Fic - An Excerpt - PITD
Title: An Excerpt by NyteFlyer
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 2950
Author's Note: The following is an excerpt from my novel-in-progress, Partners In The Dance. Leonard and Dylan are original characters created by moi, so I own 'em and all the rights to 'em! :p~~~~~~~
After dinner, Leonard took care of the cleanup while Dylan led the dog outside for a quick run. He was gone less than ten minutes, but as he padded back through the door, barefoot as usual and tracking wet footprints across the floor, Leonard caught him by the waist and pulled him close. He smelled like leaves and rain, wet fur and wood smoke. When their lips met, Leonard tasted apples.
“You couldn’t just stand on the porch and let the damned dog run, could you?” he growled into Dylan’s ear. “You just had to run around in the rain with him. Get out of that wet shit before you get pneumonia. Sometimes you’re worse than a goddamned kid….”
Dylan shut him up with another apple-scented kiss. He considered the big man gravely. “Yeah, it sucks to be away from you, too,” he said, then his thoughtful expression gave way to a slow smile. “God, we’ve got it bad, don’t we?” He peeled off his shirt and then his jeans, which were saturated from the knees down.
“What’d you do, go wading in the river?” Leonard grumbled, taking the wet clothing from him and spreading it near the stove. “It’ll be a miracle if these dry by morning.”
“Next time I’ll just go out there naked. Would that make you happier?”
“Next time the damned dog can go by himself. You can get naked, though. Naked is good. I like naked.” Leonard caught him up again, this time lifting him off his feet and spinning him round. The cabin rang with the hard, bright sound of their laughter, and Whiskers scurried in circles around their legs, yapping. Then Dylan’s laughter softened, and his arms tightened around Leonard’s neck, pulling him down until 2-day-old beard bristled against 3-day-old beard, and their mouths met and locked.
Leonard lost himself for a while in the hungry press of lips, thinking this is a man, I’m kissing a man, and it’s the most natural thing I’ve ever done and the best feeling I’ve ever had and I don’t want it to stop, not now and not ever. He slipped a finger into the waistband of Dylan’s briefs and lightly stroked the skin over his hipbone, raising goosebumps there. When he ran his hands over his partner’s chilly flesh, feeling more bumps rise on his arms and sides, Dylan shivered a little, and Leonard shivered in sympathy. The flickering lantern light had turned Dylan’s eyes the color of November sky. As Leonard stared down into them, all he could think of was how good it would be to warm them, how happy he would be if he could just drive the cold from Dylan’s life forever.
They tumbled into bed together, shedding Dylan’s briefs and Leonard’s clothes along the way. Leonard ordered Dylan to lie face down and gave him a massage, vigorously rubbing his arms and back and sides to drive the last of the chill away, then slowing down to really work the muscles in his back and shoulders. When Dylan lay limp and completely relaxed in his hands, Leonard’s touch lightened to a caress. He followed the progression of his hands across his partner’s body with his mouth, nipping Dylan between the shoulder blades, then tickling the bite marks with the tip of his tongue. He worked his way down Dylan’s back, alternating licks with kisses, gentle nips with harder bites, smiling to himself as his partner jumped and twitched, hissing and sighing beneath him.
He paused at the base of Dylan’s spine, admiring the pale rise of his buttocks, their smoothness and their symmetry. Elegant, Leonard thought, not for the first time. The way Dylan was put together was just so fucking elegant. He stoked one white cheek, marveling at the contrast of dark skin touching light, calloused palm brushing this unexpected softness. Who could have guessed how good it felt to discover these soft, secret places on a man’s body, a body most people would think of in terms of angles and lines, muscle and bone? The muscle was there, firm and stationary and well defined, giving the neat, compact body substance and form. As for the bone, it was more prominent than usual, Leonard realized with a pang. Dylan didn’t have much to lose to begin with, and his three-day fast had taken a toll on his meager fat reserves. But it was the softness of his skin that touched something deep inside Leonard and hurt him as well, made his chest ache and his eyes sting.
He couldn’t keep his hands off that elegant ass, squeezing and stroking, at once protective and possessive. When he felt Dylan tense, his touch turned lighter, more tender. He rubbed his face back and forth across his partner’s hips and between his thighs, coaxing them apart with the gentle pressure of his cheeks and chin. He licked the back of Dylan’s scrotum, circling each testicle with the tip of his tongue, then turned his attention to that smooth white ass once again, stroking, stroking. But when his fingers slipped into the divide between those two pale cheeks, Dylan clenched and knocked his hand away, scooting across the mattress to put as much distance as possible between them.
“Don’t do that,” Dylan said. “Don’t you ever do that.”
For a few stunned seconds, Leonard just sat there, feeling like an idiot. Then he scrambled after him, tried to pull him close but met resistance. “I just wanted to touch you. You felt so good to me. I wasn’t going to….”
