Page 62 of Breakout Year

“I want to be with you,” Eitan said. “And I kind of want to see what all the fuss is about, given that some guy tried to break my ankle over it.”

“You’re gay with or without doing this.”

“Yeah, but I want to be gay with doing this.” The cord was soft on the interior of Eitan’s wrists.

Normally, his brain wanted all the information at once: the bounce of an infield hop, the tic of a pitcher’s delivery that distinguished a fastball from a curve.

“I like the idea of you being the only thing I can focus on.”

“You don’t need to—” Akiva shook his head. “You can just like things because you like them.”

“Fine,” Eitan said. “Well, I like you.”

That made Akiva smile. He shucked off his shirt, kicked down his pants. He was long and lean and pale, and Eitan wanted to know every inch of him. Wanted to feel every inch of him. When Akiva levered himself over Eitan, sitting across his hips and taking up his entire field of view, Eitan groaned.

Akiva grabbed him through his shorts, hand at the base of his cock, cupping his balls. “I woke up this morning and thought about fucking you.”

“You weren’t mad I disturbed you in the middle of the night?”

“Mad? No. Worried, yes.” Akiva tightened his hand fractionally, and Eitan could feel it in his balls and up his spine and somehow in the soles of his feet.

The slight scratch of cotton grounded him.

He was here and nowhere else. He was here and doing this and in love.

If you’d asked him a year ago if he’d envisioned his life as being tied to a bed about to be railed by a man who had a slight New Jersey accent that came out when he drank, Eitan would have laughed it off.

Now, he moaned and moaned some more when Akiva spit on his hand and stuck it into Eitan’s shorts and began to jerk him with a loose circle of his fist guaranteed to give Eitan absolutely no relief.

This wasn’t the rush of the train or the franticness of that first night or like anything since.

No, this was slow, deliberate, and Eitan’s body demanded more, a humming edge he wanted to test the limits of.

“Kiss me,” Eitan said, and Akiva leaned over him, mouth almost to Eitan’s, hand not increasing its pace.

The angle was tricky, but Eitan got his feet under him, pushed himself up, weight resting in his shoulders until he could almost reach Akiva’s mouth, had Akiva not drawn back at the last second.

The cords bit very slightly into Eitan’s hands, possibly Akiva’s intent.

“You do not do well with delayed gratification.” Akiva would have sounded stern if not for the lift at the edge of his mouth.

Eitan laughed. “What gave that away?”

“Every single thing about you.” But he dragged down Eitan’s shorts until he was entirely naked, went to strip off his own.

“Don’t.” Eitan rolled himself meaningfully. “Could you come up here?”

This time, Akiva didn’t hold himself back, just sat with his knees on either side of Eitan’s shoulders and let Eitan rub his face against his briefs. There was gay and there was gay as in being so desperate for someone you wanted to suck cotton, and Eitan was apparently that kind of gay.

Eventually, Akiva shifted down his waistband, held Eitan’s hair and drove the first few inches of his cock into his mouth.

Eitan wasn’t choking, exactly, but his lips felt stretched pleasantly, his face dampening with spit.

Having the kind of sex you wanted to have, it turned out, was a little funny and a little gross, and better for being each.

After a minute, Akiva pulled back.

“Don’t stop on my account.” Eitan brushed his chin against the pillowcase to wipe it off.

“I was stopping so I didn’t come on your face.”

“I like how you just say things,” Eitan said. “Words, I mean.”

“You like how I say words?”

“I like how you’re matter-of-fact about sex. I wouldn’t have called that.”

“Because I’m Orthodox?” Akiva asked.

“Because you’re…” Eitan felt around for the right word. “Self-contained.”

For that, he got another long kiss, then Akiva brought out a container of lube and showed it to him like a waiter might a bottle of wine. He applied some on his fingers, rubbed them together, settled himself between Eitan’s parted knees.

“I like how you say words too.” Akiva pressed a kiss to Eitan’s lower calf—his ankle really—something tiny but carefully placed.

The first touch of his fingers to Eitan’s hole was cold, the texture of the lube slick.

Eitan occasionally encountered fabrics that he really didn’t like the feel of for no particular reason, and for a moment, he worried this kind of lube would be the same.

Then Akiva pushed inside him with his fingertips, working him open gradually but not hesitantly.

It felt good , different than when Eitan had tried this on himself over the years, a different sort of good than having his cock inside Akiva’s mouth.

A slow spread of pleasure that made his balls ache and his brain collapse down to a series of statements, most of which were I love you and an occasional never stop doing this.

Akiva had mentioned he’d had enough other partners to merit a rough ballpark versus an exact number. It didn’t matter, not when Eitan got the strange urge to buy them each a fruit bouquet if this was what they’d resulted in.

“What are you thinking about?” Akiva asked.

He’d paused, and Eitan was not going to beg him to go back to fingering him, but the possibility was looking more and more reasonable. “Buying your exes presents if it made you like this in bed.”

“Like what?” It was clear Akiva was compliment-fishing and equally clear to Eitan that he wanted to do nothing more than deliver said compliments.

