Page 234

I move inside him slowly. An inch out, an inch back in. Watching him the whole time because I do not trust myself without his face. His mouth falls open. His brow pulls together. Then something that looks like surprise when his body starts accepting me.

“More,” he says.

The next push goes deeper. His hand drops to his cock and wraps around it, and the sight nearly throws me sideways.

“Fuck,” I breathe. “I’m already…”

“Not yet,” he says, voice rough. “Please.”

The bed starts to answer under us, small creaks, damp sheets twisting under Paul’s back. I learn what his body lets me have. His legs tense on my shoulders. His hand strokes himself faster. His other hand grips my wrist like he needs one solid thing to hold.

My hips start moving harder.

Need catches up. Mine. His. The whole day gathering in my spine, in my thighs, in the slick slide of him around me.

Paul’s sounds fragment, merge, break apart again.

“Clint,” he says. “I’m close.”

I’m too close to answer with words. I bend lower and kiss him, awkward with his legs between us.

His body tightens around me. Grips my cock—once, then twice—then Paul comes in his hand with a shocked, helpless sound, his whole body clamping down so hard I lose whatever control I had been pretending to own.

I bury my face against his neck and come inside him, hips jerking, breath tearing out of me like everything I was hiding has finally found somewhere to go.

I don’t move. I can’t. Like my cock is begging for just one more minute inside him.

Paul’s legs slide down from my shoulders and hook loosely around my hips. His hand finds the back of my neck.

Neither of us says anything.

We end up tangled in wet, cold sheets because neither of us has the energy to deal with it.

Paul’s half on me, one leg hooked over mine, his cheek against my chest. My arm is around him, holding him there like he might float off if I loosen my grip.

He doesn’t seem to mind.

The room smells like pool water and sex. Outside, the house is quiet. My house now. Casa Sirena—because yes, I’m a dude whose house has a name—with its blue tiles, flowery courtyard, and pool overlooking the ocean.

Mine.

Home.

The word moves carefully through me, still too new to trust.

Chapter thirty-eight

Unfinished

Paul

Clint has been staring at the ceiling long enough that I start inventing explanations.

Regret. Panic. A delayed heterosexual awakening.

I stop myself before the list gets worse.

The sheets are damp beneath us, cold now where the air-conditioning has found them. Clint’s arm is still around me, loose across my back, and I’m trying not to move too much in case movement reminds him that he can.