by Roan Parrish
I’m whimpering and moaning as he works me, his other hand holding my wrists easily. My spine is liquid heat and my thighs are trembling. I can hear Rex groaning, but my entire concentration is focused on the exquisite pulse of pleasure that’s begun deep in my ass, radiating through me like pebbles dropped in a pond. It’s joined by a boiling heat at the base of my spine and my groin.
Rex is stroking me and with every stroke, I am closer to exploding. I pull my wrists from his grasp and grab him around the neck, needing to hold on to something.
“Don’t stop,” I gasp, and he bears down on me, his added weight pressing his erection even deeper. I cry out and his stomach brushes the tip of my cock and white-hot pleasure explodes inside me, tightening every muscle and blowing every nerve ending. The sounds coming out of me are tiny whimpers because every muscle has clenched down in orgasm. My eyes are shut so tight I see stars and I shudder as my erection keeps pulsing.
Rex is wild above me, his hands squeezing my hips as he thrusts deeply into me. I cry out, my prostate zinging a last pulse of pleasure through me, and Rex roars, his heat flooding the condom, searing me even through the barrier between us.
He collapses on top of me, careful to take his weight with his elbows, and kisses my throat, moaning.
I feel languid, like I couldn’t possibly move. Rex gently eases himself from my body and leans to drop the condom into the trash. As his back is turned to me, I feel the prickling in my ears that means I’m in danger of tearing up. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I reach out a shaky hand to touch his back, then hesitate. Maybe he doesn’t like being touched when we’re not fucking?
He rolls back over to face me and any hesitation I felt is gone as he drapes a heavy arm over my stomach and kisses the side of my neck. His breath is hot on my neck as his fingers draw absent designs in the puddle of my come. I’m a little gross and sticky. Rex must feel my stomach tense because he takes his hand away.
I ease over the side of the bed, biting my lip when my sore ass scrapes over the sheets. I pull my underwear on.
“I’m gonna just….” I gesture toward the door. “Can I use your bathroom?”
“Of course,” he says. His eyes are warm, but he looks a little wary.
In the bathroom, I clean up, pee, and wash my hands. When I look in the mirror to see how ridiculous my hair looks, my eyes surprise me. I look scared and uncertain and vulnerable. I look like I let my guard down. And even though Ginger has told me often enough that that’s not a bad thing, I don’t believe her. You let your guard down and people fuck with you; you let your guard down and you get hurt. That’s what I know. So what the hell am I supposed to do now?
Rex is facing the door when I walk back in and I can see him relax at the sight of me.
I hesitate a foot from the bed.
“Um, do you want me to take off?” I ask, trying to sound neutral and failing.
“You don’t have a car,” Rex says evenly.
“Oh, right.”
“I can take you home if you want,” Rex says, “but I wish you’d stay.”
“Yeah?”
He smiles. “Yeah.”
He reaches for my hand and I let him take it. He pulls me on top of him, sliding my underwear back off, and I let him. I let him settle me next to him too, where he cradles my neck in his hand and strokes my hip with the other.
“Do we need to take Marilyn out?” I ask.
“She’s fine.”
“Should we do something to the fire?”
“It’ll die out.”
“Do you want me to—?”
“I want you here, in this fucking bed,” Rex says, and he pulls me closer against him, palming my ass with one big hand and turning off the bedside lamp with the other. I slide my hand under his shoulder for balance and lean my cheek on his chest. He rests his chin on my head. “Just stay,” he murmurs. He traces the cleft of my ass with his finger, slipping in the lube that’s still there. He slides his finger back inside me, just as he did that night in the woods. I huff out a breath.
“I just want to be inside you,” he says softly. He’s already falling asleep. I sigh, not letting myself think about the fact that I’ve never slept beside a lover before—not unless I’d passed out drunk, anyway. I try to match my breathing to Rex’s, feel his rib cage rise and fall, carrying me off to sleep like a ship held safe in port.
