by A. M. Arthur
“Ellie’s not home?” Adam asked.
“Guess not.” I hit the switch on the entry light. Her keys weren’t on her hook. Oh, wait. “You know, I think she said she had a date.”
“This late at night?”
“She’s seein’ someone who’s a bouncer at a club. He keeps weird hours.”
“Guess so.” He gazed around the place, which had to look small and dumpy compared to his daddy’s house. Faded paint, thrift store furniture, overflowing trash can because it was Ellie’s turn to dump it. At least the apartment smelled nice thanks to Ellie’s candle obsession. He wandered to the wall by the TV where we’d hung a few pictures. I didn’t know if I should kick him out or ask if he wanted a drink, so I let him look. Nothing up there I was ashamed of—only pictures of me, Ellie, and some of our friends and family.
He paused at a copy of the family photo from the last big family reunion. The one with me and Meghan in it. “How are your parents?”
“They’re good,” I said. “Still workin’ hard, as always.”
“Did you tell them about me?”
“That I saw you again? I couldn’t exactly hide it.”
He hesitated, unsure for the first time since he dragged me off to Pizza City. “What did they say?”
“They were surprised by the memory loss. My daddy was pissed at yours for keeping all that from you.”
His lips twitched into a smile. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” We’d been honest about things all night, so in for a penny…. “They also told me to be careful because they didn’t want my heart to get broken all over again.”
Adam moved closer, an arm’s reach away. “I didn’t intend to break your heart the first time, I swear. At Thanksgiving, I was scared, and I let my dad tell me what to do. Then I grew a pair of balls and tried to get you back. It sounds like I did for a fraction of precious time, and then the bashing ruined everything. I don’t want to break your heart ever again, but I’ve had a lot of time to miss you, Ryan. A lot of time to understand those months leading up to that night, and the reason why I went to the wrap party to find you.”
My pulse galloped off like a spirited horse. “And what did you decide?”
His mouth answered but not with words. He pulled me down and kissed me hard, and the first taste of him set me on fire. Nothing else mattered but kissing him. I thrust my tongue into his mouth, and he answered with a moan that made my balls tingle with need. I wanted to touch him all over, to prove he was real. I found warm skin beneath his T-shirt. He did the same, kneading muscles and flesh, and I needed our shirts off, but I didn’t know how far he wanted to take this.
I relaxed, giving up some control to Adam even though I wanted to manhandle him out of his clothes and into my bed. Passive was not my thing, but I did it for him, so I didn’t scare him off or take something he wasn’t ready to give me.
He took the lead, chasing my tongue into my mouth, licking at my tongue and teeth, and I made a noise deep in my throat. A noise that made him kiss me harder, deeper. We were moving, and I went with it until my shins hit the sofa and we went down. Adam covered me with his body, hips to hips, and holy hell, he was hard too.
When he moved up to kiss me again we didn’t line up anymore, but he pressed his thigh against my cock, and that worked too. He rocked into me, his cock solid heat on my hip, and I shoved my hands beneath those loose 501’s to grab his ass—oh yeah, an ass I’d wanted to grab for years—and I helped. He kissed me everywhere his mouth could reach. Mouth, chin, throat, he even sucked on my earlobe, and I might have made an embarrassing, needy noise when he did that.
This was happening. This was really happening.
He pushed my shirt up and tried to lick my chest, and that wasn’t working so we both sat up long enough to peel our T-shirts off. Adam had a six-pack I didn’t expect, right above a happy trail that disappeared into the waist of his boxers, which had made an appearance thanks to his stupidly loose jeans. He didn’t give me a lotta time to appreciate his body, though, because he went back to exploring mine with his fingers and mouth.
He licked my left nipple, and pleasure sparks shot up my spine. Then he bit, and I felt that in my cock. I thrust up, rubbing against his thigh, needing attention the one place we hadn’t gone yet. He stayed on that nipple, then switched to the other, and I probably said something like “please,” a few times, because damn, his mouth on me felt so good. Felt better than anything ever had before, because this was Adam.
