Touch the Sky (Free Fall Book 1)

by Christina Lee

  And then silence. He doesn’t speak and I don’t either. What the fuck would I even say?

  The second we pull up in front of his apartment, I say, “What the fuck was that? You could have killed yourself!”

  “No.” He shakes his head. “I was fine. I’m fine.”

  “Are you kidding me? That was not fine, Gabe. You were on the ledge of the goddamned roof!”

  He flinches, and it’s like a punch to the gut. I’m doing this wrong. This isn’t how I should react. We’re back at that night in the alley when I hit him.

  “I’m sorry,” he says so softly, I almost can’t hear him. “I wasn’t thinking. I was just…I felt so good. I was so happy, being up there with you. There’s never been a time in my life I felt that good, and it just…” he shrugs. “Took over. I won’t do it again. It was stupid. That was so fucking stupid.” Gabe leans forward. Bends his arms. Locks his hands together behind his head. “So fucking stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid…”

  My heart shatters, breaks into a million different pieces. “Hey. It’s okay. It was a mistake. We’re okay.” My fingers lock on his arm. I pull him closer, pull him into a hug. He’s trembling…or maybe that’s me. We’re both shaking and breathing heavy and holding each other. “It’ll be okay,” I say, and I hope like hell it will.

  27

  Gabriel

  I’m at my place attempting to tidy up my bedroom after work. The apartment itself always looks immaculate, but my closet and floor are a different story.

  Lucas is on his way here, as is the Chinese delivery, and I keep wiping my clammy hands on my jeans because I’m nervous.

  That look in his eyes when I was on that ledge the other night—like I was losing it, or goddamn crazy. And then the raw fear. I was stupid and reckless and I never want to put that frightened expression in his eyes again. But hell, it felt incredible in that moment. I had just finished fucking him and I was so goddamn elated and I felt like…I don’t know, like maybe I could walk on air or some shit like that.

  I know it’s in Lucas’s nature to worry and protect. He’s a caretaker. That’s why he has so much leftover guilt about his mom. But I don’t need anybody hovering over me, telling me what they think is right. Had too much of that growing up and it never ended well. So, I need to look out for myself.

  Which is why I finally made that doctor’s appointment. But I can’t get in, can’t fucking see the psychiatrist for six weeks. Still, I know that’s the only way I can get back on meds. Unless I check myself in someplace and I never want to be locked up again.

  The only thing I want to be strapped into is a cockpit. The meds will hurt my chances of that. The industry doesn’t allow pilots to be under the influence of psychotropic drugs while operating a plane, except under special circumstances. My uncle said that I would never be a commercial pilot but that didn’t rule out other ways to be part of the profession, even if it means working with a private runway or the ground crew most of the time. Aviation is the only thing that makes me happy when I consider it, been fascinated by planes since I was a kid, so I figure it’s time. To swallow my fear and pride and try to somehow make it work. Maybe then I could make it work with Lucas too.

  “You wore your lucky hoodie,” Lucas says as I swing open the door. He arrived right after I paid the delivery guy for the food.

  I smile and motion to his head because he’s also got on his favorite beanie.

  The hair poking beneath his cap curls over his ears and I can’t take my eyes off of him. When he leans in to kiss me, his hand lingering on my neck, I inhale his soapy scent.

  It’s a simple meeting of lips but it means so much that he still wants to be here, still wants to touch me. Because Lucas touching me is everything.

  As I close the door behind him, the air feels different between us—more cautious, timid, but still electric. Not only because of what we shared the other night, but because of how I acted afterward. Maybe he’s expecting me to jump on the window ledge or climb up the fire escape, but that’s not going to happen.

  In fact, I can feel my body going into hibernation mode, like it’s so exhausted from my chaotic brain and restless nights of sleep these past couple of weeks, that it’s about to power off again, until I get some needed downtime. I know this pattern well. But I don’t want Lucas to be afraid. I want him to have faith in me, trust me to be there for him. So I have to fix it, get myself healthy.

