31. Colton
THIRTY-ONE
COLTON
The first thing I notice when I wake is warmth.
Not my dorm. Not my bed. The sunlight slants differently through Micah’s blinds, spilling over the dark comforter and cluttered desk. A hoodie is draped over his chair, and his cleats are kicked half under the bed.
Micah’s sprawled on his side, arm draped heavy across my stomach, his face pressed against my shoulder. His hair is mussed from sleep, sticking up in soft, messy tufts that make him look younger, softer. The sheets are tangled low around our waists, leaving most of his chest bare.
I should get up. I should think about practice or about what this means—about all the ways this could go wrong.
But I don’t.
I lie there, memorizing the way he looks in his own room, unguarded and completely mine for just this one quiet morning. The faint smell of his laundry soap clings to the sheets, warm and familiar, and something deep in my chest aches.
I can’t help myself. I lean over and press a kiss to his shoulder. Then another, along his collarbone. My lips follow the cu rve of muscle down his chest as I nudge him onto his back, slow and careful, drinking him in.
He stirs with a sleepy groan, arm twitching as I ease him onto his back. His face tilts toward me, eyes still closed, and a faint smile tugs at his lips.
“Mm…Colt?” His voice is gravel and warmth, and it makes my stomach flip.
“Morning,” I murmur against his skin, kissing the center of his chest. My fingers trace the sharp line of his ribs, the smooth dip of his stomach, and his muscles jump under my touch. I love that I can do that to him.
His hand finds my hair, loose and lazy, and his thumb grazes the side of my face. “You’re trouble,” he rasps, voice thick with sleep.
I grin against his chest, then close my mouth around his nipple, teasing it with my tongue. His breath hitches, a low sound rumbling in his throat, and he arches just slightly into my touch. God, he’s so responsive it kills me.
“Can’t help it,” I whisper, trailing kisses across his chest to the other side. “You make me want to stay here forever.”
His fingers tighten in my hair, just a little, and when his lashes finally lift, his eyes are heavy, still hazy from sleep but locked right on me. There’s something there—something soft and dangerous—that makes my chest ache worse than any tackle I’ve ever taken.
For a minute, he lets me keep kissing him, slow and indulgent, as if we don’t have the world waiting outside this room. His free hand drifts down to my shoulder, my back, gentle but possessive.
“Colton…” My name leaves him full of need.
“Yeah?” I murmur, not stopping the lazy path of my mouth down his stomach, my fingertips tracing the top of the sheet.
“You’re gonna ruin me.” His voice cracks on it, and my heart stumbles because I want to say me too .
I let my mouth wander lower, tracing the ridges of his stomach with soft kisses, feeling him stir more fully under me. His hand tightens in my hair as I dip lower, dragging my lips along the sharp line of his hip as I push the sheets lower.
“Colt…” His voice is hoarse now, half a plea, half a warning.
“Shh,” I murmur against his skin. “Let me.”
I take him in my hand, feeling him hard and heavy against my palm. I look up once, just to see his face—his eyes are fully open now, dark and dazed, his mouth parted. The sight alone makes my chest tighten and my cock twitch.
I bend and wrap my lips around him, slow, careful, hollowing my cheeks as he sinks into my mouth. He groans, his head tipping back against the pillow, and I feel his hips twitch. I hold him steady, taking more, sucking soft and slow, savoring every sound that breaks from his throat.
“Fuck,” he hisses, one hand still buried in my hair, the other fisting the sheets. I hollow my cheeks again and drag my tongue along the underside of his cock, and his back arches. I catch his piercing, and he breathes out a breath of pleasure through his teeth.
I set a rhythm, unhurried and deep, my free hand curling around his thigh to keep him in place. He’s making these soft, broken noises that go straight to my spine, and I feel drunk on him, on the taste and the weight and the knowledge that he’s letting me do this.
He twitches in my grip, and my chest tightens at the trust in the way he just…lets me .
My whole body aches with wanting him, with the need to memorize every second of this.
His head tips back against the pillow, a groan tearing from his throat. His hips jerk instinctively, but I press a hand to his stomach to steady him, setting the pace I want.
He mutters my name like it’s a secret, as though he doesn’t want to give it to me but can’t hold it back.
Every soft, helpless noise he makes sends heat spiraling through me and has my own cock straining against the sheets.
It feels like more than just wanting him. It feels like giving in completely, of handing him a piece of myself I’ve been hiding for years. And right now, I don’t care if he keeps it or breaks it—I just want him to know he’s mine, at least in this moment.
I take him deeper, my throat relaxing as he gasps my name, and the sound goes straight to my cock. His hips twitch again, and I squeeze his thigh in warning, slowing down to tease the head with my tongue, tasting salt and heat and Micah.
His breathing is uneven now, chest rising and falling in sharp bursts. “Colt…” he warns again, voice cracking this time.
I pull back slowly, letting him slip free from my mouth with a soft, wet sound, and wipe my lips with the back of my hand. He’s not done yet. My heart’s hammering, and I crawl up his body, kissing his stomach, his chest, the slope of his throat, until I’m hovering over him.
His eyes are dark and hazy, but there’s tension there too, a question he isn’t asking. I kiss the corner of his mouth, then the other, before pressing our lips together in a soft, lingering kiss. He tastes of sleep and salt and something that makes my chest ache.
“I want you,” I whisper against his mouth. My voice comes out rough, desperate. “I want to—” I swallow, gathering the courage I never thought I’d have. “I want to fuck you.”
