by Cole McCade
God, Summer was in so deep, his heart on fire...
And he needed Fox to be in deep, too.
Needed to feel flesh become desire, needed to feel the two of them moving together, and as he crashed into Fox and Fox sank into him, their mouths met once more and hot breaths traded between, rushed and yet completely in synch, completely together in the urgency that made them thrust and writhe, shudder and grasp, moving together. Slow at first—so slow, Fox’s breaths wet against his neck, his back arching in serpentine flexes of musculature under Summer’s fingers, the grasping and relaxing pressure on Summer’s throat seeming to guide the tempo driving them as Fox thrust into him again and again with a sort of controlled animalism, power and strength held in perfect rein as if he wanted to torture Summer with every suffering moment when Fox withdrew—until there was a void inside Summer that left his heart breaking for Fox, the only point of connection left that shivering feeling where the flared head of Fox’s cock spread Summer open so wide at the most tender, sensitive point of his entrance.
And as if he wanted to reward Summer with that pleasure of fulfillment again, of flesh kissing to flesh inside him and making sweet sensation ripple down his inner thighs and course over his body like a crashing flood, points of pleasure igniting in the pit of his stomach, in the flutter of his pulse against Fox’s palm, in the tingling ache of lips that begged for another taste...
...in the wondrously tight pain of his body stretching, wrapping around Fox’s cock, needing it when he was so burnt up inside, this feeling almost wrong when every time Fox sank deep it was like he was piercing some inner vulnerability that Summer had never allowed anyone else to touch.
Anyone else but Fox.
Fox made him wild, as those thrusts came faster—that strength slowly slipping its leash until their bodies came together hard, bruising force slamming rough sounds from both their throats, trading them in hot, grasping kisses. Every time Fox sank into him harder, harder, Summer nearly screamed, clutching his thighs against Fox’s waist, inner muscles twitching, jerking, gripping as he rose up to meet him. Again and again, every moment more fragile, more unbearable, rising to a fevered and quivering pitch, moving in racing tandem to tumble ever closer and closer to that unbearable edge of pleasure.
Tumble closer...
And spill over, breaking to the point of shattering.
Summer wrapped his fingers around his cock. He was so fucking hot, so wet with pre dripping over his flesh in burning runnels, its scent part of this simmering smoky miasma of lust enveloping them. He squeezed his cock and cried out against Fox’s lips, his entire body answering with a hard clench that made him lock tighter still around Fox, tearing a wicked, rough growl from Fox’s throat—and earning Summer a deeper, harsher thrust that tore over him in a battering rush. Again and again, matching his stroking rhythm to Fox’s gasping, growling, searing thrusts, tightening deeper inside, loving every suffering moment when he made Fox snarl and punish him again and again until they fought each other to slam their bodies together, to meet with every driving thrust.
Hotter, building hotter still, tightening up inside, tension winding deeper and deeper—until he was locking around Fox’s cock. Until Fox was snarling out his name. Until his back shuddered under Summer’s fingers, and his hips jerked, his cock writhing hotly inside Summer, and Summer was stroking just a little harder, a little faster, and then—
Cracking. Splitting. Crumbling. Ripping apart. As if the burst of his climax was a thing of sheer destruction that shredded him apart from the inside out, savaging him with claws of pleasure, every hard-knotting spurt from his cock making him clench even more convulsively around Fox in little spasms of pleasure-pain, giving him the satisfaction of Fox’s strained, harsh cries. Then Summer was wet inside, wet and warm and dripping with a sudden feeling of heavy, liquid fullness...and Fox’s face was so fucking beautiful and perfect and right as he lost himself, and somehow they were coming down together in a tangled sweaty heap, breathing hard, sprawled against the lounge chair in a mess.
Sated. Sore. Breathless, grasping on to each other, nuzzled together in a mess of lax limbs while they both sank hard into the chair. So content, Summer thought fuzzily, a lovely feeling of slow lassitude sweeping through him to leave him boneless.
