Cole McGinnis 05 - Down and Dirty (26 page)

Ichiro was pretty sure it was him, but it was difficult to tell. They’d become a single lurching beast, each carrying the other across a threshold neither one of them had known existed before their mouths touched for the very first time.

The pull of Bobby’s cock stretched him, and every downward stroke pushed Ichi further toward the edge. He clung at first, then dug his fingers into Bobby’s shoulders, tearing at the man’s skin. A thick musk of male rut filled the air, and Ichi drew it into his lungs, savoring the aroma of sex and his lover in his core. Bobby’s thrusts were throwing Ichiro back into the mattress, and he strained to take more of Bobby inside of him, pushing open his ass to swallow the man whole if he could.

“Going to shoot,” Bobby grunted, reaching up from under Ichiro’s arms to grab at his shoulders.

Pulling Ichi even closer, Bobby slammed their hips together hard enough to rock their bones loose. Bowing his head, Ichi tucked himself into the crook of Bobby’s neck. His cock was too close to spilling, and their bellies met, then parted, dancing around his dick in an elaborate push and pull of skin over skin. He was about to reach down, but Bobby beat him to him. His shoulder was suddenly free of its clenching shackle, and then his cock was engulfed by his lover’s rough, callused hand.

Bobby reached down to the root of Ichi’s cock and pulled up, drawing the course of his climax from his balls and up to his head. A few strokes were all he needed. The raspy yank of burred skin on his shaft combined with the muttering heat of Bobby’s filthy mouth was good enough to make him release, but when Bobby’s cock thickened in warning of his spill, Ichiro finally lost it and flung his body up to take everything Bobby was giving him.

His body surrendered, and Ichi’s air burned away under the firestorm Bobby unleashed inside of him. The turn of his cock in Bobby’s grip was lost under its spasms, his hot cum seeping out from between Bobby’s fingers. His mind flew apart, and Ichi’s skin felt as if it was peeling up from his flesh, leaving him open to Bobby’s ravenous plunges. Vulnerable and exposed, his eyes snapped open as Bobby’s cum-damp hands cupped his face and their mouths met in a savage kiss.

The forever he wanted wrapped Ichiro up tightly, and he slipped into its grip, unable to stop his body from shaking out its spend. His ass ached from Bobby’s hard cock, but he didn’t want Bobby to leave him. The heat of Bobby’s shaft began to slip out, and Ichiro murmured a protest, his voice cracked from the screams he didn’t remember stretching up to the ceiling.

“I’m not going to go anywhere, Ichi,” Bobby promised, easing them both back into the mattress. His hands were off Ichi’s back for a second or two, then returned, his cock free of its latex prison but sticky with its release. “God, we’re going to be a sticky, hot mess in the morning, babe. I should carry you into the shower, but I’m too damned worn out.”

“Tomorrow,” Ichi promised. “So we stick to the sheets. Too tired.”

“You going to be here?” Bobby whispered into his hair, spooning up behind him.

“Tomorrow?” He cuddled back into Bobby’s embrace, chuckling at the squeak of their skin rubbing together.

“Good,” Bobby sighed. “Then you can help me do laundry. Because, Sunshine, I’ve got a feeling that with you around, I’m going to be washing a fuck ton of sheets.”

Chapter 16

“A
RE
YOU
sure about this?” Ichi leaned away from Bobby, his eyes hooded and cautious. “It’s a big damned decision.”

“Yeah, pretty sure.” He braced himself against the chair’s arm. “Go for it.”

That’d been hours ago. The low buzzing warned him, as did Ichi’s fingers on his malleable skin, but Bobby’s stomach still clenched itself up into a ball when the needles hit his flesh. Since then, it’d been the longest day of his life, even with breaks in between for him to chug down some orange juice and then piss it out; each passing second was punched under his skin, an indelible reminder of his need to grace his life with a token of his love.

All of his loves.

Hizoku Ink hummed and thumped, its brightly painted floor squeaking with tennis shoes and rolling chairs. A rock band Bobby didn’t know played over the sound system, a raspy velvet-voiced singer telling a tale about Chinatown, wrought-iron staircases, and sin. One of the other artists, a tall man with flashing eyes, teased a smile out of the other as she worked, her head bent over a slender blond woman bearing the pain for a delicate dragonfly winging over her shoulder blade.

