by Cate Ashwood
“C’mon,” he said, taking my hand and leading me through his house to the bedroom.
Anticipation hung thick and heavy in the air. Asher closed the door, sealing us off from the rest of the world, and I reached for him with shaking hands. I was more nervous now than I’d been the first time I’d spoken to a room of three hundred people. Self-doubt clung to the back of my mind, threatening to take over if I let it, but when Asher touched me, any uncertainty vanished.
It was him and me, and I knew he was going to let me take this at my own pace.
His kisses banished the last of my nerves. He ghosted his hands over me, and I leaned into him, needing more pressure, more contact. I slid my hands beneath the soft fabric of his T-shirt, and my knuckles grazed the peaks and valleys of his tightly toned muscles as I lifted his shirt up. He pulled back from the kiss long enough to strip the shirt over his head, then mimicked the motion with mine.
It was the first time we’d been skin to skin like this, and the heat of his body against mine was scorching. I was standing there, on the precipice of something life altering, and I had no idea what I was doing.
“You don’t have to have this all figured out right away.” He looked at me with soft eyes, and I realized I’d said that last part out loud. “We do this however you wanna do this. Just whatever feels good… whatever feels right.”
Being there with him, I realized, was what felt right. For the first time in my life, when everything else was stripped away, this is where I wanted to be. He was who I wanted to be with.
“Okay,” I said, slightly more sure of myself now.
“C’mere.” His voice slipped around me.
He stroked his hands along the side of my throat, his thumbs soothing me with gentle touches. He leaned in and I let him kiss me, slow and easy. Some of the urgency abated. We had all the time we wanted. There was no need to rush.
I skimmed my hands along the waistband of his pants, pausing at the button holding them closed. Flattening my palm against his erection, I could feel the heat of him, the weight of him, even through the fabric. I craved him without that barrier in between. With bolstered confidence, I undid his pants and pushed them down over his hips.
His mouth was on mine, and some of the hunger from earlier had returned. He removed the rest of my clothing and I shivered, despite the warmth of the room and the heat of his body against mine.
I let him lead me to the bed. It was bigger than mine and covered in a comforter decorated in light gray and pale yellow. He crawled on, coming to lie on his side, and tugged at my hand, urging me to follow. I tucked away the last of my nerves—for the time being, at least—and mirrored his position. We were less than an inch apart. Once more, his eyes met mine, and the way he looked at me made me ache.
He slid his arm around my waist, pulling my body flush with his. I felt the length of his erection, the slickness of his precome coating my skin as his cock twitched against my abdomen. I kissed him, rocking against him as he held me tight.
This was so familiar, the taste of him, the smell of his skin… I knew how to do this, how to be close to him and let myself go. What we were about to do… that was a continuation, the next step.
I broke the kiss and pushed my palm against his shoulder until he rolled onto his back. I ran my hand along his chest and stomach in slow, smooth motions. Every place my fingers touched, I followed with kisses. I inched down his body, inhaling him with each press of my lips to his heated flesh.
It was different than anything I’d experienced before, and yet so much more exciting. Everything about Asher, from the way he moved in response to the way I touched him to the sounds he made, made me crave more. He was gorgeous, addictive, and I didn’t know how I’d ever existed without knowing it could be like this.
All I was aware of as I touched him was the ragged sound of his breaths and the current that ran through my body. I slid my fingers around his cock, touching tentatively, experiencing the thickness of his shaft and how it felt in my fist. He groaned, hauling me up to take my mouth again. My brain was muddled, unsure of what to concentrate on. There were so many new sensations, I was completely overloaded and I never wanted to stop.
I loved that I did that to him, that I made him hard, made him want. I knew how he felt. I was aching for something more. I moved my hand, experimenting with my grip and pace, rewarded when Asher was panting and rocking his hips up to meet me.
Pride swirled with arousal in the knowledge that I was making him feel so good until his hand on mine stopped my movements. Without a word, he rolled, opened the drawer on the bedside table, and withdrew a condom and a small bottle of lube.
My heart clenched, nerves regaining some of their hold on me. This was the moment—I’d thought so much about this over the last few days, imagining what it would be like, how it would feel both physically and emotionally. No amount of thought could have prepared me for this.
When Asher looked at me, when his eyes locked with mine, everything else faded into the background. I wanted him. Wanted this.
My hands shook so badly I couldn’t get the condom rolled on. It kept falling out of my trembling fingers before I could get the thing rolled down, and the more time I spent trying, the more flustered I became.
Asher pushed himself up to his knees and shuffled over to me, his sure hands covering mine as he took the condom from me.
“Here,” he said, positioning it at the end of my cock. He kissed me as he rolled it down over me, pumping me with his hand a few times once the latex was in place. I moaned, my embarrassment temporarily forgotten.
His hand on me felt so unbelievably good, and I knew what was about to come next would be infinitely better. With careful movements, I positioned myself at his entrance and pushed forward. I watched his face with focused attention, watched the way his expression changed from one of eagerness to one of discomfort.
I froze. “Oh god. Am I hurting you?”
He shook his head, his lip caught between his teeth. “Just been a while since I’ve done this. Keep going. I’m good. I promise.”
