The warmth of the apartment was almost painful in contrast to the cold of the outside. Paul yanked off his parka before sitting on the small bench and taking off his borrowed skates.

“My jeans are frozen,” Robbie said with a grimace. “Want to borrow some sweats?”

“Please,” Paul answered. “And a shirt?” He stripped off his sweaty hoodie and T-shirt, trying to play it cool.

Robbie’s eyes flicked to his naked chest, and he nodded, licking his lips.

Paul blushed, hesitating with a hand on the buttons of his jeans. You would think he hadn’t undressed in front of countless guys before.

Of course, he hadn’t kissed any of those other guys.

It felt weird to take them off right in the middle of the room, but the heat was starting to melt the stiff icy patches Few things were as uncomfortable as wet denim.

At least his erection had gone down.

Paul stepped out of the wet jeans, adding them to the pile of clothes on the bench.

Robbie grabbed up the sodden clothing. “I’m going to throw these in the dryer. Be right back.

Shivering, he went in the living room in his boxers. Robbie’s blankets looked warm, and Paul wondered if Robbie would mind if he wrapped one around himself to warm up. He sat tentatively on the edge of the folded down futon and ran his hands over the soft comforter, an oddly intimate gesture.

Robbie raised one eyebrow when he caught sight of Paul sitting nearly naked on his futon. “Mr. Dyson, I’m not that kind of a boy,” he said archly. He threw a pair of pants and a gray T-shirt at Paul.

Blushing, Paul shook out the clothes. The shirt was a Bemidji Chargers’ T-shirt with Robbie’s last name on the back. He held it up and made a face.

“Tough luck,” Robbie said with a laugh. “It was the only clean shirt I had left. Count your blessings.”

Paul tried to hide his trembling hands as he pulled on the shirt and sweatpants. All he could think of was how kissing Robbie had made him feel. His lips tingled, raw from the cold, the pressure, and the scrub of Robbie’s end of the day stubble.

He was twenty-two years old, had been with more than a few girls, but he felt like a fourteen-year-old virgin.

Sure, it wasn’t quite his first experience with a guy. He pushed that memory down deep. Six-feet-deep.

But even that time hadn’t been like this. Lending a friend a hand in the middle of the night was one thing. But kissing? Especially kissing like that? Soft and sweet? The kind Paul secretly ached for? That was gay.

And so, apparently, was Paul, despite how often he had prayed to God not to be. Evidence A? He wanted to kiss Robbie again, right now. So, how could he make that happen?

Suddenly Robbie was up in his space, a hand on his chest, pushing him down to the futon. “I lied. I am that kind of a boy.” He climbed onto the mattress, straddling Paul’s lap.

Oh. Okay. Paul’s heart jack-rabbited as he swung between terror and elation. He lay there, eyes wide and arms gripping the comforter that was as soft as he’d thought it would be.

Everything he was feeling must have shown in his eyes, because Robbie stopped, his palm flat against Paul’s chest. The grin slipped from his face. “Are you okay?”

Paul nodded quickly.

Robbie didn’t look convinced. “Are you sure? It’s okay if you want to stop. I won’t kick you out or anything.”

Tentatively, Paul reached up and laid his hands on Robbie’s thighs where they rested on either side of his body. His muscles were hard as rocks under the soft fabric of his sleep pants. Paul couldn’t resist digging his fingers into them. “No,” he croaked. “Don’t stop.”

Robbie curved down over Paul, his face inches from Paul. “Do you really want to kiss some guy from BSU?”

“Yeah, I really do,” Paul said seriously. He might never get up the nerve up to do this again. If one night was going to have to last him a lifetime, he wanted to feel everything. “I want to do everything.”

“That’s a tall order,” Robbie whispered, slipping his hands beneath the shirt Paul wore. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The kiss quickly turned hot and heavy. Robbie’s tongue plundered Paul’s mouth, filling it up and sliding heavy across his own. Without the impediment of parkas and the distraction of wet cold seeping through his clothes, Paul was almost painfully aware of every place Robbie’s body touched his, especially how close his ass was to Paul’s dick.

Robbie’s fingers scratched over Paul’s nipples, his hips rocked against Paul’s erection, nothing between them but a little fabric, and his teeth nipped at Paul’s lips. Paul could do nothing except shiver under the onslaught, his hands gripping Robbie’s thighs.

