Not One for Weddings

~ Sorry this chapter was so long in coming! School, work, life, and malfunctioning technology have all gotten in the way of late; I promise future chapters will be much quicker to come. Thanks for sticking it out! ~

*****

Chris

I was awakened by the shifting of the bed beneath me, signal of only one thing.

He came back

.

I felt the familiar weight of Julian's body settle in beside me; I didn't move. He knew that I was awake, but didn't speak, didn't touch me. The silence that had been our undoing mere hours before taunted us in the stillness of night. There was tension in the air, however it wasn't an angry one - it was nervous, on both parts. We were both afraid of the other's reaction, more than a little ashamed of our previous behaviour, and unsure of what to do next.

I was the first to break, reaching behind me to take Julian's hand and resting it on my hip. He took the peace offering gratefully, and moved to press himself against me, his face going into the crook of my neck.

"I'm sorry, Chris," he apologized in a whisper.

I was just glad to have him there. "It's okay."

"No, it's not," he objected; I rolled around to face him. "It's not okay," he repeated, stroking my cheek. "Nobody deserves that. Nobody deserves to have their boyfriend walk out on them in the middle of a fight like that. Especially not you."

"I don't care," I sighed. "You're here now, that's all that matters to me."

"You shouldn't think like that, Chris. If you'd told me that an ex of yours had spoken to you the way I did... yelled at you... and then left you... fuck, I don't even know what I'd say. You're too good for that."

"I don't want to talk about all of that right now. I feel exhausted and drained. Let's go to sleep, we have the rest of the weekend to deal with this."

Wisely, he acquiesced and simply hugged me to him. I tucked my head beneath his chin, not turning around as I usually did. He ran his fingers gently up and down my clothed back. Amazingly, that was the first time we'd slept together without being in a state of disrobe - normally, we did our best to wear as little clothing as possible around each other and went to bed fully nude; neither of us made a move to correct that. We didn't kiss, either: another first. I loved nothing more than to have my lips against him or his, but I couldn't bring myself to do so then; he didn't, either. We both understood that a kiss then would have meant too much in the way of forgiveness, and we weren't about to allow for that. So, we silently held each other until we drifted into a sleep that wasn't totally comfortable but still preferable to being apart.

*****

"Julian," I mumbled as I woke up the next morning. I stretched my hands out across the bed on a hunt for his warm body, but came up with only empty handfuls of blanket.

Maybe he's in the restroom

. I strained my ears, but was unable to make out the sound of running water or a flushing toilet. Groaning, I peeled myself off the mattress and went in search of my absent bedmate. I padded into the main room while wiping the sleep out of my eyes, and noticed something on the counter out of the corner of my eye. Curious, I went to retrieve it.

It was a short note in Julian's clean, even script.

Good morning, Chris. I'm sorry I wasn't there when you woke up - I have a few things that need doing. I should be back before noon. Ever yours...

I crumpled the piece of paper in my hand and hurled it as forcefully as I could in the general direction of the garbage can; of course, I missed it by a good yard. Stomping, I went to pick it up then threw it away with a swear.

Fuck him.

Fishing my phone out of my pocket, I called him with a threat already on the tip of my tongue. Straight to voicemail. I called again. Voicemail. I stared at my smartphone with distaste, longing for the days of flip-phones that could be dramatically snapped shut.

"Oh,

fuck

you, Julian," I spat at the small rectangle in my hand.

He should have been there. I didn't care what it was he needed to do, I didn't care if the fate of the universe had been resting on his shoulders - he was supposed to be there. With me. After the night we'd had, I thought I deserved to have him there in the morning.

I stormed around my apartment, cursing Julian's name the entire time. If I were a smoker, that would have been the time for me to have a well-deserved cigarette. I was of half a mind to go out and buy a pack just out of spite. Stalking into the kitchen, I by-passed my usual coffee and rummaged around the refrigerator for a beer that had been sitting there for at least a month. I didn't even like beer that much - Julian did, and it was there for him. I brought the bottle to my lips.

