Life on Pause

by Erin McLellan

  Oh, the possibilities were overwhelming.

  “Yeah? You sure?”

  Niles nodded, and Rusty’s breath whooshed out of him.

  “What do you do when you’re treating yourself? Like, when you want to feel amazing and have all the time in the world. What do you use?”

  Niles grabbed a decent-sized dildo with a wide handle on the end. It was hot pink and looked like a bunch of rubber balls stacked one on top of each other. Then he snatched up a vibrating prostate massager. He clicked it on, probably to check the battery, and shut it off as soon as it jumped to life in his hand.

  “I start with this,” he said, waving the dildo. “And finish with this.” He held up the prostate massager.

  How did Niles end up here—on his back with his knees pressed against his chest and his ass in the air? Surely this was the result of some really bad life choices.

  Or really good ones.

  Because, God! Rusty was licking his balls, and he must have done something right in his life to deserve this kind of pleasure.

  Niles could tell where this was leading. Rusty was definitely going to rim him, and his skin was on high alert, so sensitive he felt like he was going up in flames. He had an entire folder of rimming porn on his laptop, and none of those videos prepared him for the moment Rusty swiped his tongue over his hole.

  “Oh my merry fucking Christmas,” Niles moaned, and Rusty laughed.

  Rusty swirled his tongue around Niles’s entrance again, and then touched the tip of the dildo to him. Niles sucked in a breath, suddenly so full of need, so ready to be filled, he wasn’t sure he’d last more than a minute. The anticipation was too much. When Rusty slowly pressed the first ball inside him and licked around it, a high-pitched whining filled the room.

  Oh, that noise was coming from Niles. Which was embarrassing, but not embarrassing enough for him to stop.

  Rusty spit on Niles’s hole and started to push the second sphere of the dildo inside of him, pinning him open at its widest point, before licking the smooth skin of his taint.

  Niles shook with desire and fear. This was too different. It wasn’t some hurried fuck. This was foreplay, and he’d never had foreplay before. And while he was really enjoying it, he also wasn’t sure he was ready for the helplessness, the vulnerability twisting through his chest.

  “So you like to bottom?” Rusty asked as he grabbed the lube and pulled the tip of the dildo out of him.

  Niles was trying to work out an answer when Rusty fucked his tongue into his aching hole. “Not really,” he mumbled, dazed.

  “You don’t like to bottom? Because I was about to fuck you with this.” Rusty ran the dildo over Niles’s balls.

  “I mean, I like that. But I’ve never liked it with someone else.” Rusty could have no idea how close they were skirting to so many of Niles’s issues, like the fact he hated getting fucked by strangers but let it happen because he was so lonely and his skin ached for touch.

  “Ah. I see.”

  Yeah, he probably didn’t.

  Rusty sucked his balls into his mouth and Niles writhed.

  “How do you like it? With the dildo?” Rusty asked after releasing him.

  Niles was almost too insecure to answer. Too timid. But he didn’t want to be timid anymore. He wanted Rusty to make him feel good, and Rusty was asking him for exact instructions. Maybe having some control over this whole thing would prevent him from feeling so shitty afterward.

  “I like it slow,” Niles breathed. “Like, normally I work the dildo all the way inside, and by then I’m so close that I pull it out, super slow, and replace it with the prostate thingy.”

  Rusty groaned, deep in his throat, and the noise made the skin on Niles’s cock tighten.

  “Do you jerk it at the same time?”

  “No,” Niles confessed.

  “You can come hands free?”

  “Yeah.” Sweat prickled on Niles’s neck at the admission. He’d never told anyone that.

  “Fuck,” Rusty whispered, and then he ground his forehead into Niles’s hip like he was trying to contain himself and was about to fail miserably. Excitement rippled through Niles. Oh yeah, he definitely wanted to see Rusty fail to contain himself.

  Rusty squirted some lube onto the toy and his fingers. When he rubbed the lube into Niles’s ass, Niles had to stop himself from riding Rusty’s hand. Then Rusty sucked on Niles’s perineum again and slowly pushed the first section of the dildo back in. He clenched around the toy, and Rusty licked his ring of muscle, lube and everything.

