Lying face down on the bed with my eyes closed, I filled my lungs with oxygen and tried to quiet my mind. In a slow, measured gust, I breathed out and let my body simply feel.

Lachlan’s oiled hands glided up my calves, higher and higher until his thumbs dug into the back of my thighs. When they dipped inward, brushing a feather-light caress across the underside of my cock, I panted and jutted my hips forward into the downy soft mattress.

“Relax,” he murmured, kissing me between the shoulder blades and then dragging his tongue down the length of my spine.

“I’m trying to,” I groaned when he burrowed his fingers into my muscles with expert precision.

I didn’t know how I’d go back to the team masseur knowing I had someone at home who was more than willing to finish me off with a very happy ending.

“You’re overthinking it,” he observed, continuing his massage.

“Damn right I am,” I chuckled. “It’s not every day you take a cock for the first time.”

Lachlan’s hands coasted up my legs, and he circled the head of my dick with deft, talented fingers. “Let’s just take it one step at a time,” he said with a downward tug and a twist of his fist, “while we figure out how much you can take.”

I gritted my teeth. “I can take anything you want to give me.”

He leaned forward and bit the globe of my left ass cheek.

“Fuck,” I hissed, pushing up on my forearms and throwing him a look over my shoulder. “That hurt.”

“But you liked it,” he said, glancing up at me through heavy-lidded lashes, his angular jaw dotted with a dark five o’clock shadow that felt wonderfully abrasive when he scraped it over my bare skin.

I dropped back down onto my stomach and laughed. “Yeah, I did, you fucker.”

“Liam?”

“Yeah?”

“I mean it. Let’s take this nice and slow. Promise me you’ll stop me if you don’t like something, or it doesn’t feel good.”

“I can’t imagine it not feeling good,” I murmured as his slick fingers coasted over my balls.

“Promise me,” he said, halting their progression.

I let out a huff of frustration. All this talk about me not liking this was putting a damper on the mood. But if I didn’t accede Lachlan's point, this was as far as he’d take things.

From the very beginning of our relationship, Lachlan had been explicit about wanting my consent for everything he did to me. While it sometimes seemed excessive, I knew it was because of what had happened with Conor my first time.

I’d been a passive participant in that encounter—so damn caught up in the moment, so overwhelmed at finally experiencing something I’d only ever dreamed about—that I hadn’t once stopped to think things through. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t have gone back to his apartment. Or, perhaps I would have, but at least then I wouldn’t have felt like he’d taken advantage of my naivety.

“Okay, fine. I’ll tell you to stop if I don’t like it,” I acquiesced.

“Good,” he said, slapping me playfully across my flank, the smack reverberating loudly. “Now on your knees.”

I propped up on all fours and waited for Lachlan’s fingers to continue their exploration. I almost collapsed, however, when it was his tongue instead that licked a hot, wet circle over my hole.

Holy Fucking Christ, I thought, locking my elbows and pushing back against Lachlan’s questing lips, tongue, and nose.

I’d loved every moment of the sexual awakening I’d experienced at Lachlan’s expert hands, but nothing—and I meant nothing—had felt as good as this.

My head dropped forward, and a ragged moan escaped my lips as I fisted my cock.

“Oh shit,” I breathed as his tongue fluttered against my virgin skin.

For several long minutes, Lachlan licked, laved, nibbled, and kissed every part of my ass while I begged him for more with moans, and groans, and whispered entreaties. My cock was harder than it had ever been before—close to the point of pain—and leaking all over his bedspread.

I’d managed to keep myself propped up with one arm, while with the other I’d jacked myself in time with his tongue spearing into me.

But just when I felt the orgasm building low in my spine and deep in my gut, Lachlan pulled his mouth away and pushed me down onto the mattress.

Going to work on me with his fingers, he petted over and over again until my hole was hungry for more of him.

“More?” he asked, sliding a finger in to the first knuckle.

With tears leaking from my eyes, I nodded.

“Say it, baby.”

“Jesus Christ. Yes, more,” I begged, accepting the full length of it.

With deliberate care, he dragged his finger out, and my nerve endings jolted to life. It felt like a thousand butterflies furiously batted their wings in the pit of my stomach—in a completely awesome, and overwhelmingly fantastic way.

“One more?”

I nodded and screwed my eyes shut, the blanket clenched tight in my fist. “Yes,” I said as he breached me with a second finger.

I hadn’t gone into this blind. At least I thought I hadn’t. I’d witnessed how much Lachlan enjoyed it when I fucked him, and I’d watched a lot of gay porn over the years. I thought I’d known what to expect when I’d said I wanted this, but nothing could have prepared me for how sublime it felt to be touched by him now. How accepting him into my body unlocked something deep inside of me, something I wouldn’t have been able to understand about myself otherwise.

I hadn’t lied when I told Lachlan that I loved pussy. I’d had enough of it in my lifetime to state unequivocally that I enjoyed fucking women.

Whether I’d love cock too had been the larger, more pressing question.

I’d lusted after men, so it stood to reason that I would, but I’d had no way of knowing until Conor Henry had sucked me off. I’d relished the sight of him on his knees before me, my cock wet with his saliva. Everything about the experience had lived up to my fantasy.

And for all that, even as I’d fucked Lachlan, I thought perhaps I could do it because I hadn’t been on the receiving end of the experience. That maybe it was only about me exploring those craven desires, and once I did, I’d get it out of my system.

But now, several months later and with two fingers in my ass and a body that shook with need, I had to confront the truth: this wasn’t about me exploring all sides of my sexuality. This right here was a spiritual fucking awakening, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that while I liked women, a man was what I needed.

But not just any man. I needed this man. Every single part of me—including my heart—called out for Lachlan MacLeod.

“Please, Lachlan,” I pleaded. “I need you.”

I’d never spoken more honest words.

“You have me,” he answered, stretching me with another finger until I was so full of him that I saw stars behind my eyelids.

And yet it wasn’t enough. I needed more.

“I’m going to come,” I breathed out over my shoulder, our eyes latching. “And when I do, I want your cock inside of me.”

Lachlan shuddered; his shoulders visibly shaking. “You don’t know what you do to me.”

I laughed, and it was a sound I almost didn’t recognize. It was happy and free, and it came from a place deep inside of me that only he could unlock. “I think I have some idea.”

Slowly, he withdrew his fingers, and while he removed his clothes, I rolled onto my back to watch him strip.

Naked, he climbed back on the bed and stroked his cock. “How do you want me?”

I dropped my knee to the side—opening myself up to him—and cupped my balls, lifting them out of the way. “Just like this. I want to watch your face when you fuck me for the first time.”

Lachlan’s chest heaved with uneven breaths. “Liam, I…” he began, but then trailed off, his thoughts unspoken.

“And I want you raw,” I added, laying all my cards on the table.

Tonight, I was giving him my body and my heart, and with both of us clean, I couldn’t think of one single reason that thin latex barrier needed to exist between us.

His eyes bounced between mine, searching. He licked his lips and nodded. “Yeah, I want that too.”

He moved toward me, and I widened the space between my thighs.

He added more lube to both of us and then angled his cock toward my hole. Pressing against it, he instructed, “Breathe out when I push, and try to relax.”

He flexed his hips, and then I felt his broad, thick crown breaching my tight, puckered hole. I hissed at the sudden bite of pain, and he paused to let me adjust to his size. He’d prepared me as well as he could, but the feel of his fingers lodged in my body had only been a precursor to the way he filled me now—and he wasn’t even fully seated yet. Instinctively, my ass clamped down on his cock, and he pulled a sharp breath in through gritted teeth.

“Fuck, you’re tight,” he observed, looking down at me. Whatever he saw on my face had him asking, “You okay?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“We don’t have to do this, Liam,” he said, caressing the outer part of my quad, which was flexed with tension.

I was used to pain; it was my stock in trade. My body endured hits and trauma most people would never understand. The burn I felt now was nothing compared to what I experienced on the pitch for eighty minutes every week.

That realization, paired with his soft, calming strokes over my skin, had me relaxing, and the sting receded until it was just a small ache at my core.

“We’re doing this,” I told him, stroking my cock back to life. “By the time this night is over, I want to be dripping with your cum.”

His chin dropped forward, and he speared me with a hungry look as he pushed deeper into my body.

My head fell back, my neck going taut, and I breathed out a long, eager moan. “Fuck, yes. More. Give me more.”

Lachlan canted his body over mine, gripped my shoulder and slid home with a groan. “Holy shit,” he said, our chests, slick with sweat, coming together.

He gave me time to adjust, tenderly kissing his way over my shoulder, up my neck, and to my ear. “You feel so fucking good,” he whispered.

“You too,” I murmured, claiming his lips in a slow, sensual slide of lips and tongue that soon had me writhing beneath him.

The feel of his long, thick cock inside of me was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Stuffed to the point of bursting, I still wanted more. I didn’t want just to feel like I was going to come apart; I wanted it to actually happen.

Lachlan drew his hips back, and the notched head of his dick abraded my sensitive nerve endings, creating a whole new set of sensations deep inside of me.

I hissed and rolled my hips, desperate for what came next.

From above me, Lachlan chuckled and licked a path up my neck as he fucked me in slow, measured thrusts. “Welcome to the magical world of prostates,” he chuckled in my ear with another flex of his hips against mine.

Dimly, I became aware of a series of mindless, animalistic sounds ricocheting off the walls. They were part gasp, part moan, and part incoherent babbling, colored with shouted expletives and grunts. And then, I realized the noises were mine, as Lachlan fucked me in earnest.

Sweat dripped from his brow and landed on my chest. I locked my fingers behind his neck and tugged him down, capturing his mouth in a blistering tangle of lips and teeth. I sucked his moans in with each breath, and gave him back my own, as our bodies glided rhythmically together.

All at once, a pleasure so intense that it rendered me breathless formed at the base of my spine and radiated outward. From the top of my head to the tips of my toes, a full body orgasm rocked its way through me. Vibrating with the power of my release, I fisted my dick and watched as thick, milky ropes shot out, landing on my stomach, chest, and jaw.

With a growl, Lachlan licked the cum from my face and kissed me hard, pounding into me with wild, driving thrusts. I clutched him to my chest as with one final roll of his hips, he rooted his cock as deep as it would go, and poured himself into me with a guttural moan. When the force of his orgasm receded, Lachlan kissed me with slow, languorous passes of his tongue.

“That was … wow.” He nuzzled into the crook of my neck and shoulder and carefully slipped his cock from my body.

When I felt the hot trail of his cum seep out of me, I hummed in agreement.

Being fucked by Lachlan had been way more intense than I’d anticipated. When I’d come, it was as if the man I’d been before had exploded and reformed into a different version of me. A new and improved Liam Donnelly, one who knew exactly who he was and was happy, for the very first time, to be that man.

But I didn’t say any of that.

Our relationship was still too new, too fragile. As long as I was in the closet, I couldn’t ask Lachlan to shoulder the weight of these revelations. Until I was comfortable enough to tell the world that I was in love with a man, I needed to keep those feelings bottled up tight.

It shouldn’t be too hard, I thought. I’ve been doing that my whole life.