I didn’t want him to regret a single moment of the time we spent together, but I had no clue which regret would be the greater of the two: going through with this or not. Still, I had to make a decision one way or the other, and as he continued to stare at me with eyes that smoldered with unrepressed longing, I couldn’t have denied him anything.
With a confidence I didn’t fully feel, I pushed to my feet and moved toward the exit. When I reached the curtains, I turned to look at him over my shoulder. “Are you coming or what?”
9
Oliver
I waited until the count of twenty to follow Elijah out of the alcove. When I reached the threshold, I paused briefly before chasing after him, remembering where we were and what was at stake if someone spied me bounding after him like an overeager puppy. Taking a deep, steadying breath, I peeked my head out from between the break in the curtains. When I confirmed the proverbial coast was clear, I launched myself across the hall, barreling through my door and slamming it shut behind me. With my back pressed against the wood and my heart clamoring in my chest, I flipped the lock on the knob.
From his seat in the armchair in the corner of my room, Elijah’s head shot up, a note of alarm in his eyes quickly replaced by one of humor. “Wow,” he said, scrubbing his palm over his chiseled jaw to conceal the snicker he was trying to keep me from seeing.
“Shut up,” I laughed, hiding my nerves and sauntering casually across the room like this wasn’t the prelude to the most life-altering moment of my existence.
When I reached him, I dropped down onto my knees in front of where he sat. He widened his legs a fraction to better accommodate my large frame, and I settled between them and rested shaking palms lightly on his thighs.
He set his hands over mine, his gaze turning serious. “We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for. We don’t have to do anything at all. We can just sit here all night and talk.”
“We do that every night,” I reminded him with a fond smile.
Did I tell him it was in those long evenings together that I’d reached this point? That sitting for hours talking about everything under the sun and nothing in particular at all had brought me to a place where I was comfortable enough—both with myself and with him—to admit that my feelings had grown? That when I looked at him, I saw more than a friend who made me curious? That I saw a man who’d brought out a side of me I didn’t know existed?
“We do.” He squeezed my hand with his and then slid it away to rest his elbows on the arms of the plush, oversized chair. The soft, repetitive tapping of his right index finger was the only sign that he was as nervous right now as I was.
“I want …” My body knew what it wanted, but my head and heart were having a more challenging time putting those desires into words.
My preferences aside, I’d never been one to voice what it was I was looking for. Since high school, I’d simply sat back and let the girls come to me. Even when Rob had gone down on me six years ago, he’d been the one to ask if it was okay. I’d just nodded and closed my eyes, a willing passenger along for the ride. Sure, I’d loved every minute of it, but I never would have solicited it on my own.
But ever since I’d confessed to Elijah how that fateful weekend had turned me inside out, I’d wondered how Rob had decided to put his mouth on me, what feelings had sparked that curiosity in him in the first place. How had he known he was ready to push the boundaries of our friendship? I thought maybe now I understood. It wasn’t any one thing; rather, it was so many different things wound up together that it wasn’t merely a question of “do I want this?” but instead “when do I want this?” For me, the when was now.
“What do you want?” Elijah asked, his voice smooth whiskey and honeyed secrets.
I rocked back on my heels and bounced up onto my feet. Reaching my hand out for him to take, I craned my head toward the king-sized bed in the corner of the room. “For starters, I want us to get comfortable.”
Elijah placed his hand in mine and let me pull him up and lead him silently across the room. When we reached the bed, his hand slid from mine, and he started to undo the black silk tie wound around his neck. When it was off, he wound it into a neat little ball and set it on my nightstand next to the lamp.
“You’re in charge, Oliver.” He turned back toward me and began undoing his left cuff, setting the small platinum bar that held the fabric together on my nightstand. “Whatever you want, I’m yours.”
I swallowed deeply, his vow shooting a jolt of pure lust and adrenaline straight to my cock. As a quarterback, I’d assumed a leadership role on all of the teams I’d played on, but it hadn’t ever occurred to me that calling the shots in the bedroom was something that I craved as well. How was it that I’d reached the ripe old age of thirty-two and not known this about myself? How had I let so much of my life go by assuming a passive role in my sexual gratification?
Briefly, I recalled a poster I’d seen in a store in our little downtown shopping district that said something about being the leading lady in your own damn life. Obviously, the gender roles were reversed here, but the sentiment remained the same. For too long, I’d been playing a supporting role.
“You don’t know how much I enjoy the sound of that.” I stepped closer and undid his other cuff, placing the monogrammed link beside its mate before returning to his shirt and slowly undoing the buttons down its front.
“Why don’t you tell me then?” He pulled a deep breath into his lungs as I slid the bottom button out through its hole and continued my descent.
With shaking fingers, I tugged on the leather of his belt until it slipped through its loops. “I want to strip you naked and explore your gorgeous fucking body.”
“How do you know it’s gorgeous?” he joked, hissing when I lowered his zipper. “I could be hideously deformed.”
I bent forward and kissed the spot behind his ear that I knew he liked, and then nipped his lobe between my teeth. “You’re not deformed,” I said, sucking the sting away.
“I could be.” His voice trembled as he spoke.
“In that case, so am I.” I stepped closer and pressed the solid length of my body against his so he could feel just how deformed I wasn’t. He was only a couple of inches shorter than me and about twenty pounds lighter, but our bodies fit perfectly together, all the best parts lining up in the exactly the right way.
“You’re beautiful, and you know it.” From the strain in his voice, I could tell he was fighting the inclination to reach out and grab hold of me.
Part of me wanted him to. It would be so fucking easy for me to let him take over, but it was precisely for that reason that I had to maintain control. For the first time in my life, I needed to be the one calling the shots in the bedroom. Especially with Elijah. I knew how hesitant he was about this, and if he felt for a minute like he was coercing me into doing something I wasn’t ready for, he’d back off.
I pushed his shirt off his shoulders and down his arms until the white cotton pooled on the floor at his feet. For the first time in my life, I stood back and openly admired another man’s body, letting my eyes drink their fill of his masculine beauty. Let the sculpted perfection of his ridged torso ratchet up my desire.