Snowed in for Christmas

Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

Benjamin

I PACE MY DORM room. I fought hard to get a single, so thankfully there’s no one to see me anxiously repeating the ten steps between the door and the window over and over. I got here early, settling back in before anyone else returned to the college, but now voices echo in the halls as friends reunite and students settle back in for their spring semester.

I can’t escape this any longer.

I thought I could. Back in Stone Valley, in the house, I thought if I drove away it might clear my head, but the whole way from the door of the house through the pass and back to Dad’s house, my mind churned. I replayed every moment of those days Jett and I spent snowed in, searching for cracks, desperate for a reason to walk away.

I never managed to find one.

Our parents broke up, but reality crashed in regardless, an avalanche crushing me under its weight. I can’t do this. I’ve never done this. What happened in that house during the blizzard was an aberration, one I can’t possibly bring into the real world. I mean, how would it even work? What would people think if they saw Jett and I together after we spent the past three and a half years at each other’s throats? They wouldn’t understand. They’d judge. They’d assume. And I … I’m completely inexperienced in this arena. I don’t’ know what I’m doing. Back in Stone Valley, it was pure instinct. There was no one around to see, no one around to look at us funny or ask probing questions. Here, we’ll enjoy no such luxury.

Yet despite all of that, I haven’t stopped thinking about him. When I lay down in bed at night, I shiver without his body beside me. When I dream, his eyes stare back at me, probing into my heart, asking why I ran, demanding answers. I wake shaken and shivering, hardly able to keep down a cup of coffee, let alone a meal.

After days of this, I’m finally putting an end to it. I owe him answers, if nothing else. I owe him an ending, if that’s where this is going. I owe him better than silence.

I finger a small wooden bird, whittled with care from a stick found on the side of the road. It sits on my dresser, greeting me each morning, watching over me at night. I haven’t been able to tuck it away and try to forget about it. I stow it in my pocket, clutching it for strength as I force myself out of my room.

My footsteps sound loud in my own ears as I pace down the hall, counting the numbers on the doors. 427, 428, 429. I stop in front of 431 and suck down a deep breath. No one bothered to greet me in the hall, though a girl a couple doors away eyes me suspiciously as I pause in front of Jett’s door with my fist raised as though I mean to knock. I want to hunch and flinch away. She finds my being here weird, I know she does. Everyone does. This is all unfathomable and weird and wrong to them and I—

The door opens. I startle, my fist still raised, as Jett blinks at me in surprise.

“Um, hi?” he says.

He wears jeans and shirt that shows off his strong arms and broad chest. His hair lies a bit more neatly around him, and a cool, minty scent of aftershave wafts off him.

“You were going out somewhere,” I say. “I’m sorry. I should…”

I finally lower my hand, spinning on my heel so I can run away. Of course he was going out. He’s back in his domain. He probably has eight different people trying to hook up with him tonight, and here I am acting like he’d actually want to talk to me instead.

He grabs my wrist before I make it even a step away from his door.

“Ben, don’t,” he says.

I pause, my back to him, my wrist caught in his steady grip. I glance down at the connection, skin tingling.

“Why did you come here?” Jett says.

I turn toward him. That girl down the hall is still watching us, even more suspicious than before. My throat closes up.

“Can I come in?” I say.

Jett’s gaze flickers down the hall toward our nosy onlooker. “Yeah, come on.”

He tugs me into his room before releasing me and shutting the door. More than just Jett’s clothes lie scattered on the floor. The rest must belong to his roommate Ryan, but it’s tough to tell one heap of dirty laundry from the next. Empty liquor bottles litter the dresser, and the desks hold video game consoles and televisions rather than books.

Jett rushes around, gathering dirty clothes and throwing them into a pile off to the side. He gathers a couple of the liquor bottles, tossing them noisily into the trash.

“Sorry,” he says, “I would have cleaned up but…”

But I’ve barely spoken to him since our parents arrived at that cabin. But we’ve hardly seen each other in all that time. But he never expected me to come back. I understand, but it stings all the same.

“It’s okay,” I say.

A single struggling lamp lights the room. I suppose that was all Jett was going to leave on after heading out on the night’s adventure. That wane light casts his face into shadow, rendering him unreadable.

“So?” he says. “What are you doing here, Ben?”

Ben. It’s so good to hear him call me “Ben” again and not “Benjamin” like he had to in front of our parents. That tiny slip gives me the confidence to speak.

“I felt like things were … unresolved,” I say.

He snorts. “That’s putting it mildly.”

My gaze falls to my feet. Hurt tightens his voice, leaves it brittle. Hurt that I caused by running.

