Escape (26 page)

Luka felt like gravity suddenly tripled in force, and was trying to pull him down into the earth. “Tarik?”

“What?”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No.” Tarik's voice was still clipped and cool. “I need to go through my stuff one last time, double-check there's nothing to tie me to my old identity. You should, too.” Without looking at Luka, Tarik examined a shirt, running his hands over the breast pockets before adding it to the small pile of items he'd inspected. Then he sighed and looked up, finally meeting Luka's eyes. His voice softer, he said, “Of course I'm not mad at you, Luka. I'm just angry that people have made you feel like you have anything to be ashamed of.” It felt like Tarik's gentler tone, his lingering look were holding Luka's heart together, where it had started to crack when he'd thought Tarik was angry with him.

“You really don't think there's anything... bad about what we...” Luka wanted to say,
what we're doing
, but he was suddenly terrified it was already over, and so he should say,
What we did
. But if he said it in the past tense, he'd start crying.

Tarik tossed a pair of underwear on top of the recently inspected shirt, and got to his feet. “No, Luka.” Tarik came close, combed his fingers into Luka's hair and held his gaze. Looking into Tarik's hazel eyes was as comforting as an embrace. As nourishing as food. “I don't think there's anything bad about what we're doing. I think anyone who sees something shameful in a kiss is the one who should feel ashamed. If anyone thinks there's anything bad about how good I feel when you touch me, they're the bad person. Not you. Not me.” Tarik leaned down and pressed a tender kiss to Luka's lips. “You realize that, don't you?”

“Sometimes, I guess I do.”

“And not other times?”

Luka shrugged. “I guess I just don't understand why sometimes people get so angry, if there's nothing bad about it. About me.”

Tarik huffed out a hollow laugh, but his eyes were narrow with anger. “They get angry because they're frightened little babies. It's the same reason Zivkovi

and I
teljević
can call the Bokans cockroaches and the Kra

inans monkeys, and a month later a third of the population is blowing each other to little bloody pieces. Tell someone the man across the road is different from him, and he'll be afraid and angry before you even tell him
how
the other guy isn't like him.”

Something in Tarik's tense jaw, his hooded eyes reminded Luka of how he'd looked standing over Armin's disemboweled corpse, drops of blood falling from the knife in his fist.

Tarik sighed, and the hard glint in his gaze diffused. When he pressed his palm against Luka's chest, just over his heart, Luka's pulse sped. “What wrong could there be in me touching you?” Bending, Tarik gave Luka a soft, open kiss. “What ugliness could there be in a kiss that brings us both pleasure? Happiness? Tell me, Luka.”

“I don't know. I've never known.”

“Because there's nothing wrong with what we're doing. There's nothing wrong with you, Luka. You're good. You're perfect.”

He wasn't. Nobody was perfect, and Luka knew he wasn't even as good as most of the other imperfect people in the world. But Tarik's words still made his chest ache warmly. And when Tarik kissed him again, pulling him close, sliding his warm, strong hands up under the hem of Luka's shirt and slowly caressing his back, Luka felt like he was melting, dissolved in warmth and happiness.

Wild want battered his shyness as Tarik unbuttoned Luka's shirt and stripped his torso bare. Tarik brushed his lips against Luka's shoulder, then kissed, then lifted his gaze to his. God, that look. No one had ever looked at him that way, before. More than happiness. So much deeper, more vast than kindness. As if Luka weighed nothing, Tarik lifted and laid him down on the bed, kneeling beside him, bringing his mouth to his throat, nuzzling, soft brush of wet tongue setting off a burst of pleasure that radiated all through him. When Tarik licked the tip of his already stiff nipple, he arched off the bed, groaning.

Tarik lifted his head and gazed down at Luka. Then he grinned.

Suddenly Luka felt self-conscious, and heat rushed up his throat, into his cheeks. “What?”

“I love how sensitive you are. You should see yourself, right now. You look like you're in fucking agony. And yet...” Tarik curved his hand over Luka's hard cock.

“It
is
agony. And it's the best feeling in the world.”

