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Copyright
Published by
Dreamspinner Press
5032 Capital Circle SW
Suite 2, PMB# 279
Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886
USA
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Slide
© 2013 Garrett Leigh.
Cover Art
© 2013 G.D. Leigh.
Blackjazzdesign@gmail.com
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/.
ISBN: 978-1-62798-147-7
Digital ISBN: 978-1-62798-148-4
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition
October 2013
For Big G and the Mini G’s. Love you as big as the sky.
For my partners in crime, Paula, Carla, and Nic.
Also my original taskmasters, Jacque and Zoe.
Special thanks to Kaje Harper
for the last-minute words of wisdom.
His eyes blazed at me, but it was the best kind of heat. He smiled, and for the first time in my life I believed that, for him, I could be more than I’d ever dreamed.
PROLOGUE
January 2009
Pete
NIGHT shifts sucked. I turned my back on the station house and stepped out into the bitter night. Yeah. Winter night shifts sucked even more. Chicago was cold, really cold, but even as my breath misted in the freezing air, I couldn’t raise the energy to care. I could take the subway, but I’d made that mistake before and slept past my stop, not waking up until the train pulled into Lakeview. Fuck that shit. I needed my bed.
Instead, I trudged across town, dead on my feet and my mind on autopilot. In some ways, it felt almost surreal to be finally heading home; the long night had seemed unending. After five years as a city paramedic I was used to it, but it didn’t get any easier.
With my mind a blank haze of exhaustion, the walk seemed to pass quickly. I pushed open the exterior door to the dilapidated building I called home with a wry grin. I could almost hear my bed calling to me. Maybe zoning out wasn’t so bad after all.
I wandered dazedly along the corridor until I reached the door to my apartment. Typically, my key got stuck in the lock. I muttered a curse as I tried to manipulate it quietly, but it didn’t work, and the door creaked open with an obnoxious groan. I winced, pausing, but heard no response to my fumbling. Good. Damn thing needed oiling, but it was just one of those chores that never got done.
A hot shower soothed my aching body, but I only lingered long enough to wash the day away. I dried quickly, threw on some sweats, turned out the light, and padded across the hallway. The scraps of paper pinned to every wall caught my eye. Sketches. Designs. Stencils. There was no order to them—no rhyme or reason. Just a load of drafted tattoos stuck up all over my place. The flurry of creativity made me smile, as it always did. The fucker had a studio right here in the apartment, but some shit never changed.
I eased the bedroom door shut. The room was dark and still, but I quickly found the outlined shape of the renegade artist in my bed.
Ash.
I slid under the covers and scooted across to look at him. He was stretched out on his back with his arm flung over his head, his surfer-blond hair a riot against the light-gray pillow. His face was peaceful, which eased my guilt; he didn’t like sleeping alone. I cast my gaze around the room as the tension of the night began to seep out of me, spotting the stack of his books on the nightstand. I shook my head, letting the soft rush of love and awe sweep over me. The boy never ceased to amaze me. He’d worked all day and drawn all night, and he still took books to bed. Unbidden, I reached out to touch his chest, but I caught my hand before I could feel the warmth of his bare skin. If I touched him, I’d never stop. He was sexy as hell when he was asleep and at ease.
A low chuckle startled me. “Are you going to stare all night? Some of us are trying to sleep.”
I dove for him, smirking, and attempted to push him off the side of the bed. We wrestled for a minute, but he was too quick for me, his instincts too sharp. He had me pinned in seconds. I rolled onto my side to face him, grinning as he ran his shrewd gaze over me, taking in my heavy, drooping eyes. He reached out and touched my cheek; a cheek I knew was dark with two days of Italian stubble. “Long night?”
“Factory fire,” I said around a jaw-popping yawn. “Three busloads of burned-up dudes covered in soot. It took a while to clean up.”
He shuddered and made a face. Burns gave him the creeps. “Tired?”
I nodded and yawned again, but despite the soothing lull of his warm body, I kept my eyes open. I’d missed him over the past few days. He worked a lot, and I worked even more. Sometimes, we could go a week without seeing each other awake. Inevitably, my mind fell into the gutter. However long it had been, there were better things we could do than talk about work. He caught the direction of my thoughts, as he always did, and raised a challenging eyebrow. Unable to resist, I leaned in to kiss him, softly at first, but then harder as the familiar spark between us ignited.
We slammed together. He grasped the back of my neck and held me in place, his lips busy on my neck. I arched into him and ran my fingers down the length of his spine, instinctively tracing the smattered patches of uneven, raised skin. It was my habit to catalogue every mysterious scar that littered his back; these days I did it without inventory and didn’t pay much attention to the way they made me feel. But he knew—he always knew. His ragged puffs of air were hot on my clenched jaw as he slowly kissed the tension away.
