by Neve Wilder
“Very funny.”
He chuckled and turned to the cabinets, retrieving some plates, and gathered a couple of forks and a knife. I took the plates from him and set them on the table.
“Do you still talk to your parents at all? Is that okay to ask?” I tried to gauge his expression and didn’t notice any kind of wince or grimace or impending shutdown that suggested I’d hit a nerve.
Instead, he laughed. “Of course it’s okay to ask. I talk to them on rare occasions.” He rolled one shoulder. “It is what it is. When I came out senior year, that was probably the roughest period. Once I got to college, I realized I was giving them too much space in my head and I could either continue doing that or meet them where they were and detach myself, so that’s what I did. They did the same.”
He sliced into the cake and eased a thick pink wedge onto a plate, then pulled out the chair next to him and told me to sit. I did so without a second thought, and when I started snickering, he eyed me sidelong.
“What?”
“This is bizarrely wholesome in a way, right? We’ve just eaten dinner at the diner where we used to hang out, walked around the city, played arcade games, and now we’re eating homemade strawberry cake and vanilla ice cream at your kitchen table.”
“Is it too much? Are you about to break out into song?”
“Only if you’ve got a choreographed dance ready to go. Our musical won’t be complete otherwise.”
Dane narrowed his eyes at me as if ready to pass judgment. “Are you thinking Sound of Music?”
“More along the lines of The Greatest Showman. Remember the routine Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron do together in the bar?” I sighed happily as I cut into my cake.
“Oh god yes. I was hoping at the end they’d start spontaneously making out. Say to hell with the circus and their families and travel the world doing vaudeville shows and having copious sex.”
I choked around a bite of cake. “That would have been a very different musical.”
“But a good one.”
“Wow, we’re gay.”
“Appears so.” Dane grinned as he sat down next to me and forked a bite of cake into his mouth, closing his eyes with apparent pleasure as he hummed low in his throat, and it was only slightly weird that I was getting aroused because of a sound he was making in response to a cake my mom made.
“Fuck, I forgot what a baker your mom is.”
“I’m sure she’d gladly keep you supplied if you just asked.”
“Hold on, I’ve got one more thing.” The legs of Dane’s chair scraped as he leaned back and stretched to open the fridge, fishing around the door shelves to return with a bottle of chocolate syrup, which he drizzled liberally over his cake and ice cream, then offered to me.
I waved it away. “No way, that’s too much.”
“Your loss.” He shrugged, then loaded up his spoon and extended it in my direction. “Try the trifecta of sweetness.”
“You’re going to feed me now?”
“Who says romance is dead?”
I scoffed and leaned toward him, opening my mouth expectantly. Dane brought the spoon to my lips, the wet chill of ice cream and the rich chocolate syrup blooming on the tip of my tongue. Just a taste, and then he jerked the spoon back and I scowled because now I wanted that bite, dammit. But I was too stubborn to chase after it, so I kept my mouth open, waiting, noting the way Dane’s eyes darkened with desire as he moved the spoon closer again.
“That’s fucking sexy, you with your mouth open like that, waiting for me.” He hummed in approval, and this time instead of pushing the bite into my mouth, he angled the spoon at the last moment. Cake, ice cream, and syrup collided with my upper lip and smeared all over it.
“What the hell?” I darted my tongue out to try to catch the drips at the same time I shoved him backward, a glob of ice cream plopping onto his pants.
He let out another one of those smooth chuckles and gave a hapless shrug. “Just seeing how dirty you really like it.” His eyes twinkled. “Your mouth looks absolutely obscene right now. I approve.”
I swiped my tongue over my upper lip and knuckled the rest of the mess away. My gaze dropped to my own cake, then lifted to meet Dane’s eyes, and the silly grin on his face faded, replaced by something more predatory and hungry. “Question is, do you like it just as dirty?”
“Try me.” The challenge in his tone was alluring enough that I scooped my finger through the cake and ice cream sludge on my plate and lifted it, dripping, toward his face. Dane leaned in and held still, eyes holding mine as his lips parted and he waited. It might have been the most ridiculous showdown in history, but fuck if it wasn’t turning me on like crazy.
