“Sorry.” Emerson turned his head, buried his face in his arms.
“No, no.I’msorry.” Emerson’s skin felt fucking incredible. “I should’ve warmed my hands up first. You’re perfect.”
Luca stuck his hands under his armpits before he re-thought it. He unzipped his jeans, better for his own comfortanyway. Stuck his hands against his inner thighs. Directed Emerson verbally while he gave them time.
“I think if you lay your arms along your sides,” he said, “I’ll be able to get to your shoulders better.”
“Right.” Emerson unfolded his arms, which forced him to show his face again, turned against the pillow as he adjusted his body. Luca wanted to lean down, kiss the crow’s feet by his eyes, the edge of his jaw. Again: too familiar, too cute. Luca had to get better at defining his own rules as they got into this thing.
“Okay.” Luca took his hands out of his pants. Readjusted his stance. “Let me know if this is okay.”
And then he dug his thumbs into the muscle just above Emerson’s shoulder blades, and Emerson let out a moan so guttural Luca’s dick twitched.
“Fuck.” Emerson turned his head again, burying his face in his pillow to smother a long, loud breath. Luca kneaded his shoulders a few moments more before tracing down Emerson’s flanks, thumbs leading the way, until he finally dug into the hollows at the base of Emerson’s spine, just above his ass. “Ohgod, that feels good.”
Luca bit his lip on a grin.
“Good.”
They settled into quiet then, or at least, a quiet full of Emerson’s rumbling groans andmmms and deep breaths, each one ratcheting up Luca’s arousal until he was pretty sure he was leaking inside his briefs. Emerson might have played the stoic farmer most of the time, but god, he was reactive when Luca touched him, when he truly let himself go, the way Luca had wanted him to since that first kiss. Every sound felt like a gift.
Luca tried to keep his focus, alternating between hard pushes and soft touches, focusing on the areas where Emerson gave the deepest reactions. Resisting the urge to lean downand bite all the places his hands were rubbing. He spent the most time on Emerson’s lower back and shoulders, but gave attention to his arms, too, his biceps and triceps, the tight ropes of his forearms. Emerson went tense when Luca reached all the way to his wrists, so Luca didn’t linger. But he still gave a good, deep circle with his thumb against the strong bones there before his hands returned to Emerson’s back, making a mental promise to himself to give attention to those wrists, eventually, with his mouth.
“I wasn’t fishing for you to do this, you know,” Emerson said eventually. His head was turned again so Luca could watch him as he talked, half of his mouth dragging against the pillow, voice almost slurred. “When I said my back hurt. I was just, like. Talking.”
Luca smiled. Dug his palms into either side of Emerson’s spine, moved them in slow circles. “I know.”
“Butfuck,” Emerson said on yet another groan, followed by a breathy laugh. “I’m glad I did.”
Luca looked down at the curve of Emerson’s mouth, sloppy and blissful, his eyes closed. Luca counted it, another tally mark inside his chest.Laughed again.
“I should do the same for you,” Emerson went on after a minute, voice still drunk. “Your back probably hurts, too.”
Luca only hummed. “One day,” he said. He didn’t want Emerson to be thinking about Luca’s aches and pains. He wanted Emerson to keep sinking into how good he felt: him and himself alone.
That breathy laugh had done something to Luca, though. Pushed him past some breaking point. After another minute, he couldn’t hold back anymore. He wrapped his hands around Emerson’s sides—his skin was still so warm it was like hovering over a fire, heating Luca from his fingertips—and leaned down to put his mouth, open and hungry, on Emerson’s shoulder.
Emerson sucked in a short, choppy breath.
“Luca,” he murmured as Luca’s mouth made its way down Emerson’s back. As he darted out his tongue, licking the length of his spine. Running the tip of his teeth against Emerson’s side.
Emerson had been lying as instructed, stretched out and supple, but his elbows bent now, his fists slithering toward his head as his back began to arch. His breathing, which had been slow and drowsy, turned deep and unsteady. Luca marveled at how he could feel it under his tongue, how Emerson’s lungs worked against his ribcage.
When Luca’s mouth next reached the band of Emerson’s jeans, he reached his hands around Emerson’s hips. Emerson tilted his ass up, granting permission for Luca to unbuckle, to unzip, to pull Emerson’s jeans and briefs down his legs. When Luca stepped onto the floor to tug them off the final hurdles of Emerson’s feet, he took off his own jeans, too, discarding them all in a heap. He wanted to be comfortable for what he intended to do next.
Emerson’s body had turned tense, uncertain. Luca ran a reassuring hand up the side of his leg, relishing the tickling brush of hair.
“Can you get on your knees?” he asked, voice quiet.
Emerson complied, scrambling to all fours. Luca placed his own knees between Emerson’s legs as he climbed back onto the bed. Resting one hand on Emerson’s hip for balance, he pushed his other palm, fingers splayed, down Emerson’s spine until he reached the base of his neck. Gently, he pushed until Emerson’s head hit the pillow again.
“I want you to be comfortable,” Luca said. “Are you comfortable?”
Emerson breathed out. “Yeah.”
“And you’ll tell me to stop at any point, okay?”
Emerson nodded. “Okay.”
