From the Inside Out

by Talya Andor

  Soren snorted again, even louder. He looked around, covering his mouth when he realized people were looking at them. He lowered his voice. "Sounds humiliating," he said, grinning. "Somehow I can't bring myself to mind. Wonder if there's any publishing companies in Bend, since Portland doesn't seem to have enough to offer him gainful employment."

  They shared a laugh and Soren passed Sloane's phone back over to her.

  "It's only fitting," Sloane said. "He always did act like a big baby. Pouting when someone else got promoted first, and all that."

  Soren nodded. "That's for sure." He shifted around some notebooks, and got out a pen to fiddle with as he watched Sloane get ready to work on one of her assignments. He tapped his pen against a notebook. "So, question for you."

  "Hmm? Shoot," Sloane said, looking up and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

  "I'm moving out of my parents' house. It's time, and I just…I can't stay there anymore."

  "Soren!" Sloane exclaimed, slapping the table. She broke into another grin and drummed the table briefly with both hands while he tried frantically to shush her. "That's great, I'm so proud of you."

  Soren tried to hide his face in his hands. He was fairly sure he was getting red. "That's completely unnecessary, and thanks? I guess."

  "Are you moving in with Lucas?"

  "What?" Soren sat up straighter. "I…was thinking…well, why does everyone keep asking me that?"

  "Oh, honey," Sloane said, wrinkling her nose at him. "Probably not a good idea so soon in the relationship, and that's all I'm going to say on that."

  "I know that." Soren set aside his pen and folded his hands. "I was thinking about looking for my own place, actually. That's why I called you last night. I figured you might know someplace I could find a mid-year lease?"

  Sloane's eyes widened. "Well, my roommate is graduating, thank god. I can't stand her."

  "In December?"

  "Yeah," Sloane replied with a shrug. "She only had a few more credits left, so she's out of here. She signed a mid-year lease, so I'm going to have a vacancy."

  "Okay, wow," Soren said. He picked his pen up to fiddle with it again. He wanted to move out, and he thought it was too soon to move in with Lucas. He didn't want to rely on someone to prop him up; it was about time he became independent, like Sloane and Lucas were. "Let me think about it, okay?"

  Sloane nodded. "No problem," she said, and grabbed a pen of her own. "Let's get some studying done, yeah?"

  "Yeah," Soren said, hiding a grin as he gazed down at his pile of work. "I have a lot to do."

  It felt like he was finally poised to accomplish all of it.

  *~*~*

  "Hey, gorgeous," Lucas called out the window as he pulled up to the curb.

  Soren flashed him a smile as he slid into the car. He tucked short, dark hair behind an ear, and rolled his eyes as the layered strand slid out from behind it once more. "I don't feel gorgeous when my hair is this fussy."

  "No way, it looks great. Ready for a hot date?"

  Soren leaned over to give him a kiss before settling into his own seat and buckling in. "You know it. What's the plan?"

  "I made reservations for me and the parents at the Heathman, but they canceled on me," Lucas said. He shifted the car into drive and gave Soren a quick, sidelong grin.

  "Oh, no. Whatever shall we do?"

  Lucas tightened his hands on the car wheel and focused on the road ahead of him. "I was planning on the two of us picking up those reservations," he said. "My dad dropped by to check out my, er, 'college digs' and gave me his card for the night. He told me not to go over a certain amount, but hey, Dad's picking up the check."

  "That's really generous of him."

  "Don't be fooled," Lucas said, but a smile tugged at his mouth. He was grateful it gave him the chance to spoil Soren for a night, at least. He certainly couldn't spring for that kind of dinner on his own. "He can be a great guy, yeah, especially in social situations. I mean, he has his moments, but I always pay for it later, you know?"

  "I can imagine. So, what's the plan for tonight?" Soren asked.

  Lucas put aside his sour thoughts and summoned up a smile. "Dinner with you, for one."

  "I gathered. And after?"

  Lucas risked a sidelong glance as he pulled up to a stop sign. "Why, Soren, was there something you wanted from me?"

  Soren reached over and cuffed his arm lightly. "You know what I want. You, me, a bed?"

  "Take all the romance out of it, why don't you."

