Page 56 of State of Mind

But Wilder wanted this—needed it. He had to reclaim these moments for pleasure instead of pain. He walked Luca back to the bed, and when he sat hard, Wilder dropped to his knees between his lover’s thighs.

“You…you don’t need to…”

“I know,” Wilder murmured. But God, he wanted it. He wanted to feel Luca heavy on the back of his tongue, gagging him, filling him. He raked fingertips over the tops of Luca’s thighs, and then he leaned forward and dragged open lips over his shaft before ending at his head. He was cut, bulbous, leaking from his slit in clear pulses, and he lapped it up. His hands moved to Luca’s waist to hold him.

This was theirs—this present moment—with no past and no future separating them. Luca’s taste was salty and rich, and it filled him, overwhelming his senses as he relaxed his jaw and took him as far as he could go.

He had done this so little, he was worried, but Luca’s cries rose in the silent room, muffled by his deafness and yet perfectly accessible through the low rumble of voice and the vibrations he could feel in the tips of his fingers. It was enough to make his own cock swell, throbbing, his balls pulling tight.

He was close to coming from that alone, but he wanted to wait—to have Luca take him in hand. He sucked harder, faster, used a tight circle of fingers to make up the space his lips couldn’t reach. Luca was saying something in a warning tone—but the sounds were jumbled, and he was pretty sure it was because he was about to come.

Wilder didn’t care. He wanted every damn drop.

Luca’s hands pushed into his hair, gripping just shy of painful. And then he let go. Hot, heavy spurts hit the back of his throat and nearly choked him, but he managed to swallow most of what Luca had given him. He was panting when he pulled away, leaning into the hands that were now combing through his hair. In the long moments after, Wilder closed his eyes and waited for his breath to return to something like normal.

His cock was still hard, but he allowed himself time to feel this—a sort of warm pride that he had reduced Luca to nothing more than sounds of ecstasy. Then he rose, and Luca grabbed him close, murmuring something against his skin before he turned him and laid him out on the bed. Lips met his neck in biting kisses, hands roamed, fingers tweaking at his nipples, dragging down and brushing through the coarse hair below his navel.

“Kiss me,” Luca demanded, his voice clear between them, and Wilder did. He turned his head and wrapped one arm around the back of Luca’s head and held fast as he let the other man push a warm, hot tongue against his own. He groaned, and Luca swallowed the sounds before breaking away and pressing his hand against Wilder’s hip. “Can I get you off?”

“Yes,” Wilder said. “Yes, I want you to. I need you to touch me.” And it was a need. A need to erase the lingering ghosts of his past. A need to make promises for his future.

Luca curled fingers around his dick, and Wilder arched up into it. The sensation of someone else touching him—naked—for the first time in so long was almost enough to send him careening over the edge.

“You’re gorgeous,” Luca murmured in the space just below his ear. He licked, then bit down, then soothed the mark with a kiss. “You’re the most beautiful man I have ever seen.”

And Wilder had never thought himself ugly, but never found himself beautiful. And he liked knowing he could be that for someone—with his soft edges and round chin and early greys. He liked that Luca was taken with him exactly as he was, without the expectation to be more or be different. He turned his head again, and Luca kissed him, shifting between his legs and hooking them over his hips.

His hand moved in a furious rhythm, and Wilder gasped, arching up into it as his head spun and pleasure took over. And then it happened. He was coming, and it was so good. It was so good… until Luca’s half-hard, spent cock brushed between his ass cheeks and grazed his hole. It was meaningless, a little slip, but it was enough to destroy everything he’d just gained. The pleasure cascaded into fear and panic, and he felt something gripping his throat, choking him.

He was still spilling, hot onto his chest, but the pleasure had twisted around something else—something unkind and cruel, and he didn’t realize he was gasping for breath until Luca was cupping his face and telling him to breathe.

“…babe. Can you do that for me? In and out. Fuck, okay? In and out?”

It was the tremble in Luca’s voice that brought him back down, and he opened his mouth to tell him he was fine, but all that came out was a quiet sob. Luca tried to pull away, but Wilder clutched at him until his heart stopped feeling like it was going to beat right out of his chest.

“Please tell me what happened,” Luca whispered against the shell of his ear, begging. “What did I do?”

The edges of his vision were rocking like a boat, but he fixed his eyes as best he could on Luca, and he shook his head. “I didn’t know it would be that bad.”

“I don’t understand. What was that bad?” Luca asked, still looking like he wanted to bolt.

“I can’t.” Wilder couldn’t find the words in English, so he finally allowed Luca to pull away for signing space. ‘Anal.’ He spelled the word with a shake in his fingers. ‘I can’t.’

‘I wasn’t,’ Luca signed back, eyes wide with horror. ‘I promise. I would never just…’

‘I know,’ he interrupted. And he did. Of course, he knew—but somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d lost himself in his past. He hadn’t thought the reaction would be so instant, so visceral. He thought he was beyond those sudden and wretched attacks of fear, and he was angry right then that he’d been wrong. He was angry that his trauma had settled between them in this moment.

It wasn’t fair.

‘Talk to me,’ Luca asked, still naked, sitting up with his legs under him. ‘Please.’

‘I don’t know why it’s this bad,’ Wilder told him. He pushed up against the pillows. ‘I don’t know why feeling you there made me react like that. Maybe it was just too much at once.’ That’s probably what any of his therapists would have told him, anyway. But he wasn’t entirely sure, because he had shied away from physical contact for so long.

‘We don’t need to do this again,’ Luca told him, but Wilder reached out and grabbed his wrist to stop him.

He held on for as long as it took Luca to relax, then he scrubbed a hand down his face before he signed again. ‘I want this, and I want you. My ex used to…’ he began, then stopped, because he didn’t have the strength for details right then, but the look of horror in Luca’s eyes told him he didn’t need to say more than that. ‘I have trauma, and I can’t make that go away, but I need you to be brave with me as I move forward. Because I’m ready to move on. With you.’ He was not above begging right then, because he’d spent so long isolating himself, and he wanted to know that the first person he was willing to try for, was willing to fight for him.

‘I can do that.’

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