Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Mylo
THERE WERE FEW THINGS FUNNIER than watching revered, respected, legendary competition climber Elijah Reed look nervous on a rope. But there he was, climbing delicately up an easy 5.10 route and looking like he expected to fall every time he lifted his foot. His boyfriend, Ty, stood beneath him holding the other end of the rope secured to Elijah’s harness, prepared to catch him if he fell. Realistically, he’d drop a few feet at most and be completely fine, but try explaining that to a guy who had built his career climbing boulders instead of walls.
Mylo was content to sit back and enjoy the show. His own rope connected to his boyfriend, Lukas, who was easily scaling a harder route next to Elijah’s. Both men were more stocky and muscular, built for power and sporting short, neat hairstyles, but that was about all they had in common. Even if he was scared, Lukas wouldn’t show it, but he definitely wasn’t scared like Elijah. Back home in Germany, Mylo and Lukas spent nearly as much time on sheer walls of rock as they did in the bedroom of their shared apartment.
Mylo smiled to himself. Moving from the U.S. to Germany had changed his life for the better, mostly because of the man climbing on the other end of the rope he held. He and Lukas had had a bit of a rocky start, but they got each other on a deep, instinctual level. Maybe it was fast, but living with Lukas already felt so natural Mylo couldn’t imagine his life being any other way.
It helped that the dude was hot. Like, really hot.
Sure, Mylo had the wild hair and the tattoos and the piercings (including the nipple piercings Lukas seemed to love and few others even knew about), but Mylo was all wiry and lanky. Lukas, on the other hand, was pure muscle, firm and toned and big just about everywhere. (Including there , Mylo reminded himself with a smirk.) He might have looked like an ordinary guy with his sandy hair and chiseled jawline, but there was a lot more going on under the surface.
And it was all Mylo’s to enjoy.
Mylo gazed up, enjoying the view of Lukas’s tight ass as he lifted his leg high to push up and reach a hold. Muscle rippled in his arms and back, then he shouted down “take,” and Mylo had to scramble to do his part on the rope. He got Lukas safely back to the ground with only a mild level of distraction. Then it was his turn to climb.
Mylo’s whole body relaxed once he was on the rock. Even as his muscles strained, his mind sighed out any lingering tension.
This was where he belonged. This was what made the long, long trip to America all worth it. Climbing a big rock with his queerest buddies, feeling the wind combing through his messy hair as he rose higher, letting the stone bite his fingers, savoring the way the whole world hushed to a murmur as he rose above the distant chatter below. This right here was everything.
Would have been a damn shame if he and Lukas had missed this.
Which they very nearly had.
Worth it… Mylo thought as the memory washed over him.
THEY’D BEEN IN THE BEDROOM packing when disaster struck. Their apartment in Germany wasn’t huge, mostly just a living room and bedroom, but they’d still managed to find reasons to scamper around frantically packing a couple last items.
“The taxi will be here soon,” Lukas said.
“Shit, yeah, I know. I just have to find one more thing,” Mylo said.
He rushed around the room, not even sure what he was looking for, just sure he should be panicking, should be searching, until Lukas took him by the shoulders, his big, strong hands clamping down hard.
“Stop,” Lukas said. “You are acting like, what’s the phrase? A chicken with no head?”
Mylo laughed, tension instantly evaporating out of his body. “Close enough.” He draped his arms over Lukas’s sturdy climber shoulders and leaned forward to kiss him.
He meant to leave it there, he really did, but when Lukas’s hands slid down to his waist, Mylo found himself pushing for more, pressing his lips harder against Lukas’s, tilting his hips closer.
“Weren’t you just worried we would be late?” Lukas said against Mylo’s mouth.
“We can be quick,” Mylo said.
He dared not give Lukas an opportunity to contest that. Mylo leaned his body against Lukas’s, letting Lukas feel the hard, solid evidence of Mylo’s intentions. Then he started to slide down, eager for the familiar scratch of their bedroom carpet against his knees.
Lukas gripped him tightly and kept him up.
“No time for that,” he said in a low growl that had Mylo aching in his pants.
