9. Eight #2
"I wake up and put my hand on his side of the bed. Most mornings I remember before I touch the mattress." I swallowed. "Some mornings I don't."
Coyote pulled his hand away. The loss of it left the back of my neck cold.
He rose to his knees and turned toward the cave mouth. His jaw worked. One hand opened and closed against his thigh.
"I don't share."
"I know."
"You're mine."
"I know that, too."
His head snapped toward me.
I didn't look away. "I won't lie to you about him."
Coyote showed me the edge of his teeth. "I don't want your lies."
"I was his husband."
"And now you're mine."
Something in my chest twisted. "He has years of my life. I can't make those years not happen because you want them gone."
"I didn't say I wanted them gone."
"You don't want me loving him."
"No." He came back and planted one hand beside my hip. "I don't want him still taking things from you."
"He's dead, little one."
"I know."
"Then what do you think he's taking?"
Coyote climbed over my legs until he was kneeling between them. "The first few seconds every morning."
My breath stopped.
He put his palm against the center of my chest. "I want those," he said. "I want every second after you open your eyes. I want you reaching for me before you remember to reach for him."
"You can't order grief out of me."
"I'm not." His fingers curled into the hair on my chest. "Love him. Miss him. Reach for him when you're half asleep. But when you wake up, I want your hand on me."
"Coyote."
"I want all of you."
My eyes burned. "I can't give you what belonged to him."
"I don't want what belonged to him." He leaned closer, his breath warm against my lips. "I want what comes after."
Five years of being the one who carried it, and he wanted it out of my hands. My throat closed.
Coyote pressed his palm harder against my chest. "What happened after he died?"
"For a while, nothing."
I had kept the clinic going. Saw patients, filled out charts, trained a younger doctor to take over more of the work. Every night I went home to a house that still held two men's clothes and one man's breathing.
Eventually, I signed the clinic over completely. I thought that would help. It didn't.
"One morning, I went out walking before breakfast," I said. "I reached the end of the road and kept going."
"Where were you going?"
"Nowhere."
Coyote frowned. "You walked away from your house with nowhere to go?"
"I wasn't walking away. Not when I started."
"What happened when it got dark?"
"I slept."
"Outside?"
"Under a cottonwood."
"You didn't have supplies."
"I had a bottle of water. I bought a pack in the next town. Then boots when my shoes wore out."
"How long?"
"About six months."
His fingers stilled against my chest. "You could've gone home."
"Every morning, I thought I would."
"Why didn't you?"
I looked beyond the bones turning on their wires. The ridge ran south until the heat blurred it. "There was always another mile in front of me."
Coyote's face changed. His shoulders lowered. The hand against my chest flattened, no longer holding me in place. "You walked until everybody shut up," he said.
"Something like that."
"What were you looking for?"
"I wanted to know who I was when nobody needed me."
"You find him?"
I looked at the man kneeling between my legs. "Maybe."
"You done walking?"
My jaw set before I answered. "I'm here, aren't I?"
"That isn't what I asked."
"No." I looked out at the sun beyond the cave. "I don't know if I'm done."
Coyote's hand fell away. I caught it before he could take it back.
"I can give you today," I said.
"Today isn't enough."
"It's what I know."
He stared at our hands. "Then I'll ask again tomorrow."
My chest pulled tight around something that had nothing to do with the stitches. "All right."
He laced our fingers together. "Nobody came looking for you?"
"My parents are gone. I have a sister. Sarah. She called every Sunday after Little John died," I said. "I'd tell her I was fine. She knew I was lying, but she let me do it."
"She thinks you're dead."
"Maybe."
"Do you want her to know you aren't?"
"Yes." My hand tightened on his. "I think I do."
Coyote looked toward the cave mouth. "If she came looking," he said, "would you go with her?"
"I don't know."
His hand started to pull away again. I held on.
"I'd see her," I said. "I owe her that much. After that, I don't know what I'd do. But I wouldn't leave without telling you."
"You promise?"
"I promise."
Coyote searched my face. His gaze shifted past me to the cave mouth. His fingers pressed into mine, hard enough to hurt.
Then he climbed into my lap.
He came up to my chin standing. Sitting astride me, he still had to tip his head back to look into my eyes. His knees barely reached around my hips. He held my face between both of his hands, and I stayed where he put me.
"I found you," he said.
"I'm alive because of you."
His eyes darkened.
His lips closed over mine. The kiss wasn't a demand. Not at first. He pressed his lips to mine and waited.
