Page 56 of Breakout Year
Eitan was glad for them, if only because he could sit up. He encouraged feeling back into his hands, then touched the line of hair descending from Akiva’s bellybutton to his waistband. “Can I kiss you here?” Eitan asked.
Akiva nodded.
It was uncomfortable sitting up with his pants and underwear half on. Eitan kicked them off. His wallet thumped against the thin carpet of Akiva’s bedroom floor. He was naked. He’d been naked in the clubhouse less than five hours ago—at this point he could shower, sling a towel around his waist, brush his teeth, and razz his teammates all without much conscious input from his brain.
Entirely different from right now, sitting on Akiva’s bed. He made a living with his body, knew where it was in space and time. For a dizzying moment, he wasn’t sure where he should put his limbs. He blinked and the world came back into focus.
Akiva was still standing beside the bed, towering over him. Eitan brought his face right to the skin of his stomach. If he breathed just so, he could see tiny goose bumps form. If he put his lips to Akiva’s belly, he could feel his shiver.
Akiva’s fingers found their way into his hair. “Do you like having it pulled?” he asked.
I don’t know. Strange for Eitan to have made it through twenty-seven years of his life and not be sure. “Try it.”
Akiva tried it. The hair on Eitan’s scalp pulled taut. Do I like this? Tension went out of his shoulders. A strange hum rushed in his ears. His face was against Akiva’s stomach. He could feel him, smell him. Briefly, Akiva’s erection nudged him in the chin. A damp patch was forming on the thin barrier of the fabric. Eitan wanted to crow with victory. He kissed Akiva’s belly again instead.
From there, it was easy to push Akiva’s underwear down. He stepped out of them, kicked them somewhere. Eitan shifted back so they were both on the bed. I’m in bed with a man. Which he had been a few minutes before, and years ago, when their minor-league travel secretary had messed up a motel reservation and he ended up bunking with one of their outfielders, a night about as romantic as the wads of chewing tobacco the guy liked to leave around in bottles.
Eitan studied the room, trying to put the objects to memory. Akiva’s closet and badly painted walls and the socks casually thrown on his laundry pile. The tefillin cases sitting atop the dresser. Everything, all of it.
“You panicking?” Akiva said low, as if he didn’t want them to be overheard.
“No, I’ve seen someone else’s cock before.” Eitan’s gaze seemed caught in a direct line to where Akiva was very naked and very hard. He has a nice cock. Though the things that made it nicest were that Eitan was here to see it, could possibly touch it, and most of all, it was attached to Akiva. He forced himself to look up.
Akiva laughed then tumbled them backward, skin to skin, his weight on top of Eitan’s. Akiva’s thigh parted his. He wrapped his arms around Eitan, hard, encompassing, and thrust his hips. Their cocks brushed together—squeezed, when Akiva took them both in hand.
He stroked a few times. Each motion of his fist was the longest and shortest second of Eitan’s entire life. Sex had been fine, before. Nice, even. Sometimes Eitan had trouble finishing but that was to be expected from someone with a high-stress job, or so he’d been reassured. Now, he felt like he was hurtling forward with a cut brake line.
“I’m gonna come,” he gasped.
“Good.”
“Possibly a lot.”
Akiva laughed and kissed his temple and whispered, “Good.” He did something with his wrist that brought them impossibly closer. “Me too,” he said, and that was enough to tip Eitan over.
He came into Akiva’s fist. A second later, Akiva did the same, pulses of it, gasping into Eitan’s mouth as if caught by surprise. Eitan gave in to the shakes racking his body, to the bright lights blotting out his vision. Gave in to it all like he’d taken a leap and everything after was the universe’s responsibility.
He came back to himself a long moment later. He glanced at the clock. It was still turned face down. Akiva lay next to him, naked, though somehow, they’d both gotten under the sheet. Akiva’s teeth chattered slightly as if he was cold.
Eitan rolled closer. Wrapped his arms around Akiva’s waist. After a second, Akiva threw an arm across his shoulders until it was impossible to say who was holding who.
“Still not panicking?” Akiva asked.
Eitan craned his neck up, kissed one of Akiva’s freckles, the little dab on his cheek that had been there since the Arizona desert. “Do you think all your other freckles are jealous that this one’s my favorite?”
Akiva ducked his head, kissed Eitan high up on his cheekbone. “Eitan…”
“Getting back to the city in the morning is going to be terrible, isn’t it?” Maybe it was presumptuous. Maybe he should be putting his clothes back on.
“Probably,” Akiva said. “Also, you have a hickey.”
“How’d that happen?” Eitan teased.
“Guys in the clubhouse might mention it.”
They might. Or worse, they might not—that he’d be faced with the same reaction as when he’d first arrived, a ticking clock sense of icy toleration before he left. And it was possible that, before, he’d asked Akiva the wrong question. Not how much it would cost to sleep over—but how much would it take to stay.
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