by Riley Knight
His lips brushed against Ben’s, and Isaac could swear that he forgot how to breathe for just a split second or so.
The kiss was brief, almost chaste, just his lips moving lightly against Ben’s, which were still slightly parted and damp from his tongue. It was more of a tease than an actual kiss, but it was still more than Isaac had ever done before, and his whole body clenched with arousal and the knowledge of his daring audacity.
Their lips parted, and Isaac saw the surprise in Ben’s gaze. He wondered what he should do now. Apologize? For what had been the most deeply sensual moment of his life? Should he have asked if …
And then Ben leaned in and his arms gathered Isaac close to him, their lips meeting once more, and this time, there was nothing chaste about it. Isaac found himself pulled pretty much right onto Ben’s lap, where he nestled against him like he belonged there. This time, Ben had control of this kiss, and he was showing Isaac exactly what sort of kiss he wanted it to be.
Isaac melted into Ben, his arms going around the other man’s shoulders, finally letting go of the towel which was all that kept him from being naked. It fell, unheeded, around his waist, barely preserving his modesty, which Isaac had never cared so little about in his life.
Ben’s hands rested on the small of Isaac’s back, big and strong and warm, and the last of the chill from being so thoroughly doused slid away. Then there was only his body, and Ben’s, and their lips, and the thrilling way that Ben’s tongue swept into Isaac’s mouth and found his tongue to tangle and dance with, to stroke lightly over, until Isaac was sure that he’d somehow been transported straight to heaven without the bother of needing to die first.
How long the kiss lasted, Isaac legitimately had no idea. It went on and on, but it could never have lasted long enough for him. It was only when he felt Ben’s hands on the flesh of his ass and realized that his towel had somehow fallen completely away from it that he knew just how far he had gone.
It was very intimate, being held and pulled against Ben like this. He barely knew this guy, and yet there was an undeniable connection between them now. Was that the magic of sex? The connection it could forge between people?
Their lips finally parted once more, and Ben gave him a roguish smile which had his heart pounding harder than ever. The other man’s fingers traced lightly over the line of Isaac’s jaw, the short, slightly rough stubble scraping under his touch.
“You’ve never done this before, have you?” Ben asked, and Isaac felt a rush of blood to his face, and he was glad it was relatively dark in the house. Maybe the blushing was going unnoticed. He hated how he did that. He was a grown man, too old to be flushing all the time.
“No. None of it,” Isaac admitted. He took a deep breath and brought his eyes back to meet Ben’s. “But I liked it.”
“Okay,” Ben accepted that, and Isaac allowed a rush of relief to pass through his whole body, something which had been gripping tightly at his stomach relaxing a little. Ben was clearly not new to this stuff, but he didn’t seem to mind that Isaac was. “Maybe we’d better go slow, then.”
“Slow is good,” Isaac said, but he couldn’t help a slight smile from rising onto his lips. This was already not going slow at all, not for him. Not when he’d gone far further in one night, in half an hour, than he had gone in his entire life to this point.
Should he feel ashamed? He knew that his parents would think so, but he was pretty sure that he didn’t. There was nothing about what had happened which felt bad to him, that was what it came down to. There was nothing they’d done that felt wrong. Overwhelming and intense, filling him with sensations and emotions he was not used to, but never wrong.
Besides, Ben had talked about going slow. Did that mean that the man would want to see him again? It sure sounded like it to him, and Isaac briefly tried, and utterly failed, to restrain the grin which rose to his face at the thought.
“Then kiss me,” Ben murmured, and his hands stroked up and down Isaac’s bare back, never quite gripping him again in that uniquely intimate way, his large, strong, calloused hands against Isaac’s ass. Which was probably for the best, even if he missed it already.
This time, it felt even more easy and natural to let his lips meet Ben’s again. There had been times when he had legitimately wondered about how awkward it would be not to know how to kiss someone, how to make sure that his nose didn’t crush against the other person’s nose, that teeth wouldn’t clack together. It seemed to him, or it had seemed, that many things could go wrong, but at the moment, none of it actually did.
It was like they were meant to fit together, their mouths slotting together like they belonged together, tongues grappling desperately in a warm, deeply intimate embrace.
Over and over, they kissed, Ben’s hands hot on Isaac’s body, bodies pressed tightly together until Isaac really didn’t know if he was completely sure if he knew where Ben started and he left off. At the same time, though, he found that he somehow wanted to get even closer, if it was possible.
Ben didn’t push him. Somehow, surely by accident, Isaac had gotten the idea that anyone outside the church was a ravening beast who couldn’t even control themselves, and that the best way to keep himself safe was to stay away from them. That didn’t fit Ben at all. Isaac could feel Ben’s arousal against himself, a highly intriguing bulge that pressed up through his robe and against Isaac’s body, but Ben didn’t go any further than Isaac wanted.
The night passed with hot kisses, and bodies pressed together, and hands on smooth, silken skin. Isaac even got brave enough to touch Ben, first through his robe and then finally he even pushed his fingers into the fabric and caressed the hot, bare flesh, feeling the way the nipple pebbled under his fingertips.
