Diplomacy

tonight? My husband has a doctor’s appointment and he wanted me to be there. Annemarie will be here to fill in for me if you need anything.”
    Jack looked up from what he was signing. “Yeah, sure. In fact I may leave early as well. I don’t get the chance very often.” As he returned his gaze to his papers, she smiled at him in a motherly fashion. She knew he wasn’t going home to his wife, but since it was none of her business, she knew better than to tell him she knew. She only wished she could be at the office to cover for him like she had done so many times before.
    “Well, would you like to go over your calendar for tomorrow now or shall we do it in the morning?” she asked after he gave her the signed papers back.
    “Tomorrow’s fine, Gertje. Go on and say hi to Eddy for me.” He shot her a toothy smile and she gave him an appreciative look back as she left his office and closed the door behind her.
    She worried about him. Maria wasn’t stupid, and all this sneaking around was bound to come to his wife’s attention sooner or later.

    JACK had called Lucas to arrange to meet a little earlier, but he was still the first one to arrive. Luckily he had his own key to Lucas’s apartment now.
    Lucas burst through the door just a few minutes later and they barely made it to the bedroom as Lucas hastily pulled his clothes off while hungrily attacking Jack’s mouth. When he realized Jack was less eager, he stopped.
    “What’s wrong?”
    Jack gave him an amused smile. “I was going to say we have all the time in the world tonight. Maria won’t be home until around midnight, so we can take it slow.”
    “Are you telling me I’m wearing you out, old man?” Lucas answered teasingly.

    D i p l o m a c y | 125

    “No, I’m telling you we have time for dinner together, maybe watch a movie…”
    Lucas threw Jack a mock disappointed look.
    “But since you’re practically naked already…” Jack looked teasingly at Lucas, knowing the careful scrutiny would make his young lover nervous, before launching himself at Lucas, wrapping his arms around him and cupping the Brit’s ass with his hands, pulling him closer to his growing bulge. “You can have your way with me first.” Lucas didn’t waste any time as he grabbed on to Jack, wrapping his legs around the American’s hips. The two of them fell onto the bed and they both laughed as the basic Ikea creaked under the onslaught.
    “For a moment there I thought we were going to end up on the floor,” Lucas admitted.
    “Well as long as we don’t crash into the downstairs neighbor’s room, I don’t care where we land.”
    Jack gently brushed the curls away from Lucas’s forehead and the young man stopped chuckling. “God, I love you.” Lucas smiled quietly as Jack shifted his weight so he was completely on top of him.

    THE sound of a cell phone woke Lucas. He realized the warm body leaving his arms was Jack getting up to answer the phone, and it dawned on him they had fallen asleep, and that he had no idea what time it was.
    They had made love slowly and easily, by now so used to the way their bodies reacted to each other that it was comforting, but by no means dull. Jack treated Lucas to a slow teasing blow job, right up to the point where Lucas thought he wouldn’t be able to take any more, and then left him hanging, to crawl up next to him, asking to be fucked. Lucas could never resist Jack when he was that needy, because Jack never failed to give himself completely to the feeling of being possessed by his lover.
    And Lucas would do absolutely anything to make the American’s body shake and shudder from the strength of the orgasm he gave him. They stayed close together afterwards, enjoying the feel of the shivers and the aftershocks, until their melted bodies succumbed to sleep.

    126 | Z a h r a O w e n s

    Jack lay down beside Lucas again, shaking the young man out of his pleasant reverie.
    “Will you marry me?”
    Lucas wrinkled his forehead and smiled. “What are you talking about?”
    Jack looked at Lucas with so much love in his eyes, he knew he could only nod, but he was curious to know what had prompted this sudden question.
    “Gertje just called,” Jack explained. “It’s all over the news. They passed the law, Lucas. All they have to do is publish it and people of the same sex can get married in this country.”
    “Well, even so, I don’t think you can marry me before you divorce Maria.”
    Jack leaned in to tenderly kiss