Want Me (Extracurricular Activities, #1)

by Neve Wilder

He pushed a finger inside me again, and this time I lifted my legs off the floor and onto the bed, making room for him without prompting. He murmured a noise of approval that vibrated through me. Fuck, it felt so good. We found some kind of synced rhythm—his hands, his mouth, my body, all moving in collaboration. It was euphoric and I mentally rolled around in it, saturated myself in the trifecta of sensation. With my eyes closed, I bathed in the sweet, slippery friction assaulting my lower half. So much so that it took me a second to realize his mouth had been replaced by his hand pumping me steadily and that his finger was gone from my ass, replaced by his thick head nudging inside me again. “Fuck yes,” I exhaled. I no longer cared that I wasn’t facing away from him, that when I opened my eyes he was right there, one hand still on my cock, the other brushing against my ass, spreading me as he pushed deep inside. His expression was intense, his eyes fixed on the place where our bodies joined. He bit his lip, bare chest rising in a staggered breath, and for the first time I could see how on edge he was, how close he was, and trying to hold back. It was a sexy kind of vulnerability that ignited in me like pure flame. When his gaze flicked up to my face, I caught a brief glimpse of him going wide-eyed as I reached for him and dragged him down. He flailed and landed heavily on my chest. I wrapped my legs around him, grabbed two handfuls of his ass, and yanked until he was bur...

One night with Eric hadn’t been enough. In fact, I was probably worse off now than I’d been before. Because now I knew for sure what it felt like to have Eric’s hands on my cock, his mouth on me. His fucking dick in my ass. Jesus. I couldn’t believe I’d let him do that. And not just let him, I’d begged for it. But the worst thing of all was that I wanted it again. Desperately.

Eric was gone a lot, too. I wasn’t sure whether or not it was on purpose, and the moments I saw him in passing he acted the same as he always had—polite, if aloof. Somehow I’d been expecting more. Some kind of acknowledgment of our hookup in the glances we exchanged—a kind of heat, or a wink and a smile. Something. But there was nothing. Nothing that remotely resembled the erotic intimacy that had existed between us that night in my room. And it was doing a number on me.

We walked to the north end of the library, and he pushed open the door to the stairwell, glancing back over his shoulder at me on the landing. “No. Definitely not here.” I was becoming a broken record of disapproval. Eric’s laughter echoed and bounced around the cinder block walls. “Nah, though the acoustics are great in here, and I’d love to hear you screaming out my name in surround sound.”

Eric pried my hands from where they were gouging into the underside of the shelf and drew them up to the sides of his head. I dug my fingers through his soft strands, sinking into his scalp. He gripped my cock and opened his mouth, smacking my tip against the flat of his tongue while he looked up at me, a wide-eyed, knowing, teasing gaze that made me want to frown at him if only what he was doing didn’t feel so fucking good. He kissed the tip of my cock, swirling his tongue over the head, suctioning with his lips, then pulling off with a soft pop that made me shiver. Another shudder rolled through me, my eyes threatening to bulge out of my sockets as he rubbed my head back and forth over his full lips, glossing them with spit and precome. Jesus, that sight alone promised to be fodder for my solo sessions for weeks to come.

All at once Eric ducked away, leaving my dick bobbing as I frantically humped the air. “Come on,” I growled, irritable with the need to get off and yanking at the strands of his hair, trying to tug him back to me. But Eric only exhaled a quiet laugh as he put his hands on my hips and hauled himself to standing. “You’re getting mean. Don’t get mean unless you want me to get mean back.” Another little jolt shot through me, my head filling with vivid imagery of the two of us, our bodies sweating, tangled in violent exertion. I could be down for some rougher stuff. Hell, yeah. But not in a library.

