Free Beneath the Stain - Part 4 by Amy Lane Page A

screw up, I can try not to.”
    Trav felt Mackey’s breath on his face and closed his eyes in the dark. How much honesty could Mackey take? How much could Trav stand not to give?
    “I love you, McKay. I love you so much it would kill me not to try.”
    Mackey’s breath caught, and his gray eyes lit up the darkness. “That’s a big magic word,” he said softly. Hurt resonated from every syllable.
    “Someday maybe you’ll say it to me.”
    Those careful months with Terry were forgotten, the responsible adult plan for Mackey cast out the window. Trav’s hands shook on Mackey’s cheeks, and he slid them back through Mackey’s hair. The clean strands caught at his fingers, and he did it again, clenching his hands, holding Mackey still, lightning in a bottle, before he crushed Mackey’s mouth to his for a kiss.
    Blood rushed his skin in a torrent, a conflagration of need leveling him. He groaned softly, pressed Mackey back into the mattress, and took over. Soft, warm, wet, urgent—Mackey opened his mouth and let Trav in again and again, fingers squeezing, digging into Trav’s biceps, the muscles in his back, his sides.
    Trav was shaking, every kiss harder to pull away from, every touch on Mackey’s small body harder and more insistent.
    “More skin,” Mackey gasped, shoving at Trav’s T-shirt and sweats.
    “Pushy little shit,” Trav muttered, stripping as fast as he could.
    “You know me.” Mackey kicked off his own sweats and skinned out of his own shirt. “You know me. You know I’m pushy and selfish and mean.”
    He paused, naked in the ambient light from Trav’s window, and Trav stood up, naked himself.
    Mackey stretched out on Trav’s sheets almost defiantly, one knee drawn up, his cock larger than Trav had expected now that it was hard and extended up over his thigh.
    “You’re a good person,” Trav whispered reverently. He put one knee on the bed and bent to kiss the inside of Mackey’s leg. “You’re brilliant and hardworking and kind. You have the best intentions in the world.” He took a mouthful of the soft skin of Mackey’s thigh, and Mackey pressed himself into the bed, arching his hips up, hoping for more.
    “Intentions don’t mean shit,” Mackey muttered. “I meant to do it all right, to wait for the plant and the dog and the… ah….”
    Trav moved around his swollen cock and balls, going for a nibbling kiss on his lower belly instead. “You’re an artist,” Trav murmured against his abdomen. “Reality is fluid.”
    Mackey’s giggle had a strained, painful sound to it, and Trav moved up to the delicate pink nipple against his fair skin. He outlined it with a pointed tongue, and Mackey’s little cry told him the teasing was doing its job.
    “You’re fulla shit,” he breathed. “But God, you touch me nice.”
    Trav glided his hand down Mackey’s ribs, rubbing softly on his tender stomach, tracing the outline of his cock as it rested on his thigh.
    Mackey grunted some more and Trav took pity on him, grasping him, erect and urgent, and stroking, hard and slow.
    “Ah….” Mackey arched up into his palm and then sighed, sounding lost and a little frightened. Trav took his mouth again and Mackey devoured him, thrust his tongue inside, swept Trav’s palate, tasted, possessed. Trav let him. Damn , Trav wanted this, had barely dared dream of it, yearned for the time Mackey Sanders would be old enough, whole enough, well enough, to possess like this, like a man, an equal, a partner.
    Mackey had all but admitted he was claiming some of that adulthood on faith, but after the months of rehab, of rebuilding, of clinging to hope, Trav needed that faith.
    A spurt of precome in Trav’s palm made him let go, almost weeping.
    “You’re stopping ?” Mackey demanded.
    Trav grunted, reaching for his end table. Lubricant—every boy needed it, especially when he was spending nights next to the person he wanted most, their bodies divided by moral constructs and thin walls.
    “I’m