18. “I gave thee mine before thou didst request it”

18

"I gave thee mine before thou didst request it"

Then

The second year of college was better than the first, but I still spent my time with one foot in Ohio and the other in Alabaster. I canceled plans and left debaucherous nights early to ensure I was in a quiet place where I could hear Romeo talking when he called. He still called all the time. Every day. It was the same as always, but it was different for me. The way I felt about him had started to hurt. I missed him in a way that left me in physical pain, chest ripped open, heart beating his name. I lay awake in bed, twisted and turned inside out at the thought of being in his body then and being away from him now. I thought of nothing else.

I was obsessed.

I lived for his calls. His husky voice. His soft, throaty laugh.

I was still the one he called when he was happy or sad, stressed or confused. I was the one he needed, and I loved it .

"Jesus Christ, Jude. The worst has happened. They want me to go to Waukegan. For fun."

They were Sean and Kellie. They'd grown tired of small-town life and had started looking for opportunities to venture to nearby cities every chance they got.

"They're already there. They've skipped their classes for the rest of the week and said I should drive up on Friday night and join them. Friday fucking night? I mean, are they insane? I have no idea where I'm going or what it will be like other than I presume traffic will be hell and the entire place will be full of fucking people. And that's people I don't know, not just regular people. Regular people are bad enough." His voice lilted up an octave or two. "I mean, I-I don't even know what the parking situation will be like. Be realistic, people," he all but wailed, "I'm not going anywhere if I don't know what the parking situation is like."

I laughed at his theatrics, and when I hung up, I did some research and dropped a pin to the parking lot nearest to where he'd been invited and sent it to him.

He replied right away.

You're the best person I know, Tiger.

My heart expanded in my chest. Swelling and filling rapidly with every good thing I'd ever felt. I lay back on my bed and held my phone to my heart, smiling like a raving idiot, telling myself that things had changed for him too, conveniently ignoring the fact it was the same thing he'd said to me countless times before.

By the time summer finally rolled around, I all but floated home to Alabaster, carried by nothing but the beating wings of my foolish heart.

Romeo and I danced around each other for the first couple of weeks, spending every waking minute together but keeping our clothes on. It was torture. It was heaven and hell. It was so good to be near him that I went to bed most nights with a sweet taste in my mouth. It was agony too. Every casual touch, every chest bump, every shoulder shove set me alight.

I waited for him to make a move, too afraid to do it myself in case I overplayed my hand and showed Romeo I only had one card. The king of hearts. And he was it.

By the time he finally made his move, I was sure I was seconds from death. The torment of sexual desire and love that had nowhere to land had both had their way with me.

My phone pinged, and I nearly levitated when I saw his message. I forced myself to read it three times before I let myself believe it.

So, is it my turn to fuck again, or what ?

No man alive has ever typed faster.

Yes. Your turn.

It was like before. He came to me in my room late at night and we took turns bottoming. Me, then him. Me, then him.

I guess I'm one of those people who only bottoms for love. I must be because I've never bottomed for anyone but Romeo. I haven't wanted to. I did it for him, and I loved it because it was something we did together. Him and me. I liked the sensation, it's not that I didn't, and Jesus, the O s were amazing, but for me, being inside Romeo was what I craved above everything else. And I really do mean everything else. I'm not talking about small things. I'm talking water and air. Shelter and breathing. Those kinds of things.

Sliding into him and feeling his body give way to accommodate me made me believe in magic. It made me believe I could fly, that mythical creatures and winged beasts were real, and I was The One who could tame them. It made me believe Romeo and I were the unsung heroes of our generation, the main characters in an epic fantasy saga. When my dick was inside him, and we were moving together, I truly believed we had the kind of love sonnets were written about .