  "What, did you have rose petals and candles in mind? Because that would be weird."

  "You've never expressed a desire for rose petals or making out by candlelight, so no, it hadn't crossed my mind. I think we might have the apartment to ourselves, though. It's date night for Lisa and Bran too, and it's club night for Alec."

  "Perfect," Soren said, clapping his hands together lightly and rubbing them together. "I want a night of Lucas, all to myself."

  Lucas gave him a brief grin at a red light. "Good enough plan, then?"

  "Yep, it's Soren-approved."

  The Heathman was an upscale hotel in the downtown Portland area, not far from other familiar landmarks. It was famous not only for the accommodations, which were excellent, but the restaurant as well, which had received many accolades. Lucas felt a bit like a kid playing dress-up, showing up for reservations he'd made for his father and step-mother. But he was glad to be able to eat at such a fine dining place without the awkwardness of more stilted conversation with his parents.

  "Aaron leaving for Bend is priceless, though," Lucas said, after they were seated, smoothing his napkin across his thighs. He set aside the wine menu, knowing better than to try to order from it.

  "His parents came to get him. Like he'd gotten suspended or been naughty. I think that was my favorite part."

  "He deserved it."

  Soren reached across the table and took his hand. "I don't want to talk about him anymore, okay?"

  Lucas dipped his head. "Of course not. We should be focusing on our future, don't you think?"

  Soren gave him a shy, somewhat coy look. In that moment, Lucas could recognize the boy he'd met at the coffee shop, so long ago, but it was eclipsed by the man Soren was becoming. "I suppose."

  "I have a lot more hope about where I'm going," Lucas said. He smiled and stroked his thumb across Soren's knuckles. "And thanks to you, I've got the courage to make sure I get there."

  "Funny, I feel pretty much the same way about you," Soren replied softly, threading their fingers together. "I know I'm still seeking my own path, but you've given me the courage to finally grow up."

  Twenty-Two

  The block of apartments was silent and dark when Soren and Lucas returned from dinner. It was Saturday night in a college area, and most residents were out partying or hanging out downtown. Soren leaned against Lucas as he opened the front door to his apartment.

  "Completely empty," Lucas said, gesturing around the dark front area of the apartment. "We've got the place to ourselves."

  Soren smiled as he caressed Lucas's arm and took his hand. "I have you all to myself, at last."

  Lucas turned his head and their eyes met. There was a soft, questioning look on Lucas's face.

  "Let's go," Soren murmured, tugging on his hand.

  They moved to the bedroom and stripped one another down, taking it slow, every article removed with a kiss or caress or smile. At last, when they were bare they climbed onto the bed and shared kisses with increasing passion.

  Lucas knelt before him, dressed in nothing but his Cheshire smile, and dipped his head to drink from between Soren's thighs. Soren was transformed, like his body was an instrument vibrating a single note, anchored by only the mouth moving on him. Lucas was his point of reference amidst pleasure, when one thought ran into the next and he could barely distinguish where he ended and Lucas's hands took up the rest.

  He was naked, shameless, powerful.

  Orgasm crested inside of him,
receded, and Soren contracted on himself, awareness returning. His breath was ragged, and he raked hair from his eyes as Lucas released him, hovering over him with a hand on each thigh.

  "I can't believe you do that," Soren whispered.

  "You do that too." Lucas wiped his mouth. "You taste like honey."

  "Liar."

  Lucas crawled over his belly and chest to kiss him, sharing that sex-associated flavor, one hand stroking heavily down his side. "Well?"

  "Well?"

  "This is as far as we've gone before," Lucas said and brailled a thumb over his ribs, making him squirm.

  Soren kissed him feverishly. "Do it, don't ask me, just do it and I'll say stop if it's too much."

  Lucas sat back on his heels and took him in hand, weighing Soren's cock in his palm, beginning to stroke it. "How do you want to do this?"

  "You're asking me?" Soren gasped, testing his hips against Lucas's grip.

  Lucas grinned at him, an unexpectedly shy expression as he peered up the length of Soren's body from beneath a fringe of pale hair. "Yeah, well, you've read stuff, haven't you? Imagined stuff…" He drew a long gasp from Soren as he changed the pace and angle of his continuous stroking. "You want me to go right in, or try and prepare you first?"

