untethered as he did. I wanted him forever.
He protested when I used his hair to tug his head back, but I needed to see his face. “I want you to fuck me,” I said.
His eyes lit up and then grew heavy-lidded, his smile sliding into something filthy. “That is the smartest, sexiest thing you’ve ever said.”
He found a reserve of energy and slid down my body, taking my pants with him. A move that would have been more impressive had I not still had my shoes on.
“Damn it,” he said as the material gathered around my ankles. “I was trying to be smooth.”
I sat up. Seeing him kneeling at my feet half-naked and focused on unlacing my shoes did things for me. Things that set a flock of butterflies fluttering in my stomach.
“I’ve never done that before,” I blurted out, missing smooth by a light-year.
“Never tried to take your pants off without taking off your shoes? I’ve literally seen you do it before.”
“Bottomed. Let someone fuck me.”
He stopped unlacing my shoe. “What? Never?”
Blood rushed to my cheeks. “It’s not that unusual.”
“No,” he said, drawing the word out. “I guess not. Why not? Just wasn’t feeling it before now?” He focused on pulling off my shoes.
“I wanted it to be you,” I mumbled at the top of his head.
“Okay.” He nodded as he pulled one of my legs free. “Okay.” He tugged the other leg free and pushed my pants over to the side and then peeled my socks off. “Okay,” he said for a third time, his hands warm on my ankles, his thumbs rubbing the jut of bone, his gaze still on the floor.
I nudged a leg forward. “You keep saying that, but you don’t sound okay.” This what not the reaction I’d been hoping for.
He looked up at me, finally. “You wanted it to be me?”
“That’s what I just said.” It was stupid. He thought I was an idiot. “But it’s okay if you don’t want to.”
“Oh, I definitely want to,” he said with a nervous chuckle. “I thought about it a lot when we were together. Like, a lot. And possibly several times since then.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“It’s just, it’s a lot of pressure.”
“What? You’ve done it before, right?”
He nodded. “Oh yeah.”
“So?”
He pushed himself off the floor with a groan, using my knees as leverage. “I never…I was never anybody’s first time before.” He ran a hand through his hair and frowned. “At least I don’t think I was.”
I slid to the edge of the bed, pulling him to me by his hips. “So, it will be a first for both of us.” I kissed his stomach, right below his navel, while I slid my hands around to his perfect ass and gave a squeeze. “Unless you’re worried you suck at it?” I grinned to show him how ridiculous I thought that was.
The look on his face. He was worried. “Eric? Babe, you are worried about that.”
He shrugged slightly. “It’s a big deal.”
I kissed his stomach again, running my hands from the dip in his spine down the back of his thighs. “You’re supposed to say you can make it good for me. Make me love it.”
“I can. I do want to. It’s just…your first time.” He touched my shoulders and then cupped my cheek. I turned my head to kiss his palm and he gave me a tiny smile that quickly disappeared. “I love to top, and I’ve done it, it’s just that, well, Ry—”
I cut him off with a hand over his mouth. “No. Do not say what I think you’re going to say. I do not want to hear that name, well, ever, but definitely not while we are naked.”
“But the pressure! Some people don’t like it. What if you hate it? And it’s because of me?”
“Then we never have to do it again.”
He groaned. “I don’t want to never do it again,” he confessed.
Jesus. I threw my hands up in exasperation. “We can’t do it again if we don’t fucking do it for the first time!”
“I know,” he said. “And I know it would be,” he searched for a word, “adequate, at least.”
My hands tightened on his legs. “Jesus Christ.” I was going to kill Ryan. I mean, I already hated him, but making Eric feel like he was bad in bed. Fuck that guy. I could just imagine him lying there, letting Eric do all the work, letting Eric service him for fuck’s sake, and then tell him it was adequate!
“You’re growling,”