The hours were beginning to wear on him, and not even a sneak of whiskey slipped to him from other artists was helping much. His skin stung and smarted from being worked with heavy color and his insistence of Ichi taking a break every hour. Lost in his own world, Ichiro said very little as he worked, oblivious when the other inkers came to peek over his shoulder to watch his progress.

Much like the artists, Bobby couldn’t wait to see it finished, especially since the piece seemed to be pouring out of Ichiro’s soul straight into Bobby’s skin.

He’d asked Ichi for something Japanese in style, wanting—needing—to have his lover of almost a year with him at all times. They’d discussed elements, discarding some and agreeing on symbolism. The result lay with Bobby’s trust, since Ichiro decided to loosely freehand the design with markers directly onto Bobby’s upper arm.

The torture began in the early hours of a Saturday morning, and the shop’s traffic flowed in and out, with Bobby paying little attention to anything but the stabbing burn of needles dragging across his skin, Ichiro’s seductive proximity, and then after an hour or so, the numbing relief of an anesthetic spray picking off most of the sting.

Most. Definitely not all. Especially not where the midpoint of his arm jumped and jived when Ichi’s attention strayed in its direction.

The phoenix rose out of his skin, slowly forming out of curling clouds and waves. Dappled red and orange feathers were touched with blues and greens, its wings spraying outward to wrap around his shoulder. The bird’s head curved toward his heart, and its long, trailing feathers ran down the length of his forearm, cradled by splashes of sea foam, flicks of embers, and startling variegated peonies nesting along the fiery bird’s back and talons.

Even in the spit-stealing jab of pain drowning Bobby’s senses, the peonies were worth everything.

He’d wanted four—one each for the men in his life and another for the little stubbornly alert newborn who’d made her appearance a month before, but Ichi nixed the arrangement, citing a Japanese dislike for the number and its lingual connection to death. Instead, a tiny white koi dotted with a red smear on its forehead frolicked in the waves below, its tail splashing up a crest of foam as it rode the phoenix’s wake.

“Five minute,
anata
.” Ichiro’s English had fallen apart hours ago, reduced to straight translations from Ichi’s Japanese thoughts. “No move.”

“I’ve got to breathe, baby,” Bobby grumbled. “And pretty soon, I’m going to have to take a piss again. It’s been a few hours.”

Lost in sculpting lines and patterns into Bobby’s skin, Ichi muttered in both Japanese and Korean to the shop’s intern, only to have the pink-haired young man blink at him in confusion. A quick gesture at a vial of black seemed to do the trick, because a second later, Ichiro’s table was refilled with little plastic pots of ink, and he’d gone back to work, humming along with the music playing over the speakers.

His arm felt like it was on fire, and Ichiro’s five minutes turned to ten. Just as Bobby was about to tap the chair and surrender to a pain overload, the door opened, and Cole strolled in with two carry-totes of neon blue Slurpees.

“God, I love you. Tell me one of those is mine. And if it is, just pour it over my arm. I think I’m on fire.” Bobby thankfully reached for one of the slushies as Cole passed them around. “Don’t talk to him. He’s almost fucking done.”

“It looks awesome,” Cole murmured. “Shit, you did it in one go? Dude… fuck, it took me three sessions. And I’m pretty fucking sure I passed out during one. Ichi, you gotta come up for air soon.”

“I don’t think he even hears us anymore.” Bobby nodded toward his engrossed lover. “Pretty sure I’m just a piece of paper to him right now. Shit, God, that fucking hurts. Right there. Dear fucking God.”

The constant buzzing suddenly stopped, and Ichi pulled the machine up, rolling his chair back a few inches to study the ink. Reaching for something on his table, his hand struck Cole’s thigh, and his eyes narrowed, obviously irritated by the intrusion into his space.

“Blue raspberry,” Cole said, jiggling a Slurpee in front of his brother’s nose. “You know you want one.”

“Move,” Ichi growled. “In the way.”

