Balls Up

by Lexxie Couper

  Rhys pinched his nipple harder.

  Curtis whimpered.

  With a low chuckle that was part growl, Rhys tore his lips from Curtis’s, shoved himself from the wall, and slammed Curtis against it, replacing the fingers on his nipple with his mouth.

  “Fuck!” Curtis burst out, throwing back his head hard enough to hit the wall with a shuddering thud.

  Dull pain exploded behind his eyes, and still, the pleasure of Rhys’s mouth and tongue and teeth on his nipple consumed him.

  Imprisoned him.

  Owned him.

  Closing his eyes, he gave himself over to it. Why wouldn’t he? It was incredible.

  At his chest, Rhys feasted on his nipple, all the while flicking and pinching the other one with strong fingers.

  Curtis groaned, thrusting his hips forward. The loss of the man’s hard cock against his own frustrated him, even as his brain and body barely survived the pleasure of Rhys’s mouth on his flesh.

  As if aware of his hungry need, Rhys dragged his hand down Curtis’s stomach, charting the shape of his abs before moving to his belt. Without preamble, Rhys released the buckle, pulled the strip of leather free of the loops on Curtis’s jeans and threw it aside.

  “Jesus,” Curtis ground out, clawing at Rhys’s shoulders. “Oh, fuck me, Rhys.”

  Rhys sucked harder on Curtis’s nipple for a second before slowly sliding his tongue up Curtis’s chest, his throat, his chin. “Yep,” he said, pulling away just enough so Curtis could focus on his eyes. “That’s exactly my plan.” He snared Curtis’s bottom lip in a playful nip and then pulled back again. “And it isn’t going to be as gentle and cosy as it was in the shower, either.”

  Curtis sucked in a sharp breath. Swallowed.

  Rhys chuckled, slipping his palm back down Curtis’s stomach until he reached the zipped fly of his jeans. “You may be used to being in charge of things, Captain Clarkson…” He wriggled his fingers past Curtis’s waistband until they nudged his fully engorged cock. Wrapped its swollen girth. Squeezed. “But that’s just not cricket anymore.”

  Curtis tried to grin. Instead, a wobbly moan fell from him as Rhys dragged his thumb over the tip of his erection.

  Rhys’s pupils dilated at the sound. His nostrils flared. “Fuck, I love the noises you make.” He teased Curtis’s slit with his thumb once more, slower this time, squeezing the length as he did so. “Do it again.”

  Another moan tore from Curtis’s throat.

  Rhys drew in a slow, hitching breath. “That’s it. So good.”

  “Rhys…” Curtis rasped.

  Rhys stole the rest of Curtis’s words with a hungry, brutal kiss. His tongue plundered Curtis’s mouth, at once demanding and cajoling.

  Delicious sensations ribboned through Curtis’s body. Tight ropes of hot pleasure. He groaned into the kiss, pushing his hips forward, wanting to drive his cock in and out of Rhys’s grip. Needing to feel the man’s hand moving over his flesh.

  Rhys allowed him the exquisite pleasure, making love to his mouth with his tongue as he did so.

  And as soon as Curtis reached for the button of his fly—incapable of waiting any longer for Rhys to release his cock completely from the prison of his jeans—Rhys pulled away.

  Stepped backward.

  One step.

  Curtis let out a ragged whimper of protest. “What the fuck…”

  Nostrils flaring, eyes dark with desire, Rhys shook his head. “Me. I’m the one who gets to undress you. Next time, I’ll let you do it, but now, this time, I’m taking your clothes off. Understand?”

  The order sent fresh desire through Curtis. Fresh lust. Only once before in his life had he willingly let someone else be the master of his pleasure. Once before, when it wasn’t just his pleasure he’d existed for, but the pleasure of two people more important to him than anyone else.

  He’d never relinquished control to any other.

  But Rhys McDowell wasn’t just any other. And it wasn’t just Curtis’s pleasure the man held in his control. It was Curtis’s future.

  The soccer player stepped toward him, his jaw bunching as he reached up and cupped Curtis’s face in a gentle palm. “Understand, Curtis?” he whispered.

  Your future, Clarkson.

  Curtis’s nodded.

  Rhys’s lips curled. The desire in his eyes flared hotter. “Excellent,” he said in a perfect Montgomery Burns imitation, a heartbeat before lowering his hands to Curtis’s fly and popping the button.

