First Blush - 1. Chapter 1

The thirty-piece band was playing the first song I recognized since I got here: It Had To Be You. It was Memorial Day, and I was standing in the corner at a 400 guest wedding. It was definitely the most grandiose event I’d ever been attended. I decided I didn’t like grandiose events.

But an 18-year-old distant cousin of mine was getting married, and my father decreed that I had to come, so I here I was. I was wishing for a simple picnic and fireworks in the gorgeous holiday sunshine instead of getting lost in the throng of the well dressed.

A brunette in a fancy, low-cut red dress stepped in front of me. I recognized her immediately.

“Hi,” she said and smiled a mega-watt smile. “You’re obviously one of Joe and Marsha’s sons, but I’m not positive which one. “

“Eli,” I said.

At the same time she said, “Eli?”

I nodded.

“I thought so.”

It was easy to see how she could be unsure. I had three younger brothers, and we were all pretty close in age. We all had the same fair coloring with flaming red hair and a smattering of freckles.

“I’m Dawn,” she said, touching her chest.

“I know,” I said. “You like exactly the same.”

I hadn’t seen her in about nine years. She was ten years older than me, which would make her 32.

“You don’t. Look at you, all grown up. The last time I saw you, you were like a shy colt. Those amazing, piercing baby blues are exactly the same though.”

I felt a slight blush run to the top of my cheeks at the compliment.

“Thanks,” I said.

She came and stood beside me, so we were shoulder to shoulder.

“Well," she said. "Happy Memorial Day,” Dawn looked out at the crowd.

I tried not to roll my eyes.

“You know what would make this shindig even better?” she asked.

“What?”

“Three hundred and twenty-five less people.”

I smiled. I’d always liked her.

“I heard you graduated from college.”

She lived on the East Coast; I lived on the West Coast. But her mom and my mom kept up with each other. Still, it surprised me she knew.

“Yeah, last year.”

“And you majored in math, something specific, ah, data analytics or something.”

The way she said data analytics I could tell she had no idea what that meant.

“Yup.”

She was an artist. I tried to remember what she did for a minute. Scarfs? “You still making those batik scarfs?” Whatever the hell batik was.

“Yeah,” she said. She turned to me and her face let up. “A chain of gift shops associated with international museums picked them up, so I’m really busy with orders."

“That’s great.”

“Mmn-hmn.”

We were silent for a minute watching the people dance, drink, and cavort.

“Gay?” she said.

WHAT?

“Excuse me?” Heat flooded my cheeks. My ears tingled the blood rushed there so fast. Damn. The top of my ears were probably beet red.

“I didn’t mean to step all in your business. If you don’t want to talk about it or anything, that’s okay.”

“Um, ah.”

“I was just curious, you know, if you had a boyfriend.”

I blushed harder. I gulped. “Kah.”

“Never mind.”

Jeez. No one had ever asked me that. But I didn’t want to be in the closet or anything.

“Um, yeah, I am. What, do you have super gaydar or something?”

“Pretty much. And it can run in families. Of course there are the other two.”

“What? Who?”

She looked at me like I was nuts. Her expression said, ‘How could you not know?’ But she didn’t answer me.

“Anyway,” I said. “Yes, I’m gay. No, I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Well,” she said. “I don’t have a boyfriend right now either.”

The bride and groom danced by leading a long conga line. The bride had on a plastic tiara that read ‘bride’, the groom had on a hat that read ‘groom’. The bridesmaid had on a hat that said ‘Memorial’, and the best man had on a hat that said ‘Day’.

“Oh dear,” Dawn said.

When the conga line passed Dawn said, “I have someone who you have to meet.” She grabbed my bicep and pulled me across the dance floor. I thought perhaps she meant another cousin or something until we were almost to the big French doors. A shaft of light highlighted a very handsome man standing in profile to us.

I started to pull back as I tensed into full alert. My heart sped up. Dawn tightened her grip on my arm.

“Hey Greg,” Dawn called.

He turned to face us and I thought, when novelists write ‘they saw each other across a crowded room and he felt an instant attraction’, this is what they’re talking about.

Then we were next to him. Dawn was speaking, and I had to work to concentrate.

