Bright Young Things

by Anna Martin

  “I can do that,” Adam said stubbornly.

  “Can you?”

  “I can try. If you’ll let me.”

  “What if it all goes wrong? What then?”

  “Then… I can go on knowing I took a chance on the one thing that has actually meant shit to me in my whole life so far.”

  That defiant jut to his chin had been Jared’s kryptonite since the first time he walked into New Harbor Academy and saw the young man with the world on his shoulders, who visibly didn’t give a fuck. The rest of his armor melted away, forgotten as he crossed the few paces between them and caught Adam’s face in his hands.

  Their lips knew this dance, knew the familiarity of each other, and the warmth and the strength and the love. Adam choked on a sob as he grabbed hold of Jared’s waist so hard it hurt and kissed back desperately, as if trying to show Jared everything at once, everything he had.

  For all the passion in that one kiss, it didn’t last too long. Jared folded his arms around Adam’s slim frame, holding him close, resting his cheek on Adam’s soft, silky hair. Adam seemed taken aback, then he hesitantly wrapped his arms around Jared’s waist, turned his head and sighed, pressing his cheek to Jared’s shoulder.

  “I’m so sorry,” Adam mumbled.

  Jared didn’t ask “what for?” even though he was tempted. In a way it didn’t matter what for. What mattered was Adam letting his guard down enough to apologize in the first place. He ran his fingers through Adam’s hair, gently untangling the strands and smoothing the back of his neck.

  “That night,” Adam said, not looking up from his spot on Jared’s shoulder, “I was going to come back to bed and ask you to be my first. I wanted you to show me making love, you know, like what I’d just done with you. I was washing my face in the bathroom and I thought there might be someone else, years from now, who might be the right person to be my first, but I have you now.”

  “You wanted me to fuck you? That night?”

  “Yeah,” Adam whispered. “I wanted you to love me back.”

  Something clenched uncomfortably in Jared’s chest, and he held Adam a little tighter. This wasn’t the time or the place for him to say it back, but it was right there. Clogging his arteries, filling his chest and lungs, making his head hurt.

  “Do you want to get out of here?” Adam said, pulling back a little.

  That was hell of a question. Did he?

  “Yeah,” Jared said with a laugh.

  “Okay. I’ll call a car.”

  “I drove,” Jared said quickly.

  “The Cadillac? Will you ever tell me about that?”

  “Maybe,” Jared said. Adam was persuasive at the best of times, and Jared had almost no willpower when he was naked and entranced. Except for that one time. He wasn’t going to think about that now, though.

  Adam grinned and reached for Jared’s hand, quietly tangling their fingers together. It was reassurance, maybe, and a little hope.

  Chapter 17

  Instead of going back through the house where they’d surely be stopped by someone, Adam led them around the side, through a rose garden that was sticks and thorns this time of year.

  “Shh,” Jared whispered with a grin as he slid into the Caddy and turned the engine over. It roared to life, ever conspicuous, and he quickly pulled out onto the main road.

  “Should you be driving?” Adam asked.

  “Probably not.”

  Adam nodded once and told him not to wrap the car around some tree on the way home. Jared didn’t say anything and paid closer attention to the road than he ever did sober, hardly looking over to where Adam was staring dreamily out the window.

  “You can’t play Big Poppa’s music in this car,” Adam grouched as the CD player turned over to “Ready To Die.”

  He fiddled with the radio instead of swapping the album for another, and Jared signaled, then turned into the narrow opening in the bushes that led to Adam’s place. He’d come here on autopilot rather than going back to his house. This, somehow, felt more appropriate. Returning to the scene of the crime.

  As he slowed and put the car in park, the radio station hissed and started to play an oddly familiar tune. Jared looked at Adam with a questioning expression. For a moment, they both listened, then Adam cracked first. Jared started laughing a moment later.

  “Fucking Whitney Houston,” he said, killing the engine and the music at the same time.

  Adam snorted, then giggled again.

  On the front steps, Adam stopped Jared with a hand on his wrist.

  “It’s nearly midnight,” he said.

