by A R Steele
Jesse pulled his hand away. “Let’s not touch. You’re going to cloud up my mind.”
Shade stared at him, his mouth slightly open. “Well, okay.”
They ordered the greasiest food on the menu. “So,” Jesse said after the surly waitress had left. “Want to tell me a little about yourself?”
Shade actually blushed before answering. “I grew up in Haberdee. I have a little sister. I went to school for journalism. I briefly made the mistake of dating a woman named Pearl…”
Jesse laughed and shook his head. Maintaining his anger toward Shade was difficult when he was so cute and sexy. The personality Jesse had fallen for was still there, unchanged.
“I don’t know what else you want to know,” Shade said.
“Tell me about your childhood.”
“It was okay,” Shade said. “I was a little on the shy side. I definitely didn’t have the confidence that I have now.”
He was meeting Jesse’s eyes less than usual, and sometimes he stuttered. Jesse wondered if that was because he was being his real self, or just because he was in an awkward situation. His money was on some combination of the two.
“Working at the club helped me become more sure of myself,” Shade said. “I’m serious about that. I never felt this comfortable talking to strangers, going up to people and sitting down with them… or exposing myself to a room full of people.”
Jesse nodded. If he thought about it, he had experienced the same thing. He had never lacked confidence, but he definitely had more since becoming a stripper.
The waitress dropped a plate of bacon and eggs in front of each of them, and they dug in. Jesse watched Shade eat, glad his appreciation for food wasn’t part of the act. Jesse liked eating with him, and he liked that they had the same tastes.
“Tell me about your job,” Jesse said after they’d both taken a few bites.
Setting down his fork, Shade looked him in the eye. “Well, I work for a magazine called Snap That. We like to do in-depth reports about things that interest people, things people will spend a long time talking about. Sometimes the slant isn’t so nice, but…”
“Right.”
“It’s been an okay job,” Shade said. “They never wanted to give me any juicy assignments before. I normally just wrote about whatever crap they could come up with for filler. My boss is a bit of a bitch. You would hate her.”
Jesse liked that Shade had imagined how he would fit into his life. He took a sip of water and nodded.
“Even my parents hate her,” Shade went on, pushing his scrambled eggs around his plate. “They didn’t think I should have taken that job in the first place. They found the magazine too snarky, and they thought I was wasting my potential doing grunt work. I should have listened.”
Funny how Shade had been completely blind to the realities of his workplace. Jesse’s feeling about him had been right. He wasn’t who he said he was, but he’d never been malicious. Jesse was leaning toward forgiving him.
“What about your friends?” Jesse asked. “Do you have a lot?”
“Some,” Shade said. “I’m still in touch with some of the guys from college. I even have friends from high school. Male, female, straight, gay… I never cared too much.”
“And you haven’t been missing them?”
“I do, but we keep in touch, and I’ve seen them sometimes when I’ve been back.”
“You’ve been back to Haberdee?”
“Sure. During our days off, I’d sometimes go back and see my family.”
Jesse shook his head. Shade had been living this whole other life for so long. He wondered for a moment if he would ever be able to trust Shade. But Shade was so open about this now, and he wasn’t trying to hide anything anymore. Surely knowing how badly he had fucked up, Shade would be honest for the rest of his life.
They finished their meal, and at the end, they said no to dessert. The kind of dessert Jesse wanted wasn’t on the menu. But even if his anger was dissipating, he still had to continue getting to know Shade and make sure he really liked him before they could go back to his place.
“So, where are we hiking today?” Jesse asked.
“I know another trail in town,” Shade said. “It’s a shorter one.”
Jesse gave him a look, wondering if he was thinking along the same lines as him. He definitely didn’t want to spend the day hiking when they could be in bed, but he still had to be completely sure about Shade. “Maybe we’d better hike it twice,” he said.
