by Aiden Bates
Luke makes the sound again and Jason breaks away to kiss Luke briefly in entreaty, his eyes laughing, although his mouth was serious. “Shh. You’ve got to be quiet, my love.”
Luke kissed him back in desperation, whimpering against Jason’s mouth. He had certain that his fingers have left bruises on Jason’s arms where he had clutching them; he loosens his grip as soon as he becomes aware.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice trembling as hard as his body. “I’ll try, but… what you did, that was…”
Jason’s eyes were very close to his pupil’s liquid black. They were filled with humor, but also, hunger that Luke could feel down to the very center of his bones. It makes him shiver and press himself forward into Jason.
“Kiss me there again, Jason. I promise I’ll be quiet.”
Jason’s answer was a low groan, his hands falling to Luke’s hips.
“Well, if it was alright with you, before I do that, I think I’ll carry on with our original plan and rid you of the rest of your clothing.”
Luke’s breathing picks up at the feeling of Jason’s fingers at his waist, settling on the fastenings of his breeches.
Jason’s fingers hesitate. He lowered his mouth to Luke’s ear, his voice more heat than sound. “But only if that was alright with you.”
Luke nods soundlessly, pressing his face in against Jason’s shoulder. He felt a burst of nervous self-consciousness but he knew, he knows that he wanted this more than anything else in the world.
Jason’s fingers were gentle but steady as he pulled the fastenings free and then moves to tug the material down.
“Lie back,” he breathed in Luke’s ear, one hand guiding Luke down against the pillows, the other warm on Luke’s hip, until Luke was lying, stretched out beneath him.
Jason was leaning over him, both hands now back at Luke’s waist.
“Lift your hips,” he murmurs, and Luke does, all his breath leaving him as he felt Jason’s hands pulling the material down his hips and to his knees.
Luke’s heart was pounding, and he was shaking harder than ever as he felt cool air on the skin between his legs. He felt Jason’s fingers brush the bare skin on the inside of his thigh as Jason reaches to tug the material free of his legs and he jerks, once, violently, as though he had been struck.
Jason freezes mid-tug and lifts his hands from Luke’s legs.
He leaned down to press his mouth to Luke’s cheek, warm and soothing, both hands coming up to cup Luke’s face. “I’m sorry, if I startled you. Shall I stop?”
Luke tried to answer but found he cannot speak, so overwhelmed was he by the feeling of lying underneath Jason, with his breeches halfway down his knees, almost completely nude except for the linen shirt that fell just past his hips. He felt bare, exposed, and the feeling was as terrifying as it was exhilarating, with Jason Watson leaning over him, his kind eyes creased with worry, strong hands so gentle on Luke’s face.
Luke lifts his own hands to cup the backs of Jason’s, as though in disbelief that Jason was really here with him, holding him so gently, as though he needed the touch of Jason’s hands beneath his own to convince him that what’s happening was actually taking place.
Luke shook his head. “Don’t stop. Please.”
Jason must hear the evidence of his longing in his voice, must see it in his face, because his mouth was descending to kiss Luke, long and deep, and perhaps it was only Luke’s imagination but he felt as though he could taste an extra note of urgency in the movement of Jason’s mouth. Luke rises up into the kiss, lifting his chest to press it forward into Jason’s, inviting him closer with the thrust of his body.
With his mouth still on Luke’s, Jason reaches down between them and pulled Luke’s breeches the rest of the way down his legs. He breaks the kiss to shimmy partway down the bed and free first one foot, then the other from the soft material, before dropping it to the floor and out of sight.
Jason stays where he was, crouched by Luke’s knees, and Luke lifts himself up on his elbows to look down at Jason, where he was leaning forward to settle his palms on Luke’s shins.
Such a banal place for Jason to touch, but once again, Luke’s body leaps in response to the placement of Jason’s hands as though he had been struck. Jason does not take his hands away but his eyes flash up to Luke’s face, silver-quick with worry, and a question evident in the lines of his face.
Luke shook his head again, licks his lips. “Don’t stop,” he gasps, voice shaking more violently than ever as Jason’s hands slid around to caress his calves and up to the backs of his knees.
