by Nicole Casey
“Are you sure?” Dion asked as he shifted his eyes from me, to Ariana, then back again. “I really don’t have anything to do, and I’d be more than happy to help.”
“I already made plans to do it,” Ariana replied, cutting me off before I could even begin. “Thanks for the offer though.”
“No problem,” Dion said, then extended his hand to shake mine. “It was nice meeting you again, Chase. You know where to find me if you need me.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Thanks again Dion.”
With that, the man turned and walked out the open front door, only glancing back once before disappearing back into his apartment.
“What was that about?” I asked as I closed my apartment door. “You should’ve let him take me!”
“Why?” Ariana asked. “I already made plans for you.”
“What’re you—”
A knock came at the door, startling me from finishing.
“Who in the hell could that be?” I asked, turning toward the door. Ariana’s grin stopped me before I could approach. “Ariana. What did you do?”
“You’ll see,” she replied.
I turned and opened the door.
None other than Dylan stood in the doorway, dressed plainly in a T and shorts. “Hey, Chase,” he said with a smile. “Sorry if this is unexpected.”
“Dylan,” I replied, blinking. “No. It’s… fine. I just wasn’t expecting you was all.”
“I could leave, if you like. It wouldn’t be that big a deal.”
“Boy, would you look at the time,” Ariana said, looking down at her phone. “I’ve gotta go.” She then brushed past Dylan and I and began to make her way out the open door.
“Ariana!” I cried. “What about—”
“See you later!” the woman called back as she disappeared around the corner.
I could only frown as I watched her depart.
“What was that about?” Dylan asked, a frown tugging at the corner of his lip.
“I’m not sure,” I said, then smiled when it began to dawn on me. “I guess she just wanted to give the two of us time to ourselves.”
“I see,” Dylan said. “Can I come in?”
I shrugged, stepped aside, and waited for him to come in before closing the door behind him.
In the living room, Scottie watched us intently, as though waiting for something, and bobbed his head whenever Dylan and I got close to one another.
“He seems excited,” Dylan said after a moment’s consideration.
“He likes you,” I replied. “You did save his life, after all.”
“I know,” Dylan said, then smiled as he reached out to touch the bird’s head.
“I wouldn’t,” I started, knowing that Scottie was prone to biting strangers.
Instead, the bird bowed his head and allowed the fireman to scratch him, which instantly relieved me and caused a pent-up breath to be expelled from my chest.
“Question,” Dylan said after a moment of scratching Scottie. “Do you even have anything to sleep on? Like an airbed? Or a small mattress?”
“I haven’t gone shopping for anything yet,” I replied. “I figured I’d just have Ariana help me out with that.”
“Why don’t you let me take you shopping?” he asked. “I mean, at least for an air mattress. You’ll probably need a few groceries as well, considering that you’re just moving in.”
“You don’t have to do that, Dylan.”
“I want to though,” the man said, sliding his arms around my shoulders and drawing in close to my chest. “I want to help, Chase. Don’t push me away.”
“I’m not,” I said, then sighed.
I did the unthinkable next—by bridging the distance between us and pressing my head against his wide chest. I listened to the sound of his heartbeat for several long moments, during which time Scottie buzzed and purred, and while doing this, I reveled in the attention this man set upon me—of the compassion he held for my situation even though he didn’t have to.
“So,” Dylan said after a moment’s hesitation. “Want me to take you to get some groceries and a cheap air mattress?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Just let me set up something on the laptop for the bird to watch first. Then we can go.”
We ended up making our way to a local chain store, during which time we picked up groceries, the air mattress in question, a pair of blankets and pillows, and a small table and chair atop which I could place my laptop. Furniture shopping would come later, I’d said, when we had the day to actually inventory the various things I’d need and the time to do it. As things currently stood, it was getting late, I was getting hungry, and I knew I couldn’t keep Dylan at my place forever.
After we carried the groceries in, set up the table and the chair before it, and blew up the air mattress, I stood in the kitchen, staring at my cell phone as I contemplated what I wanted to eat, and waited for Dylan to say that he was departing for home. When he didn’t, however—and when he simply continued to stand in my presence, watching me with his intense green eyes that reminded me of emeralds pulled from the deepest crusts of the earth—I lifted my eyes to face him and said, “Dylan?”
“Yeah?” he replied.
“You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to.”
“I know. I want to though, Chase.”
“You’re sure?” I asked as the sound of Scottie’s movie continued in the background. “It’s not like there’s much to do around here right now.”
“I know. I have tomorrow off though, so I figured… well… if you wanted, anyhow—”
“Just come out and say it,” I smiled.
“I figured I could spend the night and we could go get your furniture tomorrow, make a day of it.”
I stared at him intently, watching him for any sign of reservation or hesitation. When I found none, however—and when he made no move to retract his statement—I smiled and said, “Are you sure?”
“As long as you’re comfortable with me staying over here, I would be more than happy to. Besides,” he then added, “I’m not so sure if I want to drive home.”
“Lazy ass,” I smiled.
