Cricket (20 page)

They had been dancing around sex—or even the possibility of sex—for so long that to think that they might ever reach a place where they were both ready for it was almost laughable. Despite this, despite everything, Henry wanted the man in his arms. Wanted him a lot.

He was trying to decide whether to disguise his erection, wondering what Ryan’s reaction to another man’s arousal might be. They were also both conveniently ignoring the fact that Henry was bare-ass naked. It clearly wasn’t a problem, although any chances he might have of disguising his rapidly hardening cock were severely hampered.

When Ryan leaned up to kiss Henry again, Henry found it almost impossible to hold back all the desire and need and wanting he’d been trying to keep locked up for weeks and weeks. And then he decided to let go, just let it all go and find out what would happen.

He opened his mouth and let his tongue slide easily against Ryan’s, taking him deeper in his own mouth and kissing him with everything he had and everything he wanted. He wasn’t prepared to hide his cock anymore either, and shoved his groin forward until it lined up with Ryan’s… where Ryan was half hard too.

A long moan of need escaped from Henry’s throat as he grabbed at Ryan’s shoulder, urging him closer and for more, more friction, more kissing, more touching. He was ready to take hold of anything that Ryan was willing to give or even willing to share. He’d have that and more if he could.

Ryan broke out of the kiss first, only to lick at Henry’s jaw and place openmouthed kisses down his neck, then bite his earlobe and run a flat palm down Henry’s stomach.

“Can I…?”

“Touch me. Please.”

It still took a few more minutes of caressing and exploring before Ryan’s fingers started their slow descent, and eventually, with more than a little encouragement, wrapped around Henry’s cock.

“I’m not that big,” Henry said. It was true. Ryan had no problem encasing Henry’s cock in his palm, wrapping his fingers around it and squeezing gently.

Ryan’s lips were at Henry’s neck. “Doesn’t matter to me.”

He didn’t suppose it would. Some guys, before, when he was younger, had loved the fact that he was on the smaller side of average. It made them feel bigger in comparison, and Henry had played the role of young, submissive twink for many years, until it became clear to everyone involved that he was closer to thirty than eighteen. Even now, he liked to trim his body hair, keeping his chest and stomach almost completely smooth.

While Ryan gently stroked him, Henry closed his eyes and allowed himself to bask in the feeling of someone else touching him for the first time in a long time.

“You know I’ve not been with another man before,” Ryan said, encouraging Henry to open his eyes.

Henry smiled slowly. “Doesn’t matter to me,” he said.

“Tell me if I do something wrong?”

Henry wrapped his hand around the back of Ryan’s neck and drew him into another kiss. “Go slowly, be gentle, and do what feels good,” he said. “And you won’t go wrong.”

Emboldened by Henry’s statement, Ryan started to kiss down his neck, over his collarbones and chest, stopping to lick and nibble at Henry’s nipples. His hand never ceased its task of gently stroking Ryan’s cock, although it did stray to explore Henry’s testicles and down, farther between his legs, before returning.

“You’re so beautiful,” Ryan said as his hand skimmed over Henry’s abdomen.

The combination of the tickly fingertips and sweet words made Henry laugh, and Ryan pressed his lips to Henry’s chest, seemingly hiding his face in embarrassment. Henry ran his own teasing fingers through Ryan’s hair and encouraged him back up for another kiss.

They lay like that for a while, tangled in each other and gently rocking their hips, erections sliding tantalizingly together. The “more” seemed to be lingering just out of reach, neither man knowing quite where to take things next.

It was Henry who broke first, kissing down Ryan’s neck, then asking, “What do you want?”

“You. Everything.” Henry groaned in frustration, then suddenly found himself pinned to the bed, hands over his head, with Ryan’s knee pressed between both of his own. “I
want
you, Henry,” he repeated. “I want you so much it fucking scares me.”

Henry could feel his heart thumping in his chest, the blood roaring in his ears, as Ryan licked, then bit the curve of his shoulder.

“Ryan….”

“I want to suck you,” Ryan said, interrupting. “Will you just fucking…
stay still
for two fucking seconds?”

“I didn’t realize I was moving,” Henry said honestly, stopping the instinctive rolling of his hips that was causing their cocks to slide together deliciously.

