CHAPTER FORTY

L uke

Sebastian looms above me. He straddles me, his cock surging upward, hard and pink and perfect.

He takes my cock with his hand and places it against his entrance. He adjusts the position, the shift of his bottom over my head making my cock jump with want.

It’s not going to work.

I’m too big.

But then slow heat envelopes my head. The sensation grows. Sebastian bites his lip, and his nostrils flare as he inhales.

“We don’t have to...” I say again, because we really, really don’t.

Sebastian’s eyes soften, as if I’ve said something adorable, and he continues to slide down my shaft. I hold onto his hands, because I want to be holding him all the time, and maybe it will help him feel better if he can squeeze them or something.

And then Sebastian reaches the end. He’s closer to me, and we grin at each other.

“I’m inside you,” I whisper.

He presses his lips together and nods his head. His eyes shimmer, as if he’s feeling all the same feelings I’m feeling, all the same joy, all the same jumps and spins and pirouettes of his heart, as if some figure skater has grabbed hold of it.

Sebastian begins to move. He slides up and down, squeezing my shaft so all I feel is hot warm heat and all I see is him.

His wide blue eyes.

His glistening cock.

His slender, firm figure.

His pale pink, pebbled nipples.

His blond hair that moves with his body, reminding me this is truly happening. Sebastian is here, in my apartment, in my room, in my bed, and I am inside him.

He moves up and down. Up and down. Up and down.

He moves at the speed of the thud of my heart.

Sweat shines from Sebastian’s chest, and his body glows above me. His eyes and hands don’t leave mine. Not for a second. Not to fling up his neck. Not to close his eyes and concentrate on the sensations. Not to throw his arms toward the sky so he can quicken his pace, cowboy style.

And I think he has the same feelings I have. Because if I can close my eyes, I’ll no longer see him. And if I remove my hands from his, I’ll feel him in one less place, and I can’t let that happen.

Because we don’t have forever.

Years and decades don’t stretch before us. Our time is finite.

And so I don’t let go, and I keep my eyes on him, until he shakes, and I shake, and he paints my chest with white. With him.

For a moment, we simply stare at each other, our breath filling the air. I want to tell him wow and that was incredible and compliment him a hundred times, a thousand, a million.

But Troy is on the other side of the wall, and when I look into Sebastian’s eyes, I realize that somehow, everything has been said already. My cock deflates, spent from Sebastian, and finally Sebastian lets go of me. I want to tell him to stay, but he is already halfway across the room. He grabs some tissues and cleans my stomach, his movements light and rapid as if he was hardly there.

I capture his hand in mine when he is finished, and I pull him closer for a kiss. He lies on my stomach, still hot, still sticky. One kiss turns into many, our bodies melded together by his essence. Finally, I see his eyes fall, his heart even with my own.

“Bedtime?” I whisper.

He squeezes his eyes, then nods.

We brush our teeth, scurrying over the floor on our tiptoes, and prepare for bed. We shower.

Tomorrow, we will go to Ashcove.

Finally, we collapse into each other’s arms, our breath now minty-fresh, and we kiss some more, our lips and tongues still active, trying to remember each other as if to prepare for the time when we’ll disappear, when Sebastian will return to the swaying palm trees and the cameras, and I will return to the cold ice and whatever pretend future I do for Seeking Mr. Right.

Sebastian wraps his arms around my neck, his lips still moving in the dark, quiet room until eventually sleep overtakes us.

We wake up at some time of the night, reminding each other that we are still beside each other, clutching our bodies, smoothing our hands over our faces, until I laugh softly and turn on the light.

The golden light swathes Sebastian in an angelic glow. His hair is tousled, his cheeks reddened from the heat of our bodies and the scratch of my stubble.

“We could...” he whispers.

“Do it again?” I whisper back.

He nods eagerly, his eyes bright, his lips so perfect and pink, swollen from my insatiability.

SEBASTIAN

Luke and I move quickly. He gets the condoms, and I get the lube. Then he lays me down on my stomach, and I prepare for the same preparation as before.

I don’t prepare for him to start laying wet kisses down my spine, and I don’t prepare for him to kiss the curves of my bottom, biting my cheeks, as if fascinated by them, and I certainly don’t prepare for him to nibble his way toward my entrance. His tongue swirls over my skin, his lips suck, his teeth bites. My nerve endings are ablaze, and I clutch hold of the sheet, as if I might at any moment fly through the roof and into the snowy night.

And then he’s there.

Spreading my cheeks.

My heartbeat speeds. Is he going to...? Surely not...

But then his tongue is on me...there.

He is licking me...there.

He is kissing me...there.

Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god.

My cock thickens, expands, swells.

It’s never been like this before. It’s never felt this good. I’ve never had the tongue of a man swirling in...there.

I’m floating. The world is warm. Definitely wonderful.

And Luke is still kissing me. Well, rimming me.

Is this what I was missing out on when I was more focused on my career than going out? When every party was a chance to network? God, I make a habit of never dating anyone vaguely in my industry in case things go south, even though I never meet men outside my industry. I guess I did inappropriate all at once.

But anyone else wouldn’t be Luke. Wouldn’t be as abso—

My breath vanishes.

Luke moves up, then rearranges me so my bottom sticks in the air. He peers at my bottom again, spreading my cheeks, and I should feel vulnerable—

But I don’t.

Because it’s Luke.

And we’ve already made lo—

I don’t finish that thought in my mind and try to push it from my body. Instead, I concentrate on the feel of Luke behind me. I hear him spread lube over his fingers, and I feel him spread me open. Then I hear the crinkle of a condom wrapper.