“So fucking tight,” he whispered. “Need a second or I’m gonna be a two-pump chump.” “Doesn’t seem fair after the shit you’ve been putting me through.” “It doesn’t, does it?” He sounded amused. “But don’t worry, it’s not gonna go down that way at all. You’re gonna wanna gnaw through the shelf.” I didn’t really know what he meant until he pulled all the way out of me, then slammed back in with a grunt. I yelped and another vehement shhh! sounded from through the shelves. “Sorry about that.” He wasn’t sorry at all, but he eased up and this time when he pulled out and slid back in it was slower, the pressure more manageable. He kept that slow, steady pace, letting the heat build up inside me, and then he shifted on his feet and tilted my hips a little. When he pushed back in that time, my entire body lit up like a Vegas sign, pleasure receptors pinging all over the fucking place. I think my eyes even rolled back in my skull. Eric smothered my mouth again with his hand. “Got this feeling you’re gonna want to get louder.” I moaned into his palm, bit at the inside of his fingers. His teeth latched onto the side of my neck as he began fucking me in earnest. His pace quickened and the fat head of his cock dragged over my prostate like a match against a striking plate. I was nothing but flame.

Goddamn, he was plowing me, and I was sure I was going to be sore tomorrow. Did I give a shit? Not at all. My breath escaped in harsh gasps around his hand over my mouth. Eric bent his index and middle finger and stuffed them inside my mouth, almost gagging me as they invaded, and it was one of those things that if you told me out of context I’d be into, I would have laughed. But holy fuck was I at that moment. He had me plugged on both ends, totally at his mercy, and I could do nothing but take his cock in my ass and drool on his fingers.

My recall of the night prior was fuzzy. Some frat brothers and I had gone to a bar. A lot of bars, actually. I lost track after the third. But I remembered that we’d ended the night at Westfire, and I’d been balls-to-the-wall hammered by then. We all had. And who else had been there? Eric. Across the bar with a group of his own friends—Chet and Amanda and some other folks. They’d seemed cozy, all tangled up in each other and laughing. We’d eyed each other across the bar, and my thoughts had rewound back to him railing me at the library, how his breath had ghosted across my lips in the Engineering building. Mark had handed me a shot and I’d knocked it back quickly, tasting only the memory of Eric. I’d wanted things right then. A lot of things I never expected I’d want or entertain with Eric. Like getting on my knees for him. Or kissing him.

“Okay. Thanks dude. Are you sure? She’s so hot.” “One hundred percent. Go for it.” Was I sure? I could have laughed; I hadn’t thought of Ashley or a pussy in weeks. My channel was stuck on an extended episode of dick, and Eric appeared to be the one with the remote in his hands.

I glanced over my shoulder, and my gaze got stuck on the trail of dark hair that disappeared behind the white terry cloth towel cinched around his waist. I wanted to drink the water droplets clinging to the hairs just below his navel. Jesus, how was it that even a bath towel could look obscene on him?

More water droplets dusted Eric’s shoulders, a few running down over his dark, pinched nipples, the buds so tight I wanted to take them between my teeth. Lick them, nibble them, see what kinds of sounds he’d make. He was always making me moan, but could I make him do the same on my own, without him touching me?

Eric tugged the towel free, so fucking casually, caught it in his hand, then lifted it to rub briskly at his hair. My breath hitched as he took two steps closer, heavy dick swinging. The balls below looked swollen and juicy, ripe to be sucked. Fucking hell, I needed to get a grip. Yeah, I’d been turned on by guys before as had already been established, but I didn’t recall ever wanting to suck on a guy’s sac. Now I was all but salivating at the prospect.

The anticipation had me jittery because I both wanted this and wanted to do a good job, wanted to give him a sliver of what he gave me, and I had no idea how to telegraph that properly. Why sucking Eric’s dick should be easier than kissing him was still something I didn’t want to think about, but it hung heavy in the back of my mind, so I put my focus on the cock before me, on that thick, swollen head, the bunch of foreskin, the veins and skin shades darker than his body and stretched so tight it appeared tissue-thin.