“…Is a math genius specializing in data analytics. Greg is the Dean of Astrophysics.”

Still holding my arm, she put her other hand on Greg’s arm and pulled us both so we stood closer together.

“Oh, I see somebody I have to talk to. Bye.” She scurried off. I looked at her retreating back. What?

Greg stuck his hand out. “Greg Strickland.”

I reached out to shake it, on automatic reaction. “Eli Karkowski.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise,” I said.

“Data analytics,” he said.

I nodded.

“How do you apply it?”

That’s what people ask when they mean, ‘What the fuck would you use that for?’ or ‘Where could you possible use that?’ or ‘I have no idea what that is?’ I stifled an inner sigh.

Maybe he saw my expression because he said, “Noooo, I mean do you apply it?”

I launched into a huge speech about applications of mathematical neural networks in medicine, ecological planning, and population control. I stopped myself after about three sentences. A tiny blush started across the bridge of my nose. Oh God, how embarrassing.

“Sorry. That’s really boring unless you’re a total math geek.”

“I am a math geek. Physics is largely math.”

“Hmm,” I said. “Well, applying data analytics to astrophysics,” I said. “This is pretty new, we can take photos of stars and galaxies, run them through the new proofs and equations, make 3-D extrapolations, and use them for more complex mapping, rocket building, and things like to tell professors where they should be looking for new stars.”

Greg leaned forward until his lips were very close to my ear. “You know intelligence is a huge turn-on.”

I blushed from my hairline to my collar.

“Nice.” He chuckled. “So is a delicious blush.”

Holy shit. Dawn didn’t introduce me to Greg because he was a science geek. She introduced me to him because he was gay! I guess my gaydar didn’t work as well as hers.

“Ahhhh… well, I can send you some links if you’d like.”

“Yes. I like.”

Hard to miss that one.

“Um… ahh….” I blushed harder. Damn fair coloring.

“It’s getting stuffy in here,” Greg said. “Would you like to go outside and walk in the gardens?”

I put my finger under my collar. It was suddenly too tight. I pulled at the neck of my shirt more but it suddenly was closing in on my adam’s apple with a choke hold. I couldn’t speak. I nodded.

He walked out the glass doors, and I followed. The flowers were in riotous bloom, and the colors and sweet smells provided a welcome distraction from my nerves. Greg led me into a hedge maze, and the relative privacy both terrified and excited me.

A brief burst of fireworks exploded across the river. We stopped to admire the red, white, and blue spider-shape sparkles.

“It’s usually one of my favorite holidays,” Greg said.

“But not today?” I asked.

He stared at me intensely. “No. Today it is absolutely my favorite holiday.”

My face got hot, and I looked down and pushed dirt around with my toe.

“I could stand to walk around a little more,” I said.

We walked in a comfortable silence. I felt like I should say something, but I didn’t want to ruin how good it felt walking beside him. I kept taking surreptitious glances at him. My hopes soared so high. His dapper grey suit looked like it cost more than my car, and I wondered if it would feel silky. I longed to touch it. My fingers clenched and unclenched slightly.

“So, my friend,” he said with a smile and a great deal of humor in his voice. “Would you like to come see my collection of etchings?”

Even I recognized that for the over-the-top pick-up line it was meant to be, and we both burst out laughing. Then I held my breath. I waited for my brain to catch up and be able to form an appropriately witty answer.

I thought, ‘Oh no, please don’t blush again.’ But I did. I couldn’t find any words to say how much I wanted him.

He brushed a finger against the back of my hand ever so lightly. “Too soon?”

I shook my head. Then I nodded my head. Then I nodded my head more vigorously.

I wiped my palms on my pants. “Actually,” I said when I could find my voice, “Art appreciation is a turn-on.”

He smiled at me. God, he had a great smile.

“Come on, my car’s this way.”

I followed him out to a big side parking lot and was almost to his car when I blinked myself out of stupor. “Wait a sec, I have to go back inside and tell my family I’m leaving.”

“Okay. I’ll wait here.”

I ran in, found one of my brothers, and in the vaguest terms possible told him I had a ride, and he should tell Dad. I ran back out to Greg. I was almost panting when I got back out. That got another superstar smile from him.

