There’s an art to driving the Pacific Coast Highway in gridlock. It’s less about steering than about letting the car become an extension of your own boredom; rolling a few feet, braking, nudging the wheel to avoid some barely-legal BMW with a surfboard lashed on the roof. Luke’s truck is at least twenty years old, an ’01 Tacoma that smells like a surf shop dumpster: salt, mildew, sex wax, and sunscreen cooked together under the low-fi hum of the AC. The stereo’s dead, so we drive with both windows down, our arms getting fried in the afternoon sun, radio replaced by the whap-whap of the cracked window seal and the weird, orchestral din of hundreds of cars lurching south.
I’ve only known Luke for three days, but somehow it’s already normal to be riding shotgun with him. Or maybe that’s the point, normalcy isn’t something I’ve had to fake since I came out, and whatever this is, it’s definitely not fake. Still, there’s a new, animal nervousness pulsing just under my skin, and it’s got nothing to do with the surf lesson Luke’s supposed to be giving me or the prospect of getting decked by a three-foot Malibu close out.
No, the problem is his hand.
It rests casual, deliberate, just shy of the gear shift, sometimes clutching a La Croix can, sometimes drumming out a rhythm on the warped console. But always, always close enough that every pothole, every twitch of the truck, means the back of his knuckles could brush my thigh. I try not to notice, but it’s like trying not to notice a fire alarm going off inside your own skull. Even when I look away, at the towers of scrubby sandstone, at the sea flashing blue in the gaps between SUVs, I feel his hand waiting for me to let my guard down and, what, make a move? Call him on it? Or just stew in the possibility until I go insane?
The truck hits a deep rut and I tense my legs, calf to quad, an instinct from years of swimming. Luke glances over. “You’re going to pull a hamstring if you keep flexing like that.”
“Muscle memory,” I say. “You ever do dryland training in a moving sauna?”
Luke’s mouth tilts up at one edge. He’s got the kind of smile that happens entirely by accident, like a muscle spasm. “You’re the one who wore pants.”
“Didn’t want you to think I was one of those guys who wears their Speedo everywhere.”
He raises his eyebrows. “I’d get over it.”
I look straight ahead, but the heat finds its way into my face. Another mile of stop-and-go. “How far is the beach?”
He shrugs, index finger nudging the hazard lights button. “Could run it in fifteen if we ditched the truck. Might be forty if the traffic keeps up.”
“Guess we’ve got time.”
Luke glances at my bare wrist, then at the dashboard clock, then at the surfboard wedged into the backseat, nose sticking out between us like a chaperone. “I’m not in a rush. You?”
The question’s innocent, the tone is not. “No rush,” I say.
We lapse into silence, the road vibrating through the frame. Luke’s hand drifts closer to the shifter and, for an infinitesimal second, the side of his index finger grazes the fabric of my jeans. Not enough to count as a touch. Enough to detonate something under my ribs.
He pretends not to notice, turning the wheel and guiding us around a stalled-out Bronco with a flat. “You always this jumpy before a lesson?”
“I’m not jumpy.” Lie. “I just, don’t usually do this.”
“Surfing?” he asks, eyes on the blind spot.
I wait half a second. “No, this.” I gesture, vague: the window, the open road, the space between us.
Luke doesn’t answer right away, just makes a soft, humming sound in his throat, like he’s thinking. I want him to press, to say something explicit, but he lets the subject hang out the window like a cigarette butt. For all his scruffy, sun-bleached casualness, he’s a master at not saying the first thing on his mind.
He cracks another can of La Croix and offers it. Our fingers touch, warm from the sun. “You didn’t have to say yes,” he says.
“I know.” I take the can, taste the salt of my own skin where it meets the aluminum.
“And you did,” he says, softer this time. “Kind of made my week.”
Maybe it’s the way he says it, or maybe it’s the fact that my calves are still flexed like I’m about to sprint, but my breath stutters, then smooths out. “I haven’t been to the beach in a long time,” I say.
