Chapter 7 #4
“Masculinity, stupid!” Jameson corrected with an ease born of arrogance and a great deal of practice.
Lilac threw one of her bottles of nail polish at him before either Hayes or Beckett could scold Jameson for his ugly insult.
“Here we go again,” Beckett muttered, smacking his forehead with his palm when the kids started screaming insults back and forth at the tops of their lungs.
“I’ll take the girl,” Hayes said, with a deep sigh of resignation, as he lifted the dog off his lap and stood up, face still slathered with a shit ton of makeup.
“I’ll take the smartass,” Beckett replied, nodding towards Jameson who was yelling right back at his sister, holding her blue nail polish hostage.
He hadn’t gotten hit by the small bottle—thankfully—but he was acting as if she’d thrown a grenade at him.
Beckett was reluctantly impressed by Jameson’s over-the-top behavior even while he was scooping him up in a fireman’s carry to drag his screaming ass up the stairs.
It took about 30 minutes to get Lilac and Jameson calmed down enough to put them to bed.
As soon as they were separated, they were relatively easy to deal with.
When Beckett and Hayes returned to the living room, Hayes collapsed in exhaustion onto the couch, dropped his head back, and closed his eyes.
“How do parents do this all the time?” he mused.
“It’s like a pyramid scheme—once you’re in, you ain’t getting out—” Beckett said, shaking his head. He sat down on the couch next to Hayes and leaned back against the right arm rest. He plopped his feet in Hayes’ lap and yawned so widely his jaw popped. `
“No kids,” Beckett stated emphatically, pointing at his partner. “I’ll get a fucking dog if you really want one, but no kids.”
Hayes snorted and shook his head back and forth a few times. “You’re telling me!” Then he looked over at Beckett, wearing an odd little smile that told Beckett he was having some seriously naughty thoughts.
“Doesn’t mean we can’t practice making one, though,” Hayes said suggestively.
“Practice does make perfect and all that,” Beckett agreed readily as his gaze roamed freely over Hayes’ amazing body.
The marksman had just turned 35, and he looked spectacular.
He often teased Hayes about being pretty, but his teasing was actually rooted in fact.
Hayes was indeed pretty. His jawline was model-perfect, looking as if it was carved out of marble, with high cheekbones and startling blue eyes lined with dark eyelashes.
He reminded Beckett of the god-like figures he’d seen in all those boring paintings that Hayes dragged him around Paris to look at and talk about for hours and hours.
Despite Hayes’ many perfect features, there were a few imperfections that made him look rugged and manly as well.
That beautiful nose had been broken a few times, leaving it bent slightly to the right.
There were several tiny white scars on the sides and back of his scalp.
Years of squinting and scowling had left lines at the corners of his eyes and between his brows.
When Hayes was deep in thought, Beckett sometimes liked to kiss those fine lines and make them smooth out.
If Hayes minded that little quirk of Beckett’s, he certainly never said so.
Overtaken by a sudden rush of affection, he sat up and lifted his right hand to cup the side of Hayes’ jaw. He ran his thumb over the small white scar at the corner of his boyfriend’s chin and smiled as Hayes’ gaze quickly transitioned from amused to confused.
“You’d have made pretty babies,” Beckett observed and winked playfully.
“Is this you going off the deep end?” Hayes asked with a snort, perplexed by Beckett’s sudden mood shift.
“Went off that end a long time ago, Daisy,” he mused, and Hayes’ eyes crinkled with amusement. “I’m just never really sure how I got here,” he said, with a shrug. He ran his thumb over the hard line of Hayes’ cheekbones, which were still covered in blush from Lilac’s salon makeover.
“Here, as in—babysitting Gill’s kids, or here, as in—”
“Madly in love with a pretty boy,” Beckett whispered as if sharing a secret.
Hayes laughed out loud and blushed brightly under his garish makeup.
“Are you flirting?” Hayes whispered back, obviously amused. “Aren’t we a little past the flirting stage?”
Beckett didn’t think they’d ever had a flirting stage. They’d gone from complete strangers, to being friendly-ish, to jumping into bed and confessing their love for each other. All of this happened in less than a year.
