Is he a fuckboy or is he actually interested?

I’ve recently moved country for a scholarship (about 3/4 months ago) and I’ve met this guy around my age who I’ve been talking to now for a few months and I’m just not sure what his intentions are. I’m 18 and don’t have any experience with guys sexually or even any relationships, this guys knows this and he’s been really sweet and clear that he doesn’t want to pressure me into doing anything I don’t want to do. The problem is that I’ve been told a few things about him that if they’re true it means he’s just being manipulative and is using me to have sex. Although we’ve been speaking for a few months now we’ve only started to meet up, I’ve been to his house 3 times now, it’s always went well and he’s really sweet and asks if I’m fine/comfortable and just seems like he wants to make sure I’m happy. The first time I went over two of his friends were also there, he said he’d have his friends over just to make sure I was comfortable and he also mentioned that his parents were fine with me coming over, we were watching a movie and he started kissing my neck and when he took me home I had my first kiss ( a quick peck, it was cute). Now the second time I went over, only his best friend was there, it was planned to only be me but as the day came he said he was trying to think of ways to get me in his house without his parents asking what’s up (it was a bit weird as he hadn’t mentioned that being a problem the whole week we had planned this) but I was fine with it and thought maybe his parents just didn’t want him to be alone with a girl in his room, understandable as a lot of parents are like this. This time things escalated a lot quicker than I ever thought they would and as his friend left to smoke outside we started making out and it got very close to us having sex. It was great and I didn’t regret it or have any doubts about being so intimate as I weirdly feel comfortable around him so I thought since it felt natural I shouldn’t be too bothered. Now before I went over the third time to his house, I was warned by a friend that he’s not a safe person to spend time with and that he’s basically a player. After speaking to her, if she’s telling the truth, she said that he was a year older than he is, lied about random things like what his plans for university are and that he apparently has a girlfriend who he cheats on all the time but she’s so in love with him that she lets him do it. She apparently has also read messaged between him and his best friend being very disrespectful about girls they’ve slept with. So I brought this up with him over text (although I just mentioned that I’d heard he talks about girls in a very disrespectful way) and he just said that he’s always nice to girls and that he’s only had sex with one girl that he dated in the past and that’s it. He’s also told me that he has only dated one person when he was 16 and that was it. I went to his house the next day and he was really sweet, tried to make his room nice with a couple candles and we started watching a movie which turned into us making out and doing other stuff together. The option of having sex was there if I wanted to but we talked and I said I didn’t want to just yet. He seemed fine with that and we just did other stuff together. Weirdly though after we were finished and we’re just cuddling he went and got his friend who was apparently sleeping upstairs (his parents are out of the country for a few weeks for Christmas and his friend is staying for company so he doesn’t have to stay alone). And then we just chilled for a while until I went home. I’m basically just a bit confused and don’t know how to feel about him and I obviously don’t want to put my trust in a guy to have sex for the first time if he isn’t genuine. We briefly spoke about the ‘rumours’ of him being a player and he just said that people tend to make stuff up about him all the time because when he meets people he can act differently around them and they don’t know how to take him so they make things up, he also said he didn’t know what he’d get out of lying to me about things so basically just denied it. I’ve yet to bring up the age/girlfriend things because I genuinely don’t know how I would. I also just think it’s a bit weird that his friends always seem to somehow be involved when I’m over, maybe the only he wants to spend alone with me is for sex?? He’s got quite a straightforward personality and doesn’t tend to care what people think/say about him and he also mentioned about how he doesn’t tend to express his emotions much. I’m just not sure how to take any of this and any advice/help would be greatly appreciated!

Since last going to his house he hasn’t really been talking to me, I don’t want to think it’s because I didn’t have sex with him but that’s the only reason I can think of. He even ignored a Merry Christmas message and people are telling me to just forget about him.