Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cameron
He’s hiding something.
That ‘something’ could’ve been any number of things, but whatever it was, it had meant a backward step.
Uh-uh. Not now. Not when it felt as though we’d come a long way in such a short space of time.
I waited until we were back at the flat before tackling him.
Look at me. I never thought I was particularly bold, but something about Theo brought it out in me.
Whatever it was, it made me want to fight for him. I’d spent years believing what I wanted could never happen, but we were here now and no way was I going to give up.
I don’t want to lose him.
Then there was that quiet voice at the back of my mind that kept saying what we had going didn’t need to end when I finally quit crashing on Theo’s couch.
I put the kettle on to make tea, while Theo peered at his phone.
“You can stop hiding now,” I told him. I caught the hitch in his breathing, but I ploughed ahead regardless. “I do get it. Whenever you get scared, you hide.” I turned around to face him. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not asking you to be perfect.” I looked him in the eye. “I’m asking you to be here.”
Theo’s jaw worked. “I am here.”
“No, you’re not.” My pulse quickened. “Your body is here. The rest of you is in some locked room you won’t let me into.”
Theo’s breath faltered once more, and I knew I’d hit the mark.
I stepped closer to him. “If something’s wrong, tell me. Don’t shut me out.”
He swallowed hard, lowering his eyes. “I’m not shutting you out.”
I arched my eyebrows. “That’s not how it looks from my side.” I sighed. “Theo… look at me.”
He raised his chin, and my heartbeat stuttered. I saw defensiveness in the set of his jaw, but there was something else.
He looks like I’ve wounded him.
More than that, Theo looked scared.
“Cameron… you don’t understand how complicated I am.”
“Then explain.” Closer. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”
“I don’t want to fight.”
“I don’t want to fight either,” I told him. “I just want the truth.”
Theo rubbed his palms against his jeans.
“Then let’s start with something small.” I placed my hand on his arm. “Why are you pulling away?”
Theo
My breathing quickened, and I had to force the words out.
“I’m scared.”
Cameron’s gaze became softer, more tender. “Of me?”
“No.” I swallowed hard. “Of wanting you.”
He blinked, clearly stunned. “Theo…”
I stared at the rug. “I don’t trust wanting. Wanting makes me lose control. Losing control gets me hurt.”
“That’s Luka talking,” Cameron whispered.
I flinched as if he’d struck me.
“Theo, I’m not him. I’m not going to punish you for having feelings. Or for needing things.”
My throat tightened. “I’ve never had someone like you. I don’t know if I can handle it.”
“You don’t handle it,” he said quietly. “You just let yourself feel it.”
“I am trying,” I remonstrated.
“I know.” He let out a breath. “And as much as you want me? I want you too.”
My heart pounded. “You say things like that, and all I want to do is take you.”
Cameron shivered. “Then take me. Right here. Right now.”
He’d just flicked a switch in my head.
I grabbed Cameron by the front of his shirt, pushed him roughly against the wall, and kissed him with all the hunger burning inside me, a collision of lips and tongues. I pinned him there with my body, grinding against him, hard enough that he moaned.
Fuck, I kissed him as though I’d been starving for him. I gripped the back of his neck with one hand, the other on his hip. My tongue slid against his, and each fresh groan that burst from his lips only ramped up my intensifying desire for him—
My need for him.
Cameron broke away, breathless. “Holy shit.”
My voice was a growl I didn’t recognise. “Do you want me to stop?”
He laughed, a wild, reckless sound. “Don’t even think about it.”
I kissed him again, deeper this time, rougher, my hands exploring his warm flesh under his shirt, Cameron arching into every touch as if he’d been waiting for this moment his entire life.
Then he slid his leg between mine, grinding up, and I let out an uncontrolled, primal groan.
Cameron’s eyes darkened. “You don’t have to hold yourself in with me.”
I shuddered out a breath. “You keep telling me to let go. So that’s what I’m going to do.” I kissed him until we were both shaking, my mind playing out where I could take this.
I wanted him against every wall in the flat, bent over the chest, on the couch, on the rug in front of the fireplace.
I want him any way I can get him.
Our bodies pressed together as if we’d been magnetised, and my knees nearly buckled when Cameron cupped my stiffening cock and squeezed it.
A heartbeat later, we were tearing each other’s clothes off, both of us breathing erratically.
“Lube?”
I laughed. “You know where it is.”
He ran naked into the bedroom, and when he returned with the bottle and a packet of wipes, I was sitting on the couch, slapping my dick against my palm. I patted the seat cushions.
“On your knees.”
Fuck, Cameron’s pupils were huge.
He clambered onto the couch, got on all fours, and lowered his head to my cock. I groaned when he took me in his mouth, alternating between sucking and licking.
“Kiss the shaft,” I ground out.
He did as he was told, little nibbling kisses that felt incredible.
He dragged his tongue up and down my length, making me shudder every time he flicked under the head.
I grabbed his nape and held him steady, filling his mouth with quick, short thrusts, pumping my hips.
Then I applied pressure, forcing him to take me deeper, and he moaned around my shaft.
I put my head back and closed my eyes, focusing on the glorious sensations: Cameron’s agile tongue on my cock, the musky, delicious scent emanating from him, the sounds of him spluttering when he tried to take all of me…
“You feel amazing.” I opened my eyes and stared at him, stroking him from his shoulder to his arse, sliding my fingers into his crack, rubbing over that hot little pucker.
Cameron’s moan rebounded off the walls.
I couldn’t resist the lure of that wonderful mouth a moment longer. “Kiss me.”
