Where Nerves End

by L. A. Witt

  All the way from the club to my house, I was sure Michael would change his mind. God knew how much nerve it had taken him to come to Lights Out tonight, and in my experience, regret and hesitation usually came traipsing in shortly after the first orgasm subsided. Once the erection was gone, the mind was suddenly clear enough for doubts, and if those doubts showed up for Michael, then I would be rubbing one out in the shower tonight. Again.

  But when I walked in the front door, Michael was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, and unless his eyes were lying, he hadn’t changed his mind. Not at all.

  I crossed the floor, mouth watering and cock already hardening, but right before I reached him, Michael stopped me with a hand on my chest. My heart didn’t even have time to react before he gestured at the stairs.

  “Up there.” His voice was low and quiet. “Once we get started, I’m not stopping for anything.”

  Well, all right, then….

  Without another word, we hurried upstairs.

  As soon as we made it to the end of the hallway, within reach of his bedroom door, Michael spun around and grabbed the front of my shirt. We kissed with all the frantic hunger I’d expected out on the rooftop earlier: breathless, desperate, no idea what to do with our hands except grab on, hold on, don’t let go, please, God, don’t let go.

  As I had in my office, I pinned him against the door, forcing his lips apart with my tongue. We gripped hair and clothes, pressing our hips together as we groaned into each other’s kisses. I still couldn’t believe he was here, that we were doing this. Every fantasy I’d ever had about him vanished from my mind because not one of them could hold a candle to the reality—simply being against him like this, kissing him while his hands ran all over my body, was hotter than all the possibilities I’d imagined. Because this was real.

  Michael’s hand left my arm, and my heart beat faster when I heard his palm brushing the door behind him as he searched for the doorknob.

  I broke the kiss and touched my forehead to his. “Are you sure about this?” I asked, panting against his lips. “About—”

  “Yes,” he whispered. “God, Jason, please….”

  He opened the door, and we nearly toppled to the floor. I wouldn’t have cared; he could fuck me wherever he wanted as long as he fucked me.

  But we stayed on our feet, the hardwood floors creaking beneath our stumbling footsteps. We inched toward Michael’s bed, and somewhere along the way, my shirt landed beside us. His landed on top of it. Shoes thumped, then hissed across the floor as we kicked them out of the way. Belts jingled. Zippers unzipped.

  Michael flicked on the light beside the bed and growled, “Want to… want to see you,” before he pulled me into another kiss.

  I hooked my thumbs in the waistband of his jeans and would have pushed them over his hips, but Michael hauled me down onto the bed on top of him. Christ, he was hard. We both were, and I was halfway out of my damned mind too. I pressed my hips against his, groaning when his erection met mine through our clothes and his hot skin met my chest and abs. We ground together, breathed together, dragging fingers through hair and breath out of lungs, and I could not get close enough to him.

  I dipped my head to kiss his neck, and Michael moaned.

  “I suppose now would be—” He sucked in a breath as I nipped his collarbone. “—a good time to ask if you’re a top or bottom.”

  “Either.” I kissed where his neck met his shoulder, flicked my tongue across that spot I’d been dying to taste, and started kissing my way toward his jaw. “You?”

  “I’m—oh, God….” He dug his fingers into my arms. “I’ve only been on top. So far.”

  Whoever’s up there listening right now? Thank you. Holy hell. Thank you so fucking much.

  I raised my head and kissed him. “Does that mean I won’t have to twist your arm to fuck me?”

  “You can if you want, but I don’t think you’ll need to,” he growled. “I want you so bad, Jason.”

  I bit back a whimper. “Do you?”

  “God, yes.” He kissed me again. Our mouths separated enough for him to add, “I want to fuck you,” and I shuddered.

  “Please do,” I murmured against his lips before sinking into another deep, desperate kiss.

  He slid his hand up my arm, and when I raised my head again, uncertainty creased his forehead. “Your shoulder,” he breathed as his palm drifted over it. “I don’t want….”