I wanted to shove him onto his back, rip off his pants, and take that cock riding my hip into my mouth. I wanted to taste him, to feel him come in my throat, to see him undone on my couch. But I wasn’t leading this—not tonight, anyway. If we did this again—no, fuck it, when we did this again—all bets were off.
He moved his thigh away, and I growled at the loss of pressure, until he shut me up by undoing my fly. Yanking down my zipper. Hand flat on my belly. Sliding down. Oh shit, his hand was on my cock, squeezing, rubbing, and I kissed him hard enough to knock our teeth together. He made a desperate noise, so fucking sexy, and I shoved my hand into his boxers. Got my fingers wrapped around his hot, hard cock.
It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t real coordinated, but it was about as perfect as it could get in that moment. His strokes were rough, frenzied, a little restricted by denim, so I used my free hand to push my jeans farther down. Then his, baring our cocks, giving us space, but I couldn’t stop kissing him long enough to admire that. I was breathing him, existing inside him for a few precious moments, until it was all too much.
I came first, shouting it into his mouth, while I slicked his hand. My skin buzzed, and my strokes stuttered. I probably squeezed his cock too tight, because he bit my lower lip and grunted. Something in my brain stopped working right. I lurched up and had Adam flipped over on his back so fast he was probably still dizzy from it when I hunched down and took his cock in my mouth.
He yelled something. His fingers threaded into my hair, probably smearing come, and I didn’t care because he wasn’t pulling me off. I licked the length of him, then sucked on the crown, memorizing the feel of his satiny skin, the musky taste of him. He thrust into my mouth, and I let him. I’d wanted this for so long, and I had it and it was fantastic.
“Oh fuck, Rye, oh fuck.”
I squeezed his balls, felt the coarse hair on them, imagined sucking on those. Imagined exploring farther down, and fuck, I wanted to know what every part of him tasted like. I worked him with my tongue and lips, until Adam shouted and came in my mouth. I swallowed everything he gave me, savoring the salty, bitter taste.
He tugged at my hair. Pulled me up. Kissed me again. I collapsed on top of him. Wrapped my arms around him as best I could. We held each other, both of us breathing hard, sweaty and spent.
Another perfect moment.
Perfection slowly dissolved by the chilly air conditioning and the sticky mess I’d left on Adam’s arm and stomach. “You wanna take a shower?” I asked. Not the prettiest pillow talk after something so intense.
Adam blinked at me like I’d asked that in Japanese, then smiled. “You’ll shower with me?”
“It’ll be cramped. Bathroom’s small.”
“I don’t care.”
We helped each other up. I wasn’t too proud to admit my legs were a little wobbly, like a newborn colt taking its first steps, and it was awesome. We shed our jeans and shorts outside the bathroom door, and I couldn’t stop touching him once we were closed up inside. Not sexual touches, exactly, just an intense need for contact. Shoulder, elbow, hip, anywhere I saw bare skin. Adam didn’t seem to mind. He stayed close while I got towels and turned on the hot water.
I’d never showered with a guy before, and the tub wasn’t very big, so we ended up laughing and bumping into each other a lot. That led to more on-purpose touching, until we were both getting stiff again, and God bless a twenty-one-year-old’s recovery time. We rinsed, turned off the water, and grabbed towels. I figured on moving round two into
my bedroom, because now that I’d had a taste of him, I wanted as much as he’d give me.
Adam hit me with a kiss that shoved me back-first against the bathroom door. I’d never get tired of kissing him. He was exactly right, a perfect match, like sweet tea on a hot summer day. And even though I was taller and broader, he had me beat with sheer tenacity.
He went to his knees in front of me, and I held my breath. He wrapped his fingers around the base of my cock, then licked the crown. I exhaled hard, harsh. Sensation and emotion exploded inside me, and I could have probably come just from the sight of Adam on his knees, sucking my cock. I thunked my head against the door and didn’t bother censoring the noises I made, because it—hot, wet, tight, yes!—felt too damned good. What he lacked in technique he more than made up for with enthusiasm.
