Page 25 of Breakaway
I run my hands up his back under his shirt. His skin is warm and smooth and the muscles shift when he moves against me. He lifts his arms and I pull the shirt over his head and the light from the kitchen catches his collarbone and the line of his stomach and he is watching me look at him.
I see the small scar along his right shoulder. The way his nipples are pebbled. The line of goosebumps that follows my finger along his bicep.
"Your turn," he says, pointing at my polo.
I pull my shirt over my head. He puts both hands flat on my chest. His palms are warm and his fingers trace the inked sleeve from my forearm up onto my shoulder. The touch is light and curious and deliberate. We have brushed hands in the kitchen and leaned into each other on the balcony and had a hundred smaller moments. This is different. This is his hands on my skin with both of us knowing what comes next.
"You're warm," he says.
"You're sitting on me."
"That's contributing." He leans in and kisses me, his tongue against mine. He rolls his hips, deliberate, and he makes a sound low in his throat and grinds down once, slow.
"Wes?"
"Yeah."
"Touch me."
I bring my hands to his belt. The buckle opens and I work the button and the zipper and he lifts his hips enough for me to push the jeans down. He pushes them off the rest of the way. He is hard in his briefs and the shape of his cock is right there against the cotton. I put my hand on him through the fabric and he drops his forehead against mine and breathes.
His hips push into my hand. I rub him through the cotton with my thumb, slow, and the way his mouth opens is what I have been thinking about every night since he moved in.
He reaches between us and gets my belt open. His hands are fast. Jeans unbuttoned, zipper down, his hand inside, his fingers wrapping around my cock, and my whole body goes still. He strokes once, twice, his grip firm and sure, and I catch his wrist.
"Wait," I say. "Just wait."
He stops. His hand stays where it is. "You okay?"
"I'm good. I just want this to last more than four minutes."
He laughs, bright and startled, his face close to mine. "Four minutes is generous."
"For you or for me?"
"For both of us. I have been thinking about your hands for weeks. Four minutes is optimistic."
He leans in and kisses me. Not the urgent kiss from before. Slow and deliberate and his hand is still on my cock. I kiss him back and my hand comes up to the back of his neck and I hold him there. His tongue is slow against mine. He shifts in my lap and the angle changes and I feel him hard against my stomach. The sound he makes into my mouth is quiet and greedy and I want to hear it again. I tilt his head with my hand and kiss him deeper and he gives me the sound again, low in his throat, and his hips roll once, involuntary.
"I want you to fuck me," he says, soft and direct. His eyes are on mine.
I hold him still with one hand on his hip. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." He says it before I finish. "I want it. And I want you to know I'm choosing this, not defaulting."
I look at him. His face is steady. No performance. Just a man telling me what he wants.
"I'm on PrEP," he says. "Got tested last month in Seattle. Negative."
"Same. I'm on PrEP. Tested in June. Negative."
"Good." He tilts his head. "You have lube somewhere in this organized apartment?"
"Bedroom. Give me a minute." Luca moves off me, and I am back in thirty seconds.
He is lying on the couch with one arm behind his head and his cock straining against his briefs. Watching me walk back toward him with a look that has no patience left in it. The kitchen light catches his collarbone, the wet lips swollen from our kisses, his eyes half open. A million attempts to photograph this moment would still fall short.
"Take these off," I say as I lean over him. I hook my fingers into the waistband of his briefs.