  Niles was definitely outclassed here. This was pro-level stuff. It wasn’t fair because Niles couldn’t do anything but moan and freak the fuck out.

  With the flat of his tongue, Rusty licked from Niles’s hole to his balls, getting it wet and slick. He kept his mouth right there on Niles’s taint, licking and blowing Niles’s mind. After pressing the dildo in about halfway, when Niles was beginning to feel full and nervous, Rusty angled the toy so it tapped his prostate.

  Guh. Damn.

  “Do you know how hot you are?” Rusty whispered, his lips still pressed against Niles intimately. “I love the noises you make. Love the way you move against me.”

  And only then did Niles notice that he’d been helplessly squirming against Rusty’s face and making silly unconscious whimpers in his throat. Rusty sucked hard on the inside of Niles’s thigh.

  “Yes, suck,” Niles murmured, too lost in the small bite of pain and the wonderful throbbing in his ass to care how stupid he sounded.

  But Rusty must have misunderstood because he hitched himself higher to reach Niles’s dick, which was already dripping. Niles shook his head a little desperately and pushed Rusty back down toward his nuts and taint and hole. He wouldn’t last a second if Rusty blew him.

  “Oh,” Rusty gasped, obviously realizing what Niles meant. “Can I mark you?”

  “Yes,” Niles moaned. Then, “Yes!” as Rusty sucked brutally hard on the join of his thigh and groin. And then again on his perineum.

  Rusty plunged the rest of the dildo into him, and Niles could have come just from those lips on him and the weight and press of the toy in his ass. But he didn’t want to. He wanted it all. Wanted to show Rusty exactly what he liked.

  What his body was capable of.

  Niles gripped his own hair and whined as Rusty slowly, so slowly, pulled the dildo out, pausing each time Niles’s body was stretched wide, making him really feel it. As soon as Niles was empty, he begged, scared of the bare, aching feeling and his frightening need to come.

  Rusty kissed his hole again, and Niles pulled at his own hair so hard that pain lanced down into his temples.

  “Please, Rusty. Please. God. Oh, my mother trucker. Don’t stop!”

  Rusty slicked up the prostate massager and held it to Niles’s ass. Niles flexed his hole against it, and Rusty groaned into his thigh before slipping it all the way inside and turning the vibrator on.

  Niles immediately tightened his pelvic muscles, like it said to do in the instructions, because he was nothing if not a rule follower, and the tip of the massager rubbed over his prostate. He cried out breathlessly, and his body undulated like a wave. Nothing could compare to that feeling, like lightning hurtling through his limbs.

  “Jesus Christ, Niles. Your ass,” Rusty moaned and licked around the base of the toy. Niles slapped one hand down onto Rusty’s shoulder as Rusty sucked the tight skin of his taint again. He shuddered against Rusty’s mouth, the vibration against his prostate making him delirious.

  Niles’s dick got even harder, until it was dark purple and shiny at the tip, and he kept up with the Kegels—his favorite form of exercise. His orgasm built inside him, heat flushing his skin and his vision turning swimmy.

  But he needed … oh, God, he needed something to hold on to, something to ground himself before he ripped apart.

  “Rusty,” he breathed, his whole body shaking.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Could you, uh, up here? Come …
kiss me,” Niles stuttered out as he tugged on Rusty’s hair. Rusty sucked his balls one last time, which about sent Niles over, then he crawled up the bed and lay down next to Niles.

  Niles planted his feet on the bed and quaked. He was so close.

  So scared.

  Rusty plastered himself to Niles’s side, pinching his nipple with one hand and cupping the back of Niles’s neck with the other. He kissed Niles desperately, sweetly—he tasted a little like ice cream and a lot like lube—and pressed his cock against Niles’s hip. It was wet and hot and silky smooth.

  All the muscles in Niles’s body contracted, and he gasped. Rusty pulled away, watching his face, and then lights popped in Niles’s vision and his body rushed cold and hot.

  Niles’s arms snapped around Rusty’s neck of their own volition, needing to cling to Rusty, to cling and never let go, and he came hard, his body pulsing and a broken cry falling from his lips.

  “Oh fuck,” Rusty moaned. He kissed Niles again, roughly, and Niles trembled, come still spilling in sluggish gushes over his stomach. Rusty surged against him, and Niles turned in his arms until they were tangled together, which changed the pressure inside him and ramped him up more, the vibrator still zipping against his gland.

