by Grey Cole
When he sensed all the fight had left Shea, Royce clasped both of Shea’s hands in one of his own and managed to work the buttons of Shea’s button fly’s open to grasp his cock. Shea grunted and ground his length into Royce’s palm. Fuck. Just touching Shea felt amazing, and Royce could spend all night doing just that despite being able to taste his own longing to be touched. Desperate for air, Shea broke the kiss and buried his face in the crook of Royce’s neck and groaned, saying dirty things that made Royce want to fuck him, suck him, and use him in every conceivable manner.
Shea muttered a protest when Royce pulled his hand from his dick to shove down his own shorts. He wiggled his hips to get them out of the way. His objections didn’t last long, however, because Royce rubbed his length against Shea’s in one long stroke. Then another. And another. Their leaking cocks made it all the easier.
“Oh, God. That feels amazing,” Shea breathed. Eyes bright and unfocused. “I could come just from this.”
“But you won’t,” Royce declared. Shea nodded his head in agreement.
Royce brought his palm up and spit it in a few times, much to the delight of his man. “God, you’re so dirty.”
“You have no idea,” Royce said with a chuckle.
Bringing his hand back down, he wrapped both their cocks in his hand and pumped his hips. Shit. His glans stroked against Shea’s, and both men’s eyes widened at the sensitive contact.
“I’ve never felt anything like that,” Royce breathed in awe. Shea could only nod his head.
Royce pulled himself up on one elbow so that he could stare down at the sight they made. Jesus, that only made it hotter. “Are you watching this?” Royce asked, like they were observing an intense wrestling match instead of their cocks rubbing against each other and fucking Royce’s hand.
“Yeah. Fuck yeah. Not gonna last,” Shea warned.
“Not so fast,” Royce said. Without letting go of their cocks or Shea’s hands, Royce managed to use his elbow and knee to flip them over. Shea grunted and squirmed to find some traction as he thrust his hips against Royce’s. Royce’s smile challenged that of the Cheshire Cat’s. “When I let you go, wrap your hand around mine.” Royce let his hands go and Shea braced one hand on the floor while his other squeezed tightly against his own. “I’m going to move my hand. Just keep strokin’, K?”
“Mmm, hmm …” Shea agreed.
Royce let himself relax against the floor while he devoured Shea with his eyes. Even though he’d wrestled him to the floor and dominated him, he needed to know that Shea wanted this too. No doubt Shea was hard and looking for relief, but did he want it enough to take charge? Was he as turned on as Royce was? Judging by the moans and curses and the wild look in his eyes when he glanced back and forth between their cocks, he did … and he was. And that was good enough for Royce.
“Kiss me,” he told Shea with a sudden, uncontrollable longing. He wanted Shea to possess him. Shea’s gentle, soul-caressing kiss contradicted the rough rhythm their hips and their cocks had found. Keeping his eyes locked with his partner, Royce remained as passive as he could, letting Shea press his warm, soft lips against his own over and over again. A little sigh snaked its way from Royce’s lips as he feasted on the look of complete adoration that now shaped the face of his lover. Shea’s tongue darted out to lick at Royce’s bottom lip. He then licked the seam that separated Royce’s tongue from his.
“Let me in,” Shea begged. “I wanna taste you.”
And Royce could no more deny him than he could a dying man his last meal. And that is exactly how Shea made him feel. It was as though Shea had been sentenced to death, and all he desired before he left the world was to consume Royce. Royce was content to let Shea dominate his mouth, and he was surprised to find the usually gentle man quickly fucking his mouth with his tongue while he did everything in his power to undo him below the belt.
Shea pulled his mouth away from Royce’s to place a series of gentle kisses on the corners of his mouth, his neck and, the hollow of his throat. He buried his face in the crease of Royce’s arm and began to jack them at a rapid pace that had Shea cursing and shooting his load all over Royce’s stomach. Royce grabbed Shea’s hips, his fingers digging into his ass, and thrust himself against an almost limp Shea. Shea’s cum made the slide so delicious and so hot, he knew the moment would be burned in his memory forever.