  Curtis didn’t move. He leaned against the wall, his heart wild, his cock throbbing, and watched Rhys.

  Watched him lower his zipper.

  Watched him part his open fly.

  The head of Curtis’s cock poked from the waistband of his boxers, a fact Rhys capitalized on. With a low chuckle, he drew a slow circle around its slit with his finger before trailing over the tiny opening and the glistening pre-come beading on it.

  Curtis couldn’t stop his raw groan of appreciation. Nor could he prevent his hips rolling forward.

  With another chuckle, this one closer to a hum, Rhys raised his finger to his mouth and sucked the product of Curtis’s pleasure from it.

  Curtis let out a ragged breath.

  Rhys wriggled his eyebrows. “I could fucking drag this out forever, Clarkson. Just to see the hungry pleasure on your face. It’s so fucking amazing to see it, to know I put it there…”

  He stopped. Stared at Curtis.

  “But?” Curtis asked, the word strained.

  Rhys closed his eyes. “But I want you too much. I want to be in you too much.”

  He opened his eyes and Curtis swallowed at the need burning in their depths.

  “So instead, I’m going to do this.”

  Without another word, he hooked his fingers into the front band of Curtis’s boxers and hauled him from the wall.

  Chapter Seven

  “It’s harder than I thought,” Rhys ground out, gazing into Curtis’s eyes as he tugged him through the hotel suite, heading for the bedroom.

  Curtis’s lips curled. “What is? Your dick?”

  Rhys snorted. “No. Not my dick. Although my dick is harder than it’s ever been.”

  Curtis flicked a quick look at Rhys’s groin. In response, Rhys’s cock twitched in his jeans.

  “It’s harder to control myself,” Rhys said, continuing to walk backwards as he pulled Curtis by the boxers toward the bedroom, “and not just throw you to the floor and bang your fucking brains out.”

  The confession tore a low noise from the cricket player. His eyes fluttered closed briefly. “Then why don’t you. It’s why I’m here, after all.”

  Rhys shook his head, his throat tight, his balls heavy. “The first time I enter your body, Clarkson, I’m not going to do it by base rutting. Although holy fuck, does a part of me want to. A part of me wants to claim you as my property through and through in the most animalistic way.”

  Once again, a raw noise of hunger left Curtis. He regarded Rhys with an unwavering gaze. “You know I want that, right?”

  “Another part of me,” Rhys said, backing over the bedroom threshold, “the intelligent part, knows to do so would result in you never surrendering to me again.”

  Curtis’s jaw bunched. “I—”

  “I can’t have that,” Rhys continued. Fuck, his whole body was on fire. His heart, his soul… “Since we parted ways at Sydney International, I’ve come to realize I ache for you in a way I never had for—”

  He stopped. Froze.

  Curtis regarded him. “For?”

  Rhys swallowed. A prickling pressure wrapped his head. “For Josh Blackthorne.”

  At his best friend’s name, uttered with torn emotion, Rhys’s gut clenched.

  Curtis didn’t move. “You love him?”

  “Always have,” Rhys confessed. “He doesn’t know it, of course. And I’ll never tell him. But it didn’t matter who I was flirting with, who I was fucking, it was always Josh I thought of.”

  “Was?” Curtis
asked. His Adam’s apple jerked up and down his throat. The sight tightened the constricting band wrapped around Rhys’s chest.

  Rhys nodded. His blood roared in his ears. His mouth turned dry.

  Jesus, here we go.

  “Was,” he echoed. “Until I met you in the Heathrow airport. Since then…” The shrug he gave Curtis was, he admitted to himself, lame.

  But he felt raw. Vulnerable. His gut may be telling him to hold nothing back, but holy shit, his heart was having a hard fucking time with coping.

  “Since meeting me in Heathrow,” Curtis said, his voice an ambiguous murmur, “you don’t think of Blackthorne anymore? When you kiss me, when you touch me, when you suck me, you think of…”

  “You,” Rhys declared. “I’m putting it out there, Clarkson. Since bumping into you at Heathrow, I can’t fucking stop thinking of you. Only you.”

  A slow smile curled Curtis’s lips. “The way it should be,” he answered. “Now if we can get on with it?” He pressed his palms to Rhys’s chest and shoved him farther into the bedroom.

