In the Middle of Somewhere (20 page)

“Tell me.”

“Do it, please.”

“Do what, Daniel?” Rex asks, his voice teasing and filthy.

“Ungh, I want—want you to taste me,” I bite out, a rush of shame competing with arousal.

“Spread your legs for me,” he commands.

He drops down again, grabbing the hills of my ass and squeezing them, then pulling them apart. His tongue touches my opening and a dark, hot pleasure opens me up as he licks into me.

“Oh god,” I groan, burying my face in the pillow. Rex goes back to his massage, hands sliding down my thighs to my calves, relaxing every muscle he touches. Then his mouth is back, kissing and then licking my hole, his tongue relaxing this muscle too. He pushes me up farther, so he can bury his face between my cheeks, and then everything is liquid heat and a pleasure so much gentler than penetration. I feel the shift as my muscles relax and Rex’s tongue breaches me. It’s something caught so exactly between relaxing me and driving me to a fever pitch of arousal that my brain doesn’t know how to process it and I slide back and forth between unclenching to his mouth and tensing with pleasure.

I’m crying out, now, desperate for Rex to push a little harder, slide a little deeper so this feeling can coalesce into something I know. But he keeps working me, sliding softly inside me and gentling my trembling muscles with his own.

“Rex, Rex, Rex,” I call out, unable to control myself. I don’t know what I’m begging for. Whether more or less—everything or nothing—I don’t know.

Then Rex groans, the sound ripped from deep inside him. As he shifts, I feel his erection, impossibly hard, and he’s trembling above me.

“Oh, Daniel,” he says, and his voice is a tender animal that could consume me. “Fuck, Daniel, I need to be here right now.” He slides three fingers into me as he says it, and my whole body clenches, shuddering when he breaches me.

“Unnhh,” I say, pressing my hips into the bed and grabbing the sheets. Rex grabs my hips to keep me still. He reaches up to grab a condom from the dresser and puts his mouth to my ear.

“Was that a yes?” he growls, and I moan again. “Was that ‘Yes, Rex, you can have my ass?’” I nod frantically, trying to turn and look back at him, but his weight makes it impossible. I’m out of my head with lust. The only thing I can feel is the empty throbbing in my channel where his tongue has left me wanting. I can almost feel him inside me, filling me up, and I clench at the thought.

“Fuck, baby,” Rex says. Then he dives back down, his mouth sucking at my hole, tongue jabbing inside me.

“Rex, please.”

“Please what?” he says, low and rumbling.

“Please, fuck me,” I’m finally able to string together. I don’t know how I can be this relaxed and this on edge at the same time, but when I feel Rex’s heat against me I don’t even tense up. He slides just past my muscle and my body welcomes him. He spreads my ass and slides the rest of the way in, filling me so perfectly that it takes me a moment to catch up with the sensation. By the time it does, he’s all the way inside me, and my whole channel clenches with pleasure. We both cry out and Rex’s hands tighten on my hips, pulling me up and onto his shaft.

He doesn’t move, and it’s like we’re locked together in a perfect moment that we know will only get better. I swallow hard and Rex drops his forehead to my back. Then he begins to move—tiny pulses of his hips that stir friction between us. Gradually, his movements get bigger, until I can feel the drag of his cock against my inner walls. My own erection feels almost secondary, a sensation I never thought I would have. It’s as if only where he’s touching me matters. He slides slowly out of me, and I make a desperate sound, thinking he’s leaving, but he strokes up my spine.

He rests the head of his cock against my hole, teasing me with it, pulsing himself shallowly in and out of my muscle, confusing the sensitive skin there with each penetration. Then he slides all the way back in with one firm stroke and it’s like a fire stroking through my channel. He pulls my hips up farther and begins fucking me deeply, letting his weight bear him down.

He’s supporting himself on his arms as he fucks down into me and I grab the corded muscle of his forearms, trying to gain some purchase. I can’t stop the broken sounds that are coming out of my mouth and Rex is making a noise like a groan and a whimper. Then I arch into him and he slides against my prostate, flooding me with a wave of pleasure from my ass to my dick.

I cry out, and Rex pulls me up, locking his arms around my shoulders to maintain his angle. Every thrust bumps my prostate and I have no control over my body. I feel lightheaded, like every nerve is being strummed with Rex’s strokes. He rotates his hips and drives into me, then freezes there for a long moment, letting me feel the pulse of his erection, letting me feel how completely he fills me.