“Hey—lazy or not, at least I’m hanging out here with you.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “At least you’re here with me.”
I reached out.
I took his hand.
I accepted his lips as he leaned forward to kiss me.
The bird purred and began to bob his head as we held the kiss, then as our lips parted once, twice, then a third time.
When I pulled away, I smiled, licked my lips, and said, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For all your help. I really appreciate it.”
“I know you do, Chase.” Dylan retrieved his cell phone from his pocket and gave it the once over before flipping it over to reveal a fast food app. “Want to go get tacos?”
“Tia!” the bird cried.
“Yeah,” I laughed. “Tortillas it is.”
***
After we ate, and after the sun went down and Scottie was officially put to bed for the night, Dylan and I lounged in the room I had designated for my sleeping quarters. Shirts off, laptop set before me, I navigated my list of digital movies that I had downloaded to my computer’s external hard drive and tried to determine what, if anything, might be suitable to watch.
“Anything in particular you’re interested in?” I asked as I leaned forward and pushed my glasses up my nose.
“Yeah,” Dylan said. “You.”
He snaked a hand along my abdomen and pressed his lips against the back of my neck before allowing them to fall to my collarbone. Shivering, now, from the sensation of his facial hair across his smooth skin, I reached back to take hold of his head and sighed as he pressed several light kisses along my shoulder blade. “Dylan,” I said.
“Yeah?” he replied, pulling away.
I turned my head and pressed my lips against his, allowing his tongue to part my mouth and th
en slide into it. We kissed like this for several moments, parting mouths and sliding tongues across one another’s, before I pulled back and said, “Mmm.”
“You like that, baby?” he asked.
“I love it,” I replied.
“Then you’ll love this.”
He took my hand and placed it over the throbbing erection tenting his shorts.
“You have a condom on you?” I asked as I leaned down to pop his belt, then slide his zipper down his shorts.
“Do I ever,” Dylan said. “In my wallet. In my back pocket.”
I reached around, taking extra care to cop a feel of his finely-muscled ass, before withdrawing the wallet from his pocket.
Inside the front flap I found a single black condom, ready and willing to be opened.
As I slid the contraceptive out of the leather wallet, Dylan shucked his shorts, fished his cock out of his briefs, and presented it to my waiting mouth.
I didn’t hesitate to slide the condom on his dick, then my mouth over it right afterward.
“Fuck,” he moaned, reaching up to tangle his hand in my hair. “Shit, Chase.”
“You like that?” I asked, running my tongue along the throbbing head, which wept precome beneath the condom’s protective surface. “If so, then you’ll love this.”
I took a deep breath, prepared myself for what was to come, then swallowed him all the way down to the base.
He moaned almost instantly and bucked into my throat, causing his hips to rise off the air mattress and his tight hole to be exposed for one brief moment. My dick throbbed at the sight and caused the wet spot developing at the front of my pants to widen as fresh precome pumped from the head of my restrained dick. I reached down to paw at myself briefly before sliding my lips off of Dylan’s dick, slipping my thumb through the spit, then aiming my thumb at Dylan’s hole.
The moment my thumb touched his pink opening he groaned and threw his head back. “Yeah, Chase. Finger my hole.”
A guy who likes it both ways, I thought, then chuckled as I circled my thumb around his hole, causing the man before me to groan in feverish anticipation for what he knew was likely to come. I pressed the digit against his opening and pushed, gently, until it parted, and moaned around his cock as my thumb slid into his asshole willingly, his sphincter contracting around my digit with an intensity I hadn’t expected from a man whom I was certain was only a top until that moment.
Dylan, panting, leaned back and drove more of my thumb into him. “Fuck,” he groaned. “Fucccck.”
“I didn’t take you for a versatile man,” I said as I drew off of his dick.
“Not much for being fucked myself, but I like my hole being played with.”
Shame, I thought. Your tight ass would feel great around my dick.
Still, that didn’t matter. If we kept seeing each other, I would eventually wear him down. His ass would be mine someday. I’d make sure of it.
I chuckled as I returned to deep-throating him—as I fished my digit out from his anus and reached down to free myself from my sweatpants. I groaned as I touched myself and began to stroke my dick in tune to the way I sucked Dylan’s—first slowly, then quickly, then with more force. He bucked, several times, during these happenings, and though I desperately wanted him to fuck me, I didn’t have any lube in the apartment, so this would have to do.
“I’m gonna come,” Dylan said after several deep breaths. “Keep sucking baby. I’m cuh-cuh-cuh—”
The condom ballooned beneath my tongue.
My cock throbbed once and I came all over Dylan’s leg.
I kept sucking as Dylan’s orgasm faded, as his hips bucked against my face and my fingers instinctively found his hole again. I penetrated him—with two fingers this time—and curled my fingers until I touched his prostate.
He cried out.
He came harder within my mouth.
When I finally drew back—when I looked at his body, prone and vulnerable, and saw the fresh coat of sweat gleaming upon his tanned skin, I smiled and said, “You know I’m going to fuck you someday.”
