by A. M. Arthur
“I want to do that with you,” I whispered. “But the right way, okay?”
His big body shuddered, and he shifted until he was hugging me back, his chin on my shoulder. “Can’t believe I almost did that. Fuck.”
“But you didn’t, and I’m fine. We’re fine. Right?”
He pulled back far enough to look at me with wet eyes. “Lord, I hope so.”
I wanted the fear in his eyes to go away. I wanted that raw passion back, but tempered with common sense this time. “Do you have the stuff we need?”
“Yeah. Yeah?”
“Yes.”
He twisted around, practically in half, and grabbed a shoe box off the shelf of the small bookcase that was his nightstand. He put it on the bed next to us and knocked the lid off. I stared at the assorted items hiding behind the faded cardboard, a little surprised he kept his sex supplies in a box with worn baseball cards and a dump truck PEZ dispenser. He ripped a condom off a long strip—I had to gently remind myself that he’d had a sex life for years before I came back into his orbit—then grabbed a bottle of lube.
“You sure you want this tonight?” he asked.
“Positive.” No hesitation. I needed this, maybe more than Ryan did.
“You still trust me after that?”
I grabbed the back of his neck and made him look at me. “You heard me, Rye. You stopped. Hell yes, I still trust you. Now I want you to fuck me.”
A little of his control slipped at my words. I saw it in the way his nostrils flared and his thigh muscles bunched. He ripped the condom open and rolled it down over his cock. He smeared a generous amount of lube over the condom, then put more on his fingers. I wanted him in charge, and I wanted to see it all happen, so I ended up on my back with a pillow under my lower back. Nerves rolled my stomach, while need had my legs shivering and my lungs straining.
This was really going to happen.
Ryan
Never in a million years did I think I’d do what I almost did to Adam. I totally fucking lost my nut, fell off my rocker, and I almost fucked him raw. And dry, and goddamn that would have hurt. Never in a million years did I think he’d be so calm and forgiving, and then tell me to go ahead and fuck him anyway.
He looked up at me with so much trust and—not love, it couldn’t possibly be love—other emotions that I was flying on them before I pushed my lubed fingers into his ass to slick him up. Adam made a strangled sound and pressed down on my fingers, and holy Jesus, he was still so tight. How was I ever gonna get my cock inside?
I found his prostate again, and he shouted nonsense, and the desire behind it went straight to my cock. I’d fucked guys before, but never someone as responsive as Adam. Never someone who wanted it so much, and not just from any old son of a gun with a hard dick—he wanted it from me. I pulled my fingers out, and he made a desperate noise. With a lot more brain cells than the first time, I lined up the head of my dick with his entrance, and I pushed.
Chapter Nine
Adam
Ryan. Inside. Ow. Good. Shit. Amazing. Get it out. Deeper!
My mind blurred with emotions and physical signals that complemented and competed, and I thought I might explode from the incendiary concoction boiling inside of me. My ass burned, my cock pulsed, and everything I thought I knew about sex got tossed right out the window, along with my ability to be quiet. I couldn’t censor the words tumbling out of my mouth as Ryan worked his way inside me.
And for once, the doubtful voice in my head shut the fuck up.
When he could go no further, balls deep in my body, Ryan bent forward and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. He hauled me into a kiss that swallowed me whole, and then he began to move. He took every noise I made, and I took his, and I got lost in the sound of flesh hitting flesh, and in the intense, almost painful sensation of his cock moving inside of me. The angle trapped my cock between our bellies, and the constant friction had me coming with dizzying force, slicking our sweat-dampened skin.
Ryan yelled something, maybe my name, as he reared back. He slammed his hips into me, a handful of hard, intense thrusts, and then came with a shuddering gasp. He collapsed on top of me, a panting, shivering weight, still buried deep inside. I slid my arms around his waist, liking him there a hell of a lot, until his cock started to soften.
