I floated back to the ground.

He swallowed, then beamed at me. And it was the sunniest, happiest grin I’d ever seen in my life. “You know you want some, boo. Just admit it.”

I cringed in disgust.

“Boo? You know. Since you’re a ghost.”

“Do. Not. Call. Me. That.”

“Okay, okay.” Luca cackled and shook his head. “Pru it is.” I don’t know where I’d gone wrong, because for some reason he no longer seemed scared of me. Not that he ever really had been. I cleared off the bed. Plate by plate, stacked carefully out of the way on the floor in a neat row. Luca had an adorably confused wrinkle between his brow as he observed. “Aren’t you hungry?”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t get hungry.

Besides. His smile had made me change my plans.

I placed the final plate on the ground, then climbed onto the bed and reached for the remaining spoon. The massive bowl of ice cream teetered and Luca reached out to steady it. “Open,” I commanded as I scooped up strawberry ice cream and held it out.

He opened his mouth, eyes twinkling. At the last second, I bypassed his lips, smearing the ice cream down his long, kissable throat. Luca hissed a breath through his teeth, then giggled a high, hysteric sort of noise.

“You asshole—” His words were cut off as I leaned forward and sucked the dollop of icy treat from his feverishly warm skin. His breath stuttered, and he whined, fingers immediately tangling in my hair as he clutched my head to his neck. I could practically sense his dick rise. “Shit, do that again.”

With every scoop of ice cream, with every lick, every bite, every kiss, Luca became more and more pliant.

His dirty clothes were soon tossed onto the floor, a messy pile, far away from the abandoned food. He was hungry, but I was hungrier. When I flipped Luca onto his belly, he spread his legs unashamed. His ass was three shades paler than his sun-kissed back, and covered in as many freckles as the rest of him. There was a distinct line around his waist and upper thigh that marked where his shorts typically fell. The swathes of speckled skin called to me, and I couldn’t help but admire him. The fragile skin at the back of his knees. His long, gorgeous neck. His lean, limber waist, and the way it tapered impossibly wide leading up to the sculpted shoulders.

Scooping directly from the bowl, I spread vanilla ice cream over his crease. He hissed through his teeth, and I bit back a groan when his cheeks clenched. I wanted to make him do that again, except, with my tongue inside him this time. I wanted to feel the way he squirmed away, like he wasn’t sure he could have this. Like he wasn’t sure he could have me.

“Oh shit, oh fuck.” Luca’s hips jumped, pushing away from me, before snapping back. Like he didn’t know whether he wanted to run or chase. “What are you doing?” I leaned down, my heart pounding in my chest as I sucked at the drip of cream that tickled down to his balls. He spread his legs wider, and I bit back an appreciative growl as I got my first real look at his delicious little hole.

I would never forget the flush of shame that blossomed across his skin when he’d admitted he liked to be played with there. He’d been shy. Too shy to even say the words. Even now that we had weeks of touching behind us, his body shook in anxious anticipation.

How much experience did he have with being touched there? Had someone else looked at him like this? Seen the way his asshole fluttered? Admired the freckles that dotted his supple cheeks, and dipped all the way into the secret place between them. Darker skin. Dusky. Pink. The idea that someone could have worshiped him like this before me made me see red, so I forced the thought away.

Instead, I bit my lip, and admired his hole. He squirmed away from my touch. His entrance was pink. Wrinkled and sweet. Flushed with blood. My balls ached but I ignored my own growing need as I closed the distance between us and sucked up the last of the ice cream. When he was trembling, but clean, I fanned a kiss against his hole again, just to feel it twitch.

He relaxed.

I couldn’t have that.

He was getting too comfortable.

“I’m going to train you,” I murmured, biting at his fleshy ass cheeks hard enough he twisted away from me, a desperate sob muffled against the bed covers. “Whenever you think of sex, you’re going to think of me.” Half threat, half promise.

Luca’s breath burst out raggedly, as he shoved his hips against my face chasing more touch. Once again, immediately after they grew shy and pulled away. Contradictory. Like he was.

“C-cold.” He complained unhappily as I smeared another dollop of ice cream across his freckled ass cheeks. They flexed, hard. And goose flesh trembled across them. I sucked at the pebbled skin, letting the chilly ice cream melt before I licked it away. God, he smelled good. I would never get enough. Coconut, salt-water, sweat. His smell was even more concentrated down here, and I couldn’t help the way I inhaled greedily.

For a while I played with his skin, licking away cream as it pebbled, kissing and sucking everywhere but the place I knew he wanted me most. When he became truly desperate, his hips stopped trembling away from me. Instead, he shoved his ass toward my face, needy, and no longer frightened of the touch.

Maybe he’d been embarrassed before. To be sucked and licked open. But he wasn’t now. My patience had killed the last of his reservations.

By the time I returned to his entrance Luca was sobbing, these hiccuped, panicked puffs of air that had my cock hard enough to pound nails. But, no. This wasn’t about me. This was about him. About the stunt he’d played at the club. About his many, many mysteries. About the smile, that made my skin too tight, and my head staticky.

I laved a hot stripe across his fluttering entrance and he howled again, trembling all over, completely at my mercy. His broad shoulders trembled as he bunched the sheets in his hands and I reached beneath his body to wrangle his cock back toward me. With it pulled downward I could see all of it clearly. Long, freckled, pink. Just like him. He was leaking all over the place, his crown an angry red. I spit on it to wet it—not that he needed me to—then gave it a rough jerk as I dove back between his cheeks.

“Pru—” Luca reached back, fingers tangling in my hair, his hips arching. He was reluctant to give in. He kept leaping away from me, like he didn’t know what to do with the sensitive press of my tongue.

“Give in.” I demanded, biting one of his cheeks hard enough to bruise. I was getting tired of his resistance.