After the Fall

with this.”
    “It’s either that or you have to wait until I figure out how to do it one-handed.”
    “In that case . . .” He tore the condom wrapper with his teeth.
    We were both silent as he put the condom on me. Maybe he just needed to concentrate on the motions—putting a condom on someone else had tripped me up the first few times. Maybe he was too turned on, too focused. All I knew was having his hands on me, having him carefully rolling on the latex, killed any ability I had to speak. Fucking. That was all my mind had left. Fucking. Getting inside him for the first time.
    I want to fuck you so bad, Ryan . . .
    He picked up the lube I’d been using earlier, poured some into his hand, and stroked it onto my cock. I squirmed as he teased me through the condom.
    “You want . . . you want me to fuck you?” I asked. “Or you want to make me come like this?”
    Abruptly, his hand stopped. “Well, when you put it like that . . .”
    I swore under my breath. “Get on top. Now.”
    “I love it when you’re bossy,” he growled, and kissed me. Then, just before I was certain I was going to lose my mind, he got back on top, then lifted himself up a little. I steadied my cock with my good hand.
    “Easy,” I whispered as he came down. “Go slowly.”
    He nodded and eased himself onto the head of my cock. A little more pressure, and we both gasped as the first inch or so slid into him. He was so goddamned tight, almost painfully so. He came up a little, then started down, but winced.
    “Relax,” I said. “Just breathe and take it slow. There’s no . . . there’s no rush.”
    Ryan licked his lips. Closing his eyes as he came down again. As he took me deeper, I moved my hand to his hip. A little at a time, he took more, and he moved faster, and I didn’t know how the hell I was going to last when I was this turned on. My hand slipped off his hip because I couldn’t concentrate enough to hold on. I desperately wanted to grab him and thrust upward into him, but I couldn’t do anything. All I could do was lie there and let him ride my cock at his own speed, taking every inch of me at the most agonizingly slow pace.
    Somehow I found the concentration and coordination to move my hand, and I stroked his cock, keeping perfect time with his rhythm, and as he locked eyes with me, my heart skipped. Staring straight into his eyes, holding his gaze while he rode me, while I stroked him . . . God, the things I felt. Being inside him and being close to orgasm weren’t even the half of it.
    What the hell is . . .
    I have you, I’m inside you, but I still want more. I want it—want you—so bad it hurts.
    How do you have this effect on me?
    What the actual hell?
    Then he closed his eyes. His head fell forward, and his lips moved soundlessly. His cock got harder in my hand, so I stroked him a little faster, and his rhythm faltered but he kept riding me anyway. When he bit his lip and whimpered and came on my stomach, I couldn’t hold back anymore. My whole body was shaking, my toes curling as much as the plaster allowed, and my back arched as I came inside him.
    Panting hard, he sank down to me and kissed me. “Even better . . . than I thought it would be.”
    I grinned against his lips, but was too out of breath and too overwhelmed to speak, so I kissed him again.
    He lifted himself off me. Even with one hand, I managed to get the condom off, and with a little help from my cast hand, tied it and tossed it into the trash beside the bed.
    Then he joined me again, and we wrapped ourselves up in a gentle, lazy embrace and a lazier kiss. I loved the way he felt against me like this. Loved the taste of his kiss and the heat of his skin against mine.
    And I still couldn’t shake the way I’d felt when I’d looked up at him, looked right into his eyes as we’d both inched toward orgasm.
    That hadn’t been just lust, and I couldn’t convince myself otherwise. It was far too deep and terrifying and visceral to be lust alone.
    How the hell had we gotten to this point? I’d sworn it wouldn’t happen. Was Brad really right? Fuck. It had been too easy. Effortless. We’d slipped into this so subtly, I hadn’t noticed until we were in this deep.
    I couldn’t. I just . . . I couldn’t. Ryan would be gone before winter, and my past still stung. Back-to-back disastrous relationships—the rebound being an even more colossal failure than the one I’d been rebounding from—had left me jaded, and both of those wounds