The soccer player flicked a quick look at his face. “If I last more than a couple of thrusts, I’ll be surprised. I apologise in advance if I don’t even get that many in.”
Curtis grinned, a fluttering sense of joy filling his stomach at the other man’s confession. “Didn’t realize you had a stamina issue, McDowell.”
Rhys grinned back. “I don’t. I have an I-want-him-so-much-I’m-gonna-blow issue.”
And without waiting for Curtis to respond—and really, what would he say?—Rhys liberally slathered the lubricant on his fingers over Curtis’s hole.
Curtis let out a raw moan.
And another one as Rhys slipped both fingers inside the ring of muscle that was Curtis’s entry.
“Fuck, Clarkson,” Rhys declared on a shaky breath. “You’re so fucking tight.”
“And ready.” Curtis pulled his knees closer still to his shoulders. “For you.”
Stare locking with his, Rhys slid his shoulders beneath Curtis’s calves and—one hand guiding his cock to his hole—pressed his hips forward.
A searing burn radiated through the skin and muscles of Curtis’s anus, at once excruciating and exquisite. He ground his teeth, giving himself over completely to the invasion and the incredible pleasure it wrought upon him.
“Jesus, you’re tight,” Rhys rasped, inching farther into Curtis’s back passage. “Feels so good.”
Curtis’s anus yielded to Rhys’s crown, the sliding sensation of hard flesh against tight making his head swim. He gazed up at Rhys, unwilling to break eye contact with the man who entered him.
The connection—profound and primitive—fed the pleasure consuming him and he lifted his hips, wanting more.
Wanting Rhys completely buried in his arse.
Wanting them joined.
“Y’know the real beauty of this position?” Rhys asked, inching deeper into Curtis, his breath a choppy pant.
Curtis shook his head. “No.”
Rhys’s nostrils flared. “I can do this. Ready?”
And before Curtis could say yes, Rhys pressed his chest to the backs of Curtis’s thighs and captured his lips as he sank fully into Curtis’s arse.
Liquid heat and pleasure and rapture and pain rushed through Curtis. His anus contracted, gripping Rhys’s cock. He groaned into Rhys’s mouth, fisting the duvet beneath him as Rhys made love to his mouth with his tongue.
The kiss was fierce and demanding. Hungry. Wild.
His penetrations were the same. Imprisoning Curtis beneath him, Rhys drove in and out of his arse. With each short thrust, Rhys rolled his hips, the movement not just stretching Curtis’s flesh, but rubbing over his prostrate. Curtis bunched the duvet beneath him with his fists again, anchoring himself on the bed, determined not to lose any of Rhys’s strokes.
When Rhys shifted his weight slightly, enough to grant his hand access to Curtis’s rigid cock, it was all Curtis could do not to orgasm there and then.
Instead, he whimpered into Rhys’s mouth.
Instead, he raced his fingers over the man’s back, his shoulders.
Instead, he squeezed his eyes shut and told himself over and over not to come.
Dragging his lips from Curtis’s, Rhys nipped at his chin. “Don’t hold back, Clarkson,” he rasped, his pounding, rolling thrusts into Curtis’s arse growing faster, deeper. “I want to hear your pleasure, not just see it and feel it. I want you to deafen me with your screams as I make you come.”
“Fuck,” Curtis groaned, clawing at Rhys’s shoulders again. “Fuck, McDowell, I’m not…I’m not going to last much…”
Rhys pumped Curtis’s cock with tighter speed, biting at Curtis’s lips, his jaw, the side of his throat as he did so.
Curtis tossed his head back, awash with thrumming pleasure. “I’m gonna come, Rhys,” he ground out, slamming his hips upwards as much as he could to meet Rhys’s every sinking penetration into his anus. “I’m going to fucking…”
A tingling pressure bloomed at the base of his spine, radiating into his balls. Spreading to his gut, his core. Detonating into a paroxysm of sensation so intense he forgot how to exist.
There was only the pleasure of Rhys’s flesh inside his own, of Rhys’s possession of his body.
Of his release.
His seed spurt from him in thick ropes. He felt it splash against his stomach, his chest.
