Drawn to you, p.12
Drawn to You, page 12
“Am I doing this right?”
“You’re perfect. Try not to move.”
Brandon was sure he was moving, but he tried his best as Gabe rotated him through poses until he felt warmed up. He brought the iPad over to Brandon to let him see.
“This is beautiful,” Brandon said, swiping across the screen to move the canvas around, revealing all the brief sketches of him so far. Brandon would never be surprised by how good Gabe’s work was, but he was always so happy to see it. “How do you get all the angles right? These lines look so choppy but create such a smooth look.”
“Practice,” Gabe said, “and also style. The way Professor Kline is always talking about voice in your writing. The way I draw, which includes the way I see things, is a part of my self-expression.”
“You’re very good at it.”
“I live to be appreciated,” Gabe said, lightness in his voice. “For the longer pose, can you sit in the corner of the couch, both arms across the back, and just take up space?” Gabe returned to his drawing chair. “Is it comfortable to turn your knee out a bit? The left one? Yeah, just like that.”
“It’s comfortable.” It wasn’t actually comfortable, and it made it so his legs were spread, but he’d be able to hold the pose for a half hour. As a hockey player, he was no stranger to pushing through pain.
“Awesome.”
Brandon focused on his breathing and tried not to think about how Gabe’s eyes were raking over his skin. For the quick sketches, Gabe had moved around enough to feel like he was just grabbing shapes and gestures. His eyes hadn’t filled with the amount of scrutiny he had now as his eyes flicked up from his iPad, then down, then up. He was having a bit of a hard time holding the iPad comfortably.
“Is that heavy?”
“It’s about as heavy as a sketchbook, I guess.”
“Is there a way that it could be easier for you? Could we find you a case or stand?”
“I know lots of folks use drawing boards you can just drop your iPad in, like the world’s most giant case. Gives you more surface area and leverage. Better ergonomics.”
“Cool. Find one you like and send me the link.”
Gabe sighed. “Thank you.”
“You’d let me know, right? If I was making you uncomfortable with this?”
Gabe looked up, setting his iPad in his lap. “I would. I promise. I know now that this is just how you care about other people. And I’m lucky you care about me.”
“I’m glad it feels like care. That’s how I intend it.” Brandon let out a breath, acclimating to the sensation of being looked at the way Gabe was looking at him.
Brandon zoned out for a while, his mind on his family and how he wouldn’t get to see them over Christmas. He thought about his first stint up in Minnesota and how he was bummed it was over, but grateful he’d made a good impression. If he had a journal, those were the thoughts he’d put into it.
When he focused back on Gabe, his eyes were roaming over his inner thighs and his underwear. By this point, he knew all of Gabe’s naughty drawings by heart, and he knew that there was no way Gabe was having innocent thoughts. When his eyes flicked up to meet Brandon’s, they were hooded with lust, his tongue flicking over his lips. Brandon felt himself getting hard. If he had any control over his body, he would have done something—anything—to prevent it.
He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to move and ruin Gabe’s drawing, but he also wanted to die a quick and mortified death. It was suddenly way too hot in his apartment, even though he was nearly naked. He chanced a glance down, and the way his erection was pushing against the fabric of his underwear was unmistakable.
“I’m so sorry,” he choked out. He was in a brand-new situation, and the comfort he’d been building up for the last forty minutes had vaporized.
“For what? You know what I like to draw.” Gabe’s voice was appreciative, and his eyes kept lingering on the bulge in Brandon’s underwear. “Unless—I’m sorry if I’m being a fucking creep right now.”
“You’re not. I just…this is all new. And I’m a fan of all your art, but especially a certain variety of your art.”
“My favorite patron. Would you…please say no to this if it’s crossing a line, but if you wanted to take your underwear off…”
Brandon hesitated. He wanted to. He wanted to.
“No pressure.”
“I’m going to,” Brandon declared, taking a breath as he hyped himself up. This wasn’t locker-room nudity, but it also wasn’t the kind of nudity you shared in the bedroom. Artistic nudity wasn’t something he’d ever considered before.
