The song.Shit, what song? He hadn’t thought this through. What song did you sing to someone whom you loved to the extent that there were no words? A love that was a force so strong, like a fire tearing through every cell of your body, creating even more heat, more fire. Because that was it, wasn’t it? That’s how he felt every time Xavi looked at him, touched him, moved inside him. Like Xavi’s fire transferred to Lulu’s body, intermingled with his own internal fire, until they were one being, consumed by the fierceness of their love for each other.
“Fire on Fire!” Lulu blurted.
“Ahhh,oui! Sammy.Sublime!” Vivienne clapped her hands in front of her chest, then shouted something over her shoulder in a mixture of French and English. The musicians looked puzzled at first, then they started smiling, nodding emphatically.
As Lulu ran back toward center stage, most of the other actors were leaving backstage, but the audience remained seated, transfixed and awaiting.
“Hello?” Lulu spoke into his microphone headset. “Sorry, guys. Uhm, my name is Lulu Cisnero. I’m the magic peen.” Lulu did a quick courtesy as the audience laughed loudly, their voices rising toward him where he stood alone under the spotlights. “But,” he spoke over the noise, and the crowd quieted. “But I’m also a man, a gay man.” There were a few shoutedwoo-hoosandgood for yousin the crowd, then people settled once again.
“I used to think that intimacy was something I could only find in dark corners in a sweaty nightclub or on my knees for some guy in a dirty bathroom stall. I thought love wasn’t for me. Not because I’m gay, but because I loved someone who I thought could never love me back.” Suddenly, it seemed like the earth had stopped moving, that the world had gone quiet, holding its breath. Lulu’s gaze swept across the room until it landed on Xavi, who was already looking at him, his eyes dark, pooling with endless love.
“Turns out he did. He does. He loves me just as I love him. His fears were the same as mine. That if you love someone, you lose them, or you don’t deserve love at all. But we do. We all do. We deserve love, Xavi.” Lulu laughed breathily. “If not you and I,oso, then I don’t know who does.”
Then Xavi was standing, too.
“We do!” he called out, his lovely words drifting toward center stage, until they reached Lulu, wrapping around him like an embrace. “I love you,cisne!” Xavi shouted, and the audience went crazy after that, clapping and shouting their encouragement like,you go!andlove is love!
“Okay, okay!” Lulu laughed, his chest bubbling over with too much happiness. “Settle down! Settle down, people!” It took a little but eventually the voices faded into a soft murmur until the auditorium was once again quiet.
“So, Xavi, my perfect boyfriend, the love of my life, this song is for you. Because this is how you make me feel.” Lulu’s cheeks were on fire now, and he was sweating through his bodysuit, but none of that mattered. Only Xavi mattered, and the song he was about to sing. Nodding at Vivienne, Lulu took a deep breath that did little to calm his racing heart, but it didn’t matter. He knew the words by heart.
Xavi remained standing as Lulu’s voice trembled through the first verse, then, as Lulu started choking up toward the end, brushing furiously at his eyes, Xavi tapped the shoulders of the people in front of him. They quickly made room for him, and he straddled over the row in front of him, then practically ran up the steps to the stage. Lulu’s voice grew steadier in the pre-chorus, and then Xavi was there, right in front of him, his chest heaving as he came to a stop in front of Lulu. Through a curtain of tears, Lulu reached for Xavi’s hand, tangling their fingers together, while Xavi smiled at him, his coffee eyes lit up by the stage lights, like beautiful blackobsidian. Eyes Lulu wanted on him always, until the day he took his final breath, and he was no more.
“‘Fire on fire would normally kill us,’” Lulu sang, his voice unrestrained, rising high above the stage, as the black obsidian went blurry. “‘But this much desire, together, we’re winners.’” Tears trailed down Xavi’s cheeks, mirroring Lulu’s own. “‘They say that we’re out of control, and some say we’re sinners.’” Xavi pulled him against him, leaning in, resting his forehead against Lulu’s, his eyes closing as Lulu continued to sing. “‘Cause when you unfold me and tell me you love me and look in my eye, you are perfection, my only direction.’”
Lulu lost track of the words after that, but it didn’t matter, because the orchestra kept playing and the audience, who’d joined Lulu in the chorus, kept singing, their voices rising above the instruments like a wave of sound. Closing his eyes, Lulu swayed with Xavi, allowing this one perfect moment to stretch out forever until there was nothing but love—overwhelming and all-consuming, sometimes frightening, but always his, always theirs.
Chapter Thirty
Xavi
“Iwas so worried.” Lulu shivered against him, his arms wrapped tightly around Xavi from behind, as Xavi ran the key card through the reader to their hotel room. It had felt like hours before they’d finally been able to leave the theater, with everyone eager to congratulate each other on a successful opening night, and Xavi still high from Lulu singing to him in front of a full auditorium.
“I’m sorry.” Xavi reached around to where Lulu was clinging to his back like a baby koala. “I didn’t mean to worry you.” Opening the door, Xavi placed the card in the holder on the wall, and the lights went on. Turning, Xavi’s face almost touched Lulu’s when he spoke. “I lost track of time and—”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re here now.”
“I’ll never be late again,cisne. I’ll never keep you waiting again.Te prometo.” He leaned in and brushed his mouth against Lulu’s, that familiar flame igniting inside as soon as they touched their lips together. “Come,” he spoke against Lulu’s lips. “I want to show you something.”
Lulu’s hand slid down Xavi’s chest, all the way down, down to the front of his jeans, where he then cupped Xavi’s semi through the fabric.
“Not that,” Xavi laughed. “At least not yet.”
“Bummer.” Lulu pouted adorably. “I’ve missed him, your big, beautiful bear dick.”
“Bear dick?” Xavi snorted. “I have a bear dick now?”
“Well, you’re a bear, ain’t ya?Mybear.” Lulu squeezed harder, and Xavi’s balls sang with desire, with the need to come already.
“I am. Yours,” Xavi gritted, then turned Lulu in his grasp and guided him backward toward the bed. “But I have something else to show you first.”
“Okay,” Lulu giggled as he stumbled backward until the back of his legs hit the bed and he plopped down on the edge. “Show me.”
Leaning back on his elbows, Lulu licked his lips slowly, his eyes on Xavi’s body like laser beams burning into him hungrily while he pulled off his leather jacket, discarding it on the floor next to him. Lulu spread his legs, his thighs falling to the sides, and Xavi stepped in between them, Lulu’s closeness doing things to his body he hardly had any words for. The need to just tear Lulu’s pants down his legs and sink into him and fuck him senseless took hold of him, but he managed to pull himself back from the edge, back to some resemblance of sanity.
Xavi’s skin itched where the needle had penetrated his skin, reminding him why he’d been late. Lifting his arm, Xavi held his scarred hand out between them. He realized it wasn’t broken. It was just different from his other hand. But still a hand, a part of him. Turning his hand, he bared his wrist to Lulu, where the skin was covered by a layer of see-through cellophane. Lulu rose on his elbows, intrigue in his eyes as his gaze shifted between Xavi’s face and wrist.
“What is this?” Lulu’s voice shook.
