Page 19 of Summer Skin

CHASE CLOSED THEnotebook, satisfied with a few new lyrics he’d jotted down, smiling over at Aven who stood in his bedroom doorway with a backpack slung across the top of his shoulder.

“You writing the words that will make us famous one day?” Aven asked, this sincere expression on his face, like he really meant what he said. Like Chase had that sort of power.

“Not so sure about that,” Chase told him truthfully, “but I think I found a match for the melody you showed me this morning.”

“Bring it,” Aven told him with a nod to their notebook. “You can read to me on the hike.”

“Yes, well.” Chase tugged his jacket on, standing, “I hope it works for what you were thinking of.”

“Always does,” Aven called over his shoulder, and Chase trailed him down the stairs.

“Aven?”

They were nearly to the front door when Aven’s mom called out. It wasn’t that Chase usually avoided her, so much as that he and Aven were normally well and truly tucked away in his room by the time she got home at night. And Chase didn’t mind that. There was an air of class and intelligence about her that intimidated him.

Olivia Sinclair rounded the corner of the hallway, all pearls and cashmere, smelling expensive. She shot a brief look in Chase’s direction before focusing on her son. “Where are you going?”

“Out,” Aven said in a bored tone.

“Did you log on to the student portal to officially accept enrollment and pay the fee? I transferred the money into your account.”

Aven’s shoulders got tight. “Yep.”

“You’ll have fun at college, darling.” Her eyes found Chase and she gave him a polite smile. “I’m thrilled to see Aven accept a school. Where are you headed, Chase? Your mom must be excited too.”

Suddenly he got why Aven was trying so hard not to get caught in a conversation. His mom was fishing for info.

I’m not going to college. My mother’s in prison. I haven’t spoken to her in nearly a year. ButI’m seriously in love with your son and I’d like to take off now so we can fuck each other’s brains out.

Chase’s hand went to the back of his neck. “I actually live with my aunt and uncle.”

“Oh.” Her smile dimmed as she struggled with how to respond. “Well, families come in all shapes and sizes. I’m sure that—”

“Oh my god,” Aven groaned. “Mom, we’re leaving now.”

She made a shooing motion with her hand. “Go on then, but be back early, Aven. We’re having a family dinner out tonight.”

Chase put on his brightest smile while waving goodbye. But the familiar, aching feeling of not being good enough followed him all the way to the car.

***

After twenty or so minutes of hiking, Chase started to wonder exactly how far Aven was taking him. There was no marked path, just a trail of flattened foliage, leading to who knows where.

Aven was in front of him, taking long strides, a thick stick in one hand that he used to whack at tree trunks.

“Stop that, would you?” Chase asked.

Pausing in his tracks, Aven looked back over one shoulder. “Stop what?”

“Bonking the poor trees with your stick.”

Aven’s laugh came out loud, echoing. “Would you rather I be bonking you?”

“I think the word you’re looking for is boinking.”

Aven waggled his eyebrows in a way that would make anyone else look ridiculous, but on him, it came off sexy in a way Chase found annoying as hell. “Mm, yeah, I am.”

“Pervert.”

“I am for you.” He held out the offending piece of wood. “Here, self-appointed officer of the forest, confiscate my weapon.”

Chase quickly flung the stick away and hurried to keep up with Aven. who bounded farther up the path. A few minutes later they spilled out into a clearing. A long-forgotten home stood in an overgrown field—peeling paint, a dilapidated front doorway, graffiti coloring the boarded-up windows. It was curious, the way the house was built so far off the beaten path and now abandoned by its owner.

“This is where you’re taking me?” he wondered. “I thought you said you had something romantic in mind.”

“I do,” Aven insisted.

“At an … abandoned house with satanic rituals painted on the siding that are probably going to send us straight to hell?”

A smirk. “Welcome to my dark side, baby.”

“You don’t have a dark side. More like a snark side.”

“Little do you know, the real reason I brought you here is to eat you …” a smirk, “out.” Off Chase’s eyeroll he went on. “We used to come up here all the time when we were young. It was one of our favorite spots. Pretending we were runaways like we’d read about in books.”

“Very Boxcar Children of you.”

Aven scratched at the back of his neck. “I wanted to show you where I hung out as a kid. But we don’t need to go inside. Nowadays it’s just needles and beer bottles. Stale air and mildew.”

Tugging on the zipper of his backpack, he got out a blanket and a bottle of red wine he’d probably stolen from his parents’ cellar. “A bottle for us to share since you’re too weak for whiskey.”

“Hey.”

“Well, it’s true.” He continued pulling items from the pack. Cherries, pretzels, a brown paper bag from Chase’s favorite bakery. “I brought my grandfather’s antique lighter if we want a cigarette.”

“Like we’re in an old-timey movie?”

“I don’t think they had many gay sex scenes in old-timey movies, but sure. Just like that.”

His nose crinkled. “You want to have sex out here near your childhood hideaway in a field full of who knows what? Insects? Mice? Dead bodies?”

A grin split across Aven’s face.

“What?” Chase demanded.

Aven formed his thumbs and index fingers into the shape of a camera, brought it up to his face and made a clicking sound with his tongue. A snapshot for his mental photo album. “You’re so fucking cute.”

Chase melted, easy as anything, folding to his knees on the blanket as he dug through the bakery stash. “Fine. A picnic in the weeds. What’s this for?” he asked, shaking a bottle of chocolate syrup in Aven’s direction, mouth stuffed half full of doughnut.

“I’m going to lick it off of you,” Aven said, a bit absentmindedly as he rooted around in his bag.