“Think a face like yours deserves to be wooed at least once a month,” Beckett said, quite seriously.
It was easy to see that Hayes hadn’t expected such a romantic declaration because his blush deepened. He looked away, biting his lip nervously.
“Are you embarrassed?” Beckett asked, suddenly feeling as if he was 15 again. It was like playing “7 Minutes in Heaven” with a girl he barely knew and asking her if they could kiss.
“Obviously,” Hayes admitted and chuckled.
“You weren’t embarrassed the first time I asked to fuck you,” Beckett reminded him. Ironically enough, when Beckett had first shown up at Hayes’ condo and insisted that they needed to just—get it on, Hayes had been perfectly composed and responded with a simple, “Okay.”
“You weren’t looking at me like this, not then,” Hayes responded, voice low and husky. “And we didn’t have an audience,” he added, nodding to Teacup who’d taken refuge on the ottoman in the middle of the room and was staring at them intently.
Like what? was on the tip of Beckett’s tongue, but he knew better than to ask a question he already knew the answer to: like he was madly in love.
Admittedly, Hayes had made a good point.
It hadn’t been love in his eyes back then.
Just good old-fashioned lust. And lust had always been a helluva lot easier for him to deal with than love had ever been.
“Teacup knows how babies are made,” Beckett said, waving off Hayes’ concern. “And I think we should kiss,” Beckett said, fully aware he sounded like a love-addled fool, but ready and willing to wear the hat that fit.
Suddenly, Hayes had a flashback to their first night together, when Beckett had told him that he was going to kiss him right before he dragged him off to bed. Hayes snorted and shook his head like he found him ridiculous, but leaned forward to capture Beckett’s lips.
Like all things with them, it was quite simple at the outset, filled with good intentions, but soon escalated well beyond the initial plan.
Before Beckett had managed to wrap his head around the arousal flooding him, he’d instinctively climbed into Hayes’ lap and buried his hands in Hayes’ hair, wanting nothing more than to keep him as close as possible.
Kissing was both familiar and exciting. Beckett craved the push and pull, especially when Hayes nipped at his bottom lip before claiming his mouth with his tongue and dragging out each stroke.
He felt Hayes’ right hand sneak under his shirt and settle at the small of his back.
His long fingers were digging into Beckett’s skin almost painfully—exactly the way he liked it.
He moaned into the kiss, before pulling away. Hayes’ gaze was filled with lust as he waited for Beckett’s next move, frequently glancing around as if afraid they’d get caught.
“If we get caught by one of the kids—we’re definitely getting fired,” Hayes said, as they separated momentarily to catch their breath.
“Then you better keep a lookout, frogman,” Beckett teased, before placing a kiss to the side of Hayes’ jaw.
He let his hand wander the length of Hayes’ body, the hard contour of him like a map leading him to paradise.
Beckett took his sweet time, kissing every available inch of skin as he travelled down his body.
He kissed the inside of Hayes’ wrist as he knelt on the floor between Hayes’ legs.
“Beck—” Hayes growled in warning as Beckett’s intention became clear.
“Shut it—gotta keep the comm lines clear to hear the children,” he teased as he unbuckled Hayes’ belt and popped the top button of his pants.
Hayes hissed as Beckett took him out. He was already hard and leaking.
His cock was a glorious sight as it bobbed up proudly.
Beckett wrapped a hand around the head quickly, wiping away the bead of pre-cum to keep it from staining Hayes’ shirt.
“Christ,” Hayes moaned, lifting his hips upwards, seeking more of Beckett’s touch.
Beckett glanced up at Hayes, pleased to see his usually tightly-wound boyfriend unravelling so completely.
Beckett could hardly keep from smiling as he wrapped his lips around the head and bobbed down.
Following his hand down as he went, until he was able to squeeze the base of Hayes’ cock.
He kept his hand around the base as he pulled back up, meeting Hayes’ gaze as he swirled his tongue around the tip, and through the slit.
The brilliant purple of his eyeshadow contrasted beautifully with the glittering blue of his gaze. God the man was pretty.