Two Spirits

CHAPTER 4

Trey woke to the smell of bacon cooking and coffee brewing, to a masculine voice talking quietly on the phone and memories guaranteed to cause a morning erection. He opened his eyes as Tenino ended his call. Need coiled in his belly and pulsed through his cock when Tenino turned toward the bed.

“Sun’s up,” Tenino said.

“So am I.”

Trey felt the telltale heat slide into his cheeks, guessed it was probably going to take a while for him to be totally natural when it came to interacting with a male lover. Tenino’s appreciative chuckle was positive reinforcement. And the dark hungry look that came after had Trey’s heart rate speeding up as Tenino crossed the room to stop next the bed.

“So you’re claiming to be up with the sun,” Tenino said, grabbing a fistful of covers and pulling them back, exposing Trey’s nakedness and the throbbing truth of his hard-on.

Tenino took possession of Trey’s cock, measured the length of it as he slid his hand up the shaft. “Damn, you make me crazy,” he said, fingers tightening so Trey’s hips lifted in silent pleading.

Without warning Tenino put a knee on the bed and bent down. Firm masculine lips claimed Trey’s penis. The wet heat of Tenino’s mouth and relentless command of it chased every thought from Trey’s mind, obliterated every need except to come.

He gripped the sheets, panted, fought to make it last. But he was no match for Tenino or the clawing hunger raking his insides. He gave up the battle with a cry, shuddered in release before settling into a weak heap of sweat-slick skin and lax muscles.

“You don’t expect me to get up after that,” Trey said when his breathing steadied.

Tenino laughed. “You’re lucky I’ve got breakfast cooking on the stove, otherwise I’d take that as a personal challenge. Trust me, I could definitely get you up again if I set my mind to it.”

Trey grinned. He knew he probably looked like a teenage boy experiencing his first crush but he couldn’t help it. He’d never really allowed himself to think about what it might be like to live with a male lover, to actually have a relationship. When he’d allowed himself to confront the truth of his sexuality at all, it’d been more like a quick, illicit fuck, a short fantasy engaged in while he was sleeping, or if he was awake, then when his mental resistance was too low to prevent it from happening.

Now he was finding he enjoyed the camaraderie, the teasing banter, the being with someone where there were no pretenses. He liked it just as much as the sex.

He was heading for heartbreak by falling in love with Tenino. Trey knew that. He’d made the classic mistake, fuck first and wonder what it means afterward. But it’s not like they’d met under normal circumstances. And a guy like Tenino… If he’d wanted a live-in lover, he’d have one already.

“You’re thinking too much,” Tenino said and Trey was glad to have his meltdown interrupted.

“Comes with being a teacher.”

“Better get dressed. I’m about to throw some eggs on. How do you like yours?”

“Over easy.”

Trey snagged the sweatpants from where they lay near the couch then hit the bathroom before joining Tenino at the kitchen counter. “Looks good,” he said, taking in the egg, bacon and toast piled on two plates.

Tenino pointed to the coffee maker. “Help yourself. There’s some milk and OJ in the fridge.”

Trey got some coffee then grabbed his plate and took a seat at the table across from Tenino. “So what’s the plan for the day?” he asked, contemplating for the first time that while he was bare-chested and wearing only sweats, Tenino was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt.

“You know how to handle a gun?” Tenino asked.

“If you mean other than very, very carefully? No.”

“Then that’s first up. I want you to know how to protect yourself.”

Trey’s stomach did a funny little flip-flop at the same time his heart flooded with something that could only be labeled hope.

“Sounds good,” he said, ducking his head, concentrating on eating for fear his expression would reveal his rapidly escalating and out-of-control feelings for Tenino.

They finished breakfast, their conversation intermittent, ranging from discussing Xbox games and football to their jobs.

Despite Tenino’s claim the sun was up, it wasn’t visible through the clouds shrouding the land. “How cold is it outside?” Trey asked, drying his hands on the dishtowel and studying the scene outside the window above the sink as Tenino put the last dish away.

“Not too bad. You can probably get by with a t-shirt and a long-sleeved one over it. We’re not going far, just to the other end of the clearing. If you get cold, you can come back for your jacket.”

