouncing on the mattress, which pulled laughter from deep in his chest. Edwin laughed with him, his smile broad and his eyes twinkling in a way Trick had never seen before.
It was a mixture of joy and wickedness, and at that second, Trick vowed to put that look on Edwin’s face every chance he got.
Edwin crawled onto the bed but stopped short of landing on top of Trick.
“C’mere,” Trick said, reaching for him.
“Just a moment. I want to look at you first.”
Trick felt the blush suffuse his cheeks, but he let Edwin look. Edwin getting an eyeful of Trick meant Trick was able to get an eyeful of his own.
Edwin was beautiful. It’d been so long since Trick had seen him naked, and the last time had been tinged with longing and sadness. This was different, as though the light in the room came from a happier place altogether. In reality, it came from a mixture of the television and the lamp that hadn’t been knocked over in the living room, but the way Edwin glowed was all him.
Trick reached for him again, lifting Edwin’s hand and sucking two fingers into his mouth. He swirled his tongue around them, licking them languidly and making sure they were nice and wet. Anticipation was eclipsed by a magnetic fascination in watching Edwin get turned on. Trick could tell he was struggling to keep his eyes from rolling back. The knowledge was heady and it made Trick feel powerful. He channeled his concentration on Edwin and wrapped his hand around Edwin’s shaft.
Edwin groaned, wordless and guttural. Trick tried to make it good, to use as much finesse as he could muster at all the right moments, but between Edwin’s fingers in his mouth and his own hand around Edwin’s cock, all he could think about was getting Edwin inside him again.
He wanted to reconnect with him, to feel him there and know he wasn’t going to be gone the following morning. The need pulled at him. Tugging at Edwin’s wrist, he let Edwin’s fingers slip free of his mouth.
“Inside.”
Just the one word and Edwin’s cheeks were flushing harder, his breath stuttering.
“I was an idiot to think that just once would ever be close to enough,” Trick mumbled, his speech starting to go. The longer Edwin touched him, the more the peripheral parts of his brain shut down, leaving only the centers focused on perception—mainly the perception of pleasure.
For a newbie, Edwin knew what he was doing. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was magic. Or maybe it was just that he and Trick were meant to be together. Whatever it was, his hands found all the places Trick needed to be touched, the pressure from his fingertips perfect as he explored Trick’s body.
“Trick?” Edwin pulled his fingers out before plunging them back in, filling him.
“Mmmmm?” Trick was barely coherent.
“Do we need… I mean… is it necessary for us to use….”
“What, Edwin? Use what?”
“The sheath. I’d really like to be with you without any sort of physical barrier between us when we make love.”
Make love.
Trick wasn’t sure he’d ever heard anyone other than old people call it that, although at this point, his capacity for coherent thought was pretty much nil. He supposed, though, that’s exactly what this was. They weren’t fucking. This was far too slow, too thorough, too all-consuming. This went way beyond the thrusting and grunting that accompanied just getting each other off.
Trick loved Edwin—the kind of heart-stopping, life-altering, once-in-a-generation type of love—and all he wanted was to show Edwin exactly that.