“Shit.” I shake my head. “I haven’t got any either. I haven’t needed them for ages.”
He freezes and then says in a very carefully controlled voice, “You haven’t been using them?”
I release my dick. It seems odd to have this conversation if I’m wanking off. “No.” I hesitate and then say in a rush, “I haven’t had sex for a year.”
He blinks and goes very still. “You haven’t slept with anyone for ayear?”
Before I’d have flared up at him, demanding he ignore that and not read anything into it. I’d have flounced out, and he wouldn’t have seen me for a month. So, I can understand his caution. But I don’t need to be that way with him now. I just look at him and say quietly, “I haven’t slept with anyone since you vanished a year ago.”
“Why?” he asks hoarsely.
“Because I knew I only wanted you and there wasn’t any point.”
There’s a startled silence, and then he moves, dragging me into his arms in a movement that is full of emotion and has none of his usual grace. “Thank you. Thank you,” he chants, pressing kisses into my skin.
I drag him close, squeezing him as hard as I can to try and convey how much I’m feeling. “No one waseveryou,” I say fervently in a manner that will probably bring a blush to my cheeks tomorrow. “No one.”
He kisses me again, and I lose myself for a while. I’m dimly aware of him opening me up. I want to make a joke about the butter, but I can’t focus on finding the words because my attention is on the swollen heat of our lips meeting, the tender strokes of his fingers over my body. Then he rubs my prostate, and I’m abruptly back in the room listening to my cries that seem to drown out the sound of the sea.
“Yes, like that,” he says, his voice deep and gruff. I force my eyes open and study him between my legs. His face is flushed, and his hair wild.
“You’re so beautiful,” I say softly, and he directs a soft, startled look at me.
“No, that’s you.” He withdraws his fingers, bending to kiss my hole when I make a sound of protest. He flits his tongue over the opening, and it’s tickly and teeth-clenchingly good. I blink when he freezes.
“What’s up?” I ask hoarsely.
“We don’t have a condom.”
I blink. “I know. We just covered that. Weren’t you paying attention two seconds ago?”
“I mean what do you want to do?”
It seems to take an age for his words to travel to my brain. Then I click on. “Well, I rather thought you’d fuck me without one.” The silence is complete, and I lick my lips. “Only if you want, though. If you don’t fancy it, then we can do other stuff like?—”
My words are cut off when he throws himself onto me. “You want to go bare?”
“It would be a shocking waste of good butter if we don’t.” He snorts, and I drag him closer. “Yes, I want that.”
He swallows hard. “Have you ever done?—?”
“No,” I interrupt quickly. “Never. Ever.” I hesitate and then whisper, “I always thought it should have been with you, and if it wasn’t, then I didn’t want it with anyone else.”
He kisses me, and I taste salt, and when I open my eyes, his eyes are wet. “I want to do that with you,” he says. “And I felt the same.”
The thought awes me that this strong, handsome, clever man is somehow in love with me and me only. Xavier Conway, not very well educated and with rather poor impulse control, who has dedicated his life to fucking over the wonderful Reuben Langley, and yet still somehow got him to fall in love with him.
“Yes,” I say.
The mood switches abruptly, and I’m reaching for him as he does the same, and then we’re suddenly exchanging panting kisses and hard touches as I race to open my legs, and he falls between them, notching against me before sliding in. The pinch is immediate, which is hardly surprising. I’m just amazed there weren’t cobwebs growing over the entrance, so long has my sex drought been. I grab his shoulders. “Give me a second.”
“As long as you want,” he says steadily.
Eventually, I wriggle, loving the girth of him. He stretches me perfectly. “You can move,” I gasp out. “You feelsogood.” I wriggle again.
The feeling of no condom isn’t that different for me, but Reuben acts as if he’s been shot in the gut, going rigid and giving a low, pained groan.
“Fuck,” he wheezes.