Tarik's low, rough laugh. “Yeah.”

Tongue writhing and sliding over Luka's belly, making him gasp and grasp at Tarik's thick, shaggy hair. Taunting, sucking kiss, then a teasing nibble made Luka grunt out loud.

“Fuck, Luka, you make my dick so hard.”

Blushing again, Luka pleaded, “Let me kiss it.”

“I'm not done making you writhe and squeal.” Tarik was really torturing him, feathering breaths tickling Luka, the brief, scratchy brush of his jaw igniting and explosion of chills soothed as he nuzzled against him with his soft hair. Then he went after his nipple again, licking lightly, then coming at him with tormenting intensity, lapping and sucking. Then he sank down again, licking a slow, wet trail across his belly, right against the edge of his jeans, teasing him, working the waist of his pants and underwear down an inch or two, until just the tip of his aching cock peeked over the waistband. Soft and warm and wet, Tarik's tongue brushed against the million super-sensitive nerves gathered together in that delicate, vulnerable flesh, then swirled slowly around it, making Luka groan, almost sob with pleasure and need.

“God, you taste good.”

Even more than the physical pleasure, already too much to bear, the joy Luka sensed in Tarik's gaze, in his voice filled Luka with a happiness a hundred times bigger and better than he'd hoped for when he'd fantasized finding someone who'd want to kiss and touch him like this. So happy, so agonizingly turned on, Luka was only a little embarrassed as Tarik stripped him out of his pants and underwear.

When Tarik pushed Luka's legs apart and started kissing and nibbling his inner thighs, Luka cupped his face between his palms and coaxed him to lift his head. “Please. You get undressed, too. I want to feel your skin against me.”

Eyes lidded, breaths coming fast and shallow between his full, parted lips, Tarik sighed, then smiled. “Undress me.”

Thrilling, impossible, a man inviting him, letting him remove his clothes. Undoing the buttons of Tarik's shirt, baring his chest, pulling the fabric past his shoulder, down his arms felt so... intimate. Even after all the ways they'd touched and kissed each other, something about that act, about unbuckling his belt, undoing his fly made Luka feel almost as if Tarik was his. That in some profound, beautiful way, Tarik belonged to him.

Even if it would only be for today.

When he was naked, Tarik circled his hands around Luka's biceps and drew him to him, coaxing him to straddle his thighs, just like he had the night before in the armchair, except now they were both hard, their rigid cocks nuzzling as they sank into a heated, deep kiss. After, looking at Tarik, Luka realized what he'd meant about pleasure looking like agony. Tarik's expression of needful arousal looked like pain.

“Tarik?”

Tarik met his gaze and waited.

Luka wanted to ask so badly. But the words wouldn't come.

“Hmmm?”

“Did you mean it when you said we would... that you want to... with me...”

Faint grin under his furrowed brow. Soft voice almost a whisper. “Have sex?”

Forcing himself to keep meeting Tarik's eyes, Luka nodded.

“Yes, I meant it.” A faint, wary note had crept into his voice.

“Could we... now?”

Without answering, Tarik wrapped his arms around Luka and pulled him into an embrace, and Luka couldn't read his face anymore.

“You don't want to.”

“I want to, Luka.” Tarik's warm breath breezed over Luka's neck. “I just... thought we should wait a little.”

“Okay.”

Tarik let Luka out of his embrace, but encircled his waist with his big, warm hands. “You sound so sad. Don't you believe me, that I'll be ready soon?”

“I believe you.” He broke away from Tarik's gaze, because even if he hadn't meant to, it felt like he was lying to him.

Tarik cupped Luka's jaw in one hand and coaxed him to meet his eyes again. “Tell me.”

Luka shrugged. “It's our last day... alone together.” He'd almost said,
It's our last day together
. “Tomorrow, the van will come for us, and we'll be with a bunch of other people for a couple days. And then, you'll go to your family.”

Tarik's sad eyes. His kind smile. “You don't think we'll see each other after that?”

Luka shrugged. “I don't even know for sure we'll make it over.”

“We'll make it over.”

