14. Leo
Leo
Alex Whitlow, my stepbrother, was kissing me.
And I was kissing him back.
That was the part my brain kept snagging on, even as it was happening.
Not the shock of his mouth on mine, not the darkness pressing in around us or the storm hammering at the shutters or the cold wax of the unlit candle somewhere near my knee.
Just the simple, staggering fact that I was kissing him back without hesitation, without thought, without any of the careful deliberation I usually applied to the things that terrified me most.
His hand was still at the back of my neck, and mine had found the front of his shirt without my entirely knowing when that had happened. The fabric was still damp and slightly warm and I gripped it like I needed something to hold on to, which I did. I absolutely did.
He kissed the way I might have guessed, if I’d ever allowed myself to guess, which I hadn’t. Direct. Certain. No tentativeness in it, no question, just the facts without skimping on the good stuff. His thumb brushed my jaw and I shivered from head to toe.
Lightning came through the shutters and for one white half-second I could see his face, his eyes closed, his brow slightly furrowed in concentration.
And then the darkness swallowed us again and I was glad for it.
The dark made it easier. The dark made it feel like something that existed only here, only in this room, untethered from every consequence and every context that would have made it impossible.
He pulled back first.
Not far. I could feel his breath, unsteady, close against my mouth. His forehead came down and found mine in the dark, and we stayed like that for a moment, both of us breathing, the storm doing its work outside.
“Leo,” he said.
His voice was different. I’d never heard it like that before. Stripped of everything he used it for. No flatness, no control, no careful management of what he was giving away. Just his voice, rough and low and honest in a way that made my stomach flutter.
“I know,” I said.
“I don’t—” He stopped. Started again. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“I know that too.”
His thumb moved again, a small unconscious motion against my jaw. He probably didn’t realize he was doing it. “This is insane,” he said quietly. But nothing about the tone of his voice told me he wanted to stop.
“Yes,” I agreed.
“You’re my stepbrother.”
“I’m aware.”
“I’ve never—” Another stop. The thunder moved through the walls around us, slower now, the storm beginning its long retreat somewhere out over the valley. “I don’t know how to do this.”
I sat with that for a moment, turning it over carefully in my head.
Outside, the rain had softened from its earlier assault to something steadier, more patient, drumming against the old stone in long even sheets.
The darkness in the room was complete and close, and I found I didn’t want to light the candle. I didn’t want to break the spell.
“You don’t have to know,” I said finally.
I felt him shift slightly, the mattress giving under him. “That’s not how I usually do things.”
“I know.” I said. “Just take your time and figure it out. I’m not going anywhere.”
He was quiet for a long moment. The rain kept its steady rhythm against the shutters. Somewhere far off, the last of the thunder rolled through the hills and went quiet.
Then his hand moved. Slowly, deliberately, tracing down from the back of my neck to my shoulder and then down my arm, finding my hand in the dark. His fingers laced through mine with that same careful deliberateness, like he was deciding each step as he made it.
He squeezed once, firm and certain.
I squeezed back.
He moved again, his lips pressing against mine tentatively. For a moment I thought he might stop and that made my stomach clench almost painfully. But as soon as he tasted me again, his kiss grew stronger. Then his tongue pushed into my mouth. The moment he started that, I melted in his grip.
There was no way to resist him now.
My hands were under the hem of his shirt before I knew what I was doing, my body taking over.
Alex groaned into my mouth and that was all the permission I needed.
He had one hand around the back of my neck, gripping me possessively as he claimed my mouth.
His other hand, to my surprise, trailed up my thigh, his fingertips stopping just shy of my cock.
I held my breath.
His fingertips stayed where they were, not moving, hovering at the crease of my thigh, asking a question he was too scared to put into words. I could feel the heat of them through the fabric of my sweatpants and I couldn’t resist.
So I answered for him.
I shifted my hips, just slightly, just enough to close the distance he’d left between his hand and what he was clearly thinking about. He made a sound against my mouth that I’d never heard from him before. Low and surprised and completely unguarded.
His hand moved.
He found my cock through the thin fabric and I pulled back from the kiss just enough to breathe, my forehead dropping to his shoulder.
