“How are we going to do these wagers?” Connor asked.
“We could bet on each level?”
“That sounds good.” His voice was weird. Lighter than normal.
“Let’s say that whoever beats the first level gets to choose which piece of clothing the other loses.”
“Travis, have you played this before?”
“A couple times.”
“Level one in the first world is easy. Most likely whoever plays it first will be the only one who plays it, so that’s not a very fair wager.”
I sighed. Sometimes his precision was cute.
Not today.
All right, that was a lie. I always thought he was cute. It was a problem.
“What do you suggest, then?”
“How about if you finish the first level in under two minutes, you get to pick a piece of clothing for me to take off?”
“God, fine. Whatever.”
I started the level, playing as Mario, and died right before I got to the end.
With a smile, he said, “My turn. Same wager?”
“Sure.”
He finished the level in seventy freaking seconds. He got one of those leaf things, flew over the level as a raccoon, and then found an extra life and a secret passageway. Which, like, how did that make sense? Why could the raccoon fly?
“What. The. Fuck.”
“I want you to take off the shirt,” he said, a tiny smile creeping into his voice.
I ripped it over my head. “Are you really good at this game, or am I really bad?”
“Both, it seems.”
“Fuck you.” I laughed. “How’d you get so good at this?”
He shrugged. “My mom likes this game. We played it as a family a lot, even after we got newer consoles.”
I should have felt betrayed—he was essentially hustling me—but instead I was impressed by his Machiavellian maneuverings.
“What do you want to wager now?” he asked with an evil, and attractive, gleam in his eye.
We went on like this, with Connor helping me through every level. He knew where all the secrets were and kept winning extra lives. I was definitely coming out on the bottom in terms of our wagers. By the time we’d made it to the third world, Connor had started an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of the shit I owed him, like a huge fucking nerd, and I was playing dirty. I bet him that he couldn’t get through one of the levels with me kissing his neck the whole time.
I was wrong.
He was out of breath at the end, though, and giving me an obscene show in his Wranglers. I changed tactics.
“If I die during this underwater level, then you have to spank me fifteen times.”
His eyes were greener tonight, and bright, like he was full of adrenaline. His silky, auburn hair was sticking up everywhere from my hands.
“You enjoy being spanked. You win if you lose.”
“Exactly.” I kissed his ear.
“What if you beat the level?”
“I won’t.”
“What if I beat the level?”
He pulled me into his lap, his huge callused hands scraping against the bare skin at my waist. He was, of course, still wearing most of his clothes, and I was in nothing but my boxers and my glasses. I was extremely bad at this game.
“What do you want if you win?” I asked.
He grabbed my chin and excitement rippled through me. I was putty in his hands when he touched me all rough like that. Sometimes, at night alone in my bed, I imagined his fingers on my throat, his palm on my Adam’s apple, touching me with that same degree of roughness.
“To fuck.”
Oh, well, well, well. That was an interesting development. So far, we’d stuck to hand stuff and blowjobs, but I wasn’t opposed to sex.
“Can I bottom in this scenario?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Can we be done with videogames after this level?”
He nodded again, but this time with a filthy fucking smile. I stuck my pinkie in his dimple.
“Deal.”
I, predictably, died on purpose, and he, predictably, added my spankings to his spreadsheet. It was the dirtiest use of a spreadsheet I’d ever heard of, and I loved it.
He picked up his controller with slightly shaky hands and started the level. His breath was measured, but too much so, like he was trying hard not to show his nerves. My own nerves were out of control, as if I’d been dialed up to ten and was blowing out the speakers. Goosebumps exploded over my skin when he won.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked. “We don’t have to. These wagers aren’t binding or anything.”
“I want to.”
I did. I wanted to feel him inside me more than I’d wanted anyone in a long time, and that was a hard pill to swallow. I’d gotten good at erecting walls around my heart when we were together. I didn’t want to get too attached, not when there was no chance of a future. But tonight, he was deconstructing that wall brick by brick.
“Good,” he said.
It was amazing how one simple word, spoken in his intense, deep voice, could tip a world on edge. I liked no-strings sex. I liked it rough. But that word made me want to beg. To be his and his alone.
“I need to tell you something first,” he said.
“What is it?”
He took a deep breath. “I’m . . . well, I’m kind of a virgin.”
Chapter Eleven
CONNOR
I probably should have kept my virginity a secret, since I was so close to losing it. It wasn’t like Travis needed to know. He wasn’t my boyfriend, no matter how much I wished that were different. I was a stopgap in his life.
My admission seemed to echo around his living room and taunt me. I’m kind of a virgin. I’m kind of a virgin. It rang out to the beat of the Super Mario Brothers 3 theme song.
I didn’t even really like that word. Virgin. And I was hating it more by the second. I’d done lots of other shit, just not this one thing that I wanted to do quite badly.
“Bedroom,” Travis said and pointed, his voice forceful.
He shut off the Nintendo and stalked me into his room. I perched nervously on his desk, and he sat on the bed. The lights were off except for a string of Edison bulbs stretching from corner to corner on his ceiling, lending the room an atmospheric, romantic glow. I loved that string of lights. It was so Travis. Artsy and warm and different.