  “Want to start the movie while we eat?” I ask, motioning to the containers of shrimp fried rice as well as sweet-and-sour chicken. I had sent him a text about his order earlier in the day and we both agreed to mix and match our dishes.

  “Sounds good.” Lucas hovers near Ezra’s newest painting, which is a series of graduating black and white dots on a colorful background. I’m not sure I actually understand it except that maybe it’s supposed to be abstract, which comprises most of his art, and apparently allows him to enjoy a steady income.

  “So Ezra’s gone for the night?” he asks as he moves around the easel as if looking at the picture from different angles. “A date?”

  “He doesn’t really date,” I say from the kitchen as I reach for some plates and forks. “He just likes being on his own.”

  I’m not going to tell Ezra’s personal business but Lucas seems to take that at face value as he nods and then follows me to the couch.

  “How was work?” I ask after I spoon some chicken and vegetables onto his plate.

  He shrugs, lifting his fork to his lips. “It was decent.”

  I know he doesn’t exactly like his job but I also don’t want to push him about the stuff we discussed the other night, unless I don’t expect questions in return. And tonight I just wanted to chill, to enjoy his company.

  “Your friend, Conner?” I ask around a bite of rice.

  “Okay, I guess,” he says, swallowing a piece of shrimp. “This is really good, by the way.”

  “You should invite Conner out sometime,” I say, nodding. “So I can meet him. Maybe I can bring Ezra too. Just a friends kind of thing.”

  When he scrunches up his nose at my idea, I laugh and say, “Too much?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” he says. “For now, let’s just concentrate on me and you.”

  “I like the sound of that,” I say as my heart thumps hard in my chest.

  I grab the remote to start the latest Start Trek movie. Lucas and I used to talk about tons of stuff in those emails way back when. Music, movies, values, religion, science, the fucking meaning of life. Everything. We were on the same page with most topics and I still remembered some of his preferences.

  I pick up my plate to finish my food as the movie begins its opening sequence. “Still got a thing for the dude who plays Spock? Zachary somebody?”

  His eyebrows shoot up, but there’s something else there too. He looks almost embarrassed. “Ah, shit, you remember that?”

  “Of course,” I say, chuckling. “You were drooling over him even before the first remake released.”

  The action begins and we watch in comfortable silence, finishing our meals and getting situated side by side on the couch. His thigh is resting against mine, his arm stretched behind me, and I resist the urge to lean my head on his shoulder just yet.

  He nudges my knee once the actor in question enters the screen. “I know it’s crazy, but there’s just something sexy about him.”

  “Is it the hair? That bowl cut gets you hard?” I ask, and he cracks a smile. “Admit it, you’d share your raft with Spock.”

  A laugh erupts from his lips and he pulls me toward him, kissing my head. “Nah, I’d only share my raft with you.”

  When he realizes what he said, he grows quiet, inhaling sharply through his nose. My entire body prickles from head to toe. I sit motionless, not wanting to call attention to the fact that his words mean the whole fucking world to me.

  His head angles toward me, and his lips brush my mouth soft as a feather. I shiver as he rests his forehead against mine.

 
“Luke,” I whisper, as his fingers wrap solidly around my neck, tightening our connection. His tongue darts out to swipe against my lips, and I shut my eyes as my mouth opens for him.

  He sighs into the kiss, his tongue licking fully into my mouth and then lingering against mine. The movie is all but forgotten as my hands remove his cap, throw it behind him on the couch, and my fingers burrow through his dark curls, pulling him narrowly against me.

  Lucas pushes my hoodie off my shoulders and strips it down my arms. He hems his fingers beneath my shirt, to glide up and down my spine. My skin and lips are tingling and my cock is half-hard from having his hands on me. Several blissed out moments later, I haul my mouth away. “I want to show you something.”

  I stand up and reach for his hand, and he follows me into my room. I pull open my desk drawer and fish out several sheets of paper as he glances over the black and white Amelia Earhart print hanging over my bed.

