23. Gabe
23
GABE
B rooklyn didn’t answer.
I stopped breathing.
Niya’s words came rushing back to me. ‘You’d better be in love with this guy if you’re turning down living in Paris for him.’
God, had I just realized I was in love with Brooklyn on the same day that he was breaking up with me? I was almost afraid to look up.
“Please say something,” I said quietly.
He looked down at me. “Are you sure you’d want to?”
“What?” So much for quiet. My voice jumped up a few decibels of its own accord. “Of course I’d want to. What the hell, Brooklyn, I thought—I thought we were together.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.” He swallowed. “If you changed your mind. I can’t ask you to move to the middle of nowhere with me. Your whole life has been about getting out of your small town. I can’t ask you to move back to one.”
“Uh, dude, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what you’re supposed to ask me to do, if we’re keeping to Tanner’s terms.”
“Yeah, but you agreed to that before you knew what it really meant. And you travel so much for work already. It’s not fair to make you do this, too. And we don’t even need the money, not with everything you’ve done to bring in donations.”
“So you’d just give up on this?” I pushed myself up off the couch and turned to face him. “That’s it? We’d just be done? I mean, worst comes to worst, it’s only a year, right? You could always get a job somewhere else after.”
Brooklyn sighed again. “I shouldn’t have brought this up. I’m sorry.”
“No, you definitely should have, if this is what you’ve been thinking.”
“But it’s all hypothetical.” He took my hands and pulled me closer to him on the couch. “Please, just forget I ever mentioned it.”
He stared at me, his hazel eyes intense. How was I supposed to forget this, when he’d essentially just suggested that we should break up if he had to move to Oregon? Did he feel that way about Nebraska and New Mexico, too? Did he mean it, or was this just Brooklyn being moody?
And worst of all—was he suggesting we break up because he didn’t want to be unfair to me? Or was he just using that as an excuse? Did he actually want to be done?
I knew I was jumping to conclusions. But I couldn’t help flashing back to all the times he’d tried to keep things casual. All the times he’d tried to take things slow. All the times he’d been reluctant to talk about the future. Was that because he didn’t see me in his future? Was he really just not that into me?
I couldn’t hide the fact that I liked him. Maybe more than liked him. Hell, I’d been the one to come out and tell him how I felt.
He’d said he felt the same way, but what if he’d just been trying to keep peace between us? And what if now, he’d gotten tired of trying? What if he’d realized that things were starting to get serious for me, and he was trying to end it all before it got any worse?
I couldn’t blame him if he did feel that way. The guy was getting a PhD in biology for Pete’s sake. He was older, smarter, and more educated than I would ever be. More interesting than I’d ever be. What would he want with a guy like me?
I tried to tell myself I was being crazy. Assuming the worst on very little evidence. But what the fuck was I supposed to do, when he said things like that and then asked me to drop the issue?
I did the only thing I could do. I kissed him.
Brooklyn’s mouth pushed against mine hungrily as he leaned forward, one hand going to my neck, the other to my lower back. His grip was strong and warm, and I told myself to forget everything we’d talked about, everything I still needed to know. Because if I asked, I might not like the answer. If I asked, this might have to stop.
I tugged at the bottom of his shirt, pulling it up until it got tangled in his arms.
“Off,” I growled, and he obliged, stripping it off over his head before doing the same to mine.
I needed to feel his skin on mine and ran my hands up and down his back as he tilted me backwards, laying me lengthwise on the couch. It wasn’t enough. I fumbled at his waist, torn between palming the erection I could feel underneath the fabric and unzipping his fly so I could feel it with no fabric between us at all.
I needed us to be naked, and it couldn’t come fast enough. Even after Brooklyn lay on top of me, I needed more. I needed him. Everything I couldn’t say with words, I needed to show him with my body. I stroked our cocks together as he pressed against me, nibbling and sucking on my lower lip, my ear, my neck.
“Fuck, Brooklyn, please,” I moaned, not even sure what I was asking for.
“Turn around,” he whispered in my ear.
