Without a word, while I'm cleaning up, he leans in, close, and ... freezes, just looks ... for the longest time, eyes traveling my face like he's trying to piece something together, to understand, to maybe decide. About what, I'm not sure – me ? 'Us' ? The whole gay thing ? If he wants another round ?

It's just a bit unnerving, in that it feels in a way more intimate, this concentrated inspection - like he's never seen me before - than maybe anything we've done. Tony's eyes, just by virtue of their enormous size, have always been particularly expressive – and because I've spent so much time with him the last year, I can easily read his mood in them, but as they finally meet mine, with the air between us still sparking and crackling, I see something in them I don't recognize and can't fully name. All I know is, the blue, midway, right now, between indigo and violet, is on full fucking beam, like maybe I've never seen before, intently scanning, focusing, looking inward, past the lens, which is both hot, and a bit disconcerting, as if he's scanning your brain for secrets.

Finally, without a word, he pulls away, and leans down, the inspection having apparently concluded, and tucks his face beneath my ear, and then ... sniffs.

What the ?

"You smell ..." He offers, matter of fact, and just when I'm about to be annoyed with this unnecessary and certainly unromantic observation, he completes the sentence ... "like sex."

I chuckle. He's a very weird boy sometimes. I reach, bring his face to mine, and cup his jaw.

"There's a very good reason for that, Tone."

Fuck. Okay, his hand ... on my face ... not anything he's ever done before ... thumb caressing, face open and inviting ... god. It really does scream something, doesn't it ? That we've absolutely passed through the portal, from friendship, from two ordinary, if close, mates, to where we are now: people who touch each other in intimate ways. And I'm not talking genitalia.

People screw all day long, right ? And blow and wank. And for many of them, I'm betting, it's routine, or maybe even, meaningless- a quickie, a way to get off (not that I'm against getting off, being rather fond of it at the moment), but compared with the power and beauty and magic inherent in this ... this simple, wordless transmission of what is maybe the most potent and intoxicating message out there:

I love you

I care what happens to you

What we're doing isn't meaningless

Fuck, it's just ... I'm completely floored, here, the sexual urge leaving me, left in it's place a chest flooded with love and mushiness to the point where if I open my stupid mouth, out it will come, a bloody goddamn greeting card.

However ... I will try to refrain from boring Maxxie to tears with these revelations ... especially where, at the moment, for all my lofty thoughts, I'm already wanting him again, I mean, come on, that scent ...

He doesn't respond, just returns his face to my neck again, not for a sniff this time, but rather a great, deep inhalation.

"Tony," I giggle – it does tickle a bit, "what the hell are you doing ?"

"I told you," he responds from somewhere in the neighborhood of my clavicle, "you fucking smell like sex".

"And I told you," I tease, "there was a very good reason for that."

"No, that's not it," he responds with assurance, leaning up to explain. "It's not from getting off. You're so hot, you radiate sex all the time, it's just that I never noticed before."

My brain freezes.

Tony ...

... TONY ...

... thinks ...

... I'm hot. That I, in fact, 'radiate sex'.

He just fucking said it, right out loud, to my face, as natural as you please.

Okay, I haven't exactly been unpopular with the boys, and in fact, have been informed of my 'hotness' on many an occasion, however never dreamed, of course, that one day I would hear these words from Tony, who as far as I'm concerned, at any given moment up to and including the present, is the hotness and the beauty in the room.

I raise my hand to it again, this magnificent face.

"I think you got that backwards, Tone."

"No I don't," he whispers, lowering his lips to mine.

"Yes you do," I say into his mouth, at the last second.

He stops short, lip against lip and I can feel his grin.

"No. Trust me on this. I don't."

Just as his mouth makes contact, gripped with a sudden surge of desire and playfulness, I push up, and flip him back, rather gracefully and handily if I do say so myself, into the mattress.

The look of shocked surprise I get as I move to straddle him is priceless.