Royce felt the familiar pull at the base of his spine that signaled release, only this time it felt like a ball of fire. It seemed to splinter into a million facets of light throughout his body, and after a moment of clinging to the ledge and admiring it, he followed Shea over the precipice. His dick pulsed in Shea’s hand, and as more hot fluid leaked down onto his stomach, Royce had the distinct feeling of falling. It wasn’t as if he’d never been there before, but this was more intense. For once in his life, he allowed himself to embrace the fall, disregarding the inevitable impact and the destruction that was sure to follow.
***
“Well …” Shea muttered, trying to wrestle up feelings of outrage with himself over the fact that he’d just had sex with his roommate. Again. And after swearing to himself he wouldn’t. Obviously, he couldn’t resist the cocky bastard if his life depended on it. Which, in theory, it did. Shea wasn’t fucking around when he said Royce was his lifeline. All his life, he felt like he was simply existing, going with the ebb and flow, but never quite connecting. Always waiting for something big. And, as crazy as it seemed, Royce was his something big. He’d felt it as soon as they met. They just … jived. They had never had a fight or even a disagreement, really.
He and Royce even planned on living together after college so that they could pool all their money into the start up they had planned. They saw eye to eye on so many things it was no wonder they had both seen the same lack in the market of Internet security and wanted to capitalize on that. In a totally legit way. Others who saw the gap hacked. Made loads of money that way. Not that they didn’t hack, but Shea and Royce planned to make tons of money helping people protect themselves.
“Well?” Royce finally questioned from underneath him. He had collapsed in a sweaty, breathless mass on top of Royce and hadn’t bothered to move. He felt completely zapped, but that warred with the restless energy of his mind. His brain wouldn’t shut off, scrolling through the carousel of images of what he and Royce could mean to each other.
“That was … amazing. But I didn’t mean for it to happen. I wanted to talk.”
Royce guffawed, and Shea felt the vibration all the way to his toes. “Just like a man. Fuck first. Talk later.” Shea could hear the smile in his voice when he added, “I feel so used … wonderfully used. Another point for gay sex.”
“Which you happen to be very good at, by the way.”
Royce laughed again. “Thank you, gay porn.”
“You seriously watched gay porn?”
“Didn’t want to disappoint.”
Shea pushed up on one arm and stared down at Royce’s happy expression. He didn’t seem put off. Or disgusted. Or ready to run. His perpetually lazy confidence never failed to make Shea want to jump him. And he was ready to go again, but Shea felt like he was playing catch up to several life-altering decisions Royce had already made about the nature of their relationship. Ones he had conveniently forgotten to notify him of. Well, it was time to be debriefed.
Shea rolled off the sexy, but frustrating, man before propping himself on his upturned palm. “So … you’re into me?”
Royce’s head lolled to face him, and he cracked one eyelid open. “Can’t get anything past you,” he quipped.
“You understand this is a lot for me to get my head around. I thought you were straight. Very, very straight.”
“God, I guess I was. Mostly. I’m sure there’s some kind of sliding scale we can use to evaluate me later. Anyway, after I started fantasizing about fucking you—” Royce laughed at Shea’s indignant snort “—I examined some of my past behavior. There was that one time when I was fourteen. I
crushed so hard on my trig teacher. He was hot. Really had that nerd chic thing going on. Bow ties,” he hummed.
“Bow ties do it for you, huh?”
“Apparently. He was also really kind and treated us like equals. Respected the hell out of him. Those feelings actually preceded the carnal ones though.” Royce leaned up, fumbled for a discarded t-shirt on the futon, and made quick work of wiping them both down before tossing it toward the hamper. It made Shea twitch, but Royce just winked at him. He came to a rest, mirroring Shea’s pose. “So, it started with thoughts of admiration. Next thing I know, I’m having not-so appropriate thoughts about my teacher. Since it hadn’t happened again, I didn’t think much about my sexuality. Just figured it was girls for me. Until you.”
