by Max Hudson
“You’ll see,” Brooklyn said. “When I take this shirt off. Right now, I’m stalling.”
Luca nodded. “I can wait as long as you need me to,” he said. “I can just hang out here. Or we can go to the movies and never talk about this again. That works for me too.”
“No,” Brooklyn said, shaking his head vigorously. “I want to do this.”
“Are you sure?”
Brooklyn looked right into his eyes and smiled at him. “Yes,” he said. “Being around you makes me feel comfortable.”
“Good,” Luca replied. “I want you to feel comfortable.”
Brooklyn nodded. Luca stood up and walked over to the door of the basement. He locked the door and smiled a little when he heard an audible click. Brooklyn seemed to be a little more relieved, which made Luca feel a little better.
He walked over so that he was standing in front of Brooklyn and flashed him a smile. “How is this? Did it help?”
“With what?” Brooklyn said, looking up at him.
“Making you feel more comfortable.”
“Yeah,” Brooklyn said. “A bit.”
He took a deep breath and grabbed the bottom of his shirt. Luca watched him, his eyes wide. There was always something special about seeing a man with his shirt off for the first time, because clothes often hid the way that people really looked. With this, the ante had been upped. It wasn’t just about seeing the way that Brooklyn looked with his shirt off, it wasn’t just about seeing whether he was muscular or thick, it was also about seeing his scars. Luca told himself not to show any outward reaction—the last thing that he wanted to do was make Brooklyn feel self-conscious, so even if that meant that he had to keep his mouth shut and keep his reactions to himself, he was happy to do that. If he needed to do that to make sure that Brooklyn stayed happy, he was glad to do that too.
Brooklyn sighed as he moved his hands from the bottom of his shirt and up to his first button. He seemed to have realized that he wasn’t wearing a t-shirt, something that he appeared to have forgotten up until that very moment.
Luca watched his trembling hands as he started on the first button. It was weird to watch a man who was so good-looking, imposing, and self-assured, shake when he was starting to disrobe, and Luca wasn’t sure how he should feel about it.
He felt a pull toward him. He wanted to go over there, sit in front of him, and tell him that it was going to be okay, that he wasn’t going to judge him. But this seemed intensely personal, and it felt like going over there would serve no purpose other than to make Luca feel better. He wanted this experience to be centered on Brooklyn and not himself. It seemed important that it was. Slowly, very slowly, Brooklyn’s shirt started to come open. Luca could see a little bit of skin, which was a little paler than the skin on his face, and he could see some marks. They were the sort of marks that people got from working out, and they didn’t have anything to do with scars. At least Luca didn’t think so.
He could see a little bit of hair on Brooklyn’s chest and he could feel his heart start to beat quicker. Brooklyn had been wrong, which Luca had expected him to be. The last thing that Luca wanted was to make fun of Brooklyn. No, what he wanted, instead, was to jump in front of Brooklyn, rip open his shirt and take his nipples in his mouth and suck on them until they were sore.
He chastised himself, telling himself that it was inappropriate to think that when this was clearly such a big deal to Brooklyn. Brooklyn was still trembling when he finally managed to pull both sides of his shirt apart from each other. The accident had clearly done nothing to his chest, which was muscular and gorgeous.
Luca had to stop himself from gasping, but it was obvious that he had made an audible sound when Brooklyn looked up at him and raised his eyebrows in a questioning gesture.
“Nothing,” Luca said. “You’re just… you’re so beautiful.”
“You should wait until you see the scars,” Brooklyn replied.
Luca didn’t want to nod. He didn’t want to say anything, because he was almost positive that he disagreed with Brooklyn. It was the kind of thing that he needed to prove rather than say, and although he was vaguely aware of that, it still felt like a lot of effort to keep his mouth shut about how gorgeous he found Brooklyn. Instead of saying anything, though, Luca continued watching him.