It shouldn’t feel this good to have Jason’s hands touching his legs in such an innocent place but somehow, Luke knew in this moment, there was no place on his body that Jason could touch that would not be charged with feeling, that would not feel as though his skin were set aflame from the dragging heat of Jason’s callused palms.
Jason’s hands circle back around, cupping Luke’s knees, his thumbs stroking the curves where Luke’s knees become his thighs, and Luke could feel the heat rising in his cheeks, in his chest and throat, staining the pale skin over his collarbones a mottled red.
It was not only the touch of Jason’s hands that was making him feel as though he would come apart at the seams, it was also the sight of Jason, his thin lips flushed and swollen from kissing Luke, his long eyelashes dark gold in the candlelight, heavy with lust as he gazes at Luke’s legs; and the sight of himself, clad only in his linen shirt, the jut of his erection all too evident through the thin material, so apparent above his bare thighs, was utterly obscene.
Jason’s hands slid up his thighs, up, up, up to hold him by the hips, and Luke’s breathing was so shallow that for a moment he was frightened he would not be able to draw enough air into his lungs. Luke had to shut his eyes; the flood of information was too much, he cannot possibly withstand both the sight and the feel of Jason’s hands, where they have now slid below the hem of his shirt. Just the feel of them, warm and heavy on his hips was almost more than he could take.
Jason took hold of the edge of Luke’s shirt, rubbing the thin material between his fingers as he bends over Luke, his voice dark and deep—the sound of the shadows at the bottom of the ocean—the feel of it, a wave of warmth over Luke’s bared throat. “May I take this off?”
Luke nods, eyes still shut, trembling so hard he felt he would shake apart, and then Jason’s mouth was pressing a kiss into the skin of his throat, whispering, “Could you sit up for me?”
Luke opened his eyes to do as Jason asked, raising himself off the pillows to give Jason the room he needed to free him from the garment.
Jason lifts the material in his hands, pulling it off, slowly, over Luke’s head, and Luke looked down at himself, sees his pale thighs, the dark patch of hair between his legs and then the rosy head of his erection coming free, and embarrassed, overwhelmed, he covers his face with his hands.
He stays like that, his back bowed slightly, his own face hot under his palms, feeling so naked, so horribly exposed, and it was terrifying, it was awful—the thought of his scrawny torso, his long pale legs, his very obvious arousal all made plain to Jason’s eyes—it was enough to make him want to curl up into a ball and hide, drag a blanket over his head and send Jason from his side. What Jason must think of his body, so different than Jason’s sun-warmed, capable one—so white and frail and useless, nothing more than skin and bone.
Luke felt the mattress shift as Jason leaned forward, and he flinches, hunching into himself, pushing his face deeper into his hands.
Gently, so gently, Jason took one of Luke’s hands between his own and lifts it away from his face.
“Oh, my love. My love, look at you…. Look at you.”
Jason’s voice was soft and so filled with reverence that at first Luke thinks he must be imagining it, but then he felt the warm murmur of Jason’s breath against the palm of his hand and then Jason’s mouth was pressing a kiss to the center of his palm and there was no imagining the reve
rence in the touch of Jason’s mouth, the way his lips part hot and sweet against the center of Luke’s hand and linger there.
Luke sucks a breath in and felt something begin to uncoil deep within him.
“Do you know…?” Jason went on, his voice hitching slightly, as though he was too overwhelmed to draw breath. “Do you know how beautiful you are? You must know. You must.”
Jason was pulling the other hand from Luke’s eyes and kissing the knuckles, pressing his lips to the curve on the inside of Luke’s fingers, to the heel of his palm, the inside of his wrist.
“You rare, rare beautiful thing.”
Jason lowered his mouth to kiss the slope of Luke’s shoulder, the hot humming presence of his lips like a match being dragged over Luke’s skin, gathering flame as it went until there was a burning trail in its wake. One of Jason’s hands settles in his hair and Luke tips his head back slightly, his body uncurling from its hunch of displeasure.
Luke could feel himself opening under the touch of Jason’s mouth, softening and loosening—the tension chased out of his body by the warm slid of Jason’s lips.
