Ruben rocked his hips back, and his foreskin slid forward again, dulling the intense, wet pleasure. “S’okay.”
Andy swallowed.
Part of him wanted to turn the lights on, so he could watch, and part was happy they were still hidden from each other. “I’m touching you, is all. Does that tickle?”
“Mmh-uh. No. But it’s extremely, uhh, sensitive.
Jesus
.”
“Tell me about it.” Ruben pushed his ridge back against Andy’s haunch. His damp skin pulled back, and his cock head burned with slithery pressure. The blunt snout squashed itself against firm muscle and liked it just fine.
“Ruben.” Andy’s voice lowered. “You’re gonna make me pop like that.”
“No way.”
A sharp intake of breath in the dark. “Yeah. Way.”
“Just petting your stomach.”
“And humping my butt cheek with your knob.” He chuckled.
The raw words made Ruben tense. His balls actually tightened a bit, and his shaft lost whatever flex had remained. “Filthy bastard.”
“Says the big hombre painting me with cocksnot.” Andy scooted up an inch, his ass flexing momentarily under Ruben’s erection.
Ruben was leaking in earnest now. The fabric was smeary between their skin. He scooted closer. “Uh huh.”
“For some kind of hands-free happy ending.” Andy looked down helplessly.
Ruben’s knee grazed the underside of Andy’s balls. “Feels okay though.”
“Yuh. Uh. Rube.” He hissed through his teeth. His heartbeat seemed concentrated in his ribs, right against Ruben’s.
Ruben squirmed in until his stubbled chin grazed Andy’s throat, and the floppy hair was crushed against his forehead. Ruben’s ragged breathing heated the trapped air there. “Nice.”
“Rube, I… God. Ruben, wait. I thought—”
He knew he should slow down, but to stop Andy’s protests he opened his mouth and closed his teeth over the cord of Andy’s throat, tasting the salty muscle.
Line crossed.
Andy arched. “Ah! Agh!” His rigid flesh bumped Ruben’s elbow as he ground the bulge behind his balls against Ruben’s knee, and Andy skinned awkwardly out of his shorts, working them down his legs, then dragged off Ruben’s.
Good.
Ruben scooted closer still, almost on top now, his cock so hard that the foreskin no longer covered the cap drilling into Andy’s thigh no matter how hard he thrust.
Andy groaned under his weight and rocked their hips together until their erections made clumsy, delicious contact. His powerful arms closed around Ruben’s back and squeezed.
Ruben stayed still as possible. Afraid to go further, but not willing to retreat. He laved Andy’s throat with his broad tongue, dragging his rough stubble across Andy’s.
“Zzh. Plea—” Andy wheezed and jerked under him as if electrocuted.
Ruben turned his head with deliberate languor. “What?” Millimeter by twitching millimeter he learned that this double sandpaper scour turned all Andy’s entreaties into shocked, spitty moans.
Andy twitched and gasped at the air. His downy forearms slipped over Ruben’s waist and ribs, struggling for purchase until they lay on their sides and finally Ruben ended up on his back looking up at Andy with their dorks jammed together at an angle. “Oso.” He stroked Ruben’s chest.
“’Sup.” Ruben wiped his wet mouth. He could feel his precum drizzling and gliding between them.
Andy looked down. The glitter of his eyes went dark. “Uhh.”
“What? No one can see.”
“I know. I want to. God, Ruben. What you feel like.” Using both hands, he encircled their erections, squeezing them together. Ruben’s extra skin slipped easily between them. “I don’t know how.”
“This is okay, huh? Like that. Just to see. We don’t need the light to find out.”
“I know. I just want to look at all of you, man. In my bed and ready. I want to see you.” Andy’s soft voice sounded ragged, but he kept milking their cocks with steady, sleazy pressure.
But before Andy could trigger the lights or hit the lamp, Ruben rolled across him and crushed their mouths together, pushing his tongue into Andy’s wet mouth. Even more light felt like too much, too fast.
Baby steps.
Andy sighed under his weight, and his arm wrapped around Ruben’s back. He pressed their cheeks together. Sandpaper. He licked Ruben’s earlobe and chewed lightly at it.
Ruben almost blacked out. His ears had always been his weak spot. Touching, licking, biting… all sent him over the edge. Made him crazy. His breath came fast and frantic. His hands hovered, shaking, over Andy’s back. Where to put them? His eyes widened, and finally he pulled Andy’s skull closer. “That. That. Oh my God.”
Totally different being this close to a man. Different everything.
