Alphas Like Us

by Krista Ritchie

  We rub each other with mind-numbing pressure, our pants low on our waists. As a rough sound escapes his lips, I ask, “Have you been fantasizing about my dick?”

  “More like my dick in your ass.”

  My nose flares, blood pumping. “You want inside me?”

  “Hard,” he whispers against my mouth.

  I’m roped into him. “Good.” I kiss him, then I bite his lip, and he arches into me again. Fuck, Maximoff.

  He’s simultaneously melting and hardening. His erection grows in my tight grip. My fucking muscles strain, our bodies pushed up against each other.

  I’m about to rotate us, but he presses a firm hand to my chest. Keeping my back to the stall. His thumb flicks over my nipple ring, which is caught underneath the fabric of my black shirt.

  We stare each other down, and more and more arousal pools in my blood and bones.

  I roll his boxer-briefs further down his ass and then free his large, swelling erection. Damn. There is no cock I’d want more inside of me than that one.

  He does the same to me, and he hones in on my dick and spaces out like he’s imagining the feeling of it inside of his mouth and ass.

  I snap my fingers at his face. “You can suck me off later, Space Cadet.”

  “I barely spaced out,” he combats. “Like not at all.”

  “Okay,” I say with a smile, and I distract him by stroking his erection. He stares fixatedly at my inked hand that moves up and down his hardened shaft. I spit in my palm for lube and return course. That one action draws a breathy guttural noise from him.

  My body tightens.

  His chest rises and falls heavily.

  That’s enough. I stop here. Not wanting him to come by my hand. “You have lube?” I ask.

  Maximoff digs in the jeans bunched at his thighs. Finding his wallet in a pocket. He tosses me a travel-sized packet, and then he watches me warm it in my hands.

  I rip it open with my teeth and hand it back. “Be careful with your shoulder.”

  He rubs the lube, glistening his length. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind while I’m pounding inside of you.”

  I let out a short laugh, turning around to face the stall. “Always a precious smartass.”

  “Always a know-it-all asshole.”

  I nod. That’s definitely true. I place my hand on the wood to brace myself. And I reach back with my other to hold his waist. His skin is warm beneath my palm.

  Before he pushes inside, his arm curves around me and he pumps my erection—fuck, my neck pulls taut, breath trapped in my lungs.

  “Maximoff,” I groan.

  That pressure disappears to carve room for a new one. I careen my head, looking over my shoulder to see his hand wrapped around his shaft.

  Lubed, Maximoff sinks into me. Fuckfuckfuck.

  Pleasure explodes my nerve endings, and he kisses me as he pushes deeper, deeper. The fullness dizzies me.

  “Fuck, Maximoff,” I moan a low, graveled moan that burns my insides. My nose flares again, and I turn my head forward. Fuckfuck. He thrusts in and out.

  In and out, the hypnotic, blistering pace lights me up. My muscles tighten, his heavy breath against the back of my neck.

  He kisses my deltoids with another thrust in—fuck yes, I seize his ass. Feeling him flex beneath my palm.

  “Farrow,” he grunts, rocking his hips. “God.”

  Fuckfuckfuck.

  He plants his hand on my waist. Steadying me while my palm slips on the stall. Not getting good traction, I take my hand off his ass. Both hands to the wood.

  Our bodies rock together with each thrust forward, and he hits my prostate, the intensity like a sudden burst.

  “Fuck,” I moan, biting down.

  He hits the spot again.

  My mouth breaks apart.

  Again. I can’t breathe.

  Again. I’m rock hard, my balls aching to detonate. Thoughts flit out of my mind—again, he nails my prostate. Fucking.

  Hell.

  Every muscle in my body pulls taut, ready to snap apart. He quickens his pace into me. Deep, hard thrusts that thunder my body.

  It feels…fucking incredible.

  I turn my head back, and our eyes fuck as hard as our bodies. I let go of the door to hold the back of his head. He thrusts forward—a deeper, overcome noise breaches my lips.

