Love Letters Post #25

 

Notes:  Longer, R-rated section for you guys today.  Ooh, enjoy it and watch the storm clouds start to brew overhead!  We’re in the last, oh, third to quarter of this story now, and I’m looking forward to beginning another serial in August, because I am a freak who likes to have too much to do.  That means I’ll have two running concurrently for a bit.  Never fear, I’ll post them on separate days so you won’t get overwhelmed.  And so I won’t get overwhelmed.  Ha-ha.

Title: Love Letters

 

Part Twenty-Five: Bad News and Bedroom Activities

 

***

 

Life settled down into a predictable pattern of work and play, more work by far but enough playing to keep Ben from dropping into a funk.  He organized, categorized, outlined and wrote and spent far too much time on the phone with Linda, but it finally felt like the book was coming together.  He might actually get ahead of schedule before he went out to join Ryan in Concord the last weekend of May, which would be perfect.  He didn’t want to be distracted when they saw each other again.

It turned out that distraction happened anyway, but not to Ben.  Ryan called him late on the evening of the 8^th, and Ben didn’t even get a chance to say hello before Ryan blurted out, “Cheryl’s been in an accident.”

Later on, Ben would be embarrassed by the fact that it wasn’t concerned shock that made him pause before replying, it was the effort of trying to remember who Cheryl was.  It came to him in a rush: Brody’s wife, Ryan’s sister-in-law, the woman who didn’t want me at her husband’s funeral.  Right, Cheryl.  “What kind of accident?”

“A fucking—” Ryan’s breath fluttered and caught his in throat and Ben realized then that it was bad.  “A fucking car accident.  Can you believe it?  After everything that happened, after Brody, she…she was heading home from a restaurant and drove her car into a tree.”

“Were the kids with her?”

Ryan exhaled gustily.  “No, thank god, she was alone.  But she’d been drinking.  Her blood alcohol level was way over the limit.  My mom knew Cheryl had been having problems, the kids are hard to manage by herself, especially Joey, but she didn’t think it was this bad.  I just got off the phone with her and she couldn’t stop crying, she thinks it’s her fault for not checking in with Cheryl more often—”

“How is Cheryl?” Ben asked, breaking in before Ryan talked himself in a circle.

“She’s going to be okay.  Got a concussion, and she broke her collarbone and has a lot of bruising.  The cops aren’t even going to charge her with reckless driving, they’re all taking it easy on her because she was Brody’s wife and no one else was hurt.”

“That’s pretty lucky.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”  Ryan didn’t sound convinced, but he let it go.  “She and the kids are going to go stay with my mom once she’s discharged, probably tomorrow.  I’m…I’m going to go help.”

Oh, wow.  “You’re moving back to Concord?”

“Since Cheryl’s out of commission, yeah, I am.  Mom can’t take care of Molly and Joey by herself, especially since their schools are across town in two different places.”

Ben kind of didn’t want to bring it up, but he had to ask.  “Doesn’t your sister live close by?”

Another sigh.  “Pamela can’t even remember to pick up her own kids from school, there’s no way she could handle any more than she’s already got.”  Ryan paused, then said, “Plus, Mom asked me for help.  It’s the first time she’s asked me for anything since I moved away, I couldn’t say no.”

                Brody had always described his sister Pam’s cluelessness as legendary, but Ben was still a little surprised by the reality of it.  And Ryan wasn’t the type to even think of saying no when someone he cared about asked him to do something.  Ben’s trip to Boston had showcased that side of Ryan pretty well, the part of him that wanted to make everyone happy, or as close to it as he could get.  Regardless, it wasn’t Ben’s place to judge.  “I guess you’re moving back to North Carolina, then.”

                “For a while,” Ryan agreed.  He sounded kind of frayed.  Ben wished he could jump through the phone; his fingers actually twitched with the impulse to stroke Ryan’s hair.

                “You’re bringing your artwork, right?”  That might give Ryan an outlet for the mixed emotions that were sure to come up while he was living in the home he’d been kicked out of over a decade ago.

