“Hey.” I knocked the side of his temple with my nose and he rewarded me with a soft moan. “Come for me like this.”
“But…”
“Come for me like this,” I said again, twisting my wrist between our stomachs.
It didn’t take long, and then Jasper made another soft sound. Nothing more than a sharp intake of air as he spilled into my hand. Cum streaked between my fingers, splashing up against my stomach and his chest. His entire body seized, his arms braced on either side of my head against the back of the couch as he rode out the aftershocks of his orgasm.
“Shit,” he muttered, long after his limbs had stilled.
I hadn’t let go of him. My hand was still wrapped tightly around his cock, even as it softened against my palm.
“What?”
“That was embarrassing.”
“You’re embarrassed?” With my free hand, I cupped his cheek, surprised by how soft the dense hairs of his beard felt against my skin. I tried to commit the feeling to memory, then realized that wasn’t a good idea.
I was leaving, and this was temporary.
I pulled my hand off his face and settled it on his ribs, a little high and just below his armpit.
“We didn’t even get to…” he trailed off.
“We don’t need to, Sparky.” Jasper looked down at the mess between our bodies and I kissed the top of his head.
“Climb off and sit. Let me get you cleaned up,” I said.
“What about you?” he asked, moving off of me. He stretched, one of his knees cracking, then he collapsed beside me on the couch with a soft and embarrassed laugh.
“I’m fine,” I said, standing up and wiping my hand on the front of my thigh. “Your towels are under the sink in the bathroom, right?”
“I can get it.”
“I know.” I held out my hand, stalling Jasper when he tried to stand. “I know you can, but I want to.”
“All right.” Jasper settled back against the couch. “I’ll be here.”
“I know.” I exhaled a trembling breath and walked out of the room, fighting an uninvited pang of melancholy that I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to shake.
13
Jasper
I let him clean me up.
Liam came back fully naked with a wet washcloth in one hand and a glass of water in the other. He kneeled between my legs and handed me the water, then ever so gently started to wipe the sticky wetness from my stomach and cock. He cradled my balls in his hand, giving them a once-over with the cloth, too. I tried to not pay attention to him because I couldn’t make sense of the things I was feeling.
My gut churned with a sense of satisfaction twinged with self-consciousness and my ever-present guilt. It was easier than normal to push the guilt out of the way, though, and focus on the embarrassment, which apparently left my cheeks and chest a dark pink.
“You’re blushing,” Liam said, giving one last swipe across the soft length of my cock.
“It’s been awhile.” I grunted when he stepped away and pulled one of the quilts off the back of the couch and over my lap. I became painfully aware of my nudity, but Liam didn’t give me the impression that he was going to stop looking at me anytime soon.
He wiped his fingers with the washcloth and held out his hand for the water glass. I passed it back to him and wrapped the blanket tighter around my waist.
“You don’t need to stay down here,” he said. “You don’t have to make weird small talk with me.”
“I wasn’t going to make weird small talk.”
“But you were going to stay?” Liam arched a brow and turned on his heel, padding back into the kitchen.
I didn’t know if I was going to stay. All the instincts in my chest begged me to let him sit beside me, to touch me, to hold me, but maybe that was a step too far. I didn’t know. I took advantage of his absence and darted to the center of the room for my clothes. I dressed, leaving my shirt off in favor of having time to get my pants up, then I tended the stove.
There was no fire lit, and the heater provided enough warmth, but I yearned for the familiarity and comfort of the crackling wood fire. Liam returned to the sitting room as I closed the grate on the stove, and I listened to him move around behind me. There was more rustling, and I glanced over my shoulder to find him still naked, folding up all the blankets and stacking them on one end of the couch.
He sat down with a quiet huff and watched me.
“Is this weird now?” he asked, giving me a serene look. “Do you want me to go?”
“Your car doesn’t work.”
“Do you want me to go?” he asked again.
I sighed and stood up, joining him. I kept enough space between our bodies so I wouldn’t give into the urge to reach for him or touch him, and I folded my hands together in my lap.
“No,” I whispered, staring at my hands.
They looked like shit, with calluses on the sides of my fingers and hangnails around the nail beds. I picked at the corner of my thumb, wincing when the sliver of skin pulled back too far.
“What are you doing?” Liam reached over and swatted my hands away.
“I had a hangnail,” I grumbled.
“That’s not how you deal with hangnails.”
“That’s how I deal with hangnails,” I said.
“How have you lived this long?”
I shrugged, honestly not sure what to say to him.
“Do…do you want me to clean those up?” he asked.
I shifted my stare to his hands, those long and slender fingers and his clearly manicured nails. My cock pulsed against my thigh, thinking about how those fingers had felt wrapped around my cock, thinking about how they’d plucked away so easily at the strings of his guitar earlier in the evening. He took my hand in his and turned it over, tracing swirls around my palm with the edges of his fingernails, and I closed my eyes, lost in the feeling of it all.
“If you want,” I said.
I blinked my eyes open in time to see Liam smile at me and kiss the heel of my hand before he jumped off the couch and ran into the kitchen again. I sighed and settled against the couch, but Liam was back in a flash with a cutting board and a bowl of water.
