Chapter 14
RAFE
There are times when you go through life with the same person at your side and never see the potential of what they could be to you. Regardless of how many hours I’ve spent with Brent, he was always just my best friend. Nothing more, nothing less.
I never thought of kissing him. I know some people get off on the notion of friends with benefits, but in my opinion, that’s a recipe for things getting messy. Unrequited feelings or unprovoked jealousy. What if you get together and then it doesn’t work out?
I’ve always thought that true friendship is more sacred than that. If it’s worth the risk of fucking up, then is the friendship worth fighting for to begin with?
I’d never have kissed Brent under normal circumstances, and in reality, I shouldn’t have kissed him under the mistletoe yesterday.
I should have kissed his cheek or something.
Yes, I might have received questions, but I wouldn’t be in this predicament now, where I’m contemplating putting my friendship on the line to explore this.
What this is… I’ve never experienced a kiss the likes of that with Brent. You hear about how kissing can be a whole-body experience. It can touch your soul, your heart. It can quiet your mind. Kissing can be addictive and consuming.
To me, kissing had always kind of been blah.
I mean, you share spit. That’s disturbing.
As long as I don’t think too hard about it, I can kiss a person for a while.
But it’s never meant much to me. Certainly not something I’d get lost in.
Not something I’d happily spend hours doing, and be more than happy about it.
Brent and I kissed for almost two hours last night. Yes. Two. Hours. Not exaggerating. It wasn’t always full-on making out either. Sometimes it was slow and with no tongue. Only our mouths moved together. Sometimes it was less than that—just our lips pressed against each other.
We remained wrapped together with soft touches that weren’t sexual at all. There was no sexy heat. It was intimate in a way I’ve never felt before. I felt Brent in my goddamn bones.
I woke up in the night to him in my arms, and sleepily, our mouths came together like magnets. In our half-asleep states, it was certainly more sensual as we kissed in the dark. Our bodies moved together, rubbing and touching in sexy ways.
Yet, we somehow kept it PG-13. Or maybe PG-17. And we also fell asleep like that. Wrapped together, dicks hard and pressed against each other, mouths locked. I almost remember falling asleep like that.
Now I’m lying here watching Brent sleep, feeling all kinds of conflicting things. Arguably, I can say that I’ve never felt this kind of connection with someone. That means I should explore it, right? It means something.
But Brent is my best friend, and if it gets weird, if we don’t work out, there’s the potential to lose everything. Can I convince myself to risk it? How will I know with any kind of certainty that this is the real thing?
If it is, if Brent is the man my heart has waited for, then it means good things. It means that it’s worth the risk because the reward far outweighs it. There’s some form of assurance that we have a future together.
What’s the sign of that conviction, though?
Brent stirs. His eyelids flutter but don’t open.
Without conscious thought, I bring him tighter to my body, pressing him close, and trying not to love the way he feels.
His breath punches out. His hands are hot on my skin.
The way his nose moves along my collarbone has my body shivering in anticipation.
His lips skim my neck, my jaw, and find mine. I try not to think about the consequences as I allow myself to sink into this man’s mouth. His hold on me. A kiss I’ll never forget for the rest of my life, no matter what comes of this.
I know the moment he truly wakes up because his entire body tenses slightly. Brent pulls back to look at me with wide eyes, and I laugh, despite the way my body hums with heat.
“Forget where you are?” I tease and bite his lower lip lightly.
Brent shudders in my hold, his hips reflexively rocking against mine. I grin, ignoring how my cock enjoys the feel of him against me.
His exhale rushes out, and he nods. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“For what? Kissing me awake? There are some things that don’t require an apology.”
His cheeks are flushed, and as I stare at him, I can’t fathom why I’ve never noticed how incredibly beautiful this man is. Have I had my eyes closed every single time I’ve looked at him up until this point?
No, it’s a far simpler explanation. Now that I’ve kissed him and he’s completely rewritten everything inside me, the veil is lifted, and I see the man I’ve spent so much of the last three years with for who he truly is.
