His words made me even hotter and wilder. He hooked one arm under my knee, and I brought my leg up to rest against his shoulder. I was totally spread for his penetration. The thick length of him rubbed against every internal nerve. I could feel my body tightening as the now-familiar signals told me yet another orgasm was soon upon me.

His hips began to pump against me in a faster and faster rhythm. I hung on to his neck, pulling myself up against him. His hand dug into my ass as we strained to get closer, closer. His mouth dropped to my ear, and he growled, “Are you there?”

“Close, so close,” I panted. He reared up onto his haunches with barely a break in his rhythm and began hauling my hips in short up-and-down movements as he rocked inside of me. His thumb touched the top of my clit, and it felt like he had pushed a button to release the top of my head. At the sound of my scream of release, Bo let go and slammed into me, his balls touching my ass with every deep, fast, hard stroke. He shouted out his own release and then collapsed on top of me. I stroked his back, smoothing my hands down the sweat-slicked skin.

“When I said that I wanted you to give me a chance, I didn’t mean have sex,” Bo mumbled against the pillow.

“I know,” I replied. “It’s a perk.”

Bo’s big body rumbled against me in amusement. A light streamed through from the hallway, and I noticed we hadn’t even closed the door properly. I hadn’t heard Ellie come in, but an elephant could have been rampaging through the apartment and I wouldn’t have noticed. All I could do was laugh in rueful embarrassment.

“Don’t ever laugh after you’ve had sex,” Bo mumbled into my neck. “It gives us performance anxiety.” He rolled over onto his back and then off the bed. He hitched up his jeans, closed the door, and went into the bathroom. I heard the faucet turn on, the toilet flush, and a little rustling. When he returned from the bathroom, he was completely nude. If I’d had an ounce of life left in me, I’d have been excited, but Bo had pretty much screwed me into a state of extreme lethargy. I crawled under the covers and held them up, and he climbed in beside me.

Chapter Nineteen

AM

SLEEPING WITH BO SEEMED TO change everything. It spurred Ellie into moving things along with Ryan. “If you can take the plunge, then I will, too,” Ellie declared when she came home to see Bo dressed in my ill-fitting boxers and nothing else, making mac and cheese. I hustled him into the bedroom to dress while he and Ellie laughed at my bright red face.

Of course Bo wasn’t embarrassed that Ellie had seen him almost nude. I was the one who couldn’t think about it without looking like a tomato.

“Don’t worry, Sunshine,” Bo whispered in my ear as he passed out the bowls of pasta. “I get it. You don’t want to share me.”

In anticipation of Valentine’s Day, a day both Ellie and I despised despite actually having the potential for dates this year, we arranged to watch Magic Mike on Friday night. Bo and Ryan insisted on staying over. The apartment seemed crowded with two rather large males roaming about. Add in Sasha and Brian and I felt like we were hosting a Super Bowl party or something.

Bo was convinced that all of the cast were gay, as no straight man had any decent moves. Ryan then put on a little performance in the living room, both by shaking his booty and then kissing the hell out of Ellie until she was the one red as a fruit.

When we all went down to the Garden that evening, Bo showed off a few moves of his own, which proved that he was once again yanking our chains just to see our reactions.

On Saturday, we ran a few more mayo experiments in one of the houses Bo was helping Finn flip, using people we’d pulled off a Craigslist ad Bo had posted a week ago. The results were largely the same. The women asked for help and the men usually went without. There were deviations, of course. Whether this was the result of social conditioning, however, was something we couldn’t figure out.

We spent all Sunday in bed because the newness of our relationship made us so horny that being in public was actually a dangerous activity. Sasha had had to pull us off the dance floor earlier that week, stating that even at the Garden, some propriety had to be observed.

“You look very good in the morning,” Bo said Sunday morning. He looked edible himself, with his hair mussed from our late night and early morning activities. I stroked a hand over it, more to just enjoy the soft springy feel than to smooth it down.

“What do you want to do today?” he asked, leaning over to kiss my forehead. He tenderly brushed the hair out of my eyes and smiled at me like I was the best thing he’d ever seen.

“I don’t want to move,” I admitted. “Or put clothes on. I just want to stay right here and touch you.”

“Great minds think alike,” he whispered, pulling me on top of him. I felt his cock growing hard against my thigh and felt my own body dampen in response. His palms rested on my hips, repositioning me until our centers were pressed hard flesh against softness. I rocked against him, but his hands kept me from slipping that delicious firmness inside me. Instead he dragged me up and down his length, all the while running his hot, open mouth along my neck.

I curled my arms around his shoulders and held on as he slowly rubbed against me, like we were teenagers in the backseat, and I’d only agreed to over-the-clothes touching.

“Are we sixteen?” I gasped when his cock’s head hit a particularly sensitive part.

“If you were sixteen, you’d be jailbait. But,” and he paused for a second, “I’d still want to be all over you. And inside you.”

“Come inside me now, then,” I pleaded. I tried to wedge a hand between us so I could guide him right to the spot where I needed him.

“Shhh, we’ve got all day,” Bo said.

With that, I tamped down my impatience and allowed myself to be swept up by Bo’s desire.

CLASS THE FOLLOWING WEEK WAS particularly difficult. We couldn’t keep our hands of each other. The professor didn’t say a word, but I felt like he caught us a time or two.

I had to be the good one, because Bo claimed he had no self-control. What he really meant was that he had no desire to exert it now that we were together.

His hand crept onto my leg, higher and higher. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to touch me. Rather it was that I responded to him too easily. He’d absently rub his fingers against the inseam of my jeans, and I’d get wet and have to sit there trying to take notes while aroused and uncomfortable. It wasn’t easy.

