Clean Break

by Erin McLellan

“All right,” I whispered and dropped my arms back to my sides. They were both tingling from loss of blood. “Was that okay?”

  The corner of his mouth tipped up. “I liked how much you liked it.”

  “That wasn’t my question,” I said, trying to infuse some cheekiness into my voice.

  “I don’t feel jumpy, like I have in the past, or like my skin is on too tight. You taste good. And I enjoyed being close.”

  “So it wasn’t horrible?”

  “It was far from horrible.” His eyebrows pinched together, a divot forming between them.

  He opened his mouth. Then snapped it shut.

  “You can tell me.”

  “I like kissing without tongue better. Is that okay?”

  I grabbed his hands. “Absolutely. Babe, we can kiss however you want. In whatever way you want. Or not at all. This should be something that makes us feel good. I never want you to do anything with me that doesn’t make you feel good, understand?”

  His gaze softened, and I wanted to hug him, hold him close. It was ridiculous.

  “I’d like to see you again,” he said, his voice easy and close, as if we were the only two people in the world.

  “You’ll see me Wednesday. In class.”

  “Fine. I’d like to see you naked again.”

  I couldn’t keep my chuckle inside. He was dangerous.

  Damn, if only our life plans weren’t so incompatible, this could have been something great. As much as I wished our circumstances were different, they weren’t. Maybe I needed to make that clear.

  “I know we’ve been making out like prom dates for the last hour, but . . .”

  “But what?” Connor turned away from me to get his baseball hat from the floor and picked invisible dust and lint off it before sticking it back on his head, obscuring all that gorgeous auburn hair.

  “Do we need to have a boundaries conversation? Like, should we have a discussion about what all of this means?” I gestured between us.

  “No. I know where we stand. We’re good, Travis.”

  Were we, though? Because I wasn’t sure where we stood, and I felt blown apart by this.

  “Great. I’ll text you,” I said.

  He nodded and gave my mouth a long, lingering stare before nudging me aside and slipping outside.

  “We’re clear,” he said, so I stepped out too.

  We walked down the stairs together without a word, but before we separated at the first floor, he touched the back of my hand lightly and gifted me with a smile.

  Chapter Nine

  CONNOR

  That kiss with Travis was an eye-opener, and I had no idea how he kept convincing me to bare all my secrets and insecurities. But he did, over and over again.

  For a week, we met in our storage closet after every entomology class and kissed until our lips were sore. We didn’t talk in our closet, not like we had the night we’d hooked up. I missed that.

  I made a list of the stuff I wanted to know about him, the stuff he hadn’t told me yet.

  His favorite color

  How old he was for his first kiss

  His favorite kind of pie

  His opinion on IPAs

  The contents of his invisible backpack

  I was smart enough not to write that list down. It’d look like I was either a stalker or needed a cheat sheet to get through a conversation.

  I also made a mental list of dates I wanted to take him on, and things I’d like to do together.

  Drive-in movie

  Spanking

  That list got derailed at spanking pretty much every time.

  After another day of kissing in our storage closet after class, I was sure that Travis didn’t want to get naked with me again. He never seemed interested in moving the closet kissing to one of our rooms. I could live with that. I wasn’t happy about it, but I’d take it.

  But then we ran into each other at the Spectrum Center. Literally. He was leaving a QSOC meeting as I trudged to the quiet-study area. We collided, and he caught me before I lost my footing.

  It would have been completely innocent if not for the way we held on. He stared down at me, his eyes wide. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, which gave his face this open, vulnerable quality that I loved. I dropped my bag and clutched at his biceps like a swooning heroine on a book cover.

  “My house?” he asked, and I nodded, speechless.

  We practically sprinted there. I’d been planning to study that night, but that action item on my calendar would have to fucking wait.

  When we stumbled into his house, he shucked my pants down and pushed me into the huge chair in his living room.

  “Joel?” I asked.

  Travis froze. “Uh, hi. My name is Travis. Joel’s my housemate. Would you rather be spanking him?”

