Chapter 9 Wes
THEN
The penthouse door closes behind us when we return back from dinner at a new tapas restaurant. Luca kicks off his shoes the way he does every night, heels against the wall, no arrangement. I set my keys on the counter in the spot they go. He is already moving toward the living room.
He settles into his corner of the couch with one leg curled under him.
I sit on the other end. The foot of space between us is the same foot that has been there for a month.
On the couch. At the table. At the sink where his elbow brushes mine when he hands me a plate.
Neither of us has mentioned the balcony.
"Did you shoot this morning?" he asks.
"Yeah. The clouds were right for once. That broken overcast, where the sun comes through in columns."
"Did you get anything?"
"One frame. Maybe."
"Show me."
I pull out my phone and open the photo. Hold the screen toward him. The water shifts from pale green to a blue so dark it is nearly black, and the light comes through the clouds in two clean columns that hit the surface and scatter.
"That is a nine," he says.
"The water or the photo?"
"Both." He pauses. "Show me more."
I glance at him. He is watching me with the look that I have been pretending not to notice since the balcony.
He wants me to solve the distance between us on the couch because the screen is too far from where he is sitting.
I know what he is doing. I scroll back through the camera roll and shift toward the center. Hold the phone between us.
His shoulder is against mine now. I can smell his cologne and under it the soap he has been borrowing from my shower. His weight settles against me, warm and deliberate, and the foot of space is gone.
I scroll. The ocean in forty frames. Gray water, flat water, water with the light doing nothing. I narrate without thinking, half to him and half to the screen.
"This one the exposure was wrong. Too bright. This one the horizon tilted, I didn't catch it until later. This one is close but the clouds moved between frames."
"What are you looking for?" he says. "In all of them?"
"The line," I say. "About half a mile out. Where the shallow water ends and the deep water starts and the color shifts. It's never the same twice. I'm trying to catch the exact second it changes."
"How many mornings?"
"Most of them. Since I moved here."
"Eight years of the same water?"
"Eight years of a different version of the same water." I scroll to another frame and stop. "This one. Look at the bottom left corner."
He leans in. The bottom left corner has the green-to-blue shift, and the light catches the transition at a low angle, and the color is not green or blue but a third thing that is both at the same time.
"There," I say. "That's the thing."
He stops looking at the phone.
I feel it before I see it. His attention has shifted.
His breathing has changed. I can feel the held quality of him next to me, the weight of his shoulder against mine, and when I turn my head his face is right there.
Two inches from mine. His eyes are dark and the look in them is not the rookie, not the broadcast, not the man who rating everything because he can. It is just Luca.
He pauses. A beat away from my mouth. Looking at me.
I don't move. I don't pull back. My eyes drop to his mouth and come back up and I stay exactly where I am.
He leans in and kisses me.
His mouth is warm and the wine from dinner is still there and underneath the wine is just him.
The kiss is not fast and it is not careful.
My phone drops between the cushions and my hand goes to the back of his neck and my fingers press into his hair and the sound he makes against my mouth is low and soft. A sound I want to hear again.
His hand finds my hip and his fingers curve against the bone and the touch is careful, entirely him. His mouth opens under mine and I can feel his heartbeat against my chest and the wall that I held on the balcony is gone.
He pulls back half an inch. His eyes are dark and his mouth is wet and the grin is one the locker room has never seen.
"I've been thinking about this for three weeks," he says.
"I've been thinking about this for longer than that."
"How much longer?"
"Since the gelato."
He grins. "The gelato was the first week."
"I know when the gelato was."
He shifts his weight and swings one leg over so he is straddling my lap, both knees on either side of my thighs. His hands come up to the sides of my face and he holds me still and looks at me.
He kisses me again. His mouth is warm and his tongue slides against mine and the groan I make is not a sound I have heard come out of my own body in years. His hips shift forward on my lap and I feel him through his jeans, hard already.
I run my hands up his back under his shirt. His skin is warm and smooth and the muscles shift when he moves against me. He lifts his arms and I pull the shirt over his head and the light from the kitchen catches his collarbone and the line of his stomach and he is watching me look at him.
