Unraveling Josh

by Edie Danford

  “Get on the bed,” I told him. “Lie on your back.”

  I’d covered the bed with my softest, thickest fleece blanket. The one he loved to wallow around on. It was dark red and looked like rich, wine-colored velvet in the candlelight.

  I watched him get settled, noticing the way he licked his lips and the way his un-ringed fingers clenched at the blanket. He bent his knees, widening them slightly and I caught sight of the shadow of his crease and the murky shape of the plug.

  Inhaling slowly, I untied the robe and let it fall from my shoulders. It landed with a soft thud at my feet and the candles on the nightstand flickered, sending shadows across Nick’s fair skin.

  I was only playing at being a prince, but when his gaze surveyed my body, consuming all of me from the top of my head to where my knees bumped against the mattress, I truly felt like royalty.

  “You’re beautiful,” I told him. “And I love the way you move, love the way you touch me. But right now there’s no touching.”

  “Yes, sire.”

  A fresh bottle of lube was somewhere on the nightstand. Maybe I’d overdone it with the candles. I found it, gingerly extracting it, and then pumped a generous amount on my hand. He’d obviously been thinking I was headed straight for the main event, because when I knelt on the bed beside him and began stroking his shoulders and chest, creating warmth and friction with my palms, he drew in a breath and held it. I was good at massage—I’d given more than a few and received many—and he knew this from personal experience.

  So the fact he was holding himself tense, resisting my efforts to ease his tension, was interesting.

  He’d wanted me to go straight for the main event.

  Too bad.

  I worked all the contours and nooks and crannies along his neck and collarbones and shoulders. And when he finally let go of a long breath, when the tendons along his neck released, I bent and sucked hard on his nipple.

  No ring there anymore, but I knew how sensitive he was here and I went at him with my lips and my tongue and my teeth, patiently and persistently, my senses totally sucking down his flavor and his textures and the awesome little whimpering noises he was making. After I’d turned it into a rosy, hard point I blew on it softly. And then started up again. I tweaked his other nipple with my thumbnail, roughing it up good before I let my hand trail down between his parted legs. Using the lightest touch, I played with the skin around the plug, toying with the stretched ridges, teasing and smoothing.

  When his whimpers turned into groans, when his hips were making tiny involuntary thrusts, I kept going, using my mouth on his right nipple and fingers on the left.

  “Fuuuuuck…”

  His head was tipped back against the pillow, this throat straining, his lips parted.

  “What did you say?” I asked in a prince-like voice.

  “Nothing. Nothing, sire.”

  I bent and licked the drop of precome from his straining dick.

  “Ohhhh!”

  “That’s not happening yet,” I told him before going back to his nipples.

  His hands had fisted the blanket on either side of his hips and I was looking forward to seeing the wrinkles later and remembering this. Seeing physical evidence of how crazy I was making him.

  I nibbled my way down to his sternum, using my tongue to push against the small hollow, loving the way it felt as his chest rose and fell raggedly.

  I straddled him swiftly, surprising his eyes open. He looked wild-eyed and wasted on lust. I smiled and pried his hands loose from the blanket. Then I tugged at his fingers, raising his arms over his head, propping his wrists against the top of the bed’s iron headboard. If I’d had the time and the materials I would have tied him. Maybe not, though. I dug the way he felt between my legs too damn much to move.

  “Keep these here,” I told him, leaning forward to place a kiss on the inside of one of his wrists.

  I looked down at his arms and his flanks, my gaze tracing the long, lean lines of muscle from his biceps to his hip. So gorgeous. And…oh damn. He’d shaved his pits too. With a groan, I dove into one. He hadn’t used any scent or deodorant, conscious of how that shit could set me off. And he had my undying gratitude for it. Every valley and every slope got me off so much. I wanted to relearn all of him with my tongue.

  “Josh,” he rasped.

  “Mmm,” I moaned against his ribs.

  “Sire!”

  I looked up at him.

  “I might come. I might need to…” He licked his lips.