He planted a line of kisses along my face and jaw as he pulled out. The discomfort of his penetration became a sharp sting that didn’t lessen when he’d withdrawn fully. He took off the condom and dropped it on the floor, then pulled me back into his arms. We lay there, belly to belly, sticky and worn out, legs tangled together.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m great. That was… wow.”
“Good wow?”
Ryan sounded so unsure of himself. I grabbed his neck and made him look at me, and I saw the truth of his uncertainty in his eyes. “Amazing wow.”
Affection thawed some of the uncertainty. “I can’t believe I almost—”
“You didn’t, so forget about it. I kind of goaded you.”
“I’m a big boy, Adam. I’m responsible for my own actions.”
“So am I.” I clenched my ass, even though I didn’t need the reminder that I’d just had a big cock slammed inside over and over. The sharp twinge must have telegraphed across my face, because Ryan’s eyebrows went up.
“Shit, I did hurt you, didn’t I?” He tried to reach around me, probably to inspect the area in question, and that wasn’t going to happen.
I pushed him onto his back and climbed on top of him. He could have knocked me off pretty easily, but he didn’t. He rested his hands on my hips and held me there, my arms folded on his chest, our sticky bellies pressing close. “I’m fine. I’m not used to having things shoved up there, thank you very much, but it’ll pass.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“Or maybe,” I said, “this will repeat itself often enough that I’ll get used to it.”
“With me?”
Irritation prickled across my scalp. “Of course with you, dumbass. You think I waited three years for you to be my first, only to turn around and give my ass to the next hot guy who wants me?”
Ryan’s eyes went wide. His right hand skated up my flank to my shoulder, then circled to touch my cheek. Feather light. “You waited?”
It sounded so cheesy when he said it like that, and suddenly we were too close. I climbed off him and sat far enough that he couldn’t touch me without stretching. My sore ass didn’t like the new position, but I didn’t flinch or fidget. “I didn’t wait in a conscious way, like some dumb heroine pining over a lost lover, but you’ve always had part of my heart, Rye. Those first few months of senior year, I felt things change between us. It was really slow, but I knew my feelings for you were more than just friendship.”
I didn’t dare look at Ryan’s face. I’d get distracted, maybe not finish saying all of this, and he’d told me so much truth these last few days. He deserved some of my truth in return. “When you got outed over Thanksgiving break, I should have stuck by you. But I was scared. I was scared of losing my dad if I went against his wishes. I was scared of my feelings for you and what they might mean, and if they meant what I thought, then I knew I really would lose my dad. He’s all the family I have, since my mom died.
“But being away from you was too damned hard, Rye, and that’s why I went to see you at the cast party. If what I felt then is anything like what I feel now, when I’m with you, then that first kiss must have been amazing. I wish there could have been a hundred more after that….” I couldn’t finish the thought. The what if was too damned painful.
“I wish we could have been able to talk after the bashing,” Ryan said. His voice was hoarse, choked with emotion, and I still couldn’t look at him. “A few minutes could have saved us both three years of being alone.”
“My father threw you under the bus so he didn’t have to entertain the idea that his son was gay.” I swallowed against my now-roiling stomach. I’d never s
aid that word out loud in such a context—not in relation to myself. “Even after, when I never brought a steady girlfriend home, he didn’t question it. Freshman year of college I tried dating girls, even made out with a few, but it never felt right, and I didn’t want to lead anyone on, so nothing was ever serious. Dad congratulated me on being dedicated to my studies, and I ate up what little praise I got from him because he rarely gives any. I knew I’d never be the Langley he wanted me to be.
“So I came up with the plan. I decided that I could last four years, get my degree, then get out on my own. Once I didn’t depend on his money, I could figure out how to be myself. The first thing I was going to do when I got free was to find you and apologize for what I did. I swear I was, Ryan. You just came back into my life a lot sooner than I expected.”
Ryan made a rough noise, and I looked. He was staring at me with utter confusion. “So where does that leave us?” he asked. “You still have a year of college left.”