And then, with a roar and a brutal thrust, Rhys came as well, his cock a pulsing rod deeper inside Curtis than it had ever been.
“Jesus fuck,” Rhys cried, the words raw and ravaged with pleasure. “Jesus fuck, I…you…so…fucking…good…” He froze for a split second, his shaft buried to the hilt in Curtis, and then slumped, parting Curtis’s thighs as he did so.
Curtis’s legs slipped from his shoulders, sliding down Rhys’s body, framing him once more in the position from which they’d started.
For a long moment, Rhys stayed motionless, his face buried in the side of Curtis’s neck.
“Promise me something?” he finally mumbled, the shaky words hot against Curtis’s skin.
Fighting to catch his own breath, his body still thrumming from the sheer power of their mutual climaxes, Curtis let out a weak chuckle. “What?”
Rhys lifted his head—a little—and grinned at him. “You’ll let me do that to you again? Like, over and over and over?”
The question sent a delicious lick of greedy delight through Curtis. As did the way Rhys’s cock continued to throb and pulse in his back passage. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether I’m allowed to do it to you beforehand?”
Rhys studied him, an unreadable emotion shining in his eyes. “How soon can you get it up again?”
Curtis laughed. “Something tells me sooner than I ever have before.”
Rhys chuckled. “Because you want me so much?”
The question was uttered in jest. Curtis knew Rhys well enough to know the man rarely kept anything serious. And yet Curtis could see, beneath the ambiguous expression he wore, a desire. A hope.
A longing.
“Because,” Curtis said, lifting his hand to cup Rhys’s jaw, holding the soccer player’s stare, “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone else in my entire life.”
Rhys’s eyes fluttered closed.
“And,” Curtis continued, trailing his thumb over Rhys’s lips as the truth of his words warmed his soul, “I can’t see that changing anytime soon.”
Chapter Eight
They slept.
Rhys had never slept with any sexual partner before.
Ever.
He always operated on the love ‘em-and-leave-’em-ASAP mode of physical interaction.
For starters, he hated sharing a bed. It cramped his sleeping style.
For another thing, he was prone to sleep-talking and the last thing he wanted was to blurt out Josh Blackthorne’s name while whatever hotty or hunk he’d just spent the last few hours bonking lay beside him, most likely delusional that they were the only thing that existed in the world for him at that given moment.
But, after withdrawing from Curtis’s backside—a place Rhys could quite simply, he believed, occupy until he grew old and feeble—and cleaning up, the pair of them curled up together in the bed, naked of course, and chatted.
Another thing Rhys never did—post-fucking chatting.
But he found he really couldn’t get enough of hearing Curtis talk, of talking with him. Movies, sporting heroes, funniest groupie moments, favourite food…it didn’t really matter what the topic was, they just…chatted.
It wasn’t until Rhys woke who knows how many hours later, his arm draped over Curtis’s chest, his thigh resting over Curtis’s groin, that he realized at some point in their chatting they’d both drifted off.
It was, Rhys had to admit, the most incredible sensation—waking to find Curtis in bed beside him.
To have Curtis’s scent be the first thing Rhys became aware of.
To have the second thing
be Curtis’s morning-glory erection pressing into Rhys’s thigh.
Lying on his side, Rhys watched the ex-cricket captain continue to sleep.
The soft buzz of Curtis’s snoring made Rhys smile.
Asleep, the other man looked almost boyish. Rhys had to remind himself Curtis was a good eight years older than himself.
Eight years older, an inch or so taller, and a good couple of pounds heavier.
Another first for Rhys. When it came to sexual partners, he never allowed himself to be the smaller party.
And yet, here you are. Admit it, you’re halfway in love with the guy and he’s nothing like Josh at all.
The thought should have freaked him out. It didn’t. It made him feel…something.
Something? You’re not worried you’ve just replaced one unobtainable guy with another?
Letting his gaze roam Curtis’s sleeping profile, Rhys pondered the word.
Unobtainable. Angel Waters had used the word to describe Curtis back on the flight from London to Australia, but after what they’d just shared, it was pretty fucking clear Curtis wasn’t as unobtainable as Rhys—and Angel—first thought.
