The Sweetest Taboo was written as a sequel to Suzan Lovett's A Fine Storm. Traditionally, when one fan wanted to write a sequel to another fan's work, they would usually discuss it with the author. So, to write A Fine Storm, Suzan discussed it with April, since she had written the original story, and to write The Sweetest Taboo, April discussed that with Suzan. Had any of the original authors disapproved, the author of the sequel would not have written the story out of fan courtesy. Comments on this story can be sent to: AprilValen@aol.com To read A Fine Storm go to the Main Page.
The Sweetest Taboo
by
April Valentine
Under the slanting rays of a setting sun, Hutch woke, and for what felt like the first time in a century, the waking was easy. His body and mind were rested, the ability to handle problems restored by the much needed rest. He drew in a deep breath and opened his eyes. The objects within his sight stood out sharp and clear, as if everything about him, eyesight included, was reborn after the good sleep.
One thing I forgot about, he thought as his eyes closed to enjoy the sweet peace, with Starsky, there's always a chance to start over.
He was alone in bed, but sought no reasons for his sleeping partner's departure. Starsky'd had more sleep than Hutch in the last week, he must have wakened earlier. Hutch contented himself with the relaxation he felt, for once in his life not dredging up negative meanings for everything that happened.
He rolled over, stretching under the covers. Other awakenings were close to the surface of his memory, but he put aside the pain waking up alone after sex with Starsky used to cause. What he wanted to recall now was how good the pleasure between them, the nights before those mornings after, had been.
The rustle of a newspaper made him turn over. He caught sight of Starsky, rising from the couch and heading for the bedroom. The dark-haired man grinned down at Hutch and the brilliance of his heartfelt smile did more to heal the past than all the sleep and all the talk last night.
Hutch smiled back, opening his arms. Starsky's look became teasing as he sat on the bed, reaching in his turn for a new embrace.
They held each other and Hutch marveled at the feeling that they were both finally on the same wave-length, not needing to spell out in words what either of them wanted.
"I don't believe it," he murmured.
Starsky's voice was as soft, as full of emotion as his own. "That I'm here?"
Hutch smiled, nodding, taking a warm earlobe between his lips for a moment. "Yeah, for one thing. And that I think we've finally got it all together. Understanding each other again."
"You think maybe we never really lost it? I mean, maybe it just got confused with all the other stuff."
Hutch drew back to take a long look into the luminous blue eyes. All of Starsky was there for him, earnest, vulnerable, sweet with a certain innocence, yet wise as only someone who'd been on the streets as much -- as anyone who'd come as close to death -- as he had, could be. They'd confused the issue of love and sex, of need and desire, the whole idea of true partnership for so long. But the core had survived. The essential rightness of their relationship, in whatever form it had taken, would always remain. He brought his lips to Starsky's; his partner lowered his head to meet him halfway. The light touch merged into a more definite one: taste, texture, warmth and moisture smoothing together into a kind of perfection that was even better than Hutch's treasured memories.
Starsky leaned closer, making himself comfortable, the first slow kiss transforming into a rush of new ones, gentle, but growing ever more hungry. Like so many times before, Hutch was overwhelmed by the sheer force of Starsky' s presence, a kind of charisma made even more powerful by his emotional accessibility. He wrapped his arms around the long back, drawing the man close to him. If he could, he'd hold him until his own physical strength swept away everything between them, until only the reality of the first kisses they had ever shared was left. We started this way, kissing in slow discovery...
Starsky's lips hovered above his for a moment. "Mmmm. This could get addictive real fast."
"Something wrong with that?"
No. Just -- are you ready to go as fast as I feel like goin'? Last night... it might be a little too much if we started tearing down all those barriers too fast."
He's right. "Nothing wrong with taking a deep breath," Hutch agreed. "Let's take time to do it right." The simple idea of planning to make love instead of just tumbling into bed together had its own power to arouse. Hutch ran a hand over his stubbled chin. "How about I grab a shave and a shower?"
"Okay. Are you hungry? Want me to heat up some more soup for you?" Starsky grinned, adding, "I borrowed your shower an hour or so ago -- and your razor, too."
"Typical." He laughed; Starsky always appropriated whatever he wanted around the place. Then the realization caught him. "You wanted to get ready, too."
"Had to pass the time some way. You didn't answer -- want something to eat?"
"Not right now. Let's go out to dinner after awhile. We haven't taken time to socialize alone together in forever." Hutch helped himself to a quick kiss. "And I think we'll feel like celebrating later."
Starsky looked pleased, sitting back to let Hutch out of bed. "You got a date."
