“You had expectations? I think you should tell me what they were.”
“Well, the zero-g thing didn’t figure into them, that’s for sure,” Jake said. He hadn’t expected to talk or laugh during this moment—he hadn’t expected to laugh today—but he found himself smiling.
“That’s new for me as well,” Lange said solemnly. He peeled Jake’s shorts down his legs until Jake could kick them off, and then Jake did the same for him.“So I suppose I’ve never done this before either.”
“Mmm,” Jake said because as soon as Lange embraced him, it was the only option available to his brain. Holy shit, they were both naked. Those were the smooth planes of Lange’s slender torso, and the wiry curls of his sparse chest hair, and the sharp edges of his hipbones. That was Lange’s cock he could feel, and it was hard. There was nothing else worth thinking about.
Jake kissed him for it, forcefully enough to knock his head back, and Lange responded hungrily, taking Jake’s tongue deep into his mouth. His hands, no longer forgotten at his sides, roamed all over Jake’s body, over his arms and his back and down to his ass. Lange kissed his neck, his collarbone, his chest. Not a centimeter between them, but Lange groped and squeezed him like all he wanted in the world was to be closer.
“Did you think about this?” Lange asked. “I thought about this.”
“I know,” Jake said, breathless even though all he done was hang on for dear life. “I heard you doing your thinking.”
“You listened?”
“You left the door open,” Jake said, defensive.
“Did you touch yourself?”
“Nope,” Jake said. He hadn’t wanted to then. Hard to imagine. “But I will now if you won’t.”
Lange laughed and reached between them to wrap a hand around Jake’s cock. Jake shivered—God, it was electric, that touch—and said, “Fuck.”
“Do you touch yourself?” Lange asked.
Maybe after all those science jokes, Jake should have predicted this curiosity. “Yeah.”
“But you’ve never let anyone else do this,” Lange said. Lange rubbed the pad of his thumb over the slit, slicking wetness over his palm and down Jake’s shaft. His grip was loose, gentle, and so slow it should be illegal. But it made Jake’s heart pound with want.
“I never wanted to before. This just sort of… happened,” Jake said, his brain hopelessly fogged by the steady motion of Lange’s hand. “Sorry—uh—guess that wasn’t the nicest way I could’ve said that.”
“Jake,” Lange said, and fuck, but that first-name trick was as good as a touch. “When you’re telling me I’m the only person who’s ever made you feel sexual attraction, it doesn’t matter to me how you phrase it.”
“Oh,” Jake said, and then made a choked-off exhalation as Lange shifted his grip so that it encompassed both of their cocks. Lange was so hard Jake could feel every ridge and vein. Hell, he could feel the hot thrum of Lange’s pulse.
“Evidence,” Lange murmured next to his ear, “that I want this as badly as you do.”
Jake curved one hand around the back of his head and kissed him. Aiming for the same tone Lange had used, he said, “That’s hot, but if you wanted this as badly as I do, you’d have jerked us off by now.”
Lange hummed in response. He let go of his own cock and when Jake made a small sound of protest, he said, “I’m saving that for later.”
Then Lange wrapped his hand around Jake and stroked him from tip to root and back again in one long, perfect, slippery movement, drawing a “yes” from Jake that was more breath than sound. When Lange stilled, Jake pumped his cock into the tight circle of Lange’s fist.
“Good, just like that,” Lange said.
At any other time in life, Jake would bristle at receiving instructions—praise—for something he already knew how to do, but fuck, if that wasn’t the hottest thing Lange had ever said to him. He groaned.
“Show me how you like it. Let me feel you,” Lange continued, his veneer of calm impervious to all the sounds Jake was making. A continuous stream of encouragements flowed out of him. “Good, that’s right, that’s perfect, you’re perfect.”
And just when Jake had approached the edge, Lange said, “Stop.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” Lange said, and then let go of Jake’s cock and used both hands to brace himself against Jake’s body. Using Jake as a ladder, he climbed down into the sleeping bag, wriggling awkwardly until he was crouched at Jake’s feet.
And then he took Jake’s whole length into his mouth.
