Gathered Up

by Annabeth Albert

  “Nope,” I said, honest.

  “I’m sorry.” He kissed my neck below my beard, kissed my collarbones, lips going lower, over my chest. “So sorry.”

  Kendall touched my neck and shoulders as he pushed my shirt the rest of the way off, dropping little kisses here and there before he sank to his knees. “This okay?”

  I nodded. “Want a condom?” I felt for my wallet, but Kendall pushed my hand aside.

  “Nope. We’re good.” He smiled at me, making my insides all flippy. I knew the risks were almost nil, but it still meant something, him being willing to do this.

  Unzipping my fly, Kendall took my dick out. My dick didn’t care how conflicted my emotions were—it was hard and ready. Yeah, it might not be very well done of me, but I needed this, needed him on his knees for me, needed him looking up at me with those big dark eyes, needed his hot and eager mouth.

  Kendall didn’t tease, simply swallowed me down, hands gripping my hips to pull me closer. My pants and boxers fell down to my knees, but I could give a fuck about them.

  “Mmmm.” He made happy little noises around my dick, moaning when his nose tickled my pubes. Fuck, I loved that, him being all eager for my cock.

  “Yeah,” I moaned. “Take it.”

  He sucked hard in response, setting a demanding rhythm that had me too close too fast. His tongue did something on the underside of my cock, got me panting.

  “Close. Too close,” I muttered, wanting this to last, but my body charging ahead.

  “Come for me.” Kendall urged me with a hand on my ass.

  Maybe he needed this every bit as much as I did. I liked that thought, and it got me closer to the edge. His fingers traced my crack, and I bucked into the touch.

  He laughed around my dick, probably at how damn needy I was for that. Sure enough, as soon as his fingers circled my rim as he sucked hard, I was coming. My knees almost buckled and my vision swam—felt like a motorboat crashed into me, leaving me churning in its wake.

  I stumbled to the bed when he released me, and kicked my pants the rest of the way off. Kendall took deep, shuddery breaths as he stood and shed his clothes with shaking hands. Fuck, but that was a turn-on, him so undone.

  “Fuck me,” I said, nodding at his bobbing dick.

  “Really?” Kendall raised an eyebrow even as he was rooting in that drawer of his for a condom and lube, which he tossed on the bed.

  I know some guys aren’t into getting fucked once they’ve already come, but I kind of dig it—feels nice, having already gotten mine, and the oversensitive feeling inside lights me up, often gets me up for a second round, and even if it doesn’t, I like basking in the feelings, watching the other person go, knowing he cared enough to see to me first. Maybe that makes me selfish, I’m not sure—I just know that I’ve been left wanting enough times to prefer it this way.

  “Gimme.” I held out my hand for the lube. This part I liked doing myself, and I got everything all slick, working my fingers in, while he rolled on the condom.

  His hand was still shaking and his voice wasn’t much steadier. “I…uh…haven’t topped much. People don’t usually want that from me—”

  “Thought we’d established that I’m not most people.”

  “You’re not. And I love that.” Kendall gave me a tentative smile that went a good ways to defusing my temper. “I just meant…tell me what you like. Help me make this good for you.”

  “I like it like this.” I scooted backward, leaning against the pillows, letting my legs fall open and drawing them back. “Face to face. Kiss me?”

  “Gladly.” Kendall stretched out on me, but didn’t try to push in yet, instead capturing my mouth in a blistering kiss that made my dick start to get hard again. Reaching up, I tugged his hair free, buried my hands in the thick, curly mass, pulling him even closer.

  He fucked me with his tongue, something he knew by now drove me crazy, and he worked it until I was wiggling beneath him.

  “Fuck,” I panted. “Now, please now.”

  “Yeah.” Kendall raised up enough to get a hand on his cock, gently pressing forward.

  “Come on, come on.” I tilted my hips, pushing back onto him.

  “Oh fuck. You feel amazing,” Kendall gasped. His balls brushed my ass, and I groaned at how good he felt all the way in. He might not top much, but he had a good natural instinct for hitting my spot as he slowly rocked his hips.

