Free Clueless (Keeping Secrets) by J. Roman Page B

buckle of my pants as our tongues tangled.
    “Yeah.” What did that have to do with anything? His hands cupped the most intimate part of me through my boxers, and I groaned. Damn . How was I supposed to have a conversation now?
    “Does that mean you’re ready to let her go or something?”
    I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess. Maybe.”
    “Okay.” Then he was kissing me again, and somehow we both managed to get one another’s clothes off down to our underwear. Green eyes looked at me under half-lowered lashes. “Tommy, I want you.”
    “Want you too, Jason. Always.” I swallowed as everything in my body grew frantic with need.
    “I love you, Tommy. I think I’m ready for more.” The sentence didn’t penetrate my fogged mind for a good ten seconds.
    “What?”
    Jason shifted and looked almost nervous when he next spoke. “I want all of it. I think, you know, that I’m ready to go on now.”
    I swallowed. Kevin had said— Screw Kevin . This was about Jason and me. We’d been through a lot in the time we’d been going out, and we’d waited later than most people at our school to take things to the next level. I nodded. I was ready too.
    He grinned up at me like he’d won the lottery, and I knew I’d made the right choice. We stripped one another down to nothing and laughed as I fumbled the condom in my shaking hands. I didn’t tell him, but I’d never gotten this far with anyone else I’d been with, and I was nervous as hell that Jason freaking Strummer would be my first. I never felt so powerful as I did in the moment he wrapped his arms around me and whispered breathy encouragements in my ear. This was heaven, and Jason was my angel.
    I came apart at the seams a moment later, and I didn’t even care if the jagged edges ever fit back together. Being broken by Jason was the best experience of my life.

Chapter Six
     
    I LAY on my back with Jason curled on my chest, sweat-slicked and drowsy. Every fiber in my body was completely and utterly relaxed, and I felt a giddy high unlike anything I’d felt before. I didn’t want to move. I just wanted to bask in this. Jason made a sound, and I thought it was a sigh at first.
    “That was great,” I managed to say. I was supposed to say stuff like that after, right? He didn’t answer, just held on tighter. I frowned. “Wasn’t it?” I didn’t have much to go by, but Jason had orgasmed. I saw it.
    “Yeah,” he whispered. “It was great, Tommy boy.” The rough note didn’t set well with me. I tipped his head and looked down in bewilderment. Tears glittered in those pretty green depths. “What happened? Did I do something wrong?”
    “No,” he said, the tears spilling over to streak down his cheeks. “I’m sorry. I just needed… something. I—” He shut his mouth, his jaw ticking in some unnamed emotion. My moment of euphoria vanished.
    “You went back to your house,” I said, knowing it was true and sick to my stomach to know it was true. His whole body started shaking. I knew then that he’d used me. I’d been another drug he’d used to numb himself. This hadn’t been about us. It had been about his stepdad. I felt sick.
    “I told you I needed you,” he managed to say in a broken voice. I shook my head, denying the fucked up situation. “He was going to the cops, Tommy. He said he was going to come after your family. I had no choice.”
    “No. Fuck that! You had a damn choice, Jason. You chose to go back to that place and be used by that….” I couldn’t even come up with a good name for what his stepdad was. Anger twisted my insides into knots. “I can’t do this. I can’t.” I pulled away from him and got to my feet. I deposited the condom in the trashcan with a disgusted grimace and started pulling on my clothes. Kevin had been right. I shouldn’t have slept with him.
    “Tommy, no. Don’t say that. I love you. I mean, I really love you. I can’t do this by myself, please—”
    “Stop talking! For God’s sake stop