Green-Eyed Monster

It's a little over a week later that I finally get my walking papers It's a little over a week later that I finally get my walking papers. Vince is more than a little annoyed that I'm back in the land of the living while he's still stuck in the hospital for another several days, until he can eat solid food again. He's made McPike promise to keep an eye on me, which entails having a round-the-clock guard on my ass. Which would ordinarily cramp my style, but since I have no intention of trying to slip this particular leash until my lover is free to join me, I just ignore the numb-skulled muscle that follows me around like a St. Bernard. The second night out of the hospital, I arrange for a heart-to-heart with Frank, hoping to find out exactly where he stands on the whole 'get thel oul outta Dodge' thing. "If you can find a way to pry him loose, I'll owe you big time," he answers that question with mingled resignation and amusement, with maybe the littlest bit of hope mixed in. "Tell me about it," I sigh. "What is it that makes him think he can save us all just by sheer force of will?" I ask, not expecting an answer. It's over a minute before he responds, and he's gone all serious on me all of a sudden. "That's the problem, Lococco. He doesn't think he can, he only hopes he can. That's why he's dead set on trying. He keeps hoping he can make it turn out differently. Better. That he can save the people he really cares about." I eye Frank, startled by the sudden gravity. "Do you have any idea what this job has cost him?" McPike asks at last. My laugh lacks humor. "Some," I reply sarcastically. "About what it's cost me, at a guess," I remind him. He blinks at me owlishly through the lenses of his professorial glasses for a second, thinking about it, then nods, once, an odd expression on his face. "Can I ask you something?" he says eventually. I shrug. "Depends," I respond. "Did Vince… ever talk to you about what happened with the Steelgrave bust? I mean really talk to you about it?" "All I know is that he fell for the guy he was supposed to bring down. Fell hard. And has spent every day since Sonny fried himself beating himself up over the way it ended," I say. Most of that is speculation, some of it is fact, and all of it is surmise on my part, because Vince really hasn't spoken much about it to me beyond the obvious fact of his feelings for Steelgrave. McPike broods on that for a minute or two. When he speaks next, he about floors me. "Pretty much the way he fell for you," he tells me, bravely meeting my eyes. "What?" is the best I can manage, going suddenly numb. "I don't know how far it went, the thing between him and Steelgrave, but I'd have to be blind not to see what's going on between the two of you," he says. "You're like characters out of some Greek epic," he goes on, and my amazement grows. "And you're too much alike for comfort, even if you do a better job hiding it than he does." "Hiding what?" I ask dazedly, the conversation having just completely escaped my grasp. "That the two of you have been through seven shades of hell I can't even think about without wanting to throw up," he gropes for a politically correct euphemism that I can barely hear over the roaring in my ears. "That the two of you… are… intimate? Don't hurt him Roger. He's been hurt enough." I stare at the little OCB agent, trying to get my brain to thaw, shock having frozen my entire cerebral cortex. "Hurt him? Jesus Christ, McPike, my life depends on him. On having him alive and well and being his usual pig-headed, stubborn goddamned beautiful self," and I can hear the break in my voice that betrays exactly what I feel. Frank hears it too, because some of the dread in his expression fades, a strange sort of relief taking its place. "You love him." It's a statement. I just stare back at him, my vision blurring, my heart pounding, sweat and chills hitting my skin at the same instant, my breathing growing shallow and labored. I've never had one this intense before, but this is a panic attack, adrenaline surging through my bloodstream uncontrolled, unchecked, unreasoning, my past, my self image fag awg away, metamorphosing into an unknown future. And right there, I take my stand. Stake my claim, say the words to Vinnie's best friend, words I can barely say to Vince, seriously, none of the easy smart-ass sarcasm left in me. And the panic falls away, the strangest feeling of peace, of rightness taking its place. "Yeah. I love him." Frank looks back at me for several seconds before he nods, and I can see him reevaluating everything he knew, or thought he knew, about Vince. About me. "Then let's find a way to get him out of this place. Away from the east coast. Into some life the two of you can live without me having to spend every waking