Page 51 of Shots on Net

He lifts his head to look at me. His hands are still underneath my shirt, though I almost wish that they weren’t—I’m not sure how a man can be expected to concentrate while being touched like that.

“Well,” he says, and has to pause to clear the gravel from his throat, “two things. One: I don’t think I’m going to be able to concentrate on homework any longer, so I think we should just sit on the bed and keep kissing. Two: I know I’ve seen you without your shirt on, but I hadn’t realized how…bumpy and hard you are.”

Laughter bubbles out of me so hard my body jolts. Zeke snorts, and soon we’re just standing there hugging and laughing. Eventually, we do let each other go, and I sit down on the end of his bed, rubbing my chest as I try to control the laughter still trying to claw its way out. Nobody in the world makes me laugh the way Zeke does.

“Bumpy and hard, Jesus Christ,” I mumble, shaking my head. He sits down next to me and pokes a finger into my thigh.

“What’s your body fat percentage?”

“What’s yours?” I fire back and he grins crookedly at me. I smile back and Zeke’s eyes drop to my mouth. Goddamnit, I’m going to need that cold shower sooner rather than later.

“I really like you, Carter Morgan. I like you more than I’ve ever liked anybody before.” His hand finds my thigh again, but this time he rests it closer to my groin than my knee. I try to think un-sexy thoughts. “And I know how emotional declarations make you uncomfortable, so I’ll stop there.”

He’s not wrong that I’m not super comfortable voicing emotional things, but I damn sure like to hear them. I like you more than I’ve ever liked somebody before—couldn’t have said it better myself. I like nobody as much as I like Zeke. It’s a little frightening, this depth of emotion. I am very, very conscious of the fragility of our relationship—born from proximity and barely a handful of months old. There are a lot of things I could survive losing, but Zeke Cassidy isn’t one of them.

“Yeah. Me, too,” I agree, because I’m incapable of voicing any of the words rattling around my head right now. He pats my thigh.

“Alright, no more of that. You look like you’re about to puke,” he tells me, and then smiles when I scowl at him. “Now, that was a pretty epic first kiss. How about we try and top it for the second?”

Unable to maintain the glare, I laugh and reach for him.

Zeke

Jefferson drops his books down onto the table next to me and I slam the laptop cover down, guiltily. I fight the flush I can feel burning my ears and turn to him. He’s looking down at me, eyebrows raised.

“What’s all that about, then?” He asks, taking a seat next to me.

“Nothing,” I say, unconvincingly. His eyebrows climb still higher, and he presses his lips together in amusement.

“Please tell me you weren’t watching porn in the library, Zeke.”

“I was not watching porn in the library, and keep your voice down, oh my god,” I hiss at him, looking around to make sure nobody heard him say the word ‘porn’. He tries to slide my laptop out from under my hand and I firm my grip. “Stop it.”

“What were you doing that has you looking so guilty? Is your screensaver a naked photo of Carter?”

“Alright, alright, if you must know.” I look around again. The library is still empty, as it often is on a Saturday morning. Jefferson is smiling so widely I can count every single one of his teeth. “I was just doing some…research. Personal research.”

“Personal research,” he repeats, slowly enunciating each syllable. “Well, I love a good deep dive. What are we researching? Does this research require the use of a private web browser, perchance?”

“You can’t make fun of me, okay?”

“I would never.”

Sighing, I open up the laptop cover and Jefferson scoots his chair closer to mine. He doesn’t laugh, thank god.

“Okay,” I stop, gathering my thoughts. “So obviously I’ve been…thinking about things…and I, uhm, don’t have a lot of experience. Well, none, actually, when it comes to this.” I wave my hand at the screen, where I’d been reading about how to have anal sex.

“Hm. Well, I won’t be any help with practical knowledge on this one, because Tess and I have never delved into the butt before.”

Now I’m the one who has to hold back laughter. He grins at me, as though he said this in a deliberately funny way. I have to hold myself back from swiveling my head around to check the proximity of other people again.

“I dated a guy once in high school, but we never got this far,” I nod at the screen.

“Why don’t you ask Carter? I’m sure he’d love to give you a tutorial,” Jefferson says, evenly, though his lips twitch like he wants to smile.

“I just want to have a solid informational foundation before I jump into it, you know? But now I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, because there are, like, tons of positions, and Carter is a lot bigger than I am, so I don’t know how—."

“He’s not that much bigger than you.”

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