He set the board on my lap, then the bowl.
“Don’t move,” he warned, taking my hands and dipping my fingers into the water.
Liam finally, regrettably, dressed. He pulled on his underwear and a pair of my sleep pants. I noticed he’d still worn my pajamas even though he had his bag and his own clothes. I tried to not let that feeling turn into anything inside my chest, though.
He pulled a small black bag out of his duffel and dropped it on the couch beside my thigh, then he leaned over the couch and grabbed his guitar. He started playing, humming that same song from the porch under his breath. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew he hadn’t played it at the bar.
“Uhm.” I cleared my throat, waking Gus up. He barked, then settled back into a pile of fur in the other room. “What are we doing?”
“You’re soaking,” he answered. “I’m playing. Just relax, Jasper.”
Liam’s voice cracked when he said my name and I closed my eyes, settling against the couch again. I got lost in the chords, lost in his voice, the vibrations of his throat as he groaned and reworked whatever he’d been making progress on.
“Are you writing that song?” I asked.
Liam straightened and set his guitar against the side of the couch. “You should be wet enough.”
“Liam,” I said.
“What?” He busied himself moving onto the ground, arranging himself between my legs and taking the bowl of water away. The tips of my fingers were pruned, and he took one of my hands in his, dragging his fingers down the length of my hand, examining both sides.
“The song you’re always strumming and humming. Are you writing it?”
Liam studied me, silently, then unzipped the little bag and pulled out a metal device that looked like scissors, but not quite.
&n
bsp; “It’s nothing,” he said, giving me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. It was a look I’d been using for three years and, for the first time, I was aware of what it felt like to be on the receiving end of it.
“Okay,” I told him softly.
Liam pursed his lips and turned his attention back to my hands. “It’ll be easy to get you cleaned up.”
He started clipping away at the damp skin around my cuticles with his weird little scissors. He worked efficiently and quietly, then he dropped the cutter things back into his bag and zipped it up. He picked everything up and set it on the floor beside the couch.
I studied my hands, the way the edges of my fingers were now pink from his attention. With the edge of my thumbnail, I traced along the nail bed of my pointer finger, appreciating the delicacy with which he’d tended me.
“Better?” he asked.
I reached for him and he came forward, and with a nervous hand, I gently set my fingers against his cheek. Liam leaned into the touch, his lashes fluttering, and he covered my hand with his. He closed his eyes and held my palm against his face, taking breath after breath, his fingers dragging over my knuckles.
“Much,” he finally rasped.
Liam cleared his throat and gave me another one of his fake smiles, then straddled me. He moved quick, landing on my lap before I even realized he’d shifted his weight, and he raised both of my hands to his face.
“You’ve got really good hands, Sparky.”
“So do you.”
Liam dragged his fingers down my arms and up my shoulders, then held my face the same way I had him. He traced his thumbs across my cheeks, his stare working its way from my forehead to my chin.
“Have you always had a beard?” he asked.
“Born with it,” I told him, the answer to a long-running joke I hadn’t thought of in years.
“I believe it.” He tugged the edges of the hair on my cheeks and a small sigh tumbled out of my mouth. Liam tugged again. “Do you like that?”
This wasn’t a conversation I ever thought I’d have again, let alone with this little twink from California who’d just jacked me off until I had the best orgasm I’d had in the past three years. How to tell anyone, let alone a stranger, that yes, sometimes, a little bit of pain got me hard.
It turned out I didn’t need to tell him because, beneath him, my cock twitched, filling with blood.
“You do,” Liam concluded, giving my beard another tug. “And you liked when I pinched your nipples.”
I licked my lips. “You noticed.”
“I notice a lot about you.”
“Liam.” I needed to say my piece. I needed to be clear, and I needed him to understand what this was and what it could never be. “You know this isn’t a thing, right?”
“What?” He made an amused noise. “You and me? We talked about this already.”
“Right. We can’t be a thing.”
“You’re cute, Sparky, but remember I’m just passing through.” Liam’s expression faltered and he tipped his chin to the side and kissed my palm. “I’m a big boy. I know what’s what. We don’t need to talk about it every time we kiss. ”
“I just want you to understand…”
“I get it.” He cut me off, his tone harsh, then he gave me a soft smile. “I get it. I promise. Even if you wanted to be with me forever and always, that’s not anything I can do right now anyway.”
“All right.”
“Stop thinking about it,” Liam said, giving my beard another pull.
I sucked in a breath and fought the way my eyes rolled, the way my nerves lit up with want.
“Trying,” I muttered.
“Did you want some help?” he asked.
I slipped my hands around Liam’s back, pulling his slender body closer, relishing the way his chest felt against mine. The way his heart beat and pushed against my sternum. God damn, it had been so fucking long since I’d had this, since I’d even thought about allowing myself to have this. I tried to think about it objectively, tried to keep Michael out of my head as I worked to rationalize why it was okay for me to let myself have something new.
