Chapter Seventeen
Xavi
You’re mine . The words echoed through Xavi’s head, but no matter how many times he whispered them into the darkness of the small loft room, he couldn’t make any sense of them.
Lulu couldn’t have meant it like that. Of course not.
At least not what Xavi wanted them to mean.
It was just Lulu being Lulu, although tonight…
Lulu had been different. Very different.
So had Xavi. They were only two days into their trip and already Xavi felt his well-constructed armor peeling away, layer by layer, the more time he spent with Lulu and the more Lulu continued to prod at him, almost insisting on stripping him bare.
Turning on his side, Xavi shifted position for the one hundredth time.
Sleep wouldn’t find him. Not tonight. It wasn’t the bed’s fault, no; it was very comfortable, the mattress a little on the hard side perhaps, but still a very good bed.
And now he sounded like a fucking mattress salesman.
Great. It wasn’t the room either. The small bed-and-breakfast Lulu had found was in a quiet, secluded area in Winterset, and the loft room with the serene lavender colored walls had a nice, airy feel to it.
It was exactly the kind of room and surroundings that promised a good night’s sleep followed by a well-rested mind and body the next morning.
And still, Xavi couldn’t sleep, turning every little move and sound Lulu had made earlier around in his head, examining this evening from every possible angle.
But no matter how many times he recounted what had happened on the bridge, it came out the same.
They’d kissed. Again. It had been fucking everything.
Again. They’d touched in a way Xavi had never allowed anyone to touch him before, raw and needy, with an insistence that scared him to death.
Because in that insistence, no, in that fucking determination in Lulu’s hands and lips lay a promise, an entire world of promises, which resonated so deeply with something Xavi had buried in the depths of his being for so long.
Something that had surfaced tonight in a moment of reckless vulnerability and raw passion.
All his hopes and dreams. All his deepest, darkest desires.
Everything had unraveled when Lulu had kissed him, touched him, moved against him, and had made him come.
Lulu had made him fucking come. And he’d made Lulu come, too.
Fuck, when he recalled the sounds Lulu had made, how he’d trembled in Xavi’s arms while he’d slowly fallen to pieces.
If that wasn’t a game changer, Xavi didn’t know what was.
An outdrawn sigh left his body but offered him no relief.
Rubbing at his face, he then squeezed his eyes closed, willing himself to fall asleep.
But that turned out to be the worst idea ever because the second he closed his eyes, all he saw was Lulu, and his almond eyes swimming with want, pink lips bruised from kissing, shining with Xavi’s spit.
All he felt was the memory of Lulu’s touch, so careful, almost reverent, his fingers whispering along Xavi’s skin, Lulu’s slender athletic thighs wrapped around him when Xavi had had him pinned against the wooden planks of the bridge.
Instantly, Xavi grew hard, his dick pulling all blood from his body, as it throbbed in his briefs.
Shit. Turning onto his stomach, he buried his face in the pillow, groaning into it, his voice muffled and pained.
But that was even more of a mistake, because his dick sure seemed to like the friction from the mattress, because yes, now Xavi was humping the fucking mattress.
“Can’t sleep?” Lulu’s mellow voice sounded close to him, too close.
“No,” he groaned into the pillow, hoping that when he resurfaced, his life would be back to normal again. Predictable, uneventful, and without this indescribable lust soaring through him, pulling at every cell in his body.
“The mattress too rough on your scars?” Lulu stirred next to him, his breath hot against Xavi’s neck. Of course he’d ask that. Such a fucking Lulu thing to notice, to say.
Pulling the pillow from his face, Xavi breathed in the cool night air spilling through the slightly ajar window. He never slept with the window open in the city, the noises from the constantly moving streets too loud, but here, in the country, it was lovely.
“Nah, it’s not that,” he mumbled, then turned on his back.
“Thinking about earlier?”
“Yeah.” They were lying so close, Lulu’s arm brushing up against his, the fine hairs covering Lulu’s arm as they stood to attention so featherlight against Xavi’s own marred skin.
He could feel the heat emanating from Lulu’s body as it spread to his own.
Lulu’s scent hung in the air, too, like a heavy yet comforting cloud, caressing his skin like Lulu’s lips and fingers had earlier tonight.
“What are you thinking?” A rare vulnerability seemed to color Lulu’s voice.