I wanted to last longer, but he was too fucking sexy, and his mouth felt too damned good. “Gonna come,” I said.
He jerked me with his hand, but didn’t move out of the line of fire. I couldn’t keep my eyes open when I came, the force of it tearing up my spine, prickling my scalp. Fingers were replaced by a tongue, and my eyelids snapped open. Adam licked me clean while a streak of spunk clung to his cheek.
Hottest. Thing. Ever.
“Holy damn,” I said.
Someone banged on the other side of the door, and I yelped. I nearly fell over Adam jumping away from the sound.
“Ryan!” Ellie yelled. “If you and your trick are done, I need to pee, like, now.”
Adam jerked to his feet, cheeks staining red, adorably flustered. He flailed around, looking for what I realized were all outside in the living room—our clothes.
“Put a towel on and get out, I’m serious!” she said. “I’m counting to five, and then I don’t care if I see your dicks.”
We wrapped towels around our waists, and Adam scrubbed his cheek with a wad of toilet paper. He’d lost his hard-on to the shock of Ellie’s return, and I was a little sad about that. I opened the door to a slightly disheveled Ellie, whose irritation shifted into surprise when she spotted my “trick.” She looked back and forth between us, then shook her head and shoved her way into the bathroom.
The door slam rattled the pictures on the far wall.
Adam slipped his boxers on and dropped the towel. I did the same, but didn’t bother with the rest of my clothes since I was going to face-plant in bed very soon. He finished dressing in semi-awkward silence.
“I guess Ellie’s used to finding you here with guys,” he said. He didn’t sound angry, only a little sad.
I didn’t want him sad, not about anything. “I never bring anybody back here. It’s not, like, a roommate rule or nothin’. I don’t want strangers in my personal space, y’know?”
Warmth flared in his eyes. “So this was special, then?”
I closed the space between us and wrapped my arms around his waist, pleased at how perfectly he fit there. “Everything between us is, was, and always will be special, hoss.”
“Good.” He kissed me. Gentle. Happy. “I better go.”
He belonged here, with me, but it was too soon to keep him. He had to want to stay on his own terms if this was gonna work. “Drive safe.”
From the window, I watched him get into his car and drive away. I was scrubbing a bit of smeared come off the couch when Ellie finally came out of the bathroom. She flopped down in the ugly plaid chair she’d rescued from a dumpster last year and Febrezed to death before I allowed it into our apartment.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” she asked.
I rinsed my sponge in the sink, then tossed it into a bucket underneath. “Probably so.”
“Never mind what he did to you in high school. He’s got the purse strings for this fundraiser. What if his father finds out you two are fooling around again and Langley-Quartermaine pulls out?”
“They can’t. We have a contract.”
“Adam will break your heart, Ryan.”
Her lack of support rankled. “You don’t know that.”
“He did it once.”
“Yeah, and we talked about it. We talked about a lot of things tonight.”
“How about coming out? Did you two talk about him being honest about his feelings for you?”
“Not exactly.” I hadn’t expected an evening that began with a trip down Ugly Memory Lane to end up with our mouths on each other’s dicks. Things had moved so fast. We’d both acted on emotion instead of with our brains.
“So what now? You’ll be his dirty little secret?”
I grunted. “We’re both getting our feet underneath us again. I won’t pressure him right now.”
She glared, clearly unhappy with my decision-making skills tonight. “You still love him, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do. Never stopped.”
“Fine.” She hauled ass to her feet, then pointed a finger at me. “If he breaks your heart, I’ll break his face. You can quote me to him, if you want.”
I smiled. “Thanks, El.”
She rolled her eyes as she strode to her bedroom. This time, though, she didn’t slam the door.
Before I went to bed, I retrieved my phone so I could charge it overnight. The screen flashed with a text message.
Adam: Tire is good as new. Goodnight, R. <3
Falling asleep is hard when you’re grinning like a fool.