First Ruben had known too little, and now he knew too much.
Andy pulled back slowly. “Good to know.” In the dark his smile was a shifting shadow and his eyes barely a twinkle.
Going slow made it better and worse. He didn’t feel out of control, but he could feel the slow, inevitable ratcheting of tension like a car climbing-climbing to the top of a rollercoaster, flirting with the plunge. Only without seatbelts.
Andy’s body strained against his, short circuiting his brain. His rough fingers pulled Andy closer. Even in the dark, the clean, strong angles of him felt right in Ruben’s arms. His cock was granite. The raw slip of his foreskin drilled his knob into Andy’s abdominal ridges.
“Rube, I can’t. I’m—”
“Unph.” Ruben growled and covered Andy’s lips with his own and made a sound of relief and assent.
Give it all up, gimme everything.
His heels pushed into the creamy sheets and drove their hips together with urgent finality. Ruben strained and struggled against Andy’s perfect flesh, out of control and under Andy’s power. “I can’t take—” He pushed his hand below Andy’s waist, cupping one round cheek and dragging Andy against his front. With nowhere to go, their hard cocks knocked together with electrifying pressure. They pushed toward each other, trying to eliminate the space that separated them.
Ruben growled and held Andy’s mouth against his, tasting the sweet slide of his tongue. He ran one hand down Andy’s spine until two fingers brushed the top of his crack.
At that, Andy’s mouth closed on his throat and up to his ears again. Sucking and biting at him with slobbery ferocity. For once all of Andy’s polish and reserve had melted away, exposing the male animal underneath.
Andy ran a light hand over his haunch.
Ruben stiffened and rolled away, trying to seem casual about it. What if Andy wanted to fuck him? They were two guys; guys fuck things. He hadn’t considered that wrinkle. He wet his lips and focused on not freaking.
Ruben felt like a jerk for thinking it, but he couldn’t change who he was. He wanted Andy, and maybe one day it wouldn’t seem scary, but he was old enough to know how he was wired.
Pushing Ruben’s legs apart, Andy knelt between them, panting and frantic. He poked at Ruben’s hole, hard enough that the fingertip went in for a second.
Whoa, there.
Ruben’s ass felt exposed, and stupid nerves got hold of him. “Easy, wonderbread.” He sat forward. He hadn’t expected it, and though it hadn’t hurt, it had felt weird as hell. “I’m full up on firsts tonight.”
“Sorry.” Andy paused and retracted his hand. The gold fluff on his forearms caught the dim light. He shook his head. “Not that. I wanna—” A quick kiss. A hand brushed across Ruben’s chest hair. “I didn’t mean to freak you out, Oso.”
“You didn’t. I mean it.” Ruben nodded. “You surprised me. I’m not freaked. Maybe later. Okay?” The words felt like a lie. He knew he was a shitbag for stalling like that; he couldn’t imagine ever letting anyone inside him like that, but then again a month ago he couldn’t have imagined lying next to his boss smeared with their precum.
Sleeping dogs lie.
“I don’t think I can. Do too much. Right now, I mean. Sorry.”
“No.” Still breathing hard, Andy hesitated a moment before smiling. “Let’s see how it goes, huh?” If he was disappointed he hid it well.
Ruben could still feel the odd hollow spike of sensation of the tip inside him, which had to be imaginary. He put his own hand down there. He’d never felt his butt before. Never thought of that part of his body as something sensitive or shareable. Covering the hole with his cupped fingers seemed childish, somehow especially with everything they’d done already. “It didn’t feel bad.”
“But it didn’t feel good, either.” Andy blinked, contrite. “There aren’t rules, man.”
“I’m not—Andy, you surprised me is all. It’s my butt, y’know.” Did he? Ruben took a shaking breath.
Fooling around, fooling around.
Only his cock didn’t know the difference.
“Hard to know where the boundaries are.” Andy crossed his arms tightly. “You seem to like mine. And lord knows I liked the stuff you did.” He cough-snorted.
“Just need a breather. This is—”
Too weird.
Ruben gripped Andy’s hard flesh apologetically and the crown bulged in his palm.
Andy nodded. “I don’t have all that much experience with butt stuff. I got the feeling you dug it.”
Ruben glanced down at the jut of muscle, and the light down between those high cheeks. “Mmh.” He nodded.
“You can touch me, man. If you want. ’Cause I do.” Andy swallowed. “Want to. Want you to.” He bent one knee and slid it higher as if offering his muscular ass.
