Chapter 6 #2
“I think you mean false advertisement,” he says slowly. “And that’s just not true.” He smiles at me. “You think you’re bad in bed because one wanker told you that. Was he your first?”
I nod. “And only.”
He sighs and hugs me. “Baby, I’m so sorry for that. I wish …” He trails off and I snuggle in closer, loving the feel of him against me.
“What do you wish?”
I feel him move as he shakes his head. “Silly things.”
“Is it that I’ll like sex because that’s never going to happen.
” I shudder. “I hate it. It’s messy and painful and cold.
Not like anything anyone else says. I think I might be a monk.
” I nod firmly and wish I hadn’t when my stomach roils.
I press back to my thoughts. “I’m going to be a monk.
I’m going to get fat and wear a really long brown cassock and laugh really loudly all the time. ”
His face is warm when he turns it to me.
“I think there’s more to being a monk than obesity, wearing a cassock, and laughing loudly.
” He cups my face, forcing me to look blearily at him.
“Baby, sex is wonderful. It’s hot and sweaty and fucking transcendental sometimes.
If you think it’s cold, then he wasn’t doing it properly. ”
“What?”
He nods firmly. “Sweetheart, he was your first. That first time with him should have been tender and warm and you should have come so hard you almost blacked out. If I’d been …” He trails off and I touch his mouth curiously.
“If you’d been, what? You mean if you’d been my first, you’d have made it like that?” My voice sounds full of wonder and I wish passionately that this had happened. Then the world dims a little and I remember that it didn’t and won’t and that I’m just pale, thin, boring Milo who’s useless in bed.
I stare at him. His eyes are dark and his lips full and he’s so pretty he makes my heart hurt, and for the first time a spark of rebellion stirs in my belly.
Why do I have to be like this? How is it fair that everyone else goes shagging left, right, and centre enjoying themselves and showing off their confidence and I’m inhibited and boring?
“Then maybe you should show me now,” I say slowly, and before I can think I lean forwards and press my mouth to his.
He freezes under me and I pause, wondering what to do.
I open my mouth to say sorry but as I do, he grabs my head and pushes his tongue into my mouth and oh God , the feeling.
His mouth is warm and wet and he tastes like toothpaste, and when his tongue rubs against mine it sends sparks into my balls and my hips move and twist against him.
For a second I’m lost in a very strange land full of a hot darkness and heated sighs and it’s so good, but then he stiffens underneath me, and before I can lick him again he sets me back on his thighs.
I look curiously at him. He’s pink in the face and his hair looks wild as if I’ve been running my fingers through it. I look down at my hands. Maybe I was.
“Sweetheart, no,” he says in a hoarse voice.
I smile at him, feeling suddenly bold. “I like it when you call me that,” I say happily.
“You do?” He sounds bemused.
I nod. “I want you to call me that when we’re naked and you have your cock inside me.”
He swallows hard and loudly. “You do ?”
I nod and my stomach lurches again. “Yes,” I say faintly. “But can we do that after I’ve been sick in the sink?”
“Shit!”
Niall
I look down at the sleeping figure of Milo and smile.
He’s lying in bed, his hair wet from the shower I’d thrust him into after he threw up in the sink.
I grimace. That had been lovely, as had been clearing it up.
And showering him afterwards had been like washing one of the walking dead. Very unsexy.
Dotty is curled into the crook of his legs, looking very comfortable. “I know you like him really, but not as much as I do,” I whisper and she purrs, her eyes green and enigmatic.
I smile and stroke one of the long waves of Milo’s hair back from that heart-shaped face with the pointed chin.
The vomit hadn’t been sexy, but I had still enjoyed taking care of him more than I like to acknowledge because even drunk, he’d been so Milo.
Quirky and funny and blisteringly honest. I stroke his hair again and he nestles into my palm, and something stirs inside me in the soft place that I don’t show to anyone.
Even as a small boy, he made me smile with his awkwardness and his pithy retorts to his brother.
There had been something unquenchable about him then.
