Page 11 of Boyfriend on Parole: The Care of Broken Things Extended Epilogue (Breaking Free #2)

Nathaniel grinned, especially seeing the way Samuel’s expression collapsed into outrage at the word whore .

“It’s true. Best to be cautious, Sammy. But maybe just a nibble—just a morsel for the road.

” And so saying, Nathaniel did bite down on him, his inner thigh, but gently, not enough to hurt.

It made him frown, especially because Nathaniel had finished with the underwear and had already clicked the seatbelt back into place.

“What’s wrong, Sammy? Still sticky?”

“It didn’t even leave a mark.”

Nathaniel laughed. “Is that what you wanted? Lean over, I’ll give you one.”

A few moments later he was the proud owner of his first hickey. Nathaniel had put it on his arm where he’d be able to see it and was even then sucking a second onto his neck.

From up front Samuel could see Eli grinning in the rearview mirror, the handsomest man alive. “No fair, you never give me hickies.”

“Because we’re not in high school. Besides, I doubt they’d show up on your skin.”

“Shut up. I want to be young and in love.”

Quickly, Samuel pushed his leg up front—the only thing long enough to reach. “I’ll take more.”

Eli thought that was the funniest thing in the world, hauling the leg up and over his shoulder. “Can you keep it here until the next red light?”

“Yes.”

Nathaniel gave the leg a slap. “That won’t be for at least half an hour. Don’t listen to him.”

But he didn’t see the problem with that. His leg was perfectly happy to be up near Eli’s face.

“So pretty,” Eli said, turning his face to give the leg kisses here and there when he could afford to. “Nathaniel, how on earth did we hook ourselves a catch like this one?”

Nathaniel, who had gone back to making out with his new toy, only answered between kisses. “I figured it must be your karma, not mine. More importantly, how would you describe the color of these nipples. Primrose? Cherry blossom?”

“Maybe they’re one of those new color changing varieties. Try sucking on one. See what happens.”

Nathaniel tried, but it was difficult to do while strapped in.

The kissing was difficult enough. It was putting a crick in Samuel’s neck, and he couldn’t get the depth he wanted, forced into endless renditions of those shallow, teasing kinds of kisses that were driving him mad, though perhaps not as mad as Eli, who smacked the steering wheel and shouted, “Damn it! I’m jealous. ”

Nathaniel licked at Samuel’s mouth. “We’ll switch at the next red. Sammy, stick out your tongue for me. I saw something in a porn I want to try.”

Eli laughed. “So now you’re watching porn too?”

“We watched it together, remember? When we were looking for videos of big blondes.”

“When was that?”

“That time you got drunk and started ranting about the way the shower water used to run down the cleft in Samuel’s ass.”

“I don’t remember that. I mean, those showers I remember, but I don’t remember any porn.”

“It wasn’t that memorable. None of their tits were nearly as nice as these, but one of them did this thing you called ‘eating out a mouth like it was a pussy.’”

Eli burst out laughing. “ That you should leave it to the man with pussy-eating experience. Hey puppy, you do realize the more you torture me back there the more I’m going to return the favor to you later, right? Tit for tat.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Nathaniel assured him. “He’s going to torture you either way. It’s what he’s known for. God, what do you eat to grow your tits this big?”

“Torture?” he asked. He could die in that mouth, and never ever wanted to leave it, sure he could feel the burning of Eli’s eyes, a silent urging. “Worse than this?”

Nathaniel pressed on the back of his head, twisting enough to pop something in his back as he kissed deep, deep—frankly, deeper than someone with tonsils should normally have been able to kiss, and Samuel was suddenly, for the first time, glad to have had them removed.

He gasped as the man pulled out to look over his handiwork.

“Poor, Sam,” Nathaniel tutted, running a wet thumb over one of his nipples.

“You really have no idea what you’re in for. ”

“Rest stop in ten miles,” Eli said. “Should we stop?”

“I do want to blow him, but I don’t think all three of us would fit into a bathroom stall.”

“I meant to pee,” Eli said.

“Why would we have to stop for that? Sam can just pee into my mouth.”

Samuel choked, unable to tell for sure if the man was joking, and Eli’s roar of laughter didn’t confirm it either way. “See why you don’t give blanket permission?” the man said. “He’s a freak. Let this be a lesson to you.”

“They might have one of those big disability stalls,” Nathaniel mused, undeterred.

“But I’d feel bad using one of those, and anyway, public toilets are full of germs. What if Samuel gets sick?

His immune system might be weaker from being trapped in one place for so long.

When’s the last time you got a flu shot, Sam? ”

He could hardly have answered, still juggling some crazy mental images. What alarmed him most was how little he was alarmed by them. Maybe he was a freak too.

“He should eat though,” Eli said. “Both of you. Here.”

Samuel hadn’t noticed the insulated bag in the front passenger seat. It seemed to appear from nowhere as Eli handed it back to them like a gift straight from God.

“I was so horny I forgot,” Nathaniel said. “I’m sorry, Sam. You must be starving.”

Was he? He couldn’t feel anything in his stomach except for a sort of buzzing. His eyes were locked on Nathaniel’s mouth, not happy to be forced away from it by the interruption. “I can eat later.”

