SAM
Eventually he has to let go of me, of course.
All the way back to his house, I miss his hands on me. I have no idea how we are going to make it through this dinner. I love the fact Jeremy actually has to cook—but right now, I’d even drop the whole grounded thing if he’d just go off and take his soccer buddies and Mum with him.
Luke has a dazed expression as he locks his truck and we move to the front door. He fumbles with the keys, almost dropping them. “Slippery buggers.”
Through the closed door come voices and laughs, and the sound of running feet.
“Sounds like they’re having far too much fun in there,” I say. “We’d better put a stop to that.”
“Or,”—the look Luke gives me, dark and half-lidded, has my toes curling—“they can take their good time and move it to your place.”
The lock clicks open and I still my hand over his on the handle, keeping the door from swinging in. I press my lips at his ear. “How is it you always manage to read my mind?” I touch my other hand to his waist and creep up to the middle of his chest. “I’ll fake a sickie. You sweep ’em out.”
I let go of my hand from his on the handle. The door opens, and I clutch my belly as we hobble inside. There’s the hammering of teenage feet at the other end of the house.
“We’re—”
The back door slams, and then it’s quiet.
“—Back,” I finish, straightening. “That’s strange.”
I waltz into the kitchen, surprised that it’s so clean in there. It’s almost as if no cooking happened, except for the warm, comforting smell of food.
Luke gives a small huh, and moves toward the dining room. I hear him 1, maybe 2 seconds later. “Sam? Christ. Come in here.”
I stride to the dining room, stopping short in the doorway just behind Luke. The table set for 2, lit by 3 fat candles in the center. Sitting on a wooden board is a casserole dish of Shepherd’s Pie. The boys must have just put it out, because it’s steaming. Next to that is a bottle of red wine tucked behind an opened card.
I fold my arms, not sure if I should be shaking my head or grinning wildly. I decide on both. “It was a set-up. The game, everything.”
Luke’s shoulders rise with a deep breath and he moves to the table and picks up the card. I sneak up beside him. He glances at me, and with a twitching lip, reads aloud.
“Staying at Mum’s. Yes, she was involved too. How else could I get the wine? Later, Jeremy.”
He rests the card back on the table. Turning, he takes my hand in his and links our fingers together. He squeezes, pulling me a step closer. “So, Sam, would you like to have dinner with me sometime?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’d like that.”
He inclines his head toward the table, flickering with candlelight. “Now good for you?”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to waste the potato-peeling labor that went into this meal.”
“Then it’s set. A date.” His thumb caresses the back of my hand. “I hope this is the first of many to come.” His gaze drops to my mouth.
“But—”
“No,” he pinches my lips lightly together. “Don’t say we’ve been on a date before. That time was you wanting to have fun and me wanting to give that to you. But this,” he draws me tight. His chestnut scent tingles my tongue as if I could taste him, “this is for real.”
He drops his fingers from my lips and leans in to kiss me, but I shake my head softly. “But Luke, you’re wrong. It’s all been real. The whole last seven years of you and me.
“You know me better than anyone, I trust you more than anyone—that doesn’t come out of nowhere. It came from all the times we spent together, all the dinners we shared, all the trips we had. If the definition of a date is going out with someone to get to know them better, to get to see how well you’ll work together . . . then by my count, this will be one of over a hundred dates we’ve been on.
“The only difference between our dates and traditional dates is that it’s taken me over a hundred of them to get to the making-out part.” I grin at him. “You’re one very patient man, Luke.”
My lips meet his and my tongue darts out to gently pry his mouth open. His tongue touches mine, and heat floods between us. It’s so much, and so strong, I’m kinda not sure I even want the food part of the date anymore. “I really think I’d better start making up that time to you.”
He nuzzles his face into the crook of my neck. “Say this is true,” he says. “Say I’m not dreaming this.”
I press my head against the side of his and kiss his neck. The ground gives way from under my feet again as the falling feeling rushes through me. I grip Luke, and he tightens his hold. And this time, this time I’m not afraid of slamming hard and breaking. Against his skin, I tell him, “I love you, Luke. I’m in love with you.”
* * *
We eat dinner with our feet locked together. And other than the gentle presses we pass back and forth, the rest of our meal is much like any other. We banter, laugh, roll our eyes . . .
It’s only once we’ve cleaned up and deposited ourselves on the couch that my stomach gets this uncontrollable fluttery feeling. It’s a feeling that seems to pull at me from every angle, and I want it to stop.
