Page 19

Cross couldn’t breathe but he didn’t want to stop.

Rusty was pliant under his hands, receptive to his mouth, his lips parted to let their tongues meet.

Cross had always liked kissing for the emotional bond, but with Rusty, his body took over.

This, and this. Lips and even teeth, nipping, plucking, gentle moments and then surprising heat when Cross found the right angle and plunged his tongue deep.

He broke away enough to suck air. Rusty wore a pink flush all the way down his neck, and a wide grin. “Hell, yeah. More?”

Cross managed to nod. As they kissed again, Rusty moved his arm from the back of the couch to Cross’s shoulders.

The tight embrace made Cross dizzy and somehow they tilted into the couch until Cross lay sprawled against the arm with Rusty plastered on top of him.

Normally, Cross didn’t like to be pinned down by anyone, but Rusty’s heavy bulk was like a weighted blanket, comforting and perfect.

Rusty kissed him slower, leaning down to bring their lips together gently, almost teasing, then leaning back.

Cross had one hand tangled in Rusty’s hair, the strands silky between his fingers.

He slid his other hand down Rusty’s back, feeling the planes of muscle and the knobs of his spine.

Male. Strong. Solid. He paused his touch at the small of Rusty’s back.

With a groan, Rusty arched against his hand, pushing his groin into Cross’s thigh.

Cross could feel the hard length of Rusty’s dick.

His own cock twitched but he wasn’t there, not yet.

He hoped Rusty couldn’t tell. He shifted sideways to gain a little space and clamped harder on Rusty’s back, pinning him against his leg.

Rusty moaned into Cross’s mouth again and bucked over him, riding his thigh.

Maybe Rusty would come like that. Maybe he never had to know that Cross wasn’t hard. Cross wanted to make Rusty lose his mind with pleasure and just not worry about anything else.

But Rusty raised his head. “I lost you somewhere. You okay?”

“Fine! Great!” Yeah, that sounds convincing. “You’re a good kisser.”

“Some hookups don’t want to kiss, but some do. I got in a bit of practice.” Rusty propped himself on his arms, taking his weight off Cross’s chest. “You’re better than all of them.”

Cross couldn’t help scoffing. “I doubt that.”

“No, really. What, you think I’m lying to you?”

Cross turned to look past Rusty’s ear at the blank wall behind him.

“I’m boring in bed. You don’t have to flatter me.

” That had been one of Willow’s gentle-voiced stabs to his heart before she left, although, sweet woman that she was, she’d said, ‘You don’t find me exciting in bed.

’ But he could read between those lines.

“Who told you that?” Rusty shifted his weight and laid a palm against Cross’s cheek, guiding his attention back, holding his gaze. “They were totally fucking wrong.”

“We’re not in bed yet,” Cross pointed out.

He fought a moment of panic that Rusty would want to fix that, but Rusty just rolled his groin against Cross’s thigh. “You have me so fucking hard right here on the couch. Do I seem like I’m bored?”

“No.” Not yet. Rather than give voice to his worries, Cross crunched up enough to kiss Rusty deeply.

He used his hand behind Rusty’s head to pull him back down as he let himself slump to the pillows.

Kissing he was totally up for. Hell, he apparently loved it even more than he’d realized.

No doubt his mouth tasted of hummus and garlic, but so did Rusty’s.

They fit together. Every shared breath and stroke of tongues pushed Cross farther out of his head into a world of strong arms, heavy thighs, soft lips, male scent, and deep rough breaths.

No worries, no thoughts. Kissing Rusty was as easy and perfect as a breakaway on an empty net.

They separated again. Cross’s worry that Rusty would want to go to bed returned, but instead, Rusty wriggled in deeper against the back of the couch and tucked his head into a convenient space between Cross’s chin and the cushion.

“Mmm,” he breathed against Cross’s throat.

Not even Cross’s brain could make that anything less than a happy sound.

Rusty’s dick still pressed hard along Cross’s leg but he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to do something about it.

Cross let go of Rusty’s hair and wrapped his arms around his wide shoulders instead.

Rusty murmured again and nestled in. It soothed something in Cross to know that Rusty found him desirable and kissable and wanted to be there with him.

Even that lingering erection was an affirmation Cross realized he appreciated.

He thought about offering a hand job. He’d enjoy being the one to get Rusty all hot and bothered.

