Page 62 of Top Shelf
I didn’t know how to answer that. I was a jock in high school. A bit of a loner, but I managed to fly under most people’s radars. I had crushes and did some dating. I had a core group of friends that I called my own. Friends that occasionally popped up on social media, especially after my name started hitting sports news headlines during hockey season.
But no one ever left a lasting impression on me. Not until that life was long gone.
“I wish I had answers for you.”
He nodded. “I wish the world made my kind of sense more often.” He sagged forward, letting his forehead press against the center of my chest. “This okay?”
I wrapped one hand around the back of the neck and pressed until he groaned and shuddered with relief. “It’s always okay. But we should probably pick a bedroom for you.”
“Not yours?” He looked up at me, pulling back slightly.
My breath stuttered in my chest. “Of course you can sleep in my bed. But your mom wants to come by, and she’ll want to see your room. So, unless you’re ready to tell her the truth…”
He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t like lying to her. It feels shitty. But I also don’t want her to know.” He went quiet for a beat, then asked, “When I’m feeling alone, can I sleep with you?”
“Yes.”
His lips quirked into a smile. “I’m feeling kind of alone right now.”
I couldn’t help my laugh. “Come on. We can get some of your things put away, and then I have an idea I think can help with that.”
He was sobbinginto the pillow, body writhing as best he could with a mostly immobile leg. It was all I could do to keep his hips from flying off the bed as I buried my tongue in his ass.
“Quinn, Quinn,please,” he said. I thought he said. His words were slurred and thick and muffled by the pillow, so it was hard to be sure. But I wanted him to be losing it on my name. I wanted him to be so profoundly aware that it was me doing this to him.
I hummed as I tongue-fucked him harder, deeper, my hand drifting between his legs and gently tracing his balls before taking his dick in my hand. It took four hard pulls to get him off,but I felt it when he stiffened. He spasmed around me, fucked his ass back against my face, then collapsed as he spilled.
His whole body trembled as he attempted to catch his breath, and then he began to squirm, and I knew it was from the mess beneath him.
This time, I’d had the foresight to put a towel down, so it only took a moment to whisk it out from under him, use the dry corner of it to wipe him clean, then toss it toward my laundry basket.
Ferris rolled against me, pressing his face hard into the center of my chest as he breathed in deep, then breathed out. “Hnng.”
“Too much?”
He clearly wasn’t ready for words. He shook his head, froze, then shrugged. Pressing four fingertips against his back, I traced solid lines across his spine until he pulled his head back, ready to speak. “I don’t think I can do that again for a while. Not…not often. It…there was…I feel…” He clenched his jaw and let out a frustrated whine. “Sorry.”
Tracing around his lips with two fingers, I shook my head. “I understand you.”
He swallowed heavily, then lay back down against me. “I’m not used to that.”
“Being understood?”
He nodded. “Sometimes I wonder if people are lying when they don’t get me. Sometimes I’m afraid people want to push me into communicating their way so they can have power over me.”
“Sounds like you’ve been through that before.”
He rubbed his nose over my pec as I dug fingers into his hair to hold him close. “Therapists, when I was little. I had some bad ones that used to punish me when I couldn’t be, you know, like everyone else.”
I held him a bit tighter, fighting off that old hockey-murder feeling I used to get when someone wronged one of my teammates. There was nothing more satisfying than watching them hit the ice after I smashed them into the boards.
But I couldn’t do that in the real world.
“I think most people gave up on me when I refused to be what they wanted me to be. The guys in Kappa, they’re not so bad. Some of them have been bad, but my friends aren’t.”
“The ones I met today?”
He nodded. “Mm. Colton is probably my best friend. He gets angry when people are mean to me. It’s funny because he’s mean to everyone else.” I stroked a touch along the back of his neck as he relaxed even more. “His boyfriend, Myles, is sweet. Anxious. He gets it. Gets me. Colton can be a lot, but he’s never made me feel weird about myself. Also, he likes my crochet animals.”
