Art of Love (Valley Boys Book 1)

by Vicki Tharp

  That should have been Demetri’s clue to leave, but he couldn’t make his feet move toward the door.

  He settled beside Roman, their thighs touching hip to knee. Roman clicked on the television and started searching. “Star Trek?”

  “Original or Next Generation?”

  “Original,” Roman said, “I’m old school.”

  Demetri shook his head. “Next Generation is where it’s at, but I can deal.”

  Roman blindly chose an episode. After all, it wasn’t about the show, now was it?

  They hadn’t even made it through the opening credits when Roman tugged on Demetri’s hand and patted his thigh. “Come here, old man. You’re about to fall asleep sitting up.”

  “Old man, my ass.” Demetri followed Roman’s guiding hand and laid out on the couch, his feet stuffed into the crack by the opposite armrest, his head in Roman’s lap.

  He snuggled in, as Roman’s hand absently went to Demetri’s head and started lightly scratching.

  Demetri groaned. “That feels good.”

  Roman laughed. “If you think that feels good, you should see what I can do with my tongue.”

  9

  Demetri rolled to his back and looked up at Roman. Roman knew better than to bait Demetri. He was lucky that Demetri had accepted his offer for dinner. He shouldn’t push it. He knew how Demetri felt about a relationship with a student, and if he didn’t back the fuck off, he’d risk Demetri running.

  Roman brushed the damp hair off Demetri’s forehead. “I shouldn’t have said that. My dick gets ahead of my brain sometimes.”

  “And you don’t think mine does?” Demetri took Roman’s hand and laid it on top of his hard cock. “I’ve been walking around like this for more than a week. I wouldn’t be here, questioning my sanity if my brain wasn’t lagging so far behind it might never catch up.”

  Roman stroked Demetri through the thin cotton of the old borrowed sweatpants. “Christ, I want that dick.”

  Demetri sat up and straddled Roman’s lap, pulling Roman’s shirt off over his head and tossing it away. Then he stopped, his breaths coming quick. “Tell me to go home. Tell me I’m making a big mistake.”

  “I can’t tell you no. But I also won’t tell anyone. It should go without saying, but I want to make that clear. No one is going to find out.”

  He tugged on the hem of Demetri’s shirt, and when Demetri nodded, Roman stripped it off him. He ran his hands down Demetri’s chest, through the smattering of short-cropped hair there, his fingers skimming over the ridges of his ribs.

  “You shave your chest?” Roman liked the roughness and the thought of watching Demetri take a shaver to his body.

  “Greek heritage,” Demetri said. “I haven’t learned to embrace all the hair yet.”

  Demetri scooched closer. Their hard cocks lined up beneath their clothes, effectively shutting down that train of thought as Roman bucked his hips, grinding against Demetri. Their lips met. Roman opened immediately, wanting to devour, but holding back. He didn’t want to overwhelm Demetri with his intensity.

  Demetri must have sensed it because he broke the kiss and said, “I’m not fragile or afraid. I want this as much as you do.”

  “What about school?” Roman hated to bring it up, but one of them needed to be the voice of reason. He’d hate for Demetri to resent him for pushing too hard, too fast.

  “Shut up.”

  And to make sure Roman did just that, Demetri covered Roman’s mouth with his and slipped a hand beneath Roman’s shorts. The groan that crawled up the back of Roman’s throat escaped, egging Demetri on.

  Precum welled at Roman’s slit, and Demetri slicked it up and down his shaft. Roman hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts and shoved them to mid-thigh. He hadn’t bothered with underwear, so they didn’t get in the way.

  “When I got out of the shower and saw the clothes you’d laid out...” Demetri worked Roman with practiced ease. “How long did you stand there watching me shower?”

  The heat rose in Roman’s cheeks. With his darker complexion, most people never noticed unless they knew him well.

  Sitting back, Demetri turned on the lamp on the end table and scrutinized Roman’s face. Demetri’s eyes lit. “You’re fucking adorable when you blush.”

  Unless that person had an eye for detail, for subtle colors and shades the way an artist would.

