by L. A. Witt
“See— Holy shit, is that a whale?”
“Actually, it’s…” I watched for a second, and sure enough, another spray shot up. “Looks like it’s a few whales.”
“No way.”
We both leaned forward, craning our necks as we held on to the edge of the window.
I scanned the water. “I hope they didn’t go under. Could be an hour or more before they come back or—” Right then, a massive humpback came straight up out of the water, then flipped back, fins out to the sides just before it crashed back into the surf.
“Whoa!” Aiden’s jaw dropped.
Another whale breached. Then a third. For a solid fifteen or twenty minutes, the whales played in the surf. I couldn’t decide if there were three or four—there might’ve even been a fifth, but it was hard to keep track of all of them. One tail flipped up. Then another. As the water calmed, I sat back a little, stretching a crick out of my back.
“Looks like they’re diving.”
“Yeah?”
I nodded. “If they come back, it’ll be a while.”
“Damn. Still… That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“They’re pretty cool, aren’t they?”
“Very. You don’t see stuff like that back home.”
I looked out at the water. “So where is home?”
“The last few years, it was Annapolis.” He shifted a little beside me, probably trying to get comfortable on the hard ledge. “Before that, I was born and raised in Las Vegas.”
I turned to him. “Really? Wow.”
He met my eyes. “Vegas isn’t as great as it sounds. Trust me. Especially when you’re a kid.”
“So what is it like?”
“Hot. Dry. Crowded.” He looked around. “I could really get used to this, believe me.”
“You don’t mind the humidity?”
“Nope. It’s a hell of a lot worse in Maryland. There’s no wind there, so the humidity just kind of…sits.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Oh gross.”
“Exactly.” He turned to me. “What about you? Where are you from?”
“I’m a military brat. I’m ‘from’ everywhere.” My gut tightened as soon as I said it. Things were going way too well tonight to ruin it with the usual what-branch-is-your-dad-in? line of questioning.
But just like yesterday, Aiden left the subject alone. We were quiet again, just watching the water and the scenery even though the whales were gone, and again, it wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable. In fact, it was perfectly comfortable. I sometimes had this nervous need to fill silence even if there wasn’t anything that needed to be said, but right then, I didn’t. We were here, the view was gorgeous, and that was all that mattered.
I didn’t realize how long we’d been up there until the sun was already inching down to the horizon.
I hadn’t really started noticing sunsets until I came to Japan, but I couldn’t imagine they were any more amazing anywhere else in the world. Watching the entire sky and the ocean change color, that always blew my mind. I could spend my entire life on this island and never get tired of watching the sun set into the ocean.
As the colors faded and the sky darkened, Aiden looked at his watch. “Damn. I guess we should head back eventually.”
“Yeah.” I glanced at him. “We can probably grab something to eat in Nago. There isn’t much between here and there, and the snack shacks in the parking lot”—I gestured toward Hedo—“are probably closed.”
“You know any places in Nago?”
I threw him a smug look. “Please. I know all the good places in Nago.”
Aiden laughed. “Let’s go, then.” We climbed down from the window and started down the stairs. Over the echo of our footsteps inside the huge hollow structure, he said, “Thanks for bringing me up here, by the way.”
“Thanks for coming with me.”
He smiled, which made my blood pressure go haywire, especially when he quietly said, “Any time.”
Chapter Five
Aiden
Connor was right: he knew where to find the good places in Nago. After an absolutely fantastic dinner at an amazing little ramen-noodle café, we headed back to my place.
By the time I steered us into the parking lot at the foot of my apartment, it was nearly eleven. We’d been together for hours, but it seemed like much less time had passed than that. I could’ve sworn he’d just arrived here, ready to take off to Cape Hedo, not that we had already been up there and back.
I turned the key, and the piece-of-shit engine shuddered once before falling silent. Disappointment tugged at my gut. This afternoon and evening had been amazing, and shutting off the engine seemed to underscore the fact that it was coming to an end. Maybe we could do it again, but I…I wasn’t ready for tonight to be over.
Connor met my eyes. “So, um. If you want to check out anything else on the island, hit me up. I’ve been all over it.”
“I’ll do that. It’s…nice to get out with someone who knows his way around.” It’s also nice to have someone— I cleared my throat and shifted my gaze away. As I unbuckled my seat belt, I said, “I guess I should let you get home.”
Connor unbuckled his too. “Yeah. I guess so.”
But neither of us moved.
We didn’t say anything either. I caught myself wishing I’d left the engine idling. It wouldn’t have made sense—I wasn’t going anywhere after this—but would’ve at least filled the silence with something besides my own heartbeat.
Then Connor cleared his throat, the sound startling me. “I guess this is a little late in the game to ask, but…” He tapped his fingers rapidly beneath the passenger window.
I faced him. “Try me.”
Chewing his lip, he met my eyes again in the near darkness. “Are you…uh…are you gay?”
My heart jumped into my throat. Any answer to a question like that could take this conversation down one of a few very, very different roads. I still had the proof of that above my eyebrow and on my knuckles.
Please tell me I haven’t been misreading you.
I gulped. After a moment’s hesitation, I nodded. “Yeah. I am.”
