Follow the River

He doesn’t need to know he was right. I’m a fucking coward.

He doesn’t need to hear those things.

Not tonight.

Not ever.

“When did it stop?’ River asks quietly after what seems like an eternity of silence.

“When I was fourteen. I got big enough the summer before high school thanks to football training camp. One night he came at me, and when I fought back, I actually won. Sent him to the hospital with a couple broken ribs and everything.”

“And he never came for you again.”

I nod. “But it was too little, too late. He already took all my firsts. Every fucking one of them.”

A tug on my hair brings my forehead to rest against River’s. My eyes close and I take the moment to simply be here.

With him.

Just us.

“But he didn’t get all of them. He didn’t get your first kiss. He didn’t get to be the first person to make your heart leap in your chest when you saw him. He didn’t get to be your first love. And he most definitely won’t get a single one of your lasts,” Riv whispers, his hot breath, smelling of toothpaste, wafts across my mouth.

“That might be true. But he took everything from me. Not just my firsts. He took my fucking sanity. He made me question everything about myself. Who I am as a man. What I like when it comes to sex. Who I let myself—” I cut myself off before I utter the word love.

River runs his fingers again and again through my hair as he presses a gentle kiss to my throat. “I’m sorry those things happened to you, Rain. I’d say it helped make you stronger, but I have a feeling that’s exactly the kind of thing you would hate to hear.”

“You’d be right,” I mumble as I play with his fingers resting on his chest. “I didn’t need to be made strong. I was a fucking child. I just…”

“Needed to be kept safe.”

I pull back and my eyes lock onto his teal ones. In them, I see a level of kinship and understanding I’ve never experienced in my goddamn life. How he knows what I was thinking, what I wanted to say, I don’t think I’ll ever understand.

It has nothing to do with the fact that we’ve been fucking like rabbits. Nothing to do with the fact that we are both attempting to navigate the world as a minority frequently shu

Those things might have bonded us. But this goes deeper than that.

He just fucking gets me.

He’s pulled back the layers no one before him has dared to go near.

He’s put up with my moody, irrational ass for almost four weeks in a cabin in the woods in the middle of the fucking Rocky Mountains.

He’s seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. And stayed.

Not like he has much of a choice. But he didn’t have to keep trying to make an effort with me.

All despite the massive douchewaffle I’ve been to him since I found out he was bisexual.

The realization makes my heart squeeze in my chest.

Fuck. Me.

“Exactly,” I whisper, my gaze holding his.

I’m still naked from our romp in the sheets earlier, and Riv is quick to discard his own underwear after sliding out from under my hold. He rolls on top of me, his arms braced on either side of my head. His soft lips press against my own once, twice, in sweet kisses before his tongue slides against the seams, begging for entrance.

Not being able to deny him a thing at this moment, I open and greedily take everything he has to give. My cock hardens again from the feeling of his tongue tangling with mine and the presence of his body hovering over me.

Goddamn, I’m so fucking fucked.

River nips my bottom lip and tugs hard before moving his assault from my mouth to my jaw and then to my throat. His hand slips between us, grasping both our cocks in his grip and jacking them in long, slow tugs. Not that he needs to get me worked up and ready, I’m already harder than granite.

“Fuck, Riv,” I pant, gritting my teeth. The sensation of our dicks rubbing together feels so good.

Too good.

And nothing that feels this good is ever meant to last.

“It fucking kills me, knowing you went through that, baby. With no one to fight for you, to stand up for you,” he tells me between kisses across my pecs. “And while I might be too late to keep the nine year old Rain safe, I’m here now. I’ve found you.”

Even in the shadows, his turquoise eyes say more than his mouth as he repeats his declaration once more. “I’ve found you and I’m here, and I promise I will always be your safe place for as long as you need one.”

His words send waves of desire coursing through my veins, springing me into action.

I cup his jaw, stubbled and sharp and carved by God himself, with both hands and bring his mouth back to mine in a searing kiss of lips and teeth and tongues.

Desperate. Demanding.

Mind altering perfection.

My soul begs for this. For more. For him.

Jesus, I just want him. And I don’t care if that makes me gay or bi or whatever.

It doesn’t fucking matter right now.

While I’m still lost in our kiss, River begins moving above me, sliding the hand that was stroking our cocks down to cup my balls and knead them with expertise. As my hands begin to roam his body, I feel his finger sliding over my taint and to my ass. I clench my cheeks on instinct.

No.

River leans back and grabs my chin with his other hand, his fucking finger still playing against my hole. He forces me to meet his gaze, sensing my panic. His eyes, filled with lust and desire, soften as he sees the fear written all over my face. I’m sure he can feel my nerves buzz through my body and into his own where our skin touches.

“Don’t worry, baby. I’ve got you,” he pleads with his eyes for me to trust him. “I promise, you’re safe.”

Jaw clenched, I give him a curt nod.

I trust him. With all of my black heart and damaged soul.

And fuck, if that isn’t the hardest thing in the world for me to do anymore, I don’t know what is.

River removes his hand from my ass and reaches over to the edge of the blankets for the bottle of lube we brought in here last night. Uncapping it, he squirts a good amount on his index and middle fingers, rubbing them together to coat them completely.

“We’ll go slow,” he whispers, moving back over me to trail warm, wet kisses down my chest and abs. “If you want me to stop, tell me, and I will.”

When his lips brush the tip of my cock, I groan.

Fuck, I want him so bad. I’ll let him do whatever he wants to me. I don’t fucking care. I just want him to erase the painful memories, the touch of the wicked human who did those vile things to me.

“Touch me, Abhai

I feel him grin against my pubic bone before he gives it a light nip. “In good time.”

“Now,” I demand.

“Baby,” he murmurs, licking the underside of my cock with a long, slow stroke while he meets my gaze. “I told you I would stop if you wanted me to, and I will. But make no mistake about it, it’s about damn time I’m the one officially in charge.”

My cock jumps at the command in his voice.

God, and when I didn’t think he could get any sexier.

Moving his coated fingers back towards my puckered hole, he takes the crown of my cock in his mouth and gives it a firm suck, still holding my eyes. The pad of his thumb brushes over my taint as he takes me deeper into his mouth. Eyes closing, he gives into his task, moaning around my cock as he swirls his two fingers around the rim of my ass, never breeching it.