Withdrawing his fingers from Lulu’s hole, Xavi reached blindly for the condom, afraid that Lulu would dissolve into thin air if he left him out of sight for just a second. Xavi’s eyes were fixated on Lulu, with his heaving chest and his sweaty bangs. He unwrapped the condom and rolled it on. Grabbing the lube, he poured some into his palm and lathered his cock with it. He was just on the cusp of his own orgasm. Watching Lulu, feeling Lulu come on his fingers had been such an aphrodisiac.
Lowering himself down on top of his lover, Xavi wrapped his hand around the base of his cock. Lulu spread his thighs wider, his hole so inviting, a fine dusting of dark brown hair surrounding it. Guiding his cock toward it, Xavi hesitated. There was no coming back from this. Fucking Lulu would be the famous point of no return. Like always, Lulu seemed to read his mind, though.
“We’re already past that point,amor. I don’t want to go back.” His voice was still strained from his recent orgasm. “I can’t,” his voice broke.
“I can’t either.” Xavi couldn’t. No fucking way he could.
It wasn’t until Lulu wrapped his arms around him and a deep, contented sigh left his body that Xavi realized he was inside him. That his cock was inside Lulu’s tight body. Digging his nails into Xavi’s ass cheeks, Lulu pulled him all the way inside, until his pelvis met Lulu’s.
“Move,oso,” Lulu whispered against his neck. “Move with me.” And Xavi did, his body moving on its own, like it was made for this, like he was born to do this, always had been. Born to love Lulu like this, their bodies connected in the mostintimate and pure way. His body took over, and for the first time in his life, there wasn’t a single conscious thought left in Xavi’s head. Only lust and sensation and love. So much love. They moved together, so in sync, so effortlessly. Lulu was so soft, his touch so tender where his fingers whispered along Xavi’s skin, his lips pressed so gently against Xavi’s lips, his chin, his neck, anywhere they could reach.
“Te amo,” Lulu breathed. “Te amo mucho, Xavi. Tu eres mi vida. Tu eres todo para mi, amor.”
“You are everything to me, too, Lulu,” and Xavi realized he was crying, salty tears coating Lulu’s lips when he claimed them with a kiss. Or perhaps they were Lulu’s tears because he whimpered beneath him. “You have always been everything,cisne. I love you, too.Te quiero también. Para siempre.” There was no reason to hold back the truth, his truth, any longer. He was Lulu’s as much as Lulu was his.
A sense of serenity washed over Xavi as the world righted itself. Then his body tensed, and a storm raced through him, pulling a blinding release from his body. Lulu wrapped himself tighter around him, almost cradling Xavi, as he spilled inside Lulu. His release felt never-ending, like it could go on and on, now that Xavi had finally allowed himself to let go. Like it could continue forever, until a new orgasm would move through him, and he would come inside Lulu again.
“My first.” Xavi hardly recognized his own voice when he spoke. There was a strange lightness to it, like something had been purged from his body, from his soul. “You’re my first,” Xavi admitted as his breath settled. Lulu moved against him, sweaty and sweet. Deliciously debauched.
“And your last. There will never be another.” Lulu kissed the words against his temple.
“Never,” Xavi promised, and then he laughed. He couldn’t help it. His lungs expanded with relief, and he laughed, a sense of almost carefree giddiness taking hold of his body. “There will never be another,” he echoed Lulu’s promise, still laughing, and now Lulu was laughing, too, and Xavi heard it loud and clear, the relief in Lulu’s voice, because it matched his own. Relief. Pure relief.
“You’re it for me, Xavi.”
“You’re it for me, too, Lulu.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lulu
They made love again the next morning, whispering their breathyte amosback to each other while Xavi moved inside him, claiming a part of Lulu that had been his all along. Although he could tell Xavi was self-conscious under the unforgiving light of day, once again aware of his scars, he still allowed Lulu to kiss him, touch him, lick him all over, eventually accepting Lulu’s reassurances that he was beautiful. Because he was. Magnificent, really, with his sepia-colored skin taking on nuances of reddish brown in the sunlight seeping through the thin linen curtains. His muscles rippled with intent when he fucked into Lulu, their eyes still locked onto each other, Lulu feeling exposed and cherished under Xavi’s intense dark gaze.
