Page 68 of The Summer Pass

Vanu plucked Lill’s trousers off like brushing away a fallen leaf. Lill breathed out, trying to ease the tension in his limbs, to stop himself wanting to curl into a ball. He’d been taking his clothes off on his own downstairs, he reminded himself. The heat in his member had subsided a little, his body no longer fully ready for sex. Was that something he should apologize for?

Vanu’s trousers fastened with two pairs of bone toggles; Lill had felt them digging into his flesh when he wrapped himself around Vanu downstairs. Vanu thumbed them out of the loops and let the loosened fabric fall.

Lill had seen his husband naked before, but not like this, roused and magnificent. The sunlight from the window glowed on the muscles of his torso, solid as a stone wall, smooth lines converging on his beautiful cock, which stood out from a tangle of dark-gold curls like something that ought to be worshipped. It wasn’t just that it was big—well, it was mostly that. It was huge, thick and flushed, a bead of moisture clinging to the tip. Lill couldn’t take his eyes off it.

If I’d seen that before, he thought, either I’d never have left, or I’d have climbed the wall to get away—I’m not sure which.

Vanu leaned over him, planting his hands on either side of Lill’s shoulders, and looked into Lill’s eyes as he brought his hips down and slid his cock against Lill’s. The hot weight of him, the intimacy of soft skin against soft skin, made Lill breathless. He could feel the muscles tense in Vanu’s stomach and flanks. He was watching Lill’s face, but his own eyes were half-lidded, his mouth soft.

Lill lifted his head for a kiss and was rewarded with something wet and deep. Vanu came down onto his forearms, his body warm above Lill’s. Lill was fully hard again. He rocked his hips, increasing the friction. He moaned against Vanu’s mouth.

Vanu released Lill’s lips and picked up Lill’s right hand with his own. He guided it down to their cocks and demonstrated what to do with it. His own hand wrapped easily around both shafts. Lill giggled.

“That’s not—I can’t—oh, that’s lovely.”

He liked having his hand down there, even if it wasn’t as useful as Vanu’s. He touched Vanu, sliding his hand in between their bodies—touched himself, daringly. Vanu held their cocks together as they moved.

They were wet down below now, with sweat and other stuff, so their skin slid together more easily. Lill hooked a leg around Vanu’s waist and undulated experimentally, quickening the rhythm of their—whatever you called this.

He was climbing toward the summit and he could feel it, but his mind was surprisingly clear. He watched Vanu’s face, awed by the softness and openness of his expression.

I may not have gone back to him when I should have, Lill thought, but at least I can give him this. It made him so happy he felt as if his heart would burst.

Something else burst instead, and he climaxed, hot and sticky, all over himself and Vanu. He laughed aloud at how good it felt.

In the afterglow, he wrapped all his available limbs around Vanu and clung to him.

“Keep going,” he said eagerly, flattening his hand in the hollow of Vanu’s back and wriggling against him. “Don’t bite your lip—” That was what Vanu was doing. “—bite me. I know you want to.”

Vanu gasped softly—the loudest sound he’d made since they started—and came like an earthquake. And not like that at all, because there was never a moment when he fully lost control. He caught most of his seed in his own big fist, adding only a little to the stickiness on Lill’s belly, and when he was finished he didn’t collapse onto Lill or roll off him; he stayed braced over Lill, with Lill’s legs curled around him, both of them panting as if they’d run up a mountain. Then Vanu bent his head and opened his mouth and very gently sank his teeth into Lill’s shoulder.

Vanu eased himself out from between Lill’s legs and flopped down, settling himself against Lill’s good side. He draped an arm over Lill’s chest. He felt sated in a way that had been only a sweet memory, a way he hadn’t felt since he was a handful of years older than Lill.

“First time, you cried after,” he remarked. “This time you’re laughing. Progress.”

Lill sighed contentedly. “That was … it was so … I feel as if I should cry, but I’m just so happy.”

“Good.”

They lay still, bodies touching, breath slowing. Vanu shifted to get both hands free so that he could sign, but then he didn’t know what to say.

“I realized something … ” said Lill.

“Yeah?”

“I realized it’s a skill that one can get better at. Sex. I hadn’t thought of it that way. With practice, I can become a better lover for you. And I will. I’m good at learning such things. It makes me so happy to think of that, Vanu.”

He sounded so eager, so truly pleased, and it was such a Lill thing to say.

“You’re already very good,” Vanu told him.

Lill beamed. “You were right, you know. What I needed. It was this.”

“Which part?”

“This.” He tipped his head to the side to rest his forehead against Vanu’s. “Seeing you satisfied.”

Chapter 24