Jeez Eli, eager much?

“Ready?” he asked.

Oh yeah. Like for about five years.

He held the door open for me. I couldn’t decide if that was weird or the kindest, most romantic gesture I’d ever seen. I opted for the latter and gave him a tentative smile.

I didn’t know what kind of car it was, but I sank into the luxury of the seats and stared at the dials, which reminded me of the console of a plane or a space ship—although I’d never seen one.

Greg rocketed us down the wide tree-lined road with a finesse that was a 180 from how I drove. He handled the curves like a pro, and I wondered if his proficiency extended to other things.

That thought made me think where we were going literally and figuratively. I could hardly just blurt out that I was a virgin, never even been kissed. Wasn’t it supposed to be painful the first time? What if I was no good at it? What if this was my one chance to experience what it was like with a guy, and I messed it up?

My heart pulsed a pulverizing fast rhythm as it galloped away from me trying to burst out of my chest. I clenched my jaw, then my fists, then my eyes, then the rest of my face. I probably looked like I was sucking on a sour lemon. All of my skin flushed hot, surely turning me a hue slightly darker than tomato red.

I told myself to breathe, but I couldn’t.

I heard the car screech as it swerved. Greg cut across three lines and abruptly pulled over.

“What, what?” he asked.

I couldn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t face him. The space in the car closed in around me. I turned an even darker shade. I’d bite off my arm before I’d tell him I was a virgin.

“Eli, what’s going on?”

Um. Heart palpitations, sweaty palms, trouble breathing.

“Eli, answer me, what’s going on?”

I couldn’t speak.

Greg grabbed my chin firmly and turned my face to him.

“Eli, open your eyes.”

I did and I could feel them frantically darting around the car. Like my eyes were wild horses desperately trying to escape.

“Eli, look at me.”

I shook my head ever so slightly.

“Eli.” His voice was firm. Calm. I looked at him. “I want to know, right now, what you’re thinking and feeling that has you looking like you’re about to stroke out.”

I didn’t answer.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. We don’t have to go to my place. We can go to a fancy restaurant, or for a walk in the park, or to a bar. I can take you back to the wedding.”

The pressure around my heart released but the air also got colder. “I don’t want to go back to the wedding, or anywhere else,” I said. “I want to go to your place.”

“We can go to my place and not do anything,” he said. My shoulders relaxed a little bit, and I think my color returned to normal.

“I want to do everything,” I whispered.

He shrugged slightly and gave me a look that I interpreted to mean, ‘So what’s the problem?’

Then his eyes widened. I could see when he got it. “Oh God,” he said.

Greg unhooked his seatbelt and then unhooked mine.

“Shit,” he said.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I want to. Anything. Everything.”

Greg leaned forward, nuzzled my neck, put his lips near my ear.

God he smelled so good.

“I’ll be gentle,” he said softly.

My cock jumped, straining toward him.

“Very gentle.”

I said the first thing that came to my mind, “I don’t want you to be gentle. I want you to be fierce.”

He let out a quiet, growling sound deep in his throat.

“I just need you to be slow. Very, very, very slow.”

“Eli, I can be glacier if that’s what you need. As long as you give me the honor of letting me get you there.”

Greg brushed my lips with his, ever so softly.

The most magnificent thing I’d ever felt.

He backed up a little, and I stared into his eyes. I’d thought they were brown, but this close I could see little streaks of gold in them.

Greg rubbed his thumb over my bottom lip. I touched the light brown wave of hair that hung low over his forehead, pushing it the side.

He palmed the side of my face, tilted my face, and leaned in to kiss me.

Oh yes. This was where I was meant to be. His tongue explored my mouth in a slow, sensual rhythm. I thought of stars and heaven and how could I possibly get more.

I grabbed the suit jacket material on his shoulders, desperate to get him even closer to me. The fabric was silky, but it was nothing compared to the smooth wonder of his kiss.

He came up for air.

“I could do that for twenty-four hours straight. And then twenty-four hours more,” I said. “Please Greg, please. It’s so good; kiss me again. Show me.”

He chuckled and then kissed me again, harder, pushing me back into the seat. I kissed him back with everything I had. I wanted to put his hand on my cock, which was begging for his touch, but I was too shy.

