Chapter Armand （Nearly） Takes It All In
Armand (Nearly) Takes It All In
I shut the door and leaned on it, projecting the absolute least welcoming body language available to me. Stand up straight, Demetrio.
Lucas didn’t seem to have noticed. He’d stepped forward and was looking around my tiny, shabby flat, his shirt somehow still crisp across his shoulders after a twelve-hour flight.
His hand gripped the handle of his carry-on as he stood, surrounded by the incontrovertible proof of our class difference.
“It’s so . . . long” was the first thing he said.
And narrow was the unspoken rest of that sentence. Perhaps: and shabby, too. Or, and perfectly awful.
By Croydon standards my flat was far from the worst-case scenario, but it was admittedly long, narrow, shabby, and perfectly awful.
Technically a one-bedroom, it looked more like a studio, with my threadbare full mattress tucked into the corner of what had been the living room; I’d converted the bedroom into my workroom.
What space remained featured an ugly kitchenette, a rickety card table, and a dilapidated sofa.
At least I had my own toilet. And the miniscule fire escape outside the kitchen window; empty bottles full of cigarette butts lined up in shameful procession along the sill.
A primordial cringe ran through me. This living space was a true external reflection of my internal life at a scale much larger than that which Lucas had experienced back at the Briars apartment in California.
I’d known that allowing him here would be utterly mortifying.
And this was its most orderly state, having been without the main source of chaos (myself) for over a month.
But I hadn’t prepared for how fully exposed the experience would leave me.
The carpet curled at the corners, and the greying wallpaper was spattered in cooking oil and ink.
It was also yellowed with—despite my best efforts given the fire escape—cigarette smoke.
The flat smelled, as always, of fried fish, and the late-afternoon light coming through the torn butcher’s paper in the window made everything worse, falling across the messy bed in shades of inelegant poverty.
Lucas still hadn’t said anything more. Neither had I. The backpack slipped from my shoulder, and I let it fall with a thunk.
“I’m sorry,” I finally managed, shoving my hands as deeply in my pockets as they would go, actively distressing a tear in one of them. “I . . . Obviously, I didn’t know you were coming, or I’d have . . .” I’d have what? Moved?
Lucas turned to face me, and while the anxiety was there—I could practically see his fingers twitching for the disinfectant wipes I’d watched him pack—there was also a shy, almost resigned affection in his smile.
“Don’t be silly, it’s not condemned. Just put up with me when I insist on Queer-Eyeing this bitch. ”
Relief tried to ripple across my shoulders, but I held it at bay. “You don’t have to clean up after me, love, I’ll, I’ll get a service in—”
“Shut up.” Lucas was still smiling, but though I’d only had a few days to grow accustomed to his expressions, I could read insecurity settling in the corners of his mouth.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” Stepping in close, I ran my hands up and down his arms, feeling the goose bumps rise in answer and his skin warm. His eyes widened, the anxiousness giving way to excitement as I moved to kiss him.
He melted around me and I gathered him up, and all was briefly right with the world.
“I’m glad I’m here too,” Lucas laughed into the corner of my jaw as we both took in much needed air. “But I’m serious, you have to let me do something about this place.”
“On one condition, love.” I nuzzled his neck, laying a few quick kisses along his collarbone, my hands finding the firm line of his fly and tracing it hesitantly. “Let me give you a proper welcome?”
Lucas inhaled from so deep in his sternum, the shudder ran through us both. “Oh. Um.” He swallowed. “Can I take a shower first?”
I shook my head, kissing under his ear and then glancing up to make sure he was still with me. “I’d rather you didn’t.” My fingers dipped past his waistband.
Lucas didn’t push me away or make a sound.
I was pretty sure he’d stopped breathing.
He allowed me to carefully usher him onto the sofa and kneel between his legs.
His lips had fallen open—his green eyes dark—and the flush in his cheeks was so sweet and sugary I wanted every last bit of him in my mouth.
I swallowed, kept my movements slow and cautious. Resting a thumb on the button of his slacks, I traced the downy skin above it and met his eyes. “I won’t if you don’t want me to, love.” I smiled at the faint pinch between his brows.
Lucas gave a soft, disbelieving laugh, Adam’s apple bobbing, and leaned his weight back to look up at the ceiling. “Wow, um. Okay, yeah, oh my god.”
