Still wrapped in his towel, Zack perched on the edge of the bed. Hell. He really didn’t know what came next. Was Pike expecting sex? Like actual fucking? That still made Zack’s stomach a bit wobbly. Or the jerking-off-together thing? Or—
“Stop thinking.” Pike tugged him down next to him on the bed. “I can hear your brain creaking from here. It’s distracting.”
“I’m not sure what to do,” Zack admitted, not looking at Pike.
“There’s no wrong answer.” Pike stroked his arm. “We can sleep—”
Zack snorted because that was so not happening.
“—or just go with what you want most. I’m a pretty easy-to-please guy, Zack.”
“Anything?” Zack rolled so that he loomed over that insolent mouth.
“Yup.” Not intimidated in the slightest, Pike gave him an impish grin. “Unless you want a list of suggestions. Or we could watch porn together, give you some ideas—”
Zack cut him off by straddling his waist and pinning his upper body to the mattress. “I don’t need some sort of remedial sex classes.” Except you kind of do. Zack told that little nugget of wisdom to kindly go fuck off. He could figure this out. “And I don’t watch porn.”
“Hold up. Never. You’ve never watched porn?”
“Never let myself search for it before. I’ve seen some straight stuff that buddies shared, but not any gay porn.”
Pike shook his head sadly, still not struggling against Zack’s grip. “I’m getting you a Peppy Boys subscription tomorrow.”
“You are not.” Zack growled a warning.
“Fine, fine, you can borrow mine.” Pike flopped his head all dramatic like. “But dude, you sucked cock like a champ. Was that all just from your imagination?”
“One hundred percent. Is that you angling for a repeat?” Not that that would be a hardship—Zack had been dreaming about sucking Pike again.
“Nah.” Pike gave him another shameless grin. “You going all toppy on me here—” he pretended to struggle against Zack’s hands “—is pretty damn entertaining. Can’t wait see what you do next.”
Toppy. There was that word again, the one that meant Zack would do the still-hypothetical fucking, something that sent a strange thrill up his spine. And judging by his smile, Pike wasn’t entirely opposed to this. Did he want to fuck Pike? He still wasn’t entirely sure, but he did know that having control like this made his dick rifle-barrel hard and about as ready to shoot.
“This. I do this.” Still pinning Pike down, Zack dipped his head, claiming Pike’s mouth in a scalding kiss. His tongue sought Pike’s, fucking his way into his mouth with short little licks, and then longer, deeper delves as Pike yielded to him. Underneath him, Pike bucked, hips rising up to meet Zack’s. He’d lost his towel in all the wrestling around, and the jolt of their dicks dragging against each other made Zack moan against Pike’s lips. Gasping, he broke the kiss, instinctively meeting Pike’s thrusts.
Pike wrapped a leg around Zack’s ass and thighs, deepening the contact. This was far different from the shower jerking they’d done and not just because they were in a bed—the kissing felt more urgent, the thrusting more deliberate and the contact between their dicks not as slick, but more friction equaled more sensation. Without the conditioner as lube, Zack could feel every wet kiss of Pike’s cockhead against his own. Such a fucking rush, knowing that Pike was leaking for him.
Blood pounded in his ears as he rutted against Pike. His lips feasted on Pike’s ears and neck—each moan and plea from Pike making him tremble inside with ever-rising need. He wasn’t quite sure what he needed, just that it needed to be soon.
“Fuck. Oh God. Zack.” Pike was chanting under him, arms straining against Zack’s hold, whole body bowing. Warmth hit Zack’s belly. Unfamiliar pride surged through him, mixing up with the need coursing through him. I fucked an orgasm out of my guy like a boss.
His hips snapped, dick gliding through the slick. So close. Almost. Fuck. He needed...
“Off.” Pike shoved at his shoulders, and Zack rolled to his back. Hell. Had he screwed things up somehow? Had Pike not wanted to come that way? Should he have—
“Unnngh.” He made an incoherent noise when Pike’s mouth connected with his dick. Oh. Oh yes. A tongue was licking him. And he’d fantasized about this before—vague sensations of wet and heat—but nothing that came close to the sensations streaming through him, an endless loop of pleasure. Then Pike swallowed him and a whole new world of awesome opened up.
