Chapter 91 Dad, You Slut #2
Now Dane looked at his daughter, whose piebald hair was exactly like his, shining in an ombre of blond and copper and sable. She had a constellation of freckles across her nose, just like Nomi. Diane’s blue eyes stared back at him. The keen intelligence behind that gaze had humbled Ethan’s.
“I will think hard and seriously about it,” Dane said. “I’ll take all of August to think, and make a decision in September.”
“That’s fair,” she said.
“I’m bringing Liko, so the trip also depends on his schedule.”
Liko smiled, blushed, and busied himself with his Klondike wrapper, folding it into precision quarters.
“One more thing,” Dane said. “It’s not fair for you to keep being the go-between. You’re our daughter, not the ambassador carrying messages. If Ethan wants me to come, Ethan should extend the invitation. And asking you to relay one last message to him is a spectacular self-own, so fuck my life.”
They all laughed and Dane exhaled, pleased.
“You are a Great Dane,” Saskia said, rising half out of her seat to hug him.
“The greatest,” Liko said quietly.
The men hesitated in the upstairs hall, not sure whether to boldly go to Dane’s room together, or part ways and sneak around later.
“Good night you two,” Saskia called from her bedroom. “Sleep well.”
“Fuck it,” Dane muttered, and led Liko by the wrist to his room.
“Lock it,” Liko said.
“No shit.” Dane turned the switch in the knob, then pretended to push the dresser across the doorway.
“That went well,” Liko said. “Splendid, as the Brits say. What do you think?”
“I thought splendid.”
“Saskia’s terrific,” Liko said. “I mean it. I’m partial to people with Ks in their names, but even if she were Annabel, she’d be fabulous.”
“She is,” Dane said, painfully conscious of his daughter’s presence in the house.
How the energy always changed when she came and went.
The complete privilege of having her. This only child, this beautiful soul around which three hares had chased each other.
This treasure, this blessing, and she was not only terrific, she was alive.
Liko had had such a fabulous treasure and it was gone. Offensively, inexplicably, cruelly and unjustifiably gone.
“The night we met,” Liko said, “I made you promise to keep living for her. One more year.”
Dane nodded.
“You keep doing that.”
“I will.”
Liko sat on the end of the bed. He rested forearms on his knees and laced his fingers. He looked at Dane a long time. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Do you?”
“I pick up on it all the time. This little frisson of guilt from other parents. Maybe not guilt, more like a heightened compassion that makes them hold back. It’s for my sake and I appreciate it so much.
Really. But you’re allowed to enjoy your daughter.
I don’t resent you. Love her, talk her up, brag about her, take joy in her mere presence, cherish every breath she takes.
Clutch and cling to her because she’s your only child.
Yeah, it’s bittersweet. Seeing anyone adore their child is bittersweet to me now.
How I cope… Well, one of the ways I cope is when I see a terrific kid, I say so.
It’s not just for you. It’s for me. I’m kind of borrowing her a few minutes.
Parenting by proxy. I indulge in their terrificness and help myself to a bit of the adoration.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
It’s my thing to cope with, not yours. Make sense? ”
“Yes.”
“That’s all.” Liko twisted his fingers. “Life is too goddamn short and there’s precious little I give a fuck about. You love her with everything you got. I’d be more offended if you didn’t. Just like you’d be if you saw someone not unabashedly adore their spouse for your sake.”
“I’m kind of adoring you right now.”
Liko let go his hands and set his palms behind him on the mattress. He held still. Vulnerable yet commanding. His body telling Dane, Get over here, but a tremor around his eyes adding, but be careful.
Dane went, and knelt between Liko’s feet. He ran careful hands up the long thighs, planed them along Liko’s chest and up to his head.
“I’m also concentrating on doing the next thing.”
Liko’s beautiful smile unfolded in his beard. “I’m a thing. And I’d like to be next.”
Their next kiss was different. Something between them had shifted.
Settled down. Horses were being held and flavors savored.
The kiss had a slow softness within an urgent rhythm.
Liko still leaned back on his hands, and Dane set his own palms down on the mattress, canting onto Liko’s chest as he got lost in it.
Tasting everything Liko had put in his mouth tonight.
He thought about tasting himself in Liko’s mouth and the front of his sweats rose into a point.
Liko kissed all over Dane’s neck. Ran his tongue up Dane’s throat, then drew him close and wound arms around his waist. He put his forehead against Dane’s stomach for a long breath in and out. He looked up and Dane held his face, thumbs stroking his cheekbones.
“Green Man, you are so fucking beautiful.”
“Great Dane, you give me so much peace.”
Dane started kissing him, stopped to pull Liko’s shirt off, then went deep back into his mouth. Following the foliage resurrection back to the seed under his tongue, back to the Tree of Life, back to the first being who was both man and woman.
Adam androgynos.
You have formed me behind and before, and laid your hand on me.
Let us make love in our image.
Liko trembled then, and pressed his forehead to Dane’s stomach again.
“You all right?” Dane said, running a hand through his hair.
Liko nodded. “Never been this emotional with a guy. It’s…a lot.” He took another deep breath, in and out. When he looked up, he was dazzling.
“Shotgun,” he whispered.
Dane pulled him up, stripped him down, then pushed him back on the bed and went crawling up his body. Boxing Liko in with knees and elbows, kissing with both sides of his soul.
“So hard for you,” Liko whispered. “God, I haven’t wanted someone like this in so fucking long.”
Dane reached for lube, slicked up his hands and gathered their cocks together, sliding and squeezing them side by side.
“God,” Liko moaned, his head tipped back on the pillow, writhing in between Dane’s thighs.
“Like that?”
“Love that.”
“You’re so fucking hot.”
“Tell me the story.”
“Once there was a Green Man in my bed,” Dane said. “And then I fucked him with my hands. And then I fucked him with my mouth. Until finally he came hard enough to topple a cathedral. And then…”
“And then,” Liko whispered, breathing hard.
“And then you write the next part.” Dane moved back and dug his hands under Liko’s body.
Happiness enclosed him like a leather vest, passion crisscrossing up his back and pulling him tight.
His edges perfectly matched. Diane dreamily narrating the inner monologue.
Nomi beyond the stars, clothed in wisteria with Dusk Tiara, pleased for him.
And Ethan, wherever he was. Not part of now, but part of all the thens that brought Dane to now, here, in this bed with the Green Man.
The farm and the land and the intersection of two roads cupping the house in its fertile palm.
The house thrumming happily because Saskia the Knife was here.
Safe in her bed, alive and terrific. Changing the energy just by walking through a door, because three would always be the most magic number.
“Are you here?” Liko whispered.
“All here.” On a mission of desirous peace, Danelaw Strong was purely present and utterly himself, as he lifted up the overflowing bowl of Liko’s hips and drank him down.