by Edie Danford
“Are you doing okay?” he asked, tipping his head, his expression slightly concerned.
“Fine,” I said, lying. “Great.”
“Good.” He smiled. It was a nice smile, but it was—as I’d come to think of it after seeing it many times over the last few weeks—his careful smile.
After that first Friday at the fitness center where he’d fervently laid a bunch of wishes at my feet and I’d just sort of stood there and stared down at them, he’d toned down the hopefulness I’d seen glimpses of at the beginning of the quarter. Now he was careful about all his interactions with me. Carefully not flirtatious. Carefully not cocky. Carefully not warm or sexy or intimate. If a random person walked into the office right now, he or she would never know that this man had crammed his dick and his fingers and his tongue inside me on numerous occasions—in ways that had made me scream and beg and cry.
“So that source I was asking you about last week?” He began pulling things out of his messenger bag.
I only vaguely remembered the source we’d discussed last week after class. Mostly because I’d been thinking the same kinds of thoughts about his scent, his eyes, his hair, his body, his voice—and on and on—that I was thinking right now. “Yeah,” I said. “I remember.”
“Well, it didn’t work for my thesis the way I thought it would. But it pointed out a few new things I hadn’t thought of. And now I’m thinking I want to take this paper in a totally new direction.”
“Okay.” I nodded.
“Okay?” He raised his brows, surprised. “Just like that?” He laughed and the sound made my nerves do the wave. I rolled my shoulders and leaned carefully back in the chair.
I nodded again. “Yeah. You often come at topics sideways—making connections nobody has ever thought about—but that’s a great thing. You’re a great student, Nick. We’ve had enough conversations for me to know this about you.” I tipped my head toward the notes he held. “I trust you to come up with something that’s interesting and well-supported.”
His lips parted and then pressed together and then parted again. “Thanks,” he murmured. A pink tinge began to crawl up his cheeks.
He wasn’t used to receiving compliments. I’d learned this about him over the last few weeks of watching him excel in history class and on skis and at the gym. He’d been working hard, pushing himself with excellent results, and when I—or someone else—praised him for his obvious effort, only occasionally would he shrug it off or go into Cocky Kid mode. Mostly he did what he was doing now—he acted uncomfortable and turned red.
Obviously he needed to hear more compliments. And not the kind that guys like Gabriel and Pete and probably a thousand-and-one tricks had given him over the last couple years.
Once again I found myself thinking about what he’d revealed during that aborted discussion we’d had in his room on Homecoming weekend. Things that simply didn’t ring true, especially after what I’d been seeing for the last month. I’m not much for athletic pursuits. I’m kind of a klutz—I dropped out of camp just a couple weeks into my second year. I don’t have a lot of stick-to-itiveness.
“Nick.”
His gaze had been fixed on my clasped hands and, when he raised his head, he met my eyes but then glanced away quickly. “Yeah?”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you—” I hadn’t been meaning to tell him at all, really, but I’d sure had a lot of debates in my head about what might happen if I brought it up. “—I bumped into a mutual acquaintance when I was in Boston last weekend.”
He licked his lips, his eyes wary. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Austin Harmon.”
His bag slid from his knees to the floor. He grabbed at it clumsily and a bunch of shit fell out of the back pocket. He ignored it. “Austin?”
“Yeah. You remember him from Lake Woods, right? He said your families used to be close. When I told him I was working here at Ellery, he asked if I ever saw you.”
His eyes were wide and his mouth was edged with tight, white lines. “Really? Austin Harmon?”
“Yep. He was in Boston for some kind of hockey thing, I guess. His boyfriend coaches a youth team and there was a tournament. Turns out his friends knew my friends or something. Weird coincidence, huh?”
“Coincidence…” The pink had disappeared from his cheeks and he was looking almost pale now.
