by Max Hudson
What the hell did that mean?
I tried to rapidly think back over our time together trying to recall any chat we’d had about relationships. I’d moaned to him about me and Maria, but I couldn’t recall him ever saying anything about his exes. Maybe he was gay, maybe he did this sort of thing all the time…
Well, I instantly knew how I felt about that, it stirred my emotions up into a frenzy, it made me want to take the brave step that I’d been trying to avoid!
I wanted to go for it, to just throw caution to the wind and to go with what my heart wanted, but it had been broken before. The last time I went with what I wanted, Maria ended up tearing me to shreds. I wasn’t sure it’d been long enough for me to fully recover, especially with her last hateful words still lodged firmly in my brain…
But before I could make any kind of real decision about what to do next, I felt Joey slightly moving away, so I did the same. However, as my arms dropped to my side, his stayed fixed in one place on my hips. Our eyes were connected, there was a magnetic force holding them in place, and the intensity between us both growing with every passing second.
In that moment, the rest of the world just vanished, it shrank down to just me and Joey, and I felt like I just knew.
All my dreams were finally coming true, and all my fears were gone.
Then he made his move, his lips crashed against mine, and my heart darted and danced in my chest, my emotions ran wild, the buzzing became even more powerful. Everything felt right.
Joey started off slow, tentative, which I appreciated because it was taking me a second to adjust to this. This was still very new to me, and I was acutely aware of that.
Until he pulled me closer, and the heat of his body combined with the passion in his lips, taking over everything else. As his tongue snaked between my lips, the butterflies in my stomach became large flapping birds, shutting down my brain. This was incredible, the best kiss that I’d ever had in my whole entire life, and I never wanted it to end.
His hands were on the small of my back and mine were around his neck, everything about the moment felt perfect. This was what my life had been missing, this was what I’d always been needing, no wonder things between me and Maria fell apart, it never felt as intense as this.
“So,” Joey finally stepped backward, breaking the moment to pick up his board. I examined him as closely as I could without staring at him like an idiot. I just wanted to know what he was feeling, but instead he used his easygoing nature to get rid of any potential awkwardness. “Are you ready to try a bit more, or are you happy with what you’ve done today? Either way is cool with me.”
“Oh I’m ready,” I grinned wickedly. “I need to keep practicing if I want to get better. I need to get to the point where I’m leaving you in my dust!”
Getting back out on the water was a good plan. It’d be good for us to have some time to adjust to this newness.
“That’s big talk,” he teased, starting to run. “We’ll have to see about that.”
But I didn’t care about beating him really, none of this was ever about me getting to some amazing standard – my professional dreams died long ago – this was all about injecting some fun back into my life. It’d been missing from my existence for far too long, so now that I had some of it, I never wanted to let it go.
“I’m warning you,” I yelled as I tumbled down the sand after Joey. “I’m actually getting in this time, so you better watch yourself.”
A couple of hours hadn’t totally shifted my worldly view, but my heart had opened a little, and that was something.
Chapter Ten
“I can’t believe you actually did it!” Joey cried out happily as we gave up for the day. “You actually did it.”
“You’re massively overselling it,” I shook my head and chuckled at him. “I got up on the board for like two seconds, then I fell off and gave up.”
“Maybe, but did you think that you’d get to that stage when you woke up this morning? You were so full of doubt, you never thought you’d be able to do it. You didn’t trust me at all.”
“Yeah… maybe…” I half shrugged and smiled in reply. “But when no one else could make me do it, I wasn’t sure that you had the skills.”
“Seems like I have superpowers!”
I like Joey, I glanced at him out the corner of my eye. But am I willing to sacrifice everything for him? Is this only just a friendship that has gone a little far?
That was a valid question, one that needed to be considered, mostly because it had been such a long time since I’d had any real friends, ones that I truly connected with. I’d lost all my friends from my youth after the accident, then I’d been stuck with stuffy, New York, Wall Street types for ages; the sort of people that were nothing like me. Maybe what I was feeling was purely friendship, and I was just confusing that because it’d been so long.
No, I wasn’t totally sure that was the case. Even as I tried my best to justify it in my brain, it didn’t feel right. I knew it was much more than that, I just wasn’t quite sure how to move forward with it. I could happily go with it as much as I wanted, but it was all new, and I needed to be careful that neither me nor Joey ended up getting hurt.
What if I went forward with this, and it turned out that I didn’t like it? After all, kissing was one thing, but anything else was something else entirely. I liked the idea in my mind, but still… what did that mean? I wasn’t gay, I’d never had any feelings for a guy before, but that didn’t diminish what this was either. It was all so confusing.
“So, what now?” Joey asked me questioningly. “The tide’s dragging the surf away with it, so I don’t think there’s much more we can get done.”
“Shame,” I muttered, nodding along. I knew that we were going to have to have a conversation about that kiss at some point, it was necessary, but I had no idea how to start that chat.
“Did you… want to hang out?”
My body angled toward his, wondering what he was asking of me. Did he mean ‘hang out,’ or ‘hang out’ with expectations attached? And why the hell couldn’t I just ask that question? What was wrong with me?