“Fuck,” Jake said, because nobody had ever done that before and if he died tomorrow, at least he didn’t have to die without knowing how amazing this felt. And then, because he could never stop thinking like an engineer, not even when Lange had broken his brain, he added, half-laughing, “Good call, with no gravity it’s gonna get messy.”
Apparently he’d said the wrong thing, because Lange removed Jake’s dick from his mouth. That was the opposite of what Jake wanted.
“That is not,” Lange said, with a whole lot of offended dignity for somebody who’d stuffed himself down into the bottom of a sleeping bag, “why I am here.”
And then Lange went to work.
The slick heat of his mouth was heaven. Jesus. The man was a genius in more ways than one. Probably the whole facility could hear the noise Jake made, but it was too late to care about that.
Jake had never considered before that a person’s tongue could be dextrous, but he wouldn’t forget it. Lange licked him and sucked him down like there was nothing he’d rather have in his mouth, and it was a struggle not to come immediately. Jake wanted this to last. He clamped down on his urge to thrust deeper into Lange’s mouth and tried not to clench his hands too hard on Lange’s bony shoulders. Tightness coiled in every part of his body. He’d never felt anything like this, a pleasure so intense that he wanted more and less at once, to drive deeper into it and to be released from it.
He wished he could see it, look down and see Lange’s beautiful mouth on his body. Lange’s eyes would be shut in concentration, or bliss, maybe. The idea that Lange might love this even half as much as Jake did, that Jake’s cock in his mouth might make him so hard he ached, was too much. Desire charged through him. Fuck, Jake wanted to make him feel just like this.
Lange slid his lips up and down the length of Jake’s cock until Jake’s self-control had frayed to almost nothing.
“Lange, I—”
Lange didn’t stop. He opened his throat and closed his mouth and swallowed Jake’s orgasm like the pleasure was his, too. Pulse after searing pulse shot out of Jake. When it ended, he pulled Lange back up, kissed him, and laid himself against Lange like they could pool together.
Lange’s hard-on prodded him in the belly.
Jake grabbed it, wrapped his fingers around it and went a little stupid with how good it felt. Lange’s skin was so soft, velvety everywhere it wasn’t slick, but underneath he was rigid. Even in zero g, his cock was heavy in Jake’s hand.
The movement came to him naturally. Familiar territory even if it wasn’t his body. Even if he’d never done it before, jerking off wasn’t complicated. He could glide his hand up and down and listen to Lange’s breathing to know if he was getting it right. Strictly speaking, he didn’t need instructions.
He wanted them.
“Will you tell me what to do?” Jake asked, his voice quiet like he was telling a secret. He was.
Lange kissed him, his tongue still carrying a trace of salt. “I imagined you all wrong,” he said. “You’re better in reality.”
Jake was pretty sure that wasn’t a comment on his skill at handjobs. It was thrilling and intimidating, this comparison to Lange’s imagination. Lange probably knew about stuff that wouldn’t occur to Jake in his wildest dreams—but whatever Lange asked him for, he’d figure it out. “What did your fantasy version of me do?”
“You were a lot more exasperated,” Lange said. “And bossy.”
Ja
ke choked off a laugh. “Thought you were gonna name an act. But if that’s what you want—”
“I want everything,” Lange said, and then, in demonstration, he pressed the pad of his thumb into Jake’s lower lip, which he found unerringly in the dark, and said, “I want you to suck my cock. Can you do that for me?”
Jake nodded, and when Lange removed his hand, said, “God, yes. Anything. Everything.”
He braced himself against Lange, bent his knees, and squirmed down into the sleeping bag. It was even more awkward for Jake, since Lange had the advantage of being smaller, but he didn’t care. In the dark, he traced his hands over the shape of Lange’s hipbones, the tops of his thighs, the triangular patch of hair.
“Wrap one hand around the shaft,” Lange said. “Get it wet first. I don’t care how.”