Chapter Eight
Adam
On Saturday morning, I took the finalized fundraiser contracts over to the center, telling myself I wanted to make sure things were in order as soon as possible. The line was partly true too, but the whole truth was that Ryan would be there teaching a theater class. I knew because I’d called the center and asked. Ellie had a group of younger kids in a room, while Ryan handled the middle and high school students.
Maybe ambushing Ryan at the center wasn’t the best approach, but I wanted to see him in person. We’d texted a few times since Thursday night, but his work schedule and my interning hours kept us from actually seeing each other, and I missed him. I didn’t mind admitting to myself that I missed him, either. Hiding it from Joe and my father yesterday had been a chore, but Jesse was the only person who’d seemed to notice I was distracted.
“You look like you got shot in the ass by Cupid, man,” Jesse had said when I saw him at lunch.
I’d denied it and tried to focus, to not let anyone else see that something I’d longed for was finally back within my grasp. As long as I didn’t fuck it up.
You will. As soon as your father finds out, and he will, you’ll fuck up with Ryan and then it’ll be over.
My chest ached with the idea of losing him again. I didn’t regret a thing we’d done, and a little part of me was furious at Ellie for interrupting our time together. Another part was glad. There was such a thing as too much, too soon, and we were skating the line. We’d been apart for so long, and making up for lost time in the sex department wouldn’t repair all the damage we’d done to each other emotionally. Only time could heal those kinds of wounds.
That didn’t stop me from wanting to spend an entire day seeing how many times I could make Ryan come. He was beautiful, period, but something in him changed when he was caught in the throes of an orgasm. He lit up from the inside, becoming almost radiant. I loved seeing him like that. Loved knowing I did that to him.
Lou was excited to get the contracts. I think, in some ways, it made the entire fundraiser seem more real to him. “This is fantastic, thank you, son,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” I replied with a genuine smile.
“I hear you folks are making great progress with the planning.”
“Yes, we had a very productive meeting the other night.”
“Good, good. Well, I won’t keep you from the rest of your day. A good-looking boy like you must have plans needing to be gotten to.”
“Actually, I was hoping to check out Ryan’s theater class and see what they’re planning to perform for the benefit.”
“Excellent. He’s down the othe
r hall in room three.”
“Thanks, Lou.”
Music was thundering from room three before I even opened the door. Chairs had been pushed up against the wall, creating an open space where a dozen teenagers, mostly girls, stood in a cluster. Ryan held court next to a laptop computer he’d attached to a set of speakers, and I recognized the tune before he began to sing.
Newsies was one of those little-known cult films that made me want to sing and dance as a child. When it went to Broadway, I didn’t have the guts to go see it. I’d missed a lot of great shows over the years because Broadway was the thing I did with my mother, and she was dead. But I downloaded the album, and I watched clips online, and it was awesome.
Ryan was singing “Santa Fe” and nailing every single note, every nuance of emotion inherent in a song about longing for something better. He was caught up in it until the bridge, and then he spotted me at the door. His notice caught the attention of the students, most of whom ignored me after a fast glance. Ryan stared, and he almost missed his cue. He continued the song, and somehow I got the feeling his dream of Santa Fe had just become code for something else. Something between us.
The fact that the character he played in Rent left New York City for Santa Fe, just like the Newsies character of Jack Kelly dreamed to do, was not lost on me.
I hear Santa Fe is nice this time of year.
Ryan hit a key on the laptop. “Now obviously if I was performin’ that for an audience, I’d have added some theatricality to it. Hand movement is just as important as facial expression, probably more important to the people in the way back rows.” He jerked his head in my direction. “It also appears we have a guest performer this week.”
My stomach turned inside out. “I’m just here to watch.”
“No such thing in this class. Guys, this is Adam Langley. He’s helpin’ out with the center’s fundraiser next month.”
“Does he sing too?” a girl with blue streaks in her hair asked.
“He sure does. Think he should do a number so you can hear someone with a different range than me?”