6
Chapter 6
October
I wake up wrapped in a cocoon of delicious warmth, with a bone-deep feeling of satisfaction and comfort, so I know I can’t be at home. I’m not sure what’s causing it until I open my eyes and see that I’m basically lying on top of Rex, holding on to him like I’m a squid and he’s the whale I’m trying to snuggle the life out of. My face is nuzzled into his neck, my arms are wrapped around him, and my leg is slung over his hip in a way that would be borderline obscene if we weren’t sleeping.
It’s the way I used to wake up wrapped around this stuffed lion that I slept with as a kid. Sam won it at a school carnival for some girl, but when he found the girl to give it to her, she was making out with a guy on the basketball team behind the water ice stand, so he called her a slut and threw the lion on the couch when he got home. That was right before my mom died and I slept with it for years.
One of Rex’s arms is holding me and the other’s stretched under his pillow, his biceps round and strong even in slumber. I allow myself a few moments to look at him—the pulse beating in the vulnerable hollow of his throat, the scar under his right eyebrow that’s only visible when his eyes are closed, the perfect teardrop indentation above his upper lip—before I convince myself that I need to extricate myself from the death grip I have on him before he wakes up and thinks I’m some kind of desperate limpet.
I start to inch off of him slowly, but he makes a small sound and pulls me closer. He’s not even really awake. I kiss the underside of his chin—the only place my mouth can reach now—and he makes a soft mew of what might be satisfaction or just sleep, and puts his other arm around me.
I feel the first tinglings of panic—the kind of claustrophobia that comes when you know you need to sit very still—and I pull away a little.
“Daniel?” Rex murmurs softly. “Y’okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, pushing myself off him and rolling away. “I’ll be right back.” I retreat to the bathroom and splash some water on my face. I wonder if I should get out of Rex’s hair before he wakes up, but that doesn’t feel quite right. Besides, I hated it when I woke up alone the morning after we met. And it’s cold in the bathroom. I walk back to Rex’s room and look at the man spread out before me on the bed. He looks so young when he’s asleep, his face slack, his body relaxed, all that powerful muscle rendered merely decorative.
I slide back into bed beside Rex’s warmth, thinking I’ll just sleep for a few more minutes. The next thing I know, I wake up to Rex’s warm hand on my waist, his thumb stroking my hip bone.
“This is new,” he says, “right?” He’s looking at “Let Sleeping Bears Lie” inked above my hip and I groan in embarrassment.
“Yeah.”
“It wasn’t there when I clipped your pants,” he says.
I can’t believe he remembers a glimpse of my hip from eight months ago; I can’t believe he even noticed it the first place.
He presses warm lips to the words and licks my hip bone, then drags his teeth lightly over it. My breath catches. There’s something about Rex’s laser focus that makes me incredibly hot. It’s like the air between us is thinner than usual and I’m more aware of him.
He runs his hand over my stomach and ribs, just stroking, then slides up and kisses my neck and my jaw. My skin feels hot and tingly everywhere he touches. When he kisses the inside of my biceps, I shudder. It’s so weird. I barely know Rex, but he may be the only person who’s ever touched me in that spot. Definitely the only person who’s ever kissed me there.
“You’re so sensitive,” Rex growls.
“No,” I say. “I mean, I never was.” But my breathing’s gone all funny and my heart is pounding. I pull Rex down and kiss him as hard as I can. He kisses me back, but when I clutch at his back and try to pull him on top of me, he eases back to those gentle touches again. He strokes along the veins on the inside of my forearm and sucks gently at the skin under my ear; he traces my ribs and places soft kisses along my collarbone.
I feel strange. Shaky and out of control. No one’s ever touched me like this. Paid this much attention. Am I supposed to reciprocate? I’ve never touched anyone the way he’s touching me, either. Never traced patterns on someone’s skin or run my fingertips over the swell of muscle and the dip of bone. Never felt where hair changed from soft to rough or skin from thin to callused.
It’s like Rex is mapping my body, each stroke of his hand and touch of his lips learning me better.
