Alex had known immediately when Luke was watching him. He didn't have to see or look up to know that he was being observed. There was so much he tried to categorize in his head where this man was concerned, the professor who saw so much. How was it that this one man, in the space of a day, had seen more of Alex than Edward ever had in two years?
Guilt knifed at his heart. He hadn't been able to let Edward in, had never experienced the same intensity of feeling that Alex shared with Luke. Tears pricked his eyes as he stared out at the roiling black sea and the stars of the heavens above him. He missed Edward, both his touch and his calming influence. He had been Alex's balance, and now that Edward and his love and reassurances were gone the nightmares were proving impossible to stop. He wondered what Edward would think of Luke?
This was half of the reason why he stood under what Thanos called Selene's moon, his toes digging into sand and his lungs full of the sea air. He needed balance, he needed someone to center him, protect him so he could rest dreamless and safe. He needed Edward with his soft touch and murmured words to calm him. Then Edward's face changed and it was suddenly Luke in his mind.
"Edward." The name was forced from Alex, filled with grief almost too much to bear. "I'm sorry." Sorry I couldn't love you like you needed to be loved. Sorry I have a connection with Luke that was instant. Just sorry. He was convinced that Luke felt the same visceral tug to be with Alex as Alex did for Luke. With all of his education and his anger at the scarring, he still shared that same connection, and there was no question that Luke was aware.
Alex wanted to sleep to forget his nightmares; yet he had questions for Luke, and knowing that the older man watched him with heightened arousal, more than anything he wanted to taste Luke again. He made his way up the curved iron and marble stairs, trailing his hand on the cool iron, his stomach in knots and his barriers thin and weak.
On his way down the dimly lit hallway he passed Samuels's room and hesitated. A sense of the man inside touched Alex. It made him curious; the feeling wasn't fear or anger or distrust, but a singular lust and onset of love that filled Samuels's thoughts. A name came to Alex: Griff. Alex smiled, closing his own eyes, sensing the loneliness inside the dark-haired Army officer, seeing his thoughts, if only briefly. There was a small but insistent push at the base of his skull and he smiled to himself. He could see Griff's future, but only briefly.
He knocked on Luke's door, more out of habit than politeness, and without waiting for Luke's come in, he opened it just wide enough to allow him entry, slipping through the small gap before pushing the door shut behind him. For a minute there was a breathless silence. Alex didn't move at first, he just wanted to take his fill of looking at Luke in the half moonlight, the man who was looking back at him with an unreadable expression in his eyes and lust in his soul.
"I saw you watching," Alex finally offered, crossing the short distance to Luke's bed and stopping to gaze down at the man stretched naked on top of his covers. Luke was looking up at Alex with a curious expression on his face. Alex could almost taste the certainty that Luke had brought himself off looking at Alex on the beach, and his gaze roved restlessly over the slimly built academic, from the faint dusting of hair on his chest to the treasure trail that guided his gaze lower. He looked so different out of his clothes. The uniform he wore of loose jeans and T-shirts and the old beaten jacket hid a strong body.
"I couldn't sleep," Luke ran his tongue over his lips, unconsciously shining them in the half light. His eyes were wide with expectation and the air was heavy with lust.
Alex remembered the feel of the man in his hands, the shape of him, his tight ass, the curve of his spine, and the small sounds he made in his throat when he was at the peak of orgasm. Alex was intimately conscious of the strength hidden under Luke's normally baggy shirts and loose pants, and Alex was instantly hard.
Luke was naked, lean and relaxed and laid out like a meal for a hungry man, his dick filling with blood as he stared up at Alex. Heavy and thick, it lay toward his stomach, the circumcised member so different in appearance from Alex's own. The sheen of moonlight glistened on his body; Alex could taste the skin, remember the touch. Climbing onto the high mattress he moved to straddle the gorgeous man. They didn't speak; all Alex needed was to reach down and twist his fingers in Luke's short hair and pull him closer for a kiss. Alex sensed Luke wasn't ready to start questioning why Alex was here. Alex just needed at that point to touch him, to reassure him, to chase away the flicker of fear he had in his thoughts.