  I swallowed hard. My mouth felt too slow for my brain. It’d sounded like I’d called Travis Joel, when I was asking if he was here. Which was important information considering Travis had just de-pantsed me in his living room.

  “I want to spank you. Is Joel here? Do we need to be somewhere other than your living room right now?”

  “Oh. Nope. He’s at Paulie’s tonight. They’re doing laundry.”

  “Okay.”

  He stared for a long beat, then took all of his clothes off. He was standing stark naked in his living room in front of me like a gift. His abs rippled with each breath he took, and sweat beaded in the hollow of his throat. His cock was heavy and slightly curved, darker than the rest of his skin with a fat head, pre-come dampening the slit.

  “I want you to spank me until I come in your lap.”

  So that’s what we did. I held him across the waist with one arm and spanked him hard with my other hand until he released against my thigh. Then he fell to his knees, licked the come off my leg, and finished me with his hand.

  It had been as good as the first time. I felt like a small piece of myself had finally clicked into place, as if finding out that I liked to spank him, that I loved the sting on my hand and the heat of freshly slapped skin settled the discordant bits inside me for a brief moment. Calmed me down as much as it seemed to calm him.

  A key. He’s a key. He’s my key.

  Afterward, I stood on shaky legs to get a washrag and found some fancy, sweet-smelling lotion in his bathroom. I carried the lotion and towel into the living room where Travis was still kneeling on the floor, his head resting on the arm of the chair. We cleaned up silently with the rag. Then I pulled him up into my lap, his knees on either side of my thighs. I dolloped the lotion into my hands.

  “What are you going to do with that?” he asked.

  “Take care of you.”

  I was pretty sure I wasn’t imagining the way his eyes got all shiny at that.

  I rubbed the silky cream into his ass cheeks, trying to soothe the sting from the spanking. His body seemed at peace—languid and lazy and content. Like he was fulfilled in a way that went deeper than momentary satisfaction. I was in awe of it. Of him.

  He pressed his face into my neck. “Tell me a story.”

  I gathered him closer, wrapping my arms around his back. Molding my hands to his warm skin. Words—silly, stupid things I should not say yet, or ever—pressed against my chest. I swallowed them down.

  “My favorite color is yellow. I was sixteen when I first kissed a girl, and eighteen when I first kissed a boy. My favorite kind of pie is pumpkin. I think IPAs are disgusting. And my invisible backpack feels a lot lighter around you.”

  Silence followed my words.

  “Your turn,” I eventually said.

  He laughed, and pressed a soft kiss to my throat. I cupped the back of his head and held him.

  “Sweet potato pie or bust,” he said.

  Well. It had been worth a shot.

  He was like the world’s best bricklayer. He could go from happy and open to stacking block after block before I even knew he was doing it. Then suddenly there was a wall between us, shored up and full of boundaries. He might have b
uilt a wall, but I was a sieve. I was unable to stop my words, fears, emotions, or hopes from leaking out when he was around.

  We cuddled, naked in his living room, for an hour. Then I went home and slept alone.

  Our pattern of kissing in the storage closet and occasionally trading hand or blowjobs, plus spankings for Travis, continued for a couple of weeks. After each time together, I’d talk. I’d never talked so frankly with anyone, especially about sex, and it felt like a much-needed education. He wasn’t as forthcoming, but there would be moments when he’d touch me with tenderness, or even better, possession. I lived for those brief flashes.

  Today, he was busy with classes—I had his schedule memorized—and my nerves felt jangly with the need to see him. To talk to him. But I didn’t text him. I was trying not to lay all my cards on the table. He didn’t need to know the extent of my crush.

  My little sister called me as I was trying to decide if I’d eat toast or cheese and crackers for lunch—my pantry was getting sparse. Lena was talking a mile a minute before I’d said hello, so I took the opportunity to add grocery shopping to my to-do list and crossed off some completed actions.

