He didn't say anything.
"There's nothing wrong with you. Look, I'm not saying you aren't fucked up, but everyone is. I am."
He snorted. I lightly smacked the back of his head, sending drops of water and soap flying. He didn't say anything, but I saw the corner of his lips twitch upwards.
"I always wanted some place where I belonged, to find someone who could understand me and love me with all my complications. I guess I got that with Michael, but I know I'm holding him back. I think he hasn't had much luck settling down because of me. He feels obligated to take care of me, even though he doesn't have to. But… but you do. Relationships are supposed to be two way streets, right? So, I need to know that you're going to be there for me when I need you. I'm not feeling that right now."
He made a sniffle that might have been protest.
"How can I?" I asked. "How can I believe you're going to be there for me when you won't let me be there for you? You have to trust me. You already know I'd do anything for you. But I'm not going to let myself get involved with you if the payoff is going to be you not trusting me."
"I trust you," he said. His body straightened. Shifting around, he put his hands on my shoulders and looked right at me. His eyes seemed deeper than I'd ever seen them, as if he were doing something subconsciously to give me a glimpse inside. "I always trust you, Andrew. You've never lied to me."
He looked so sincere that I had to war with myself over whether I should grab him and kiss him and just forgive him for everything. My gaze traveled down to the bruise on his chest, though, and I turned him back around and moved him into the spray again. "Thanks," I said, as I carefully swept the soap out of his short hair. He stood still and let me do it.
"All done?" he asked when I moved the shower head again.
I handed him a bar of soap and a washcloth. "I want you to wash Jeff off you. He's not going to be part of this relationship."
He accepted the washcloth and soap and gave me a serious look, accompanied by a determined nod. "Okay."
I stepped out of the shower and closed the door. That had gone easier than I'd expected. He'd seemed a little cowed about it, as if I'd scolded him. I supposed that I had. Aside from Bob, I didn't think anyone in Jamie's life ever did that. It wasn't the kind of relationship I wanted. But for now, until we got things worked out, maybe it would have to be. He obviously needed someone to care for him. Through the clouded door, I saw his silhouette arching its back and reaching behind itself. I looked away. My pants were soaking wet, so I poked around in his dresser for something to change into.
By the time I found a pair of his sweatpants, he was out of the shower, standing naked in the doorway. "Jeff's gone," he said, and spread his arms out as if to demonstrate this. I glanced down his body automatically, as if I thought I could tell the difference. My gaze froze between his legs. He saw me looking at his erection and grinned.
"I'm sober," he said. "You did say we could have sex when I was sober." He started walking towards me, his stride broadcasting his confidence. I stepped backwards, right into the bureau, broadcasting my lack of confidence.
"I said we could have sex when you were yourself and not under any illusions. I don't think you're—"
He began ticking off items with his fingers as he kept moving forward. "I'm a good person, even though I'm fucked up. I don't need to keep running off to Jeff. Jeff is now completely washed off me. You need me, too. Does that cover it?"
"I don't think that listing things means you're better. I don't want to take advant—"
"What? Don't want to take advantage of me? Please do." His grinning face was right above mine. Stooping down, he kissed me. His lips teased mine open until he could push his tongue inside. My knees betrayed me and almost sent me to the floor, but he got hold of me around my back to catch me, or maybe that was just an excuse to tip me backwards because he cradled my head, too, and followed me down with his mouth. By the time I came back to my senses, he had maneuvered me onto the bed and was yanking my pants down.
"Your recovery is suspiciously fast," I said as I tried batting his hands away.
"And your reluctance is predictably reticent." He got my pants off and climbed on top of me. "You're scared, aren't you?"
"No." Fuck, he was heavy. And warm. And. And. Right there, rubbing his cock against my thigh.
"It's okay," he said. He sat back and patted my hair like he was trying to soothe me. "I get it. When's the last time you had sex?"
"Two and a half years," I said, not even pausing to think about it. It had been with Kate.
