All I Believe (Firsts and Forever, #10)(95)

“Are you going to hold on to the Cezanne?”

“It’ll eventually end up in a museum, no question. That’s where it belongs. But I’m just going to indulge myself for a little while and love it every day it’s mine.”

“I think that’s what every artist must want, for his or her work to find its way into the hands of someone who truly appreciates it. It’s not wrong to want to hold on to it for a while.” Luca pulled me close, and I said, “I love the idea of collecting art with you and filling our home with beauty. I’ve always wanted something by Christopher Robin Andrews, his stuff leaves me breathless. Maybe we can get another of Ignacio’s canvases too when he has his art show. There’s so much joy in his paintings. But you’re the expert, you should be the one guiding these decisions.”

“Not necessarily. You’re following your heart, and you can never go wrong when you do that.”

I shivered a little when I pulled off my overcoat, and Luca said, “Come on, let’s warm you up.”

He led me through to the master bathroom and began to run hot water in the large pedestal tub, which had been a major selling point of that apartment. It took a long time to fill, and while the water ran he stripped me slowly. He slid my shirt off my shoulder and kissed his way down my collarbone, then ran the tip of his tongue along top of my shoulder and up my neck. When I shivered again, it was for an entirely different reason.

He continued his slow, seductive dance, leaving me breathless. His hands, lips and tongue played across each bit of exposed skin as he continued to undress me. By the time he removed the final stitch of clothing, I was rock hard. When he knelt in front of me and took my cock in his mouth, my knees gave out and I sank onto the edge of the tub. I fumbled for the handles without taking my eyes off him and shut the water off before running my fingers in his hair.

Luca took his time sucking me and I floated along blissfully, holding his head between my hands, watching him as he looked up at me. He’d stripped himself too from the waist up, and slid his zipper down and pulled out his hard cock. He sucked me to the root, then dragged his lips up my shaft slowly before pulling off me and quickly locating the lube.

He slicked his cock and spread my legs, then sank into me as I moaned and leaned back, bracing myself on the opposite edge of the big tub. We’d both been tested a couple weeks before and there was no question that we were going to remain monogamous, so there was no longer a need for condoms. We both trusted each other implicitly and knew we weren’t taking a risk.

As he f*cked me, Luca jerked me off, his grip firm on my hard cock as he thrust deep into me. I laughed as I put one foot on the lip of the tub, still holding on to the opposite side with my body arched over the water, and asked, “Why are we doing this here?”

Luca smiled at me, never interrupting the rhythm of his strokes or his thrusts as he said, “It just kind of happened.” He wrapped an arm around me, his hand splayed out on the small of my back, helping keep me steady on that narrow rim.

I finished first, moaning as I shot onto my chest. Luca f*cked me faster as I rode out my orgasm, then climaxed a minute later with a series of hard, deep thrusts, throwing both arms around me and holding me tight as he came in me. He held me for a few more moments after he stilled in me, kissing me tenderly, then eased from my body. After he wiped me down quickly with a wash cloth, he picked me up and deposited me in the warm water.

He finished undressing as he ran some more hot water in the tub, then climbed between my legs and put his head on my chest. I kissed his forehead and rubbed his back, and after a few moments I asked, “Did you have a happy birthday?”

Luca chuckled at that. “Happy is an understatement. That was one for the record books!”

“Yeah, it’s not every day someone throws you a circus and buys you a Cezanne.”

He said, “Both of those things were astonishing, but the best part was getting to spend it with you.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I’m serious. You know where I was on my last birthday? Alone in a hotel room in New York City with take-out and internet porn.”

I thought about that and said, “There are worse ways to spend a birthday.”


“Granted. But there are far better ways too, like sharing it with the man I love.”

“You have a point.”

“Do me a favor,” Luca said.

“Anything.”

“Spend all my birthdays with me from now on. Every last one of them.”

I kissed his hair and told him, “I can do that.”

“Good.”

After a while I said, “If I don’t get into any of my top three choices of medical schools here in the Bay Area, I’m going to go back to working full-time as an EMT and reapply to med school next year.” I’d started working on-call for a local ambulance company a few weeks before. It wasn’t a lot of hours, but that worked out well since the application process for medical school and preparing for the MCAT exam had almost become a full-time job.

“What about the rest of the schools you’re applying to?”

“You’re not going to want to move to the Midwest with me, or any of those other random locations. You’re used to life in a big city. What would you do in Iowa?”

“Grow corn.”

I laughed at that. “Really, though.”