“Until me …”
“Yep.”
“And now?” Shea licked his lips, his heart dangling by a thread.
“Now, I want to be with you,” he said with a shrug, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Like my boyfriend?” He cringed at how juvenile that sounded. They were almost twenty-two years old for God’s sake. “Or partner?” Yeah, and that sounded ridiculously formal. He couldn’t decide which one he disliked more.
“Do we have to label it?”
Shea barely resisted rolling his eyes. “If it’s not labeled, it doesn’t exist.”
“How could I forget?” Royce said without judgment. “Boyfriend is just so … insignificant. Significant other? Pompous,” Royce declared, stretching the s. “Partner? Too formal. How about lover?” He added campily, waggling his eyebrows.
Shea rolled his eyes then. “Fuck buddy it is.”
Royce’s eyes narrowed before he thumped Shea on the forehead. “Too demeaning. And we’re more than fuck buddies.”
Was this more than fucking around?
Releasing a deep sigh, he grabbed Shea’s hand and intertwined their fingers. “I don’t want to scare you, and if I didn’t feel so utterly relaxed and buzzed right now, I probably wouldn’t say this. I’d probably wait for more appropriate time. Or just swallow my feelings like guys are supposed to do.” His fingers tightened their grip, and Shea nodded encouragement. “But, you’ve always felt like my soul’s equal. We match so perfectly, which is weird ‘cause we’re so different on the surface.” Royce’s brow bunched up like he was trying to explain the secrets of the universe to him. “I feel, like, apart we’re good, but together, we’re fucking fantastic. So, all those other labels seem wrong ‘cause I consider you my soul mate.”
Shea tried to swallow around the sudden lump in his throat, but he just couldn’t. He’d fallen in love with this larger-than-life man a long time ago, but he’d convinced himself it could never be. And all of the sudden, he had a shot? More than that, from what Royce was telling him, he wanted more than just to fuck around. Emotion laced his every word. He loved him. Like, for life. Royce’s fingertip swiped across his cheekbone and alerted him to the fact that a few silent tears had escaped.
“Talk to me,” Royce demanded.
Shea struggled with what to say to all that. Nothing he could say seemed to live up to the beautiful things Royce felt other than … “I just … I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
Royce’s answering grin encouraged him to lean in and let Royce see for himself how love tasted on his lips, because it tasted so delicious to him. He didn’t know how long they kissed. He just knew they went from sweet to frenetic back to sweet again so many times they were breathless. Finally, he pushed Royce on his back and plastered himself against his side. God, Royce smelled so good. He buried his nose in the crook of his arm and inhaled—just the right balance of clean and masculine.
“Yeah, you’re my soul mate, all right. Look how you just get it.”
Shea couldn’t stop the laugh that poured out of him. It was crazy how light his soul felt. All these years of feeling- burdened and just … poof. All because of his roommateturned-soul mate. Aloud, he mused, “Roommate-turned-classmate-turned-soul mate …” His voice dropped an octave to imitate Royce’s deeper voice, his humor shining through. “This is my soul mate, Shea Shepherd.”
Royce shared in his laugh. “We could shorten it to mate so as not to inadvertently belittle others’ relationships.”
“My mate, Shea,” he tried. “Sounds wolfish.”
“They do mate for life.”
Hope clenched at his gut. “Ah, or very British. Next, you’ll be calling me your bloke.”
“Would my bloke like a poke?” Royce donned the worst British accent to deliver the cheesiest pun ever.
“You can’t mix cultural references like that! You’re going to confuse everyone. We’d better just settle for the widely acceptable—boyfriend.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, my boyfriend, Shea Shepherd …” Royce announced.
“Has a certain ring to it.”
Royce pressed his lips to Shea’s forehead. He reveled in the feeling of his warm breath washing over his face when he said, “As long as you know when I say my boyfriend, I really mean my world.”