At the same time, the uncertainty was agony, pure pain and anguish. The wait from one fuck to the next was the sweetest form of torture I've ever known. I wanted him all the time, so it seemed only sane to wait for him to make the first move. I thought of nothing else. I couldn't sleep, and when I did, I dreamed of Romeo bucking against me, moaning my name, falling apart in my arms. I woke up burning worse than when I fell asleep.

The day in question was a Tuesday. It was daytime. It had been four days since he'd bottomed for me, and it was my turn to take it. I'd woken up edgy and was waiting for him to come to me with an intensity that had mass. I could feel it in my bones and under my skin. The anticipation. The nervous excitement. I had a feeling that day was the day. Three or four days was about how long he seemed to go before he came back for more.

I thought I'd have to wait hours and hours until nighttime for any hope of anything happening, but Romeo came over to my place late morning. That wasn't unusual. It was normal for us to sleep in and then meet up at his place or mine for coffee and breakfast. What wasn't normal about that day was how Romeo looked when he arrived at our front door. He stood at the threshold, pausing and leaning against the doorway until I got up to check what was keeping him. His chin was drawn down and he looked up at me through thick, dark lashes. His jaw muscle tensed slightly, changing the shape of his face from sweet boy to sex.

"You coming in, or wha—" The word was cut in half by a flick of glass-bottle blue that hit me in the back of my throat.

He didn't answer. He just looked at me and then nodded slowly, kicking the front door closed behind him as he sauntered in. Something about him was different. I could tell. He was feline and sensual, letting his gaze roam down my body with no shame and no attempt to hide it. It unnerved me, but man, I liked it. He paused at my navel, teeth scraping over the swell of his bottom lip before releasing it, and then he tilted his head and let them travel lower.

I was hard, and I knew he could see it. For once, I didn't try to cover myself. I let him see. His eyes were still nowhere near mine when he reached into his back pocket and took out one of those lube sachets we'd taken to carrying around in our pockets. I thought he meant to use it on me. It was his turn to top, after all, but instead, he held it in his hand, sandwiched between his pointer and middle finger, and then held it out for me. He smiled easily, but not sweetly, as he unbuttoned his fly .

I remember a distinct feeling of confusion, a clatter of emotion that slowed my thought process substantially as I painstakingly pieced it together. His shorts were around his ankles, hands braced on the wall, sexy, soft twin semi-circles of his ass cheeks peeking out from under his T-shirt by the time it finally dawned on me.

Romeo wanted it.

I was instantly aroused. Not just aroused, more aroused than I'd ever been. More aroused than any man in living history had ever been. Red-hot lust bloomed in my groin and instantly invaded the rest of me.

He wanted me.

And he wanted to bottom for me more than he wanted to top.

It's hard to describe what that did to me or why. Let's just say I was euphoric. Ecstatic. Instantly riding the highest of highs. I don't remember prepping him, but I must have because I remember the sound he made when I entered him. It wasn't pain or even shock. It was a low, husky moan that shook the whole room. I moved slowly, gently sliding in and out of him, taking care to make him feel good. It went on for so long that I had the time to find the idiotic mental fortitude to congratulate myself on my stamina .

I was confused when he put his hand on my thigh and pushed me away, but I didn't have long to wonder what was happening. He kicked his shorts and shoes off and pulled me down to the floor right there in the hallway.

I was flat on my back and he was on top of me. The timber floor was cool and hard beneath me. He still had his T-shirt on. I had mine on too. My jeans were tangled around my ankles, binding me, trapping me. Keeping me right where he wanted me. He pushed my T-shirt up and raked one hand up and down my chest, finding a handful of muscle and grabbing it hard. Grabbing it as if it were his. He reached behind him with his free hand and lined my cock up, fingers stretching and curling to caress my balls lightly.

His face as he impaled himself is something that still haunts me. Beauty is the best word to describe it, but really, the word is paltry in comparison to what I saw. His eyes were closed, his mouth open. His skin was flushed and golden, a fine sheen of sweat on his brow and neck. He sank down on me and took me fully. I felt the soft flesh of his ass cheeks resting on my thighs and the weight of his balls on my lower belly. He posted up and down, tentatively at first, face creased with concentration, and then something in him broke loose .

