Twenty-one

Iwoke late that afternoon. After showering, I made my way downstairs to find the kitchen empty. Unlike other mornings, there was no sign of food having been recently cooked or any evidence that he’d been here, so I assumed he was still sleeping.

I made myself a quick brunch of cheese omelette, bacon, and toast and went to sit out by the pool. It was another stifling day, with no breeze to speak of and very little cloud, and I soon fell asleep on one of the loungers by the pool.

When I woke up an hour later and he still hadn’t appeared, I went inside to wake him up. His room was empty.

A momentary panic gripped me that he’d gone back to Boston without even saying goodbye, but when I checked the bathroom and saw his toiletry bag was still there and pulled open the wardrobe to see his suitcase, I relaxed.

It was another two hours before I heard the sound of the front door opening, a muffle of voices, one of which was Ken’s, the other Cas’s.

I’d been half-watching a film in the living room and got up to go meet them at the door. Ken was carrying three plastic shopping bags while Caspien was carrying a fourth.

“…down to the kitchen for you?” Ken was asking.

Caspien spotted me as I came out into the hall, and his face was a mask of inexpression.

“It’s fine, Ken. Jude can carry them down,” he said. “Jude, take them will you?” I obeyed, watching as Caspien handed Ken a folded ￡50 note.

“You should have said, I’d have come shopping with you.” I was putting away the groceries while Cas lifted them out of the bag and set them on the counter.

“I was at an orthopaedic appointment,” he told me. “I went shopping on a whim; we needed a few things.”

I stopped what I was doing and turned to him. “What did they say? Is it healing alright?”

“Seems like it.”

“Did they tell you when you’d be able to play again?” I asked. “Piano, that is, not tennis.”

His mouth twitched with a small smile. “I’ll need to wear the splint for another eight weeks or so.” He’d played every day when we’d been in Deveraux. I couldn’t imagine how he was feeling.

“I’m sorry, Cas.”

“Stop apologising for it,” he said sharply before saying he was going to take a shower.

We made a dinner of halloumi, couscous stuffed peppers, and salad, and ate it with a bottle of rosé wine.

He hadn’t mentioned last night while we cooked, hadn’t even indicated he remembered it, but something in the way he avoided touching me or making eye contact as we moved around the kitchen, told me that he did. My own nerves were frayed from trying to pretend it hadn’t happened. I’d not stopped thinking about it all day: of how softly he’d whispered that he missed me, of how close he’d been to kissing me, of how he thought more than he should about the night in Oxford.

We’d been eating dinner in a taut silence when the thin string of my patience snapped. I couldn’t take it any longer.

“Can we ta—” I started.

“So, have y—” he began at the same time.

“No, it’s fine, you go,” I said.

“I was just going to ask if you’d heard from Luke,” he said.

I blinked at him. “What?”

He lifted his eyes from his plate. “You said he was thinking about coming over.”

“Um...No. I haven’t spoken to Luke.”

“Okay,” he said. “What were you going to say?”

“Forget it.”

His expression flickered, and he went back to eating. After a few moments, he said, “Are you looking forward to going back to uni?”

I dropped my fork onto my plate and scrubbed a hand over my mouth. Beside me, Cas flinched.

“Seriously? You’re asking me about uni right now?”

He looked lost. “We haven’t really talked about it. I was just curious about whether you were enjoying it.”

I let out a hollow laugh. “I don’t know how you do it, Cas, I honestly don’t.”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You’re exactly the same as you’ve always been. This is all just another bloody act: this version of you.” I waved in his general direction. “The one cooking me dinner, asking me things like you care about the answers, telling me you miss me. Who are you with him? Which version does he get? I’m curious.”

Carefully, he set his cutlery down and picked up his napkin to wipe his mouth. “I’m not sure why you’re being like this; it was just a question. You’ve wanted to go to Oxford for as long as I’ve known you, Jude; I wondered if it was everything you hoped it would be. That’s all.”

“Sure. That’s all.” I lifted my wine glass and drained it before reaching for the bottle.

“Is it not going well?” He looked almost worried about me. “Are you doing alright there?”

“I stopped seeing Finn by the way. I fucked my film studies professor instead.”

Sparks of something flared in the ice blue of his eyes. Thrilled, I went on.

“He came to Jersey for the summer to write a screenplay, and we spent it together. It was perfect. Actually, he’s perfect. He asked me to go to New York with him. I’ll probably go over at Christmas,” I lied.

“I’m pretty sure professors don’t fuck their students during the summer holidays,” he said. “So excuse me if the word perfect feels like a bit of a contradiction.”

“He was my ex-professor when we fucked.” The term sounded absurd then. “And he was a guest.”

“Oh, well, that makes all the difference.” His tone was unpleasant as he lifted his wine. “I’m sure the Oxford University Council will see it exactly like that.”

