Underside of Courage (Beautifully Disturbed Series Book 2)

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  His reputation does not coincide with the man holding my hand. I’m humbled that he’d be nervous to bring me home.

  Just inside, we stop to shuck out of our coats, hanging them on a tree hook next to the front door. Collin turns up the heat on the thermostat while I turn my attention to the sofa where I got to hold him for the first time while we watched movies. That was a good day. The first and only other time I’d been here. I’m counting on many more good days to come in this apartment.

  I love it here. Not just because Collin lives here (although that’s a big reason), but for what he and his roommate have created. The space couldn’t be more different from a typical college apartment like the place I live with all my roommates’ mismatched, thrift store, curbside castoff furniture, which done with style, I find comforting. My roommates have no style. Benton and Collin have style. They’ve made a real home.

  “Come on.” He motions with his chin “My room is over here.”

  Though I’ve been here before, tonight will be the first time seeing his room. I can’t help wonder how many other men has he brought in here, gotten to see this side of him? A person’s room is very personal. The place you can most be yourself. His has a queen size bed centered against the opposite wall from where we walk in.

  The smaller the bed, the more intimate the setting, which sounds stupid because I know I’m talking about sex. Though with Collin it’s not just sex, but one night stand fucking. Does he let them stay the night, or does he kick them out once they’ve finished? Will he have me spend the night? Sleeping next to someone, letting them share your personal space, making yourself vulnerable to them, that’s intimate.

  His headboard and footboard have those clean art deco lines, which, set against the pewter walls and shade lighter gunmetal gray comforter give the space a classic, masculine feel. The pieces look authentic, a couple real antiques. It fits him. His desk in the corner follows those same lines but looks newer. Then he has the usual, a couple of dressers and a very large bookshelf with books spilling onto the floor. I know he’s a writer, I guess I just never pictured him as such a reader.

  My favorite part of the space has to be all the pictures. All with friends. None of them looks to be family, at least none of them looks anything like Collin. The one next to his bed has Benton in it. Benton and another man reminding me too much of Benton for them not to be related. Collin holds that man like he was holding a lover. Like I used to hold Jake.

  He’s being patient while I take it all in, until I’ve looked at one picture too many and he clears his throat to grab my attention.

  I turn to him. And not just look at him, but take him in. All of him. The way he stands now, clenching his shoulders tight, not the posture of confidence he usually shows. The tips of his fingers tucked inside his jeans pockets. And the way he’s looking at my face but avoids my eyes. I’m not sure if he regrets inviting me back here, or if something else is on his mind. Please let it be something else.

  “I just want to touch you tonight. Okay?” He asks.

  Not what I had in mind from the great Collin Pratt. Not when I’m drunk and horny and haven’t had a man in… Jesus. I rub the palms of my hands against my eyes. I’m strung so tight he could probably play me in the rhythm section of a jazz band. But clearly he needs this, and he’s had me over for breakfast and he invited me to the party tonight. He’s not treating me like he’d treat any other guy. So I can’t treat him like any other guy would treat him.

  Is it okay? “Yes.”

  “Good.” His shoulders relax for only a second, tightening back up when he speaks his next words so full of vulnerability, he had to have been holding it in before. “Will you stay the night, then?” Then he closes his stunning, bluer than ice blue eyes, a look of pain flashing across his face.

  I don’t know what that’s about, but I know I want it gone.

  And damn if that realization doesn’t hit me where I live.

  “Yes,” I tell him again. No hesitation.

  On the “s” in yes his eyes open, and he’s on me. Lips crushing mine, swallowing up the last soft sss. A kiss not delicate like at the party, but hot. Totally hot and frantic. Want-filled is really the only way to describe how his lips feel against mine.

  “Hey…no need to rush. We’ve got all night.” If he’d have kissed me with this intensity before he’d let his vulnerability slip, I’d be all over it. Now though, I can’t believe I’m the one to slow us down, putting my hands up to his shoulders to ease him back.

