Don't Read in the Closet volume one (85 page)

That was the moment Jonah’s body came out of its
prepubescent haze and snapped to attention. He knew that godlike vision of
Laurie probably had a lot more to do with his rampant teenage hormones than any
actual truth, but he wasn’t able to rid himself of it in all of the years that
followed. Laurie was still Jonah’s number one crush, ultimate fantasy, dream
come to life. You name it, that’s what Laurie was to Jonah. The attraction was
unshakable. And maybe there was even a part of him—a little, tiny,
miniscule
part—that was already in love
with Laurie. Just a smidge. Really.

So, was it any wonder that he was nervous? Not
actually.

Sucking in a deep, fortifying breath, Jonah closed the
remaining distance between the gravel walkway and the gazebo. Laurie was
leaning against the railing, facing the dark expanse of the lake, but he
straightened and turned as Jonah made his way up the steps.

Jonah’s heart ka-thumped at the sight of him. Laurie
was wearing loose-fitting jeans and a skintight tank top that showed off his
toned arms and lightly muscled chest to perfection. As he drew nearer, Jonah
could see that Laurie’s hair was still damp from a recent shower and smell the
dark spice of the bath gel Laurie used. Jonah was well-acquainted with the
scent. He’d done some snooping to find out the brand name the last time he visited
Laurie and Marc up at school, and he’d made sure to buy himself a bottle when
he got back home. He used it in the shower, though rarely for any actual
washing. It really wasn’t his particular style. But the smell of it on Laurie?
Yeah, that drove him a little crazy.

Jonah fought back the appreciative sigh that
threatened to break free of his throat. What was up with that? Clearly his
inner teenage girl was trying to claw her way to the surface. But, damn, a part
of him kind of wished he could prop his chin on his hand and just let that
dreamy little sigh out. Of course, another part of him had entirely different
ideas. And those ideas had more to do with things going
in
. And then out. And then—no, best not to think of that just yet.
He was trying to calm himself down, not rile himself up.
Focus, Jonah
.

“Hey,” he said, grateful that none of the anxiety he
was feeling could be heard in his voice.

Laurie smiled slightly. “Hey. So, where is this place
you know of?”

Jonah grinned. “The guesthouse.
 
My grandma always keeps it ready for visitors
in the summer, and the bedroom is in the back of the house, facing the woods.
Even if we turn the light on, no one will be able to see. It’s perfect.” When
Laurie didn’t respond right away, Jonah’s grin started to waver. “Is that…are
you still not comfortable with—”

“No, it’s fine,” Laurie interrupted with a shake of
his head. “Sorry, I was just…never mind. Yeah, that’s good.”

“Okay.”

“Well, let’s go then.”

While the walk to the gazebo had seemed long, the walk
to the guesthouse seemed excessively short. Before Jonah knew it, they were
upstairs in the master bedroom. He tossed the spare key he’d snagged from the
mudroom at the main house onto the dresser and then leaned back against it,
feeling awkward. Laurie was looking around the room with a weird expression on
his face, but it faded the moment he noticed that Jonah was watching him,
replaced instead by a tight little smile.

“If we’re going to do this,” he said, “you should
probably come closer.”

Jonah’s entire body went hot and cold. He swallowed
hard and nodded, then crossed the room to stand beside the bed. He sat on the
edge, still a few feet away from Laurie, and immediately started fidgeting with
the floral-patterned comforter.

Laurie’s smile went from strained to
amused
. “Nervous?” he asked as he started to dig into his
right pocket.

Jonah’s mouth went dry at the sight of a small tube of
lube and handful of condoms. He stared as Laurie placed the stash on the
bedside table. “D-Do we need those? Not the lube, but the…I mean
,
you’re clean, right? And you know I’ve never…”

Laurie hesitated for a few seconds. “Yeah, I’m clean.
But, Jonah, you can’t trust just any guy who says that to you.”

“I know. I’m not stupid. But you’re not just
any
guy, Laurie. I know you’d never put
me at risk.”