Robbie sat up, breaking the kiss.

Dizzy with the lack of oxygen, Paul sucked in deep breaths. Why was Robbie stopping this time? Was Paul doing something wrong?

“You can touch me, you know,” Robbie said with a twist of his lips.

Oh, God. It was his fault. He sucked at this. “I’m sorry.”

Robbie rolled off him, landing on his side next to Paul. He propped his head up on his arm. “Maybe we should stop.”

Paul pressed his hand against his embarrassingly prominent erection, threw his arm across his eyes, and groaned. “Oh, gosh darn it. Please don’t stop. I’m sorry I’m so bad at this.”

Robbie traced a finger across the waistband of the sweatpants. “Your accent is really cute.”

Paul huffed an embarrassed laugh, and Robbie pulled his arm away from his face. “It’s okay,” he said kindly.

Paul rolled on his side to face Robbie. “I’ve never done this before,” he confessed.

“Ever?”

“I mean, not nothing. But just, you know. Not with a guy.” Not much with girls, either, but Paul wasn’t about to tell him that.

“Never? Nothing?” Robbie raised one eyebrow and slipped a hand under the front of Paul’s shirt. “Not even a brojob after practice? Never gave a friend a hand?”

Paul felt the heat coming off his face as he blushed to his hairline. He ducked his head, pressing it against Robbie’s chest. “Just that second one. Once. At a church camp. I was fourteen.”

“Church camp? Kinky.” Robbie rubbed his thumb across the soft hairs below Paul’s navel. Paul shivered at the intimate touch that felt more erotic than a hand directly on his dick.

“Then what happened? After camp?” Robbie asked gently.

Paul shook his head and risked putting a hand on Robbie’s hip. The heat and energy coming from the other man’s body felt incredible. He pressed his face against Robbie’s chest and breathed deep. He smelled like clean sweat, cheap laundry detergent, and a scent Paul always thought of as simply male.

Robbie slid his hand across Paul’s stomach, fingers curling around his hip bone. His thumb slipped under the waistband of the sweatpants, caressing the crease of his hip.

“Ain’t nothing happened,” Paul gasped. The crazier Robbie made him, the more he lost control of his accent.

“Me and him never talked about it.” But Paul had thought about it every day.

Robbie’s touches went directly to his cock. He needed Robbie’s mouth on him, his hands everywhere, pressing hard, rubbing up and down. He would die if he didn’t get it.

He rolled away just enough to lift his head and look Robbie in the eye. “Kiss me again? Please?”

“I can’t resist that accent and those big blue eyes,” Robbie said. He kissed Paul hard, pushing him back down to the mattress and rolling with him until he laid stretched out over Paul, their bodies pressed together head to toe.

Paul whimpered with the feel of it. He wrapped his arms around Robbie’s back and twined their legs together needing to feel more. More weight, more heat.

He pushed his tongue into Robbie’s mouth, desperate for a taste.

When Robbie sucked on it, one big hand on Paul’s jaw, holding him in place, Paul’s cock throbbed so hard he thought he would come just from that. With a groan, he let go of Robbie long enough to slip both his arms up the back of Robbie’s shirt.

Pushing up onto one elbow, Robbie grabbed the collar of his shirt and ripped it off over his head, throwing it onto the floor. “Off,” he growled, plucking at the T-shirt Paul wore.

Paul struggled out of his shirt much less gracefully. He pulled it over his head, arms still trapped in the material.

Robbie stretched forward and pinned his arms to the bed above his head. He rested his forehead against Paul’s, his hair tickling Paul’s temples. “Nice,” he said, running a hand over Paul’s chest.

When he pinched Paul’s nipple, Paul gasped, so he did it again and again, hips grinding down against Paul’s groin.

Panting for breath and close to exploding, Paul struggled against the cloth binding his arms. He needed to touch Robbie. He didn’t want to come before he got the chance to get his hands all over Robbie. “Let me touch you, please. Please,” he groaned. “I have to.”

Robbie relented with one last pinch that had Paul gasping and writhing against the thin futon mattress.

“Fuck that’s hot,” Robbie said.

