Chapter 23 #4
Gael’s hand on his chest slid lower, over his stomach, fingers splaying possessively over the trembling muscles there, as if holding the epicenter of his gathering storm.
He quickened his pace, his strokes becoming more focused, the pressure on the upstroke intensifying, a relentless, beautiful friction.
Samuel was babbling, nonsense words, a litany of “please” and “sir” and “Gael” falling from his lips between gasps. The coil in his gut was wound tighter than it had been in the kitchen.
“Cum for me, Samuel,” Gael whispered, his voice a dark, velvet command in his ear. His teeth grazed the lobe. “Now.”
The orgasm tore through him with a violence that stole his vision and his breath.
It was a seismic release, a white-hot detonation that started in his toes and erupted outward.
He cried out, a raw, ragged sound as his back arched violently against Gael’s chest and his cock pulsed over his moving fist in hot, endless waves.
It went on and on, wringing him out, leaving him hollowed and shuddering, his entire body convulsing with the aftershocks.
He was only dimly aware of Gael’s hand slowing, gentling, milking the last drops from him. Of the soft, continuous kisses being pressed to his sweat-damp hair, his temple, the corner of his mouth. Of the strong arms that held him through the cataclysm, never letting go.
When he could breathe again, when the world had stopped spinning, he felt himself being lifted.
Gael cradled him against his chest, one arm under his knees, the other supporting his back, and stood.
Samuel buried his face in Gael’s neck, too spent for thought, for shame, for anything but the profound relief of being carried.
He was laid down on the cool cotton of the guest bed. The loss of Gael’s warmth was a shock. A spike of irrational, childish fear lanced through him, he’s leaving, he’s done with you, you’re alone again, and his eyes fluttered open in panic.
But Gael was only gone for a moment. He returned, a simple plastic bottle of lotion in his hand. The relief that flooded Samuel was so potent it brought a fresh prick of tears to his eyes. He hadn’t been abandoned.
Gael sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping with his weight. He squeezed a dollop of cool lotion into his palm, rubbing his hands together to warm it. Then, with a touch so gentle it was almost a whisper, he began to apply it to Samuel’s heated, tender skin.
The lotion was cool, soothing. Gael’s palms were broad and warm, kneading the sore muscles with a care that felt devotional in its tenderness. He worked in slow, circular motions, covering every inch of punished flesh, every welt and flush of color, with the balm.
And that’s when the tears came.
They welled up silently at first, spilling over his lashes to track hot paths down his temples and into his hair.
Then a sob caught in his chest, and another.
He wasn’t crying from the hurt. The pain was a distant memory, transformed by this kindness.
He was crying from the tenderness itself.
From the shock of being handled with such care after being so thoroughly dominated.
From the sheer, incomprehensible gift of not being left alone in the aftermath.
A memory, sharp as a shard of glass, bloomed in his mind: The cold, sterile smell of a medic’s room at The Hills.
The bite of cheap, stinging antiseptic being dabbed roughly onto the lashes on his back.
The counselor’s detached, monotone voice: “It shall pass. The flesh must be purified so the spirit may follow.”
The memory tried to pull him under, to drag him back into that cold room with the clinical light and the feeling of being a contaminated object.
But Gael was there.
His hand never stopped its gentle, rhythmic motion. His other hand came up to brush the tears from Samuel’s cheek.
“Stay with me,” he murmured, his voice a low, steady anchor in the rising tide of the past. “You’re here. With me. I’ve got you.”
The words were a lifeline. The touch was a tether. The past had the memory, but Gael had the present. Samuel clung to it, his sobs subsiding into shaky hiccups as he fought his way back, focusing on the feel of the lotion, the smell of Gael’s skin, the solid reality of the bed beneath him.
Exhaustion, deeper than any he had ever known, settled into his bones. The emotional whiplash of the day had emptied him completely.
Gael finished applying the lotion, wiping his hands on a towel. Then he lay down beside Samuel on the narrow bed, gathering him close, tucking Samuel’s head under his chin. He wrapped his arms around him, a living fortress against the world and the ghosts within it.
Enveloped in that warmth, that safety, that unshakeable presence, Samuel’s breathing finally evened out. The last of the tension bled from his muscles. The ghosts receded, silenced by the steady beat of a heart against his ear.
He fell asleep quickly. And for the first time in longer than he could remember, he did not dream.