Fortune's Favor (A Power Up! Story) (12 page)

“Yeah?” Nathan let Avery tug him close so that they stood chest to chest. The faint scent of beer on Avery’s breath smelled sweet. God, he wanted those lips on his. Normally he’d make his move, but with Avery, he waited.

“Yeah.” Avery leaned close and kissed him.

The pull of their mouths, the meshing of lips and tongue and teeth, all of it was sheer perfection. Nathan groaned and wrapped his hands around Avery’s neck. But Avery wouldn’t do more than kiss him.
Making love
with his mouth, the controlling SOB would be sure to say.

“You taste good,” Avery rumbled and kissed his way to Nathan’s ear. “I want to eat you up.”

“Fuck, yeah.” Nathan pressed his hips against Avery’s, gratified to feel an equal hardness against his arousal.

“Take off your shirt.” Avery leaned back to watch.

Nathan whipped off his sweatshirt and stood waiting.

“I love your nipples. You need a ring, baby.”

Nathan shuddered as Avery latched his mouth onto a nipple and teased it. He bit and sucked, and Nathan couldn’t help thrusting against him.

“Eager, huh?” Avery lifted his head and grinned.

“You’re a tease.” Nathan wished he didn’t sound so out of breath. “Why don’t you take off your sweater and let me give it back to you.”

Surprised when Avery stepped back and took off his top, Nathan didn’t give him a chance to say no. He sought Avery’s nipple and sucked hard, more than pleased when the big man gasped and clutched Nathan’s head to him.

“Come on, sexy. Give me what you got.” Avery’s gravelly voice tugged at Nathan, because sex with Avery was so much more than “just the physical,” as Avery had described. Each kiss meant something more to Nathan, but damn if he could figure out why. The big bastard was controlling, insulting, and downright rude. Yet the gentleness he showed Nathan time and time again melted Nathan’s resistance.

Nathan kissed his other nipple and bit down.

“Fuck. Oh yeah.” Avery ground into him, and Nathan sucked and teased the nub until it stood stiffly at attention.

He eased his hand down Avery’s hard belly and unbuttoned the fly of his jeans. Then he snaked his hand underneath and gripped his hot cock.

“I want you,” Avery whispered and sought Nathan’s mouth once more.

The kiss promised more than passion, but a shelter from the isolation Nathan had been feeling. With Avery, he didn’t feel alone. He felt annoyed, sexually replete, and cared for. But not alone.

Avery sucked on his tongue and pushed past his lips, fucking him with his mouth.

Nathan was on the verge of coming, so hot for his lover, so damn attracted to the solid strength holding him tight.

A large hand pulled his away from Avery’s cock.

“Don’t argue,” Avery growled. “Strip down and get in bed.”

Nathan watched as Avery undressed. He hurriedly did the same and joined him on the bed.

“No. I want you to turn around. I want my mouth at your cock and your mouth at mine.”

“Oh yeah.” A sixty-nine. Perfect. “First one who comes submits to the other.”

Avery paused. “Submits how?”

Nathan grinned. “Loser does whatever the winner wants for the next twelve hours.”

“You want to fuck me, don’t you?”

“You have no idea.”

Avery glanced at Nathan’s thick cock. “I think I do. But it’s okay, Nate. You have no stamina. I won’t punish you too badly for getting too big for your britches.”

Nathan laughed. “‘Too big for my britches’? Where the hell are you from again? ’Cause you sure the hell don’t talk like you’re from this century.”

“Oh, it’s on, princess. Drag that sexy ass closer. Let me suck that cock. I love hearing you beg.”

Nathan couldn’t wait to have Avery at his beck and call. Twelve hours wouldn’t be nearly enough, but he would make do. He shifted to lie side by side next to his lover, pleased to find their heads positioned perfectly at groin level. He groaned when Avery’s lips closed around him, and he hurried to do the same. He couldn’t afford to give Avery any advantage, not when just being near the man turned him on.

He pulled Avery’s hips closer and sucked his fat cock, loving the taste of his partner. Salty, male, and so damn sexy. He nuzzled Avery’s balls and used his tongue to make him crazy. Avery might know how to please a man, but Nathan had been born to it. He’d perfected the art of driving men wild with his mouth, and he’d been doing it since he’d turned sixteen. No way in hell Avery would last.

With his fingers, he stroked Avery’s flank and prodded him to shift a leg, widening Avery for play. The bigger man groaned when Nathan fingered his ass.

