These Violent Delights Read online

  Arthur who? I have no idea, but it doesn’t matter. I reach out and flush the toilet, already picturing Simon’s confusion. Yeah, you thought you were going to come here and put the moves on your ex, but guess what? He’s moved on.

  I open the door and step out. “Hello,” I say, bulldozing straight through their stunned silence like this isn’t even a thing. I put an arm around Tom’s waist and he doesn’t recoil; maybe he’s already figured out my game, although his mouth is still hanging half open when I kiss him. I feel his teeth bump against mine, but then his lips sort of soften and go with it, and as I pull away I see his eyelids are at half-mast, the sunlight from the stained glass red on the ends of his lashes. The look in his eyes is everything and I’m shocked by the strength of the sheer want it makes me feel. It would knock me off my feet if I didn’t have such perfect balance.

  “Who the fuck are you?” says Simon. I hate him already. He has curly dark hair like mine, but he’s soft. The kind of person who doesn’t care to work for what he wants.

  “I guess you must be Simon,” I say, with the kind of company smile that my mother would be proud of. “But, wow. Do they know about your potty mouth at church?”

  I feel Tom’s spine shake under my hand. Simon glances between the two of us. He looks totally humiliated. Good.

  “Well,” he says. “I should…”

  “Go?” says Tom.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay then. Bye bye.” Tom opens the door. Simon retreats through it, but as he goes I catch his eye. Oh, he’s got it in for me, but we’ll deal with that later. Right now I’ve got my hands full.

  We watch him go. The tremor under my hand is stronger now; Tom’s trying not to laugh. “Holy shit,” he says. “You’re an evil genius. I love it.”

  “Smile and wave.”

  He slowly closes the front door, then stands with his back to it. At first he’s laughing, but then his smile goes slack and his eyes turn hungry. The dust barely has a chance to settle before I realize this is happening. And that it has to, because I think I might explode if it doesn’t.

  He reaches out with both hands and cups my face. This time our teeth don’t bump, because I’m expecting him, wanting him. His lips are soft but the rasp of stubble against mine leaves me in no doubt about what I’m doing. About who I’m doing. His tongue fills my mouth and I moan with surprise, because that first wet lick ignites something in the very center of my brain, and although nobody but me can hear the explosion that follows, I know he must feel it; the seismic shock of feels like it’s rattled the foundations of every cell in my body. I’m rock hard, pushing my tongue into his kiss, fumbling for skin at the waistband of his jeans. I don’t even know what I’m doing, but I need to touch him.

  Under his shirt his skin is warm and smooth. I grab a handful of cloth and feel a button fly loose as we stagger backwards, knocking over an occasional table. He laughs but carries right on kissing me and I cry out in eagerness as his hands slide up under my t-shirt. I pull it up over my head and my ass hits the wall opposite as Tom lunges forward, his breath panting over my heart, his tongue circling a nipple and his hands on my body. I feel the edge of his teeth, tugging gently, and the pleasure of it is so sudden and unexpected that my knees go weak. I stumble towards the floor.

  “Bedroom?” he says, in the same breathy, sexy voice that made me pretty much cram my dick down his throat back in the classroom that night. Oh, it’s tempting, but how far away is his bedroom? I don’t want a moment’s interruption. No opportunities for second thoughts. Not now.

  “No,” I say, tearing at my fly. “Here. Now. Don’t you dare stop touching me.”

  He whips down my jeans. The doormat is rough under my ass, but I don’t care, because his mouth – his crazy, talented mouth – is right there, licking me from root to tip. “Jesus,” he whispers, pausing for air, his breath hot on my belly button and his eyes like nothing I’ve ever seen before. “Your cock tastes so sexy.”

  “I want yours.” How the hell does he still have his jeans on?

  Tom quickly yanks his pants down over his hips. No underwear. His skin, where the sun hasn’t touched it, is even paler than mine. His dick looks large and red, and kind of strange, then I remember that they don’t circumcise boys as a matter of course in Europe. At once I’m curious to see how it feels and the curiosity overwhelms any last flickers of apprehension I had about touching another man in this way.

