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  “Mm… will there be kissing? I need there to be kissing.”

  “Sure. I’ll add it to the agenda.”

  “I think you need to add oral and a rim job to the agenda,” Larx grumbled. “I think that would be a list I could actually follow!”

  And that did it. Aaron cracked up and followed a mostly awake Larx into the bedroom. He shut the door behind them and did the little lock, not because he was planning to go full-frontal balls-out with the family making dinner downstairs, but because he wanted privacy.

  When he turned Larx in his arms to kiss him, it was so their bodies could touch for comfort, and for no other reason.

  Then Larx opened his mouth and moaned.

  Suddenly oral and a rim job wasn’t a fantasy, a tossed-off comment meant for comedy. Suddenly they were actual acts, actual things that Aaron and Larx could perpetrate upon one another until their eyeballs rolled back in their heads and the kids couldn’t look at them in the morning because they’d heard the sounds coming from the room.

  It had only happened once, but Aaron had no regrets.

  With that end in mind, he plundered Larx’s mouth, slid his hands under the waistbands of Larx’s sweats and boxers, cupped tight handfuls of runner’s ass, and squeezed, parting Larx’s cheeks and kneading with pure carnal intent.

  Larx rucked up Aaron’s shirt and groped his chest without any finesse whatsoever, pinching Aaron’s nipples delicately, then harder when Aaron ground up against him in a frenzy.

  They were both deliciously hard.

  Aaron backed up until his thighs were against the bed and sprawled backward, Larx on top of him, while they continued to make out like teenagers.

  Larx rippled his body, back and forth, up and down, grinding their erections together through their clothing, and Aaron kept kissing, kept kneading, kept himself from ripping both their clothes off and pulling Larx’s cock down the back of his throat and sucking until he tasted come.

  The way Larx was bucking against him, though, oral might be optional.

  Aaron kissed his way to Larx’s earlobe and tugged gently with his teeth. “Thought of this all day,” he panted.

  “I thought of rimming you,” Larx confessed, and Aaron’s whole body heated. That hadn’t been in his repertoire when he’d been married to Caro, but Larx had it down to an art form and Aaron lived to be his canvas.

  “Nungh!” He arched hard against Larx’s groin, and Larx bit the side of his neck. Aaron slid his hands under Larx’s waistbands again, fully intent on stripping off his sweats and setting a parental record for quickest, hottest, dirtiest sex before dinner that the kids wouldn’t know about, when there was a hard knock at the door.

  Larx moaned softly in his ear and then raised his head. “Yeah?”

  “Daddy? There’s an Olivia in my room, and it won’t move so I can set down my stuff!”

  This groan, Larx made out loud. “I don’t even believe this! I didn’t know you were home, Christi-lu-lu-belle, but I’ll try to make the Olivia move!”

  “Thanks, Daddy.”

  “Go down to dinner, sweetheart. Help the boys. I’ll be right there.”

  “Okay.” Her voice was a little wobbly, and Larx grimaced at Aaron.

  “Is there anything else you need, baby?”

  “We can talk later,” she said weakly. “Don’t worry. It can wait.”

  And then they both heard the patter of her slippered feet as she ventured downstairs.

  “That didn’t sound promising,” Aaron grunted.

  “For what? Family peace or our sex life after everyone goes to bed?”

  “Yes. Those things.” God—Larx was right on top of him, silver-sprinkled dark hair carelessly tousled, wicked dark eyes glimmering, tight runner’s body poised—poised—for intense erotic acrobatics.

  And Aaron was going to let him go get lost in the family melee with long painful talks with his teenaged daughters, and there might never be sex again.

  “There will be sex,” Larx promised doggedly.

  Aaron tried to let him down easy. “Baby….”

  “No.” Larx rolled off him and scowled, no longer sleepy or pliant, but no longer a nuclear sexual-fueled heat generator either. “There will be sex, if I have to wake you up midblowjob. You and I spent ten years of our prime living like monks. That’s a crime, Deputy. Especially for someone with your body. And now that I’m someone with your body, I’m not breaking that law another damned night.”

