Love in Focus

by Max Hudson

  “Yes, and that,” August agreed, whole-heartedly.

  Jared chuckled at his enthusiasm, and then noticed the proximity in which the director was sitting. Somehow or another, as they’d been talking, the two of them had gone from sitting nearly across from each other to nearly next to each other.

  “Your chairs seem to have a mind of their own,” he pointed out.

  “What?” When Jared nodded to where he’d originally been sitting, August’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. I... I have no idea how that could have happened.”

  “No, neither do I.” Jared shook his head and grinned wily. Then he leaned in closer, close enough to plant his lips on August’s neck. Or at least, he started to.

  The director quickly leaned away before he could. “Have you been drinking?” August demanded.

  Jared straightened up and raised an eyebrow. “Actually, no, I haven’t been. Not a drop.”

  August’s expression faltered. Annoyance was replaced by surprise and confusion and then by enchantment. Unfortunately, he had no idea what to say and simply sat, smiling at the other man like an idiot.

  “So, do you wanna, you know...?” Jared asked, as if it were some clandestine thing he couldn’t talk about.

  “I...I...um. We don’t even like each other,” August sputtered and then giggled and shook his head.

  “Yes, we do. Besides, it’s not like we haven’t before,” the actor teased.

  August stopped laughing and went white again. He glanced around as if there was someone there who might hear, and then whispered, “It was just the once, and we were very drunk.”

  “Well, we’re not now.”

  “No. No we’re not.” As Jared leaned in toward him again, he found himself moving too, though he wasn’t sure what was directing him. His soft, plump lips found the actor’s, which were harder and hungrier. He closed his eyes and moaned as Jared’s kisses moved down his jaw line and then his neck. He felt the man’s hand tugging at his shirt, and then deftly undoing the buttons without even looking. It caused him to giggle, and Jared to stop and look up at him with a raised eyebrow.

  “It’s just...you’re very good at that,” August explained.

  Jared’s look turned mischievous. “Which, the kissing or the unbuttoning?”

  “Both,” August answered with a blush, and looked away as Jared playfully moved toward him again.

  With the director’s bashful lips inconveniently out of reach, Jared went for the man’s ear instead. He took the lobe in his mouth, lightly teasing it with his tongue before giving it a good suck and nibble. He smiled when he heard August moan again, and then moved his tongue along the long, exposed tendon of the man’s neck. As he did so, he finished unbuttoning August’s shirt, and then sat back to slip it off. He could see the wave of self-consciousness come over the other man, and smiled, this time genuinely.

  “Oh, stop that,” August whined, feeling like grabbing the shirt and covering himself back up. “I know I’m a bit soft around the middle.”

  “What’s wrong with soft?” Jared insisted, and then yanked off his t-shirt.

  “It’s not...that,” August answered, pointing and staring.

  “What? Skinny?” Jared replied and glanced down at himself. “I’m nothing to shake a stick at. Not like I’m some muscle-bound hunk.”

  “I’m sure millions of men and women would beg to differ.”

  “Ah, well, that’s the audience. They see what we want them to see, don’t they? You see the real me.”

  August tore his eyes away from Jared’s abs and looked up into his face in surprise. It was true; no one ever really saw the real Jared, not even on set, and for the first time, he realized how special the man must have thought he was. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he nodded.

  “Oh hey, none of that. This is sex, it’s supposed to be fun,” Jared joked.

  August laughed, and wiped away the stray tears threatening to spill over. He sat still as Jared moved closer again, still feeling a bit nervous about his body, and the fact that this wasn’t something he did very often. He’d never really had time for relationships, and he wasn’t one to indulge in casual sex...at least, not very often. For a moment, he let his mind wander to where this might be going but he knew it probably wasn’t a good idea. He took a deep breath as Jared’s tongue slid down his chest, and decided it was best just to enjoy the moment.

  Before long, they were both stripping off the rest of their clothes, and Jared was asking where the bedroom is.

  “Oh, um, it’s a loft,” August answered, and pointed up.

  Jared’s head tilted up, and then his eyebrows followed. “Nice. Very nice.” He looked back down and smiled slyly. “Could have had an audience.”

  August laughed. “I think it would actually be more effective if the audience was up there.”

  Jared nodded and looked around. “There’s the sofa. We could...pretend.” He took August’s hand, waggling an eyebrow.

  “You want to pretend people are watching?”

  “I am an actor.”

  August frowned. “I don’t want the actor, I want you.”

  Jared cocked his head to the side, his smile faltering. “Okay,” he said softly. Then he nodded toward the stairs.

  August watched as the tall, lanky man padded up the stairs, and he felt his cock harden with desire. He chuckled because Jared’s already was, and the motion of his footsteps was causing it to lightly swing back and forth. After a moment, he shook his head and rushed up after him, finally letting his self-consciousness go, and hopping onto the bed before his lover could. He smiled slyly and batted his eyelashes a few times.

  “Good lord, you look like that ‘paint me like one of your French models’ meme,” Jared said, and laughed.

  August sputtered out a laugh too, and then rolled onto his back as Jared climbed onto the bed. “Be gentle with me,” he only half teased. “It’s been a while.”

