"Family. You're part of. . . my family. My blood. My heart. Forever. Always. Come now, dammit. Come. . . for me. "
Marcus bucked, a roar tearing out of his throat. With relief and a surge of hot lust so strong it made him violent, Thomas slammed into his ass and worked Marcus' thick cock at once, pulling on it, rubbing furiously with sure knowledge as he kept pumping him.
Marcus seized the bed covers, using them as a counter pull as he pushed when Thomas shoved, drawing back and coming together as Marcus' climax rocketed through them both. For a few remarkable moments Thomas held both their weights on one arm, keeping Marcus hard against his chest as he stroked him to the last drop. Then his balls convulsed, beyond the point of no return.
He shouted out his own climax, too powerful to stop the reaction, and a deep guttural cry from Marcus joined his, his hips rocking up to take all of Thomas' seed, heart thundering against their locked fists. Thomas rammed him without thought now, just all physical need and animal feeling, everything right, everything as it should be, no need for a mind when the heart and soul were so large and overwhelming, filling the room with heat.
When at length he slowed, a lifetime later, his hand was slippery with the cum that had jetted out of Marcus. With his warm and wet knuckles Thomas rubbed his Master's cock, up and down as Marcus twitched at the increased sensitivity, all his muscles shuddering.
While at first Thomas was filled with deep male satisfaction at the trembling post-coital reaction of his lover, as his own post-climactic haze cleared off, he realized Marcus was still breathing too fast, too deep. He was rocking back against Thomas as if they were still fucking. Pushing, drawing away, pushing, pushing. . .
Marcus' hands were clutching the blanket spasmodically. Lowering his head to the covers, he pressed his face there, his back curved in a painful bend as if something far greater than Thomas' weight still rested on him.
"Hey. . . " Thomas withdrew, pulling him back in his arms, but he had to follow Marcus down the side of the bed to the floor. When Marcus put his arms over his head, covering his expression, his body still rocking, Thomas' heart broke. He wrapped both arms around him as the first sobs crashed over his Master.
He was overwhelmed by Marcus' grief. The way he leaned into Thomas, almost toppling over so he was half curled into Thomas' lap. The weight of what he was carrying seemed to be hurting him too much to allow anything but a fetal position to brace himself against it. Thomas curved protectively over him.
Now knowing what he knew, Thomas suspected the grief wasn't solely for Marcus' father. Eventually, an unloved child realized there was no obligation to love back. But the man Marcus had become could mourn being born into a family where he wasn't wanted, didn't fit. Feel the hurt of standing on the outside of what so many others had.
Of knowing there was no way for it to be different, caught between hate and longing, not hate and love.
After talking to Owen, Thomas realized there was another reason he'd fallen in love with Marcus. While he loved Marcus certainly for the individual, sexy, complicated man he was, Thomas also had found a spark of his own father, who had carried so much responsibility and never thought to question or resent it.
When the family farm had failed, Thomas' father had turned to the hardware store his father had started, which wasn't more than a side interest at that time. He worked contract jobs in between building it into a thriving concern. At times the money had gotten so tight Thomas' mother had turned to neighbors to provide a meal for them, tucking away her pride.
She'd hidden the knowledge from Thomas' father, and Thomas knew she'd done it so he'd never falter, never think she had a moment's doubt in him. He suspected there must have been times his father had wanted to crack, so afraid he wasn't going to make it all come together, take care of his family, live up to that love in his wife's eyes.
Marcus went out and forged his dreams out of less than nothing, formed his own family, protected them, even tried to protect Mike. And had lost them all. From the violence of his reaction now, Thomas thought it likely he'd never let himself break over any of it, because he couldn't. He couldn't handle the pain of it until. . . he had someone he trusted enough to see it.
A different version of the same words Marcus had said to him, during that first bad fight in the Berkshires.
Different situations, different men, but the glue always the same. The thing that made it all work. His father had had his mother's unwavering love, his children's respect. Marcus had him.
Hold me together. . .
"Always, Master," he murmured
, holding him tighter. "It's going to be okay. We're together now. Always. "
The polish had come at a high, high price.
Thomas kept stroking his hair, murmuring and rocking, until at last Marcus started to rein it back in, pushing himself up, swiping his hand at his nose and eyes.
"Okay?" Thomas kept a hand on his bare shoulder, moving his fingers slow and easy over the firm flesh.
"Yeah. Oh, Jesus. No. " Marcus bolted from the floor, disappearing into the bathroom. He managed to kick the door shut before Thomas heard him start to get rid of probably a gallon of Jack Daniels and vodka.
Wincing sympathetically, Thomas rose and went to the adjacent bathing area to run water in the Jacuzzi tub. He selected the temperature Marcus liked and increased it a few degrees up from that. Moving to the sink, he began to clean himself with a cloth and soap, keeping an ear tuned to the bathroom. Three pauses, followed each time by more vomiting. Marcus must have been drinking since he'd last seen Thomas.
The evidence was in the penthouse as well, in the unmade bed, dishes in the sink, paperwork tossed on the floor. Thomas pulled on his jeans, shrugged into his shirt and made the bed while he waited. As the minutes passed, he suspected Marcus was probably in there hoping he'd disappear. He heard the sink running, the sounds of teeth being brushed, a mouth being rinsed that would probably never be able to taste Jack Daniel's again.
"Got a bath out here when you're ready. "
"Go away. "
Thomas stifled a smile. "Come out here and stop being such a girl. " That did it. The door opened and Marcus stood gloriously naked in the doorway.
He'd washed his face, but as Thomas well knew, everything else to use for cleaning up was in the Jacuzzi part of the bathroom. Marcus glared, but otherwise seemed at a loss for words. And he looked tired.