He’d done a lot of scary things in the past, including playing in the NHL. This, a drawing that was happening in his own home, by a person he trusted, had to be less scary than the NHL.
He lifted off the couch just enough to slide his boxers off, carelessly dropping them on the couch next to him.
“Fuck. I might need a moment,” Gabe joked. “I’ll turn in the other drawings, but I’ll keep these private, if that makes you feel any better.”
“It does,” Brandon said. Gabe’s classmates went to the same school as Brandon, obviously, and while Brandon was an online student and would likely never meet any of them, nor would a drawing of his dick be recognizable to anyone, he still had some feelings.
“You ready?”
Brandon nodded, and Gabe got back to work. One of the accessories Brandon bought him for his iPad was a screen protector that made it feel like drawing on paper instead of glass, and the tapping and scraping of his pencil on the screen filled the apartment.
Now that he’d started getting hard, he wasn’t sure what was more embarrassing, that he was still kind of hard or that he wasn’t fully hard. Gabe’s gaze felt like a physical touch, but it was just cold enough in the room that Brandon probably wouldn’t get fully hard with his mind alone.
“Tell me if this is crossing a line,” Gabe said. He’d been drawing Brandon naked—presumably with a focus on his dick—for ten minutes. “Sometimes I get wrapped up in an idea and do a bad job at risk assessment.”
“Okay…”
“How would you feel about touching yourself for me?” His voice automatically dipped deeper, and Brandon’s cock twitched. “You’ve got such lovely hands… But feel free to say no if I’m being weird.”
Brandon didn’t know what to say. He knew what he wanted to do, though. Slowly, he wrapped his fingers around his semihard erection and gave himself one long stroke.
“Jesus,” Gabe sighed, eyes glued to Brandon’s hand as it moved over his cock.
“Do you just want me to get hard?”
“I don’t know. Maybe keep going? You don’t have to put on a show or anything. Just do it however you do it when you’re alone.”
Just like before, when he completely forgot how to sit on a couch, Brandon was suddenly frozen. What did he like? How did he do this?
He kept his movements slow to keep himself from coming immediately. This was easily the most erotic moment of his life, and Gabe didn’t even have a hand on him.
“You’re doing great,” Gabe said, leaning so far forward in the chair as he drew, he looked like he was going to fall out of it.
“Are you doing okay?” Brandon asked, voice raspy. He was trying so fucking hard not to moan. “You look like you’re going to end up face-first on the carpet.”
“I guess my eyes aren’t as good as they were ten years ago.” He laughed, sounding awkward for the first time that afternoon.
“Do you want to…come closer?”
Gabe’s eye contact burned through him, and he couldn’t help himself but let out a soft moan as his fingers came up to play with the tip of his cock.
Gabe had to adjust himself, eyes still locked on Brandon’s cock. He pulled the chair closer, until his knees could nearly touch Brandon’s, which were spread wide open. It was vulnerable to be on display like this. He knew people did it all the time, but he never had before.
He used his free hand to push his hair off his forehead, giving it a tug for the jolt of pain, momentarily forgetting that Gabe was right between his legs, practically.
“Fuck, I want a hundred hours with you just like this. I want to capture every fucking second of this,” he said, drawing frantically.
Brandon dropped his hand from his shaft to his balls to give them a firm tug and heard the breath Gabe let out, more than halfway to a moan but not quite there.
“Can you, uh, keep doing that,” Gabe asked, and dutifully, Brandon kept his hand on his balls. His cock leaked at the tip, and he couldn’t decide if the situation was engaging or distracting. He kept tugging at his balls as he watched Gabe’s tongue flick over his lips again. Gabe’s eyes were on the fingers curled around Brandon’s balls, and Brandon’s eyes were on Gabe’s mouth—soft pink lips, the tip of his tongue stuck out the side when he was concentrating on something.
Brandon had never had a blowjob before, but he couldn’t help but think about what Gabe’s mouth would feel like.
