Only a few inches. His fingers were still wrappedaround Luca’s wrists, so Luca couldn’t bring himself to stop, straining up even farther to drag his mouth across Emerson’s jaw, down his throat, so that when Emerson swallowed he felt it against his cheek.
“Luca.” Luca could barely hear Emerson’s voice, low and shaky, his breath warm against Luca’s ear. “You serious?”
The question made Luca want to laugh. He didn’t even know what it meant. Serious about kissing Emerson in the mud? Being that Luca still couldn’t seem to detach his lips from Emerson’s skin, he would’ve thought the answer was clear.
But then Emerson murmured his name again, and Luca pulled back until he could see Emerson’s eyes. So dark and focused and heavy on his that Luca could barely make out the color in them. A drop of water hung on the bow of his upper lip. It was still freezing out, the cold still seeping through their clothes, but suddenly, Luca didn’t want to ask any further questions.
Before any more doubt could filter through Emerson’s head, before anything else could enter Luca’s, he answered, calm and sure: “Yes.”
When Emerson lowered his lips to Luca’s again, Luca couldn’t help the keening sound that escaped him. Emerson’s mouth moved slower this time, even more deliberate and careful, and not being able to touch him, to run his hands under his clothes, to cup his jaw in his palm like Emerson was now doing to him with his free hand—it was killing him. He could feel the mud on Emerson’s fingertips, smearing across his cheek. The rain was finally starting to slow, but it still dripped onto Luca’s brow, tickled his arms, absorbed into his back. Each ping against his skin, each centimeter he sank into the mud felt simultaneously inconsequential against the heat of their joined bodies and like something holy.
For once, Luca and water were at fucking peace.
He’d been trying to hold himself still, hold onto whatever control he had left, but when Emerson’s tongue entered Luca’s mouth with more force, his free hand shifting so his thumb gripped the spot just underneath Luca’s jaw, both acts possessive and hot, Luca couldn’t help himself. He lifted his hips, needing friction, needing movement.
Almost at once, Emerson shifted away. Hand dropping from Luca’s face. Eyes popping open.
They stared at each other, chests heaving, until Emerson moved back even farther, finally releasing Luca’s wrists.
Luca kept his arms where they were.
“You’re the first person I’ve kissed since my ex,” Emerson said suddenly. “And you?—”
Just as abruptly, he cut himself off. His eyes flashed with an intensity Luca couldn’t entirely interpret before Luca saw him retreat. A single blink that somehow wiped his entire face clean.
But even as his words and the forced blankness in his eyes signaled the need for distance, his hips still pinned Luca’s underneath his own. The mud still dampened Luca’s back, seeped into his hair. Luca’s heart still thudded in his chest, his dick still strained against his jeans.
Luca needed to chill, to let Emerson pull all the way back, but?—
“And you what?”
“What?”
“You saidand you.And then you cut yourself off. And me what?”
Emerson stared at him.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “You are stunningly beautiful, Luca.”
Well, fuck. Before he could stop himself, Luca rolled his hips again. Emerson’s eyelids drooped closed with a small gustof breath that was so sexy Luca almost grabbed his shoulders, rolled him over, and took his mouth again.
But before he could, Emerson was scrambling off him, clambering messily to a stand. Luca blinked up at him, assaulted by the sudden absence of his body, the shelter of it no longer keeping him warm.
“I’m sorry,” Emerson said. “This shouldn’t have happened. I—I need some time.”
And before Luca could say anything in return, Emerson left him there, wide eagle on the wet ground, while Emerson disappeared into the trees.
twelve
The bright sunilluminated the bedroom while Emerson lay under the covers, thinking about the movies.
He shifted around, throwing the comforter down to his waist and yanking it up again. He was never in bed when the sun was this high in the sky. He hadn’t been comfortable in hours.
The one thing Emerson always wished he had more of on the farm, other than money, was this. Time. Rest. So he’d given himself more this morning. And he didn’t know what to do with it.
He was hiding.
He wasbored.
