So what now? Jodi stared at the toy. Having a wank was one thing, but did he really have the nerve to press that thing into—
The front door opened. Jodi jumped a mile and threw the probe back in the box, jammed the lid on, and shoved it under the bed. What the fuck was Rupert doing home already? Jodi scrambled to his feet, stumbled, and fell to his knees again just as Rupert appeared in the bedroom doorway.
Rupert sighed. “Seriously? Will you stop tidying?”
Jodi got, carefully this time, to his feet. “I’m not tidying. I was, er, looking for something. And what the fuck are you doing here anyway? You left, like, ten minutes ago.”
“Twenty-five, actually. Just enough to get all the way to the gym and realise I’d forgotten my bag.”
“Oh.”
“‘Oh’?” Rupert raised an eyebrow. “I know you shoved me out the door, but I figured you wouldn’t be that upset to see me.”
“I’m not upset.” Jodi tried to push crossly past Rupert, but Rupert caught him in a grip strong enough to make Jodi weak at the knees.I like that.
“Why are you all flushed?” Rupert put his hand to Jodi’s forehead. “Are you feeling okay?
“I’m fine! Fuck’s sake. Stop treating me like I’m breakable.”
Rupert let Jodi go. Jodi didn’t move, guilt warring with an emotion he couldn’t quite name. Rupert seemed pissed and frustrated, like he was ready to blow, and Jodi was lost in it, snared, and couldn’t look away.
“What were you doing when I came in?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
Jodi swallowed. “I was going through the box.”
“What box?”
Jodi couldn’t answer, but it didn’t matter. Comprehension dawned on Rupert’s face, and it was his turn to have colour in his cheeks.
“What were you looking in there for?”
Jodi shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I just thought I needed to do something ... you know, to be ready for you, I’m so scared I’m going to do it wrong, but that box is full of massive dildos, and then I found this probe thing and—”
Rupert ended Jodi’s embarrassed ramble with a kiss that drove every emotion he’d ever felt from his soul, all except the desire and love Rupert had never hidden from him, even when Jodi hadn’t had a clue what it meant. “Boyo, if you taught me anything, it’s that you don’t need nothing but two boys that love each other to make this good. Will you let me show you what you showed me?”
* * *
Rupert walked Jodi slowly to the bed and pushed him down. He’d been waiting for this, yearning for it. For weeks, Jodi had claimed to be ready, but Rupert’s heart had said no, and so Rupert had said no too, distracting Jodi with other things ... other ways to come, all the while waiting for the final knot of fear in his gut to give way. Fear of his own failure and of Jodi’s relapse. Fear of losing everything they had—old and new—all over again.
He couldn’t quite say what had changed. Maybe it had been seeing Jodi stroll through the scene of the accident without a care in the world. Like he hadn’t left his—and Rupert’s—whole life in bits at the side of the road. Like the event itself really had ceased to matter.
Or perhaps it had been observing Jodi through the window as he’d stared at the toys in the box, unaware of Rupert watching him from the doorway. Anyone else would’ve just seen a young man kneeling on the floor, looking into a nondescript box, but Rupert knew all too well what Jodi had been staring so hard at. That probe. Rupert shivered. Jesus, they’d had some fun with that.
But he pushed the toy box from his mind. The time for play would come later. For now, it was all about Jodi, and him, together, like they’d always been, even when they’d been so far apart Rupert had truly believed they’d never find their way back.
He kissed Jodi with all he had, and covered him with his body, feeling their contours mould together like they had been one and the same to begin with. Jodi shuddered. Rupert opened his eyes to find Jodi gazing at him with a healthy mix of love, arousal, and apprehension that made Rupert’s heart swell, healing the many cracks it’d suffered since the accident. The old Jodi was gone, and Rupert would mourn him forever, but this Jodi ... Rupert loved him more than he would ever have believed possible, and despite the pain that had brought them to this point, part of him wouldn’t change a thing. Wouldn’t give up this moment.
Rupert stripped Jodi’s clothes, peeling back the layers of pain and heartache until there was nothing but Jodi—his long limbs and bare skin. Rupert kissed every inch of him, rolled him over and kissed him again and again, burying his face in him, breathing him in, saturating himself in all that was Jodi, as Jodi writhed beneath him.
Jodi gasped. “Please, Rupe, please. I can’t.”
“Can’t what? What do you want?”
“You. I need you.”
