Sequel to A New Beginning
Pairing: Ezra/Josiah - Post ATF
Josiah heaved a happy sigh and gave his bed partner a gentle hug, careful not to disturb him. He had awakened from a restful afternoon nap, half-expecting to discover that the new physical relationship he had started with Ezra Standish would turn out to be just a better-than-usual dream. Therefore, it was both a relief and a delight to confirm that it was real. They still lay naked together atop Ezra's comfortable Queen sized mattress, bodies intimately intertwined.Tilting his head to one side, Josiah smiled as he studied the younger man. Ezra lay in a sprawl, one arm looped around Josiah's waist while the other lay close to his side, hand tucked up under his chin. His legs straddled Josiah's right thigh, while his nose was nestled against the broad chest, his quiet snore gently stirring the chest hair he had found so intriguing earlier. Ezra's entire body was soft and heavy with relaxation and even though Josiah was feeling an increasing need to move and restore his own circulation, he was reluctant to disturb that deeply contented sleep.
Josiah skimmed the knuckles of his right hand up the bumpy ridge of his partner's spine, changing the gesture to an open-handed caress on the way back down. Ezra mumbled something in his sleep and snuggled down tighter. Josiah felt his heart speed up at the instinctive gesture, pressing a kiss into the soft brown waves tickling his chin.
He still couldn't believe that Ezra, the beautiful young man he had secretly and ashamedly desired for so many years, had initiated an afternoon of lovemaking with him. It had all been so easy once they had reached this point that he felt like a fool for waiting so long, and yet, Josiah knew himself well enough to realize that he had not truly been ready until now.
It had taken him a long time to accept that he could have sexual yearning for another man. It had been even longer before he could admit that the closeness and protective instinct he had always felt towards Ezra might fall into that category.
A year ago, when Ezra had begun to talk of leaving government service, feeling that he was becoming too well known as an undercover specialist and posing a danger to himself and his teammates, Josiah had decided to leave as well. He had put in 20 years as a criminal profiler with the FBI and ATF, and knew that it was time. It was not until they had spent several months apart; however, that Josiah had been forced to face that he missed Ezra more intensely and in a whole different way than he missed anyone else on their team. He had begun to go out of his way to run into Ezra and spend time with him, telling himself that he was only attempting to maintain their friendship.
When those meetings began to result in his nightly dreams becoming filled with increasingly erotic possibilities of things that they might do together, Josiah had tried to make himself stay away. Unfortunately, self denial had only made things worse, so he had given in to the urge just to see Ezra, talk with him, and share a few too-short minutes that might sustain him until their next meeting.
He was still not certain if he had fallen in love with Ezra during those months or simply acknowledged the love that had always been there. He was even less sure of how Ezra felt about him, but knew that he could be happy with just the physical expression of desire, never having expected to have even that much.
Just! Josiah snorted softly, allowing his hand to skim down Ezra's warm body low enough to take a light grip on one of those small beautiful cheeks. It had been 29 years since Josiah's first sexual encounter and there had been a number of others since, but he had never even imagined that sex could be as good as what he had experienced this afternoon. With women, he had always been slightly out of his depth, tumbling head over heels for a pretty face only to find himself fumbling awkwardly once things moved past the initial courting stages and into the bedroom. There had always been an instinctive need to hold himself back, to maintain control and ensure that his partners received enough pleasure via hands and mouth that they would not question his limited endurance once their bodies were finally joined.
Josiah sighed deeply, wondered how much better his life might have been if he had ever acknowledged the possibility that he might be gay. His father had loathed the very idea of homosexuals, tarring them broadly and vehemently with the same brush reserved for child-molesters and rapists. While Josiah had not been able to embrace his father's views, he had feared and stubbornly denied that part of his own nature when the first stirrings of interest began to manifest. He had held himself back from getting too close to anyone until he was in college, and though his first time with a woman had been neither easy nor memorable, he had assumed with a secret feeling of relief that if he was attracted enough to women to be able to perform for them, then there was no way he could be gay.
