Chapter 12
chapter twelve
camilo
I was doing this.
I was walking to Tom Hughes’s house with the intention of getting my hands, mouth, and everything else I could come up with on him as soon as we walked through the door.
I’d tried my best, I really had, but this man was irresistible.
The way he looked at me, like I was a rare and precious thing he’d just discovered…
it undid me. And the way his face lit up as I told him about our clients and the dancing, as if I was telling him something incredible, it was the last straw.
We were adults and there was no rule saying I couldn’t date (fuck) a donor. I’d actually looked at the agency policy manual the day Melissa gave me that boundaries lecture, because I knew if he pursued me, it was only a matter of time before I gave in.
As we walked up Lenox Avenue, Tom looked a little dazed but I could feel the tension between us like a tight rope that was very close to snapping.
He glanced down at me with a question in his eyes, then extended his hand as if asking to hold mine.
We were in Harlem and the streets were busy at six p.m. on a Friday.
I usually would not go for any display of affection just as a precaution.
But with Tom, in this moment, I felt bold.
So I hooked my index finger around his and smiled at him.
“So where are we going? You said your house was close, right?”
He nodded and pointed further up, “Yes, I live in a brownstone on the next block. I’ve only been in it a couple of years. My friends Sanjay and Priya, who you met at the party, bought the one right next door. It’s nice to have them close by. We love the neighborhood.”
I nodded distractedly, feeling a little intimidated. Living in the area myself, I was very aware of the prices that brownstones went for these days.
What was I doing with a guy living in a house that cost millions of dollars?
I could barely afford my little studio in Hamilton Heights.
As we got to 126th street and turned left, Tom squeezed my hand, beaming.
I tried to push aside my nervousness and come back to the moment, to Tom.
Then I remembered what my friends told me.
I didn’t need to make a judgment based on things I perceived as problematic.
I could rely on what Tom had shown me so far.
Everything Tom had done since I’d met him was more than enough evidence he was the kind of man I wanted to get to know better.
To be with.
“Why did you buy a place here in Harlem? I mean it’s not the typical spot for millionaires to move to.”
He nodded and his face got serious. “Harlem was the first place I lived in when I came to the States. I arrived like three months before I started my first year at Columbia, and I stayed with an old friend of my mom’s on 122nd and Park.
She’s Dominican, but she’s been here since the sixties.
That whole summer she would take me on walks around Harlem and talk to me about the history.
She told me about the Caribbean diaspora who settled here over the last hundred years.
I got pretty into the history. I read about queer authors like Langston Hughes and James Baldwin who came up here.
I learned about Latinx civil rights movements like the Young Lords which all happened in these streets.
Learning about those who’d come through this same place made me feel connected to New York City, like I wasn’t so far from home. ”
Dammit. Of course, he couldn’t just be a douchebag buying up property mindlessly.
“So when I decided to buy a place in the city, I got one here. I’m also invested in trying to keep this community from being erased by gentrification.
I try to be mindful of the footprint I’m leaving, of course, but also help families who’ve been here for generations keep their homes.
My friend Henock and I have been working with a few advocacy groups that serve families who’re being pushed out of their homes by developers.
So far we’ve just helped with funding agencies that do housing advocacy in the community, but we’d like to do more if we can. ”
I looked up at him and tugged at the finger I was holding. “You know I’m already planning to have sex with you right? You don’t need to try and convince me with all this ‘good guy’ stuff.”
He barked out a laugh and bumped me with his hip, which was almost up to my shoulder.
“Most people wouldn’t find my views on gentrification sexually arousing. I think that just works on you, Camilo. Not that I’m complaining.” He slowed down then and pointed at the stoop in front of us.
“That’s me.”
We walked up the steps, and he quickly opened the door for us. I stepped inside cautiously, not sure what I’d find. I wasn’t exactly going to billionaires’ houses for afternoon sex on the regular.
The little bit of the house I could see from the foyer looked expensive and elegant though. But before I could freak out, Tom put both his hands on my face and bent down so our foreheads were touching.
