Chapter 9
Nine
RYAN
He was kissing me. I was kissing him. Atlas.
The man I hadn’t stopped thinking about for an entire year.
His hands were rough and calloused, but so fucking careful as they cradled my face.
I could smell mint on his breath as he exhaled, and I tasted hints of it as his tongue pushed between my lips and tangled with my own.
He caught my moan and swallowed it down before leaning forward and pressing me hard and possessively against the pillows.
Sinking down into the mattress, I was boneless and helpless against his body.
The weight of him was maybe the most comforting thing I had ever felt, but the ecstasy of being touched for the first time in so long—and by him, of all people—threatened to have me making a mess of my sweats before we even got started.
I pressed fingers into his ribs and pushed until he eased away.
His eyes were wild, frantic, lips plump and spit-slick as he stared at me. “Am I doing this wrong?”
My laugh was ragged in my chest. “You’re doing it a little too right. I, um…I…it’s been a while, and—” My eyes flicked downward, and he followed my gaze, looking back up at me with an almost feral curl to his half smile. “I don’t want this to be over before it starts.”
“Oh. I see.”
I swallowed heavily, my grip on him going lighter, tracing a touch over his ribs. “Sorry.”
“Don’t you fucking dare apologize,” he growled.
His hair had come loose again, the elastic band gone, and his longer, dark locks spilled over his shoulder.
He looked wild, and maybe that should have been terrifying, but it just made the problem in my pants worse.
“Not for that. I want to make you come.”
I almost swallowed my own tongue. I had half an idea about where this was going, but I didn’t expect him to just say it. “I would, ah…I would be okay with that.”
He huffed a laugh and smiled down at me. “Yeah?”
“Did you think I was going to say no?”
He shrugged and leaned in, taking a taste of the crook of my neck before pulling back with a shuddering sigh. “I wasn’t sure what you were going to say about a total stranger mauling you in his bed.”
Reaching up, I traced a touch over his jaw, and his eyes fluttered closed. “You’re not a total stranger. And I don’t mean that in the creepy way fans say it.”
He laughed softly and shook his head. “I know. You don’t have to keep explaining yourself.”
“I just need you to know that I see you,” I told him.
His eyes widened a fraction. “How? How do you see me?”
“I might not know all the details about who you are,” I murmured, “but I know what kind of man you are in the face of your worst possible moment. That tells me a lot about you.”
He opened his eyes again. “Like what?”
“That you aren’t ashamed to say when you’re scared. That you’re determined. You seem like the kind of guy who would fight off full anesthesia just to prove he could.”
He collapsed down on me as he burst into laughter. “That is so specific.”
I shrugged as I held him, the weight of his body the best thing I had ever felt in my life.
My erection started to flag just a little—the way I wanted—because I wasn’t ready for this night to be over.
“I’ve seen it before. But it’s not just that.
You promised me you weren’t going to give up on yourself, and I believed you. And you proved me right.”
The moment sobered a little, and he pulled back to look down at me. “It was a hard promise to keep. At least for a little while. But the fact that some man who I most definitely did not deserve wanted me to keep going…it was a good motivator.”
“You’re giving me way too much credit,” I said quietly. “And you’re way too hard on yourself.”
He shook his head, then stole another little kiss. “Trust me when I say I’m not. I’m not as bad as my ex, but I was not as good of a person as I could have been. I was an arrogant shithead on my best days. And I wasn’t always kind.”
“Just because you were shitty sometimes doesn’t mean that’s who you are,” I reminded him.
He kissed me again. “Like I said, a man way too good for me. But I’m glad it was you that found me. If it had been anyone else, I’m not sure I would have made it. You kept me grounded. You made me want to fight.” He closed his eyes for a long moment. “Does that sound creepy?
“No.” I couldn’t help a laugh. “Maybe it should though. We spent, what, nearly an hour together in that ambulance?”
“Don’t ask me. I was unconscious for a lot of it.”
“We were stuck in the snow,” I told him, carding fingers through his hair. It was roughly textured—like it wanted to be curly but never fell in more than asymmetrical waves. “There were cars everywhere from your concert, and they boxed in the ambulance—”
“I wasn’t supposed to go like that. It was meant to be a private concert. Someone tipped off social media,” Atlas said, his voice a little bitter. “I knew people were going to post on their socials, but I thought the storm would keep people away.”
“Ah, the power of your sexy-as-fuck voice,” I told him, feeling oddly brave.
He snorted and shook his head. “I won’t pretend to be humble in that regard. I spent years and a fuckload of money making sure I had good vocal training.”
“In your garage band years?” I asked.
He blinked, then laughed again, shoving the sound into my neck.
“Oh my god, no. And please tell me you haven’t found our old videos.
I was working at some pizza parlor that was always on the verge of being shut down by the health inspector.
I spent my college years living in my parents’ half-finished attic, trying to sing like I wasn’t tone-deaf.
No, I got training after, realized that I was good, but I’d hit a wall with what I could do naturally.
I wanted to be…” He pulled back and looked at me, shrugging.
“I wanted to be better than what people expected from me.”
Reaching up, I drew a fingertip around his lips. They were a little dry, but I loved the shape of them. Full and lush with a perfect cupid’s bow. “I think you tried harder than you needed to.”
His cheeks went a little rosy. “You should write song lyrics.”
I rolled my eyes and wrapped my arms around him, rocking my half-hard dick against his hip. “I’ll stick to teaching disinterested kids about historical events.”
He blinked. “Is that what you do now?”
“Yeah. It’s probably not my forever, but it feels a lot more like me than med school. And that’s because of you.”