“But it’s so sticky.”

“I brought wet wipes.”

“You’re a regular boy scout.”

Aven looked up, grinning like a fox. “Think they have a merit badge for sucking cock?”

A laugh broke free from Chase’s mouth. He knew syrupy sex play would make a miserable, sticky mess, but he just couldn’t give a shit. Not when it was Aven who was looking at him like that. Like Chase was the tastiest dessert on the menu.

“You’d let me?” Aven asked, voice pitched low like someone might overhear them out here in the abandoned wild. The stare he gave Chase was intense, as if the answer could ever be anything other than a yes when it came to Aven Sinclair.

The late April light glowed against Aven’s skin, as though even the sun wanted to caress him. He was breathtaking, as gorgeous as anything, and quite urgently, Chase no longer gave a flying shit about baked goods.

He leaned slowly back on his elbows. “You can do whatever you want to me, Aven.” Chase held his gaze, lazily pressing the heel of his hand against his rapidly hardening cock. “I trust you. I’ll always let you.”

Aven took an audible breath in. He looked from Chase to the bottle of wine in his hand and back. “We were supposed to do the whole picnicking thing first.”

Chase sat up, pulling his shirt over his head. “I thought you wanted to do both,” he said, popping open the button on his jeans. The smile Aven gave him in response was sinful.

Once their clothes were ditched, tossed together into a messy pile to the side, Aven slid over him, wasting no time in taking his mouth. The kiss was wet, all tongue, and Chase moaned into it, pulling his legs up to wind around Aven’s waist. Their cocks brushed together, and Chase was already leaking.

Aven broke for air, staring down at Chase with that underwear-dropping grin he so wore so often. “I was actually kidding about the chocolate sauce,” he told him. “I brought it for the cherries.”

Chase licked his bottom lip, running a hand through Aven’s hair. “You should use it,” he said. “I want you to.”

Aven pulled back, going slightly wide-eyed. “You want me to use it to eat your ass out?”

“What? No! Gross, Aven. Too sticky. I meant you should use it on my nipples.”

“Oh.” He cocked his head, considering. “Yeah, okay.”

A flip of the lid on the bottle of syrup and Chase suddenly felt a cool line of chocolate sauce drizzle across one nipple. The small nub hardened, and his cheeks heated with arousal as Aven teased the syrup against his skin with the pad of a thumb.

“Are you going to taste it?” Chase asked, his voice going breathy.

A devilish grin, and then wet heat as Aven took Chase’s sugar-sweet nipple into his mouth. He suckled, a low moan coming from the back of his throat as his fingers found Chase’s other nipple, rubbing and pinching at it until Chase cried out, raising his hips to find friction for his cock at the touch.

Aven worshiped him. Licking and biting, flicking at Chase’s nipples with his fingers and tongue. Making Chase’s entire body tingle, surfing a wave of heady desire as Aven worked his nipples until they were jutting out, red and puffy, throbbing in a way that made Chase feel like he could nearly come.

Aven brought his head up to meet Chase’s eyes, a satisfied grin on his swollen mouth. “Babe,” he said fondly, tugging on Chase’s nipple until he cried out. Pouring another squeeze of chocolate syrup over Chase’s chest, Aven dipped a cherry into it, swirling it around and making a mess. Using the fruit to tease an already too-sensitive nipple, he let out a soft chuckle when Chase moaned his name.

“Open your mouth,” Aven told him, sliding the cherry inside once Chase complied. “Now bite down.”

The sweet tart of fruit mingled with rich, sweet cocoa. Chase swallowed, watching Aven’s eyes go dark. “You look so good,” he whispered. He kissed Chase’s cheek. “I want you, always. Want you so much.”

Chase wound a hand into Aven’s hair, tugging him down. “Want you more,” he said, certain.

Aven answered him with a deep kiss, licking the taste of chocolate from his mouth. The kiss stole his breath, kept him light-headed and high, flying on a feeling of freedom from the ache of life outside this moment, frozen with lazy time. Perfect. This was what Aven meant, Chase thought. The feeling of summer skin. Of nothing else on earth mattering outside of the love and care flowing between the two of them.

He wanted to burrow inside of that feeling. And he wanted Aven.

In every single way.

Aven’s fingers twined through his, placing Chase’s hand across his chest. “Feel how my heart races for you?”

The dizzying beat of his pulse matched Chase’s own. “Mine too,” he promised, honest, but he was so worked up, so desperately eager for touch, that he felt he might explode if Aven didn’t fuck him soon. He wanted everything. Wanted Aven to lick him out. Wanted to feel his slicked-up dick slide inside. Wanted Aven’s sweet, sexy lips wrapped around his cock. Needed to buck his hips into that welcoming heat. Come in his talented mouth.

“Please,” Chase begged, his voice nearing a whine. “Please suck me. My cock, suck my cock, love.”

There was no seductive trail of kisses down to Chase’s belly. No teasing licks before Aven desperately slid his mouth around Chase’s cock, his cheeks immediately hollowing as he bobbed up and down. Aven nudged a finger into his mouth alongside Chase’s dick as he sucked, getting it sloppy with spit, and the very moment he brushed against Chase’s hole, Chase came. Writhing, whimpering, the sun going red behind his eyelids as they fluttered shut.

Swallowing, Aven launched himself up Chase’s chest, groaning into his neck. He worked his dick in swift, hurried, strokes against the sweat-soaked lines of Chase’s skin, murmuring Chase’s name over and over again.

Chase flattened a hand over Aven’s back and held on long after the orgasm rolled through his boyfriend’s body.

Lingering, trying to make the moment last.