moment worrying about either of you." His expression is more focused, more forceful, then it's been in months. He's made his decision, let Vince go, and now it's up to me to step in and take over the care and feeding of one Vincent Michael Terranova. It's strange to feel the passionate, unquestioning friendship Frank has felt for Vince the whole time I've known them suddenly lap outward to include me. To watch him step aside as guardian, to willingly relinquish that role to me. Vince's lover. It's a feeling both powerful and terrifying. "You may be the only man on the planet who can keep him alive, Lococco. The only one he'll stay with. The only one I'd trust with the job." And coming from Frank McPike, that's one hellov an admission. ************************************************* So the campaign begins to get everyone Vince thinks he has to save to convince him instead to save himself. Last but most important on the list is Vince's folks, and mamma Terranova, now Aiuppo, has finally, reluctantly, agreed to talk to me, after McPike managed to convince her I was on the same side. It's a grueling experience, a self-inflicted torture, talking to the judgmental old woman. Frankly, I prefer her husband's pragmatic realism over her moralistic attitude, and I have a pretty clear idea he knows exactly how much his stepson means to me by the time I leave. We've pretty much agron aon a course of action that involves something along the lines of an intervention, in twelve-step parlance. The idea is for those of us who care to gang up on Vince as he's being discharged from the hospital. The hope is, that if we present a unified front, he won't be able to dismiss us as hysterics or justify not hearing what we're trying to tell him. It's just about as ugly as I imagined it would be, his fury with Frank, and even more with me, like a furnace blast as the two of us enter his hospital room on the heels of the Lifeguard, his parents and his cousin Angie, who somehow got wind of what was up. The more the merrier, I figure as I watch him bristle like a porcupine. I'm all for anything that reduces the likelihood that I'll be his primary target. "So what's all this?" Vince asks, voice dripping with sarcasm as he finishes shoving a foot into his scuffed cowboy boot, then sitting up straighter, trying to hide the wince. "A lynch mob?" "More like a hostage rescue operation," Dan responds dryly, knowing Vince is going to miss the point. He ignores the bitchy look Vinnie throws his way and goes on. "We're here to say a few things to you, son. And you may not wanna hear them, but you're gonna sit there and listen anyway. What happens after that is up to you." Vince snorts and levers himself stiffly off the edge of the bed he's been sitting on. "Sorry, I've heard this speech from all of you before, at various times, and I don't need to hear it again. Now if you don't mind, I've been handed my walking papers and I am getting the hell outta this damned hospital." Stubbornly, slowly, he shrugs into his leather motorcycle jacket. "This time, maybe," McPike snaps. "Vincenzo." The single sharp word is enough to reduce him to obedient if sniveling childhood. I knew there was a reason the old bitch had to be here. "Vincenzo…" It's softer this time. More despairing. "When you were a little boy, I held your hand. Cleaned up after you. Bathed you. Cared for you as a mother must care for her child. When did you become the parent? When did I become the child? When did it become the responsibility of the child to protect his mother? How have I managed to fail you so terribly?" Ah, guilt. The weapon of choice in a situation like this. Go, Carlotta, I think to myself as Vinnie's dismay settles liain ain in his brilliant eyes. "Mom, it isn't like that! You haven't failed at anything, I have. I couldn't keep Pete safe, most of my best friends have been hurt because of me, because of what I do - did - for a living. How is that your fault?" His indignation is heavily tinged with frustration and remorse. "It is my fault for raising you to think your life means nothing. That your life is not as important as the lives and expectations of everyone around you. Vincenzo, you you thought about what it would do to me if you were killed? There would be nothing left. No one. Everythintrietried to pass on to you will be lost if you are killed," she goes on, and I start fidgeting quietly in my corner in the presence of this much maternal angst. I wonder what it is that's making me squirm so uncomfortably, and it eventually dawns on me that it's the whole idea that I'm witnessing something I never had, a reality totally foreign to my own: parents who care. Anyone who cared. Until now. Until Vince. Vince has been parent to my damaged and feral child-self, taming me, civilizing me in