Page 88 of The Pairing

Part of me wants to keep teasing until they crack. But so much more of me wants to be sweet. I’d want them to show mercy to me.

“Same rules?” I ask, with my voice this time.

Theo nods. “Same rules.”

“Tell me if anything is too much.”

I tug on their wrist to turn them around and set their hands on the fountain again, their back to me, their face turned toward Venus so I can’t see it. At last, I press my body flush with theirs, chest to back, hips to ass, legs tangling. I nose under their collar and bite at their shoulder until they moan and tilt their hips back and spread their knees apart. My hands skim their forearms, the muscles flexing as they grip the marble, then their stomach, the softness and hardness there.

With my hand on their belt buckle, I ask again, “Same rules?”

“Same fucking rules,” Theo snaps, struggling heroically to keep their hips still.

Finally arriving at the end of my own patience, I wrench their belt loose and push my hand down the front of their pants until the flat of my hand finds the warm, soft swell between their legs.

The first contact hits us both hard. Theo chokes out a low, desperate sound. I’ve been inside someone’s mouth this week, slid my tongue over the cleft of a stranger’s ass, and still, holding Theo in my palm over their underwear—not even going deeper, not even being touched myself—feels more intense, more intimate.

They’re wearing the same kind of silky boy shorts they wore in Barcelona, thin enough to let sensation through, loose enough to allow movement. I delve deeper, trace my middle finger over the contours of the split at their center, the suggestion of a parting. Theo responds with a desperate whine, the treads of their boots scuffling on the stone floor as they widen their stance.

My free hand floats to their throat, not squeezing, just holding with loose, splayed fingers, feeling the quick rise and fall of their breath. I tip their chin to the side, scrape my teeth gently against the hinge of their jaw and then, lower, their pulse. Its thrum is faster now, and I could dissolve with gratitude at being close enough for long enough to measure and compare.

“Have I been patient enough yet?” they beg.

I nod into their hair, smiling at the irascible edge to their voice, and finally give them what they ask.

My fingers easily find their destination, swollen and obvious even through the barrier of dampening cloth, confirmed with Theo’s short, shocked cry. It’s simple to adjust my wrist and find the correct angle, like navigating my apartment with the lights off, not needing to see to know where things are in my own home.

I touch them how I remember they like, strong and steady and unrelenting, and they meet every movement, making toomuch noise as they get closer. My hand moves from their throat to their mouth; they bite into the meat.

When they finally come, it’s with a sharp jerk of their hips and a furious growl. I hold them through it, until they spit out my hand with a faint, panting laugh.

“Fuck,” they exhale. “I didn’t know I could come from that.”

“See?” I say, kissing them behind the ear. “Patience.”

“Fuckoff.” They release their grip on the fountain and turn to me, their face flushed and sated, rippled by a half smile. “Do you want me to—?”

They glance down. I’m halfway hard, more than a little aching, but I can’t have what I want most. Not here, not now.

“It’ll be fine,” I tell them. “This was just for you.”

An emotion complicates their expression, tightening the corners of their eyes. This time, they smooth it away before I can read it.

“Fine, then,” they say. “I’ll buy lunch. Are you hungry?”

With them, I always am.

“Focaccia,” Theo says the next day.

“Schiacciata.”

“Focaccia?”

“That’sschiacciata.”

“I really don’t see the difference.”

I point over the heads of the dozen other tourists crammed into All’Antico Vinaio with us, to the stack of flat, golden-brown schiacciata atop the glass case of sandwich toppings.

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