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  “No!”

  C.J. blushed. “Yes,” he affirmed. “I, uhm… well, it’s been a while.”

  “But….”

  “But I’ve been dreaming about touching you like that since… since you stepped off the shuttle.”

  Anderson’s eyes crinkled a little at the corners, and his hand on C.J.’s head moved to his cheek. “That wasn’t the first time we….”

  “Yeah, it was,” C.J. said, feeling foolish but also knowing this was true. “It was the first time we made love. The first time… I guess the first time you know who it really was touching you, and you… you came, and you knew me, and you were completely yourself.”

  Anderson moved his thumb to brush C.J.’s cheek. “That must have been so hard for you,” he said quietly. “I… I didn’t mean to use you.”

  C.J. nodded and hoped Anderson would never see the shadow of hurt that knowledge had left. He’d seen that last recording with Alpha, when Anderson had used the physical proof of their sex to prove to Alpha that he wasn’t real, that he could be defeated. He’d understood—all of it. He’d understood that while Anderson, parts of him, might have loved C.J., so much of the man had been tangled up in the mess in his head. Anderson hadn’t been truly capable of love, not while Alpha had still haunted the remains of Anderson’s imaginary world made real.

  But knowing wasn’t feeling. C.J. had felt hurt. He hadn’t ever wanted to tell Anderson how hard it had been to acknowledge his relatively small part in everything Anderson had gone through that night, everything that Anderson had felt.

  “I know you didn’t,” C.J. said now, and Anderson looked at him sharply.

  “I hurt you really badly, didn’t I?”

  C.J. swallowed. “It wasn’t your fault, Anderson. You don’t owe me anything, okay?”

  “Why did you say it?”

  “Make me?”

  “Yeah.”

  C.J. smiled a little. “Because I saw the recordings, baby. I know that’s what you want to do, not mean, just… just forceful. You really are Alpha, you know that?”

  Anderson’s lax, happy body stiffened underneath him, and C.J. cursed himself.

  “The good parts, not the horrible parts at the end.” He sat up on his knees and grasped Anderson’s chin when Anderson dropped the hand on C.J.’s cheek and looked away. “I know it’s unfair. I know that I’m privy to all sorts of things about you that maybe you don’t want anybody, not even Jensen, to know. But the thing is, I do know these things. And you may think they’re all twisted things, because you were trying to forge a world out of what’s between your ears, but they’re not twisted. They’re not. I read your letters when you were a boy, and I know you have, right?”

  Anderson nodded, still not looking at him, and C.J. plastered his body over Anderson’s bare skin, making it very clear that Anderson couldn’t lose him.

  “I need to say this, baby, because you need to hear it. You were an absolutely horrible little kid!”

  Anderson turned to him with an open mouth and eyes sparking in outrage, and C.J. actually laughed.

  “It’s true. You were hell on wheels with a bucket of worms!”

  Anderson blinked for a moment, and then, as though the memory had been allowed to flicker behind his eyes, he smiled—just the tiniest smile, it was true, but it eased the Herculean hug of muscle around C.J.’s chest that had been cutting off his air since he’d started talking.

  “Yeah?” Anderson asked, sounding honestly curious.

  “Yeah!” C.J. smiled. “You were. You still are. You’re a leader, Anderson. You’re stronger than any one man has the right to be.”

  Anderson put his hand back on C.J.’s cheek, and C.J. closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. For a moment there, he’d thought he’d destroyed it all, all the work, all the patience, with one revelation of too much truth. He should have known, he should have remembered from his time with Jensen, that it took more than that. If two people truly cared for each other, it either took an act of will or an act of apathy to split them up.

  “That doesn’t frighten you?” Anderson whispered, and C.J. shook his head.

  “No.”

  “If Alpha was a part of me….”

  C.J. grinned. “Anderson? You know, I was a really rotten kid too. You know who I got it from?”

  Now it was Anderson’s turn to grin. “Cassidy?”

  “Damned straight.” It was time to stop grinning into his bottomless brown eyes like an idiot. “I know Jensen’s told you this. Are you going to make me say it?”

