The Delicious Series: The First Volume

by Stella Starling

  Jeremy knew it was something to talk about—something that deserved a more in-depth conversation than they’d been able to fit in around Ava’s bedtime—but reading with Ava had been good tension relief, a slice of innocent happiness that had felt deliciously domestic. Nick had rubbed slow circles on Jeremy’s back while he’d read the story, getting as absorbed in it as Ava was. Possibly more so. It had been Nick who had urged Jeremy to read yet another chapter—what would have been the fourth—and Ava who’d sleepily insist that they wait.

  “I might fall asleep in the middle, Daddy,” she’d said, yawning. “And I don’t want to miss anything.”

  She’d asked for some back rubs of her own, which is when Jeremy had snuck out.

  But not before Nick had stolen a chaste kiss.

  Jeremy grinned at the “chaste” part of that particular memory. It had been chaste—perfectly appropriate for in front of a six-year old—but that hadn’t stopped Jeremy from having entirely un-chaste thoughts at the feel of Nick’s lips on his. Thoughts that he really hoped were going to become a reality.

  Soon.

  His smile stretched impossibly bigger, a little thrill going through him at the thought.

  Okay, maybe not so little, actually.

  The fact that he was waiting for Nick to come out to the balcony so that they could finally get naked together—well, the waiting bit was happening on the balcony, he assumed the naked bit would be handled elsewhere—was pretty much sending him into the red zone when it came to levels of happiness. Even though he knew there were Important Topics to discuss—how to handle the long-distance thing, Nick’s dyslexia—and even if part of his ramped up emotions were due to some kind of after-the-scare high, a post-rollercoaster-of-emotion rush of euphoria, Jeremy couldn’t help it. Didn’t even want to. All he could manage to feel at the moment was 100% happy, and he figured there would be plenty of time later for the rest of it.

  Although, okay, maybe 100% wasn’t entirely accurate. There was also a hefty dose of horny in the how-Jeremy-was-currently-feeling mix. In fact, he’d have to say that his current happy/horny ratio was a solid 50/50.

  Well, maybe 20/80.

  No, that wasn’t right, either, because he was pretty damn happy. Could it be 100/100? But then technically it wouldn’t be a ratio, right? Well, whatever. Math had never been his strong suit.

  All that mattered was that Nick was his happy place, and pretty soon, sex-with-Nick was going to become his even-happier place.

  Jeremy was done looking for the perfect man. As far as he was concerned, Nick was it. The One. “Perfect” was the kind of love-interest that Jeremy had read about and swooned over in sappy romance books for years. The kind of idealized man that no one had ever lived up to, or ever could. But Nick wasn’t perfect—the man had an inconvenient habit of making Jeremy spit-laugh his coffee at inconvenient moments, and he’d also hogged the popcorn the two times they’d gone to the movies—he was better.

  Because Nick was his.

  And he was real.

  And he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Well, in the relationship-sense, of course. Obviously, not a reference to the impending Seattle move, which Jeremy had already decided to give himself a pass on thinking about for the night.

  But seriously, for the first time in his life, Jeremy felt fully confident that his current boyfriend wasn’t going to suddenly reveal a brand-new, cringeworthy side of himself. Or, on the flip side, wake up one day and decide that Jeremy wasn’t really what the guy had been looking for, after all. Jeremy wasn’t waiting for the other shoe to drop. He wasn’t wondering if the grass was greener with someone else. He wasn’t holding his breath or ignoring the signs of impending doom or trying to talk himself into putting up with things that he’d rather not.

  Jeremy knew Nick.

  Not every last detail of his life, but he knew his character, inside and out. He knew what made Nick laugh, and what he cared about, and the things he was willing to take a stand on. He knew how Nick took his coffee, and which radio station he preferred, and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he was trying not to laugh.

  Jeremy knew he could count on Nick.

  That he’d always have Jeremy’s back.

  That Nick would never let him down.

  Most of all, he knew that Nick was everything he wanted. The two of them just made sense together, and even if it was too soon to say it out loud, Jeremy already knew that he wanted him forever. The thought made his heart do a crazy little flip inside his chest, and he turned away from the gorgeous view to check whether Nick was, by chance, heading toward him at that very moment.

