“Part of the game. I like melting you down.”
Rusty sighed. “This could work, y’know. Us. We could really work.”
“We will. Planning on it.” Cross leaned in for one more kiss, then set his hand against Rusty’s cheek and just looked at him.So gorgeous and strong, so mine.
Rusty’s eyelids drooped, but then he rallied. “Gotta go clean up. Deal with the plug. You stretch out. Back soon.” He scooted off the far side of the bed, tugged away the towel, and walked awkwardly to the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
Cross did as he was told, swinging his legs up and nestling into the warm space that had held Rusty. Horizontal was great, as the level of throb in his ankle decreased to tolerable. He rolled to his stomach. The smell of Rusty on the pillow was comforting, and a faint hint of acrid spunk wasn’t unpleasant. Cross wallowed in the soft bed, letting himself just be, just breathe.
A minute later, the mattress sagged as Rusty got in beside him. Rusty nuzzled the back of Cross’s neck. “Hey there. Doing okay?”
“Better than okay. I should be freaked out, I guess, after today, but I’m all… not. I’m good.”
“Me too.” Rusty’s big hands pressed on Cross’s shoulders. “And now we’ll see if I learned anything in session two of Massage 101.”
“You don’t have to.”
“And you didn’thaveto give me the very best orgasm ever. But you did.”
“Really?” Warmth pooled in Cross’s belly.
“Really. Like, every nerve turned up to eleven. That plug is dope, we’ll have to use it again. Ifyouliked it?”
“Can’t wait,” Cross mumbled sleepily but truthfully into the pillow.
“Your turn.” Rusty began kneading Cross’s shoulders, then his biceps, where the muscles ached from his frantic chin-up against the ceiling.
“Mm, that’s good.” He had a thought, something he’d forgotten, needed to track down… Oh. “You should eat. Your stomach was rumbling.”
“Later. Let me rub you, and we’ll catch a nap, and then eat later.”
“Okay, just… if you wake up, don’t go anywhere without waking me, okay?” Leftover panic from the kidnapping was well-submerged in a pool of feeling good, but he could imagine how he’d react to waking alone.
“Promise. I’ll be right here. I’ll make you go get me a sandwich.”
Cross smothered a laugh into the pillow. Rusty barely let him make his own coffee half the time, jumping up with “I coulduse a cup too,” whenever he reached for his crutches. But he appreciated the normalcy of the thought. “I’ll put mustard on it.”
“What do you have against mayo?” Rusty’s thumbs dug into a tight knot in Cross’s neck and Cross groaned almost as loud as Rusty had with the vibrator.
For several minutes, the strong if still untrained motions of Rusty’s hands soothed every muscle in Cross’s body. When Rusty swung over to straddle his thighs, and his dick slid against Cross’s ass, Cross tensed for a second, but said nothing.Don’t make it weird.
Somehow Rusty noticed, though. He got off the bed, despite Cross’s mumble of protest, slipped into clean underwear, and returned to what he was doing as if that was natural. As if Cross’s tension was no problem, easily solved, just the way they were.
And Cross realized, for Rusty, against all the odds, that was true. “How did I get so lucky with you?” he mumbled.
“I dunno.” Rusty bent and kissed the back of his neck. “You’ve got sharp looks, brains, wicked hockey skills, money, kindness, sexy arms. One of those, probably.”
Cross broke into helpless laughter, his eyes closed, his body heading toward noodle-limp. “My arms, for sure. Must be it.”
Rusty stopped massaging him and stretched out half on top of him, just enough weight off that Cross could breathe. “I got luckier. Gonna sleep now?”
“Yeah.” Cross loved feeling pinned down, surrounded, a wall of hockey player between him and the world. “Stay just like that. Love you.”
They lay together in silence as Cross drifted deeper, cocooned in Rusty’s hold. He was almost asleep when he heard, “Love you too,” breathed in his ear.
We’re going to make this work.
That certainty followed him into sleep.
