Chapter Twelve
Elliott entered Simon’s house with a certain degree of trepidation and was surprised to discover it was actually clean and neat. The furniture—formal and fairly ornate—didn’t suit Simon at all, but it was carefully arranged and debris-free. The carpet was dusty rose, and most of the upholstery involved patterns in creams and sea greens, often accented by carved and gilded woodwork. The pale-yellow walls were mostly bare, although there were a few framed prints of ancient carvings.
“Lamassu,” Elliott said.
“What?”
Elliott pointed at a depiction of a winged bull with a bearded human head. “Fifth or sixth century BCE, I think. My knowledge of Assyrian history is a little sketchy.”
Simon stepped closer. “You think I invited you here to show you my etchings, huh?”
“That’s kind of a dated reference. Nowadays shouldn’t it be to watch Netflix and chill?”
“I’m dating a historian.”
Simon moved so close they were nearly touching. He didn’t quite loom, and Elliott could easily have backed away, but still Elliott was viscerally reminded of how big Simon was and how powerful, despite the knee. This wasn’t a frightening realization, although it made Elliott feel a bit weak in the knees himself.
“Your house isn’t a toxic waste dump.” He sounded evasive even to his own ears. And scared, like a virginal nineteen-year-old.
Undeterred, Simon let his cane drop and enveloped him in an embrace. “I made sure it was clean,” he rumbled into Elliott’s ear. “In case you came over.”
For him. Simon had cleaned his house for him. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Simon took a step back, which was a disappointment. “My mom has been after me about it forever. I finally told her to have her way with vacuum and dust rag.”
“Did you tell her why?”
“Ha—no. Maybe if I did, it’d soften her up a little. Convince her you’re a good influence on me. But can we please not talk about my mom? It kinda kills the mood.”
Elliott’s mood was not killed. He was fairly certain a bomb could drop in the next room—a big kitchen he glimpsed through the doorway—and the desire racing through him wouldn’t be reduced one bit by the explosion. He’d never felt this needy or this . . . heated about anyone.
With a noise surprisingly akin to a growl, Elliott closed the space between them and grasped Simon’s hair, pulling him in for a kiss. And he didn’t stop there, pushing relentlessly as he backed Simon into a wall—easing the stress on Simon’s bad leg—and then pressed his full weight into Simon, finally feeling the whole of that body supporting him.
Since they hadn’t yet taken off their jackets, their mouths remained in contact while their arms ended up in a confusing tangle, with hands tugging at collars and sleeves. When the jackets were in heaps at their feet, they attacked shirt buttons. So many goddamn buttons, each one of them a barrier to skin.
Once the shirts came off, though, they got distracted. Simon’s broad chest bore a coating of black hair almost as luxurious as his beard. A thick line of hair led down his belly and disappeared under the waistband of his jeans. Elliott moved his mouth to one of Simon’s erect nipples, and sucked and nibbled gently while threading his fingers through that wonderfully soft pelt.
A choked noise escaping his throat, Simon thunked his head against the wall. His hands held Elliott’s shoulders firmly, not for support and certainly not to push him away, but Elliott still felt deliciously in control. He worked that little nubbin of flesh mercilessly and paused only to lavish attention on its twin.
Simon emitted an entire symphony of moans, whimpers, and expletives, gliding his hands down Elliott’s back and then under Elliott’s waistband. Those wide, hot palms and broad fingers on his ass intensified Elliott’s need to taste Simon’s body; he positioned his mouth on the taut lines of Simon’s neck and softly bit.
“Bed.” Simon’s voice was deeper than ever and as hoarse as if he’d been shouting. He pulled his hands out of Elliott’s pants. “Please?”
Elliott didn’t need to be asked twice. He followed Simon across the living room—stopping twice to kiss—then down a short hall and into a bedroom. With the lights out, he couldn’t see many details, but then he wasn’t especially interested right then in critiquing Simon’s décor. What he wanted, and what he got, was to be maneuvered against the bed, to be pushed back against the mattress, and to have Simon lie full-length on top of him.
Simon lifted himself onto his elbows. “I’m not too heavy, am I?”
“Jesus, Si. You’re not that huge, and I’m not a delicate flower.”