Alex tried not to think about what he should have been giving to Edward. He shied away from the pain that lay where those thoughts led. So he did what his very soul told him and kissed Luke with touches far gentler than they'd experienced earlier. They exchanged caresses, soft, insistent, gentle, hard, each one growing in need and intensity. Alex had never felt anything like it, the connection, the burning need and want that seethed low in his belly. He fiercely craved skin, he wanted to touch and to taste, and he groaned in his throat as Luke did that thing with his tongue, flicking and tasting and pushing him to snap. He wanted to close his eyes, Luke's intensity burned into him. They had to move; they needed to pull apart and end this, or pull apart and let Alex remove his clothes.
Alex pulled back. "This is… I don't know what this is." He stopped, totally lost for words.
"Surreal?" Luke offered, a small smile playing around his kiss-damp lips. "I don't even know you that well," Luke whispered.
"You don't know me, but this connection…"
"You mean fate fucking with us?"
"Yeah, connection, is intense. I know I want you, I want all of you," Alex managed to string the words together, pushing down against Luke. They had been hard forever, neither taking it as far as losing it in the embrace they had.
"Want you inside me," Luke whispered. "I have… from the bathroom," Luke indicated a bottle of lotion and condoms on his bedside table.
Alex pulled him in for another kiss. Sliding back, he looked at Luke. His lips parted on a breath and Alex knew with certainty that he had never seen anyone, anything, as beautiful as the man who lay beneath him.
Edward had always left it to Alex to guide their lovemaking, had willingly done whatever Alex needed him to do to stop the nightmares, to ground him. This was different, Luke was asking so much of him, with bites and kisses and noises of want. The need in Alex spiraled ever higher. His brain told him to slow down, his heart warned him to wait and love and to be gentle. His body though—that was out of control. He shucked his jeans and shorts and was finally naked. He craved, he wanted, and in one slick movement he rested his weight between Luke's spread thighs. Luke pushed up, arching his back, frantic, body thrumming with this need to connect, to be one with Alex.
Alex ached to be touched. And all the time Luke, his body and his thoughts and the lure of a connection just out of reach, eluded Alex's frantic grasp as he grabbed Luke's forearms. And then, like light snapping on in the night, it reached him. Connection. Luke. His. His to take, to demand to be with, and to love. The heat between them and the passion exploded in a confusion of hands that gripped, teeth that bit and pulled, and mouths that tasted and sucked and marked in a frenzy. Alex was too far gone to want slow and steady, he just rutted and pushed and marked Luke as Luke marked him, in primal lust-filled chaos.
Two men, all hard muscles and strong limbs, fighting for dominance. At one point Luke had control, as he weakened Alex's need with his searching hands, reaching down and closing around Alex's hard, leaking dick, twisting and pulling. His other hand grasped almost cruelly into Alex's hair, pulling him away until their lips were apart, a mask of heat across his face.
"Fuck," Luke growled, biting his way down the sharp chin to his lover's throat, sucking hard, soothing it with his tongue and then biting again, as sure of permanence as his mark. Mine.
Alex let him. Alex let Luke mark him, holding back his strength as he sensed Luke's orgasm building in his spine, so close. I'll let him mark me, but he'll learn… he'll learn he is mine. Shit. What the fuck? Where had those thoughts of possession come from? That wasn't Alex, he didn't want to own.
"Stop," Luke whimpered under him. "Slower." His actions contradicted the breathless plea as he arched his head to give Alex free reign to his throat. "We need to slow down." He tried to stop but it was too late. He was coming hot and hard over Alex's firm grip with a cry of completion. Alex pulled back, looking down at him, unspoken questions in his eyes.
Alex knew what he wanted and wordlessly he slipped his own fingers through the come on Luke's abdomen and chest and reached to slide it against his tight hole. Luke pleaded for more, joining his own fingers with Alex's to circle his hole, reaching for Alex's fingers and encouraging him to add slick.
"Open me up, get me ready."
Alex was concentrating on being gentle, trying to be careful, but the professor wanted hard, he wanted fast, and he wanted now.
"Slowly, I don't want to—"
"Too damn slow," Luke snapped, irritated, pushing himself against Alex insistently.