The two of them drove to a spot on the other end of town. Shade led Jesse out of the car and onto a dirt road. They followed it for several minutes, and Shade smiled as Jesse looked around gleefully. “This is beautiful,” Jesse said.
“I’m glad you like it. You know, you act different when we go on hikes.”
“Do I?”
“You never smile like that when you were in the club. You seem looser… maybe even younger.”
Jesse gave him a funny look. “I guess I do, come to think about it. I probably feel more comfortable out here.”
“And why is that?”
“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “No one around to judge me.”
He took a few more steps under the leafy trees when it hit him. Shade was trying to tell him something. He wore a mask, too. It was different from Shade’s, but he also had different sides to his personality that he let out at different times.
Had Shade intended to make him realize that? The motherfucker and his subtle questions, he probably had.
“So, how much of what you told me last time was true?” Jesse asked.
“Everything.”
“Sure, everything except for what you studied, your last relationship, and your real job,” Jesse said. He tried to sound teasing, but some bitterness came through.
“All right, except for those things,” Shade said quietly. “I can’t apologize enough. I know I was wrong, and I didn’t think about how it would affect you. To be fair, I had no way of knowing that things were going to go this way.”
“You didn’t think you’d be into me?” Jesse asked.
“More like I didn’t think the hottest guy in the club would be into me.”
Hottest guy? Jesse liked the sound of that. But Shade had been willing to let him go. Shade clearly put his job first, which Jesse supposed was the right thing to do. He could kind of see why Shade had done what he’d done.
“Did you really not think about how your article would affect the club until you told me who you are?” Jesse asked.
That was the most bizarre part to him. Shade had been researching and compiling notes for months. How had he never taken a second to worry about what other people would think?
“I didn’t,” Shade said. “And it’s inexcusable. I was so happy to have a real assignment. I was only thinking about what to write, and how to make it sound the most exciting to readers. I didn’t think about how you guys would feel. I got caught up in my own importance, and I wasn’t empathetic.”
“At least you’re thinking about us now,” Jesse said slowly. That was a good thing, even if Shade had been incredibly stupid to not think about it sooner. “Tell me about the article. What were you planning to write?”
“I wanted to write everything,” Shade said. “Like what kind of women come in, and the different things the club has been trying out. I was even going to include the DJ and the bartender and the bouncer. It’s just such a fascinating place. I didn’t want to make it look bad… although now that I think about it, it’s probably what they wanted. All I intended was to bring out the truth.”
Jesse nodded. Shade’s passion for his work was visible, and he didn’t sound like he was trying to do anything wrong. He’d simply gotten caught up in his vision. Jesse could see how he had done that, even if he didn’t completely understand.
“So you’re Sheldon,” he said after thinking about it for a moment. “You seem the same.”
Shade glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and smiled. “Li
ke I told you, I am who I am. I pretended to be a little different, but overall I’m the same.”
Jesse had to smile as well. “You want me to call you Shade or Sheldon?”
“I like S. You’re the only one who calls me that.”
They were coming up to the end of the trail, and Jesse hated the thought of letting Shade go without touching him. He reached out and brushed his fingers against Shade’s hand. A grin spread across Shade’s face, and he turned to look at him. “I thought you said no touching.”
Jesse grabbed his hand, squeezing his fingers hard enough to hurt. “I changed my mind, okay? Who’s the one begging for forgiveness here?”
“Does this mean that I’m close to getting forgiven?”
They both smiled as Jesse relaxed his hand into a comfortable grip. “Maybe,” Jesse said. “We’ll see how it goes.”
“What’s next on our plan for the day?”
“I was thinking I would take you back to your place.”
Shade blinked at him. “Oh.”
“And fuck you senseless.”
“Oh!”
“What?” Jesse asked, grinning now. “You don’t want to do this?”
Shade’s exhale was audible, and he stared at Jesse with pure lust. “I definitely want to do this.”
Twenty-Eight
“How long is this fucking elevator going to take?” Jesse demanded, glowering up at the display above the doors.