“Figured it was something like that,” Luke says. His hand finally leaves the gear shift, only to rest on the empty space just past my knee, close enough that the hair on my leg tingles.
For a second, nothing moves except the little dust motes turning in the light between us.
“Shit, we’re gonna miss the turn-off,” Luke says suddenly, jerking the wheel to the right. The truck lurches, forcing my thigh into his open palm for half a heartbeat. He kills the signal, guiding us up a steep incline to a ragged gravel overlook shaded by a couple of eucalyptus trees and the burnt-out hull of a VW Bus.
He leaves the engine running but doesn’t put the truck in park. The hand remains, motionless, as if it’s been there for years and only just now noticed the presence of another body.
I watch him. He doesn’t look away from the horizon, from the strip of platinum ocean threading between the haze and the cliffs. Sweat dots his forehead, a clean line of tan ending where his sunglasses usually perch. His neck is strong, the muscles roped and relaxed under sun-damaged skin. The vein along his forearm stands out as he finally, gently, removes his hand.
I want to speak first, to say something clever or disarming, but the words stick. Instead, I feel my own pulse in my jaw and try to swallow it down.
Luke’s voice is quiet now, sanded down to something almost shy. “You okay?”
“I’m good.”
He lets it hang, then reaches for the ignition and turns off the truck, but doesn’t move. The silence between us is the loudest thing all day.
Out the window, the ocean sparkles, shallow and endless. Here and now, I could almost believe it’s just another summer day, and we’re just two friends killing time before the next set rolls in. But I know better, and so does he.
Luke rests both hands on the steering wheel, knuckles pale, then turns to face me. For once, he doesn’t look away.
“You ever get tired of waiting for someone else to start things?” he asks.
I exhale, slow, my hand sliding over my thigh, inches away from his. “Maybe.”
He doesn’t smile this time, just lifts his chin a little, like he’s daring me to answer for real.
I don’t. Not yet.
The air in the cab is thick with sun and something else, something chemical and dangerous.
Luke flicks his gaze down to my lips, then back up, and I know exactly what would happen if I leaned in. But he waits, always waits.
Out on the highway, cars sizzle past, but here time is elastic, stretching to hold this moment in place.
It occurs to me, finally, that he’s not playing a game. This is just him, making a space for someone else to choose.
I run my thumb along the condensation on the can, and decide. Not yet, but soon.
Luke nods, almost imperceptibly, like he’s read my mind. He lets the silence go until the tension dissolves into a low, private laugh.
“Shit,” he says. “You’re good at this.”
I shrug.
We stay there, neither of us moving, until the sun slides an inch closer to the water and the wind picks up, flapping the loose edge of Luke’s sleeve.
I wonder how long we’ll wait here. I hope it’s a while.
I Got Tired of Waiting
We get out of the truck like it’s an accident, like we’ve both forgotten how doors work and have to re-learn in real time. The heat outside is a slap: salt wind, eucalyptus, old gasoline, and the sound of the Pacific is a low, endless hush punctuated by the whine of distant cars.
Luke leans back against the hood, arms crossed loose over his chest, sunglasses miraculously reappeared. He looks even more at ease than inside the cab, like his default mode is half-melted into a flat surface, and he can’t imagine a single reason to be anywhere else.
I try to match his vibe, stretching like I’m sore, pretending not to notice the rough, sun-splintered paint that catches on the palm of my hand. My pulse hasn’t slowed down. I focus on the ocean, its slow-motion violence, every set rolling in and dying on the sand a hundred feet below.
“So,” Luke says, “still think you’re not jumpy?”
I smirk. “It’s called ‘being a little on edge.’ Normal human reaction.”
He glances sideways, eyebrow arched. “You seem pretty good at playing it cool.”
“Maybe I am.” I look at him, and he’s looking at me.
He shrugs, and for a second, the movement pulls his shirt tight across his chest. “Wouldn’t blame you,” he says. “First lesson’s always weird.”
