Aspen
I COULDN’T BELIEVE we were actually going to talk about this.
It was a thought I’d stubbornly pushed away again and again, convinced that Caelyx wouldn’t find out that all my hookups before him had been completely different.
But I’d been dumb and naive for that. Of course he would find out eventually.
We knew the same people. We’d fucked the same people.
It was one thing for him to find out he was the only one I’d let do… basically anything to me. But for him to be so damn happy about it, humping me like an overexcited puppy and begging me to explain why… I wanted to sink through the floor and die.
But this was Caelyx. I trusted him. Even if it was something I didn’t want to say out loud or even dwell on in my head…
He’d become the person in my life that I could open up to, and whine about my stupid problems to.
And he wouldn’t judge me or make me feel like an idiot for it.
He was a spoiled and somewhat clueless nepo baby, but the more I’d gotten to know him, I was forced to admit he was a lot more than that.
I’d never realized how much I wanted a guy to like me for me, as a whole being, and not just some or most of the traits and labels that made me up.
I didn’t want a guy who didn’t mind that I was trans, or liked me despite the fact that I could be emotionally and physically distant.
But until I’d given Caelyx a chance, I hadn’t even known someone could be so into me.
So shamelessly and somewhat pitifully obsessed with me. Every part of me.
I didn’t think I could go back to how it’d been before him. He’d ruined me for anyone else. I understood that fully now. If he decided he’d had his fun with me and wanted to waltz back into the Vane family mansion and pick up where he’d left off… I was fucked. Royally, heart-achingly fucked.
So even though all my instincts were screaming at me to deflect, I couldn’t afford to keep my feelings inside and push him away.
And I knew everything I had to say would thrill him, and he’d probably cream his boxers and nuzzle all over me and say all that embarrassing, sappy shit that he had absolutely no reservations about expressing, so I had no real reason to be nervous.
Except that I hated the idea of forcing him to consider how awkward my sex life had been up until I’d allowed him to start openly worshiping me.
“So… Just so you know, it’s not that I never wanted to do other stuff before you,” I started, the sound of my own voice in my ears making me want to cringe. “I thought about it sometimes, with other guys. But then… I would always change my mind.”
“How come?” He asked. That voice he always shifted into, the soft and gentle one that made my stomach unclench and my jaw relax, poured into my ears and dripped down my body like warm honey. He was so good at calming me down and making me feel like there was nothing for me to freak out over.
“Have you ever been, like… About to fuck, but before you can unbutton your pants they hand you a mandatory questionnaire? And then you turn it over, and realize there’s an essay portion to fill out, too?”
He blinked at me in confusion, before a small huff of laughter tumbled out.
“Uh, no?”
“That’s what it’s like for me. Every time. Except with you.”
He blinked again, shaking his head. “I don’t…”
Taking in a deep breath and then letting it out between my teeth, I sat up so my back was against the wall and I could pull my knees up to my chest and stare in some other direction instead of into his clear sky eyes.
“Every time I go to hook up with someone for the first time, they have all these questions. What should I call this part of you? Where can I touch you? What parts of your body are off limits? Would it make you uncomfortable if I did this? What about if I did that?” I rattled off some of the questions I’d been asked, irritation prickling me all over at the memories.
His brows drew together, his mouth turning down in a little frown, like he’d never even considered any of the stuff I was saying. And he probably hadn’t. To him, I wasn’t a novelty or experiment. I was just… Aspen. Or Cupcake. Mostly Cupcake. That part wasn’t relevant right now.
“I guess I just thought if I said the wrong thing or did something you didn’t like that you’d stop me or correct me,” he said. “I mean, you’ve never exactly been shy about telling me to fuck off, so…”
I snorted, nodding a bit. Of course I would have. And he’d known that I would because despite my best efforts to push him away for basically the entire first year we’d known each other… He understood me.
“And I know it’s wrong for me to be annoyed, because they’re just doing what they think is safest,” I went on.
“They want to make sure they’re not making me uncomfortable, or dysphoric, or whatever.
I get that. And… Maybe it’s weird for them too because my body is something they’ve never seen or aren’t familiar with so it’s normal for them to be curious or make sure they’re doing everything right, but…
” I trailed off, realizing how much I’d actually said.
