First Love, Chapter 14
Chapter 14
“I’m pretty sure we’re headed the wrong way.”
Reid tilted back as he said this, tugging slightly on Luke’s hand as the two made their way farther north, farther into the park. “You do realize our hotel room is in the other direction?”
(Our room.)
Luke looked back and smiled cryptically. Seductively. Reid stopped tugging.
They had little company at this hour; the waning sun now warmed only the occasional dog walker. They descended several stone steps toward the sound of running water. A path led alongside a man-made brook fed by a modest tumble of water and continued under a stately span of geometric bedrock. They entered the arch hand-in-hand. Sights and sounds instantly darkened. Luke felt a tug again, this time sharper and more decisive. The momentum thrust him against the cool stone of a shallow grotto cut into the side of the wall. Reid moved to Luke’s front, positioning them both so as to be invisible from either end of the path. Reid swept his thumb across the back of Luke’s hand as he inched closer, slowly pressing the fronts of their bodies together, pressing Luke’s tote bag, slung over one shoulder, into his arm and side. Pressing hip to hip.
Reid’s eyes were warm and bright. Luke was struck by how soft Reid’s face looked, how young. With both hands he reached for Reid’s face, for his hair, for his neck. Reid echoed his actions, stoking Luke’s cheeks and brow and lips. Hands buried in hair. Their eyes were as restless as their fingers, skimming over surfaces and landmarks, surveying territories. Marking for ownership.
More and more, their eyes met, lingered, sparkled. Slow secret smiles emerged as they continued their manual explorations of face and hair and back of neck, front of neck. Reid’s thumb paused on Luke’s bottom lip. It began to move, smoothing the lip slowly, back and forth. Reid looked at it with a peculiar intensity, as if he’d never quite seen it before. Luke felt hypnotized by Reid’s look and touch. Eroticized. His bottom lip became the center of his sensory experience. Nothing existed but the slightly rough contrast between lip and thumb. Even the exquisite ache where their pelvises burned against each other receded into the background. Luke’s entire world became the rhythmic, almost painfully sensitive slide of skin against skin. He joined Reid in that moment; their attentions were one, a crystallized moment of connection.
Reid’s eyes lifted. In them, Luke could see a shade of surprise. As if Reid had somehow only just noticed that Luke was there, in front of him. As if he had, for the first time since seeming to look right through Luke in the ballroom the previous night, allowed himself to see him. To accept that he was real, not just a fantasy to have been realized, or a memory to have been repaired and enhanced and stored away. That’s right, Reid, look at me. I’m here. I’m yours. Worthy or not, I’m yours.
Trust me.
Unconsciously, Luke wet his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue. It brushed Reid’s thumb. Reid looked down, his expression a subtle mix of wonder and yearning and exposure. And fear. Luke sensed the fear, was attuned enough to Reid to suspect he feared that accepting Luke’s presence now meant risking his absence later. I’m here. I’m yours. Trust me.
Luke gripped the side of Reid’s face. He met Reid’s eyes, pressed his mantra into them, through them, all the way to whatever part of the brain stored certainties. After a moment Reid broke the gaze, looking back at his thumb on Luke’s lip. He brought his other hand up to Luke’s face and, holding it as if it were something easily bruised, leaned in. Luke felt Reid’s breath before his lips; both were feather-light. Luke’s hand curved forcefully into Reid’s hair, but Reid kept the kiss soft. Careful. Fine cracks appeared in Luke’s heart when he felt a slight tremble in Reid’s touch.
Luke could once again feel the entire expanse of where their bodies touched (burned) and needed more. Needed to show Reid more, give Reid more. Give him everything. Luke used his tongue again, this time deliberately. He licked at the seam of Reid’s lips, circling and probing the slight gap in the center with the tip. Reid opened for him. As Luke’s tongue pressed in, Reid’s hips pressed forward. His delicate handling of Luke applied only from the neck up. There, Luke took the lead. His tongue slicked over every inch of the inside of Reid’s mouth. He lived in that mouth. Set up a homestead. Planted crops. Left no doubt as to his intentions. Reid let Luke’s tongue roam, received it with his own. Luke arched his back, bringing their bodies impossibly closer. In his increasingly transcendent state he could almost feel their mouths and cocks fusing. Luke strove for their merger, for the reality of the dream he’d told Reid. If only because it would definitively assure Reid of Luke’s permanence.
A dog barked. Reid pulled away first, shielding Luke from view with his body. Luke would feel grateful once he’d become aware of his surroundings again. An earphoned man entered the tunnel pushing a stroller. Luke reentered his body in time to notice that the stroller contained three Pomeranians. The man merely glanced at Luke and Reid as he passed.
Reid turned back to Luke. The vulnerability was gone, but the warmth remained. He leaned into Luke again, hands flat on the stone on either side of Luke’s head. His lips grazed the curve of Luke’s jaw. “Tell me again why we’re not in our bed right now?”