~~~
Hutch had showered off the road dust and accumulated grime from his trip the night before. Now he just stood under the soothing heat of the spray, lathering himself carefully with a fine-milled, pleasant-smelling soap, washing his hair with a tube of scented shampoo he recognized as Starsky's. The 'what's yours is mine' attitude they shared gave a very married feel to their relationship, and the idea brought a warm tingle alive inside him.
He reinforced it with a brisk rubdown with a thick bath towel. It was a clean one, and Hutch knew his laundry had been piling up for a long time before he took his unplanned trip. Starsky's work, he realized. While Hutch had slept, his partner had done the wash and probably the pile of dishes in the sink, too.
I want to do something for him, Hutch mused as he spread shaving cream along his jaw. Starsky was his, to care for, to protect and love, but he felt that doing something small and personal could mean more, sometimes, than the bigger things like providing medical or emotional comfort. There's time for all of that now, for the spiritual comfort we both need. I'd like to cook a good meal for him -- it'd be fun to see him look as surprised as he did that time I got his favorite recipe from his mother. Hutch shaved carefully, paying strict attention so he didn't nick himself in his eagerness. His beard's chewed up this blade... Yet even that annoyance felt like something precious with his new understanding. Finally, a few snips with a small pair of scissors made his moustache look neater.
Finished, he splashed on some aftershave. He ran the towel over his hair to dry it a little more, and combed the long, flyaway strands into place. He brushed his teeth and then turned to pick up his robe. The worn orange velour didn't seem appropriate to the special care with which he'd attended to his grooming. He reached for a towel to wrap around his waist, then stopped. It seemed absurd to bother.
He went into the bedroom and found Starsky had had the same idea. His partner was naked, too, lying on his side in bed, the sheet drawn negligently up to his hip. Hutch drank in the long line of him, the pattern of black chest hair that ran all the way down, the dusting lighter over the hard abdomen. For a minute, he didn't even see the scars. This was Starsky, as beautiful to his eyes as the first time he'd seen him this way. Was it just last night I could hardly hold my eyes open to look at him? Hutch had no trouble staying awake now. He looked his fill, remembering that their first time he'd wanted to. But he'd had to count Starsky's life in hours then...
You survived Vic Bellamy's poison. I survived the plague. We both survived Kira... Hutch sat on the edge of the bed, his hand coming to rest lightly on the wrinkled sheet covering Starsky's hip. And it took a long, long time for all the other wounds to heal. He bent to kiss his friend's expectant lips. A long moment later, pausing for breath, Starsky spoke.
"It's all over, love. We're giving each other the chance to start again -- and to get it right this time."
His heart was throbbing under his breastbone, with desire so strong he thought it would explode. Hutch took hold of Starsky by the shoulders, using his weight to roll him onto his back. Starsky kicked the sheets aside and they moved together, the sensation of skin sliding against skin exquisite.
Hutch kissed him hard, hungry for the passion so seldom shared, eager to make up for all the bad times. Starsky was right with him, arching, breathless under his onslaught. Hutch hesitated, drawing his own ragged breath, looking into blue eyes that had gone misty and wanton. A need to be tender brought the raging level of lust down to the simmer, and Hutch pressed soft lips to Starsky's eyebrows, then to the closed, trembling eyelids.
When he returned to the moist, open lips, he sought to analyze their shape and taste, to know them with a touch as questing as it had been that first time. There was the delicacy and economy of their shape, firm lips that yielded to his tongue, offering a taste like some rare and exotic spice. The simplicity of the yearning kiss was more arousing than Hutch could have imagined. Starsky was as he remembered, open, willing, giving all of himself without repentance. "Just make it stop hurting for a while," he'd asked Hutch that long-ago afternoon. And that was how it had begun for them.
"No more hurting, ever." Hutch murmured it against the mouth he kissed, hardly aware of having spoken at all.
Starsky answered with all of himself, as only he could - heart, soul, mind and body one with the need to give. The kiss deepened, tongues sliding wetly, breath mingling in blended sighs. Hutch felt Starsky's hands settle on his ass and begin a slow stroke up to his shoulders. The feel of them, and the image of the balletic dance of slim, bronzed fingers on his skin, sent his mind spinning off into another dimension. He pressed his cheek to Starsky's smooth, fresh-shaven one. The texture was like raw silk, fragrant and resonant with warmth.
The kisses continued, as he lost himself for a time in the taste and feel of Starsky. Drinking from that perfect mouth made him feel a part of his lover. Then that thought -- and the very real need - took him over and he was living for the moment when they would be truly one, joined in a sharing as limitless as their love.
