“Shut up.”
That was a definitive two-word answer, wasn’t it? Dylan opened the profile he’d started for Mike the other day and shoved the laptop screen in his partner’s face. “Here.”
“What’s this?”
“Your dating profile.”
“My what?”
“You heard me. Unless there’s so much dirt built up in your ears that you can’t hear.”
“Fuck you.”
That was two words, too.
Mike snapped the laptop shut. “Not now,” he said, walking out of the living room.
“Where are you going?” Dylan watched as Mike peeled his shirt off, his bare back visible before he turned and walked into the bathroom.
“Shower.” Slam! The bathroom door shut with a violent shudder.
“Fuuuuck,” Dylan hissed under his breath. At least he got Mike to take care of basic hygiene. These two off-seasons since Jill had died were miserable for Mike. Snow meant he kept busy. Nice weather meant he sulked and moped around the house watching nature shows and running constantly.
Dylan opened the laptop and pondered the profile.
What if he just...submitted it? Mike wouldn’t need to know unless someone contacted him, right? Checking out the online dating site’s settings, he realized he could configure the ad so Mike never got an email. All his contact would be through the online dating site, via private message.
Dylan had to do something. Mike was suffering. No amount of meditation or running was going to drag Mike out of this dark place. And, since Dylan was his partner and along for the ride for life, whatever emotional dungeon Mike lived in, Dylan visited heavily, too.
He wasn’t being selfish trying to get them back into the dating game, to find their third partner. He was being realistic. Life couldn’t go on like this.
No matter how much they both missed Jill.
*
Oh, God, her mouth was like fire and ice, warm heat and slickness as it left his eager lips, kissing down the hollows of his neck, sucking each nipple with a teasing intensity. Her hands skimmed the contours of his arms, muscles swollen from need. As she left a wet trail that journeyed down, down, down she blew lightly in his wet, used skin, making him groan.
Her long, curly hair was like an afterthought, trailing behind her as she lavished luxurious attention on his skin. It caught in the wetness, slipped between his torso and arms, tickled his cock as finally, mercifully, her mouth took him in, half-hard and in full need of her.
Her.
She didn’t have a name, but oh, did she have a grin. A touch. A taste about her that made Dylan sure this wasn’t just a dream. He swallowed, the tight keening of his cock alleviated by her singular attention. She moved like beauty in pure form, her hand grasping the base of him, pulling up and stroking, lubing the shaft as needed. Engulfing him with her soul—via her mouth and throat—she ministered to his every wish.
The sex was infused with a wholeness, a gentle, tender feeling of being loved. This was what he craved, and before he could come from her mouth he pulled her off, flipping her with a commanding movement, mouth raking over her lips, sucking and biting as she widened her legs for him, the tip of his entire self resting at the entrance of her.
“I love this. I love you,” she whispered as he drove inside her, the warm, soft place making him groan. She was his love, his life, his erotic end to what felt like an eternal journey, and as he rode her, twisting her hair in his fists, watching her mouth open in ecstasy, he rippled with pleasure, pouring his seed into her as she clenched around him, milking him, urging him on.
She touched herself, gentle circles of movement that elicited aftershocks in her, the rhythmic pulse of her mini-climaxes like a heartbeat they shared. As they waned, she moved her arms around him, hands splayed on the expanse of his back, short fingernails digging in slightly.
He rolled off and she snuggled against him, both breathing hard into the air, a warm flush covering him from head to toe.
And then, blissful sleep took over, a slumber within a dream, as Dylan experienced the first good night’s sleep in eighteen months, completely unaware that the woman he’d just made love with had never been in his bed.
Only in his head.
Mike
Running a 10K was a lot like just ordering an appetizer plate for lunch. It was enough to make the gnawing need inside you stop, but not nearly satisfying. He’d entered this race to please one of his coworkers, whose daughter had the disease that this charity was raising money for, and Mike felt bad. Plus, it was the off season. Might as well meet up with his running friends and have a quickie.
