Kisses followed Knight’s hands as soon as the shower washed away the soap from Elliot’s hair and shoulders, and the caresses were almost too much. They held such tenderness Elliot didn’t know how to handle it. Knight moved his big palms up and down Elliot’s oversensitive stomach, playing with the trimmed dark pubes but never reaching lower. Knight’s hair was wet too, and its heavy streaks kept sticking to Elliot’s damp skin as the two of them hugged in the warm water, breathing in vapor and the scent of soap that washed away sweat and blood, and even the delicious aroma of fresh sperm.
Never in his life had Elliot felt so safe.
He leaned his head back to his nape to look up at Knight upside down. Knight’s fingers ran over Elliot’s side where the ribs weren’t as pronounced as two months ago. “I love kissing you,” Elliot whispered.
Knight’s eyes opened slightly, and he pressed his chest against Elliot’s back, seeking his lips. Their mouths met again, and Elliot shuddered, giving himself into Knight’s care, completely relaxed. He’d never even been to a bathroom as elegant as this one, much less so with a man so deserving of getting whatever he wanted from life.
It was unreal.
“It doesn’t feel that different,” answered Knight when they could speak again, hugging in the warm drizzle.
Elliot grinned and turned around to face Knight. “Did you think it would? I don’t have a beard, you know.”
Knight laughed. “I guess... everyone says it is. I mean, your skin feels a bit different, but you’re so tasty,” he said and rubbed his thumb against Elliot’s lips.
The compliment felt like being showered with glitter, like all of his insides started to shimmer at Knight’s words. Martin had never made him feel that way. No one ever has. “I suppose there’s a different… energy to it?” He ran his hands up Knight’s chest, enjoying the touch of every inch of wet skin.
Knight crooked his head. “Not really. I just like how it feels. Didn’t think I would.” He reached behind Elliot and switched off the water.
“I know I like how you feel.” Elliot smiled at his dream of a man. “No one’s ever made me feel so cared for.”
Knight’s nostrils flared, and he stepped closer, touching their foreheads and noses. “That’s what a man ought to do.”
Elliot definitely wanted to care for Knight too. Somehow. He could make him sandwiches, or give him massages, not no mention blowjobs, lots of blowjobs. “Martin was never anything like this,” he whispered, afraid talk of the killing would spoil the moment. But Elliot was desperate to share, to forge a bond, to prove that he trusted Knight with secrets.
Knight exhaled and walked out of the shower, tossing Elliot the fluffiest of towels. “Told you you have bad taste in men. If he doesn’t treat you right he’s not worth your time,” he said, quickly wiping himself off.
Elliot didn’t dare blink, too afraid he’d miss even a second of the gorgeous view in front of him. He had good taste in men now. “I lied to you. I know why Martin wanted to kill me.”
“Because you know he murdered your father? Yeah, I heard that. What the hell were you thinking?”
Elliot’s shoulders sagged, and he wrapped himself in the towel wishing it was Knight’s arms around him. “I was there when he did it.”
Knight tossed the towel on top of a drying rack and stepped out of the bathroom while still watching Elliot. “What happened?”
Elliot followed Knight out into the bedroom area that smelled of Knight. He loved everything about that bed. “My father caught us fucking, and he went mental. He knew I was gay and he never wasted a moment being a shit about it, but Martin just wouldn’t take all the name-calling. They started fighting and Martin bashed my dad’s head in against the dining table.” His own voice sounded hollow, as if he were talking about a movie, not something that had really happened to him, just over a year back. It was hard to comprehend that he’d really witnessed that horror, yet as he was telling the story, it was right there in front of his eyes.
He sat on the bed still wrapped in a towel. “I was freaking out at first, but then I thought he deserved it.”
He flinched slightly when Knight’s palm spread over his back, but it was there just for comfort, as if whatever was happening between him and Knight wasn’t just about sex.
“What did he do?”
Elliot leaned closer and rested his head on Knight’s steady shoulder. “He didn’t love me. He didn’t even like me. My mom left us when I was just a baby, and he’d always remind me what a burden I was. Everything I did was wrong and always deserved punishment. He was cruel, unpredictable, and a total fucking cunt. He broke my arm when I was just a kid, and even when he wasn’t outright violent with me, there wouldn’t be a day where he wouldn’t slap me, or yell at me. And we lived together in that trailer. There was nowhere I could escape to.