Chapter 13
WILDER
“Do you like ass play?” I asked Danny late one Wednesday night, and he dropped his controller.
“Wilder. Jesus fuck. What?”
“What? I’m just asking. And it’s not like you and Miller are shy,” I said, patting the couch.
Danny gave me a pained look as I reminded him of the time I’d caught them having sex on the couch. Or, more specifically, bent over it. “You’re never gonna let that go, are you?”
“Hell, no. I’m gonna sue you to pay for my therapy bills just as soon as you’ve got any money.”
He elbowed me, then leaned down to pick up his controller. “Why do you want to know about ass play?”
“Just wondering,” I lied. “Like, how is that a thing you find out you’re into? Do you just say to a guy, ‘Hey, while you’re down there, could you stick a finger in my ass?’”
“Oh, man,” Danny said, pausing his game. “Are you telling me none of the girls you’ve picked up have ever stuck one in to get you to finish quicker?”
“Why would they want me to finish quicker?”
“Fair, I guess,” he said with a shrug. “Hey, you could always stick a finger up your own ass and see if you like it.”
I made a face. “Just like that?”
“How the fuck else do you figure shit out?”
It sounded like something Avery would say, except Avery would say it in a way that was smarter and more encouraging. And with less cussing. Learn by doing, he’d say.
I didn’t love the idea of sticking a finger up my ass.
Like, it seemed weird and awkward and I’d probably somehow elbow myself in the face.
But then I thought of Avery, and the way he kissed, and his hands and how much I liked them, and I didn’t hate the idea of him doing it to me. I wondered if he would.
I hadn’t been back over to his place, but I’d jerked off plenty replaying what we’d done, and I’d definitely explored the links he’d sent me. And yeah, ass play was something that got me going—watching it, anyway. Experiencing it? Well, I guessed Danny was right. There was only one way to find out.
I took my phone out of my pocket and looked at the screen. Then, my heart hammering because I never lied to Danny, I said, “Hey, I’ve got a gig. Late notice. Any chance you can watch Gracie?”
She was already in bed, so he wouldn’t have to do much. Once she was asleep, she was out for the count. Last night she’d even slept through one of Cash’s nightmares, and they could be loud.
“Yeah, no problem,” Danny said and went back to his game.
I hadn’t showered after working with Steve yet, so I ducked into the bathroom and took my time making sure everything was squeaky clean—and I do mean everything.
Then I grabbed my sports bag and headed outside.
I got in my truck, drove it into the next block and parked, and then walked back to our street.
It was stupid, but if Danny knew what I was up to, he’d have questions, and I didn’t know how to answer any of those questions right now.
The light on Avery’s front porch was on, making his little house seem welcoming and warm. I didn’t freeze up before I knocked this time, and I didn’t know if Avery had some sort of sixth sense that I was coming over or if he’d just been waiting for me, but the door swung open almost immediately.
“Hey,” I said. I didn’t bother saying anything else—we both knew why I was there.
“Hey. Come in,” he said, his eyes bright.
I followed him inside, dropped my gym bag on the floor, and said, “I did my homework.”
“Gold star,” he said with a breathy laugh. “See anything you liked?”
“Yeah.” My mouth was suddenly very dry.
Avery tilted his head. “What?”
It was dumb, because of course I’d known he’d ask. Somehow, though, I didn’t know how to say it. My face was hot and I couldn’t meet his gaze.
“Fingering,” I blurted.
Huh. Okay. That said it.
Avery didn’t look horrified. He just nodded and said, “Who’s fingering who in this scenario?”
“You,” I said. “You’re doing me.”
“Yeah,” he said. “We can try that, if you like.”
“Only if you want to,” I managed to say, even though all the air in my lungs had vanished.
“I would love to,” he said. “Do you want a beer first or…” He nodded toward his bedroom.
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “Maybe later.”
“Okay,” Avery said with an easy smile. He reached out and grabbed my shirt, then reeled me in for a kiss, like he knew it would settle my nerves and ramp up my libido at the same time.
He was good at reading me, or maybe my thoughts and anxieties weren’t as special or as secret as I’d assumed—maybe Avery did this with every guy he’d ever invited into his bed, and it worked with all of them.
When he released me, though, it felt like his smile was just for me. “Come on through.”
I let out a long breath once we were in Avery’s bedroom, then said, “I showered. Like, carefully.”
