A Valentine’s Day gift for my readers, to say thanks for reading. 🙂
Rescuing Bonnie
By Shae Connor
When Corey stopped long enough to pick up a mint by the register on their way out of the restaurant, Logan disappeared.
He was just right here. Corey looked around, puzzled. How do you misplace six-plus feet of boyfriend in two seconds?
Movement outside the door caught his eye, and he stepped onto the sidewalk. A flash of a foot around the corner off to his right clued him in. He walked in that direction. “Logan?”
“Shhh.” Logan’s voice came back, soft but urgent. “Stay there.”
Corey frowned. “Is everything okay?”
“Shhhh.”
Corey rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. Logan had something up his sleeve again, and while patience might not be Corey’s strong suit, he knew “Logan” plus “plotting” could lead to very, very good things. So, he waited.
A soft noise came from the alleyway, followed by a low shushing sound. A shoe scraped on concrete, and denim rasped. “C’mon, sweetie,” Logan cooed. Cooed? Corey thought. He’d bet serious money that Logan had never cooed before in his life.
He stared at the corner, and after a moment Logan came into view. His arms were curled close to his chest, and he looked down at whatever it was he held in his arms with an expression on his face that made him look about six years old.
Corey melted a little. Okay, maybe a lot. “What do you have there?” he asked.
Logan lifted his head. Grinned that little boy grin. “Can I keep her?” he asked, half-laughing, nodding down at his chest.
Corey stepped closer so he could see into the cocoon Logan had formed with his arms and jacket. There, nestled into the faded denim, head pillowed against Logan’s shirt, was the tinest kitten Corey had ever seen. It was hard to tell with the way it was wrapped up, but it looked like a standard black-and-white, the pattern on its face forming a bandit’s mask around its eyes.
“Logan,” Corey said, delight warring with apprehension. “Where did you find it?”
Logan shrugged one shoulder. “I nearly stepped on her when I came out of the restaurant,” he said. “She was cuddled up right under the edge of the doorway. I think I must’ve spooked her, but she didn’t go far. It wasn’t hard to get close enough to pick her up.”
Corey reached out a gentle hand and ran the back of one finger across the top of her head. Her eyes squeezed shut, and he felt her purr vibrate across his skin. He smiled, and Logan shifted on his feet, clearly impatient for Corey’s response.
“So what’s her name?” he said, glancing up just in time to watch Logan’s grin split his face open wide. Corey melted some more, and the tiny bit of apprehension died as if it had never been. Like he ever could have denied Logan this anyway.
“I don’t know yet,” Logan said. “I mean, I don’t even know if she’s a she. But maybe we can take her home and then take her to the vet tomorrow to get checked out?”
Corey nodded. “We’ll stop by the store for some cat food and litter,” he said. “I think that old baking pan we were going to toss is still in the kitchen, so that’ll do for a litterbox until we can get her a real one.”
Logan nodded, looking down at his new friend again, and Corey moved closer, wrapping one arm around Logan’s waist as they regarded their soon-to-be houseguest. “We can put out one of those big towels to give her a place to sleep,” Logan said. “I don’t think something that small sharing a bed with two full-size men would be a particularly good idea.”
Corey laughed softly. “No, probably not,” he said. “C’mon. Let’s get her home.”
~~~~
As soon as they walked into the apartment, Corey led Logan into the kitchen so he could give Kitty No-Name a good flea check. She seemed safe, and she looked clean, but Corey still wet a washcloth and ran it over her fur. She liked that, pushing against his hand, making like a motorboat.
Corey laughed. “She’s got quite a purr,” he said, wiping down the pads of her feet. “Haven’t heard a single meow out of her yet, though.”
Logan shrugged from where he leaned against the counter, watching Corey work. “Maybe she doesn’t meow. I don’t know. I’ve never had a cat before.”
“Oh, she’ll meow,” Corey said. He nodded behind Logan. “Why don’t you get that pan and put some litter in it? We’ll see if we can get her trained for that, and then we can feed her and put her to bed.”
They got her litterbox together, and Corey set her gently down in the middle of the clay bits. He didn’t expect her to get it on the first try, but she went almost immediately and climbed back toward the edge.
