by Roan Parrish
Rex just grunts in response, but I can see him nodding against the bed. He pushes back against me, fitting us even closer together. I hadn’t realized I wasn’t moving. I drop a quick kiss on Rex’s spine and then I pull back and start thrusting into him. I feel like every single nerve is concentrated in my groin—like all feeling has left my extremities and migrated there, turning me into one desperate, heat-seeking missile of pleasure. As I push into Rex, he pushes back against me, driving me even deeper. I press his shoulders down, changing the angle, and he cries out.
I’m hitting his prostate now as I thrust into him, and I feel like with each snap of my hips, I’m trying to push the pleasure out of my own body and into his. The muscles of his back are tensed and his hair is spread out against that fucking sweater and his arms are thrown out to the sides like he’s pinioned on the bed.
All of a sudden, it’s imperative that I see his face.
I pull out and Rex makes a sound of complaint.
“C’mere,” I say, and pull him over by the shoulder.
Rex’s face is flushed and his hair is a mess and I can see the impression of cable-knit on his cheek, and he’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I tilt his hips up and push his knees apart and then I’m right back there, sliding us back together, connecting us as we should be. I drag his chin to mine and kiss him with everything that I have, feeling his erection pulse between us.
“Daniel,” Rex says brokenly as I start thrusting again. His voice is choked and he squeezes his eyes shut as he moans. With every thrust, he rolls his hips to meet mine, causing us to meet powerfully and sending tiny explosions of ecstasy through me. I can feel the tingling in my lower back and belly and I push my orgasm back, determined to make this last as long as I can.
I pull all the way out of Rex and slide back into him as slowly as I can, the initial feeling of breaching his body almost as intoxicating as the glorious slide deep inside him. I pinch his nipples, just watching his face, trying to read what he needs from me there. Seeing Rex like this, all his strength at the mercy of my body—and him loving it—is about the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.
Rex arches his back against my assault on his nipples and throws his head back. I kiss his neck and take his weeping erection in my hand. I pump him firmly and his hips pulse, driving me even deeper inside him. I can barely think. Every beat of my heart is thumping in my ears, pulsing in my stomach, and pushing blood into my cock until I feel like one big heartbeat, pulsing inside Rex’s body.
I kiss his mouth and his arms come around me, holding me against him.
“I’m so close,” he says against my lips, and, curling his hands around my hips, he pulls me even closer against him.
I kiss him once more, then pull all the way out and slam back into him, feeling the tendrils of my orgasm begin to unfurl, starting in my balls and the base of my spine and pulsing outward. I slam into Rex’s heat again and again, and then it’s as if time stops because Rex freezes, his whole body clenching up. He convulses, squeezing me with impossible pressure, and then he’s coming, shooting against my chest in pulse after pulse of heat. With a roar, I milk one last convulsion from him and he falls back against the bed, moaning.
“Oh my god,” I mutter. That was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.
I’m right on the edge, staring at Rex’s beautiful face. I touch the tip of his spent cock, mesmerized by one last bead of come quivering there, and Rex clenches violently, squeezing me. I cry out, and Rex does it again, clenches around me. And it’s over; I’m spiraling into an orgasm that wrings every drop of pleasure from my body. I’m thrusting deep inside his body and my ass is clenching and I can hear myself groaning, but all I can concentrate on are the bolts of electricity tearing through me, pushing everything out of me.
I collapse on top of Rex and his arms immediately enfold me.
“Oh, Danny,” he murmurs, “Oh.”
The nickname shoots straight through me, bringing the warmth of a very different kind of pleasure.
But even though every nerve is singing, I’m asleep in seconds.
I awaken sometime in the night to feel Rex moving against me. I’m half-asleep, but I wrap my arms around his neck and our mouths find each other again. I can’t see anything, but I can feel Rex’s hard body and his heat, and I can feel his erection pushing against my thigh. I roll so our chests are touching and throw my leg over his hip, opening myself up to him. All the time, we never stop kissing. For a moment I even think I’m dreaming, but Rex wraps his huge hand around my half-asleep cock and brings me to full hardness. In the dark, he’s everywhere, arms and legs and chest and hands and sweet, hot mouth. As we grind together, slowly working ourselves back up, Rex hums into my mouth with pleasure.