Lukas’s deep voice was always sexy, but the smoky rumble of his lust made it damn near deadly. Mylo was his to command the moment the low vibration of his words shivered through Mylo’s chest.
Lukas pushed Mylo back until Mylo hit a wall, chasing after him like a hound with a scent. He seized Mylo roughly by his wild blue hair, yanking on it until Mylo’s scalp tingled. Mylo’s moan was a high pleading thing. He squirmed with need. But for a moment Lukas just held him there with his head forced back, his neck exposed and vulnerable, his chest heaving.
“Ich will dich ficken,” Lukas rumbled. Then he dove in.
Mylo’s German was still a work in progress, but he knew that phrase by now, and it sent a thrill through his whole body. It was the phrase Lukas used just before he devoured Mylo whole, the first full sentence of German Mylo needed absolutely no translation for. I want to fuck you. A phrase Mylo liked in pretty much every language, though German was quickly becoming his favorite.
Lukas charged at the long column of Mylo’s throat, lips and teeth both working their way up until Lukas had the plug stretching one earlobe between his teeth. He tugged, breath rasping hungrily from so close to Mylo’s ear.
Amid all this, Lukas managed to fumble with zippers and buttons as well. Mylo gasped when Lukas fished him free of his pants. He was still reeling from Lukas’s ravenous assault, but his cock roared with need the moment Lukas had him in hand. Lukas’s thicker, larger cock pressed against Mylo’s, and Lukas squeezed them together. Mylo felt no self-consciousness or shame about that; Lukas was bigger than most men. Besides, Mylo got to reap all the benefits of having such a … “gifted” partner.
He looked down, hoping to catch a glimpse of the gift in question, but the moment he did, Lukas tightened his grip in Mylo’s hair and tilted his head back again. His lips were against Mylo’s neck, his voice vibrating through Mylo’s throat as he spoke.
“No distractions.”
As though Mylo could think of anything but Lukas’s hand on him anymore. He surrendered, his body almost limp aside from the erection throbbing in Lukas’s grip. Mylo let a combination of the wall behind him and Lukas pressing in against him keep him upright. Every stroke of Lukas’s hand squeezed their cocks together, the friction burning with nothing to help Lukas along. It was a sweet burn at first, but it quickly built up, and Lukas growled in frustration.
He pulled away, letting go of Mylo for one horrible moment. Lukas held his hand out before himself, obviously meaning to spit in it, but Mylo grabbed Lukas’s hand in both of his first. He looked Lukas right in the eyes as he spit on his palm, doing his part for this hasty operation.
Lukas quirked an eyebrow. One side of his mouth curled upward. Then he caressed Mylo’s cheek with his clean hand.
The slap came next.
Mylo gasped in rapture, his entire body shuddering. He was still seeing stars when Lukas grabbed them both again, moving fast and hard. With his head reeling, the sting of the slap sizzling deliciously under his skin, Mylo truly needed the wall behind him to stay on his feet.
It was strange remembering a time when Lukas had found Mylo’s love of consensual, well-timed impact off-putting. At this point he was almost more into it than Mylo himself. Over the months, he’d learned exactly when, where and how to apply a practiced slap to push Mylo right over the edge.
That hit just now had nearly done it, especially because Mylo hadn’t seen it coming. Weren’t they running out of time? And still Lukas had made space to indulge Mylo’s ultimate kink.
Fuck, Mylo was a lucky man.
That thought made Lukas’s hand even better as it stroked up and down both of them. That big hand could easily squeeze them together, and Mylo loved feeling Lukas’s cock pressed against his own. He was panting from every stroke, his eyes closing on their own, his fingernails biting at Lukas’s shoulders as he grabbed for him to steady himself.
Apparently it was working for Lukas, too. He started to piston his hips, fucking at his own hand as it moved. It meant that wonderful cock of his fucked along Mylo, as well, hard and demanding and hot as the friction overwhelmed their haphazard attempt at lube.
“Lukas,” Mylo gasped, a burst of breath. Then he was rasping again, lost in the pleasure thundering through him.