Corey blinked and frowned. “She’s not a stray,” he said. “Someone put her out.”
“What?” Logan sounded half confused and half angry.
“She’s used a litterbox before,” Corey said, looking up at Logan. “I’ve never seen a cat take to one like that on the first try.”
The anger won out. “God, people make me so mad sometimes,” Logan said, reaching for the little bundle of fur curled up on the counter, settling her back against his broad chest. He scritched a finger between her eyes, smiling down at her. “Glad we found you, sweetie,” he said. “We’ll take care of you.”
Corey had long ago giving up on thinking he couldn’t possibly love Logan any more than he already did. Logan had proven time and time again that Corey’s heart had an infinite ability to expand for him.
He ran a hand down Logan’s back, letting it rest in his favorite spot, right where the curve of his spine gave way to the firm softness below. “Dinnertime,” he said, reaching a hand into the plastic bag from the convenience store that still held several small cans of cat food. He held two of them up. “Chicken or seafood?”
Logan actually seemed to consider the choices. “Seafood,” he finally said. “It’s kind of a special night, her first one home, after all. Chicken seems a little too common.”
Corey bit his lip against a laugh as he pulled down a small plate and grabbed a fork. Less than two seconds after he popped the top of the can, Kitty started meowing, a rough, deep sound so incongruent to her size that Corey and Logan both stared.
“Wow,” Logan said. “I guess she’s got a meow in her after all.”
“Yeah, one that sounds like she’s had pack-a-day smoke habit for twenty years.” He finished forking out the food and slid the plate toward Logan. “Let’s get some food in her before she wakes the neighbors.”
Logan set the kitten down next to the plate, and they watched as she practically climbed into the middle of it and started chowing down. Her little mouth moved as she made small slurping sounds, and Corey and Logan looked at each other and cracked up.
“Mrow?” Corey glanced down to find a masked face turned up toward them with the closest thing to kitty confusion he’d ever seen.
“Don’t mind us, Bonnie,” he said, running his thumb between her ears. “We’re just silly boys.”
“Bonnie?”
Corey looked up and shrugged. “It’s the mask,” he said. “Makes me think of cops and robbers, which led to Bonnie and Clyde.”
Logan laughed. “I like it,” he said. “I think it suits her.” He frowned. “I just hope she’s actually a girl.”
Corey snickered. “Well, I guess we could check,” he said. “She’s probably too young to be fixed anyway.”
Bonnie had dug back into her meal by then, but Corey picked her up anyway, flipping her onto her back. She meowed again in indignation, but Corey had what he needed by then and returned her to her dinner. “Girl,” he said. He grinned at Logan’s surprise. “Grew up on a farm, remember? I know my way around an animal’s anatomy.”
Logan smiled and pulled him close. “Pretty good with the human kind, too,” he teased, dropping first a brief and then a lingering kiss on Corey’s mouth.
Corey gave a happy little “mmmm” as they drew apart. “Why don’t you put Miss Bonnie’s litterbox in the bathroom and grab her a towel?” he said. “That old beach towel would probably be good. It needs replacing anyway. I’ll make sure she doesn’t fall off the counter in her post-food stupor.”
Logan kissed him again before letting go and reaching for the pan. “I’ll get ready for bed while I’m in there,” he said. “Meet you in the bedroom?”
Corey laughed. “Oh, I’ll be there,” he said.
~~~~
Corey dropped Bonnie off with Logan on his way to take his turn in the bathroom, emerging a few minutes later to find Logan lying on his back on their bed, head supported by two pillows and Bonnie lying on his chest. He was murmuring things Corey couldn’t quite hear from the doorway, and he stopped as soon as he realized Corey was there.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” Corey said, walking around the bed to climb into his side. “Please, carry on your conversation.”
Logan laughed and picked Bonnie up, his hold surprisingly delicate for such big hands. “Say goodnight, Corey,” he said, lifting the kitten toward his face.
“Goodnight, Corey,” Corey echoed obediently. He leaned in close to Bonnie’s face and scratched the back of her neck. “Now, you go to sleep and don’t wake us up half a dozen times tonight, okay, Bon-Bon? We rescued you from the big, bad streets of Oakdale, so you’d better behave yourself.”