I dashed an icing-covered fingertip over the center of his lower lip, and his tongue darted out, flicking lightly at my skin before he enveloped my finger in his mouth. I went instantly hard, unable to avoid a metaphorical fantasy where it was my dick he was sucking and licking instead.
Dane caught me by the wrist and pulled my finger free, teeth scraping lightly, teasingly over my knuckles while my heart beat wildly in my chest and my cock swelled painfully. He kept going, pressing the flat of his tongue to my palm and licking from wrist to fingertips slowly.
Pleasure roared through me, sensitive nerve endings unused to such a featherlight touch igniting with bliss. My palm of all things—who would’ve thought? When he did it again, my eyes fell shut and I felt the heat of his body move closer to me, his breath wash over my chin. He licked my upper lip, corner to corner, just as slow and sensual as he’d done with my palm, and I moaned softly because it felt so insanely good. Every part of my body seemed connected to my cock, all the nerve endings running toward the same southerly hub, transmitting zings of pleasure straight to my balls.
“You’re very edible.” He spoke in a teasing murmur, and I opened my eyes, dazed with the flush of heat and arousal moving through my body. “Don’t move.”
When Dane picked up the spoon again, I thought he was going to feed me more cake or maybe smear it on me somewhere, but instead he sucked it clean, then leaned to flick open the buttons on my shirt and shove it over my shoulders before taking one of my nipples between his teeth. The other got the round curve of the spoon pressed against it.
I jerked with the chill and moaned as his tongue glided over my skin. He let a dollop of ice cream melt into the curve of the spoon and drip in frigid, tantalizing drops along my collarbone and down my chest. It ran in rivulets over my abdomen, gaining speed with my exhales, and Dane chased them with his mouth, lapping and sucking my skin while my rigid cock leaked and twitched.
“Isn’t that gonna have the opposite effect?” I panted as he unzipped me and held another spoonful of ice cream above my jutting cock.
“On me? No. On you, maybe, but I’ll fix that.” He flashed me a wink.
Fuck, it was freezing, and sticky as hell running down my shaft. Dane nudged my legs wider in the chair, and spoon after spoon of ice cream dribbled over my cock, onto my pants and the floor. The chocolate syrup came next in thick, glossy ribbons over my chest. He painted my lips and my chin, then licked them clean, tongue driving against mine as his hands roamed over my body, stroking, caressing, and tugging my cock.
Never in my life had I imagined I’d enjoy being covered in chocolate, ice cream, and cake. It was like an erotica version of being tarred and feathered, and I gripped the underside of the chair, writhing on top of it as my body flooded with fire and ice in equal, maddening measure.
I was way too close to coming apart when Dane leaned back and ticked his chin toward the table. It took me a second to understand the question in his eyes. Or maybe it was more along the lines of a demand.
I eyed the cake, the syrup, the ice cream, then Dane himself before nodding emphatically. “Fuck yes, let’s do this.”
“Clothes off.” Definitely an order.
We stood, knocking into each other as we undressed and cleared the table. He reached for me, pulling me into a deep kiss, working my pants down
my thighs as I fumbled for his, undid his belt, and lowered his zipper. His cock sprang free, and I squeezed it, stroking his thick shaft until he pushed me back and we kicked our clothes the rest of the way off.
“Get up there,” he said, and fire licked through me at the commanding tone.
“Will it hold me?” It looked like a solid table, but then again, I’d never fucked on a table, and the way we’d gone after each other last time made me think reinforcements might be necessary.
“It better. I put it together myself.” He squeezed the hand I’d wrapped around his cock, then pried my fingers free.
“Like your bookcase in Mr. Hibertson’s class?” We’d had Practical Living together sophomore year, and his shelves had collapsed dramatically in the middle of his presentation.
“Fluke.” He swatted my ass, and I gingerly eased on top of the table. There was only a slight wobble, which I supposed was comforting.
“What about your birdhouse?”
