Luka twisted where he sat to show Reno his back and Reno snorted. Luka felt himself heat.
“Come into the bathroom, I’ll clean you up.”
“How bad is it?” Luka asked, still buzzing too much from endorphins to feel anything painful.
“Shallow,” Reno said and came over to where Luka sat. He leaned down into Luka’s space and tilted Luka’s head up for a kiss. Without fully breaking, he breathed against Luka’s lips and asked, “Do you like it, or should I be concerned?”
Luka took Reno’s hand, found the bloody nail, and held it to his tongue. He wrapped his lips around it and Reno looked delighted by this new development. Luka popped the finger from his mouth and purred, “You could do much worse before I’d tell you to stop.”
“Promise me, you’ll tell me to stop.”
Luka felt the impossibility of that ask settle on his shoulders. When would he have the chance to let Reno do anything extreme enough that he’d have to stop?
“Don’t make that face,” Reno said, reading Luka’s mind somehow. “First, promise me.”
“I promise,” Luka obeyed.
“Second, unless you tell me to scram, this is not the last time you’ll see me.” Reno stared Luka down then continued, “So no more of that face. Come take a bath with me.”
Luka decided not to argue, to give in to whatever fantasy this was, and let Reno lead him to the bathroom.
When Reno eased him into the tub, he was gentle, and he carefully cleaned every inch of Luka before wrapping his arms around him from behind. Luka peered at them in the long mirror, trying to stamp the vision of Reno and him—Reno’s sleepy face pressed against his back, their hair soaking wet, their cheeks pink from the water—into his mind forever. When Reno slumped, slipping against Luka’s skin and jerking awake, he pushed out of the tub, taking Luka with him. He dug around in the closet, found a spare set of sheets, and made the bed whileLuka dripped onto the ground, wrapped in a towel. Reno huffed a laugh when he returned to Luka, who was shivering and feeling like he’d fall asleep on his feet.
Reno finished drying Luka off, toweling his hair so he wouldn't soak the pillow,and tucked him into bed before following.
Luka lay facing him, one hand intertwined with Reno’s while Reno traced Luka’s cheek and jaw, featherlight, with the other. Luka struggled to keep awake, trying to make things last a moment longer until Reno muttered something to him in Japanese and kissed his temple. Then, finally, they closed their eyes. Luka drifted off, hoping he’d remember later to ask Reno what he had said.
In the morning, they wasted no time, waking up to kisses and bites, then breakfast in bed. They shared a cigarette on the balcony, then went back under the blankets to grope each other. They didn’t talk much, preferring to use their mouths for different things, and they were just getting out of the shower when Reno’s phone pinged with a text alert.
Reno held the towel to his hair and checked his phone with a frown before saying, “Kandi’s giving me a thirty-minute warning.”
“I assumed so,” Luka said from where he sat on the tub’s edge, poking at the bruises Reno had sucked into his thighs that morning. When he looked up at Reno, he was looking at the bruises too, pink-cheeked. “My eyes are up here.”
Reno laughed. “Of course.” He placed a kiss over each eye. “How could I forget?”
They packed up together, even though the driver for Luka wouldn’t arrive for another hour. When Reno was dressed and his bag was by the door, he tucked his hair under his hat then turned to Luka. He opened his mouth to say something but his phone chimed again and he closed his lips with a grimace.
He answered the text and grunted. “Yup. Okay.”
“Time?”
“It’s time.” Reno’s lips pinched to the side, his displeasure obvious. “I gotta go.”
“Yeah,” Luka said lamely, standing in the hotel room’s entrance. He was saved from having to make a decision on justhowto say goodbye to Reno when Reno wrapped his arms around Luka and pulled him close.
Reno kissed his temple and said, “I will see you soon.”
Luka wanted to askhow,but he nodded instead. “I hope so.”
Reno pressed his forehead to Luka’s. “Give me a chance?”
“Yeah,” Luka agreed easily and Reno kissed him one last time. Luka felt Reno’s breath catch in his chest before he pulled away, his phone chiming again.
Reno gave him the smallest smile before he turned to leave. And it was something so deeply private and sincere that, just for a moment, Luka believed Reno really did mean it all.
1 Yea,
CHAPTER TEN