  I realized that while I’d been giving him the royal treatment, he’d been thrusting against my ass. And I’d been thrusting back.

  Shit.

  “No,” I said. “No, you don’t have permission to come.” I climbed off him, licking my lips, taking in air. “You have to wait until I’m inside you.”

  He nodded, the candlelight glossing his wet lips and dark eyes.

  I scrambled down between his legs, knowing that I’d waited too long, damn it. I was a bad royal dude with no discipline. I was going to come just looking at him. I tugged on the plug. Nothing happened.

  “Harder,” he gasped. “And don’t worry. It’s made out of hypoallergenic stuff.”

  I tugged harder. It came out with a sort of a pop. I tossed it on the floor where it made a bouncing sound.

  He laughed. I laughed too.

  “Lube,” he said.

  “No, I’ve gotta do this first.”

  I glided my hands down his inner thighs as I gazed down at him. These spaces I’d never explored properly.

  His hole was dark pink, contracting a bit as it adjusted to life without the plug. I bent and flicked the tip of my tongue against it.

  “Fuck! Josh, sire…please!”

  It felt good. Tasted musky. Smelled like lube. So I did it again, pushing harder this time. And then I did it again. And again. His thighs quivered against my palms. His hips thrust against my face.

  “Sire, please. Please! Oh God. Later…” His hands came down on my head, his fingers doing my favorite twine and twist thing around my ears. “We can experiment with this later. But right now. Right now you’ve gotta fuck me.”

  “Later,” I breathed, looking up at him. “You promise?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay.” I reached over for the lube. I squirted a whole blob right onto his crease.

  “Jesus,” he muttered, half laughing, half groaning.

  “Too much?” I asked.

  “No. It’s fine.” He looked like he’d say anything just to keep me moving forward with this gig.

  “I’m gonna work some of this in now, okay?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, yeah.”

  I did one knuckle, then two. He was hot and tight and satiny-rough. After several experimental pumps—with me carefully observing his face to gage reaction—I tried two fingers. Wow. When he clenched I could feel it.

  And when I hit the nub of his prostate he could feel it. He practically rocketed off the bed.

  “Now,” he gasped. “Now, now, now…”

  I put my hand on my dick. It looked angry, ready to conquer, mad as hell for having to wait so long. I gave my shaft a couple of well-lubed strokes and then aimed my cockhead—

  “Shit! Condom.” Nick twisted his torso and reached for the nightstand drawer. His expression was concerned, his movements panicky. “Oh thank God they’re in here,” he breathed, waving a strip of them like a victory banner.

  He smiled, totally forgetting his knight role.

  “Nick,” I croaked, my throat clogging as I watched him tear into a wrapper and extract the condom.

  “What?” he whispered, crunching his newly honed abs as he leaned up to cover my cock, sheathing me with fingers that were a little bit shaky, but so very careful.

  “I love you,” I told him. “I want you here with me. Sharing my heart and my body. In the forever kind of way.”

  He stared at me, his eyes wide and wet. He fell back against the pillow and covered his face wi
th his hands, his mouth quivering as he struggled for air, for composure. “Goddamn you, sire.”

  “It’s okay,” I soothed, loving him more every second, feeling tears spill from my eyes. “It’s okay. I’m gonna fuck you now, all right? Give you just what you need.”

  He nodded.

  I nudged my cockhead against his entrance, and he bent his knees, grabbing his thighs with his hands. As I slid forward, I felt him push, contract, then give way.

  “Oh God,” I breathed. “Nick. Sweetheart.”

  “Go,” he said, his neck straining. “Move. Do me, sire.”

  I laughed and he wrapped his legs around me, turning my laughter into a groan with the new angle. I began to thrust. Slow at first, learning him, and then it felt so good I went faster, deeper.

  He fisted his hands, restlessly raising them from the bed, and I grabbed them, fitting us together palm to palm. He was flexible, my Nick—he’d been doing lots of Russian twists—and he leaned up and kissed me, licking at my lips, nipping to punish me a bit before going deep with softened lips and his talented tongue.