And almost completely naked, tangled up in each other.
In the pool house.
In public.
It was like they realized it in the same moment, the afterglow fading to a wide-eyed stare, before Fox peered slooowly over his shoulder.
Nothing there.
But, “Hold on,” he murmured, gripping Summer’s hips, parting them in a burning rush of friction, before he was tumbling to his feet and reaching for Summer’s hand with far more agility than he deserved to have after he had just fucked Summer’s legs out from underneath him.
“Your room or mine?” Fox asked, and Summer grinned.
“Yours. Do you really want to see Dr. Liu like this?”
“No,” Fox said dryly...then laughed. A laugh that lit up his face; a laugh like none Summer had ever heard from him before, and if Summer hadn’t been in love...he would be now, looking into those sparkling gray eyes as Fox tugged him toward his clothing. “Now get your things...and run.”
Chapter Eleven
Summer never thought he would be falling asleep in Fox Iseya’s bed.
Yet here he was—fresh out of the shower, still warm from the steaming spray, tying the drawstring on a pair of Fox’s borrowed pajama pants; pants that dragged on the ground with Summer’s every step as he shyly ventured from the bathroom and into the bedroom, watching as Fox turned down the sheets on the bed.
And paused, as Summer stopped in the doorway, unable to help drinking his fill of the sight of him.
Of that tall, hard-tapered body that had arched over him, driven into him, pale amber skin flexing and flowing like silk pulled tight over some great machine. He was still so sore, not even the shower easing it, but it was a soreness he wanted to hold on to, to savor, to feel again and again and again until his body was branded in it and he forgot how it felt to walk without the lingering perfect pain of Fox Iseya inside him.
While Fox halted mid-motion, arrested in silence, one hand still gripping a pillow covered in a subtly textured, dark gray pillowcase... Summer ducked his head, unable to stop from smiling no matter how he bit his lip to contain it, his cheeks warming.
He could still see it, from the corner of his eye.
The marks of his nails down Fox’s back, red faint lines he’d left when he’d clutched at him and grasped so hard, dug so deep, begging without words don’t let me go.
He felt like he was going to explode everywhere, in showers of light.
Especially when Fox made a soft, amused sound, his voice relaxed and low and almost coaxing. “Planning to sleep in the doorway?”
“No, I...uh...” Summer raked a hand through his hair, laughing helplessly. “I just... I realized I kind of assumed you’d let me stay, after...that.”
“Ah. Yes. That.” The mattress creaked faintly. “We should probably discuss that, but perhaps that discussion would be easier if you were here.”
Summer peeked back over his upraised arm. Fox sat on one side of the bed, one leg propped up, the other hanging over the edge, his body slouched like grace and ennui gathered up and crafted into the essence of a man, his disarrayed hair falling in loops from its twist to pour over his shoulders. He’d taken his glasses off, leaving them on the nightstand...and every inch of him glimmered in faint gilt edges of moonlight, pouring in silver arcs over his hair, running pale along the line of his jaw and the slope of his throat, slipping in soft-light touches over the defined ridges of his pectorals, the narrow, toned taper of his abdomen, the length of legs draped in loose black cotton.
Summer’s mouth dried, as he tried not to stare.
God, Fox was beauti
ful.
And sitting there waiting for him, inviting Summer into his bed as if...as if...
As if Summer had a chance.
Summer licked his lips, then took a tentative step closer into the room, then another, before sliding his knee onto the bed and settling gingerly on the other side, leaning against the headboard but very carefully not touching Fox.
He didn’t know why everything felt so much more tentative, now.
But...
Sex was sex.
It didn’t mean anything, no matter how much he wanted it to, and he didn’t want to jump to conclusions.
“So,” he said, fidgeting his fingers, plucking at the leg of his pajama pants. “That...happened, didn’t it?”
“If you’re not certain if it did or not, perhaps I need to reconsider if I adequately satisfied you,” Fox said dryly, and Summer spluttered, his ears burning—God, it felt like his nose was even on fire, his flush rolling through him fast enough to make him dizzy.
