Escape (27 page)

Nuzzling, kissing Luka's neck, Tarik sighed. “I think I need to do something to...”

“What?”

“Make it wet. More slippery.”

Luka didn't know why that made his face and throat go hot. For a moment, the pressure disappeared—actually, for a moment, Luka couldn't feel Tarik against him, at all—then a moment later Luka was wrapped up in Tarik's heat and strength again, his hardness prodding again, but cool and wet, now.

“What did you do?”

“I used my spit. Is that gross?”

“No.” He was still blushing. “Can you, now?”

The pressure intensified, and gradually Luka's body yielded, his hole stretching tight around Tarik's burrowing cock. Oh God, it was happening. Luka squeezed his lips between his teeth and tried to stay quiet as the girth of Tarik's cock forced him open, stretching him tighter and tighter.

“Are you okay?” Tarik was trembling against him.

“Yes.” Luka tried to soften his voice, to hide the strain from Tarik. “Are you inside me?”

Tarik huffed out a little warm breath against Luka's neck. “That's just... the first inch or so.”

Luka's whole body tensed and he bit down on his lips again. Maybe they weren't supposed to fit together, like that. Maybe Tarik was too big for him. He wasn't sure he could take much more, but he wanted it so much.

“Sure you're okay?”

“I'm fine. Please. I want you to.”

Panting, Tarik strained against Luka, and Luka bit down harder on his lips as his hole stretched and burned around Tarik's cock. Then Tarik pulled back, left Luka empty. Relief flooded Luka's body, but he kept quiet when Tarik came back to him, stiff cock cool and wet, again, and worked the tip of his cock back up into Luka's straining hole. A trembling flexing, and Luka grunted through his bitten lips before he could stop himself as Tarik drove his hardness into him, stretching his burning hole tight and filling him. Oh, god. God. That fullness made him feel whole.

“There. I'm there, Luka.” Tarik kissed the nape of his neck. “You feel so, so good, Luka.”

“You too.” He did. Even with that searing pain threaded through his pleasure, this was bliss.

“I'm afraid to move. I'm so turned on. And you're so... God...”

Tarik flexed, just barely moving inside of Luka, Tarik groaning, Luka holding his breath. Another flex, that tight ring of muscle grasping the girth of Tarik's cock as their flesh chafed and Tarik's rigid cock rooted to the depth of his body. And like that, buried to the hilt, Tarik gave three shallow little thrusts, gasping and grunting against Luka's damp neck.

Panting, Tarik ran his hands over Luka's chest, caressing his hot skin, feathering his touch over his belly, encircling his cock. “You're not breathing.”

Luka huffed out a tense little laugh. “Nervous.”

“Your whole body's rigid. Except...” Tarik tenderly caressed Luka soft cock.

“It's okay. I don't want you to stop. Please, Tarik.”

But Tarik was already withdrawing, leaving him emptier and emptier until he'd abandoned him completely. Luka kept biting his lips, now stifling a sob of bitter disappointment. He'd ruined it.

“I have an idea for something else we can do. I'll be right back.” Tarik slipped away.

Luka had so desperately wanted it to be good. To give Tarik that ultimate pleasure. That connection, almost like the union Tarik had experienced with the women who'd been Tarik's lovers. To know that, even if they had to go their separate ways when they'd crossed, they'd always be connected by that intimate act they'd shared. Now, all Tarik would remember would be that Luka had turned to stone, except in the one place he should have been hard.

“Let's try this.” Tarik came back to bed, holding a cup of golden liquid.

“What's that?”

“Cooking oil.” Tarik dipped two fingertips into the liquid, then rubbed the pad of his thumb across them, and grinned. “Much more slippery than spit.” Luka watched as Tarik dipped his fingers again, then stroked them up and down the length of his cock, hard as ever. Fuck, what a gorgeous sight, that delicate skin turning glossy with each slow pass of Tarik's long fingers, the foreskin slipping up and down, veiling and revealing the bulbous head again and again.

This time, when Tarik nudged the tip of his cock against Luka's opening, when he drove his thick girth slowly inside, Luka felt the strain of being stretched, but it only burned a little. Slick and stiff, Tarik's cock burrowed into Luka's body, inch by inch, until he was achingly, wonderfully full. Luka sighed.

