Chapter Nine #3
He found Luca waiting on the couch, reading a book. He turned and smiled at Chris. His hair was rumpled, and he wore thick woolen socks. Chris could see them because he had his feet on the coffee table.
“Were you raised in a barn?”
“Hm?” Luca looked down at himself in gray sweats and a white T-shirt with the collar cut out, revealing the line of his clavicle and the moles dotting the skin there. “It is an off day. I can wear what I want.”
“I meant your feet.”
Chris kicked off his shoes and dropped his keys on the end table. He settled on the corner of the couch as far away from Luca as he could without seeming too weird. He eyed Luca’s feet, still on the table.
Luca stuck his tongue out and slid his feet off the table.
Taking a deep breath, Chris forced himself to look Luca in the eye. “So. The sex thing.”
Luca dog-eared the corner of the page he was on and laid his book aside.
“Are we doing that now?”
Luca looked at him steadily. “Do you want to?”
“We agreed—”
“Psh. I am the coach in this situation, remember?” A hint of a smile stole across Luca’s face. “Here is your first lesson. Sex is only any good if everyone wants it.”
“I know. I would never pressure a girl—”
“I mean you. If you do not want it, now or ever, then we are not doing it.”
Chris opened his mouth. Then he closed it again.
“So.” Luca opened his arms wide. “Would you like to try anything? Or would you rather watch a movie and cuddle? It is our day off; we can do whatever we want.”
“I…” Chris had no idea what he wanted. Not having sex with Luca today—when they’d talked about it and agreed on it, and he’d been working himself up with anxiety about it—was a huge relief.
Hot on the heels of his relief came instant disappointment: if they didn’t do it, nothing about Chris’s situation would change.
He’d stay single forever, and then Luca would meet someone else and move out.
“What about you? Do you want to? I mean, I know I’m not… ”
“Not what?”
Your type, Chris wanted to say, or in your league. “I know you’re doing this as a favor.”
Luca shook his head. “It is not a favor I would have offered if I did not want to have sex with you.”
The concept was mind-boggling. Luca wanted to have sex with him? “Why?”
“I know you know I am bisexual.”
“Yeah, but why would you want me?”
Luca got to his feet and came to stand in front of Chris.
He reached out and pushed Chris’s hair off his forehead.
“Let me see. You have very kind eyes and a lovely smile. You are big enough to hold me up against a wall and nice enough you would ask permission first. You give good hugs, and you will make me breakfast after. Also, I’m told you have an enormous cock. ”
The last, he said with such a cheeky grin that Chris couldn’t help laughing. He wrapped his arms around Luca’s waist and squeezed him tight. “I’m so glad you live here,” he said when his face was buried in Luca’s belly and Luca couldn’t see his expression.
Luca pulled his head back by the hair, which felt unexpectedly nice. He bent down until their faces were close enough that Chris could feel Luca’s breath on his skin. “Is this okay?”
“Huh?”
“If I kiss you now.”
Their noses brushed together.
“Oh. Um. Yeah.”
Chris had always enjoyed the kissing parts most with his exes. It turned out he liked kissing men as well. Or maybe not men in general, but kissing Luca with his soft, plush, pink lips. He started gently, which Chris appreciated. A brief brush of their mouths together, nothing more.
It was nice.
Chris tilted his head to the side so Luca could kiss him again, and he liked it the second time too.
Luca made to pull away, and Chris found he wasn’t ready for it to end.
He tugged Luca in tighter, forcing him to make a little shocked sound and steady himself on Chris’s shoulder.
Chris enjoyed the tighter fit of their bodies together and held Luca close enough as they kissed that Luca settled one of his knees on the couch beside Chris’s leg.
Chris grabbed the other thigh and tugged Luca onto his lap. The analysts and commentators made a lot out of Luca’s size—or rather, made a little out of it—but in Chris’s arms and on top of him, Luca was a solid weight, pressing him down into the couch.
Luca wore some sort of aftershave, something clean and sharp.
He must have had a magic trick to use the precise right amount so, even with Chris’s nose buried in the side of Luca’s neck, he didn’t drown in the scent.