Ryan pushed himself up to sit back on his heels and gave his cock a few good, solid tugs, then kicked his pajama pants off. His eyes, normally such a rich, deep brown, looked almost black in the dark, and no one who looked in them would be able to miss the desire with which he looked down at his lover.

Henry held his breath while Ryan, not breaking eye contact, leaned in and licked a long, wet stripe from the base of Henry’s cock to the very tip.

Henry groaned. “Oh my God.”

Apparently encouraged by this reaction, Ryan gently gripped the base of Henry’s cock and closed his mouth around the head. What he lacked in skill he certainly made up for in enthusiasm as he worked his lips up and down the shaft of Henry’s cock, running his tongue over the ridges and swirling it around the head over and over.

Henry bunched his hands in the sheets under him as his toes clenched and curled. His thighs trembled with the effort of staying still and not distracting his lover from this task, especially since Ryan actually seemed to be enjoying it.

“Breathe, baby,” Henry gasped as Ryan attempted to pull him to the back of his throat. “You don’t have to do that.”

Ryan pulled away but used his own spit as a lubricant to keep gently pumping Henry’s cock.

“I’m not ready for you to come in my mouth,” he said softly.

Henry nodded. “That’s fine,” he said. “That feels so fucking good,” he added with a laugh.

He was treated to one of Ryan’s shy, sweet smiles before he lowered his mouth back to resume its gentle sucking. Keeping his hips still was becoming more and more of a challenge for Henry as his instinct to buck into this sensation got stronger, and it was only Ryan’s quelling hand on his stomach that reminded him not to scare off his adorable, inexperienced partner.

When Ryan’s fingers explored between his legs, Henry didn’t think, just moved one of his legs to plant his foot on the bed, exposing himself to whatever it was Ryan wanted from him. He was, after all, a horny-as-fuck bottom most of the time, and the thought of Ryan inside him—hell,
any
part of Ryan inside him—was one hell of a turn-on.

He was close, though, so close to coming that even the slightest pressure was going to send him over the edge. Ryan’s fingers were fairly insistent, gently stroking over the soft, puckered hole and igniting all the nerve endings that hadn’t been explored in so long.

“Please, Ryan,” he said, not caring that he was begging. “Fuck. Close.”

The area of his brain responsible for complex sentences had apparently abandoned him as each individual sensation crashed together: the tongue still swirling around the head of his cock and the soft stroking of one careful fingertip over his hole, and above all, the knowledge that it was his Ryan that was doing this.

He pushed Ryan’s head away, and thankfully Ryan understood, reverting to the quick, slick movements of his hand over Henry’s cock until Henry shuddered and came, his back arching off the bed as he allowed one long moan to escape from his throat.

After a moment, he found the energy to lift his eyelids and was glad he did. While one of Ryan’s hands was still pressed to Henry’s stomach, caressing the curve of his hipbone, the other was flying over his own cock. With his head thrown back and hips pumping into each action, it only took moments for Ryan to come too, adding his own come to the mess on Henry’s stomach.

Breathing heavily, Ryan collapsed to the bed and rolled onto his side, his hand smearing the silky come over Henry’s taut abdominals.

“Ohh,” Henry moaned, but in a very different context. “You’re disgusting.”

Ryan laughed, delighted, and pressed slack lips to the curve of Henry’s shoulder. “You had to get up and wash it off anyway.”

“Yeah, but now you have to get up too.”

“I was getting up anyway.”

He proved himself by heaving his body off the bed, and meandered through to the small bathroom. Reluctantly, Henry followed him.

In the bathroom, Ryan had already washed his sticky hands and passed Henry the washcloth so he could clean himself up. While Henry rinsed the cloth under the warm water, Ryan set about brushing his teeth with the red toothbrush Henry hadn’t bothered to throw away since he moved in.

When he was finally clean, Henry loaded his electric toothbrush with FreshMint and ducked in front of Ryan to get good sink and mirror space. It was disgustingly normal, standing side by side with someone, sharing a sink while they brushed their teeth before bed.

While Henry was economical with his movements, rotating the buzzing circular brush in rhythmic patterns over his teeth, Ryan bashed away, foaming at the mouth with all the frothed up toothpaste.

They took it in turns to spit.

