Like usual, Travis clung to him, scared to let go because, if he did, there was a good chance he’d splinter even more.
“I love you,” he whispered, breathing in, taking Gage’s familiar scent deep into his lungs.
“I know.” Gage’s strong arms tightened around him. “I love you, too, Trav. Always will.”
He had needed to hear that, more than he would ever be willing to admit. Travis wasn’t one to show weakness, but he was as human as everyone else. He hurt like everyone else.
He would blame the chaos on what happened next, how he found Gage’s mouth with his own. He kissed him like there might not be a tomorrow, and to his relief, Gage kissed him back. They both succumbed to the onslaught, to the passion that flowed freely between them. It didn’t matter that they were in the living room or that they could make enough noise to wake the house. Nothing mattered except the sparks they ignited when they kissed.
“I need you,” Travis breathed against Gage’s lips. “Need you so much.”
Gage gripped Travis’s head in his hands, pressed their foreheads together. “Do you?”
“Yes.” He tried to tilt his head to bring their mouths together, but Gage held him back. “Christ, yes, I need you, Gage. I’ve always needed you. Don’t you get it? Don’t you get that you’re the one I lean on? The one I look to to hold me up when I’m falling over? You, Gage. It’s always been you.”
Gage’s hands tightened on his head, his voice a guttural rasp when he said, “You pushed me away, Travis.”
Oh, fuck. He could feel Gage’s pain as if it were his own. He heard it in Gage’s voice, and it tore at him.
Although he couldn’t move closer, Travis did have the use of his hands, so he slid them beneath Gage’s T-shirt, forced it up, and waited for Gage to release him. That worked because those strong hands released him, allowing Travis to rip the shirt up and over Gage’s head. Before it hit the floor, Travis had Gage up against the wall, nose to nose.
“When I push you, it’s because I need you to push back,” Travis ground out, keeping his voice low. “I fuckin’ needed you to push back, dammit.”
Travis didn’t let Gage speak. He kissed him instead, their lips slamming together, tongues battling as the emotional storm stirred the chaos.
And then he was tearing at Gage’s clothes, shoving the flannel pajama pants down to his ankles, gripping the steel-hard length of him in his hand.
“I fuckin’ need you,” he bit out again. “Right. Now.”
“Then take me,” Gage challenged. “If I’m what you need, show me.”
Oh, fuck.
“I will,” he warned. “Right here.”
Gage’s brown eyes glittered with challenge and Travis accepted it.
With rough hands, he spun Gage around, roughly shoved him against the wall, biting his shoulder in the process.
This wasn’t the first time they’d engaged in this emotion-driven battle of wills. It had happened plenty of times before and would happen plenty more. Travis had come to think of it as his anchor, what he needed to regain his footing.
Gage.
Always Gage.
Leaning against Gage’s back, Travis reached around and stroked Gage’s cock with one hand while he fumbled with the button on his own jeans. It took a few minutes, but he managed to get the denim down to his thighs, out of the way enough that his cock was free.
“Spread your legs,” he demanded, breathing against Gage’s ear.
Gage didn’t hesitate, widening his stance, his hands planted on the wall.
Travis guided his cock along the crack of Gage’s ass, pushing and prodding, his dick anxious for the blistering heat he knew he would find.
He had enough mind to pause, to use his own saliva as lubricant before he took a single step back, jerked Gage’s hips toward him, and drove in deep and hard.
They both groaned.
Right there in the living room, just one floor below all those sleeping in the house, Travis fucked Gage. He used his husband’s body to calm the dragon that had been unleashed, used it to drown out the noise in his head.
