eighteen

Ryan didn’t want to run to the door.  Instead he stood inside it and waited to hear footsteps in the hallway.  He was going for cool in jeans and a t-shirt, no shoes, but he wiped his hands on his pants again just to be sure.

“This one,” he said, leaning out into the hallway.  His fatigue was quickly replaced with a rapidly heartbeat. Darcy had been headed the right way, checking numbers on each apartment.  She wore a red pea coat open over a shirt with wide white and navy blue stripes.  Her jeans made Ryan’s tongue stick to the roof of his partially-healed mouth. Shoulder-length dark blond hair was caught in the collar of her jacket.  She smiled and Ryan nearly ripped the door knob off.

“Hi Ry,” Darcy said.  But she was thinking ‘Oh hell’ because he looked good - better than good.  Tired, sure, but freshly clean, tall and strong with that misleading baby face.  Calling him had not been a whim.  Now she just needed to decide extra fast if it had been a mistake.

“Huhhi,” he managed.  Darcy walked up, stopping in front of him.  She was five, maybe six inches shorter and tilted her head up to took at him.

“Mouth looks better.”

“Getting there.”

The corner of her lip curled into a sassy little smirk.  “You’re getting all cute again.”

Darcy followed Ryan, expecting a total mid-range bachelor pad.  Actually it was pretty plain.  Justin had finished all four years in college and only come to the Barons when Ryan did.  Now he looked quite surprised to see Darcy wandering into his living room.

“Hey Schultzy,” she said brightly.

“Hey yourself, Darce,” Justin got up from the couch and moved to the recliner, giving Ryan and Darcy room to sit together.  She sat right in the middle, so there was nowhere for Ryan to sit but nice and close.  He glanced at Schultz, who looked caught between being impressed and bursting out laughing.  

Ryan sat between Darcy and the arm of the sofa, leaning back and trying to relax.  He felt made of glass, like he couldn’t bend without breaking.  Exactly how did one act around the girl who’d been sleeping in your bed?  They had cuddled and held hands - he may have copped a little feel while she was asleep - but nothing that suggested middle-of-the-living room behavior.  

Darcy almost laughed.  Poor Ryan, he had no idea what to do with her.

Isn’t that the problem? she thought.  But as Justin selected a movie with the remote, Darcy answered her own question.  She scooted an inch closer and settled in against Ryan’s side.

It wasn’t fair that he was only nineteen or inexperienced, but it also wasn’t Ryan’s fault.  At home the night before, Darcy’s mind refused to be quiet as she lay in a big, empty bed.  Sleeping next to Ryan was nice.  It was harmless in the way that only feelings were involved, nothing physical.  Or nothing much.  Darcy had meant what she said about there not being enough nice guys left in the world.  Now that she’d found one, keeping things nice was becoming a problem.

If she could have just stayed home.  If she could have just gone to bed like any other night, she wouldn’t have called.  It was a test of sorts, where failing and winning were strangely the same.  Ryan was a bad poker player.  She heard the smile in his voice when he’d picked up the phone and it went right through her like an arrow.

Now he was solid against as she angled her back against his side.  Warmth bled through his dark gray t-shirt.  One big hand moved to rest against her bare upper arm, his long fingers barely touching her skin at first, then settling just enough for a soft caress.  She let her head fall back onto his shoulder and closed her eyes.

Darcy woke in mid-air, in Ryan’s arms.  Her own were around his neck like a sleepy little koala hugging a tree.  It took a moment to realize where she was, and another to realize that Ryan was carrying her as easily as a bag of groceries.  He set her down carefully on his bed.

“Sleepy?” he asked.  The room was small-ish, and the only light was from the door open behind him.  Darcy figured the sheets and blankets beneath her were new.  Two bags bursting with stuff were piled in one corner - Ryan hadn’t even unpacked, and she was already here.  

“Me too,” he admitted.  There were traces of fatigue in his sharp features.  From the top of the nearby dresser, he took a pile of folded clothes and handed them to her.

He set out pajamas for me.  Jesus H, she thought.  But she took them.  Before  Darcy could get to her feet, Ryan had retreated into the hallway and closed to door to give her privacy.  The shorts were plain black, but clearly boxers and it wasn’t lost of Darcy that she was pulling on a pair of Ryan’s underwear.  The t-shirt was a twin to the one he wore, only dark red, presumably for modesty.  If she’d ever fallen asleep at Taylor’s, he’d have given her washcloth to wear and nothing else.