I kissed him to answer his unspoken question. I kissed him because he was always right about me. And I kissed him because I couldn’t take one more second of not knowing how the mouth that did such wicked things to me felt under my own. He’d had his fingers and cock in my ass, he’d fucked me sideways and turned me inside out. But the sensation of his lips pressed to mine trumped all that. I’d never kissed another guy, never done anything besides get off. This was different—a sweet heat, a tang that was distinctly him and so fucking intense.

I started down the hall again, my steps slowing until I stood in front of Eric’s door. Maybe he’d locked it. If he’d locked it, I would turn around and go into my room and I would never do this again, never stand here and stare at a piece of painted wood and metal hinges like they were some portal to a different dimension, and never again entertain the crazy notion that had me reaching out a hand to try the knob. It turned easily and quietly. But I think I’d known it would. A thin shaft of light pierced through a couple of missing window-blind slats and fell across my legs as I shut the door behind me and locked it. Eric lay spread out on his stomach, one arm curled around the pillow he’d buried three-quarters of his face in. He didn’t move as I walked to the end of the bed, dropped my pants, and climbed in. I had zero fucking clue what I was doing when I slid beneath the top sheet, but just when I’d convinced myself this was a stupid idea, I felt the soft trip of his fingertips over the top of my ass on their way to anchoring across my lower back, an echo of his touch earlier in the night when I’d been bent over the desk. A quiet demand. I told myself I’d stay for ten minutes, maybe twenty, then go back to my room. Instead, I fell asleep next to him.

“Look at me,” he demanded. “Yeah, just like that.” I felt my moan vibrating against his cockhead as I met his eyes. What a fucking way to start the morning.

“You’d let me fill you with my fingers. My tongue. My dick. Whatever I wanted. Wherever I wanted. However I wanted.” Each word spilled like an incantation, a primal rhythm to it that had me spreading my legs wider, only half realizing that I was opening myself up to him. I swear the fucker could cast spells talking like that. He reached down and pinched the head of my cock until I winced, then let go. Blood rushed back in, bringing with it a tingle that made me light-headed. “Wouldn’t you?”

“What’s this?” “Lab results. If you want to keep doing this, maybe you should get checked out, too.” My mind immediately populated with filthy images of his bare dick plunging inside me. The blazing heat, the unrestrained surge of his come through me, filling me, dripping from my hole. Fucking Christ.

A deep, satisfied exhale rolled from me, and I ran my hand over my cock, thinking about Eric on that weight bench earlier—this time my mind providing the bonus version: him stripped naked, looking up at me with that sex-stoned gleam in his eyes as I lowered myself onto his cock. Fuck yeah, that was sexy. We hadn’t done anything like that before, and I was kinda curious if he’d even be down for that, given how he liked to take over and plow me.

Swallowing hard against the mix of fear and arousal lodged like a rock in my throat, I lifted my eyes to find Eric’s as he rose again, waiting to see what he was going to do with me now that I was on my knees. Apparently nothing, because he hauled me up, speaking quietly in my ear again. “Didn’t tell you to do that, though it’s a sweet gesture, frat boy. I actually came in here for something else.” It had better be to get me off, but I’d hardly even given him a questioning look before he laid his hands on my cheeks and kissed me. Soft and slow—so damn slow—a stark contrast to the way we’d come together the night before, when it’d felt more like a wreck of primal urges than sensuality. And unlike this morning’s tease, this was the full onslaught, like something you’d do while lying in bed post-fuck. Lingering and indulgent, his tongue stroking my lips, opening them to slide inside.

I didn’t know how I felt about revisiting face-to-face fucking, especially when the way he was looking at me was so goddamn fervent, but apparently my body had no qualms, because the second he coated his cock in spit and nudged my hole again, I instinctively tried to spear myself on it. He went slow, trailing his fingertips over my ribs, then grasping my hips, sliding inside of me, then all the way out, letting his head glide along my balls and my hole before he’d reach down and push himself inside again. His gaze flicked between my stiff dick and my eyes, and I got the sense he was gauging my reactions as he thrust. Something about that made me feel more vulnerable than the first time in my room when he’d had me on my back, more vulnerable than at the fund-raiser when I’d been standing in front of him. This was usually the point where I’d shutter my eyes against it, mentally check out, and let the sizzle of pleasure move through me as my orgasm mounted. This time I fought against it, kept my gaze on Eric as he fucked me, and it was like he was everywhere. Inside me and outside, this acute awareness of every point of contact between our bodies, his cock owning my ass, his gaze enveloping me and drawing me into a universe that existed solely of us. I knotted my fingers in the wet ends of his hair and held on for dear life, expecting him to pick up speed at any second and rail the hell out of me. But he just kept up that steady glide, like he was rocking me in increments clo...

