The last time Nicolò was part of an arrangement after this fashion, something intended to be a comfortable, pleasant outlet between friends, it ended badly, and though the other man is surely long dead by now, he can recall that entire chapter of his life very clearly.
He remembers just how difficult things became, before the end, his own baffled hurt in the face of the jealousy Leandro vehemently denied. He remembers the uncomfortable hot humiliation curling in his belly the afternoon on the pier when Leandro had taken his hand with uncomfortable softness and taken him off-guard with sentiments he did not return. He remembers when discomfort and confusion had changed into that horrible sickening feeling in the face of Leandro’s poorly-hidden resentment – this isn’t enough, what I am not is enough, it must be my fault somehow.
He spent weeks after it finally ended wondering if Leandro had been somehow taking something he wasn’t giving every time they laughed together, and feeling vaguely ill about it.
The thought of doing the same thing to Yusuf is abhorrent, and the idea of losing Yusuf altogether the way he eventually lost Leandro – the way Leandro lost him – fills him with inescapable horror.
Rationally, the worst that might happen is separating for a decade or two, and then living for a while with Yusuf’s careful sympathy – something his mind rebels from, but which is not, in the end, so very terrible. Nicolò has no intention of resenting anyone, and Yusuf has already forgiven him far worse than unreciprocated feelings.
Nevertheless, this is a mistake, and he should have known better. Whether escalating their physical relationship opened the way for far stronger emotions, or simply allowed something that already existed to rise to the surface, he cannot be sure. In the latter case, it might even be that it would have happened regardless.
For a moment, Nicolò is distracted by the thought of Yusuf’s selflessness, his easy smile and kind eyes, the softness of his touch and his endless grace. Given that they have eternity… yes.
It is a mistake to allow this, a mistake to treasure it, a mistake to yield to his lusts and a weakness to indulge his affections – but he has made it, likely irrevocably, and fighting a doomed battle is useless. If he commits to holding the new line… he is less certain of his ability to stand fast than he would have been only a few months ago, but at least it is a more sensible option than bewailing his failures.
If he is going to careen wildly down this particular metaphorical hill, it is useless to deny himself enjoyment of the wind on his face.
Nicolò puts out the last of the candles before he slips quietly into the bedroom. The lamp is already extinguished, but he has no trouble preparing for bed without it. As appealing as a reprise of the night before had seemed already, it now carries the double gift of sparing him from being alone in the dark with his thoughts – a prospect somehow less bearable than the unpleasant experience of being alone with them in the afternoon light.
“Yusuf,” he says, quietly.
“Mm?”
“Are you asleep?”
“No,” Yusuf says, amusement in his voice. “Would you like something?”
Nicolò lets the silence answer that question.
“Oh.” The other man sounds mildly surprised. It is relatively uncommon for them to do such things two nights in a row. If Nicolò wanted to defend the idea, he would point out that it has been nearly two months since they had the opportunity at all, but he has no intention of doing so. For one thing, it is not as if he had to spend that time as celibate as he did; there is certainly nothing in their arrangement which precludes finding pleasure privately.
More saliently, he has no intention of arguing about it. If Yusuf is not inclined, Nicolò will bid him a cheerful goodnight, and feign sleep until he achieves it – or until Yusuf does.
“All right,” Yusuf says instead, agreeably, and Nicolò hears him resettle himself on the bed.
It’s too dark to see much, and they’re still too far apart to touch, so for a moment it is reminiscent of before they’d ever openly spoken of this, lying apart under the stars with only sounds to fire their blood. After months of watching each other, after feeling Yusuf’s hands on him while he climaxed, it shouldn’t be so erotic just to hear him again, but something about the fact that they are indoors, on an actual bed, on the same bed, makes Nicolò’s skin tingle sharply and his pulse pound.
His heart aches suddenly at the domesticity of it all, lying in this bed he purchased with another person, in this house he rented for the two of them to live in, after cooking together and eating together and knowing he can just reach over and touch because they’ve both agreed to it, before and just now, everything building up in his heart until he’s near to weeping with it.
He sighs, heavily and involuntarily, one last concession to the emotion before he pushes it away, rolls closer, and runs a hand down Yusuf’s chest, hearing the other man’s breath hitch. Nicolò rubs a thumb across his nipples, smiling a little at the sharp in-drawn breath it prompts. His other hand flutters at Yusuf’s shoulder, fighting the urge to run fingers over his hair.
His sight is a little better accustomed to the night now, Yusuf’s face almost visible in the darkness, lips parted and eyes open as he coaxes himself to full hardness. A moment later he reaches out, hand brushing against Nicolò’s knee.
