Chapter 35
ISAK
My hands shoot up to cradle Lachlan’s face while his stay at the back of my neck. He kisses me the way he does onstage, only now his tongue is in my mouth and we’re making out for real. He tastes like toothpaste. He smells soapy and familiar. He’s the man of my dreams.
He pulls back and pants. “Sorry. Was that too much? I still can’t wrap my brain around the fact that you’re letting me do this.”
“Stop fucking apologizing,” I hiss. “It makes me feel like I’m bad to kiss.”
Shaking his head, Lachlan lets out a little laugh. “You’re definitely not bad to kiss.”
Our lips collide again, our heads automatically tilting to opposite sides.
I slide my hands under his shirt to touch the smooth skin of his back, and he groans.
He pulls at my shirt to untuck it from my shorts, then runs his fingers over my bare stomach, like he absolutely must be in contact with me.
Meanwhile, I cup his ass—those firm, jock cakes.
Damn. He feels so good on top of me and around me.
Feverish, tingling pleasure floods my body. He’s hard against my abs. I’m going to have to take a very cold shower when I get home, otherwise I’m going to be beating off to Lachlan all night long. Of course, that’s no different from my usual night.
Tonight’s feeling different from my usual night, however.
Eventually he pulls back, his lips puffy and red, his eyes wild. He grabs my hand, and our fingers entwine. “Okay,” he whispers. “So that’s something.”
“What’s something?” I ask dully. I think he kissed away my brains.
“I like kissing you.”
I smirk. “You knew that.”
“And I like touching you,” Lachlan says. “Like I … I like you.”
That makes me swallow hard. “I like you, too.” I pause. “Not that I want to distract us from, um …” I try to signal more of this with my eyes. “But I’m wondering, how exactly, did you arrange for us to be in the same cabin?”
“Privilege of being in student government when they were making the assignments. And I’d overheard the other two saying they’d be staying with their girlfriends, so …”
I shake my head. “I can’t believe—”
“That I’ve been into you the whole time? Yeah. I have.”
We pull each other close again, fusing our lips. He kisses me like I’m exactly what he’s been wishing for. When he starts kissing down my neck, I get even harder. “Oh, fuck,” I pant, arching into him.
“You good?” Lachlan asks against my skin.
“D-definitely.”
Lachlan is sucking on my neck. Not hard enough to leave a hickey—at least I hope not, although he’s now pulled aside the neck of my oversized T-shirt to kiss my collarbone.
His hands are all over me. From my hair to my shoulders, along my arms. I’m still grasping his ass, but he’s exploring, moving his hands over my torso, massaging my pecs, then going lower, lower, lower.
I’m holding my breath.
He’s never touched me this much, not even close. When we got together at senior retreat, it was either us jerking off next to each other or me reaching over to him. Me sucking him off.
Lachlan was afraid to touch me, I think.
But now he doesn’t seem afraid. His fingers are light and tentative and a little cold, but he’s certainly not acting like he doesn’t want me.
Quite the opposite.
He arrives at my shorts and wrestles with getting them open.
I don’t help him at first, but when he struggles, I relent, unfastening my belt and button, then waiting.
His strong fingers slowly lower my fly, and the cool air chills the wet spot on my briefs. Lachlan inhales deeply through his nose and exhales through his mouth. He seems calm and determined and turned on.
Lachlan moves down my body and into the bottom of the wide half-pipe. There’s a little bit of fine sand at the bottom, but it’s otherwise pretty clean, the benefit of rains a few weeks ago.
He kisses his way lower, and I wonder how far he’s going to go to make his point. To prove that he wants me and isn’t just using me to get off. That he wants a relationship, one with give-and-take.
I’m good if our relationship—if I agree to one—has to be secret to some degree. I’m not good with him never touching me. But Lachlan’s touching me plenty right now, a look of wonder in his eyes.
Together, we pull my clothes down enough to free my cock, which springs up. I shiver in the night air—and with anticipation. Before I know what’s happening, Lachlan is leaning in. He kisses the top of my leaking shaft, then darts out his tongue, lapping up my precome.
“Oh, fuck,” I whimper as his tongue gets bolder and bolder. Now he’s sucking my tip. Stroking along the length. Kissing me and blowing me and getting into a rhythm. “You don’t have—” I start, but he stops and looks at me, his lips swollen. That fucking baseball cap facing backward.
“I want you,” he says. “And I want you to come. I love seeing you get off.”
My nostrils flare. “Well, okay then. I’m so worked up that I’m going to have a hair trigger.”
“Good.”
A few more licks and sucks, with his head bobbing up and down. Then he hits a sweet spot that triggers my release, and I’m coming into his mouth for the first time. It’s like the night sky explodes into stars that burst behind my eyes, my body tensing and pulsing, pleasure ripping through me.
I have no idea how Lachlan feels about what just happened. Does he like the taste of come as much as I do? The act of sucking cock as much as I do?