Luke’s hips involuntarily bucked. Still gathering the remnants of his senses, he slowly walked Reid backward, away from the wall. A smile emerged. “Oh, we’re still hours away from our bed.” He let himself relish, just a bit, Reid’s stunned expression as Luke turned and left the tunnel. He decided that the impact of his cheekily dramatic exit line had almost been worth momentarily losing the physical connection to Reid. Almost.
Luke’s cost-benefit assessment changed, however, with each step that he wasn’t next to Reid. Just as he was about to look (run) back, he felt Reid’s hands around his waist.
“So where are you taking me?” Reid’s breath warmed the side of Luke’s neck. One hand eased under Luke’s waistband and found flesh.
Luke stopped walking, slipping his hand under his belt so that it rested on top of Reid’s. He squeezed. “Someplace safe.”
He felt Reid’s breath stop momentarily. Reid’s head turned slightly. He kissed Luke’s neck. “It’s about time.”
Luke and Reid’s hands lifted from Luke’s waist but they remained joined, fingers intertwining. They walked further along the path, passing a sign that read, “The North Woods.” The name was appropriate; in Luke’s mind it was as if the arch had been a wormhole to a remote forest. The air cooled under the tall canopy, and both bird and cicada song became more conspicuous. There were no signs of human life on the trail; sporadically there would be a vertically scurrying squirrel or bright red flash of cardinal. Luke and Reid crossed a rustic wooden bridge over a stream.
“It’s like we’re in the Adirondacks.”
Reid’s warm look dried.
“Well…I read that’s what they intended. The guys who made Central Park. They wanted it to look like a trail in the Adirondack Mountains.”
Seemingly against his will, Reid smiled. “And was this place just as magical in the snow as that Swedish house?”
Dimples appeared. “Even better. It was like…undisturbed white everywhere. There was heavy snow weighing down all the branches. And it was just…profoundly silent. I couldn’t believe I was still in Manhattan.”
A squirrel ran across the path in front of them, disappearing into the understory. Except that it wasn’t a squirrel. Wrong tail.
Reid nodded and kept walking. “Yup. Like we’re hardly in the city at all.”
Luke took more interest, then, in what was on the ground.
The path followed the stream as it flowed north. As they walked, Reid periodically swung their linked hands so that they lightly brushed Luke’s backside. Luke began returning the favor.
Reid leaned into Luke’s ear. “How long?”
Luke lightly swept their joined hands against Reid’s crotch. “Almost there.”
As Luke began to move away, Reid pulled him back, clutching at Luke’s hair with his free hand as he guided their mouths together for a short, fierce kiss. When he pulled away, Luke’s only thought was of how Reid’s eyes reminded him of sunlight glinting on water. He watched as Reid licked his lips. Luke turned down the trail again, the pace a bit faster now.
Despite the increasing desperation of his arousal, Luke’s curiosity won out when they came upon three people looking up, one with binoculars. After fruitlessly peering in the same direction for what must have been too long, he heard Reid break the silence. Loudly.
“Yeah, what are we looking at?”
A woman turned and pointed to a nearby tree. “Red-tailed,” she whispered.
So close he couldn’t believe he’d missed it, Luke saw a large, tawny-colored hawk perched motionless on a nearby branch. Silently, the head swiveled, giving Luke an unobstructed view of the sharply pointed beak and coolly penetrating gaze. The hawk seemed unconcerned by the human company. It radiated the quiet mastery of a top predator.
Reid was standing behind Luke, their arms wrapped around Luke’s stomach. Luke leaned back to whisper. “That arrogance seems familiar. And it enjoys biting off the heads of lesser beings.”
Reid inched their hands south and began to shuffle their feet up the trail. “We both take pleasure in what we put in our mouths.”
Luke smiled, stopping their progress. “Come on…when’s the last time you’ve seen a red-tailed hawk? And in the middle of a city?”
“You’re assuming I’ve looked.”
Luke leaned back against Reid. “You know, this could be the famous Pale Male…it does look lighter than the usual hawk, I think. Kinda like your hair, actually. Or maybe it's one of his kids…he’s had dozens of them. He’s like the king of the city.”
Reid’s eye roll was almost audible.
“What? If you can have rape-y ducks then I can have romantic hawks.”
Reid dropped his head, sighing. “I’m not going to get sex until I hear this story, am I?”
Luke grinned and continued to whisper. “So Pale Male showed up in Manhattan one day and was the first hawk ever to try to nest on a building…on 5th Avenue, no less. No one thought he’d be able to get a mate there, but sure enough, the next year a female joins him. Then, after having lots of sex on Woody Allen’s balcony, they shock everyone by being able to raise a family successfully. I don’t know why anyone was surprised…there’s certainly plenty of food around.” Luke reflexively looked down at the ground. “Anyway, then she gets hurt, and she has to leave Pale Male when they take her away to some rehab facility. So he mates with someone else, and they have a few kids, but after a while that female dies. And these guys do mate for life, by the way.” Luke could feel Reid smile against his hair. “By this time, his original mate has finally healed, and they release her in Central Park. And even though it’s, like, three years later, she and Pale Male find each other and pick up right where they left off. Like they had never forgotten each other.” Either Luke or Reid had begun to rock gently from side to side. Luke’s mouth twisted slightly. “She died, though…ate a pigeon that had eaten rat poison. But I’m sure he never forgot her.”