ways I hadn't even realized. It's an almost surreal feeling as I stand there, listening to his family, his closest friends, argue that his existence and presence on the planet is essential to us. And I wonder if there's some way to make it clear to him that I need him. I need him to finish what he started; I need him to teach me what it's like to be loved. The points that are made, that Vince is not the sole bearer of responsibility for our welfare, that his own safety requires that he exercise enlightened self-interest, is emotionally draining for all of us, reducing the two women to tears, for which I am profoundly grateful. There is something about a woman in tears that makes a man like him cave. And it happens as expected, Vince relenting at last when Aiuppo has managed to assuage the last of his fears that his mother will be vulnerable without the mighty Terranova's constant vigilance. By the time we file out of the room, looking and feeling like we've been in a war, Vince has agreed to disappear from the world he has spent his life in. He has agreed to accept witness protection, to be given new documents and papers, to be relocated. I don't know exactly what that means for the future of our relationship, because it's hardly the thing to go into in front of his conservative mother and her mobster husband. While the bulk of the battle has been won, I am facing a personal defeat of a magnitude that leaves my belly roiling with fear. The practical realities of making a man the size of Vince Terranova disappear occupies the next week as McPike and his superior, a stuffed shirt by the name of Beckstead, handle the nitty-gritty of the arrangement. And it's really not until the moment that McPike asks him where he's planning on going that I have any idea what my future holds. "So where do you want to go?" Frank asks over soup and bread, the diet of the intestinally challenged that we've been confined to since we got out of the hospital. "Whadda ya mean, where do I wanna go?" Vince asks around a mouthful of crust, indignant. "Where do you think?" he finishes, swallowing. "With Roger." I close my eyes, feeling light-headed with relief, and I can almost feel his gaze on me, the confusion at my reaction, the concern. "As long as his offer still stands," he adds, looking at me, suddenly hesitant. And I do something I never thought I'd have the nerve to do; slipping the fingers of both hands into his hair, I yank him down into a full-on, open-mouthed kiss, right there in front of McPike, who sits there gaping at us from across his desk. "Yes, the offer still stands, you jerk," I snarl at him. "I've spent the past week sweating bullets, waiting for you to make up your mind, Buckwheat." Vince just stares at me, stunned, mortified, and judging by the way his pupils have dilated, turned on as hell. "Geeze, warn a guy will ya, Rog?" he manages at last, glancing at McPike from under dark lashes. "Hellova way to come out to my former boss," he adds, a trace of his usual sarcasm in his voice. "Sorry, Vince, Lococco beat you to that punch last week," Frank announces with a matching note of sarcasm. "So where are you two lovebirds planning on building your nest?" he asks, arching an eyebrow at us speculatively. Both of us look back at him for a second before glancing at each other. "Guess that depends," I say, careful to keep my voice neutral. If I have to walk away from the life I built for myself in order to keep Vince, I will, no question. But if I don't have to, so much the better. "Wherever Rog wants to go is fine by me," Vince shrugs at last, and I relax infinitesimally. And easy as that, the decision gets made. A week later, his good-byes said, conduits for communicating with his family in place, the two of us head west with the sun on my corporate jet, leaving his past and mine behind us like unwanted baggage. ********************************************** It's raining, December in California still technically considered winter, even if it comes without the nasty weather prevalent in the majority of the rest of the country. Still, it's a good day for indoor activities, and we haven't set foot out of my Nob Hill flat since we got back from our run this morning along the Embarcadero. Vince made me buy him a Christmas tree, and despite all my bitching and moaning about the mess and the nuisance value, there's something comfortingly domestic about the slowly desiccating evergreen in the big bay window. Something that says home. That says family. Neither of which I've felt since I was six and stayed with my grandmother for Christmas. It's been over two months since we left New York behind, and with the help of the OCB, Vince still manages almost weekly phone conversations with his mom, annoying for their satellite-scrambled time delay as much