Equilibrium

by Katey Hawthorne

  I leaned forward and kissed him, and all I could think of was that first moment with the exploded toaster and how I thought he'd taste like strawberries. He didn't—it was alcohol and spit, and it was fucking great.

  He pushed in on me with his whole body, pinning me to the arm of the couch and parting his lips, licking the back of my teeth and the roof of my mouth, sucking on my tongue. His hand slipped under my T-shirt, palm flat and warm against my stomach, and goosebumps broke out all over my torso. I tangled one hand in the hair at his nape. It was soft and gorgeous between my fingers, a sensation like silk slipping through them.

  Four years. Four fucking years wondering what it would be like, and here it was, and I'd never even come close to imagining it right. My daydreams had never included how careful, gentle, searching his hands were on me. My nightmares had never shown me how willing, expressive, delicious his mouth was. I wanted it all right then, in that exact moment, but I wanted it to slow down so I could enjoy it, feel it, revel in it forever.

  So it never had to end, and end badly, like I already knew it would.

  He pushed my shirt up and started tugging at it, making a sort of impatient sound into my mouth.

  I somehow interpreted this as "take your shirt off," so I did, and he did, and this time he buried me under him completely. We stretched out slowly, unrolling to cover the couch and tangling up in each other's legs, pressing our stomachs and hips into each other and trying to be covert about rubbing off. His erection pushed next to mine, and every time I got a thrill from this sly game of ours, I knew he felt it too—sometimes he growled deep in his throat to prove it.

  He situated one of his hard, sculpted thighs between mine, let his weight bear down on me. I slipped my hand into the back of his pants, under those shorts of his that had driven me crazy for so long, grabbed his ass like I could pull it closer. His cock swelled, moving against me when I did it. He pulled his mouth off mine and attached it to my neck, sucking and working me over with his tongue. He hit the spot where my neck met my shoulder, the dip in my collarbone, and I ground up into his thigh to intensify the jolt of heat that tore through me.

  I could do things with him, things I could never do with anyone else. He was awakened. I could use my hands, my heat, to make him feel the most incredible—

  His teeth scraped at my neck, biting just enough to hurt a little. The thrill tore through me again, ending in my cock—a faint wetness in my shorts, not the end, but begging for it. I ran my other hand down the long line of his back, then dug my nails in.

  "Mmm, fuck." He sighed into my neck.

  I hadn't really thought about it. I hadn't expected him to like it or dislike it. But Christ, he liked it, and his ass was muscled enough just to be dented on the sides, and fuck, man, soccer truly was the beautiful game—

  He lifted himself up with one arm and went straight for my fly with the other hand, tearing at the button and unzipping me. It was the only thing that would've gotten my hand out of his shorts: undoing them. He wedged himself between me and the back of the couch so we could wriggle out of our pants, and we kicked them off and came back together on our sides. I couldn't resist—I kept one hand between us and felt him up through his shorts, down his eager cock to the wet spot at its fat head, then back down again. Way to not disappoint expectations, Sam.

  He bit at my neck again, then my ear. The scrape of his teeth sent more goosebumps running down that side of my body, tightening my nipple so it ached for attention.

  Yeah. Vanessa Mansfield was an idiot. It was official.

  I tugged at his shorts until they were down over his ass. His dick stood straight, the head pressing into my stomach. I cupped his balls, heavy and hot and pulled up tight—my mouth watered for him. He pushed against me, trapping my hand between us, then gasped and pulled back. When I felt him up again, he was leaking.

  I wanted to warm my hands up, to run them all over him, to drive him fucking crazy before I got down to it. But there was no control, only the vague fear in the back of my mind that I was about to wake up again; the need to see him unwind, to show him what I could do for him before he realized this was a mistake. I wrapped my hand around him and started jerking him off slow—at an awkward angle, but the way he groaned into me told me it didn't matter. He pulled his mouth off me and gasped for air and licked his swollen lips, panting.