I glance at Luke, stretched out next to me. His feet rest on the messy coffee table, covered with sport magazines, newspapers, and his landline phone. His hands twitch on either side of his lap and I follow them.
His hands on you will make it better.
When I look up, I find Luke already watching me. “I want—I want . . .” my voice fails me, and I bite my bottom lip.
Luke drops his feet to the ground and faces me. Lifting his thumb to my mouth, he eases my lip free. He leans in and sucks it gently into his mouth, his eyes closing. Goosebumps prickle at my neck, arms, legs, everywhere.
“Luke,” I whisper, sinking my hand into his hair. “Can we shower first, and then go to bed?”
He stands up and pulls me with him.
In the bathroom, he turns on the shower. I watch him, back against the door, though I’m itching to move over, to have him touch me again.
“You go in here on one condition,” he says, as the room starts filling with steam.
“What’s that?”
“Stay in there longer than five minutes.”
I push off the door, and stand in front of him by the sink. Our shorts and T-shirts are touching, and I slowly lift my chin up to meet his gaze. One more inch and we’d be flush. His arm curves around me and clamps us together at the legs, hips, groin. He’s hard and I can feel the outline of his cock on my lower stomach. I’m hard too. I have been most of the evening.
“What’ll happen if I can’t wait that long?”
Something sparks in his eye. “You can wait that long, I’m not going anywhere.”
I raise my arms above my head. “Undress me.”
His fingers are warm as they slide over my sides and push off the T-shirt. My feet are already bare, so the last pieces of clothing that need to come off are my shorts and boxers. Teasingly, he skims the skin at the waistband. “I’m sad to see the nipple ring is gone.”
I hiss at his light touches. “That one I can put back in.”
His mouth comes down on my nipple and he bites; at the same time his touch turns from feathery-light to pinching. Then he hooks his thumbs into my pants and pulls them to my ankles. I step out of them, nervous suddenly at how exposed I am. I want to cover myself, but Luke cuffs my wrists and keeps them at my sides. He presses a kiss to my jaw and a few more to my neck. “You’re beautiful, Sam.”
Reluctantly, Luke lets go of me and steps back. “Shower,” he says. “I’ll get a fresh towel for you.”
I step past him and into the shower. The water is hot, but just the right hot, and it drums heavily on my back and shoulders. Soap, shampoo and conditioner are all there, and I complete the cleaning processes in a few quick minutes. I’m aching to be with Luke again—and not just in my cock, but somewhere deeper.
I turn off the taps, and step out—
Luke is there, sitting on the closed toilet seat with towels on his lap. He shakes his head and stands up, placing the towels on the toilet. “I said I’m not going anywhere.”
“I just . . . I really couldn’t wait that long. Can I have a towel?”
Luke peels off his T-shirt. “No.” Next, he’s chucking his shorts and underwear.
My cock jerks at the sight of him, all the strong planes of his chest, stomach, legs, ass . . . I swallow, and I’m thinking of the moment on his couch after that one date. He’d filled your mouth, he’d pumped and you’d sucked him in.
What will it feel like when he’s filling me in other ways? My ass clenches at the thought.
“Longer shower.” He grips my shoulders and steers me back into the shower. My back hits the plastic wall, and I’m pinned in place by Luke’s slightly larger body. He works the taps with one hand, not flinching when a jet of cooler water hits him.
I jerk though, and it makes our chests rub and cocks hit against each other. His palm moves to caress my cheek. “I want you to have everything I can give you,” Luke says. “Everything you’ve never had and want.”
Fine sprays of water coming off the main shower jets rain over us, and as I blink, drops of water roll off my eyelashes. “You’ve been doing that all along.” I slowly raise my hips, pushing our cocks closer together. My voice drops to a shy whisper. “All I want now is you.” I glance at him, to the showerhead, to the water hitting his ass. “Can you show me how I can have that?”
He trembles, and drops his hands to mine at our sides. Linking our fingers, he pins the back of my hands against the cooler wall, and tilts his head to kiss me. As his tongue explores my mouth, he slides my hands up the wall until they are just over my head. He squeezes, unwinds our fingers, and crossing my wrists, he cuffs me with one hand.
His other hand traces over my arm, elbow, to the shoulder, and over my chest, pausing at my nipple before trailing off my skin.