  Nope.

  Just how long did it take one small girl to fall asleep, anyway?

  Jeremy huffed out a breath, laughing at himself. He already missed Nick, and it had been, what? All of twenty minutes since he’d last seen him?

  Actually, he had no idea how long it had been.

  The sky was fully black now—well, as fully black as it ever got above the glow of the city lights—but it was entirely possible that it just felt like a long time because of the omg-I-really-need-to-finally-get-laid factor. He leaned against the railing, tracing the freckles on his wrist while he waited. It was a move that had become habitual ever since the first time Nick had kissed him there, and he squinted his eyes at the bright spray of twinkling stars above him, wondering if he could spot the real thing.

  He’d looked up how to find the Summer Triangle online, but it was way harder to see it in the actual sky than it was on Google, where all the photos had everything labeled and convenient lines drawn between the stars to outline the constellations. The real-life version of the sky looked more like someone had opened one of those annoying glitter bomb envelopes over it and then run away laughing. Plus, a lot of the stars sort of blurred together, making them look more like a series of bright smudges than actual constellations.

  Although that part could have just been because Jeremy wasn’t wearing his glasses.

  They weren’t his best look, but the prescription was better than his contacts. Still, he tried to avoid wearing them around his boyfriends. Jeremy grinned, thinking about the way Nick had kissed him when he’d surprised Jeremy at his apartment earlier that afternoon. He hadn’t seemed put off by the glasses.

  At all.

  A shooting star flashed across the sky, right through the spot Jeremy had been staring at, and he sucked in a breath, feeling a little surge of childish excitement. He didn’t spend a lot of nights outdoors, and could count on one hand the number of shooting stars he’d actually seen in his life. He’d wished on every one of them, and by some miracle of coincidence, every one of those particular wishes had come true. And fine, they’d all been silly things that might have happened anyway—getting The Diary of Alicia Keys back when the CD had first come out, having chocolate-chip pancakes for breakfast, finding his lost library card—but every time, actually getting the thing he’d wished for had felt like magic, even though he’d known better.

  Butterflies fluttered in his stomach as the brief flare started to die out.

  Nick.

  The falling star was there and gone too quickly to list everything he wished for with the man, but Jeremy trusted that he didn’t need to. Whatever it was that made wishes come true either didn’t exist at all, or wouldn’t need him to spell it out, if it did. And in any case, Jeremy wasn’t going to wait around to find out. Not this Jeremy. Jeremy 2.0. The new and improved version of him was all about seizing the day and making things happen now; he didn’t need starlight and magic to make his wishes come true.

  Still, though, he was glad he’d managed to make his wish in time. Just in case.

  The sound of the sliding glass door opening came from behind him, and that flutter of butterflies came back in full force. He pressed his lips together tightly to keep from making the embarrassing hare-sound, but wasn’t the fact that Nick had come out Immediately After He’d Made His Wish some kind of sign?

 
“What are you doing out here, Pumpkin?” Nick asked, wrapping his arms around Jeremy from behind.

  Heaven.

  “Looking for the Summer Triangle,” Jeremy said, since “wishing for you” sounded a little bit too much like a cheesy chick flick.

  Even though it was true.

  “You have to face east,” Nick said, turning Jeremy’s body to the left without letting go of him. “See it?”

  Jeremy cocked his head to the side and squinted. Nope. He just saw… lots of stars. Lots of triangles, if he wanted to connect the dots. But he still had no idea which one was his.

  Er, the Summer Triangle, he meant.

  Nick pointed at a part of the sky with—surprise—a bunch of stars in it, splaying his other hand across Jeremy’s stomach as he did to hold him close. Jeremy forgot about the star thing for a minute as his cock sprang to life right below Nick’s fingers.

  “There,” Nick said, his breath dancing across the side of Jeremy’s neck, just under his ear.

  “Um,” Jeremy said, wondering if it would ruin the moment to follow that all-purpose word with “please fuck me right now.”

  Maybe.