  Aaron stood and adjusted himself in his khakis. “You’d really do that?” he asked, making sure. “Wake me up with a blowjob?”

  Larx had a sharp nose and chin, and when he smiled wickedly, he really did look like an evil imp from hell. “Don’t doubt it for a minute.”

  Aaron grinned back. “I am so in.”

  Larx winked and opened the door and then ventured into the girls’ room—because apparently there were some dooms you couldn’t put off—leaving Aaron to change. When he was done, he went downstairs to maybe talk to Christiana, because he, too, had practice calming down teenaged girls.

  That was the nature of the tag team, he realized—but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t like a cage match with his partner once in a while.

  CHRISTIANA, AS it turned out, had a problem he could deal with—a painful one, especially for a teenager in her first relationship, but something doable.

  She also had, as it turned out, two brothers who were totally okay with dispensing advice.

  “Dad’s right,” Kirby said, shoveling in a giant mouthful of fried potatoes. The boys had made a veggie egg scramble and chips for dinner—and Aaron wasn’t going to complain about one luscious, butter-soaked mouthful. “If Schuyler doesn’t understand you having other friends, that’s her problem. I mean, it comes down to she trusts you or she doesn’t.”

  Christi tried to still her wobbly lip—but she seemed to be listening. “She may break up with me,” she whispered.

  “We could be a club,” Kellan said brightly. “You and me and Kirby—the junior lonely hearts.”

  “You and me are seniors,” Kirby said dryly. “But don’t let that stop you from posting my single status all over the school.”

  Kellan squinted at him. “You don’t want a relationship. Man, I don’t even know which way you swing!”

  Kirby gave an evil smile. “I’m pansexual. I’m waiting for a mythological creature to sweep me off my feet and into his or her secret love bower.”

  “A mythological creature named Pan?” Christi hazarded, some of her depression evaporating.

  Aaron’s son nodded irrepressibly. “You’ll know him or her when you see him or her.”

  “Can’t we say ‘them’ these days?” Kellan speculated. “I’m pretty sure the issue of nonbinary gender blew pronoun use out of the water. Or at least that’s what Mr. Nakamoto said, but he also said he was too lazy to reinforce that when Merriam-Webster keeps spazzing out on Twitter, so I’m not sure which way we’re leaning these days.”

  “It’s leaning toward a whole lot of leftovers if Larx and Olivia don’t get a move on,” Aaron told him, glad to change the subject. Hey—the only thing coming out as bi had taught him was that he’d been a fool to let so much time lapse when he could have been having sex with Larx!

  “You’d better save some for me,” Larx said, entering the kitchen and sitting down. He gave an over-bright smile—a father’s smile. He was covering for something he didn’t want to talk about in front of the other kids, and Aaron knew it.

  “What about Livvy?” Christi asked. “Should I make her a plate?”

  “I’ll make her one,” Aaron forestalled when Larx looked like he was going to pop up again. “Sit down and eat, Principal, and allow my son to shock you with his definition of pansexual.”

  Larx and Kirby exchanged a droll look before Larx said, “Isn’t that when a mythological creature named Pan comes out and sweeps you into his love nest for hot no-strings fornication?”

  “Or her love nest,” Kirby said, holding u
p his palm for a five. “But otherwise, well called, sir. Could you clear that definition with Mr. Nakamoto?”

  Larx returned the five with evil intent. “Absolutely not. You have my permission to mess with my vice-principal and best friend, but I am under strict orders not to participate in the torment.”

  “Understood.” Kirby smirked. “Would you like to hear my definition of ‘demisexual’?”

  “Does it involve Demi Lovato or Hercules?” Larx asked guilelessly.

  “Yes!” Kirby crowed, and Aaron laughed along with the rest of the table as he put together a small plate of potatoes and apple slices, leaving the eggs behind.

  As he recalled, his wife had loathed eggs when she’d been pregnant. Something about the texture. But the salty carbs of potatoes would be a comfort, so he went with that.

  He kissed Larx’s cheek. “I’ll be back in five.” Then he disappeared up the stairs.

  “Olivia?” He knocked on the door with his free hand.