Greg broke off the kiss again. “Better?”

“Much better.” I wanted to get him naked as soon as possible. Did that make me a cliché? The stereotype of a gay guy who hooks up with someone he barely knows? I felt like I should ask him some questions to get to know him better, but my cock was throbbing, and my head was reeling.

Come on Eli, come on. Get enough blood to your brain to make an attempt at conversation.

“What’s your favorite color?” I asked.

“Green,” he said.

“Siblings?”

“One younger sister. She’s good friends with the groom, which is how I got roped into going to that monstrosity in the first place.”

“Did you always want to be an astrophysicist?”

“No, when I was a little boy I wanted to be an astronaut… but I was afraid of flying.”

I laughed.

“Then I found out I was colorblind and that nixed that.”

“You’re colorblind?”

“Absolutely and completely.” He feathered his fingers over the freckles on my one of my cheeks and across the bridge of my nose. “But I can tell that you’re a redhead.” He brushed his lips over the freckles on the other side. “With the palest milky-cream skin. And I’m betting those super intelligent eyes, with their piercing stare, aren’t the intense grey I see but a brilliant blue.”

He moved toward my eyes, and I closed them as he kissed each eyelid.

“Are they blue?”

I nodded.

“Thought so.”

Then he kissed me again, hotter this time. I felt like I knew enough about him now. Hell, even if he turned out to be a serial killer it would be worth it for this. Although I doubt my cousin would introduce me to a serial killer.

I smiled against his lips.

“What?” he asked.

“Thinking too much,” I said.

“I can fix that.” Then he kissed me. The car melted away, my body melted away, my ability to think, or move on my own melted away. I don’t know what he did to get me to surrender not just my mouth, but my whole being, but whatever it was, he could do it again and again. His tongue teased mine with perfect carnal thrusts.

Fireworks exploded, their booms seemingly too close. I lazily opened my eyes from half-mast to all the way open. When I bent my neck I could see the rocketing blooms open high in the sky through the top of the front windshield.

“When I kiss you, I see fireworks,” I said.

“When I kiss you, I only see you,” Greg said. “But there’s fireworks for sure.”

More fireworks exploded, sounding like gunshots.

“I might not see them, but I definitely hear them,” Greg said.

‘That’s my heart,’ I wanted to say.

He kissed me again.

“And I feel them. Boy do I feel them,” he said.

He smiled at me and I smiled at him. He was a sap! I liked it. I bit my bottom lip. His eyes followed the motion.

An even bigger rat-a-tat sound had us both ducking.

“Maybe we should get out of the danger zone,” Greg said.

Might be impossible while I’m with him.

“Definitely,” I said.

Greg turned the car back on, and we zoomed toward his place. I tried to think of all the ways adrenaline junkies get drunk going high speed. Because whatever it is guys who jump out of parachutes feel, I thought that might be close to what I was feeling. Nothing solid above, no firm ground below, wind rushing by with equal parts ‘hell, yeah,’ and ‘oh, shit.’

I put my hand on the smooth surface of my window. Trees flashed by, and I focused on the dappled sunshine from the late afternoon shining through, making the glass the perfect warmth.

Then we were there. The parking lot of his apartment building.

“Last chance to change your mind and turn this into a date where we go to 7-11 and get a slushie.”

I shook my head. “I’m all slushied out. I had my fair share of slushies at the wedding.”

I need something more like Grand Mariner or top notch-scotch Greg. I think that’s you.

We were quiet in the elevator. My doubts leapt back in, attacking like giant spiders from a sci-fi movie.

He took a second fumbling for the right key to his door, and I reminded myself that freaking out—or worse, passing out—before getting over the threshold would be the epitome of uncool.

Then he opened the door. I walked into his living room decorated in soothing white with touches of black and grey.

I hardly believed it, but there, on his wall, was an amazing collection of zinc squares with thin-as-a-pen line grooves, and matching prints. Etchings.

I laughed.

“I thought that was a line,” I said.

“It was,” he said. “Why do you think I bought the etchings?”

“Jeez,” I mumbled. “How many boyfriends have you had?”