Trey draped the towel over the rack and returned to his duffle bag. He fished through it, pulling out articles of clothing and smiling when his hand touched the smooth surface of a ceramic pig.

He hefted the pig out with both hands. The thing was heavy. It was also eye-watering yellow and decorated with purple flower-shaped spots.

Tenino snorted from across the room. “I don’t believe it,” he said, leaving the gun safe he’d unlocked and walking over to stand next to Trey. “That your emergency stash?”

“Could be. It’s full of dollar coins. Only way I can keep myself from accidentally using them as quarters.”

“Yeah. I hate that. More than once I’ve tossed a quarter into a tip jar then realized it was a dollar.” Tenino reached out. “Let me hold that thing.”

Trey handed it off.

“Whoa,” Tenino said, pretending he could barely hold the pig up. “I can see why you packed it. And the paint job, great camouflage. Who’d guess a yellow pig with purple flowers would hold a fortune?”

Tenino turned the pig in his hands, laughter giving way to quiet seriousness when he read the words written in childish script. For Mr. Masters. The world’s best best best teacher. From Tanya K. Ward.

“She died over Thanksgiving break of a type of kidney disease that runs in families,” Trey said, remembering a little girl with a bright smile and a hundred tiny braids. “Her older sister is still alive thanks to a transplant, but her younger one didn’t reach three. I couldn’t risk leaving it in my house and having Patricia come back and destroy it. I can hardly believe it survived the first time.”

Tenino’s expression became all cop. He set the piggy bank on the floor, in between the chair legs. “What do you mean by ‘You can hardly believe it survived the first time’?”

Trey’s eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. But his stomach did the same funny little flip-flop it’d done when Tenino said he wanted him to be able to protect himself.

“Patricia trashed my place. That’s why I’m here. The Feds don’t need me to testify as a witness or anything. They’d pretty much made their case before they approached me. But there were a couple of links in the distribution chain they couldn’t pin down.

Finally they figured out it was because the guys only dealt with Patricia. That’s what I did for them mainly, glued myself to her side, passed on anything I heard or saw.

“They weren’t even sure how deeply she was involved in the business until they raided the place. Mainly they were after her father and two uncles. When the Feds missed Patricia, they thought she’d flee the country, or at least go into hiding.

“But day before yesterday I came home to find almost everything important to me destroyed. All my pictures—of my mom, of me, of the classes I’ve taught—were burned in the fireplace. Anything that couldn’t be burned was ruined some other way. The pig escaped because somehow one of my shirts ended up on top of it. Patricia knew it meant something to me. She went to Tanya’s funeral with me.”

Trey didn’t resist when Tenino’s arm slipped around his waist and pulled him close. “You did the right thing helping the Feds, even if it cost you.”

“I know,” Trey said, leaning into the embrace, accepting the comfort offered and feeling closer to Tenino than he’d ever felt to another person—male or female. “I’d do it again. The Verons needed to be stopped.”

He sought Tenino’s lips, found them. Said with his kiss what he didn’t dare put into words.

Tenino’s moan was a sweet harmony. The press of his erection against Trey’s hard cock was a validation that touched his soul. Fantasies of spending the rest of the day in bed started to take root until Tenino said, “Target practice first, fun second. And if I remember correctly, today is the day you’re going to beg me to fuck you.”

“What if I start begging now?” Trey asked, his hands curving around Tenino’s muscular buttocks, his fingers digging in, preventing Tenino from stepping away, from escaping the rub of hard cock against hard cock.

Tenino laughed, had the advantage because Trey was naked from the waist up. His fingers found Trey’s nipples, squeezed and sent icy-hot flashes of painful ecstasy streaking through Trey to make his hips buck, his penis leak.

“Start begging now and I’ll think you want to come any way you can, even if it means having to change your pants,” Tenino said.

“What about payback being a bitch?”

“I think I proved last night I can take it. Didn’t I?”

Images flashed through Trey’s mind, of lying on top of Tenino, of thrusting, fucking another man for the first time. Coming.

Trey’s hands dropped away from Tenino’s ass. He stepped back. His cock pulsed in protest but his heart soared when Tenino’s expression revealed that the loss of contact cost him too.