Sweatpants and boxers were gone in an instant, littering the bedroom floor. Ash reached for my dick, but I rolled away and pulled him up to straddle my chest. I took him in my mouth and his whispered curse pierced the air. It had been too long, far too long since I’d given him the attention he deserved. Giving head was never my thing before I met him, but he changed everything about me. He was like an addiction, an all-consuming habit of the best kind. I wanted him in every way possible, whenever and wherever I could have him.
I set to work driving him crazy, and it didn’t take long. He fell back on his hands and groaned out a long curse as I grazed the length of his dick with my teeth. I gripped his strong thighs, working him just a little bit faster, but as his legs began to shake, he suddenly pulled away. His stormy eyes held me in place. “You’re so hot when you do that.”
Breathless, I returned his stare. It was dark and late, but I wasn’t done with him yet. Flushed and licking his lips, he was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. He tilted his head, attuned to my mood, as always. “Like that, is it?”
Before I could answer, he swooped down and claimed my mouth, catching me off guard. I fell back on the bed, moaning, and there wasn’t an inch between any part of our intertwined bodies. He grinned against my lips, amused that he’d turned the tables so easily, and made short work of dishing out his own devilish brand of revenge. His deceptively light touch was demanding—a reminder that he owned me. I couldn’t take it for long; I needed more. But before I could blink, he flipped us and pressed his back into the mattress.
“I want to do it like this.”
I rocked our bodies together and circled my hips, feeling him hard against me. “Just like this?”
He shook his head, his eyes suddenly nervous. “This way.”
I froze, and the air around us abruptly shifted. He didn’t often let me fuck him. In fact, it was so rare, for a moment I didn’t think I could do it.
Ash held my face in his hands, sensing my hesitation, and kissed me slow and deep. His hands were strong, and his lips steady and sure. He slipped his tongue into my mouth and worked his magic until my nerves faded away to a gentle whisper.
Cautiously, I reached over his head to the space between the mattress and the headboard for our hidden stash of condoms and lube. Then I slipped a wet finger into him, preparing him for me. I was gentle, but he bit down on his lip with his eyes screwed shut. I felt a rush of frustration. I wanted him to look at me, but I knew he wouldn’t. Steeling himself for what came next was too consuming. In an effort to soothe him, I reached up and placed my palm over his racing heart. “Breathe, Ash.”
It took some time, but eventually he pulled my body up to signal he was ready to move on. I withdrew from my fingers carefully from his body. He jumped, skittish already. I leaned down and kissed him. It was a long, deep, stirring kiss that stoked the heat between us and threatened to wipe my mind of anything but the feel of him beneath me, but I fought for control. I was aching, desperate to be inside him, but I had to be careful. One wrong mov e and he’d be gone from the bed like a shot.
He rolled a condom onto me, and a low moan built in my throat. I gripped the headboard and my head fell back. Just his lightest touch sent shivers through my overstimulated body. He pulled me toward him again, and the very tip of my cock touched him. I edged forward and watched him carefully. Waiting. Waiting for what I knew was coming—the resistance, the flash of panic, the ingrained fear of having someone, anyone, touch him like that.
Seconds later, it was his turn to freeze. His eyes darkened, and he went rigid in my arms. With sadly practiced motions, I took my hands from the headboard, ready to move in either direction. His torso twitched as he fought with himself. He wanted to lash out, to shove me away and run from the room and out into the night.
He gasped as he finally controlled his reaction. I put a tentative hand on his thigh, dismayed to find it shaking. “It’s okay. Just breathe. It’s okay.”
Slowly, he wound his arms around my neck, pulled me down, and hid his face in my chest. I gave him a moment, matching his deep breaths, but then I pulled back, asking him a silent question. In answer, he held my gaze and flexed his hips just a fraction. “Don’t stop.”
I stared at him. Despite his distress, he was still hard between us, and, more importantly, still in the bed. I reached out and cupped his face with my hand. “You’ve just got to say the word, okay?”
He nodded. Just once. But it was enough.
I moved over him again, holding his leg loosely against my chest, and brought my cock back to his body. I eased into him slowly, but despite the painstaking pace, his body still instinctively rejected the intrusion. The urge to give up was strong as I waited for his inevitable discomfort to ease. For me, this was always the hardest part. Fucking him was amazing, a privilege I rarely got to experience, but I didn’t get off on hurting him. Though it was a necessary evil on our way to something incredible, everything about it felt wrong.
His eyes fluttered open. He didn’t speak, but I heard him all the same. Now.
I rocked my hips in a slow circle. Beneath me, he pulled on my hips and sank his teeth into my shoulder. Another silent cue went unsaid. More.
Searing heat pulsed through me. I dropped my hands on either side of his head with a strangled groan. The rhythm between us was sedate and steady, but it was about all I could take. Being so intimately connected to him was overwhelming, and I couldn’t look away. I watched the way he responded to every long, slow roll of my hips, the way he thrashed his head and rolled his eyes. He was so fucking beautiful. Once I knew he was past the hardest part, I could watch him forever. Nothing compared to being inside him, and suddenly, my whole body was on fire. I wanted to wrap my bones around him and never let go.