He reaches to the hanging rack in the corner of the shower, and picks up a bar of half-used soap. Against the wall, he snaps the soap lengthwise in two. One piece drops to the floor, and Luke shoves it aside with his toes.
With the remaining piece in his hand, he draws over my skin. The tip of the soap is hard, but smooth as it circles my nipples in a figure eight that gets tighter and tighter until finally it rubs over my nubs.
I gasp and jerk to get my hands free, but Luke tightens his hold. And I think he has the right idea, because if I get free, I’m going to melt into one big puddle.
He brings his nose to touch mine and as soon as he does, I’m pressing my arms back, and silently begging him to keep going. To keep touching me.
He speaks instead, words whispering over my mouth and chin. “What do you want?”
I let out a nervous breath. “I want you inside me, Luke, in the only way you aren’t already.” A whimper escapes him. I add, “What do you want?”
His gaze holds mine. “I want to move, Sam.”
In a moment of panic, I pull to free myself. Luke’s got me strong though and his weight is heavy against me. “Trust me, Sam. Listen.”
“But I thought—”
“I want us to move. I want us to buy a house. I want us to share a kitchen, a bathroom, a lounge, a dining table . . . a bed. I want to take care of the bills while you study, and when it’s your week with Jeremy, I want him to be coming home to the both of us.” A tremor shudders down my arms, and it’s coming from him. “I want us to be a family.”
The falling feeling intensifies and I’m lost to the sensation. I don’t even realize I’m crying, until Luke’s voice cuts through. “Hey, love. Are you okay? Is this going too fast for you?”
The endearment snaps everything in me, and I sharply shake my head. “Not too fast. I need more of you.”
His kiss has a dominant streak in it, and it calls to my senses. My cock gets harder, and everything feels more intense.
Then Luke, soap still in hand, draws it down my chest, over my treasure trail until it hits the head of my cock. I jerk at the sensation, and then jerk some more as Luke traces the soap around the tip.
Arranging the soap in the center of his palm, he grips my shaft.
I suck in a breath, and when he starts a slow tortuous pumping, I throw my head back against the wall, groaning. I see my hands locked in his, and a shiver races through me—one that is multiplied when Luke begins stroking his thumb over the inside of my wrist in time to his strokes on my cock.
Just when I think I can’t take anymore, that I’m about to explode, Luke stops. His thumb presses against my wrist, and I lower my head to look at him. “You’re so incredibly sexy,” he says, and the lust dripping off him is as clear as the rivulets of water gliding over his skin.
I shiver at the words. No one has ever said that to me before, and it’s a rush to hear it come from Luke. Luke who has such a perfect male body. “I’m nothing as amazing as you. I’ve always wished for a body like yours.”
I blush, because thinking back on that, my physical attraction to him seems so obvious. But I’d not allowed myself to see anything past the bro-gap. “Though maybe,” I say slowly, “maybe I meant that differently.”
Luke comes in for another kiss, his free hand steers his cock so it runs against my heavy balls. I clench my ass and stretch my fingers as I arch against him.
The tip of the soap works circles on my thigh, coming higher and inching toward the curve of my ass. Luke draws away from the kiss, and he reaches further around with the soap. Over my ass cheek, he runs the soap in strong, long lines from the base of my back to the very top of my thigh.
Luke’s gaze probes mine, asking. He loosens his hold on my wrists, and I answer by turning for him. I rest my forearms against the wall, leaving a gap from it and the rest of my body. I want Luke holding me again, so I cross my wrists and hope he understands.
He does, because no sooner than I’m in place, he’s gripping me again. Soft kisses sweep across my shoulder blade and up to the nape of my neck. The soap follows his trail and then slides with aching slowness down my back.
His toes grip the back of my right heel, clenching and releasing. Warm water dribbles from him and onto the backs of my thighs.
“Are you cold?” he asks.
I’m not. “Far from it.”
His soft laugh has the hairs on the back of my head prickling. “Tell me if you don’t like anything. Tell me if you want me to stop.”
“Trust me, stopping is the last thing from my mind. And I’m no flower, Luke. I can handle a bit of pain—”
The soap slips down my crack, and Luke skates it over my hole to my balls. My cock pulses, and I buck my ass toward him. “Yes, more of that.”
Luke runs the soap back up, creating a thick slickness between my cheeks. He pauses at my entrance and when I moan, he gently twists the soap. The tip slips inside me, teasing, and it’s wonderful and not anywhere near enough.
