Page 68 of Nights Without Night
“It has been,” Isadoro implores, but I shake my head.
“You may think so, but…I don’t want to feel alone anymore. And that’s what I feel when I don’t have you,” I say.
I could console myself with the supposition that knowing Isadoro loved me all along, truly being with him during his deployment, could have made it harder. But that’s just not how it works. It was worse, not having him and yet fearing to lose him at the same time. It was so much worse. I didn’t know what fear could do to a person. That constant, background possibility of the sudden, severing blade of death. It’s like a tumour you can’t remove, living with the chance it’s malignant and not finding out until the very end.
“You have me. You fucking have me,” he says and crushes me to him. I squeeze him back, my head still not catching up, incredulous.
“How long?” he asks as if I haven’t already told him.
“Fuck, Isa…you were my first kiss, remember?” I say, my voice a little wobbly.
He’s alive. He came back. He’s here, with me.
Isadoro pulls back, narrowing his eyes.
“Your first kiss was with that mouth-breather, Brandon.”
“Oh my God,” I laugh, rolling my eyes. “I thought spin-the-bottle kisses didn’t count?”
“Hmph,” he grunts, but then his expression clears.
He leans down, pressing his lips against mine. “Iván,” he says, “Iván,” and I’ve heard that exact tone a hundred times before, but this is the first time I recognize it for what it is.
He presses his forehead against mine and we just stand there for a moment.
“This is so sappy,” I say wetly. “I could totally say something disgustingly cheesy about last kisses right now.”
“Yes,” he says as if he’s agreeing with a statement I haven’t made.
I pull him into a kiss.
The kiss is the same familiar, languid pace. The slow drag of tongue and teeth that has me breathless in seconds. But something has changed. I let myself feel the love of it. Not just the want, but the having. The possibility of feeling safe in knowing this isn’t going to just disappear.
I back him up a little blindly towards my bedroom. We bump into the couch and he lifts me up, my legs wrapping around him as we continue kissing. We bump into the door frame as we reach my room, stumbling inside and onto my bed, laughing into each other’s lips.
His hands slip under my shirt, dragging up my sides. My legs are still hooked around his waist and I try to pull him down, but he resists. Instead, he breaks the kiss and I untangle my arms from around his neck so he can remove my shirt, and then his.
I hum at the new playground of skin, running my fingers down his chest, stroking the hair leading down. His abs jump at the light, teasing touch, and he grabs my hand, pinning it next to my head. I smirk at him, pulling him down by the neck to kiss him again.
My other hand sneaks down between our bodies. I press the palm against his trapped cock and he jerks slightly, huffing a moan into my mouth. He grabs that hand too, pressing it onto the bed to mirror the other.
“You’ve got no patience,” he says breathlessly.
“I want you.”
“You have me.”
He lowers his hips and presses me into the mattress, grinding slowly. The pressure offers no relief, only more heat-giving light. I pull at the restraint of his hands.
“No more clothes,” I say. Thankfully, Isadoro agrees and shuffles back on his knees as we divest ourselves and each other of our remaining clothes.
When he presses against me next, it’s all skin and muscle and him. I press my lips to his neck and smell oranges, sparking millions of neurons dedicated to him.
Isadoro grips our cocks in his hand and pulls at us slowly. I move my hips with his pace, feeling the slide of his skin, the wetness of his cock against mine. I grip one of his ass cheeks in one hand, squeezing him tight. He grunts into my neck.
“More,” I say, and squirm from under him to reach the bedside table. When I settle on my back, I squeeze lube generously on my hand. Without preamble, I slide two fingers into my hole.
“Jesus,” Isadoro says.