“You can't promise me that. I know you're trying to help me to not be afraid, but you can't promise that. Something could happen to me. Or to you. And the only thing either of us can know for sure is, we have this. Right now. We can't stop whatever might be coming tomorrow. Just like we couldn't stop this stupid war. Like you couldn't keep from getting drafted, or...” He'd almost said something about Armin and Begović.

“You're right.”

“I didn't mean to pressure you.”

“No?” Maybe that was Tarik trying for a teasing smile, but he looked too sad for it to work.

“I just don't...” Luka bit down on his next words.

“You don't what?”

A broken laugh creaked out of his chest. “Nothing.” The last thing he wanted was for Tarik to do it out of guilt, or some charitable impulse.

“Please say it, Luka. Show me you trust me.”

Startled, Luka met Tarik's eyes. “I trust you, Tarik. I trust you more than I've ever trusted anyone.”

“More than very little? More than not at all?” His voice was gentle, but the words stung.

“I don't want to die, without experiencing that. I don't want to lose you, and spend the rest of my life wishing we had...”

Tarik bowed his forehead to Luka's brow, and curved his hand against the nape of Luka's neck. “Me, either.”

“But you're not ready. It's okay. Honest, I under—”

“Luka.” Silence. Then Luka could hear Tarik draw a long, deep breath. “I didn't want to wait, because I'm not ready. I've only been worried you're not. But if you're sure, I am, too.”

Slow, deep kiss, Tarik holding Luka close, feathering a caress over Luka's waist, the small of his back, until they were both breathless and hard again. Just being so close to Tarik, wrapped up in the heat of him, in his scent, had Luka squirming and sighing with want. With need. And each time Tarik tortured Luka with a soft, wet kiss just under his ear, each time Luka felt Tarik's stiff cock nudge and brush against his own, the sudden swelling of his ache, his need, made him groan and grasp Tarik against him desperately.

Every moment, Luka hoped Tarik would lie him down on his belly and mount him, but Tarik kept kissing, now and then pulling back just far enough so he could gaze in Luka's eyes while he touched. And every caress either soothed and comforted, or provoked another cascade of overwhelming pleasure, as if Tarik knew by heart just where every sensitive, erogenous nerve was hidden under Luka's skin. Luka was going out of his mind.

“Please, Tarik. Please.” He didn't just ache with the need for release. He yearned to have Tarik inside of him. To feel their bodies locked together, connected in pleasure.

Hazel eyes lit up with want, Tarik loosened his embrace when Luka shifted and twisted, and let him turn away, then wrapped his arms around him again, so Luka's back was pressed against his broad, strong chest. Flushed hot with arousal and embarrassment, Luka shifted his hips until the unmistakable hardness of Tarik's cock settled between his cheeks. Then, in a shy little motion, Luka flexed, slowly rubbing the cleft of his ass up the length of Tarik's erection, then slowly down again. Tarik groaned and the ravenous kiss at the curve of Luka's neck ended in a bite. Luka startled at the pain, then at the rush of intense arousal that flooded over him in its wake.

“Please, Tarik. God, please.”

Still holding Luka close, Tarik unwrapped one arm from his waist, and a moment later, Luka felt Tarik guiding his cock up and down Luka's cleft, the nudge of that blunt hardness, the caress of that silky flesh unbearably thrilling. Then stillness, and a dull pressure right there. Luka caught and held his breath, waiting, aching to be filled.

“If it hurts, if you don't like it, tell me and I'll stop. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Tarik held Luka a little tighter with the arm belted across his waist, and Luka sucked in his breath as the pressure on his hole intensified. Then the pressure lessened, almost went away. The soft sound of Tarik's shallow breaths. Against his back, Luka could feel the thumping of Tarik's heart, and it filled him with tender warmth. When that pressure intensified again, little by little, and it seemed like Tarik had stopped breathing, too, as his cock rooted at his entrance and Luka's body started to yield. But then Tarik stopped.

“I'm okay.” Luka panted, catching his breath after holding it so long. “You can really do it. You're not hurting me.”