“Uhm, maybe we… need to… like, talk?” My whole body heated up, I could feel myself growing red with shame. Yet again, I couldn’t just be cool. “Like what happened before was a little crazy, right?”
“Oh yeah, I know,” he said a little too carelessly, while shaking out that amazing blond hair of his. “It was a little mad.”
Did he think that I was letting him down? Oh no, that wasn’t my intention at all. As panic knotted and weaved through my chest, I realized that this was what I wanted. My eyes flickered back down to his lips and that urge to kiss him all over again crept up over me. Whatever happened now, my friendship with Joey had been altered, I’d never be able to hang out with him in the same way again, so why not just go with it? I knew it was what I wanted to make me happy again. “It’s not that,” the words fell out of my mouth, my body sidling closer to him. “It isn’t that at all…”
“No, I know,” he held his hands up in a surrendering gesture. “You had a girlfriend, you aren’t gay, I never should have…”
My fingers weaved through his, as my heart thundered like crazy. No, it couldn’t end this way, I didn’t want it to be over. I needed to work up some courage for once or I was going to lose him forever.
“It isn’t that,” I repeated. “Yes, this is new to me, but I really do have feelings for you. I don’t know what it means about me, but it’s there, and it’s intense.”
“What do you mean?” he furrowed his eyebrows at me, confusion flooding his expression. “What it means for you?”
A silly shame washed over me as I definitely looked like I was reading so much into one kiss. I didn’t want to admit that my mind was overanalyzing everything, but there didn’t seem much point in holding anything back anymore. “Well, I don’t know… I’ve always identified as straight…”
“But kissing me doesn’t have to come with a
label,” he insisted pulling me nearer to him. “Sexuality doesn’t need to come with written instructions, it can just be what it is. We can just like who we like, it doesn’t need to be a big thing.”
It sounded so simple when he said that, as if it was obvious. He just had this way of making things clearer to me. It was as if he cleared the fog of self-doubt from my brain completely.
“That’s why I love it here,” he grinned brightly at me. “People are so easy going, so ready to accept everyone. Romi, Marc, the other guys I work with, none of them mind who loves who.”
My heart yearned to go after what I wanted, it ached to see things in that much of a simplistic way. I always overcomplicated things, and it had never worked in my favor before. Maybe it was time to stop thinking and start acting.
With that, I leaned in. I didn’t even pause to think about what was going to happen next, I simply enjoyed the moment instead. I had this incredible guy with me, one that wanted me without piling the pressure on, and that made it feasible.
As we kissed this time, there was more of a tenderness there, an understanding that this was brand new territory for me. The passion was still obvious, lighting up my whole body with fire, but the most prominent feeling about this was romance. Joey and I liked each other for the people we were, not just our bodies.
“Do you want to come back to my place?” Joey asked me, murmuring against my lips. I nodded, without even opening my eyes, and pulled him back toward me for some more kissing. I felt so caught up in the moment, so content to just be, and that stilled everything within me.
Then, a short time later, Joey managed to separate us for a moment by lacing his fingers through mine, and leading me toward his home. We ambled slowly, as if we were both trying our best to remain casual about the whole thing, even if we didn’t feel that way. Realistically, deep down, there was an intense, powerful passion driving us forward, taking us toward that next, scary step…
Luckily, we didn’t seem to come across anyone that I knew as we walked, just because I didn’t want anyone to know about this just yet. I wanted to figure out how I felt about things before announcing it to the rest of the world, and unfortunately one of the negative things that came with living in a small town was the unavoidable gossip.
For now, I wanted to keep this just for me and Joey.
Despite all of that, it felt amazing to be doing this, I felt wonderful to finally be doing something that I just wanted to do. I’d been without real happiness for far too long, it was time to grasp some of it back. Sure, this might not have been the way I thought I would get it, but that didn’t make it wrong.
If anything, I felt like it might turn out to be the best thing I’d ever done. Those dreams, those thoughts I’d been having were about to become a reality, and judging by the kisses we’d shared at the beach, it was about to be better than I’d ever expected.
Chapter Eleven
All politeness simply fell away the second we stepped into Joey’s house. I didn’t even take a second to look at the place, the passion simply took over and things kicked up a notch. Before I could even think, his lips were all over mine, and his hands were working their way over my hips once more. How was I supposed to focus on anything else with such an amazing man desiring me?
“Are you sure about this?” Joey asked, as he pressed my back up against the wall behind me. His mouth was on my neck now, sending fluttering sensations all through my body. The cold from the wall was counteracting the intense heat rolling through my body, yet somehow it wasn’t dulling it even one bit. Now that I’d finally given in to the temptation of Joey, nothing was going to stop me.
“I’m sure,” my head lolled to one side as my body gave in. This feeling was far too strong, I just couldn’t stop myself and it felt great. Finally, I was making myself happy. “I’m really sure.”
I could feel the material of my t-shirt, sliding up past my torso and I raised my hands to let it go, wanting it shed from me. The clothing covering my and Joey’s bodies were the only things in the way. The quicker they were gone, the better, as far as I was concerned.