  Roman ran his hands down Demetri’s back and cupped his beautiful, tight ass and snugged him tighter against him. “Long enough to get an eyeful, but not long enough to get my fill.”

  Demetri kissed him again, his tongue stroking in and out of his mouth in concert with his hand on Roman’s dick, making Roman’s synapses misfire, nearly stealing his ability to think. Demetri broke the kiss long enough for Roman to say, “What would you have done if you’d known?”

  Demetri stilled and met Roman’s eyes. “I’m not sure. Then, I might have run.”

  Roman dragged a finger up the crack of Demetri’s marvelous ass, loving the way the man shuddered at this touch. “And now?”

  “I don’t want to run. Not away anyway. But, fuck, this is getting way more complicated than I ever thought it would.”

  Which sounded a lot like regret. Already.

  “Would you have sucked me off in that alley if you’d known what was to come?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know.”

  At least Demetri didn’t hide his ambivalence, and Roman appreciated that they could talk about it. Even if it was a bit of a boner killer.

  “But I did,” Demetri said.

  “And here we are with my dick in your hand again.”

  “So it seems.” Demetri grinned. “A very nice dick. Thick and long and tasty.”

  Demetri started kissing his way down Roman’s neck. Roman let his head fall back and allowed himself to feel. Demetri’s words were all laced with an undercurrent of caution that Roman completely understood.

  But his hands...

  His mouth...

  His kisses...

  His tongue... completely contradicted Demetri’s words.

  His touch was bold, his mouth devouring, his kisses hungry, his tongue teasing, giving every indication that Demetri’s heart and his head had disconnected.

  Roman did the only thing he could, he blocked out the words and let his body listen to what Demetri’s body told his—that he was wanted.

  But for how long?

  Even as that question surfaced, Demetri shifted, going to his knees on the floor where his talented tongue worked its magic on Roman’s dick. The sensation Roman’s mind blank out, only allowing for sensory input.

  Roman’s hand fisted in Demetri’s hair as Demetri worked Roman’s dick from balls to tip and back again. He turned his concentration to Roman’s sensitive tip, Demetri’s wet, warm tongue working its way across the ridge as his hand reached down and cupped Roman’s balls, a finger reaching back and grazing his taint.

  “Fuuuck.” Roman’s hips thrust, driving himself deep to the back of Demetri’s throat, the groan he pulled from Demetri making his balls draw up and the base of his spine tingle.

  Horny all week, he was in no shape to last. Roman shoved his shorts down his legs and sank lower on the couch, spreading his legs wider for easier access. Demetri kept up the exquisite torment, taking him so impossibly deep that he didn’t know how Demetri didn’t gag.

  As much as he enjoyed a mind-numbing blowjob, he couldn’t wait to repay the favor. Demetri had had his mouth on Roman twice, and he’d done nothing more than cupped Demetri through his clothes and ground up against him.

  It wasn’t enough. Not nearly. He wanted to taste him. To suck him. To fuck him.

  But before he could pull Demetri off him, the first blinding pulses of his orgasm hit. His head dropped to the back of the couch, his hips working, his hands behind Demetri’s head, encouraging.

  That finger working his taint slipped back, grazing his hole.

  He lost it.

  Demetri chuckled, k
nowing full damn well what he’d done. The vibrations from Demetri’s laughter rushed down Roman’s dick, and he came with a roar, his fingers and toes tingling, his heart crashing like a tsunami against his ribs.

  He didn’t let a drop of cum go to waste before he pulled off, his hands lightly encircling Roman’s softening dick, gently guiding him back to earth.

  “Com’ere,” Roman grumbled when he’d found enough oxygen to make his lungs function again.

  Getting off his knees, Demetri straddled Roman. Roman’s hands went to Demetri’s ass as if his hands were magnets, and Demetri’s ass was steel. “I want that hole. I want my dick in—”

  Demetri stilled. “I want that more than anything. It’s... I need... What I’m trying to say is...”

