16. “That all the world will be in love with night”

16

"That all the world will be in love with night"

Then

I could feel where Romeo had been when I moved. When I sat down. When I laughed or clenched my ass. The tenderness was with me for the whole of the next day and most of the one after that too.

I loved it.

I fucking lived for it.

To me, it was evidence. Proof I'd been with Romeo. Proof he was my lover. Proof life was good and the future was yet to be written.

There was a strangeness between us. No, not a strangeness. An awareness. A newness.

I didn't think Romeo was comfortable talking about what had happened between us, and truthfully, neither was I. It was so far out of the bounds of friendship and the realm of anything that had happened between us before that it was hard to find words to make sense of it. But it was there, winding its way around us and through us. There was a tension, a decadent pull, that put pressure on every part of my body. Every second was heightened. I was waiting. Anticipating. Expecting my turn. We both knew it would happen. We just didn't know when.

By Saturday night, I couldn't take it. I felt sure I'd go insane if I didn't have him or if I somehow fucked it up and things went back to normal between us. It was the last night before my parents came home, which put a rush on things. I knew it. He knew it too. He could feel it the same way I did. I knew he could.

Fuck. I swear I thought he felt it too.

Eventually, I cracked. It was late, maybe ten or eleven. I was lying on my bed, still fully dressed, when I plucked up enough courage to send Romeo a message.

So, when's my turn?

He replied so fast I allowed myself to believe he'd been sitting in his room, phone in hand, waiting for me to ask.

Is your window open?

A rush of warmth, love, and lust bloomed in my chest as I read his words. I replied with the only word I ever used in reply to that question. One word. Six letters.

Always .

I pushed my window open completely. It was a balmy night. One of those nights that's so warm and still that it's hard to tell the difference in temperature between the air on your skin and the blood in your veins. A night that carried a promise, a possibility, of changing my life. I breathed it in, and when I stepped back, a slight breeze caused my curtains to billow around me.

I showered hurriedly in very hot water. I hardly felt it. I didn't use cologne, and I dried my hair roughly with a towel, ensuring it was dry enough that Romeo wouldn't think I'd made too much effort for him. I put on my favorite pair of jeans and left the top button open. My feet were bare, sinking into the carpet as I paced around my room. I straightened my bed, switched off the overhead light, and switched my table lamp on. That was too bright, so I turned the table lamp off too. Too dark.

I fumbled with the switch behind my nightstand and plugged in the Himalayan salt lamp Lexi had given me for Christmas the year before. A gentle pink-peach glow warmed the space. The mish-mash of posters above my bed glinted where the light hit them. I was pleased. It was moody but still light enough that I'd be able to see everything. Even in my addled state, I knew that was important. I knew it was a night I wanted to remember .

I sat on the edge of my bed with my hands balled into fists in my lap and listened keenly for anything other than the battering ram that was my heart. My soul almost left my body when I heard the hollow thunk of Romeo's footsteps on the garage roof. It felt like I'd come full circle. Like I'd been waiting all my life for this moment. Romeo's silhouette filled the window and his shadow spilled onto the floor. A sprinkling of stars lit the night sky behind him like a halo. He was the night. He was light and dark woven together. He was quiet moments coated in stardust. He was perfect. He was everything I'd ever wanted. Everything I would ever want. He climbed in through the window, crouching and stepping in with his usual feline ease, and pulled his shirt off over his head before he'd fully straightened.

That shocked me. I'd expected him to be awkward and both of us to be a bit spluttery and unsure. I thought we'd stand around trying to think of things to say to each other and that I'd need to jump through hoops in some way to convince him this was a good idea. It was nothing like that. It was more like two magnets that had been held apart for as long as they could be.

Romeo was devastating shirtless. Half of him bathed in the cool blue of the moon, the other half glowing from the lamp on my nightstand. His skin was smooth. Silk draped over taut muscle. There were fine indents on his arms and shoulders and a suggestion of a line down his torso. His nipples were small and pink. Hard from the breeze outside. Or hard from me. I wasn't sure which. He looked sheepish, mischievous, maybe. His mouth twisted in that little sideways quirk, but his eyes were shadowed darkly. There was something new and endless in them. Something I wanted. I got so lost in his eyes that I hardly noticed him undoing his pants and pushing them down.

I definitely noticed when they hit the ground. Believe me. I noticed that.

Romeo was in my bedroom. And he was stark naked.

