Page 14 of Sunshine Boy

“I’d be so trendy the other cavemen would make me their leader. They’d think I was a prophet.”

“They’d think you were a tropical bird and try to eat you.”

“Better than you. You’d be the only caveman dressed in tweed. You’d do all the other cavemen’s taxes. You’d be so boring they’d kill you and roast you.”

“At least I’d be delicious, sir. Unlike you, with your sinewy muscles. You’d be all gamey. Like a pigeon. They’d toss you out. Clean your meat off and make your bones into flutes.”

“You joking? My bones would make brilliant flutes! They’re already hollow. I’ve got bird’s bones. On windy days, it’s all I can do to keep from blowing away.”

Julian’s grin was dazzling. His eyes crinkled at the corners, his nose scrunched up. He grinned with every muscle in his face. That grin, directed at him, made Rahul’s stomach do flips. It always had. It always would. No matter how hard he tried to fight it.

“You’re thin, that’s why. You’re fit.” Rahul almost immediately regretted it after the words left his mouth. He’d gone too far. Those weren’t platonic words. Those were flirty words. He shovelled pasta into his mouth to keep from saying anything further. Fuck. Why was the pasta here so Goddamned good?

“Nah, I ain’t the one who’s fit. You are. You’re massive. You could toss me around like a wet flannel.” Julian said this while biting his lip and looking up at Rahul from under his lashes. There it was again. Flirty Julian. Rahul hadn’t been imagining it. Julian was looking him up and down as if he were a toffee apple he was about to sink his teeth into. He’d never looked at him that way before.

Rahul wasn’t fit, so far as he knew. He was tall, and broad, and had decent abs thanks to the curl-ups he did every morning. But he was a weakling compared to Michael, whose massive arms alone proved he could give Atlas a run for his money. Even if it was an empty compliment, the fact that Julian was giving it at all was proof of… what? What was it proof of? Was he… was Julian flirting with him? In front of his own boyfriend? Why? He’d made it more than clear that he wasn’t interested in Rahul back when Rahul had confessed his feelings to him. So why? Why now?

Or it was possible Rahul was still somehow misunderstanding. So he bravely took a swing and hoped it wouldn’t be a miss. “I could throw you around, if I fancied. But I don’t know if you’d be able to take me.” He felt hot under the collar as he said it, feeling his ears redden. He glanced sideways at Henri to make sure he hadn’t heard, but the Frenchman’s attention was entirely occupied comparing Marx’s idealism with Thoreau’s naturalism.

Two high spots of colour rose in Julian’s cheeks, much like they had when they were boys and were about to practice kissing. He didn’t look away, though. “I can take you. If you try hard enough.”

Rahul wasn’t sure what they were talking about anymore, but he was sure that his trousers were becoming uncomfortably tight. He shifted in his seat and took a desperate gulp of his wine. This was flirting, he was sure of it. But why it was happening with him now, with Julian, was a mystery to him. This ride was exhilarating and unpredictable. He just hoped he could hold on long enough not to fall.

Chapter Seven: Damaged Goods

“That could’ve gone worse, eh?” Julian was saying as he tossed aside his parka, once again disregarding the coat rack. “You and Henri were getting on like a house on fire. And you and Rahul didn’t fight once all night. I’d thought you two would be going at it like two pumas in heat and I’d have to come between you with a cricket bat and a sausage roll -- you know, for distraction. Pumas are wild about sausage rolls.”

“Shut up,” Michael growled.

Julian turned, startled.

Michael kissed him bruisingly hard on the mouth before flipping him around and tossing him down on the sofa face first. Julian gave a giddy laugh and made to push himself up, but Michael lay on top of him pinning him to the cushions, biting his shoulder through the fabric of his shirt.

Julian gave a little yelp. He tried to look at Michael over his shoulder, an unsteady smile wobbling on his lips. “Eager, are we?”

Michael grunted in reply and pushed a hand between Julian’s body and the sofa cushions, squeezing his still soft dick through the fabric of his trousers. Michael wasn’t just eager, he was entirely overcome. Darkness clouded his vision and his heart pounded like war drums.

