Love Him Steady

by E M Lindsey

  Wilder tugged him closer, then slung an arm around his waist. “I get that. You’re your own worst critic, right?”

  Lorenzo’s laugh was so low, Wilder couldn’t hear it, but he felt the way it thrummed through his side where Wilder’s palm rested. “I never did like the tough questions. I didn’t want to achieve in life. I was happy to just get by.”

  “And now?” Wilder pressed.

  They came to a stop at the Manor, and Lorenzo glanced up at the darkened window, then shook his head. “I still don’t have a lot of passion. I’ve never been…driven, you know? I don’t want to live a shallow life, but I don’t know how to change that without figuring out what I want to do with it.”

  Wilder had more to say, but right then he just wanted to take Lorenzo upstairs—so he did. He walked ahead of his lover, and waited patiently for him to unlock the door and get the lights on. It was cool from the AC, and it smelled faintly of cleaning solution. In spite of cooking earlier, the kitchen was tidy, and it was obvious Lorenzo had been putting attention into his space.

  “It doesn’t need to be something grand,” he said, and Lorenzo frowned. “What you said before—about not wanting a shallow life? You don’t have to find some grand passion and chase it. You’re allowed to be content with the small things.”

  Lorenzo shrugged, looking as lost as he ever did, though his eyes were softer, and his jaw wasn’t as tense. “All my life, everyone I knew wanted to follow their passion—and I just thought something was wrong with me. I mean, what kind of person is content working at a coffee shop or a pizza restaurant?”

  “Plenty,” Wilder said, his voice rich with his desire for Lorenzo to be softer on himself. He took a step forward, but left signing space because he wanted to say this in his own tongue. ‘I didn’t open a bakery because I played pastry chef when I was four. I don’t actually care about cupcakes. I wanted something that was mine. Something that my family couldn’t touch—something they couldn’t take away from me.’

  Lorenzo swallowed thickly, then cupped Wilder’s face. “You make me want to be better.”

  “You don’t need to be better. You are enough already,” Wilder told him. He stepped in and closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around Lorenzo’s waist before kissing him.

  He lost track of their movements, but he was aware that Lorenzo was leading him to the bedroom. His skin was hot, his cock hard and pressing against the inside of his jeans. He wanted to feel skin this time, wanted to feel the curl of Lorenzo’s fingers around his dick as he stroked Wilder, as he dragged him over the edge.

  He scrambled out of his shirt the moment there was air between them, and Lorenzo went for his own zipper, parting the hem of his jeans in a wide V with his cock tenting his briefs. “Can I…?” he asked.

  Wilder knew what he meant, but his words were caught in his throat, and his tongue was thick with want, so he simply dragged his boxers to the ground and showed off his naked body to another man for the first time in too many years. He watched as Lorenzo’s eyes widened, as his lips parted on something like a sigh. He watched as Lorenzo gently pulled the rest of his clothes off, then stepped forward with only a little hesitance, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to touch.

  But Wilder wanted this—needed it. He had to reclaim these moments for pleasure instead of pain. He walked Lorenzo back to the bed, and when he sat hard, Wilder dropped to his knees between his lover’s thighs.

  “You…you don’t need to…”

  “I know,” Wilder murmured. But god, he wanted it. He wanted to feel Lorenzo heavy on the back of his tongue, gagging him, filling him. He raked fingertips over the tops of Lorenzo’s thighs, and then he leaned forward and dragged open lips over his shaft before ending at his head. He was cut, bulbous, leaking from his slit in clear pulses, and he lapped it up. His hands moved to Lorenzo’s waist to hold him.

  Scott had never liked getting sucked off—so Wilder could take this moment with no walls to hurdle. This was theirs—this moment, this act. Lorenzo’s taste was salty and rich, and it filled him, overwhelming his senses as he relaxed his jaw and took him as far as he could go.

  He had done this so little, he was worried, but Lorenzo’s cries rose in the silent room, muffled by his deafness and yet perfectly accessible through the low rumble of voice and the vibrations he could feel in the tips of his fingers. It was enough to make his own cock swell, throbbing, his balls pulling tight.