“I didn’t mean to…” His voice trails off. “Presume, I guess.”
“Well, boyfriend, presume all you want.”
Brent closes his eyes, angling his head down. I know something I’ve said bothers him, only by the way his eyebrows slightly come together and his lips press a little tighter. I’m ready to ask about it when his mouth is against mine again.
Whatever he was thinking, his desire to kiss me overrode it. Thank fuck for that.
I grip him to me, letting my hands travel down his back until I reach the dip before his ass. How far is too far? Before I can ask, his hand slides down in the same way mine did, but doesn’t stop as he grips my ass cheek tightly in his hand.
That’s all the encouragement I need. I roll us and take both his plump cheeks in my hands, digging my fingers in until he groans. His body jerks, hips grinding against mine. It doesn’t take much for me to get super hot in the morning, and that little bit is all my dick needs.
Our kisses heat, becoming far less intimate and excessively wet. Needy. I spread my legs for him to settle between them. Brent takes the hint and together, we dry fuck with our night clothes on—Brent in underwear, me in my little shorts.
Whatever reservations I might have about moving in a direction that may fuck up our friendship are quieted by the fog of lust as we reach for the orgasms racing toward us. What’s a little cum between friends? We can totally recover from it. Messes can be washed down the shower.
My orgasm is first, which doesn’t surprise me. I’m always pretty quick to come when I first wake, with the slightest bit of mediocre stimulation. This is far from mediocre, so I’m rather impressed that I lasted as long as I did.
Now I can focus on the way Brent ruts against my cock, the desperate sounds he makes as I swallow them down, his greedy touch on my chest, arms—anywhere he can reach.
But it’s his hard dick that stabs and grinds into me that I’m focusing on.
I knead his ass cheeks, run my fingers teasingly between his crack.
It isn’t until I press against his hole that he comes with a quake of his body.
He’s left panting over me, his eyes half closed, his lips hovering over mine.
“Oh, fuck,” he mutters, letting his forehead fall to my lips.
I press a kiss on it and bring my arms around him to hug him against me.
Brent sighs, letting his body go limp in my hold.
I grin when his arms press under me and he hugs me in return.
“Is this part of the fake boyfriend arrangement?” he asks quietly.
“You missed the amendment?”
He snorts.
“No,” I say quietly. “This is… something else.”
I wait for him to ask what it is, and am relieved when he doesn’t because I don’t have an answer.
“I think we should get up and wash before this dries. As fun as wearing your cum all day sounds, I think we’ll have to save that for a time when we’re not surrounded by my family.”
His teeth skim over my collarbone as he bites me. Probably in chastisement. I grin. Reluctantly, I let him go when he pushes to his hands and knees, and looks between us, down my body, spread out for him. His cheeks turn this pretty rosy pink before he backs away.
“Want to shower together, or is that crossing a line?” I ask.
Brent doesn’t meet my eyes but nods. I wasn’t expecting his agreement. Now I have to join him or chicken out. I’m not sure which I prefer right now.
Without taking the time to think about this, I follow Brent into the bathroom. He turns on the shower, and I stop at the sink to brush my teeth. Brent joins me at the second sink, the one I never use but that he’s taken over. I ignore the weird feeling in my chest when I see him at that sink.
In the shower, we move around each other. Our skin brushes. Our hands touch. We kiss. It’s not long before we’re making out and rubbing against each other again, this time our hands holding our dicks together as we thrash almost violently against each other.
By the time the second orgasm covers us, I think my cheeks are just as red as Brent’s. He’s looking anywhere but at me, and yeah, I get it. I can’t look him in the eye either.
It’s not embarrassment. It’s not shame. It’s not disgust. It’s something else. Something that doesn’t have a name. A line we’ve crossed, and we’re not sure what to do. Where do we go from here?
The awkward silence follows us as we get out, dry off, and get dressed. However, I can’t let it leave the room. I stop Brent in front of my door and pull him to my chest, forcing his eyes on mine.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
He swallows. “I… don’t know what we’re doing.”
