5
I was at the sink rinsing the last of the coffee mugs when the air behind me changed.
Not a sound. Just a shift in pressure, the way the humid apartment always announced him before he spoke. Ryder’s bare feet made almost no noise on the tile, but I felt him stop a few inches from my back. The scent of clean sweat and faint ink reached me first. Then the heat of his body.
“Leave them,” he said.
Two words. Low. Final.
I shut off the water. My hands stayed on the edge of the stainless-steel sink, fingers curled around the cool rim.
He didn’t touch me yet. He simply stood there, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating off his chest through the thin space between us.
My pulse climbed into my throat. The rule he had set the day before still sat under my skin like a second heartbeat: no touching myself in this apartment.
Wait for him. I had obeyed it. My cock was already half-hard just from the proximity and the knowledge of what that obedience meant.
His hand settled on my right hip.
Not gripping. Just resting there, thumb brushing the bare skin above the waistband of the shorts I had borrowed from him.
The contact was light, almost casual, but it locked me in place more effectively than any hard hold.
I exhaled through my nose and stayed still.
Behind me I heard the soft sound of him shifting his weight, the quiet rustle of fabric as he closed the last inch of distance.
His chest met my back. The solid heat of him soaked through my T-shirt.
His mouth hovered near the side of my neck, not quite touching, just breathing there.
“You’ve been thinking about this all morning,” he murmured.
I didn’t deny it. The evidence was already pressing against the front of the shorts.
His other hand joined the first, sliding under the hem of my shirt and up the plane of my stomach.
Calloused palms mapped the tense muscle there, slow and deliberate.
When his fingers reached my chest he dragged his thumbs across both nipples in the same unhurried pass.
The dual sensation pulled a low sound out of me.
He did it again, firmer, and my hips pushed back against him without permission.
The thick ridge of his cock met the curve of my ass through two layers of fabric. He was already hard.
He didn’t rush.
He kept me pinned between the sink and his body while his hands explored—down my sides, over my ribs, back to my hips.
Every stroke stayed just short of where I needed it most.
The denial was deliberate. When he finally hooked his fingers in the waistband of the shorts and pushed them down, the air-conditioned air hit my bare skin like a shock.
My cock sprang free, already flushed and leaking at the tip.
The shorts dropped to my ankles. I stepped out of them without being told.
Ryder’s hand wrapped around me from behind.
The first stroke was slow, tight, perfect.
His thumb swept over the head on the upstroke, spreading the pre-come that had already gathered.
My grip on the sink tightened until my knuckles whitened.
The edge of the counter dug into the tops of my thighs.
Cold stainless steel against overheated skin.
I dropped my head forward and watched his fist move over me in the reflection of the dark window above the sink.
Outside, Miami baked under the afternoon sun.
Inside, the only sounds were the wet slide of his hand and my increasingly uneven breathing.
He worked me until my hips were rolling into every stroke and my thighs had started to shake. Then he stopped. Completely. His hand stayed wrapped around the base of my cock, holding me on the edge without giving any more friction.
“Don’t come,” he said quietly.
I made a broken noise that was half protest, half plea.
He ignored it. His other hand left my hip, reached sideways, and opened the small drawer where he kept the bottle of lube.
The soft click of the cap was obscenely loud in the quiet kitchen.
Cool gel dripped onto his fingers. He didn’t warm it.
He simply pressed one slick fingertip against my hole and pushed inside in a single, steady motion.
The stretch burned. I bit down on my lower lip hard enough to taste copper and pushed back onto the intrusion anyway.
He gave me only a few seconds to adjust before adding a second finger, scissoring them open with the same focused patience he gave his drawings.
The wet sound of lube and skin filled the space between us.
Every curl of his fingers dragged across the spot that made my vision spark white.
My cock jerked hard in the loose circle of his other hand, still denied any real stroke.
“Ryder—”
“I know.” His mouth finally settled against the side of my neck, open and hot. “I’ve got you.”
He worked a third finger in. The burn sharpened, then melted into a thick, overwhelming fullness.
I was shaking against the counter, forehead pressed to the upper cabinet, breath fogging the dark glass.
When he decided I was open enough he pulled his fingers free.
The sudden emptiness made me whimper. Fabric rustled behind me.
Then the blunt, slick head of his cock pressed against my hole.
He pushed in slow.
I felt every inch. The thick stretch, the way my body fought and then surrendered, the steady advance until his hips were flush against my ass and the entire length of him was buried inside me.
A broken sound tore out of my throat. His hands settled on either side of mine on the edge of the sink, caging me completely.
