by Vivica Dorn
“Say what,” Michel gasped, still wracked with sensitivity after coming so hard. Sam didn’t let up, pounding into that spent body.
“You know what. Say it,” he ground out, teeth clenched so hard he thought they’d crack.
Breathless and soft, Michel whispered, “I love you.”
And with those three simple words Sam absolutely exploded into the TA, filling him so much that he was sure it would be dripping out of Michel for days to come. And he couldn’t help but admit that the image was immensely satisfying.
Sam collapsed onto the slender boy and they both lay without speaking, the only sound their quick and laboured breaths. After a few moments, Sam rolled off of Michel, lying on his side and pulling the TA into a little spoon position. His mouth pressed between the sharp wings of Michel’s shoulder blades, he suddenly asked, “hey, so what grade did I get on the exam?”
Michel scoffed.
“It’s not fair for me to tell you that before I’ve graded all the other exams. You’ll find out when everyone else does, when I post them online.”
Sam nipped at the smooth skin of Michel’s back, eliciting a delicious wriggle in response.
“Hmm, that’s not what you told me before,” he chided with mock seriousness.
Michel gave a soft laugh. Sam’s body sang with the sound.
“What’s the expression in English? A small pale lie?”
“A little white lie,” Sam corrected gently, nuzzling closer.
“Yeah,” Michel responded with a perfectly contented sigh.
Sam smiled against Michel’s back, happiness spreading in his chest like honey. He didn’t care about anything Michel had said before, any lies he may have told, any truths he may have concealed, any feelings he had tried to hide. Sam had touched something deep and pure inside Michel today, caught a glimpse of his raw reality, had heard the words he had ached to for weeks. Michel loved him. And there was no going back now.
EPILOGUE
Michel rapped the top of Sam’s head sharply with a pen.
“Non, c’est la subjonctif,” he corrected, looking down at Sam’s work. He had conjugated a verb incorrectly in the present tense instead of the subjunctive.
“Right, right, I forgot about that,” he murmured, his gaze serious as he fervently erased his mistake.
“En français s’il te plait, in French.”
He smiled, somewhat sadistically, as he watched Sam’s brows draw together in pained concentration. Michel knew that French 102, the winter counterpart to the course Sam had taken last semester, was a bit of a jump in difficulty, and Sam would need to work hard to keep up. Speaking French as much as possible would be paramount to his success in the course. Besides, Michel thought Sam’s accent, though rather terrible, was insanely cute.
“Je oub- no, j’ai oublié,” he said, nodding along in concentration as he uttered each word slowly and stiffly. Michel giggled and quickly leaned down to brush those studious American lips with his own. Seeing Sam making such a wholesome effort to learn his native tongue sent tenderness spreading through him. After the kiss Sam sat up straighter, looking refreshed and alert.
“I can say anything in French if I get kisses as a reward,” he said with a sly grin, staring at Michel’s mouth.
“Oh yeah? Try saying what you just said, the entire sentence in French.” He paused, eyebrows raised expectantly. Sam groaned.
“Ok, no way, that one’s way too hard.”
“If you can manage it,” Michel said devilishly, “I’ll get down on my knees and suck you off.”
Sam snapped to attention, yanking his dictionary from the shelf, paging madly through the giant tome.
“Je peut... je peut dire...”
Michel chuckled, looking down at the at the serious boy, affection surging in waves under his skin. How this American had so totally captured his heart he still could not quite explain. All he knew was that he had been saved, in so, so many ways, by this grinning, golden boy.
And he wouldn’t trade it for the world. He’d drown a thousand times, submit his body forever to the sea, before he ever gave this up.
END
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this book, please read on for a snippet from the next book in the series, “The Shark,” which tells the story of Lance and Finn. "The Shark" was originally published as a short story and is currently being re-worked into a full-length novel.
A scene from THE SHARK, coming August 2019
In the locker room Finn rinsed the chlorine from his body slowly, revelling in the warmth of the water after the cold pool. His dark glossy curls fell over his forehead and into his eyes. He brushed them away, rubbing at his face. Damn, he was tired. Today’s practise had been brutal. He had swum well, he knew he had, but the coach was beginning to get nervous about the meet and he always took those nerves out on the team. Plus, he knew Lance had been watching him more closely than usual, and that made Finn swim with unusual vigour. He didn’t know why he lately had such an intense urge to impress the older boy, the guy he disliked so deeply, but he couldn’t deny that whenever he felt Lance’s eyes on his body he tried to show off. Yeah, right, Finn thought, as if someone with perfect form would be impressed with your thrashing. Sighing, he turned off the shower, towelled off and dressed. He had taken a longer shower than he had meant to, and almost everyone had disappeared. Sam clapped him on the shoulder as he left, calling, “see you tomorrow! Get some rest, eat some carbs!” on his way out through the door. The last one left in the locker room now, Finn got his things together, ready to leave. Suddenly he remembered that he needed to shave before the meet tomorrow. He paused, wondering if it was worth doing now, or if he should get up even earlier tomorrow to do it. Groaning, he decided to get it over with now. He dropped his bag back into his locker and began to undress again, grabbing his razor and shaving cream and heading back into the open shower area. He noticed someone had left their goggles on a shelf ahead of him on the wall.