Even with the speech impediment and shyness he’d seemed almost dauntless, like he was a Weeble and no matter how the world knocked him over, he’d still get up with that shy smile of his.
My own smile fades. Until Thomas, that is.
That wanker had managed to dim Milo’s spark so thoroughly that even now, a few years on, he still bears the scars.
How could someone take all that lovely stumbling warmth and shy eagerness and turn it to ashes?
How could he have had that in his bed and not made him feel like a king?
I think of that moment when he’d straddled me, his face full of a sudden purpose, and how he’d kissed me. Awkward but so full of life and a heat underneath that I can sense would be in danger of burning me to death if it was let loose.
I feel the heat run under my skin and wonder if I should have another cold shower.
I’ve slept with many men and women, some separately, some together.
I’ve done most things, ruling out a few that make me shudder at the thought, and I’ve enjoyed every minute.
Threesomes, foursomes, I’ve had them all and come every time.
I thought that was enough, but tonight Milo circumvented my impressions the way only he can, taking me by surprise with the passion that had swept through me at his touch.
The men and women I sleep with are all, without exception, assured and confident lovers experienced in having a good time with no regrets.
I’ve always kept away from inexperience, thinking it would bore me and take too much of my time to overcome when easy pleasure beckoned within quick reaching distance.
Well, the joke’s on me because I’ve never felt this before.
This swinging of emotions all the time. The horrible jealousy that had settled in my stomach like a rock while he was out with Simeon.
The way I kept texting him during dinner was out of order, but I wanted to keep me in his thoughts front and centre and not focused on the perfectly nice and handsome man who I dislike with a passion because he was with someone who is mine.
I still at the thought. Mine . I test it, washing it around in my mouth and swallowing the word.
It feels right somehow. Milo is mine. Maybe he’s always been that, in some funny way.
The only man I’ve ever felt protective of.
The only man who can walk into a room and have my whole attention no matter what I’m doing.
I just don’t know what that means at the moment.
It used to be that it was because I thought of him as family. Now, he’s something much more.
I look down at his sleeping face. He wouldn’t believe any of this anyway because he thinks I’m like Thomas. Bile rises in my throat. I am nothing like him. I know it. I’ve always treated my partners fairly and honestly, preferring to leave them with a smile on their faces and no tears.
I know I’m confident, but I never realised that Milo would see that as a threat.
My heart hurts at the thought. I don’t know what to do with that.
I don’t know how to make him see me behind the picture of Thomas that stands between us.
How to make him know that I would never treat him like that, ever.
I’m suddenly reminded of Dotty when she came to me.
Dirty, unkempt, and half-starved, she’d turned up on my doorstep but refused to come into the house.
It had taken weeks of leaving food and milk for her before she’d even venture inside, and even then she’d watched me carefully as if waiting for me to hit her at any moment.
I trod carefully around her at first, careful to always give her space so that even when she finally let me pet her it was with the tacit understanding between us that there was room for her to escape if she needed to.
This had gone on for months until one night she jumped onto my lap, and as I stroked her I’d heard her purr for the first time.
It sometimes seems as if she’s never left my lap and her purr is louder now than it’s ever been.
I smile slightly and stroke Milo’s hair, feeling the warm, damp strands curl around my finger and inhaling the scent of my shower gel on him.
I like that he smells of me far too much.
My hand pauses. Dotty has grown to love me more than anyone, so I’ll take that as a good sign.
She’s also bitten me more than a few times and has a tendency to shit in my shoes if she’s cross with me.
I laugh softly. I’m hoping Milo won’t do the latter, but I think without knowing it he could hurt me.
I straighten my spine. But I’m not a quitter.
I want him, I realise with finality. I want his insecurities and his quiet strength.
His warm laugh and his sometimes hesitant speech.
I want the long, lithe, and graceful body.
And I’m going to have him at some point.
All of him, quirks and everything. But first he’s got to trust me. I wonder sadly how long that will take.
At this point he moves in his sleep and nuzzles into the palm I have cupping his head. “Niall,” he whispers.
I smile widely. Now, I have hope. That’s usually all I need to go forward with anything. I just wish I knew what that was.