The phone rang in his hands. “Oh, baby—when you said it would be awkward, I had no idea.”
“They… I don’t know. Apparently decided Nina and I were going to fuck things up. They wanted custody, out of the blue. It’s….” He flailed. “God. No. I’d die before I let them raise my kid.”
“Oh, Tenner!”
Tenner realized that might have come out sounding a tad overwrought, and he tried to reel it in. “Anyway, Nina was barely holding it together. I told her I’d handle my parents, then meet her and Piper for dinner. Piper was so proud of her dress, you know?”
“Yeah. She told the whole team about it, Ten. Couldn’t have missed that.”
Tenner swallowed. “I… never mind. I’m just glad you called. I gotta go.”
“Text me when you’re done with dinner. I want to know, okay?”
“Deal. Later.”
They signed off, and Tenner tried to forget what he’d been going to say to Ross but he’d chickened out on first.
I needed you here so bad.
It wasn’t Ross’s fault he hadn’t been there. Tenner needed to make that right.
NINA HAD ordered for him, which was fine. He was starving, and sirloin and broccoli sounded as good as anything else.
“I’m gonna miss the chicken bake,” he told Nina, with a smile, though. “I put some foil on it so it should keep.”
“Thanks,” she said briefly, and they both watched Piper playing the restaurant’s electronic game with complete absorption. She seemed to have taken the change in plans relatively well, but then, she’d caught on that Tenner hadn’t been happy pretty quickly too.
“Ten?” Nina said hesitantly, for his ears only.
“Yeah?”
“So, when you talk about dating… do you have someone in mind?”
His heart started to pound. “Yeah.”
“I… I don’t want anyone spending the night at the house while she’s there. Not in your bed.”
“Deal,” he said. “Why the change of heart?”
“Because there’s nothing like seeing the ultimate in judgment to realize you don’t have a place to throw stones,” she told him, sober and hurt.
“I’m sorry, honey—”
She shook her head. “Let’s just say I had a chance to think about it before you got here, and… God. You were right. We both deserve to be happy. Being like them isn’t going to make me happy.”
Wow. Oh wow. “I won’t argue. When does the same-bed thing change?”
She visibly swallowed. “Until I meet them?”
Okay. So, serious. He got that. “Same,” he said. “But….” He’d already done this, but it made him look generous, right? “Guest room is fine.”
She gave him a brief smile. “Deal.”
“But we need a way to tell—”
And at that moment, the waitress arrived with their food, and Piper was suddenly paying attention to Mom and Dad again.
So, not out to Piper yet. But there was progress. Improvement.
And he and Ross, maybe this week, maybe the next, could go out on the town in their nice clothes. They could see a River Cats game together. They could hold hands in public.
The freedom he felt under his breastbone melted some of the ice that had formed there when he’d been alone with his parents.
Seeing Ross, waiting in his car as Tenner pulled up to his house, melted the rest.
Broken Rules
ROSS HAD come to expect a certain amount of stoicism from Tenner. He could be a smartass, but his humor was best classified as “dry,” and he had the habit of understatement that made Ross want to grind his teeth sometimes.
The look of naked relief, of longing, on his face as he parked his SUV in the driveway and met Ross on the walkway came up against the barrier Ross usually kept between him and his “fling” lovers and pounded it to dust.
“Hey,” he started, keeping his voice gentle. “I hope it’s okay that I stopped—”
Tenner swept him up into a kiss—blatant, carnal, and needy as fuck.
Ross was needed.
Wow. He wasn’t used to being needed; he was the youngest of four. People liked him and enjoyed his company, his banter, his sex, but they didn’t need him. He returned the kiss with a hunger he could have sworn he didn’t have.
He’d been prepared to be sensitive, to be kind, to listen. He had not come prepared to be ravished. And with any thought of a barrier barely a memory, he was vulnerable as he never had been before.
Tenner’s hands in his back pockets, kneading his ass, woke him to the fact that they were dry-humping each other on Tenner’s front lawn.
“Inside,” he gasped.
Tenner practically ran to the door, and they fell through the threshold, then slammed the door against the jam and dodging before it bounced shut. Their mouths meshed, hands shoved at clothes, breaths mingled—
“Shit!” Tenner pulled back. “Did we let the cat out?”
Ross’s heart stuttered. Oh God, no. Not before what could be the best sex in his entire life!
Behind them, Joe let out a plaintive meow, and Tenner sagged against the couch while scratching Joe behind the ear. “Sorry, buddy. Could you, I don’t know, park it a minute? We’ve got something going no—”
That was sweet, the way he talked to the cat. Ross was captivated, charmed, and he needed Tenner now. He took over the kiss, took over the undressing, until they were both naked in the living room, kissing.
Ross took command first. “You stay down here. I’ll get the lube up—”
Tenner turned and bolted for the stairs, Ross at his heels.
“First one to the lube tops!” Tenner called, and Ross had to pause at the staircase to shudder.
Tenner got to the bedroom first, and by the time Ross recovered, he was putting on a show. Tenner stood at the bed, covers turned down, oiling his cock with a fierce hunger in his eyes.
Ross took the bottle from him, standing close enough to smell the heat from his skin. “Give me that,” he murmured before turning toward the bed and putting one knee up on the mattress, spreading his backside, exposing his opening. Then he squeezed a little slick onto his two fingers and reached behind himself, turning his head so Tenner could see his expression as he shoved his fingers in.
“Ah….” A plaintive, needy note crept into his voice as he breached his entrance, stretched, made himself wide and ready. He loved to bottom—had toys for it when he didn’t have a partner—but he was always so aggressive, it didn’t happen often.
Tenner, fierce, demanding, wanting inside Ross’s body as if his cock was the key to Ross’s soul—Ross wasn’t going to pass that up.
He was going to do anything he could to goad Tenner on.
Tenner, throwing off heat, buzzing with electricity, lined up behind him. “You want me to take you like this? Bent over the bed? Or face-to-face?”
And Ross had to hide his face. God, he couldn’t let Tenner see how—
Tenner shoved at his shoulder, rolling him to his back. “No hiding,” he muttered. “Forget it. Took too long. My choice.”