Once I'd known how to do this without thinking. Now I had to remember the pressure of another mouth. The scrape of stubble. The breath caught between two men when neither one wanted to pull away first.
I kissed him back.
Coyote made a low sound and settled more heavily onto my thighs. His fingers slid into my hair. Mine spread across his back and nearly covered it. I slid my hand up and down, drinking in the warm skin, the ridges of old scar tissue, the bony knobs of his spine beneath my palm.
He kissed me deeper, and when he pulled away, I chased him.
He grinned and nuzzled against my neck. "Want something, big man?"
"You."
"You have me."
"Not enough."
He laughed into my lips.
The sound ran through me. My cock filled under him, trapped in my jeans with the denim going damp at the head, and Coyote rolled his hips once to make sure I knew he felt it.
My hands tightened on him, but pain pulled at my side.
Coyote stopped. "Ribs?"
"I'm fine."
"Don't lie to me."
"It pulled. The stitches held."
He put one palm against my chest and pushed me carefully onto my back. Then he stripped off his shirt and dropped it beside my head. "Stay there."
"I can move."
"I know. Don't."
He took my hand and put it against his chest. His heart beat fast beneath my palm.
"Let me do the work," he said.
The words landed somewhere I'd been holding shut.
"All right."
Coyote undid my belt and opened my jeans one button at a time, his eyes on my face while he reached inside. His hand closed around my cock, and I came up off the bedroll before the pain caught me.
"Easy." His thumb pressed into my hipbone.
"I'm trying."
"You're terrible at it."
His thumb dragged over the wet head of my cock, and I groaned loud enough to come back off the rock. Coyote showed his teeth.
He worked my jeans down carefully, lifting one leg and then the other around the puncture in my thigh. His own clothes followed. When he settled back over me, bare skin slid against mine, and I forgot all about the pain.
He was warm everywhere, and hard against my stomach, small enough to fit beneath my hands and mean enough to make me ask before I moved them.
Coyote kissed my throat. "I want you inside me."
My cock jerked between us. "All of me?"
"All of you."
"Not if your body says no."
He lifted his head. "My body knows what it wants."
"Then you tell me what it says."
Coyote studied me for a moment. Then he reached past my shoulder and opened one of the tins near the bedroll. A small bottle of lube sat inside.
I looked at it. "You keep lube in a cave."
"I keep useful things."
He coated his fingers, but I caught his wrist before he could reach behind himself.
"Let me."
He considered it. Then he put the bottle in my hand and shifted forward on his knees.
"Slow," he said. "I'll tell you what I need."
I slicked my fingers and let Coyote guide my hand between his legs.
The first touch made him inhale sharply. He kept one hand braced on my chest and used the other to position my fingers exactly where he wanted them.
"Here."
I circled him gently, and his head dropped.
"More?"
"Yes."
I pressed one finger inside, and Coyote tightened around me.
I stopped.
"Don't stop," he said.
"You're tight."
"You're enormous. This is how we fix that."
He pushed back onto my hand.
I worked him open by his breathing, stopping every time it caught.
He told me when to add more lube, when to move deeper, and when to curl my fingers.
His orders came short and exact. Deeper. Curl them. Again. He never once asked whether I would do it.
By the time he told me to add more, sweat ran down his spine and his hole had quit fighting me. His cock hung hard between his legs, dripping onto my stomach every time I found his prostate.
"Like that?" I asked.
"Again."
I did it again, and he whined through his teeth and rocked against my hand.
Christ.
I wanted inside him badly enough to feel sick with it. Wanted to spread him open and bury myself where my fingers were. Wanted his weight on me and his orders in my ear while I gave him everything he asked for.
But I kept my hips still, waiting for permission.
"Good, big man," he said.
My cock jumped against his thigh.
His lips curved. "You like that."
"Apparently."
"All those years and nobody taught you how good you are when you follow directions?"
"Little John wasn't much for giving orders."
"I am."
"I noticed."
He took more of my hand than I thought he had room for and told me to keep going. I worked him until his shoulders dropped and he shoved back against my knuckles for more.
Then Coyote caught my wrist. "Enough."
"You sure?"
"I want something bigger."
He drew my fingers out and coated my cock with more lube. He closed his hand around me and stroked me root to tip, and I bit my lip.
"Coyote."
"Hold still."
He rose over me, reached back, and set the head of my cock against his hole. The first give of his hole against me locked every muscle I had. Then he pressed down, taking me in by fractions, and I groaned into his shoulder with my jaw locked.
His breath hitched.
"Wait," he said, and my hands closed hard around his hips.