Page 18 of Gay for Pray (Arport Sacred Sacrament University #1)

Chapter Eighteen

Theodore

MY HEART TAPS AT my throat as I rap on Jude’s door on Friday night.

What am I doing? I smooth my hands over my jeans.

Jeans, not slacks. I’m trying, but I’ve never really thought about how I look or how I’m dressed.

All I had available for tonight was jeans and a T-shirt with an old cartoon on it, which feels way too casual for this…

date? Hookup? Am I doing a hookup? With a guy ?

I fidget, questioning everything from my clothes to my hair to my motivations for being here to my entire life up to this point.

I’m the son of a deacon. I’m supposed to become a priest. I can’t be gay. It isn’t part of the plan.

Then Jude opens the door.

Every stray thought flees when he grins at me with that easy, open smile of his. He also wears a T-shirt and jeans, but somehow his clothes fit him so much better than mine, showing off every lean line of his body.

He grabs my wrist so I can’t stand there gaping dumbly and yanks me into his dorm, throwing the door shut behind me. I’m a kite battered around by a breeze, and he’s holding the string. I go where he leads, which happens to be his bedroom.

He’s shoved the clothing on the floor into one untidy pile since the last time I was here, but the desk is just as chaotic as it was before.

A wave of comfort washes over me the moment I cross the threshold into this hallowed space, the place where he rescued me, the place where I first dared to kiss him.

This time, he kisses me.

He turns toward me after a step and pulls me against his body, catching me by the shoulders so he can reach up to kiss me.

Some instinct I’ve never known existed brings my hands to his waist as his lips caress mine.

Even through his shirt, I feel the suggestion of the slight curve of his body, and it lights me up like a Christmas tree.

All of the guilt melts away, however briefly.

Jude’s hands slide along my shoulders to my neck, letting him pull me more firmly against his mouth. We haven’t spoken a single word, yet we both know exactly where this is going. As unthinkable as that is. As much as it’s definitely not supposed to happen.

I’ll pray about it later, I promise myself.

I’ve been trying my hardest not to think about it, not to reflect on the sins I’m openly embracing.

I’ve been going about my life as though nothing has changed, and in most ways, nothing has.

I don’t feel like a different person. I keep waiting for the moment the lightning will strike and I won’t recognize myself in the mirror, but it isn’t happening.

When I shave my face in the morning, it’s regular old me in the reflection.

I always thought it would, I don’t know, feel like something to realize you’re gay, but so far it just feels like… me.

Well, me but really, really good.

Prickles tingle through my body as Jude’s tongue invades my mouth. Every breath brings me a warm, light scent that’s quickly becoming so sweetly familiar. If he let go of me, I might float out of my shoes and then right out of his window.

He pulls away slowly, smiling and groaning, chewing on his bottom lip in that way that makes me hot all over.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says.

Peering down into his bright, eager eyes, there’s only one possible answer. “I’m glad too.” It’s true, despite everything that should be holding me back, and might hold me back come morning.

His smile widens. “Good. You should be. There’s so much I want to do with you.”

His hand slithers down my body as he speaks, petting over my chest, then sneaking even lower. My cock plumps before he reaches it, but the way he palms over my pants instantly gets me harder. If I had any hope of denying why I’m here, it vanishes the second Jude touches me.

I’m desperate for him to undo my pants like he did last time, but instead he takes my hand and places it on his crotch.

I need no further encouragement to mirror what he’s doing to me, and it’s a thrill when he hardens under my touch.

Even my clumsy strokes are somehow enough for a guy who seems to know exactly who he is and what he wants in a way I haven’t in all my nineteen years.

Jude’s confidence is infectious. I stroke harder when he moans, then steel myself and pick at his fly.

He doesn’t stop me, even when I pull down the zipper and reach into his pants.

Just like that, I’m touching a cock again, his cock, and it’s hard and hot and heavy in my hand.

I run my hand experimentally up and down it, feeling my way along while watching his face for clues as his eyes flutter shut and his breathing goes ragged.

“Fuck,” he sighs. “I want you to suck me so bad.”

This finally stops me in my tracks. “I’ve never done that before.”

He opens his eyes and smiles at me. “I know, and I won’t make you, but if you want to…”

I consider that for the first time in my entire life. Do I want to? Do I want another man’s cock in my mouth, filling me, hot and heavy and intruding on all my senses? Do I want to be on my knees for him?

My cock twitches, and the answer is clear.

“I want to try,” I say, “but if I’m doing it wrong…”

His smile twists with mirth. “You won’t do it wrong. Just follow my lead, okay?”

I nod, and Jude takes me by the shoulders and pushes gently. I go to my knees at his insistence, a position I would normally associate with prayer. I suppose this counts as a kind of worship, but not the sort I’m supposed to have anything to do with.

Before I can wonder what the hell I’m thinking, Jude strokes his cock. It’s right at eye level, which infuses the motion with a sensuality that hits like a punch to the gut. My mouth waters, and when he aims his cock at my lips, I open my mouth without him insisting or encouraging me at all.