I felt anger surge in my chest at the implication, followed by a distinct note of fear. “Remind me what age you were when you met that famous celebrity lawyer of yours, again?” I snapped. Cas sipped his wine but said nothing. “Nathan’s one of the best people I’ve ever met – a million miles away from that fucking pervert you ran off with, so you can piss off with your threats and snide remarks.”

Cas was watching me very closely, breathing very quickly.

“I see,” he said at last.

“What do you bloody see?”

“You’re in love with him.”

I stared at him, speechless. Then, I began to laugh. Near hysterical laughter that sounded insane in the echo of the kitchen.

“Oh, I fucking wish,” I said when it had died in my throat. “I fucking wish.”

With a last contemplative look in my direction, Cas stood and carried his plate into the kitchen. I watched him tip the food waste into the small compost bin and then set the plate on the counter so he could open the dishwasher.

The laughter had died off, and in its place, sadness and regret swelled inside me. I hadn’t wanted this. I’d wanted to talk properly, to show him that he could trust me and talk to me about whatever was wrong.

How had I made this about myself? I was acting like a child again. I carried my own plate over and scraped the leftovers. He’d begun clearing the rest of the table, and I watched him for a bit before moving to help.

“I can do it, Jude,” he said without any heat.

“Yeah, I know you can.”

Still, I helped him. When the kitchen was a white expanse of polished marble again, we stood awkwardly at opposite sides of it, looking at each other. The words I’d thrown at him at the table sat weighty in the space between us.

“Well, I think I’ll go to bed,” he said, though it wasn’t even 8 pm. “I’m tired.”

He went.

After he left, I poured another glass of wine, but it had turned to poison on my tongue, so I poured it down the sink and tried to fight what was clawing against the inside of my chest. But I was tired. I didn’t want to fight anymore. It felt like I’d been fighting him, us, for years and I was done with it.

I turned and charged upstairs and down the hall toward his bedroom. I didn’t knock as I opened the door and went inside. He stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom, and he whipped around as I approached him.

We reached for each other at the same time, and as he gasped into my mouth, I took his face in my hands and kissed him hard. I backed him up against the sink, careful not to hurt his hand, as I slid my hands into his hair and tasted his mouth for the first time in a lifetime. It was an antidote. Except he was my poison, too.

“Tell me again,” I said.

He made a small, desperate noise as I bit his lip roughly. Holding his chin, I forced him to look into my eyes. “Tell me again that you missed me.”

“I missed you,” he breathed, reaching for the button of my shorts.

The desperate way he nipped at my jaw went to my head, both of them, and I pulled him out of the bathroom. We undressed ourselves, though I helped him pull his T-shirt over his head and unfasten his sling, before I pushed him back on the bed.

As he lay sprawled there, panting, naked, and hard, I tried to consider what this would mean, how much it was going to hurt when he left me again – because he would, it was what he did, and decided I didn’t care. I was Jude. He was Cas. This was us.

What was one more battle scar on my heart when the war was this glorious?

I also decided that, this time, I would take my time.

I kissed every inch of skin that I could reach with my mouth, dotted kisses along every dip and rise of his body, swallowed every gasp he let slip past his lips, pressed my mouth over his heart, and made unspoken promises against his skin. I love you, I love you, I love you.

“Jude,” he said breathlessly. My name spilled over and over again from his mouth as he writhed and begged and reached for me with his hand.

I kissed along his collarbone and down his inner arm, all the way to his injured hand, where I kissed the exposed part of his palm. He fisted my hair, and I looked up to find his gaze sparkling with some intense emotion I couldn’t name. I wouldn’t say it out loud again; I wasn’t strong enough not to hear it returned, but I tried to say it with my eyes, with my hands, with my mouth. I crawled up his body to kiss him on the mouth again, and he kissed me back deeply, devouring my lips as though he was starved. He pushed at my chest and nudged me onto my back, climbing over me so that he was facing away from me, the nodes of his spine popping out as he bent his head and swallowed my dick. I arched up into the perfect sweet pleasure of his mouth, moaning his name.

“Cas, fuck, that feels...” I broke off into a groan as he pushed me deeper into his throat. Tight heat swallowing over the head again and again, driving me insane. When I heard him choke on it, I stopped thrusting and pulled out. The apology never made it past my lips.

“Do it again,” he said, forcing my dick down his throat again.

It felt so good I was seconds away from coming, but somehow he knew when to pull back just enough, when to loosen his throat just the right amount, to keep me teetering on the edge. I grabbed his thighs, and pulled him backward so I could reach his hole with my mouth.

The instant my mouth touched it he sat bolt upright, back arching so beautifully that I was momentarily distracted. Elegant lines and smooth golden skin scattered with little delicate freckles. He was gorgeous from every angle, the most beautiful person I’d ever seen, ever touched, and my lust swelled in my chest. He leaned forward again and took me into his mouth, but since I wanted this to last, I needed him not to. I slid myself out from under him and positioned myself behind, bending Cas over on all fours so he was facing the bottom of the bed, and took his hole to my mouth again.