But this was so good, he didn’t want to break the moment, or talk about why he didn’t want one back.

God, I like him. Cross kissed a lock of the blond hair teasing his cheek, fine strands insubstantial against his lips.

Rusty would never know Cross was getting sentimental.

They drifted for a while, lying together. Rusty’s dick softened noticeably, although not completely. Rusty chuckled. “I could sleep like this but we’d both regret it.”

“Yep.” Cross was in no hurry to let go of him, though.

“Hey, question,” Rusty murmured against his skin.

“Yeah?”

“Now we’re kind of together… what do your close friends call you? Or your family? I mean, Scott called you Cross the whole time you were in Kansas and you sometimes called him Edzie, but… do you like Roger? Or however LaCroixes pronounce that?”

It should’ve been a simple question, but Cross sighed. “My sister and parents call me RJ.”

“Your friends don’t?”

“That’s what I went by in school. Thing is, I was named after my grandfather.

My dad’s father.” That stern old man was gone now, but some things never faded.

He kept his voice steady. “After Grandmère died, Grandpère came to live with us. I was five. I went by Roger then, with the English pronunciation. I was born in the US and I was starting kindergarten, and that’s how folks were going to say it anyway.

Grandpère had a fit. It was his name and nom de Dieu, it would be pronounced correctly .

My dad’s brilliant and Mom’s a good person, but neither of them had Grandpère’s force of character, I guess.

So pretty soon I was being called Roger . ” He pronounced it the French way.

“Roe- jhay ,” Rusty mimicked, managing a better effort than most Americans had in his childhood, but still not quite the right sound on the O or the smooth transition.

“Yeah. Which went over like a ball of lead in kindergarten.”

Rusty rolled off Cross far enough that their eyes could meet. Cross missed his weight. “Couldn’t you have kept the English version outside the home?”

“You’d think? I don’t know, maybe Mom and Dad thought I’d get confused.

But you know, there’s always mean kids. I told them my name, they mangled it, and if I corrected them, they called me stuck-up or started doing it on purpose.

I guess I came home in tears more than once.

” He barely remembered the details, just the feeling of misery that overwhelmed him those first months after Grandpère moved in.

Nothing pleased the old man, and Dad had been super busy, leaving Mom to run interference on her father-in-law and manage a house and two kids.

His stomach clenched. There’d been a lot of tears, not all his.

“Aw.” Rusty thumbed Cross’s jaw, a gentle brush over stubbled skin. “That sounds rough. I was named after a great uncle, but I never had to meet the dude, and everyone can pronounce it.”

Cross turned his head and kissed that thumb, marveling that Rusty’s simple touch eased a little of the pain in his chest.

Rusty asked, “So they came up with RJ?”

“Yeah. I guess it was a compromise. RJ sounded a bit like what Grandpère wanted, but English people could say it.”

“Did that work?”

“Kind of.” Not really. Grandpère had insisted on Roger to the day he died, and had huffed and glared whenever Mom or Dad said RJ, so Cross had grown up with a mix, depending who was in the room.

“But you don’t like RJ?”

“It’s okay. It’s kind of tied up with a difficult period in my life.

” Like the following ten years. He’d loved sports, but he’d picked hockey in part because it was the only thing he ever did that got him an approving look from Grandpère.

As a longtime passionate Habs fan, Grandpère had enjoyed thinking maybe one day he’d have a namesake in the NHL.

And not pronounced wrong. Grandpère hadn’t appreciated some strangers’ attempts at LaCroix either.

“So what do you like to be called?”

“Cross, actually.” He hurried to add, “I know that’s weird, right?

It’s a hockey nickname and it’s not even a real first name.

But when my Peewee team started calling me Cross, it was like I got to be a different person.

Not either version of Roger, or even RJ, but Cross, a guy who was really good at something. ”

“I bet you’re really good at a lot of things.”

“Not much, not good like hockey. My sister was top of her class in everything, but I never was. I’m not brilliant or artistic or funny or naturally social with people. Just hockey.”

“You’re a good kisser, though.” Rusty lowered his head for another taste.

Cross couldn’t deny how intense it felt to have Rusty’s lips on his and Rusty’s tongue making free with his mouth. The renewed stirring of Rusty’s cock against Cross’s thigh implied he was enjoying it too. “Maybe I am with you.”

“For a guy with all your advantages, you’re awful hard on yourself.”