WANT ME

NEVE WILDER
Copyright © 2019 by Neve Wilder
Cover art by Neve Wilder
Copy Editing by One Love Editing
Cover Design by Neve Wilder
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means,
including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author,
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
 For my newsletter subscribers who (mostly) patiently waited for each
installment.
And for Dana, Joseph, and Kirk, who were there for this story from the very
beginning. And quite vocal about it, too. <3
 CONTENTS

Foreword

1. Watch Me
2. Take Me
3. Push Me
4. Show Me
5. Want Me
6. Keep Me
7. Late May

Also Available: Dedicated

Also Available: Center of Gravity
Where Can I Stalk You, Neve?
About Neve Wilder
 FOREWORD

Nate and Eric’s story originally appeared as a serial sent out to my

newsletter subscribers. It was initially meant as a one-shot deal that would
begin and end at “Watch Me.”

However, these guys charmed me unexpectedly, and the response to them

was so enthusiastic that I kept going, dishing out a new “episode” each
month until we reached their HEA.

I’ve chosen to keep the episodic structure in tact, rather than dividing by
chapters, because that’s what feels best to me for their story.

In addition, I’ve added a bonus episode that I hope veteran and new readers
alike will enjoy.
 1

WATCH ME

J ust act normal, I told myself as I walked into the kitchen the next
morning. With four other roommates, the small, brightly lit space
was usually a zoo in the a.m., all of us scrambling around each
other dumping cereal into bowls, frying eggs, or toasting Pop-Tarts.
None of us were gourmands except Jesse, and he grumbled as my elbow
knocked his when I passed by the stove where he was making some kind of
omelet that smelled delicious. Not that he’d be sharing it with any of us, the
greedy bastard.
My stomach growled as I headed toward the fridge. After a quick glance
around, for a second I thought I was home free. Until I spotted him tucked
in the dining nook, dark slashes of hair hiding his face where he sat at the
table bent over a textbook. He had his arm curled around it protectively, a
pen tapping restlessly against the top of the page. Eric. Shit.
As if he knew I’d stuttered to a stop upon spotting him, he glanced up,
met my eyes, and lifted a brow. “’Sup?”
I upnodded him and wrenched open the fridge, burying my face inside it
as my cheeks flamed.
It was a perfectly typical greeting between us, and I reminded myself of
that as I pulled a carton of milk from the fridge and sniffed it before setting
it on the counter and rummaging through the cabinet for some cereal. Any
cereal. I didn’t care at that point. I was distracted thinking that Eric was
watching me, but when I glanced over my shoulder to check, his attention
was drilled into his textbook.
 Ansel wandered in next, lanky body drenched with sweat from track
practice.
“You’re stinking up the kitchen,” Jesse said.
“I literally just walked in. You must be smelling your face.”
Jesse flicked a bit of egg at him, which Ansel picked up from the floor
and popped in his mouth while I dumped cereal into my bowl. My other
roommate, Mark, grabbed the cereal box from me and stuffed his hand
inside, coming out with a handful of Cheerios he tipped into his mouth.
“Caveman,” I accused, and he grinned.
I hopped up on the counter to eat and tried not to look over at Eric
again. I’d already established that he wasn’t giving me weird looks, so I
told myself to relax.
“Which pledge should we get to DD for the mixer Thursday?” Mark
asked, leaning up against the island across from me. I reached for the empty
bowl in his hand and dropped it in the sink next to me, shaking my head.
“I can’t go. Huge calc midterm Friday, and I’m 90 percent sure I’m
going to fail.”
Movement in the corner of my eye. Eric glanced up at me, then looked
down again. My stomach flipped on itself, then sank. When my cock gave a
twitch, I ground my teeth and set my cereal bowl in my lap. What the ever-
loving fuck?
“Dude, come on. For an hour.” Mark was my fraternity brother, the only
one in the house. Ansel was a friend of Mark’s from high school, and Jesse
was my dorm roommate freshman year.
“Nope. I like my scholarship too much. You should get Braden to DD,
though.”
“Funbuster.” Mark shot me a finger gun that I shrugged at; then he
picked up his backpack off the counter and trotted toward the back door.
Ansel disappeared, probably to shower, and Jesse was sliding his omelet
onto a paper plate. Seeing the writing on the wall, I scarfed down my cereal.
I didn’t want to be alone in the kitchen with Eric. It was a stupid, wimpy
reaction, but it was what it was.
Jesse ducked out of the kitchen with his omelet just as I polished off the
milk in my bowl. I hopped from the counter, gave the bowl a quick rinse,
stuck it in the dishwasher, and was on the way to the door.
“Nate.” Eric’s deep baritone cut my stride in half. I liked the way he
said my name, though—the way he said anything, really. Always had. He
had a trace of an accent, having spent much of his childhood overseas. Or at
least that’s what he’d told us. For sharing a house, I didn’t know him that
well, but he’d responded to our ad on the U’s online forum, and he’d
seemed all right enough when we first met him. He kept to himself, mostly.
“Yeah?” I said it before I committed fully to turning around, and even I
could hear that I sounded kind of annoyed. I didn’t mean to, it was just—
“If you need some help with calc tonight, hit me up. I got an A in it last
semester.”
He’d never offered me help before, and it wasn’t like he didn’t know I
was taking the course. I bitched about it all the time.
I looked him over like his motivation would become clear. It didn’t. His
expression was open and polite, generous mouth pitched in a half-curled
smile that seemed genuine. That knot formed in my stomach again. What
the fuck was wrong with me?
“I’m probably good. But thanks.”
“I’ll be around if you change your mind.”
“Yep.”
I left, bounding up the stairs to grab my backpack. When I came back
down, I went out the front door so I didn’t have to go through the kitchen
again.

U PSIDE : for once, I wasn’t nodding off in Western Civ II. Downside: it was
because I was replaying last night. It wasn’t anything dramatic, and it
wasn’t like I hadn’t been caught jerking off before; I had the typical
embarrassing horror show of my mom almost catching me more than a few
times, and Jesse had walked in on me once in the dorms. I’d busted him at
least twice, and we always laughed it off.
So Eric throwing my door wide—which I’d stupidly forgotten to lock—
to find me sitting bare-assed on the small couch by my bed that faced the
door while I was jacking my shaft shouldn’t have been all that big of a deal.
Except: I also had a finger screwed deep my ass. And then: I came all over
my fist while he was still standing there wide-eyed. Maybe because he was
standing there wide-eyed. I wasn’t certain, yet, and it wasn’t like he’d done
anything unusual. He’d initially muttered a “Shit man, sorry” and started to
back away, but his eyes lingered, sketching a quick path from my face to
my crotch. I had one leg up on a little coffee table and had slouched low on
the couch to get to my ass, so there was plenty for him to look at, but still,
he’d seemed mostly unruffled. I was the one who came apart. He paused,
just for a second, as thick bursts of cream pulsed from the head of my cock
while I gasped through my orgasm. There was something in his expression
then, a brief darkening that I could’ve sworn was arousal as he stood
openmouthed at the doorway. Then he tugged the door quickly shut behind
him.
After he was gone, I cleaned myself up and went about business as
usual, but I kept getting the visual of him standing in that doorway,
wondering what it would have been like if he’d been there the whole time.
Or if he’d stayed. Did seeing me get him hard? Did he jerk off afterward?
What if he’d stayed and done it in front of me? What if, what if, what-ifs on
fucking repeat. What-ifs that didn’t belong in a brain primarily devoted to
tits and ass, keg parties, and maintaining a GPA decent enough to keep a
scholarship.
I thought I’d resolved that kind of curiosity a long time ago, but now I
wasn’t so sure, and it was fucking with my head in a major way. All
through class, my imagination kept serving up raunchy images of Eric
jacking his meat, then through Professor Lingen’s boring-ass nasal
monotone in poli-sci. Even when I grabbed a sandwich from the cafeteria
and took it out on the lawn to eat, my mind was wandering, my eyes
roaming over the other students walking by, playing tricks on me by
painting Eric’s lean proportions over every dark-haired dude who walked
past. Usually I was ogling chicks, though on occasion I’d look at a guy,
really look at him, and yeah, there was the odd moment here and there that
my cock gave a little twitch.
Today I ignored the bouncy-haired, big-cleavaged girls altogether and
focused on the guys, studying them to see if any of them got me going.
Nothing. Nada. I mean, I recognized a few of them as attractive, but none of
them sent tingles zinging through my balls the way Eric had last night. So
maybe it wasn’t about Eric or guys, maybe it was the circumstance? Maybe
I’d just inadvertently unlocked some exhibitionist kink and it wasn’t worth
working myself up into a sexual identity crisis over.
I finished my sandwich, balled up the plastic wrapper, and stuffed it into
my pocket, then checked my watch. Fifteen minutes left until my next class,
and then I was done. I figured I’d head to the gym after that, then home to
plow through a paper Professor Lingen had assigned last minute like a jerk.
When I looked up again, I spotted Eric—the real one this time—cutting
across the quad with a guy and a girl I didn’t recognize. He had a whole
circle of friends I didn’t know. Some of the guys in our house knew him
better—Jesse and he seemed to especially get along. He occasionally came
out with all of us, but I didn’t know a lot about him beyond that he was
majoring in structural engineering. And currently minoring in confusing my
dick.
I studied him from behind, the way his jeans hugged his thighs and ass,
the broad shoulders that tapered to a narrow waist emphasized by the slim-
fit navy T-shirt he had on.
As if Eric felt me watching him, he turned a look over his shoulder,
spotting me as he scanned the quad, then lifted his hand. I raised mine back.
The guy he was with squeezed Eric’s bicep, and he turned away, leaning in
as the guy brushed a kiss across his cheek. It was quick, simple, friendly, I
guess. But a tiny current of electricity ran through me. Surely that wasn’t
fucking jealousy. No. I refused to even consider that, gritting my teeth at
myself and shouldering my backpack as I stood. The guy cut off in a
different direction, and Eric and the girl walked into the Arts building
together.

T HE NEXT TWO days passed without any more out-of-the-ordinary

occurrences, aside from the fact I was still stuck on Eric and that my
fantasies had grown increasingly, dangerously vivid. I’d jacked off
imagining his hand in the place of mine more times in those forty-eight
hours than I wanted to admit.
When I got back to the house from the gym late Thursday afternoon, it
was quiet. Ansel was probably at practice again, Eric’s car was gone, and
Jesse? Who knew. Mark would be helping prep for the mixer tonight—the
mixer I suddenly wished I was able to go to. Maybe I just needed to get
laid. A while ago, I’d broken it off with a girl I’d seen off and on for
months and hadn’t gotten laid since. Yeah, maybe I just needed to get back
into the mix. If not tonight, then for sure later this weekend. Mark would be
down for some barhopping and ogling, and it was highly probable a nice
pair of tits and a pretty smile would cure me of all this stupid agita over
Eric.
Feeling better about the whole situation, I dropped my backpack off in
my room and headed to shower off the reek of sweat before making dinner
and cracking down on some studying.
I closed the door behind me, got down my toiletry kit, and turned on the
shower while I shaved, letting steam fill up the room. Eric’s caddy was
sitting on the top of the toilet, and I eyed it as I rinsed the razor. Jesse, Eric,
and I shared the upstairs hall bath, while Mark paid more for the room
downstairs with its own bath and Ansel got the hall bath downstairs, which
was fine with him because his track career meant he was hardly around
anyway.
A bottle of cologne was sticking out of Eric’s kit, and before I could
really think about what I was doing, I reached for it, tugging off the cap to
sniff the spritzer. The scent enveloped me—dark and rich, masculine
without being overbearing. It smelled different on his skin, though, when I
caught a whiff of him walking down the hall or when he’d come into my
room the other night. There was an additional layer, a kind of musky primal
scent that I guess was just him.
I glanced in the mirror, catching sight of myself, cheeks slightly flushed,
blond hair wild, my nose to the bottle like a fucking fiend. I immediately
capped the bottle and threw it back in his caddy. What the hell was I even
doing? This verged on creeper status, for fuck’s sake. I decided I’d text
Mark after I got out of the shower and lock him into the weekend stat
before I progressed to the really shady shit like scoping out Eric’s bedroom
or sniffing his boxers or something.

T HE HOUSE WAS STILL quiet when I emerged from the bathroom, and I threw
on some cotton track pants before heading down to the kitchen to make
some grub. The contents of the fridge were dismal. I finally unearthed a
frozen chicken dinner among bottles of vodka in the freezer and ate it while
thumbing a quick text to Mark about the weekend.
Sure thing, man, he replied when I said I needed outing plans that
included getting laid. Will see if I can rustle up a few hotties for the
weekend.
 Relief in sight. Even if I didn’t get laid—and there was no reason that I
shouldn’t; I didn’t usually have to try very hard—dedicated female
company should get my dick back in line. It had always worked before.
After I finished my meal and gave a cursory clean to the kitchen,
throwing a pile of dishes in the dishwasher, I had no other viable
procrastination options unless I wanted to go grocery shopping. So I headed
upstairs to study.
I was an hour into it, crouched on the couch over the open books on my
coffee table. I had a desk, but it was swarmed by my laptop and a bunch of
other papers. My head swam with equations and derivatives, and I was
considering taking a break, making a snack, then having a quick jerk, when
I heard footsteps on the stairs. The bedroom door was cracked, and I could
tell by the heavier footfalls it was Eric. Jesse usually ran up and was
smaller, lighter on his feet than Eric’s compactly muscled physique. I
caught a glimpse of his shirtsleeve as he passed by, and I let out a breath.
That’s right, just keep on going, dude.
The footsteps stopped, then Eric came into view again as he took a few
backward steps and paused at the door. His loud rap nudged the door wider.
“Yeah?”
He opened the door fully and leaned against the frame, arms folding
over his chest. “Figured I’d wait for a verbal confirmation this time.”
I gave him a tight smile. “No prob. That was my bad for forgetting to
lock it in the first place.” I felt my cheeks start to flame, but he didn’t bat a
lash, just scrutinized me and shrugged nonchalantly. “Nothing to worry
about.”
He eyed the books on the table in front of me and then flickered a look
up at me. “How’s it going?”
I shrugged. “Not so bad. Just…tedious, I guess.”
“Cool.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, glancing
around my room and then back at me. His eyes were an intense, deep green,
pine-needle green—which was about as poetic as I got—and they might as
well have been real needles the way his look got under my skin and sparked
in my groin. “Right. Well, then, I’ve got a paper to work on, so…”
“Actually—” The words launched from my chest, and I hoped they
didn’t sound as desperate as I felt. “—I’m a little stuck on this one thing, if
you wouldn’t mind. Maybe you can dumb it down for me or something.” I
knew Eric was smart, though he didn’t call attention to it or anything. It was
just the quiet confidence that seeped from him. While the rest of us were
bitching about grades or courses, he never made a peep. But I’d noticed in
our student forum announcements that he made the dean’s list every
semester.
Another one of those sexy half-smiles that he excelled at rippled along
the corner of his mouth. Eric removed his hands from his pockets, one dark
brow bowing upward as he sauntered forward—and fuck if I didn’t like
that, that little, almost playful quirk of his brow. My dick, too.
“You don’t need me to dumb it down for you. You’re not an idiot, frat
boy.”
“I can’t tell if that was a compliment or an insult, or some weird
combination of both.” I scooted over on the couch to make room for him.
The two of us just fit, the cushions sagging in the middle when he added his
weight to it. The thing was ancient, an old, cheesy faux-leather hand-me-
down from my parents’ house.
“It was more a tease.” He cut a wry look aside at me, one corner of his
mouth lifting again. How he did that effortlessly sexy thing was beyond me.
Did he even know he was doing it? Was it some innate gift? Either way, I
was responding to it like some hungry fucking animal to the promise of
table scraps.
“So what’s tripping you up?”
Right now? You. I cleared my throat with a frown and centered my focus
on my book again, explaining the problem I was stuck on.
Eric dived in, unraveling the complex equation with ease, but
explaining it in a way that made so much sense I felt like a bonehead for not
getting it in the first place. A half hour later, we’d worked through another
set of study problems, and I felt more confident about the exam tomorrow.
He watched me work through the last set, nodding as I moved through
it.
“Who are those people you were with earlier today?” I asked, penciling
in a number, then pausing to erase it and correct.
“Couple of friends. Why?”
“You just never bring anyone around much.” I’d wondered before. Eric
didn’t announce he was bi that I could remember. In fact, I didn’t think I’d
even know if Jesse hadn’t told me, and I had no idea how Jesse knew. I’d
only ever seen Eric bring home a few girls before, and not with any
frequency—though thinking about some of those instances sent another
sluice of heat running through me. But he’d never brought home a guy, so if
he was getting it, he was getting it elsewhere. And…screen refresh on that
sluice of heat; it poured through me all over again, imagining Eric tugging
down a guy’s fly, lowering to his knees. God, I needed help.
“No offense, but there’s a strong jock theme running rampant through
this house.” His words snapped me back to the present.
“Yeah, but none of us are really dicks. Shit, you’re probably the biggest
dick of all of us.” Eric was snarky, no doubt.
“I like to think it’s a good size, yeah,” he quipped back, and I flipped
him off to distract myself from thinking about the size of his dick. Man, I
was really digging myself deeper into the hole here.
“I dunno,” he continued. “I could, I guess. We just always end up
somewhere else.”
“Are you…?” I wasn’t sure how to ask what I wanted to know without
being obvious, but apparently my expression was obvious enough.
“Hooking up with one of them? Chet and Amanda?” he laughed. “No, I
mean I think Chet would be all over that…but no.” One eyebrow perked.
“Why, you interested?” He gave me a cheeky smile, and I blew out a long
breath, shaking my head.
“Nope, just asking. The girl was cute.”
“But not Chet?” He seemed very interested in my answer.
I tried for a casual shrug. “He was all right. I mean…yeah, sure.”
“I’d be happy to pass your number to him. Or Amanda. I don’t think
either one of them would pass up a body like yours.” He was definitely
fucking with me now.
“No, that’s not what I—” I gave an aggravated shake of my head,
ignoring his smirk as I bent my head back over the table and glared at the
math problem, working through it in silence that grew more awkward by
the second.
When I finished, I dropped my pencil on the table and collapsed back
into the couch with a long exhale. Eric checked my work, then gave me a
nod. “Looks good. I think you’ve got it.”
“Thanks so much, dude, really. This is a huge load off.”
He started chuckling, and it took me a second to realize what was
making him laugh, but when I did, that stupid flush started crawling up my
cheeks again. I smeared my hands down my face like I could drag the color
away. I’d worked myself up so much over the past few days I was about to
explode just being near him. I was probably throwing off pheromones like a
motherfucker. Was he really unaware? Something about the way he was
looking at me made me think he knew exactly how much he’d been on my
mind lately.
“It’s not a big deal, you know. I’ve been busted more times than I can
count on both hands.” Why? Why did my cock twitch at that?
“Though—” His head tipped to one side, his eyes going distant. “Can’t
say I’ve ever actually busted in on a guy and then he shot his load in front
of me. Killer timing on that one. Your face, man.” He made a whooshing
sound effect. “Shock and awe.”
“Yep, no need to rehash. I was there.”
He grinned as I went redder.
“I’m just fucking with you.” His grin waned when I didn’t smile, and
his expression sobered. “I’ll stop.”
“No it’s fine, just—” I shook my head. “I’m making things awkward.
Let’s just stop talking about it.”
He shrugged. “Whatever. But really, no need to be awkward. Honestly,
at the risk of having you go full bro jock on me, it was pretty fucking hot.”
He did this thing with his lower lip, where his teeth clamped down on
the corner, while tendrils of fire crept through me and stoked my pulse.
Raw, smack-you-upside-the-head desire coiled in my pelvis. Just that last
sentence had unleashed it, and now I was sporting a raging boner. The look
he turned on me then was one of assessment, but whatever was in my
expression was enough to swivel his head back to my textbook. He dropped
the pen he was holding between the pages and stood, shifting, but not
enough to hide his own erection.
“Anyhow, if you need more help, you know where to find me.”
I sucked in a breath as he started for the door. “Eric.”
He twisted back toward me in a slow quarter turn, his brows arching
high on his forehead. For a minute, I wondered if somehow he’d known this
was about to come, if he’d known the second after he walked in on me and
had just been waiting. But his expression revealed nothing more than open
curiosity.
And God, I had to admit how hot he was right then: the dark tousle of
his hair, the intense green-brown stare, that plump, lush mouth of his. He
probably got as much ass as he wanted, regardless of gender. I reminded
myself I was no slouch either. I had to in order to have the confidence to say
what I did next.
“It was hot. For me, too. Obviously.”
Silence. Patient, excruciating silence. Then he wet his lips, and I
watched rapt as the pink tip of his tongue slid along his lower lip before his
teeth snagged that plump bit of flesh and trapped it. My heart thundered in
my chest. “In fact, I was wondering if…if it could happen again.”
“Me walking in on you?” He asked it carefully, studying me.
“More like…maybe you watching me?” Holy shit, I couldn’t believe I
was still talking.
“You like being watched?”
“I don’t know.” I was getting worked up again, frustrated, but I wasn’t
sure about what, exactly. “The whole thing kind of threw me off because of
course I’ve been busted before, but I’ve never had a reaction like that, and
now I don’t know whether it’s…” I couldn’t bring myself to say you, so I
chose the next best option. “…whether maybe I’m into being watched.”
“Or maybe you’re into dudes, too?” Fucker wasn’t going to let me get
away with shit.
I shrugged. “Yeah, maybe that, too.”
“So you’re bicurious, and what, you want to experiment with me?”
“No! That’s not what I fucking said. I said I wanted you to watch me.
But forget it, it’s a dumb idea anyway.”
Eric’s head tipped to one side again, a tiny smile playing over his lips as
he looked at me like I was completely transparent. “Oh, hell no. I’m not
letting you get away with that, Sanders. It’s out there now.”
I tensed on the couch as he turned around, closed the door and locked it,
then dragged my wheeled desk chair closer to me before dropping into it.
“What are you doing?” My voice was ragged and thick, choked with my
own horniness and rising panic at how much I wanted this. Even if I wanted
to pretend I didn’t.
“I’m going to sit in this chair and watch you get off.” He lifted a finger
when I started to protest. “And we’re both going to enjoy every second of
it.” The guy was confidence embodied, sleek, sexual, primal perfection. My
mouth watered just looking at him.
He dropped lightly in the chair and laced his fingers across the
waistband of his jeans. It was so startlingly prim for a guy who looked the
way he did, all rugged and artfully disheveled, that I would have laughed
had he not been staring at me so wolfishly.
“Right now? What, so I’m just supposed to start?”
“Looks to me like you’re ready to go. Well, you were a second ago. And
no offense, but you’re throwing off vibes like whoa.”
It was true—my erection had flagged in rebellion of this actually
happening, actually being watched and expected to get off. I took a second
to assess the situation, which only led to mass confusion. This was exactly
what I’d been trying desperately not to wish for. And now the opportunity
was sitting right there in front of me. Fuck it, I wasn’t going to wimp out.
Maybe if I just got it out of my system, I could go back to my previously
scheduled programming of tits and pussy.
“Just do what you would if I wasn’t here,” he suggested, getting
comfortable in the chair. He spread his legs a little wider and shimmied his
shoulders against the back of the chair.
“Ha,” I grumbled. Right. That easy.
Arching against the back of the couch, I eased my pants down to my
upper thighs, my flagging dick exposed to the air, to him. But as soon as it
was set free and I glanced up to see Eric looking at me with evident, naked
hunger, it twitched. A shot of heat streaked through his eyes, but he didn’t
say anything. God, he was just going to keep staring at me like that.
My hand wrapped the base of my cock and gave it a squeeze before I
dragged up and shivered at the faint sting of dry friction.
Eric wiggled a little in the chair, shifting and tilting his hips slightly.
The erection pressing against his jeans formed a huge mound that I couldn’t
stop looking at.
“Fuck, you’ve got a nice one on you. Do that again.”
The throaty growl of his voice and the words he spoke had me stifling a
groan, but I complied, squeezing my root hard and then tugging upward
again with a hiss of pleasure. I was having trouble concentrating, the way
his gaze was boring into me, and my dick was threatening to go soft again
under his intense scrutiny. I should've put a porno on, some other ambient
noise besides the sound of my breath coming out in staccato bursts. I was
suddenly too aware of everything around me and of him watching me. I had
stage fright. Scratch what I said earlier—I was totally going to wimp out.
“Fuck. This is stupid.” I tucked myself away and got up, starting to push
past the chair where he sat so I could open the door and send him on his
way. Eric reached out and caught me by the hips when I tried to pass,
pulling me between his legs as he looked up at me.
“It’s a lot of things, but stupid isn’t even close to what I’d call it.” That
raspy, sexy purr of sound pinned me where I was.
My cock perked at the sensation of his hands on me, the firm grip of his
fingers. His thumbs swept back and forth, steadying my nerves but doing
some wicked magic to my libido.
“Hot. Sexy. Mouthwatering. Those are just a few.”
I swallowed hard, frozen in place by the slow circles his thumbs made.
His fingers flexed slightly, his grasp on my hips adjusting so that the next
time his thumbs looped around, they slid under my T-shirt and brushed bare
skin. He watched me from beneath his lashes. There was desire in it, but it
was sedate. Patient and prowling. “You need more?”
I nodded, only half-aware of what I was doing, and his mouth
corkscrewed up in a grin that made my heart start pounding erratically
again in anticipation of whatever was coming next. His head drooped
forward, lips, chin, and nose brushing over the soft cotton fabric clinging to
my groin. He nuzzled into my crotch, almost like a creature seeking
attention, and my hand lifted to drop lightly on top of his head, touching the
silky, dark strands of hair. I wanted to clench the strands in my fist and
tangle my fingers through them, but I didn’t.
He brushed his open mouth across my stiffening cock, his exhale
warming the fabric and my shaft beneath before he tipped his chin up to
catch my eye again. “Riveting, impossible to look away from.” He exhaled
a throaty chuckle. “I’m starting to grasp at straws, here.”
“Yeah, kinda sounds like you’re describing a car wreck or a celebrity
meltdown now.” I hated the shaky thread in my voice.
Eric gave me a little smirk, easing back in the chair, then curled his
fingers under, hooking the waistband of my pajama pants and drawing them
slowly down over the tops of my thighs. “Want to try again?”
I swallowed a gulp of air and nodded, still frozen like a piece of lawn
art by his focus. I wanted to keep it, keep him looking at me the way he
was, his gaze making a slow circuit from my eyes to my cock. His lips
parted on a breath as my hand transferred from the top of his head to the
base of my cock jutting hard and swollen between us. When I was unable to
get the momentum going again, he reached, watching my expression as he
wrapped one hand around mine and started me off.
 “Oh God,” I groaned, the sound helpless and raw, but shit, it was…
something else, an out-of-this-world turn-on, as Eric's hand started guiding
mine up and down my shaft.
“Mmm.” Another seductive purr of sound. “You like that?” His eyes
flicked away from my cock, rising to meet mine.
I nodded mutely, struck dumb again as his fingers tightened around
mine, pressure intensifying, the strokes slow and easy, considerate of the
lack of lube. My body hummed with excitement and arousal like a lightbulb
on steroids.
He jacked me for a couple of minutes, and my eyes shuttered closed as I
lost myself in the rough pleasure. They snapped wide again at a rustle of
sound, his zipper sliding. Another glance upward from Eric as he shifted
around in the seat. I caught a flash of taut skin. “Is this okay? Shit, I’m so
fucking hard.”
“Yeah.” Did I squeak it or say it? Either way, talk about riveting—once
he had his cock out, my eyes were glued to Eric’s lap and the exposed vee
of him as he dragged his fist up and down the smooth length. He was thick
and long, cockhead so plump with blood it was shining. And he was uncut.
“Wow, that’s…” I was at a loss for words. Again.
“My dick.”
“Not what I was going to say, but yeah, that’s definitely a dick.” I had a
sneaking suspicion he knew exactly how to use it to best effect, too, and I
got lost for a few seconds, watching him stroke himself, hand gliding from
root to tip, twisting a bit over the head, foreskin shifting and rubbing. I’d
bet it felt fucking good. First time I’d ever had foreskin envy in my life.
“You’re staring.”
“Yeah, kind of hard not to,” I muttered. “And I need some lube.” The
tandem friction of his hand and mine was starting to become abrasive. But I
had no idea that he would take the bold initiative of leaning forward and
sucking the head of my dick into his mouth.
Erotic, wet heat bloomed around my crown and radiated as his lips
wrapped me.
I jerked back so hard and with such a noisy gasp of sound Eric laughed
outright, shrugging at my wide-eyed look of surprise. “I mean, my mouth is
right there.”
His chin tipped down, and he let a string of spit drizzle onto his own
cock, completely unperturbed while my thighs tensed up so hard they
burned. It had felt good. So fucking good. My thoughts spun around in
overdrive, at war with my body because I’d already gone beyond a half-
assed experimental exhibition session. Christ, I was standing between his
legs jerking off while he jerked himself. And I was itching for more.
“Do it again,” I whispered, echoing his words from before.
His expression became studious, searching my face while his strokes
slowed. I thought he might say something—deny me, make fun of me, jerk
my chain somehow—but instead, after a handful of seconds, and with that
molten gaze still pinned to mine, he tipped forward, breath and lips
ghosting hot over my tip as he flicked his tongue at the ooze of precome
from my slit.
I staggered in a breath and made a pitiful sound, this kind of
whimpering rasp, like it was the first time someone had put their mouth on
my dick. But it was like that in a way with him. The whole thing felt
surreal, and suddenly, whatever mental shackles that’d been hanging me up
broke. I didn’t give a shit what I looked like or what exactly we were doing,
or why, I just wanted it.
I shoved my pants farther down, to my knees, and when he opened his
mouth and took me deep, my hand jumped to the back of his chair to steady
myself because it was fucking amazing. The hot slip and slide of his mouth,
the slurp and smack of his lips as he bobbed on my cock. He was messy and
completely unselfconscious about it, which stoked my arousal that much
higher.
“Holy fucking shit,” I groaned, spreading my legs wider, muscles
straining to brace my weight and keep me from melting into a puddle. The
chair began squeaking comically as he moved in it. My hand dropped to my
balls, tugging at them, and his hand swerved in to bat mine away as he took
over. The guy sucked cock like a pro, like something I’d see in a porno. He
lapped fiendishly at me, taking me hard and deep into the back of his throat,
then spitting me out all shiny and slick, dripping with his spit.
“I’m gonna blow,” I warned him on a raspy exhale.
He pulled off me, cheeks flushed, his pupils wide and dark. His lips
were wet and swollen and so damn sexy it hurt.
“What the hell?” I protested.
He smiled like the devil.
“We’re missing something key, aren’t we?”
 I panted, confused, shaking my head. “No, we were definitely not
missing anything.”
“You sure?” Then he slid a wet finger behind my sac and brushed over
my hole.
My eyes fluttered closed, and I let out a whimper as he circled my
pucker with the tip of his finger. It felt amazing. Worlds away from my
fumbling, amateur attempts at stimulating my prostate the other night and
on nights before. Eric’s finger edged back and forth along my taint, then
rubbed persistently at the tight ring of muscle, shredding my restraint. My
hips tipped by a fraction at first, magnetized by the light pressure of his
touch, then more insistently the more he rubbed my hole but refused to
breach it.
“Are you—” I started to question, and that was the moment he slipped
the tip of his finger inside me. I clenched instinctively, groaning through the
burn of his invasion.
“Bear down. It helps,” he directed and kept his finger still while lifting
his other hand to circle around my cock again. Not enough friction, not
even close. Just light, teasing strokes that distracted me enough for him to
slide his finger deeper inside.
“How’s that?”
“Better.” And absolutely nothing like doing it myself.
“You have lube?”
“Drawer over there.” I tilted my head, unwilling to move because
something was happening. Something delicious and shuddery. His finger
probed farther, then curled, and my mouth dropped wide open in a
soundless moan.
“There it is.” He sounded so pleased with himself, but maybe he was
right to be because this put my awkward fumbling to shame. This was a
whole different ball game. This was a whole different ball game in another
damn universe. I gripped the back of the chair tighter, my lips pressing
together as he teased the mound of nerve endings inside me, looking up at
me with a lazy smirk.
“Fucking hell,” I gasped.
“More like heaven, I think, yeah?”
I dropped my chin to my chest, closing my eyes as he continued
stroking my prostate. When I chanced another look, I could see his cock
was still standing at stiff attention in front of me. I licked my lips,
considering, then quickly dismissed the thought.
“It would feel a lot better with some lube and you spread out on that
bed.”
“Yeah, okay.” I wasn’t even really thinking about what I was saying. I
was just one big zombie nerve ending trying to get off.
Eric laughed as I stumbled on my way to the bed, forgetting the pants
wrapped around my knees. I caught myself on the edge and kicked my
pants the rest of the way off, flopping onto my back and listening as he
rustled around the drawer of my nightstand.
“Bingo.”
I’d fallen sideways onto the mattress, and Eric came to stand between
my knees, still fully clothed but for that gargantuan erection poking from
his jeans. For some reason that was insanely hot to me, him being fully
clothed while I was butt-ass naked. It made me feel vulnerable, though not
in a threatening way. It was hard to explain. He stood there stroking
himself, so inconceivably hot, and looking down at me like I was a meal he
was about to savor, like he had all the time in the world. I felt like I was
about to burst from my own skin.
“You’re sexy as hell, frat boy. You get told that often?”
“Not by guys.” The rough denim of his jeans brushed against my knees,
sending a shiver racing up my thighs to my pelvis, like my entire skin had
been sensitized. I was getting impatient for more. More of what we’d been
doing before. More stroking, more sucking, more fingering my ass. Just
more. “Are we doing this?”
He nodded slowly, biting his lip, still so damn unhurried I almost
wanted to punch him.
“Yeah, but only if you make me a promise not to be fucking weird about
it. Because I’m not going to be weird about it. And if you can make that
promise, then yeah, I’m about to get down on my knees for you and take
you the fuck apart, piece by piece until I turn you inside out.”
My heart slammed in my chest, every circuit in my body firing, and I
nodded hard, just once, before I found my breath. And words. They were
hard to manage. “I promise. Or, fuck, I’ll try at least. Just…go.”
Eric leaned over me, fingertips dropping to my chest, circling my nipple
and pinching until it hardened. I sucked in a breath. Then his fingers drifted
slowly down my abdomen, following the light trail of hair, his touch like
mist ghosting over me. His caress dragged over my package, and my slit
squeezed out another drop of precome that dripped onto my stomach. This
guy was playing me like a pro, and I was loving every second of it.
“It’s more fun if you don’t rush it.”
Whatever. I didn’t care as long as he was touching me, as long as
getting off was in the near future. Nearish future. The back of his hand
nudged the inside of my thigh, and I widened my legs to accommodate him
as he eased down onto his knees. My eyes shuttered closed on another
ragged gulp of air at the sight of him kneeling in front of me. One hand
landed on each of my kneecaps, Eric’s fingers curling to stroke the soft skin
behind my knees. Then I felt the heels of his hands pushing against the top
of my shins, urging my legs up.
“Put your feet on the edge of the bed.”
“Are you sure?” My eyes popped open to stare down at him.
He laughed. “Pretty fucking sure. Let me see you.”
If I did that, I’d be wide open to him, exposed to the max. I weighed my
hesitation against the promise blazing in his eyes. I lifted one leg up and
then the other, exposing my ass, and was about to crack some dumb joke
about feeling like a girl going to a gynecologist but yelped out instead as his
tongue hit my hole in a rush of velvety heat.
Nerve endings I didn’t even know I had sang through my body. One of
my feet shot off the bed reflexively, and Eric caught it as I scrabbled and
eased me back into position.
“Holy shit,” I gasped as he anchored his hands to the backs of my
thighs, keeping me rooted to the bed and spread wide for him.
No response from him except for a warm hum of sound that vibrated
over my taint and sank into my aching balls.
He licked me in long, hot strokes, from my crack to my sac, where he’d
pause to nibble at the loose skin there. His hand came up to my shaft, but
instead of pumping me hard and fast like I wanted him to, he squeezed the
base, pulsing his fist around me. My head thrashed back, and my fingers
dug into the sheets.
“Don’t. Fucking. Stop,” I rasped out. I didn’t think he was going to,
though. By now I was convinced he was hell-bent on driving me to the edge
of sanity.
His tongue kept stroking, lapping at me, circling my hole, and my hips
started rocking to meet him, wanting more, wanting something…
 I yelled out again as Eric pushed his tongue inside me, spearing me with
that smooth muscle. I could feel his spit dribbling down the crack of my ass
and forming a wet spot beneath me. My cock was weeping, throbbing,
sweeping me along in the dual torture-pleasure of his hand still pulsing on
my shaft and his tongue fucking my asshole. The wet smacks and grunts
coming from both of us were an insane turn-on.
“Jerk me, please,” I begged. When there was no response, I lifted a
shaky hand to fist my cock only to have it batted away. I growled out my
frustration. After that, he started moving his hand slowly, lightly. Not
enough. Fire burned through my core as he sucked and licked and pushed
into me. But I needed more.
“Fingers,” I pleaded, then heard the pop of a cap. Lube-slicked fingers
slid back in my ass, finding my prostate easily, filling me, stroking me,
building intensity until he was coming in hard and fast, then twisting inside
me and pulling back slow. I couldn’t catch my breath. My abs flexed and
contracted. My whole damn body felt like one giant muscle tensed for
release.
With his finger still plugging at my ass, Eric pushed one of my knees
down and maneuvered onto the bed next to me, half on his side. My eyes
flew to his face, taking in the spit-glazed, swollen lips, the wide pupils, and
that piercing stare still trained on me. Hell, he looked like pure sex. His chin
tilted down, and for a second I thought he was going to kiss me. Panic and
fear widened my eyes, and I blurted out, “Fuck me.”
Eric’s jaw went slack with confusion, his fingers stilling inside me.
“What? Really?”
I nodded quickly. “Yeah. I want it.” I did want it. I didn’t want him to
kiss me, but I wanted him to fuck me, and it probably made no kind of
sense to him and hardly made sense to me, but I saw the flash of
untempered desire in his eyes when I said it, and I knew he wanted it, too.
Still, he hesitated, a shadow of vulnerability passing over his features
that I’d never seen in him before and wouldn’t have guessed he was capable
of. He touched the tip of his tongue to the corner of his mouth and then
nodded. “Same goes, though—no freaking out. Remember you asked for
this.”
I wondered if there was something else making him so cautious or if it
was just because it was me and what he thought he knew about me.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want. But I won’t freak out.”
 “Oh, I want to, frat boy, no fucking worries. I’m dying to get in that
tight hole.” And just like that, his confidence was back. Somehow its
reappearance put me at ease.
I rolled onto my stomach.
“That how you want it?” The mattress dipped as Eric slid from the edge
of it.
“Yeah.” I wanted his dick in me, but I didn’t want the intimacy of him
watching me while he fucked me. Or the possibility of kissing. That was
territory I was nowhere near ready for yet, if I’d ever be.
I felt his touch land gently on my hip. He tapped me. “Up on your
knees.” The denim of his jeans rustled as he pushed them down his legs.
The laces of his shoes whispered as he tugged them loose. Even the sound
of him undressing was twisting me up.
“Nightstand, yeah?”
“Yeah.” I assumed he was asking about condoms, and that was, of
course, the universal location.
The foil packet crinkled, and I glanced over my shoulder to find it
clenched between Eric’s teeth as he ripped it, his other hand lightly stroking
up and down his shaft as he looked at my ass. He gave me a wild, wicked
grin that set my groin simmering all over again, then rolled the condom
down over his cock, pinching the end.
I dropped my head down to my forearms. His fingers brushed over my
hole, dipping just inside, and I shifted, trying to wriggle back onto his
fingers.
Planting his palm low on my back, Eric nudged me forward as he put
his knees to the edge of the bed and shuffled closer.
“Perfect,” he breathed out, the sound low, almost hoarse. “This is a
good look for you.” More teasing. I was ready to quip back, but just then
the tip of his cock brushed my hole and I forgot what I’d been about to say.
The sensation was so different: his head all blunt and smooth, plump with
the flush of blood, and it slid against me effortlessly. He kept pressing the
heel of his hand into my back, making languid back-and-forth passes up and
down my crack that teased me until I was nearly postal with the desire to
impale myself on him. He reached down, kneading my balls for a second,
and then one hand moved to my hip and latched on to me like an anchor.
“Ready?”
“Go.”
 It burned. Fuck, it burned, even with all the lube, and Eric went still,
waiting while I spit out a few curses. It wasn’t the first time I’d had
something in my ass, but it was the first time I’d had something in my ass
besides my own fingers, something that was attached to another living,
breathing human being. Freshman year, I’d gotten this ridiculously sized,
flesh-colored dildo to use as part of a dumb Halloween costume involving a
Speedo. Let’s just say I got a little curious later on, and with the friendly
help of some alcohol and a shit ton of lube, I managed to fit the thing up my
ass. It'd taken me a half hour, though. And this was nothing like that.
Nothing at all. This was a warm, living burn, an insane sense of fullness. I
let out a plaintive groan, and Eric caressed my asscheek.
“It gets better.”
“We’ll see.” I couldn’t even comprehend how he was going to fit the
rest of himself inside me, much less move. If it didn’t get better, I was done
with this experiment, could check it off my bucket list and be done with it.
In a way, it was kind of a relief.
Eric pulled back slightly and this time pushed in a little deeper. I felt my
ass opening around him, swallowing his length. The sting faded, but the
fullness remained, almost unbearable. I wasn’t sure I liked it at all. He
kneaded my hip with one hand, then clenched my buttcheek, spreading me
as he slid in again.
“Fuuuuuck.”
“Still burning?”
“No, but it feels like I’ve got the Washington Monument stuffed up my
ass.”
Eric chuckled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“I really don’t think it is. Fuck, I don’t know if I can do this.” The
pressure was too intense.
Eric caressed my ribs, the side of my hip. I knew it was probably meant
to be soothing, but it wasn’t quite working. “Fair enough. Give me another
minute, and if you still hate it, we’ll stop, okay?”
I nodded, spreading my legs wider. He curled over me, bracing on one
hand while the other found my cock, his grip tighter this time, more friction
as he pumped me. Little zings of pleasure sparked in waves across my
abdomen, and the next thing I knew, I felt his body fully against me. He
was all the way inside me and groaned as I gave a testing clench of my
muscles. I didn’t know why I did it; it sent an echo of burn through me, but
I guess I wanted to know his fat cock hadn’t destroyed my sphincter.
“Again,” he said, and I clenched again. “Fuuuuck, amazing.”
Locking his hands around my hips, Eric slowly withdrew, leaving just
his tip inside me. My lungs leaked air in small gasps as he pushed slowly
deeper again. And then back out and in again.
He shifted around a bit, and the next time he pushed back in I saw stars.
Hell, I saw the universe. I have no idea how I reacted because I could
hardly even see straight and my eyes were clenched shut anyway, but there
must have been something, because he groaned and whispered, “Fuck yes,
there you go.”
After another few slow, euphoric strokes painted my insides with the
buzz of electricity, Eric picked up the pace. His fingers dug divots in my
sides as he fucked me in measured strokes. My body jolted with each thrust,
lighting up and melting as he pulled out before he pushed back in and
repeated the pattern all over again.
“So fucking good,” he grated out. “You’re tight as hell, frat boy.”
I felt my orgasm building, the pressure in my ass transmuting to this
tightly coiled sensation in my balls that was just waiting for the match strike
to explode. This time when I reached for my cock, he didn’t stop me. I
moaned as I fisted my shaft, finally giving myself the friction I’d been
longing for. Eric withdrew all the way, then slammed back into me with a
curse, and I nearly howled at the heady shot of pleasure mixed with pain. It
was like my body was being attacked in the best of ways on multiple fronts,
and couldn’t decide what the fuck it was doing or where it was going. My
hips zigged and zagged. My quads contracted. I bucked and arched. My
orgasm edged closer and closer each time I stroked up, each time Eric’s fat,
swollen head hit my prostate. And all I could keep thinking was…why had
I been holding out on myself? This was fucking amazing.
My entire body started shuddering with the promise of sweet relief. My
insides were liquid magma, ready to blow, and the air was filled with the
obscene chorus of Eric’s body smacking against mine.
“Fuck,” I gasped. “Keep going.”
I was ready, so fucking ready for this orgasm, and I just knew it was
going to blow away anything I’d had before.
And then all of the sudden it was gone. I was expecting a thrust, that
sweet, mind-blowing fullness again, and I got nothing but Eric panting
behind me and the distinct sensation of emptiness. My body protested this
unwanted plot twist with a shudder.
I actually snarled and twisted around to look at Eric. He had one hand
fisted around the base of his cock. The other was still on my hip.
“What the hell are you doing?” My voice sounded desperate and
unhinged. Which was apt, because I was.
“Taking a breather.” He gave me a fierce smile.
“A breather?” Like we were working out together, performing some
compound sets or something. What the fuck? “I was about to come.”
“Yeah, I could tell.”
My dick throbbed in my hand. Both it and I were confused. “And? Isn’t
that the point?”
“It’s one of them, but there are a lot of nice scenic overlooks on the way.
Why are you in such a hurry?” He caught my glance at the clock. “You
know as well as I do, no one’s coming back before midnight. We’ve got
hours.”
“Hours?” Did he hear the edge of panic in my voice? The chuckle that
followed made it clear he did.
“We won’t take that long. But I swear, if you trust me, I promise you the
most mind-blowing orgasm of your life. The cream of the crop, the fucking
pinnacle of…fucking.” He was awfully confident about that, but I was
frustrated as hell.
“Edging, yeah, I’ve heard. Not interested.” I meant it, despite the fact
that I moaned when he dropped his hand to fondle my balls, then slid his
finger back in my hole.
“I thought this was about experimentation.”
“It was about getting off. In an experimental way. Not Eric’s hour to
fuck mercilessly with the ‘frat boy.’” His finger corkscrewed inside me, and
my hips jerked. Bastard. After being filled with his cock, my prostate was
overly sensitive, the barest brush sending flutters through my stomach. It
was good, but not enough. I wanted his dick again. It was a crazy thought to
have.
I pulled away from his touch, sat back on my heels, then turned around
and scooted toward the edge of the bed. “I’m done.”
Eric slid off the side of the bed and knelt in front of me.
“Come on,” he said softly. “Have I led you wrong at any point tonight?”
He pushed my knees open and licked a wet stripe up my shaft that made me
shiver. So fucking good. Was his mouth magic? Was he? I clearly wasn’t
thinking straight.
“Lie back down, put your hands in my hair. Let me take you through the
roof.”
I closed my eyes, inhaled a deep breath through my nose, and wondered
what the fuck it was about him that kept my body humming when it was
around him. I didn’t know why he was so invested in this unless he was just
bored. But I found myself sinking back on the bed, my feet on the floor and
my hands threading through his soft hair as he bent over my lap and took
me in his mouth.
After all the action from my own hand, being back in the wet haven of
his mouth was ecstasy. He took hold of the base of my cock and licked his
way up and down my shaft, sucking the sides, slurping at the top, lavishing
a hell of a lot of attention on the notch below my crown. I started moving
again, slow undulations that pushed me to the back of his throat, where he’d
swallow against me, sending flutters of pleasure trembling through my
balls. He pushed a finger inside me again, and this time I lifted my legs off
the floor and onto the bed, making room for him without prompting.
He murmured a noise of approval that vibrated through me. Fuck, it felt
so good. We found some kind of synced rhythm—his hands, his mouth, my
body, all moving in collaboration. It was euphoric and I mentally rolled
around in it, saturated myself in the trifecta of sensation. With my eyes
closed, I bathed in the sweet, slippery friction assaulting my lower half. So
much so that it took me a second to realize his mouth had been replaced by
his hand pumping me steadily and that his finger was gone from my ass,
replaced by his thick head nudging inside me again.
“Fuck yes,” I exhaled. I no longer cared that I wasn’t facing away from
him, that when I opened my eyes he was right there, one hand still on my
cock, the other brushing against my ass, spreading me as he pushed deep
inside. His expression was intense, his eyes fixed on the place where our
bodies joined. He bit his lip, bare chest rising in a staggered breath, and for
the first time I could see how on edge he was, how close he was, and trying
to hold back. It was a sexy kind of vulnerability that ignited in me like pure
flame. When his gaze flicked up to my face, I caught a brief glimpse of him
going wide-eyed as I reached for him and dragged him down. He flailed
and landed heavily on my chest. I wrapped my legs around him, grabbed
two handfuls of his ass, and yanked until he was buried inside me.
 “Fuck,” he cried out. “Oh fuck.”
I grinned like a bastard, feeling like I’d won some kind of unspoken
contest as Eric’s fingers clamped around my shoulders and he began
plowing into me. But soon I was carried away on waves of pleasure again
as he adjusted his hips slightly, planted his palms on either side of my head,
and pushed up so that his lower belly raked my cock with every thrust.
Then it was me being the noisemaker, arching and shimmying my body
into the friction of his, moaning every time he thrust back inside me. He
dropped down to his forearms, and his cheek brushed against mine, his
panting breaths loud so close to my ear, like bursts of static. He sped up,
fucked me harder, faster, deeper, grunting with the effort, and I exploded
into a free fall, my balls seizing up and my stomach clenching as I shattered
around his cock, spilling what felt like a bucket of come onto our
abdomens.
“Shit,” I moaned. “Holy fuck.”
It kept going, shudders and tremors of crazy intense pleasure racing
through me, from the tips of my toes to the crown of my head. I was sure
every hair on my body stood on end with the impact of it, like I was being
cratered out with the sheer force of my release. My hips bucked wildly, and
even after the last gush of my load had pulsed from my tip, my cock kept
twitching. My ass spasmed around him, and Eric buried a loud curse into
my neck, sinking his teeth into my skin as he roared to climax. If I hadn’t
been so recently spent, I would have come again, because it was hot as hell
feeling the way he contracted, then unloaded inside me. He kept moving,
riding the wave of his orgasm, teeth still clamped down on the side of my
neck until he finally gave one last thrust and collapsed on top of me.
I was sweating like a motherfucker. Or maybe he was. We both were, I
decided, and I turned my head to the side to try and wipe my dripping brow
against the sheets.
His teeth released their hold on the side of my neck, and he buried his
face into the sheets next to mine, panting. Aftershocks rolled through me in
pleasant little jolts of electricity that made my body tremble beneath his. He
exhaled a lazy chuckle after the third one rolled through. Then, mumbling
something I couldn’t understand against my skin, Eric flopped off me and
onto his back beside me, stripping off the condom and knotting it as he lay
there.
 I swallowed, brushing my fingers against the tender skin at the side of
my neck. It would probably be bruised, but at the moment I didn’t care.
Worth it. So worth it.
He gave me a sidelong glance that hovered around the spot I was
rubbing. “Sorry about that.”
“No you’re not.”
“You’re right, I’m definitely not. Are you?”
“No.”
“No, but…?”
“I don’t think there’s a but.” Maybe it would come later, but right then I
was too blissfully fucked out to think of anything other than sleep.
Eric rolled up to a sitting position, scrubbing his face with his hands.
“Fuck, I need a shower.”
I did, too, but I was probably too lazy to do more than grab a washcloth
to wipe myself off.
“Do you do this a lot?” I watched him as he stood, then bent over to
snag his boxers and jeans from the floor and start pulling them on.
“What? Guide hot roommates to the promised land of full-body
orgasms?”
“Is that what I had?” My mouth moved, but my brain was stuck on the
fact that he’d called me hot. He’d said it throughout the night, but it was
always tied into what was happening between us. Now the vague
compliment sent little flutters through my stomach that I wasn’t sure what
to do with. Wasn’t even sure I liked. Eric was proving to be an anomaly in
almost every way.
“Sure looked like it. Whatever it was was fucking amazingly intense.
But no, I don’t make a habit out of entertaining someone’s bicurious side.
Though, to be fair, I think only one other person has ever asked me to.”
“What happened with that?”
“Nothing much, really. It happened a few times and didn’t go anywhere
after that.” Eric shrugged, gaze cutting down to focus on his fly as he
zipped, buttoned, and buckled himself back into place, but there was
something about the way he avoided my gaze that made me suspect there
was more to the story. I didn’t have the energy to harass him about it right
then, though, and I also didn’t think it was really my place to. Even if we’d
gone way beyond what I had initially wanted to happen, intended to
happen, there was nothing about tonight that suggested this hookup was
anything more than solely the experiment it began as. Except…Eric was
looking at me again. I was still on the bed in a boneless heap, but the way
his gaze sketched over my body started flustering me. I rolled up to sit, and
Eric glanced around before tossing me a towel lying on my floor.
I thanked him and mopped at my spunk-coated torso. This had to have
been the most I’d ever popped off, and if he wasn’t still watching me like a
damn hawk, I’d probably have sat there and reveled in it for a while. I mean
really, it was that impressive.
“What?” I asked.
“So the experiment was a success, right? Or you’re not sure?” He had
his T-shirt over his forearms but paused before pulling it over his head, like
he wanted to see my face when I answered the question.
I sucked on the inside of my cheek. “Success. Not really sure what I’m
measuring it against, though.”
He shrugged and cut me a devious grin as he tugged his T-shirt back
into place. “I’ll stick with success, regardless.”
“You would. You really are a cocky fucker.”
Both brows arched, and he made me jump a little when he dropped his
hand to my knee and leaned in, invading my space. I froze, thinking he was
about to kiss me, but he stopped just shy of my mouth, narrowing his eyes
in a tease. “Did I not earn it honestly?”
Before I could think of some snark to lob back at him, he snapped back
upright and walked across the room to open my door. He paused there,
resting one hand on the doorframe as he looked at me over his shoulder. “If
you need a study partner for calculus again”—a slight tilt of his head and a
meaningful quirk of his lips—“or anything else, let me know. I’m down.”
Then he pushed off the doorframe and left. He chuckled quietly all the way
down the hall and into the bathroom, where I heard the shower turn on
before he shut the door.
I finished cleaning myself off and then made myself go over my notes
and formulas again, but my head was a mess, replaying everything that had
happened. Could I really consider my experiment satisfied, check it off the
list, and move on? I wasn’t sure, but I was going to try. And if not, well,
hadn’t Eric pretty much left it open-ended?
I kept seeing him kneeling in front of me, over me. Feeling the echo of
his hands, his mouth, his cock inside me. It was seriously the best sex I’d
ever had in my life. And it was with a guy. A guy who also happened to be
my roommate.
Fuck. Things had suddenly gotten very interesting, and the more I
thought about the night, the more I thought it was less experiment than
beginning.
 2

