Page 18 of Single Player

“Don’t hold back.” Matthew shifted his hips slightly. “It’s okay. Come on. I won’t break. I want to feel you fuck me.”

Silas let his head drop, his body suspended over Matthew, and he was a wrecked picture of need. Perfect. Still stroking his cock, Matthew watched his partner try to compose himself, feeling the thick, hot pressure of Silas’s dick inside him and loving every moment.

When Silas met his gaze again, his expression was all fierce determination, a touch of wildness in his eyes. “Yeah?” he asked, an edge of something dangerous in his voice amid all the need. “You want me to fuck you?” He drew back and pressed forward again, slamming all the way inside, and this time it was Matthew’s turn to gasp.

“Jesus.” He gripped his cock, his other hand trying to gain purchase on the slippery bedsheets.

“That’s right.” Silas set up a hard rhythm, teeth clenched. He looked like a different person, out of control and forceful, thrusting hard over and over again. His gaze never left Matthew’s. As he angled his hips more, he hit the spot inside Matthew that made him light up from the inside out, his body going from “this is amazing” to “fuck fuck fuck” instantaneously. Matthew worked his cock over just as hard and fast, needing more, needing to come, but he couldn’t look away from Silas, with his gorgeous dark eyes and expression of sheer, overwhelming lust. All teasing and games between them were gone, everything focused on this act, this moment. He felt the tension building in his body, forcing him to that edge, each thrust sending him closer until he exploded in orgasm. He felt his body seize up, arching, his muscles clenching hard around Silas’s cock as waves of sharp, fierce pleasure crashed through him. His eyes slammed shut, but he heard Silas whimper and felt him shove forward, driving fully inside, trembling through his own climax.

---

“You okay there?”

Matthew’s amused voice brought Silas out of his reverie. He’d collapsed on the bed next to Matthew, out of breath and out of his mind with the aftershocks of the pleasure he’d just experienced. Coming back to himself, he took the tissues Matthew offered and cleaned himself up, disposing of the condom in the wastebasket beside the bed and then flopping down onto his back again. He couldn’t seem to think. Thoughts drifted out of his mind as fast as they drifted in, and his mind remained a blank slate.

He had only been stoned once, back when he’d tried a pot brownie at his college roommate’s insistence. Back then, he didn’t like the mindless sensation and the way the high made everything fuzzy around the edges. This was a similar quiet high, the kind that made him unable to concentrate on any one idea, and just as before, he didn’t like it. He felt disconnected from his body, floating somewhere outside its edges, like he was going to pieces and couldn’t pull himself back together. This probably wasn’t what Matthew meant by taking him apart.

“Hey!” Matthew’s voice came louder, and his hand on Silas’s shoulder was a surprising reminder of contact. “I asked if you were okay.”

“I’m okay.” He wasn’t sure if he was or not, but that seemed the right thing to answer. His voice sounded rusty and his throat felt dry. He was beginning to recenter himself now, and he realized he must have been making some sort of noise during sex to have his throat and mouth this dry. Already, the orgasmic hormones were beginning to ebb and leaving him feeling shaken and worn out.

“Thought you’d zoned out on me there.” Matthew had rolled over to face Silas, smiling. “So, do you always swear during sex?”

Silas shook his head, the movement feeling slow and sluggish. “No, this is a first for me.” He thought back to some of the other times he had had sex, and how afterward he couldn’t stop analyzing his performance and how he could have done better. He enjoyed sex, sure, but it usually felt like a test he had to ace. This hadn’t felt like a test. Instead, it had felt overwhelming, all-consuming, primal. He had barely been able to control himself, and now that he looked back, that was terrifying.

“Well, maybe you’ve been doing sex wrong.” Matthew sat up and shifted, wincing slightly. “It’s been a little while for me, too. I’m gonna be sore tomorrow.”

Silas remembered the way he’d slammed into Matthew, unconcerned for anything but his own climax, his body acting on its animal instincts. He felt an upsurge of shame. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“No, no, it’s fine.” Matthew smiled at him. “I’d have told you if it was too much. I like this kind of sore. It’s like a pleasant souvenir.”

Silas couldn’t be sure he felt the same way. Right now, he felt lost and shaken. He sat up as well, his body still feeling apart from him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Silas could see Matthew’s smile fade as he studied him. Matthew put a gentle hand on Silas’s shoulder. “What’s wrong? I told you, I’m not hurt. That was awesome. I loved all of that. Was it not good for you?”

