by Neve Wilder
Max slid his arm around my waist as we waded into the ocean of undulating bodies. He was an art school nerd like me, except his forte was art history and textiles. We’d slept together once in the second semester of our freshman year after a night like this, but it was apparent the morning after it was a one-shot deal from both our ends. He went through boyfriends and hookups like I did, but he was really fun to go out and dance with. I pushed him deeper into the crowd and chased him with my hands on his hips, pressing up against him. It was easy to sink into the music, the warmth of skin on skin, and primal motion. I put my nose to the side of his neck where his cologne blossomed in soft notes of mandarin beneath a light sheen of sweat.
I caught sight of Tom once, pushing through bodies to join the throng below the go-go dancer. Then Sam found her way to us and we made a human sandwich of Max, much to his delight. When Sam started kissing Max, who very much fell into the category of pretty boy, I ventured off on my own. I had no qualms about dancing solo, and there were so many bodies in motion it was hard to tell who was dancing with whom anyway. It was just this giant, frenzied chaos of skin and smiles and limbs and pulsating heat. I loved it.
Floating on the adrenaline and rhythm of the crowd, I danced with whomever was nearest as the shots percolated through my veins. I ended up spending a long time coiled in the company of a handsome stranger whose name was either Clyde or Clint. It was impossible to tell over the music. He wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but he was a good dancer and at some point his head tipped in my direction and it just happened. It was natural and hot, this sort of animal-careless savaging of mouths. His hands moved over my back and my stomach. I had a fistful of his ass and was considering going home with him when Tom wrenched my arm and dragged me off the dance floor and down a hallway until I could hear him. He was flushed and sweaty and seemed either really drunk or really pissed.
“What the fuck?” I shouted, craning a look around his big shoulder in search of my guy. But the dancefloor had already swallowed him back up.
“Time to go. There’s a party out on the beach.”
“I’m not ready to go yet.”
Tom made a face, then rolled his eyes. “Come on, please? I’ve gotta get out of here.”
“Too much gay for your virgin eyes?” I teased and he winced, giving me a pleading stare until I relented.
We rounded up Max and Sam and found a cab. Tom was quiet. Sam and Max squeezed in beside me, Sam sitting on Max’s lap and petting him. Tom studied Sam like he was trying to figure something out. “I thought you didn’t hook up with guys.”
“No, I said I don’t hook up with guys usually and definitely not bro-looking guys like you, but Max is really pretty.”
Max batted his lashes and Tom let his head crash back into the headrest. “You guys give me a headache.”
“Pretty sure that was the last Kamikaze I saw you throw back,” I said.
“Fair point. At least it wasn’t a Mind Eraser.”
The beach was alive with the late-night party crew and Tom disappeared as soon as our feet hit the sand. I had an idea he wouldn’t come out with my art school friends again. He seemed uncomfortable, though I wasn’t sure if it was because we’d gone to a gay club or because he just didn’t feel like he fit in or something.
I wandered around, sipping a beer with Sam and Max, but I was fading fast. I didn’t want to spend the cash to get back to Tom’s and had no idea where he was anyway, so I thought I’d just walk home and try to be extra quiet going in. I said goodbye to Max and Sam and told them to tell Tom I’d left if they found him. Then, I started home on foot.
The streets were quiet, the music and voices from the beach buffered by the sand dunes and it wasn’t a long walk home, but I got the brilliant idea that I should go by Rob’s place, since it was on the way. Until I remembered he wasn’t supposed to be back until tomorrow. When I passed by, though, I saw his car was in the drive. The house was dark, so I double-checked that it was his car before I strolled up the walk. I wasn’t hammered, just in that soft-glowy state of tipsiness where any idea seemed like a good one.
I parked myself in one of the Adirondacks on his porch and pulled out my phone.
Alex: What are you doing?
No response. To be fair, it was almost two in the morning. I listened to the waves in the distance, the occasional drift of voices from the shoreline. Tom was probably on a blanket with some chick. Max and Sam…who knew? Their so-called friendship was a little unusual. I’d started to doze when my phone chimed.