  Collin can kiss, without a doubt. He’s technically perfect, every gloss of his lips against mine, my jaw, my throat. And it’s clear he’s choosing to ignore my hands on his shoulders by his pushing forward instead of pulling back.

  This kiss, I’m sure, is his hookup kiss. The one he uses on other men to get them there. I’m already not like other men to him. He set the precedent. Since I’m not like any other man, I refuse to be kissed how he’d kiss them. It’s his sweet, unhurried intimate kiss I want back. The one he gave at the party.

  These ones do their job to get me hard. The one from the party warmed me from the inside out. Warmed me in a way I don’t even remember feeling with Jake, who I loved. How fucked up is that?

  When he lowers me to his bed, Collin’s rough, separating me from my clothing. All except my boxer briefs. Those stay on. He begins to rush again, hands seeking out every patch of exposed skin, only pausing to work strategic muscles. The way he preps me, I know if we had sex tonight it would be hard and fucking fantastic.

  Part of me thinks, Kip, you’re an idiot for turning down hard, fucking fantastic sex. But his actions are so contrary to the words he’s already given me tonight, I just can’t do it. I think maybe he doesn’t know any other way to interact in the bedroom. Going off that picture next to the bed, he knew at one point. Whatever happened, whatever caused him to close his heart off also made him forget.

  The men he chooses are takers who want instant gratification, and it’s his job to give. Or that’s how it seems.

  He’s struggling between what he wants tonight, just to touch me, and what he thinks I want, to seal the deal. I wonder if any man has ever really taken care of Collin.

  Decision made, tonight Collin gets what he needs.

  From here on, we go slow. Exploratory. With the goal in mind, that is, to show him exactly how not like other men I am, this time I use my hands and mouth and tongue. We swap positions as I roll on top. Of course, I have an ulterior motive here, to make him want me so bad he’ll never think of being with anyone else.

  My tongue traces a line along his lips as I use my thumb to tug on the skin above his chin to coax him to open up for me. And he does, right on cue, allowing my tongue to slide in with his again. There’s nothing sexier than kissing with tongues, slow and wet.

  Now he’s back, my Collin from earlier, so in to everything I’m doing. His shallow breaths hitch around tiny muscle spasms. When I pull back he groans, bringing his hands to my shoulders to keep me in place, but I have other plans.

  Tracing the tip of my nose down the column of his throat, I only stop once my lips touch the skin above the collar of his button down, which he’d left unbuttoned enough for me to kiss down a slight V over his chest. From there I force myself to break away from his deliciously salty skin to massage his tight muscles starting at the top of his biceps, dragging my hands down his arm with subtle pressure until my fingers reach the tips of his. My intent is to do the other arm as well, then repeat the same soothing motion down his chest. It derails when he wraps his fingers around mine, flipping us, my back to the bed again.

  That’s how I find myself lying here mostly naked, half on the bed with one leg bent at the knee, dangling over the side, and the other leg wrapped around his thigh, wanting nothing more in my life than to see him as naked as I am right fucking now.

  Slow, I have to remind myself.

  Even with that reminder, seeing Collin naked is too much of a draw. Eagerness outweighs good intensions.
I reach down into the waist of his jeans to tug out his tucked in shirt, but another strange look from him stops me mid-tug. The look says it’s too much.

  Interesting.

  He’ll let me massage him, just not undress him. Except, he really only let me get away with massaging one arm, didn’t he? My hands pulled back, he undresses himself. Intimacy in baby steps.

  Ah, but once we’re moving again, Jesus, it feels so damn good. He feels so damn good, making me feel so damn good while he strokes at my erection. That’s us, more lips and hands stroking. Our dicks pressed together, rubbing through only thin cotton fabric while we stroke each other.