Softly kissing Ezra's hair again, he smiled. How lucky he was to have fallen for a man as understanding and giving as this one. Ezra had been wonderful with him, never once ridiculing his lack of knowledge or seeming to feel that it had been cowardly for Josiah to have stood still all these years when they could have been moving forward together. And Josiah had experienced no frustration or awkwardness at all once he had put his faith in Ezra and willingly followed where he led.
Josiah concentrated, smiling as he felt again that slight ache deep inside of him and remembered the overwhelming rightness he had experienced while being joined with Ezra.
The second time they had made love had been nearly as good as the first, though Ezra had refused to take him again on the grounds that he would be unusually tender and would probably find the experience uncomfortable instead of pleasurable. It hadn't mattered. They had resumed the actions begun out on the sofa, simply moving together and exploring one another's bodies, taking the time to kiss and caress and discover a few of each other's personal hot spots, allowing the pressure and friction to build until it had been the most natural thing in the world to come together.
Too exhausted to move, Josiah had simply lain here drifting as Ezra excused himself to the bathroom and returned a few minutes later with a warm damp cloth to clean his lover. He had been gentle and thorough, and even that simple action had seemed somehow erotic. When finished, Ezra had closed the curtains against the late afternoon sunlight and climbed on top of Josiah to rest, not even bothering to drape a blanket over their bodies as he sleepily inquired whether he was too heavy this way. He had dropped off at once upon hearing Josiah's assurance that he was fine and Josiah had followed mere moments later.
A glance at the clock showed that it was now nearly six o'clock. They had slept for close to two hours and Ezra had not once budged from his comfortable position.
Wondering if he could roll them over and move away without waking his partner, Josiah experimentally shifted his shoulder and raised his knees. Ezra groaned and pressed down against the long leg trapped between his thighs. Intrigued, Josiah shifted his weight, creating the tiniest amount of friction. Ezra responded at once, pushing against the resistance with another soft needy sound.
Josiah watched with hungry eyes as Ezra's ass began to bob up and down. He could feel the other man's shaft hardening against his leg and Ezra began to emit a breathy whimper, humping more firmly against the muscular thigh. Josiah's own cock leapt to life at the combined sight and sound of Ezra's pleasure.
As they shifted against each other, Ezra's heavy eyelids blinked open. He pushed up on his forearms and looked from Josiah's smiling face down to his own shaft pressing insistently against the other man's hip. He blushed a little, a throaty laugh escaping as he said, "Well, apparently part of me felt that it was time to get up!"
Josiah gasped as the sexy purr of that sleep-deepened voice seemed to reverberate through his body; straight down to his own increasingly excited genitals. He groaned, gripping a hand around his hardness and realizing that his own touch was not what he craved. "Ezra, I want you," he growled, nostrils flaring as he saw the answering excitement flash in Ezra's eyes at the blunt words. He hesitated for a moment, gathering his courage, and then asked, "Can I . . . will you let me take you?"
A heavy moan sounded as Ezra's eyes clamped shut again and Josiah realized that he had just returned the favor, the rough need in his voice stoking his partner's fire. Ezra answered wordlessly, flailing his arm out in an attempt to reach the supplies he had left lying on top of the nightstand.
Unusually clumsy in his desperation, Ezra pushed up off Josiah's chest and lurched sideways, spilling condoms all over the bed as he fumbled for the box. Tearing one of the foil packages open, he rose up on his knees, moving one leg over to straddle Josiah's hips and sit back on his thighs. With no time for teasing or erotic play, he stretched the little latex circle over the seeping purplish knob of Josiah's cockhead and rolled it down, slathering it with lube and tossing the small container aside impatiently as he positioned himself and pressed.
Josiah was startled, having assumed that he would need to change positions and prepare Ezra as carefully as the other man had done him, but after only a few seconds of natural resistance, he felt the head of his penis pop through the tight ring of Ezra's inner muscle and heard a happily groaned, "Oh, yeah," as the other man smoothly slid down his length, impaling himself to the root.
