Finding Zach (22 page)

“I know. Me too.”

They stayed in that position a long time, Zach playing with David’s hair, running it through his fingers; David with his cheek pressed to Zach’s belly, his arms tight around him, Zach’s warmth solid and comforting beneath his cheek. Then the buzzer on the stove went off, and David released Zach to go and get the cinnamon rolls out of the oven. He set the baking sheet on top of the stove and used the spatula to slide the rolls onto the cooling rack before turning to put the pan into the sink.

Zach came up behind him and put his hands on the sink edge to either side of David’s waist, trapping him there. His lips settled on the side of David’s neck.

“Mmm,” David murmured, leaning back against Zach.

“I do love you, I think,” Zach said softly. “I’m not sure what it is. I mean, I want you and trust you, and like you, and…. Shit, Taff. I don’t know what I’m saying. Am I screwing it up again?”

“No,” David said, and turned in his arms, winding his own around Zach’s waist. “Just—you don’t need to say anything. Can I kiss you?”

“God, yes,” Zach breathed and David did, fitting his mouth to Zach’s. Zach put his arms around David, pulling him in close with a faint, contented sigh.

David explored Zach’s mouth leisurely; Zach’s tongue rubbed along his gently, with none of the hurried, anxious urgency of the night before. Oddly, Zach seemed almost hesitant, almost uncertain as he kissed back, always following David’s lead eagerly enough, but never initiating. David drew back and rested his forehead against Zach’s. “Are you okay with this?”

Zach flushed and bit his lip, then nodded. David smiled and kissed him again, his tongue soothing Zach’s lip where he’d bitten it before seeking entrance again to Zach’s sweet, soft mouth. This time he slipped his hands up under Zach’s T-shirt, his fingers stroking gently over the ragged scars on his back. Zach stiffened a moment, but when David didn’t react other than to keep caressing him, he relaxed again, his own hands motionless on David’s waist.

“Take off your shirt.” David drew back to whisper against Zach’s lips. Zach hesitated, but David kissed him again. “Take off your shirt.”

Wordlessly, Zach obeyed, pulling the T-shirt over his head and dropping it on the kitchen floor. David leaned in and licked Zach’s remaining nipple, his tongue curling over it, tasting, teasing. Zach sucked in a breath in shock at the sensation; when David sucked on it gently, he moaned, his hands coming up to clench hard on David’s upper arms. David chuckled under his breath, never letting go of the stiff, sensitive tissue, but sucking harder. Zach whimpered.

“Like that?” David said, releasing him and grinning up at him.

“I never… I didn’t know….”

“Now you know why I woke up yesterday when you did that to me.” David laughed again, and kissed Zach’s chest just above the nipple before curling his hand over the rising bump in Zach’s jeans. “Turnabout’s fair play, love.” He caressed Zach as he bent to suck again, then bit him lightly.

Zach cried out wordlessly at the nip, his hips bucking and his hands tightening on David’s arms. David licked over the bite, then trailed his tongue over the nipple again, then up to Zach’s throat, his hand still stroking Zach through his jeans. “Upstairs,” he whispered against Zach’s neck. “The guest room has a full bed—mine’s too small to make love in properly—and we’re not doing this in my mother’s kitchen.” He pushed Zach gently. “Come upstairs.”

Zach pulled him close again. “Couch,” he gasped hoarsely.

“Too small. No, this time we’re doing it right.”

That stopped Zach cold. “Wait. Wait.” He released David’s arms and rubbed his neck distractedly. “We can’t. You’ve gotta be sore. I
know
I hurt you last night….”

“My beautiful dweeb,” David said with a gentle shove toward the stairs, “there’s more to sex than just fucking.” He weaseled past Zach. “Beat you to the top.”

“You wish,” Zach said automatically, and took off after him.

T
HE
spare bedroom had been Sandy’s and was still a bit on the girly side, but the bed was a big four-poster sturdy enough for David to jump on, followed by a panting Zach. “No fair,” he wheezed, “you kiss me breathless then challenge me to a race?”

“Shut up and kiss me,” David said, shoving him onto his back and crawling on top.

Zach pushed back, rolling over and pinning him underneath. “You gotta get a king-size bed,” he said, then kept David’s mouth too busy to respond. David wrapped his legs around Zach’s hips and rocked up into him, rubbing his pelvis against Zach’s. Zach arched back, releasing David’s mouth to throw his head back, his hands splayed on the mattress on either side of David’s shoulders, his body grinding hard into David’s, his eyes squeezed shut.

