Callum
SEVENTEEN
NOW
This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
And yet it was the most real thing I’d ever felt.
Damien’s presence drenched my world in color. In energy. In life. The way he looked at me made me feel like I could breathe again, like the past ten years had all just been a bad dream that I was waking up from.
He settled between my legs, looking up at me, stunning me with the heat in his gaze.
His eyes, the color of the sky on a clear, cloudless day, held so many secrets.
So many questions. So much pain. But there was something there under the layers of hurt and secrets.
Underneath all of that was the Damien I’d fallen for.
My Damien. The sweet, gentle soul who had just wanted someone to love him.
Who had wanted someone of his own. Someone to notice him and see him. Someone who thought he mattered.
Damien’s gaze tore away from mine, and I felt the absence of it immediately, but then he nuzzled the base of my cock, chuckling quietly when it twitched.
His breath ghosted over my skin, and I trembled.
Stretched my arms above my head, my legs spread wide to make room for him.
He made me wait. Tortured me with gentle kisses to my cock.
Made me writhe in exquisite agony as his tongue caressed my sac, then slid up the underside of the shaft.
I told myself not to compare now to then, to let myself enjoy this, but it was hard not to remember the hurried blow jobs. The rushed hand jobs. The way we never really had enough time to enjoy ourselves. Now we had as much time as we wanted.
Damien took his time, teasing me. Dragging his tongue around the head of my cock, lapping up the precum that leaked out of me.
“Damien, please. You’re killing me.” Every muscle in my body was clenched, quaking, waiting for him to give me more. To suck me down. To consume me.
Damien had the audacity to laugh at me.
“It’s not fun—” My words were cut off abruptly when he took me into his mouth. All. The. Way. Down. Until his nose pressed against my body and then he came back up. His eyes met mine, flashing with hunger and triumph.
Fuck sex. I’d missed just being able to look at him.
Then his tongue swirled around the head of my cock and I took it back. Sex first. Then I would hold him down and stare at him.
I lowered my arms and sank my hands into his hair.
Not to control him, just so I could touch him.
To remind myself that he was here and he was real.
His hair was its natural color now and he’d taken out some of his piercings, added others.
I’d have to visit those nipple rings later.
But for now, I just needed to touch him.
To run my fingers through his hair and try not to think about what came next.
Sure, we were both single, but that didn’t mean that things would magically work out between us.
Though we lived close now, we weren’t in the same location.
We might not even be in the same place in our lives.
I’d been ready to settle down the minute I’d fallen for him years ago, but that might not hold true for him.
Damien released my cock and nipped gently at the inside of my thigh, making me yelp, and my stupid, dumbass dick jerked. I guess I was into biting. Who knew?
“What was that for?” I nearly laughed but had to stop myself. Life had been so fucking weird for the past week that I was worried if I started to laugh, I wouldn’t stop, and I’d break apart completely.
“To get your attention.”
Damien kissed the spot he bit and my heart softened at the gesture. It wasn’t like it had hurt; it had been more of a shock than anything.
“You have it.” I slid my fingers down his cheek, marveling at the stubble, at the ways he was now different and more himself than when I’d last seen him.
“I missed you.” My voice cracked under the weight of our lost years.
I felt like Sam had stolen something from me.
Something that was once in a lifetime. And I had let him.
When it became clear that things between Sam and me would never go back to normal, I should have gone after Damien.
But I worried that Sam might cut Damien off—which he’d done anyway.
Damien crawled back up my body, kissing me as he went.
He didn’t say he missed me too, but he didn’t have to.
I could feel it in the way he touched me like he wanted to climb inside me.
He clung to me as if I might slip through his fingers like sand.
And when we kissed again, it was explosive.
It was the kind of bone-melting kiss I’d waited my whole life to feel again.
Our bodies slid together. I gripped Damien’s ass and pulled him tight against me. He whimpered into my mouth. Fingers threaded into my hair and held it tight, making my scalp sing. He tipped my head back a little and kissed me harder, deeper, with a hunger I was desperate to satiate.
My body belonged to him. Wholly. Completely.
Nothing had ever felt this good. Not since him.
Maybe that was stupid, and maybe it was wrong.
Maybe it was my emotions skewing everything.
There was some kind of saying about rose-colored glasses, but I didn’t think that was the case.
This was the most right anything had ever felt.
Damien was it for me. I’d known it then and I knew it now.
Nothing and no one would ever compare to him.
But losing him once had almost destroyed me.
