Page 73 of Center of Gravity

He started to grit his teeth and then grinned back. “You little shit.” A thrust of his hips had me careening sideways on the bed. He caught me as I flopped and pinned me, wrestling my boxers off. While he was tackling his own boxers, I stood from the bed and shoved him back down on it, straddling him again.

“So it’s going to be that kind of night, is it?” His grin went roguish as I nudged his shoulders, urging him down onto his back.

“Oh yes. You’re going to say please. You’re going to watch me fuck myself with my finger until you can’t stand not being inside me. And then? You’re going to say please.”

Another quiet, amused laugh from Rob that trailed off as I rose onto my knees above him, wet my finger and slid it inside myself. It wasn’t half as good as the feeling of his, but watching his face contort with lust made up the difference. The shudder that ran through my shoulders leapt the divide and ran through his. His breathing staggered just like mine did, and when I reached for my cock with my free hand and gave it a few lazy strokes, he moaned. “God, I could watch you for hours.”

He caressed the length of my arm before dropping away. His hand wrapped around mine, his index finger pushing into my ass alongside mine. I shivered again at the disparate sensations, my own familiar finger and the alienness of his. It was erotic as fuck. I wished there was a camera somewhere recording it, recording his face and how he was watching me, the wild fall of his hair across his forehead, the glazed eyes and parted, kiss-swollen lips.

He brushed my prostate and fat drops of pre-cum leaked from my slit, dripping onto the rise and fall of his stomach. When he added his middle finger alongside the other, I dropped my hand from my cock to brace against his hip, pleasure magnifying and making my bones liquid. My back arched with each thrust, breath coming in low, harsh pants that were nothing more than curses and his name. And just when I thought he’d called my bluff again, just when I was about to beg him to stick his dick inside me, his lips parted again on a curse, and then he said, “Please. For fuck’s sake, you drive me crazy.”

I knocked his hand away and couldn’t get a condom on him fast enough. I’d barely managed to drizzle lube over the tip when his hips arched and he was gliding inside me with a deep, guttural groan. My ass clenched around him and I leaned over, burying my fingers in his hair, sinking my mouth against his so that his inhales were mine and my exhales were his.

My forearms anchored over his biceps, making his hands useless as I rode him slowly, so fucking slowly that every pore of my body ached and I could see the same ache in his eyes. Faster, harder, softer, we dissolved into movement, into tangled limbs and harsh, panted breaths until we wrung orgasms from each other, until he shattered within me and I shattered around him.

For all the other ways we stumbled, this was the one part we always got right.

23

Rob

Idrummed my fingers on the counter, willing the old Mr. Coffee to work faster. My mom had been a creature of habit, and this machine had come with her from Jersey, a Christmas gift from my dad in the eighties. I remembered her unwrapping the thing Christmas morning, the big box and shiny black plastic that was probably leaching toxic chemicals into the water at the moment. She’d been elated at the timer function. Even after she’d gotten sick and been mostly bedridden, she’d still set it to brew every morning at 6 a.m. so dad would have coffee, and because she said she liked to wake up to the scent.

I brushed my fingers over the buttons, their designations long since worn off. I imagined a shiny new Keurig, weekend mornings with Alex, his lazy Sunday morning grin as we drank coffee together. My shoes emitted a wet squelch, courtesy of my morning run and a few early bird sprinkler systems, as I reached for a mug. Alex had made a mad dash for the door this morning. We’d both overslept. He had a full day of moves planned, which was good, because I needed time to get everything in place. A property manager for local vacation rentals was coming by at noon to take a look at the house, and the fridge was stocked with food I intended to make into a picnic dinner for Alex and me on the beach.

The bag he’d left behind was next to the door, just in case he needed it before tonight. I wasn’t sure. He’d been in such a hurry. We’d been up late, too late, and even now my nerve endings zinged with the memories of Alex riding me, and earlier in the Uber on the way home from the club.

I fumbled the door open, Alex giving me a playful shove as I climbed into the back of the SUV.

“Where you going, man?” The driver flicked a glance at me through the rearview mirror when I gave the address. Alex clambered in beside me and laid his hand over my thigh.

“Better practice your poker face,” Alex said, cracking a smile as his hand slid higher.

“Alex,” I tried to give him a warning tone, pushing his hand off of me. “We’re in a fucking Uber, notTaxicab Confessional.”

The driver’s gaze flicked warily back and forth between the rearview mirror and the road.

“Mm, maybe, but I want it.” Alex made a careless humming sound and leaned forward in his seat, resting his chin on the back of the passenger seat. “You okay with me giving my guy here a beej?”

I felt my cheeks burning and was two seconds from hissing at Alex in embarrassment. I had no desire to get chucked from an Uber at 1 a.m.

The driver darted another look back at me, then over to Alex. “You planning on giving me a good tip and a five star rating?” His brows went up.

“Of course,” Alex said.

The driver hitched one shoulder and turned his eyes back to the road. “Don’t make a fucking mess.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

That wasthe thing about Alex. He possessed a charming boldness that I loved. He’d thumbed my pants open, and given me that devious grin of his before curling over my lap. My head fell back against the seat, my hand stroking the curve of his spine as he’d swallowed me.

My guy, that’s what I’d kept thinking about as he’d worked my cock. How casually he’d said it—and where I might have bristled even a month ago, right then, at that very moment, I’d wanted it to be so. I wanted to be his and I wanted him to be mine.

* * *

I’d just satdown at the kitchen table with my coffee, Winslow nosing around my ankles, when a knock came at the door. Had to be Alex. Just thinking of him standing out there, flustered and still in a hurry, made me smile.

“You can just come in,” I shouted. “I think we’re well past knocking.”