  Rhys caught his balance with a laugh. A second before Curtis grabbed his shirt and yanked it up over his head.

  He let him. Didn’t stop him.

  Nor did he stop him when Curtis captured his right nipple with his mouth and sucked.

  “Fuck,” he groaned, allowing the man a moment of control. Surrendering to it for a delicious eternity.

  When Curtis moved his lips to Rhys’s left nipple, however, Rhys knew he had to take back control. If he didn’t, he really would take Curtis with brutal lust.

  Grabbing at the thick, cool strands of Curtis’s hair, he jerked the man’s head up, crushing his mouth with a searing kiss.

  Curtis met him with equal hunger as he fumbled with Rhys’s fly.

  With a laugh, Rhys spun him around one hundred and eighty degrees and pushed him onto the bed.

  Not waiting for Curtis to recover—or reposition himself—Rhys grabbed at first one foot and then the other, removing Curtis’s boots with a flourish. Tossing them over his shoulder with a grin.

  Curtis tried to hitch himself farther up the mattress, a move Rhys halted with a quick grab of his ankles. “Nope,” he shook his head, “I want you right there. Mine. To do with what I want.”

  “If you don’t hurry up and do it, I’m going to shoot my load into the—”

  Rhys grabbed the hems of Curtis’s jeans and yanked, pulling the item of clothing from his legs.

  To his delight, Curtis’s boxers half came off with his jeans, revealing the man’s massive cock and swollen balls to Rhys’s hungry gaze. “Ah fuck, dude, the things I’m going to do to that dick of yours.”

  Once again, he didn’t wait for Curtis to respond. Instead, he hooked his fingers into Curtis’s boxers and tugged them from his body. Stripping him naked, save for his socks.

  “You are the sexiest, most perfect fucking man I’ve ever seen,” he declared, climbing onto the bed to hover over Curtis. He reached down between their bodies, wrapped his fingers around Curtis’s erection and gave it a squeeze.

  Flat on his back beneath him, Curtis let out a choppy groan. “Flattery like that will get you everything.”

  Rhys shook his head. “Not flattery. Truth.”

  To show how truthful he was being, he lowered his head and made love to Curtis’s mouth. Kissed him over and over until Curtis whimpered and begged him to fuck him.

  He didn’t.

  Rising from the bed, he removed the rest of his own clothing and then slid his naked body up the entire length of Curtis’s.

  “Fuck, Rhys,” Curtis groaned as their cocks rubbed together. “You really are hell-bent on torturing me.”

  Rhys nipped at his chin. “You think foreplay is for losers?”

  Curtis hiccupped out a laugh. “No.”

  Rhys grinned. “Then shut the fuck up and enjoy. I’m going to discover everything I can about your body, and everything I can about how to make it mine.”

  Without warning, Curtis buried his hand in Rhys’s hair and balled it into a fist, forcing Rhys to look at him. “It’s already yours,” he said. “Completely and utterly.”

  The statement detonated something beyond arousal inside Rhys. He stared down into the man’s eyes, his heart fast in his throat. “For how long?”

  Curtis’s Adam’s apple slid up and down his throat again. “I want you inside me, McDowell,” he answered on a hoarse whisper. “Now. Please?”

  It was the plea that ended Rhys. That undid him. And the hungry conflict in Curtis’s eyes. The man was surrendering to Rhys right now, but after this…

  Rhys’s chest ached. Who knew what came after this?

  With a silent nod, every molecule in his body craving something he doubted could ever be, Rhys moved from the bed.

  He walked to his luggage, dug around inside the jumble of clothes and travel necessities, and withdrew his toiletry bag. Unzipped it, keeping his back to Curtis.

  He couldn’t look at the other man. Not right now. If he did, he’d do something ridiculous, like ask him to spend the rest of his life with him.

  The sound of cotton rustling told him Curtis had shifted positions on the bed.

  Heart racing faster than it ever had, so fast he wondered if it could keep going without actually rupturing in his chest, Rhys finally turned.

  Curtis was kneeling on the bed, working his cock with one slow-moving hand, massaging his balls with the other.

  The sheer muscular perfection of his physique stole Rhys’s breath and for a moment, Rhys forgot the toiletry bag in his hand and the items he sought within its contents. “Jesus, Clarkson,” he rasped, raking his gaze over the man’s broad chest, down his sculpted six-pack, to the massive erection Curtis squeezed and back up to his face again. “I could die the most sated man on the planet just looking at you.”

