Rye held Charlie as he cried. He was glad Charlie was finally crying. He was afraid Charlie might never stop crying. He was afraid that when Charlie did stop crying, he’d be embarrassed and push Rye away. People did that sometimes. Rye certainly had.
But although Charlie’s weeping was raw and heaving, he was graceful in the aftermath.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, and scrubbed hands over his face. “Guess that didn’t turn out quite how you imagined?”
He pressed his face to Rye’s neck. The opposite of pulling away.
In fact, it wasn’t so far off from what Rye had imagined. Yeah, okay, he’d kinda imagined jerking him off afterward, but who cared what he imagined. Reality was so much better.
Because Charlie Matheson wasn’t a Boy Scout. He wasn’t Mr. Perfect. And he wasn’t a goody-goody. Charlie Matheson was an adult who’d never gotten to be a child, and Charlie Matheson was finally mad about it.
Good.
“It turned out exactly how I wanted,” Rye said.
Charlie snorted.
Rye’d never had much luck with offering people comfort. He’d never felt he had much to offer, period. But here, now, holding Charlie in his arms as he fell apart, Rye had felt like he was exactly where he should be—where he needed to be.
Rye pressed them tightly together and tucked the blanket around them, cocooning them in the same atmosphere. He pressed kisses to Charlie’s cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He pressed a kiss to the corner of his eye.
“I’m a bad boyfriend,” he told Charlie in a rush. “Ask anyone. I’ve never been good. But I... I don’t know. I could try. If you...if...if you wanted.”
Rye scowled harder than he’d ever scowled at himself in the mostly dark. Mush, mush, mush!
Charlie cupped the back of his head.
“I cry like a baby and tell you I’ve wasted my life and that’s what makes you wanna be my boyfriend? Your standards need work, Janssen.”
But his voice was soft and rough, and his fingers on the back of Rye’s head were so tender. He brought Rye’s hand to his lips and kissed his fingertips.
“I disagree that you’ve wasted your life. And I can think of a couple of people who’d agree with me,” Rye murmured. He pressed kisses to Charlie’s cheekbones and his beard. “I thought maybe...we could start nonwasting them together. If you wanted. What’s the opposite of waste? Conserve? That’s not what I meant.”
“Build.” Charlie said it with such certainty that Rye felt the word like a lift in his stomach. “Build our lives together?”
His lips were a whisper against Rye’s ear that made him shiver.
Rye reached for him and twined his arms around his neck. When they kissed it felt like sealing a deal.
A promise written in breath.
They kissed until the air between them was hot and they were pressed together everywhere. Rye ran a hand down Charlie’s muscular back and cupped his glorious ass, pulling him closer.
Charlie gasped at the touch. Rye had forgotten about his spanked-hot skin. But Charlie was hard against him, so Rye scratched lightly over the plump of his ass with his fingernails. Charlie groaned.
“Does it feel good?”
“I...yeah.”
Rye squeezed again and Charlie shuddered.
Rye reached over and turned off the lamp, plunging them into darkness.
“You feel so good,” he told Charlie softly, rolling his hips as he scratched across Charlie’s other ass cheek. He felt rather than heard Charlie’s gasp.
“So do you,” Charlie murmured. “Kiss me?”
Rye kissed him and kissed him and kissed him. They moved without purpose, hands roaming for the sheer pleasure of learning one another.
Rye kissed along Charlie’s neck to his ear and bit his earlobe. Charlie gasped and his cock throbbed against Rye’s stomach. Without thinking, Rye gave Charlie’s ass a swat from beneath the covers. There wasn’t much power behind it, but when his palm connected, Charlie let out a sound Rye had never heard from him before. A desperate, needy sound that made Rye want to give him anything he wanted. Anything at all.
Charlie’s breathing was heavy. Rye spanked him again. Again, that sound. And this time, Charlie slung his leg over Rye’s hip, cocks grinding together. He tipped his head back like he couldn’t get enough breath.
Rye pinched one of Charlie’s nipples and Charlie writhed. Rye squeezed his nipple at the same time as he spanked Charlie again and Charlie started to shake.
“Rye,” he gasped.
“Yeah,” Rye whispered, but Charlie didn’t say anything except Rye’s name again and again.
Rye swallowed his own name on Charlie’s tongue, kissing him deeply. He ground their hips together, and groaned at the feel of Charlie’s erection against his own. Feeling him like this—needy and open and there—was intoxicating.
“This okay?” Rye asked.
“Mmf, yesss.”
“Feel so good,” Rye murmured again. “Just tell me if—”
Charlie shut him up with another kiss, deep and searching.
“Okay, but just tell me if there’s anything you—”
“Don’t make me think about it, just keep going.”
Charlie kissed him fiercely and Rye obliged. He’d give Charlie whatever he needed.
Rye pushed the blanked down and hiked Charlie’s thigh higher, exposing him. His palm landed hard on the meat of Charlie’s ass, fingers catching his crack. Charlie let out a shuddering gasp and clutched Rye tighter to him. When Rye ran his fingernails over the tender skin he’d just spanked, Charlie hissed and bit at his jaw.
Rye ran a finger between Charlie’s cheeks and over the tender skin of his hole. Charlie’s breath caught and Rye went back to spanking him. He’d spank his ass two or three times, then run a gentle finger over his hole. After a few minutes of this, Charlie had his face buried in Rye’s neck and was clutching Rye like a stuffed animal. It was fucking adorable. It was searingly hot.
Rye had first had sex at fourteen and he’d never been with someone who hadn’t had a lot of sex. But seeing Charlie experience sex for the first time—even as fraught as it was for him—was something Rye would never forget.