as for the distraction from the serious business of fucking each other's brains out. Both of us are finally more or less recovered from the bullet wounds that put us in the hospital last summer, and I lay on the floor, watching Vince work through his weight routine, the clank of steel plates as he dumps the barbell back into its cradle my signal that the games are about to begin. His gray t-shirt is sweat-plastered to his massive chest, darkened in a narrowing 'V' down the center of his abdomen. His sweat pants are dark with sweat at waist, groin and knees, and hell if I know why it's such a turn-on, but it is. The kid is just hot. In every sense of the word. He's eyeing me, this look on his face, and I grin up at him, getting to my feet in one smooth move and striping off my own damp workout duds to display mysfor for his pleasure. His eyes go almost black with that look I love, the one that's total lust, and a lot of love, and no-bones-about-it horniness. I pause to extract the tube of lube from the cabinet that holds the free weights and then stand in front of him, my cock at his eye level, straddling his lap and the weight bench, my hands on his shoulders. It's taken some time, and a lot of experimenting, but I think this is just about my favorite way to get fucked, face to face, sitting across his lap, impaled on his prick like a chicken on a spit. God, to be able to kiss him while he comes is my idea of heaven, on earth or anywhere else. The look in his eyes breaks my heart every goddamned time. Fucking adoration, absolute goddamned trust. "What?" he asks, peering up at me from under the stringy mop of dark hair that’s always falling into his eyes. He doesn’t break eye contact as he takes me into his mouth, gently, teasing me with his tongue and fingers on the shaft and balls. He’s nibbling me like an ear of corn, and the combination of sharpness and warm softness about drives me out of my mind. Today, I think I’m gonna let him take the edge off before he fucks me, because if he doesn’t, I wouldn’t last more than sixty seconds anyway. And I want more than that from him. A nice slow fuck that’ll waste us both. Then an hour in the rooftop hot tub in the rain, maybe with some of the wine that just arrived from my Santa Barbara vineyards today. Then the rest of the afternoon in bed, doing what we do so well. "Pay attention, Roger," Vince says indistinctly around his mouthful, and I grin down at him, then groan as he swallows me whole, his breathing timed to the helpless rhythm of my thrusts into his mouth, down his throat as deep as I can go. Damn, but he’s talented. It’s the slick fingers working between my ass cheeks that really gets me going as he works a fingeto mto me, letting my own tempo drive things. When he applies the second, then the third, I throw back my head and moan, a guttural howl of primal pleasure as I come violently into his mouth, the pleasure only amplified by the contraction and release of muscles in his throat as he swallows me down. It’s like feeling a woman come around me, only more so, stronger, and it never fails to wring me dry. I’m panting when he glances up at me again, lust-dark eyes glittering with amusement. He licks me dry, his fingers still inside me, keeping the fire fanned, then lets my cock go, and kisses me on the belly gently as he massages my prostate. "You still up for this?" he asks, knowing exactly what my response is going to be. I’d have to be three months dead before I’d turn down the opportunity to fuck or be fucked by him. "Stupid question, Buckwheat," I grin down at him breathlessly and crouch ovim tim to help him wriggle the sweat pants down past his balls. I yank the sweaty t-shirt up over his head and lower myself onto him as he holds his erection steady. The burn of his entry fades slowly as I settle onto his lap, my balls warm against his pubic hair, his warm against my ass, the muscles of his thighs taut and solid along the inside of my own. His hands start smoothing their way up and down along my sides, then his arms loop back around me as I lower my mouth onto his, feeling his cock twitch inside me. I content myself with making love to his mouth, leaving his lips wet and pink-tinged, swollen, giving him a debauched look that does more for me than anything else I’ve ever experienced. He’s as into the delaying tactics as he is the no-holds-barred down and dirty fuck, so we enjoy ourselves like that for a good fifteen minutes while my own cock slowly recovers from its previous go-round. Vinnie feels it stir against his belly and locks eyes with me, the sparkle in them warning me this is starting to try his patience. I grin as he slides a hand between us and starts fondling me with exquisite gentleness. Ready, now, I rise onto the balls of my feet, easing my way back up