Free Going Up! by Amy Lane Page A

begged. “Slower later!”
    Sean reached behind him and grabbed Zach’s hands firmly, hauling them out of his pants and pinning them to Zach’s sides. “Go get undressed,” he ordered softly. “Down to wherever your courage fails you. Get the condoms out and ready on the dressing table, and the lube too, but don’t get too disappointed if we don’t get that far. You and me, we’re going to have us a long, meaningful body conversation tonight, and I have waited too long to rush it.”
    Zach swallowed, some of his urgency fading. “Undress?”
    “I’ll be right in,” Sean murmured, kissing him quickly.
    Sean must have remembered where the guest bathroom was, because he disappeared in there, and Zach picked his jacket off the ground, left his briefcase where it was, and pulled his pants up so he could shuffle into his bedroom.
    He felt a little better after he hung up his suit jacket and his pants, and he managed to unbutton his dress shirt and take off his tie without any nerves whatsoever.
    But down to his tank—that’s where his nerves failed him, and while he managed to take it off with shaking hands, he was huddled under the comforter, looking balefully at the supplies on top of the nightstand when Sean came out of the bathroom.
    Naked.
    Zach stopped huddling, and actually propped himself on an elbow to check him out.
    Sean grinned and gestured to himself suggestively. He didn’t work out—he had a little tummy, and his chest was narrow. He wasn’t fat—just soft—and Zach thought about how real he’d felt under Zach’s hands.
    “See?” Sean said, still grinning. “One-hundred percent red-blooded gay man. Right here. No preservatives or additives, just—”
    “Just you. Get in bed, okay? You promised me dialog.”
    “Dialog?”
    “Repartee, banter, an exchange of quips—”
    “Oh hey! Look who’s getting all teacherly and shit!” Sean got close to the bed and reached down to feather his fingertips along Zach’s jaw. “Why are you so worried? You’re the one who’s buffed and toned and—”
    Zach captured his hand. “Do you have any idea what you mean to me? How important you are? How much I need to touch someone who’s real?”
    Sean knelt on the mattress and captured his mouth. Zach accepted the first sally, and replied. He listened with the opening of his mouth and his touches along Sean’s back, and replied with a leg thrown over a slender, naked thigh, and arching into Sean’s aroused body, so they could continue the conversation.
    The dialog whispered when Sean kissed along his neck and down his chest, and exploded into babble when Sean’s swollen pink mouth closed around his nipple. When Sean’s soft hands pushed Zach’s boxers down his thighs and grasped Zach’s cock, they were no longer bantering; they were negotiating for the territory of Zach’s soul.
    Sean’s mouth closed over Zach’s erect flesh, and Zach conceded the conversation with a shout, with begging, breathless sobs, broken syllables of raw need.
    Sean responded with tenderness, with firm touches, with increased pressure where it was needed, and Zach ended the conversation, spilling his soul in his lover’s mouth.
    Silence, hushed and reverent, filled the darkness.
    Zach threaded shaking fingers through Sean’s hair, and Sean rested his cheek on Zach’s upper thigh and gazed up at him with sober eyes.
    Sean captured Zach’s hand and squeezed.
    “You didn’t… uhm, I mean, well….”
    Sean shook his head then, squinting inscrutably. “We have so many more things to talk about,” he said quietly. “This conversation is going to take way longer than a night.”
    Zach nodded and tried a shaky smile. His eyes burned absurdly and he closed them and returned the pressure of Sean’s fingers.
    “Could you come up and kiss me, then?” he begged. “I… I don’t even know what to say anymore.”
    “A kiss is good. I think kisses are where all good things start.”
    Zach closed his eyes and accepted