Chapter 25: The Long Awaited Homecoming
The silence in Yamato’s apartment after the interview was a living thing. It pulsed with everything they hadn’t said. The elevator ride up had been wordless, Yamato’s hand a brand on the small of Taichi’s back, guiding him. Now, inside the dark sanctuary, the only light came from the flickering desk lamp, etching Yamato’s profile in gold and shadow as he turned the deadbolt with a final, heavy click.
Taichi stood in the middle of the room, the professional persona sloughing off him like a shed skin. His heart was still rabbiting from the studio, from the secret touch, from the way Yamato was looking at him now—no filters, no cameras, just raw, unguarded want.
“You called me your favorite old sweatshirt,” Yamato said, his voice a low rumble. He shrugged out of his own jacket, let it drop to the floor.
“It was a stupid thing to say,” Taichi breathed.
“It was.” Yamato took a step closer. “You’re not a sweatshirt. You’re the fucking sun. And I’m tired of just feeling your heat from a distance.”
The words unlocked something in Taichi’s chest. He closed the gap between them, hands coming up to fist in the fine fabric of Yamato’s shirt. “Then stop keeping your distance.”
The kiss was not like the others. It wasn’t exploratory or sweet or hesitant. It was a collision. Yamato’s mouth was hot and demanding, his tongue sweeping in to claim. Taichi met him with equal fervor, a low groan vibrating in his throat as he was walked backward toward the bed. They fell onto it in a tangle of limbs, the framed poster on the wall rattling.
Yamato peeled Taichi’s clothes off with a focused, almost clinical precision that made Taichi shiver. Each new patch of exposed skin was met with Yamato’s mouth—a kiss on the jut of his hip, a sharp nip on his ribs, a slow, wet drag of his tongue over a nipple. Taichi arched off the mattress, his fingers scrabbling in Yamato’s golden hair.
“Yamato—”
“Tell me what you want,” Yamato murmured against his stomach, his breath hot. “Exactly.”
Taichi’s mind was a haze of sensation. The interview, the hidden hand, the years of casual touches that now burned with new meaning. He pushed himself up on his elbows, looking down at where Yamato knelt between his legs. His voice trembled, but it was sure. “I want you. Inside me. I’m ready.”
Yamato’s sharp blue eyes widened, then darkened. A flicker of something—awe, fear, sheer hunger—passed through them. He didn’t speak. Instead, he pushed Taichi back down and began a deliberate, devastating campaign of worship.
He kissed the hollow of Taichi’s throat where his pulse hammered. He licked the salty dip of his collarbone. He mapped every ridge of Taichi’s abdomen with his tongue, as if memorizing him. When his mouth moved lower, sucking dark, possessive bruises into the pale skin of Taichi’s inner thighs, Taichi cried out, his back bowing.
“You have no idea,” Yamato growled, his voice thick. “No idea what you look like like this. Spread out for me. Taking everything I give you.”
The praise, rough and sincere, hit Taichi with a shockwave of pleasure unrelated to the physical touch. It coiled in his gut, hot and tight. He’d spent his life being praised for his smile, his energy, his performance. This was different. This was for his surrender.
“Yamato, please—”
With a strong grip, Yamato rolled him onto his stomach. The change in position, the vulnerability of having his back exposed, sent a different kind of thrill through him. Yamato’s hands, large and sure, palmed his ass, spreading him open.
The first touch of Yamato’s tongue, a wet, hot stripe from his perineum up to his hole, was so intense Taichi shouted, his fists clenching in the sheets. Yamato did it again, and again, licking and sucking with a filthy, focused intensity until Taichi was a writhing, begging mess. The sounds were obscene, wet and open, and Yamato praised him for each one.
“That’s it. Let me hear you. You taste fucking incredible.”
Then came the fingers. Cool slickness, then the blunt pressure of one, pressing in slowly. The stretch was sharp, unfamiliar, but Yamato’s other hand was splayed on the small of his back, holding him still, his voice a constant, grounding murmur.
“You’re doing so good. Just like that. Taking me so well, Taichi.”
The praise was a drug. The discomfort melted, transformed into a building, incredible fullness as Yamato worked a second finger in alongside the first, scissoring them gently. He curled them, searching, and—
“Oh, fuck!” Taichi’s vision whited out. A bolt of pure, electric pleasure shot up his spine.