Brooklyn slid his button-down shirt down so that his arms were revealed and Luca’s eyes widened. Brooklyn hadn’t been joking, the scars on his arms were bad. Luca tried to think about how he had to have been hurt for his arm to have ended up cut the way it was. It was a crisscross section of comparatively white flesh superimposed over his skin and some of it looked like it had been sewed on. It was bad, but Luca didn’t find it disgusting or anything like that. If anything, it added to Brooklyn’s appearance. Sure, it wasn’t what he had been expecting when he had first seen Brooklyn, but it was beautiful.
Just like he was.
Brooklyn looked up at him and sighed, then he put his head in his hands. He shook his head, and when he spoke, he sounded like he was about to cry. “I knew it.”
“You knew what?” Luca said, kneeling in front of him. He couldn’t resist the temptation any longer; he had to be close to him. Watching him while he was standing up had stopped being good, and now he needed to get close to him. He needed to be able to smell him. He needed to be able to touch him. He needed to be able to hold him in his arms and console him and make him understand what he felt for him, and that certainly none of it was disgust.
That was exactly what he needed to do.
“You didn’t know anything,” Luca said when he had knelt and his face was right in front of Brooklyn’s face. “Because I still think you’re stunning.”
Brooklyn’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yup,” Luca said. “If anything, I think it makes you hotter.”
“Is that right?” Brooklyn said, a crooked smile on his face.
“Yes,” Luca said. “That’s absolutely right. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve wanted to kiss you a lot.”
Brooklyn raised his eyebrows.
“But I really, really want to kiss you right now,” Luca said. “Can I kiss you?”
Brooklyn nodded, looking right at him with shimmering eyes. Luca closed the space between them and kissed him softly on the lips, a close-mouthed tight kiss that was enough to make his cock harden even though it was only supposed to be sweet.
When Luca broke off the kiss, he noticed that he was gasping. Brooklyn was gasping too, which Luca couldn’t really understand. It wasn’t as if they’d actually done anything, at least not yet, but Brooklyn seemed to have this blush on his face that went from his cheeks all across his nose. There was a little scar between his eyebrows, one that Luca hadn’t noticed before.
“Do you want to see mine?”
“Your…”
“Scar,” Luca said, throwing his head back as he laughed. “I mean, I’ll show you my dick too, if you’re really nice.”
“Technically I’ve already seen it,” Brooklyn said with a smile.
“When it was an injury. Don’t you want to see how it’s healing?”
“For sure,” Brooklyn said, smiling back at him. “Scar first.”
“That makes sense,” Luca replied. He sat down next to Brooklyn and Brooklyn turned his face so that he could look at him. “Okay, so the first thing that you need to know is that I’m going to have to take these jeans off.”
Brooklyn raised his eyebrows as he licked his lips. “I know. Do you need help?”
“No,” Luca replied. “But I do know I need to take them off, so don’t think I’m hitting on you or anything.”
“You’re letting me down here, Luca,” Brooklyn said. A playful edge had crept into his voice and Luca couldn’t help but be pleased. If he hadn’t felt comfortable, then he wouldn’t have felt playful. Luca smiled as he started to undo the buttons on his jeans.
“We’ve just started,” Luca said. “You’re in for a wild ride.”
Brookl
yn laughed. “Just in case it isn’t clear, I like you a lot.”
“It wasn’t clear,” Luca said as he stood up, trying to get himself out of his blasted jeans. It was true that they made his butt look amazing, but they were also a pain to put on, and they were definitely a pain to take off.
Luca hadn’t been planning on taking off his jeans during this particular date. After all, he had wanted to take it slow, and he wasn’t even sure how much Brooklyn wanted to go out with him. After what had happened the last time, he was almost sure that he wouldn’t at all. Sex hadn’t been on his mind at all—at least not yet, though Brooklyn was hot and of course the idea of sex had crossed his mind.
The idea of having sex quite so soon hadn’t, though. He had thought of it as a distant prospect, not something that might actually happen that night.
He looked up at Brooklyn and smiled. “What made you say that you like me a lot?”
“I don’t know,” Brooklyn said, flashing him a smile back. “You’re just… I don’t know what I expected. I guess I didn’t expect you to be as awesome as you are.”
“Why not?”
“Too awesome,” Brooklyn said. “It’s a little bit concerning.”