  “Fuck me,” Maximoff makes a wolfish, hot-as-sin groan.

  I kiss him, only once.

  He pushes quicker, faster, like he needs that climax now.

  But then he hits the spot again—and every muscle snaps, every nerve bursts. I am fucking gone.

  “Fuck,” I groan, a climax roaring through me. I sheath the head of my erection with my hand, cum warming my palm. I pulsate in long, pleasured waves.

  It takes me a second to reorient my mind. But I do. Maximoff is already pulled out, coming in his hand, and we clean up with paper towels. When he returns, we kiss strongly, and Maximoff tries to hide his smile.

  But I feel his lips rise against my mouth, and I pull back. “Are you going to say it or are you just going to dream about it?” I tease.

  Confidently, he says, “I made you come hands-free.” It’s what he’s been obsessing over, and his tone says, I’m better than you at sex.

  I don’t tear from his gaze.

  Shit, he’s hot and cute. And I love him hard. “You realize I made you come hands-free the last five times I fucked you?”

  “That’s different. I’m a billion times easier to get off on prostate stimulation than you.”

  I can’t deny that truth, and he moves away from me to use the sink, turning the gold faucet. I watch him while we get dressed, boxer-briefs and pants back on our waist.

  I tuck my black shirt into my pants. He’s gone eerily quiet. Almost dazed.

  My pulse skips a beat. I buckle my belt and then near him after he zips up his jeans.

  “Maximoff?”

  He trains his faraway look onto me. “I did this wrong.”

  My ribs tighten, and I fish his button through the hole, helping him. “We just established that you fucked me really well.”

  Maximoff hangs his head.

  He almost never hangs his head like this.

  “Hey.” I tilt my head sideways and bend a little. “Wolf scout, look at me.”

  His chest collapses, and bloodshot eyes rise up to me. He looks conflicted, and I try to trace the paths back to what happened. What happened?

  I shake my head. My stomach is in knots, and I hold the back of his neck in a protective grip. “Talk to me.”

  He swallows hard, brows cinching in deep, anguished thought. “After thirty-hours apart, I saw you and I just really wanted to fuck your brains out. God, I didn’t even ask how your day was at the hospital.”

  I see where this is going, and I knew we’d be here one day. But my chest hurts seeing him wrestle with this shit.

  Maximoff explains more, “And I don’t know if that means something’s wrong with me. Or if I just love sex. Or if I’m overthinking everything because my mom is a sex addict, and even if I think I’m in control, there’s a part of me that wonders, what if I’m not? And I can’t get out of my own goddamn head.” His voice actually cracks.

  I cup his cheek. “You’re okay.” Each word is like a knife in my gut because I feel how tormented this whole thing is for him. “You’re just overthinking.”

  “Which part?”

  “All of it,” I whisper and kiss him tenderly.

  He’s still pained.

  When we first started having sex, I asked him if he was worried about being a sex addict. He said no. But before he was with me, he tried to control his sex life with parameters. Hookups at night. Never the same person. Never in public.

  See, our public relationship has opened the door to public sex. We can come out of a bathroom together and not give a flying shit if anyone catches us.

  We can also fuck at any hour, any day. Unlike the controlled one-night stands before. I figured at
some point, he’d reevaluate everything and question what’s normal.

  I just didn’t realize how much it’d pain me to see and feel.

  Interlacing my other hand with his, I say, “There is no handbook, wolf scout. You’re not docked stars because we decided to fuck now and talk about boring shit later. We do what feels right, when it feels right. That’s it.”

  I need him to understand that this was my choice too.

  He looks into me. “What if it’s different for me because of her?” Guilt obliterates his features, even blaming his mom. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I know. And you’re not a sex addict,” I tell him. You’re not like your mom.

  He shuts his eyes, taking a smoother breath. “I just fucked you in a bathroom.” He opens his eyes to the shake of my head.

  “This might hurt you to know, but I don’t give a shit right now—I have fucked other men in bathrooms,” I say bluntly. “I’ve had sex on beaches, sports fields, bleachers, other places outside, and it was fun. Like what just happened was fun and healthy, and it’s all been done before by plenty of people. You’re not the first person to enjoy public sex, Maximoff.”

