Forever Promised (11 page)

Crick was struggling to his feet, cursing his damned leg, when Benny and Drew walked in with a rumpled Parry Angel asleep in Benny’s arms. Benny, who usually didn’t walk so much as she bounded, was quiet because of the baby, and Drew didn’t have so much as a hand on the small of her back. She walked through the living room to the back bedroom, not even looking Crick’s way, and put Parry down, probably in her party dress and everything since she was back in just a moment. Drew hadn’t moved, hadn’t acknowledged Crick’s presence, hadn’t even really seemed to see her go, his attention seemed turned so far inward. Benny returned and looked at the man Crick had supposedly “saved” in Iraq, and said quietly, “I’ll put her down. I don’t suppose you want to stay and—”

Drew shook his head and cut her off. “I promised to go to Promise House and help unload all the leftovers and get the chairs back to the community center.”

Crick groaned to himself, because he’d forgotten to tell Deacon that was their job. Oh, Jesus—just when he thought he was mostly grown up, he went and spaced something like a stupid kid.

Benny nodded and turned away without waiting for a kiss or even looking Drew in the eye.

Drew stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “I said I’d think about it, Bernice,” he said quietly. “I’m just….” His sigh held a whole lot of patience. “I was so damned happy, you know?”

Benny nodded. “So was I,” she confessed. “I just….” For the first time, she glanced behind her and saw Crick, who felt uneasy at eavesdropping, in the living room. “It’s something I think we should do,” she said after a moment. “And don’t think for a moment I don’t know it’s your sacrifice too.”

Drew nodded slowly and then bent and kissed her temple. “See you tomorrow,” he said softly, and then he lowered his lips almost reluctantly, and they shared a kiss so painfully tender Crick had to look away.

Drew was gone in a moment, his gait so even on the wooden porch Crick could hardly hear the difference made by the prosthetic leg.

Benny sighed and then walked into the darkened living room, turned on a lamp, and then turned on the fan they kept near the window and opened the glass. “It got nice outside,” she said absently. “I’m going to turn off the AC and open all the windows.”

Crick nodded, thinking that might have been the cold he’d felt in his bones with the long shadows. “Okay.” He stood and stretched, pressed the remote button to turn the television off, put the remote down, and picked the plate up with his good hand. “I’m going to go outside and see what’s keeping Deacon.”

Benny grunted softly. “Yeah,” she said. “You do that.”

Crick looked at her softly. “Is anything wrong?”

Her face twisted. “No. Yes. Life is all.” She sighed, and apparently the melancholy wasn’t his imagination, because he saw her eyes glittering in the semidarkness. “I love it here,” she said softly. “I mean, I get that I’ve got to grow up sometime, but I’m really going to hate to leave.”

Crick blinked. She and Drew had been talking about her moving into the mother-in-law cottage—he knew that. He thought it was actually probably a long time coming, but he didn’t see why that would make his sister cry.

“Go,” she muttered. “He’s going to want to talk. I’m gonna be pretty fucking useless at it, so you might as well kill two dysfunctional communicators with one painful conversation.”

Crick nodded and took one awkward step away from the couch, swearing as his knee wobbled and dropping the unbreakable plate as he opened his hand to catch his weight.

Benny swore too. “Forget it,” she sighed, moving around the couch to take the plate and shoo him back. “I’ll go get him.”

Crick sank down reluctantly, wishing, not for the first time, that his body was as strong as his heart.

When Deacon came in later, Benny had retired quietly already, and if Crick hadn’t been so worried about Deacon, he might have asked why. As it was, Deacon had his man face on, the one that said it was all good, and that nothing was wrong, and that if there was so much as a loud noise, Deacon’s brittle shell would shatter, and Deacon’s sadness would be naked to see.

Crick made a sound, leaning on the end of the couch, and held out his arm. Deacon looked around the living room, and Crick said, “Everyone’s asleep. Come here.”

Deacon moved cautiously, and Crick had to swallow hard past a dry throat. He hadn’t seen that sort of ginger “I’m not sure where to put that” movement from Deacon since Crick had come home from Iraq. Deacon settled in his arms, though, and that was gratifying.

Crick buried his nose in Deacon’s hair and smelled sun and sweat and horse.

