Chapter 19
Casey Joe
Sitting naked in bed with a man while we laughed and ate a picnic of heathy snacks wasn’t on my bingo card, but fuck if I didn’t like it.
As a horny teen getting off to images of my baseball coach’s son, I couldn’t even fathom one day I might be in a position where any of this was even possible.
Is it possible?
Does Bryce know what he’d be getting into with you?
What the hell could you even bring to a relationship?
As I’d gotten pretty good at doing recently, I quickly swept up the negative thoughts under the rug by cleaning up our little picnic and returning the tray to the kitchen.
I was one hundred percent aware I had a lot to work through still—hell, I’d probably be working through my shit for the rest of my life—and I very much knew I wouldn’t be able to tamp down reality forever.
But that didn’t mean I had to turn the crank on my own emotional jack-in-the-box at that exact moment. I could at least enjoy whatever came next in our steamy little day at home before I allowed my mind to send me into a spiral.
It was coming.
I knew it was.
I just wasn’t ready to face it.
No, that wasn’t accurate.
Actually, facing it wasn’t the hard part. I’d been looking that shit in the face since it all tried to kill me.
Taking action on my reality was the part I didn’t want to deal with.
Don’t get me wrong, I was proud of the progress I’d made since my heart attack.
Honestly, almost dying was probably the very best thing that ever happened to me.
As fucked up as that sounded, it was the kick in the ass I’d been so desperate for all those years.
Deep down, though, I knew I had barely scratched the surface of the true fixes I needed.
But it was easier to throw myself into helping my boys run their businesses, keeping the Riggs family name in good standing, and restoring the gym with Bryce than dealing with reality.
And really, in addition to exercising, taking some college classes, and supporting my boys, what better way to avoid reality than by burying myself in my first homosexual experience?
“What are you laughing about?” Bryce asked as I walked back into the bedroom.
I shook my head and crawled into bed, not bothering to turn on the bedside lamp despite the room darkening as the sun inched lower on the horizon.
Had it really been just that morning I found Bryce in his jock and my whole life changed?
Nah, my life had been changing by bits and pieces since Bryce trespassed on my property, and probably even before that.
“Just that words are funny sometimes. You want to watch a movie or something?”
We ended up turning the television to a streaming channel of nineties movies, but cuddling with Bryce after a warm shower, food, and two toe-curling orgasms made the perfect recipe for sleep.
The windows were lit by moonlight when I opened my eyes sometime later. The television screen had switched to power-saving mode and cast only a dim glow into the room.
Bryce slept soundly in my arms.
He smelled clean and warm, and I breathed him in deeply as I nuzzled my nose into the base of his neck.
I’d worked a bit in therapy about mindfulness, and I took the quiet moment to do a body scan.
From head to toe and back again, I felt no pain, no stress, no tension.
Only the comfortable soft press of our bodies together, the heat where our skin met, the nip of coolness in the air because we’d both refused to turn on the heat just yet.
Damn, if teenage Casey Joe could have seen me now.
That damn, stupid kid truly did love Missy the best he knew how—which sadly, for all involved was very, very little.
He was hiding, pretending to be the only thing his family would have accepted—truth be told, he didn’t even grasp that anything else was even an option back then, because, in all actuality, it wasn’t—and he and Missy were drawn to each other like toxic magnets.
If the magnets had been wrapped up in barbed wire and coated in the serum of poison-dart frogs.
Toxic.
As.
Hell.
With Bryce in my arms, the pain of the past was just that, the past. I’d held on to it for so long, like a security blanket—a shield—because it was easier to deal with the pain and betrayal than it was to acknowledge the real me.
But with Bryce by my side, everything was softer, gentler, and simpler.
More real.
“Got some heavy-duty thinking going on back there?” Bryce’s sleep-roughened words pulled me from my thoughts.
“Fuckin’ mind never wants to stop these days.” It was the damn truth. Without the haze of alcohol, my brain ran a million miles a minute. I trailed my nose from his neck to his ear. “Think there’s only one way to make it shut up.”
Bryce chuckled and pressed his ass backwards. “Yeah? Anything I can do to help?”
We’d eaten and fallen asleep naked, so my quickly thickening cock nestled perfectly between his ass cheeks. “Pretty sure I can figure something out.”
Bryce turned his head over his shoulder, his lips seeking mine, and I crashed our mouths together. I’d only been kissing him for a day, but it had quickly become my favorite thing to do.
