Page 95 of Constantly Cotton
“Where was the stop and rob?” Ace continued to probe.
“How in the fuck would I know! I’m from Vegas!”
“What happened to your car?” Ace wasn’t clear on this either, but what mattered was what the other guy thought.
“It was stolen,” he said. Then he shuddered. “It was a piece of shit anyway.”
“And who in the fuck am I?”
The guy looked at him, his eyes sunken into his head. “A guy who’s not going to let me walk away again if I bring trouble to his door.”
“My boyfriend spared your life,” Ace told him. “He didn’t have to. Wouldn’t have bothered him particularly if he didn’t. But I figured you got given a second chance here. Nobody knows who you are. You don’t owe markers to anyone. And you and me never fuckin’ saw each other. Are we clear?”
The guy nodded dispiritedly, and Ace figured he’d probably lost family in the last two days. Apparently the entire mob world had been turned upside down, and that blown-up house outside of Vegas had been part of it. Well, that was not, strictly speaking, Ace’s fault. He cut the ropes holding the bad guy’s ankles together, got in the car and merged into traffic, leaving him there among the tent city with a lot of people who had no idea who Ace was and would never care.
Then Ace took off. Ace got takeout on the way home—he figured Ernie and Sonny were probably past cooking, and had to admit, he wanted an early night of it himself.
But not too early.
That night, Ace and Sonny lay in their room, the air conditioning on so loud that Ernie, sleeping in his little add-on room they’d built for Burton probably wouldn’t have heard a helicopter if it had landed on the roof.
That was real good because Ace hadn’t touched Sonny in nearly three days. Ace ran a hand from this throat down between his pecs to his groin again and again and again, while Sonny closed his eyes, arching his back as Ace moved his palm. Sonny really did like knowing he belonged to Ace, all of him.
“Ace?” he said, his voice getting quavery like it did before Ace absolutely needed to fuck his scrawny little body into the mattress. “I don’t like it when you go.”
Ace paused midstroke, rubbing a palm over his nipples just to hear Sonny gasp. “Me neither.”
“But when you do, we need to do something different from now on,” he said.
This was good—Sonny didn’t usually say things like this. He waited until Ace figured he needed them.
“Sure. What do we need to do?”
He rolled over to his side and kissed Ace, hard and whole and pure. “We need to say ‘I love you’ when we’re on the phone. I needed them words real bad last night but I knew if I said ’em, you’d be on the next plane home. We need to say ’em even when we’re not scared. Just to say ’em. Can we do that?”
“I love you,” Ace said, voice almost breaking. God—of all the things he didn’t think Sonny had learned yet—he’d learnedthisone, a habit that could feed Ace’s soul over days like the last three had been for both of them.
“I know now,” he said grinning, “but I meant other—”
Ace lunged across the space between them. “I love you,” Ace whispered gruffly, manhandling Sonny until he was underneath Ace, naked, his legs spread. Ace loved foreplay with Sonny Daye, but not tonight. Tonight, Ace grabbed the lubricant from under their pillow and slicked up two fingers while he was still talking. “I love you,” he said again, thrusting fingers into Sonny’s asshole and shuddering when he groaned.
“I love you too,” Sonny muttered, and those words, from him—they made Ace harder and more achy while his chest felt like it was dissolving, and his throat felt too tight to breathe.
Ace shoved his cock inside Sonny, and said it again. “I love you.” His voice broke so hard all that came out at the end was a cracked whisper.
“I love you too—fuck me, Ace! Fuck me hard!”
Ace did. So hard. All that worry and fear—and that pride. Oh God—so much pride, ’cause look at Sonny, all that growing he’d just did! All of it went thrusting into his narrow little body while he wrapped his legs around Ace’s hips and cried out. “Ace!”
And then Ace couldn’t talk anymore, because his body had ramped, raced, reached two hundred miles in six-seconds flat, just like the Ford SHO. Ace was ready to burst inside his man—he wanted Sonny to be filled with everything Ace felt inside his chest.
Sonny moaned, his come spattering between them and that set Ace off, spurting hard, filling Sonny up with all that pride.
They came to on their backs, the air conditioner drying the sweat and come from their bodies, their hearts too full to speak.
“Ace?” Sonny said, his voice rough with passion and love—Ace never doubted it.
“Yeah?”