He found his rhythm. His pace. His speed. His place. His hips started moving in slow undulations. Sinuous and lithe. So sexy that time tore. It ripped down the middle and screeched to a halt. He leaned down and kissed me, and when he pulled away, his eyelids fluttered open and he looked drunk. Spaced out and happy.

That was it. That was the moment I thought would set the course for the rest of my life. Even now, I could swear it was real. I could swear as I lay there beneath him, I saw Romeo falling. Even now, after everything that happened, even though I know for a fact that's not what happened, a big, stupid part of me still believes it was real. His expression softened and an unsteady, goofy grin took over his face. His ass clenched and released, his insides caressing me, collecting all the parts of me, bunching them up and wringing every ounce of pleasure out of me.

I know I said Romeo couldn't dance, and any other time that was true and probably still is. But put my dick inside him and let him ride it, and sweet Jesus, that boy could move. I'd never seen beauty like it and I'd never felt anything like it either. Not before him, and not after him either. It was bliss. Pure, unadulterated, otherworldly bliss.

I've never heard sounds like the sounds we made together either. Raw, guttural groans that bounced off the walls. I thrashed beneath him, hips thrusting and arching with no conscious thought from me. I clawed at the floor, desperate for something to anchor my sanity on. I found nothing, so I gave up. I relented. I surrendered. I gave myself over to him. My hands found him and started stroking. His thick, veiny cock pulsed in time with my thrusts. The noises we made amped up and grew louder and louder until what was happening sounded violent.

That day, something fragile and brittle that had been holding us apart shattered. It broke into so many pieces there was no way to put it back together. From that day, I was a match and he was a flame. We set each other alight and burned the world around us to ash. We fucked unbridled. Every day. Every night. All the time. If we were alone, I was inside him. Or getting him ready to take me. Or taking him into my mouth. Or feeding him my dick. Or eating his ass.

When he was sore from our efforts, he'd lie on his side on the sofa in our basement and I'd stretch out behind him as close as I could get. We'd both have hardly anything left to give, but he'd cross his legs tightly, I'd lube my dick, and I'd fuck the silky skin of his inner thighs. Sometimes, when we were both running on empty, he'd lie on his belly on my bed, naked, and I'd kneel behind him, pressing his cheeks together and using the crack of his ass for relief. He'd groan and smile and let me .

It was amazing. Majestic. Our libidos were raging, and they fed off each other.

It was the summer I thought would never end.

I was wrong.

All summers end.

Two days before I headed back to college, Romeo and I were messing around in my room. He was on his knees with his hand in his pants and my dick in his mouth. We didn't hear the car, but we heard the garage door. The motor whined, grinding old levers in a way that sent tremors through the whole house.

Romeo leaped to his feet, face white and stricken as he swiped at his mouth with the back of one hand. He moved away from me so fast that his back connected solidly with my closet door. I opened my mouth to speak, to reassure him, to tell him everything was okay, but he raised his finger to his lips furiously, silencing me as his eyes flashed in panic.

We straightened our clothes and hair without saying a word and after opening the bedroom door and calling a hasty greeting to my mom, I whispered, "Chill. It's fine. It's not like it would be the worst thing in the world if she found out."

And he laughed.

He actually laughed out loud. His face scrunched up, and his eyes looked watery. "Yeah, right," he spluttered. "Not the worst thing."

At the time, I was shocked but heavily numbed by the heat of his presence. It wasn't until I was back at college that I started playing what had happened over and over in my mind on repeat. It ate at me. It burrowed into my heart and hurt me. It tore me to shreds. It found soft, sensitive parts of me, parts I'd hidden and never shown to anyone, and hurt me there too.

How could the best thing that had ever happened to me be the very thing Romeo was most ashamed of?