  “Me too.”

  “No,” August answered incredulously, and then shivered as the actor ran his hands up to his thighs. He spread his legs, hiking up his knees, so Jared could move closer.

  “Oh yeah,” he answered. “I gave up on the casual floozies a long time ago. It’s just no fun if you don’t have anything to talk about, anything else you can do together.” Then he leaned over and kissed August again. As he did so, his hand slid down to find the man’s cock and give it a few tugs. Then his hand slid even further and began to tease the man’s opening.

  August gasped in reply and opened his legs even further. He reached for a drawer in his bedside table, all the while still kissing his lover, and pulled out a small bottle of lube.

  “Here,” he said, breathlessly. “I keep it around, just in case.”

  Jared chuckled, his dark, flopping hair bouncing into his face. Then he put a generous amount in his hand and went back to the business of pleasuring his director. Before long, August was moaning indecently, and pushing back against his hand. Along with that, he would occasionally roll his eyes when he looked up, and saw the big grin on the actor’s face, which would, in turn, only cause Jared’s grin to widen.

  When he finally pulled his fingers back out, he heard August let out a sigh of disappointment. “Don’t worry, it only gets better.”

  “It had better,” August teased, already breathing hard and getting sweaty. He closed his eyes, waiting for the big moment, but what he felt took his breath away. He had always been a willing lover, but he had no idea how deftly Jared had worked his magic. There was no lead up, no having to adjust, the man simply pushed in, their bodies fitting perfectly together. He let out a long groan of pleasure and arched his back. His hips pushed back to meet Jared’s, pushing the man’s cock in even deeper.

  “Oh god,” August moaned, breathlessly, and his hands dug into the sheet beneath him. He wanted to feel every inch of his lover, and though he’d asked the man to be gentle with him, he thrust his hips again, even harder. “Deeper,” he moaned.

  Jared would have chuckled
, if he hadn’t been busy, and slightly confused. He’d expected something a bit slower and calmer, but he realized he may have gotten carried away with that first thrust. The sound of his lover’s voice, though, asking him to be rougher, drove his mind crazy. Actually, August could have been moaning anything and the sound would have drove him wild. So, he gave the man what he wanted, and thrust harder and deeper, until August swallowed him up completely. He heard the man cry out, and he thrust even faster. Small quick breaths and strangled moans came from his own throat, and then he leaned back. He hiked August’s legs up around his waist, and he used the man’s hips as leverage to drive himself as deep and hard as he could.

  “Jared,” August driveled, barely able to get the man’s name out. He reached up behind him, grabbing the bars of the headboard, and thrust himself back and forth as hard and fast as he could. He yelled out, no longer able to make coherent words, and felt his lover’s fingers digging into his hips. Warm, wet cum started to drip from his cock, and he thrust back, one more time, feeling the fullness of Jared all the way inside him. He ground there, making tiny movements, but keeping his lover buried inside him. Then he grabbed his own cock and tugged it furiously as he came. He cried out, over and over, his head thrust back into the pillow until he heard Jared do the same. Then he looked up at the man as he started thrusting again, pounding into him as he came.

  When they were through, Jared collapsed on top of him, breathing hard, but not pulling out. He thrust a few more times first, slowly, but pushing in all the way, until finally staying there a moment, letting their bodies calm down together. Then he pulled out and looked up at August fondly.

  Chapter Seven

  Jared had gone home sometime in the middle of the night, feeling both exhilarated and terrified. Sure, he could have a dozen willing souls a night if he chose to, but it had been a long time since he’d truly felt anything for anyone. Part of what terrified him was that he had no idea why he found himself attracted to August. The two of them had practically nothing in common. The other thing that terrified him was knowing there could be consequences for their careers. It wasn’t as if they weren’t free to date who they pleased but people talked, and it was different when one was an actor and one a director.

  The next morning, when he arrived on set, not too early but not too late either, he tried very hard to make it look like he wasn’t actually looking for August. Had anyone been paying attention, they would have noticed that he was doing a horrible job. To his surprise, August wasn’t looking for him either but when the two of them did find each other, things went from strange to stranger. They had both decided to act like nothing had happened the night before, and the ensuing aftermath of that was like watching two people trying to talk to one another when they didn’t speak the same language.

  “Morning,” Jared said, cheerfully, something he never was first thing in the morning.

  August side-eyed him. “Yes, I’d noticed.”

  Jared opened his mouth but wasn’t quite sure what to do with that. “Nice day for filming.”

  “We’re going to be inside,” August pointed out.

  “Well, yes, but...you know.” He could feel the tension coming off his director in waves and began to wonder if he’d made the right decision the night before...or any right decisions. Maybe he should have stayed, maybe they never should have had sex in the first place. All he knew was that the animosity was going to do them no good. He started to say something but then remembered that animosity was their default setting, so maybe it would be all right after all. Instead, he just gave August a smile and swaggered by him into the set.