There are unfamiliar sounds clawing their way out of my throat. Vulnerable sounds. What if he gets up and leaves? What if he doesn’t? And now, I realize, in the moments it’s taken me to ponder this, Rex has stopped touching me and started staring at me.
“Do you want me to stop?” Rex asks abruptly.
I stare up at him and it’s as if I’m watching this play out like reading a scene in a book. I just keep wondering what’s going to happen next. And by the time my brain can process that I have to make something happen next, Rex has swung his legs over the side of the bed and is giving me a sweet but hesitant smile.
“No worries,” he says. “I didn’t mean to be so touchy-feely. I’m just gonna shower.”
I hear the water turn on and pull the pillow over my head. What the fuck is wrong with me? Unlike my inability to answer Rex, I can think of about a hundred answers to that question. Like, I barely know this guy, so why am I so goddamned worried about what he thinks of me? Like, I should’ve left last night after we fucked and I don’t get why I didn’t. Like, I’ve never had a real relationship, so why would I start now? Especially when I finally have a job that’s going to make it possible to pay off all my debt and not live paycheck to paycheck, checking my bank balance every time I have to buy groceries. Especially when, in order to keep that job, I need to spend all my time proving to the people who hired me that they didn’t bet on a losing horse.
And the biggest thing wrong with me: why, even now, does my whole body feel pulled toward Rex when I was just touching him a minute ago?
Before I can let myself think about it, I walk to the bathroom and knock on the door.
“Yeah,” Rex says over the shower.
I open the door slowly and there he is, the sharp lines of shoulder and leg softened by steam and glass.
“Can I?” I ask, gesturing to the shower.
“Course,” he says. “You don’t have to ask.” But of course I have to ask. You don’t just get in the shower with someone.
The water’s a little hotter than I like and I can feel my skin turning pink almost immediately. Rex puts a hand on my hip and draws me toward him. I go to kiss him, but he stops me with a hand on my palm. He pulls us tight together, his body hot and slick from the water. He wraps his arms around my shoulders and runs a hand up and down my spine, making me squirm closer to him.
“Look,” he says. “It’s been a while since I’ve done all this. I know I can be a little…. I just like touching you, but I didn’t mean to overstep. Okay?”
He’s looking right into my eyes and he’s so big and solid that I find myself telling him the truth.
“I’ve never done this before.”
He pulls back like I scalded him.
“Wait, you mean last night was your first—”
“No! No, no. I mean this. The kiss and shower together and sleep over thing. I’ve never done that.”
He looks puzzled.
“You’ve never dated someone before?”
I sigh, relieved he’s supplied the word.
“Well. No. Well—I went out on a date once, but it didn’t go so well. So, I don’t know how it goes, really, or if I’m any good at it.” I look down and watch the water swirling down Rex’s drain. It’s easier to talk in here, like the sound of the water takes the edge of fear off my voice.
Rex regards me, frowning slightly.
“Well, here’s how it goes,” he says. “I’m going to take you to breakfast. Then we’re going to jump your car. Then I’m going to ask you out on a date. Are you free Thursday night?”
“I thought asking me out on a date was going to come after jumping my car?”
“Just getting my ducks in a row,” he says, and squeezes my shoulder. “What do you say, dinner on Thursday night?”
I nod and take a deep breath. I can do this, right? It’s just dinner.
“I can’t do this,” I tell Ginger.
It’s late and I should be in bed, but I’ve missed a dozen calls from her since Sunday, no doubt wanting to know how my night with Rex went, so I picked up when she called.
“Dandelion!” she says. “Tell me everything. Don’t leave anything out. Can’t do what?”
“I’m supposed to meet Rex for dinner tomorrow,” I tell her. “And it’s definitely a date.”
“No, no, no,” she says, irritated. “You don’t get to skip right to the telling me your problems part. You have to start with something like, ‘Oh, Ginger, let me tell you all about my date instead of ignoring your calls for four days,’ or, ‘Ginger, let me tell you how good the lumberjack is in bed.’ Got it?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Excellent. So, how was your date on Saturday night?”
