Chapter 18 Ash
ASH
“What’s it like? Bottoming.”
We’re in bed, after having taken only the most cursory shower to rinse off the chlorine and the worst of the sweat and mess.
The room still reeks of sex even after Sam’s opened the balcony slider, but the breeze feels nice on my bare skin at least. And the sound of the ocean roaring and tumbling below is nice, too.
The vertical blinds clatter gently, like one of those wooden wind chimes.
We both stink, but I don’t mind. I like it. I like his smell. I like smelling of him. In fact, I buried my face in his hairy, musky armpit after he rejoined me in bed and he had to fish me out of there and coax me into his arms instead, which I did so quite willingly.
And now I lay atop him, body pleasantly sore and arms folded across his chest as I consider his question. “Why?”
“I dunno.” He folds his arms behind his head, which makes his biceps look enormous. “Curious, I guess.”
“Curious because someone told you that you could come hands-free that way?” I ask wryly.
“Fucking hell.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe those two—that was not what I was expecting tonight. Of all the people I know.”
“It’s the nineties, Sam,” I intone. “Fucking men is in. And if that’s true, just think of what the millennium’s gonna bring.”
“Uh huh.” He sighs. “But to answer your question, yes. That, and I literally saw you do it. Come just from being fucked in the ass.”
“You made that happen.”
One corner of his mouth quirks. “Yeah, Jesus. That was…something, Ash.” He lifts his hand and runs his knuckles gently along my cheek. “I didn’t know that was a thing til Carter said so. It didn’t happen the first time with you. Or with Gabriel at all.”
“It’s positional for me,” I say. “Doggy is easier. Or on my side. Missionary, not as much.”
“Okay, but like—what does it feel like?”
“It feels like getting fucked in the ass,” I quip.
He’s not having any of my shit. “And that feels like…?” he prompts.
“Oh—I don’t know.” I rub my face between his pecs and sigh. “It’s intense. Like you’re an empty cup getting filled up to the very brim. It’s good, especially when you hit the spot—I mean, the prostate—but that’s just me. Not everyone has the same experience. And I’ve been doing it a while, so…”
“So, not something you can just jump into? Like, I couldn’t just go out and get fucked in the ass tomorrow.”
“I mean, everyone’s different. Some people are more relaxed than others. My first time was like, zero training and prep other than lube. It just kinda happened. And it was fine. But other people need to work for it.”
“Hmm. Interesting.”
I lift my head to look at him. “Why the sudden curiosity? Thought you weren’t interested in bottoming.”
“I never said I wasn’t interested,” he argues. “Just that I wasn’t sure I’d like it.”
“Okay, well…” Suddenly I want to be the one to do it, to top Sam.
To give it a shot, at least. My mouth fills with saliva at the thought.
I don’t top nearly as often as I bottom, but I’m not averse.
Especially not with him. I swallow. “If that’s something you want to try, we can,” I say casually. “At some point.”
“Oh yeah?” He raises one eyebrow. “You want to fuck me?”
He has no idea. “Yeah, I mean, you know.”
A smile splits his face. “You’re so bad at that. Pretending you don’t give a shit.”
I shove myself away from him, sitting up. “Shut up.”
“Oh come on, Ash. Just say it. Say you wanna fuck me.” His voice has taken on that low, sexy quality again, the way it does when he’s horny, when he’s rasping in my ear mid-fuck, and my libido automatically sits up and takes notice.
So I brace myself over him, touching my nose to his. “I want to fuck you, Sam. I wanna be inside you.”
And it’s a bit startling to realize that I do. Because usually, I don’t. Bottoming means I don’t have to participate. Means I can tap out, in a way. With people paying me I want it over with as soon as possible, and it’s just easier to bend over and make the right sounds that hurry it all up.
But with Sam…I want it all. So differently. Like it’s something real.
He bites his lower lip and it’s so attractive when he does. He plays the macho big dog well, but he’s sexy like this, too. He’s sexy, period. “Yeah?”
“Mm.” I kiss him. “I would love to make you come that way.”
“Fuck.” He inhales sharply and lets it go, his exhale shuddering out of him. “Stop being hot.”
“You first,” I tell him.
His hands come up to frame my face as his legs fall open, and I slide between them. My lips touch his. Not that we’re going to fuck now, I don’t think. We’re both half-hard, all-interested, but exhausted. I’m not sure I could finish a fourth time. Maybe he’s got more gas in the tank than me.
No. We just make out for a few minutes, lazy and sleepy, playing with the idea of me topping him by having me here, but I do think he likes it more than just in theory.