  “Kiss me,” I demanded, stretching to meet his mouth.

  I’d done enough fucking in my life, but very seldom like this with the kissing and the touching and the whispered praise as he told me how good I felt. Each kiss made me feel like I was flying, high on some beautiful drug. Wrapping my legs high around his back, I held him tight as I dared.

  Kendall broke the kiss long enough to brush the hair off my face. “You’re amazing,” he whispered, wonder shining in his eyes. Right there in that moment, I believed him. The fuck shifted, became something else as I let myself believe him, believe in us. Believe in this.

  I’d waited forever to feel like this while fucking, safe and cared for. Sure, I was turned on as fuck and fully hard again, cock pressed between our bellies, but my dick was secondary to how needed I felt. The warmth and tenderness in Kendall’s eyes undid me more than the roughest fuck, got me closer to coming than a fist on my dick. I could happily drown in the sensations, and I held his gaze, let myself wallow in it.

  Kendall’s breath hitched, and he moaned. “Tell me you’re close. Please.”

  “Gonna come for me?”

  “God, yes. Want to. So close.” His hips sped up, hitting my gland with each thrust, making lightning explode behind my eyes. I wormed a hand between us, gave my dick a little extra pressure. Didn’t take much more than that to have me on the edge.

  He growled, and I didn’t know what it was about that sound, or maybe it was his fierce expression or the hard grip on my thigh, but Kendall turned up the aggressiveness, and my whole body keyed up, everything tensing, and on the next hard slam, I was coming, this time a slower build that seemed to peak over and over.

  “Kendall. Jesus. Kendall.” My body shook with aftershocks. Took me a second to realize that he’d come too. He collapsed onto my chest, breathing hard. He kissed me over and over—my forehead, my cheekbones, my ear. Little nuzzles. I’d never had that after sex, and I wanted to stay right here forever.

  We hadn’t said a lot of words that needed saying, but I was more at peace than I’d been in weeks, and I snuggled into his embrace, let go of the last of my anger. And it wasn’t because of the fuck, good as it had been. It was the look in his eyes, even now, half-asleep. He saw me, really saw me, and wasn’t running.

  “Stay with me,” he whispered. “Stay tonight.”

  “Yeah,” I said, my mouth finding his because even now I couldn’t get enough of his taste. “I’ll stay.”

  Chapter 13

  Kendall

  “You ready?” Todd called through the door of my bathroom, waiting for me to get ready for the benefit. He’d been ready since five minutes after our shared shower.

  “In a minute,” I called.

  Things with Todd had been…tenuous all week. Not bad, not strained, but also not as free and easy as they had been prior to our argument. Or, more precisely, prior to me being a fool. He seemed a bit quick to agree, a bit too cheerful at my suggestions, whether it was for sex or food or dancing practice.

  Dancing was the high point. Whenever we practiced for the benefit, everything else seemed to drift away, all the questions about a future for us, all my missteps and mistakes, all his wariness. It all fell away until it was simply us, my swing music mix, and the increasing ease we had moving together. We took turns leading, same as in class, but like in bed, more often than not I took the reins, and that was just fine with both of us.

  I was working on trusting that this
was what Todd genuinely wanted and needed—a chance to let go. Like with dancing, topping seemed to bring a weird yet wonderful sense of balance inside me. No one else had seen past my love of pretty things and my genderqueer identity to let me experiment much, but Todd made it seem as natural as me leading him through the Texas Tommy. I liked topping; he liked bottoming. It really was that simple. Or at least it could be when I got out of my own way.

  I took a final, critical look at myself in the mirror. My mother was likely to roll her eyes at my ensemble before sighing in resignation, but I was more concerned with whether Todd would like it.

  I’d curled my hair under in classic forties style and added just a hint of makeup, especially the lip color that seemed to do it for Todd, but I’d paired my hair and makeup with a suit of sorts—pants, because those were easier to dance in, heels because I needed the height, and a jacket with a bit more of a feminine cut. A bow instead of a tie was the finishing touch.