Resting our heads back against the wall in silence, we listened to the sounds of the locker room. When I glanced over, his eyes were shut, a peaceful slackness to his features as he dropped one hand to my thigh heavily and swept his thumb over my quad in gentle arcs. I wanted to talk like we usually did. Joke and banter and mess with each other, but that was impossible, and after a few minutes, and with one last squeeze to my thigh, Eric stood up, shook his arms and legs out, then bent over and gathered up his clothes. Me? I was gonna need a few more minutes to recover. He turned back around to face me, tucking his clothes and shoes under one arm as he studied me, then mouthed, “You good?” I gestured lazily to my spent cock, the jizz scattered over my stomach and thighs, and gave him the A-OK sign along with a sarcastic smile that made him grin. I was more than good; I was light-headed with post-fuck euphoria.

Something was fucking wrong with me. I was being cavalier, skipping out on duties to my fraternity, putting my scholarship in jeopardy. For what? But as I lifted my gaze to meet Eric’s, I knew. I knew. And I needed to tell him. Even if he didn’t want to hear it. But his next words caught me in my side like a thousand fishhooks and dragged across my chest. “This is sideways, that’s what. And it stops now,” he said evenly. I straightened abruptly from my lean. “What the fuck does that mean?” “Exactly what you think it does.” “You’re just going to make that decision for us?” “There is no us. There’s never been an us.” “That’s bullshit and you know it.” There might not have been an “us” in technical terms, but the way we’d been last night and today, that we’d planned on hanging out again tonight…that was more than fucking nothing.

I let out a sound of exasperation and gave up. “Fuck you, Eric, you obstinate dick.” He turned away to walk back inside the house, leaving me out on the porch. How did he fucking do that? How’d he just stand there and turn it off like that? Unbelievable. I dropped down onto the stoop and stared out into the alley beyond our yard, trying to think logically. What had I expected anyway? It’d been about fooling around from the get-go. And what Eric had said made sense: I was risking some shit with our antics that maybe I shouldn’t be, considering my position. But shit, I craved it now, and I really wanted to make that all his fault instead of my own. But it wasn’t. Not really. Maybe it was for the best. It’d begun as an experiment, and hadn’t we done enough that I should have the conclusion blazoned on my brain undoubtedly? I liked dick. Or, at the least, I liked some dick. Now I knew for sure and could move on. It was just fooling around. I said it over and over again to myself, but the words refused to sink in; they just sat on the surface of my brain with nowhere to go because all the dark recesses of me were already filled with him.

Minutes later, Eric returned, tossing his bag in the back seat next to mine before he ducked into the passenger side, and the waft of his spicy, masculine scent hit me like a sledgehammer. I’d missed being close to it like that, the potency, the himness of it undiluted. Hell, just the weight of his presence displaced the air around me, like the density experiments I’d done in grade school with blocks of wood and foam, and I felt this weird sense of self-deception that I’d let him become so huge to me. I thought of the guy I’d fooled around with the summer before college. It hadn’t been anything like this. Nothing in my life had been like this. I’d been upset over relationships before, twisted up by girls, sure, but Eric was like this all-encompassing ache. He was a singular force, a comet that’d slammed into me and cratered out the damn core of my being. The confusion he made me feel was maddening, but nothing compared to the desire he instigated. I wasn’t even sure if that was fucking healthy. Probably not. Ask me if I gave a shit.