  “You said…you mentioned that you no longer have your old sketch books,” I say as I hand him the drawings of his buildings I printed off from our old emails. “So I thought maybe you—”

  “Holy shit.” He fishes the sketches from my fingers. “No way.”

  Lucas takes several moments to marvel at them, turning them sideways and upside down, as if trying to recollect when and where he drew them.

  “I can’t believe you did this,” he says, gently returning the drawings to the surface of the desk. “I thought I lost everything…I…thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” I reply as he turns to me, his eyes filled with such gratitude. “I’m sure you’ve improved your technique since then, but I figured—”

  All at once he steps forward, clutches my jaw, and crushes his lips against mine in a bruising kiss that sucks the oxygen straight from my lungs. We fall backward on my bed, reaching, grabbing, and intertwining legs and arms. Our mouths and teeth clashing, our tongues battling.

  “You make me feel like…” Lucas says against my lips, barely coming up for air as his lips capture mine in another powerful kiss.

  “Like what?” I gasp, attempting to catch my breath.

  “Like things might be okay.” He pulls back to stare into my eyes. “You make me wanna try for more.”

  My eyes are misting because I’m so thrilled that he liked what I showed him and my erection is poking against his stomach because I’m so fucking turned on.

  My fingers reach up to outline the scar near his eye. The one I first touched so many weeks ago. His eyes soften and then he shuts his lids. His inky lashes flutter against his cheeks, and I stretch to kiss his lips because he’s so beautiful.

  “Now that I found you again,” I whisper, almost to myself. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  His eyes snap open and his irises are so vibrant, so clear when he says, “I don’t want to lose you, either.”

  And I want to believe him. So fucking much it hurts. I drag his mouth down to mine so I can feel that promise right against my lips.

  Lucas’s fingers grope down my stomach to my waistband and he’s unzipping my pants.

  I place my hand over his fingers. “What are you…?”

  He slides off the bed to his knees, and I groan as his fingers curl beneath the material of my boxers and graze the tip of my cock.

  “I need to taste you,” he says as his fingers tighten around my stiff length. “I never really got to taste you.”

  I’m so hard that I might explode as soon as his mouth is on me.

  The first lash of his tongue is so intense that my back arches off the bed. His fingers travel beneath my shirt as he nudges me down and scrapes his nails along my abdomen. My stomach muscles tremble. “Take this off.”

  I lift my shirt above my shoulders, and then look down at him just as he sucks my cock into the hot furnace of his mouth. And what a fucking sight it is.

  28

  Lucas

  I love the taste of salt on his skin. Love the scent as I lower my mouth down his erection, taking as much of him in as I can. When I get to the base, I inhale, pulling in more of his scent—of sex and musk before pulling back.

  I want to devour him. Consume him. Want to burrow inside him where I can make sure everything is okay. Because the truth is, I’m scared out of my fucking mind. The frantic look in his eyes and the awe in his voice as he stood on that ledge the other night, hasn’t left my brain since. It’s there, all the fucking time, and I don’t know how to deal with it.

  It’s the same fear I used to feel when Mom would drink again.

  “Fuck, Lucas. So good.” His hand knots in my hair as I hollow my cheeks to suck him. He’s moving his hips, like he wants to be buried deep inside of me, and it’s then that I realize I want that too. As much as I want to taste him, I need our bodies fused together even more.

  “You taste so good.” I swirl my tongue around the head of his erection, cup his heavy balls in my hand. “Want you to get in me, though. Want you to fuck me again.”

  “Oh shit.” His body tenses, his erection jerks, and I know my words went straight to his cock the same way they went to mine. “Yeah…” he says softly, passionately. “Yeah…come here.”

  We stand up, our bodies touching like some other force is holding us together. I kiss him, lick at this mouth as our fingers slowly work at each other’s clothes. There’s nothing urgent about it. It’s not frenzied like our time on the roof. Not light like our time at my house. The relentless hunger is still there, but it’s like we want to savor each other too.

  When we’re both standing naked beside his bed, I let my eyes travel down his slender body. His hair is a mess from lying on the bed. His cock long, and rock-hard, the tip glistening. I wrap my hand around it and stroke, “Way sexier than Spock.”

