“So that’s what you were doing before? When you basically demanded I go upstairs and fuck you now?”
Carl shrugged. Devon took that as a yes.
“Well,” Devon said as gently as possible. “This isn’t the sort of thing you should ‘just get over with.’ It should be special.”
“I know.”
Devon frowned again. “And I don’t sleep with guys who don’t like me.”
“But Ilikeyou, Devon, enough that b-being with you w-would be special to me,” Carl said, and for the first time there was a hint of a kind of throaty desperation he’d never imagined hearing from him. It made Devon’s nipples harden and his cock throb in expectation. “Please understand me. You have to be the one to do this for me.”
“Whatever happened to, ‘I don’t beg’ and ‘We don’t have to do this’?” Devon asked, lifting a brow. He knew he shouldn’t tease, but he couldn’t help it. He’d never seen Carl Pink even a little bit undone. And maybe, just maybe that had been a huge incentive behind him saying yes to this entire sordid plan.
Carl pressed his lips together in a firm line and then he stepped closer, close enough that Devon would only have to bend his head and lift Carl’s chin to plant a kiss on his plump lips.
When he spoke again, his deep voice teased Devon’s cock, and Devon didn’t harbor any worry that Carl would be able to arouse him enough to perform. “L-look,” Carl said quietly, so that Devon did have to bend his head to hear him better. “Isn’t it enough that I’ve t-told you how much I like you? Even though confessing it sort of makes me want to th-throw up?” He looked up at Devon. “What more do you want from me?”
“An honest conversation.”
“I’m being honest.”
“I know, but before we have sex, we need toreallytalk. Set boundaries. Expectations. Discuss likes, dislikes, fantasies, fears. All of that.”
Carl wrinkled his perfect little nose. “Do we though?” He slid his hands over Devon’s arms seductively and pressed into his space. “I mean, if we just got it out of the way, we c-could relax and enjoy the rest of the weekend.”
“If you like me, Carl, then you’ll care what I want too.”
Carl chewed on his lip again, moving in so, so close that Devon could feel the heat of his body, the sweetness of his breath filling the space between their mouths. “I care what you want. But I think it’s cruel to make me wait when I’ve wanted you for…” Another pause. “For five years.”
Devon choked on a laugh. “That’s ridiculous.”
The claim didn’t compute. Every time he’d seen Carl, he’d been silent and stuck-up, ignoring Devon at best, and snubbing him at worst. Given how Carl had treated him in the past, Devon still didn’t understand why he’d even agreed to this entire thing.
Hope had some kind of evil powers of persuasion.
Well, and there’d been the implicit promise of seeing Carl Pinkactuallyflushed pink, trembling with want, and falling apart as he came undone. For Devon. There’d been that, too. And that image had been a huge draw. But what if Carl orgasmed in grim silence, all rigid and frozen? What then?
Devon’s mind rebelled at that, ticking over into the planning phase: how to best tear down Carl’s icy exterior until it disappeared. How to undo Carl Pink. He felt sure he could do it. But it would be onhisterms, not Carl’s. At least not Carl’s“get it over with”terms. Maybe some of his other terms, depending on what they were, and what he wanted. Which was the entire point. They needed to have a conversation. And not this one about Carl crushing on Devon ever since he’d met him, despite every appearance to the contrary.
But Carl said he shut off when he was nervous, grew cold. Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he’d had crushed on Devon the entire time and that was why he’d seemed so stand-offish?
“What’s the worst that could happen if we talk?”
“I’ll like you more.”
Devon rolled his eyes and snorted.
“See? You l-laughed,” Carl said, still calm despite what should have been hurt-laced words. “I sh-shouldn’t have told you that.”
Devon sighed. Why was Carl so confusing? He put his hand on one of Carl’s, which still rested on his arm, and tugged it off. “It’s not that you shouldn’t have said it, I guess I just don’t believe it. I mean you can’t like me all that much when you don’t even know me.”
Carl shrugged. “Fine, I can g-get to know you if it makes you h-happy.”
That at least was in the direction Devon wanted to go, but did Carl have to sound so put out by it? Though perhaps it was the surprise stutter that Devon had never heard before—because Carl had so rarely talked before—that made him sound impatient.
“And would it really makeyouhappy to just go upstairs to ‘get it over with’? Would that really be what you want from me? Someone you claim to like? I don’t understand that.”
Carl looked at the floor and took a step back. “I know you don’t have feelings for me, so I thought it would be less awkward for you, for us both, if we just did it. Th-that way I don’t get confused.”
