L. A. Witt - Rules 1 - Rules of Engagement (20 page)

A
T DINNER
that night, Brandon paused in mid-sentence, doing a double take and looking past me.
“What?” I glanced over my shoulder.
He squinted, then shook his head. “Nothing, just thought I recognized the bartender. Looked like someone I dated a while back.”
I turned around again, catching sight of the good-looking bartender with a stubbled jaw and green eyes that were arresting even from here. “I can see why.” I looked back at Brandon. “He’s not bad.”
Brandon shook his head. “Not him. The other one.”
I looked a third time. “The blonde?”
“Yep,” he said. “She looks a lot like my last girlfriend.” His eyes shifted to the bartenders, then he shrugged and looked at me. “I wouldn’t throw the guy out of bed though.”
“We could always see if he’ll go home with us.”
He laughed. “Getting daring, are we?”
“I’m kidding,” I dropped my voice. “Not quite ready for a threesome.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll wait in the car. You come and get me when it’s my turn.”
I snorted with laughter. “Dirty bastard.”
“That’s what my driver’s license says.”
“You know, I wouldn’t put it past you.” I picked up my drink. “So have you dated mostly men or women?”
“Mostly men,” he said. “But I’ve had a few girlfriends. Almost got married once.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “A few years ago. We talked about it, but there were some issues we couldn’t get past.”
“Such as?”
“She couldn’t handle the fact that I liked men.”
“So she dumped you…over
that
?”
“No, I dumped her.” He shrugged. “She didn’t trust me, thought I was going to sleep around on her simply because I was attracted to men. I asked if she was going to cheat on me because she was attracted to men, but she didn’t think that was the same.”
“So why was she with you at all if she didn’t think she could trust you?”
“Because she thought she could change me. Or rather, she thought I would change for her, if I really loved her. As if it’s something I can just turn on and off.”
“What? She expected you to just suddenly stop looking at men?”
“Apparently. I asked if she expected me to stop looking at other woman too, but she seemed to think that was different.”
I laughed. “Well, at least she didn’t mind you looking at other women.”
His eyebrow rose. “I take it the wife didn’t like you looking at the other items on the menu after you’d already ordered?”
“Ooh, no. Didn’t stop her from ordering off of the menu herself, but heaven help me if I so much as looked.”
“Fucking hypocrite.”
“You’re telling me.” I took a long drink as if it would rinse the bitterness out of my mouth.
Brandon looked away for a moment, as if lost in thought, then met my eyes. “Let me ask you something. About your ex.”
“Shoot.”
He leaned back in his chair, cocking his head. “Were you ever, you know, happy with her? I mean, in ten years, was it all bad?”
Looking down at my hands and sighing, I shook my head. “No, it wasn’t all bad.” I paused, drumming my fingers on the table. “There were actually some really good times. Nine times out of ten, we were at each other’s throats or I was under her thumb, but that one time out of ten…” I trailed off, my fingers slowing as I let my mind wander for a moment. “That one time out of ten was what made it hurt so much to leave.”
“Amazing what shit we’ll put up with in exchange for that occasional Kodak moment.”
“Yeah,” I whispered hoarsely. “I really did love her. On some level, I probably still do. Honestly, it would have been so much easier to walk away if she had been awful the entire time, but sometimes, she could be so….” I exhaled. “Anyway, I convinced myself that I couldn’t live without the good times, so I stayed through the bad too.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“Are you kidding? I was an idiot.”
“But it’s hard to walk away from something good, even if there’s bad shit attached.”
I considered it for a moment. “Yeah, it is.”
He set his drink down and sat up. “She must have been batshit insane to cheat on you.”
My cheeks burned, and I shrugged. “I don’t know about that.”
He leaned forward, folding his hands on the table. Lowering his voice to almost a whisper, he said, “I’m serious. I don’t just mean that from the standpoint of someone who knows how good you are in bed. The very fact that you were willing to stand by her through all of that should have clued her in to what she had.”
Avoiding his eyes, I swallowed hard, playing with my straw and an ice cube. “God only knows why she did it, but….” I shrugged again. “It’s done.”
“Her loss.” He sipped his drink and watched me. We exchanged smiles.
“You know, as ironic as it is,” I said, my smile falling, “she was cheating on me for, hell, who knows how long? But the whole time? She was paranoid as fuck that I was going to cheat on her.”
“Guilty conscience?”
“Yeah, right. Not that woman.”
