I can’t talk. I just nod, clutch him harder, like I can maybe squeeze what I’m thinking straight into him without having to say it. I ease up when he gasps, and bury my face in his neck. “Sorry,” I mutter.
“Come with me.” He pulls away, but only so he can lead me to the bed, and we lie down facing each other, our legs tangled, his arm on my waist and mine around his shoulder. Our faces are close, his breath fluttering across my lips, his eyes dark and serious.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, and I reach up at once to smooth away the frown from his forehead. “Nicky…what is it?”
I run my fingers over his mouth, kiss him again. I want to tell him, but I’m afraid. I pull away from his lips. “Carlo—” I choke out. “Carlo, I…” His hand moves up my back, rubbing soft circles. Soothing. “I—I want to tell you—”
“It’s okay. It’s okay, Nicky. You can tell me whatever you like. Anything and everything.” I’m trembling and terrified, but he takes my hand in his and tucks them both between us. His heart is beating just as fast as mine is, I can feel it against the back of my hand. “Do you want me to say it first? Would that help?”
I stare mutely at him, struck dumb with the force of my own emotions, but I shake my head. I never knew I was such a coward, but it’s time to be brave. To face fucking facts. “I love you,” I whisper, and then I say it again, louder this time. “I love you, Carlo. I have loved you for a long, long time.”
He smiles, his eyes sparkling as bright as the ocean outside, and he kisses me, pulls my hand up to kiss each of my knuckles as well, and then he says, “I love you, too, Nicky.”
I have to make certain. “You’re—you’re sure?”
“Sure as sure.”
We stay there for a while, just looking at each other, smiling, laughing a little, until I stop squeezing his hand so hard and wrap my arm around him again.
“Does it get less scary the more you say it?” I ask at last, but the way my voice wobbles makes it less of a joke.
“I’m not sure. I’ve never said it before.” His eyes dart between mine, watching my reaction.
“Me, uh. Me neither.”
“Somehow, Nicky, I thought that might be the case,” he says, his voice husky. “So here we are, the both of us, total love virgins.”
I give a crooked smile. “I like that notion.”
“And neither of us are what I’d call great with emotional stuff,” Carlo muses.
“No.”
“But…there’s something wearereally good at.” His hand trails over my side, down to my cock, where it’s slumping half-full on my thigh. He begins to stroke me, and the way he bites his bottom lip and looks at me through his lashes has me filling out fast.
Getting my feelings off my chest has made me light inside, and knowing he feels the same way—goddamn, I could just drift out the balcony doors, join the moon in smiling down on the sea. But Carlo is reminding me why I much prefer it down here on earth.
“Come on, Nicky,” he says, smiling. “Let’s see if anything’s changed between us after that little conversation.”
He’s as responsive as he always is, wanting every touch I give him. We kiss for a long time, messy and wet, while I pet his asshole, wriggle my finger all the way in there and feel him squeeze down on it before we mutually decide it’s time for lube. He rolls over on his belly to let me work him, but first I kiss my way down his back, pull his cheeks open, and tongue-fuck him back into verbosity. He just wouldn’t be my Carlo if we did this in silence, and anyway, I love hearing the phrases that spill out of him, the dirty demands, the begging and the pleading, and there’s something new and thrilling this time,I love you, Nicky, I love you, fuck, I love you so much…
I eat his twitching, flexing hole until my dick has drooled a puddle underneath me, and then I add lube. I want him soaking wet so I can just slide right into his body. He’s rocking back onto my fingers, running his mouth, begging for my cock. There’s a throbbing need in my balls, and everything in me wants to be inside himright now, but I roll off the bed instead. “Stay,” I tell him.
I walk the few steps across the bedroom into the tiny bathroom and splash my face, cool off for a second, which provokes a whole other rant about what a tease I am and where the hell do I think I’m going. But I had to step away, because I’m aching so hard for him I feared I’d bust as soon as I got in him, and tonight? I want to make tonight last.
He’s just about leaping off the bed at me like a tiger when I turn back into the room, so I grab him, push him down on his back, and hold him there the way he likes it, one hand around each wrist.
“Hey, you bring those nipple clamps?” I ask.
I can’t help laughing at his outrage when he replies, “Are you fuckingkiddingme right now?” He spreads his thighs wide open and bucks up at me. He’s so wet with lube and spit and my cock is so hard for him, so sensitive, that I don’t want to tease anymore. I keep his wrists in my hands and roll my hips, let my dick flow straight into him, just like I knew it would. I let out a sigh of genuine relief as I feel his hot, slick flesh envelop me. He wraps his legs around me tight, pulling me as deep as I’ll go.
“Nicky,” he murmurs. I let go of his wrists so I can push myself up, start fucking him, and he grabs my face to make me look at him while I do it. I know my heart must be written out on my face, clear and vulnerable. “It’s okay,” he tells me, soothing again, thumbing over my lips as I try and fail to speak. “It’s okay, I know. I know, Nicky. Me too.”
I kiss him while I work in him, unwilling to let his mouth go until we’re both panting too hard to be able to breathe properly while I’m still sucking on his tongue. Then I suck him up and down his neck, bite at his shoulders, kiss his eyelids gently when he screws them shut. He’s been jacking off in rhythm with my strokes, but he’s speeding up now. “I’m close,” he tells me, his eyes popping open. “Nicky—I’m so close—”
“Tell me,” I demand. “Tell me again.”
He knows exactly what I mean. He arches up, his whole body shaking and shuddering as he gasps it out,fuck, Nicky, oh God, I love you, I do, I love you, his cock drenching us both in wave after wave. I pull him close when he’s done, bucking out the last few strokes I have left in me. I bury my face in his hair as I fill him up, mark him out as mine, tell him I love him over and over again until the aftershocks die down.