I press my forehead to his and close my eyes. “I don’t either, but I’m not upset about it. Are you?”
“No. Just confused, I guess.”
“Me too. But we need to table that confusion until tonight. Okay? Not for the sake of hiding it and this entire thing unraveling in front of my family, but because it’s Christmas and today is about joy and happiness and other mushy stuff.”
Brent laughs quietly. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Tell me what you need to help make that possible. Want me not to touch you today?”
He shakes his head. “No. I like… that.”
“So do I. Then what—”
“Nothing, Rafe. I can ignore it for the day.”
“Yeah?”
“Can you?”
I snort. “Unlikely, but I sure as hell am going to try.”
He presses his mouth to mine, and my damn heart flutters like a hummingbird’s wings. How cheesy is that?
“Let’s go before two little girls track us down,” I say and take his hand in mine.
I’m not in the least bit exaggerating. As I open my door, Candice is coming down the hall. “Oh, good. I found a stocking and need your help, Uncle Rafe.”
“Found a stocking?” Brent asks.
I nod. “Lead the way, Candy.”
She grips my hand and drags us down the hall. “My family hides stockings for us to find.”
Candice brings us into one of the gentlemen’s rooms and points to the red stocking peeking out from behind a shield on the wall. Grinning, I pick her up and let her reach for it. She struggles.
“It’s stuck,” she complains.
“Here,” I say, and hand her to Brent. “Hold her up here, and I’ll help her get it unstuck.”
Brent, somewhat awkwardly, does as he’s instructed, and together, Candice and I free the stocking. She cheers loudly as Brent sets her down.
“Thank you!” she shouts and runs out of the room.
“How do you know when it’s a stocking appropriate for a kid and not an adult, or are they all the same?”
“Kids’ stockings are red. When we have more of a gap in ages where it makes a difference, the stockings are actually personalized, and they have to find their specific stocking. Adults are all white.”
“Merry Christmas,” Mom says as we step into the hall.
Brent and I return the greeting. Mom gives us both tight hugs. “Go find your stockings and meet us downstairs. The kids are begging to begin tearing into them.”
“We’ll be right down.”
“None from the third floor have been found,” she says, winking at us.
“I know your favorite hiding places,” I say and drag Brent after me until we’re running down the hall. He lags behind but keeps up as I have us racing up the stairs.
Sure enough, the first one I find is behind a statue by the large round window. Triumphant, I turn to face Brent. “Okay, boyfriend. Time to find yours.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t want to take someone else’s.”
“You aren’t. I promise. Where to?”
He looks at me skeptically but turns to look down the hall. “What’s behind that door?”
“Open it. I’ll tell you if it’s a guest room.”
We spend a minute opening doors and pause when we enter a study that catches Brent’s attention. I’m not in the least bit surprised since this man is all about stories. I see the stocking before he does since he’s staring at the room itself. When a minute passes, I turn him to look at it.
There are three different-sized stockings. Most of which are what you’d picture when you talk about Christmas stockings. Average size, right? There are half a dozen twice the size and then one massive one.
Brent has found the massive one. His eyes are huge as he stares at it. “That’s not—”
“It is, and it’s all yours. First year and you’re taking home the gold.”
“No way,” he says, shaking his head. “I can’t. That’s not fair.”
I pull him against me and kiss him until he sighs into me. “Take it, Brent.” He stares into my eyes, breathless. I feel him swallow.
“Are you sure?”
“Super sure.”
He gives me an amused look. “Super sure, huh?”
“Take it. You found it. It’s yours. I promise you, no one will go without a stocking today.”
He sighs, his eyes drifting to it again. Despite his hesitation, I can also see the excitement in his eyes. I wonder when the last time he celebrated Christmas was. My heart hurts to think I’ve left him on campus for the past few years. Alone.
I don’t care what happens between us. Brent will never spend another holiday alone.