Tell Me It's Real (33 page)

His apartment was more of a condo, really, with big picture windows at the front that exposed the living room. I’d only been inside briefly, earlier today, when I’d followed him so he could put his new bike in a back bedroom before we left for the bar. It was sparsely set up, just a couch and a flat screen in the living room, boxes still piled up in a corner that he hadn’t gotten around to unpacking yet. I’d made fun of him for living that way until he reminded me that it was hard to bend over and unpack things after you’d been hit by a car. I’d looked for photos, but had seen none. His parents weren’t anywhere that I had seen.

I wondered about Vince then, how that would affect the evening’s calisthenics, if it was even still going that far. Then I remembered I still had a black eye and a reddened nose from my wall face-punch the day before and didn’t think that could be remotely attractive. Helena’s warning voice shot through my head and I pushed her away.

Vince let me in through the front door and closed it after we’d walked through. He leaned against it, crossing his arms over his chest. And watched. And waited.

I didn’t know what to do, so I tried to mirror his stance up against the opposite wall, but I almost fell down while trying to stand still for, like, two seconds. Vince didn’t say a thing. I patted my hands against my thighs. Vince quirked an eyebrow. I tried to name all fifty states in alphabetical order. Vince uncrossed his arms.
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas.
Vince stood up straight.
Delaware, Florida, Georgia.
He brought his big hands to the hem of his shirt and pulled it up, revealing miles and miles of hard, brown skin. The silver bar through his nipple caught the low light and flashed at me.
Illinois, Indiana. Iowa.
He pulled the shirt up and over his head, dropping it to the floor.
Uh. Kentucky? Washington. No. Wait. Uh. Nigeria?
Vince ran his hands down his chest, pausing to tweak his own pierced nipple, twisting it lazily before tracing his fingers over his stomach and down to the button on his jeans.
Portland… is a city. Okay. Uh. New Hampshire. New Jersey. New Mexico. Nipple. Nipple? Nipple is not a state.
He flexed his arms as he hooked his thumbs into his jeans and leaned back against the door. I could still see the bruises on his sides, but they only added to his appeal, the pretty colors not yet faded into a mottled green. I wanted to map out the whole of them with my tongue.

“You want to come over here?” he asked, his voice husky.

“Oklahoma,” I blurted. “Oregon. Pennsylvania. Rhode Island.”

He looked confused.

“States,” I muttered at him. “Just listing off states.”

“C’mere,” he said, ignoring my supreme weirdness.

I went. Somehow, I went.

And when I reached him, he raised his hands from his own lap and hooked them into my back pockets, pulling me flush against him like we’d been at the bar. Except now, there wasn’t a shitload of people around and an annoying drag queen whose voice I couldn’t seem to get out of my head, hearing her advice about using sandwich baggies as dental dams. Did Vince want that? Was I supposed to rim him? I’d never done that before. Did I need a baggie before I attempted it? How would he even feel anything besides a baggie going up his butt? What if it got stuck? What if it fell in? What if we had to go to the hospital and I had to explain why he had a sandwich baggie in his anus? What if I had to—

He kissed me, slowly. Surely. He must have seen the sheer amount of crazy going on behind my eyes and found the only way he knew to shut it up. Very effective, that man.

The kiss started out slow, a tentative touch that rolled into something bigger and stronger. Soon, I was chasing after his tongue with mine and running my hands up his sides as he laughed quietly into my mouth, my touch tickling him. He squeezed my ass through my jeans and I finally got my dirty wish when I gently touched his piercing. He arched into my hand, and I took that as an invitation. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I didn’t want to be easy on him either. I rolled the little ball at the end of the bar between my fingers, getting a good grip on it before I twisted the piercing. He gasped into my mouth, a little whine following from the back of his throat.

“That’s good,” he groaned, pushing into me. “That’s real good. Do it again. Please, do it again.”

I did, tilting my head back as he kissed along my jaw, trailing his tongue to my neck, biting over the bruise he’d left earlier. I wanted to tell him to mark me, that it was okay to mark me all over, but I couldn’t seem to find my words. My balls felt heavy, my cock a hard line of lovely pain begging to be released.

