Page 80 of To Catch a Firefly

I don’t know why, but I couldn’t care less. I keep my arm around Lucky as the doors whoosh closed behind us, and I bring my firefly home.

It’s late when Lucky and I get back to our houses. The lights are off inside the Buchanans’, but a soft glow emanates from my living room, telling me my mom is still up. Lucky seems to notice the same thing because he tugs me right past my house, leaving his suitcase behind in the truck.

“Do you remember what I asked you?” he says, heading toward the silo. The moon is big and round tonight, lighting our path past the field of dried corn stalks. They’re cut low now, the harvest already having been reaped.

My mind skitters back, but I can’t figure out what he’s talking about, and I shake my head.

He hums, hand still in mine. The air is chilly, but Lucky is in a jacket, so he doesn’t seem to mind.

“I asked if you had thought about us,” he says, making my heart stutter. There’s a whoosh of blood in my ears as he adds, “I asked if you’d show me.”

I swallow as Lucky leads me the remaining steps to the silo.

“Let us in,” he says gently.

I fish the keys from my pocket, hand shaking as I unlock the door. Lucky waits while I throw it open, and then he tugs me inside, flicking on the lights. He lets me go to pull off his jacket, eyes blazing under the fireflies flickering above. He backs into the circular space, dropping his jacket to the dirt floor.

“Ellis.”

I swallow again, pulse racing, cock thickening inside my jeans as Lucky lifts his shirt. He tugs it over his head, letting it slip from his fingers as he continues his slow path backwards. His pants are the last to go. He drops them off his hips, kicking them and his shoes to the side as he reaches the wooden table in the center of the room. He looks ethereal in the warm light from above, his body cast in gentle shadows, pale skin bright.

“El,” he says again, drawing my gaze to his. “Show me.”

Blowing out a breath, I approach. He wants to know what I’ve thought of all these years? He wants to know what I’ve dreamed of on those nights I ponderedwhy him?He wants to know what it feels like inside every time I look at his face or hear his voice or see his eyes soften the moment they reach me?

It’s a small lifetime that passes in the seconds it takes me to stand before him. It feels like our history, and in a way, maybe it is. Maybe that’s what makes love—all the moments, big and small. All the memories piled up one on top of the other, just like those Northern Lights that paint across the sky at the edge of the world. Maybe, when it comes down to it, love is in the act of living. It’s choosing—breathing—that person every single day.

Me and you.

Lucky lets out a small gasp when I lift him onto the table. His legs part immediately, and I slot between his knees, threading my hands up into his hair. He tilts his head back, eyes feathering closed.

What have I thought of?

I brush my lips across his. “This,” I whisper.

He sighs.

I find his pulse-point next, lingering there, feeling his heartbeat thrum against my lips. “This.”

When I press gently on the center of Lucky’s chest, he drops to his elbows.

“This,” I say, bending low to kiss his belly button.

I tug his briefs next, enjoying the catch of Lucky’s breath as the band clears his cock. He lifts, and I drag the material off before bending down, hands on either side of Lucky’s hips as my mouth ghosts over his crown.

My eyes meet his. “This.”

Lucky’s stomach contracts as I suck him into my mouth, working the underside of his cockhead with my tongue before letting him pop free. He curses when I hitch up his knees, and his back hits the table.

“This,” I whisper, laying kisses across his ass cheek until I reach the center of him. The noise that comes out of his mouth when I flit my tongue across his hole has me repeating the movement. It’s the same way Lucky teases me sometimes whenwe’re kissing. The tiniest flick of his tongue, as if he wants me to chase him. This time, it’s Lucky chasing me, his hips shifting as I tease him with the tip of my tongue.

“Ellis,” he groans, grabbing under his knees. I shift my hands down his thighs, anchoring at his hips, holding tight.

The moan he lets out when I drag the flat of my tongue across him has my cock bucking. I’m so hard it hurts, like a physical manifestation of all I feel for this man. I’m not sure it would have been the same if we had fumbled our way through this interaction when we were younger. I wouldn’t have known what to do at seventeen, at nineteen even, or twenty. I wouldn’t have had time to understand myself, to know what I like, to have an idea of whatLuckymight like. Maybe there’s a reason it’s now.

When I press my tongue inside Lucky’s body, he keens.

“El.” The word is a gasp. “Do you want to fuck me?”

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