He knocked.  Darcy tried not to die.  She just slipped beneath the covers as Ryan walked to the other side of the bed.  At the sound of his zipper opening she flinched, but Darcy still watched Ryan push off his jeans and climb in next to her wearing green boxers and his gray shirt.  He reached for her and she moved closer; they settled in the middle, Ryan against Darcy’s back with an arm around her waist.

She knew if she turned, she’d kiss him.  Slightly busted face and all.  Kissing drunk on a cold balcony is very different from kissing while snuggling and half-dressed in a bed behind closed doors.  So she ran her hand along his strong forearm until she reached his fingers, tucked almost underneath her body, then twined her own into them and held.
____

“So this is really a thing?”  Erin reached for the curtain and tugged it open.  It was after nine o’clock and daylight spilled across the bed, making Jordan wince.  But she was practically sitting on his chest, so he couldn’t go far.

“Yup.”

“Hmmmm,” she said skeptically, examining the dark hairs growing on his upper lip.  It couldn’t be called a mustache yet, but it was less than a week into November.  “It’s for charity?”

“Movember is men’s health month, specifically prostate cancer.  Lots of guys do them,” he explained.  Her hair hung in long waves over bare shoulders, though she had worn a tank top to sleep that night before.  Just in case she ran into Taylor on a midnight fridge raid or something.  The straps were thin though, and the left one had slipped down, giving Jordan a lot of ideas for exactly what he’d like to do with all the lights on.  Her pink and white striped panties weren’t helping.  Erin’s dimples were visible even though she was trying not to smile, making her look even perkier than if she’d just grinned.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he said.

That got a smile.  “You’re just saying that so I don’t make fun of your mustache.”

“Nope.  I’m saying that because I’m really impressed with myself that you just woke up in my bed.  Plus,” he tugged at the loose strap, “wait till you see Nuge and Hallsy try mustaches.  I’m like Borat compared to those guys.”

“You’re kidding!  Taylor?  Johnny Bravo cannot grow a mustache,” she laughed.  “Ryan... eh.  He doesn’t need it.  He’s adorable.”

“He’s trying to be manly, babe.  Mustaches are manly.”

“Mustaches are dad-ly.  And Ryan doesn’t even have arm hair!  There’s no way.”  She leaned down, giving Jordan a full view of what lay beneath that fallen side of her tank top.  Then she kissed him lightly.  “Yours oughta be good though.”  And slid her knee between his thighs until she was pressed firmly between his legs.  “You’re pretty manly.”

Erin ground her underpants against his, purring into the kiss.  Jordan grabbed her waist and flipped, pinning her to the bed.  His foot kicked the wall between his room and Taylor’s.  Without missing a beat, Erin kicked it again.

“Jordan! Oh! My! God!” she shouted like she was in the throes of ecstasy, thumping once more for good measure.  

Immediately the other side knocked back.  “Shutup!” Taylor yelled.

Erin did not.  “Eberle! Oh! Yes! Right! There!” she called even louder.

“I swear to God,” Taylor hollered back.  

By then, Erin and Jordan were laughing so hard they could barely breathe.  There was a lot of writhing and rocking, really making it sound real.  Which it quickly became.  Jordan grabbed the offending foot, hitched Erin’s leg over his hip and ground against her.

“Ooh, harder,” she said teasingly, in a low voice just for him.  Without his shirt on, Jordan was plenty to look at.  Even with that mustache starting.  Chest and arms flexed, holding his upper body off the bed so his lower body could move.  Erin bit her lip and batted her lashes.  It did feel really fucking good.  “Mmmm, right there.”

Jordan dropped his shorts and pushed at her panties at the same time.  Erin kicked both away.  Before they hit the floor, he was in her up to the hilt.

“Ohgod,” she gasped.  There was nothing fake about that noise.  He plowed home again, making her back arch.  Blankets were everywhere and it was bright as day in his brand new bed in his brand new room.  Jordan gripped her hips, moved again and didn’t care if they woke the whole building.  But he never closed his eyes.
____

For a second, Ryan didn’t know where he was.  The room was light blue instead of white, there was no TV on the dresser.  The windows and doors were also in a different place.   Then someone breathed.  Ryan remembered he was in his new place, and he wasn’t alone.

Darcy lay on her side, facing him.  Sometime in the night she’d rolled right into his embrace and his arm was underneath her waist, holding her.  She was curled slightly, like no place in the world was more comfortable than right here in his bed.  Ryan started to pull her in closer... and froze.  