“You’re like a sculpture, carved from ivory.” Jason’s voice was as warm and soft as the touch of his mouth, as his lips trace the vein in Luke’s throat. “You’re like a siren, a mermaid, some sea-wracked god who stumbled out of the deep.” Jason’s fingers curl in Luke’s hair, pulling lightly, and Luke gasps with pleasure. “Your mouth was a rose, your eyes the sea. Oh, Luke, Luke, you beautiful, impossible creature.”
Jason was a poet, Luke thinks, blushing at his words, color rising to heat his pale cheeks, the skin of his throat. He knew the words were fanciful, the claims utterly false, but he cannot discount the feeling in Jason’s voice, the tone of conviction that tells Luke he believes every word. He cannot stay shut inside himself in the presence of such adoration. Luke could feel the ice of his own self-loathing melting under the heat of Jason’s worshipful tone.
He opened his eyes and the sight of Jason kneeling before him, his golden head bowed over Luke’s chest makes him give a little cry and lean back against the pillows.
“Yes, yes, yes…” Jason chants, his breath still hot on Luke’s neck, as Luke lowered himself down, Jason’s body following Luke’s until he was crouched over Luke, his hands on either side of Luke’s naked chest, one clothed knee pressing in against Luke’s bare leg. “God, look at you.”
The reverence in Jason’s voice was unmistakable. His hands were gliding down Luke’s shoulders, over the curve of his hip, and Luke gasps at his touch, suddenly acutely aware of the way Jason was looking at him, how awed, how hungry was his look.
The touch of Jason’s hands, the tone of his voice were enough to make Luke forget his self-consciousness, but now, at the look in Jason’s eyes, Luke felt his arousal returning, beginning at the very center of himself and skipping out along his limbs and down to the tips of his fingers in little star-bursts of crackling heat.
Jason skims his knuckles over Luke’s bare hip and Luke arches his back, lifting his body up to the hungry touch of Jason’s eyes, feeling something come over him he had never experienced before. He licks at his bottom lip, felt how plump it was beneath his tongue, how sensitive, and then bites down on it, lightly, looking up at Jason from under lashes grown heavy with desire. The sound Jason makes in response—urgent, filled with longing—makes Luke reach up and fist his hands in the material of Jason’s shirt, pulling Jason down against him.
Jason let himself be pulled, his clothed body covering the length of Luke’s, making Luke gasp at the rough feel of Jason’s trouser-covered thighs pressing in against his own, the heavy weight of Jason against his aching erection almost more than he could take.
Jason’s hand was still between them, trailing so lightly over Luke’s hip, and Luke pressed up into it, seeking movement, seeking friction. He was desperate for Jason’s hand to creep several inches further and take him in hand but he does not know how to ask for it; it felt too intimate, too obscene, so Luke parts his thighs instead, urging Jason’s body to settle closer against him.
Jason’s mouth was in his hair, close by his ear, and he felt Jason’s breathing change against him at the movement, and then, in one miraculous, infinitesimal shift, Jason’s hips have settled against Luke’s and Luke felt the long, hard length of Jason pressing into him.
Luke’s mouth fell open, and as though of its own accord, his body thrusts up into Jason’s, his hips pushing Jason’s erection into his, and the hot rough drag of it—the knowledge that this was Jason—Jason—blood hot and hard because of him, his body pushing into Luke’s at this most intimate place, was so filthy-sweet that Luke cannot make a sound at all; his voice was stolen from him.
Jason’s fingers tighten on his hip, lips dragging over Luke’s ear, and Luke thrusts again, grinding up into the heavy weight of Jason, pleasure sparking down his limbs in response to the friction, and this time, Jason moaned against him, the sound low, unsteady, filled with heat.
It was glorious, but still it was not enough, because there was clothing between them creating a barrier between Jason’s skin and Luke’s, and this was intolerable.
Luke pulled on the fisted material of Jason’s shirt, trying to push it off. “I want you too…without clothes on.” His voice was shaking with need. “Take this off.”
“Yes.” Jason kissed him briefly before sitting back. “Yes, of course.”
