by Box Set
“Lorne!”
“Don’t think I didn’t hear what you said.”
“Um…yeah…I.”
I cup the curve of his arse. He’s stiff and fucking freezing. I guess if I ever wanted to know what it’d be like to shag a vampire, this might be a fair approximation.
“The thing is. I’m not sure it’s a good idea. Maybe it’s taking things too far. We don’t need to for the script—”
“This has nothing to do with the show. We both know that.”
“No,” he insists, pushing me away, or at least trying to. I’m not ready to let go. “Actually, I don’t know that.”
I splay my hand across his cheek. “I know the difference between real and fake, Jas.”
“Do you? It’s a method, Lorne, an immersive one. We both threw ourselves into the parts, and let it progress too far. It’s not what either of us actually wants.”
He’s a goddamned liar. I hate liars. “Is that so?”
“Yer—”
I silence him with a kiss, stealing his protests along with his breath. The fact his tongue flicks against mine and he moans low in his throat gives me hope. No matter what words he says, there’s no genuine resistance in him. He takes everything I give, only too willingly.
“Have you any idea how much I want to do this for you?” I whisper as I trace the edge of his jawline to the shell of his ear with my lips.
“Do what?” he asks, but he knows. I know he knows, from his stance, from the way he leans into me and insists on making skin contact. He’s seeing me…looking at me the way he did earlier again, and I can feel the rapid tattoo of his pulse beating away through his skin. I take a chance and sink down onto my knees, arm still outstretched until I can no longer quite reach his face, then I stroke down the side of his throat and over his chest until his heartbeat is drumming right against my palm. With my other hand, I deal with the knot holding the towel around his waist. The cotton falls and puddles between us. His cock is not as perky as I’d like it, his erection ebbed a while ago, but the stroke I make sends his eyes rolling back into his skull and another groan oozes out of him. The whisper of my breath against his bare skin causes him to fist his hand into my hair.
“I suppose it’s good to know what it genuinely feels like.”
I don’t like that he’s trying to rationalize it, but the more important point at the moment is that he’s willing to let it happen at all. I pull against his grip until he relaxes his hold enough to give me room to manoeuver. I’ve been looking forward to this. I’m not rushing it. It’s a moment worth savouring. There’ll never be another first time between us. I begin with a lick—the sweep of my tongue along the length of his rapidly stiffening shaft. It causes his toes to curl against the bedside rug and a bead of pre-come to form in the eye of his cock. Guess where lick number two lands?
Hell yeah! He tastes good, and I like the shudders that race through his frozen limbs. His cock’s hot. The rest of him is rapidly thawing.
“You said you were going to suck, not lick.”
“Good things come to those with a bit of patience.”
“Is that a scripted line?” he asks, turning the top half of his body to locate our discarded printouts.
“I think it is.” I get what he’s doing. He’s sinking into the pretence that this is just us rehearsing again. That way he doesn’t have to think too hard about the fact a guy’s about to blow him.
“Do we do this on camera?”
“At least every other episode,” I say. “Which is why we’ll be needing to get a lot of practice in.” I totally don’t need to practice, but he doesn’t need to know that. Nor is it necessary to point out that sex on the show doesn’t actually involve us fellating or fucking one another. On-screen loving is all about camera angles, illusions, and making the right noises. Reality tends to be a whole lot messier.
Case in point, he’s totally not ready for the effect when I engulf him. I suck, and for a second, I swear he’s going to crumple into a heap, but then he gets his balance under control, and his hips jerk in exactly the way I want them to, so that he’s grinding himself against my face. The motion reminds me vividly of Dare. Looks-wise, the pair have a lot of similarities too, but Jasper’s a wholly different personality. There’s a lot more give in him. This won’t just be about him taking what’s freely offered without considering some sort of repayment. With a little coaxing, I reckon Jas’ll reciprocate.
