15. Theo #2
“What?” he says.
“I want…”
His hand stays flat on my stomach.
“What do you want?”
“I want to…”
“Tell me.”
I look at him. In the dappled light. In the clearing he scouted. With his hood down and his hair a mess and his mouth wet from my throat.
“I want to be the one,” I say.
“Be the one what?”
“The one doing it. This time.”
His face goes still.
“Doing what?”
“You. I want to... I want to be inside you.”
He breathes out. One long breath.
“Theo.”
“You don't have to. I know you don't. I know that's... I know that's probably not what you...”
“Shut up.”
I shut up.
He looks at me for a long second. His throat works.
“You've been thinking about that?”
“Since the shower.”
His thumb runs along my jaw. He cups it.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
His eyes don't leave mine.
“You sure sure?”
“Maddox.”
“Yeah?”
I hold his gaze.
“Yes.”
He leans his forehead against mine.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
He breathes out against my hair.
“I don't…” he begins, “I don't do that a lot. I have. I'm not… It's not off the table. It's just… not my preferred thing. I want you to know that. I want you to know that's not the default.”
“Okay.”
His hand tightens at the base of my skull. A small squeeze.
“If I tell you to stop?”
“I stop.”
“Good.”
I rest my hand on the flat of his chest.
“Maddox.”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
He shakes his head. Huffs. Drags me into another kiss.
We lie down on his hoodie spread over the pine needles because he thought of that, of course he thought of that.
We get our shoes off and our pants off, and the cold air finds us, and he laughs through his teeth about it and pulls me on top of him.
He's got lube in his jacket pocket. Of course he does.
I've never done this. He knows.
He walks me through it. My hand. His hand on mine. His voice low. Slow. There. Yeah. Another. Watch my face. I'll tell you. He tells me. He tells me when it's enough and when he's ready and when to slick up and when to push and he tells me breathe when I forget.
I push in.
Slow. An inch. Another inch. His head goes back in the needles. His mouth goes open. His hand finds my hip and he doesn't grip, he just holds on. He makes a sound I have never heard out of him. Low. Broken. Fond.
“Fuck, kid.”
“Good?”
“Yeah.”
His fingers dig into my hip.
“I'm... I'm not going to last.”
“Don't care.”
His hand wraps my hip. Anchors.
“I'm…”
“Move.”
I move.
I'm clumsy. I don't know the angle. He finds it for me. His hand on the small of my back. His voice under me saying, there, yeah, there. I move slow. He opens under me. He lets me in. He keeps his eyes on my eyes and his hand on my hip and he doesn't break eye contact once.
“Look at you,” he says.
“Shut up.”
“Look at you.”
I don't last.
I told him I wouldn't, and I don't. I come inside him with my forehead pressed to his sternum and his hand in my hair and my body giving out on me from the inside out.
I come saying his name, the real one, not the bar one, Maddox, Maddox, oh god Maddox, and he holds me through it. He keeps me inside him while I shake.
I collapse onto his chest.
His hand comes up and cradles the back of my head.
“Was that…?”
“Yeah.”
I lift my head. He's grinning at me. That sharp private grin.
“You didn't come.”
“I know.”
I drag a thumb across his lower lip.
“Let me take care of that.”
I slide down him. I put my mouth on him and take him all the way, and I work him until his hand is tight in my hair, his hips are coming up off the hoodie, and he's swearing at the sky, and he comes in my mouth with one hand on my jaw and the other fisted in pine needles.
I swallow. All of it.
I come up and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and lie back down on his chest, and he wraps me up and laughs into my hair.
“Kid?”
“Yeah.”
His mouth grazes my temple.
“You're a menace.”
“Yeah.”
“I'm not done with you.”
I look up at him.
“Good.”
We don't leave for twenty minutes. He holds me. I listen to his heart under my ear. The cold finds us and he pulls his hoodie up off the ground and wraps us both in it.
“Again,” I say into his chest.
He laughs.
“Kid.”
“I mean it.”
He tips my chin up off his sternum.
“Now?”
“Before we have to go back.”
His eyes go dark.
“You want again?”
“Yeah.”
He rolls me onto my back in the needles and he covers me with his body and takes his time.
He fingers me slow. He watches my face. He waits.
When he slides inside me this time, it's with his eyes on mine and our fingers laced over my head in the dirt.
There is nothing between us and we are going slow, so slow, and it is different from anything he has done before because we have time and we are alone and no one is coming for us.
When I come it is with his mouth on mine and I barely make a sound.
He comes right after, buried deep inside me.
We stay there. In the clearing. In the cold.
The raven complains again.
“Theo.”
“Yeah.”
He lifts my chin off his ribs.
“We have to go back.”
“I know.”
He smooths a thumb under my eye.
“You're going to have to walk back into that house.”
“I know.”
His thumb presses into the hinge of my jaw.
“I'll be five minutes from you.”
“Okay.”
He kisses me. One more. Long and slow. Then he helps me up. He helps me dress. He shakes pine needles out of my hood with careful fingers. He walks me back to the trail.
At the trailhead we stop. He pulls me in one more time. He presses his lips to the top of my head.
“You run home.”
“Yeah.”
He grips my shoulders.
“You walk in that door.”
“Yeah.”
His fingers tighten on my arms.
“You don't apologize.”
“No.”
His hands slide down to my elbows.
“You don't explain.”
“No.”
He kisses my forehead.
“You're mine.”
“I'm yours.”
He lets go. Steps back.
“Go.”
I go.
I run back. Four miles the other way, on legs that should be dead but they're not; they're alive, my whole body is alive. My jaw aches from his kisses. My chest aches from running. The back of my throat tastes like him. My ass is sore in the best way.
I hit my street. I slow to a walk.
Paul is at the front window.
He sees me coming.
He doesn't move.
I walk up the drive. I walk past the mailbox. I walk up the front step and I put my hand on the door and I breathe. I open the door and I walk in and I don't apologize and I don't explain.
I go upstairs.
I close my bedroom door.
I lie down on my bed.
I smile at the ceiling like an idiot.
Outside my window, the sun's coming through the trees. My phone buzzes in my pocket.
Good boy.
I'm smiling when I fall asleep.