He fell backwards, though, sitting down on his ankles, and by unfortunate circumstance my calves, hard. I winced. "Seriously?" he asked.
"I'm not very…" I went warm around the edges at the idea of having to explain my absent sex life. "Sex isn't something I really… I mean, I never…" God. I hid my face behind my arm. "I believe in love," I said finally.
He rolled off me. I felt him land alongside me. Great. I'd probably scared him off.
"All right," he said. "Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to blow you now, and then you're going to do whatever you want to me. Anything you've dreamed about, you get to do. How does that sound?"
"Uh?" I raised my arm so I could see him. He was looking at me as if he'd just told me something normal, like "Go buy milk." I remembered the first night in New York and how casually he'd asked if I wanted to fuck him. But now, this was him asking me if he could… Or, telling me he was going to. Whatever. "Okay," I said. It came out sounding like a question, but he grinned and scooted down between my legs.
"This really explains a lot," he said cheerfully. "I should have guessed sooner."
Before I could get insulted, he kissed the end of my dick. It was already hard. I hadn't even noticed. It was all but reaching up for him, though, dragging my hips along with it. Flattening his hands over them, he kept me flat as he swirled his tongue over the head and sucked it between his lips. Fuck. I'd had blow jobs before, awkward, uncomfortable ones that made me feel embarrassed for inconveniencing my partner by daring to want them. This was not that kind of blow job. He alternated between looking up at me and focusing on my dick. When his focus was on it, he almost seemed to be adoring it.
I heard myself making surprised little noises, and his hand snaked up to scratch one of my nipples. The little noises got bigger and somehow I lost feeling in my legs, which had widened of their own accord to give him more room to work.
He did, taking me down all the way, keeping his eyes locked on my mine with an expression of impishness. After that, I got lost in a haze of hands and lips and tongue until I was coming like I couldn't stop, right into his mouth as his lips closed tight around me, swallowing as he petted my thighs. When I finally stopped, I felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest. I was already flat on my back, but if I could have dropped further, I would have. He held my cock in his mouth for a few more seconds before letting it slip free.
"All better?" he asked.
I guessed that staring at him blankly was the right answer because he grinned and crawled up alongside me to kiss me. I tasted myself in his mouth, grabbed him, pulled him down, and didn't want to let him go. He eased himself away, though, and laid down beside me again.
"Anything you want," he said, reminding me.
I nodded, but for a minute I didn't move. Couldn't move. Finally, I turned over and, very gently, put my hand on his chest. He glanced down at it.
"Starting slow. All right."
Nodding, I kept my hand there. He could see it that way if he wanted, but this wasn't about working my nerve up. I wanted to touch him, all of him. I could feel his muscles beneath my fingers as he breathed, feel the brush of his soft black chest hair against them. I raked through it, watching the curls straighten and rebound back into loose rings. Next, I moved to his nipples. Going onto my knees to reach, I crouched beside him and rubbed a thumb over a dusty-rose colored nub. His mouth opened and he wriggled closer. "That's good. S
ee? You're doing this."
"Thanks." I rolled my eyes at his encouragement, but I couldn't help smiling and feeling proud that he liked it. Reaching across his chest, I pinched the other nipple with my thumb and forefinger and gave it a little rub. Then I bent down and kissed him directly between them, right on the indented line that ran down his chest. I kissed down it, avoiding the bruise partly because I didn't want to hurt him, but mainly because I didn't want him to think about Jeff.
I didn't want to think about Jeff, either. When I got down to his groin, I shifted my aim over to his leg and dragged my hands from his chest to join me there. I massaged his thighs until his breathing was a slow, steady series of breaths. I felt his hand land on my shoulder and stay there.
I kissed my way back up. I really wanted to roll him over and see his ass, which I'd seen walking away far too often. The knowledge that now it wasn't going to do that anymore made me want to get my hands on it more than ever. As I worked my way back up his thighs, I dipped my fingers down between the mattress to test his reaction. He raised up immediately and before I knew it, I had two handfuls of his rear end.