He could have sworn a car horn honked somewhere, but the sound might as well have come from another lifetime. Mylo was way too close to care about anything in the world that wasn’t Lukas’s hand, his hot breath puffing against Mylo’s throat, his harsh grunts as he got both of them to the edge, then pushed them over it.
Mylo straightened almost onto his tiptoes when it hit him, his toes trying to curl even as he stood. Lukas didn’t let him squirm away, however, his powerful hand nearly overstimulating as he kept on stroking until he was adding to the mess spurting over Mylo’s shirt. Some distant part of Mylo’s mind realized that ruining the shirt was probably not a great thing, and not merely because he’d have to add it to his dirty laundry. There was some other reason, something beyond a soiled T-shirt…
The honk came again, somehow more irritated this time around.
“Shit,” Lukas hissed.
He kissed Mylo swiftly, but neither of them were in a condition to go anywhere as they rode out the delirious aftershocks.
“We have to go,” Lukas said.
“I don’t think I can walk,” Mylo said.
“You can walk.”
As though to demonstrate this, Lukas stepped away, rushing through their room and into the bathroom. Mylo heard water hiss from a faucet, but he still wasn’t quite ready to move. Leave it to Lukas to be cool and collected two freaking seconds after coming.
Mylo slouched down to the floor. He peeled off his dirty shirt, throwing it somewhere in the bedroom. Suitcases stood around him like disappointed parents watching him crawl out from beneath the bleachers at his high school. That was so not an image he needed right now. He’d left his crappy, unsupportive family behind, upgrading to Germany and Lukas and Lukas’s far nicer family. It had been a pretty easy decision leaving America considering he had no friends there who weren’t also climbers traveling the world for their sport.
Climbing.
America.
Friends.
“Shit,” Mylo hissed.
He jerked to his feet. The world rocked, his body unprepared for sudden movement when it was so utterly satisfied and relaxed.
The car outside honked. Mylo heard Lukas open the door to their apartment and shout something down to the driver. Then he rushed back into their bedroom.
“He’s going to leave us,” Lukas said. “Put on a shirt.”
“You’re the one that ruined my shirt in the first place, if you’ll recall,” Mylo said.
Lukas rolled his eyes. “You instigated. Get your bag.”
Lukas grabbed a suitcase and started for the door.
“You totally wanted to be instigated!” Mylo shouted after him.
He grabbed the first clean shirt he could find, as well as his suitcase. At the very last second, he remembered he’d rushed back here in a frenzy because he’d been looking for something. Mylo nearly dove for the bedside table, retrieving his passport as the car waiting to take them to the airport honked yet again and Lukas barked irritably at the impatient driver.
The others were going to kill them if they missed this trip in order to get laid.
MYLO REACHED THE TOP of the climb. “Take,” he shouted down.
Lukas pulled rope through the belay device attached to his harness, securing Mylo so he didn’t fall when he let go of the rock. At the signal, Lukas lowered Mylo gently to the forest floor, a forest all the way across the world in California. That driver had been pissed at them the entire way to the airport, but he’d gotten Mylo and Lukas to their terminal in time. Everything had worked out fine in the end. Plus, that handy had been spectacular, even by Lukas’s high standards.
“Totally worth it,” Mylo murmured as he freed himself from the rope tied to his harness.
“Hm?” Lukas said.
Mylo smiled over at his big, buff, stubbly boyfriend. He raised up on his toes to give him a swift peck.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all. Just happy to be here.”
“I am too,” Lukas said.
On either side of them, the others were still climbing. They’d switch up partners and climbing routes soon, but for now, it was kind of nice just standing back and watching this queer, happy, unlikely group doing their thing in this beautiful place. It was fortunate Mylo’s, ehem, instigating hadn’t actually cost them their trip.
Though if it had…
Mylo cast another glance at the man beside him, the man who hadn’t let Mylo go since he’d decided he wanted him, the man Mylo had moved across a whole ocean for.
If they had missed the trip … Mylo probably wouldn’t be complaining all that much.