“She probably just didn’t like the idea of you doing something that she couldn’t control.”
“That would be the Stephanie I knew and loved,” I muttered. “Hell, she didn’t even like me having a close female friend. Kate— that’s the chick that signed you in at the gym—has been one of my closest friends since we were kids. When we started working together, my God, you would have thought Steph had caught me in bed with her.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Yeah,” I laughed. “Took her a
long
time to get over that.”
Brandon chuckled. “So that chick at the gym,” he said. “Kate, you said?”
“Right.”
“She’s cute. Did you ever go out with her?”
I wrinkled my nose. “She’s cute, but dating her would be like dating my own sister. Plus, now that we work together, it wouldn’t be such a good idea anyway.”
He laughed. “Amen to that. Dating a co-worker is a bad idea. Trust me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Bad experience?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call the experience bad.” He winked. “But the aftermath was….” Grimacing, he shook his head.
“So what happened?”
“Started dating a grad student when I was still an undergrad,” he said.
“Kinda puts a new spin on ‘undergrad’ doesn’t it?”
He laughed. “Except he liked to be under me. Anyway, we started dating right about the time I graduated. Then we were both in grad school together the next year. Working together. In the same lab. It was fine when we were still seeing each other, because we could play it cool at work. No one had a clue, so everything was fine.”
“Were you keeping it quiet because you were co-workers, or men?”
He shrugged. “A little of both.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Anyway, when we broke up, that’s when things got ugly. It was a nasty split, but having to work together just made it that much worse. Especially….” He paused, his lips tightening into a scowl. “Especially when he started seeing another undergrad. And he made a big deal out of it, just to throw it in my face.”
“That’s brutal,” I said.
“Fortunately, he graduated shortly after that and moved on to a research lab job. Thank
God
. Another quarter with him and one of us was going to get killed.”
I chuckled. “Which one?”
He grinned. “Probably him.”
We stayed until the restaurant was almost ready to close. When we left, it was pouring rain. It wasn’t uncomfortably cold, but it was a heavy, driving rain. By the time we’d gone half a block, we were both soaked to the skin.
As we walked, my fingertips brushed the side of Brandon’s hand. A moment later, feeling a little bolder, I let my hand slide into his. He glanced down at our hands, then at me, and smiled as he laced his fingers through mine.
“Not worried about what other people think?” he asked.
“Nah,” I said. “They can all suck my left nut.”
He laughed and squeezed my hand, looking around the deserted street. “Not like anyone will see us. They’re probably all inside hiding from the rain anyway.”
“Wimps,” I said.
“Exactly.”
We rounded the corner and walked the last block to the parking lot. The road and sidewalk were completely empty and silent except for our footsteps and the rain pelting the pavement.
With the warmth of Brandon’s hand in mine, the rain seemed colder now, but still not unpleasantly so. Water ran down the back of my neck, a single icy drop trickling down the center of my spine.
As we got to the car, I hesitated, chewing my lower lip for a moment.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, waiting for me to unlock the car.
“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. My cheeks heated up beneath the cold water running down the sides of my face.
“I’ve heard that before.” He put a hand on my hip. “Come on, tell me.”
“There’s—” I paused, watching the rain slide down the car window for a moment before I looked at him. “There’s something I’ve always wanted to try.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Oh?”
“It’s stupid, really….”
“Try me.”
I couldn’t hold his gaze, so I watched a drop of water roll down his temple and over his prominent cheekbone. “I’ve—” I shifted my weight and finally forced myself to look at him. “I’ve always wanted to kiss someone in a rainstorm.”
A smile nudged the corner of his mouth. “You thought that was stupid?”
I laughed and shrugged. “Yeah, it’s—”
“Not stupid.” He put his hands on my face and drew me into a kiss.
Whatever fantasies or thoughts I’d had about kissing someone in a rainstorm paled in comparison to that moment. His breath warmed the cold water on my skin, the smell of rain mingling with his familiar masculine scent. I could no longer hear the rain smacking the roof of my car over the pounding of my own blood in my ears.
The chill of the rain made his touch even hotter, making me hyperaware of every place we made contact. My fingers tangled in his soaked hair as my other arm wrapped around his waist, pulling us closer together. I dipped my head and kissed a raindrop off of the underside of his jaw, working my way down his neck as water and fingers ran through my hair.
It was hot and cold, intimate and primal.
