Reconsider Me Read online

  That was fine with him. He’d meant every word he’d said to Fen on the subject.

  Reconsider Fen?

  Never. He was quickly falling in love with him.

  When Fen woke up about an hour later, his eyes looked red and puffy, and he sniffled, embarrassed.

  “Sorry I fell asleep on you.” He tried to sit up, but Joel gently restrained him with the hand still pressed to his chest.

  “S’okay, baby. Can we just lay here, like this? I had fun.”

  Disbelief filled his features. “You had fun watching me snore all over you?”

  “I had fun watching you sleep.” His fingers curled around Fen’s hand and he brought it to his lips and kissed it. “I’m not very churchy, as in at all, but I was giving thanks for so many stupid men before me who allowed me the chance to be lying here with you. And I want to put one rule on the table right now, so I don’t do something stupid and accidentally trigger you.”

  “What rule?”

  He held Fen’s hand pressed against his own chest. “No anal. Period. But, if I say something like I want to fuck you, or let’s go fuck, or anything along those lines, I do not literally mean intercourse, I mean fuck around, as in sex in general, in whatever form that takes between us. Not literal fucking. Okay?”

  Fen’s eyes widened and started tearing up again. “What?”

  Joel froze, afraid he’d royally fucked up his attempt at not wanting to fuck up. “Are you okay?”

  Fen grabbed his head and kissed him, hard, tongue and all, draping a leg over Joel’s and grinding against him.

  Okay, fuck it.

  He kissed Fen back, his hand sliding down to Fen’s ass. He grabbed it, hard, and rubbed his thigh against Fen’s cock, where he now had Joel’s thigh clamped between his legs.

  Then he smacked Fen’s ass, hard.

  Fen let out a loud, gasping cry, then froze.

  So did Joel’s heart. He broke their kiss. “Baby? Are you okay? I thought—”

  Fen started laughing, snorting, his whole body shaking. He buried his face against Joel’s chest and laughed until he cried, nodding, shaking his head, and nodding, back and forth between the two gestures until Joel realized he’d have to wait for Fen to regain his composure to find out what the fuck.

  Hiccuping and sniffling, he finally did. “Yes to that rule, Sir,” he said, still giggling. “And I need to get up for a minute and…” He dissolved into more giggles.

  “What?”

  Fen sighed, untangling himself from Joel and sitting up, then pulling the waistband of his shorts out and looking down them with another sigh. “He couldn’t wait until tonight, Sir. When you smacked my ass…” He sighed once more, this time melodramatically as he pointed down the front of his shorts. “Guess you have an effect on me. And yes, I like having my ass smacked, if you couldn’t guess.”

  Joel finally followed Fen’s thought processes and started laughing with him.

  Chapter Ten

  Fen had a difficult time focusing on his work Monday morning. At one point, when Jake walked by while talking with one of their coworkers, Fen slid his chair over to his cube’s entrance and held out his hand for a high-five, which Jake returned without skipping a beat in his other conversation.

  Fen didn’t say anything, but he wore a grin—the same grin he’d had plastered across his face from the second he awoke that morning—and rolled in front of his terminal again.

  Tonight he was going over to Joel’s for dinner.

  Last night’s sadism had been Joel somehow managing to head home without letting Fen at least give him a handjob, then Joel making Fen promise not to masturbate without permission.

  And when Joel got home, he called Fen and made Fen listen while Joel rubbed one out, all the while telling Fen a mere fraction of the deliciously dirty things he wanted to do to and with Fen. Before Joel had ended the call for the night, he’d given Fen permission to masturbate again.

  Which was good, because it was going to happen regardless of whatever punishment Joel wanted to give him.

  No one—not one single guy he’d slept with—had ever given Fen that proactive caveat before. Fen fully recognized it was a trigger, and didn’t know why he’d never pressed anyone harder to agree to that so he could not worry.

  Maybe because, before, I never trusted anyone enough to tell them the details.

  Following the fifth or sixth time Tom had triggered Fen, he’d given Fen a similar caveat, but coated with exasperation and impatience.