  I’d just begun to feel the swirling, whooshing rush at the base of my spine and through my balls, when he fell back. He arched—his neck, his spine—and his hand wrenched from mine. He grabbed his cock, gasping, his eyes wild, his expression overwhelmed. God, I loved watching him come, loved making him lose it.

  “Nick. Love you so much. So much…”

  The storm was whooshing, gathering, sweeping up every crazy thing we’d gone through, every chunk of misery, every hunk of tension and doubt. And then—oh Jesus—then it exploded. And it was scary-beautiful. And all-consuming. And I was coming. And crying. And Nick was coming too, the scent and feel and sound of him the best, most gorgeous rain ever. I kept thrusting, holding on to him, groaning as if I’d been vanquished even as joy gushed through my veins. My Nick drought was over.

  PART FOUR

  “Well, you know what they say about happily-ever-afters.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Nick

  SO IT TURNED out Josh was as obsessed with short—or shaved—hair as he was with long.

  He was propped on his elbow beside me, alternately stroking my head and my chest. Every now and then he’d pause over my chest and I knew he was measuring the beat of my heart.

  We hadn’t showered. After he’d left me all ridden hard and put away wet—ha, just for, like, five minutes—he’d done a very un-prince-like thing and gone to the bathroom for a towel and a washcloth. And then he’d very gently and carefully cleaned me up.

  “How long do you think it will take to grow back?” he asked, tracing my hairline with the pad of his fingertip.

  “I dunno.” I grabbed his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. He tasted even more awesome than usual. I ran my tongue over his teeth. What was that? Mint? Wine? Maybe it wasn’t his flavor that was so delicious…maybe this taste was gratitude. For a while I thought I’d never be able to kiss him again. “Not very long,” I answered him. “It grows fast.”

  “I liked the platinum.”

  I raised my brows. “You did?”

  “Yeah. Well, at first it kinda freaked me out. But it grew on me… Couldn’t stop looking at you. And wondering how it would feel.”

  “Hm. Well, I’d like to say it was all part of my strategy to get you back. But I did it for me. I was tired of taking care of—or not taking care of—the long stuff. Needed a change.”

  “I’m glad you did it for you.”

  I nodded. He was getting a serious expression on his face. He often got one when he traced the Whitman tattoo on my neck.

  If it had been a couple months ago I would’ve pulled him down for another kiss. An I-wanna-fuck-you kiss. And then I would’ve fucked him. I still wanted to do that. But I knew it was probably better to listen if he felt the need to talk.

  And then I could fuck him.

  “Nick.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I remember you.”

  I stared at him. “You remember me…”

  “From before. When we first met at soccer camp.”

  I took a deep breath. “Um, you do?”

  “It’s weird. I was looking through an old yearbook. There weren’t any pictures of you—it was before your time. But the memories inspired a few images of you. They aren’t very sharp memories.” He traced my cheekbone with the side of his finger. "You’re all shrouded in mist.” He laughed. “But I remember that we talked about Whitman. And you wore T-shirts that advertised rock bands I’d never heard of. And you always seemed a little nervous or shy maybe—”

  I snorted. “An understatement.” I felt my cheeks get pink as he went back to tracing my tattoo. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to remember—never had been. I’d been such a mess. Well, I was still a mess. But at least now I didn’t wear braces and I didn’t want to run away from Josh and throw myself at his feet at the same time.

  I squirmed under his scrutiny. Okay. So maybe just the wearing-braces thing was different.

  “And didn’t you come by my house and leave a Whitman book with Austin that you wanted him to give me?”

  I glanced away. “Um…”

  I could tell him the whole horrible story of how, on one hot summer morning, I’d foolishly biked to Josh’s house to talk Whitman with him. And, instead of wowing Josh with my brilliant fourteen-year-old interpretation of old Walt, I’d ended up getting an eyeful of Josh and Austin making out by the pool. After which, Austin had caught me and made all kinds of scary threats before totally breaking down and apologizing for being such a headcase.