I want to say, This isn’t about the lesson, but the words catch on my teeth. Instead: “Not my first rodeo. Just haven’t done this in a while.”
He pushes the sunglasses up, catching them in his hair, and the full force of his gaze knocks me off-balance. His eyes are a washed-out blue, almost colorless in the sun. “So why’d you say yes?”
He delivers it like a challenge but doesn’t push, just lets the question dangle.
I consider the honest answer: Because I haven’t stopped thinking about your hands since that other day, or because I want to know what you’re like when you stop holding back, but that would require admitting how much he’s already in my head. So I lie, or half-lie.
“You make it sound like I had a choice,” I say. “You’re very persuasive for a guy who doesn’t say much.”
He grins at that, the right half of his mouth higher than the left. “I get told I’m better at listening.”
“Is that what you’re doing now?” I ask.
He looks out at the water, jaw shifting. “Yeah,” he says. “Trying to figure out what you want.”
For the first time all day, I can’t think of a comeback.
We stand there, letting the surf and the wind and the traffic fill the space. Luke scuffs his shoe against the gravel, producing a sound that’s almost aggressive in the quiet.
“I think I want…” I start, but can’t finish. What do I want? To kiss him, to see if he’s as careful with mouths as he is with words, to feel the press of his palm at my waist instead of my knee. All of it, and none of it, because wanting something is still new and a little bit terrifying.
He waits, not pushing.
“Don’t you ever get tired of waiting for someone else to start things?” I ask.
“Not really,” Luke says, and then, softer: “It’s more interesting if you do.”
I can’t take the suspense, so I move. Not a leap, not even a full step. Just enough that our arms almost touch, the boundary of his heat a clear, invisible thing.
He doesn’t retreat. His lips part, just barely.
I say, “So are you going to stand there all day, or—”
His hand finds my waist before the rest of me catches up. It’s a rough, certain grip, and he uses it to reel me in. The kiss is a meeting in the middle, chaste at first, almost polite, until his fingers tighten and I open my mouth, and then it’s not polite at all.
I put my hand on his upper waist, I don’t think about it, just let my hand wander down, drawn by gravity and the heat pouring off his skin. I rest my palm flat at the narrow place beneath his ribs, thumb grazing the dip above his hip. He’s solid there, the muscle hard and half-tensed, but the way he leans into my touch is gentle, as if he’s been waiting for that exact contact all morning. His breath catches, and I feel it before I hear it, a stutter in his chest, the smallest pull at the corners of his mouth.
He tastes like lime and salt and his own sweat. His stubble catches on my chin. I hear myself make a small, undignified noise, which only makes him smile against my mouth. When he lets go, it’s gradual, like he’s giving me time to change my mind.
In the prism of that pause, he looks younger and more dangerous than before. I know he’ll let me set the terms, but it’s clear he wants a clear answer and nothing less.
I breathe in, staggered. “That’s one way to do it.”
Luke keeps his hand at my side, thumb tracing a circle through my T-shirt, but he’s watching my face now, reading every twitch. “Are you good?”
“Yeah.” My voice is high and shaky, so I cough and try again. “Yeah, I’m good.”
He nods, once, and the moment could break either way, into something serious, or back into the safety of teasing. I go for the latter, because I can’t handle the sincerity.
“You kiss all your students, or just the really promising ones?” I ask.
Luke makes a show of thinking. “Only the ones who admit they’re nervous.”
I punch him in the arm. “Dick.”
He laughs, and it’s the first time today he seems caught off guard. “Takes one to know one,” he says, then finally lets go of my waist.
We don’t say anything for a while. The kiss hangs between us, heavy and obvious, but neither of us seems in a rush to label it.
A single-engine plane drones overhead, dragging a banner for some beachside brunch. Luke shades his eyes, watching it pass. “You want to keep going?”
I’m about to say yes, but he gestures at the ocean, at the rest of the day, and I realize he means the lesson, not just the kissing. My laugh is all relief. “Lead the way, teacher.”
