“Can you ever love me again?” he asked, and Loren kissed the tip of his nose.
“I don’t think I ever stopped, El.” Eliot’s eyes flared with happiness, and Loren continued in gentle tones, “We need to take the time to get to know each other again, though. Nine years is a long time, baby. But I want more than anything to be in your life again.”
“I want that too.” Eliot’s voice was fierce, and they fell into another kiss, roaming hands everywhere until the windows were steamed over.
Loren pushed Eliot away at last, saying huskily, “We need to stop now. It wouldn’t do for the Phoenix Police Department’s newest detective to get arrested for public indecency.” He opened the door to the truck and got out, taking deep breaths, willing his body to calm down.
Eliot joined him a few moments later, and they leaned against the hood, cuddling until Eliot looked up into the sky.
“Do you see the moon, Loren?”
Loren lifted his face, gazing at the bright moon in a cloudless sky. “You don’t know how many times over the years I’ve stopped to look at it, and thought of you. More than I ever realized.”
The headlights of another car approached just then, so Loren and Eliot broke apart with reluctance and got back in the truck. Once they reached Eliot’s apartment, Eliot announced he was going to take a shower, and disappeared into the bathroom. Loren flopped down on the couch, drifting, thinking over the day and the houses they’d seen.
After a few minutes Eliot emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, the briefest of towels wrapped around his hips. Water was still coursing down his flawless skin, and Loren’s mouth dried up when he saw droplets glittering like diamonds in the trail of hair on his abdomen that disappeared into the depths of the towel.
Eliot sauntered closer, his eyes slumberous, and stopped just in front of where Loren sprawled. The terry cloth slipped even farther down, clinging precariously to Eliot’s lean hips and treating Loren to a glimpse of wiry blond pubic hair.
“Such a tease, El,” he rasped, sliding his hands onto Eliot’s hips, stroking with his thumbs, enjoying the way Eliot’s skin pebbled under his touch. “I could sit here and watch you walk across the room all fucking day.” He leaned forward and nuzzled Eliot’s abdomen, placing a series of kisses from one hipbone to the other. “I’ve always loved the way you move.”
“Loren,” Eliot breathed, carding his fingers through Loren’s hair.
The towel lost the battle with gravity at last, dropping to the floor, and Eliot stood naked in front of him.
“Oh, El, you’re so beautiful,” Loren whispered achingly, smoothing his hands up Eliot’s chest and back down, moving them around to cup his taut ass and bring him in even closer. Loren rubbed his cheek along the shaft of Eliot’s engorged cock, the years rolling away as the smell of him, the feel of his soft, warm skin, filled his senses and almost choked him with remembered emotion.
Eliot bent down and kissed the top of Loren’s head, and Loren made a sharp protest as Eliot pulled away.
“Shhh,” Eliot soothed, stroking his hand down Loren’s cheek once. “I’ll be right back.”
Loren watched as he moved to switch the overhead lights off, then opened the blinds to let moonlight stream into the room before making a brief stop at his bedside table. He tossed a condom and lube onto the couch next to Loren, then straddled his lap with one smooth, graceful motion.
There wasn’t any music this time. Their rough breathing was the only accompaniment as Eliot writhed on top of him like he had the night at the club, one arm crooked behind his head, one arm bracing himself on the back of the couch. Loren leaned forward to kiss Eliot’s chest, latching on to a pink nipple and sucking hard, licking it, and Eliot groaned.
“Fuck yes,” he rasped, arching his back into Loren’s mouth.
All of a sudden Loren thought of the man on his knees before Eliot at the club; did Eliot even know who he was with right now? The thought made Loren bite down sharply on the tip of Eliot’s nipple, and Eliot cried out, threading his fingers through Loren’s hair, holding him tight to his chest, encouraging him.
“Loren,” he said in a broken voice, his fingers kneading Loren’s scalp. “Loren, baby.” Reassured, Loren gave the abused nipple a soothing lick, settling his hands on the firm cheeks of Eliot’s glorious ass, squeezing and spreading them, sliding one long middle finger between them to rub at Eliot’s puckered entrance.
Eliot lifted himself off of Loren’s lap, sinking to his knees and pushing Loren’s legs wide apart with a swift motion, kneeling between them. Holding Loren’s eyes with his, he undid Loren’s jeans, pushing his shirt up before leaning forward to kiss his heaving abdomen, tracing designs around his navel with his tongue.