He came and stood right in front of me. He looked me in the eye, intense and serious. “No one I wanted as much as you.” He took my right hand and put it in his, first as if he was shaking it, then interlocking our fingers. “I knew as soon as I shook your hand that I wanted you. Needed you, even, maybe.”

I pulled my hand away.

“Drink?”

You betcha. Make mine a double.

“That would be great.”

He opened a large bar cabinet to reveal an array of bottles lined up by height.

“What would you like?”

“Aahh…Bailey's?”

“Bailey's it is,” he said and poured me a healthy dose.

I knocked it back and held out the empty glass.

“Hit me.”

“I think that’s more of a sipping drink than a shot.”

Oh, right.

I blushed.

“Um, yeah, sure, but, ah, if you don’t mind, I could use another.”

He poured me another and watched with an amused face as it actually took me two gulps to get the whole drink down that time.

“Just one more,” I said holding the glass out to him.

He took the glass and put it on the top of the cabinet.

“Half of one,” I said.

Greg shook his head.

“A quarter.”

He smiled. “I have other things I’d rather give you. I want you to be sober when I do.”

I looked down at the rug. Black and white. I pushed the nap around with my foot.

“Somewhat sober,” he said. “Pliable, influence-able.”

I looked at him; he poured a little bit more Bailey’s in the glass.

“Delectable, memory imprintable.”

He brought the glass over but didn’t give it to me. Instead he took my hand and dipped my finger in the creamy liquid. It was cool to the touch and he swirled my finger in it, and it felt smooth, clingy, heavy. He curled my finger to scoop up as much as possible. Greg looked at me and with intense eye contact, very, very slowly brought my finger up to his mouth. He held it there for a second before he sucked it between his lips. His gaze never left mine as he flooded my senses.

I felt his teeth, his tongue, the inside of his lips. And I mean I felt them everywhere.

Apparently driving and physics weren’t the only things he was good at.

I blushed.

“Besides, I think it’s time you gave me something to drink. Don’t you?”

I went to nod and shake my head at the same time so I ended up rolling my head around like someone just made me into a bobble-head.

“You might have just asked me a question,” I said when I could breathe again, “but it must have been above my pay grade. All I could hear was…” I stuck my tongue out, “Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh….” I pulled my tongue back in my mouth. “I think that’s what happens when you aspire to the minors, and you find out you’re in the big league. They take away your hearing.”

He smiled at me. Shit. I’d waited all my life for a smile like that.

I cupped my hand behind my ear. “What?” I paused. “I can’t hear you.”

Greg put the glass down. He came back to me and took both my hands in his. His voice was quiet and serious. “Then I guess I’ll have to show you the way.”

He walked backwards, still holding both my hands and pulling me with him, to a short hallway I assumed led to his bedroom. It was the most natural thing in the world to follow him.

Oh, my God. Forget embarrassing myself. What if I let him down?

He just kept walking backwards, keeping that steady, calming eye contact, while I felt like a colt fighting the urge to bolt. I stepped with him, so when his left foot slid back mine stepped forward. Without me realizing it, we had fallen into synch.

“Greg, I don’t know how to dance!” I said. It seemed to come out of nowhere; we weren’t dancing.

“You don’t have to know before you start, if you have a partner who will help you find the rhythm,” he said.

He pulled me back a few more paces, and then we were standing beside his bed. I looked around his room. It was ultra-modern. Dark grey walls, glossy black dressers, and a shiny black bed cover framed by blindingly white silky sheets.

My nerves got the better of me. “I get you dig the black and white thing, but would it hurt you to have a pop of color?”

Greg brushed his hands through my hair. “I have a pop of color.”

Greg never stopped looking into my eyes as his hands coasted up under my lapels and over my shoulders. He slid my blazer off me. He didn’t look away for a second as he folded my jacket and placed it on an end table behind him.

“This room has all the color it needs.”

I blushed.

“Well, now it does,” he said.

He kissed my hot cheeks.

“Damn fair coloring,” I said. “Next life I’m coming back as an olive-skinned Mediterranean.”

Greg shook his head. “Don’t. Next life come back exactly as you are.”

He opened the top two buttons of my shirt, and I stilled his hand. He nodded.

