Chapter 5 #2
“Down the hall.” Hank pointed, then realized he was pointing while naked and recently undone. He dropped his hand. “I’m pointing while naked. I apologize.”
“Don’t.”
“Do you—I have—there are supplies.” Supplies. He’d said supplies, as if they were preparing for a weather event. “Condoms and... lubricant. In the bedroom.”
Chad’s eyebrows rose. Delightedly. “You went shopping?”
“I may have. Anticipated.”
“This I have to see.”
Hank made a quick detour to the bathroom. Splashed water on his face. Gripped the sink. Stared at his reflection—flushed, sweating, beard damp—and thought: This is who you are now. Try to act like you deserve it.
When he entered the bedroom, Chad had already removed his shoes and socks and t-shirt. He was working on his belt buckle when he looked up.
“Hey,” Hank said. “What if I wanted to undress you myself?”
Chad’s smirk suggested this was charming but impractical. “Want me to put them back on?”
“Absolutely not.”
Hank crossed to him and kissed him, hands finding the sparse blond hair on Chad’s chest. He’d been wanting to touch it all night—had caught glimpses at the bar, at the gallery, every time Chad’s collar shifted.
And there, on Chad’s left shoulder: the tribal tattoo.
Hank traced its edges with his thumb. He’d seen it peeking from under sleeves. Now it was fully his to look at.
“You’re beautiful,” Hank said, and then was embarrassed by how plainly he’d said it. “It’s just difficult to process that someone who looks like you would be attracted to someone who—”
“Stop.” Chad kissed him. An interruption and an answer. “You tipped thirty percent and looked at my face. That’s a low bar, but here we are.”
“And I paraphrase Shakespeare while standing around naked.”
“Burly and naked.” Chad ran his hands down Hank’s sides. “I stand by burly.”
“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,” Hank offered, because apparently his brain’s emergency response to vulnerability was to quote Romeo and Juliet.
“Get those off me, then.”
Hank reached for Chad’s jeans, undid the button, and knelt as he pulled them down. Chad’s cock met him at eye level—half-hard, unencumbered by underwear.
“Oh,” Hank breathed.
“I’d love to tell you I planned that,” Chad said, “but I haven’t done laundry this week.”
Hank barely heard him. He leaned forward and took Chad into his mouth.
The taste was different from his own—salt and skin and something warmer underneath.
Chad’s fingers slid into his hair, combing through it, and the combination of that touch and the weight on his tongue was a thing he wanted to study for the rest of his life.
He took Chad deeper, compensating for inexperience with the kind of focused determination that had gotten him through law school, through campaigns, through every impossible thing he’d ever attempted.
“Oh, that’s good, Hank.”
The praise hit him square in the chest. He wanted to be good at this. Wanted it more than he’d wanted any committee appointment, any endorsement, any vote.
“You taste incredible. Like vanilla and coffee.”
Chad laughed. “That’s the milkshake.”
“You’re ruining my moment.”
“Maybe White Russian is our code word now.”
“Code word for—”
“Guess.”
Hank chuckled against Chad’s skin, then went lower—nuzzling the inside of his thigh with the rough grain of his beard. Chad’s hips lifted. Hank went lower still, found Chad’s entrance, worked it with his tongue—cautious at first, then with more confidence as Chad’s breathing changed.
He’d thought about this. Late at night, alone, when his defenses dropped and his mind wandered to places he’d spent decades fencing off.
But the thinking and the doing were different countries.
The intimacy of it. The trust it required.
The raw fact of tasting another man like this and wanting more, not less.
He pressed closer, cupped Chad’s ass in both hands, and gave himself over to it.
“Wow,” Chad said eventually, his voice strained. “Ease up a little. I need—”
Hank moved up to Chad’s cock, not ready to stop touching him.
“That’s good, but you’re going to make me come.”
Hank looked up, face flushed, beard wet. “I want you to come. I want you to feel what I—”
“I want something else first.” Chad glanced down. “And judging by what’s happening south of your border, so do you.”
Hank followed his gaze. Fully hard again, a strand of precome hanging from the tip. He hadn’t noticed. He’d been so absorbed in Chad’s body that his own had proceeded without authorization.
“How do you want me?” Chad asked.
“On your hands and knees.” No hesitation. The image had lived in him since that first night at BJ’s, watching Chad lean across the bar.
Chad reached for the nightstand. “Where’s this lube?”
Hank opened the drawer and pulled out the CVS bag. Still crinkled from yesterday’s trip—exact cash, bored clerk who hadn’t looked twice, his hands shaking then as they were shaking now.
Chad peered inside. His face went through a quick, wonderful sequence—surprise, delight, something softer.
