Chapter 10
10
SETH MAYS
Can I ask a wood-related question?
ELLIOT CRANE
What kind of wood?
Tree wood.
Jesus.
Not where I was going.
You know there are many kinds of trees, right?
Yes.
Hard wood.
Fuck.
How do carpenters talk about anything?
:D
Are you starting from tree, or from furniture?
Furniture?
What kind?
A chair.
Could you be any more specific?
A dining chair.
Are you trying to identify one you have or…?
Yeah.
I want to figure out what it is.
So I can fix it.
Maybe you should send me a picture.
I sent him a picture of the now-broken chair in the kitchen.
I had been trying to get something off the top of the cabinet and had stood on one of Noah’s wooden dining chairs—there were three, each of which tucked around the tiny little kitchen table that we used when we were feeling fancy enough to sit at a table instead of on the couches like the slobs we normally were.
I was now also nursing a lump on the back of my head from hitting said table when the chair gave out under me. Noah had not helped because he was working late.
Did you hit a burglar with it?
No.
I was standing on it.
You are aware that chairs are for sitting, right?
I needed something off the top cupboard.
And your giant ass couldn’t reach it?
Obviously not or I wouldn’t have been on the chair.
The phone rang.
I looked down at it, startled. Elliot was calling me.
“Hi,” I said stupidly.
“I can’t see anything useful from that picture,” he told me, his rough baritone sending funny little squiggles through my stomach. “What broke?”
“One of the legs. Like it… came out?”
“Show me?”
I took a close-up picture and sent it to him.
“Well, you absolutely fucked up that leg,” he remarked.
“The chair’s too,” I told him, only partially kidding. My knee was already swelling from the way I’d landed. It hadn’t been graceful.
“Are you okay?” he asked, then, and I thought there might have been actual concern in his voice, which made my stomach flutter again.
“I’ll recover,” I replied, turning the comment into a quip so he wouldn’t think I’d actually hurt myself. I’d be fine. In a few days and with the help of some Aleve. Assuming I didn’t do anything else catastrophically stupid.
“I’d hope so. Otherwise you should call an ambulance, not a carpenter.” I couldn’t quite read the tone in his voice. Maybe warm? Maybe worried? I didn’t know him well enough, which was a pretty good reminder that this man was not a potential romantic partner. I didn’t really know him, at least not in any real way other than biblically .
“How do I get a new chair leg?” I asked him, a little annoyed at how pathetic I sounded.
“You ask really nicely and the carpenter on the phone will make you one,” he replied.
“I—that—I didn’t mean—” I definitely hadn’t texted him to get him to make me a new chair leg. I’d just hoped he could tell me what I needed to buy one.
“Consider it a thank-you.”
“Elliot—”
“Let me do this, Seth.” God, the way he said my name made my knees weak. Weaker, anyway. My knees are shit—one more than the other, but both shit.
“I can pay?—”
“Send me your address, dumbass,” came the response. “And send me a picture next to your hand so I can tell what color to stain it. And measure the leg and send me that, too.”
“Elliot—”
“I’m not arguing with you about this,” he told me. “Either you send me what I asked for, or I will send you endless chair legs until you beg me to stop.”
My whole neck and face were bright red, but at least he couldn’t see that. “I—thanks,” I said, finally, giving up.
“Good,” he pronounced. There was a pause, and when he spoke again, his voice was absolutely wicked. “I was wondering if there was any way for me to send you my wood long-distance.”
I gaped at the phone. I know we’d started with wood-related misinterpretations, but this was very clearly a come-on.
“Nothing?” he asked, sounding amused.
I swallowed. “You can send me wood anytime you like,” I replied, trying for flirty banter and feeling like a complete awkward failure .
“Can I?”
“Uh huh.” I am so awkward.
His voice dropped. “The memory of you coming apart for me is what keeps me up at night,” he said, and I had to lean heavily against the kitchen counter because all the blood left my head and went somewhere considerably lower in my body.
“Sorry?” was all I managed.
He laughed, deep and throaty and incredibly sexy. “I’m not.”
“Then me neither.”
“What keeps you up at night, Seth?”
The blush that had heated my face had spread over what felt like my whole body. Did I want to play this game? I’d been trying so hard to stop thinking about him, even though I’d failed miserably. I didn’t know if my heart could take it… but I didn’t want to stop.
I swallowed. “How you fucked me so hard I could feel it in my teeth.”
“Fuck,” he breathed. “Seth?”
“Yeah?”
“Tell me you’re hard right now.”
I didn’t have to lie to him. “God, yes.”
“Tell me you’re touching yourself.”