“I know,” Dylan said wearily. He shook his head as if to clear it, then repeated the words with more conviction. “You just took me by surprise. I guess I don’t deal so well with anything that goes on…you know. Back there. My father….”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to say anything else. I know what he did to you.”
“No, you don’t. Not really.” Dylan studied Leonard’s face intently, then closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “I can show you, if you want.”
“Dylan, you don’t have to….”
“S’okay. It’s not fair to you, not letting you know what you’re dealing with. Here, give me your hand.” Dylan stretched out on his belly, his face averted, and pressed Leonard’s index finger deep into the gap between his hips. “There,“ he said. “Do you feel that?” At first, Leonard wasn’t sure what it was he was supposed to be feeling. Then he realized his fingertip was tracing a thin ridge of raised tissue, about an inch and a half long, then another and another. Shocked and sickened, Leonard spread his partner’s cheeks and stared down at the scars, jagged and pale and barely visible in the dim and flickering light, radiating outward from Dylan’s anus. “Oh my god,” he said, swallowing back the urge to vomit. “He ripped you to pieces.”
“Yeah, pretty much.” Dylan turned to face Leonard, his expression wary. “So.”
Leonard looked away, his eyes streaming. “But he couldn’t do this with just…him. He had to use….”
“Anything he could get his hands on. Stuff from his tool belt, bourbon bottles, his fist, a hunting knife, the barrel of a shotgun once or twice. He liked to put out his cigarettes there, too, and sometimes on my balls. Once in a while, he’d have a couple of friends over, and they’d….”
Leonard covered the smaller man’s body with his own, pressed his wet face against Dylan’s dry one. “Don’t,” Dylan said, wiping the tears away. “It tears me up inside to see you cry.”
“I’m just so sorry,” Leonard said. “I’m sorry all this happened to you. I’m sorry I didn’t kill him when I had the chance. If I’d only known….”
“You are such a fucking mystery to me. How in the hell can you stand to touch me now? Doesn’t it make your skin crawl? It’s me, Len. There’s something wrong with me, something defective inside that people like my father pick up on. It wasn’t just him. Maybe I could live with it if what he did was the end of the story. But it’s a pattern. My so-called good buddy from high school, people I knew when I was on the streets, a couple of guys from the academy, even. All my life, people have been grabbing at me, wanting a piece of me. When I won’t give it, they try to take it. Shit, they don’t even want me to give it. Taking it and making me hate it, that’s the whole point. I’m so fucking sick of fighting them off, Len. Until you came along, no one ever tried to touch me for anything except to hurt. What’s wrong with me? What’s so goddamned unlovable about me?”
“You know how I feel about you. You’ve always known. You said so yourself.”
“I know it, I just can’t make any sense out of it.”
“You don’t believe it, that’s the problem. What can I do to make you believe?”
Dylan thought for a long hard moment. “Make me clean,” he said at last. “If it doesn’t make you sick to touch me, make me clean. I feel so fucking filthy sometimes….”
“Now?” Leonard asked, incredulous. You want to do this now?”
“Never mind,” Dylan said, pushing the big man off of him and sitting up. “Believe me, I can understand if you‘re not up to it. Why would you be? Why would any decent person be, considering….”
“Oh, I’m up to it. With you, I doubt if I could ever not be up to it. It‘s you I‘m worried about.” Leonard caught Dylan’s chin in his hand and studied his face, looking past the guarded expression to find a raw, agonized longing that matched and possibly even surpassed his own. Knowing Dylan wanted him as much as he wanted Dylan brought back the surge of excitement he’d felt earlier. Fear was holding Dylan back, of course. Fear of pain and fear of rejection, mixed with simple lack of experience. Responding to the silent plea in his partner’s eyes, Leonard conceded the point. If they were going to dance at all, it was up to him to take the lead.
“I know what you’re asking me to do,” he said, “and that’s not going to happen tonight. You’re not ready and I’m not ready. We’re out here in the middle of nowhere without protection and without anything to make it more comfortable for you. When that happens, if that happens, it’ll be when we’re better prepared and both wanting it so bad we can taste it. I’m not about to risk hurting you just to prove a point. I can’t make you clean, white boy. You’re not dirty. I think you’ll figure that out eventually, once you get used to being with somebody and being safe. Meanwhile, I think there’s plenty we can do to make each other feel good if we just chill out and don’t force any issues. Whadda ya say?”
“Set the pace, Baryshnikov. I’ll try to keep up as best I can.”
Leonard answered the shaky joke with a laugh, but it was a nervous one. He had no delusions about being classified as an virtuoso in the bedroom. The scant feedback he’d received from his limited array of sexual partners, though tinged with kindness, had been depressingly unanimous; he was a nice enough guy who tried hard but was no great shakes between the sheets. Over time, he’d come to see himself as a well-meaning oaf with his too-big body and oversized, clumsy hands, his good intensions and constant need of reassurance. But he couldn’t be an oaf with Dylan, wouldn’t let himself be, because he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the boy couldn’t tolerate it, wouldn’t be able to handle rough or ham-fisted treatment of any kind. So, for perhaps the first time in his life, he let himself be guided by his head and his heart instead of his hard-on.