  "I should hope—" Soren paused, absorbed with pushing up into Lucas's demanding hand. "I'd hoped you would prepare me first. And, well, I know this might not be that great of a first time. Just because, well, that's how it goes." He knew that much.

  "Excuse you, I think I know what I'm doing," Lucas said, propping himself over Soren with an indignant expression. "I'm qualified to give you a good first time."

  "Yeah, I don't want to think about that part," Soren said, making a face. "It's just you and me, here. And I trust you. And you'd better spend a long time on prep."

  "All right." Lucas released him, bent, kissed him between spread thighs. "For some people, it's scary enough even thinking about that, so trying it all at once is easier."

  Soren closed his eyes and enjoyed the lazy feeling of being handled, manipulated, as Lucas coaxed him into the position he wanted. "I trust you," he murmured, prodding that thought around the edges, finding it to be true.

  "Good. I don't want to hurt you but it might, a little."

  That was what Soren was expecting, and afraid of. "Come on," he urged, because what Lucas had begun was already maddening enough. If Lucas was worried about his own ability hang on, well, Soren didn't exactly have stamina.

  Lucas touched him, fingered him, then slid lower, along a sensitive ridge of flesh that made Soren's mouth drop open. He sank boneless against the pillows. "You can…keep doing that."

  At the edge of his vision, Soren saw Lucas reach for the drawer of the nightstand. He opened it and returned with a tube and a wrapped condom.

  The pop of the cap broke the silence that enfolded them, raising Soren's nervousness again. "Ohh, that's cold."

  Lucas grimaced. "Sorry." He grasped Soren's leg, pulling him open, and bestowed a kiss that made Soren's cock jump.

  For a moment the location of fingers hadn't registered and then the cold dissolved into an odd sensation. "You…oh."

  "Okay?" Lucas's face appeared over the horizon of Soren's belly, peering at him anxiously.

  "Keep going." Lucas's fingers prodded him open and slipped inside, slick foreign objects sounding out unexpected depths of pleasure. This was a lazy feeling, less anxious than Lucas's mouth on his cock, but it pulled him along in a kind of low tide. "Oh…oh, that's good…"

  "I think you get a lot more enjoyment out of this than I do," Lucas told him, sounding amazed. He pressed his fingers deeper, stroking inside, provoking another wordless noise of pleasure. "I think I'm jealous."

  "Don't be jealous," Soren managed, trying to rock or otherwise shift himself into the sensation Lucas was engendering, close, not quite enough, leaving his cock neglected in prelude to penetration. "Do it, will you?"

  "Impatient."

  "Incredibly horny." This too, was like what he'd expected and inescapably different. He stared at the wash of white ceiling above him and felt Lucas's hands on his knees and felt disconnected for a moment from the enormity of the moment.

  "Give me another minute," Lucas managed, sounding as if he were gritting his teeth. "God…you're still hard, I don't think I've even touched your prostate yet."

  "Do that with something else, then." Soren thought he might bite something, a pillow, Lucas, if this sensuous frustration continued much longer. "Ahh…" There was more pressure inside him and he didn't exactly dare to look down but he knew Lucas was widening him with the addition of another finger and it hurt but oh God, not like he'd thought it would. It was painful and good and made him sore and he wanted more. He wanted to know what came next, what made people want to do this to begin with.

  "All right." Lucas's voice was a breathy rasp. The wrapper crinkled again, and Lucas appeared in his field of vision now, ripping a condom packet open. He was reaching down, and Soren's eyes traveled involuntarily.

  "Ohh." Soren swallowed. Lucas was poised and firm and right there and the sight made his belly twitch with expectation.

  "Okay?" Lucas whispered, stretching to kiss him.

  Soren ran his hands over Lucas's shoulders, hooking his fingers loosely over his nape. "Okay."

  Lucas hovered for a moment, his hand pulling Soren back to hardness, then his arms were under Soren's knees and Soren found himself gripping handfuls of bedsheets as his legs were canted up. He waited, not tense but still with anticipation.

  There was a brief touch, then Lucas began to push.