“Yeah, I’ve got to.  Volume Five is supposed to be published at the end of June and I’ve still got a dozen panels to finish.  Jasmine’s caught somewhere between mothering me and murdering me.”

“She’ll default to mothering,” Ben assured Ryan with a smile. 

“Probably.  I wish I didn’t have to risk it either way.”

“I know the feeling.” 

They let the moment of perfect understanding linger for a while before Ryan finally broke it with, “If I didn’t have to pack, I would so get off with you right now.”

Ben laughed into the phone.  “It’s—” he checked the time, “almost midnight, you should be sleeping, not packing.  Are you going to drive down?”

“Yeah, I rented a car, and no, I shouldn’t be sleeping, I should be getting off with you,” Ryan groused.  “I miss you being here.  I know I’ve said it a million times, but it’s true.  If you were here I could roll over on top of you and kiss that spot just below your belly button that makes you giggle, and then I could take off your boxers—no, I would outlaw boxers in bed, why do you even wear those things—and I would blow you until you were seeing stars.”

Ben shifted in his computer chair, getting a little extra space between his thighs to accommodate his growing erection.  “I don’t giggle.  And I wore boxers in bed because at any moment someone might have busted into your room to make helpful comments about our sex life.”

“You do giggle, and they weren’t that bad.”

The hell they weren’t, Ben thought, but he didn’t say it.  Instead he said, “Maybe I wouldn’t let you just have your way with me.  Maybe I’d like to have my way with you instead.  I could pin you to the bed and suck you into my mouth and work my fingers inside of you…I know you like it when we’re really close, so tight that there’s nothing between us, not even a millimeter of space.  Would you like me to be even closer?  Want me inside of you?”  They’d done this once while Ben was in Boston, him giving Ryan a blow job while he fingered him.  It had been a long time since Ben had touched another man that way, since college, actually; he hadn’t been comfortable enough or uninhibited enough with anyone since then to get so intimate, not even with Michael.  Gratifyingly, Ryan had loved it, he had come so hard he had to muffle his face with a pillow to keep from alarming all his roommates, but they hadn’t had the time or really the opportunity to take it further.

“Omigod, I do want you inside of me,” Ryan moaned, and Ben smiled.  “It’s not the same when I touch myself, and this time I want all of you.  I want you to fuck me.”

Ben wanted that too, so much that he had to take his hand off of himself to keep himself under control.  “If I were there right now, I would.  I’d roll you onto your stomach and make you keep your hands by your head so you couldn’t touch yourself.  I wouldn’t touch your cock either, all of my focus would be on your tight little ass.”  It had definitely been tight, Ben remembered that much.  Ryan swore he’d had penetrative sex with men before, but he’d definitely been out of practice.  “Remember how long it took me to get the first finger in last time?”

“Too long,” Ryan said, but he sounded appreciative.  “You could do it faster, I wouldn’t mind.”

“I could, but I don’t want to.  I want you to focus too, I want the only thing you think about to be how good you feel and how much more you want.  You could even tell me, but I wouldn’t let you distract me too much.  I want to taste you.”

“Taste me?”  Ben heard the creak of Ryan’s mattress as his boyfriend moved around, then settled down again.  “Taste me how?”

“I’d start with my tongue at the nape of your neck,” Ben said, closing his eyes.  He could see it, the slender curve of Ryan’s spine, the graceful line of his neck.  All flushed and glowing with sweat, muscles shifting with impatient need.  “I love that spot on you, it’s so soft there.  I’d trace over every single vertebra, and I wouldn’t stop until I got to your ass.”

“Why…why stop there?” Ryan asked. 

“Because you have an amazing ass and I barely know where to start with it,” Ben told him.  “I’d press my lips to the dimples just above your cheeks and suck until they were bright red.  God, it would be hard to stop, I’d want to put my mouth on every square inch of you.  And once I finally had and you were red everywhere, then I would go back to the middle and spread you apart with my hands, and I’d press my weight against your legs so you couldn’t shift and then I’d touch the tip of my tongue to your hole.”  Ryan whimpered and Ben grinned.  “Just the tip to start, because I know you’d flinch and I’d have to go slow to get you used to it.  I’d trace your edges and folds and get you so wet before I even thought about pressing inside of you.”