Vince reached between us, pushing me back a little so he could palm my dick. He hooked his other arm around my neck and pulled me back for another sloppy kiss, our teeth clacking together as he pressed my lips back against my gums. He rubbed his hand over my length, up and down, the friction causing my eyes to roll back into my head. My knees buckled slightly, and I wanted to sag against him, but the pressure he had against my cock was too good and I wanted it to go on and on.

“Stop,” I gasped trying to pull away. “I’m gonna come. Stop.”

He didn’t. He jerked me closer as he jerked me off, his lips against my ear. “Maybe I want you to come right here,” he whispered. “Maybe I want you to come in your jeans right now. You ever think of that? Maybe I want you to come right here for me, and then I’ll clean you up with my tongue. You want to come, Paul?”

Motherfucker had a dirty fucking mouth. And yes, yes, I did want to come very badly, but I wanted it to be while he was fucking me. I knew he was getting off on getting me off, but I thought I was a lot further along than he was. I needed to even us up a bit, bring him closer, push me back a little further.

So I squirmed out of his grasp and dropped to my knees in front of him, fumbling with the front of his jeans. Button fly. Helena was right; there was something delicious about giving it a single pull and having all the buttons come undone in a row. I opened up the fly and saw black briefs underneath and finally understood the meaning of sexy underwear. I couldn’t decide if they were better than the jock or not.

Vince put his hands in my hair as I mouthed his dick through the cotton of his briefs, groaning as the heat of my mouth smothered him. I could feel the pulse of him under my tongue, and I pulled back the briefs, his dick smacking me in the cheek. I pulled his furry balls out and set the waistband of his briefs underneath them as I licked the underside of his cock to the tip, capturing it in my mouth. I looked up at him as I hollowed my cheeks. He was panting as he stared down at me, and he brushed his hand across my brow before rocking his head back and starting to thrust into my mouth.

I let him fuck my face because he seemed to enjoy the control. He held my head still and pushed himself to the back of my throat. I breathed through my nose as he pulled out and pushed back in. I felt slightly trashy being on my knees and letting him fuck me like this, but the look on his face when he figured out I could deep throat without any problems was priceless.

Soon enough, he started to grunt and I gripped his ass, suddenly wanting him to come down my throat. He knocked my hands away and pulled out, a string of spit falling onto my chin. He reached down and brushed his thumb over my lips as I lay panting against his thigh. “That…,” he said hoarsely. “Jesus Christ, how the fuck did you learn to do that?”

I buried my face, unable to stop myself from blushing. “Good?”

“Good?” He was incredulous. “Paul, that was… I’ve never….” A little shudder rolled through him as I started to stroke him lazily. He let me go at it for a minute before he grabbed my hands. “Up. Get up. Bedroom.” He pulled me up and I stood in front of him while he kicked off his shoes and wiggled out of his jeans and underwear. He stepped out of them and left them on the floor, standing completely ass-naked in front of me. His chest was heaving, his dick swinging out in front of him. He was fucking gorgeous, all of him, every piece and part. He grabbed my hand again and pulled me down the hall. My gaze never left his butt as he walked in front of me.

He was perfect. Everything about him was perfect.

And as we got closer to the bedroom, I realized how not perfect
I
was. My skin was pasty. My stomach was slightly flabby. I didn’t have a muscled ass. I didn’t have the biggest dick. I didn’t have a built chest or a strong back. My body didn’t make the V shapes his did. I was more shaped like a W. He was hard lines, chiseled flesh, bronzed skin. I was a marshmallow melting in a cup of cocoa.

The shakes started in my shins, of all places. Each step I took, I could feel my legs trembling until it worked its way up my thighs and past my groin, where it settled in my stomach like so much poison. I felt weak. Sweaty. Gross. Vince didn’t seem to notice, but then he was a man on a mission.

Vince’s bedroom was just as sparse as the rest of the house. An expensive-looking bed sat in the middle, unmade, the white sheets and comforter in disarray. He turned and closed the door behind us. I didn’t know why—he lived alone.