“Yeah, okay.” With a single finger, Simon lightly traced Elliott’s eyebrows and then his lips. “Remember, I’m kinda new to this. I’ve mostly done . . . you know. Gropey stuff. Quick. Not, well, making love.” His voice had dropped to a whisper, and even in the semidark, Elliott could see that Simon’s eyes were big and soft.
Elliott answered back just as quietly. “We can do whatever you want. I’m all yours.”
“What about what you want?”
“I want to make you feel good.”
A tiny noise escaped Simon’s lips, somewhere between a sigh and an almost-sob, and then he collapsed fully onto Elliott and nuzzled at his neck, at his cheek, at that sensitive patch of skin beneath his ear. Apparently it was his turn to explore Elliott’s upper half, which he did thoroughly, using mouth and fingers, until there was nothing left of Elliott but a writhing, arching puddle of want.
“El, can I—”
“Yes! God, yes.”
Simon’s chuckle did wonderful things to Elliott’s body. “You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”
“Whatever it is, the answer is yes.”
Simon went very still and looked down into Elliott’s face. “That’s a lot of trust.”
“I trust you.”
“Even after what John did?”
Elliott gently tugged Simon’s hair. “You are not John.” He said it lightly, but he meant it. Even as the words left him, he experienced an odd weightlessness—despite the two hundred fifty or so pounds of man on top of him. Although his future contained only uncertainty, this was the first time in years he truly believed that he might have good prospects. That the mess with John hadn’t ruined him after all.
“What do you want to do with me?” he asked, tugging again.
“I want to be in you.”
“I-I’d like that too.”
Simon was clumsy as he rolled off Elliott, but Elliott didn’t judge. His own system was overloading, his nerves far more interested in conveying the sensations of sex than worrying about what Elliott did with his limbs. Or with his lungs, which seemed to be working raggedly. Simon’s house wasn’t especially warm, but Elliott felt as if he might spontaneously combust.
Swearing under his breath, Simon sat on the edge of the mattress and fussed with his knee brace. Elliott took advantage of the opportunity to kneel behind him and play with the wide expanse of back and shoulders—those of a god hefting the world or conquering a minotaur barehanded. While Simon tried to remove the brace, Elliott laid kisses on his nape, on the points of his scapulas, and down the knobs of his spine.
“You were right,” said Simon.
“About what?”
“In the car. When you said touching everywhere was interesting.”
Elliott leaned over his shoulder and whispered in his ear. “True. But we can do better than this.”
“We can.”
Although he’d never been one of those men who could skim off his shoes, jeans, and underwear in a seductive fashion, Elliott didn’t feel self-conscious about it now, not when Simon had to struggle with his leg. Once they were both naked, Elliott stood at the bedside, torn between turning on the light—the better to see Simon—or foregoing that in favor of simply jumping on him. Simon made the decision by grabbing Elliott’s arm and tugging him closer, until Elliott ended up straddling his lap.
They were both hard, and although Elliott hadn’t had the chance for a good look at Simon’s cock, it seemed proportionate to the rest of him. At the moment, however, what was more important was all the glorious skin against skin, Simon’s strong thighs beneath his own, Simon squeezing Elliott’s ass and tracing his mouth wetly over Elliott’s jawline.
“Fuck.” That was Elliott, squirming on Simon’s lap, thrusting forward for the friction against Simon’s belly and then back into the grip on his cheeks. “Jesus fuck.” Because apparently all he had left were blasphemies.
After a few minutes of that—during which their cocks became slick and Elliott skated perilously close to the edge of climax—Simon grunted, held Elliott tight, and in a single powerful move, scooted them around. Now Simon lay flat and full-length along the mattress, and if Elliott couldn’t see well, he could damn well touch and taste.
He started with collarbones, then sternum. Simon tensed a bit when Elliott got to his stomach, but Elliott tried to wordlessly convince him that there was nothing unbeautiful about that softness layered over muscle. Soon Simon relaxed, splaying his legs and allowing his arms to rest at his sides. Elliott tickled the point of his hip, the lovely crease between leg and torso, the furred roundness of his balls.