Slowly and deliberately, he touched every part of Dylan’s body that he could reach, alternately exploring and caressing with an almost painful tenderness. Wildly aroused himself, he forced himself to block out his own needs and to listen -- really listen -- to the signals Dylan’s body gave him. So much easier to read, the clues a man’s body provided. Who would have thought, after 25 years of marriage, that this barely charted territory could feel a thousand times more welcoming than his wife’s ever had?
Christina’s body had always seemed an alien landscape, a pleasant vacation spot that frequently drew him in for a visit but where he always knew himself to be a tourist, inept and bumbling, with a faulty sense of direction and a serious need of a translator. But Dylan’s body was another matter. Touching Dylan was like touching himself. When he brushed his fingers across Dylan’s belly he felt a light tickle on his own, when he gently bit a dark pink nipple he felt a resonant pinch on his own brown one. With each touch he felt some of the residual fear in Dylan dissipate, with each embrace he felt the younger man relax a little more in his arms.
Gradually, Dylan began to explore Leonard’s body as well, at once shyly and eagerly and with an endearing awkwardness that made the big man so crazy with love and desire he would have lost control if he’d allowed himself to. But those gray eyes kept him grounded, those eyes that constantly sought his own for approval and encouragement, those eyes that were no longer guarded, but filled instead with love and trust and an almost childlike innocence that reminded Leonard just how young Dylan really was. That anyone so damaged and abused could still seem so fucking innocent….
When Dylan tried to take him into his mouth, Leonard stopped him and eased him down against the covers. “Not tonight, white boy. This one’s about you, not me.“ He touched or tasted every inch of Dylan’s torso, noticing for the first time how the sparse stand of hair on his chest and belly was a shade lighter than that on his scalp and groin, soft and brown and curling. Leonard trailed his fingertips in it, making a leisurely progression from collarbone to pelvic bone, then began working his way back up again. He lingered over Dylan’s stomach, paying special attention to the scars there, still red and painful looking after all that time, tracing the keloid tissue first with his fingers and then with his tongue. When he felt Dylan stiffen, he wrapped his arms around his waist and pressed his face into the younger man’s belly, nuzzling deeply.
“Don’t,” Dylan protested weakly, trying to cover the scars with his hand. “It’s ugly. So much of me is ugly.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Leonard said quietly, setting the hand aside. He nuzzled deeper still, then worked his way down once more, temporarily bypassing Dylan’s cock to lap the soft, crepe paper skin of his testicles, tasting their salt tang and smelling their spicy musk, finally drawing first one ball into his mouth and sucking gently, then releasing it and turning his attention to the other. He heard Dylan gasp in surprise, felt his fingers clutch at his hair.
It seemed to Leonard that he could feel the younger man’s need throbbing like a physical ache between them. A series of tremors passed over Dylan’s body. Carefully, Leonard withdrew and waited for the tremors to pass. Then he drew Dylan’s cock into his mouth and felt the younger man lurch beneath him. “I’ve got to see you,” Dylan pleaded, his voice strained, distorted. “Please, let me see you.”
Shifting positions so they could lie face-to-face, Leonard captured Dylan’s cock between his thighs, nearly losing what little self-control he had left as the younger man rocked against him, his swollen organ brushing Leonard’s genitals with each stroke. Moments later, Dylan reached a prolonged, shuddering climax, and Leonard toppled over the edge with him, cradling him close as they shook and strained together, each of them crying out over and over until they were both emptied, spent.
Once again, Dylan wept. Leonard felt a momentary jolt, remembering his earlier anxiety attack. Then he recognized the difference, saw that this time his partner’s reaction had nothing to with panic and everything to do with relief and release. Relieved himself, Leonard cuddled him closer, murmuring rough endearments until Dylan lay calm against him. He wondered if it would always be this way for Dylan, if sex was such a highly charged issue for him that his long-suppressed emotions would always require this type of release. Disconcerting, but he decided he could deal with it, if that’s what his partner needed. He was beginning to suspect he could deal with damned near anything if it was what Dylan needed.
Several minutes passed before they forced themselves to move, straightening the mangled covers and wiping themselves clean with a spare blanket before settling in for the night. Leonard was far too limp for pillow talk, but there was something unfamiliar, something distinctly “un-Dylan-like” about the depth of his partner’s silence. Concerned, he nudged him.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just wondering if you’re okay.”
Dylan lifted the warm weight of his head from where it had been pillowed on Leonard’s chest and briefly regarded him with eyes already glazed with sleep. “I’m better than okay,” he said, yawning. “I’m better than I’ve been in a helluva long time. You know, I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think I just might be happy.”