Reid started to speak, but Luke cut him off, moving their hands closer to his belt. “I said: I’m sure he never forgot her.”
Reid closed his mouth. When he spoke, it was carefully. “I’m sure he never forgot her.”
Luke’s grin widened. “Oh, and my favorite part? Her name. They called her First Love. Now tell me that’s not romantic.”
It took a moment for Luke to notice the sudden stillness. Then he stilled as well. Scanned back through their conversation. Wished he could see Reid’s face. It took another moment for him to notice that Reid’s fingers had tightened. Luke squeezed his in response. I’m here. I’m yours. You can trust me.
The hawk continued to sit and watch and wait. The other people shared the binoculars amongst themselves, at times speaking in hushed voices. They paid no attention to the two men frozen in an intimate pose, staring at the hawk with unusual intensity.
After several more moments, Reid moved his mouth to Luke’s ear. “Do you want to know what my go-to fantasy always was? What I’d think of at that moment…right at the end?”
The charge in the air around them shifted in nature. Luke became aware of a firm pressure against his backside. He gave half a nod.
Reid’s voice slinked across Luke’s skin. “I’d imagine the look on your face when you finally got properly fucked. By me.” Reid’s free hand rested on Luke’s hip; his thumb pressed into the swell. “I’d think about what that moment would be like…the look in your eye…the sweat on your skin. The sound of my name coming from those lips. Every day I’d think about it. Every day…for three and a half years.” His voice dropped to the edge of sound. “I could never forget.”
Luke barely managed to turn his moan (sob) into a loud coughing fit. Ignoring the glares, Luke ducked past the bird watchers, pulling Reid behind him briskly. They sped down the path, their pace increasing as a rushing-water sound grew louder. Shortly, the stream became a waterfall - a smooth curtain of water falling amid a deceptively casual assortment of boulders. The path turned to cross the continuing flow of water, which disappeared under an arch formed entirely of even larger boulders. The natural beauty barely registered, however, as Luke led Reid up stone steps, at one point turning off the paved path and onto a thin dirt trail up a hill. Several times Reid steadied himself by placing the hand not gripping Luke’s onto the small of Luke’s back, each time drifting down as he regained his balance. Not that Luke wasn’t already constantly aware of his nether region; the grade of the slope and the tightening of his pants meant that each step reminded him of last night and this morning’s activities. Every twinge, every chafe only heightened the anticipation.
By now even dog walkers had deserted this part of the park. Luke and Reid’s progress was silent except for the raucous calls of bedtime birds. Several turns and path changes later, they arrived at a gentle slope leading to a large outcropping of smooth, flat, bedrock that had been subtly grooved by millions of years of exposure. On top sat a simple square building made entirely of stone.
Luke pulled Reid up the slope toward the building. “Here it is…the oldest structure in the park. It was a fort built for….”
“Don’t care.” Reid came up behind Luke roughly, wrapping one arm around Luke’s chest and grinding their joined hands against Luke’s fly.
“Ungh.” Luke nodded and pulled Reid around to the north side of the fort, completely out of view of the deserted trail. Here the building abutted a wide expanse of flat rock ending in a steep drop to the darkened forest floor far below. Glimpses of Harlem to the north could be seen through the thick trees. Both building and rock were speckled with the amber light of a dying sun.
Backing up so that he was flat against the rough stone of fort wall, pure sex in his eyes, Luke tugged on Reid’s hand, bringing him between Luke’s spread legs. He took Reid’s other hand.
Reid’s eyes flared to match. “Are we there yet?”
Luke licked his lips. “We’re there.”
Reid took their interlocked hands and lifted them, spreading them against the wall on either side, just above their heads. With a languid, almost dreamy smile, Reid’s eyes dropped to Luke’s mouth and he moved in - only to veer at the last moment, landing his lips instead just below Luke’s ear. He pulled the skin against his teeth and soothed it with his tongue as his lower body slowly pressed in. Luke tried to pull his arms down, to take a more active role, but instead settled for thrusting his hips forward to meet and dance with Reid’s. Leisurely, Reid moved down Luke’s neck, nipping and sucking and licking. Still, he held Luke’s arms against the wall, no matter how much Luke strained for release. Luke’s grinding became more pronounced.
“Reid…Reid.” Luke’s eyes were closed, his head rolling against the stone.
“Mmm?”
“Let me.” His voice was breathy. His body burned.
“Let you what?” Reid’s words were wet against the skin of Luke’s neck.
“Let me love you.”
Luke could feel the sharp burst of breath against his damp flesh, after which neither man seemed to breathe. Then Reid squeezed Luke’s fingers for a brief, painful moment and untangled their hands, lowering his to Luke’s face. With eyes already closed, Reid sank against Luke’s mouth. He breathed into it, breathed from it. Luke wrapped one hand around Reid’s back and the other around his head. He brought everything he had to the kiss, everything he was. The kiss was an endless, unbroken melding of lips and tongues and teeth. (And hearts. My heart.)