I didn’t want to hurt him, but I trusted him. Slower than before, I pressed forward.
It felt so incredible—so far beyond anything I’d experienced before. He was tight and slick and hot, and I was dizzy with sensation. My mind too overwhelmed to process, it shut down and allowed me to operate on my most base systems. All I could do was feel and react.
I slid all the way in, exhaling hard and dropping my head forward as my hips came to rest against Asher’s ass.
He slid his hands into my hair, holding me to him. “You all right?”
I laughed and he groaned. It was ridiculous, him asking me if I was okay. Of course I was okay. I’d never been more okay than this. “Yeah,” I breathed. “But if I move, I’m going to come. It’s too good.”
“That’s kind of the point of all of this.” He laughed, his muscles clenching around me, and I groaned, rocking against him in reflex. Even that subtle movement felt good, and Asher’s breath caught.
I did it again.
Carefully, I pulled back before experimentally thrusting forward, slow and smooth. Archer angled into me, his movements echoing mine. With my weight braced on my hands, I watched him again, watched as the pleasure melted over him, his eyes falling shut as I moved inside him. I closed mine briefly, overwhelmed with how amazing it felt to have him surround me like this. Again and again I thrust forward, burying myself in his body. It was slow at first, but Asher’s hands were on me, touching me everywhere, desperate and searching. I increased the pace, rewarded with the way he sounded, the way he moved beneath me. He was as far gone as I was. My heart stuttered at the same moment my rhythm did.
I felt Asher reach between us and wrap his hand around his cock. His knuckles grazed my skin as he jacked himself in time with my thrusts. He cried out and everything stopped as he came, his muscles tensing around me, heat and pressure and excruciating pleasure pushing me over the edge into my own orgasm.
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I could see sparks when I squeezed my eyes shut, riding out the wave, holding tenuously on to reality as everything shattered apart as I came.
Asher pulled me to him and I went willingly, needing him to hold me and bring me back to earth. I kept my eyes closed, letting the gravity of the moment wash over me. Asher pressed his lips against my temple, gentle pressure as his breathing returned to normal. We were still a tangle of limbs and slick skin, and if I could have stayed like that, frozen in that perfect moment forever, I would have.
He shifted beneath me, and with great reluctance, I pulled out and disposed of the condom before coming to lie next to him. Neither of us spoke. He held me close to him until my heart rate slowed and my world began to piece itself back together.
What felt like hours later, I ran my fingers through his hair, which was damp at his scalp. I smiled at the thought that I’d been the one to make him break a sweat. Sex for me had always been nice, romantic even—slow and sweet and pleasant. It had never been like this. This was altogether different, and god, it was incredible. The orgasms had long since subsided and I was still flying.
“Tired?” His voice was smooth, slipping around me like a good dream.
So much had happened in the time we’d been together. I didn’t have my watch on, but I figured it was probably closing in on one in the morning. Still, I was wide-awake.
“Not really,” I answered.
My body was sluggish, but my mind was rushing forward. There was no singular train of thought—it was a compendium of thoughts of Asher, of what this all meant, of how happy it made me, and how confused at the same time.
Asher climbed out of bed, then grasped my hand and drew me to my feet. “C’mon.” He grabbed a pair of sweats for me from his dresser. I pulled them on and cinched them tight over my hips so they didn’t fall to the floor with the first step I took.
I followed him through his kitchen to the sliding glass door that led to his backyard. We walked down the steps to the brick patio, where Asher had outdoor furniture set grouped around a small firepit. Off to the side were two mature elm trees that would have provided lots of shade during the day and hung between them was a large hammock.
We walked past the little sofa, and he sat back into the hammock, pulling me with him. It took a minute for us to get situated, but once we were, I decided I would live in that spot for the rest of my life. We were cradled by the fabric, and Asher held me close, my head resting on his chest. I could hear the faint thumping of his heart, and I closed my eyes, allowing myself this moment. There was nothing sexual about it, just tenderness in the connection.
For several long moments we stayed like that, swaying gently, the summer air sweeping over us as a breeze picked up.
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about that text message you sent me,” I said.
“Mmm hmm.” His response rumbled against my shoulder.
“You could have sent that to anyone, but you sent it to me.”
Asher laughed softly. “You gonna tell me you believe in fate?” His voice was hushed in the dark. “That meeting me has made you a sudden convert?”
I grinned against his chest. “Not really, no. Maybe luck would be a better word than fate, although I’m not certain luck exists, either. What I mean is, meeting you has changed the very core of who I am, which I realize is a heavy discussion to be having after the first time we had sex.” I gave a nervous laugh, but he didn’t say anything, just slid his hand into mine. “I meant that this is new for me, and I never expected to be in a situation where at thirty-two years old, I’m redefining who I thought I was.”
He wove and unwove his fingers between mine in lazy movements as I rambled, one idea connected vaguely to the next, as though being with him loosened everything in my brain and suddenly it all flowed out.