“Jude,” he moaned, wanton and loose, pushing back into my mouth. “Jude, that feels...”

“Good?”

“Incredible, Christ, so bloody good. Don’t stop.”

I set about it again. Spreading him open with my hands as I fucked my tongue inside him, spearing that perfect tight heat over and over. By degrees, I felt him loosen and widen around my tongue, the small hot space opening like a hungry mouth. He shifted his head so he rested on his shoulder and then used his hand on himself frantically, gasping with pleasure beneath me.

I pulled back and sucked my finger into my mouth before pushing it inside him. The noise he made was filthy, depraved, and he arched his back deeper to push back onto it, fucking himself with it. My mind was utterly calm, utterly clear, and utterly focused on every breath of his pleasure. I wanted to make him crazy from lust, from need, from how much he wanted me. My cock was hard and leaking at the head as I pulled my finger out and ran it teasingly over his hole.

Cas whimpered. “I need you inside me, please Jude, please.”

I needed it, too. I pressed a kiss to the base of his spine and then both cheeks as I asked, “Do you have lube? Condoms?”

“There’s lotion next to the bed.”

There was. Some large medicinal-looking tub with a doctor’s prescription on the side. I pulled off the lid and thrust my fingers in. It was the consistency of soft wax; I scooped some up and rubbed it all around his opening before spreading the rest over the head of my cock. I knew we should use something, but since we hadn’t the night in Oxford, and since Nathan and I always had, and since Cas didn’t seem to care, it faded from my list of concerns as quickly as the thought entered my brain. I covered his body with my own, cocooning him under me, and reached out to settle my hand over his to intertwine our fingers, and then I pushed inside him. He took me easily, the strange waxy lotion making the slide smooth and easy. I pressed my mouth to his hair, his temple, and then to the space below his ear.

“Fuck, Cas.” I groaned.

He whined, delicious and soft, and then turned his head to find my mouth, kissing me with his own wide open, tongue desperately seeking mine.

“You’re...so...big,” he gasped. “I love it so much. I love how you feel inside me. Christ...Jude...”

“I know.” I kissed him. “Fuck, you were made for me, Cas, I swear you were. You feel so good. So perfect.” I kissed him again.

He made another soft whimpering noise, and then I was all the way in, pulsing against the tight space inside of him. I felt his heartbeat move with mine, and with the cadence of it in my ears and in my chest, I began to move. Slow at first, gentle at first, careful at first, but soon I couldn’t help myself. I sped up, fucking him rougher, quicker. I shifted, sitting back so that I was kneeling, and used my hips to thrust up and into him. This changed the angle of my dick inside him and it had a breath-taking effect, he let out a loose, throaty sound and sat up, using his good hand to stroke himself as he fucked himself down onto my dick.

It felt incredible. I wrapped an arm around his body and pulled him against my chest. Holding the base of his throat and his hip, I rutted up and into him even faster, deeper, until he was moaning and thrashing in my arms.

“Oh my god,” he gasped.

I moved my hand from his hip across to his dick, taking over where he was half stroking. It was burning hot and perfectly hard, and I began to jerk him off as I continued to thrust. The strangled noise from his throat told me he wouldn’t last much longer.

He came loudly a few moments later, over the bed sheets, as well as my hand before he forced my hand off his dick, sensitive now.

“Keep fucking me,” he said. “Don’t stop.”

“Cas, I’m going to...”

“Do it. Inside me, Jude, I want to feel you come inside me.”

The orgasm rose like an earthquake, shooting through me from the bottom up, rocking my entire body, before I exploded inside the warm grip of his body. Still coming down from his own, he milked me from the inside, soft clenches of his body around my dick so that it felt like it would never end.

After, I slipped out of him, along with a warm rush of come, and fell back onto the pillows. He didn’t do what I expected him to, which was go directly to the bathroom to find something to clean us with, instead moving to lie down next to me. He lay on his back at first before I reached out to stroke a finger down his side, then he turned to face me.

Bliss settled, warm as milk in my veins as I waited for the familiar melancholy to settle over me. But as I gazed into his eyes, and as he smiled that small hesitant smile at me, I knew the feeling wouldn’t come this time.

“Well, that was...something,” he said, still smiling. It wasn’t a smile I’d ever seen on him before: almost shy. It made my chest ache.

I smiled back at him. “It really was.”

There was no warning before he did it; he just rose up and leaned over me, kissing me very gently on the mouth.

I knew the bliss couldn’t last. I knew I didn’t have him. That he couldn’t love me. But my mind and body didn’t care. So great and absolute was the pleasure I felt in that perfect moment. I wanted to bathe in it, in him, gorge myself so that when he left me, I would be able to sustain myself on it for the months and years to come.