it as Luca was. His mouth was a little tentative and different, but it was so fucking good, Sebastion felt himself teeter toward the edge.
“If you don’t want me to come in your mouth,” he warned, his words half-slurred, “pull off now.”
Xan didn’t. He just sucked harder, and Sebastion closed his eyes and lost himself to the sensation. The orgasm wasn’t the most powerful he’d had, but it was long. It was like Xan was drawing it out of him with careful swallows as he came, and came, and came.
He fell all the way back to the pillows as Xan’s cheek fell down to rest against his lower stomach, then he felt a large hand grip him by the ankle.
“Can we just sleep like this?” Luca asked.
Xan snorted and shook his head. “I don’t want to wake up glued to Sebastion with my come. I’ll be right back.”
He hopped off the bed with an energy Sebastion wondered if he’d ever had, and as the water turned on, he felt Luca shift and slide until he was pressed against his husband’s body. “That was…”
Sebastion smiled and managed to find the strength to reach over and drag a touch down the other man’s face. “It was.”
“Regrets?”
Sebastion let out a small sigh. “I’m a man of regrets, my love. I can always think of a thousand ways I could have done something better. But I don’t regret him.”
Luca looked at him in the dim light, his eyes glittering. “Neither do I.”
Epilogue
A Year and a Half Later
“…so it’ll be weird to say goodbye to all of this, but it also feels like the ending I need in order to have the beginning I’ve worked so hard for. And I want to say I have regrets, but looking out at the faces of people who stuck by me in ways I never thought possible, I know I made all the right choices. Even when they felt wrong. Right before my life changed for the best, I met a man in a cemetery, and he said something to me that will stick with me forever. You’ll never reach the other side of here if you don’t take that first step. And he was right.
“That first step was the hardest, but it was the most necessary. I used to wonder if my parents would be disappointed in me, if they had seen what I had to go through because of the choices I made. But if they were here today, I know they’d be proud. And I know that I’m not the only one with doubts, so this is my message to all of you. Take that first step, because here is the start, and all the rest is where you were meant to end up.
“Love Always, Alexander”
With a groan, Xan moved into the living room and pulled a face at Luca who had the grace to look at least a tiny bit ashamed. “Are you seriously watching that again?”
His boyfriend shrugged, then opened his arms for a hug since Ivy prevented him from getting up. She was gracious enough to leave him room though, to snuggle into those warm arms and tilt his head up for a kiss.
“I can’t help it,” Luca said when he pulled away. “Your bravery and eloquence…” He trailed off, dragging a touch along the edge of Xan’s jaw.
Xan had been asked to give a speech on surviving domestic abuse during his graduation. He’d said no at first, not sure he could put into words what the experience had given him—and what it had taken away. But his therapist mentioned that people who were still with their Max might be listening. And it might not change the minds of many, but it might help a few. It might help plant a seed, offer courage where they doubted they’d ever have any.
He didn’t want to be a poster child for anything or anyone, but he knew he could do that.
So he did.
And of course, his idiot boyfriends had filmed the whole thing, and Luca watched it every so often and got soppy and sweet. That part wasn’t new, but walking into the house that he now lived in was. It had been six weeks of honeymoon phase before the first fight broke out. Sebastion came home after a hard day and snapped at Xan.
Xan over-reacted, Luca jumped to his defense, Sebastion stormed off in anger. Xan hid in the guest room, thinking that he was going to be asked to leave at any