  “I’m good. And right now, I couldn’t care less.” I’d regret it in the morning, but to hell with it. “Fuck, let’s get out of these clothes before I go insane.”

  “Love that idea.”

  Another kiss was tempting, but then we’d never pull apart long enough to get undressed, so I pushed myself up. We threw off the rest of our clothes, letting them fall haphazardly on the floor.

  As his jeans landed near mine, we stopped and stared at each other. Only an arm’s length divided us as we stood beside his bed, looking each other up and down. I’d seen his bare torso a hundred times, I’d seen and tasted his cock, but the whole picture? Oh God. Nothing made a top more appealing than toned, powerful legs—they meant he could fuck like nobody’s business, and with a cock that thick? Bring it the fuck on.

  Our eyes met. The lift of his eyebrows hinted at the inexperience that made him hesitate before, but his dark eyes and ghost of a grin said nothing but “why aren’t we back in bed yet?”

  We fixed that situation in a hurry. He was on top this time, pinning me to the mattress and kissing me hard, exactly the way I loved it. Fuck. Inexperienced or not, this man was aggressive.

  His lips left mine and descended on my neck, tracing a slow, warm path to the hollow of my throat. I shivered when his chin gently abraded my skin, and I gripped his shoulders as he worked his way back up the other side of my neck.

  And back down again.

  And farther down.

  Farther, until my hands slipped off his shoulders and dropped to the bed beside me.

  His eyes flicked up and met mine in the same instant he kissed above my hipbone, and my fingers curled around the sheets.

  “I told you,” he murmured, pausing to drop another kiss dangerously close to my rock-hard cock, “I wanted to return the favor.”

  With that, his mouth was on me, and my back lifted off the bed as I grasped the sheets even tighter. He was cautious at first, steadying my cock with his hand and running his tongue along the underside, around the head, back down. When he put his lips around the head, I moaned softly, and he took me deeper into his mouth. Not deep-throating—didn’t imagine he was ready for that yet—but holy shit, this was perfect.

  He sucked my cock with insatiable enthusiasm, and I closed my eyes, letting myself get lost in everything he did. With the way he kissed, it shouldn’t have surprised me that he was this good with his mouth. He shouldn’t have known exactly how to do this, how to circle the head of my cock with his tongue or squeeze just right with his lips and his hand, but he did, oh God, he did.

  Combing my fingers through his wavy hair, I dug my teeth into my lip and struggled to stay still, to keep from forcing my cock into his mouth the way I desperately wanted to do. I wanted nothing more than to fuck his mouth, but he wasn’t experienced—Jesus, you’d never know it from the way he sucks cock—so I held back. Tried to, anyway. My hips moved with no conscious effort on my part, lifting slightly off the bed and keeping perfect time with Michael.

  All at once he stopped, and before I could protest, he pushed himself up on his arms and came up to kiss me.

  “I can’t wait,” he said, panting between kisses. “I need to fuck you.”

  Even if my mouth hadn’t been occupied, I wouldn’t have been able to form any coherent words, so I deepened the kiss and moaned an affirmative. A low growl emerged from Michael’s throat, and he pressed his hard cock against mine. I didn’t care how inexperienced he was, he knew exactly how to drive me insane, and I wanted more, more, more.

  He broke the kiss long enough
for me to whisper, “Michael, please….”

  Grinning, he came down and kissed me once more, briefly this time, before he lifted himself off me.

  “We need a condom.” I started to get up, but he stopped me with a hand on my arm.

  “I’ll get it.” He released my arm and leaned toward his bedside table. When he returned with a condom and a barely used bottle of lube, some of his earlier uncertainty had crept back into his expression.

  I sat up. “Hands and knees?”

  He gulped. “Can your shoulder handle that?”

  I cupped his face and kissed him lightly. “If it can’t, we can always move. But I like it like that.”

  A smile flickered across his lips and, a second later, fully came to life. “Tell me if you want to change positions.”