And I know I absolutely do. I slide my hand along the underside of his thigh, the curve of his well-muscled ass, and he makes a soft sound against my mouth. I squirm my hips against his.
Yeah, I definitely like him like this, too. I think there’s very few ways I don’t like him. Except in the middle of a bunch of girls, I guess. Wouldn’t particularly like him with another guy, either. I just want him with me.
“So, Ash.” His voice is soft when we finally part, both of us breathing a little heavy. “Does that mean we’re gonna keep doing this in Miami?”
Oh.
I’d actually forgotten, somehow. Like, I just keep forgetting—maybe on purpose—that this has an expiration date, and that we aren’t on some infinite road trip where every successive night ends in a new place and a new hotel room and another excursion between the sheets. It’s over tomorrow.
I have to say goodbye tomorrow.
Abruptly I sit up, the sheet pooling around me, and Sam sits up too. “Hey, can’t we talk about this? Why do you get so weird every time I try?”
I avert my gaze, cast it off somewhere in the dark room. Stare out the open slider into the night beyond, barely making out where the ocean meets the star-studded horizon. There’s a moon, but it’s high up, out of my line of sight.
Sam’s hand closes around mine. “Ash, I really like you. I really, really do. I don’t want to pretend none of this happened when we get there.”
My throat closes just like that. Hard to breathe and speak, suddenly, but I try. “Sam, I…”
“I don’t understand.” He sounds equal parts desperate and frustrated. “Why we can’t go on knowing each other. Being together.”
“Because—oh, Sam, you don’t fuckin’ get it.”
“Try me.”
I can’t, though. No. I can’t tell him. Can’t tell him that I’m a bad person who’s done bad things and if he ever found out what those bad things are, he wouldn’t like me so much anymore, if at all.
I can’t look into his sweet earnest face that’s still all soft from our lovemaking—and Jesus, did I really call it lovemaking?
just now? in my head?—and say I’m a hustler and I stole thousands of dollars from someone who killed himself and I don’t feel much of anything.
I don’t feel nearly as bad as I should. Not nearly as sorry.
Can’t tell him I’m used up, either, and I’ve fucked a million billion men, and yeah, maybe I didn’t like it all that much but it doesn’t change anything. He’s still going to think I’m dirty because they all do. No one wants to date a hooker.
But he’s still looking at me. With those eyes—dark, sable, beautiful—the same eyes I’ve found so striking since the moment I saw him in that crowded little bar in New Haven, eyes that made me fall in love with him just a little bit. At first sight.
No, not love. Infatuation. All it is. It’ll go away if you let it. If you give it the time and space to die.
But I try, anyway, to explain to him. Approximate the truth, couch it in language that won’t make him hate me. “You and I,” I say to him, “we don’t even know each other. Not really.”
“We’ve been together nearly a straight week. I feel like I know you okay. Maybe not everything, but—”
“That’s not enough, Sam. And maybe there’s things about me that you won’t like so much after you find out.”
“So tell me what they are.”
“It’s not that easy.” Or it is, but I don’t want us to blow apart just yet.
I stare at my hands in my lap. He’s still holding onto one of them, and even now I’m reluctant to pull away.
I know that I should, but I can’t make myself.
“If I lived with you, maybe you’d see I’m just…
not who you think I am. Or I’ve got all these gross habits that you can’t stand. ”
“Ash, we’ve basically been living together this entire time,” he points out. “You’re neater than I am. If anything, you’d probably think I’m the gross one.”
I smile faintly. “I don’t think you’re gross. A little messy, but not gross.”
“We could just give it a chance.”
“That’s the thing, though. It’s so much easier to not give it a chance.”
Sam’s face is blank. “I don’t get it.”
“Like, if we try and fail, it’s worse. It’s permanent.
We know there’s no universe where we work out, right?
It’s a done deal. But if we never try in the first place, we can tell ourselves maybe it would’ve worked out someday, somehow.
We’ll never know for sure and that’s…you know, comforting, I guess? ”
“Ash,” he says patiently, “that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I bet it does. To you.” And yes, I sound bitter when I say it.
“Look.” He releases my hand and squirms onto his stomach in front of me, gazing up into my eyes.
Which is unfair, because that’s my weakness.
Maybe he knows that now. “Living with me doesn’t need to be a permanent thing, and I never suggested it would be.
It’s just for a few weeks, okay? Until you figure things out in Miami.
Nail down a place of your own and a job and all that.
We’ve stuck it out this far and it hasn’t been so bad, right? ”
“I guess.”