Seaworthy

This erotic story excerpt by K.L. Noone from Seaworthy (Character Bleed Book 1) was originally published by JMS Books and is a Runner Up in the Good Sex Awards Sexiest Consent Category.

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“Okay. New rule. You said you looked things up. You know about safewords and signals and all that, right? You fucking use them. Clear?”

“What…right now?”

“Now. Any time. With me, god, I fucking hope you’d tell me. But—but even if it’s not with me. If you—some other film, some other night, someone else, someone you want—I want you to promise me you’ll say red or yellow, stop or slow down, or whatever terms you decide on. I’ll make it an order. You can follow it. That’s something I want. Tell me you will.”

Even if it’s not you, Colby thought. Even if I say stop now and walk away, if we never do anything more. If I decide I want someone else. You want me to be safe.

And—though he wasn’t sure Jason had thought through those implications—he’d always be following Jason’s orders, if he said yes. Irrevocable. A piece of himself, from this moment on: the self that secretly bashfully rather wanted to say yes and make Jason proud.

Even deeper, under that, he did not think it would matter, because he did not think he’d want anyone else; he’d been scared and tired and lonely before Jason, and Jason was kind, and that kindness would ruin him for anyone less so.

He knew that, and he knew Jason would move on—Jason was clearly thinking along those lines already—and he knew also that he’d say the yes.

He’d have this moment, this glimpse, whatever stolen time he’d be allowed. He’d keep it folded like a love-letter down in the cracks of his heart, where he could pull it out and smile at the handwriting of memory from time to time, alone in his bed.

And that would make him smile, thinking of this. Thinking of Jason, of Jason wanting him to be safe.

He said, “Yes. I will, I promise.”

Jason narrowed eyes. “That seemed too easy.”

“You wanted me to say yes. I did.”

“You didn’t mean it?”

“I meant it! I didn’t want to argue over it. Yes, I’ll use safewords and stoplights and anything else you suggest, if the kinky sex situation ever comes up in the future. If there’s something that doesn’t feel right. Happy?”

“I don’t know.” Jason hesitated. “Do you mind if I stand up? I won’t touch you. I said I wouldn’t, and I won’t.”

“I don’t mind if you do want to touch me,” Colby said.

“That’s not the same as wanting it.”

“You can stand up.”

Jason, given this permission, surged to both feet. This put his height and bulk and power a heartbeat away from Colby’s body: a lean in, an exhale, a shiver, might’ve brought them together.

Jason put out a hand. Not touching, but the promise and prophecy of a touch: a gesture that might’ve cupped Colby’s cheek, cradled his face, held him securely in one large palm and fingers.

Colby trembled, his own hand half-forgotten over his heart, which had begun pounding like thunder.

“I’m not touching you.” The low rumble of Jason’s voice wrapped around Colby’s senses like velvet rope, and raced along his spine, and coiled at the base of his cock, sparking a new throb of desire. “I won’t. This is about you. Nothing you’re not comfortable with. I’m just letting you know I’m right here, okay?”

“You’re very much here,” Colby managed. Everything felt bewildering, a snarled luminous knotwork of need and nerves and yearning and doubt. He wanted Jason’s hands on him so badly he thought he might explode into flames; he also wanted to cry, because Jason understood, because Jason had seen him flinch from rough handling, because Jason had realized that there were ways he did not want to be touched, and instead of mocking Colby’s inadequacy in this particular area had talked to him and not touched him. “I…I’m still not afraid of you.”

“You’re shaking.”

“Your room is the preferred temperature of North Pole elves. I’m not scared of sex.”

“Yeah? Show me.” Jason lowered the hand, but kept it out just enough to carry significance: a gesture that in another life would’ve been a caress, a grip finding Colby’s hip, an assurance of fingers. “Want me to make it warmer in here?”

“No. It’s your room. What—what do you want me to do?”

Jason’s gaze, dark and hot, traveled across his chest. Colby discovered that he could still blush.

Jason grinned, and somehow that wasn’t mocking, but private and affectionate, turning the embarrassment into something shared, a moment for just the two of them. “You said your nipples’re sensitive. Show me that.”

Colby shivered, and moved fingers, as commanded.

His whole body sparkled and sang at the touch. At the skim of a fingertip, the press and the pressure as he caught that taut right nipple between thumb and finger, and teased himself with possibilities.

Jason groaned.

Colby, encouraged—too shy to look up at Jason’s face, but that was fine, Jason seemed to like him watching his own ministrations—did it a bit harder. Then more. Sharper, a bit of a roll, a bit of a twist, a bit of bright twinkling almost-pain that danced along nerve-endings.

He made himself gasp.

“You do like that,” Jason whispered. “You like feeling it. Do that again. Harder.”

He did. And it felt good.

It felt more than good, honestly. It felt incredible. The radiance blossomed across his chest, at his nipple, and bloomed throughout his body. Jason’s command sank into him and became an anchor, one written in gold and etched along his bones.

His cock was wet-tipped, he realized: so erect and ready that it pushed up against his stomach, leaving gleaming evidence of desperate need. That need pooled and gathered between his legs, in his balls, in the ache to be taken and wanted and filled.