“Okay, I think I got what I need there.” Gabe’s voice was barely above a whisper. Brandon wrapped his hand around his hard cock again, his breath coming heavier.
“Gabe, I’m getting close.” He hadn’t thought about actually coming in front of Gabe. He didn’t know what to do.
“Do you want me to leave or can I watch?”
“You can watch,” Brandon said, horny enough to be brave. He found Gabe’s eyes again as he jerked himself faster. After a lifetime of feeling invisible, Gabe’s eyes on him felt good, his attention sharp on every little thing Brandon was doing. He was alive with connection. He got so caught up in how good it felt that he stopped focusing on being quiet, finally letting out a moan as he came, head tipping back as his come streaked over his stomach and hand.
His heaving breath was the loudest thing in the room, and when he finally looked back up at Gabe, he saw him massaging himself over his jeans.
“I don’t know how to react appropriately to this,” he said, dropping his iPad to the carpet next to him. His mouth was hanging open.
“I guess it’s only fair if you…” Brandon suggested, reaching for his underwear to wipe the come off his hand.
Gabe nodded and slid his sweats and boxers down, hard cock slapping against his stomach as he freed it. It was far from the first time Brandon had seen another man’s cock, but he’d never seen one like this, hard, during a sexual interaction.
“That looks good,” he said. He didn’t have other words for it, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Gabe’s dick.
“Do you want to touch?” Gabe offered. His expression was soft, showing Brandon how good he felt already.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, if you want. Go for it.”
Brandon got off the couch and directly onto his knees, closing the short distance between the two of them.
“Fuck, here,” Gabe said, pushing his sweats and boxers the rest of the way off, leaving Brandon sitting on his heels between Gabe’s legs. “No pressure if you’re not ready—”
Brandon wrapped a hand around Gabe’s erection, the soft skin hot in his hand. He didn’t feel exactly like Brandon felt in his own hand, but a dick was a dick. It wasn’t rocket science.
He stroked Gabe, eyes flicking up to his face and down to his cock in an echo of the way Gabe’s eyes moved while drawing. He understood the urge to take it all in, to make this moment permanent.
“Just like that,” Gabe sighed, body relaxed into the chair as Brandon stroked him. When their eyes met, Brandon felt it in his chest—the overwhelming urge to keep Gabe, to hold him, to make him stay in Iowa by some miracle of scheduling and money. He had money. Gabe could do online school. Skylar could move out…
Gabe moaned, hips snapping up into Brandon’s grip, and his thoughts dissolved. He tightened his grip, speeding up, eyes on Gabe’s face as he came, his eyes shut tight, one hand covering his mouth, only slightly muffling the sounds he made.
Brandon let Gabe slip out of his grip and sat back on his heels. His hand, which still had remnants of his own orgasm he hadn’t wiped off all the way, was now covered in even more come.
Gabe finally looked at him, a soft, happy smile on his face, and Brandon felt a wave of shame and embarrassment. He didn’t know where it came from or what to do with it, but he knew it felt bad.
“Hey, you okay?” Gabe asked, leaning close to Brandon. Brandon wanted to kiss him. Kissing him would fix things, right?
“I’m fine. Good,” he lied.
“Did you have fun? I have to admit, that is not how figure drawing usually goes for me.”
That surprised Brandon enough that he forgot he was sitting in the middle of his living room completely naked, kneeling in front of a man he liked a lot.
“You draw all those dicks and then you don’t…do something about it afterward?”
“I don’t actually draw the explicit stuff from life. Usually photos or videos. This is the first time I’ve done this. Though uh, yeah, I do usually do something about it after I’m done. Just alone.” He laughed but was leveling Brandon with a heavy look. “You’re not just some guy in a long line of sexy figure models I draw all the time.”
“Okay,” Brandon said, fighting how much he wanted to curl into himself.
“Let’s get cleaned up, and then I’ll show you what I drew.”
Gabe pulled him onto his feet, and he grabbed his dirty boxers and his sweats and followed Gabe into the bathroom.
