He laughed breathlessly and said, “I’m serious, come on.” He leaned in and parted his lips, so deliciously close to mine. Breathing heavily, I held tightly to his shirt and reached for his mouth. I gently bit his lower lip, afraid to hurt him, and I couldn’t believe how warm it was, how soft its texture was, how it moved slightly under the pressure of my teeth. Then Rob closed his other lip on mine and I saw stars, as that delicate contact awakened nerves I didn’t know I had and sent trembles through my entire body. I closed my eyes and opened my mouth, and soon brushing my lips against his wasn’t enough, and I allowed myself to taste him. I sucked on his lips and licked them, and when he sucked and licked mine in return, I thought I might start crying again, so intense was the thrill running through my veins from my mouth. I had no idea how that was physically possible, but Rob’s mouth tasted sweet and delicious. Better than anything I had ever had, so good that I could go on forever. When his tongue met mine, I thought I could die. A broken sound left my throat and I could only want more of him.
And just like that I realized that was the first time that I truly had someone inside me; someone who wanted me, someone who cherished me, someone who cared for me regardless of my past. It almost scared me how private and intimate that kiss felt.
Before him, I had given a lot, but I had never received anything. The thought of sharing an experience like that with another person was baffling, new and exciting. The thought of sharing it with the man I loved, was astonishing. And I loved him more every second. I loved him to the stars and back.
ROBERTO
I literally couldn’t explain to myself how I had resisted kissing James for such a long time, because now that I had done it, I couldn’t seem to stop. James kissed me whenever we were alone, continuously, intensely, without ever taking a break, like he was starved for it.
He liked to take it slow, taste and explore, and I let him set the pace of the kisses to focus on his reactions, to understand what he liked the most. At the beginning I had the feeling he planned to follow a pattern, because he usually started out kissing my lower lip, then upper, then he tentatively licked my lips as to make sure I wouldn’t bite. I was tempted to bite him for real, just to see his reaction, but he was so adorable that I could never do anything that would disappoint him. It was fun to experience how he planned our kiss so thoroughly, and it was even funnier, when the kiss deepened, to witness how he completely lost control over his actions. At some point, usually when our tongues met, James’ body seemed to turn off his brain and finally take over to get what it wanted. He sucked on my tongue, moaned for me and pulled me closer. I obliged him, every single time, kissing him harder and deeper, and my hands itched to touch him and do to him things so good and dirty they would make him scream. Needless to say, in two days I had developed an awful case of blue ball.
The day after the break up, Dad had brought me with him to fish just to tell me that I shouldn’t bring another man home unless I wanted to marry him, so taking James up to my room to spend some time alone was out of the question. Not to mention his house; there always seemed to be somebody inside.
I thought back about my teenage years and of all the places I had had sex in back then, and I almost slapped myself realizing only now how irresponsible I had been during those years; abandoned buildings, squalid public toilets, dark alleys in the middle of the night, car sex on the side of the road. I was lucky nothing ever happened to me, and I would never bring James to any of those places; his sex life had been traumatic enough already.
I would be lying if I said his past didn’t bother me at all. It made me physically sick to think about him being used, for years, by some washed-up son of a bitch to get off, receiving nothing but scorn and humiliation in return. And it made me angry to think that he just accepted that situation, assuming that was the best he could hope for. I couldn’t accept how the world had crushed that adorable, beautiful soul without mercy, shattering his self-esteem into a thousand pieces and leaving him on the brink of a breakdown. I wished I could reset it all, go back to when he was still a boy who had just figured himself out and give him the most breathtaking, powerful and intense romance he had ever hoped for.
I liked to think that I was still in time for that. I wanted to make my days with him special, to give him hope, affection and make him understand that he deserved the best the world had to offer.
“So, you can stay with me in Milan until you find a new place,” Francesco told me one afternoon, at the bar. He had invited me for coffee to talk about Luca and the breakup. He had been the one to come to my house to get Luca’s stuff and return it to him. “Luca has arranged a trip for when you go back to Milan, so you can move out when he’s not there. You can give your key to me and I’ll hand it to him when I see him.”
I nodded my head. “How is he?”
“He hates you. Over the phone he called you words I don’t even know. I think it was Venetian dialect.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I can only imagine.” Francesco remained silent. I passed my gaze over him, observing his perfectly shaven face, his silky hair and his bright hazel eyes, which were staring at me with an expression I knew all too well. “Are you angry with me?”
Irritation flashed in his eyes and for a second I thought he’d throw his coffee in my face. “I’m not angry,” he said, contrary to my expectations, “but do I think you’re an idiot? Yes.”
I exhaled loudly. “Things weren’t going to work out anyway between Luca and I.”
Francesco shook his head. “I don’t think you’re an idiot because you broke up with Luca. More for how you did it. I think you owe him an apology, Rob.”
“Fair enough,” I agreed, tentatively smiling at him.
Francesco returned my smile and said, “I see your point now, I really do. When you jumped off that cliff with him, I realized how truly special James is to you.” I wasn’t expecting him to say any of that, but I still didn’t understand where he was going. “But it’s James who worries me right now. Don’t fuck with his head.”
I felt like he had just slapped me in the face. “What do you mean?”
“When Luca came, James looked completely heartbroken. I think he’s really serious about you, Rob.”
“And you don’t think I’m being serious with him?”
He clicked his tongue. “I think you’re being… you. I’m sure you’ve got the best intentions, but what he feels for you might be stronger than you think.” He paused, and I didn’t say a word. I was starting to understand where he was going. “If he’s in love with you, you’re going to break his heart for real when he leaves.”
My heart ached. James certainly had feelings for me, but it never occurred to me that he could be in love with me. He had so many problems to deal with; his past, his loneliness, the doubts about his future. I was positive love was the last thing he wanted to think about. It was James who had told me “I leave in two weeks,” before I could even ask him to go out with me. If he felt the need to underline that we weren’t going to last, then he didn’t need me to say any word or put in his head any thought that could confuse him or hurt him.