His hand was inside Darcy’s shorts.  Well, his shorts.  But they were still on her body and his hand was underneath them, full of nothing but the soft skin of one half of Darcy’s ass.  His heart skipped and instantly Defcon One alarms sounded inside Ryan’s brain.  Her blond hair was a tousled mess that made Ryan wish he could close his eyes until she left and keep this moment perfect in his mind until private time.  He didn’t dare breathe for fear of waking her up while he had his hand down her pants.  

Too late.

“Ryan,” she said softly.

He felt her moving, tilting her face up to look at him.  It was a mistake to meet her eyes but he did.  Just for a second.  Then Ryan panicked and kissed her.

Darcy flinched.  She’d been expecting to wake him up and laugh off that he was copping a feel in his dreams.  It was probably to be expected, since she was the one sleeping in his bed, in his arms.  Ryan smelled like soap and sleep and was very, very warm.  

Now soft lips were pressed to hers.  It only took a second to highlight and delete every reason she’d ever had against this.  Four long nights sleeping together and this was the boldest thing Ryan had tried... and he hadn’t even meant it.  She wasn’t going to find a nicer guy, no more than she’d be able to keep holding out on this one.

Darcy kissed him back.  She wrapped her arms around Ryan’s neck, ran her hands into his hair and let his tongue slip into her mouth.  The inches between them disappeared until legs and feet were tangling together too.

Ryan’s body roared like a race car at the starting line.  He rolled Darcy onto her back and pasted himself heavily over most of her.  From zero to a hundred, his engine was racing.

“Woah,” she gasped.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry,” he stuttered.  

Darcy blinked a few times, eyes adjusting to the morning and the sight before her. “Did you brush your teeth this morning?”

“Last night, before you got here,” Ryan admitted with a sheepish grin, “Twice.” His brown eyes were downcast, almost embarassed. “I, uh, didn’t mean to....”

Darcy interrupted him by sliding her hands under his t-shirt.  Ryan’s apology stopped immediately.  She pushed the shirt up his back and right over his head.  He glanced down in surprise like he’d never seen his own body before.  Darcy was certainly enjoying her first visit.  “You didn’t mean to have your hand in my shorts?” she smirked, running her fingers over the skin inside his shoulder.

“I’m sorry.  I woke up and... I was afraid to move because you were sleeping and...,” he never finished.  She kissed him, occupying his tongue with her own and quieting them both.  Ryan was lanky and limber, his body as strong beneath her hands as it had been wrapped around her in sleep.

Ryan gave up.  His mouth didn’t hurt.  Darcy had seen it up close and didn’t seem to mind.  Instead her hands explored his back, leaving chills in their wake.  Even if she never wanted this again he would gladly take it now.  He poured poured his weight down, feeling her fit into every sensitive part like a puzzle: breasts pushed suggestively against his chest, a slender thigh fit between his legs just shy of where her hip notched in his lap.  He pushed slightly and she deepened the kiss.

Finally, Ryan hoped to himself.  He snuck a hand up her shirt, Darcy purred as her nipple grew taut beneath his palm.  It was heaven to finally kiss her and touch her after so much waiting;  it was the confirmation Ryan needed.  Darcy liked him.  He knew it.  The waiting was the hardest part.

Darcy was done waiting.  She stripped out of her shirt, eyes fluttering closed as Ryan’s slightly rough tongue circled each of her nipples.  He’d definitely done this part before.  God damn it if he wasn’t sexier than he had a right to be, pinning her to the bed with his lower body.  She rolled her hips and he groaned.  Exactly what she was thinking.  She worked a hand in at her hip and pressed it against his erection.

“OhGod,” Ryan breathed.  His body was wound tightly enough to snap.  It made Darcy weak that he wanted her so badly.  She would lose her mind when she lost her pants and so one thing had to be done first.

“Do you have anything?”

Ryan looked down at her, hair stick straight hair falling over his forehead.  When he realized what she meant, he smiled.  A big, dimpled grin like a guy....

Like a guy about to get laid for the first time, she thought.  It went through Darcy’s heart like an arrow.

“Yes,” Ryan’s voice was husky.  “Shit.  Somewhere in there.”  He tipped his head toward the two huge bags.  Condoms had been a hopeful purchase, and the only thing in those bags he hadn’t used yet.  “I have no idea where they are.”  Darcy laughed.  The bright, chipper sound in such close quarters was intensely intimate.  As if Ryan could be cool and funny as well as mostly naked with a girl’s hand on his junk.  As if getting this far and having to stop was hilarious.