TAKE ME

O ne night with Eric hadn’t been enough. In fact, I was probably

worse off now than I’d been before. Because now I knew for sure
what it felt like to have Eric’s hands on my cock, his mouth on
me. His fucking dick in my ass. Jesus. I couldn’t believe I’d let him do that.
And not just let him, I’d begged for it.
But the worst thing of all was that I wanted it again. Desperately.
A week and a half went by. I’d passed my calculus exam. I’d gone out
with Mark, and we’d hopped from bar to bar, this almost frantic zeal in the
way I scoped out the girls, looking for a hookup that would set me back to
rights. But nothing held my interest.
A couple of nights later, I half-heartedly made out with a cute redhead
at one of my fraternity’s mixers with Theta Gamma Beta. When she snuck
her hand down my pants in the hallway of the bar, I thought for a second
that maybe I could make it happen. But her delicate little fingers wrapped
my dick, giving it a light, ineffective tug, and all I could think about was
how differently Eric would have done it. There would have been none of
her hesitation, just the self-assured pressure of his grip. I’d begged off in a
total wuss moment with a cop-out excuse, telling her I wasn’t feeling well.
I hadn’t gone out since. I holed up in my room with my textbooks when
I wasn’t in class, figuring if I was going to become a hermit, at least my
academic career might benefit from my full-blown sexual crisis. I’d already
finished a paper and a book report, neither of which were due for another
two weeks.
 Eric was gone a lot, too. I wasn’t sure whether or not it was on purpose,
and the moments I saw him in passing he acted the same as he always had
—polite, if aloof. Somehow I’d been expecting more. Some kind of
acknowledgment of our hookup in the glances we exchanged—a kind of
heat, or a wink and a smile. Something. But there was nothing. Nothing that
remotely resembled the erotic intimacy that had existed between us that
night in my room. And it was doing a number on me.
Eric had said he’d be down for another go, but I didn’t know how to go
about getting what I wanted, which messed with me because, with a girl, I
would have just flirted for a while, or bought her a drink, then asked her
out. Easy. Trying to figure out how to approach Eric threw me for a loop.
The simple answer was to just lay it out straight, stop him in our hallway
sometime, and tell him what I wanted. But so far, every time I’d tried, all
the saliva in my mouth dried up, the words got stuck in my throat, and I
ended up grunting out a lame hey or a how’s it going? instead. It was
irritating as hell. And finally I decided fuck it, I’d just give up. Time healed
all, right? Hopefully that applied to blue balls, too.
My latest haven aside from the gym was the U’s massive library. Four
floors of quiet, testosterone-free anonymity. I’d started spending afternoons
after classes there, finishing my homework, studying, sometimes just
watching dumb YouTube videos with my earbuds in.
It was a Tuesday, and I was muddling through Plato’s story of the ring
of Gyges. The weather was garbage. Nothing but gray skies and intermittent
downpours all day. I was leaning back in my chair at my study carrel,
looking across the room at the angry churn of the sky through one of the
windows near the front desk, when Eric walked in. He carried an umbrella
that he collapsed and leaned against the doorframe with a bunch of others,
but he’d still gotten wet. He raked a hand through the damp ends of his hair,
glanced around quickly, then turned to speak with the student assistant
manning the front desk. I didn’t think he saw me, but my heart sped up
regardless. The student assistant wrote something down on a slip of paper,
and Eric took it, sweeping another look over the banks of study carrels
before he disappeared behind a stack of books.
I inhaled, exhaled, then picked up my earbuds and stuck them in,
turning my attention back to Plato.
“F UCK !” I’d caught the movement from the corner of my eye but still
jumped as Eric plucked one of my earbuds out, leaning in close to say,
“What’s up, knucklehead?”
My nerves jangled, and I made a face at him as he pulled out the empty
chair next to mine. “Knucklehead? Really?”
“Dude? Man? Fuckface? You’d rather one of those?” He picked up the
bottle of water I’d sat in the empty carrel next to me, uncapped it, and took
a long swallow. My gaze strayed to his throat, the lean lines and dark scruff
peppering the arteries that pulsed with his heartbeat. His Adam’s apple
bobbed, and I felt myself reflexively swallowing, too. My mouth was
watering.
“Oh sure, help yourself,” I muttered.
His grinned as he capped the bottle and set it back down, gaze flickering
to my crotch like I’d issued an invitation, and fuck if I wasn’t getting hard
when his eyes drifted back up to meet mine. He stretched his legs out in the
chair, then pushed back, hips arching forward as he dug into the pocket of
his shorts, withdrawing a Dum Dum sucker.
“What’re you up to?” I asked, determined to play it cool.
Eric popped the sucker in his mouth, rolling it from side to side a few
times, then let it settle in one corner, where it made his cheek bulge as he
spoke around it. “Ansel said you were up here studying. I had to pick up
some articles my history prof left for us.” He reached to thump a thick
packet of papers peeking out of his back pocket. “Figured I’d say hello.”
“Hello.” I forced my gaze back to my textbook, willing my dick to settle
down as he wrapped his lips around the sucker again. He was probably just
going to town on that sucker like anyone else would, but in my
hypersensitive state, it was like my ears were picking up every fine aural
detail of his progress. Every soft smack and slurp, the sound of the candy
rolling over his teeth. My shoulders tensed, then relaxed when he gave it a
rest and set the sucker on top of the wrapper on the desk in front of him.
“You all right?”
“Yeah, stressed, as usual.”
“Calculus? I can help.”
“Nope, philosophy this time.”
He wrinkled his nose in sympathy, then laced his fingers behind his
head. I turned my focus back to the page I was reading, then realized I’d
read the same sentence three times in a row. I could feel him watching me,
and when I turned my head to check, I was right. His gaze trickled down
from the crown of my head to my lap, slow as a drop of water down the
glass of the window behind me. My cock jumped in my pants, and I shifted
my legs restlessly. The thing needed a leash.
“You want some stress relief?” he offered.
No. It was on the tip of my tongue to say it, because I was frustrated by
the whole situation, but fuck, the way he was sitting there so casually, his
legs sprawled, his thickening cock starting to push at his fly… I inhaled
deeply through my nose, and as I exhaled, found myself saying, “Like
what?”
“Not sure yet,” he mused, posture straightening. He moved to the edge
of his seat, scooting his chair in closer so he was right next to me, and even
though I kind of knew what was coming, I still flinched when he laid his
hand over the top of my thigh.
“Not right here,” I said, lowering my voice. But fuck if I didn’t widen
my legs in the same breath, a taboo thrill running through me at being in
public. Shit, regardless of Eric, I was starting to think I really did have a
thing for being watched—or the threat of getting caught, at least.
Eric palmed my crotch, spreading his fingers over the bulge in my gym
shorts. His warmth seeped through the silky mesh fabric and woke my cock
right the fuck up.
I glanced around. There was no one to either side of us, and behind me
was just a bank of windows that looked over the main quad below. But
there were a trio of heads in the carrels across from me. I could hear them
when they whispered or turned a page in their books, and I had to muffle a
growl when Eric tucked his hand behind the waistband of my shorts,
grazing his fingertips over my swollen head.
“No?” It was practically a purr, and it rolled over my skin like warm oil
and flooded me with furiously spreading heat that tightened my balls.
He took my silence for the assent it was, and I clamped my lower lip
between my teeth as he wedged his hand deeper into my shorts and
wrapped it around the base of my cock, giving it a sharp, pulsing squeeze
that made me suck in a breath.
“Freeballing?”
“Yeah,” I stuttered out, my dick jumping in his hand as he squeezed
again.
“Good deal.”
 He gave me a few light, feathery strokes that had my hips surging up
into the contact, and then his hand tightened like a vice around my shaft,
thumb tracing my head in a tantalizing sweep as he leaned in. His whisper
washed over me like pure, searing desert heat, the ownership in it shooting
straight to my core and making me dizzy. “I want that nut you’re working
up right now.”
“Fuck,” I hissed so loud that when I glanced up, I could see the person
in the carrel across from me trying to subtly peer over the divider.
I hunched over my desktop to conceal the view of Eric’s hand as it
plunged deeper, scooping up my balls and kneading them.
“That sounded like a yes to me.”
“Not here,” I whispered again and yanked his hand from my pants.
Even though by then, shit, I was definitely seeing the appeal in letting him
get me off right there. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay quiet enough,
and though the thrill of possibly getting caught was hot, the reality of a
charge for public indecency was not. I needed some ninja skills for that, or a
lot more experience, and the whole novelty of getting off with a dude who
knew what the hell he was doing was still so keen-edged that I didn’t have a
shot.
“Spoilsport. I was enjoying the challenge, but I guess you’re right.” Eric
picked up his sucker again, stuffing the wrapper in his back pocket. “You’re
a noisy fucker, so maybe a little more buffer is a good idea. Come on.”
He adjusted himself and stood.
I had to pin my erection behind my waistband as I got up to follow him.
I didn’t know where we were going. I thought maybe to the single unisex
bathroom on the third floor. Or hell, he could have been leading me back to
our house for all I knew. He walked casually across the common area, not a
care in the world, the stick of his sucker hanging out of his mouth and
tenting his cheek while I trailed beside him. My gaze darted around like a
cartoon villain expecting capture at any moment.
We walked to the north end of the library, and he pushed open the door
to the stairwell, glancing back over his shoulder at me on the landing.
“No. Definitely not here.” I was becoming a broken record of
disapproval. Eric’s laughter echoed and bounced around the cinder block
walls.
“Nah, though the acoustics are great in here, and I’d love to hear you
screaming out my name in surround sound.”
 “Who says you won’t be screaming out mine?” I scoffed and traipsed
down the stairs after him in long strides.
“I plan for my mouth to be too involved with your cock to manage your
name.”
Oh. Well. Damn if that wasn’t an answer that my dick liked. I had no
comeback for that.
We went down three flights to the basement.
It was musty down there, rife with the scent of old books and age and
mildew, but it was a large, bright space with old fluorescent tube lighting
that couldn’t quite keep up with the sheer surface area. This floor was
doubly filled with shelves compared to the main floors, and they seemed
mostly full of older titles the library wasn’t ready to get rid of yet. It was a
little louder, too, a constant low-pitched white noise whir of what sounded
like air-conditioning units running. I wasn’t sure. Most people seemed to
prefer the big windows, natural light, and newer furnishings of the main
floors, but the basement wasn’t empty either. I glimpsed a few clusters of
people in some small niches as Eric wound us through the stacks.
He led me deeper among the shelves, toward the back wall of the
library, directly below where I’d been sitting upstairs, his movements so
sure that I wondered how many times he’d been back here before—which
led to me wondering how many others he’d brought down here. I squashed
the thought as soon as it made my skin prickle.
Eric shoved me against a bookshelf suddenly, pulling the sucker stick
from his mouth, crunching the candy, and then setting the stick on the shelf
beside my shoulder. He kept me pinned as he studied me.
“You’re in your head.” His voice was low.
I nodded. My erection had deflated. “Someone will see.”
“No one will see.”
His gaze was still fastened to mine, and I felt my cheeks heat as his
other hand dipped low to cup my limp dick. He squeezed, massaged, and
rolled his thumb around the head of my cock through my shorts.
He continued stroking me, coaxing my erection back to life while he
watched me. My lips parted, my breath quickening as I hardened.
“Oh God.” With a jolt, my hips bucked into his hand, too much fabric
between the warmth of his palm and the ache building in my dick.
“Shit yeah,” he murmured, “There you are. Mmm.”
 Eric gave me a lazy grin and dropped his forehead to my shoulder,
presumably watching his own hand stroke and squeeze the tent in my shorts
while I stood there awkwardly, not sure what to do with my hands. Embrace
him? I left them at my side and pressed my palms to the shelf. My hips
started to roll of their own accord, chasing his touch, pressing into it. He
pinched and kneaded my cock, then dropped lower, seeking out my balls,
fingers gliding over the slippery fabric of my shorts and making me gasp—
though I tried to keep quiet to little huffs of air through my nostrils, afraid if
I opened my mouth I’d moan.
Dropping to his knees, Eric reached through the right leg hole of my
shorts, bunching up the fabric and pulling me out. Then he wrapped his lips
around the head of my cock, and I couldn’t stifle the groan I let out, even
when his other hand tightened around my thigh in warning. My fist flew up
to my mouth, and I bit my knuckles as he dragged his teeth lightly across
the blood-flushed tip of my cock and then flicked his tongue over my slit,
lapping up the precome beading in it. Pleasure—hard, striking notes of it—
shivered up my spine, oozing through my groin.
“Eric.” It was a hiss of sound again. He had a way of making my speech
come out raspy and serpentine.
He pulled off my dick and released the fabric of my shorts down to
cover me, gazing up at me with a compliant half-smile on his lips. I shook
my head, hands pressing hard against the shelves. “I can’t be quiet, dude, I
can’t.”
“You can.” And then he put his finger to his lips, lifting one impertinent
brow as he dragged my waistband down just enough to expose me. “Shhh.”
He spit in his palm and started pumping me again, slow, lengthy strokes
that sent me rocking onto the balls of my feet. My hips swiveled and
shimmied and thrust into his hand as he increased and relaxed pressure.
God, he was a maddening, tantalizing bastard. My dick couldn’t keep up
with the variation, wasn’t sure if it was coming or going.
“So good,” I sighed out.
Eric pried my hands from where they were gouging into the underside
of the shelf and drew them up to the sides of his head. I dug my fingers
through his soft strands, sinking into his scalp. He gripped my cock and
opened his mouth, smacking my tip against the flat of his tongue while he
looked up at me, a wide-eyed, knowing, teasing gaze that made me want to
frown at him if only what he was doing didn’t feel so fucking good. He
kissed the tip of my cock, swirling his tongue over the head, suctioning with
his lips, then pulling off with a soft pop that made me shiver. Another
shudder rolled through me, my eyes threatening to bulge out of my sockets
as he rubbed my head back and forth over his full lips, glossing them with
spit and precome. Jesus, that sight alone promised to be fodder for my solo
sessions for weeks to come.
“Go ahead. Fuck my throat.” His voice was a gravel-laced command,
even when he was offering himself up to me. God, he was hot. Dirty hot.
Filthy hot. The kind of shit I couldn’t even dream up in my own fantasies.
The kind that made me feel like I was on the verge of coming every time he
opened his mouth and said stuff like that. He could probably snap his
fingers and make me come, and if we kept fooling around like this, I had no
doubt that’d be on the menu at some point. I could tell he liked how he
could manipulate me, but I figured it was fair trade.
My fingers trembled in his hair as he opened his mouth. A gentle nudge
of my hips fed my dick past his plump lips, and when I hit the back of his
throat, he swallowed, soft tissue closing and opening around me.
Impossibly warm, impossibly soft.
“Fuuuuccccckkk,” I whimpered.
His eyes were wide and watering beneath the thick splay of dark lashes,
fire in them, raw want and shadow. I pulled out and thrust in again. And
again. I’d never fucked anyone’s throat before, not the way I was able to
with him—careless and without worrying about choking or gagging him,
which I did a couple of times. My hips pistoned as I glided in and out of
that wet heat. The inside of his mouth was so hot and slick, the pleasure
sharpening to piercing when I hit the drag of his teeth. I closed my eyes, let
my head fall back and my dick pummel the back his throat over and over
until I felt my orgasm close in. My balls tightened up, and he tugged on
them. So close. So, so close. My quads vibrated with the buildup, and my
release was within reach. I prepared to see stars, and I couldn’t fucking wait
to blast my load into the back of his throat.
All at once Eric ducked away, leaving my dick bobbing as I frantically
humped the air.
“Come on,” I growled, irritable with the need to get off and yanking at
the strands of his hair, trying to tug him back to me. But Eric only exhaled a
quiet laugh as he put his hands on my hips and hauled himself to standing.
 “You’re getting mean. Don’t get mean unless you want me to get mean
back.”
Another little jolt shot through me, my head filling with vivid imagery
of the two of us, our bodies sweating, tangled in violent exertion. I could be
down for some rougher stuff. Hell, yeah. But not in a library.
“Turn around.”
“Why?”
He rolled his eyes and took a step back, nudging my shoulder until I
reluctantly turned. The weight of his torso pressed against my back, and his
hands trailed from my shoulders down the length of my arms, bracketing
my wrists and stretching them up to a shelf just above my head. I could feel
his erection digging into my ass, and damn did it feel nice.
He put his mouth to my ear, his stubble tickling the side of my neck.
“Because it’s about to get really good. No more questions.” He covered my
mouth with his hand, and when I tried to turn my head, his forearm
tightened across me. Then he pushed my shorts farther down over my hips
and wrapped his hand around me again. I was still slick with precome and
his spit, and it took no more than a couple of strokes before I was back on
the edge.
The fucker read me too well, though. As soon as I’d start to tense up,
he’d let go of my cock and play with my balls. I panted into his palm
covering my mouth and kept twisting my hips, trying to spear myself into
his fist and get what I needed. A noise of frustration in the back of my
throat only earned me his middle and index finger shoved in my mouth.
“Suck,” he said, like I had a choice. “Get ’em wet.”
I sucked, tasting salt and my own precome. He made a sound of
approval and started jacking me again. I groaned around his fingers, nerve
endings on fire, dick ready to blast a hole through a wall.
“You want these fingers?” He licked the skin of my neck where it joined
my shoulder, and my whole body twitched with pleasure, my nails
scratching at the shelf as I clung. I nodded and said when he pulled his
finger from my mouth, “Whatever you want.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Fucking hell, Eric,” I snapped.
A loud shh! sounded from somewhere in the distance, and I froze.
I could feel Eric’s smile against my neck. I looked around and through
the bookshelves but didn’t see anyone. My brain said worst idea ever. My
body just wanted Eric to keep touching me, and fuck it if the whole building
was watching. I had to get off, needed to get off.
Eric slid his wet fingers down the furrow of my ass, and when he teased
over my hole, I responded with a clench and a jump. He let go of my cock
and steadied my hip with one hand as he plied my hole with the wet fingers
of his other. “I got you, Sanders, relax.”
Easy to say, hard to do when I was ready to jump out of my own skin—
both from what he was doing to me and from the erotic thrill of getting off
with him in the library. But I tried, rolling my shoulders, focusing on his
breath hitting the back of my neck, humid and warm. The hand on my hip
feathered a few light strokes that were almost gentle, tender.
“Fuck, you get me so hard, frat boy,” he whispered, that moniker not
sounding as derisive as it had the last time we were together. The feeling
was mutual, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. Instead, I clenched my jaw
as he rubbed the rim of my hole and pushed his middle finger inside,
making me tighten up instinctively. The sting made my eyes water, and he
went still, as if he knew I needed a second to adjust. Then slowly he eased
farther in.
“All right?”
I nodded.
“Good. Shit, you’ve got a grip like a vise. Remember what I showed
you last time?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled and bore down as he pushed deeper.
“There we go. Yeah, fuck that’s hot.” He shifted to my side, cock-
strained fly of his shorts rocking against my hip. He fingered my ass with
one hand while unzipping, and I couldn’t help but slant a look down
between my raised arm as his cock popped out, thick with veins and so
fucking hard. “Get your hand on me.”
I let go of the shelf, hesitating as my hand fell to my side. This wasn’t
what I had planned on. I figured we’d just go off in a corner somewhere,
he’d jack me real quick, and I’d get back to work. This was turning into a
full-blown…experience like we’d had in my room back at the house. Heat
rushed my cheeks and everywhere else just thinking about it, thinking about
how he’d fucked me. How much I’d wanted it.
But I hadn’t touched him—not his dick or his hole or really any other
part of him—so the prospect of doing so now made me feel…I didn’t know.
I didn’t know how the fuck it made me feel, but it was a different level
somehow, and that made me nervous. Still, I was aching to come and so
damn close that I didn’t want to stop.
So I touched him. He could probably feel the tremor in my fingers as I
wrapped them around his silky length, but he didn’t say anything, just
exhaled a soft, contented sigh. That little sound gave me the confidence to
start jacking him in earnest. Dry, but he didn’t seem to care. He felt…good.
Good in my hand, and I liked how his hips jutted forward every time.
“Perfect man, perfect.” And just that string of words had me on edge
again.
I bit back a cry as a sharp sting assaulted my cock. My ass clenched
around his fingers. He flicked my cockhead again, another lash of pain and
then a flare of white-hot pleasure as his finger massaged my prostate.
“That’s just fucking wrong,” I gasped, and he snickered. I completely
forgot about stroking him and was just squeezing his dick with no rhyme or
reason, though he didn’t seem to mind.
“Just wait, you’re going to blow like Vesuvius.”
“Sounds like that’d solve my issue with that stupid philosophy paper, so
I’m all for it.”
He chuckled and shifted, moving to my back once more, where he
reached around, gripping my cock and stroking it again. He pulled his
finger out of my hole, circled the sensitive, bunched skin, then scraped his
thumbnail over it. Lightly, so fucking lightly that my ass couldn’t decide if
it was being teased or punished.
Then he plunged in deep again. Over and over. Both of his hands moved
in unison, tandem jolts of electricity sizzling up my spine and threatening to
wreck me. My hips jerked forward and rocketed back, trying to thrust into
his hand and simultaneously spear myself on his finger. I squirmed,
wiggled, rocked, and Eric kept on, giving me just barely enough.
“You’re losing it, aren’t you?”
“You noticed?” I panted, sarcasm thick on my tongue. His thumb circled
the head of my cock and teased my slit, and I shook my head. My stomach
was knotted with need, and sweat was starting to drip down my temples.
“You need more?” I didn’t look at him, but I knew he’d be smiling.
“You already know I do, asshole.”
He smacked his dick against my ass and leaned in, nipping my earlobe.
“You want this?”
 I didn’t know how I felt about the earlobe nipping, but my dick sure as
hell liked what he said.
I groaned. I didn’t and I did with such ferocity I couldn’t even begin to
articulate it. A tendril of shame at how much I wanted him roiled through
me before I shoved it away and steeled my jaw.
“Yeah, give it to me.”
“Mmm,” he rumbled low, a sound that was almost affectionate, and he
pushed up the back of my shirt, stroking his fingers up my spine until I felt
the tension in my shoulders relax and I was writhing again. “You look so
fucking delicious like this. Your gorgeous back curled over, your ass
pushing against me, wanting it, ready for me.”
He gave my bare cheek a light smack that made me jump, and then I
heard him rustling around, foil tearing. “C’mere.” He planted his hands on
my hips and guided me in a shuffle to the end of the shelf, turning me so I
faced it and could brace my hands on either side for more support.
“This way you won’t set off a domino effect when I’m pounding that
tight hole,” he explained, and just when I opened my mouth to suggest he
consider not pounding me hard enough to topple bookcases, his fingers
buried themselves in my crack again, hot and slick with lube, and I lurched.
His left hand, also lube slick, draped around my waist and took up my cock,
and I was so grateful for the easy slip of his hand that my thighs started
quivering as he pumped me a few times.
“Feels good, huh?”
I didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, because my jaw was clenched solid as
his fingers slid up and down the crack of my ass, taunting my hole, flicking
it, rubbing my taint and plucking at the base of my balls. My breath came in
shallow hitches, and I finally dropped my forehead to rest against the shelf,
pushing my ass out in the air and giving it over to him. Surrender.
The sound of his laughter coiled around me, like he was having a grand
old time driving me to the end of my fraying rope. He let go of my cock,
spreading my cheeks, and his thumbs coaxed my hole in unison. My whole
body was on the precipice of euphoria. His foot nudged mine.
“Wider.”
I adjusted my stance slightly, the elastic waistband of my shorts maxing
out over my thighs, and he let out a hiss of sound.
“Goddamn, that’s hot.”
 His thumbs circled my hole with more pressure, setting the sensitive
skin on fire, and then he pushed them inside. More filling than just one, the
collaboration did nothing for the burn. I felt his lips trip up my spine, and
soon I was pushing back against him again, fucking his fingers when they
replaced his thumbs.
“Perfect,” he whispered. “You ready for me now?”
“Fuck yes.” I was more than ready. I was like a meth head, ready to rip
off my own skin just to spite the itch.
He rubbed the head of his cock against my hole a few times until I was
practically trying to impale myself on it, except the hand he’d put on my hip
kept preventing me.
And then, thank fuck, he was pushing inside me. The burn tore through
me, making me wince. So…not as ready as I’d thought I was. He knew that,
too, and stroked my hip with his free hand, then brought it up to my
shoulder, squeezing the muscles before he pushed in deeper. I let out a
muted moan both for the pain and the way he was filling me. Relief and
torture at once. He filled me slowly, in little half steps that made me sweat
even more. His hand continued to knead my shoulder soothingly. And once
he was all the way in, I felt the weight of his body drape over me, his right
hand dropping low to splay over my abdomen. My six-pack rippled
underneath his touch, and there was possession in the way he stroked over
the muscles and held me that I loved. As much as I didn’t want to.
“So fucking tight,” he whispered. “Need a second or I’m gonna be a
two-pump chump.”
“Doesn’t seem fair after the shit you’ve been putting me through.”
“It doesn’t, does it?” He sounded amused. “But don’t worry, it’s not
gonna go down that way at all. You’re gonna wanna gnaw through the
shelf.”
I didn’t really know what he meant until he pulled all the way out of me,
then slammed back in with a grunt. I yelped and another vehement shhh!
sounded from through the shelves.
“Sorry about that.” He wasn’t sorry at all, but he eased up and this time
when he pulled out and slid back in it was slower, the pressure more
manageable. He kept that slow, steady pace, letting the heat build up inside
me, and then he shifted on his feet and tilted my hips a little. When he
pushed back in that time, my entire body lit up like a Vegas sign, pleasure
receptors pinging all over the fucking place. I think my eyes even rolled
back in my skull. Eric smothered my mouth again with his hand. “Got this
feeling you’re gonna want to get louder.”
I moaned into his palm, bit at the inside of his fingers. His teeth latched
onto the side of my neck as he began fucking me in earnest. His pace
quickened and the fat head of his cock dragged over my prostate like a
match against a striking plate. I was nothing but flame.
“Meant to make it quick but, nnnngh…” The words came out in
staccato puffs of air against the side of my neck as he thrust into me,
slowing down just enough when he plunged deep so the collision of our
bodies didn’t emit a telltale smacking sound. I wasn’t paying much
attention to what he was saying anyway. I was halfway to the ceiling and on
my way to the stratosphere.
Goddamn, he was plowing me, and I was sure I was going to be sore
tomorrow. Did I give a shit? Not at all. My breath escaped in harsh gasps
around his hand over my mouth. Eric bent his index and middle finger and
stuffed them inside my mouth, almost gagging me as they invaded, and it
was one of those things that if you told me out of context I’d be into, I
would have laughed. But holy fuck was I at that moment. He had me
plugged on both ends, totally at his mercy, and I could do nothing but take
his cock in my ass and drool on his fingers.
Even though his grunts were purposely muffled, there was a feral
quality to them, and I imagined if I twisted to look around, I’d find his
lower lip trapped between his teeth, his features strained and drawing
tighter with every thrust. My head drooped between my upstretched arms,
and my body felt like it melted and reformed every time he retreated, then
slammed into me again. And just when I thought he might truly break me,
he pulled his fingers from my mouth and gloved my cock in that sublime
friction of his spit-slick hand as he jerked me hard, whispering, “Come for
me, baby.”
I incinerated. Went full-on nuclear. All reactors overloaded. Meltdown
commence. Every muscle in my body filled with blood, then wrung
themselves out all at once. Pleasure throbbed, then hammered through me.
My back arched spastically, my mouth opened in a scream I buried in my
own shoulder, and I felt my dick swell dangerously just before my load
burst from me in thick, gooey spurts that coated Eric’s hand and the shelves
in front of me. I shuddered through the ecstasy ringing through my cock
and beating over my temples, and Eric just kept going through the
aftershocks, his grunts more careless now, his movements losing finesse.
His come-soaked hand rose back up to my mouth, and I didn’t think
twice when he smeared the sticky mess over my chin. When he pushed his
fingers against my lips, I sucked them clean, and he lost it. His teeth
clamped onto the tendons in my shoulder, near the place he’d marked me
last time, and pinched as he came with one last deep thrust and a string of
unintelligible words that were probably curses.
Eric dropped his forehead against my back, and I braced my hands
tighter against the shelf, supporting us both as we came down. I let my head
fall back as he slipped from inside me, and was just about to close my eyes
and sink into the afterglow washing over me when I caught a blur of
movement in front of me.
“Hey!” A masculine voice. And a stern one.
“Shit!”
What happened next was a chaos of fumbling. I yanked my shorts up,
and Eric seized my elbow as the guy walking down the aisle toward us
started moving faster. I couldn’t think straight, had no fucking clue where to
go. Instinctively, I darted left, but Eric yanked me again and dragged me
back the other way, letting go of my elbow to take my hand as we sailed
down the aisles, twisting and turning through the stacks until I was
completely lost.
Eric barreled through an exit and steadied me as I tripped through the
doorway after him, straight into the downpour. He didn’t let me stop to
collect myself but kept on pulling me along as he raced through the rain,
hugging the wall of the library, then broke us across the quad, leading us
into another building.
We slowed at the end of a hallway, pulling apart and collapsing against
the wall opposite each other. I put my hands to my knees, bending over to
catch my breath, the ends of my hair dripping on the floor. I watched as Eric
slumped all the way to the floor, digging one hand in his shorts and coming
out with the condom, which he knotted up and tossed in a nearby trash can.
The sound of it smacking against the plastic liner bag broke through my
panic, and we both started laughing.
“You suck under pressure,” he panted out.
“I like to think I’d do better in a burning building or something, but shit,
maybe you’re right.” I bit the inside of my lip, troubled. Not only by the
idea that I was so prone to flailing, but because we’d almost been caught.
Guess I could cross that kink off the list, after all. By contrast, Eric seemed
totally at ease, so maybe he was a fan.
I sank down to the floor, putting my head in my hands and willing my
heart rate to slow before I stroked out or something.
“Guy was a student aide, don’t worry about it. He won’t do shit, and I
doubt he saw much anyway.”
“He saw enough.” Shit, had he seen my face? I felt myself pale. “Are
there cameras in there?”
“In the basement? No.” Eric laughed. “I’m not sure about upstairs.”
I glanced up at him. “How do you know?”
Eric licked his lips and arched a brow. “How do you think I know?”
Ugh. I wished I hadn’t asked. I pulled up the hem of my T-shirt and
mopped my face with it, then looked around. We were near the stairwell at
the end of a hall in the Engineering building. A class let out at the other
end, and people milled around just outside the door.
“I haven’t been in this building since freshman year.”
“Survey in Architecture?”
I nodded. “I guess most of your classes are here?”
“Mm.” Eric gave an affirmative nod and stuck his hand back in his
pants, adjusting himself, then tipped his head back against the wall and let
his eyes fall shut.
“Shit. That was nice.” His eyes were still closed as a smile teased the
corners of his mouth. I studied him, this guy who less than five minutes ago
had effortlessly fed me my own come while I hadn’t batted a lash. I could
still taste myself.
“You haven’t been around,” I blurted out in total non sequitur.
“I had a group project. Was here a lot. But I have been around. You’ve
been avoiding me. Getting weird.”
“I wasn’t getting weird. I was getting horny.” And, okay, a little weird.
But fuck it.
“You could have just said so. I told you I was down.” It didn’t help that
his eyes were still closed, his expression serene as if he’d just finished a
fucking yoga class.
When I didn’t say anything, he finally opened his eyes, fixing me with
an inquisitive gaze.
 “Fine. I weirded out. A little bit.” I held my finger and thumb an inch
from each other, and he responded with the same gesture, except he
separated his finger and thumb as far as he could.
“It’s not your first time with a guy, so is it the fraternity stuff?”
“How do you know it’s not my first time?”
Eric exhaled a lazy chuckle, rolling his eyes as if the answer was
obvious. “You never would’ve let me fuck you if it was your first time.”
I shushed him sharply, glancing around the hallway. No one there, of
course.
More soft laughter from him. “So what’d you do? Play doctor with the
neighbor boy and enjoy it a little too much? Pick on some poor sap in high
school only to figure out, oh shit, all that angst you felt was just a boner in
disguise?”
I kicked out at his leg to stop him. “Quit being a dick.” I rolled my lips
inward, wondering why I was even going to tell him in the first place since
we were just fucking around anyway. “I did play doctor with a
neighborhood kid when I was little, but I didn’t know any different, and I
did the same with a girl, too, so I figured it evened out. And then when I got
to middle school and all the girls started getting tits, it overshadowed that
old stuff, so I figured it was just a random thing. Until summer before
freshman year.”
Eric’s eyes brightened with interest as I continued. “I worked in a
restaurant as a busboy, trying to save up some extra cash for fall, and there
was another guy I worked with and…it just sort of happened. We didn’t
fuck, though, like penetration. A few hand jobs. He blew me a couple of
times.”
“What happened to him?” Eric’s stare was contemplative, assessing.
I shrugged. “I left for school, and that was it.” He didn’t look like he
believed my succinct ending, but I didn’t care. It wasn’t his business that
I’d missed Cade more than I’d thought I would. We’d hung out all summer,
and when we hooked up, it was always under the pretense that we were just
two dudes getting off together because we were already around each other,
so why not? We’d never even kissed. But yeah, I’d still missed him when
I’d left.
“Nothing since then?” He narrowed his eyes at me.
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Why not?”
 “Is this an inquisition? I don’t fucking know. Because I like chicks, too,
and life’s a lot easier being the kind of guy I am if I stick to chicks. And
besides, I haven’t been interested in any other guys. Not even a little.”
“Until now.”
“I’m not interested in you. I’m interested in hooking up with you.” I
caught the change in his expression. It was brief, but it was there—a flash
of hurt or anger. I didn’t know him well enough to distinguish which,
though. It felt good to say at the same time it made me feel shitty. Eric was
always so calm and collected and confident, reducing me to a whimpering
mess with his touch and his looks. I could get off on the powerlessness in
the heat of the moment, but afterward, it irritated me to no end. None of that
was really his fault, but I’d already established my brain didn’t function
well around him.
“Fair enough,” he said, his tone mild and unbothered. He’d dropped the
curtain again, but I didn’t feel the relief I expected to at returning to status
quo.
“I don’t think my fraternity brothers would be that cool with my
experiments, though.”
“Yeah, well. No worries. Your secret’s safe with me.”
That was supposed to be reassuring, right? So why did I feel a flash of
disappointment that he wasn’t invested enough to be frustrated by my
concern over secrecy? Whatever. I needed to just get out of there. And then
I remembered—
“Shit, my stuff. How’m I going to get it?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it. Wait right here.” Eric put his hands
to his knees and stood up, skimming a palm over his temple to smooth his
hair back.
“Now?” I blinked.
“Well, yeah. It’ll take me five minutes.”
Eric vanished around the corner, leaving me alone in the hallway.
Seconds ticked by and my mind started racing as I waited. That was a bad
idea. I should have just gone with him because at least when I was around
him, I seemed to be incapable of complex thought processes. Now I was
just stewing over letting him fuck me again—what it might mean. If it
would happen again.
By the time he got back, I was pacing. He was absolutely soaked and
dropped my backpack to the floor and made a flourishing gesture with his
hands, grinning.
“Did you just walk in there?”
He chuckled. “Nah, gave some freshman five bucks to go get it for me.
But really, I could've gone in. I just figured you’d freak out and worry more.
You’re overthinking this, man. That dude has probably already forgotten,
okay?”
“Okay.” And then, after another beat, I tacked on, “Thanks.”
“No worries.” Why did he look so damn amused?
I picked up my backpack and hitched it up on my shoulder. Then we
just stood there in front of each other. I wasn’t sure what was supposed to
come next. A see ya? A thank you for getting me off? Fuck my brain for
getting so stupid in his presence.
“All right. Well, see ya, then.” I started to walk off, but Eric planted his
palm on my shoulder and pushed me back against the wall. My heart raced
as he studied my face. Fuck, he was too close. I didn’t know what he was
seeing in my expression, but whatever it was loosed another chuckle from
him.
“Next time, just tell me you want it. You can even text me. It’s no big
deal, bro.”
“Yeah, all right.” I gave him a short nod, but he didn’t move, just stood
there, his gaze roaming my face, then locking in on mine. I wet my lips
nervously.
Eric’s expression softened, a half-smile curling his lips. Fuck he had
nice lips. Nicer eyes. Nice everything.
I squeezed the strap of my backpack. He was still fucking there, his
thumb sweeping over my collarbone, and now I couldn’t make my legs
move. His head tilted slightly to the side, his lips parting on a soft exhale.
Oh shit, he was going to kiss me. I drew in a shuddery breath, still
frozen. He arched a brow.
“No.” It came out softly, but was firm.
Eric shrugged and released me immediately, then took a couple of steps
backward, sweeping his hand in an “after you” gesture down the hall.
He didn’t follow me, but I felt his eyes on my back until I turned the
corner. I picked up speed as soon as I was out the door, forgetting the rain
and how it was dousing me as I cut across the quad toward home, forgetting
everything but the way his mouth had hovered before mine just seconds
ago. And how much I’d fucking wanted that kiss.
 3

PUSH ME

“S anders.”
Mmmm. The husky sound of my name spilling from his
mouth. That quirk of his lips that was half smile, half smirk, all
bastard. Open up. His hands moving over my hips, clasping my jaw, forcing
my mouth wider. The gleam in his eyes.
“Sanders!”
More insistent now. His grip on me tightening. Driving me, pushing me
around, owning me.

“H EY , SWEETPEA , WAKE YOUR ASS UP .” The jarring shake to my shoulder

knocked the feathers from that delicious dream and left me grumpy.
“Don’t make me drop my balls on your chin. ’Cause I will. You know I
will.” Mark’s voice was an unwelcome reality at the moment. I shut my
eyes again and tried to will the dream back into existence. Eric had been
about to—
The mattress bounced and down, jiggling me and my sour stomach. I
reached a hand up, flailing it around, seeking contact with anything solid
and found it with a sharp smack of sound.
“Ow! Watch it, dick.”
I groaned and rolled onto my back, slitting my eyes to peer up at Mark
hovering over me with a terse frown as he rubbed at his jaw.
“We’re supposed to be there at eleven for setup. If you still want a ride,
you better haul ass. I’m leaving in ten.” There was the botanical garden
where our fraternity and two others were hosting a fund-raiser for the local
VA hospital.
I yawned into Mark’s consternation and wiped sleep from my eyes,
pinching the bridge of my nose. A wicked headache beat at my temples,
reminding me I was still alive despite the multitude of shots I’d pounded
last night. I waved Mark off. “I need another half hour. You go ahead.”
He sighed, bounced off the bed, and disappeared through my doorway. I
started to get up and then flopped backward, needing another minute to let
my brain catch up to daylight. It was a painful process. My mouth was
whiskey-flavored sandpaper, and I gripped myself through the covers and
squeezed, trying to urge the blood back through the rest of my body. The
erection I was sporting could’ve held up a circus tent. Fuck Mark for
interrupting that killer dream. I hoped I’d left a bruise on his jaw.
My recall of the night prior was fuzzy. Some frat brothers and I had
gone to a bar. A lot of bars, actually. I lost track after the third. But I
remembered that we’d ended the night at Westfire, and I’d been balls-to-
the-wall hammered by then. We all had.
And who else had been there? Eric. Across the bar with a group of his
own friends—Chet and Amanda and some other folks. They’d seemed
cozy, all tangled up in each other and laughing. We’d eyed each other
across the bar, and my thoughts had rewound back to him railing me at the
library, how his breath had ghosted across my lips in the Engineering
building. Mark had handed me a shot and I’d knocked it back quickly,
tasting only the memory of Eric. I’d wanted things right then. A lot of
things I never expected I’d want or entertain with Eric.
Like getting on my knees for him.
Or kissing him.
But just when I’d pushed my empty shot glass over the counter and set a
determined, liquor-fueled course in his direction, he’d narrowed his eyes at
me and shaken his head. Subtly but unmistakably, leaving me wondering
what the fuck that had meant. I’d glanced back over my shoulder to the
crew I’d come with, and when I looked back again, Eric had turned his back
squarely to me. A clear signal.
We hadn’t stopped drinking. The crew returned to the frat house for late
night, and I didn’t stumble back to the house until almost five in the
morning, Mark and I cracking up when I fell off the porch into the bushes
while I was taking a leak before going inside. Once we’d gone in, I’d
waited until he was down the hall, then went upstairs and stood outside
Eric’s closed door, staring at it like an idiot until I grew a pair and turned
the knob gently only to find his bed empty. Jealousy coiled around me like
fitful snakes. He’d probably slept elsewhere a hundred times before and I’d
hardly even noticed, so I was frustrated with both him and myself as I
wandered back to my bedroom. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I’d
passed out.