  That fucking mouth. It was wrong that he should do this to me. It was wrong that I should feel like this and knew it would be the death of me. But all that mattered was his erection getting hotter and fatter in my hand, his slim hips pushing up and into it, trying to fuck something that wasn't there.

  He buried his face in my neck again and bit at me just before it happened. I could feel his cock changing, tightening. The thrusting of his hips becoming frantic, insensible, his tongue hot and wet against my neck, forgetting what it was doing there.

  He came in my hand, a warm and sticky rush against my stomach, fingers digging into my ass.

  A few seconds later, he said, "Fuck," again.

  I rolled over onto my back, shorts around my thighs, cock standing up desperately. He was all over me, clear-white stickiness in the pale trail below my navel. I still wasn't thinking—I was buzzing on alcohol and him and no blood to the brain. I ran my fingers through the mess, collected some, and brought it back up to my mouth to taste.

  Fuck, I could do with more of that.

  He just watched, mouth open, still breathing hard with his shorts half down.

  I closed my eyes and smiled, fingers still in my mouth.

  He dragged his fingers over my belly where the mess was thickest, like he didn't recognize his own sex. I took his hand, guided it to my mouth, and sucked him in. I started the tip of my tongue at that sensitive spot between the fingers, pushing it between his first and second, then second and third, licking off the sticky leftovers. Then I curved my tongue around and ran it up, up, toward the hypersensitive fingertips, sliding his fingers out of my mouth as I went.

  He readjusted so he could take my dick in his free hand, sighing something that sounded like my name. But what was the difference? A few good jerks, and I'd be done for, and nothing else mattered. A few more seconds with him, and it'd be over, and I'd better fucking enjoy it.

  And I did. In that crazy-hot-confused moment, the only thing that could've made me come harder would've been him inside me—and I wasn't sure I would've survived that, because that orgasm already damn near turned me inside out.

  Guess that's what four years of waiting for something will do to you, though.

  *~*~*

  When I woke, it was because my head teetered on the verge of explosion. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter against the morning sunshine, feeling my way over the nappy cushions—couch, I was on the couch, right—and then the blanket.

  Blanket. Where the hell had a blanket come from? Wait, we were on the couch. Wine, beer, Barry Lyndon… Oh god, Sam's mouth—

  "Rise and shine, Hansen."

  I let my eyes flutter open.

  Sam leaned over the back of the couch, looking down on me. His hair hung wetly all around his face, but he had on a jacket and tie. He grinned. "You got class this morning?"

  I rubbed my eyes and turned my head to see the clock under the substitute TV—8:30 a.m. Monday morning. "Hell."

  "Thought so." He laughed. "I'm already late. See you later."

  I tried to push myself up to sitting, but my head throbbed dangerously. I made a sound that was supposed to stay internal, but damn.

  He laughed again from the front door. "I know, right?"

  "Jesus." I groaned. "What did we drink?"

  "Everything. But hey."

  I turned my head to look at him, slowly realizing just how perilous the situation was. He seemed pretty proud of himself, but—

  "It was worth it." He raised one eyebrow, which turned the statement into a question.

  My stomach still felt sticky. He must've put the blanket over me sometime during the night, or mayb
e when he got up for work. I had underwear on, but that was it, and I was thirsty as hell.

  Yeah, that was—"So fucking worth it."

  He smiled so brightly it almost hurt my hangover head, and he was out the door.

  And I had a paper on Nash Equilibrium due in under four hours.

  Yep. Worth it.

  *~*~*

  Things were tentative for a few days. I was guilty and a little scared, and I could tell he didn't want to push me, so we kind of danced around it. I know he saw how I looked at him, and I definitely saw how he looked at me. But he had business dinners, and I had departmental bullshit; he had to work out, and I had to grade papers; and we managed to keep things pretty cool for a few days.