Could I risk my heart again, knowing it might end?
We weren’t the same people that we used to be, no matter what it felt like in the moment.
People didn’t change completely, but sometimes they changed enough.
Enough so they weren’t realistically compatible no matter what sexual chemistry said.
Damien whimpered again, and I knew he was close.
I fucking wished that one of us had possessed the forethought to bring lube, at the very least. But there was also something delicious about rutting up against each other with nothing more than spit and precum to smooth the way.
It was basic and primal and so fucking perfect that I wanted to cry.
Damien’s movements sped up, and our kiss broke. He pressed his forehead against mine and released his grip on my hair, cradling the back of my neck instead. I let go of his ass and skimmed my hands up his back.
“Kiss me,” I begged quietly, tilting my head to chase his mouth with mine. “Kiss me,” I said again.
His lips were soft and gentle like the way he now moved against me.
Touching him should have sated me, or at least started to, but the more we touched, the more we kissed, the greedier I became.
The less satisfied. The weight of all we missed pressed on my chest and made it hard to breathe and that’s when Damien kissed me.
That’s when our mouths met again, and he breathed life into me.
I wondered if he could feel my sadness, my grief at what we’d missed out on, my rage at Sam, at myself, at everything that wasn’t him, because he kissed me like he understood.
He kissed me like he was battling demons.
Everything in my world narrowed down to the fire that burned in my core, spreading outward from my center.
I clung to him, so needy and so, so fucking close.
Damien came first. I knew it before it happened.
Sensed it in the way his movements changed slightly.
The way they grew faster and more frantic.
I was almost sad that I’d kept kissing him, that I’d devoured him as he came all over me, and himself, and spread the mess around, still grinding, still hellbent on making me come.
I’d wanted to watch him come apart. Wanted to know if it still looked the same or how he might have looked different when he came.
But this was better because I was close to breaking, and I wanted to shatter into a million tiny pieces.
Crying during sex wasn’t something I did, like ever, but I was on the verge now.
My eyes burned with need to unleash the most confused tears ever.
I was elated, and angry, and fucking sad, but also the happiest I’d been in years, and the most afraid.
I almost didn’t come because I was so fucking mixed up inside, but then Damien broke the kiss, and I felt his lips move against my skin as he spoke.
“Callum, please. Please,” he paused briefly as though taking one last microsecond to choose his next words. “Come for me.”
I’d do anything for him, and as far as requests went, that was an easy one.
His words kicked down the final hurdle and I crashed over the finish line with a gasp and a moan, and then he was kissing me again.
Long and deep strokes of his tongue against mine as I came apart under him.
The mess between us grew, and he didn’t stop touching me.
Didn’t stop kissing me. His fingers were on my face, in my hair.
His body only slowing its movements when I made a pained sound as I grew oversensitive after what seemed like a life-changing orgasm.
Damien rolled off of me, but not away from me. He stayed close, pressed to my side and we kept kissing. Because if we were kissing, we didn’t have to talk about what we just did and what it meant. We didn’t have to ask questions or think about what this meant for the future, what it changed.
If it changed anything at all.
We didn’t talk in the afterglow. Even when we stopped kissing, we didn’t move to clean up. We didn’t try to make small talk. We just lay there in each other’s arms, savoring the closeness that we’d missed.
For years, all I’d wanted was to talk to him again.
And now that he was here and we were on the other side of the sexual tension, I didn’t want to say a single word.
If we were quiet, we didn’t have to ask questions.
If we didn’t talk, we didn’t have to figure out where to go from here and we could just stay here.
Maybe. Probably not. But I let myself believe it for a few more minutes.
After years of agony, we deserved a few minutes of respite.
Damien shifted around like he was suddenly uncomfortable. “I need a shower. Drying cum is kind of terrible, but I didn’t want to move.”
“Mmm.” I hummed an acknowledgement of his declaration to move.
“Shower with me,” he whispered. “I’ll wash your back if you wash mine.”
Of course I said yes. Because I wasn’t done taking whatever I could get for as long as I could get it.
For now, reality was unwelcome and we’d locked it away on the other side of the hotel room door.
But eventually it would creep back in. Soon, we’d have to go home and get back to our lives.
Soon, we’d have to read those stupid fucking letters. I low-key wanted to burn mine.
Part of me wanted to say no to the shower, but only so I could run to the store for fucking lube and maybe a box of condoms. But I couldn’t pull myself away from him for any reason.
Not yet.