“Glacier slow, I promise,” he said.

I was crushing his hand I was squeezing it so hard. I let him go.

He opened one more button.

“Hon, look at me.”

Like I was going to look anywhere else.

“Eli, look right here.” He touched his forefinger to the bottom eyelid of his right eye, so he was pointing right at his pupil. “I want you to focus everything, your vision, your thoughts, the overwhelming sensations, the fear—I want you to focus it, right here.”

I zeroed in on that one eye. I thought it was brown but now I could see it wasn’t really brown at all. It was a myriad of colors: maple, mahogany, nutmeg, oak, orange, honey, gold. Streaks of sunrise with tiny flecks of dark green. I was watching his eye so closely it looked like a huge movement when the eye rotated slightly to the left and refocused.

What was he doing?

He was staring into my right eye. Going down his personal rabbit hole into me as I fell deeper, through him, into mine.

“Now breathe,” he said.

“Yeah… right.”

“You can do it, Eli. You do it all the time.”

I felt a touch, feather light, along my collarbones and into the little notch, the dip in between. God yes. My eyes fluttered closed.

“No, hon. Look at me. Stay with me.”

The panic rose again. I had said slow, I hadn’t meant intimate.

“Right here.” He tapped that spot right at his eye. “Right here. I got you.”

“Yes,” I whispered, my voice barely coming out at all. “But do you ‘got me’ too much?”

His gaze held mine and mine held his. I was more naked than I’d ever been before.

“We can always stop,” Greg said.

“Not if you want to live,” I said.

“All right then. Will you trust me?”

I gave the barest of nods.

“That’s not very much of a nod,” he said.

“I trust you,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Blink.”

I blinked.

Then I blinked again and again. I didn’t realize how good it felt to blink. How long had we been staring at each other like that?

“Now look at me,” he said. I zoomed right in on that golden ring, sucked immediately into the dark pool in the center of his eye.

“Now watch me watch you,” he said.

I had to pull back a little, refocus from drowning in his pupil to seeing both his eyes at once.

Fuck.

No one had ever looked at me like that before. But there was a word for that intense glow. Hunger.

Greg watched me watching him. In slow motion he brought his finger up to his own lips and kissed it and then brought it down out of my field of vision. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to follow his finger or stay focused on his face but I didn’t have much choice; I was trapped in that enrapt stare. Even though I couldn’t see his hand, I was hyper aware of how Greg dragged that finger kiss around the bottom of my neck, in a figure eight over my collarbones, and then settled that kissed finger into the dip in between the clavicle bones and rubbed gently. As if he were implanting his kiss there.

Of their own accord my eyelids lowered to half-mast as I groaned.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Greg said and my eyes snapped open. “Not great at following directions, are you?”

I went to protest, but he put a finger across my lips.

“Then you’ll just have to do nothing, won’t you?"

Oh God.

My eyelids fluttered closed again as he kissed the path his finger had taken. He opened the buttons on my shirt with a deliberate care and a painstaking slowness. He kissed each new patch of skin revealed with reverence. I could picture each button, slowly being coaxed through the buttonhole by his deliberate fingers. Every time he parted my shirt I had that moment of glorious anticipation, knowing where his lips would go, but still having to wait a second between the release of the button and the brush of his lips.

I will never, ever, ask for anything to be slow again, so help me God.

Greg pulled the tails of my shirt out of my pants and opened his mouth wide against my belly. He raked his teeth across the skin that touched my waistband. He opened my belt.

“Do you know CPR?” I asked.

He looked up. “I know CPR.”

“Glad you have that knowledge, because I think you might need it.”

“I know I’m going to need mouth to mouth,” he said and kissed me.

Boy, I really set myself up for that one, I thought. But then I couldn’t think at all because he deepened the kiss, and my knees literally got weak. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stand.

“Help,” I squeaked.

“Help?” He put his hands on either side of my face, his palms cradling me. “What’s going on?”

Loss of muscular-skeletal function, loss of the ability to stand upright, paralysis, nothing major.

“Eli, you have to talk to me. This relationship is never going to work if you don’t communicate. What do you mean, help?”

Relationship?