Eventually, the involuntary rocking of their hips demanded attention. They broke the seal of their lips, gasping harshly against each other’s wet mouths. With an unbroken gaze, Luke reached over to work on Reid’s belt. Reid reciprocated. After the initial flurry of buckles and zippers and elastic, both men looked down to watch slickened hands rub cocks and hands rub hands and cocks rub cocks. Luke was already so close, just from this, from the hike, from Reid.
“Too long…too long without you inside me.”
Reid closed his eyes. He brought one hand, wet with both of their pre-cum, to cradle Luke’s cheek. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but no words came. A shaft of red-gold light from the west lit his eyes like phosphorescent fire on the surface of a luminescent tropical bay. He kissed Luke softly.
Slowly, with eyes locked on Reid’s, Luke slid his back down the wall to sit on the flat bedrock. Reid knelt between his legs. Luke took one of Reid’s hands and brought it to his mouth, licking the fingers one by one. He lingered on the thumb, sucking it into his mouth, spiraling it with his tongue. Reid swept his other thumb over the slippery head of Luke’s penis and lifted it to Luke’s lips, exchanging it for the cleansed thumb. As Luke tasted himself, Reid leaned in to share with his lips and tongue. His other hand dove into Luke’s hair; Luke’s hands were busy where their hips met. Needing to be closer, Luke broke the kiss just long enough to lift his shirt over his head. Shaking hands then targeted the buttons of Reid’s shirt.
“Luke…we should probably stay as clothed as possible.”
Running his hands inside Reid’s now-open shirt, Luke brought their chests together and kissed the slope of Reid’s neck. “Need…this.”
Reid’s hands were at the back of Luke’s head as they held each other in the dappled light. Luke's mind was at their joined chests, their joined hearts. He was almost close enough. He was almost in.
Luke pushed Reid onto his back so that he was straddling him. He leaned into hands spread over Reid’s heart. Luke drew them down Reid’s abdomen, counting the faint ridges. He drew them into Reid’s hair, around the soft skin of a penis as hard as the ancient rock beneath them.
“I need you inside me. I need this inside me.”
Reid’s hands were at Luke’s waist, on his stomach. His eyes were black. “So get on and ride.”
Digging into a pocket, Luke brought out a small container of lubricant and a single wrapped condom. Reid shifted slightly to reach into his own pocket; he withdrew a similar container and a strip of three condoms. The haze of lust surrounding them lifted long enough to let semi-drunken smiles break through. Then, as if waiting another second would kill him, Luke shoved his pants down to his knees with one hand while ripping the condom open in his teeth with the other. Reid lay back and watched until Luke tossed the tube onto Reid’s chest before rolling the condom down Reid’s length. With hot eyes still on Luke, Reid opened the container, squeezing the lube into Luke’s waiting hands. Luke quickly spread it on Reid, on himself, in himself. He went back for more. Reid continued to watch Luke work, to watch him take the lead. Watched as he slowly, too slowly lowered himself onto Reid, feet flat on either side, the play of light and sweat gilding his upper body with liquid fire. Reid let Luke set the pace even though it seemed as if his restraint were costing him. But it appeared to be a transformative torture; he appeared to be as lost in Luke as he was buried in him, watched him spellbound as Luke rocked and lifted and clenched and ground. Reid seemed transfixed, dazzled, absorbed whole. Luke’s movements became more assured, more insistent, his moans louder. One hand went to his dick, the other to Reid’s chest. Reid’s hands were braced on Luke’s hips as he rode. He watched Luke throw his head back, his hair a radiant halo of last light.
“Reid…Reid…I’m coming.”
“Say it again.”
“I’m coming.”
“No. What you said before.”
Luke focused on Reid, on what was in his eyes. On what was behind them. What he saw suffused him with the golden glow around them. It lit his soul.
“I love you.”
With a sharp gasp and a silent cry, Reid bucked violently, nearly unseating Luke. But Luke held on, held tight, and joined Reid in release, futilely fighting to muffle his own sounds. His muscles melted and he collapsed, half on top of and half beside Reid. Legs and belts and dicks tangled. Ragged breaths reverberated. Heads turned toward each other. Weakly, Luke lifted a hand to trace a finger down the side of Reid’s neck. He stroked the damp skin at the hollow, then moved his finger up to Reid’s jaw, drawing a line there as well. Reid watched silently, steadily. Now with two fingers Luke smoothed the faint lines between his brows. He lightly followed one eyebrow to the end, then even more lightly brushed the top lash from inner to outer corner. Reid never once blinked. As Luke lifted his fingers from the corner of Reid’s eye, he noticed that they were wet. He touched the side of Reid’s eye again, this time with his thumb. Gently, he smoothed the tears down and away. Luke’s eyes filled as well and, holding his glistening gaze, Reid turned his head slightly into Luke’s hand.
After seconds or minutes, Luke skimmed his hand down to Reid’s chest. Pushing aside the open shirt, he flattened his hand over Reid’s heart.
Reid covered Luke’s hand with his own.
