With Everything I Have (7 page)

“I don’t like it. It upsets me, angers me,”
Peter admitted, his tone subdued. “I hate it.”

Sebastian nodded. “That is how I feel when
you speak of yourself that way.” If it had been worth it Sebastian
would have asked what had lit this fire under Peter. He did not
know why Peter was experimenting with him, only that he was.
Another man might have put his foot down. But this was Peter. First
he had an idea, a design. Then he conducted research and then an
experiment. Peter was after something important here and he was
going about it the only way he knew how.

Sebastian looked squarely into Peter’s eyes.
“I only touch you when you indicate you would like me to touch you.
Today you indicated that you wanted me to touch you.” It seemed
fair to say it. Peter had to know what he was doing. “The other
night you also indicated that you wanted me to touch you.”

Or perhaps Peter didn’t know. His lips
parted. “Did I?”

Sebastian was fairly certain he nodded though
he couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t sure of anything at the moment.
Peter blinked once, twice, then shut his mouth. The line appeared
between his eyes.

Sebastian raised a hand. “Before you ask me,
it’s different for some, but most indicate their willingness in
similar ways.” This conversation was really happening. Sebastian
was educating Peter on sexual relations after years of being
intimate with him. Only Peter would require this. Only Peter would
never have attempted to find the answers with anyone else.

Sebastian felt his face start to sting with a
pleased heat that was almost shameful. Peter, untouched except for
him. If Peter had been experimenting with others he would have
figured this out this already. Sebastian shifted closer to him.
Peter’s attention was riveted to him. He no longer seemed
surprised. There was the very real possibility that Peter did know
some of this already, or had suspected it and had wanted to hear
Sebastian confirm it, in which case Sebastian could only say that
it was a talk long overdue.

“Some of it is in how you watch me.” He did
not stop though Peter gave a startled twitch that made Sebastian
want to haul him close and bury his face in his neck. “It isn’t
that you sit close to me the way I am sitting close to you now,
although that is a part of it. Only because you do not sit so with
anyone else, Peter. It makes this special, and I need you to know
how much I treasure that. I would take that, if it was all you
offered me. But…” A confession of his feelings was oddly easier
than discussing the small ways that Peter seduced him. This was an
unexpected torment. “You… you sit close.” He paused. It was hard to
describe the infinitesimal changes in Peter in moments like these.
“You come next to me and your breathing changes as if you are
relaxed but I can see that you aren’t. You’re so tense that you
shake like leaves in the wind. You turn toward me with your eyes
wide. Then when I finally touch you…” He nearly stopped at how
still Peter went, how carefully Peter controlled his breathing,
like a man confronting his worst fear, but Peter whispered, “Yes?”
so Sebastian continued, lowering his voice.

“When I touch you, you give in. There is no
other earthly way to put it.” Each and every time Sebastian could
see Peter’s anxiety and how desperately Peter tried to hang on, but
Peter’s attention always stayed fixed on him and he moaned so
sweetly for everything Sebastian did. Peter opened up and came
apart when Sebastian touched him. Sebastian shifted at the memory
and glanced at Peter again. “I wouldn’t touch you if I didn’t think
you wanted me to.”

Peter turned away to stare at the floor and
his abandoned notepad. He hummed like a machine in mid-process then
raised his head again. “So you do not touch me when you think I
don’t wish you to. When you do not bugger me for a month it is not
because you don’t want me, but because I have not adequately
indicated my receptiveness,” Peter summarized the situation in a
startlingly cool voice but didn’t move. There was fierce colour in
his face and down his neck but his stare was growing steadier by
the second.

“I can’t have this talk with you, Peter.”
Sebastian objected like the liar Peter had called him then stopped.
“At least not calmly.” He recalled Peter’s exact words and his
heart ceased to beat. ”What did you say?”

Peter slumped his shoulders. His expression
melted into despair. “I’m such a failure it’s a wonder you tolerate
me at all,” he murmured and shook his head. “Cock it up every time,
don’t I?”

“You aren’t a failure.” Sebastian scowled at
him, that awful hope getting so much worse at Peter’s
disappointment in himself. Peter had wanted to try. Peter
had
tried.