“Tell me,” he said quietly, and Deacon said, “Nothing to tell,” at almost the exact same time.

Crick grunted. “I’m feeling really fucking peaceful right now,” he said, “so don’t make me go nuclear on your ass.”

“How’s the—”

“Everything hurts, everything’s tired, everything fucking aches. It’s making me cranky. And you’re being the wrong kind of pain in the ass.” Crick sighed and laid his head back against the couch. “Please, Deacon. I thought we were past this. I thought you could tell me any—”

“Jon and Amy are leaving before Christmas,” Deacon said, and Crick choked on his own glottal of whine.

“Why?” he asked, and Deacon shrugged and settled back a little deeper into Crick’s arms. He heard a clicking across the kitchen floor and realized someone must have let Mumford in after his late-afternoon wrestling match with the entire freaking world. The dog, sixty pounds of shaggy red hair with a square head, cropped triangular ears, and a snubbed little snout, made his slow, beleaguered way across the kitchen and into the living room, and then collapsed in his customary place directly under the television. Then he rolled over on his back, closed his eyes, and went to sleep, what was left of his little doggy peter just flapping in the breeze, and he didn’t seem to give a shit.

Deacon shook his head, looking at the dog, and a laugh escaped. “God, that animal. I have never seen a complete train wreck so happy in his own skin!”

“He’s not a train wreck!” Crick defended, feeling lame. Mumford was some damned good company in the day, when everyone else was out and Crick was keeping house and answering phones. Crick loved his life, loved his role in Deacon’s life, but he didn’t mind company either, and Parry’s hours in school last year had reminded him acutely of how quiet the house got without her and her mother.

“No, no he’s not,” Deacon soothed.

“So tell me!”

And Deacon did. And he went on and on and on about what an opportunity it was, and how Jon couldn’t afford to pass it up, and how their children would grow up with the best schools and in some of the snazziest places, and how Amy could finally use her law degree. Crick let him talk himself out on the subject, actually, because when he was done, and his body was limp in Crick’s arms and against his chest, Crick leaned over and whispered in Deacon’s ear.

“You got yourself all convinced now?” he asked.

“Convinced about what?”

“That this isn’t going to break your heart?”

Deacon took a slow, measured breath that Crick felt down to his own toes. “What kind of friend would I be if I wailed about him moving away?” Deacon asked with dignity.

Crick kissed his ear, and the back of his neck, and his other ear, listening for the tiny hitches of breathing that said this was working.

“Well, you wouldn’t be you,” Crick conceded, rucking Deacon’s dress shirt and T-shirt up from his waist and shoving his hands between the shirt and Deacon’s hot skin. Deacon still didn’t have a lot of chest hair, but what he had was so damned soft, Crick wished he’d grow more.

“I wouldn’t be the person Jon needed,” Deacon said firmly, and then he let Crick take him to bed.

C
RICK
remembered that moment now, as he sat on the couch in his customary place to watch stupid, brain-killing television. Deacon was in his
non
customary place, snuggled back against Crick’s chest when normally he sat in the recliner and read something that would put Crick to sleep in a smart minute. That was okay, though. Crick liked it when Deacon let himself be cuddled like this. Anything that put them into proximity this close to bedtime was a definite plus.

Deacon hadn’t said much when he’d come back from the barn. He’d washed his plate, sat next to Crick as Crick watched television, and said good night to Benny when she took off to spend the night with Drew.

“What did you two decide?” Crick asked before the door had even shut behind them.

“That I’d squirt in a cup, they could count my swimmers, and we could see if this was even possible,” Deacon told him back.

Crick grunted and gathered in his armload of cowboy. “So….”

“Don’t get excited,” Deacon quashed. “We’re doing nothing important. I’m not coming in a turkey baster or anything, we’re just seeing if it would work in the first place.”

“So you’re gonna go to a doctor’s office and come in a cup?” Crick asked, the idea of blowing Deacon in a doctor’s office holding a certain exhibitionistic appeal that he would not
ever
tell Deacon turned him on.

Deacon chuckled like he wasn’t fooled even a little bit. “I doubt it,” he said. “When Jon was getting his swimmers counted, he squirted in a cup at home and then just made sure to get it to the doctor’s within a certain time. I’m sure that’ll be what they do here.”