I see the small scar along his right shoulder. The way his nipples are pebbled. The line of goosebumps that follows my finger along his bicep.
"Your turn," he says, pointing at my polo.
I pull my shirt over my head. He puts both hands flat on my chest. His palms are warm and his fingers trace the inked sleeve from my forearm up onto my shoulder.
The touch is light and curious and deliberate.
We have brushed hands in the kitchen and leaned into each other on the balcony and had a hundred smaller moments.
This is different. This is his hands on my skin with both of us knowing what comes next.
"You're warm," he says.
"You're sitting on me."
"That's contributing." He leans in and kisses me, his tongue against mine. He rolls his hips, deliberate, and he makes a sound low in his throat and grinds down once, slow.
"Wes?"
"Yeah."
"Touch me."
I bring my hands to his belt. The buckle opens and I work the button and the zipper and he lifts his hips enough for me to push the jeans down.
He pushes them off the rest of the way. He is hard in his briefs and the shape of his cock is right there against the cotton.
I put my hand on him through the fabric and he drops his forehead against mine and breathes.
His hips push into my hand. I rub him through the cotton with my thumb, slow, and the way his mouth opens is what I have been thinking about every night since he moved in.
He reaches between us and gets my belt open. His hands are fast. Jeans unbuttoned, zipper down, his hand inside, his fingers wrapping around my cock, and my whole body goes still. He strokes once, twice, his grip firm and sure, and I catch his wrist.
"Wait," I say. "Just wait."
He stops. His hand stays where it is. "You okay?"
"I'm good. I just want this to last more than four minutes."
He laughs, bright and startled, his face close to mine. "Four minutes is generous."
"For you or for me?"
"For both of us. I have been thinking about your hands for weeks. Four minutes is optimistic."
He leans in and kisses me. Not the urgent kiss from before.
Slow and deliberate and his hand is still on my cock.
I kiss him back and my hand comes up to the back of his neck and I hold him there.
His tongue is slow against mine. He shifts in my lap and the angle changes and I feel him hard against my stomach.
The sound he makes into my mouth is quiet and greedy and I want to hear it again.
I tilt his head with my hand and kiss him deeper and he gives me the sound again, low in his throat, and his hips roll once, involuntary.
"I want you to fuck me," he says, soft and direct. His eyes are on mine.
I hold him still with one hand on his hip. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." He says it before I finish. "I want it. And I want you to know I'm choosing this, not defaulting."
I look at him. His face is steady. No performance. Just a man telling me what he wants.
"I'm on PrEP," he says. "Got tested last month in Seattle. Negative."
"Same. I'm on PrEP. Tested in June. Negative."
"Good." He tilts his head. "You have lube somewhere in this organized apartment?"
"Bedroom. Give me a minute." Luca moves off me, and I am back in thirty seconds.
He is lying on the couch with one arm behind his head and his cock straining against his briefs.
Watching me walk back toward him with a look that has no patience left in it.
The kitchen light catches his collarbone, the wet lips swollen from our kisses, his eyes half open.
A million attempts to photograph this moment would still fall short.
"Take these off," I say as I lean over him. I hook my fingers into the waistband of his briefs.
"You take them off," he says, grinning up at me.
I pull them down. His cock is hard against his stomach and he watches me looking at him. His thighs fall open and his hand goes to the cushion beside his hip and grips it.
"You're staring," he says.
"I'm looking."
"What's the difference?"
"Weeks of self-control."
I strip off the rest of my clothes and settle between his legs on the couch.
"Tell me how you like it. How you want it."
"Slow. I want it slow." He pauses. "I want to feel you."
I slick my fingers and press one inside him.
His eyes close and his mouth opens and I hold still and let him adjust. I lean down and take the head of his cock in my mouth, taste the salt leaking from him.
I run my tongue around the head and note the sound that escapes him. I want that sound only for me.
My other hand is on his thigh, my thumb stroking the muscle, and I watch his face the way I have been watching his face for weeks. In the kitchen. At the table. On the balcony. The way his jaw loosens. The way his brow pulls together and then smooths.
"Okay?" I say, pulling off of him.
"Yeah. More."
A second finger. Slow. His hand finds my forearm and grips it and holds on.