For Love and Forever (A Collection of Short Stories)

by Sloan Parker

  Rex bounded up the last of the stairs and then headed down the hall toward me. “Hey. I was looking all over for you.” He wore a fitted black T-shirt over his broad chest. The sleeves of the shirt were tight and short, showing off his ripped upper arms that were covered in those black tribal tattoos. He also had on a pair of jeans that showcased the impressive thighs and the heavy bulge hidden under the zipper. I couldn’t decide where I wanted to put my hands more.

  I shrugged. “That fucking music was giving me a headache.” The beat from the party below was still pouring up the stairs, and it was a perfect match to the quickening of my heartbeat as Rex moved in closer.

  He propped himself against the wall beside me so we were standing shoulder to shoulder, not touching but so close I could feel the heat of his body. He threw me a sheepish grin. “Sorry I bailed on you earlier.” He tipped his head back to the wall behind him and sighed heavily.

  “I get it. You regret what happened. No big deal.”

  He snapped his head my way. “God, no. That’s not it.” With a confidence I didn’t expect to see from him in that moment, he moved to stand before me. “I just don’t want anything to mess up our friendship.”

  “Who says anything will?”

  He seemed surprised by that. The corners of his lips turned up in a grin. The smile lingered for a few seconds more before he grew serious again. “I just couldn’t take it if I lost you.”

  With those words, hope thundered through me that this might be about more for him than merely getting me into his bed.

  Slowly, deliberately he leaned in until his lips hovered over my ear. “I want to touch you again. I want to do everything we didn’t get to in that classroom.”

  I sucked in a quick breath. He smelled of the cologne he always wore, rich and woodsy, with a hint of something tropical, like standing on an ocean beach, only I’d never been this close to that scent. I whispered in return, “Nothing’s stopping you.”

  He drew back and considered me for a long moment. He looked uncertain, like he was trying to figure out what I was really telling him with those words. Hell, I was too.

  “Do you mean that?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What if I told you I want more than just this one moment? A lot more.”

  I closed my eyes and relished those words. “Don’t say that unless you mean it.”

  He didn’t respond. I opened my eyes. With a sharp and unexpected abruptness, he backed up to the hallway railing overlooking the stairs. He spun to face the staircase, clutching the railing in both hands, his knuckles turning white with the grip. I just stared at his back and waited.

  A few seconds later, he finally let go and ran his hands through his dark hair, the tattoos on both upper arms flexing with the movement of those tense, taut muscles. He whirled to face me. There was something in those penetrating eyes I’d never seen from him. Anticipation? Hunger? “So you want me?”

  Was he serious? “No,” I said as sarcastically as I could manage. “I’m just standing here with my dick hard enough to bust through my jeans. But I don’t want you.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re a moron.”

  I thought my response might piss him off. Apparently not. He folded his arms across his chest and grinned at me again. Maybe he’d meant “want me” in a different way. He said, “I’m starting to get that I’ve been pretty stupid for a while now. But…” He lowered his gaze until the scuzzy carpet seemed to completely fascinate him. It was his next words that captivated me. “I don’t want to be just another notch on your bedpost.”

  “What?”

  He met my stare. “Do you ever fuck anybody twice?” His voice had taken on a harsh, bitter tone.

  “I have, yeah,” I bit back. Once or twice. Not that I got laid all that often. And not with anyone I was really into. Most of the time it was about scratching an itch. I hadn’t found a guy yet who’d meant anything to me. Not the way he did. “What does it matter who or how many I’ve been with?”

  “It matters.” He moved farther into my space. “Because I haven’t known you to spend more than an hour or two with anyone. In or out of bed.” His voice rose with each word. Thank God for the music still pounding away downstairs.

  “So,” I said. “Big deal. Most of the guys I hook up with aren’t the type I want to spend my downtime hanging with.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’d rather spend that time with you.”

  We held the stare, and the air between us seemed to change, grew heavier in an instant. His eyes narrowed with the same look of lust he’d given me in our room earlier. He took another step forward.

  A door down the hall flung open, and Snyder came barreling out of the room with his arms wrapped around his girlfriend’s waist. She was giggling and tripping over her feet. Snyder gave a nod our way and steered her down the stairs without a word to us.

  Rex and I were standing close. Too close. What would Snyder think? What would Rex? Did he want people to see us together? To know about him?

  When Snyder and his girl were gone, Rex turned to me again and studied my face. He must’ve seen something he liked. “Come here.” He gripped me by the hips and yanked me away from the wall. He backed me into the open bedroom, kicking the door shut behind us, then crowded me farther inside before he let go of me.

  The room was dark, but the moon outside was bright and high and shone through the thin curtains enough that there was no missing the bed beside us or the fact that it was Rex that I was about to get horizontal with.

  I waited for him to come to me the way he’d done in our room that morning, but he didn’t.

  That fear in his eyes that I’d seen in the coffee shop earlier was back. I couldn’t help myself. I moved in and clasped him by the forearms. “What’s wrong? What aren’t you telling me?”

