The Nature of the Game (Stick Side Book 2), page 17
God. Parents.
Ash shrugged and crossed his arms. “Never mattered. It’s always been women up until now.”
“I get that. But what about once you started seeing Dan?”
“Because it still didn’t matter. Not that Dan doesn’t matter, that’s not what I’m saying,” he explained to his dad’s shocked face. “I’m saying my sexual orientation doesn’t matter. Why do I have to come out? I am who I am and everybody else can just deal with it. I’m not hiding him. Oh shit.” Horror struck as he realized what he’d just said.
I’m not hiding him.
His arms fell to his sides. Fuck. Now, there was something they hadn’t talked about. How had Ash not thought of it until now? Because he’d been living in Happyville with Dan, that was how. Riding on roller coasters and free falling into something beautiful and real and unexpected.
He sunk onto the bed heavily. The lube rolled off and landed on the floor. Ash snatched it up, shoving it in his backpack while his dad studiously looked elsewhere.
“What is it that you’ve just realized that made you panic?”
Flopping backward, Ash stared at the ceiling. “I can’t have a boyfriend in professional sports. I mean, I can, but . . .” But they’d have to hide.
“You’re only just realizing that now?”
“I’ve been living in Happyville,” he mumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“It doesn’t have to be one or the other,” his dad said. One or the other: hockey or Dan.
“No.” Ash sat up. “No, it doesn’t. But having both means asking Dan to hide. And that’s not fair to him.”
“That’s his choice, don’t you think? Talk to him. But first, go have sex.” His dad picked the box of condoms off the floor—which apparently had also fallen off the bed, Jesus—and tossed it at Ash.
“Oh my god, how are you a parent? That’s so inappropriate.”
“Do we need to talk about safety and STIs and—”
Ash held up the box of condoms with a glare.
“Right.” His dad nodded once. “Glad we had the gay sex talk.”
“Oh my god.” Ash fell back on the bed again with a groan.
Anal sex 101 wasn’t as easy as it sounded. According to websites Dan had found, you couldn’t just glove up, add some lube, and push your way in. There was preparation so it didn’t hurt, and even then it would probably hurt even with tons of lube, but not for long (or so they said). There might be poo and there might be blood, and most importantly—real life sex does not look like porn.
Okay then.
With all of that, part of him didn’t want to have anal sex ever. According to his research, not all gay men enjoyed it. But then Ash showed up at his apartment, tall and muscled and smiling like Dan was the best thing since ice skating, and Dan’s hormones went haywire. Ash’s too, which was honestly the best part.
They’d started small after that first kiss on Ash’s couch last month, graduating from kissing on the couch to kissing in bed. Then kissing while half-naked, and then entirely naked. And then kissing other body parts. And then humping and grinding and rubbing, with clothes on but more often with clothes off.
And blowjobs. Those were . . . Dan’s dick jerked just thinking about it. Heat overtook him and his entire body flushed.
“We don’t have to do this,” Ash said from beside him, misinterpreting Dan’s shaky inhale.
Sitting naked next to each other on a towel on Dan’s bed with Dan’s clunky laptop in front of them was not how Dan had envisioned their first time. But Ash was as ignorant as Dan when it came to anal sex. They’d managed to find a how-to video on one of the porn websites that had some comments à la the this was so useful variety from other anal sex first-timers. So they were going with it.
“No, I want to,” Dan said, pausing the video. On screen, one tall, buff guy—a supposed expert in anal sex between men—was rimming a second tall, buff guy. “Not sure about the rimming, though.”
“Yeah. Maybe we come back to that later?” Ash jumped forward in the video. Buff Guy 1 and Buff Guy 2 were already fucking. “Whoops. Too far.”
He cued up the video to where they needed it, post-rimming (which was not a necessity—apparently not everyone liked it—but could be fun, according to Buff Guy 1) and pre-prepping, and urged Dan to lie back.
“You sure you want to bottom first?” Ash asked, settling between Dan’s spread legs and moving the laptop up near Dan’s head, angled so they could both see it.
“Yup.” Dan twined his legs around Ash’s waist and pulled. Ash landed on top of him. “Kiss me first.”