“N-no!” he sputtered. “I mean—you did, it was—you were good, it was good, it was everything, I just—I don’t—”
Fox’s cool expression didn’t change, save for a subtle twitch of his lips.
A glimmer in his eyes.
And Summer realized Fox was, in fact, quite pointedly fucking with him.
Summer scowled, glowering at him. “I liked you better when you didn’t have a sense of humor.”
“No, you did not,” Fox said, but relaxed into a smile, tilting his head back against the bank of pillows propped against the headboard behind him. “I suppose we should discuss what it means that it happened, though.”
“I...it...it doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to,” Summer said quickly, even as his quick-skip heartbeat smashed its fists against his rib cage in protest. “I don’t...want to pressure you.”
“But you want me.” Husky, enthralling in that deep rolling voice, that voice that Summer had slowly started to pick up on the tiny nuances in, from the hint of an accent that had almost disappeared into precise American English to the fine peaks and valleys of emotion—and there was a question in that rumble now, a curiosity. “And you want to know what I want. If I want you...or if this was just a momentary lapse.”
Summer nodded slowly, and braced himself.
Braced himself for this to hurt more than he was ready for.
Fox... Fox didn’t want this.
He knew that already.
Knew Fox was determined to isolate himself one way or another, as long as he never had to hurt again. Indulging Summer was just a momentary thing.
But even if he’d steeled himself for it to sting, to ache, to lash him hard...
Still he wasn’t ready for the clutching jolt of pain that went through him as Fox looked away, his eyes shuttering, his voice neutral as he said, “I’m still retiring after this school year, Summer. And once I do, there’ll be no place for me at Albin Academy. No reason for me to stay in Omen.”
Couldn’t I be? Summer wanted to plead, but held himself back—clutching his fingers together and pressing them against his chest as if he could physically restrain himself from leaning toward Fox, reaching toward him. Couldn’t I be enough of a reason?
But instead he only asked carefully, “What does that mean, then?”
He was almost impressed with himself that his voice didn’t waver, didn’t fall.
But it was a bittersweet victory, when inside he felt like he was breaking apart.
Fox said nothing, at first, and the silence dug its hooks into Summer’s heart as he searched that impassive face for something.
For anything that might tell him Fox felt even the tiniest thing for him.
Finally, Fox exhaled, seeming resigned. “Could you live with it? With being with me for the rest of the school year, knowing I’ll leave you in the end?”
“Are you so sure of that?” Summer asked, voice cracking. “That you’ll leave me. That you’ll even want to leave me.”
With a small smile, so bitter, dark with something turned inward, turned on himself, Fox let his head fall toward Summer, watching him through the messy spill of hair looping across his brow. “Are you so sure you’ll even want me by then?” he asked, brittle words that came out slow, his red mouth shaping them as if he was bleeding them out. “You’ll grow tired of me, Summer. I’m still the same weary old man. I’m still quite dull, quite proper, quite stiff...and quite incapable of knowing how to be with someone like you.”
Summer closed his eyes—if only so Fox wouldn’t see.
Wouldn’t see the wetness springing to his eyes unbidden, so quick he couldn’t stop it, the burn deep and prickling in his nostrils.
“You’ve been doing a pretty good job so far,” he whispered.
Warmth covered his hand, then, trapping it against his thigh. Fox’s fingers, curling over his, gripping tight. Summer sucked in a broken breath, lifting his head, sniffling back hard as he opened his eyes, scrubbing his free hand against his nose and staring at Fox miserably. At that smile that seemed the vessel for every pain he’d ever seen, ever known, awful and dark and heavy.
“I’m sorry,” Fox said. “Maybe if I’d known you in another life...known you as someone else. Before...everything. But I can give you these few months, Summer...and I hope it will be enough.”
No—no, it’s never enough!
Nothing is enough...not until I can call you mine, and you call me yours.
