A little grimly, he said, “What if it’s goodbye? Are you planning to write a book about me next?”

I shook my head. “If it really is goodbye, I’m all out of ideas.”

Ross raised one eyebrow. “No ideas at all?”

“Other than the obvious: make this a night you won’t forget.”

His face softened. He said, “There isn’t one night with you that I’ve forgotten. Nor a single day. You must know that much.”

“I know how it is for me.”

And then we said nothing for a time, communicating by touch. I thought he does love me, he does -- even if he hasn’t realized it, hasn’t accepted it -- he does -- hissing a little breath of pleasured surprise as he pinched my nipples, making them stand up in tiny buds.

“You do like that,” he whispered, his mouth tugging into another of those sexy little smiles.

“I like it when you lick them too,” I whispered, tugging him closer, smoothing my hands over the hard flesh of his back and shoulders. Hard muscle and soft skin -- the musculature of a normal healthy adult man, not a movie star, not an iron man. Our naked bodies rubbed against each other, starting to find that rhythm, my own cock was rock hard and requiring attention, jutting up, nestling against his.

Ross groaned, and his mouth drifted down my throat and over my shoulder, stopping to lick and kiss, to bite and linger. I groaned and my throat protested squeakily, and he kissed me there too, tenderly.

“Thank God,” he said. “Thank God, I didn’t…”

I stopped that with more kisses.

“I could make you happy,” I told him. “I’d do everything in my power to make you happy.”

He looked up, surprised. “You do make me happy.”

“Sometimes.”

He bent his head; his tongue lapped across one nipple, drawing it firm and upright instantly. I sucked in a sharp breath. Moaned. He liked that. I felt his smile as his mouth ghosted across my chest. I moaned again, and soon the rasp of his tongue wet my other nipple. I pushed against him, loving that feel, loving that lave of tongue on teat. My heart was pounding dizzily in my chest. I worked my hand down through the fissures between our bodies, slipping past his groin, cupping his balls in my palm.

He grunted, closed his eyes briefly. I caressed him, languidly.

“What do you want?” he asked.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, something to have and to hold from this day forward. I got out, “Will you fuck me? I need it. Need to feel like I belong to you.”

His bit his lip. “I don’t know if I can walk.”

I chuckled, squeezed his balls, lightly.

“Hold on,” he jerked out.

I did, stroking myself leisurely until he was back. He knelt over me, his cock long and thick and beautiful as it rose out of the dark nest of his groin. He rested his hand against my cheek.

“You’re beautiful, Adam.”

“So are you.”

I started to get up, but he pushed me back, smiling. I looked my inquiry and then whimpered as he knelt and took the head of my shaft into his mouth. Oh my God how I loved this. Was there anyone who didn’t? But especially I loved it from Ross. His elegant, clever mouth doing those unspeakably erotic things to me: his wide and warm and wet hole for me to bury myself in. I began to jerk my hips in response to that slow slide. Sensation shivered through me, stripping my thoughts away, and the trembling started.

You lovely, lovely boy, Ross said, without saying a word. His tongue and lips said precious, loving things instead.

I arched my back, crying out.

He began to suck hard. I groped for him -- needing something to ground me with pleasure taking me that high. My fingers dug into Ross’s broad shoulder, watching through slitted eyes, watching how beautiful he was with his mouth wrapped around my dick. I wanted to tell him so, but the sounds coming out of me were not particularly intelligent. An electrical buzz seemed to crackle up my spine, bright lights flared behind my eyelids, I wondered if I might just short circuit entirely in a kind of sensory overload.

Ross let me feel his teeth and I whimpered, and then he was sucking again so very softly, sweetly. He varied the pressure, sucking me hard and long. My balls drew tight and I began to come in hot wet spurts, crying out his name.

And Ross swallowed it. I felt tears start in my eyes, but I blinked them back. It was not like he had never done that before, it just…meant more tonight. He swallowed my cum and licked the head of my cock clean, while I lay there panting and trying not to embarrass myself.

When I finally lifted my lashes Ross was smiling. He bent his head to mine. His mouth brushed my mouth and I tasted myself on him -- salty and sort of sweet.

He said, “You’ve gambled everything, haven’t you? What are you hoping for?”

I answered with a question of my own. “Did you think I might be here when you decided to come to the cabin?”

A strange expression crossed his face. “It went through my mind. I…didn’t think you really would. I didn’t think you’d have the nerve.”

It was hard to ask, but I made myself. “Did you…hope I would be here?”

He seemed to look inside himself. “I think I did.” He added ruefully, “But not necessarily for the reason you hope.”

“But you did want me?”

“I always want you. That doesn’t mean…”

“What?”

And he said, “It’s easy to be brave when you’re young.”

“No, it’s not.”

Maybe he read something in my face because he seemed to draw on something within himself. “No. It’s not always,” he agreed. “And you want me to be as brave as you, don’t you? Idealistic youth expects no less?”

I nodded. “There is recompense, though.” I slipped from the sofa and got on my hands and knees on the rug before the fireplace. I glanced back and he was already settling on his knees behind me.

“Recompense.” He sounded amused. “That’s a good old fashioned word.” I heard the unlovely sound of something squirting, followed by the delicate scent of oranges and honey.

“Orange blossom?” I suggested.

“Dear God,” he said, and his laugh had a choky sound. Still, his eyes were smoky with desire as his thighs brushed mine, and his finger pushed against my body.

Always so cautious and gentle with this, although we both knew I had three times his experience. One finger insinuating a long, slender length through that tiny puckered mouth, soothing with oil and honeyed oranges, then two slick fingers.

“I love this part,” I admitted, pushing back against his hand.

He pushed the third finger in. Always, always three fingers with Ross. Such a careful circumspect man. I liked the little rituals. I reached out my hand and he squirted oil on my fingers, and I smeared the oil the full length of my cock, stroking myself, enjoying the pull while his silky fingers slid in and out, knowing exactly where and how to touch.

 “Now,” I managed. “Please.”

“You do have nice manners,” he admitted. “Usually.”

He withdrew his fingers, positioning himself at the entrance of my body, nudging slowly, slowly inside. He pushed smoothly in past the ring of muscle, joining us, wedding us. I drew back on my knees, resting against Ross’s broad chest and belly. I turned and kissed the side of his throat. He stroked his hand slowly down the length of my torso, stroking my belly.

I shifted in his lap, Ross’s hips pushing against me. His voice was warm against my ear, “I’ll give you this much, Adam. I do love you. Nothing changes that. Nothing could.”

Tears blinded me for an instant as we rocked together in gentle lullaby motion, that seesaw of give and take, the balancing act…and that was love, right? That was marriage? For richer for poorer, for better for worse, in sickness and in health, push pull, an irresistible force meeting an immovable object…and somehow finding a way to make it work?

The heat built like a fever, like joy…