  Rusty slid a hand down to his own cock, and they kissed for endless minutes until Rusty sprayed across Niles’s chest, long lashes that sizzled like hot wax against his sensitive skin. The moment—this beat of time where they were both reeling and raw from pleasure—was so perfect that Niles wanted to slow it down and live in it forever. But his body was already tensing, strung tight, the vibrator making him arch. And Rusty was kissing him so deeply that he wasn’t able to warn him that he was about to bust for the second time. Niles cried out, the noise muffled by Rusty’s lips. Rusty ripped his mouth away and stared at him.

  “Oh God. You’re coming again.”

  Come dribbled out to join the mess already on Niles’s stomach. “Oh holy … fuck. Rusty,” he choked out, his body shaking so hard now that it was almost painful.

  “Do you want to take the toy out?” Rusty asked and then licked the sweat from the hollow of Niles’s throat, which was about the hottest thing ever.

  Niles nodded his head jerkily. It would be too much if they kept it in much longer. He’d be too exposed. Or too vulnerable. So he needed it to stop. He needed to catch his breath and calm the violent drum of his heart.

  “How did you learn to do that? The multiple orgasms.” Rusty sucked a hickey under Niles’s collarbone as he slid down his body.

  “Reddit and Kegels,” Niles gasped. He felt dizzy. And sexy. And overwhelmed. Rusty wrapped his fingers around the base of the prostate massager and tugged on it gently but not enough to dislodge it. Niles moaned, his body flipping back on like a light switch. “Fuck, it still feels good. Hold on. Leave it in.”

  “You’re still a little hard. If I suck you, will you ejaculate?”

  “No,” Niles panted, but he also thrust his cock against Rusty’s neck. That word—ejaculate—should not turn him on so much.

  “A blowjob would feel nice, though, right? Even if you don’t come?”

  “Oh fuck … Nngh, yes. Yes.”

  Before Niles could blink, Rusty was on him, pinning his hips to the bed, one hand nudging the prostate massager, and the other holding up his wet cock. He had started to soften, but Rusty’s lips on his crown worked wonders.

  Rusty swallowed him down like it was nothing, sucked up to the tip of his cock, and Niles screamed.

  Rusty cleaned Niles up with a T-shirt and pushed the toys to the floor because Niles didn’t seem all there quite yet. He was twitching and gasping, each breath like a small cry. They needed to clean the toys off, and Niles would probably want a shower or a washcloth, but he didn’t feel comfortable leaving Niles alone.

  Rusty had sucked Niles until he’d gone soft, loving how responsive Niles was even though he hadn’t been capable of coming again. Rusty’s jaw ached, but it had been so worth it. In fact, it was probably the hottest thing he’d ever experienced. He’d never been with a guy who could come like that, or at least not one who’d let him witness it.

  But he couldn’t help but feel like Niles, with his furrowed brow and squeezed-shut eyes, was already regretting it.

  Rusty lay back down beside him, and Niles flinched.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” Rusty whispered.

  Niles was shivering, and when he opened his eyes, they were wet with tears. Rusty’s stomach dropped.

  “I don’t know. Don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Niles gasped. A tremor wracked his body and a tear slid into the hair at his temple. “Oh holy Betsy! I’m that guy who cries after sex!”

  Rusty rolled Niles into his arms. “It’s okay, gorgeous. I think that could happen to anyone.”

  “I feel like a crybaby. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. Look at me.” Niles’s eyes fluttered open, and his tears magnified their depth and darkness. He was gorgeous, all sweaty from sex, his mouth swollen from kisses and his tan skin covered in hickeys, like Rusty’s new walking wet dream. But seeing the confusion and sadness in his eyes was devastating.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “No! Of course not.”

  Rusty had read about releases of emotion like this during and after sex in relation to BDSM, and he suspected Niles was having a similar reaction. Niles had been amped so high, so bared to him, and the closeness between them and all of the chemicals flooding Niles’s brain were probably overwhelming him. He had come three times in the last hour and a half, after all. That would overwhelm anyone.