It was quiet outside, the noise from the occasional snowplow passing in the street the only sound interrupting their muffled moans and shy whispers. Lulu felt reborn, new and fresh, like making love to Xavi had truly rid him of the past, making him feel like it was the first time all over again. If only his real first time and all the times following over the years had been just as special as this. Then again, how could they be, when they were not with Xavi, his one true love? Being with Xavi in such an intimate way was incomparable to anything else Lulu had ever experienced. Like his body was designed by some divine power with one purpose and one purpose only: to be loved by this special man, by Xavi.
Whenever Xavi came, he stared down at Lulu in pained disbelief, a puzzled frown between his finger-thick brows, sweat dripping from his face onto Lulu’s skin, the drops like a cleansing shower of fresh spring rain. Then Xavi’s face would transform right in front of him, every muscle relaxing as his features softened, before he laughed, again and again, in that deep, almost earthy tone of his, like he, too, could hardly believe this was happening.
In between their lovemaking, they talked, their voices hushed like they were afraid the outside world would hear them and burst their bubble of happiness. They avoided the topic of what would happen when they reached Oregon or when they returned home, like there was an unspoken consensus between them that they were not ready to talk about that yet. They spoke about mundane things, such as whether they should skip breakfast at the diner or grab some and take it back to their room. They couldn’t stop touching, kissing, drinking each other in. They spoke about the past, too—the time when they hadn’t known each other. Lulu asked careful questions about the fire, and Xavi told him everything. The reason his fingers were missing? Because he’d clung to his father, even when the kind firefighter had urged him to let go and that it was‘Okay, son, you can let go now,’although six-year-old Xavi knew nothing would ever be okay again. The feel of the firefighter’s strong hold around him as he carried him out of the fire and into a new reality where everything hurt both inside and out. How Xavi had always wanted to find out who that firefighter was, but he’d been too afraid to revisit that night.
Lulu told him his own secret truths, too. About how strange, and at times shameful, it was that he didn’t hate his parents, although for a while he had tried really damn hard to. But no matter how hard Lulu tried to channel all his energy into resenting his parents, he couldn’t bring himself to hate two people who had obviously wasted their lives on drugs and not only destroyed their own lives but also nearly their children’s in the process. Xavi had nodded at that, and then his eyes had filled with tears when Lulu had told him how Xavi and Joe, but mostlyXavi, had been Lulu’s one true constant in a world filled with pain and chaos. How he couldn’t remember when his infatuation with Xavi had turned into a crush and when an innocent crush had become love, all-consuming and more real than anything Lulu had ever felt.
They talked in a way they’d never talked before, unhurried, the new awareness that they’d stepped over this monumental threshold together giving them a newfound peace. Lulu saw it in Xavi’s eyes, too, the very same sense of tranquility which had settled inside his own heart and now occupied every limb of his body. Hanging on to every word the other uttered, they paid attention to every little nuance and detail, like every word carried a deeper meaning they couldn’t afford to miss. Xavi had repeated more than once what he’d told Lulu a few days earlier: that Lulu seemed different, and there were so many dimensions to Lulu that he’d never seen before. Like looking into one of those kaleidoscopes that changed before your eyes. Or like looking through a piece of aquamarine sea glass on a summer day, and suddenly the world was more colorful and vibrant. Lulu laughed at that because, yes, hewasdifferent; hefeltdifferent, because he now existed in a world where he was loved by Xavi. Xavi laughed at that too, a hint of sadness in his eyes, when he said that Lulu had always existed in a world where Xavi loved him. Lulu blushed—he felt it like fire on his cheeks—then averted his gaze, suddenly shy as he whispered, “You know what I mean.” Xavi had blushed then, too, his dark eyes spilling over with melancholia, because yes, he obviously knew what Lulu meant. It was different now that they both knew how the other felt.
They remained naked, the thick quilted comforter in various colors of greens that Lulu suspected was handmade, perhaps by Tilly or one of her ancestors, draped over their bodies.
“You took me by storm, you know that, right?” Xavi eventually asked, his voice thick with emotion.
“I know.” Lulu smiled. “I think it was the only way I could have you. If I’d come at you all subtle and careful, you wouldn’t have believed me.”
“I’m still not sure I believe you.”
“You will. In time, you will,oso. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes, too.” Xavi’s gaze was fierce, dark, but then a shadow moved across his face.
“What is it?”
“We never… we’ve never talked about that night, and I think we have to.” Xavi’s voice was strained, as though it physically pained him to revisit it.