That’s not what you mean, and you know it.
He let out a low, strained sigh.
Incredible, mind-blowing, soul-shattering sex aside, Curtis most likely was still unobtainable. Because, as much as he’d like to believe otherwise, Rhys knew he wanted more of Clarkson.
Outside-a-shower-cubicle more.
Outside-the-bedroom more.
Hell, just at the thought of sitting in a restaurant with Curtis as they ate dinner together, talking sports and everyday stuff, made his heart hammer.
Before he could stop himself, he pictured walking into the pub Curtis owned here in Sydney—the Cricket’s Cup, he thought it was called—walking over to the bar, behind which Curtis was pouring beers, leaning over the counter and kissing the guy g’day, just because he could. Because that’s what they did when they hadn’t seen each other for a few hours—kiss. Regardless of where they were and who was around.
A pang of blissful contentment stabbed through Rhys’s chest at the fantasy. His gut tightened. So did his groin.
His heart beat faster.
His throat thickened.
Rolling onto his back, he pressed his balled fists to his closed eyes. Fuck. He’d gone and pulled himself out of the frying pan and into the fucking fire.
Regardless of how deeply he’d loved Josh, he’d never experienced the reality of being with the man. That had saved him from insanity. He didn’t have that protection with Clarkson. He knew exactly how incredible, how amazing the bastard was. How fucking perfect they were together.
And would have to live with that knowledge for the rest of his—
A firm, warm hand wrapped around his morning erection, a second before Curtis brushed a lingering kiss over his lips.
“Morning,” the cricket player said, voice rumbly with the vestiges of sleep, as he repositioned himself completely on top of Rhys. His naked flesh slid against Rhys’s. His cock did the same.
Rhys looked up at the guy. “Morning yourself.”
A devilish gleam danced in Curtis’s eyes. “Fancy a fuck? Before I have to go?”
Pleasure warred with misery inside Rhys. So it seemed they were moving on. A tumble between the sheets and then back to normal life. Straight life for Clarkson; empty, meaningless, directionless life for Rhys.
Ah, the joys of being him.
Fighting to find his smile, he nodded. “Sure.”
Curtis frowned. “What’s up?”
Rhys forced out a chuckle. “Apart from my dick?”
Curtis narrowed his eyes. Studied him. And then, Adam’s apple jerking, eyes scrunching closed, he climbed off Rhys and sat back on his haunches. “Shit. I got it wrong, didn’t I?”
Rhys pushed himself up onto his elbows, his gut churning. “Got what wrong?”
Curtis didn’t look at him. Instead, he scrubbed at the back of his neck, staring at the suite’s floor-to-ceiling window.
“Got what wrong, Clarkson?”
With a wry grunt, Curtis shook his head. “Nothing. I just…”
Rhys’s pulse thumped fast in his ears, a deafening rhythm he felt in his throat and chest. “Just what?”
For a moment, Curtis didn’t move. Then, expression unreadable, he turned his stare to Rhys. “I want to be inside you, McDowell. At least once. And I don’t mean I want you to give me head. I want to fuck you. Will you let me do that? Before I go?”
Before I go.
The finality of the words ripped at Rhys’s heart.
I don’t want you to go.
Those words, his own, uttered in a silent plea, tore at his soul.
They sat heavy on his tongue, crushing him, suffocating him. Destroying him.
“Please?” Curtis asked, the request a tormented breath.
Rhys made himself smirk. “Sure,” he answered, drawing on the last shred of the old fuck-’em-and-flee Rhys he’d been before Curtis changed everything. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Something dark flickered in Curtis’s eyes, there and gone in a heartbeat.
He moved, crushing Rhys’s mouth with a brutal kiss as he pressed him flat to the bed.
Rhys surrendered to the moment. To the elemental desire and pleasure the possession awoke in him.
There was nothing refined about the way Curtis took him. Nothing skilled. And yet, it was the most honest sex Rhys had ever experienced in his life.
The man explored every inch of Rhys’s body with his tongue, his lips. He sucked and nipped and licked his way from Rhys’s lips, down to his chest, his nipples, his navel, lower.