  “Um, okay.”

  “Stay here? Trust me, please.”

  Jared nodded and wrapped his arms around himself to keep out the chill. There would be frost tonight, he was sure of that much.

  It didn’t take long for Adam to come back, thundering down the stairs, then kicking the front door open. In his arms was a thick, bundled comforter, not the one from his room, probably one of the guest beds.

  “I wanna watch the fireworks,” he said by way of explanation.

  Jared grinned.

  They managed to work it so they sat, backs against the door, feet stretched out in front of them with the huge, king-sized comforter wrapped around and underneath them. A few minutes later, the fireworks started, off in the distance first, over Seattle, then a few closer to home.

  “It’s so dark out here,” Jared murmured. “You can see it really clearly.”

  Adam dropped his head to Jared’s shoulder and hummed softly. “No light pollution. Not here, anyway.”

  “Yeah.”

  When they kissed it was soft, quiet, only the tiniest flicker of tongue, and Jared wondered if they’d forget the idea of having sex tonight altogether. If he was honest with himself, he was still a little wary that this could be another trap, another trick or layer to the bet.

  “If I asked,” Jared said softly, his words framed by the banging and fizzing of fireworks, “would you tell me everything?”

  “What, about…?”

  “The bet.”

  “Oh. Yeah. What do you want to know?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I was just wondering if you’d tell me. If I asked.”

  Jared brushed his cold nose against Adam’s, then took his hand to haul them both to their feet. He grabbed the comforter when it seemed Adam was going to leave it outside and tossed it on the floor just inside the door.

  “I’m confused,” Adam grumbled as they walked up the stairs, heading to Adam’s room without discussion.

  Inside the darkened bedroom, Jared backed Adam up against the door and once again wrapped his cold palms around Adam’s strong jaw. When Adam made no protest, he licked deep into his mouth, taking hard and quick with a kiss that was designed to weaken knees.

  Adam leaned up on his toes, closing the height difference between them, and bit Jared’s earlobe.

  “I want you inside me,” he murmured. “I want you, any way I can get you.”

  “Are you sure? This is….” Jared stepped back, bracing his arms either side of Adam’s shoulders on the door. He shook his head. “So fucking new, you know?”

  “Don’t get cold feet on me now.” He smiled, reaching up to pull Jared close. “I’ve waited for this for a long time. I want you, Jared.”

  “Okay.”

  They fell onto the bed in a tangle of limbs, kicking clothes off, then snuggling under the heavy comforter where it was warm. This place was familiar, a sweet cocoon where they knew each other. Jared could shut down, stop thinking, and just touch, just feel, just be with the person who was driving him crazy.

  Making out under the covers was good for a few minutes, then the lack of oxygen made them both lightheaded and Adam threw back the comforter with a laugh. Jared could see him now, see him better, anyway, and was struck once again by how truly, incredibly beautiful he was.

  Adam still balanced on the cusp of manhood. There wasn’t any hair on his chest ye
t, and he didn’t get much stubble on his cheeks. His shoulders were broad, though, and his dick was definitely fully mature. The strong jaw and defined cheekbones made him look elegant, and soft eyelashes and silky hair gave him an edge of femininity he carried with no shame.

  Jared brushed the back of his hand over Adam’s cheek, allowing himself to want and touch and take. With a knowing grin, Adam caught hold of Jared’s hand and kissed it, then sucked two fingers into his mouth. He kept his eyes firmly fixed on Jared as he swirled his tongue around the fingertips.

  Biting his lip Jared tried hard not to make a sound, not to break this magic and connection they had together. Adam was imitating the best blowjob Jared had ever received, and it was insane, too good to be real.

  They rolled until Adam was on his back, then he finally let go of Jared’s wrist and directed the hand down between his spread thighs.

  “Please,” Adam murmured. “I want you to.”

  “I’ll take care of you,” Jared said, his voice soft as he kissed down Adam’s neck. “I’ll make it good for you, I promise.”

  While his fingers explored, he licked at Adam’s nipple, teased it with his teeth until Adam arched up underneath him, heels dug into the bed for leverage. Then Jared pressed his fingers back, finding the tight, puckered opening, and gently, softly, carefully caressed it.

