Page 110 of Bare
He didn't wait. He straddled Rory's hips. Reached behind himself, found Rory's cock, hard, slick, wet with lube and with him, and sank down onto it. All the way. The angle was different from below. Deeper. Neil's thighs shook.
Rory stared up at him. Wrecked. His hands went to Neil's hips but they didn't guide. They held on.
'Neil...'
'My turn.'
Neil moved. Rolled his hips, finding the tilt that dragged across the prostate on every stroke. His hands flat on Rory's chest, the heartbeat hammering against his fingers. He lifted and dropped, learning the mechanics, his thighs doing the work.
Rory's head tipped back into the pillow. His mouth fell open. His hands tightened on Neil's hips, fingers digging into the muscle, not controlling the rhythm but surviving it.
'Christ,' Rory said. 'Christ, Neil.'
Neil went faster. He leaned back, one hand braced on Rory's thigh behind him, and his own cock bounced against his stomach, untouched, leaking. He didn't reach for it. The fullness of Rory bare inside him and the look on Rory's face. The charm gone. The composure gone. Just Rory. His hands on Neil's hips asking for nothing and receiving everything.
'Look at me,' Neil said. Rory's own words, given back.
Rory was already looking.
'I love you,' Neil said again. From above. Looking down at the man underneath him. His voice didn't crack this time.
Rory's hand went to Neil's cock. Wrapped around it. Stroked in time with Neil's hips, thumb pressing the underside on every upstroke. Neil stuttered. The bed. The man beneath him.
Neil came first. His cock jerking in Rory's fist, his body clenching around Rory's cock, his thighs locking. He came across Rory's chest, across his stomach. His body tightened in waves and Rory's breathing broke.
'Neil.' Rory's voice was gone. Just the name. His hips drove up from the mattress, once, twice, and he came inside Neil. Bare. Neil felt every throb without barrier. Rory's face buried against the arm Neil braced beside his head, his mouth shaping Neil's name, broken in half.
Neil stayed on top. Rory softening inside him. Both of them breathing like the air had gone thin. Neil's hands on Rory's chest, feeling the heartbeat slow. Rory's come inside him, warm, real, evidence.
He looked down at Rory. The green eyes, the lip ring, the dark curls against the white pillow. Underneath him now. Held.
'Again,' Rory said. Rough.
'I love you.'
'I love you. I'll say it every day if you want.'
'I want.'
'Then I will.'
Neil lifted off. The absence registered for both of them. He lay down beside Rory. Then on top of him, because he could, because the weight went both ways now. Rory's arms came around his back.
After a while Rory shifted him off. Gently. Got up, padded to the bathroom, came back with a flannel. Warm. Wiped Neil's stomach, between his legs, careful with the cloth. Wiped his own chest. Dropped the flannel on the floor. Lay back down.
Neil pulled him close. Rory's head on his chest. The lip ring cool against the skin above his heart. His breath slowing to sleep-rhythm.
The lamp lit the room in warm gold. The curtain was open to the street. A fox passed under the window, visible for a second, gone.
\\\*
In the morning, Neil opened the sketchbook.
He'd brought it. In his bag, under his jacket, Rory didn't know. Had carried it to the gallery and carried it back and now he sat on the edge of Rory's bed in the early light with the leather cover open and the first page blank and a charcoal pencil, also brought, also not mentioned, between his fingers.
The blank page looked at him. White. Empty. Terrifying.
He didn't look away. Eighteen years. The last drawing, Adam Kershaw's shoulders in a bedroom thick with adolescence, had gone into a drawer and the drawer had closed and the closing had been so total that the hand had forgotten it could do this. You forgot the permission. The feeling that looking at someone and translating the looking into marks on a surface was anacceptable thing to do. Malcolm had closed the permission.This isn't serious, Neil.And the sketchbook had closed with it.