Logan laughed. “Bon-Bon?”
Corey shrugged and grinned. “She’s about the size of one,” he said, watching as Logan moved to set her into the cushion of towel he’d laid out on the floor near the dresser. “Besides, she might look like a bank robber, but I think she’s too sweet for that kind of reputation.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Logan said as he turned back from one last pet of her little head. “I have a feeling she could be a real terror if she put her mind to it.”
He climbed into the bed and pulled Corey close, kissing his forehead. “Thank you,” he murmured, which made Corey smile again.
“What for?” he asked. He knew the answer. He just wanted to hear Logan say it.
“For letting me keep her,” Logan answered. “For just … for giving me something else I’ve never had before.” He kissed Corey gently, on the lips this time. “I love you.”
Corey swallowed, to keep from tearing up. It only partly worked. “I love you, too.”
Logan settled down against their pile of pillows, and Corey scooted closer, wrapping his arm around Logan’s back. A frisson of arousal ran through him when their bodies met, as it always did, but he knew they were both exhausted after their long day and the sudden surprise of Bonnie.
He smiled as he closed his eyes. He had a feeling it would be a good morning.
~~~~
Morning came sooner than he expected.
“Mrow?”
Corey opened his eyes to the first glimmers of predawn light. He lay on his back, Logan snored softly just to his left, and a kitten sat on his chest, staring him down.
“Hey, little one,” he rasped, sleepily. “How did you get up here? And why are you waking me up? That big lug over there is the one you belong to.”
Bonnie lay down and narrowed her eyes at him, purring.
Corey sighed and settled his hand on her back, rubbing and scratching. “Okay, so I guess we have shared custody.”
He turned his head toward Logan, whose mouth hung open an inch, muscles slack, eyelashes dark against his cheeks. Shadows cast across his face gave him a mask much like Bonnie’s, a Batman disguise in the near dark. Corey’s free hand lifted of its own accord to brush across the rough stubble scattered along his jaw. Logan’s mouth closed and he swallowed, shifted, eyes slowly opened halfway.
“Hey,” Corey said, smiling.
“Hey.” Logan’s voice caught, and he swallowed again, coughed a little. “What time is it?”
Corey craned his neck back over his shoulder to see the clock. “Um, 6:12,” he said. He rolled onto his side toward Logan, lifting Bonnie carefully to set her between them. “It seems we no longer need an alarm clock. Bonnie here seems to be handling the job nicely.”
Logan chuckled in the sleep-roughed voice Corey loved. “Did she wake you up?”
“By meowing in my face, yes. I have no idea how she managed to get up here. Apparently she’s an expert blanket climber.”
“Mrow?”
They both looked down at the growly sound. Bonnie was now making her way up Logan’s chest, eventually coming to rest on his shoulder, looking around like the queen of the world.
Logan stared at her. “Um,” he said, befuddled. “I think I’m really, really glad I’m wearing a t-shirt right now.”
Corey raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, normally I much prefer you without a shirt, but I’ll make an exception to avert kitty-claw scars.”
Logan grinned. Plucking Bonnie off his shoulder, he said, “Be right back,” and rolled over, pushing off the mattress. He was out of the room before Corey could react, and he heard the sounds of Logan using the bathroom, followed by the door closing firmly behind him. A few second later, Logan walked back into the room, yanking his t-shirt over his head and climbing back into bed.
He tugged at Corey’s shirt. “Lose it, stud,” he said, and Corey grinned and complied.
Logan kissed him almost before the shirt cleared his head. Corey returned it fervently, using his legs to pull Logan on top of him. Of all the things he loved about living together, morning sex just might have to be his favorite. And even with a full schedule of work and other duties on tap for the day, their kitten-induced early wakeup call gave them extra time to take advantage of.
Logan made that little moan in his throat that Corey loved from the very time he heard it. A lot of things had changed since then, but that sound never had. It made Corey feel light and bubbly, like he was about to levitate right off the ground (or bed, in this case), with only Logan’s firm weight holding him down.
