Page 11 of Pages of My Heart
Thomas turns, his eyes watery. “She tried to kill herself. More than once. She’s at Dunning. You know, the mental asylum.” Thomas’s gaze turns vacant, like he’s somewhere else. “She’s been there since I was eight. My dad is always saying how much I remind him of her, and I . . .” his voice trails off, shoulders heavy. “I worry that one day, I’ll go crazy, too.”
Charlie goes to Thomas, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You won’t,” he assures him. Even though he can’t possibly know what the future holds, the thought of Thomas being anything but okay turns his stomach. “And I’m sorry about your ma.” He gives the back of Thomas’s neck a gentle squeeze. “You wanna dance? Might take your mind off it?”
A hint of a smile appears on Thomas’s face, his eyes warming back up, so Charlie quickly switches on the radio sitting in the corner. There’s a love song playing, and when he holds out his hand, Thomas comes to him. He places his arms aroundThomas’s neck while Thomas’s hands come to rest on his hips, and they begin to sway.
“I’m glad you’re here, Charlie.”
Thomas’s lips brush against Charlie’s ear, and when he dips his head lower, Charlie shivers at the sensation of warm breath on his neck. When Thomas’s arms circle around his back, closing the space between them, it silences all the unwanted noise in his head, and it dawns on Charlie that he’s experiencing something pure and joyful. Something he’s experienced little of in his twenty years of living.Don’t waste this, he reminds himself. Tilting his face up, he waits for Thomas’s eyes to meet his, then says, “Kiss me.”
Thomas first lays his lips upon Charlie’s jaw, then at the corner of his mouth, and then Charlie opens to him, their lips slotting together and tongues meeting tentatively. The kiss is tender, and, against his better judgement, Charlie finally relaxes, feeling safe dancing in Thomas’s arms. Their hands begin to wander, the kiss deepens, and their touches grow firmer and more insistent.
Charlie moans against Thomas’s lips, and when Thomas pulls back, his eyes are questioning, pleading. Charlie doesn’t need Thomas to ask out loud because he already knows what the question is, and its answer.
“Yes,” he says, nodding his consent.
Thomas grabs his hand and pulls him urgently upstairs to his small bedroom. The wind is nearly knocked out of him as Thomas slams him against the wall, their bodies no longer soft and pliant but now hard and demanding. Thomas ravishes his neck with wet, eager kisses and love bites that fall just shy of pain. But then Thomas turns tender once more, and Charlie’s head lulls to one side, offering his bare neck, his knees buckling as he drowns in bliss. Their clothes come off one piece at atime and fall at their feet, discarded without a second thought. It’s not until they’re both naked that Charlie feels anxious and vulnerable once again. They really haven’t talked about this, and he has no idea what Thomas wants or might expect.
Thomas’s body is all hard lines and defined ridges. His legs are long and muscular, his shoulders broad and freckled. The sight of him takes Charlie’s breath away. They are both painfully hard, and Charlie’s heart beats uncontrollably fast, confronted with the truth of how badly he wants to take Thomas into his mouth. Is that disgusting?Surely not as wrong as wanting to take Thomas inside his body . . .
“We could get into bed,” Thomas suggests. Perhaps sensing his reservations, Thomas leads him by the hand to the single bed pushed up against the wall.
Onetime deal, Charlie reminds himself, mentally pushing the outside world aside. He places a firm hand on Thomas’s chest to stop him from crawling atop the mattress. Then he sinks down onto his knees.
“Oh . . . oh, Ch—Charlie,” Thomas stutters.
With a hand around the base of Thomas’s cock, Charlie follows his instincts and licks at the wet tip. The taste is surprisingly salty, but good, and he can’t suppress the shudder that passes through his body when he swallows. Above him Thomas moans, his hands coming up to thread through and then lightly tug on Charlie’s hair. It’s all the encouragement he needs, and he sinks his mouth down, trying to remember what that older man did to him to make it feel good. After some experimentation, he pulls off and looks up at Thomas, silently asking for approval.
Thomas’s mouth is open and his eyes hooded. “Feels so good. More, please, more.”
Charlie continues, almost shocked by how good it feels to bring Thomas pleasure, the heavy hardness between his legstestament to it. Thomas’s moans rise and rise, and his hips start to rock, forcing his length further into his mouth. But when Charlie accidentally drags his teeth over the delicate skin, Thomas winces and inhales sharply, pulling away.
“I’m sorry,” Charlie says, voice thick. “I haven’t really done this before.”
“It’s okay, I’ll need to practice too.” He reaches down to tug Charlie up off the floor. “Let’s get into bed and kiss a while. I was already so close, but I want this to last longer. I want to . . . do more.”
They squeeze onto the narrow bed and pull the blankets over them, their naked bodies coming together like two halves of a whole. The sensation of his skin pressed to Thomas’s is not something he could’ve ever prepared for. Not just in the way his body ignites with heat and pleasure, but also . . . Charlie isn’t even sure how to articulate it, but it’s like all his tightly held anger and anguish rushes straight out of him. They kiss wetly, greedily, as if searching for the answer to some unknown question Charlie didn’t know he’d been asking.
Soon Charlie is rutting urgently against Thomas’s hips and thighs, on the verge of release. “Do you want to finish like this?” he mumbles between kisses.
Thomas’s hand comes up to caress his cheek and he pulls back to look at Charlie with a fiery intensity that makes his belly swoop. “I want us to finish together, but I—I want to be inside you, Charlie. Can we try?”
Charlie is shocked. Regardless of his own fantasies, this is not what he was expecting. “You don’t wantmeto”—he fumbles for the right words but doesn’t find them—“to do it toyou?”
“No. I mean . . . I don’t think so.” Thomas looks worried and uncertain. “I just thought . . . I thought you would want me to do it to you. You don’t think youwould like it?”
Charlie hesitates. “I might like it,” he finally admits. Heat rushes to his face and he has to avert his eyes. “I . . . I’ve touched myself there. Thought about what it’d be like.”
Thomas strokes across Charlie’s cheek with his thumb. “Charlie, look at me.”
He raises his eyes briefly but then nuzzles into Thomas’s neck, the embarrassment of his confession too much.
“Charlie, please.”
Gathering his courage, he forces himself to look at Thomas.
“Please don’t be embarrassed. Neither of us has done this before, and that’s okay. If you would rather put it in me, then I’ll try. I just . . . I feel like I want to fu—” Thomas stops short, not finishing his thought.
“You were about to say you want to fuck me, weren’t you?” Charlie smiles, in part because they need to lighten the mood, and partly because Thomas saying he wants to fuck him makes Charlie’s whole body vibrate with excitement. The vulgarity of it only increases the appeal.
