Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
SAWYER
My legs wobbled when we made it back onto dry land, but I thought that some of my unsteadiness might be from the fact that Lukas asked me for another date, and we weren’t even finished with the first one.
I’d never had that happen before. Sure, I’d been on second dates, but not with anyone I liked half as much as I liked Lukas.
Being around him was incredibly easy. Maybe it was because he was a little older and ran his own company. Both of those things gave him a certain level of maturity that I hadn’t yet come across in the men I’d dated.
On our way to the car, Lukas fell into step next to me and grabbed my hand.
God, but every touch he gifted me with made me greedy for more.
We’d agreed to take things slow, and I respected that, but I knew I was going to fantasize later about the way his hand felt in mine.
And wasn’t that the saddest thing ever? Fantasizing about holding hands.
“I had a great time,” Lukas said as we came up to his car. Instead of opening the door, I found myself trapped between him and the car.
“I did too,” I replied, moving closer to him.
I didn’t know how slow he wanted to go, but he leaned in and brushed his lips against mine.
Whenever Lukas kissed me, it was like my insides set off fireworks.
I moved closer, pressing my body flush against his, needing all the contact I could get.
All the touch. Lukas wrapped an arm around the small of my back and held me even tighter.
Lukas took a step forward, and I took a step back, then another, until I was up against the side of his car with my arms wound around him.
There were so many things I wanted to do to him.
To experience with him. If we weren’t in public, I’d have slid my hands under his shirt to feel the heat of his skin.
If we weren’t taking things slow, I’d have given in to the urge to grind against him and beg him to please touch me.
But we were in public. We were in public where there were people watching us, probably, and I stiffened. Lukas pulled away and looked at me, concerned.
“People can see us,” I murmured and understanding washed over him.
“Sorry.” He pecked me on the lips and then put distance between us so suddenly that it left me cold. I wanted to call him back and curl up in his arms.
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” I reassured him. “I like kissing you. I’d like to do a lot more than kissing, if I’m being honest.”
The smile on Lukas’s face could only be described as radiant. Joyful. “I’d like that too.”
“But not here,” I told him and his smile widened.
“Not here,” he agreed and reached for the door so he could open it for me.
I slid into the passenger seat, buckled up, then tucked my hands under my thighs so I wouldn’t be caught doing something silly like touching my lips to see if I could still feel his kiss lingering there.
On the drive back to my place, I asked him about the band we’d seen play earlier. “Did you have any idea they would know my favorite song, or did you take a wild stab in the dark?”
“Blue can put a beat to anything, and the other guys know a lot of different songs. It was an educated guess. Well, it was actually a whim that played out in my favor.”
“It was sweet of you.”
We talked about music the rest of the way home.
Lukas seemed interested in knowing all about me.
Maybe because we’d spent so many hours talking about him.
It had been a little hard at first not to bring up the book, or ask him questions about the next chapter that I was working on, or to confess that writing about his sex life had been the cause of many cold showers on my part.
Too soon, we arrived at my place. I’d bought a townhouse a few years ago. It had a postage stamp-sized yard out back. It was two stories, a main floor and a top floor where the bedrooms were. One of which was my office.
Lukas walked me to my door and waited patiently while I unlocked it.
“Come in for a drink?” In my mind, I begged him to say yes while telling myself to play it cool. To not let on how desperately I wanted him inside where I could kiss him properly, without an audience. I was so prepared to hear him say no that I almost didn’t hear his answer.
“Yeah. I’d like that.” His hands were shoved deep into his pockets, and I hated how much I wanted him to touch me.
I opened the door and ushered Lukas inside before following him. The moment the door was closed, he turned to me and I shrugged a shoulder.
“We’re alone now. If you wanted to resume that kiss from earlier.”
He pulled his hands out of his pockets, and I watched them come at me. He reached for my face, his palms warm and smooth on my cheeks, and I almost didn’t want to return his touch because mine were damp and clammy.
I didn’t know how to tell him that I wanted those hands all over my body.
I didn’t know how to tell him that I never should have agreed to take things slow because it felt like a death sentence.
But Lukas deserved to have someone who was willing to stay within his boundaries.
Though I tried not to, I often thought of all the people he’d told me about who’d not done that for him.
Who had seen his boundaries as a challenge or not seen them at all.
Lukas’s tongue swept into my mouth and any thought that wasn’t related to the way his body pressed mine up against the wall vanished. Pinned against Lukas made me let out an embarrassing moan. I cut it off with a whimper.