A/N: Below is a photo of Reid, I mean, Pale Male:
“I’m pretty sure we’re headed the wrong way.”
Reid tilted back as he said this, tugging slightly on Luke’s hand as the two made their way farther north, farther into the park. “You do realize our hotel room is in the other direction?”
(Our room.)
Luke looked back and smiled cryptically. Seductively. Reid stopped tugging.
They had little company at this hour; the waning sun now warmed only the occasional dog walker. They descended several stone steps toward the sound of running water. A path led alongside a man-made brook fed by a modest tumble of water and continued under a stately span of geometric bedrock. They entered the arch hand-in-hand. Sights and sounds instantly darkened. Luke felt a tug again, this time sharper and more decisive. The momentum thrust him against the cool stone of a shallow grotto cut into the side of the wall. Reid moved to Luke’s front, positioning them both so as to be invisible from either end of the path. Reid swept his thumb across the back of Luke’s hand as he inched closer, slowly pressing the fronts of their bodies together, pressing Luke’s tote bag, slung over one shoulder, into his arm and side. Pressing hip to hip.
Reid’s eyes were warm and bright. Luke was struck by how soft Reid’s face looked, how young. With both hands he reached for Reid’s face, for his hair, for his neck. Reid echoed his actions, stoking Luke’s cheeks and brow and lips. Hands buried in hair. Their eyes were as restless as their fingers, skimming over surfaces and landmarks, surveying territories. Marking for ownership.
More and more, their eyes met, lingered, sparkled. Slow secret smiles emerged as they continued their manual explorations of face and hair and back of neck, front of neck. Reid’s thumb paused on Luke’s bottom lip. It began to move, smoothing the lip slowly, back and forth. Reid looked at it with a peculiar intensity, as if he’d never quite seen it before. Luke felt hypnotized by Reid’s look and touch. Eroticized. His bottom lip became the center of his sensory experience. Nothing existed but the slightly rough contrast between lip and thumb. Even the exquisite ache where their pelvises burned against each other receded into the background. Luke’s entire world became the rhythmic, almost painfully sensitive slide of skin against skin. He joined Reid in that moment; their attentions were one, a crystallized moment of connection.
Reid’s eyes lifted. In them, Luke could see a shade of surprise. As if Reid had somehow only just noticed that Luke was there, in front of him. As if he had, for the first time since seeming to look right through Luke in the ballroom the previous night, allowed himself to see him. To accept that he was real, not just a fantasy to have been realized, or a memory to have been repaired and enhanced and stored away. That’s right, Reid, look at me. I’m here. I’m yours. Worthy or not, I’m yours.
Trust me.
Unconsciously, Luke wet his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue. It brushed Reid’s thumb. Reid looked down, his expression a subtle mix of wonder and yearning and exposure. And fear. Luke sensed the fear, was attuned enough to Reid to suspect he feared that accepting Luke’s presence now meant risking his absence later. I’m here. I’m yours. Trust me.
Luke gripped the side of Reid’s face. He met Reid’s eyes, pressed his mantra into them, through them, all the way to whatever part of the brain stored certainties. After a moment Reid broke the gaze, looking back at his thumb on Luke’s lip. He brought his other hand up to Luke’s face and, holding it as if it were something easily bruised, leaned in. Luke felt Reid’s breath before his lips; both were feather-light. Luke’s hand curved forcefully into Reid’s hair, but Reid kept the kiss soft. Careful. Fine cracks appeared in Luke’s heart when he felt a slight tremble in Reid’s touch.
Luke could once again feel the entire expanse of where their bodies touched (burned) and needed more. Needed to show Reid more, give Reid more. Give him everything. Luke used his tongue again, this time deliberately. He licked at the seam of Reid’s lips, circling and probing the slight gap in the center with the tip. Reid opened for him. As Luke’s tongue pressed in, Reid’s hips pressed forward. His delicate handling of Luke applied only from the neck up. There, Luke took the lead. His tongue slicked over every inch of the inside of Reid’s mouth. He lived in that mouth. Set up a homestead. Planted crops. Left no doubt as to his intentions. Reid let Luke’s tongue roam, received it with his own. Luke arched his back, bringing their bodies impossibly closer. In his increasingly transcendent state he could almost feel their mouths and cocks fusing. Luke strove for their merger, for the reality of the dream he’d told Reid. If only because it would definitively assure Reid of Luke’s permanence.
A dog barked. Reid pulled away first, shielding Luke from view with his body. Luke would feel grateful once he’d become aware of his surroundings again. An earphoned man entered the tunnel pushing a stroller. Luke reentered his body in time to notice that the stroller contained three Pomeranians. The man merely glanced at Luke and Reid as he passed.
Reid turned back to Luke. The vulnerability was gone, but the warmth remained. He leaned into Luke again, hands flat on the stone on either side of Luke’s head. His lips grazed the curve of Luke’s jaw. “Tell me again why we’re not in our bed right now?”