“God.” Jason’s voice was ragged. “Colby…”

“Yes?”

“Colby. If you could see this, the way you look, if you’d believe me when I said you’re the most gorgeous fucking thing I’ve ever seen…you, like this, trusting me with this…you can, um. Use the other hand. Touch your cock. Don’t make yourself come. Just—just show me what feels good.”

“You’re still not touching me,” Colby said dreamily, and rediscovered his other hand, given permission. He trailed fingers along his shaft, feather-light, no real plan, only sensation. “You said you wouldn’t, and you’re not…”

“I’m not. I promised. I want you to know I mean it.” Jason glanced down at himself; that wry smile returned, faced with the growing damp spot across pajama pants, where his cock must be leaking with desire, eager and ready, but remaining hidden under clothes. “Might have to touch myself, later. After. I’m not asking you for that.”

“Why aren’t you—

“Because I’m not. Is that what you like? Being gentle?”

“Oh…no. Yes. I don’t—”

“You’re not allowed to say you don’t know unless you actually don’t know.”

“I don’t always want the same thing, I was going to say.” He wrapped his hand around his cock. Couldn’t hold back the tiny moan: too good, too tantalizing, when his body’d been craving some notice, some attention, some answer to the need. “Sometimes I like slow. Gentle. Sometimes I like hard and fast. Sort of…forcing myself to come, if that makes sense. Sometimes I want something that’s not either…if it’s just me…sometimes I like to make myself wait. Get close, and stop. And then do it again. And again. For quite a long time. That’s not…I can’t ask someone else for that, making it all about me, but you asked…”

He permitted himself a stroke, a lazy thrust into his own hand, watching the movement, the slickness of the head, the way it dripped to his fingers.

“Colby.” Jason’s voice snagged on want: audible and pure and in this moment unquestionable. “You can have that. You can do that. I would—I’d do that for you, if I could, just keep you in bed all fucking day and play with you, keep you right on that edge, until you were ready, until you were begging me to finally let you come, because you needed it too badly, and maybe I’d say yes, and maybe I wouldn’t…”

“Oh.” He caught himself in a firmer grip, enough to stop the shuddering swell. Jason had told him not to come. He wanted to be good. And he was dissolving into Jason’s words. A fantasy, of course—Jason had talked about other people once already, and this was an exercise in resolving sexual tension, not a daydream of everything Colby could’ve ever wanted. But, god, yes, for now, for this moment: yes.

He felt a bit lightheaded. Molten and liquid, transparent and translucent, made of, yes, light. Jason felt very large and warm in front of him. Very solid. Colby wanted to touch him. To curl into all those muscles and feel that weight against him, atop him, undeniable and suffusing all his senses. He wanted to taste Jason; he wanted to nuzzle into Jason’s heat like a kitten in summer sun.

He was vaguely aware that this was not a normal train of thought.

His hand had kept moving along his cock, without any real conscious decision. That felt nice. Everything between his legs felt nice. He thought fuzzily that he ought to’ve been embarrassed about something, about not doing enough or being enough, or admitting to what was a dreadfully selfish fantasy about his own pleasure, but he couldn’t find the embarrassment. It slipped away like shining silver fish in the sunlit stream his thoughts’d become.

“Colby,” Jason said, in a tone that suggested he’d said it more than once. “Still okay? You look like you went away, sort of. In your head.”

“It’s a lovely kind of going away,” Colby told him. “Like honey. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like honey before. I think I’d recall that. Or maybe I wouldn’t, right now. It’s like the fish.”

“Like the what?”

“Thoughts. Slippery. I’m not certain my legs are working. Does this happen for everyone? Have I been missing something completely wonderful, only it’s not really because it’s like this all the time and I’ve just not been doing it properly, sort of like tea, if that makes any sense…you’re looking at me oddly.”

“I’m honestly not sure,” Jason said, “whether I want to toss you into my bed and make you come so many times you finally forget how to talk, or whether I want to put you into my bed and worry a lot. You’d probably still talk, anyway. And no, it’s not always like—like honey. Are you feeling okay? Also, what about the tea?”

“Hmm? Oh. For years I thought I didn’t like it. I’m a disgrace to the English half of my heritage. But evidently there are other kinds of tea. You know. Flavors with fruit and vanilla and hibiscus and that sort of thing. I think perhaps sex is tea.”

“Oh my god,” Jason said. For a third time, Colby thought, though counting was imprecise at the moment.

“Or maybe you are,” he said to Jason. “Sort of…very muscular commanding tea. Tell me to do something else. I like that.”

“Colby,” Jason said once again, and shook his head, and laughed a little, but soft and fond. Colby liked that too; Jason sounded happy. “Okay. First, though, you said you weren’t sure you could stand up much longer.”

“Did I?” He was playing with his cock, rocking hips into his hand, getting lost and then found amid the sensations, over and over; he could not seem to stop, but that was fine. Jason liked him like this. He would like to stay this way, soft and floaty and shimmery inside, for as long as Jason said.