“Better?” Tarik nuzzled into Luka's neck, and kissed just under his jaw, releasing a swarm of delicious shivers.

“Oh, god, Tarik. Yes. Yes. You feel so, so good.”

Tarik groaned and flexed, and the slippery friction and the sense of being completely wrapped up in Tarik's body, in his embrace and his heat, made Luka feel overwhelmingly content and desperately needful at once. Unable to help himself, he started writhing over Tarik's thick, impaling cock.

“Oh, fuck, Luka. Fuck.” Grunting, clutching Luka tight to him, Tarik pumped into him, and Luka whimpered in an agony of pleasure. “Can you reach the cup?”

Luka stretched for it, and then Tarik dipped his fingers again, this time encircling Luka's swollen, heavy-hanging cock. Unbearable bliss. That teasing touch playing over his blushing cockhead, that tormenting caress sliding slippery up and down his stiffening length while Tarik rocked his hips, plunging into him, filling him, stretching him again, again. Then he went still, his heart hammering against Luka's back.

“What's wrong?”

Tarik laughed. “Nothing. Except that it's too good. I need to get you caught up, before I dare to move again, because I'm about to come.”

Over and over Tarik made Luka wait, only fondling and stroking him for long, needful seconds before he'd roll his hips and fuck Luka in slow, deep strokes before going still again, holding him tight, whispering his pleasure, his happiness, kissing his ear, his neck, his jaw as he massaged Luka's aching cock.

“Please, Tarik. I'm close. Close. I want to feel you moving inside me when I...”

“Oh, god.”

Tarik started fucking him, pulsing his hips against his ass, driving his cock deep into him as he slid his greased grip up and down Luka's rigid, pulsing length. The collision of sensations, being filled up, being enveloped, Tarik's hot flesh around him, inside him, caressing all his most sensitive nerves had Luka gasping, trembling, all of him lit up and humming, even his heart full of Tarik's sighs and moans, and then all that pleasure and joy ruptured and overflowed, Luka whimpering, writhing, reaching up and back and grasping fistfuls of Tarik's hair, desperate to hold onto him, to keep him there as he rode Luka in a sudden, greedy frenzy, and growled out as he sank down over him, clutching him hard against him as he thrust into him urgent and deep, flexing and shuddering.

After, the quiet. The stillness. Just the small sounds, the little movements. Their beating hearts. Their panting breaths. Trickle of their mingled sweat. Slinking rivulet of semen. And eventually, the slow, sticky uncoupling.

Lying down, face to face, they kissed and smiled and whispered, gazing into each other's eyes. Luka wished he could stop time. Stay there in that moment forever, his body still flushed and buzzing with the pleasure and strain Tarik's body had inflicted. Tarik still so close, Luka could feel his radiant heat, feel his breath on his lips. No, he wouldn't stop time. Just slow it down a thousand times, so that eventually they would kiss again, caress each other again, so Tarik would mount and take him again, and he'd spend an eternity like that, melded together with Tarik.

“Luka?”

“Hmmm?”

“You look sad.”

He wasn't. He was the happiest he'd ever been. But he had to force a smile. “How could I be sad? Everything's perfect.”

Tender smile, but melancholy eyes.

“Now
you
look sad.”

“I am, a little.”

Luka's heart cramped and shrank. “Why?”

“Because, it would be so nice to stay just like this.” He didn't say the
but
part.

But perfect moments always end.

But tomorrow we'll get in a van, and that will be the end of this.

But when we get over the border, I'll go to my family, and you'll go...

For more than an hour they huddled together in the warmth and happiness of their perfect moment. Then they rose and showered together. It was still too miraculous to believe, having Tarik there with him under the spray of warm water. Tarik's naked body bared to him so willingly. So near, Luka could see the way the smooth cascade of water enveloping Tarik's dusky skin feathered out when tufts of his dark hair between his pecs, below his navel, around the root of his cock broke its glassy surface. So near, Luka could just reach out and touch his hip, curve his hand over the rounded, muscular hillock of his ass. And Tarik let him. Tarik let him, and smiled, and gazed at him with those incredible hazel eyes.