Luke was almost sorry for the loss of Jason against him, the absence of his warm weight between Luke’s legs, but then he forgets his sorrow as he was treated to the sight of Jason kneeling in the trembling light of the candles and reaching up to pull his shirt off over his head.
Luke had seen Jason without his shirt before—more times than he could count, and to be sure, he had savored every instance—but this time was different. This time it was Jason baring himself for Luke’s eyes alone, and this realization, coupled with the sight of Jason’s muscular shoulders, the swell of his biceps as he drops his shirt beside the bed, the ripple of his abdominal muscles as he twists back around, was enough to make Luke moan, long and low, and bite down on his lip.
The look in Jason’s eyes at the sound Luke makes was sinful—how someone’s look could be so sexual was something Luke cannot understand. Perhaps it had something to do with the heaviness of Jason’s eyelids and the depth of darkness beneath those heavy lids, in each pupil a single drop of gold suspended from the reflected candle flame above the bed. But it was more than that. It was also the way his fingers settle on the fastenings to his trousers, pulling them apart with slow deliberation, so slowly that Luke sits up on his elbows to get a better look, licking his lips, his thighs spreading apart against the mattress as Jason pushes the material down his hips.
Oh, Jason’s hips—Luke had seen them before, show Jason most prominently earlier today—was it really today? How could it be?—when Jason climbed up out of the ocean, dripping wet, the translucent material of his trousers clinging to the grooves of his slender hips—but now here they were with no fabric to hide them, just the luscious sight of golden skin curving over bone, two grooved shadows pointing toward what Luke cannot believe he was about to see. His mouth was actually watering, although he does not understand why.
Jason sits up higher on his knees to push the material down his thighs and then, oh then, at last, at last, Luke could see all of Jason, and there was oh so much of Jason to see.
Jason shifts around to pull the garment off his ankles, tossing it into the darkness at the end of the bed before returning to his knees.
Luke was overcome by the sight of Jason earlier, when the damp material of his trousers seemed to show Jason every nuance, every curve of flesh, but now, not only was there no fabric to obscure a single detail, but Jason was swollen with arousal, the hard length of him curving up against his abdomen, and Luke moaned again, louder, filled with desperation at the sight of Jason’s desire, so prominent, laid bare to Luke’s eyes, and without any prior thought, he was sittin
g up and reaching out to settle his hands on Jason’s slender muscular hips.
Jason went absolutely still, and Luke pauses too, eyes flickering up to Jason in question.
“Was it… was it alright if I touch you?”
Jason’s brows come together momentarily as though he was in pain, and for the briefest of moments, Luke was concerned, but then Jason’s answer was sighing out from between his lips, and Luke realizes that the look on Jason’s face was one not of pain, but pleasure. “Oh my god, yes.”
Emboldened, Luke slides his hands up Jason’s hips, up over his lean muscular sides, fingers rippling over Jason’s ribs, feeling every muscle, every bone, and he marvels not only at the sight of his pale fingers against Jason’s darker skin, but also at the feel of Jason’s warm, living body shifting and breathing underneath his palms.
Tentatively, his slides his hands over the hard muscles in Jason’s chest and over the flushed circles of his nipples, which stiffen under Luke’s touch, hardening into peaks.
Luke gasps at the instantaneous effect his touch had on Jason and looked up at Jason’s face to see that same look of almost pain, his breath coming in shallow gasps from between his parted lips, his eyes half-shut.
His hands keep sliding, up over Jason’s collarbones and to his shoulders—oh, his shoulders. Luke shifts slightly closer in delight at the feel of that smooth, warm, golden skin beneath his palms. How Jason could possibly feel better than he looked was a mystery to Luke.
“You feel so good,” Luke breathed; his voice full of wonder, and Jason laughs in response, but he couldn’t quite complete the sound. It comes out breathless, broken, a single gasp of sound.
Luke let his fingers continue down Jason’s upper arms, his thumbs trailing over the swells of Jason’s biceps, and by the time Luke’s hands reach Jason’s wrists, his own breathing was as shallow as Jason’s, breath coming out in short, desperate pants.
“Jason,” Luke whispers, his voice trembling as hard as his hands, not even knowing what he had asking for anymore, overcome by how much of Jason he had already been given, how much more he wanted.