by Kelly Fox
Scout rolls her eyes, rubbing her hands up and down her face. “Not the point, babe.”
Evie snuggles into Scout’s side, smiling at Jean-Pierre. “I’m not wrong.”
Jean-Pierre
Okay, fine.
“No, Evie. You’re not wrong about the peaches.”
“Yes!” she says, punching the air with her fist again.
Evie looks triumphant, Scout looks annoyed. And she has good reason to be. I had fallen asleep seconds after Jake, and we’d never canceled our plans to meet them at the Texas Exes ball. “I’m guessing we scared you guys pretty badly.”
“You didn’t answer your phones.”
“Both phones,” Evie reminds me, her beautiful mouth downturned. Oi. I hate that I’d disappointed her and Scout. They truly are the best friends I have, whether or not they know it.
Jake is upset; I know that he hates disappointing his sister, too, and I can’t bear the expression on his face.
“This is my fault,” I say, looking softly at him. He starts to protest, but I rub his arm under the blanket, a silent message. It was my fault, and he must let me accept the responsibility. “We should have been more mature and at least called, but we were caught up in it before we knew what we were doing. It’s super emotional for both of us, and we were sort of overwhelmed by it. Not an excuse by any means, but you know that Jake is a trustworthy person and that I am a faithful friend.”
“So, are y’all…” Evie asked, smiling again.
I smile back. “I think that when we know, you’ll know.”
They nod, seeming to accept this.
“Are you returning to the ball?” I ask, hoping that they’ll take the hint and, um, leave.
Scout catches my eye and laughs. “Nope. Since y’all aren’t dead in a ditch somewhere, I’m going to take my extravagantly beautiful wife to bed and do… well, some of the things that y’all were doing.”
“Not likely,” Jake mutters under his breath.
I hold my laugh as Scout and Evie turn around to leave. At the last second, Scout turns back and says to me, “Hey, give your coach buddy—what’s his name? Luke?—a call. He was concerned that you hadn’t shown up.”
Merde. I am just disappointing people left and right today. “I’ll text him right now.”
Once they leave, Jake disentangles from me, but I put a hand on his shoulder. “I think that we need to talk about what happened.”
He smiles and fidgets with his thumb. “Yeah, I need to go to the bathroom first.”
I nod and pull him in for a quick kiss, and I’m happy that he returns it. “I’ll make the tea and we’ll talk.”
I toss on my undershirt and borrow a pair of Jake’s old sweatpants, which are okay, save for the fact that they fit like clam diggers on me. I shoot Lucas a quick text to let him know that I’m alive and that I have broken through with my little black cloud. He sends me the aubergine icon followed by the water icon. We are very, very mature.
I pad over to the kitchen and open the cabinets, which are sparsely filled, save for the one cabinet that has at least a dozen cans of ravioli, if we can even call it that. I do find an old box of chamomile tea and make us each a mug. Jake comes out from the bathroom, and we each grab an end of the smallish couch and snuggle in, our toes touching in the middle.
“So…” we both say at the same time. We’re quiet for a not-too-awkward minute after that, and then I say the thing that’s been on my mind from the minute I was coherent enough this evening. “You are back to being Jake again. I felt it when I woke up.”
Chapter Nineteen
Jake
I’m not sure how to explain the shift that happens when he is in control.
“Before, when we were… you were so vulnerable. Emotional. But now you seem prickly again.” Jean-Pierre has pinned back his locs, and his expression is open. “To be clear, I like that part of you, too.”
This simple statement fills me with the kind of relief I didn’t know I needed, like a key I didn’t know I needed fitting into a lock I didn’t know I had. ”Oh, you do, do you?” I ask, letting a bit of cheek into my voice.
He captures my toes with his and squeezes. “Yes, I do. Very much.” We smile at each other, but then his expression turns serious. “But before I get into that with you, I must first apologize. I could have hurt you, and I have to be better, more present. And I just want you to know that I would never hurt you.”