  August let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and watched as Jared walked through the front door. He didn’t return the smile, didn’t say anything, simply stood with his hands clasped so firmly behind his back that they were starting to lose feeling. And it didn’t help that watching the man swagger was starting to make things stir in his pants. He cleared his throat, willed his body to calm down, and then followed the super-star inside the building. Everyone else was still in makeup, something Jared had apparently elected to skip that morning. August sighed, and was about to tell him off about it, when he remembered the “accidents.” Whatever was going on between them, they still needed to investigate, and now was the perfect time.

  “Jared!” he hissed, once again acting as if they were doing something untoward, and someone might overhear. The actor didn’t hear him though, and appeared to already be looking around, not that August noticed that. He scampered over to the man, and whispered, “We need to investigate.”

  “What do you think I’m doing?” Jared sassed.

  “Oh. Yes...well.” August composed himself, gave Jared a hard look, and then began looking around himself. It was immediately obvious that the backdrop and light had been thoroughly repaired, and unfortunately, that also meant that they probably weren’t going to find anything out of the ordinary.

  When the two of them had looked the area over, independently of course, they met back up at the front of the building, as crew began to pour in.

  “What do we do now?” August mumbled out of the side of his mouth, while simultaneously being able to smile out of the other side and nod at his crew. “This building is huge! We have no idea who could be sabotaging it or where they might strike next.”

  “I know,” Jared mumbled back, eyes narrowed, taking in every person who walked through the door. He was determined to get to the bottom of this, and besides, it was good research for his character.

  To August’s relief, and Jared’s disappointment, absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happened that day. And then the next, and the next, until life on the set had gone back to normal, and they stopped even worrying about it. Over the next two months, the cast and crew hashed out all of the interior scenes from their film, and August and Jared went back to being the cranky Hollywood pair they’d always been. Sexual tension still hung thick in the air, and everyone seemed to notice it but them.

  “I wish they’d get a room already,” Margaret mumbled, as she did most every day, on the last day of filming. The set was being packed up and shipped off to some Hollywood storage area, and everyone was preparing for the trip to Romania. Except for August and Jared, who were standing in front of the loading door, blocking the heavy machinery trying to get in, while they discussed something that sounded very much like an argument about whether a plane ticket was first class or not.

  As the last of the cast and crew marched past the two men, it was as if they finally noticed that there was a world beyond themselves. They stopped arguing and looked around to see an angry forklift operator yelling for them to get out of the way.

  August looked over to see Margaret and one of the supporting actresses laughing and shaking their heads as they walked by. “Apparently, we’ve become the laughing stock of the production.”

  “Apparently,” Jared agreed. “Ah well, who cares what they think?”

  “I do. I’m the director and I have to be able to lead.”

  “Oh, so you want me to back down and give in to every little demand?” Jared complained.

  “I didn’t say that! For heaven’s sake.” August rubbed a weary brow and let out a deep sigh. When he looked back up, he noticed that Jared’s normally defiant features had softened.

  For Jared’s part, he was fighting very hard to resist the urge to hug the man. “I’m sorry,” he finally muttered softly, and then growled at August’s look of surprise. “Come on, let’s just...get this flight over with.

  “Flights,” August reminded him, causing the actor to groan.

  It turned out that the two of them were flying first class after all, together, away from most of the cast and crew. Some of the crew were finished with the project, and they’d be taking on new employees in Romania. But some of the crew, especially the leads, August felt were essential to the project, as did Jameson. Only a handful of them would be on August and Jared’s flight though, and only a couple of t
he actors as well.

  “Why did they split us up so much?” Jared asked. “From what I’ve heard we’re spread out over half a dozen different flights, not even on the same day.”

  “Yes, I know,” August said through gritted teeth as he sat down next to the actor. “We won’t even be able to get started on time. Probably had to do with price and availability.”

  “Oh, of course, not enough cheap seats on the same flight.”

  August chuckled, the fact that they were flying first class never once entering either of their minds. Then he asked the flight attendant for a quick drink before they got ready to leave. He hated flying more than just about anything on the planet.

  “Not too keen to get to Romania?” Jared teased.

  “Just wish there was another way to do it.”

  “Ah, I always thought your fear of flying was an industry urban legend.”

  August frowned. “Please don’t...”

  Jared held up his hands, looked around slyly, and then slipped one on top of August’s, which was desperately clutching the arm of his chair. “It’s all right,” he insisted. “We do this all the time, and nothing’s happened to either of us yet.”

  “That’s a somewhat flawed argument, you know.” Still, he gave Jared a weak smile, and covertly glanced down at their hands. When his drink came, he didn’t even bother to try and conceal them or move his hand. He simply thanked the flight attendant, and then downed half his glass.

  “Well, this is going to be an interesting flight,” Jared chuckled.

  As the engines started up, and they prepared for takeoff, August quickly downed the other half and then handed his glass back to a rather tall, and somewhat round flight attendant, who flashed them a knowing smile. Neither man could figure out if it was because he recognized them or because he recognized their feelings for one another. They thought it best not to speculate.

  August managed to survive takeoff, mostly because Jared allowed him to take his hand, and try to crush every bone in it.

  “You know, this is much safer than driving to the studio every day, especially in LA,” he pointed out.