Like this, naked in front of a mirror, their physical differences only seemed to be highlighted further. Ryan’s skin was different colors all over. He’d been working in the sun without a shirt on recently, so his arms and shoulders were a deeper tan than his belly and thighs. And his ass was practically lily-white. There were patches of pink on his neck and the tip of his nose—Henry reminded himself to add sun cream to their next grocery order.

In comparison, Henry hadn’t been able to get to a sun bed or a spray tan in months, so his body looked particularly smooth and pale. Where once this would have distressed him, for now he quite liked the au naturel look.

Casually, Ryan swung his arm around to press a flat palm to Henry’s chest, then gently stroked down to his navel and back up again. His eyes crinkled at the corners, smiling, while his mouth was otherwise occupied.

“You’ve got a real thing for my chest,” Henry said around his toothbrush.

Ryan spat and rinsed.

“Do I?”

Henry copied. “Yeah.”

When they were done, Henry washed off his brush and set it neatly aside, splashed water over his face, then leaned in to share a squeaky-clean, minty kiss. He left Ryan to pee on his own and threw back the covers on the bed. It was too warm to sleep with them and his own personal hot water bottle beside him.

Ryan joined him again after a few minutes, scooping his body into a tightly curled spoon, and resumed an absent toying with Henry’s nipples.

“Maybe I do have a thing for your chest.”

“I told you you did.”

“Hmm.”

“I have a theory,” Henry said and yawned widely.

“Tell me quick, before you fall asleep.”

Henry snuggled back a bit farther, loving how the hairs on Ryan’s belly tickled his back. “It’s your way of reassuring yourself that I’m a man.”

“I’m not sure if it’s that…,” Ryan said, then caught Henry’s yawn. “You’ve just got a really nice chest. It’s all hard and smooth and flat….”

“And completely unlike a woman’s.”

“That’s not why I like it.”

“Oh?”

Ryan kissed the side of Henry’s neck. “No. I like it because it’s so
you.
”

With the reassurance of his back to Ryan’s front and the resulting knowledge that Ryan couldn’t see, Henry allowed himself an indulgent grin. He started to drift toward sleep, lulled by Ryan’s slow, even breathing. Then, out of nowhere, a thought popped into his head and was out of his mouth before he could try and stop it.

“Do you really think I’m beautiful?”

He never fished for compliments. It was a steadfast rule in his book. Except this wasn’t meant to be fishing for a compliment; it was a genuine question.

Ryan’s lips curved into a smile—he could feel it pressed against his back.

“Henry, every moment I spend with you, you get a little bit more beautiful to me.”

“Thank you,” he whispered, knowing, and hating, how vulnerable this man made him. Then again, it was Ryan, and he wasn’t just talking about how Henry looked. For the first time, Henry was showing him everything, all the good, all the bad, and for the first time, someone had said it was beautiful.

H
ENRY
was panicking.

He kept his eyes glued to the intruder as he speed-dialed Ryan’s number and tried not to shake as it rang.

“Please pick up, please pick up, please pick up,” he chanted under his breath.

“Hello?”

“Oh, thank fuck for that,” Henry said.

“Henry?”

“Yeah. There’s a goat in my garden.”

“A what?”

“A goat, Ryan, a fucking goat.”

He could hear Ryan’s snort of laughter down the phone, and a little flare of anger ran through his veins.

“It’s not funny!” Henry exclaimed.

“What do you want me to do about it? I’m working.”

“Come and get it for me. Please, Ryan?”

The sound of the truck’s engine turning over came through the phone, and Henry felt guilty—just a tiny bit—at interrupting Ryan’s day.

“It’s probably from the gorge. There’s been goats on the hillside there for a while now. God only knows how it got down to you, though.”

“Are you coming?”

“Yeah, I’m coming. Sit tight, baby. Don’t make any sudden movements. It might attack.”

“I hate you,” Henry said and rang off.

It only took ten minutes for Ryan to arrive, telling Henry that he must have been up at the top end of the farm already, close to the road. He had, however, stopped to find suitable goat-catching equipment. Apparently, that included a hard hat, Hi Vis jacket, a mallet, and a really big net that Henry thought might have something to do with chickens.

“That’s not funny,” Henry said, standing on the front steps of Stretton House with his hands on his hips.