  “I don’t see it,” he said, instead.

  “The bright one. There. See?” Nick asked, still pointing.

  When Jeremy shook his head—far too distracted by the feel of Nick’s body pressed against him from behind to make a real effort at finding it—Nick moved his hand up, sliding it over Jeremy’s chest like an omg-so-fucking-erotic caress, and wrapped it loosely around his throat. Nick’s fingers stroked the underside of Jeremy’s jaw as he tilted his chin up, sending electric bolts of raw lust shooting through him.

  “There,” Nick said. “In that thick cluster.”

  Jeremy swallowed, his brain too busy trying to talk him into getting naked right there on the balcony to even pretend to look.

  Would that be a bad idea?

  He thought the answer might be yes, but for the life of him, he was finding it impossible at the moment to remember why.

  “Do you see it?”

  “Mm,” Jeremy said non-committally, squirming his ass against Nick hopefully as he mentally listed the pros and cons of public sex.

  Tried to, anyway. On the pro side, he got as far as a) sex with Nick, but then Nick kissed him—just below his ear—and his brain stopped working altogether.

  “Let’s go inside,” Jeremy said, grabbing Nick’s hand and trying to head for the door.

  Nick laughed, not cooperating, and tugged Jeremy back into his arms.

  It was exactly where Jeremy wanted to be, and therefore would have been perfect, if it hadn’t been for the tiny but insistent don’t-rip-Nick’s-clothes-off-in-front-of-the-neighbors voice in Jeremy’s head, ruining his fun.

  Okay, it was definitely time for a more proactive approach. A Jeremy 2.0 approach.

  “Nick,” Jeremy said, searching for the right words. Nick was still holding his hand, and Jeremy pulled it down to cover his very-happy-to-see-him cock, thrusting against Nick’s palm. “I need you to take care of this.”

  Nick froze, eyes widening as he sucked in a shallow breath.

  Oh.

  Shit.

  Jeremy had forgotten that Nick was the-boyfriend-formerly-known-as-straight. The man had probably never touched a cock other than his own before. Were they going to have to get through a mini gay-freak-out before moving on to the fucking like bunnies portion of the evening?

  Jeremy bit his lip, wondering how best to ease Nick in that direction.

  He’d never slept with a straight guy before, but he seriously hoped the freak-out part wouldn’t take too long, because his happy/horny ratio had tipped into the need-to-be-naked-right-now-or-die zone. Jeremy opened his mouth, hoping something that would help make the naked happen would come out, but before he could figure out what that might be, Nick stroked Jeremy’s straining erection through his jeans.

  Jeremy’s mouth snapped closed as his cock jerked in Nick’s firm grip, and his brain stuttered to a complete stop.

  Nick’s lips crashed into his.

  “Jesus, J,” Nick said, groaning the words into his mouth as he palmed him. “I need you naked. Now.”

  Oh, God.

  Nick.

  Was.

  The.

  Perfect.

  Man.

  Either that, or he really could read Jeremy’s mind.

  Nick managed to maneuver the two of them across the balcony while Jeremy’s brain was still in omg-your-hand-is-finally-on-my-cock shutdown, but—maddeningly—he paused in front of the sliding glass doors without opening them.

  “Don’t wake Ava,” he said hoarsely. “She’s a really light sleeper for the first hour or so, and I swear to God, J, if I have to stop once we start, I think it’s going to kill me.”

  Ava.

  Right.

  Her presence was a much better reason than worrying about the neighbors when it came to the question of whether or not to rip Nick’s clothes off before making it to the bedroom. Since Jeremy assumed that the whole not-waking-her-up thing included being quieter than he was capable of at the moment, he forced himself to step back, putting a little space between them.

  Because if Nick kept stroking him like that, he was going to start moaning like a porn star.

  “Is balcony sex out?” Jeremy asked, seriously reconsidering his stance on it.

  “Don’t tempt me,” Nick said, his hand already on the sliding glass door. “I want you in my bed.”

  Jeremy whimpered, too turned on to feel even remotely embarrassed by the needy sound. Nick pulled him through the quiet apartment.