  “I’m really not hungry” came the muffled reply.

  “You may not be, but the baby needs to eat. I brought apple slices and peanut butter and potatoes, hon. Shouldn’t be a hardship.”

  “Sure.” She didn’t sound happy. “Thanks, Aaron.”

  She’d washed recently, and her teeth were clean, and she was even wearing a tatty old sweatshirt that Larx used when he was gardening—but she still didn’t look good.

  Her eyes had that sunken look, surrounded by shadows, that people had when they’d been crying for hours, and her nose was starting to chap. When he opened the door, she was huddled in the corner of the room, on the bed, looking like she was keeping watch for monsters.

  Aaron sat on the bed, putting the plate directly in her hands.

  She stared at it glumly for a moment before taking the fork he offered and digging into the potatoes and swallowing convulsively. “These are good,” she said, but without passion. “Dad cook these?”

  “Kirby and Kellan. I think they like showing him up sometimes.”

  That got a quirk of her full-lipped mouth. He was used to seeing her smile—seeing that mouth now, flat and chapped and colorless, seemed wrong somehow.

  “Olivia, have you thought about seeing a doctor?” he asked baldly.

  “Prenatal care, once a month,” she returned by rote.

  He sighed. Oh God, how he hated this. “Not that kind of a doctor.”

  That got a reaction. “No. No. Why would I? It’s just hormones. Not a big deal. I can manage.”

  Aaron grunted. “Honey, you’re not eating—”

  “I’m taking vitamins. I’m drinking a smoothie every morning. I have to! I don’t need a shrink, Aaron. I’m fine.”

  Oh yeah. This was not going well. “I should have seen one,” he said, just to get her to stop talking and start eating. “When my wife died. Instead I drank and almost let my in-laws take my kids. That was painful. Shrink would have been better.”

  Her smile then was ghastly—the most terrifying thing Aaron had ever seen.

  “I got this,” she said, patting his knee. “Me and my baby are going to be fine.”

  You can’t make yourself eat just for your kid, Olivia. You can’t take care of yourself because you think the baby will make it better. You need to have happiness. You need to find joy in your life somewhere. Whatever is going on in your heart and your head right now aren’t good for anybody, including your unborn child.

  But Larx was the talker, and not even Larx seemed to have the words.

  “Glad to hear it,” Aaron said softly. “I… I really love your father, you know? And his sun rises and sets by you and your sister. Don’t… I mean, the house is crowded, and I know that’s got to be weird. But don’t think his love changed just because it got louder, okay? There’s nothing you could say or do that would make that man not love you.”

  It was a near thing for a moment—her face threatened to crumple, and she couldn’t catch her breath. But she fought it, her expression the perfect blankness of a doll’s. “That’s kind of you to say,” she whispered. Then she took another bite, and Aaron fought not to scream and shake her.

  He sighed and stood, the silence and all the words neither of them were saying becoming so oppressive he couldn’t breathe.

  “If you could take the plate down when you’re done,” he requested nicely. “You’d think the fu—uhm, ants would have all died off with the snow, but I swear those little bastards march all the way here from town just to jump on a plate we leave in a room.”

  This was mostly a lie—they really had all died off in the snow but were probably going to come back in legion during the spring. Telling it had the desired effect of watching Olivia try a real smile and nod.

  Aaron left the room and closed the door, leaning his forehead against it and muttering to himself. “Good talk? Yeah, good talk. Jesus, George, get it to-fucking-gether. She’s a girl, not a bomb.”

  Except she was a bomb—a time bomb of depression and triggers and hormones and shit not even Aaron knew about and probably Larx didn’t either.

  They were going to have to try harder to defuse her before she went off.

  LARX HAD shooed the kids off to watch TV and was doing dishes with Christi when Aaron got downstairs. From the sober way he shook his head and the way she seemed to be keeping her voice from quavering, they were having a deep, dark conversation.

  Well, Aaron hoped one of those worked out.

  Kirby and Kellan opted for a movie, and Aaron was lost and dozing on the couch when Larx finally came to sit down.

