Epilogue

ZACHARY LEANED back on the lounge chair to bake in the Italian sun on a private terrace at their elegant hotel. No other rooms looked down on theirs, so they might be the only two people in the world.

It all felt like a dream. The first-class flight to Rome, a night in that amazing city, and then the drive to Naples and along the Amalfi Coast in Thomas’s rented 1963 Alfa Romeo Spider had brought them to Le Sirenuse, the most spectacular hotel Zachary could imagine. On their second day in Positano, he let himself relax in luxury as he gazed out at a view completely unlike anything he’d ever seen in Ogden.

Before him the lovely little town glistened in the sunshine, and the colorful houses built into the side of the cliff seemed to tumble down to the Tyrrhenian Sea below. Green and red majolica tiles on the Moorish dome of the cathedral anchored his view and brought balance and harmony to the beauty around him.

And speaking of beauty…. Naked and burnished, Thomas stepped onto the terrace from their room and brought with him two small glasses of limoncello. Thomas stopped to lean against the doorjamb and provocatively ran his eyes over Zachary, who lay equally naked except for his sunglasses, and all splayed out for his lover’s eyes.

His lover. Zachary sighed in pleasure at the thought as Thomas crouched down next to his lounge. His lover handed him one of the chilled glasses full of pale-yellow liquid and then kissed his lips.

They tipped their glasses together and sipped their limoncello. “Is it just me, or does this stuff taste like sunshine?” Thomas mused and lay on the adjoining chaise longue. “Would you mind rubbing some lotion on my back?” He made his lounge go flat and rolled over so he was facedown on his white towel. Zachary moved to the edge and ran a hand over Thomas’s tanned and muscular shoulders, along his back, and to the white swell of his ass. Then he reversed direction and trailed his fingertips up smooth skin again toward Thomas’s neck.

Thomas turned his head so his cheek rested on his crossed arms as he looked up at Zachary, his blue eyes alight. “I love you, Zach,” he murmured. “No matter how many times I say it, I don’t think you know how much.”

“The fact that you can say it to me at all after the things that have happened to you means more than you can imagine,” Zachary told him. “I understand you so much better now.”

The long drive from Rome had proven perfect for that conversation. Thomas kept his eyes on the road as he told Zach about Rumson, about his parents, even about his revelations of how he’d been hiding from himself with so many men, and only occasionally glanced over to see Zach’s reactions. Zach wanted to wrap Thomas up in his arms to reassure him, but he was able to limit himself to resting a hand on Thomas’s on top of the gearshift until the poison drained from his heart. But when they arrived at the hotel, the bellman had barely closed the door to their suite behind them before Zachary pulled Thomas down onto the bed and showed him that he need never be lonely again.

Zachary shivered pleasantly at the memory and bent over to kiss Thomas’s neck. Then he opened the bottle of sunscreen and applied it to Thomas’s back. “I’m glad that we’ve talked about your past, so we can begin fresh.”

“I think you let me off too easily,” Thomas said as he closed his eyes and relaxed under Zachary’s touch. “Even now I wonder how you can forgive me for putting you in danger and for being such an ass to you.”

Zachary used both hands to knead the firm muscles of Thomas’s back. He spread lotion with the heels of his hands and pressed his fingers into knots of tension. “Ah, Thomas. You’re so smart, but you could use a little more trust,” Zachary said quietly. “I mean it when I say nothing Charles did was your fault. If he hadn’t fixated on you, it would have been someone else.”

Zachary straddled Thomas’s legs so he could apply sunscreen to his lower back. He moved his hands slowly to stroke the muscle underneath Thomas’s taut skin.

“I was scared, no lie, but you rescued me. You knew the danger you were facing when you came to the apartment after Charles called you. You said anything he wanted to hear to buy us time. And then you saved my life. You and Randy and Torres—my three musketeers.”

He moved his hands lower to spread lotion on the pale, untanned flesh of Thomas’s buttocks. “But speaking of ass…,” Zachary muttered. Thomas groaned slightly as Zachary pressed into the firm muscle there, worked the heels of his hands on each side, pressed his thumbs into the dimple at the top of each cheek, and stroked downward. Gradually he moved his thumbs closer together and then stroked them along the trench of Thomas’s backside.

“That feels so good,” Thomas moaned. Zachary looked around quickly until he was satisfied no one could see into their terrace. Then he spread the cheeks between his hands and bent forward to run his tongue up and down the cleft. The smell of sunscreen, sweat, and musk, set to the cry of seabirds and the afternoon chimes from the cathedral’s carillon, made his heart pound with love and desire while he licked circles against Thomas’s tight rim.

As Thomas sighed and relaxed further under him, Zachary used his thumbs to push against the opening. He slid the end of each a little inside and alternated left thumb, right thumb, left. Thomas pushed back against him, and Zachary smiled. He had learned so much about Thomas’s body—what made him gasp or pant or moan or sigh in pleasure. He knew how to make Thomas’s eyes go dark as twilight by lying on his back and spreading his thighs for Thomas to fuck him. He knew how to make Thomas surrender his control, quiet the self-recrimination in his head, and let his Zach give him pleasure.