“I’m sorry,” I say. Because those are the most important words to get out today. “I’m really sorry, Jett. I just … didn’t know what to do. When our parents arrived, I freaked out. Then they said they broke up, but I still didn’t know… I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never done any of it. I don’t know how to … be with someone. And our circumstances make that even more complicated. So I ran. I’m a coward, I know, but I—”

His hand cupping my face cuts me off. My eyes jerk back up to find him standing close, his thumb stroking my cheek as it did so many times back in Stone Valley. I lean into the touch without thinking.

“Do you trust me?” he says.

“What? Yes, of course I do.”

“Do you trust that I could take care of you if we were together? Do you trust that I’d take care of you regardless of what anyone else said or thought or did?”

“Yes, but…”

“But what, Ben? What else is there? What else matters?”

I hesitate, flailing for words. This all seemed so huge and scary and overwhelming only a few minutes ago, but when he holds me, when he gazes deeply into my eyes, when he promises to take care of me, all of my concerns wither, small and insignificant.

“No one will understand,” I say. “We hated each other the last time they saw us. Our parents were dating the last time they saw us. That girl in the hall—”

“Fuck that girl in the hall,” Jett says. “Fuck all of them. Who cares if they understand? We’re only here for one more semester, Ben. Then we get to leave and start our lives. And I … I’m not sure I can do that without you anymore.”

I struggle to breathe. I stare wide-eyed at him, his words echoing in my head. He can’t move on without me? He can’t live his life without me? That’s … that’s insane. It’s ridiculous. It’s…

“I feel the same,” I say, quiet, shocked, unsteady on my feet. “I think I might love you, Jett, but I’ve never felt that way about anyone. What if I’m wrong?”

He smiles, his free hand sliding around my waist to pull me closer. “You’re never wrong, Ben. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. I think you ought to trust yourself once in a while.”

He leans forward, kissing me. The moment his lips reach mine, everything melts away. The world and all its prying eyes seem trivial. That girl in the hall, the other students, our parents — they fade into background noise. Let them think whatever they like. There’s nowhere I should be but in his arms.

“And, Ben,” he says when we part, “I love you too. For the record.”

I don’t get a chance to do more than gasp at his boldness. Then he’s kissing me again, walking me backward until I hit the edge of the bed. We fall to the mattress while barely breaking the contact, his larger body pinning mine down, his weight so solid and real atop me. I throw my arms around his back, clinging to his shirt. I can’t believe I ran from this. I can’t believe I held myself away from him for even a few days. Right now, enveloped in his embrace, it seems ludicrous that I’d want to be anywhere else.

He pauses, pushing himself up on his arms. His eyes dart downward, but before he can move that direction, I halt him with a hand on his arm.

“Didn’t you want to go out and have fun tonight?” I say. “You shaved and stuff.”

Jett chuckles, grinning broadly. “You’re here. Where the hell else could I possibly want to be?”

He kisses me swiftly, then follows the path of his hungry gaze, pushing my shirt up as he shuffles downward on the bed. It’s still a twin, but it feels spacious after all that time we spent on a bunk bed. He pulls my shirt off, then kisses all over my chest, licking as he trails lower. Yet right at my waist, he pauses, muttering a curse before he jumps out of bed.

I push up onto my elbows, watching him anxiously, but he simply grabs a sock off the floor and rushes to the door, tying it around the handle before closing and locking the door again. He winks when he turns back to me.

“Just in case Ryan comes back early,” he says.

Even lying here shirtless, I flush anew. A sock on the door. I’ve seen it, but I never thought I’d be the cause of it.

Jett peels off his shirt as he stalks back to the bed, and all stray thought flees my mind at the sight of his hard chest. He positions himself over me, indulging in another long, deep kiss before trailing down my neck and going right back to where he was before he interrupted himself.

This time, when he reaches my waist, he doesn’t pause. The jeans come off, as well as my briefs beneath them. Jett pushes one of my knees back, turning me slightly onto my side as he settles himself between my legs.

I suck in a breath as he sets his sights lower.

“Problem?” he says.

“N-no,” I say. “No problem.”

Thank God I showered recently, I suppose. I wasn’t counting on anything like this, but Jett doesn’t seem to care either way. He takes my words as assent, sinking down to lick along my hole, then higher, all the way up to my sac. He takes the delicate skin gently into his mouth, sucking lightly until I groan. Then he lets go, licking around and between, exploring lazily with tongue and lips.

I lie back and pant, closing my eyes against yet another new experience. I didn’t really think about licking there , too, but it seems there’s no part of me Jett will hesitate to taste.

