He thrusts.
“You good?”
He grips chin and lifts my face so he can see me. “Give me what I’m asking you for, Mr. Rayne.”
I laugh. “Oh…it’s on.”
Who knew he was such a switchy boy? Fuck, this is hot…
My hands tremble as I coat the both of us with lube. Then I’m between his legs, and I’m so hard I’m aching.
“I’m gonna take it slow. You need more water?”
“I need you.” His hand squeezes his erection. Then he opens his eyes. He looks at my face as I push up against his rim.
“You ready?”
His eyes shut. He nods…and my knees quake as I push—hard then with a sort of thrust—and then I’m partway in him and he groans. He tries to lift his hips, and I push deeper.
“Ohhh.” His whole body shakes below me. His green eyes are stretched wide.
“You okay?” It feels so fucking good inside him, my eyes want to roll back in my head.
I rock just a little deeper, and he moans—and I can’t tell if it’s good. I change the angle, pushing in a little differently, and that’s when he starts to really lose it.
“Oh God…Vance. I—” His face comes undone, and I can feel him coming in the way his muscles lock up. I thrust deeper, so I’m buried, and we blow together.
I’m half laughing as I come to, still lit up from how good that felt…and from knowing that he let me inside. I ease out slowly, and his hand reaches for me.
“Vance?” His voice is shaky, his eyes half shut.
“Yeah?”
His eyes open fully, finding mine. “I love you.”As soon as he says it, he sits up. His glazed eyes move around the room, then fix on my face. “Can we go?”
“Yeah. You want to go now?”
He nods. He won’t look at me as we both clean up and put the room to rights. We put our hoods on, and I clasp his hand as we move into the hall.
As we make our way back to the exit, my mind’s racing. We check out without a problem and start down the street—Luke with the mask on. When we’re a block or so from the club’s door, he pulls me into an alley, pushes me against the brick, and puts his hand on my face.
“Vance?” The word is soft, contrasting with his hard body.
I search his face—what I can see of it now that he’s wearing my paint mask again. “Yes?”
His forehead lowers to my temple. He gets one deep breath…and then another. “You’re the best person that I’ve ever met.”
My throat feels too full. Tight. I swallow hard and wrap my arm around him.
I love you. It’s what I want to say. Those words have been so easy to give him before. My heart’s pounding with the need to say them, but…I can’t. I hold him against me as cars pass by on the road outside the alley and a filmy cloud of fog drifts over us. My hand brushes through his soft hair.
Borrowed time. Those two words fill my head. We’re playing pretend. Even if he really loves me and it’s not just molly talking, it means nearly nothing. He will never be a fixture in my life. The blunt pain of it locks my lungs up. I breathe slowly, letting it move through me.
“You’re a hell of a man, too, Sky.”
Every second we stand here locked together carves itself into my heart. One day, there’ll be scars from this soft, cool, Haight night and Luke’s warm body pressed against mine.
Please. My teeth are gritted as I say it in my head—a sort of prayer. Luke lifts his head and looks right at my face.
He squeezes my shoulder…goes to kiss my lips and sort of misses. “C’mon, V.” His hand takes mine. “Let’s go home.”21VanceWe lie wrapped together in the townhouse bed. I’m looking at the shapes that move across the ceiling, making them into an abstract.
“V?” His voice is sleep-thick.
“Yeah?”
“I…do.”
Warmth spills through my chest, hot and thick. Feels like bliss. It feels like panic.
“I do, too,” I whisper.
His arms around me tighten.
All night, he sleeps. I can’t drift off until dawn. When I wake up, the sunlight streaming in is amber gold, and Luke is gone. That happens sometimes.
No texts all morning. I work on my Eden scene with so much zeal, my muscles sting and throb by lunch. I go sit on a bench inside the walled garden outside my atrium—the one where our port-a-room is—and watch a bird hop all around the limbs of a tree.
It’s okay, I tell myself. It’s gonna be okay somehow.
At that very moment, he strolls out the door. He’s got on one of the thousand dollar suits and a no discernable expression. He raises his hand to his neck—the nervous tell. I smile as he disappears into the port-a-room.