“Please,” I gasp out, and Rex moans. I can feel him shaking above me.

“Daniel,” he says shakily.

Then he rears back and slams into me, grabbing my cock for the first time since he began his massage. The second he touches me, I’m done for. He pumps my shaft once, twice, three times, and then I’m coming in his hand, the pleasure washing through my whole body. My orgasm seems to go on even after he’s wrung every jet of come from me, echoes of pleasure pulsing in my balls and through my ass. Then Rex is coming, his strokes growing short and hard. He thrusts himself deep inside me and moans brokenly, freezing in orgasm. Then his hips pulse a few more times as he presses the last of himself inside me.

I’m trembling from pleasure and can’t catch my breath, but as Rex lowers himself on top of me, still softening inside me, I realize that I’m more relaxed than I’ve ever been.

“Jesus,” Rex mutters as he slides out of me and drops the condom into the garbage can. I can’t even open my eyes. I’m still on my stomach where I collapsed, Rex’s sticky hand trapped between my belly and the bed. I roll onto my side a little and Rex wipes his hand on the flannel sheets. He snugs up behind me and kisses the back of my neck avidly, then slides his arm under my neck so he can wrap both arms around my chest. “Fuck,” he says, as his spent cock brushes up against my ass and gives a little twitch. I moan absently and tuck my knees up. Rex nestles his groin against my ass and squeezes me tight.

I want to thank him for the massage, for relaxing me, and for what was definitely the best sex of my life, but I’m too relaxed to say a word.

I
FEEL
like my head is going to explode out my eyeballs and, when it does, I’m not even going to move; I’m just going to lie here with no head and no eyeballs. I’ve been in the library since I finished teaching at 2:00 p.m. I’m starving and there’s no way I can do even one more hour of work on this conference paper. It’s only Wednesday, and the week already feels endless, the relaxation of Rex’s homey cabin and warm hands nothing but a memory.

I need to get some dinner, go home, and put myself the hell to bed if I want to finish this tomorrow. I gather my stuff and trudge downstairs.

“Daniel?”

I spin around and find myself face to face with Rex—well, face to throat; damn, he’s tall.

“Hi,” I say, smiling at him. “What’re you doing here?”

“I’m just picking up some things, and I needed to look up some stuff.” Well, that was specific. I nod, though, too tired to press him. “What are you working on?” He guides me over to the bench next to the wall and brings me down next to him. I lean into him a little.

“I have to give a paper at this conference in Detroit on Saturday. It’s the biggest annual conference in my field and my panel got accepted over the summer, which is great, but I kind of forgot about it, what with moving and teaching and everything. Then this morning I looked at my calendar and realized it’s, you know, really soon.”

Even as I’m telling Rex this, my stomach is tightening. It’s the first panel that I’ve proposed that has been accepted at a really prestigious conference, and I was jazzed about working on a new project when I wrote the abstract. Of course, sitting down this morning to start writing it, realizing I only have a few days, is a different story.

“I’ve got to finish it tomorrow so I can practice it and time it. Then I’m driving down Friday afternoon and coming back Sunday. I can’t believe I left it this long. I just started it this afternoon. It’s going to be crap because I’m throwing it together.”

My stomach lets out an audible rumble even though I’ve moved past hunger to sheer anxiety. I’m blocking out hours in my head as I talk—three hours for teaching tomorrow, then I can work on the paper, then I need to do laundry so I have clean clothes for the conference; I should definitely check my car before I leave—and I miss something Rex says.

“Sorry,” I say, “what?”

Rex narrows his eyes at me.

“I said when was the last time you ate?”

“Um. Breakfast?” I say. Which is technically true, even though breakfast was half a bagel I found in my bag from yesterday.

“Daniel, it’s after seven.” When Rex gets worried, that damned wrinkle in the middle of his forehead comes out—the one I can’t help but associate with his face clenched in pleasure. I reach out absently and smooth it with my finger. His expression softens.

“Hi,” I say, and I kiss him. I don’t generally kiss in libraries, it’s true, but no one can see us, and I can’t resist touching him when he’s this close.

He smiles and squeezes my hand. “Hi. So, can I take you to get some food?”