“Ben,” he moaned, and he had never been this utterly content while wanting so much more. He had never felt so perfectly completed while needing so much.
Ben was there through the long hours of the night, his lips and talented tongue and clever hands driving Isaac utterly insane.
FIVE
The hours of the night passed far too quickly. Ben couldn’t remember the last time he had been this aroused this continuously. His body throbbed with need, and with anyone else, he would have pushed further. He would have been trying for release, both his own and his partners.
Someone had told him once, when he’d been quite young, that it wasn’t actually a bad thing to take a lover younger than yourself. As long as you left that person in good condition, preferably better than what you found them in, it was fine. Even good for the younger person.
He was thinking about that a lot over the course of the night. And every time he felt the urge, nearly overpowering, to reach down and grip Isaac’s cock, every time he wanted to stroke and play with that flesh, to test its hardness and see how desperate Isaac really was, he remembered that this was all new to him.
It was actually hard to remember sometimes, to be honest. Isaac picked up the basic mechanics of kissing quite quickly, and Ben soon enough wouldn’t have believed this was all new to him.
By the end of it, when they finally both drifted off into sleep, Ben was utterly obsessed with the taste, the scent, everything about Isaac. He found himself not even able to get relief from it in dreams because as aroused as his body was, his sleep was thin and restless and still utterly consumed with Isaac.
It was early in the morning. The spring sun had just started to show its face when there was a buzz coming from the area of the coffee table, where Isaac had put all of the things that had been in his pockets. It was Isaac’s cell phone, he realized, and he groaned and poked at Isaac’s toned shoulder.
“Hey, get that already,” Ben grumbled, hoping for a few more hours of sleep before he had to get up and start the day. Not that that was likely, he realized, as he watched Isaac’s body flex as the younger man reached out to snag the phone. Not when his whole body was suddenly wide awake, remembering their searing hot kisses the night before.
Damned if the man couldn’t
almost make Ben just shoot off right then and there, just with the brushing of their bodies together.
There was a strange change which came over Isaac as Ben watched him glance at the screen of his phone. A tensing of his shoulders, of all his muscles, even that tight little ass. At that moment, Ben saw very clearly just how much Isaac had relaxed while he’d been in Ben’s arms all night, and he frowned, not liking the change back.
The conversation was brief. Isaac didn’t even say much, and Ben couldn’t hear what the man on the other side was saying. Isaac called him Dad, and he didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what that meant, but other than that, Ben watched more than listened.
When the phone was hung up again, Isaac sighed and hung his head for a second, perched on the edge of the couch. He’d lost the towel in the night, but he was still tangled up in the blanket which Ben had given him the night before, so his bare torso rose out of it like a marble statue, barely covering some parts that Ben would very much like to see.
“What’s up?” Ben asked, reaching out and idly stroking his fingers over the smooth lines of Isaac’s arm and shoulder. He might look like some Renaissance sculpture, but he was warm and soft and pliant under his fingertips, utterly gorgeous.
Maybe they could get some of what they had going last night going again. Maybe Isaac would want to go further. Even though it was torture for him to wait, Ben would. He’d always assumed he was a bit impatient in bed, but when it came down to it, in the right situation, for the right person, he was more than happy to wait.
Well. Maybe more than happy was a bit of an exaggeration. The more he looked at the gorgeous young man swaddled in his blanket, the more Ben wanted to do more than just lightly touch him.
“My dad expects me home,” Isaac said, and something seemed to freeze solid in a second deep inside of Ben. That was confirmation that this man was not someone he should get involved with.
He literally still lived with his parents. Ben had suspected before, but he knew for sure now. Not only was Isaac a virgin, and so innocent that it actually sort of hurt Ben, but he lived at home, and it seemed like his father had a pretty strong hold over him.
“Okay,” Ben spoke slowly, trying to figure out if he was going to say something, and if so, what that something would be. It was really none of his business, but it struck him as deeply strange that anyone would keep on living with their parents into adulthood. God knew that he had gotten out of his own mom’s home as soon as he’d been able to.
“I don’t want to go,” Isaac admitted, and that was how it came off, as a confession. Something he was deeply ashamed about. It didn’t make any sense to Ben at all, who felt like he was walking on the sand during an earthquake. There didn’t seem to be any safe thing to do or say.
What the hell. Ben had never been all that good at holding back his opinions about things. He wasn’t sure that there was any point in trying to start now.
“So don’t go. Hang out with me today,” Ben invited. The idea appealed greatly to him. That was unusual since he normally preferred for his partners to be gone in the morning, preferably before he even woke up, but for whatever reason Isaac was different. Ben found that he actually did want him around.
Maybe there was something to be said for this whole going slow thing.
There was a long pause while Isaac thought about that. Ben forced himself to stay where he was, seated on the couch, just watching the beautiful man who shared this couch with him. It was Isaac’s choice, and Ben wasn’t going to grab him and try to influence his decision by kissing him into submission. He wasn’t, really. No matter how deeply tempting the idea was.
“Dad will be mad, but …” Isaac hesitated and then nodded slightly, as though he’d made up his mind. “Okay. Let’s do it. What do you want to do?”