I FINALLY GOT out of bed and dragged ass down the hall to the shower,
unable to resist sneaking another quick peek in Eric’s bedroom. Still no sign
of him.
I found Ansel in the kitchen after I’d dressed, sitting at the tiny table
engaged in a fierce stare down with a plate of eggs and what appeared to be
oatmeal. He glanced up as I came in.
“Did I see you last night?” I asked, squinting at him. I had a vague
memory, but it was rare for Ansel to come out with us.
“Maybe?” He sounded as uncertain as I was as he pushed his plate
across the table in my direction. “Want this? I keep trying, but I can’t.
Already puked twice at morning practice. Never again.”
I snatched up the plate and chowed, eyeing him because it was unusual
to see him so hung over. In fact, I couldn’t recall ever seeing him drunk. He
went out, yeah, but his track career was his top priority, so sometimes he’d
have a beer, but typically stuck to water. “I think I’ve got some of those
electrolyte replacement powders in my room if you want.”
He dismissed the offer with a weak wave of his hand. “Thanks. Already
did that. Might try again later.”
I bit my lip and shrugged. Fuck it. Wasn’t my problem. As soon as I’d
scarfed the eggs, he pushed the bowl of oatmeal in my direction and I
annihilated it, as well.
“The VA thing’s tonight. You gonna make it?”
He nodded and gave a full-body shake. “Yeah, I’ll rally. Got my duds
already, anyway.”
“All right. I’m out.”
He lifted a few fingers from the handle of his coffee mug in an
approximation of a wave as I scooted out of the kitchen and toward the
front door. I figured I’d hoof it to the frat house and make a pledge drive me
to the botanical garden where I was supposed to help set up the tables and
decorations.
At the same time I reached out to open the front door, someone pushed
it on it from the outside. I caught the edge, narrowly avoiding a direct hit to
the forehead, and found myself face-to-face with Eric. The fucker was
fresh-faced and dapper as a daisy, and he looked me up and down as if
sizing me up before he clucked his tongue at me. “Long night, frat boy?”
So we were back to that.
“Could ask you the same,” I grumbled. I needed to step back out of his
way and let him pass, but I couldn’t. My feet stuck where they were as if
cemented to the floor even as Eric took a step closer and bumped his chest
against mine.
“So ask.”
“What?” Having him all up in my space like that flustered me, the
coffee bean and laundry scent of him, and underneath that, traces of his
cologne. He was so fucking warm, and this close I could see his stubble as
if enlarged by a macro lens; a tiny dry patch of skin at the corner of his
sensual mouth tempted me to dart out my tongue and lick it.
“If it was a long night,” he prompted me, one brow arching.
His palm landed on my chest and shoved me a half step backward. I
shook my head. I wasn’t sure to what: asking him or the shove.
“Ansel’s here,” I said, instead. As if on cue, Ansel appeared through the
kitchen doorway and Eric shifted aside smoothly. Not that it would have
mattered; Ansel was moving fast, barely managing to lift a hand in Eric’s
direction as he passed by. Seconds later the bathroom door slammed shut.
We both winced as we heard him hurling into the toilet. Poor dude was a
lightweight.
Eric chuckled and kicked the door closed, then turned back into me.
And shit, he moved fast, too. Felt like the whole damn world was about two
steps ahead of me today. My shoulders knocked into the wall beside the
door, my head thwapping against a framed poster of Rocky. “Fuck, stop
doing that shit,” I gasped.
“You make it way too easy to take you by surprise.” Eric grinned,
pressing his forearms harder against my chest. “And I like it too much.”
“I’m late,” I argued, and sucked in a breath as he jammed his hand
behind the waistband of my jeans and gathered up my package in his grip as
if he had every right to do so. I’d gone half-mast at the sight of him, but the
skim of his hand over my shaft had my pole ready to support an entire UN
Summit’s worth of country flags.
“Ask me,” he demanded.
“No.” I groaned as he stroked me. “Don’t care.”
“I can still smell the alcohol coming off you. Think if I kissed you, I
could get drunk?” He gave the head of my dick a merciless squeeze, and
when I shuddered out a breathy moan, he clapped a hand over my mouth.
All too familiar. Fuck, I was on fire just like that, and I knew he saw it in
my eyes. His gaze bored into mine, a silent challenge in it. What the hell
did it matter to him if I asked? I resolved I wouldn’t do it, solely because he
so evidently wanted me to.
I tried to tear myself away but only managed to pump myself harder
into his hand. He put his face close to mine. “Give it to me,” he said quietly,
every word sizzling through me like a high-voltage charge. “Three…”
Oh fuck, I was going to. I was totally going to blow my load in a span
of seconds just because Eric told me to in that velvety rumble that was pure
sex. It was as if he’d called to me at a decibel that bypassed my brain and
shot straight to my cock. I might as well have been his dog. I couldn’t
decide if that was the hottest thing ever or the most mortifying.
“Two…” He licked the side of my neck and I whimpered, my hips
bucking into his hand out of control.
“Fuck,” I rasped out, the word garbled by his fingers against my lips.
“One.”
The sound of the hallway door opening reported like a gunshot. Once
again, like some fucking ninja, Eric was suddenly three feet away, yanking
the front door open and pushing me through it while my eyes flew wide, my
bewildered dick throbbing and leaking, so damn confused and pissed off.
“Fuck, you’re cute,” he whispered, squeezing a handful of my ass
before shutting the door behind me.
I clenched my fingers at empty air and growled in frustration, then
tripped down the stairs, glancing over my shoulder expectantly, though
there was no way he’d come after me. What the hell had just happened?
Actually, I knew what had happened. Eric had played me like a goddamn
fiddle. Again. Gotten me all worked up and left me to weave down the front
walk like a drunken sailor, balls painfully heavy and aching.
God, fuck that dude. Just fuck him.
I FOUND Marty at the fraternity house, sweeping the front porch and
bagging trash, and got him to drive me to the venue at the gardens.
As we rode, I rested my head against the coolness of the passenger-side
window and closed my eyes, content with the silence until he spoke up.
“You were dating Ashley, right?”
“Yeah, a couple months back. Why?” I didn’t bother opening my eyes.
“She was at the house last night, asking if you were there.”
“Would've depended on the time. She has my number. She could’ve
texted or called.”
“Oh yeah, sure.”
He didn’t sound like he was finished, though, so I cracked an eye and
tilted my head a little, studying him. He was a good-looking freshman dude.
Tall and gangly with light brown hair that did this little swoop thing over
the front that girls loved to play with at parties. He could drink like a fish,
too. “You interested in her?”
“Nah.” He shook his head a little too quickly.
“You’re a terrible liar, dude.”
He chuckled. “That’s against bro code, right? So no.”
“Psht.” I scoffed. “I guess technically, but we didn’t end on bad terms or
anything, we just…” I’d gotten bored, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.
Ashley was cool. “It just didn’t work. How about this: feel free to move in.
She’ll be there tonight.” I rubbed the aching spot between my eyes, giving
Ashley some thought. “She’s pretty low-maintenance. Crazy about House of
Spades.”
“The TV show?”
“Yeah. Get her started on that and she’ll probably love you immediately
and talk to you all night about it.”
Marty drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, then nodded.
“Okay. Thanks dude. Are you sure? She’s so hot.”
“One hundred percent. Go for it.” Was I sure? I could have laughed; I
hadn’t thought of Ashley or a pussy in weeks. My channel was stuck on an
extended episode of dick, and Eric appeared to be the one with the remote
in his hands.
W E DIDN ’ T FINISH GETTING everything set up until almost five, which meant
Mark and I had to rush back home to get showered and suited up in order to
be back at six. No pre-partying for us tonight, which was fine with me; it’d
taken hours for my hangover to dissipate.
When we walked inside, it was a hive of activity. Ansel and some of his
track buddies were hanging out in the kitchen. Jesse had a couple of people
over I vaguely recognized, and they’d parked in front of the living room TV
playing some video game.
Mark opened the fridge and glanced back at me, asking, “Shower beer?”
“Hit me.” I held up my hand, and he tossed me a cold one. One of life’s
underrated pleasures: a hot shower and a cold beer. I cracked it and was on
my way out when Ansel called out my name. “Grab that box on the counter
and drop it off in Eric’s room on your way? He said he needed some
cufflinks.”
I nodded, looking around until I found the small black box sitting on the
edge of the counter and took it with me upstairs.
Eric’s door was open, and I could hear the shower going in the hall bath,
so I stepped inside and inhaled his scent. I couldn’t remember the last time
I’d been in his room, and I meant to just set the box on the desk beside the
door and jet, but a few pieces on top of a dresser shoved under the window
caught my eye. Bridges. One meticulously constructed of toothpicks,
striking in the detailing. I didn’t know the names for all the components, but
it was like art.
The other looked as if it was made of balsa wood or some other kind of
thin, pliable veneer, and it too was carefully rendered. He must have put
hours upon hours into them, and I moved closer, flicking on a nearby lamp
so I could study them. Bending down, I craned my neck to see the
underside and found the detailing continued there. Tiny support beams and
crossbeams held the sucker up, not even a fucking glue drip to be seen. I
didn’t know why I was so surprised except that our trysts—or whatever the
hell they were—were marked by what I thought was a certain carelessness
on Eric’s part; he didn’t give a shit about getting down and dirty, and he
sure as hell didn’t give a shit about getting me dirty.
“Final projects for a class last year.”
I jumped as Eric spoke behind me. I hadn’t even heard the shower turn
off or him coming down the hall.
 “They’re amazing. You did them on your own?” I glanced over my
shoulder, and my gaze got stuck on the trail of dark hair that disappeared
behind the white terry cloth towel cinched around his waist. I wanted to
drink the water droplets clinging to the hairs just below his navel. Jesus,
how was it that even a bath towel could look obscene on him?
“Yeah. Took forever and a day, just about. But I got an A.”
“I’ll bet,” I said, distracted. More water droplets dusted Eric’s
shoulders, a few running down over his dark, pinched nipples, the buds so
tight I wanted to take them between my teeth. Lick them, nibble them, see
what kinds of sounds he’d make. He was always making me moan, but
could I make him do the same on my own, without him touching me?
Seeing him from a distance like that, when he wasn’t actively engaged in
getting me hard or getting me off, his body was…graceful. Lean. On a
Savannah, my bulk would make me the lion, but he’d be the cheetah that
outran me.
I straightened, angling toward him but turning my attention back to the
bridges. Still, in the corner of my eye, I detected movement, the squeak of
the door as he pushed it gently—not fully closed, but cracked. Eric tugged
the towel free, so fucking casually, caught it in his hand, then lifted it to rub
briskly at his hair.
My breath hitched as he took two steps closer, heavy dick swinging.
The balls below looked swollen and juicy, ripe to be sucked. Fucking hell, I
needed to get a grip. Yeah, I’d been turned on by guys before as had already
been established, but I didn’t recall ever wanting to suck on a guy’s sac.
Now I was all but salivating at the prospect. Eric’s brows rose in a silent
question.
“Ansel asked me to bring up the cufflinks you wanted to borrow.” I
pointed them out on the desk.
“Right. Thanks.”
Man, did I want to see him in a suit, all cleaned up and sleek. He’d
shaved, his jawline smooth and pronounced now, the sexy bow of his mouth
all the more seductive. Or maybe that was just my libido talking. No doubt
he could see the damn Rock of Gibraltar trying to bust out of my jeans.
Eric touched the tip of his tongue to the corner of his mouth
contemplatively, then let the towel sag and drape over one shoulder,
releasing it to close a fist around the base of his cock. His abs contracted as
he squeezed, his gaze rolling over me like a heat wave. Fuck, he knew how
to use his eyes. They might as well have been arrows pinning me in place.
One stroke. Two. Three. Slow, sleepy caresses like it was all an
afterthought. But I knew better. His dick filled and darkened. My tongue
felt swollen in my mouth.
“Hmm.” The sound was a gravelly purr. “I like your eyes on me. I’ll
keep that in mind.”
My mouth dropped open and I scrambled for some cool retort, but he’d
caught me off guard, as usual.
“So, ummm, what made you want to get into structural engineering?”
Total non sequitur. I grasped at straws, trying to keep myself from begging
him to get me off. Instead, inexplicably, my question had the effect of a cold
shower on him. The heat in Eric’s eyes dimmed abruptly, and he tossed the
towel onto his bed before bending to sweep up a pair of boxers lying there
and tug them on.
“My father,” he said, snapping his waistband and running a hand
through his hair quickly.
“He’s one, too?”
Eric’s chuckle was short and bitter. “No. He’s dead. The guy you met
when I moved in is my stepdad. Weren’t paying much attention, were you?”
I cringed. I hadn’t been, nope, but I was now. “What happened to him or
is it too—”
He shook his head. “It was ten years ago. He traveled a lot for work. He
was on a bridge that collapsed in Japan.”
“I remember reading about that. Man, I’m sorry.” It was sincere, and if
he’d been a girl, I’d have offered him a hug or pulled him into my arms, but
I didn’t know what to do with him, and his posture seemed stiff, like if I
were to touch him quills would pop out and he’d prick me.
“Yeah. Sucked,” he said succinctly, and crossed to his closet, yanking
the bifold doors and flipping through the hangers, then pulling out a suit
while I kept leaning against his dresser like an oaf.
“So I decided I wanted to build shit that was solid. That wouldn’t
collapse from beneath an entire fucking family on vacation, or a pregnant
woman trying to get home, or a dad with a son halfway across the world
just because some jackoff hadn’t given proper consideration to tectonic
pressure on the substructure.”
 I thought I must have paled or made a weird expression because when
Eric looked over at me, some of the tension carved in his features faded and
he bit his lip. “Sorry. I’m still a little bitter. Clearly.”
“No. Fuck, don’t apologize. I’d be pissed as hell. That’s fucking awful.”
“Yeah.” He ticked a look in the direction of his nightstand where a
digital clock glowed. “Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be there early or
something?”
I glanced at the time and winced. “Ah shit. Yeah.” I was going to be late
again.
There was a light rap on the door and Jesse pushed it open, double
taking at finding me inside, too. “Oh hey. I think Mark’s looking for you,”
he said to me, then turned his attention to Eric. “You still want a ride, man?
We were thinking of going to Easy’s first and grabbing dinner.”
That was my cue. I headed out, Jesse skirting out of my way as I passed.
“Sure, I’m in,” I heard Eric say as I headed toward the bathroom.
I’d wanted to ask him about last night at the bar, but I didn’t have time,
and besides, when I thought about it, I figured I knew. I hadn’t been
thinking clearly about all the frat brothers around me. But he had.

M Y MOM CALLED while Mark and I were en route to the botanical garden.
We spoke once a week so I could assure her I hadn’t failed out of school,
OD’d on drugs, gotten a girl pregnant, or succumbed to some other
catastrophe. She was a bit of a worrier.
She asked about my grades first, and then it was on to Thanksgiving
plans. It was weeks way, but Mom was a planner, so she’d probably been
thinking about side dishes for months. I was an only child, and we usually
ended up hosting extended family, sometimes other friends of my parents’.
“So you’ll be arriving Wednesday?” she asked.
I laughed. “Yeah, just like last year. And the year before that.”
“Oh, leave me alone. I miss my son and want to spend time with him.”
“Maybe you should show your son how much you miss him by making
one of those red velvet cakes,” I teased.
“Hmmm. That’s a thought. I wonder if he’d help me make it?”
“I imagine he’ll want to watch some football. Relax a while. Making all
those good grades wears him out.” I knew I’d end up helping her, though.
We’d always been pretty close.
 “Is it the good grades or the partying? I saw that picture you were
tagged in on Facebook.”
I squinted, trying to think of which one that might have been. And then
remembered and groaned. “I swear, I’m going to block you, Ma. Please quit
looking at my stuff. It weirds me out. And I was in a costume in that photo
and really not that drunk.” I’d been completely hammered.
She hummed skeptically. “You’d better not be drinking and driving.”
“I’m not,” I assured her, which was the truth. DDs were easy when you
had pledges. “Listen, gotta run. We just pulled up to the fund-raiser.”
“Oh, snap a pic of you in your suit, would you? Give me something
besides you in a bikini that I can put on the mantle.”
“It’s a mankini, and I think you should put that one up. Your friends’ll
love it.”
But, like a dutiful son, I thrust my phone into Mark’s hand after we’d
parked and made him snap a photo I could send to her.

“N AAAAAAATTTTTEEEEEEEE .” Ashley sloshed into me. That was the best

way to describe how she came careening into my arms. I caught her by the
elbow to keep her upright as she giggled, adjusting the top of her sheath or
whatever you called what she was wearing, which looked like a sausage
casing.
“Wow,” I said, once I’d regained my balance. “You look great.”
“Thanks. Miss me?” She beamed me a smile and squeezed my bicep
through the suit jacket I was considering getting rid of. It was getting hotter
inside as more people piled in, boozed it up, and filled the dance floor. But
her question set off warning bells in my head. Alert, alert, proceed with
caution! Our relationship had been fairly relaxed, but when she’d invited
me home to meet her parents and I found myself desperately wanting to
avoid the trip, it’d been a sign. After I told her I didn’t want to do that, we’d
just sort of gone flat as a soda with the cap left off. Looking at her now, I
tried to drum up some regret but couldn’t find any.
She must have read something in my expression because she laughed
and rolled her eyes. “I’m messing with you. Did you bring a hot date?”
“Nope.”
 “Me either, so if neither of us scores by the end of the night, I’m down
if you are.”
I blinked because it seemed so out of left field, but maybe it wasn’t,
since we’d gone back and forth a while after our official breakup, hooking
up after mixers a few times. This time, however, I couldn’t manage even the
faintest whiff of interest, so I gave her what I hoped was a charming smile.
“I doubt you’ll have any problems.”
One of her friends grabbed her by the arm and tugged her toward the
food display. I found Mark and some of the other brothers, but hung back
when they decided to go out on the lawn beyond the french doors to find a
place to get high.
I’d been keeping an eye on the front of the ballroom for Eric for the last
couple of hours, wondering if he might not show after all. Then, suddenly
there he was striding through the door with Amanda on his arm, and I didn’t
know whether I was going to pop a chub or pop a blood vessel. Okay, that
might have been a little exaggeration, but the sight of him looking so hot,
leaning his head down to speak with Amanda, then breaking into laughter
with a big grin on his face like he was having a grand ol’ time while I’d
been standing there half the night with my nerve endings crackling in
anticipation just made me want him all the more. I’d rubbed one out in the
shower, but the half-life on that orgasm proved shitty. I needed what only he
seemed to be able to give me. And badly.
“Why didn’t you bring Chet? Won’t he feel left out?” I asked as I sidled
alongside him next to the bar. Amanda had walked off, I was guessing to
the bathroom, so I was glad to take up where she’d left off.
“I’m seriously starting to wonder if you have a thing for him.”
I glared at him and glanced around. Eric cocked his head at me and gave
me a musing smile that might have also been a subtle tease.
“Rein in the paranoia, Busey. No one’s paying attention to us.” He
chuckled and reached past my shoulder to grab something from the bar,
brushing against me in the process. I felt the heavy warmth of his cock
through his pants grazing my thigh. And there it was. I’d officially popped a
boner. He knew it, too, without even looking. I could tell by the self-
satisfied smile that twitched at the corners of his mouth.
“You love this,” I told him.
“I do. And so do you. Don’t even pretend you don’t.”
 He dropped the stirring straw he’d retrieved into his drink, then pinned
it to the rim of his glass as he took a swallow. “Did you jack off in the
shower?”
I laughed because he was just…I didn’t even know. He was outrageous.
And I wasn’t sure if I loved it per se, because could you really love
something that kept you in limbo between panic and ecstasy? But I was
addicted to it. Every agonizing second.
“Came in your shampoo bottle,” I quipped, and air-toasted my glass in
his direction.
He ran a hand over his hair—which was perfect, of course, some
product in it that made it fall just right, like something out of a magazine.
“That would explain why it’s extra shiny tonight if it were true. But I
happen to know your aim isn’t that good—much less your finesse—when
you’re really worked up.”
I almost groaned from the sheer ball-tightening arousal that rocketed
through me, but managed a half-hearted scoff. “You’d be the same.”
“Maybe. So far, you’re all take. Care to find out what it’s like to give?”
I sucked in a breath and caught movement in my periphery as Amanda
sauntered back. Eric snaked an arm low around her waist as she leaned her
head against his shoulder affectionately. My heart started pounding again.
“Nate, Amanda. Amanda, Frat Boy. One of two.”
That fucking term. It was Pavlovian, and I hated it as much as it turned
me on.
Amanda gave me a warm smile and tipped her glass against mine. With
the red hair, plush lips, and high cheekbones, she was more striking than
pretty. “Nice to finally officially meet you.”
Jesse caught my eye as he made his way through the crowd. I lifted my
chin to him as he started in our direction, then bumped fists with him as he
arrived and our circle grew.
“Anyone want shots?” Eric asked, and then without waiting for an
answer, slid behind me to get in the bar line, bumping against me again.
Instead of his cock, it was his hand brushing against me this time. Subtle,
infinitely subtle if someone had been looking, and I could tell by the
lightness of the touch it must have been his knuckles or the side of his hand
skimming over my ass. Had it been anyone else, I wouldn’t have even
noticed it, probably. But God, from him it was one more open circuit
crackling with electricity. I crunched down hard on an ice cube, turning a
glance over my shoulder in time to catch him grinning at me as he stepped
into the line while Jesse and Amanda talked about some class they were
thinking of taking next semester.
“I’ve heard he’s the worst. A tyrant. Totally inflexible, takes pride in
handing out F’s,” Amanda was saying.
“Ugh. I’m dreading it.” Jesse groaned.
“Who’s this?” I asked, trying to play catch-up.
“Professor Williams.”
I winced. “Oh yeah, I’ve heard stories.”
“Well fucking great. I’m screwed,” Jesse said, making a face.
Eric returned loaded down with shots and passed them off to each of us.
I eyed the milky liquid. “Kahlúa?” I asked.
His eyes slid over to me and held, amusement twinkling within deep
green. “Screaming Orgasm.”
And then the bastard winked.
We were nothing but undercurrent and tension, and I darted a glance
between Amanda and Jesse to see if they were picking up on any of this.
Jesse seemed clueless, but there was something about the way Amanda
looked me over, then fiddled with Eric’s lapel that put me on edge. I
downed my shot fast, relieved when everyone else did the same.
Amanda tugged on Eric’s arm. “Let’s dance.”
Jesse watched them go, tilting his head. “They’re fucking. Definitely
fucking.” His expression suggested he might not approve of this, but I
wasn’t sure why.
I joined the fray fifteen minutes later when Ashley came up and took
both Jesse and me by the hand. On the dance floor, she put her back to me,
pushing her perky little ass up against my crotch, but it wasn’t her getting
me hard, it was Eric, glimpsed in fragments, the glow on his face and the
smile, the flash of his arms wrapped around Amanda. What would it be like
if those arms were wrapped around me? If he was behind me, grinding up
against my ass, sweating against me, pressing into me to some hypnotic
beat?
I was suddenly burning up and tugged my coat off, moving to the side
of the dance floor as I pulled my phone from my pocket.

Nate: Are you fucking her?

 There was a three-minute delay, and I lost sight of Eric before I
glimpsed the crown of his head again, still on the dance floor.

Eric: The first time you use my number and that’s what you ask?

And then a second later, another message: No. I told you that. Ask the
question you really want to ask.

I pressed my lips together. I couldn’t get mad at him for putting out that
impression when I was desperate to keep what we were doing secret. Hell,
he was doing me a favor.

Nate: That was the question I really wanted to ask

Eric: You sure?

I glimpsed the back of his head as he walked toward the exit.

Nate: Are you leaving?

Nothing. Shit. Had I pissed him off? I wanted to go with him home. No
one would be back at the house, but I was on cleanup duty. I bit my lip,
wondering if I could make it there and back before I was needed.
A long minute later, I got another text that threw my heart into a
pathetic hummingbird frenzy and sent a flush racing up my neck. I wrapped
my hand around my phone, shielding the screen and the fat erection he’d
just sent me a close-up view of against wandering eyes. In the photo Eric’s
fist was wrapped around the base of his swollen shaft, the whiteness of his
knuckles telling me how tightly he was holding himself. Fuck me. I think I
did start drooling then.

Eric: Want this?

The bottom dropped out of my stomach as if I’d gone flying over a hill
in a roller coaster.
Nate: Yes

He took longer than expected to reply.

Eric: Surprised me. Thought you were going to do your usual one step
forward two steps back thing.
Nate: Whatever. Where? I’m on clean-up crew. Have to be back here in an
hour.
Eric: Give me a few. I’ll figure it out.

Mark clapped me on the back, sending my phone skittering out of my

hand. I yelped and launched after the thing as it spun across the floor in a
kaleidoscope of fleshy purples and pinks, managing to snatch it up while it
was still spinning.
Mark laughed hysterically at my glare, then shoved a drink in my hand.
“Finish it for me? I’m so fucking baked.”
His eyes were bleary and bloodshot, and I had an idea the combo of
weed and the whiskey I detected in his drink would have him clinging to
the toilet before the end of the night. I pasted on a grin and accepted the
glass.
“Are we cool, dude?”
I blinked. “Yeah, of course. Why?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. You’ve just been acting a little off lately.”
“Naw. I’m just…” Letting one of our roommates pound the hell out of
my ass with increasing regularity and loving every fucking second. “A little
overloaded this semester.”
“Sure. Cool. Just checking. Marty said you gave him the thumbs-up on
Ashley, wasn’t sure if maybe…”
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I hiked my thumb toward the
entrance before he’d finished speaking. “Gotta piss.”
He nodded and turned away, absorbed back into the dancing as I headed
off. I finished his drink and set the empty glass on a table as I passed,
alcohol a gentle current in my body, making me loose and more than a little
reckless.
Eric’s texts directed me to the left stairwell that flanked the inner
vestibule. Both it and the one on the right had been roped off with orange
cones and signs. With a glance around to make sure no one was coming
down the hallway and that the attendant at the door to the ballroom was
looking away, I launched up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and was
breathless by the time I reached the top. Only a third of that was due to
actual exertion, though; the rest was pure, dick-twitching anticipation.
I hung a left down the hallway, passing a few closed doors until I
arrived at the second to last one near the end of the hall. No light came from
beneath it, so I double-checked Eric’s text before turning the handle and
slipping inside, then closing the door after me.
There was a love seat against the left wall and a bank of windows that
overlooked the ballroom, I guessed, which was the only source of a soft-
glow wash of lighting that haloed Eric’s figure where he sat on a large,
polished wood desk facing the door, knees wide, posture loose, his palms
planted to the surface behind him like some debonair executive calling in
the secretary he was sleeping with.
“This is someone’s office,” I said stupidly, redundantly.
“You were expecting a hotel suite?” His voice was cool, limbered by
alcohol, and trickled like a light touch of fingertips down my spine. His lips
quirked up and carried my dick right along with them. I was little more than
a fucking charged particle in his presence, and I kept waiting for it to wear
off, but it seemed to be getting worse.
“A supply closet or storage room, I guess. Wasn’t it locked?” I caught
my breath and tugged at my collar, willing my racing heart to calm the hell
down.
“It was.” He smirked. “And now it’s not.”
“How are you so fucking cavalier?”
“Life’s short.” His smirk became a tight smile. “What’s the worst that
can happen? You think we’re the only ones messing around? Someone else
is fucking around here, you can bet your ass. I just thought you might enjoy
the relative privacy, and that hedge out back looked awfully prickly. But
hey, I’m game.”
“Are you going to fuck me?” Just saying it out loud sent a fresh wave of
raw, needy desire through me. Fuck, I wanted it. Right here, right now. This
office felt almost like luxury: the quietness, the lack of people in the
immediate vicinity, but still nearby. Not the same tension as the library—a
different kind of thrill. I hadn’t been alone with him, truly alone, since that
first time in my room.
 “Not right now.”
I bit my lip, debating whether I should just get it over with and start
begging, say please. I wanted him to ruin me, make me beg, make me
come. Make me do anything.
Then, as he sat there, with his coat tossed onto the desk chair he’d
kicked out of the way, and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows, he
crooked his finger at me. Actually crooked his fucking finger at me as if
calling me to heel while he sat on that desk like a damned incubus. I tried
for token resistance but soon shuffled forward, slavering for whatever he
would give me, aroused by the possibilities and the noise coming up from
below.
“Stop,” he ordered when I was no more than three feet from him. I
could’ve reached out and touched his knee.
I froze and waited, obedient and wary.
His eyes roamed over me, a sexy, hooded darkness, and in no hurry at
all before he declared, “Damn, you look good in a suit. I knew you would.”
Likewise, I wanted to say, but didn’t.
“Makes me want to mess you all up, put wrinkles in that nice shirt, see
those pants around your ankles.” He sucked at his lower lip, then shifted on
the desk, his stiff cock tenting his pants. I swallowed hard and kept quiet,
starting to get a sense of what my role was.
“Is that what you want? Me to strip all that polish off, mess up your
hair, get you dirty?”
I nodded, the words filtering in belatedly, but they would have earned
the same reply.
“Say it.”
“Yeah, I want it.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up, and I knew that wasn’t enough. His
gaze heated with quiet demand. “Try again.”
I closed my eyes and dragged in a breath, but Eric cut me off before I
even got started. “Nope, open your eyes and look at me, frat boy.”
His eyes were the heat of a storm pressing into the earth, ready to
unleash. I could lose myself there if I allowed it. And I wanted to. Fuck, I
wanted to. “I want you to get me dirty.”
“Mmm.” That throaty purr of sound that glided over me like silk.
“Good. Untuck your shirt.” He clucked this tongue chidingly at me the
same way he had earlier that the morning. “Don’t rush it. Slowly.”
 I’d been ready to yank at the fabric, but obeyed and gripped the bottom
of my shirt lightly, giving it a gentle tug. The soft whisk of cotton sliding
slowly across my abdomen gave me goose bumps and shallowed out my
breath as I worked my way around the edge of my waistband.
“Unbutton it.”
He didn’t have to remind me this time. I moved leisurely up the row of
buttons, each little plastic disk in my hand like a boulder between me and
what I wanted. When I finished, he lifted the toe of his shoe, the cool sole
brushing over my skin as he separated the fabric of my shirt to expose more
of my chest.
“Such a killer body,” he murmured, grazing his toe along my abs before
it relaxed to hang off the side of the desk again. “I should start going to the
gym with you.”
“You definitely shouldn’t do that, nope. Trying to lift with a boner
would be hell.”
He laughed, this genuine, throaty sound that warmed me in a different
way. His eyes crinkled at the corners and sparkled with mischief. “Fair
enough. I’ll take that as a compliment.” His laughter halted as suddenly as it
had begun, and he ticked his chin at my slacks, which were straining
comically with my erection. I flushed with awareness at how obvious I was,
naked for him without even being naked yet. In fact, nakedness would
probably have been the better kind of vulnerability.
“Unzip.”
Fucking finally. Now we were getting somewhere. My cock twitched
and throbbed, excited at the prospect of being manhandled, maybe sucked.
But as soon as I’d unzipped, Eric was telling me to do something else.
“Pinch your nipple.”
I pinched it quickly, not seeing the point, and staved off the eye roll I
wanted to give him.
“Harder. Dig your nails in and do it the way I would.”
My fingernails made crescents in my skin, and the sting bloomed
outward over my chest until I gasped. And even though I was growing
impatient and my balls ached, I did it again when he told me to, and was
rewarded with a low rumble of approval that made me feel better than it
should have for having apparently pleased him with such a simple thing. I
kept my gaze trained on his, waiting for the next instruction, and when
nothing else came, groaned out, “Fuck dude, can’t you do anything fast?” I
thought of him at the front door this morning, how he’d been counting
down, how he’d had me hanging by a thread and ready to come in seconds.
I wanted that again.
“Yeah, but maybe some other time.”
“Jesus, come on.” Was that an actual whine? Humiliating. I pressed my
lips together to prevent it from happening again.
“Tell me you’re not complaining.” He lifted a brow.
“I’m not. I’m saying can’t we just get on with it?”
“Sure, go ahead. I’m not stopping you, am I? I’m just sitting here.
You’re free to whip your dick out and jack away anytime.” He gestured
expansively, like a lord at a table. “Go ahead. I’ll be here. Or hell, I can
leave if you want me to.”
I glared at him and feathered a touch over my crotch. My dick strained
against my boxers, twitching when I touched it, and even as he spoke,
another rivulet of precome seeped into the fabric. I growled with frustration
because I didn’t want to just stand there and jerk myself off, and he fucking
knew it. The fucker knew everything.
“That’s what I thought.” He nodded down at my open fly. “Go ahead.
Slowly.”
“God, you’re an asshole.” I took my dick out and stroked it slowly, each
draft of my hand agonizing torment, my length throbbing and begging for
some rough action.
Next, he told me to rub my thumb over my crown and get myself slick,
so I did that, too.
“Fuck, that’s so hot, Sanders. You’re close aren’t you?” He shifted on
the desk. “Want it harder? Faster?”
“Yes,” I grated out, and he extended his leg, planting the sole of his
loafer at the join of my leg and torso. The leather was cool on my skin, and
I didn’t even want to think about what all might be on the bottom of his
shoe, but there was something oddly erotic about the action that I couldn’t
put my finger on, like he was using me and giving me something at the
same time—his presence and touch, but only the most basic version,
making me yearn for more. Without thinking about it, I slid my hand under
the hem of his slacks, skating a touch over the curve of his ankle and
locking around the swell of his calf to keep him there while my other hand
sped up at his direction.
 Eric inched the toe of his shoe closer to my cock, digging the tip into
the mound of hair at the base. Another crackle of electricity ran through me,
and I had to slow down and squeeze my shaft to keep from coming.
He chuckled. “Shoe fetish?”
“Not to my knowledge.” I pinched my tip. “But I’ve given up trying to
predict what the fuck will turn me on when I’m with you.” It was a
confession I hadn’t intended to make, but it spilled out regardless, and his
gaze danced with generous humor in response.
Then he hooked to toe of his shoe behind my knee and urged me closer
until I stood between his knees at the edge of the desk, still pumping my
shaft. The bulge in his pants was huge, and I imagined his thick cock, the
veins wrapping around it, the plump crown with its wreath of foreskin.
Saliva filled my mouth, and I let out another soft groan that was really more
of a wheedling little whimper.
“I like you like this. So fucking needy. Ready to beg, but not wanting to.
All that pride warring against horniness until you can’t take it anymore.
And that’s my favorite moment with you, Nate, when you can no longer
resist, when that look of yours switches from struggle to surrender.” He
spoke softly, so softly that had my entire body not been attuned to him like
a fucking SETI satellite, it would have been hard to understand. But the rare
use of my given name sizzled over my skin and seduced me.
As he spoke, he’d edged closer to the edge of the desk, long fingers
curling around the lip and his head tipping up toward mine. My hands fell
to my side, the tip of my dick settling against his pants. Eric’s lips were
close. If I’d bent forward even a couple of inches, they would have been
mine. I’d be able to taste that sinuous curve, swallow the words as they
spilled from his tongue. Taste him. His long lashes dropped, his lips parted
slightly, and I knew what he was waiting for without a fucking doubt. My
breath staggered as I went utterly still, captivated. We remained like that for
a handful of seconds, immobile as statues and no doubt in my mind what
kind of standoff we were having.
And then he gave this tiny nod as if in understanding. “But still not that,
huh?”
Eric lifted his fingers to my throat, his index finding the point of my
chin and tilting it back to force my eyes to the ceiling. His light caress
trickled down my neck, and he curled his fingers under so the ends of his
blunt nails raked against my stubble with a soft susurration of sound. His
warm palm spread briefly over my chest, and then he moved both hands to
my shoulders to push my shirt off.
“On your knees.”
In one fluid ripple of movement, the pressure of his hands sent me down
as he slid off the desk and stood before me.
“Unzip me and get my dick out.”
I abandoned my cock and, with shaking hands, wiggled his button free,
a shift of his hips accommodating me. I pulled down his zipper to find only
skin and the dark patch of hair behind it.
A slight tilt of his hips had his dick bobbing up in the air between us.
“What you do to me, I swear, frat boy.”
“Stop calling me that.” But there was no propulsion behind the words; I
was too focused on his cock as he gave it a slow stroke and then rubbed his
thumb over the head, gathering up the glistening bead of precome he then
extended and smeared across my lower lip. My tongue flicked out
automatically to take in the salty sweetness of him.
“You want me to fuck you, Nate?” He emphasized my name, and damn
it sounded so good coming from him. I wished I could hear him moan it. I
wished I could hear the syllables of it broken apart by his pleasure.
“Yes.” Thank God, a question I could answer easily. I wanted to feel
him tearing through me, his hands on my hips, breaking me from the inside
out.
“Then get your mouth on me and suck my cock.”
The anticipation had me jittery because I both wanted this and wanted
to do a good job, wanted to give him a sliver of what he gave me, and I had
no idea how to telegraph that properly. Why sucking Eric’s dick should be
easier than kissing him was still something I didn’t want to think about, but
it hung heavy in the back of my mind, so I put my focus on the cock before
me, on that thick, swollen head, the bunch of foreskin, the veins and skin
shades darker than his body and stretched so tight it appeared tissue-thin.
Eric settled one hand on the crown of my head, his fingers weaving
through the short strands and cupping the back of my skull.
My skin buzzed with nervous excitement, a wholly different feeling
from the arousal still singing through me. The duet of them made me feel
high, out of it, like I’d taken a huge rip from one of Mark’s bongs.
Eric gripped the base of his cock and brushed his head over my lips,
painting me with his precome.
 “Goddamn,” he whispered, and the tinge of desperation in it was exactly
what I wanted to hear. My mouth parted with the pressure of his dick
stroking over it again.
I leaned forward, eyes fluttering closed as I flicked my tongue out and
tasted his tip, the distinct flavor of him unfolding in my mouth, alien and
not, and so fucking good that I wanted more immediately.
I sucked him down, savoring how he filled my mouth, the texture of his
skin and how it glided over my tongue.
Eric yanked my head back suddenly, and my eyes flew open as I turned
a startled look up at him. He seemed…undone somehow, some kind of
ferocity in his eyes I hadn’t witnessed before and couldn’t quite understand
the meaning of. It was almost…anger? But after a moment he gentled his
grip on my hair, softly caressing the strands before twisting them in his
hands again and nodding.
“Sloooooooow.” He drew the word out, and I kept my eyes on him,
feeling a matched intensity in my gaze as I closed my lips around his tip
once more, aware of every millimeter of his length as it slid into my mouth.
I took in the shape of his flared head, the notch beneath, and when he hit
the back of my throat, my eyes watered as it closed up reflexively. With
effort, I forced the passage to relax the way I’d done countless times before
when funneling beers.
And then I took him the rest of the way down until my nose mashed into
the wiry nest of his pubic hair and I was submerged in his scent, breathing
him in—the spice of his skin, his sweat, the faint musk of his balls. Fuck, it
was almost overwhelming.
He made a choked noise of surprise that turned into a long, satisfied
groan as I pulled back slowly. When I looked up at him again, searching his
sharp features, I was treated to a split-second reward of exactly what I’d
hoped for all day: he was fucking gone, pupils shot wide, eyes glazed with a
faraway ecstasy. So of course it was at that moment, when I was blissing
out on him blissing out on me, that I sputtered and choked.
Eric snapped back to the present, trying to suppress a smile as I pulled
off his cock and struggled to regain my composure with a few deep breaths.
“You don’t have to go pro immediately, you know. Trust me, it’s
fucking good anyway.”
“Yeah, might’ve gotten a little ahead of myself there.”
 And then we both burst into laughter—deep, belly-rippling laughter that
felt good, that broke through the sexual tension but didn’t erase it, just made
it feel…warmer somehow. More intimate. Eric caught my hand as I lifted it
to swipe at my spit-smeared jaw. “Uh-uh. I like you like that, covered in
me.”
All right, so be it. I took his balls in my hand and filled my mouth with
his meat again.
“Yeahhhh. Shit that’s good. Lap it up. Get me all wet ’cause I’m coming
for that ass in a second.”
Precome dribbled onto my tongue as I caressed it over his slit. He
reached down, grabbing the base of his cock, painting it over my mouth and
chin as I eased back. I stuck my tongue out, letting him smack his tip over
the surface, push himself inside and withdraw at his own pace.
He was close, and a part of me wanted to keep going, but I wanted him
in me. I fucking needed it. I fisted his shaft and licked up the side, then
dropped lower, hesitating only a second before I sucked one of his balls in
my mouth. He groaned out, sinking his fingers deeper into my hair,
kneading the back of my neck almost tenderly as I lapped at his globes and
then licked the shadows where his legs met his pelvis.
I paused for a deep breath, then looked up at him and said, “Fuck me.”
Eric’s eyes darkened with arousal, the deep green of them flinty and
scrutinizing. His lips parted on a soft breath as he released my hair. I missed
his touch as soon as it was gone.
“Bend over the desk.”
My dick was so hard and swollen that just the brush of fabric over it as
Eric yanked my pants down to my ankles sent a sharp pang though me. I
reached down to pull my pants the rest of the way off, but he bit out, “No.
Leave them,” then stuck his foot between my knees to wedge them as far
apart as the fabric would allow.
I put my cheek to the cool desk, preemptively tightening up, waiting for
an invasion that didn’t come. No touch, no cock. What the hell was he
waiting for?
And then it came, his fingers spreading low over my back, stroking up
and then back down.
He pulled my cheeks apart, kneading my right in his hand, and brushed
his thumb over my hole. I sighed out a long, hopeful breath at the promise
in his touch. Shit, I might come the second he got inside me.
 The air cracked, and a sting spread its warmth over my asscheek. I
barked out a startled laugh as I twisted to stare at him over my shoulder.
“Did you just fucking spank me?”
“Yeah.” He grinned, shameless enjoyment in the wide curve. “And I’m
about to do it again.”
“What the fuck?” I tried to summon up some indignation. Ask me on
any given day, and I’d tell you I wasn’t into spanking. But shit, right now? I
was.
“Can’t help it. Got this desire to see my handprints all over the ass I’m
fucking.” His smile went sharp as he brought his hand down hard on my ass
again, and laughter died in my throat as heat radiated outward. I shifted my
weight as it the warmth spread, first along my sides and then down the
backs of my legs before it condensed in my balls and tightened them.
He smacked me once more, and I grunted at the same moment he did.
“Jesus fuck,” I ground out through clenched teeth.
“Ready for me?”
“Fuck yeah.”
He worked me loose, but this time there was no playing around, and
soon enough his fat cock head pushed inside me. I shuddered as he paused
and traced what I guessed was his thumb around the place where we joined.
“Shit, that’s so fucking hot. You might actually be the hottest piece of
ass I’ve fucked.”
I clenched around him, turning his raspy chuckle into a moan. “Stop
talking and fuck me.”
“So goddamn mouthy.” He wedged a finger inside me alongside his
cock, stretching me into tense-jawed silence. And then he began. Slowly at
first, gliding back and forth in shallow thrusts, his hands settling on either
side of my ass to keep me spread open. I wondered if I would ever get to do
the same to him, or if I’d even really want to. Because the truth was, I liked
every second of him taking charge. There was a strange and very subtle
sense of balance between us, regardless of who was kneeling for whom. It
ebbed and flowed and from one minute to the next, I was never sure where
we’d be going. But I knew it would feel amazing.
I closed my hands over the edge of the desk and held on for dear life as
Eric started pounding into me with force, pausing only to slide a hand down
the back of my thigh and hike my knee up on the desk. What I meant to be
some wry comment about him trying to punch a hole through me came out
as garbled syllables when he withdrew and plunged in again. An electric
shiver rattled up my spine.
“Oh shit,” I whispered, each of his thrusts like a high-tide rising, eating
away at the shoreline of my restraint.
“Like it?”
“Fuck yeah. Don’t stop.”
He did something with his hips, some sort of wicked-ass limber
scooping action that knocked his fat head right against my prostate. With
his other hand, he reached around me, and I exhaled in relief. But nope.
Instead of fisting my shaft, he grabbed my root between thumb and
forefinger and cupped up my balls, staving off my orgasm.
“Goddammit!” I didn’t even have time to argue before he withdrew and
grabbed me by the hips, shoving me down to my knees. He yanked my head
back and braced me against one thigh as he snapped the condom off and
gripped his cock. “Open.” At the command, my jaw snapped wide like it
was on a hinge he controlled.
He slapped his knob against my mouth, giving me another hit of his
salty taste and the faint residue of latex. I flicked my tongue over his tip as
he gave himself one more stroke, then came on a groan, his release pouring
over me, coating my lips, tongue, and chin. My scalp stung from his grip,
but he kept holding on as he drifted his fingers over my cheek and along my
jaw, pushing his spunk into my mouth. I sucked them clean, groaning at the
sheer filthiness of the moment and the torturous pressure in my balls.
Urging me upright, Eric steadied me with his hands on my hips, his
cock softening and dangling against his pants. Without warning, he gripped
my cock and dropped to his knees, taking me into the slippery heat of his
mouth. I sagged back against the desk, bracing my hands against the edge
and crying out at relief on the horizon.
Eric hoovered me like nothing else. Scratch that; he flat out Dysoned
me as I drove into him and rocked against the finger he thrust inside me.
“Oh fuck,” I whispered, over and over like a broken record as I punched
my hips into him and he just took it like a fucking champ. No, fuck that, he
wasn’t just taking it. I didn’t think Eric had “just taken” anything in his life.
He was enjoying the hell out of this, the wet smack and slurp of his lips on
me, the saliva glazing his chin and lips, dribbling onto the floor, and that
feverish gaze pinned to mine so he could witness every second of my fall.
 I shattered on a hard final thrust, feeling my hole clamp down on his
finger, the vibration of his grunt as I unloaded into the back of his throat
and he milked me dry.
I slumped backward against the desk, panting through my comedown,
my knees weak.
Eric collapsed almost comically backward as he swiped his forearm
over his mouth, then arched his hips, tucking himself away. “Fuck, I’m
dead.”
“Likewise.”
He grinned as I reached out to help him up. For a single, intense second,
our eyes locked together before he backed away, tucking in his shirt, and
then tossing me mine after I’d finished hitching my pants up from around
my ankles.
My whole body still reeled from that orgasm, little twitches pinging
through me like a car engine trying to cool down. I liked the lingering
flavor of him in my mouth, too.
It took me two tries to get my dick back in my pants and buttoned up.
“Worth the wait?” he asked, smoothing a hand down his shirt.
“Yeah. You already knew that, though. You just like to hear it.”
He shrugged, his mouth quirking up. “I’m a pretty well-established
glutton.” After picking up his coat from the back of the desk chair, he slid it
on. “Have we done anything you were uncomfortable with, anything you
didn’t want to do?”
I bent over to help him shuffle together a pile of papers that had fallen
on the floor. “Nope.”
“Well, then. I think you can figure the rest out for yourself.” I wasn’t
sure if Eric meant what I thought he meant, but before I could even consider
what I’d say next, he cleared his throat and continued, flashing me a vacant
smile as he tipped his head toward the door. “I’ll go down first. Give it a
few, then come on. I’ll hang near the entrance to the ballroom and distract if
I need to.”
I nodded woodenly. “Sounds good.”
“Have fun cleaning up.” He could have meant the party or myself.
I scraped a nail across my neck where a bit of his jizz had dried. He
turned and started for the door as I tackled the buttons on my shirt, an
emptiness settling in my core at how adept we were at segregating
ourselves from the past half hour and officially returning to our own lives. It
was fucking lonely, and I couldn’t stand it another second.
“Hey.” I called out the brusque alert as I walked toward him, and when
he turned back, that smile he’d given me was already gone, like he’d never
meant it in the first place. I witnessed his surprise as it was born in the small
flinch of muscle that sparked the rise of his brows and twitched along his
jaw.
And then I smothered it with my mouth.
I kissed him to answer his unspoken question. I kissed him because he
was always right about me. And I kissed him because I couldn’t take one
more second of not knowing how the mouth that did such wicked things to
me felt under my own. He’d had his fingers and cock in my ass, he’d
fucked me sideways and turned me inside out. But the sensation of his lips
pressed to mine trumped all that.
I’d never kissed another guy, never done anything besides get off. This
was different—a sweet heat, a tang that was distinctly him and so fucking
intense. Eric grunted and took a backward step to keep his balance as I
barreled into him. Then his hands closed over the collar of my shirt and
pulled me deeper into the thrust of his tongue against mine.
I let out a muffled groan because there was so much in that damn kiss—
all the pent-up confusion about my feelings for him and, I thought, from
him as well—a desperate edge in the way we clung to each other, in the
pressure of my body against his. Eric let go of my collar to place his palms
on either side of my neck, tensing there to keep me from moving. When I
tilted my head aside for a breath, he panted against my chin, his forehead
resting against my temple.
“Fuck. Just…fuck.”
And because I thought I knew what he was trying to say, I replied with
another kiss, cupping his jaw and tilting his lips back to mine. For this
moment right now, in this tiny pocket of space and time, Eric was mine.
Our tongues warred, pushed, teased, tangled. Devoured.
And then, after one last bruising press of his lips, he pushed me roughly
away, opened the door, and walked out.
I DIDN ’ T GET HOME until a little after three in the morning, exhausted and
running on the few beers I’d had while helping with cleanup. Mark and I
parted ways at the staircase. He looked half-dead stumbling toward his
room.
As I walked up the stairs, I wondered how things had gone for Marty, if
he’d ended up with Ashley. I yanked my tie out of my pocket and tossed it
and my coat into my bedroom when I passed on the way to the bathroom,
then tackled my shirt. After taking a piss and brushing my teeth, I started
down the hall again, my steps slowing until I stood in front of Eric’s door.
Maybe he’d locked it. If he’d locked it, I would turn around and go into
my room and I would never do this again, never stand here and stare at a
piece of painted wood and metal hinges like they were some portal to a
different dimension, and never again entertain the crazy notion that had me
reaching out a hand to try the knob.
It turned easily and quietly. But I think I’d known it would.
A thin shaft of light pierced through a couple of missing window-blind
slats and fell across my legs as I shut the door behind me and locked it.
Eric lay spread out on his stomach, one arm curled around the pillow
he’d buried three-quarters of his face in. He didn’t move as I walked to the
end of the bed, dropped my pants, and climbed in. I had zero fucking clue
what I was doing when I slid beneath the top sheet, but just when I’d
convinced myself this was a stupid idea, I felt the soft trip of his fingertips
over the top of my ass on their way to anchoring across my lower back, an
echo of his touch earlier in the night when I’d been bent over the desk. A
quiet demand. I told myself I’d stay for ten minutes, maybe twenty, then go
back to my room.
Instead, I fell asleep next to him.
 4