“Don’t you…”
“Not yet.” Nicolò’s voice comes out hoarse, maybe from desire and maybe from emotion. He ruthlessly ascribes it to the former and clears his throat as silently as he can. “I’ll let you… catch up.”
There’s a breathy laugh and Yusuf lets his hand fall away, which shouldn’t leave Nicolò bereft so he decides that it doesn’t. Instead, he rubs circles around the sensitive places on the other man’s torso with one hand, stroking the other down Yusuf’s side in an echo of their positions last night.
Yusuf groans in a way that always goes straight to Nicolò’s prick, leaves him gasping just a little as he props himself on one elbow for a better reach. He takes his time teasing at the edges of Yusuf’s nipples, which seem unusually sensitive – or perhaps it’s just that no one has ever touched him like this.
Nicolò has never thought of himself as the sort of man to take dubious pleasure in another’s inexperience, but that thought sets an unexpected fever in his blood that almost swamps him entirely. I have little enough knowledge… Every brush of his fingers becomes a potential new source of pleasure, something Yusuf may never have felt at another’s hands before, until somehow Nicolò is the one drunk on it, his own aching arousal entirely disregarded as he maps Yusuf’s body with his hands, glorying every time his name slips from the other man’s lips.
Finally Yusuf gasps “Ahh,” and arches less into his own hand than Nicolò’s, and that dissolves the last of whatever restraint existed. Nicolò leans over to press his mouth to that one area on Yusuf’s side more sensitive than the rest of his skin, the one he always gives special attention to, the one Nicolò has wanted to stroke and suck and bite since he first noticed it.
For a brief moment he savours the salt on Yusuf’s skin, the shocked, ecstatic moan in his ears – and then a instant later there are warm hands on his shoulders and Nicolò is on his back with his head deep in the pillows before he can even properly register what’s happening, Yusuf’s lips hot and insistent on his own. Nicolò clutches at him desperately, unable to do anything but kiss him back, lets Yusuf lick his way into his mouth and take him apart with only lips and tongue.
He did say he knows how to kiss, Nicolò thinks dizzily, knowing there’s some part of this he’s meant to avoid but not quite what it is or how to want to do anything about it. Yusuf’s beard is soft against his face, his hand gentle and firm in Nicolò’s hair, his body hot and heavy and wonderful pressing Nicolò down into the bed. Everything in Nicolò wants to rebel against whatever’s holding them back, drag a hand up to tangle in Yusuf’s lovely curls, pull the other man more completely on top of him so that they can rut against each other, give himself up entirely to his lust and his passion and his desperate devotion to Yusuf.
With an act of will to anchor earthquakes, he does not.
Instead he tightens his fingers where they press into Yusuf’s shoulders and kisses him back, kisses him deeply, moaning into the heat of his mouth as the fire of Yusuf’s touch slides down Nicolò’s body to his hip and spreads with Yusuf’s fingers over his hipbone in a mirror of the way they’d been touching the night before.
Maybe it is seconds later, maybe minutes, maybe hours – all Nicolò knows is that by the time he realizes what he can do with his hands, the world has long dissolved into ever-rising heat and soft darkness, all Yusuf’s warm, wet mouth and Yusuf’s hand still so softly unyielding in his hair and the weight and heat of him, the touch of their skin along what feels like every inch of Nicolò’s chest so good it can’t possibly be real, can’t possibly continue to exist. Yusuf has them angled just right to obey the letter of the law, one leg brushing against another but no other contact below the waist. Nicolò can feel the sensation of Yusuf’s body near his cock, so close, but no matter how he desperately tries to find it there’s no relief to be found, only empty air. It doesn’t stop him from moaning desperately into Yusuf’s mouth, thrusting his hips upward as if this time, this time, there might be something to touch him, something to tip him finally over that last edge. Yusuf is still pressing him down, groaning into his mouth as he tries to grind down against the bed, but the angle is wrong and it seems to frustrate him more than anything by the plaintive way he gasps against Nicolò’s mouth.
It might be (tempting, wonderful) torture, but it gives an opportunity he’s never had before and finally Nicolò scrapes together enough wit to realize it. At this angle he can run his hands over the plane of Yusuf’s back. It makes the other man shiver, and that’s enough of a distraction that he keeps doing it, over and over again, dragging his palms from Yusuf’s shoulders down to the small of his back and feeling him shudder with it, intoxicated on Yusuf’s slow kisses as he matches them to the movements of Nicolò’s hands, murmuring, “Yes, yes, ahhh,” into his mouth.
