Page 19

He bit his lip against a rising grin and sat down, leaning a little back, the room behind him in partial darkness, only the glow of the candles from the little table fighting against the shadows.

I planted my lips on Patrick’s solar plexus, blown away that I could even do that, and dragged myself down while remembering what each of his muscles felt like under the tip of my tongue.

I’d loved the feeling when he had done it to me.

It felt like a sacrilegious sort of worship—a worship of his body, of what he had made himself into, and of the things he could do to me.

It was a tribute at the altar of the highest, most divine force in the universe, the only force I could believe in—the force of human nature, of psyche, of our desperate longing to connect.

Patrick leaned further back, arms spreading behind his torso, supporting his slow descent, and I went on kissing and licking his body until my lips were at the base of his cock.

I followed it.

I felt naughty for doing it, and it thrilled me as much as anything we had done to one another. It exhilarated me to climb his length with my lips, inch by inch, until I found the swollen, wet tip of his dick right under my tongue.

My mouth gaped wide as I tried to take him in, not sure how wide it needed to go. My whole sense of perspective was wrong, though, because I could close my lips just fine around the head of his cock, and if I settled my tongue against the underside, I could even lower my head a little.

His thickness rubbed against the foot of my mouth, and Patrick grunted, his abs shuddering visibly. He held his breath as I lifted my head a little and tried again, reaching as far as the very top of my throat, but no more.

I’d seen it in videos, guys with their heads hanging off the edge of the bed, taking these monstrous things so deep that you could almost see the movement of the throat.

I had never imagined it was easy and never fooled myself into thinking I could do it, but a sudden flash of envy filled me, followed by stubbornness, and I dipped my head lower, forcing my throat to accept him.

Patrick sprawled on his back, legs spread out around me, and I wrapped my fingers around the base of his cock. I couldn’t take him all in, even if I had all night to practice, but I could make him feel good.

I stroked him and sucked him, trying to keep my movements in sync and failing every other heartbeat. I let myself savor the fact that I was even doing this. He tasted of salt and honey, his scent a mix of pine-scented bodywash and a deep, irresistible musk.

My free hand slapped Patrick’s chest, feeling his round, swollen pec and the small, hard nipple at its lower edge.

I held him there, fingers sinking into his muscle, while my head moved up and down the length of his cock.

If I’d managed to take half of him, it was a success, but I doubted my estimate was correct.

My hand stroked him mercilessly, tightening and relaxing to make up for all else I lacked.

It was only after the roaring hum of my own blood had faded away that I heard Patrick’s heavy breathing, his deep moans, his occasional panting for air.

I looked, seeing only the shape and the blur of lights after I had taken my glasses off, and I was certain that his chest was rising and falling rapidly and that his hands clutched the comforter under us like it was all that tethered him to the bed.

“Ah, fuck, Shane, I…I can’t…” A half whimper cut off his words, and he sucked in a shallow breath of air. “Can’t keep it…”

I instantly knew what he meant, although it was hard to believe I had done something so wild to him that he couldn’t keep it back. I stopped, feeling now so clearly how rapidly his dick was pulsing in my hand and against my tongue. If he came, I wanted to taste it.

But only shaky breaths left Patrick’s lips in the next few moments. “Fuck, that was close,” he said and laughed. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

I frowned. “Do what?”

“Edge someone,” he said.

I didn’t want to tell him that I had done something similar to myself a fair number of times—that sounded like a lame foreplay talk—so I just chuckled. “Dunno. It felt right.” And it was true. I hadn’t realized I had been doing it to him at all.

“Well,” Patrick exhaled and sat up. “It felt incredible.” I could see the brilliance of his smile even without my glasses. When he was close enough, only the rest of the universe was blurry. “Let me make you feel good, Shane.”

I was about to tell him he’d already done it, but Patrick was already moving around the bed.

“Lie down like that,” he said, meaning on my front, and I did.

I was nervous as hell, knowing the moment was coming, and I feared I just couldn’t take what he had to give me.

My experience was limited to an average-sized rubber dildo on occasion and one terrible time when I’d been tempted by a large cucumber that had only succeeded in causing a brief flash of pain before embarrassment took over and I quit fooling around with vegetables.