He’d never thought of sex as anything but physical pleasure, or sometimes, with certain people, as an expression of intimacy. The depth of Charlie’s feeling was moving. It was...humbling. It said: I am letting you affect me. I am letting you into the parts of me that I have never shared with anyone—not even myself.
“Charlie,” Rye whispered, and kissed him, wanting to give some of Charlie’s beauty back to him.
They fed each other’s breath and spit and heat and merged closer and closer. With a cracking spank, Charlie whimpered and thrust against Rye, and heat exploded between them. Charlie’s orgasm was a choked-off yell and a full body shudder as his hips stuttered.
He was breathing so hard that Rye wondered if he was crying again, but when he cupped his face his cheeks were dry. Charlie was looking at him in the darkness even though they couldn’t quite see each other.
When Charlie reached for him, Rye thought he’d once more be held like a favored stuffed animal or a particularly tolerant cat, so Charlie’s tug on his hair shocked him. He’d forgotten about himself or his own pleasure—forgotten he even had a body in his concentration on Charlie’s.
Now he blasted back into his own skin and felt how hard he was, how heavy and aching. Charlie tugged his hair again and Rye let himself feel all of it. In his head he chanted Charlie’s name to the beat of his heart. Char-lie, Char-lie, Char-lie.
His heart pounded and his breath came faster and faster as he lost himself. All it took was one more sharp tug on his hair and grind of his hard cock against Charlie’s muscular thigh, and Rye tipped over the edge, his aching cock exploding as he dissolved into a starburst of pleasure.
They breathed in silence for what seemed like forever and only a heartbeat and then Charlie breathed, “Wow.”
It was heartfelt and worshipful and lovely, and Rye dissolved into giggles.
Charlie pulled back.
“No, no, sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh,” Rye laughed.
Charlie snorted and scritched Rye’s scalp.
After a minute, Rye said, “Wanna take a shower?”
Charlie hesitated. Rye tried very hard not to feel hurt. He had seen firsthand how difficult all this was for Charlie.
“Doesn’t have to be together.”
Charlie pulled away.
“I’m sorry I didn’t...”
He shook his head.
“Hmm?”
“I didn’t... I didn’t touch you.”
“My dick? I don’t care.” He’d shot for casual but thought he might’ve hit dismissive when Charlie recoiled. Fuck. “I just mean—what I meant was that was great. It was perfect. You were hot as fuck and I loved every minute of it.”
Rye wished so badly that he could see Charlie’s face, but he didn’t want to startle him by turning the light on.
“Do you promise?”
Charlie wasn’t one for casual promises. When Charlie said promise, it was blood and bone and pain.
Rye fumbled for Charlie’s hand and squeezed it.
“I swear.”
“Okay. Good.”
There were a hundred questions Rye wanted to ask about how it was for Charlie, but it obviously wasn’t the moment. Meanwhile, he had Charlie’s come all over his stomach and his own come in his underwear, and soon he was going to be pretty uncomfortable.
“I’m gonna take a shower,” Rye said. He kissed Charlie softly on the mouth and left him in bed.
The hot water poured over Rye’s shoulders and wet his hair, and he closed his eyes and breathed. The oozy, mushy place in his stomach had expanded to the size of a lake that threatened to swallow him. He was all mush now. Made of ooze, that was Rye Janssen. Ooze for Charlie Matheson.
He was in the middle of picturing himself as a bay when the bathroom door opened.
Charlie raised an eyebrow and Rye opened the glass door for him.
He wanted to search every inch of Charlie’s face for the answers to questions he hadn’t asked, but Charlie looked a little shy and was blinking against the light.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hey.”
Rye pulled him under the spray and they drifted together, warm and slick. It was the first time they’d both been naked at the same time and Rye reminded himself that Charlie had given this a thumbs-up on his list. He squeezed soap onto the shower puff and traced Charlie’s muscular form in suds.
Charlie hauled him in, catching him in a tight hug.
“Thank you,” he whispered, only just audible above the water.
“Thank you,” Rye said, letting his arms come around Charlie.
“What are you saying thank you for?” Charlie asked, and Rye caught himself before he could laugh again.
Instead he shot Charlie a look that might be a glare when it grew up, but was now just a look that said, You make me say all the dorky, smushy stuff that’s supposed to go unsaid.
But wasn’t that Charlie, through and through? No assumptions with Charlie. No vagaries. No empty, scripted exchanges. Even his Can I help you with anything today? at the store was heartfelt.
“For making me feel good. And...for trusting me I guess,” Rye said. “I know it was hard for you and I... It means a lot to me.”
Charlie stroked down his spine and gave him a squeeze.
“Well what did you mean, then?” Rye asked, frowning at the suds running down the drain.
“I...you know,” Charlie said.
Rye was going to let him off the hook. But Charlie tipped Rye’s chin up and looked him right in the eyes. Charlie’s eyes were shadowed and puffy from crying and there was a pillow crease in his right cheek. He was the most gorgeous person Rye had ever seen.
“Tell me,” Rye whispered.
“Thank you for wanting to be with me,” Charlie said, proving that previously Rye had not been entirely composed of mush, because he got mushier. “Even if you are a bad boyfriend,” he said, with a wry little smile. “I guess I’ll take what I can get.”
Rye glared at him.
“Asshole,” he said. Then, “Wait, what?”
“I want to try,” Charlie said.
Rye felt the smile spread wide, wider. A grin. He was standing naked in the shower, grinning like a fool.