“You’re so responsive.” He brushed his fingers over my cheek again, and I didn’t even try not to lean into him. He was the sun, and I was a plant, leaning into his warmth.
“You’re a really good kisser.” My brain came back online well enough for me to slide my hands around his waist, tucking them under his shirt so I could feel his bare skin on mine.
A thought entered my head and before I could stop it, I let it come out of my mouth.
“Something I never got to experience was making out with a guy on my couch. My parents didn’t know I was gay and once they did, they weren’t the kind of parents you wanted to bring people around.
” I toed my shoes off, and when Lukas did the same, my heart slammed against my rib cage like it was trying to escape.
“Well, it’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.” With no warning, he scooped me up off my feet.
“What are you doing?” I laughed and wrapped my arms around his neck. My head spun a bit from the sudden change in orientation, but I didn’t mind.
“Sweeping you off your feet.” Lukas smirked at me. “What does it look like?”
He went straight into my house like he’d been there a million times before and knew exactly where everything was. As he deposited me on the couch, I kept my arms wrapped around his neck and made him follow me down.
The air left my lungs in a whoosh, but it was the way Lukas looked at me that left me light-headed. I’d spent years dreaming of a guy to look at me the way he was with desire and affection all rolled into one. To have him look at me like there was nowhere else he’d rather be felt like a dream.
“Hi,” Lukas whispered, bringing his mouth closer to mine.
“Hi,” I whispered back to him. Sliding my hands up his back, I combed my fingers through the short hair at the back of his head and tugged him closer.
His exhale puffed out over my lips, and then his mouth brushed against mine.
Soft. Sweet. Which was the direct opposite of the way my cock reacted to the kiss.
It wanted freedom. It wanted friction. It ached and pulsed and throbbed as the kiss continued, a tantalizing dance of tongues and breath.
An unhurried kiss, the kind that slowly enveloped you until the world didn’t exist outside the kiss.
Lukas made me want to kiss him forever. For hours and days and years. He kissed me like he was in no rush because the end goal in this moment wasn’t to get to a specific destination—it was to enjoy the journey.
We kissed until the ache between my legs throbbed through to my soul.
Until I was dizzy with breathlessness and my head was as light as a helium-filled balloon.
Until I was so drunk on the proximity of his body, on the feeling of his form against mine that I couldn’t think straight.
I wasn’t sexually satisfied. Quite the opposite was true actually, but I was spiritually satisfied.
I was sated in a way that I’d never experienced before.
Lukas pulled away and took a breath. He relaxed into me and buried his face in the curve of my neck. Wrapping my arms around him, we lay like that for several minutes until our breathing evened out.
It was by far the most intimate moment of my life.
That was the strange, warm, fuzzy feeling of satisfaction that flooded me full of endorphins.
I didn’t know how to tell him that in case he didn’t feel the same way.
It might have just been a kiss to him. It could have only been a make-out session with a guy he was moderately attracted to.
To me, it was everything. It was everything I’d always wanted and never thought I’d get. And even though I wanted nothing more than for him to stay, when he let out a sigh, I knew he was going to say he should leave, and I knew I wasn’t going to argue.
“I should get going,” Lukas said on cue.
“I know.” I tried not to sigh, but it rushed out of me like I’d deflated. I wanted him to stay wrapped up in my arms. Having him close was like a drug I could easily get addicted to.
“I’m busy tomorrow with a shoot, but we could do something after.”
“You could come over,” I said, hatching a plan in my head to make our next date as memorable as this one. “I’ll make us dinner, and we can watch a movie.”
“Nothing sad. And the dog can’t die. Those are my limits.”
“I think I can manage to find something that fits your parameters.” I stole a kiss, then released him so he could get to his feet. I stood and followed him to the door, watching as he put his shoes on.
Before he left, Lukas closed the distance between us and kissed me again. “I had a wonderful time tonight.”
“Me too,” I said, hating to see him go, then hating that I hated it. It made me feel weird and needy. Clingy. Like one of those people who became obsessed with someone who showed them the smallest scrap of affection.
He kissed me one more time, which made me hope that maybe he was as obsessed as I was. “Until tomorrow,” he said, stepping out the front door.
“Tomorrow,” I echoed. I stayed at my door, watching him leave and only when he was out of sight did I go back inside. I closed my door and leaned against it, pressing my forehead against the cool wood. I put my palms against it and took a few deep breaths until the urge to jerk myself blind passed.
Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.