“I don’t know.” Naked in bed with him, I didn’t want to make empty promises. All I had to offer was the truth. “I’ve been living my life according to that plan, taking it one day at a time for so long that I have a hard time thinking past today. The future always seemed so….”
“Empty?”
“Yeah.”
Ryan got it. Of course he got it, because he’d been in a different kind of survival mode these last few years, dealing with his own memories of what happened between us. He leaned closer and snagged my hand. “My parents think me seeing you is a bad idea. Ellie doesn’t like it, either. I’m pretty sure my therapist is gonna shit kittens.”
Ouch. “What do you think?”
He shifted closer. “I think I’ve loved you since I was fifteen years old, hoss, and I don’t give a damn if they like it. I wanna keep seein’ you. Right here? Right now? I feel like I can breathe again.”
Something inside me shifted, curled in tight, and blossomed at the same time. I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but I had a pretty good idea. “I feel like that too.”
“But I can’t be your dirty secret, either.”
My heart ached with the enormity of those words. I’d barely admitted to myself that I was gay. I had no way to wrap my mind around coming out and telling anyone else. This thing between Ryan and me had always been ours, a private thing no one else was allowed to know about. But that wasn’t real love, was it? Real love was something you were proud of, something you shouted to the rooftops.
Ryan moved again, this time sitting next to me. He folded me into his arms, and I relaxed against his chest, warm and safe. “I’m not demanding you out yourself to your daddy tonight,” Ryan said. “Not even next week, unless you wanna. But I’m all in here, babe, always have been. And somethin’ tells me when your daddy sees us on that stage singin’ together, he’s gonna know.”
I felt suddenly sick because I hadn’t consciously considered the fact that my father would be attending the benefit performance I’d agreed to sing in. He’d go for the publicity and elbow rubbing, and he’d see my name in the program book. And Ryan was right—we wouldn’t be able to keep our feelings to ourselves up on that stage. Even though our song choice wasn’t a love song, it was a duet about pain and loss and learning to live with those things. He’d see.
Everyone would see.
And you’ll lose one of them. You can’t have them both, and you know it.
“Give me until the benefit?” I asked, an embarrassing tremor in my voice.
“Okay.”
He didn’t ask why I needed all those weeks, and I adored him for that. Ryan was generous to a fault sometimes, and he was being generous with me right now. Giving me time to settle into something still very new, even though the feelings had been simmering for years. Neither one of us wanted to fuck this up.
Ryan
After cleaning up, we spent hours talking. Talking like we hadn’t done since high school, about stuff that mattered and a lot of stuff that didn’t. Just being with Adam like this made me happier than a possum in a corncrib and I glutted myself on him. Not sex. Being with him. Yammering on about anything and everything, making jokes and snacking on the leftover Chinese takeout in the fridge. He still picked the baby corn out of his chow mein, and I swapped him those for my snap peas.
We couldn’t make up for three years in six hours, but it was a damned good start.
Ellie was gonna be home by eight, and I had to go into work at nine, so I wasn’t real shocked at the heavy feeling setting in around seven. The little cocoon we’d wrapped up in was gonna break open soon and drop us out into the real world. A world where Adam hadn’t come out to anybody and where he’d lose all financial support from his daddy if he did. A world where we’d both been hurt real bad by things other people did.
Nothing out there seemed quite so bad when I had Adam close. Going to work knowing I wasn’t coming home to him… yeah, that was gonna suck.
We did pick a song for next week’s class, though. Adam figured out an easy way to turn “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile” into a duet, and we sang it through a few times. Singing with him again felt great. Right. I was hard the whole time—being near him in private was bad for my blood flow and my concentration—but Adam was still sitting funny, and I wasn’t gonna pressure him into anything. Not after how I’d acted earlier.
Yeah, Adam pushed my buttons but I should’ve been more careful. Instead I lost my head, took his virginity, and left him with a slight limp.
Is it wrong to be both proud and ashamed of something like that?
