Resilience Read online

  Yeah, even this many years later, Tyler still lit her fire with very little effort on his part. It was just who he was, naturally loving and sensual.

  Nevvie slid to her knees, her sweetly wicked smile hardening Ty’s cock even more as she engulfed him in her mouth and went down on him.

  She loved this, with both of them. The men had different styles, Tyler her sweeter, gentler lover. Although he had his slightly dark side, on occasion.

  Cradling her head in his hands, he slowly rocked his hips in time with her mouth, not bothering to hold back with her. She knew exactly how to stroke his cock with her tongue, sucking, licking.

  Except she wanted more tonight.

  Deep-throating him and holding still for a moment, she slowly withdrew, her gaze swiveling up to him.

  “More, then, angel?”

  She arched an eyebrow at him in reply. It sent a hard jolt of desire through her, straight to her clit, when his hands tightened on her head and he fucked his cock deep into her mouth.

  He held still there, Nevvie’s pulse racing, juices flowing as his sweet blue gaze narrowed. “Does my sweet little plaything wish to be used, then?” A stroke out, enough time for her to grab a breath before he started fucking her mouth in earnest. Hard, totally in control, and taking what he wanted.

  A low moan rolled from her.

  “Needy little thing, aren’t we? Didn’t Thomas take proper care of you while I was away?”

  She held on to his legs, trembling with need, her cunt aching to be filled by his cock.

  Every thrust of warm silken steel over her tongue spun her hard and fast down the rabbit hole. Even from the very beginning, Tyler had seemed to know exactly what buttons to push and how.

  Okay, so thank you, Marcus.

  He might have broken Tyler’s heart and shattered his trust, but Marcus opened Tyler’s mind and led him to learning more about BDSM, and for that she did feel grateful to the man. Their particular flavor of kink was more on the vanilla end of the spectrum than on the BDSM end, but it still revved her motor.

  While apart, they frequently had phone sex at night, a treasured ritual between them. But for nearly a week, Tyler had been too damned tired to do more than talk with them before collapsing.

  His balls bounced off her chin as he settled into a rhythm she knew well, one designed to make her take it and hold him at a fast simmer until he couldn’t take it.

  “I missed you so much, pet,” he whispered. “Don’t think you weren’t in my thoughts every day.” He slowed his strokes, burying his cock in her mouth except she knew he wasn’t close to being done. He was just deep enough she could still breathe through her nose, but she couldn’t do anything about the drool escaping her lips.

  Tyler’s smile widened. “I think upon our return I know a certain pet who will spend several days in her collar and nothing else while the children are at school.”

  Her heart raced and another moan rolled through her, making Tyler bite his lower lip to hold back.

  “That’s right,” he said, easing his cock deeper again, holding, her chin pressing against his balls. “Our good girl will get as much of me as she can take.”

  Fuck, why the hell didn’t I renew my goddamned passport!

  Yeah, she was spoiled, and she’d gladly own it. Not just one, but two loving, sexy husbands?

  It’d be damn miserable alone in bed without them while they were gone.

  He withdrew his cock until just the head lay within her lips, and she teased, played with him, tasting salty pre-cum from his slit.

  Tyler grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet, spinning her around to face away from him. His fingers slid between her legs, playing with her clit before easily slipping into her pussy.

  “Ah, yes, my good girl. Look at that, such a sweet, fuckable cunt all ready for me to plunder.”

  He stepped in behind her, his cock easily sliding home into her wet pussy. He reached around her and started fingering her clit. “Let’s have one from you like this, pet, and then I’ll take proper care of you in a little while.”

  Tyler’s slow, deep strokes, combined with his talented fingers on her clit, were like magic to her body. His other arm curled around her, palming her right breast where he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

  It didn’t take her long to get to the brink. Pleasure curled through her body, winding tighter and tighter until finally breaking free and pulling a soft cry from her.

  “Mmm, yes. I feel your pussy coming on my cock. My sweet, needy pet.” He waited until he felt her finish and then grabbed her hips and fucked her, every stroke bottoming out inside her in that delicious way that bordered on the sweet kind of pain and drove her close to the edge of coming again. “And here…you…go.”