He grins, holds the passenger door for me, gentlemanly, or just making sure I get back in the truck, and as I settle in, my arm brushes his again, this time on purpose.
He doesn’t flinch. Just closes the door and jogs around to the driver’s side.
The engine coughs back to life, and the moment is technically over. But every minute after is a new moment, the potential for another contact, another dare, another escalation. We both know it, but neither of us says it.
This is the part that kills me: how he’s content to let things be unfinished, to see what happens when you wait.
I tell myself it’s just a kiss, that it doesn’t mean anything yet.
But my skin remembers his hand for the rest of the drive.
We Pretended the Kiss Changed Nothing
Malibu sand sticks to sweat. I remember this from past beach days, but not like this, never from the perspective of a half-dressed guy leaning against a surf truck, quietly dying at the sight of his so-called instructor peeling off a faded T-shirt in the open.
Luke changes beside the open tailgate, not in a showy way, just practical, slipping out of his shirt with a twist of broad shoulders. His skin is darker on the arms and face, the rest mottled with patchy tan lines, pale at the waistband. There’s a sun-bleached rope bracelet around his wrist and a tiny, misshapen wave tattoo above his hipbone.
He has a rangy surfer’s build: broad through the shoulders, narrow at the hips, and defined without looking sculpted or gym-trained. His strength shows most clearly in his forearms, back muscles, and balance. I make a point of looking away, but then I look back, and he’s caught me, smiling, sunglasses perched on his nose, zero shame.
“You need a suit?” he asks, gesturing at the pile of board shorts and rash guards dumped across the truck bed.
“I’m good.” I tug off my T-shirt, force my arms to relax even though I can feel the heat rise under my cheeks.
Luke makes no move to hide that he’s looking, too.
I’m still semi-hard from when Luke kissed me, which isn’t subtle in board shorts. There’s a persistent, almost electrical awareness running from the center of my chest down, a reminder that the line between wanting and having is tissue-thin and easily breached. When I catch my reflection in the side window of the truck, sunburn already flirting with my nose and neck, my face is both sharper and more open than I remember.
The walk to the beach is a hundred yards of packed sand and scattered families, beach towels a patchwork in every direction. Luke balances the board on his head with one arm and lets me carry nothing but the wax and a towel. When we reach the edge of the water, he sets the board down and glances up at the line of foam.
“Beginner’s spot is just past that lifeguard stand. You want to warm up or just go for it?”
I want to get in the water so I can stop thinking about him shirtless, stop thinking about the ridged shadow of muscle along his back, the childish tan line at his hips, the way the tattoo warps and flexes every time he moves, but also so I can maybe impress him by not dying in the first five minutes. “Let’s go for it.”
We wade out, the water a shock after the oven-hot sand. He walks ahead, testing the bottom with his toes, and every so often looks over his shoulder, like making sure I’m still there. I watch the muscles flex in his back, the way his board shorts ride low, the stripe of dark blonde hair at his nape, wet and curling. Each step rolls the long muscles of his calves and thighs, and for a brief, deranged second I wonder if anyone else on the beach is seeing what I see: how every casual movement telegraphs effortless control, how he never seems bothered by the attention I’m trying not to give him. If I were braver, I’d let myself stare openly, the way he did with me, but my eyes keep darting away
Salt water seeps into the mesh liner of my own shorts, shocking the insides of my thighs with a temperature I’m not ready for. Every sense feels turned up, the sting of salt air, the press of sunlight through my hair, the sound of distant gulls and the wet slap of our feet against foamy shore. I can’t help glancing at the line of his shoulders, the way the muscles there flex and roll when he shifts the board from one hand to the other.
We push out past the shallows, water now at my knees, then thighs. Luke stops abruptly, turning to face me. His hair is wet at the ends, curling against his neck, and there’s a thin trail of water running down his chest, tracing the centerline to his navel. He grins, then wipes the water from his eyes with the heel of his palm.
“Okay,” Luke says, turning to face me. “You remember how to paddle?”