In the deepest parts of my heart, I knew Michael wouldn’t have wanted this for me. He would have wanted me to move on, or to at least have friends and the occasional hookup. He wouldn’t have wanted me alone and miserable, untouched and neglected. Michael would have wanted me to live a life after him, even if it was without him.
The truth, though, was that no life of mine would ever be without him, and while I knew I hadn’t rushed myself, I knew I was ready for what had happened with Liam… what was happening with Liam, I didn’t think it was fair for me to be in a proper relationship with anyone because Michael would always be there.
A figure.
A specter.
A memory.
That’s why Liam is perfect, a voice in the back of my head told me. A voice that sounded like Michael. He’s here for now, not forever.
I let out a trembling breath, taking the time to sink into the way Liam’s fingers burned against my skin. He moved his hands down my face, around my throat, and up the back of my neck. He threaded his fingers into my hair and gave the barest hint of a tug. I groaned, and he leaned in close until I could taste his breath against my mouth.
“Help with what?” I managed to ask, tongue darting out to taste him.
“Exactly.” Liam smiled, lips pressed against mine. “It’s already working.”
14
Liam
Sleeping on a couch was going to be the death of me, but it was Sunday and the water pump was supposed to arrive any day now. He’d muttered a curse under his breath about me having a faulty new car instead of something old and reliable, and that’s how I’d found myself in the garage, fingers trailing over the angled edges of the Mustang’s fastback roof.
Gus circled around my feet, threading his way around my ankles as I made a lap around the car. I didn’t know much about classic cars or muscle cars or whatever, but I had a suspicion this one would have been really something in its prime. Now, though, the body was littered with bits of rust, the seats were in the car but not bolted down and the hood sat half open, engine parts barely visible.
“Why doesn’t he fix it?” I asked Gus, taking the stairs back into the laundry room and latching the door behind me.
Gus barked, giving me an answer I didn’t understand, but also felt in my bones. The car clearly belonged to his husband, or ex-husband, or whatever the guy was. I know Jasper didn’t talk about it, didn’t talk about him, but there were signs of a past life scattered all around the house. There were no pictures; in some corners it wasn’t much more than a feeling, but it was definitely there. I didn’t know how he lived with the memories.
I scooped coffee into the filter and poured water into the pot, then sat at the table and played on my phone while I waited for the coffee to brew. I started to wonder what his husband looked like, what they looked like together, and a surge of jealousy lit up in my chest.
“Definitely not,” I muttered under my breath, stabbing Manny’s name on my contact list. It rang four times before he answered, voice quiet and groggy.
“Are you dead?” he croaked.
“Clearly not.”
“Why are you calling me so early?”
“It’s eight,” I said, glancing at the clock on the wall that had a bright orange rooster at the twelve.
“Wherever you are maybe,” Manny groaned.
“I’m in Vermont,” I said.
Manny cleared his throat and sighed. “Still?”
“The part hasn’t come in for the car yet.”
“Right.”
“It hasn’t!”
“And you’re shacking up with the mechanic?” he asked.
“I’m sleeping on his couch,” I answered, cheeks heating.
“Tell me the rest.”
“There is no rest,” I lied.
“Tell me the rest,” Manny said again.
The car
afe on the coffee pot was half full, so I poured myself a mug. I put my phone on speaker, but turned the volume low, and sat back down at the table, cradling the quickly warming ceramic between both of my palms. It had only been a handful of days, but I’d gotten used to the simple comforts of Jasper’s house.
Everything felt like it had history to it, from the giant table in the dining room, to every blanket in the stack he’d given me to keep myself warm the first night, to the row of cars in his garage, mine included. I had a fleeting thought about the way my life would fit into the patchwork of his, but that was a dangerous idea… a dangerous feeling.
“It’s not bad here,” I finally said, doing my best to summarize without explaining. It was a technique I’d honed through the years and an easy way out of arguments with my parents.
“The mechanic,” Manny said.
“His name is Jasper.”
“And you’re sleeping on his couch.”
“And I’m wearing his pajamas and drinking his coffee in his kitchen,” I snapped.
“Do you not have your own clothes, Liam?” Manny’s voice took on a lilting tune, the amusement clear across the miles.
I didn’t have my own clothes the first night, and Jasper had loaned these to me, but even when he’d brought my car back to the house and I had access to my things, I hadn’t stopped wearing them.
“It’s cold here,” I grumbled. “There was snow.”
“Right.”
“I played at a bar last night. This local place.” I changed the subject.
“How did that go for you?”
“It was… nice.”
Above my head, the stairs shifted and groaned, and I knew it indicated Jasper was on his way downstairs.
“Jasper is awake,” I said.
“Do you need to go?” Manny laughed. “Am I your secret?”
“It’s just… it’s polite. He’s letting me stay here for free, you know?”
Jasper’s feet hit the bottom of the stairs and I watched him stumble, sleepy and groggy-eyed, toward the kitchen. His sweats hung low on his hips and his white undershirt didn’t do much to hide the broad and strong lines of his chest and shoulders. His dark hair sat tousled on top of his head, falling into his forehead and his eyes, and he scratched his chin through his beard.
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