Page 70 of Frog

“Oh yes,” he rasped, and I could feel him shaking. “Please, I need to just be yours.”

I lost track of everything but the man in my arms, the smell of his skin, the taste of his sweat, and the sound of his breathing. How could I have ever thought that I wouldn’t be spending the rest of my life with him?

“Web.” His voice was swelled with emotion and cracking with it. “Please.”

He needed me to do what I had never thought was my right but I had always had an inkling of. I had to lay down the rules of my home just as I had done with Carolyn’s boys before they moved in. I had to say how things would be.

I took a breath as I held him, even as I fucked him.

“Weber….”

God, he needed me before he fractured in front of my eyes. “Listen, in this house, under this roof, you surrender to me! Everything is mine: your fear, your hopes, all of it. Put it all on me. I can carry it. I’ll take care of you, I’ll protect you, and I’ll love you no matter what because you belong to me.”

“You promise?”

“I swear. Now let go.”

“Show me.” His voice shook.

I shoved my hips forward, pushing inside impossibly deep, and his breath caught as my left arm wrapped around him, across his chest, holding him, pressing him back against my heart and also allowing him to see it.

He had to see. It tore the orgasm from him every time.

To have a glimpse of the thick gold ring that he had put on my finger three months ago, the ring I never took off—the ring that told the world that I was now a married man… that was what he needed.

“Fuck!” he roared, and there was a splatter of cum on the wall in front of him at the same time I filled his quivering channel that tightened like a vise around my cock.

We were both heaving for breath, panting, him with his hands braced on the wall, head back, eyes closed, shivering, riding the wave of aftershocks rolling through his body. And me behind him, hands still gripping his hips, my body suddenly freezing.

I could not have moved if my life depended on it.

“Web.”

“Doc.”

“I don’t want to put more on your plate, you know, but I really need to—”

“It’s my house as much as yours, ain’t it?”

“Yes. It’s more yours than anyone’s. When any of the rest of us isn’t here, it’s okay. But when you’re not here, Web, it’s empty. You make this house a home. You’re the one we all love and need. You’re the strong one.”

I slid from his body, his muscles releasing me, and turned him slowly around to face me. My hands went to the thick chestnut hair, pushing it out of his eyes so I could see them. “Then lay all your crap on me, all right? I can take it; I’m strong. Please let me shoulder it, Cy, whatever it is, whenever it is. It’s my right as your partner, as the man you love. Respect me enough to trust me with the bullshit as well as the good stuff.”

He nodded.

“Yeah?”

“Yes, Web,” he said, nearly collapsing in front of me so I had to grab him and help him to the bed and dump him down on top of it. He was sprawled out in a heap of sated man.

I sat down beside him and stroked his hair, smiling down at him. “Lemme go get you some water.”

“Not yet,” he said, taking hold of my hand. “Let me roll around in my alone time just for another minute.”

“They’ll move out eventually,” I said, fingers tracing over his eyebrows, “and you’ll miss them somethin’ fierce.”

“I love them all, and I love them being here,” he assured me. “But I would also like for you to put me over the kitchen table sometimes too.”

“That’s gross,” I teased him, laughing.