  “I will, don’t worry.” I kissed him again and then sat back while he put on the condom and lube. Once everything was in place, I moved onto my hands and knees.

  He knelt behind me, resting a hand on my hip. For a moment I thought he’d hesitate, but then the mattress shifted slightly beneath us, and a second later, he pressed against my ass.

  Closing my eyes, I exhaled, willing myself to relax because I needed him as soon as—

  Ooh….

  He pushed in slowly, carefully.

  Oh God….

  I’d been fucked plenty of times in my life, but I couldn’t remember the last time a man had taken my breath away with that first long, penetrating stroke. My elbows shook beneath me. My spine threatened to collapse into tiny electrified bits. My eyes watered as Michael worked himself deeper inside me, and I whimpered when he slid across my prostate.

  “This okay?” he asked.

  “God, yes.” I rocked back against him, and he moved faster. He ran his hands up and down my sides as his hips picked up speed. I was right about his legs. Sweet Jesus, the man could thrust. Hard and deep, exactly how sex was meant to be, and still I moaned, “Faster… fuck… oh, fuck, faster….”

  He gripped my hips and fucked me faster. A vague twinge in my shoulder threatened to ruin everything, but I shifted my weight onto my other arm and used my now-free hand to reach down and grip my cock. I held my breath and fought to keep from falling apart, but I stroked myself anyway because the need to come was nearly unbearable. I teetered on the fine line between holding back and giving in. The man who’d walked shirtless up and down my hallways, driving me insane with pure, raw lust, was inside me, holding on to me, fucking me, whispering and cursing, and I wasn’t about to bring this to an end a second sooner than I had to.

  “Oh my God,” he moaned. “Oh God, I’m gonna come….” His fingers dug in, but not enough to stop me from rocking harder against him, and I pumped my cock faster and swore and trembled and finally released a helpless groan as I lost it, and seconds later Michael forced himself as deep inside me as he could, shuddered, and came.

  And everything stopped. My heart pounded, my arms shook, but otherwise, we were still. The room was silent except for both of us trying to catch our breath and, after a moment, the whisper of Michael’s hands sliding up and down my back, drawing lazy, gentle lines along either side of my spine.

  “I thought you said—” I paused, licking my lips. “I thought you said you didn’t have much experience.”

  “I didn’t say I was inexperienced with sex.” He leaned over me, his sweat-dampened chest warming my back. When he kissed my shoulder, I turned my head, and he found my lips with his. “I said I didn’t have a lot of experience with men.”

  “You say that,” I murmured. “Your cocksucking skills say differently.”

  He laughed and kissed my shoulder again.

  After he’d pulled out, we both stood on shaking legs and, once we’d cleaned up, sank back into bed together.

  He closed his eyes, brushing a few droplets of sweat off his temple.

  “So the other night,” I said. “That really was your first time with a man? Ever?”

  Michael nodded slowly, and his cheeks darkened.

  “Mind if I ask why?”

  “Why it took me so long to sleep with a man?” He turned toward me. “Or what made me do it now?”

  “Both, I guess.”

  Michael chewed his lip. After a long moment, he said, “This sounds incredibly stupid, but… hear me out.”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve known for a long, long time I was attracted to men, but I didn’t want to be, especially after spending so much time and energy convincing people I wasn’t. It’s only the last couple of years I’ve started to accept it. And it wasn’t….” He took a deep breath. “It wasn’t until recently that I’ve worked up the nerve to sleep with one.”

  “So why now?”

  His voice was soft, bordering on inaudible. “I wanted to know for sure if I liked being with a man. I didn’t want to….” He paused, his eyes losing focus for a second. “I needed to try it with someone else first.”

  “First?” I swallowed. “Before… what?”

  He swallowed as he lifted his gaze to meet mine. “Before this.”

  My heart jumped.