Alex used a steady in and out motion, his index finger going deeper and deeper each time, a combination of come and the lotion Luke had lifted from the bathroom easing the way. It was the most erotic thing he had ever felt. Luke pushed himself against the finger, whining low in his throat. His beautiful dick, thickening again so quickly, was weeping and red against his belly, soft velvet skin over the blood-engorged flesh.
"I want to taste you," Alex half whispered, "you're so damn pretty." He slowly pulled his finger out and slid down the bed. He kissed a path to the curls at the base of Luke's hard dick, nuzzling at the soft skin there, inhaling the scent of him there. He licked a stripe on the underside of Luke's cock and closed his mouth over the very tip while beginning the ass play again, pushing a single finger in.
He listened to the sounds from Luke, who was arching up into his mouth and then down on his finger. Alex felt his finger snap past the ring of muscle and move farther inside. He stopped and held still to let Luke's tight opening get used to the intrusion. He moved to his knees, using his free hand to fill the gap between his mouth and the base of Luke's dick, setting a counter-rhythm to the finger.
"More, Alex," Luke managed, incoherently stringing sounds and words together.
Alex removed his hand from Luke's dick and spread more lotion, pressing and helping to relax Luke. He searched for the small gland, locating it and brushing it lightly, sending Luke shooting up from the bed with a muffled shout. Alex could sense what Luke was feeling and wondered how long he could keep this going, massaging the gland to bring Luke to near orgasm using his fingers and mouth alone.
Wriggling, impatient, demanding, Luke pushed himself down on the fingers, an incoherent mess of pleading. Now, Alex, now. Alex pushed his lover's legs back, hooked them over his arms, and wondered briefly if he should turn him over so the joining would be easier. No. Maybe he was being selfish, maybe it was just that he understood what Luke wanted, but Alex craved seeing Luke's eyes as he brought him to completion. And he knew abruptly it was what Luke wanted as well. He quickly rolled on a condom and positioned himself, sliding slick with lotion, angling until he pushed into Luke with closed eyes and a settling sigh of relief at the perfection of it all. When the burn hit Luke, Alex felt it too. Luke showed he didn't want to stop simply by pushing hard against Alex until finally Alex was buried balls-deep in Luke.
Luke was moaning urgently, wordlessly, but meaning more, now, deeper, mine.
Capturing Luke's lips in a heated kiss, Alex groaned his need into Luke's rapid breaths. Their eyes locked. Alex waited for a sign, an indication he could move, sweat pooling at the base of his spine as his arms trembled with exertion. He wanted to see everything as Luke wrapped his legs around Alex's waist and Alex started to move, pulling back and pressing in.
Luke took the decision away from him, pushing up, his eyes glassy, pupils wide in the half dark. Alex moved, leaning down to capture kisses and words and pleas as they set a rhythm as old as time itself. Luke was hard and hot between them, his nails digging into Alex's skin, marking him, pulling him impossibly deeper and closer. Not satisfied while any distance remained between them, half crying when the feelings overwhelmed him. Alex redoubled his efforts, thrusting and grinding into Luke.
He needed to get his hands on Luke, wrap them around him, he needed touch.
"Touch me," Luke demanded in a breath, and Alex didn't even question how Luke knew. Not losing rhythm, Alex rested his weight on one elbow, the other hand closing around Luke, jacking him as he buried himself deeper inside, sinking into dark, tight heat and losing it, feeling Luke come over his hand while biting down on his lip and arching his neck in ecstasy. Alex sucked a mark low on his lover's throat, even as he slowed his movements. His own orgasm built like fire inside him until he was coming, wordlessly, breathlessly, inside Luke.
Ragged, exhausted, Alex knew he needed to pull out. He removed the condom and threw it at the small trash can by the bed. Alex rolled onto his back, one arm over his eyes, the other holding tightly to the headboard above him as he listened to Luke try to settle his own breathing.
They lay perfectly still, finally inhaling and exhaling in sync. Both of them were lost in thought, both with eyes closed, not wanting to stop seeing the images that danced in their vision or to acknowledge the immediate lust that drove them. They said nothing; there were no words for what had just happened and Alex didn't want to question it. For the first time in days sleep came easily to him as he pulled Luke in to touch, and although the dream came quickly it seemed softer, as if he saw it from a distance instead of being right there at the center of it all.