Chapter 13 #2
A half wheeze that was meant to be a laugh escaped Emerson’s lips. Like he would fire the free, incredible help he’d somehow stumbled into.
Except—he probably should. If he was a more responsible man in this moment, he absolutely would fire an employee who had propositioned him, however…kindly and well-intentioned it had been.
Because it did somehow feel like that. Kind. Emerson could barely stand to look at Luca again, for the earnestness in his eyes.
“But what would you get out of it?” he heard himself say.
Luca laughed.
“I mean. If you think fucking you would be a hardship for me, Emerson…” He shook his head. “Then you haven’t had anyone treat you right.”
Emerson’s breath got all tangled again.
His words in the old barn earlier came back to him, sudden and piercing.
What’s your least favorite part?
Never being able to take a break.
He couldn’t believe he was actually, possibly considering this. But god, the one day in four years he’d decided to do something fun for himself, and even that had gotten fucked up. Even though he was grateful for the work they’d gotten done in the old barn. He just—
He knew he wouldn’t actually ever have time to go to the movies.
To go to the brewery to look at Matt the bartender, to go on a real vacation.
At least not on a regular basis. Not until something changed.
Until he fixed up the greenhouses to extend his growing season, until the old barn truly was in good enough shape to rent out for more events, until he expanded his production and his employees.
And none of that would ever happen if he didn’t make it through this fall, this winter. If he couldn’t keep things together for another few months.
“Would there be, like…boundaries? Rules?”
Luca inched closer until his knee rested against Emerson’s thigh. Even that bit of contact, through their clothes—
Emerson could practically feel it, the sudden glow of Luca’s energy. Luca knew he was close to victory.
“Yes. Of course. We would discuss, and then…shake on it.”
A laugh that came out shakier than Emerson wanted, that betrayed how shallow his breathing had become, escaped into the air between them.
“Shake on it,” he repeated.
Emerson still couldn’t make full eye contact, but he saw everything from the corner of his eye. Luca tilting his head, propping his left arm on the back of the couch, resting his temple on his fist. His other hand reaching out until his knuckles brushed down the side of Emerson’s face.
“Yeah,” Luca said, almost a whisper. “Whatever you want.”
Emerson’s eyes fluttered shut. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched him like that.
Luca’s knuckles had been gentle, only one slow swipe of his cheek, but—it made something inside him lurch to the side, like all of his molecules were straining toward Luca’s body.
Hungry for that feeling of being cared for.
“I don’t know what I want,” he eventually said, his voice rough, tattered, embarrassing, eyes still closed.
He felt the shift of Emerson’s weight on the couch beside him.
The warmth of those sweatpants as Luca’s legs came to rest on either side of him, his knees tucked around Emerson’s ass.
The solidness of Luca settling onto his lap.
Without opening his eyes, almost without thinking, Emerson ran his hands up the sides of Luca’s thighs to grip him around the hips, to keep him there.
Luca cupped Emerson’s face in both of his palms.
“I could help you with that,” he whispered.
Emerson wanted to think up boundaries. Wanted to think up rules, lay them out right now.
But in the end, he only nodded. And when he felt Luca’s weight shift, when he felt Luca’s lips brush against his own, he kissed back without hesitation. Defenseless.
Because the truth was, the entire time he’d been cooking and canning and labeling yesterday, the entire time he’d been lying in bed thinking about the movies, even the whole time he’d been working in the old barn with Luca’s fucking mother—he’d only truly been thinking about this.
About how it had felt to open his mouth to Luca’s, to have Luca’s body aligned with his.
The sounds that had poured out of Luca when Emerson had kissed him, rumbling between them even with the noise of the rain.
How long it had been since he’d felt anything even remotely close to it: electric, alive. How badly he needed to do it again.
Luca’s mouth moved to Emerson’s jaw, his neck, his ear, and Emerson finally allowed his eyes to open.
The game on the TV was a blur behind the dark scruff of Luca’s head.
Emerson was just contemplating being brave enough to reach up a hand and touch it, see if it was soft or rough, when Luca pulled back.
Only a few inches, only so they could see eye to eye.
But things had been so heady yesterday, all the sensory details swirled together in Emerson’s body—the rain, the wind, the shock of finding himself on top of Luca, the way his rational brain clicked off when Luca told him to wait—that being this close to Luca’s eyelashes in the still quiet of his living room was an experience that stole his breath.