“I’ve been dying to kiss you for weeks.”
His voice was gravelly and his eyes were so intent on me, like he could barely contain how much he wanted me.
My own desire crashed into me like a swell.
I couldn’t deny this any more than I could stop breathing.
All reservation flew out of my mind, and I pushed up to kiss him.
We both let out long exhales when our mouths finally touched.
The inevitability of the moment tightened around me; everything felt right. This was always going to happen.
It was just a matter of time.
Tom groaned and ran his tongue across the seam of my mouth.
I opened for him and as my tongue touched his, I felt a shiver run all the way through my body.
I tried to get closer, with my arms around his neck, pressing forward.
He brought his hands down to my ass and pulled me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist as he began to walk us up the steps.
“Are you okay with taking this to my bedroom?” The uncertainty in his voice just got me more turned on.
“Yes,” I answered wildly and he laughed at my eagerness.
As he got to the second floor, I saw what looked like a dining room/kitchen combo, but he kept going to a third floor.
When we got there, he walked us into the first room off the hallway.
As he lowered me to the floor our eyes locked and for the first time ever, I felt like a man was looking at me as if I was everything he wanted.
“I can’t describe what it’s doing to me to have you in my bedroom right now.
” He was panting a little bit. I assumed it was from the exertion of carrying me up the stairs, but his eyes were smoldering.
He bent down to kiss me again, and I opened up for him, already wanting to get to the fucking part.
I pulled at his sweater as he ran his teeth down my neck, making me shudder.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” I said, tugging on them as he laughed.
He pulled back from our kiss to pull his sweater off.
Once his chest was bare, I stepped back to take a good look at him.
A curse escaped my mouth when I saw him in all his shirtless glory.
His chest was strong and sculpted with a salt-and-pepper pelt covering his pecs.
He had a thin trail of hair that went down the center of his flat stomach.
When he finally bent down to peel his pants off, I got a glimpse at that fucking glorious cock I’d been fantasizing about for weeks, barely restrained by his briefs.
All I wanted was to get down on my knees and worship him with my mouth.
“Dejame verte Camilo,” he said, in a throaty whisper. He wanted to see me, too. I started taking pieces of clothes off as he watched, palming his crotch.
When I took my tank off, he sucked in his teeth and came forward to run his fingers over the tattoo on my chest. It was a piece I’d gotten when I turned twenty-one.
Patrice, Nesto, and Juanpa all had the same one.
It was a forearm stretching up from my ribs, ending in a hand holding a beating heart right over where the real one was.
The heart was covered with the American, Jamaican, and Cuban flags, all blending together.
One couldn’t tell where one ended and the other ones began.
Just like me, like all four of us.
“That’s beautiful,” he said, his voice full of awe.
I ran my fingers over it, feeling the familiar roughness right over my heart.
I looked down at it and then at him. “Thanks, I got it a long time ago. The guys, my best friends, each have one. But theirs have their own flags.”
I grabbed the hand he’d been using to trace his fingers over the tattoo and brought it to my mouth, then sucked on them as his eyes scorched me.
He cupped the back of my neck, pulling me close. “?Que quieres, Camilo?”
What did I want?
Him. Inside me, over me. Tom, everywhere.
I met his gaze and told him. “I want to ride you.” I ran my hands up his chest and then brought one down to that dick I was so thirsty for. He sucked his teeth again, shivering as my hand tightened around him, then bent down to nip at my mouth.
I looked up at him and said all the things I wanted.
“I want to look at your face while I fuck myself on this cock. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since that first night.” I tried to go down on my knees, but before I could he went down on his.
I swayed at the image he made.
He was so big, so powerful, and he was down on his knees, for me. It was heady and intoxicating as hell.
I’d known once I went down this road with Tom things would complicate.
He was everything I’d ever thought I wanted, and every single thing I could never see myself with.
He threw all my assumptions out the window.
I wanted him so much, and the way he was looking at me right now.
I wanted to believe in that desire. That it was really all for me.