He met my eyes, water running down the sides of his face like tears. “So was it what you expected?”
Swallowing hard, trying to catch my breath, I shook my head. “Not even close.” Before he could respond, I put my arms around him and kissed him again. “Dustin.”
His voice thrummed against my lips. I pulled away, licking my lips as I tried to hold onto the taste of his kiss a second longer. He watched my mouth, then looked in my eyes and whispered, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

I
SHUT
my front door behind us and pulled Brandon to me, leaning against the door and kissing him. Without the prying eyes of society at large, the inhibitions melted away, and we could finally make up for the last few hours of trying to behave ourselves. From the looks we’d exchanged all night long, I fully expected us to rip our clothes off and
maybe
make it to the bedroom before one of us sucked the other off.
Once the door was closed, though, we slowed down. We both knew full well that we had all night and nowhere to be in the morning. I didn’t want to rush. I wanted to enjoy him, and judging by the unhurried way he kissed me up against the door, we were on the same page.
Tangled up in each other’s arms, we started down the hall, still kissing, still touching. He pushed my rain-saturated jacket off of my shoulders. His jacket landed on top of one of my shoes. A belt buckle jingled and a shirt hit the floor with a muffled rustle. Denim whispered over skin and jeans thudded on the floor.
By the time we reached the bedroom, there was nothing left between us. I lowered him onto the bed, lying over him and kissing his mouth, his neck.
No matter how many times Brandon and I had made love, I never tired of the taste of his skin or the heat of his body against my tongue. Though my mouth watered at the very thought of sucking his cock, I wasn’t about to pass up the chance to kiss his neck, or flick my tongue across his erect nipple, or taste the grooves of his abs. His body writhed and trembled at my touch. He made no effort to rush me, moaning softly as I kissed his side and inched towards—then past—his hipbone.
He sucked in a breath as I ran my tongue from the base of his cock to the head. Then, following the same path my tongue had just made, I blew on his skin, working my way from base to tip.
“Oh
Jesus
.” His hips lifted off of the bed, and he looked down at me, watching as I did it again. “That is fucking—oh
God
.” He moaned and let his head fall back as I took most of his cock into my mouth.
As I ran my tongue around the head of his cock, I watched his face. His lips parted and his eyes closed, eyebrows pulling together as a soft moan escaped his throat. It reminded me of the way he looked whenever I fucked him, when I first slid my cock into him.
Before Brandon, I had never once considered letting another man fuck me. Lately, though, that idea had become more appealing, and watching his face now, feeling his body react to my touch, the thought was more than just appealing.
“What’s wrong?”
I raised my head. “What?”
“You’re thinking something.”
In spite of the burning in my face, I laughed. “I’m almost afraid to ask how you can tell.”
Running his fingers through my hair and smiling, he said, “I have my ways. What’s on your mind?”
I chewed my lip and looked away for a moment. Then, I raised myself up on my arms and came back up to kiss him. For a moment, we were quiet, just looking at each other.
He touched my face. “You okay?”
“I was just thinking,” I paused. “A while ago, you said you’d be game if I wanted to try….” The words stuck to the tip of my tongue, and I suddenly felt like a kid trying to buy condoms for the first time. I laughed nervously, avoiding his eyes, then looked at him.
His eyebrows lifted and he smiled. “Switching?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“You want to give it a try?”
I swallowed, then nodded again.
He slid his hand around the back of my neck. “Are you sure?” “Absolutely.”
“Nervous?”
“No.” I laughed as he lifted his eyebrow and gave me a skeptical smirk. “Yes.”
“Everyone is the first time,” he said, drawing me down to kiss him. “We’ll take it slow, and if you want me to stop, all you have to do is tell me.”
My first instinct was to tell him that the last thing I’d want him to do was stop, but I was nervous. Really nervous. I had no idea if I’d want him to keep going or not.
“Lie on your side,” he said, reaching for the lube on the nightstand. “With your back to me.”
“On my—” I hesitated. “On my side?”
“Unless you want to hold yourself up on your arms for a while,” he said, winking.
I laughed. “I’ve held myself up for long periods of time.”
“I’m sure you have,” he said. “Except this time, the object is to relax. About the time you’re relaxed enough for me to fuck you, your arms are going to give out on you.” He kissed me gently. “Trust me on this one.”
“You’re the expert,” I said, lying on my side as he requested.
“Resident sexpert?”
“The Cock Doc?”
“Better than Dr. Cockblock, I guess.”