“Concerning why?”
“What if you’re the person who is out of my league, Luca? Did that ever occur to you?”
“Honestly, no,” Luca said. He wasn’t sure what else he could say, and suddenly, he was aware that he was stalling. “I’m going to do it now.”
Brooklyn nodded. “Sure,” he said. “Take your time.”
Luca had to take a deep breath before he managed to slide his pants down his legs. He looked at his scars every day in the mirror, something that his therapist had told him to do. He didn’t hate them, at least not nearly as much as Brooklyn seemed to hate his own scars, but he hadn’t been prepared to show them off like this. On the other hand, it would have been unfair to leave Brooklyn as the only person who was showing off his scars. It wouldn’t have just been unfair, Luca knew. It would have been cruel.
He was nervous when he finally managed to pull his pants down so that they were around his shoes. Taking off his shoes was never a consideration. He looked down at his leg and traced the huge diagonally shaped scar on his thigh. “Look,” he said. “They had to put in a bunch of metal here when they did the surgery.”
“Shit,” Brooklyn said. “Can I touch it?”
Luca looked up at him, wide-eyed. For some reason, he hadn’t been expecting that question. On the other hand, it seemed to make perfect sense. He nodded and grabbed Brooklyn’s hand. Brooklyn stuck one finger out and traced Luca’s scar down his leg, taking in a sharp breath when he did so.
To Luca, it felt like Brooklyn was holding his breath when he did that. He traced Luca’s scar back and forth, and Luca felt a tingle from the skin of his leg up to the top of his head. It was weird—it was soothing, bordering on sexual but not quite there yet.
“How many did you get?”
“Stitches? I have no idea,” Luca said. “Apparently, I told the doctors not to release me until I could walk.”
Brooklyn laughed, throwing his head back. “That sounds like you.”
“They thought my parents would convince me otherwise,” Luca said. “And it wasn’t as if they could keep me in the hospital anymore.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” Luca said. “I know.”
“But I can see that.”
Luca rolled his eyes. “Of course you can,” he said. “I mean, if this makes any sort of difference at all, I think the aftereffect of the accident was that I started to learn the meaning of humility. But that took a long time.”
Brooklyn nodded, his gaze still firmly on Luca’s scar. “That makes sense. So did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Learn the meaning of humility,” Brooklyn said.
Luca cocked his head as he thought about it. The truth was that he wanted to say yes, but he couldn’t, because he simply wasn’t sure. It would have been easiest to lie to Brooklyn, but that was the last thing that he wanted to do. Brooklyn seemed to respect Luca. He never seemed to sugarcoat anything, so really, the least that Luca could do was respect that by not doing that either. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I’m still trying hard to make sure not to let pride be my downfall, but it’s a process. I wish I could make it happen quicker, but I can’t.”
Brooklyn sighed, shook his head and gave him a smile. “See, this is exactly what I mean,” he said. “You’re so sweet, and open, and honest. How could I not be worried about you being out of my league?”
Luca shook his head too, rather vigorously. He didn’t like that Brooklyn thought that. “I literally never worried about that,” he said. “I worried about you realizing that you could do better. I guess that means we’re both idiots, huh?”
“I guess I can live with that,” Brooklyn replied.
Luca stared at him for what felt like a long time before he said anything else. Just looking at him was doing things to him—it was making his breathing sharpen and get quicker. His heart was already going a million miles an hour. He knew what he was going to say when he had started to stare at Brooklyn, but his voice still trembled when he spoke. He was so nervous that Luca would turn him down. “Can I kiss you?”
“You already did,” Brooklyn replied, his eyes widening. He didn’t seem like he was rejecting him, but it also didn’t seem like he was eager for Luca to kiss him. It meant that Luca’s nerves instantly got worse. When he looked up at Brooklyn, though, he saw that he was smiling. It surprised him. It made his heart do a flip in his chest. Brooklyn raised his eyebrows, clearly wondering what he was doing.
“That’s not what I meant,” Luca replied after he managed to swallow down the knot in his throat, shaking his head a little bit.
