Chapter 10 #3
"I wasn't brave enough." He kissed my hip bone, then lower, his breath hot through the fabric of my boxers. "I'm trying to be brave now."
I pulled him back up, rolled us so he was underneath me again. "You're the bravest person I know."
He laughed—shaky, disbelieving. "I'm terrified."
"So am I." I kissed him, slow and deep. "Doesn't matter. We're here anyway."
I worked my way down his body—his neck, his collarbone, the ridge of his hip bone. He shivered when I mouthed at the skin below his navel.
“Can I?” I hooked my fingers in his waistband.
“Yes.” His voice cracked. “God, yes.”
I peeled off his boxers and wrapped my hand around him. He was hard, flushed, already leaking at the tip. When I stroked, his whole body arched off the mattress.
“Fuck—”
“Good?”
“Don’t stop.”
I stroked him until he was panting, his hands fisted in the sheets. Then I lowered my head and took him in my mouth.
The noise he made was worth every second of waiting. His hand flew to my hair, fingers tangling tight, and I let him guide me—set the pace, find the rhythm that made his thighs shake. Salt and skin on my tongue. The weight of him, the heat. I hollowed my cheeks and felt him jerk.
“Seth—” His voice broke. “I’m going to— You have to stop, or I’m—”
I pulled off, replacing my mouth with my hand, squeezing the base. “Not yet.”
“Evil.” He was gasping, chest heaving. “You’re evil.”
“Thought you wanted this to last.”
“Changed my mind.”
I laughed and kissed my way back up his body. When our mouths met, he kissed me like he was trying to climb inside me—desperate, consuming. His hand found my cock through my boxers and squeezed, and my hips jerked forward without permission.
“Off,” he said, tugging at the fabric. “I want to feel you.”
I kicked them off. When we pressed together, skin to skin, we both went still.
“Oh.” His breath caught.
“Yeah.”
I rolled my hips, and he moved with me—finding a rhythm, chasing friction. His hands mapped my back, my shoulders, pulled me closer like he couldn’t get enough.
“I want—” He shifted underneath me, spreading his legs wider. “Can we—”
“Tell me.”
“You. Inside me.” The words came out rough, his cheeks flushed. “I want to feel you.”
I kissed him hard, then made myself pull away. Nightstand drawer. Condoms, lube— I’d bought them weeks ago, shoved them behind old notebooks, tried not to think about what I was hoping for. My hands shook as I got the bottle open.
“Breathe,” Tanner said, watching me. “I’m the virgin here.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m not nervous.”
His expression softened. “I know.”
I settled between his legs and slicked my fingers. “Tell me if anything hurts.”
“I will.”
I pressed one finger inside, felt him tense, then relax. His eyes fluttered closed.
“More,” he managed.
I gave him more. Worked him open with patience I didn’t know I had, watching his face for pain and finding only desire. When I crooked my fingers, searching, he nearly came off the bed.
“There—” His voice shattered. “Right there, don’t stop—”
I didn’t stop. Kept working that spot, adding a third finger, feeling him stretch and relax around me. He whimpered—pain at first, then something else entirely, his expression going slack with pleasure.
“Please.” The word was wrecked. “Seth, I need—”
Rolling on the condom took too long. My hands wouldn’t cooperate. Tanner watched me with heavy eyes, one hand wrapped around himself, stroking slowly.
“Hurry up.”
“Patience.”
“Fuck patience.”
I lined up and pushed in, inch by inch. His breath caught, held, then released on a moan that made me clench my jaw to keep from losing it. He was tight, hot, perfect.
“Okay?” I managed.
“Move.” His legs wrapped around my waist, pulling me deeper. “Please move.”
I moved.
We found our rhythm—deep strokes that made him gasp, then faster when he begged for more. The bed frame knocked against the wall. I didn’t care. Couldn’t care about anything except the way he looked underneath me—head thrown back, my name spilling from his mouth between ragged breaths.
“Touch yourself,” I said. “I want to watch.”
His hand flew to his cock, stroking fast. I drove into him harder, felt him clench around me, felt my own release building.
“Close—” His voice broke. “I’m so close—”
“Come for me.”
He came with a shout, his body clamping down, cum spilling over his fist. The pressure pulled me over the edge. I buried myself deep and let go, pleasure whiting out everything until I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but hold on to him.
After, we lay tangled in sweaty sheets, both of us gasping. I was still inside him, softening, neither of us willing to break the connection.
“Wow,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“We should do that again.”
“Give me twenty minutes.”
He laughed, and I felt it everywhere.
Later—much later—we lay in the dark with the sheets kicked to the foot of the bed. Tanner’s head rested on my chest, his fingers tracing patterns I couldn’t decipher.
“I submitted my applications,” he said. “All of them. Wilmington’s my top choice.”
“Mine too.”
His hand stilled. “We didn’t coordinate that.”
“No.”
“But we both—”
“Yeah.”
He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was careful. “What if we don’t both get in? What if one of us has to go somewhere else?”
“Then we figure it out.”
“Long distance is hard.”
“So is this.” I ran my hand down his spine. “We’ve done hard. We’re doing hard right now.”
He pushed up on one elbow, looking down at me. Moonlight cut through the blinds, striping his face in silver and shadow.
“I’ve never planned a future with someone before,” Tanner said. “I don’t know how.”
“Neither do I.”
“What if we screw it up?”
“We probably will.” I tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. “Then we fix it.”
He studied me for a long moment. Whatever he saw made him exhale, his shoulders dropping.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay?”
“Okay.” He kissed me, soft and brief, then settled back against my chest. “I’m going to hold you to that. The fixing it part.”
“I’m counting on it.”
His breathing slowed. His body went heavy against mine. I stared at the ceiling, listening to him drift off, and thought about Thanksgiving. My mother’s voicemails. The choice I’d have to make soon.
Four more games. Then a bowl, maybe. Then decisions about next year, about Wilmington, about how to build a life that had room for the person sleeping on my chest.
My phone sat dark on the nightstand. Tomorrow, there would be more missed calls, more questions I didn’t want to answer.
But that was tomorrow.
Tonight, I pulled Tanner closer and let myself have this—the weight of him, the warmth, the impossible reality of someone choosing to stay.
Whatever came next, we’d figure it out.
I was starting to believe that.