  His fingers tightening on her hips, along with that familiar, satisfied groan she knew better than her own heartbeat, signaled his climax. As she caught her breath, she shivered a little, pleasure still echoing through her body.

  * * * *

  Tyler didn’t dawdle. He turned her around again so he could reciprocate. He dropped to his knees and, with his hands gripping the backs of her thighs, he buried his face in her pussy, tasting his own cum leaking from her.

  Only thing that would have made this more perfect would be if it was Tom there with them and his juices Tyler tasted.

  The feel of her fingers raking along his scalp sent a ripple of pleasure through him. Every sweet sound she made, her helpless, needy whimpers drove him to do more.

  He could never do enough for her.

  Ever.

  Even this many years together she still made him feel like he was the luckiest man on the planet. His tongue sought out her clit and he circled it, teasing, lightly sucking. When she rocked her hips against his mouth he knew he had her heading toward the edge. Devouring her, he rubbed his face against her mound before swirling his tongue around her clit again. Her hands slipped from his head to holding on to his shoulders, fingers digging in.

  “Please, sweetie, do it!” she softly begged.

  Pleased with himself, he redoubled his efforts, rewarded with her soft cries as she crested and soared.

  That wasn’t enough for him, though. Not nearly enough to make up for two weeks gone, and more ahead of her totally alone. He slipped two fingers inside her cunt, hooking them, seeking her G-spot and finger-fucking her with them. He wanted to kneel here and worship her pussy, love her, show her what she could still do to him all these years later.

  Prove to her she and Tom were the only loves in his life, the only ones he wanted.

  Her sweet moans deepened as she rocked her hips in time with his strokes. He felt it when her pussy clamped down on his hand, the fingers around his head tightening as she came one more time. He lightly sucked her clit, wanting to wear her out in the good way.

  He did. Finally, she tapped him on the head. “Okay.”

  He stood, smiling as he pulled her into his arms again and held her. “Better?”

  “Uh huh.” She rested her head against his chest. “Please don’t shave it off.”

  “I promise, pet. Not unless you say I can. Had I known you’d enjoy this so much, I would have grown one years ago.”

  “I never wanted to make you grow one.”

  “There was no ‘making’ about it. Anything for my angel. You know that.”

  She smiled up at him. “Just come home safely, both of you. Get this over with as quickly as possible.”

  He sighed. “I won’t have any control over that, unfortunately, but we shall do our best.”

  The men curled up on either side of her while she sat up in bed and watched TV. Finally, when it was time for them to get ready to return to the airport, Tyler wistfully wished he hadn’t agreed to go. A vacillation he’d been experiencing at least twenty times an hour since talking to the attorney on the phone.

  They loaded the extra suitcases in the car for Nevvie, since she’d be leaving for home once she dropped them off. As they stood at the
security checkpoint where she’d have to leave them, they both hugged her, Tyler last.

  “I’m so sorry, love,” he whispered. “Tell me not to go, and I’ll cancel.”

  She cradled his head in her hands. “I won’t do that to you. I think maybe you need this. If you want to cancel, I’ll support you. If you want to go, I’ll support you. I don’t want you having any regrets.”

  He nodded, kissing her one last time, knowing she was right. “Love you so much, sweet. We’ll let you know when we get there.”

  “Love you, too, Evil Genius. Safe trip. Both of you. Come back to me.”

  He smiled. “Absolutely.”

  She repeated their little pre-travel ritual with Tom before the two of them headed toward the gate area to await their flight.

  Tom draped an arm around Tyler’s shoulders. “We’ll get through this, buddy. I’m here for you.”

  “You have no idea how much I appreciate this, love.”

  “Like I’d let you go do this on your own.”

  They settled into seats to await the call to board. Tyler took a deep breath and tried not to panic, to worry.

  To regret or second-guess.

  To remember his nights with Marcus so many years ago.

  Or to remember the things he’d done with the man.

