by Riley Knight
Once they were inside, Luca turned to Julian, those beautiful eyes of his searching Julian’s like he somehow had the answer to a question that hadn’t been asked yet. A question that made Julian shiver slightly as anticipation tingled over every inch of his body.
“I don’t usually do this,” Luca admitted, and Julian actually laughed softly. He couldn’t help it.
“You’re preaching to the choir,” Julian said, and right there, with that mutual admission, something changed between them. Something loosened inside Julian, something that had been wound up tightly but had been slowly fraying.
No one had to tell him what had plucked at the loose threads inside him, the ones that held him all bound up in tight knots. It was Luca. It was far too sappy to say out loud, but there was no doubt at all in his mind that it was Luca who had done it. And without even knowing he was doing it, probably, just by looking at him.
Danger, something inside him screamed, but for once, he pushed that scared, wary part of himself down. If this could be something, he didn’t want his own cowardice to ruin it. Not this time, when the connection was so strong that he could almost smell it in the air between them.
“Do you want a drink or something?” Julian asked, finally remembering his manners. “I have beer, or wine.”
“No thanks. I don’t drink,” Luca said, and Julian blinked at him, confused. Luca didn’t drink?
“We met at a bar?” Julian said, honestly not quite sure why someone would even come to a bar if they didn’t drink.
“Oh. Well, I mean, I don’t drink often. Every once in a while, I guess …” Luca looked uncomfortable suddenly, and Julian searched the other man’s handsome face, trying to figure out what was going on here.
Luca turned away, and Julian led the way over to the couch. His apartment was tiny and almost exclusively furnished with ancient Ikea items, but at least it was neat. He didn’t have to die of embarrassment, not that Luca seemed to be all that bothered by it.
Actually, Luca hadn’t really taken his eyes off of Julian much the entire time that they’d been speaking. His gaze was flattering and deeply intense and stirred Julian in ways that he wasn’t used to.
“Look, the thing is, I really don’t drink much. It’s just that Kiran, he dragged me into the club, and jazz isn’t really my thing, so …”
Julian tried his best to sort through all of that. Luca didn’t drink much, and he didn’t like jazz. So then why had Luca come to, of all places, a jazz nightclub where most people went just to drink?
The answer hit him like a ton of bricks. It was really obvious, once he got past his own self-disdain. Luca had come to the club because he’d been dragged there by his friend. Obviously, he’d come back for another reason.
Hadn’t he noticed that Luca was looking at him? His eyes intense and focused entirely on Julian, in a way that he was fairly sure no one else had ever looked at him?
It felt strange to think it, and he would never dare to say it aloud, but all of a sudden, he had the idea that he knew why Luca had come back. The truth had been there, in those jade green eyes, the whole time. It was him, Julian. Luca had come back because he wanted to see him.
And this whole time, Julian had been watching Luca back. How ridiculous was that?
“Why didn’t you talk to me?” Julian asked quietly. Instead of just watching, Luca could have come up to him and started a conversation. Julian would have been more than willing to have a conversation with him from the very first night that he’d noticed Luca sitting at that corner table.
“Why didn’t you talk to me?” Luca echoed, and Julian winced. It wasn’t even like that wasn’t a fair question. He had been at least as interested in Luca, and yet, he hadn’t ever gone up to him and said anything.
“I didn’t know if you’d want to talk to me,” Julian said, his voice so quiet that he could barely hear it himself. Luca had to lean forward to have a chance at hearing him, which brought Luca closer to Julian than they’d been to this point.
Not that he minded. God, did he ever not mind. The closer Luca got, the more his stomach clenched and his heart pounded, the more he became exquisitely sensitized to him, to the point where he found his whole body aching for him, stretching toward him, yearning for him.
After so many years of never really being interested in another person, how was it that this one man could ensnare him, enthrall him, so damn easily? They had barely even touched, and already, Julian felt like he knew this man so well. He’d never believed in the idea of destiny before, but with this meeting, he had to wonder.