“Eli will be fucking you later, and that takes forever. No, better to eat now while there’s time. Here, do you want the fried egg sandwich or the roast beef?”

He was distracted in spite of himself. The smell was amazing. “What?”

Nathaniel was pulling things out of the bag. “Don’t be put off by Gluten-free. Eli makes the bread himself and it’s amazing. Much better than the store stuff. Wait—you made mac and cheese? You never make mac and cheese.”

“Because it’s terrible for you.”

“If it was terrible, why would it taste so good? Wow, muffins too. You really went all out, Thompson.”

Eli smiled, a little shy. “It’s not every day my puppy comes home.”

This time, Samuel was the one to say it. “Pull over.”

They did not pull over, but he did have all that amazing food piled into his lap—food that had to be taken away from him when he realized after the first bite that if he didn’t have his portions controlled, he would inhale everything at once and vomit.

He hadn’t thought anything could distract him from Nathaniel and it was true that he kept one of the man’s hands in his like a connecting talisman, but the food was so good, the taste so nice, he didn’t understand how it could be real.

“How is it?” Eli asked, as if there could be any doubt.

He had spent the last nine months missing the meals Eli used to doctor for him in the prison, and fresh food was at least ten times better. “I’m so glad we’re married,” he said into the bowl of mac and cheese. “I’ll buy you a house.”

“Is he talking to the pasta or to me?” Eli asked.

He was in heaven. In a place beyond heaven. “What do I do?” he begged Nathanial. He was growing full but couldn’t stand the thought of having his mouth empty. “What if he leaves me?”

“He can’t leave you,” Nathaniel said. “If he did, I’d break up with him, and no one can suck his cock like I can.”

Eli had told him to chew each bite twenty times, but he found he’d swallowed after seven again. “Can you teach me? So I can do it well too?”

“Of course. Consider yourself my apprentice.”

The strangest part was both how normal and abnormal it all seemed.

He couldn’t say he was used to it. How could he be used to it when every minute, every breath, brought him fresh discoveries.

So new, and so easy, more and more becoming the only thing that made sense.

It was the six years alone, he realized, that had been the aberration.

“Alright, Sam?” Nathaniel asked him, pushing the hair from his face. “Did eating make you sleepy? You can close your eyes if you’re tired.”

He couldn’t imagine sleeping, but his partner was already pulling a blanket up out of the trunk. “Let’s be cozy,” Nathaniel said. That was all it took.

The tears spilled over onto his face without any warning. Or maybe the whole morning had been a warning. Every moment and every prayer since meeting them a warning for this.

Nathaniel panicked, seizing hold of his face as if he might push the tears back into his eyes. “What is it? Did you eat too much? I think we have Pepto. Eli, do we have—”

Samuel hugged him. Tight, tight, having to make do with just the one body, though even as he thought it, he realized his hand was also clenching in Eli’s shirt. “How do I earn this? How do I make myself everything to you the way you are to me?”

“And we earned it, did we?” Nathaniel asked, kissing into the wet parts on his face. “Earned you.”

“Yes.” Wasn’t it obvious? Every day, and more than they ever had to. “I’d have stayed in prison forever if it meant you would keep visiting me. I was so happy, Nathaniel. With you. With him. I was happy.”

But Nathaniel wanted him happier. Even happier. The happiest person in the world, probably. “Be greedy, Sam. As greedy as you can. You have no idea how much I could give to a boy like you.”

He sobbed. It hurt to have his heart this wide, this open. It had so little practice. “I wasn’t even going to talk to him. When he came, when I saw him—I was so frightened, Nat. I thought he would ruin everything.”

“It was the same for me. It still is. I can’t wait for you to wake up with him.

That’s when it will really hit, I think.

Or maybe not. Maybe the thing that makes it real will be different for you.

Or maybe it will be like it was for me, all those little moments, the ones you start to take for granted just because they pile up so high.

But you never really do since he never becomes ordinary.

I was so sure he was the only one who could make me feel that way, Sam.

So sure I didn’t even try defending myself against you.

Do you know when I first fell for you? It was the phone call after the first night.

I hadn’t slept for one minute, so dizzy with panic, my resting heart rate something like a hundred and forty.

Nothing was helping, and I knew Darren was back and forth with the psychiatrist trying desperately to pull a fix out of the air that didn’t exist. But it did exist. It was you.

Eli called me and said—I still remember the exact words—he said, ‘there’s a boy here looking out for me.

I think he’s an angel.’ And you were. You are.

Sam, I don’t know where you got this idea that you’re in our debt.

Because we visited you? Because we sent you a few letters?

You saved my life. You saved Eli’s life.

Our whole family is intact because of you.

I fell for you before I ever knew your name. ”

It was just their breath there in the air as the car slowed, finally approaching that first red light.

“I want to make love.” He had read, somewhere, that a caterpillar had to completely liquify itself in the cocoon before making its transformation into a butterfly. He didn’t know if he was being liquified. But it felt like it. He felt like it. “I want to make love to you.”

Nathaniel took in another breath, and he seemed to grow with it. He was always growing to whatever size he needed to be. He turned toward his husband. “You heard the boy. Can’t you drive any faster?”