“More or less. Get on your knees.”

Colby actually didn’t recall moving, though he must’ve done; he blinked and was kneeling dizzily on the rug, gazing up at Jason, who loomed above him, limned in light.

“I want you,” Jason said, careful and clear and precise, as if making certain they both understood, “to make yourself come. I know you like making other people happy. You told me. But I think—I think you’ve been not letting yourself ask for things that feel good, and I think you’re feeling good right now, with me, and I want to see you feel everything you can. So I want you to get yourself off, right here, on your knees. I’m not touching you, this is all you, however you want to do that. That’s what I want.”

“Mmm…yes. I can do that.”

Jason laughed. “Good.”

“But what about you?” Colby decided, through the gilded honeyed clouds, that he could be coordinated enough for one hand on his cock, the other back on his nipple, squeezing, pinching. He whimpered aloud; his back arched, and more wetness slicked his hand, spilling from his tip. “You aren’t…you’re not…you’re still dressed!”

“Oh, Colby,” Jason said, someplace between sad and affectionate and gentle. “I told you. Don’t think about me.”

“But you want me. You said you did.”

“Yeah, but I’m not gonna take advantage of you. Or push you into something you don’t honestly want. Or make you think you owe me. That’s not how this works. Do that again. What you just did. You liked that one.”

Colby did it again, and moaned, and quivered: kneeling naked and shameless and decadent at Jason’s feet, the proof of how much he liked this painted on his skin, in the slide of his hand over his cock, in the scent of want in the air. Jason muttered something, low as a gut-punch, and dropped a hand to his own cock, squeezing through fabric, obviously holding back.

Jason was so good, Colby decided. So genuine. Everyone saw the muscles and the willingness, but missed the other pieces, the gentle compassion, the way those thoughtful dark eyes noticed people, the way Jason cared.

Jason could be large and firm and dominant, a man who’d give orders and be obeyed. But Jason would never ever hurt someone small and scared and inadequate but trying hard.

“Faster,” Jason said. “Harder, too. Make yourself come for me.”

Jason was doing this for him.

Colby, quivering on the brink, close to flying apart with it, moved both hands faster, harder, more forcefully. Obediently harsh, and oh he needed this, he needed—he was going to—

He gasped, “Please touch me.”

Jason did the opposite: abruptly entirely motionless. “You…want…”

“Not—not much…just please…what you nearly did, earlier, when you…and I couldn’t, not then, but I wanted…”

“You wanted me to.” Jason bent down, bent over him; that hand returned, hovered, settled next to Colby’s face. “Not much. Just a little…and you’ll stop me if you have to, nothing that you don’t want…nothing you can’t see…”

“Please,” Colby begged. “Please.”

Jason put out a finger, two fingers. Lifted his chin. Made him look up more; made him keep looking up, into Jason’s eyes.

The whole universe dwindled and then expanded, a paradox of single brilliant sparks. Jason’s fingertips were warm. Jason’s nearness filled the world, and Colby’s body flooded with rightness like a wave of diamonds, like a sea, like water; he fell into the curl and crash and break of it, opening up and spilling out, collapsing into peace.

He could not seem to focus, after, through the lazy ebb and flow of tides, a push-pull of sweet languor in his veins. He noticed when Jason knelt down on the floor with him, when Jason steadied him, when Jason asked in a worried voice about touching him more.

Colby, fuzzy, nodded, or tried to. Jason sighed. “Please say it out loud.”

“Mmm…words…”

“You can’t remember words.”

“Quiet, tea. Yes, fine…green, if you want stoplights and signals…I’m lovely. This feels lovely. You’re lovely.”

“You and I need to talk about some things,” Jason muttered, “once you’re back with me,” and then very gently literally picked Colby up, scooping him right into both strong arms, which was also lovely. “Here. Bed. Stay put. I’m getting you water and cleaning you up.”

“You’re very strong.”

“Thanks?” Jason came back with a warm washcloth and a bottle of water, and paid assiduous attention to Colby’s stickiness, and then got a hand behind his head for support. “Drink more. No, more. I’ll see what I’ve got as far as food in a minute. You’re gonna need energy.”

“I like you being strong,” Colby told him drowsily. A sort of thick heavy languidness had set in, not precisely sleepiness but a splendid contented compliance, as if this were exactly what he’d always never known he’d needed. “I thought I wouldn’t. No, that’s not true, I thought I would, when I first saw you. You looked like entirely the sort of person I’d want to use that strength on me, but then that was the part that scared me, you see.”

“So you are talking.” Jason gave him more water, sitting beside him. Their bodies did not quite touch, likely Jason being careful about that too, but that supportive hand had stayed at Colby’s head. “Knew it wouldn’t take long.”

 

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K.L. Noone teaches college students about superheroes and Shakespeare by day, and writes romance – frequently paranormal or with fantasy elements, usually LGBTQ+, and always with happy endings – when not grading papers or researching medieval outlaw life. She is happily bisexual and happily married, and a cat-parent to a big playful sweetheart named Merlyn.

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