Connor exhaled. “Good.” And with that, he leaned across the console, and without any conscious thought on my part, my body moving as if there were something magnetic about him that drew me in whether I liked it or not, I met him halfway.
And he kissed me.
Oh my God.
Connor kissed me.
His lips were soft and tentative against mine. He didn’t push for anything, didn’t try to shove his tongue down my throat—in fact, he seemed perfectly content with a gentle, light kiss.
I reached up and touched the side of his neck, searching for more contact. As my fingertips drifted up his neck and into his hair, he exhaled through his nose, his breath cool and light on my cheek, and one of us—I had no idea who—deepened the kiss. Our lips parted, and goose bumps prickled my spine as my tongue slid past his.
His hand materialized on my waist, and as we pulled each other closer, it drifted toward the middle of my back. The console between us bit into my hip and couldn’t have been comfortable for him either, but neither of us pulled away. The kiss went on, a kiss that didn’t have to lead to anything else, without any pawing or groping or demanding. We touched, but it was gentle—the contact, like the kiss itself, happening for its own sake, without any obligation for more, even while every tremor and rapid heartbeat gave away how much I wanted him.
I was tempted to let my fingers drift downward, to see if he was as hard as I was, but I kept my hand on the back of his head. In my mind’s eye, I saw us tumbling into bed together, naked and kissing, and still touching like this, still making out and letting everything else wait until we were good and ready for more. It was a fantasy—what guy would really be that patient?—but a hot one, and I couldn’t help groaning softly into his kiss as the image played out in my head.
Connor’s hand moved from my side to my chest, and the
n up to my neck, sliding around the back and mirroring the way I held on to him. Then, after God knew how much time had passed, he gently broke the kiss and touched his forehead to mine. “Holy fuck.”
“Yeah. That.” Wow, I was really out of breath. I drew back a little and opened my eyes, our surroundings slowly coming back into existence in my peripheral vision as I held his gaze in the low light. Head spinning and heart pounding, I swept my tongue across my tingling lips. “Do you, um, want to come inside?” I gestured at the stairwell in front of my car.
Connor glanced at the stairwell and gulped. For the first time all evening, he looked nervous. Really nervous. It was hard to tell in the low light, but I thought he might have paled a little.
“You don’t have to.” I touched his arm. “I’m not in any hurry.”
He faced me again, and though his smile was nervous, it was genuine as far as I could tell. “I want to.”
I didn’t move. “Are you sure?”
Swallowing hard, he nodded.
“Don’t be nervous,” I whispered, cradling his face in both hands. “I don’t bite. I promise.”
He laughed softly. “What if I want you to?”
Oh. God.
I suppressed a shiver. “Well, that’s different, isn’t it?” And I kissed him again.
When I pulled away, he said, “I thought we were going upstairs?”
I laughed. “So we were.”
So we did. Somehow, we made it from my car to my doorway, and I managed to get the key and the lock to work and let us inside.
As soon as the door was shut, Connor pulled me in for another kiss. It had only been a couple of minutes since that last kiss in the car, but now that he was kissing me again, it felt like it had been forever since we’d touched. Two minutes apart, and I fucking missed him, but he was against me again, holding on to me and kissing me like he’d been waiting all damned day for this.
I didn’t even know what to do. Where I wanted to touch him, where to kiss him besides his amazing mouth. I didn’t know if I wanted to fuck him or be fucked by him, only that I wanted us naked and moving together. I wanted to taste every inch of him, and I wanted to know what he felt like and sounded like when he reached that point when it was almost too much, that second before he let go, and I wanted to be holding on to him when he let go.
He pressed his hard cock against mine, and I gasped, breaking away from his kiss.
“Fuck…”
He said something I didn’t understand, and his cock rubbed over mine through our clothes, and I somehow managed to say, “Bedroom might…might be more comfortable.”
Connor shivered. “Where is it?”
I gestured down the short hall. “That—” And then he was kissing me again, guiding me blindly toward the hall, and I was so lost in his kiss I was almost lost in my apartment too, but between us, we made it into the bedroom.
We toed off our shoes—thank God we’d both worn sandals—as we fumbled and stumbled from the door to the bed.
Gravity shifted. The world tilted. Hell if I knew how or why, but we went from standing to lying on my bed, and I was in heaven. We weren’t naked, but, my God, it was my fantasy come to life. Our bodies pressed together, our arms around each other, kissing like two men possessed, but still not groping and pawing at each other. We’d get there. We were both hard, both quivering all over, and still somehow managed to make out like we weren’t in any hurry at all.
And then he rolled me onto my back and pinned me down. As he descended onto my neck, kissing so hard he was almost biting, I closed my eyes, my back arching under us.
“Oh God,” I whispered. “You’re a fucking top, aren’t you?”
He froze.
So did I. “What? What’s wrong?”
He lifted himself up. “Um…”
My heart pounded. Shit. What the hell? “Connor?” I touched his face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing. But I’ve, uh…” He exhaled and looked away. “I don’t actually know. If I prefer top or bottom.”
“So you’re—” I paused. My heart sped up a little. “Is this…is this your first time?”