"Jesus Christ, Maxxie; I thought you were a bottom."

I bust out laughing.

"Why do you never listen ? I told you, I'm what's known in gay circles as versatile," I whisper, pressing my lips to his and flicking out a bit of tongue. "A rare breed; highly prized."

He processes this a moment, kissing back, before stopping to speak.

"So you're telling me all those muscle men-"

"-Let me control the pace, sometimes, ya," I answer, biting down on that luscious lower lip. "Not all the time, I wouldn't want it all the time, but I mean, I can't blame them. Bottoming and like, being told what to do in bed, and stuff, can be very freeing, not to mention scorching fucking hot."

I gulp. Or try to.

Being told what to do in bed.

My throat's suddenly so dry, it sticks together before pulling apart.

That is maybe the single hottest thing I've ever heard.

I guess I just never thought of it, 'bottoming', in those terms. I took it literally, that it referred to a preference for taking it up the arse, the thought of which still holds zero appeal for me, I must admit.

Christ, it's a never ending world of ironies for the New Tony, though, is it not ? For if there was one thing the Old Bastard was, it was a bloody frigging top, all day long, and now here is Maxxie, having flipped me over like I weigh nothing, resting his cock into what a second ago wasn't, but this instant, has gone hard.

Umm, okay, I don't wanna embarrass him, but it seems I've inadvertently struck a nerve.

I move my face along, kissing and sucking and biting little bites along the way to his ear, into which, when I reach it, I ask,

"How does that sound ?"

"Um," he swallows, "what ?"

I can't help myself, I then have to rotate a hip forward, gliding my cock into his, and ask again.

"What I said, Tone."

"Um," coughs, this time, "I-I don't know."

"You don't know ?" I ask, with an emphasizing thrust.

Okay, I've maybe discovered my first perversion here – I'm allowed, right ? I'll be embarrassed later. Right now I'm stung so hard I can only grab his face and plunge, tongue circling, pressing, wanting, as, sweet christ, those hips thrust into me, our cocks hot and hard and dragging, and it's so fucking dirty, the feeling of it. Just so nasty and good.

And then Tony's moving with me, lifting his hips just so, and I spit on my hand and smear it against us and we start over, slow grind, cocks catching and slipping in the wetness, and he's so fucking sexy like this, it's crazy, mouth open, shameless, dark pink and swollen from kissing, and I just have to say it, I just have to.

"Stop."

His eyes fly open.

"Wha- ?"

I lean, forehead to forehead, look directly in his eyes, and tell him.

"Stop moving."

He does, instantly.

I then shimmy out of my trousers, taking my time, folding them neatly in a pile on the floor, and return, twining my fingers into his, pressing them back into the mattress on either side of his head, and grinding right into him, harder now, our mouthes a wet, deep, furious tangle.

Fuck. Fuck. And fuck, again, as his hips makes the most insanely hot swivel and return. The most delicious thrill winds it's way through me like a snake, coiling, slithering, and I'm a mess, letting him do this to me, pinning me and owning me and I'm helpless to keep still; I fling my hips up urgently, incapable of holding back, and for a minute, we do it, mashing and gliding messily, cocks catching and missing and rubbing into stomach and hip and then Maxxie's on one elbow, spitting again and lowering a soiled hand to grab the pair tight, to give us a hole to fuck through, and it's so hot and I'm so close my mind cuts out and it doesn't register at first, the bite of teeth against my lower lip, the words grazing my mouth telling me to stop fucking moving and let him control the pace ... and then it's cold air, empty and naked, hips bucking uselessly, and my eyes fly open in confusion, and he's right there, in my face.

"Turn over," I tell him, dizzy, in fact, insane with need, but letting myself get carried away with the role playing. (Yes, Tony, there are a few things I successfully kept secret from you, at least in the sexual realm.)

He looks at me in confusion and disbelief, eyes half lidded, the blue darkened with want, but also a touch of fear ... and then I realize.