I was so far beyond angry by that point; I'd been abundantly patient with Julian thus far, and he just kept pushing his luck. Now, he couldn't even wait around for a bit until I woke up. I needed him there with me, and he knew it. I sat on the couch to sulk and stew, picking up the remote and flipping mindlessly through the channels. I settled on a movie full of explosions and infliction of bodily harm on dark-haired men; by the time it ended, I hadn't absorbed a single thing of the plot, and would have done as well to not have seen it at all. I turned the television off in a huff. And just in time, as I heard the wriggling of a key unlocking the door.

"Julian, what the hell," I yelled at him as soon as he was inside. "Who the

hell

do you think you are? Where the fuck were you? Why weren't you here this morning? What in the

world

were you thinking, not being here - did you think I would actually be

fine

with it?" I paused for a half-second, not giving him time to respond before continuing on my tirade. "And you know what? I wasn't mad at you yesterday, when you were screaming at me for asking you questions that

anyone

in a committed relationship would expect to have freely answered; I wasn't mad at you when you

left me

in the middle of an argument; I wasn't even mad at you when you came back in the middle of the night, already knowing I'd forgiven you. But now? Now, I'm fucking

pissed

. I shouldn't have to put up with this kind of shit - you should have been here!"

He stood there, wide-eyed, obviously not having expected to have arrive to my anger. I glared at his shocked form, and there he stood looking

so damn hot

in all his faded-jean, worn-Converse, messy-haired glory. Before he had a chance to respond, I was upon him with my fingers knotted in his hair and my hips pinning him back against the door. I crushed my lips against his, taking out on him my pent-up frustration and hurt until I felt my lungs begging for air.

"I am

so

mad at you," I growled into his ear.

"I know," he breathed. "I deserve it."

Yeah, you do

. I brought my mouth over his again and kissed him voraciously. He returned my fervor in kind, clutching at small handfuls of my tee at the small of my back. I loved that man more than anything in the world, and all I wanted to do was either devour him or dismember him or both. He wasn't quite pardoned yet, but it was hard for me to be enraged at him when his breath was making my head spin. When we finally pulled away, we were both panting and rested our foreheads against each other.

"I'm sorry, Chris," he whispered, and that was all it took for me to abandon any thoughts of ill will I'd been harboring for him.

"I am, too," I returned as I knotted my fingers in his hair.

"Don't apologize, love," he murmured with a kiss beneath my ear. "You were absolutely right to be mad at me, and there's nothing for you to be sorry for. I deserve to be grovelling on my knees for your forgiveness right now." He brushed his lips back to mine and gave me the sweetest, softest kiss that had me turning to putty in his arms. His hold around me was so tender and gentle, it seemed impossible that I could ever had wanted to harm him.

He knew me too well; he knew that I wasn't so much

mad

at him for leaving as I was hurt over it. Beyond that, all I needed from him was exactly what he was giving me - I needed him there with me, arms tightened around my waist, his lips on mine, the smell of him overwhelming me then as ever. I felt him nudging at the hem of my t-shirt, and it took all of the will power I possessed to pull away my mouth from his.

"Julian, wait," I protested breathlessly. "We can't do this right now, we need to talk."

His eyes were steady on mine as he came back in close for another kiss, lightly caressing his lips over mine before moving back again.

"Trust me," he breathed.

"We still have to talk," I protested feebly, even as my fingers went out on their own accord to take apart the buttons of his shirt.

"Trust me, love," he begged, tugging again at my shirt; this time I helped him remove it. When he had me bare-chested I noticed his lips were quirked slightly upwards, and he took my head in his hands to bring me nearer to him. "I promise you, we'll talk later. But right now..."

The way he gently held me, how he tenderly kissed me, his delicate manner of stumbling us towards the bedroom - all would have me instantly forgetting my anger to favor him, in any form. That he understood my anger and hurt was more than I would have imagined just minutes before - because that he could have left me, and seemingly so easily, had been more painful than I cared to admit, and all I wanted and needed from him

was

him. For him to be there, with me, was everything

And then again we were consumed by yet another kiss, surrendering ourselves to the passion that was so sudden to overtake us even in argument. Though by that point the name of 'argument' was too harsh, as we were shuffling our way into the bedroom and making our clothing disintegrate beneath searching fingers. When we finally fell into bed, both of us were wonderfully naked and doing our best to skim over every part of the others' body as if it were foreign territory and not the same flesh that we slept beside every night. We were facing each other and wrapped in a tangle of limbs, our heavy breathing perfuming the air. My head lolled aside to allow for Julian's suckling kisses along my neck.