Color flooded his cheeks. “It’s…”
I ran my fingers down his arm. “It’s okay if it is. Just say so.”
Connor swallowed hard. Then he nodded. “Yeah. It is. I’m—”
I cut him off with a kiss, wrapping my arms around him and pulling him against me. “I told you, it’s okay.”
He brushed my lips with his. “Probably should’ve told you before we…uh…”
“Don’t worry about it.” I ran my fingers through his hair. “I promise. It’s okay.”
He watched me uncertainly for a moment, then relaxed and leaned down to kiss me again. Then, with the most adorable, hopeful grin, he said, “You’re not disappointed, are you?”
“Disappointed?” I pressed my hips against his. “Do I feel disappointed?”
Connor closed his eyes and bit his lip. “Fuck…”
“Out of curiosity, how much have you done?”
“Well.” He laughed softly and met my eyes. “This.”
“You’ve— Really?”
Connor nodded. As his cheeks darkened, he pulled away, avoiding my gaze now. “I know, it’s kind of ridiculous for someone my age to—”
“No.” I put a hand on his side, gently drawing him back to me. “There’s no time limit on these things.”
“But I don’t have a clue what to…uh, what to do. I’m…” More redness flooded his cheeks.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “All you have to do is tell me if you like something or if you want me to stop.”
His eyes flicked back toward mine, an unspoken really? lifting his eyebrows.
I curved my hand around the back of his neck. His kiss was a little more tentative this time, but he relaxed against me and parted his lips for me.
Then I gently pushed him onto his back, and when I straddled him, he groaned as our cocks rubbed together through our clothes again. I kissed the side of his neck, working my way up to his ear. “I want you, but I don’t want to go too fast.” I pressed my lips to the edge of his jaw. “Just tell me if you want to stop.”
He shivered but didn’t speak.
I slid my hand over the front of his shorts, and we both gasped, the air rushing through the narrow sliver of space between his lips and mine. He pressed against my hand, and I squeezed gently as I kissed him.
“Clothes,” he whispered. “We…should lose them.”
Be still, my heart…
“You sure?”
He nodded and shot me the most devilish look. “They’re kind of in the way, don’t you think?”
“Yes. Yes, they are.” I sat up and pulled off my shirt. As we stripped out of our clothes, I stole a glance at him, and…damn. I’d seen him without his shirt, but as he kicked off his shorts, my head spun. His narrow hips were sexy as hell, and his very erect cock was perfect. Not massive, but not lacking in the slightest—exactly the way I liked them.
On the bed, we came together again, and I rolled him onto his back. We made out and ground against each other, and I was so goddamned turned on there was only one thing I could think of.
“I want to make you come.”
Connor moaned softly. “Jesus.”
“Do you want me to?”
“Please.”
Thank God. This wasn’t too much for him. “Just…just tell me if I go too fast.”
He nodded slightly and murmured, “I will.”
I went extraslowly, moving down his chest and smooth abs one kiss at a time because I didn’t want to overwhelm him, but he couldn’t have known how much he overwhelmed me. Every time I touched him—with fingers, with lips—he responded as if I’d done so much more, shivering at a brush of my hand and arching his back at a soft kiss on his hip bone.
My lips were inches away from his cock when I looked up at him. “Am I going too fast?”
Eyes still closed, he shook his
head. “No. Not…not too fast.”
“Do you want more?”
“Yes.”
I watched his face as I ran the tip of my tongue along the underside of his cock. His eyes opened wide, his lips moving as if he couldn’t decide between speaking or inhaling. I did it again, starting at the base and licking slowly, all the way up, and then slipping the head of his cock into my mouth.
“Oh. Shit.” A slow tremor went through him, his fingers closing around the sheets on either side of him as his hips lifted off the bed. “Jesus Christ.”
I teased him with my lips and tongue, and then took him a little at a time, and as I did, his breathing quickened, turning to rapid, uneven gasps. His hand materialized on the back of my head—not pressing, just touching, bringing goose bumps to life all the way down the length of my spine. His fingers curled in my hair as if he was trying to grab on, though it wasn’t quite long enough for that, and the way he kneaded my scalp made me shiver.
Propping myself up on one arm, I stroked him with my other hand. I’d intended to go slowly, but the more I sucked his cock, the more turned on I was, and I couldn’t help it. I gave him all I had, squeezing with my hand, fluttering my tongue, doing everything I knew to make him feel good, and every time he gasped or whimpered or swore softly, my own cock seemed to get even harder.
“I’m gonna…I’m gonna come.” His fingers twitched in my hair. I stroked him faster and took him deeper into my mouth, and his helpless moan sent a shiver right through me. His whole body shook. His cock was even harder now, thicker, his hips moving like they wanted to thrust but didn’t quite know how, and when I added the slightest twist to my strokes, he fucking lost his mind.
He thrust into my fist and my mouth, and semen jetted across my tongue so fast it almost caught me by surprise, but I recovered quickly and kept teasing him with my mouth and my hand until he whimpered for me to stop. I slowed my strokes and let him ease back down to earth before I let go completely.
Connor collapsed back on the mattress, shaking and panting. “Holy…”
I laughed. “You all right?”