He used one thumb to stroke my cheek. “Hon, you’ve got to talk to me. Just tell me what’s going on, please. Whatever it is we can fix it, but I don’t know what to do if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

“I just found out I have a disease. It’s called ‘knees-to-Jello-itis. It comes on suddenly. The effects are devastating. Now that I have it I seem to be having trouble… standing?”

I’m such a dork.

“It’s fatal.” Greg smiled at me. “I’m sorry to say your prognosis doesn’t look good.”

But maybe I’m not alone.

I bit my bottom lip. Greg’s eyes dilated.

“There’s no cure to the disease, but we can treat the symptoms,” Greg said. He turned me slightly and then gently moved me until I was sitting back on the bed.

“A multi-pronged attack, as it were,” Greg said. He bent down and took off my shoes and socks. “First, we need to elevate your feet.” He swung me around so that my entire body was on the bed and put a firm hand on my chest to push me back. “Second, we need to remove any constrictive clothing.”

He went to work on my belt.

“Somehow I feel like you’re taking advantage of the situation.”

He loomed above me, his face not far from mine, his smile all ‘cat that got the canary.’

“And don’t you forget it.”

He completely undressed me and then I was totally naked, and he was totally dressed. I resisted the urge to cover myself with my hands.

“How could I possibly want you so much and want to run and hide behind a privacy changing screen at the same time?” I asked.

“That’s normal. That’s why I had you focus on my eyes. Which I think it’s time to do again.”

I watched him toe off his shoes and had a sarcastic thought about how that made us equal, as if it was a power thing, him being dressed and me being so vulnerable.

He laid on top of me and the weight felt fantastic. He was bigger than me. We were close to the same height, but he was broader.

Face to face, toe to toe, groin to groin, something shifted. I strained up to kiss him. I would do anything to have him if I could only get him to hurry. I surged my hips up against him.

He uttered a satisfied chuckle. “Now that’s what I’m looking for.”

“Please Greg,” I said and it was like someone else was speaking, my own voice seeming to come from very far away. “Please, please Greg. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

“Here’s what to do,” he said. “Don’t do anything.”

Arrgh.

Greg shimmied down toward the foot of the bed. He clasped my ankles in his hands and opened my legs slightly. He circled one ankle with his hand and rubbed his face against the other.

What was he doing?

“You feel this?”

Duh.

“Not this,” he said squeezing my ankle. “This.” He breathed warm air over the inside of my anklebone, ghosted his cheek up my leg an inch or two in a caress so light it was like he was brushing the energy above my skin rather than the skin itself. “The connection.”

I nodded.

“Good,” he said.

Greg dragged his cheek, nose, and lips slowly up the left side of me starting from my ankle. At the same time he used one large hand to glide up my right leg. His hand spanned my thigh as he breathed in deep, rubbing his face over my leg like a cat. Petting and rubbing up my leg with his hand on one side, and seeming like he could absorb me through every sense, every pore, every shaft of hair dragging over me on the other.

Greg continued the climb until he was nestled right in the crease where my leg met my torso. His face on one side, his hands on the other. He stopped there and drew in a loud inhale, breathing in deep.

My God, he was smelling me.

I was hard before. When I heard the sound of that breath and the tickling feel of his nose just barely touching the edge of my pubic hair and looked down at him, framing my cock with his face on one side and his hand on the other, everything went into overdrive.

My cock twitched hard, making a jump from lying straight up on my belly to standing proud in the air. It was vibrating like a tuning fork.

Greg chuckled, and I could feel the laugh on my skin.

“You’re an evil man,” I said.

“You’re about to find out,” he said. Then he continued to glide up the sides of my body, foregoing my cock completely.

NO, no, no, NO.

He kissed up my body until he found my nipples. I never thought I had particularly sensitive nipples; I figured that was a girl thing. I never got it when guys talked about their chests all day long. Greg used his teeth and very delicately pulled one and gnashed his teeth around the very tip while mimicking the action with his fingers on the other side.

I bowed up underneath him trying to get more.

“Hmm,” he said. “I’m making note of all your hot spots.”

“They’re all hot spots,” I said.

With him they were. It was like I didn’t even know I had nipples before.

He went back to his ministrations. Greg sucked my nipples, nuzzled my neck, and skimmed his teeth on the underside of my arms.