Oh. Oh fuck. He’d asked for instructions and he was gonna get instructions. It probably said something hopelessly nerdy about him that this was what he wanted, the detailed guide, the full walk-through—he’d never given a shit about porn but he absolutely would have looked at a diagram of this—but he couldn’t afford to dwell on that, there were steps to be completed in the process. Jake would memorize it backwards and forwards, he’d take it apart and put it back together, he’d learn everything there was to know about making Lange come.
Lange was dripping already, so it was easy to swipe his palm through that and stroke Lange as requested. He couldn’t wait to taste it, so he lowered his mouth to Lange’s skin and kissed him right on the head. The taste wasn’t as strong as he expected. Not bad either way. Lange sucked in a breath, so Jake kept going. He moved his hand aside and kissed his way down the shaft and back up, sloppy and enthusiastic.
One of Lange’s hands splayed over the crown of his skull, not pushing him in any direction but just rubbing the short fuzz of his hair, gripping him lightly, like Lange needed something to hold on to. “Good, that’s good,” he said. “Take the head into your mouth, all the way until your lips meet your hand.”
Lange felt way bigger inside Jake’s mouth than in his hand. He loved it. Jake’s mouth was so full he couldn’t imagine moving his tongue as skillfully as Lange had, but even his clumsy attempt produced a gasp from Lange. Worth it.
“Astute,” Lange said, breathless, and it was a little bit absurd—Jake would have laughed if his mouth wasn’t full—but so hot. It was absurd for Jake to get hard again, too, but he could feel himself swell. Lange liked this. He thought Jake was good at it. Jake wanted him to say so again, maybe with a different, even fancier vocabulary word.
Damn right he was astute.
He licked the slit and Lange moaned. Fuck, Jake wanted more of that, too.
Lange’s next words were a little less composed in tone and timing, but the man clung to his complete sentences. “Move your hand and your mouth in concert.”
It was easy with everything so slick already. Jake set up a rhythm, steady but not too fast, and felt Lange’s fingers rub the back of his head.
“You love this,” Lange marveled. “You love it when I talk to you, too. Are you hard again already? I bet you are. I wish I could see you. I bet you look beautiful down there, sucking my cock.”
Christ. Jake was hard again. His balls drew in tight. Lange was going to come in his mouth. Jake wanted that, wanted to feel it and taste it.
Lange’s words were coming a little faster, his breath a little shallower, and finally a stream of barely coherent praise tumbled out.
“Yes, just like that, fuck, perfect, keep going.”
Jake did keep going, never letting up. His hand was soaked now, every stroke slippery and loud, but not as loud as Lange, who’d switched from sentences to sounds. Jake sped up.
“Jake, please.”
That knocked them both for a loop. Jake’s name was still a rarity, and he didn’t think he’d ever heard Lange say please. He slipped his free hand between Lange’s thighs and fondled his balls. He wanted to make Lange come, but he didn’t want this to be over. There was more he hadn’t touched yet. But he didn’t slow down.
Lange thrust into his mouth. His orgasm splashed against Jake’s tongue. Jake swallowed it down, listening to Lange breathe. When it subsided and Lange was quiet again, Jake’s heart was pounding. He slid Lange’s cock out of his mouth, wiped the back of his hand across his face, and dropped a kiss on Lange’s hipbone.
“Come here,” Lange said, and Jake’s knees protested as he straightened his legs at last.
Then Lange was kissing him, reaching between them to stroke Jake off again.
“You don’t have to, you already—”
Lange silenced him with a kiss and kept his hand moving. His touch was gentle, but remarkably effective. Jake would be embarrassed about how desperate he felt, but Lange had moved from kissing his mouth to kissing his neck, and now he was murmuring in Jake’s ear.
“You were so good at that. I love how much you want this. I want you to come for me again. You can. I know you can.”
Lange was proven correct. Jake cried out and coated his hand.
“Good,” Lange said and gave him a long, luxurious kiss on the mouth.
“Fuck,” Jake said when they were done, satisfaction mingling with exhaustion.
Lange hummed in response. Jake didn’t want to think about where Lange had wiped his hand, because then he’d have to think about how limited their options were for rinsing off with no running water in the facility, and then he’d have to think about everything else. So he wrapped his arms around Lange, closed his eyes, and didn’t think at all.