  He kisses me again as I curl my fingers around him. It’s so hard, but the skin feels like fine velvet. No going back now. I’m doing this. I’m having sex with a man. I squeeze gently and tug. His kiss stutters out in a broken gasp against my lips and in that moment I’m almost deranged with the sense of my own power.

  I want to make him moan and sigh and cry out. I want to reduce him to a trembling pile of goo. I squeeze again, but he’s holding me so tight that my fingers don’t have room to move between our bodies, and I have to let go. He shifts his hips against me and then - like they’re the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle or something - our cocks kind of line up against each other, side by side, pressed between our bellies. When he starts to move my astonishment must show on my face, because he stops and asks if I’m okay.

  “Holy shit, yes. Don’t stop.”

  He laughs and kisses me and I go with it, amazed by how good this feels. What the fuck? This is just humping, but I know I’m going to get off. Each stroke of his dick against mine brings new sensations, and as we sweat it just gets better, slipping and sliding as we bump and groan and grind. Maybe I was expecting to get bent over and fucked - I don’t know - but I wasn’t expecting this, this intimacy and intensity. We’re panting into each others mouths between kisses and I can’t believe how much I want his tongue, his lips, the rasp of his stubble against mine. His skin is hot under my hands, the muscle beneath laboring as he fucks me. And that’s the strangest part - we’re fucking. There’s no penetration but there’s no doubt in my mind - and definitely not in my body - that we are fucking each other’s brains out right now.

  “God, you’re lovely,” he whispers, as he pounds my ass into the doormat. I buck up to meet his thrusts and it’s slippery, too slippery, and I almost slither out of place before I realize what’s happened. Turns out he’s one of those people who comes quietly. He’s blood hot all over me and still shuddering as he reaches down and takes hold of me. Oh hell, yeah. It’s sticky and messy and deliciously slick, like his hand is pulling pleasure up and out from every corner of my body. I’m not so shy about making a noise and I pretty much howl as my ass comes up off the floor - three times - and I squirt and pump into his eager fist.

  I lie and listen to his breathing slow, feeling come cooling on my stomach. The hallway looks like there’s been a fight or an earthquake. His shirt’s torn and the table is on its side on the floor. The doormat is prickly under my bare ass. Jesus Christ – that was just hands and humping, but I can’t remember the last time I felt so thoroughly, totally laid.

  I don’t know the rules. Oral, yeah. That was sex. But this? “So,” I say, and my voice comes out husky. “Did we just have sex again?”

  “Yep.” He turns his head so that his lips brush my shoulder. “Oops.”

  I turn to face him and it almost knocks the breath out of me. It’s not like he was unattractive in the first place but right now he’s glowing, his skin pink and gold, the evening light bringing out the threads of copper in his hair. Turns out that it’s more auburn than brown, now that I get a closer look at it. He has freckles. Bookish. Funny how that worked out.

  His smile is sleepy and I can’t believe how beautiful I find him. Him. A man.

  “Can I ask you something?” I say, reaching out to brush his hair from his forehead. God, this feels weird. Good weird, but still weird.

  “Of course.”

  “Who the fuck is Arthur Dimmesdale?”

  He laughs. “Oh. The Scarlet Letter.”

  “The what?”

  “You’ll find out. Next semester.
It’s on your reading list, but you haven’t read it yet, have you?”

  “I was supposed to?”

  “It’s a reading list, Milos. The clue’s in the name.”

  “Ugh.” I roll over and swing a leg over him. “Are you seriously going to start acting like my teacher while your pants are round your ankles? Because I gotta tell you – it’s not doing it for me.” I sit astride him, naked. His eyes darken as he looks up at me and he reaches up with both hands, caressing my abs, my chest and my neck. As he pulls I lean over and we’re kissing again, slow and soft this time. It’s so nice, even if the cool air on my ass – currently sticking up in the air – makes it feel like it’s on fire.

  “We need to set some ground rules,” he says.

  “That sounds serious.”