Luke’s thigh comes up against the back of mine, his hard length resting at the side of my ass cheek. He kisses my shoulder, lightly nipping me with his teeth, and drops the soap to slip a finger inside me. My cock jerks, and I wish I was closer to the wall that I could thrust against it.
Up and down, up and down, Luke works his finger.
After the next up, he pulls it out all the way. And then Luke breaches me with two fingers. I cry out at the depth they plunge, but it’s not a cry from the tweak of pain, it’s a cry of feeling so good, so right that Luke is touching me this way. It’s a thousand times my thank you for making me feel so much, so intensely, like I never have before.
With each thrust of his fingers, I’m lost to sensation, but blurring in it are images of that house of ours, of coming home to him making dinner and asking me how my day was. Of us. As a family. Of waking up every morning to Luke’s double-dimpled smile.
“There are no numbers,” I hear myself murmur. “There are no numbers for how good this is. How good it will be.”
Luke stops his fingers and the thrusts of his cock against my ass cheek. He withdraws and the dull tinkering of water dissipates to a drip.
Leaning his upper body against me, he whispers into my ear. “Now we’ve been in here long enough.”
He tugs me with him out of the bathroom and pats us both dry with the towel. Clasping my hand in his, he leads me into the hall. It still smells of our dinner, and the feeling of being home pulses in my chest.
Luke draws me to his large bed. I sit as he grabs a condom from his side table and tosses it onto the bed. I stare from the foiled package to the expanse of bed around me. All the times I’ve been in Luke’s bedroom before, his bed was just a bed—the brass headboard matching the lamp he has in the corner of his room and the chair beside it. It had style, and looked comfortable.
But now . . .
I swallow as I imagine curling my hands around the rods in the headboard as Luke takes me with everything he has.
My hand rushes to close over my cock, but Luke catches my fingers and tugs me to the middle of the bed with him. I roll over onto my stomach, making sure I’m close enough to those rods.
“When we move,” I say as Luke straddles the backs of my thighs and rolls on the condom, “let’s keep your bed.”
There’s a sigh, then something cold dribbles into the crease of my ass. Luke runs his fingers through what has to be lube, and he circles it at my entrance. Then he settles his weight on top of mine like he did in Stewart Island, his hands pushing, kneading their way up my back and down my arms as he brings himself flush against me. He shifts his hips so his cock sits between my ass cheeks. I can feel he’s slicked himself with the lube as well. Our fingers link together, and he squeezes. “Is that a yes, Sam?”
“Yes. God, yes.”
He stretches to kiss my lips, his cock sliding further into my crack as he does. He rocks against me, settling deeper and closer—
His shaft brushes over my entrance and I clench my cheeks around him to keep him moving along that spot. I push back and Luke groans long and hard as he slides against my skin.
I free my hands from his and reach under his pillows for the headboard as I spread my legs wide. Luke grasps the sheets on either side of me, balling them tight.
My fingers brush over paper as I push the pillows aside to hang on to the rods, stretching myself into an X.
I grip the bars as my focus sharpens on the worn paper. As soon as I see it, I know what it is. The lump in my throat is so tight, I can barely swallow.
The tip of Luke’s cock runs over my entrance again. I arch toward him, needing him in me, needing him right—
Now.
The head of his cock enters me. It’s thick and full, and the stretching burns—but not entirely unpleasantly. Luke is breathing raggedly as he holds himself still.
“It’s okay,” I say to him, looking at the paper again. “I want this. I want you.”
“I want you too. So badly.” His body unfreezes, and he carefully pushes all the way inside me. He drops a kiss to the base of my neck, bordering my back, and then begins moving in short slow strokes, for me to get used to him and his size.
With each thrust, my cock rubs against the bed and I grip the rods harder as waves of pleasure and pain mingle together.
Soon the pain is much less, and my cock is weeping pre-cum into the sheets. “Use the force, Luke.”
“Wisecrack.” He lengthens his strokes and increases his speed. His arms are braced against the bed at my sides, lifting his weight, and his careful thrusts are edging to something carnal—and possessive.
His balls slap against my ass, and each of his thrusts is a mixture of light throbbing pain and this burst of deep sensation when he hits my prostate.
