Middle of Somewhere Series Box Set

by Roan Parrish

  “I just don’t want you to think I’m ignorant,” he confesses. “At school, people thought I was… like, learning disabled because I never talked and I….” His voice is thick with shame and he won’t meet my eyes. “Before I learned… ways to deal with it, people would—” He shakes his head. “I just… part of why I like it here is that people don’t think it’s weird that I didn’t finish school. Yeah, I just don’t want you to think I’m—”

  “I don’t think that,” I reassure him. “I’m just…. Rex, I’m sorry. I didn’t notice. I feel terrible about tonight. I just feel like I should’ve—”

  “I didn’t want you to,” he says heatedly. “Don’t you see? I mean, look at you. You’re a professor, for god’s sake. You read and write for a living. I didn’t want you to think I was like one of those students who do everything wrong.”

  I feel a rush of hot shame. I sat in this house, reading student papers out loud, pissed because they didn’t write proper thesis statements, and all the while Rex sat and listened to me being a judgmental dickhead, assuming the students didn’t care, never considering that maybe it was just hard for them. What a stingy, prissy thing for me to do.

  “Fuck,” I mutter. “I shouldn’t have talked about my students that way. It’s not even really what I think when I’m not grading.”

  Rex nods.

  “It’s just, people are good at different things, you know?” he says. “And just because you tell someone how to do something doesn’t mean they can just understand.”

  “I know. You’re right.”

  “I can tell you that it doesn’t make you weak to let me in, but it doesn’t mean you can just do it, right?”

  Touché. I hang my head. Of course he’s right. I feel like shit. Like exactly the kind of privileged, life’s-a-breeze, pastel-wearing rich kids I met in school. Is that what I’ve become? So isolated in my little academic bubble that I think what’s true for me is true for everyone? Fuck me.

  Paging Daniel, as Ginger would say: this isn’t actually about you.

  “Every day there are things I have to figure a way around or pretend or fake,” Rex is saying. “Things I never do because I can’t stand how flustered I get when I get nervous. How everything goes to mush. I don’t want to feel like I did as a kid: smart enough to know everyone thought I was an idiot and too fucked in the head to do anything about it.”

  “Hey, don’t say that,” I tell him.

  “It’s pathetic, Daniel. I ordered the special when we went to dinner the first time without hearing what it was because I could barely keep my dick in my pants, much less concentrate on reading with you sitting right next to me. With your hair and those goddamned eyes. I couldn’t even think.”

  His eyes are boring into me. God, he seemed so in control that night until that whole thing with Colin, but now I remember that his pasta had artichokes, which he didn’t like.

  “What was I going to do, ask you to read the menu to me like a child?” There’s bile in his voice I’ve never heard before. “I fucking hate it.” His hands tighten on my hips until they’re almost painful.

  Rex drops his head forward onto my chest.

  “Fuck,” he says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get all self-pitying on you.” He lets out a deep breath, slides his hands under my thighs, and stands up, lifting me too. “Gingerbread?” he asks. And just like that, it seems, the topic is closed. I nod, dazedly, and follow him into the kitchen.

  He pulls things from cupboards and the refrigerator.

  “Rex?”

  He freezes and when he looks at me I can see the uncertainty he’s trying to cover up with his motions.

  “I think you’re perfect. I mean, shit, that sounded sappy, but, I mean perfect in my opinion.” Ugh, how do I explain what I mean? That all those things that he is came together like the perfect recipe.

  “For you?” he says.

  “Hmm?”

  “Perfect for you, maybe?” He looks shy and pleased. All I can do is nod.

  He hoists me up onto the counter and kisses me silly.

  “Daniel,” he says, “the things you say sometimes. You kill me.” He kisses me and it’s hot and sweet, flushing heat from my stomach to my throat. I start to harden, arousal tingling through me. I chase his mouth, but he pulls back to look at me. His whiskey brown eyes are warm and there’s a bit of color across his cheekbones. His lips look swollen from mine and that line between his eyebrows is a perfect crease.

  “Einstein was dyslexic,” I say, a little out of breath.