"I love you, Christopher," he prayed in a breath.

"I love you, Julian," I sighed, feeling the words achingly true in every fiber of my being.

And that was all that mattered then.

I put my hand on his cheek to bring him in again, and he met me while placing his hand over mine and twining our finger together. Somehow, that brought another air of intimacy I wouldn't have expected; maybe it was because we didn't hold hands all that often. In any case, it was a frightfully nice feeling.

I gave a searching look into those beautiful, green-brown eyes of his - through them, I could read the man almost like a book. I saw a hundred different things in those expressive hazel orbs, but most of all there was the overall undertone of him saying that

we were okay

. Even after everything that had happened, we were and would always be okay - so long as we were together. I allowed myself the smallest of smiles, mimicking his soft expression with similarly upturned lips, and kissed him passionately.

He brushed his lips down my throat and nibbled along my collarbone, before following to close his mouth around one peaked nipple. I bit back a moan as he bit down on me, his tongue quickly darting out to soothe the small sting. He suckled for a short minute before dragging across my chest to repeat the practice on my second, pebbled nipple. I arched into his touch, prompting him to release me and run his nose down the middle of my body. He dipped his tongue into my navel as he passed it, making me shudder and fight the urge to groan.

He finally reached his goal a few moments later, and placed a small peck on the engorged tip of my cock as if to commemorate that. His lips, rather than snap back into place, followed to suck me into the warm wetness of his mouth. He took his time in lowering his intending lips over me, his tongue twirling around me as he did. My breathing was short and shallow beneath his skilful adorations, and I had to constantly resist my usual obnoxiously loud noises.

He took note of that.

He hadn't been working over me for more than two minutes before pulling off and looking up at me with an expression that was unexpectedly concerned given the carnal atmosphere, or so I thought.

"Chris," he addressed me in a hushed tone. "Love, you're being so... unusually quiet. Do you want to stop?"

He sounded so hesitant, and even hurt. Immediately, I felt like shit - there we were, in the middle of sex, and I was thinking only of myself. I was being so stubborn and proud, I wasn't even concentrating on what we were doing. No matter what, we never brought our problems into the bedroom; that I had was petty and wrong of me.

I pulled him up by the unruly curls of his hair for another kiss, this time in apology. He was more than willing to accept me then as ever, forgiving me as easily in that moment as I had him before. I slowly turned us over so that then I was on top of him and he was spread out beneath me. I took a moment to just look at him, and again I was taken by how

gorgeous

he really was - his ever-dishevelled hair fell in a circle around him, his cheeks had a lovely redness to them, and his flecked marble eyes were focused completely on me.

"God, but you'll be the death of me, I swear." I sighed the words into the hollow beneath his ear, then nibbled on the lobe. "You are

mine

, Julian Asti, and

only

mine. And you'd do well to not go on forgetting that anytime soon."

I punctuated my growled threat/warning/promise with a hard kiss, but I didn't linger long on those wonderfully lush lips of his. I trailed mine down the center of his body, my hands running alongside to grope and squeeze him roughly enough to leave white marks in my wake. I kissed his navel and suckled along the perfect, sharp bones of his hips, taking extra time to suck on the soft flesh; it would leave him with a mark.

I moved on to pay a bit of much-needed attention to his hard length that poked up at me, begging to be touched, sucked, or fucked. I decided on the second option, lapping up the pre-cum that was leaking down his shaft before wrapping my lips around his weeping head and slurping him into my mouth. He gave me a low moan and bucked his hips up to meet me when I raised off of him, and I had to bring him back into my mouth until my face was buried in his nest of short, black curls. The sexy scent of him there had me craving more, and it was only a matter of minutes before I released his cock from my lips with a wet

pop!