“I didn’t know it could be like this,” I said. I guess I had been imagining a hook-up. This didn’t feel like a hook-up.

He looked at me. “Like what?”

“So helpless and powerful at the same time.”

“Then I must be doing something right.”

“Not something,” I said. “Everything.”

He put his mouth back to my fevered skin. Everywhere he touched lit a fire. I could literally see the blood rush up underneath my skin to meet every caress from his cheek, brush of his lips, soft stroke of his fingertips. As if my very essence was staining me in its urgency to get to him.

Greg kissed me again. I was lost; lost in all the hunger and bliss. The kiss changed. I couldn’t tell you what he did differently. His tongue was still dancing with mine, coaxing in his play between patience and passion. But something in the kiss changed. I groaned into his mouth.

It wasn’t just that he changed the kiss, although he did. I changed. I surrendered.

He placed tiny butterfly kisses down the middle of my chest and then opened my legs wide and settled between them. He licked the bottom of my balls, around my shaft just the tiniest bit, and stopped.

I think the control was going to his head.

“Slow enough for you?” he asked.

“Don’t make me hurt you,” I said.

Greg smiled. He gathered up all the pillows from the bed and pushed them behind me, shifting me and encouraging me until I was propped up a little, still lying down but almost sitting.

“Eli,” he said. Just that. Just that one word. But the way he said it, like it was an enchantment he’d been searching his whole life to find or a mathematical proof he’d never gotten but suddenly saw unfold.

Then he wrapped his hand around me and took my cock into his mouth. My head thunked against the headboard.

In the millions of times I’ve fantasized blowjobs, I never imagined it could be this good.

Again with the slow.

Aargh.

It was getting increasingly hard to breathe as I watched him suck and pull. I wanted to put my hands in his hair but then he did something new with his tongue, putting it flat against the bottom of my cock as he glided up and down. It scorched all the neurons that would have let me coordinate that simple action.

The way he propped me up gave me an amazing view. Greg went up and down over my cock. He looked at me, those gorgeous eyes burning as he stared at me through the curtain of wispy fringe bangs that had fallen in his face. Then he closed his eyes like he was experiencing the world’s greatest delicacy and it was all he could do to not fall into madness and ecstasy while he savored it.

He gathered speed. He used both his hands in tandem with his mouth. Then Greg changed his angle a little bit, taking me further down into his throat. He stopped.

In a horse raspy voice that was more crackle than sound he said, “Need you.”

Then he was on me again. My balls contracted so much I bit my bottom lip, trying to not pop off. He pushed my legs further apart. I was so swollen. I shook with need. Watching him go up and down on me, faster and faster, was too much to take.

I swung my arm up and out to the side and banged my fist against the headboard.

Greg stopped. He looked at me.

My mouth hung open, and I panted loudly until I could talk. “Can’t hold on any longer. Please. Can’t.”

He traced one finger down the side of my shaft, and I almost came right there.

“Then don’t, baby. I got you. Let me drink you down, all of you.”

Fuck.

My feet were burning, my body coiled tight, my brain screaming at me to touch him.

Then Greg slid his mouth over me. The suction was so tight and the rhythm so fast. I pounded the headboard with my fist again, and again, as I screwed my face up tight. I fought my body’s need for release. I wanted to make it last so I didn’t look like some school boy who came right away, but I certainly wasn’t looking cool and collected as I bucked up under him, my whole body bowing off the bed in the throes of the pleasure.

Greg stopped.

I panted again and stared at him in disbelief.

Greg gave my cock one gentle stroke.

“Mine,” he said.

That one word was enough to put me over the edge. He barely had time to get me back into his mouth before I exploded.

He sucked me down, continued sucking and milking until there was nothing left. I collapsed further into the pillows and listed on my side, completely spent.

Fireworks exploded, the quick succession of booms sounding like they were bursting right outside his window. They were completely anticlimactic.

Greg stood up and my lids drifted shut.

“Don’t go to sleep on me, handsome.”

Sleep? How about dead?

“I’ve got a part two in mind and you’re going to want to be awake for this.”

“Uh-oh,” I said lazily. I really was a dead man.

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