Luke’s hips involuntarily bucked. Still gathering the remnants of his senses, he slowly walked Reid backward, away from the wall. A smile emerged. “Oh, we’re still hours away from our bed.” He let himself relish, just a bit, Reid’s stunned expression as Luke turned and left the tunnel. He decided that the impact of his cheekily dramatic exit line had almost been worth momentarily losing the physical connection to Reid. Almost.
Luke’s cost-benefit assessment changed, however, with each step that he wasn’t next to Reid. Just as he was about to look (run) back, he felt Reid’s hands around his waist.
“So where are you taking me?” Reid’s breath warmed the side of Luke’s neck. One hand eased under Luke’s waistband and found flesh.
Luke stopped walking, slipping his hand under his belt so that it rested on top of Reid’s. He squeezed. “Someplace safe.”
He felt Reid’s breath stop momentarily. Reid’s head turned slightly. He kissed Luke’s neck. “It’s about time.”
Luke and Reid’s hands lifted from Luke’s waist but they remained joined, fingers intertwining. They walked further along the path, passing a sign that read, “The North Woods.” The name was appropriate; in Luke’s mind it was as if the arch had been a wormhole to a remote forest. The air cooled under the tall canopy, and both bird and cicada song became more conspicuous. There were no signs of human life on the trail; sporadically there would be a vertically scurrying squirrel or bright red flash of cardinal. Luke and Reid crossed a rustic wooden bridge over a stream.
“It’s like we’re in the Adirondacks.”
Reid’s warm look dried.
“Well…I read that’s what they intended. The guys who made Central Park. They wanted it to look like a trail in the Adirondack Mountains.”
Seemingly against his will, Reid smiled. “And was this place just as magical in the snow as that Swedish house?”
Dimples appeared. “Even better. It was like…undisturbed white everywhere. There was heavy snow weighing down all the branches. And it was just…profoundly silent. I couldn’t believe I was still in Manhattan.”
A squirrel ran across the path in front of them, disappearing into the understory. Except that it wasn’t a squirrel. Wrong tail.
Reid nodded and kept walking. “Yup. Like we’re hardly in the city at all.”
Luke took more interest, then, in what was on the ground.
The path followed the stream as it flowed north. As they walked, Reid periodically swung their linked hands so that they lightly brushed Luke’s backside. Luke began returning the favor.
Reid leaned into Luke’s ear. “How long?”
Luke lightly swept their joined hands against Reid’s crotch. “Almost there.”
As Luke began to move away, Reid pulled him back, clutching at Luke’s hair with his free hand as he guided their mouths together for a short, fierce kiss. When he pulled away, Luke’s only thought was of how Reid’s eyes reminded him of sunlight glinting on water. He watched as Reid licked his lips. Luke turned down the trail again, the pace a bit faster now.
Despite the increasing desperation of his arousal, Luke’s curiosity won out when they came upon three people looking up, one with binoculars. After fruitlessly peering in the same direction for what must have been too long, he heard Reid break the silence. Loudly.
“Yeah, what are we looking at?”
A woman turned and pointed to a nearby tree. “Red-tailed,” she whispered.
So close he couldn’t believe he’d missed it, Luke saw a large, tawny-colored hawk perched motionless on a nearby branch. Silently, the head swiveled, giving Luke an unobstructed view of the sharply pointed beak and coolly penetrating gaze. The hawk seemed unconcerned by the human company. It radiated the quiet mastery of a top predator.
Reid was standing behind Luke, their arms wrapped around Luke’s stomach. Luke leaned back to whisper. “That arrogance seems familiar. And it enjoys biting off the heads of lesser beings.”
Reid inched their hands south and began to shuffle their feet up the trail. “We both take pleasure in what we put in our mouths.”
Luke smiled, stopping their progress. “Come on…when’s the last time you’ve seen a red-tailed hawk? And in the middle of a city?”
“You’re assuming I’ve looked.”
Luke leaned back against Reid. “You know, this could be the famous Pale Male…it does look lighter than the usual hawk, I think. Kinda like your hair, actually. Or maybe it's one of his kids…he’s had dozens of them. He’s like the king of the city.”
Reid’s eye roll was almost audible.
“What? If you can have rape-y ducks then I can have romantic hawks.”
Reid dropped his head, sighing. “I’m not going to get sex until I hear this story, am I?”
Luke grinned and continued to whisper. “So Pale Male showed up in Manhattan one day and was the first hawk ever to try to nest on a building…on 5th Avenue, no less. No one thought he’d be able to get a mate there, but sure enough, the next year a female joins him. Then, after having lots of sex on Woody Allen’s balcony, they shock everyone by being able to raise a family successfully. I don’t know why anyone was surprised…there’s certainly plenty of food around.” Luke reflexively looked down at the ground. “Anyway, then she gets hurt, and she has to leave Pale Male when they take her away to some rehab facility. So he mates with someone else, and they have a few kids, but after a while that female dies. And these guys do mate for life, by the way.” Luke could feel Reid smile against his hair. “By this time, his original mate has finally healed, and they release her in Central Park. And even though it’s, like, three years later, she and Pale Male find each other and pick up right where they left off. Like they had never forgotten each other.” Either Luke or Reid had begun to rock gently from side to side. Luke’s mouth twisted slightly. “She died, though…ate a pigeon that had eaten rat poison. But I’m sure he never forgot her.”