“No.” Laurie sighed softly. “I wouldn’t.” He stepped
closer and sat on the bed next to Jonah, leaving only a few inches between
them. “Look, I haven’t been with anyone since I broke up with my ex in
December, and I’ve been tested a couple times since then. So, yeah, I know for
a fact that I’m clean. But you have to promise me something before we do this,
Jonah.”

“Okay. Anything you want.”

“Promise me that you won’t just take any guy who says
that to you at his word. Don’t ever let anyone do you bare unless you’re
monogamous and you
know
he’s
committed to you.”

Jonah nodded. That would be an easy enough promise. He
didn’t ever want to be with anyone else, but even if he and Laurie never
actually got together as a couple, he’d never allow such a thing without a
solid foundation of trust. “Okay. I swear.” He paused and nervously licked his
lips. “Have you ever…?”

Laurie shook his head. “No.”

“But you will? With me?”

Laurie turned to face him. In the dim bedroom light
his eyes were more greeny-gold than brown. They reminded Jonah of autumn when
the leaves first began to change. “If that’s what you want.”

Jonah searched those eyes, but he couldn’t read their
expression. Looking into them sent his anxiety from a low simmer into a rolling
boil.
What if he doesn’t want this?
he
thought abruptly.
What if he’s just doing
this as a favor? What if he sees it as a
chore? Jonah didn’t want that. Any
of that. He didn’t want Laurie to feel forced.
 

Unable to hold those eyes any longer, Jonah dropped
his gaze to his hands, which had started wringing in his lap at some point
during the conversation. “We don’t have to do this,” he said, and even to his
own ears his voice sounded thin. He was going to cry. He was going to cry at
the thought of what he’d almost pressured Laurie into, and Laurie was going to
see him break down. Laurie was going to think he was a complete idiot. But that
was okay. Jonah would rather have Laurie think he was ridiculous than ever look
back at this moment and feel like he’d been used. “If you don’t want this…if
you don’t want me…then we can just go back to the way things were. You can
pretend I never asked, okay? I won’t ever ment—”

“Jonah.” Both Laurie’s voice and the gentle grip on
his chin made Jonah look up. He turned his head and met Laurie’s gaze, and
those eyes weren’t unreadable anymore. They were filled with heat, and the
sight of them made a sudden surge of lust unfurl in Jonah’s belly. “I want
you,” Laurie said, and those three words were even hotter than that look. “Don’t
ever doubt it.” And then Laurie kissed him.

Such a simple word, kiss. It really didn’t sound all
that special. And it was nowhere near good enough to describe what was
happening between Laurie and Jonah just then. Not unless you tacked on a few
extra words, like momentous, or earth-shattering, or maybe even
life-altering
. Because, yeah, it felt
like he’d been waiting for it
that long
,
and that kiss had just changed his entire fucking world. Laurie’s lips on his
were somehow both soft and firm at once. His tongue was sneaking in little
tastes, just barely there flicks that made Jonah want to scream in frustration,
if he could bear to pull his mouth away long enough to do so. But he couldn’t,
and eventually his patience was rewarded with the slow sweep of Laurie’s tongue
over his.

That was all it took, that slow, sensuous glide, to
set them off like a powder keg. Somehow, Laurie slid further back on the bed
and Jonah was straddling his lap. Their mouths fused together, locked in a
desperate kiss that showed no signs of ending. Jonah pushed down, and Laurie
thrust up, and they were grinding. Oh, hell yes,
grinding
, and it was hot and frantic and a whole other list of
adjectives that Jonah’s mind was too fogged by lust to process. All he could
hear in his head was a litany of
more
more more
.

After one particularly intense kiss that had Jonah’s
cock begging to be released from the confines of his jeans, Laurie pulled away.
Jonah whined and tried to capture his mouth again, but Laurie laughed and shook
his head. That was okay, though, because from the sound of it, and the feel of
Laurie’s arousal beneath him, Jonah knew Laurie wasn’t laughing
at
him. And Laurie didn’t stay away very
long, only for the time it took him to strip off Jonah’s T-shirt and yank his own
tank top over his head. Then they were kissing again, bare chest to bare chest,
and the press of warm skin and hard muscle made Jonah’s entire body shudder
with want.

