“What?”

I cursed myself for just blurting the words like I had, but I was so turned on and my body was craving the feel of him inside of me so badly that I hadn’t been able to find a better way to ask him. Ever since the first night when he’d come all over my stomach, the obsession to know what it would feel like to have his cock buried deep within me had become like a living thing beneath my skin. I’d meant to bring it up in a more casual way and during a time when I wasn’t completely lost in lust, but my brain had short-circuited a little bit when my dick had met his the second he’d opened his legs for me.

I started to pull off him, thinking I’d ruined the moment, but he held on to the backs of my arms.

“I don’t understand,” he said softly, and I could see a little bit of shame in his eyes. Aleks was one of the smartest men I knew, but he struggled with how to process things he didn’t understand. In the past, he hadn’t had to… in fact, he’d gone out of his way to avoid such thoughts. Instead, he’d hidden in his head until the thing he’d been forced to deal with had passed. So now, many of the things men his age knew and took for granted were an entirely new experience for Aleks and it didn’t surprise me in the least that it was so incredibly overwhelming for him. “You want me to… to…” – his voice dropped to a barely there whisper – “fuck you?”

I used my fingers to lift his chin. “I want you to make love to me,” I clarified.

This time he did release me and he scrambled upright. But when I got up to give him some distance, he held out his hand. I took it and sat back down on the bed so I was facing him. I shifted my body so I could put my legs on either side of him because he was on his knees.

“It doesn’t need to be tonight, Aleks… or ever,” I said. “It’s just something I’ve been thinking about—”

“Is it because I’m not ready?” he asked sullenly.

“What?” I asked.

“Do you pity me and want to show me it isn’t so bad or something? So I’ll let you do it to me?”

I forced myself to ignore the little sting of pain that came with his show of doubt.

“First off, I don’t pity you, Aleks… I’ve never pitied you. You’re a survivor, not a victim, and surviving takes strength. I don’t pity strong people.”

Aleks lifted his eyes a little. “Then why?” he asked.

“Because I want to be that close to you. I want to know what you feel like inside of me. I want to know that you’re part of me in a way that no one else can claim.”

The statement made him more tense. “You’ve never…”

“I have,” I interjected. For some guys, it would have been a turn-on to learn their partner had never had certain types of sex. But the added pressure of taking someone’s virginity would have just heightened Aleks’s anxiety.

I could tell he was both relieved… and something else… he actually looked a little jealous.

I let myself touch his cheek. “But when it’s you inside of me, it’s going to be so different, Aleks.” He shifted his eyes to me, clearly curious. “I’ve fucked plenty of guys and I’ve been fucked by a few,” I said. Aleks flinched at the word, but I knew it wasn’t just because he himself didn’t like to swear.

No doubt his perpetrators had used that word to describe what they were going to do to him.

The jealousy in his expression had also increased so I quickly added, “But it’s never been about more than just pleasure. Does that make sense?”

Aleks nodded. “I didn’t think…you’re big and strong and experienced… I didn’t think you’d ever let anyone do that to you.”

And there it was, the crux of the discussion.

I took in a breath because I didn’t want to risk saying anything that could even chance screwing this up.

“It was a choice like any other. What those men did to you wasn’t about choice, or even sex. It was about power and control. Look at your brother and his fiancé… does anything about their relationship seem to be like any of those things?”

“No,” Aleks said quickly. “They kiss all the time and sometimes…”

He blushed prettily. “Sometimes I can hear them at night or even in the bathroom every once in a while—”

Aleks slapped his hand over his mouth for a second. “Oh God, Dante would die of embarrassment if he knew I knew that.” A small smile graced his lips and I used the opportunity to move even closer to him.

“It sounds like your brother and Magnus can’t keep their hands off each other,” I said as I began running my fingers over the back of the hand Aleks had clenched in his lap.

“They can’t,” he agreed.

“If you’re going to compare what you and I do to anything, compare us to them, not those assholes who used sex to hurt and humiliate you.”

Aleks opened his hands so I could play with his individual fingers. He dropped his eyes to watch me touch him.

