Page 13 of A Man To Remember (Skin on Skin #3)

JESSE

THE SILENCE STRETCHES between us like a tightrope I'm balanced on, arms windmilling, trying not to fall into the abyss of my own stupidity. Austin's eyes search my face, and I wonder what he's finding there.

Desperation?

Confusion?

The sexual awakening of a twenty-nine-year-old man who apparently doesn't know jack shit about himself?

God, I'm a walking cliché.

A cautionary tale they'll tell in support groups: Here's what happens when you get clean and your brain finally starts working again—you discover you've been living someone else's life.

But then Austin moves closer on the couch, and my internal commentary shuts the fuck up because his knee is brushing mine and the laptop is getting pushed aside like an afterthought.

His hand finds my jaw, thumb brushing across my lower lip in the exact same spot he touched yesterday, and the contact sends electricity straight to my dick.

"You sure about this?" he asks, and his voice has gone lower, rougher around the edges.

My heart is hammering against my ribs like it's trying to break free and sprint for the exit, but I nod anyway. "Yeah. I'm sure."

Which is a lie.

I'm not sure about much anymore.

Not my sexuality. Not my motivations. And worst of all, not whether I'm about to make the best or worst decision of my adult life.

The only thing I'm sure of is that I want his hands on me again.

That's something, right?

Austin leans in and kisses me, soft and careful, like he's giving me time to change my mind, and the gentleness of it is somehow more overwhelming than yesterday's desperate urgency.

Yesterday felt like drowning. This feels like learning to swim.

I melt into it—there's no other word for what happens to my body when his mouth touches mine.

Every muscle goes liquid, and I understand for the first time in my life why people write songs about kissing.

Why they start wars over it. Why they throw away marriages and careers and entire lives for the chance to feel like this.

His tongue traces the seam of my lips, and I open for him without conscious thought, letting him in, letting him explore.

The taste of him is becoming familiar—something I want to catalog and remember.

His hand slides from my jaw to the back of my neck, fingers threading through my hair, and I hear myself make a sound that's embarrassingly needy.

When we break apart, I'm breathing like I've been running sprints.

"Still sure?" There's something almost vulnerable in the question.

Instead of answering with words, I reach for the hem of my henley and pull it over my head. The cotton whispers against my skin as it comes off, and then I'm sitting there shirtless, exposed in Austin's living room, waiting to see what he does next.

What he does is look at me like I'm art.

His gaze travels over my chest, my shoulders, the tattoo that curls around my ribs, and I've never felt so thoroughly catalogued.

So completely seen. His hands follow the path his eyes took, fingertips trailing over my collarbone, down my sternum, mapping the topography of my torso like he's memorizing it.

"You're beautiful," he says.

I've been called a lot of things in my life.

Fuckup. Addict. Lost cause.

Beautiful was never on the list.

"I'm really not," I manage, but he's already shaking his head.

"You are. Trust me, I have an eye for these things."

His hands are roaming freely now, and every touch feels deliberate. Worshipful. Like he's conducting some kind of religious ceremony and I'm the altar.

I'm already so hard it hurts, straining against my jeans. When did this become my new normal? Getting hard for a man?

When Austin's fingers trail down my stomach toward my belt, I actually whimper.

"Easy," he says, lips brushing my ear. "We've got time."

Time. That's right. Because this isn't some frantic encounter in a club bathroom. This is Austin's apartment, his space, and we can take as long as we want. Something about that makes me even more nervous. More aware of my inexperience, of how little I know about what I'm doing.

As if sensing my impending anxiety attack, Austin kisses me again, deeper this time, until I'm lost in the slide of his tongue against mine, in the way his teeth catch my bottom lip. His hands work my belt with efficiency, and I lift my hips to help when he tugs at my jeans.

The denim slides down my legs and suddenly I'm in nothing but my boxer briefs. My cock is tenting the fabric, a wet spot already forming where the head presses against the material. Austin's gaze drops to my lap, and I have to resist the urge to cover myself.

"Christ, Jesse," he breathes. "Look at you."

And before I can overthink it, before I can spiral into self-consciousness, he's moving down my body, pressing kisses to my chest, my stomach, the sharp jut of my hipbone. Each touch of his lips against my skin is like a small electric shock, building toward something I can't name.