  I hook my leg over his hip this time, pulling him closer to me and roll us to our sides. His eyes close as he drops his head back and down onto the pillow while I watch him revel at the feel of my free hand, the one not holding him, glide down from the small of his back to slide beneath his boxers and begin to trace a soft caressing line up and down his crease, gently stippling finger touches and faint circles over the delicate skin between. I know from experience the tingles from being touched there. And although he thinks he’s being slick, Collin whispering wordless murmurs into my hair and giving exploratory touches of his own, he’s not slick enough for me not to notice his hand casually reaching over to the nightstand to flip the picture of him and his lover away from us to face the wall.

  When he brings his hand back down, it’s to hold me. He closes his eyes again, resting his forehead against mine. The trust I’ve strived to build with him is written all over his face.

  I could hold him like this all night.

  As time creeps along I feel my breathing start to hitch, and feel his too, the sensual slow burn catching up with us. I pause to appreciate the beauty and intimacy of what we’ve done, of what we continue to do. But appreciation costs me.

  Collin takes back control, thrusting his hips to grind our cocks together until he groans one of the sexiest groans I think I’ve ever heard in my life, long and low. I’m about to lose my mind. That’s when his hand begins to move between my skin and shorts much faster than before. I thought it’d be his groan to bring me down.

  I was wrong.

  His hand. His hand undoes me.

  And apparently me coming undone does it for him. Does it for him in a big way. Collin, normally beautiful, becomes captivating when he comes undone. I don’t know how else to put it. He’s simply indescribable.

  Collin rests his cheek on my chest, his arm flopped over my stomach. He appears as languid and happy as I feel. Eventually he has to move from the bed to the bathroom to clean himself up, coming back with a cloth to clean me as well. I think we both needed what happened to happen, because now with the urgency gone, we get to spend the rest of the night touching, caressing, and exploring one another like we’re fourteen year old boys again. Fourteen year old boys just trying to figure ourselves out. That time when you’re scared and unsure, but no longer feel lost because you’ve found another person who understands. I can’t remember the last time I felt as fucking alive and I know no matter what, tonight can’t be our only time together. I won’t let it be. Because lying here with Col, I no longer feel lost.

  ***

  When my eyes begrudgingly open, he’s lying on his side with his head propped up on his bent elbow, watching me. I kept us going last night until we literally passed out from exhaustion. What a way to ring in the New Year.

  It’s still dark outside, flecks of light mix with the dark so I know the sun is on the verge of rising.

  “You’re beautiful,” he says, before leaning over to kiss me.

  I did not see that coming, the words.

  “I was in a weird place last night and you didn’t push,” he continues. “They always push. I’m just a piece of ass to most men.” Then he laughs, but without humor. A sad sort of laugh.

  “Collin I—”

  “No.” He stops me. “My head is still in a weird place. So if I don’t call for a few days, please don’t call me, okay? I’m not rejecting you. I’m just…I’m just trying to get my shit together.”

  “All right.” I agree to those terms. All right. I hate the words and regret saying them as soon as I say them knowing though, if I push I’ll lose him. I feel Collin Pratt all over my body. He’s ingrained himself. I can’t lose him. Not when I’ve never wanted anything more in my life—including Jake.

  Chapter 6

  Kip

  First day of the new semester I walked into the classroom of my Managing Document Design Projects course, to take my seat at a table about halfway back in the room, the first seat I came to. The rest of the students filed in behind me.

  The one class coveted by every RPW major in the school.

  As a requirement for graduation, at least three different professors teach it in several timeslots. But Professor Gregory knows people. He’s made deals for real world experience.

  “Settle down. I need your attention up here,” Professor Gregory called.

  My notebook set on the desk and open in front of me, pen clicked and poised to write, I swung my backpack over the back of my chair to wait.

  On the whiteboard written in big, bold red letters:

  TGMT Internship.

  TGMT is the biggest marketing firm in the country. Opportunities like this are the reason I transferred to GHU.

  “Eyes here.” The professor used both hands to point to the words on the board. “We’re breaking up into groups for the semester.” A few groans of protest rose up from around the classroom. Though, anyone who has gotten to this point in the RPW major should know group projects are what the RPW major is all about.