It’s hard to believe looking back that in a decade of knowing one another, Dare never once went down on me. We had the ultimate bro-mance, but that never extended as far as a bro-job on his part. Nope, I was always the sucker in that relationship.
We’re still buddies. I don’t resent Dare his happiness. I wish both him and Flicka well. I’d just like some of what they have for myself too, instead of always being the one who gets left behind, and who has to wake alone in bed. When I met Jasper, I thought maybe he’s the one it could finally work with. Sure, he identifies as straight, but the spark between us was there right away, and he arrived right at the time when, after years of stagnation, I finally landed a decent role.
Jasper’s resolve is in tatters. I swear he’s forgotten about the script and everything in it. His arse clenches as he jerks himself in and out of my mouth, never going too deep, never even contemplating going deep enough to make me gag. Not that he would. I know how to make deep-throating work. But, he’s being a gentleman, and I appreciate the consideration being shown. What I like more is how he’s getting super juddery and vocal about his pleasure. He tries to reel me in, so that my nose is pressed up against his skin.
Easy tiger. Let’s not rush this. I want to make it good enough that you never fucking forget it.
Keeping one hand hooked around the base of his shaft, I spread the other over his backside and little by little let my fingers creep into the crack between his cheeks. The heat of him immediately reaches inferno levels.
“Fucking hell, that’s…I can’t believe you’re touching me there and it actually feels good.”
I hope to do a lot more that rub my fingers over his arsehole one of these days. I’d like to wedge something thick into that groove. There aren’t many men I actually want to fuck. Jasper is one of the privileged few. The thought of sliding myself past his tight virgin pucker makes my balls ache. My bare cock jerks, eager for some attention.
Blam! The door opens and there’s snow over the threshold again, and wind chilling my naked arse.
“Sorry, other door was locked,” she apologises. “I’ll just tiptoe on through to the lounge.”
Fantastic fucking timing, honey. Jasper’s woody shrivels into nothingness, while his mouth flaps open in horror at being caught mid-act. I had him on the verge there, and she just swept right in and stole it. She doesn’t even have the grace to scarper fast enough that I can do something to fix the damage. Nope, she stands in the doorway to the kitchen supping down her fucking fill of us.
“We’ll be with you in a few,” I bark.
“Yes…sure…of course.”
“We’re rehearsing,” Jas babbles. He pales impressively, considering he’s already icicle white.
I’m not sure she hears him, but I do. Fuck! This is not anything to do with a future performance. This is about us now, and how madly I crave the feel of him.
Jas pulls away from me the moment the latch clicks. His fist tightens around the script lying on the bed until his knuckles whiten. “She heard me, right? She understands that it wasn’t for real, it was just us getting to grips with our roles.”
I don’t see how she could possibly reach that conclusion, since she doesn’t know we’re actors, and it was real. It was really fucking real.
I shuffle over so that I’m next to him. “Bit of a shock, eh?” I nudge him with my elbow, hoping that by keeping things light-hearted I can prevent him from getting irrational. Letting him see I’m hurt by his dismissal isn’t going to help at the minute.
“What’s she going to think,
Lorne? What’s she going to think?”
“Why does it matter?”
His expressive face contorts, brow rumpling, cheeks hollowing into gauntness, but it’s in his eyes that the real horror shows. They’re shiny, diamond bright, awash with fear and confusion. “Because she’s Lana Bow.”
Of course she is. And he’s mad about her, even though she’s not real. She’s like an old, far too fondly remembered lover, smiled over in the way one does over memories of their first love. As if it weren’t heart-breaking enough fixing Dare up with the queen of bubblegum pop, I’m now being forced to compete with a computer sprite.
Jasper bounces on the pads of his feet too agitated to keep still. “She’s going to think I’m gay, and I’m so not. It’s not the case, Lorne. You know that, right? We need to talk to her. We need to explain together.”
