“Stef… things ended with Eddie a while back. Our relationship wasn’t real anyway. I was never in love with Eddie. You know that…” I’m light-headed now, blood rushing in my ears.
“It’s really over with Eddie?” He peers at me, looking stunned.
How could he think that things were real with Eddie? Yet, obviously, from the outside, it must have seemed real enough.
“Yes, of course.” I swallow hard.
Stef nods slowly. He presses his lips together into a line.
“Plus, there are still the other issues,” I whisper. “Right? You’re not out. I’m very out.”
He hesitates. “I came out to my family. To my father too.”
My eyebrows climb. “And?”
“Everyone was shocked. My father’s still trying to get used to the idea, trying to accept it. Everyone else has come around.” He gives a wry smile. “They love me, regardless.”
“As they should.” I frown, protective of him. “Fuck, Stef.”
Stef reaches out to smooth my collar, where the top two buttons of my shirt are unfastened, the hint of skin exposed. “I’m not publicly out. But they know, at least.”
I shiver under his touch, riveted, frozen in place. “Please… I can’t handle…”
He stops, moving his hand away. And suddenly, it feels cold despite the blaze of the Mediterranean summer sun. Like he’s far away, through glass, and I can’t touch him.
“And…” I say thickly, looking away because it hurts too much to look at him right now. The world blurs. “…there’s the problem I’m now King. The official celebration’s in September. I don’t have the same life anymore.”
“Theo…” He clears his throat.
“Plus, there’s François too. You have him.”
Stef catches my jaw, holding my gaze. “François is a friend from the dig. We only shared a room,” he confesses, looking sheepish. A beautiful pink spreads across his cheekbones. “We’re not dating. Believe me, no sex. Or anything else.”
“But he’s not a king, now is he?” My voice is raw. “Less baggage.”
“Listen to me, Theo. I know it’s complicated. Our situation. And like I said, François is a friend and nothing more.” He draws a deep breath. And I’m holding my own in response when he speaks again. “I love you too? So much.”
“Stop, I can’t handle it?—”
Then, Stef brushes his mouth against mine. I gasp, my body so ready for him I could fracture into a million pieces.
“But we’re here, and it’s private, and we can be together right now,” Stef whispers. “That matters, doesn’t it? I want you so much it hurts.”
“Stay the night. Please.”
“I can stay for a few hours?—”
In response, I grab his hips and pull him tight against me so he can feel how hard I am. How much I want him. My mouth crushes against his, the warmth of his lips, his tongue.
Stef gasps with the ferocity of my kiss. We reel in the sun. Then, I’m clumsily guiding him inside, to the bedroom off the patio with the same stunning view. And I push him onto the bed and its white duvet to match the white everything else in this minimalist room of plaster and glass and marble.
He gazes up at me, and then he unfastens my shorts, freeing my cock. I gasp with the sensation, the tightness in my balls.
Then, in the next moment, he’s licking my erection, and my fingers are buried in his hair, and every nerve in my body is alight for him. His mouth is fire, and I groan, like something’s broken inside of me, something lost and found once more.
“God, don’t stop—” I sob out, clutching at Stef, his head, his shoulders, his face. My body is on fire for him, my heart beating so loudly everyone on this island must hear it. “Stef?—”
Stef glances up at me, pausing only long enough to grin at me before he continues without mercy. I grip his shoulders as he sucks me off with intensity.