“Muscle memory,” I say, and lay down flat on the board. It rocks, but I stabilize.
He steadies the tail and runs his hands along the rails, then moves behind me, feet braced. “Not bad. Head up, chest forward. You want to catch the wave with your eyes first, not your feet.”
His hands bracket my hips, adjusting them minutely.
“There you go,” he murmurs, almost absent, like he’s narrating for himself. “Now look back.”
I do. The ocean horizon is flat, indifferent, but behind us a set is rolling in.
“Get ready,” Luke says. He’s still holding the board, with one hand solid on me. “On my count, you paddle. Hard.”
The wave lifts us. His hands vanish and I dig in, the board skipping forward. I know, instantly, I’m late on the pop-up, but I try anyway and wipe out in spectacular, underwater slow motion.
I surface, coughing, to find Luke ankle-deep at the break, grin uncontainable.
“You could have warned me,” I say, but I’m smiling too.
“Where’s the fun in that?”
He helps me drag the board back to shallows. “Want to go again?”
We run it five, ten more times. I start to get the timing, the mechanics, but never quite master the pop-up. Luke is patient, steady, always nearby to keep me from getting caught in the wrong current. When I finally manage to stand for a whole two seconds before tumbling, he whoops, sharp and unguarded. The pride on his face is better than any trophy.
We collapse on the sand, breathing hard. I expect him to make a joke, but instead he just hands me his water bottle, which I take and immediately drain.
“You were a lifeguard, right?” he asks, side-eyeing me over the rim of his own bottle.
“For three summers.”
“That explains a lot.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Luke shrugs, smile softening. “You don’t panic, even when you’re underwater. You keep your head up.”
I let that hang, unsure if it’s a compliment or just observation. “You ever panic?” I ask.
He pushes his hair back, considering. “I used to. Got caught in a rip once when I was fifteen. Thought I was gonna die. After that, I stopped getting scared.”
“Just like that?”
He shakes his head, wet hair flicking drops at my chest. “Not just like that. But you figure out, sometimes it’s better to let go than fight it.”
We stare at each other, a beat too long. Luke blinks first, then gestures at my shoulders. “You’re burning. Want help with sunscreen?”
I nod, already anticipating the feeling of his hands.
He squeezes a white stripe across my shoulder blades, then works it in slow, deliberate circles. His fingers are rough, but his touch is gentle. He spends longer than he needs to at my neck, massaging the knot at the base of my skull, then glides down my arms, lingering at the elbow. I have to bite my lip to keep from making a noise.
He doesn’t go lower, and when he’s done, he wipes the excess on his own chest, down his abs and laughs. “Now we both smell like coconut.”
I don’t trust myself to say anything. He flops onto the towel, pulling his knees up and tossing his head back to the sun.
We eat peanut butter sandwiches and oranges from the truck’s cooler, sharing bites and letting the juice run sticky down our wrists. I want to talk about the kiss, about the hand at my waist, but every time I try to bring it up, the words evaporate.
Luke seems fine with the silence, but he’s not actually silent, every few minutes he’ll nudge my foot, or lean across me to grab something, or brush a crumb off my lip with his thumb. Each time, I freeze, waiting for the next escalation. But he never pushes. He just keeps making these tiny invitations, over and over, and waits to see if I’ll answer.
After we eat, we lay side by side, shoulders almost but not quite touching. The beach crowd thins out as the sun angles lower. I watch the curve of Luke’s nose, the rise and fall of his chest, the sharp edge of his collarbone.
He catches me looking and grins. “Sunset’s best from up there,” he says, pointing at the low bluff above the shore.
We climb it, feet sliding in loose sand, and when we reach the top, the wind cuts right through my damp shorts. I shiver, and Luke, not missing a beat, pulls me in under his arm. I go willingly, my head slotting into the space just above his shoulder. The ocean below glitters, infinite.
“You ever think about leaving all this?” I ask, quiet.