Peter darted a look over at him, his eyes
seeing more than he let on, as always. Peter opened his mouth,
closed it, then gave a short wave of his hands as if he didn’t know
what to do with them without a pencil or a tool to hold.

Or Sebastian. He had held Sebastian today as
well. Sebastian had never thought of himself as a troublesome auto
design before but to Peter he supposed he might be. He was
unsurprisingly fine with that. ”Peter, would you like to sit closer
to me?”

Peter surged forward, halting just shy of
Sebastian’s space. He wet his lips. It was a mesmerizing sight when
they were this close to Sebastian’s mouth. Sebastian tried to focus
on what Peter was saying.

“I did not think… I did not think you wanted
more. You did not ask and the first times we were just boys. You
are, you are very experienced, Bash, and I am no good,” Peter
paused, swallowed, then corrected himself. “I have no experience
like you. It was embarrassing to try.”

“Embarrassing?” Sebastian curled his hands
fists and kept them in his lap. He thought of wanting Peter to
touch him, and Peter wanting to touch him, and both of them too
afraid of scaring off the other to ask. He held in a curse and
closed his eyes. “I wouldn’t have minded.” He thought his tone
level and the words reasonable considering the things he could have
shouted instead. “I wouldn’t have minded if you tried with me.”

“You never asked. I thought you didn’t want
me to.” Peter put his head up as he seemed to notice Sebastian’s
stillness. Sebastian cut a look his way and discovered Peter could
be quite intimidating without being anything close to angry. “Oh,”
Peter said and twisted his hands together in his lap. “Oh. Damn.
You wished me to try. You have been waiting. Bugger it, I am so
stup—” There he stopped himself, evidently remembering what
Sebastian had told him.

Peter clenched his hands together and lowered
his head. He took one careful breath after another. “I should have
known that and I am a fool, but you don’t like it when I say that.
So I won’t. I will only… I will only make it up to you, if I can.”
He pulled his hands apart and lifted his head before reaching out.
“Would it help if I touched you first?” Peter lifted a hand to
Sebastian’s collar where his fingers partly covered Sebastian’s
skin. Sebastian made a noise, a queer, wounded sort of a noise he
had never before heard from himself and Peter nodded. He ran his
fingers back and forth along Sebastian’s skin and curled them
against his beard.

Sebastian lifted his chin and Peter rested
his fingertips over his mouth, just briefly, before sucking in a
breath and glancing to the side. “I find you very attractive,
Sebastian, as many do, I suppose.”

Sebastian was seeing stars. He realized he
had not drawn in air for some time and did so. “Not as many as you
might think,” he answered at last.

Peter gave a tiny shake of his head. “I have
seen others look at you when we are out together.”

“That is only…” Sebastian went silent, too
hot and breathless to think straight. “They do not want me exactly.
Not for anything lasting.”

“Because they do not know you.” Without
turning toward him, Peter put his hand at Sebastian’s shoulder.
“You are still searching for your life-long love, as you should, if
you want it.” Peter finally looked back. His chin was up as if he
was feeling stubborn but his gaze could not stay steady. His
breathing was much too fast. “If it makes you happy, Sebastian then
I will support it. But,” he bit his lip, reddening it all over
again, “here I am. If you… here I am.”

“There you are,” Sebastian echoed
faintly.

Peter didn’t seem to understand the remark.
He was pressing gamely ahead with whatever it was he was trying to
say. “You are a man of great passion and I have always wondered why
you did not take me more often. You should have told me to
signal.”

“Terribly sorry,” Sebastian apologised
distractedly then turned toward Peter so quickly that Peter jumped.
“Lie back,” Sebastian instructed. With only a small hesitation,
Peter obeyed.

Sebastian pushed his shaking hands under
Peter’s shirt until he found skin. Peter, his Peter, who had been
eager for this for the entire time Sebastian had pined for him, and
had restrained himself, let one foot drop to the floor to give
Sebastian space between his thighs. Sebastian did not have to be
told twice. He settled over Peter, his mind spinning with the fact
that he could have done this every day if only he had ever thought
to tell Peter he wanted to. He should have known that Peter would
need explicit permission. He should have known so many things.
Peter was not the only one at fault. Sebastian had been too
cowardly.

