It’s because he’s a man. It’s nothing special. Just different.
The man in question groaned against Harbor’s neck when the hand he’d been using to leisurely map his chiseled torso stole lower, grazing the erection growing behind the zipper of his dark jeans.
“Fuck.” Harbor breathed and ducked his head to catch the man’s lips. They were full and wide and fit against Harbor’s like nothing he had ever known. Had he really been missing out this much by denying himself male lovers all this time? Harbor had always known he was bi, but typically preferred women. He’d only taken a man to his bed once before, and it had been nothing like this. And they weren’t even in a bed.
The club was a faded noise beyond the walls of the tiny dressing room he’d bribed Magnus for the keys to. They’d all gathered at his brother Magnus’s club, Viridian, to celebrate his youngest brother, Dagen’s, release from the hospital after he was shot in the shoulder three weeks ago during a home invasion, and to surprise Dagen’s boyfriend, Ollie, for his birthday. Although the moment Harbor had laid eyes on this man, he knew he’d be reveling in more than his brother’s recovery and Ollie’s birthday. He had his conquest pressed back against the only piece of furniture in the small room, a vanity counter that stretched the length of the back wall.
“What’s your name?” The man gasped against his lips and Harbor stilled. It was rare he gave a hook-up his name, usually ducking the question or firing off some line, but at the request, he found it spilling out without the need for more prodding.
“Harbor.”
The corners of the man’s wide mouth lifted as his dark eyes skated over Harbor’s face. “Theo.”
Their gazes held and Harbor swallowed at the intensity burning through him and staring back. He needed to get this back on familiar ground and let the hot wash of desire simmering between them find its boiling point. They were the same height, or close enough it was impossible to tell otherwise, and Harbor was finding the intimacy it brought an uncomfortable, unfamiliar thing. Standing as they were, Theo’s eyes were right there, holding his or closed in bliss. It took zero effort for Harbor to read every nuisance of pleasure passing over Theo’s face as it was all laid bare directly in front of him.
Removing his hand from Theo’s length, he unfastened the button of his jeans and lowered the zipper. Theo was panting against him, lips pressed to Harbor’s forehead while he ducked his chin to see what he’d unwrapped. Harbor delved his hand into Theo’s now open pants and found the hot silky length of him, pulling just the tip free of Theo’s underwear so he could see it disappear in the circle of his hand every time he pumped his fist.
“Holy shit. Are you uncut?” Theo’s dick felt incredible in his hand, hard and petal soft and pulsing with need. He himself was circumcised and had never seen or had occasion to play with someone who wasn’t. On the upstroke, he gave a twist at the head and worked his thumb under the bit of foreskin still covering part of it.
Theo’s hips bucked violently enough he nearly threw Harbor off. He grunted and grabbed two handfuls of Harbor’s ass to pull them back together.
“Like that, huh?” Harbor smirked, nipping at Theo’s open mouth and pushing his pants and underwear down to release the rest of him.
“Keep it up and I won’t be able to,” Theo panted against him.
Harbor chuckled. “Better play catch up then.” He looked pointedly down at his own still closed pants and the obvious outline of his arousal before skating his thumb once more around the head of Theo’s dick just to watch the expression of bliss pass over his face.
Theo reached for him, his big hands releasing their hold of his ass to quickly undo Harbor’s jeans before he pushed them and his underwear down to just below his ass. Theo’s hand skated down to cup Harbor’s balls, rolling them in his palm, before coming up to wrap a warm fist around his dick.
Harbor pressed as close as possible, reveling in the feel of the strength of the grip on him. “Shirts,” he said, already reaching for the hem of Theo’s.
“Bossy,” Theo said, taking claim of his lips again. He let go of Harbor to lift his arms and let him pull the black t-shirt over his head before returning the favor and yanking Harbor’s off as well. For a moment, they stilled, then hands were skating over revealed skin as they pressed back together and began swallowing each other’s moans when their dicks lined up perfectly in the vise of their toned torsos.
Harbor couldn’t tear his eyes away from the way their skin looked sliding together. Theo was several shades darker than Harbor’s own tan complexion. Theo’s skin tone and features spoke of a mixed heritage, and for a moment, Harbor wondered at his life beyond this moment. What was his family like? What did he love? Harbor shook himself. This was sex. Plain and simple. Then why did his mind keep wandering to things beyond the hot flesh driving him to a completion faster and stronger than he’d had since he was a teenager?
Theo drove his hips forward, and his mouth dropped open on a groan. Harbor was moving so perfectly against him, their stomachs pressed so close that without the precum they were both leaking it would have been too much. He rested his forehead against Harbor’s and they breathed together, faces pressed close. He grasped at the back of Harbor’s blond head. His hair was buzzed close on the sides with a wide stripe down the middle left longer. Those long strands were held back with an elastic band, and Theo imagined pulling it out and burying his hand in the silky strands that would fall nearly to Harbor’s chin.