Ichiro’s eyes were still unfocused, a bit dreamy and under a haze as he reached around Cole to get to his supplies. Shaking a bottle that looked filled with piss, Ichiro seemed to be searching for something else. With the solution worked up into a froth, he snapped off his gloves to dig through a bin, coming up with packages of gauze and long sheets of what looked like what butchers put under steaks in the store.

Turning back around, Ichiro once again bumped into Cole, and his disgruntled snarl deepened. “You are in the way. Go sit down. Put the drink over there.”

“Ah, feel the love.” As he put the Slurpee on the counter running along the wall, Cole hooked a chair with his foot, then dragged it over to Bobby’s side. Sitting down, he sipped at his drink while his brother cleaned Bobby’s arm of excess ink and blood speckles. “Shit, dude, looks like you went through
Holi
or something.”

“Not far from the truth there, Princess.” He hissed when the solution hit him, more from the unexpected shock of cool on his inked-up skin. “Damn, can I just go home and bathe in that? Or better yet, how about if
you
bathe me in that.”

“Yeah, I love my balls. I’ve seen Jae mince a cauliflower into rice, and Ichi’s got a thingy with needles in it. Passing on that.” Cole smirked. “Thanks, though.”

“As if I’d even let you near my cock. With my luck, one of your damned teeth’s got C-4 in it or something, and you’d blow my dick to kingdom come the first time you gave me head.”

“Are you sure you two are friends? Maybe you’ve been there before me and no one said?” Ichi looked up. “You argue like you’re married.”

“Shit, Sunshine,” Bobby groaned. “No one could survive being married to him. I’m pretty damned sure Jae’s immortal and has to resurrect every morning.”

“Kind of like Kenny.” Cole met Bobby’s confused stare with a heavy sigh. “Never mind. Sheesh. I suppose we should be glad you know how to piss indoors and can use a fucking light switch.”

The antiseptic smell left a tingle in Bobby’s nose, and he fought a sneeze. He still had a pink mark on his arm where Ichi’d lightly slapped him because he’d been fidgeting. The cleaning process seemed to take nearly as long as the tattoo, and Bobby was about to wrench the gauze from his lover’s hands when Ichiro finally rolled his chair back and tossed the soiled bandages into the trash.

“There. Done.” Ichi grabbed his Slurpee and took a long draw on its straw. “Go look.”

“Well, kind of too late to take it back. Not like it’s a shirt that doesn’t fit or….” Someone stole his breath, because as Bobby turned to look in the mirror, he couldn’t find any air in his chest.

Ichiro’d told him to wear an old tank top, and he’d chosen instead to grab a shirt from Cole’s business he’d already ruined changing a tire for one of the older ladies in the building. He’d cut the sleeves off and ran in it. It bore coffee stains and an odd rust circle. He wasn’t sure where he’d picked it up, but it was comfortable, and he never had to care about what happened to it.

Which was good, because now it looked like Pollock sneezed on it.

The splatters were nothing. The music rolling out of the speakers faded away into a silence so deep Bobby could hear himself breathing in time with Ichiro’s soft, whispering sighs. Gone was the buzzing, the stinging, and even the frustration of sitting too long while being so close to Ichiro without being able to touch him.

The torture was worth it, because his life poured down his arm and spilled up over his shoulder, a sunset of feathers, power, and delicate strength.

“Shit… Ichi….” He
still
couldn’t breathe.

As hard as he tried, his mind seemed too preoccupied with little details emerging from the tattoo. Speckles of turquoise accented delicate green frills along the bird’s tail, and as he turned to the light, the finger-length koi playing in the waves glistened and danced as he moved, its scales edged in a silvery ink to break up the white.

“Oh, babe,” Bobby finally whispered. The startling burst of peonies flowed around the phoenix, breaking up the roll of waves beneath the bird, and a hint of lavender and pink left a tint of dusk in the clouds surrounding its wings. “Christ, Ichiro—”

“Let me take a picture. One now and then one later when it’s done peeling.” Ichiro put his Slurpee down, then got up.

Bobby spent a minute admiring the ink as Cole rolled about on Ichiro’s chair, laughing when Bobby brushed up against a wall corner and hissed from a wave of pain.