Ash grinned at him and did as told, his smiling mouth meeting Dan’s.
The last few weeks had been the best of Dan’s life. Ash stayed over more often than not these days. Dan was no longer going in to work early and leaving late. He had someone to see and things to do and he was going to spend every free second with Ash that he could. Ash had about six weeks left before he had to return to Syracuse, and while it was true that it was only four hours away and they’d still see each other, it was also true that it’d be much less frequently.
Dan was going to milk every last second.
Ash’s kisses led from Dan’s mouth to his jaw and down to his neck. But Dan wanted his lips again; he palmed the back of Ash’s head and guided him up, where they met in a lazy kiss that was mostly lips and sighs.
“Ready for this?” Ash asked before planting a tiny kiss on Dan’s cheekbone.
Dan melted. “Uh-huh.”
Ash unpaused the video.
“If you have gloves,” Buff Guy 1 said as he slipped a thin nitrile glove over his right hand, “use them.”
Ash and Dan exchanged a glance. They did not have gloves.
“They’re not mandatory,” Buff Guy 1 continued, “but they’re helpful for preventing your nails from accidentally hurting your partner. They’re also easy to slip off once you’ve lubed yourself and your partner, and if you run into some poo—” He shrugged. “—no biggie.”
If you run into some poo, Ash mouthed, eyes huge.
Dan cracked up.
“Everything just got so much more real,” Ash muttered, and he sounded . . . not horrified, but like the concept of running into poo while going into someone’s butthole hadn’t occurred to him.
Clearly, he hadn’t done his research.
“Jerk.” Ash heaved himself onto his knees and swatted Dan’s thigh. “Stop laughing.”
Dan couldn’t. “I’m sorry,” he wheezed, tears of laughter beading in the corner of his eyes. “This is just so much funnier, and so much more un-sexy, than I thought it was going to be. We really don’t have to do this.”
“I’m not letting normal bodily functions stop me from going in there.” The expression on Ash’s face was so fierce, Dan couldn’t stop the snigger. Ash pointed at him with a fake scowl. “I’m watching you.”
“I should hope so.”
God. God. Dan hadn’t laughed so much during sex in his life. Before Ash had arrived, he’d been all nerves and jerky actions. But he was so comfortable with Ash, and Ash made him feel safe and desired. It constantly shocked him how little time they’d known each other—only a couple of months. If pressed, Dan would’ve been tempted to say years. There was something about Ash, something about their fast friendship and gentle slide into a relationship that spoke of a knowing. Dan had read something online once about friend chemistry. How there were people you met that you formed an instant friendship with, and it felt like you’d known them forever. Like sexual chemistry, you were attracted to that person, but purely on a friendship level.
That was Ash. Dan was attracted to him as a friend. They had excellent friend chemistry.
Also excellent sexual chemistry, if Dan did say so himself.
“Why don’t we watch the video,” he said, “get all the tips and tricks, and then do the thing?”
“Yeah, okay.” Ash lay down on top of Dan, propping an elbow next to Dan’s head to hold his own head up, and restarted the video.
They watched Buff Guy 1 prep Buff Guy 2 with one finger, two, three, using so much lube it dripped from Buff Guy 2’s wide-open hole and onto the towel underneath him. Buff Guy 1 talked throughout the whole thing, about angles and prostates and safety. He continued to talk as he lay down on the towel and Buff Guy 2 straddled his thighs, explaining that it was sometimes easier for first-timers and newbies to sit on a penis as an introduction between it and a butthole. It was all so clinical despite Buff Guy 2’s groans and sighs and curling toes, and Dan’s erection had flagged by the time the video finally ended.
“Okay, then.” Ash pushed the laptop lid closed and moved off Dan only as far as needed to drop the computer onto the floor next to the bed. “Let’s do the thing.”
Dan snorted a laugh.
Ash kissed his nose. “Don’t even start that again. I can’t do the thing when you’re giggling in my ear.”
“Giggling? I do not giggle. I—I—I—Oh, fuck, Ash.”
Because Ash hadn’t waited for Dan to finish explaining that he didn’t giggle. He’d already started the thing.