Crick made a little hmmm sound in his throat, clearly disappointed. “Well, I get to help, right?”

There was a shifting at Crick’s chest, and Deacon turned his head to look him squarely in the eye. “Would there
ever
be a time when you weren’t welcome to help with that?” he asked dryly.

Crick grinned. “God, I hope not.” Something loosened in him. Yeah, maybe Deacon would stick to his guns and this baby wouldn’t happen. But in the meantime….

“Wanna practice?” Crick asked, his whole body tingling.

Deacon nodded, and before Crick could even move from the couch, Deacon slid to his knees and shoved his hands up Crick’s shirt. His mouth, pillowy and hot, suckled tender mouthfuls of the white skin of Crick’s tummy, while his tongue tickled the places between. Crick groaned a little and shuddered, finding himself pushed back against the couch with his legs splayed in front of him so Deacon could busy himself at the fly of his jeans.

“Oh God!” Deacon grabbed handfuls of denim at his hips and yanked down, and Crick’s cock was suddenly ramped up and full as Deacon slid his mouth over it and sucked,
hard.
“Jesus,
Deacon!
”

Deacon pulled back and laughed at him, a slick circle of spit around his full lips. “There is nobody here in our living room, Crick. We can fuck on the couch if we want!”

He sounded like a little kid, and Crick would have laughed at his enthusiasm if—oh fuck, there he went, taking Crick all the way back into his throat. Deacon’s gag reflex was usually hair-trigger, so he must have been
hungry
for Crick, and Crick was… oh God… he was dying… it was….

“Not so fast!” he begged, and Deacon pulled back and licked around his head, then tickled his frenulum and lowered his head sideways and mouthed his balls.

“Fast,” Deacon panted, his voice strained just from having Crick’s cock in his mouth, Crick guessed. “Fast. First I’m going to make you come, and then I’m going to fuck you, and then you’re going to come some more—”

“Oh damn!” Deacon sucked one of Crick’s balls into his mouth, licked around it, enjoying the hell out of it while pumping Crick with the other hand. “Oh hell… that’s a plan… Jesus, Deacon, stop playing with my balls and suck me, will ya?”

Deacon did, chuckling around Crick’s cockhead as he went deep throat again, and Crick’s whole body shivered, spasmed, and his vision went black and he came. Deacon pulled away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and grinned up at Crick with such innocent evil that Crick whimpered, wanting more, wanting it suddenly, wanting it
now!

“You ready for part two?” Deacon asked, and Crick nodded.

“Bed?”

“God, yes. Help me up.”

Crick had to take off his boots and his jeans first, or he would have tripped and fallen on his face on the way to the bedroom, and it felt
more
naked being naked in the living room of the nearly empty house than it felt in the shower or even in their bed. But make it to the bedroom they did, Deacon carrying Crick’s clothes, which he dumped in a muddle on the floor instead of in the hamper, and then stripped at record speed. He blushed a little and dove for the covers, even though it was still quite warm, both outside and in. After Crick ditched his shirt, he slid in next to him.

And was promptly mauled in the best of ways.

Deacon felt him up everywhere—his shoulders, his chest, his hips. Their mouths met, and Deacon stroked the side of Crick’s neck, and for a moment he kept his hand there, his palm resting gently on Crick’s pulse, and Crick was comforted, was gentled. Deacon would take care of him. Deacon
did
take care of him, every day. Crick worried about Deacon’s health and fussed about the secret, damaged parts only Crick knew, but Deacon, by God, took care of Crick and always would.

Crick rested his game hand on Deacon’s hip, and Deacon held still while Crick thrust up against him. Oh
yes
! Something about having the soft skin of Deacon’s cock and the hardness inside up against him made this one of the most erotic acts Crick knew.

Deacon moved his hand from Crick’s neck and reached down to grab them both together, the almost delirious friction and pressure enough to make Crick bury his face in the hollow of Deacon’s neck and shoulders.

“I could totally come just from this,” he panted. “If you want to do your thing, do it now!”

Deacon chuckled and nuzzled Crick’s ear. “My thing?”

“The thing!” Crick muttered, and now, of all times, he
was feeling
shy
. Crick didn’t get
shy. He hadn’t been born with the shyness
gene.
But even after seven years of Deacon knowing his body, the things he felt when they were together
still
made him tremble.