I nodded. “Yep. I met him. Nice guy. He and Austin seem like a good pair. When Austin approached me I was a little worried at first. But it seems like he finally pulled his shit together. He doesn’t talk to his folks at all anymore, I guess. Said he never goes back to Lake Woods. He’s living in Madison, Wisconsin and is apparently really happy.”
Nick was completely still, staring into my eyes.
“Nick?”
Suddenly he made a funky-sounding coughing noise and his shoulders hunched. His head dipped and he held it with his hands as if it was too damn heavy to keep upright, his fingers grabbing at the silvery waves.
“Nick.” I leaned forward, put my hand on his knee. “Are you okay?”
He shook his head. The heaving breath he took sounded like a sob. He took another. And then another. Oh shit. I closed my eyes. No way to stop the tears burning the backs of my lids. My weird-ass empathetic reaction to tears often made no sense. But today it did. Seeing Nick cry, so unexpectedly, so genuinely—it fricking broke my heart.
“Sorry,” he choked.
I scooted closer, bringing my hand up to his shoulder, rubbing gently. “Damn, sweetie. I never would’ve brought it up if I’d know it would upset you like this—”
“No.” He straightened his shoulders and looked at me. Tears gleamed on his cheeks and his eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. “I’m glad you told me. I hadn’t heard. I’d lost touch…”
I reached for the box of tissues on the corner of the desk and pushed it toward him. He took one and buried his face in it. I took one too. “God,” he mumbled. “I’m an idiot.” He blew his nose. “Sorry.”
I squeezed his knee again. “Don’t be sorry. Can you…can you tell me why you’re so upset?”
“I don’t know.” He took a few deep, shuddering breaths. “I knew Austin pretty well once upon a time. But that’s just it…it’s ancient history.”
“But you have—had—a history with him? More than just a family friends thing?”
He nodded. “Yeah.” His smile was small and sad. “Our moms were good friends and Austin and I grew up together. Then, for about three days on a family vacation we took together, I thought he was destined to be the love of my life.” His laughter was hoarse. “It was one of those horny adolescent experiments that went wrong. He was the first guy I ever blew. And he was the first guy who ever worked me over. Big time. But then I ended up outing him—accidentally—to his family. So I guess I worked him over worse in some ways.”
“God.” I rocked back in my chair. The metal groaned and my knee protested but I ignored them. “You and Austin?” I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
“Yeah,” Nick said with another small smile. “Hard to believe, huh?”
The shit with Austin’s family had gone down just before we started seeing each other. And if Nick had been the one to out him…
“Jesus, Nick,” I croaked. “What? You were like thirteen or something?”
“Fourteen,” he said. “I was a freshman in high school.”
“Oh my God.”
He shook his head, quickly, forcefully. “The age thing wasn’t that big of a deal—we were both young, figuring things out together, you know? Friends until it all went south. And, regardless of how I felt about it, my parents made sure I had plenty of goddamn therapy to cope. As my doc said, I was younger, but Austin was a lot more immature. The power dynamic was complicated. What fucked me up was what happened after.”
“What happened after?” I reached for my water bottle and took a drink. My mouth felt like I’d been sucking on chalk. I could barely swallow.
Nick sighed, his shoulders sagging.
“I don’t really want to tell the whole story. Like I said—it’s ancient history and some of it isn’t really my story to tell.”
I thought about this for a few moments and asked, “You do know that Austin and I were together for a while?”
He nodded.
My eyes narrowed as more of those unwanted images from that summer escaped. “That summer you said you were at camp—that was when Austin came on board as a coach. You probably knew about him and me. You must’ve guessed.”
His lips twitched. “You guys weren’t very good at hiding it.”
I laughed. My throat hurt and I took another drink. “No. Probably not.”
His mouth quirked again and he raised his eyebrows. “He was gorgeous, right? And an amazing athlete. And smart. Like you. You made a good couple.”
I snorted. “Maybe on the surface. It sure as hell didn’t last long.”
His shoulders rose and fell. “Looking back on it now, I know you were probably exactly what he needed. He was pretty messed up.”