He chased the tantalizing hint first with his nose and then with his mouth open on the side of Luca’s neck.
Luca gasped and bit at Chris’s ear in retaliation.
“Hey!”
Drawing in an unsteady breath, Luca said, “Sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. Do you want to stop?”
In answer, Luca leaned in to kiss him again. This time, he left his mouth a little open, and from there, it was an easy slide into kissing with tongue, wet and a little sloppy.
At this point, Chris had always started to lose the plot.
Kissing felt great, and as a lifelong proficient cuddler, he adored holding someone close with his whole body, but when tongues got involved, he couldn’t help getting in his head about it.
How did he know if he was doing it right?
How much tongue was too much? Was it gross to get spit on his chin?
When did you stop making out and start undressing?
“Is this,” he tried to ask, but the words got lost between his and Luca’s lips as Luca pressed forward and used Chris’s open mouth to kiss him deeper.
Chris wrenched himself away. “Am I doing it right?”
Luca blinked. His sooty eyelashes fluttered, revealing a haziness to his dark eyes. His skin showed a flush rising despite his perpetual tan. “Yes,” he said with a voice like wheels crunching over gravel. “Do you like it?”
Chris had been so busy worrying about whether Luca was enjoying himself he hadn’t thought about his own feelings. “I don’t know.” He stretched up to kiss Luca again.
Against him, Luca’s body relaxed, melting into Chris.
Chris wrapped his arms more firmly around Luca, holding him steady as Luca took over the more difficult task of leading the kiss.
Now that he thought about it, Chris did like it.
It felt nice to be so close, to be wrapped up together, to be held and holding at the same time.
The slick glide of their lips together felt pleasant as well. There was a rhythm to it, a give and get that reminded Chris of being on the ice with Luca. He knew how Luca moved, whether to follow or oppose, and Chris sank into the familiarity of it with ease.
Luca’s hands traced up his sides as he pressed closer into Chris’s body. He made low sounds in his throat and squirmed in Chris’s lap. The movement caused their lips to misalign, and Luca’s full, wet bottom lip dragged across Chris’s cheek.
Chris grabbed his hips to tug him back down into his lap and hold him still.
Luca wrenched himself away with what Chris could only describe as a whimper.
“Chris,” he said. He sounded unsteady. “Would you want to do more now?”
Chris took stock of his body. He felt good, though a little warm and sweaty, but he wasn’t turned on.
Trying to get himself hard now, with someone else watching, would be embarrassing and awkward.
It would destroy the nice buzzing sensations of comfort and excitement racing through him.
Even the thought made him clench up in miserable expectation of trying to have a good time and disappointing his partner when he failed.
Telling Luca as much was equally horrifying, but Luca had asked him outright, and Luca had never lied to him before.
Chris had to give him the same courtesy, even if it ruined things. “I don’t think so. I’m sorry.”
Luca grabbed his face in both hands and pressed a hard, close-mouthed kiss to his lips. “You never have to be sorry for that. But then I think we need to stop now.”
“Oh.” Chris took his hands off Luca’s hips and pulled away. “Why?”
With a shaky laugh, Luca admitted, “I want to do more.”
Oh. Suddenly, the way Luca was moving his hips in minute circles and the high flush on his cheeks made sense. “You…really?”
“Yes, really,” Luca huffed and made to get off of Chris’s lap, but Chris followed him up and held him tight. The movement made Luca’s groin rub up against Chris’s stomach, and he groaned.
“Can I see?”
“What?”
Chris flushed. “Sorry, I’m being weird. It’s just, you’re so handsome and smart and amazing. You being so into me is… I want to make it worth your while.”
Luca shook his head. “You do not have to do anything to make it worth my while. My whole point is—”
“No, I’m saying it wrong.” Chris took a deep breath to clear his head.
“This is always where I get it wrong; this is why I need your help. Making people happy, making people feel good, makes me feel good. But there’s no real urgency for me, you know?
And when I have to perform, or whatever, I get in my head, and then it all goes to shit. ”
It took Luca a minute of blinking at him to formulate a response. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Are you saying the issue with your girlfriends was that you enjoyed getting them off and didn’t want them to reciprocate?”
