He gets naked and slides into the bathtub in front of me. I pull him around until he’s lying with his back against my chest in the water, laid out between my legs. When I run my hands over his wet, hairy chest, the muscles move and bunch under my fingers. I wriggle a little so my hardening dick squeezes between Nick’s asscheeks. I move my hands back up to his shoulders where I start massaging them. He’s still tense, but he lets out a rumbling groan as I keep working his shoulder and neck muscles, and eventually he relaxes into it, his head rolling back on my shoulder.
“A guy could get used to this.”
I close my teeth gently on his earlobe and tug it. “You really do deserve someone to take care of you, Nicky.”
“You offering?”
“While we’re here, sure. Why not? We can play pretend for a little while, can’t we?”
The water moves as Nick shifts in the tub, and I feel his hand slide up my calf. “When we get back…” he begins, then clears his throat. “Fuck it. While we’re here. Like you say, it’s just pretend, right?”
“Right.” It’s a pretty fucking convincing act between us, though, is the thought that runs through my head.
I reach my hand around his hard belly, down further, searching for his cock. We have to move a little, making bubbly waves in the tub as we try to find the right angle, and then I slide side-on to him to give me better access, curling a leg around his. The water makes jerking him off slow but sexy, and I’ve kissed his mouth red by the time he shoots, a groan and a gasp escaping him as he lets me gently milk it out of him, trying not to thrust into my hand because it slops the water right out of the bath.
“Ah, fuck,” he mutters after he’s stopped panting, his head lolling around on the side of the tub. “You’re right. I did need that.”
“Time to get out. I’m getting all pruney. Plus I don’t wanna soak in your jizz-water, much as I love you.”
It just slips out.
Slips out, the fucking L-word. I just told Nick Fontana I loved him in the same sentence as referring to jizz-water.
And I didn’t even mean it. I’m not in love with him. Definitely not. That would be…a really bad idea.
Nick just laughs it off, thank God. And by the time we get out of the tub and start to dry off, I’m just about humping him, I’m so desperate to get off. He pulls me into the bedroom, throws me down onto the bed so I have to stare right at that stupid net above it, and then he spends half an hour edging me with his mouth and tongue until finally I explode into his throat, cursing his name, half-laughing, half-terrified, because what I thought in the bathroom is absolutely true.
It would be a really, really fucking bad idea to fall in love with Nick Fontana.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Nick
The Oyster Shack—its literal name, I guess they prefer to go for the obvious in Montauk—is in town, the kind of place where you walk in and oyster shells crunch under your feet. We’re only a little late for the reservation Carlo made, and we may as well not have made one at all. It doesn’t seem the kind of place to reserve tables. But I’m proved wrong when a server takes us to an intimate table for two up in the back corner, then gives us our menus while spouting the daily specials so fast I only catch the occasional word in her spiel: house oysters, catch of the day, pasta marinara. I’m most familiar with the latter, so that’s what I order.
Carlo spends entirely too long, in my opinion, asking the server about the taste and texture of the house oysters, smiling as she bats her lashes back at him. He goes for a starter of Montauk Pearl oysters, which she assures him has an ideal balance of creamy texture and fresh sea taste. When they arrive, he forces me to try one, slippery and raw and tangy with lemon and chili. It’s pretty good. Or maybe the food just tastes better because I get to look into Bianchi’s eyes while I’m eating.
“You think these people decorated the beach house, too?” he asks, nodding at the nets all across the ceiling.
“Could be. You gonna eat that last oyster?”
“It’s yours.” He hands it to me and I tip it into my mouth while he watches. “We could get another plate,” he suggests, looking around for the waitress.
“Leave it. That server don’t need any more encouraging from you.”
He turns amused eyes on me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I know you like to flirt, and I don’t mind. As long as you remember…” I started out kidding but I think Carlo hears the spark of jealousy in my words that I can’t hide.
He reaches across the table and puts his hand on mine. “Oh, I remember who I’m going home with,” he says, turning that killer charm on me. It’s hard to resist the glowing eyes, the magnetic smile, but I pull my hand away before anyone can look over and see us. Carlo sits back, giving me a thoughtful look. “You a little uncomfortable there, Nicky?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t like PDAs? Or are you still hiding behind that closet door?”
I straighten up my napkin while I think of how to respond to that. “You know I’m out,” I say at last, and look up at him. “I just get a little jumpy from time to time. Result of the Gees turning on me in my younger years.” It is the simplest and most honest thing I’ve ever said to him, but also the hardest. And yet I like the way it feels—being open. Telling him the truth.
He nods his understanding. “My father wasn’t thrilled about it when I came out in college, but I don’t think it was because he disapproved. It was because he thoughtother peoplemight disapprove. But it wouldn’t have mattered who I was. One way or another, he’d find fault with me.”
