Landon’s Choice by Caleb Marks
Chapter One
Landon
Shutting the front door heavily to alert him of my presence, I remember watching a show about cheaters once, and I’d always thought I’d rather catch them scrambling to put on their clothes instead of in the act. Not that I think Malcolm is cheating on me. I would say he doesn’t know how, but how is rarely the complication when it comes to cheating on your boyfriend.
As it turned out, the person who did cheat on me told me to my face almost a month after the alleged incident, and I hadn’t suspected a thing.
I shake the thought of Finn Merritt out of my head and search the house for Malcolm, frowning when my search comes up empty. He’s usually the one who gets home before I do. In fact, I would usually find him in the kitchen, shirt off to show his smooth black skin, the complete opposite to mine, trying out a new recipe with the radio blaring. He’s one of those who still listens to the radio, and I think it’s adorable.
I search the house before coming to a stop and pursing my lips. I don’t really know what to do with myself being the first one home. I peer into the bedroom and get an idea. I grin and run a comb through my hair, check my breath, and reapply deodorant after a long day of teaching. I throw my shoes off and take my shirt off, too, trying to decide how much of my clothing to leave on.
Malcolm has said before that he enjoys the getting undressed stage, but was he just saying that? I slide my pants off and sit on the bed, wondering what the best position would be to greet him in. I could start propped up on my elbow, but then I’d have to sit up when he came in the room anyway…I sit on the edge and wait. I’m not usually one to do something spontaneous like that––all spontaneity is from Mal––so I’m not sure how to do this.
After ten minutes, I wonder if maybe I should be hard, ready as soon as he’s home. But what if he doesn’t want to be on the receiving end after a long day of work?
After another ten minutes, I send him a message but get no reply. I frown and contemplate giving up. If he’s running this late getting home, he’ll want dinner and not sex.
I’m in the motions of standing up to find my pants when the front door opens and slams shut behind him. “Lan?”
“In here!” I call out.
“Sorry I’m so late!” he yells as I hear his shoes hit the floor as he yanks them off as he always does when he gets home from work. He’ll be unbuttoning his shirt on the way to the bedroom to change before dinner. “I stopped by the hospital to see Lane. He’s looking in better spirits. Anyway, my phone didn’t have any––”
He appears in the doorway, and his mouth drops open.
“How was Lane?” I say with a sugar-sweet smile.
He grins and makes it to my side with two long strides, leaning down to kiss me firmly. “I don’t remember,” he mumbles against my lips, letting me take over in undoing his belt and tugging his pants down his legs.
Any doubt I had in the lead up to Mal’s return home dissipates with the tender strokes of his fingers down my arm or the firm movements of his tongue in my mouth. He pushes me backward when he’s naked, and as I move up the bed, he grabs the waistband of my underwear and pulls them down. We’ve streamlined the process by now.
“What did you have in mind?” Malcolm trails his lips down my chest.
The answer is currently nothing as he reaches my stomach, but I groan and try to focus on the question. “Your choice.”
“Good. That’s what I was hoping you’d say.” He shuffles to the bottom of the bed and takes me down in his mouth, making me groan.
It’s slow and deliberate, bringing me close to the edge and then backing off in that sweet torture that Malcolm is so good at. When the idea of sex before dinner had crossed my mind, I had assumed it to be a quick pressure release and not such an intense focus of attention.
“God, Mal, I was supposed to be surprising you,” I pant as he achingly slowly lifts his head to look at me.
He pops his lips off me and grins wildly. “You did. I love this surprise. My most favorite surprise ever is anything that involves you. You naked is always a bonus.” He hovers above me and leans down to roughly run his tongue over my nipples, taking it in turns while stroking me at the same time. “You know, I thought about this all day at work today, and if you hadn’t done this, I would have. Fuck, you make me horny, Landon Collins.”
I smirk and sit up to kiss him before grabbing the bottle of lube and a condom from my nightstand. “Don’t talk to me about horny. Toby sent me a warning e-mail from the school’s IT security e-mail to say I need to stop watching porn at work.”
Mal grins, but his expression changes when I use my teeth to open the condom packet. He raises his eyebrows at it in my hand. “I thought we––”
“Please?”
He sighs but doesn’t say anything as I roll it on.
“How do you want to do this?”
His disappointment in the use of condoms is short-lived. “Ooh…let me on top. I’ve got energy.” He climbs on top of me, and all talking stops as he sides down me and rides me until I can’t take it anymore.
I pant through my orgasm and hold him still on me for a second before relaxing and tapping his leg to get off me, groaning as I make the motions to sit up.
“Hold up a minute.”
I turn back. “Fuck, you didn’t come. Want some help?”
Malcolm shakes his head as I lie back down, and he kneels over me, fisting his erection furiously. He cries out, and his excitement pools in my navel and trickles down my hip. He breathes heavily and flops next to me. “Okay…you can go if you need to. I’ll take a second, and then I’ll go start preparing dinner.”
I chuckle and prop myself up to kiss him slowly. “I’ll start dinner. You get your breath back.”
Later, when Malcolm has taken over for me in the kitchen, Jeopardy! is on TV, and I’m marking student papers at the breakfast bar that I know Malcolm will bring the topic of condoms up again.
I’m getting a little distracted by him standing in front of me. He’s only wearing a pair of short basketball shorts, and I can see the imprint of his dick in the front of them. He’s taller than me, with long limbs covered in gorgeous dark skin that I have spent almost eight months exploring every inch of. It’s only when his dark brown eyes turn to look into mine that I realize he was saying something.
“Hmm?”
“You missed a science question.” He nods at Jeopardy! “I feel like Mr. Collins is distracted, and his students would be disappointed.”
I know I’m blushing, but he wiggles his brows and leans on the counter in front of me.
“I can’t help it when you’re standing there like that. I’m about a minute away from doodling dicks on my student’s paper.” I look down at the work I’m supposed to be working on. “And she’s twelve.”
Malcolm grins before we both catch the question on the TV.
“Who is Taylor Swift?”
Malcolm studies me, and I know the topic is about to be mentioned. “You know, we’ve been together for eight months now.”
“Yes…” I say slowly, pretending to go back to the work in front of me.
“And we had the conversation that we’re exclusive and that I love you and this is forever, and I don’t want to be with anyone else, didn’t we?”
“Yes…” I say even slower and quieter.
“And that conversation led to the sexual health tests we received the negatives for, and that led to the conversation where we said we were going to stop using condoms.” He waits until I look up at him. “So why the insistence?”
“I just…prefer them.”
“Liar! Big fucking liar! You don’t want to use them any more than I do.” He sighs and goes back to peeling potatoes. “Did you…hear something or, I dunno, read a scientific journal that says what we’re doing is now suddenly with a higher chance of disease? What happened, Lan?”
I shrug weakly. “Nothing happened. I just don’t feel––”
“Who got into your head about this? You were on board only a couple of weeks ago.”
“And I changed my mind. No big deal.”
Malcolm stares at me for a long time. “And you weren’t going to tell me?”
“I did tell you.”
“Just using a condom isn’t telling me, Landon.” I can see he’s getting tense in his shoulders now, and I hate that I put it there. “Did you use condoms with Finn? You were with him longer than you’ve been with me.”
I look down at my work suddenly, and I hear the knife he was using to cut the potatoes land heavily on the cutting board.
“Is that why, Landon? You didn’t use condoms with Finn, and he cheated on you?” Malcolm groans in realization and leans over to lift my head with a finger under my chin. “I’m not going to cheat on you, Lan. Just as I hope you’re not going to cheat on me. I love you. When I suggest not using condoms anymore, that’s me saying that I trust you.”
“I trust you too,” I whisper. “But I also trusted him.”
“Yes, but I’m not him. I’m not an idiot, for a start. Do you really think I’m going to fuck this up for a chance to get in someone else’s bed for a night? You’re already well out of my league as it is.”
“No, you’re not,” I growl. It’s a conversation we’ve already had many a time.
Malcolm studies me intently for a moment before he leans over and kisses me gently. “We’ll keep using condoms if you want, Landon. I want you happy, and I don’t want this to affect our sex. Condoms or not, I can make you see stars.”
I give him a small smile.
“And…look, maybe there are other options we could look into.”
“Everything else is too expensive and is most definitely not covered under our insurance. You know that.”
Malcolm exhales a laugh and turns back to preparing dinner. “Well, if you change your mind again, let me know, okay? Because I hate them and can’t wait to be rid of them.” He clears his throat. “And it being just you and me is a very wonderful thought.”
I nod before turning back to the marking in front of me.
“What is an isosceles triangle?” we both say at the same time.
We burst into laughter before I look at him. “So, how was Lane?”