I smile as our toes continue to flirt with one another, and I’m touched that he seems to have taken what happened so personally. I’ve spent some time dealing with panic, and he had used techniques that were helpful to me.
Jean-Pierre’s eyes appraise me, and he nudges me with his foot. “Jake, what are you thinking?”
I smile, so fucking happy. “Just that our broken pieces fit in a way that doesn’t hurt me. You responded so quickly to me that—” I pause to check in with myself… and yeah, I’m good. “That was a pretty bad claustro, and I was able to go to sleep right after.”
His expression is stricken. “My mother was right—I’m a menace. Though… what is a claustro?”
I’m not sure why, but that tickles me, and he glares back. “Claustrophobic reaction. And you’re not a menace, Jean-Pierre. You gave me exactly what I needed.”
“And you, me,” he says, grabbing my pinky toe between his ridiculously long big and first toes. His face goes gentle, and I gesture for him to ask the question residing in his eyes. “Did you know that you wanted me in this role?”
“Non,” I say softly, floating in the word.
“And you’ve done this before, right? With the harness?”
I hesitate a moment but know that he would never judge me for that. “Yes.”
He raises his brow at me. “I require more than a one-word answer, please.”
I shiver at the command but can’t help the sarcasm. “Yes, mon ange.” I grin at him, which probably breaks my personal best (or worst, maybe) for the number of smiles in one day. Definitely going to listen to some Marilyn Manson after this, for balance.
More seriously, I respond, “I am surprised that I am willing to accept anyone in that role. I enjoyed that kind of play recreationally on and off for several years, but after my trip to Paris I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“Why? What happened in Paris?” He leans forward as he asks this, anxious.
I subconsciously rub my hand over my rib, not wanting to bring that blackness into this beautiful bubble of ours. “I feel so happy right now, and… I don’t want to talk about the ugly memories when I feel so good.”
Thankfully, he agrees to tuck that away for later. “Okay.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Please.”
“How did you know what to do? Did you and Silvia…?” I try to be delicate in the asking; I don’t want him to feel pressured to share their sex life with me.
He shakes his head vehemently. “I could barely have sex with her.”
“What about before you were with her?”
“I did very little, and none of it involved kink. I am too distinct for anonymous hookups, so… sometimes with other basketball players, I’d do a quick jerk-off session, or blow jobs.”
“Really? Anyone I know?”
“Yes… but no one who is out.”
“Never anal?”
He looks down and shakes his head. I tap my pointer finger under his chin. “None of that being embarrassed shit. Especially if you, savant-like, have me kneeling in our first sexual encounter.”
His smile is secretive and dirty.
“Explain this look, please,” I ask, somehow scowling and smiling at the same time.
“I might not have much experience in the real world, but I read a lot and my porn habits are… varied.”
“Varied?” I ask, lightly bashing him with a couch pillow. “Varied how?”
He shrugs. “I like the kinky stuff.”
“Oh.” Fuck. I hate regret. Hate it. Sighing, I answer
, “I just… I’m mad that I didn’t meet you ten years ago. I’m mad that there are so many things I don’t want to do anymore. So many kinks I can’t explore with you.”
Jean-Pierre’s expression is incredulous, and he takes the pillow from me, whapping me back. “Whatever. I have this whole world of sex that I can’t wait to explore with you, and I’m not going to moan about the handful of kinks that are off the table. I love what we did, and if that’s as kinky as you ever want to get, I’m not complaining.”
“Yeah, well, you’d be the first.”
“Hey,” he says, turning my face to meet his gaze. “Fuck those guys. Seriously.”
I smile, feeling both shy and unable to help myself. “How very American of you, mon ange.”
“I think that you are mocking me,” he says, pulling me over him as he reclines, letting me lie on top of him.
“Maybe,” I say, nestling against his chest.
