Chapter Thirteen Worth the Wait

Worth the Wait

As soon as Demetrios closed the door to his bedroom, he pounced.

Pressing Jesse up against the closed door, body crushing his, he kissed him. Devoured him. Claimed his mouth as his own. His pulse erratic, insides burning with passionate fire, he’d been unable to level himself out since Jesse had uttered those words offering him this. Himself. How could he? He’d been dreaming about it for years. He hadn’t even allowed Jesse to drop his bag, and the strap fell from his shoulder as Demetrios kissed him full of heat and passion and such brutal desperation that Jesse had to wriggle free of the satchel and drop it to the floor with a thud.

Demetrios had always been an impassioned lover, no matter who he was bedding. From the long term to the holiday fling, he prided himself on being a giver. Ensuring his partner had the best of him, even if every time his heart lay somewhere else. With someone else.

This time, though, his heart was right there too. Beating only for Jesse.

He couldn’t control it.

He didn’t want to.

Why should he? He’d been denied this for so long.

The kiss deepened, and he scrambled to get his hands under Jesse’s top to roam over smooth skin as his tongue demanded entry into Jesse’s mouth. He crushed his excited body into him, making the door bang against the loose hinges. He reached around Jesse to the handle, twisting the lock, trapping them in and the world out.

Nothing could ruin this. Nothing.

Except himself.

He whimpered, urging his unravelling thoughts to shut off.

“Hey, hey,” Jesse breathed out between fierce kisses, compelling Demetrios to shed tears. He smoothed his hands up Demetrios’ chest. “We’re not gonna rush this, are we?”

Demetrios inhaled, then exhaled, soothing his erratic heart and capricious mind. Dropping his forehead onto Jesse’s, he shook. “Sorry, I just…” He peered into the once familiar blue eyes, watching him through the lenses of the broken glasses, like a damn metaphor for their relationship. Once rose-tinted, they were now chipped and scarred from the view of the past. “I’ve wanted this…you, for so long.”

“Right there with you.” Jesse raked his fingers through Demetrios’ hair and kissed him. “It’s why I don’t want it to be over too soon.”

Demetrios stepped away, cupping his mouth with his hand. He couldn’t stop the shakes, the trembles, the way his body reacted to Jesse here, in his room, giving himself over to Demetrios with unconditional words and sweet kisses he wasn’t sure he should believe in.

Jesse pushed away from the door, wrapping firm fingers around Demetrios’ wrist and tugging his hand away from his mouth. “What is it?”

Demetrios shook his head, the lump in his throat testament to how vulnerable he was right then. How exposed he felt. He’d never had this before. He made people feel special. Feel good. He loved and left. As Yiannis had always said, ‘don’t get your heart broken, only pretend you have.’ But Jesse was different. He wanted to be so deep in Jesse, no one else could reach him. “I’m scared.”

Jesse cocked his head. “Of me?”

“Of sex with you.” Demetrios turned his back on him. “God, sorry. This isn’t…” He twisted back and knew he had to speak his mind or it would sit on his chest and prevent them ever moving forward. “I’ve been hurting so long that now you’re here, I’m…” he searched for the right English words to explain himself. “Weak.”

“Weak?”

“I’ve been dreaming of you. Of this. I’m scared I won’t live up to…what you want. What I want to give you. That something will go wrong and we won’t happen.” He flapped a manic hand between them. “Jesus, Jesse, I’m scared fucking shitless you’ll walk away from me again. That you don’t believe me. That you think this is nothing for me when, God, Jesse, this is everything to me.”

Jesse edged closer, stroking smooth fingertips over his cheek. “I’m right here, Dem.” He kissed him. “Right here. And I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.” He kissed him again and again, heartfelt and languid, and Demetrios’ knees weakened. “I want this. I want you. However you come.”

Demetrios furrowed his brow.

Jesse shook his head. “Whatever this is, whoever you are, whatever happens next, I want this now.”