  Anderson’s look was direct now, not flirtatious, not stalking—head on. Just like his nemesis, except unlike the flat gray gaze of Alpha, Anderson had kindness, warmth, and humor in his brown eyes. “We all have Alpha in us,” Anderson said quietly, as though reciting a well-worn lesson. “We all have the leader, the guy who can force us to make the shit decisions. We all have the ability to mistreat people. What matters is that we don’t.”

  C.J. nodded. “You know,” he said sincerely, “you could have seduced me a lot earlier up at the space station. Why didn’t you?”

  Anderson closed his eyes, and C.J. turned his head to kiss that pale, warm palm resting on his cheek. “Because you didn’t think it was right. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “You’re so not Alpha.” He smiled again, wickedly. “Except, maybe, in one teeny-tiny, big, thick, long, and well-endowed way.”

  Anderson’s grin was three times as wicked as C.J.’s, and under his stomach, through his come-clammy jeans, C.J. felt Anderson’s cock throb.

  “Are you sure?”

  C.J. wanted him so badly, wanted that force, that dominance, that proud, unapologetic maleness so badly he might have said almost anything—but he couldn’t do that to Anderson. “Take me for a test ride,” he said, totally serious. “Let’s see.”

  Anderson closed his eyes and shuddered. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Anderson leaned forward, arching his hips so that C.J., lying on his chest, was that much closer to his pouty, lush little mouth, and placed his lips near C.J.’s ear. “You want it up your ass again, don’t you.”

  C.J. closed his eyes and shuddered, his entire body going boneless, his own erection resurrecting in his pants. “God, yes.”

  Anderson licked the outer rim of his ear delicately. “Do you want to clean up?”

  “Ye—ah!” Because Anderson’s other hand slid down C.J.’s back and bunched up his shirt, then went straight for the bare skin of C.J.’s ass under his jeans.

  “Too bad,” Anderson hissed. “Take off your clothes. Now.”

  C.J. had spent three months taking up the burdens of being a good leader, conferring with Jensen for what was best for Anderson’s care, taking the initiative and giving orders and being the grown-up. Anderson, who had literally been captaining his own ship since the age of twelve, had spent five months feeling helpless and weak in the face of his own flaws.

  The reversal between leader and follower in this moment was as simple and as electric as throwing a switch.

  C.J. stood up immediately and started unbuttoning the overshirt he wore over his knit tank.

  Anderson watched him with sleepy eyes, pulling off the rest of his own clothes without ceremony. “Faster,” he murmured throatily, and C.J. followed his example, and then dropped his hands to his jeans and popped the top snap. Anderson’s eyes narrowed impatiently, and C.J. just dragged the whole works down to his ankles, kicking off his slip-on skids and toeing off his socks as the whole works slid down.

  He was left, naked and erect, standing in his own living room, waiting to see what his lover, the man he’d been waiting for, would do next.

  Anderson didn’t disappoint. He rummaged in the little satchel that had been around his waist before C.J. had stripped off his pants, and came up with the unmistakable clear tube. He pressed it into C.J.’s hand as he scooted forward, naked and erect himself, on the couch.

  “Make yourself ready,” he said quietly. �
��Stretched, ready… needy. When I take you, I’m not going to be screwing around, right?”

  C.J.’s hand shook as he dumped lubricant on his fingers and then moved his hand behind him. Anderson smiled up at him, their positions reversed, the man in charge kneeling at the other’s feet in order to render the other man vulnerable. Anderson’s lips touched the head of C.J.’s cock just as C.J.’s fingers brushed his tight ring of muscle, and C.J. wondered if his knees could hold him any better than Anderson’s had borne him up.

  Anderson wrapped his arms around the backs of C.J.’s thighs and pulled C.J.’s cock completely into his mouth with a groan of satisfaction that C.J. felt down to his toes. C.J. grunted, holding onto Anderson’s shoulder with one hand and thrusting one finger into his asshole with the other. His thighs started to tremble, and Anderson pulled back for a moment, letting C.J.’s cock bob against his face.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Gonna….” The second finger breached, and C.J. grunted in pleasure and the dark edge of pain. “Can’t stand too long. Sorry….”

