CHAPTER NINE #2
“Ohh.” Thad’s grin turned sly. “You like that, huh?”
“Kinda,” Graham admitted. “I mean, we’re not hurting anyone.””
“We’re not.”
“So maybe I’m into it being a little forbidden.”
“Mmm. Dirty boy.” Thad kissed his jaw.
The words and the tone and the touch all combined to send a heady shiver down Graham’s spine. I’d be dirty for you, he thought, but he wasn’t quite brave enough to say that aloud.
He did whisper, “And if I didn’t say this earlier, I like that you’re older and more … experienced than me,” as he shifted to wind their legs together. To press closer.
Thad let out another groan and held him tightly. “Stop talking or you’re gonna make me do something I regret.”
Graham wasn’t sure what that meant but Thad rolled him onto his back and kissed him deeply and Graham stopped thinking entirely.
After that, it was all hot, wandering hands, deep kisses, little groans, and panting breaths. Graham was so fucking hard he ached. But when he shifted, pressing his cock to Thad’s thigh, Thad pulled away.
“We should, uh, probably cool off,” Thad rasped, licking his lips, still shiny from Graham’s mouth.
Graham bit back a whimper because what did he mean by cool off? They were just fucking heating up now! Had he done something wrong?
“Everything alright?” he asked, dragging his hands up Thad’s arms and tucking his fingers under the hem of Thad’s T-shirt sleeves.
The room was quiet. Huh, apparently the movie was over now.
“Yeah.” Thad looked down and gave him a crooked grin as he traced his thumb across Graham’s cheekbone. “Don’t want to rush this.”
“Why not?” Graham asked, lifting his head a little. “You do with other guys—other people.”
An expression flickered across Thad’s face before Graham could read it. “Because they didn’t matter,” he said simply. “And you do.”
“Oh.” Graham let out a shaky breath, the sting of rejection fading.
“I want you,” Thad said roughly. “Trust me. I just want to do this right. Get to know you and all that.”
“We’ve been friends for almost a year,” Graham pointed out. “What more do you need to know?”
“I don’t know.” Thad glanced away, his face half-illuminated by the screen. “I know you think I’m experienced and maybe I am when it comes to sex, but I’ve never done the emotional stuff, Graham. Not like this. Not when it matters. I’m out of my depth, okay?”
“Hey.” Graham gripped him tighter. “Yeah, I get that.”
“I’m a prickly asshole who’s spent more than two decades putting up walls with people. It’s … it’s gonna take time for those to come down. I don’t know how to be—be somebody’s boyfriend.”
“But you want to be mine?” Graham asked.
Thad’s laugh was low and rumbling as he pressed their foreheads together. “I guess I do.”
“And that means … that means you’re not going to fuck anyone else, right?” Graham whispered. He probably should have clarified that earlier, but … better late than never.
“Yeah.” Thad lifted his head, looking down again.
He looked so serious.
“Yeah,” Thad repeated. “I’ve never been monogamous, but I’m willing to—”
He broke off abruptly. “I guess that’s not true. I guess that’s what Teddy and I were.”
“Teddy?” Graham asked, because he’d never heard Thad say that name before.
“A guy in prison. I didn’t—I didn’t love him, but I cared about him. We were—we kept the craziness at bay for each other during our time inside, I guess.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good.”
“It was, uh, complicated though,” Thad said. “A couple of years after I got there, they passed a federal law. It’s called PREA. Prison Rape Elimination Act. It means there’s zero tolerance for sexual assault, rape, and harassment. It protects guys from predatory COs and inmates.”
“That’s good, right?” Graham asked, not quite sure what that had to do with Teddy.
Thad nodded. “It is. Where it gets complicated is, uh, consensual sex between prisoners. There’s some debate about how much the law applies to cases where both people want it, but some people believe that, essentially, when you are in jail or prison, you become state property.
That you have no legal ability to consent to anything so the law treats all sexual contact between two prisoners as non-consensual. ”
“Oh wow.”
“Not everyone believes that, so it’s not always enforced. For the most part, Teddy and I, we got lucky. We had to be careful, keep it discreet, but most of the COs knew about us and looked the other way.”
Graham was tempted to ask what happened with the ones who didn’t, but he got the feeling that wasn’t something Thad wanted to talk about.
“Anyway, it wasn’t … it wasn’t like we could be open about it. Could actually be together the way we could if we had met on the outside.”
“What happened between you and Teddy after you were out of prison?”
Thad shrugged. “He got released a while before I did and we didn’t stay in contact. Couldn’t risk a parole violation, and all that. After I got out, I did dig around online to see what he was up to, and it looked like he had a nice little life for himself. I never contacted him or anything though.”
“Okay.” Graham frowned. “So you didn’t love him, but you also didn’t fuck anyone else when you were with him?”
“That was mostly practical. They don’t sell condoms in the commissary, you know. Some guys use gloves from the medical unit but they’re hard to come by. And not exactly as effective.”
Graham hadn’t known any of that.
“Well, I’m glad you had Teddy,” he said, and meant it.
Thad frowned. “Yeah?”
“If he was what you needed then, I’m glad he was there for you.”
A brief, sad smile crossed Thad’s face. “He was.”
“So, monogamy,” Graham said firmly.
“Yeah. I won’t be hooking up with anyone else.”
“And I won’t be dating anyone else,” Graham said. “But you, uh, want to take the sex slow?”
“Not like … vow of celibacy slow,” Thad said with a crooked smile, tracing his fingertip along the curve of Graham’s lip.
The touch made him shiver. The thought of what else they could do only heightened that.
Thad continued. “But I think it’s good if we get to know each other better before we fuck.”
Graham swallowed at that word coming from Thad’s lips. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t heard him swear before. Hell, he’d heard him talk about sex plenty of times. But he’d never heard the word directed at him. About what they would do together. “Okay,” he whispered.
“It’ll give us both a little bit of time to get used to the idea of dating. In some ways, this is new for both of us.”
“True. Uh, what are you into? Like, in bed.”
Thad smiled. “Nothing that wild, I promise.”
“No?”
“At the end of the day, I love touching someone,” Thad said huskily. “Tasting them.”
“You don’t like, um, penetration?” Graham asked, surprised. Because, sure, some guys weren’t interested in it at all. But Thad? Really? That would surprise him. Especially because of what he’d said previously.
But maybe Graham had assumed wrong. Or, fuck, maybe there had been a bad experience in prison or something. Or even after.
Thad gave him another crooked smile. “Oh, no, I do. And we can talk about who does what to whom, if you want at some point. I’m flexible about most things, so we can work our way up to it and see what feels right for us.”
Graham shivered. “Yeah, okay.”
“So.” Thad dropped his head and brushed his lips across Graham’s. “Give me a little time, okay? I … I want to do it right with you, Graham. I want to be right for you.”
“Okay,” Graham said a little thickly. “Okay. Yeah, that sounds good.”