  He took a step out of my reach. Then another. He kept going until he was at the door of the room. He leaned against it. His head fell back to the wood surface. I didn’t know if I should try to go to him again or give him space. No missing the irony of that. Because for once in my life, I didn’t want to run from an emotional moment. I didn’t want to take off on someone before things could even hint at getting serious. This was Rex, and I wanted to know what was wrong with him, wanted to help him, even if I never got to be with him.

  I was still wavering over my next move when Rex started to speak, his voice tight with emotion, his head still tilted back against the door. “When I was a senior in high school, I fell for a guy. I met him at a gay bar I’d been going to for a few weeks. He was a couple of years older, had his own tattoo business, an apartment. I was young, and he was more experienced, and I fell hard.” He seemed to struggle to swallow, to go on with the story. “I kept on seeing him until I graduated. Then we moved in together, and I started working at his shop.” Rex paused again and let out a ragged sigh. “I lived with him for five years before I found out he’d been cheating on me the entire time.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. I guess he didn’t see us the same way I did. One night I spotted him getting blown by a guy behind our apartment building. I confronted him. He said he loved me, but he could never be with just one man, that it wasn’t in his nature. He thought I got that. I felt so completely stupid. I thought he had just wanted me that entire time. I thought we were happy. Committed.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Yeah.” He stopped like he was considering that. Or maybe something else, maybe looking back on those days from a more detached perspective. “I thought I had this perfect life. A fantastic guy, great apartment, a job I loved. In one moment I lost it all.”

  Everything was starting to make sense. “And after that, you stopped dating men.”

  Keeping his head against the door, his gaze on the ceiling above, he nodded. “I guess I figured women could commit more easily.” He laughed as if that was the biggest joke in the world. I didn’t get the punch line. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he’d never been in a l
ong-term relationship with a woman.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me this?”

  “I never tell anyone. I didn’t think it mattered.”

  “And now it does?”

  He nodded again.

  I thought back on his words about women and commitment, about the relationships he’d mentioned whenever we talked about our pasts. “You’ve never really gotten that serious with anyone since then. Or have you?”

  “No. Never found someone who meant enough to go there with.” He finally dropped his head and looked my way. “Until now.”

  The breath caught in my throat. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “You need me to spell it out?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  A heartbeat passed. Another. Then Rex crossed the room. He had his body against mine, his arms around me in a flash. He spoke without words, kissing me again, slower than at the dorm, taking time with each soft sweep of his lips and his tongue against mine, really exploring that simple caress of two mouths. He had his hands splayed across my back, holding me to him.

  I grabbed him by the hips and tugged him closer, needing to feel all of him against me. He moaned into the kiss, and that had one specific part of me aching for him in no time. He must’ve noticed my body’s reaction to the proximity of his. He moaned again, then kissed me again.

  He didn’t tease or hesitate that time. Instead he held me by the nape and kept on going with the kiss, pouring what felt like more than two years of longing into it, into each touch of his lips to mine, each swipe of his tongue. In no time the kiss became passionate, wild, and it ended with me panting, sprawled out on my back across the bed, his body pressing into mine in all the right places.

  He pulled back and threw me a grin as he rubbed my cock through my jeans. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for this?”

  I wanted to ask exactly how long, but before I could speak, he got the zipper down on my jeans, the opening parted. He worked his hand inside and gripped my erection. With the feel of his palm against my heated shaft, I gasped and arched into him. “Shit, Rex. I…”

  “Yeah?” He moved his hand along my length, slowly, torturing me with the lightest of touches. “You what?” Another slow stroke, and then he tightened his grip and picked up speed. “Tell me.”

  I couldn’t keep still. I shifted my hips forward and back. I groaned loud and long. “Fuck, I’ve waited so long for this too.”

  With sudden determination he let go of me, pulled me up and off the bed with him. He spun us around, and then he sat on the edge of the mattress. He tugged me to him so I stood between his legs as he peered up at me with a vulnerability I’d never seen from any man before. “How long?”

  “What? That I’ve wanted you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Since the first time you walked into our dorm room.”

  His eyelids lowered for a brief moment as he exhaled a long breath. Then he was all action again. He grabbed my jeans in both hands and yanked them down to my knees, his eyes completely focused on mine once more. He cupped my cock through my briefs, stroking my length. Without removing my underwear, he leaned forward and took the tip of my dick between his lips. He sucked hard, wetting the fabric of my underwear and the head of my erection, swirling his tongue around and around and pressing at the slit. It all felt amazing, had my head spinning, and my goddamn briefs were still in the way. What the hell was it going to be like without anything between us?

  As if he could hear my thoughts, he lowered my underwear, taking his mouth off me for the briefest of moments before capturing my cock in that wet heat again, this time his lips and tongue making contact with my skin.

  I groaned. “God, yes.”

  He never let up. His hands were on me now, cupping my balls and jerking the base of my dick as his mouth raced along the top half. Looking down at him, seeing his head bob over me like that was intoxicating. Forget the beer. This was enough of a high to last all damn night.