“Easy, boy,” David laughed. “You in a hurry?”

He stopped and stared down at David. “What?” he asked in confusion. David lifted a hand and brushed away sweat from Zach’s forehead.

“Ease up, Zach. It’s not a race. You’re working too hard.”

“I’m hurting you,” Zach said instantly, and rolled over, sliding off the bed. “Sorry.”

David sat up and reached out a hand. “Come here.” When Zach didn’t obey, he patted the mattress. “Come on. Sit your butt down.”

Zach snorted and sat on the edge of the bed. “What?”

“You’ve never had a lover,” David said.

“Sure, I have—” Zach’s words were cut off by David’s fingers on his lips.

“You’ve had sex, but never a lover,” David explained. “I keep forgetting that. I keep forgetting that this is all new to you.”

“I’m not exactly a virgin,” Zach said dryly against David’s fingers.

“Sure you are. It’s kind of exciting.” David removed his fingers from Zach’s mouth with a gentle caress. “To know I get to be the one, your first lover, the one who teaches you how to kiss, how to make love… I should have been, you know. Should have been the one to teach you all that.”

“I wanted you to be,” Zach said. He turned and lay down across the bed, his back to David.

“I’m sorry,” David said softly. He lay down behind Zach and put his arm over his waist. They were close enough in height that his cheek rested against Zach’s cropped skull. “I wanted to be, Zach. But you scared me. I was eighteen. I’d only ever even had one relationship, and that was the one I was sneaking around on Maggie with. I’d just busted up with him when everything happened.”

“You mean when I came on to you,” Zach said.

“When I realized that you were the one I wanted. Had probably wanted even before I knew what wanting was.”

“You were just used to having me around.”

“No. No.” David came up on one elbow and looked down at him. “You know why you scared me so much? Because I was eighteen and I realized that you were the only person I wanted to be with. And I wasn’t ready to commit even though I knew that it was always going to be you. And then you went off and died on me… or so I thought.”

“Misplaced guilt,” Zach said.

“Grief. None of my relationships after that lasted. Because none of them were you.”

“Put a little pressure on a guy,” Zach muttered.

David laughed and rubbed Zach’s belly. “No pressure, really. What I feel is my business. I just wanted you to know that if you want me, I’m yours.”

Zach twisted to lie on his back, looking up at David. “I don’t know if I can do this, Taff.”

“So let’s just take one day at a time. I do have one thing I want to ask you to do for me, though.”

“What?”

David swallowed. “Please stop going to those bars: Fat Charlie’s, the Goose, any of those places. Not because I don’t want you picking up guys—though I don’t—but because it’s dangerous.” His eyes were dark and serious when they met Zach’s.

Zach said soberly, “I’m always careful, Taff.”

“I’m not talking about always wearing a condom and all that shit. Wesley’s pretty liberal, but Colorado Springs in general isn’t. There’s still a lot of anti-gay sentiment around, and there was an incident at the Goose three years ago that was pretty ugly. A couple of people got really hurt. And….” He trailed off and just shook his head instead.

“And my dad doesn’t need the bad publicity if people figured out who I was,” Zach said. “Yeah, I’ve thought about that. I just… you know.”

“I know.”

“Security’s pretty good around here and Dad’s been pretty careful about not letting people know what I look like or anything,” Zach went on. “No interviews, no photographs, nothing like that. He’s careful about my privacy, and his security team and I have protocols
I’m
pretty careful about. But I don’t think any of the guys I’ve been with know who I am. I mean, I never go anywhere where I see any of them outside the bars, anyway.”

“Let’s keep it that way, okay?” David kissed him gently. “I don’t want you hurt. And neither do your folks. I don’t think they give a shit about bad publicity or anything, but they do worry about you.”

“Yeah.” Zach looked up at David, and then curled his hand around the back of David’s head. “I won’t go there anymore, Taff.”

“Okay,” David said, and let Zach draw him down for another kiss. He eased onto his supporting arm and with his free hand, then trailed his fingers down Zach’s muscled belly toward the button on his jeans, sliding them under the top of the waistband. Zach made a small noise that was swallowed up in their mouths, then another when David got the button open and fumbled for the zipper. Zach slid his hand down to help David unzip him, then David sat up and moved to the foot of the bed, pulling off Zach’s socks and tugging at the hem of the jeans.