Grasping the short ponytail, he pulled enough that Harbor lifted his chin so that their eyes met again. This close it was impossible to hold both eyes at once, but Theo wanted to see the bright blue of them. Wanted to watch them close or widen when Harbor’s release took him over. What would Harbor be like as a real lover, away from a darkened room in the back of a club? Would he moan and curse? Did he always have to be on top? Would he let Theo take apart the glorious ass propelling the thrusts that were so quickly driving him to the brink?
He wanted to ask, wanted to know even before this encounter came to its spectacular conclusion that they could do this again. Pressing forward, he hooked his heel around one of Harbor’s braced legs and flipped them, sending Harbor’s ass thumping against the edge of the vanity. Without missing a beat, he wedged his thigh between Harbor’s legs and resumed the pace the other man had set. Harbor’s gorgeous blue eyes widened, then went hooded as he let Theo take over.
Theo wanted to fuck him for real. He wanted to be buried in the impossible heat of this powerful man, wanted to feel all that muscle moving and shifting and matching his own.
“I’m close,” he whispered against Harbor’s lips. The pressure in his balls was building and set to blow. He wanted Harbor to be right there with him.
“Yes,” Harbor gasped back, claiming Theo’s mouth with forceful thrusts of his tongue, scraping his beard against the clean-shaven skin of Theo’s chin.
They reached between them at nearly the same time, both working to get a hand around their cocks. Harbor’s smile was sharp when their mouths separated, and Theo huffed a laugh. He gathered their hard lengths together and squeezed, pulling a moan out of both of them and began stroking in earnest. Harbor’s fist tangled with his, the rough skin of his palm over Theo’s sensitive head was all he needed for the building pressure to explode. The world went gray with the force of his release, and he dropped his head to Harbor’s shoulder, leaning all his weight against the other man. Harbor shuddered against him, and Theo felt the hot streaks of Harbor’s cum paint his chest.
Theo lifted his head, his hands caressing the dense muscle to either side of Harbor’s spine and kissed him. Slower this time, less frantic, with all the appreciation he could pour into it. Harbor hesitated for a moment before opening to Theo’s seeking tongue and the kiss turned deep. He left no part of Harbor’s mouth unclaimed, thrusting their tongues together and raking his teeth across Harbor’s plump bottom lip. They stayed locked together until the cooling cum and sweat between them started to get unc
omfortable. Pulling back, his eyes caught on Harbor’s brilliant blue ones. A powerful shotof pure want unfurled in the pit of his belly. This wasn’t enough. He wanted more and wondered if Harbor would be willing to meet up again while he was in town. Even as he thought it, Harbor shifted out from between him and the counter, pulling his face out of Theo’s hands and body out of his reach.
Harbor glanced around, avoiding Theo’s gaze and reaching for a box of tissues at the back of the vanity. “Here.” He handed a fistful to Theo before taking some to wipe his own torso and tossing them in the trash. Just as quickly, he righted his jeans and grabbed his shirt from where Theo had tossed it and pulled it back over his head.
Theo didn’t understand the awkward tension that was pouring into the space between them, but righted his own clothes and put his shirt back on. “Harbor,” he said when the other man turned toward the door without another word.
Harbor stopped and turned his head enough to look back over his shoulder at Theo.
“You just going to run off?”
“Why would I stay?”
Theo was surprised by the sting that caused. He was without a doubt more attracted to this man than he’d been to anyone in a long time, if ever, but that shouldn’t give Harbor the power to hurt him. He knew better than to place that kind of ammunition in someone else’s hands. Still, he found himself shrugging. “I’m only in town for a couple weeks. Thought you might want to meet up again.”
Harbor’s eye widened for a fraction of a second before the serious don’t fuck with me expression that was hot as hell and had hooked Theo in the first place slid over his face. “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t do repeats.”
Theo pursed his lips and nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Pull the door closed when you leave,” Harbor said before he turned and walked out the door without another backward glance.
Chapter Two
The building wasn’t at all what he expected it to be. Theo pulled his car into one of the open spaces in front of the large, red brick structure that looked more like an old warehouse than a tattoo shop and double checked the GPS on his phone. The address matched the Open Wounds website, so he looked at the building again. Down toward the end of the building, beyond a line of closed bay garage doors, sunlight glinted off a glass walk-through door. Bingo. He turned off the car and checked himself in the rear-view mirror, running a hand over the two-day old stubble on his jaw. Two nights of rough sleep had left him looking like shit. The scratch of a blond beard against his chin and lips flashed through his mind sending a jolt of electricity—which accompanied every single memory from his weekend encounter—scorching across his body.
Harbor.
Every time he closed his eyes, the image of bright blue ones greeted him. As did an echo of the sensations that had passed through him, burrowed into him, in that darkened back room with Harbor’s hands on him. Theo didn’t really know what to make of it. He’d had good sex before, hell, even great sex, or at least he thought he had. All the previous day he’d struggled to think of a single sexual experience that held a candle to what he’d shared with Harbor. He couldn’t do it. None compared. Slater came the closest and still, those memories lacked the same fire. The fire that was still burning him up inside two days later.