He has to be kidding. I can’t stand before her and claim this is an act. I’ve been there, already trodden that path. Frankly, I don’t care what she thinks, but it’s painfully apparent he cares way too much. I remind myself this is why I brought him out here to the middle of nowhere to work things out between us. The guy has identity issues he needs to come to terms with regard to his orientation. Also, if he thinks some garbled explanation about us rehearsing a script is going to convince her that there’s nothing going on between us, he’s an idiot. All she’s seen of both of us so far is a whole lot of naked and intimacy.
Too addled to pay attention to what he’s doing, I watch Jasper zip up and tug his ugly Christmas jumper on back to front before he perches on the end of the bed to pull on a fresh pair of socks.
“Put some clothes on, will you? We need to go explain.”
Actually, I disagree. It’s not necessary to say a damn thing to her. The situation is such that none of us can leave, and therefore all of us have to stay, but just because we’re forced to inhabit the same four walls doesn’t mean we have to idle away the hours together. More importantly, it doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to lie about how I feel or what I want.
Fully dressed, Jasper bounces up off the bed and strides towards the door. He pauses when he reaches the threshold and looks back at me. It’s the first eye contact he’s made since she breezed through. “Please hurry.”
I think he’s afraid to face her alone.
I pull a T-shirt over my head and grab a hoodie and a pair of sweats. The pants are still in my hand when I reach him standing by the door. “Safety in numbers?” I lift one eyebrow.
“You need to put those on.”
“She’s already seen everything.”
“Lorne.”
Contact. That’s what I was looking for. It might only be his hand around my wrist, but it’s enough. I slide in closer, trapping him against the still closed door. Our hips collide, mouths meet. He gets stiff again at once, and so do I.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m not faking anything, Jasper.” I draw his attention down to the effect the taste of his lips has had on me. He stares at me glazed and confused. Then he swallows slowly.
“Lorne.”
I stop him before he makes some backpedalling speech about there being no genuine attraction between us, and how we’ve just allowed our emotions to become entangled because of the roles we have to play. I move in and kiss him hard; hard enough that there’s no getting free of it. Hard enough that it shatters his puny, quickly erected shields. I rub our cocks up against one another, then drag down his jeans and wank us both together, my big palms wrapping around both shafts. It’s good to have king-sized paws on occasions such as this.
It’s nothing fancy what I do to him, but considering all the build-up over the last few hours, it doesn’t need to be. It’s fast and it satisfies the itch, and it’s honest. We come more or less together, spraying one another with dick juice, then we exchange a slow, wet kiss before we drag ourselves apart and work a little clean-up magic. In the end, I’m the one who reaches the lounge first, Jasper having decided he needs a completely new set of clothes. Honestly, he barely got more than a few drops of anything on anything. Okay, so maybe it’s not the mess we made ejaculating that’s the issue, more the fact it happened at all. I leave him be to deal. Sometimes a guy needs a few minutes quiet to wrap his head around shit.
Chapter Five
Jasper Frost
I sit on the bed after Lorne leaves the room, all the steam knocked out of me. Honest to God, I don’t know what just happened. Was any of that real? It was all so fast. I stare down at my soiled body, and it feels as if there ought to be more physical evidence left behind to prove it wasn’t all in my head. I inspect my skin, looking for a brand or a marking, but of course, there isn’t one. What I need to do is clean myself up. Maybe that will break the spell I seem to have fallen into.
What happened?
Neural pathways fire and fail to make appropriate connections.
How did I arrive at the point where I let another guy jack me off, and not just any guy, but the one I have to work and fake an intense physical and emotional relationship with for twenty hours of TV time? How did that occur before a witness, and not just any witness, but the one lady that turns my fanboy heart to mush?
Lana Bow is here.
I met her.
Shook her hand.
Now she’s probably convinced I’m gay, and any chance I might have had of fulfilling the many fantasies I’ve entertained of spending time with her have flown out of the window. She saw. She definitely saw. I can say it’s an act, but I’m not so sure Lorne’s going to back me up. He has his own agenda. One I frankly don’t want to think too hard about.