  “Wow,” Todd said when I opened the bathroom door.

  “You like?” I preened and gave him a spin.

  “Love it. It’s very you.” He smiled indulgently. With anyone else, I’d take the “it’s very you” comment as minimization or a dig, but with Todd, it felt more like a compliment. He understood my genderqueerness in a way that few did.

  “Are you nervous?” I asked. He was shifting about, tugging at his sleeves.

  “Not about the dancing.” He gave me a grin that was no doubt designed to make me stop pressing him.

  “But?” I wasn’t going to be distracted.

  “But the rest of it…you look so done up, and me, I’m just my scruffy self—”

  “Hot as fuck,” I interrupted. “And I’m removing that suit with my teeth once we’re back here, promise.”

  He turned pinker than my lip gloss. “Maybe. But I’m still all wound up about meeting your family and all. What if I disappoint you?”

  “Is that what you’ve been uptight about all week?” I wrapped my arms around him, held him close so he was forced to look at my eyes, see how little I was worried about this.

  “Well, yeah.” He was stiff in my arms, eyes flitting away. “You could do better than me. What if they all see that?”

  “Then they’re idiots.” My voice was firm. “And I’ll tell them that because you’re exactly—exactly—what I want.”

  “Really?” He grabbed on to my arm, but it felt like my heart he was squeezing. “Everyone else there is gonna have fancy degrees—”

  “Look, I’m not going to deny that my mother’s money has helped me.” I gestured to encompass the condo. “But it’s not me. And I’m proud of you. You work hard at an honest job, and you’re working to figure out what’s next for you. Nothing to be ashamed of there.”

  “I let Vic show me some stuff the other day,” he admitted. “Liked it more than I thought.”

  “There you go.” I smiled up at him.

  “If…if the bakery is all I want, you still going to stick around?”

  “I’ll still love you regardless of how you make your money. If you found your passion in tie-dye for Saturday Market, or picking up trash on I-5, I wouldn’t care. And I think being with a baker is kind of cool, actually.”

  He sucked in a breath, and I realized that I hadn’t said the L-word aloud yet. It had been in my heart with every kiss and every dance and every shared meal, but I hadn’t managed to say it until it tumbled out. “You love me?” he asked so tentatively it was clear that he was expecting me to recant.

  “Yes.” I kissed him soundly, lipstick be damned. “I do. It kind of crept up on me until it’s all I think about when I see you.”

  “Think I’m falling for you too,” Todd said softly. “Never felt this way before. Not ever. It’s…”

  “Terrifying,” I finished for him.

  “Yeah. That. And pretty cool at the same time. Like I don’t ever want to stop feelin’ this way, even if it hurts in the end.”

  “It won’t.” I grabbed his face. “I promise. I don’t want this to end. Not now, not ever. No matter what happens tonight—even if we don’t dance a step or my family is awful, I’m still in this thing, okay?”

  He nodded and finally—finally—the tension in his muscles seemed to ebb. He kissed me more tenderly than I’d thought possible. Reverently even. If this was what love felt like, I could get used to it in a hurry.

  Chapter 14

  Todd

  The benefit was held at the Hilton, a place I’d delivered to with Vic for a wedding once, but I’d never seen the grand ballroom all gussied up like this. A swing orchestra was set up on a platform at the head of the room, with a wooden dance floor in front. Upbeat swing music wafted through the whole big space. Reminded me a bit of places I’d been for dance competitions as a kid. Tables lined the back of the room with what Kendall called a silent auction. Seemed like there were prizes up for grabs if someone wrote their price down on a little gold clipboard. Nothing was remotely in my price range, but Kendall bid on a getaway at the coast.

  “Think Vic would let you have a day off if I win it?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I could probably work that out.” I followed him away from the auction tables, a bit flustered, me having a boyfriend who wanted to take me on a trip.

  The gold and black draped tables in the center all had little cards saying who had sponsored that table. It probably cost more than I made in a week to buy a whole table. I really didn’t want to know. Despite what I’d told Kendall, I was still plenty nervous. I didn’t really fit in here.

