Page 46 of Down in Flames

“When have I ever given you a reason not to trust me?”

“I do.”

“Then trust me now, baby.”

It was the endearment that did it. Reminded him that, even though he wasn't anything special, he was special to him.

Steeling himself, West braced his hands on his thighs and put himself on display. It wasn’t easy. His ribs hurt so bad that they left a deep, stabbing feeling in his chest with each breath. But he’d rather die than admit that to a man who’d cut off his own cast weeks early just so he could get back to work. He stood there, quivering, with his bare cock dripping and his face flushed hot.

Michael’s gentle fingertips nearly sent him out of his skin. He’d moved so silently that West hadn’t even tracked him, but suddenly warm hands were cupping his clenched ass, joined by an even hotter mouth at the base of his spine. Still bent over, he glanced down between his legs and caught a glimpse of Michael’s spread thighs. He was on his knees behind him. Touching him.

“You’re bruised even here,” Michael whispered. His fingers were light as they teased the cleft of his ass, parting him, exposing him to his gaze. “How am I going to give you the spanking you fucking deserve now?”

“You know, I was joking about that whole daddy thing.” West laughed weakly.

“No, you weren’t.” Michael’s reply was dead certain. “I wanted to go slow at first. Give you time to get over your doubts and ease you into what it means to be in a relationship. But you need to learn that it ain’t just you that you’re living for anymore. What happens to you hits me just as hard.”

His grip changed and grew firmer, imprisoning him. Holding him open. Then came the slow, lavish lick of his tongue.

“Fuck,” West gasped, shocked to his core. His knees melted, and he would have fallen if Michael hadn't wrapped one arm around his pelvis to hold him up.

West hadn’t ever imagined he’d be so exquisitely sensitive there. It didn’t seem possible. Nothing had ever felt quite like this before. His mouth was like wet velvet. He swore his vision had gone black around the edges, narrowing down to a single focal point. Nothing existed but this warm, melting glide. It made him feel…worshipped. But strangely vulnerable.

“Michael,” he gasped, “I don’t think I can take this.”

“Put your hands on the wall,” Michael murmured, his breath a warm flutter against West’s damp entrance. “Hold yourself up that way.”

Awkwardly, West leaned forward, but he didn’t so much brace himself on the wall as collapse against it. Once he’d found his balance, Michael skimmed one hand down the back of West’s thigh and lifted it, laving his tender skin with the tip of his tongue. The slick sounds he made were obscene.

West bit down hard on his forearm, but he couldn’t muffle his high-pitched whine. Like that was the sign he’d been waiting for, Michael reared back and gently turned him. West blinked hard, trying to clear his vision, but Michael’s face was turned down and hidden by the brim of his hat. The bristles of his unshaven jaw slid down the length of West's aching cock, nuzzling into the most vulnerable parts of him.

“I want you to take me inside tonight,” Michael murmured, teasing him open from behind with two fingers.

West couldn't hold onto a thought, distracted by the satiny rub of Michael's lips against the head of his cock, but he managed to string a few words together in an order that probably made sense. "Thought you'd never ask. But I need a shower."

"You smell good."

West’s laughter strangled in his throat. “I probably smell like that nasty powder soap from the campground.”

“You smell like a man,” Michael said roughly. “My man.”

"I'm yours for as long as you'll have me," West admitted. He reached out and knocked the brim of Michael's hat back, desperate to lift the shadow from his eyes, but those shadows were still there even when Michael removed the Stetson and tossed it like a frisbee onto the nearby sofa. They lurked on the edges of his irises, bleeding into the blue like a stain that West didn't know how to lift.

"I don't think you know what those words mean," Michael said, breathing heavily. "But, by God, you're going to learn."

Roughly, he pinned West's hips with a forearm, pressing him back against the wall and aggressively diving onto his cock. West's head hit the plaster with a crack, and his spine arched until it felt like he'd snap in two. His body hadn't stopped hurting, but it was like riding the adrenalin high on a bronc. Pleasure sliced through his aches and pains, shoving them away until they were just a nagging distraction in the back of his mind. Michael slurped down his dripping length, loud and messy and utterly unashamed. This rough, older man who could take on the world wanted him, and he wanted him so badly that he was willing to choke on his cock to get him. It was the hottest thing West had ever seen in his life.

He didn't even stand a chance.

"Oh, oh—too soon. Not yet," he gasped, fingers fluttering at the sides of Michael's face. "Coming—"

Michael pulled off just long enough to growl, "Come in my mouth."

Two fingers worked deep inside him, stretching him hard.

“Fuck.”

"Yes."