  With a groan, Soren accepted Lucas into his body. Pain and awkwardness overrode everything for a long moment, the burn of entry and the bumping of bodies striving for a connection not so easily attained. A pinpoint star of pain opened him up and Soren screwed his eyes shut and panted as Lucas rocked into him. After a moment he realized everything had gone motionless and opened his eyes to Lucas's hovering face, lines of strain creasing the regular beauty of his features. Soren's fingers were digging into Lucas's bare shoulders, now.

  "Move," Soren whispered. Lucas tensed. "Move!" The groan stretched his whole body as Lucas did, and it hurt again, but it was bound up with something quickening inside him. As the thrusts continued, Soren began to join tentatively in the rhythm, his own desire spiking to that internal incitement.

  "Soren," Lucas gasped, kissing his mouth, his sweat-slicked face, abstract and hasty. The movement of his hips took up the balance of both their attentions.

  "Oh, God," Soren gasped back. It felt so good, deep inside, there might have been pain somewhere buried in the slip and slide of their bodies slapping together but the pace was quickening and all he felt was hot, then hotter. "Lucas…damn…nng!" His nails grated across Lucas's shoulders.

  "More?" Lucas asked, and there was a shadow of his quirky grin as he strained over Soren, his face steadily nearing then receding. "Feels good?" Lucas pulsed in him, catching him at the apex of his thrust and kissing long and slow.

  "Unbelievable," Soren managed, and thrust up against him, gripping bedsheet again as Lucas maneuvered his legs higher, over his own shoulders, cementing their bodies together in one long line and rocking languorously into him.

  When Lucas peeled them apart long enough to take him in hand, pressing into him, stroking him in all the right ways, it didn't take long for Soren to come.

  The intensity of orgasm washed over him and Soren rode it with a shout. Lucas was still going, his thrusts degenerating into a ragged, urgent cadence. His eyes were heavy-lidded and held Soren's gaze as he rocked into him, then his mouth fell open and his breath stuttered and Lucas was coming too, fingers on him with bruising pressure as he clamped down.

  They stayed close in the afterglow, sliding under the sheet together after Lucas had disengaged and made a long arm to dispose of the condom. Their legs tangled together. Lucas held Soren against his shoulder, stroking his hair as Soren began to shake.


  "It's okay," Lucas murmured. Then, more anxiously as he continued to shudder, "Soren, you okay?"

  "I'm fine," Soren replied, kissing Lucas's throat, willing his teeth not to chatter. "I just…I…it's a little overwhelming." He crowded close to Lucas, seeking warmth, and maybe it was indeed an inexplicable chill of sorts gripping his flesh, giving him the shakes.

  "I can't believe you," Lucas told him, and there was that grin in his voice again, a sense of smugness. His hand continued to stroke down Soren's hair, and smoothed over the contours of his back.

  "What?" Soren said after a moment, going still, feeling warmed with so much warmth pressed against him, belly and thigh and chest to chest.

  "You barely needed me to touch you," Lucas said, seeming to take personal pride in the fact. "To come. Damn, I think you could've almost come just from what we did."

  "Is that weird? It felt really good, I mean, after it stopped hurting."

  Lucas goosed him. "Don't you know anything?"

  "I know enough. I know a lot more, now." He reached between their bodies and sought out the warmth of Lucas's subsiding penis, tweaking it.

  "Nnn…" Lucas rested his chin on Soren's head and twitched but was unable to do much more. He propped himself on one elbow "So."

  "So." Soren reached for the disarrayed sheets and tugged it up over his hip in an entirely superfluous display of modesty.

  Lucas gave him a cocky little grin. "How'd I do?"

  "Well, either I like anal a lot more than I thought I would, or you're very skilled, or both?"

  "Probably both," Lucas said, and dissolved into another grin, wide and genuine and a touch wondering. He collapsed onto his pillow and reached between them, stroking Soren's face. "You're the best sex I've ever had."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah," Lucas said, running his thumb over Soren's bottom lip in a brief, tender gesture. "Must be because I love you so much."

  "Well." Soren couldn't do anything but grin in response to that. He snuggled up close to Lucas's sweaty chest, satisfied with the way an arm closed immediately around him. "I can live with that."