Xan for making them do this during one of the biggest fucking holidays in France. But no love worth having came easy. It was simple, yes, but there had always been a current to fight, and he was ready. He was strong enough.
Part of him was petrified that Xan had changed his mind and they’d come all this way for nothing, and Sebastion seemed to notice as he found him leaning against the terrace, staring at the crowds beneath them.
Warm arms came around his middle, and he felt a bone-crushing fatigue from the adrenaline crash and the jet lag rippling through his body.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Luca sighed. “I’m second-guessing my idea to show up without texting or calling.”
Sebastion chuckled and stood on his toes to kiss his neck. “You said it was more romantic that way.”
“Well, past me was a moron, but now I feel committed to the idea,” he grumbled. He turned, taking Sebastion by the waist, and he crowded him back against the crumbling brick wall, kissing him slow and deep. “This may be one of the last moments we share as just us.”
“Regrets?” Sebastion asked, his eyes half-lidded.
Luca shook his head. “You?”
“Only hope.” He pressed his palm over Luca’s heart, and his fingers tapped out the rhythm. “It doesn’t feel like losing anything, and it used to.”
Luca blinked down at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”
Letting out a breath, Sebastion leaned into his arms and rested his forehead against his collarbone. “Watching you with someone else has always been one of my favorite things. Watching them fall under your spell.” He glanced up with a grin and a little heat in his eyes. “There is nothing more erotic than you making someone come.”
Luca dragged his tongue over his lips. “I don’t…”
“I used to be afraid,” Sebastion went on, “that someone would catch your interest for more than just one night. We never really had an official agreement. We both said if there was someone we fell for together, we’d want to see where it went.”
“Yes,” Luca said slowly.
Sebastion shrugged. “I thought it would mean losing a piece of you to them. Even though I knew everything you let me keep would be enough, I felt like it couldn’t be whole.”
“Bas,” Luca whispered quietly, reaching down to cup his face.
Sebastion smiled. “I didn’t get it then. I don’t think I was supposed to get it until we met him.”
“I’d never take anything away from us,” Luca murmured. He dragged his thumbs over Sebastion’s cheeks. “Ever. Nothing about this,” he leaned down and pressed their foreheads together, “is on the table.”
“I know. It makes sense now, but I think it had to be right before it did.”
Luca bit his lip, but he sort of understood. He always feared that one day he would be too much for Sebastion. That someone quieter and softer and less apt to make rash decisions would capture his interest. And they’d be able to make it work, but a small part of him always worried that coming second would eventually turn into coming last. And he knew his heart couldn’t take that.
But it wasn’t like that with Xan.
He knew it was probably foolish to assume that with a man they didn’t know very well, but it was worth the leap—the risk of falling, the risk of crashing. It was worth the potential heartbreak, because the reward would be so much greater than anything he could have ever known.
“We’ll take it slow,” Sebastion promised, reading the look in Luca’s eyes with an accuracy that still startled him even after all these years. “Not just for him, but for us.”
Luca felt the tension in his shoulders ease. “Okay.”
“But we’ll make sure he knows slow doesn’t mean unwanted,” he added.
Luca kissed him, because it was the only way to properly convey how perfect he found his husband in that very moment.
They managed a nap in the early afternoon, then had lunch delivered to the room. As the sun began to set, music began to float across the air, and even on the terrace, Luca could feel the energy of the city drift on the tendrils of the breeze. It was raining when they first arrived, but the skies had cleared, though the light pollution made it impossible to see any of the stars.
Still, it felt wild. It felt like a good night to lay his heart in his open palm and trust that it wasn’t going to be shattered into a million pieces.