“I wanted you to,” Luca whispered. He leaned in, and Julian only knew that the kiss was going to happen a split second before Luca’s soft, slightly parted, full lips pressed against his.
Not his first kiss, but the first one in a while. Immediately, Julian knew that this kiss was going to make obsolete all others that he’d had before. It was like part of him went into Luca, and part of Luca into him. The electricity was intense, and that’s really what it did feel like. Sparks. Hell, fireworks, all of the clichés that Julian had heard, they all made sense suddenly.
The connection was perfect and immediate. Julian opened his mouth willingly to Luca, the two of them only touching at the lips, but so close to each other that Julian could feel the heat radiating off of Luca, he could smell his distinctive, subtle, but very masculine scent. Their tongues tangled sweetly, and that one moment in time seemed to stretch on, to become endless, infinite, a melding of more than just their mouths.
Romantic nonsense. As the kiss did finally, inevitably, break, Julian tried to pull himself together. He wasn’t the kind of person to get swept away by anything, so why was it happening now? How did Luca so easily sweep away all of the barriers that Julian had so carefully erected over the years?
“Julian,” Luca whispered, and there was something very sweet in his eyes. Something beyond simple arousal, though that was definitely there. The combination of emotion and lust, it did something to Julian, something that he was too inexperienced to know how to handle.
Or maybe it would have made his heart pound, no matter what his previous experience had been. Maybe it would have made his knees shake so much that he doubted he would be able to stand up if he’d tried.
“Luca,” Julian said, and maybe now would be a good time for him to make some noises about how much fun it had been, but that surely it was time for Luca to leave. Time for Julian to politely say that he needed to get some sleep.
The thing between them had gotten way too intense, and there was a squirmy, half unpleasant feeling inside of him that was terrified. He’d never felt like this about anyone, and God, they’d only just touched. How was he going to handle it if they went further?
Even then, he had to wonder if the question wasn’t more like how he was going to keep himself from falling in love with the guy. Love was something that had never threatened him before. He’d always remained safe of any temptation to step into its silken threads. A spiderweb, after all, was made up of silken threads. Did the bugs that flew into them feel the same draw that Luca had on Julian?
So yes, there was that scared part inside of him, but that wasn’t mostly what he was feeling, which was a miracle in and of itself, really. Mostly, Julian felt brave, and aroused, and powerful when he sensed that Luca was just as aroused as he was.
It was so good to have the fear be secondary.
“My whole life,” Julian said softly, looking into Luca’s beautiful eyes, “I’ve held back on things because I was too careful. With you, I don’t want to do that. Isn’t that weird?”
Luca considered that for a moment and then grinned at him.
“I’ve always been the sort of person who wants to take risks. Maybe I’m rubbing off on you.”
That particular turn of phrase brought up some pretty interesting mental images. A delicious image filled his mind and made him shudder, Luca, completely naked, his bare cock surely as beautiful as the rest of him as he rubbed against hi
m. Head thrown back, body arched, green eyes bright with pleasure …
It was far too easy to picture, and Julian wanted it. For real. He wanted it like he couldn’t remember ever wanted anything before. He wanted that, and more, with a pure, consuming lust that seemed to twist up his insides and make his cock pulse and throb, aching with desire.
“Come to bed with me?” Julian asked, and he knew it was a lot to ask from someone that he’d really only just met. It was a lot to ask of himself, given that his experiences with men had been limited.
He should be far more nervous than he was, and yet, somehow it felt right. If Luca only felt the same way, then surely this was something that they should at least try. Even if it wasn’t at all like Julian.
With his heart pulsing away in his chest, sending red-hot desire rocketing through his veins to every part of his body, Julian waited for Luca’s response. Luckily, Luca didn’t make him wait too long, he didn’t leave him to worry about what the response to Julian’s rather remarkable offer would be.