  Chapter Six

  Tom had never been to Brussels. He knew Tyler had only been once before, decades ago when in university, before he’d moved to the States.

  Before Marcus.

  Not that they’d be sightseeing much on this trip.

  When they emerged from the international gate area and into the main terminal Tuesday morning, Tom was the one to spot the guy standing there with the sign that read Kinsey-Paulson. He nudged Tyler and they aimed that way, Tom doing his best to keep up while trying not to let on to Tyler how much his leg hurt.

  The attorney looked to be in his early fifties, with dark blond hair and brown eyes. Tall and thin, maybe six four, he had a friendly smile and not much of an accent.

  “Nicolas Goossens.” He offered his hand. “It is good to meet you, although I am sorry about the circumstances.”

  Tyler shook with him. “Yes, thank you. This is my husband, Thomas Kinsey.”

  The attorney shook with him as well. “My car is this way.”

  In fifteen minutes, they’d squeezed their fat American luggage into Goossens’ tiny European car and were on their way. Tom felt torn between being more interested in the scenery than he was in their mission.

  He knew he shouldn’t hold a grudge, but he couldn’t help it.

  How many years had Tyler lived in emotional pain because of what Marcus had done to him? How badly had his trust been shattered?

  I’m here for Ty. Period.

  If the decision had been left up to him, they would not be there. Not after Marcus had leveraged Tyler’s attention in Seattle with a threat to send Tom to jail for punching Marcus.

  Okay, he shouldn’t have punched Marcus in a full restaurant, especially with two cops as witnesses, but still, it’d felt damned good to do it, at the time.

  Damned good.

  The fulfillment of a decades-old promise he’d made to Ty the night his guy had finally confessed to him what Marcus had done. A promise he’d honestly never thought he’d get to fulfill.

  “How long’s he been sick?” Tom asked as a way to make conversation. He’d been stuck riding shotgun in the tiny car because of his leg, Tyler in the backseat, and Tyler was definitely not in a mood to be making small talk. It was just after ten in the morning local time, and Tom had done little more than nap on the flight from Atlanta. The drizzly, damp, chilly air in Brussels didn’t help his mood or pain levels, either.

  “He was diagnosed with colon cancer four years ago.”

  “Four?”

  “Yes. He…” The attorney sighed. “He refused treatment. Insisted he would not prolong his life despite the fact that it was an early enough stage they could have quite likely cured it.”

  Tom reflexively glanced back at Tyler. A mask had slipped over his husband’s expression, a mask he knew well—Ty carefully guarding himself.

  “Why would he do that?” Tom asked when it was obvious Tyler wouldn’t.

  “When I joined the practice, Marcus and Jean-Claude were two of my first clients. That was several years before Jean-Claude died. I helped them put their affairs in order then. He…” He seemed to need a moment. “I do not think Marcus has ever recovered from that loss. About a year after Jean-Claude’s death, Marcus took his trip to the States. Upon his return, he had me rewrite his will. If I may speak candidly, I believe he was looking for an excuse to die.”

  Fuck.

  Tom couldn’t help but think about his mom, how they’d all worried about her when his father had been killed by a drunk driver. Then the same worries about Andrew, when Momma died nearly five years earlier. The man had only recently begun to laugh again after so long, although his smiles were not a fraction as bright as they had been.

  Tom spent the rest of the ride staring out the window, absorbed by his thoughts.

  They skirted the outside of the city via a motorway. The hospice clinic sat northwest of the main city area, near a large hospital inside the Brussels side of the border with Flanders. Clean and quiet, and Tom couldn’t help but give silent thanks that his mom hadn’t lingered for a long time in a hospital or hospice facility when she’d passed. The vicious stroke took her fast and quick, painlessly—exactly the way she’d always said she hoped she’d go, if it wasn’t in her sleep.

  Hell on the rest of them, but at least Tom held on to that small comfort.

  Goossens spoke to a receptionist at the front desk, where they signed in before following the man down a couple of hallways until they arrived at an open door. The room had large windows overlooking a nearby park, and an elderly woman younger than Marcus sat reading to him from a newspaper in a language Tom assumed was Dutch.