Gabe got the water in the sink running hot and found a couple of washcloths. He gave one to Brandon, who tried to keep his eyes on himself as he cleaned up. It was almost impossible to ignore what Gabe was doing next to him. They put clean clothes on, and Brandon took a moment to himself in his room while Gabe went to get his iPad.
He liked Gabe. He trusted Gabe. There was legitimate friendship there.
And Brandon never thought that the first time he did anything sexy with another man, he’d be doing it before he’d even been kissed.
“C’mere,” Gabe said when Brandon poked his head out of his room. Gabe was on the couch, pencil in hand again as he kept working on his drawings. Gabe had returned the furniture to the correct spots, and he was under the blanket that Brandon just put his bare ass on.
“I’m nervous,” Brandon said, sitting next to him. The drawing Gabe was working on was one of the first ones, with Brandon’s underwear still on. There were so few lines, especially in his face, and Gabe was still able to capture him. It was magic.
“Thank you for trusting me,” Gabe said, hitting a back button to display a screen full of thumbnails of drawings. He tapped a different one, where he’d drawn multiple different, smaller drawings, quick motions once again revealing something so intimate about Brandon. These must have been his warmups, based on the poses Brandon was sitting in. Then he opened a different file.
The sketches were messy, quick, and alive with a bright energy the others hadn’t had. Most of them were pretty focused on Brandon’s hand on his cock, but there was one of Brandon’s full body, spread out on the couch, head tipped back. His hand was in his hair, and he had a jolt of embarrassment that he’d pulled his own hair in front of Gabe. And then another jolt of embarrassment when he thought about how he’d sat there and masturbated in front of Gabe.
“I cannot explain how much I fucking loved drawing you,” Gabe said, his voice borderline in awe. He zoomed in on a messy sketch of Brandon’s hand on his balls, and jeez, that was an angle he’d never seen of himself. “You have the most beautiful body.”
“Thank you,” he said stiffly. It had felt so good to see the way Gabe looked at him while he was drawing. He loved anything Gabe drew. There was still something buzzing under his skin from getting to touch him. Something that felt incomplete. Something that wanted more.
But maybe Gabe was right. Maybe it wasn’t special. Maybe it was just the first time he’d ever had a connection with someone.
SEVENTEEN
GABE
Gabe was behind the wheel of Mac’s pickup because Parker was unwilling to drive it. Mac had Parker’s Prius on a job with him, while Gabe and Parker were on their way to a stranger’s house to pick up an old dresser.
“Mac showed me how to use the orbital sander and the paint stripper before he left, so we should be good to go,” Parker said. “Thanks for doing this with me. I was too scared to try it alone.”
Parker was a person who appreciated a safety blanket, and today, that safety blanket was Gabe. He’d had a lot of safety blanket practice lately.
“No problem. It’ll be nice to do something with my hands after all the digital art I’ve made so far this semester.”
“I negotiated them down to ten bucks, and I think once we refurbish it, we’ll be able to sell it for two hundred.”
“We’ve already made more than that,” Gabe reminded him. When Gabe told Brandon what he and Parker were going to do that day, he’d received a Venmo payment “for supplies” for three hundred bucks. He was going to split it down the middle with Parker. It felt fair.
“I can’t believe he’s still sending you money. Just…because? When you went down to Iowa, did you feel like you were earning it?”
Gabe laughed. “No. I never feel like I’m obligated to do anything. If you think about him as my sugar daddy, it feels weird, but I think about him as a patron of the arts, and it’s less weird.”
“Hmm,” Parker said, clearly not agreeing. “So he just gives you money and you don’t have sex?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You had sex with him and didn’t tell me?”
“I have plenty of sex I don’t disclose to you.” That wasn’t super true. Parker loved gossip, and while he wasn’t the kind of person who enjoyed one-night stands or short little flings, it didn’t prevent him from enjoying stories about them. “Plus, we didn’t really have sex.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You either have or have not had sex.”
“I drew him nude, and he got hard, and I asked him to jerk off while I was drawing. And then he jerked me off.”
