Clean Break

by Erin McLellan

  Heavily, because I was wrapped around him. I wasn’t letting go.

  “It’s so pretty in here. The stars are—” I couldn’t finish my sentence. There was a huge window directly opposite the bed. The bright lights of the city spread out below.

  His room at school had been undecorated and almost cold if not for the fact that he was in it. Some people might have thought Connor was cold, but he wasn’t.

  He was the warmest person I knew.

  “I loved the stars in that storage closet. The lights in your bedroom,” he said. “Wanted to feel that safe again. That happy.”

  The fact that he saw those times as happy and safe gave me hope that we’d be all right. I hadn’t ruined us.

  He cupped the sides of my throat with both hands, and I dropped my head back on a moan. I wanted it. Wanted the weight of his hand right there. The thought made me feel brittle and vulnerable, as if he’d cracked me open like an egg.

  “I love you,” I said, before his strong hands distracted me.

  “I know. You already said.”

  “I did?” The last hour had been a bit of a blur.

  “Yes. Can I kiss you?” he asked.

  “I suppose.”

  He grinned, his dimples popping, and I kissed him.

  His groan sounded like it’d been ripped from his heart. It stole my breath. It stole my reason.

  “I love you,” I said again, pulling back. I wanted to say it a million times.

  His lips came down hard and hungry on mine. I needed this. Maybe we both did, because he undressed me like it was a race that he was hell-bent on winning. He removed my glasses gently, setting them on the bedside table.

  I unbuttoned his work shirt, my hands shifting through his sparse chest hair. His fingertips pressed against my waist like he needed inside my skin.

  “What do you want?” he asked. “Anything, sweetheart.”

  I loved when he called me that.

  I could imagine what he expected me to say—that I wanted his hand on my ass, again and again—and yeah, I did want that. But I craved something else more. My skin was aching for it.

  “I want you inside me.”

  He smiled, his eyes bright. Without a word, he turned and disappeared into the en suite bathroom, and when he came back, he had lube, a condom, and a towel in his hand. He pulled the rest of his clothes off, piece by piece. Then he sat on his bed, towel under him and back against his padded headboard.

  “Come here.” He crooked his finger at me playfully. I crawled on my hands and knees to him, which made him laugh, the sound so excited and rough that I couldn’t help but follow it. It was intoxicating. His pure joy at coming together with me was enough to make me feel drunk.

  I slithered up between his thick legs, giving his beautiful cock a lick on my way. His pubes were wilder than usual, like he’d stopped trimming, and I promised myself that I’d bury my face there next time. And there would be a next time. There would be a hundred more times.

  Once I was straddling his thighs, he slicked up his fingers, which, yes, that was good. I would like that a lot. But my head was full of a deeper, more intrinsic need. I grabbed his lube free hand and lifted it to my neck right as his other fingers touched my hole.

  He froze and gazed up at me. I squeezed his fingers, so they tightened around my throat.

  His eyes rounded out like quarters. “Oh.” He quickly moved his hand from my ass to his balls, pulling them down roughly. “Hold on. Shit.”

  I couldn’t help but grin. “Take your time, but that’s what I want. I want your hand on my throat. I want to look in your eyes while you do it. I trust you not to cut off my air too much. I don’t want to pass out or anything, but I think about it all the time. About how I want you to have that control.”

  “Illusion of control. You’ll be the one calling the shots. I’ll do exactly what you want, and I’ll get to do it because you’re letting me.”

  My smile grew. “Yes.”

  Even as he staved off an orgasm with one hand, his other never left my throat. It was heady shit.

  “The tease of it turns me on,” I said. “The threat without the follow-through. Does that make sense?”

  He nodded. “You want the weight on your throat, but don’t want me to actually choke you out.”

  “Yes. I’ve never done it before. I used to think about it when you were kissing me in our closet though. About how much I wanted your hand there. How I wanted you to press down.”