His mouth stayed open against the back of my neck, breathing hard.
“Fuck, you take me so well,” he muttered against my skin. The words were rougher than usual, frayed at the edges. “Every time. Like this hole was made for my cock.”
He started moving.
Deep, deliberate strokes that dragged across my prostate on every pass.
The counter creaked under the force of it.
My cock bounced against the cold cabinet door with every thrust, still untouched, still denied.
The dual sensation—thick heat splitting me open, cool wood against the sensitive head—pushed me toward the edge frighteningly fast.
I tried to reach down. His hand left the sink and caught my wrist, pinning it back to the counter.
“No. You come from this or not at all.”
The order landed like a physical stroke.
My hole clenched hard around him. He cursed under his breath and drove in deeper, hips snapping forward with more force.
The wet slap of skin on skin echoed off the tile.
Sweat dripped from his temple onto my shoulder.
His mouth opened wider against my neck, teeth scraping, then biting down just hard enough to sting.
“I’m—fuck, I’m close—”
“Then come.” His voice cracked on the words, the careful control finally slipping. “Squeeze that tight little hole around me and come while I’m buried in you. Want to feel every fucking pulse.”
The command and the raw edge in his voice shoved me over.
Orgasm ripped through me in long, violent waves.
My cock jerked untouched, striping the cabinet door and the edge of the sink with thick ropes of come.
My hole clamped down around him in rhythmic spasms.
Ryder made a low, guttural sound and followed me over the edge, driving in to the hilt and flooding me with heat while his hips ground against my ass in short, helpless thrusts.
We stayed locked together, breathing hard. The kitchen smelled like sex and coffee and the clean chemical edge of the lube. Outside, a car stereo thumped past and faded. Inside, the only movement was the slow flex of his cock as the last pulses faded.
He pulled out carefully. A trickle of come followed and slid down the inside of my thigh.
He reached for the roll of paper towels on the counter, tore off several sheets, and cleaned me with the same focused attention he gave everything else—gentle over sensitive skin, thorough between my legs.
When he finished he tossed the used towels in the trash and rested his forehead against the back of my shoulder for a moment.
“You good?” he asked, voice still rough.
I nodded, not trusting my voice yet. His hand settled on my hip again, thumb stroking once across the skin there, and the quiet aftercare felt almost more intimate than everything that had come before.
He set the rule on the evening of the third day.
I had just come out of the shower, towel around my waist, skin still damp, when I found him leaning against the doorway of the bedroom.
His eyes tracked the water that ran from my hair down my chest.
My cock stirred under the towel from the look alone.
I reached down without thinking, the beginning of a stroke already forming in my mind, and his voice cut across the space between us, low and even.
“No.”
I froze.
“When you’re in this apartment,” he said, “you don’t get yourself off. You wait for me.”
Heat flooded my face. Anger flared first—sharp, defensive, the old instinct to push back against anyone telling me what to do with my own body.
Right behind it came a darker, thicker current of arousal that made my cock harden fully under the towel.
The contradiction left me standing there breathing too fast, towel tented, caught between the urge to tell him to fuck off and the stronger urge to drop to my knees.
I held his gaze. The silence stretched. Outside, a scooter whined past and faded. Inside, the only sound was the soft drip of water from my hair onto the floor.
I nodded once.
Clear. Deliberate.
Something in his expression eased, though his eyes stayed dark. “Good.”
He crossed the room, tugged the towel away, and took me in hand with the same focused certainty he gave everything else.
The orgasm he pulled out of me was almost punishing in its intensity—long strokes, tight grip, the rough pad of his thumb sweeping the head on every upstroke until my knees buckled and I came hard across his fist with a broken sound I didn’t try to muffle.
He didn’t stop until I was shaking and oversensitive.
Then he wiped his hand on the discarded towel, kissed the side of my neck once, and went back to the living room like the entire exchange had been as ordinary as making coffee.
I stood there naked, still breathing hard. Then I went to find my clothes.
It happened more often—morning, afternoon, the long stretch of evening when the light turned gold and the air conditioner struggled.
Each time felt more deliberate, more possessive, yet the consent stayed constant and spoken.
He asked with a look or a quiet “Want this?”
before he pushed inside me. I answered with my body and, when the words would come, with my voice.
He fucked me over the arm of the couch with one hand braced between my shoulder blades and the other gripping my hip hard enough to bruise.
He took me slow and deep in the bed while the ceiling fan turned uselessly above us, whispering filthy, sparse praise against my ear until I came untouched.