Rob: Sleeping. Or trying to.
Alex: You came back early.
Rob: How do you know?
Alex: I’m sitting on your front porch.
There was a longer pause this time.
Rob: Why?
Alex: It seemed like a good idea.
Rob: It’s not. Go home.
Alex: Can’t.
Okay, that wasn’t one-hundred percent true, but it wasn’t a complete lie, either.
Rob: Why not?
I heard movement inside the house, a few thumps.
Alex: Just let me in. It’s hot as hell out here. It’s my birthday. Linen doesn’t breathe as much as they say it does.
I squinted and covered my eyes as the porch light flicked on. The door swung open and Rob stood bathed in the yellow glow that spilled over onto the porch. He was bare-chested, one hand tugging a pair of pajama pants the rest of the way over his hips. And he was delicious that way. Pure groggy gorgeousness even with his mouth pinched in a frown. He scrubbed at one eye with the heel of his hand.
I imagined how warm his skin would be, that sleepy scent that bodies got. I exhaled something that was too close to a sigh for my liking, so I cleared my throat.
“Hey.” I hadn’t planned this far in advance and wasn’t sure where to go from there. Turned out I didn’t need to worry. Rob waved me in with an irritated slice of his hand through the air and I trailed him to the kitchen, already feeling guilty for waking him.
“So why is it that you can’t go home? And who’s watching Winslow? You look smashed, by the way.”
Damn. I’d been hoping for smashing. “I’m not. Or, well I was earlier. More so.” I accepted the glass of water he handed over to me, watching the way muscle shifted under his shoulders. He wasn’t super built like a gym rat, but his physique was trim and toned. Which I liked even better than a muscled-out dude because of the way it kind of surprised you beneath clothes. Average height, average build and then—boom—all of these fine delineations of fitness beneath. Rob opened another cabinet and pulled out a bottle of scotch.
“It’s not for you,” he said, catching me watching him.
I air toasted him with my water glass.
“My sis is watching Winslow in exchange for taking over my bedroom with her friend.” I paused for a sip of water that tasted like fucking heaven. “I was supposed to stay with Tom, but I lost him down on the beach and I was tired, so…”
Rob poured a ridiculously modest amount of scotch into a glass and dropped into one of the kitchen chairs before kicking out the one opposite him. I hoped it was an invitation since I took it, toeing off my flip-flops and venting my shirt a couple of times. The A/C was working much better now and turned the sweat on my shoulders into a soothing chill. We looked at each other across the table and I suddenly felt stupid. “You know what? I can get a cab to Tom’s. It’s no big deal. I shouldn’t have woken you.” I could just put it on my credit card and worry about it later.
Rob’s brows rose. “Oh, you were assuming I’d invite you to stay here?”
“Maybe not invite. Maybe let would be the better word.” Inviting would have been awesome, though.
Rob stared at me without blinking for a long, inscrutable time that gave me plenty of opportunity to feel even more like an idiot. Then he shook his head. “It’s fine. You can stay in the guest room.”
He tipped his head up, staring at the ceiling as he took a swallow of scotch, long neck exposed, Adam’s appl
e bobbing as he swallowed. I wanted to lick a stripe up the side of the little tendons that bulged, nip at them until he gasped. Scrubbing my face with my hand, I tried to wipe away the thought, because hadn’t we already covered this well enough?
“Thanks.”
I finished off my water and was starting to get up when he said, “Did you have a good birthday?”
“Yeah.” A smile spread over my mouth as I thought about it. “It was all right. Got a free meal out of it, a cake. Some dancing, a few drinks, a messy midnight make out session. What more could a guy want?”
It was so quick, that little flinch in his expression when I mentioned the kiss that it almost wasn’t there. Still, I’d caught it. It was mine now to review and try to unravel the meaning of, because Rob never seemed cut and dry.
“How was work?”