“Fuck.” He stroked Pike’s shoulders, one hand rising to brush over Pike’s soft hair, before he quickly removed it. He’d heard guys complaining how their girl hated being touched when going down on them. But to his surprise, Pike reached out, grabbing Zack’s hand with that surprisingly strong grip his and dragging it back to his head.
God, he loved how Pike never hesitated to show him exactly what he wanted right when he wanted it. He let his fingers sift through the silky strands of Pike’s short, straight hair, still damp from the shower. Pike made a pleased humming noise that Zack could feel all the way to his balls. Pike sucked harder. Zip. Adrenaline raced through him, the same surge he got in his belly when the door opened right before a jump. Every muscle tensed, ready to ride the sky down.
“Gonna...” he warned Pike.
“Do it.” Pike went all the way to his base, milking him with his tongue, and Zack couldn’t hold back anymore, tumbling over, not caring how hard the landing might be, just letting all the good feelings blast through him, eviscerate him until he was nothing more than a limp heap of bones on the mattress.
“Holy hell, that was hot,” Pike said in the understatement of the year as he collapsed next to Zack.
“Yeah,” Zack mumbled, communication faculties still not entirely back online.
“It was okay, right? Me sucking you?”
“More than okay.” Zack shook his head, trying to find some brains. “You didn’t mind the...mess?”
“You mean the taste of my spunk on you? Nope. Hot as hell. I don’t mind the taste of myself at all.” With way more energy than Zack had, Pike swiped one of their towels from the floor, cleaning off his stomach before passing it to Zack.
“Me either,” Zack said absently as he wiped off.
“You’ve tasted yourself? I was thinking you didn’t jerk off very often at all.”
“I don’t.” Zack knew he was blushing but couldn’t summon enough energy to care. “But when I do, if I...uh...taste it, I can usually go again, get a double.”
“That’s hot as hell. You should jerk it more. And let me watch.” Pike grinned at him.
Somehow that seemed way more intimate than what they’d just done, letting Pike watch what he ever only did the in dark of night or, desperate, in the shower. He tried hard to not do it actually, rationing that sporadic guilty pleasure out, waiting until the need got too much even for him, then immediately feeling guilty after. Yeah, he wasn’t sure he was ready to share that with Pike.
“I’ll let you watch me.” Pike poked him with an elbow, clearly not taking silence as an answer.
“Maybe,” he hedged if only because watching Pike would indeed be fucking hot.
“You’re half-asleep, aren’t you?” Pike laughed, reaching over Zack to turn out the light. “Go to sleep.”
Zack rolled over, arranging his pillow the way he always did. But his routine definitely did not usually include a warm weight draped across his back.
“Night.” Pike’s voice was all happy and sleepy.
Nothing could possibly be this easy, but right then, just for a moment, Zack let himself dream.
Chapter Twelve
October
“So who can tell me the answer to problem fourteen?” Pike asked the half-empty classroom. He had twenty-nine enrolled in this section, but he’d alrea
dy determined weeks ago that he was lucky if two-thirds of the class showed.
Also, he already knew from marking off homework that most of those in the room didn’t have the work, but hope sprang eternal and all that junk. Hell, it was the same impulse that kept him going with Zack. In the weeks since their hallway encounter, Pike’s hope sensors were on overload thanks to a steady diet of shared meals and increasingly cuddly orgasms.
But hope wasn’t doing a damn thing to help him in the classroom. Predictably, Suzanne’s hand shot up, same as it had on the past dozen problems. She took beginning stats seriously—showing up early each class, color-coded binder at the ready, calculator out, pencils sharpened.
Too bad she was the only one.
“Anyone?” Pike ignored Suzanne’s hand. “How about...” He scanned the list of names, trying to find another awake student. Damn. He shouldn’t have to look at the list this deep into the semester. He should have all the names memorized, except he didn’t. “Jose?”