Seeing Julian with Rahul always had a terrible effect on him. Even with the verbose Frenchman taking up all of his attention at dinner, it hadn’t escaped his notice how Rahul had flirted shamelessly with Julian -- and how Julian had done nothing to dissuade him. If anything, he had actively encouraged him with his own little flirtations. Michael had enjoyed Rahul’s moon-eyed moping when he’d believed he hadn’t a chance in hell with Julian, that Julian wanted Michael and only Michael. He had felt empowered then. Empowered enough to fuck Julian almost inadvisably early.

Tonight, however, seeing his Julian, his boy, being seduced away from him right before his very eyes filled him with a jealousy and desire that was altogether darker and nearly impossible to subdue. He had an uncontrollable need to claim what was rightfully his. And to remind them both who Julian really belonged to.

Julian sighed as Michael continued to rub him through his trousers, hips gently rocking as Michael coaxed him to stiffness. He didn’t wait longer than that, moving quickly to unbuckle Julian’s belt and yank his trousers down to his knees along with his pants. Julian’s hands moved to clutch at the sofa arm, readying himself, though his expression, when he flicked Michael another look over his shoulder, was still wary. “Shouldn’t we move to the bedroom? We’ll dirty the couch. You hate it when the couch --”

“I said ‘shut up’,” Michael barked, fumbling open his own trousers and releasing his painfully stiff cock. He’d been achingly hard since the restaurant. He’d thought of nothing but fucking the daylights out of Julian since he saw Rahul’s dark eyes devouring him.

“Yes, sir,” Julian squeaked, turning back to rest his forehead on the sofa arm.

Michael pulled a condom from his pocket and hastily slid it over his erection with trembling fingers. He cast a look at the bedroom door, where the bottle of lube was safely stored in the bedside cabinet. Fuck it. There was no time. He spit thickly into his hand and coated his cock. Then again and spread it over Julian’s entrance, roughly pushing two fingers inside him to stretch him, though they fucked regularly enough as to keep him perpetually loose and ready.

Julian stiffened at the rough intrusion. His head shifted lightly to the side, as if he too were glancing at the bedroom door, realizing what they’d left behind. “Shouldn’t we --” he began tentatively, but his sentence ended instead in a hoarse cry as Michael pushed unceremoniously inside him, fully sheathing himself up to the hilt in one hard thrust.

Need and anger and jealousy and lust warred in Michael’s chest like vile, tarred things that twisted his insides and poisoned his mind. He couldn’t see for the red that hazed his vision. He could hardly feel, needing to dig his fingers harder and harder into Julian’s hips to feel even that. A small, frightened part of his mind that still clung to sanity begged him to hold back, to not allow the beast to run fully rampant. He trembled with the effort to contain it. But he had to claim Julian. He had to make him his forever. He had to make sure no one could ever have him again.

Michael allowed Julian no chance to adjust before he began thrusting relentlessly into him. His hips pistoned, hard and fast, the sound of flesh smacking flesh filling the quiet of the room, drowning out Michael’s laboured breaths. Julian half-screamed, biting into the sofa cushions to stifle the rest of his cries.

Fucking Julian was always extraordinary, an experience full of vivid colour and texture, but tonight it was something harsh and dark. Where Julian was perpetually light, their coupling tonight was heavy with Michael’s waning restraint. He fucked him not for the pleasure of it but for the fear of what lived inside of him, a creature that paced back and forth, threatening to claw out his guts at a moment’s provocation. He needed to expel the fear. He needed to release it into Julian’s warm, exquisite body. Before it put an end to that warmth altogether.

When Michael had been at Eton, he and one of his mates had been indulging in the commonplace pastime of tossing each other off when the darkness had come over him. It hadn’t been the first time. When he’d been small, he would occasionally find himself overcome with an indescribable cruelty. He would twist the skin on a classmate’s arm until the child cried or kick the family dog to make it whimper. But it had never so thoroughly engulfed him as it had in that moment. Possibly because there was a sexual element now that hadn’t been there before, but maybe it was some other, altogether less scrutable reason.