  He groaned again, and I laughed, which made him shake his head ruefully. “I’m really fucking turned on right now, but I’ll only do this on one condition. No, wait. Two conditions.”

  “Name ’em.”

  His thumb dragged roughly over my pulse. “One—that we keep eye contact the whole time, and you tell me to stop immediately if you’re uncomfortable. If you feel like you can’t talk, and need me to stop, you’ll tap my arm.”

  “Agreed. And two?”

  He leaned in and brushed his lips against my own. “That this is real. That it isn’t in my head. That we’re together. Boyfriends.”

  I cupped his cheeks. “I love you. This is real. I’m sorry I ever gave you reason to doubt us. To doubt yourself.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not. Every time we fooled around, I left you feeling a big question mark at the end. Always wondering if it’d be the last time, what it meant, how I felt about you. I promise, it will never be a question mark again. Never.”

  “Will it be an exclamation point?” he asked, a smile tipping up the corners of his mouth.

  “No.” I kissed his bottom lip. Then his top. “It’ll be a comma. A continuation. We’ll be a run-on sentence.”

  “Oh my God. You nerd.” He laughed, his eyes light and bright and a little wet. “I love you so much. I can’t believe you just said that.”

  His words echoed in my ears. I love you so much.

  I love you so much.

  I was still hearing them minutes later when he finally got his cock in me. The words were ringing through the room, through my very being when he tightened his fingers around my throat and stared straight into my eyes.

  “I love you so much.”

  I said it. Then he said it again.

  I swallowed, my Adam’s apple dragging hard against his palm. We both moaned at the sensation. I was flying from it. My breath came rapidly, a delicious struggle against the weight of his hand. I knew it was mostly in my head. He wasn’t squeezing that hard. I could definitely breathe, but the sense of threat ratcheted me up.

  “You okay?” he asked as I swiveled my hips. His cock slid across my prostate, and my eyes slammed shut. “Look at me, Travis. Are you okay?”

  I forced my eyes back open and smiled. “I’m perfect. It’s perfect.”

  My pulse was pounding in my ears. I could feel it in my eyes. On my tongue. In the head of my dick. My ass.

  Every sense was heightened.

  Connor had splashes of red high on his cheeks, and his ears were almost as dark as his hair. His free hand gripped my hip, controlling my movements as I rode him. I touched as much of him as I could. His strong arms corded with muscle. The freckles that trailed from his shoulders and down his chest. His rosy-pink nipples. The hard, clenching thighs underneath me.

  I loved being face to face like this. Loved how our bodies were so close. Touching, skimming. Slipping together.

  He pressed his palm to my throat hard for a few seconds, and my balls drew up. Pleasure bloomed outward from the base of my spine, an aching, shivery heat.

  “You okay?” he asked. His voice was thready, thin, and rough, as if he were the one being choked.

  “Yeah. If you touch my cock, I’ll go.”

  His mouth dropped open on a moan. “Eyes on me.”

  “I promise.”

  He tightened his fingers on my throat and grabbed my prick with his free hand, which was when I realized how wet I was with pre-come. The slide was sloppy and mind-blowing.


  “Oh, God. Oh, God,” I chanted.

  His thumb rubbed along my jawbone right as his other fist crested my crown. And that touch of sweetness, that tender caress along my jaw, coupled with the weight of his fingers on my throat, blew the top of my head off. I screamed, a scary, open cry, and busted all over him.

  He held his hand to my throat through my whole orgasm, but as soon as the last jet hit his stomach, his arms snapped around me, drew me fully against his body as he pulsed inside me.

  He buried his head against my chest, and God, the noise he made. Like whimpers, but deeper. Harsher.

  Then it was over, and we were both trembling. Both gasping for breath. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to my heart.

  “A key.”

  “Huh?” I combed my fingers through his sweaty hair, and he clutched me closer.

  “You’re my key. You opened me.”

  Leftover pleasure made me feel bubbly and light. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Mmm. Yeah, it does. You helped me find myself, helped me find a voice. In the bedroom. In my career. You gave me courage to be the man I wanted to be. You’re my key. How’s your throat? Any pain?”