As Paul ripped his arms out the offending T-shirt, Robbie ran his fingers down the chain links of Paul’s necklace to the pendant that had slipped over his shoulder.

Bracing himself up on one elbow, Robbie looked at the small medallion, flipping it over to see the back.

“Saint Sebastian,” Paul explained, rubbing his palms over every inch of Robbie’s skin he could reach. “Patron saint of athletes.”

“Who’s the other guy?” Robbie asked even as he dropped his head and mouthed along the line of Paul’s jaw.

“Saint, uh, fuck yeah,” he moaned when Robbie bit and sucked at the tendons of his neck.

Robbie raised his head, laughter in his eyes. “Saint Fuck Yeah? I don’t remember hearing about that one.”

“Shut up.” Paul smacked him on the shoulder. “Saint Christopher. Travelers.”

Robbie chuckled and started sliding down the bed, leaving a trail of kisses in his wake. “So are you Catholic?” he asked right before digging his tongue into Paul’s navel.

“Oh, damn,” Paul said with a shudder, legs clamping to Robbie’s sides.

“Is that a yes?” Robbie asked with exaggerated interest as if Paul’s erection wasn’t pressing hard against his chest.

“No, you bastard. Baptist.” Paul pushed his head back down. Robbie retaliated with a bite to the soft skin right below Paul’s belly button. The sharp pain only made his cock harder.

With a chuckle Paul felt more than heard, Robbie worked his hand between them. Paul’s eyes rolled back in his head when Robbie squeezed his cock, thumb running over the top through the thin material of the sweats. “So why the necklace?”

Clamping his hands on Robbie’s shoulders, Paul shoved his hips hard into Robbie’s grip, grinding his erection in his palm. “You want to keep talking?”

Robbie’s fingers hooked over the edge of Paul’s sweatpants. “Kinda,” he said with a grin.

“My little sister gave me this when I went to Major Juniors after high school. To keep me safe. My father would flip out if he saw it. Happy now?”

“Ecstatic.” He squeezed Paul’s dick over the pants and looked up at him from between his legs. “So, can I blow you?”

Paul’s breath caught in his throat. He’d never wanted anything so badly in his life, and he’d never been so terrified in his life. The competing sensations threatened to tear him apart.

If they stopped now, he would be in the clear. Technically, they hadn’t had sex. Actually, according to some of his friends, there was some kind of sexual sin loophole. If they could get blowjobs from girls and still claim they weren’t having sex; then he could get one from a guy without it counting.

Hell, some of his buddies tried to claim a girl was still a virgin if she ‘only’ had anal. Guys’ virginity seemed a little less clear cut and a little less important.

So why was anal sex between men ‘actual sex’ but between men and women, it didn’t count?

Images from the videos Paul sometimes watched when the urge got too strong to ignore played in his mind. That could be him. Paul’s ass clenched at the thought, forcing his dick to slide across Robbie’s palm.

Paul groaned. Fuck it. He wanted this more than air; he’d deal with the fallout later. “Please,” he begged.

“Since you asked so nicely.” Robbie eased the elastic waistband carefully over Paul’s cock. Paul lifted his hips to help Robbie tug the pants and boxers down to the tops of his thighs.

Robbie hummed his approval as Paul’s cock sprung free. His breath blew warm against his skin, and Paul shuddered. He felt so exposed, and he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

“Nice,” Robbie said, sliding his hand under Paul’s balls.

Paul’s head dropped down to the futon with a thud, and he gripped the comforter like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to the mattress.

Robbie ran a hand down Paul’s trembling thighs, palm skimming over the light dusting of hair. His thumb brushed over the jut of Paul’s hip bone and traced the outline of the muscle. “Your body is amazing,” he said, dropping a kiss to Paul’s inner thigh, then looked up at Paul. “You still okay? We can stop.”

Paul lifted his head up and grabbed Robbie’s shoulder. “Oh, please. No. Don’t stop.”

“Okay.” He dipped his head back down and licked a slow stripe up Paul’s cock.

“Oh, my God,” Paul gasped, hand tightening on Robbie’s shoulder. He felt Robbie smile against his skin. Then all he felt was Robbie’s mouth everywhere.

