A firm, muscled arm wraps around my stomach, stirring me from sleep. My eyes are blurry and stinging when I open them, and it takes me a minute to gain my bearings. I’m definitely in my bed, if the time glowing on the ceiling from my alarm clock is any indication. And it’s telling me it’s four in the morning, only a few hours since we fell asleep.
We.
Keene.
There hasn’t been another person in my bed for months now, until tonight. His breath comes out hot against my shoulder as he inhales and exhales slowly. His soft, golden hair tickling my skin with each rise and fall of his chest.
I didn’t realize he stayed in here to sleep, though I can’t really say I blame him for knocking out before he could crawl back to his own bed after our bath.
And who am I kidding, anyway? I’m more than happy to have him here. A shocking turn of events, considering my distaste for snuggling or sharing a bed in general.
As gently as I can, I pull my arm and shoulder from beneath his head, letting it slide down onto one of the pillows. Though I try my best not to wake him, it doesn’t matter. Long, thick lashes flutter against his cheekbones for a few seconds before two brown eyes blink up at me, full of hazy sleep.
And I feel a new kind of tugging at my heart. One that speaks more of longing than it does of friendship.
Jesus Christ, Kee. What are you doing to me?
“Hey,” I whisper. Then I clear my throat, trying to get my words to sound less like a prepubescent teen. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
He groans and rolls his head back and forth on the pillow a couple times, something he’s done since we were kids. The first time I ever saw him do it, he said it was to shake the cobwebs out of his brain, and the gullible idiot I was at six years old, believed spiders crawled into heads every night and made their homes there.
Now, it just makes me irrationally happy if I see him do it.
His gaze collides with me and he gives me a sleepy smile. “You didn’t.”
I let out a soft laugh. “Really?”
“Mmm,” he mumbles, leaning in to kiss me softly. Sensually. Achingly fucking slow. “Nope, not at all.”
It takes everything in my power not to grab his face and spear my tongue between his lips or roll him onto his back and pin him to the mattress beneath me. Just the thought and his mouth on mine alone has my dick stirring beneath my briefs.
“See,” he mutters when he pulls away. “Still sleeping.”
Then the shithead rolls away from me to actually go back to sleep. I mean, yeah, it’s four in the morning and we’ve barely slept, having stayed up way too late talking and playing games before getting in a little studying. I should probably take a page from his book and also get some more shut eye, if only for another hour.
The problem is…I’m not tired anymore. Definitely not by a long shot when Keene’s hand reaches behind him, searching blindly for a moment before it comes in contact with my fingers. His own wrap around them and he tugs, pulling my body into his back, not letting go until he’s got us spooning. Him being the little spoon.
I’d normally laugh at his ridiculousness, his incessant need for physical contact that’s only grown since we’ve started hooking up. But right now, I’m just doing my best to not dry-hump the hell out of him while he falls back to sleep. Which is nearly impossible, with the way the warm, smooth skin on his back feels pressed against my chest.
Somehow, I managed to behave myself.
For a whole two minutes.
When his ass nestles back into my crotch, my dick right in his crease, all thoughts of keeping this to a PG-rated snuggle session quickly fly out the damn window.
Fuck it. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?
Instinct takes over before my brain can talk me out of this, and my mouth slowly moves across his skin. I kiss freckle after freckle peppered over his back and shoulders. I’ve become even more obsessed with them since we’ve started exploring each other’s bodies, especially the ones dotting his collarbone and tops of his shoulders. Connecting them with kisses rather than ink from a marker like I wanted to do as a kid.
My tongue flicks out to steal a taste of his skin, and my cock is practically weeping as it rests snuggly between his cheeks.
The arm curled over his waist slowly slides back until my palm settles on his hip, careful to keep from brushing over the nasty bruise on his ribs. He’s firm beneath my touch, his hard, well-earned muscles creating lines and paths beneath his skin that are visible even in the dim light from my alarm clock. Grabbing hold of him, I continue to work my mouth across his body as I press my hips forward.