How damn lucky was I to have this beautiful man want to kiss me back?
My right arm was snaked under his neck, my hand holding his, and my left arm ran up and down his torso trying to touch every millimeter of his body.
Our searing kiss sent heat pooling in my belly, and the gentle rocking of his ass provided just the right amount of friction to have my dick pleading for more.
When I tangled my fingers in the coarse hair of his lower belly, Bryce moaned into my mouth.
I took the heavy weight of his cock in my hand and stroked him gently, thumbing through a bead of pre-cum.
In all of my fantasies, I’d dreamed of touching a man in such an intimate way but never given any thought to the potential of it really happening.
But there I was, holding Bryce, stroking him, bringing him pleasure.
Was this seriously my life? It was the most surreal and precious moment of my life since my boys were born and placed on my bare chest.
And just like the overwhelm of emotions way back then, feelings and thoughts lodged in my head and heart even now as I held Bryce in my arms.
My body screamed for me to move things along, but my head held back like a dog braced against being pulled along on its leash.
“Hey,” Bryce said after breaking the kiss and rolling in my arms to take my face in his hands. “What’s up?” I liked that he knew me that well, but I also hated it.
Pressing my forehead to his, I took a deep breath. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doin’,” I admitted.
Bryce nuzzled my nose and kissed my cheek. “You did great with your first blow job.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, but most blow jobs are still pretty good even when they’re not.
” I paused. “As long as we keep teeth out of the equation,” I amended and grinned at his shudder.
“But I’ve never had this type of sex with a guy.
I want it to be good for you, and it can be really bad if I do it wrong. ”
Bryce put a finger to my lips. “Did you ever have anal with a woman?”
I nodded.
“So, I’m assuming you took your time and made it good for her, right?”
“I mean, she didn’t have any complaints, and we both got off.”
Bryce kissed me then, gently teasing his tongue against mine while our dicks rubbed together. When he broke the kiss, I groaned, chasing his lips for more. But he went on, “How did you get her ready for you?”
I blinked slowly, trying to reset my brain to comprehend the question. “Um.” I cleared my throat, glad the room was dark. “I ate her ass and used a lot of lube.”
Bryce’s grin was barely visible in the moonlight. “Then eat my ass and use a lot of lube.”
Fuckin’ hell.
I rolled him to his back, my mouth devouring him. How the hell was I supposed to keep my damn dick under control when he said shit like that?
We rocked together, our breaths heavy as our hard cocks built up enough friction to light a campfire. When I realized I could have easily gotten off just like that again, I shifted to my knees between his legs and took a long, steadying breath.
Bryce grumbled. “What’s wrong?”
I ran a hand over my face and reached to turn on the lamp. “Gotta make sure we’re both thinkin’ straight.”
“Um, I haven’t been thinking straight for most my life,” Bryce teased.
I snorted. “Yeah, well, my dick is a lost cause these days, at least around you it seems.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
I reached into the bedside table. “We’ve got lube.”
Bryce bit his lip, and I had a hard time remembering why I wasn’t already balls deep in him. “I can get myself ready if that’s—”
“I can eat ass just fine, thanks,” I grumbled.
Heat flared in Bryce’s eyes. “Then what the hell is it?”
“Condoms.”
Realization dawned on his face. “Oh,” he said on a sigh. “I have some.”
When he made to get out of bed, I pushed him back to the mattress and swallowed thickly. “Do we need them? I’m on board with whatever you decide.”
Bryce’s brows shot up and his Adam’s apple bobbed.
Like I couldn’t stop my damn mouth, I just kept talking. “It’s been a long dry spell for me—like don’t ask me who was president because I’m not gonna fuckin’ say—but I’ve had a shit ton of bloodwork and shit recently, and I purposely had them run shit for STIs and shit.”
Casey Joe Riggs, folks. So eloquent with words.
Bryce ran a hand over his stomach, and I tried to focus on his words rather than how good his dick looked against his skin. “I haven’t been with anyone since my last bloodwork, and it was all clear. But I’m one hundred percent okay with whatever makes you more comfortable.”
I slammed the bedside drawer shut. “I don’t wanna use them.” If Bryce had leaned toward using condoms, I would have rolled one on and gone to town. But hearing him say he was comfortable either way was exactly what my questioning head had needed.