“Do you think about me?” I winced as soon as I’d spoken because what a stupid fucking question. How much more transparent could I possibly be? But I wanted to know if I’d infected his every fucking thought the way he’d infected mine. If he could go a solid ten minutes having forgotten I existed. Because I couldn’t. He was wrapped around my reality now. Eric lifted his hands like he was making a show of surrender, and then they kept rising, turning to grip the tree trunk above his head. “Every goddamn day. All the time.” There was no hesitation in the reply, and fuck if that didn’t catch me off guard. I was ready for an argument or some smart-ass quip, not a confession.

His expression held a fury I’d never seen in him before; it burned white-hot in his eyes and flared his nostrils. “I want you. That’s never been the fucking issue. Jesus Christ, I fucking want you. All the time, every day. To the edge of my own goddamn sanity, I want you⁠—”

The groan I let out rang of desperation to my own ears, saturated with the knowledge that no one else made me feel the way Eric did, that I didn’t think anyone else could. His erection ground into me, and when he drew back, his gaze was still hot and agitated. In it, I could finally see what I hadn’t earlier, the troubled kid he’d called himself. The fire starter, the outlet seeker. “You want to know that I’m suffering. That’s what it is, isn’t it? You want to see me suffering? Then fucking look at me. Because I am.” His pupils were huge in the darkness, his eyes a glossy mirror that reflected the same longing I knew I had to be projecting, even if I was still wiggling around beneath him. In his expression, those glimpses of vulnerability I’d caught on other occasions were made into a whole laid bare before me. Eric slid a hand through my hair and held me still. “You were right. What you said in my room that night about whether I could get over you? I can’t. I’m fucking wrecked. I want to be with you, asshole, so name the terms, because I can’t do it for you. I can’t make any of these choices for you any more than I can stop wanting you. I thought I could and I can’t. It has to be you who makes the call.” He paused, chest rising and falling in ragged heaves as he searched my face, clearly waiting for me to say something, but I was speechless. Fucking speechless. Wrecked, he’d said. I’d wrecked him. The meaning spread through me, and it didn’t feel in any way like righteous...

He rolled onto his back and carried me with him so that I was half-straddling, half-hovering over his chest, hands splayed on the ground above his head as I fucked his mouth. “Oh Jesus,” I whispered, because it was a fucking sight. I loved this about him. Loved how he could order me around, shred every trace of my own inhibitions, and fuck me until I teetered on the edge between feeling used and worshipped, then turn around and let me do the same to him. I didn’t quite understand the dynamic between us the way I had in other relationships, but I sure enjoyed the shit out of it in moments like this.

I reached for his waistband, pulled him up against me, and let my hand skim over his flat stomach. Now that I’d given myself permission, there was so much of him I wanted to explore, so much I’d held myself back from doing, scared out of my mind of what it might mean, what I’d be telling him with the action, or that he’d know by my touch just how fucking much I wanted him and how mindlessly stupid he made me. I thought he got it now, though, and that was a relief, too.

“You’re cute,” the one whose name I was pretty sure was Lexi said finally with a nod, as if they’d come to some sort of agreement and now were now announcing the mutual judgment call. Eric cut a glance aside at me as I dribbled back from under the net. “That’s an S for you, boss,” I told Ross in passing, who muttered a yeah, yeah. “Pretty sure that was for you,” I said, since Eric still had bewilderment written all over his face. “It was,” Lexi confirmed. Eric blinked back over at them. “Uhhh, thank you.” And then the fucker blushed. Actually blushed. It wasn’t full-on, but a tinge of pink loitered in his cheeks and he turned away from the twins only to run into me. “Watch where you’re going, dude,” I teased, taking a step back and bouncing the ball a couple of times before passing it hard to him. “Didn’t know a couple of girls could get you all discombobulated.” “What the fuck do you say to that without coming off as a perv?” He passed the ball back to me and fumbled at my return pass. “You are a perv.” “Yeah, well, not that kind of perv.” Eric rolled his eyes and took his shot, whiffing it by at least two feet. “Keep it coming, girls,” I called over to them, then wiggled my brows at Eric. “Ass. I’ll get you back for that.” “We’ll see,” I smirked and didn’t miss the flash of heat that passed through his eyes. If we hadn’t been surrounded by rug rats, I imagined that whole exchange would’ve ended differently. I mentally bookmarked that fantasy to revisit later.