The clock inched closer to eight. He didn’t have to leave before Ellie got home, but he was starting to fidget. He knew Ellie didn’t like that we were together, and he was cool enough to want to respect my friendship with her. But damn if I didn’t want every single second with him I could get.
“Will I see you before Wednesday’s fundraiser meeting?” Adam asked.
I whooped a little inside because he’d asked first. “Do you wanna?”
“Yes. I worked it out that I’m interning five days, four hours in the morning and done every day at twelve thirty. It gives me the afternoons to help with the benefit. Among other things.” His pretty eyes lit up with heat I had no time to stoke and see roar. Why hadn’t he looked at me like that half an hour ago?
“How about tomorrow?”
Adam frowned. “I don’t think I can. Dad’s having a brunch for some clients, and then we’re going to a family dinner. My day’s pretty booked.”
“Okay. Monday afternoon? I get off work at three.”
“I can do that.”
“Wanna meet here? Ellie won’t be home.”
“Definitely.”
Neither of us had to say why we were meeting here or why we needed Ellie gone. My woody got even stiffer. I reached down and adjusted myself without thinking. Adam noticed. His nostrils flared, and he licked his lips. We were both dressed, hanging out near the kitchen counter, arms touching. I’d spent more time today touching him than not touching, and I wanted to touch all of him, all over again. Remind myself he was real.
We were real.
Adam glanced at the clock, then grabbed my hand and yanked me into my bedroom. I didn’t have time to process walking, much less him shoving me against my closed door and dropping to his knees. He worked my belt and fly, and oh my God, his mouth was on me again. Sucking hard and fast, using his hand where his lips couldn’t reach. Everything telescoped into hot, wet, more, now! He sucked me like he needed me to breathe, which was okay, because I was pretty sure I needed him just as bad.
I grabbed his hair so I had something besides air to hold onto, and his free hand squeezed my thigh. Thrust, squeeze, oh fuck! It all coiled up tight, then exploded, sending hot sparks up my spine as I shot into his mouth.
Holy damn, but I’d never gone off so fast in my life. I blinked down at Adam, brain fuzzy, feeling dumber than a bag of hammers because I couldn’t move. He grinned up at me, lips wet and red, kinda sa
tisfied with himself. I figured on reciprocating, but when he stood up he just tucked me back into my pants and planted a hard, wet kiss on me. I kissed him back, blood humming from my orgasm.
“I’ll see you Monday,” he said.
“Yeah.”
The apartment felt empty when he left, like all the warmth had been sucked out. I cleaned up the kitchen. Was tossing my sheets into a laundry bag to haul downstairs to the building facilities when Ellie came home. She saw the bag, and her eyebrows went right up, all indignant with me. She didn’t say anything, though, just went into her room while I went to do my laundry.
I only had the one set of sheets, and if I was gonna be seeing and fucking Adam as often as I hoped, I didn’t wanna to be doing laundry every other day. I made a mental note to buy more sheets.
Chapter Ten
Adam
Two weeks never went by so fast.
We spent every spare moment we could find getting to know each other again—in and out of Ryan’s bed. Not that all our sex was relegated to the bed. We were both overly fond of his sofa, but only when we knew Ellie was working or out with her boyfriend. She was polite when we interacted during benefit meetings, or if we passed each other at the apartment. I didn’t begrudge her distrust of me. In fact, I appreciated her presence in Ryan’s life. She’d been there for him in high school when everything was falling apart. She’d been the shoulder he needed to lean on. She was allowed to be protective.
Did I mention the sex I had with Ryan was amazing? Toe curling? Ball tingling?
All of the above.
I’d read flowery things about sex and intimacy in books. Experiencing it was a completely different ball game with consequences I didn’t expect. Like feeling chilly when I was alone in my own room, even buried beneath blankets. Like physically aching for him to touch me when we’d been apart for twenty-four hours. Everything I’d felt during those two weeks between Thanksgiving and the bashing, only amplified by ten thousand.