That was what Zachary wanted—to show Thomas how much he was adored. He used his thumbs to spread the pink hole wide open. “I’m going to make you feel so good right now,” he growled in the voice that brought out Thomas’s submissive side. “Because that’s what pleases me. And you want to please me, don’t you, Thomas?”

Thomas groaned his agreement and raised his ass to press back against Zachary’s mouth. He loved that no one else had ever discovered that aspect of Thomas, and he couldn’t wait to explore all the ways to make him come undone. He used words to inflame, but he tingled happily to think of other things they might try together.

“So shameless, Thomas, and it’s all for me. No one can see us. It’s just you and me, and we’re here under the Italian sky, where you brought us.”

He let a bit of spit leak into Thomas’s opening, pressed forward with his tongue, and forced it an inch inside the delicate folds. That taste of Thomas was intoxicating. He worked his tongue around and around and felt the hole relax. He wouldn’t even need to use fingers this time.

He raised his head slightly and bit one white cheek hard enough to make Thomas gasp. “I’m going to fuck you now, Thomas. I’m going to roll on a condom, and I’m going to work my long cock inside you, inch by inch. And then when I’m all the way inside you, I’m going to fuck you hard and deep until you come all over that soft towel.”

Thomas trembled at his words and then visibly relaxed even more as he surrendered completely. “Ah, Zach. The things you do to me and the things you say. I love it so much. I love you.”

“I believe you, Thomas. Do you believe I love you?”

Thomas nodded. “I do.”

“Good. Someday soon we’re going to go get tested together. And when we find out what I already know, that we’re both healthy, I’m going to do this to you again, but without a condom. Would you like that, Thomas?”

Thomas’s breath was ragged. “I want that, Zach. My Zach. I want to feel your hard dick shoot inside me.”

Zachary smiled and reached for a rubber from the strip he’d brought outside earlier with his book and his towel. He used lotion on his sheathed cock to get it slicked and ready and then rose up slightly so he could position the tip against Thomas’s ass.

“I want it too, Thomas.” Zachary sighed with pleasure as he pushed past the tight opening. He was slow and deliberate, and he fought the urge to plunge into Thomas in one thrust so he could prolong the exquisite sensation of sinking into him. “I want your beautiful, naked cock deep inside my ass too, just like I’m inside you now, until you fill me up with your come.”

Thomas moaned as Zachary brushed against his prostate and continued to slide in. He said hoarsely, “I never knew before you how good this could feel, to just get fucked by a beautiful man with a big dick.”

“It’s all for you, Thomas. Just for you now.” Zachary was almost all the way inside, and his thighs strained from the slow descent. Already he was close to coming from the sheer bliss of penetrating Thomas.

“Give it to me, Zach. Let me please you with my ass and with my body.” Thomas pressed his hips back and tried to get all of Zach inside him.

Zach finally bottomed out with his thighs on either side of Thomas’s hips and his groin resting on the pillow of Thomas’s ass. He sighed in pleasure and let his body drape across Thomas’s back until his nose was against Thomas’s hair. Then he worked his arms under Thomas’s chest, and they clasped hands as he began to move. His strokes grew faster as Thomas grunted and pleaded beneath him for more.

“Zach, can I…?”

“What do you need, sweet man?”

“Can I roll over? I want to see your face when you come.”

Zach stopped his thrusts and slowly pulled out to the sound of Thomas’s groan, which made him even harder, if that was possible. Then he helped Thomas roll onto his back, raised Thomas’s legs to his own shoulders, and lined up the head of his cock again. Thomas reached out to Zach’s hips and pulled him inside. He rolled his eyes back when Zach was fully seated and used his hands to hold Zach deep.

After a long moment, he opened his blue eyes again and stared earnestly up at Zachary. “I didn’t even know I was lonely until I met you, Zach, and now I can’t imagine being without you. You bring me such joy, and I’m glad that I never told anyone else that I loved him.”

His eyes darkened for a moment, and Zachary knew he was recalling the lies he’d told to Charles that terrible night. Zachary thrust his hips slightly to stroke his cock deep inside Thomas and bring him back to the moment. It worked, and Thomas brightened again, like the sun emerging from behind a cloud.

He said, “That’s at least something I’ve saved just for you—telling you from my heart that I love you.”

Zachary blinked back emotion, nearly overwhelmed by the adoration in Thomas’s face. What Rumson had tried to take, Thomas freely gave to Zachary. It was the most amazing gift he’d ever received.

Zachary began to move again, but it was no longer just flesh meeting flesh. Thomas was in his soul as surely as Zachary was in Thomas’s body. He felt each thrust and slide with all his muscles and deep in his heart, and his orgasm rushed toward him. Thomas gave him the slightest nod to let him know he was there too, so Zachary leaned forward to press lips to that succulent mouth.

And then he and Thomas erupted in a glorious mess of legs and arms, of semen and sweat-drenched skin. They became a firework of humanity, sparkling and glistening together beneath the Italian sun.