Demetrios exhaled his fear in one long breath. It eased his fitful heart, and he snaked an arm around Jesse, scooping him up clean off the floor. He kissed him, twirling him around, intending to lay him on the bed and shower him with affection. But having rushed out of his suit to change for his shift at the taverna after his row with Yiannis earlier, he hadn’t cleared the crap from his floor and he stumbled on his discarded dress shoes, toppling forward, crash landing on top of Jesse at the foot of the bed. Jesse oomphed, glasses askew on his nose.

Demetrios scrambled off of him and onto his knees. “You okay?”

Jesse flopped his head back against the bed, then covered his mouth with his hand, stifling an uncontrollable laugh.

Demetrios rose to his feet. “That was supposed to be romantic.”

“I don’t know how to feel about you being prevented from bedding me by the suit you wore to my mum’s funeral.”

“It’s just an obstacle.” Demetrios kicked the shoes and suit away.

“We’ve had many of those.”

“Exactly. Now come here.” Demetrios held out his hand and for a moment, he thought Jesse was going to say no. Was going to say it had been a sign. That they should forget about it. Then he slipped his hand into Demetrios’, allowed himself to be pulled up and, there, chest to chest, Demetrios kissed him. This time with less urgency, exploring Jesse’s mouth, his lips, his face. They fell to the bed with less haste, entangling themselves with limbs, hands and mouths.

Demetrios leaned back, removing Jesse’s glasses for him, folding them neatly on his nightstand, then went right back to losing himself in him, languid kissing ratcheting the pounding in his chest. Every so often, he tilted away to look at him, tracing a finger along his jawline, savouring the roughness of protruding golden stubble, enraptured by such astounding beauty he had to pinch himself.

Jesse breathed through a smile, gazing back at him and Demetrios drowned in eyes the colour of his sea.

“You know how gorgeous you are, right?” Jesse whispered through the stillness and kissed him, flinging his leg over Demetrios’ hip to squeeze him closer, as if that had even been possible, and their bodies melded together like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

“And you’re beautiful.” He nibbled his ear, switching to Greek. “Eísai ómorfos.”

Jesse rolled Demetrios over, clambering over him, and straddled him. Demetrios laid his hands on Jesse’s thighs, watching in anticipation as Jesse ripped off his T-shirt and threw it away, blowing back his hair. Demetrios could drink in that sight forever, have it ingrained to memory, frozen in time like one of Jesse’s drawings. He was perfect, and he ran his hands up Jesse’s sides, along to his chest, skating over hardening nipples.

“Sorry no piercing.” Jesse pouted.

“You don’t need one.”

“What do you even do with one?”

“Whatever you want.” Demetrios ran a thumb over Jesse’s nipple. “You can tweak it. Bite it. Lick around the metal with your tongue—”

“Enough!” Jesse held up a hand. “I don’t wanna know.”

Demetrios chuckled, rising, and snaking an arm around his waist. He kissed him, then suckled on his bottom lip. “You think I’m not jealous of writer guy? I’ll write you a damn book to illustrate if it gets you to keep coming back to my bed.”

“Yeah?” Jesse cocked his head, clamping his arms around Demetrios’ neck. “What type of book? I only give it up for certain genres.”

“The Kama Sutra colouring book.”

Jesse burst out a laugh.

Demetrios squeezed him closer, nibbling his earlobe. “You’re so damn sexy, you have no idea.”

Jesse whimpered, kissing Demetrios, and scrabbled to get under his T-shirt. Demetrios lifted his arms and Jesse whipped it off for him, spinning it around in the air. “You wanna dance with somebody?”

Demetrios kissed him, chuckling. “With somebody like you.”

“Like me?”

“You.”

Jesse chucked the top away and Demetrios huddled him closer, moaning from deep within his gut at how they were bare chest to bare chest. God, it felt magnificent. Skin sliding against skin as their mouths explored and Jesse fell into him, hardness growing inside his shorts.