“Let’s get going,” Tenino said, voice husky, face taut.

Trey dressed in warmer clothing while Tenino gathered what they needed. At the doorway Tenino thrust a bag containing aluminum cans into Trey’s hands, along with a rifle.

They stepped outside. Trey followed Tenino around to the back of the cabin, laughed when he saw the size of the satellite dish. “And who says bigger isn’t way better.”

“Hey, I live alone in the middle of nowhere. I get tired of playing with myself.”

Trey gaped. Found it difficult to imagine Tenino surfing live porn sites to jerk off.

Tenino read his expression and grinned. “Get real. I don’t pay to peep and I don’t hook up online to masturbate. I’m talking Xbox live. World gaming. You’ve got a dirty mind for a teacher.”

“You set me up by saying you got tired of playing with yourself,” Trey grumbled.

Tenino stopped. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of Trey’s jeans and pulled him forward. “Yeah, well now that you’re here, playing with myself isn’t going to be necessary—unless I do it so you can watch. I don’t intend to make it easy for you to leave.” He delivered a quick, hard kiss that left Trey dazed.

Did Tenino mean what he said? Did he want more than a short-term hookup? Trey’s thoughts and emotions bounced around like a ball while his cock pleaded with him for release.

He licked his lips and would have shoved his hands into his pockets, or better yet into the front of his jeans to give himself some relief, if he hadn’t been holding a sack of cans and a gun. The thing with Tenino had happened so fast, blown a lifetime of denial away.

Trey felt totally out of control but it didn’t scare him. He felt alive, truly alive. Now if only he had the courage to actually ask Tenino straight out what he meant, where he wanted this thing between them to lead.

They walked in silence though the land wasn’t silent. Birds called in the damp mist. A breeze whispered through trees, making shadow figures dance and merge.

The pounding of Trey’s heart seemed to be echoed by the distant beat of a drum accompanied by chanting. He shook his head, smiled at his own flight of fantasy. Laughed silently as an internal voice intoned, Blond-haired, blue-eyed Anglo schoolteacher relies on Native American warrior for protection in a remote wilderness.

How clichйd was that? Even if the warrior wore a badge and dressed in flannel and jeans instead of buckskin and beads, and the teacher was male instead of female.

At the far end of the clearing was a tree stump, tall and wide enough to serve as a table. Tenino put the ammo bag and guns he was carrying on it then headed to where two wooden frames waited for targets to be clamped onto them.

Trey followed with the sack of aluminum cans. As Tenino unrolled and put up the paper targets with their human-shaped torso image in the center, Trey placed the cans on small logs.

When they returned to the stump, Tenino was all business. He was as tough as any instructor at a police academy firing range and Trey fell a little bit more in love seeing that side of him.

Trey thrilled each time he made an aluminum can jump into the air or skip across the ground. He basked in Tenino’s praise each time they stopped to check the paper target and found he’d hit it.

Time held no meaning. The outside world was far removed as they shot a wide variety of guns and enjoyed each other’s company.

“So where’s the closest bookstore?” Trey asked after they’d fired the last round of bullets and removed their ear protectors.

“Are you hinting you’d rather be reading a book than shooting guns?”

Trey slapped his hand over his heart, tried for an affronted expression. “What! You think I don’t enjoy manly pursuits like decimating aluminum cans and pretending to kill people? Next you’ll be expecting me to wear pink and put on mascara.”

Tenino snickered and snaked an arm around Trey, pulling him against the front of his body. “I bet you look good in pink,” he said, pressing his lips to Trey’s, sliding his tongue in for a very thorough, very arousing kiss.

Trey groaned, rubbed his cloth-covered erection against Tenino’s. The phantom singing he’d imagined as they crossed the clearing returned, only louder this time. The drum beat in time to his heart, in time to the need pulsing through his cock.

In his mind’s eye, Trey saw the two of them standing bare-chested in this spot under a summer sky, shedding their clothing, driven by a sudden urgency to fuck after target shooting. He shivered and ran his hands over Tenino’s back.

“Damn,” Tenino said when their lips parted to allow for breath.

“Should I start begging now?” Trey asked.