Luke doesn’t answer right away. His hand runs up and down my bicep, slow and grounding.
“Not really,” he says. “Maybe for a while. But it’d be like trying to swim without water.”
I nod, even though he can’t see.
He’s warm, and smells like coconut and salt and faint, grassy sweat. I wonder if he wants me to make the next move, or if this is enough for him.
“What about you?” Luke asks. “You always want to be somewhere else?”
“Sometimes. But sometimes I think I’d miss this exact feeling if I left.”
He squeezes my arm, then lets go, but doesn’t move away.
The sun drops, orange bleeding to red. Shadows stretch. I’m hyperaware of every molecule of space between us.
When the sky goes darker, we wander back to the truck. The wind has cooled, and I feel it most on the spots of skin where Luke’s hands just were. My pulse is stupid, racing, like I’m about to ask him to prom.
He tosses the board in the back, then leans against the tailgate. “You want to head out, or hang a bit?”
He says it casual, but he doesn’t move to open the door. Instead, he lets the silence fill up the empty lot, waiting.
I realize, with a flush of adrenaline, that neither of us wants to leave first.
Neither of Us Started the Truck
The parking lot is technically public, but by the time we make it back, only two other cars remain: a battered white Civic full of sand and snack wrappers, and a tricked-out Wrangler. Even the lifeguards have closed up shop and vanished, replaced by a single security golf cart making slow loops along the asphalt. All of which means we can lean against the warm metal of the truck bed, watching the sky bleed through shades of copper and plum, and pretend that what happens next is entirely up to us.
Luke sits up on the tailgate, legs swinging, eyes fixed on the ocean’s ragged edge. I stand next to him, close enough to feel the after-sun heat radiating from his skin. He picks at the seam of his shorts with his thumb, thinking, and for once I’m the one who breaks the silence.
“Do you always make a habit of dragging people out to the middle of nowhere, or is this just a me thing?”
He considers this, rolling his tongue behind his teeth. “Just a you thing.”
“Uh-huh.”
He glances sideways, eyes sharp and glinting. “I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who makes a conversation out of not saying anything.”
It lands. I look away, counting the gulls circling overhead. “Maybe I’m just not used to it being an option.”
Luke lets this hang, then says, “You could leave anytime, you know.”
There it is again: the opening, the chance to back out, the escape route. It’s starting to annoy me, how he always makes it my choice.
I turn to face him, planting both feet in the gravel. “Why do you keep giving me outs?”
He tilts his head. “Figured it’d be better than pushing you somewhere you didn’t want to go.”
“And what if I want you to push?”
He goes still, then reaches for my wrist, gentle but unmissable. “You’re sure?”
I don’t hesitate. “Yeah. I want you.”
The words come out so simple they don’t feel real. But the look on Luke’s face makes me glad I said them, like I’ve flipped a switch somewhere deep inside him.
His grip on my wrist tightens just enough to make me feel it. “You could have said so earlier,” he murmurs.
“Would’ve saved us like three hours of near-misses.”
He laughs, breath hitching, then pulls me in by the waistband, slow and unhurried. This time when he kisses me, there’s no preamble, just mouth on mouth, stubble against skin, heat blooming between us. He tastes like orange from earlier, the salt of his own sweat. I let myself melt, hands braced on his shoulders, body pitching forward, and he seems to love the way I give in.
Luke’s other hand slips around my chest, palm rough and warm against my back. He breaks the kiss only to nose along my jaw, down to the hollow of my neck, where he bites, gentle but firm. I groan, embarrassed by how immediate it is.
“You like that?” he asks, voice low but clear.
“Yeah,” I say. “Yes, fuck, please.”
He laughs again, that half-smile in his voice, then shifts, so I’m wedged between his legs, his knees bracketing my hips. The angle is good, so good. He runs his hands up my ribcage, then flicks his thumbs over my nipples, which is not something I expected to feel so intensely. I gasp, involuntary, and he kisses my open mouth, hungry.
“God, you’re easy to read,” he says, breathless.