  “I’ll use this week to evaluate your work and come up with teams. All work in class is work toward your individual grade, but will also have a point value assigned. Come April, the team with the highest points will win one of the coveted summer internships with TGMT.” The professor stopped to swallow. “You should know, for the past six years in a row the teams that have won the internships have been offered permanent employment.”

  Hell yeah.

  He waited for the chatter to die down before he continued. “Along the way job opportunities will come up. How you’re doing in class will determine if you get a recommendation.”

  That was three weeks ago. Three weeks. And although I’m committed to my teammates, my mind seems to wander relentlessly these days back to Collin and the night we spent together. It’s driving me out of my mind.

  When he said if he didn’t call for a few days? We spent every damn day talking from December twenty-sixth to New Year’s Day. And then his head is in a weird place? Where’s that, Sausalito? Mumbai? Because now we’re well into the new semester so it’s been more than a few days without so much as a quick, how you doing? text.

  Thankfully I’ve picked up a lot of hours at the writing center to pass my spare time. Although he and I have been on different shifts. The few times we overlapped he was already helping someone and never looked up. He knew I was there, too. I saw him twitch like he was fighting himself not to look.

  That last time, I clocked in and spent my block of time with a freshman who smelled like he cared more about rolling papers than writing them. Collin had already left when I finished with the frosh. His avoidance bullshit is getting old real fast. It’s not me rejecting you? Then I’d hate to see what you call rejection, Collin.

  I have to sit through two more classes, bored out of my mind, before I’m done for the day. Kayna’s called me a few times. She always tells me to come home, so I haven’t called back. Because the way I’ve been feeling lately, I just might if she asked again. But then, going home feels like failure. For whatever reason, I need to be here.

  “Kip, dude.” My teammate Hart, he shakes my arm. “You still with us?”

  “Yeah, sorry. Checked out for a second. Got a lot on my mind.”

  “You need to get out, have some fun. My girlfriend and I are clubbing tonight, if you wanna join.”

  “Ooo—” Our o
ther teammate Britney squeals, grabbing ahold of my hand and giving a light tug. I don’t think she’s picked up on the whole gay thing yet. It’s not something I advertise. Not that I’m ashamed, it’s just me.

  Hart never introduced himself to us, “Hi, I’m Hart, I’m straight.”

  If I had a boyfriend, I’d say I had a boyfriend. As of now, I have a guy who talked to me every day for a week, invited me back to his place for a weird hookup and hasn’t talked to me since.

  I’m not really going to brag about that.

  “Me and my friends are going out tonight too.”

  “Who’s all going?” I ask.

  She gives me a bright, anticipatory grin. “Obviously me.” She rolls her eyes, not at me, but more at herself. “And my sorority sisters.” She finishes.

  So my choices for the night are third wheel or estrogen fest?

  “Thanks guys. Another time. I think I’m just gonna kick it at home tonight. Hart, queue up the data chart for the proposal. We have to make sure our numbers are tight.”

  Hart queues up the graph. “Suit yourself,” he says in reference to me kicking it at home.

  I just need to forget about Collin and focus. The problem being, Collin isn’t so easily forgettable.

  After a long-ass day, (Wednesdays are my longest. Being winter in Michigan, it’s dark when I head in to the writing center for my first shift and it’s dark when I finally get to leave campus for the night) nine-thirty couldn’t come fast enough. My last class done, and since it’s another night alone, tired and dragging, I stop off at the grocery store on my way home to buy a frozen pizza for dinner but end up wasting what little money I have left on a fifth of Jack as well.

  ***

  Drinking by yourself, that’s how it starts, Kip.

  And it’s Hump day. Guess who’s not humping?

  “Here, here.” I raise my glass to the television in honor of getting to sit at home by myself again, watching old reruns of Cops, eating crappy pizza, wanting to drink my troubles away, and then slug back the remainder of my glass.