Chapter Thirteen
Emesh walked, unseen through the mall. All the joy of earlier had disappeared with his body…and his companion. Eventually, some rational part of his brain kicked in and reminded him if Douglas remained in the parking lot and Emesh continued on toward him, people would get a whole boat-load of what-the-fuck when a large black male suddenly appeared out of thin air. The last thing he wanted to do was to become the headliner for the Enquirer. He god-traveled quickly―back in the direction from where he came―and outside to the parking lot on the opposite side of the mall. Once safe in some bushes, he used the landscaping as camouflage and worked his way around the building.
Yes. The rig sat tall and proud right where it had been. Emesh blew out a sigh of relief as his body became solid again. He hadn’t been left behind.
Instantly, the sweet taste of Douglas clung to his lips, and the rugged, male scent of his mate’s body smacked him upon reentry. Emesh stopped his forward momentum and stilled. Either that or drop to his knees. Sensations overwhelmed him. Fuck. His life hadn’t been easy before, and now, the fates messed with him again, giving him small bits and pieces of love meant to torment.
Emesh raised his head to the heavens, wanting to scream. Or to berate the fates that spun their convoluted webs, making his path difficult and…wait. Those self-same fates put Douglas in his life. And since when did his sunny nature allow self-pity? He needed to god up. Things weren’t entirely hopeless. They never were.
The bag of new clothing slapped at his thigh as he dragged his feet closer to the tractor-trailer. Another positive? Douglas thought enough of him not to desert.
Emesh purposely walked slowly and gave himself time to think. What had spooked his mate? The possibility lay that Emesh must have rushed things. Douglas hadn’t been ready. Oh sure, he might have been momentarily inflamed with desire, but the arousal must have been a surprised reaction to a situation Emesh manipulated and forced. Only one thing occurred to Emesh to fix it. He needed to apologize and assure Douglas he wouldn’t make the first move again.
The possibility of not touching his mate made his lungs burn, and how about that for some serious symbolism? Yup. He’d sooner not breathe than give up his mate. But he needed to back off and take it slowly. He was an asshole for rushing his Chosen.
Emesh opened the door of the tractor and swung himself into the cab. Douglas wasn’t behind the wheel. A rustling emanated from the compartment in the back, and bringing his legs around, Emesh stood up and ducked into the space. Douglas stretched upward toward an overhead compartment, digging around. Emesh wasted no time but launched into an apology.
“Douglas…I’m so sorry. I have no excuse. I’m an asshole, and I shouldn’t have…” He was tackled and slammed up against the bathroom door without warning, a hard forearm banded across his neck, pinning him in place. Douglas’ face came within inches, but this time infused with a confusing mix of volatile emotions.
Emesh couldn’t get a read on the charged male. So, he did what he could. He submitted.
No doubt he could use god-strength to break the hold, but by the look on his mate’s face, Douglas needed to put himself securely back in charge. Emesh would allow it. If his mate needed to beat the shit out of him in order to feel better, he would bow down.
“Don’t.”
Emesh blinked as the single word gritted out from behind Douglas’ clenched teeth, and waited.
“Don’t apologize. I wanted it, dammit… I want you.” The arm pinning Emesh shook. “But you…you turned around…if it could be…just a fuck…” Douglas’ eyes turned obsidian while Emesh tried desperately to make sense of the disjointed words.
“You had to turn around and kiss me.” He spat an agonized whisper then growled and leaned in, increasing the pressure on Emesh’s throat. “Don’t you get it? That’s not the way it goes. I don’t kiss,” he hissed. His voice roared with pain, “I don’t kiss. I fuck.”
He punctuated each word with a jolt of Emesh’s big body into the wall.
Emesh, whose vocal chords were being crushed, scrabbled fingers up to pry at the restricting arm. My gods. He had to remove Douglas’ arm. Not because of choking. That wouldn’t happen. No. Emesh wanted to speak. To calm his mate down.
His struggling touch must have sparked awareness in Douglas because the male eased off, maintaining his aggressive posture and a semi-restraining arm but giving Emesh the room his larynx needed.
Staring deeply into Douglas’ tear-drenched eyes, Emesh bled for the anguish behind his mate’s mind-slamming assertion. His mate fucked, but didn’t kiss? The words finally made sense. Emesh nearly groaned, overwhelmed with the irony of the situation. His rejoinder to Douglas would be an equally brutal gut-punch, and yet he had to let him know.
“I kiss…but I don’t fuck,” Emesh admitted raspingly, trying to bring saliva into his dry mouth. “You’re my second kiss, and I’ve never done…that other with anybody.”
Gods how it pained him to admit it. He wanted to come into the relationship with his Chosen a strong and experienced male. He wanted to know exactly what Douglas needed and be able to confidently give him the utmost pleasure. The god felt sadly deficient, but by the softening reaction on his mate’s face, maybe Douglas had a different take on things.
Douglas removed his arm. His warm hand came up and gently stroked Emesh’s slack jaw. The god absorbed the tentative touch, and intuited…no, fathomed the plethora of confused emotions swirling within his partner’s brain. There it all eddied—pain, rage, regret, and most prevalent of all…desire.
Emesh swallowed something like century’s old dust. Douglas remained angry no longer, and―oh my gods―his mortal liked what he’d heard.
The sudden connection with Douglas came as a shock, but it couldn’t be denied. A barrier, previously unacknowledged but erected by Douglas, dropped away, and Emesh could feel his mate.
Sweat popped out between his shoulder blades. Emesh was scared. The physical longing for Douglas was one thing, but could he handle a true, mental joining? After thousands of years being privy to only his band of gods, could he handle that intimacy with his human mate? And could Douglas grasp their sensibilities merging?
Fuck. Only one way to find out. Emesh concentrated, sending comfort and love out in great healing waves. And yes, he beheld his partner, stunned and elated, letting go of the rigidity in his body.
The god tingled all the way to his toes and remained so tuned in, he realized Douglas would speak.
“I thought you were coming on to me,” the words seemed to drag from his throat. “And you disrespected my mother and sister by wanting to fuck me.” The coldness of his terminology became tempered by his sorrowful tone. He raised astonished eyes. “But for some reason, I can see it now. Really see it. You…care for me.”
The revelation obviously came too much, too fast, and to combat the mind-fuck, Douglas climbed to the forward compartment in a daze to drop into the driver’s seat. His actions were autonomic. He buckled up.
“We need to get moving,” he nodded at the darkening world outside the windshield. “Come sit down.” He blew breath from between clenched lips and seemed to reach a decision. “I’ll do the talking.”
Emesh slid into his seat. He wanted to head-talk to Douglas, a power he damned sure figured they now shared, but doing so might upset the tentative resolve that currently swirled about his mate. Not going there. One mind-fuck at a time. He settled in to hear what Douglas would say. They maneuvered onto the highway and Douglas began.
“I’ve always known I was gay and growing up in Northampton―a cool place without preconceived sexual expectations―I didn’t feel the need to rush to explore my sexuality. At eighteen, I figured I had plenty of time for finding partners, so I took things slowly.” Emesh could see his Chosen’s mind turning back the years.
“I did sophomoric things while in school, beating off with other guys, circle jerks. Those kind of things, you know?”
Emesh didn’t know, but he could guess by the terminology.
“I never had a big enough crush on any one guy to really go for it, so I kept things light.” Darkness descended on Douglas’ reflections. Emesh felt it.
“But I didn’t have the time I thought I did. As soon as I got out of high school, my prick father had me committed to an institution.” He took a shaky breath. “I got put under the ‘care’,” he barked a bitter laugh at the word, “of Dr. Trask. That’s when I found out what nightmares were really made of.”
Emesh waited for more. He didn’t want to hear about the tortures Douglas had undergone, but if his mate needed to talk about it, he’d steel himself, prepared to listen. He experienced both relief and disappointment when Douglas skipped ahead in his narrative.
“When I got out…when Dr. Jacobsen faked my death, he and Mom set me up with an identity and places to live. They gave me direction. I enrolled in tractor-trailer school and got this truck. I like the freedom it gives me. After losing touch with Mom, I moved to that patch of land in Leverett to build my home. Even though I lived too close to Trask, traveling gave me the distance I needed to make me feel safe.”
His laugh turned ironic. “But he’d introduced me to my carnal appetites,” ―Emesh grasped what he left unsaid― “so I had needs. I found what I craved on the road. Quick, rest-stop fucks that provide the release I require.”
He stole a glance at Emesh, clearly wondering how he took all this, so Emesh did what he could without speaking. He sent heat.
Douglas relaxed without realizing it. “But one thing I’ve never allowed anyone to do, not Trask, not his hirelings, not anybody I met on the road…is kiss me.” His capable hands gripped the steering wheel convulsively as he continued. “That’s an act too close. Too personal. I can compartmentalize the other. The fucking,” he spat bitterly, “is a physical necessity…a biological imperative. But kissing? That’s something else.”
Emesh wondered if he should apologize again. He’d crossed into taboo territory where Douglas had an obvious line drawn. It tore him up that his transgression against Douglas might be perceived as even more harmful than that of Trask. He opened his mouth to speak, but Douglas cut him off.
“No. Don’t apologize, Emesh. I liked it,” the male admitted harshly in the dark. His face, illuminated by the instruments on the dashboard, glowed red. “Do you get that? I liked kissing you. When you turned and looked at me, I knew what you were about to do, and I let it happen. If you hadn’t leaned in first, I would have made the contact.”
Emesh could feel the difficulty with which Douglas admitted it.
He had to comfort his mate.
“There is something between us,” Emesh soothed. “I recognized it the minute I laid eyes on you.” He wondered how much to reveal and went with his gut. “When you had that nightmare in bed, I…I loved every minute of comforting you. And holding you in my arms all night felt like pure heaven.”
“I was afraid of that,” Douglas huffed. “But you can’t truly know how you feel about me, can you?” He’d not posed it as a question. “You’ve never had a lover before,” he sighed. “If that’s really true. Is it?” Douglas’ eyes turned to Emesh and shined uncertainly in the dark.
“It’s true,” Emesh admitted with a sigh. “My experience is very limited.” He tried to make his story short. “At a young moment in my life, about your age in high school, I arrived home one afternoon to see this handsome male cleaning the pool at my parents’ house. He wore very little, and when I approached as if for a swim, I made sure I wore next to nothing as well.”
That day had been thousands of years before, but Emesh still experienced the longing that male’s naked flesh infused in him.
“My erection couldn’t be disguised, and the pool guy must have liked it. He…he brought a hand forward and wrapped it around my balls, drawing me forward by them. We kissed.” Emesh swallowed. “I had no idea anything could feel that good.” He hoped Douglas experienced no jealousy. The man had been a youth’s fantasy come true and not what he wanted in a partner since he’d become a full-fledged god.
“Before we even shed our bathing suits, my step-mother came upon the scene. She shrieked and screamed until my father showed up.” Emesh looked down at his clenched fists. “I never found out what happened to the pool-boy, but I got judged very harshly. My parents denounced me then and there. No longer would I be any son of theirs. With the help of the," ―he couldn’t say ‘governing board of gods’― “authorities with whom they hobnobbed, I received banishment from our community, sentenced to…hard labor…in a place so horrifying” ―Emesh let a little of the Underworld picture seep into Douglas’ head― “that it took years to break free.”
Emesh breathed the fresh air that came in through the window. A treat he’d been without most of his life.
“My brother, Enten, had already been banished for other trumped up reasons. When my parents denied my existence, we found each other again in…our Hell. He and my…colleagues, those are the only relationships I’ve known since, and none of those have been even remotely sexual.” Emesh understood he looked to be in his thirties. He wondered what Douglas would think once he knew he’d been thousands of years without physical love rather than decades. His story wound down. How would Douglas react?
“I know you’re attracted to me,” Douglas seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “And I’m feeling…something for you, too. But I have to think about this. It’s complicated.” Douglas ran a hand through his dreads, looking less like the assured trucker and more like the young, untried man he must have been before his life became so fucked up. “I wouldn’t hurt my mother for the world, and if I decide this is casual on my part and we split company, you can’t help but be disappointed, and my mother will be crushed.” Not that I want to hurt you, either came through loud and clear to Emesh. Happiness suffused him that his mate exhibited protectiveness.
Much as it pained him, Emesh severed the head-connection. It would be hard not tuning into Douglas’ private thoughts now that he could, but eavesdropping was not right.
“I can be patient,” Emesh assured Douglas. “But I can’t go back to pretending,” he said firmly. “I’m going to let you know, in everything I do and say, that you’re someone I want in my life.”
Douglas attempted to refute him, but Emesh wouldn’t let him speak.
“You think I can’t know my mind since I’ve never pursued a relationship before, but believe me, I know what I want…and I want you.” So there.
Maybe a cock swelled at this very moment, just for him. The god smiled in the dark. Good enough for now.