  Anderson stood up and whispered, “Keep your fingers where they are!” before positioning C.J. so he was on the couch, his knees on the cushions and his cheek resting on the back pillow space.

  With a little help from Anderson, his fingers had remained, plunging, wiggling, tantalizing his backside while he squatted, waiting for Anderson to do what he wanted, to take over and exercise his considerable will.

  Anderson pulled his fingers away, and C.J. moaned at their loss. Then Anderson nibbled at the back of his neck and murmured, “Stroke yourself, C.J. I want you to come.”

  “On the couch?” A little bit of reality intruded, and Anderson swore.

  Anderson’s knitted shirt was stuffed into C.J.’s other hand, and Anderson muttered, “How’s that?”

  “Good enough to come in,” C.J. told him, and then shoved it in the couch so he could aim his cock at the come-rag.

  He started stroking, closing his eyes, reveling in Anderson’s butterfly kisses down his spine, under his shoulders, at his ribs, but his balls suddenly tightened between his legs, and when Anderson reached under him and brushed them from behind, C.J. actually broke into a sweat with the effort not to come.

  “Anderson,” he begged, his voice thready with need, and Anderson nuzzled his neck, the front of his body plastered up against C.J.’s back in a way that was both reassuring and inflaming.

  “I hear you, baby,” Anderson murmured, and C.J. felt him, engorged and thick, at his entrance, and suddenly C.J.’s entire body, his entire being, was centered around that giant, exquisite, stretching/full/painful/wonderful invasion by Anderson’s cock.

  “Gaaaawwww… yes!” C.J. screamed as Anderson wedged himself inside, and then, as his crown popped in place, disappearing into C.J.’s body, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes… all of it! Now! Oh, God, Anderson, fuck me harder!”

  Anderson pulled back and then thrust forward, and C.J. screamed into the back of the couch in joy.

  “You like that?” Anderson asked, and C.J. felt droplets of sweat fall onto his back. The idea of Anderson sweating, exerting, fucking into C.J. brought goose bumps of suppressed orgasm to C.J.’s skin.

  “I love it. You just keep doing that, man, because I’m going to—”

  “Not yet!” Anderson pleaded.

  “You can keep going… please, Anderson!”

  “Not yet!”

  “Please… oh, God, Anderson….”

  “Just… fucking… wait… now!”

  “Auuuuuughhhhhhhh!” C.J. was pretty sure he blacked out for a moment—and he was really sure he missed the come-rag. His entire body flashed hot and cold, and his eyes felt like they were going to pop out of his skull. His body shuddered, convulsed around Anderson’s cock, and expelled it in a rush of seed while C.J.’s spend spat in sticky spurts over his stomach, thighs, and hand.

  It didn’t matter. The mess didn’t matter. Anderson collapsed against his back, and C.J. snuggled backward willingly into his arms. Together, the two of them pitched sideways, facing the back of the couch, and just sat for a few moments, catching their breath.

  “You okay?” Anderson asked, and C.J. tilted his head. Anderson met him halfway, propping himself up on an elbow so they could meet eyes.

  “I’m better off than my couch,” he muttered dryly, and Anderson smacked his hand to his forehead.

  “I’m so sorry….”

  “God, don’t be. The couch I can clean. What we just did there? I couldn’t recreate that with a butt plug and a cock-pump for any amount of money!”

  “Or a holodeck,” Anderson said soberly, and C.J.’s exuberance quieted to absolute contentment.

  “Or a holodeck.”

  “My seed is in your body,” Anderson said quietly, like he was savoring the words. “You have no idea how damned sexy that is.”

  C.J. clenched his bottom, felt the hot mass of it sliding down his crease, over his balls, down his thighs. “I do,” he said softly. It was solid and real—it was animal and base and tender and sublime all at once. Of course C.J. knew.

  “So, I’ve got one question,” Anderson said, kissing C.J.’s shoulder, and C.J. smiled a little, feeling loopy.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’ve got a month of leave. What do we do now?”

  Part 7: Anderson

  Chapter 20

  Dawn

  THE QUESTION should have been, “What are we not going to do?”