It was almost cruel of Fox—cruel of him to let Summer know how it could feel to be with him, to be loved by him, to be wrapped up in his passion and the full unfettered force of the emotions Fox tried so hard to repress.
What had happened back there...
That hadn’t been just lust.
Not the way Fox had kissed him, not the way Fox had touched him, whispered his name like a prayer, nearly worshipped him with every touch and every crash of their bodies. Fox had given him so much, and God, when he’d laughed, when Summer had seen that brightness transform his face until he came alive...
It only left him that much more cold when Fox withdrew once more behind a wall of quiet melancholy more stubborn and impenetrable than the harshest rejections, so determined to believe he was nothing else.
Summer wanted to shake him, wanted to beg...
But he couldn’t.
His heart was too sore and heavy, right now.
He was too raw with all the emotions that Fox had touched, stroking the exposed nerves of his heart to leave them too quivering and sensitive.
He couldn’t take this tonight.
But he wouldn’t give up, he told himself, even as he turned his hand to press palm to palm with Fox’s, lacing their fingers together, blinking back the blurring in his vision and forcing himself to smile.
“If that’s what you want,” he said thickly. “A few months is more than I ever thought would happen.”
Fox’s gaze flickered back and forth over Summer’s face, searching—before he tugged on their clasped hands, drawing Summer in.
“Come here, you ridiculous boy,” he sighed. “Just...come here.”
Then Fox’s arms were around him, enfolding him like an apology, drawing him in close against Fox’s chest, his warmth, the strength of him.
Summer told himself he wouldn’t break.
Wouldn’t cry.
But he clutched tight at Fox, buried his face in his chest, and breathed in deep wet gasps until that feeling of desperation passed, until he no longer felt like...like...
Like he was losing something before he even had a chance to grasp it tight.
Fox’s heat and bulk curled around him, fingers stroking against his back—before one hand pulled away.
And a moment later, something cool fell over Summer like rain, lashing and licking against his skin in silken washes.
> He opened his eyes, sucking in a soft breath, watching as the spill of Fox’s hair cascaded down in threads of black diamond, fine and wispy and floating like feathers in looping arcs to spill over Fox, over the bed, over Summer. It was longer than he’d ever imagined, pouring in a river over the dark gray sheets, shining like thin threads of starlight shooting through a black night sky, liquid as water and silken-fine and wreathing Fox in a cloak that made him look ethereal, unreal, almost inhuman.
Summer’s heart thumped harder still, as he looked up into gray eyes that seemed to whisper a sorrow older than even Fox himself, older than the sky, older than the moon.
“Sleep, Summer,” Fox breathed, and bent over him, pressing his lips to Summer’s brow like a blessing. “Sleep...and this will all look different in the morning.”
* * *
Fox felt as though he had committed a crime.
A desecration. A sin. A defilement against everything he held dear.
A betrayal.
Not against Michiko; not against the memory that still perched on his shoulder like a silent thing, whispering in his ear endlessly in a constant stream of sounds he couldn’t understand but that would never give him peace.
Against Summer.
Fox curled on his side with his head pillowed on one arm, his other arm draped around Summer, gathering him close against his chest. Summer slept tucked tight into him, resting in the crook of Fox’s arm and burrowing his face into his shoulder, the mess of his hair spilling in black arcs over Fox’s chest and mixing with his own until they were just a sea of ink together, and all that tanned, taut skin pressed up against his in dark contrast, Summer’s body heat as tangled with him as the young man’s long, agile legs.
He looked so peaceful, in his sleep. So relaxed.
So young.
But even this, right now...
This was hurting him, and Fox was only making it worse by letting Summer’s attachment grow deeper.
That moment of impulse, that burst of passion, of desire, had been wrong—so wrong. No matter how good it had felt, no matter that for a few minutes he had no longer been a grieving widower or a frozen shadow locked away with his ghosts, but simply a man entwined with another man and completely lost in the rapture of him, the passion of him, the wildness and so much dizzying, spinning emotion and pleasure building up into a thing of crashing, interlocked beauty...