Starsky's knees were drawing back, allowing Hutch's body to settle naturally into position. All along his skin, he could feel the tension of his own aroused nerve endings contacted by firm muscle and the alternating satin smoothness and rough torment of Starsky's textures. A hard cock was pressed against his groin, sliding in an erotic dance as Starsky's hips flexed. His own hardness, knowing what it wanted, had found its way down where Starsky was warm around him.
Hutch groaned, all of him aching to slide deep into his partner. Yet sudden insecurities rushed him, attacking where he was most vulnerable, and it felt wrong, somehow, as if he were forcing himself on Starsky, as if taking this pleasure was a substitute for sanity in their crazy world.
"Hutch?" Strong arms encircled his trembling shoulders. "You know I love you. Go on. Do it however you want. This ain't the first time for either of us, you know." Lips caressed his neck. "Won't be the last, either."
Hutch met the clear eyes, his confusion waning. Substitute for sanity? No, our only sanity... the sanest thing we've ever done. He knew what had been wrong, and how to make it right, now. "I didn't want to...you know, just go slamming into you," he began, not really sure how to put it into words. "It feels good, but you can't understand it, can't hold onto it. I want to, just this once, make it so special, so... perfect that it's more. Not just one moment of... frenzied gratification..."
He was kissed tenderly, stroked by hands at his temple, over his back and ass. "Okay." Starsky's smile was just-this-side of shyness. "If anybody can figure out how to do that, I know you can. You lead and I'll follow."
Hutch drew himself up into a kneeling position, bending to lavish touches of his lips and hands down the muscular body. Make love to you -- that's what I want... He found hardened nipples to lick, let his palms slide over crisp, curling fur down the plane of the abdomen, fit his hands around the waist that seemed made for his caress. First with his eyes, then fingertips and lips, he adored the hard column of Starsky's sex, tasting the earthy essence of moisture at the tip, sucking the length deep into his throat. You're so easy to love, he thought, all traces of strangeness and discomfort dying.
One sharp, gut-wrenching gasp of pleasure tore at his ears and Starsky trembled. Hutch held the bucking hips firmly, easing off on the cock, nibbling rationed measures of pleasure to hold off the climax until both of them could share it. His hand circled and fondled the wet organ while his lips found and then tasted the delicate balls. A fist in his tangled hair hurt, telling Hutch of the torment Starsky was experiencing.
He looked up into anguished, storm-dark eyes. "There's some oil in the nightstand." Starsky reached and found it. "Would you...put some on me?" Hutch had never asked his partner a question like this before, but the leer in Starsky's smile vanquished his last uncertainty.
His partner opened the bottle and poured a bit into Hutch's palm, then drizzled some over his own fingers. He worked his hands together and reached for Hutch's cock. Taken by all ten slippery, managing fingers, Hutch could barely concentrate enough to apply his own share of the oil to Starsky. He found he was holding his breath, as his eyes were held by his lover's gaze, while his fingers reached low. He massaged along the dividing line, finding he could relax the opening by steady, circling touches.
Tight... Starsky's anus resisted, then allowed his oiled finger to enter. So tight... The beautiful hands that stroked him tightened, too, base to tip, as they drew wetly along his aching length.
A second finger, then a third, and Starsky's eyes glazed over. His slender hands kept working, one stroking steadily, the other reaching to tease Hutch's balls. His voice was roughened with need. "Come on, man. I'm ready. I want it."
Shaken by the force of his friend's desire, Hutch recaptured his control. He turned Starsky until he rested on his side and came to lie behind him. He could feel all of him, shoulders to toes, his knees settling into the bend of Starsky's, one hand reaching under the trim waist to hold the still-needful cock. With his other hand, Hutch helped his own penis to find its place. The heat of Starsky's tight curves against him was almost too much; he wanted to thrust there, just between the taut cheeks, knowing, in this state of high excitement, he could finish in only a couple of strokes. But that wouldn't make them wholly one... He drew in a deep, settling breath, disciplining his desire, and said raggedly, "Bend your knees, babe. Help me get in."
They found their way together, a little awkwardly at first, but even that effort was a form of arousal, Hutch learned. He slid in slowly, a centimeter at a time, wanting to savor the experience of entering Starsky. Both of them were breathing harshly, sweat sealing their bodies together as they strove to perfect their positioning. Starsky trembled so deeply, Hutch could feel the quaking even at the tip of his cock.
"There." He breathed the word into the curve of Starsky's neck. "Feel me?"
The question was obviously rhetorical. "Goddamn, Hutch, what else could I feel?"
"Shhh. Relax. Just hold me there." He kissed the sweat-dewed nape where a shiver waited. "Think about it. Tell me everything you feel."
The answer was a challenge. "Tell me what you feel, hotshot."