I was dry-mouthed and paralyzed, and I wasn't sure if I should attempt to get off the bed or wait for him to come to me. I had no idea what the social norm for things like that was. I started to panic, my face warming and making things worse. Fortunately, my legs decided for me, launching me up and propelling me toward Romeo, not stopping until we stood toe-to-toe. My hands floated up and found their way into his hair. It was thick and coarse between my fingers. Cool from the night air. He looked up at me and smiled as I leaned in to kiss him. It was one of those kisses that brought thunder on contact. The world darkened and a low rumble sounded in the distance .

Romeo parted his lips, yielding to me, and I licked into his mouth. Our tongues rubbed together. Slippery roughness against slippery roughness. My hands were everywhere. In his hair, on his face and neck, and all over his body, tearing at his flesh and then caressing it softly. He reached between us, shoving me back just enough to undo my zipper. It gave me a little shock. A little warning that this wasn't my imagination at play. It was real. It took both of us to get my jeans off. I was tugging them down as he was unzipping. It was messy and much harder than it should have been. When it was done, when we were both naked, something changed.

I lowered my chin and widened my stance.

Romeo tilted his face to me, eyes dancing with humor and warning, and said, "Easy, Tiger."

He gave me a look I knew well—the tightness in his top lip, the single arched brow. It was how he looked right before he cracked a belly laugh, and I loved him for that. It sliced through the tension in the room and made unfamiliar things feel familiar. It made new things feel like they'd happened a hundred times before.

We were standing close to each other, so I didn't have much space for a run-up, but that didn't stop me. I put my head down, my arms out, and tackled him onto my bed. We both fell, laughing hysterically. There were hands, feet, and bony knees all over the place. There was naked skin everywhere too. I pinned Romeo easily, holding him down by both wrists.

He didn't resist.

Not even a little.

Our laughter faded abruptly the second our bodies made contact. We were face-to-face. Dick-to-dick. I held myself up on my hands and elbows and rolled my hips against his. I shuddered on contact. His dick was hot to touch and hard, solid steel against mine.

Mine liked it a lot.

I ground against him again and his eyelids grew heavy and slid to half-mast as I watched. His jaw was slack, but his gaze didn't leave mine.

I leaned down and kissed him again. Slow and sweet that time. Time slipped when we touched. Slid. Tore. It took us to a different place. A new place. A place where the air was thick and life was as sweet and heady as Romeo's kisses.

The kiss seemed to last forever, a warm, gooey cascade of goodness that washed over me again and again. Every brush of his lips on mine tasted like more. Every light stamp gave rise to another. Neither of us could stop it. When I tried to lift my head, Romeo wound his hands around the back of my neck and pulled me closer .

When the kiss finally ended, my blood had run thick, my thoughts slow and cumbersome. My lips were hot and chaffed.

Nothing existed but the man in my bed.

My Romeo.

He lay on his back and watched thoughtfully as I reached over and got the lube from my nightstand. He bit his bottom lip and quirked it at the same time. I remember him like that so clearly that if I close my eyes, I can still see it.

He was nervous, but he also wasn't. I'd seen Romeo nervous often enough that I knew how to spot signs of his anxiety at a hundred yards with ease. This wasn't that. It was more like anticipation. More like excitement. It flickered in his eyes, spinning the kaleidoscope so hard and fast it made me dizzy.

He didn't roll over, which surprised me, so I guess I'd been expecting to take him on all fours the way he'd taken me. He stayed as he was, his glorious head nestled into my pillow, cocked slightly in my direction as I spread lube on my fingers. He opened his legs for me when I was ready, spreading his knees wide, leaving the soles of his feet resting close together. He did it without me nudging or asking at all. The sight of him like that was a gut punch of arousal so strong I had to press my lips together to stifle a moan .

I wanted to kiss every inch of his skin, to caress it, bite it, and claim it as mine. I wanted to start and never stop. I wanted to lick him and love him and worship his body. I wanted to make it so there'd never be anyone else for Romeo as long as he lived.

I didn't do it though. I couldn't. I was hampered by the ridiculousness that was our little "practicing sex on each other" fa?ade. Held back by the fact there was a blurred line between us, and I knew I had to toe that line or risk crossing over and dropping straight into the category of too much .

Too close.

Too gay.

I did stroke him though. I knelt between his legs and lifted his dick as it lay swollen and stretched out on his belly, slowly sliding my left hand up and down his length as my right hand moved lower. I ran my fingers up and down his crease. I felt the change in temperature as I got closer to what I wanted. Body heat changing to body heat . I let my fingers wander until I found what I wanted. It was a little lower than I'd expected and a lot more sensitive if the way his eyes slammed shut on contact was anything to go by. I felt the tiny creases holding him closed against the pad of my finger, and fuck me, I wanted it. I wanted him. Like that. On his back. Legs spread. I wanted to open him. To fill him. That was the fantasy. That was what I wanted. What I'd wanted for as long as it'd been decent for me to want such things.