“That’s good,” Avery said. He tugged at the hem of my old T-shirt. “This is soft.”
Then his fingers were underneath the fabric, tracing lines across my abdomen and leaving tingling trails of sensation in his wake.
It felt good. I didn’t know if anyone had ever touched me with the same care Avery showed me.
Cassidy and I had cared for each other, but we’d been fumbling teenagers.
Avery was precise and deliberate, and his touch made me feel like he was shining a spotlight on me.
He tugged my shirt up, and I lifted my arms to make it easier for him to take it off. Then he moved his hands to the button on my jeans.
“This okay?”
“Yeah.”
The rasp of the zipper was very loud.
“We’re just gonna make out some first,” he said. He put a hand over my chest where he could feel my heart beating fast.
“Okay.” I tried not to sound as nervous as I felt. It was dumb to be scared of this. People did this stuff all the time.
I was already hard—had been since that first kiss at the front door—and the appreciative noise Avery made as he opened my jeans was thrilling. When he peeled them down and reached for my underwear, I said, “Can you… Can you too?”
I guessed he could translate my tongue-tripping bullshit into words, because he nodded and took his shirt off too.
He almost slingshot his glasses across the room doing it, but he caught them before they launched.
Then he laughed, his glasses lopsided and his hair all messed up, and he was fucking adorable.
How could he be so in charge and so clumsy-cute at the same time?
He wasn’t built. He was shorter than me and leaner, and he didn’t have much definition, let alone any real muscle.
He didn’t have a six-pack. Instead, his abdomen was flat and soft and looked as though it’d make a nice pillow for my head.
I wondered what that would be like. I could imagine curling up lengthwise, dozing away while Avery read a book he held in one hand, and played with my hair with his other. Seemed like that would be nice as hell.
Avery wasn’t shy about losing his pants and underwear.
Or maybe he was—I thought of the Adventurama, where he’d shown one of the kids that it was okay to feed the goat by doing it first. He’d looked so cool and calm about it, then said to me afterward in a breathless undertone, “Holy shit! I thought it was going to eat me!” And it wasn’t like I hadn’t seen him naked before, and vice versa, but this seemed bigger somehow.
Last time I’d been here, I hadn’t known what to expect, not really.
This time I’d asked for it. Made it feel different.
I couldn’t stop looking at his hands.
“Come here,” he said with a smile and pulled me into a kiss, and okay, I knew this.
I liked this. I liked it a whole lot, and the simmering heat that built inside me took the edge off my stupid nerves.
So much so that when Avery moved his hands to my jeans again, I helped him hook them down along with my underwear.
By the time we made it to the bed, I was fully on board again.
It was good when Avery was close, but my nerves spiked again when he leaned away to get something from his bedside drawer.
Lube. Of course it was. I let out a slow breath and tried to remind myself that I wanted to try this, and I trusted him.
“You’re so jittery you’re about to bounce off the ceiling,” he said. “We don’t have to do anything.”
“I want to,” I said. “I’m nervous, but I want to. Can you just do it?”
He gave me a look that was half-dubious, half-sympathetic. “It’s supposed to be something fun, not something you’re forcing yourself to do. It’s not a root canal, John.”
My stomach twisted. “It’s Wilder.”
“You’re naked in my bed. Calling you by your last name is weird.” He showed me his palms. “No, I’m sorry. That’s on me, not you.” He leaned over me and pressed a kiss to my jawline, then left a trail of them up toward my ear. “Johnny.”
A jolt went through me.
Nobody had ever called me that.
I didn’t hate it.
And the way Avery said it, his voice low and warm, maybe I even liked it.
“Is Johnny okay?” he asked, and his teeth closed briefly around my earlobe.
“Yeah,” I said, my eyes fluttering closed. “You can call me Johnny.”
Avery’s touch, his voice, him calling me that…
it did something weird. A minute ago I’d been a tight knot of nerves and jagged anticipation, but it all just melted away once I let it go.
His touches were teasing and solicitous at the same time, and it was suddenly so easy to move into them, to stop holding myself so tightly and just let Avery be in charge.
And Avery knew exactly what he was doing.
I’d thought I’d be lying there, staring at the ceiling, exposed, but instead Avery curled around me, and when he shifted my leg up so that my knee was bent and then pushed it gently to the side, I went with it.
The first touch of his fingertips on my taint didn’t make me jump like a scalded cat, only shiver a little.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “That’s it, Johnny.”