“Technically sound, just ugly as sin. Besides, what the hell does a birdhouse have to do with practical living?” Dane hovered over me, then dipped low, braceleting my wrists and guiding them up. “Arms behind your head. Keep them there.”
From the edge of the table, he surveyed me, thumb running over his lower lip. I tucked my chin and looked down the length of my body. The smears of chocolate all over my arms and legs. The cake crumbs clinging stubbornly to my chest hair. The ice cream glazing my ribs and cock. I thought I looked frightening, but Dane’s expression said I looked delicious, so I went with it. Our eyes met as he picked up the spoon and the chocolate syrup, and I thumped my head back on the table, breaths coming faster in anticipation as he tipped the syrup bottle over my belly.
I took a deep breath and held it as syrup oozed out and plopped onto my stomach like the lightest caress. “I’m ticklish.”
“I remember.” Dane’s grin was full of devilish intent.
He worked me over for the next half hour, a feat of edging with the sweetest accessories of torture. Syrup rained over me and ran off the edges of the table. I gorged on the bits of cake he fed me by hand, licked ice cream from his lips, then arched and cried out when he took my cock in his mouth, sucking me clean only to get me filthy again.
And when I didn’t think I could stand it anymore, when I was a sugary, groaning mess of pent-up desire, Dane helped me off the table, then bent me over it, cock sliding up and down the seam of my ass while our bodies collided with lewd squishes of sound. He pressed inside me like it was nothing, and I didn’t even give a shit what he’d used for lube, as long as he kept hammering my prostate like he wanted me to fall apart from the inside out.
He slid an arm over my chest and yanked me close to him, lips at my throat, breath like static over my skin.
“Oh Jesus,” I whispered as he raked through a mound of icing on the table and fisted my cock. The sticky-smooth texture was unlike anything else, and I bucked into his hand, coming on a hoarse cry of pure ecstasy. Dane arched into me, messy hand splayed over my heart as he growled and came apart in forceful thrusts, flooding me with heat that made my knees go wobbly.
I collapsed to my elbows on the table, and he draped over my back, frosting-and-cum-smeared hand skidding across the tabletop until I made a grab for it to keep us both from toppling.
“Fuck.” He shuddered through an aftershock, dick still pulsing inside me, and then we slowly slid to the floor in a sticky separation. Bracing my back against one of the chairs, I looked him over with laughter bubbling in my chest. His dark hair was plastered to his head in places, sticking straight up like porcupine quills in others. We were both covered in cake, icing, and syrup.
“We can’t ever tell my mom exactly how much we enjoyed her cake,” I said, and Dane stretched to glimpse the wreck of it strewn all over the table, then threw his head back and laughed.
I crawled toward him, took his hand in mine, and sampled the mix of semen and frosting. For science. “Forget eating pineapple, this is definitely the way to go,” I confirmed.
“I never believed there was any truth to that theory,” he replied, trying for a solemn tone and failing miserably.
We sat there long after our laughter died down, his arms around me, my head resting on his shoulder, and I decided it was the best date I’d ever had in my life.
13
Dane
Round two, the clean edition, happened in the shower, and then we toweled each other off and collapsed in my bed. Cole pulled on the pair of pajama pants I’d handed him and scooted closer until his head rested in the crook of my arm.
Between us, there’d been what I supposed was the average amount of affection between guys playing at heterosexual during high school, meaning it was much more limited than what I’d wanted, and I’d always found myself holding back, afraid he’d suss out my crush and that it would ruin our friendship. Having him so close now made my heart do funny things in my chest, and I couldn’t seem to stop fucking smiling.
Cole peered at me from the corner of one eye and then rolled in my direction. “That was fun, huh?”
I laughed. “Oh, it was fun all right.” That was an understatement.
“That’s what I told myself the night we hooked up at Aaron and Shay’s wedding.”
I ignored the stab in my chest and attacked the latter portion of his statement. “Where have you gotten this idea in your head that sex isn’t supposed to be fun?”
“I haven’t necessarily,” he said cautiously.
