Page 42 of Sparring Partners
Adrian looked away, Luca’s steady gaze a torch that was shining too bright for him stare into.
“I’m so sorry. For all of it. It’s hell, isn’t it, when a relationship you believed in goes to shit?”
Luca’s voice was quiet, and not quite steady. Adrian turned to him. There was sympathy in Luca’s eyes, but pain too.
Protected by the dip, the wind had been nothing more than the faintest, occasional featherlight waft. Now it had died away altogether, as though it were waiting for answers to unasked questions.
“Why are you here, Luca? You said you were — were passing through.” Adrian stumbled to a stop, the words catching him like an unexpected punch to his gut. If Luca registered his trip, he didn’t show it as he gazed into the middle distance, seeing something only visible to him. Luca sighed, and the tension in his shoulders only became clear when they slumped.
“I was with somebody. In London. If we’re trading names, his was Bruno.”
Luca pulled his knees up and hugged them to his chest. It made him appear younger, more vulnerable and Adrian fought the urge to sweep the picnic aside and let it crash to the ground, and wrap Luca up in his arms. He clenched his fists, forcing himself to sit still, and wait.
“He worked in banking and got offered a job in Bermuda. The bank wanted him out there as soon as, so everything was being done to expedite the move. He assumed I’d give up my life in London and go with him. If I wanted to work, he said, I could find something to do in one of the local hotels.” Luca huffed, his lips tightening as he shook his head.
“He’d never taken my job seriously; he thought I floated around all day making sure everything looked pretty. Needless to say, that always rankled with me. He never, ever appreciated how hard I’d worked to get where I was. I had a very good job and when I said I couldn’t just up and leave, I was given an ultimatum. Go with him, or it was finished between us. I—I was shocked at how brutal he was about it. It was a side to him I suspected existed but had never encountered head on. Or not until it really mattered.”
“Did you make the right decision?” Adrian watched him, studied him, looking for any sign Luca believed he’d taken the wrong path.
“I didn’t know. Not at first. And that was what was freaking me out. Not being sure, when sure was something I’d always been. About the path my life was on. The career that meant and means so much to me. Whether I’d let Bruno and the life we could have had go too easily.”
Luca’s fingers picked at the bread on his plate, shredding it into tiny crumbs.
“Now, I know the decision was the right one for me. But when he left, I felt kind of anchorless. I’d been used to being part of a couple, and suddenly I was free, with no accountability to anybody. Thing was, it didn’t feel much like freedom.
“I needed a change of scenery, to get out of London — ironic, when you think about it. I negotiated my way out of my contract of employment, and that was when Alex persuaded me to come to The New House. It felt like a lifeline, and I grabbed it with both hands. It’s been almost a year since everything fell apart, which I know should be long enough to move on, but in some ways it still feels like last week.” Luca shook his head as he stared into the distance. “A year,” he whispered. “Jesus.” He turned back to Adrian. “We were talking about you. Sorry. I didn’t mean to steal the limelight.”
“Limelight is definitely what I don’t want. And I asked you the question. It’s all too easy to spend time licking old wounds, and thinking about what might have been.” Christ, what a fucking waste of life. The realisation pressed down on him, as hard and heavy as the standing stones. A nudge on his arm dragged him out of the morass of his thoughts. Luca held out a refilled glass of apple juice.
“You’re right. One thing I’ve learnt is that dwelling on what went wrong in the past isn’t the best way to face the future. Here’s to leaving all the crap behind and looking forward to new and better. For both of us. Cheers.”
CHAPTERTWENTY
Adrian took the glass, and chinked it against Luca’s. Neither said anything for a couple of minutes, each lost in their own thoughts. The silence broke when a rabbit rushed past, stopping to stand on its hind legs for a moment, before it scampered away. They both laughed, sweeping aside the sombre mood that had overtaken them.
“We got things the wrong way around,” Luca said quietly.
Adrian shoved the scant remains of the picnic aside and edged closer to Luca. “I think we got everything exactly the right way around. For us. But maybe this can be our first official date?” He brushed Luca’s lips with his own.
Luca’s eyelids fluttered to a close, as he sighed into Adrian’s touch.
The kiss was soft and sweet, tasting of apples, blue skies, and the warm breeze. Placing his hands on either side of Luca’s face, Adrian deepened the kiss, drinking in all of Luca’s warm, sweet wetness. He eased Luca down onto his back, his dick thickening when Luca’s sigh turned to a shuddering moan as he straddled him.
The desperate need for air broke them apart. Luca stared up at him, his blue eyes turned black with need and want. His lips, red, puffy and wet, curved up into a shaky smile as he trailed the backs of his fingers over Adrian’s cheek, and Adrian shivered as his skin seemed to tighten, too small to hold everything he was in place.
Adrian placed a line of small kisses and nips along the side of Luca’s neck. Beneath him, Luca half laughed and half gasped, squirming as Adrian sought access. Catching Luca’s wrists, he clamped them over Luca’s head, holding him firm but not hard. Moving from Luca’s neck, over his jawline, he arrived at his mouth, where he nipped and sucked on the pillowy lower lip, pulling ragged breaths from the man beneath him.
Luca’s warm breath wafted from below him, as above, the warm sun blanketed his back. Adrian’s heart thundered in his chest as he gazed down. Luca’s dark blond hair was a tumbled mess; his eyes shone dark, his lips were wet and parted and turning up in a slow smile.
“Did I tell you I always kiss on first dates?”
“Yeah? So do I.”
All softness, all playfulness was crushed under an onslaught of longing as lips and teeth clashed, as tongues battled and fought for control. Moans and whimpers, and ragged breaths as mouths sucked and kissed, and bodies rutted hard against one another.
Luca was a furnace, his skin radiating a heat that burned into Adrian. Kissing deeper and darker, his heart stuttered as Luca bucked his hips, pressing his swollen shaft against his own straining erection.
Every nerve in Adrian’s body pulsed, searing his skin and heating his blood as his grip on Luca’s wrists tightened, a primal thrill coursing through him that with each fierce beat of his heart, his head spun with the intoxicating rush that Luca was under his command.