“I doubt a few months of lunch dates and hand jobs had much of an impact.”
“I don’t know.” He looked down at his hands. “I’ve had a few lunch dates and hand jobs with you that were pretty impactful. Smiles and touches—they can really mean something.”
His sweater had wide cuffs and they’d flopped away from his forearms. Weird how much I loved so many small, quirky things about his body. The random freckle, his lean lines, the distinct bumps of his wrists, ankles, knees—they totally knocked me out. It struck me that his arms looked both stronger and more vulnerable than I’d ever seen them. I suddenly realized all his friendship bracelets were gone. I wondered if it had hurt to cut them off. I looked up at his face and his gaze caught mine.
“I think you helped Austin in more ways than you realize,” he continued. “Just by being out and happy and yourself. And being his friend…and his lover. I knew how much he was struggling back then. You might’ve saved his life.”
My eyes went wide. “God. I don’t know about that.”
“Ask him some time,” he said. “If he’s doing well now, maybe he’d be open to talking.”
We looked at each other for a few silent moments. Then his gaze slanted to the big clock on the wall. He exhaled a long, slow breath and reached for his messenger bag. “I should get going,” he said.
I bent to help him pick up the papers that had spilled. He made the same move at the same time and our heads bonked. Hard.
“Ow,” he breathed, sitting up abruptly and rubbing at his crown.
“Sorry.” I laughed, rubbing my own head.
“When brains collide.” He smirked—a semi-Cocky Kid expression that made my chest hurt—and he began shoving the stuff into his bag.
He’d made a total mess out of his silvery waves. I reached up and brushed a hank from his eyes. Of course, once I’d touched I couldn’t stop. I wanted to feel those strands on my whole hand, not just my fingertips. I smoothed and stroked and watched how the color caught the light as the waves slipped through my fingers.
“Josh….”
And then I was looking into his eyes and the color there was equally hypnotic. His pupils had gone wide and I sunk into dark brown and black, my lungs constricting as I fought for breath. My hand dropped from his hair to his cheek, my palm cupping his jaw.
His eyelids drooped and his jaw worked slightly against my touch. I leaned in and kissed him. I couldn’t help myself.
Our mouths touched tentatively. His only response was a small exhalation and a gentle movement of his lower lip. But, like my hands in his hair, I needed so much more. I leaned into him more assertively, more closely, our knees bumping awkwardly. And then I opened my mouth over his, needing to taste him more than I needed to breathe. He moaned and our tongues greeted each other like long-lost lovers.
A choking, groaning sound rose from my chest and my other hand came up to hold the other side of his face. I didn’t want him to pull away. I wanted this kiss to go on and on and on. I didn’t want to think about what would happen after it broke off or what the hell I thought I was doing.
I just wanted to hold Nick still and taste him. After a few seconds, though, his lips and his tongue slowed and the tension in his jaw buzzed against my palms.
“What?” I whispered, pulling away slightly. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. My dick was unhappy. Or maybe too damn happy being this hard and this close to Nick.
He shook his head and I dropped my hands. “I don’t think you really want to do this,” he said softly, struggling to his feet.
The office was small and his chair was jammed into a tight space between the door and the desk. So when he stood and I stayed sitting, his crotch was directly in front of my mouth—inches away. I couldn’t see what was happening under his jeans because of his bulky sweater. My hand came up, my fingers gripping the nubby wool—
His hand came down on my wrist.
I looked up at his face. His eyes glittered and his lips were puffy from my kisses. But the lines creasing his cheeks were straight and pale.
I pressed my cheek against the wool, feeling the hard ridges of his belt and his fly and his dick lurking beneath. “Please, Nick.” The whisper came out with my next breath. I’d spent so damn many hours with this very fantasy in my head. And now that he was here under my hands, I’d do anything to take the next step. Beg, plead, cry. “God, please. Just let me…”
His hand dropped and I didn’t wait. I shoved his sweater out of the way and went for all the fasteners that were keeping me from my prize—buckles and buttons and zippers, the elastic band of his briefs.