The sensation it shoots straight to my balls is exquisite, so I do it again.
And then again.
Keene must still be in that state between awake and asleep, because he grumbles before letting out my name on a sigh. “Pen?”
“Mmm,” I mumble as I continue to trail my lips across his shoulders. The fourth time I rub against him, he presses back. It’s barely noticeable, but I feel it all the same.
My lips brush a line from his shoulder to his neck, and I use the hand I have anchored on his hip to hold him tight against me, right where I want him. From the contented sigh that once again leaves him, he doesn’t seem to mind.
Still doesn’t keep him from murmuring out, “What’re you doing?”
His voice is a gruff whisper, but it doesn’t sound angry or even confused. It almost sounds like he wants confirmation of where this is leading. If I have anything to say about it, we’re about to end up sweaty and covered in cum.
“Want you,” I murmur those two simple words into his neck. Then I press my hips into him once more, as if he needed proof behind the statement. My mouth moves over his heated skin up toward his ear as I continue to roll my hips into him. It doesn’t take long for him to get the picture, joining in to help our bodies move together. Grinding and chasing a release we’re both desperate for. “Fuck. Need you, Kee.”
“Then take me.”
Hell yes. I love the way that sounds on his—
I stop all movement the second my brain is able to register what he just said, and the second it does, my body is leaning over his. As I search his eyes, wide and shining with unkempt desire, I lose my breath for a second.
Then he says it again, his voice hoarse, “Take me.” His palm reaches up to cup the side of my face, and I see those two words spoken once more, this time with just his eyes.
Take me.
And up until this moment, I didn’t realize how much I wanted to do just that.
Take him and make him mine.
My mouth crashes to his with brutal force as I roll us, layering my body over his. We grind some more, our covered cocks bumping and sliding against each other within the confines of our underwear. The friction is pure bliss, but it’s not what either of us wants.
Quickly as I can, I remove both our boxers before my lips find his again. Then I do exactly as he said. I take him with my mouth, slipping my tongue between his lips to tangle with his. I take him with my body, caging him beneath me.
But it’s not enough. Nothing with him ever is, and the thought alone is terrifying.
One knee slides between his legs and I grip his thigh, pulling it up toward my hip to get a better angle for our cocks to press together in the most delicious way I’ve ever felt. They slide against each other as we rut together, pre-cum leaking from the heads.
“Touch me,” he murmurs, pulling back to break the kiss. His lips, swollen from our kiss, are parted slightly as he pants out a plea. “Christ, Pen. Please fucking touch me.”
I smirk, biting his lip before I reach between us, gripping both our cocks in my fist the way he’s done countless times before. Being the one to take the lead and set this in motion is new to me. Nine times out of ten, he’s the one to make the first move, even if I was the one to urge him into it. And I’ve always been willing to follow him wherever he wants to take us—especially in this journey of self-discovery we’re on—but right now, it’s just different.
Of course, true to nature, Keene starts getting antsy and wants to take the reins back in his own hands. Literally. He bats my hand out of the way, taking over jacking us. And fuck, if it isn’t even better when he does it. The perfect amount of pressure as he strokes us from root to tip. The mind-blowing feel of our heads pressing together when he rolls his palm over them.
My mouth lands on his jaw and I nip my way across it, loving the scratch of his stubble beneath my lips and teeth. Masculine and so fucking sexy in a way I’ve never realized before.
“We need lube,” he says suddenly, his breath coming out in harsh pants.
I glance over, noting there’s not a chance in hell I can grab it from here, and there’s definitely no way I’ll be ripping my body away from his for even a minute to get it.
“I can’t reach.”
His smirk is devious as he wraps an arm around my waist, flipping our positions in an instant in one of the hottest maneuvers I’ve ever experienced. I mean, hell. No wonder some of the girls I’ve been with enjoyed being manhandled in bed. If I wasn’t already hard as a steel rod for him as it is, I would’ve popped an instant boner the second he did that.