“Yes. God, yes,” Luca breathed, and Julian was amazed by the light he saw in those pretty green eyes. This was a man who showed his emotions openly, who didn’t try to hide them. To Julian, that was utterly foreign. As in, coming from Mars. As in, something that he wasn’t sure he could understand if he tried for a million years.
It was refreshing, though, in a way. It cut through his nerves to see Luca so open about what he wanted, and it enhanced the desire that he felt until it was practically singing through his body, humming through his fingers and toes, warming him utterly and, of course, making his cock throb.
What would happen, he didn’t know. Whatever it was, though, he had faith that with this sensual, seductive, beautiful man, it would be good. It would be worth it. He’d lived his life without taking much in the way of risks, and look where it had gotten him? Alone and lonely, almost resigned to staying that way, and he wasn’t even 25 yet.
“Let’s go,” Julian whispered, and he stood up, reluctant to be away from him but eager to get somewhere where they could be even closer to each other. He offered his hand to Luca, who took it. So warm, and with such light in those eyes.
Why someone as beautiful as Luca wanted Julian, he didn’t know. Oddly, he also didn’t care, not right then. There would be enough time for worrying later. At the moment, he felt deliciously free of that worry. Like he’d been carrying it around, a stone on his shoulders, and it had finally been lifted so that he could stand up straight.
Luca stood, and hand in hand, the two of them walked the short distance through the apartment to the tiny bedroom. Doubts tried to break through, but they couldn’t make it, not when trying to get through the haze of arousal and the odd certainty that he felt whenever he looked at Luca.
This would be a night to remember, and in the end, whatever happened between him and this beautiful man, he knew it would be worth it. Just to feel, for this one night …
The two of them kissed, and Julian pushed any last remaining doubts away. It was shockingly easy to ignore the habits of a whole lifetime, and without any hesitation, Julian pulled Luca down onto the bed, kissing him the whole time, his hands and mouth unpracticed but somehow, he knew just what to do.
Chapter Four
Luca
This couldn’t be happening. This was some sort of dream. Only it felt too good to be a dream, far too real. Julian’s body in Luca’s arms was warm, and he smelled good, and it was altogether too real, too vivid, to be something as ephemeral and removed as a dream was.
He was in Julian’s bed, and Julian had, by some miracle, invited him there. Julian was there with him, the man that Luca had been thinking about almost nonstop from the very first moment that he’d laid eyes on the beautiful singer.
They kissed over and over, tongues and lips meeting in a complicated dance of arousal, and when Julian pressed close to him, when he clung to him and rocked his hips closer to Luca, his whole body seemed to flow and pulse with lust. He could, he thought, shoot off in his pants like a teenager, if he wasn’t careful.
“Julian,” Luca whispered, enjoying the sound of the syllables on his tongue. He pushed his hands greedily into the other man’s shirt, stroking over his hot, smooth skin.
“Luca,” Julian replied, giving the sexiest, breathy little moan as he outright arched his body toward Luca’s eager hands. At first, Julian had seemed reserved, but as his body flushed with desire, as his dark eyes shone with it, the beautiful man’s inhibitions seemed to be going right out the window.
Carefully, as though unwrapping some incredibly valuable, precious present, Luca slid Julian’s shirt off of him. He wasn’t expecting what he saw underneath, though.
Julian was small, short and slender, and with his clothes on, it wasn’t possible to know just how beautiful he really was. With his shirt off, he was revealed to be quite a bit more toned than Luca had expected, shoulders broad and waist narrow, the muscles trim, the stomach flat.
“How is anyone as beautiful as you are?” Luca asked, noticing the little bit of fear in Julian’s eyes. It seemed that Julian was worried about what Luca might think of him. How that was possible when the man was quite simply the most beautiful person that Luca had ever even conceived of, Luca didn’t know, but it was obviously true.
Julian shook his head in denial, but Luca was glad to see some of the self-consciousness fade from those dark eyes. Maybe Julian didn’t believe him yet, not fully, but Luca had all night to convince him otherwise.