  He stumbled over his words worse than Moses did after a bender. But Demetri’s expression wasn’t that blissed-out, red-eyed, slack-faced expression that comes with someone who’d imbibed too much.

  Roman wouldn’t describe Demetri’s expression as distraught, but the emotion had to be related, like its younger, slightly less intense cousin.

  The front doorknob jiggled, and Demetri jumped off Roman’s lap, the coffee table tripping him up. He landed on it with a jolt.

  Roman yanked up his shorts as Moses stumbled into the apartment two fucking hours early.

  Moses stopped short as if surprised to find Roman there. Moses’ heavy-lidded eyes fell on Demetri—high or drunk. Or both. Roman couldn’t tell any more.

  “‘Zis the prof—professor?”

  “Mo, what the actual fuck are you doing here?”

  Demetri scoured around, searching for his shirt, finally finding it on top of the lampshade on the other end of the couch.

  “I live ’ere?” It came out as a question as if Moses didn’t know for certain.

  “You were supposed to disappear until midnight.”

  “It’s not?” Moses came into the living room, leaving the front door wide-ass open.

  Roman scrubbed his hand down his face. He had to rethink his roommate situation. “No, man. It’s fucking not.”

  In the few seconds it took for Roman to close the door and turn around, Moses had managed to cross the room to Demetri without falling on his face. He stepped in close, and Demetri had to take a step back.

  “Hey,” Moses waggled his finger at Demetri. “Is this the professor?”

  “I’m sorry,” Roman said to Demetri as he took Moses by the shoulder and steered him toward his roommate’s side of the apartment.

  “He’s fucking hot. Why aren’t my professors hot?”

  Drunk and high Moses had no volume control. It was set on blast, and if every neighbor in the complex hadn’t heard, it was because they weren’t home. “Wanna three-way?”

  “No,” Roman said, though it was just a guess. He and Demetri had a chance to discuss things like monogamy or inviting special guest stars into their sex lives.

  That’s because you aren’t even supposed to be seeing each other. How can you have a conversation about openness or exclusivity when you aren’t supposed to be together?

  Roman opened Moses’ door and pushed him inside, admonishing him to stay there before closing the door behind him.

  He got three steps down the hall before Moses opened the door and said, “Tell him I have a friend who could join us. We could—”

  Roman spun on his heel and got in his friend’s face, his voice more of a growl when he said, “So help me, Mo, if you don’t get your ass back in there...”

  He let the rest of the threat drop. The murder must have been clear in his eyes even with Moses blitzed out of his mind because Moses backed into his bedroom and quietly closed the door.

  Roman hoped like hell that Demetri hadn’t left while he had his back turned.

  In the living room, Roman found Demetri dressed and leaning against the back of the couch, his arms braced on either side of him, his head dropped between his shoulders.

  If Wikipedia needed a picture of inner turmoil and conflict, Roman could snap a quick picture and upload it for them.

  Was Roman being selfish, unfair? Would it be more considerate to agree not to see each other again?

  Something in his chest pinched, and he winced.

  That would hurt like hell.

  But it would hurt a hell of a lot less than letting him go later.

  “I’m sorry,” Roman said as he entered the room.

  Demetri’s head popped up, and a sad smile ghosted across his lips. “Not your fault.”

  Sure as shit felt like it was.

  Roman leaned against the couch beside him, then took Demetri’s hand and pulled him between his legs, his hands linking behind Demetri’s waist. Their foreheads came together, and they stood there, breathing each other in. And damn if even that most innocent of touches didn’t have Roman’s cock starting to rouse and press against Demetri.

  Demetri lightly pressed his hips into Roman’s. A dark, rueful chuckle rumbled out of Demetri’s throat. “I guess youth has its advantages.”

  “We need to talk,” Roman said. “And not about hard-ons.”

  Demetri glanced up. “What’s there to say? We both know this can’t end well. If one person talks, if—”

  “Moses is so baked he’s not even going to remember this tomorrow.”

  “This time. But what about the next time, or the one after that?”

  A question popped into Roman’s head. It made his throat tight at the thought of voicing it. “You want to quit us then?”