His laughter sounded cold and dangerous. It wasn’t a good sound for him. Smoothing a hand over the hair of his chest, he stood. “I hope you were safe.” He knocked back the rest of his scotch and reached for my glass, taking them both to the sink afterward.
“Last I checked, condoms aren’t required for a little kissing, though the imagery is interesting.”
Rob snorted, bending over the sink as he rinsed his glass and refilled mine with water. Then he just stood there with his back to me, one hand extended over the counter, loosely circling the glass.
Cat-quiet, I approached. When I laid my hand over his, he jumped, grabbing at the glass before it could fall over.
“Christ!” He let out an exhale before reaching for a rag to mop up the small spill. I withdrew my hand and God, it felt like about twenty pounds of awkward hanging at my side, as if I’d been reprimanded for sticking my hand too close to a kitchen burner or something.
“Sorry. It was a long day for me.” He dragged the cloth over the counter and tossed it into the sink. “Look, just make yourself comfortable, you know where it is. Sheets are fresh. Fresh enough.”
He pushed the glass of water against my chest and I seriously considered just continuing out of the front door rather than heading up the stairs. But I was tired and now I was deflated and I just wanted to go to sleep so I could fade out of existence for a few hours. And even still, the sad thing was that I hoped he would follow, hoped he’d rush out and catch me by the arm and drag me to his chest and give me a proper kiss for my birthday. But he didn’t.
The guest room was bare, but neat. For staging, we’d left the queen-sized bed made up, and two nightstands on either side with two little lamps made of seashells that were so hideous they were stylish again.
I turned on one of the lamps, stripped off my clothes, and slid between the sheets. Rob’s footfalls sounded on the stairs a few minutes later. The light coming in through the bottom of the door went dark and the house settled into quiet again. I was rock hard and aching, though. Feathering a light touch over my cock made me shiver while I tried to convince myself it was rude to get myself off in the guy’s dead parents’ house. Sighing, I rolled onto my back, watching the pattern of shadows on the ceiling as air from the vent stirred the curtains.
My hand was still on my cock, straddling indecision, when Rob shoved the door open. I wasn’t full on in the act, but he still stopped a foot from the bed, recognition dawning.
He’d come in with an expression of mild apology, at least what I could see of his face. The light was on in his bedroom across the hall, watered down and thin where it splashed across the side of his cheek and the slope of his neck, shading muscles in his shoulder and pooling shadows between his pecs. But now there was a shift. A flinch of irritation and something else too—that dark, hungry glimmer I’d caught on occasion.
“Sure, go ahead and jack off in my guest room, don’t mind me.” It didn’t seem like he was chiding me, though.
I lifted my hands up, splaying my fingers in a gesture of innocence. “Just adjusting.”
I waited, but he didn’t say anything, just took a few steps closer, brushing his fingertips across a framed motivational quote on the bedside table that should have been packed up or tossed. I almost laughed at the disjointed thought process that had me making a mental note to tell him to get rid of it before putting the house on the market at the same time my body was tensing with anticipation.
“I meant to tell you happy birthday,” he said, not seeming happy about it at all. His eyes roved over me again, and he pressed his lips together tightly.
“Thank you.” I stretched my arms behind my head. Then I watched him watch the sheet as the movement exposed my stomach, my hip, the band of my boxers, and the tent of my fading erection. A small thrill shot through me at having his undivided attention.
“Goddammit.” How he managed to pack so much resignation and frustration into three syllables was amazing.
Rob had been standing beside the bed and then without warning he was on it, a cocoon of limbs around me. There was so much of him to contend with: the slide of his biceps against my arms, the wide chest curling over mine, and the rock-hard plateaus of his thighs where fabric stretched thin over them. I shuddered, reaching for the back of his neck to tangle my fingers in his hair and pull his mouth to mine, but he ducked me and fastened his lips to my nipple, tugging the barbell between his teeth until I arched off the bed and we both groaned.