He licked and sucked Dan’s dick until Dan was so hard he could slice butter. Then he followed Buff Guy 1’s directions, slicking his fingers and using one, then two, then three to stretch Dan open. Dan felt so full with three fingers he had no idea how he was going to take Ash’s dick, but fuck if he wasn’t willing to try.
“Am I doing this right?” Ash asked with a scowl at Dan’s ass.
“Gah!”
“I’m gonna take that as a yes.”
By the time Ash was shakily putting on a condom and slathering himself with lube, Dan was such a hot mess of pleasure and lube and desperation that he couldn’t move except to clench the pillow under his head.
“Fuck, Ash.”
“’M just following directions,” Ash said gruffly. He fell onto his side next to Dan, wiped his hand on the towel, and pulled Dan with him as he flipped onto his back. “Get up here.”
Dan went up here.
And tensed so badly the head of Ash’s cock couldn’t get past his ring.
“Hey.” Ash ran his hands up and down Dan’s thighs. “Easy.”
Dan hung his head, trying to get a grip. “Sorry.”
“We don’t have to do this. We can stop here.” Ash heaved himself up, and now they sat face-to-face, Ash’s concerned gaze on his.
“No,” Dan said, forcing himself to relax. Buff Guy 1 said it was important to relax. His fingers loosened from their death grip on Ash’s shoulders. “No, sorry. I just panicked for a second. Are you sure I’m open enough?”
“No?” Ash’s brow furrowed, and now his hands clenched on Dan’s thighs. “I’ve never done this before either, and I don’t want to hurt you—”
“It’s okay—”
“You’re right, though, I should keep going. Here, switch spots with me.”
“Ash, stop. Stop.” Dan cupped Ash’s face and forced him to meet his eyes. “I trust you.”
That was all it took for Ash to soften, bones going liquid. Dan pushed him back onto the bed and followed him down. Because he wanted a kiss, and he wanted to feel Ash against him, and he wanted to reassure Ash that he was fine. The moment of panic had receded to the back of his mind; he wasn’t sure if it was because Ash’s panic had calmed him, or if them both panicking had canceled it out, or if he’d simply realized that he was being an idiot.
This was Ash. Of course they were going to take care of each other.
Ash’s erection poked Dan in the stomach, and he reached between them to hold it, stroke it, and generally make Ash go crazy.
Ash wrenched his mouth away from Dan’s. “Jesus, fuck. Fuck.” Growled through clenched teeth with his head thrown back, it made Dan grin in satisfaction. Sweat gleamed on Ash’s skin, making him glow.
“God, you’re gorgeous.”
“Let me in you.” Ash flung an arm around Dan’s neck and dragged him closer, muttering against his lips, “Let me in you.”
“Yes. Yes.”
Scrambling upward, Dan was so turned on he couldn’t have tensed if he’d been paid to. He lifted himself onto trembling knees, lined up Ash’s cock, breathed out slowly, met Ash’s gaze . . . and sunk down, taking Ash’s length into him.
It wasn’t smooth and it took some patience and it hurt. By the time Dan was fully seated on Ash’s dick, he had to pause for a minute to adjust and breathe and marvel at how damn stuffed he felt. Ash was panting beneath him, hands gripping Dan’s thighs so hard it’d leave marks. For some reason, that made Dan’s mouth water.
He leaned forward, bracing a hand on Ash’s sweaty chest and one on the bed. “Okay. I’m ready. Do the thing.”
Ash grinned and did the thing.
And it did not hurt.
They started slow, tentative, getting a feel for one another. When Dan’s head fell forward because he couldn’t hold it up anymore, Ash picked up the pace and Dan met him thrust for thrust, and shit, fuck, damn it was good, so good, a blow job and endless kisses and his birthday and Christmas all rolled into one. It was so good that he couldn’t hold himself up anymore, and he fell onto Ash, burying his face in Ash’s neck. Ash squeezed Dan’s ass cheeks, grunting beneath Dan, breathing hard in his ear.
“Gonna come soon,” Ash gritted. “Gonna come fast.”