“It was good.”
“Seriously? That’s what I get from you?”
“Do you think I’m a pessimist?” I ask her, staring at the pile of papers I’m only halfway through grading.
“Yes,” she says. “Well, I think you’re a pessimist where you’re concerned. You tend to be pretty realistic about other people’s shit. Why? Did he tell you you’re a pessimist? Because you know how I feel about dudes who tell you who you are on a first date. Control freak abusers.”
“No, he didn’t say anything about it. I just—I keep doing this thing where I think a nice thought about Rex and then my brain thinks, like, ‘It’s never going to work.’”
“Well, sweetie, that voice in your head is the same one that said you could never go to college. It’s the same one that told you not to bother applying to grad school because they’d never want you. It’s the same one that told you all the other students thought you were stupid when you first started.”
“They did think I was stupid when I started.”
“Well, they were asshole snobs. And, anyway, you proved to them it wasn’t true. So you just have to prove it to this voice too.”
“I don’t know how to do this. What do I talk about? What if we actually hate each other?”
“Um, Daniel. You don’t hate each other. You had a date the other night and, even though you apparently refuse to tell me about it, it went well enough that you’re having another one tomorrow. And I know you didn’t ask him, so he must have liked you enough that he at least wants to see you again.”
“I could have been the one to ask him,” I grumble.
“Um, sure, pumpkin; whatever you say.” She pauses, then her voice changes. “Come oooooon, please tell me about the date?”
“He rescued me from a snowstorm and cooked me dinner and I spent the night, and then he took me out to breakfast. And he said he used to be really shy, but I totally didn’t get that from him until breakfast when we went to the diner and he was really tongue-tied ordering. It was kinda sweet.”
“It’s October.”
“Uh. Yeah.”
“How was there a snowstorm in October?”
“Right! Michigan, man. Fucking Michigan.”
“Oh. Right. So, wow, you spent the night? Were you drunk?”
“No. Bitch.”
“Hunh,” she says, like that explained something. “Okay, so how was it? The sex, I mean, obviousl
y.”
“Dude, it was really good. He’s… I dunno, magnetic or something.”
She’s quiet for a while and my mind drifts to Rex’s big hands on me. The way he pulled me close to him in the shower after I told him I’d have dinner with him, his strong hips flexing into mine, our erections sliding together in the steamy heat. The way he grabbed my ass, grinding us together, his chest hair scraping my nipples. The way he bit down on my throat like I was a kitten trying to wander away, and pulled me up into him, hard. The way he kissed me, tongue everywhere, hands everywhere, our cocks straining together until we both grabbed them at the same time, jerking white heat on our stomachs and chests and leaning against each other as the water washed it all away.
“Earth to Daniel,” Ginger is nearly shouting into the phone.
“What!”
“Oh my god, you’re thinking about having sex with him right now.”
“Guilty,” I laugh.
“Fuck, that’s so hot,” she says.
“What?”
“Sweet cheeks, you’ve fucked the lead singers of bands on international tours and never said anything more than, ‘He looked taller onstage,’ or, ‘Yeah, nice guy.’ If you’re sitting there right now fantasizing about sex you had with the lumberjack to the point where you don’t hear me yelling your name, then I know it was hot. God, I’m so jealous. I want a lumberjack.”
“He’s not a lumberjack. And you should be.”
“Uuunnghhh,” she groans.
“Hey, any highlights from the shop lately?”
“Oh my god, yes. You remember that really tall, skinny guy who had me do the vertebrae tattoo down his spine?”
“Yeah, the one you kept calling Skeletor, thinking you were funny until Megan told you Skeletor is actually big and blue and muscular?”
“Yeah,” she mumbles. “Anyway, he came back in and he wants me to do his whole skeleton. Like, every bone, little by little.”
“That’s awesome,” I tell her. Ginger likes large-scale projects and she loves doing realistic black and gray. “Did you start?”