He sucks and pulls, presses harder with his tongue, and I squirm until he holds me tighter to keep me where he wants me. I grip the bed under me, my head spinning from how quickly this went from a nervous, anxious confession to heat and touch and physicality. It seems we rarely escape this rapid escalation, like our bodies can’t help snapping together like magnets any time we’re near enough. How we held off during those final days in Stone Valley, I’m not sure, but as Jett renders me speechless with his devious tongue, it starts to seem like a miracle we didn’t break sooner than this.

He stops, but the reprieve doesn’t last long. I barely manage to open my eyes and catch my breath before he’s going lower again, his ravenous mouth seeking out yet more of me. No matter how I writhe, I can’t escape. He always seems to lick at the most sensitive parts of me, the parts aching and trembling from stimulation.

Here at school, I try to quiet myself, but the moans bubble up in my throat all the same. I can’t keep them all back, so I suppose that girl out in the hall will have to reconcile with what she’s likely hearing. If the secret wasn’t out before, it certainly is now.

Jett presses harder with his tongue, and my body relents. It’s still a wonder to me how easily that happens, how eager I am to relax under his touch. I wouldn’t have thought it possible if he hadn’t done it to me so many times. Somehow, if it’s him, it always works.

His tongue probes into me, my tension giving way when he pushes. It leaves me gasping and groaning, my body burning hot. I reach for myself, aching for relief, but the moment I do he stops, snatching my wrist to keep my hand away from myself.

Jett still holds one of my legs up. He sits up a bit to look down at me as he speaks.

“I want to do something else this time,” he says.

“Anything,” I say. Because what wouldn’t be incredible if it involved him?

Yet he hesitates, uncertain. “Are you sure? I was thinking we could…” He takes a breath. “I want to be inside you. I want to show you how good that can feel.”

Nerves clutch my chest. I didn’t consider that possibility tonight. It seemed like something distant, something I might try some day in the faraway future. Yet I discover that that tightness in my chest isn’t nerves alone. There’s more, a tingling anticipation that warms my whole body.

“If you don’t want to—”

“No,” I cut in. “I do. I mean, I think I do. I’ve considered it. Especially after that other night.” The night I did it to him, the night I was inside him. It was incredible, and a piece of me couldn’t help wondering what the other way would feel like. All that moaning and writhing and clawing certainly made it seem like he was enjoying it.

“I’ll go slow,” he says. “And if it isn’t working, it isn’t working. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I know,” I say, but even as I speak, I desperately want it to work. I want to share everything I can with him, including this.

“Okay,” he says, smiling before he kisses me on the thigh. “Give me a second.”

He leaps off the bed, scrambling around under it, where he apparently keeps his supplies. I try not to look too closely, try to remain relaxed and loose, but anticipation tightens my gut. What if I’m bad at this somehow? What if I don’t know what I’m doing and screw it up? What if I hate it and have to ask him to stop?

I yelp when Jett kisses along my inner thigh. He’s between my legs again, holding one up, turning me slightly back onto my side.

“Hey,” he says, “no overthinking. Just feel, okay? I’m gonna take care of you.”

“Okay,” I say, but he must hear the nerves in my voice because he lowers his head back down.

At first, I barely react to his tongue swirling around me once more. Soon, however, the sensation of his mouth overwhelms my anxious thoughts like water boiling over the edges of a pot. He moans against me, his voice rumbling into me, and soon my cares melt away as quickly as they arose.

Jetts pulls away. He shifts, moving closer. He holds one leg and straddles the other. I gasp when the head of his cock kisses my slick, loose rim. He’s even more slick, and when he rubs his hand over me, it adds yet more lube to the equation.

He aims his cock at me, but at first just pushes the head at me, letting me feel the resistance, the size. I gulp at his thickness, even as I will myself to relax. Because, I realize with a start, I do want this. I really want this. Every time his cock pushes at me, a tiny bit more gets inside, and it only ignites my curiosity more.

Then he stops merely playing, steadying his cock in his hand and pushing with intent. I tense at first, then will myself to relax, to endure the strangeness, the stretch, the sensation of pinching. Part of my brain howls at the weirdness of this moment, screaming that things do not go that way, that simply cannot be right, but I gaze up at Jett’s eyes, focusing on him, letting the thoughts fade away into the background. And before I realize it, the head of his cock is inside me. It’s actually inside me.

He pauses. For a moment, we simply breathe at each other. Jett seems as stunned as me, and while I wouldn’t describe it as entirely comfortable, it’s not horrible, either. It’s … new. It’s different. My brain doesn’t know what to make of this sensation quite yet, but my body is burning around him, and my cock juts at my belly.

