Page 89 of Center of Gravity

He lifted his hand, drifting his fingers along my jaw and the underside of my lip, down the length of my neck where my Adam’s apple bobbed when I swallowed beneath the feather-light touch. My skin warmed where he spread his hand over my chest, and when he leaned in, my heart skipped a beat, every ounce of my being drawn to his.

“Tell me to stop,” he said, lips a hair’s breadth from mine. I had a thousand reasons to say it and not one of them mattered. He needed me.

“I can’t.” It was almost an apology, a minute shake of my head as his lips brushed over mine. My lips parted beneath the pressure of his and opened to his tongue, the taste of him so familiar, so long absent, so damnmissed,that I let out a helpless groan.

We undressed each other unhurriedly, each bit of fabric serenaded over the side of the bed with a flurry of kisses and tender touches, our hands remapping each other as if eager to rediscover what we’d forgotten since we’d been apart.

Alex pushed me onto my back and I pulled him to me, his chest to mine, his hips rocking against me. Every brush of his lips to my throat, shoulders, and chest bloomed with delicious, mellow warmth. I arched into his touch, buried my hand in his hair, traced his jaw with my thumb until he turned to the side and sucked it into his mouth with a languid flick of his tongue that had me exhaling another plaintive moan.

When he pushed up onto his elbows, I reached between us, took us both in my hand and stroked until we were both dripping and our breaths came in long, slow-dragging drafts.

This was different, so different than our previous sexual encounters. There was no restlessness in our movements, no fiendish itch to take and be taken. Instead, it was some strange cocktail of desire and intimacy that I didn’t think I’d ever had with another man.

Alex pushed into my hand and I found his mouth again, licking the plump shape of it, at that silver ring until he pulled back and gasped, “Rob.” It almost sounded like a question, and if it was, there was only one answer for me, only one thing I craved.

“Yes,” I answered and, just so there was no doubt, added a whispered, “Please.”

He kissed me again and nudged my legs wider. I made room for him, for the slide of his hands between us, and started to turn over when he stopped me with a hand to my shoulder and a quick shake of his head. “I want to see you.”

It’d been so long since I’d felt the sting of another man inside me—the slow, pulsing burn as my body made room for him, and the way it spread from the base of my spine upward. Alex went in gentle increments, stopping to spit on his hand. I had no lube, because of course I hadn’t been planning on anything happening, but my body was relaxed, and when he was hilted inside me, his forehead dropped to mine, lips moving against mine as he whispered a reverent curse. He moved inside me in deep, languid thrusts that sent teetering waves of pleasure crashing through me.

I slid my hand down his chest, brushing lightly at his nipples, stringing along the line of his ribs and traveling to the dip at the small of his back where I fanned my fingers wide over the cheek of his ass. I curled my nails into the firm flesh to urge him deeper inside me, angling until he hit that spot that made the world go white, until we were one connected, living machine. He gasped, and I tightened my legs around him.

I kissed him again, tasting him, sucking at his lips while his hips found a smooth, steady rhythm. We rocked together, our bodies a metronome of desire, ticking pleasure back and forth between us with each thrust. Kisses deconstructed, losing shape under mounting pleasure and becoming wet impressions of lips and tongues and the humid exchange of breath as we sipped at each other. I swallowed his ragged gasps and moans and gave him mine in return. We spoke, I think, but I couldn’t remember the words. They didn’t matter anyway, and when he reached a hand down to fist my cock, it took only one pump before I was spilling salty heat over his fingers.

He kept me in his grasp, his other hand braced around the base of my neck where the stampede of my pulse hammered against the webbing between his finger and thumb. His breath streaked in hot, harsh pants across my jaw. “God, I can feel you. I can feel everything,” he moaned and then, with a hard thrust of his hips, he shattered inside me.

28

Alex

My mom couldn’t hold it together at the burial, and I’d slipped into a numb daze, my body moving mechanically through actions, shaking hands of friends and strangers until my arm started to feel like just bone and skin on a hinge. By the twentieth tearful condolence I felt as if my mouth was going to slide off my face from trying to hold it in some version of welcoming sorrow like I’d seen in the movies and on TV. I had to do something, otherwise I’d just be standing there slack-jawed and flat, as waxen as my dad’s body in the coffin. It struck me as a weird compulsion, to feel like I should put on a certain face for other mourners even when it was my own dad I was grieving. I wondered if Rob had felt like that.

I searched for him through the gathering as Mom broke out in a fresh wave of sobs. Her hand clenched around my elbow, each dig of her nails threatening to peel back my carefully constructed calm. I held Lainey’s hand in my other and it trembled as Mom quavered. I reached out and pulled Lainey into my side and she turned, burying her face against my ribs as she cried.

I was the linchpin in a daisy chain of sadness, my mother and sister on either side of me on a mission to take me down until I broke into sobs and we all fell apart in some kind of hysterical fit that would horrify everyone. It was one of those inappropriate thoughts, the kind that struck in a church and would send you into fits of hilarity you struggled to recover from until the whole congregation was staring at you in shock. My mouth quivered, and because I couldn’t tell what was about to happen—laughter or tears—I started to panic. My eyes darted wildly through the gathering, seeking out Rob as my throat closed around my next breath.

I found him next to one of my cousins and a lady I didn’t know, his eyes already on me. They were steady and warm, a place I could rest safely, so I did. I just kept looking at him, certain he could see the sheer desperation emanating from me. Then he gave me the briefest, gentlest flicker of a smile. The one I’d been trying to emulate. The one that said,I understandandthank youandyou’re welcomeandI sympathizeall in a fractional, hair’s breadth curve. My chest expanded again as I held his gaze, air rushing into my lungs cool and crisp and fresh. The workers scurried around, arranging the coffin, fitting the crank in the handle to lower it into the ground. A sudden thump, nervous smiles. “Always had to have the last word,” someone said of the difficulty. Polite laughter.Relievedlaughter. The crank started working. I took another breath, and the warmth in my eyes spilled onto my cheeks. My father’s coffin descended in monumentally slow inches. I glimpsed these things in thin slices of color and motion while in front of me, Rob’s dark eyes became the center of my vision, the seam that held my world together.

* * *

There was too much food.It covered every surface in the kitchen, the dining room table, the coffee table. People milled around talking while loading their plates. There was occasional laughter. Mostly quiet conversation and eating. I described my senior project a hundred times and struggled with the burden of trying to say the right things. All the while, I itched to get out of my suit coat and really, the suit altogether. Mom had insisted. Dad wouldn’t have cared.

I sensed a presence over my left shoulder and found Rob. His eyes roamed my face, and he tipped his head toward the back door. “You want fresh air?”

“Yes. God.” I’d just dusted off the chill from being outside for the burial and now I wanted nothing more than to go back into it. It wasn’t the fresh air I wanted, though, it was silence. Less people. Less talking.

We leaned against the wall under the carport. Rob’s hands went into his pockets. I cupped mine together and blew into them. I knew he was letting me lead, waiting for me to speak or not. For a long time, I didn’t. I just stared at the dark door across the way that led into the garage.

“I don’t know what to say to people.” I sucked at the corner of my lip where I had a small cut. I didn’t know how I’d gotten it. Probably kissing Rob.

“You don’t have to say anything. You can just say thank you. That works fine.”

“It’s weird though, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

We both laughed and it felt good, like this tiny little glimmer of light piercing all the darkness that filled me.