Turning the water back on, he stepped into the stream, sudsing his underarms with the shaving cream and shaving them quickly but thoroughly. Next he did his chest – he really didn’t have much in the way of hair on his chest, more like soft down, but his male ego ignored that little fact. As he bent to begin on his legs, he heard the door to the locker room open and someone walking in. He froze for a moment, embarrassed, then shook it off. There was nothing to worry about, all the swimmers had to shave for the meets. Nevertheless, he straightened and stood still, razor in hand, waiting for the other person to leave. He felt a presence right behind him, and a long, muscled arm reached around him to grab the goggles on the shelf just ahead of him. He recognized that arm – Lance.
Finn turned to face him.
“I was wondering whose those were,” he said, trying to break the awkward silence that was settling around them.
Lance studied his face inscrutably, grey eyes almost black, jaw set. Once again Finn noticed something strange, something he couldn’t quite name, in the older boy’s expression. He noticed Lance’s gaze move from his eyes to his mouth and he shivered despite the heat of the shower. He was suddenly hyper-aware of his nakedness, and of the extremely close proximity of the taller boy. Why the fuck are you so close to me? You have your goggles, now get the hell out of here! Finn thought. Lance didn’t budge. Finn could feel his breathing changing, getting more shallow, his heart beating faster, and all the while Lance kept staring at his face with that strange, dark expression.
Lance spoke then, the first words he had ever really said to Finn. “Why’d you stop?”
“Huh?”
Lance nodded at the razor in Finn’s hand.
Finn rolled his eyes.
“Why, you wanna analyze my technique on that, too?” he spat, eyes narrowing.
Lance didn’t react.
“Maybe.”
Finn scowled incredulously.
“What?” He snapped, regarding the older boy suspiciously.
“Let’s see your techniqu
e.”
Was this a joke? What the hell was Lance playing at? Finn stood frozen, unsure of what to do. Then, a surge of irritation hardened him and he said, “fine! Whatever, man.”
Refusing to turn his back on Lance, he bent forward in front of him and re-sudsed his legs, shaving up his right shin and calf with long strokes, rinsing his razor between them. His face burned. He glanced up Lance as he moved up to his thigh. Lance really was watching him studiously – the guy really was scrutinizing his technique! Unbelievable. Finn saw that the front of Lance’s T-shirt and jeans were getting soaked by the shower, but Lance didn’t seem to notice or care. Finn began to shave the front of his thigh, stroking the razor all the way up to his hips. He realized his hand was shaking slightly, and when he reached his hip bone he nicked himself, crimson blood bubbling out of the cut before being rinsed down his leg by the shower.
“Fuck,” he said, and before he could react further Lance stepped forward, pressing his thumb, hard, brutally hard, into the small cut.
“Yo, what the hell?!” Finn said, jerking under the strength of Lance’s touch. He looked up at Lance’s face and breathed in sharply.
Lance looked almost crazed. His jaw worked, his chest heaved, his eyes darker than Finn had ever seen anyone’s, staring down at his hand at Finn’s pelvis. Finn stuttered, softly, “what-what are you doing, Lance?”
Lance met Finn’s eyes briefly, looking angry, looking at Finn like he had done something wrong, looking at him as if he were prey. Once again Finn was reminded of a shark, and he had made the fatal mistake of spilling blood in the water. Finn shook his head, his lips slightly parted, beyond confused and unsure what he should do. Without warning, Lance dropped to one knee in front of Finn, his large hands grasping the sides of the younger boy’s hips fiercely, and he tongued the cut, sucking at Finn’s stinging skin.
Finn cried out with meaning too. For perhaps the first time in Finn Anderson’s life, he found himself completely speechless. He looked down at the copper-haired athlete kneeling before him, watching as water began to soak that hair and turn it to a colour darker than the blood that until a moment ago had been flowing down his leg. Finn couldn’t process what was happening, had no words to describe what he was feeling. He was absolutely humiliated, stunned, confused, a little bit afraid, and, he realized with growing horror, more than a little bit aroused. Mortified, he watched as his cock began to thicken next to Lance’s cheekbone. What the hell was happening to him?