He drops an arm over my hip and dips his fingers into my crack.
“Can I…?” he asks and I kiss him yes. Then he has the lube and his fingers are moving inside me, slicking me up and transforming my liquid, dreamy arousal to hard need.
“Come here to me,” he says, and pulls me on top of him as he lies on his back. We grind together while he fingers me and my eyes have adjusted to the dark just enough to see that his eyes are closed and he has a little smile on his face. I close my eyes too, and pretend we’re in one shared dream.
He lifts my hips and fits me on top of him, sliding me down so his erection breaches me slowly.
I cry out in ecstasy, and I have the strangest sensation that I’m still fucking Rex. That my cock is inside him at the same time as his is inside me. I know my oversensitized body is just playing tricks on me, but every pulse of Rex’s cock inside my body feels like an answering movement to my own, earlier motions. In the dark, it’s like all that’s holding me up is Rex’s erection inside me and his hands clutching my hips.
“Oh, baby,” he says and he starts to move, pulsing his hips as I roll mine, our bodies coming together in a liquid rush. I lose track of time, drifting in and out of my own pleasure and Rex’s, my fingers ghosting down his face, his neck, his chest, to the place where we’re joined.
Rex moans and laughs shallowly, and he starts bouncing his hips up off the bed, burying himself so deep inside me that my stomach clenches as the weight of my body bears me down on him. Rex lifts me by the hips and then thrusts up into me over and over until I’m just a puddle of heat and pleasure, my cock bouncing against my stomach. I want to grab it, jerk myself off, but in this strange, dreamy world of sensation, all I want is for my body to be taken over by Rex; I’m completely in thrall to him.
Finally, after what feels like hours or maybe only seconds, Rex runs his thumb over the head of my cock, spreading the slick fluid down my length. I cry out and steady myself on his shoulders, sure I’ll fall if I don’t stop the spinning in my head and the buzzing in my groin. Rex strokes me hard and the orgasm pours out of me, until I’m jerking on his cock, spewing come down on his belly, the milky whiteness quickly disappearing in the dark.
My breath stutters and I feel like a rag doll as Rex moans and keeps thrusting inside me. The sensation is almost overwhelming and, just as I know I can’t take any more, I feel him come, his groan vibrating his chest beneath my palms, scalding heat flooding my ass as Rex becomes a part of me.
Absently, I realize that means that we just had sex without a condom and, from Rex’s sudden stillness and intake of breath, he must suddenly realize it as well.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I wasn’t thinking—I didn’t.”
I should feel a cold rush of fear, but for some reason it doesn’t come.
“Are you… I mean, do you—?” I ask him.
“It’s fine,” he says. “But I didn’t mean to—”
“Shh,” I say. “You felt amazing.”
He relaxes beneath me.
“I got tested right before I moved here,” I assure him. “And it’s only been you since then.”
He picks up my hand and kisses my palm.
“I still didn’t mean to—without asking you.”
All I feel is relieved and shaky with pleasure.
I lean down and kiss Rex softly, hoping to show him that I’m okay with it—more than okay. He kisses my mouth, then my eyelids, and then he maneuvers me so that I’m lying on my side, back to his chest as he slowly slides out of me.
I feel his hesitation, so I take his hand and bring it to my opening. He slides his fingers inside me, feeling his come leaking out of me. I’m sure it won’t feel so nice in the morning, but right now, the thought that Rex will stay inside me all night feels like a warm blanket.
“Oh Jesus,” Rex murmurs. He snugs his hips up tight against my ass, gathering me close to him with his arm, and buries his face in my neck.
I have the brief, absent thought that I’ll never be able to fall asleep with him holding me so tight, and then the darkness swallows me.