“You’ve just made several comments that lead me to believe otherwise.”
“I just haven’t had all that much experience off the beaten path.” Cole huffed out a breath. “My longest relationship was with a guy who seems like a nun now compared to you.” His voice dropped to a low mumble. “And I stayed with him for way too long.”
“He didn’t enjoy sex?”
Cole considered. “I wouldn’t say that. He just had very strong ideas about how sex between us was supposed to work, and he didn’t enjoy deviating very much. It got…”
“Boring?”
“Yeah, a little bit. Or a lot. And the times I tried to spice it up or suggested trying some different things he looked at me like I was a freak.” Cole made a face. “He liked us both to wash before any sort of sexual activity. And immediately after, too. Always insisted on brushing his teeth prior, insisted on douching frequently, and lots of prep and…just sometimes it’s nice to have some spontaneity. To use spit for lube for fuck’s sake. Or…or…kiss in the morning even though you both have morning breath. Or leave the goddamn cum on your stomach because it’s okay not to clean it up the second after you finish. Sometimes your partner might like that reminder, might like not having the evidence of what you’ve just done completely erased the second everyone’s finished.” Cole halted himself and then dropped his voice, seeming to realize he was getting worked up. “For the longest time, I was so happy just to have a boyfriend I didn’t care. Because that’s what I wanted. Stability, a long-term relationship. I traveled so much before that, that it wasn’t a possibility. So I’m not really blaming him, more myself for not standing up for what I wanted and was interested in.”
“Like kink.”
“Like kink,” he agreed. “Or going at it in a supply closet. Or a bathroom. Or a kitchen. Or anywhere that’s not a bedroom. It was always a bedroom for us 95 percent of the time. And then when we broke up, he accused me of being cold and…and unsatisfying. I was shocked, and embarrassed and…angry, really.”
I combed a strand of hair back from Cole’s face and rubbed my thumb over his flushed cheek. “He sounds like a miserable guy, and I’m sorry that was your experience.”
“I know, and again, it’s probably my fault for putting up with it so long. So after the night with you at the wedding, on the one hand I was elated because it was obviously amazing, and then I got insecure thinking it was probably a drop in the bucket for you, given my limited experiences.”
“Could’ve fooled me
.” I gave him a soft smile.
“He’s in town, too. He’s part of HealthCloud’s sales team, so I guess he was on my mind today and I went on a mini rant.”
“Is he a blond?”
“Hm? Oh, yeah.” Cole laced his fingers with mine and rested them on his chest. “His name is Jason. He helped me get the job at HealthCloud originally. We’re friendly enough, I guess.”
“He was staring at you all through the meeting today.” I’d noticed it from my spot across the room. I’d noticed, too, the jealousy that had speared through me. But I wasn’t going to mention that.
Cole shrugged and brushed a kiss over my knuckles. “He was probably wondering when I last changed my sheets. He was fastidious about that, too.” He laughed.
“There’s not a scorecard, you know,” I said, circling back to the previous topic of Cole’s experience or lack thereof. “I like doing things with you. Anything with you, to be honest. In fact, how much longer will you be in town?”
“I’d planned to go back Friday, but now I’m thinking I might need to stay over the weekend, get my mom to help me improve my baking skills.”
“Maybe I could use a refresher, too.”
Cole closed the distance between us and nipped my lower lip. “We’re proven dangers in a kitchen. I’m all for it.”
14
Cole
Dane and I spent every weekend together over the next month and a half. He drove up to Bensonville once, but most often, I drove down to Vintage Ridge. It was funny—since I’d gone to college, I’d really only spent holidays there, and after college, I’d been so caught up in travel and my career that even the holidays I’d spent there had been few and far between, so I never noticed how comforting “home” was until I started returning more frequently.
Dane and I cooked lazy breakfasts or walked over to Chester’s. We’d eat dinner with my folks on occasion or go help my mom with this or that task on Sundays before I left. Sometimes we watched a football game with them. I could tell Dane liked being around my parents, and my parents adored him, too.