“You unpacked pajamas for me, but not condoms?” She was still laughing.  Ryan blushed, pinching his mouth together and looking ever more like a little fox.  He hadn’t even thought of it.  “My God, you are perfect,” Darcy said.  

She tipped in that direction and Ryan rolled off.  He quickly turned his back and faced the bags, shy about pitching a full tent in front of her.  Darcy scooted off the bed, pulling her shirt on.  “Where are you going?”

“Think Schultzy has any?” she asked.

“Uhhh...,” Ryan was ready to die at the idea of knocking on his new roommate’s door and asking for condoms.  Back at the hotel he would have tossed Jordan’s luggage like a burglar to find them.  Darcy looked so amazing with her borrowed shirt on all crooked and her blonde hair mussed like she’d just been rolling in bed with someone really fucking lucky.  For that, Ryan would have done anything.  Even this.

“Don’t worry,” Darcy reached for the knob.  “I’m not going to ask.”

She slipped out of Ryan’s bedroom and leaned back against the door.  I cannot believe I’m doing this, she thought, followed quickly by I cannot believe I lasted this long.  Part of Darcy had always known she would give in.  The ticking clock on the lockout had been part of her hesitation.  Now she wanted to race it, to dare it to expire while she was in the middle of things.  It gave her a new appreciation for how Erin must feel about Doomsday with Jordan.

On her tour of the apartment, Darcy had seen Justin’s room.  The door opened onto a little hallway, with the bathroom just inside to the right.  It was early, he was definitely still sleeping.  A few nights with Ryan had taught her that hockey players sleep like the dead - years of roommates and road trips to blame.  Quietly opening his door just an inch, Darcy heard Schultz snoring somewhere inside the room.  She stepped right into the bathroom.  The medicine cabinet yielded nothing, nor did the drawer on either side under his sink, but on the counter was a shaving kit, complete with stolen hotel shampoo and a little tube of toothpaste.  Working silently in the near-dark, Darcy found a single condom tucked into the side of the bag.  

Sorry to the random road trip girl who doesn’t get any because of this! she said in her mind.  Darcy backed out and closed Justin’s bedroom door, wondering how a girl could sleep with a guy snoring like that in her bed.  She examined the little foil packet.  Not even expired, she noticed.  Get it, Schultzy.

Darcy went back into Ryan’s bedroom, forcing her face to wear a neutral expression despite what she was thinking.  He turned expectantly and she showed him the little square.  From the depths of the bottom bag, Ryan came up with a little black box, unopened.  He knew that Darcy knew, he didn’t have to say it.  This was enough proof of his first time.  At the time of purchase, the need for six condoms had literally been the kind of wet dream that would have woken a roommate in the dead of night.  But Ryan wasn’t really so big a noob that Darcy had to steal a condom just to have sex with him.

Darcy, in her barely-dressed, bed-head glory, just smiled at him.  “Don’t worry, we’ll use them all.”
____

Amanda looked up from around Taylor’s lap.  He was watching quite happily as she went to town down below, even though she made him keep his hands up under his neck.  He hated that almost as she hated being gagged when he tried to hold her head into his lap. “They can’t hear you,” she teased, nodding toward the wall they shared with Jordan and Erin.  The first few screams had been fake but the silence that followed meant only one thing.  No one had gotten out of bed.

Taylor gave her the megawatt smile.  “My hidden camera is on.”

Sex with Taylor was more fun that Amanda could remember having.  And there was plenty of it to be had.  He never got tired, never got bored or boring.  As much as they moaned or sighed, there was a lot of laughing too.  It was the perfect mix of having and holding.  When Taylor left, she would miss his company and his body, but with separate parts of her brain.

Amanda took him deep one more time. Taylor’s muscular legs were locked, his back twisting against the sensation.  She knew a split second before he did, the first drop of salty taste on her tongue.  Taylor groaned as he came, forgetting the rule and threading his thick fingers into her hair.  Amanda let him hold her down, giving him every last strum of pleasure, until he dropped back and she licked her lips.  After all, he wouldn’t be around forever.
____

The next ten things were each more intense than anything Ryan had ever experienced.  He met Darcy in the middle of the room - she was small standing up, he felt manly and capable by size until her shirt hit the floor.  He made a mental note to admire her later, when he could actually focus his eyes.  That was impossible with her hand slipping into his pants.  His knees wobbled.  