  “It is,” he says, and stiffens between my thighs. Not in the good way. His hand is in my hair but he’s not fucking around. “I don’t want to hear any more bitching about Sophie. Is that clear? You take your tutorials with her or we make this the last time.”

  “Okay. That’s fair.”

  Tom looks surprised, like he expected more resistance. “Really?”

  “Yeah. I’ll do what it takes. Whatever you want. I know you can’t look like you have a conflict of interest.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “What? What’s the matter. I’m agreeing with you.”

  He blinks. “I know. I’m guess I’m just not used to it. If I’d known what it took to make you agree with me–”

  “–we’d have had a whole lot more sex by now. I know. It’s a tragedy. We’ve got a lot of lost time to catch up on.”

  He slaps me lightly on the thigh. “Milos. You and I both know this situation is totally unethical. Take it seriously, at least for a minute.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  “We’re going to have to tread very carefully. No public displays of affection. No flirting in public. No staying overnight.”

  “Smart,” I say. “That way if we get caught we can at least deny sleeping with each other.”

  He narrows an eye at me, but he can’t quite hide his smile. “Stop it.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop being so…”

  “What? Fabulously hot? I can’t help that.” I lean over and his hand slides up my thigh to my butt. His fingers brush the sore patch and I wince.

  “Oh, shit,” he says. “You okay? Let me see.”

  I swing my leg back over him and let him take a look. I hear him suck his breath in through his teeth.

  “Is it bad? Maybe next time we should do that in a bed.”

  “You were the one who wanted to do it on the floor.”

  “I know. I’m kind of rethinking that.”

  “I’m not surprised,” says Tom. “Your left buttock looks like hamburger. It’s like next level rug burn.” He toes off his jeans and gets to his feet. His thighs are white and his dick looks paler now, now that it’s soft. That little flap of extra skin looks delicate, thin as the petal of a flower. There are bright copper threads in the hair of his bush.

  “Come on,” he says, holding out a hand to me. “Let’s take a shower.”

  A shower. I forgot about this, when you’re with a brand new lover and regular things like washing and eating and lying around in bed become whole new worlds of erotic possibilities. I guess I didn’t consciously think it would be any different with him, but I’m surprised to find it’s not. The thought of getting wet and soapy with him is immediately appealing. “Yeah,” I say. “I could probably use one.”

  “Probably?” He laughs. “You smell like a polecat. Get in that bathroom.”

  I do as I’m told. This bathroom – scene of my previous poor decisions, not to mention some recent ones that turned out better than I could have hoped. He follows me in, close enough for me to feel the heat of his skin on mine as we walk through the door. I turn and catch him in the act of taking off a sock – the only thing he’s still wearing –and when he straightens up his smile is shy. It’s the first time we’ve ever been totally naked in front of each other. I’m still half hard and the way he looks at me makes things stir all over again; I feel the dried, crusted come crack as my skin stretches underneath.

  “I’m sure you’re sick of hearing this,” he says. “But you’re very beautiful.”

  “I thought I smelled like a polecat?”

  He reaches out to turn on the shower. “You do. You are.” He inclines his head towards the spray. “Get in. I’ll find some antiseptic.”

  I step into the shower. “Is it bad?”

  “It’s pretty red. Looks like my doormat attempted to eat your arse.”

  “It felt satisfying at the time,” I say, sticking my head under the water.

  “Okay. This might sting a bit.” He comes in behind me, crowding me against the tile as he kneels. My heart skips a beat as I realize he’s going down and I guess he senses the tension because he stops where he is, his breath drying my butt cheek.

  “Sorry – you all right? If you’re not comfortable with this just say so. I’ll stop right away.”

  “No, it’s okay.” I’m nervous, but my cock isn’t. It stiffens further, the weight of it tugging at my groin muscles. I feel him dab at the sore patch with something, and it stings, but my dick is so, so into this. And more. My asshole tingles with what can only be anticipation, and now my apprehension is less about what I’ll do if he does touch me there and more about how disappointed I’ll be if he doesn’t.

