“Only if you want,” Jude added.
His lover let out a short breath, then shrugged. “I guess I don’t, uh…see why.”
Jude’s eyebrows rose, and he shifted up a little bit farther. He wanted to reach for him, to cup his face, but Emilio seemed a little tense. “I find you incredibly attractive, and it’s only getting worse as the minutes go by.”
Emilio bit his lip, but Jude could see it was in an attempt to hold back something like a grin. “Alright.”
“We can talk about it later. I know there’s still a lot happening, so I’ll take what I can get. For now.” He pressed his left hand to the center of Emilio’s chest, then dragged it down to curl around his cock. “Go on,” he said when Emilio’s breathing hitched. “Take what you want.”
Emilio dug the fingers of his hand into Jude’s shoulders and managed to grind out, “What I want?”
“Mm.” He offered a single stroke, then he stopped. “Whatever you want. Just don’t come.”
Emilio’s eye widened, his pupil huge, and he dragged his tongue over his lower lip. “At all?”
Jude’s heart sped up when he realized Emilio liked that idea. “Maybe not that just yet. Not until we have time. A weekend. Or even a week,” he said, and Emilio groaned, shifting his hips forward. His foreskin made the slide easier, and Jude tightened his fingers just a little, making the other man hiss out a breath of pleasure. “I should have guessed that would appeal to you.”
Emilio tried to laugh, but he was lost to the rhythm of his hips. He was close already—much like Jude would have been. The anticipation of the time apart, and the long afternoon, had pushed them both to the edge. But he wasn’t ready to give in quite yet, so he loosened his fingers to a barely-there grip, and Emilio let out a grunt of frustration.
“Not yet,” Jude commanded.
Emilio nodded, slowing his thrusts. He turned his face toward Jude and nuzzled against his cheek. “Kiss me?”
Jude complied instantly, wrapping his other arm around Emilio’s waist and holding him tight. Their tongues tangled, a hot, wet dance, perfectly in-sync, and Jude knew he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but there. Every doubt was erased, and in its place a sort of rightness he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
The rest would come. His faith, his purpose, what he wanted to do with his life. That would all settle around this—around falling in love, staying in love. Around being near Eliah. Around belonging to something bigger than him.
He tightened his grip again and stroked faster. “I prayed for you,” he said, and when Emilio stiffened, he clarified, “to meet you. I was so lonely, and I knew it was selfish. It was a prayer that should have gone ignored, but here you are.”
“You think God sent me?” Emilio asked from behind a moan.
“I think this is definitely divine.” He punctuated his sentence with a thrust of his own, hard cock resting between Emilio’s cheeks. He felt the head catch on his rim before sliding upward, and he knew he could come like this if he let himself. “I think I must have done something very, very good in this life to find you.”
Emilio pulled back and pressed his hand to Jude’s cheek. “I think you don’t give yourself enough credit for being the person you are.”
Jude supposed he was right—in the sense that he’d been punishing himself since he was a teenager for something that was not his fault. He had been lucky, not responsible for the car that hit Eliah. There was nothing he could have done differently, and if he had taken the hit, he wouldn’t be the man he was today.
The man that Emilio was here with.
And Eliah would not have met Smokey.
How could he regret any of those things?
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” he said. He felt Emilio still, and he slowed his stroking, but he didn’t release his cock. He waited, listening in the silence, feeling for the moment Emilio wanted him to pull away, but it never came. When he was brave enough, he sat back again and looked him in the eye. “I probably shouldn’t say it now, but in my experience, people hold back too often. They think it’s too soon or not right. They’re afraid of chasing people off. And I’ve seen the regret that comes with not saying it enough. I don’t think I could live with that.”
Emilio licked his lips. “How…how can you be sure?”
“I can’t,” he answered. He stroked up until he was holding his cock near the head of his dick and swirled his thumb around the dribbling precome. He watched the flush rise against Emilio’s throat, watched the way he fought the urge to thrust into the circle of his fingers. “The one thing I’ve learned in my years of studying theology, of examining my faith, the history of my people—is that we can never be sure of anything. I don’t know if there’s a God, truth be told. Some days I can’t reconcile the pain with a divine being that is supposed to love us. And other times, I understand exactly why we’re meant to feel all…this.” He closed his eyes. “But I know that my heart isn’t lying to me. I know that love comes in so many forms, it’s impossible to name them all. And I know that these last beats of my heart have been for you and only you.”
Emilio shuddered, and he thrust up, then he leaned in and kissed Jude as he came all over his chest. He groaned, almost like he was in pain, his body jerking, and the sheer force of it dragged Jude right to the edge. He gave a couple of thrusts, but before he could let himself go, Emilio slid down his legs, parted his lips, and swallowed him down.
It took two pumps of his hips before he was spilling, watching the way Emilio’s throat worked as he took it all in. Jude’s vision was foggy as Emilio licked him clean, and his body felt wrung out and twisted as he sank all the way back against the pillows and let the other man curl into him.
“That wasn’t what I planned at all.”
At that, Emilio laughed and dragged his thumb over the edge of Jude’s jaw. “Didn’t you just tell me we have all the time in the world?”
“I suppose I did,” Jude said from behind a sigh. He leaned in and closed his eyes, and only just realized that in the moments they were together, Emilio never said he loved him too.
Jude wasn’t the sort of man who demanded reciprocation of feelings. He wasn’t the sort of man that believed relationships couldn’t hold out if one person felt a little more strongly than the other. He couldn’t erase the sting of it as the week wore on, though. And while Emilio grew more affectionate, the words stayed absent. He knew it wasn’t the end of them, but there was a weight to everything that remained unsaid.
Everything else about their time together had been like a fantasy. He pulled the other man apart, only to put him back together, and then allowed himself to lie back and let Emilio give and receive everything he had left. He felt good and settled, and even though he knew that there was turmoil on the horizon with Hydra still missing in action and more and more rumors of him stirring up trouble hitting the Broken Chains’ network, he still felt like they were on the right path.
But the feeling carried with him Saturday morning when Eliah showed up to drive him to temple. He preferred Friday night services, but Eliah was bogged down with end of year obligations, and with Kicks out on club business, Jude took the time to himself to center and reflect and attempt to come to a decision about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.