Reid started to speak, but Luke cut him off, moving their hands closer to his belt. “I said: I’m sure he never forgot her.”
Reid closed his mouth. When he spoke, it was carefully. “I’m sure he never forgot her.”
Luke’s grin widened. “Oh, and my favorite part? Her name. They called her First Love. Now tell me that’s not romantic.”
It took a moment for Luke to notice the sudden stillness. Then he stilled as well. Scanned back through their conversation. Wished he could see Reid’s face. It took another moment for him to notice that Reid’s fingers had tightened. Luke squeezed his in response. I’m here. I’m yours. You can trust me.
The hawk continued to sit and watch and wait. The other people shared the binoculars amongst themselves, at times speaking in hushed voices. They paid no attention to the two men frozen in an intimate pose, staring at the hawk with unusual intensity.
After several more moments, Reid moved his mouth to Luke’s ear. “Do you want to know what my go-to fantasy always was? What I’d think of at that moment…right at the end?”
The charge in the air around them shifted in nature. Luke became aware of a firm pressure against his backside. He gave half a nod.
Reid’s voice slinked across Luke’s skin. “I’d imagine the look on your face when you finally got properly fucked. By me.” Reid’s free hand rested on Luke’s hip; his thumb pressed into the swell. “I’d think about what that moment would be like…the look in your eye…the sweat on your skin. The sound of my name coming from those lips. Every day I’d think about it. Every day…for three and a half years.” His voice dropped to the edge of sound. “I could never forget.”
Luke barely managed to turn his moan (sob) into a loud coughing fit. Ignoring the glares, Luke ducked past the bird watchers, pulling Reid behind him briskly. They sped down the path, their pace increasing as a rushing-water sound grew louder. Shortly, the stream became a waterfall - a smooth curtain of water falling amid a deceptively casual assortment of boulders. The path turned to cross the continuing flow of water, which disappeared under an arch formed entirely of even larger boulders. The natural beauty barely registered, however, as Luke led Reid up stone steps, at one point turning off the paved path and onto a thin dirt trail up a hill. Several times Reid steadied himself by placing the hand not gripping Luke’s onto the small of Luke’s back, each time drifting down as he regained his balance. Not that Luke wasn’t already constantly aware of his nether region; the grade of the slope and the tightening of his pants meant that each step reminded him of last night and this morning’s activities. Every twinge, every chafe only heightened the anticipation.
By now even dog walkers had deserted this part of the park. Luke and Reid’s progress was silent except for the raucous calls of bedtime birds. Several turns and path changes later, they arrived at a gentle slope leading to a large outcropping of smooth, flat, bedrock that had been subtly grooved by millions of years of exposure. On top sat a simple square building made entirely of stone.
Luke pulled Reid up the slope toward the building. “Here it is…the oldest structure in the park. It was a fort built for….”
“Don’t care.” Reid came up behind Luke roughly, wrapping one arm around Luke’s chest and grinding their joined hands against Luke’s fly.
“Ungh.” Luke nodded and pulled Reid around to the north side of the fort, completely out of view of the deserted trail. Here the building abutted a wide expanse of flat rock ending in a steep drop to the darkened forest floor far below. Glimpses of Harlem to the north could be seen through the thick trees. Both building and rock were speckled with the amber light of a dying sun.
Backing up so that he was flat against the rough stone of fort wall, pure sex in his eyes, Luke tugged on Reid’s hand, bringing him between Luke’s spread legs. He took Reid’s other hand.
Reid’s eyes flared to match. “Are we there yet?”
Luke licked his lips. “We’re there.”
Reid took their interlocked hands and lifted them, spreading them against the wall on either side, just above their heads. With a languid, almost dreamy smile, Reid’s eyes dropped to Luke’s mouth and he moved in - only to veer at the last moment, landing his lips instead just below Luke’s ear. He pulled the skin against his teeth and soothed it with his tongue as his lower body slowly pressed in. Luke tried to pull his arms down, to take a more active role, but instead settled for thrusting his hips forward to meet and dance with Reid’s. Leisurely, Reid moved down Luke’s neck, nipping and sucking and licking. Still, he held Luke’s arms against the wall, no matter how much Luke strained for release. Luke’s grinding became more pronounced.
“Reid…Reid.” Luke’s eyes were closed, his head rolling against the stone.
“Mmm?”
“Let me.” His voice was breathy. His body burned.
“Let you what?” Reid’s words were wet against the skin of Luke’s neck.
“Let me love you.”
Luke could feel the sharp burst of breath against his damp flesh, after which neither man seemed to breathe. Then Reid squeezed Luke’s fingers for a brief, painful moment and untangled their hands, lowering his to Luke’s face. With eyes already closed, Reid sank against Luke’s mouth. He breathed into it, breathed from it. Luke wrapped one hand around Reid’s back and the other around his head. He brought everything he had to the kiss, everything he was. The kiss was an endless, unbroken melding of lips and tongues and teeth. (And hearts. My heart.)