I laughed. He settled against me, running his hand down my side and kissing the back of my neck. Nervousness tightened my gut, but I took a long breath, just trying to relax.
His hand paused on my hip. “You don’t know how badly I’ve wanted to do this,” he murmured, his lips brushing the back of my shoulder. “It’s absolutely heaven when you fuck me.” He flicked his tongue across the base of my neck. “I want you to feel it too.” His hand moved down my leg, then to my inner thigh, and started back up. My entire body tensed, but as his tongue made a warm, gentle circle below my ear, I relaxed.
“Just tell me if you want me to stop or slow down,” he whispered. His fingers were between my buttocks now, and it was an oddly arousing sensation, his fingertips gently brushing against skin that wasn’t accustomed to this kind of contact. A shiver ran up my spine.
He leaned away for a second and the click of the cap on the lube bottle simultaneously unnerved and excited me.
I sucked in a breath when his fingers found their target, the coolness of the lube startling me more than anything, but he didn’t make any effort to push them in. He circled gently with his fingertips, giving me a chance to get accustomed to their presence.
He kissed the side of my neck. “I’ve thought about this a lot,” he whispered. “About being inside you.” The unsteadiness in his voice nearly made me moan. His lips were just beneath my ear, his breath hot on my skin as he said, “I hoped you would want it, because I’ve wanted it since the beginning. Just thinking about it….” His voice caught and his hand trembled against me. “Just thinking about it made me forget how to fucking
breathe
.”
I moaned softly, then gasped as his fingertip pressed against me, pushing in just slightly.
“Relax,” he whispered. “Just relax.” He kissed my shoulder and withdrew his finger, then slid it in again, not moving any deeper.
It felt strange, alien, but it wasn’t unpleasant. I’d expected it to hurt, but then, it was just his finger, so maybe it wasn’t enough to cause pain.
Yet.
He moved slowly, letting me get accustomed to his finger’s presence before giving me a little more. All the while, he whispered to me to relax, telling me how much he’d wanted this, how turned on he was. My nervousness dissipated as he went on, but something in my mind kept reminding me that this was just a finger. His cock was considerably larger.
He slid his finger almost all the way out. This time, he pushed two in, slowly, introducing them a little at time, just as he had before. It took a little longer for me to relax and accommodate two, but it didn’t feel so foreign and strange now. When my breath caught this time, it was because of the pleasant shudder rippling up my spine.
Then he bent his fingers slightly, and I suddenly understood the meaning of the term “male G-spot.”
“Oh my
God
,” I breathed, squirming against him.
“You okay?” he whispered, the grin in his voice telling me he knew full well that I was fine.
“Ooh, yeah,” I said.
“Good.” He kissed the base of my neck, flicking his tongue across my spine as his fingers kept moving gently, slowly. “Just tell me when you’re ready for more.”
I closed my eyes and wetted my lips. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that he didn’t just mean “more” as in “another finger.” And in spite of my nerves, I didn’t want to wait.
“I want you to fuck me,” I whispered, my own words sounding like they were coming from somewhere else.
He groaned softly and kissed my shoulder. “Fuck, just hearing you say that is almost enough to make me come.”
“Don’t come yet,” I said with a grin, looking over my shoulder at him as he slowly withdrew his fingers.
“Oh, I won’t,” he breathed, kissing my jaw, working his way up to my mouth. “Not yet.” We both sat up, pausing for a long kiss before he reached for a condom. As he did, he nodded to the pillows beside me. “Put one of those under your hips. I’d usually have you on your knees the first time….” He paused, looking at me with an expression that was so intense, so full of lust, it was almost reverent. In a low voice, he said, “But I want to see you while I’m fucking you.”
My hands shaking, I picked up the pillow and put it behind me, lying back as I watched him roll the condom on. Everything about this was surreal, strange, but at the same time, it made perfect sense. Whatever preconceived notions I had about having sex with another man were long gone. I was still nervous, but not like I had been earlier. Though I was worried about how it would feel physically, at least at first, there was no doubt in my mind that I wanted him like this.
He looked at me and smiled as he put lube on his cock, and I swallowed as some of the nervousness came back to the surface. Nothing about this had been painful thus far, but I was still afraid that it would be.
He leaned over me, kissing me deeply. Still nearly touching my lips, he whispered, “Same thing goes: If you want me to stop, just say so.”
“I think,” I said, “that’s the
last
thing I’m going to want you to do.”