Finally, finally, Nicolò remembers his original purpose, and keeps his hand moving, sliding it down further still until he has Yusuf’s ass under his hand, and before the other man can react beyond a startled intake of breath, squeezes slow and gentle.
Nicolò isn’t entirely sure any longer what he expected – smooth, wondrous skin under his palm, yes, the tensing of Yusuf’s muscles beneath his fingers, yes, perhaps he anticipated a return to the urgent pace of a moment or an hour before, instead of this slow and desperate drowning; he thinks maybe he expected Yusuf to lever himself more upright, let him get a better grip, and stroke himself to completion with Nicolò’s hands on his ass.
He did not expect the heaving gasp that shakes both their bodies, for Yusuf to buck so hard at the touch of his hand that his cock actually brushes Nicolò’s thigh, but the fire it stokes in his chest, in his blood, in his very skin, is so instant and overwhelming that anything else ceases to matter. He gets a hand on Yusuf’s arm, somehow, and uses both arms to drag him clumsily upward until Yusuf cooperates enough that Nicolò can get an arm between them and close his hand around his cock with a desperate sob.
Yusuf moans into his mouth, the sound broken and raw, and fumbles his knees properly under him so he can prop himself above Nicolò and reach his own prick. His arm brushes against Nicolò’s and both of them gasp at it, breathing each other’s air, bodies shaking almost in unison. Yusuf’s throat tightens with effort, his jaw clenching as he holds back a little longer. They’re not, by the narrowest, most disingenuous definition, touching, but it doesn’t matter; the distinction is utterly meaningless with their foreheads pressed together this way – Nicolò can feel Yusuf’s breath on his nose and cheek, Yusuf’s arm, the back of his hand, brushing against his own, rhythm matching so closely it could just as well be Yusuf’s cock in Nicolò’s hand, Yusuf’s fingers sliding precome down his shaft, easily, easily –
Nicolò groans as he comes, so loudly he can hear himself even over the roaring in his ears as his climax pulses through him and leaves him utterly spent, his very soul wrung out and squeezed empty by the force of it. Yusuf’s breath comes harsher and harsher, until it’s sobbing out of his chest, and when Nicolò musters enough strength to run a hand lightly over his back, he collapses, burying his face in the juncture of Nicolò’s shoulder and neck as he spends between them.
Give An Inch (Fall A Mile): Joe/Nicky, Moving Goalposts (6b/?)
The last time Nicolò was part of an arrangement after this fashion, something intended to be a comfortable, pleasant outlet between friends, it ended badly, and though the other man is surely long dead by now, he can recall that entire chapter of his life very clearly.
He remembers just how difficult things became, before the end, his own baffled hurt in the face of the jealousy Leandro vehemently denied. He remembers the uncomfortable hot humiliation curling in his belly the afternoon on the pier when Leandro had taken his hand with uncomfortable softness and taken him off-guard with sentiments he did not return. He remembers when discomfort and confusion had changed into that horrible sickening feeling in the face of Leandro’s poorly-hidden resentment – this isn’t enough, what I am not is enough, it must be my fault somehow.
He spent weeks after it finally ended wondering if Leandro had been somehow taking something he wasn’t giving every time they laughed together, and feeling vaguely ill about it.
The thought of doing the same thing to Yusuf is abhorrent, and the idea of losing Yusuf altogether the way he eventually lost Leandro – the way Leandro lost him – fills him with inescapable horror.
Rationally, the worst that might happen is separating for a decade or two, and then living for a while with Yusuf’s careful sympathy – something his mind rebels from, but which is not, in the end, so very terrible. Nicolò has no intention of resenting anyone, and Yusuf has already forgiven him far worse than unreciprocated feelings.
Nevertheless, this is a mistake, and he should have known better. Whether escalating their physical relationship opened the way for far stronger emotions, or simply allowed something that already existed to rise to the surface, he cannot be sure. In the latter case, it might even be that it would have happened regardless.
For a moment, Nicolò is distracted by the thought of Yusuf’s selflessness, his easy smile and kind eyes, the softness of his touch and his endless grace. Given that they have eternity… yes.
It is a mistake to allow this, a mistake to treasure it, a mistake to yield to his lusts and a weakness to indulge his affections – but he has made it, likely irrevocably, and fighting a doomed battle is useless. If he commits to holding the new line… he is less certain of his ability to stand fast than he would have been only a few months ago, but at least it is a more sensible option than bewailing his failures.
If he is going to careen wildly down this particular metaphorical hill, it is useless to deny himself enjoyment of the wind on his face.