Mrs. Finley turned to Eric next, her smile bright and polite, oblivious. “And how about you, Eric? You’re majoring in structural engineering—did I hear that right?” “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and God did he do manners well, that faint whiff of an accent catching on the vowels and shooting straight to my gut in a bolt of aural lust. Was it normal to find someone’s voice boner inducing? “And I’m not sure yet either. I like the idea of contract work, but something steady that keeps me in one place could be good, too. So I guess it just depends.” “On a girlfriend?” This time it was Lexi’s twin, Leena. She was bold, I’d give her that. But no match for Eric’s prowess at evasion. Eric grinned. “Who knows?” “So do you have one?” Leena was undeterred, and it was almost funny except for the cramp that had started in my side along with a feeling of breathlessness. Possessiveness, desire, and anxiety simmered in an uncomfortable brew. “He’s too old for you,” Mrs. Rosen chided with a little laugh. “Not in ten years.” Jesus Christ, this girl was relentless. Even my mom looked humored now, sending a quick wink Eric’s way. “I uhhhh…no, not really…” Eric scraped his fingertips down the side of his jaw, lighting on the spot I’d cleaned up for him earlier, and before I could think—really fucking think—about what I was doing, the bottom dropped out of my stomach, my mouth opened, and… “You’re looking at him. Meaning me. He’s my…he’s mine,” I stammered out, just lobbed the awkward clusterfuck of g...

Someone dropped a piece of silverware against Grandma Barbara’s china. I didn’t know who because my vision had gone blurry, even the turkey centerpiece swimming in a sludge of brown feathers. I literally felt the sweat break over my forehead and saliva pooling in the back of my mouth. Mrs. Finley’s smile dimmed, then brightened again. Maybe I imagined it. For a second I thought I was going to puke. My eyes darted over faces, locking onto my parents—both of whom had their heads tilted to opposite sides in an eerie reflection of each other. Eric’s gaze burned into the side of my face, and I knew if I looked, I’d see surprise. So I didn’t look. “That’s kinda hot. So who⁠—” “Lexi,” Mrs. Rosen hissed, and Eric cracked up, his hand sliding over my thigh again, his thumb making that sweeping arc like he’d done on several occasions before. It floored me how much that tiny bit of motion soothed me. Not completely; I was still sweating like a fool, my heart sprinting like it was on a mission to break free of my chest, but the nausea ebbed. I didn’t dare look at my parents again, certain I’d shocked the hell out of them. They’d never given me any sign or inkling whatsoever that they were homophobic, but then again I didn’t think I’d ever given them any sign that I was anything other than a Grade A skirt chaser.

Blindsiding parents at Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t the suavest of tactics, but the more I sat there and thought about it as conversation resumed, the more it seemed like maybe the best time. If I’d tried to make some formal announcement to them, who fucking knew how long it would’ve taken me to work my way up to that? I wanted to be with Eric, I knew that without a doubt. This was just the beginning of the proving grounds.

As the chatter around us grew louder, I took a deep breath and focused on my plate and on the feeling of Eric’s hand on my knee. He’d stopped rubbing his thumb over my jeans, and now there was just the silent presence of his touch. Oddly enough, it was the only place on my body that didn’t feel like it was overheating or freezing. “Okay?” His voice came low and inconspicuous probably to everyone except my dad. I gave him a short nod. “Yeah.” Never mind I had trouble swallowing my next bite of food. I set my fork down and reached for the wine I’d hardly touched and took a good long swallow, then another until I felt my stomach settle underneath the warmth of the wine coating it. No one was fucking dying because I liked a dick up my ass, after all.