Jean-Pierre runs his thumb along my bottom lip. “This snuggly version of you is so appealing. It is difficult to have such an adult conversation when all I want to do is have you get naked and play with you for the rest of the evening.”
That can be arranged.
“I would like that very much. May I touch you and taste you?” I ask, with a leer at his crotch, now tented and straining the material. He raises his eyebrows at me, knowing that we are not playing by the rules.
“Yes, my raven,” he murmurs, lifting his hips from the couch. And just as quickly as it had come up, I drop my prickly guard. Fastidiously, I grab the waistband and pull down. His gorgeous, dark cock catches, then springs free, sending a tiny arc of precum into the air, striping my cheek with his precious seed. “Mmm, thank you, mon ange. I love to be marked by you.”
He rubs the evidence of his arousal off my face with his thumb, then slips it into my mouth to savor. I lick and suck at his thumb, hungry for any drop, hungry to do what I can to make him happy. Once I’ve made sure that his thumb is good and clean, I continue with my task of removing his pants, folding them neatly and setting them aside.
Jean-Pierre leans back against the sofa, his beautiful, long form draped like art. I want to stop and get my camera, or maybe my charcoals, and draw him like this, languid and powerful, exquisite from his disorderly locs, to his broad shoulders, to his gorgeously sculpted chest and arms, to his slightly softer middle, to his beautiful, long, muscled thighs, to his perfectly appointed and pedicured feet.
From the middle of this perfection springs his large, glistening cock, his hood pulled back to show his purple head, flush with blood and nerve endings. More of the precious precum streams from the slit near the top of his head, and I watch as a pearlescent drop meanders over the edge, navigating the dips and rivulets of pushed-back foreskin, finding highway down the underside of his thick, veiny cock. Before it disappears in the thatch of neatly trimmed hair surrounding his balls, I lean in and lick the reverse path, stopping to suck and tongue the skin of his hood, making sure that all of that earthy, powerful seed is mine.
I look into his eyes and see that I am pleasing him well, and that makes me feel warm and safe. I wait for his nod, and when I see it, the ever-present anxieties release, and my shoulders drop out of my ears. I then start at the top, sucking his head, drawing the hood over his glans and back, over and back as I work open my mouth and jaw. Reaching down, I cradle his balls, pulling on them gently as I suction and pull up on his hood.
“Yes, my raven, keep up the good work. Now go down further, if you can.”
His praise makes me so fucking happy, and his groans make my head spin. I take more of him in my mouth, working the angle to allow him into my throat. I’m being sneaky and getting in some airplay by doing this. I haven’t trusted anyone else to control my breath, but I can choke myself, and that makes me come like a rocket. Ungh, the head of his cock perfectly sealing my throat has me seeing stars. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.
The pop of air goes straight to my head, and I’m a little dizzy, a little high. I do this several times, swallowing to stroke his cock while cupping and pulling at his balls, which now have drawn up so tight that I know he’ll—ah. There it is. I can barely hear him, but he is moaning my name as he fills my throat. I hold out a few extra seconds to swallow every drop, and just as I’m about to come from that alone, his long fingers wrap around my throbbing cock and give it several strong, masterful pulls, and I come so hard that I feel light-headed. I climb with him back on to the couch and drape myself across his lap, spent and soft.
“Mon corbeau débauché,” he says—his debauched raven. I blink and see his kind eyes, glazed and looking at me with lust as one hand cups my ass, pulling me up while the other grabs my too-sensitive dick.
I moan, and he whispers, “Should I stop?”
“Non, jamais.” Never.
I moan as Jean-Pierre works me through the sensitivity, grabbing his dick with the same hand, jacking both of us with a punishing grip, the slide of our dicks against one another a sensation too delicious to hold on to for long. Still, I try so hard to hold out until… there it is, stiffening, bowing up into me, his cum spilling down and around our cocks, slicking the way until I can hold out no more, and I come on his chest, bending to kiss him as I do.
I’m floating, floating. Fuck, I missed this.