  He was close to coming from that alone, but he wanted to wait—to have Lorenzo take him in hand. He sucked harder, faster, used a tight circle of fingers to make up the space his lips couldn’t reach. Lorenzo was saying something in a warning tone—but the sounds were jumbled, and he was pretty sure it was because he was about to come. Wilder didn’t care. He wanted every damn drop.

  Lorenzo’s hands pushed into his hair, gripping just shy of painful. And then he let go. Hot, heavy spurts hit the back of his throat and nearly choked him, but he managed to swallow most of what Lorenzo had given him. He was panting when he pulled away, leaning into the hands that were now combing through his hair. In the long moments after, Wilder closed his eyes and waited for his breath to return to something like normal.

  His cock was still hard, but he allowed himself time to feel this—a sort of warm pride that he had reduced Lorenzo to sounds of ecstasy. Then he rose, and Lorenzo grabbed him close, murmuring something against his skin before he turned him and laid him out on the bed. Lips met his neck in biting kisses, hands roamed, fingers tweaking at his nipples, dragging down and brushing through the coarse hair below his navel.

  “Kiss me,” Lorenzo demanded, his voice clear between them, and Wilder did. He turned his head and wrapped one arm around the back of Lorenzo’s head and held fast as he let the other man push a warm, hot tongue against his own. He groaned, and Lorenzo swallowed the sounds before breaking away and pressing his hand against Wilder’s hip. “Can I get you off?”

  “Yes,” Wilder said. “Yes, I want you to. I need you to touch me.” And it was a need. A need to erase the lingering ghosts of his past. A need to make promises for his future.

  Lorenzo curled fingers around his dick, and Wilder arched up into it. The sensation of someone else touching him—naked—for the first time in so long was almost enough to send him careening over the edge.

  “You’re gorgeous,” Lorenzo murmured in the space just below his ear. He licked, then bit down, then soothed the mark with a kiss. “You’re the most beautiful man I have ever seen.”

  And Wilder had never thought himself ugly, but never found himself beautiful. And he liked knowing he could be that for someone—with his soft edges and round chin and early greys. He liked that Lorenzo was taken with him exactly as he was, without the expectation to be more or be different. He turned his head again, and Lorenzo kissed him, shifting between his legs and hooking them over his hips.

  His hand moved in a furious rhythm, and Wilder gasped, arching up into it as his head spun and pleasure took over. And then it happened. He was coming, and it was so good. It was so good… until Lorenzo’s half-hard, spent cock brushed between his ass cheeks and grazed his hole. It was meaningless, a little slip, but it was enough to destroy everything he’d just gained. The pleasure cascaded into fear and panic, and he felt something gripping his throat, choking him.

  He was still spilling, hot onto his chest, but the pleasure had twisted around something else—something unkind and cruel, and he didn’t realize he was gasping for breath until Lorenzo was cupping his face and telling him to breathe.

  “…babe. Can you do that for me? In and out. Fuck, okay? In and out?”

  It was the tremble in Lorenzo’s voice that brought him back down, and he opened his mouth to tell him he was fine, but all that came out was a quiet sob. Lorenzo tried to pull away, but Wilder clutched at him until his heart stopped feeling like it was going to beat right out of his chest.

  “Please tell me what happened,” Lorenzo whispered against the shell of his ear, b
egging. “What did I do?”

  The edges of his vision were rocking like a boat, but he fixed his eyes as best he could on Lorenzo, and he shook his head. “I didn’t know it would be that bad.”

  “I don’t understand. What was that bad?” Lorenzo asked, still looking like he wanted to bolt.

  “I can’t.” Wilder couldn’t find the words in English, so he finally allowed Lorenzo to pull away for signing space. ‘Anal.’ He spelled the word with a shake in his fingers. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ Lorenzo signed back, eyes wide with horror. ‘I promise. I would never just…’

  ‘I know,’ he interrupted. And he did. Of course, he knew—but somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d lost himself in the past. He hadn’t thought the reaction would be so instant, so visceral. He thought he was beyond those sudden and wretched attacks of fear, and he was angry right then that he’d been wrong. He was angry that his trauma had settled between them in this moment.

  It wasn’t fair.