When Laurie pushed at his shoulders, Jonah gave in to
his urgings and laid flat on the mattress. He spread his thighs just wide
enough to accommodate Laurie’s narrow hips and his hands settled on Laurie’s
ass to jerk him closer, the lengths of their cocks straining against the layers
of denim and cotton that separated them. As Laurie moved above him, rocking
their pelvises together, Jonah kissed any part of Laurie he could reach—the
line of his jaw, the shell of his ear,
the
hollow at
the base of his throat—before finally making his way back to Laurie’s mouth.

They started up another one of those devastating
kisses, their tongues intertwining, hot and slow and seductive. Laurie’s
fingers were on his chest, trailing down, and then they were nimbly undoing the
fly of his jeans. Before Jonah could even prepare himself for it, they slipped
past the waistband of his briefs—black and skimpy with no superhero emblems in
sight—and curled around his aching erection.

In contrast to that molasses kiss, the stroke Laurie
started on Jonah’s cock was quick and almost rough. Laurie paused long enough
to lick at his hand, and then resumed both the kiss and the stroke,
occasionally rubbing his spit-slick palm across the head in a smooth
back-and-forth motion that made Jonah moan and writhe senselessly beneath him.
Somehow it tickled and made his toes curl with pleasure at the same time, the
sensation sending a thrill through his body, a sharp buzz that started in his
balls and shot up and down his spine.
   

Jonah couldn’t have prevented what happened next if
he’d tried. Laurie’s touch, his kiss, his taste,
the
things he whispered into Jonah’s ear whenever they stopped kissing long enough
to catch their breath. All of those things, they morphed together, built and
expanded, overwhelming and impossible to resist.

It was too much, too fast, too soon, and then, holy
shit, it was
happening
. Jonah jerked
into the tight circle of Laurie’s fist, his back arching up off the mattress as
he came and came, spilling warm and slippery over Laurie’s fingers. Only
afterward did embarrassment descend, swift and crushing. God, where was his
self-control? There he was, living out his biggest fantasy, and he’d come
undone after a couple of kisses and a few strokes of his cock. He’d already
humiliated himself in front of Laurie and they hadn’t even been together for
half an hour. How ridiculous was he?

Jonah groaned and pulled away from Laurie. He grabbed
one of the pillows and used it to cover his face. His cheeks were hot and his
nose burned with the threat of tears. That was all he needed, to get weepy on
top of everything else. How mortifying.

“What is it?” Laurie sounded alarmed enough that Jonah
had to fight back a sniffle. “Did I hurt you?”

Jonah shook his head, but kept his face hidden. “No.”

“Then what is it?” He felt Laurie’s fingers lock
around his wrist and gently tug his arm down and the pillow along with it.
“Hey, look at me.”

After a few seconds, Jonah calmed down enough to risk
a glance at Laurie. He met Laurie’s gaze and the concern he saw there eased a
bit of the mortified tension in his stomach. “I’m sorry, I…I didn’t mean to…”
Jonah trailed off. No matter how worried Laurie looked, he couldn’t bring
himself to say it. But it turned out he didn’t have to.

“Oh.” Apprehension dawned on Laurie’s face and he
smiled fondly. He dropped a kiss on the tip of Jonah’s nose and shook his head.
“Don’t even worry about it. It happens to everyone.”

“Really?” Jonah blinked. “You, too?”

Laurie smirked. “Yeah, sometimes. If I’m really
excited.” He lifted the hand he’d used to jerk Jonah off to his mouth and
sucked on one of his fingers. “You taste good. And you’re beautiful when you
come.”

Jonah trembled, both from the compliment and the
visual. “Can I suck you? I wanna know what you taste like, too.”