“I need to know what you meant,” Luca said. “Yesterday, when you asked if I was serious.”
Oh. Emerson remembered that, too. How he’d barely been conscious of what he’d even meant himself, but how he’d needed Luca to respond, all the same.
“I just—I had a hard time believing it. That you would want to kiss me, I guess. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking super clearly.”
Almost imperceptibly, Luca tilted his head. His eyes serious, locked on Emerson’s.
“Why wouldn’t I want to kiss you?”
Emerson’s entire body was consumed by fever now. He didn’t want to talk about this. He just wanted Luca to keep kissing him.
He wondered if he could institute no questions, ever as one of their rules.
“I mean,” he eventually floundered out, flailing a hand toward his balding head. “At least when Jayden fell in love with me, I had hair.” A second after the words were out of his mouth, he sputtered some more. “I mean—not that—”
This, this should have alerted Luca that Emerson wasn’t equipped for this. Less than five minutes after Luca had suggested some completely casual sex, Emerson was somehow saying the words fell in love out loud. While referencing his ex.
“I got it. You’re good,” Luca soothed Emerson’s blunder, running a hand over Emerson’s head. “And you have hair. You just have…a little extra forehead.”
Emerson let out a short, breathy laugh. Luca gave him a stern look before his eyes traveled back to Emerson’s hair, where his fingers were still running along Emerson’s scalp, making shivers drip down his spine.
“It’s…dignified. It’s sexy.”
“Okay,” Emerson managed.
Luca leaned in and kissed him again. “I’m serious.
” His hands made their way underneath Emerson’s shirt, stroking along his stomach.
Emerson sucked in a breath. “Rule number one.” Luca’s mouth was on Emerson’s ear now.
“Listening to me tell you how sexy you are.” His lips skated down Emerson’s neck.
“A requirement of me helping you relax.”
“I don’t—” Emerson hadn’t been this hard in ages.
Luca smelled so good, holy shit. What even was that?
Emerson probably—fuck, Emerson probably smelled like actual shit.
He usually showered as soon as he came in for the day from the barn, but nothing about today had been normal.
“I don’t think that’ll actually help me relax. ”
A soft chuckle against Emerson’s sternum, where Luca had pulled down the collar of Emerson’s t-shirt to lick his collarbone.
Luca Yaeger was licking Emerson’s collarbone.
And Emerson was letting him.
“It will,” Luca murmured, voice sultry and confident now. “Eventually.”
He moved then, forehead pressing against Emerson’s body as he slid down, down, until his knees hit the floor, his hands moving with him until they were caressing Emerson’s thighs over his jeans. And—fuck. Fuck.
“Call me off any time, okay?” Luca looked up at him through those long, dark lashes as his fingers crawled toward Emerson’s fly.
Emerson breathed long and slow through his mouth before he gave the barest hint of a nod.
But as Luca’s fingers made work of the button, the zipper, as Luca leaned forward to lift up Emerson’t t-shirt once more and kiss his stomach, Emerson’s mind sharpened. The kissing had felt dreamy, almost unreal. But this was—
The awkward business of lifting his ass off the couch so he could help Luca shove his jeans down to his knees brought reality rapidly to focus.
“It’s been a while,” he managed to say.
His and Jayden’s sex life had always been good.
It got even better after Jay started transitioning.
It wasn’t just the hormones, although Emerson knew they played into it.
He had loved Jayden’s body in every iteration of itself.
No matter what, it was always Jayden’s body.
It was more that Jayden had a new confidence, a renewed desire to explore, to ask for and test out things he wanted.
But as his resentment over the farm had grown those last six months, he’d touched Emerson less and less. And Emerson—until somehow, surreally, yesterday in the rain—had never been one to initiate.
He’d spent a lot of those last six months thinking about it, though. How much he wanted to touch Jayden first. That maybe it would help. Except he knew, in the end, that it wouldn’t. And so he’d kept his hands to himself.
And the year since the separation had felt, approximately, like six decades.
And so—
“It’s okay,” Luca said, a second before he massaged Emerson’s dick through his briefs and Emerson almost came right then. He clutched his hands into the couch instead, taking a deep breath through his nose. “It’s hot,” Luca added, and Emerson huffed a pained laugh.
“Is it?”