  “Okay?” he murmured.

  “Yeah. God, yeah. More.”

  There was no more without lube. Jared reached for the nightstand and fumbled in the drawer for a minute until he landed on the familiar bottle. The whole thing was gut-achingly awkward. Jared still wasn’t sure what this was, what he was doing back in Adam’s bed when he’d sworn he would never come back.

  Then Adam licked his bottom lip and gave Jared a look of such open vulnerability Jared couldn’t help but be sucked in.

  Jared, using two slick fingers, teased and stretched Adam’s hole in a desperate attempt to make sure their first time together like this would be good. Despite everything, he wanted it to be good.

  After a few minutes, Jared pushed the bottle of lube to one side and grabbed a condom, tearing it open with his teeth and rolling the thin latex down his over-excited cock. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to one of Adam’s sharp hipbones, the sticky head of his cock, the delicate dip of his navel.

  “Tell me if you need me to stop. Or slow down,” he said, shifting into position between Adam’s knees. Adam nodded.

  With aching slowness and care, Jared pressed the head of his cock to Adam’s slick opening and… waited. He could almost hear his heart thundering away in his chest, the blood rushing in his ears, and Adam’s quiet, breathless gasps. It took a moment or two, but Adam eventually figured it out and pushed down on Jared’s cock. The head popped inside. Jared fell forward onto his hands and saw stars behind his eyelids.

  “Let me know when you want more,” Jared murmured. Adam made a noise in the back of his throat, then hummed.

  “I’m okay.”

  “I know,” Jared said with a smile Adam couldn’t see, but maybe could feel. “You’re incredible. Let me know when I should go deeper.”

  “Go deeper.”

  “Okay,” he said, chuckling.

  Adam’s arms, wrapped around his neck and shoulders, squeezed harder as Jared rocked in a little farther. While Adam made the most incredible soft, keening noises, Jared kissed up and down his neck, licking and murmuring soft, comforting things.

  It was sweet bliss, both knowing he was Adam’s first and how deliciously, almost painfully tight it was as he slid inside. By the time he bottomed out, Adam’s hands were in his hair and they were looking at each other, not hiding anymore.

  Shifting to a more comfortable position made Adam hiss, and Jared froze, waiting for it to be okay again. Adam twisted, arching his back, then drew both knees up so he could hook them around Jared’s waist, resting his ankles in the dip of Jared’s lower back.

  “This is better,” he said and Jared nodded. He licked his dry lips, watching as Adam’s eyes flickered to his mouth, then back to meet his gaze. If that wasn’t an invitation he didn’t know what was, and he smiled, then bent down to capture sweet, swollen, plump lips between his own.

  Adam really did moan then, invading Jared’s mouth with his tongue and rocking his body up onto Jared’s cock, using strong thighs to get his partner deeper.

  “This is so fucking good,” Adam said with a breathless laugh, turning his head to the side. “I didn’t think it would be.”

  Jared immediately kissed up the long column of his throat. “Let me….”

  “Do what you want. I’m okay, I promise.”

  With careful precision, Jared removed one of the arms around his neck and linked their fingers together, then pressed Adam’s hand above his head on the bed. It was comfort and dominance both, and maybe an echo of their old power struggle.

  As he eased his hips back, then sank back into the tight heat of Adam’s body, Jared let his mind and everything that had come before this moment drift away. There was nothing other than the two of them in the world.

  They stopped and pulled apart a few times to shift about or kiss for a while, or to use more lube since this stuff seemed to dry out quickly. The inevitable rush toward orgasm that Jared was used to being a fundamental part of getting off was just… not there. It lasted a lot longer than Jared’s first time had—there wasn’t the same desperation for it all to be over and done with.