He was up and straddling me within seconds, our lips meeting in long, fervent kisses.
I cupped his cheek. “Why the wipes?”
He swallowed. “There’s something I’d like you to do. Something I’ve wanted for such a long time.” His breathing was raw and ragged. He leaned back and grabbed the packet, removing a wipe. When he reached behind him and swiped it over his hole, the penny dropped.
My cock jerked at the prospect.
I smiled. “On your knees, baby, facing away from me.”
The black of his pupils almost obliterated the blue of his eyes.
Cameron got on all fours again, this time clutching the arm of the couch. I knelt behind him, pulled those downy cheeks apart, and licked a path over his hole.
His loud groan was my invitation to keep going.
Cameron
That first touch of his tongue on my hole was like a surge of electricity thrumming through me.
Then an open-mouthed gush of warm breath sent a tingle of anticipation crawling over my skin.
I’d expected him to just go for my hole and lick it, but he stole the air from my lungs when he blew on it, a cool breath that made me moan.
His tongue danced over my pucker and the hypersensitive skin around it, light flicks that sent sparks jolting through my body.
“It feels like you’re drawing on my s-skin with your tongue,” I stammered out.
Theo’s chuckled vibrated through my crease. “That’s because I am.” Then he tickled the hole with the tip of his tongue before pushing it inside.
“Aw fuck.” I dropped my head to the seat cushion, shivering as he alternated between wide licks and intimate probing. That dance of quick, light licks then deep, draw-out ones had me writhing. “Theo, please…”
The cushions dipped, and a moment later, Theo’s slick cock slid through my crease, over my hole.
It wasn’t enough.
“Please… inside me.”
Theo flipped me onto my back, stuffed a cushion under my arse, and then he was home, his cock filling me in one long, leisurely thrust. He held my leg aloft as he drove into me, kissing my calf, my foot, sucking on my toes.
Shit. How did I not know about this?
Watching him fucking me, his face flushed, his gaze locked on mine, was heaven. And when he picked up speed, spearing into me, our bodies slamming together with loud erotic slaps, my pulse quickened too, my breathing staccato and just as loud.
“Theo… so close…”
He nodded, then lay between my thighs, his hands on my face as he kissed me, sliding his cock into me faster, deeper, his hips snapping, his cries building. I clung to him, caging him with my legs, driving my heels into his arse cheeks, wanting more of him.
Theo snaked his hand between our bodies and curled it around my dick, tugging on it.
I arched into his touch, mouth open, anticipating the lightning that zapped through me as I came, shuddering, breathless, my body singing, soaring…
Theo claimed my lips in a brutal kiss, groaning into it as warmth pulsed into me. I moaned to feel the throb of him inside me, and I held him tight, his chest as slippery with sweat as mine was, skin meeting slick skin.
At last, we both lay still, my arms around him, his lips on my cheeks, my neck, all the fire burned out of him.
“Wow,” I murmured. “When you let go, you really let go.” I kissed him, a lingering, sweet kiss. “So when do I get my turn?”
Theo froze. “Your turn to what?”
“Be the one doing all the work. ‘It is better to give than to receive’, isn’t that how the saying goes? Because I’d like to try giving for a change.” I bit my lip. “I’m not saying I want it now, but someday, yeah, I want that with you.”
Theo drew in a sharp breath, then looked away, his jaw tight.
“It’s not that I don’t want it. It’s that…” He clammed up and I waited.
This is something to do with Luka. I felt it in my bones.
He exhaled. “Luka made it feel like something I had to earn. Something he allowed me. He wanted me quiet. Controlled. Restrained. I wasn’t allowed to want anything. He made me think that letting someone else take the lead meant I was weak. Or messy. Or… wrong.”
I didn’t think I could hate someone I’d never met, but in that moment, I loathed Luka with every fibre of my body.
Theo’s voice dropped further. “When you say you want to top me… I don’t think about sex first. I think about what it felt like to be told I wasn’t allowed to exist during it.”
My eyes burned. “Oh, Theo…”
Theo continued, his voice fraying. “Being topped wasn’t pleasure. It was a performance. For him, not me.” Before I could get a word out, he blurted, “But I want to let go, to be loud. I want to feel everything. I want to stop being afraid of my own body wanting yours.”
I traced a fingertip down his cheek. “If the day comes when we do that, it’ll be because you want it.
Because you feel safe. Because you trust me to take care of you, not because you feel controlled.
” He shivered, and I kissed him. “And when you let go? I won’t silence you.
I’ll want every sound you make. I’m asking for all of you.
And I’ll give you all of me right back.” Another kiss. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Theo expelled a breath, and I held him close. When my stomach growled, I chuckled.
“I think that’s my cue to feed us.” I cupped his cheek. “And then I want to curl up on the couch with you. If that’s okay.”
Theo smiled, and relief flooded me. “That sounds good. But let me do the cooking.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’ve eaten my cooking and you’re still alive.”
He laughed as he got up off the couch. “Yeah, but I have the unshakeable feeling that you’re just lulling me into a false sense of security.” He walked naked into the kitchen.
I lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling.
Love is supposed to feel louder than this, like fireworks or obsession or wanting something so badly it hurts.
There were moments when this felt steady.
And then it hit me.
I didn’t fall in love when I first wanted Theo.
I didn’t fall in love when we kissed.
I fell in love when Theo needed me afterward, when I became a place Theo could land without fear. And I knew with calm certainty that whatever came next, whatever storms or mistakes or fear we have to work through, I’d made my choice.
I choose him.
Theo just didn’t know it yet.