“Come for me, sweetheart,” he said, voice commanding and sweet all at once, and that did me in, I started coming like it was my first time, ropes of come spilling out of me, and quickly after that, I felt Andy do the same, kissing me all the while, until we came to a breathless stop.

We lay there, with him on top of me, gathering our breath against each other’s mouths. It felt like my heart was about to burst out of my chest, the intensity of Andy's gaze almost too much to bear.

He pulled himself up to his elbows, chest heaving with exertion, and he looked at me with a strange expression, his eyes dark with intensity.

The emotion building in my throat intensified, making it harder for me to say anything, to put distance, todothe smart thing, and suddenly, he was pushing a strand of my hair back with his hand, almost absentmindedly.

My heart raced against my ribs, trying to come out.

Andy looked at my lips.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, voice low between us. “I should have been more–”

“No,” I immediately said, going against my instinct to try to put my walls up again, and instead taking hold of the hair on the back of his neck and tugging. Andy looked deeply into my eyes and my chest tingled with nervousness as I said, “Ten out of ten, would do again,” echoing what he said right after I gave him my first blow job.

His lips twitched momentarily, but his jaw was still clenched tight, like he wasn't willing to let go of this so soon. “Don't play strong with me, Dan. Would you tell me?” He leaned into me, grabbing my own hair and speaking against my mouth. “Would you tell me if it hurt?”

It already hurts. Just not the way he meant.

I pushed that thought away.

My throat was so tight I didn't know how I could manage to say anything, but I still forced out, “Yes,” moving my other hand up to his back.

To be honest, I didn't know whether I would want to tell him or not if it hurtphysically,the vulnerability that I already felt with him too much, but with the way he was looking at me, I knew that whether I wanted to or not, I would tell him. I just couldn't not.

It made something flutter inside me, and to push it away, I went back for some lightness and said, “But maybe you should try again? Just to make sure?”

Andy groaned against the crook of my neck, leaving hungry kisses and teasing bites in there even as he was already starting to rock against me, our lengths starting to harden again.

It was just one more time. Just one more time to get it out of our systems.

I kept repeating that to myself as Andy was already leaning back and reaching for another condom.

Fuck.

14

Andy Jacobs

Getting to fuckDan James hadn’t only lived up to my fantasies–it had been much better. Seeing him come undone beneath me, crying out my name, looking at me with such unsheltered need in his eyes had shattered what was remaining of my control, and I’d just thrown away all pretenses out the window, all the lies that this was just something convenient and not a necessity, and I’d thrown everything I had to offer him into it, fucking him like my life depended on it, kissing him senseless like I would die if I didn’t.

And in that moment, it had felt like that.

A matter of survival. Raw need.

I’d given him everything and he’d given me everything back.

Something had changed when he’d called out my name, something had cracked in my chest, and there had been no going back.

Now it was the morning after and we were here, in his bed, side by side after a night of little sleeping and a whole lot of fucking, and I couldn’t help but look at him now that I had a chance without him catching me. My early bird inner clock had woken me up early, and even if it was slightly later than my usual, Dan, who didn’t get up at the crack of dawn every single day, was still sleeping, at the mercy of my wandering eyes.

We hadn’t closed the blinds and now soft early morning light was streaming through the curtains, illuminating the space. Dan was sleeping on his side, facing me, his arm stretched in my direction the way mine had been earlier, and his face looked so fucking peaceful, I was tempted to get my phone out to immortalize it. I didn’t think I’d ever seen such a relaxed Dan James ever since I’d first met him, and now that I had, I never wanted to forget it. The small lines in his forehead had softened, making him look more like the twenty-four-year-old that he was and not like a grump that wanted to rock my world every chance he got. I helplessly reached out to brush my fingers over the side of his face, pushing back some strands of dark hair the way I had last night, pulled by some internal force, an internalneedthat compelled me to.

Dan James was dangerous to me, and if I was being honest, he had been ever since I’d met him.

I’d known right then and there that I would give upa lotto just get a taste of those lips, to feel his skin against mine, and now that it had happened, I didn’t know what to do.

I wasn’t a relationship guy–not even if it was just friends with benefits. I wasn’t the type of person anyone would ever consider for a boyfriend, and Dan sure as fuck wouldn’t look at me that way. The only thing he wanted was to have a life and learn to be single, to enjoy his freedom before he inevitably went back to the way the universe wanted things to be and he ended up with another girlfriend, one that would be good to him, one that he would marry and have children with.