The Blueprint, page 22
I lumbered upstairs and tried to maneuver my cane and the stair railing. I realized halfway up the stairs that I was taking an idiotic risk. Not to mention I was going to have to go back downstairs at some point for food… and water, and to go to therapy. But none of those logical things seemed important enough to make me go back down.
When I took a glance behind me at the yawning staircase, I realized backward wasn’t an option anymore. And I might be developing a mild case of vertigo. I snapped back to the front and gripped the banister. Did people still break their necks on stairs? I swallowed. Probably.
When I finally made it up the last step, I sighed with relief. I wanted to sit, but I was afraid I’d never get back up if I did. So I hobbled on and used both sides of the wall to help me stay upright. By the time I got to Kelly’s room, I was ready to collapse.
He sat up in bed, his hair already a little rumpled. Even by the dim light of the hallway, he looked flabbergasted. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” I asked grouchily.
“It looks like you’re trying to reinjure yourself.”
I braced myself on the doorjamb and tried to catch my breath. A flight of stairs that normally took me ten seconds had taken me damn near ten minutes. I felt like I’d hiked up K2.
He stumbled out of bed and helped me into it, muttering the whole way. I heard “stubborn jackass” before I tuned him out. I didn’t care how risky and stupid it was, especially since I’d gotten my way.
He stood glaring at me with his hands on his hips. He was wearing superhero boxers—Spider-Man that time. I was kind enough not to give him any grief about it. “You’re an idiot, you know that?”
“Yes,” I said sanguinely.
“You could have reinjured yourself. Fallen down the goddamned stairs. Do you realize that?”
“Yes, yes, and yes.” I nestled into the bed. “Do you need a map, or can you find the bed on your own?”
His pause was exceptionally pregnant. I knew he was thinking about all we’d said—and all we’d said we wouldn’t do—and he was probably thinking I was a hypocritical motherfucker.
He would be completely right about that.
I’d gone out of my way to let him know we could never be anything more than friends, that I had a plan, and I was not willing to alter that plan. And he finally agreed it was for the best. A scant three days later, I was pushing my way past his boundaries again, pushing my way into his bed.
He cleared his throat. “I think I’ll just take the bed in the guest room.”
“Is that really what you want to do?”
Chapter 23
Kelly
IS THAT really what you want to do?
Blue’s carefully worded question ping-ponged around my brain.
I wasn’t sure what the hell I wanted. On one hand I had Blue in my bed, where he belonged. On the other I knew he wasn’t willing to commit to me in any real way and probably never would. Somewhere in that jumble of thoughts was also the memory of his mouth moving against mine, his hands all over my body. It was like every dream I’d ever had about us come true… all the wet ones, anyway.
I had good dreams about us, mind you, dreams where we walked our dogs down the beach and held hands, smiled at one another like besotted fools. But then there were those other dreams—some of them involving his football uniform. And Lord have mercy, they were not for the faint of heart. Most of those dreams involved me on my knees in some capacity. Getting it, giving it, taking it, asking for it. My dick started to get hard, and my Spider-Man boxers became indecent. I wasn’t too worried about it—the man shot webbing out of his wrists, for crying out loud. Who was he to judge me?
I knew getting involved with Blue was stupid. He’d made his future plans perfectly clear, and none of those plans involved a homo named Kelly. But horny won over common sense every time. At least in my world, it did. And even though I was sure I was setting myself up for heartache, I was getting in that bed.
And no one was going to sleep just yet.
I padded over next to the bed and hitched up one leg. Then I slid carefully onto his lap and avoided his outstretched leg and bandaged knee. His breath hitched in his chest so softly that, if I hadn’t been on top of him, I probably would’ve missed it. I could feel the tension in his thick, muscled thighs as I moved over them. He brought his hands up to support me almost automatically, just like I knew he would.
I knew he wanted me. I just wasn’t sure how far he’d let himself go.
I smoothed my hands over his jaw and enjoyed the feel of his bristly stubble against the tender pads of my thumbs. His eyes were dark and questioning as he searched my face—hesitant almost. I couldn’t blame him. Our last kiss wasn’t a good one, and I threw him out shortly afterward. I finally took his face firmly between my hands.
“Kel?” His brow wrinkled adorably.
“Shut up.”
I kissed him then, slowly and softly—just enjoying the sweet rush of arousal and mapping the topography of his mouth with mine. Feeling a little dazed, I pulled back when he tried to deepen the kiss. He didn’t look all that steady either.
“Do that again,” he demanded.
So I did, a little slower and more insistently. When he explored my mouth with his tongue, I let him and sucked him back in when he tried to retreat. I groaned into his mouth and rolled on his lap just enough so the bulge of his dick rubbed against mine. And he didn’t seem to be having trouble getting hard.
I let his lips slide from mine and rested my forehead against his. Our harsh breathing blended together. “Can I ask you a stupid question?”
“You’re asking permission now? That’s a nice change.”
“How far do you want to take this?”
He did a slow, deliberate grind of his hips, and I bit back a moan. “Pretty fucking far.”
Nobody has to know. It was on the tip of my tongue, but I wasn’t going to say it, mostly because it sounded sleazy. I didn’t want to ruin things, and it was pretty much understood anyway.
Instead of talking, I put my hands on either side of his head and leaned into him. I kissed him on his mouth again. Once. Twice. Three times. And then I pulled away. I checked to see if he was still into it, and he watched me quietly, as though he weren’t quite sure what he wanted to do—how far he was willing to go.
I kissed my way down his neck and sank my teeth in briefly at the base. He arched up with a rumbling groan that resounded in his chest. I liked that rumble a lot and splayed my hands on his chest. Then I nipped him again so I could hear and feel the groan under my fingers.
He moved his hands down from the relatively safe space of my waist to grip my ass. That was all I needed to rut against him. With his broad hands, he spread my cheeks apart easily. He gripped and lifted me onto his dick, and I thought maybe I should make myself perfectly clear before it was too late.
“I don’t want to come like this.”
“Neither do I,” he rasped.
I’d never been so glad to be on the same page in my entire life.
I made short work of his shirt and pulled it over his head so fast that it briefly left his blond hair staticky and messy. He shook it back in place as I chuckled. Then my eyes traversed down his body, and the laughter dried up in my throat.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen him without his shirt before. He was an athlete, for crying out loud. Sometimes it seemed like those guys spent more time with their shirts off than on. But that was before—before I could touch. Looking at his well-sculpted… well, everything was a little overwhelming when I was allowed to explore all I wanted.
I loved my tattoos, but I had to admit I really liked having his expanse of unmarked and smooth skin all at my mercy. I slid my hands down his chest and traced the definition of muscles with my fingertips. I reveled in the feel of his warm, satiny skin under my palms and the way his eyes focused intently on my face, almost as though he were afraid to look away.
His flat nipples hardened as I circled them with my fingertips. I leaned down to flick my tongue against one of them, and he inhaled. When I sank my teeth into it gently, his eyes went dark. “Kelly,” he whispered. “Lean up.”
I did as he asked and balanced myself against the headboard as he worked my boxers down and then off. We were more careful with his and tried to avoid his knee until he got impatient with the whole situation and gritted out, “Leave ’em,” when they were tangled somewhere around his calves. While I was up, I grabbed the lube from the side table and tossed it on the bed next to us.
I sank down on him, closed my eyes, and savored the simple and most incredible feeling of skin against skin. I rubbed our dicks against one another, and his breath caught.
“I’m pretty sure… nothing feels as good as this.” He arched up with a groan. “How do you move your hips like that?”
“Plenty of practice, Blue.”
His openmouthed admiration turned into a glare in the span of a second. “Can you not talk about your past lovers while we’re in bed?”
“I’m sorry,” I said with a sly grin. I wasn’t sorry at all. “But at least you didn’t have to actually see me having sex.”
“What?” He gasped like any good Victorian heroine. “You never—”
“The name Tina ring any bells? I came back from class, and she was riding you like a bucking bronc.”
“Oh my God.” He flushed. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it. Beyond the crippling jealousy?” I dropped my nose against his and rocked against him. “It was kind of hot.”
“Hot like it’s something you’d be interested in doing?”
I grabbed the lube and dropped it on his chest. “Hot like I want to do it right now.”
He sucked in a breath. “I’m not gonna lie. That sounds really fantastic.”
I watched him fumble with the lube, his usually sure hands clumsy and impatient, and a small smile tugged at my mouth. He got paid millions to fucking catch for a living, and suddenly he couldn’t even manage a simple cap. “It doesn’t lift. You press this side.”
He looked up at me for a brief and unreadable second and then did as I instructed. And then he breached my hole with a thick, slippery, questing finger, and I could only gasp in surprise. I thought he was going to use the lube on his dick, that maybe using his fingers on me would be a little too much for the first time. I let out a harsh gust of air as he explored with his eyes trained on my face to gauge my reactions. Fuck. I was never so glad to be wrong about his limits.
The slick, silken glide of his finger in my ass damn near had my eyes rolling back in my head. I was tempted to bear down on the intrusion and ride it like a complete slut, but I let him set the pace. From the frown of consternation on his brow, I couldn’t tell if he was enjoying it or not.
I finally had to make sure we were on the same page. “Well?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Well, what?”
“Is everything still okay?”
“Could you stop checking in with me like a tour guide? I know what I want.”
“Then why are you frowning?”
“Because you’re just so small. It’s hard to believe….”
“Hard to believe what?” And I zeroed in on another part of his statement with a scowl. “And I am not small.”
“Down there you are.” His finger was doing such happy things to my hole, it was hard to argue and formulate actual words. “It’s hard to believe you’d even want me to.”
“Oh, I want you to. And regarding my size, not everyone is a knuckle-dragging behemoth who… oh fuck.”
He sank his finger into me again, and I gasped. He smiled a little. “You were saying?”
I was saying I probably shouldn’t be sassy when someone’s finger was up my ass. Especially when that someone’s thick, calloused fingers gripped footballs for a living. He went particularly deep with that enterprising digit, and I groaned like an extra in Night of the Living Dead.
He paused for a second, and my heavy-lidded eyes drifted to his startled ones. He looked strangely pleased and proud of himself, and then he went back to it and continued to elicit crazy, embarrassing noises from me. It was clear he loved the experimentation.
So did I.
I let out another embarrassing moan that sent pink surging into my cheeks, and he groaned and locked his eyes on my face. “You have no idea how fucking good you look right now.”
I reached down and gave my leaking dick a quick stroke. Just one, so I wouldn’t go absolutely insane. And then another. Only that stroke led to another firm one. I knew my own buttons a little too well. I knew exactly how I liked it and how much pressure would send me over the edge. Add that to the crazy things Blue was doing in my ass with his fingers, and I made a desperate noise. God, I wasn’t even going to make it to the main—
“Hands off.” He smacked my hand away from my dick, and even that little bit of pain to my oversensitized flesh made me groan.
I reached back, felt around for his cock, and wrapped my fingers around his length. He was wide and long and thick, and I knew that, even with all the preparation, it was going to be a bit of a challenge. Luckily I was more than up for it.
I lowered myself onto him as he swore and guided him with my hand so I didn’t take too much at once. My walls sucked at him, yielding, pulling him in, even as I fought the instinct to resist. I didn’t stop until his balls touched the crack of my ass, and I blew out a breath on the razor’s edge of pleasure and pain.
I fell forward a little and gripped the comforter with both hands. I felt almost high on the endorphins that crashed through my body. Blue trailed his lips down my neck as he swore something about heaven and God and something else about the tightest fucking ass he ever felt. I could feel him… everywhere—inside me, holding on to his control with steel claws, under me, still managing to dwarf me, and against me, his skin soft and warm against mine.
“Kel?”
His concerned voice made me realize I’d closed my eyes, and they flew open. His were locked on mine, and his face was tight with concern and restraint. “You okay?”
I rolled my hips a bit and clenched down on him instinctively, and he swore. Better than okay, I’d say. I wished his knee weren’t injured so he could pile drive me into the mattress, but yeah, it would do nicely.
I started to ride him and frowned in concentration as I tried to find my rhythm. He gripped my waist as I worked and dug in to slow me down when I moved too fast. At one point he pulled me off completely and held me, suspended slightly above him, just breathing hard.
I struggled against his hold to take him inside me again, and he swore. “Not going to last.”
“Join the club.”
I finally won our struggle as his hands slipped on my damp skin, and we both groaned as he slid inside me all the way to the hilt. Yeah. It was worth every bit of awkwardness that was sure to ensue. I worked my hips as he cursed beneath me.
He tried to surge up to meet me halfway, and I put a hand on his chest and powered him back down. “You’re supposed to be letting me do all the work.” I hissed as he hit my prostate just right, and it was hard to remember why letting him thrust was wrong.
I lay across him and put all my body weight into it so he’d lie flat. Then I rocked slowly and drew it out with every swirl of my hips, almost letting him slip out and then going all the way back down again. His groan resounded in my ear as he buried his face in the curve of my neck and whispered my name brokenly, his breathing harsh and rapid to match mine.
My soft grunts turned into moans, which segued into me begging him to just fuck me. I figured I’d pretty much have to fake my own death when we were finished because I was so fucking embarrassed, but for right then, everything felt amazing.
Clearly done with my rhythm, he slid both hands down my sweaty back, took hold of my butt, lifted me, and spread my cheeks to his satisfaction. He moved me up and down so fast and deep that I could only hold on for the ride, and I worked my dick with one hand with the finesse of a bumbling monkey. Blue growled in my ear as he started to come, and I realized a few things right then—we hadn’t bothered with a condom, it felt fucking amazing, and we were two irresponsible idiots.
And then I came too, harder than I’d ever come in my life. Someone might’ve screamed out, “Yesss,” like a fucking Herbal Essences commercial. Could’ve been me. Maybe.
I collapsed on him and lay there as though I were dead as I waited to come down from the high, for things to go back to normal. Even though I was so beat I couldn’t even be bothered to pull up the covers, I couldn’t quite sleep. Not yet.
I couldn’t stop thinking that, in what seemed like no time at all, we’d changed everything about our relationship. Only time would tell if that was a good or a bad thing.
Long after the sweat cooled on my skin, I lay with my ear against Blue’s chest, draped over him like a worn-out blanket. His breathing was deep and even underneath my cheek, and when I figured he was asleep, I moved gingerly to get off him. He shot his hand out and latched on to my arm before I’d even moved a foot.
His eyes didn’t open, and his voice was a sleep-roughened rumble as he growled out, “Stay.” I made a low bark near his ear, and a soft laugh escaped him. “Please,” he amended.
So I stayed.
WHEN I came into the kitchen the next morning, Blue was on a stepladder, searching for God knew what in the back of a cupboard. I eyed the rickety ladder, which was questionable even under the best of circumstances.
Holding a man of Blue’s size was not the best of circumstances.
“I want to kick it out from under you,” I marveled, and he jumped a little, which caused his already precarious position to become even more so. “I really do.”
Once he was no longer in danger of breaking his neck, he looked back at me a little sheepishly. “I can explain.”