I slid my lips drily down from the tip to the base of his cock, following down over his perineum that I treated to a flick of my tongue. With another groan he reflexively opened his legs to me, raising his knees with his feet flat on the bed, and his thighs spread out so he was fully exposing himself to me. I went straight for his puckered hole, as he so obviously wanted me to do. His deep gasp was as satisfying to me as to him, and drove me to dive into pleasuring him with all the more enthusiasm. I made my tongue into a spear, probing him gently while he was eager to accept me. Enjoying the musky-clean smell of him at his most wanton, I explored his hot channel easily while he quivered, and shivered, and begged me for more. I massaged him in that space where the taut cheeks of his ass met the firm muscles of his thighs; his legs trembled from the attention I gave to his hidden crevice. A few minutes later, I felt an urgent tugging of my hair in combination with wordless moaning.

"Jesus," he hissed, fisting his hands in my hair and pulling again. "My

God

, Christopher,

please

."

I dragged myself back up, my nose leading the way, and my tongue following behind in a long, wet line. When I arrived at his cock, standing straight up and hard as steel, I couldn't resist licking up the copious amount of lubricious fluid that dripped from his engorged head. Flicking at his shaft, then at his slit, I was prepared to bring him into my mouth again when his whimpering reminded me that he had certain pressing concerns requiring more than my lips wrapped around him. With a peck placed just beneath his tip, I looked up at him with hooded eyes to be treated to the sight of Julian completely lost in lust.

Hell, but he looks so damn sexy.

My lips moved up his body.

"Give me the lube, baby, will you," I requested him as I nipped at his hip bones.

I felt him shift, presumably reaching out for the bottle of gel on the side-table, then return to the center of the bed and sat up; he leaned in and took me by the hair behind my ears to pull me in for another heated, lingering kiss. As we did I lowered him back onto the mattress, running my hands down the side of his body and squeezing his ass when I got to it. He arched up into me and tugged at my hair, his knees that were on either side of me hugging my hips. It wasn't until our bodies' begging for release overpowered our desire to continue the carnal dance of lips and tongues that we yanked apart, panting.

I kneeled in front of his opened thighs, petting the ticklish inside flesh that made him give a small whimper. I lifted his hips off the bed and stuffed a pillow in the space between, then grabbed the tube of lubricant he'd set beside us. His lips twitched up when he saw me retrieve it, and broadened into a full-blown grin when I squirted a glob of it onto my fingers; I then followed to massage my slickened digits around his tight opening for a few moments before sliding them into him. It wasn't another thirty seconds before he was silently urging me to carry my actions forward. I added a third finger, stretching and sliding them in and out of him, and he was only too responsive as he returned me with every thrust of my palm.

"Are you ready, babe," I asked him in a husky voice; he answered with a moan.

I moved overtop of him again, holding myself up with my arms on both sides of him so that I was completely surrounding him, on top of him, and soon to be inside of him. I sucked on the crook of his neck as I took his knee with one hand and hitched it up over my hip; he followed to put up his other leg, showing his eagerness and it was all I could do to just push myself into him with a groan. He threw his head back and dug his heels into me, taking in a sharp breath as he opened up further to accommodate me. He screwed his eyes shut, wrapping his arms around my neck and pulling me in yet again for a kiss - the man was as crazy to be constantly locking lips with me as I was him, especially after we hadn't since the afternoon before; a long time, for us. And even when we stopped, rather than pull apart we stayed with our lips pressed together, unmoving but unwilling to separate.

When I bottomed out inside him I gave another deep, low moan. His actions made it very obvious that he wanted me to just keep going, not wait or stop. We were looking into each others eyes as I thrust back into him, and that eye-contact made the moment feel even more intimate and loving. Because, more than anything, we really did love each other.

I bucked into him over, and over, and

over

again, building up our mutual pleasure and causing the both of us to moan into each other. His hard cock between us left sticky trails on our stomachs, and I reached down to take hold of him in a firm grasp. He was caught between returning my thrusts into him and humping into my hand, making sexy little whimpers that drove me absolutely insane. I watched him as he was wholly overtaken with desire, the sight of him the absolute visualization of an aphrodisiac.