This next adventure is beautifully written, as usual, by the very talented, Travis Beaudoin.
So, the day after his encounter with bad boy, Skye, in the seedy motel room, Bryce drives to DC to hook up with a former student, Julián.
In the backstory, we learn how the two met as professor and student, and how the shy, sweet and compliant Julián registered on Bryce’s radar as someone who was crushing on him - the observation coming from his husband, Mateo.
We see Mat encouraging Bryce to have sex with Julián, but Bryce says he doesn’t sleep with his students. Fast forward 72 hours after Julián’s graduation, and Mat gets his wish!
This story is a complete turnabout from Bryce’s sexual escapade with Skye - he is back to the Bryce we know, gentle, loving, caring, and completely invested in having, and providing loving fun with someone he likes and cares about.
Matt had expressed surprise in the past that Bryce and Julián never seem to do role play - but, today, Bryce feels that being dressed as a professor (he had driven straight from work) and Julián (who is now doing his phD), dressed in his usual, casual student clothes, is enough of a role play scenario.
However, the reader never forgets for one moment that this still seems like a professor-student encounter, not only by the age difference, or the way they are dressed or that the sex is taking place in a university office room, but that Julián is still in the role of a student, when he asks Bryce’s permission to do things to him.
Once in the university TA office, they get to revisit each other’s bodies in the time tested way that works for them both - a gentle BDSM that Julián likes with the use of a bit, and preferring that Bryce uses his tie with which to tie his hands together. Bryce is tender and gentle and sensitive, as he prepares him.
Similarly, Julián has prepped Bryce, enabling him to relax and shake off the stresses of, and forget, not only of his long day of teaching, but also his sordid encounter with Skye the night before.
Bryce notes that even though Julián is still the shy, nervous boy he always was, he appears to have become more confident in taking some control, and is slightly more assertive.
Travis gives us a slow build- up to their actual physical encounter - they meet in their usual eatery, are served by their usual waiter, they start talking, sweet looks and touches and, suddenly, two hours have passed while their food gets cold.
After their encounter, they hug and Bryce drives off to spend another night in an hotel, an upmarket one this time, relaxed and his thoughts full of Mat.
But all is not what it seems with Juliàn. Bryce does appear puzzled a few times by the subtle responses from Julián whenever he mentions Mat. I think that Bryce doesn’t realise that Julián is in love with him, and resents the fact that Bryce is married to Matt and will never be completely his.
Of all his sexual encounters so far, this one seems to take us, in my opinion, into the territory of the dangers of someone getting really hurt in this kind of arrangement. Tread carefully, Bryce!