  He thinks hard, and he lets go of my hand. He rakes his fingers through his hair. “I’ve never questioned it like this before. Not once.”

  I nod.

  He breathes. “I can’t drive. I can’t swim. I can’t throw myself into work. And I love sex, but for the first time, I’m terrified that I could take it too far and I wouldn’t even notice.”

  “I’d notice.” I brush his cheekbones with my thumb. “You trust me?”

  His eyes toughen, not soften. “Of course.”

  “If I see that you’re changing to a point where it looks bad, I’m going to tell you. We’re together. We fuck each other. Your doubts are always my concerns, and I’m here for you anytime, every time.”

  Maximoff inhales. “I must’ve missed that page in the Boyfriend Manual.”

  I look up at the ceiling in short thought, then back to him. “If manuals for this shit existed, we’d be on a much different edition by now.”

  “The Son of a Sex Addict Manual.”

  I let out a short laugh. “I was definitely thinking of a word that’s stronger than ‘boyfriend’, but sure, we can go with Son of a Sex Addict.”

  The bulb burns out of a gold light fixture above us. Cutting into our banter, and then Maximoff tells me, “I need you to know that I don’t regret fucking you here.”

  “Good.” I nod. Thank God.

  “And I don’t want you to have sex with me and think in the back of your head that I’m an addict—”

  “Man, that’s the last thing I’ll be thinking about while we’re fucking.” I zip up my leather jacket, and this time, his eyes are only on my eyes. “I’ll be enjoying myself. Like always. Hopefully you will too.”

  22

  MAXIMOFF HALE

  Nights are the worst.

  I stare up at the rafters, my mattress hard beneath my back. I can’t turn onto my side. Can’t curl up into a ball or shift for a better position. With my injury, I suffer on my back every damn night. If the pain ramps up, it usually takes me an hour to drift off.

  Tonight, it’s different.

  Legs aren’t intertwined with mine. My head doesn’t careen onto someone else’s shoulder. I don’t feel the presence of another body. It’s just me and my thoughts, and I can’t say it’s been an enjoyable experience.

  Farrow is at the hospital, working a long shift, and I won’t see him until the afternoon. The clock glows an annoying 3:02 a.m., reminding me that I’ve been trying to fall asleep for three excruciating hours.

  I’m not used to being in bed alone, and I crave for those days on the FanCon tour bus where I could easily crawl into Farrow’s bunk.

  Three years.

  That’s how long Farrow’s residency will last. Three years where I’ll have nights where he’s not around. And goddamn, I miss him. Talking to him. Having him annoy me until I’m a smiling idiot.

  I also feel like a whiney bastard silently complaining about some nights where he’s gone. There are people dealing with worse separation over longer time periods and distances. And I don’t envy that. I don’t even like stomaching this.

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. Needing my brain to shut the fuck up. I reach over and grab my cell off the nightstand. No missed texts. No cousins or siblings messaged me since the last time I checked. They’re probably all asleep.

  Pulling myself up, I lean more against the headboard. Floorboards and brick walls creak loudly inside the old townhouse. Tonight, heavy gusts of wind beat at the window, and my gray curtains sway back-and-forth. Tiny lights that are wrapped around the ceiling rafters start flickering.

  Power might go out soon.

  To restrain myself from texting Farrow, I scroll through my little sister’s tweets. She roasts me daily on Twitter. One time I was on a late-night talk show to promote a charity event and the host had me read Kinney’s tweets out loud.

  And I was happy to.

  I smile at some new ones.

  @KinneyGothHale: Older brother has been talking about Aristotle for 30 min at breakfast.

  She included a yawning sloth gif.

  @KinneyGothHale: Also Moffy’s boyfriend and me are the only ones who can make fun of him. You try, you die.

  I love that my youngest sister likes Farrow. But I slow down on another tweet.