“You really want that with me?” Aleks asked.

I wasn’t sure if he was talking about him fucking me or the actual relationship stuff like his brother had. Didn’t matter because the answer was and always would be the same.

“Yes.”

He looked up at me. “What if I’m never ready for you to—”

“Then that won’t be a part of our relationship. Would it surprise you if I told you plenty of gay and bisexual men just don’t like anal sex, period? It isn’t because they were hurt by someone or because they don’t trust their partner… they just simply don’t find the act pleasurable. Couples, whether they’re straight or gay, figure out what works for them.”

“So if what you and I have been doing this week were all it could ever be—”

“Then I’d consider myself a lucky man, because despite what brought us here, this has been one of the best weeks of my entire life, Aleks,” I told him.

He flushed with color and then nodded. “Me too.”

I hadn’t realized how badly I’d needed to hear that from him. Between his comments earlier in the evening about liking my grits better (which I’d known had absolutely nothing to do with my actual cooking of grits since I kind of sucked at it) and his affirmation that he was glad to be with me right now, here in this moment, I was reeling from the onslaught of emotion.

“Aleks, what I said earlier about wanting you inside of me… it doesn’t need to be tonight and if it’s something you don’t want at all—”

That was as much as I got out because he raised himself up and kissed me. His arms went around my neck so I wrapped mine around his waist.

His kiss rocked my world. When he pulled back to let me catch my breath he said, “James, I love when you explain things to me and let me choose, but you can stop talking now. I’ve chosen.”

I smiled when he kissed me again, his tongue dominantly controlling mine. We were both breathless by the time we separated again. In true Aleks fashion, insecurity swamped him as he blurted, “You have to tell me what to do so I don’t hurt you even a little, James. And if I’m doing it wrong or you want me to stop, you have to promise you’ll tell me. I couldn’t… I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt you—”

“Promise,” I interjected before kissing him. I shifted on the bed so I could reach the nightstand drawer. I grabbed a condom and lube and set them on top of the nightstand. The sight of them rendered Aleks mute.

“We can get tested tomorrow when we go into the city,” I said, since the idea of Aleks bare inside of me was already taking on a life of its own. “But until then, we need to use condoms because I haven’t been tested in a while.”

Aleks nodded. “I got tested after I went to live with Dante and he explained all that to me. All the tests came back okay.”

I nodded and said, “Okay, then you don’t need to get tested again unless you’ve been with someone since then.”

Aleks shook his head violently. “No… no. Just you, James.”

I grinned at how worried he looked. “I’ll get tested tomorrow and then we can decide together what happens next… if we use condoms, if we do this again, if I can get my mouth on that beautiful dick of yours…”

He’d pretty much turned a shade of red by the time I pulled him so he was lying on top of me. It took only seconds for him to get back into the act of kissing me and then his mouth was exploring my chest as his hands trailed down my sides. I lifted my hands above my head when Aleks’s mouth sought out the sensitive skin of my armpit. He nuzzled the hair there, then inhaled deeply.

“God, you smell so good,” he said unabashedly as he sealed his mouth over mine. For all the trauma Aleks had experienced, he was such an open and honest lover. His eyes were, more often than not, gateways to his soul, and they were what I used to gauge how he was feeling about something.

Aleks let his sinful mouth slide down my neck, then my chest. But he hesitated when he got to the buckle on my pants. I was about to tell him I could take the jeans off myself, but then his nimble fingers were working the belt free, then the button and zipper. I held my tongue when he paused, his gaze staring at my erection, which was pressing against the material. His tongue darted out to wet his lips and it was all I could do not to groan at the sight.

I wouldn’t lie and say I hadn’t thought about how his mouth would feel on my dick, but it wasn’t a game changer. In fact, there really wasn’t anything that would change anything for me. If all Aleks wanted to do for the time we had left together was hold my hand, I’d give him exactly that.

Aleks’s hand tentatively reached out to stroke the outline of my cock.

“You really want this,” he said bluntly when he looked up at me.