Slowly, Luca shifted down, pressing Julian onto his back. He started to kiss over his body, over his strong chest, his lips finding each nipple and sucking it into hardness.
Julian was responsive, his body pushing up toward Luca’s lips and hands, but something about the way he reacted made Luca think that this wasn’t the sort of thing that he’d done much of before. He didn’t seem exactly experienced, though definitely eager.
It was just a sense that he got, but as he started to kiss down toward Julian’s navel, that sense grew into more of a certainty. Julian was into it, Luca just had to look down and see the bulge in his pants to be able to tell that. But Julian didn’t seem to know what he was doing, and he tensed up a little as Luca’s lips got closer to the waistband of his pants.
“You okay?” Luca checked, raising his head so that he could look up into Julian’s face. There was the faintest hint of a furrow between his brows, the slightest bit of tension in his lips.
“Yeah,” Julian breathed, and he didn’t seem to be lying, but once more there was this sense that Luca had that he was the first one to do these things to Julian. Or at least, he was the first in a very long time.
Maybe that was just ego on his part, but he felt like he needed to know. He didn’t mind either way, but it would change things quite a bit if he really were the first person to do these things to Julian.
“Don’t be offended, but … have you done these things before?” Luca asked, his lips lingering just under the dimple of Julian’s belly button. His breath puffed over Julian’s skin, and he was delighted to see the other man shiver and his cock visibly twitch in his pants.
“No,” Julian whispered, flushed, looking ashamed. “We’ve already been further than I’ve been before. I’m sorry.”
Luca shook his head, his hands warm and tight on Julian’s slender waist.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” he said firmly. “Nothing to be sorry about. I’ll try to make it good for you, and if you ever want me to stop …”
Julian shook his head, and his hands came up to tangle in Luca’s hair. Luca groaned softly. He had such a thing for people touching his hair, it was part of why he kept it so long. He loved it played with, tugged on lightly, and Julian was making him feel like he was going to come right in his pants, which were suddenly uncomfortably tight across the front.
“Don’t stop. Never stop,” Julian whispered softly, and the sound of that whisper seemed to go straight to Luca’s heart. At that moment, he thought t
hat he understood a lot about the man in his arms.
Julian was beautiful, there was no doubt about it, but he didn’t seem to know it. Luca wanted to worship him, to make him see just how perfect he really was. On top of that, Luca could swear that Julian might, under his reserve, be one of the loneliest and most passionate people that Luca had ever seen.
“I won’t, baby. I won’t stop until you tell me to,” Luca vowed fervently. He slid his fingers over Julian’s flesh, his fingers teasing his waistband until he found the button and popped it free.
Immediately, Luca knew one more thing about Julian. The guy was big. For such a small, slender guy, especially, his cock was impressive, filling out the front of his briefs and already leaking precome.
“Julian,” Luca whispered, gazing up at him. The sight that he saw, he knew, would be with him his entire life, that gorgeous face filled with pleasure and arousal, flushed and lips parted and eyes half closed as Julian gazed down at him.
Lightly, testing this out, Luca brushed his fingers over the other man’s cock, tracing over it through the slight barrier of his underwear, the slightly rough cotton barely masking the thick hardness beneath. Julian rewarded him by his fingers unconsciously tightening in Luca’s hair, tugging lightly on the strands.
Damned if that didn’t almost end things right then and there. When was the last time that Luca had ever been this aroused? He was tempted to compare it to being a teenager when he was just learning control over his own body, but the more this happened, the more worked up Julian got him, the more he felt like he’d just flat out never been this hard.
“Hold on,” Julian said suddenly, and Luca, who had been pleasurably contemplating removing those briefs to see what lay beneath, stopped and gazed up at him. Had he gone too far, too fast? He looked into those enormous dark eyes and didn’t see any trace of fear.
“I want to touch you, too,” Julian said, and Luca relaxed. He nodded, pulling away from him a little bit. It wasn’t like he objected to that idea at all.