  Which, of course, now Fen understood why, because Tom’d had no intention of sticking to the hard-limit long-term. Tom thought he had a magic penis and could easily make Fen forget about his “ick factor,” as Tom had callously labeled it, and past trauma regarding anal.

  Except what Tom hadn’t understood was the serious thought of doing that didn’t merely dredge up a dump truck load of bad memories in Fen, but made him feel physically ill, as well, in addition to ragey.

  They’d spent the rest of Sunday evening talking—after Fen had changed his briefs and shorts—snuggled together and discussing TV shows and movies and music and books. Fen liked how he felt draped over Joel’s body while Joel lounged on the couch.

  Perfect.

  No elbows or knees in the wrong places. Like they were perfectly proportioned for each other.

  Even that felt spookily right.

  They’d texted good morning, but Fen knew he wouldn’t hear back from Joel until lunch, because Joel didn’t exactly have a desk job and frequently didn’t have his phone on him, depending on what he was doing.

  A little after one, Fen was already back from lunch and his stop by the health department when his cell phone rang. He was pleasantly surprised to see it was Joel.

  “Hellooooo, Sir,” he answered, making a mental reminder to change Joel’s listing to read Sir in his contacts.

  “Hello, baby. How’s your briefs?”

  Fen snorted, covering his mouth and keeping his voice down. “Non-sticky. Want me to send you a pic?”

  “Nah. Not yet. Let’s wait until at least week two before we’re sexting each other.” He laughed. “Still on for tonight?”

  “Try and stop me.” Fen had already plotted several different routes to get to Joel’s from work, depending on the traffic, and had memorized them.

  “I can’t wait. I need to get back to work. See you in a few hours.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Fen had even brought a change of clothes so he didn’t have to go all the way home after work.

  When Fen left work fifteen minutes early—since he’d arrived fifteen minutes early—he made a quick side trip by Sephora and picked up a sample pack of body scrub. He wasn’t sure what Joel might like, or what scents might work well with his body chemistry.

  Good a time as any to train my Dom to tolerate my weirdness.

  And last night Joel had agreed to be flexible with some things like that, since he didn’t have a firm preference usually, except regarding price.

  When Fen pulled into the parking lot at Joel’s building, he spotted the man himself unloading grocery bags from his trunk. After shouldering his own bag, which also held his laptop, he rushed over to help him.

  “Hello, Sir.”

  “Perfect timing, baby.”

  Joel wouldn’t let him take a bag until he’d given Joel a kiss hello first. Joel was sweaty and dirty and stinky, and damned if Fen didn’t want to drop him to the pavement and hump every square inch of his filthy body right there.

  Okay, pool time will be out of the question, at first.

  He wasn’t sure how chill Joel’s neighbors would be watching Fen walk around with a tent in his Speedo.

  He was happy to see Joel wasn’t a slob. His small condo looked lived in, but that pleasant real-world mix between bachelor with a life and minimalist that ticked off one more barrier that had been blown out of the water.

  Was there nothing imperfect about this guy?

  Nothing that would turn Fen off, so
far.

  With the groceries put away, Joel turned. “I need to grab a shower.”

  “Can I help?” Fen asked before he could stop himself.

  Joel stepped close, smiling. “I’m pretty dirty.”

  “Please can I help, Sir?” Fen begged, now wanting it more than anything.

  * * * *

  This was a baaaad idea, and Joel knew it. If he let Fen get those gorgeous hands on his naked body, he honestly didn’t think he’d have the strength to tell him no.

  He needed to be sure he was really, really ready to make that potential commitment. Because after what Fen had already been through in the past, he didn’t want to end up being another regrettable mistake in the younger man’s life.

  He also didn’t want to set himself up for heartbreak…again.

  Except.

  He stared into Fen’s sweet, earnest gaze.

  Fen, so far, seemed to be everything Johnny hadn’t.

  Open, honest.

  Sane.

  Not to mention vetted.

  And he had a good job.

  He stared down into Fen’s face and knew he was falling for the guy, already.

  Hard.

