Chapter 28
NEIL
Luke insists he’s not fragile. Surviving all he has bears testament to that.
My rash whisperer is strong as an ox. Regardless, I still can’t help feeling as if I’ve been handed a flimsy box crammed full of bone china.
Luke might have distilled fifteen years of pain down to a few pithy sentences, but the hopelessness of those tormented years hides in the gaps between his words.
The agonies of his past seep through the heat of his skin.
Listening and contemplating him, I feel small. Na?ve even, for all I’ve witnessed and experienced a few slices of life. But I’ll be damned if I’m so dumb and immature to let this precious china smash to pieces on my watch.
I might wreck him in a different way, though.
I rub my thumb over one of Luke’s cute button nipples.
“This is very pretty.” I continue fondling him in a line down his centre to where a neat sandy trail disappears.
I tug on one of the coarse hairs. “And this. And you know what they say about happy trails.” I ease down his boxers an inch. “They lead to happy meals.”
Pressing my mouth against his, I slip a teasing fingertip inside the waistband. Luke groans, his tongue sweeping against mine. Fuck, he’s responsive, his lips made purely for kissing me. “I think you want to forget the last month too,” I murmur around his mouth. “Am I right?”
His answer is a rapid nod and a roll of his hips. Two fingertips inside his boxers, nudging against his leaking dick, are met with a sigh, and he clings to me even harder, hungrily driving his tongue into my mouth.
I push his underwear lower, then withdraw my fingers. When I bring them to my lips and lick up the salty taste of him, Luke whines, cheeks flushed pink.
“You’re dribbling for me,” I observe, simply to see that flush darken. I dip my fingers again, then lick along the length of them. He makes a sound in his throat. “You taste lovely.”
I lay him back against the pillows, caging him underneath me so he’s all mine.
As he kicks off his boxers, my cast finds a home above his head.
Aligned at our mouths, chest, and hips, I grind my cock, already strung tight, against his leanly muscled thigh.
His hips lift, feet pushing into the mattress, hands twisting in the sheet. Under me, he’s achingly hard.
“I like it like this,” he gasps, “with you on me.”
I grin down at him, crossing my eyes. “What, you like seeing this ugly mug inches from your face?”
He snorts. “I can see that any old time. No, I like the feel of your skin. Skin doctor, remember?”
Fingers digging into my hips, he thrusts up. We’re sliding against each other, hot and damp, friction and horniness doing all the work. My dick has delivered some less-than-stellar performances of late, but right now, it’s so hard it hurts.
“I like it like this, too, because I can see your hair, rash whisperer. You’re beautiful, you know that?”
“No, but you make me feel that way.”
When I slide a hand between us and Luke whimpers, I’m undone.
Me, the experienced one, who should be exploring his trigger points and then edging him until he’s begging for it.
Living up to my reputation, fucking him long and hard, not tenderly frotting and telling him he’s beautiful.
But this sweet innocent man strips all my chicanery and performance away, until all that’s left is a simple truth: he does it for me in a way no one else ever has.
“I’m gonna come,” I pant, “if we carry on like this.”
“Me too.” He giggles breathily, licking into my mouth. “That’s why we’re doing it, isn’t it?”
His thighs fall open as he squirms underneath me, chasing, chasing, chasing it.
Clumsily, I work us both with my hand, my face buried in his neck.
Luke thrusts up hard into my fist. For sure, it’s straightforward, but it’s beautiful.
I’m no longer grieving the loss of my sight, just as Luke discarded his inhibitions and anxieties when he discarded his hoodie.
We’re simply two men, rubbing off on each other, chasing the same thing.
As my balls tighten and that delicious familiar warmth explodes in my groin, Luke jerks, then stills, before spilling across our skin with a quiet gasp.
When we’ve recovered and I’ve employed a box of tissues and given us a rudimentary clean, I collapse back down next to him. We should probably shower, but I don’t want to go to sleep smelling of coconut shower gel. I want to smell of him.
Luke cuddles into me, skimming a hand along my hip.
“Okay?” I check.
“Yeah. Is your plaster cast okay?”
Truthfully? My arm throbs like a bitch. “Yeah, she’s waiting for us to offer her a post-coital cigarette.”
Luke twists his neck to kiss my chest. “Sex with you is funny.”
I try not to laugh. “That’s not exactly the vibe I’m aiming for.”
“What I mean is—it feels like having it with my best friend. It’s not awkward. I have no clue what I’m doing, not really. But it doesn’t matter.”
My chest fills with feelings almost too big to contain. I hug him close. I thought I’d known pure bliss two minutes ago, but this is it, right here, trumping anything that’s gone before. “Is that what I am, rash whisperer? Your best friend?”
He considers. “Yeah, I reckon so. Is that okay?”
“More than.”
A surge of protectiveness rolls through me, which is crazy. He doesn’t need a guy like me watching over him. Luke’s tough; he could probably take down a lion with a spoon. And yet here I am, ready to leap in front of him anyhow, like an overenthusiastic, clueless golden retriever.
He fiddles with my nipple barbell. “I want to have anal sex with you,” he confides, somewhat unexpectedly. Not unexpected that he wants it—he’s a curious gay bloke—but that he’s informing me so bluntly. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”
“Interesting. It never crossed my mind,” I tease, amused. “Are you sure? There’s no rush if you’re not ready; it’s not the be all and end all of gay sexual identity, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. But the idea of having it with you fills my head. So I guess that means I’m ready.”
Difficult to argue that. My spent dick half wakes at the thought of him imagining us having anal. My own imaginings in that direction have been fertile since the first time I got my hands on his trim, firm arse. “Which way around do you picture us?”
“Both ways, I think. Which way do you like to do it? Alaric says most gay men suss this out about each other early on.”
“We’re not all like Alaric, you know.” I stifle a smile.
Luke will be cross if I tell him this conversation is adorable.
“Thank fuck. But as Alaric would have told you, if you’d asked him, I’m very happy with both.
Though I haven’t bottomed for a while—I don’t do that for just anyone.
” I smooth down his hair. Now I’m privileged enough to see it, I can’t keep my hands off it.
It’s surprisingly silky and smells divine.
“Is that what you want? For me to bottom?”
“Maybe?” He eyes me nervously. “I’ll be more in control. My anxiety is telling me that might be best.”
His anxiety isn’t going to be part of us fucking, if I have anything to do with things. “When do you want to do it? Now? Tonight?”
“Nah, next week sometime.” A laugh bursts from him. “Of course tonight, idiot.”