His mouth finds my nipple, tongue flicking over the flesh. I gasp like I've been burned. The sensation shoots straight to my cock, making it twitch against the confines of my underwear.

"Fuck," I breathe, my hands flying to his hair.

He does it again, sucking harder this time, and I arch off the couch. I had no idea my nipples were connected to anything, let alone directly wired to my dick. But Austin clearly knows things about my body that I don't, because when he bites down gently, I nearly come right there.

"Sensitive," he murmurs against my skin. I can feel his smile.

"Didn't know," I manage, and he chuckles.

"I'm going to enjoy teaching you."

Fuck .

The promise makes my cock leak, his words a phantom touch. He continues his descent, pressing kisses and gentle bites to my ribs, my stomach, following the trail of hair that disappears beneath my waistband.

When he reaches the elastic of my boxer briefs, he looks up at me, waiting for permission I desperately want to give.

"Please," I whisper, and the word comes out broken.

Austin hooks his fingers in the elastic and pulls, and then I'm completely naked, in front of another man, for the first time in my life. My cock springs free, slapping against my stomach, hard and leaking and so fucking desperate for attention I could cry.

"Beautiful," he says again.

This time I don't argue.

He wraps his hand around my cock, and the simple contact makes me buck up into his grip. His palm is warm and slightly rough, completely different from my own touch, and the sensation is maddening.

"You're so hard," he says, stroking me slowly from base to tip. "So fucking hard for me."

"Yeah," I gasp.

He leans down and licks a stripe up the underside of my cock, following the thick vein that runs from base to head.

The wet heat of his tongue is…

Jesus fuck.

My vision goes white around the edges.

When he swirls it around the tip, tasting the pre-cum that's been leaking steadily, I actually sob. Like, full-body sob, the sound ripped from somewhere deep in my chest.

"You taste good," he says, casual as commenting on the weather.

I don't think anyone has ever said that to me. No one has ever tasted me and wanted more.

Then his mouth closes around the head of my cock.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

I lose the ability to form thoughts. The sensation is—

There are no words. Wet heat and suction and the scrape of teeth that should hurt but doesn't. My hands fly to his hair, fisting in the dark strands.

He takes me deeper, inch by agonizing inch until I hit the back of his throat. The muscles there contract around me, swallowing, and I cry out like I've been shot.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I chant.

My entire world narrows to the feeling of his mouth on my cock. Nothing else exists. Nothing else matters.

Austin pulls back until just the head remains between his lips. Then he sinks down again, deeper this time.

He's relentless. Working me with his mouth and tongue and throat like he's got a PhD in making me lose my fucking mind.

He knows exactly when to speed up. When to slow down. When to use his hands. When to focus on that spot just under the head that makes me forget how to breathe.

I'm making sounds I've never made before, desperately raw and completely unfiltered.

And every time I try to be quiet, Austin does something with his tongue that makes me cry out. It's like he wants to hear me. Wants to know exactly what he's doing to me.

His hand wraps around the base while his mouth works the top half, a tight tunnel of heat and pressure that has me bucking up into him. When he hums around me, the vibration shoots up my spine like a rocket.

"I don't know what I'm doing," I admit between gasps, even though I don't really want to. It's like honesty became my default setting around Austin. And it's fucking scary.

He pulls off with a wet pop, stroking me with his fist while he speaks. "You don't have to do anything. Just let me take care of you."

And then his mouth is back on me, taking me so deep, so intensely I can feel every ridge of his tongue, every contraction of his throat, every pulse of suction that pulls at my cock like he's trying to draw my soul out through my dick.

My vocabulary shrinks. Austin's name. Fuck. Please. Don't stop.

That's it. That's all I've got.

And he doesn't stop.

The pressure builds slowly, then all at once, twisting tight in my balls and spreading outward until every nerve ending feels raw and exposed.

My orgasm approaches like a tidal wave.

Unstoppable. Overwhelming.

"Austin," I warn, trying to give him a chance to pull away, but he just takes me deeper and hums again.

" Fuck . I'm gonna come."

The words dissolve into a broken moan as he does something absolutely sinful with his tongue.

When I come, it's with a broken cry of his name. My whole body arches off the couch as pleasure tears through me like lightning. My cock pulses in his mouth, and he swallows everything I give him, throat working, lips sealed around me like he doesn't want to waste a drop.