Dan wanted to come too, but he needed something, needed—
“Fuck!” He groaned, almost flying off the handle when Ash read his mind and palmed his leaking cock, squeezing. “Oh, fuuuuuuck, Ash.” His blood ignited and he came, shooting on Ash, on himself, toes curling as his body went rigid, and he clutched the towel under Ash in a fist. God, he was done. He was so done, except Ash hadn’t come yet. Ash was straining, panting, eyes tightly shut. Dan bit his chin—and evidently, that was all it took for him to come with a yell, head thrown back.
They lay there for a long minute, puffing and damp and sticky and sore in odd places. Dan eventually made himself move, if only to stop squishing Ash, giving the man room to catch his breath.
“Easy,” Ash wheezed.
“’M good.” Ash slipped out of him, making him wince a little, but the discomfort lasted only until he could fling himself onto his belly next to Ash, close enough to share air space and a pillow. “Holy fuck. Holy, holy fuck. My bones are liquid.”
“Mm.”
“We did the thing.”
Ash chuckled. He turned his head toward Dan, eyes soft and tender. “Was the thing okay?”
“So good. You?”
“So good.”
It was nice, lying side by side, not exactly cuddling, but coming down from the high together. The air was stuffy and humid and it smelled like sex, Dan’s body was JELL-O, and Ash kissed his forehead.
It was perfect.
“I gotta pee,” Ash announced. He removed the condom carefully, knotted it as best he could, and placed it on a corner of the towel.
“Me too. You go first.”
Neither of them moved. Finally, Ash heaved a breath, rolled over onto Dan, making him laugh and mumble, “Get off me, asshole,” rolled off him onto the other side, and swung himself out of bed and into the bathroom with a salute, come crusted onto his stomach. He was back a second later to snatch the condom off the bed.
Rolling his eyes—really, he couldn’t have gotten off the bed on his side and walked around it to the bathroom?—Dan got himself up too, used the towel to wipe come off his stomach and lube off his ass and thighs—seriously, that shit got everywhere—and chucked it into the laundry bin in the closet. He should send an email to Buff Guy 1 thanking him for the towel tip. Still naked, he hustled into the kitchen to warm up the oven and pop in a frozen pizza. That done, he collapsed onto the bed again just as Ash was coming out of the bathroom.
Ash raked his eyes up and down Dan’s body. If Dan wasn’t so lethargic and hungry and satisfied, he might’ve been able to get it up again. He was so lazy that he couldn’t be bothered to move to pee. He held out an arm, beckoning Ash to join him.
Lying side by side on the same pillow, Ash booped Dan on the nose. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
It was a muggy night outside, and Dan’s piece of crap window air conditioning unit didn’t always work properly; in spite of that, his body had cooled enough that he was no longer sweating profusely and was now comfortably warm.
“So.” Ash’s lips twisted and he glanced away. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Okay.”
Silence.
“Should I be worried?” Dan prodded.
“No. No, no. I’m just . . .” Ash ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“Okay.”
More silence. It was so unlike Ash not to know what to say that Dan felt a kernel of worry anyway.
“The pizza’ll be done by the time you figure it out.”
Ash sniffed the air. “There’s pizza?”
“In the oven.”
“Thank God. I’m starving. Oily Dude didn’t have that tip, did he?”
“Oily Dude? Oh, you mean Buff Guy?”
Ash threw his head back and laughed.
“He was oily, though,” Dan murmured. “Why is that a thing in porn?”
“I’m sure you’ll look it up online later.”
“Hmm.”
“So, listen.” Ash was more serious than Dan had ever seen him. “Full disclosure first up: I want you in my life.”
Time stopped. “Ash—”
“Wait, just . . . Hear me out before you say anything. I can’t come out.” His eyes were regretful but determined. He didn’t like what he was saying, but it needed to be said. “Not with the way the professional sports climate is. If I come out, my career is over. No team will want me.” He shook his head, his jaw clenched so tight it threw his cheekbones into sharp relief. “And that means that if we’re together, we can’t tell anyone except closest friends and family. I’m sure you’ve noticed that I never hold your hand or kiss you when we’re out in public together.”
“I’ve noticed. It doesn’t bother me.”