  ‘Talk to me,’ Lorenzo asked, still naked, sitting up with his legs under him. ‘Please.’

  ‘I don’t know why it’s this bad,’ Wilder told him. He pushed up against the pillows. ‘I don’t know why it made me react like that. Maybe it was just too much at once.’ That’s probably what any of his therapists would have told him, anyway. But he wasn’t entirely sure, because he had shied away from physical contact for so long.

  ‘We don’t need to do this again,’ Lorenzo told him, but Wilder reached out and grabbed his wrist to stop him. He held on for as long as it took Lorenzo to relax, then he scrubbed a hand down his face before he signed again.

  ‘I want this, and I want you. My ex used to,’ he began, then stopped, because he didn’t have the strength for details right then, but the look of horror in Lorenzo’s eyes told him he didn’t need to say more than that. “I have trauma, and I can’t make that go away, but I need you to be brave with me as I move forward. Because I’m ready to move on. With you.’ He was not above begging right then, because he’d spent so long isolating himself, and he wanted to know that the first person he was willing to try for, was willing to fight for him.

  ‘I can do that.’

  Wilder blinked, not quite sure he’d seen those signs right, but the look on Lorenzo’s face said the rest. ‘Promise?’

  Lorenzo didn’t answer with words or sign. Not at first. He lifted Wilder’s palm to his mouth, then kissed the center gently before closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of them both. When he let go, he met Wilder’s gaze with a careful sort of ferocity he hadn’t been expecting, and he raised his fist first in a nod, then a finger to his lips, dragging down to his hand. ‘Yes. I promise.’

  It was the honestly of that moment that allowed Wilder to sag backward and let go of the tension he’d been holding. ‘I’m exhausted.’

  Lorenzo shifted onto his ass before kicking the blankets back, then rose to grab a box of tissue from the little nightstand. ‘Want to shower?’

  Wilder shook his head, taking a tissue with one hand and using the other to pull his hearing aids out. It took a moment to adjust to the pressure of heavier silence, but it was nice to let ambient noise fade into a murky background.

  He finally found the courage to look up again at Lorenzo, who was standing at the foot of the bed with a little hesitance. ‘Are we okay?’ Wilder asked.

  Lorenzo stared another moment, then took the soiled tissue from his hand and leaned down to kiss him. ‘Yes.’ His fist nodded against Wilder’s palm.

  He shifted over toward the wall to make room for Lorenzo, whose body slid under the sheets and his legs spread before he turned onto his side. ‘Can I hold you?’

  It wasn’t what Wilder expected him to ask, but he realized that’s what he needed in that moment. The incident would hang between them—there was no denying that Lorenzo would approach sex again with caution. It would never be what others considered normal—he was aware of that now. And maybe, in the future, it would be different. And maybe, in the future, Lorenzo would get bored and resent him.

  But Wilder was determined to never live his life caving to the threats of the unknown. Right now, it was Lorenzo’s warm arms sliding around him after the light went out, and his soft breath—and even softer kisses—brushing the back of his neck.

  It was okay, and it wasn’t.

  It was perfect, and it wasn’t.

  He leaned back heavy into Lorenzo’s embrace, and sleep didn’t take long to claim him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The third time Lorenzo peeked around the stairs, Jayden was waiting for him. His long-fingered hand caught him by the wrist and dragged him to Raphael’s empty desk—where there was a paper bag and a post-it sitting at the edge. “You’re driving me insane.”

  Lorenzo pulled a face. “Listen…”

  His words were cut off when Jayden shoved the bag at him. “It’s a five-minute drive, and I was stress cooking last night, because he doesn’t feed himself well enough. Someone has to take care of him, and I guess that’s you now.”

  Lorenzo’s cheeks flushed, and he glanced down at his hands. “You know it’s not like that, right? I mean, it’s not romantic.”

  Jayden laughed and gave his cheek a pat. “Oh, I know. I saw your overnight visitor sneaking out of here early this morning, but it doesn’t need to be like that, does it? He likes you. Raphael doesn’t make friends easily, and he has a hard time keeping them around when he does.”

