11. Grady
11
GRADY
“Goddammit!”
He kissed me. Elliot fucking kissed me , and I just stood there like a jackass. I didn’t think we were even to the point where he wanted to be in the same room as me, much less kiss me.
And now he’s running away again. Why didn’t I kiss him back? Why did I let him leave without explaining myself? Why am I still standing here, staring after him, and not fucking doing anything?
I take off toward the hallway, but he’s already gone by the time I reach the doors. He isn’t in his office, and his car is missing when I make it to the parking lot. I have half a mind to call Ellie and demand that she track him down for me, but I don’t want her to know that I upset her brother until I can make it right.
Why did he kiss me? He doesn’t even like me. Does he? I mean, we’re…tentatively friendly. Maybe this wasn’t about me? Maybe he’s just lonely, and I was saying nice things to him? That would explain why he looked so terrified when he stepped away from me.
Why the fuck didn’t I kiss him back?!
Grabbing my phone, I dial a number I know by heart, hoping he’ll pick up. It only rings one and a half times before the line clicks over. “Hello?”
“I need you to find someone’s home address for me, and I need you not to ask any questions.”
My brother doesn’t say anything for several seconds, and it’s long enough that I begin to worry he might not be willing to help me. “What’s the name?”
Twenty minutes later I’m pulling into an apartment complex on the north side of town. The buildings are old but well-kept, with decent landscaping and freshly painted parking spaces. I spot Elliot’s beat-up Honda at the far end of the lot and make a beeline for it. Theo said Elliot’s apartment number was C429, and I realize the four in four-twenty-nine means I’m going to have a fuck ton of stairs to climb.
I take them two at a time, coming to the top floor of the building just as a door opens on my right. A man steps out, light brown hair pulled back into a tiny ponytail and eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. My heart sinks when I realize the number on the door behind him is the one I’m looking for.
“Hey, uh,” I wave awkwardly at him, unsure how to ask this without sounding like a creep. “Is Elliot home?”
The dude stares blankly at me before reaching back to push the door open again. “Yeah.”
That’s all he says before walking around me to get to the stairwell. He just…opened the door and left. My teeth grind together at the total lack of concern for Elliot’s safety as I push through the front door. I close it behind me, twisting the deadbolt into place just to prove a point to that asshole.
“Elliot?”
There’s no response, and I feel my heart sink. There are three doors in the hallway across from the front door, but only two of them are closed. I try to consider which is worse: standing awkwardly in Elliot’s living room or knocking on his bedroom door.
At this point, I’ve already crossed all the lines just getting to his apartment—I might as well go for broke. I stop next to the first door, placing my ear against the wood to see if I can hear anything inside. It’s quiet, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t Elliot’s room. I step over to the second door to see if I can hear anything in there, and I’m met with a soft sound that immediately shoots through my body.
Whoever is on the other side of this door is masturbating. I, quite rationally, decide that can’t be Elliot. Turning back to the first door, I knock quietly, not wanting to disturb his neighbor. No one calls for me to come in, and I don’t hear any sudden sounds from behind the closed door, so I knock again.
“ Fuck .”
A soft voice breaks through the silence of the apartment, coming from the room next to me. There’s something familiar about the sound, and I take a step to my right.
“ Fuck, fuck, please. ”
Every part of my body locks up as the man begs for more. That can’t be Elliot. Can it? He was so upset, why would he be…oh. Oh, shit. I reach out to knock on the door I’m now standing in front of, but I don’t expect the damn thing to swing open the moment my hand connects with the wood.
Theoretically, I know what is happening in this room. I’ve done it a thousand times myself. I’ve done it alone and with other people. I’ve sat patiently in the corner while watching other people do it. I know what is happening in this room.
That does not prepare me for what lies behind the door. The room itself is a riot of color but the only thing I can focus on is the twin-sized bed that Elliot is kneeling in the middle of, his face pressed into the mattress as he rhythmically slides a bright orange dildo in and out of his ass. He’s completely naked, and my eyes can’t seem to decide what part of him to focus on first. I thought I was aware of how beautiful Elliot’s body is, but I was dead wrong. He’s all lean muscle and tight ass, his hard cock flushed and leaking as he rides the toy.
“ Grady .”
“Elliot.”
“What the fuck?” Elliot jumps, his head snapping toward where I’m standing in his doorway. He lets out a sound that could almost be a shriek before he moves, flipping onto his back and grabbing the comforter to cover himself. “What are you doing here?!”