He laughed. I didn't understand why until he said, "I'm not used to my partners looking so shocked in the middle of sex. Usually it's at the beginning when they first learn they'll be graced with my cock's presence." He used air quotes to indicate that he was conceited in jest.
"You didn't give me a chance to be shocked at the beginning," I said, feeling that I should stand up for myself.
He smirked and pressed down on my hands. "Whatever you want," he said again.
"Roll over?" I asked.
He did and spread his legs in obvious invitation.
I spent some time just staring. He had a perfectly curved ass, as if someone had set a convex glass down and based his design on it. The dark hairs on his legs thinned out as they moved upwards until they reached his ass and all but disappeared. It felt smooth beneath the sparse distribution of hair, and sensitive, too, based on the way he was squirming. I pushed his cheeks apart and stared down at his hole. It was the same dark-dusty color as his nipples. I wanted to touch it.
I'd never done that before. Kate hadn't liked… I dipped my fingers closer, dared to brush it… and almost fell off the bed when he unexpectedly rocked forward on his elbows.
"Fuck, sorry, sorry," he said, coming back immediately to settle down. "Carry on."
"I… I'm sorry. I can stop. I didn't know you were going to… I'm sorry."
He turned around to look at me over his shoulder. "Andrew. If you stop doing that, I am going to be a very unhappy person."
"Oh."
Apparently there was a hint of hesitance in my expression because his softened. "Yeah. Trust me. It's very good. So…" He gestured towards his backside as if to say, "Go ahead."
I did. Spreading him open again, I touched him, firmer this time, and braced to get knocked off him again. He kept his control, though, instead inching his legs open further and pushing up towards me. I anchored one hand onto him, just in case, and bent down. "Can I, um…" I didn't know if I could even say what I wanted to do. I'd probably prefer to disintegrate than put it to words.
"Anything," he said.
I kissed him there.
"Oh fuck." He sounded like he was dying, but he tilted up towards my mouth, so maybe that was a good thing.
Very slowly, I put my tongue out and dragged it over the wrinkled skin, feeling each ridge. Somewhere above me, my own name reverberated in my ears. I focused on him, though. The taste was nothing like I'd expected. It was clean skin and soap. Expensive soap, I guessed. I tried to push my tongue inside to see if that was the same. It took a few tries before he opened for me. I wondered if he could guess that I'd fantasized about this, about doing it and having it done. On the inside, he was smooth and the soap taste was still there, as if he'd taken me to heart when I told him to wash Jeff away. For a moment, it made me feel bitter because this confirmed that Jeff had fucked him.
But then he was rocking onto his knees, pushing me backwards, and calling out my name and he was here with me, and not with Jeff. I pulled my face away to avoid an accidental injury to my nose and saw his cock hanging down, still hard. Sliding my hand down his stomach, my plan was to let him know my approach so he wouldn't try to launch himself again when I grabbed it. However, as I got closer, my nerves manifested. What if I touched it wrong? I knew what I liked, but he could be totally different.
On the other hand, I did want to touch all of him, and not touching him there was going to be a pretty big miss.
"Andrew, for the love of God," he said.
"What?" My voice sounded far higher than necessary.
"I know you want to touch it. I want you to touch it. So God, please, put your hand on my prick."
"Um." I was trying to come up with something suave to say about how he didn't know a good teasing when he saw it when he grabbed my wrist and put it over his cock himself.
Fuck.
I. Fuck.
It was big. My hand barely circled it. He kept his hand over mine and started to rock into my fist. He did this a few times until I got the hang of it. Then he let me go and went down on his elbows, letting me take care of him.
"I don't want to come," he said.
And, well, if that wasn't a surprise… He certainly was not acting like a man who didn't want to come.
"Is this another punishment?" I sped up. I'd be fucked if he was going to use me to punish him. Rolling away, he reached for his nightstand and pulled out a condom and lube.
Oh.