As Joey flung it to one side, a wicked, elated grin playing on his lips, I yanked his top off too, gently running my fingers over those amazing muscles as I went. I’d been thinking about them, yearning to touch them ever since I’d first seen him, and now that it was happening, I didn’t feel one iota of disappointment. Joey had the most incredible body, and I was over the moon that he was letting me feel it.
“Wow, you’re sexy,” I growled, as his fingers worked their way toward my board shorts. “That body of yours is something else.”
“And you haven’t seen all of it yet,” he winked at me, sending a shiver trickling up and down my spine.
I tensed up, waiting for my shorts to fall away, but instead of pushing them down, Joey used them to yank me into the other room where his sofa bed lay messily by his large window.
“I don’t have a big place,” he shrugged casually. “But I love it.”
It was nothing compared to the amazing, spacious home I’d had in New York, the one I’d worked hard at a job I hated for, the one I’d poured all my hard-earned cash into, just to keep Maria happy, but this felt so much more like a home than that. That was a show home, barely lived in. This space had character and charm, it had Joey written all over it.
“I love it too,” I smiled, falling onto the bed. “It’s awesome, and the view you have is amazing.”
Joey immediately made his move, climbing over me and kissing me all over again. I willingly allowed him to control me, I happily flopped backward feeling better than I ever had before. There was a pulsating need inside of me, a desperation for him to explore my body, and as his hands started travelling down my body I found my back arching in toward him.
He teased me for a while, fiddling with the outline of my shorts, during which time a frustrating ball of passion knotted up in my stomach. I wanted to scream out, to yell, to bite him, but I didn’t. I tried my absolute hardest to reel myself in. After all, there wasn’t any need to rush…
But then his hand finally dipped underneath the material and I let out a deep, intense sigh of relief. He rubbed me, outside of my underwear, feeling how thick and ready I was for him. This was an intense, powerful desire, and it was all because of him. Joey had turned my body into a quivering mess, and because of his little speech down at the beach I realized that nothing else mattered.
I wanted this, he wanted it, there was nothing else to think about.
“Oh God,” I groaned as he finally moved the clothing down to take hold of my length. “Oh wow, Joey.”
He kissed me hard, while moving his hand up and down my shaft. He started gently, cautiously, but quickly realized that I didn’t need him to be careful with me. Just because this was something that I hadn’t done before, didn’t mean that I needed to be treated like a china doll. I wanted him to let his passion free, I wanted him to take me, to drive me wild, and luckily he seemed to get that.
“Shit,” I moaned, clinging onto him so tightly that I felt my nails digging into his skin. This just felt so incredible, I had wondrous, exhilarating sensations tearing through my body, and I was shaking under the pressure of it all.
Then Joey totally blew me away by sliding down my body. He began kissing my neck, then over my collar bone, and finally down my chest and over my torso. I was nowhere near as sculpted as Joey, the fitness level of my body had slipped as I gave up surfing and moved to the city, but he didn’t seem to mind. He seemed to find me attractive just the way I was.
Then his mouth found my thighs, taking him dangerously close to where I was aching painfully for him. Half of me wanted him to find me, to take me in his mouth, and the other half of me was afraid that it’d send me over the edge, that I wouldn’t be able to handle it. So maybe it was lucky that he was giving me a few moments to drive myself to a wild, frustrated state by remaining annoyingly at my thighs.
“Stop it,” I eventually felt compelled to
gasp through my ragged, struggling breaths. “Stop teasing.”
“Ooh, getting a bit eager now, are we?” Joey sounded immensely pleased with himself. “Not so unsure now.”
I didn’t care, he could mock me all he wanted, because the second I felt his lips wrapping around me, and I bucked and shuddered with bliss, it all felt totally worth it.
I grabbed onto his hair, needing something to grip onto as he ran his lips up and down me, flickering his tongue everywhere. He had my cock sliding down his throat until it almost hit the back, making me feel more wonderful than anything ever had before. I honestly didn’t know that it could feel so good! All of this was making me realize that I’d never truly been satisfied before.
“Oh God,” the deep wall of pressure was starting to build within me as he moved, bobbing that head up and down. “Joey, oh my God.” Why couldn’t I seem to stop talking? I felt my chest get tight, my legs tense up, my heart explode…
And then the waves of bliss crashed over and over me, causing me to buck and yell with joy. I was being loud, making so much noise as the pleasure consumed me, and I didn’t even care. I wanted Joey to know what he was doing to my body; how wild he was making me. No one had ever turned me on like him, and I felt like he deserved to be made aware of that.
God I liked him, I liked him so much. I just hoped that all of this could continue…
“That was amazing,” he gasped as he fell on the bed next to me. “I don’t… I can’t… just wow.”
I turned to face him, leaning up onto my elbow, wanting to know if he was expecting something back. I wanted to give it to him, I did want to take that step, but I just didn’t quite feel ready for it yet. Luckily, from the happy expression on Joey’s face he understood that, and he didn’t mind.
“Would you like to go out for some food?” he asked me causally. “Or is that a bit too much like a date?” He didn’t want to pressure me, and I respected him massively for that. “We can just order in if that helps?” I would let him decide.