The things we learned from porn weren’t always representative of reality, was my empirically tested hypothesis.

And yet I’m in bed with a hung god, acting like I know what’s what , I thought.

But as Patrick settled over me, he didn’t try to enter me. I was sure I heard him mutter, “Can’t be that different,” at some point as he knelt behind me and between my spread legs.

His lips touched the back of my neck, kissing me slowly while his hands played with my ass. He pressed my cheeks together for a playful spike of tension, then massaged them apart and brought them together again. It went on and on while his lips followed my spine all the way to my lower back.

“Ready?” he asked, his breath hot on my skin, and I moaned my assent.

Nothing could have prepared me for it. Not toys or cucumbers or my own finger, not the videos or fantasies. When Patrick’s warm, wet tongue touched me there, my soul left my body.

His grip on my ass was firm, a comfort of sorts, and his tongue was direct, unafraid.

He licked me, dragging his tongue over my hole until every nerve in my body was tense and alert.

The explosion of signals traveling through the synapses of my body, a purely physical, biochemical thing, was nothing compared to the swelling of my soul.

My heart grew so ridiculously big that I feared I had no room for it.

He worked me slowly and thoroughly, and I just couldn’t deny the thought that he truly enjoyed it.

Hell, I hadn’t enjoyed anything in my life like this.

It was beyond pleasure, it was beyond any ecstasy I could conjure in my own imagination.

It was so divine that only the searing sensation in my lungs once I’d inhaled alerted me that I had forgotten how to breathe.

Patrick thrust his tongue, moaning occasionally, its tip probing me as if he thought he could enter me. He couldn’t. I was too tense, too tight to let him any closer, but he worked me anyway.

He was relentless, kneading my ass with both hands while licking and sucking my hole with his devious mouth. I hadn’t realized he was capable of something like it, and I wondered if it really was all the same, regardless of sex, if the person really wanted to offer someone a moment of pleasure.

All it took was for the shame—and not just that personal moment of having to undress, but the societal shame we attached first to sex, then to queerness—to drop away. Once it did, there were no limits.

I lifted my ass, needy for more of what he gave me. I was spoiled so quickly by him, and I basked in it.

“I wanna finger you,” Patrick purred behind me, licking me once again and making my dick pulse like it was going to explode. “It’ll make it easier later.”

“Uh-huh,” I managed in a gasp. “Yes. Fuck.”

I dragged over a pillow and tucked it under my chest and head, its soft pillowcase cool on my heated cheek, and I hugged it hard as Patrick dragged his index finger between my cheeks. “Ready?”

“Yes,” I huffed. I was as ready as I could be. I relaxed by the sheer force of my will, but it couldn’t last long. My will was not that forceful. The first moment when Patrick’s finger touched my hole, it clenched hard at the contact.

“Easy,” Patrick said softly. “I’ll be gentle.”

Those weren’t the words I had fantasized about hearing from Patrick Callahan’s lips. I’m going to wreck your world, Shane , would have been more like it. Except these were the precise words I needed to hear. These meant more than any promise to leave me panting and begging for more could.

I’ll be gentle . And it relaxed me, opened me to him both physically and emotionally. I embraced him not only with my trust but also with my body.

The pressure increased rapidly on my hole, Patrick’s finger moving in circles over the rim. He exhaled, his heated breath washing over my skin and my hole, and he sucked something shortly before saliva struck my hole’s center.

His finger pressed harder against me. The sensation was familiar, even if the mechanics of it were all new. I’d done this countless times to myself. I knew what it felt like to take a breath and simply let it in.

Patrick’s finger slipped into my body with a blaze of passion. It couldn’t have been more than an inch, but it felt like we had traversed a galaxy together.

“God, you’re so warm,” Patrick whispered, his lips and voice so near me, and his finger probed me a little deeper, but only so much. “Does this feel good?”

I huffed a confirmation. It felt wonderful, but those were far too many syllables to say.

“Hold on,” he said, his finger sliding smoothly out of me. He rummaged through a backpack by the bed and lifted a bottle of lube and a pack of condoms. I made a note to myself to kiss him for it later. If he still wanted kisses. I didn’t think he would say no.