  There were limitations, of course. Anderson had swimming—now because he liked it—and therapy every day without cessation. He was the first to admit that it was necessary.

  “Jensen and Molly help me keep track of what’s real and what’s not, and they’re good at figuring out the difference when I don’t feel like I’m doing a very good job.”

  “They’re the best,” C.J. had conceded as they’d eaten dinner that first night. “They’ll take care of you.” They had showered first, and then made love again, and then finally gotten around to dinner.

  “They’re not taking care of me because they’re the best,” Anderson said dryly. “They’re taking care of me because they love you.”

  C.J. flushed. “Well, uhm, yeah. There’s that.”

  “You and Jensen…?” Anderson inquired delicately, wanting the matter out of the way.

  “Were terribly in love during university,” C.J. confessed without flinching. “But he’s way too brilliant for me, and I’m way too flaky for him, and so I broke it off before we could hate each other. He didn’t talk to me for two years, and then I ended up on the station, and we just kept meeting up planetside. It didn’t matter who we were with, we always ended up at the same place for dinner or a video or to swim or whatever, and, well, you’ve seen him.”

  Anderson could concede that yes, given the chance to dance with Dr. Jensen Cherry, it would be a stupid man—or woman—who turned him down. “And Molly?” Anderson had to ask.

  C.J. had shrugged, grinned, and blushed. “Well, I’m bi, so’s she, and she and Jensen… hell, Anderson, their bed is—was—famous. Getting invited to their house was like getting invited to an all-you-can-eat sex buffet. Can’t deny I didn’t get stuffed on occasion.”

  “Or stuffed yourself,” Anderson smirked. C.J. had topped the second (or third?) time that afternoon, and yes, it had been awesome.

  “That too.”

  “So, it was famous?”

  C.J. shrugged, reaching for another helping of tubers and mammal-bird eggs. “They’re exclusive now. They sort of… let’s just say that for once I got to be a good example. They don’t want anybody else in the middle of them. It’s about time.”

  And that had been that.

  But after their workout—C.J. would come swimming with Anderson and then sit in the shade with a book during Anderson’s therapy session—the sky was the limit.

  C.J. took him to every video theatre within an hour’s travel, and every restaurant too. They spent three days in a row at th
e nearest amusement park, and Anderson got to scream for real at the stomach-dropping happy fear of the roller coaster or the water ride, and he got to see a haunted house for the first time ever. (“That mirror thing was too close to the inside of my own head for comfort,” he’d confessed with a shudder, and they’d both agreed to stay the hell away from that attraction.) They’d played in the anti-gravity chamber and the skid room, where the floors were slippery against the poly-skids on their feet and all of the obstacles were softly padded, and Anderson had gone on the whirly rides, the kind that pressed you back against a wall with centrifugal force, until he’d nearly thrown up.

  But that hadn’t been the best part.

  The best part had been C.J.’s hard-wrung permission from Jensen and Molly to take Anderson on an overnight trip to the beach.

  The beach itself was not far away—an hour, by a windy road with the hovercraft, to a little stand of cabins that stood with their front doors in the woods and their back doors on the sand.

  That had been the best part.

  When they’d arrived, C.J. had opened that back door, and Anderson looked out onto… the world. A vast beach, with sand dunes at its back, covered in pungent, yellow-and-purple flowered plants with leaves so green they were almost turquoise. The sand itself was a blinding white, and the ocean… damn. Wow. Holy hells.

  It started out clear, cerulean blue, but as the horizon retreated, it darkened to a true blue-green-turquoise. The kelp stands as it grew deeper were fuchsia in color, and the peerless blue of the horizon—the sight literally stopped Anderson’s breath in his chest.

  All those years he’d been afraid to look beyond the confines of his imaginary walls because reality was so much smaller… and here was reality, achingly beautiful and so, so bright, and it stretched beyond his fingertips, his for the taking.

  He’d taken five steps out of the cabin, sat down abruptly on the sand, and simply wept, soundlessly, at the sight of it, while C.J. sat behind him, arms around his shoulders, and held him until he was done.