“Shut up,” I say, but I’m grinning.
“Don’t want to.”
Luke’s hands drop to my hips, then slide lower, bold but somehow reverent, until he’s got twin fistfuls of my ass. He squeezes, hard, making me gasp—and then he yanks me closer, almost off-balance, until the whole front of my body is flush against his. The pressure is immediate, insistent, his cock thick and obvious through his damp surf shorts, pinning my own against the rough fabric of my waistband. We both grunt, not even trying to hide it, and I feel my knees wobble. The tailgate creaks behind me, metal digging into the backs of my thighs.
I can’t remember the last time I was this turned on, and it’s definitely never happened this fast. He seems to sense it, slowing down, savoring every new touch.
He grinds up, slow and deliberate, and the friction is almost too much. I flatten my palms on his chest for leverage, then run them up to his neck, his jaw, needing to touch as much as possible. He bites at my lower lip, soft then sharp, and I let out a noise I don’t recognize. The sun is nearly gone, the parking lot empty but for us and the distant, bobbing security cart. Luke’s hands roam, greedy and sure, palming my ass again.
He drags his teeth down my neck again, then tugs at the waistband of my shorts. “You want this?”
I nod, then realize he needs to hear it. “Yeah. I really fucking do.”
Luke grins into the skin at my shoulder, then he slips his hand past my waistband and somehow, impossibly, the brush of rough knuckles on my lower stomach is hotter than any of the kisses before it. His palm grazes the length of me, and he makes a small, appreciative noise in his throat. My entire body lights up, every muscle tight, as he curls his fingers around my cock. There’s no hiding how hard I am, slick with anticipation, and the way he pauses just long enough to take it in could be mortifying if it wasn’t so obviously deliberate.
Luke’s fingers explore, slow at first, thumb circling the head, testing, learning, making me shudder. He seems interested in the way I react, the way my hips jerk forward uninvited, like this is a science experiment he’s been aching to run.
He tilts his head, grin twisting, and gives a gentle squeeze. “You’re really worked up, huh?” he murmurs, low enough that I feel it more than hear it.
I nod, words beyond me. He leans in, lips brushing my ear: “Good.”
He starts to move then, slow at first, the friction overwhelming. I dig my fingers into the edge of the tailgate to keep from buckling. Every stroke is measured, confident, not rushed. He seems to enjoy how easily I come apart, how every little adjustment makes something new unravel inside me.
His grip is firm, practiced, but not rough. He strokes once, twice, then stops, using his thumb to collect the moisture at the tip.
I push into his hand, greedy for more, but he lets go.
“Tease,” I say, panting.
“You like it,” he says, deadpan.
Before I can answer, he shoves my shorts down past my knees, then helps me kick them away. The ocean air is cold, but every part of me that’s pressed to him feels like a live wire. He leans back, admiring the view, and there’s nothing in his expression but honest want.
“Fuck, you’re hot,” he says.
My face goes nuclear. “Shut up.”
He kisses me again, then presses his palm to the small of my back, guiding me in to grind against him. I don’t even try to hide how good it feels; I moan into his mouth, open and messy.
The bulge in Luke’s shorts is much larger than I expected, which only makes the butterflies in my stomach go crazy. I reach down and stroke him through the fabric, and he makes a sound I’ve never heard from anyone before: half laughter, half groan, entirely unselfconscious.
I get bold, wanting to see how far he’ll let me go. I get my hands under Luke’s waistband and, with his help, slide it down around his hips. His cock leaps out, flushed deep red at the tip, impossibly thick and curved up toward his navel. I can’t stop staring. Even in the dim orange slant from the last scraps of sun, it looks oversized, like something meant for a different set of physical laws. The skin is velvety, veined, and as I watch, a small bead of precum leaks from the head. My own body goes haywire in response. I want to taste it, touch it, do anything I can to get it inside me, but for a moment I’m paralyzed by awe and maybe a hint of fear. I blink, stunned, and he reads the look immediately.