Chris shrugged. “Yeah, sometimes.”
A strangled noise emanated from Luca’s throat, followed by a string of Italian invectives to a God Chris had been sure Luca didn’t believe in.
“I know it wasn’t working for them, but I could never figure out why.”
“All right.” Luca got to his feet despite Chris’s continued attempts to keep him right where he was, settled on Chris’s lap. “No, let go. I need to think to say this right, and I can’t when you’re right there being all…you.”
Chris had no clue what about him made it hard to think, but he kept his hands off Luca so the other man could say whatever might clarify the situation.
“It feels good to be desired.”
Chris eyed the bulge in Luca’s sweatpants. “Yeah, it does.”
“And I think…” Luca’s mouth twisted. “I think especially for women in our society, it is very embarrassing to desire and not be desired in return.”
“Oh, no.” The thought of making any girl feel bad for wanting sex— Chris hoped he hadn’t ever made anyone feel like that. “But I didn’t not want any of them, or, I don’t know, I wanted to want them.”
Luca stroked through his hair, gentler than before. “I know. You did not do anything wrong at all, amo—Chris. But I am glad you told me.”
“Why?”
“I think perhaps you do not need me to coach you. You need to be with someone who will be happy with whatever you want without making you worry about it.”
Whatever Chris wanted? “But what about what you want?”
Luca laughed, easy and light. “Trust me. If all you ever want to do is get me off, I will be a very happy man.”
His words seemed reasonable and in line with what Chris knew about how men ought to feel about sex.
Though Chris had always assumed all the stuff about desire being different between genders was dumb and sexist. But maybe men really did just care about getting off more than women.
Chris had thought his own disinterest made him bad at being a guy.
Maybe it could also make him good at being with a guy.
Even a guy who only wanted to do this with Chris because Chris wouldn’t let him pay rent.
“So can I make you feel good now?”
Luca nodded and let Chris draw him closer again.
They started with kissing. Chris knew what he was doing there now, which made him confident enough to grip Luca’s hips before running a hand up his side and tilting his head so the angle improved.
It took very little time for Luca to start squirming and moaning again, and when he did, Chris dragged him back onto his lap.
Luca must have been restraining himself before.
Now that everyone’s expectations were clear, he rolled his hips into Chris’s rhythmically, dragging the line of his erection against the fly of Chris’s pants.
It couldn’t be comfortable, not through two layers of cloth.
Chris pulled down Luca’s sweatpants and his black, formfitting briefs.
God, he was gorgeous. He could model that underwear, and Chris would…
well, he wouldn’t buy it, but he’d be disappointed it wouldn’t fit him when he walked past the billboards.
Even his cock looked good, long and straight and dripping at the tip.
Chris had never touched another guy’s cock, but how hard could it be? He had one of his own. He wrapped a hand around Luca and stroked him firmly, kissing down the elegant line of Luca’s neck as he did it.
Luca’s head dropped back. He cried out.
“Feel good?” Chris asked.
“So good.” Luca’s accent had gone thick, and when Chris returned his mouth to Luca’s neck, his next words came out in Italian, praise and begging all mixed up together.
Chris kept up his rhythm, firm and slow, working Luca up. It was always better when it lasted longer, and they had barely started.
“Chris,” Luca said.
Chris had never heard him sound so thready and strung out. Had he missed something? “Is it okay?” he asked. “Can I make you feel better?”
Luca whimpered and came all over Chris’s fist.
After, Chris washed his hands and got a few damp paper towels for the bits of mess on Luca’s belly. Luca splayed on the couch, apparently satisfied to just lie there.
“How are you feeling?” he asked when Chris sat next to him.
Chris considered. He’d enjoyed seeing Luca all needy and desperate.
He was flattered Luca trusted him to get him off, despite having zero experience with men.
And he appreciated that Luca hadn’t minded him not wanting to do anything himself.
“Good,” he said. “As long as you’re, um, satisfied, Coach. ”
Luca stretched and then settled his head on Chris’s thigh as he reached for the remote. “I am very satisfied.”