“I gave thee mine before thou didst request it”
Then
The second year ofcollege was better than the first, but I still spent my time with one foot in Ohio and the other in Alabaster. I canceled plans and left debaucherous nights early to ensure I was in a quiet place where I could hear Romeo talking when he called. He still called all the time. Every day. It was the same as always, but it was different for me. The way I felt about him had started to hurt. I missed him in a way that left me in physical pain, chest ripped open, heart beating his name. I lay awake in bed, twisted and turned inside out at the thought of being in his body then and being away from him now. I thought of nothing else.
I was obsessed.
I lived for his calls. His husky voice. His soft, throaty laugh.
I was still the one he called when he was happy or sad, stressed or confused. I was the one he needed, and I loved it.
“Jesus Christ, Jude. The worst has happened. They want me to go to Waukegan. For fun.”
Theywere Sean and Kellie. They’d grown tired of small-town life and had started looking for opportunities to venture to nearby cities every chance they got.
“They’re already there. They’ve skipped their classes for the rest of the week and said I should drive up on Friday night and join them. Friday fucking night? I mean, are they insane? I have no idea where I’m going or what it will be like other than I presume traffic will be hell and the entire place will be full of fucking people. And that’s people I don’t know, not just regular people. Regular people are bad enough.” His voice lilted up an octave or two. “I mean, I-I don’t even know what the parking situation will be like. Be realistic, people,” he all but wailed, “I’m not goinganywhereif I don’t know what the parking situation is like.”
I laughed at his theatrics, and when I hung up, I did some research and dropped a pin to the parking lot nearest to where he’d been invited and sent it to him.
He replied right away.
You’re the best person I know, Tiger.
My heart expanded in my chest. Swelling and filling rapidly with every good thing I’d ever felt. I lay back on mybed and held my phone to my heart, smiling like a raving idiot, telling myself that things had changed for him too, conveniently ignoring the fact it was the same thing he’d said to me countless times before.
By the time summer finally rolled around, I all but floated home to Alabaster, carried by nothing but the beating wings of my foolish heart.
Romeo and I danced around each other for the first couple of weeks, spending every waking minute together but keeping our clothes on. It was torture. It was heaven and hell. It was so good to be near him that I went to bed most nights with a sweet taste in my mouth. It was agony too. Every casual touch, every chest bump, every shoulder shove set me alight.
I waited for him to make a move, too afraid to do it myself in case I overplayed my hand and showed Romeo I only had one card. The king of hearts. And he was it.
By the time he finally made his move, I was sure I was seconds from death. The torment of sexual desire and love that had nowhere to land had both had their way with me.
My phone pinged, and I nearly levitated when I saw his message. I forced myself to read it three times before I let myself believe it.
So, is it my turn to fuck again, or what?
No man alive has ever typed faster.
Yes. Your turn.
It was like before. He came to me in my room late at night and we took turns bottoming. Me, then him. Me, then him.
I guess I’m one of those people who only bottoms for love. I must be because I’ve never bottomed for anyone but Romeo. I haven’t wanted to. I did it for him, and I loved it because it was something we did together. Him and me. I liked the sensation, it’s not that I didn’t, and Jesus, theOs were amazing, but for me, being inside Romeo was what I craved above everything else. And I really do mean everything else. I’m not talking about small things. I’m talking water and air. Shelter and breathing. Those kinds of things.
Sliding into him and feeling his body give way to accommodate me made me believe in magic. It made me believe I could fly, that mythical creatures and winged beasts were real, and I was The One who could tame them. It made me believe Romeo and I were the unsung heroes of our generation, the main characters in an epic fantasy saga. When my dick was inside him, and we were moving together, I truly believed we had the kind of love sonnets were written about.
At the same time, the uncertainty was agony, pure pain and anguish. The wait from one fuck to the next was the sweetest form of torture I’ve ever known. I wanted him all the time, so it seemed only sane to wait for him to make the first move. I thought of nothing else. I couldn’t sleep, and when I did, I dreamed of Romeo bucking against me, moaning my name, falling apart in my arms. I woke up burning worse than when I fell asleep.
The day in question was a Tuesday. It was daytime. It had been four days since he’d bottomed for me, and it was my turn to take it. I’d woken up edgy and was waiting for him to come to me with an intensity that had mass. I could feel it in my bones and under my skin. The anticipation. The nervous excitement. I had a feeling that day was the day. Three or four days was about how long he seemed to go before he came back for more.
I thought I’d have to wait hours and hours until nighttime for any hope of anything happening, but Romeo came over to my place late morning. That wasn’t unusual. It was normal for us to sleep in and then meet up at his place or mine for coffee and breakfast. What wasn’t normal about that day was how Romeo looked when he arrived at our front door. He stood at the threshold, pausing and leaning against the doorway until I got up to check what was keeping him. His chin was drawn down and he lookedup at me through thick, dark lashes. His jaw muscle tensed slightly, changing the shape of his face from sweet boy to sex.
“You coming in, or wha—” The word was cut in half by a flick of glass-bottle blue that hit me in the back of my throat.
He didn’t answer. He just looked at me and then nodded slowly, kicking the front door closed behind him as he sauntered in. Something about him was different. I could tell. He was feline and sensual, letting his gaze roam down my body with no shame and no attempt to hide it. It unnerved me, but man, I liked it. He paused at my navel, teeth scraping over the swell of his bottom lip before releasing it, and then he tilted his head and let them travel lower.
I was hard, and I knew he could see it. For once, I didn’t try to cover myself. I let him see. His eyes were still nowhere near mine when he reached into his back pocket and took out one of those lube sachets we’d taken to carrying around in our pockets. I thought he meant to use it on me. It was his turn to top, after all, but instead, he held it in his hand, sandwiched between his pointer and middle finger, and then held it out for me. He smiled easily, but not sweetly, as he unbuttoned his fly.