Ben found himself more relieved than he really wanted to admit to, even to himself. He grinned and slid closer to Isaac on the couch, slipping an arm around his shoulders and hugging him against himself.
“I don’t work until eight tonight,” Ben murmured. “So we can do whatever you want until then.”
Not that there was a lot to do in the town. Other than the bar, and the church, and a few stores, there wasn’t much in the way of a downtown, certainly not one worth the name. And further out it was all just ranches and farms, not exactly a high point in terms of culture or entertainment.
“We could go into Austin,” Ben spoke slowly, more thinking aloud than anything else. “Go see a movie or something. That could be kind of fun.”
Isaac nestled in beside him like he belonged there and smiled up at him. Ben grinned back, then leaned down and gently kissed the other man’s forehead. It was like he needed to be touching him. It had never hit Ben like this before, had never made him feel like he actually required that physical touch. Sure, he’d always liked sex, but this went further than that.
“That sounds like a date,” Isaac murmured, his blue eyes sweet and his lips relaxed, a slight smile lingering on them. Ben didn’t need to be a mind reader to be able to tell that Isaac liked the idea, and much to his own surprise, he did, too.
“Maybe it is,” Ben replied back, and the idea should have had an avowed commitmentphobe like himself running for the hills. He should have been making his excuses, giving in to the faint tinge of panic that he felt when he realized just what he was getting himself into.
Hadn’t he told himself, over and over, that Isaac was way too young for him? That there was no way someone as jaded as Ben had any business being with someone as naive as Isaac? Even now, the best thing to do might be just to take off, send Isaac back to his family.
Only somehow, that didn’t feel like the best thing or the right thing. It felt like betraying Isaac, leaving him to a lifetime of … what, exactly? If Isaac wanted to be sheltered, then who was Ben to try to fix that for him? Was he really that arrogant?
The thing was, though, Isaac didn’t seem like he wanted to be as sheltered as he was. He certainly hadn’t stopped Ben from kissing him. In fact, if anything, Isaac had started the whole thing. And Isaac was willing to go out with him, though there was no doubt that his parents would not approve.
To hell with it. Ben wanted this, and if Isaac was into it, too, he wasn’t sure he saw a reason to resist too much. Or not much of one, anyway. Sure, it could potentially end badly, but when it came down to it, couldn’t being alone his whole life, having never actually been in a real relationship, go just as badly?
Smiling a little, Ben took Isaac’s phone from him when it started to ring again. He turned it off, silencing it right in the middle of one of the pulsing tones, and then handed it back to Isaac.
“Just for today,” he entreated. “Let’s go hang out. Just us. Everything else can wait.”
Isaac stared at him, and it was like a new level opened up in Ben’s understanding of the situation. He kept thinking he got it, and then he’d see the look in Isaac’s eyes or hear his offhand comments, and he’d go up to a whole new plateau.
He could tell it half terrified Isaac to turn his phone off, to ignore his parents. Had the man ever rebelled against them in his entire life? Ben was willing to bet that he hadn’t, but Isaac had the phone now. He could absolutely turn it on again if he wanted to, but instead, he just slipped it into his pocket.
“I can already tell that I’m going to be a very bad influence on you,” Ben admitted, and with that, he went down to the laundry room to get their dry clothes. There was a strange lightness to his body, a bounce in his step, just from thinking about Isaac.
This whole dating thing didn’t seem like it was going to be that bad after all. At least not when Isaac was involved.
SIX
It wasn’t that Isaac had never been in a big city before, it was just that … well, he’d never been in a big city without his parents there as a sort of buffer. He’d never been in a big city without his mother hissing at him to keep his eyes and hands to himself, to not look around.
It was s
trange just to look, to see the big buildings. He tried not to gawk like a tourist, but the truth of the matter was, he really was one. It was fascinating, those huge buildings towering overhead, and people. So many people, of all different shapes and sizes.
Ben was right there by his side, too, which made it that much better. Isaac grinned at him as he tried to take in everything at once, and their shoulders brushed companionably together as they walked down the busy streets.
“You look like a tourist,” Ben said, echoing Isaac’s thoughts, it seemed, so that Isaac gave him a surprised look. Then again, it wasn’t such a jump to make, was it? Even if he did sort of like that he and Ben thought the same way.
“Yeah,” Isaac admitted. He stayed close to Ben, and not just for safety, either. Big cities, he’d been told, were dens of sin, and it was best to be cautious while in one, but in this case, Isaac just found that he wanted more than anything to walk down the dirty gray sidewalks close to Ben.
It had only taken them a couple of hours to drive into Austin, but it was like they’d gotten into a rocket ship and gone to a completely different world or something. Maybe the moon. Actually, all of the dirty gray rock around, the buildings, the sidewalks, sort of reminded him of pictures he’d seen of a lunar landscape.
Even the sky seemed a little bit faded, tinged with gray. Cities were interesting, Isaac decided, but maybe his parents had known what they were doing, sticking to small towns.
“So, talk,” Ben prompted. “Is this new to you? I grew up around here, so I guess it all looks pretty normal to me.” Ben gazed around him, scanning with those eyes of his, even brighter than usual against the dull cityscape.