Nicolò puts out the last of the candles before he slips quietly into the bedroom. The lamp is already extinguished, but he has no trouble preparing for bed without it. As appealing as a reprise of the night before had seemed already, it now carries the double gift of sparing him from being alone in the dark with his thoughts – a prospect somehow less bearable than the unpleasant experience of being alone with them in the afternoon light.
“Yusuf,” he says, quietly.
“Mm?”
“Are you asleep?”
“No,” Yusuf says, amusement in his voice. “Would you like something?”
Nicolò lets the silence answer that question.
“Oh.” The other man sounds mildly surprised. It is relatively uncommon for them to do such things two nights in a row. If Nicolò wanted to defend the idea, he would point out that it has been nearly two months since they had the opportunity at all, but he has no intention of doing so. For one thing, it is not as if he had to spend that time as celibate as he did; there is certainly nothing in their arrangement which precludes finding pleasure privately.
More saliently, he has no intention of arguing about it. If Yusuf is not inclined, Nicolò will bid him a cheerful goodnight, and feign sleep until he achieves it – or until Yusuf does.
“All right,” Yusuf says instead, agreeably, and Nicolò hears him resettle himself on the bed.
It’s too dark to see much, and they’re still too far apart to touch, so for a moment it is reminiscent of before they’d ever openly spoken of this, lying apart under the stars with only sounds to fire their blood. After months of watching each other, after feeling Yusuf’s hands on him while he climaxed, it shouldn’t be so erotic just to hear him again, but something about the fact that they are indoors, on an actual bed, on the same bed, makes Nicolò’s skin tingle sharply and his pulse pound.
His heart aches suddenly at the domesticity of it all, lying in this bed he purchased with another person, in this house he rented for the two of them to live in, after cooking together and eating together and knowing he can just reach over and touch because they’ve both agreed to it, before and just now, everything building up in his heart until he’s near to weeping with it.
He sighs, heavily and involuntarily, one last concession to the emotion before he pushes it away, rolls closer, and runs a hand down Yusuf’s chest, hearing the other man’s breath hitch. Nicolò rubs a thumb across his nipples, smiling a little at the sharp in-drawn breath it prompts. His other hand flutters at Yusuf’s shoulder, fighting the urge to run fingers over his hair.
His sight is a little better accustomed to the night now, Yusuf’s face almost visible in the darkness, lips parted and eyes open as he coaxes himself to full hardness. A moment later he reaches out, hand brushing against Nicolò’s knee.
“Don’t you…”
“Not yet.” Nicolò’s voice comes out hoarse, maybe from desire and maybe from emotion. He ruthlessly ascribes it to the former and clears his throat as silently as he can. “I’ll let you… catch up.”
There’s a breathy laugh and Yusuf lets his hand fall away, which shouldn’t leave Nicolò bereft so he decides that it doesn’t. Instead, he rubs circles around the sensitive places on the other man’s torso with one hand, stroking the other down Yusuf’s side in an echo of their positions last night.
Yusuf groans in a way that always goes straight to Nicolò’s prick, leaves him gasping just a little as he props himself on one elbow for a better reach. He takes his time teasing at the edges of Yusuf’s nipples, which seem unusually sensitive – or perhaps it’s just that no one has ever touched him like this.
Nicolò has never thought of himself as the sort of man to take dubious pleasure in another’s inexperience, but that thought sets an unexpected fever in his blood that almost swamps him entirely. I have little enough knowledge… Every brush of his fingers becomes a potential new source of pleasure, something Yusuf may never have felt at another’s hands before, until somehow Nicolò is the one drunk on it, his own aching arousal entirely disregarded as he maps Yusuf’s body with his hands, glorying every time his name slips from the other man’s lips.
Finally Yusuf gasps “Ahh,” and arches less into his own hand than Nicolò’s, and that dissolves the last of whatever restraint existed. Nicolò leans over to press his mouth to that one area on Yusuf’s side more sensitive than the rest of his skin, the one he always gives special attention to, the one Nicolò has wanted to stroke and suck and bite since he first noticed it.
For a brief moment he savours the salt on Yusuf’s skin, the shocked, ecstatic moan in his ears – and then a instant later there are warm hands on his shoulders and Nicolò is on his back with his head deep in the pillows before he can even properly register what’s happening, Yusuf’s lips hot and insistent on his own. Nicolò clutches at him desperately, unable to do anything but kiss him back, lets Yusuf lick his way into his mouth and take him apart with only lips and tongue.