“I can’t help myself. That fuckin’ skin. I just—”
Andy shook his head and frowned to himself.
Ruben wavered between lust and panic. “I’m an asshole.”
Andy rested his brow against the side of Ruben’s skull a moment. “No, Oso. What you are is a good man with bad manners.” He rolled their heads together. “Thank Christ.”
“Next time.”
“Don’t care. Not a little, even. I’m so glad you’re finally in my bed.” Another kiss, sucking at Ruben’s lower lip and then the ear again.
Jesus.
Ruben groaned and squirmed but exposed himself to the delirious assault. “Bauer, I haven’t made out since I was about thirteen.”
Andy rocked back and shook his head slowly. “Fuckin’ shame, that.” His hair was in his eyes.
Ruben pushed it back, smoothing it. “We’re not kids anymore.”
“No kidding.” Andy squeezed their dicks together in his hand. “You’re practically middle-aged.”
“Fuck you. Forty-one is not middle-aged. I’m not that much older than you. What, two years?”
“And a half. Those are two very important years, I’ll have you know.”
“I’m not your daddy.” Ruben felt freaky saying it. And that freakiness made being in bed like this feel even freakier.
“Stop. Hey.” Andy punched him in the side. “I’m not in this bed because of Sigmund Freud.”
“Good. Ow.” Ruben rubbed the ribs. “That was uncalled for.”
They were both nervous then. Good.
Andy shifted to his side. “I didn’t mean to jump you. You got me worked up.”
Ruben tilted his head to look at the eyes glittering at him. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Not true. You slept hard.” Andy coughed and shifted. “I saw you.”
“Yeah?” Ruben propped his head on a hand and squinted skeptically. “You watched me?”
“Of course I did. I like watching you. No new information.”
True enough.
Andy murmured to himself, a thinking sound.
Lying on his back, Ruben felt exposed and relaxed both. He rubbed his stomach, painfully aware of his wee-hour wood and the sexual frustration that had made the past month so excruciating. “Did I do anything interesting I should know about?”
“Plenty.” Andy bent one knee and scratched his tousled hair, unleashing the cowlick that always made Ruben grin.
Ruben could just make out the stiff lump under the sheet. His own erection kept that from being embarrassing. His mouth had gone dry and, for a few heartbeats, he tried to swallow. When he managed to speak, his voice came out as a rasp. “And you?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you do anything interesting?” Ruben asked. “That I should know about?”
Andy shook his tangled head. “Just looked my fill while I had the chance.”
Ruben knew they were both waiting for permission, but from who, he couldn’t say. “Awful polite.”
Andy cleared his throat. “It’s only—I love watching you do anything. Handsome.”
“Shut up.”
“But sleeping, your defenses come down and I can see all of you.”
“Yeah. Uhh. That’s creepy.” But he grinned at the notion of Andy liking his blunt mug.
“I don’t mean like that. It’s…. You aren’t hiding. No posing. Just you without a wall.”
“Or a skin.” Ruben rolled his eyes.
Andy laughed. “Okay. Yeah. I guess.” He nudged Ruben’s chest. “But you’re always gonna be stronger than me. When you’re sleeping is the only time I feel like I have a chance to watch over you, protect you.”
Ruben didn’t reply. Couldn’t have if he wanted. His eyes pricked and he felt about five years old. Not once had he ever enjoyed someone watching him like that or thought they would. Never in his life had he wanted to be protected. With Marisa, he’d known what he was supposed to do because he’d spent his whole life practicing: job, wife, kids.
Now, he’d wandered off the path without any kind of map or advice. After all, they were both men. Two guys with two lives. And no matter what anyone pretended, none of this was simply experimenting, or getting off or even blowing off kinky steam.
Everything felt different.
Ruben had always figured queers were wired wrong, that being a homosexual was like being a lefty or color-blind.
Just… wrong.
Only, he hadn’t rewired anything, and the rightness had overwhelmed him. He was still a drunk and a screw-up who missed his family and wanted a beer. These feelings seemed like the opposite of color-blindness. Whatever color shone in Andy had been invisible to him until he finally saw, and no amount of explaining would ever make anyone else understand what felt so obvious now.
Andy sat back. “Sorry.”
“For what?” Ruben looked up and realized Andy had taken his silence for distaste. This time he reached for the lamp, clicking it on. The sudden brightness made them both squint. “Why would you be sorry?” Without stopping to question, he twisted and pressed their lips together.
Andy inhaled sharply, and then his mouth softened.