He turned to me, his cock against my clothed thigh as he pushed me against the closed door. He started rubbing himself against me, and never even in my wildest imagination could I have ever thought something like that would happen. My frayed nerves quieted momentarily as a surge of lust shot through me at the idea of me being fully clothed and him naked. It made me feel stronger. Braver.

He attacked my mouth again and made this happy little sound as his tongue found mine. I tentatively reached my hands up and pressed them against his back, the skin warm and strong under my fingers. His piercing scraped against the fabric on my shirt and it was like a line of fire across my chest.

Then he put his hands on the hem of my shirt and started to pull it up. I panicked and grabbed his hands, forcing him to stop. He pulled away from me, a surprised look on his face.

“You okay?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

He tried to move his hands, but I wouldn’t let him.

“Paul?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I just….”

He kissed me, his nose rubbing against mine. “You scared?” he whispered.

I let out a shaky breath. “You could say that.”

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I would never rush you.”

“I know.” I couldn’t help but sound annoyed.

“Then what is it?”

“You.”

“Me?”

I struggled for words that wouldn’t make me sound insane. “You… look at you. You’re fucking perfect. Every inch of you is perfect.”

He smiled shyly, looking away. “You like the way I look?”

“Yes,” I said roughly. “Yes. I like the way you look.” I gripped him tighter.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said quietly. He leaned forward, still caught by my hands, and kissed my shoulder. “It’s real, okay? I promise you it’s real.”

I was embarrassed by the way my eyes burned, and I looked away. He kissed his way up my shoulder, biting gently into the tendon and muscle near the base of my neck. He dragged his tongue up until his nose bumped my jaw. And then he kissed me again. During the moments it took him to complete this simple action, he never tried to move his hands from my hold on him, and he never tried to push until there was more that I couldn’t give. He waited. He waited until I would either let him continue or push him away. And if I
did
push him away, if I
did
say no, I knew that he wouldn’t judge me, he wouldn’t snap at me harshly. He would accept it as he had so far and wait until I made the decision for myself.

And what, really, was I waiting for? The only thing between him and me was
me
. I could get it over with now instead of wondering forever what could have happened.

He must have seen he had calmed me down when I met his eyes again because when he kissed me, it was instantly a dirty thing, nibbling on my bottom lip with his teeth, stretching it slightly then chasing it again as he let go. Through it all, his eyes remained open and on mine, so close to each other that I could make out myself in the reflection.

This wasn’t going to be an easy thing. There wasn’t going to be some miraculous fix. I was still scared shitless, but I was tired of being that way. I was tired of waiting. I was tired of wondering. I didn’t want to do that anymore, at least not with him.

I let go of his hands.

He kept them at his sides for a moment, as if making sure I wouldn’t grab them again or push him away from me. He widened his eyes imperceptibly when I reached out and grasped his waist. Then his eyes fluttered closed as I kneaded the skin.

Vince’s erection had started to flag, but perked up again at the attention. He started his movements against me, and I rocked with him, pulling him flush with my body as he humped my leg.

“I’m going to take your shirt off now,” he said to me.

I froze.

He waited, but when I didn’t move to stop him, he reached for the hem and pulled it up. His hands found the skin of my back and he rubbed upward gently, just a whisper of his nails on my skin causing my nipples to harden and goose bumps to prickle along my arms. He pushed my shirt up until we were chest to chest, then wrapped his strong arms around me. My bare stomach pressed against his. He looked me in the eyes and then slid the shirt up and over my head, dropping it to the floor once my arms were cleared.

I’d never felt more exposed in front of another person before, and I had to fight down the urge to shove him out of the way and run out of the room. As it stood, I couldn’t decide what to do with my arms, either crossing them over my chest or folding them around my stomach. I felt my face start to burn as I looked toward the floor between us, ignoring his cock and focusing on my feet. I wasn’t ashamed of myself, just… I didn’t think I could compare. We’d never talked about any of his past boyfriends, and from what little I knew it was more of a string of one-offs that hadn’t manifested into anything more, but given how Vince had looked at that twinkie Eric and Bear Dude, I didn’t understand how he could look at me the same.