Why does he look so surprised if he saw me standing here? It takes my lust filled brain entirely too long to realize he was saying my name for a different reason.
“Me.”
“What? Yes, you! What are you doing here?”
“Me,” I repeat, unable to come up with another word. I step into the room, and Elliot’s eyes grow impossibly wider. “My name.”
Elliot mumbles something but it’s lost to the sound of blood rushing in my ears.
“You said my name. You were thinking about me?”
He doesn’t respond, his wide green eyes locked on my face. It seems odd that my brain is zeroing in on the fact that this is the first time I’ve ever seen him without his glasses, but it’s suddenly all I can think about. The way it changes the contours of his face, how he looks both older and younger without them. “Elliot.”
His name is a command, and he responds to it immediately. “Yes. Yes, I was thinking about you. I know it’s not okay, especially after what happened today, but?—”
“I thought you hated me.”
“What?”
What seems to be Elliot’s favorite question. He asks it a lot, and I’m not sure if it’s out of a genuine desire for clarification or if it’s just the word his brain uses as a placeholder when it’s trying to catch up.
I swing the door closed behind me, not caring that it doesn’t latch as I step up to the bottom of his bed. “I thought you didn’t like me. I thought we were so far from kissing that I didn’t understand what was happening or I would have kissed you back. Fuck, I would have kissed you first.”
Elliot tips his head to the side, confusion warring with some other emotion on his face. Is that hope? God, I fucking want it to be hope. When he doesn’t say anything, I take another careful step forward.
“What are you thinking?”
Elliot shakes his head, wide eyes locked on my face as if he’s afraid I’ll disappear the moment he blinks. “I don’t know.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No.”
My knees hit the ground at the end of the bed, the threadbare carpet doing nothing to soften the blow, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except getting my hands on him. “What are your limits? How can I touch you?”
“I don’t have limits,” he mumbles, spreading his knees beneath the blanket to make room for me. “I don’t care, just touch me.”
My fingers run up his calves as I consider that answer. When I reach the back of his knees, I drag him toward me until our faces are inches apart. Elliot sucks in a breath, his gaze darting between my eyes and my lips as I speak. “Everyone has limits, Elliot. Are you saying that you don’t because you don’t want to scare me away, or because you don’t know?”
“I haven’t done enough to know what my limits are.”
“Thank you for being honest,” I say the words directly against his lips as my fingers gently slide up his thighs. The blanket is still covering most of his lap, so I can’t see where my hands are, but I can tell when I’ve gotten close to where Elliot wants them. “We’re going to use the stoplight system, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Elliot,” I huff, my teeth nipping against his bottom lip. “Do you know what the stoplight system is?”
“Green is good, yellow is slow down, red is stop,” he quickly recites, rolling his hips forward with a moan. I remember the dildo is still deep in his ass, and I meet his moan with one of my own. “Now, please, Grady, fucking touch me .”
My hand finds his dick a moment before our mouths crash together, and my brain can’t decide which sensation I like more. Elliot’s lips are soft beneath mine; his kiss is demanding but with an edge of chaos that likely has to do with the fact that he’s being stimulated in a million different ways. When my palm rolls over the head of his cock, Elliot moans into my mouth, making me smile.
“Such a pretty sound,” I bite his bottom lip harder this time. “How does such a dirty little slut make sounds that sweet?”
Elliot gasps, rocking his hips into my hand and grinding the base of the dildo into the mattress. “Please,” he moans when I slide my other hand between his legs to cup his balls. He’s already so close, having worked himself over before I got here, but I don’t want him to come yet.
“Do you need something?”
“Grady,” he breathes, his cock growing impossibly harder in my hand. I squeeze the base, making him whine. “Please, I need to?—”
“The only thing you need,” I speak over him, dragging my hand to his tip again. “Is to stop being such a greedy little whore. You’ll come when I say you can, and not a moment before.”
“Yes, yes, fuck,” Elliot’s fingers dig into my shoulder as he tries desperately to hold back.
There’s a damp spot forming on the comforter where the head of his cock keeps brushing against the fabric, and I click my tongue disapprovingly. “You’re making a mess,” I move the blanket aside, getting the first look at my hand wrapped around his cock. All trains of thought derail entirely.