  “Jesus, J,” he whispered, pushing Jeremy up against the inside of the bedroom door as soon as they made it that far. Nick cupped his ass, hauling them together. “Do you know how badly I want you?”

  The raging hard-on Nick was grinding against him gave Jeremy a pretty good idea, and when Nick’s lips found the sensitive skin of his throat, the dirty things he whispered against Jeremy’s skin proved there wasn’t going to be any time wasted on a gay freak out, after all.

  Which was fucking hot.

  But also not helping.

  Well, with the keeping quiet part, at least.

  “Nick,” Jeremy whispered urgently, tugging at the hem of Nick’s shirt in a desperate bid to get some skin. “I need nnngghhhhhh—”

  Nick’s hand wrapped around Jeremy’s throbbing cock—somehow, he’d managed to get Jeremy’s jeans both undone and shoved down to his thighs without breaking any body contact—and the feel of skin on skin, especially that skin, meant that Jeremy utterly failed to keep quiet.

  “Shhh,” Nick said urgently, laughing the admonition against Jeremy’s panting mouth. “Don’t wake—”

  Too late.

  “Daddy?”

  The sleepy voice out in the hallway effectively froze them both, Nick’s hand going still mid-stroke. Jeremy whimpered—very, very quietly—when Nick slowly let go of his cock and moved him away from the door.

  Thankfully, Nick was still fully clothed.

  “I want you naked when I get back,” he whispered, giving Jeremy a little push toward the bed and a look that almost made him come right there.

  Jeremy was totally, completely on board with that plan. But as fast as he managed to get his clothes off, Nick was faster. Jeremy had managed to remove pants, briefs, socks, and shoes, and was in the middle of pulling his shirt over his head when he heard the click of the bedroom door behind him, followed by the snick of the lock. Smart. Although, for real, Jeremy was going to be quiet this time. Completely, utterly, silent.

  Nick pressed against him from behind, helpfully tugging Jeremy’s shirt the rest of the way off.

  “How did you get her back to sleep so fas—mmph.”

  Nick’s callused hand clamped over his mouth, cutting him off, and the feel of rough skin abrading his lips reminded him just how good it had been when it was wrapped around his cock. Jeremy moaned—the sound muffled by Nick’s ha
nd—and reached behind him to grab onto Nick’s still-not-naked-dammit ass and pull them even more tightly together.

  “You need to be quiet this time, Pumpkin,” Nick whispered, the laughter in his voice laced with heat.

  Jeremy could feel the hand that wasn’t covering his mouth fumbling between their bodies, and a second later Nick managed to shove his own pants just far enough down to grind the heat of his erection against Jeremy’s ass. Nick groaned quietly, his head dropping onto Jeremy’s shoulder from behind, and then the perfect, perfect man reached around to stroke Jeremy’s leaking cock again while his hips thrust against him.

  Oh, God.

  Oh. Fucking. God.

  Jeremy needed Nick to fuck him.

  He needed to come.

  He needed Nick to be fucking him while he came.

  “Shhh,” Nick said, which was totally unfair, given that it was his own damn fault that Jeremy was on the brink of losing it.

  His hand… was… magic…

  “Jeremy,” Nick whispered hoarsely, tightening his hand over Jeremy’s mouth. “Jesus, I’m going to come just from listening to you.”

  Before Jeremy knew exactly how it happened, Nick had him flat on his back on the bed, his mouth replacing the hand that had been trying and failing to keep Jeremy quiet. Nick’s lips were addicting, and Jeremy couldn’t help it, he moaned—again—and ran his hands over… too many clothes.

  “Nick,” he said, practically panting. “Oh my God, please get naked.”

  The man’s body was unbelievable, and when he finally did, Jeremy couldn’t have stopped himself from touching it even if he’d wanted to. Every single part of Nick was mouthwateringly hard, all smooth planes and deep valleys and rippling muscle that flexed under Jeremy’s hands as Nick moved above him. Nick was still kissing him, and despite the urgency with which his rough hands roamed over Jeremy’s skin, his mouth stayed tender—almost reverent—and Jeremy could feel Nick smiling against his lips.