Oh shit. Bad choice of words, thinking about being fucked. I glanced at his dick, his huge dick, thought about my extremely untouched ass, and tried very hard not to have a heart attack as I thought about his dick going in there. Opening and closing my mouth like a fish, I tried to figure out how to tell him that that wasn't happening today. Maybe eventually. Hell, absolutely eventually, but today? No.
I was still trying to figure out how to put this into words when he rolled the condom onto me.
"Oh," I said, surprised, and he burst out laughing.
"Fuck, Drew, if I'd known sex with you was going to be this much of a laugh, I'd have done it earlier."
"I wouldn't have," I reminded him as I watched him dribble lube over the condom and rub it down. I'd gotten hard without noticing again. Maybe it had been so long since I'd had someone else to focus on that I'd forgotten how to be aware of two people at once, even if one of those people was me. I didn't think it was possible to not be aware of him. I didn't want to find out, either.
He twisted around. I tried not to swallow my tongue as he started fucking himself with his fingers. "You don't mind fucking me, right?" he asked, apparently choosing to ignore my reminder that we hadn't had sex for very good reason. Probably I would still be sticking to that reason if he hadn't insisted this time, but at this point I had to admit that he had been right. I'd been scared about doing this. So, one day would have turned into two and three and so on, and who knew if I would have been brave enough if not for him saying it was time? "I think it's necessary," he said.
I blinked. "It's necessary for me to fuck you?"
"Absolutely." He sounded so sure of himself. I wanted to laugh, but my jaw was too busy hanging open. "Look, it's like claiming, right? Like animals do. You've got this hang up about Jeff." Anticipating my response, he put his unoccupied hand up. "Which I don't blame you for. In fact, I understand it. But, sometimes you have to turn over to your animal side and, based on the way you were looking at me earlier when you were talking about him, this is one of those times."
He slid a third finger inside himself. I wanted to follow it down with my tongue.
"I don't think I have an animalistic side," I said. I didn't think that now was a good time to bring up my sex life with Kate, but animalistic was not how I'd characterize it.
"Everyone has one," Jamie said. "I'll help you find it."
And then he pulled his fingers free and went to
his hands and knees. "Anytime, hot stuff," he said, wiggling his ass at me.
"What do I…?" I felt like an idiot for asking, but he smiled, looking at me over his shoulder again and somehow managing to appear as if he was excited to tell me. It wasn't at all the look of forced indulgence for the moron who didn't know how to fuck that I'd expected.
"It's okay," he said. "I had a first time, too. Just line up and push. Go slow and stop if I tell you to."
"Okay." I knelt up and scooted forward until I was right behind him. Following his directions exactly, I eased my way inside, going as slowly as I could and waiting for him to tell me to stop. He never did, instead encouraging me with sounds that were somewhere between "Yes," and "God" and "More" and little grunts and moans. Once I was all the way inside him, I put my hands on his hips. He didn't have any fat on him, not like me where my lack of musculature was something for fingers to sink into even though I wasn't overweight.
"You know what to do from here, right?" he asked.
I figured that I did. It was strange at first because I didn't want to hurt him, so I went slow, but the louder he got, the more my hips snapped forward and the harder my fingers dug into him. I finally tore them away because I didn't want to hurt him like that, not like Jeff had.
I wasn't going to do anything like Jeff.
I stretched over his back instead, reaching for his shoulders. He was too far away to kiss, but he twisted around, practically making a pretzel of his spine so he could reach me. I'd never think of that familiar comfort food the same way again. I'd probably eat them even more now. I reached beneath him and this time jacked him off with no hesitation.
He came into my hand and suddenly my fingers were in his mouth. I didn't know who had put them there, him or me, but his mouth was warm and safe, which wasn't something I usually thought about mouths.
When I came, I collapsed on top of him, as if I'd turned into a puppet in that moment and someone had dropped my strings. He scooted out from beneath me as I lay on my stomach, panting. Putting my arm out, I stopped him from moving too far away with a gentle touch on his elbow.
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