  I’d pedaled home that day, my heart breaking for the death of my dreams—Josh would never and could never be mine. But also my heart was breaking for Austin. He had the dream, but he seemed incapable of being happy with it.

  I still felt like those things Austin struggled with were something I shouldn’t share. Maybe because I’d fucked up and shared when I shouldn’t. Maybe because I knew how that betrayal felt and I also knew how it felt to betray.

  Who knew? Someday Austin and I—and Josh—could maybe get together, knock back some beers and reminisce. Oh God. Talk about mind-fucks…

  Josh narrowed his eyes at me. “Why are you blushing?”

  I pressed my lips together as he tickled my ribs.

  “Come on,” he said. He kissed my hot cheek. “Tell me.”

  “You promise not to give me shit for it?”

  He kissed the spot over my heart. “Cross my heart.”

  I swallowed hard and admitted, “I had a huge crush on you. And I had this vision of going to your house and bringing my notes on Whitman. And spending long hours staring into your hot, dreamy eyes and discussing poetry with you.”

  He stared down at me. “For real?”

  I nodded.

  He laughed softly. “Oh my God. That is the cutest, most romantic thing ever.”

  “Well, not all of it was cute and romantic. I also did plenty of fantasizing about this.” I pinched his ass. Hard.

  His laughter got louder. I thought I saw tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.

  “Hey,” I said, pinching his ass more gently. “Remember you promised not to give me a hard time. I’ve got enough embarrassing teenage shit to live down.”

  He took a big breath and stared into my eyes. “Nick, I promise.” His voice got suddenly Josh-deep and all serious. He cupped my jaw with his big hands and looked down at me with his Josh-beautiful eyes. “There’s a bunch of things I want to talk to you about. Some day. There’s too much I want to ask you and most of my plans for tonight did not involve talking. But I do want to say this before we do anything else—I’m sorry I didn’t let you explain about the Notch Spot stuff—”

  “It’s okay—”

  He stopped me with a kiss. “You stood here in this room and asked me—practically begged me—to listen to you. And I shut you down, essentially told you to get lost—”

  “I hurt you. Of course you were gonna—”

>   “No,” he said, pressing a fingertip to my lips. “Everyone deserves a chance to be heard before the judge delivers a verdict. It was complicated, that business. You’re complicated.” He stroked my head. “And, as history tells us, it’s foolhardy and dangerous to treat a complicated problem with black-and-white solutions. You can’t take back the A-bomb, you know?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. But history also tells us that people are assholes. And I was pretty much an asshole.”

  “But you were my asshole.”

  I giggled. Couldn’t help it. He laughed too.

  “You were,” he insisted. “I loved you. And then I let that love go way too easily.”

  I grabbed his hand and kissed it. Then I pressed it against my heart because I wanted him to feel it when I said this. “I love you. And you didn’t let your love go. I’ve known you for a long time, you see. And I know your heart is big, generous. I knew if I hung out long enough—lingering at the bottom of your tower or whatever—that there was a good chance I’d convince you to take down those walls I forced you to build.”

  He stroked my head some more. Kissed me. Then he grinned and said, “Baby, you can take down my walls anytime.”

  Laughing, I shoved against his big shoulders. He landed on the mattress with an oof as I turned him into a Joshua sandwich. Delicious. I squirmed on top of him, making sure he felt all the parts I was going to use to take down his walls in the next few minutes.

  My brain stalled on that thought and I glanced at the nightstand, seeking the clock. The surface of the narrow wood top was a disaster. Candlewax and lube and a strip of condoms. In the midst of it all gleamed some large blue numbers: 11:59.

  I laughed. There was no way I was gonna haul my ass out of his bed and catch a pumpkin ride for home.

  For one thing, my heart was no longer intact—I’d given most of it back to Josh the second I’d walked up the stairs and witnessed the light of a zillion candles turning the air into something magical, saw him standing there in that gold robe that looked like it had been stolen from the theater department, heard the shake in his voice as he delivered his commands.