Page 133 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 1

My cheeks burned with embarrassment, which I channeled into angry determination while I undressed and entered the bathroom again. Make sure the water is not too warm. Go easy even if you have to spend more time in there. Be patient with yourself. I practically recited all the tips and clues the article on Gay Health had suggested. My heart thumped hard and fast inside my ever-tightening chest as I tinkered with the showerhead. It was screwed onto the hose hard. Once I detached the useless head, it took me ages to figure out the temperature and the amount of water. It seemed awfully strong even at half the pressure, so I kept lowering it to a trickle.

What the article described as a fifteen-minute hop into the bathroom ended up taking me nearly a whole hour. The entire thing was a rollercoaster of emotions and sensations I had never imagined. The queasiness in my chest at the rational thoughts disappeared incredibly fast. The anxiety at the fact that I didn’t dislike any of this remained firmly inside me. I hadn’t hated kissing Caden. I hadn’t felt disgusted at his hand on my crotch or his throbbing cock against my leg. Hell, I thirsted after running my hand over the curve of his ass.

It terrified me deep within, but spite drove me harder than fear could slow me.

My dick leaped too excitedly at the first touch of the warm trickle against my body. “You whore,” I muttered to myself. And when I went a step further, as instructed, my balls tightened with eagerness. The entire hour was filled with confusion and a discovery of sensations. Fearful touches, anxious considerations, the warmth of the water, and my eager dick made for a chaotic combination.

With a towel around my waist, I walked back into the room and sat in silence. I drummed my fingers against my knees. I tried to untangle the meanings of the tutorial I had read. What were the sensations that I was supposed to pay attention to? Had I done this right? How long should I have waited before I knew for sure? It rubbed me the wrong way that Caden had so correctly pointed to my lack of experience.

In the silence and boredom of waiting for something I didn’t know a thing about, I closed my eyes and thought. Why the hell was I putting myself through this anyway? If I were being avoidant, I would have said it was all just part of the plan to prove Caden wrong. But even I knew I’d gone a dozen steps too far if those were my sole ambitions.

I covered my face and set my elbows on my knees. A shuddering exhale rocked my body. My shoulders shook as I forced myself to admit one simple truth that had been staring at me for over a week. When I’d seen him flirting with that guy at the Thirsty Thinker, I’d marched up there only to stop him. I hadn’t wanted more beer. I hadn’t wanted to hang out. I only wanted Caden not to surrender himself to another night of lust and passion.

Not because I envied him, like I’d told myself. Oh no. I didn’t resent him for the lack of responsibilities that kept me from screwing around. I didn’t want to be like Caden.

I wanted Caden.

Each passing glance and each small encounter in the locker room, each time he’d checked my ass out at the gym, and each time he walked out of the shower with water dripping from his tousled hair, they all left a trail of breadcrumbs. I never realized I’d been following it, but it all led me right here where I was.

I wanted him. I wanted his full lips. I wanted his strong arms. I wanted his small, hard nipples. And his cock, apparently, because the mere thought of it made me tingle.

But was any of this real? Never in my life had I given another guy a dirty thought. Never had I wondered. And sure, imagining Caden spread out on the bed, face buried in a pillow, my hand pushing down the back of his head, the other one holding his wrists crossed on the small of his naked back turned me so hard that I couldn’t breathe, but did I have that in me? Besides, he’d already told me I wouldn’t top him. I wouldn’t top him even if I convinced him to give in to this dangerous temptation.

I tried to picture someone else. Oddly enough, I thought of Tyler and Sebastian. They were both straight, but their constant proximity sparked an almost erotic idea in my head. Even so, I wrinkled my nose at the thought. It was no different than imagining a friend with a girl.

Instead, I took a deep breath and recalled the image of Riley Brooks the way I had once seen him in the locker room. He was an objectively handsome guy with dusty blond hair and dazzling eyes. His dimpled smile took breaths away from those who cared.

Not me, I thought. Even as I recalled the exact shape of his torso, wet from the shower, bruised from a hard check, I found precisely the same amount of interest as if I had pictured a tree trunk.

“Time to find out,” I muttered to myself. I was annoyed that I could be twenty-one years old and confused about this. For fuck’s sake, I’d known that hockey was my destiny since I had been little more than a child. How the hell could I have missed this?

I threw the towel onto the bed and prayed to all the gods that Caden wouldn’t march in at the worst time — although, somewhere in the depths of my heart, I also kind of hoped he would. I dug out a small bottle of lube from my pack, laid on my back, and stared at the ceiling.

My palms became sweaty as my heart rate increased. My cock took notice of my intentions, leaping with joy at the prospects, and I focused on my breathing. Down below I was warm from the shower activities. My dick was at full mast even as I managed to get my heartbeat to a normal level.

I held my breath while pouring a few drops of lube onto my fingers. Whatever the hell I was doing, I was winging it. I didn’t feel like searching for manuals. Or videos, for that matter. It couldn’t be that complicated, right? It couldn’t be that different from when I’d been with girls. And I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. This was my body. I was alone. I could quit whenever I felt like it.

My mind swirled with all these rambling thoughts until I slicked my fingers with lube. And when I forced my hand down between my legs, my mind ground to a halt. There was only one thing I was thinking of. And it was pretty much everything I’d always hidden from myself.

The first touch of my index finger against my taint scared me so much that prickles rose along my skin. And yet, as I pushed my finger between my cheeks, I felt that the prickles had nothing to do with fear. My hole was warmer than I’d expected now that I was touching it outside the shower. It clenched fearfully, entirely unprepared for the sensation.

I exhaled and looked down. My cock was slick with precum, aching with how hard it was. It had never been this swollen with lust. My balls felt tighter than ever, like I’d spent a whole night fucking and was finally about to finish.

“Oh- oh fuck,” I whispered as I twisted my wrist and let an inch of my finger probe inside of me. The tightness of my hole shocked me. It felt like my body fought against this. It felt like I had misunderstood my urges all along. I held my finger there, considering if it had all just been a mistake. A trick of a dry spell combined with misguided thinking, perhaps.

But as I curled my toes and exhaled, my hole relaxed, and my finger reached an inch deeper.

“F-fuck…me…” I grunted, reaching for my cock with my free hand. As I pushed my index finger slightly deeper, a hard groan left my throat, and all my muscles tensed. I had barely closed my fist around my cock when cum spilled from my slit, trickling over the back of my hand.

I stroked myself for a moment, ramming my finger deeper into myself as otherworldly sensations spread through me. Every cell in my body was exhausted as I cried out and thrust my hips up, sliding my cock through my tightly clenched fist. I held my finger inside of myself while my hole pulsed around it, cum dripping down to my cropped pubic hair and down my hand and wrist.

When I pulled my finger out, longing and desire filled me like magma.

“Fuck,” I gasped and released my throbbing dick. “Fuck.” It seemed to be the only word in my vocabulary. I stared down at the mess I had made while terror and lust clashed within me. I hadn’t lasted a fucking second.

I…I had no idea what this felt like. It was good enough to make me explode all over myself, but I was no closer to the real answer. Did I even have it in me to sleep with a guy?

I sauntered into the bathroom and washed the mess off at the sink. It was lucky that I hadn’t gone to town for an hour, though. A few minutes after I put my boxer briefs and sweatpants on, the lock turned under Caden’s keycard and he walked in. I was smart enough to remove the obvious clues from the bed and nightstand, so I didn’t even look at him when he walked in. Instead, I opened the balcony door and stepped out to feel the chilly air on my bare torso.