Page 19 of Fire
He shrugs away my touch and turns around but avoids looking at me.
“Breakfast is trashed,” he says, grabbing his keys from the kitchen counter. “I’ll pick up some breakfast tacos from the Tex Mex joint around the corner.”
“Luca,” I call out, unsure what to say to him, but I need to know we’re okay.
He pretends not to hear me and bolts for the door. “I’m locking you in, but I’ll monitor the video feed while I’m gone.” Then there’s a slam of the door, and I’m alone.
It's four a.m., and I’m pacing my bedroom floor. That’s not unusual. I’ve only been in this apartment for a few months, and the cheap laminate floor is already worn smooth from my treading back and forth while I’m writing.
Tonight, I’m not pacing the floors while I deliberate over which slant to take on an article. I’m brooding over the kiss that almost happened this morning with Luca and the fact he ignored me the rest of the day.
One minute, he’s willing to sacrifice his life for mine and almost kisses me, then it’s like I’m invisible.
I’ve felt invisible most of my life, and Luca making me feel that way hurts.
I hear noises coming from the living room. The last time I’d peeked out, Luca had been sleeping on my couch. Maybe he left the TV on? I quietly slide the door open a crack to check that he’s still sleeping, to find him thrashing his arms and yelling.
He's having a nightmare.
I rush out of my bedroom to kneel in front of him. He’s drenched in sweat. “Luca,” I call, but he doesn’t respond.
“No,” he keeps repeating. “I won’t do it.” His arms flail wildly and his hands are clenched in fists as if he’s fighting someone in his sleep.
“Evan,” he cries desperately, tears sliding down his face.
“I’m here. I’m here.”
“Noooo!” Luca screams in agony, and then, with a gasp, he bolts up into a sitting position, a look of pure terror on his face.
He’s breathing heavily and looking wildly around, obviously trying to place himself in the here and now. “It’s Evan,” I tell him, reaching out to touch my hand to his knee to ground him. “You’re in my apartment, and you’re safe.”
He jerks at my touch and then looks at me in surprise as if he just realized I was there. “Evan,” he cries in relief as he pulls me into his arms and holds me desperately tight against him. My arms instinctively go around him, and I realize he’s shaking.
He pulls back. “I have to make sure you’re not hurt.” His hands go over me, checking for injuries despite my telling him numerous times that I’m fine.
Finally, sure I’m okay, his searching hands still. Assuming now that he’s calmer, he’ll want his space, I start to move away. His arms circle back around me, and if anything, he holds me tighter. “I can’t let you go yet,” he says, burying his face in my neck.
I once again let my arms wrap around him and relax into his body. He begins to rock back and forth, and I get lost in the rhythm of his movements. Seconds, minutes, hell, maybe hours pass with us like this, holding each other like two halves of a whole. It feels so natural to be in his arms that I start dropping small kisses on his neck. They start as an offering of comfort, but the deep, woodsy scent of him and the rough, unshaven scrape of his stubble against my lips warms my blood, and my body starts to move against him as I continue to trail kisses up his jawline until I reach his mouth.
Fuck. What am I doing?
He needed comfort, and here I am, rubbing myself off against him. I jerk back and start to move away, ready to apologize for taking advantage of him in a vulnerable moment, when he stops me.
“Don’t go.”
There’s need in the low, rough timbre of his voice as he asks me to stay, but what kind? Is it the need not to be alone after whatever horrors he just faced in his nightmare? Is it just the simple need for human touch? Or is it more?
I’m afraid to look at him and not see the same need burning through me. He lifts my chin to meet his eyes and my mouth goes dry at thewantI see there.
No one has ever looked at me like Luca is looking at me right now—like I’m more than just a body that can get him off. Like there’s more to me than that, and he wants all of it. He wants all of me.
My mouth crashes into his, eager to taste that want. To swallow it, to take it in and let it spread through me until it’s all I know.
His hands come up to hold my face as he takes over the kiss and slows it down, so it’s not a mad rush of lips on lips and tongues fighting for control, but an agonizingly sweet exploration of mingling desire.
As he kisses me, my body shamelessly rubs against his, fascinated by the feel of his hard cock against me. Luca trails his hands down my body to grip my hips and pulls them hard against him so I can feel the size and girth of him. His groans of pleasure against my mouth spur me on, and I begin to ride him relentlessly as we kiss.
I could come like this, but I need more. I break the kiss. Luca growls in protest and attempts to pull me back in his arms, but I slide down to the floor.