He did say he knows how to kiss, Nicolò thinks dizzily, knowing there’s some part of this he’s meant to avoid but not quite what it is or how to want to do anything about it. Yusuf’s beard is soft against his face, his hand gentle and firm in Nicolò’s hair, his body hot and heavy and wonderful pressing Nicolò down into the bed. Everything in Nicolò wants to rebel against whatever’s holding them back, drag a hand up to tangle in Yusuf’s lovely curls, pull the other man more completely on top of him so that they can rut against each other, give himself up entirely to his lust and his passion and his desperate devotion to Yusuf.
With an act of will to anchor earthquakes, he does not.
Instead he tightens his fingers where they press into Yusuf’s shoulders and kisses him back, kisses him deeply, moaning into the heat of his mouth as the fire of Yusuf’s touch slides down Nicolò’s body to his hip and spreads with Yusuf’s fingers over his hipbone in a mirror of the way they’d been touching the night before.
Maybe it is seconds later, maybe minutes, maybe hours – all Nicolò knows is that by the time he realizes what he can do with his hands, the world has long dissolved into ever-rising heat and soft darkness, all Yusuf’s warm, wet mouth and Yusuf’s hand still so softly unyielding in his hair and the weight and heat of him, the touch of their skin along what feels like every inch of Nicolò’s chest so good it can’t possibly be real, can’t possibly continue to exist. Yusuf has them angled just right to obey the letter of the law, one leg brushing against another but no other contact below the waist. Nicolò can feel the sensation of Yusuf’s body near his cock, so close, but no matter how he desperately tries to find it there’s no relief to be found, only empty air. It doesn’t stop him from moaning desperately into Yusuf’s mouth, thrusting his hips upward as if this time, this time, there might be something to touch him, something to tip him finally over that last edge. Yusuf is still pressing him down, groaning into his mouth as he tries to grind down against the bed, but the angle is wrong and it seems to frustrate him more than anything by the plaintive way he gasps against Nicolò’s mouth.
It might be (tempting, wonderful) torture, but it gives an opportunity he’s never had before and finally Nicolò scrapes together enough wit to realize it. At this angle he can run his hands over the plane of Yusuf’s back. It makes the other man shiver, and that’s enough of a distraction that he keeps doing it, over and over again, dragging his palms from Yusuf’s shoulders down to the small of his back and feeling him shudder with it, intoxicated on Yusuf’s slow kisses as he matches them to the movements of Nicolò’s hands, murmuring, “Yes, yes, ahhh,” into his mouth.
Finally, finally, Nicolò remembers his original purpose, and keeps his hand moving, sliding it down further still until he has Yusuf’s ass under his hand, and before the other man can react beyond a startled intake of breath, squeezes slow and gentle.
Nicolò isn’t entirely sure any longer what he expected – smooth, wondrous skin under his palm, yes, the tensing of Yusuf’s muscles beneath his fingers, yes, perhaps he anticipated a return to the urgent pace of a moment or an hour before, instead of this slow and desperate drowning; he thinks maybe he expected Yusuf to lever himself more upright, let him get a better grip, and stroke himself to completion with Nicolò’s hands on his ass.
He did not expect the heaving gasp that shakes both their bodies, for Yusuf to buck so hard at the touch of his hand that his cock actually brushes Nicolò’s thigh, but the fire it stokes in his chest, in his blood, in his very skin, is so instant and overwhelming that anything else ceases to matter. He gets a hand on Yusuf’s arm, somehow, and uses both arms to drag him clumsily upward until Yusuf cooperates enough that Nicolò can get an arm between them and close his hand around his cock with a desperate sob.
Yusuf moans into his mouth, the sound broken and raw, and fumbles his knees properly under him so he can prop himself above Nicolò and reach his own prick. His arm brushes against Nicolò’s and both of them gasp at it, breathing each other’s air, bodies shaking almost in unison. Yusuf’s throat tightens with effort, his jaw clenching as he holds back a little longer. They’re not, by the narrowest, most disingenuous definition, touching, but it doesn’t matter; the distinction is utterly meaningless with their foreheads pressed together this way – Nicolò can feel Yusuf’s breath on his nose and cheek, Yusuf’s arm, the back of his hand, brushing against his own, rhythm matching so closely it could just as well be Yusuf’s cock in Nicolò’s hand, Yusuf’s fingers sliding precome down his shaft, easily, easily –
Nicolò groans as he comes, so loudly he can hear himself even over the roaring in his ears as his climax pulses through him and leaves him utterly spent, his very soul wrung out and squeezed empty by the force of it. Yusuf’s breath comes harsher and harsher, until it’s sobbing out of his chest, and when Nicolò musters enough strength to run a hand lightly over his back, he collapses, burying his face in the juncture of Nicolò’s shoulder and neck as he spends between them.