  On the surface, anyhow. My nightmares were out of control, and all I wanted was for him to put me against a wall and fuck my brains out to make them go away. Nightmares where people from middle school came back to renew old taunts, telling me I was a gross little queer. Who'd want that? Definitely not someone like Sam, with his pick of girls—and apparently any gender he wanted. Nightmares where a deep, delicious kiss was interrupted by Vanessa tapping my shoulder and saying she wanted Sam back. She was so beautiful, so clever, so obnoxiously perfect, of course he'd go, and he went. But worst of all, the nightmares where Sam moved out, because things had gotten too weird. There I was, all alone like I deserved to be, like I'd always known I would be, in the end.

  The one evening we spent together, we mostly worked on the exercises Mom had shown him, building up the charge around his hands and getting rid of it safely. He was getting pretty good, and he hadn't shorted anything out on accident in a while. He'd even been back to his chipper self most of the time and credited the exercises with that too.

  The only problem was that he chewed his lip to shit when he did them. And I, of course, couldn't help but watch.

  He was throwing tiny arcs from hand to hand after we finished, just screwing around within a safe distance from all major kitchen appliances, when he caught me at it. Totally not fair because it's hard to concentrate on anything else when someone's shooting cool blue lightning out of their fingers twenty feet away from you.

  Okay, he wasn't shooting it from his lips. Just saying, it made him even hotter.

  He asked, "What?"

  I turned my attention to the books I was pretending to organize, thereby potentially unearthing our dining table. "Nothing."

  "Not nothing. Something."

  I made a face. "Easy on the English language, Sammy. It's not much, but it's all we have."

  He closed the distance between the kitchen counter and the table in record time. "Oh. So, like, you weren't looking at me?"

  "What's up, Narcissus?" But of course I smiled, ruining the act completely. Not that I was trying that hard, especially now that he was near enough that I could smell him, that clean detergent scent mixed up with a faint crackle of ozone from the lightning. My blood heated just from proximity—worse (better) now than it had been before.

  Now that I knew what he tasted like too.

  "I was looking at you," he said.

  "No, you weren't."

  He came closer still, so the table behind me dug into my ass, and there were about three inches between my front and his. That familiar sensation, the one where I was in danger of burning myself down, but loving it, raged through me.

  He said, "If you'd been looking at my eyes, you woulda noticed—"

  I laughed. "Shut the fuck up."

  "You first." He tilted his head, and mine tilted to match it, and then we had our arms around each other and our tongues in each other's mouths.

  For all it happened suddenly, there was something hesitant in it too. I tucked my fingers into his belt loops, and he used his to brush my hair out of my face, tuck it behind my ear. He licked at the backs of my teeth, pinned my ass to the table, but there was something in the tension of his shoulders, his belly. Maybe in mine too.

  He felt so good, though. So hard and warm, so willing. I pictured all sorts of things. Hopping up on the table and wrapping my legs around him. Tearing off his shirt and licking him until he screamed.

  You know. As you do.

  But that knot of doubt sat heavy in my belly even as my body responded to his. His hips aligned with mine, his cock swelling against my leg, him twirling my hair around his finger and smiling, his mouth warm and wet and… Guh. I pulled back, took a deep breath, and he put his forehead to mine like he had that day.

  After he'd had that fight. With his ex-girlfriend.

  My stomach flipped over.

  "Was starting to think you wouldn't kiss me again." He smiled—I heard it in his voice.

  I tugged at his belt loops. "Uh, no chance."

  "You've been kind of weird. Like, stressed."

  I sighed and leaned into him; his arm slipped around my waist as if to hold me up. I wished he could be a little less perfect as I said, "Yeah."

  No point denying it. Maybe he knew it was all about him, or maybe he thought Dr. Ferrara's course load was finally dragging me down. I didn't know.

  Didn't really matter just then.

  "I got something for that." He kissed me, quick and close-lipped. "You doing something right now?"

  "Apart from this?"

  "Mmm-hmm."

  Even if I had been, I wouldn't have been able to recall it just then. So, "No."

  "Come watch a movie?"

  "Just to be clear, do you mean that in the high school code sense? Like, 'let's go make out on the couch' movie watching? Netflix and chill movie watching?"

  "I'm subtle like a ninja, right?"