Xavi’s chest squeezed. What was he thinking?
What. Was. He. Thinking? If only he knew.
If only he could make sense of it all. “Tell me,” Lulu insisted as his hand found Xavi’s blindly in the dark and he tangled their fingers together, his skin so warm and smooth against Xavi’s.
“It didn’t feel like a trial earlier,” Xavi finally admitted, and a small shiver moved through Lulu’s body.
“It wasn’t. It was real,” Lulu whispered. “As real as you and I are real.”
“Lulu…” Fuck, here Lulu went again, showing a side of him that scared Xavi shitless.
Because he could handle Lulu when he was being loud, obnoxious, and messy.
When he was joking and taking the piss. When he was his usual colorful, flirty, over-the-fucking-top Lulu.
He could handle him like that. But he couldn’t handle him when he was like this.
Like an open book, so honest and unguarded.
“Okay, full transparency?” Lulu shifted next to him.
“Sure.” Xavi wasn’t sure he wanted it, but he might as well dive in, headfirst.
Lulu sucked in a deep breath, mumbling something indecipherable.
Then he exhaled. “I think you’re not only the hottest fucking guy to have ever walked this earth, but I think you’re beautiful in every way that counts.
And I’ve wanted you for as long as I knew what it felt like to be a man wanting another man.
That’s it. That’s the truth, Xavi. Nothing more, nothing less.
Just the truth. It’s what you do with it that matters.
” Lulu paused for a second, his voice shaking when he spoke again.
“You own me, oso. Every part of me. Para siempre.” Always.
“You don’t know what you’re saying”. Xavi sat up, rubbing his hands back and forth along his buzzed head. “You don’t.”
“I do. Don’t say I don’t.”
“Is this… Is this some third-of-your-life crisis because Joe is getting married? Is it? Because I don’t want to be your fucking plan B, your fucking fallback guy.”
“Fallback guy? My fucking fallback guy?” Lulu whisper-yelled as he flew from the bed.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Xavi could make out the outline of Lulu’s body as he stood there in the near darkness in the middle of the small bedroom.
He was angry. Xavi could tell from the way he was standing—his stance wide, his fists clenched against his sides, his chest heaving.
“Lu—”
“I tell you I want you, that I’ve always wanted you, and you give me this…
this bullshit.” Lulu started pacing the room, tugging at his hair, an air of hurt and anger surrounding him.
Xavi got up too, slowly getting out of bed.
He didn’t know if he should go to Lulu or if he should stay back and let Lulu ride out his anger and calm down.
In the end, he decided to stand back and give Lulu some space, although Xavi’s body was screaming at him to go to him—just fucking go to him—and his arms were itching to hold Lulu, letting his body convey all the words he was too cowardly to say.
Eventually, Lulu stopped in front of the window, staring out into the night, and just when Xavi was about to go to him after all, he said, “I want you in ways that will not just blow your fucking mind but that blow mine too. I’ve never felt this…
this raw pull toward anyone else. Never.
When we… Shit, tonight, when we kissed, when you made me come.
It was like we fucking rearranged all the stars in the sky.
I felt it. Don’t say you didn’t feel it too. ”
Shit, what did you say to something like that?
What could he say? Of course, Xavi had felt it too.
Of course he had. But that didn’t mean he believed it, believed his own body, believed Lulu’s words.
It was fucking dangerous to believe something like that.
It could shatter everything he’d fought so hard to build.
“I’m sorry, okay?” He held out his arms apologetically, staring at Lulu’s back. Xavi wished Lulu would turn around, that he’d look at him through the next part. “It’s just very hard for me to believe that.”
In a flash, Lulu was right up in his face, his body pulsing with anger.
Seething through his teeth, he spat, “Well, that’s a you problem, mano.
” Digging his index finger into Xavi’s chest, he repeated his words, nearly stabbing them into Xavi’s chest. “That’s a fucking you problem.
That has always been your problem. You think you’re not good enough.
That you don’t deserve happiness. That you don’t deserve to be loved…
You hide away in your books, reading about other people’s happily ever afters, but you don’t really believe in them, do you?
At least not for yourself…” Lulu trailed off, chuckling bitterly.
“Shit, oso, I’d worship the fuck out of you if only you’d let me.
” He shook his head, mouthing something under his breath, his shoulders slumped. “You never will, though, will you?”