Oh yeah, Tenino thought, teaching Trey how to handle a gun had definitely flipped some switches he hadn’t known were there. “Let’s get back to the cabin first,” he joked, because if he didn’t get some relief soon, he was going to be the one begging.

They packed up the guns and spent ammunition, collected the shredded aluminum cans and took down the bullet-ridden targets.

“I like it here,” Trey said as they retraced their earlier steps.

“Wait’ll you see the rest of it.” Tenino remembered Trey’s earlier question about a bookstore and wondered how far would seem too far, then shrugged it off. The internet was a great equalizer.

They stepped into the cabin. Tenino sighed when he realized that as much as he wanted sex, he couldn’t turn his back on years of training or fail to show Trey the right way to do things. “Put the guns on the kitchen table. I’ll get the cleaning kit.”

The distinctive smell of solvent and gun oil soon filled the air. Tenino loved the scent of it, usually found it relaxing, but watching Trey working the cleaning rod, thrusting it in and out of the gun barrel along with the bore brush was torture.

Erotic images crowded in, memories of the night before. Yeah, he wasn’t usually on the receiving end when it came to his partners, but the intimacy of having Trey above him, of watching Trey’s face as it showed every emotion, including how much he liked to fuck, had made it incredible, something Tenino could see himself doing, again and again.

He stood up as soon as the guns were clean. Kicked off his shoes and unbuckled his belt, nearly panting when he saw the heat in Trey’s cheeks, the flash of lust.

“There’s something about guys and guns,” Trey joked, sliding out of the chair and onto his knees.

Tenino nearly came when Trey finished what he’d started, unbuttoned the top button and pulled the zipper down, freed his cock so it stood full and proud, more than ready to see some action.

“Now,” Tenino managed, thoughts of making it to the bed or the thick rug in front of the fireplace gone in an instant as he thrust his fingers through Trey’s blond hair and urged him to close the distance, to suck the organ he’d so thoroughly aroused and then exposed.

“Is that an order?” Trey teased.

Tenino gasped, shuddered as heated breath followed by the quick flick of a tongue sent delirious pleasure through his shaft. “Do it,” he managed, applying pressure with his hands, promising retribution with his voice. “If I have to cuff you, you won’t be able to wear pants or sit for a week.”

Trey snickered and the sound of it made Tenino grin despite the way his cock throbbed with savage eagerness and his balls were tight, aching with the need to empty.

“Sounds like you do have a fetish for bondage,” Trey said. “Maybe I’ll even let you indulge in it.”

Whatever Tenino might have responded with was lost as Trey’s hand circled his straining length, as Trey’s mouth claimed everything his fingers didn’t. Tenino moaned, thrust. There was no thought, no chance to reclaim it. Need tangled with desperation and hope, allowed for only one response, the yielding of all control.

He panted, shuddered. Whispered Trey’s name as he fucked through a fisted hand and knew the ecstasy of masculine lips and a carnal tongue, of giving himself over to someone who seemed perfect for him, someone he was determined to keep in his life for a long time.

Tenino’s hips bucked. His thighs bunched. He tried to draw it out but Trey made it impossible.

Trey’s lips and tongue seared him. Drove him into a frenzy that could only end one way.

Tenino shouted as he came. Lava hot waves of exquisite ecstasy shot through him as jets of semen erupted, leaving him lightheaded, swaying, his heart thundering in his chest and his fingers clenched mercilessly in Trey’s hair.

“Damn.” He wished he could do better but he couldn’t. He was lucky to manage the one word.

Trey’s hot mouth left him. Pride kept Tenino from whimpering, or worse yet, passing out from the pleasure still resonating through him like a tuning fork.

“Damn, you’re good,” he said, this time managing a grin as Trey stood, face flushed, blue eyes holding knowledge and confidence, so different than what they’d held when the two of them first met.

“You make it easy.”

It seemed the most natural thing in the world to pull Trey forward, to capture the lips that had just blown him away. He tasted himself, reacted to it by hardening again, by guiding Trey to the bed.

Tenino was barely aware of sliding the handcuffs from his back pocket, of locking them onto Trey’s wrists then using a piece of cloth to secure them to the headboard.