He spent long, savage moments feasting on Rhys’s cock, his balls. He licked at Rhys’s sphincter, penetrating it with one finger, two, three. He journeyed down Rhys’s legs, biting on the inside of his thigh with such sucking pressure, Rhys knew if he looked, there’d be a mark left there.
He didn’t look. He couldn’t. To see Curtis’s lips on his body—knowing it was the last time—would push him over the edge and he’d do something stupid, like beg the man to never stop, to be with him for the rest of fucking ever.
So he lay on his back and drowned in the pleasure Curtis wrought. Gave himself over to it.
When Curtis flattened his palms to the inside of Rhys’s thighs and spread them wide apart, positioning himself between the V of his legs, Rhys couldn’t stop his tormented groan.
“Are you clean?”
At Curtis’s low question, asked on a strangled whisper as he trailed his fingers over Rhys’s sac, Rhys bit back a whimper.
He knew what Curtis wanted.
He wanted it as well.
Still without looking at the man, he nodded. “I am. One hundred percent. Passed my last medical with flying colours before I left the UK.”
Silence greeted his answer. Filled the room long enough that Rhys couldn’t help but turn his gaze to the man between his spread thighs.
Their eyes made contact.
Curtis’s lips curled in a slow, small smile. “Finally.”
“Finally what?” Christ, why was his mouth so dry?
“You look at me.”
Rhys’s throat constricted. “Shut the fuck up, Clarkson,” he growled. “And make me fucking yours.”
Curtis’s nostrils flared at his unplanned plea. Rhys didn’t know if it was at his choice of word, or due to the open torment in his voice.
Whatever reason, he couldn’t look away when Curtis reached for the tube of lubricant—still at the end of the bed where it was discarded last night—and squeezed the glistening liquid onto the bulbous crown of his condom-less cock.
Couldn’t do anything less than release a ragged breath when Curtis gathered up Rhys’s right leg and straightened it up into the air, sliding his shoulder up the back of its length, slowly rolling Rhys onto his side as he did so.
Couldn’t do a thing but look up at Curtis’s face, into his eyes,
as Curtis positioned his knees on either side of Rhys’s left leg—now stretched flat on the bed—and aligned his coated erection with Rhys’s puckered anus.
“Fuck,” he ground out as Curtis’s flesh touched his. He closed his eyes, anticipating the penetration. Impatient for it.
Needing it.
Craving it.
“Open your eyes, Rhys.”
Curtis’s low command stroked his fraying sanity. He did as asked, finding Curtis gazing down at him.
“I want to see the pleasure I give you as I do this,” Curtis said, a breath before he pushed his hips forward, entering Rhys’s arse.
The pain was exquisite. Everything Rhys wanted it to be. Beyond pleasure, beyond fulfillment. Beyond perfection.
He let out a raw sound of rapture, stare locked with Curtis’s.
Curtis sank deeper into his back channel, jaw bunched, chest heaving.
Pulled him farther down the length of his shaft with slow, inching force.
It was singularly the most incredible invasion of his flesh Rhys had experienced.
And the most harrowing.
Nothing would compare to this. Nothing could ever compete with this.
He was fucked.
When Curtis was completely embedded in his arse, only then did Rhys close his eyes and let out another hoarse groan of pleasure. “Fuck, Curtis…” he rasped. “You feel so good.”
Warm lips against his calf made him open his eyes. His breath caught at the sight of Curtis hugging his leg, his forehead pressed to Rhys’s leg, his eyes closed.
“Clarkson…”
I will remember you this way for fucking ever…
With a shaky intake of air, Curtis opened his eyes and regarded him. “I can’t promise this is going to last long. Or be gentle.”
Rhys let out a wobbly laugh. “You think I want you to be gentle? Or that I’m going to last much long—”
Curtis didn’t let him finish.
He withdrew in an abrupt backward stroke and then slammed back into his hole, wrapping a hand around Rhys’s engorged dick as he did so, pumping his length as he fucked his arse. Over and over. Until both men were dripping in sweat and trembling.
Until Rhys ground out he was going to come.
Balls Up Page 8
