Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

Rafael

He was in my arms, his curls running between my fingers, his breath hitching in his throat. The scent of wine on his lips gave me life; the softness and warmth of his tongue made me happy.

In an instant, we collided into something so large and beautiful that it was beyond comprehension. Like the universe at the exact moment of creation, when the first picosecond ticked and nothing became everything, the vast, cold emptiness of my heart filled with fire and light.

Luke pulled away with a quiet gasp.

I licked my lips by instinct, desperate for another taste of him. "Was that…?"

"It was perfect," he said before I could ask.

I was torn between leaping and claiming him for myself and releasing him by pulling back. "Do you want to talk about it? "

Luke's big eyes widened even more. He stared at me like I had grown a pair of horns, but the surprised expression melted away, and only his inner heat remained. "Maybe after."

Maybe. After . I nodded. That was a good bargain as far as I was concerned. One thing was certain: I wasn't done with Luke in this life. Whatever came tomorrow, we weren't done just yet.

I grabbed his hand again, but he took charge by dragging me toward his hotel. I stumbled along, grinning like a teenager with a head full of dreams.

We hurried into the narrow hotel that was connected to all the other narrow buildings framing the piazza, up the tiled stairs, and into a snug apartment that Luke opened with the swipe of his key.

The first light of a new day brightened the sky, but the shapes were still soft and hazy inside the room. When Luke spun around to press his lips against mine, dawn paled in comparison.

These flavors that included my old wine and something sweetly, uniquely Luke's pulled me back through the years and into my youth. They fed me that old passion, reminded me I was still alive and well and capable of feeling, not just existing in a vacuum of work and distractions.

So I kissed him back hard with all I had to give. I kissed him like it was our last time—it very well might be. If he was willing to give himself into this wild whirlwind of ours without a promise of tomorrow, then so was I .

Questions swirled around me, but so did his hypothetical answers. How come you want me again?

I never stopped wanting you.

What does this make us?

Does it have to make us anything?

I tossed them all aside. Right now, all we had was this. And next to the kisses he blessed me with, my dream job for a travel zine was just a meaningless distraction. Rome was just a place; its thousands of years of memories were just history. Nothing was real but Luke's hand yanking the hem of my shirt out of my pants, fingers touching the skin on my abs. Every touch scorched me; every breath was shallower than the last.

I had been starving for this for years. The absence of his hand on the small of my back had frustrated me through the long, lonely months of our long-distance relationship.

We danced our way to the bed, where I pushed Luke roughly over the edge and onto the mattress. He gasped and wore a playful, challenging smile on his face when he next looked up. Are we really doing this? His eyes asked the question, hope filling them as if to beg me not to stop.

I finished undoing the buttons on my shirt and shrugged it off, pulling the belt from my pants, tossing it away, and undoing my pants. "Take your clothes off, Luke," I said, tasting the words and his name on my lips. It had been years since the last time I had told him to do this. But to hear the zip as he undid his pants, to hear the whispers of fabric against fabric as he tossed his shirt away was a luxury we hadn't been able to afford since the last time he had come to London. To feel the heat of his body against mine when I climbed on top of him, only our underwear still in our way, soothed the old ache no amount of digital sex could have begun to soothe.

I sank into him, my abs pressed against his, my chest resting over his, my lips exploring his defined jawline and the smooth skin of his cheeks. I swayed my hips back and forth, rubbing us together until Luke released a strangled moan and slapped his hands against my ass, pulling me down with all his surprising roughness.

"Kiss me," he huffed when I dragged my lips down the length of his neck.

He didn't need to command me twice. I smashed my lips against his like I was proving a point. My tongue explored the wet, warm inside of his mouth without a trace of shame or shyness. Such things didn't exist between us. Ours was always the rawest, most intimate passion.

Will I ever see you again? I wondered, my right hand tucked under his head, my left tracing the side of his torso up and down and up and down. I could never get enough of touching him. Part of me was desperate to hear that, yes, we would see each other again soon, and I could continue to feel him, touch him, have him.

As I pushed myself to sit up, I sank on the hard rise in his underwear. Luke gasped and dug his fingers into my hips, dragging me closer and moaning softly. Feeling him throb under my butt made me aware of all I hadn't had in the years that were beyond our reach. But I had it now. I had and claimed every moment of intimacy we were given tonight.

Swinging my hips back and forth passionately, I sped up, pressed him harder, twined my fingers with his, and trapped his hands above his head. Only when my own feelings burned too brightly to contain the spill of wildfire did I release him and climb off his lap.

I crawled lower on the bed, my lips leaving a blazing trail wherever I kissed him. His rounded pecs and the deep ridges between his abs I kissed and licked and breathed over until my fingers hooked inside his underwear and I pulled them over his big cock.

The mix of soap and his natural musk made my heart clench with longing. I wanted him in my life. I wanted to never let him go. Never lose him again.

As I dragged his underwear over his ankles and threw them over the side of the bed, Luke moved his hands over the soft, smooth fabric of the comforter beneath his body, spread his arms wide, and tucked his hands under his head. His curly hair spilled over the pillow and his wrists, his knees spread wide, legs bent a little. His smooth thighs opened, revealing his taint, his big, heavy halls hanging over it and his cock stiff and lifted off his lower abdomen.

My hands dragged up his thighs just as I lowered my head over his waist, mouth wide and welcoming the swollen head of his cock.

A shudder passed between us, almost like we were made of the same matter, like we shared one soul, and I sank low on him, swallowing him deep on my third try.

Scents and flavors filled me to bursting. I hadn't realized how happy they could make me. I hadn't known they could be this tied to a body, to a single person in all of creation, and each made me think of Luke as he was now and as he had been through the years.