“I’ve decided to cancel all my plans and just have you keep doing that.” A statement uncomfortably close to the truth, so Eitan pressed on. “I mean, isn’t having sex on Shabbat supposed to be like extra good or something?”

“I’m not sure fingering your boyfriend while he’s tied up was what the sages had in mind, no.” But Akiva was smiling.

“That’s twice you’ve called me that.”

That made Akiva look up at him, wary. “Is that not…” He trailed off.

“I like hearing you say it. I like feeling like I belong to you.”

Akiva kissed his leg again, higher this time, on the inside of Eitan’s knee. Up until now, Eitan hadn’t ever really had the urge to get a tattoo, but he wanted something there to mark that kiss, as permanent as one of Akiva’s freckles.

“I belong to you too.” Akiva said it low, and Eitan’s skin went hot and tight all over.

“Show me.”

“Are you sure?”

Eitan smiled. “Have you ever known me to rush into anything?” he asked, mostly to make Akiva laugh. “But yes, I’m sure.”

Akiva didn’t ask again. Just wedged a pillow under Eitan’s hips and told him to angle his legs up and back.

It took some maneuvering, but Eitan had long ago realized there was very little he could ask of his body that it wasn’t able to do.

Soon, they found the angle, and Akiva took his own cock in hand, pressed inside Eitan, skin against skin. Overwhelming.

Eitan clenched his eyes shut. Opened them slowly after Akiva dropped a kiss at his temple, the place he seemed addicted to kissing. Eitan would have to ask him about it just as soon as he remembered how to breathe.

“You okay?” Akiva was frowning minutely, and Eitan loved his freckles and his stubble and the way the low light rendered his eyes golden. But he loved that concerned little frown most of all.

“I’m good,” Eitan said. “I’m really good.”

“You don’t have to like this.” Akiva shifted slightly, enough to send a shivering cascade of sensations through Eitan before he stilled again.

“I’m trying not to like this too much.” Eitan angled his knees farther toward his chest. There was some convenience in being short.

Who knew? He’d spent most of his professional life listening to his body, answering its joys and complaints.

He knew what he wanted. “Please,” he added, and Akiva’s eyes went hot.

Akiva moved. His arms curved around Eitan’s shoulders, covering him, their mouths catching on the occasional thrust. Akiva had long legs, a runner’s stamina, a habit of stroking Eitan’s hair back from his forehead.

Time moved slow or fast, one of the two, Eitan wasn’t sure which, their bodies slick against each other, the puff of Akiva’s breath in his ear.

The cord was tight against Eitan’s wrists, and he was grateful for the small bite of it, the slight discomfort the only thing that felt like it was keeping him from floating away. Pleasure shot up his backbone, gathered at the base of his cock. An urgency teetering on impatience.

He begged, mostly wordless moans, the occasional please . His throat was a little raw, his eyes a little wet, and fuck, fuck, fuck, was this what it was like all the time for other people?

On the last please, Akiva finally reached between their bodies and wrapped his palm around Eitan’s cock.

Akiva’s forehead was beading with sweat; the arm that he was propping himself up with shook.

He stroked in an increasingly erratic rhythm, and there was something gratifying in that, Akiva fraying just as much as he was.

He bit at Eitan’s lips and said his name the right way, the way only Akiva ever said it, and Eitan felt as if he was approaching the edge of something he couldn’t pull himself back from, wouldn’t have wanted to even if he could.

He came, eyes clenched shut, body seizing, Akiva around him, filling him up, driving any other thought from his mind.

He drifted back to himself a few minutes later, Akiva resting atop him, clinging, cock softening inside Eitan, and there was a sensation Eitan hadn’t known about, another in the endless list he wanted to discover together.

Akiva pulled out, fussed at Eitan’s wrists until the cord came loose with a yank, rubbed the skin there with his thumbs and tutted.

He left Eitan no choice but to shake his hands out to regain some feeling in them, then wrap his arms around Akiva.

To hold him as Akiva shivered a few times and relaxed against Eitan’s chest.

Eitan’s brain hadn’t quite resumed its usual whirring. He took in details one by one: Akiva’s weight on him, the gradual relaxation of his breathing. This time, when Akiva kissed his temple, Eitan could gather enough words to ask, “Why there?” Even that came out panting.

Akiva lifted himself up, leaving Eitan’s body momentarily cold.

“You have little creases.” Akiva tapped one with the pad of his finger.

“They stay there even when you’re not smiling.

They were there in Arizona, but they’re deeper now.

As the season was ending, all I could think was, I’m not going to get to see how those change. ”

Eitan smiled. Pulled Akiva down to him, held him, kissed him.

Eitan knew he needed to get up, get cleaned up.

Even for someone who didn’t sleep much, the ordeal of last night was getting to him.

Sometimes in the midst of doing things, Eitan would get distracted, lose track of the task at hand.

Now he knew exactly what he needed to do, but what he wanted to do was kiss the tiny indent behind Akiva’s ear.

To whisper a thank you and a promise. That he’d be here. That they’d be here together.