  @KinneyGothHale: 1st Rainbow Brigade outing in the works. What should we do?

  She added a poll for fans to vote, but she included the same three options: bowling, bowling, and bowling.

  Kinney already texted me, our cousin Tom Cobalt, and then Oscar and Farrow the details about the meet-up. She picked a date in June. LGBT Pride Month.

  I think about how my little sister will be deathly furious if Farrow is late. And I told him, “If you can’t make it, don’t let Kinney scare you.”

  He chewed his gum with a rising smile. “Man, I’m not afraid of your thirteen-year-old sister. Especially because she thinks she can commune with dead people,” he said. “I promise I’ll make it.”

  That image of his amused smile is cemented to my cerebral cortex.

  Fuck it.

  I text him. He already told me that if he’s busy, he’ll just ignore me. So I’m not really worried about disturbing him.

  Quickly, I type and send: thinking Of u

  I purposefully fuck-up the grammar to piss him off a bit. Wind wails, and power suddenly cuts, my clock goes blank. Room darkened, I instinctively reach for my end table—my right arm fights against the sling, fuck me.

  I bite down, and I’ve had it with this thing.

  I reach behind me and tear off the Velcro that attaches the sling to my abdomen. And I pull the strap off my head. Slowly, I free my imprisoned right arm, and I throw the red sling onto the floor.

  Then I gradually lift my right arm off my thigh. The higher I go, the more pain shoots into my collarbone and batters my shoulder.

  I drop my arm back and try again.

  Better. Or maybe I’m just smothering the pain with determination. I don’t know.

  Whatever the case, I reach for the end table again with my bad arm. Purposefully this time to stretch the muscle.

  I breathe a measured breath through my nose and slide the drawer open. Grabbing a flashlight. And my switchblade for extra precaution.

  Leaning back, I pick up my phone.

  No new text.

  I breathe out and click into some articles that Uncle Ryke sent me. All for stretch rehab on my collarbone. I’m not supposed to try any of these until eight weeks post-surgery. It hasn’t even been four weeks yet, but maybe one workout won’t be that strenuous…

  A lube ad on the sidebar distracts me, and I immediately imagine Farrow. Buck-ass naked, pirate ships, skulls, and sparrows inked all over his six-foot-three body.

  He’s standing at the end of my bed. Grinning because he knows he’s aggravating
ly sexy.

  My veins pulse, skin hot to the touch. I rest my head back. And I try to stop myself from fantasizing by unscrewing the flashlight with two hands. Dumping out the batteries and refitting them in.

  These past few weeks, sex has infiltrated my mind like hot-and-bothered battalions. I’ve always had fantasies. Always drifted. And it’s never affected my job or relationships.

  But I’m more concerned that it will now that I have all this free time.

  My phone pings. I desert the broken apart flashlight and click into the text.

  In your thoughts, what position am I in? – Farrow

  I almost rock back. Goddamn, I did not expect that response. We’ve sexted before, and I gauge the healthiness of it now. Seems enormously normal.

  It’s not disrupting my life. And he initiated it. All pros at the moment. So I type and retype a sentence before settling on this:

  Under me. On top of me. All over me.

  I send the text, and something thwacks my window. I point my cellphone’s light at the window since I dismembered the real flashlight. My curtains blow softly, and I strain my ears.

  No street hecklers tonight.

  Huh.

  There are no trees near my window. So it couldn’t have been a branch. I remember that I checked the front door after Janie and Luna went to bed. It’s locked. They’re safe.

  My phone buzzes.

  Sounds vague. Needs more adjectives. – Farrow

  I groan in frustration. Sexual and just plain annoyance. I type two words fast:

  Fuck me.

  Sent.

  My mind tries to crawl into my spank bank and pluck out images of Farrow sliding his dick between my lips—another text comes through.

  Smartass. – Farrow

  I don’t overthink for once and just text:

  You’re putting your cock in my mouth. I can taste you beneath my tongue.

  I send it.

  He replies even faster.

  We’ve now established that you don’t know what an adjective is. – Farrow