“What problem again? Five?” Jose blinked, then stretched, arm tats rippling. Hell. Had he been asleep too?
“Fourteen,” Pike said wearily. Damn, how did other professors manage this? Pike struggled to remember if his any of his classes at Berkeley and then later Caltech had been this unresponsive. And even as a teaching assistant, Pike couldn’t remember this many confused and sleeping students. Maybe it was this stupid book. Small print. Terrible explanations, but that was the one he’d been given to teach out of since he’d been hired after the textbook selection deadline, along with the drier-than-high-fiber-cereal syllabus template from one of the permanent faculty members.
“Ah. Fifty-two.” Jose smiled sheepishly, as if he already knew the answer was wrong.
“It’s actually ninety-seven. Let’s talk about how the book got that answer.” Pike went to the white board, grabbing a black marker. What he really wanted was some colorful ones, but he hadn’t figured out yet who to talk to about supplies in the classrooms.
Click. Click. Click. Pike whirled around to discover the source of the strange noise. Damn it. Suzanne’s seatmate, whose name escaped Pike, was knitting. Again. Some sort of socklike thing and it was distracting as all hell, just as much as the guy in the back row with earbuds in, faint sounds of music drifting Pike’s way every so often. Or the kid using his open laptop to stage a silent War Elf battle. Pike could give him some pointers on what he was doing wrong, but even talking to the kid after class hadn’t managed to dissuade him from gaming in class.
“Hey, it’s four thirty!” called a younger guy at the back of the room with three eyebrow rings.
Hell. Only of course Pike couldn’t say that. “See you all on Friday. Don’t forget to do the homework! And Monday there’s a quiz!” That I haven’t written yet.
After class, he had to make copies for his early class the next day, so he headed to the smaller building that had the administrative assistants for his department, all their mailboxes, a bank of copiers and the math faculty offices, including the small office with a paper sign proclaiming Visiting Professor Reynolds for him. He stared at the copier, trying to remember how this one operated. He’d built his last several computers, could do all the handyman stuff required around their place, but the copiers here seemed determined to outsmart him. All he wanted to do was run double-sided and stapled copies of the handout he’d spent most of yesterday crafting. Not that hard.
“Stupid thing.” Pike hit the back button and somehow ended up at the screen that needed his ID number again.
“Problem, Reynolds?” His department chair, Professor Hu, a short woman with gray hair and a stern voice, came up behind him.
“Nope,” he lied.
“Your originals are facedown,” she pointed out, not unkindly.
Heck. He flipped them, then tried again with the code. “Thanks.”
“Don’t forget to duplex your copies. No paper wasting! The duplex button’s right there.”
“Got it.” Pike gave her what he was sure was a tight smile, but she had hired him. “Thanks.”
“And I’m glad I caught you. Are you going to the campus art gallery show on Saturday evening?”
“Um...” So far, Pike hadn’t yet plugged in to community campus life, and his weekends had all been devoted to the house or gaming.
“You should. Professor Morganstern is a friend. The gallery talk is at six thirty, and my partner, Joanna, and I are having people over for a late dinner at eight o’clock. You should come meet people.”
“I’m not sure if I have plans, but I’ll check—”
“Oh and do feel free to bring someone. We’re all a bunch of old married biddies around here. You live with someone, right?”
Now who had she heard that from? Pike had been careful to not mention Zack too much at school. No way would Zack be cool with Pike gushing about anything they did, even just how awesome their painting looked. And besides, the house and Zack felt a bit like his own personal oasis, the place he returned to and was still just Pike, not this Professor Reynolds person he was trying so hard to be.
“A friend,” Pike allowed.
“Well, bring him or her. Or a date, whatever you choose.”
“I’ll ask, but it might just be me.” Pike could tell by the serious glint in Professor Hu’s eyes that an outright refusal wasn’t going to work. This wasn’t anywhere near optional.