13
Chapter 13
November
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I say as a thin tendril of smoke snakes toward me. By the time I turn back to the stove from jerking the charred toast out the toaster oven, the eggs have congealed in the pan. They don’t smell burned, though, so I scrape them onto the plate. I put more bread in the toaster, tipping the burned pieces in the trash. I hate wasting food, but no way am I serving Rex charcoal. Aside from the fact that it’s pretty embarrassing to have an advanced degree and not be able to apply heat to bread evenly, it’s not really the message of comfort I want to send.
Granted, maybe cooking isn’t the best medium for the message, but I wanted to do something for Rex to make up for our disastrous date last night. The toaster oven dings and I grab the toast, miraculously unburned, and scrape some butter onto it.
“What’re you doing?”
Rex appears in the doorway just as I’m about to carry the plate to him, wearing a pair of sweatpants and nothing else. He looks warm and sleepy.
“I was going for breakfast in bed, but….”
“Sorry,” Rex smiles. “Want me to go get back in bed?”
What a question. He looks positively edible himself, with his powerful shoulders braced in the doorway and the muscular expanse of his chest and stomach taking up the whole space between. His hair is messy and his stubble makes his full mouth look amazing.
“Hell yes,” I say, but in the time I’ve been gawking at him, he’s already started to move toward me. He sits on one of the stools at the counter and pulls me to stand between his legs. He looks serious, like he’s trying really hard not to bring up last night’s confession about his dyslexia but badly wants to. Then he pulls the plate toward him and his expression softens.
“I can’t believe you cooked,” he says, picking up his fork while keeping one arm twined around my waist. “Here, share with me.” Oh, right. I only made one plate.
He forks some egg into his mouth, still looking at me fondly. Then his expression becomes studiedly neutral. He chews slowly. Swallows. Tries to smile. He puts down the fork and picks up the toast, looking relieved as he takes a bite. He puts the toast down and pats my back.
“It okay?” I say.
Rex nods, but doesn’t open his mouth. He’s patting my back like you would an elderly relation.
“Rex,” I say. “Is it bad?”
He coughs a little and clears his throat.
“It was a real sweet thought, Daniel,” he says. He kisses my cheek and pulls the plate closer to him with a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. He takes another bite of egg, but before he gets it to his mouth he sighs and looks at me out of the corner of his eye.
“Um,” he says.
“What the hell?” I say, and I grab the fork from his hand and eat the eggs.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
“Fuck!” I say. “That tastes like death. Why the hell did you eat it?”
Rex starts chuckling.
I take a bite of the toast—that, at least, can’t be bad. It’s not even burned.
Wrong.
The toast tastes like I pulled it out of a burning building, the congealed butter only adding to the gross consistency. I look at Rex desperately. How can eggs and toast possibly taste that bad?
“That’s the worst thing I’ve ever tasted,” Rex says, laughing, but he pulls me to him and kisses me, so it barely even stings.
“Ew, get away,” I say. “You taste like death eggs and fire toast!”
Rex laughs deeply and buries his face in my hair.
The next week, Rex and I hang out at his house a lot. It’s this weird feeling I haven’t had since I was a kid: this sense that I want to spend all my time with someone. The last time I felt it was with Corey Appleton in seventh grade. I was captivated by him, just wanted to watch him do… whatever. The way he sharpened his pencil seemed to suggest something deeply contemplative about his character and his choice of apple juice over soda at lunch indicated a sweetness that pulled me in. Of course, when I groped him after school, sure that his companionable arm around my shoulder was a message, my heart pounding so hard with hope that I thought I might pass out, I found that nothing about his pencil-sharpening gestures or his choice of beverages had indicated shit. There was nothing sweet about the way he shoved me against the brick and definitely nothing contemplative about the way he told everyone at school what I did.
I’ve learned a lot about Rex this week too. He really is shy. I can see how hard he works to be polite to strangers, but years of saying as little as possible to avoid stuttering has made him terse. It’s clearly made people intimidated by him.