  Rex cocks his head. “Yeah?”

  “Mmhmm, and Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice in Wonderland. Oh! And Ozzy Osbourne. Forgot about him. And, mf—”

  Rex kisses me hard and pats my cheek firmly. Then he pulls me down off the counter.

  “All right, so I’ll tell you what to do and you do it, okay?”

  “You wish,” I snort, pushing my hips against his.

  Rex explains things clearly and gropes me often enough that the time flies. Before I can believe I made something that didn’t come from a can, there’s gingerbread on the counter.

  “Holy shit,” I moan, tasting it, “that’s delicious. So, with cooking and baking, how do you learn the recipes?”

  “Um, well, I get a lot of them from watching cooking shows. If I can see someone do it then I can do it myself. But for baking I usually have to look at a recipe the first time.” He looks at me intently. “I can read. You get that, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It just takes a while. And it gives me a headache.”

  “Wait, like the migraine you got?”

  He nods.

  “Reading gives you migraines?”

  “Just if I look at something too long. Or on a computer screen.”

  “So, what were you reading too long when you got the migraine last month?”

  Rex looks embarrassed.

  “Just—well, just some stuff about starting your own business.”

  “For your furniture?”

  He nods, but his eyes track sideways like there’s something else.

  “I can help you,” I say, hoping it sounds casual rather than pitying. “I mean, you could still read the stuff, but if you wanted help looking through it all to find what’s useful. I’m good at research. And then you wouldn’t have to read on the computer. I could just print it out at school—it’s free for me—and I could—”

  Rex pulls me to him and wraps his arms around me, tight. His sweater now smells of gingerbread in addition to wool and smoke and cedar and it’s about the best thing I’ve ever smelled. He feels like what I always imagined Christmas would be like in the perfect families I read about in books.

  “Fuck, you smell so good,” I say into Rex’s shoulder, where my nose is wedged. He chuckles. “How do you always smell so good?” I’m a little annoyed by it, to be honest. It seems unfair that Rex, looking like he does, and feeling like he does, should also smell this fucking delicious. It’s like he was designed specifically to conquer every one of my senses. Don’t even get me started on how good he tastes.

  He laughs again. Apparently I said that out loud.

  He strokes my hair away from my face and keeps a hand at the small of my back.

  “You smell great,” he says. “Like pencil shavings and coffee shops and peppermint.”

  “My shampoo might be peppermint,” I say, trying to picture the bottle.

  Rex smells my hair, running his fingertips over my scalp in a rough massage. It’s such a particular feeling, and it makes me shiver. Then he puts his nose to the crook of my shoulder, where it meets my neck, and breathes in. He drops to his knees, puts his arms around my waist, and breathes me in again. He drops lower, and my breath catches when he buries his face in my crotch, hands on the backs of my thighs.

  “You smell amazing everywhere,” he says.

  I laugh, but then Rex unbuttons my jeans and nuzzles my crotch and my laugh turns breathless. He kisses my belly and then lower, taking m
e in his mouth. His mouth is hot and slick and his tongue wraps around my shaft, cradling me. His hands rub up and down my thighs as he takes me deeper in his mouth. It feels amazing, but something’s off. Rex has his eyes squeezed shut and his hands are opening and closing on my legs convulsively.

  “Rex,” I say. “You okay?” I run a hand over his brow.

  He pulls back and nods.

  “Sure,” he says. “Let’s go to bed.”

  He grabs my hand and walks toward the bedroom. When he has me down on the bed he starts stripping my clothes off single-mindedly, the crease in his forehead deepening. He kisses me deeply and I moan into his mouth. I pull off his sweater and T-shirt to find his chest flushed and hot. He’s all heat and vibration and movement.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was afraid I was going to leave any second. The intensity in his eyes is half passion and half concentration. His mouth is everywhere. Hot on my neck and shivery over my nipples. He licks into my belly button and nibbles my hip bone. Then he’s back, kissing me as I kick off my pants and unzip his.

  He palms my ass, kneading the flesh and sliding down to lick at the head of my erection. He’s like a tornado, trying to engulf every part of me in sensation.