“So you’ve never slept with a guy?” he asked. “Is that why you said ‘kind of?’”
“I’ve never slept with anyone.”
“Why not?”
I hated that question. There wasn’t a carefully laid out argument for why I was still a virgin. I just was.
“I don’t know. It’s not like I’ve been saving myself, and I’ve obviously done other stuff.”
“You’ve had girlfriends though, haven’t you?”
I shrugged. “Yes. Two. One in high school and one during my second year here.”
“And you never had penetrative sex with either of them?”
Ugh. Was there a less sexy phrase than “penetrative sex”? A memory of my mom giving me the birds-and-bees talk flashed in my head. She’d said, “Connor, if you don’t feel comfortable talking openly about it, then you shouldn’t be having it.”
I gritted my teeth. “No. I’ve never had penetrative sex with anyone. I wasn’t ready in high school, and the woman I dated my sophomore year had a medical condition that made it painful. We were happy doing other stuff.”
“Hmm. All right.” His forehead was creased with a frown.
He was making me nervous, so I started babbling. “I’m not even sure that I like that definition of virginity. That’s why I said ‘kind of.’ I’ve given head to people of all genders, which I love doing, and I’ve received it. I’ve done lots of other stuff that I consider sex. Those things aren’t less than.”
Travis nodded and scratched his cheek. “I agree, but you’re the one who called yourself a virgin.”
&nb
sp; I tried not to growl. “I know, but I don’t know what else to call it. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I shouldn’t conform to society’s definitions and all that.”
A small smile flitted across Travis’s face. “That is very Human Sexuality 101 of you. I like it.”
This was getting ridiculous. “You’re pissing me off, Travis.”
“Why?”
“Because frankly, it’s none of your business. I shouldn’t have told you, except I thought you’d want to know why I was fumbling and bad at it. Now you’re acting weird.”
“I seriously doubt you’ll be bad at it. You’re assertive, ridiculously precise, and hung. You’ll be fine.”
He stood and paced away from the bed. I stepped away from the desk and took his place on the bed.
“Come here,” I said, trying to infuse my voice with the demanding tone that he liked so much.
He sighed and trudged over to me, standing between my legs. “Maybe you should wait until you’re with someone special. I’m not sure I want you to give me your kind-of virginity.”
I pulled him onto the mattress and reversed our positions, straddling his waist. “Okay, number one—you are someone special. You’re my friend, and I know you’re not going to be a dick to me tomorrow. That’s literally the only stipulation I have. Two—I’m not giving you anything. It’s not a transaction or an unstained flower or whatever other metaphor the evangelicals try to thrust in our faces. I don’t see it as this big important thing.”
“How do you see it, then?” He slid his hands up my thighs, and I gripped his wrists tightly. His eyelids fluttered closed.
“I don’t know. Penetrative sex is something that I haven’t done but want to. Eventually it will be something that I have.”
He grinned. “You’re the opposite of sentimental.”
I squeezed his wrists, pressing in on the bone until he let out a low groan. “You’re right. I’m not sentimental about this, but I’ve never been as comfortable about sex as I am with you. Still, if you don’t want to do this, that’s fine. We don’t have to.”
He opened his eyes. “I do want to. So are we going to work slowly through our wager list, or are we going to skip straight to the grand finale?”
“Is the grand finale the millions of spankings I get to give you?”
A laugh cracked out of him. “No. It’s your cock in my ass. Trust me. You’ll love it.”
I had no doubt about that.
“I think I can hit some of the wager highlights. Take your boxers off.” I let go of his wrists and stood.
He shimmied out of his underwear and stared up at me, his beautiful eyes dark and needy. I gently removed his glasses.
“Now take my clothes off.”
His Adam’s apple hitched, and his fingers trembled as he removed my cowboy boots. Then he unbuttoned my jeans and slid them off. My undershirt went next. He glanced up for permission to pull my boxer briefs down, and I granted it with a nod of my head. The control he was giving me helped calm the nerves in my stomach.
Once I was naked too, he wrapped his hands around my hips and kissed the taut skin above my trimmed bush. I stared at his long fingers, the delicate bones of his wrists, the fine hairs on his forearm.
“Lie down,” I whispered, voice craggy. He stretched out, putting his whole glorious body on display. The lights around the ceiling reflected off his skin from every direction, illuminating all his hard, sharp angles and soft, smooth curves. “God, you’re hot.”
He grinned and crooked a finger. “Let me blow you first. I’m pretty sure I owe you one.”
“You owe me three.” The Excel spreadsheet didn’t lie.
“I’m good for it. Come here. Straddle my shoulders.”
There was no way I could resist that. His hands roamed all over me—my thighs, my ass, my hips—touching me with possession and urgency as he took me in his mouth. When I was getting too close, I began to pull back, but he rubbed a rough fingertip against my hole. I lost it so unexpectedly that my vision went wonky.
My momentum had me pulling away. I wasn’t coordinated enough to course correct, which meant half of my come landed on his chin rather than in his mouth.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, shocked. “I didn’t mean to come. On your face.”