the massive prick inside me, then dropping down onto his lap again. And again. His arms tighten around me and it’s his turn to groan, the sound wrenched out of him and captured in my own mouth as I kiss him deeply, tasting the sweetness of fresh water, maybe a little toothpaste, him. He rocks back a little in counterpoint to my rise and fall along him, the contrasting rhythms and pressures bringing us both to the edge faster than I’d expected to get there, and when he grabs thee ofe of my neck in one big hand, keeping our mouths locked together and groping between bod bodies again for my cock, I know it’s all over but the shouting. Anything considered or deliberate is out of the question as we fall back into primal instinct, and when he comes, I’m right behind him, the aching clenching of my prostate and balls sending absolute pleasure rocketing through me. Limp and wrung out, we lean heavily against each other, chest to chest, panting. I rest my forehead on his shoulder, relishing the warm hands that roam my back and sides slowly. I’m a control freak, I admit it, so I guess the fact that this particular arrangement of bodies means nothing happens that I don’t control is the reason it’s my favorite position. For the moment, anyway. I’m slowly beginning to like even the relentless seduction and dominance thing Vince will occasionally slip into, to. But that usually requires a fight to set it off, one where we start getting physical with eacher. er. We have yet to actuallyt eat each other, but it’s resulted in some majorly mind-blowing sex. Kinda gives new meaning to the phrase ‘kiss and make up’. For us, I guess it’s ‘fuck and make up’. We’re slowly finding our way into a routine, one that stays fluid enough to cope with the intermittent demands on my time by the real world, but still allows us the opportunity to spend a lot of our time just finding out the little details about each other. The things no one’s seen about me since Preet, the things no one has seen about him since he went undercover. For instance, the fact that he has a weakness for animals. factfact that he likes banana splits with extra whipped cream and cherries. The fact that he jerks off to some of the finer works of Van Halen and bad porn movies. That he likes cruising for girls and then frustrating the hell out of them when he ends up with me. If he treated me that way, I’d call him a prick tease. That he loves massages, cheap beer, pool games, and the Three Stooges. And interestingly, the works of Nitzche, DeCartes, and Steven Hawkings. For all that he comes across as a hunk of brainless muscle, there’s astonishing depth in him, a breadth of interests I share, and like to indulge. I mean, the kid did graduate college, after all, and Fordham is no community college-level campus. He’s got a lot more in the way of book smarts than I do, and that sometimes makes me envious. Until he reminds me that I can always go back. I guess so, but I’d rather do it the way I have been, finding a subject that interests me and researching it. And Vinnie has slowly been working his way under my guard, learning things about me I sometimes didn’t even know about myself. And he’s learned how to give one hellova massage, while he’s at it. The first time he gave me one, he almost brought me to tears, and it took some amateur analysis on his part to figure out why. It wasn’t until he made the connection with Preet that I realized what I feel when he touches me is what I felt with her, a sense of acceptance, of compassion, of gentleness, of forgiveness. Love. He’s heard my confessions, knows my sins, holds me when I wake screaming in the night. The way I hold him, when his demons come to haunt him. The road to ‘happily ever after’ has it’s bumps and potholes, but we keep working at it, keep moving forward, and there are days now that I actually forget what it
lik like to not feel this good. Not that I take it for granted, but I sure as hell enjoy it. "Rog, whatcha thinking about?" he asks against my cheek, kissing me softly. "Not much," I answer, turning my head so I’m glancing at him out of the corner of my eye. "Just that I don’t know how the hell I ever lived without you," I grin at him, perfectly serious. He laughs slightly. "Good thing you don’t have that problem any more, huh?" I laugh back and ease my way off his lap, feeling his softening cock slip free. Giving him a quick kiss, I stand and step over him, heading for the bathroom off the room we’ve turned into a weight room. "I’m gonna rinse off and go soak in the tub," I tell him without looking back at him, knowing he’ll follow when he’s ready. He’s not as big a fan of hot tubs as I am, but he knows it’s a passion of mine and has been since I spent time in Japan on one of my early CIA missions. The communal baths there