“Come here,” she said.  Ryan followed to the bed - he’d have followed her off a cliff.  At the edge of the mattress, he pushed his boxers off.  Now the only thing between them were her borrowed shorts.  That made him nervous - the pulse racing, don’t know where to put your hands kind of panic.  They rolled together, kissing, as his palm settled on her leg and began to inch up.  Finally his thumb grazed the spot where her thighs touched.  Like a castle opening it’s doors, Darcy parted her legs and he was touching her.

“Mmmm,” she mumbled, crushing his mouth with another kiss.  Ryan took that as a sign he was doing it right.  Very right, even, as Darcy pushed his hand out of the way and started to wiggle out of her shorts.  He grabbed the stolen condom, rolled onto his back and closed his eyes.

You can do this, he told himself.  If it broke, she’d be reminded that he had no idea what he was a total rookie.  Save that until the deed was done.  Worse yet she might stop... nope.  Ryan slid the thin film on and Darcy was already reaching.  He made sure she couldn’t ask if he was sure.  Her tongue was in his mouth and her ass in his hands when Ryan pushed inside a girl for the first time.

The tight squeeze of her body forced the air from his lungs, like he’d been punched. She was so hot and soft and deep that by the time his thighs touched the back of hers, Ryan was faint.  Like downloading knowledge from the Matrix, Ryan understood all at once why everything was always about sex.  He was dizzy.  Then she moved.

“Ohmygod,” he said right out loud.  The whole world titled; everything slid and tumbled like dishes rolling down a hill.  She pushed again and it went the other way.  Ryan tilted her hips upward, getting another inch, trying to hold on.  Instead Darcy cried out, an incredibly intimate little noise, and Ryan nearly came as if on command.

Darcy felt it.  Ryan was so much stronger than he looked and every muscle worked together; only an athlete could do that.  But it wasn’t enough to stop the 19-year old virgin in him.  She bucked against him, sliding along his length, feeling his fingers dig into her backside.  He bit her neck hard enough to bruise.  She’d done that to him once, a million years ago.

“Darcy, I...,” he panted.  She kissed him.  He would come first and he would like it, and he’d get plenty of chances to repay the favor.  Another twist of her hips and Ryan groaned.  His knees pulled up as if gathering his remaining energy.  Using all his weight for a big last push, Ryan bottomed out so hard that Darcy moaned.  This time he came when she called.
____

Erin was pouring OJ at the kitchen counter when Amanda and Taylor emerged from his room.  Amanda was dressed and ready in slacks and a button down top.  She only worked a few minutes away.  Taylor looked like a bear woken too early from hibernation.  

“Trying to get us evicted on our first night?” he asked, taking the glass from her hand and drinking half in one gulp.

“I’ll give all your neighbors Barons tickets, now that they know what name to scream,” Erin snatched the juice back.  Taylor blew a raspberry on their way out the door.  Back in the room, Jordan was sitting up in bed, looking at her phone in his hand.

“Was your interview at St. Anthony’s Hospital?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

Jordan held the phone out to her.  “They called.”
____

A phone rang.  Darcy sat straight up in bed like a puppet.  It was bright and warm... and definitely late.

“Shit.”  She tried to kick free of the blankets as she moved across the bed in the general direction of the noise.  Her feet and legs were tangled with Ryan’s and with the sheets, pulling just tightened the knot.  Momentum carried her right off the mattress, onto the floor.  Stark naked with one leg bent oddly and her foot still on the bed, Darcy landed on her back.  Her purse was just out of reach.  The ringing stopped as Ryan’s face appeared over the edge.

“Whatcha doin’?” he said with a grin, taking in her position and complete nudity like he’d just found money on the sidewalk.  Falling asleep after sex was one of life’s great pleasures, and Ryan was sampling the entire menu today.  First he’d had Darcy, then he’d had a nap.  Now he had something to laugh about.

“I’m late for work.”  

Ryan freed her foot, then climbed down over her onto all fours.  He reached for her purse... and pushed it.  It slid across the rug until it hit the wall.

Darcy huffed.  So what if his bicep was the size of her calf?  He couldn’t just throw her stuff around.  Or her.  Well, he could, but....

Ryan lowered his body until it was inches from hers, holding in a pushup.  He glanced up at the bag, ten feet away, then back at Darcy and said, “Go get it.”
____

When I started this story, I never expected the lockout to last this long.  I’m glad you guys like Ryan and Darcy so much because I’ve had to really do a lot more than I planned in this story.  I don’t want it to drag, so forgive me if I create my own future in which things happen.... - Juliet_