  Kendall was rather obvious in trying to make me feel like I did, though. He kept pointing out other bearded dudes and people with tats. There seemed to be a good percentage of QUILTBAG folks representing though, including several gender-nonconforming people. Kendall knew a lot of the people we passed, and faces quickly became a blur for me—this couple were former clients, that person went to college with him, and so on. We recognized a few faces from dance class too, including the stuffy couple who wouldn’t trade partners with us. Them we didn’t go over and say hi to.

  When he did introduce me to people, he kept an arm around me and called me his boyfriend. I hated that it had taken an argument to get us here, but I thrilled a bit, being so publicly claimed by a guy like Kendall. That coupled with the words he’d said back at the apartment made me feel really solid about us.

  Vic had told me earlier in the week that he and Robin would be there, so I scanned the room looking for them. Saw them over talking to some other folks from the shelter. Vic was the only person in the room who looked more uncomfortable in a suit than me, but Robin looked like something out of a magazine in a sharp tux. I gave them a wave.

  “Kendall! Here’s our table!” A woman who had to be his mother called to us from several tables over. She had the same hair as him—but hers was in a fancy updo—and Kendall’s dark eyes. Her red dress looked like something an old-fashioned movie star would wear. Her eyes widened as she took in Kendall’s outfit, and mom or no, I was prepared to tell her where she could shove it if she dared say a word against how smoking he looked.

  But she just sighed, a heavy exhale that said she was tolerating Kendall but not exactly thrilled about it. That wasn’t okay with me, but before I could decide whether to speak up, Kendall was hugging her and the woman next to her in a blue halter dress.

  “You look marvelous,” the blue-dressed woman said. She had enough of a family resemblance around the eyes that I figured her for the sister, Lindsay. And her I liked right away, and not just because she complimented Kendall. She had a big, easy smile and a teasing lilt to her voice that made it hard to hold a grudge long. “So this is the new boyfriend, eh?”

  “Yeah,” Kendall said and made the introductions.

  “So do I get to steal you to dance?” Lindsay asked.

  “Kendall’s the better leader,” I said, giving hi
m a little smile just for the two of us, because man, did I ever love it when he led.

  “Loyal and hot? Kendall, I think you have a keeper.” She laughed. “Why can’t the cute ones ever play for my team?”

  “Later I’ll introduce you to some single men from that accounting firm I mentioned,” the mother said, laughing too. To me she said, “I’m sorry for these two. It’s nice to meet you.”

  We made the small talk I’d been dreading about where I worked and how I liked it, but it went better than I’d thought, with both of them having heard of the bakery and neither of them looking like they thought I wasn’t worthy of Kendall. Then a dapper fellow strutted over. Had to be Lewis, the ex. I could guess just from how he carried himself and how he looked at Kendall, part possessiveness, part disgust.

  I stepped a little closer, put an arm around Kendall. This guy, he definitely had the you’re-not-worthy look before Kendall even spoke to introduce us.

  “Kendall, nice to see you here,” he said in haughty, East Coast tones. “And this must be your…delivery boy. Heard a rumor you were with someone.” His look dismissed me in a single glance, but I surprised myself and stood firm.

  “I’m the boyfriend, yes,” I told him with a look of my own that said I had what he didn’t. Maybe I didn’t have his pricey degree or sophisticated life, but I had something better—Kendall. Who had told me he loved me and seemed to mean it. I could bank on that. Lewis-the-loser didn’t have anything near as fine.

  “Mine is around here somewhere.” He gave a casual flick of the wrist. “Probably waiting for me to dance already.”

  Kendall grinned at me. I grinned at Kendall. “Shall we?” he said.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Sorry, Lewis. We love this song.” Kendall’s grin got wider as he turned to his mother. “Mom, we’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t wait on us for food.”

  Bye, Lewis. I didn’t give him a backward glance as we strode to the dance floor. The trumpet player was really good, and all around us were people of various ability levels trying out their moves. We were ready.