I touched him like that on the outside for a while, taking my time, giving him light touches and soft nudges. I did it until his hips rolled and his dick strained and thickened in my hand, then I slid my middle finger into him. He was tight and impossibly hot. So hot it felt magic, not human. His body reacted immediately. A hard jolt followed by a strong tug. A push and a pull. His ring clenched and squeezed, sucking me in as I worked my finger into him. He was smooth inside, tight and elastic, and fuck, I loved that. He was hot silk I'd made slippery.

I added another finger, which he accepted with only the barest of flinches. I watched his face as I moved inside him, finding my way, feeling him up. Mapping out every day of the rest of my life. I swiveled my fingers inside him, and when I dared, I crooked them toward me. The first time, he gasped. The second, he sighed. The third, he set the world on fire. His abs clenched and his neck arched. His chest lifted clear off the bed, and his moan ricocheted off all four walls and the ceiling and hit me right in the chest.

That was it.

That was the moment .

That was the second this version of me was born. The one that exists because Romeo exists. The one that breathes because he does. The one who knows nothing but longing and pain.

The one that can't stop loving him no matter how much I try to hate him.

The sound he made was unlike anything I'd ever heard, but it was a sound I knew. My soul knew it. I swear it did. I recognized it and replied with a low answer I made just for him.

Things changed then. Time faltered again, but this time, it didn't recover. It mutated into this hot, thick thing that sank to the floor and moved through the room. It ran through my veins, stirring my arms and my hips, taking control of me and snaking my body over Romeo's, caging him with my hands on either side of him as he lay beneath me. His knees dropped back onto his chest as if it were easy. As if it wasn't new. As if it was something we'd done many times before.

I dipped my head down and ran my nose along his. "Are you sure?" I asked, terrified he'd say no and somehow also terrified he'd say yes.

"A deal's a deal," he answered with a textbook Romeo shrug. He looked sure, but he sounded strange, as if his chest were tight and he found it as hard to breathe as I did .

He reached between his legs and guided me into him as if that were easy too. His hips rose to meet me as I drilled into heaven. A quick hiss and the appearance of little lines around his eyes said it wasn't easy to take me. As always, I felt his pain as if it were my own and winced. I tried to stop, to back up, but I couldn't because Romeo was pulling me down. His arms and legs were wrapped around me, holding me tightly, cocooning me, a gravitational force I was powerless to resist.

I looked down at him to make sure he was okay. He nodded and his eyes said yes. They said he wanted more. I'd never seen them like that. Naked. Pupils blown out so big that they almost looked black. Tiny sparks in the dark with endless constellations buried inside them.

His jaw worked repeatedly, teeth sinking into a fleshy bottom lip each time I thrust. The sounds he made were sweet and soft and a little bit strangled. I was strangled too. Ecstasy had me in a chokehold. I was mainlining pleasure. Gulping it down. Swallowing every morsel I could find. Licking his neck and kissing his mouth as I moved with a care and gentleness I hadn't known I possessed. The world was on a knife-edge. Every breath seemed to matter. Every second. Every touch. It all felt new and old and completely addictive. The only thing I wanted was to make Romeo feel good. I wanted that more than I'd ever wanted anything. I searched his face and nearly turned inside out when I saw nothing but pleasure. His eyes were frozen, fire, locked on mine. Not moving. Not blinking.

I clung to him and onto the edge for as long as I could. I kept thrusting until my mind went vacant and white spots appeared in my field of vision. Until pleasure started to change and feel other. Until Romeo reached between us and started frantically jacking his dick. There was an urgency to his actions that matched the roar of blood pumping through my body. His ring began to spasm around me, a dull pause and tight clench that forcibly dragged my orgasm closer to the surface. Closer and closer. So close I felt the seam ripping. I felt myself tearing. Breaking. Shooting. Thick, boiling love and lust shot out of me and into him. I pushed it in deeper and deeper, hips grinding against him in helpless spasms until he cried out and the space between his body and mine was warm and slick too.

Afterward, he looked like he was floating. He stayed on his back with one leg splayed over mine and didn't move. His arms were limp at his sides, palms up, hands open. His chest rose and fell at semi-regular intervals and his mouth was ajar. He didn't seem to be able to do anything about it. I lay by his side and breathed him in. The entire room was laced with his scent. I could smell his skin and what we'd done. Gentle waves of pleasure surged through me when I inhaled, and until I lost my battle with sleep, all I could taste was Romeo's kisses.