SHOW ME

I woke out of a dead slumber with a jolt, my eyes flying wide and
automatically wincing against the assault of morning light. Confused, I
fumbled to get my bearings, fingertips brushing against soft cotton and
then bumping up against warm skin as my vision adjusted. My heart beat
wildly in my chest, and I wasn’t entirely sure why until a knock sounded
and I jumped all over again, fight-or-flight instinct lacing my sense of
bewilderment.
A warm hand slid over the center of my chest and splayed, pressing me
back into the mattress as Eric’s voice came low and soft. “Relax, it’s
locked. I made sure earlier when I came back from taking a piss.”
His fingers trailed in a sluggish caress over my skin, a heat he took with
him as he slid off the end of the bed and ambled toward the door, shoving
one hand lazily in his boxers as he went. In my still half-asleep state, I did
the only logical thing I could think of: I flail-rolled myself off the other side
of the bed, landing heavily on the floor, out of sight of the door just as I
heard the lock pop as Eric opened it. I twisted around and rested my head
on my forearm so I could peer around the bottom of the bed like I was back
in fucking high school hiding from some girlfriend’s parents. It’d happened
a couple of times.
“Why bother with an alarm clock when there’s your ass,” Eric groused,
and I had to silently agree with him; why the hell were people in this house
such early risers? But when I glanced over my shoulder at the clock on the
bedside table, I was surprised to find it read 10:00 a.m.
“You seen Nate?”
 I froze, and there was a brief pause before Eric replied, “At the thing
last night, yeah. He was still there when I left, though.”
Mark made a disgruntled noise. “Weird. His door’s cracked and—dude,
can you leash that thing or something? I feel like I need to salute it back.”
“You interrupted my morning briefing.” Eric laughed, and the husky
sound of it slid across the room like a shaft of light and pooled in my
stomach. I shifted around as my dick got hard at the mere suggestion that
his was, too. Great, my Pavlovian instincts had reached even creepier
heights. If Eric popped wood in the middle of a forest and no one was
around to see it…
I must have made some noise, because Eric shot a look over his
shoulder, and I tried to stave off the snicker that was bubbling up in my
chest by pressing my mouth to my forearm.
Mark snorted, then continued. “Anyway, he came home with me last
night… Guess he could have gotten up really early. Whatever. If you see
him, will you remind him that we have chapter today? He’s been flaky as
fuck lately, and it’s weirding me out. You think he’s up to something?”
“Like what?” I could hear the skepticism in Eric’s voice and was duly
impressed by his acting abilities. I’d have been stuttering.
Mark hedged for a second, trying to come up with something, I guess,
and completely clueless that his answer to what I was “up to” was standing
in front of him sporting morning wood that I was very interested in giving a
happy ending. “I dunno. Maybe banging some chick he doesn’t want us to
find out about?”
Eric broke into loud laughter, probably because his thoughts were
running along the same track mine were.
Mark joined in. “Like that butterface from Kappa?”
Eric’s laughter trailed off. “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, guess you wouldn’t. Speaking of chicks, that redhead you’re
always hanging out with, Amelia?”
“Amanda,” Eric corrected.
“You hitting that? Because daaaaamn.”
“Nope.” There was a long pause, and I knew Mark well enough to know
he was waiting for more. An offer for a hookup or some further
explanation. Eric’s tight-lipped game was stronger, though, and for
whatever reason, he apparently didn’t want to give anything else up to
Mark. After a moment, Mark must have relented with a gesture or
something, because the next thing I heard was a quiet “Yeah, cool. I’m out,”
and then Eric shut the door again.
I heard the lock click and dropped my forehead on my arm in relief. I
had a singular moment of wondering what the fuck I was even doing—on
so many counts—before a billow of air puffed over me when Eric flopped
back on the bed and peered down at me as I rolled onto my back to stare up
at him. The residual adrenaline running through me made me antsy.
“Don’t need coffee anymore this morning—maybe a tranquilizer
instead.”
Eric gave me a tight smile as he eyed me. “This is like a scenario out of
a bad after-school special.”
“Jesus, what kind of after-school specials did you watch growing up?”
He flipped some hair from his eyes and folded his forearms over the
edge of the bed, resting his chin on top. He looked…nice in the morning. A
little softer, and it wasn’t like I was intimidated by him—not physically, at
least—but his presence seemed so vivid and commanding in the places we
got off together that just the ordinariness of being with him in his room
somehow felt weirdly intimate. I kinda wished we hadn’t had such a rude
awakening, that…
“None, actually. My parents didn’t believe in TV.”
“How can you not believe in TV?”
“The old ‘it rots your brain’ argument.” He shrugged one shoulder
lazily. “So I was left to my own devices.”
“And look how you turned out, getting guys off in libraries and at fund-
raisers.”
“I think you were there, too, so not exactly an equal argument in favor
of TV either.”
“Point.” I laughed and rubbed a hand over the scruff on my jaw. I ached
for a shower, and I really needed to go to the gym, but damn, Eric’s mouth
was right there, silently telling me what I needed instead was to fill it with
my cock. I licked my lips and pushed the heel of my hand against my
boxers as I met his eyes and I saw it, that shadow passing through the olive-
green tones, the darkening of want making its presence known.
He took a quiet breath, gaze drifting down to my boxers, then back up
again. “You threw me for a loop last night.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve been throwing me for about a month now.” I could
have worded it better, but it came out as a blurted confession.
 He touched the corner of his mouth with his tongue, gaze raking over
my body again. It really was a raking, too, like he had the power to drag
furrows down my body, leave welt marks behind, hot and pink. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I nodded and swallowed hard, hoping like fuck I wasn’t
blushing, even though I felt the creep of heat over my neck and my cheeks.
What was it about the way he looked at me that could turn me from tepid to
hellfire blaze in seconds? Eric scraped his teeth over his lower lip, making
it pop out all shiny and slick, reminding me what he looked like when he
was sucking my dick.
Silence fell, this kind of tension-heavy pause like a finger hovering over
a taut rubber band. And I felt like I was waiting for him to snap it against
the inside of my wrist. One of us was supposed to fill it, probably with
words, probably with conversation about what the fuck we were doing, and
it defaulted to him since I’d been the last one to speak, but it was obvious
after a handful of seconds that he wasn’t going to.
Instead, Eric pulled himself forward over the edge of the bed, fingers
tensing to brace his weight on either side of me as he slid from the mattress
and straddled me in one long, sinuous movement that rolled over me like
rippling water. That light, that liquid. His breath on my lips was faintly
minty; he must have brushed his teeth earlier. I hadn’t, and probably
should’ve been more self-conscious, but I wasn’t because his closeness
absolutely fucking consumed me like nothing else. My entire body was
suddenly on alert, my nerves prickling with awareness and the hairs on my
damn forearms lifting as he dipped down and licked my lower lip slowly
while the bottom half of his body pressed into mine, everything about him
hard and warm.
Fuck, he had a sexy mouth, and his lashes lay dark against his cheek as
his tongue made another pass before he opened his eyes to find me
watching him. I opened my mouth to him, let his tongue flick lightly over
mine. Not exactly a kiss, but a wet, repetitive caress that was strangely
fucking hot and exciting in its weirdness.
He rolled his hips once against me and drew back by an inch when I
groaned.
“Want me to throw you again right now?”
“Trick question.” I knew the second I said yes, he’d take me all the way
to the edge, then leave me hanging. And besides, the loop throwing was
already well in progress. A foregone conclusion. I mean, Jesus fucking
Christ, I’d crawled into his bed last night like some desperado. In the light
of day, it was more than a little embarrassing. I’d never really been the kind
of guy to give chase. Could I blame it on those last several beers?
I rolled upright and intercepted him, pushing him onto his back and
catching his startled expression a second before I straddled his knees and
yanked the band of his boxers down, exposing the thick cock lying along
his thigh. By the time I looked back up, he’d regained his composure, and
that smooth amber chuckle came out to spur me on as I lowered my mouth
and licked up the length of his thigh, dark hairs tickling the tip of my
tongue until I reached his crown and circled it. With a groan, his hands flew
to my hair and he arched into me.
“All of it, Sanders, don’t be a tease.”
I played along, wrapping my lips around him, filling my mouth with his
cock, and there was something insanely sexy and gratifying about feeling
him get hard in my mouth, about all that soft skin tightening and stretching
just for me when I bathed it with my tongue. Maybe this was exactly why
he liked fucking around with me so much. The sense of control was as
much an aphrodisiac as the awareness that it could shift any moment.
And it did, because a second later, Eric anchored his fist tight in my
hair, holding me still while he fucked my mouth, drawing back just enough
for me to catch my breath when I choked before plunging in again, hard and
fast, the muscles in his stomach strained and defined, his thighs like granite
underneath me. The scattershot roughness of his exhales urged me on as he
propped himself up on one elbow, kept the other hand tight in my hair, and
dug his nails almost painfully into my scalp.
“Look at me,” he demanded. “Yeah, just like that.”
I felt my moan vibrating against his cockhead as I met his eyes. What a
fucking way to start the morning.
I tasted his precome, lapped the saltiness from his slit as he hissed, his
eyes shuttering closed like a cat blinking in the sunlight, and just as soon
opening again, because he was a greedy bastard and liked to see his dick
between my lips. I kept my gaze locked on his and, just for his benefit,
opened my mouth and let him watch the flat of my tongue running up and
down his glistening shaft.
He snapped out a curse, and when I felt a telltale quiver of his thighs
beneath me, I closed my mouth over him again, gave him one last hard
suck, and popped free, leaning back on his shins.
 I half expected him not to let me go, to drag me back down onto his
dick and fill my mouth with his release. If he had, I’d have finished him,
would’ve been helpless not to. Instead, there was a flare of frustration in his
eyes, then dawning understanding and amusement.
“That’s how you’re gonna play it, huh? A little tit for tat?”
“That’s about the size of it, yeah.” I licked my lips clean and wiped my
chin with my hand. “You could always ask me nicely to finish you off.” I
arched a brow, and he rolled his lips inward to fight off a smile. “But that
ain’t happening, is it?”
His eyelids drooped to half-mast, all confident ease as he gave his cock
a few light strokes. “Nope. I’d tell you to. And you would, wouldn’t you,
frat boy? You’d come right back and open that sexy mouth for me and let
me blow my load all over your face.”
“Probably.” Yes. No point in trying to deny it when my dick presented
all the evidence in the wet patch that had darkened the front of my boxers.
Asshole. He could twist something in a second, and it was crazy how
addicted I was to it, how much I looked forward to it, even when I tried to
test the invisible boundary lines we danced around.
I was so hard it fucking hurt, and I wasn’t even sure why I felt the need
to challenge him. He was underneath me, ready to give me exactly what we
both knew I wanted, but there was something about the unspoken stalemate
and constant anticipation between us that stoked my arousal. I knew I’d
spend the rest of the day—hell, whatever amount of time elapsed between
now and when we next hooked up—thinking about it, wanting it, playing it
in my head, aching for it.
Eric pumped his cock a few more times, so fucking stiff, the crown
plump and leaking. I could practically feel his jizz ready to pop off. And
goddamn I wanted it. My palms were getting the tops of my thighs wet
where I clutched them in an effort to keep from touching myself,
determined to carry this out. Not that Eric was making it easy, of course. He
never did.
And he didn’t now.
He rolled upright, unseating me from his legs and wrestling me onto my
back where he hovered over me and rubbed his cock against mine in one
long, serpentine, nerve-spiking thrust. “You’d let me fill you with my
fingers. My tongue. My dick. Whatever I wanted. Wherever I wanted.
However I wanted.” Each word spilled like an incantation, a primal rhythm
to it that had me spreading my legs wider, only half realizing that I was
opening myself up to him. I swear the fucker could cast spells talking like
that. He reached down and pinched the head of my cock until I winced, then
let go. Blood rushed back in, bringing with it a tingle that made me light-
headed. “Wouldn’t you?”
Check. Check. Check. Check. My dick twitched and leaked. I balled my
hands into fists to keep from reaching for it or for him. I knew what he was
doing. He wanted to see if I’d beg without asking or being prompted,
without telling me to do it explicitly. And damn, I was close, feeling his
dick hard against mine, his body surrounding me, overtaking me, the hard
rise and fall of his chest, and that crazy penetrating, unflinching stare of his,
like he’d never been ashamed in his life, like he’d always been perfectly,
incautiously fucking filthy and relentless about what he wanted.
I didn’t even have the instinct to try to wriggle free.
“Yes,” I admitted on a moan, digging my nails into my own palms.
He reached for my hand, uncurling my fingers, only to wrap them
around his cock, then kept his grip on my knuckles as he squeezed, pressing
my sweaty palm into his hot skin. His face was so close that when he licked
his lips, I felt the tip of his tongue tease over me. I let out a shaky breath,
close to coming just like that.
“But you’re right. Trick question.” His words fell over my lower lip on
an exhale, and I could tell by his eyes that he was smiling that enigmatic
smile. It was a moot point. He’d just proven that he didn’t even have to
open his mouth and I’d do whatever the fuck he wanted.
It irritated the shit out of me.
It also got me hotter than hell.
I scowled as his grin broke wider and he squeezed my hand again, in
turn squeezing himself so hard another bead of precome dripped from his
slit. I sucked in a shaky breath as it ran down my knuckles.
And then he pulled his hand away and said, “I’ve got shit to do.”
Dismissed in a span of seconds. Typical fucking Eric. It was frustrating
to no end, but I couldn’t deny the exhilaration that accompanied it.
He planted his palm in the center of my chest and shoved himself
upright, then stood, picking up my pants from the floor and tossing them
toward me.
I caught them one-handed, stuck my feet in, and arched my hips to pull
them up. “You’re such a dick sometimes, you know that?”
 “I know you like it. I know it gets you hard. That’s what I know.”
I rolled my eyes at his back, stood up as I fastened my pants, then
headed for the door. “I’ll be around,” I tossed out, as nonchalantly as I
could while still sporting a giant, throbbing erection.
“Nate.”
I turned back to see him fishing through his nightstand. He took out a
folded piece of paper and frisbeed it in my direction. I missed and had to
pick it up from the floor before I could open it and stare
uncomprehendingly at the numbers. “What’s this?”
“Lab results. If you want to keep doing this, maybe you should get
checked out, too.”
My mind immediately populated with filthy images of his bare dick
plunging inside me. The blazing heat, the unrestrained surge of his come
through me, filling me, dripping from my hole. Fucking Christ. The paper
in my hands was going limp with how much my palms were sweating over
the prospect. I tossed it back on the bed and squeezed my dick through my
pants while he smirked.
“Did that after Ashley. All good. I’ve only been with you since.”
He perked a brow in what looked like surprise, then nodded. I don’t
know why I hadn’t mentioned it before, except we moved so fast and
unexpectedly that I guess I hadn’t really given it any thought. But fuck was
it in my head now, knocking around like temptation on fire.
I opened the door and listened to the quiet before pulling it wider. “I’m
heading to the gym in a little while, so if you want to tag along…” So much
for playing it cool.
“Thought you said that’d be a danger to your health?” A muted smile
quirked his lips that I couldn’t help but match.
“I was just fucking around. I do have some self-control.”
I expected some quip in return, but Eric only looked at me a second
longer and turned away to shut the drawer. “I’ll probably pass. Got a shit
ton of assignments that’ve piled up.”
Yeah, if I hadn’t gotten it before, that was definitely a dismissal. I
flagged his back a peace sign.
“Hey,” he said, and I paused yet again in the doorway. “I like it, too.”
I wasn’t sure whether he meant this weird morning we were having, the
weird power struggle, or just…everything we’d been doing, and it wasn’t
until I got back in my room that I thought harder about what that piece of
paper and his question meant. It wasn’t like he’d asked me to be his
boyfriend or anything, but there was a tacit implication in it that meant he
wasn’t sleeping around and I wasn’t either.
I sat down on the corner of my bed and gnawed my lower lip, staring
dazedly through the window until my phone buzzed in my pants pocket and
I pulled it out, finding a text from Mark stacked on top of a bunch of others.
And it was a good thing. Otherwise, I might’ve sat there a lot longer,
going down some rogue emotional path that I had no business being on this
early in the day.

Mark: Srsly dude

I groaned.

A N HOUR AND A HALF LATER , I jogged down the front steps of our house,
my gym bag bouncing against my ass as I trotted across the dewy grass
toward the U’s gym, which was about a half-mile walk. My breath frosted
in the air, and I shoved my hands in the pockets of my track pants as I went.
I wasn’t one to romanticize the seasons, but I did really like the fall—and
not just because it meant football. The cooler temperatures and smoke-
scented air got me a little nostalgic, and I found myself looking forward to
going home for the holidays, hanging out with my parents and some of my
high school friends. I wondered what it was like for Eric. He rarely
mentioned going home, rarely talked about high school. Or maybe I just
hadn’t been paying attention before, like he’d said. After all, I’d totally
missed the whole bit about his dad and stepdad.
My phone vibrated in my hand.

Eric: Ass is looking good in those pants. Would look better in my hands.

I grinned down at the screen and didn’t even give him the pleasure of
looking over my shoulder before I replied while still walking.
Nate: Perv
Nate: Terrible line, btw
Eric: Never claimed to be charming, just dirty

Couldn’t argue with that.

“Wait the fuck up!”
Damn, that voice lived under my skin. An obnoxious twitch of my cock
followed, but I stopped and turned around, adjusting the strap on my bag as
Eric trotted through the grass toward me while I tried to ignore the stupid
thrill of happiness I got out of him deciding to join me after all.
“Decided maybe I should burn off last night,” he explained, falling in
step beside me.
“Pounding me like you were trying to launch me into orbit wasn’t
enough?”
“You’re still walking on solid ground, aren’t you?”
“Barely,” I muttered, and Eric stopped, grabbing my elbow to stop me,
too, concern flitting through his eyes and making a firm line of his mouth as
he angled toward me.
“Did I hurt you?”
I wanted to roll my eyes and laugh it off, but the sincerity in his
expression held me back. I shook my head. “Nah, man. It’s good.”
“You can tell me to ease up, stop. At any time and I would.”
I laughed, a little uncomfortably. “What, like some kind of safe word or
something?”
He shrugged. “Maybe, yeah.”
I did roll my eyes then. “Fine, my safe word is: fuck off. I told you it’s
all good. Relax.” Because what I’d originally meant when I’d spoken had
nothing to do with the physical. At all.
He studied me a moment longer, then released me and we started
walking again.
“We’ll get you set up with a nice, light walking program on the
treadmill,” I told him, trying to steer away from the sense of heaviness that
seemed to move with us. “And they do have some two- and three-pound
hand weights.” I gave him a smart-ass grin that he mirrored.
“Will I need to spot you with those, or you think you can manage on
your own?”
 Fucker. I broke into laughter, shaking my head, and yanked open the
glass-fronted door, warm air and the tang of sweat and gym equipment
rushing out to greet us.
Inside, I claimed a tread and dropped my gear off in the locker room
while Eric got started, then rejoined him, punching the screen to start the
belt. The long line of TVs in front of us blared newscasts, sports, interior
design shows and cooking demos, and usually I just popped my earbuds in
and got lost to the tempo of my running playlist, but today I was tuned into
Eric beside me, the steady rhythm of his footfalls, his breathing as it sped
up, resembling… I groaned internally and focused on a lady on the screen
as she dumped a bowl of what looked like vegetables into some kind of
batter. Gross.
“You run and I just never noticed it?” I asked, without looking over; he
was moving at a pretty decent clip. I’d bumped up the speed on my belt and
was starting to get nice and winded, that breathless feeling I loved
tightening my chest, firing off dopamine and twitching through my muscles.
In absence of a fuck, exercise was about as close as I could get to
accomplishing the same sated, muscle-drowsy feeling afterward.
“Here and there. Not much. I played soccer in high school and a few
other sports. Think I’ve got decent muscle memory.”
“What position? In soccer I mean.” I snuck a glance aside at him and
glimpsed the faint curve of his lips. His neck glistened with a thin layer of
sweat, the muscles of his calves popping with each stride.
“Forward.”
“Were you any good?”
He huffed out a breathy laugh. “Not good enough to try to pursue it. It
was just for fun. I was homeschooled, so it wasn’t the same as a school
team or anything. Didn’t you play football or something?”
“Yeah,” I said, grinning. “Same answer, though—not well enough to do
anything with it.”
“Guess the habits lasted better in you than in me. You’re in stupid good
shape.” Eric reached out, knocking down the speed on his treadmill. “I’m
starting to fade already.”
“You did it wrong. Gotta start slow and ramp it up.” I wasn’t about to
address his comment on my body with some return compliment, because
even though I found his lean definition smoking fucking hot, there was no
way I’d be able to say it without sounding like a total lech in the middle of
the gym. Though shit, he’d probably like that.
“Yeah, that’s one way to do it.” He cut a sidelong look at me that
lingered suggestively a couple of beats and sent an extra kick of heat
dancing through me.
“You should know.”

W E MOVED to the free weights next, running through a bicep-, tricep-, and
back-focused set in front of the gym’s wall of mirrors. Without my earbuds,
I was hyperaware of the other guys around us: the scrawny fella trying to
lift too heavy, a rugby dude who was definitely slacking with those 25
pounders, and a guy I’d come to silently refer to as the Grunter who, no
matter what he was lifting, always made noises like he was trying to pull a
car off an old lady. I’d had him in a survey course once, and he’d been
much the same. Grunting with every shift of his body.
After a particularly loud grunt, Eric caught my eye in the mirror, his
mouth tight as he tried to hold back his laughter, and it was all I could do
not to crack up, too.
As we moved on to the larger weights, Eric passed me by, lowering his
voice. “Can you imagine what he sounds like when he comes? Gotta be like
an elephant trumpeting. You need to step up your game.”
I did crack up then. “I can’t be anything close to him. Really?” Though,
usually when I was in the heat of the moment, I was hardly even aware of
what planet I was on, let alone what kind of sounds I was making. Was I
really that noisy of a fucker, though?
Eric’s grin was sphinxlike and brief as he turned away to crouch down
and select some weights for the chest press. I helped him slide them onto
the bar and tried not to stare too long when he ducked his head inside his
shirt to wipe sweat from his forehead with the collar, exposing a lean stretch
of glistening abs to my hungry perusal.
Next, he positioned himself on the bench, and I stepped closer to his
head, wrapping my hands around the bar and preparing to help him lift it
out of the cradle.
He gave me a wicked twist of a smile. “I might be being ambitious.
Don’t let me die.”
“Don’t piss me off.”
 He winked at me, then lifted the bar. His nostrils flared as he exhaled,
straining under the weight as he lowered the bar, paused, then pushed it
back up. I kept my hands hovering at the ready, watching for any telltale
wobble.
Veins at the sides of his temples popped into relief, but he kept his
breaths measured and steady, chest puffing out with each inhale, shorts
drawn tight over his tense thighs and crotch. Jesus, I could get down with
him staying like this forever, stripping him right where he was like a
goddamn sin buffet there for the taking. I blinked the imagery away and
darted my hand out to help guide the bar back into its cradle as his biceps
trembled. Somehow in the span of a month, I’d become deeply depraved.
After another set, we switched places.
“Don’t you need more weight?” he asked as I settled beneath the bar
and found my grip.
“I’m doing an easy day today.” I cut him a grin as I lifted the bar, all too
aware of the heat rolling off his body near my head.
“Braggart. You come every day?”
“Pretty much.” I paused with the weight close to my chest, then exhaled
and pushed it up again in one smooth, solid contraction of muscle that felt
good.
“Why?”
“Why?” I tilted my head back to look at him, and Eric flicked his hand
out to steady the bar as it tilted to one side.
“I got it,” I assured him. “Clears the clutter, I guess. I dunno. Or it’s
habit. Don’t think there’s some deeper motivation there, if that’s what
you’re asking.”
“Just curious what it takes to maintain.” Eric stepped closer, his shorts
brushing the top of my head as I busted through another couple of reps. I
slowed as I caught his gaze drifting over my body and going hazy and
hungry. My dick responded immediately, and I pushed the weight up again,
then fit the bar back in its home base. “Watch it.”
He gave me light, teasing crinkle of a smile. “I am.”
“Well, stop. Not like that when I’m spread out on a bench in shorts this
goddamn thin. Do you know how fucking annoying the way I react to you
is?”
He caught my wrist as I released the bar and sent it skimming along the
fabric over his crotch. Quick, but enough for me to feel his semi. “What do
you think?” he asked before letting me go.

S OMEHOW WE MANAGED to finish working out without becoming completely

obscene. I was drenched and Eric wasn’t much better off, and we stopped at
the water fountain so he could grab a drink and I could refill my water
bottle.
“Gonna shower and head to my chapter meeting.” I thumbed toward the
locker room as he sucked at the stream of water.
He straightened, tipped his chin in a slight nod, and glanced over his
shoulder before his gaze swerved back at me as he wiped his mouth.
I considered for a second, then added, “We could go get something to
eat later. Shoot pool or something.”
Goddamn the smirk that spread over his face. It hit me like a flinch, but
there was something in his eyes that belied the cocky expression, and that
was the only reason I didn’t roll my eyes at him and tell him to forget it,
because my stomach was already flip-flopping all over itself for asking in
the first place.
“Just you and me?”
“Unless you want to invite your fan club of two, yeah.”
“And after that?”
I hesitated. I knew what I wanted. Still wasn’t keen on asking for it. But
shit, I was pretty sure Eric wanted it, too. That’s why he was standing there,
right? Why he’d kissed me back the way he did last night, like he didn’t
care if he ever breathed again. “There’s that spot at the quarry.”
“We gonna cuddle up nice and cozy while we listen to the radio?” he
teased.
I eyed his raised brows. “No, asshole. No radio. Just those noises you
make when your dick’s in my mouth and maybe some of my own when
you’re fucking me and I don’t have to worry about how goddamn loud I’m
being.”
Heat shadowed his eyes, and he glanced over my shoulder as he slid a
hand through his sweaty hair, then rubbed his jaw. There was something
about the combination of gestures that struck me as unsettled. Good. And
just when I was about to continue on my merry way to the locker room,
unwilling to stick around for his limbo antics, Eric sucked a breath of air
through his teeth and nodded. “You’re on.” Like we were setting up a
wrestling match or something.
Hell, sometimes it felt that way.

O NCE IN THE LOCKER ROOM , I stripped down next to one of the benches,
then carried my clothes and gym bag into one of the shower stalls, dragging
a towel from the cart after me before I yanked the curtain closed. The stalls
used to be open, but a while back there’d been some campus-wide
movement on body consciousness or something, so now the stalls all had
shower curtains. Which was kind of nice, since it meant I could take as long
as I wanted without someone eyeing me up and silently implying I needed
to hurry the fuck up, as had happened a few times before.
I turned on the shower and stepped under it, enjoying the contrast of the
cold tiles against my feet and the hot spray beating down on my shoulders.
Tipping my head back, I let the water cascade over my face and whoosh
through my ears, occasional conversation of guys coming and going, then
silence. A deep, satisfied exhale rolled from me, and I ran my hand over my
cock, thinking about Eric on that weight bench earlier—this time my mind
providing the bonus version: him stripped naked, looking up at me with that
sex-stoned gleam in his eyes as I lowered myself onto his cock. Fuck yeah,
that was sexy. We hadn’t done anything like that before, and I was kinda
curious if he’d even be down for that, given how he liked to take over and
plow me.
Even better was imagining him in a darkened car, his hand on my head,
forcing me down onto his big dick, invading my mouth and making me
splutter. I gave a gentle tug to my balls, then a harder one like he would,
and swallowed a groan. Eyes still closed and centered on that mind’s-eye
image, I fumbled blindly for the shower gel dispenser screwed into the wall,
ready to take care of what had been building up all morning.
A low, hushed chuckle rose as I knocked into the dispenser, and I jerked
my hand away, eyes flying open to find Eric standing in the little changing
area on the other side of the shower curb.
What the fuck? I mouthed.
He shrugged casually in return and lifted his index finger, circling it
around. Voices filtered in from the other side of the curtain, rising in
volume as what sounded like a crew of guys entered.
 A month before, this would have terrified me. Today, I was intrigued.
And okay, a little terrified, too. Both sensations twisted around in my
stomach like a Möbius strip, endless and confusing. My dick bobbed and
twitched in the air, suffering none of my internal turmoil, and Eric fucking
smiled like I’d answered my own question.
He repeated the motion with his finger, and I arched my brows at him to
let him know what I thought about his request before making a quick circle.
He shook his head and slowed the motion of his finger down. Slower.
I fixed him with a hard look a second before I complied, feeling the
water sheet down with varying intensity as I did another 360, giving him
plenty of opportunity to take in the sight of me twirling like a damn
ballerina in a music box just for him. This time when I circled back around,
he nodded, seeming satisfied as he tugged at the front of his shorts,
adjusting himself so his cock lay thick and visible down the side of his
thigh. Pinned in place, I guess, by his briefs.
Without taking my eyes from him, I finished what I’d intended to do
before he interrupted, pumping the soap dispenser into my hand and
soaping up my dick in a slow glide. His gaze went hot and dark before he
slid his hand into his shorts, and fuck, I’d never had this kind of view of
him before. It was mesmerizing, watching him stroke himself, getting only
this frustrating glimpse of his hand moving behind his shorts and wanting
desperately to see him exposed.
I got that there was some kind of exchange going on, but I wasn’t
entirely sure what the parameters were. To test my theory, I stopped jacking
myself.
He stopped, too.
I ran a soapy hand over my chest and pinched my nipple until my eyes
watered and my chest shuddered and the skin went red and angry around it,
then started stroking my cock again.
Eric pulled his shorts down a couple of inches, keeping his gaze on
mine as he licked his thumb and circled the fat head of his cock with it.
Without really even thinking about what I was doing, I lowered to my
knees on the floor of the shower, the tile rough and frigid on my kneecaps.
I don’t know who was more surprised, me or him, but it showed in his
expression and I fucking loved it. He seemed to consider his next move
before pulling his shorts back over his dick, stepping forward to the edge of
the shower curb, and dropping one hand to the top of my wet head as I
leaned in and pressed my face into his crotch. If I’d stopped at the moment
to actually think about what the fuck I was doing, I would’ve been
mortified. So I didn’t. I just fucking acted. Just did exactly what my body
was aching to do.
His shorts were damp with sweat, a musky, masculine, metallic scent
surrounding me as I rubbed my face against him and closed my mouth
around the shape of his cockhead through the fabric, licking and sucking
him through it. Eric shifted his stance, spreading his legs, letting me tease
him until his dick was straining against the spit-soaked cotton before he
grabbed me by the jaw and bent low to whisper in my ear. “You might be
fucking crazier than me.”
No fucking surprise there. I’d clearly lost my mind the first time I
invited him into my room. Unlike in the library, or at the fund-raiser, we
were surrounded by people. I could hear the pattern of the water spray
change as the guy in the next stall moved around, smell the waft of soapy
steam, hear the booming laughter of someone out in the changing area. And
I still wanted nothing more than to struggle to keep my shit together while
he took me apart. Yeah, it was probably safe to say I’d fucking lost it.
Swallowing hard against the mix of fear and arousal lodged like a rock
in my throat, I lifted my eyes to find Eric’s as he rose again, waiting to see
what he was going to do with me now that I was on my knees.
Apparently nothing, because he hauled me up, speaking quietly in my
ear again. “Didn’t tell you to do that, though it’s a sweet gesture, frat boy. I
actually came in here for something else.”
It had better be to get me off, but I’d hardly even given him a
questioning look before he laid his hands on my cheeks and kissed me. Soft
and slow—so damn slow—a stark contrast to the way we’d come together
the night before, when it’d felt more like a wreck of primal urges than
sensuality. And unlike this morning’s tease, this was the full onslaught, like
something you’d do while lying in bed post-fuck. Lingering and indulgent,
his tongue stroking my lips, opening them to slide inside.
His fingers drifted down to my chin, pinching and guiding me like a
rudder as he covered every inch of my mouth like was mapping out the
damn territory. But goddamn it was a good kiss, and my whole body
hummed and glowed with it.
I’d never even given that much thought to kissing, but Eric made it as
sexy as anything else he did. He was like a one-man band of eroticism, and
no instrument was beyond his capability. Though I thought maybe I liked
his mouth the most. Not just for the way it felt on me, but for the things that
came out of it. Things I’d never imagined myself wanting to hear before
him. I pictured us in his bedroom, no one around. Quiet and dark. All the
time in the world to explore and be explored. There were parts of him I’d
not even touched, and damn did I want to now.
Some guy a couple of stalls over started singing jokingly, and a couple
of other guys laughed and joined in. Eric scraped his teeth over my lower
lip, bit my chin, and pulled away, taking a step back.
I caught him by the wrist and dragged him back to the edge of the
shower with a shake of my head. Fuck if I was going to let him leave me in
this state again.
The look he gave me was both appraising and curious at once, and then
he mouthed, “Really?”
I nodded resolutely and we both stared down at the front of his shirt,
damp where I’d pressed against it. He reached at the same time I did, took
another step out of my reach, and peeled his clothes off, dumping them
unceremoniously to the floor, along with his shoes. I watched, transfixed by
his thick, bobbing cock, the sinewy definition of his abs and thighs, flushed
with blood from our workout. Then, I lifted my hand and crooked my finger
at him, loving the amused quirk that tipped the corners of his lips. That was
the beginning and end of my demands, though, because as soon as he
stepped into the shower basin, he shoved me under the spray and it was
clear I was all his again.
Eric pumped the soap dispenser and lathered his hands, but instead of
going for my cock or my ass like I expected, he went for my shoulders,
soaping up the tight muscles, sliding his hands up and down my arms and
leaving a trail of bubbles in his wake. My back, my thighs, my calves, my
chest. He washed me unhurriedly, thoroughly, his gaze focused and
attentive as I shifted and swayed under his caress, because God it was good.
Firm and tantalizing at once. A different flavor of encounter, but still just as
sexy.
When he finally got around to my cock, I was so blissed-out and relaxed
that instead of a jolt of arousal, a slow, mellow warmth began building
inside me as he stroked his hand up and down my shaft. Just when I’d start
to buck into his hand, he’d lower it to my balls, tug and massage them in his
slick grip, or run his fingers down my crack and tease my hole, pressing his
finger against the muscle until it gave and let him in. And then he’d be gone
again.
Eric’s dick bobbed against mine, and eventually, he took us both in
hand, the soft friction of his cockhead combined with the tightness of his
grip driving me crazy. My breaths deepened with the effort to keep quiet,
my mouth falling open as he pushed and pulled and tugged me ever closer
to the edge. He leaned in, licking a hot stripe up my throat and sucking on
my lower lip and was in my ear again before I could capture his mouth with
my own.
“Think you can be quiet if I pound that hole raw?”
I nodded, reaching between us to pinch my dick and stave off the surge
of arousal brought on by those words and imagining Eric fucking me right
here with God knew who else five feet from us. When he leaned back, I
could tell he had his doubts. His doubts could suck it. I could do this.
Probably.
I started to turn and put my hands against the wall, but he grabbed me
by the shoulder and cranked me back around, pressing in close against me
as he ran his hands down my arms.
“No lube. Gonna fix that.” He spoke quietly into my ear, then cut me a
wicked smile and dropped to his knees in front of me, taking my dick in his
mouth so fast I didn’t even have time to appreciate the sight of his lips
wrapping me before my vision sheeted white.
He sucked me hard and fast, no fucking around, flicking his tongue
mercilessly against my head, driving it into my slit while his hand pumped
my base. My molars ground together as I tried to stay quiet, my chest rising
and falling and my heart pounding so fast and hard I heard it in my ears.
Pleasure roared wild through me in hard, endless streaks, assaulting me
from all sides as he tugged on my balls.
Pushing a wet finger into my hole, Eric worked me open with shallow
thrusts until I was shaking, then slowed down, stopped taking me all the
way to the back of his throat, and rubbed his lips around my head, instead.
Over and over, the friction concentrated and intense, velvety hot and hard at
the same time.
My mouth dropped open in soundless gasps, and my stomach muscles
contracted with the force of trying not to moan or whimper. I dug my
fingers into the meat of his shoulders so deep there was no doubt I was
leaving marks, and he didn’t even flinch.
 My balls tightened up, and Eric took me deep in one long stroke as I
unleashed with a full-body shiver. He sucked me through it, turned me
inside out and kept going until I was shaking and shoved him away from
my sensitive head. My cheek hit the cold tile wall with a light smack as Eric
manhandled me into it. Then he stretched my arms out over my head,
yanked my hips back, and bent me over.
He pulled my cheeks apart and opened me with his thumbs; then came
the warm hit of his lips and a flood of heat. Oh sweet fucking goddamn. I
understood then what he was doing, and my dick started twitching all over
again. My own jizz coated my hole, slid down my legs, and the idea that he
was going to use my load as lube felt so fucking dirty and hot at the same
time that I had to sink my teeth hard into my lower lip to stave off a moan.
Eric gripped my asscheek with bruising firmness, and I knew he wished
he could smack it like he had the other night, but that was a no go in an
echoey shower stall. So instead, he was gonna brand me with his fingertips.
Unsurprisingly, I was down for that.
The tip of his cock pushed inside me a second later. Just him, no barrier.
Just his hot skin gliding against mine as I gulped air and scrabbled for
purchase against the wall. In one smooth stroke that had me grinding my
teeth, Eric buried his cock so deep I could feel the quiver of satisfaction that
ran through his body like it was my own.
He closed his hand around the back of my neck, holding fast as he
fucked me, and I loved every second of it. The control in the near-silent
glide of his body, the way each thrust forced me onto the balls of my feet
and made me tense my thighs to stay balanced. I wasn’t even sure how the
fuck he was managing to be so quiet until I twisted a look over my shoulder
and caught his expression. Taut and strained with how he was holding back,
his lips pressed together and rolled inward, pale with the pressure. His
glassy-eyed gaze focused on my ass as he pumped in and out of it. I locked
eyes with him in a silent, desperate exchange, and he slid his hand from my
neck down my arm, yanking me upright to close his fist around my dick
again.
I jerked—too much intensity too soon after I’d blown my load—but
when I pulled his hand away, Eric came right back, pressing insistently into
me and speaking softly in my ear.
“You’ve got another one in you, and I want it. Gonna fuck you ’til I get
it.”
 He slammed into me hard at the same time he gloved my dick with his
hand, and I cried out, shouted, whatever; I made enough noise in protest of
the pairing of pleasure and pain that Eric clapped a hand over my mouth
and hissed in my ear just as someone the next stall over called out.
“Okay over there, dude?”
We both froze. Eric’s hand slid from my mouth to my throat, a firm,
warm assurance as he spoke. “Banged my head on the dispenser.”
“Done that before. Sucks. Just checking.”
“S’allgood,” Eric slurred out.
Against my back, his shoulders started shaking with laughter.
His soundless laughter set off mine, and that might’ve been the bigger
challenge than staying quiet while he was fucking me, because I couldn’t
seem to stop once I got started. It was like an amped-up version of what
happened in a church or in a big lecture class sometimes: that near-
hysterical rush of emotion looking for release in all the wrong places. My
chest heaved and my stomach ached with it.
Eric squeezed my biceps and slipped from my ass, guiding me around to
face him, and that was what finally settled me. Because he’d stopped
laughing and was now looking at me with a mixture of amusement and
concern that was too damn close to what’d happened before outside with all
the safe-word talk and weird consideration for my well-being—like he was
fucking rethinking what he was doing. And I definitely didn’t want that.
I gave him a pointed look, grabbed his dick, and tried to awkwardly and
ineffectively cram it back inside me until he took over, nudging my
shoulder and reaching behind my knee so I’d lift it and plant it on the bench
just outside the stall. I didn’t know how I felt about revisiting face-to-face
fucking, especially when the way he was looking at me was so goddamn
fervent, but apparently my body had no qualms, because the second he
coated his cock in spit and nudged my hole again, I instinctively tried to
spear myself on it.
He went slow, trailing his fingertips over my ribs, then grasping my
hips, sliding inside of me, then all the way out, letting his head glide along
my balls and my hole before he’d reach down and push himself inside
again. His gaze flicked between my stiff dick and my eyes, and I got the
sense he was gauging my reactions as he thrust. Something about that made
me feel more vulnerable than the first time in my room when he’d had me
on my back, more vulnerable than at the fund-raiser when I’d been standing
in front of him. This was usually the point where I’d shutter my eyes
against it, mentally check out, and let the sizzle of pleasure move through
me as my orgasm mounted.
This time I fought against it, kept my gaze on Eric as he fucked me, and
it was like he was everywhere. Inside me and outside, this acute awareness
of every point of contact between our bodies, his cock owning my ass, his
gaze enveloping me and drawing me into a universe that existed solely of
him and me. I knotted my fingers in the wet ends of his hair and held on for
dear life, expecting him to pick up speed at any second and rail the hell out
of me. But he just kept up that steady glide, like he was rocking me in
increments closer to orgasm, and then he put his lips right to my ear so I
could hear each shallow inhale and exhale, the jumble of syllables that tried
to become words and failed. I caught the meaning anyway; it was the sound
of desire, the sound of how fucking good we were making each other feel.
Instead of hurtling toward ecstasy, I coasted on the sensations moving
through me, and the realization hit me square between the eyes—always
fucking inconvenient in timing, because it almost floored me how much I
liked him, how much I wanted him. Not just the fucking, but everything
that came along with it. The way he read me, seeming to always know
exactly what I needed and how to give it to me. I wondered if I did the same
for him.
Eric’s grip around my neck tightened, and he shifted, sucking in a deep
breath. This time when he spoke, it was 100 percent coherent. “You’re
gonna come for me again, and then I’m gonna pump that tight hole full of
my jizz so the rest of the day when you’re walking around, you’ll feel me.”
I didn’t believe him. About the orgasm part at least. The latter part had
my hips rocking harder against his as he grazed my prostate, because I
wanted that, wanted to feel him shooting deep in me, dribbling down my
thighs when I walked.
My entire body was overly sensitized. Even his hands on me burned as
much as they soothed. Every caress bruised, and when he fisted my cock, I
tried to flinch away from the friction, but just as before, he held on until
irritation ceded to prickling pleasure that took flight and soared through me
unexpectedly.
I pulled the ends of his hair, chasing the reluctant orgasm until suddenly
it was right there and I came hard and fast, shooting over both of us,
breathing heavily through my nose. A split-second grin of satisfaction gave
way to bared teeth as Eric grabbed my hips and buried himself deep inside
me. And fuck, I felt it, pulsing out of him and into me, thick and hot,
coating my channel as he dropped his head to my shoulder and trapped his
moan against my wet skin.
We slumped against each other, panting openmouthed until my legs
threatened to give out and I dropped onto the bench. Eric stepped under the
showerhead, then eased down next to me a few seconds later.
Resting our heads back against the wall in silence, we listened to the
sounds of the locker room. When I glanced over, his eyes were shut, a
peaceful slackness to his features as he dropped one hand to my thigh
heavily and swept his thumb over my quad in gentle arcs.
I wanted to talk like we usually did. Joke and banter and mess with each
other, but that was impossible, and after a few minutes, and with one last
squeeze to my thigh, Eric stood up, shook his arms and legs out, then bent
over and gathered up his clothes. Me? I was gonna need a few more
minutes to recover.
He turned back around to face me, tucking his clothes and shoes under
one arm as he studied me, then mouthed, “You good?”
I gestured lazily to my spent cock, the jizz scattered over my stomach
and thighs, and gave him the A-OK sign along with a sarcastic smile that
made him grin. I was more than good; I was light-headed with post-fuck
euphoria.
Eric was still grinning when he snatched my fucking towel from the
hook and sauntered out with it.
Figured.
I rested my elbows on my knees and leaned to rummage through my
bag and pull out my phone to check the time. No surprise, I was forty-five
minutes late for the chapter meeting, totally screwed in more ways than
one.
I was also starving. So I decided fuck it. After I finished dressing, I
caught up to Eric outside the gym and we stopped in the student center
cafeteria and grabbed a bite.
We sat at one of the tables scarfing sandwiches and talking randomly
about classes and how we’d chosen the U in the first place (me: scholarship,
strong Greek presence. Him: the caliber of the structural engineering
program). It struck me as odd that we’d never really hung out before, that
I’d hardly paid him any attention at all when he’d moved in, and now I
couldn’t stop seeing him. He wasn’t a huge talker, and really neither was I,
but he was cool. Laconic and funny in a dry way that I found really fucking
sexy. Most of the girls I’d dated were cute. Like that was their trademark.
Cute little nose wrinkles. Giggles. Sassy smacks. Of course there were other
girls out there who didn’t do those things, but I mostly seemed to gravitate
toward and attract cute. Eric was about as far from cute as a person could
get.
“So did you, like, come out as bi? Do people do that?” I asked, poking
through my chips.
Eric chuckled and set down his sandwich, then swiped his palms over
his thighs. “I told my mom and stepdad, yeah, when I was seventeen, I
think. My friends already knew.”
“How?”
“How?” He tilted his head at me, a smile ghosting over his lips.
“Probably because I was seeing both a guy and a girl at the time.”
“Like, all together?”
Eric shook his head. “Separate. They both knew about each other,
though. They were cool with it.”
“Jesus. Your friends must’ve been way kinkier than mine. That shit
wouldn’t have flown.”
“Lack of high school hallways cut down on the bullshit social politics
some. But the people who mattered didn’t give a shit, you know?”
I didn’t. I wasn’t sure if I knew anyone who wouldn’t care about that.
But maybe I was wrong.
“How’d you know I was…” I paused. What the fuck was I? I was bi, I
guess, by default. “How’d you know I’d be down to…”
He shrugged. “I didn’t. Not for sure. I guess it was the way you looked
at me in the kitchen that morning after I busted in on you.”
“Like I was completely embarrassed?”
His gaze flickered up to meet mine. “No. Like you were curious and
didn’t want to be.”
“Seems kinda risky, though, doesn’t it?”
“With great risk comes great reward,” he teased. “Isn’t that the saying?”
“So I’m something like a blue-ribbon prize, then, right? The jock who
switches teams. Or plays both fields?” I meant it as a joke, but Eric’s
expression became guarded.
“Maybe you’re still a risk.”
 “Then maybe you should keep your eye on the prize.”
“Maybe.” He balled up his sandwich wrapper and tossed it on the tray
along with mine as I stood and picked it up.
Outside, I stuffed my hands in my hoodie as we trudged toward home.
“You going home for Thanksgiving, I guess?”
“Yep.” I peered at him sidelong for the question. “You?”
“Not sure. Depends on where my mom will be. She doesn’t know yet.”
“You could come home with me if you don’t have anywhere else to go.
It’s only an hour away.” I said it off the cuff, but damn how the idea
bloomed inside me: having days and days of just Eric outside of our
crowded house, outside of the frat and homework. I bit the inside of my
cheek, nearly drawing blood, because…what the fuck was I thinking? This
was dangerously close to a…I mean, hadn’t I just put the total kibosh on
going home with Ashley months before? And now I was seriously inviting
Eric home with me?
Eric turned his head to look me over. “Thanks, but I’m good. Also, if
you’re gonna give an invitation, it’s usually better received if you’re not
glaring when you give it. Pro tip for the future.” He laughed, seeming
unperturbed.
Was I glaring? Yeah, the tightness of my forehead said I was. “I wasn’t
meaning to. Just thinking is all.”
“Overanalyzing. Don’t, though. Even if it’s sexy as hell watching how it
makes the muscles on your jaw flutter.”
He widened his eyes and waggled his brows at me suggestively.
I trailed up our front steps after him and sent a kick into his ass as he
flung the front door open. He tripped over the stoop and shot a look back at
me. When I gave him an innocent grin, he bared his teeth.
Jesse lifted his hand in a lazy wave from the couch as we entered. Mark
rose slowly from the lounger nearby, fixing us both with a glower that had
my smile sliding from my face like sludge down a window. I’d never seen
him so angry. My skin prickled, some kind of prescient sensation making
my stomach drop.
“You missed chapter,” he said. “Again.”
“Got caught up at the gym.” I tried to keep it light, but Mark wasn’t
having it.
“We need to talk.”
 “All right, so talk.” I dropped my bag by the couch and folded my arms
over my chest, instantly defensive.
Eric shot a quick look at me as Mark shook his head. “Not here.” He
thumbed over his shoulder toward the kitchen.
Jesse glanced up from his controller in surprise, looking between the
three of us curiously, but kept quiet. I shrugged one shoulder at him as if to
say, who knows?
“You too,” Mark said to Eric.
Oh fuck. Ohhhh fuck. I felt the color draining from my face, my limbs
growing heavy as Mark led the way through the kitchen and out the back
door, me trailing behind Eric, who twisted a hawk-eyed look over his
shoulder at me before catching the door in his hand and holding it open for
me.
Outside, Eric folded his arms over his chest, staring down Mark, who
waited for the door to close before turning to me and speaking. “What you
missed in chapter was that the director of Merriweather Gardens called this
morning, mad as hell about two guys sneaking behind the ropes into their
fucking offices. What the fuck, dude? They got both of you on camera, and
they want money for the cleanup and damage to the office.”
I tried to speak and couldn’t. My heart had left my chest and was now
trying to beat its way out of my throat. I was certain Mark would see it
throbbing there. I sucked in a breath and tried again. Fuck, I was in no way
ready for this, but what the hell else was I going to do? I’d been a willing
participant. “It’s load of bullshit, the damage part. We were…we were—
there are cameras in the offices?”
Mark glared at me. “They saw you on the hallway cams, but it was
obviously you two. He shared the screencaps with us.”
Eric cut a swift look aside to me before taking over. “We were just
doing some blow, for fuck’s sake. And you can leave Nate out of it because
it was my idea anyway. They want some money, what the fuck ever. I’ll pay
it.”
“‘Just doing some blow’ in the executive’s office? Jesus Christ, couldn’t
you have just gone to the fucking bathroom and snorted lines in a stall like
every-fucking-one else? Is this what the hell has been wrong with you
lately, dude?” Mark narrowed his eyes at me. “Please don’t be another Cam
Jeffers, man—I don’t want to see you kicked out or in rehab.”
 “I’m not a coke addict, you dick. I’ll pay the bill. It’s fine.” I dragged
my hands down my cheeks and chuckled, a little hysterical. It definitely
wasn’t funny, but fuck, there was an absurdist catch-22 factor involved. I’d
just been standing there about to out myself. Completely unready to do so
since I had no idea what was going on between me and Eric and I still
wasn’t entirely sure where I stood on the whole issue of my sexuality.
Mostly I felt like I was sliding around on some slippery surface I’d spent
years convinced was solid ground. But maybe it was time to have that
conversation with Eric. And sooner rather than later.
Mark glared at me. “Yeah? I’m glad you find this funny. The guy who
called? He was talking about pressing charges.”
“Stop.” Eric’s voice was quiet but firm. “Nate…” I didn’t miss the
warning tone in the way he said my name, but he trailed off and leveled his
gaze back on Mark. “I already told you it was my idea. I’m the one who
went up there first. It was my coke. I’ll pay for the damage, like I already
said, and if they want to charge anyone, they’ll charge me. Can we call this
fucking done, now? I’ve got a paper due tomorrow.”
Mark looked between us, his brows tightly knit and a scowl on his face
as he wet his lower lip. His gaze lingered on me the longest, and I felt it like
a punch in the gut. Guilt sprang up in me at the faint note of sadness I
thought I detected behind the anger in his eyes. Had we really grown apart
that fast?
“Yeah,” he said finally. “It’s done. Just make sure you get your fucking
story straight in case you need it, because both of you are fucking standing
in front of me lying, and I don’t know what you’re hiding, but Nate, if
it’s…” He clenched his fists and shook his head. “Just figure your shit out.
And I swear to God if you’re becoming a Cam, I’ll kick your ass.”
Cam had been in our pledge class, and he and Mark had been really
tight. But not tight enough that he’d known about the drug habit Cam had
formed. None of us had. He’d kept it completely under wraps until Mark
was the one to discover him OD’d in his room at the frat house. It’d fucked
with all of us, but Mark most of all. Cam’s parents had come and whisked
him away like he’d never been there at all. No one had heard from him
since. Not even Mark, I didn’t think.
Mark stormed back inside, letting the door slam behind him. Eric
pinched the bridge of his nose, then turned and brushed past me on the way
to the door before I caught him by the arm and yanked him back. “What the
fuck was that?”
“Me saving your ass? Or did that not come through clearly?”
I gritted my teeth. “Don’t ever fucking speak for me again. You want to
order me around while we’re messing around, fine, but don’t mistake that
for permission to act on my behalf. I don’t need a savior.”
“Yeah? Were you getting ready to tell him how far I had my dick up
your ass an hour ago?”
“I was…” I faltered. “I don’t know. Yeah, maybe?” The uncertainty bled
out in my tone. Because I wasn’t fucking ready. I wasn’t ready to say shit to
anyone, and I liked what Eric and I had going on just the way it was.
“Yeah, that sounds about right.” An arctic chill fell over his features,
and he rocked a step back, looking up at the sky and drawing a breath that
he let out slowly. “And you think the school will want to keep paying your
scholarship if you get charged with something, huh?”
I felt the air sail from my chest all at once. My scholarship should have
been the first thing I thought of. Instead it’d been Eric.
“That’s what I thought,” he said softly, taking my hesitation as an
answer.
I leaned back against the side of the house, a million thoughts reeling
through my head. “This is…this is…” I wasn’t sure how to fill in the gap.
Something was fucking wrong with me. I was being cavalier, skipping out
on duties to my fraternity, putting my scholarship in jeopardy. For what?
But as I lifted my gaze to meet Eric’s, I knew.
I knew.
And I needed to tell him. Even if he didn’t want to hear it.
But his next words caught me in my side like a thousand fishhooks and
dragged across my chest.
“This is sideways, that’s what. And it stops now,” he said evenly.
I straightened abruptly from my lean. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Exactly what you think it does.”
“You’re just going to make that decision for us?”
“There is no us. There’s never been an us.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” There might not have been an “us” in
technical terms, but the way we’d been last night and today, that we’d
planned on hanging out again tonight…that was more than fucking nothing.
 Eric gave a sharp shake of his head. “There’s you and there’s me, and as
it turns out, maybe I’m not as comfortable putting you at risk as I thought I
was.”
“So that’s it, then, easy as that? You’re not comfortable ‘putting me at
risk’? What a load of horseshit, dude.” I had to laugh at his audacity, but it
was a laugh that came out serrated with my bitterness at how he could turn
on a dime.
I felt my molars grinding with the intensity of my stare. Eric didn’t say
anything, just maintained that impassive fucking fortress of an expression,
but I didn’t buy it, and instead found the whole situation maddening beyond
belief. Every muscle in my body felt taut, coiled for release, begging for it.
And this time not for what Eric could give me. I’d gotten in a few scuffles
before. Mostly on the field in football or drunk at bars, but never in my life
had I wanted to hit someone as badly as I did at that moment. And for as
shitty as I felt about that, I think mostly I was driven by the desire to force a
break in that walled-off gaze he’d aimed at me.
“Do it if it’ll make you feel better.” There was nothing in his tone that
was cajoling or challenging. It wasn’t a taunt, just plain-spoken acceptance.
The words held the same passivity written over his face.
I let out a sound of exasperation and gave up. “Fuck you, Eric, you
obstinate dick.”
He turned away to walk back inside the house, leaving me out on the
porch.
How did he fucking do that? How’d he just stand there and turn it off
like that? Unbelievable.
I dropped down onto the stoop and stared out into the alley beyond our
yard, trying to think logically. What had I expected anyway? It’d been about
fooling around from the get-go. And what Eric had said made sense: I was
risking some shit with our antics that maybe I shouldn’t be, considering my
position. But shit, I craved it now, and I really wanted to make that all his
fault instead of my own. But it wasn’t. Not really.
Maybe it was for the best. It’d begun as an experiment, and hadn’t we
done enough that I should have the conclusion blazoned on my brain
undoubtedly? I liked dick. Or, at the least, I liked some dick. Now I knew
for sure and could move on.
It was just fooling around.
 I said it over and over again to myself, but the words refused to sink in;
they just sat on the surface of my brain with nowhere to go because all the
dark recesses of me were already filled with him.

