That’s not all I was feeling, though. I mean, you can only sustain for so long, especially when the guy is that handsome and his mouth that talented. Pressure started to rise in my gut, and the muscles in my thighs tensed and relaxed and tensed again. A couple of times, I would have shot if I hadn’t forced myself to slow down and halfway pull out. Ben gave me what I needed, letting me slide my saliva-slick shaft out of him, and then taking me fully when I was ready to go again. Then, the third or fourth time he brought me to the edge, he opened his mouth to release me fully.

“You ready to fuck me?” His voice was raspy, and a long silver string of spit connected the tip of my dick to his lower lip.

“Yeah,” I said. “If you want it.”

He laughed then, and things had been so intense for so long, so serious in this low, slow-burning way, that the sound released a tension I didn’t even know I held. “No worries there, Oliver. I want it. I want it pretty fucking bad.”

God, I loved that. I loved that he’d just say things like that. It clicked for me in that moment that he was okay being freaky, okay sucking dick, even okay submitting to the very public hickey-giving ceremony because of something he’d said earlier: he was older than all of us, and had probably seen shit none of us could even imagine. What did he have to lose by being himself, by throwing himself into the things he wanted to experience?

I could learn a lot from a guy like that.

“All right, then. Do, uh…” If he could be confident, I could, too! I shook off my nerves, that sense of exposure, the fear that this would end in humiliation. “Do you have a condom?”

“Oh, man. Just like a top, making the bottom supply the rubbers.”

“I have some. They’re just…upstairs.” In my room, in a drawer under my bed. Where they’d sat since that raggedy attempt at a rebound a few months ago. “I’d go get them, but…” I waved helplessly at my boner.

“No worries. I was just fooling with you. Get off me a second?”

I did, swinging my leg over him and pressing myself into the corner of his twin bed, taking up the least amount of space my long limbs would allow. Once free of my weight, he raised his hips and wrestled out of his briefs. We’d been skin-to-skin for several minutes now, kissing and touching each other in the most intimate ways imaginable, but this last gesture, him actually removing his last garment, got me a little emotional. Like, we’d only been almost together, but now we were together-together. It’s hard to explain. Anyway, his underwear got caught on his left foot as he tried to remove it, and he grinned and struggled for a second until he managed to wrangle out. Fucking fascinating to watch, and funny, and hot. Just like him.

Once he’d shed the briefs completely, I took him in. He’d revealed another tattoo, a small, clean triangle inked near his hip. His dick was nice and thick, with a bullet-shaped head, and if he hadn’t already made it crystal clear that he was ready to fuck, I would have done my best to take it down my throat. He was already moving again, though, rolling onto his side and reaching for a drawer—the same place I kept my sex stuff, actually—and rummaging around until he fished out a long string of foil-wrapped condoms and a small squirt bottle. It had Slippery Stuff written on the side in a fancy font, just in case I was tempted to start taking things too seriously.

“Here,” he said, handing me the condoms.

“Thanks.” I grabbed them, tore off a single packet, then dropped the rest behind me. I ripped it open with my teeth, fished out the little latex sheathe, and started to roll it on. “Slippery Stuff?”

He grinned, squirting a little mound of the gel in his hand. “Yeah! It’s a goofy name, but it’s actually really good. Like, for sensitive skin.” Even as he spoke, he rose to his knees and reached behind himself.

“Do you have sensitive skin?” I held out my own hand, palm up, and he squirted another couple of pumps into it. I began slicking up the condom.

“I have sensitive everything, Ol.” He blinked several times, as if he were fighting back tears. “That’s why it hurt so much when you were being mean to me.”

“Shut up,” I said, my mouth stretching into a grin. “Here, turn around?”

He did, awkwardly, the way you do when there are two grown men sharing a bed that’s too small for them. He had an intricately-inked tree—a willow, I think, with long-reaching roots—on his shoulder. I kissed it as I reached down, massaging the lube into his hole. The second I touched him, he arched his back, and as my finger slipped inside him, he made a sound that was nearly a purr. “Seriously, though,” he said finally. “Isn’t this nicer than how we were before?”

“A lot nicer,” I said, curling my finger inside him, then kissing the nape of his neck. “Is this okay?”

“It’s great.”

“Not too hard?”

He laughed. “We’re about a dozen miles away from too hard. I’ll let you know if you get close.”

Was that a challenge? I decided to take it as one. “All right.” I slid another finger in, and he clenched around me. “You feel really good. Warm.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I run hot.”

“So I can’t take credit for that?”

“Some, maybe. I’m definitely feeling hotter now than I was before you started fingering me.”

I kissed him again, this time longer and slower, on the side of his neck I hadn’t already marked. I even sucked a little, which made him gasp and flex his hole, though I was careful not to leave a bruise this time. By now, I was so hard for him I hurt. It was fine to kiss his neck and play with his ass, to make him whimper and shudder. But it was all an act. I was barely hanging on myself. “Ready to kick it up a notch?”

“Yeah,” he whispered. “Hey, sit down. Back against the wall. I want to ride you.”

“Yeah?” That sounded pretty hot, actually, and—with my moderate amount of experience—I’d never tried it before. With…with you-know-who…we’d always done doggy or missionary, and I guess I’d sort of just let those positions become my default. What Ben was suggesting wasn’t wild or freaky by any stretch, but it was another example of him pointing out a new horizon.