“It’s not as easy as saying the words ‘I’m bisexual.’ I realize that must be what I am because when I’m around you, all I can think about is wanting you to put your hands on me.” I took a breath and let it out slowly. His hands were on me and I never wanted him to let go. “There’s nothing platonic about the way I feel for you, but you’re the first man I’ve ever felt that way about. It’s simple and it’s complicated, all in the same breath. The way I feel about you is simple, but the implications of those feelings run deeper.”
He stayed quiet, letting me rattle on without interruption and without judgment, just silently supportive.
“I know that I want you, that I’m attracted to you. I’ve thought other men were attractive before, but I’ve never wanted them the way I want you, and I don’t know what that means. You shattered my beliefs on my own sexuality, and that’s incredibly confusing.”
He ran his fingers through my hair, slow, soothing, and we breathed together for a few minutes before he spoke.
“You don’t have to know what it all means. I’m not a psychologist—I haven’t spent my life researching and analyzing human behavior—but I know that sexuality isn’t black and white. There’s a reason we wave a rainbow flag.”
“Actually, the colors on the flag represent sex, life, healing—”
The rich timbre of his laugh surrounded me. “Someone’s been spending some time on Google.” He couldn’t see my sheepish expression. “People can identify in a thousand different ways. You could be bisexual, or demi-sexual, or gray-A. No one can decide that for you except you, and if you aren’t comfortable with labels, you don’t need them.”
“I don’t know what half of those mean,” I admitted. Apparently, I hadn’t googled hard enough. “There’s a lot of uncertainty with regards to classifying myself into one group or another, but I am certain of how you make me feel.”
And I was. No one had ever made me feel like Asher did. Megan was my only serious relationship, and while I still believed that I loved her, it had never felt quite as powerful as this. There were questions I still needed answered, but for now, swinging gently in a hammock wrapped up in Asher’s arms, I was happier than I’d ever been.
More than a month passed, and Asher and I had seen each other almost every day. I’d never been caught up in something so whirlwind, experienced a connection to another person that felt so vital. When I was apart from Asher, he was all I could think about, and when we were together… well… the chemistry hadn’t cooled in the slightest.
Summer was halfway over. The temperature was a comfortable 70 degrees, the sun shining brightly, when I called Asher to meet me at the restaurant at the edge of campus. He was on lunch, and I was between classes. I liked being able to see him in the middle of my day. I’d been looking forward to it all morning.
“You got any plans this weekend?” he asked before taking a big bite of his sandwich.
“Nope. Grading midterms and reviewing the new edition of the textbook for the fall semester.”
“My best friend and his wife are hosting a sailgating party tomorrow afternoon. I thought you might want to go with me.”
“Sailgating?”
“Pretty much the same as tailgating—greasy food, a ton of beer, music—but on a boat. They’ve been out on the water almost every weekend this summer, and if I don’t make an appearance soon, Graham is going to start looking for a new best friend.”
It was the first time either one of us had brought up the possibility of meeting the people in each other’s lives. I didn’t know if I was ready to broadcast our relationship to those I was close to yet, but the more I thought about meeting the people who were important to him, the more the idea appealed.
“If it doesn’t sound like something you’d enjoy, we can make plans for afterward.”
I shook my head. “No, it sounds like fun.”
He tilted his head and lifted one eyebrow. “Does it?”
I laughed. It hadn’t been all that long that we’d been seeing each other, but he knew me well enough that the thought of spending an afternoon in an enclosed space with a group of strangers wouldn’t be at the top of my list of ways to spend my weekend.
“Maybe ‘fun’ isn’t the right descriptor, but I would like to go. I’m interested to meet your friends.”
He beamed and I was proud of myself for making the right decision. “They’re interested to meet you, too.”
“They know about me?”
He sat back in his chair, looking rather smug. “Yep. Graham and Elle, anyway. They know I’ve been seeing someone, have since the accidental first date. Elle was the one who convinced me to go to your office.”
That surprised me a little. He talked about his friends a lot, but it hadn’t occurred to me that it might go both ways. “In that case, I owe her my thanks.”
“You can tell her tomorrow.”
When I’d imagined Asher’s sailgating party, I’d pictured a huge boat with fifty people crowded onto it. The reality was much less overwhelming.
Ash had picked me up early that morning and we’d gone for a walk along the water nearby before we were set to meet up with his friends. As we approached the dock, I spied a small group of six people sitting on the edge of a boat and three coolers stacked beside it.
“Graham,” Asher called once we were within ear shot.
A man wearing a pair of reflective aviator glasses looked over, a huge smile splitting his face as he waved to us. “Ash! Glad you finally decided to get your ass down here. You’ve been missing out.”
The woman standing next to him, a petite blonde in a flowy white sundress looked me up and down, her gaze traveling from my head to toes and back up again before she added, “I don’t think he’s been missing anything.”
I couldn’t help the heat that crept into my cheeks. Asher laughed and placed his hand on my lower back. That simple connection made me more comfortable.
“Nope. But we’re here now.”
“I made potato salad.” I handed the bowl to the woman.
“That was so sweet of you.” Her smile was warm and welcoming. “I’m Elle.”
“Henry.”
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Henry,” she said. “Asher’s been so secretive about you. I’m glad he decided not to hide you away forever.”