Jean-Pierre
Jake in postcoital afterglow is a sight to behold. This beautiful man in my arms is intoxicating, and caring for him in this way is a pleasure. His sighs are like ambrosia, and it would be tempting to keep him in this pliant, vulnerable place forever. But the beauty of Jake is his prickly exterior and stunning, vulnerable, funny, achingly sweet interior, my own personal geode.
Laid out as he is against me, arms and legs splayed, still floating, I carefully examine my man, running my fingers over his skin, marveling at his beauty. It is perhaps the perfection of his skin everywhere that highlights an area of his body usually hidden from me. Lazily circling his tight little nipples, I let my fingers drift up over his collarbones and through the thatches of hair in his armpits, stopping my journey short as I find raised scars under the hair. Round and jagged, under both armpits.
Reflexively, his body contracts, and he brings his arms and legs in, softly snuggling his length into a fetal position on my torso. There’s an element of adorable and horrible in this reaction. I rub my hands up and down his side, realizing a slightly rough texture under the tattooed tree, and he nuzzles into my neck. I pause near his armpit, and he pulls more deeply into the position.
Several minutes later, he comes around, adorably sleepy and rubbing his eyes.
“Hi,” he says, his voice steady and low. Jake is back.
“Hi,” I respond, caressing his face.
“I’m surprised that I could go again,” he says, looking at the time.
“Do you not normally?”
“No. I don’t like depending on others to behave themselves.”
“But you used to,” I state, rather than ask.
“Oui.”
His answer is short, but I press him, just a little. “Que t’est-il arrivé?” What happened to you?
“I hate that the kink I enjoy got mixed in my head with the things they did to me.”
“This is what happened in Paris.”
“Yes.”
“But you would rather not talk about it.”
“Yes.”
“Then that is your choice, and I will respect it.”
“Especially when I’m in this vulnerable space, please. I enjoy this feeling, and in the last two and a half years I’ve had far too little of it.”
Worry creases the corners of his eyes, and he scratches his chest as he says this, marking his skin. I sit up and arrange us so that we are facing each other once again on the couch. “I will never take advantage of this vulnerable space, Jake. Ever.”
Jake shakes his head, smiling to himself. “What?” I ask, pushing him with my shoulder.
“I keep forgetting how new
you are to all of this. You’re a Homo Virgin Master.”
“I take it back. I think I like you better when you’re compliant.”
He laughs and we stand together, then he snuggles against me, under my arm. We make it to his bedroom, where I get us both to the bed under the covers, pulling us both into a deep sleep.
Chapter Twenty
Jean-Pierre
Jake’s bed is warm and soft and smells like him. I’ve been awake for a few minutes, and I’m luxuriating in the sweet comfort of Jake at my side, clinging to me, snoring ever so softly. So many times over these long years I’ve dreamed about this very thing. True, I’d dreamed about sex with a man plenty of times, but the lack of a person to hold and be held by was, until this precise moment, a constant ache in my soul. To be free of that ache is to be free of a weight on my happiness that I hadn’t realized was there.
Positioned as he is under my armpit, I wrap my long arm around him, my hand landing on his hip. He snuggles in a little closer, and I don’t mind saying that I shed a few grateful tears in this cozy, meaningful hold. The morning sun on his face is beautiful, and he’s adorable as he begins to stir with a small smile twitching on his lips. As he wakes up, the expression on his face suddenly morphs from joy to fear, and I tighten my grip on him. “I’m here for you, Jake.”
This has the exact opposite of the desired effect. Instead of relaxing into me, his muscles contract where my skin is in contact with his, and I see the exact moment that the bodily feedback tells his brain that he is being held. He doesn’t just freeze; he shrinks away from every part of me that is touching every part of him.
I reflexively want to hold him and make it better, to stroke his skin and bring him back to the warm, pliant man he was just thirty seconds ago, but my touch is poison to him in this moment, so instead I pull back.