became an addiction, one I indulged when I could. I’m chin-deep in the steaming tub, watching the circular ripple rings the falling rain makes in the hot water when he wanders out, bringing along a couple of glasses and a pitcher of ice water. He’s more prone to overheating than I am, so the water keeps things balanced. I pour him a glass of the Primativo that my winemaker just shipped up, and he steps into the water opposite me. Even in the rain, the view from my penthoulat lat is spectacular, a panorama sweeping from views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Coit tower in the northwest to the Bay Bridge in the southeast. The east bay hills are hidden in the gray mist of weather and distance, and the downtown skyline of San Francisco is blurred and indistinct, only the glow of office lights pinpointing the boundaries of each separate building. The contrast between the heat of the water and the chill of the rain is one that stimulates the senses, reinforcing the relaxation that an intense fucking generates. Vince says the hot tub has grown on him as he’s recognized that it opens me up in ways that nothing else does, both physically and emotionally. It’s where we’ve had some of our most intense conversations, and some of the most revealing. We linger outside until the slowly dimming blueness of the light tells me the afternoon is waning, and the buzz induced by the wine and the heat have me thinking about taking this inside to my bed for another leisurely round of lovemaking. My glance at Vince tells me he’s reaching the well-done stage, so I hoist myself out of the water and offer him a hand, then, dripping, we make our way back inside. We dry each other off and I light a fire in the fireplace in my bedroom, the one that’s become ‘our’ bedroom sort of by default, since this is where we spend most of our time. The amber-orange of the glow is all the light we need and the contrast between it and the blue of twilight renders the curves and ridges of Vince’s muscular physique into a living work of art, one that leaves me breathless and struck yet again by the simple beauty of his body. This time it’s my turn to touch, to pet, to explore a body I know as well as my own, and in some ways, better. Vince is as much a hedonist as I am, and he loves these lingering passionate touches. Loves the heat of my body against his, the wetness of my mouth, my leaking cock, and he’s begging for me to release him from the exquisite prison of arousal that I adore penning him into. I push against the center of his chest, toppling him backwards onto the mattress and kneel between his legs, dropping down to cover him, braced over him on my arms as I look down into his face, seeing the flush there even in the fading light. Our cocks are head to head, and the urge to thrust is overwhelming for both of us. His knees come up alongside my hips to cradle me and I suddenly realize he’s in the same position as a woman would be and that my assumption that a face to face version of the horizontal dance we’ve been doing is impossible for the two of us is wrong. It’s as easy as it would be with a partner of the opposite sex, with a litcarecareful maneuvering. I smirk down into his eyes, and the wolfish look tips him off that I’ve got something on my mind, but I restrain him lightly when he starts getting impatient and tries to roll me over into my accustomed position alongside him at his back. "Rog, geezus, please!" he complains, and I can feel the steady seep of his pre-cum wet against my own cock, mingling with mine. "Do you wanna get fucked or don’t you?" I ask him with an evil grin, determined that this time is going to be different, that this time I’ll get to enjoy the show in all it’s glory. "Yeah, goddammit," he whines, doing his petulant act for me. Once upon a time it would’ve gotten him smacked upside the head, but I know when he’s teasing me, now. I reach across to the nightstand beside the bed and grope blindly for the lube without taking my eyes off Vince, handing o hio him while I grab for the pillows at the head of the bed and shove them under the hips I get him to raise, just by willing it. There's a glitter in his eyes that tells me he's on the same page and I lower my mouth onto his, as hungry for him as though I'd been imprisoned without food or water or light for the whole of my life before he entered it. If I could take him into my bloodstream, fuse his mind with my own, mesh his DNA with mine, I would do it without hesitation. It occurs to me, as our tongues writhe and twist around each others' that I have just entered the realms of obsession. Of a dependence on the presence of someone other than myself totally at odds with a life spent in determined independence of exactly this kind of bond. And it is as exhilarating as it