Unlike their first time, when Ezra had so carefully and deliberately denied his release until he was sure of his partner's enjoyment, this time he clenched and pressed and slid up and down the long shaft with abandon, lost to his own pleasure. Josiah moaned and thrust hard, loving every second of it. Seeing Ezra reach back and balance himself with his fingertips against the mattress as he struggled to gain deeper penetration, Josiah grasped his lover's straining erection and began to pump it for him.
"Oh, God . . . Josiah!" Ezra panted. "Please . . . more. Harder!"
Josiah responded by jerking the rock-hard shaft almost brutally as he began to slide his hand faster and faster. Ezra cried out, rocking his pelvis erratically back and forth, squeezing and grinding and finally arching upward with a guttural shout when a slight change in his position allowed Josiah to strike repeatedly against his prostate.
The bed creaked and squeaked and thumped against the wall as they thrust together and the tiny part of Josiah's brain that wasn't caught up in the pleasure of his body sent up a prayer of thankfulness that Ezra had no immediate neighbors.
Vaguely amazed to realize that he was having no trouble maintaining his endurance with Ezra the way he had with past lovers, Josiah held his impending orgasm back with iron control as he watched Ezra ride his shaft, fucking himself into a keening frenzy of need.
Finally, without any warning other than a sudden tightening of every sinew, Ezra burst into a powerful completion, his fluids shooting erratically across Josiah's chest and stomach, his entire body shaking with reaction as he continued to come.
The sight, sound, smell and feel of his partner's intense orgasm was more than Josiah could withstand and he gripped Ezra's hips hard, sealing them together tightly as the other man's spasming inner muscles pushed him over the edge and milked him dry.
"Dear Lord," Ezra whispered, disengaging from Josiah as he seemed to melt to one side. He brushed at his face, looking surprised to realize that he was weeping.
Worry flooded through Josiah when the silent tears turned into soft sobs and Ezra covered his eyes with a shaking hand. "Are you all right? Did I hurt you?" he demanded, sitting up and touching Ezra's hitching chest with a gentle hand.
Ezra shook his head. "S-sorry," he choked. "Please ignore me."
"Ignore you! Ezra, please, tell me what I did wrong."
Finally, Ezra lowered his hand, allowing Josiah to see the tears sparkling on his lashes and spilling down the sides of his face. He tugged Josiah down to offer a salty kiss, a wet snuffle sounding as he struggled to pull himself together. "You did everything right," he said sincerely. "I promise you this isn't because of you. Or rather, it is, but not in a bad way."
"You're sure?"
Ezra nodded. "What did you call it earlier? Pleasure overload?"
Josiah breathed a sigh of relief, realizing that Ezra had simply been overwhelmed by his body's reaction to the powerful orgasm. He felt proud and a bit bashful as he asked, "It was that good?"
"Yes, it was." A shy smile bloomed on Ezra's face and his eyes held a degree of tenderness that took Josiah's breath away. "And now you know my most well-kept secret. I rarely allow myself to relinquish emotional control in the every day world, but in the privacy of my own home and the arms of someone I love, I lose it entirely."
Warmth filled Josiah's heart, tears prickling at his own eyes at those soft sincere words. "Love?"
Ezra nodded, hope and a vulnerability that Josiah had never seen before shining from his eyes. "You remember when I told you that I'd had a number of lovers in the past?" Josiah nodded. "The fact is that most of those men crossed my path in my college days. I was considerably looser in my standards back then and could be satisfied by a roll through the sheets with any warm willing male body. By the time I became an FBI agent, I had begun to desire something more but felt unable to relax my guard enough to search for it."
Josiah gave a slow nod. "I can understand that. And it must not have been much better after you came to work with us, because I can't remember you being serious about anyone in all the time I've known you." He smiled. "That's part of the reason I didn't think you were gay. I've never seen you act the least bit interested in another guy."