A NSEL WAS SLICING plastic wrap from a pizza when I came back inside
while Jesse stood at the stove, twisting the knob to set the oven timer.
Ansel glanced up at me. “Want some? It’s meat lovers.”
Fucking perfect.
“Maybe, I dunno. I ate a late lunch,” I answered vaguely, aware that
Jesse was staring at me.
“Everything cool?” he asked. “Mark seemed pretty pissed.”
I hedged before sighing and giving in. “Eric and I were doing some
blow at the fund-raiser thing last night. In one of the offices. They found out
and were pissed. Called the frat. Want money for some bullshit damages
that didn’t happen.” At least I didn’t think they had. Now that I had more
time to think about it, I wasn’t sure. I guess we could’ve scratched the desk
or something, but it wasn’t like we’d broken anything.
Jesse’s brows bunched up in a fierce furrow as he leaned back against
the stove, still staring. “You…were doing blow with Eric. You do coke?”
“Not often, Jesus, but yeah, sometimes. I was fucking bored.” I needed
to get out of there. I hated fucking lying, and yet lying was all I seemed to
be doing lately. Jesse’s gaze bored into me like I was a goddamn alien with
two heads. I noticed that his disbelief was weighted heavily on me, not Eric,
which made me kinda wonder… What the fuck ever. That wasn’t the point.
None of this was.
I reached into the fridge for a beer and took it with me, calling over my
shoulder, “Never mind about the pizza. I’ll probably grab something out.” I
had no desire to sit around with Jesse and Ansel if Jesse was going to keep
looking at me like that.
I cracked the beer on the stairs, had guzzled half by the time I got into
my room, and spent the next half hour staring uncomprehendingly at my
philosophy homework, not in the mood to get fucking ponderous about
esoteric shit when I couldn’t even logic my way out of a simple cause-and-
effect problem. So when Mark texted me, I was glad for the distraction.
Mark: Bunch of the guys are on way to Pfeiffer’s
Mark: Strongly suggest you make an appearance

I showered and shaved, avoiding glancing at Eric’s stuff because it

made me think about how I’d been ready to stick my nose in his toiletry kit
a month back. Lame.
I didn’t knock when I stood in front of his door, just turned the knob
like I had the night before and let myself in. Eric sat propped up on his
bedspread, the lamp on his nightstand on, a textbook open and resting on
the tops of his thighs. I shut the door quietly behind me and leaned against
it with my hands behind my back, palms pressing into the cool wood
surface. My gaze traveled the room, making a stop at those bridges he’d
built, drawn again to the precision and finesse of the construction. On one
wall, he had a framed poster of Dali with his famously askew mustache.
Atop the dresser were a couple of framed photographs of his family I’d
never paid attention to before. Him with his mom and stepdad. And another,
him with a man I guessed was his dad. Both of them smiling the same
smile, Eric’s chin tipped up as he squinted against the sunlight that fell
across them.
I thought I’d come in here with more to say, but as I looked back to
Eric, his gaze unwavering upon me, I no longer knew what it was. My
whole body felt fatigued, as if with muscle exhaustion, like I’d gone too
hard in the gym or I was coming down with the flu. It wasn’t either of those
things, but maybe I could pretend for a while.
“You’ll get over it,” he said, surprising me that he’d spoken at all.
I sucked at my lower lip and nodded as I lied again. “Yeah, probably so.
But will you?”
It was a shot in the dark, because with Eric, for every certainty I felt
about him, a hundred other doubts popped up. He shifted constantly, even in
my own mind, and maybe I just didn’t have enough experience to pinpoint
the dynamics the way a guy like him could, no landmarks I could rely on.
But a flicker of regret passed through his eyes. Or maybe it was hurt.
Whichever it was was enough.
I didn’t wait for an answer that wouldn’t come, but turned and walked
out.
 5

WANT ME

I bro-fisted Ansel as he passed by with his duffle bag and walked out
the front door, leaving the house quiet. Jesse had left earlier in the
morning, right as I headed out for the test I was convinced Professor
Lingen had sprung on us just to be a dick. Mark had left the night before.
Eric, who fucking knew? His car was still in the driveway, but we hadn’t
spoken much since Mark confronted us.
Nothing happened with the botanical gardens. Or, at least, they didn’t
press charges. I paid for the trumped-up damage claim. Eric had paid
initially, but I’d told Mark to give him back the money and tell him
Merriweather had decided not to charge anything after all. That had earned
me a long, hard look from Mark, and then he’d pressed his lips together and
walked away.
No doubt the overall vibe in the house had been at little frosty for the
past few weeks—at least between me, Eric, and Mark. Eric was hardly
there. Mark and I were at odds because he knew I was holding out on
something. Except I wasn’t now, was I, because that was done. It fucking
hurt and angered me at the same time, and while I may have been down to
beg in the bedroom, fuck if I was going to beg outside of it. I’d meant that.
Eric could kiss my ass.
Except that resolution was interspersed with what felt like the hundreds
of times I’d almost sought him out since that afternoon, ready to grovel, do
whatever I needed to do to resume status quo between us. Not that I was
sure what status quo even was anymore—in any regard. The most I’d
managed lately was to keep my grades up, and that’d been a Herculean
struggle, too. I drifted at the library, forgot what the hell I was supposed to
be reading, and moved through my workouts like a zombie, running until
my body burned with exhaustion and the promise of a dead, dreamless sleep
carried me to bed.
After the door closed behind Ansel, I grabbed a protein bar from the
kitchen and hoofed it up the stairs, past Eric’s closed door and into my
room, where I’d left my duffle open on the bed and half-packed. I tossed the
rest of my clothes in hurriedly, ready to get on the road and get home,
where I could try to forget about him for a couple of days, see my old high
school friends, watch football, eat like a pig, and generally pretend I wasn’t
gut twisted over the dark-haired dipshit.
I slung my duffle over my shoulder and closed my bedroom door, then
paused outside of Eric’s door, listening to the faint strain of music coming
from inside. I rubbed at the twinge in my chest and steadied my breathing.
Don’t do it. You’re done with this.
But I knocked on the door anyway because I was a fucking sucker.
“S’open.”
Eric barely acknowledged me as I poked my head in before jerking his
gaze back to the textbook open in front of him. Three weeks before, we’d
been in the exact same positions. This time didn’t feel much different. Lack
of eye contact, impassive expression. Stalemate.
“I’m heading out. Everyone else has already gone. Jesse wanted to
make sure all the lights were turned off and the thermostat turned down to
65 so we can save on the bill this month. But I guess if you’re not leaving, it
doesn’t matter.” I avoided looking around his room and kept my gaze
focused on the line forming between his brows.
“I’ll turn it down anyway, it’s fine. I don’t mind the cold.”
Obviously, you arctic fucking tundra. I gritted my teeth and nodded.
“Happy Thanksgiving.” Shut the fuck up. I was humiliating myself.
Eric’s gaze flickered up. A longer look this time, and each place that his
eyes landed on my body coiled around the hollowness in my gut and
squeezed. That his effect on me was still as instantaneous as a spark of
static electricity was annoying as hell. He opened his mouth, then closed it
again and licked his lips, his brows furrowing and his expression going dark
before it smoothed out and he said, “Drive safe, okay?”
“Same goes,” I replied, even though it sounded like he’d be staying put
for the holiday. I shut the door, racing down the stairs and antsy to get the
fuck out of there so I could better ignore the ache spreading through my
chest at the prospect of him being alone for the entire break. Surely he
wouldn’t, though. He knew other people, had other friends. He’d probably
go out and…no, I didn’t want to go down avenue of thought. I’d been
walking it for too long.
I threw my bag in the back seat of my Honda. Once I slid into the front
seat, I fiddled with my phone, plugging it into the auxiliary jack so I could
listen to some of my playlists. I scrolled through them restlessly, selecting a
workout compilation so I wouldn’t be tempted to emo out with some moody
depressing shit. When I looked up again to put the car in gear, Eric was
standing on the front stoop, his hands in the pockets of his gray hoodie with
the U’s dark purple logo blazoned on it as he looked through the windshield
at me.
We stared hard at each other for a handful of seconds, and finally I
rolled my eyes at myself and started to ease off the brake.
Eric lifted his hand and loped down the steps toward the car. I hesitated,
half of me inclined to step on the gas and leave him like that. Then I sighed
and rolled down the window.
“I can be ready in five.” He rested his hand on the roof of the car as he
leaned in. “If that offer still stands.”
My blood pressure skyrocketed, and then it was quickly taken over by
another pang of regret and ache and all kinds of emotional bullshit I’d been
trying to avoid dealing with. It was much easier when he wasn’t so close I
could see the tiny lines on his lips.
I should say no, tell him to fuck off, but goddamn, the way he was
standing there like that—cautiousness written all over his face, even in his
stance— was even harder to bear. “Barely, so hurry the fuck up before I
change my mind.”
He nodded, turned, and trotted back through the door. Four whole days
of Eric. Boy if that didn’t feel like some test sprung last second by the
universe. It made the calculus exam I’d just completed feel like a joke in
comparison. Formulas and theorems I could memorize. But Eric, he was a
philosophy all his own, and there were no shortcuts to solving the riddle of
him. My chest seized up, prickly, excited, and twinging with a weird sense
of dread that didn’t belong in that mixed bag of fuckery.
Minutes later, Eric returned, tossing his bag in the back seat next to
mine before he ducked into the passenger side, and the waft of his spicy,
masculine scent hit me like a sledgehammer. I’d missed being close to it
like that, the potency, the himness of it undiluted.
Hell, just the weight of his presence displaced the air around me, like
the density experiments I’d done in grade school with blocks of wood and
foam, and I felt this weird sense of self-deception that I’d let him become so
huge to me. I thought of the guy I’d fooled around with the summer before
college. It hadn’t been anything like this. Nothing in my life had been like
this.
I’d been upset over relationships before, twisted up by girls, sure, but
Eric was like this all-encompassing ache. He was a singular force, a comet
that’d slammed into me and cratered out the damn core of my being. The
confusion he made me feel was maddening, but nothing compared to the
desire he instigated. I wasn’t even sure if that was fucking healthy. Probably
not. Ask me if I gave a shit.
We spent the first half of the drive in stilted silence mingled with
occasional perfunctory questions and perfunctory answers—what my mom
had always called waiting-room talk, the conversational equivalent to junk
mail that got tossed out. Mostly Eric was doing the asking, and obviously
trying to engage, but I wasn’t into it. It was an immature response, yeah, but
I wanted him to suffer the cold shoulder for a while, let him throw his
words at a brick wall and feel the sharp smack as they bounced back in his
face.
But eventually curiosity got the better of me.
“So why didn’t you fly out to your mom and stepdad, wherever they
are?”
“Tokyo.” He kept his attention drilled through the front windshield. The
intensity of focus in that look should’ve shattered the thing. “Too long of a
flight for too short of a time. It didn’t make sense.”
I nodded, staring ahead at the blur of lines on the highway and biting at
the inside of my lower lip in thought. “You said you were homeschooled. At
the gym when…” I trailed off. He knew when.
I thought he might brush the question aside, but instead he laughed, and
the dark sound rang through the car bitter as coffee. “Yeah.” His laughter
ebbed, and his hands went up to drag down his face. “God, I suck at this.”
“At talking? Yeah, you do, which is kind of ironic since you couldn’t
seem to shut the fuck up as long as my dick was involved.” I mean, not that
I was any better at talking, but at least I’d fucking tried initially.
 He threw me a sharp look, then turned away, staring out the window
again, and I figured that was that. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see
him running his knuckles over the windowpane, tracing the rubber edge
where the seal met the glass. “My parents traveled a lot. Seemed like we
were somewhere new every other month.”
“Your dad was an engineer, right?”
Eric nodded. “He did contract work. My mom, too, as a programmer
and software engineer. So we went all over the world. I loved it when I was
a little kid, had no idea that wasn’t what most people were doing. I never
really hung around other kids my age when I was young. It was mostly
adults.” He shifted around in his seat, then let his head fall back against the
headrest and closed his eyes as he spoke. “By the time my mom started
getting proactive about a ‘normal’ education, I don’t know, I guess I was
already weird or not properly socialized or whatever. ‘Disregarding of
social norms.’” He tapped his finger against the windowpane, the way he’d
said “disregarding of social norms” sounding like he was repeating therapist
speak or some textbook. “Then my dad died and it was…brutal. It was
fucking brutal. My mom thought something was wrong with me. I mean,
obviously something was wrong with me. I was getting in trouble all the
time, doing stupid shit. She sent me to boarding school to try to give me
some stability. I got kicked out. She sent me to military school, got kicked
out.”
“What the fuck were you doing?” I tried to keep my focus on the road,
but I was equally intrigued by what he was relaying, trying to trace the
enormity of it over how little I truly knew about him, and mesmerized by
the casual manner in which he was tossing this out to me. Eric was weird,
yeah, in his own way. In the way he’d hold your eyes a little too long or his
stares felt a little too intent, in how he focused on what you were saying like
the deeper meaning was written under your skin. None of my friends looked
at people like that. But with how he kept up his grades and studied, I
wouldn’t ever have thought of him as some fuckup troublemaker as a kid.
“All sorts of things. Setting shit on fire. Copping drugs, fucking people I
shouldn’t have been fucking. My mom had no idea what to do with me. I
feel like shit about it now, but I couldn’t see it then, that she was hanging by
a thread, too. She loved my dad. Like genuinely loved the shit out of him. It
wasn’t just one of those marriages that seems like it goes stale after a while
and becomes some partnership.”
 I thought immediately of my folks, of course, who seemed comfortable
if wholly unremarkable in their marriage.
Eric lolled his head to one side and looked at me, the half-smile he
offered more like a reflex than something real. “So when I would’ve been a
junior—and that was after being held back twice—she took a two-year
contract. I don’t even know how she made that happen, but she did. She
telecommuted and homeschooled me, hooked up with a group of other
homeschoolers. There was this collective program sort of thing.” He turned
his head forward again, raking a hand through his hair. “I’d settled down
some by then. Realized I was messing her up. And I didn’t want to do that.
We’ve never been that close, but she was all I had left, you know?” He fell
silent for a moment, licking his lips. “I’m getting off track, and all of this is
starting to sound like some bullshit excuse and it’s not. This is the way I
am. I don’t say the right things when I’m supposed to, and I’m fucking
impulsive and I react. Sex has always been like…” Eric paused, sketching a
shape over the windowpane before curling his hands in his lap. “It’s a pure
outlet. It’s something I understand. It makes sense. Not always, but like 95
percent of the time. I can see your reaction, feel it, and you can see mine. I
put my hands on you and I can feel your heartbeat speeding up. I don’t have
to ask, don’t have to guess or interpret. It’s action and reaction. If I’ve got
some guy on his knees for me, some girl. Or vice versa: if I’m sucking—”
“I’ve got the fucking picture,” I growled and forced my hands to relax
on the steering wheel before I made the leather squeak.
He angled another look at me. “No you don’t. That’s what I’m trying to
tell you.”
“You had plenty of chances to talk. You didn’t want to take them.”
“Yeah, I fucked up, okay? I’m trying to make things right. Fuck, Nate,
we live in a house with three other guys. Mark’s already suspicious, and the
look on your face that day when you asked about the cameras—the panic so
fucking evident, the fear of being found out? That’s what it was. It wasn’t
the trespassing. It wasn’t the idea of being labeled as an addict, or that the
place might press charges. It wasn’t even the fucking threat all of that might
pose to your scholarship. It was me. I saw that clearly as that wide-eyed
fucking lost look you were giving Mark. It was me, and someone was going
to find out if we kept going like that. And when it happened, you would
hate me for it. You’d regret everything that happened to blow your world up
and you’d hate me.” He thumbed at his lower lip and shook his head. “Fuck
that.”
I wanted to tell him he was wrong. The expression on his face was tense
and pained and exasperated, and I really, really, really wanted to tell him he
had it backward or distorted, or that there was some equal division of the
panic I’d felt that day.
But I wasn’t sure that was the case. I thought back to that moment,
trying to remove my absolute blindness when Eric was around, thought
back to the panic that settled in my stomach, the fear, the ridiculous turmoil
that had boiled over inside me about whether I was going to be honest about
what I’d really been up to. Whether I was ready. If I’d ever be fucking
ready.
My heart sank into my stomach, and Eric latched on to my dismal
expression.
“What does your future look like to you, man? A nice nine-to-five job?
Pickup football with the boys on the weekend. Returning to homecoming
every year and tailgating with your frat brothers. There’s probably a pretty
wife there. Bouncy tits. Will blow you once a week. Maybe later some kids.
Am I right?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I haven’t given it a whole hell of a lot of
consideration.” That was a lie. I’d been thinking about it more than a little
lately, because the picture had gotten jumbled up, and the things that my
mind’s eye was outlining now were a blow to what I’d always considered
my identity. But I hadn’t made any decisions, and that day with Mark, well,
all I knew was that I’d desperately not wanted to be forced into some
revelation at that moment. At the same time, I’d also desperately not
wanted to stop what I was doing with Eric.
Jesus, it was no-win, a total catch-22. And it wasn’t like Eric was even
asking me to make some declaration right now, just that he’d fucking seen
the moment for what it was. Even before I had.
“Fuck,” I exhaled, defeated.
Eric eyed me like he knew exactly what all those thoughts had distilled
down to. “It was an experiment, right? That was all,” he ventured, echoing
the words I’d told myself a hundred times over the past couple of weeks.
His gaze moved over me, searching and circumspect, something in the
depths his eyes that looked almost like sadness, in spite of the smile
plastered on his lips.
 “Yeah. An experiment,” I echoed. Like I’d said in the beginning. Fuck,
the words felt so wrong in my mouth now. “So now what?”
“We try to be friends, I guess.” Eric gave a nonchalant shrug and picked
up my phone, scrolling through my Spotify.
“That easy, huh?”
He punched the screen and “Bohemian Rhapsody” boomed through the
speakers as he lifted his brows at me. “There’s not a thing about you that’s
been easy, frat boy, but I’m trying.”
“Such a martyr.” I rolled my eyes.
“Nope, just selfish.” His smile was self-deprecating, curving in
amusement and because it was such an echo of the usual Eric, the one who
shot sparks through my bloodstream and pounded me relentlessly, I
couldn’t help smiling in return.
Friends, right, because that always worked. Whatever. I wasn’t in
fucking high school anymore. Shit didn’t work out sometimes. I got where
Eric was coming from, and he got where I was coming from. We could do
this. We were adults.

“W OW . All that’s missing is a pie cooling in the window,” Eric said as I

pulled into my parents’ driveway. Our house was a two-story colonial, and
yeah, it looked very classic Americana. The yard was tidy and well-
manicured because my dad was just as obsessive as my mom about it, and
as I parked the car, the front door opened and my mom came out to stand on
the steps with a big smile. “Holy shit, she’s even wearing an apron.” Eric
gaped.
“Don’t let it fool you. She’s got some bite.” I grinned and my mom
lifted her hand as we hopped out, then sketched a quick glance over Eric as
he stretched. I’d completely forgotten to shoot her a text that he’d be
coming, but she masked her surprise well as she came down the steps
toward us. “Need help, boys?”
“Nah, we got it.”
We grabbed our bags and strolled toward her. She wrapped me in a
quick hug and squeezed as she kissed my cheek.
“You remember Eric, Ma?”
 “Of course,” she said warmly, drawing him in for a hug that seemed to
catch him off guard.
“His mom and stepdad are still overseas.”
“Well, we’re glad to have you. Just call me Lana.”
“Like Lana Turner.” Eric smiled as she let go of him.
She laughed and smoothed over her hair. “Oh, a charmer. You just go
ahead and keep that right up.”
The house was fragrant with her cooking, and as we dropped our bags
in the foyer and wandered into the kitchen after her, I asked, “How many
are coming tomorrow?” Because it was never just us.
“The Finleys. That’s it, I think. Y’all want snacks? Your father stole the
cold-cuts tray I was making for tomorrow. It’s with him in the living room.”
I glanced at Eric, and he shook his head. “We’re good.”
We went to say hello to my dad next. He was parked in his recliner
watching sports highlights, which was pretty much where I expected him to
be during most of this vacation.
“Good trip?” He glanced up with a smile, then straightened in the
recliner and held out his hand as he spotted Eric.
“Yeah. You remember Eric, right?”
He nodded as Eric took his hand and shook. “Sure do. Homecoming
weekend last year. Glad you’ve decided to join us.”
“Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.” Eric darted a glance at me,
then moved on to the TV screen as my dad tilted his head toward it. “Derek
Striker’s just fucking whiffing it to hell this year.” And then Dad was off,
launching into football stats as Mom called from the kitchen, “Language,
honey—you’re too old to try to fit in with the college kids now.”

E RIC ROAMED MY BEDROOM , touching the odds and ends on my shelves, the
little wooden truck I’d made in shop in sixth grade, the old paperbacks from
high school reading lists, the photographs stuck here and there, some in
picture frames, some just lying around. Mom had rushed to make up the bed
in the guest room next door, trying to be surreptitious about it, and now she
was back in the kitchen. My dad’s mutterings at the television rose from the
living room and filtered through my open door.
 “You’re looking at my stuff like you’re wandering around in a museum
or something.”
“The Museum of Nate. Very masculine.” Eric quirked a smile as he
touched the tip of a bat on a baseball trophy. “My room at my mom’s and
Bill’s place is the spare room now. Nothing like this; we moved so much I
never really accumulated anything. Or what I did keep usually got lost in a
move at some point. This is cool.” He leaned in, peering at another trophy.
“Good Citizen Award, hmmm.” He narrowed his eyes at me skeptically.
“Soccer wasn’t my sport, obviously.”
He chuckled and picked up a picture of my mom, dad, and me on
graduation day. “Your family is so…normal.”
I snorted. “You expected us to be like something out of Texas Chainsaw
Massacre?”
“Nah. I don’t know.” He seemed to consider for a moment. “Reminds
me of when I was a kid and learned the term American Dream. I didn’t
understand the concept at first. This place is like…” His gaze jumped from
my bookshelves to my desk. “Standing in the middle of a snow globe
depiction of it.”
I followed his gaze to a couple of the posters on my wall, one of a girl
in a bikini, the other an MC Escher print. “It gets shaken up every now and
again.”
“I guess,” Eric said, sounding unconvinced. He poked through my
closet for a few minutes, then wandered over to my nightstand, bending to
look at a photo of me and some of my high school buddies.
I pointed a couple of them out. “That’s Paul and Jensen. You’ll probably
meet them when we go out tonight. They’re cool, though.”
Eric murmured something and yanked open my nightstand drawer.
“Go ahead, rummage through my shit.” He glanced at me over his
shoulder and grinned, raising his brows as he pulled out a bottle of lotion
wordlessly. “Standard issue for every dude, right?” I chuckled as he opened
the cap and sniffed it.
“Smells like baby powder.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Yeah, think I yanked it from my mom in
desperation last time I was home.”
“Desperation, huh?”
I licked my lips, my heart rate picking up as he opened the cap, poured
some of the lotion in his hands, and rubbed it between his palms, watching
me. Fuck if I didn’t get stuck in a weird compare and contrast moment, that
afternoon with Mark being the linchpin; if it’d never happened, I imagined
that right now Eric would call me over, crook his stupid fucking finger at
me, and slide those slick hands down my pants, then drive me out of my
mind while I tried to keep quiet. But he only cupped his hands to his nose
and inhaled, and I turned away to hide the threat of a boner, relieved when
my mom’s voice called us down.
Football blared in the background as she bustled around in the kitchen,
glancing up at us as we came in.
“Will you go look in the laundry room for my centerpiece? Think it’s in
a box somewhere. Maybe on a pile of other stuff. Eric might need to help.”
“The big turkey thing with feathers?” I groaned.
She beamed at me, undeterred by the reluctance in my expression.
“That’s the one.”
I jerked my head toward the hallway, and Eric followed along behind
me. “This thing’s a monstrosity. Ugly as shit. Some handmade thing with
real turkey feathers from, like, 1960. I have no idea why she wants to put it
out every year.”
Eric grinned as my mom called out, having overheard. “It was Grandma
Barbara’s. It’s a tradition.”
“One that needs to die,” I hollered back.
In the laundry room, Eric and I surveyed the stacked plastic bins and
boxes until I located the one on the very top of the utility shelves and
marked with a “T. Centerpiece.”
“That’s it. Will you hold the other boxes? I knocked the whole thing
down on me last year. Was a bitch to pick up.” I waded through a couple of
laundry baskets on the floor toward the shelf. “I don’t know why she
doesn’t put it in the garage to decay with all the other junk she’s forgotten
about.”
I approached the boxes and stood on my toes to try to grab the top of the
bin so the unsecured top wouldn’t fly off. Eric steadied the boxes my chest
brushed over as I stretched.
Having him that close to me again, his solid mass behind me far too
familiar and charged, unnerved me as I tried to coax the bin forward. It got
caught on something halfway off the shelf and the loose top slid free,
knocking me in the head a split second before Eric caught it and pulled it
off to the side, letting it thunk to the ground.
 “All right?” I felt his fingertips land softly at my waist as I wobbled on
the balls of my feet. They vanished as soon as I flinched, but the tingly
reminder lingered like an itch I couldn’t reach.
“Fine. I got it.”
Eric’s hand reappeared above my head, fingers spreading over the
underside of the box as I eased it out, his chest brushing against my back,
lightly, but it might as well have been a wrecking ball the way the impact
moved through me and threatened to knock me on my ass. I forced my
breathing to slow. Told myself to relax. “Said I got it,” I groused, and he
dropped his hand, taking a step back as I turned around and set the box
down between us.
Bending, I pushed aside the newsprint wrapping and glanced up at Eric,
finding his gaze on me, a recognizable flare of heat in his eyes that I had to
look away from. Jesus fucking Christ, I couldn’t do this for the next four
days. Everything between us felt like a moment hanging on the edge, each
of us struggling to maintain some weirdly delicate sense of balance. I
wondered if he was thinking the same thing, because a second later, he
cleared his throat and hefted up the box, peering at the hideous brownish
yellow mass of glue and turkey feathers as he started for the door. “You’re
right, this thing is pretty fucking bad.”
“I heard that, Eric. Don’t give me ideas that you’re a bad influence on
my son,” my mom teased.
I knew the fucker was grinning when he replied, “You’ve got it
backwards, Mrs. S.”
My ass.

M OM PUT us to work in the kitchen lining pans with aluminum foil, handing
down various dishes she kept up above the fridge for special occasions. We
shuffled around like minions, and honestly I didn’t mind. Anything to keep
me moving and focused on something other than Eric’s quick smiles with
my mom and how easy it was to see she liked him immediately.
She frowned as she opened the liquor cabinet and peered inside. “I
could’ve sworn I picked up more wine the other day. Honey, will you go
check the garage?”
I headed out to the garage and returned empty-handed. “Nada.”
“Did you look in the—”
 “In the cabinet, in the boxes by the door, all around the workbench, in
your car, and Dad’s golf bag just to be sure.” I chuckled as she waved me
off.
“Such a smart-ass. Will you run and grab some, then? Three reds, two
whites? No, make that three whites.”
I nodded, checking my back pocket for my wallet. “Boone’s Farm,
right? I heard last year was an especially good vintage.”
She scowled at my smirk. “I’ll make a list.”
Once she’d finished, Eric picked up the list and was in the process of
folding it when I snatched it from between his fingers. “I’ve got it.” Felt
like that was all I was saying lately, which was ironic because I so didn’t. I
didn’t have anything at the moment aside from a grocery list, a perpetual
phantom boner, and a strong desire to get out of the house for a while so I
could breathe again. So far, bringing Eric home with me was proving the
worst decision I’d made all year. He had to be regretting it, too. I wasn’t
sure what kind of insanity had caused him to stop me in the driveway in the
first place unless he was a bigger masochist than I apparently was. “I’ll run
to the store. I’m sure you could use an extra set of hands, right, Ma?”
Her gaze lingered on me, and then she shot glance at Eric before
nodding and smiling warmly at him. “An extra pair of hands is always
welcome. How are you with pies, Eric?”
“Eating them or making them?” Eric studied me an extra beat, and I
turned away to grab the car keys and head to the front door, hearing my
mom’s soft laughter as I went.
“Two peas in a pod, I see.”
I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

I RETURNED A HALF HOUR LATER , one angsty nut lighter. It hadn’t even felt
good. I’d sat in the darkened driveway and busted it out by sheer force and
friction, thinking the rush of endorphins would kick in and make me feel
better the way I did at the end of a workout. Instead of thinking about Eric,
the only visual I’d permitted was of a porn scene I’d watched the other
night where two guys and a chick went at it under some bleachers after a
football game.
 After, I tossed the wadded-up fast-food napkin I’d cleaned myself up
with into the trash and carried the boxes toward the door. Maybe I did feel a
little lighter actually. Maybe these next four days didn’t have to be as
horrible as I was making it out to be in my head. Eric had supplied the
logical resolution I’d failed to think of. It all made perfect sense. I didn’t
want to get caught with him. Eric didn’t want me to hate him if we did.
Made perfect fucking sense.
“Come look,” Mom said, as I came back into the kitchen with the wine.
She and Eric were standing next to each other at the island with his phone
between them. I came around the side of the counter, setting the boxes
down, and leaned in see as Eric thumbed through his photos, stopping here
and there on various images I couldn’t make out from where I was. My
shoulder brushed up against his when I jigsawed in next to them. I ignored
the alluring warmth and scent of him and was proud of myself. It was just a
fucking body, after all.
“That one’s my favorite,” my mom said, as Eric paused on a complex
line drawing of a skyscraper. “Such detail.”
“From one of my core classes. Architectural drawing.”
“Well, you’re gifted at it.” She flashed Eric a smile and he explained the
concept, his elbow rubbing up against mine, maybe on purpose, maybe not.
I couldn’t be sure, but I took a step backward anyway and picked up the
bottles of whites I’d brought in with me and the case of beer I’d grabbed
last minute. “Gonna put these out in the garage fridge.” My mom nodded
absently, still focused as Eric scrolled through photos.
When I returned, she was filling bowls with vegetable beef soup. “I
assume you’re going out tonight, so you two better load up on the
cornbread. No passing out at the table tomorrow.” She handed a bowl off to
Eric as my dad wandered in. “Has Nate ever told you about the time I found
him passed out in the backyard?”
“Eh, the kid was just getting some early-morning sun.” My dad clapped
me on the shoulder with a wink.
“Surprised the crap out of me. Almost made me spill my coffee.” Her
expression was warm with good humor, though.
“I’ve known him to turn up in some surprising places before, yeah.”
Eric flashed me a wicked grin, and I cleared my throat.
“You’re one to talk.”
T HE B ARREL WAS PACKED with other college kids home for break, and we
were lucky to get a table, though we were mostly only using it as a landing
spot for our buckets of beer as we traveled back and forth between the pool
tables and darts.
Eric and I had already taken down Paul and Mike in pool, and everyone
seemed cool with one another, even if Eric was a little quiet. I kept catching
myself observing him, gauging for signs of boredom or discomfort. College
wasn’t high school, though, and mostly we were about hanging out and
getting drunk. Mike, who was probably the most outgoing of us all, was the
only one who actually attempted to converse with Eric beyond the usual
game banter happening as we kept track of the screens scattered over the
bar. Jensen leaned up against the table next to me as I cracked a new beer
and passed one off to Eric, as well. He and Mike were both staring at one of
the screens.
“Here comes Shana and her crew.” Jensen inclined his chin toward the
front door over my shoulder.
Before Eric, that would have sent a thrill of possibility straight to my
dick. Shana was hot, and we’d fooled around before on breaks here and
there. It’d always been great. I twisted around to look toward the entrance
as the group of five spilled through. Shana was a tall, willowy blonde, and
cool as hell. I’d had a huge boner for her in high school, but she’d dated
some college douche through most of it. I had no idea what had happened to
him, but it obviously hadn’t worked out in the long run. Shocker.
She waved to us as they approached the bar, and sent a wink my way
that I returned with a grin. Not that my dick was more than half-heartedly
interested. Eric and Mike had turned around and were now watching, too.
“Any idea who that dark-haired girl is?” Jensen asked generally.
“No clue.” Mike cocked his head, his eyes narrowing. “Maybe a friend
who came home with her?” He nudged Eric’s shoulder. “There you go,
dude. Don’t say I never did anything for you.”
Eric laughed, but it didn’t sound at all genuine, and he shot a look over
at me that I met with a shrug and a smile as the girls closed in, loaded down
with glasses and the shitty sweet shots that came in test tubes and tasted like
sugar water and chemicals.
 Greetings and hugs went around, and then the girls distributed the shots
and we all drank up.
An hour later, I had a good buzz going. Our whole crew did. My pool
game was getting sloppy, and Jensen was regularly hitting the wall instead
of the dartboard, so we took the next logical step, joining the other revelers
on the dance floor. Not five minutes later, Jensen was making out with the
hot dark-haired girl, who turned out to be a cousin of Shana’s, while Mike
danced with a girl who hadn’t come in with Shana but I thought I vaguely
remembered from another high school. Shana stuck close to me, and she,
Eric, Mike, and her other friend Leslie kinda danced in a group together
until Mike and Leslie paired off, leaving the three of us.
An awkward shuffle ensued, and Eric turned like he was about to head
back to the table when Shana reached out and tugged his shirt at the same
time she snagged mine, pulling us in closer as she laughed and shouted over
the music. “I don’t consider three a crowd.” She twined her arms around
Eric’s neck and then rested her head back on my shoulder as we moved and
yeah, it was fucking hot, the way her body pressed against mine, and I
could feel the three of us slip into the tempo and synchronize.
Shana ran her hands through Eric’s hair and let her eyes fall shut with a
happy hum that reverberated against my chest. Eric’s amused gaze locked
to mine, a smile ghosting his lips. His hands were anchored to Shana’s hips,
while mine fell just above, along her waist. But somehow, as we moved, our
hands ended up half-intertwined and overlapping and my palms started to
go damp.
I wondered what Eric was like with women. Was he as dominant or
softer? Did he tell them to get down on their knees and take out his cock, or
was he the one on his knees, lifting up a skirt, unbuttoning jeans, pressing
his mouth to their skin with his hands all over the place doing their wicked
magic as he said, “Come for me?” The vision curdled in my stomach at the
same time it aroused me.
Eric blinked slowly at me, that enigmatic hunter’s gleam to his eye as
his thumb brushed over my knuckles just once and then vanished so quickly
I wasn’t sure whether or not it’d actually happened or if I’d just imagined it.
I sucked in a breath, barely suppressing a groan as Shana wriggled
between us, her eyes flashing open as she smiled. “You’re both very much
enjoying this.” I knew what she meant. My hard-on was prodding her ass
shamelessly. “I’d be down, if you two are. I’ve always wanted to with two
hot guys.”
Oh Jesus. Not that I wasn’t considering the potential in some parallel
universe. It’d be kinda hot maybe? No, it would. It would definitely be hot.
A flare of possessiveness in my stomach lodged a different argument,
though. I might be too greedy, and it wasn’t worth entertaining for long,
because I sure as shit wasn’t in the mood to do it now. Would Eric? I
studied him openly. I bet he would. Dude was a fucking libertine. I had no
problem imagining him in the middle of some orgy. Shit, he’d probably be
leading it. Was there a leader for orgies?
Eric smiled flawlessly, charmingly. “I wish, but I’m seeing someone.”
I blinked. My jaw might’ve dropped. It definitely twitched. Maybe my
eye, too.
“Figures.” Shana lolled her head on my shoulder, and I could feel her
gaze settling on me next, the question obvious if silent as she reached up
and caressed my cheek. I glanced at Eric, watching his expression shift, his
jaw going tight at the passage of Shana’s hand down my face. A shiver of
vindication ran through me.
I was tempted to turn my head and kiss her, to give Eric a real dose of
jealousy. The other half of me was tripping over the fact that he was clearly
jealous in the first place. Mr. Calm, Cool, and Collected getting his panties
in a wad. Fuck, that was refreshing. I almost laughed out loud but instead
squeezed Shana’s fingers gently as I drew them away from my face. “I just
got out of something and it’s still a little…uh…fresh.” Hi, my name is Nate
and I’m lame. Jesus. What the hell was I talking about? You could easily
argue that being newly single was the perfect time for a random threesome.
Except that my fresh wound was sandwiching the intended filling of said
proposed threesome.
“Awww, I’m sorry. What happened, did she cheat?” Shana’s voice
carried over the music, sharpening at the end.
I flicked another look at Eric, who was staring at me intently now, traces
of amusement still in his eyes. I didn’t think it was so amusing. “Nah,
nothing like that. We just had a difference of opinion on things.”
“She got nervous about the return on her investment,” Eric said, tilting
his head meaningfully.
“She shouldn’t have thrown her chips into the pot to begin with, then.”
“She has a hard time turning down a good hand.”
 I snorted, and Shana looked between us curiously before she squinted at
me. “I’m kinda getting the impression she’s one of those girls who plays a
lot of games? Maybe you’re better off without her.”
I nodded. “That’s exactly how she was. She knew I liked it, though.
Knew it kept me right on the edge and drove me batshit fucking crazy. It
got pushed too far, though.”
“That part wasn’t solely her fault.” Eric lifted a brow.
“You’re right. But the part where she acted like a bitch about it—”
Shana looked confused now, and I waved my hand. “You know what, it
doesn’t matter. It’s over.”
“The ones who are the biggest players always end up falling the hardest.
She’ll get what’s coming to her, don’t worry,” Shana said sagely, twisting
around to pat my chest as Eric rolled his eyes. Then she took our hands.
“C’mon, if I’m not getting my threesome fantasy, let’s go get obliterated.”

I DIDN ’ T GET OBLITERATED , though. I took a shot and had another beer, my
mind helicoptering all over the place, thinking about what she’d said,
thinking about what Eric had said—both on the dance floor and earlier in
the car.
When the bar closed down, we all piled into an Uber van and headed
toward Shana’s since she was staying in the garage apartment at her
parents’. Whatever sobriety we’d all regained while dancing was washed
away with more booze once we got there. Jensen disappeared into Shana’s
bedroom with her cousin, and they didn’t even try to be quiet. Mike made
out in a corner with the chick he’d been dancing with at the bar, and Shana
and Eric were waging a Mario Kart battle against each other while I tried to
be interested in whatever the hell Paul was slurring about some upcoming
football games. But I wasn’t. We’d probably all hung out like this a ton of
times over the years, getting stupid, hooking up, playing drinking games. In
my peripheral vision, I was constantly tracking Eric, noticing every time he
laughed or Shana nudged his shoulder, and now I was the one who was
jealous, though I knew he wouldn’t hook up with her. I knew it, but it didn’t
matter—the feeling still came, rolling over me like darkness, setting my
teeth on edge, and finally I’d had enough. I stood abruptly, finished off the
rest of my beer, and chucked my empty cup on the counter as I held out my
fist for Paul to bump. “I’m out.”
 “Take it easy, man. Tomorrow night?” he asked, and I shrugged.
“Maybe.”
“Nooooooo,” Shana pouted as Eric dropped his controller and stood.
“You can stay,” I told him. “I’ll leave the back door unlocked. There’s a
path from Shana’s that runs behind the houses. Not hard to see. Eight
houses down to the right.”
Eric cast a glance down at Shana and gave her a conciliatory smile.
“Nah, I’m ready. She’s about to kick my ass anyway.”
“Someone needs to,” I muttered, maybe not as quietly as I thought since
Paul gave me a funny look.
“TBC?” Shana batted her lashes at Eric, and I barely managed to check
an eye roll.
I didn’t hear Eric’s response because I was already heading down the
hall, slinging my coat over my shoulders and opening the door. A half
minute later, I heard his footfalls behind me as I hit the grass and stumbled
toward the path between the trees. We were having one of those weird
warm spells, and with all the alcohol coursing through me, too, I really
didn’t need the coat, but I shoved my hands in my pockets as I stalked
through the underbrush that had built up on the path just so I wouldn’t
fidget or be tempted to…I didn’t know what.
With each step I grew needlessly angrier, and I recognized that as
mostly the alcohol’s fault. I thought I’d done a good job earlier detaching
from the whole bullshit situation with Eric. Or at least appearing as if I had.
But now I was churning in the big red sea of it and struggling to hold
myself together. The sound of his footsteps didn’t help. They sounded like a
countdown, and I just hoped I could make it into the house and shut myself
in my room before I exploded and did something stupid.
“Nate.”
Fuck.
“Not in the mood right now, dude.” I kept walking and didn’t look back.
The crunch of leaves underfoot grew louder as he closed in.
“I had zero intention of hooking up with her. Hey, I’m not int—” Eric’s
hand closed around my shoulder, and it was like that point of my body
became ground zero for the detonation that happened inside of my chest.
“I know!” I grated out, and I didn’t remember my feet moving, or
grabbing him, but suddenly my torso was compressed against his, the sound
of nylon scratching against rough bark as his back hit the tree I’d shoved
him into. His heart hammered against mine. “I don’t give a shit about
Shana, you fucker. It’s you, it’s…”
Eric’s breaths came hard and fast as I pressed my full weight against
him until I could feel the effort it took for him to draw air in the way his rib
cage shuddered against me. He flinched around the eyes but remained still.
I waited for him to grab me, spin me around, push me away, something.
But he just stood there letting me make a sandwich of him and the tree. “Do
you think about me?” I winced as soon as I’d spoken because what a stupid
fucking question. How much more transparent could I possibly be? But I
wanted to know if I’d infected his every fucking thought the way he’d
infected mine. If he could go a solid ten minutes having forgotten I existed.
Because I couldn’t. He was wrapped around my reality now.
Eric lifted his hands like he was making a show of surrender, and then
they kept rising, turning to grip the tree trunk above his head. “Every
goddamn day. All the time.” There was no hesitation in the reply, and fuck
if that didn’t catch me off guard. I was ready for an argument or some
smart-ass quip, not a confession.
He gritted his teeth as I pressed harder into him. I could feel his dick
stiffening, smell his arousal mingled with my own. My weight against him
had to be verging on tortuous by now, and I really had no idea what I was
doing or where I thought I was going with this line of questioning. My
biceps and forearms strained with the pressure of holding him against the
tree, and it felt fucking electric. I wedged my knee between his thighs and
pressed, feeling the smallest arch of his hips into me. “Good.”
“Good?” He let out a choked laugh, and I crammed my hand down
between us, cupped him, and gave a little twist of my wrist that made him
flinch again. His lips parted and a soft, breathless gasp leaked out.
He fucking liked it.
“Fuck,” he gritted out as I squeezed harder, and I caught the sear of pain
through his eyes that time. “Are you about to rip it off or stroke it?”
“It’s a toss-up.” I honestly wasn’t sure. Running on alcohol fumes and
without a plan was really fucking bad form. My head swam and my thought
processes clogged between that last beer at Shana’s and the stiff dick
pressed against my palm.
“Well, make a fucking decision before I pass out and you’re perving on
deadweight.”
 I let off some of the pressure and Eric’s chest expanded harshly as he
gulped in a deep breath, his gaze following as I kept my forearm against his
chest, fumbled his pants open with my other hand, and pulled out his cock,
so stiff and swollen and ready. He huffed through his nose, his eyes falling
shut and his face tensing as I stroked him roughly. I didn’t want it to feel as
good as it did to touch him, but after weeks of nothing, fuck, just his
expression lit me up. The moan that followed my thumb rubbing over his
head made my balls tighten up in warning. His dick was like iron, wet at the
tip, hot in my hand, and I almost lost my resolve as he started rolling his
hips against my touch, pushing himself harder into my grip. I still didn’t
know what the hell I was doing or why, only that my entire body felt like
this fucked-up miasma of ache and fury that desperately needed some kind
of outlet, that wanted him to be as screwed up over all of this as I was.
“Nate, listen.”
Speed bump. My stroking ground to a halt. He wasn’t supposed to talk
right now. We’d already talked. That ship had sailed; we’d both stood on
the shore and given it the finger as it passed by. And he especially wasn’t
supposed to say my name like that, so soft and wrecked.
“Nope.” I let go of Eric’s dick, pushed off him, and started down the
path again, the smug smile on my face feeling clunky and wrong because I
was being a drunken idiot, giving in to petulance and immaturity. What I’d
just done was all of those things because I’d done it with vicious intent to
fuck with him. No, don’t think about that. He deserves it. He—
My knees hit the ground, and the twigs snapping beneath me sounded as
loud as gunshots on the otherwise empty path. A dull pain spread through
my kneecaps, and then I was shoved onto my back. My arms swung blindly,
landing with a thud on some part of Eric, maybe his ribs. He caught me by
the elbows, spread my arms wide, and forced them down, the awkwardness
of the angle giving me no leverage to push back against. His weight on top
of me was heavier than I remembered.
“Get the fuck off me, Eric,” I growled, levering my hips off the ground
to try to unseat him. He doubled down by throwing his weight back into his
ass, then hovering over me as he forced my thighs down with his calves.
“No. You’re going to listen to me for five fucking seconds.” He
tightened his knees around my hips.
“There’s nothing to say. We’re friends, whatever. I don’t give a shit
now.”
 “Bullshit,” Eric snarled and recentered his weight as I twisted, trying to
rise from my shoulders this time. He bore down on my elbows until I
relented. And fuck, I liked it, could feel myself chubbing up again with the
struggle and the solidity of him on top of me forcing me still. His
expression held a fury I’d never seen in him before; it burned white-hot in
his eyes and flared his nostrils. “I want you. That’s never been the fucking
issue. Jesus Christ, I fucking want you. All the time, every day. To the edge
of my own goddamn sanity, I want you—”
I made some sound too embarrassing to bear and folded like a damn
soggy cardboard box. I didn’t know how long he would’ve kept going,
every hard spot on his body grinding into me like he was trying to turn me
to ash, but I couldn’t take another second of him looking at me that way, his
hair wild and his gaze untethered and raw, smoldering into me. So I kissed
him, twisted my wrist in his grip until his skin burned against mine, fire
shot through my forearm, and he relaxed long enough for me to wrench free
and yank him down by the collar.
For a second, it was just our lips smashed together, surprise in the grunt
that fell across my chin as we knocked into each other. Then Eric responded
like a fucking savage, all teeth and tongue invading and taking. I seized his
mouth, his lower lip, whatever I could get at until I tasted the tinge of blood
and wasn’t sure whose it was. For a handful of seconds, it was more
combustion than desire, all that furious chemistry flowing between us and
igniting like magma. Incendiary to the point of pain. That’s what it felt like.
The groan I let out rang of desperation to my own ears, saturated with
the knowledge that no one else made me feel the way Eric did, that I didn’t
think anyone else could.
His erection ground into me, and when he drew back, his gaze was still
hot and agitated. In it, I could finally see what I hadn’t earlier, the troubled
kid he’d called himself. The fire starter, the outlet seeker.
“You want to know that I’m suffering. That’s what it is, isn’t it? You
want to see me suffering? Then fucking look at me. Because I am.” His
pupils were huge in the darkness, his eyes a glossy mirror that reflected the
same longing I knew I had to be projecting, even if I was still wiggling
around beneath him. In his expression, those glimpses of vulnerability I’d
caught on other occasions were made into a whole laid bare before me.
Eric slid a hand through my hair and held me still. “You were right.
What you said in my room that night about whether I could get over you? I
can’t. I’m fucking wrecked. I want to be with you, asshole, so name the
terms, because I can’t do it for you. I can’t make any of these choices for
you any more than I can stop wanting you. I thought I could and I can’t. It
has to be you who makes the call.” He paused, chest rising and falling in
ragged heaves as he searched my face, clearly waiting for me to say
something, but I was speechless. Fucking speechless. Wrecked, he’d said.
I’d wrecked him. The meaning spread through me, and it didn’t feel in any
way like righteous vengeance. It just thumped around restlessly in my chest
and hurt.
He closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, then opened them again,
swiping the heel of his hand across his chest to dislodge a leaf that had
gotten stuck there. His grip on me lightened by a fraction. “If you want me
to stop, say it. I’ll leave right now and you can tell your folks my mom
made it back after all. Because you and I both know I can’t stay.”
Stop. Four simple letters. Like love. Like hate. I tried. I tested it out, felt
the word form in my mouth, felt the logical composition of letters. But if I
let it out, it’d be the biggest fucking lie I’d ever told, and I was tired of
lying to everyone. But mostly to myself. Exhausted, really. Eric and I got
each other on some primal, subdermal level that maybe I’d never fully
understand, and I was fucking kidding myself trying to fight it. So that left
me with what? Was my best hope that someday enough time would pass
that I’d forget about him and my heretofore vanilla existence would
somehow be fine again?
Fuck that.
This time when I tested the restraint of his hands around my wrists, he
gave easily, and I meant to shove him off me, I really did. Talk it out like
normal people or, shit, just apologize for being a drunken idiot. But the
shove never came. My hand landed on his chest and instead of pushing,
wrapped around his shirt and pulled. “I want you to stay. Want you…” I
stuttered it out and let out an exasperated noise, seizing his waistband to
hitch his ass higher as I arched into him seeking friction, seeking pressure,
seeking the good shit only he could give me. “I want you.” It came out
hoarse, almost a whisper, so I said it again because the words deserved to be
in bold and certain, regardless of how speaking them squeezed around my
heart like a vise and made me feel dizzy. When I threw my forearm over my
eyes, Eric dragged it away and pressed it to my side. He held it there, then
grabbed the other, pinning both with his knees. His hands moved under my
shirt, the chill in them lifting goose bumps over my skin as he pulled it up
and bent to kiss the side of my neck. I swallowed under the pressure of his
lips, his heat moving across my throat and burning through my cheeks.
“Then I’ll stay.” He made it sound so fucking simple. Maybe it was. Maybe
it could be.
Relief, joy, and need twined through me. I wrenched my hands from
beneath Eric’s knees, the friction of denim scoring my knuckles as I reached
for his waist and tugged at the button of his jeans. We could figure
everything else out later. Right now I wanted a hit of him, wanted to feel
him burning through my core and tangled around me, pushing me all the
way to my limits as he took me apart.
“We should go somewhere else.” His voice was rough with the same
desire I felt, and I was too impatient.
“No.” The shake of my head brushed my lips against his. “Here. I want
it. I fucking need it.” Like I was some junkie sweating it out in detox.
Eric glanced around us. The forest was quiet, the path overgrown with
stiff, dead grass, and the only sound aside from our breaths was the distant
whine of heat pumps kicking on. It had to be close to four in the morning,
the dead zone of night. He gave me a gauging look, then pushed my hands
from his fly, unbuttoned my jeans, and pulled my zipper down as he spit
into his fist. His hand around my cock was the purest relief I’d ever felt, and
the rough strokes he gave my shaft ignited me so fast and hot I almost
choked on something that was dangerously close to a sob. I squeezed my
eyes shut, not sure where the hell that’d come from—the alcohol, the sheer
relief of giving in to exactly what I’d wanted all day. No, weeks.
The heat of Eric’s palm seared across my cheek, the thrust of his tongue
into my mouth like liquid fire, and I lapped it up like an arsonist, addicted
to the way he scorched through me. In seconds I was gasping for air and
bucking into his grip, about to lose it.
“Gonna come for me or make me work harder for it?” Eric moved away
long enough to spit on his palm again, and then he was back, pumping me
so relentlessly the friction made my spine twist on the ground like a
sidewinder.
“Yes,” I choked out, then shook my head, my eyes flying open as I
shoved his hand away. “Wait. No. Not yet.” What if tomorrow he changed
his mind? What if it was just the alcohol talking? Damned if I was going to
waste this opportunity on a hand job, even a really fucking good one.
 Eric laughed softly and my body shuddered in protest, ache backing up
in my balls and making them throb. Then came the pressure of his hands on
my hips and my shoulders as he yanked me up to sitting position.
We moved in a blur. He tore his coat off, tossed it aside, and helped me
with mine when it got stuck around my elbows.
“You got anything?” I mumbled into another feverish kiss. “Don’t care
if you don’t. You could always do what you did last time. In the…um…in
the shower.” Smooth, Nate.
“Liked that, huh?” Damn that cocksure smile. Eric wrapped me with
one arm, the other undoing his pants, then sliding up under my shirt.
“Yeah,” I breathed out into the kiss he pressed to my lips and deepened.
Fuck yeah, I’d liked that. Thinking about how fast he’d sucked a nut from
me, how he’d bent me over and spread me and spit it out all over my ass,
then fucked my own jizz into me made another bolt of lust crackle through
my balls.
Eric rumbled in satisfaction as I closed my hand around his cock and
squeezed his shaft a couple of times until the growl became a groan. He
kept one arm around me while I stroked him, the other playing with me,
fucking with me, giving light pinches to my skin, my nipples, followed by
kneading caresses that somehow left me with goose bumps that had nothing
to do with the cold. It felt amazing. Pressure, a sliver of sting, then release,
over and over. The meat of my shoulders, the side of my rib cage. My entire
torso became a constellation of pleasure and pain echoing against each
other.
He brought his thumb to my mouth, rubbing my slick, swollen lips as he
drew back, the other hand wrapping over my fist on his cock and squeezing.
Precome dripped from his tip, sliding warm and silky over my fingers. “You
want this cock?”
Finally. Familiar territory. I started to nod before correcting myself.
“Fuck yes.”
Eric worked open the buttons on my shirt from the bottom up as his lips
moved over my neck. “You knocked the shit out of my ribs. Think you
bruised my back, too.” He didn’t sound angry. If anything, the words were a
sultry purr.
“Hope you aren’t hunting for an apology that you’re not gonna get.”
“Mmm. I’ll settle for some begging.”
 I gave him a skeptical grunt that collapsed into a sigh as his fingertips
teased my nipples and pecs. His teeth scraped over the hill of my shoulder
and sank in to the tender skin near my collarbone until I whimpered, and
then he hooked his fingers around my open shirt and pushed it wider,
exposing my chest as he shoved me back down. The ground was frigid and
scratchy against my lower back where my abandoned coat didn’t blanket
the leaves and underbrush, and my shirt had ridden up. It was colder than I
remembered. Or maybe I was sobering up. I shivered and Eric ran his arms
up and down my biceps briskly before sucking the skin from my sternum to
my naval, leaving behind a wet trail that glistened in the moonlight.
“Put your hands behind your head.”
Damp leaves gathered between my ears and biceps as I laced my fingers
behind my neck, the air I breathed in taking on an earthy tinge as Eric
dragged my jeans to just below my knees, then slid from my legs and
pushed my thighs up toward my chest and settled in front of my exposed
ass.
After some rummaging around, I glimpsed a flash of silver near Eric’s
mouth, and then a cold drizzle oozed down my crack. Trust Eric to always
be prepared for some down-and-dirty debauchery. The Boy Scout of
fucking on the fly. I let out a quiet breath, waiting to feel his fingers
working me open, anticipating the cool sting of invasion.
He ran his fingers up and down the backs of my thighs, and the longer
the seconds passed without him pushing inside me, the more exposed I felt.
What the fuck was he doing? My goddamn jeans were blocking the view,
which I hated. When I craned my neck, I could see his arm moving,
stroking himself maybe, and fuck I wished I could see it. I wiggled around
restlessly. “Take my jeans off. I feel like I’m hog-tied, and I can’t see shit.”
“That’s gonna add some lag time if someone comes and we have to
make a run for it.”
“No one’s coming but us. Hopefully in this century,” I added wryly.
Eric gave me a devilish grin in return. “No.”
“Goddammit.” I reached defiantly for one of my shoes, and the pad of
his thumb grazed my hole. The tiny amount of pressure he applied had me
sucking in a sharp breath. “You’re stubborn as shit,” I muttered when I
could form words again and sank back to the ground, defeated. He buried a
chuckle against my kneecap and nipped the thin skin, making it tingle and
convincing me there wasn’t a single spot on my body that wasn’t an
erogenous zone in his hands.
“Like you’re not.”
“I’m…” The rest trailed off into a wispy gurgle of forgotten protest as
Eric smacked his dick against my ass a couple of times before the blunt
head of his cock pushed against me. I tensed up and took another breath to
relax. “Fuck, I’m all out of practice.” Just his tip felt impossibly huge, and I
wriggled a little against the slippery crown as he took hold of my knee and
pressed it farther back with a grin.
“About to fix that.” He pushed inside me on a quiet curse, and there it
was: the fullness, the burn, the force of him that’d been so elusive in all the
days that’d come after the argument with Mark. I sucked in a deep breath of
chilly air that felt like a knife down my sternum as my body gave way and
made room for him, and Eric wrapped his fingers around my balls with a
squeeze. He stopped moving, held me still, his thumb pressed firmly into
my taint as a shiver rolled through me, trembling around my shoulders and
swaying down my spine. The throb of him inside me went maddeningly
quiet. Then I felt his cock twitch.
“Fuck, you’re something else.” His fingertips ran over my lips and
dipped just behind to come away wet. He teased the tips up and down my
shaft, pleasure dancing in fine points through my balls, trying to become
something larger. The series of steady, shallow thrusts that followed felt like
puffs of air, and I arched my back, trying desperately to force him deeper.
“Please.” It was shameless and needy, and I didn’t even fucking care
because a second later, Eric grabbed the denim pooled below my knees and
gathered it up into a thick band of fabric he forced back against me, using it
as leverage to thrust into me so hard my lower back came off the ground.
And Jesus did he start fucking me then. Jolts of stinging pleasure
cracked like lightning bolts through my body, creating a riot of sensation
that sizzled through my balls, my back, and the head of my dick like an
electrical storm. I felt him everywhere, each potent thrust guttering me out
and radiating through me.
“This what you want? Me destroying that tight hole?”
“Yes. Shit yes.” I gasped for air, only half-aware of his lust-thick grunts.
It was impossible for me to keep my arms behind my head. They flew up,
my hands closing over his where they gripped my jeans as his body
smacked noisily against me. Fuck, he felt massive plunging in and out of
me. It was like the first time all over again, the boundless thrill of him
owning my body’s responses and making me wild. My heart thundered in
my chest, and I broke out in a sweat despite the cool air washing over my
torso and the chilly ground leaching into my back. I chanted out garbled
encouragements and reached for my cock, gave the slick length a few
clumsy strokes, and saw starbursts of blue and white against the back of my
eyelids. Somehow we shifted because Eric’s voice came close to my ear
when he next spoke, low and breathless with arousal. “I know you want to
come, baby. But don’t. Not yet.”
He slowed to an agonizingly sedate rock inside me, and I opened my
eyes, now on my side as he hovered over me. I wondered if there’d ever be
such a thing as a quickie between us. I let go of my dick with a testy whine
that made him chuckle as he slid back inside me on a deep stroke that
glided over my prostate and morphed into a shudder that racked my
shoulders. My dick twitched threateningly. “Might not have a choice,” I
warned.
Eric released his grasp on my jeans and reached down to feather another
caress over my shaft. “I want that load filling the back of my throat the way
I’m about to fill your ass.” He flicked the head of my cock, and the nettling
sting biting back against the surge of pleasure was the only thing that kept
me from coming right then.
An electric hum speared through me as he thrust inside me again, and
when he told me to clench, I did and was rewarded with the heavy weight
of his body collapsing onto mine and the hot rush of his release flooding me
as he let out a curse, then a raw-throated moan. God, I’d be hearing that cry
in my head for weeks. I felt his jizz trickle between my cheeks, and he
pumped into me a few more times before he squeezed my ass and dropped
down next to me.
Without taking any time to bask in the afterglow of his orgasm, Eric slid
down, and I sighed out as he closed his mouth over my cock. Sweet, blessed
fucking suction drew me deep into the wet heat of his throat. His fingers
dug into one asscheek, and I tried to restrain myself for all of a second
before I gave in to the primal urge to thrust hard. He rolled onto his back
and carried me with him so that I was half-straddling, half-hovering over
his chest, hands splayed on the ground above his head as I fucked his
mouth.
 “Oh Jesus,” I whispered, because it was a fucking sight. I loved this
about him. Loved how he could order me around, shred every trace of my
own inhibitions, and fuck me until I teetered on the edge between feeling
used and worshipped, then turn around and let me do the same to him. I
didn’t quite understand the dynamic between us the way I had in other
relationships, but I sure enjoyed the shit out of it in moments like this.
I managed to get myself more upright and shove my jeans down to my
ankles so I could spread my thighs wider and take full advantage of Eric on
his back underneath me, swallowing my cock with every punch of my hips.
He squeezed the tops of my thighs, fingernails digging into my quads, and I
gripped the base of my dick, withdrawing to slap the tip over his lips a
couple of times and enjoying the stinging smear of his stubble. It felt good,
felt dirty, felt like us.
“Open your mouth,” I demanded, then my own dropped open in ball-
tightening pleasure as I rubbed my crown over his tongue and lips.
“Goddamn that’s hot.” His eyes fixed on my face, a glimmer of humor in
them for the fascination in my voice, I was sure.
Eric kept his gaze locked on me as I watched my dick slip and slide
around his mouth. His fingers slid into my ass, still slick with his come, and
the groan he let out hummed over my shaft as he sucked me back in. The
slow roll toward orgasm evaporated with a warning tingle as he stroked
over my prostate. I gasped and rocked back on him, then gave in to the
pressure in my balls and fucked his mouth the way he’d just fucked me,
hard and ruthless, with one hand twisting in his hair, daring him to stop me
or slow me down. I knew he wouldn’t. He fucking loved it just as much as I
did. I caught the edge of his teeth and hardly even noticed for the firm
pressure of his mouth against me, the feel of his tongue flicking and lapping
at my crown. When he grabbed the base of my dick and started pumping
my shaft into his throat, it was over.
I came on a rough-throated cry, and Eric tensed his hand on my thigh as
I flooded the back of his throat and kept going, letting him suck me dry
until I softened between his lips and all that was left of my muscles and
bones were little tremors.
I rolled to my side on the ground, not even caring about the damp and
cold or that my pants were still down around my ankles. Eric chased after
me, bracing on an elbow as he bent and kissed me hard with his slippery
mouth, his tongue coated in my release and the muddy commingling of his
taste and mine strangely exciting.
With another press of his lips to the corner of my mouth, he drew back
and stared down at me, watchful. “Say something.”
I shivered as the cold hit me all at once. “Can’t. Think I just shot my
capacity for coherent speech down the back of your throat.”
He chuckled. “That sounded pretty coherent to me.”
“Fluke,” I muttered and shifted around to drag my pants back up on my
hips.
After a few moments, Eric stood and tucked himself away with one
hand and offered his other out to help me up. He steadied me when my legs
wobbled as I rose. “How do you recover so fast?” I was limp with
exhaustion.
“Because I didn’t just spend five minutes face fucking the shit out of
someone?” He tugged up his zipper with a smirk. He had a point. “That was
sexy as hell, by the way. We should try it again sometime.”
“Maybe.” I tried and failed to hide a smile as I dusted the leaf bits from
myself, then turned around and let Eric pick a few from my back. We stood
there for a second, looking over the mess we’d made of each other, and then
Eric threw his head back and laughed. Just when I thought I was starting to
sober up, the full-bodied ripple of sound made me feel drunk all over again.
“What are the odds that your mom would buy into a story about us
getting into a fight with some kind of wildlife on the way home.”
“Not good.” I reached down to grab my jacket, then handed him his.
“Then we’ll just have to be extra quiet.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