He’s also incredibly healthy. He exercises and eats well and stays hydrated, but he’s not obnoxious about it. It’s like his body is the only thing he can depend on, so he tries to make it run as well as possible, like customizing a luxury car.
There’s something about Rex that makes me feel calm. As if I’m scattered until the moment I see him and when he touches me I fly back together in a configuration that makes sense.
And ever since he told me about his dyslexia, things feel more settled between us or something. It makes sense, in that it must have been weighing on him, trying to keep it a secret. At first, I was surprised it didn’t come out sooner. I mean, how many times might I have asked him to read something to me or look something up? Then, when I thought about it, it became clear how hard he’s worked to make sure those situations didn’t arise. How much thought he must’ve put into avoiding them. How on edge he must have been, wondering if he’d be forced to out himself every time we were together. I hate that he felt like he had to do that, but I’m glad he can just relax now.
He’s worked incredibly hard to educate himself. Partly as a reaction to people thinking he was stupid due to his dyslexia, and partly because he’s just interested. He’s taught himself vocabulary and listened to books on CD.
He keeps trying to teach me to cook, but I’m hopeless, mostly because when he starts moving around the kitchen all I can do is watch him. He’ll be explaining how to mince something or how long it takes to make a hardboiled egg, and I’ll be watching the way his muscles bunch as he wields the knife or the way he blows his hair off his forehead. When he’s trying to show me how to roll out pasta dough or knead bread, I’m looking at his huge hands and strong forearms (which I’m basically obsessed with).
Once, I was so distracted by the thought of him kneading my ass the way he was kneading the bread that I was shocked to find cheese in the bread when I bit into it. Rex thought that was quite amusing, but I think he knows how hot I find watching him in the kitchen and milks it on purpose. Jesus, no wonder I can never re-create anything I see him do.
I’m cutting up pears for some delicious-sounding dessert when Rex comes up behind me, slow so he won’t startle me into cutting my finger off. He learned the hard way that I zone out sometimes when he came up behind me while I was making a fire and I almost clobbered him with a large piece of kindling.
“Sweetheart,” he says against my neck, “you don’t need to make everything so exact. You can just chop it up. It doesn’t need to b
e so much work.”
“I am just cutting it up,” I say. He’s said this to me before, but I’m not sure why he wouldn’t want it done perfectly since it’s about the only thing I can do when it comes to cooking.
“Here, look,” Rex says, easing the knife from my hand but keeping his arms around me. Hmm, it really shouldn’t be so hot to have Rex around me with a knife….
In a few easy, practiced movements he takes the pear apart. He knows exactly how deep to cut to miss the core, just how much force it takes to rend the flesh. It’s effortless.
Everything seems this effortless for him. He just has this way with objects, like, at his touch, the world becomes manageable, falling into place to be taken apart or put back together at his will.
“Got it,” I say, my throat suddenly thick with something like jealousy at Rex’s ease. Except I know it’s not that simple. Hell, I know just how uncomfortable he often is because of his shyness, his dyslexia. I still can’t help but feel like a major failure for not noticing his dyslexia earlier.
He puts the knife down and picks up a bit of pear, holding it up for me. I eat it from his hand, then kiss him, knowing he can taste it on my tongue.
“I know you think you have to be perfect at work. Out there,” he says, gesturing with his shoulder while keeping both hands on the counter, trapping me against his body. “But you don’t have to try so hard here. Not with me.”
I open my mouth to protest. But… is that what I’m doing? I never thought about it like that. I suppose I have been… on my best behavior around Rex. But that’s just because I don’t want to scare him off. I look down at Rex’s big feet, unsure of what to say.
“I just meant, you don’t have to think so much about everything you do.”
Yeah, I’ve heard that before. I challenge you to find someone who went to grad school who hasn’t.
“You know, it’s not actually that easy to just change the way you think.” It comes out a little more bitter than I meant it to.