It’s coming.

Luke pushes inside me, spreading me open. His cock moves inside me slowly.

He is large, filling me in ways I didn’t know were possible, filling me more than anyone ever has, even as he whispers endearments, and strokes my body.

I can’t see him, but I picture him behind me. I feel the way he spreads my cheeks even now, as if the most interesting thing in the world is his cock sliding inside of me.

I move back because I’m desperate to have as much of him inside as I can.

He groans, or I do. Our breaths turn to pants, our skin heats and sizzles.

The we rock along the bed, our bodies joined.

“Sebastian...” Luke murmurs behind me, and he clutches hold of my body, as if he might fall off.

His athletic thrusts are focused and perfect, hitting my prostate in the way I like. If we hadn’t just had sex hours before, I might explode. But we did have sex, and I try to control myself. Because I want this to continue forever. I want to always feel him inside me, I want to always hear breathless admiration when he refers to me, I want to pretend this is our life. That we are people who sleep beside each other. That this is normal, and not stolen from our lives, that our worlds would not collapse if people realized what we were doing.

His steady thrusts turn unsteady, and my cock quickens.

I’m going to come.

I’m so going to come.

“Sebastian,” he says again, his voice so filled with admiration and something raw that almost sounds like something I cannot, must not allow myself to think about.

Because this is not that. This is nothing that begins with L, and we are not giving each other anything that begins with H.

His thrusts grow from steady to frenzied. “God. Sebastian.”

Heat blazes through me, and I’m sure, through him. His warm cock pounds over my cluster of nerve endings again and again and again.

Luke no longer wears his Mr. Right tuxedo, he no longer stands before cameras in his journalist-appropriate suit. He no longer represents polished perfection, the man everyone adores, the man his company pays millions to each year.

Now he is all man, all animal, the man only I can see.

Frantic and wild and so achingly gentle and lo—, well, not that obviously. But he is tender and sweet, even when I feel the full force of his body. I am filled and cherished. I am completed in a way that is only temporary, but which makes my heart thrash madly, as if it has found something precious and I can’t inform it that it is just something temporary, something forbidden, something we shouldn’t be risking.

I smile. Neither Luke nor I ever did particularly well in our high school. Another thing we have in common perhaps.

Then he stutters behind me. His pants are more uneven, and he jerks frantically within me. I climax at once.

We shake together, desperate for air, unwilling for these moments to end, to be replaced by real life and all the unpleasantness it entails. When I will have to leave his apartment and tell a lie about where he was, when he will have to pretend to Troy I never was here.

It’s fine. We had these moments, and they were everything. They were more than I could have hoped for, and he gave them to me. I will remember them forever and ever and ever. I am happy. Totally.

He wraps his strong arms around my waist, and we collapse together to the side, our bodies curled in the fetal position. He remains inside me. He presses kisses to the nape of my neck and plays with my hair, running his fingers through it and massaging my scalp, so the world grows warm and wonderful again.

At least for now. Finally, he pulls himself from me and deposits the condom. The air smells like sex. It smells of masculinity and sweat. He turns off the light, then climbs over me, like he’s done so a thousand times before, then pulls me toward him. I place my hands over his fingers, still verifying he is there, feeling the swoops of his knuckles, until sleep takes us both.

The alarm doesn’t come from our room.

The loud 80s music isn’t something I’ve heard Luke express an interest in, but now its fast-paced booms fill the room. At some point in the night, I must have flipped over, my mind preferring to be as close to Luke’s face as possible, though possibly he manhandled me and moved me himself.

Either way, I see the moment when Luke’s lashes flicker up. I see the moment where his groan from the blaring alarm turns to wonder. I see the moment the skin outside his eyes crinkle, and I see the moment where his lips swerve up.

“Hello.” Luke’s tenor voice says.

“Hello,” another tenor voice answers back from the other side of the wall, and Luke tenses. We turn toward the wall.

Troy is on the other side. Did he hear us last night?

I hope not. We whispered, right? We’re fine, right?

My heart lurches, fear replacing all the joy, and I hope I am correct.

Luke presses his lips together, and I hate the worry in his eyes. I hate the way he moves his arms away from me, and I hate the way he rolls away. The mattress dips after inch after new inch separates us, until he has moved all the way across the king size bed. He practically lurches from the bed, and the thud of large athletic body resounds through the room, up the high-ceilings to the crown molding, to the crystal knobs on the doors, and the large glass windows and their centuries-old panes.

“You okay?” Troy asks.

“I’m fine,” Luke squeaks.

I frown.

Luke frowns.

A knock sounds on the door. Luke’s calmness has been replaced with panic, and I squeeze my eyes shut, because I don’t want to see that.

I don’t want to see panic and regret and polite, and frankly not that polite, distancing.

I don’t want to see any of that.

I want to live in my memories, to keep everything else safe, so I can tell myself the reason we are not together is because of distance and jobs, and not because of me. Not because Luke would be embarrassed to be with me. Not because the thought of Troy knowing we were together sends him leaping through the bed faster than if he’d chugged two Red Bulls.

Padding sounds, and I wonder if it’s the sound of my heart. But it grows louder, Luke grows more distressed, filling the trash can with tissues to obscure the remnants of our night together, scrunching them in his hands and dropping them inside.

The doorknob turns, and in the next moment Luke flings his sweatshirt over my head, and I still.

I am not here. I do not exist.