He keeps blowing me while I return to earth, and the suction keeps me hard—and oversensitive. Laughing, I tug up my clothes and push him back gently.
I make a move toward his dick, but he stops me with a kiss. My eyebrows scrunch together. “You don’t want me to reciprocate?”
“I was proving a point,” he says. “That I want you, and I want this to be an equal …” He pauses. “Thing.” Relationship. Neither of us is saying the word.
“An equal thing?”
“Yeah,” he says huskily, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “One where we’re both on our knees.”
Okay, I like that. But I still need to sort out what we’re doing. “And to be clear, this … thing between us is a secret thing?”
He winces. “I can’t have my family knowing. My uncle is a homophobic jackass, so we might need to not be so … ourselves around him.”
My vision blurs. “I wish you could be yourself around everyone.”
“Oh, I can,” he says airily. “If I want to get yelled at.”
But it’s not true; he can never be the real Lachlan. At least, not around anyone but … me. My chest swells, and my muscles relax. Until I think about what he’s saying. “Well, that fucking sucks.”
“Yeah. Let’s not talk about him.”
We adjust our positions, and I get myself back together, all zipped and buttoned and belted. Finally, I reach over, cup his face, and kiss him. “Okay,” I whisper against his lips, my heart beating fast. I pull back to study his expression.
“Okay,” he echoes. He blinks and cocks his head, then does a double take. “Wait, what does ‘okay’ mean?”
“Okay, I want to date you,” I croak. I’ve said it before I even process what I’m agreeing to. The truth is, I can’t fathom not eventually saying yes to Lachlan, the boy I’ve had a crush on ever since I knew what a crush was. I clear my throat.
Yes, he’s so hot, and I’ve missed hooking up with him, and I love kissing him. But I want something more, and I think that’s what he’s offering me.
I want to be his. I want him to be mine.
This could all go up in a spectacular explosion—like scenery falling over onstage. But the show must go on. And I, maybe, got the guy.
His eyes are sparkling like the brightest stage lights. “Yeah?” He’s excited, but he’s tempering it. Like he doesn’t want to get his hopes up, because he’s been fucked over too many times by people who are supposed to care about him.
I’ve always cared about him, even when I didn’t show it. I reach out a tentative hand and hold his. “Yeah.”
We kiss some more. I never want to leave Lachlan’s ditch. I rub the fly of his jeans gently, needing to feel that big erection I love, but he gently shoves my hand away.
“No?” I ask.
“Not tonight. I mean, I want to, but no.”
That makes me scrunch my forehead. “No means no, and I respect that. If you’re saying no for my sake, though, you’ve already proven your point.”
Still, he shakes his head, his lips on mine. Finally, he says against them, “The point I’m proving is important, because you’re important.”
Well, fuck. He needs to stop being so sweet. We keep making out until I start laughing.
“What?” Lachlan asks, starting to laugh, too.
“This is just … so bizarre,” I say between gasps. “I … You … I mean, yes, please, but is this my life?”
He gives me the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. “That’s how I feel. How lucky I am to be with you.”
A painful thought hits me. What am I getting into? More time in the janitor’s closet?
But … Lachlan. Lachlan for real. Is he worth the price?
Yes.
Still, I need to be certain. I look down. “How much … God, it might be too early for this question, but how far do you want this to go? I don’t mean how far do you want to go, touching-wise, but how much do you want people at school to know about us?”
“I don’t think a lot of people at school are going to care about my sexuality.
” He trips over the word but gets it out.
“But a few will. And I can’t have it get back to my uncle.
Can we take it slow as far as telling people?
” He clears his throat. “Telling people that I’m gay and that we’re together. ”
That’s got to be the first time he’s said it out loud. I’m so fucking proud of him.
“Yeah, that’s fine.” An idea comes to me. “If someone asks, do you want to say that you’re method acting for the show? That that’s why you’re spending time with me?”
Lachlan gets a deer-in-the-headlights look. “I … Um. I hate that idea. It makes me feel like I’m not acknowledging how important you are.”
I press my lips together. “But it might work.”
“Yeah. It would.” He sighs. “Okay.”
I kiss him again, and then we get up and climb back to street level. In the darkness, surrounded by rows of grapevines, the nearest house a block away, he slips a hand into the back pocket of my shorts. “This okay?” he whispers, squeezing my ass.
“Definitely.”
And now a whole universe starts to reveal itself to me. A universe where I might be able to have a boyfriend. A really gorgeous, sweet one who is my dream guy.
I feel like I’m going to float away. Lachlan likes me. More than likes me—likes me so much he’s willing to confront his own sexuality. And while part of me wants to run away and protect myself from everything that might go wrong, another part wants to let things ride and see.
I finally got the guy I wanted.
Things like this don’t happen to me. I’m so inexpressibly happy.