“More,” Ryan said huskily.  “Give me more.”

“I would, I’d press against you with my tongue until you opened up, until you relaxed and let me inside.  I’d fuck you with my tongue and I wouldn’t stop until you were begging me for more, and even then I might not listen at first, just keep going until I was satisfied you could take me.”

“Then you’d fuck me?”

“Then I’d use my fingers.”  Ryan groaned with genuine frustration and Ben grinned.  “Can you feel them now?  Are they in you?”

“Yesss…” Ryan hissed, and the thought that he was slipping his own long fingers inside of himself right now made Ben bite the inside of his cheek hard to distract himself.

“I’d start slow, just holding them inside, twisting them a little before I pulled them back and started to thrust.  I’d take them almost all the way out before I pushed in again, so slowly.  I’d have to go slow now while I could because there’s no way I could be that slow once I got my dick inside of you.”  Dirty talk was hardly Ben’s forte, but from the noises Ryan was making Ben figured he was doing all right.  “Your body is fascinating, I could just watch my hand move in and out of you for hours.  I love the feeling of you, slick and soft and hot.  You’re going to feel so amazing when I fuck you.”

“Do it now,” Ryan begged, and that was just about Ben’s limit for self-control.  “Now, fuck me now, please, mmnh…”  He sounded strained at the end, and whatever he was doing to himself Ben wanted to be in on it.

“I can do that, I want it, you don’t even know…just pull my hand out and lift your hips and drive right into you.”  Ben pulled his cock out of his boxers and wrapped his hand around it.  The grip was too dry for a lot of movement, but he was so close it wasn’t going to matter.  He just squeezed himself tight and swept his thumb over the head, where his precome was starting to drip.  “Christ, you’re so hot, baby, you feel so good.  I just have to move, I have to go fast and hard, I can’t stop.  I want to fuck you until you can’t even breathe, until you come all over the bed and you don’t even have to touch your cock, just the pressure of the sheets and my dick in your ass and it’s more than you can take, you just have to come…”

“Ben, Ben, yes, ah—”  Ben heard the catch of Ryan’s breath in his throat and knew he really was coming now, probably full of his own fingers, gorgeous and naked and hard…and that vision was enough to send Ben over the edge as well.  He fisted himself, just short bursts of movement against hot, hard skin as he came over his hand.  He shut his eyes and almost dropped the phone as his brain shut down for a moment, no room for anything in his head except the pleasure of coming and the thought of Ryan.

Ryan was the one to eventually break the comfortable silence.  “How am I supposed to pack now?”

“Don’t pack, get some sleep,” Ben told him, reaching awkwardly for a tissue to take care of some of the mess.

“I can’t, I have to pick the rental car up first thing in the morning and I have to have everything ready to go.”

“Just a nap, a little one.  You can’t drive to Concord on no sleep.”

“S’just twelve hours or so…”

“Sleep, please.  Just a little.  And let me know when you get there, okay?”

Ryan laughed.  “You sound like Jasmine.  Or Brody, he never believed I was a good driver.”

Ben didn’t know quite what to do with that statement.  He settled on avoidance.  “I talk to you tomorrow.”

“Mmkay, I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Ben put the phone down and tucked his softened cock back inside his underwear.  He glanced at the calendar on his wall and grimaced.  Maydays was suddenly looking a lot more complicated.  The last thing he wanted was to be in Cheryl’s line of fire, given how poorly that had gone last time.  With everything that was going on, it might be better if he cancelled the trip.

No, it was too soon to be making a decision about that.  Ben knew that Ryan wanted him to be there, and it was just going to be for a weekend.  He could handle a weekend with Ryan’s family.  Right?

Sure.