Chapter 14 #6
Pushing him back against the door, I did what he asked. Lowering my mouth onto his willing one, I kept it soft, kissing him slowly. He was eager, opening up for me, inviting me in. Our tongues tangled together, and he made a needy noise in the back of his throat.
But I receded, gentling the kiss, slowing it down again.
Whenever we had sex, I was always the desperate, greedy one.
Tonight I wanted to give him something else.
Something sweet. I let my hands wander his ass while we kissed.
And pretty soon I had him growling into my mouth, his hips pressing into mine.
“Let’s have you in my bed,” I demanded.
“Now who’s bossy?” he panted. As he crossed the room, Rikker stripped off his jacket and his T-shirt.
I watched with greedy eyes. Ever since I could remember wanting anyone, I’d wanted him.
I never had a choice in the matter. There was never a moment when I said, “okay, I’ve decided to choose Rikker over the entire female population.
” In fact, I’d wasted a whole lot of time trying not to want him.
But the desire I carried for him came from someplace deep.
When his hands moved down to unzip his fly, I watched the muscles flex in his back.
And I wanted to run my fingers over everything I saw.
My desire for him was there whether I wanted it or not. And if I could figure out how to just own up to it, maybe I could get some peace.
Naked, Rikker climbed onto my bed. He propped his head on an arm and waited for me to follow.
So I shook off my reverie and began shedding clothes. The jacket fell by the door. The t-shirt was next. He watched me with the same hungry expression that I probably wore. I don’t know what I ever did to deserve it, either.
I dropped my jeans and boxers in one go.
Rikker licked his lips, then. And man did that light me up.
It was all I could do to keep calm. Instead of throwing myself at him, I slid onto the bed, gave his shoulder a nudge and pushed Rik onto his back.
He reached up to put his arms around me, but I took his wrists in my hands and pinned them to the bed. “Just hold still,” I whispered.
His hips twitched beneath me. “If you insist.”
“I do.” Dropping my head into his neck, I kissed the path his evening whiskers had made.
The scrape of his stubble against my lips was a turn-on.
There was really no way I could ever go back to sleeping with women, and pretending to like it.
I had a pang of remorse for the girls I’d talked into my bed these past few years.
They didn’t know that they had bit parts in the melodrama of my sexual confusion.
But my desire for Rikker was as clear as the day was long.
His hard body beneath my hips was everything I wanted.
Following the dark outline of his happy trail down his chest, I released his wrists.
Kissing lower, I paused to lay my face on his flat belly.
I just paused there, nuzzling him. With one hand, I traced the skin from his rib cage down past his hipbone.
Mine, I thought. It wasn’t often that I allowed myself to think possessive thoughts about him.
I didn’t deserve to. Tonight, at least, I had him all to myself.
“Mmm,” he said, running a hand over my hair. A couple of inches from my face, his cock stood at attention. I stuck out my tongue, just grazing the tip of it, and his stomach tightened beneath me as I heard him sucking in air.
I inched closer, just teasing him with glancing kisses. Each touch bought me another gasp or twitch of anticipation.
After making him suffer for a minute or two, I picked my head up, opened my mouth and sucked him down.
“Oh baby, yes,” he panted. He tried to arch off the bed, but I wasn’t having it.
Just for fun, I pinned his hips down and worked him at my own speed.
And my speed was slow. I took long, loving strokes, swirling my tongue around the head of him.
“Ahhhh,” he moaned, and it turned into a chuckle.
He rose up on his elbows for a better view.
Holding his eyes, I sucked him down again. “You’re killing me, and you like it,” he complained.
“Mmmmm hmmmm,” I hummed around him.
“Arrrgh,” he panted, dropping his head backward.
Releasing him, I let up on his hips. “So give it to me,” I ordered.
He didn’t wait for another invitation. Rikker jacked his hips up off the bed, pumping into my mouth. Happier than I’d been in weeks, I made my boyfriend lose his mind.
Afterward, there was a lot more kissing, and a lot of holding each other. I was feeling pleased with myself, and Rikker was pretty pleased with me. So I asked him a question that had been on my mind many times before. “Rik?”
“Yeah?” he said, sucking on my ear lobe.
“Would you ever let me top you?”
“Sure,” he said, kissing my neck.
