Page 136 of Levi

“On your front,” he says. “On your stomach. I’ll take care of the rest.”

I put my face down, let my hands fall open on the sheet, and hold still, turned away from him. I hear him take off his clothes, then his mouth comes down on the back of my shoulder. He kisses across the top of it, then the other side. His hands spread over my back and travel down and come up again. He isn’t building toward anything. He’s touching me because he can now, his mouth moving down my spine.

“You want to know what I think about all the time,” he says against my skin. “First day I saw you.” His mouth moves lower between the words. “You in fancy clothes, not a hair wrong, smelling good, telling me I had no business in that house. I opened my eyes, hungover as hell, and I thought you were the best-looking man I’d ever set eyes on. I’ve stood in rooms full of famous, beautiful people many times and not one of them ever knocked the wind out of me like you did that day. And every day since. I couldn’t hold your eyes more than a second. I forced myself to stare out the car window so you wouldn’t suspect what I was thinking and feeling.”

His hands run down my sides. He keeps on.

“And every time you’d tell me I had to get out of the house and come back here to this apartment, I tried to hide how happy that made me.” His mouth reaches the small of my back and stays there, warm against the base of my spine. “It was all I could think about until you came to pick me up. I liked being here. Your place felt almost like home to me. With your things where you set them, everything squared away, that smell of you the apartment has.”

Home.

I’m glad my face is down where he can’t see what that word does to me.

“You putting me in a place that belonged to you.” His thumbs trace down the line of my spine. “It didn’t matter whether you actually wanted me here or not. The fact that you told me to make myself at home as long as I didn’t break your rules was enough for me.”

He comes back up my spine, kiss by kiss, taking the long way, and sets his mouth under my ear.

“And then you left me food in the refrigerator here that you cooked homemade. You told me to eat it and I ate it first thing. I was grateful for that. I didn’t tell you at the time because that would’ve meant showing my hand too early. After all, I was supposed to be acting like I was doing you a big favor for leaving the house.”

I remember standing at that refrigerator with the containers in my hands, deciding a note was one step too far. Telling myself it was only practical, feeding a man to keep him out of my listing. I was showing my hand too. Both of us at the same table, neither one able to read the other, holding the same cards.

“Then if that wasn’t enough, I came in one day and found two sleeping bags you’d bought and fixed up just for me.” Lower now, rougher, his breath warm at my ear. “I’ve slept in the best luxury hotels all over the country and there’s never been a bed as nice as the one you made up on that floor between the boxes.” He goes quiet a moment, and his forehead comes down to rest against my shoulder. “You’ve always taken care of me, Dante, and I’ve always been a problem to you.”

I keep my face down and let him talk.

“I want you,” he says. “So much. I don’t know how to do a lot of things, but I want to try. Let me be the one who takes care of you, for once.”

He turns me over, a hand on my hip, until I’m on my back and he’s above me. Then he goes over the front of me as thoroughly as he went over the back. His mouth at my throat, my chest, lower. His hand smoothing after it.

I watch the way his lashes lower when he concentrates, the careful way he maps every inch like he might not get another chance. He pauses, breath warm against my skin, and lifts his eyes to mine.

“I want to feel us together,” he says. “Both of us.” His hand slides down and wraps around me, testing the weight of my cock. “Show me how to jerk us both off at the same time. The way you did it before.”

I reach for him, find him already hard, and catch his wrist. “Hold out your hand.”

He opens his palm between us without question. I spit into it, watching the wetness land and spread across his skin.

Levi’s eyes snap up to mine in surprise. A disbelieving sound leaves his throat. “Goddamn, Dante… that’s so fucking hot. Never figured you were filthy.”

I guide that hand down so our cocks press together inside the slick circle of his grip.

“Like this,” I tell him. “Hold us both. Your hand around the two of us. Tighter, yeah. Now stroke. Long and slow at first.”

He follows the instruction exactly, his fingers wrapping around both of us, the heat of his cock against mine making my breath catch. The spit eases the first strokes, and he moves easy at first, learning the friction, the way we slide against each other inside the circle of his hand. He’s leaking precum into it almost immediately, and he makes a soft sound in his throat when he feels it.

“Fuck,” he whispers. “You’re so hot against me.” He adjusts his grip the way I showed him, thumb sweeping over both heads on the upstroke, and the sensation pulls a low noise out of me. His free hand braces beside my shoulder so he can lean closer, watching our cocks move together under his fist.

I cover his hand with mine for a few strokes, showing him the rhythm I like — firmer on the upstroke, a twist of the wrist at the top — then let go and let him take over. He learns fast. His strokes lengthen, grow surer. Every time his cock slides against mine the pressure builds higher, sharper. He keeps his eyes on where we’re joined, then flicks them up to my face to see if he’s doing it right.

“Is this good for you?” he asks.

“Faster,” I manage. “And tighter.”

He does both. The wet sound of his hand on us fills the room. His hips start to rock in small, instinctive thrusts, fucking into his own grip and against me at the same time. I can feel every pulse of him, the way he thickens when the pleasure starts to climb. My own hips lift to meet him. The control I usually keep is nowhere in sight. I just lie there and take what he’s giving me, watching the determined set of his mouth and the flush climbing his throat.

“Levi—”

“This one’s mine,” he says, and strokes us harder, the friction turning into something relentless. We’re breathing the same air, moving together, his hand never faltering.