  Michael moistened his lips. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “I was attracted to you from the start, and I’d been telling myself over and over there were all these reasons we couldn’t do this. But then after you came home that morning and I had a feeling you’d been….” He shivered. “I don’t know, my imagination got the best of me, and I couldn’t get you out of my mind. Then it occurred to me, I’d never actually been with a man. Even though I’ve known for a long, long time that I’m interested in men, how did I know if I was really comfortable sleeping with one?” His Adam’s apple jumped. “I didn’t want to sleep with you, find out I really wasn’t into it, and then have things be awkward between us. Since we have to, you know, live together.”

  “So you gave it a try with someone else first?”

  Without looking at me, he nodded.

  “That’s….” I shifted onto my side and propped myself up on my arm. “I think I can understand that.”

  “Really?” He finally turned toward me. “It sounded kind of ridiculous to me. In hindsight anyway.”

  “No, it makes perfect sense. If you weren’t sure, hell, why not?” I put a hand on his chest, idly running my fingertips through the thin, dark hair. “I’m guessing you enjoyed it? With him?”

  He laughed softly. “Yeah. But I didn’t tell him I was thinking about you the entire time.”

  My fingers stopped. “You were?”

  “You were the whole reason I went looking for him in the first place.” His hand rested over the top of mine. “Of course I was thinking about you.”

  I swallowed hard. “I hope the real thing wasn’t a disappointment, then.”

  Michael smiled. Reaching for my face, he lifted his head off the pillow and moved in to kiss me. Right before our lips met, he whispered, “There was nothing disappointing about it.”

  Chapter 15

  I WOKE up to an arm draped over me and soft lips between my shoulder blades. Usually Michael was awake and out of bed long before me, but when the morning light drew me into consciousness, here he was.

  “I didn’t fuck up your shoulder last night, did I?” he murmured against my neck.

  “Not at all.” I smiled. “It feels fine.”

  “Sure about that?” He slid his hand over my shoulder, and I instinctively ducked away.

  “It’s fine. A little sore, but I’ll be all right.” I started to roll over, and he lifted his arm until I’d settled onto my back. Running my fingers through his disheveled hair, I said, “For the record, I don’t think my shoulder’s any worse for the wear. Rest of the body is a little sore, though.”

  He grinned. “Mine too.”

  “Mission accomplished?”

  Michael leaned down to kiss me. “Mm-hmm.”

  Chuckling softly, I lifted my head to look at the clock. “It’s almost nine. Since when do you sleep this late?”

  �
�Are you trying to throw me out of bed?”

  “Not at all.” I ran my hand down his arm. “But you’re usually up and gone by this time.”

  He shrugged. “And I probably should be. I have so much I need to do today.” His hand drifted down my chest and under the covers. “But right now, I think most of that can go to hell.”

  “Is that right?”

  “It is.” He teased my hardening cock with his fingertips. “I finally got you into bed. I’m in absolutely no hurry to get you out of it.”

  “I do love the way you think.” I pulled him down to kiss me.

  It was a good half hour before we finally dragged ourselves out of bed and shuffled downstairs for some coffee.

  I ignored the persistent ache in my muscles. No way was I complaining about this kind of discomfort. Spending an entire night in agony was one thing. Spending it letting Michael fuck me seven ways from Sunday and being a little sore the next day? That was well worth it. It was even worth the pain in my shoulder, especially since the cause was also the cure. Damn good thing Michael kept some of his tools of the trade at home.

  But if there was one thing I’d learned the hard way over the last few years, it was that something this good was almost always—no, always—too good to be true. I should have known it wouldn’t last. And maybe I did, but I thought I’d at least make it through a cup of coffee first.

  Nope. Not a chance. That had to be some kind of record.

  We stood on opposite sides of the kitchen, shirtless and clinging to our coffee cups. Michael didn’t look at me. Neither of us said a word.

  After a couple of uncomfortable minutes, he glanced at me but quickly shifted his gaze away.

  Damn it. We were two swallows into a pot of coffee and he already regretted this, didn’t he? I sighed. My stomach wound itself into knots as my own regret elbowed its way in, along with a hefty side of awkwardness.