“God, Eliot,” Loren ground out, lifting his hips to shove his jeans and underwear down and off. He caressed Eliot’s cheek with his thumb, brushing it back and forth across Eliot’s plump lips.
“Suck me,” he whispered. “Please, El.”
His eyes still holding Loren’s, Eliot leaned in and took him to the root with one long, smooth glide. Loren was not a small man, but Eliot took him easily, and the pressure of his hot, wet throat swallowing around his dick made Loren’s eyes roll back. He let out a cry of Eliot’s name, his fingertips riding the up-and-down motions of Eliot’s head until he pulled Eliot gently off of him.
“I need to be inside you,” Loren murmured, passing his thumb again over Eliot’s swollen lips.
Eliot planted one more tender kiss on the tip of Loren’s cock and he pushed to his feet. The sight of Eliot’s thick erection made Loren’s mouth water and he ached to take him into his mouth, but knew it would be a stupid thing to do given Eliot’s sketchy sexual history. He settled for nuzzling Eliot’s balls, giving them a lick and a kiss before pulling him back into a straddle over his lap.
“Suit me up and put me in,” Loren whispered, then grit his teeth as Eliot took his own sweet time rolling the condom on Loren, slicking him up, his hands everywhere. Loren was about ready to explode when Eliot finally positioned the aching tip at his entrance.
Eliot rubbed Loren with teasing motions against him, sliding up and down with Loren’s shaft between his cheeks, making sounds that went straight to Loren’s balls.
“Please, Eliot,” he moaned, grasping his hips. “Please.”
Eliot took pity on him at last and sank down, flexing the tight muscles that fought Loren’s dick until they relaxed, allowing the fat head to slide inside. Loren threw his head back, fighting for control, as Eliot sank down excruciatingly slowly until his buttocks were flush with Loren’s thighs.
Eliot leaned forward and took the lobe of Loren’s ear into his mouth, biting down before whispering, “You feel so good inside me, Loren. Better than I dreamed.”
He started to move in sinuous circles, massaging himself on Loren’s cock, and it was all Loren could do to stay still and not grip his hips and hammer up into him. He let Eliot set the pace, let Eliot tease him and play until Loren licked his palm and got some of his own back by reaching between their bodies and jacking Eliot with slow strokes. He sped up as Eliot started to lose control, slamming himself up and down on Loren’s dick.
Loren’s free hand went around Eliot to dig into the muscles of his straining back, his other hand working him hard until Eliot froze and came with a cry, thick ropes of semen jetting out to cover Loren’s sweaty chest.
Eliot collapsed forward, his face buried in Loren’s neck, making little sobbing moans that caused Loren’s balls to tighten painfully. Loren wrapped his arms around Eliot to hold him still before powering up into him with long, full strokes, feeling the ripples of Eliot’s orgasm milking the length of his dick. Loren roared and arched his back, his buttocks lifting off the couch as he buried himself deep in Eliot’s tight ass and came so hard his vision grayed around the edges.
The spasms seemed endless, and Loren at last sank back into the depths of the couch, totally spent. Eliot roamed his lips across Loren’s cheek, and he brushed their lips together, murmuring nonsense to him, as Loren rubbed his hands up and down Eliot’s back.
Finally Eliot lifted himself off of Loren with a groan, and he divested him of the full condom, tying it off and pitching it in a nearby wastebasket. Loren pulled him down into his lap again and held him close for a long time.
“Let’s go to bed, El,” Loren whispered at last. “I want to hold you all night.”
Eliot stood and led Loren to the rumpled futon, and they slid under the sheets, Eliot wrapping around him. Loren was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
ELIOT HUDDLED
in a ball in a corner of the darkened apartment, rocking, his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms around them. It helped when he made himself as small as possible because then maybe the madness couldn’t find him. Every now and then he took a swig from the vodka bottle sitting on the floor next to him.
Loren slept peacefully on the futon across the room, his soft snores reaching Eliot’s ears, irritating him. He wanted to wake Loren up and tell him to shut the fuck up, but that would be mean. Eliot never wanted to be mean to Loren.
They’d had such a good day together, such a fucking good day, riding all around the city looking at houses. Loren treated him like a—like a boyfriend, not Crazy Eliot the freak. The sex afterward was amazing. Then Loren fell asleep. Eliot tried to sleep too, but he could feel the boards under the thin mattress of the futon digging into his back. As he tried to get comfortable, Eliot started imagining those boards shattering into pieces and flying upward, piercing the mattress and killing them both.