Jesse scratched his nails down Demetrios’ back, leaving an imprint on his skin. Hunger-fuelled lust feeding Demetrios’ desire, he flicked Jesse down on his back, bed bouncing in the aftermath, and kissed him. He kissed him freely. Ferociously. Planting sweet and sloppy kisses on his neck, his chest, lapping his tongue over hard nipples. He licked down to Jesse’s sternum, over his stomach, and Jesse gripped his hair, writhing and moaning beneath him. It went straight to Demetrios’ swelling cock and he wasn’t sure he’d ever been this hard. This desperate. This frantic.

This in love.

“God, Dem.” Jesse peered down, watching Demetrios sink ever closer to his shorts’ waistband. “I think I might explode.”

Demetrios smirked. “Not yet. Taking it slow, remember?” He bit the button on Jesse’s shorts, using his teeth to jerk them away from his skin, then let go, snapping them back. He needed in there. Now. So he wrestled up on his knees, hands trembling, breathing laboured as he undid Jesse’s shorts. Jesse raised his hips from the bed, allowing Demetrios to shuck them down and discard them with the muck already filling his floor. All that remained between Demetrios and his goal was Jesse’s pure white boxers, thin cotton no concealer to what lay underneath.

Demetrios lowered, planting open-mouthed kisses on Jesse’s hard cock over the soft material of his underwear.

“Jesus.” Jesse raised his hips from the bed.

Demetrios grinned, then tucked his fingers into Jesse’s waistband, lifted them up and over, releasing Jesse’s cock from its cotton confines. He pulled down his boxers, scrambling them off his feet and threw them away, then laid eyes on his prize. “Good to see you again,” he said, voice low and gravelly, before gripping Jesse’s dick.

“It’s happy to see you too,” Jesse said, lifting his head, then collapsing back down with a delightful groan as Demetrios stroked him. “God, that’s good.”

Demetrios smiled, grinned, as he palmed Jesse’s cock and all the fear and panic vanished. The last time he’d done this for Jesse, he’d left him immediately after. He’d said those dreaded words that had rung in his mind for the past nine years. That this couldn’t happen. They couldn’t happen. Now he was going to show him they could. They would, and he wriggled forward, urging Jesse’s legs up and apart so he could shimmy down and take Jesse into his mouth, a salty tang exploding on his tongue.

“Dem,” Jesse eased out.

Demetrios stroked him again, cockhead disappearing into his palm and when it reappeared with every up slide, the glistening tip had Demetrios gluttonous. Humming in delirium, he suckled on Jesse’s silky, wet tip, licking the slit, circling the head, then opened his mouth and gobbled the hard, pulsating flesh down to the back of his throat.

Gáma nai.

He had Jesse. Naked. In his mouth.

He sucked, up, down, forcing more into his mouth, and devouring Jesse with languid strokes, teasing his cock as if it were simply an apéritif to cleanse his pallet. Not wanting want to get Jesse to the edge, he took his time, discovering what he liked, how much he wanted, how it felt to be this way with him. Sensual and erotic was who he was. Not hard and fast.

Jesse grappled with the bed sheets, twisting them in clenched fists. “God, Dem. Fuck. That’s…” He squirmed, thrusting his hips, trying to get more of himself in Demetrios’ mouth. “Please.”

Demetrios soothed him with a hand on his belly, resisting him from forcing more into him and giving him the space to lick, to taste, to suckle. He then slurped off, fondling his balls, giving them some attention with his tongue and mouth, while rubbing the skin beneath, saliva gathering in his mouth and dripping out of the corners.

He then raised up on his knees and wiped the drool from his lips with the back of his wrist, Jesse narrowing his eyes at him as he unbuttoned his shorts, seductively gliding the zip down to reveal the black and white lettering of his boxers’ waistband.

“Get ‘em off,” Jesse growled.

“Never had you down as bossy.”