His hands ranged over my body, firm and not tentative, mapping my skin, exploring muscle and bone while his mouth dragged down my chest and up again to close over the other nipple. Little chuffs of air escaped my lips as I fumbled and found strands of his hair and then tugged until he grunted.
He wrapped one hand loosely around my throat, his thumb sweeping into the hollow beneath my collarbone. His other hand joined forces with his lips and teeth to drive me fucking crazy as he pinched and sucked and licked at me. I arched into him again and again, pulled his hair. A pulsating need built and coursed through my body in hot, shivery waves that drove me against him.
He plied my nipples until I was muttering nothing but nonsense, then he made his way lower, kissing and sucking the soft trail of hair down my abdomen.
My dick poked through my boxers, half crushed between us and shamelessly leaking. Rob wrenched my waistband and shoved them all the way to my ankles, kneeling over me with his hands on my hips pinning me in place.
“That too, huh? I should’ve guessed.”
It took me a second to catch on, breathless and sex-stoned as I was, that he meant the frenum piercing. I didn’t even know if I answered him back because his thumb brushed over the head of my cock, then the bit of steel embedded in it. My legs tensed beneath the touch. He let his mouth hover there, tongue flicking lightly at metal. If I kept watching I was going to come, so I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth.
“Easy,” I said, or hissed. It sounded serpentine because it was hard to make my words function with him all over me, but he got the message.
I opened my eyes again to find him watching me as he slid his hand loosely up and down my shaft. Just enough friction to make me crave more, but not enough to push me over. God, I’d underestimated him. Or else I should have been hooking up beyond my age group long ago. It was that good.
“You good?” His voice was a low drawl, tinged with humor and thick with lust.
I nodded and swallowed.
“Good,” he said, then closed his lips around the head of my cock and I swear to God my toes fucking curled. His tongue made slow, languid passes over me, just this wet rush of sensation that rode up my cock and slithered up my spine, sending showers of sparks through my brain that exited my lungs in lewd spasms of air.
My fist anchored to the sheet to keep me from coming up off the bed and fucking his mouth like a brute. I hoped I’d get the chance to do that sometime, but right then I wanted to savor the sensation of him—the weight of his body, the mussed hair that tickled my thighs, the way his lips looked wrapped around my cock, and the dark, liquid heat of his eyes as he watched me. He took his time teasing me, one hand wrapping over the top of my thigh an
d spreading across my hips, holding me down like he could gauge how close I was through the tension in my muscles and he wanted to draw me out, keep me dancing on that fine line for his own enjoyment.
He lit little flashfires of pleasure from the base of my cock up my shaft, his mouth making obscene, wet sucking noises that were going to shatter me eventually. I’d been convinced he would be conservative, more business-like and restrained, given his favoritism of the word, and I wouldn’t have minded any of those things. But he wasn’t. He so wasn’t. He sucked my cock with unselfconscious abandon and an expert touch, driving it deep into his throat until I was moaning half-crazed like it was my first time at the oral rodeo.
I held on as long as I could, until his thumb joined the fray again, sweeping the piercing and his lips followed to pick up the slack with their tantalizing heat. When I tried to urge his head down again, he resisted and pulled away, leaving my hips in the air spearing nothing. It was mind-blowing torment.
I fucking begged, almost whimpering, for him to have mercy on me and finish me off. Finally, he pushed my hand from his head, threaded his fingers through mine and pinned my hand to the bed. Then he gave me the pressure I needed, fisting my cock and roughly milking my shaft with his grip, his mouth, and his tongue, sucking my crown until I knotted up and exploded with a desperate mash of sound that was half wheeze and half primal cry. I flooded his throat with my spunk and he kept going, sucking down every drop until I was empty and stopped shuddering. Then he pulled free.
My body felt as if it had been wrung out, but even then I wanted more. I wanted time to spend examining the details of him up close, acquainting my lips with his throat and his pecs, dragging my fingers through the fine hairs on his chest, but I was noodle limp and he was too fast, sitting up straight as he straddled my thighs and spit into the semen slicked over his palm. I thought I could get hard again just from watching that.