He licked Paul’s cock like an ice cream cone. Pushing up onto his knees, he pulled it away from Paul’s body and swirled his tongue around the head before sliding his mouth down over the top.

Paul could only gasp for breath and take the Lord’s name in vain like he never had before as Robbie slowly but steadily drove him right to the edge before backing off.

With a frustrated growl, Robbie pushed the sweatpants lower, finally ripping them off one of Paul’s legs. With a hand on each knee, he spread Paul’s legs, then bent back down between them.

His tongue dragged down the crease of Paul’s thighs and over his balls. Every now and then he nipped at the skin or took Paul’s cock as deep into his mouth as he could.

Paul trembled as his body tried to process the competing sensations of pain and pleasure, finally settling on translating whatever Robbie did to him into pleasure like he’d never felt before.

Three times he dragged Paul, trembling, to the brink of a world-class orgasm and then stopped.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Paul muttered as Robbie took his mouth off of the place Paul wanted it the most.

Robbie sat back on his heels between Paul’s legs. Paul pushed up on his elbows in time to see Robbie wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The sight made him shudder so hard it almost qualified as an orgasm.

“Damn,” Robbie said. “I could do that all night. You’re so fucking sensitive.”

Paul groaned. “You’re killing me. Why are you so mean?”

Robbie grinned and dropped down to his hands and knees over Paul. “Because it’s so much fun to torture you.” He lowered his head, forcing Paul back down with a deep kiss.

Paul moaned into Robbie’s mouth even as he wrapped his arms around Robbie, pulling him closer. The friction of his clothed erection rubbing over Paul’s wet bare skin made Paul’s eyes roll back in his head.

Nothing he’d done before, no fumbling kisses with girls, or that one awkward rushed handjob as a kid, had prepared him for feeling like this. Like his heart would pound so painfully against his chest, or that he would sacrifice breathing in order to keep kissing someone, and that he would feel like he was burning up from the outside in.

Screw semantics. This was sex. This feeling was what the church fathers had been warning them about. If anything could turn your mind from the sacred to profane, it was the feel of the right person’s body against yours.

Why did it matter that Paul’s person was a man?

“Can I show you something else?” Robbie whispered in his ear. His cock was as hard as Paul’s, and Paul’s fingers slipped on the sweat of his back. “I promise you’ll like it.”

Paul nodded, afraid to speak.

In one swift move, Robbie lifted his hips up and pushed his pants down to his knees. He was pressed back up against Paul, trapping their cocks between their bodies, before Paul could get a look.

For a brief second Paul was disappointed, then Robbie shifted his hips, dragging his cock against Paul’s.

“Holy fuck!” Paul yelled, hands closing spasmodically on Robbie’s triceps.

“Good?” Robbie asked voice strained, as he kept driving his cock against Paul’s.

“So good,” Paul moaned. “So good.” Without conscious thought, he reached down and grabbed Robbie’s ass, urging him on with rough tugs.

His ass felt as good in Paul’s hands as he had always imagined a man would feel. He loved the feel of the faint dusting of soft hair on smooth skin sliding over hard muscles.

Robbie stopped kissing him long enough to quickly lick his own palm. Lifting his hips slightly, he slipped his hand between them, wrapping it around both their cocks as best as he could.

Paul lost the ability to speak. With a garbled moan, he buried one hand in Robbie’s hair, while the other dug into his muscled ass so hard Robbie would find bruises there later. All he could do was pant in time with Robbie’s thrusts.

Gasping for breath, Robbie pulled his mouth away, rolling his forehead against Paul’s head as he looked between their bodies. He rubbed his thumb around the tips of their cocks, spreading the wetness there across both of them.

Paul sucked in a deep breath, arched up off the thin mattress, and came harder than he ever had in his life.

Robbie’s fingers clenched around Paul’s arms, the muscles in his arms going rock hard, and he grunted as he came, as if each pulse was being punched out of him.

“Fuuuuck,” he said, stretching the word out as he fell down onto the bed, twisting sideways as he did so he wouldn’t land on top of Paul. Chuckling softly, he dragged his finger through the mess on Paul’s stomach.

Paul almost swallowed his tongue as Robbie licked his finger clean. “Damn. We taste good.”

Shit. Paul put a hand to his chest, feeling his heart pounding against his palm. Robbie lay next to him, their bodies pressed together, as they both came down from the high.

“Was that okay?” Robbie asked after the silence stretched beyond what felt comfortable. He hooked his leg over Paul’s leg and rolled his head to place a kiss on Paul’s shoulder.

Those light touches made Paul’s heart ache in a way the more sexual contact hadn’t. He’d imagined having sex with a man many times. But that kiss held a promise of something Paul hadn’t even dared to dream of.

Could guys have this part of a relationship, too? The cuddling, the easy touches, the shared jokes? What if living as a gay man didn’t condemn him to a lonely life of meaningless blowjobs with strangers in a grubby bathroom?

He wanted to ask Robbie about it, but he couldn’t even begin to pick out a single question from the whirlwind of thoughts in his head.

“Paul?” Robbie asked again. “Was it okay? Did it suck? Did I turn you off men forever?”

Paul’s laugh sounded strangled even to himself. If only. “God, no. Sadly, no.”

“Oh, good. So, it was okay? It felt good?” He plucked awkwardly at the sleep pants still bunched around his upper thighs.

It finally penetrated Paul’s orgasm-dumb brain that Robbie was concerned that Paul might not have liked what they just did.

He rolled onto his side to look Robbie directly in the eye. “It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever experienced.”

Robbie’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Really.” Paul looked down as his come-covered torso. “Even this is kinda hot.”

Robbie wrinkled his forehead in a totally adorable way. “Kind of gross and sticky now.” He ran his hand down Paul’s side following the line of his body from shoulder to hip. “How about I get something to clean us up?”

Paul nodded.

Robbie smiled and then rolled Paul over onto his back, kissing him long and deep before continuing his roll right off the futon and onto the floor. He yanked his sleep pants off and hopped up to his feet.

Paul laughed. “Smooth.”

While Robbie disappeared into the bathroom, Paul kicked his borrowed sweatpants the rest of the way off. Exhaustion was starting to settle over him like a heavy blanket. Between the travel and the game, and then the long walk in the freezing cold, skating with Robbie, and, well, the toe-curling orgasm, he felt like he could sleep for a week.

Then Robbie came out of the bathroom, gloriously naked, and Paul pushed up onto his elbows to take a nice long look.

Robbie was perfect. He had wavy auburn hair curling over his ears, a killer smile, broad shoulders, nice muscle definition, and a trail of brown hair from his navel to a nest of thick curls over his cock.

Suddenly, Paul felt a little less tired. He locked eyes with Robbie, tracking him as he closed the distance between them.

Robbie sat on the mattress next to Paul. Paul sucked in air between his teeth as Robbie wiped the wet washrag across his skin. “Sorry. Is it cold?”

Paul shook his head. They both watched as Robbie moved the washrag up and down Paul’s body with more care than was necessary. When he reached Paul’s cock, Paul held his breath, then let out a ragged exhale as Robbie dragged the rough cloth over it.

His thighs spread of their own accord as Robbie moved the rag lower. “I think that’s good,” Robbie said, tossing the rag over his shoulder to the floor. He massaged Paul’s thighs, thumbs digging into the muscles sore from overuse.

Paul’s head dropped back down to the futon. “God, that feels good. My legs are killing me. I can’t wait until I go pro and there’s someone to give a massage after every game.”

Robbie’s hands stilled. “You think you’ll make it?”

“I have to. I have no plan B.” That was just the reality of it. Hockey or bust. “What about you?”

Robbie ran his hands up and down Paul’s legs, pushing the hair against the grain and making Paul shiver. “I think we should probably make out a little more, just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. That you really liked it. For science.” He cupped his hand around Paul’s junk, his palm resting against the balls and his fingers scratching through the hair at the base of Paul’s dick.

Paul reached down, covering Robbie’s hand with his own. “I think that is an excellent idea, professor.”

Robbie crawled back over him, kissing him hard.

It felt even better than the first time.

They didn’t get much sleep that night. Paul found out he came almost as hard from giving a blowjob as getting one, and that he really loved kissing.

He knew he would remember Robbie for the rest of his life. And to think he’d been considering killing himself earlier tonight.

It wasn’t until he ran into his father the next morning that those thoughts returned.