His fingers traced the length of me slowly, deliberately, with that same focused attention he applied to everything.
Like he was learning something he intended to know well.
“Christ,” he breathed, mostly to himself. “That’s… bigger than I imagined.”
I just chuckled, too breathless to answer him properly.
He did it again, slower this time, and I bit down on his shoulder to keep from making a sound that would have embarrassed me completely. I felt him shudder at that, his whole body reacting, his hand tightening around me through the thin fabric.
I pulled at his shirt. He let me take it off him, lifting his arms without ceremony, and I felt the warm expanse of his chest in the dark with both hands.
I’d been trying not to imagine it again since the morning I’d caught him in just a towel.
He was exactly as solid as he’d looked. The muscles of his chest were firm under my palms, and there was a soft trail of hair cascading down toward his abdomen.
I traced all of it slowly and felt him go still under my hands.
“You’re staring,” he said, his voice rough.
“I can’t see anything,” I pointed out.
“You know what I mean.”
I did. I pressed my lips to the center of his chest, just below his collarbone, and felt his breath leave him in a long unsteady exhale.
His hands found my shoulders, my back, pulling my shirt up and over my head with an impatience that surprised me.
He dropped it somewhere in the dark and then his hands were on my bare skin, warm and sure, moving across my back like he was mapping every inch of me.
I kissed his chest again. Then his collarbone. Then the side of his throat, just below the jaw, and he tilted his head back and made that sound again, the low unguarded one. I pressed my mouth harder against his pulse point because I wanted to feel it. I wanted to feel how fast his heart was going.
Very fast, as it turned out.
He pulled me back up to his mouth with both hands and kissed me with a thoroughness that made my brain go briefly offline.
His hands moved down my back and over my hips, pulling me closer, and I went willingly, shifting until we were pressed together from chest to hip, and the warmth of him was extraordinary, like being in the sun after a very long winter.
He broke the kiss and I heard him swallow. “Leo.”
“I’m still here,” I said against his jaw.
“I know. I just—” A pause. “I want to—” Another pause, longer, and I could feel him working through whatever it was that needed to be said. “I don’t want to do this wrong.”
I pulled back just far enough to find his face in the dark with my hands, my thumbs resting at his temples, his jaw between my palms. I could feel the tension in him, that familiar tightness, and the jaw muscle working.
“There isn’t a wrong way,” I told him.
“There’s always a wrong way.”
“Not here,” I said. “Not tonight. Not with me.”
The silence stretched for just a moment. Then his hands, which had been resting at my hips, slid deliberately to the waistband of my sweatpants, his thumbs hooking into the fabric.
“Tell me what you want,” he said quietly. The flatness was completely gone from his voice. What was there instead was something I had no word for. Earnest, maybe. Careful in a new way, a way that had nothing to do with the broken Alex I’d brought to Italy.
I covered his hands with mine and guided them.
He made a soft, wrecked sound as his fingers found bare skin, and I felt his careful control dissolve entirely in the dark. His mouth found my throat, my shoulder, the curve of my jaw. He moved with a slow and careful hunger, like he wanted to consume all of me. And I loved it.
I ran my hands through his hair and let myself go.
The storm outside had settled in, the rain steady and low.
Inside the old house we were safe, its thick stone walls keeping the rest of the world at bay.
For once, I was grateful for the dark. For the way it stripped everything down to just this.
Just the warmth of his skin against mine, the weight of him, the sound of his breathing close against my ear.
It didn’t take long before both of us had kicked off what little remained of our clothing. In the dark, Alex and I laid side by side, our lips still locked together as he stroked my cock. I couldn’t help reaching down to return the favor. The moment I made contact, I let out a small gasp.
He was wonderfully thick and clearly interested as he throbbed in my hand. I swiped my thumb over his cockhead, smearing the pre-cum that had gathered there. And, without thinking about it, I pulled my thumb to my mouth and licked it clean.
“Oh… my god…” Alex groaned, his cock pulsing against me.
“What?”
“Did you just—”
“Yeah,” I nodded, unable to help the grin filling my face. “It tastes good.”