“So fucking filthy,” I murmur, bending to run my tongue up the underside of his shaft. My fingers drop to the base of the toy in his ass, gently moving it in and out. “You need me to clean you up, Princess?”
“Oh, fuck, yes.”
I wrap my mouth around the head of his cock, loving the way he feels against my tongue. Sinking down, I take him all the way to the back of my throat. Elliot moans, bucking his hips off the mattress hard enough he nearly pushes into my throat before I’m ready. I pin his hips to the bed, making him whine.
“What happened today, Elliot?”
“What?”
“Today,” I repeat, leaning back to look him in the eye as I slowly drag my hand up and down his flushed cock. “You kissed me, then ran away. I thought you were upset, and I came here to comfort you. But you were already comforting yourself, weren’t you? In here fucking yourself like a needy little slut.”
Elliot’s chest expands quickly, a deep flush spreading across his skin, and I couldn’t stop myself from talking now if I tried. “That was the last thing I expected to see. My needy little cumslut, so desperate for my cock you had to stuff yourself and pretend it was me, didn’t you, Princess? And what did I have to do? I had to track your ass down because you ran from me. Do you think I wanted to call my brother to have him find my little cumslut? Is that a conversation you think I wanted to have?”
“No.”
“No,” I agree, pressing onto my forearms to lean over him. I tense at the pain radiating through my shoulder before shifting my weight onto my right side. “I don’t like telling people I’ve let my whore get away. Don’t ever make me do that again, Elliot.”
“I won’t,” he promises, his wide eyes locked on mine. “I won’t run.”
“No, you won’t.” I reach between his legs, carefully pulling the toy from his ass. Elliot hisses, but he doesn’t try to stop me. “Because you want to be good for me, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
My fingers run gently against the reddened edge of his asshole before pressing inside, making us both moan. “What else do you want, Princess? You want me to fuck this sloppy little hole? Or would you rather choke on my cock like the greedy cumslut you are?”
My lips close around the head of his dick, his taste exploding across my tongue and making my eyes roll back. I bob my head while working two fingers in and out of his ass until he makes a high-pitched sound when the pad of one finger rubs against his prostate.
“Please, Grady, I need to come. I, please, I’m gonna come. I can’t, I?—”
Elliot’s cock swells moments before his cum hits the back of my throat. I let him ride out his orgasm, keeping up the gentle circles against his prostate as I clean all traces of cum from his softening cock.
“Such a good little fucktoy,” I murmur against the inside of his thigh, smiling when Elliot groans like I’ve punched him in the gut. “Except, I didn’t tell you to come.”
Elliot stills, his eyes darting to mine as if he’s only just realized what he’s done. “I’m sorry.”
The words are quiet, barely more than a whisper, and I can’t tell if it’s nerves or excitement that has him shivering slightly beneath my hands. Elliot makes a pained noise when I pull away, but the sound is cut off by what I think is him choking on his own tongue. “You’re, uh…”
“Painfully hard?” I smirk, looking down at the unmistakable outline of my cock.
“Huge,” Elliot corrects, his gaze locked on my crotch. “That’s not really you, is it? Like, this is…you’re kidding?”
Wide green eyes bounce between my face and my cock several times, making me chuckle. “I am not kidding, Princess.”
“Fuck,” he breathes, sitting up enough to get his hands on my belt. “I need you inside me right now.”
“You need to be?—”
Elliot slaps my hand away from his arm, getting my jeans open enough to pull my cock free. “ Holyfuckingshit ,” he groans, running his fingers along my shaft. We both moan when he squeezes a drop of precum from the end. “What do you need?”
“What?” It’s my turn to ask the question, unable to keep up with what he’s saying when he’s touching me like this.
“You did the, uh, thing for me,” he mumbles, reaching across the mattress and coming back with a bottle of lube. “What can I do for you?”
“Elliot,” I hiss when the cold lube touches the heated skin of my cock. “You’re going to have to explain whatever you’re trying to say in simple terms. My brain can’t fill in the gaps right now.”
Elliot bites his lip, but it does nothing to hide the sexy smile spreading across his face. “You,” he tightens his grip, and I fall forward, my forehead pressing into his shoulder. “Called me your filthy little cumslut,” he palms the head of my cock, and I can’t help the twitch of my hips into his hand. “What do you want me to call you? Or is there something I can do? Tell me what will make this good for you, Grady?”
“You,” I admit, thrusting my hips in earnest now. “Just you, Elliot.”