But when Avery tried to touch him, Nathan refused to let him, squirming and shifting so Avery couldn’t reach his anus. Instead he sucked harder and inserted just the tip of his finger into Avery’s hole.

Avery tensed, and a bit of precum hit Nathan’s tongue. He smiled around the shaft in his mouth and started sucking in earnest.

Avery, the poor guy, tried to keep up, but Nathan was so focused on Avery’s pleasure he successfully held off his own. Though Avery felt good, the victory waiting for Nathan couldn’t be denied.

He cupped Avery’s balls and moved up and down his shaft, grazing his teeth along the underside of his cockhead.

Avery shuddered. More precum spilled from his tip. And then Nathan shoved more of his finger inside his lover.

Avery sucked harder around Nathan’s dick, and Nathan nearly lost it when Avery groaned and jetted into his mouth. The shudders and moans were so fucking arousing. Only when Avery shoved his cock deeper into Nathan’s mouth did Nathan allow himself to spill.

The release was nothing compared to the knowledge he’d won twelve hours of Avery’s submission. Knowing how his partner must be dreading his time made it all the better.

Avery and Nathan pulled apart. Nathan immediately turned around and flattened Avery on his back. After a long, drugging kiss, Nathan pulled back and grinned. “I win. And I can’t wait.”

“Hell. You’re really going to ass fuck me after what I just did for you?”

“Are you kidding me? This fine virgin ass is a temptation no gay man with a brain would turn down. Those firm cheeks, that tight, rosy hole? And so tasty.”

Avery flushed, nervous and turned on all at once. He’d had women and men touch him there, but he’d never been convinced to let someone take him. He did the driving. He called the shots. It was as if giving someone else control would mean too much, something he wasn’t ready to concede. So why the hell had he taken Nathan’s stupid bet, knowing how gifted Nathan’s mouth could be?

“Oh my God. I think you just blushed.” Nathan leaned closer, and Avery shut him up with a kiss.

He loved Nathan’s mouth. That smart wit that never stopped quieted when Avery kissed him. They moved well together, like two halves of a whole. He couldn’t not think of them as a couple when they kissed, because for all that he wanted to imagine their sex as being just physical, it meant so much more to him. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Nathan he had sex with partners he actually liked.

He’d tried to resist, but he’d liked the asshole kissing him for way too long now. That snarky sense of humor, his ability to have fun with life and charm the socks off anyone within a two-foot vicinity, his self-confidence. If Nathan had given him any sign he returned the attraction before this trip, Avery would have acted on it. And probably hated himself for it later, because dammit, he didn’t want to be another conquest. He wanted to be a boyfriend. A serious relationship. Maybe Nathan’s significant other.

And now he’d consented to let the smug bastard have all of him.

He ended the kiss and stared up at Nathan.

“Don’t worry, baby,” Nathan said softly, more than lust in his gaze—or was that wishful thinking on Avery’s part? “I won’t hurt you. You’ll feel so good, and you’ll come really hard.”

“I’m not worried about hurting.” He was, but it wasn’t the physical hurt that concerned him but rather the emotional one he’d suffer. Going this far with Nathan would mean the world to him. But for Nathan, he’d just be another fuck. Yet Avery couldn’t stop himself from wanting Nathan to be the first.

“Good. Because I don’t want this to be anything but good for you.” Nathan left him and dug through his bag. He came back with lube but no condom.

Avery suppressed a shiver. He wanted to feel Nathan inside him, nothing but flesh against flesh.
How fucked up am I
? “And don’t call me baby,” he added just to be mean.

Nathan chuckled. “I like you this way.”

Avery grudgingly accepted the inevitable. He wasn’t exactly ready to fuck again, not after just having his world blown apart—literally—by Nathan.

“We’re going to take this slow.” Nathan put the lube on the side table and straddled Avery’s waist. He had in his other hand a bottle of massage oil. “Just lay there and relax. And answer my questions. Honestly.”

Avery frowned.

“You agreed to submit to me for twelve hours. Starting now. I’m trusting you to be honorable about this, Major.”

“Jackass.”

“That’s yes, sir.”

Avery gritted his teeth. This was going to be the longest twelve hours of his life.

Yet he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Chapter Eight

Avery didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help relaxing under Nathan’s firm hands. He might be a master manipulator, but Nathan had a heavenly touch. He worked the stiffness from Avery’s muscles until Avery’s entire upper body was a boneless mass of flesh.