“Can you not place your hand on my leg,” I hissed at the beginning of class on Wednesday. I’d barely made it out of Bio on Monday without having an orgasm from just his hand resting on my thigh.

“Will you place yours on mine instead?” Bo bargained.

“No, I won’t.” I frowned at him.

“I’m glad I’m a lefty. Makes it easier to take notes and stroke you at the same time.” Bo looked smug, as if he had willed himself into being left-hand dominant for just the purpose of being able to multitask with his girlfriend during class.

“I’m trying to concentrate, and you’re making it too hard,” I complained.

“Lord, I’m the one who’s hard all the time.” Bo smiled perversely. “But I like it.” Suddenly his mood turned serious. “Am I really bothering you? Because I’ll stop.”

His blue eyes filled with worry. He was always so concerned about how I felt: whether it was good for me in bed, if I had the right kind of food; if should he carry me over the snow-covered walk so my boots wouldn’t get wet. I cupped his cheek and gave him a sweet kiss. “It’s all good.”

I did love his hand on my thigh or around my shoulders. His near-constant attention and his need for regular physical connection made me feel secure and desirable.

We traded our schedules, but apparently Bo knew all of mine already.

“Mike,” he explained with a touch of chagrin.

I shook my head. I barely knew who that was, but I didn’t care. Bo worked out early in the mornings and then met me at the apartment to take Ellie and me out for breakfast, if we wanted. Sometimes Ryan even came, and Ellie and I shared a small smile of pleasure at seeing both guys get along so well despite their five year age difference. Ryan was an old soul, I guess.

“Is your nickname because you like to do Easter dioramas with Peeps?” I asked one evening we were having dinner together. Bo had finally confessed, after I subjected him to much pulling of his chest hair, that the boys in his platoon called him Bo Peep.

“Easter what?” he asked, his forkful of spaghetti hanging suspended halfway between the plate and his mouth.

“Dioramas, you know, the little scenes made out of candy?”

“Nope. And I’m going to have to see pictures of this. Is this like the duck face? Because I haven’t recovered from that yet.” He proceeded to shovel the food in his mouth like he hadn’t eaten in a month, when I knew for a fact he’d had a foot-long sub sandwich after biology class.

“Maybe I don’t want to tell you. You might not respect me in the morning.” His tone was semi-serious.

“Don’t say that. It’s not funny.”

“I know it’s not. That’s why I don’t want to share with you.” Bo set his fork down and reached for my hand. “I want you to continue in your deluded state believing that I’m good enough for you.”

I gave him a dour look and gave up. “Do you want me to walk you to the gym before class?”

“On campus?”

“Yeah, I heard you put on quite the show.” I pulled my hand back and picked up my fork.

“Nah, I went back to Paulie and abased myself. Promised I wouldn’t fight, and he allowed me back into Spartan.”

“Why there instead of Central?”

Bo shrugged and took another big bite of his dinner. “Where else can I flip tractor tires?”

“A farm?” I teased.

“I’m an oilman, not a farmer, Sunshine,” Bo drawled.

“Are you?” I asked curiously. Bo didn’t share much about his past.

“Well, Pops was,” Bo referred to his grandfather affectionately. “He had a couple of wells we thought were dried up on the back of some property but ended up having a little left. Leased the mineral rights for a lot of money, gave some to his son and put some in trust for me.”

“What are you doing at Central then?”

“Didn’t have anything better going on.” At my stare, Bo grinned. “That’s the real reason. I couldn’t think of anything better at the time when Noah announced he was coming here. I’ve been following that boy since we were seventeen. I figured that if I spent two more years in school, maybe I’d figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.”

“I’ve always known,” I admitted.

“Insurance has always been your dream?” Bo asked skeptically.

“Not insurance, but being able to support myself and my mom,” I explained. “I know from other people’s experience I can make a good living in it. And it’s something that’s kind of recession-proof. I need to be in a career with a lot of security.”

Bo nodded gravely. He understood that I needed stability in all aspects of my life, including the parts where he was taking root.

If I had an evening class, Bo showed up to walk me home, and he often spent the night. I was grateful that Ellie didn’t mind the company.

Afternoons and weekends we studied. Or tried to, at least.

“I’m bored,” Bo said, throwing his pen down on his notebook. “I hate class.”

“This particular class in general or all of them?” My nose was still buried in my notebook.

“All of them,” he grunted and rolled onto his side so he could trace the curve of my spine as we laid side by side on the bed. It was Friday night, two weeks after our coffee shop confessions. Bo didn’t seem to mind that I wanted to work on school stuff instead of going out and drinking with his buddies. I’d even skipped a party at his house, although Bo went for a short time and returned a couple hours later complaining the party was no fun without me.

I turned my head to peer at him. “Why? It all seems to come so easy for you.”

Bo had an amazing recall. I wasn’t sure if he even needed to take notes or if he did so because it kept him occupied during class.

“I’d rather be doing stuff. Sitting for fifty minutes listening to some prof wank on about some dead topic is worse than walking patrol for eleven miles with our hundred-and-fifty-pound rucksacks on our backs.”

“What about your trust?”

Bo gave a negligent shrug. “Dunno. Think it’s controlled by the bank back in Little Oak.”

“Do you have to be in school? Is that like a requirement of your trust?”

He shook his head.

“Then why even be here?”

“What else would I do?” Bo asked, perplexed. “Isn’t that what people do? Graduate, get a degree. Work nine to five and then want to kill yourself at the end of the day from boredom.”