The quick answer surprised me. I rose up to look at him. “Really?”
His brown eyes were soft and lazy. “All you have to do is ask, G. There’s almost nothing I wouldn’t give you if you asked.”
All that generosity made me feel like a heel. “Don’t know why you should,” I muttered, dropping back onto the pillow we were sharing.
But now it was his turn to pull back and take a look at me. “You’ve got to stop with that,” he said, his voice low and serious.
“With what?”
“You know what I mean. With always beating yourself up over the past. Something happened a long time ago that you regret. And you’re still dragging that around with you. Set that shit down, man.”
I sighed. It sounded nice the way he put it. But it wasn’t just one bad decision I’d made. I had a perfect record for torturing all the people who loved me. Including him. Especially him.
“I’m not kidding,” Rikker pressed. “You keep that up, and it won’t work out between us.”
My heart squeezed with fear. “Why not?” I didn’t like the plaintive sound of my voice. So vulnerable.
“Because you’ll wreck it. You have to be able to say what you need, just like I do. It doesn’t work any other way. I don’t want to always have to guess what you want from me.”
“That shit that happened five years ago…”
“Six,” Rikker corrected.
“Five, six, whatever. It doesn’t matter if I let it go, because that’s not the only problem.”
“What is, then?”
Damn. It. See, one of the benefits of never, ever having a girlfriend was that I never had to Talk About the Relationship. Guys in the locker room always got super pissy whenever the Big Conversations happened. And now I was having one of those too, and I didn’t even have a clue how to do it.
I cleared my throat. “Okay, you’re only going to leave me, eventually.
Because I can’t be like you. I can’t be out.
I can’t talk to a reporter, or tell Big-D to go fuck himself.
So when you finally get sick of being with a guy who won’t even make eye contact in the locker room, I’m history anyway.
I know this. So how in the hell do you expect me to stop feeling bad about that shit?
It’s bad, and if I pretend it isn’t, that’s a lie. ”
After a beat, Rikker put both hands over his eyes. “I don’t even know where to start with all that.”
“You don’t have to start anywhere. I didn’t want to talk about it in the first place. But all those things are true. And I don’t have a clue why you’re still here.”
His hands slid up to his forehead, revealing his eyes. “You don’t?”
I shook my head, which had just begun to throb.
With a look of utter exasperation, he sat up.
“Because I love you, you stupid fuck. And I always have. It’s not always so convenient, loving you.
But when you climb out of that thick blond head of yours for a few minutes, you’re a hell of a lot of fun.
And you’re loyal, too, in that tortured way of yours. ”
It was a crazy ass speech. And not even a little bit romantic. But even so, my eyes welled.
“Aw hell, G!” Rikker slid back down and put his head on my chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t say that right.”
“You said it fine.” I palmed my eyes, wiping the tears out and praying there wouldn’t be more.
“I know you don’t believe me. But I think that everything is going to get easier for you.”
“Are you giving me an It Gets Better speech?”
He kissed my chin. “Sort of. Yes, actually. Because I know how you don’t want to change the way people look at you.
And that’s not crazy. But you’ve only got one year left in the locker room, right?
One year left to be the D-squad enforcer, and to beat on your chest and mow down the enemy.
And then you’re moving on to grad school or a job or whatever.
College is great, but there isn’t any privacy. After this, it just gets easier.”
“What if it doesn’t?” I asked in a small voice.
“It has to, G. You told your parents. Every time you move a person into the truth column, breathing gets a little easier, right?”
“I guess.”
“Did you talk to Hartley tonight?” Rikker asked suddenly.
“Sure.”
“He knows.”
I stopped breathing. “How?”
Rik shrugged. “The hospital. He went back there into your room and tried to calm you down. But you just kept asking him where I was. And… I can’t explain it.
I just saw the moment he figured it out.
And then when your mom showed up she made a big deal about how we played hockey together in eighth grade. ”
“Ugh.” I felt a little sick just picturing that.
Rikker picked up his head to look at me. “No, G. Not ugh. You need to stop thinking that way, for your own sanity. I mean, Hartley is good to me. And also to you. He knows, and just doesn’t care.”
“He is good to you. And he isn’t just phoning it in.” But I was just so conditioned to hold on to my secret, I couldn’t even conceive of a day when I didn’t care who knew.