THE laundry room was on the first floor, and since I had only one set of sheets, which he found ridiculous, I made him run them down, with quarters and Tide, to wash them.
He wasn’t sure where the detergent went, as he himself had never done his own laundry, so I ended up having to go do that, and he got to unfunk my bedroom.
“What?” He looked confused.
“It reeks of sex in there. Open the windows and use the Febreze.”
He made a face.
“Or you can just leave.”
Operation Clean Air commenced immediately.
Matt called a bit after midnight and said he wasn’t coming home; he was spending the night with some girl he had met at the party. Apparently her roommate was out of town. I told him to have a good time and hung up.
“Got the place to ourselves,” Carson grinned at me after I told him, and I was powerless to not smile back.
As we waited for the sheets to dry, we sat together in the living room, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with Fritos, drinking milk, talking and watching Animal Planet. People were looking for Bigfoot.
“What’s your plant gonna do again?”
I turned to look at him. “Save the world.”
“And you know how to do this?”
“Not yet.” I chuckled. “That’s why I’m studying to be a botanist and a geneticist and an engineer all in one.”
“I see,” he teased me. “So you’re real smart, then.”
I laughed at him. “Sometimes.”
He tackled me and hugged me so tight I couldn’t breathe. But air was less important than being clutched to his heart.
We danced around my apartment and he was terrible, looked like he was having a seizure, and that brought on a fit of debilitating laughter that left me bent over and wheezing. The scowl I got just made it start all over again.
“You’re mean,” he told me.
I had to suck in air.
“Really mean.”
But when I leaped at him, I was caught, and having me in his lap seemed to make everything better. All was forgiven.
“So,” he said later, very early in the morning. We were still on the couch, watching Law & Order at that point, snuggled up tight together under a blanket. “I wanna see you.”
“How are you gonna do that?”
“Walk over here.” He squinted at me as if I was dumb, pulling me in tighter against him.
“You can’t do that. Everyone knows I’m gay. If they see me, they’ll know you’re hanging with a gay guy. Do you wanna get drafted? I thought you weren’t gonna hurt yourself or—”
“I like your lips,” he cut me off while rising over me and shoving me down under him.
“Well, I like yours, too, but this—Carson!”
The kiss was fun, and I was laughing as I returned it. His hands went right under my sweats to my ass, groping and kneading as he shoved his tongue down my throat.
“I’m sore,” I told him, even though I knew I could easily go again. “You—”
He stopped, frozen over me, his eyes scared, his face worried. “Really?”
“No.” I smiled, reaching for him. “Not really.”
“Oh thank God.” He brightened, resuming his activity, starting with kissing me until I had to pull away to breathe.
“You’re a great kisser,” I told him.
The very satisfied male grunt was his only comment.
“Been told that a lot, have you?”
“Some,” he said, and I realized he was more intent on kissing me again than in talking. I smiled as he recaptured my mouth, his hands all over me, knee between my thighs.
“You feel so good,” he murmured, pulling the sweats off, hands running over my skin as he bent and licked over the inside of my right thigh. “So soft and smooth and oh….”
His lips were back on my cock, and my words were a garbled mess by the time he was sucking and fondling my balls and had a slicked, lubed finger in my ass.
The lube and condom had come with him from the bedroom and been stuffed in the side of the couch cushion. He had both hands under my thighs, supporting me as I sat in some weird frog position, almost seated, and his cock slid in and out of me from behind.
“Your skin is so hot,” he growled before he bit down into my shoulder, stroking slowly this time, enjoying the glide of his cock in my still-stretched hole.
I was holding onto the side of the couch, my knuckles white as he began increasing his speed and the force of each thrust.
“I have a game next Sunday, after Christmas.”
He wanted to talk about that now? “You have a huge game next Sunday.”
“Yeah. It’s in Arizona.”
“I know that, I… oh,” I gasped.
“Feel good?”
“Why are we talk—”
“Drive out,” he answered, his voice a low, sexy rumble as a hand closed around my cock, using the dripping precome to stroke me with. “I want you in the stands. I wanna know you’re there. I’ll get you a ticket for the game.”
“I can’t go to—fuck!”
“Yes, you can,” he told me, surging inside of me, harder, faster.
I started to shake because he felt so good, and my head fell back onto his shoulder as I let go, spurting over his hand, his fingers, convulsing with my third orgasm of the night.
“God, you’re so hot,” he moaned in my ear as he throbbed inside of me, and only then did I realize what we’d done, what step had been missed. I was frightened even as a sensation I had never experienced before drowned everything else. Instantly I understood what the best part of monogamy could be. Hot liquid was being pumped furiously into me, and it felt amazing. I was vibrating with excitement and terrified at the same exact time.
“Pull out,” I demanded weakly.
“Can’t,” he barely managed in answer, plastering his balls to my ass, trying to push in just that much deeper. “I want this.”
Other guys had begged me to bareback, but no one ever presented me with documented evidence that it was safe. But Carson Cress—I worshipped him from afar, he inhabited my fantasies—and so him I allowed to claim a piece of me no one else had.
“It’s okay,” he promised, arms wrapped around me, my back pressed to his chest. “We get tested all the time, have to. I’m not sick, baby, I swear. I’ll show you… I’ll show you.”
My relief, coupled with my orgasm, shredded any emotional control I had left. I bit down hard on my lip so the sob didn’t escape.
“I’ve got you.” His breath was warm on my ear. “Baby, I’ve got you. Let it out. Lemme hear you.”
But I couldn’t, not completely. Instead I trembled as fluid came seeping out of me, making the inside of my thighs sticky and slick, the mess we’d made together so intimate. Normally a washcloth would wipe it all away, but this, him coating my insides, my muscles clamping down on him, milking him, both of us buzzing with the feel of skin on skin, was all uncharted territory.
“I never….”
“Yeah, I figured from your reaction,” he whispered huskily. “Glad it was me.”
“It’s not safe.”
“It is safe, but only with me. I haven’t been with anyone in almost seven months, and there were only two girls before that. I’ve been tested since then, even though there wasn’t anybody.”
“Promise?”
“I have it on my computer at the house. I’ll e-mail it to you, but really, it’s okay.”
I took a breath.
“I won’t ever hurt you.”
But it was pretty easy to see that if I let him, he could break my heart.