“Okay?” I let myself stray from the buttons and traced the warm, firm outline of him. “Yes?”
“Yes, please,” he groaned.
I worked him out of his pants, kissing along his stomach all the while.
His shirt bunched under his chin; I followed the line of nearly invisible golden hair connecting the dip of his clavicle and the nadir of his hips.
I pressed a hand against his cheek, the edge of my palm pulling at his slick bottom lip and tongue, then moved down to introduce him to warmth and wetness from his own mouth.
Lucas made a sound that forced me to kiss him. He laughed against my lips and bucked into my hand, clenching his fingers in the curls at the back of my neck. I pulled slightly against them. “Lemme get down there, love.”
“Really?” The wonder in his voice broke my heart. The shadow of his rank ex hung over me briefly, but I channeled that anger into the tenderness with which I kissed first one spot and then another on his chest, and mouthed my way down, pressing him into the sofa but keeping my grip light.
The taste of him was salt, and a familiar bitterness hit the back of my tongue like dark-brewed tea.
I teased him, watching through the hair that had fallen over my eyes as Lucas’s mouth dropped open wider and his head snapped back. A shudder ran down from his shoulders to his hips to my eyeteeth. He gasped my name, turning it into a moan that was the only thing I ever wanted to be called again.
Shutting my eyes, I pressed forward, the pressure and heat and mass of him holding me down from the inside, as deep as I could take, the satisfaction of it spreading through me like spice.
I set the rhythm of a dancer’s pulse, the bass traveling up from the floor through my knees.
Long pulls, adagio, followed by quick changements, make him squirm, ruthless petit allegro—let him very nearly catch his breath—and grand battement, all of me, every last inch I had to give.
Lucas reached for me, and I took one of his hands in mine, intertwining our fingers and pressing them into the threadbare upholstery of the sofa. Its rickety structure creaked beneath us as I gulped and sucked like Lucas was the only sweetness I’d ever taste. The last lolly of summer.
“Armand, I—” Lucas’s voice was broken in every way I wanted it to be, his hips driving into me, one hand scrambling at my back, his fingers clenching in the fabric of my shirt.
He tensed, and I made a split-second decision.
If I took him all in, if I gobbed at this juncture, there was no denying how deep I’d fallen.
At the last possible moment, I disengaged and pulled my shirt over my head, bunching it forward so Lucas could push into it.
He keened, shuddered, and gasped, his hands finding mine in the mess of cloth, and as warmth spread between us, he slumped against my shoulder.
His flushed cheek on my bare skin sent a buzzing ache through me, and I flutter-kissed every bit of him I could reach. I was a hungry animal nipping at sunlight, and Lucas’s weight against me was the only thing that kept that hunger from turning on me, tearing me to shreds.
“Armand Demetrio,” he breathed into my neck, holding on as I trembled. “What the fuck, sir.”
I couldn’t quite speak yet, still trying to fill the emptiness in my mouth with kisses and nuzzles. Eventually Lucas’s strong, rough fingers gripped my jaw—gently but firmly—so he could meet my eyes.
“You okay?” He was still breathing hard, sweat glistening at his temples, his green eyes wide and filled with the pleasure I’d given. I’d done that. Done well.
I reached into the depths and found something dark and raspy that nonetheless resembled my voice. “Never better.”
Lucas kissed my mouth, the bridge of my nose, the corner of my brow. He took the soiled shirt between us and tossed it aside. “You’re incredible. That was incredible. No one’s ever . . .” He bit his lip, looking almost apologetic.
Confirmed. That bitter tide of anger surged through me again, mixing with the itch that filled every muscle with a crackling want. “Lucas—” I swallowed, feeling every nerve in my body respond as his hands explored my back “—I’m afraid I have a rather large crush on you.”
He giggled, his grin nearly sending me into another dimension. “Good.” His eyes traveled down to where, still on my knees, I was quite obviously straining against my jeans. “Let me see if I can help you with that.”
We put my charity-shop sofa through the ringer, never quite making it to the bed a few feet away.
It didn’t make any sense—Lucas and this place existing at the same time.
It all seemed like some miraculous, ridiculous mistake, like a perfect, precious, good thing surrounded by rubbish and brown gravy.
He didn’t belong here. With me. And while I was going to do everything in my power to keep him from realizing that, there was only so long it could last.