  I laughed at his abrupt subject change. “I’m good. I liked that.”

  He leaned back so we could see each other. With a shaking hand, he lightly trailed his fingers from my chin to my jugular notch.

  “A key.”

  I grinned at him. Happiness followed me through Connor’s stringent cleanup routine, which included a cuddly shower. It followed me into the kitchen where we shared a carton of ice cream for dinner, even though we were both so sex dumb we could hardly speak. It followed me back into his bedroom, where he said, “I love you” and “stay” against my lips before we fell asleep in each other’s arms. It followed me into my dreams.

  I woke up with my face mashed against Connor’s chest, our legs tangled together. He was running a strong hand up and down my back. The sound of morning traffic filtered through his window.

  We’d never had a morning after.

  I scooted up so we were nose to nose.

  He gazed at me shyly. “Hi. You stayed.”

  “Always.”

  “I wanted this so bad. Wanted to wake up to you.” Connor’s smile lit the room, brighter than the morning sun, and I fell in love all over again.

  I cupped his cheek. “Tell me a story.”

  Epilogue

  Almost four years later

  CONNOR

  “This house has an entire kitchen painted purple haze. I’d recognize that color anywhere. And the living room doesn’t have a single light fixture,” Travis said, scrolling through pictures from a real-estate website on his computer. He glanced up. “Do you have a space for light fixtures on your spreadsheet?”

  I rolled my eyes. I found him adorable and hilarious, but he was giving our realtor fits. We’d been in our apartment in the heart of St. Louis for several months and were ready to buy a house.

  “I guess we’d have to use lamps,” I said.

  “Or we could fly Lena up to St. Louis to wire us some lights. Isn’t she a certified electrician now?”

  I straddled Travis on the sofa. “No. She’s not an electrician.”

  “Could have fooled me. She’s capable of everything else,” he said.

  Except dating someone, anyone, who wasn’t a total jerk. I kept that thought to myself.

  I kissed his ear, hoping that would make him stop talking about my little sister, who was his favorite person in the world since she loved to antagonize me.

  Lena was many things.

  Incredibly capable

  Brilliant

  Successful

  Better at managing our family’s businesses than I ever would have been

  Travis squirmed under me. I pinned his shoulders to the back of the couch. His eyelids dropped to half-mast, and he bit his bottom lip.

  “When does our flight leave in the morning?” I asked.

  “It’s a surprise,” he pressed his mouth to my throat.

  “The time I set my alarm for cannot be a surprise, sweetheart.”

  “Nope. Not telling. You promised.”

  I’d promised that he could plan our Labor Day weekend vacation, not that he could keep it a secret. I was trying not to stress out about it. It was on my list of New Year’s resolutions to be spontaneous this year, at least once, and accept changes that came into my life. I was getting pretty good at change, I thought.

  Travis had gotten a permanent job at SAFE Asylum in St. Louis after he’d passed the bar. We’d done the long distance thing through the summers so he could keep his internships there—visiting and Skyping and loving each other, even from miles away. I was excited to be living together now, though. No more summers apart. Travis had been worried that I wouldn’t want to move to St. Louis once he’d finished law school, but Farming the Future had been happy to let me transfer to their struggling St. Louis office.

  I flipped places with Travis on the couch. He settled against my body, all soft and giving in my arms.

  “I think I deserve some hints. I have no idea what to pack. Will I need sunscreen?” I asked.

  “You’re redheaded. Of course you need sunscreen. You should be wearing that shit every day.”

  “Another hint,” I said. Then I divested him of his T-shirt. “I’ll reward you.”

  He grinned and wiggled down so he was lying facedown across my lap. I laughed and smacked his ass.

  “Hint.”

  “There’s no layover. It’s a direct flight.”

  “Okay.” That was good news. I’d still never been on a plane, and I was nervous about it.