  Joel held up a hand and ticked off the points on his fingers as his cock struggled to steal all the usable oxygen from his blood stream. “No lying—I want full honesty, even if it’s painful. No cheating. It’s just the two of us for sex and for play. We won’t even talk collaring yet, because it’s too soon for that.”

  Fen eagerly nodded. “Yes, Sir.”

  Sooo fricking adorable.

  “Do you have anything you want to add?”

  “No, Sir. You know my hard limits.”

  “You can always negotiate those if you need to,” Joel said. “They aren’t etched in stone, from my perspective. If you want to take more stuff off the table—”

  “Only what I told you, Sir.”

  Joel remained patient, taking Fen’s hands in his. “If you ever want to, you can. Always. And you can always safeword. I’m not some asshole lookin’ for a robot who’ll never complain or speak up. I want a partner, a lover, a friend, and yes, a submissive. But I’m going to be honest that my long-term goal, ideally, is husband. Not tomorrow, obviously. Just my thought process. If that’s not on your future radar with me, then do us both a favor and say so now.”

  “You’re not scaring me off that easy, Sir.” Fen grinned. “And I picked up something for you today.”

  “You did, huh?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Just a little something.”

  Joel had a suspicion, based on the Sephora bag he’d spotted Fen carrying.

  The hopeful look on Fen’s face was what finally did Joel in. “Okay, sure.” He turned. “Oh.” He went over to his messenger bag and pulled out a piece of paper. “Initial results.” He wouldn’t get the full results for a couple of days, but HIV—neg. Which he already knew, because he was careful.

  Damned careful.

  Fen took the paper and read it, smiling. He pulled his out of his laptop bag and showed it to Joel. “See? Perfect!”

  Fuck it. Life was short. Damned short.

  And, so far, Fen seemed perfect for him.

  “Come here, baby.” Joel pulled him close and kissed him, hard, sucking on his lower lip. “Go get whatever it is and join me in the bathroom.”

  Joel started stripping as he walked, dumping his clothes on top of the clothes washer, which sat with the dryer in a closet just off the kitchen, in the short hallway leading to the bedroom and bathroom. Somehow, Fen, who was wearing more clothes, managed to not only strip faster, but race past him—naked—and was waiting for him in the bathroom when Joel got there.

  Fricking adorable.

  In the bathroom, Joel held up a finger, pressing it to Fen’s lips. “No bare oral yet. That’ll be our big night, once we get our test results. Okay?”

  Fen eagerly nodded, sucking Joel’s finger into his mouth and swirling his tongue around the end of it.

  Joel’s cock twitched.

  I’m totally fucked.

  Fen was so proud of the sample pack he’d bought for Joel that even though Joel honestly didn’t care about the kind of soap he used, he made sure to make a big deal about it so Fen didn’t get his feelings hurt.

  Out of the four bottles, Fen picked a vanilla-scented one, grabbed Joel’s scrubby, and took over, starting with his back. Joel closed his eyes, forehead pressed against the wall, and let out a soft groan.

  “Yeah, baby.” It’d been a long time since he’d had someone to be this intimate with.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Yeah.” It took Joel a moment to realize Fen meant the soap. “It’s nice, baby. I like it.”

  What he liked even more was the simple pleasure of having someone touch him like this. Fen didn’t just scrub his back, he stroked Joel’s arms and legs, squirmed his entire body against Joel’s, slippery flesh against flesh.

  After a couple of minutes, Fen giggled. “You need to turn around, Sir. So I can wash your front.”

  Joel turned, leaning back against the wall. He opened his eyes and watched Fen, realizing Fen’s gaze was locked onto his own. He started with Joel’s shoulders and arms and slowly worked his way down, skipping from his hips to his feet and working his way up.

  Staring at Joel’s rock-hard and twitching cock, Fen licked his lips.

  He dropped the scrubby. One hand curled around Joel’s cock, the other around his balls, and Joel groaned. Warm, soft, living flesh touching him. Fen perfectly stroked him, lightly giving a twist to the stroke at the head.

  It’d be too easy to want to grab Fen’s head and fuck his sweet mouth.

  “Stand up, baby,” Joel hoarsely said.

  Fen smoothly rose without releasing Joel’s cock and balls. Joel turned them, Fen’s back now against the wall, and reached down so he could stroke Fen’s cock.

  “Hold it for me, sugar,” Joel ordered. “Come with me.”

  Slanting his mouth over Fen’s, he started stroking the man’s cock, gently, not sure how sensitive he was, and increasing pressure as Fen eagerly fucked his hips against Joel’s hand.

  Fen’s strokes on Joel’s cock sped up but Joel struggled to hold back. With his other hand braced on the wall over Fen’s right shoulder, Joel kissed him, kept kissing him, never wanted to stop. He focused on that, on tracing the shape of the man’s teeth, of the sounds of Fen’s moans as Joel swallowed them whole and took them straight into his heart.

  This.

  Man.

  This friggin’ adorable man who’d burrowed straight into his soul.

  He couldn’t fight his attraction to Fen, and he really didn’t want to.

  He lifted his lips from Fen’s. “Get ready. Look at me.”

  Fen opened his eyes and stared up at him, sweet and vulnerable and…

  Adorable.

  His.

  Joel gasped, wanted to throw back his head and howl in relief as his balls squeezed ropes of cum all over Fen’s hands. Fen quickly followed a couple of strokes later, and as they stood there they kissed, catching their breath, leaning on each other.

  Joel pulled Fen’s arms around him and turned again, this time the one against the wall and Fen cradled against him. “I think I’m in trouble, sugar,” Joel said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t think I’m ever gonna want to let you go.”

  “Who says I want you to?”

  * * * *

  Yeeessss!

  Except for the fact that they were in the shower, Fen would have jumped up and down in joy.

  That, and he didn’t want to fall and bust his ass. With his luck, he probably would have.

  They finally finished their shower, drying each other off, still kissing.

  Making love standing up without even touching each other’s cocks.

  Hell, it’d never felt this good with Tom. Ever.

  Never felt like they were this close.

  Joel cupped his cheek. “I promised you
dinner, baby.”

  “Let me help you cook, Sir. Please?”

  Joel had a couple of different smiles, Fen had already noticed. The sexy, one-sided smirk he gave Fen now had the deadliest power when it came to twisting Fen’s cock.

  “Sure.”

  They didn’t bother getting dressed. Joel had planned for a light meal, grilled chicken cut up in a salad with cranberries and almonds and feta cheese, fresh fruit on the side, and cheesecake for dessert.

  Perfection.

  All during the prep work, they kissed, stroked each other—all the playful kind of interactions Fen loved and had longed for.

  It was like he’d dreamed this delicious Dom out of thin air, and that terrified and thrilled Fen all at the same time.

  Maybe this was the guy his life had prepared him for, this man, right now.

  If so…he would never be grateful for what happened to him in college, but he knew he could put it behind him and relax, knowing he finally had a guy who was willing to take him as he was and not try to change him just because.

  That was, if things continued to work out between them.

  They spent the evening talking, cuddling, watching TV, and making love again. This time in Joel’s bed. He had Fen masturbate while he watched, wanting to see how he stroked himself, and playing dirty by nibbling on Fen’s nipples, sucking them, discovering how ultrasensitive they were and then taking full advantage of that to torment him while he made Fen hold back until he gave him permission to come.

  Then Joel tucked Fen against his left side, while with his right hand he stroked his own cock. Thick and beautiful, around eight inches, and Fen could already imagine how it’d feel and taste in his mouth, when he finally got to go down on it.

  Remember to buy more flavored condoms.

  He memorized every line, every angle in Joel’s face as the man orgasmed, wanting to be the one who got to make him make that expression for the rest of their lives, thinking there was nothing sexier in the world.

  Fen hated going home, but he hadn’t planned to spend the night, and it’d mean getting up super early tomorrow to go home first. Not to mention an unplanned change like that would throw his morning routine into chaos, and then totally bork the rest of his day.