He stared up at me, a grin tipping up the edges of his plush, dark lips. “It was sexy.”
A shudder rippled through me. I thumbed some of the semen off his chin and wiped it on his bottom lip. He pulled his lip into his mouth and sucked it clean.
“You don’t make noise when you come, or during sex at all, besides talking. Did you know that?” he asked.
I cringed because, yes, that had been pointed out to me before, believe it or not.
“It’s not on purpose. It’s not because I’m not enjoying myself.”
“Did you like coming on my face?” he asked. I nodded. “That surprises me, since you’re normally so fastidious.” He bit his lip on a smile.
“Oh, breaking out the five-dollar words in bed, I see.”
He laughed, his voice lifting to the rafters like bells. I wanted to catch that laughter inside myself, hold it tight in case it disappeared.
“I am fastidious, which is why I’m getting a towel to clean you up, and one to put down on the bed so we don’t make a bigger mess.”
He pointed to his closet, and I found a washrag and a towel inside. Then I stripped his comforter off the bed, yanking it out from under him, and laid the towel down on the sheets. I didn’t want to get lube everywhere.
After he’d wiped off his face, I flipped him onto his stomach and watched all his muscles shift. He had deep dimples above his ass, and his spine was shiny with sweat already. His butt cheeks flexed, and I couldn’t help myself. I spanked him.
“Oh fuck,” he gasped, his shoulder blades rising like wings before he relaxed back onto the bed. I wasn’t sure what it was about spanking him that made my whole body flush with anticipation and heat, but every time my hand connected, something fell into place inside me.
I pulled a condom and lube out of his bedside table and tossed them within easy reach.
Towel, lube, condom—check, check, check. Now we were in business.
“Tell me if I do anything wrong,” I said, and he nodded.
I traced a thumb down his crack, enjoying his shivery reaction, and tapped on his dark hole. Of all the guys I’d fooled around with, I’d never taken my time with any of them until Travis.
“Will you hold yourself open for me?”
He obeyed with a small, wrecked moan. I drank in every one of his reactions. I needed him to feel as turned on as me, to like this as much as I did.
He writhed a little, and I put my hands on the backs of his thighs, pressing him into the bed and holding him still. “Don’t move.”
I wanted to do this, and it made me nervous, but good nervous. Like free-falling-from-the-top-of-a-rollercoaster nervous. As opposed to sick nervous, where my skin was clammy and my stomach hurt.
I leaned in and licked across his hole. His body jolted and I glanced up, watching the long, beautiful line of his spine roll.
“Oh. My. God,” he bit out, as I kissed him there again. “Pretty sure rimming wasn’t on your super-special spreadsheet.”
“Want me to stop?” I asked. I wanted to keep going. The nerves in my chest were unraveling like old rope. His reactions were almost as hot as when he was being spanked.
“Fuck no. If you’d stop being so shy about it, it’d feel amazing.”
I smiled and bit his ass. “Want me to tie you up?” That had been a wager—one that Travis had won.
“Hell yes.”
Excitement rushed through me, and I glanced around the room searching for options.
“Pick your poison. Your scarf or the shoelaces from your boots?”
“Well, I don’t want to have to re-lace my Timbs after the sex, Connor,” he said, his voice dry as hay.
“Scarf it is, then.”
The scarf
was hanging off the back of his office chair, so I stepped out of bed to grab it. I loved this scarf. It was cloud-soft cashmere and pale blue. When he wore it to class, I wanted to bury my face in that perfect place where the wool met his smooth skin.
After getting back in bed with him, I looped the scarf around his wrists and tied it to one of the slats in his metal headboard. It was a rush job. He’d be able to get loose if he wanted because the scarf was stretchy. There was enough slack that he could move around some, either lay flat on his stomach or get up on his elbows and knees.
“Is that good?”
He nodded, his breath thundering out of him. He yanked on the binds, his biceps flexing.
“It’s perfect,” he whispered.
I moved back down to his ass. “So, I shouldn’t be shy. Is that what you said?”
“Yes. Please.” He buried his face against the bed.
I played for a while, alternating between screwing my tongue inside him, tasting him, going as deep as possible, and tracing his tight muscle with slow licks. I’d wondered about this particular act. Worried that it’d lock me up like kissing sometimes did, but I was so focused on making Travis feel as good as possible that my mind was blessedly free of uneasiness. He was so vocal that I had no doubt he was enjoying it, which was a relief. I liked knowing I wasn’t fucking this up.
I liked it more than I expected.
I liked it a lot.
His reactions doubled inside me until I was thrumming with tension.
“Oh God. Oh God. Connor. Your hands,” he chanted, and I stopped. His turned-on babble was one of my favorite things about fooling around with him. Normally, only spanking got him there, though. He groaned, “Your hands.”
“What about them?”
“They’re so rough. It’s good.”
My fingers were digging into his ass cheeks, my thumbs right on his crack, and yes, I was probably holding him too tight. I hadn’t even realized, but I wasn’t going to stop now.
“This is nice,” I said, and he stuttered out a breathy moan.
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