  At least, that was what Rusty hoped was happening. He hoped Niles wasn’t crying because it had hurt or he’d hated it.

  So Rusty held him, and kissed him softly—his eyes and cheeks, the soft shell of his ear, the tiny cleft in his chin.

  “That was scary,” Niles finally said, after the tremors had mostly ceased.

  “In what way?”

  “Letting you see me like that. So out of control. I don’t know how to do this, Rusty,” he whispered, his voice cracking.

  “Sweetheart, it’s okay. We don’t have to do it again.” Rusty cupped Niles’s cheeks and thumbed his tears away. “It’s okay.”

  “It felt good,” Niles whispered.

  Rusty laughed. “Hell yeah, it did. You were perfect. So gorgeous. So mine.”

  Oh shit. He hadn’t meant to say that. But Niles had given himself up so beautifully.

  “That’s what I don’t know how to do,” Niles said. “Be yours. I’ve never … done this before. Never been with someone I know. Been with someone twice.” He picked up speed. “I don’t know how to open up like that and then not feel too close … too much for you.”

  “I want you to have feelings for me. I want us to be close!”

  Niles shut his eyes and turned his face into the pillow. “It’s easier when it’s anonymous. Or impersonal.”

  “Why?” Rusty asked, panic making his voice rough.

  “Because I’m not cool. I’m a loser with, like, practically zero sexual experience—”

  “Uh, you just brought yourself to multiple orgasms like a boss,” Rusty cut in, because Niles obviously knew what he liked sexually. He knew what got him off.

  Niles talked over him, though. “I’ve never had a boyfriend. I’ve never had a guy who wanted a repeat. I have, like, one friend, besides you, and you’re so sexy and sophisticated. And you are going to rip me to shreds. I fucking know it, Rusty!”

  Rusty pulled back, stunned, and fear flared through him.

  What if Niles was right? What if Rusty did hurt him? What if he decided to move with his sister? He wasn’t sure he wanted to move, but it was a possibility, and one he really needed to consider regardless of how this thing with Niles complicated matters.

  And Rusty definitely should have made a decision about one realm of his life before shaking up another, but it was a little late now. All he could control at this moment were his own
words and his own actions, and there was no way he was ending the night without Niles knowing exactly how much he wanted him.

  “I don’t know what will happen between us, Niles. But I want to be with you. And not friends-with-benefits. Not a fling. I was lying earlier—I don’t want to play it by ear. I don’t want to go slow. But I promise, I will never hurt you on purpose or leave you exposed or humiliate you.”

  Niles’s eyes were almost comically round, and Rusty had the overwhelming urge to kiss the dark freckles on his nose.

  “You want to be my boyfriend?” Niles asked. “Like exclusive?”

  “Yes. Fuck yes.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “I’ll show you,” Rusty whispered and then pressed his lips to the dried salt of Niles’s tears.

  “Yeah?” Niles asked shyly. “When was the last time you had a boyfriend? Or girlfriend, I guess.” He popped all the fingers on his left hand and wouldn’t meet Rusty’s eye.

  Oh fuck.

  Todd.

  How did he tell Niles about Todd? The lie he’d told days ago knocked him flat. And in the face of Niles’s tears and vulnerability and heartbreaking insecurity, there was no way he could fess up. No way Niles would stick around if he found out Rusty had dated Todd, who was damn near physically flawless, for three fucking years. Niles would ghost. Again.

  “Uh … I kind of dated this guy named Donovan,” Rusty lied. Or partially lied. Donovan was real, but he certainly hadn’t been the last. “We dated off and on for about six months before I moved to Bison Hills. He was a party boy—dancing, drugs, booze, sex—and he worked tech support for a big oil company. But we broke up when I moved. He was a good guy, real sweet, but neither of us wanted to do long distance.”

  Rusty’s lies and omissions were piling up and cluttering his mind faster than junk mail. He was fucking this up, but didn’t know how to put everything back to rights.

  “I’m going to screw this up,” Niles said, his words achingly similar to Rusty’s own fears. And Rusty almost cried. Niles was definitely not the one screwing this up.

  No way out but through.

  “I won’t let you fall, baby. You’re safe to show me exactly what you like, exactly what you need, and exactly who you are. I will never judge you, or belittle you. I will—”