Luis shook his head. “You don’t know shit about what I want.”
“Then tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t!” Luis’s voice rose enough for it to crack, and he flinched, as if he’d never heard himself shout before. “I just fucking can’t. I love—Fuck!Just leave it, okay? Leaveme. Whatever you think you want from me, it’s not fucking worth it.”
Paolo took every syllable of Luis’s expletive laden despair like a bullet to the gut, and helplessness replaced his anger. He didn’t know what to do. He never had. All he’d done was flail around in his feelings with no clue what they actually meant in real life. He loved Luis, of that he was certain, but what good was that when Luis was drowning in something Paolo could never be part of?
Tears stung his eyes, making him thankful again for the rain.
Luis shivered, and Paolo couldn’t bear it. He found Luis’s cold hand, squeezed it tight, and uttered words he’d spoken once before on a night that had felt like the beginning of something, not the end. “Come home with me... please?”
19
Luis was soaked through, they both were. Paolo boiled the kettle before he remembered he’d left the milk at the shop.Genius.
He found two beers at the back of the fridge that were cold enough to give them both pneumonia, and took them to the bedroom. Luis sat on the edge of the bed like an unexploded bomb, tension straining every part of him Paolo could see. Paolo put the beers on the bedside table and nudged his way between Luis’s legs. “Relax. We can just go to sleep. You feel safe here, right?”
“Safe?”
“Yeah. That’s all I want. For you to know you can be here anytime you want and it’s always okay.”
“It’s not okay, though, is it?”
“It is right now. Anything else can suck a bag till morning.”
A faint grin threatened Luis’s grim expression. He slid his hands up the backs of Paolo’s thighs. “Your jeans are wet.”
“I know. I’m going to take them off.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And then I’m gonna get into bed, cos it’s freezing. I, uh, I think you should do the same.”
“I’m not wearing jeans.”
“Very funny.” Paolo chanced a quick kiss to Luis’s temple. It was the first time he’d pressed his lips to him in what felt like years, and the heat of it went straight to his dick. He backed out of Luis’s grip and turned away, hiding it, as he stripped out of his jeans and the rest of his clothes.
Behind him, Luis was quiet and still, but Paolo felt his eyes boring into his back, and it only made his dick harder. He moved to the chest of drawers and found clean underwear and a T-shirt.
“Don’t.”
“Hmm?” Paolo glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t what?”
Suddenly, Luis was beside him.
He took the underwear from Paolo’s hand and put it back in the drawer. “Don’t get dressed.”
“Why not?”
In answer, Luis kissed him, sweeping him into his rain-damp arms and hot lips with enough force to send Paolo stumbling sideways. But he didn’t fall. Luis held him firm and kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him.
Stunned, Paolo let it happen, then, as the heat between them rose, he kissed Luis back like a starving man. He reclaimed his balance and let his hands roam free, searching for the warm skin he’d missed so much. But all he found were wet clothes.Too manyclothes. He yanked Luis’s T-shirt up his body, breaking their kiss only to wrench it over his head.
Luis’s skin was cold but still as alluring as Paolo remembered it. More. He rubbed his palms over every inch he could reach, abs, chest, the wide expanse of Luis’s back. Then he slid his fingers into Luis’s overlong hair, tangling and twisting, as his cock strained against Luis’s soggy sweatpants, desperately seeking friction.