“My glasses,” I say lamely.

Jett blinks, then barks a startled laugh. I can feel that laugh inside me as it shifts his cock. We both gasp, and Jett steadies himself so he doesn’t go deeper before I’m ready.

“Leave them on,” he says. “They’re cute.”

Cute. Warmth washes through me at that description. I never thought of them as anything but necessary, but if Jett likes them, I suppose there’s no harm in leaving them on in this position.

The momentary pause helped without me even realizing it. My body isn’t trying to clutch around him so hard. It’s adjusted to that sensation of intrusion, some of the instinctual wrongness quieting.

Then Jett gives me more.

He goes slow, but that only means I feel each and every inch. He watches my face the entire time, his eyes never leaving mine, and somehow that gives me the confidence to continue. I know the slightest flinch would stop him, but the more he goes, the less I want him to pause for my sake. Already, my body burns with promise. Sure, this is new, strange, even uncomfortable at points, but it’s also so much more than that. The inklings of pleasure stir inside me, a deep pleasure that’s so different from anything I’ve experienced with him so far.

He stops again when he’s all the way inside me, his cock filling me up. He braces one arm beside me, searching my face for pain or distress.

“Okay?” he says, but he’s not as steady. The word arrives a bit ragged, blown hotly against my face.

“Okay,” I say, but mostly because I want so badly to see where this leads, to give him what he wants, to experience the high he promised me. If he says it can happen this way, I believe him.

“God, you’re tight,” he groans. “We should … should wait.”

It’s getting harder for him to do that. I can see it, hear it. The strain twists all through his face. Yet he holds back for my sake, to ensure this is good for me. I don’t know if that’s possible. Isn’t this the kind of thing that takes a bit more trial and error, a bit more figuring out? It’s okay if it’s not perfect the first time. I know we’ll get it eventually, and now we have plenty of time to do so.

I reach up, cupping his face, rubbing my thumb against his smooth cheek, freshly shaven for a party he never went to tonight, a party he skipped for me.

“You don’t have to wait,” I say. “I’m okay.”

“I know it’s weird the first time, but I promise I’ll make you feel so good.”

“I know.”

He smiles, but it’s tight, like he’s barely holding himself back.

“Ben,” he breathes, and leans down to kiss me.

The motion bends my leg back even farther, but I hardly notice because of the way it also shifts his cock in me. Before he ever reaches my lips, I’m gasping at the tightness as my body bends and his cock moves, the pressure pressing deep inside me. In the end, he has to let that leg down, turning me entirely on my side, but he doesn’t seem to care as long as he can seal his mouth against mine.

He groans as he starts rocking his hips.

The motions are small with him leaning over me, but it doesn’t matter. Every shift shivers through me, my body blazing from the new sensation. The slight back and forth of his hips is strange and confusing at first, but as my body heats up, the feeling grows into so much more than befuddlement. Friction sparks within me, like that tentative fire we built back in the house in Stone Valley. The way Jett moves nurtures the fragile flame, helps it catch on the tinder within me and grow and grow.

And soon it’s … good. Soon my brain has forgotten all about the strangeness, all about the lack of familiarity. Soon the rolling of Jett’s hips comes to mean bursts of white hot pleasure.

Jett pushes up on his hands. It gives him more leverage, allowing him to pull back farther and thrust in deeper. I cry out the very first time, racked by a jolt of pleasure that nothing in my life has prepared me for. I know he’s holding back. I can see it in the strain bulging in his arms as he props himself up.

“More,” I say, hoping to free him from his reticence.

He grabs my leg again, holding it up from under the knee. He sits all the way up, and I grab at the sheets as he looms over me. He teeters on the edge, trembling from his efforts at restraint, but his hesitance is bordering on edging the longer he goes without giving us both what we need.

“Jett,” I say. “Please, Jett. Just fuck me already.”

His next thrust knocks a shout from my throat and jolts me on his bed. The furniture creaks, but my voice rings out far louder. Anyone out in the hall surely knows what’s happening in this room, but I couldn’t care any less. His cock fills me to bursting, stretching me wide as he dives back into me, and something inside me screams for more. I squeeze my eyes shut, arching into his thrusts, writhing on his cock as he finally drives into me with abandon.

