My simple words had shadows and light shifting in his beautiful eyes. He levered himself up and over me in a stiff push-up so that I could work his boxers off and around his straining erection. It sprang free, thick and ready, wearing a new adornment. I blinked at it and then looked up at him in question.

“Why is your penis wearing a ring?”

He snorted out a laugh that I think had more to do with the clinical term for the body part in question than it did with my actual question.

“I just switched out the barbell.”

Behind the ridge of the head of his engorged erection was a thin hoop that circled the entire circumference of his cock. The little silver ring was fascinating. I wasn’t an expert on body piercing by anyone’s standards, but I had never seen anything like it, especially paired with that piercing at the tip that he used to its full advantage and I had to admit I was a huge fan of.

“Your dick is wearing jewelry.”

That made him laugh for real and he hooked an arm around my shoulders and rolled us over so that I was straddling him. He stacked his hands behind his head and grinned up at me.

“I like to switch it up. It’ll feel good, trust me.”

I didn’t doubt it, and for the first time since we started having sex, I really wished I wasn’t so scarred, so scared about talking to him about what this thing we were doing really was. If it was a relationship, a committed partnership, I would be on birth control and get to feel all that hard and hot flesh against the cool slide of metal without latex between us. That sounded divine and I was mad at myself for being my own stumbling block in figuring my life out, in figuring out what I was doing with this gorgeous and engaging man.

I leaned back and dug around in his nightstand for the box of condoms I knew was in there. While I was all stretched out he used his thumbs to trace the line of my ribs on each side of my body. He was always so reverent, so tactile, when he put his hands on me. Even a simple caress like that had my heart rate speeding up and my blood heating in anticipation.

Before I covered him, I took a few minutes to play with his new hardware. The ridge it left, the way it got hot against his skin, promised a good time for sure. I wanted to put it in my mouth but he stopped me with hands in my hair.

“Not this time.”

I lifted an eyebrow at him as he took the condom from me and covered himself. He urged me up higher on my knees and placed me over the tip of his straining erection. I got that he was trying to make a point. That he was trying to show me something I just wouldn’t accept or hear, but there were two of us involved in this and I wanted to make sure he knew just how much I felt for him as well. I was just confused about it and trying to be realistic, keep it all in a box I was comfortable with.

I didn’t get the chance to reciprocate the feeling or emotion because he tugged me down over him and I lost the ability to think. Nash was a big guy, everywhere. He was already thick and turgid, so after that initial penetration, having that ring he was wearing stretch me apart even further, having it drag along my sensitive inner flesh with a rolling, warm glide … it made me incapable of being able to do anything but feel. The pressure was greater than usual, the slither of our internal flesh was sexier. I thought I was going to come before he even got all the way inside of me.

“Oh my …” I’m pretty sure my eyes rolled all the way back in my skull.

He chuckled, which only made the sensation sharper, and I pried my eyes open to look down at him once he was fully seated inside of me. I think he liked it best when I was on top because I had no choice but to look at him. Right now he looked smug and pleased with himself.

“It gets better. You have to move, Saint.” He lifted both of his hands and cupped each of my breasts.

I threw my head back and groaned. I took his advice and did as he asked. I started to ride him, the up and down, the pull and push of that hoop plus his PA all along the inside of me, was so good. I curled my hands on his chest and watched him watch me. If it was possible, his eyes got darker and darker the closer I got. I shifted, clamped down on him, listening to his breath come faster and faster and reveling in the way his chest moved up and down more rapidly. I was close, so close, and knew if I asked him to touch me just a little bit more or just reached between my legs to touch myself, it would be done. I opened my mouth to plead with him, to ask him to finish it, but before I got the words out, he suddenly jackknifed up into a sitting position and rolled us over.

He was looming over me, his hand clasping either side of my face. His expression turned a little wild, and when I went to ask what was going on, he attacked my mouth and started moving in and out of me, thrusting against me, pounding inside of my body like a person possessed. All I could do was hold on for the ride because I was already too close to the edge. My nails dug hard enough into his shoulders that I felt the skin break. At the first stroke of his tongue against mine, the bite of his teeth against my lip, I broke apart under him in an orgasm that felt like it turned me inside out. I just clung to him, let him surge and heave inside of me until he buried his nose in the crook of my neck and groaned his own completion. That wasn’t just sex; that was Nash giving part of himself over to me to keep forever.

His hand fell away from my face but he didn’t move. His breath was ragged in my ear and I could feel his heart thundering rapidly against my own. I stroked a soothing hand down the spine of that dragon, felt Nash’s body shake a little at the touch.

“You undo me, Saint.”

“I’m sorry.”

He sighed and rolled over so that he could pull me on top of his chest.

“Just try and put me back together when you’re done with me, all right?”

I didn’t know what to say to that or if that was a promise I could make to him. I curled my hands under his arms and rubbed my cheek against his pectoral muscle. It was way too hard to make any kind of comfortable pillow, but I didn’t want to move.

“Can I stay the night with you, Nash?” I couldn’t give him all of the things he wanted from me, but that I could do.

He sighed and it ruffled the hair on the top of my head. “At some point I really want us in a place that isn’t even a question you think you need to ask.”

I didn’t know that a place like that existed for us, but it felt like if it did, it would be right here in this moment with the two of us still entwined and a part of one another.

The next morning Nash was running late, which might have had something to do with the fact that I woke up before him and couldn’t resist putting my mouth around that circle of stainless steel. I’m sure he enjoyed the wake-up call, but he ran out of the door muttering something about calling a girl Phil thought could help him out at the shop and having to swing by the new shop and check in with the contractor. He was juggling so many balls I had no idea how he kept it all straight or found the time to deal with me and all my issues on top of it.

He gave me a hard kiss, told me to make breakfast or whatever I wanted, and blew out the door like a tattooed tornado. He had spent many a morning in my place when I had to go to work, it was strange being on the opposite side of that. I was making coffee, wearing one of his T-shirts that was way too big and way too long, when there was a knock at the door. I was going to ignore it because I didn’t feel it was my place to answer the door at Nash’s apartment when I heard my name called through the wood.

“Saint? It’s Royal. Can I talk to you for a minute? I know you’re here because your Jetta is still outside.”

Ugh. I didn’t want to face her after last night. Didn’t want her to see how jealous I was that she had spent a normal evening with Nash, but I wandered over to open the door anyway.