He would ask Zack. As friends. Zack was never in a million years agreeing to be Pike’s date, but right in that moment, Pike wanted that more than anything. Forget the hot SEAL arm candy for the party or having someone to talk to. He wanted the simple. He wanted to text his guy, tell him he was in a bind with needing to impress the department chair, and have him readily agree, because that was what boyfriends did.
Except Zack wasn’t his boyfriend, wouldn’t ever be his boyfriend, and it didn’t matter how sweet things were behind closed doors, they weren’t ever taking this...thing out for a stroll.
* * *
Zack routinely put in ten or fifteen miles without feeling the least bit ill or fatigued, but that Thursday, listening to Harper, Cobb and Rodriguez running behind him had him wanting to hurl.
“So at the bar, this guy—like the gayest gay guy ever—is ordering a pink drink.” Harper laughed like his observations from being on the prowl that past weekend were the funniest thing in the world. “And he asks if I’m there with anyone.”
“Dude, that’s so queer.” Rodriquez sounded all outraged on Harper’s behalf.
“I know.” Harper groaned, still keeping pace.
“I’d have introduced him to my fist,” Cobb said. Because of course that was the answer here. Wasn’t enough to make more gay jokes. He had to go and introduce violence into the equation.
Zack waited for one of the other guys to speak up, tell Cobb that’s not what they would do.
Instead Harper gave a laugh that made Zack’s scalp prickle. “I was tempted, believe me, but that’s what I get trying a downtown bar instead of Big Ted’s.”
“Hey, Nelson,” Cobb called. “What would you do? Some gay wants to buy you a drink?”
Fuck. Zack had been dreading them roping him into this conversation. Pike bought the beer last week. As he often did these days, Pike crept unannounced into Zack’s thoughts. Turned out that they both like pale ales, and while Pike’s tastes ran a bit more artisanal than Zack’s cheap brew, they’d taken to enjoying a bottle together when they were both home in time to cook together, something else new that they’d been doing.
Pike would have a fit if some guy bought me a drink. That was Zack’s first impulse to blurt out. Not that they’d promised exclusivity or anything, but if anyone was buying Zack a drink, it was going to be Pike. “I’d say no, thank you.”
“So polite. Your mama raised you right.” Rodriguez laughed.
No r
eally, she didn’t. His mother would have expected him to walk away, condemning the other guy to the devil, and not be in a bar in the first place.
“Fuck that shit. Damn right you’d tell him no.” Cobb lengthened his stride and caught up right next to Zack. With Harper and Rodriguez behind him, he felt rather...penned in.
“Harper. Rodriguez. Nelson. Cobb. You men content to bring up the rear like the ladies’ tennis team out for a jog? Why does it seem like Cobb’s the only one putting some effort into this?” The senior chief lit into them.
“Sorry, sir. I can do better.” Zack was only too happy to have an excuse to kick it into gear and jog away from the other three while they made their excuses to the senior chief. Even though Senior Chief was never one to join in with the gay jokes, the “ladies” comment rankled.
Was he somehow less than a man now? He certainly didn’t feel like that when he hung out with Pike. And when they were alone, bodies surging together, him giving Pike every ounce of his strength, he’d never felt more...well, masculine. They had slept together more nights than not in the weeks since that first night, and when Pike wrapped himself around Zack and drifted off after sex, Zack felt surer of his place in the world than he ever had before.
So much so that lately he’d been the one initiating the sex, if only to get to that moment when Pike sagged bonelessly against him. They were still on a steady diet of oral, jerking it together or the rubbing-off thing that made Pike’s eyes roll back in his head and Zack feel like some kind of sex god. But if this kind of sex made them feel so good, maybe he could broach the subject with Pike of trying something new, like fucking. It still felt like a huge step, but one that his body was getting increasingly noisy about wanting. He was pretty sure Pike would be game for whatever, but was letting him set the pace, which Zack appreciated.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Zack went faster, legs kicking until he was running with the front group, fueled by thoughts of Pike and this strange, wonderful place they were in.
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