T HE SMELL of coffee woke me, and I thrashed around in the bed for a
second trying to go back to sleep, hoping a second waking would be one
without the headache currently drumming my skull. I’d been drinking too
much. Even for me it was becoming excessive. I squeezed my eyes shut,
rubbing at them as if I could rub the lack of sleep away, and then opened
them again, dragging in a deep breath and resolving I’d cut back.
 The night caught up to me in a jigsaw of images: the cold forest floor on
my back, the shadow of Eric’s body over me. His hands on my thighs, his
cock in my ass. Jesus Christ, I want you. When I touched the side of my
neck and then my shoulders, the skin felt tender and raw. I smiled.
Throwing the covers from my legs, I stood, plucking at my waistband a
couple of times in a daze before I stumbled toward the door and opened it.
The water was running in the hall bath, light shifting around through the
cracked doorway as Eric moved. Something about the normalcy of those
sights and sounds filled me with happy relief, dulled my headache, and
made the faintly sour feeling in my stomach morph into a flutter.
I nudged the door until Eric moved to the side to let me in as he reached
to run the razor in his hand under the water and cast a careful gaze over me.
He was looking for regret, some sign that I was going to chalk last night up
to drunkenness and resume the cold-war stalemate we’d been locked in
before.
“Head’s killing me,” I muttered, standing half behind him as I ran a
hand over my bare chest. He wore only his jeans, water droplets scattered
over his shoulders, shaving foam remnants peppering his left cheek. After a
second, he lifted the razor to his jaw again, scraping down and pointing his
pinky toward a bottle of pills on the counter. “Same. Found those in the
drawer.”
I slid around next to him, popped the cap, and tossed the Advil back,
dipping my head to the sink to cup water from the faucet. I straightened and
wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “When did you leave?” The
sheets had been cold when I’d stretched my arm over where he’d lain next
to me after we’d finally gotten home. No one had heard us come in, thank
God.
“Right after you fell asleep. Didn’t want to chance running into your
parents.”
“Gimme that.” I stole the razor from his hands and ran it under the
water, then focused on a patch of scruff on the left-hand side where his jaw
met his neck. “You always miss this one spot.”
“I do?” He blinked at me, one hand rising touch the spot where I’d laid
the razor. I flicked my middle finger at his hand to keep it out of my path
and angled his head slightly to get to the tiny patch of hair. “Mm-hmm.
Probably no one ever notices it but me. It’s been driving me crazy for
weeks, though.”
 “Hmm.” A smile played over his lips as I finished up the spot and set
the razor down, rubbing the smooth skin with my thumb before letting my
touch trail down the side of his neck where his pulse beat strong. His eyes
widened in surprise when I leaned in to brush a quick kiss over the spot I’d
just cleaned up.
Leaning back against the counter, I exhaled deeply, meeting his eyes. “I
need you to be patient with while I…uhhh…figure this out.” I gestured
between the two of us and hoped that between the mishmash of words and
action, he’d get my drift.
Eric gave me an easy nod in response. “Not a problem.” For a second, I
wondered if he really meant it. Would he go months…longer, even,
sneaking around on the sly—and doing it far more carefully than before—if
I couldn’t get my shit together? At the same time, I felt no sense of pressure
in his lingering gaze.
After a moment, he picked the razor back up and went to work on the
right side of his face as I watched. I’d never really paid attention to a guy
shaving before. Of course, I hadn’t had a lot of opportunities either. And it
was just shaving, right? But you would’ve thought I was watching a fucking
three-ring circus the way I stood there fixated on the tips of Eric’s fingers
gently stretching the skin of his cheek, the way he swished the razor under
the water three times before shaking it and drawing it down the side of his
face in a precise, steady drag that had me salivating because somehow it
was perfectly him: smooth, well practiced, unhurried. He flicked his gaze
aside to me, then lower, a slow smile turning up his lips.
I glanced down at the semi starting to tent my boxers and groaned.
“Jesus, you fuck me up. Is it always going to be like this?”
He shrugged and blotted his face with a towel that he then snapped at
my chest. “I’m a pretty sexy bastard.”
I made a face at him, but he was. That had never been in question.
“Hungry?”
“Starving.”
When I started to move past him toward the door, Eric shot his arm out
to block me, and in a nanosecond, I found his palm in the center of my
chest as he shoved me up against the wall, his gaze locking to mine. God
that gaze and the way it coursed through me, made me feel vulnerable and
horny and understood all at once. “What I said last night wasn’t drunk
rambling or some ploy to get another fuck out of you. I meant every word.”
 I felt my jaw tighten, and my heart beat wildly against the palm of his
hand. I looked down at it pointedly, and he gave me a soft smile. “I know.
Same goes. Morning breath,” I warned, as he leaned in.
“Don’t give a shit. I like you dirty.” His lips brushed over mine once,
twice, and the last dregs of tension drain from me, like his touch had
loosened the plug that’d been holding it in. I reached for his waistband,
pulled him up against me, and let my hand skim over his flat stomach. Now
that I’d given myself permission, there was so much of him I wanted to
explore, so much I’d held myself back from doing, scared out of my mind
of what it might mean, what I’d be telling him with the action, or that he’d
know by my touch just how fucking much I wanted him and how
mindlessly stupid he made me. I thought he got it now, though, and that was
a relief, too.
Jesus, did we have time for a quickie? I was rock hard, grinding against
the hand Eric snuck down between us as he licked into my mouth, while my
fingers dug into his waist. I wanted to get down on my knees for him right
there and let him order me around with his cock down my throat or his
fingers while I jacked him off. I was on my way toward doing just that, my
shoulders sliding down the wall while his fingers wound through my hair
when my mom’s voice chirped out from downstairs. “You boys up? Could
use some help down here.”
“Definitely up,” I called out, and Eric snickered as I levered myself
back upright with a groan.
“To be continued,” he promised as he shoved the bathroom door wide
and bullied me through it.
“It’s a running theme for us, huh?” A moment’s hesitation ran through
me for the us, but Eric only laughed.
“Lucky we’re good at grand finales.”
Well, eventually.

I T WASN ’ T JUST the Finleys for Thanksgiving lunch. The Rosens came, too,
with their two preteen twins and a six-month-old baby that in the first half
hour managed to cram in the entire fucking pantheon of human emotion
from happy gurgling to a ragefest that ended in projectile milk vomit. My
mom darted around the kitchen like a dragonfly in overdrive, stress lining
her face over the last-minute addition. Even Dad was in there, trying to be
helpful before Mom finally shooed us all away.
“Nate, y’all take the kids outside to play some basketball or something.
Please,” she added, and I didn’t even give her any guff because I could hear
the strain in her voice. In the next second, she was barking at my father for
turning the oven on too hot.
“She does this every year,” I told Eric as we headed outside. “She
always thinks she knows who’s coming, then more people show up and she
panics. I don’t know why she bothers.”
Eric dribbled the basketball I tossed him a couple of times as the twins
dropped down at the edge of the driveway near the basketball goal. “She
must get something out of it,” he mused, then aimed at the net. The ball
bounced around the rim before swishing through and Ross, the Finleys’ ten-
year-old, retrieved it.
“I don’t know what, other than compliments on her cooking, which
she’ll dismiss anyway. Then tonight she’ll pop two Advil, pour a glass of
scotch, and say ‘never again.’ Watch.”
Eric grinned, then oofed as the basketball nailed him in the stomach. “A
little heads-up maybe?” he called to Ross, who grinned.
We made it through five slow rounds of H-O-R-S-E with Ross and his
incredibly uncoordinated sister, Jane, while the twins looked on, whispering
and giggling frequently.
“You’re cute,” the one whose name I was pretty sure was Lexi said
finally with a nod, as if they’d come to some sort of agreement and now
were now announcing the mutual judgment call. Eric cut a glance aside at
me as I dribbled back from under the net.
“That’s an S for you, boss,” I told Ross in passing, who muttered a yeah,
yeah. “Pretty sure that was for you,” I said, since Eric still had
bewilderment written all over his face.
“It was,” Lexi confirmed.
Eric blinked back over at them. “Uhhh, thank you.” And then the fucker
blushed. Actually blushed. It wasn’t full-on, but a tinge of pink loitered in
his cheeks and he turned away from the twins only to run into me.
“Watch where you’re going, dude,” I teased, taking a step back and
bouncing the ball a couple of times before passing it hard to him. “Didn’t
know a couple of girls could get you all discombobulated.”
 “What the fuck do you say to that without coming off as a perv?” He
passed the ball back to me and fumbled at my return pass.
“You are a perv.”
“Yeah, well, not that kind of perv.” Eric rolled his eyes and took his
shot, whiffing it by at least two feet.
“Keep it coming, girls,” I called over to them, then wiggled my brows at
Eric.
“Ass. I’ll get you back for that.”
“We’ll see,” I smirked and didn’t miss the flash of heat that passed
through his eyes. If we hadn’t been surrounded by rug rats, I imagined that
whole exchange would’ve ended differently. I mentally bookmarked that
fantasy to revisit later.

“S O HAVE you started job hunting yet?” Mrs. Finley asked, of course
catching me as I shoveled a bite of mashed potatoes in my mouth. I
swallowed fast and shook my head.
“Not yet. I still have a while to look and see what’s out there, but I’ve
got some places I’m eyeing.” Right. I was supposed to be thinking about
my future since that would happen at some point, rather than getting fucked
underneath a basketball net.
“DC,” my mom chimed in. “We have a senator friend who said he’d be
interested in interviewing Nate once he was closer to graduation.” She
beamed with pride, as if it was all a done deal when it was far from it. I had
no idea where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do with my degree yet.
Under the table, Eric’s foot nudged mine. It was light enough that it
could’ve been accidental. But the hand that brushed over my thigh wasn’t. I
banged my elbow hard on the table as I set my fork down, and saw Eric
smile from the corner of my eye as he let his hand fall away. I coughed out
an apology and then picked up my glass of water, taking a quick swig. “DC
is one of the places I’m looking at, yeah.” I should’ve known better than to
sit next to him. “I mean, yes, ma’am.”
Mrs. Finley turned to Eric next, her smile bright and polite, oblivious.
“And how about you, Eric? You’re majoring in structural engineering—did
I hear that right?”
 “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and God did he do manners well, that faint whiff
of an accent catching on the vowels and shooting straight to my gut in a bolt
of aural lust. Was it normal to find someone’s voice boner inducing? “And
I’m not sure yet either. I like the idea of contract work, but something
steady that keeps me in one place could be good, too. So I guess it just
depends.”
“On a girlfriend?” This time it was Lexi’s twin, Leena. She was bold,
I’d give her that. But no match for Eric’s prowess at evasion.
Eric grinned. “Who knows?”
“So do you have one?” Leena was undeterred, and it was almost funny
except for the cramp that had started in my side along with a feeling of
breathlessness. Possessiveness, desire, and anxiety simmered in an
uncomfortable brew.
“He’s too old for you,” Mrs. Rosen chided with a little laugh.
“Not in ten years.” Jesus Christ, this girl was relentless. Even my mom
looked humored now, sending a quick wink Eric’s way.
“I uhhhh…no, not really…” Eric scraped his fingertips down the side of
his jaw, lighting on the spot I’d cleaned up for him earlier, and before I
could think—really fucking think—about what I was doing, the bottom
dropped out of my stomach, my mouth opened, and…
“You’re looking at him. Meaning me. He’s my…he’s mine,” I
stammered out, just lobbed the awkward clusterfuck of grammar and poor
syntax on the table to sit there alongside the stupid turkey centerpiece. Why
I couldn’t say boyfriend, I had no idea. It sounded too cutesy for a guy who
regularly turned me inside out in amazing and obscene ways, while lover
sounded too fucking bourgeois. Mine was maybe too possessive, but since
Eric pretty much owned my body and all my thought processes, it seemed a
fair claim in return.
Someone dropped a piece of silverware against Grandma Barbara’s
china. I didn’t know who because my vision had gone blurry, even the
turkey centerpiece swimming in a sludge of brown feathers. I literally felt
the sweat break over my forehead and saliva pooling in the back of my
mouth. Mrs. Finley’s smile dimmed, then brightened again. Maybe I
imagined it. For a second I thought I was going to puke. My eyes darted
over faces, locking onto my parents—both of whom had their heads tilted to
opposite sides in an eerie reflection of each other. Eric’s gaze burned into
the side of my face, and I knew if I looked, I’d see surprise. So I didn’t
look.
“That’s kinda hot. So who—”
“Lexi,” Mrs. Rosen hissed, and Eric cracked up, his hand sliding over
my thigh again, his thumb making that sweeping arc like he’d done on
several occasions before. It floored me how much that tiny bit of motion
soothed me. Not completely; I was still sweating like a fool, my heart
sprinting like it was on a mission to break free of my chest, but the nausea
ebbed. I didn’t dare look at my parents again, certain I’d shocked the hell
out of them. They’d never given me any sign or inkling whatsoever that
they were homophobic, but then again I didn’t think I’d ever given them
any sign that I was anything other than a Grade A skirt chaser.
The baby burst into a loud cry, breaking through the weird tension and
forcing me to take back the mean thoughts I’d had about the little hell-raiser
earlier as Mrs. Rosen picked him up and shh’d him. Thank you, grumpy
baby.
“This centerpiece is fantastic, Lana. Is it an antique?” Mrs. Finley
asked, and my mom sounded grateful as she launched into an overly
enthusiastic spiel about how Grandma Barbara had made it herself with real
turkey feathers. My dad kept quiet, though, and I could feel his stare like a
shadow in the desert falling cool across one side of my body.
Blindsiding parents at Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t the suavest of tactics,
but the more I sat there and thought about it as conversation resumed, the
more it seemed like maybe the best time. If I’d tried to make some formal
announcement to them, who fucking knew how long it would’ve taken me
to work my way up to that? I wanted to be with Eric, I knew that without a
doubt. This was just the beginning of the proving grounds.
As the chatter around us grew louder, I took a deep breath and focused
on my plate and on the feeling of Eric’s hand on my knee. He’d stopped
rubbing his thumb over my jeans, and now there was just the silent presence
of his touch. Oddly enough, it was the only place on my body that didn’t
feel like it was overheating or freezing.
“Okay?” His voice came low and inconspicuous probably to everyone
except my dad.
I gave him a short nod. “Yeah.” Never mind I had trouble swallowing
my next bite of food. I set my fork down and reached for the wine I’d
hardly touched and took a good long swallow, then another until I felt my
stomach settle underneath the warmth of the wine coating it. No one was
fucking dying because I liked a dick up my ass, after all.

I LEANED over the bathroom sink, slurping water from the faucet, then
turned it off and swiped my face against my shirtsleeve before opening the
door and immediately startling. “Fuck!”
Eric bit the smile forming over his lower lip and shook his head. He was
leaning against the opposite wall and made no move to leave it behind. His
smile ebbed as I flicked off the bathroom light and just stood there, running
my hands up and down my biceps.
“Your timing was…interesting. Unexpected.”
I snorted. “Tell me about it. I wondered for a second if my dad stroked
out.” I moved past Eric into my bedroom, jerking my head to show he
should follow me in. He trailed behind, diverging as I turned on a couple of
lamps. “It just sort of came out, and I guess I figured if not now, when? It’s
not a big deal, right?”
“Depends. Is it?” Eric shoved his hands in his pockets as I walked a
couple of paces to pick up the clothes on the floor and toss them toward the
laundry basket. My shirt and jeans from last night were wrecked with mud
stains and still damp in places.
“In the grand scheme of life? No. Or it shouldn’t be.”
Eric’s mouth twitched, almost imperceptibly, but I’d watched him
closely enough to recognize the subtle disagreement in the movement. “But
we’re not talking about grand scheme. We’re talking about how it feels
right now. To you. Screw everyone else.” He rested against the edge of my
dresser, running his thumbnail along a seam in the wood. “You didn’t have
to do it at all. I like pushing your boundaries and all in a lot of ways, but
that’s the one place I don’t want to.”
“I know.” He’d wanted the acknowledgment, not some proclamation,
wanted to know I was just as invested as he was and that I wasn’t going to
flip out and bail. I understood that. I yanked a sock from underneath the
bed, then hunted for its match, finding it under the dresser, then picked up
another pair of boxers and examined them before tossing them toward the
basket, too.
 Eric stepped away from the dresser and reached to catch me by the
wrist. “Nate.” There was something so finite about the way he said my
name. Crazy how he could give something I’d heard all my life new worlds
of meaning just by his inflection.
With his fingers locked around my wrist, the jittery buzz bouncing
around my body settled into a warm hum. Moving his hands up my arms,
he squeezed my biceps and pressed against my back. The rampant beating
of my heart seemed to slow with the firmness of his touch. I’d stopped
asking why; it was just the effect he had on me. I let out a long breath that
felt like it’d been hibernating in my chest since dinner and dropped my head
back against his shoulder, closing my eyes. “I’m not freaking out. Not the
way you think I am. Or, I am a little bit.” I rolled my eyes at myself, stared
at the ceiling.
“Did your parents flip?”
I shrugged against him. “Not flip. They were surprised. Especially my
dad. In case that didn’t come across from that zombie gape he gave me
through the rest of dinner.”
Eric chuckled and released my arms to lock his forearms around my
chest, instead. The feeling of intimacy without the nudity or as some
precursor to fucking was foreign to me, but not unwelcome. Not at all. Eric
and I were trysts and tension and smack talk, but the idea that there was a
whole other dimension to us that I’d caught only fractional glimpses of
when we were together was surprisingly alluring. Not that I was ready to
walk through the U’s quad holding hands with him—and I didn’t even think
either of us were the schmoopy handholding type anyway, but still. The
concern in the way he’d wrapped himself around me didn’t scare the shit
out of me like it would have early on. And right now it relaxed me.
After everyone had left, my mom, dad, and I had sat at the kitchen table,
awkward party of three. I’d felt the need to apologize for catching them off
guard, and for possibly embarrassing them. My mom had waved her hand
agitatedly over that last bit.
I ran my hands over the forearms Eric had crossed over my chest,
followed the bend of his elbows up to his shoulders, and locked my fingers
behind the nape of his neck. “My dad’ll come around. He just has to get
used to it.” It was almost a verbatim parroting of what my mom had said
after he’d left the kitchen. He hadn’t blown up or stormed out or anything,
just kept looking at me like he’d missed some huge clue about my identity
over the years, like I was now a half stranger. “I mean, he’s not homophobic
or…biphobic, I guess?” I laughed and pulled away from Eric to flop onto
the bed, the mattress dipping as he followed me down. “Did your parents
act weird about it?”
Next to me, Eric laced his arms behind his head, and I heard the thump
of his shoes on the floor as he kicked them off. “Nah, not really. We weren’t
exactly a traditional family to begin with. There wasn’t some big discussion
about it. I just had a guy with me one day and casually announced it. Later,
when the guy was gone, my stepdad told me to be safe. That was about the
extent of it.”
“My dad said that, too.” I hope you’re being safe. It was the only time
during the conversation that he’d gone gruff and stern, holding my eyes
until I told him I was. Then he’d blinked away uncomfortably. “I think my
mom thought…” I paused. We weren’t one of those families who navel-
gazed out loud to each other or talked about deep life meanings, but after
my dad had gone, my mom said a single name and just let it hang in the air.
“She had an idea I’d messed around with a guy before.”
“That guy from right before freshman year?” Eric’s gaze flickered over
me.
“Yeah.” I’d asked her how she’d known, and she’d shrugged, saying,
“Just mom instinct, I guess.” And then she’d wrapped me in a hug and told
me she loved me and asked if Eric was good to me. I’d sat there, thinking
about that for a minute, about how the whole thing started between Eric and
me, how he’d gone back to the library to get my backpack, how he’d waited
for me to be the one to kiss him; his face last night, the vehemence in his
voice, and the ache behind it. “Yeah, really good,” I’d said.
I rolled onto my side, propping up on an elbow to face Eric. “And then
she said you’re ‘cute as all get-out.’”
“Cute, huh?” A smirk spread slowly over Eric’s face.
“I’ve noticed her sight’s been getting worse lately. You’re not cute.”
He lifted a brow. “No? Not even a little?”
“You’re a lot of other things, but cute has never been something I’d
apply to you, and you can go ahead and quit looking at me like that because
I’m not about to sit here and feed your massive ego with compliments.”
“But it’s hungry. It’s had a rough few weeks.” That word from his
mouth—hungry—just the way he said it made my cock twitch.
 “That’s your own damn fault,” I said, just to be argumentative, and then
inhaled sharply as his fingers crawled over the bedspread between us and
landed on my hip, an upward stroke carrying my shirt up the side of my ribs
as he caressed them. “You’re not going to sway me on that, dude.”
Eric laughed and relented, starting to pull his hand away until I caught it
and pressed it back to my skin.
“So what do you want to do with the rest of the night?” he asked. “Hang
out with your friends?”
I shook my head, sucking in another harsh breath as he rubbed over my
nipples and dragged his thumb down the middle of my abdomen. “I was
thinking maybe we could go get something to eat, just you and me. Hang
out like we were supposed to weeks ago.” I wanted to spend time with him
alone, make good on that night we hadn’t gotten to before the conversation
with Mark had upended things. I was asking him for a date, I guess, and it
honestly felt pretty good. The prickle in my stomach this time wasn’t the
sick sludge of anxiety, but anticipation.
Eric cocked his head to one side, and the smile he tempered said he was
restraining himself from calling me out on it. He wanted it, too. The
needlepoint tickle in my gut became a warm tingle. “Sounds good. Now?”
“Yeah.” I grabbed for his hand again when he started to roll upright and
yanked him back down, bracing myself over him. His eyes met mine in a
warm green haze that went blurry as I dipped down and kissed him. Just a
soft stroke of my lips against his because if I did anything more than that
it’d be hard for me to tear myself away. “I’m crazy about you. You get that,
right?”
His eyes danced with amusement and crinkled up at the corners like he
was about to make some quip, but he only arched his neck up to nip my
lower lip before shoving me backward. “Yeah, but you start talking like that
right now and it’ll throw a wrench in our plans for the rest of the night
because I’ll start getting ideas in my head about hearing you say it when
I’m on my knees with your dick in my mouth and then we won’t be leaving
this room until that happens.”
I straddled him, ground my hips against him hard enough to draw a
sharp grunt from him, then slid off the end of the bed to stand with a grin as
I adjusted myself. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.” He grabbed the hand I extended and yanked himself upright.
“But I’m good at delayed gratification.”
 “Yeah, no shit. Too good.”
His laughter echoed behind me as I opened the bedroom door, already
thinking about the moment when I’d close it behind me again and let him
strip me down in multiple ways. My clothes first, and then that wicked
magic he did on my inhibitions. Hmm, maybe going out on actual dates was
overrated.
 6

KEEP ME

“W hat?” I asked. The weight of Eric’s stare was like a third

person sitting between us in the car.
“You want a hand job?”
I glanced over. He appeared dead serious. That hunter’s gleam was
darkening his eyes, and all that was missing was a smirk or tilt of his head.
“While I’m driving?”
There it was—not a smirk or head tilt this time, but a subtle lift of his
chin in casually seductive invitation. “Yes.”
“Do you want to die?” Fun fact: I’d discovered a motherlode of hand-
job-while-driving porn some weeks back and had imagined this scenario
going down between Eric and me at least fifty times. And that was probably
where the fantasy should remain, because I was 100 percent a flail risk
when Eric was anywhere near my dick. Even now I started shifting around
in the driver’s seat trying to covertly adjust myself.
“Blowjob, then?” His lips quirked as he glanced down at my crotch.
“How’s that better?”
“Because at least then I’d go with a dick in my mouth.”
I blinked at him in disbelief, then cracked up. Totally fucking lost it.
“You ain’t right.”
“We already know that.”
I wasn’t willing to test my mettle against the Grim Reaper. Or Eric’s
hand job skills in a motorized vehicle. Instead, I reached over the console
and took his hand in mine. He turned a slow look in my direction, a trace of
a humored smile forming at the corners of his mouth. “What’s this?”
 “I hear it’s a sign of affection or something.” I stole a play from his
book and arched a brow. “I’m test-driving it, since I’m a babe in the woods
with all of this. Or whatever the saying is.”
“You seemed pretty well versed in the woods the other night.” The
smile that’d been hovering at the corners of his lips tipped into sly territory,
and I bit back my own grin, focusing on the road again. Eric didn’t pull his
hand away, though, and a few moments later he asked, “So what’s the
verdict?”
I made a face. “Not sure I’m a fan.” Handholding had never been my
favorite thing, regardless of who it was with. It inevitably reminded me of
being a kid crossing a street, or wandering the aisles of department stores
with my mom.
“No?” Eric angled in the corner of his seat, propping his elbow on the
windowsill and resting his temple against his fist. With his other hand, he
turned mine palm up and laced his fingers so slowly between mine that I
swore I felt every nerve ending in that small surface area waking up at the
drag of his warm skin across it. The tips of his fingers closed over my
knuckles with a firm press, and my cock twitched in my boxers as he ran
his thumb along the side of my palm. I sat there dumbfounded yet again at
how he could make even the most mundane thing sensual and appealing.
Suddenly I wasn’t thinking of crosswalks, or my mom’s rings pressing into
my chubby little hands, but of Eric’s sweat-slick grip slamming my hand
against a wall, a mattress, a desk, as he plunged into me.
“How about now?” he asked.
“That’s not handholding. That’s like…hand fucking. Or hand seduction.
Your hand is seducing mine, and my hand has zero game. It’s just gonna
hop in the bed with yours without even dinner or a drink first. Maybe I need
to give it a lecture about standards.”
Eric threw his head back and laughed. “All right, maybe, yeah, your
hand is a total slut. But do you like it better?”
I cut another look over at him. His dark hair was tousled. Not even
artfully, just messy and haphazard bed head since he hadn’t taken a shower
this morning. And somehow sexy as hell in conjunction with the thick
stubble along his jaw. “Maybe.” And though I was sure he was teasing me,
the open curiosity I read in his expression had me smiling instead of
cracking another joke. “Yeah,” I relented, because it did feel fucking good.
At least his version of it.
 Eric gave my palm another firm squeeze, then let his fingers travel up
the length of my arm to wrap around the nape of my neck, rubbing the
tendons until a satisfied rumble left my chest. “That’s the winner right
there, though,” I told him.

W E ’ D GOTTEN HALFWAY BACK to campus before Eric brought up something

that’d been on my mind all morning.
“Mark still pissed at you?”
I hadn’t thought of Mark at all over the break, but since we’d gotten in
the car—my hiatus from university and frat life over—the prospect of
returning to the chill that’d settled between our friendship loomed. We’d
been tight since becoming pledge brothers as freshmen. He’d had my back
any number of times over the last few years, had saved my ass on a few
occasions when we were hazed during hell week, or when the occasional
fight broke out, and beyond. I’d done the same for him without question.
I sighed, fiddling with a thread that’d come loose on the steering wheel
stitching. “Yeah, I think so. I’m not sure how to make it right yet, though. I
mean…” I stopped, thinking for a moment about how we’d left things. “Or
maybe I do, but I’m just not ready to yet.”
Eric shrugged and shifted in the passenger seat, doing his best to stretch
his long legs out. “It’s no skin off my back. Dude doesn’t even like me. But
I know you’ve always been close.”
“Why do you think he doesn’t like you?” I racked my brain for any
instance where Mark had been antagonistic toward Eric but came up empty.
Eric eyed me for a moment, then dismissed the question with a shake of
his head. “Just a vibe I get from him. No concrete evidence.”
So of course Mark was the first one we encountered when we got back
to the house. Kicked back on the couch with a slice of pizza in his hand, he
scrolled through TV channels as Eric and I came through the front door. He
glanced over and then did a muted double take when he spotted Eric behind
me.
“Eric came home with me,” I said redundantly. “His Thanksgiving plans
fell through.” It was sort of true.
Mark gave me a slow nod, his expression unreadable and detached as he
looked between me and Eric. “Cool. Good times?”
 I dropped my duffle by the stairs and ran a hand through my hair as Eric
gave Mark a short upnod for a greeting and headed for the kitchen. “Yeah.
We had fun. You?”
He shrugged. “It was all right. Lots of family, you know? Mostly
chaos.” He clapped his thumb and fingers together to simulate a bunch of
chattering, then stuffed the rest of a pizza crust in his mouth and dusted off
his hands.
“There any of that pizza left?”
“Nope,” he said succinctly and started messing with the remote again.
“Okay.” I stood there for a second, and the silence that settled between
us made me oddly aware of how I was standing there uselessly with one
knee kind of bent out and my arms hanging at my sides like two loaves of
bread. Like I didn’t know what to do with myself. “I’m gonna go unpack.”
Mark tipped me an absent wave as I shouldered my bag and headed up
the stairs.
Once in my bedroom, I unzipped the duffle and the scent of fresh
detergent wafted up. Why did clothes smell so much better when someone
else washed them? I hung up my shirts and was in the process of stuffing
my jeans back in a drawer, still mulling the whole Mark situation, when I
got a prickle over the back of my neck, signaling I was being watched. I
turned around to shoot a teasing accusation at Eric but found myself trying
to hide a smile, instead. He leaned up against my doorframe, arms folded
over his chest, and I thought that for probably as long as we lived here, I’d
associate that stance with the first time we’d hooked up. I guess it wasn’t
the most romantic thing in the world, but it still made my heart do a flip in
my chest. A goofy smile broke free for a span of seconds, matched by
Eric’s quirked lips, until the thought of Mark sobered me again. I shut the
drawer. “So yeah, it’s weird, and I’m gonna have to fix it,” I said quietly,
glancing out into the hall as I picked up the thread of conversation from the
car ride.
Eric shouldered off the doorframe and wandered deeper inside. “You’ll
figure it out.”
I bit my lip and nodded, locking eyes with him as he stopped in front of
me and cuffed the back of my neck. I was suddenly nervous that Eric
wouldn’t be patient with me, that he hadn’t meant what he’d said. It’d been
easy while we were off campus, but now we’d be back to sneaking around.
Of course, I thought the sneaking around held its own allure for Eric. And
me, if I was being honest. The illicit thrill quotient was high and we were
both suckers for it, which set off another wave anxiety inside me. What if
once everything was out in the open, the mind-rattling, ball-tightening sense
of urgency between us evaporated?
“Wow,” Eric chuckled on an exhale.
“Wow?”
He cocked his head at me. “I can almost make out the shape of your
thoughts as they whirl through your mind.” His finger rose to trace a
nonsensical pattern on my forehead, the touch cool and light.
“So what was that one?”
“Ambiguous worry, I think.”
I snorted as he dropped his hand away. His expression was patient and
open and waiting, and I licked my lips—an instinctive reflex I seemed to
have when I was close to him, like they’d suddenly gone dry. “Are you sure
you’re in this? Maybe for a haul?”
Eric let go of the back of my neck with another sweep of his fingertips
and dropped to the edge of my bed, shoving aside a stack of T-shirts. “Yep.
You?” His green eyes searched mine as if he was trying to assemble a larger
picture from my jumbled thoughts.
“A hundred percent.”
“You’re glaring again.”
“I wanted to make sure you knew I meant it.”
Eric tapped the skin between his brows. “I’ve mentally catalogued it
now. Glares equal emphasis.”
“Good. Now quit wrinkling my tees.”
“As if you folded them yourself.” He smirked as he stood and made like
he was going to ruffle my hair, but I caught him by the wrist as he snagged
the ends curling over my temple and a staredown commenced, his forest
greens pitted against my complete and utter helplessness. My dick declared
no contest, but I maintained my grip, held his gaze, and let a smirk of my
own uncoil that made his eyes go hot and dark in challenge. I really
should’ve taken him up on that offer back in the car, because now I was
restless and looking to blow, and as Eric’s eyes trawled up and down my
body, I could tell he registered the desire coming off me because his smirk
detoured into a satisfied curve. Then the fucker growled, sharp and short as
he stepped in and nipped the side of my throat before wrenching his hand
away and turning for the door. “You already know I don’t lock my door at
night.” He tossed it nonchalantly over his shoulder and then disappeared
into the hall.
I tugged at the ends of my hair in frustration, then swiped my hand
across my mouth and reached for the shirts on my bed.
We’d talked on the car ride back about how this would play out, that
really to all public appearances nothing would change, and that’d all
sounded fine coming off of four solid days together. Four solid days in
which we’d fucked and sucked each other at will in my bedroom at my
parents’, in my car parked in front of the garage, in the woods behind
Shana’s again the second time we’d hung out with my friends—as if we’d
needed to make sure the first time hadn’t been a fluke inflamed by our own
pent-up frustration with each other. Nope, it hadn’t been. It’d been just as
intense as before. I’d never been so consistently, rampantly horny and so
satisfied at the same time. Not that there wasn’t downtime, some quieter
moments when it was the two of us hanging out watching a game with my
dad, or sprawled on my bed next to each other, me snaking a leg between
Eric’s as we both dicked around on our phones. One afternoon, I’d scrolled
through Facebook and clicked on his profile, and when I’d asked about the
dearth of photos, he shrugged and handed over his phone, letting me dive
into his photo albums, patiently elaborating anytime I glanced over at him
with an inquiring expression.
“So do you still have that mankini?” he’d asked, a mischievous
expression crossing his face as I handed back his phone.
“You have stalked my Facebook.”
He cocked his head and gave me an unabashed grin. “Did you think I
wouldn’t?”
I’d been surprised actually, and told him as much, and then he’d
repeated the question about the mankini.
“Maybe, but if I do, it’s only coming out if you’re putting it on and
we’ll give you some fresh photos for your page.”
“Pass. I wouldn’t do it justice.”
“No one does a mankini justice except maybe Chris Hemsworth. He
could.”
“You come pretty close.” Eric flashed me an electric smile. “I don’t
want any fresh photos for my page. Who gives a shit? Tell you what I
would take, though?” He waited until I rolled my wrist impatiently for him
to get on with it. “You on your knees, that sexy-ass mouth wrapped around
my cock while I record it. That’s worth capturing for posterity.”
I barked out a laugh even as I scoffed. “There are a hundred different
ways that could go wrong. And why does it have to be me on my knees?
How about you?”
He eyed me up and down just long enough to get me good and worked
up. “I’m game. If you think you could hold the phone steady while I went to
town on you, yeah, I’m all for it.”
We both knew the answer to that.
The craziest thing was, I’d liked just lying there and hanging out as
much as fucking around with him. And now after that solid chunk of time
together, I was pretty sure that going back to the way we’d been before was
going to be easier in theory than in practice, regardless of how hot the
sneaking around was. Because now the secrecy felt almost like a burden.

T HE NEXT MORNING , I sat at my usual place on the kitchen counter,

thumping my heel idly against the cabinet as I ate cereal in an exhausted
daze. The night before, Mark and some of the other brothers had gone out,
and I’d felt compelled to go along to try and be more socially active or
something. We’d ended up late nighting it at our house, and even though I’d
bailed early and left them downstairs, I’d still fallen asleep before they left.
So I hadn’t made it into Eric’s room after all.
I’d discovered Mark passed out on the couch this morning, and Ansel
had had a good time waking him up with a cup of ice water as payback for
being so loud.
Eric slouched in the chair he favored at the table across the kitchen, a
couple of pieces of toast pushed off to one side, his forehead against his fist
as he slowly scrolled through his phone, reading. I couldn’t remember
which class he had first today, and when he glanced up at me and arched a
brow, eyes dancing, I forgot my own schedule. Sunblind. Lost. Stupid for
him.
“Do. You. Want. Eggs?”
I wrenched my gaze away to find Jesse staring at me from over the door
of the fridge, a carton of eggs in his hand, which he rattled aggressively in
my direction.
“Sure. Jesus.”
“I asked, like, three times.”
“You asked twice and the first time was nonspecific.” I’d heard him,
albeit distantly, and wasn’t sure he was even addressing me since Ansel had
wandered in, too.
“It was three times,” Eric confirmed with a grin and then winked at me
like a fucking know-it-all. “You look tired.”
“Your hair’s a wreck,” Jesse tagged on.
Ansel twisted around from where he stood in front of the cabinet with a
box of cereal in hand to eye me. “Your face looks like a ballsac.”
“All of you can suck my dick,” I grumbled.
“I can only imagine what it looks like, considering your face.” Eric, that
asswipe, fluttered his lashes at me and gave me a sweet smile, except he
didn’t do sweet very well and it ended up looking more like a leer. Which
was of course enough to make my dick perk up and answer the morning roll
call.
“Open up and you can find out.” I slid from the counter and rinsed my
bowl, leaving it in the sink.
My phone started buzzing before I even got off the front porch, and my
lips pulled up in a preemptive smile.

Eric: Think you’re clever don’t you

Nate: Think I’m hard. Got my own damn self worked up. Sucks walking
with a boner.
Eric: So get your ass back here. 5 minutes tops, but I’ll bet I have you
shooting in 3.

I clenched my phone harder in my hand and gritted my teeth.

Nate: Nope, can’t miss this class. Prof locks the door one minute after the
hour.
Eric: Chaffin or Anderson?
Nate: Chaffin. Heard West does it too.
Eric: They don’t know what they’re missing. A lot of good things straggle in
a little late
Nate: Or not at all.

A handful of seconds passed with nothing else from him, so I texted

again.

Nate: I wanted to come in last night but I couldn’t. The guys stayed forever
Eric: Not a deal, I told you. Just messing with you.
Nate: Okay

I started to type something else, then erased it.

Eric: Nate
Eric: I’m not going anywhere.