“Condoms and lube.” He held up the bottle of Astroglide in one hand, the box of Trojans in the other, like exhibits in a very intimate trial. “Very presumptuous, Mr. Fortner.”
“Hopeful.” Hank’s voice cracked on the word. “Definitely hopeful.”
Chad handed him a condom and produced a few extra packets from his own pocket—which meant Chad had also come prepared, which meant Chad had also been hoping, and Hank’s chest did something it had no business doing this early.
“Put this on.”
Hank’s fingers trembled as he rolled the condom down. It had been years—he and Shelby had stopped using them after they’d decided against children—and the sensation was unfamiliar. Clinical. Then Chad squeezed lube onto his covered length, and clinical became irrelevant.
“Work me open,” Chad said, settling onto all fours. “One finger first. Then more when I tell you.”
Hank positioned himself behind Chad and took a moment to simply look. The line of his spine. The lean muscle of his back.
He pressed one slicked finger forward and felt Chad’s body give around it. Chad made a small sound—breath, not distress—and rocked back.
“Good. Move it.”
Hank did. Carefully. Methodically. After a minute, he added a second finger, watching Chad’s face in profile.
“More.”
A third. Chad took it and sighed.
“I need you now. In me.”
“Yes,” Hank said. He withdrew his fingers, added more lube—too much, probably, but the alternative was worse—and positioned himself. Touched Chad with the head of his cock. Circled once. His heart was hammering so hard he could hear it in his wrists.
He pressed forward.
“Mph.” Chad’s shoulder blades drew together.
Hank froze. “Are you okay? I can stop. I will absolutely—”
“Don’t stop.” Chad’s voice was tight but sure. “You’re thick, Hank. It’s been a while for me, too. Just—give me a second.”
Hank held still while Chad rocked forward, then back, taking more with each motion. Hank caught the rhythm and matched it, letting Chad’s body set the pace.
“That’s good,” Chad breathed. “That’s really good. I think I needed this as much as you did.”
“Yeah?” Hank’s voice came out strangled. “I’m glad it’s—that I’m—” Working. Adequate. Not a complete disaster. “I’m glad.”
“I’m going to count to three,” Chad said. “On three, go all the way.”
“You’re sure?”
“Completely.”
“Okay.” Hank braced. His thighs were trembling. “I’m ready.”
“One.” Chad inhaled. “Two.” Exhaled. “Three.”
Hank pressed forward as Chad drove back, and he was buried to the hilt, surrounded by tight heat, and every thought he’d ever had vacated his skull like staffers fleeing a fire drill.
A sound left him. He didn’t recognize it.
“Now move,” Chad said.
Something older than thought took over. Hank began—tentative, testing angles, learning the rhythm. Then faster. Harder. His hands gripped Chad’s hips and pulled him back to meet each thrust, and the sound of their bodies connecting filled the room, drowning out whatever the Google Home was playing.
“Giddyup!” Hank hollered.
The word launched itself from somewhere deep in rural Georgia and cleared his teeth before his brain could intervene. He had just said giddyup during sex.
Chad laughed. Not at him—with him, or maybe at the sheer improbable joy of it—and the sound of that laugh, breathless and delighted, did something to Hank that was more intimate than anything their bodies were doing.
This. This is who I am. A forty-year-old man who says giddyup in bed and means it.
Movement caught his eye. The dresser mirror. There they were: Hank gripping Chad’s hips, driving into him, both flushed and slick. The silver in his beard. The size of his hands against Chad’s waist. The man in the mirror was someone Hank had never met. Someone unguarded.
“Look,” Hank said, his voice rough.
Chad followed his gaze, and Hank felt him clench, heard his breath catch.
Hank slowed. Made his strokes longer and fuller, watching their reflection. Watching himself disappear into Chad and emerge again.
“Hold on,” Chad said, breathless. “I want to see your face. Not in the mirror. Close.”
Hank withdrew carefully, and Chad turned to face him, both on their knees now. They kissed—deep, slow. A reset.
“Ride me,” Hank said. “I want to watch you.”
Where was this coming from?
Chad pushed him back against the headboard with a grin and a firm hand on his chest. Hank settled, legs spreading to make room, and watched as Chad straddled him—one hand on Hank’s shoulder for balance, the other reaching back to guide him into place.
“Ready?” Chad asked, Hank pressing against him.
Hank nodded. His throat had closed entirely.
Chad lowered himself. Inch by inch.
Hank watched his face—the eyes fluttering shut, the lips parting, the expression moving from focus to something that looked like relief. The angle was different this time, tighter, and Hank gripped the sheets and forced himself to stay still, to let Chad take what he needed.