  They both looked when Goossens lightly knocked on the doorframe to announce their presence.

  Tom hoped he hid his shock. The man appeared gaunt, aged, a hundred and eight instead of nearly eighty-two. Tom had seen better looking corpses on The Walking Dead than the man lying in the bed before them. Hell, Andrew had just turned eighty not that long ago and looked a hell of a lot younger than this man did.

  Tom reached for Tyler’s hand, giving it a squeeze after he heard Tyler suck in a sharp breath.

  I’m here for Tyler.

  It immediately realigned his priorities.

  “You came.” Marcus’ hoarse voice sounded barely louder than a whisper.

  The volunteer smiled and folded her paper, leaving it on the bedside table. “I’ll leave you alone for your visit,” she said in perfect but slightly accented English. She left the room.

  Fuck. Everyone here knows English as a second language almost better than I do as a first.

  “I came.” After shrugging off his overcoat, Tyler stepped forward and walked around to take the chair the woman had just vacated.

  The man’s steely grey eyes looked red and rheumy, sunken. Goossens pulled up another chair for Tom, next to Tyler’s, and then stepped back to the doorway.

  “Did you wish to be alone, Marcus?” he asked.

  “For a time, yes. Please. Thank you, Nicolas.” Even his speech sounded slow, almost slurred.

  Duh. Tom realized the IV pump on the pole on the other side of the man’s bed likely held pain medicine to keep him comfortable in his final days. Tom took off his coat and sat, swallowing back all the angry things he’d longed to say to Marcus over the years.

  This was not the time nor the place.

  Tom knew he’d lived a lifetime with Tyler.

  He owned Tyler’s heart and soul, him and Nevvie both.

  They had won and Marcus had lost, not that there was a score to keep.

  That was enough, though, for Tom.

  Goossens closed the door behind him.

  Tyler edged his chair close to
the bed and reached out, taking Marcus’ hand. “Why didn’t you contact me sooner?”

  “Because I did not want you making a fuss over a dying old man who wishes to go. Or perhaps talking sense into me to seek treatment. I have intruded upon your life enough throughout the years. Thank you for the Christmas cards and pictures. It was very kind of you.”

  His gaze focused on Tom, and he smiled. “And thank you.”

  That confused Tom. “For what?”

  “For allowing him to come.”

  Tom shrugged. “He’s an adult. He makes his own decisions.”

  “If you had told him no, you or your wife, he would not have come.”

  “That’s not how we roll.”

  “I envy you, the years you’ve had with him. The years to come.”

  Tom shrugged, unsure what to say.

  “I apologize again for Seattle,” Marcus said. “I deserved to be punched for what I did to him. As I told Tyler, I would not have pressed charges. I should not have blackmailed him into talking to me.”

  Tom shrugged again. Tyler had told him and Nevvie that Marcus had apologized for that in private to Tyler.

  Tyler found his voice. “While we appreciate your generosity in leaving us your estate, we admit it leaves us…confused.”

  “I have no family. Better it go to someone who can make use of it. Keep it as a vacation home. Feel free to sell it and use it for your children’s educations, if you wish. Or take a vacation. Anything at all. Donate it to charity. Whatever, as you see fit. I have only one request, but will understand if you wish to deny it.”

  “Yes?”

  Marcus’ eyes grew bright and Tom reached for a box of tissues when tears spilled down the man’s cheeks. “I wish to be cremated. Please mix my ashes with Jean-Claude’s. His urn is in the flat, in our bedroom. I don’t care what happens then. But Jean-Claude…he never got to visit the States like he’d wanted. We were going to go one day, after we retired. I’d promised to take him, but he never got to go. We never got to enjoy those easy years together.”

  “Of course,” Tyler quietly said. “I promise.”

  “But I would never begrudge it if you wanted to simply dump us in the Zenne.” He smiled. “I also do not want to have a funeral. If anyone wishes to have a memorial service for me, that is up to them. I would never ask that of you. I have already given away what I wish for others to have and said my good-byes to them. The flat and everything in it is yours to do with as you will.”