“Fuck Mona,” said Clay. “No, seriously. She was shitty to you from the beginning, it sounds like. I’d be happy to let you list all the ways she didn’t deserve you, any time, right? But now? Fuck Mona. And just kiss me another time. Let me take it with me.”
The sad sound of those words, the hope in Clay’s eyes. He could hardly believe it. Clay went to bars, cruised for fast sex, and sometimes came home happy, or at least that’s the way Clay told it. Only now, the truth had a different face, gave a different slant to Clay’s eyes, a hushed tone to his voice that spoke of unanswered dreams, and false starts, fake joy. Clay didn’t deserve any of that, and Austin knew he wanted to give him what he had been searching for.
“Yes,” he said. “If you’ll be patient with me, yes.”
He pulled Clay in his arms, pressed their bodies together, the heat licking up and down his front, the scent of Clay’s cologne, now warmed into his skin, full in his lungs. And then he kissed Clay, a little like he might have kissed Mona, back in the day, a full on kiss, full of sweep and daring and all of his heart, while flickers raced up his back, between his legs.
The difference between then and now was that Clay met him full on, moist mouth, tender inside of his lip, the taste of him, sweet and salt all at once. Clay hummed, blood pounding beneath his skin as Austin reached up and cupped Clay’s strong jaw in his hands. Something Mona would never let him do on account of it might mess with her makeup.
“I’m going to stop thinking about her,” said Austin. “I swear it.”
“I’ll help you,” said Clay, whisper-low as he reached up and hooked his arm around Austin’s neck, kissing him back hard, kissing away all the sadness and anger and sharp memories that kept slicing at him. “I’ll help you if you’ll let me.”
“Yes,” said Austin, heart-felt, the trembling feeling replaced by a firm longing that surged through him, tugging at his groin, zipping through his belly.
This was what it should feel like, new love, new hope. This, this, this.
19
Clay
The last thing Clay would ever have expected to do was to walk away from a kiss like that. A kiss that rocked him from the bottom of his toes to the top of his head. A kiss that wrapped itself around him, and that felt good and warm, rather than a prelude to something else. Not a tease or a come-on, with condoms and lube standing at the ready, no.
When his arm had gone around Austin’s neck to pull him into the kiss, Austin had responded, hesitant at first, but then it was as if he’d let off the brakes and leaned into Clay like Clay was his last refuge. Like Clay was something lost that had been found, which made it different from pretty much every other guy that Clay had ever kissed so he could get fucked in an alley outside of a bar.
Not that fucking was going to happen. Even if Austin’s confession, gasped out, hadn’t alerted Clay to the fact that Austin couldn’t get it up, the lack of Austin’s erection spoke volumes.
Then again, without that warm hardness, Clay might have assumed that Austin simply wasn’t into him and that the kiss was a lie. But with such a truth, probably something Austin hadn’t wanted to reveal, the kiss was more than honest, it was soul felt. And different. And sweet.
But Clay was out of his depth, at least a little bit. Usually the other guy was as experienced as he was, at least that, and probably more. Each, he and the stranger, knew what they wanted and how to get it.
As for Austin, he was straight, as far as Clay knew, and maybe even as far as Austin knew himself. But something had awakened him to Clay, made him switch gears. This, along with everything else to do with Austin, what was going on with him, made Clay realize he needed to go slow. Slower than he ever had in his life.
“Hey,” he said, drawing back, holding Austin’s face in both of his hands. “We should take it slow, you know?”
Austin’s eyes were wide and dark in the shadows, and he was still beneath Clay’s touch.
“I’ve already jumped off the cliff,” said Austin slowly, as though tasting the weight of each word, one by one.
“Yeah, but you don’t want to crash land, you know?” Clay moved his thumb across Austin’s bottom lip, like he was sealing the kiss in so Austin could taste it later. “I want this to keep going. Us.”
“You do?”
The question, the two words, held an armful of hurt, of doubt, of simply not knowing. Clay didn’t know either, not really, not having taken this long with any man before. It felt more serious in a way, but in a good way, going deep inside of him.
“Yes, I do,” said Clay. “This is the courting part, I think. The dating part.”
“Are we dating?”
“Yes,” said Clay, stoutly. “We are. If you want to. We’ll take it slow.”
“And you don’t mind about—you know.”
“I don’t know.” Clay chewed on his lower lip, thinking it over. “I’ve never encountered this before, you know? But I’m willing to wait, if you are. Till you’re ready.”
“You make me sound like a virgin.” Austin’s voice fell a little flat, just then, as if his ongoing problem and his lack of experience with other men was a deficit, a drawback.
“You are.” Clay rose on his toes to kiss Austin’s nose and then his mouth, gently, lightly. “To me, at least.”
