You need to talk to him, and I’m fine. About to go to bed. Just been studying.
I’m gonna talk to him. I love you, sweetie.
I love you too. Tell Mark the same.
I hear the water turn off and I shoot one last text.
I will. Call me tomorrow, okay?
Mark walks into the room with a towel slung low on his hips and water still beaded on his smooth skin. Fuck he’s hot. He looks over at me when my phone chimes again. I pick it up to read the text as Mark opens my dresser to get a pair of my shorts.
I have to work early. I’ll text when I’m off. Night.
Night.
“Candace says she loves you.”
He doesn’t say anything when he slips under the covers with me. I turn to face him and tell him, “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but I don’t know how to let it go.”
Mark just lays there, his hair still wet, and looks in my eyes. I let down my walls and open up. “I don’t want to hide parts of me from you, but I don’t know how to do that. I get scared. I’m afraid people are judging me.” I close my eyes for a second before looking back at him. “You seem so sure of yourself, and I’m so far from that. I want to give that to you. I don’t want to mess this up, and I don’t want you to change the way you are with me because everything you do, you do it perfectly.”
When he reaches his hand around the back of my neck, he shifts closer to me. He barely presses his lips to mine when he whispers, “It’s not always that easy for me either.”
I look into his eyes and can see the honesty there. Having him give me those words takes some pressure off. I wrap my arms around him and kiss him. When I seal my lips with his, he slides his tongue along mine, feeling me, and I roll on top of him. I drag my mouth down and along his jaw as he tangles his fingers in my hair. Running my hand down his cut stomach, I softly bite the curve of his neck when I slip my hand down his shorts and grip him firmly in my hand. He throbs against my hold, and it intensifies my desire to have him. As I let out a deep moan, I inch myself down the length of his body and between his legs. Slipping his shorts off, I toss them aside before lowering myself and taking him in my mouth, tasting him.
“Uhh, fuck,” he moans out and tugs my hair.
This isn’t something I’ve ever done with guys; they’ve always done this to me. The shame that has always come along with me giving a man anything like this would dredge up all of my feelings about how uncomfortable I am with being gay. Like the idea of me giving another guy head would somehow take me to a new level of gay. It’s stupid; it’s my own fucked up way of trying to rationalize things. But I want to give this to him. I want to leave those screwed up thoughts behind because I love him, even though I’m not quite ready to say it. I’m scared, and I know it. I feel closer to him than anyone else, but I still need more, and this is the only way I know how right now.
I take my time and focus on making him feel as good as I can. I give, not wanting anything from him in return. My mouth is clenched firmly around him as I use my hand to add more pressure, and when I squeeze tighter, his moan is deep. “Oh God, Jase.”
Hearing him say my name like that does me in, and I quicken my pace and suck harder. I know he’s close when I feel him swell even more. He bucks his hips, and I grip him with my free hand as he begins to come.
“Oh God, don’t stop,” he pants, and I don’t. I let him ride it out for as long as he can hold on, and when he relaxes underneath me, he reaches down and pulls me up to him. I hover over him as he stares up in my eyes, his face flushed. He gives me a sexy grin before he lowers me down to him and kisses me. There’s something about this kiss that’s more intimate than any of our others.
Giving Mark this, something I have never given anyone else, makes me want to give him even more. There’s no shame, no regret; there’s only love for the man that is showing me that it’s okay to be me. I rest my body on top of his, and we wrap each other up in our arms as we continue to slowly move our lips together. It’s all we do for a while. It’s all I want to do; getting lost in him is peaceful in a way I can’t describe. He calms me when we are together like this, and I don’t want this with anyone but him.
Not wanting to stop, I mumble against his lips, “I just want you.”
He pulls back and places his hands along my jaw. “You have me.”
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” Mark says in frustration as he stares at the smoke rising from the pan.
I laugh and nudge him away from the stove. Flipping the bread over, it’s charred black. “You are completely helpless in the kitchen, you know that?”
“I told you; it’s pointless trying to teach me how to cook.”
“Dude! It’s grilled cheese,” I say as I toss it in the trashcan. “Any child could make that, but you, you turn that shit on high and scorch it.”
Mark laughs as he says, “Babe, can we just order a pizza? I’m done trying to cook.”
Rinsing out the pan, I look up at him and smile while shaking my head. “Hopeless.”
“We’re eating pizza,” he asserts as he plucks his cell from the counter.
“Hey, can you plug in my laptop? I think my battery is about to die.”
Nodding his head, he gets my computer from my backpack and plugs it in as he’s ordering us dinner. The past couple of weeks at school have been busy with our project’s initial presentations to our professors. I’ve fallen a little behind with everything, so although Mark insisted on coming over and hanging out tonight, he promised to help me with some of the drafting I need to get done.
“Okay, pizza is on its way.”
I wipe down the counter and walk over to the couch where my laptop is plugged in and open it up.
“Do you have any heat packs here?” Mark asks. “My shoulder’s been killing me ever since we left the gym this morning.”
“Yeah, I have some in my bag in the closet.”
When he comes back out of my room, he takes his shirt off and sits down next to me, holding the pack against his shoulder. I never knew that Ryan worked out at our gym, but last week Mark had run into him, so we’ve been meeting up a couple times a week to lift weights. Ryan is pretty quiet for the most part, but despite what Gavin had told me, he seems like a good guy.
“I think Candace left some Tiger’s Balm over here if you want to use it,” I tell him.
“She’s crazy with that stuff,” he laughs out. “She is the only person I know who smears that crap on and then wraps her legs up in Saran Wrap.”
I bust out laughing at all the times I have seen her do that. “She swears it works better that way. She’s been doing it for years.”
Shaking his head, he says, “That girl cracks me up with how serious she is.”
“Yeah,” I sigh out as he props his feet on the coffee table and leans into me. He grabs the remote and turns it to SportsCenter as I get some AutoCAD work done while we wait for dinner to get here.
When a commercial comes on, Mark asks, “Has Ryan said anything about Gavin? I haven’t been seeing him around lately.”
Continuing to work on my project, I keep my eyes fixed on the screen, when I tell him, “Ryan isn’t much of a talker, but I could tell that Gavin was starting to piss him off the other week.”
“Huh.”
“Why?”
“No reason. Just wondering,” he says.
I chuckle at him, and tease, “You’re nosey.”