  “There,” he says, and I feel his kiss through the water streaming down over the small of my back. My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in the roots of my balls. If he doesn’t keep touching me I think I might die. “All done. Would you like me to wash you?”

  “Yeah.” My voice seems to come from far away. I shift my feet apart; my knees are weak. The first thing I feel is his hand on the inside of my thigh, soaping upwards to cup my balls. His thumb brushes the sensitive skin behind them and I almost stumble at the shock of it, my hands flat on the tile in front of me to steady myself. I lean forward and look down, the splatter of the spray filling my ears as I watch his clever, long fingered hands come up from between my thighs as if they were disembodied, some figment of an erotic dream, soaping and stroking me to incredible hardness.

  “Beautiful,” he says, his hands retreating back between my legs. I can feel his breath on the top of my asscrack, and when he speaks again his voice is like what lust itself would sound like if it could talk. “You have the hardest, highest, roundest little arse I’ve ever seen. Do you know that?” I feel his smile distorting the next kiss. “I think I’m jealous of the doormat for getting there first; I want to eat it.”

  A weird, squeaky whimper escapes my throat. His hands spread my cheeks apart and I feel it tug at the sensitive edges of the hole. I feel like a target presented as the tip of his tongue slithers south and then…oh my God. I’m surprised I don’t black out from pleasure and shame. So delicate, so careful, and so totally, excitingly wrong.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he says, mistaking my shock for something else.

  “No, no. So much no. Oh my God.”

  “Touch yourself….that’s it.”

  I moan as my dick fills my palm. It’s hot and so very, very hard, and soapy enough to glide sweetly into my touch. Even at the first stroke I feel myself light up like Christmas, then Tom’s tongue comes down and flickers at me once more, teasing around the edge of my asshole. I’m never going to last and I don’t even care, because I never knew anything could feel this good.

  “Nobody’s ever done this to you before, have they?” he says, his fingers now tracing where his tongue’s just been.

  I buck onto his fingertip and it makes me gasp. He’s inside. I can feel his breath ragged against my wet skin as he pushes gently with a second finger, and I just open for it like the slut I am. “Please,” I moan. “Please. Please. I’m so fucking hard.”

  He slides his fingers deeper, fucking me very slowly w
ith them. “Oh, I know you are,” he says. “Because you’re twenty. You’re a walking erection and you could be anybody’s.”

  Deeper. Oh fuck.

  “But in here?” he says. “In here you’re all mine.”

  “Yes,” I say, grinding back into his touch, the words threatening to pour out in a rush as he opens me wider. “I’m yours. Oh God, I’m yours. I’m yours.”

  7

  Tom

  “That’s the whole thing with altitude sickness. It’s like Russian roulette; you never know when it’s going to get you. I’ve read about Sherpas getting it.”

  Nicky is not impressed, but I’m just enjoying the show, pleasantly buzzed on a much needed little something and sipping a Long Island Iced Tea. For the past ten minutes Otter has been insisting that his weekend queasiness in Denver was due to being too far above sea level.

  “That woman in the lavender dress,” he says. “She was a doctor. And she said there was no way of testing after the fact, because it goes off as soon as you come back down off the mountains.”

  “She was being polite, you hog. Because she knew as well as I do that it was nothing to do with the Rocky Mountain high. You just ate like three pieces of wedding cake and drank until you thought dancing to Love Shack was a great idea.”

  “Wait,” I say. “I thought it was a wedding? You’re not supposed to get drunk and dance to Love Shack? Because if that’s the case I’ve been doing it wrong all my life.”

  Otter raises a middle finger at Nicky. “See? Tom gets it. I’ve been way drunker than that before and I never had a headache like I had the next day. I’m telling you - me and altitude, we don’t mix.”

  “I’m done,” says Nicky, turning his attention back to the oven where the bread is warming. He tosses the whisk back into the dish and pushes it over to Otter. “Altitude it is. Just finish the aioli. Can you manage that?”

  “Sure, Pumpkin.” Otter picks up the whisk and pushes the jug of oil towards me. “You pour, I’ll whisk?”