Something dropped in my stomach at those words, like I’d crested the top of a rollercoaster I didn’t even know I was on. I sucked in a sharp breath of air and nodded, flipping over onto all fours. Then Brooklyn spread my legs further apart, and I couldn’t concentrate on the feeling in my stomach anymore, because I was too busy anticipating what was about to happen.
I figured he would run back to the bedroom to grab the lube and did a silent cheer for having convinced him to stay out here for once. So I wasn’t at all prepared for the scratch of stubble on my asscheek as he bent down and kissed it gently.
My cock twitched. Fuck, that probably shouldn’t have turned me on as much as it did. I couldn’t count the number of times that someone had smacked me on the ass while playing sports. Or, by this point, the number of times I’d taken Brooklyn inside me. Yet somehow, that gentle kiss was more erotic than anything else I’d experienced.
His hands ranged along my back, massaging it as he kissed first one side of my ass, then the other, switching from left to right and back again. Just as he started to get closer towards the center, he pulled away and placed a kiss at the top of my spine, licking his way back down and making my dick even harder.
“Fuck,” I gasped when his tongue reached the small depression at the bottom of my back. “Fuck me.”
“Not yet,” Brooklyn laughed, soft and low, and the desire in his voice made me shiver. He licked a stripe back up to my neck and whispered in my ear, “I could do this all day.”
I lost myself in the pleasure of him doing just that, his tongue on my skin, the wet velvet pad stroking and teasing, making me shudder. I lost count of the number of times he covered my skin and wondered for a second if he’d meant what he said. Was he really going to keep this up? I wasn’t even sure I would mind.
But when his tongue finished a final circuit of my back, and he traced his way down to my ass, I realized how naive that thought had been. He licked his way across the mound of one cheek and onto the other, crisscrossing me and letting his tongue dip in to touch my crack on each pass. He moved lower and lower, and suddenly I realized he wasn’t going to stop. I froze. I didn’t mean to, didn’t think it showed, but Brooklyn stopped and moved a reassuring hand to my hip.
“Hey, you okay?” He slid up next to me so he could see my face.
“Yeah,” I whispered, my stomach tight. “It’s fine. You can—you can keep going.”
“It’s totally fine to be freaked out by this. Everyone has their own lines. It’s okay if this is one you don’t want to cross.”
I flushed, not sure what to say. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to. Fuck, everything up until now had felt so good. But I didn’t know how to explain the feeling in my stomach when I didn’t even have a name for it myself.
“It’s okay, baby.” Brooklyn’s voice was warm and patient. “Tell me what you want. That’s all I want to do—what you want.”
“Is it gross?” I blurted out before I could overthink it.
He laughed sweetly. “I promise you, it’s not. Not for me, anyway. But if it makes you uncomfortable—”
“I just don’t want you to think I’m gross,” I said. “I don’t know, maybe that’s stupid, after everything else we’ve done, but I just don’t want you to think that I’m…”
“Never.” Brooklyn smiled and leaned in, ghosting a kiss against my temple. “You’re pretty much fucking perfect.”
I turned my face, overcome by a need to feel his lips on mine again, and pulled him into me. I lost my balance and ended up on my back, Brooklyn on top of me once more.
“We always seem to end up here,” he smiled.
“I can think of worse positions.”
I closed my eyes as he licked along my bottom lip, then pulled it out and released it before kissing my jaw, my neck, collarbone, and down my chest. By the time he’d gotten to my stomach, my skin was lit up like candles on a birthday cake, sweet pinpricks of heat set in motion as he moved.
When Brooklyn put one hand on my thigh, I thought about willing myself to relax. But any thought of that flew out the window when he used the other to grab my cock and guide it into his mouth. Fuck, he was so soft and wet, his throat like silk as he sucked me down.
I wasn’t sure I could last long at this point, so I sighed with relief when he moved his mouth away—only to move it to my balls instead. He sucked them into his mouth, one after the other, and I moaned, bucking up into his hand on my cock. He used the motion to catch my hips and rotate me up slightly, and then his mouth was on me again, tracing a hot, wet line backwards from my balls until I felt it—the pad of his tongue at my hole.