Eric stepped away from the dresser and reached to catch me by the wrist. “Nate.” There was something so finite about the way he said my name. Crazy how he could give something I’d heard all my life new worlds of meaning just by his inflection.

Eric chuckled and released my arms to lock his forearms around my chest, instead. The feeling of intimacy without the nudity or as some precursor to fucking was foreign to me, but not unwelcome. Not at all. Eric and I were trysts and tension and smack talk, but the idea that there was a whole other dimension to us that I’d caught only fractional glimpses of when we were together was surprisingly alluring. Not that I was ready to walk through the U’s quad holding hands with him—and I didn’t even think either of us were the schmoopy handholding type anyway, but still. The concern in the way he’d wrapped himself around me didn’t scare the shit out of me like it would have early on. And right now it relaxed me.

“That’s your own damn fault,” I said, just to be argumentative, and then inhaled sharply as his fingers crawled over the bedspread between us and landed on my hip, an upward stroke carrying my shirt up the side of my ribs as he caressed them. “You’re not going to sway me on that, dude.” Eric laughed and relented, starting to pull his hand away until I caught it and pressed it back to my skin. “So what do you want to do with the rest of the night?” he asked. “Hang out with your friends?” I shook my head, sucking in another harsh breath as he rubbed over my nipples and dragged his thumb down the middle of my abdomen. “I was thinking maybe we could go get something to eat, just you and me. Hang out like we were supposed to weeks ago.” I wanted to spend time with him alone, make good on that night we hadn’t gotten to before the conversation with Mark had upended things. I was asking him for a date, I guess, and it honestly felt pretty good. The prickle in my stomach this time wasn’t the sick sludge of anxiety, but anticipation. Eric cocked his head to one side, and the smile he tempered said he was restraining himself from calling me out on it. He wanted it, too. The needlepoint tickle in my gut became a warm tingle. “Sounds good. Now?” “Yeah.” I grabbed for his hand again when he started to roll upright and yanked him back down, bracing myself over him. His eyes met mine in a warm green haze that went blurry as I dipped down and kissed him. Just a soft stroke of my lips again...

“What?” I asked. The weight of Eric’s stare was like a third person sitting between us in the car. “You want a hand job?” I glanced over. He appeared dead serious. That hunter’s gleam was darkening his eyes, and all that was missing was a smirk or tilt of his head. “While I’m driving?” There it was—not a smirk or head tilt this time, but a subtle lift of his chin in casually seductive invitation. “Yes.” “Do you want to die?” Fun fact: I’d discovered a motherlode of hand-job-while-driving porn some weeks back and had imagined this scenario going down between Eric and me at least fifty times. And that was probably where the fantasy should remain, because I was 100 percent a flail risk when Eric was anywhere near my dick. Even now I started shifting around in the driver’s seat trying to covertly adjust myself. “Blowjob, then?” His lips quirked as he glanced down at my crotch. “How’s that better?” “Because at least then I’d go with a dick in my mouth.” I blinked at him in disbelief, then cracked up. Totally fucking lost it. “You ain’t right.” “We already know that.” I wasn’t willing to test my mettle against the Grim Reaper. Or Eric’s hand job skills in a motorized vehicle. Instead, I reached over the console and took his hand in mine. He turned a slow look in my direction, a trace of a humored smile forming at the corners of his mouth. “What’s this?” “I hear it’s a sign of affection or something.”

Heteroflexible. Huh. I turned that term over in my head, considering whether it was a better fit for me than bi and then decided fuck it, I didn’t necessarily need to figure it out because one thing I did know was that no matter what kind of label I attached to myself, Eric fucking did it for me. Up, down, backwards, forwards, and sideways.

I checked my watch and distracted myself for another ten minutes before leaving my room behind, anticipating his bed just as much as his body in it, the sheets warm and smelling like him. Maybe he’d be wearing one of those sultry-ass sleepy smiles I liked, or maybe that stern pinch of his brows that meant good times were in store for my dick. I was cool with either.