Zach flung his arm over his eyes, but didn’t protest David’s pulling off the jeans, just waited for the intake of breath, the expression of disgust or shock, but there was nothing. He waited.

Then it came, unexpectedly—the soft touch of lips, like a rose petal falling on his skin, on one of the scars on his thigh. Then another, then the shift in the mattress as David crawled back up on the bed between Zach’s legs, his lips brushing each of the round scars as he crawled. It took a while. Then David laid his lips on the softer skin of Zach’s groin, where there were no scars.

Zach let out a long exhalation of the air he’d held in his lungs from the time David had pulled his jeans off. Against Zach’s hip, David whispered, “Burns?”

“From Esteban’s cigar,” Zach said in the same low tones, as if he might be overheard. He felt David’s swallow, but then the soft mouth was moving again, exploring the hollow of his pelvis, then down to nuzzle his testicles. He sucked in a breath as David tasted him, tugging on the loose skin with gentle lips, then moved to lick the underside of his rapidly rising cock.
Oh, God
, he thought, David’s mouth was on him, David’s tongue on him, David was going…
oh, God
…. “Condom,” he gasped in protest, reaching down to cover himself just as David’s mouth had moved to lick the rim of his glans. “Condom….”

David stopped and raised his head. Zach uncovered his eyes to look back at him miserably. “You test positive?” David asked gently.

“No, my last test was clean, but….”

“Have you ever barebacked?”

“No, never, not since Venezuela, I’m not stupid.”

“Ever even gotten blown without a rubber?”

“No….”

“I’ll take my chances,” David said, and closed his mouth over the head of Zach’s cock, his tongue stroking, lips tightening.

Zach almost shot off the mattress. The feeling was incredible, amazing, hot and wet and intense. His hands fisted in the coverlet as David took him deeper; then David swallowed and Zach felt the tightness of David’s throat against him and he cried out wordlessly, his hips bucking as he fucked David’s mouth and fist. The fingers of David’s free hand dug into the taut flesh of Zach’s ass, holding on.

David pulled away just as Zach started to come, cupping his hand over Zach’s cock so that his come flooded over David’s fingers. Then he moved up over Zach, dipping his head to kiss him. Zach tasted himself on David’s tongue, then jerked in surprise as David slicked Zach’s come on his own cock, then rocked forward, his cock sliding between Zach’s thighs to rub against the sensitive skin behind his balls. Zach moaned, rousing again, or still, as David’s hands and tongue and cock teased and soothed and tormented and pleased, until he was crazy with the sensation, wild with need and lust and love and hunger, so that when David’s fingers found their way inside him and stroked gently, he barely even recognized the sensation, only the brush of beautiful pressure on that needy place, and he came again, burying his hands in David’s hair and kissing him frantically as he cried his release into David’s mouth.

And then he jerked back as he realized that David’s fingers were deep in his ass, where he’d sworn no one else would ever go, and he stared in disbelief at his lover. “What the fuck?” he gasped.

The pleasure on David’s face faded. “What?”

“Get your fucking fingers out of me. Now,” Zach growled. David obeyed and Zach tried not to jerk away, not to overreact. It was okay. It was okay, he told himself fiercely. It was
David
, for God’s sake…. He forced a smile and said, “Sorry. Reaction,” and reached up to kiss David again, but David resisted, frowning.

“Are you okay?” he asked, pulling back against Zach’s hand on his neck.

“Yeah. Sorry. I didn’t mean to snarl at you. It was okay. It was good.” Zach’s mouth twisted. “Oh, God, tell me I haven’t fucked up again.”

“No,” David said slowly. “No, I’m just… oh, shit. I’m sorry, Zach. I didn’t think….”

The smile came a little easier now, still difficult, but more honest. “I hope you
weren’t
thinking,” he said, “cuz God knows I wasn’t. It’s okay. I’m sorry I overreacted. It’s okay. It’s okay.” He kissed David again, this time desperately, wanting it to be the way it was, wanting to take away the tension that tautened David’s body.

The tension eased and David moved to lie beside him, his waist in the curve of Zach’s arm. He rested his chin on Zach’s chest and said soberly, “You’re okay, then?”

“Better than okay,” Zach said. “Much better.” He reached up his free hand and stroked David’s hair gently. “That was awesome, Taff. I never realized you could do anything like that and have it be half as good as…. Well, you know.”