I shook my head again. “I told you I hooked up with guys a few times. It was a few years back now, but it happened.”
“You did say that.” He went up on his tiptoes and bit at the edge of my jaw. “Silly me.”
My breath juddered out in a rush. “Yeah, like four times? Five, even,” I reassured him.
Toby pulled back again and did not look reassured. “Wait. Five times?” he repeated. “Or five guys?”
“Uh… both?” I gripped the back of my neck. “Maybe a couple extra times if you include Martin, my bunkmate from Adventure Camp.”
“Martin from Adventure Camp?” he scoffed. “My erstwhile rival? No. He doesn’t count. Ever. For anything.”
I snorted.
Toby’s expression turned sly as his fingertips danced up my arms. “But in the interest of total honesty between us as soul mates, what did you two get up to in that bunk?”
I licked my lips and pretended to hesitate. “I’d tell you… but I don’t wanna get him in trouble, what with you being a counselor and all.”
Toby’s mouth opened in an excited little O.
“For the love of Chris Evans and every single one of his abs,” he breathed. He cleared his throat. “I’m thinking you should tell me right away, Beale. No one will get in trouble as long as you give me all the details.”
I bit my lip to keep from smiling. “Well, he snuck into my bed the first time maybe a week before camp ended? It was the middle of the night, but it was a billion degrees outside—way too warm to sleep—so I was still awake.”
“Uh-huh. You were naked and sweaty.”
“Um… no. I was wearing shorts and—”
“Shhh.” Toby shut his eyes. “You were naked.”
“Right. Sure. Well, I’d noticed Martin before, obviously. He was cute, but kinda geeky. Small. Way, way smaller than me. Which was hot.”
“Yeah, it is.” Toby squeezed his eyes shut and sagged against me, his face mashed against my chest while his fingertips caressed the sides of my neck. “Keep going.”
I let myself touch Toby’s skin, let my fingertips trail over that smooth swath of skin just below the waist of his shorts, which felt so forbidden and erotic I could hardly remember what I’d been saying.
“I guess he’d seen me checking him out, because he stuck his hands down my shorts without saying a word, and then he kinda climbed on top of me?”
Toby whimpered, and the sound sent a bolt of lust straight down my spine.
I was glad someone was getting something out of the story because, to be honest, it hadn’t been all that great in the moment. I mean, it had, because orgasms were nearly always good, but it hadn’t been some earth-shattering experience or even anything hot enough to jerk to after the fact. I couldn’t remember Martin’s last name, and I was pretty sure we’d exchanged a total of two dozen words if you didn’t count unimportant stuff like “fuck” and “yeah” and “oh,” which I didn’t.
“He rubbed off on me, really fast and quiet, so we didn’t wake anyone else, and then he snuck back to his own bunk. But the next night, it happened again.”
“Christ.” Toby shivered. “Gonna think about that some more later, but with me in the starring role.”
I grinned. I liked that idea better, too.
“Then after that?” Toby prompted.
“Oh. Um. I used to go to this dive on the mainland called the SandBar.” I shrugged, starting to get uncomfortable.
“Ah ha. And let me guess… you didn’t leave alone?”
“No, actually I did. There’s a back hall, and…” I winced, remembering the last time I was there. “It’s kinda dark.”
“Why, Beale Goodman, as I live and breathe!” Toby grinned. “Clandestine, semi-public hookups?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said tightly. “It sounds better when you say it than I remember it.” Like a success instead of a catastrophic failure.
Toby stroked my chest with gentle pressure. “What’s going on in your brain, Virgo?” he whispered.
I ran a hand over my face. “Those experiences were super awkward. I kept trying, thinking it would be less awkward eventually, but it wasn’t.”
“Because they weren’t your soul mate.”
“No! I mean… yeah, probably,” I allowed. “But also because… Look, you might have noticed last night that I’m, you know.” I waved a hand down toward my erection, which was still jutting insistently against the front of my shorts, proving that my dick had no ability to read the room.
“You’re…?” Toby shook his head, confused. “More effective than Viagra? Mouthwatering? Perfectly formed? A testament to the existence of a higher power? Paul Bunyan with a great big axe?” Toby palmed his own erection and gave a little mmmph that made me wish it was my hand there instead. “Help me out here, Goodman.”
“Big! Really big. Possibly too big.” I swallowed. “And before you say I’m crazy, be aware that these other guys thought the size thing would be great, but it turned out to be too much work.” I clenched my hands into fists and struggled to speak around the vise that gripped my chest. “So, I don’t want you to… you know.”
“To blow you?” Toby looked almost tragically disappointed, and somehow I found myself huffing out a chuckle. “But my blow jobs change lives.”
“No!” I scrubbed a hand through my hair. “I mean, yes. I mean… If it’s uncomfortable for you, please don’t feel obligated to—”
Toby laughed out loud. “Beale, I don’t know who these philistines were that they could not appreciate the utter work of art they had a chance to see up close, but I promise you, obligation is the very last thing I feel when I look at you.”
He pushed me against the column again, pretty forcefully for a guy his size, and I was so startled I let him. He looked up at me with brown eyes gone liquid hot. “You’re at my mercy now, Beale Goodman.”
I swallowed. “I am?”
Toby nodded. “Oh, yes. And hear me now: I did not survive a half-dozen near-death experiences and at least two painfully awkward conversations only to have this body withheld from me because you’re getting in your head over this.”
He whipped his shirt off and threw it on the ground, and… oh. Just oh.
My brain turned to soup at all that golden skin laid out before me like a feast, and I couldn’t think of words that had more than two letters.
He licked his lips and ran his fingers just behind the waistband of my shorts, trapping my shirt against my stomach. His thumb teased over the button.
“I wasn’t asking you about this stuff because I wanted a resumé of your sexual experiences, Beale. I was asking because I want this to be good for you. I wanted to know what you liked, and I didn’t want to rush you. Okay?”
He glanced up at me through his eyelashes, and any resistance I had faded away. He was so damn beautiful, and I could see how badly he wanted me. It made me feel powerful.
I cupped his jaw in one hand, committing the feel of his skin to memory. “Okay.”
“Okay.” Toby grabbed the hem of my shirt and tugged, and I bent to help him. He dropped my shirt on the ground next to his, and something about the sight captivated me—the way the fabric pooled together in the sunshine, the symbolism of the thing, the—