I lean in and whisper, gently cupping his face.

"I love you so much, Tone. We'd never do anything you're not ready for."

Lost in his eyes, brain a hopeless foggy mist, I turn, slowly, muscles shaky, bones creaking, and lay hips down over the pillow he sets out, a careful space left for my aching member, and what he then does with his tongue almost makes me swallow mine.

Little painted kisses and licks, gentle against my balls, and then a clutch of hands to spread me, and the mattress sags as he climbs between, laying out his body, flat to the bed, lowering his head to taste and tease more, turning his face to suck and, worse, to suckle the sac, pulling each ball in tandem ... and then both at once ... and then just the papery flesh all the way into his mouth which makes me jump off the bed, and, as if it isn't good enough, he starts bloody talking.

"So incredibly hot, how turned on your are, how much you want this."

"FUCK !" Is all my brain is capable of articulating.

And then the bastard starts asking questions.

"What if I reached round right now and stroked you ?"

"Oh god."

"What would happen ?"

"COME – instant !"

"Do you want that ?"

"YES !"

"I don't. Not yet."

Oh sweet motherfucking christ, he's a mad man. The devil, all this time Maxxie Oliver, masquerading as a mild mannered dancer and queer, was in actual fact, Satan ... and I never fucking knew it.

I mean, the kind of hot he is right now is illegal. Has to be. All while he sounds so maddeningly calm, like we're having an ordinary fucking conversation here, like his tongue isn't right now circling my balls, like his mouth isn't right this second a wet, airtight seal, sucking and teasing, lips circling, owning me and making me thrust shamelessly back towards him, with each return motion meaning ... I'm, over and over, fucking the sheets, and ... god, oh no, oh shit, don't know if I want this, don't know if I can handle this ... working it's way deliberately north, and at the last second I pull back, too scared of this ... but he follows, and with a single flick into the hole ...

I'm gone, screaming and thrashing, face first into the pillow, coming so hard my body's gonna split in pieces.

I'm flying, so euphoric to have taken him down this wicked road, to have brought him to literal screaming orgasm, I want to shout and leap up and hop round the room like an arse, spinning and dancing in the air.

A small part of me, however, says to keep still, let him fucking sleep already, I mean, this is his third and by the sound of it, most powerful orgasm of the day; he badly needs rest. Yes, just lay here quietly until he drifts off, which shouldn't take long ... and my own cock will maybe stop aching long enough to let me answer that need over there in the loo, whilst Tony slumbers peacefully.

"Where the fuck are you ?" he asks, voice withered and worn, as he turns on his side.

"Right here," I answer, joining him, beaming ear to ear.

His face is pink, still, weary, sated, eyes shining, lids drooping, neck and chest sweat soaked and smeared in his own ejaculate. He doesn't seem to notice.

"How come you're so hot ?" He asks, speaking slowly. "How come I never knew this about you ?"

I snuggle close and kiss him soft.

"Cuz. It defies description."

He laughs a gorgeous, exhausted laugh.

"Yes, it does", he responds, gently cupping my jaw this time, and god, it's so amazing that Tony would do this ! That he would feel comfortable with it, that he would want to ! "You sort of have to see it," he continues, "to fucking live through it, to believe it."

As he leans forward to kiss me back, something catches his eye, below, and he reaches.

"I'm alright, Tone. I'll take care of it. You should sleep. Seriously."

"No. After. I want to. Let me."

He raises his hand, and rather than spit, instead licks his whole palm, the sight of which, sweet jesus, makes my balls twitch bad ... and it's not long from there, it can't help but be, when your man is in love with you like this, when he watches your face and times it to the rhythm of your breath, when he stays with you through it, breathing it into your mouth, willing you there and whispering his love along the way.

The author would like to thank reader and reviewer extraordinaire Lizzy384 for editorial assistance with this chapter.