“What’s going on, baby?” Craig whispered, helping Skyler over to the couch and easing him down so that he was sitting.
At first, Skyler didn’t say anything. Then, he started to speak, and as he did, as he told Jessica and Craig about everything that had happened, Craig felt his muscles tense, and his heart freeze into a tight, hard, heavy stone in his chest.
This time, his emotions had nothing to do with jealousy or uncertainty, and everything to do with rage. Craig might not know Hannah very well, but he did know that no one deserved what Matthew had tried to do to her, the way that he had used her. And he knew for a fact that Skyler didn’t deserve to be treated that way.
“What are you going to do?” Jessica asked, after a long silence while they all thought about the remarkable, intense things that Skyler had just said.
“You have to tell her,” Craig jumped in before Skyler could reply. “You can’t let your sister marry someone that is only with her as some sort of consolation prize. She doesn’t deserve that.”
“She’ll be angry with me,” Skyler said, and Craig could tell that his words, as filled with action as they were, scared the man. If he knew anything after their time together, he knew that Skyler had a tendency toward non-action. He could very easily convince himself not to do something even when it really needed to be done.
Craig didn’t really relate. He wasn’t like that at all. But he could definitely see that Skyler was.
“She won’t be. Or even if she is, so what?” Craig argued passionately. “Would you rather that she got mad at you, or that she married someone who doesn’t actually want her? And who is probably only marrying her to get closer to you?”
“I don’t know about that,” Skyler replied doubtfully, as Jessica rose to her feet and gave them both a pat on the shoulder. One of the best things of the many good things about Jessica was that she had an impeccable sense of timing, and this was no different.
“Let’s meet up later?” she suggested. “I’m going to go for a swim. Take advantage of the hotel pool.” With a friendly smile, she waved and disappeared through the door, and as much as Craig loved her, he was glad to see her gone.
Once she was gone, any last remnants of restraint that Craig had held on to vanished. He wrapped his arms around Skyler and pulled his slender, shivering body onto his lap, pressing a sweet kiss to his forehead and hugging him close.
“Babe, you are always underestimating how gorgeous you are,” Craig told him, gazing into his eyes, hoping that Skyler could read the sincerity behind his words. “You’re maybe the most beautiful person in the world. Of course, he wants to get with you. It would be weird if he didn’t.”
Skyler didn’t say anything, but he was listening. Craig could see it in his eyes. So he kept going.
“What I don’t like is that he’s willing to hurt people to do it. Including you. And your sister, who could be stuck with that jackass for the rest of her life.” Maybe he was laying it on a little thick, but he couldn’t resist one more comment. “Is that what you want?”
Skyler sighed and shook his head, and Craig subsided. He had said what he needed to say, and Skyler had picked up on his point. He didn’t need to say anything more. Skyler might be passive, but he was a good person, and he would tolerate things done to himself far more than he would things done to his family, apparently.
“No. It’s not what I want,” Skyler admitted. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow morning.”
Craig’s shoulders relaxed, knots flowing out of them, because he really had been concerned. Not just on his account, or Skyler’s, either. Although he had barely met Hannah, he had liked her instinctively. Besides, she really didn’t deserve what Matthew had been trying to do to her.
“Good,” Craig murmured, then rested his chin against the top of Skyler’s head when his boyfriend snuggled up close to him. As he held him, this intense rush of emotion went through Craig. On some level, he couldn’t believe that he was the one who got to hold Skyler like this. That, of all people, Skyler had fallen in love with him. He didn’t feel even remotely worthy of that, but he was grateful for it.
“I want you to take me to bed now,” Skyler said, breaking through Craig’s reverie, bringing him out of his thoughts and into the moment again. Because it was incredibly unusual for Skyler to ask for anything directly like that, so when he did, Craig took notice.
Especially when it had to do with going to bed with him, since more often than not, Craig initiated that sort of thing, and even though Skyler happily cooperated, and Craig had gotten sort of used to that dynamic, it didn’t mean that he was going to turn it down when it was offered to him on a silver platter.
“Yeah,” Craig murmured, his mouth dry. “Yeah, I can do that.”
Skyler’s body was so small, so light, so easy to heft up in his arms. Craig wasted no time at all doing as he was asked, pulling Skyler to him and standing up, holding him bridal-style as he carried him easily to the large bed.
As he walked, Skyler kissed him, and it was a kiss so intense, so deeply probing, that Craig almost dropped Skyler. It was that distracting. Craig was instantly hard and ready to go by the time they made it to the bed, and he immediately stripped off his shirt. Skyler, too, usually more demure than this, was stripping off his clothes, and for once, Craig didn’t have to doubt whether Skyler wanted him or not.
After all, Skyler had had the option to go with someone else, someone that had apparently been pretty important to him, at one point. And someone who was, Craig had to admit, pretty achingly handsome. But Skyler had turned the man down. He had picked Craig. Maybe he had done it only because he didn’t want to hurt Hannah, but Craig would take it.
“I want you to ride me today,” Craig decided. He wanted to watch the gorgeous man take him deep, wanted to watch him ride, and have full access to his glorious body. And Skyler seemed like he was in the mood where he could definitely go for that.
“Yes,” Skyler agreed, just the one word, but it was full of complete agreement. Sexually, they were surprisingly in sync most of the time, once they got started.
Their clothes were gone, it took almost no time, and then they were wrapped around each other, kissing, hands on each other’s erections, both of them knowing, by now, how to drive each other insane.
In the middle of rolling on the condom, Craig paused, looking down at the sheath with distaste. He didn’t want it in the way. He wanted to feel Skyler clenching around him, feel that bare, skin-to-skin connection between the two of them. It was a feeling that he had had for a while, but it just kept getting stronger.
“I’m going to go get tested,” he announced. He knew that Skyler didn’t have anything. Skyler had been a virgin before he had given himself to Craig. “So we don’t have to use this stupid thing.”
With that said, he unrolled the condom over himself, then slid over onto his back, his cock sticking proudly up in the air. His hands found Skyler’s hips and tugged him closer, his whole body tense with the anticipation of being buried deep inside of him.