  He sat up taller and plunged that delicious mouth all the way down my length in one motion, holding tight with those wet lips as he made his way back up to the tip. He repeated the action again. And again. I cupped the back of his head, digging my fingers through his short hair. My legs began to shake. My ass clenched. I whimpered. “I’m gonna come.”

  He stopped. “Not yet.” He stared up at me, his lips wet with his own spit and the evidence of my arousal, and in that moment I knew what he wanted.

  I nodded. I stripped my jeans off the rest of the way, shed my shirt as he did the same with his clothes. When he sat on the bed again, I took a moment to admire the sight before me, all that bare, sleek flesh over hard muscles. He really was an amazing-looking man.

  And he was about to me mine.

  I straddled his strong thighs and kissed him again, pressing my weight into him until we were lying on the bed. God, that solid body under mine felt incredible.

  We were both ready to go off, especially once we were finally naked and on the bed tangled up together. We kissed, rolled, thrust against each other, and a short moment later—far too short—I felt the familiar pull.

  He maneuvered us around so he was on top again and stared down at me. “Fuck, this is…”

  “What?”

  He shook his head as if saying more right then was too much. He lined us up so our cocks met, and he began moving again, rubbing our erections together between the slide of our bodies. I groaned. I was close. “Shit.”

  He didn’t let up. He rocked faster, bringing himself along with me. His breaths grew rapid, ragged in my ear. He grunted as he worked us together in an explosive rhythm, and that was it. I was done for. I threw my head back, arched against him, and it was explosive, crashing, as if every cell in my body was vibrating with the orgasm.

  He kept on humping against me again and again, like nothing could stop him. Then he followed me into that sweet release. He let out a low moan, his face buried in the side of my neck, one hand clasping my upper arm, the other fisted in the blanket beneath us as his hips jerked through the shudders of his climax. Draped over me, he had his mouth latched on to the sensitive skin of my neck as the final spasms of pleasure shook his body.

  When we were both still and breathing even again, he slid off and dropped to his back on the bed beside me with a loud sigh. “Damn.”

  “Yeah.” I rolled to face him. In the dim moonlight, with his eyes closed, his head tipped back, he reminded me of a gladiator after battle, all sweaty and flushed and high on the triumph. I let myself have a long look, basking in the thought that it was me who had given him that expression of blissed-out ecstasy.

  I wanted us to stay like that for another hour or two. But I had to know.

  As soon as his eyes opened, I asked, “Now what?”

  He didn’t date men. He fucked them. All because some asshole had broken his heart.

  Did that mean he was done with me? Was that why he was so worried this would mess up our friendship?

  Rex kept on staring at the dark ceiling. So long I feared his answer.

  No, scratch that. I was terrified.

  Then a slow, amused grin formed on his lips. “We fuck our way through finals.”

  A nervous laugh surged out of me. “Yeah?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He turned to his side so we were lying face-to-face. “Did you mean what you said?”

  “About what?”

  “That you haven’t been serious with anyone because it wasn’t the right guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think you’ve found him now?”

  His words were nearly my undoing. What was he saying? Was I that for him? He wouldn’t be cruel and hint at that if he didn’t mean it. Would he? Not on purpose. I said what I needed to say, really the only thing I could say. “Yeah, I have.”

  He smiled at me with sudden and resounding relief. He gave me a long, slow kiss, then shifted to lie on his back again. “Well then, I say we get that apartment we talked about, as so
on as the semester ends instead of waiting for the fall. You could skip going home this summer, find a job here in town. We’ll get a one-bedroom with a big bed for two.”

  “You want to live together? Like that?”

  He moved to lean over me again, a stunned look on his face. “You don’t?”

  “Yeah, I do. I just…” What the hell could I say? “I wasn’t sure what you wanted past this.” I indicated the bed, the room around us.

  “You thought this was just about getting at your dick?”

  “I don’t know. You were being cryptic as hell.” I laughed again, more of that nervous sound escaping me like a balloon losing air. It was the tension of the longest day of my life draining away. But I needed to be sure. My heart was on the line here. Something I’d never risked before. “What was this for you?”

  He laughed that time. So long and loud I thought I might slug him just to stop that sound and get him to answer me. His eyes were alight with what looked like adoration as he scanned my face. “I thought I was being so obvious.” He studied me for a few more seconds, the big-ass grin still locked on his face. “Maybe it’s different with guys.”

  “What is?”

  “Showing them what they mean to you.” He shook his head. “I always figured it was women who needed to hear the actual words.” He came forward. “Brady.” He paused as if to emphasize his next point. “I’m completely in love with you.”

  “Oh.” I lay there, staring up at him with my mouth hanging open, just the way I’d been earlier that day when he’d told me he was gay. “You love me?”

  “Yeah. Have for a while now.”

  “So this isn’t just sex for you?”

  “No. Which is kinda why I was freaked.” He continued to look into my eyes. “Why I was afraid. I didn’t know if I could risk losing you, risk you taking off on me. Risk falling for someone who might not want me the way I did him.”

  “Not want you?” He didn’t get it. “Rex, I fell for you the first week I met you. I haven’t been serious with anyone because they weren’t you. So you can relax, because I don’t want anyone else. And I’m not going anywhere.”