  Curtis chuckled, even as he ducked his head in what Rhys recognised as the most ridiculously adorable bout of sudden shyness Rhys had ever seen.

  It set fire to his blood, turning his desire for the older man into an incomprehensible need on the cusp of frightening.

  If there was nothing after this between them…if this was just a stolen moment of raw connection…how would Rhys ever function normally again?

  Don’t think about that. Think about now.

  Forcing himself to draw a slow breath, Rhys dipped his hand into his open toiletry bag and removed a tube of lube and a condom.

  Curtis’s nostrils flared.

  Rhys cleared his throat. “Ever heard of the Folded Deck Chair?”

  “I’m assuming we’re not talking about patio furniture?”

  “We’re not.”

  “Then no. But I should point out, my sum total experience of gay sex is half-drunk doggy style during international tours when most of my energy came from being jacked on jet lag and adrenaline.”

  The confession, uttered with a sheepish smile, turned Rhys’s pulse to a pounding tattoo in his throat. “So this is your first real time.”

  Curtis held his stare. “It’s the first time when it means more than just getting my load off.”

  Rhys’s breath escaped him in a shaky laugh. “Then I’m glad I suggested the Folded Deck Chair.”

  “Which is?”

  Dropping his toiletry bag on the floor, he crossed to the bed. “Let the education begin.”

  Curtis choked his cock, desperate to stave off the orgasm threatening to overwhelm him. He watched Rhys stop at the end of the bed. Watched him tear open the condom packet in his hand with his teeth.

  In Curtis’s chest, his heart attempted to break out of his body.

  In his hand, his cock throbbed with an echoing force.

  He couldn’t draw breath.

  All he could do was watch Rhys cover the long, thick pole of his erection with an ink-black condom and then squeeze a glistening pool of lube over the organ.

  “Sit,” Rhys ordered, lifting his attention from his now-sheathed dick to Curtis’s face. “On your
arse. Knees bent, legs spread.”

  Curtis did as instructed.

  Lips curling, Rhys climbed onto the bed. “Now, I’m going to penetrate you while you rest your calves on my shoulders. Got it?”

  Curtis’s heart leapt into a crazy rhythm. He nodded.

  Rhys grinned. “And then I’m going to press you back onto the bed, so you’re almost folded in two, as I seat myself firmly and deeply into your tight hole. AKA, the Folded Deck Chair. Dig it?”

  “Dig it?” Curtis raised an eyebrow, even as his body reacted to the position Rhys described. Christ, did his body react. “What decade are you from? Or is that how you soccer players talk?”

  Rhys smirked. “Oh, you are so going to get it.”

  Curtis leaned forward a little, drawing his head closer to Rhys’s. “So you keep telling me. But so far, all that’s happened is some clothes removal and some lip-locking. Hell, I’m still wearing my—”

  The word “socks” didn’t make it past Curtis’s lips.

  With a laughing growl, Rhys shoved him backward, capturing Curtis’s mouth with his own as they fell to the mattress. Their bodies collided, Curtis framing Rhys’s hips with his thighs, their erections slapping together.

  The unfamiliar sensation detonated a base pleasure in Curtis and he groaned, grinding his cock harder to Rhys’s.

  Echoing his groan, Rhys flattened his hands on either side of Curtis’s head and levered himself off his body. Eyes half closed, nostrils flaring, he gazed down at him.

  “I need to lube us both up,” he said, strained frustration in his voice.

  Curtis nodded, even as a part of him wanted to say Fuck the lube. You need to fill my arse.

  An empty hollowness stole through him as Rhys straightened off his body, replaced immediately by nervous impatience when Rhys retrieved the lube from the end of the bed and squeezed a thick dollop of the clear liquid onto his fingers.

  “Knees to your shoulders, Clarkson,” he ordered. “Let’s see how flexible you are.”

  Once again, Curtis followed Rhys’s command without question.

  His mouth was dry. Pre-come oozed from his dick, anointing his abs as he pulled his knees closer to his shoulders.

  He watched Rhys take in the sight of his exposed anus, his heart turning to a thumping hammer at the low, hungry sound Rhys made.