When I tugged his dick free, he gasped and swayed against me. I gripped his narrow hips, holding him tightly, molding him with my fingers and palms. And then I swallowed down as much of him as I could. His size, his flavor, his scent—they made me dizzy and crazy and weepy. My eyes were watering, my nose was running. I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. I could only feel. He didn’t thrust. He didn’t push. Didn’t make a noise.
I sucked and pressed and licked and sucked some more. He was huge—too damn much for me with his hot, silky skin and his veiny ridges and the cockhead that bumped and nudged and took away all my air. I didn’t care. I made him fit.
I was vaguely aware that the office door was open, that the late afternoon sun was streaming through the window, beaming a shaft of light on the back of my head. I was blowing Nick in public, in a goddamn spotlight and, yeah, still I didn’t fucking care.
He tasted and felt and smelled so good.
His hips thrust forward slightly. He exhaled a soft grunt. And then all those ridges and veins were pulsing against my tongue. His come hit the back of my throat and I pulled back slightly—a move not so much about fear of drowning as covering every taste bud with what he was giving me. And giving me. And giving me. I wanted to ask, “God, Nick, sweetie…when was the last time you came?” But I didn’t really want to know. I just wanted to feel him.
I let go of one of his hips and pressed the heel of my hand against my aching dick. A few rubs was all it took and then I was moaning and gasping around his cock, thrusting against my hand as I filled my briefs.
“Oh fuck,” he breathed. His hips eased back and I, reluctantly, let him withdraw. “Oh fuck.”
I swallowed. Licked my lips. Looked up at him. I felt great. Proud and exhausted. I wiped my face on my shoulder, making a mess of my sweater, but who cared? For the first time in weeks, I felt easy. No tension in these shoulders.
“Jesus. Josh…” He fumbled for the box of tissues, grabbed one and wiped my chin.
From the feel of it, there was quite a bit of jizz I’d failed to swallow. I grinned and took the tissue from him. “Damn, right? Guess you really needed that.”
“Oh my God. I can’t fucking believe this…” He shoved his still-erect cock into his briefs. He blew off the belt and the fly and sat down hard in the chair.
“Are you okay?” He didn’t look half as happy
as I felt. In fact, he didn’t look happy at all.
“No,” he said.
I glanced at the open door. “I probably should’ve shut the door. Or taken you back to the tower before attacking you.” I smiled. “But the risk wasn’t that great. I’ve never seen another soul in this part of the hall past four o’clock.”
“The risk…” He stared at me, shaking his head. His eyes were crazy dark, his pupils blown. “You do know we didn’t use a condom, right?”
I swallowed. “Yeah. I know. It’s okay. I really, really wanted—needed—to taste you—”
“But you don’t trust me!”
The anger and sadness in his voice zapped any lingering euphoria from blowing him. He wasn’t just freaked out. He was mad.
“What were you thinking?” he rasped.
“I wasn’t thinking,” I admitted. “To be honest, I’m not worried. I did some more reading on it a while back—looked at some new data from my doc. I know the risk is really low and—”
“Bullshit. Nothing’s changed! Why is today any different than back in October when we were together—when we were exclusive?”
I didn’t answer his question. I didn’t really know the answer. I just knew I felt different. About a lot of things. And now I had to ask a question of my own. “Are you saying…are you saying that since we broke up you’ve been fucking a lot of guys without condoms?”
“No! I’m not saying that. I haven’t fucked anyone!”
I smiled. I’d suspected it was the case, but it was really gratifying—and, yeah, it was selfish and possessive of me to be happy about it—to hear he hadn’t gone back to his old ways. “Good.”
He stared at me and then dropped his head into his hands. “Oh God. I can’t do this. We shouldn’t have done this. This wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Nick.” I put my hand on his knee and squeezed. “I’m starting to think we should do this.”