“God, I hope so,” he said, almost growling. “Because I know once I’m inside you, I won’t want to stop.” He kissed me. “But if you do, I will.”
“I know.” I kissed him again, and he sat back.
He pressed his cock against me, and I took a breath. It wasn’t the same foreign, intrusive feeling as his fingers touching me for the first time, but it made every nerve in my body tingle with both arousal and apprehension.
Just like he had done with his fingers, he didn’t push in right away. He let me get accustomed to his touch, his presence. After a moment, he put just the slightest pressure against me, taking my breath away.
“Relax,” he said. “Breathe.”
I closed my eyes and took a breath.
“Push back a little,” he said. I furrowed my brow. He smiled. “Trust me.” I did, and in the next instant, the head of his cock was inside me.
“Oh fuck,” I breathed, closing my eyes again as a million sensations overwhelmed me.
“You okay?”
I couldn’t speak, so I just nodded, gasping as he withdrew and slid in again. He didn’t move any deeper until I relaxed, and even then, he took just a little at a time. It didn’t hurt, not in the least, but just the movement, the feeling of being stretched, filled up, was more intense than I’d expected.
His fingertips trailed along my cock and my back arched. I thought I cursed, said his name, something, but I was only vaguely aware of the vibration of my own voice. He stroked my cock gently, slowly, his hand moving exactly in time with the careful strokes he took inside me. Deeper inside me now, his cock rubbed against my prostate, sending me into orbit.
He paused for a moment, pulling out and putting some more lube on. Then he slid into me again, meeting considerably less resistance than before. With less friction now, and my body relaxing with each stroke, he moved just a little faster.
The room spun. I couldn’t think of anything but the barrage of sensations—some new, some familiar, all happening together with an intensity I’d never before imagined—that overwhelmed my senses.
“Oh my God,” Brandon moaned. “You feel incredible.”
I didn’t even try to speak. I thought I groaned, but I didn’t know, didn’t care. He squeezed my cock as he slid deeper into me. I was vaguely aware of his body shifting, of the heat of his skin coming closer to my chest, and when his lips met mine, I put my arms around him and hungrily returned his kiss.
We both gasped for breath in between kisses, our bodies trembling.
“Faster,” I pleaded. “Fuck me faster.”
“Are you sure?” His voice was strained, and I knew he was hoping that I was, that he was ready and waiting. All I had to do was say the word.
If
I could say it.
Finally, I whispered, “
Yes
.”
He kissed me one last time and sat up, grasping my hip with one hand and stroking my cock with his other, and he gave it to me faster. Closing my eyes, I surrendered to the most incredible, powerful, intense sensations I’d ever experienced. My back arched off of the bed, my hands grasping the pillow behind my head. The orgasm swelling within me had long since surpassed the intensity of any orgasm I’d had before, and it just kept building. He thrust into me. He stroked my cock faster and faster. Just as I reached the point of no return, a second before I couldn’t hold back anymore, a throaty, helpless groan reverberated through my consciousness. I thought it was my own voice until I realized he’d said my name.
I opened my eyes, had just a split second to drink in the sight of him—his eyes closed, his lips parted, the cords on his neck standing out, his arms and shoulders quivering—and I came. I could no longer tell whose gasping breaths and primal cries were whose, and I didn’t care. He kept fucking me, kept stroking me, kept sending me higher until his own body shuddered against mine.
He lost his balance, falling forward and catching himself with his hands on either side of me. I put my arms around him and pulled him all the way down, kissing him passionately as he collapsed against me. I didn’t know where his shudders ended and mine began.
We struggled to catch our breath and kiss at the same time, each breaking away every now and then for a gasp of air before devouring each other’s mouths again.
God only knows how long we held each other like that before Brandon lifted himself off of me and smiled, touching my face gently. “I knew this would be hot.”
“If I’d known it would be like this, we’d have done it a long time ago.”
He shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t have been like this if we did it sooner.” He kissed me tenderly. “You weren’t ready until now.”
I ran my fingers through his sweaty hair. “You’re right about that.”
He kissed my neck and let his head rest on my collarbone for a moment, taking long, slow breaths. “Fuck, that was intense.”
“You’re telling me.”
“I’m serious. It’s usually awkward for a first-timer, at least to a degree, but with you….” He released a breath against my neck. “Jesus, I knew fucking you would be amazing, but this was way, way more than I expected.”