  "Right."

  We fell into the couch, our legs tangled up, thighs and hips pressed together strategically in that repressed-desperation way, not so covertly dry humping when the kisses went especially deep. We kissed until the taste of him seemed to become my own, though I'd never lose the fascination with the way his lips attached to mine, the feeling of his clever tongue against my teeth, the warmth of his breath. I sucked at his tongue, nibbled at his bottom lip, kissed his face, his ear, his neck, his hair, appreciating, wanting, worshipping. Our hands moved over the clothes, under the clothes, but either he felt my hesitation to undo his pants, or he felt the same way; neither of us went there, though we were both hot and hard through our jeans.

  I told myself it was weird. The high school code thing had been a joke, but seriously, what the hell were we doing making out like we were afraid our parents—or his girlfriend—would walk in and catch us at it?

  I don't know, but I liked it. And when we finally pried ourselves apart to gulp glasses of water, my lips feeling bruised and his puffy and pink, we both had smiles on our faces.

  And he didn't leave me, after. In fact, we slept tangled up on that couch, and made out again in the morning.

  *~*~*

  Thursday just before five, he called and asked if I wanted to hit happy hour at the Pits.

  I asked if he was sure.

  He said yeah. He needed to get back on the horse, and he couldn't do it unless I was there.

  So, of course, I went.

  He was already there with Daly and Jarrett when I arrived. Trent was conspicuously absent, which brought back all the nervousness I'd managed to forget during the week. I slipped into the booth to a high five from Daly and a stunning grin from Jarrett, and everything seemed cool.

  And then Nessa showed up. She came and leaned on our table, did the cursory hello thing—well, she smiled at Jarrett, but I never met a straight girl who didn't smile at Jarrett—and then, "Sam, can we talk?"

  His hand found my thigh under the table.

  I tried not to look how I felt, patted his hand, then slid out of his way. When she pulled him into a corner, I tried not to watch.

  "The hell happened there?" Daly asked.

  I wondered how much they knew. Had Vanessa said anything that night? Had Trent really seen as much as she had, or had he been too plastered to know the difference? In retrospect, it didn'
t seem possible that he could miss me sticking my hand into an electrical fire and coming out okay, but stranger things had happened.

  Like me sticking my hand into an electrical fire and coming out okay, for example.

  I said, "They broke up."

  "Permanently?" Jarrett asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Not really the reaction I'd been hoping for. There was a dark spiral of never-ending suck opening up in my stomach, and it didn't need any help, thanks. "He seems to think so."

  Enough to make out with me all night on our couch. Repeatedly. Gives a decent handjob too, by the way.

  Right. Not a helpful thought. I buried it in my beer and engaged in a conversation on the subject of whether the LA Galaxy were the Yankees of MLS as soon as possible.

  *~*~*

  Daly dropped us off. The second we got inside, Sam threw his jacket at the closet, tore off his tie, and said, "She just wanted to say she was sorry. You were right—she didn't mean it. I mean, she doesn't know she was right, exactly, but she didn't mean to call me that. I said I was sorry too, just for being a total dick about the whole thing."

  "Oh." I turned my back, thinking he was more likely to believe I hadn't been desperate to know that if he couldn't see the look on my face. "That's good."

  "I think she expected me to take it back," he said.

  "What?" I don't know why I asked. I knew exactly what he meant. Here it was. It usually happened faster in the nightmares, but it was inevitable all the same.

  "That it was over."

  I swallowed hard. The way he'd phrased it already told me he had not taken it back. But I'd spent all that time at the bar wallowing in my own stupidity, laughing at myself, all my resolutions not to fall for the straight boy best friend, not to take advantage of his pain, not to fuck myself and him over like this, and here I was—

  "I didn't. I mean, obviously, right?"

  I wandered into the kitchen, mostly just so I could turn my back on him. "Yeah. So, you don't think she'll say anything, do you?"

  "No. She still thinks she saw something weird, and I'm sure I haven't heard the end of that. But she's cool."