"I did manage to establish and maintain a few brief romances during that time," Ezra confessed, eyes twinkling at Josiah's surprised expression. "But my expectations of what I deserved out of life had been rather severely damaged by the fiasco I left behind in Georgia, and at any rate those relationships were little more than physical relief. No hearts were broken when they ended. I think I already knew that my heart had been claimed by another, but I never said anything for fear that I would frighten him and lose his hard-won friendship."
Smiling a little, Josiah replied, "Anyone I know?"
Carding his fingers through Josiah's curly hair, Ezra kissed him deeply. "A big, wildly attractive, completely oblivious fellow by the name of Sanchez."
Kissing him back, Josiah purred, "And what would you have done if this blind idiot had ever looked your way?"
"I suppose I would have obeyed the workplace regulations and pretended ignorance," Ezra said, then, grinning at Josiah's disappointed expression, he hitched his eyebrows and added, "Or, had he caught me in the right mood, I might well have invited him to the conference room, thrown him across that big hardwood table, torn his clothes off and ravished him right then and there."
Josiah laughed, the warm happy sound earning him another kiss. "Just as well that you didn't. I'd have probably had a heart attack."
Ezra pulled him down into a brief embrace. "I suspect that we were meant to have our relationship develop in exactly the way it has. Everything in its own good time."
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven."
"Exactly." Ezra's face grew serious as he said, "It may have been a bit premature to just blurt it out that way, but I do love you, Josiah. You don't have to return the sentiment, but I needed you to be aware of how I felt before things could progress any further between us."
Realizing that Ezra was giving him a way out, an opportunity to back away and claim that he wanted to remain just friends now that the physical attraction was out of his system, Josiah covered Ezra's body with his own, kissing him with slow passionate intensity. "I'm all for progress," he breathed. Dropping a kiss upon each of Ezra's eyelids and then a very gentle one on his lips, he looked into those beautiful green eyes and confessed, "I love you too. I think I have since we first met."
Ezra's eyes sparkled with a fresh wave of tears, but this time there was no doubt in Josiah's mind that there were brought on by happiness.
For a long minute, the two new lovers simply looked at each other, drinking in the sight of each other so close and emotionally open, each filled with the wonder of their new discovery.
"What do you think we should do now?" Ezra asked, seeming for the first time uncertain.
Josiah grinned at him. "Well, I think first thing we need to do is take a nice, long, hot shower together, because right now we smell like we've spent the whole afternoon having sex."
Ezra chuckled. "Well, imagine that. Agreed!"
Levering himself off the bed, Josiah pulled Ezra up with him. "And then, I think we should get dressed and go out someplace nice and have a good dinner, with appetizers, wine and some kind of extremely decadent dessert. We deserve a chance to celebrate."
"I'm liking the sound of this plan already," Ezra said with a grin. He pressed a kiss to the hollow of Josiah's throat, steering him backward towards the bathroom. "And then?"
"Then we'll go back to my place and we'll find out if my bed is as comfortable as yours." Josiah nibbled his lover's neck, bringing forth a happy hum. "I suspect it may take the entire night to make up our minds, but then tomorrow we can come back here and do an all-day comparison test on yours. Just to be sure which bed is really the best, you understand."
"Of course." Ezra's eyes sparkled. "And do you think that will be enough time?"
Brows raised thoughtfully, Josiah smiled and dropped a kiss on the tip of Ezra's nose. "I really don't know. What do you think?"
"I think I'm glad you've retired because I feel a sick day coming on this Monday!"
Josiah chuckled wickedly as he turned on the hot water. "Can't have you getting sick! I guess I'll just have to kiss you and make you all better." With a playful growl, he maneuvered his lover into the stall. "Tell me where it hurts, baby."
The bright co-mingling of tenor and baritone laughter rang off the polished ceramic tiles as the shower door closed behind them.
THE END