Ash brought his hand to the back of my neck and pulled me down, kissing me before he broke away with a breathless groan. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. You’re too damn good at this.”
I snapped my hips faster, harder, and beneath me, he began to unravel. I’d already brought him to the brink with my mouth, and as he arched his back away from the mattress, I knew he was close. “Look at me.” Our gazes locked and renewed heat spread through my belly. “I want to see you.”
He gripped my shoulders and sucked in a desperate breath. “Pete… I….”
There was an edge of panic in his voice, the way there always was when he lost control. With one hand, I pried his white-knuckled fingers from my skin. I clutched them tightly, fighting for what little control I had left and brought them up to my lips. It was the reassurance he needed, and with a final soft groan his release pulsed between us. The jolt of his body pushed me into my own climax as he shuddered and writhed beneath me. White-hot bursts of pleasure roared through me, spinning the room as it hit me full force.
Coherent thought abandoned me, but I fought hard to get it back. The euphoric wave buzzing through me was fucking amazing, but with Ash shaking in my arms, it quickly cleared. I held him tightly, keeping my heavy breaths away from his face, and pressed soft kisses to the tips of his fingers until I felt his breathing slow. Relieved, I lifted my weight off him and tried to pull out, but he protested and held me still another moment before he finally let go.
He was staring at the ceiling when I came back from chucking the condom and cleaning up, his eyes glazed and drowsy. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him close. “Do you want a bath?”
It had been a while since we’d had sex that way. However good it had felt, he was going to hurt in the morning.
He shook his head in a lazy motion, barely moving at all. “No, I wanna stay here.”
Ash was Texan by birth, but his southern roots only laced his speech when he was too tired to repress them… too tired to block out all the horrible shit that kept an invisible barrier between us.
He was just seventeen when his friend Ellie found him drawing on the streets of Philadelphia. He was homeless and drew comic book characters on the sidewalk for money. The way she told it, he was one of the best street artists in the city, but he said he just did it to survive. Ellie was in college at the time, and she spent the next three years trying to get him to go to a shelter. Eventually, she got her way, and when she moved back to Chicago a few months later, she asked him to come with her. It took him a year of procrastination and pulling his shit together, but after finishing his tattoo apprenticeship in Philly, he did just that.
Living together was a huge adjustment for both of us. Some days I thought we’d cracked it, but others….
I draped the comforter over us and tucked it around his shoulders. He settled against me with his arm stretched out across my torso. I ran my hand absently along his bicep and enjoyed the rare moment. Though he could be tactile when his mood was right, he rarely cuddled up to me so freely. Most times, he preferred our positions reversed—him on his back with his arms around me.
Curious, I pressed a kiss to the top of his sweat-dampened head. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I just missed you.”
I smiled into the darkness. “I missed you too.”
A light hum was his only answer, so I held him a bit tighter and made the most of having him curled against me. After a while, I felt him shift. I opened my eyes and quirked an eyebrow, too mellow to speak. He just stared at me, but his blazing eyes told me what I knew he found so hard to articulate.
I put my hand to his head and nudged it back down with a sad smile.
Love you too.
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Ash
October 2007
I loved my bedroom in daylight. It had a big window, a high ceiling, and pure-white walls that made the world feel clean. White walls were good for that, they just went on and on, and when the sun shone on them they lit up the whole room, and with it, my tired brain. But it was a different story at night. When darkness fell, the high ceiling dropped and the white walls were suffocating as they closed in around me.
Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like I wanted to sleep. Sleeping was dangerous. Shadows, nightmares, and—even worse—that sinking feeling when you woke up to find you were still the same bag of shit you were the day before. Fuck that. Waking up was a crappy way to start the day. It was better to stay awake, let the days blur into each other, and wait until they ceased to matter. These days, insomnia was all I had.
Life was different when I lived on the street. Half-asleep, half-awake, stoned on whatever I could get my hands on, everything was gray and blurred. Sometimes I couldn’t figure out if I was moving slower, or the world faster, and I didn’t much care. It was better that way; oblivion suited me better. These days, I saw too much. I felt too much.
Sighing, I slid off the windowsill, abandoned my bedroom, and padded through the empty apartment to the kitchen. I reached for some juice, ignoring my natural instinct to grab a beer. The mood I was in, if I started drinking, I’d never stop. Instead, I took my favorite glass—the one with the star engraved in its base—and went to the living room with my sketchbook to sit in the big chair by the window. I sat down and stared out at the city below. The neon twinkle of the street felt like an old friend, comforting me enough to put pencil to paper. There was no light in the apartment, so I couldn’t really see the page, but sometimes it was better that way. Getting lost in my work, the details were undefined and soothing. Occasionally, I even got a pleasant surprise when I examined the sketch in daylight. Such occasions were rare, though. I gave up in the end and shoved the pad under the couch.