  I’d finished the readings for my Meat Science class, and I’d started highlighting passages in my notes for midterms for all of my classes. I’d also cleaned my bathroom and bought condoms and lube from the campus commissary. Drawing a line through that item on my list made me flush, and I didn’t want to think about it while on the phone with my sister.

  “I’ll be able to graduate this summer,” she said. “I only need to complete the animal husbandry class at Elkville JuCo and the welding class at the vo-tech. Then I’m all done.”

  “That’s awesome, sis.”

  Lena was twenty, but hadn’t wanted to do the traditional college thing. Not like me. So she was taking a mix of courses at the county vo-tech and the local junior college. Elkville Junior College was a gateway program to Farm College, but it had a pretty outstanding agriculture program in its own right.

  “I hope you’ll be able to find the time to help your poor sister with her homework this summer, since you’ll be big man on the farm.”

  My skin prickled unpleasantly. I didn’t want to talk about that.

  “Are you excited to start at Farm College in the fall?” I asked. She’d have her associate’s degree, and the plan was for her to go to Farm College afterward. Graduating at the end of the summer and starting her bachelor’s degree in August was a fast turnaround with no time off, though.

  She groaned. “If we’re going to have that conversation, you need to buy me lunch. It’s the only way I’ll withstand it.”

  Lunch with my sister was better than toast. “That can be arranged.”

  “Yes. I want sushi.”

  I grumbled about it, but not thirty minutes later I found myself at a new sushi place, waiting for my perpetually late sister to show up. I’d never had sushi before. I’d assumed landlocked Elkville’s selection probably left something to be desired.

  To occupy myself, I perused the menu and momentarily got that dry-mouthed, tight-chested sensation that signaled my brain was about to work overtime. New restaurants were complicated for me sometimes, but I took a deep breath. Eating somewhere new would not make me sick. It would not poison me or Lena. That was illogical. My body didn’t think it was illogical, and there had been moments in my life where I wouldn’t have been able to walk through the doors here, but today, I breathed through it. Rejecting the fear caused a record scratch in my brain. Dr. Dimond liked to say that screech, that shot of anxiety when I didn’t leave the restaurant, was my brain repairing itself. I loved that analogy. Made me feel strong when I was able to keep going and allowed me understanding and empathy when I couldn’t.

  By the time Lena appeared, I was relaxed enough to be scrolling through Instagram. She was wearing dirty work boots, jeans, a North Face jacket, and a baseball cap that she’d shoved her messy hair into. She resembled our mother in every aspect except that hair, which was dark red, like Dad’s.

  “I don’t want to talk about what I’ll do after graduation. That was only my excuse to get you to buy me lunch,” Lena told me once she’d ordered something called an F5 Tornado Roll. I ordered a California Roll because I was leery of raw fish.

  “Okay. Neither do I.”

  “Why not, Mr. Soon-To-Be-In-Charge?”

  The bite in her voice threw me, but then she grinned. Sometimes little sisters were confusing. “That would be talking about it, don’t you think?”

  “Ugh, fine. Then you have to talk about relationships with me.”

  Our waiter brought us a bowl of edamame and our drinks. Lena dug in with a vengeance.

  “What about relationships? Are you and Brandon having issues?”

  She’d been with her boyfriend for about six months, and he’d always seemed bland, especially next to my outgoing sister.

  “Brandon and I aren’t having issues. Brandon and I are abso-fucking-lutely not speaking and shall never speak again.”

  “You broke up?”

  “Yes, brother. That’s what I said. You’re so precise.”

  “What happened?” I asked, ignoring her dig at me.

  “He’s a jerk.”

  “What did he do to you?” My voice dropped, and a scary, protective urge started to build in my chest.

  She rolled her eyes. “Stop being all caveman about it. I can take care of my own self.”

  “I know that.”

  Lena was scrappy, and had no problem putting a person in their place, but I hated the thought of her hurting.

  “He’s a loser, okay?” she said. “He wants a little mother that will cook him meals and clean his house and give him a litter of God-fearing children, and that shit isn’t me. I don’t want to get married or have kids, not yet. I want to . . .”

  “What?”

  She took a deep breath, like she was winding up. “I want to farm and raise cattle and make as much money as fucking possible, and I want to spend that money on a motorcycle or something else that’s impractical and indulgent. And I want a fuck-ton of tattoos and maybe to date a girl. I don’t want to be his wife. He doesn’t want me anyway. He wants some trumped up Little House on the Prairie ideal of a woman, and its absolute fucking bullshit.”

  That expletive laden speech had me reeling. Had she just come out to me? Was that the part of that speech I should be focusing on?

  “I hope you do all those things, Lena.”

  She laughed. “That’s why I love you. You don’t fuck around with platitudes.”

  My lips twitched, and I flicked the wrapper of my straw at her. “You’re better than Brandon, and I’d be pissed at you if you let some d-bag hold you back.”

  The waiter appeared at our table and deposited our sushi. Lena’s was complex.

  After a couple minutes of eating, I said, “So, girls?”

  A rosy blush colored her cheeks and ears. “Caught that, did you?” I let her think and fiddle with her food a bit. Finally, she said, “I’ve been considering it.”

  I nodded, not wanting to push her. “If you want to talk about it, I’m here. Or, I could give you Desi’s number, if you’d rather talk to a woman or someone who isn’t your brother.”

  “I’d rather fuck Desi than pour my angst on her, but okay. Maybe I’ll take you up on that.”

  My jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

  “What? You have eyes. She’s hot.”

  After a moment, I said, “True.” Desi and I had never jived like that, but there was no doubt she was gorgeous.

  “Enough about me.” Lena waved her hands like she was erasing the last minutes of our conversation. “Is there a special person in your life? Have you stopped living like a monk?”

  I might be inexperienced in some things, but I’d never lived like a monk. She didn’t need to know that.

  “There’s a guy I like, but it’s complicated.”

  “Shut up! You’re dating someone?”

  “No. I li
ke someone. His name is Travis.”

  “You should see your face right now. It’s precious.”

  I scowled at her.

  She grinned around a huge bite. Then she talked with her mouth full. “So, this Travis fella. What’s he look like?”

  I picked at my food. “He’s taller than me. Lean and fit. He’s Black, and he wears glasses most days.” I was leaving so much out. How his smile was sometimes ornery and sometimes sweet. The softness of his skin. His full, sexy lips. His springy chest hair and cut-glass abs. The light in his eyes when he was turned on.

  “Is he hot?”

  My face heated up, and I nodded. “Yeah. Very.”

  “And nice?”

  “Of course.”

  “What’s the problem then? Why’s it complicated?”

  I shrugged. “We’re both about to graduate, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want anything serious, which makes sense. He’s not planning to stick around in Elkville, that’s for sure.”

  She frowned. “And what do you want?”

  “With him?”

  “Yeah.”

  Travis and I weren’t going to have some epic love story. Everything about our life plans was incompatible, but he made me feel like I was waking up for the first time. I didn’t want to let go of that yet.

  “I want to be in his orbit for as long as possible before his life takes him somewhere awesome and exciting.”

  Lena was studying me closely. “What do you want to do with your life, Connor?”

  I dropped my chopsticks and stared at her. She knew what I was doing with my life—the same thing she was. I’d start managing our family’s businesses, and once she was older and ready, she’d step in too. We’d figure out an allocation of duties, playing to each of our strengths. The farm had been our maternal grandparents’, and our parents had diversified the holdings. It was our legacy, and I wasn’t going to turn my back on that. Want had nothing to do with it.

  I shook my head, angry about this turn in conversation. I wasn’t ready to examine my emotions surrounding it, because I knew they were fucked up.

  Lena reached across the table and stole some of my sushi. “Don’t think about big-picture plans. Think small. I want a motorcycle and tattoos and lady head. Bucket list material, right there. What do you want? You’re the list maker. What’s on your list?”