  I spanked him lightly, and he chuckled. “There will be crowds. Like lots of them.”

  “Sounds great,” I said, deadpan. This time when he laughed, it was so loud it echoed through our apartment. I caressed his ass, squeezing each cheek hard.

  “We won’t be spending time on the beach or out in nature. Concrete, far as the eye can see. It’ll be awesome.”

  “Perfect.” I smacked his butt a bit harder, and he moaned deep in his throat.

  “I suspect there will be choreographed singing and dancing.”

  “For real?”

  He nodded, and I rewarded him with another spanking before pulling his sweatpants down. He was wearing my boxer briefs, and it turned me on to see him in my clothes for some weird fucking reason. We’d been living together for two years—summers not included—and he was a pro at pushing my buttons. I spanked him again.

  “Desi is going to meet us there,” he gasped, his voice ragged. “And Joel and Paulie.”

  I placed my sore hand on his bare back as excitement exploded through me. “Desi, Joel, and Paulie are meeting us in New York City?” I hadn’t seen Desi since the holidays, and it’d been longer since we’d visited Joel and Paulie.

  Travis rolled over and glared up at me. “You ruined it! How did you know?”

  “It wasn’t hard.”

  “You suck.” He frowned, but his eyes were laughing. “Paulie and I have been arguing about which musicals to go see for a month. We’re planning one a day.”

  I cupped the side of his neck. “I can’t wait.”

  “It was on your bucket list when we were in college.”

  “I remember.” I’d never made another bucket list after I’d trashed that one. Every day was full of new experiences with Travis.

  He scrambled out of the sprawl across my lap and straddled my legs again.

  “We should make one.”

  I kissed his chin. Then moved up to his lips. “One what?”

  “A bucket list. But together. Things we want to experience with each other.”

  “Okay.” I trailed my mouth up his jaw. “What do you want to put on our bucket list?” He jumped out of my lap. “Hey, whoa. Where’re you going?”

  “To get some paper,” he called as he disappeared into our bedroom. He breezed back seconds later with one of his notepads. The paper
had kittens on the edges. It was unruled, of course, and would never have been my choice for an important list. “Buy a house together. That should be at the top because we’re already working on it, so we’ll feel a sense of accomplishment when we get to scratch it off.”

  I laughed. “Come back here.”

  He grinned and plopped down onto the sofa, this time cuddling into my side. He handed me the pad of paper. “You write it. Your handwriting is better.”

  “Sure.”

  Travis spent the next five minutes spitballing ideas, most of them lovely and ridiculous.

  Go to a BDSM club

  Have a live Christmas tree, not a fake one

  Go to Alaska and see a wild moose in person

  Beat Red at poker

  Visit haunted cemeteries in New Orleans

  Build something practical out of wood

  I wrote down every single one of his dreams.

  He eventually fizzled out and nuzzled his head into the crook of my neck. “What do you want to put on the list?” he asked.

  “I can only think of one thing.”

  He trailed his fingers down my chest and rested his palm against my heart. “What is it?”

  “Get a pet. But I think we should start small. No reason to go overboard.”

  “Like a fish?”

  I hummed. “No. Smaller than that.”

  He tipped his head back, and I had to stifle my smile. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. I’d never been happier than I was in this moment.

  “What’s smaller than a fish?”

  “Maybe some roly-polies? Or an ant farm?” I shook my head. “No, none of those seem right.”

  A smile spread across his beautiful face.

  I snapped my fingers. “I know. A—”

  “Madagascar hissing cockroach,” we both said at the same time.

  He pinched my side. “I love you, but not that much.”

  He ripped the kitten notepad out of my hand and wrote, in his messiest handwriting, “Get a dog.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from putting my lips on him now. He melted into me, and we kissed until we were both breathless. As I pulled back, I noticed he was still holding the notepad and pen.

  I took them out of his hand and tore our bucket list—which Travis had titled “Trav and Con’s Super Rad Bucket List”—off of the pad so we could pin it to the fridge.