Silas tried to find words for what he was feeling. “No, it was good. More than good.” The climax had been incredible, better even than last week in the coatroom, probably the best he’d ever had. “I just . . .” He stared down at the pile of their clothes on the floor. “I don’t like losing control like that. I felt like an animal.”

“That’s what sex is sometimes.” Matthew rubbed a small circle on Silas’s back. “Come on, let’s get dressed. I’ll get you something to drink.”

Matthew pulled on some sweatpants and a T-shirt, then disappeared from the room. Silas got up, still feeling sluggish, and got dressed as well. It felt strange to put his work clothes on again, to just go about his night like a normal person. Matthew might think that sex naturally made people feel like animals, but that wasn’t what it was like for Silas. He stayed in control, he kept himself respectable, and he didn’t let his guard down. With Matthew, though, he couldn’t seem to keep his guard up. This man had ways of breaking down his defenses, especially physically, making him want and need and crave in unfamiliar ways.

He felt like he was a totally different person with Matthew. One possibility, though, was that this had always been an aspect of his personality, and he’d just never had anyone bring it out before. That possibility felt disturbing, like finding out someone had been living in your house with you for years without you knowing it. Maybe that was why he felt so out of control with Matthew, when in the rest of his life he was perfectly in control. Something about this man brought out a side of Silas that he liked to keep bottled up, the part of him that wanted wildness, the part that was spontaneous and unpredictable. That part frightened him. If he wasn’t the emotionally unshakable Silas Benson, who was he?

---

Silas left a little after ten, after cheesesteaks and a few episodes of The Office, which he’d of course never watched, since the guy probably never watched television. They’d had a pretty fun evening, actually. After Silas left, though, Matthew sat on the sofa for a while, trying to make sense of what mixed feelings he was now having. He hadn’t expected mixed feelings, or any feelings, really, other than lust and sated lust, and now he felt uncomfortable in ways that had nothing to do with the aftereffects of sex. He couldn’t even define the discomfort, either. It wasn’t any of the emotions he would think sex might evoke. Honestly, it had been quite a while since sex had evoked any emotions in him at all, emotions other than the ones actually related to the act itself. He enjoyed fucking, but he didn’t get attached. And he wasn’t attached to Silas, that was for sure. But their conversations afterward had brought up the same feelings that had arisen last time.

Guilty. He was feeling guilty. What the hell? He didn’t do guilt. Guilt was a wasted emotion: you learned from mistakes and moved on, but here he was feeling like it was he who had to live up to some absent parents’ expectations instead of Silas. He was a programmer at a stable company, he tended bar some weekends, he had a thriving social circle, he made decent money, and he’d recently bought this fantastic loft apartment right in the heart of downtown. He successfully picked up hot guys whenever he wanted to get laid, sent them home satisfied, and nobody’s heart got broken. What in the hell did he have to feel guilty about?

Not wanting to face these unsettling feelings, he got up to mix himself a drink. Tonight would be a simple night: a gin and ginger, a mixture of flavors that refreshed in the Florida heat that had already settled over them even though it wasn’t technically spring yet. As he stirred the gin, just enough to mix and not to bruise, he felt the pangs of jealousy that accompanied the guilt in an uncomfortable duet. Silas was at the top of his career. He cared about his job and he worked hard. Matthew . . . did what he was assigned and delegated whatever he thought would be difficult.

Faced with Silas’s work ethic, it was hard not to feel like a slacker. He tried to shut down his inner voice and took a sip of the drink, which was mixed exactly right without even measuring. Like he needed to measure anything after so much time tending bar. With that thought, another twinge of discomfort twisted his stomach. Maybe he spent too much time tending bar. Gigi’s wasn’t a career, and he didn’t want to make it one, but he certainly picked up a lot of shifts there, generally enjoying the access to the party scene. If he stopped spending so much time partying and put his whole heart into PI Games, maybe he wouldn’t feel like such a slacker.

The guilt settled in the pit of his stomach along with something akin to indigestion. Granted, cheesesteaks and rowdy sex were not a good pairing normally, and so maybe it was literally indigestion. Yuck. He took another sip of his drink, letting the ginger ale soothe his stomach. He wasn’t supposed to have these kind of existential doubts. He was almost thirty. He wasn’t a kid anymore.

Of course, for someone who wasn’t a kid anymore, he really was living like he was still in college.

The thought felt uncomfortable, and he’d had enough of uncomfortable thoughts, so he forced himself to put the guilt aside. There was nothing wrong with fun, he reminded himself. With that mantra running through his head, he fired up the gaming system on his PC and ported over the display to his television so he could play on the big screen on the wall.