Eventually, the involuntary rocking of their hips demanded attention. They broke the seal of their lips, gasping harshly against each other’s wet mouths. With an unbroken gaze, Luke reached over to work on Reid’s belt. Reid reciprocated. After the initial flurry of buckles and zippers and elastic, both men looked down to watch slickened hands rub cocks and hands rub hands and cocks rub cocks. Luke was already so close, just from this, from the hike, from Reid.
“Too long…too long without you inside me.”
Reid closed his eyes. He brought one hand, wet with both of their pre-cum, to cradle Luke’s cheek. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but no words came. A shaft of red-gold light from the west lit his eyes like phosphorescent fire on the surface of a luminescent tropical bay. He kissed Luke softly.
Slowly, with eyes locked on Reid’s, Luke slid his back down the wall to sit on the flat bedrock. Reid knelt between his legs. Luke took one of Reid’s hands and brought it to his mouth, licking the fingers one by one. He lingered on the thumb, sucking it into his mouth, spiraling it with his tongue. Reid swept his other thumb over the slippery head of Luke’s penis and lifted it to Luke’s lips, exchanging it for the cleansed thumb. As Luke tasted himself, Reid leaned in to share with his lips and tongue. His other hand dove into Luke’s hair; Luke’s hands were busy where their hips met. Needing to be closer, Luke broke the kiss just long enough to lift his shirt over his head. Shaking hands then targeted the buttons of Reid’s shirt.
“Luke…we should probably stay as clothed as possible.”
Running his hands inside Reid’s now-open shirt, Luke brought their chests together and kissed the slope of Reid’s neck. “Need…this.”
Reid’s hands were at the back of Luke’s head as they held each other in the dappled light. Luke's mind was at their joined chests, their joined hearts. He was almost close enough. He was almost in.
Luke pushed Reid onto his back so that he was straddling him. He leaned into hands spread over Reid’s heart. Luke drew them down Reid’s abdomen, counting the faint ridges. He drew them into Reid’s hair, around the soft skin of a penis as hard as the ancient rock beneath them.
“I need you inside me. I need this inside me.”
Reid’s hands were at Luke’s waist, on his stomach. His eyes were black. “So get on and ride.”
Digging into a pocket, Luke brought out a small container of lubricant and a single wrapped condom. Reid shifted slightly to reach into his own pocket; he withdrew a similar container and a strip of three condoms. The haze of lust surrounding them lifted long enough to let semi-drunken smiles break through. Then, as if waiting another second would kill him, Luke shoved his pants down to his knees with one hand while ripping the condom open in his teeth with the other. Reid lay back and watched until Luke tossed the tube onto Reid’s chest before rolling the condom down Reid’s length. With hot eyes still on Luke, Reid opened the container, squeezing the lube into Luke’s waiting hands. Luke quickly spread it on Reid, on himself, in himself. He went back for more. Reid continued to watch Luke work, to watch him take the lead. Watched as he slowly, too slowly lowered himself onto Reid, feet flat on either side, the play of light and sweat gilding his upper body with liquid fire. Reid let Luke set the pace even though it seemed as if his restraint were costing him. But it appeared to be a transformative torture; he appeared to be as lost in Luke as he was buried in him, watched him spellbound as Luke rocked and lifted and clenched and ground. Reid seemed transfixed, dazzled, absorbed whole. Luke’s movements became more assured, more insistent, his moans louder. One hand went to his dick, the other to Reid’s chest. Reid’s hands were braced on Luke’s hips as he rode. He watched Luke throw his head back, his hair a radiant halo of last light.
“Reid…Reid…I’m coming.”
“Say it again.”
“I’m coming.”
“No. What you said before.”
Luke focused on Reid, on what was in his eyes. On what was behind them. What he saw suffused him with the golden glow around them. It lit his soul.
“I love you.”
With a sharp gasp and a silent cry, Reid bucked violently, nearly unseating Luke. But Luke held on, held tight, and joined Reid in release, futilely fighting to muffle his own sounds. His muscles melted and he collapsed, half on top of and half beside Reid. Legs and belts and dicks tangled. Ragged breaths reverberated. Heads turned toward each other. Weakly, Luke lifted a hand to trace a finger down the side of Reid’s neck. He stroked the damp skin at the hollow, then moved his finger up to Reid’s jaw, drawing a line there as well. Reid watched silently, steadily. Now with two fingers Luke smoothed the faint lines between his brows. He lightly followed one eyebrow to the end, then even more lightly brushed the top lash from inner to outer corner. Reid never once blinked. As Luke lifted his fingers from the corner of Reid’s eye, he noticed that they were wet. He touched the side of Reid’s eye again, this time with his thumb. Gently, he smoothed the tears down and away. Luke’s eyes filled as well and, holding his glistening gaze, Reid turned his head slightly into Luke’s hand.
After seconds or minutes, Luke skimmed his hand down to Reid’s chest. Pushing aside the open shirt, he flattened his hand over Reid’s heart.
Reid covered Luke’s hand with his own.
A/N: Below is a photo of Reid, I mean, Pale Male: