“No. If I stop wearing them, you stop wearing them. I want to feel you coming inside me.” I loved that feeling, and it was one of the reasons I hadn’t objected very strenuously when Franky kept “forgetting” to use a condom.
Wills shivered and moaned a little, and I smiled.
“I want the first time we have each other with nothing between us to be in our own bed. Do you mind if we wait…” I touched the welt across his diaphragm, my train of thought once again jumping the track. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to mark you up like this.” I frowned. “How the fuck…I don’t even remember doing this.”
He glanced down, and his mouth tightened. “You didn’t. Accident on my last job.”
“What happened?”
“Fucking waste of time.” He’d told me once about having to drive seventy-five miles to a site because the system was down, only to find that a breaker had blown and no one had thought to check it. He’d laughed, making a joke of it, but he wasn’t laughing now. “Lost my concentration, lost my temper…” No, he definitely wasn’t laughing now.
“And the computer attacked you?”
“You could say that. Uh…Theo?” He licked his lips, flushed, looked away, then brought his gaze back to mine.
“What is it, babe? Turn around so I can dry your back.”
“I…uh…” He glanced at me over his shoulder and licked his lips again. “Brynn’s mom is a Unitarian minister. She married Brynn and Harry. It was a nice ceremony.”
“It was?” I dried the crack of his ass, dried his balls, dried his legs.
“I always wondered what being married would be like.”
“Uh…yeah?” Where was he going with this?
“I’d…I’d like Harry to be my best man.”
“Okay.” Was he trying to tell me that in spite of our agreeing to do away with condoms, he didn’t see a future for us, that he intended to leave me eventually for a woman?
I’d been so miserable without him; how could I bear it if…Fuck it. I’d hold onto him for as long as I could, make him as happy as I could, put off the time I would be miserable again for as long as I could.
“I want you to know that I’ll always come back to you.”
“What?” He’d leave me to marry some woman, unknown as far as I could tell, and then come back to me when he got tired of living the straight life? Could I live a life like that? “Wills…”
“Dammit. This isn’t coming out right.” He turned, took my hand and brought it to his mouth, then dropped to his knee. “Marry me, Theo? I know it wouldn’t be considered legal, but marry me anyway?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out; I couldn’t catch my breath. I thought I’d gotten my equilibrium back, but I guessed not. Here I’d been thinking Wills was trying to find a way to let me down easy, when all along he’d been trying to propose.
“Theo? Say something, babe.”
“Yes!”
“Yes? You will?”
I pulled him to his feet and into my arms. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Each yes was interspersed with a kiss.
A tapping on the door brought us back to the present. “Not to rush you guys or anythin’, but Cris an’ Ah’re gettin’ a little thin in the skin out heah.”
“We’ll be right there, Tim.”
“His accent comes and goes, doesn’t it?”
“Noticed that, did you? A lot of times it depends on how Suth’n he’s feeling.” I laughed. “Let’s go tell him.”
“I think I’d feel more comfortable dressed, if you don’t mind?”
I kissed him again, wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his neck. I could spend the rest of my life kissing him, and it looked like I was actually going to get that chance. “I don’t mind.”
The hallway was empty when I opened the door and peeked around it, and we raced down it naked, to the spare bedroom.
“This is a nice room.”
“I knew you’d think so once you saw it with your eyes open. I won’t be sorry to leave it, though.” I tossed him a pair of shorts and took one for myself.
“It’s a good thing I have the weekend off. We can go shopping for rings tomorrow, and I’ll get the supplies and fix the wall on Saturday.”
“Rings? We’re going to exchange rings?”
“Definitely. I want you to wear my ring, and I want to wear yours.”
“You’ll wear one too?”
“You bet. Didn’t you notice? All the men in my family do.”
“Even your Uncle Pete?”
“Yeah. He and Dave exchanged their Corps rings, so no one really knew.” He stepped into the jeans I gave him. They were a little loose in the waist and long in the leg, but otherwise fit him well enough.
“So…uh…we’re engaged?”