  Aaron sighed and wrapped his arm around Larx’s waist, rested his head on Larx’s shoulder, and fell asleep again.

  The next thing he remembered was being hustled off to bed from an empty, darkened living room.

  “Wha’ happened?” he mumbled.

  “We fell asleep and the kids deserted us.”

  “That’s no’ fair. Ingrates.”

  “Everybody had a day, Deputy. Now off to bed with you.”

  Aaron whimpered. “Sex?”

  “Maybe.” Larx shoved at his backside like sex was the carrot dangling from the stick. “It all depends on what you’re doing after I change for bed.”

  “Dammit.”

  Sleeping. Sleeping was what he’d be doing. He stripped down to his boxers dispiritedly—it had been that kind of day. After crawling into bed on the side against the wall—so Larx didn’t kill himself if he popped out of bed like jackrabbit on speed—he turned his face to the wall and pulled the blankets up to his shoulders before closing his eyes to Larx’s nightly ablutions.

  Things got blurry then.

  Darkness, sleep, oblivion….

  Lips trailing from his nape down his spine.

  Quiet, healing unconsciousness….

  Hands shoving at him until he lay on his stomach, legs spread.

  The kiss of cool air as his shorts were peeled down.

  A wicked tongue along the base of his spine.

  A yearning, an ache in his groin.

  He started to turn over, but an insistent hand kept his shoulders pinned, and he ended up with his knees pulled up under his hips and his bare ass spread wide to the world.

  A warm washcloth, nubbly and rough in his private place. Larx’s tongue, dragging down his crease.

  He squinted in the darkness, but Larx wasn’t there to ground him, just a pair of firm hands parting him, wiggling at his cock, pulling him for better access.

  Aaron couldn’t put words to what was happening. All he could manage was actual pleasure and some moans he couldn’t control. And then, oh God, there was a tongue at his back door, and the moans weren’t the only things he couldn’t get a handle on.

  “What are you… oh hey…. Larx?”

  Larx licked him faster, wicked tongue moving, clever hand stroking, and Aaron was as vulnerable and as susceptible to pleasure as he’d ever been in his life.

  Finally, words.

  “I thought you said blowjob?”

&n
bsp; Larx pulled away long enough to say, “Rim job? You’re complaining?”

  Aaron gave a hard shudder. “No. No—carry on.” He fumbled under his pillow for the lubricant and passed it behind him, and that was the last conscious thing he did for a while as Larx treated his nether regions like his own personal playground.

  He was shaking—honest-to-God shaking—and shoving a pillow in his mouth to keep himself quiet before Larx positioned himself at Aaron’s entrance and thrust carefully in.

  And now Larx was the one making noises.

  “Oooooh…,” he breathed, and Aaron beat at the mattress with his fist as the pleasure overtook him. Oh man. Oh wow. This thing right here, getting fucked like this, this hadn’t been something he had ever done until recently either, and oh!

  He couldn’t believe he’d lived without it.

  Larx groaned softly, seated deeply, and Aaron had just enough left of himself to whisper “Fuck me now!” before burying his face in the pillow again.

  And Larx must have loved him because he did. Slow at first, making sure Aaron was good, stretched enough, comfortable enough, to really enjoy it. But Aaron screamed “Faster!” into his pillow, and Larx took the hint, harder, faster, his hard, capable body slamming into Aaron’s more solid one with every confidence that Aaron could take it.

  Ah! Oh, relinquishing himself, giving himself as Larx took charge—that was a thing Aaron had never known before, and as orgasm roiled up from his stomach and shuddered through every muscle and every pore, he wondered how he’d lived so long without it.

  Behind him Larx grunted, and then he must have shoved his palm in his mouth because his muffled roar as he stiffened behind Aaron and poured his climax into Aaron’s body was particularly subdued.

  But his body was screaming, hot and sweaty, draped over Aaron’s back in the chill. From his stretched backside, Aaron could feel Larx’s come trickling as Larx softened, and the raw, visceral trace of their sex shook him again.

  Oh damn, how he’d needed this.

  “I’m awake now,” he mumbled, and Larx’s chuckle reassured him.