Hidden away in that dark warm basement that would have felt like a prison if it hadn't been for Tarik and all the pleasure he kept giving, a dozen times Tarik caught Luka staring. As his face warmed and he hurriedly looked away, Luka would glimpse Tarik's amused grin, barely a twist at one corner of his mouth, faint shadow of a shallow dimple in his cheek.

“I love your blushes,” Tarik said this time, calling Luka out instead of leaving him clinging to the far-fetched fantasy he'd gotten away with it. “But at the risk of curing you of your endearing modesty, I gotta tell you I also love the way you look at me when you think I won't notice.”

Luka couldn't take the weight of Tarik's gaze, and his own sank to the floor.

“I have a dare for you.”

The playful note in Tarik's voice pulled Luka's back to him. Tarik breezed past, to the little writing desk tucked into the corner by the stairs, then he returned, dropping a pencil and a little notepad into Luka's hands.

“Tell me how you want me.”

All Luka's skin went taut, like it was shrinking around him, too tight for his body. “Want you?”

“Any pose you like. Classical. Lascivious. Don't censor yourself.”

“You want me to...”

“Be an artist. Draw me. Then you have a legitimate reason to stare all you want. I could sit like this.” Tarik tossed aside the towel he'd been drying himself with, and perched at the end of the bed, one foot on the floor, the other drawn in under his knee. On full display, his cock hung thick and limp over his balls.

“I don't do figure studies.”

Tarik's low, warm laugh. “Even as a favor to a lover?”

He wanted to. Saying that, about nudes not being a subject that interested him was just an excuse because he was embarrassed. Or he was feeling something deeper, more painful than embarrassment. Something squeezing his heart until every beat felt labored and weak. But for Tarik, anything.

Luka sank onto the Spartan wooden chair and leaned over the little dining table, clutching the pencil. But his hand was shaking so badly, the first stroke of graphite careened out of control. He couldn't. Couldn't render that manly body in line and shadow. Angled jaw, ropey muscles, not heavy and bulky like Pero and Calvin, but stunningly defined. Dark hair. Lips. Nipples. Pubic thatch. Cock. Balls.

“Luka?”

Luka pushed the pad and pencil away to the other side of the table, but still felt like he'd been caught touching some forbidden object. He knew he was safe with Tarik, knew it heart and soul, but whatever was squeezing his heart was swelling up, coiling around and around inside of him, crushing out the air in his chest, choking and shaking him.

Tarik's voice, deep and soft. “Hey.” Tarik rose from the bed, came close. Hands warm and light on Luka's shoulders. “What's going on?”

When Luka didn't answer, Tarik pulled the second chair over and sat down beside him.

“I didn't know I was asking you to do something that scared you so much. I'm sorry.”

Luka shrugged.

“I won't ask again. It's not important. I just thought it would help you get over being nervous about looking at me.”

“It's okay. My hand just got nervous.” Luka wanted to make a joke, to make Tarik laugh instead of looking at him with that hurt expression. The way people look at wounded dogs after they've been run over and are waiting to die.

“I know,” Tarik murmured softly, even though what Luka said didn't make any sense. “Tell me why.”

He'd never told anyone what Pero had done to him after Obrad pilfered his drawing. He'd lied to the doctors. Lied to Željko, giving him a barely credible story about the heavy lid of the metal dumpster behind the shop falling on his hand. But he didn't want to lie to Tarik. Just saying the words—those memories he'd spent three years burying under lies, in a grave beside the reason he had no family, beside the truth of who he was—pumped him up with shame and fear again.

“I wish I could go to your town and cut off both of that fucker's hands.” Tarik looked so angry, Luka didn't know if he felt protected, or afraid of him. He'd never seen Tarik enraged, even after what happened with Armin and Begović, maybe because he'd spent all his wrath in his murderous frenzy the moment he'd seen what they were doing to Luka. “I hate that he almost maimed you. That some homophobic jock with a rock for a brain might have stolen your art from this world, and from you. I hate that he...” Tarik broke eye contact, and Luka watched Tarik's chest swell, then slowly deflate with a determined effort at calming himself. When he met Luka's eyes again, the seething hate that had darkened his own was gone, Tarik's gaze was clouded, but tender. He cupped Luka's face between his big hands. “I hate that you're still burdened with the scars he gave you.”