“Nice. That’s it. Just relax.”

He closed his eyes and let Nathan do whatever he wanted. So far, so good. Nothing Nathan had done had been uncomfortable.

“Tell me about your parents.”

He cracked open an eye but only saw the top of Nathan’s head. Nathan had moved from his body to the side of the bed and knelt next to him while he massaged Avery’s biceps.

“My mom is a doctor. She’s bossy.”

“Like you.”

“Hmm. My dad is a retired Master Gunnery Sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps. They met when he was a corporal and have been together ever since.”

Nathan moved from his arms to his legs. “So is that why you joined the Corps? Because your dad was in? Spread your legs.”

Avery tensed but moved his legs farther apart. When Nathan merely rubbed the muscle of his quadriceps, he answered the question. “I guess. I loved being in. Loved being around my kind of people.”

“Oh? And who are they?”

“Rough, unafraid to get dirty, and hands-on. Into physical fitness. I love sports.”

“Yes, you do.” Nathan ran his hands between Avery’s legs, but instead of cupping his sac, Nathan rubbed his groin muscle.

“Fuck, that feels good.”

“You sound surprised. I’m good at this.” Nathan rubbed him some more. “Danielle was a massage therapist. She taught me to deal with touch in a way different than Michelle had.”

“Yeah?”

“Michelle had me build inner shields and taught me to avoid all kinds of unnecessary touch. It made me strong. But when I moved in with my aun—Danielle, she taught me another way. To immerse myself in touch and learn to differentiate physical sensation from psychic sensation.”

“Looks like it worked.” Damn, but Avery’s cock was harder than steel, despite Nathan’s nonsexual massage. “Did Danielle share your abilities?”

“No. She said my dad had it. The guy my supposed mother told me had died right before she had me. Now I’m not sure about anything. For all I know, the fucker is still alive.”

Alive and crazy
, Avery wanted to say but didn’t. He couldn’t tell Nathan anything yet, not until he had more to go on. He didn’t want to hurt his lover, and the information would be painful, no two ways about it.

“But we were talking about you.” Nathan smoothed his hands down Avery’s legs and concentrated on his shins and calves.

“Damn, you’re good.”

“That’s what they tell me.” Nathan winked at him, and Avery felt his heart drop at the man’s feet.

Hell. He coughed to cover a groan. “My parents have always shared a lot of love. I was the only kid in the family. Both my parents came from small families and had trouble conceiving after me, so I got my share of attention.”

“I’ll bet.”

“But they didn’t spoil me. My dad made sure I earned everything I ever had in life. Taught me to work hard. I love them a lot.” He sighed into Nathan’s touch.

Nathan paused to put more oil on his hands. “Just like Danielle. She wasn’t easy on me. And it bugged her that people would give in to me a lot. But hell, I’m charming. It’s a gift.”

Avery hissed when Nathan massaged his feet, digging into his arches. “Holy shit, you’re
really
good at this.”

“I told you I am.”

“And so modest.”

Nathan chuckled, and he looked so beautiful in the dim light of the room. He glanced up, caught Avery looking at him, and froze.

“What?” Avery didn’t like Nathan’s expression.

“Nothing.” He turned back to Avery’s feet and hummed under his breath. “So your time in the PWP? What was that like?”

“Yeah, we didn’t really meet till I came to Bend, did we?”

Nathan shook his head.

“The training was easy. I was only allowed out on three missions; two were with Chloe as lead. You think I have control issues? She’s short, and she’s a woman. She ordered me around like it was Christmas.”

Nathan laughed. “She does that.”

“Yeah, but she knows what she’s talking about. I had no trouble following her. We took down a few rogue psychics. Nothing earth-shattering, but it felt right to do good, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“The drugs they gave me made my visions clearer. And I was able to call them on command. But they still don’t take the shape I want. I mean, I want to know how we’ll take care of Malcolm, but I can’t see it. I see whatever hits me. Sometimes I can use it; most times it’s about someone else.”

Nathan’s hands roamed north again, around Avery’s knees. “So you don’t see your own future?”

“Rarely.” Like his vision of himself and Nathan kissing, and of them smiling together, in the future? The far distant future? He wished he knew.

“Too bad. Then you could see winning numbers on a lottery ticket. Or you could predict which stocks to invest in.”