“Oh, that’s okay,” I say. “I was just going to grab something on my way home. I’m gonna crash out early, I think, since I have to try and finish this tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he says neutrally. “Do you want to have dinner tomorrow?”

“Yeah, that sounds great—oh shit!” I grab my calendar from my bag and flip through it. “Shit, shit. I can’t. I’m having dinner with Jay tomorrow. I forgot.”

“Who’s Jay?” Rex lets go of my hand.

“He teaches in my department. He’s helping me with this committee I’m accidentally chairing—don’t ask. Anyway, we’re having dinner tomorrow so he can explain everything. Sorry.”

“Oh. So, I guess I’ll just see you when you get back?”

Rex’s eyes are slightly narrowed, and I can’t tell if I’m supposed to offer to cancel dinner with Jay so I can see Rex before I leave for the conference? Am I supposed to invite Rex to come?

“You could come to dinner with us?” I say, and it doesn’t sound at all sincere. “But it would be really boring for you because we’re just going to talk about work stuff. Do you want to come over to my house after dinner?” I ask, hoping maybe this is a good compromise. “You could keep me company while I pack?” That is the lamest thing I’ve ever said. Only Ginger wants to hang out with me while I stuff things into a bag. But Rex smiles.

“I can do that,” he says. He pushes my messy hair back and kisses my cheek, which stokes a small warmth in my stomach. I lean my head on his shoulder for a moment and breathe in his smell.

“Hey, are you falling asleep?” Rex says.

“Mmhmm.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to come home with me? I’ll cook you dinner.”

I groan. That sounds amazing, but all I really want is to go to bed.

“Thanks,” I say, “but it’s okay. I’ll see you tomorrow night?” He nods. “Probably around nine? I can text you when we’re done.”

“Oh, I don’t text,” Rex says, straightening his spine and squaring his shoulders.

“Hunh. Okay, then, Mr. Technophobe. Well, we’re just going to the pizza place around the corner from my apartment, so if I’m not at my place at nine, just come there.”

“Okay,” he says. “Can I at least drive you home?”

“Sure.” He goes back to the computer he was using and puts what look like a few CDs and some printouts in his bag.

When Rex stops his truck in front of my apartment, he turns off the engine and turns to me.

“Listen,” he says. “It’s not going to be crap.”

“What?”

“Your paper. You said it’s going to be crap because you’re writing it at the last minute. I know that isn’t true. You’re too hard on yourself. I’m sure it’ll be great.”

“You can’t be sure,” I tell him. I hate it when people say things like this almost as much as I hate it when they assume my writing’s going to be bad. “You’ve never even read anything I’ve written.”

Rex pulls his hand from mine and his jaw clenches. He looks out the window.

“Sorry,” I say. I thought my tone was pretty matter-of-fact, but I’ve clearly hurt his feelings.

Rex shakes his head.

“No, you’re right. I’ve never read anything you’ve written. I’m sure it’s all real over my head.”

He sounds disgusted and I feel like I should apologize, but all I did was state a fact.

“Good night, Daniel,” he says.

He sounds far away. I lean over and give him a kiss and his hand comes up to cradle the back of my neck.

“Night.”

I
WASN
’
T
looking
forward to dinner with Jay, since I thought I’d need every last second to finish my paper. About an hour before we were set to meet up, though, it all just kind of came together. A rogue example turned out to be the perfect introduction, and it let me pull out a thread that had been lurking but that I hadn’t known what to do with. I finished it in a flurry and I’ll have time to check it over tomorrow night when I get to Detroit.

Dinner turned out to be good, though. Once I wasn’t panicking about my paper anymore, it was nice to just chat with Jay about Sleeping Bear and what a weird place it was. He was in grad school in Phoenix, so the weather hit him even harder than it has me. He gave me the scoop on other folks in the department, affirming that Peggy was kind of the antichrist, and went over how he’d approached the student essays last year. He’s a really nice guy, and very easy to talk to.

“So, I have to admit,” Jay says after we’ve talked about the committee, “I was really excited when you took this job.”

“Oh?” I say.

“Yes. Honestly, I was enthusiastic to get someone who came from a different background. You know, not the typical four-year college to grad school route. I imagine going to community college gave you a different perspective on teaching too.”