His eyebrows pinch in confusion, but I don’t want to hear whatever he’s thinking. I press our mouths together, sucking his lower lip between my teeth. Elliot moans when I bite down, his grip tightening around me.
“Grady, please.” He shifts, turning around before I have a chance to stop him.
His perfect ass fits snug against me, and I groan at the feel of his back pressed along my chest. Leaning away, I pull my shirt off before shimmying the jeans and underwear off my hips. “You’re not prepared enough.”
“I am.”
“Elliot.”
“Grady, if you don’t fuck me right now, I swear to God.” He turns to look at me over his shoulder, swinging his hips back and forth. “You fucking me? Green. A little pain from the stretch? Green. No condom? Green.”
“Okay, the last one?—”
“Green.”
“Elliot.”
“Grady.”
“You will tell me if we need to slow down.”
“I promise.”
This is a terrible idea. I know it’s a terrible idea, but Elliot keeps insisting he’s good, so I have to trust he will tell me if it becomes too much. “Breathe in, Princess.”
Elliot chuckles at the nickname but takes a breath as instructed. He’s so tight, and every part of me wants to slam into him, but I make myself slow with just the head inside. “You okay?”
“Green,” he groans, canting his hips backward and forcing me deeper. “More, please. I need more.”
I push forward another inch before stopping to let him catch his breath.
“More.”
“Elliot, you need to?—”
“ Matthew ,” he groans, leaning forward until his chest is flat against the bed. “I need you to fuck me. Please.”
Surprisingly, it’s the please at the end that gets me.
“Then you better relax, Princess.” I don’t give him time to snark back, pushing in until I’m flush against his ass. Elliot moans deep in his chest as he stretches around me, but he doesn’t appear to be in much pain. “Give me a color, Elliot.”
“Yellow,” he admits, and I smile down at him even though he can’t see it. Shifting my weight to my right hand, I run my fingers along his back in a soothing gesture. After a few moments, I feel him relax around me, his hips moving in small circles as he tests the waters. “Green.”
I don’t need to be told twice, and I pull out before slamming into him again. Elliot gasps as the air is knocked from his lungs, but it’s my name he groans when he finally catches his breath.
“Fuck, you’re taking my cock so well, Princess. Just like a good little fuckdoll should.”
Elliot whimpers, one hand sliding between his body and the mattress. I realize what he’s doing and nearly come from the thought alone.
“Are you touching yourself? Do you think you’re allowed to do that?”
“I need?—”
“This isn’t about what you need, you desperate little slut.” I reach beneath him, lacing our fingers together around his cock. “Are you really such a whore that you’re going to come a second time? Are you that turned on by having my cock in your ass, Princess?”
“Yes,” Elliot sighs, pushing back to meet my thrusts before fucking into our joined hands. I set a punishing rhythm, not allowing him a moment of peace until he’s begging me to let him come. “Please, Grady. Please, please let me come. I’ll do anything. I promise to be good; I just need to come.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Princess,” I grind out the words, my impending orgasm making it difficult to speak coherently. “You gonna take all my cum like the whore you are?”
“Yes.”
“Beg me for it.”
“Please, give me your cum. Please, Grady, I want it. I fucking need it. I can take it all. I can?—”
I don’t hear what else he can do as my orgasm rolls through me. My vision whites out at the edges, and blood pounds in my ears. I’m vaguely aware of Elliot moving our hands over his cock, but I don’t miss the moment he comes. His ass squeezes around my cock, and I groan against the skin between his shoulder blades.
We both collapse on the tiny bed, and I try not to crush him under my chest, but Elliot doesn’t seem to like that. He wiggles against me, shimmying himself under my arm until I’m sprawled across three-quarters of his back.
“So,” he giggles, settling beneath me. “Princess, huh?”
My laughter fills the room, bouncing back at us from every direction. “Apparently.”
“Thank you, Grady.” He breathes my name, his chest deflating beneath my arm. I want to tell him he shouldn’t be thanking me, that if anyone should say thank you, it’s me, but I can’t seem to make the words come out of my mouth.
Elliot’s breathing evens out while I stare at him, his face soft in his near unconscious state. Just when I think he’s fallen asleep, he wiggles closer to my side with a small sigh. “I’m really glad we’re friends.”
Something sinks in my gut as I watch him settle into restfulness again. We’re friends . Just friends. “Me, too.”