Brooklyn furrowed his brow slightly. “What did you mean?”
Luca looked up at him, and their gazes met for what felt to Lucas like a very long time. Like far too long. But Brooklyn didn’t prompt him, he just waited for Luca to gather his courage and say something.
Luca swallowed before he spoke. His voice was barely above a whisper, he could hardly hear it himself, and he was worried that Brooklyn wouldn’t be able to hear him and he would end up having to repeat himself. “Can I kiss your arm?”
“You want to kiss my arm?” Brooklyn asked in response, his eyes widening. It didn’t look to Luca like he had been expecting him to ask him that, and when he did, Brooklyn appeared to be frozen. He understood the reaction, but he still wanted to do it.
He tried to keep his breathing steady when he answered. “Yes, Brooklyn,” Luca replied. “I want to kiss your arm. I want to kiss all of you.”
Brooklyn furrowed his brow as he took a second to think it over. He looked like he was going to say no and Luca was about to tell him that he should forget about it, that it was a stupid idea anyway, but Brooklyn nodded instead. He took a deep breath and sighed deeply when Luca put his lips on his arm. It wasn’t where his scar was, but it was pretty close and Luca could tell that Brooklyn was nervous.
He wasn’t trying to make him nervous, he was trying to make sure that this went as smoothly for him as he could, and he knew that kissing his scar might have opened up some emotional wounds that made sex even less likely. But that didn’t matter, because as Luca kept kissing him, as he kept moving his lips up his arm until he had reached Brooklyn’s shoulders, the skin that was scarred cooler than the rest of his skin, rougher, with more edges, he could tell that Brooklyn was starting to love it. Luca was pretty sure that Brooklyn had never been kissed there and that his skin in that particular area of his body was more sensitive than his skin anywhere else.
Brooklyn confirmed his suspicion when he threw his head back and moaned. His voice was hoarse and gravely when he did so and it was enough to make Luca crazy. He knew that his boxers were already showing, he knew that he had an erection when they had first started to show each other their scars, and he knew that it had been
noticeable then. But for the first time, he knew just how vulnerable he was, just how noticeable it was inside the fabric of his boxers, and he wasn’t sure if it was okay to be as turned on kissing Brooklyn’s scar as he was.
Brooklyn looked down at him, his mouth hanging open and his cheeks red. Luca moved so that he was facing Brooklyn’s face and they kissed each other on the mouth again, this time softly, slowly. Brooklyn’s kisses were soft and warm and perfect, and Luca couldn’t help but think about how much this was better than his fantasies.
Brooklyn was pacing this perfectly. Even though Luca wanted to open his mouth and stick his tongue inside of Brooklyn’s, he also wanted to enjoy this for as long as possible, and it had been a very long time since he’d had time to just make out with another guy, maybe since high school. All of his adult boyfriends had wanted to get to sex as quickly as possible, and he got it. He liked that too. But he was learning to enjoy this, and he wanted to taste part of Brooklyn’s body for as long as he could.
Brooklyn threaded his fingers in Luca’s hair and held his head in place as he intensified the pace of their kissing, nibbling on Luca’s bottom lip. It was making him feel like his body was about to explode into cosmic light, even though it was only a kiss. He tried to tell himself that it was only a kiss as Brooklyn started to kiss down his chin and then down his neck, his breathing heavy. Every time he breathed on Luca’s skin, he felt his entire body shudder.
“You’re fucking gorgeous,” Brooklyn said into Luca’s neck. “Will you take off your shirt?”
Luca did as he was told. He practically ripped his shirt off, which made Brooklyn laugh. “You’re eager, huh?”
“Yeah,” Luca agreed, nodding his head and looking at Brooklyn. “If you were me, you’d be eager too.”
“I am,” Brooklyn said. He grabbed Luca’s hand and placed it on his crotch. Brooklyn hadn’t been lying. He was hard and it was clear that he wanted something more. Luca wet his lips with his tongue as his breathing quickened even more. He was panting by the time he moved his hand away from Brooklyn’s erection. He moved down so that he was on his knees on the floor in front of him.