Page 39 of Love Around the Corner

Leo’s eyes glistened. “Me too. Alfie, I’m more myself with you than anywhere else. You make me feel seen.” Cautiously, eyes fixed on Alfie’s, he reached out and took his hand. “That night…? Alfie, I’ve never felt anything like it. I’ve never felt so close to another person. I’ve never felt so in love.”

“I thought—” Alfie’s words snagged on the lump rising in his throat. “I thought it was just me.”

“No.” Leo set down his tea and stepped closer, taking both Alfie’s hands in his. And Alfie let him, heart leaping like a dog on a leash eager to race ahead. He tried to hold it back, but it was a losing battle. “It was never just you, Alfie. And it never will be, if you’ll…” Leo’s voice cracked, but he pushed on anyway. “If you’ll just give me another chance.”

One final moment of resistance, and then something inside Alfie gave way—the last strut of hurt pride and resentment collapsing. “Leo,” he said gruffly, and pulled him into his arms, burying his face in the warm, woodsy scent of him and letting his parched heart drink its fill.

After a frozen moment, as if Leo hadn’t quite realized he’d been forgiven, he flung his arms around Alfie’s neck. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his breath hitching. “I’m so sorry for everything.”

Cradling the back of Leo’s head, Alfie ran his fingers through his hair. “Shh,” he said, pressing his lips to the warm skin of his neck. “I know.” He kissed the bolt of his jaw. “It’s okay.” He pressed his lips to Leo’s flushed cheek, to the corner of his mouth, until finally,finallytheir lips met in an urgent, searching kiss.

Leo succumbed with an approving groan, and Alfie went up like a torch, the distress, relief, and joy of the last twenty-four hours morphing into sudden, frantic desire. Leo must have felt it too because, with a grunt, he urged Alfie back against the counter, taking his face in both hands and deepening their kiss, nipping at Alfie’s lower lip, rolling their hips together. The solid pressure of his hardening cock against Alfie’s made him weak with heavy, pooling desire.

“God,” he breathed. “God,Leo.” Grabbing his shoulders, Alfie spun them until he had Leo pressed up against the counter, tugging at his sweater, hungrily trying to burrow beneath his winter layers in search of bare skin. “Christ,” he groaned, defeated. “You wear so many damn clothes.”

Leo laughed breathily and Alfie was forced to let go as Leo hauled his sweater over his head and flung it aside, leaving his hair outrageously ruffled and his glasses askew. “Take me to bed?” he said hopefully, and Alfie’s heart flipped over at the kindled heat in Leo’s eyes.

Fuck, he wanted this. Needed the physical connection more than his next breath. Alfie took Leo’s hand and brought it to his lips, watching over his knuckles as Leo’s face lit with hope, desire, and something infinitely deeper. Terrifying and delightful. Wordlessly, Alfie led him upstairs and into the bedroom where they discarded their clothes, kissing and touching the whole time, before finally tumbling together onto the bed and into each other’s arms at last.

The feel of Leo’s bare body against Alfie’s own was electric. The satin slide of his skin, the rigid pressure of his cock, felt primal, but knowing that this was LeoandLLB made Alfie’s head spin. Rolling them so he had Leo pinned beneath him, Alfie gazed down into those wide sea-glass eyes, naked without his glasses. “Who are you?” he whispered. “Who are you really?”

“I’m Leo. I’m LLB.” He lifted his hand to Alfie’s face. “I’m both. Just like you’re Camaro89 and Alfie.”

It seemed then, gazing into that familiar stranger’s face, that the lines between the man he knew and the man he’d thought he knew blurred together. Alfie dipped his head to kiss his shoulder. “Leo,” he murmured, sucking a bruise into his collarbone. He breathed “LLB” against the trembling softness of his belly, tasting him, marking him, listening to him gasp and wriggle and moan. “Both.”

“Yes. God, yes.” Leo’s fingers tightened on his shoulder. “Alfie?”

“Hmm?” He moved back up to kiss the bridge of Leo’s nose, his eyelids, his cheekbones.

“Alfie, do you like to…you know, fuck?”

Propping himself up on one elbow, Alfie studied him. “As in…?”

“As in, I want to fuck. Top, bottom I don’t care. I just want to fuck.”

Alfie’s whole body responded to that suggestion, a wild flash of desire running hot across his skin, stiffening his already hard cock. He leaned down and kissed Leo deeply. “Hell, yes,” he said when they broke for air, “if you want to.”

“I do want to.” Leo lifted a hand to Alfie’s face, sliding it down his neck to his shoulder. “I want to feel close to you tonight.”

“Yeah.” Alfie’s heart swooped giddily. “Yeah, me too.”

After a quick dash to the bathroom for essentials, Alfie returned to find Leo stretched out on his stomach, making his preference clear. Alfie was fine with that. Leo had a nice ass, a beautiful back, slender and lithe, and when Alfie started trailing kisses along the length of his spine, Leo sighed and relaxed beneath his touch, softening like warm wax as Alfie explored the hidden secrets of his body. They stayed like that for a long time, Alfie kissing and stroking and worshiping until Leo was all but whimpering.

“Alfie,” he breathed, rolling his hips against the mattress. “Alfie, come on.”

Warmth blossoming in his heart, Alfie kneeled between Leo’s thighs and ran both hands up his back to his shoulders and down again over his ass and across the backs of his legs. His body felt amazing, sleek and supple beneath Alfie’s palms. “Christ, you feel good.”

“I’ll feel better when you’re inside me.” Leo twitched his hips in invitation. “What are you waiting for? Christmas?”

Alfie laughed and took the hint, lifting Leo’s hips with a gentle tug. He loved seeing guys like this, the flex of their back, the sharp jut of their shoulder blades, and the downward curve of their neck. So fucking sexy, and a million times more so tonight because it was Leo.

“Ready?” he said, softly rubbing the small of Leo’s back.

“Yes. God, yes, Alfie. Now.”

It felt like coming home. Leo was so relaxed, it was easy, his low cry of pleasure as Alfie slid deep one of the most erotic sounds Alfie had ever heard. Leo’s body was hot and welcoming, tight and eager as he moved with a sinuous roll of his hips. When Alfie started moving too, Leo’s low moans became louder, more ardent. A litany of encouragement and pleas, of gasps and curses.

They struck an easy rhythm, Leo’s back glistening with sweat, the hair at the nape of his neck curling in the humid heat rising between them. Alfie reached out to touch those tender curls, to run his hand over Leo’s straining body, to slide it around and over Leo’s chest, grazing a taut nipple and making him gasp, then trailing lower to find the rigid length of his cock.

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