His surprise didn’t bother me at all. I knew it wasn’t about him not believing what I’d said earlier… it was just taking his brain a little longer to catch up. His heart hadn’t needed proof when I’d told him how much I wanted him inside of me, but his brain clearly hadn’t been able to conceive the idea. But seeing how my body couldn’t deny my words seemed to cause that final wall between me and Aleks to come crashing down. He crawled up my body and kissed me. “I’m sorry.”

I knew what he was apologizing for.

He saw it as a lack of trust on his part.

I didn’t.

“Don’t be,” I said with a shake of my head. “Just make love to me, Aleks.”

He nodded and kissed me softly, then moved down my body again. His moves were a little more confident as he pulled my pants and underwear off. His eyes strayed to my cock as he worked, and I could see the occasional flicker of fear in his eyes, but I didn’t try to reassure him that I wasn’t going to throw him down and fuck him.

His brain was in control for the moment, so it needed validation that everything I’d said was true.

His body… and hopefully his heart… would take over soon enough.

Once I was naked on the bed, Aleks seemed unsure. His eyes met mine, then he started pulling the rest of his own clothes off. He did it quickly so I didn’t really get to see the show, but when I saw his dick, which was damp with moisture, I knew he was with me. He might not have understood his body’s needs, but he wasn’t trying to fight them… he just needed time for his head to catch up.

“Come here,” I murmured when he stood next to the bed stiffly and looked at my cock.

I held out my hand to him. He straddled me, then lay down on top of me, but was careful to keep our dicks from touching. “I don’t know what to do next,” he admitted. “I should touch you there, right? With my mouth?”

I shook my head. “Only if you want to. But I’m so turned on, I’d probably come the second those beautiful lips of yours even got near me,” I said with a grin.

That seemed to relax him a bit.

I rubbed his back to try and soothe him but didn’t force him to drop any more of his weight onto me. I let him take the initiative.

Which he did, about fifteen seconds later.

After letting out a deep breath, he kissed me. It was sweet and soft at first, then our desire took over and we were ravishing one another. When Aleks’s body sank onto mine, we both gasped because our leaking, bare cocks came into direct contact for the first time.

“Fuck,” I whispered as sensation rocketed through me. I had a hold of each side of Aleks’s face as I spoke. His eyes were closed, like he was in pain.

But I knew he wasn’t.

“Yeah, that,” he breathed.

I shifted my legs so I could open them. More of Aleks’s body rested on mine. Since he was shorter than me, the tip of my cock was closer to the base of his and I could feel the weight of his balls on my skin.

Aleks began humping me like he always had the past several nights, but this time the sensation was a thousand times better because there was nothing separating us. I dropped my hand to his ass to help him grind against me. He tensed up and I immediately removed my hand. But then he was reaching down with his right hand to search out mine and put it back on his ass. I dropped my other hand and gripped both of his cheeks as I planted my feet on the bed and began to lift my hips. Aleks let out a little whimper as he pressed his head to my chest and began pumping his dick against my stomach. He was grinding so much that my dick slipped between our bodies and ended up behind him… against his ass. I thrust against him before I could stop myself, but to my amazement, he didn’t ask me to stop or try to pull away.

His hand came up to find my cheek and then he was turning his head so he could kiss me. “Again,” he groaned.

We began grinding against each other like crazy men. I could feel pre-cum from Aleks’s cock streaking over my stomach.

“What’s next?” Aleks ground out when he ripped his lips from mine. “I’m really close.”

I nodded and slowed my own gyrating hips, then forced his to stop by grabbing his waist.

“You need to get me ready,” I said.

“Show me how?”

I loved the confidence in his voice. Yes, there was a hint of fear there too, but it was obvious that he still wanted this and that he wasn’t doing it just because he needed to get off.

I reached for the bottle of lube and pulled in a breath. I’d gotten so caught up in the fact that I was going to be with Aleks in a new way that, up until now, I’d forgotten to be nervous.

But those nerves all came racing back with the snicking sound as I flipped open the cap on the lube. I told myself not to let Aleks see my apprehension, but the second my eyes met his, I knew he knew.

Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who had eyes that were gateways to their souls.