My brain goes blank. The scratch of ragged breaths fills my ears. Moans cloud the room, my own, Jett’s, I can’t tell the difference anymore. I have no control over the sounds gusting out of me. Every stroke of his cock pummels some new noise from my throat, even as it torments my body with a swell of stimulation. Every nerve ending feels more alive, more sensitive, more reactive than ever before. A single breath could annihilate me, which makes the plunging of Jett’s cock a sweet sort of obliteration. I’m breaking. I’m shattering. I’m losing myself among this storm howling inside my body. But I’m not actually afraid of who I’ll be on the other side of this. No matter what, Jett will be here with me.

I force my eyes open and find him watching my face, his attention rapt. His hips keep rolling, never letting up that steady, punishing beat that’s knocking every thought out of my brain. But, I realize with a start, I’m not actually fully hard.

“Touch yourself,” Jett rasps. “I want to see you come … come like this.”

I fumble for myself. My limbs hardly feel like they belong to me. My body has been entirely in Jett’s care throughout this. I’m speared on his cock, rocking as he thrusts into me with desperate purpose.

When I grab myself, my hand is almost like a stranger’s. I’m so out of my body, out of my head, that another point of contact blinds me like the sun suddenly glaring into my eyes. I stroke anyway because it feels right and good and like it might actually get me what I need so, so badly. Jett watches every motion, encouraging me along, and soon we’re moving in sync without a coherent word passing between us. His thrusting and my stroking jumble into the same sweet song that’s blasting through my body at full volume.

The cries rise in pitch, bubbling out on every breath, a quick “hah, hah, hah” that builds toward a crescendo.

“Yeah,” Jett encourages me. “Yeah, come on, baby. Yeah, that’s so good. Fuck, that’s so good.”

I want him to have everything. I want to share this bliss gathering up inside me like a balloon filling with too much air. I hold his gaze as long as I can, willing him to join me at the peak, but soon it becomes too much. I slam my eyes shut, knock my head back, stroke myself frantically as his cock drives into me hard and fast and deep. Then there’s nothing but my long, long cry of pleasure and the heat bursting over my hand and Jett groaning and groaning above me, his cock searing my insides as my body clenches around him to hold him deep. I twist and turn, squirming like I’m trying to break my own back.

Then it’s gone. Every bit of tension, every bit of stress. It drains out of me completely, and I’m nothing but a heap of limbs on the bed.

I don’t know when during all that Jett came, but he must have because he collapses atop me almost instantly, his weight crushing me now that my body can’t put up the tiniest resistance. His cock softens inside me, but eventually even that starts to get uncomfortable, so he pulls himself out before lying right back down on top of me.

“Was it okay?” he says after a little while.

I chuckle at the absurdity of the question. “Yes, but I don’t think I can move for the rest of the night.”

He pushes himself up a little to look down at me. “Then don’t.”

He leaps out of bed before I can stop him, not simply getting a damp cloth and cleaning us up, but also taking the sock off the door, retrieving our briefs and tucking us up under his sheets.

“I have to let Ryan come home eventually, but will you stay here tonight?” he says.

“You want me to stay with you?”

Even after all this, I struggle to believe it. Even lying here in his bed limp from being fucked with Jett tracing a finger down my chest and along my arms like every piece of me fascinates him. I ignored him for days after our parents showed up. I hid. I lied. I couldn’t face him when real life barreled back in to separate us. I would understand if that hurt him enough that he didn’t want to keep me around.

Jett just smiles. “Of course I want you here. Jesus, did you really think I’d kick you out after that?”

I shrug as best I can while lying on my side facing him. “I don’t know. I’ve never done any of this.”

“Then it’s lucky you have me for a teacher. Yes, Ben, I want you to stay. I want you to stay every night. I want you to stay forever.”

He draws me into a kiss, a warm, long, indulgent kiss. Even should someone walk through his door right now, I know neither of us would break it. People can draw whatever conclusions they need to draw. We’ve done nothing wrong, and this is too important to walk away from for the sake of a stranger’s comfort.

“I’ll stay,” I say when we part. “But … it might be less awkward to use my room in the future.”

“You wouldn’t be the first guest Ryan’s walked in on,” Jett says. “He’ll be cool. But noted. We’ll do whatever makes you comfortable. You live down the hall, after all. What about, like, when we’re on campus? Can I walk you to class? Can I kiss you?”

My heart very nearly explodes. A week ago such sweet, earnest questions would have been unfathomable. Now, they’re simply Jett, the Jett I’ve come to know. The Jett I’ve come to love.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’d like that.”

The smile that lights up his face is worth every bit of hardship it took for us to get here. It may have been a bumpy and unconventional path, but many of the best things in life don’t come easy. You have to fight for them. You have to struggle. And sometimes, on the other side, you discover something more precious than you ever could have imagined.