He’d crawled out of bed in a panic and went straight for the vodka. Now he huddled on the floor with it, the bloody images behind his eyes expanding, getting sharper. It must have been the fucking pills he took this morning. Dr. Babcock was lying to him. She wasn’t trying to make him better, she was trying to kill him, make him insane. He’d never take those fucking things again.
The night passed slowly, Eliot on the floor with his vodka, Loren snoring on.
LOREN WOKE
early the next morning, the enticing smell of coffee rousing him from sleep. Eliot was in the tiny kitchen, bustling around. Loren sat up in bed and said, his voice drowsy, “El?”
“Hi, honey,” Eliot exclaimed, walking carefully over to Loren with a mug of coffee and handing it to him. Loren took grateful sips, watching as Eliot returned to the kitchen for his own cup and rejoined him, perching on the edge of the futon.
“How did you sleep?” Eliot asked, leaning in for a coffee-flavored kiss.
“Like a baby,” Loren said, feeling rueful. “I’m sorry to have passed out right after we—”
“You were tired. I slept well too,” Eliot replied, his tone breezy. Loren paused, a vague memory tickling the back of his mind of waking up at one point during the night and not finding Eliot in bed with him at all, his side cold. He shrugged, deciding it must have been a dream.
“I need to run in to work and do a bunch of paperwork today, El,” Loren said, finishing his coffee and putting the mug on the bedside table. “And then I’ll just go back to my place and make some phone calls, get some things done, but I’ll be back tomorrow. If you want you can plan our date this time. Whatever you want to do.”
Eliot leaped up and took Loren’s coffee cup to the kitchen. “Can you stay for breakfast? I made this awesome egg casserole. It took me a long time to find the chorizo sausage that it calls for, though. What Arizona supermarket runs out of chorizo sausage? Idiots, I don’t know why I shop there. Well, I do, because they’re close and I don’t have a fucking car. But if I did have a car, I wouldn’t shop there again. Where do you—”
Loren watched him for a while, listening to him talk, his speech faster and seemingly more pressured than even the day before. Eliot was escalating, even to Loren’s untrained eye.
He got out of bed and walked into the kitchen, sliding his arms around Eliot’s waist from behind, yelping when Eliot jumped in fright and lashed out with the spatula he was holding.
“Whoa there!” Loren exclaimed. “Didn’t mean to scare you, El!” Eliot’s eyes were darting around the room and Loren grew wary. “Tell me the truth, Eliot. Are you all right?” He turned Eliot around and took his shoulders in his hands and peered at him.
“Just feeling a little anxious today,” Eliot said. “I get like this sometimes, I have it along with my bipolar.”
“Do your meds help with that too?” Loren nodded toward the row of pill bottles lined up on the counter.
“Yeah, I guess,” Eliot shrugged. “I don’t even know what shit Dr. B. has me on anymore. She’s changed it so many fucking times.”
“Did you take them today?” Loren pressed, and the cop in him sensed Eliot was lying when he blithely tossed a “Sure did” over his shoulder as he leaned into the fridge.
Loren wanted to explore the matter further, but his phone rang right then. It was his new detective supervisor, a man named Levi Jackson. Their conversation was brief, and then Loren headed to the shower.
“If your casserole is done by the time I’m out of the shower, I’d love to have some. Otherwise I’ll have to take a rain check, El. They’re expecting me at the station in an hour, and I still need to run by my apartment to change.”
Loren showered and shaved, grimacing when he put on the same clothes he wore yesterday. When he emerged Eliot served him a plate of casserole, and Loren exclaimed over it in sincere appreciation.
“All the trouble you went to to find the sausage paid off, El. It’s delicious.” Loren set his plate in the sink and drew Eliot into his arms for a good-bye kiss. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Eliot nodded and hugged him close, and Loren deepened their kiss. “God, it’s hard to leave you, even for one night,” he growled, dropping his hands down to squeeze Eliot’s ass before letting him go. “See you tomorrow, El.”
Eliot winked at him, and Loren reluctantly pulled away and left.
“HEY! WHAT
are you doing with him?”
Eliot strode forward toward Sam’s bench, wincing a little at the belligerence in his tone. When he went into the park and saw some man bending over his friend, Eliot felt a fierce protectiveness well up, and his words came out a little more forcefully than he intended.