“Did you ever jack off thinking about me?” Shea blurted. Way to ruin the mood, he chided himself. Royce was used to him and his inappropriate outbursts by now, so as usual, he just chuckled a little and went with it.
“Yes,” he sighed. “Often.”
“God, that’s hot.”
“Yeah?”
“Definitely.” Shea propped himself up on his elbow to stare down at his future. Funny, he’d always thought of Royce that way, but now, it had taken on a decidedly different context than before. “It would take an eternity to tell you all the things I imagined you doing to me and me doing to you.”
Royce’s eyes crinkled around the corners. One dimple appeared. “Good thing we’ve got an eternity. Only, I don’t want you to tell me. I want you to show me.”
Chapter Five
Past: Moving On
Royce paced back and forth in the studio apartment where he’d asked Shea to meet him. He’d never been so nervous in all his life, but it had very little to do with the tragic text message he’d received a few hours ago. My dad knows. He’s kicked me out. Can I stay with you for a few days until I can figure something out?
Shea had gone home for summer break, and even though Royce had already begun setting up the apartment for them, he let him go without a word about it. He figured he’d have a few weeks to win Shea over to the idea of moving in together for their last year at Berkeley. Now, he only had a matter of a few minutes to get him on board and settled.
Glancing around the apartment, Royce smiled as his imagination showed him how Shea would nest here. How he would make it his own, and how they would come home together there, instead of that ratty dorm room. He imagined how they would make their first apartment a part of their story. Those thoughts calmed him for a moment before he was back to running his hands through his hair and muttering at his stupidity. It wasn’t that he didn’t think Shea wouldn’t want to live with him, but Shea was a proud, independent man and wouldn’t like to feel like he had no options, nor would he like to feel like he owed Royce. Royce didn’t give a shit about any of that. He wanted to make Shea happy, and he wanted to share everything he had with the man. Shea also did not do well with change, especially sudden change, so Royce was anxious about pushing too much and too soon, but it wasn’t as if they had much of a choice now.
A knock at the door startled him from his thoughts. Well, here goes nothing. Royce rubbed sweaty palms on his jeans, smoothed his hair down, and crossed the small space to the swing the door open. He took one look at Shea and almost crumbled. He had to be strong for his guy though, so he forced steel into his spine. Shea was always a pretty shade of pale—alabaster with a light dusting of freckles here and there—but today he was pasty, almost as if he were getting over a particularly nasty illness. His lips were bright red like he’d been biting them nervously for the entire three hundred miles back to San Francisco. Royce ran his gaze down the rest of his body, his eye
s feasting on the barely contained, smooth muscles under his threadbare Snoopy Cal t-shirt. He’d had it for years, before an apparent growth spurt, because it barely met the top of his low-rise jeans that were worn and snug in all the right places. Royce finally pulled his eyes upward toward that perfect face—those full, soft lips, that proud nose, and heavy eyebrows. Royce grinned when he imagined rubbing his own smooth face over the three-day growth Shea sported. Then he settled on his favorite feature—well, other than those unruly, rusty curls—Shea’s hazel eyes. They seemed to change with his mood, and right now, they were a cloudy green, almost like the mineral pools they’d traveled to a couple of years back.
Shea’s gaze trailed over Royce’s shoulder, taking in the almost empty apartment. “Why are we meeting here?”
Royce smiled at the abrupt greeting. Most people were put off by Shea’s inability to make small talk or to offer socially acceptable greetings, but for some reason, Royce had always found it funny and adorable as hell. That didn’t mean he didn’t give him shit about it, especially since they hadn’t seen each other in weeks.
“Well, hello to you too.”
His sheepish grin didn’t reach his eyes. “Sorry. Hey.”
“I haven’t seen you in forever. Can I get a proper hello?” Royce teased.
Shea smiled for real before lacing his fingers around Royce’s neck and moving their mouths together. Royce kicked the door closed and opened himself up for a quick kiss, but as usual, his desire for the man took over, and their bodies melded together as each mouth sought solace in the other.