God, he looked sexy when he was annoyed. Shade might have found his anger funny, but he was equally worked up. He wanted Jesse desperately. This elevator needed to show up.
“I want you here and now,” he whispered to Jesse. “I didn’t know if this was even going to happen. You sure made it hard for me.”
“It was hard for me, too,” Jesse said. “If your actual self hadn’t turned out to be cool, I would’ve been jerking off to the video we made for the rest of my days.”
The elevator dinged just as Shade’s eyes widened. He had completely forgotten about the video. In the heat of everything that had happened that night, he’d been more focused on Jesse than the camera. “You still have that?” he asked, his voice low as they got into the elevator.
“I couldn’t convince myself to delete it.”
The doors shut in front of them as Shade’s mouth dropped slightly open. He could only imagine how incredible that video must be. A full recording of the first time they’d hooked up… He was seized with the need to look at it.
“Are you mad?” Jesse asked.
“Not if you tell me I can have a copy.”
“I’ll do you one better,” Jesse said, his lips turning up in a smile. “We can watch it together.”
Shade caught his breath, overcome with arousal as they walked out of the elevator. They could watch it together, and maybe… act it out together? He couldn’t think of many things that would be more of a turn-on. Him and his guy, getting off on themselves getting off.
And he was allowed to call Jesse his guy now, right? Now that they had been on their date, they were still together, so that meant they were boyfriends. He would ask Jesse later to make sure. For now, he just wanted to see that video.
As they got into Shade’s apartment, he licked his lips. “You have it here?”
“It’s on my phone,” Jesse said. “I’ll play it on your computer.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
Shade dragged him through the hall and into his bedroom, where he opened his laptop. He plugged in the phone, and Jesse did some kind of computer thing until the video popped up on the screen.
The preview image alone was enough to get Shade hard. It was from Jesse’s point of view, showing the top of Shade’s head and Jesse’s huge cock disappearing into his mouth. Shade’s mouth watered as he looked at it. “Come here. We can sit on my bed as we watch it.”
“Not so fast. This is fine cinema. I need a glass of wine before we sit down and watch.”
Shade looked at him in disbelief. Well, if he wanted wine, Shade would give it to him. “I’ll be right back.”
He searched through his kitchen for alcohol. Fortunately, there was a bottle of red jammed in the back of the cupboard. He poured some quickly into two drinking glasses, since he didn’t have wine glasses, and brought it back to Jesse.
“Now we’re talking,” Jesse said, clinking his glass to Shade’s. “This is classy.”
“Are you just trying to drive me nuts? Hit play already.”
Jesse laughed. “If you insist.”
On the screen, their bodies came into motion. Jesse turned up the sound so that Shade could hear what they were saying. Shade looked confused in the video, but after a second he adjusted to being on camera. He reached out for Jesse’s cock, which somehow looked even bigger than it was in real life.
“We look amazing together,” Shade murmured.
“We sure do.” Jesse took a sip of wine and put his hand on his leg. Shade thrummed with anticipation. As much as he wanted to rip off Jesse’s clothes, he wanted to see the video more.
He watched as his image ran his tongue up Jesse’s length. The sound of Jesse’s groans came through the speakers loud and clear. Shade’s legs twitched, and a drop of wine splashed onto the sheets. He fought the urge to unzip his pants. He wanted to do to Jesse what he had done last time.
And Jesse wasn’t making it easy for him. Now he was rubbing his hand up and down his thighs. Maybe this was payback for what he had done in the car. Shade’s cock pressed painfully against his zipper. His balls were tight, his nipples hard. He was more aroused than he had ever been in his life.
“Don’t miss this part,” Jesse said, turning his attention to focus on the screen. “You’re about to do something pretty cool.”
“Is that so?” Shade murmured. He was losing the will to speak. He was too turned on for witty comments.
“Yeah,” Jesse said, his voice a low rumble. “Just about… now.”