My feet brace against his and I push down on them as he pushes up with each thrust. Every part of my body is swarming with nerve-endings and I don’t think I can hold out much longer. I turn my gaze away from the paper, and bury my forehead against the mattress, because that’s tipping me over the edge. Love and sex is wrapping me so tight, my release is mere strokes away.
“Luke, I’m about to—”
“Fuck, me too.” And he grinds himself all the way in, circling his hips and then pumps in a short, hard rhythm that ricochets through my whole body.
I let out a sharp gasp, and Luke follows. He tenses, and his cock pulses inside me, and I’m coming too, smothering my cries into the sheets, the edge of the paper touching my forehead as I spill.
Luke collapses onto my back, his body slick with sweat. His heavy breaths comb over my hair and down my neck. A soft kiss ends the last wave of pleasure. Luke is still full in me, and a part of me wants him to stay like that. If it weren’t for the mess, this would be just perfect. Luke. In me.
“Beautiful and sexy, and together with me at last.” He nips my shoulder as he withdraws himself, and I swallow a sigh.
I hear him dealing with the condom, and then his hand rests against my back. “Stay there. I’ll get something to clean you up.”
His fingers dance off my skin, but I can still feel the ghost of them there. I stay in the exact same position until Luke comes back, and then I roll over onto my side. The wet patch in the bed is large and sticky.
Luke comes around to the other side of the bed, sits on the edge and taps my shoulder for me to lie on my back. I do, and he wipes me down gently with a hot cloth. “The bed got the worst of it.”
“No worries. Slide off the bed for a sec?”
When I’m off, Luke strips the top layer of the bed. The bedspread pools at our feet, and Luke starts to say something and stops. Something has caught his attention; I follow his gaze to the paper lying near the headboard.
His Adam’s apple bulges in his throat, and he looks at me. “I—it’s just that I—” He fumbles for an explanation. But I don’t need one.
I step on the bedspread so I’m standing in front of him. Raising a hand to cup the side of his face, I shake my head. “I understand, Luke. I wondered where I’d put the list, thought I’d lost it, but . . . you had it all along, didn’t you? Even before I told you about it.”
He turns his head to kiss the base of my palm. On it, he answers, “I’ve had it since before I left for Auckland. It’s been on me almost every day.”
I nod, and then hesitate. “Jeremy knew about it too, didn’t he?”
“Just recently. He found it when he came over. When I was trying not to care about it anymore. As you can see, I failed.”
“Then I’m glad. Is this list . . . why you kept asking me if I wanted to play taboo?”
Luke blushes. “At one point I was so high on hoping, I thought maybe if we did something together, you’d see what we could have. That’s why I suggested us experimenting that first time. But at the same time, all along, I knew it was a bad idea. Knew I could get badly hurt.”
“And you did. For a little while there, I really hurt you. I’m sorry for that, Luke.” I pause, “But if it’s any consolation, it did seem to work. I kept telling myself it was the thrill of doing something taboo, but it was really that I loved being with you. Close to you like that—like this.”
Luke lowers my hand and links our fingers. He rubs his thumb over my skin. “Sam, I really don’t want what we do together to be taboo for you. Not anymore. Not ever again. When I take you to our bed, when we explore each other’s bodies, when we make love, or have sex, or just plain fuck, it never was and never will be taboo for me. It’ll never be a sin. It’ll just be us, and that’s just right.”
I squeeze his hand as I nod, too choked up to speak.
I lean in and kiss him. And then I let go, and crawl over the bed to get the list. On my knees, I shuffle back over to him, the sheets tangling under me. I read the list out loud. “Read the books I should have read at school—ticked. Stay up the whole night dancing—ticked. Have a hangover, wear shades, and eat mince pies—ticked.”
Now I get how he’d known that was exactly what I’d wanted that day. He made them for you. He gave you everything on that list.
Well, almost everything.
I stop at the line in the middle of the list. The line that’s ticked and shouldn’t be.
I toss the list onto the bed. “It doesn’t matter how much you want me to get everything on that list done, Luke. It’s not ever going to happen now.”
“What did you not . . .” His gaze searches for the clock. It’s ten. “We’ve still two hours. Maybe—
I reach out, curl a hand behind his neck and bring him into a crashing kiss. “Not going to happen. Read the sixth line down. You’ll know why.”
He does, and there’s that look again. The one that’d nagged at me that first evening Luke was back from Auckland.
Flirt, have fun, don’t fall in love.