She…Lana probably thinks we’re long time lovers, but that’s not true.
I can still feel Lorne’s hands all over me. The mess he made hit my skin. I strip fully, go outside, and rub snow all over my abs until I’m chilled to the bone and certain I’m clean. I don’t go to the bathroom, because that’s her zone and I don’t want to taint it. Back in the bedroom, I dress from scratch in clean clothes. Script pages lie scattered over the eiderdown, on every page Lorne and I make love in one form or another. I gather the sheets into two neat piles. It’s just make-believe, tricks, and mirrors…I don’t actually want that. How he makes me feel just proves how good a job the casting team did.
I can still taste his kisses.
They’re scourged with a pea-sized blob of Minty-Fresh.
Okay, time to put on my game face and explain to Lana. I know it’s a wild fantasy that she’d be even remotely interested in me, but no less far-fetched than her magically appearing in our bathtub. And I have to try. I’ve dedicated too many hours of my life to watching her pert arse wiggle, not to mention a whole lot more to reading the comic books, not to snatch the opportunity for something more now that she’s here. Still it’s a surprise to find myself on my feet marching towards the lounge.
Fuck—I’m never this nervous. Not even at auditions.
Initially, I listen to Lorne talking to her from outside the door. He’s totally at ease with her, chatting as if they’ve known one another for centuries, not a matter of minutes. I’m going to look like such a dope next to him and his suave, sophisticated ways.
Gah—I want to be him every bit as much as I want to fuck him.
No…no! The latter’s not true. It’s definitely not true.
The new role has just made me curious, that’s all. Lots of guys get curious about that sort of stuff. It doesn’t stop them being heterosexual. I’m not enamoured of Lorne in the same way I am of Lana.
No way. She’s magnificent. And, very, very real, and here.
Her voice is flawless, exactly like in the game. Everything about her is picture-perfect. I’m going to look like such a dork next to Lorne, but there are at least six billion things I want to ask her. One of those things might be whether she’ll marry me.
Chapter Six
Mikayla Ashton
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Lorne echoes right back at me, his gaze briefly flickin
g over me and my candy cane leggings before it zooms in on the fire I’ve roused in the grate. The heating is on, but the room needs a focal point, something to make it feel lived in. It’s too clinical otherwise, for all its carefully chosen furniture and pleasant finishes.
He patters over to the fireside and stops a little to the side of me. His feet are still bare, but the rest of him is covered now. It might be difficult to believe it, but I think he’s even more magnificent dressed than he was naked. I guess he’s just one of those people that always looks good no matter what. He is perfect in a ragged, sunny blond, just washed up on a beach kind of way. Maybe that’s where I know him from—he’s the star of those surfer dude hair commercials or something? Although, I don’t remember that guy being as ruggedly pretty. The mystery of Lorne’s identity is an irritating niggle. Maybe I should just outright ask him, and pray he’s not a former one night stand.
Nah—he can’t be. I’d remember sleeping with someone this handsome. I only blank out the genuine mistakes.
In any case, the evidence presented so far would imply otherwise. He’s into guys, not girls, or is he? His head may be turned towards the fireplace, but I can feel his scrutiny.
“I lit the fire.” It’s stating the obvious, but it’s a route into a conversation, and something’s required to kick-start it.
“So, I see.” He holds his hands towards the flames, warming them, then rubbing them together.
“I’m sorry about…” I tip my head to one side.
“About what? Earlier? Fucking your dates up or barging in on us?”
“I never meant to intrude.”
“No, I don’t suppose you did, and yet you did all the same.”
“How was I supposed to know you’d be…that you’d be on your knees?”
His gaze flicks over me, blue eyes much too knowing. There’s no way he can know that guy-on-guy is a major weakness of mine, or that my feet guided me that way not because I planned or hoped to stumble upon them entwined in the way they were, but purely because I was acting on autopilot.