“Goodnight, Jake.” Lange settled against him and went to sleep.
Jake drifted off and woke in the darkness some time later to Lange kissing his neck again. He mumbled, “What?”
“It’s early, we don’t have to get up yet,” Lange said.
“Mm. Okay.” His body had woken up before his brain, but he liked the feeling of Lange’s hands on him. “You wanna do it again?”
“We should,” Lange said very seriously. “Experimental results are worthless if they can’t be reproduced.”
14
Magic Touch
With Jake trailing sleepily behind him, Solomon brought his guitar to the lab. The beam of his flashlight landed on Clara Chávez, who’d been on watch last night. She was standing with one arm lifted to grab a wall handhold, wearing the same gunmetal grey spacesuit as both of them and tipping a tapered zero-g cup of coffee toward her mouth. Because of the lack of gravity, her short brown hair lifted off her head. The flashlight beam made her look like a saint in a painting—maybe after death. Fatigue shadowed her eyes.
“Chávez? You didn’t sleep?” Jake asked.
Solomon made a careful, private note that everyone addressed her by her last name. It seemed to be her preference.
“I traded the last half of my shift with Lenny so I could nap—whatever, that doesn’t matter. I wanted to talk to you,” she said, pinning Solomon with her gaze.
Solomon blinked. Historically, the only people who said that were co-authoring papers with him, but Chávez wasn’t a physicist. “You did?”
“Yeah. That stuff you said yesterday about how the alien’s making a sound, I can’t stop thinking about it. Is that a guitar?”
“Yes.” Solomon took the instrument out of its case. He stopped the case against the floor to keep it in place, then took the guitar in both hands.
“Oh good, that’s so great,” she said.
Solomon studied her, searching for indications of sarcasm, and found none. Perhaps her enthusiasm was genuine.
Her whole face lit with a smile. “It’s gonna help so much. You can play me what you’re hearing, and then we can try communicating with it. Oh, fuck, is it wrong to be so excited about this? I know this whole situation is… bad. But I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”
“That’s what we’re doing? Talking to the thing?” Jake asked, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He’d nearly fallen asleep during breakfast. Yesterday had been exha
usting for both of them, but it was Jake who’d walked through the hypergravity. And then Solomon had kept him awake long into the night and woken him up with a handjob this morning.
Solomon couldn’t regret the sex, no matter how foolish it had been. He did feel a touch guilty when Jake yawned, though. Ordering him to go back to bed to get a few more hours of sleep hadn’t worked. Jake had laughed and said, “Yeah, not happening.”
And now they were here in the lab.
“Jake, man, are you okay? Do you want some coffee? Not to be rude, but you look like you need it,” Chávez said.
Jake snorted. “Thanks. I feel about four hundred years old, so I’m not sure coffee’s gonna help.”
Watching them interact, Solomon was reminded of how Jake had been much closer to the rest of the team than he ever had, even if Jake had always held himself a little apart. They’d all still liked him. He was easy to like.
“Coffee is the only thing that will help,” Chávez said gravely.
Jake shook his head at her, then crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Your concern is appreciated, but I’ll live, Chávez.”
Sol had been so very wrong to think, as he had at the cabin, that sex with Jake would make him less distracting. The mistake was, at least, an honest one. All the sex Solomon remembered had functioned exactly like that. He’d had a physiological need, he’d seen to it, and then he’d gone back to what really mattered—work.
He’d never spent the night entangled with any of those people. He’d never wanted to.
Worn out and scruffy, wearing a spacesuit that shouldn’t have been to anyone’s aesthetic advantage, Jake still looked like a person Sol wanted to strip naked and fuck.
Worse, he looked like a person Sol wanted to give a long, warm hug.
Lust was familiar, but the second feeling was not. He didn’t know how to categorize the urge, which perplexed him, but did nothing to diminish the desire itself.
Jake and Chávez were chatting without him. She swayed toward him, her mag boots keeping her rooted. They smiled at each other and it stabbed right through him—not because it represented something romantic or private or special, but because it didn’t. Other people were friendly with each other all the time.
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