I bit my lip. “I am now.” I wasn’t—not yet. I staggered out of the kitchen and into my room, closing the door and falling onto the bed before letting myself reach into my sweatpants to grip my swollen cock. I somehow managed to hit speaker on the phone so I didn’t have to hold it up. “God, I am now.”
“Good.” His voice made my skin vibrate. “Take it slow. Steady. Imagine I’m behind you, and it’s my hand.”
It was all too easy to do just that. To imagine his thick cock pushing against my ass cheeks. His breath on my spine. “God,” I breathed.
He let out a soft grunt.
“Are you?” I asked him.
“Am I what?” he countered, his voice slightly breathy.
“T-touching yourself.” My skin was on fire.
“I’m imagining rimming you with my cock,” he breathed. “Stroking just the tip. Playing with it the way I played with your ass.”
I whimpered.
“Slow down, Seth.” I gasped, obeying. “You don’t—have any toys, do you?”
My skin couldn’t possibly get any hotter. “Y-yes.”
“Tell me you have a dildo.”
“I—yes.”
He groaned. “Fuck.” I heard him pant a few times. “Stretch yourself for me,” he rasped. “I want you to fuck yourself with it.” Another few breaths. “And I want to hear you come from it.”
“ God ,” I gasped. My cock ached, my balls tight. If I did as he asked, I’d come in a second. “I—I don’t want to go too soon.”
“No such thing,” he managed. “Because the minute you do, I’m going to come all over myself.”
I whined in the back of my throat.
“Come on, Seth. Stretch yourself for me. Tell me what you’re doing.”
I’d stopped stroking myself, too sensitive to keep going, especially if I was going to do as he said. Swallowing and trying to get myself under control, I half-rolled over to grab lube and condoms, along with my dildo out of the bedside drawer. The condoms made cleanup easier.
I had one of the dildos that had a narrower side and a wider one—one side for prep and one for… well, not prep. I slid a condom over the narrow side, along with a lot of lube.
“Seth?”
“I’m—” I kicked off my sweats, then spread my legs. “Opening myself,” I managed. “I’m—God—pushing in a little. Now pulling out. And—God—in.”
I could hear his breath over the phone, his breathing heavy. “Keep going,” he said, his voice tight. “Push deeper.”
I did as he asked, letting out a moan as I pushed farther than I usually did. “God. So tight. So good .”
“Tell me,” he demanded.
“I’m—God—going in deeper. It’s—wider—I’m stretching, moving. God .”
“That’s it. Stretch yourself. I want you open for me.”
I desperately wanted to touch my erection, to wrap my hand around myself and create the friction that would send me cascading over the edge—but I wanted Elliot to come more. “I’m so close. Almost open enough.”
I remembered the feeling of his cock, thick and hot, as he pushed it into me. And suddenly the narrow side wasn’t enough. I pulled it out and turned it, stripping off the lubed condom and putting another on the wider side. “I’m ready,” I panted. “I’m going to fuck myself for you.”
“On your back,” he gasped.
“Yes.”
“Legs spread, pushing your hips up so I can see that sweet ass.”
I pushed with my feet, sliding the wide side of the dildo, covered in lube, inside myself, slow at first. “Oh, God,” I moaned. “You’re so fucking thick.”
Elliot grunted out a small growl. “And you’re so fucking tight . Fuck, Seth, you’re so fucking tight .”
I pushed the dildo in deeper, faster, then pulled, then pushed again. “God, I need you to go faster,” I gasped out, as though he were in control of the toy. “Faster and harder .”
“Fuck, yes.”
I couldn’t go as fast or hard as he could, fucking me, but I tried. “God, Elliot. I need more. I can’t?—”
“Yes, you fucking can ,” he growled. “I’m going to fuck you until you come from just my cock. Going to push your ass higher so that I hit every nerve you have, and I’m going to make you come without touching yourself.”
I shifted, angling the dildo so that it hit my prostate, my hips pushing back of their own accord as I pumped the dildo into myself, jerking my hand as though I were going to stroke myself to orgasm, although the thick length I held was the toy and not my own erection.
“Seth, make yourself come with my cock. Just my cock.”
“God, yes. Oh, God?—”
“That’s it, I’m making you come. Making you come so hard.”
“Elliot—”
“I need you to come for me, Seth. It’ll make me come. So come for me. Fuck ,” he panted. “Come for me, Seth.”
“Oh, God, Elliot, I’m coming,” I moaned out, “I’m—ahhh.”
“ Fuck , yes.” He let out a half-growl, half-moan, a sound I’d replayed in my mind with my hand wrapped around my cock several times over the past few days.
I lay there, just listening to his breathing as it steadied and slowed, and I wondered what the hell I was doing.