Page 54 of The Art of Drowning

His finger entered me and the feel of it, the stretch and the burn and the fucking exquisite knowledge that the wait was finally over made me moan. My hands grabbed at his pillows, clenching hard on the soft, puffy fabric.

“God, you’re so tight.” Callum sounded like he was already gone, but he was trying to work in a second finger now. “Fucking hell, Damien. This ass.” Callum dropped another kiss on my shoulder.

“It’s yours.” It was the truth. It had been his then, and it was his now. I’d given him my heart, my soul, my body. I’d given him all of me, and I’d never asked for any of it back.

Callum worked me open. He took his time stretching me, stopping a couple times to add more lube. He fingered me like he was going to be graded on his performance. Underneath him, I writhed and moaned. I arched my back and pressed myself against his fingers, urging him to go deeper. Harder. Faster. Showing him that I wanted more because feeling was believing.

“Please, Callum.” My voice rasped out, ruined like the rest of me.

He didn’t answer with words, just slipped his fingers out of me and rolled a condom on as fast as humanly possible. Then, after another liberal application of lube, he entered me.

The feeling was almost foreign. It was unreal. He was so big and so hard that it felt like there was no room in me for air or thoughts. I’d forgotten what it could be like to be this close to someone. This… taken. How alive it made me when Callum thrust deeper and deeper. Harder. Slower. He fucked me like he was trying to carve out a space for himself inside of me.

His hands were going to leave bruises on me where he gripped my wrists and pinned them to the bed. The slight scratch of his stubble as he pressed open-mouthed kisses against my skin was second only to the sensation of being ground down into the mattress.

He didn’t hurry. He took his time with me, savoring every glide, every thrust the way I was. I wanted him hard and fast. I wanted him to fuck me so hard he broke me apart. I wanted him to drill the memories without him right out of my body. There was only him. Only ever him.

“Damien, oh, my God.” He barely spoke the words. They were breathed against my sweat-slick skin as he fucked me. His hands slid down my wrists, enveloped my hands. He twined his fingers in with mine and then shifted his position a bit, digging his feet into the mattress for purchase.

It was like I was outside my body for a moment. I was looking down and seeing how fucking perfect we looked. How beautiful we were with Callum on top of me, holding me down, giving me everything he had. Everything I wanted. Everything I’d missed.

And it had never been this good. We were inexperienced teenagers the last time we did this, when sex was great because of endorphins and hormones and less because of skill or sexual prowess. Both of which Callum had in spades now.

He shifted a little and then suddenly everything went white as my body finally gave in… and gave out. I came, calling his name. It tumbled out of my mouth over and over again, and he kept going, mercilessly pegging my prostate until I was wrung out and went still beneath him. I didn’t even have the energy to writhe anymore.

Then Callum was pulling out of me, and I heard the sound of flesh on flesh. He pressed a hand against my shoulder and pinned me there as he worked himself with his other hand. I wished I could see him when he came, but I couldn’t move or think or do anything but lie there and breathe.

Callum came with a shout—that was another thing that was different from before. When we were kids, we had to sneak around and be quiet and keep our sounds to ourselves. At the time, that had added to the allure of it. The secrecy. The challenge. But now, I fucking loved hearing how feral he sounded when he came. How loud he was when he let go. I wanted more of it. All of it.

I was in deep where Callum was concerned. But I always had been.

He collapsed on top of me again, smearing cum between us without a thought or a care. He panted in my ear and dragged his fingers down my arm.

“You okay?” he asked. “Didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“‘M’good.” In fact, I was so good my speech had slurred. “So good.”

“Good,” Callum echoed and then sighed as he rolled off me. With a little bit of coaxing, he got me on my side and then he slid in closer. He wrapped me up in his arms, tangled our feet together, and then gave me the sweetest, most tender kiss I’d ever had. It tasted like a promise. Like a declaration of things he couldn’t say out loud just yet.

Or maybe I was projecting.

“What are you doing here, Damien?” he asked, dragging a fingertip along the shell of my ear, making me shiver.

“I had to see you. I couldn’t… you’re so close now. I couldn’t stand it. I had to come.”

Callum considered my words but didn’t respond. That was okay. Not everything had to be spoken out loud. I could tell from the slight upturn to his lips and the sparkle in his eyes that he was happy to see me. Even if it was late. Even if I couldn’t stay long.

“When do you have to go?”

“I can stay for a while if I head out early. Did you want me to? Stay, I mean.”

Callum didn’t hesitate. Not for a single second. And then he was telling me what I should have told him years ago.

“Stay.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

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