  He laughs softly. His eyes look down, hiding behind his lashes. There’s a strange change to the air, a heaviness, that I’m scared as hell will start to suffocate us. “I don’t want to fuck up.” His voice is so low it’s hard to make out the words.

  My head is a mass of chaos, the part of me that wants to tell him he won’t, rioting with the part of me who is afraid I’ll be the one to screw up and let him down. “You won’t. I’ll make sure of it.” It’s a lie, the biggest fucking lie I could tell him. I can’t take care of myself, can’t forget my past and move toward a future I want. How can I be here for him?

  This time it’s Gabe who leans forward to kiss me. I hold the back of his head. Let his messy blond hair slide through my fingers. Feel the work-roughened pads of his hands rub against my side.

  We kiss and then fall to the bed. Kiss some more as he fumbles in his bedside table. Still kiss as he sets the lube and condoms beside me.

  I want him to slam into me. Rail me. Fill me. Take me long and deep. As though he can read my thoughts, Gabe sits up, opens the lube and spreads some on his fingers.

  As he looks down at me, the blue hue of his eyes looking deep into me, I see it. The sadness there. It’s like a bacteria eating away at my insides. If it’s doing that to me…what is it doing to him?

  I melt into the mattress when his pushes a finger inside me. It’s good, but not what I want, so I say, “Just do it.”

  He smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Gabe rips the condom package open as I spread my legs and pull them back. He’s kneeling between them. Once he’s sheathed, he spreads more lube on him, then me, and then he’s there, pushing inside.

  There’s the familiar stretch, searing fucking pleasure, before he’s buried as deep as he can go. “Take me hard,” I tell him and he nods. I need it hard. Need to know he’s there.

  Gabe rails me deep, powerfully, but slow too. It’s hard and soft, a contradiction maybe like what goes on inside his head.

  When he leans forward and kisses me, I groan into his mouth. His thrusts are raw and natural, smooth and urgent. We kiss as he moves inside of me. I wrap a hand around my aching erection and stroke.

  I’m going to come quick. I already feel it in my sac. “Gabe… Harder.” He b
ites his lip and thrusts more powerfully. Our bodies slap against each other. Our eyes don’t leave each other’s. I want to know what’s going on in his. Wonder what he sees in mine.

  “Oh shit…I’m gonna.” His words spur my orgasm too. As Gabe trembles, and tenses, I go rigid. Hot, thick ropes rip out of me, pool in my stomach and drip through my fingers.

  Gabe falls on top of me. We’re covered in sweat, and now my come. He pulls out, tosses the condom in the trash, but doesn’t move.

  “That was…” He starts but doesn’t finish. I don’t need the words to understand what he’s feeling.

  “I know.” Wrapping my arms around him, I hold him to me.

  “Look at this. It’s fucking amazing up here!” Gabe says as he stands on the ledge of the building’s roof.

  I try to lift my foot, but it’s been glued to the ground. When I can’t make the left work, I attempt the right, but it’s the same thing. I’m tethered to the roof while he’s hanging over the edge.

  And for one second… I’m almost jealous of him. It’s as though he’s against the sky, the blue around him, holding him.

  “I wish I could fly. Sometimes I think I can.”

  Gabe’s words hit me, slamming the truth home. Neither of us can touch the sky. “Get down.” I try to walk toward him again, but my feet are heavier, whatever is holding them in place stronger.

  “I can’t,” Gabe replies, without looking at me. “I tried, but I can’t.”

  Mom tried, but she couldn’t either. Gabe is different, though. Gabe can do it.

  “Help me,” he says. I become urgent now, fighting an invisible force to get to him. Tears pour down my face, and I can’t stop them. I’m afraid I might drown in them.

  “Please, Lucas,” he says again.

  When he turns my way, those sad blue eyes on me, I know what’s going to happen next. “Noooooo!” But it’s too late. Gabe lets go… and he doesn’t fly. He falls.