Diplomacy

opened.
    “Will you stop wearing out the tiles and come inside?” Lucas was keeping his voice down and Jack thought he looked amazing in his faded red T-shirt and camel cargo pants.
    Jack tried to read his face, to see if he was in a bad mood or if he was mad at him, but Lucas’s eyes were warm and inviting and a small smile was playing on his lips.
    “Come in before the neighbors start talking. It’s bad enough that they keep asking me where Lucy is.” Lucas reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him inside and closing the door behind him.
    “Why are you here?” Lucas asked, his voice soft, free from any hint of accusation.
    “How did you know I was out there in the hall?” Jack asked, eyeing Lucas suspiciously.
    The young Brit smiled, alternately looking at Jack and checking out a spot on the floor behind him. “The door has one of those…” he waved his finger at the door, “spy holes? And I heard footsteps, so…”
    “We need to talk, Luke.”
    “Yeah, I guess we do.”
    “Has Lucy really gone?”
    “She’s gone.”
    Lucas looked Jack straight in the eye.
    “Did she say anything about telling Maria?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    They stood there, looking at one another, both of them wondering how the other was feeling, searching for a clue in one another’s eyes, but it was Jack who made the first move, suddenly stepping towards Lucas, seizing the young man’s head in his hands and kissing him passionately.
    Lucas gasped with surprise even as he eagerly answered the kiss, opening his mouth to invite Jack in, hungrily sucking and biting the American’s lips.
    It felt wonderful to have his lover’s arms wrapped around him and Jack turned with Lucas in his arms and pushed him against the door, 102 | Z a h r a O w e n s

    kissing him with even more determination now he had a firm surface to press against. He needed to come up for air, but he didn’t want to lose the contact that sent shivers of desire running through his body, so he let his mouth trail along the young man’s jaw and neck.
    Lucas tried to get Jack out of his coat, smiling at the hunger in Jack’s seduction.
    After shedding the jacket, Jack ripped his tie off, letting it land wherever gravity took it, and placed his hands against the door on either side of Lucas’s head. He pushed against Lucas, grinding into him with his whole body until the Brit moaned against his mouth. They had only been apart for four days, but it already felt like coming home after years apart.
    How he could ever have imagined giving this up was beyond him.
    Lucas pulled Jack’s shirt up, running soft firm hands over Jack’s skin. Jack squeezed his hand between their already close bodies, popping the button on his trousers. As Lucas’s hands trailed down his back to cup his ass underneath his clothes, he knew exactly what he wanted.
    Jack raised his head slightly.
    “I want...”
    He nipped at Lucas’s bottom lip,
    “To feel you…”
    He pulled the swollen lip with his teeth making Lucas moan.
    “Inside me.”
    Jack’s voice was husky and as he pushed away from his young lover, he saw Lucas’s smile, those swollen lips and delicious dark eyes and he knew he would get what he wanted.
    “It’s about time,” Lucas answered quietly, squeezing Jack’s cheeks to pull his crotch closer.
    “Bedroom?”
    Lucas shook his head slowly. “That’s not a good room.” He pushed himself away from the door, driving Jack backwards, and turned away to escape Jack’s groping hands.
    “Where are you going?” Jack asked, not letting him get away that easily, “Don’t go.”
    Lucas kissed him again and moaned as he pulled away “So needy… hold that thought.”

    D i p l o m a c y | 103

    He disappeared into the bedroom and returned almost immediately.
    “Now I’m all yours, for as long as you want me.”
    “What,” Jack murmured, but was cut off when Lucas attacked his mouth again. He was guided towards the couch and realized what Lucas’s little excursion to the bedroom had been about when he heard the crisp sound of a condom wrapper. They tripped over each other and the furniture, almost falling on the way there, because they were trying to get each other out of their clothes without stopping the touching and kissing.
    Lucas pushed Jack down onto the couch and stripped him of his trousers and boxers all in one go. As Lucas raised himself again, he let his cargo pants drop, revealing himself to Jack in all his glory. The American couldn’t