“We’ll see about that,” he laughed as he leaned forward and took hold of my face, kissing me deeply for several long moments, our tongues dancing and our lips melding against one another’s. He pulled away a short moment later and said, “We should shower and get some sleep if we want to get up and fuck around in the morning.”
“All right,” I said, a bit disappointed that we wouldn’t be going any further with this. “If you say so.”
“You sound disappointed,” he chuckled as he rose and dragged me out of the bed with him. “Shit, Chase. You came all over my leg.”
“Now you sound disappointed,” I laughed.
“Quite the contrary. I just don’t want to make a mess on your carpet.”
“I could care less about the mess,” I replied. “Besides—I just want to get you in the shower and soap you up.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Dylan said, then dragged me out of the bedroom and into the bathroom.
After we showered the sex and sweat from our bodies, we made our way out of the bathroom and settled down onto the bed, where we watched reruns of an old sitcom on my laptop while waiting to fall asleep. Used to late nights of writing and the adventures that came with them, I was still wide awake by the time Dylan passed out on his side of the mattress, one arm tucked under his pillow and his hard lean body rising and falling ever so slowly. His breaths—though soft—were comforting, and reminded me of a time and place when I was in a relationship.
You’re falling too fast, I was quick to remind myself. Remember that.
Still—it was hard not to be attracted to the man before me, to the savior complex within his DNA and the kindness that inhabited his heart. He’d remained behind for me: had taken me to the store and had promised to both help me acquire and then put together new furniture. It was, undoubtedly, bliss, and caused my heartstrings to fluctuate in response.
I stared at him for several long moments—watching him sleep, watching him breathe, watching him exist—and realized that this was something I wanted, regardless of whatever conventional approach thought.
I can’t ask him now, I thought, sighing, sliding my laptop’s lid shut before crawling up alongside Dylan and settling down into bed. He’d freak out.
And run for the hills, no less. We’d only been seeing each other for ten days, yet the connection was there, the attraction undeniable, the sex explosive and completely satisfactory. There was nothing I didn’t like about this man—at least, not that I’d yet to encounter—and though I longed to explore his body and mind in ways I’d yet to experience, I knew I couldn’t even begin to propose going steady.
I settled down beside him and reached out to touch his shoulder.
When my hand settled firmly against his skin, I longed to be touched further—to feel our bodies together, flesh-on-flesh, matter against matter.
So I drew against him—and was surprised when, even in his sleep, Dylan reached out and set an arm across my shoulders to hold me closer against him.
His breath against mine, the swell of his chest against my own—it was nothing short of bliss.
I fell asleep that night in the arms of a man for the first time in months.
There wasn’t a feeling in the world that could compare to it.
***
We woke early the following morning and participated in a ritual that I found completely normal considering that we had only just spent our first night together. We showered, we shaved, we dressed in the clothes from the previous night, then ate a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon, which I prepared while Dylan attended to Scottie’s early morning rituals. The casualness of it was almost eerie—like we’d actually been living together or seeing one another for a far longer time—and nearly caused me to believe that we were an actual couple, joined by a bond of words and flesh and blood. Instead, I realized, we were simply a comparable match; and as we bade Scottie goodbye that morning before
walking out the door, I reached out and brushed a hand against his arm and smiled as the hairs parted beneath my touch.
“You all right?” Dylan asked.
“I’m fine,” I replied. “Just glad to have some company is all. It gets lonely sometimes, just me and the bird.”
“I can only imagine,” Dylan said as we began to make our way down the pathway, toward where his truck awaited us in my designated parking spot. “So… where do we want to head first? To get clothes? To buy furniture?”
“I think clothes shopping would be faster than furniture shopping,” I replied, then smiled as he slid an arm across my shoulder. “Dylan!” I laughed.
“What?” he replied as he ran his fingertips across my shoulder blade. “You ticklish?”
“There,” I said, then laughed as he began to assault my skin even further. “Dylan! Stop that!”
“I didn’t know you were ticklish,” he replied, spinning me around and then tickling me under my arms, along my ribcage, across my hips. “That turns me on.”
“You’re turning me off faster than I can count to ten,” I said. “Dylan! Stop that!”
“All right,” he said, pulling away. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss against my temple before sliding his arm across my shoulder again, this time without tickling me mercilessly. “So—clothes shopping it is then.”
We had just climbed into the truck when I spotted a lithe, shirtless figure making his way across the lawn, his dark skin glistening with a light sheen of sweat at this early but still hot hour of the morning.
“You looking at what I’m looking at?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Dylan replied. “I am.”
It was obvious, from the way we were both perving on the man, that he was each of our types. Tall, well-toned, with long, muscular limbs and striking blue eyes, the man was an Adonis—the perfect specimen of the male figure. And he was heading straight toward us.
“You gonna replace me with him?” I asked with a hint of nervous laughter.
“Replace you?” he asked, then laughed. “Dude’s probably straight as hell.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” I replied. Dylan started the car and began to back out of the parking lot just as Dion turned and made his way up the opposite pathway. “Still… he’s nice to look at.”