“Found it,” Yamato breathed, his own voice unsteady. He pressed that spot again, and again, crooking his fingers just so, until Taichi was pushing back onto his hand, chasing the sensation. A third finger stretched him further, a burning ache that teetered on the edge of too much, but Yamato’s words kept him floating above it.
“Look at you. So hungry for it. You’re perfect. So fucking perfect for me.”
When the fingers withdrew, Taichi felt empty, bereft. He heard the tear of a foil packet, the slick sound of Yamato sheathing himself. Then Yamato was over him, his body a warm, tattooed weight, blanketing him. The head of his cock, thick and insistent, nudged against Taichi’s entrance.
Yamato paused. His breath was ragged in Taichi’s ear. “Ready?”
Taichi could only nod, his face pressed into the pillow. He was beyond words.
Yamato pushed in.
It was a slow, inexorable invasion. The stretch was breathtaking, a filling, burning pressure that seemed to have no end. Taichi gasped, the air forced from his lungs. He felt split open, consumed. Yamato’s arms were trembling where they bracketed his head.
“Breathe,” Yamato choked out. “Just breathe. You’re so tight. Jesus Christ, Taichi.”
Taichi forced a breath in, then another. The burning began to recede, replaced by an overwhelming sense of fullness, of connection so deep it felt anatomical. Yamato seated himself fully, his hips flush against Taichi’s ass, and they both groaned, a ragged duet.
For a long moment, Yamato didn’t move. He buried his face in Taichi’s neck, his breaths hot and uneven. “Fuck,” he whispered, reverent and filthy. “You feel perfect. You feel like mine.”
That word. Mine. It should have felt like a cage. To Taichi, who hated feeling trapped, it felt like an anchor.
He experimentally rocked back, and the movement sent a fresh, shocking spark of pleasure through his core. Yamato hissed.
That was all the encouragement he needed.
Yamato began to move, pulling out almost entirely before driving back in with a slow, deep roll of his hips. The rhythm was relentless, each thrust punching a ragged moan from Taichi’s throat. The bedframe knocked a steady, rhythmic beat against the wall.
The praise never stopped. It poured from Yamato, broken and heated. “God, the way you take me. So good. Your ass is gripping me like a fucking vise. You were made for this. Made for me.”
Each filthy, adoring word stoked the fire in Taichi’s belly higher. He’d never known this, never known how much he could crave being told he was good, being told he was perfect, especially for this. He pushed back to meet each thrust, the slap of skin on skin growing louder, wetter.
“Harder,” Taichi pleaded, his voice shattered. “Please, Yamato, fucking harder.”
With a guttural sound, Yamato obeyed. His pace turned punishing, a primal, driving fuck that pushed Taichi up the bed with every snap of his hips. The world narrowed to the searing point of joining, to the smell of sweat and sex, to Yamato’s desperate litany in his ear.
One of Yamato’s hands snaked around his hip, fingers wrapping around Taichi’s aching, neglected cock. The touch was dry, rough, perfect. He stroked him in time with his thrusts, a tight, twisting rhythm that perfectly matched the brutal pace.
It was too much. It was everything.
The coil in Taichi’s gut snapped. Pleasure detonated through him, blinding and white-hot. He came with a raw, sobbing cry, his body clamping down violently around Yamato, stripes of white painting the rumpled sheets beneath him.
The convulsing tightness was too much for Yamato. He drove in one last, deep time, his body seizing, and shouted Taichi’s name against his shoulder, a ragged, broken sound. Taichi felt the hot pulse of his release inside the condom, a final, intimate claim.
For minutes, the only sounds were their heaving breaths and the distant hum of the city. Yamato’s weight was heavy, comforting, real. He softened inside him, but didn’t pull out, just shifted to the side, gathering Taichi against his chest.
Taichi’s body felt liquefied, every nerve singing. He turned his head, his lips finding the damp skin of Yamato’s chest, over the frantic beat of his heart.
Yamato’s hand came up, fingers carding gently through Taichi’s sweat-damp hair. His voice, when it came, was hoarse, wonderous. “You… you really liked that. The things I was saying.”
It wasn’t a question. Taichi nuzzled closer, his own realization dawning, warm and shocking. The praise hadn’t just felt good. It had been the key, the thing that unlocked a door he never knew was inside him.
“Yeah,” he whispered, the word muffled against Yamato’s skin. A confession more intimate than anything that had happened with their bodies. “I really did.”