His eyes fly open a little wider, that sharp, assessing Micah look breaking through the haze. For a second, he hesitates, his hand tightening against my shoulder as if he’s holding himself back.
“Colt…” he murmurs.
I kiss him again, slower this time, trying to put everything I feel into it. “Please,” I breathe. “I’ll go slow. I just…need to feel you.”
He stares at me for a long heartbeat, and I can feel his pulse thrumming under my palm where I’ve braced it against his chest. Then he exhales, tilts his head back into the pillow, and nods.
“Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”
Relief and want crash through me all at once. I press another kiss to his jaw, my hand already reaching for the nightstand, for the lube and condom, every nerve in my body sparking with the promise of him finally letting me all the way in.
I hover over him, braced on shaking arms, my chest pressed to his as I kiss him like I’ve wanted to for years. Slow, deep, as if he’s the only thing keeping me alive.
Micah’s usually the one in control. He’s the one who pushes, who takes, who makes me come apart with just a look. But now he’s on his back, spread out beneath me, eyes dark and a little uncertain, and my heart feels too big for my ribs .
“Colt…”
“Shh,” I murmur against his lips, sliding a hand down his side, feeling the tremor in his muscles. “I’ve got you.”
I prep him carefully; I’ve felt him do the same to me, so I know how it feels.
Lube-slick fingers sliding inside, curling, coaxing soft breaths and small noises from him that make my whole body heat.
He clutches at my shoulders, head tipping back against the pillow, and I kiss his collarbone, his throat, every inch I can reach, worshipping him.
“Please,” he finally whispers, barely audible. It’s all the permission I need.
Sliding into him is everything. Tight and hot and overwhelming, but more than that—it’s us . My chest presses to his, my forehead resting against his temple as I sink in inch by slow inch, letting him feel every heartbeat.
“Micah,” I breathe, voice breaking, “you feel…fuck, you feel so good. So fucking tight.”
He exhales a shaky laugh that catches in his throat, his arms winding around my back. He doesn’t tell me to go faster. He doesn’t try to flip us, even though I half-expect him to. He just lets me have control .
So I move. Gentle, slow rolls of my hips, rocking into him like the whole world’s gone quiet except for us. My mouth finds his again and again—soft kisses, open-mouthed, desperate and tender all at once.
It feels like more than sex. It feels as though I’m giving him every piece of me I’ve been holding back.
“I want you,” I whisper against his lips, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. “I’ve always wanted you.”
His fingers tighten in my hair, his chest heaving under mine. For a second, I swear I see it on his face—the thing he can’t quite say back.
When he comes, it’s with a low, broken sound against my shoulder, his body clenching around me, pulling me under with him.
The warmth of his cum between us is all the proof I need that he’s enjoying this.
I follow a moment later, burying myself deep and holding him tight.
Maybe if I don’t let go, the world can’t take this from me.
After, I stay there, panting, my face pressed to his neck.
He smells of sweat and warmth and home. My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it against his ribs.
I pull out slowly, tugging the condom off and tying it off before tossing it into his wastebasket.
I cuddle into his side, and he lets me as we catch our breath.
The sunlight through Micah’s blinds is sharper now, brighter, catching on the sheen of sweat and cum cooling on our skin.
My heart’s still hammering, my body still buzzing, but the world is already intruding—somewhere across campus, I feel as though I can hear the distant whistle of our coach and the echo of pads colliding on the practice field.
Practice. Coach. Teammates. Life.
I don’t want to move. My arm is still wrapped around Micah’s waist, my chest pressed to his side, and for one stupid, selfish moment, I let myself imagine that this is our life. That I can wake up next to him every morning and kiss his shoulder, and he won’t flinch when I whisper his name.
But I feel it, the shift in him.
Micah’s hand slips from my hair to the sheets. He takes a breath that sounds like it hurts. “We should…we should get up,” he says, his voice rough and frayed. He won’t look at me.
“Yeah,” I whisper, even though I don’t move.
He finally meets my eyes, and it’s a punch to the gu t. He’s all raw edges and bitten lips, his gaze shuttered in that way I’ve started to recognize—the one that means he’s building a wall brick by brick, trying to shove everything we just did into the box labeled mistake .
“Micah…” I start, but the words stick. I don’t even know what I’m asking for.
“Don’t.” He swings his legs off the bed, the mattress dipping as he stands.
He doesn’t look at me, doesn’t reach for me.
He wipes off his stomach with a discarded towel and tosses it to me to do the same, then he digs through a drawer for clean boxers, his shoulders tight, his back a map of tension I want to smooth with my hands.
I sit up slowly, the loss of his warmth making me feel suddenly exposed. “You can’t just?—”
“I can,” he says flatly, though his voice wavers as if the words cut his own throat on the way out. “We have practice. And we’re late.”
I swallow hard, staring at his back. My chest aches with everything I can’t say, with the way last night—and this morning—feels carved into my bones while he’s trying to pretend it didn’t happen.
I drag on my clothes in silence, watching him pull his hoodie over his head like armor. He finally glances at me, and for half a second, all the walls drop. He looks raw—not just from the sex, but from us .
Then he blinks, and it’s gone.
“We should go,” he mutters.
I follow him out, my heart in my throat, wondering how the hell I’m supposed to run plays and smile for the team when all I can think about is the way he felt under me, like maybe, just for a second, he was mine.