With more gentleness and restraint than he had brought to any touch in his life, Hutch rested his hand at the center of Starsky's chest, not pressing, just barely nudging the dusting of hair. "I feel your heart beating." His tongue traced, ever so lightly, along the earlobe. "I feel you breathing."
An answering groan came from deep in Starsky's throat. He pressed back, shoulders and ass, getting even closer to Hutch. His voice was thick, concentrated. "I feel every inch of your skin. So smooth on the outside of me... and hard inside..."
Hutch's eyes closed. He let his hand drift downward, barely skimming the skin until it stopped, curved above Starsky's arrow-stiff cock. Though his palm itched to hold it, he held back, murmuring, "Your cock feels warm."
Starsky drew a breath and his erection found its own way into Hutch's clasp. "So does your hand."
They held still for the space of five heartbeats, ten. Every sensation seemed heightened, bolder, more well—defined. It was working as Hutch had imagined, much more than just one moment of gratification. It was building into the moment of a lifetime.
"Hold your breath," Starsky whispered.
Hutch understood. Bring everything into sharper focus. His heart was pounding even harder than before.
Poised motionless, part of each other, the almost surreal quality of the experience swept years away, carrying Hutch back to that day when, sometime between the hours of four and nine, they had turned comfort into love, love into pleasure. Starsky's bedroom, the place where Vic Bellamy had tried to kill him, had become a dream-place, the shared moments a fragment out of time and space that they didn't know how to fit into their real world. Until now...
We crossed the line, time and time again, but something made us unable to understand what was happening, what it all meant. Were we afraid of breaking a taboo, or just of admitting how sweet the breaking of it was? It seemed so right, that day, so perfect...preordained. It was only later that we let our hang-ups create misunderstandings.
Starsky uttered a low groan and a shudder ran through his body, so profound it echoed in Hutch as well. He was aware of Starsky with every cell of his being.
"I feel like... I could faint or somethin'," Starsky murmured. "It's never been this way for me, Hutch. With anybody..."
"I love you." Hutch hardly had the breath to speak. "Being this close to you..." His voice broke and there was no more talking. A great power was engulfing him, like an undertow dragging him down to the infinite sea. The energy bursting from within, Hutch's pace was slow, deliberate, his flesh reaching further into Starsky, becoming one with him more perfectly. Starsky arched back, squeezing him, pulling him in. Muscles caressed him in ever-tightening waves, blotting out sight and hearing. They moved as one, the overtaking orgasm shattering them from the inside, breaking them down into cells, molecules, atoms, scattering them as dust before a solar wind.
~~~
Lips were kissing him, anxious butterflies that left moisture on his mouth, his cheeks, his eyelids. Hutch came back, a little stunned to find himself all in once piece, awake and alive. He let the kisses revive him a trifle more before he opened his eyes.
"There you are. I thought you were going to sleep another twelve hours on me." Starsky looked beautiful, disheveled, black tendrils curled in a riot, eyes bright sapphires, smile open and engaging as a child's.
"Have I been asleep? Thought I exploded -- thought I died." He reached for Starsky, kissing him softly, seriously. They had ended up facing each other, legs a tangle, skin sticky and moist. His limbs thrummed with satiation and his heart still wasn't quite recovered from its ordeal. "That was--"
"I know." Starsky understood, without words. "Like being torn to pieces and put back together again."
"But some of my pieces are in you, and yours in me." He pulled Starsky to him, to kiss. Hutch couldn't remember all of it, only fragments: himself, clenching in and around Starsky, his existence bursting, pulled out by his partner's irresistible force; Starsky quaking, tightening on Hutch, his seed spending itself into Hutch's hand.
The kiss ended, but they didn't pull apart. They stayed close, breath merging, heartbeats matched. Hutch's hand trailed down the length of Starsky's torso, found traces of semen on his belly. Precious... he thought. No matter how many times this happens, it will always be this way.
"I must have hurt you a lot." He felt solemn, almost reverent.
"No. I'm okay." Starsky's smile was like sunshine.
Hutch shook his head. "I mean, all those times I didn't understand."
"I was doin' some misunderstanding of my own that hurt you, too." Eyes wide, Starsky gave Hutch a searching look as if to determine the extent of the damage.
"Love me like this some more, and I think I'll recover."
"I'll love you like this," Starsky promised, "every night for about the next fifty years. We've got a lot of time to make up for."
Ready to make good on his vow, he rolled on top of Hutch and took his mouth in a kiss. They'd taken each other by storm, by force, in apology and fear, and now, their volatile natures finally getting everything right, the storm was bound to continue. Dizzied by the spinning pleasure in their joining, Hutch wondered distantly what it was going to be like living in the eye of a hurricane forever.
The End