  I can’t reach his pants to get them off and he turns around and pulls at them in frustration, swearing when they get caught around his knees. Every muscle in his back is tense and his hands are shaking when he turns back to me. I sit up and then go up on my knees so I can look him in the eye. He’s breathing heavily and his eyes are darting all over the room.

  I put a hand on his jaw and kiss him softly. Something is definitely wrong. It’s like Rex was trying to distract me with his body so I’d forget about what he’d told me. I look at him. His muscles, his strength. Maybe they aren’t just to feel safe physically. Maybe his body is something he feels like he can offer even with his dyslexia.

  “Thank you,” he says shakily. He sounds so nervous.

  I cock my head to ask for what.

  “Just… for not saying I’m pathetic or stupid.”

  “Fuck, Rex, no way. You’re not! I could never think that.”

  He’s nodding, but not in agreement. More to say, okay, whatever. I should know. I’ve done it often enough when I don’t really believe someone but want the conversation to go away.

  I cup his cheeks and kiss him again.

  “Shh,” I say. “It’s okay.”

  I kiss one corner of his mouth and then the other, then I kiss him again. I kiss him over and over, each time a little longer and a little deeper until finally he opens his mouth. His tongue comes out to touch mine tentatively, like we’ve never done this before. I push Rex onto his back on the bed and his hair splays out on top of his sweater, the dark strands beautiful against the light wool. If this were a scene in a book, it would look like a halo.

  I kiss Rex deeply, trying to put everything I feel into it—how much I want him to trust that I don’t think he’s stupid. How wonderful he is. How grateful I am that he likes me, for whatever reason. How strong he is. I kiss him until his arms come around me, heavy weights against my back, and he starts rocking his hips up into mine. His eyes are glazed and he looks tired.

  I reach between us and cup his erection in my hand, stroking softly. A full-body shiver runs through him and he bites his lip.

  “What do you want, baby?” I ask him. “Please, I’ll do anything you want.”

  Rex opens his mouth and closes it again, hesitating. He closes his eyes and spreads his knees so that our erections rub together.

  “I… I want.” His voice is scratchy and I can hear him swallow.

  I brush his hair back and look into his eyes.

  “You want me to fuck you?” I ask, and his hardness jumps in my hand. His eyelids drift shut for a moment, then flutter open. He nods, shakily.

  Arousal shoots through me at the thought of burying myself inside Rex’s tight body. The idea of opening him with my cock, turning all that muscle to a quivering puddle of pleasure makes me dizzy with lust.

  “Oh fuck yes,” I say, and I kiss him, letting him feel how much I want him. “I’ve thought about you like this so many times,” I say.

  “Yeah?” His lips quirk into an almost-smile. “Usually people just want me to top,” he says, biting his lip, “but I—oh!” he moans as I palm his ass, enjoying the firm roundness and the incredible heat between. I can imagine that people might not look at Rex and see someone who wants to get fucked. But it was right there in his eyes. In how he trembled against me, so eager to give me pleasure like he thought it might be the only thing he could offer, but so heavy with the responsibility it required. He wants this, wants me to take care of him. And I need it too.

  The dynamic between us has been the opposite ever since Rex found me in the woods all those months ago, and I’ve barely noticed because I’ve felt so messed up about everything else in my life, so off-kilter because of my feelings for Rex. I’ve let him take care of me or resisted it, but I haven’t been taking good care of him. And maybe before, I could tell myself it was because I didn’t know how. But right here, right now, in this bed, I know how to take care of Rex. I know how to take him out of his head and how to force him not to think about anything but the feeling of our bodies moving together.

  I jerk open the drawer and grab the lube, determined to make this as good for Rex as he always does for me.

  Richard liked it hard and fast, liked me to slam into him over and over, like I was the star of some rough-trade fantasy come to life. He’d jerk himself off, and if he came before I did, he’d pull off me, leaving me to finish myself off, uninterested in sex lasting for one minute after he was done. Something tells me Rex won’t be anything like him.