M ARK and I shared my second class of the day, Comparative Politics, so

after it let out, we headed toward the caf to grab lunch. Spotting Jesse at the
coke machines, I waved him over and he joined us, plunking down a thick
burrito and a Mountain Dew before launching immediately into a bitchfest
about the course load his advisor had recommended for next semester. It
was nice, kinda like old times when we’d all started hanging out freshman
year after Jesse and Mark had finally started getting along. Because they
didn’t at first, and I’d never really understood why not.
We played grievance roulette, which Jesse usually won, and Mark made
sarcastic jabs between sandwich bites. And yeah, maybe he was a little
more cutting than usual and still seemed to be giving me the side eye, like
at any moment he expected me to break out a baggie of coke on the tabletop
and snort a rail right there in the middle of the caf. But mostly everything
was going just fine. I started to relax, thinking maybe things were going to
work out fucking peachy after all. I was out to my parents, so was there
really any need to rush things here when Eric and I could just get it on out
of sight? I mean, I’d never been the kind of guy to go walking around with
heart eyes and hanging all over someone anyway. The Defcon 3 boner
threat being around the dude was token enough. And then, maybe over
summer when school was out…
 “So was it fun over Thanksgiving? With Eric I mean?”
I glanced up sharply to find Jesse scrutinizing me as he pried a glob of
cheese from his foil wrapper with the corner of his thumbnail. I shrugged.
“It was fine, yeah. Fun or whatever. He goes with the flow.”
“I didn’t think you were a big fan of him honestly, so it was a little
surprising you just up and invited him home with you.” That was Mark and
suddenly I felt like I was at a chick table in the Mean Girls movie. Their
combined expressions were like hawks circling a shadow moving across the
grass, waiting for the right moment to dive. Maybe I was just being
paranoid.
“I was neutral toward him before, I guess. And now we’re cool.” Now
we’re cool? Jesus, was that the best I could say about a guy who turned me
inside out? Fucking wimp. Guilt rolled around in my gut and formed a mass
—not a happy pairing with the Italian sub I’d just finished. I tasted acid in
the back of my throat and reached for my water bottle, taking a quick swig
before capping it again.
Mark sat back in his chair, letting his legs sprawl wide as he folded his
arms over his chest. “I guess if he’s your dealer, I understand.”
I smacked my hand on the tabletop. Louder than I meant to. The sudden
crack stung through my palm and made Jesse jump, while a table full of
girls nearby looked over. But Mark kept his gaze on me levelly as I spoke.
“Do you have a problem with him? Or me hanging out with him?” I went
overboard trying to keep the desire to growl at bay and my teeth
unclenched.
“I don’t have a fucking problem with him, necessarily. I have a problem
with my bro becoming a cokehead.”
My pulse amped up a few more notches, and I was sure the blood
running through my veins was nearing steam point. I sucked in a breath and
let it out slowly. “I’m not a cokehead. I was…we…” I needed another
breath since the last one had run out far too soon, so I took it, probably
sounding like I was having a panic attack. “We’re together. Seeing each
other.” Mark’s face went blank, and then he burst into laughter that died a
quick death as I glared at him. “We weren’t doing coke in the office that
night—we were screwing around, okay? And I really fucking like him.” I
collapsed back in my chair and ground the heels of my hands into my eyes
until bursts of color danced in the darkness, then let them fall away.
 Jesse had gone stock-still, and I couldn’t read his expression, but I
gauged Mark’s as utter disbelief. I was right there with him. It was like
Thanksgiving all over again. Man, I really had zero cool in these kinds of
situations. I seemed to either cold-shoulder people or just verbally vomit
everything out at once. I’d be the worst politician ever.
“You’re shitting me,” Jesse muttered.
“Fuck.” I pushed my chair back from the table, at least remembering to
shift my weight so the legs didn’t screech dramatically over the floor. “The
whole coming-out thing is a load of horseshit and I’m done with it.” I
swiped my napkin across my mouth, then balled it up and tossed it on my
tray. “I’m pretty sure that as my friends you’re supposed to be more
supportive of it or some shit.” I left my tray on the table and ditched out,
pushing through the double doors and starting across the quad. It was cold
as shit outside, and I’d forgotten my damn pullover in the cafeteria but sure
as hell wasn’t going back to get it. Fuck it. I’d check the lost and found
later.
With my phone in my hand, I thumbed open my texts, about to message
Eric and see if he wanted to meet up to fuck the agitation out of me—
though if I was being honest, as much as I knew a hard fuck would get me
on an even keel again, it was also just being around him that I craved. Like
a moth to a fucking flame. A very dirty, very potent flame.
“Dude, your pullover.” I whipped my head around as Mark jogged up,
his arm extended and my fleece dangling from his fingertips. I snatched it
with a muttered thanks as he fell in step beside me, panting as he tried to
catch his breath.
“I’m sorry.”
I nodded tersely. “Yeah, it’s fine. I blew up. It was uncalled for, I
guess.”
He grabbed my shirtsleeve and stopped me, dragging me to a nearby
stand of trees huddled around a small bench. I pulled my fleece over my
head and parked my ass against a tree trunk as Mark lit into me, most likely
deservedly. “You haven’t exactly been forthcoming lately, and you haven’t
made it fucking easy to be supportive of anything when you’re hiding shit
and lying about it. Constantly. And I think usually when there’s a whole
coming-out thing, there’s a little more preamble or something than out of
the fucking blue in the middle of the caf to two dudes you’ve been blowing
off for the last two months.” He lifted his hand before I could spout off
again. “I’m not saying I don’t get why you did that, but shit, cut me a little
slack. I really did think you were getting into a problem or something.” He
rubbed one shoulder uncomfortably.
“Why?” I demanded.
Mark let out a long breath. “Well, for one, you two suddenly started
hanging out together, and then the whole thing with Merriweather happened
and…” Mark paused. “Eric’s pretty tight with that Chet guy, right?” He said
Chet’s name like it was something nasty stuck on the roof of his mouth.
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t really know Chet at all.”
“Well, Chet’s a fucking tool, and he was supplying Cam.”
I bit my lip. Definitely not the time to remind Mark that a supplier
didn’t an addict make, but I could understand his concern now. Maybe?
I sagged a little against the tree, an involuntary mea culpa. “Sorry. I had
no idea. I don’t see them hanging out much lately because…” I gestured to
myself as if the reason should be obvious now. “But that’s not Eric. Trust
me, I’d know. I mean, I’ve seen him hammered before, and he’s done some
shit, but he’s not an addict or a dealer.” In truth, I didn’t have 100 percent
proof of this, but I did have 100 percent trust in him and in my own
assessment of him. That realization whooshed through me and threatened to
send me into another internal tailspin because, holy shit, I wasn’t even sure
when I’d last trusted someone I was involved with the way I trusted him. If
ever. Not just in the bedroom, but beyond. “But I’m not doing shady shit,
okay? I promise. Just freaking the fuck out over a bunch of other stuff.”
Mark settled his ass onto the rail of the bench and gave me an expectant
look, so I told him an abbreviated and much tamer version of how Eric and
I had begun in the first place. Surprisingly, Mark listened attentively. “My
parents know,” I finished. “I sort of dropped it on them over Thanksgiving.”
“Jesus, was it weird?”
“Awkward as fuck, yeah, but okay in the end.”
Mark rubbed his lips together and fiddled with the strap of the backpack
he’d let sag against his shins. “Cam and I kinda messed around once.” He
glanced up at me, and the hesitation in his eyes kept me quiet, waiting to
see if he wanted to say more. “We were both really fucked-up, and it wasn’t
a big deal I didn’t think, but I dunno. I think maybe he regretted it a lot, and
it ate at him and…shit.” He sucked a breath through his clenched teeth and
shook his head. “His parents are really…they’re strict. Like devout-ass
Baptists or something. Him being in a frat in the first place was rough from
the get-go—I mean, they wanted him to go to a fucking seminary. Anyway,
I just kinda wrote it off as like…heteroflexibility or something, but I don’t
think he did. It didn’t happen again, and obviously neither of us felt any sort
of urge to share with the class, but…I guess it messed with him.”
“Damn, that sucks. I mean, you know him OD’ing wasn’t your fault,
though, right?”
Mark gave me a pained glance, then shrugged, seeming unconvinced.
“In theory, yeah. I mean, I didn’t put the drugs in his hands or anything, but
I guess I…” He shook his head. “I feel like I should’ve done more or
noticed that it was becoming more than a party thing.”
“Dude, we were sophomores and you’re not his dad. Did he want more
or something? With you, I mean?”
“What? No! Like the opposite actually. He kinda started shutting me
out, and that’s when I started noticing Chet coming around.”
I narrowed my eyes, because something about the story didn’t quite add
up to me, but Mark turned the conversation and seemed ready to get off the
subject.
“Think Jesse’s pissed at you, though.”
My brow wrinkled. “Jesse? What the hell for? He should be the
understanding one.” I remembered the frozen look on his face, but I’d kinda
forgotten all about him when Mark and I had gotten into it.
“I’m pretty sure he’s had a major undercover boner for Eric since the
dude moved in.”
“Shit,” I muttered. “I guess I should talk to him.” Excellent. Something
else for me to dread: Jesse’s big ol’ brown-eyed gaze looking at me like I’d
kicked him right in the balls.
Mark eyed me and raised a brow. “Or…you could take your own
advice. You’re not Jesse’s keeper. Let him work it out.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I knew he knew what I meant. For lying to him,
for shutting him out. For everything. It hadn’t been fair, even if he was a
tool sometimes. I was, too.
Mark stretched his legs out, lifting off the armrest as he shouldered his
backpack and gave me a one-armed hug. “No sweat, man. I’m sorry for
coming on strong and from the totally wrong angle. ”
“Nah. It’s good. Don’t, ummm…can you not mention it to any of the
other brothers yet? I’m not sure how…or…yeah, just don’t say anything if
you don’t mind.”
 “We’re cool, dude, I gotcha.”
We walked a few paces over the grass before I thought to ask, “What
was that thing you said about…hetero what?”
“Flexibility. Like…95 percent of the time, I’m all about the T & A, but
sometimes if the situation’s right…” He shrugged. “Like the girl who gets
drunk and makes out with her best friend or something because her lips
looked soft and they were drunk and it felt good. Or, maybe they’re not
even drunk, there’s just this situation where—” He waved his hand. “Fuck
it, I don’t even know how to explain it. Mostly straight with occasional
showers of homoeroticism or something.”
I was mind-blown. “I didn’t even know that was an option.”
“I have a cousin who volunteers at an LGBT youth shelter. She knows
all sorts of stuff about sexuality. We were talking about it over
Thanksgiving.”
Heteroflexible. Huh. I turned that term over in my head, considering
whether it was a better fit for me than bi and then decided fuck it, I didn’t
necessarily need to figure it out because one thing I did know was that no
matter what kind of label I attached to myself, Eric fucking did it for me.
Up, down, backwards, forwards, and sideways.

J ESSE WASN ’ T at the house when I got back from classes, and neither was
Eric for that matter. When I texted him, he said he had a study group until
later that night.

Nate: That door better be unlocked tonight

Eric: It was unlocked last night
Eric: Will be again tonight
Eric: Straggler

I hit the gym hard to make up for how much I’d slacked over the break,
busting through cardio and weights until I was so drenched and hot that the
shower I took afterward did nothing but encourage more sweat—especially
because I grabbed the stall next to the one Eric had fucked me in. I got all
overheated again thinking about it, wondering if we might be able to pull it
off for a second time. Maybe with a few new twists.
In true hornball fashion, I noticed I’d started keeping an eye out for
other places on campus where we could sneak off to because now that I’d
opened my mind to it, the possibilities seemed endless. Public sex kink—I
definitely had it. And probably a lot of other ones I hadn’t figured out yet.
By the time 11:00 p.m. rolled around, I’d finished all my homework and
was slumping on the couch in my room, on my way to crashing hard when I
heard the sound of Eric’s footsteps on the stairs. Jesse’d come and gone
again earlier in the night, speaking minimally to me, though it hadn’t been
unkind. My impression had been that he wasn’t sure what to say, but I was
gonna take Mark’s advice and give it a few days to see how it’d all play out.
Water ran in the bathroom, the door closed, and a few minutes later
opened again. Then Eric’s bedroom door shut, and I grinned. I checked my
watch and distracted myself for another ten minutes before leaving my
room behind, anticipating his bed just as much as his body in it, the sheets
warm and smelling like him. Maybe he’d be wearing one of those sultry-ass
sleepy smiles I liked, or maybe that stern pinch of his brows that meant
good times were in store for my dick. I was cool with either.
“Thought you might stand me up again,” he murmured when I slid
between the sheets and pressed against his back as he shifted to make room
for me. He was lying the way he had been the first night I snuck in. It was
his favorite position, I’d discovered over Thanksgiving—on his stomach
and half-buried in his pillow.
“I didn’t stand you up, technically speaking. I failed at waiting it out.” I
ran a hand up his spine and curled my fingers around his shoulder, nosing at
the nape of his neck where the masculine scent of him was potent. “You
thought you were pretty fucking funny this morning, didn’t you?”
“I was.” I could hear the amusement in his voice, see that wicked grin
of his like it was right in front of my face. “God you’re sexy when you’re
trying not to get hard.”
“I’ve given up trying. I just let it happen and hope nobody notices.”
“Like right now?” He shifted, one firm round asscheek nudging against
me.
“Oh no, I definitely want you to notice that. I’ve been waiting all
fucking day to bust a nut.”
 “Yeah? So will you be mad if I tell you I knocked one out in the
bathroom at the library tonight?”
“Cheater, and also gross.”
Eric laughed. “Bet you wouldn’t have said that if you’d been there.” He
reached behind him, sliding his hand up the length of my thigh, then easing
it between our bodies until he was gripping my cock through my boxers.
I let my eyes fall shut as he stroked me lightly through the fabric.
“Maybe not,” I agreed. “Fuck, gimme some friction, you cocktease.”
“Say please.”
“Make me.”

H E DID . I’d said it over and over as he rolled me onto my side, slid his hand
behind my knee, and held it while he fucked me into oblivion. And even
though I was sated and drowsy as hell afterward, sleep didn’t come. I
twisted the bedsheets every which way trying to get comfortable until Eric
ran his hand up the length of my arm and squeezed my bicep.
“I feel like I’m trying to fall asleep in a box of puppies.”
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I can go back to my bed.”
“Or you can tell me what’s up.” He rolled to face me and dragged the
tip of his finger along my jaw. “Can’t see you well enough to tell if you’re
glaring right now, though.”
I snorted and adjusted the pillow under my head. “I’m not glaring.”
I told him about Mark and Jesse, and he closed the few inches between
our lips and gave me a light kiss, saying afterward, “You’re on a roll.”
“Your lack of impulse control is rubbing off on me.”
“If that’s the only downside to all the other ways I get to rub off on you,
I call that a win.” His teeth flashed in the darkness.
“Mark thinks Jesse has a crush on you.”
Eric mmm’d thoughtfully. “He invited me home with him for
Thanksgiving, but I said no.”
“He did?”
“Yeah. A few days after shit between you and me blew up.”
“Why didn’t you say yes?”
“Because I didn’t want to. I like him fine and he was probably just
being polite, but I got the same vibe. He’s subtle about it, though. And he’s
nice.”
 “Friendzoned.”
Eric snickered. “Yeah, more or less.”
“I’m nice.”
“Mmm.”
“What’s that mean, you disagree?”
“Jesse strikes me as the type to want something I can’t give him.”
“That’s irritatingly mysterious.”
“I can’t explain it any better. He’s too wholesome or something.”
I thought of Jesse with his broad smiles and eager eyes framed by thick
lashes and grunted. Yeah, I guess I could see it. He kind of reminded me of
a golden retriever, or someone who would be all over loving cuddles and
sweet talk. Definitely a handholder. I let it go, moving on to the other issue
weighing on my mind, asking, “Does Chet deal?”
Eric shifted onto his back, folding his arms behind his head.
“Sometimes? Here and there, I think. Why?”
“Mark seems to think…well, Mark doesn’t like him. Blames him for
our friend Cam’s overdose. Which isn’t exactly fair, but I get it. Did you
know Cam?”
“Mark has a lot of opinions about other people’s business,” Eric
retorted, then sighed. “Not that I can remember really. Maybe vaguely? I
didn’t really start hanging out with Chet until the middle of last year when
we had a few classes together.”
“And you’ve never hooked up with him?”
Eric laughed softly. “Nope. Not my type.”
“What’s your type?” I’d given this more thought than I wanted to admit.
The girls I’d seen him with before didn’t follow any set pattern, aside from
looking decidedly not like the girls I usually brought home. And I had no
point of reference for guys, seeing as how he’d never brought one around.
“High-strung built dudes who beg me to pound their asses.” I could hear
the wry smile in his voice.
I scoffed and he turned serious. “It’s about vibe and personality for me,
I guess, not necessarily a type. But Chet wasn’t it either.”
“Were he and Cam hooking up?”
“I don’t think so, but I honestly have no idea. Chet’s never said anything
that would make me think they were. What’s with the line of questioning?”
“I dunno, just curious, I guess. Something about the way Mark was
talking about it…” I trailed off. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter now.”
 “I can still get Chet’s number for you if you want it,” Eric teased, and I
kicked him under the covers as he steamrolled me. “But he’ll have to get
through me first.”

A COUPLE OF WEEKS LATER , I sat in the chapter room at the fraternity house
zoning out through the discussion of our next mixer, some upcoming
community service event, and a couple of pledges who’d been ordered to
stand and recite our creed on the pain of toilet duty.
Shortly after my outburst with Mark and Jesse, things had thankfully
settled back into the usual pattern of classes, studying, and partying, with
the addition that now 80 percent of nights ended up with me in Eric’s bed,
sometimes him in mine if I’d gotten home first. Or I’d meet him at the
library, the gym, the cafeteria. Okay, maybe it was a little different. We
spent a shit ton of our free time together, and even now I was bouncing my
knee ready to get the hell out of this meeting and go grab something to eat
with him, maybe let him boss me around a little bit to get me out of my
head about upcoming finals before Christmas break.
Though I hadn’t explicitly said anything to Ansel, someone had clued
him in, because he’d stopped us as we’d headed out of the house the other
day to say, “No fucking in my bedroom.”
Eric had given him a devilish grin. “You live here? I had no idea.
What’s your name?”
Ansel arched an imperious brow and then narrowed his eyes. “Or my
bathroom.”
I snapped my teeth at that, and Ansel shoved me, cracking up. “I’m
serious.” Guess he’d overheard Eric lighting me up in the hall bath the other
morning—though I thought we’d been pretty quiet. I mean, I had, seeing as
how I’d had a washcloth stuffed in my mouth. We’d been feeling a little
adventurous.
“I never use your bathroom,” I’d said drolly. “Ringworm sucks.”
And then we’d all just gone on as usual. For all that Mark had thought
Jesse was pissed, he must have gotten over it quickly, because a few days
after my announcement in the caf, he was happily eating lunch with me and
Eric and chattering on about some course he was excited to take next
semester because he thought the professor was hot.
I crashed back into awareness as Jason, our president, said something
about discrimination. Blinking into focus, I listened as he read from our
handbook. “We do not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color,
national origin, religion, disability, or sexual orientation.”
The fire in my cheeks was instantaneous as he droned monotonously
through the rest of the passage. It wasn’t anger necessarily, and it wasn’t
even all embarrassment. It was just the awareness that I was probably the
cause of this reminder, since I didn’t recall him ever reading it during a
meeting before. I felt center stage even if no one else had a clue why Jason
was mentioning it or who he was referring to.
It wasn’t like there weren’t gay or bi dudes in frats. There were. There
just weren’t any in mine. That I knew about, at least. We were the jock frat,
the one known for brutal hell weeks and whispered hazing practices, most
of which were true. And, if I was being honest, probably the dicks. I mean,
every frat had a rep for something, even if it wasn’t entirely true, even if
there were jocks in the geeky frats or vice versa. I shot a look over at Mark,
noting the strain in his expression, the color that suddenly flooded his
cheeks. That motherfucker. He gave a sharp, short shake of his head, and I
didn’t know whether to read that as a denial or an apology.
“Did I miss something?” Alex, another junior, piped up.
“Nope. Just a reminder.” Jason flipped the book closed, and maybe it
was subliminal that his eyes darted toward me, then away again, but it felt
like some kind of signal.
“Pierce tried to blow me last night,” Sam joked, and Pierce lifted his
middle finger to him in reply as everyone cracked up. The dude was already
engaged to the same girl he’d come to college with. He was more married
than my own parents at this point.
“It’s cool. I got Nate to do it, instead.” Sam angled a goofy brow waggle
at me.
Fucking perfect. My skin was flaming, and adrenaline pumped through
me, its telltale prickle rushing over my armpits, the back of my neck.
I thought of Eric’s hand on me, the slow, sweeping way he touched me
sometimes, and as quick as the anxiety had come I felt it recede, a sense of
calm descending. “The cock in my mouth last night actually hit the back of
my throat and gagged the shit out of me, so I know it wasn’t yours.” Okay,
maybe I laced a little stinger of a size dig there on the end, but that was
what we did. What I wasn’t doing was panicking, even when Sam gave a
strained chuckle that faded quickly into oppressive silence. No one knew
what to say, I guess. Least of all me. But I was two for two now, so why not
knock the mortar out of what had always felt like the highest wall to me?
“Shit, are you serious, dude?” Sam’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a
visible cringe. “Sorry, man. For real, though?”
“Is it going to be a problem?” I let my gaze stray from his expression to
the faces around me, not really seeing any of them but hell-bent on making
sure they all knew they were included in the question. “Because I can leave.
I’m dead-ass serious. I know we all razz the fuck out of each other, but if
anyone actually has an issue with what kind of equipment the person I’m
with is sporting, I’m out, and I won’t even be mad about it. But I sure as
shit am not going to stick around for hostility—low-key or otherwise. So
speak up, or take a fucking vote or something.” Once again, I was sure I
could have been smoother or more diplomatic about it, but at least this time
my voice came out even and neutral rather than frantic.
Sam lifted his hands in a no-harm gesture. “It’s not a problem for me,
dude, we’re good. I was totally just messing around. And apologies for
really fucking bad timing.”
I nodded as Jason tossed the handbook aside and looked around from
his perch behind the front table, then took his ball cap off his head and set it
on the edge of the desk before inclining his chin at Marty. “Grab some
paper and pencils. Y for issues, N for no issues. I know what the policy
says, but Nate wants real, and I don’t blame him, so don’t bullshit. If you’ve
got a problem, say so and give him the option.”
Marty walked the room with the slips of paper and jar of pencils, and
one by one, the guys stuck their folded slips in the hat. I thought I’d feel
more anxious, more strung-out or emotional. I’d built this moment up so
much in my head that it seemed completely improbable that I was as calm
as I was. Maybe it was all the time I’d spent with Eric lately, maybe it was
the way I felt about him that made the things that’d seemed like such
colossal hurdles when we first got together more like nuisances now. I’d
loved being a part of this fraternity, but I was ready to move on if I had to.
And I was entirely okay with that.
Jason went through the papers quickly, discarding them on top of the
table, then glanced up at me. “No issues.” Relief flooded my chest like the
end of a balloon let go all at once. It felt as heavy as the threat of tears, in
spite of how ready I’d been to walk out of there. I took a deep breath and
nodded. “Cool.”
After the meeting adjourned, Sam trotted up to me as I headed down the
hall toward the front door. “Sorry, again. Are we good, for real?” He shifted
on his feet as I stopped and faced him.
“Yeah, it’s fine. No sweat.”
“Sooooo…do I know this guy?”
From the corner of my eye, I spotted Mark heading our way and flashed
Sam a quick grin as I started in that direction. “My roommate Eric. Don’t
ask. It’s a long story, trust me.”
Jason checked in shortly after to make sure I was good, and Mark
waited until he moved on.
I turned my shoulder into the wall to face him. “I’m not going to flip my
shit, but I thought you weren’t going to say anything.”
“Dude, I didn’t.” Mark’s expression was nothing but wide-eyed
innocence.
“Then why…”
“It was a policy change handed down from high. Some other fraternity
recently had an issue with racial slurs being tossed around among members
and it blew up. It was on the news and shit. So the policy is supposed to be
read at every meeting from now on. Something like that.”
“Oh.” I bit the corner of my thumbnail.
“I wouldn’t do something like that to you, dude.”
His eyes burned bright with sincerity, and I nodded after a moment.
“Are you heading home?”
“Not for a while. Gonna do a study thing with some of the guys. We
might go out later, too. You want to hang here, or I can give you a ride
home?”
“I’ll walk.” I needed the air and the silence to diffuse the insane amount
of energy that had waited until after the meeting to barrel into me. Mark
sent me off with a joking salute, and I headed out.
In the scheme of a lifetime, maybe it’d be a small thing. It should be a
small thing. In a lifetime, there’d be other triumphs, other regrets, other
inevitabilities. My parents aging and dying, career pitfalls and upswings.
That moment in the chapter room tonight should’ve been a blip, but it felt
huge. And as I walked across the quad back home, I felt as much
exhilaration as I did a weird sense of calm.
And I really fucking wanted to see Eric.

O NCE BACK AT THE HOUSE , I pushed his door open without knocking. Eric
sat at his desk, his back to me and his task lamp on as he typed on his
laptop. He craned a look over his shoulder at me and gave me one of those
devious grins meant to make my dick perk, but something about my
expression had it fading quickly.
“Everything okay?” he asked, pushing back in his chair to face me.
“Am I interrupting?”
“Never. I was just…” He glanced back at his screen, and I caught a
quick glimpse of the web page before he closed the top. “Nothing
important.”
“Let’s take a drive.”
“Your car or mine?”
“Yours.”
Downstairs I grabbed a beer from the fridge, and we pulled on our
jackets before heading out.
“Somewhere specific in mind, or you just want to drive?” Eric asked,
once we were on the open road.
“Think I just want to drive around.” I cracked the window, frigid air
rushing in the car before I closed it again, fidgety with leftover energy. My
restlessness had nowhere to go inside the car, so I found an outlet in
fiddling with the window buttons, the hem of my shirt.
“Secret’s out at the frat house, I’m guessing? They found out somehow,
or you told them?” Eric glanced over me, his gaze dropping to the closed
tab of the beer I was rubbing my thumb over.
“Both, kind of. The opportunity was there, and I could either take it or
not. Maybe that’s cheating.”
Eric barked out a laugh. “That’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing as
cheating with shit like that.”
I shrugged.
“What, it counts less because you didn’t walk in and formally announce
it? You didn’t have to say shit at all. It’s nobody’s business.”
 I needed to do something other than shrug. “This is going to sound
stupid, but do you think…I wondered…do you think it’ll be the same with
us now that we’re not sneaking around?”
Eric let off the gas, turning his head fully in my direction and studying
me as he licked his lips. That intensity was there full force, and it made my
heart corkscrew in my chest as it beat rapid-fire.
“What’re you doing?” I asked when he slowed the car to a stop on the
shoulder, but he didn’t answer me, just unclipped his seat belt and leaned
across the seat, one hand rising to my throat. The heat of his palm, the soft
pressure as he squeezed. I kept waiting to feel his hand on my thigh or my
cock, but there was only the mellow warmth of his touch to my neck as he
drew in close. “What do you think? Does it feel different?”
I gave a tiny shake of my head as Eric’s other hand found my right,
fingers slotting between mine before he lifted it to press against the glass of
the passenger window. I gripped the collar of his shirt, trying to yank him
closer, but the console gave him the leverage he needed to deny me. My
answer was no. My answer was that it felt just as fucking good. Maybe
better now that there was an unfurling sense of possibility in me, this idea
of togetherness not counted in just singular encounters, but in days and
weeks and months to come. I didn’t know how to transmit the feeling in my
chest into succinct phrasing, though.
“Good,” he murmured, running his nose along my jaw and nipping my
earlobe, then the skin of my neck, still tender from the night before. I
shivered at the hot sting and the light trace of his tongue. “I want you just as
much as yesterday and days before. Nothing has changed for me. If
anything, it’s intensified.”
I stretched my neck, hoping for more, but Eric brushed a kiss over my
lips and dropped back into his seat. When I groaned, he laughed.
“You’re such a fucking tease.”
“That part’s not changing either.” He gave me an unrepentant smirk.
“And let me point out that you do plenty of it yourself.”
“Defensive tactics,” I grumbled, adjusting myself as he put the car into
gear again.
“Uh-huh.”
We drove around a while longer, talking aimlessly, sharing the beer I’d
finally opened and held in my lap.
 Just before we pulled onto the main thoroughfare that led back in the
direction our house, Eric slanted another look at me. “You’ve probably been
in more actual normal…” He paused and backed up. “Traditional
relationships than I have, so you can tell me if I’m wrong or off base, but
nothing has to change that we don’t want to change, know what I mean?
You don’t have to suddenly parade around calling me your boyfriend with a
capital B or anything.”
“You don’t want me to? Are you ashamed of me?”
His brows shot up. “What? No? If anything…no. I’m definitely not
ashamed of you.”
I broke into a laugh, and he flipped me off. “Idiot.” He focused on the
road, then glanced over at me again. “I just mean that we can make our own
rules, do what feels good to us.”
I was itching to make some other stupid quip, but the sincerity and
concern in his expression stopped me. I picked at the tab on my beer can,
eyeing him, thinking about how fucking good he’d been to me—for me—
and I was off and running into that emotional minefield that always had me
mentally hot stepping because I was by no stretch of the imagination
romantic, even though I was definitely a fool for this man. It was the
strangest realization how much I liked feeling taken care of by him. In ways
both as blunt as him telling me to get on my knees and suck his cock
because he knew I fucking loved that shit, and as subtle as the way he
glanced over me as we drove, like he was looking for some visual gauge of
my headspace. In every other one of my relationships, I’d seemed to
naturally fall into the protective role, the dominant force, and the shield.
And there was some of that present with Eric, too, because it wasn’t as if I
felt like I was weak with him. It was actually the opposite.
“You’re glaring again.”
“With affection. Or something.”
“Uh-huh.” He laughed and reached over, dropping his hand on the nape
of my neck and giving it a little squeeze. No clue why that always felt so
reassuring to me, but it was clear he’d picked up on that, too, and had
weaponized it in the best way possible. I sank back against the seat and let
my eyes drift shut for a second, the steady hum of the road beneath us
lulling me. “If I tried to say something, it’d come out cheesy. And I’m not
much for cheesy.”
 “I know.” And the way he said it and looked at me afterward let me
know he was talking about more than just me not wanting to be cheesy. The
corners of his mouth tipped up. I think I’d known it before, but I definitely
knew then it was an expression I’d be seeing on him for a long time
coming. There’d be others, yeah. There’d be fights, and disappointments,
and bad fucking moods, but there’d be that grin, and the smirk I loved, the
way his mouth curved just before he said my name.
“You were looking at apartment complexes earlier. When I came in.” I’d
closed my eyes again, and there were a couple of beats of silence that he
didn’t rush to fill in. The images I’d glimpsed on his computer had
registered belatedly along the drive, the neat lines of buildings scrolling
over his screen. “I’m game.”
I heard him shift in the seat, imagined his expression as amusement.
“You’re assuming I wanted a roommate.” He said it so neutrally that I
opened my eyes. He was focused on the road, but that half-smile was there
working its way toward being a smirk.
“I’m not assuming shit. That’s all fact.”
He chuffed out a soft laugh and hummed something noncommittal as I
straightened in the seat and told him, “Take the next right.” He eyed me
curiously as he turned onto the road that led up to the quarry. “Got a second
wind,” I explained.

T HE WINDOWS of Eric’s SUV were completely fogged up. Shit, we might as

well have been in a sauna for how fucking damp and sweaty we were.
Every breath I took felt like I was sucking it through a wet cotton ball.
Eric’s teeth were pinned in my shoulder, my arms stretched over the
headrests of the back seat—which we definitely should’ve put down—and
Eric was tearing me the fuck up, storming my body with gale force
pleasure. The sound of our grunts and groans filled the cabin, bouncing off
the strain of our bodies moving together and the raspy collision of our
breaths. He hammered at my prostate in hard, steady strokes that forced me
to tighten my slippery hold of the headrests.
My hole stretched around his thick cock, and he rasped out a curse as I
clenched the muscle intentionally, just to hear what it’d do to him. My
entire body felt like it was glowing radioactive, enough electricity coursing
through it to power a small city, and the only reason I hadn’t come yet was
that the friction from the leather seat my dick was mashed against had
morphed from erotic encounter with a new texture to too fucking much with
the amount of precome leaking from my tip.
I shifted my hips to ease the pressure and turned my head, seeking
Eric’s mouth. His fingers slipped from between my lips and dragged a wet
trail across my chin and jaw before he cupped my face and deepened his
angle, giving me a sloppy kiss that bordered on savage, his tongue thrusting
against mine and his teeth gnashing at my skin. Just the way I liked it.
“So fucking greedy for me,” Eric rasped in my ear, and I let out another
breathless, lung-squeezing moan that was all I could manage. It meant yes.
Yes, I was a total fucking glutton for him. His dick, his hands, his tongue,
the lewd observations about how tight I was, how hot, how much he loved
hammering me into slack-jawed, mind-bending ecstasy. Yes, totally,
shamelessly wanton. And I loved it, lived for these moments when our
bodies connected so intensely and completely that even our minds felt
intertwined. In and out, give and take, inhale and exhale.
The leather seat was gonna be a problem, though.
I shifted with a grunt and felt Eric’s hand glide between my cheeks and
graze over my hole while his cock continued to plunge inside me, slower
now, like he was pacing himself and taking some time to recoup after
jackhammering me. We were obviously taking the scenic route tonight, and
he was wearing a condom, which I suspected meant he had plans for my
mouth at some point. Fuck if I was going to complain. There was no one up
here at the quarry. We could fuck all night and be as loud as we wanted to.
There was a rare sense of freedom in it. As much as we got off in our own
house now, we still tried to be relatively quiet about it because who wanted
to live with a pair of sex-crazed rabbits?
I shuddered as Eric’s fingertips tap-danced over my balls before he
gripped them, giving them a few rough-and-tumble tugs and squeezes that
rolled my eyes into the back of my head. “So fucking full for me. Think I
want to see it splashing across your chest. But I’m not sold yet. Might mean
we have to go twice if I can’t decide. You’re good with that, though, aren’t
you, baby?”
“Shit.” A helplessly whimpered curse as he stroked up the length of my
cock, the slick, smooth give of his hand a relief from the hard leather seat
I’d been rubbing against.
“Fuck, you’re soaking the seat.”
“Sorry,” I ground out as he rubbed over my head.
“Don’t be. It’s hot as shit. And thank fuck for leather.” He let out a
breathless laugh, and suddenly I was careening backward, guided by a tug
to my shoulder until I was flat on my back on the bench seat. Eric reached
over me and yanked a lever and the backrest dipped slightly, making room
for the knee he wedged between it and my body, his other leg straddling me
with one foot braced against the floorboards as he hovered above me.
I gripped the backs of his thighs as he whipped off the condom, tossed it
carelessly to the floorboards, and smacked his slick cock against my lips
before rubbing it over my jaw, groaning at the prickle of my stubble. When
his balls settled on my throat, I reached to lift them to my lips and lapped
feverishly at his hot skin while he stroked his shaft slowly. Yeah, definitely
the scenic route.
Eric sank back onto my chest, and I flicked my tongue against his
foreskin before giving it a light suck. I’d never been so infatuated by a cock
in my life. Even the impressive ones I’d seen on Pornhub didn’t equate to
the one before me. Mean and masculine and mouthwatering as fuck, his
crown was flushed a livid purple and swollen, his shaft thick with veins. A
testament to human adaptability that the thing even fit inside of me.
He hummed out his pleasure as I sucked down his rod and bathed his
balls in soft, lapping swirls of my tongue, and then he shifted his hips and
tunneled his fingers to the roots of my hair. Relaxing, I allowed him to slide
me all over his cock and paint my face with his precome and my own spit.
When I groaned, he tensed up and flexed, his other hand coming around to
push his cock upright as he pulled my head onto it.
Muffling another groan, I swallowed against the rush of saliva flooding
my mouth.
“Suck,” he said.
And I did. Noisily, uncouth, and uncaring, taking deep breaths through
my nose every time he withdrew, letting them out when he plunged back in
and hit the back of my throat.
With one hand braced on the back of the seat, Eric reached behind
himself and fisted my cock, giving me a few groin-jolting strokes that made
me gasp and hum against his hot skin.
 Tentatively, and with absolutely no idea of what the fuck I was doing, I
let go of the back of his thigh and palmed his asscheeks, giving them a
squeeze. “Jesus,” I panted. It was driving me wild having him spread above
me like this, all mine to touch and taste. I pulled a finger down the dark,
sweat-slick seam of his ass and glanced up, trying to gauge his reaction in
the darkness as I feathered a light touch over his hole.
Eric went still. Even his hand stopped moving on my shaft. I’d never
really touched anyone else’s asshole in my life aside from my own. Maybe
I’d grazed over a girl’s before, accidentally or curiously until I got the
shutdown. But I’d never done it like this, with a strong intention in my
mind and a deep desire to fulfill it.
I did it again, taking in the texture of bunched skin, the firm resistance
of the muscle, and the tantalizing give when I applied the slightest amount
of pressure. “Shit, Sanders, are we breaking new ground here?” Eric’s voice
filtered lazy and lust-filled through my fascination.
“Maybe. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
“Turning me the fuck on is what.” He shifted slightly. I touched him
once more, this time rubbing the pad of my finger over the ring, feeling it
bunch and twitch as he shuddered out another breath. Fuck that was good,
forcing that sound out of him. It was probably affecting me as much as him
because each little jolt of his body echoed in mine and licked raw tendrils of
fire down my spine. “What’s it gonna be, frat boy? You going to keep
kneading the dough or get yourself a taste?”
I smacked his asscheek and he laughed, then made a strangled noise as I
spread his cheeks, yanked him closer, and licked a wet, messy stripe up his
ass. I did it again, and he adjusted his leg wider with a soft rasp of breath.
“You’re into this?” he asked, and I could feel his gaze boring into me from
above.
“I have no idea, but I’m guessing so because my dick’s leaking like a
motherfucker. Quit distracting me—I don’t wanna fuck this up.”
“You can’t fuck this up, Nate, trust me.”
My thumb brushed over his hole again, and the tension in his asscheeks
went slack where I would’ve tightened up. Fuck, that was sexy, too, how he
just gave himself over to it with no struggle. I was going off the shit he’d
done to me, the things I’d seen in porn, and the visions in my head when I
buried my face in him and licked around his rim lightly. The muscle seized
up reflexively, then relaxed, and a fresh wave of arousal surged through me.
 Eric didn’t exactly sit on my face; I could tell he was making some
serious concessions to comfort so I could breathe, but in the next second,
my entire world was Eric’s tight ass, and the tiny, untapped bud of his hole.
Virgin territory for me and intimidating in a ball-tingling kind of way
because I thought about how fucking amazing it felt when he was rimming
me, and I was worried my efforts wouldn’t have the same effect. Was there
even a technique for properly eating someone’s ass? I had no idea, but I was
game to figure it out, especially if it meant I’d be hearing more of the soft,
breathless sounds Eric made when I flicked my tongue lightly over him.
The muscle fluttered in response, and I reached to get a better grip on
his cheeks so I could spread him wider and tease him with the point of my
tongue. In the dim moonlight, I could only glimpse the impression of his
hole among the shadows of his thighs and the furrow of his ass. I wanted
more. “Turn on the light,” I demanded.
He rasped out a laugh that turned into a groan as I flicked my tongue
again. “You know that’ll make this car light up like a beacon.”
“Just for a minute. Can’t fucking see what I’m doing.” As if that was the
issue instead of me wanting an up close and personal view of his bud—
never mind that I could’ve taken this road probably at any point before in a
far more convenient location. I’d been too nervous, and now I was still too
nervous but also too fucking turned on to help myself.
Eric’s thighs tensed as he leaned, then light flooded the car, making me
wince until my eyes adjusted. And then there it was, spit wet and shiny,
small and dusky pink and… “Fuuuuck.” My cock twitched hard and
thumped against my stomach, slicking it with the ooze of precome.
“Just like that,” he encouraged me softly, hitching one leg up and
anchoring his fist in my hair. “Jeeeesus.”
I tongued his entrance, tracing the shape, loving the mixture of softness
and tension, the way the skin pulled together and tightened up, then
released with every pass. I ran the pad of my thumb around his rim,
imagining him doing the same to me, how fucking much it’d drive me
crazy, and he let out a soft groan, a muttered curse. I kept it slow and easy,
mostly for my own sake so I could get my bearings. When I nudged the
point of my tongue inside him, he contracted around me, and I dug the hell
out of that, too.
“Shit, Nate,” he hissed out, and I did it again because I fucking craved
the sound of his control fraying. “There you go,” he muttered as I wriggled
down so my head wasn’t jammed up against the car door. I gave him
another slow lick that made his thighs quake, and fuck if that didn’t get me
all kinds of hot and bothered, too.
Letting go of my inhibitions and anxiety over whether I was doing a
good job or not I unleashed, sucking and licking and fluttering my tongue
against his hole with shameless, enthusiastic abandon and not even trying to
be quiet or graceful about it.
Eric chanted a steady stream of quiet curses, one hand dropping to fist
his cock. He stroked himself roughly, every jerk and twitch of his body
spurring me on. I licked and lapped and thrust my tongue into his hole over
and over, going mad for the way his muscles gave around the invasion.
When I added my middle finger to the mix and pressed it just barely inside,
a low rumble issued from his throat. “Jesus, frat boy, you’ve been holding
out on me.”
“Not intentionally,” I said in a breathless gasp. I’d honestly had no idea
it’d be such a fucking turn-on, but I was wild for it, my hips starting to
pump aimlessly at the air as pressure mounted in my balls. All over licking
Eric’s fucking asshole. Who knew? Eric rocked against me, rubbing himself
against my tongue, unabashed and reckless. Gripping his ass, my fingers
twitched indecisively until I slid them lower to his rim, tasting them as I
licked and sucked at Eric’s skin.
“Don’t get shy on me now, put it in,” he growled, the prompt I needed
to make myself press the tip of my finger to his hole again. The muscle
gave immediately and let me inside where the smooth heat of his body
clamped around my intrusion.
“Oh my God.” You’d have thought I’d just stumbled across evidence of
an afterlife, but the reaction inside me was that fucking dramatic because
he’d just let me in like that, like it was no big deal.
I nudged my finger in deeper until the heat of his channel enveloped me
completely. There I was fingering Eric’s ass, and I thought maybe I was
getting off on it just as much as he was. “Oh my God,” I said again, my
vocabulary suddenly reduced to simple combinations, probably well on its
way to caveman-style grunts. “That’s so fucking hot, so fucking…” My
hips bucked wildly in the air, and I tried to calm the hell down and glide my
finger deeper, struck by the concentrated pressure of his muscle squeezing
me and the sublimely warm give of the channel beyond. No wonder he
liked fingering my ass so much. The invasiveness of it was oddly powerful
and beyond erotic. I plunged in and out haphazardly a couple of times,
getting a feel for the movement and Eric’s reaction, feeling the instinctive
squeeze relax until it was minimal.
Then I tried for more finesse. “Can I…?” I asked, withdrawing and
brushing my index finger alongside my middle.
Eric eased back so he could look down at me with an amused smile. “I
dunno, can you?”
I pushed the second finger inside, and his back arched sharp and
gratifying when I twisted my wrist. With a nudge of my other hand, I
guided him back up my mouth, clutching his cheek as I speared into him
with my fingers and laved my tongue aimlessly at whatever patch of skin I
could reach.
Eric’s hips undulated and twitched responsively, and when I finally
figured out what was what and found that bundle of nerves that packed the
knockout punch, he clenched so hard around me that my own hole tightened
up in empathy and ached.
Pushing back against me until the soaked tip of his cock was leaking all
over my lips, Eric started jerking himself against my mouth. We found a
rhythm: my fingers cranking in his hole, taunting and rubbing his prostate,
his dick rubbing all over my face and lips, smacking and dripping against
me. And holy shit, I never wanted it to end. The wet slurps of my tongue
and fingers and the skin-on-skin rush of his hand up and down his shaft
joined in lewd symphony with our staggered breaths and drove me up the
wall.
“Fuck, touch me or something, I’m dying,” I begged, shoving his hips
back a little. My face was soaking wet, and I was seriously starting to
wonder if there was any chance that my balls could actually explode. My
dick needed a little relief, some kind of touch to let it know it hadn’t been
forgotten.
Eric chuckled and slid down my body until his cock aligned with mine
and then rocked his hips against me a couple of times, pausing only to flip
the light off. I didn’t complain; I’d seen enough to know I’d be a repeat
visitor.
“Better?”
“Not fucking really,” I groused. I needed friction. I needed heat and
warmth and…
 Eric dipped down and captured my mouth with his to give me a long,
burning kiss before drawing back, those dark, wicked eyes dancing in front
of me as he cupped his hand below his mouth and spit in it.
“Fuck yes,” I whispered, my hips twitching in anticipation of that slick,
hot hand sliding up and down my shaft and giving me a mainline dose of
perfect pressure.
But instead of the frenzied strokefest I was hoping for, he coated my
shaft and then gripped my base, rubbing my crown up and down the crack
of his ass until my shoulders were jerking this way and that and I was
moaning like a fucking cat in heat. “Eric!” I gritted out and then invoked
the magic word, “Please, you fucker, goddamn…”
Before I could fully comprehend what was happening, impossibly tight
heat engulfed the head of my cock, forcing a keening cry of surprise from
my mouth.
Pleasure drove in hard spikes down my shaft as Eric sank onto my
aching cock, his hands dropping to brace on either side of my head, his
mouth lowering inches above mine. “How’s that?” he teased, and I closed
my eyes, pressing my lips together so hard my teeth dug into the sensitive
lining as I forced a slow exhale through my nose.
My orgasm was right there. Right. Fucking. There. And I was certain if
I moved even a millimeter, I’d explode. This was like…I was mind-blown,
having never even assumed this was in the cards for us tonight. But holy
fuck did it feel incredible being inside him with the heat of his body
melding with mine.
Eric went still as my dick gave a few warning throbs, and then he licked
the seam of my lips until I unclenched my teeth, still so fucking close to
shattering that I whimpered, “Eric. Stop.”
He froze, and even in the pitiful amount of moonlight coming in
through the windows, I could see the shadows immediately collect where
his brow furrowed deeply. I would’ve laughed if I wasn’t afraid the
movement would have me firing off right then.
I rushed to clarify. “I mean don’t move. If I even think about what’s
happening for more than a second, I’ll lose it. Fuck, how do you even go as
long as you do with me? I’m seriously…” Eric shifted, albeit carefully, and
I groaned, my hands flying to his hips and digging into his flesh to keep
him still. “I swear to God if you move again, it’s over.”
 Eric’s dusky laughter filled the air, and he closed the space between our
mouths and kissed me, firm but slow, rerouting my attention from the
throbbing tip of my cock and aching balls to the sensation of his tongue
sliding over mine. He tugged the ends of my hair until I winced at the sting,
then ran his hands over my chest, circling and pinching my nipples until
they were just one more quivering spot on my body. But it worked, the
intensity in my balls mellowing as he lit other parts of me up one by one.
“Better?” he asked a few moments later, and I nodded.
I sucked in a deep steadying breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know
how to…I mean I’ve never fucked a dude before.” As if Eric didn’t know
that. I liked getting fucked by him through and through, which I guess made
me a pretty solid bet as a bottom, and to be honest, even though Eric had
mentioned bottoming before, I hadn’t really anticipated it coming up
between us.
Maybe I didn’t know exactly what I was doing, but I knew that firing
off five seconds after his hole swallowed my cock only qualified as
flattering, not satisfying. And I desperately wanted this to be as good for
him as it was bound to be for me. I mean shit, I already felt the signal fire
trill of electricity running up and down my body like miniature earthquakes.
This orgasm, when it finally happened, was gonna be seismic.
“It’s a hole like any other.” He said it so casually, but it wasn’t. It was
Eric’s fucking hole. Eric’s tight, suck-my-brains-through-the-head-of-my-
dick hole. Eric’s ass in my hands, though I didn’t delude myself about who
was running the show. He owned the orgasm lurking just below the surface,
and at any moment, he could bring it rip-roaring upward just by the way he
cut his eyes at me. God help me if he opened his fucking mouth and
something along the lines of “Come for me” came out. Shit, at this point, he
could probably bark out my name and I’d bow up and start popping off like
a machine gun.
He pinched my nipple again until I twisted my shoulders, then nibbled
at my earlobe, his breath an erotic wash of humid warmth over my skin.
Every part of my body felt like it’d been primed for his touch, pleasure
following in the wake of his caresses like he’d bottled the stuff up and could
sprinkle it out at will. He probably could’ve kissed me to orgasm.
“But we don’t have to by any means. I can flip you over, pry those tight
cheeks apart and—” I smothered his mouth with my hand and the rest came
out muffled in a laugh.
 “Right, yeah, I get that. It’s a hole. A really fucking tight, fucking…” I
groaned and bit the rest of the sentence off as my cock gave another red-
alert-level twitch inside him. “Can we talk about calculus for a minute or
um, maybe you can tell me about the new project you were working on the
other day? That skyscraper-looking thing?”
His lips rolled inward, amusement catching fire in his eyes. “All right.”
He rubbed his thumb over my cheek and traced the shell of my ear. “For
starters, it’s not a skyscraper, technically. Not enough floors for that. And I
think I’ve made an error in the gravity load.” His brow wrinkled, and then
he chuckled as a shiver ran across my shoulders at the word load. Jesus,
was nothing fucking safe? It wasn’t lost on me, either, that it was kind of
hilarious how serious he looked spouting off the facts about this not-
skyscraper while my dick was buried in his ass and throbbing so hot and
hard I’d have been willing to put money on being able to blast a soda can
off a stand. I couldn’t afford laughter, though. Laughter meant stomach
muscles tightening, tugging on groin muscles, and that meant busting my
nut.
Eric flicked his middle finger against the underside of my chin. “Pay
attention. The base needs more support to bear the downward pressure and
release—”
I groaned. “Okay, your nerdy talk is just as bad as your dirty talk.
There’s some serious crossover effect happening.”
“Maybe you need a different kind of distraction.” Eric slid up my length
slowly enough that ecstasy dragged across the surface of my cock instead of
pummeling me forcefully. All the way off. He lifted one hand to brace
against the window and kept on coming forward until his cock bumped my
lips and his thumb parted them.
I sucked him down compliantly, eagerly, bracing up on one elbow,
seizing his quad for balance with my other hand, then sliding it around to
his ass. He hit the back of my throat with a groan, coating it with the salty
tang of his precome, then hit it again, making me choke and sputter. His
hand dropped briefly to my throat and then was gone, fire racing up my
cock this time before I could truly understand what was about to happen.
“Oh shit, that’s—”
Eric’s asscheeks ground into my pubes, my cock gave a heavy twitch
deep inside him, and then he was lifting off again in a slow, steady
withdrawal that carried him all the way back to my mouth, where I licked
clumsily at his cock around groans for the bliss seesawing through me.
Down onto my cock, then up to my mouth. Nice and easy. Filling and being
filled.
I gave up trying to fight against my instincts. A deluge of pleasure
flooded through me in all directions, too fucking widespread to send me
careening off the cliff all at once, but doing a hell of a job at making the
muscles of my core, thighs, and shoulders tremble. I think even a couple of
my toes were twitching.
This, too, I could’ve done for hours, racked by the measured piston of
his body, the thrust and retreat of his cock in my mouth somehow
combining with the heat of his hole around my dick until I felt like little
more than a pleasure receptor giving and receiving in a steady feedback
loop of ecstasy. No higher thought processes, no name, no body, just waves
of sensation moving through me at varying intensities.
“With me?” Eric’s whispered words moved across and into my gaping
mouth, and I blinked open my eyes. Then blinked again to ground myself.
“Yeah, barely. Shit. Is there a land beyond orgasm, because I’m pretty
sure I’m in it. It’s like I’m in this vortex of…I don’t even know. Eric.” God,
was it possible for me to say his name more desperately? My fingers dug
into his hips as he dipped his head low enough that I could stretch up and
seize his mouth in a rough kiss that made my swollen lips thrum.
“Need something?”
“Yeah…no…oh God.” I needed to come so badly I didn’t even have the
brainpower left to articulate it.
Tension limned Eric’s body, and the shudder that rolled through him
became a shiver across his ass where I held him. He sucked in a thready
breath, and I realized he was just barely holding back.
“Let go,” he murmured, then ground his ass hard against my base before
drawing up to my tip and slamming down again. The sedate pleasure haze
I’d been drifting in was pierced by the rocky crags of a full-blown frenzy.
“Fuck…feels so damn good,” I gasped out and seized his hips, plunging
deep inside him. “You first. Wanna feel it.” I was desperate for the hot
velvet clamp of him around my shaft as he blew his load, desperate to know
if it felt as good as I always imagined it did when it was his cock in my ass.
It had to. Had to be like a straight fucking shot to nirvana in a front-row
seat. No seat belts.
 Eric grunted, a hand flying to the back of the driver’s seat, and met my
thrusts with the force of his own, smacking back onto me. “Need your hand
on me. Hard and fast,” he demanded, gripping my throat with enough force
to send a tingle through my temples, but not enough that I couldn’t breathe.
A delicious, warning quiver of impending release ricocheted through my
abs.
I managed to wrap a fist around his cock, my mouth dropping open and
nothing but air coming out in thick gasps that left me light-headed as I
pumped his shaft.
“Shit.” The word tore from Eric’s mouth on a lusty moan as he clamped
down on my cock like a fucking fire-coated vise. He let off the pressure in
my throat at the same time, and the rush of blood to my head spun me out
into an ecstatic daze. I didn’t know what kind of magic that was, but I lost
my mind as he wrapped his hand over my grip, squeezed, and unloaded in
thick spurts all over my chest.
Fisting my fingers in his hair, I pulled his mouth to mine, not so much
kissing him as spilling ragged breaths over his lips and jaw. I bucked into
the pulse of his ass with zero finesse, the enthusiastic craze of blinding
orgasm rocketing through me like my entire body was a flume for an
electric torrent of rapture. I shouted out, and the liquid fire kept right on
coming as his channel contracted around my dick.
I’d had a lot of orgasms with Eric. A lot of shiny, fucking top-shelf,
Grade A, five-star releases that left me shattered and dry and limp-limbed.
Hell, limp-brained. This one was enormous and endless. I felt the
mechanical process, yeah, the pulse of my cock as my load jetted inside him
and he spasmed around me, felt my cock spend itself as he milked me dry,
but the pleasure kept soaring through me even after my cock stopped
twitching, until I was shaking beneath him and realized that the roar I’d let
out had trailed off into a raspy string of “Jesuses.”
When my limbs stopped reverberating like I’d been standing next to a
speaker cranked to eleven, lead settled into my core, spread through my
bones, and my hands fell from his flanks, incapable of holding on anymore.
Eric slid his hand through the puddles of come on my chest, all the way
to my lips, the spicy scent of exertion heady as he bent down and kissed me.
He laced his fingers with mine and brought our joined hands to the top of
my chest. His weight sank onto me and his lips skimmed over my cheek as
he rested his head next to mine.
 My dick softened in his ass, slid halfway out, and still he didn’t move.
The place where our fingers met felt like the only thing holding me the fuck
together.
“So,” he said after a few moments. “What’s the score?”
Score—Jesus, like I could tally up the ways in which I’d just been
turned inside out into a neat sum. But I tried. “People have stroked out
during sex before, haven’t they?”
“I’m sure.” His laughter was breathy and exhausted.
“Not that it’d be a bad way to go, although maybe a little disappointing
if you bit it before you blew.”
Eric hummed against my throat. “So I’m gonna to mark that down as
gold-medal worthy.”
I freed one of my hands and traced my fingertips down the furrow of his
ass to the place where we joined. A mess of sticky wetness coated my skin
and drew a soft sigh from him. “Hnnnnnnnnnnnnn…” I groaned. “That’s
my official answer. How about you? Was it…”
“Sex with you is easily the best I’ve had. Ever.”
“Bet I was up against some stiff competition.” A guy as sexually savvy
as Eric? I figured he could probably fill a book of smut with pages upon
pages of shit that would make my jaw drop, but he raised up a little bit,
smoothing away a few strands of hair stuck to my forehead as he said,
“There’s no competition, and there hasn’t been since the beginning.”
Damn if that wasn’t a nice ego stroke.
The sweat layering my arms and the back of my neck cooled. Our
breathing slowed and still neither of us moved. It might have been fifteen
minutes, it might have been a half hour.
“You’re quiet,” Eric said after a while, folding his arms over my chest
and resting his chin on them. I wound an arm behind my neck so I could see
him.
I’d been lying there staring at the crown of his head, running my fingers
through the dark strands and thinking about what-ifs. What if I’d said no the
first time? What if I’d let him walk out of my room that night? What if I’d
kissed him sooner? Would I have scared myself off? Each time we got
together, it was like one more layer of myself peeled back, and now I lay
here feeling…not raw, and not even vulnerable or exposed—though I was
all of those things with him, and more than willing to be stripped to my core
by him now—but mostly I felt like all the bullshit had been whittled away
and I was just me. A closer match to the thoughts that’d always been inside
my head.
And then I cycled back around to that first what-if again. If I’d never
given Eric a chance, I’d have sold myself short on all of this, on the bone-
deep ache for him, the intense connection I felt with him, the…fuck.
My breath hitched as my gaze locked on his. “I love you,” I blurted out,
unpolished and impulsive as ever, and then gritted my teeth. “I didn’t mean
it to come out like that. I was hoping for something a little smoother and
maybe like…not in the back seat of a Jeep with my soft dick still half inside
you.”
Eric dipped his head, silent laughter vibrating over my chest, but it was
gone when he looked up again, leaving only the steady gleam in his eyes. “I
don’t know. It’s kinda perfect really. Very…us.”
“Don’t feel like you have to…” I started, before he moved his hand over
my mouth. I darted my tongue out to taste him, and he lowered his head to
mine, whispering, “Shut up, Nate.” He replaced his fingers with his lips in a
slow kiss that was like pressing a finger to the permanent bruise I had for
him. Always tender, always aching, always wanting. Masochistic in a sense.
I guess I could add that to the list of things he’d uncovered in me.
“Of course I love you,” he said quietly, the humor fading from his eyes
and replaced with resolute intensity. “Can hardly fucking see straight if
you’re in the same goddamn room. I could’ve told you before—almost did
a couple of times—but I didn’t want it to be some kind of pressure on you.”
All the air that felt like it’d been compressed into a ball inside my chest
released in sublime relief at hearing him say it back to me. I understood
why he’d held back, though. “Probably a good call.”
He murmured a sound of agreement against my chest, then flicked his
finger lightly at my chin.
“I have to tell you something, though.”
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at his rogue grin.
“Those apartments I was looking at earlier…that was for a class
project.”
“Oh.” God, now I felt dumb. Eric tipped my chin to meet his eyes again,
warm with humor.
“But now that you’ve put it out there, I’d really love that. Living with
you. Having our own place.”
“Yeah?”
 “Fuck yeah. I mean, I was planning on staying here for the summer, and
if you were, too, we could just do it then, or next fall for senior year we
could—”
“Yeah, I wanna stick around,” I was quick to jump in as the idea took
flight in me and my mind started racing into the future. Why get a summer
job back home when I’d rather spend my off time with Eric anyway? Our
own place, no roommates, Eric all to myself? Hell yeah.
“Good.” The corner of his lips tugged upward, and he started to ease
upright before I flung an arm around him and dragged him back down.
“Don’t even think about leaving yet, or else prepare to drive home with
me back here like a corpse. Because I still can’t fucking move. I’ll probably
be dead for at least twenty-four hours. Maybe a couple of days.”
Eric made a face. “I’m not into necrophilia.”
“No? I thought you had no limits,” I teased.
“Very few with you,” he admitted soberly, nuzzling my jaw. “And I’m
pretty sure we’ve only just started testing them with each other.”
“Jesus.” I groaned, something about those words sending a quiet thrill
up my spine. “I wish we could move right now.”
Eric barked out a laugh as he sat up and started fishing around the
floorboards for his clothes.
“If we moved right now, I wouldn’t have a reason to make sure you
keep the volume down.”
I scoffed, snatching the boxers he extended in my direction and letting
them drop to my chest. “As if you needed a reason in the first place. You do
that shit because you like it and because you can.”
“Point.”
“You know what I’m interested to see?”
“Lay it on me.” Arching against the back seat, Eric tugged his jeans
over his hips.
I propped up on one elbow so I could reach out and hook a finger
through his belt loop. Eric’s hand flew to the back of the seat to steady
himself as I yanked him off balance toward me. “I wanna see how fucking
well you manage when it’s you against the wall and I’m the one hammering
you into it.”
There were two beats of silence, two long beats where Eric ran his
tongue over his lower lip before raking it with his teeth, and I knew he
could still taste me. His eyes flicked over me in hot, hooded appraisal, and
then the corners of his mouth quirked up and his biceps flexed as he leaned
closer to smear his reply over my chin, my lips. “You’re on, frat boy.”
I grinned, 100 percent up for the challenge.
But tomorrow.
 7