He’s ruined me after one fucking hand job, and I don’t even know his last name.
Theo sighed and glanced at his reflection again. Normally, he would be on the same page with Harbor and his “no repeats” rule. He liked to keep things simple, although he had a couple acquaintances of a like mind in the cities he traveled to most often that he could call for a hook-up without having to worry about strings. But with randoms? One and done was typically his motto. Traveling as much as he did, teaching fight seminars and making appearances for the supplements that sponsored him, he wasn’t exactly cut out for relationships. Not that he wanted one. That was his rule. Keep your friends close, but only as close as you have to.
Flicking a bit of sleep he’d somehow missed from the corner of his eye, he double checked his teeth and adjusted his black ball cap so the bill angled down just a bit. Maybe his followers would think the dark circles under his eyes were merely shadow. Giving his shoulders a little stretch, he took a breath and lifted his phone. Opening his Instagram app, he turned the camera on himself and started a video.
“Hey guys. So, it’s a sweltering Monday morning here in Ohio, and I’m finally going to do the thing I’ve been hinting at for months now. Some of you already guessed it…Yep, I’m getting a tattoo. It’s going to be a large back piece, and you know I’ll post updates along the way. In the meantime, throw your guess in the comments of what my masterpiece will be and keep sweatin’.”
He glanced through his notifications and replied to a couple comments before closing the app and stepping out of the car. The June humidity enveloped him, instantly warming up his air-conditioned cooled skin, and a light sheen formed on his top lip before he made it halfway across the parking lot.
Pulling open the glass door that he could now see said Open Wounds Tattoo in small decal letters across the top, he was thankful for the cool air that washed over him. The reception area was a well-lit space with a couple dark leather couches situated on one side, a large flat screen mounted on the wall, and a counter beside the mouth of a hallway leading to several closed doors. Only there was no one behind it. A bell had gone off as soon as he’d opened the door, so he assumed someone would be with him in a moment.
Another glass door, much like the one he’d just walked through, was in the same wall the flat screen was mounted on. Rourke MMA was emblazoned across this door and Theo smiled. He hadn’t realized that his tattoo shop of choice was affiliated with a fight gym. He didn’t know much about Rourke MMA, other than a decade ago its founder, Vidar Rourke, had been a one and done MMAPRO phenom and now he liked to keep a low profile. Theo was sure they didn't even have a website.
He glanced around the still empty shop and without further thought, walked through the glass door.
“Just two more, Harb. Come on!” Harbor grimaced at his trainer and friend, Rory Wilson’s, words, but he pushed through and knocked out two more squats before replacing the bar on the rack and stepping out from under it. Fuck, he was tired. It was hot as balls in the gym that day. June had come in blazing to punish them for the cool May they’d had, and between the gym’s ancient air conditioning system, and his completely distracted mind, that morning’s weight training had been nothing less than brutal. Even in his usual tank top and shorts, and with all the large fans mounted along the walls blasting, he was roasting. Rory pressed a bottle of water into his hands and clapped him on the back.
“You’re sluggish this morning,” Rory said, looking Harbor over.
He scowled at the red-headed Scot that was basically his fourth brother and turned toward the octagonal MMA standard fight cage situated in one of the back corners of the gym. “Didn’t sleep great. Oh, and it’s a million fucking degrees in here.”
Rory chuckled. “Aye. Your brother is going to have to break down and buy new units for this side of the building, I’m afraid.”
“Is that why he’s been in such a shitty mood?” Vidar Rourke was Harbor’s oldest brother and one of the best men Harbor knew, and while he didn’t have a sunny disposition to begin with, his black mood the last couple weeks had been felt by all.
Rory shrugged. “He’s not said anything to me about whatever it is has a bug up his arse.”
They paused their progress to the cage when the back door to the building opened, and Dagen backed through it with his left arm still in a sling, and the other guiding a giant rolling round floor fan through the door. Ollie was on the other side of the fan pushing it along. Ollie was a new installment around the shop and gym, coming on as a tattoo artist only a month ago, and immediately stealing Harbor’s baby brother’s heart. Admittedly, he’d been worried at first, but even with a bullet hole in his shoulder, he’d never seen Dagen so happy.
Harbor stepped over to where Dagen was watching the other men work. “How’s it going, little brother?” Dagen turned his head to look down and smile at him. Dagen may have been the baby of the family, but at six-foot-six and weighing over three hundred pounds, he dwarfed all of them.
“Good. Ollie wanted to bring that fan in out of the storage shed because, and I quote, ‘He doesn’t want to sweat his balls off during jiu jitsu.””
Harbor laughed. “You know I’m going to make him go an extra sparring round for that, right?” That was something else that had eased his mind about Ollie. Not only had he gotten into weight training with Dagen, he’d also joined Harbor’s jiu jitsu class. It seemed to Harbor he was settling in, and that was a good thing for everyone.
Open Wounds: The Boxed Set Page 12