“You thought you were pretty fucking funny this morning, didn’t you?” “I was.” I could hear the amusement in his voice, see that wicked grin of his like it was right in front of my face. “God you’re sexy when you’re trying not to get hard.” “I’ve given up trying. I just let it happen and hope nobody notices.”

I twisted the bedsheets every which way trying to get comfortable until Eric ran his hand up the length of my arm and squeezed my bicep. “I feel like I’m trying to fall asleep in a box of puppies.”

Fucking perfect. My skin was flaming, and adrenaline pumped through me, its telltale prickle rushing over my armpits, the back of my neck. I thought of Eric’s hand on me, the slow, sweeping way he touched me sometimes, and as quick as the anxiety had come I felt it recede, a sense of calm descending.

In the scheme of a lifetime, maybe it’d be a small thing. It should be a small thing. In a lifetime, there’d be other triumphs, other regrets, other inevitabilities. My parents aging and dying, career pitfalls and upswings. That moment in the chapter room tonight should’ve been a blip, but it felt huge. And as I walked across the quad back home, I felt as much exhilaration as I did a weird sense of calm. And I really fucking wanted to see Eric.

Just before we pulled onto the main thoroughfare that led back in the direction of our house, Eric slanted another look at me. “You’ve probably been in more actual normal…” He paused and backed up. “Traditional relationships than I have, so you can tell me if I’m wrong or off base, but nothing has to change that we don’t want to change, know what I mean? You don’t have to suddenly parade around calling me your boyfriend with a capital B or anything.” “You don’t want me to? Are you ashamed of me?” His brows shot up. “What? No? If anything…no. I’m definitely not ashamed of you.” I broke into a laugh, and he flipped me off. “Idiot.” He focused on the road, then glanced over at me again. “I just mean that we can make our own rules, do what feels good to us.” I was itching to make some other stupid quip, but the sincerity and concern in his expression stopped me. I picked at the tab on my beer can, eyeing him, thinking about how fucking good he’d been to me—for me—and I was off and running into that emotional minefield that always had me mentally hot stepping because I was by no stretch of the imagination romantic, even though I was definitely a fool for this man. It was the strangest realization how much I liked feeling taken care of by him. In ways both as blunt as him telling me to get on my knees and suck his cock because he knew I fucking loved that shit, and as subtle as the way he glanced over me as we drove, like he was looking for some visual gauge of my headspace. In ...

The corners of his mouth tipped up. I think I’d known it before, but I definitely knew then it was an expression I’d be seeing on him for a long time coming. There’d be others, yeah. There’d be fights, and disappointments, and bad fucking moods, but there’d be that grin, and the smirk I loved, the way his mouth curved just before he said my name.

“You’re quiet,” Eric said after a while, folding his arms over my chest and resting his chin on them. I wound an arm behind my neck so I could see him. I’d been lying there staring at the crown of his head, running my fingers through the dark strands and thinking about what-ifs. What if I’d said no the first time? What if I’d let him walk out of my room that night? What if I’d kissed him sooner? Would I have scared myself off? Each time we got together, it was like one more layer of myself peeled back, and now I lay here feeling…not raw, and not even vulnerable or exposed—though I was all of those things with him, and more than willing to be stripped to my core by him now—but mostly I felt like all the bullshit had been whittled away and I was just me. A closer match to the thoughts that’d always been inside my head. And then I cycled back around to that first what-if again. If I’d never given Eric a chance, I’d have sold myself short on all of this, on the bone-deep ache for him, the intense connection I felt with him, the…fuck. My breath hitched as my gaze locked on his. “I love you,” I blurted out, unpolished and impulsive as ever, and then gritted my teeth. “I didn’t mean it to come out like that. I was hoping for something a little smoother and maybe like…not in the back seat of a Jeep with my soft dick still half inside you.” Eric dipped his head, silent laughter vibrating over my chest, but it was gone when he looked up again, leaving only the steady gleam in his ey...

On his face was a smirk, the one I internally referred to as level 1c, threat level moderate. Anything higher than that meant I’d probably have my pants around my ankles within a matter of minutes.