Chapter 20
Austin
The taste of Luca’s tongue is still on mine, the echo of his soft whimpers still ringing in my ears.
Holy fuck, that was so damn hard to stop.
I run my fingers through his hair almost absently, keeping his body close to mine. “Are you okay?” I whisper, trying not to disturb the peace of the moment.
“Perfect,” Luca sighs, snuggling deeper into me. My heart beats a frantic rhythm in my chest, warmth radiating from it and into my limbs. God.
“Thank you for trusting me.”
Luca sits back, pinning me with gorgeous gray eyes. I’ve always loved his eyes, even when we were kids. I’d never seen another person with eyes like his before. “It’s easy to trust you, Austin. You’re the steadiest thing in my life.”
And that’s what scares me. Terrifies me, actually.
I’m safety to Luca, and God, am I glad I can be, but he’s so much more than that to me.
I didn’t want our kiss to end. I wanted to kiss him forever.
I didn’t want to stop at all. Not until I had covered every inch of his skin in me, erased the memory of anyone else. Removed the harsh touches of before.
When he left, I was heartbroken. I missed him something awful.
And sure, I’m friends with Jasper, but it was never like it was with Luca.
It would be easy to say it was the lens of youth, the nostalgia, but even now, it’s not the same with anyone else but him.
“You’re my best friend, you know that?” I ask softly.
“You’re mine too.” Luca’s lips turn up in a soft smile. “Are you okay?”
I nod slowly, swallowing against the lump in my throat.
Luca searches my face, lingering on my eyes for a beat. “Is that all I am to you?”
“What do you mean?”
Warm fingers settle on my jaw, dragging over the stubble there and making me shiver. “Your best friend,” Luca murmurs, eyes fixed on my mouth. “Is that all I am?”
“No.” The word is out of my mouth before I can think better of it.
Not that I think a better brain-to-mouth filter would change anything.
I’ve never lied to Luca, and I’m not about to start now.
Our friendship has survived plenty over the years, and even if Luca doesn’t return my feelings, it won’t change anything for me.
I’m still gonna be here for him. I’m still gonna support him and take care of him and keep him safe. It might destroy me on the inside to hold him like this and have him in my bed at night and it never become more, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take—a burden I’m willing to bear if I have to.
“What am I?” he whispers, fear clouding his eyes. “To you. What am I to you?”
I’m not sure what answer he wants, but I decide to go with honesty. “I don’t know, Luc.” His face falls, eyes dimming. “Hey,” I murmur, cupping his face, and waiting to continue until his eyes find mine. “That’s not a bad thing.”
“What is it then?”
Good fucking question. “A new thing, I think.”
He stares at me in confusion, but when I brush a thumb over his bottom lip, his eyes fall shut and he leans into my touch. “We’ve known each other so long, Luc, and I don’t know. Things just feel different. Do they feel different for you?”
He nods slowly, opening his eyes again.
He really does have the most beautiful eyes. My heartbeat quickens as I stare at him in silence. “I don’t know what this is, Luc, but I just want you to be happy and healed. That’s enough for me.”
“What if it’s not enough for me?”
“What do you mean?” I ask quietly, tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear.
God, I can’t get enough of touching him. It’s never been this way before. Not for me. Not like this. It’s not even sexual. I just want him to experience soft hands, and I want him to experience them with me.
His throat bobs. “What if I don’t want to just be happy and healed, but instead happy and healed with you?”
“Knight in shining armor shit? Carrying you off into the sunset?” His cheeks flush pink, and he jerks from my hold, standing up abruptly. “Hey, wait. What’s wrong?”
I love that he feels safe enough with me to glare at me, although I wish he weren’t actually glaring at me.
“I’m not some disillusioned idiot. What? You think I just latched onto you because you’re safe and because I’m too—” His voice cuts off as he glances around. “Too fucking starved for affection or something?”
Honestly, I have been worried about that. Not quite in that way, of course, but still. The broad strokes. “I think you went through something traumatic, Luca. And I think I represent safety to you. And I want to be that safety. Not something else you have to fear.”
He scoffs. “Some fucking God complex you’ve got yourself there.”
How did we end up here? What wrong turn did I take?
“No,” I say slowly. “That’s not it at all.”
“Then what is it?” This time there’s no anger burning low in his tone, just confusion and hurt. Hurt that I’ve somehow caused.
“Do you feel safe with me?” I ask instead of answering his question right away.
“Of course I do. Stupid fucking question.”
I chuckle but shut up quickly when he glares at me again. “I’m sorry.” I hold my hands up in supplication. “I didn’t mean anything bad by it, Luc.” I sigh, patting my thigh. “Please come back.”
“What did you mean by it, then?” Luca eyes me warily, not budging or moving closer to me at all. Damn, I really fucked this one up.
I sigh. “Aren’t you worried this,” I say, waving my hand between us, “could get messy?”
Luca’s eyebrows pull together. “We fucked around as teens, and it was fine.”
Ouch. “I think that’s the problem. The feelings I have? The way I want to touch you and take care of you and be with you? Not ‘fucking around.’ Not for me. I’d just as soon never touch you again than have my very real feelings reduced to ‘fucking around.’”
The words are barely out of my mouth before Luca is sliding back into my lap. “It wouldn’t be fucking around to me, either,” he confesses softly. “I’m afraid.”
Well, that makes two of us. “What are you afraid of?”
“That I won’t be able to enjoy it. That I won’t trust it.”
“You don’t think you can trust me?”
He shakes his head quickly. “No, I don’t mean it like that. It’s just… when you’re love-bombed and affection is used as a weapon and mistakes are punished with fists, it fucks up your view of safety. You’re safe. You always have been. But sometimes my mind tries to convince me that you’re not.”
I wrap an arm around his waist and haul him back to me because, kissing or not, this is where he belongs.
His head settles on my shoulder, and he runs a finger absently over my rib cage.
“I want you,” he whispers. “Not because you’re some knight in shining armor, though you definitely are that.
I just do. Because being with you makes me feel good, and I haven’t felt good in a very long time. ”
His words damn near steal my breath. “I want you to feel good.”
He sits up, eyes locking on mine. “Then kiss me.”
My heart stutters at the look in his eyes. The complete trust. The certainty.
God, I want to so bad.
“Please, Austin.”
Every single atom in my body is reaching out to him. Begging me. Begging me to close the gap, to taste his mouth, to connect with him. “I want to,” I whisper. “You have no idea how much.”
“So then do it.” He leans closer, so close that his breath fans across my lips. “Don’t make me be the one to close this distance, Austin. Don’t let me be the only one chasing.”
Fuck.
I lean forward, and like we never even parted, seal my mouth over his. He’s so warm and pliant, his body sagging into mine. His lips part, fingers dancing over my chest and up my throat to my hair, tangling in the strands.
The first soft whimper against my lips nearly does me in, and I bury my fingers in his hair, tilting his head so I can deepen the kiss. It feels like I can’t get enough of him. Like this will never be enough. Like I’ll never have my fill.
Luca breaks the kiss with a gasp, and I’m resigning myself to it being over when his head falls back and he bares his throat to me.
There’s something so vulnerable about that, so achingly trusting, that I lose myself a little, my restraint slipping.
“Fuck,” I whisper, though it sounds more like a prayer than a curse, and I cradle the side of his head and press my lips to the hollow of his throat.
He groans, arching toward me, so I slowly drag my tongue up his Adam’s apple.
The way his fingers are twisting in my hair and the way he’s panting are such a turn-on, but it’s not even about that.
I just want him close to me. “Just kissing, Luca,” I murmur into his skin.
“Nothing more than that; not yet, okay?”
“Okay,” he moans, pressing closer to me.
It’s embarrassing how quickly I gave in. But I can’t deny that having Luca’s pulse fluttering against my lips and his fingertips digging into my hair isn’t perfection. “You taste good,” I whisper, dragging my tongue over a tendon in his neck and collecting the salt on his skin.
The only answer I get is a breathless noise and more of Luca’s weight pressing into me.
I guide him back down, covering his mouth with my own again.
The second our lips connect, he whimpers, his body shuddering.
I can’t quite remember if he made noises like this when we were younger, but it’s goddamn intoxicating.
I’m drunk on it. On him. His skin beneath my fingers, his breath mingling with mine.
“God,” he whispers, trembling against me. “More.”
I cup his jaw, forcing his chin down with my thumb, and deepen our kiss, sliding my tongue past his parted lips to take what he’s offering.
I’ve never had a kiss this good in my entire life, and I know it’s because it’s him. Because it’s us.
Another soft whimper spills from his mouth and into mine. I swallow it down, dragging my tongue over his and caressing his jaw. I need air, but I can’t even be bothered to try to get it. Not when he himself feels like oxygen, more vital to my survival than anything else.
I’m aching, my cock hard and pulsing. I know Luca is too.
I can feel him pressed against my stomach, but I don’t even care about that.
There’s no race to the finish line. There’s no hurrying to undress or move on to the next thing.
This is the thing. Holding him and tasting his sweet tongue and feeling his body in my arms is the finish line.
Finally, Luca breaks away, drawing in a gasping breath. His pupils are blown wide, cheeks flushed, and lips swollen and wet.
“God, you are fucking gorgeous,” I say, not even attempting to shut the words down, and his cheeks flush deeper.
“Really?”
He can’t be serious. But all it takes is a single glance into those wide gray eyes of his to tell that he’s very serious. He doesn’t believe me. Or he doesn’t trust in my words, rather.