is terrifying. All that I hope to be is reflected back at me in the gleam of his blue eyes, eyes that mirror my soul back to me. He squeezes a generous dollop of lunto nto my right hand as he laces his fingers through those of my left, and I obey the silent command and begin to work it into him, his moans disappearing down my throat. I relinquish his mouth in favor of tasting the broad expanse of his chest, the savor of his nipples different that the rest of his skin, inexplicably pungent. Finished readying him, I shift my slick grip to his cock, then my own, transferring the last of the lube to my prick in preparation for my entry into him, as close as I will be allowed to get to my personal idea of heaven, of completion. Maybe we can read each others' minds, I think as he lifts his hips upward, thighs parting for me as eagerly as any woman's, and I enter him in one long slow stroke that has his head thrown back, moans of eager pleasure encouraging me in to the limit of my reach. Raising myself up off his chest and bracing myself once more on my arms, hands planted alongside his ribs, I look down into the flushed and achingly open gaze that meets mine. "Vinnie," I sigh as I begin to move. It takes several slow thrusts, my angle changing infinitesimally until I find what I search for; the sweet spot, the bulge of his prostate that feels so different against the top of my cock. He bucks under me, tightening around me even more than he had been, and I begin to move with deliberation, sensation washing over me along with the uncanny tenderness that fills me as I lock eyes with him, our breathing ragged, panting, a strange keening noise coming from low in his throat, my name on his lips, silent but heard in every nerve-ending I possess. I can feel the slipperiness of his prick against my belly, feel it twitch and jerk against my flesh, the feeling almost as erotic as the ones in my own cock are, and I know this won't last much longer. Nothing of this intensity could, however much the idea of forever appeals to me right now. As control slips for both of us, he wraps long legs around me, ankles crossed high over my back, the curve of his body allowing me deeper still. We move, bodies and gazes locked unbreakably, intertwined, inextricable, until we launch ourselves off the precipice of orgasm into the soaring freefall that goes with it. Vince clenches around me, the guttural cry of his own ejaculation hot against my belly as he milks mine from me. I drop against his chest, drained, contented, happier than I can ever remember being. Forget what I said about the weight bench being about my favorite place for sex. I think my vs gos gonna have to go for that old reliable, the mattress. I bury my face against the angle of Vinnie's neck and shoulder, kissing him gently, tasting the sweat and satisfaction on his skin as his fingers run through my hair while he strokes my calves with the top of his foot. I can feel the warmth of his breath against my ear and cheek as he sighs my name with tame ame satiation I feel. We stay that way until I slip free of him, then I ease off him to lie against his side, my head pillowed on his chest, his arm around me, my leg tossed over his. The room is warm, the fire crackling away with all the conviction that natural gas can provide, and we drift slowly into sleep as rain lashes against the bedroom windows with a comforting violence. I'm in love. Completely, helplessly, totally in love. And it doesn't even scare me anymore. It's a freedom unlooked for and I fuzzily try to make a mental note to tell Vince when we wake up next time, because of all the people on the planet, he'll know exactly what that means to me… I wake slowly, Vince's fingers in my hair, stroking gently, lingering in my curls as though he were soothing an animal. The scent of sex is heavy in the warm air and the fire still flickers away in the stormy darkness of the room as the brunt of the storm dashes itself against the concrete and glass of the city. I lie there, my eyes more or less closed, just relaxing into the warmth of my lover's body, mindless pleasure at his smallest touch overwhelming me so easily. I can tell he knows I'm awake, but he doesn't say anything, and I finally lift my head to look at him with sleepy curiosity. "Vince?" I yawn. He turns his head slightly to look at me, and the expression in his face is profoundly sad, love blazing away in his eyes like a neutron star's gamma pulse. "What?" I ask, my pulse ratcheting up instantly to anxiety levels. "What is it?" "Hello, Roger," comes a quiet voice from the dimness at the foot of the bed, and my head whips around to take in the unmistakable, if unbelievable, sight of Tess McTavish standing in my bedroom, the gleam of firelight streaking across the Glock in her hand. End.