  I roll Rex over onto his stomach with his knees spread and kiss the back of his neck, paying attention to how warm his skin is, how every tiny movement he makes ripples through the muscles of his back like a finely tuned machine.

  “Daniel, I—” Rex starts uncertainly, but I don’t let him finish.

  “Shh,” I say. “You just don’t worry about anything, okay?”

  He moans, which I take as assent.

  I run my hands along his rib cage and watch goose bumps rise on his arms. I kiss down his spine toward his gorgeous ass and watch the shivers ripple over his skin. I kiss the dimples just above the swell of his ass and then lick them. Rex groans, fisting the sheets, his face now buried in the sweater.

  “Your body is so fucking gorgeous,” I tell him, squeezing handfuls of his ass and watching the flesh bounce perfectly. I kiss the insides of his thighs and he jerks, his breath coming faster. I reach under his hips and pull his erection so it’s pointing down between his legs, then I run my tongue along the sensitive skin between his hole and his balls, then down over the tip of his erection, which is leaking his arousal.

  With one hand, he reaches back and pats my cheek clumsily, trying to look over his shoulder and failing. He’s muttering something into the pillow but I can’t make it out.

  I spread his ass apart and tentatively run my tongue over his hole, never having done it before. Within seconds I can tell that it’s about to become my new favorite thing to do, though, as Rex’s whole body comes off the bed.

  “Oh god!” he practically yells.

  I chuckle and put a soothing hand on his hip as I lean back down. I lick over his hole, feeling it spasm, and then, as he slowly relaxes, push the tip of my tongue inside. Rex is moaning like crazy and the feeling of this big, powerful man coming undone with the motion of my tongue intoxicates me. I rub at his slick hole with my thumb, encouraging him to open to me, and then I slide my tongue inside.

  Rex whimpers, then goes slack on the bed.

  “Oh god, oh god, oh god,” he says as I flex my tongue inside him. “Oh god, Daniel.” All I can feel is the slick heat of Rex’s hole and the way it’s seemed to short-circuit the rest of his body.

  “Please,” Rex says so softly I barely hear him. I slide up his body
and bury my face in his neck. I can hear his breath coming fast, feel the incredible heat coming off his skin. “Daniel, please,” he scrapes out.

  “You need me inside you?” I say low in his ear, and he shudders. He nods immediately, reaching for a condom and passing it back to me.

  “I want you just like this,” I tell him, running my hand down his spine. He nods again and I can see the relief in his face.

  I slick up my fingers and slide one inside Rex’s heat, watching his shoulders for any tension, but he just moans softly. I push his knees farther apart and add a second finger, feeling him clench a little around me. He’s all slick heat and strong muscle and I crook my fingers, searching for his prostate.

  He cries out when I find it, his knees falling even farther apart as he tries to hump against the mattress.

  “Uh-uh,” I say, and lift his hips away from the bed. I slide a third finger inside him and stroke his erection lightly. He writhes against me.

  “Ready?”

  “Yes,” he moans, “please.”

  “So polite,” I murmur, pressing against his prostate once more before removing my fingers. He shudders and hangs his head, now up on his knees and elbows.

  With one hand steadying his hip, I slide against the crack of his ass. I’m hard as a rock and just the feel of him sends bolts of pleasure to the base of my cock. I give his erection a few hard strokes as I start to slide inside him.

  We both groan as I breach his muscle. It’s like I’m being swallowed up by the most perfect pressure, his body hugging my erection so tightly I can barely slide in.

  “Oh fuck, Rex,” I say.

  “Don’t stop,” he says quickly.

  “Not on your fucking life,” I say, pulling back a bit and adding more lube before sliding forward again. This time I slide all the way inside him, and it’s not like anything I’ve ever felt before. Usually I feel a sense of relief when I slide inside a guy’s ass, the sense that soon I’ll get to come and it’ll feel great. Now, I feel something like desperation. Desperation to be inside Rex for as long as possible. Desperation to make him feel as good as I do. And, yeah, okay, desperation to come.

  “Jesus, you feel amazing,” I say.