On the screen, Shade dipped his head until he took Jesse’s cock far enough to gag on it. “Oh!” Jesse cried out through the speakers. His body bucked, and he followed up his moan with a litany of swearing. It seemed like Shade had pleased him a lot.
“I remember doing that to you,” Shade said, proud of himself. “Maybe I should do that again.”
“I wouldn’t say no to that.”
Shade freed his cock and gave it a quick massage before turning to Jesse. “If you lie sideways, I can watch the video while I go down on you.”
“All right.”
Jesse turned on the bed, and Shade arranged himself between his thighs. He unzipped Jesse, both of them still watching the video. Shade found it unbelievably hot to see himself doing things to Jesse. Jesse’s reactions were the sexiest thing he had ever seen. And as he pulled Jesse’s cock free and put his lips around it, Jesse’s groans in real life matched the ones coming out of the speakers.
“Fuck,” Jesse swore. “This feels even better than I remembered.”
Shade pulled his head up. “Are you sure? Because it sure looks like you were enjoying it.”
Jesse put a hand on the back of his head. “Don’t stop.”
Shade watched as, on the screen, Jesse’s body shook. There was no way he would be able to get him there that fast when his video self had a head start. But Jesse’s cock was hard and throbbing, and as he sucked him more urgently, Jesse’s salty load spilled into his mouth.
“Holy shit,” Jesse said, propping himself up on his elbows. “I’m still hard.”
“Hey, that’s not what we’re doing in the video.” Shade gestured to the computer, where they were discussing switching positions.
“You want to keep the video going?” Shade asked through the speakers.
Thank fuck Jesse had said yes. Shade watched eagerly as his image laid down on the bed.
“Oh, I’ll do that to you,” Jesse growled. “Don’t worry about that for a minute.”
Now Shade gasped as Jesse moved up, pushing him down in a flash. His
back hit the mattress, and he let out a gasp as Jesse’s hand wrapped around his cock. Jesse’s mouth followed a moment after.
Shade looked at the monitor. From the camera’s angle, he could see Jesse’s muscular arms and sculpted back. Jesse in real life was harder to see – but Shade could touch him, run his fingers along his jaw or spread his fingers through his hair. Yes, he liked the real thing better.
Jesse glanced over to the laptop. Making a muffled sound, he patted Shade’s leg and gestured to bring his attention there. Shade’s image thrust upward into Jesse’s mouth. Shade couldn’t even remember doing that. He must have just been that turned on. He was straight up face-fucking Jesse now. He guessed Jesse wanted him to do the same thing, so he tried it.
If he had gone on instinct last time, his instinct was right. This felt amazing, and Jesse could swallow him all. Jesse seemed to have no problem taking his entire length. Shade thrust upward into his mouth, feeling the tightness of his throat around his tip. This was so good, it was almost too much. He was on the edge. He was going to…
“Fuck!” on-screen Shade yelled out.
In real life, Shade came at the same moment. He grabbed the back of Jesse’s head and pumped, spurting his release down his throat. When he wasn’t looking at Jesse swallowing him, he looked at his image writhing and thrashing. He came until he couldn’t come anymore.
Jesse pulled himself up next to him. “So, you liked that?” He reached for his wine glass and took a long sip.
“That was unbelievable,” Shade panted. He had no idea how Jesse could be so calm. “The only thing I regret is not making a video of us watching the video.”
“And after that, we could make a video of us watching that video? You’re brilliant, S.”
Could Jesse really be that relaxed about this earth-shattering experience? For a moment, Shade gaped at him. The growing grin on Jesse’s face betrayed how much he was into this.
“Sounds good to me,” Shade said, moving into Jesse’s arms.
They were both still half clothed, and the feeling of Jesse’s body concealed by layers of fabric turned Shade on. He stroked his hard muscles, aroused beyond reason. He had just had an incredible orgasm, but he wanted more. Jesse had said he was still hard, wasn’t he? Shade moved his hand down to check.