  Lorenzo hated to hear that, mostly because Raphael was such a good person, and he deserved to be loved in every way a person should be loved—platonic and romantic and everything in between. Lorenzo could offer one small corner of that vast universe, and he hoped maybe it was something worth keeping.

  He clutched Jayden’s bag to his chest and headed out for his car without going upstairs to change. The drive was short, and he wanted to use that time to try and compose himself before he saw his friend.

  And frankly, he could use the distraction from the memory of Wilder panicking and shaking in his arms. Or more accurately, he was trying not to feel choked with guilt because it was something he’d done, even if it had been unintentional. Part of him wanted to give in to his panic and run, like he would have done even just a couple of weeks ago. But Wilder deserved so much better than that. It wasn’t Lorenzo’s job to decide for Wilder what he wanted in a partner, but he needed to face the fact that there were real and actual barriers they would hit if they were going to do this.

  That alone was also weighing on him, because they didn’t really talk it out when it was over. Wilder had allowed Lorenzo to hold him and kiss him. They’d woken up tangled in each other, and nothing about Wilder seemed hesitant or unsure. He wasn’t afraid of Lorenzo. He kissed him before he left, tucking him back into the blankets, and promised him in a soft whisper to see him after the shop closed. But he still felt unsettled, and seeing his friend was the one thing he needed that afternoon, even if it was solely to focus on making Raphael feel better from whatever had him down.

  Pulling up next to Raphael’s car, Lorenzo made his way to the front door and contemplated calling. But Jayden seemed to think it was fine to just show up, so he let his finger hover over the buzzer while he gathered the courage to drop in.

  Cherry Creek wasn’t some idyllic nineteen-fifties TV show with manicured lawns and people having block parties, but it was an entirely new sort of culture that was taking some real getting used to. He liked that he could stand there at Raphael’s door, ring the bell, and he wouldn’t be ostracized for committing some heinous social faux pas.

  “Come in!”

  Lorenzo was startled when he heard Raphael’s voice, but he pushed the door open and walked into the living room. Raphael was on the sofa, his legs curled up under a heavy blanket, and he looked exhausted, but not as bad as Lorenzo assumed for having been out of work as long as he had been.

  It didn’t look like the flu, but he had dark circles under his eyes, and his hair
was a greasy mess. His brows rose when he saw Lorenzo though, and he sat up straighter. “Jayden.”

  Lorenzo shrugged. “He said you needed lunch because you suck at taking care of yourself.”

  Raphael muttered something in German, but he still shifted over and gave the cushion next to him a pat. “I take care of myself just fine. Look at me—this many years on my own and I’m still alive.”

  Lorenzo plopped down and kicked his feet up on the table as Raphael took the bag from him, peering inside with a grimace. “I can cook if you don’t want it.”

  “Just sandwiches,” Raphael said. “On very shitty gluten-free bread. Jayden can’t cook any better than I can.” He set the food aside and nestled a little closer to Lorenzo, who didn’t hesitate to curl against his side. “It’s fine. I’m not that hungry.”

  “Are you sick?”

  Raphael sighed and shook his head. “Nee, not sick. I get seizures sometimes. I have epilepsy, but it’s usually controlled with my medications. Sometimes, a bad one sneaks through.”

  “How bad?”

  “Worse than it’s been in a while,” Raphael admitted, his tone telling Lorenzo he didn’t want to admit that aloud. “My doctor thinks it’s stress. Or maybe my medication isn’t working as well as it used to. Normally, I recover in a few days, but this one knocked me down hard.”

  Lorenzo gently brushed fingers through Raphael’s hair. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I didn’t call anyone except for Jayden to tell him I’d be out of work,” Raphael said with a huff, his eyes closing. He groaned and used his hands to help shift his legs so he could lay his head on Lorenzo’s thigh. The blanket got twisted, but with their combined efforts, Raphael was comfortable again, and Lorenzo felt him relax, fraction by fraction. “I’ve had a migraine for two days.”

  “How can I help?”

  “This,” Raphael said. Simple as that, but it was hard for Lorenzo to believe it. All the same, he continued his gentle scalp massage and wished that he was better trained at it. He was doing something right, though, because Raphael was pliant, and his mouth curved into an easy smile. “Jayden tried to cancel a date to come take care of me.”