  Adam couldn’t take it for long periods of time; it seemed that this new experience was too much, either physically or emotionally, and after a few minutes of fucking, he gently pushed Jared away. That was… strangely okay. For the first time, Jared got what people had told him before: sex wasn’t about dick and ass, it was about being with someone. No, not dick and ass, but bodies and lips and touching and kissing and laughing. The feel of Adam’s thumbs fluttering over his hipbone. The gentle exhale on his shoulder. That twisting aching in his stomach when Adam gripped his biceps hard and begged for more.

  Sex was all of that, and what had come before suddenly seemed ridiculously inadequate.

  When Jared reached for the third condom of the evening, Adam was smiling lazily and stroking his dick with a loose hand.

  “I’m going to make you come so fucking hard,” Jared growled, slicking more lube on his cock and slapping Adam’s hand away.

  “Yeah? Come on, then,” Adam said. His face was full cocky challenge, and Jared loved it.

  He loved it.

  This time pushing inside was easier, and the expression on Adam’s face was pure bliss. Jared had learned how to angle his thrusts to hit Adam’s prostate every time, and he wasn’t afraid any more of pushing hard, making Adam take it.

  “Oh, fuck,” Adam groaned as he was filled. “Jesus.”

  Jared decided to hell with style, and fucked Adam hard. Adam kept up a stream of filthy encouragement and wrapped his arms around Jared’s back once again, keeping his face buried in the crook of Jared’s neck.

  “Please,” he groaned. “I’m so fucking close.”

  He was pretty sure his thrusts were already angled against Adam’s prostate, so the only thing left was for Jared to reach down between their bodies and stroke Adam’s thick, achingly hard dick until it spurted over his hand.

  Jared rode out the waves of intense pleasure, filling Adam over and over as his stomach kissed his spine and everything around them disappeared. With his world narrowed to the smell and taste and feel of Adam beneath him, Jared lost control and came hard.

  He was brought back to the world with blunt fingers stroking the back of his head and warm, damp breaths on his shoulder. With a heaving shudder, Jared rose again and got a good look at the mess of a man lying beneath him. Adam looked… well fucked. Jared decided it was a good look on him.

  “Give me a minute?” he said softly.

  Adam nodded, and Jared groaned as he got to his feet, gathering up the condoms and wrappers and the mess they’d made to dump in the trash can i
n the bathroom. He washed up quickly and dried his hands well, then padded back to the bed.

  It was dark, not depressingly so, but Jared couldn’t see too well. Adam sat up suddenly and looked over at where Jared was standing.

  “Please don’t leave,” he said in a rush, his voice childishly small. “Please don’t go.”

  “I’m not going,” Jared said and crossed the rest of the way to the bed.

  “You promise?”

  Jared pulled back the comforter and slid into “his” side of the bed. With one arm he encouraged Adam’s head onto his chest and snuggled them both down into the warm safety of the bed.

  “Are you feeling okay?” Jared asked softly.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m staying,” Jared said, feeling the need to repeat himself. “All night.”

  “Okay.”

  Adam moved over onto his side and reached for Jared’s wrist behind him, dragging Jared over until he was tucked around Adam’s body from behind.

  Like this, they could sleep.

  On the first morning of the New Year, Jared woke up freezing. That was because Adam had stolen all the covers. He grumbled and reached over in the lake-sized bed, tugging some of the heavy comforter away from Adam’s death grip, then snuggled it around himself.

  A few moments later, Adam heaved himself up, then flopped back down again, sloppily spooning Jared from behind.

  “You’re all cold,” he murmured, lips pressed to Jared’s shoulder.

  “That’s because you’re a covers-stealer.”

  “Am not.”

  Jared sighed, but smiled to himself when Adam wriggled closer to warm Jared’s cold body with his hot one. They settled for a moment, the fog of sleep lifting from them both, then Jared brought Adam’s hand to his lips and brushed a kiss over the soft knuckles.

  “You stayed.”

  “Yes. I told you I would.”

  “Is this still okay?” Adam asked from behind him.

  “Yeah.” Jared nodded.

  “Good.”

  The trepidation in Adam’s voice was almost endearing, except it came from a place Jared didn’t completely understand yet. All he knew was no one else saw this part of Adam, the sexual, vulnerable, totally open person who was asking for something he never expected to get.