“It’s okay,” he murmured, reaching out to rub a hand over my leg.
“It…” I took another deep breath and said the thing I’d never told anyone before. “It makes me feel like a freak.”
To my abject horror, my voice cracked on the last word, making it sound even more pathetic than it had sounded in my head. Caelyx shot up like a bullet, gathering me up in his arms and pressing me against him.
That screaming instinct to wriggle away from him bloomed up in my brain again, but I pointedly ignored it, letting him stroke his fingers through my hair.
“You’re not,” he assured me softly. “You’re perfect.”
“I’m not perfect, Caelyx.” My voice was muffled against the hard planes of his chest, so warm even through the fabric of his t-shirt.
“You are,” he corrected me. “You are gorgeous and smart and sweet and incredibly sexy.”
I raised my head, staring up into his eyes, even though the intensity in them was almost too much, sending my pulse racing and my heart pounding.
“You’re the only one who thinks that.”
He dragged his hand down from my hair to cup my jaw and force me to keep looking at him. My stomach tumbled inside me, my breath coming out hard and fast as my fingers tightened into the front of his shirt.
“Everyone else is stupid. It doesn’t matter what they think,” he insisted, and I could tell he really meant it. “You make me feel so…”
“So?” I couldn’t help but ask, practically panting. I felt like I was about to jump out of a plane, with wind whipping around me and miles and miles of air below me. If I made one tiny wrong move, I’d die.
“I have never felt like less of a screwup than I do when you’re looking at me like you’re looking at me right now,” he admitted, his voice rough with emotion.
“You’re not a screwup,” I promised him. “You have done everything right. Everything,” I reiterated. “You have been… Exactly what I have always wanted a guy to be for me,” I said, forcing the words out even though they’d tried to stick in my throat. But he deserved to know. Because he had been.
His fingers flexed, briefly tightening on my jaw like my words had sent an electric shock through him.
A shiver rolled through me as his eyes darted down to my lips, before he swallowed so hard I could hear the desperation in it.
He leaned in, so close I could feel his warm breath puff out against my mouth, shooting tingles across it.
“Please, Aspen,” he whispered, but his eyes didn’t leave my lips. “Please.”
Nerves twisted and writhed in my stomach like convulsing butterflies, but I couldn’t imagine saying no to him again. And not just because I was afraid of losing him. But because I was so fucking tired of keeping some arbitrary barrier between us so that I could feel like I wasn’t losing myself.
If he ended up hurting me, then so be it. I wouldn’t keep hurting him just for the sake of staying in my familiar little comfort zone.
I slid my hand up his chest, over his broad shoulders and into his hair, pulling on him to close the last tiny gap of distance between us. Our lips crashed together, his groan spilling out between us as we connected. Like he’d been actually dying to kiss me.
His mouth was firm and warm, moving against mine in a perfect, bruising way that had me clinging onto him like an anchor.
When I tried to back away to breathe, he only let me suck in a single breath before he’d yanked me back against him, his tongue pushing in past my lips to tease me, all my nerve endings sparking up as arousal flooded my veins.
Somehow, I found myself on my back, with his hard body between my thighs, his cock grinding into mine through our clothes as he destroyed my brain with his tongue.
It was dizzying, how hot and hard he kissed me, our teeth clanking together.
He bit into my lower lip, dragging a gasp out of me, and then a moan as he slicked his tongue over the bite to soothe the sting.
“Caelyx,” I panted out his name, pulling on his hair a little so he’d back off enough to let me try to breathe.
“Uh-uh,” he answered against my mouth, before sucking my bottom lip in, teasing it with his tongue as he rolled his hips into me, until my dick was pulsing between my legs.
We’d part for a second, and then he’d attack me with another kiss, over and over until my head was full of cotton candy clouds and no thoughts that weren’t of him.
We took each other’s clothes off between more breathless, ragged kisses.
With our naked chests pressed together, I stroked my hands down his smoothly muscled back, slipping my hands under the waistband of his boxers to grab onto the firm globes of his ass.
He whimpered against my mouth, arching his back and pushing his butt into my grip.