Jesse scrambled up, got on his knees in front of Demetrios, and kissed him. “Never thought you’d have such a dirty mouth.” He took over, shucking down Demetrios’ shorts and underwear and Demetrios had to lift his knees to get them off. As he did, he fell forward at the moment Jesse leapt in for a kiss and they clashed heads.

Jesse fell back, rubbing his forehead. “Ouch.”

Demetrios kicked off his shorts, scurrying back to land on top of Jesse. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Jesse laughed again, settling Demetrios’ thudding heart. “D’you think we’re too eager?”

“I know I am.” Demetrios kissed him and Jesse held him, rolling around on the bed to joyous laughter amidst languid kisses. Demetrios’ heart hadn’t ever felt so free, so full, expanding in his chest like an over inflated balloon ready to burst.

Jesse rolled on top of him, sliding his body against his, and his dick rubbed along his own. Demetrios slapped two hands on Jesse’s arse cheeks, rutting them together, harder and faster with heady friction that could cause flint to spark. Jesse kissed down his body, licking up the salty sweat from his skin, nipping and biting as though starved and Demetrios was his to feast on. Reaching his cock, he took Demetrios into his mouth, and Demetrios sank into the sheets as Jesse sucked on him with more delicious urgency than Demetrios had used. As though he wanted to get Demetrios to the edge. Wanted to drain him down his throat.

“God, Jesse,” Demetrios gripped his hair, attempting to slow him down so he could watch his dick vanishing inside Jesse’s lips, only to reemerge, then delve back into his expert mouth. Jesse could deep throat, no gag reflex, and for a moment Demetrios hated whoever he’d done this with before. Whoever he’d practiced on. Whoever had given him tips and tricks. His chest tightened, adrenaline charging through him at the injustice mixed with raw, guttural pleasure. Jesse was good.

Toogood.

Unable to hold on, Demetrios heaved Jesse off by his hair, his mouth still wide open, wet and dripping. Demetrios wrenched him forward and kissed him, rolling him over, grinding his dick on Jesse’s, patience waning. “Need inside you,” he panted between feral kisses.

Jesse dug his fingers into his arse, raising his hips from the bed to rut their dicks together. “Then get in me.”

Demetrios had to let him go to lean across him to the nightstand. He rummaged in the drawer, finding the condoms and lube, and when he rose back up, straddling Jesse, he shook, attempting to rip open the condom wrapper, adrenalin scaling out of control.

Jesse rose from the bed, wrapping his hands around Demetrios’ and took the packet from him. He ripped it with his teeth, eyes not leaving Demetrios, then unravelled the condom over his solid, eager cock. “Dressed and ready to party,” Jesse said with a slick smirk.

Demetrios grabbed the pillow from the other side of the bed. “Raise your hips.”

Jesse did and Demetrios tucked the pillow underneath him, then squeezed the lube onto his hands. He shunted Jesse’s legs back and apart, lathering along Jesse’s taint before teasing his hole. He circled him with a wet finger, then eased one inside him. Jesse clenched around him and Demetrios stroked Jesse’s cock, palming his shaft, rubbing a thumb over his seeping slit, then went inside with another finger, twisting and stretching. “That okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. Keep going.”

Demetrios fondled inside him, then drew his fingers out, inching them back in, emulating how his cock was going to impale that hole. There, he kept his fingers inside Jesse, slow and cautious, stimulating his prostate.

“Oh, fuck, God.” Jesse writhed beneath him, thrusting his hips to get more of Demetrios’ fingers inside him.

“How’s that feel?” Demetrios stroked, watching Jesse melt into the sheets, and rubbed along his taint with his slick wet fingers.

“Yeah,” Jesse breathed out. “Yeah. Fuck, yeah. Good.”

“You’re beautiful like this.” Demetrios fisted Jesse’s cock while stroking inside him, making him a slave to his fingers and he lost himself, switching to Greek. “S’agapó…agapó afto…”

Thank God he’d said that in Greek. In his delirium, he’d just admitted he loved him. Loved this.