  Us? Do two blowjobs make an ‘us’?

  Demetri met Roman’s eyes. Roman hoped his didn’t shine with the stupid-ass tears that wanted to gather there. “I don’t know what I want.”

  A mix of emotions swirled in Demetri’s eyes. Uncertainty. Fear. Ambivalence. Attraction. Lust. So many, that Roman feared they’d swamp Demetri.

  To break the vortex, Roman said, “How about I return the favor?”

  Demetri huffed out a laugh, though humor only licked at the edges. “As much as it pains me to say this, I think I have to pass.”

  “You’ve sucked me off twice. I haven’t even—”

  “I’m not keeping score. I did what I wanted to do.” The conviction in Demetri’s voice rang true, but something else lingered there.

  Something untold.

  More of Demetri’s apprehension about getting caught with his hands down Roman’s pants?

  Or was it something else?

  Roman gave Demetri a little shake. “What aren’t you telling me?’’

  Demetri deflected the question. “I thought you didn’t make demands of people until the third date.”

  If Demetri wanted to pivot, Roman would let him. For now. “Third date, yes. But there is a sub-clause attached to the second blowjob.”

  A semblance of a smile almost reached Demetri’s eyes. “You never said anything about a sub-clause.”

  “Fine print.”

  “Maybe you should have been a lawyer.” Demetri cupped Roman’s cheek and pressed a kiss to his lips before stepping out of Roman’s arms.

  Roman could have held him in place, but forcing someone to stay when they wanted to leave was never the answer.

  Only a step away, but those inches felt cold and miles long.

  “I like breaking the rules too much to be a lawyer,” Roman said.

  “I should go.” But it sounded more like Demetri said, ask me to stay.

  But they both needed some space to figure this out. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  Roman walked Demetri to the door and saw him out, standing on the second-floor landing and watching until Demetri drove away, leaving Roman with the nagging feeling that there was something Demetri was hiding.

  10

  For the rest of the night, Demetri divided his time between staring at his messaging app. His thumbs hovered over the keyboard while he tried to come up with the words to tell Roman about his HIV status. At the same time, he tried to convince himself that there was no reason to disclo
se if he had no intention of seeing Roman again.

  Not when the risks of disclosing were astronomically high.

  You really think you can break it off? You’ve got a raging case of blue balls that begs to differ.

  He wanted to be pissed at Moses for interrupting them. Then again, he wanted to kiss Moses’ drunk ass for saving him from doing something stupid.

  But most of all, he wanted to tell Roman the truth.

  Demetri: You’re an asshole.

  Three little dots appeared, then disappeared, then reappeared again before the return text came through.

  Niko: Usually, people wait until after five in the morning to tell me that.

  Shit. Was it that early? Demetri rolled out of bed, the grit in his eyes made his lids scrape across his corneas, and the stiffness in his shoulders made him groan.

  The mild soreness in his jaw an erotic reminder of taking Roman to the back of his throat.

  His morning wood got impossibly harder. He went to brush his teeth, and his phone buzzed in his hand.

  Niko: Okay. I’ll bite. Why am I an asshole?

  Demetri: You said I shouldn’t tell him.

  Demetri didn’t have to explain who him was.

  Niko: And?

  Demetri: He has this thing about honesty.

  Niko: You haven’t lied. Unless he asked your status, and you denied it.

  Demetri: I wouldn’t do that.

  Niko: Then, I don’t see the problem.

  And maybe that wasn’t the problem. If Demetri didn’t see him anymore...

  That’s not going to happen. Roman’s already under your skin.

  Meaning it wasn’t a matter of if he was going to tell Roman, it was a matter of how and when.

  And telling Roman with a text wasn’t the way to do it. Demetri leaned on the counter and stared at himself in the mirror, his hair all disheveled from a sleepless night.

  And then Roman will leave.

  Demetri: I should tell him before I’m more invested. Before it rips my heart out when he runs.

  Niko: Don’t be an idiot.

  That was the great thing about Niko... undying support. Before Demetri could reply, Niko texted back.