It was easier to push Peter’s clothing aside
this time now that he was sure in the knowledge that Peter wanted
him to. He put his face to Peter’s skin and kept it there. Peter’s
stomach was flat and hot, his gasps loud, his cock flushed and
heavy. Sebastian moaned the moment he had it in his mouth. Peter
swore above him, delightfully vulgar, as if Sebastian had never
done this to him before. “Oh bollocks, Sebastian, that is not… I
wanted to…” He finished none of his sentences. His hands flew to
Sebastian’s back where they rested lightly until Sebastian wet his
cock to the root and then slowly pulled his mouth up the length of
him.

Peter’s grip instantly tightened. It wasn’t
enough, not anymore. “Touch me,” Sebastian ordered breathlessly,
dipping his head suck softly at any place that struck his
fancy.

“Where?” He could hear the confused need in
Peter’s voice. Sebastian smoothed a hand up Peter’s stomach,
momentarily obsessed with the freedom to touch, then remembered
himself and wrapped his fingers around Peter’s wrist. He dragged
Peter’s hand to his head then let go.

“Anywhere,” Sebastian murmured, setting to
work on Peter’s cock with his lips and tongue, and shifting down
with impatient arousal when Peter cautiously curved a hand around
his nape. Sebastian was breathing hard but Peter was drawing in
rasping, quick gasps of air. Peter’s gaze was intent on him,
hungry, Sebastian thought, but curious as well. Sebastian had never
wanted come in his mouth so intensely before.

He brought a hand up, milking Peter’s cock as
he sucked it, loving the jerky, hitching movements of Peter’s legs
and hips as Peter realized he no longer had to hold himself still.
His voice was raised as well, shaky groans and cries directed at
the ceiling and Sebastian himself. Peter’s fingers curled into him
digging hard in warning, but Sebastian stayed where he was and took
the streams of seed on his tongue. He stroked until there was more,
letting some drip down between them as he crawled up to take
Peter’s mouth in a wet, sticky kiss.

Peter moaned, startled, but let the seed play
on his tongue before he swallowed. Sebastian fed him his own spunk,
giving him a chance to taste it, then he pulled away to see the
effects of what he had done.

Peter’s eyes were stunned but his hands were
firm on Sebastian’s skin. “There is much you haven’t taught me,” he
complained while Sebastian licked remnants from the corner of
Peter’s mouth. Sebastian was feeling quite wanton. He supposed that
was inevitable when the man he loved admitting to desiring him.
Peter was flushed and heavy-lidded. His lips were shining.

“My apologies.” Sebastian thought his voice
was remarkably even for a man with a pounding cock and an aching
heart. He brushed the hair away from Peter’s face and smiled widely
when Peter wiped his chin for him. He met Peter’s stare. “Ask me
anything now. I’ll answer. If there is something you wish to try,
please do not be embarrassed. There is nothing wrong with
curiosity.” He could not seem to stop kissing the parts of Peter
within reach. Peter had just been satisfied but with each kiss he
arched up. Sebastian did not think he was the only one relishing
this new freedom to act. “There is nothing wrong with learning.
Everyone is clumsy at first, Peter, everyone. You remember me,
don’t you? I came against you so many times when I did not mean to.
You drove me crazy.”

“Did I?” Peter frowned, but not with anger.
He was watching his hands as they wandered to Sebastian’s shoulders
and chest. “I hated looking at you then. One look and I’d grow hard
and have nowhere to go. I thought… I thought, I told myself, if
Sebastian felt the same he would not be able to keep himself from
me. And it seemed,” he glanced up, “it seemed as if you couldn’t
get enough of me either. Then my father—then I left. When I saw you
again it was nearly as bad. But you were distant. More careful. The
wanting was terrible. ”

“It is the same,” Sebastian promised him
feverishly. “It is the same for me. Have you wanted to touch me all
this time?” he demanded and cursed himself when Peter gave a firm
nod. “I would have let you. I will let you. Only tell me what you
want.”

“I have often thought—” Peter’s mouth was no
doubt thick with seed. He swallowed again and made a heady sound
when he pushed his hands against Sebastian’s collarbone. Peter kept
his gaze on his hands and spoke fast. “I have also never had your
cock in my mouth.”