“Fuck, Dem. You might wanna get inside me unless you want this over.” Jesse wrapped his hand around the one Demetrios had on his cock, both urging him on and forcing him to stop.

Demetrios eased his strokes to a gradual and deliberate caress, then drew out his fingers, holding the base of his cock, edging the tip to Jesse’s entrance. “You’ve heard what they say, right?”

Jesse lifted his head from the pillow. “What? Who?”

“Once you go Greek, you won’t walk for a week.”

“God, Dem,” Jesse groaned, falling back onto the bed. “Get in me. Now.”

Demetrios chuckled, deep and dirty, then edged inside Jesse, heat engulfing his cock. He waited there. Taking it all in. Jesse, beneath him, drawing him into his body, head thrown back in a mix of pleasure and pain, hips rising from the pillow. It was a dream. A magnificent dream. One Demetrios wouldn’t ever wake up from.

Jesse released the sheets curled in his fists and grappled for Demetrios, urging for more inside him. Demetrios sank down, Jesse’s legs bent over his shoulders and he eased out, then slowly, painfully, agonisingly, plunged back in.

“Oh, God, Dem.” Jesse’s eyes welled. “Dem. It’s too much. Too slow.”

Demetrios was unhurried, despite Jesse’s pleas. Meticulously easing in, then sliding out, edging back in so he could study the emotions playing over Jesse’s face. He willed for his heart to calm. For the beats against his chest to ease the ache he’d been living with for far too long. It had always been too painful to feel anything else, these moments being for the other person. But not now. Not then. Not with Jesse. He wanted to feel it all. And he was, the lump lodged in his throat filled with the words he couldn’t say, didn’t want to say, feared to say. He shifted the angle, holding under Jesse’s legs to watch himself, because if he didn’t, how would he ever believe this had happened?

“Dem, Dem…” Jesse’s call of his name was ethereal, as if Demetrios had climbed out of his body and was watching the scene from above, as if it were a memory. Like the way he did with every other moment he cherished and had shared with Jesse.

“Fuck me, Dem. Fucking fuck me.”

Demetrios could have wept. There was Jesse. Real and present. And this was them. What they could have been. This astounding mass of sweat and flesh and hands and limbs, crashing souls together to become one. Demetrios trembled, oozing sweat from his skin despite keeping to an agonisingly slow rhythm. He couldn’t maintain this rhythm, though. He needed to hold Jesse. Needed to be as close to him as possible.

He lifted one of Jesse’s legs, twisting him around, trying to stay inside him, but it was impossible and he urged Jesse onto his side, snuggling down behind him, holding his cock and finding Jesse’s opening again. Wrapping an arm around his waist, he thrust up, impaling back inside Jesse’s hot, wet body, forcing a unrestrained groan from Jesse that vibrated through to his chest.

They spooned, with Demetrios thrusting inside him, unable to go hard and fast, doing what Jesse had asked of him, because he wanted to take his time. To make love to him, and in doing so, making up for the years of not being able to. With Jesse’s cock in his hand, matching his thrusts with strokes, and him kissing Jesse’s shoulder, his neck, his back, they melded into a rhythm that had them both groaning in pleasure.

“Missed you, to moró mou,” Demetrios breathed into his ear through the tempered thrusts. “Missed you so, so much.”

Jesse flung his head back, mouth open to release his shallow gasps, and he raised an arm, grabbing Demetrios’ neck to keep their bodies rubbing together in one fluid movement. “Dem, fuck, Dem. You’re everything. This is everything.”

Demetrios prevented his tears by fucking harder, speeding up on Jesse’s cock to get him to where he was. To the edge. Floating. High. “I’m near,” he whispered into Jesse’s ear.

Jesse dug his fingers into Demetrios’ neck behind him, other hand fisting the pillow under his head and Demetrios let out an elongated moan as his entire body tensed, then exploded in a trembling fit as he released himself inside Jesse.