As Simon gasped, Elliott moved southward. God, he could love Simon for his thighs alone—heavy with muscle and covered with more hair. The thighs of a classical hero.
Simon made a distressed noise when Elliott reached his bad knee, and Elliott froze. “Did I hurt you?”
“No. It’s just— It’s a big fucking mess. Scars.”
“Do you think I can only lo—only want you if you’re perfect? There is nothing desirable about perfection.”
“Is that some famous saying?”
Elliott laughed and then blew gently along Simon’s leg. “No, just me. It’s true, though. I want the you I have right here, not some idealized, sanitized version. Scars. An extra pound or two. Complicated family issues.” He set a featherlight kiss on Simon’s knee before scooting back up so they were again face-to-face.
“I’ve seen gay porn,” Simon said. “Maybe a lot of it. None of those guys look like me.”
“Or me either.”
“But you’re—”
“Here with you, now. There’s no other place I’d rather be or any other person I’d rather be with.”
They made out for a time after that, just a lot of kissing and stroking, with gasps and groans from both of them. Simon eventually fumbled a little tube of lubricant out of his bedside table. “I bought this yesterday. After my mom finished cleaning.”
“Extra points for being prepared.”
Simon was slightly hesitant and clumsy with what came next, but his slicked finger felt amazingly good inside Elliott. So much so, in fact, that Elliott made an embarrassingly needy whine and had to silently recite the outcome of the 1878 Congress of Berlin. “Moving along,” he finally said through gritted teeth.
Simon laughed as he tenderly pushed Elliott off and accessed the nightstand again, this time producing a wrapped condom. Elliott reached for it, intending to roll it sensually over Simon’s cock, but Simon moved it out of reach. “I think it’s best if you don’t touch my dick right now. Boom.”
“Boom?”
“Boom.” Simon made an appropriate sound effect to emphasize his point.
After Simon had the rubber on, Elliott was on his back with a pillow under his ass, and Simon was sliding home so slowly Elliott wanted to scream. He grabbed Simon’s ass and tried to urge him in more deeply, but Elliott’s angle was poor and Simon was strong. “This doesn’t hurt your knee?” Elliott asked.
“A little. I’ll be okay.”
“I can move—”
“I want to look at your face.”
And although the room was quite dark, Elliott knew what he meant. There was just enough light for him to make out the white of Simon’s teeth and the glint of his eyes. Enough to remind him that this wasn’t some anonymous trick he’d arranged over a phone app. Wasn’t John, who fucked like a rabbit—fast and without much real attention to Elliott.
“Oh God,” Simon said. It sounded like a prayer.
They moved together, finding a slow, deep rhythm that pleased them both, punctuating thrusts with kisses and fingertip strokes. Elliott’s cock was caught between them, and he couldn’t get at it, but Simon’s abdomen provided enough friction. Added to that was the sensation of being filled, of opening himself to a man who had quickly come to mean a great deal to him.
Simon came first, crying out as his movements became erratic. He didn’t forget about Elliott, however. He squeezed his hand between them, gripped Elliott’s shaft, and continued to thrust until Elliott climaxed too.
“You okay?” Simon asked after Elliott shuddered and went still.
“Fireworks. Earth moved.”
Laughing, Simon leaned in for a kiss.
After a few moments, Simon limped to the bathroom and returned with damp washcloths. After they cleaned up, a slight awkwardness fell between them. If this had been anyone but Simon, Elliott would have quickly gotten dressed and left. Even with John, visits to each other’s home had been fast and furtive. John had rules about that as well—no parking too close, in case someone recognized the car. No coming or going during times when people were out on the streets and might possibly see them. No spending the night.
But now, Simon clasped Elliott’s hand. “Sleep over?”
“You want that?”
“God, yes.”
So they settled into bed together, and it was amazing how quickly they found a mutually agreeable position—on their sides with Simon spooning Elliott from behind, his arm wrapped around Elliott’s middle. Not a position that allowed for squirming, but Elliott didn’t move around much in his sleep, and this was supremely warm and comfortable.
Simon kissed Elliott’s nape and then a shoulder. “Whatever happens? This is so worth it.”
Elliott totally agreed.