Keene leans away, coming back with a bottle of lube no more than a second later and popping open the cap. He nudges my legs together and then straddles me to rest on his knees, getting a front row seat as he coats my cock with lube.
“My test came back clear at the beginning of the season,” he says, not meeting my eyes as he continues to jack me.
I understand what he’s getting at immediately.
It’s the condom talk. And fuck, if it doesn’t make my chest inflate almost uncomfortably with the amount of trust he’s putting in me. More than anything, I’m glad to have him on the same page as me.
I’m careful when it comes to sex, and I always—always—use a condom, so it should be fine for us to go without one. But the unknown worries me, and I don’t want to put him at risk. I’d never want to do anything that’d end up hurting him.
But I’ve also never been able to deny him a damn thing. Not in this life, and I doubt in the next.
We both want this. Skin on skin. No secrets or walls. No barriers.
Not a damn thing between us, the way it’s always been
It only makes sense that this wouldn’t be any different.
“Whatever you want,” I murmur. “I’ll give you whatever you want, Kee.”
He smiles softly, eyes flicking to meet mine as he rubs his thumb under the head of my dick. It feels too good, but it’s not enough.
“Pen,” he whispers, free hand dancing along my stomach, tracing over each indent of my abs, and his tongue licks his bottom lip.
“Kee,” I mumble, though it comes out choked. Because the way he’s looking at me right now, the amount of emotion in his gaze, I can’t handle it. The fire in his eyes ignites every single cell in my body. My fucking soul.
“I want this,” he tells me, voice hoarse. “I want you. Inside me. Fucking me.”
Goddamn, I want that too. It doesn’t matter that we haven’t really talked about this. Real sex. Not apart from that one night weeks ago when I watched him finger his ass in a hotel shower a thousand miles away, telling him I wanted him ready to take my dick by the time he made it back to me.
That was just dirty talk. Something to get him hot. Get him off.
It’s nothing in comparison to actually sinking inside him. Feeling him clench around me as I drive into him. Taking every single inch of what I have to offer. Sharing something with him that…never in a million years did I think we’d share.
Which is half the reason I don’t have it in me to question why this has happened, or more importantly, how it changes things between us if we cross this line.
Not now. Not anymore.
Not when I’ve never wanted anything more in my entire life.
“I want that too.” I don’t know if the words come out loud enough for him to hear. At this point, it might not matter. He has to know, if only from the look on my face alone. Still, he swallows, and I feel his body vibrate with nerves.
And God, I’m nervous too. More than he is, probably.
The next words sneak out from my lips without permission, the dual meaning in them crystal clear.
“I don’t wanna hurt you.”
He nods, eyes full of trust. “Then don’t hurt me.”
My chest aches at the need in his voice. The tremble in his tone. It’s a vulnerability like I’ve never seen from him before. All I can do is nod, giving him permission to use me. And that’s what this is, right? Him using me to figure out where his mind is and what he wants.
Right?
The thing is, I feel anything but used. Definitely not in the bad, dirty sense of the word, because I want this as much as he does. When it comes to the things Keene and I do together, the way we touch each other or how we are together, it just feels right. Like this is how it’s supposed to be.
Grabbing the lube, I dribble some on my fingers and reach around him. I massage one ass cheek as I rub the liquid up and down his crease. He clenches when my fingers go to enter him, just like they did the first time, but soon enough, he’s thrusting back against me.
“More,” he pleads, and I add a second finger. I work him open agonizingly slowly, knowing he needs the prep time if we’re doing this. But every thrust that stretches him more only makes my cock ache with envy.
Who would’ve thought one appendage could have jealousy over another?
By the time I get a third inside him, a thin sheen of sweat coats his forehead, and he’s groaning with pleasure that has me ready to explode.
“I’m ready, Pen,” he pants, eyes meeting mine. “Just get inside me.”