LATE MAY

T he new place wasn’t going to win any awards for curb appeal or
interior design. It wasn’t even going to get one of those “hey, you
tried” beautification plaques that the city seemed to award anyone
who planted a shrub or two around a parking lot perimeter. But it was
within walking distance of the U and was safe, and my parents had chipped
in an extra fifty bucks a month for it over another one we’d looked at across
town. They weren’t thrilled Eric and I were living together, but my mom
went overboard explaining that it had nothing to do with Eric. I got it, but
still told her there was no alternative; whether I lived close to the U or in
Timbuktu, it would be with Eric.
“Nate!” It came sharp from Eric’s mouth, which meant he’d said it more
than once now.
I jerked my gaze up from where it’d gotten stuck kinda half on his ass
and half on the trunk of his Jeep as he leaned into it and withdrew an
overflowing open box of textbooks, clothes, and cables—our version of
packing wasn’t very professional. On his face was a smirk, the one I
internally referred to as level 1c, threat level moderate. Anything higher
than that meant I’d probably have my pants around my ankles within a
matter of minutes.
“Your right back tire looks a little low,” I told him.
“Yeah? You gonna plug the leak with that boner?” He leered at my
crotch, and my gaze naturally drifted down to see if my dick was kicking up
a fuss behind my shorts. It was, but a minor one for now. I could work
around it.
 I flipped him the bird. “I might.”
“Well, how about you open up the door first?”
I grunted and fished the key from my pocket, then dug for my phone,
too, as it started buzzing.
“Are you in yet?” my mom asked when I answered.
“Literally unlocking the door. We haven’t been mugged so far, no one
has offered us drugs, and Eric hasn’t started destroying walls yet, so I think
we’re good.”
“You’re terrible, do you know that?” I could hear the smile in her voice.
“Be destroying that ass in about thirty minutes,” Eric murmured against
my other ear in passing, his husky voice a dirty omen as he whisked by me
and through the door with the box.
“What’s that? Eric?” My mom’s tone brightened as I adjusted myself.
“Tell Eric I say hi.”
I choked on a laugh and cleared my throat, calling out after him. “My
mom says you’re not allowed to destroy anything.” Eric’s laughter rang
down the hall as I followed him inside. “He says hi, Ma. Can I call you
back later? We’re right in the middle of carrying a load in.”
“No need. Call me when you get settled. I just wanted to ask you to take
a picture of the two of you in front of the door.”
I groaned. “Really?”
She put her sharp voice on, the one that was like a tack meant to sail
cleanly through any resistance. And damn was she good at it. “Really, son.
Take the damn picture and send it to your poor mother. It’s a rite of
passage.”
“You can put it next to the one of me in my mankini,” I said, and when
Eric came back out, I grabbed his arm and pulled him in front of the door.
“For posterity. At my mom’s request.”
It took five tries before we snapped one G-rated enough to send to her.

B Y FOUR IN THE AFTERNOON , we had everything loaded in and we walked

through the small townhome surveying the rooms. No washing machine or
dryer, but there was a communal laundry room on the premises and a
laundromat a block away. A tiny kitchen opened to the living room with an
equally tiny fireplace we would probably never use tucked in the corner.
Upstairs were two bedrooms with a shared bath. We’d put our desks in the
second bedroom and left my full-size bed for the next roommate at the old
house, bringing Eric’s queen for the master.
After we finished our walk-through, I hopped up on the kitchen counter,
taking the beer Eric passed me and cracking the seal as he leaned up against
the counter next to me, draping one arm over my thigh. We silently
considered the living room, the small couch from my old room, and the
coffee table. There was an empty patch of stained carpet that was reserved
for a dining table. At some point.
I sucked down a long draft of brew and licked my lips. “It looks like
shit.” Not even the braided rug my mom had sent home with me after a visit
earlier in the spring could help the aesthetic. In fact, as I squinted at the
multicolored ropes, I thought it might actually be making things worse.
“Grade A dog shit, yep,” Eric agreed, and we both cracked up, laughing
until I had a stitch in my side and tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.
“I guess only gay guys get the mad interior design skills?” I said, when I
could. “Bi’s get, like, fifty-fifty odds and we both must’ve landed on the
wrong side of them.”
“No way,” Eric said vehemently. “I’ve known way too many gay dudes
who were absolute shit at dressing. Themselves or their digs.”
“Maybe we can get a new couch after a few paychecks.” We’d both
gotten summer jobs. Nothing spectacular. Eric had taken an engineering
internship one of his professors had hooked him up with, while I’d gotten a
serving position at an upscale restaurant downtown.
“I think we need a dining table first. That bare patch of carpet is scary.”
“Point. Okay, table first.”
I knocked my beer can against his and took a long swallow. “Done.
What’s next?”
He gave me some side eye along with a wicked grin that sent the tempo
of my pulse into a gallop. “What do you think, frat boy? We’re going to
christen at least one room. It’s basically a rite of passage.”
I had to laugh at how it echoed what my mom had said earlier.
Definitely not what she’d meant when she said it. I liked Eric’s version
better, though.
“But groceries first,” he tacked on, and I groaned. The fucker never
missed a chance to build me up and then keep me waiting. Ever.
“E RIC .”
He glanced up from the fruit display where he stood stuffing some
apples in a produce bag, and I tipped my head toward the eggplant I held in
my hand. “Look familiar?”
His brows shot up, an expression of mock concern taking over his
features. “Fuck, I hope not. Unless it’s symbolic or something.”
Wrapping my fists around the neck of the eggplant, I gave it a testing
squeeze. “I dunno, the girth is feeling like a pretty solid match to me.” I
tossed the thing in Eric’s direction, snickering as he was forced to leap
sideways to catch it. He shook his head at me and brought the eggplant back
over to the bin, dropping it in before retrieving his sack of apples, knotting
the bag up, and sticking it in the cart. Then he picked up a cucumber and
looked it over speculatively before cutting his eyes my way. He didn’t even
waggle his brows, and I still cracked up at the innuendo in his expression.
It was one of the things I loved about him, how he didn’t even have to
open his mouth and he could make me laugh. And shit, there were a lot of
other things he could make me do without opening his mouth—but the
laughing part, that was something I’d come to increasingly appreciate in the
months that had passed since we’d officially gotten together.
We moved on from the produce section and wandered down the aisles.
Eric seemed to have more of a strategy than I did. If I had cereal, bread, and
some lunch meat, I was set.
“I guess we should get some frozen dinners and stuff? Pizza?” he said.
“My internship is sure as shit not paying enough to eat out all the time. Or
maybe things to cook?”
We both gave each other a gauging glance and then laughed again.
“My mom would be horrified right now. But I’m good on a grill,” I
offered. “Except we don’t have a grill. Bump it up before table purchase?”
“Definitely. I’m all right at cooking,” Eric said, pursing his lips before
he added another box to the pile in our cart.
“I guess whoever’s home can figure out dinner.” I tossed in a few frozen
meals, and Eric grabbed a couple for himself. “I haven’t thought much
about who would do what,” I admitted. “Like, are we both gonna do our
own laundry individually or just whoever’s around? Do people actually
discuss this before living together? Domestic roles are weird.”
 “I’m not sure,” Eric murmured thoughtfully and then rapped his
knuckles lightly atop the handle of the cart. “Okay, we can do this. Let’s
break it down on a scale of hatred. Laundry?”
“Don’t hate it, really.” Actually folding laundry kind of sucked, but I
got an idea neither of us much cared if our laundry was folded or not.
“Me either, so not helpful. Cooking?”
“Hate it, but like I said, I’m cool with grilling.”
“Okay, I don’t mind cooking when I’m around.” Eric navigated the cart
around a chip display. “So you take laundry.”
“Done.” I nodded, swiping a bag of tortilla chips and tossing it in the
cart as we moved down the next aisle. Eric grabbed a jar of salsa, holding it
up for my inspection until I gave the okay with a nod.
“Grocery store?”
“Not a fan.” And especially not when it was used as a delayed
gratification tactic by my boyfriend. Yeah, boyfriend; I’d gotten over that
sliver of reservation, too.
“Also not a fan. So we alternate.”
“All right, we’re kicking ass at this so far.” We reached the end of the
aisle and moved to the dairy section, where I automatically reached for the
skim as Eric reached for the 2 percent.
“Oh man, no way,” I said, staring disparagingly at the carton as he
lofted it up. “Them’s fightin’ words right there.”
Eric looked down at the carton and then over to the one in my hand, an
equally disapproving expression on his face. “Skim milk tastes like water.”
“Exactly. It’s perfect for cereal,” I countered.
“So why not just use water?”
“Because that’s nasty.” I noticed he hadn’t put the carton of 2 percent
back, though. “Two percent is nasty, too, and whole milk is nausea
inducing. Too thick.”
Eric pressed his lips together, but failed to suppress a smirk. “Funny. I
don’t remember you having any problems with things that are thick. Liquid
or solid.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “You’re hilarious.”
“I’m right. Fine, we’ll get both.” He put his milk in the cart next to
mine. “Cleaning?”
“Fuck that. Let’s just not do it.”
 Eric laughed. “I don’t know, thinking about you hunched over scrubbing
a toilet gets me kinda hot.”
“Ohh, are you into domestic servitude?”
“I might be.”
“That’s too bad for you, then, because I did my time scrubbing toilets
and baseboards and floors freshman year.”
“Bet I could persuade you.”
I stared at him until he relented with a chuckle, which was good because
he totally could have persuaded me to do all the cleaning on my own. As
long as he was watching and there was a serious reward system in place.
“We both clean.”
Eric nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

I PUT the groceries away in the kitchen while Eric broke down the few
boxes we’d used to haul stuff over from the old house. Glancing into the
living room, I studied him as he curled over, dragging an X-Acto knife up a
line of tape, the muscles of his biceps and forearms lean and defined. I liked
looking at him when he wasn’t aware my attention was on him, and fuck,
maybe there was something to the whole domestic business—kink,
whatever. Not that breaking down boxes was particularly domestic, but still,
watching the methodical precision with which he slit the tape, pulled the
flaps apart, then flattened the box before moving on to the next one, quietly
focused as ever, yeah, it was giving me a semi.
Also, it was hot as hell in the apartment, and staring at Eric wasn’t
helping. I swiped the back of my hand across my forehead, then did it
again. I’d set the thermostat to 70 as soon as we’d arrived, but it still felt
about 90 degrees.
I frowned, anticipating a call to the landlord in our future. Turning away
from Eric and back to the groceries, I stuck a loaf of bread in one of the
cabinets, then started shoving boxes of crackers and chips in beside the
bread, trying to ignore the heat in favor of queuing up a nice little fantasy of
Eric as a mover hopping off a truck, walking toward me with one of those
captivating private smiles he seemed so capable of brandishing at will, his
mouth opening to tell me to bend over so he could stuff me full of his—
 “Jesus!” I jumped as he wrapped his arms around me from behind and
snickered. “Can’t believe you got me,” I said, huffing out a light chuckle.
“Usually I can tell you’re coming from a mile away.” And I didn’t mean
audibly. It was his presence I could feel, that I was always aware of,
impossible to explain and one of those things I’d have never believed in
until I felt it. Like a quiet link between us. It was both cheesy and true.
He hummed lightly against the sweat damp skin of my neck, and I let go
of the box I was holding, reaching up and behind me to sift my fingers
through the long ends of his hair. “Shit, you could probably make me come
from a mile away,” I muttered, and his chuckle washed over me as the brush
of his lips over my skin became one kiss, then two, then a soft suction
anchored by a light flick of his tongue. I groaned, forgetting the groceries,
the fantasy of him as a mover nothing more than smoke. This was infinitely
better: him behind me, the weight of him and his firmness.
Well, while it lasted. Because a second later, it was gone.
“Thirsty?” he asked, and I turned around and nodded, watching as he
pulled a couple of glasses from the cabinet and strode to the fridge,
scooping ice into them before returning to the sink and filling them. “We
forgot bottled water.”
I lifted a brow. “I had no idea you were so fancy.”
“This water tastes…green or something. Like it’s straight out of a river.”
Eric gave me the bird as he handed me my glass and tipped his up.
“You can get some next time when you go.” I grinned and took a sip,
which tasted just fine to me, then set it back on the counter and picked up
the box of rice I’d been holding, eyeing it now because I couldn’t remember
why we’d gotten it aside from the fact that rice was a pantry staple. I mean,
were either of us actually going to make it? The likelihood seemed slim,
and it wasn’t even the quick-cooking kind. “Did you put this in the cart, or
did I?” I asked, shaking it at him.
“I did.”
“Gonna cook me something fancy? Wine me and dine me?” Eric and I
had gone out on some legit dates before to nice restaurants, but it really
wasn’t our style, and the best part had honestly been seeing how hard we
could get each other and how much we could get away with right in the
middle of the dining room. It turned out to be trickier than anticipated
unless the tablecloths were long, which most weren’t. Our most memorable
venture had been the fraternity’s formal a couple of months ago at a country
club where Eric had managed to give me the biggest stealth orgasm I’d ever
experienced via a combination of filthy talk and conscientious jacking so
erratic that a healthy 50 percent of that release was purely due to the thrill
factor of having people mere feet from us. I’d felt a little guilty over
whoever was on cleanup duty that night because I’d shot straight up on the
underside of the table and no doubt it’d dripped all over the club’s fancy
parquet floor.
“Maybe.” Eric’s lips tilted in a crooked smile. “I’m not afraid of
weaponizing cooking. Gotta keep you satisfied in every way. And I can
make a very mean pot roast.”
“Where were these skills at the old house?” I asked, completely
glossing over the whole bit about keeping me satisfied because Jesus did he
ever, and if he wanted to add in cooking on top of it, I was all for it.
“You think I’d trot something like that out just so everyone else could
badger me the way they did Jesse?”
He had a point. Jesse was an awesome cook, and I couldn’t count the
number of times we’d tacked on a request that he make enough for the rest
of us if we spied him in the kitchen. And he’d always do it, too, grumbling
all the way even though I had an idea he’d actually liked doing it.
“You’re the only one I want to cook for,” Eric explained, and it was
clear from his expression that the answer made perfect sense to him.
“You’re not gonna hear me complain.”
“Really? I’ve never known you to pass up an opportunity.”
I tossed the box back onto the counter and lifted my chin. “C’mere,” I
demanded, knowing full well he’d come when he was good and goddamn
ready and not a second before. But it was the flash of heat I caught passing
through his eyes at the command that I was after in the first place.
Eric tipped his head back and kept his eyes fastened to mine as he
drained his water glass in long gulps that by some black magic immediately
became innuendo and drew my attention to the steady bobbing of his
Adam’s apple. Then he set the empty glass in the sink and took a couple of
prowling steps toward me until I could reach out for his wrists and reel him
the rest of the way in.
“About to complain right now?” He lifted his hands to either side of my
face, one palm warm with body heat, the other cool from holding the water
glass. The tantalizing disparity in temperature made me bite my lip.
 “Maybe,” I said, but I wouldn’t. I had no real complaints, hadn’t in
months and months. What protests I did make were little more than
desperate pleas when he worked me into a frenzy. And they, in turn, worked
him up, too. I understood him as well as he understood me, and what had
once felt like a careful dance between us was now more intentional, more
confident, our wants and needs slotting together in a balanced give-and-take
that was so damn incendiary and satisfying I still couldn’t believe this was
my life sometimes.
There was an additional factor, too, one that I’d underestimated at first,
hadn’t been able to grasp onto the nature of what it was, exactly: the way
we told each other everything, the quiet moments that came between the
inferno of our chemistry, when we were just doing mundane things like
grabbing a bite after class or hanging out at a bar with friends. An errant
touch, a look between us that was somehow like understanding and promise
at once.
Intimacy. Trust. Reciprocity.
His lips hit mine like the spread of sunlight through an empty room,
warming and brightening everything in its path, and I exhaled a sigh
because goddamn I loved kissing him. How every time our mouths met it
was both familiar and different. This time unhurried and sultry, like a string
slowly pulling taut between us. Eric never needed to tell me he loved me,
though he did, because I could feel it in moments like this as sure as the
damn sky was blue.
I tipped my head back as Eric’s lips moved down my throat with just
enough pressure that I felt the sting of blood rushing to the surface before
he released the skin and moved on. Movement from the corner of my eye
caught my attention, and I tilted my head to peer out the kitchen window
with half-lidded eyes, already lust drunk and drowsy. “There’s a guy
standing out there.”
Beyond the tiny cement pad billed as a patio, a man stood on the swatch
of grass that stretched behind the building about ten feet away, talking on
his phone as a small dog on a leash he was holding sniffed the ground.
When he turned his head and looked directly toward our window, my groin
stirred, a brief kindling of arousal that increased in strength the more I
thought about it and the longer he kept looking, until it became like a hive
of bees zooming around my stomach. Nerves and intrigue all at once.
 Eric shifted so he could see, sliding his hands behind my shorts and
stroking my cock as he said, “You like that.”
I nodded. It wasn’t a question, and fuck yeah, I liked that, liked that this
rando might see me on my knees or my back or bent over—however I
ended up—with Eric working me over in his ruthless, mind-bending way
that was guaranteed to liquify my bones. I took in a slow breath and let it
out, my pulse tearing through my veins so hard I could feel the thundering
tempo in my cock as a wet spot formed on my boxers. My dick twitched
hopefully in Eric’s grip, and he released my shaft, diving deeper to cup my
balls as he licked up the side of my throat. And then the guy snapped the
dog’s leash and moved on. Damn.
When I was breathless and panting, and my heart slamming against my
chest so hard it seemed it should’ve have filled the air around us with its
racket, Eric lifted my shirt off before sliding a touch down my arms and
planting my hands on the counter.
“Up against the counter? I’d have thought you’d get more creative than
that,” I teased as he ran one hand down the midline of my torso and let it
drift lightly, tauntingly over the fabric straining at my groin.
“Mmm.”
That murmur, damn that murmur, all velvet-soft promise of devious
things. My nuts tingled every time he did it, like they were warning bells
chiming before the door to my libido was blasted wide. Swallowing hard, I
gripped the counter tighter as Eric’s fingers moved lower to the top of my
thigh, where he pulled up the leg hem of my shorts and slid his hand inside,
fingertips lightly caressing the gulley where my leg met my groin. My back
arched violently, and I tilted my hips slightly, pushing into his touch.
“You’re looking a little flushed, baby. You hot?”
“Sweltering. I swear I fucking turned the thermostat down but…” I
trailed off when I recognized the dark twinkle in his eyes. He angled a look
at the glass I’d set down on the counter, condensation dripping down the
side as the ice within melted. Oh yes, oh fucking yes, please.
I think I said that aloud—at least part of it—because next he dipped
those long, quick fingers into the glass and fished out a gleaming wet cube.
“Maybe you need some help cooling off,” he suggested.
“Oh, I definitely do. I’m getting a strong porno premise vibe here, and
I’m totally onboard.” The way my dick strained like it was trying to punch
through my shorts and how close I was to panting, I figured I was a heat
stroke risk not even a tub of ice could prevent if Eric was anywhere in the
vicinity. But fuck if I was going to do anything to dissuade him.
He winked at me, and that wink might as well have been a telegraphed
message tapped out against my cock as he popped the ice cube in his
mouth, crushing it to bits before he leaned in and licked over my lips. Icy
slush dribbled down my chin, dropped onto my chest, and bloomed in a
delicious chill.
“Oh fuck me,” I whispered, mentally taking back what I’d just said
about him not being creative and tilting my head back as he picked up
another cube to drag a cool wet trail from my sternum up to my throat. My
body didn’t seem to know whether to shrink away from the cold or to press
into the accompanying heat of Eric’s hand. Somehow it was trying to do
both, and I squirmed side to side in the cage of his body as he drew the ice
up over my chin and glided it along my lower lip.
“Not yet but very soon,” he murmured, the drawl of his voice just as
warm as his skin. “Open,” he commanded, and when I did, he cupped my
jaw in one hand and slid the ice cube over my lips and just behind, running
it over my teeth with a soft click of sound before guiding it down my chin.
Cool liquid collected in the hollow of my throat and spilled over, streaming
down my chest like a gentle caress.
“You know how much I love making you come? How much I love
fucking your ass, sucking your cock—” He traced the head of my cock
through my shorts with his other hand. ”—making your whole body
shake?”
“Mmph.” I exhaled the affirmative, because I knew he loved it as much
I loved him doing it. “But maybe I need a reminder.”
When he circled the cube around my nipple, it tightened up so fast I
actually felt the pinch of flesh hardening. I dropped my head back and let
out a quiet moan. More ice, more slow spirals of blessed coolness moving
over my skin. I hardly even noticed Eric had unbuttoned my shorts until he
wrapped his cold hand around my cock and I jolted, my eyes flying open as
I yelped in surprise. Eric snickered and soothed the ice-water shock
electrifying my shaft with his other hand, which felt like a sleeve of fire in
comparison. My stomach caved in on itself, and my dick didn’t know
whether to retreat or press the offense. Cold, hot, cold, hot. The temperature
differences chased each other over my erection in alternating strokes and,
fuck, it was amazing.
 Eric shoved my shorts farther down to my knees and freed his own
cock, still stroking me in between. I reached for his dick immediately,
gripped him tight, and smirked at the sharp look of lust that passed through
his eyes and made his eyelids droop to half-mast. For a second, he forgot all
about his ice crusade as he leaned into the slow caresses up and down his
shaft. I ran my thumb over his foreskin, stretched it back, and dipped into
the precome oozing from his slit over the swollen crown of his cock,
catching the hard shift of his Adam’s apple from the edge of my vision as
he swallowed.
“You’re close. So fucking close,” I taunted, thumbing at his head again.
His gaze lifted from where he’d focused on my thumb rubbing over his
crown and met mine, slitted and hazy with arousal. “Bet if I kept on playing
with your—”
He caught my hand and stilled it as he bullied into me and turned me
around.
“Can’t even answer, huh? Damn.” But I glimpsed a sliver of his grin
before he palmed the back of my head and angled it down.
His lips brushed over the nape of my neck, so warm that the sudden
cold that came next made me twist to one side in protest. The chill moved
down my bare back in a lazy path as Eric laughed softly. He pressed his
mouth to my shoulder blade and the chill came again, and this time it
remained pressed against my skin, surrounded by the heat of his lips as the
ice cube melted in his mouth against me and the rivulets tracked down my
rib cage. Goose bumps broke over my shoulders.
I heard ice crunching in his mouth, then felt tiny shards dribbling down
my spine all the way to my crack. And I might not have been a huge fan of
cold on my dick, but when Eric’s chilly fingers slid over my hole, the force
with which I reflexively clenched shot a ball of heat through my groin, and
I let out a ragged breath of pleasure.
Eric kept on, fishing ice cubes from the glass, painting cool wet trails
over my back, my stomach, the nape of my neck. My lips, again. He licked
a stripe from the corner of my mouth to my earlobe and pressed his hand
flat to my back. “Bend over and show me that tight little hole.”
Fuck. Filthy. Gulping, I leaned forward and held myself spread for him,
my chest resting against the Formica countertop. The icy point of a cube
touched down at the top of my crack. Its meandering downward trek toward
my hole tickled and almost had me writhing away except Eric’s tongue
swept over me again.
“Shit, that’s good. Really fucking good.” The mesh of disparate
temperatures zinged through me, storming my insides with electricity,
making muscles twitch reactively. He traced the ice cube around my rim,
and the backs of my thighs quivered as I clenched up until he chased it with
a flutter of his tongue, the touch so light it was just this soft dappling of heat
that made me crave more. Cold, hot, cold, hot, a crazy ouroboros of
sensation that was fast transforming me into a twisted up mess. Water was
conductive, right? I fucking felt it, too, like each rivulet running over my
skin carried its own erotic charge.
I could come like this easily, and I reached down to stroke myself a
couple of times then let go, feeling arousal mount, thrilling fingers of
pleasure soaring through me. That’d be kind of hot actually, if I came just
from an ice cube teasing my hole alongside Eric’s tongue. The more I
thought about it, the hornier I got, and my hips twitched, my cock spearing
at the air a couple of times when Eric ran the cube over puckered muscle
again. My balls tightened up, heavy and swollen, and fuck it was it gonna
feel good to blow.
“Eric,” I rasped, and he slid a hand over my chest, easing me upright,
turning me gently around as he stood and popped what was left of the cube
in his mouth, crunching it to bits. Catching his hands in mine, I pulled him
against me and kissed him until his mouth was hot again.
“Love when you say my name all hot and wrecked like that,” he
murmured, brushing his lips over the corner of mine. “You want it, don’t
you? Need my cock in your ass. My load.” He pushed a chilly finger inside
me and woke up my prostate in a matter of two strokes that melted like gold
around the slight sting of initial intrusion.
“Fuuuuuck yes.” I didn’t mean to say it all wheedling that way, but I
was standing there both burning up and freezing cold at the same time, parts
of me elastic and woozy and other parts of me tight as an ACE bandage.
And I needed, desperately needed, to come.
He aligned our cocks, and I groaned at the stiffness of his shaft gliding
against mine. Then he shifted his weight and took a half step back, a softer
heat wrapping the head of my dick as he stroked me.
“What…” I looked down between us and moaned, squeezing my eyes
shut so I didn’t come right. That. Fucking. Moment. Because Eric had
covered my cockhead with his silky foreskin and was now jacking both of
us.
“Oh fuck,” I rasped, and grabbed onto his arms to keep myself steady as
sparks showered through me and made me tingle head to toe. My cock slid
easily in his grasp, a slippery flesh sleeve cocooning my glans, so different
than a hand or really anything else I’d ever felt in my life because it was so
fucking seamless and smooth and warm and…fuck. I had no idea foreskin
could drive me out of my mind like this, but there was something about the
combination of texture, the firm guidance of his hand, and the sheer fucking
primal resourcefulness of what was happening that was going to shatter me
in seconds.
My chest rose and fell in harsh, staggered breaths, and somehow it felt
like fucking him, my hips tilting and pushing toward him as he stroked
faster, all the pressure of his grip concentrated just behind my crown. Eric
clearly wasn’t immune either; he had his lower lip trapped between his
teeth, nostrils flaring with the force of his exhales. I tried to hang on,
because I wanted to keep riding the high of this next-level erotic union of
our bodies, but it was too damn much. Eric maintained a punishing cocktail
of pressure and speed, whispering a fucking laundry list of lewdness that
spilled in the air between us, half of which I didn’t even really hear. There
was a place between torture and pleasure, and I was in it. This weird kinda
purgatory where the sensations crossed and twisted around each other and
created sheer chaos in my nerve endings.
“Fuck, I can’t hold on, I can’t—” I moaned and gripped his shoulders
tight as I lost my shit babbling nonsense and bucking into his hand while he
held us together and rasped, “Lemme have it.”
My orgasm broke free like it was busting through a brick wall, hard and
inevitable, slamming the air from my lungs with brute force as my nuts
pulled tight and unleashed. The soft slap of skin against skin became loud,
wet smacks as I jizzed all over Eric’s cock, his hand, the floor.
He pumped me until my legs threatened to collapse from beneath me
and I pushed him away, sinking back against the lip of the counter.
“Shit, get in me,” I demanded, my stomach still fluttery with
aftershocks.
Eric granted me a two-second reprieve before slicking my come over
his length and lifting my balls out of the way as he pressed his fat cockhead
against my hole, which all but swallowed him up at the first hint of
pressure.
He ran a hand down my chest and fucked me deep and slow.
“It’s gonna be quick, because you were right: I was already close a
while ago, and you coming all over my dick?” Eric sucked a breath through
clenched teeth and stilled inside me, his hand dropping from my stomach to
caress my hip. “That was so hot I think we need to make it a regular thing.”
“So fucking game,” I moaned, leveraging the counter to give him a
better angle and clamping down hard on his cock as he thrust inside me. He
gritted his teeth, thrust again, and I managed to brace one heel on the
counter running at a right angle to the one I was backed against.
“Perfect, fucking perfect,” he murmured, the approving purr its own
kind of pleasure saturating me in a hazy afterglow. I could see his pupils
dilate, his eyes go glassy as hunger took over, and he came on a hard punch
of his hips that knocked me back against the counter and flooded me with
warmth that seeped out of me and ran down my thighs. He withdrew and
pressed back inside, over and over until he’d gone soft.
Releasing his grip on my leg, Eric traced a finger up the inside of my
thigh and leaned heavily against me as I eased us both down to the
blessedly cool linoleum floor.
He twisted around and rested his back against my chest, and we were
quiet as our strained breaths slowed and returned to normal. I drifted my
fingers over the crown of his head, down the side of his neck, and he
reached for them, pulling them to his lips and kissing the tips as he let out a
satisfied sigh. “What were we doing?” He angled his head to the side to grin
at me as I laughed.
“Putting up groceries, which I suddenly no longer hate doing as much.”
“You didn’t mention that when we were divvying up the household
stuff.”
“I forgot. Also, why haven’t we done that before?”
“Docking?”
“Mm.”
He shrugged. “Dunno. I used to be shy about the whole circumcised-
uncircumcised thing I guess. All these guys I knew when we moved back to
the States with these nice, cut cocks…”
The cock in question rested against his thigh, still mouthwatering to me
even in its spent state. I stretched my hand to run my fingers over the soft
length. “I’m a fan. A big fan. Superfan.”
Eric chuckled, angling his arm behind my head so he could urge me
closer for a kiss. “I noticed. And I’ll be exploiting it a lot more in the
future.”

T HE PROPER WAY TO celebrate a new place was with a riotous party, of

course. Mark and a bunch of other brothers showed up with kegs at ten.
Jesse was already hammered, having arrived straight after his final exam
ended, ready to get blitzed. He’d been guzzling anything and everything
since he’d arrived around eight. As I glanced over at him where he drooped
like a wilting dandelion on the couch, it looked increasingly like he was
going to miss the party altogether.
“Guess I could put him up in the bedroom,” I mused as Mark handed
me a red Solo cup of brew.
“Nah, he’s good. Definitely gonna get a dick or two drawn on his
forehead, though.” Mark sipped his beer and studied Jesse’s forehead like
he already had a marker in his hand and was prospecting the territory for
the best location.
“Oh, hey, did that guy call back about the room?” The other guys had
slacked on trying to replace us. Sam had taken my old room, but so far they
hadn’t filled Eric’s spot.
“Nope. But it’s cool. He sounded like a douche canoe anyway. The three
of us can cover summer. I’m sure someone will turn up before fall semester.
Somebody’ll come back after taking a semester off or change plans.” Mark
shrugged. “Not a deal.”
He glanced around the living room. We had the front door wide open, as
well as the sliding doors that led from the tiny kitchen onto the patio. “So
you’re really doing this?” he said after a moment, and a prickle of heat ran
through my stomach. I turned my head and stared him down until he raised
his hands and blinked away, relenting. “Ignore me. I’m in a shit-ass mood.
I’m pretty sure I bombed my physics final.”
“Nah. I’m sure you pulled it off. You always do.”
Mark waved away my reassurance and hefted his cup. “Cheers, dude.
To summer. You better not be a stranger.”
P EOPLE DRIFTED IN AND OUT , and I was starting to be glad for our pitiful
collection of furniture, because there wasn’t much for anyone to stumble
over, knock down, or break. Our biggest risk factor was puke, and
considering the carpet, I figured that road had been paved well before us.
“You. Are. Huge. What’re you six six, six seven?” Jesse had not passed
out after all, but was now swaying slightly at my side as he tossed back a
shot with our neighbor, Richard.
Richard chased his shot with a slug of beer and laughed. “Six five
actually, not bad.” He and his girlfriend were grad students, but I hadn’t
gotten as far as learning what they were studying before Jesse interrupted.
And he wasn’t wrong. Dude was massive. Built like the fucking Hoover
dam, but he seemed cool.
“Sooooo, this gonna be a frequent occurrence?” Richard asked after
Jesse wandered off as quickly as he’d arrived. “Do I need to buy me and my
girl some earplugs?”
I glanced around, my gaze lingering on Eric as he stood in the kitchen,
deep in conversation with Chet. Amanda was here somewhere, too. Mark
had yet to seal the deal on that, but God knew I’d watched him try several
times over the course of the night. He was good at slow game, though, and I
wouldn’t be surprised to see him leave with her. “Nah, probably not,” I told
Richard. “We’ve both got summer jobs, and we’re um…we were looking
for a quieter place anyway.”
“Gotcha. Had to ask. The last two dudes who lived here, it was constant
partying. Girls coming in and out, shrieking and making a racket.”
Eric glanced up, catching me watching him, and gave me one of those
slow napalm smiles that coated my entire body in fire.
I chuckled. “Girls won’t be a problem.”
Richard smiled, and when he looked between the two of us, it seemed to
dawn on him what I’d meant. “Ahhh,” he gave me an understanding nod.
“Right on. Well, never hesitate to holler if you need anything.” He turned
his attention to the bare spot in our living area for a second, then said,
“We’re actually getting rid of our old dining table, if you want it? I’ve got a
friend who’s doing his master’s in furniture design and he made us a sweet-
ass table out of mango wood.”
 “No shit? That’d be awesome.” It would put us one step closer to a new
couch. After a grill, of course.
“I’ll bring it over tomorrow.” He winced, looking down at our cups
pointedly. “Or maybe the next day.”
I thanked him again, catching Chet heading out onto the patio and
feeling Eric lightly swat the back of my thigh in passing as he moved
toward the front door. Where the hell was he going? I trailed his progress,
then blinked back to Richard. “Nice to meet you, dude. Just bang on the
wall or something if we’re ever too loud.” A flush instantly rose to my
cheeks, and I thought about earlier in the afternoon when we’d been in the
kitchen. I’d fucking loved not having to worry about roommates. Richard
chuckled as I backpedaled. “I meant, like…never mind.”
I excused myself and wove through a few clusters of people and out the
front door. No sooner had I taken a step outside than a hand closed around
the back of my neck, yanking me off the stoop and into the shadows. A chill
washed over me as my beer sloshed against my torso.
“Fu—” Eric’s mouth collided with mine, and I dropped my cup
altogether in favor of wrapping my hands around his biceps and shoving
him against the clapboard siding.
“I swear to God,” I muttered against his mouth.
“Isn’t that blasphemy?” He tilted his head back, gazing at me through
hooded eyes.
“Everything is with you. I’ve got beer all over my shirt now, thanks.”
“That was a miscalculation.”
“Engineering fail.”
He laughed. “I’ll do better next time.”
“What’re you doing out here anyway?”
“Saying hello.”
He nicked my chin with his teeth, then shoved me backward and hopped
back onto the stoop where he flung open the door as I spluttered. “Are you
kidding me? That’s it?”
He pointed inside with a smirk. “Not sure if you’re aware or not, but
there’s a party going on in there. Needs a chaperone.”
“And you’re the worst man for the job. One day I’m going to tie your
ass to a chair so you can’t run off after you get me hard.”
He winked at me. “I’m down. It’ll be epic.”
 I shoved him through the door, half-heartedly aggravated that my
comment hadn’t met any kind of resistance, but more excited by the
prospect. In the past six months, we’d fucked all over the place, and in a
variety of configurations that never failed to intrigue and excite me. Our sex
life was an endlessly unfolding origami of different pleasures, even the odd
quickie hand job here and there leaving me on fire for hours afterward.
We’d fucked around with light bondage, but damn, the idea of tying Eric to
a chair? The visual knotted up in my stomach and seared through my groin.
I grabbed the back of his shirt as I followed him inside, leaning in when
he stopped to speak close to his ear. “Five minutes, you and me, upstairs
bathroom.”
Eric angled his head back, lips tipping up in a smirk, “Oh really? You
—”
A sharp crack split the air and was followed by shouts and commotion.
Eric cocked his head curiously, but I knew the sound of a fight and was
already stepping around him and heading toward the patio, trying to
anticipate who was getting into it. There were plenty of options. Jesse had a
fucking mouth on him when he was hammered, and there were other people
I didn’t know very well here, too. Ours wasn’t the only party happening in
the complex that night. Kinda went with the college territory.
I spilled through the sliding glass door with Eric on my heels. One of
the kegs had gotten knocked over, and two guys were going at it on the
ground, grunting and swinging as they jockeyed for position. Half the
people out there were just standing around watching. A fourth were egging
it on, and Richard and Sam were making wild grabs, trying to avoid being
hit as Amanda shouted from the sidelines. Richard grabbed her as she
started to join the fray.
Fucking Mark and Chet.
Sam wrapped his arm around Chet’s torso, and it took me a second to
figure out he was holding him for Mark, not trying to drag him out of the
commotion. “Sam, Jesus,” I barked as I reached for Mark.
Eric shoved Sam away from Chet and Sam bowed up like he was about
to knock Eric in the jaw until he realized who it was and lifted his hands,
taking a step back. Mark struggled against my grip for a handful of seconds,
then noodled in my arms. I could tell how drunk he was by the graceless,
heavy way he collapsed against me, and I steadied him on his feet as he
muttered, “Piece of shit.” He had a shiner on his cheek to Chet’s busted lip.
 “You’re both shithoused,” Eric said, then softer to Chet, “Cut it the fuck
out, dude. You’re outnumbered here.”
Chet swiped at his mouth, then spat into the grass. “I’m done.” Running
a hand over his hair, he laughed and lifted his middle finger to Mark as he
wrenched out of Eric’s grasp. “That was a fuckin’ trip and a half, you
goddamn nut job.” With a shake of his head, he turned on his heel and
swaggered around the side of the complex.
I yanked Mark around to face me. “You need to let that go, man.”
Mark’s expression tensed as he twisted his head to follow Chet’s
progress, a flash of rage passing through his eyes. When he turned back to
me, the muscles at his jaw twitched like he wanted to say something else
before he shrugged instead. “Yeah, all right. It’s done.”
The turnabout was so unexpected, I squinted, but was ready to let it go
in the name of moving the fuck on.
“Hey, jackass!”
Mark’s head swiveled.
Eric was still loosely grasping Amanda’s upper arm when she tossed the
rest of her beer, including the cup at Mark’s face. She was spot-fucking-on,
too. I got caught in the crossfire, and a couple of the brothers righting the
keg stopped to stare, then hooted and shouted as Mark wiped a hand down
his face and flipped them off. Eric took Amanda by the shoulders and
trotted her off to the side yard where there was a lot of gesturing on her part
before she stormed off, too.
“Guess that one’s not gonna to work out.” Mark sighed.
I blotted my face on my tee. It was covered with beer anyway from
Eric, what was one more liquid addition. “I’d say not, nope. Are you okay?
For real?”
“Yeah. I meant it. I’m done. I’ll catch you soon,” he said, then turned
and barked in the direction of the kegs, “Marty, give me a lift, bro,” before
striding back into the apartment.

T HE PARTY RAGED on without any further fights, and Eric and I finally
crashed in bed at 4:30. Both of us were gonna be hurting tomorrow. I took a
swig from the water bottle he’d set out for me on the nightstand by my side
of the bed and then flicked off the lamp. The perfect silence of our breath
wrapped around me and tugged me toward sleep as Eric rolled over to face
me.
“Resoundingly successful housewarming?” he asked, and I laughed,
throwing my arm around him. Way too tired to fuck, but I’d come to
appreciate just being tangled up together.
“At least the police didn’t get called.”
“It’s early days.”
“Think I’m good for a while, honestly. I’d rather go trash someone
else’s place than ours.” Ours. Damn, I liked the sound of that.
As if he knew what I was thinking, Eric rubbed his chin against mine
and kissed the corner of my mouth, his breath warm and minty and still
faintly tinged with beer as he said, “Do you know how fucking glad I am
that I walked in on you? We should do a reenactment sometime.”
I chuckled. “I’ll put it on the list.” It was a running joke between us that
really wasn’t a joke at all, because I did have an actual mental list of things
I wanted to do with him. And we’d hardly even scratched the surface. It’d
take years, I imagined, and I had zero qualms about that kind of timeline. I
wasn’t going anywhere.
“Mmmm. So many things to do,” he murmured sleepily, rolling onto his
back and spreading his hand low over my abdomen, a possessiveness in the
gesture that had me heaving out a satisfied sigh in response.
As we lay in the darkness, the pattern of Eric’s breathing slowing until I
was certain he was asleep, this sense of pure giddiness ran through me, like
racing through the park as a kid, or standing in front of the tree on
Christmas morning, or the moment I got my driver’s license—little slices of
joy I’d accumulated over my lifetime so far. And now lying here with Eric
next to me came another that balled up in my chest and pulsed with all the
other moments small and large. It raced through me like an endorphin high,
bright inside my mind, and then ebbed gently into a deep, thrumming
contentment.
I fucking loved my life.
 ALSO AVAILABLE: DEDICATED

“Our biggest hit is a love song I wrote for my bandmate. And he has no
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Two rockers, a handful of secrets, and a publicity nightmare tossed in a
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tension. Kaboom, y'all. A friends-to-lovers rockstar romance.

getbook.at/Dedicated

This needs to go right to the top of your TBR pile. It is MAGIC. If friends to
lovers is AT ALL your thing, then look no further. This is the best one I've
ever read. The characters are magnetic throughout and the story progresses
in a wonderfully meaningful (and sometimes rocky) way. Ends with a HEA
that is so, so satisfying.
—Amazon Reviewer

So many adjectives I could use for this book; soulful, dirty, gripping, honest
and most of all, it’s full of heart and it brought every emotion to the fore.
I’m stone cold in love with this author’s writing and desperate for more.
—OMG Reads

Sparks fly, banter is slung, gut-punch moments had me sucking in a deep

breath as the emotions resonated within me, and the sexual tension was off
the charts smoking hot. Their relationship was real and raw, even with all
the duplicity surrounding them.
Not going to lie, I spent the entire day with my nose buried in my
Kindle, eagerly tapping the pages and ignoring life, from page one until the
end.
—Wicked Reads
 ALSO AVAILABLE: CENTER OF GRAVITY

Center of Gravity was my debut mm romance, a tissues-required, slow

burn age gap romance about love, sacrifice, redemption, and family.
 mybook.to/CenterOfGravity

"Once in a while, a book comes along and knocks you for six; this is one
of those books. It was a joy to read and it had so much depth, that it
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—OMGReads

"Center Of Gravity is just what I hope for and rarely find when reading a
new author and new contemporary romance. It's that marvelous,
heartwarming story full of just about every element that grabs at you and
compels you to read it!"
—Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words
 WHERE CAN I STALK YOU, NEVE?

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 ABOUT NEVE WILDER

Neve Wilder lives in the southern U.S., where the summers are hot and the winters are...sometimes
cold.
She reads promiscuously, across multiple genres, but her favorite stories always contain an
element of romance. Incidentally, this is also what she likes to write. Slow-burners with delicious
tension? Yes. Whiplash-inducing page-turners, also yes. Down and dirty scorchers? Yes. And every
flavor in between.
She believes David Bowie was the sexiest musician to ever live, and she's always game to nerd
out on anything from music to writing.
And finally, she believes that love conquers all. Except the heat index in July. Nothing can
conquer that bastard.

Visit her on the web:

www.nevewilder.com