He shifted his hips and lifted his legs higher around Logan’s waist, thrusting his hips up against Logan’s. Logan moaned again, deeper this time, and left his lips to bury his mouth in the curve of Corey’s neck. He ground down against Corey, rubbing their hard cocks together through their thin sleep pants, one hand sliding around to cup Corey’s thigh, pulling him even closer.
“God, Logan,” Corey breathed. “Feels so good.”
“Mmmm.” Logan sucked at Corey’s neck, bit down lightly. “Tastes so good.”
Corey laughed, a little raggedly. He slid a hand up Logan’s back, cupping his head. “Please feel free to have another helping.”
Logan pulled his mouth from Corey’s neck with a low pop! and lifted his head for another kiss. Corey’s lips parted of their own accord and his tongue twirled around Logan’s, tasting salt and the muskiness of sleep. Logan’s hips still moved against him, delicious friction, driving them both forward.
This might not have been what Corey had in mind when they’d first started this dance, but it felt amazing, so he saw no need to change course. He let one leg fall from Logan’s waist to the mattress, using the leverage to thrust up harder, shifting the angle just a bit until they both jerked and shuddered.
“Ungh.” Logan broke off from their kiss and dropped his forehead against Corey’s collarbone, hips moving faster now. “Oh God, Corey. I want—”
“Like this,” Corey gasped out, thrusting harder. “Just like this.”
After that there were no words left, only moans and pure sensation. Corey trembled head to toe as he pushed his hips against Logan’s, one hand still holding his head, the other on his ass. Logan latched his mouth onto Corey’s collarbone, sucking hard, arms braced against the mattress. Within minutes, Corey threw his head back and groaned loud into the room, air leaving his lungs in a long rush as everything inside his body uncoiled and released. He heard as if from a distance as Logan shouted out his own completion, felt the warm wetness spread between them.
Logan collapsed against him, and Corey used his last shred of energy to wrap both arms and legs back around his long body, holding tight as he could manage. They breathed together for long moments, trying to reassemble their brains.
A low scratching sound drew Corey’s attention. Logan lifted his head an inch as if he were going to say something, but Corey said “shhh!” and strained to hear.
Scritch scritch scritch. And then: “Mrowr!”
Corey and Logan looked at each other, then cracked up laughing, Logan’s head dropping back down to Corey’s neck.
“Oh man,” Corey said. “I guess all this is a taste of what it’ll be like when we have kids, huh?”
He felt Logan freeze against him. Oh shit. He’d never mentioned the idea that directly before. Corey wanted kids someday, and he figured Logan had guessed that, but they’d never actually talked about it.
He opened his mouth, though he had no idea what to say. Logan beat him to it.
“Yeah,” he whispered against Corey’s ear. “I guess it is, isn’t it?”
Corey turned his head until their gazes met. Like the night before, he felt all apprehension fall away at the glow in Logan’s eyes. He leaned forward to press a soft kiss against Logan’s mouth, drawing a sigh out of his boyfriend.
Pulling back, Corey brushed a thumb over Logan’s cheek. “Well, I guess we should get cleaned up and get Miss Bon-Bon in there to the vet,” he said. “I’d suggest a joint shower, but I’m thinking we’d probably end up with the gay man’s worst nightmare: a good dose of wet pussy.”
He grinned as he said it, and Logan positively howled with laughter. “Oh my God,” he managed, rolling away from Corey, wrapping one arm around his stomach. Corey laughed, too, although mostly at Logan’s reaction, rather than his really bad line.
“C’mon, man, on your feet,” he finally said, pushing at Logan’s side. “I’ll shower while you take care of feeding the beasts—that would be both Bonnie and me—and then I’ll kitty-sit and call the vet while you get ready. Okay?”
Logan had gotten himself under control by then, although he kept grinning like a loon. “It’s a deal,” he said. He snickered one more time, then leaned in for a kiss, tongue dancing across Corey’s lips lightly. He drew away still smiling, but softer this time.
“I love you,” he said, and Corey smiled wider.
“I love you too,” he said, kissing him again. “My kitty-rescuing superhero.”
Copyright @ 2012 Shae Connor. All rights reserved.
Image courtesy phanlop88 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
shaeconnorwrites 