I sucked him hard and long, making him heave and pant and shiver and moan. Whenever I felt the prickles on his skin under my fingertips, I felt victorious.

Bobbing my head up and down, pulling his cock away from his abdomen, adding pressure with each stroke, I fumbled for the waistband of my underwear and pulled them over my ass. Slowly, carefully, I dragged them down to my knees, but as soon as I reached with my hand to touch myself, Luke grabbed my hand and pulled it to rest on the middle of his torso. His heart pounded under my open palm, and my urgent need to touch myself only turned me on harder.

"Now," he whispered and moaned. "Kiss me now. Need to…taste you…now."

I released him from my mouth and crawled up the length of his body and the bed, leaving my underwear somewhere behind and settling my bare butt over his cock. Had I had a chance to plan better—and I had only joined him because of that ever-lasting need to see him whenever I could—we would make love all night long. As it was, we had to improvise. So I leaned down and pressed my lips against his, giving him the scents and flavors of his own cock to savor and feast on. As I kissed him, I reached behind my back and settled his cock between my cheeks, then swung my hips gently to stroke him and frustrate him madly .

It worked like a charm. His tongue was in my mouth in the next heartbeat, his hips lifting, sliding his dick between my cheeks. A small, almost insignificant part of me wanted to be angry that we couldn't do more than this, but an overwhelming part of me knew that intimacy wasn't in the act of insertion. What we were doing was infinitely more personal and intimate than a night of meaningless pounding. So we kissed, breathing into each other's mouths, swallowing each other's sighs and moans, and feeling each other's bodies like we had never had a chance to memorize every curve and line we had.

I knew all of him. I knew every birthmark and every inch of his smooth skin. I knew what his nipples felt like when they were small and tight and what he sounded like when he was on the verge of coming.

As our bodies coiled and twisted and flowed in ways that neither knew where one ended and the other began, I teased him and taunted him and held him suspended in that last moment before his climax. Guiding his hand down my entire torso, I helped him wrap his fingers around my hard length, then let him enact his vengeance for never letting him finish, no matter how desperately he thrust his hips against me or how much he moaned.

We played, tortured one another, and pleasured each other. I kissed all of him and he kissed me back, licking me wherever he could reach and biting whatever he could bite. And when neither of us could hold it back any longer, I swung my hips up and down, rubbing myself hard against him until his moans cut off and all his breathing stopped. Every muscle in his body was hard, every inch of him throbbed, and hot ribbons of cum sprayed over my lower back and ass, trickling between my cheeks where the head of his cock rubbed relentlessly.

His fist tightened around me, stroking me fast like he was doing it to himself, and without a warning, I spilled cum over his fist and chest and stomach, panting and shuddering and begging for more.

Luke grabbed the back of my head and pulled me down, slamming our lips together and silencing us both.

Though the wild lust that had kept me restless was tamed, my playfulness only soared. As I climbed off his waist, I dragged my fingers through the mess of cum and sweat on his torso, then gazed into his eyes as I pressed it against his lips. "Eat it," I whispered.

His lips parted without a hint of protest. The tip of his tongue cleaned my fingers just as his hand moved over my lower back, four wet fingers smearing his cum over my chin and lips. Laughing softly, I licked my lips as I fed him more. With tangled hands and messy faces, we smirked and chuckled as we covered one another with our cum. Then Luke reached over and pressed his stained lips against mine, mixing the mess and telling me unequivocally that we belonged together. If only he could admit it aloud; if only I could believe it.

"You are impossible," he said.

"Improbable," I corrected him. "But very much possible."

Luke scooted over and lay on my left arm, leaning over my body, and I held him close. We were hot and sweaty, filthy really, but happier than I had been in years. That was hardly a hyperbole. Just now, I realized that I hadn't been this content since that night in London when we drank each other until dawn. I hadn't known a moment of true happiness since God looked at my plans and laughed, sending a plague and lockdowns to keep me away from Luke.

"Hey," I whispered.

He blinked. "Yeah?"

"I…don't think I can let you go," I said while I still rode a wave of courage that helped me speak my mind clearly.

It felt like Luke melted deeper into me, his hold tightening, his body glowing. It lasted for a brief eternity before he relaxed. "Rafael, I can't live on breadcrumbs and hope."

"You'd rather have neither?" I asked. I wasn't offended. I wasn't even disappointed. Several things were clear to me: I had known this would be his answer, for one, but more importantly, I knew that nothing we said now would deter me from pursuing him until my dying breath. I wasn't going to be Henry to his Christopher. I wasn't going to keep my distance and fear to try. And I definitely wasn't going to sit idly while he started a family with someone who wasn't me.

"It's never been about what you or I want," he said, his lips so close to my pec that I could feel the vibration of his voice in my heart. "And always about the hand we're dealt."

But I refused to play by fate's rules. I refused. Except Luke couldn't see that. "Let me show you Rome today," I said. It was Saturday, and the morning light was pouring through Luke's windows. The city would soon be up and bustling with the mingling tourists and locals.

The command in my voice hit the right spot, and Luke got up. He was so beautiful under the golden light of a new days, his body lithe, his butt curved, his cock soft and a little swollen from action. "Come. We should shower."

I followed him into the bathroom gladly, sharing more intimacy even when lust wasn't part of the equation. We washed each other's backs, made his shampoo foam in each other's hair, and let our clean torsos press together as we kissed under the hot water that sprayed us and the tiles in the shower.

And when we were done, Luke was ready to explore this ancient city with me.

I considered it a good first step. And I knew he wasn't just going to get away from me again.