Fucking hell, that felt good. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Was this really happening? Whatever Brooklyn was doing felt amazing. He flicked me gently, then traced shapes across my hole, then kissed around the edges. I surrendered to it before I even had a chance to worry.
I moaned as he pressed the warm, wet pad of his tongue against my hole again, and when he laughed, low and deep, in response, the sound created vibrations against my skin that only made me want to moan more. I found myself shifting, tilting, arching, and thrusting my hips, first up into his hand and then out and forward, trying to give more of myself to him.
Brooklyn took pity on me and let go of my cock for a second to grab a throw pillow and slide it under my lower back, angling my ass upwards. I didn’t even have a moment to feel exposed, to dwell on how vulnerable I was in this position, before his left hand was back on my cock, his right gripping my thigh muscles, his tongue circling my tight ring again.
“Fuck, Brooklyn. Oh, fuck.” I still didn’t know what I was begging for, just more of something. I’d never felt this good before. So turned on, so stimulated, so ready to come in a goddamn instant, like he had me walking a tightrope.
And strangely, through all of that, the strongest sensation was one of being taken care of. No matter how confused my brain might be about what was going on between the two of us, my body accepted him. I decided maybe my body was right. I decided to let go.
Moaning, writhing, I responded to Brooklyn’s warm and steady touch on my cock, his sweet, soft tongue and lips. And then, just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, he brought his hand from my cock to my other leg and spread me out wider, exposing my hole and pushing his tongue down into me.
“Fuuuuck,” I groaned. “Oh, fuck, Brooklyn. God, that’s so—oh, fuck.”
I wanted to say it was good, more than good, fucking tremendous, but somehow I’d forgotten most of the words in the English language. Brooklyn seemed to understand me anyway, and kept going, alternating now between rings and patterns and swirls and kisses and thrusts of his tongue into my hole.
“Oh, fuck, I think I’m gonna—” I clamped my teeth shut, biting my lip, trying to use the sharp pain to pull me away from the edge. I was panicking, so much closer to coming than I’d realized. I needed to tell him to slow down, to warn him, to beg him to fuck me. “Fuck, I’m gonna come if you don’t—”
But he didn’t listen. He just gripped my cock again and started stroking me harder while his tongue pushed into me and had me seeing stars. I couldn’t contain it, couldn’t hold it back any longer. I came hard in his hand, my body spasming, everything tightening and releasing in tremors as my orgasm rocked through me.
I collapsed—that was the only word for it, even though I was already on my back—back into myself, into Brooklyn, into a broken mess of pleasure, of sweetness, of heat, as he moved his mouth to my stomach and licked me clean.
“Fuck,” I gasped, trying to piece myself back together again. “Fuck. Fuck.”
“I think I’ll take that as a compliment.” Brooklyn’s smile was wicked.
“God, yes,” I breathed, stricken. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to come like that.”
He laughed. “Well, you might not have meant to, but I did.”
I looked at him accusatorily. “You wanted this to happen? I thought—I mean, we were supposed to—” I crossed my arms and glared at him. “No fair.”
“You’re really cute when you’re mad. Anyone ever tell you that before?”
“You, whenever you think you’re losing an argument.”
“Is it working?”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
I didn’t care where his mouth had been. I needed to feel the scratch of his five o’clock shadow, the softness of his lips. I needed to feel him . Brooklyn pulled back and smiled, then poked my side.
“Squish over and let me up.”
“Mooch.” I rolled my eyes. “First you trick me into coming without even having the decency to fuck me, then you try to steal my couch?”
“You’re the one who never wants to hook up in bed.”
“Hmmph.” I gave him a considering look. “Fine then. As long as you’re here, make yourself useful and get me a cupcake.”
“You’re really working on this pushy thing, aren’t you.” Brooklyn grinned as he opened the box from the bakery and pulled one out. “You work up an appetite or something?”
“Kinda.” I smiled. “But also, I need a prop.”
“For what?”
“For the lesson you’re about to teach. A seminar in Advanced Gay Studies, actually: Introduction to Eating Ass.”