“God, Deme,” Jesse cried out, emptying himself into Demetrios’s hand, onto his bed sheets and wherever else, shaking in the aftermath.

Demetrios clutched Jesse to his chest, Jesse’s fingers loosening around his neck, and he dropped his arm to intertwine his fingers with his. Demetrios inhaled the lingering scents of briny sea meshed with damp, salty sweat on Jesse’s skin. He didn’t want to let him go. Not then. Not ever. He kissed his shoulder, ghosting his lips there as he eased out of Jesse, tugged off the condom and discarded it to the floor.

“That was…” Jesse inhaled. “Worth the wait.”

“To kaló prágma aryí na gíni.”

Jesse peered behind him. “What does that mean?”

Demetrios rubbed the tip of his nose along Jesse’s cheek. “Greek proverb. A good thing takes time.”

Jesse smiled, then wriggled, twisting in his arms to face him, and kissed him. They lay like that for a while, gazing at each other, supporting each other through the comedown.

Breaking the lingering silence, Jesse asked, “What do you think would have happened to us if my mum hadn’t been messing around with your dad?”

Demetrios snuggled him closer and inhaled the question, as if he hadn’t been thinking about it for nine years. “We’d have made love a long time ago.”

“Uh huh.” Jesse kissed him. “Several times, if what just happened is anything to go by.”

Demetrios chuckled, kissing his nose. “You’d have gone back to England. To university.”

Jesse pouted. “And you?”

“Would have been brave enough to follow you there.”

Jesse’s lips curved into a smile, eyes twinkling. “What would you have done in London?”

“Got a job.”

“Doing what?”

“Bar work. Waiting.” Demetrios shrugged. “Only thing I know how to do. They have Greek restaurants over there, right?”

“Real Greek.”

“Is it?” Demetrios furrowed his brow.

Jesse laughed. “It’s the name of a chain of Greek restaurants. Food’s okay. Obvs not a patch on the Kallis menu.”

“Thought you would have been avoiding the Greek restaurants.”

Jesse shrugged, difficult considering he was squashed in Demetrios’ arms. “I like to torture myself in nostalgia now and then.”

Demetrios stroked his hands down Jesse’s back. “I could play my guitar and sing in the street?”

“You’d have made a killing.”

“We’d have come back each summer to work in the taverna and spent our days off lazing on our beach, the evenings dancing in the bars, and making love through the nights.”

“That sounds…pretty perfect.”

“Then when you left university, you’d have become an artist and you could do that from Naxos. So we’d have moved back here, I’d’ve taken over the taverna, and you’d sit on the veranda drawing, selling your art to the tourists. Babá would retire and sit with all the other old folks along the strip, complaining about all the Brits while getting college girls drunk on Mythos and ouzo.”

“You’ve…thought about this before.”

“Many times.”

Jesse buried his head into Demetrios’ chest, tears smeared into his skin.

“Hey?” He kissed the top of his head, stroking his back. “No tears tonight.”

Jesse peered up, eyes glazing. “I wish we could go back.”

Demetrios smiled, melancholy hitting hard. He did too. But he didn’t want this to be a sad moment. He couldn’t bear that what they’d done had led to tears and broken hearts. He wanted to keep it special. Something to cherish. So he tucked a finger under Jesse’s chin, lifting his face to kiss him. “We have now.”

Jesse closed his eyes, resting his head on Demetrios’s chest as they manoeuvred themselves into the most comfortable position, with Demetrios on his back and Jesse curled up next to him, circling a finger around Demetrios’ nipple. “That saying you told me? About when you go Greek?”

“Mmm hmm?”

“It’s not true, by the way.”

“What isn’t?”

“I’ve had Greek, and I could definitely go again.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Now?”

Jesse yawned. “Maybe not right now.”

Demetrios chuckled and snuggled Jesse closer. “Then you better stay right here so we can test it later.”

“I better had.”

Demetrios kissed Jesse’s forehead and smiled.

He better stay forever.

Just to make sure.