Then he’s sliding past my lips, and holy shit, I’m letting him.

No, I’m not just letting him. I’m moving toward him, taking him in myself.

Jude doesn’t need to do anything in order for his cock to lie heavy and thick on my tongue.

I take it myself. I’m eager to take it, my whole body burning like a lit match.

And God forgive me, it feels so good.

My eyes close on their own. I think about nothing but his cock in my mouth, the heat of it, the musk wafting off him, the way he’s all mine in this moment.

Something inside of me is full in a way it’s never been full, like I slotted a missing limb back into place.

I’m whole, my body singing from receiving something it’s craved for my entire life.

The part of my brain screaming that this is sinful is overwhelmed into silence.

Jude doesn’t need to do anything to encourage me to bob along him. I go on my own once again, sliding backward, letting my lips close around his shaft. His head offers a new thrill, and I run my tongue around it to explore.

Apparently, that’s the right thing to do.

Jude sucks in a breath and expels a curse.

I do it again, but I’m too eager to have him filling me up again, so I sink back down a moment later.

I try doing it faster, going up and down him more like the way he did it to me, and suddenly his hand is in my hair, hanging on like the strands are a horse’s reins.

The prickle that trickles down my neck when he pulls is yet another new sensation I didn’t know I could like so much, and I groan with surprise and excitement.

“Fuck, Choir Boy, you’re a natural,” Jude huffs above me.

The praise only gets me going harder, a sharp contrast to confessions and prayers for forgiveness.

More confident, I throw myself up and down him, squeezing my lips around him, letting him glide along my tongue.

I thought this would be harder, but as soon as I start moving, it’s as simple as breathing.

All I have to do is follow the trail of moans and hair pulling that Jude lays out for me, and I know I’m doing this right.

And…I really like doing it. I always imagined this was the kind of thing you did for someone else, but I’m on my knees as much for myself as for Jude.

It almost comes as a disappointment when his excitement swells and I realize he’s close because I feel like I could stay down here with him in my mouth for the rest of the night.

“God, I’m going to shoot down your throat if you don’t back up,” Jude groans.

My first instinct is that that sounds amazing and terrifying all at once.

Does that mean I’d swallow him? I have no idea how that tastes or feels, if it’s hard or as simple as swallowing water, if I’d like it or hate it, but suddenly I want to try.

I keep going, chasing after that promise, but Jude curses and yanks me roughly off his cock.

A second later, something is hitting my neck, my face.

I close my eyes on instinct as sticky warmth splatters against my skin.

“Fuck, fuck,” Jude rasps. “Oh shit, I’m so sorry. Fuck.”

I have no idea what he’s so sorry about until I hear him racing around his room, stumbling into his own furniture.

Then a tissue is wiping at my face. He cleans me up enough that I can open my eyes, and when I do, I find him kneeling on his carpet looking more contrite than I ever imagined he was capable of.

I can’t help it. I burst into laughter.

His eyebrows go up before he joins me.

“At least I didn’t get it on your shirt,” he says.

I shake my head, both because I couldn’t care less about the mess and because this whole thing is so weird and surreal.

I just had a man’s cock in my mouth. And I made him come!

I actually made him come—on my face no less!

I probably should feel something other than joy about that sequence of events, but in this moment the elation has my head swimming.

“So, did I do a good job?” I ask when I’m a little more steady.

Jude shakes his head as he chuckles at me. He runs a hand over his face. “Yes, you enormous dork. You did an incredible job. You’re a natural at sucking dick.”

“Man, that’s weird to hear.”

He sobers a little. “Is it? Because from my end, you seemed pretty sure of what you were doing and what you wanted.”

He cups my face in his hands, thumbs stroking, eyes peering into mine, and I realize he’s giving me an opportunity to regret this, to run from it.

We both know the me of a few days ago would run screaming, would throw himself into a confessional booth and beg God to purge him of these feelings.

But once again I find myself hesitating.

Once again I find myself wondering how this can be so very wrong when it feels so right.

It doesn’t make any sense, but I stuff down the confusion.

I’m sure it’ll hit me later, but I don’t want to think about that right now.

I’ll deal with the guilt when it happens.

“I was sure,” I say. “I am sure, I think.”

Jude’s smile softens, releasing a tension I didn’t realize he was holding.

He was scared, I see now, scared I’d regret this, regret him, reject him after he’s been so incredibly kind.

I still might. The shame is there, boiling just under the surface, but at least for now, I manage to squash it down.

I lean forward to kiss him. As our lips meet, he reaches for my cock, still aching within the confines of my jeans.

“Let me return the favor,” he says when we part. “Take off those damn pants and get in my bed.”

I obey like he’s the priest who assigned me all those Our Fathers and Hail Marys when I was a child fighting these feelings. I’m still fighting, but that’s a battle for the morning.

Tonight, I embrace my sins.