He swallowed, and then he leaned in and kissed me again. His tongue was wet and warm, dominating and almost frantic. He moved his body on top of mine, hips rolling, his erection heavy as it slipped against the cut of my hip.
My hands coasted down his spine, fingers digging into his ass cheeks, which were very round and very soft. He groaned and pulled back. “I might be sharing your problem.”
“My—oh. Yeah.”
“I haven’t done it like this since I was a hormonal teenager discovering porn magazines for the first time,” he admitted, biting his lip. He rocked himself against me again, and I could feel him, thick and throbbing. “I thought about this, you know? You and me.”
My eyes widened. So had I, but that was to be expected. He could literally have anyone in the world he wanted. How the fuck had he ever thought about me? “What, ah…what did you think about?”
“What it would be like if I saw you again and you actually wanted me. It was very different than this.” He dipped his head low and smudged open-mouthed kisses along my jaw. “I wasn’t collapsed on the floor when we met, for one.”
I laughed, the sound a little tight and breathless in my chest. “I’ve definitely had some floor fantasies.”
He leaned back, eyes sparkling. “I’m sure we could have made it fun.”
“Maybe next time,” I breathed, then gripped him by his hair. He groaned, his eyes glazing over, and his hips began to move again, almost like he had no control. When I tugged harder, he put more weight on me like he couldn’t control himself. “Oh. You like that?”
“Unf.”
I tightened my grip more to the point I knew it hurt, and I could feel wetness seeping from his pants onto mine.
His dick was drooling a fucking river, and his mouth was open, the corners gathering spit.
I wanted to throw him to the ground and see how hot and slick it would be if I shoved my cock between the pretty O of his lips.
“You really like this. You really want to be held down and fucked, don’t you?”
“Ryan,” he gasped.
I doubted I would last for any of that, so instead, I used my free hand to wriggle my pants down to my thighs. Atlas was too out of it to follow, so I curled my fingers into the waistband of his sweats. “Yes?”
He gathered enough of himself to nod against my tight grip. “Mm. Please.”
I tugged and tugged, and he rolled from side to side until his naked, hot, throbbing cock was pushing up next to mine. He was thicker than I was, I was longer, but we still fit inside my palm as I curled my fingers around us.
He let out a sharp whine as I squeezed, and then I tugged his hair, and he lost strength in his arms for a second.
I pulled even harder. “Hold yourself up, and I’ll make us come.”
His arms were shaking, but he obeyed and lifted his torso up off mine. With the angle, I could only just make out the tips of our dicks squeezed together, mine a darker blush, but Jesus, they looked so good together.
“Please,” he whispered, and I realized that I’d been holding us and staring for too long. His arms were still shaking, and I had no idea how long his strength was going to last. So I tightened my grip a fraction more, and then I began to move.
He gasped, his head falling forward, held up only by the grasp I had on his hair. I relented a little, just far enough so his lips could graze mine.
He let out a hard moan as he pulled and struggled to reach a kiss as my arm sped up—faster, faster, until my balls were tight, and it was by chance alone that I was managing to hold back my orgasm.
I wanted him so fucking much, but I wanted him to let go first, to spill all over me. I lowered my arm a bit more, and our lips touched. “Come for me,” I murmured. “Make a fucking mess.” Then I let go, and his mouth crashed into mine.
His kiss was desperate, frantic, tongue fucking my mouth the way his cock might fuck my ass. His arms were only just holding him up, and as I stroked us from root to tip, his dick thickened.
And then I let go.
He came on the edge of a shattered groan, his mouth open against mine, breathing heavily as every muscle in his body went tight. His hips rocked for a moment, and then I felt his legs begin to spasm as his cock pulsed and pulsed and spilled ropes of come all over us.
I barely noticed my own orgasm on the heels of his. It was like his pleasure and mine had joined, and I had no idea which was which. My free arm tugged him down against me as I released our cocks, and his hips shook against mine as he chased the last vestiges of his pleasure.
There was a sea of come between us, pooling against our stomachs. It was going to be a bitch to clean, but in that moment, the only thing that mattered was the fact that our chests were rising and falling together.
That he was here.
And so was I.
And it was everything I had ever wanted it to be.
Eventually, he managed to push himself back up, and he blinked at me, hazy and a little sweet. “Uh…holy fuck.”
A blush erupted through my whole body when I realized what I’d done. I had never been that bold with my words before. Not ever. I swallowed heavily before meeting his gaze. “I hope that was okay.”
He laughed, the sound a bit shocked, and he collapsed back down. His legs were still twitching. “That was…I don’t know what to say, but it was fucking amazing.”
He attempted to shove his arms under my back but only got as far as my shoulders.
That seemed to be enough though. He held me in a tight grip, his nose nuzzling against my neck, running up the length of my tendon, and then he mouthed at my pulse like he was trying to chase the last bit of ecstasy thrumming between us.
“We’re going to need to clean up,” he said after a long forever of nuzzling. “But I don’t think I can walk for a while.”
“Let me help.”
He eased up, and I helped roll him over as we both grimaced. The come between us made an uncomfortable squelching sound as we peeled fully apart, and his eyes widened when he saw how much there was.
“It’s been a while,” I confessed, rubbing the back of my neck.
His hand touched my jaw, urging my eyes up. “For me too.”
I stared at him, then leaned in, hesitant because I wasn’t sure I was allowed to still kiss him. But he met me halfway, easy like we’d been doing this our entire lives. And fuck, it seemed like it. No part of him felt like a stranger.
I didn’t know what he did for his sixteenth birthday, or what his favorite color was, or his address, but my soul knew him in ways it had never known another person.
I didn’t believe in fate, or a god, or even a real cosmic purpose in the universe. But I believed in him.